“Two of the princes are, in fact, bitter enemies of Your Highness, Prince Ah. What’s more, the clues left behind by those assassins are all starting to point straight at your own elite personal guard camp— Your Highness, you are in trouble.”

In her smile, there was not a hint of joy in his misfortune and her tone was quite sincere. Jin Siyu stared at her, hating himself for not having flayed her alive back in the underground dungeon of Puyuan. Why did he leave her alive until now to cause trouble?

“You…arranged all this beforehand?” After a while, he asked coldly. 

Seeing how quickly he calmed down, Feng Zhi Wei nodded her head in approval, “Of course, before you kidnapped me.” 

Jin Siyu’s eyes flashed, and his voice filled with incredulousness as he blurted out, “You purposefully let me kidnap you!”

“Indeed!” Feng Zhi Wei clasped her hands together, “If not, then how do I find a reasonable excuse to leave Jicheng? Jicheng is certainly not a safe place right now.” 

In an instant Jin Siyu finally understood why she didn’t ask where they had gotten to but had asked how many days it had been. She was counting the days, waiting to go back. She has been out for six days, and it will take another eight to nine days to get back to Xiliang. Combined, half a month would’ve passed. During that half month something big would for sure happen in Xiliang and she just happen to have a perfect excuse of not being there. On one hand, she would avoid being caught up in Xiliang’s internal strife that could endanger her and on the other hand, it would prevent the Xiliang emperor becoming suspicious when he learned of the events in the future. Another benefit is that her disappearance would surely draw away some of the Regent’s attention and man power, which will make it easier for certain people to make their move!

What an impressive use of using your enemy’s strike as your own, killing three birds with one stone! 

What’s hateful is that he has spent all this time being anxious, wondering how she was so easily abducted, yet also proud of his own meticulous flawless plan. His anxious heart finally eased after getting on the boat. Little did he know that getting on the boat was the beginning of being caught in the web of conspiracy. No matter how he calculated and plotted, he still couldn’t out scheme her!

“Your Highness, don’t be discouraged.” Feng Zhi Wei comforted him with a gentle smile while putting back on her male clothing, “My scheme was no more better than yours. It’s just that I schemed against you long before you started to scheme against me. It can be said that I started planning as soon as I knew a group of merchants from Dayue were landing in Xiliang.—–How could you not be defeated?” 

To foresee the enemy’s move and be the first to act, ensure one’s always invincible. Feng Zhi Wei had said the most simple and useful truth. The anger on Jin Siyu’s face had already faded as he listened quietly. After a while, he smiled and said, “Lesson taken.” 

Feng Zhi Wei looked him with approval and said lightly, “After that meeting at Puyuan, I had thought Your Highness was a little impatient. Now I see that you are restrained and composed. The throne of Dayue will certainly belong to you and no one else.” 

“To receive such words from the unparalleled scholar, it is indeed my honor.” Jin Siyu smiled, then asked suddenly, “Except I still have a question. Is Marquis Wei willing to solve my puzzlement?” 

“Please go ahead.” 

“This person who is pressed against the ship’s hull behind me.” Jin Siyu didn’t turn his head as he talked, “I would like to know how he got in.” 

Feng Zhi Wei smiled, looking at the ugly fellow clinging to the rear window like a gecko— the cabin faced the deck on three sides, completely surrounded by guards. Only this window is against the ship’s hull, facing the open sea, impossible to secure. To be able to stay so steadily on the cabin wall without being blown off by the fierce ocean wind, this person’s material arts, is truly extraordinary. 

Feng Zhi Wei smiled, pointed at the shadow on the ground, motioning Jin Siyu to look. Jin Siyu could tell from the crooked shadow that it was the ugly cook. He let out a bitter laugh, shook his head and said, “It could only be him, I should not have indulged in the desire of appetite.” 

There was something else he kept in his heart and didn’t say out loud— at the time, when he had taken notice of the cook, it wasn’t because of his own appetite but it was because he had suddenly remembered the peony flower (Shao Yao) in Puyuan. He remembered that she was very particular about food, and remembered she liked soup dishes. In an impulsive moment, he recruited the person. 

The impulsiveness because of her, became the opening she needed. 

He could only blame himself for his own foolish heart. 

“There is indeed a famous chef of Xiliang whose restaurant had been there for a long time.” Feng Zhi Wei said with a smile, “Only, by the second time you went, the person had already been replaced.” 

“Then why did the taste stay the same?””

“Are you sure the taste was exactly the same?” Feng Zhi Wei smiled, “Your Highness, you are not a true lover of food. People of your status, spend more attention on matters of court. To deal with people like you, it is sufficient to have a cook with decent skills who learned a few tricks from the original chef. The second time you came, as long as we switched up the dishes and was not the same ones you had the first time, you would not be able to tell the difference.” 

Jin Siyu sighed. Feng Zhi Wei looked at the man clinging to the side of the boat who was staring intently at her without blinking, she wondered to herself what was wrong with that jerk Ning Cheng. Why was he looking so strangely at her today? Then she thought, she had never realized Ning Cheng was such a good cook before. Could Ning Yi’s picky eating habit come from being spoiled by him? That last time Ning Yi made the wisteria cake, his technique was quite good. Could he have learned it from Ning Cheng? 

Raising her head to look at the sky, Feng Zhi Wei squatted down and flicked the ground. The pull rings Jin Siyu had set up on the floor had all been flipped out. Feng Zhi Wei tied some very tough and elastic cords on them, and took a small box the ugly chef handed to her. She took out blue short arrows from the box and tied them on the cords, then pulled each of them to the limit. From the door to the window, she laid them out in a line, all the arrowheads unapologetically pointed at Jin Siyu. 

The ugly chef reached into Jin Siyu’s hair, exerted force with his fingers on his hair crown, and a small golden key fell out. The cook raised his hand and threw it, and the key landed far away in the other side of the room. 

Jin Siyu could only let out a bitter smile. 

Finished with her task, Feng Zhi Wei clapped her hands, carefully walked past the iron rings and said with a smile, “Your Highness, you can call for help all you want in a bit but you must remember to remind your subordinates that they have to remove all these little things one by one. Otherwise, in the dark, if one accidentally trips one, then it will be your corpse that returns to Dayue.” 

Jin Siyu sneered coldly without saying anything. Feng Zhi Wei looked at him quietly then suddenly said, “After this parting, we will not meet again. And in all honesty, I did wrong Your Highness, but I don’t regret it. We belong to enemy states, each acting for our own. I believe Your Highness also understand this. Before parting, I have a few words to gift to Your Highness, we will count it as an apology— though I plotted against you in Dayue but it wasn’t entirely to cause you trouble. The ones I killed for Your Highness were all the most fiercely against you, the ones with the most power. You have longed want to take action but couldn’t because you were under too much surveillance. 


　　　All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com

Related Posts