"Wait, Second Prince, can I refuse?" Ji Feiyu was eager to escape.
The Second Prince's eyes turned cold, looking rather intimidating. "What do you think? Don't blame me for not warning you. There's only one road from here to the Western Desert. The rest are all uninhabited areas. Without enough water and dry rations, if you try to escape from here, you won't be able to find the next supply point."
Ji Feiyu gave up struggling. She said obediently, "Okay, Second Prince. If you have something to tell me, I'm all ears."
Only then did the Second Prince return to his usual self. He really changed his expression faster than turning a page. He said, "First, you need to understand why you are the only one for this game."
"Yeah, yeah." Ji Feiyu replied absent - mindedly, nodding her head vigorously.
The Second Prince gave her a helpless look and continued, "My elder brother has always been arrogant. His first half of life has been too smooth. He has never encountered any setbacks, except for the time when you outsmarted him in Dayong."
Ji Feiyu thought to herself, could it be because she outsmarted him once that they had set their sights on her? This was too terrifying.
The Second Prince saw the confusion and incredulity on her face and confirmed her thoughts. "Right. After that incident, he noticed you. And after he returned, he inquired about you from various sources. Until he heard that you had quarreled with the Emperor of Yong and secretly left the palace, his first thought was to invite you to Beihan."
Wait a minute. Her matter with Yong Yaxuan was far more complicated than just a quarrel and secretly leaving the palace. Where did these rumors come from?
The Second Prince's voice continued, "But the world is so vast, and you were in Dayong. It was so difficult to find you. However, sometimes fate is just so miraculous. What seemed an almost impossible thing happened. Because of Liuyun's assassination attempt, your whereabouts with Yong Yaxuan were exposed. My elder brother found out that you were heading north. He then inferred that you might come to Beihan on your own. So he sent me to Dayong to test your intention."
Ji Feiyu suddenly understood. So at that time, the Second Prince had pretended to hire her for a sound - killing mission with a large sum of money, trying to see if she really wanted to go to Beihan. If she was going north but had no intention of going to Beihan, she wouldn't have taken the "mission" from the Second Prince.
So in fact, all of this was the course of fate. If she hadn't met the Second Prince that time, she might still have ended up going to Beihan. The tracks of fate would still have intersected at this moment.
The Second Prince looked at her and smiled. "I was originally looking for the young master of Liuyun. I just wanted to ask her about the situation when she met you all and then figure out where you had gone later. As a result, I accidentally witnessed a great show - the 'Jade Flute Gentleman' fighting against the young master of Liuyun. At that moment, I understood that the 'Jade Flute Gentleman' was the one I was looking for!"
"Why?" Ji Feiyu had been thinking earlier whether her sister had been instigated by the people of Beihan to assassinate Yong Yaxuan. Now she was wondering when the Second Prince had seen through her disguise. This didn't seem right!
"Hahaha." The Second Prince laughed. "You may not expect that I had met the real Jade Flute Gentleman before."
Ji Feiyu was shocked!
"He doesn't look like you!" The Second Prince continued. "And although he is called the Jade Flute Gentleman, he is not good at sound - killing. As far as I know, the only one who is good at sound - killing is you! I guess you just heard of the name of the Jade Flute Gentleman and borrowed it to take revenge on the young master of Liuyun. But I didn't expect you to be so vengeful."
Ji Feiyu thought to herself that it was a good thing he hadn't found out about her background or the relationship between her and her sister. Otherwise, he wouldn't have just said she was vengeful. How could it be so coincidental that the person she had disguised as was someone he had met before? And why had he met the real Jade Flute Gentleman? Did he hire him to kill someone?
Ji Feiyu said, "Just knowing that the Jade Flute Gentleman was an impostor and seeing that person use sound - killing, how could you be so sure that the impostor was me?"
The Second Prince said, "I wasn't 100% sure. But I knew that since you had just been assassinated by the young master of Liuyun, you must be nearby. Sound - killing is so difficult to learn. It couldn't be such a coincidence that two people who could use sound - killing would appear near Leyang City and both have a grudge against the young master of Liuyun. I had to give it a try and find you first. Who would have thought I was so lucky? When you took off your disguise, it really was you."
Ji Feiyu was completely speechless. It seemed that the reason she had been found and discovered by the Second Prince was because of her sister's assassination attempt and her warning to her sister. And the Second Prince had taken her to Beihan without being completely sure. This kind of courage was just like that of the people who gambled on jade stones she had met many years ago. They would spend a large sum of money on a seemingly ordinary stone, and only when they really opened it would they know whether they had made a profit or a loss.
The Second Prince continued, "So I said that my elder brother has always been very lucky. For you to come to Beihan, three conditions had to be met. First, you left the palace. Second, your whereabouts were exposed. Third, you had the intention to come to Beihan. As a result, all three conditions were met. At that time, I thought that even the heavens were helping my elder brother. When my elder brother knew that I had accomplished the task for him, he was overjoyed. After he learned that the Emperor of Yong had even left the palace secretly to look for you, he thought of another possibility - whether he could exchange you with the Emperor of Yong for something. So he intentionally or unintentionally revealed the news that you were in Beihan to Ran Wei, and used Ran Wei's secret channel to tell Yong Yaxuan. Then he formally invited the Emperor of Yong to Beihan to participate in the autumn hunt. After all these operations, the Emperor of Yong really came to Beihan."
The whole world belongs to the emperor. Ji Feiyu thought that she had wanted to go to Beihan to avoid Yong Yaxuan because she was a bit annoyed by his pursuit in Dayong. Since Ran Wei was there, and the national strength of Beihan was weaker than that of Dayong, and the two countries were at peace because of the marriage alliance, and she was in disguise, she thought she would be safer in Beihan. Who would have thought that the eldest prince of Beihan was such an ambitious man, turning her trip to a paradise into a trap.
Ji Feiyu sighed. Who said the moon was brighter in other countries? It was clearly "the moon is brighter in one's hometown".
The Second Prince saw that she seemed a bit regretful and continued, "As soon as my elder brother saw the Emperor of Yong coming, he knew that you were very important to the Emperor of Yong. So he made a lion's demand and directly asked for the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun. He even deliberately let you listen. He had two plans. If the Emperor of Yong disagreed, he could drive a wedge between you and the Emperor of Yong. If the Emperor of Yong agreed, he would be a hero of the whole Beihan. Who would have thought that you didn't play by the rules and rushed out directly. Although I don't know what exactly happened that day, judging from the final situation, it seems that he failed."
Ji Feiyu thought that the Second Prince was really meticulous - minded and perceptive. But after laying out so much, what on earth did he want to do?