However, the next day, after Zidu had arranged for the people to pick up the divine doctor, he, together with Wanyan and Shen Yuning, packed their luggage and were about to enter the capital. But they found that the situation had changed.
The capital was under martial law. No one was allowed to enter or leave. The southern gate leading to the capital was tightly shut, heavily guarded. Many anxious - looking commoners had gathered under the city wall.
Wanyan sensed something was wrong. He asked an old man carrying a vegetable pole beside him, "Uncle, why isn't the city gate open today?"
The old man shook his head. "We came here early in the morning to sell some fresh vegetables. But the city gate just won't open. I've been waiting here for almost two hours, and it's still closed... They said there were important matters in the city, so the gate couldn't be opened for the time being. Oh, my vegetables can't be left like this. What could be so important that even us ordinary people who come and go regularly can't get in?"
Wanyan pondered for a moment, then went back to the carriage. He told Zidu to go and accompany Shen Yuning in her carriage. Then he took his attendants and went ahead to find out the news.
After about half an hour, Wanyan returned, looking worried. He frowned at the two in front of him. "I think there's something fishy. There were also officials at the city gate with their travel documents, but they weren't allowed to enter either. I couldn't find out anything. It seems that those city - gate generals are just following orders and don't know the specific reason."
The city gates of the capital should never be closed, unless the enemy had invaded to this area. Although the Great Zhou was not completely peaceful at present, it wasn't that chaotic. For the enemy to reach the capital, they would have to pass through so many checkpoints. It was simply impossible.
The three of them fell silent. They could only hear each other's rapid heartbeats.
It seemed that a storm was coming.
Zidu asked, "Did you give your name?"
Wanyan nodded. "I didn't dare to give my real name. I just said I was a servant of the Zhu family with a travel document. But the guard was cold - hearted and pushy, saying that even if the King of Heaven came, they wouldn't let anyone in."
Zidu said no more. They all fell silent.
After waiting for the whole morning without any news, Wanyan still took the two of them back to the mansion on the outskirts of the capital. Then he sent a carrier pigeon into the city. But soon after the pigeon flew out, the servant who released it found that the pigeon had been shot down.
Was the capital even cutting off communication?
Wanyan somehow managed to find out a bit of news. "General Gao's army is stationed at Mount Cang, a hundred miles away from the capital."
Mount Cang was also a mining area. It wasn't conspicuous for an army to be stationed there. But they didn't know why the army, which was supposed to be used for war, had gone to Mount Cang.
Shen Yuning clutched the corner of her clothes tightly. She had a bad feeling. At this moment, her usually sharp mind seemed to be completely useless.
Zidu gently rubbed the wall of the teacup and let out a soft laugh. "The Tang family has quite a lot of tricks up their sleeves. General Gao was never ill and unable to lead troops. It was clearly a scheme to lure the tiger away from the mountain and get the Zhu family out of the way."
The battle in the northwest half a month ago was clearly aimed at General Zhu. If General Zhu had led the Zhu family's army away and the Gao family's army had pulled this stunt, wouldn't they be like bandits on the mountain?
However, it wasn't General Zhu who had left that day, but General Liang. And General Liang was under General Zhu's command. But the emperor, for some unknown reason, didn't move the thousands of Zhu family's soldiers stationed outside the capital. Instead, he told General Liang to recruit troops separately and go to the northwest to take over the Gao family's army that had originally been stationed there.
After analyzing the situation, Wanyan didn't look happy. "Even so, most of the Zhu family's army is in Wuyun. There are less than ten thousand soldiers left on the outskirts of the capital. And the Gao family came prepared. Although I don't know how many soldiers of the Gao family's army there are at Mount Cang, I can imagine that there must be several times as many as the Zhu family's. General Liang has been on his way for half a month, and the battle in the northwest is urgent. He left in a hurry. Even if he got the news and came back, it would be too late."
Zidu continued, "Moreover, the situation inside the city is unclear now. The Tang family controls most of the court. If they want to eliminate their political opponents at this moment, it will be as easy as pie."
Shen Yuning remembered all those dirty things that had happened recently, one after another. The scheme to lure the tiger away from the mountain, the divination words from the Imperial Astronomer... It was all just to depose the crown prince and install a new king in a legitimate way.
As a result, the crown prince had fallen seriously ill, and the emperor had forbidden anyone to mention this matter again. Since the Second Prince and his followers couldn't do it in a legitimate way, they simply rebelled.
However, after analyzing for so long, they were too weak to come up with any good way to turn the situation around. Apart from waiting, they had no idea what to do.
Wanyan simply stopped caring about anything and went back to his room to catch up on the sleep he had missed these days.
It was already late autumn, but today seemed to be especially hot. The kitchen, upon receiving the order, stewed some fire - clearing soup and brought it up. Neither Shen Yuning nor Zidu had much of an appetite.
Zidu took a couple of sips of the soup casually, tapped on the table, and looked up at Shen Yuning, who was still in a daze. Suddenly, he smiled.
Shen Yuning asked in surprise, "Why are you smiling for no reason?"
Zidu seemed a bit happy. "It's not a waste of time to spend the last days with you."
Shen Yuning thought to herself, How come I never knew before that you could be so sweet - tongued? If you said such things to other girls, wouldn't they immediately fall for you?
Then she thought again, Qiao Peilan was so deeply in love with you just because she thought your face was disfigured. Could it be your sweet talk that made her give you her heart?
Zidu saw the changing expressions on Shen Yuning's face and was a bit confused. He asked, "What are you thinking about?"
Shen Yuning herself didn't understand why she felt a bit sad every time she thought that Zidu was as kind to other women as he was to her.
After thinking for a long time, she suddenly remembered a case in an old file she had read. There was a widow who, seeing her son being kind to his wife, tortured the daughter - in - law to death.
She suddenly realized that she was just like that widow. Seeing the younger brother she had raised being nicer to other women than to her, she felt a bit uncomfortable.
She thought to herself that it was better that she and Zidu couldn't live together after he got married in the future. Otherwise, if she couldn't control herself and became a mean sister - in - law, what should she do?
At this moment, Shen Yuning's thoughts had wandered far away. She didn't think that the widow had lost her husband and thus put all her hopes on her son. But she was still an unmarried girl.
Zidu saw that Shen Yuning ignored him. He thought she was still worried about the situation in the court, so he tried to distract her from those annoying things.
"Do you have any news about the Xue family?"
Shen Yuning had packed her luggage and left in a hurry. When she left, everything in the Xue family was fine, and she hadn't heard of anything wrong.
Zidu said, "Xue Yuxi, the son of the second branch of the Xue family, secretly joined the army and left with General Liang."
Shen Yuning's eyes widened in surprise. She stood up abruptly. "Is Yuxi crazy? With his weak constitution since childhood, how could he join the army?"
She paced around the room anxiously and asked, "When did this happen? Why didn't you tell me before?"
Zidu pursed his lips. "You've cut off relations with the second branch of the Xue family. Why are you still worried about them?"
Shen Yuning blurted out, "It's different. He's my younger brother."
Zidu's eyes darkened. He turned his face away and didn't say a word.
Shen Yuning was extremely worried. "This child is so reckless. You don't know that when he was just born, he choked and almost died. Since then, he has to be carefully taken care of every time the season changes, or he'll get sick. When he's sick, it's really heart - wrenching. I often accompanied him when he was a child. Seeing his pale face, I really felt so sad."
Zidu's tightened lips showed his extreme displeasure.
However, Shen Yuning didn't notice at all. "He was very smart when he was a child and liked reading. He could understand everything I told him. And he was so strong. Even when he was so sick, he never cried. Instead, he comforted me..."
She recalled the little figure of Xue Yuxi when he was a child, reaching out his hand to touch her eyebrows and saying, "Sister doesn't look good when she frowns."
Her eyes were red, but she seemed to suddenly realize something. "When I came of age, I received a lot of gifts. I asked him what he wanted, but he didn't want anything. He just pointed at two military books in my study and said he wanted them. I thought at that time that he was tired of reading detective books and wanted to read something different. It turns out that he already knew he liked military strategy at that time."
Seeing Shen Yuning's anxious and worried look, Zidu's tightened lips softened. He gently comforted her, "If that's the case, you don't have to worry. General Liang is a good person. He and Xue Yuxi are kind of fated. He will surely take good care of him."
Shen Yuning was in a daze. "If it were someone else, I wouldn't be worried. But Yuxi's constitution is so weak... I don't know if he's gotten better these years. How could he be so reckless? I'm afraid Auntie must be very worried."
Zidu pondered for a moment and nodded. "Yes, the second branch of the Xue family is in a complete mess. They even went to the Marquis's Mansion to make a fuss, saying that the Marquis was reluctant to send his own son and thus used their son as a favor."
Hearing this, Shen Yuning sneered. "His son? He only knows how to flirt around on weekdays. When did he ever care that Yuxi was his son? Speaking of this, I should even thank him. If he hadn't been away from home all day and left all the upbringing to Uncle and Auntie, the three of us siblings might have been just like Xue Yujiao."
At this moment, the gloom on Zidu's face completely disappeared. "If that's the case, you don't have to worry about your younger brother. He was raised by your Uncle. He must know what he's doing."
Shen Yuning took the advice and nodded, sighing deeply. "The world is unpredictable. Now my younger sister has gone back to our hometown with our grandmother. There will always be someone to take care of her in the future. My younger brother has gone to the military camp. I just hope everything goes well for him. But all that commotion is really annoying. I don't know if my father and the others are okay."
At this moment, she remembered that she was no longer the daughter of the second branch but the adopted daughter of the first branch.
Zidu comforted her, "Don't worry. Your father and the others are fine. Maybe the whole second - branch family couldn't get revenge on the Xue family, so they went to the County Princess's Mansion to make a scene."
Seeing that Shen Yuning was about to worry again, he quickly said the rest, "Yuanbao has grown up. Naturally, she won't let her family be bullied. And as it turned out for the better, after the Princess Jiayang heard about this, she said that she was very lonely without descendants. She hit it off with Yuanbao at first sight and adopted Yuanbao as her granddaughter."
Shen Yuning was stunned for a moment. She quickly realized that this matter wasn't as simple as Zidu said. Maybe Xue Yujiao, who had no brains, had said something at the County Princess's Mansion, and it had reached the Princess Jiayang's ears, which was why the princess had made this decision.