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“Lingxin, you didn’t mention that Minister Lan also met with assassins,” the emperor suddenly said.

Qu Lingxin bowed and replied meaningfully, “Your Majesty, the stars only convey the truth. They may not be comprehensive, but they will not lie.”

The implication was that Lan Jue was lying. Everyone in the hall was clear on this, but Lan Jue just stared at him, pretending not to understand, and his face didn’t even twitch.

Thus, some ministers echoed, “No matter what, Your Majesty, it is impossible for the Lord of Western Tang to absolve himself of all blame.”

“Come on!” Lan Jue shouted back. “Even if Western Tang isn’t that big, I don’t know everyone in it, and I don’t know Elder Lin either. How do I know why assassins killed him, can you be a bit more reasonable?!”

His whole person expressed ‘I’m going to beat you up if you keep acting like this’, and he had been so loud that it seemed like the entire hall shook.

Lan Jue insisted that the Iron-Clad Guards had failed their duties, and he was completely justified to do so — they had chased the assassins through the streets and made such a clamour that everyone knew something was happening, even the emperor who was soaking in the rear palace with his beauties and stars couldn’t avoid knowing of his sister’s actions. Yet in a situation such as this, the assassins could still succeed?

To add insult to injury, Lan Jue also added a seemingly unintentional curse: “They’re too audacious. They failed to kill the Grand Princess so now they’re messing with the Guards, it’s preposterous!”

As a result, Bai Jing’an had to watch himself being pinned with the label of ‘lazy’. The Grand Princess reacted faster than him to realise something was wrong and hinted with her eyes, causing him to startle and hurriedly kneel to plead guilty. “It was this minister who was incompetent and failed to arrest the rebellious assassins. Your Majesty, please forgive me.”

Longque had been lost and hadn’t been found yet. Grand Princess Qinghe secretly handed this task to Bai Jing’an, and indeed, the Iron-Clad Guards obeyed her over the emperor, they would never let the emperor know that they lost the sword. Before Lan Jue came, Chu Xiang had theorised that as long as he targeted the Guards, the Grand Princess would be forced to step out — no matter who was blaming Lan Jue, she would help protect him.

According to Chu Xiang: “The emperor is superstitious, and although he is simpleminded, no one despises having power. He would be angry at losing the imperial sword no matter how inactive he usually is, so the Grand Princess definitely hid it from him. The Iron-Clad Guards moved out with such great furor, yet despite the streets being filled with their men, assassins still appeared. And with their efficacy being so low, it would be inevitable for their true purpose to be questioned. If in this case they continue to pursue the question of whether you have anything to do with Elder Lin’s death, the Grand Princess will worry that they’ll uncover the loss of Longque — after all, she doesn’t know if you are involved or not. So even if you did steal it, she must protect you in front of the emperor.”

Lan Jue also remembered that he said, “At that time, apart from the Grand Princess’ enemies, whoever refuses to let you go is the one trying to frame you.”

The only people in the court who dared to openly oppose the Grand Princess were the two most senior officials. They had previously opposed her presence at court on the grounds of preventing a woman from becoming the power behind the throne, yet now they said nothing.

“Wouldn’t it be too obvious to target me then?” Lan Jue had asked.

To this, Chu Xiang was very confident. “News travels slowly, Your Excellency. You are not an uneducated brute, but whomever is framing you, no matter why they are doing so, has a fundamental misunderstanding of your true self. Unless it’s someone next to you like Yang Feng who turned traitor, but I don’t think you would leave such a weakness. A trap laid for a wise man needs to be designed carefully, but a trap for an ignorant villager…” Therefore, even in ancient times, experience gained through information warfare in the modern era was extremely effective.

“This is a hole they dug themselves, I’m not the one who called me a barbarian,” Lan Jue sneered.

So when the Grand Princess spoke up for Lan Jue, he just waited to see who would be the one to oppose her.

Sure enough, just like Chu Xiang said, Lan Jue’s reputation for bravery was not respected in the capital, which favoured obscene lyrics and erotic songs. Not only did his military feats not garner esteem, most people believed that this Lord of Western Tang had more muscles than brains, had nothing in his skull but air, and could be no more than a barbarian. In an era where information was conveyed almost entirely by mouths and letters were sent only by the strength of your legs, this became an excellent cover.

The mastermind could calculate everything, but he fell into a trap made by falsified ‘character settings’.

But Lan Jue was a little surprised — the first one to object was, unexpectedly, Qu Lingxin.

Qu Lingxin — the Master of the Observatory, the direct superior of this incident’s nominal victim — turned to the emperor and said, “Your Majesty, although Commander Bai does have fault, he was not the fundamental cause. Regarding this incident, the stars’ guidance has indicated to me that suspicion falls on Western Tang — I ask Your Majesty to consider this carefully.”

‘The stars’ guidance’. Just these three words were enough for an astrologer to present testimony before the court.

Lan Jue couldn’t suppress a sneer. What guidance, this supposedly mighty emperor couldn’t even compare with someone who counted stars for a living.

However, what reason did the Observatory have for targeting Western Tang?

* * *

While all this was happening, Chu Xiang naturally had no intention of honestly staying in the post house to recuperate. As planned, he went to Chunjiang Pavilion.

This time, he was finally greeted by Bai Mo’s maidservant.

The maids of Peonies were also stunningly beautiful. These teenage girls hadn’t yet grown into their adult bodies, but one could already see the beautiful outlines of their future faces. Chu Hexing, in comparison, really was a little clay monkey — although she wasn’t ugly, she definitely couldn’t be called beautiful.

With this girl’s foundation, Chu Xiang could tell at a glance that if she received special operations training, she would become a battle goddess on par with his Team Leader Shao Yun.

Unfortunately she was born at the wrong time.

A jug of wine was placed on the table in front of Chu Xiang as the maid explained that the Peony was still freshening up and gently asked him to wait.

“There’s no tea?” Chu Xiang, remembering the last time he blacked out after drinking, adamantly refused to touch alcohol again. Moreover, the injury on his waist still ached — drinking wine now was purely asking for punishment.

“My Lord is joking, who would drink tea in a place like this?” the maid replied respectfully.

He looked down at the cup, then swept his eyes over everything in the room that might be able to hide concealed weapons. The Peony’s room was very clean, he found nothing. As for the wine, he sniffed it a few times, then thought helplessly — this era has exquisite mechanisms and equally exquisite martial arts, but when it comes to anything that needs a bit of modern technology like chemical purification, they really can’t match up to the 28th century.

As the commanding officer of a vanguard fleet voyaging into deep space, identifying poisons was also a necessary skill. Although there was AI assistance during actual battles, they had to train in all the most demanding conditions during simulated training, including AI malfunction, losing contact with the main fleet, and being stranded on an unknown planet, among others. They could even identify alien poisons, so for something of this era, Chu Xiang could basically tell what was mixed into the wine just by smelling it.

He said it before, making an invisible, odourless, and tasteless poison was a tall order even in the 28th century, let alone in historical times.

“That’s true, you have to be drunk in this place. Drink and be merry in deathly sleep, being sober in the waking world is too disappointing,” Chu Xiang said unhurriedly as he swirled the wine in his cup. Then he held the cup in front of the maid. “Drink it.”

“Lord, this slave cannot receive guests, otherwise, the lady will punish me–”

“I want you to drink it,” Chu Xiang smiled. His arm was as steady as rock. “Let her punish me.”

The maid retreated backwards half a step. “You are troubling this slave…”

“It’s fine,” he said, then, pretending to be surprised, “oh, are you worried that you’ll faint? You won’t, I think that with your physical fitness, you can last until you leave my sight. Besides, haven’t you trained in how to respond after blowing your cover? Or are you just a newbie who’s using me as a training dummy?”

The maid’s face didn’t change from its beautiful smile, but a hair stick flashed out from her sleeve with its end glinting in the light — it had clearly been treated with poison.

The sharp accessory poked directly between Chu Xiang’s eyebrows, so fast that there was no way for him to avoid it.

Despite this, the young gentleman still held his wine cup as if toasting to the moon and didn’t move an inch from his seat. The maid’s hair stick stopped just in front of his skull without the previous pretence of warmth, and her hands were as steady as a machine’s.

At this time, a Peony in full regalia walked out of the inner room. The cup in Chu Xiang’s hands turned and was instead offered to Madam Bai Mo.

Ignoring both the maid and her murderous blade, he still held a smile as he said, “Madam Mo’s hospitality is truly eye-opening. Is this the basis of Madam’s fame?”

“Indeed, ordinary guests would not experience this.” Madam Mo watched him for a while, then took the cup and casually handed it over to her maid, who put away her weapon, regained her gentle and sweet demeanour, and took away the cup of drugged wine.

She walked to the table and sat down. Instead of having the attitude of someone receiving a guest, she nonchalantly brushed her hair and asked bluntly, “Who are you? Your intentions to probe us have been obvious the last few days, but you weren’t led here by our informants and neither are you from the Guards. Since you’re here, you might as well say it.”

“I am Chu Xiang, an advisor for the Lord of Western Tang, Lan Jue.”

“The Lord of  Western Tang?” Bai Mo raised an eyebrow. “I thought it was a cover, for him to suddenly show up to rescue you that night… So there really is someone like you beside him. It seems like he isn’t as stupid as in the rumours.”

This was tantamount to admitting that she had sent the assassins back then. It went more smoothly than Chu Xiang had anticipated.

“Let’s hear it, who do you want dead? As long as the price is right, anyone is possible.”

This wasn’t the attitude of someone dealing in human lives. Although Chu Xiang had never come into contact with the contract killers of this world, he had met assassins who lived among interstellar nomads. Those who took astonishing risks to make a living had an equally astonishing level of caution — all his fleet comrades who tried to fish them up returned empty-handed, because they would disappear into thin air as soon as there was the slightest hint of trouble, and they would never trade with people they didn’t know or didn’t come recommended.

Chu Xiang noticed countless gazes coming from all around the room. Many maids knelt by the door and every single one hid killing intent in their eyes.

If he didn’t impress these assassins, he would never walk out of this room alive.

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