Zhuang Mohan smiled. "By framing him today, I have staked seventy years of my reputation on the line. If I lose, I am willing to accept the consequences. What I do not understand is that Master Fan is like a celestial being in poetry. If you had told me earlier, I would not have humiliated myself."
The Eldest Princess sighed. "I did not expect that child to have such a demented temperament in addition to his reputation for poetry."
Zhuang Mohan closed his eyes, a look of regret on his face. After a while, he said slowly, "I am not regretting anything else. I am only lamenting that I have been sober for half my life. Now that I am old, I have done such an ugly thing. If Master Fan hadn't written three hundred poems in one night, perhaps the people of the world would have believed that Master Fan was a shameless plagiarist because of what I said. "
The old man opened his eyes. They were calm and clear again. He smiled. "That is fine."
"Fine?" The Eldest Princess's bare feet slid gently along the edge of the couch. She bit her lip and said bitterly, "Master Zhuang, mother has always respected your talent and virtue. That is why I invited you to live in the palace. I have fulfilled my promise to you. What about your promise to me? Do you think that the agreement between the two countries has been signed, and that your brother will soon be welcomed back home, that Fan Xian will be able to preserve his reputation, and that you, old fox, will feel at ease? "
Zhuang Mohan smiled. "A mistake is a mistake. My heart belongs to my family. That is why I fell into the Eldest Princess's trap and came to Qing. My brother has killed countless people in the first half of his life. If the Eldest Princess wishes to go back on her word, there is nothing I can do. I can only pray for him after I return to Northern Qi. I hope that he will live a more comfortable life in the prison of the Overwatch Council. "
The Eldest Princess smiled. "I sold Yan Bingyun to your student, the Emperor. That was the only way you could bring Xiao En back to Northern Qi. This deal was not between you and me, but between your Emperor and me. But I have already fulfilled my end of the bargain, and you have not done what you promised me. Tonight in the palace, if you had not pretended to spit out blood and admitted defeat, but instead insisted that Fan Xian's poem was a copy, who knows what would have happened. So... Master Zhuang, after you return, remember to send a message to your Emperor's students. Northern Qi owes Guangxin Palace a favor. "
Zhuang Mohan smiled. "Master Fan is talented, and his poetic ability is beyond the reach of ordinary people. I believe the Eldest Princess has also guessed that this Master Fan is a Tianmai who has not appeared in the world for a long time. I am very curious. The Kingdom of Qing has a Tianmai. Why is it that they are not in a hurry to protect him? Instead, they want to get rid of him? What's more, even if he were to accuse Master Fan of plagiarism, what harm would it cause him? "
The Eldest Princess said lightly, "I have never believed in the nonsense of a Tianmai Being. Master Zhuang is well-read and should know what the saints say. If Fan Xian was some Tianmai person, if his ability was only in reciting poetry and such small things, what good would it do the Qing court? As for why I want to deal with him, that has nothing to do with you. "
Zhuang Mohan had staked decades of his life on the peerless position he held in the hearts of the world's scholars. He wanted to trample Fan Xian underfoot, and it was all because of the Eldest Princess. But he did not know the complicated relationships in the Qing court, nor did he know that the Eldest Princess and Fan Xian would become mother-in-law and son-in-law in the near future.
But Fan Xian knew why the Eldest Princess wanted to deal with him.
He half-knelt on the roof of the palace, his three fingers on the tiles were a little cold. Looking at the charming princess in her early thirties below the bright tiles, the coldness in his eyes gradually increased. When Guo Baokun spoke in the hall, Fan Xian knew that the nobles of the palace had joined forces with Zhuang Mohan to drive him out of the capital.
The matter of plagiarism seemed like a small matter, but it involved the so-called "character". If he had not been talking about poetry in the hall and shocked the entire hall, perhaps everyone would have believed Zhuang Mohan's words. He had become a literary thief. Although he would not be punished, and his career could be discussed later, his marriage with Wan'er might fall through — the Eldest Princess knew better than he did what the Empress Dowager did not like.
What chilled Fan Xian even more was that the former head spy of Northern Wei, Xiao En, in the secret agreement between the two countries, was Zhuang Mohan's elder brother! In order to persuade Zhuang Mohan to come to the Qing Kingdom to suppress him, the Eldest Princess did not hesitate to sell the head spy of the Qing Kingdom stationed in Northern Qi, the son of a court official, Yan Bingyun, to the enemy country.
She was too daring! How could the emperor in the palace tolerate his own sister doing such a thing that harmed the country's integrity?!
The summer night breeze blew through the eaves of Guangxin Palace, calming the frowning Fan Xian. He knew that even if he heard these secrets, he could not use them to threaten her. She was the Emperor's sister and the Empress Dowager's favorite daughter. These two identities alone were enough for her to run amok in the Qing Kingdom, selling out officials for her own personal gain.
Fan Xian looked at the woman's jet-black hair on the couch below and felt a wave of disgust.
This woman was not only crazy, but also perverted.
At this moment, Fan Xian seemed to see the whole plot clearly. The agreement between the Eldest Princess and the Emperor of Northern Qi was to sell out the head spy of the Overwatch Council, Yan Bingyun, who had been undercover in Northern Qi for four years, in exchange for Xiao En and Si Lili. The price Northern Qi offered was to invite the world-famous Zhuang Mohan to the capital of the Qing Kingdom and use his mouth to destroy Fan Xian. At the same time, they could use this to teach a lesson to the Overwatch Council, which had never listened to the Eldest Princess.
However, he didn't know what else was included in the agreement between her and the Emperor of Northern Qi. Fan Xian guessed that by selling off the head spy of the Qing Kingdom in Northern Qi, the Eldest Princess must have obtained more than this. She must have obtained something even more terrifying.
Did the Emperor know what his own sister was doing?
He touched the hard key at his waist, and a cold light flashed in his eyes. He thought of a way to deal with this, adjusted his breathing in the night wind, and began to retreat. The palace was too dangerous, and he did not know how long his good luck would last.
Just as he stepped off the pillar, he saw two people slowly approaching from the end of the corridor, holding palace lanterns. Fan Xian's heart trembled, and he carefully hid his body in the shadow of the pillar. As the lanterns neared, he moved his feet subtly, keeping his body in the same area as the shadows.
He secretly prayed that this serving girl would be like the one who had passed by him earlier, and would not discover him.
The serving girl had already walked past the pillar, and Fan Xian had already moved to the other side of the pillar. Suddenly, the palace maid stopped. This palace maid seemed to have some status in Guang Xin Palace. She whispered something to the little girl who was following her. The little girl responded sweetly and left. The middle-aged palace maid stood and waited.
The distance between her and Fan Xian was only one wooden pillar.
Fan Xian carefully adjusted his breathing with zhenqi, gradually matching the breathing of the serving girl behind the pillar. At the same time, he heard with some peace of mind that there was no change in the serving girl's breathing. It seemed that she had stopped here by coincidence, and had not discovered him.
The two of them were still separated by a wooden pillar.
Suddenly, a cold light flashed in Fan Xian's eyes, which were not covered by his black mask. His entire body twisted a few inches to the left. This innate sense of danger had allowed him to escape a disaster!
Where his body had originally been, the sharp tip of a sword had silently pierced through the wooden pillar!
Because the wooden pillar was too big, the tip of the sword only extended a little. It was cute and full of killing intent, and it told Fan Xian that if he had not twisted earlier, the tip of the sword would have been in his waist.
Fan Xian coldly circled around the long pillar, and like a mudfish, he accurately locked his hand forward and grabbed the middle-aged serving girl's left forearm. His reaction was different from that of a normal fighter, and he did not care about the other party's movement to draw the sword.
The effect was very good. The serving girl's sneak attack had failed, and she was afraid that the assassin would stop her from drawing the sword, so she concentrated all her zhenqi on her right arm, and the defense of her left arm was much weaker.
With the sound of a piece of paper being torn apart, the serving girl drew the sword from the wooden pillar, and opened her mouth to scream!
Fan Xian's eyebrows relaxed, and the tyrannical zhenqi in his body poured into the other party's left arm with great vigor! This palace maid had the strength of Level Seven, but she had never encountered the strange genuine Qi in an assassin's body. She felt a stabbing pain in her meridians, as if countless knives were scraping the tender walls of her meridians. This kind of pain made the palace maid's chest tighten, and she actually swallowed the warning sound, making a strange soft sound in her throat.
Fan Xian recognized at a glance that this serving girl was the one who had welcomed him into Guangxin Palace. Her eyebrows were extremely long, and her appearance was very special.
The serving girl's eyebrows trembled, and she circulated the zhenqi in her body, wanting to fight him head-on. She did not know that the hand holding her arm would suddenly lose its zhenqi, and all the zhenqi she had circulated around her body would fall into thin air. In a daze, she felt very uncomfortable. Because of this sudden imbalance, the right side of her body seemed to be slightly sluggish.
In this split second, the right side of her neck went slightly numb, and then she immediately felt her entire body become slightly stiff.
Fan Xian frowned, and his two fingers retracted from her neck. He knew that the poison on the needle could not truly seal the throat with blood. He immediately flipped his right palm over, and pressed it against the serving girl's abdomen, where the ribs connected.
With a muffled sound, the serving girl's chest caved in, and blood flowed from all her orifices. She died.
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