Upon hearing these words, Hu Shanwei’s face turned deathly pale. Shi Baihu immediately began retching. Having been a thief among the people, a bandit in the mountains, and even experiencing various disaster years and famine years, he had never heard of such demented cruelty – yet he encountered it in the wealthy and glorious Prince Qin’s manor!

Hu Shanwei’s mind went blank, but the wind and snow on her face immediately cleared her thoughts. She comforted Shi Baihu, who was clutching his throat about to vomit:

“Don’t rush to vomit. Liu Siyan’s group disappeared in summer, and it’s winter now. Even if they were put in ice cellars, they would rot and smell bad. How could they be chopped up for people to eat? And eaten so deliciously?”

“Also, when we passed through the kitchen today, we clearly saw with our own eyes people carrying various meats inside. The broker even said Prince Qin’s manor bought half the meat market’s goods. Moreover, to cut up over seventy people and mince their flesh to destroy evidence – what about the bones? What about the hair? Rather than that, it would be better to find a place to dig a pit, burn them with fire, and scatter the bone ash. Then we’d never find evidence.”

Upon hearing this, Shi Baihu thought it made sense. In summer weather, even making preserved meat required heavy salt, smoking, and roasting to remove moisture before it could be preserved until winter. Prince Qin’s manor couldn’t possibly go to such trouble to dispose of corpses.

The more people involved, the easier it would be for word to leak out.

This would contradict the cautious performance of blocking streets and prohibiting common people from watching on the day Liu Siyan’s group left Xi’an.

Princess Qin said sternly, “No, impossible! Any meat cannot be touched. Any greasy food might be Liu Siyan. I caused her death – it’s all my fault. If only I could have endured and said nothing, Liu Siyan wouldn’t have had her tongue cut off…”

Princess Qin cried toward the cooking smoke rising from distant Prince Qin’s manor: “I’m sorry, I harmed you. I’m sorry.”

Hu Shanwei and the others looked at each other: Princess Qin’s mental state seemed problematic.

At this moment, the princess’s dowry palace attendant tightly embraced Princess Qin, fearing she might impulsively jump from the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.

Hu Shanwei also went over to pull Princess Qin inside the pagoda to sit down. Just touching the princess’s arm, she felt how thin she was – like a piece of dry wood, as if she might crumble with slight pressure.

The palace attendant took out a pill, dissolved it in hot water, and fed it to Princess Qin mouthful by mouthful.

Hu Shanwei asked, “What exactly happened? Liu Siyan had her tongue cut off? Why? Where is she? Where are the Embroidered Uniform Guards?”

After drinking the medicine, Princess Qin’s dilated pupils, which had been spreading in madness, gradually focused. She said, “Before answering your questions, I need to see your identification badge to confirm your identity.”

Hu Shanwei gave Princess Qin the ivory badge she kept close to her body. The princess placed the round ivory badge on her palm, which was as thin as paper – her palm seemed even lighter than the badge, as if the badge could crush her palm.

The front of the badge read: “Palace Administration Bureau, Bureau Chief, Hu Shanwei.” The back read: “Female officials wear this badge; lending or losing it is forbidden; violators will be punished.” The spine was also carved with a line of shallow regular script: “Made in the thirteenth year of Hongwu.”

It was very similar to Liu Siyan’s badge. Princess Qin returned the badge to Hu Shanwei, and in a voice clear and cold as a jade hairpin shattering, she began to tell the shocking secret hidden beneath Prince Qin’s manor’s outwardly noble and benevolent facade – how the prince and his consort jointly bullied the legitimate princess, treated human life as grass, in the most scandalous manner!

It turned out Prince Qin had always harbored fantasies about the crown prince position, thinking he was only one year younger than the Crown Prince. He was highly skilled in martial arts and brave in battle – in what way was he inferior to the Crown Prince who only knew book learning?

Unfortunately, Emperor Hongwu bestowing Northern Yuan Princess Wang in marriage completely cut off his path to the heir apparent position.

Emperor Hongwu stated in the imperial marriage edict:

“I rule under Heaven and enfeoff my sons as princes, necessarily selecting daughters of famous families to be their consorts. Now my second son Prince Qin Xi has come of age. I select you, Lady Wang, formerly sister of the Yuan Grand Preceptor and Right Chancellor of the Central Secretariat, King of Henan, and grant you a golden册 to be the prince’s consort. You must carefully follow the wifely way to assist our state and family – be respectful!”

The imperial edict already made clear that the marriage to Lady Wang was “to assist our state and family – be respectful.” If Prince Qin resisted the marriage, toward his father it would be unfilial, toward the state it would be disloyal.

So however unwilling Prince Qin was, he had no choice but to accept reality.

Prince Qin and the princess who had married into the Ming for alliance treated each other with mutual respect, acting before Their Majesties. Behind the scenes, Prince Qin basically never touched her. Princess Qin, shouldering the heavy responsibility of the marriage alliance, had long since stopped caring about romantic love between men and women. Political marriage required only mutual respect – everything else was superfluous.

The two remained childless.

Seeing his second son had finally matured and was willing to accept reality, Emperor Hongwu, to compensate Prince Qin and continue the prince’s bloodline, bestowed Duke Weiguo Deng Yu’s legitimate eldest daughter Lady Deng as his consort.

With Lady Deng’s noble status, she should have married a prince as the principal consort. Now being bestowed as a consort was truly wronging her, since consorts were still concubines. You should know that Duke Weiguo Xu Da’s legitimate eldest daughter Lady Xu married Prince Yan and became Princess Yan, while Duke Songguo Feng Sheng’s legitimate eldest daughter Lady Feng married Prince Zhou and became Princess Zhou.

To compensate the Deng family for this slight – after all, Duke Weiguo Deng Yu was also one of the ten great founding ministers – Emperor Hongwu specially dispatched Personnel Vice Minister Zhang Du as principal envoy and Works Vice Minister Sun Min as deputy envoy. Besides this, he also richly rewarded Lady Deng with gifts no less generous than those for a principal consort.

The day after the wedding, Prince Qin and Consort Deng paid court to Emperor Hongwu and Empress Ma. Except for lacking the ceremony of dates, chestnuts, and dried meat, all other procedures were the same as for a principal consort. The ceremony’s high specifications far exceeded the investiture ceremonies of other consorts.

The only differences from a principal consort were no imperial proclamation, no册 bestowment, and no personal escort ceremony.

After marrying into Prince Qin’s manor, Consort Deng was deeply beloved by Prince Qin – it seemed they were the real married couple. Consort Deng also kept to her proper place, always performing concubine etiquette before Princess Qin, never overstepping.

Everyone praised Consort Deng’s virtue, and even Princess Qin herself was deceived, often praising Consort Deng before Their Majesties.

However, in the eleventh year of Hongwu, when Prince Qin came to Xi’an to take up his fiefdom, with the emperor far away in high heaven, Prince Qin became the “little emperor” of the northwest. His ambition and cruelty, along with Consort Deng’s grievances and unwillingness suppressed for years, erupted like volcanoes buried deep underground for thousands of years!

Prince Qin was clever – he even understood the principle that rabbits don’t eat grass near their burrows. He conscientiously governed Xi’an, disciplined the army, and defended the northwest frontier. So the people of his fiefdom greatly loved Prince Qin and praised him unanimously.

But inside Prince Qin’s manor was a different scene:

Prince Qin had a five-clawed nine-dragon bed made in the manor. You should know that feudal princes could only use four claws – only the emperor could use five claws.

Prince Qin secretly ordered weavers to make empress clothing for Consort Deng to wear.

On campaigns against Western barbarians, he forcibly seized their children, using 150 young girls for the prince’s lewd pleasure, and castrated 155 young boys. While their wounds were still unhealed, he forced them to serve in the manor. As a result, these boys almost all died – cruel as demons.

Additionally, Prince Qin and Consort Deng devised various methods to humiliate Princess Qin, imprisoning her like a criminal in a separate courtyard with unclean daily food and fruits, wanting to make her die of illness.

They also ordered Princess Qin’s dowry palace attendants to roll up their pants to their thighs, exposing their knees. After rubbing the knees with ginger slices, they made them crawl up mountain slopes on their knees.

The mountain slope led to the separate courtyard where Princess Qin was imprisoned. If they wanted to bring food to the princess, they had to carry food while crawling on their knees to the courtyard, or the princess would go hungry.

These poor loyal servants, to give the princess even one bite of unclean food, shamefully complied. Their knees, rubbed with ginger slices, were scraped by the rough road surface like needle pricks, causing even more pain. Blood flowed directly – with each meal delivery, the mountain slope showed two trails of blood dragged by knees!

If any couldn’t bear the pain and rolled over, falling with both person and food tumbling down the slope, Prince Qin and Consort Deng would mockingly say they “performed a good somersault,” taking pleasure in this…

Prince Qin and Consort Deng’s various evil deeds in the manor were like King Zhou and Su Daji who invented the heated bronze pillar torture – utterly outrageous.

Princess Qin suffered both physical and mental abuse, and by then her mental state was already poor.

This was exactly Prince Qin and Consort Deng’s purpose. They dared not directly kill Princess Qin, which would arouse suspicion from Northern Yuan and the Ming Emperor and Empress. So they deliberately tormented her body and mind, driving her mad. This way, even if Their Majesties sent imperial physicians to Xi’an Prefecture for examination, they could only say the princess had gone mad.

A mad princess falling into a pond or jumping to her death would be quite normal. Then they could elevate Consort Deng to principal consort, making her the new Princess Qin. Husband and wife working together to govern the fiefdom, then secretly raising private troops and assassins to murder the Crown Prince.

Once the Crown Prince died, according to the succession rules written in the Ming Dynasty’s “Imperial Ancestral Instructions” – “When there is a legitimate heir, establish the legitimate; when there is no legitimate heir, establish the eldest” – Second Prince Qin would be the undisputed choice for crown prince, and Lady Deng would become the crown princess… then Ming Empress, finally able to wear that empress outfit she could only wear privately for pleasure.

But Prince Qin and Consort Deng’s wishful thinking was shattered by Liu Siyan’s group who came to bestow books.

If it were ordinary rewards, Princess Qin would kowtow and bow like a puppet, Prince Qin would dismiss the rewarding eunuchs with heavy gold, and everything would continue as usual.

But female officials were different – besides bestowing books, they also had to explain them to Princess Qin and Consort Deng, which could easily cause trouble.

Upon hearing this news, Prince Qin quickly brought Princess Qin out of the separate courtyard and ordered physicians to treat her well, necessarily restoring her physical and mental health so Liu Siyan wouldn’t discover abnormalities.

Then he hid all the transgressing items in the manor, such as the five-clawed nine-dragon bed and Consort Deng’s empress clothing, in the manor’s ice cellars.

Once everything was properly handled, Liu Siyan’s group arrived at Xi’an Prefecture.

Prince Qin received them warmly. When Liu Siyan bestowed and explained books in the manor, Consort Deng pretended to be respectful, sitting below Princess Qin, but was actually supervising the princess to prevent her from having alone time with Liu Siyan.

On the other side, Prince Qin used sightseeing as an excuse to take the accompanying Embroidered Uniform Guards around the city for entertainment, trying to minimize the Guards’ time in the manor.

However, despite all precautions, there was one oversight. Princess Qin’s loyal servants wrote down Prince Qin and Consort Deng’s ten great evil deeds on paper and stuffed it into Liu Siyan’s breakfast bun.

Liu Siyan was greatly shocked and dared not act on her own. She secretly consulted with the accompanying Embroidered Uniform Guards on strategy. After all, this involved Prince Qin’s treasonous attempt to seize the heir apparent position. Without evidence, how could they return to the palace to report? Prince Qin was the emperor’s beloved son, not some civil or military minister who could be executed first and reported later.

Since the evidence was in the ice cellars, they would explore the cellars to investigate and find evidence, then return to the capital.

The Embroidered Uniform Guards went down into the ice cellars at night and saw the five-clawed nine-dragon bed and complete set of empress clothing.

But they were also discovered by surveillance, who closed the cellar doors. Prince Qin came to catch them like turtles in a jar, netting all the Embroidered Uniform Guards, and also killed Liu Siyan, cutting off her tongue and mixing it into Princess Qin’s food. Only after she unknowingly ate it did they reveal Liu Siyan’s fate.

Prince Qin threatened the violently retching Princess Qin: “If you don’t behave and speak nonsense again, committing the crime of loose tongue, I can’t touch you, but I can touch other people’s tongues.”

From then on, Princess Qin dared not touch any meat or fish, not even vegetable oil. She became thin as a paper person. Not only that, with her spirit nearly collapsed, she felt any meat might come from human bodies and couldn’t even smell meat.

When Consort Deng gave birth and Prince Qin’s manor distributed meat buns, Princess Qin immediately became stimulated upon smelling meat, recalling that terrible scene of being tricked into eating Liu Siyan’s tongue. Her madness immediately attacked – she felt there were problems with the meat buns, that Liu Siyan and the others were in the buns, on the chopping boards, in the cooking smoke – everywhere.

Liu Siyan’s group had gone without return. Prince Qin knew the capital would certainly send a second wave to inquire, so he seized Liu Siyan’s Embroidered Uniform Guard clothes, badges, permits, banners, and other items, destroyed their bodies and eliminated traces, then used trusted Prince Qin manor troops to impersonate them, pretending to leave the city and traveling all the way to Zhouzhi County post station before “disappearing.”

The eighteen strongholds’ bandits here were quite famous – perfect scapegoats.

When the second wave from the capital came to inquire, Prince Qin’s manor would fully assist the Embroidered Uniform Guards in “suppressing bandits.” This was simple – secretly plant a few items from the gift list for Their Majesties to frame the eighteen strongholds.

People disappeared at the eighteen strongholds, items were found at the eighteen strongholds. As for why they remained missing without bodies found – Zhouzhi County’s terrain was complex with many bottomless gorges and caves, perfect for disposing of corpses. All evidence pointed to the eighteen strongholds’ bandits.

Prince Qin knew the Embroidered Uniform Guards’ usual investigation style – not relying on wisdom, basically using beatings and intimidation.

It didn’t matter if bandits refused to confess. Once the Embroidered Uniform Guards used various cruel torture methods from the imperial prison, forced confessions would pin this blame firmly on the bandits. The Embroidered Uniform Guards would behead all the bandits, close the case, and everyone would be happy.

After hearing Princess Qin’s tearful accusation, Hu Shanwei and the others wanted nothing more than to peel away Prince Qin and Consort Deng’s skin and flesh to see if their hearts were black!

The loyal servant beside the princess also rolled up her trouser legs, revealing horrible scars on her knees – iron evidence of being forced to rub ginger on her knees and crawl up mountain slopes on her knees, dragging two trails of blood on the gravel road to bring food to the princess!

Hu Shanwei turned her face away, unable to bear looking. Shi Baihu pounded the ground, crying, “This is too damn cruel! Compared to this pair of dogs, we bandits have bodhisattva hearts!”

Princess Qin also said, “The young servant beside the head steward responsible for announcements is called Ma Sanbao – one of the boys and girls Prince Qin plundered when campaigning against Western barbarians. Ma Sanbao has an intelligent and resilient character. After being cruelly castrated, he was ordered about while his wounds were unhealed. I pitied him and secretly gave him some pills – he’s the only boy who survived.”

“To repay the favor, Ma Sanbao endured humiliation to survive, ingratiated himself with the head steward. Because he’s a eunuch, he can move freely between inner and outer courtyards. He contacted my brother’s subordinates and planned ways to rescue me. When your fox fur exposed your identity today, he quietly told me.”

Hu Shanwei recalled that when showing goods to the head steward at Prince Qin’s manor, there was indeed a handsome young servant responsible for announcements – actually a pitiful castrated boy.

Princess Qin said, “Prince Qin, that beast worse than animals, will certainly deal with you the same way he dealt with Liu Siyan – he’ll also cut off your tongue. So I simply used the excuse of burning incense and fulfilling vows at Great Compassion Temple to send word and bring you out. You’ll leave the city with me and return to the capital together. I’ll file an imperial complaint and expose Prince Qin’s true face.”

Hu Shanwei asked, “All the major city gates of Xi’an have Prince Qin’s manor troops guarding them. You came to Great Compassion Temple to burn incense and fulfill vows with Prince Qin’s spies outside – how do we escape?”

Before Princess Qin could speak, the loyal servant beside her knelt and said, “I will take the princess’s place at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. The princess will disguise herself as a monk and leave with you.”

After speaking, the loyal servant put on Princess Qin’s black sable cloak, pulled up the hood, and stood at the pagoda top leaning on the rail gazing into the distance, occasionally giggling madly.

Princess Qin changed into monk’s robes. Young servant Ma Sanbao came up with a sharp blade and shaved off her three thousand worries, throwing all the hair into a brazier.

Without hair, a person seemed to have a different head entirely. Princess Qin put on a monk’s hat and shaved Ma Sanbao’s head – the young servant immediately became a bald little novice.

Four people, two monks, escaped outside the city. It was nearly evening. Shi Baihu released distinctive blue-green fireworks into the sky – this was their agreed retreat signal. Seeing the signal, the other six wouldn’t return to the inn to meet but would each go their separate ways, gathering again only in the capital.

Shi Baihu hired two carriages at a mule and horse market outside the city. Hu Shanwei opened the map: “Return by the original route, don’t take small roads. If we’re lucky, we’ll meet Ji Gang halfway. Ji Gang has three hundred elite Embroidered Uniform Guards – he’ll protect us back to the capital.”

Shi Baihu obeyed, driving the carriage along the original route, disappearing into the flying snow.

When night fell, guards from Great Compassion Temple climbed the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda to urge the princess to return to the manor, but the princess paid them no heed.

Not only that, the princess’s frail, thin body climbed over the railing and fell, like a black butterfly dancing in the air with the goose-feather snow, then with a snap, became a bloody butterfly…

At Xi’an city’s gate prison, one of the nine-person undercover investigation team – a bandit hundred-household commander – was caught by the head steward’s trailing spies while trying to slip through and escape the city. After various tortures, the bandit hundred-household revealed the truth: “The blue-green fireworks above the south city gate just now were the retreat signal – they’ve already returned to the capital.”

When this news reached Prince Qin, his wild joy at having a son immediately transformed into wild fury.

“Tell Commander Lu to mobilize Prince Qin manor’s five thousand troops immediately! Fast horses to pursue! Don’t leave a single one alive!”

Commander Lu received the order and deployed troops in the darkness.

On the post road, Hu Shanwei’s group indeed encountered Ji Gang’s three hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards.

However, Hu Shanwei felt no joy at this victorious rendezvous. She shouted at Ji Gang: “Turn around! Go back! Don’t go forward!”

Ji Gang was bewildered: “Why? I finally rushed over here, and Xi’an city is right ahead.”

Hu Shanwei had no time to explain. She opened the carriage door and pointed to Princess Qin wearing a head covering: “You’ve served in the palace for several years – you should recognize her, right?”

Ji Gang held up a torch to illuminate: “Prin… Princess Qin?”

Princess Qin nodded: “Prince Qin and Consort Deng conspired to seize the heir apparent position, making dragon beds and empress clothing themselves. I must go to the capital to report to Their Majesties.”

Ji Gang asked: “What about Liu Siyan and the others?”

At the mention of Liu Siyan, Princess Qin’s illness flared again. She clutched her throat and kept retching: “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have told her, I harmed her…”

Rambling incoherently like a madwoman.

Ji Gang didn’t understand but realized Liu Siyan’s group had already met with disaster. At this moment, a scout with a Western telescope came to report: “Commander Ji! There are pursuers ahead! Judging from the length and width of the torches’ spread, there should be over three thousand people!”

Hu Shanwei’s expression changed: “It’s Prince Qin’s manor troops! The manor has five thousand troops!”

Ji Gang only had three hundred Embroidered Uniform Guards. Even with superior equipment, they couldn’t withstand such numbers!

What to do?

At this moment, Chen Xuan, chief of the eighteen strongholds beside Ji Gang, said: “Too many people makes running difficult. Our eighteen strongholds are easy to defend and hard to attack. Combined with the Embroidered Uniform Guards’ firearms, we should be able to hold for a while. Once our Weifeng Escort Agency delivers your distress message and reinforcements arrive, we can break the siege. If you don’t mind the eighteen strongholds’ crudeness, you can come with us to the mountain stronghold to take shelter. We’ll take small paths and shortcuts to avoid the pursuers.”

With things having developed to this point, everything was completely out of control – this was the best choice.

Ji Gang and Hu Shanwei exchanged glances and said in unison: “Let’s go!”

On the dark, windy escape route, everyone fled to the eighteen strongholds. As they closed the mountain gates, Prince Qin’s manor troops had already arrived, and dawn was breaking.

Commander Lu was about to launch a general attack, lighting the cannon fuses to blast open the mountain gates, when suddenly a banner fluttered from the southeastern horizon.

The characters couldn’t be clearly seen, but obviously it was a triangular military flag.

Not knowing what force this was and fearing to alarm passing troops, Commander Lu had to cut the fuses and wait for the army to pass before launching the attack.

Under a half-worn military flag with the character “Feng,” the stubbly Assistant Regional Military Commissioner Mu Chun raised his whip. Snow had formed icicles in his beard as he pointed to Zhouzhi County post station ahead, like Cao Cao with his “quench thirst by thinking of plums”: “Everyone hold on a bit longer! We’ll reach Zhouzhi County post station soon. Everyone can eat, bathe, feed the horses, and rest for a day. We’ll set off again tomorrow!”

Mu Chun was escorting military cotton clothing to the northwest frontier, and to reunite with Sister Shanwei in Xi’an sooner, he traveled day and night through wind and snow.

All the Eagle Guard subordinates were cursing him:

“Soon, soon! All you know is saying soon! This is the umpteenth ‘soon’ – who are you fooling? Why was I so stupid to come to the northwest frontier with a shameless bastard like you? My brain must have been waterlogged then!”

“I’m not walking anymore! I’ll camp and sleep right here in the snow – I’m about to die of exhaustion.”

At the eighteen strongholds, Hu Shanwei stood on the watchtower and saw through a Western telescope the young general who was arguing with his subordinates.

Several subordinates, in great anger, pulled the young general from his horse, insisting on camping and resting in the wilderness. The young general struggled with his subordinates. In the fighting, his subordinates pulled off the young general’s cotton hat, revealing his true face.

Despite the stubble, she recognized him at once.

It really was Mu Chun!

Hu Shanwei’s eyes brightened. Mu Chun might be late, but he was never absent. Mysteriously, he had already entered her life.