“What?” Historian Lin suddenly turned pale with shock, crying out with a voice full of astonishment and disbelief.
Seeing his reaction, Chu Li couldn’t help but narrow his eyes slightly, his voice gradually turning cold: “Don’t concern yourself with this matter anymore. Go back.”
With that, he waved his hand. The guards urged the white horses, and the dragon carriage slowly drove in the direction they had come from. Even after traveling far, Qing Xia could still see Historian Lin’s boots and official robes, kneeling dazedly on the ground as if he had lost his life, without the slightest vitality.
“Your Highness, it’s already the third watch. Do you still want to leave the city?”
Qing Xia’s spirits were instantly lifted, but after a long wait, she heard Chu Li’s voice say flatly: “Return to the Eastern Palace.”
Qing Xia’s heart immediately plummeted from heaven to the depths. She heard the guard continue: “Then this servant will go notify them first. Which palace does Your Highness wish to stay in tonight? The day before yesterday, Concubine Dan sent someone to report that her palace had received fresh fruits tribute from Prince Wansi of the southern border vassal state, wanting to invite Your Highness to taste them. Also, Concubine Chen…”
“I’m not going anywhere. Return to the Eastern Palace main hall.” Interrupting the guard’s words, Chu Li said coldly, then spoke no more. The dragon carriage slowly turned around and headed toward the Eastern Palace main hall.
Chu Li now held the military power of the entire nation, already noble as a ruler of the country, only lacking the formal enthronement ceremony. The Eastern Palace guards were even more heavily secured. Qing Xia knew that once inside the Eastern Palace gates, escaping would be even more difficult. At this moment, the dragon carriage happened to pass a turn where dense exotic flowers and plants grew luxuriantly to over half a person’s height. Qing Xia held her breath and suddenly performed a side roll, rolling sideways into the flower bushes with lightning speed, silently leaving that deadly dragon carriage.
Not a single person noticed. After a while, Chu Li’s entourage gradually moved away. In the darkness, a slender figure suddenly flashed out from the bushes and ran in the opposite direction.
In the pitch-black night, Qing Xia moved like a wildcat, silently approaching the Yongle Gate. She picked up a stone and threw it toward nearby bushes with a bang.
“Who’s there?” The two guards at the gate were immediately startled, cautiously raising their spears. They exchanged glances—one carefully walked toward the bushes while the other remained on guard at his post.
As soon as that person’s figure disappeared into the bushes, Qing Xia instantly sprang up like a fierce beast, viciously leaping from the ground to pounce on the remaining guard. In a flash, that guard only saw a black shadow descending from above. Before he could see clearly what it was, Qing Xia suddenly dropped from the air, her five fingers forming claws, pressing precisely on the major artery in his neck. With a spell of dizziness and oxygen deprivation, the man softly collapsed unconscious.
She quickly supported the guard’s body, letting him lean against the corridor pillar. Before she could hide, the other guard returned.
She grabbed the unconscious guard’s body and hid behind him. The night was pitch black, and the lighting here wasn’t bright either—after all, this was just a small palace gate that led neither outside the palace nor to the inner palace, but directly to the civil and military court hall where the emperor held morning audiences. In former times, this would have been considered an important place, but since the late emperor’s enthronement, the number of morning court sessions could be counted on one hand—less than ten days total. Thus, this place had gradually fallen into disuse. Instead, the Eastern Palace main hall buzzed with voices every morning, becoming the new center of power in South Chu.
“There’s nothing at all. I told you you’re being overly cautious.”
The guard grumbled as he returned to his position, leaning against the door pillar and letting out a lazy sigh. Lowering his voice, he said: “This night is really damn cold. Tomorrow’s our day off—let’s go to Mantangchun together and have some fun.” Seeing no response from his companion beside him, the guard became somewhat suspicious. Turning his head to look, he couldn’t help but curse: “Damn it, you fell asleep fast. Stop sleeping—didn’t you just wake up? It’s my turn to sleep now.” He reached out to push his companion’s shoulder.
“Bang!” Without much force, the unconscious guard’s body immediately fell to the ground with this gentle push. The young soldier stared wide-eyed, seeming unable to process what had happened. It was only in that split second that he saw Qing Xia hiding behind the fallen guard.
“Ah… sorry about this.” Swift action, tremendous force—the next second, this unfortunate soldier fell to the ground just like his friend. Qing Xia took out three silver needles from her chest—items she had brought from Lanting Palace and kept prepared all along, now perfectly useful. Accurately locating the acupoints, she inserted the three silver needles into the soldier’s back neck.
This technique was something Qing Xia had learned from a pharmacist at Division 11 back in the modern era. The Military Intelligence Agency had put considerable effort into recruiting this barefoot doctor from an impoverished mountain area. The main thing was that while this doctor’s medical skills weren’t exceptional, he possessed brilliant acupuncture hypnosis techniques with godlike precision. No matter which part of the body, three silver needles would guarantee complete memory loss of the previous fifteen minutes. After a Military Intelligence colleague paid the heavy price of losing over ten memories, they finally bribed the old traditional doctor’s wife with a sack of white flour to bring this master out of the mountains.
Qing Xia had never been talented at studying medicine, so she only learned this basic skill of neck acupoint location. But even this basic knowledge had saved Qing Xia countless times during operations. Although Qing Xia was an agent, she wasn’t an assassin—she never killed unnecessarily. After dealing with these two guards, Qing Xia straightened their bodies and leaned them against the door pillars, making them look as if they were sleeping.
Passing through the palace gate, she headed straight for the Civil and Military Hall. Her plan was quite thorough: after reaching the Civil and Military Hall, she would steal a third-rank guard uniform, infiltrate the imperial city guards, wait for dawn, then leave the city together with Chu Li’s personal guards. Then she would hide in the military camp for a few days before finding another way to escape South Chu.
Although this was the most dangerous method, it was also the most effortless. Even if Chu Li received news that Zhuang Qing Xia had escaped, he would certainly search the entire city or pursue toward Qi State. He would never expect that the person he sought was right in his own camp. Once the commotion died down, Qing Xia would have long since fled. No matter how capable Chu Li might be, he would never find her again in this lifetime.
Stealing clothes from the guards’ dormitory in the Civil and Military Hall was as easy as pie. As an agent, one of the most crucial points in survival protocols was possessing superior disguise skills to cleverly escape under various identities at any time and place. Even without the sophisticated makeup tools of the modern era, Qing Xia still used primitive methods to quickly abandon her original appearance.
Tightening the scalp, raising the eyebrows, drawing with eyebrow pencil to change eye shape, adding a mustache, concealing lip shape, applying silver powder to the face to highlight cheekbones, adding shoulder padding inside the guard uniform, deliberately thickening the waist, slightly increasing height with shoe inserts, and finally cutting off her knee-length beautiful hair with one stroke, leaving the remainder to hang over her shoulders and barely reach her waist. She nimbly tied it into a topknot, fixed the bangs, and exposed her blackened forehead. Using a sharp dagger as a mirror, she looked exactly like a crude soldier—not a trace of femininity remained.
“Form ranks! His Highness is leaving the palace!” A loud shout suddenly came from outside. The sleeping imperial city guards immediately awakened. Qing Xia hid in the shadows of the lamplight and got a free viewing of naked men awakening—countless naked men dressing before her, quite a spectacular sight.
In less than the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, everyone had formed ranks. Qing Xia mixed into the crowd and quickly ran to the square, waiting for the arrival of South Chu’s future sovereign.
Modern science has verified that when a person has just awakened, their defensive capabilities are at their weakest. The men had just been drowsy and didn’t notice that their ranks suddenly included this short but sturdy little guard. Now standing around bored, most people’s eyes turned to this area.
“Hey? You’re not from our squad—you’re from Group Two, right? You’re standing in the wrong place.” A soldier with a full beard suddenly spoke up.
A thin guard next to him kindly pointed toward a direction over a hundred meters away: “Group Two is over there.”
“Oh, thank you, big brother.” Changing her voice was child’s play for Qing Xia. Speaking in a rough voice: “I’m from the outer city’s Green Standard Army, just transferred to the imperial guards. I only arrived last night, and since all you brothers were sleeping, I didn’t dare disturb you.”
“From the outer city’s Green Standard Army!” The bearded man said loudly, then suddenly called out: “Yang Feng! Another person from your Green Standard Army!”
A young man in dark blue leather armor immediately turned around upon hearing this. With sword-like eyebrows and starry eyes, sharp and penetrating gaze, his entire being radiated competence and alertness. His tiger-like eyes carried a smile as he gave a slight smile to the bearded man and others before walking over.
But Qing Xia’s hands and feet immediately turned ice cold. She cursed her bad luck—Yang Feng was extremely eager for promotion and wealth. If he saw that she wasn’t from the Green Standard Army, wouldn’t he immediately expose her? If these people only took her for a guard desperate to join the imperial guards, that would be fine. Even if they considered her a spy would be acceptable. What she feared most was if this man saw through her true identity and alerted Chu Li—then if she ever wanted to escape from the cold palace again, it would be extremely difficult.
She had calculated everything except that someone could actually leap from a lowly Green Standard Army miscellaneous soldier in the outer city to become an imperial city guard. She had no idea what opportunities this young man had encountered to rise so rapidly.
The young soldier’s brow furrowed slightly, a sharp cold gleam flashing in his eyes as he walked over step by step, stopping one meter in front of Qing Xia. His lips pressed tightly together, his head tilted slightly to one side, looking at Qing Xia with some confusion, his hand gripping his blade involuntarily tightening. Although the others hadn’t noticed Yang Feng’s unusual behavior, Qing Xia was concentrating entirely on observing his reaction—how could she miss such obvious emotions?