AWB Chapter 141: Long Stay 3
Chapter 141: Long Stay 3
The bright moon hangs over the fairy palace, and its light shines brightly!
This was the feeling that suddenly arose in Su Qinchao's heart when he climbed to the top of Changliu Peak and looked at the Changliu Palace, which looked like a fairy palace and shining with jade-white light under the moon.
Unlike ordinary Taoist temples, except for the imperial palace and palaces of royal family and nobles, Su Qinchao had never seen any place as grand and luxurious as Changliu Palace.
The jade-colored palace walls, the light blue glazed tiles, the finely crafted bluestone base, and the long steps paved with white jade, every detail is beautiful.
But who could have known that such a beautiful palace was inhabited by a group of executioners whose crimes were blamed for the deaths of many innocent children?
Su Qinchao sneered inwardly, jumped off the palace wall without leaving a trace, and using the shadow at the base of the wall, he slipped straight towards the warehouse where various lists were kept.
When he was looking for a bulletin board during the day, he saw an old beggar who looked relatively clean squatting at the foot of the wall not far away.
Based on past experience, he knew that apart from the know-it-alls who sold intelligence, the most well-informed people were the beggars hanging around in the city.
So after a brief conversation, Su Qinchao spent two coins and a pot of rice wine.
He got a map of Changliu Palace drawn with charcoal from the old beggar.
Although this map was simple, with only boxes and lines marking the approximate location, it did not hinder him from finding the location accurately.
In just half a minute, he successfully found the warehouse by following the markings on the map.
"Money, food, sesame oil, fruits, candles, household registration, I got it!" Su Qinchao muttered to himself, and looked for them one by one along the shelves marked with various lists.
Finally, in the last row, I found the shelf that contained the lists of Taoist children from previous years.
And successfully found the list of Taoist children included in Changliu in September last year in the bottom column.
After flipping through it briefly and finding Yun Qing's name and household registration on one of the pages, he stuffed it directly into his arms and planned to leave along the same way he came.
...
"My dear Su, please stay." Just as Su Qinchao had just climbed over the wall of Changliu Palace and was about to leave, patting his butt, a clear and peaceful voice suddenly came from behind him.
When he turned around, he saw an old Taoist priest in white clothes and beard, holding a whisk in his hand, looking like an immortal, standing not far away and looking at him kindly.
"You..." Seeing that it was an old Taoist priest, Su Qinchao subconsciously grasped the soft sword on his waist and looked at the other party vigilantly.
"Young friend Su, don't be nervous. The old Taoist Liu Yunzi is the Grand Elder of Beigong. He just wants to make a deal with you."
As Liu Yunzi spoke, he took out a stack of letters from his sleeve and handed them in the direction of Su Qinchao:
"This is the letter of conspiracy between my brother-in-law, Zhu Yunzi, and the prince of Qi."
"What do you mean?" Su Qinchao did not reach out to take it, although with this, the case was settled.
"There are more than 2000 disciples in the East and West Palaces of Changliu. I just want to find a way out for these innocent children."
Then Liu Yunzi explained the reason of the incident in detail with pain in his eyes.
It turned out that this was done by Liu Yunzi's younger brother Zhu Yunzi, out of greed, in collusion with the Prince of Qi when Liu Yunzi was in seclusion.
Liu Yunzi originally thought that by personally leading his younger brother in practicing Taoism for decades, he would be able to cultivate a bit of Taoism in his stubborn younger brother.
I didn't expect that my younger brother, who usually pretends to be well-behaved, could be so bad in private.
She took advantage of the fact that he was in seclusion and, despite the dissuasion of several inner disciples, insisted on agreeing to the Prince of Qi.
More than 300 newly recruited Taoist children were used to perform divination and sacrifice in order to stabilize the soul of the seriously ill King Qi and buy him a chance of life.
He knew that once the court found out about this, everyone in the palace would be implicated, so he proposed dividing the palace, hoping to preserve one part.
"You mean, those two hexagrams are not for summoning souls? Instead, they are for the King of Qi to stabilize his soul and exchange it for life?" Hearing this, Su Qinchao couldn't help but interrupt and ask.
"The Life and Death Qiankun Gua is meant to reverse life, how can it be meant to summon souls?" Liu Yunzi looked at Su Qinchao in surprise.
Nowadays, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is thin, and most of the immortals with high ranks have already ascended to the outer thirty-three heavens, let alone the Lord of Mount Tai.
Boys are the creatures with the most spiritual energy in the world. The younger the child, the more spiritual energy he has. Some of them with so much spiritual energy will not close their third eye until they are eight or nine years old.
Therefore, he was used by his younger brother to communicate Yin and Yang in exchange for the life of King Qi.
Now, things have come to this, and Liu Yunzi is powerless to change the situation, so he did some divination in advance and found the only hope for survival - Su Qinchao.
Afterwards, Su Qinchao chatted with Liu Yunzi for a long time before taking the stack of letters he handed over:
"I hope the princess will give you some leniency for your dedication to justice."
...
"It turns out that it is to stabilize the soul and reverse vitality!" After listening to Su Qinchao's retelling, Li Bicai suddenly realized, and the problem that he could not figure out before was also solved.
He had never understood why the King of Qi would do such a thing. He didn't expect that it was the Prince of Qi who did it. It seemed that the previous news that the King of Qi was seriously ill was true.
"Why is it so?" Su Qinchao still didn't quite understand. He didn't understand why the Prince of Qi would spend such a huge price to stabilize the soul of the King of Qi.
The King of Qi died, so wasn't he the successor? Shouldn't he just let nature take its course?
"No, the King of Qi is a one-character king. When the King of Qi is alive, the Qi Palace is in Chang'an and is unrivaled in dignity. If the King of Qi is gone, the Prince of Qi will be a two-character king and will have to step down a level."
"Even if you retire, you are still much more honorable than most members of the royal family!" Are you still not satisfied with this?
"General Su, you don't know that the King of Qi has only one son, the Crown Prince, who was raised by the Queen Mother to be neither good at literature nor martial arts, so it is difficult for him to take on important responsibilities.
If the King of Qi passes away, although he is still a prince, he will be squeezed out of the first-class nobles, and his status will gradually become worse year by year.
The King of Qi is only fifty now. If he can turn things around and spend another twenty years raising a capable grandchild, his status will be different by then."
"I see..."
...
Because they had the solid evidence of the conspiracy letters between Zhu Yunzi and the Prince of Qi.
So the next day Su Qinchao took Yun Qing and Li Bi on the journey back to Chang'an.
When they came, Su Qinchao and Li Bi were both full of thoughts and in a hurry.
When they returned, they looked relaxed and full of joy, not only because the case was solved successfully, but also because they could finally go home.
However, when there were still three days left to Chang'an, Su Qinchao always felt that someone was following him, but every time he turned around, he could not catch it.
Moreover, they mostly walked on official roads with many people coming and going, so they really had no idea where the man was hiding.
"What's wrong? Do you feel it again?" Li Bi saw Su Qinchao looking behind him from time to time and couldn't help but ask.
His martial arts skills were not as high as Su Qinchao's, so he couldn't feel anything at all.
"Yeah." Su Qin responded casually, then suddenly turned around.
This time, I happened to see a man riding a horse hurriedly lowering his head in the crowd not far behind me.
And when he saw him looking at him, he immediately turned his horse around and ran away.
"Found it!" Su Qin excitedly winked at Li Bi, handed Yun Qing over, and asked him to hold him and wait there.
He then drove his horse straight after it, and after chasing for a mile or two, he saw that it was still one or two horses' length away from the beast, so he pounced on it.