Their plan for those two men was for them to kill the wicked concubine if they had failed. However... didn"t the Han Emperor already kill the wicked concubine on their behalf? So, how could the target suddenly change to the Emperor?!
If someone searched for the perpetrator, they planned to let those two men point at the eunuch who hired them to begin with. No matter who the eunuch"s master was, they didn"t care. It wasn"t their business anyway to care about the power struggle inside the palace --- they just needed to get their revenge and leave the mess behind.
"Is this Feng Yong Rui"s doing?" Yao Ling whispered softly at Yao Ying. However, why would he do that? He was so loyal to the Han Emperor, so it didn"t make sense for him to do this.
The latter murmured his agreement, "I think so as well." Feng Yong Rui was very powerful inside his mind, thus, he was very sure that this must have something to do with him. He saw with his eyes how many people in the place who were actually Feng Yong Rui"s men --- all of them weren"t arranged for one or two days because most of them had quite high positions inside the palace.
Arranging them with such a meticulous method would need a long term plan and Yao Ying believed that Feng Yong Rui must have been planning this for a long time. But... for what?
They felt that something wasn"t right but they couldn"t understand which part. Xiao Fang, who was always a bit slow, felt confused as well, but she tried to find a reasonable reason for this matter.
Yao Ying and Yao Ling"s suspicion was slightly dispelled when Xiao Fang said, "Maybe father wants to avenge the grievance for us?"
If Xiao Fang had put it that way, it was certainly making sense. They could see how much Feng Yong Rui doted on Xiao Fang. However, Yao Ling didn"t think that it was that simple.
When Yao Ling was going to think more about it, her name was called from behind by a man, "Yao Ling..."
She turned around happily because she recognized the voice. She quickly saw Rong Qiu and her worry turned into relief, and relief turned into happiness. "Father!" She yelled loudly and quickly hugged Rong Qiu without paying attention to where she was.
Yao Ling looked at her father up and down, feeling slightly relieved when she didn"t find something amiss. However, she still asked perfunctory questions, "Are you okay? What happened to you? Did the Han Emperor do something to you?" She kept bombarding Rong Qiu with questions that made the latter didn"t know whether he should laugh or cry. How could he answer so many questions all at once? His daughter looked like a mother hen and he wondered which one the elder here? He found it really funny ah~!
Yao Ying could only shake his head at Yao Ling"s behavior, but he didn"t prevent her from doing so because he knew how worried she was all this time. He just wanted to let the woman be happy for a little while.
Lin Jian gave a suggestion, "Can we talk about this later? We should leave the palace first before catching up. Xiao Fang"s father will deal with the aftermath so we don"t have to stay in the palace anymore."
Lin Jian was able to see that several people were looking at their direction while whispering to each other --- they didn"t need to be gossiped at this time, after all, the palace was quite in a mess. It was better if they appeared low-key around this time.
Everyone nodded in agreement. Ah Man already prepared a way out for them but he didn"t follow them back to the prime minister"s manor. He let someone else sent them home with two big carriages.
"Why aren"t you coming with us?" Xiao Fang asked in confusion. The palace was in chaos and this was the perfect opportunity from them to be gone --- Ah Man wasn"t the palace"s people, so why did he want to come back inside?
Lin Jian nodded his head in agreement, "Yes ah~! It"s dangerous in there! They must be looking for a trace to see whether they were real ghosts or not and they could feel suspicious of an outsider such as you!"
Ah Man laughed and tried to placate them, "No need to worry! I will be fine. I have another matter to tend to inside the palace. Besides, someone needs to clean up the mess, right?"
Thus, they let him go because his argument was quite solid. Yao Ying and Yao Ling looked at each other but they felt that it was better not to care much about Feng Yong Rui"s matter, even though they already got a bad feeling. It seemed like they only needed to wait for the news about what happened next --- as long as it didn"t cross their interest, it didn"t matter to them anyway.
Yao Ling was hoping that the Han Emperor would be dead for real so that he could go to h.e.l.l and being tortured because of his misdeeds in this lifetime.
When they arrived back at the prime minister"s manor, Yao Ling finally could ask Rong Qiu freely about what happened. "Father, what happened to you? Why did the Han Emperor imprison you?" She asked with a worried smile.
Rong Qiu sighed. "Honestly, I never thought that the Han Emperor"s paranoia level would turn for the worst like that. He was suspicious of me and felt that I might be working together with the esteemed guest all along, he has never been this weird before... Under the pretense of entertaining me who has never come back to the capital all along, the Han Emperor investigated Hong Wen"s death. I can"t forget the way he sneered at me."
Rong Qiu honestly couldn"t understand the Han Emperor anymore... He knew that he wasn"t a good man before, but... his current personality... *sigh* Rong Qiu was speechless as well.
Yao Ling bit her lower lips. It seemed like the Han Emperor wasn"t as stupid as they thought of him --- this time, he put his paranoid personality on the right matter. "How did Uncle Feng Yong Rui save you?" She asked curiously.
Rong Qiu tilted his head to the side and seemed confused as well. "The funny thing was there was no resistance. It seemed like there was no hindrance just now... Ah Man directly picked me up at the courtyard where I stayed... The usual guards weren"t there at all. Was there something big happening inside the banquet? Ah Man put me in a safe place so I didn"t know what happened inside the palace."
It wasn"t weird for Rong Qiu not to know about this matter, but Yao Ying was concerned about there was no guards part. It seemed like this matter wasn"t as simple as it looked like from the outside. He sighed in relief. At least, they had been gone and there was no way the conspiracy would reach them.
Everyone was taking a turn to tell what happened back at the palace which made Rong Qiu gasp in surprise. "Something like that happened?!" He asked loudly.
The four youngsters nodded their heads at the same time.
"Where"s Feng Yong Rui now?" Rong Qiu asked.