Lu Hanjiang was sitting in the private room of the tea house, drinking tea by himself. Until now, he was still feeling a little unhappy. It was not because of any obsessive pursuit of perfection. He did not have that kind of morbid obsessive-compulsive disorder.
It was really a helpless move to capture Xi Qiu so quickly. No matter what, he couldn't let the backyard catch fire. In comparison, he had to make his cheap senior sister suffer for a while.
Although the emperor's birthday banquet will not be held, at such a delicate time, it is better not to have such a big event that can easily be heard by Datian, lest the old man does not want to vent his anger on the prince, but instead comes to trouble them, which would not be good. .
Over there, Huangfu Xiaoyuan had already changed into Xi Qiu's clothes. The two of them were similar in stature, so they didn't make any mistakes in these details.
"Sir." Huangfu Xiaoyuan waited for Lu Hanjiang's instructions.
Lu Hanjiang looked at her outfit, nodded and said, "After you go to the Yuan family, try not to talk too much, and go and find out in private who else in the Yuan family is the supporter of the Xiaoyao sect."
Hearing this, Huangfu Xiaoyuan said in a deep voice: "Do you think, sir, that there are other people planted by the Xiaoyao sect in the Yuan family?"
"It may not be a setup, but at least he knows something," Lu Hanjiang added more water to the teapot and said firmly: "It is such a big deal to make a marriage contract with the prince. Without the nod of the Yuan family, how could this matter be accomplished?"
"I understand."
Seeing that Lu Hanjiang had no other instructions, Huangfu Xiaoyuan simply packed up and went downstairs.
Qiu'er, the maid across the street, saw the disguised Xi Qiu coming out and hurriedly greeted her. Huangfu Xiaoyuan suddenly seemed to see the shadow of Xiao Qing. She didn't know how that silly girl was doing now. Did she have any problems? Listen to yourself and stay far away...
"Miss, what's wrong with you?" Na Qiu'er asked, looking at Huangfu Xiaoyuan who was in a state of confusion.
"...It's okay." Huangfu Xiaoyuan replied in a Xi Qiu voice and stopped talking.
Qiu'er saw that her young lady's eyebrows looked tired, so she stopped talking and helped her get into the carriage, heading all the way to Yuan's house.
After entering the Yuan family, Huangfu Xiaoyuan felt that this large family exuded an air of twilight from the inside out.
It stands to reason that as the new year is approaching, there should be a lot of people greeting and sending them off. Things like today happened at the emperor's birthday banquet, so it is natural for them to communicate with each other.
But the Yuan family prefers the corner that no one cares about. Even the servants who pass by are walking quickly with their heads lowered. The whole house is lifeless and there is no warmth at all.
In order to find out the background of the Xiaoyao Sect, they had also found out the details of the Yuan family, and because Lu Hanjiang was lazy and asked Huangfu Xiaoyuan to come out to socialize many times, she remembered these Yuan family members to some extent.
It's a pity that she didn't meet many people from the Yuan family along the way, so all her efforts were in vain.
Huangfu Xiaoyuan returned to Xi Qiu's room without attracting anyone's attention. As soon as she stepped into the room, she felt something was wrong.
After careful sensing, Huangfu Xiaoyuan found that the temperature in Xi Qiu's bedroom was a little lower than outside, but not much. If she hadn't practiced martial arts and her senses were more sensitive than others, she wouldn't have noticed this. Click on the details.
Huangfu Xiaoyuan retreated from the people serving around her, closed the door alone, and explored the room. After a while, she discovered that the bed in this room was much higher than in ordinary people's homes.
After a brief observation, Huangfu Xiaoyuan fumbled around the bed, and sure enough, she found a hidden compartment. After she pressed it hard, the bed vibrated slightly, and actually bounced up a little, revealing a small hole.
gap.
Huangfu Xiaoyuan held the gap with both hands and pushed it upward gently. The bed board stood up, revealing the secret passage below.
"Sure enough, there is a secret passage..."
Huangfu Xiaoyuan narrowed her eyes, rummaged through the room to find the book of fire, picked up the candle lamp on the bedside table, and walked quietly into the secret passage.
Then, under the candlelight, Huangfu Xiaoyuan walked all the way down. There was no wind in the secret passage. She soon reached the end, which was a secret room. Just standing in front of the stone door of the secret room, she felt a chill.
Frowning, he did not push the stone door open. After confirming that there was no mechanism, Huangfu Xiaoyuan slowly walked in. The stone room was normal, except for some tables, chairs and benches, and a bed of ice.
Huangfu Xiaoyuan tried to touch the ice bed lightly with her hand, but immediately shrank back. After just a moment of touching, she felt the coldness coming from her fingertips was unbearable.
How could Xi Qiu succeed in cultivation in such a cold place?
With such doubts, Huangfu Xiaoyuan looked around and found that it was not too difficult to find. There were several books on the table nearby.
She walked over and picked up a book to look at. It was undoubtedly a martial arts secret book. There were three secret books stacked neatly here. The top one was Baihong Palm Power, and the middle one was Xiao Wuxiang Kung Fu. They were all martial arts from the Xiaoyao Sect.
The one at the bottom was a book on martial arts called Xuanyin Gong. Huangfu Xiaoyuan had never heard of it, so she started reading it.
This martial art seems to be divided into two parts. The first half is simple and easy to understand and quick to get started. Huangfu Xiaoyuan was about to try to practice the martial arts when she heard the sound of footsteps in her ears.
"Who is it?" Huangfu Xiaoyuan put down the secret book and said coldly.
There was a pause of footsteps, and the person who stopped outside the stone gate was none other than Qiu'er, who had just returned with her. At this moment, the maid still looked obedient and sensible, with a cold and indifferent look on her face, as if she was a different person.
"Miss, you are too careless. Why didn't you clean up the outside before coming down?" Qiu'er's words were still polite, but there was no respect in her words.
For a moment, Huangfu Xiaoyuan didn't know whether she was exposed or not. She just imitated Xi Qiu's tone and said coldly: "There have been a lot of things lately, so I have been negligent."
This time, Huangfu Xiaoyuan was overthinking it. Qiu'er, like her own young lady, never thought that the Lu Hanjiang they wanted to win over was their junior disciple of Xiaoyao Sect, "Qiao Cunsi".
The Jinyiwei Zhenfu envoy personally went out to pretend to be a good person in sheep's clothing. It was not considered a small test, but simply a meal and nothing to do. This was beyond their expectations.
And Qiu'er would never have thought that her young lady would be replaced during just a tea party, so she just thought that "Xi Qiu" was really tired.
Qiu'er just nodded indifferently, then hooked her fingers on her waist, and her emerald green outer shirt slipped from her shoulders, and then she took off her white inner garment. The pink dress could only barely cover her alluring figure.
The curves of her body revealed a pair of white jade arms.
However, Huangfu Xiaoyuan took a quick look and saw that Qiu'er's arm actually had several old and new ugly scars. At this moment, she even pulled out a short dagger and pressed the tip of the blade against her scarred arm.
"Wait a minute."
Just when Qiu'er's knife was about to strike, Huangfu Xiaoyuan stopped her. Seeing the maid looking at her with confusion, she calmed down and said, "I'm a little tired today."
Qiu'er stared at Huangfu Xiaoyuan indifferently, and put down the knife after a while: "Since the young lady is tired, there is no harm in continuing in a few days."
Huangfu Xiaoyuan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and left this strange place through the stone gate first, with a sense of escape, leaving Qiu'er alone in the quiet secret room, packing her clothes silently...