The secret room was not big, but it was well-equipped with everything including desks, small tables, chairs, and bookshelves. There were rows of books on the bookshelves, and dozens of oil lamps were placed on the grooved walls.
At this time, two men were standing in front of the desk in the secret room. One was wearing black clothes with a knife on his waist, and the other was wearing coarse linen clothes, dressed like country villagers.
As soon as the two men saw Cheng Zongyang coming down, they knelt down to say hello.
"I wish you well, my slave."
Cheng Zongyang glanced at the two men lightly, walked slowly to a chair nearby and sat down, but did not sit behind the desk.
"Did you take your tail with you when entering or leaving the capital?"
This question was asked to the subordinate in black closest to him.
"As I said, everything will be calm."
"Well, that's good."
Cheng Zongyang looked at another man dressed in rough linen and dressed as a country villager and said.
"You are Chi Nightmare's brother, Lao Wu."
The man called Lao Wu is of medium build and has an ordinary face, but his eyes flicker back and forth, which makes him look like a shrewd person at first glance.
"As for me, my servant is Lao Wu."
Cheng Zongyang looked at him carefully.
"Well, those two things were done well."
Lao Wu was still a little nervous, but now that he was praised by the Marquis, he immediately relaxed his guard.
"My father taught me well."
Cheng Zongyang chuckled.
"You are quite capable of getting things done. You have a more active mind than that dull guy from Chi Xiang."
"Tell me, do you want to stay in Beijing this time or return to the village?"
When Lao Wu heard this, he thought this was an opportunity. People go to higher places and water flows to lower places. He, Lao Wu, was about to have great luck. He immediately knelt down on the ground with a plop!
"As I said, this servant wants to follow the Marquis, but he will do his best for the Marquis."
The confidant standing aside and the man in black who brought Lao Wu smiled sinisterly at the same time.
Cheng Zongyang, who was sitting on the chair, curled up the corners of his lips almost invisibly.
"Come here and give me some wine."
"yes."
The confidant on the side also brought a glass of wine from nowhere.
Lao Wu knelt on the ground.
"Master Hou, this is-"
"How presumptuous. There is so much nonsense. The Marquis gave you wine and you still don't thank me."
The confidant smiled angrily.
Lao Wu raised his head and looked at the man in black who had brought him to Beijing. His heart that had relaxed his guard suddenly became tense again.
The man in black said calmly:
"If you want to follow the Marquis, this is the first hurdle."
"If you don't dare to drink even a glass of wine, go back to your mountain nest as soon as possible."
As for whether the wine was ordinary alcohol or poison, no one would tell him.
Lao Wu raised his hand tremblingly to take the drink, and glanced at the three of them, but all three of them were silent.
In this case, if he extended his head and retracted his head, it was also a sword. If he didn't want to go back to the mountain den and become a master, he could only bite the bullet and raise his head and drink it.
Seeing that a glass of wine was down, Cheng Zongyang asked without any movement or expression.
"How does the wine taste in this capital?"
"The reward given by the Marquis is better than the wine I drank before."
"Ha, hahaha! The wine in this capital tastes so good, but what about the women in the capital?"
Cheng Zongyang shrugged and smiled, turning to look at Lao Wu with a frivolous tone.
"How does Miss Hu taste?"
Lao Wu paused for a moment, his face that was originally quite ordinary suddenly gave way to a lewd smile.
"Ice muscles and jade bones make people linger and forget to leave."
Cheng Zongyang curled up the corners of his lips, and his last voice curled up slightly.
"You can die under peonies, and you can be a ghost even if you are a ghost. Lao Wu, you are worth it."
"What the Marquis said--"
Halfway through Lao Wu's words, his eyes suddenly widened, he grabbed his throat with both hands, and fell to the ground, his whole body twitching and shaking.
"Hou, Mr. Hou——"
Cheng Zongyang looked at his painful and twitching expression indifferently, as if looking at a painting.
"Just now, if you chose to go back to the village, I might let you go. Unfortunately, Sima Mansion is still useful to me, and you must die."
As Cheng Zongyang finished speaking, Lao Wu's body stopped twitching.
"Handed."
"yes."
The two confidants were very familiar with this kind of thing, and handling the corpse was as easy as handling chickens, ducks and fish.
From the time Lao Wu appeared to Lao Wu's death without a drop of blood, it only lasted half a cup of tea.
Cheng Zongyang stood up and walked to the desk. He did not touch or sit on the chair behind the desk. He carefully pressed it somewhere on the armrest. Then, a bamboo tube popped out from the armrest. He opened the bamboo tube and found that there was a palm-sized hand in the bamboo tube.
The letterhead seemed to be a message between him and a mysterious person.
After reading the message, he immediately lit it and turned the letter into ashes.
——
Xiao Mingxuan sent Luo Jiuli back to the Duke's mansion and visited the Duke's wife by the way.
Although in name it was very possible or even certain that he would be the prospective son-in-law of the Duke of Guo, in terms of status, the Duke's wife still showed appropriate distance and respect for him.
This respect has nothing to do with age, only status.
Therefore, this scene of the mother-in-law seeing her son-in-law did not achieve the expected effect.
When Xiao Mingxuan left the house, his face looked a little gloomy.
"Li'er, didn't you say your mother agreed?"
Luo Jiuli nodded.
"Yes."
"But, just now, I felt that your mother was very alienated from me. Even your sister was calling her a prince."
"It's completely different from singing praises to Pei Ting."
Luo Jiuli: Her silly prince.
"My lord, you and I are not married yet, and you and Pei Tingsong have different identities."
"What's more, there are differences between monarch and minister. You are the prince, my father is the Duke of the country, and although my mother is the royal wife, she is still a royal minister and the wife of the queen. Naturally, she must be respectful to the prince."
"This is the suppression of hierarchy and identity. For a moment, no one dares to take a step beyond the limit."
Xiao Mingxuan listened to her story and laughed and shook his head:
"It's just a slap in the face, aren't you the first person to cross the thunder pool?"
Luo Jiuli:
"I'm different."
"Why are you different?"
"My love for the prince--"
Luo Jiuli looked at his joking eyes, as if waiting for her to say this.
"My lord, you did it on purpose."
This man who pretends to be a pig and eats the tiger.
She really thought he didn't understand these things, but she didn't expect that she would be deceived by pretending to be stupid.
Xiao Mingxuan smiled, held her finger, suddenly raised his voice, and answered the question inappropriately.
"Did you just say that you and I are in love?"
The servants were hiding away from the maids and servants who were passing by, and they were talking with their backs to each other.
"Prince, what are you doing? So loud."
"Declaration of sovereignty."
Xiao Mingxuan still held her hand.
Luo Jiuli's group of embarrassing ones, in full view of everyone, still blushed in the end.
"Your Majesty is still under confinement, please return home quickly and be careful of the Emperor's punishment."
If he stayed for just one more second, he might actually dare to hug her and kiss her.
Although the two of them had intimate actions behind the scenes, they were not in front of people after all.