In the dim room, Chen Ji slowly opened his eyes.

The doors and windows in the dark room were closed, and the moon could only cast hazy light and shadow through the white paper window.

He heard the gentle footsteps outside the door getting farther and farther away, and finally went downstairs.

Chen Ji lay flat on the bunk, slowly stuffed the dagger back into his sleeve, and breathed a sigh of relief: at least those guests with knives were not here to assassinate them.

No wonder Prince Jing, an old man like him, didn't notice the problem with this inn. No wonder Prince Jing had to go out incognito even if he was ill. It turned out that everything was for tonight's meeting.

But Chen Ji suddenly thought again: Who is meeting Prince Jing? What does the other party want to talk to Prince Jing about?

rebellion!

Apart from this, Chen Ji couldn't think of anything else that would require a powerful lord to come to the small county town incognito and keep a meeting so secret.

He sighed in his heart, thinking of rebellion.

Once involved in this kind of thing, I am afraid that the life and death of Prince Jing and the whole family will be uncertain. Taking Ning Shi as an example, civil servants who disobey the emperor may still have a way to survive, but the vassal princes have no way to survive at all. Some vassal princes were put in cages

Steamed to death, a vassal king was sealed in a room and starved to death. The methods of death were bizarre and extremely cruel.

If things fail, the prince, Bai Li...

However, what Chen Ji is now more confused about is who the person Prince Jing wants to see is, Mr. Liu Gun and Liu Ge? Or... the head of the Military Intelligence Department of Jing Dynasty!

He let out a long breath, slowly sat up, and looked at all the tenants carefully.

Mr. Wang, the Crown Prince and others went to bed early after a long journey, and the other tenants were sleeping very deeply, snoring loudly.

Chen Ji sat on the bunk and hesitated for a moment, but finally got up quietly, quietly walked to the window, opened the window a little and looked out.

He did not dare to open the gap wider, so he could only scan the yard through the gap from different angles.

Outside the window is the backyard. Parked in the backyard are a horse-drawn carriage, several bullock carts, and boxes of goods on the bullock carts.

Several men in black were scattered in the courtyard, vaguely guarding something.

Chen Ji looked aside and saw a man wearing a black robe standing quietly under the thatched eaves of the stable, waiting calmly.

This is the person Prince Jing wants to see!

Chen Ji changed his angle and looked, trying to see the other person's appearance clearly. But the other person's upper body was blocked by the eaves of the thatched shed, so he couldn't see his face at all, and couldn't tell his age.

At this time, there was a faint light reflection on the waist of the man in black robe, which was a jade pendant.

The ancients said that if a gentleman has no reason, the jade will not leave his body.

Ordinary literati and nobles would wear jade around their waists, but the jade that most people wear is either white or cyan, but this person is wearing a black jade!

The so-called gentleman is like jade has always been used to describe a gentleman with noble moral character. What kind of person would wear a piece of black jade?

While thinking, Prince Jing followed a man in black out of the inn and came to the stables.

Prince Jing's posture was upright, and the people under the stable were neither humble nor arrogant, and showed no intention of saluting. The two men spoke in extremely low voices, and Chen Ji couldn't hear them at all on the second floor.

In the courtyard, a man in black casually glanced at the second-floor window. Chen Ji was startled and leaned back slightly to avoid being discovered by the other party.

In the gap, he saw the other party's eyes glancing over, but he didn't react at all. He just looked around other places in the courtyard as if nothing had happened.

Chen Ji breathed a sigh of relief.

However, the next moment, he felt something was wrong... There was one less man in black in the courtyard!

Chen Ji quickly backed away without hesitation, lying flat on his bunk and taking a nap.

After a few short breaths, he heard the wooden door to the front door creak and be slowly pushed open.

A man in black was holding a long knife and looking around the room with a solemn expression. Seeing that everyone was sleeping, he gently leaned down and looked at everyone's eyelids in the dim moonlight.

If a person is not asleep, his eyelids cannot help but tremble, and it is absolutely impossible to fake it.

Chen Ji didn't expect that the entourage brought by the man in black robe downstairs would be so alert. He could notice something strange just by opening the window slightly.

Not only that, the other party didn't say anything when he noticed something strange, but calmly and quietly motioned for people to go upstairs to check... Chen Ji didn't even know when the other party passed the news to his colleagues.

The man in black hung the long knife between Chen Wenzong's neck, leaned over and stared at Chen Wenzong's eyelids quietly. If there was any movement, the blade would probably cut Chen Wenzong's arteries immediately.

After dozens of breaths, the man in black slowly stood up, moved a step to the right, leaned down in front of Chen Wenxiao and repeated what he had just done.

The other party was extremely serious and focused, and did not intend to let go of anyone suspicious.

Time passed bit by bit, and when he saw there were two or three people left, he found Chen Ji. Chen Ji immediately controlled the ice flow in his body to spread from his dantian, pulling himself into the dark sea of ​​clouds.

After a while, the man in black leaned over to inspect Chen Ji, and the cold knife stopped at Chen Ji's neck, as if it was about to fall at any moment.

However, Chen Ji's eyelids were motionless, nothing unusual.

After dozens more breaths, the man in black relaxed and then checked on the Crown Prince beside him.

There were more than ten people sleeping in the house, and no one was missed.

After everything was checked, the man in black quietly walked out of the house with a knife.

He whispered to his colleagues waiting outside the door: "They are all asleep. Did you see it wrong just now?"

Another person looked puzzled: "I clearly remember that the windows on the second floor were originally closed tightly, but now there is a gap in that window. Besides, who would sleep with the window open in this cold winter?"

"That's right," the man in black in charge of the inspection said in a low voice, "How about killing them all? There must be no leaks about Prince Jing's meeting with you tonight!"

The other person narrowed his eyes slightly: "I can't make the decision on this matter. Just stay here and I'll ask Prince Jing. No, you can't ask Prince Jing. You have to ask your Excellency alone."

…

…

The cockcrow sounded.

The prince patted Chen Ji next to him: "Hey, wake up, how come you can sleep better than me?"

Chen Ji opened his eyes and immediately looked at where Prince Jing was lying with his peripheral vision. He saw that Prince Jing had just stood up and said with a smile: "We have to set off quickly, otherwise we won't be able to reach Luhun Villa before dark."

.”

There was no strange color on King Jing's face, as if everything that happened last night was just a dream of Chen Ji. But the man in black would not lie, and Chen Ji would not lie even after being chased by Feng Huai all night long.

Is the crisis over?

Have the people who came to see Prince Jing left?

The traces were unknown. He didn't know what happened after he fell asleep, but it seemed that he had passed by in a blur.

He got up, went downstairs with the prince, squatted in the yard, broke off willow branches, and brushed his teeth clean.

While he was brushing the brush, Prince Jing squatted aside without any airs and asked as if nothing had happened: "Did you sleep well last night?"

The prince said helplessly: "Dad, this inn is extremely cold, and the bedding is still smelly. If you hadn't insisted on concealing your identity, we could have stayed in the palace of the prince, and there would have been people burning charcoal to keep warm."

"You should go out and suffer every year, so that you can know how the people live," King Jing scolded with a smile, then turned to ask Chen Ji: "What about you, how did you sleep?"

Chen Ji smiled and replied: "It's not bad. I sleep like crazy. It's the same everywhere."

Prince Jing said, "That's good."

At this time, Princess Baili and Zhang Xia walked out of the inn together hand in hand, and did not separate until they entered the backyard.

Zhang Xia said to Bai Li, "Wait a moment, I'll go to the shopkeeper to break off the willow branches and get some green salt for you."

Bai Li smiled and said: "Okay."

When Zhang Xia went to the front hall in a hurry, the prince looked at Bai Li and was inexplicably shocked: "You two were incompatible before entering the house yesterday. Why are you holding hands so early in the morning?!"

Bai Li smiled and said: "We chatted until midnight last night, and I found that Zhang Xia is actually not a bad person, but he is a little too straightforward and not as domineering as I imagined."

The prince sighed: "You girls, your emotions are like a gust of wind. They come and go as quickly as they come!"

Bai Li glanced at him sideways: "Ask less about girls' affairs."

Prince Jing stood up and threw away the wicker stick, put the straw hat on his head again, and said casually: "After washing, go out quickly, we still have to hurry."

"Okay," the prince responded.

When the sky was bright, everyone got on the bullock cart and set off towards Luhun Villa.

Chen Ji silently looked around, only to find that when the ox cart was driving, several young men dressed as scholars were carrying boxes and cages at the same time, following behind the ox cart, chatting and laughing, neither getting closer nor going further.
Chapter completed!