In the end, she failed to stop Lu Zixiu. Lu Zixiu leaped forward swiftly, drawing out the soft sword from his waist as he advanced. Seeing Lu Zixiu coming at him aggressively, the Left Prime Minister got scared and immediately hid behind the crowd. His adopted son, Zuo Fei, drew his sword and confronted Lu Zixiu.
However, Lu Zixiu's moves were powerful. Moreover, he was extremely angry, so his attacks were fierce. Zuo Fei soon found it hard to parry. Not only was his left arm scratched by Lu Zixiu's sword, but also several strands of his hair were cut off. He was gradually showing signs of defeat.
Mo Qinghuan looked up at the sky. It was already past midnight. She thought the time should be about right.
So she quickly stepped forward. Unexpectedly, she used too much strength, and the wound on her back seemed to be tearing. She didn't care about that and shouted to stop Lu Zixiu. "Zixiu, stop fighting. Do you really want to attract others?"
Hearing this, Lu Zixiu didn't know what she meant. He gradually stopped his moves and stepped back to her side.
Zuo Fei didn't seem to mean to make things difficult. He quickly retreated to the Left Prime Minister's side. At this moment, hearing what Mo Qinghuan said, the Left Prime Minister was even more convinced that there was a secret between the two of them.
Immediately, he stepped forward and sneered. "If the Princess Regent wants to use the mansion under my name, I naturally dare not object." Then he took out a bunch of keys from his waist and really started looking for the key to the house over whose wall the two of them had climbed just now.
Mo Qinghuan wasn't annoyed when she heard this. She stepped forward, gave a bright smile and said, "Okay. Since the Left Prime Minister is so generous, this princess won't decline."
The Left Prime Minister stopped what he was doing. He looked up at Mo Qinghuan, squinting his eyes. Looking at Mo Qinghuan's smile, he always felt something was wrong.
After all, as the Princess Regent, even if she really had the matter of keeping a male concubine, she wouldn't dare to do it so openly.
Just as he was thinking, he suddenly smelled a strange fragrance. He suddenly looked back and saw a puff of thick smoke rising above the Left Prime Minister's Mansion. Only then did he react and shouted, "No good! It's a ruse to lure the tiger away from the mountain."
After saying that, he led everyone straight to the Left Prime Minister's Mansion. Unfortunately, it was already too late when they got back.
The fire was raging into the sky, with thick smoke billowing. Mixed with the strange fragrance, it seemed a bit alluring. But on closer smell, the fragrance was overpowering and even a bit nauseating.
Seeing the Left Prime Minister leave, Mo Qinghuan pulled Lu Zixiu towards the General's Mansion. Along the way, Lu Zixiu looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. She noticed Lu Zixiu's gaze and said with a smile, "If Young Master Lu has something to ask, just ask directly. It's not good to hold it in like this."
Hearing that she still had the mood to make jokes, Lu Zixiu shook his head helplessly and said, "I just want to ask the princess if she knows what happened in the Prime Minister's Mansion?"
Mo Qinghuan looked at him, and the smile on her face deepened. "I've been with the young master. Since the young master doesn't know, how could I know?"
Lu Zixiu didn't argue with her. The two walked side by side towards the General's Mansion.
Qing Heng hadn't noticed that Mo Qinghuan had left the mansion. So when he saw her coming from outside the mansion with Lu Zixiu standing beside her, he immediately thought something was wrong.
The prince had specifically told him during the day not to let the princess run around randomly, let alone...
Alas, he seemed to have already imagined how dark Mu Yanming's face would be when he reported this to him.
However, even so, he couldn't hide it. Otherwise, if the prince found out later, he might as well just go and see the ancestors of the Qing family.
At this time, in the basement of the Prime Minister's Mansion, after the fire was put out, it was already in a complete mess and empty. All the things for the experiment had been burned to ashes.
The Left Prime Minister was like a madman. He grabbed the collar of the guard and scolded angrily, "You useless thing! How did the basement catch fire?!"
The person whose collar was grabbed was Lan Ting, the butler of the Left Prime Minister's Mansion and a person the Left Prime Minister trusted very much.
However, he really didn't know what was going on with this fire tonight...
He just went to pee, and the basement caught fire. The most crucial thing was that the people inside had been rescued without anyone knowing. He really thought it was incredible.
But this matter was indeed caused by his poor supervision, so he could only let the Left Prime Minister grab his collar like this, with his head down and saying nothing.
After the Left Prime Minister angrily punched him a few times, he stopped saying anything.
He punched his palm and thought that this matter was definitely not an accident. Then he remembered the news he had received before, saying that the Princess Regent and a man were acting furtively in front of a civilian house.
He sneered. "Mu Yanming, since you have a heart disease, you should just stay in your mansion and wait for death obediently, instead of deliberately annoying me. Since you are heartless, then I won't be merciful either! Zuo Fei, go and invite the person in charge of the Tianchuan Cult immediately. I'm going to fight Mu Yanming to the death!"
Hearing this, Zuo Fei was quite helpless, and there was also a look of worry on his face.
He thought for a while and finally chose to console him. "Father, this matter has been exposed. With the means of the Prince Regent, he will never spare you! In my humble opinion, father should leave the city overnight and go to the northwest."
The Left Prime Minister naturally refused. He stepped forward and gave Zuo Fei a heavy slap on the face. Zuo Fei had fair skin, and immediately there were five finger marks on it.
But he wasn't angry. He just patiently persuaded the person who had raised and taught him.
"Father, please listen to my advice. Please, for my sake!"
After saying that, he knelt on the ground with a thud. The sound was dull, and one could tell from the sound how hard he had knelt. But the Left Prime Minister still showed no pity or emotion.
Finally, when Zuo Fei wanted to say something else, he was pulled away by Lan Ting.
Lan Ting whispered in Zuo Fei's ear, "Your father will leave when he figures it out. You don't need to worry too much. Go and pack his luggage first."
Zuo Fei was speechless. He looked at Lan Ting and said, "Uncle Lan, aren't you going with him?"
Lan Ting seemed to take it very lightly, and there was no emotion in his voice. "I've been with the Prime Minister for more than ten years. Although he has done many wrong things, he has been good to me after all. In this huge Prime Minister's Mansion, I'll try to protect as many people as I can. It's a way to repay the Prime Minister for his kindness over the years."
He wasn't just being polite. Over the years, Lan Yiming had indeed been good to him. And he was all alone, while there were more than a hundred lives in the Prime Minister's Mansion.
After being persuaded by Lan Ting, Zuo Fei felt much more at ease. He immediately went to pack things for Lan Yiming.
After midnight, it was the fifteenth day of the eleventh lunar month.
Before dawn, after the night watchman struck the gong five times, Mo Qinghuan sat up from the bed.
Today was the day of the winter banquet. She remembered that Concubine Li had told her to take good care of Mu Yanming. The two of them were going to attend the winter banquet together. So, just after the fifth watch, she got up.
Actually, it was also because she didn't like to sleep on her stomach. So when she turned over, she accidentally bumped into the wound on her back. She suddenly felt the pain and woke up.
However, unexpectedly, just as she got up, a figure jumped in through the window.
She didn't look up and said with a smile, "Has Young Master Lu got used to jumping through windows..."
The person was stunned when he heard this. Mo Qinghuan didn't hear a sound. She looked up and wished she could bite off her own tongue.