Xue Yao insisted on not accepting the wolf's tooth, ignoring the stubborn and disappointed look in the eyes of the Khitan boy, he took Lu Qian's arm and turned to go.
No one owes anyone a favor.
As a citizen of Da Qi, Xue Yao was justified in cutting off any affection with this group of Khitan who coveted Da Qi's borders and plundered the border herders.
He wanted to take the little fat cub and the chattering five cubs back to the camp as soon as possible, to see if the warm babies had been frightened, and finally bring the three cubs back to the capital safely, just as he had brought them back to the capital when he arrived.
In a month and a half, it will be the fifteenth birthday of Little Fatty, and Xue Yao's wish is to let Little Fatty spend his sixteenth birthday without any worries, and then slowly contact some political affairs to share the Prince's worries.
Only a year and a month and a half away from that goal.
Xue Yao didn't know that his own wings hadn't completely shielded the three cubs from this landslide and tsunami disaster.
He did what he could - he saved the reputation of Princess Shih, warmed the childhood of the little chubby boy, prevented the traitors from framing the Crown Prince, saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the three counties, and saved the life of the Crown Prince, and injected an antitoxin into the wounded Emperor, leaving behind a variety of antidote powders for the military doctors to try.
Unfortunately, the Emperor was gone after all, living only eight days longer than his last life.
When the Crown Prince said, "Father has already passed away," his description was so withered, his voice so low and hoarse that it made Xue Yao hope that the little fat kid didn't hear the words.
There was a long gap where Xue Yao assumed that Lu Qian really didn't hear him because the little fat cub was unresponsive.
The chaotic and noisy tent was isolated from Lu Qian's world.
The Fifth Prince frantically shook his elder brother, questioning how a minor arrow wound could possibly take away his father.
How could it be possible when it was clear that the rescue was done in time, and the Fifth Prince was promptly exchanged as a hostage for his father?
Lu Qian hadn't been able to react much, and looked blank as he watched Fifth Brother shake Big Brother.
Xue Yao was so nervous that her hands and feet were cold, ready to meet the little chubby cub's cries, ready to offer her arms to comfort the little chubby cub.
But Lu Qian just looked at his big brother expressionlessly.
Waiting until the Fifth Prince had ranted so much that he lost his strength, Lu Qian walked over to the Crown Prince and asked, "Then won't Father return to the palace with my son?"
The Crown Prince put his arm around his brother's shoulders and softly told him that his father had already returned to the palace, and now that Old Five was back, the brothers would have to depart first thing in the morning to catch up with the procession that was escorting his father's Zi Gong, and go back to the capital to prepare for the funeral ceremony.
There are still a lot of things waiting for the Crown Prince to do, the Emperor left so suddenly that Ji Yang has not even finished repairing.
Of course, the trickiest thing is still the ascension of the new emperor to the throne.
The Crown Prince knew that he could not hide the fact that he had returned to the capital in the middle of the war for long, and also knew that the Third Prince's party would definitely bite on this handle and blame his father's accident on his AWOL, and that even if the temporarily appointed Fifth Prince had made the decisive decision to change back to his father in time, he would not be able to absolve the Crown Prince of his responsibility.
If the Emperor hadn't been caught in the trap, he would have privately rebuked the Crown Prince for his emotionalism, but on the stage he would have instead lied that the war was over and that it was he who had ordered the Crown Prince to return to the capital.
The Prince himself did not know if his impulsiveness that night was also based on his father's outward severity and private favoritism over the years.
This hidden mind had been deeply hidden in the depths of the Prince's heart.
Knowing his father's favoritism, the deeper the Prince thought, the more pain, the more guilt, every moment want to die to thank for the crime.
The situation was so tense that it didn't give him a chance to catch his breath, and the mistakes he made were irreversible, so he couldn't ruin his ancestor's foundation in Lao San's hands again.
So he poured his trusting gaze into the face of his seventh brother, who didn't look too sad in front of him, "Seven, we all need to be prepared."
Lu Qian is still so blankly looking at his big brother, not understanding what his big brother wants him to prepare, and feel that without his father's son, he should understand what his big brother wants him to prepare, so Lu Qian tensed up, his boyish face showing a pretense of composure and sophistication, and seriously showed his big brother the wounds on his arm that have not yet fallen off the scabs, "When master is well enough to get well, then I will go and get ready. "
He's making excuses for his unpreparedness.
His brother's performance confused the Crown Prince, who had been thinking about his father's dying words over and over again these days, analyzing over and over again whether they were confusing words or whether they were his father's sincere wishes.
If the establishment of Old Seven as the Crown Prince and the persuasion of him to assist were both sincere, what advantages did Father see in Seventh Brother?
After all, the crown prince was still young and couldn't see things clearly with his father's eyes no matter what, so he felt that his father should be sick and confused.
However, he still needs the cooperation of the seventh brother, if he is unable to gain a foothold in the imperial court due to his own crime, he will first use his own power to help the old seventh to ascend to the throne and cut off the wings of the Tong family.
What happens after that is between them as brothers.
That true, pure brotherhood between Laoqi and him made the Prince in no hurry to think about what came afterward.
At this moment, Xue Yao was the only one left who was all worried about the Seventh Prince.
Just now, when the Crown Prince said that he would escort the Emperor's Zigong back to the capital, he heard the system screaming - his little chubby cub's sense of security, suddenly cleared to zero.
It's counterintuitive that the pain caused by the loss of a loved one is often not an instantaneous outburst, but rather a knife-edge of longing that slowly eats away at the heart after a long time, on every occasion when the other person is needed and the other person is absent.
Just like the Fifth and Sixth Emperors, after the initial grief dissipated, the brothers quickly began to encourage and comfort each other, with only the Seventh Emperor remaining speechless.
Having also lost their father, the two older brothers had no time to understand what kind of trepidation their younger brother was experiencing at the moment, and only Xue Yao had a vague uneasiness in his heart.
Even though he spent every moment with the little fat cub, Xue Yao still felt every moment that the little fat cub was moving away from him.
Xue Yao tried wrapping his arms around the little chubby cub, then tried wrapping his arms around his neck, then his waist, but the little guy never responded.
Xue Yao pulled out his newly redeemed milk and snacks from his traveling bag and threatened the fat cub, "This is the last jug of milk, will Your Highness drink it or will Fifth Brother Sixth Brother drink it?"
Lu Qian turned his head to look at him, light pupils in the flickering candlelight, and Xue Yao's poor "coaxing children to perform".
That stoic look made Xue Yao feel rushed, foolishly bowing his head and obediently opening the water bag and reaching out to feed it to the little chubby cub's mouth.
It was at this moment that Xue Yao quietly met Lu Qian's strange gaze, which was not as carefree and diffuse as in the past, but a kind of concentration that put everything down, making Xue Yao feel that Lu Qian's eyes and heart at this moment were only loaded with him alone.
Xue Yao is embarrassed to say: at that moment, he was quite excited.
Anyone who had been with an emotionally disturbed child for more than a decade, and for the first time received such a warm gaze, would, I'm afraid, have snickered without regard for the occasion, a snickering that caused him to overlook the meaning of what the little chubby cub's uncharacteristic declaration of affection, represented.
It was only early the next morning that he realized the little fat cub was gone.
Beside Xue Yao's pillow, there were still half-eaten pastries and half-drunk milk.
Because he lied to the little chubby boy that there was only one last portion of food left, the little chubby boy didn't get enough to eat before this goodbye, and left half of the food, for him, the incompetent little chaperone.
Xue Yao, who hadn't washed his face or rinsed his mouth, searched frantically all over the camp, then turned to the Crown Prince for help, and to the Sword Sage and Old Man Xu, telling them that the Seventh Prince was lost.
It was at this time that the Crown Prince, the Fifth Prince and the Sixth Prince began to repent of their lack of appeasement towards their younger brother who was not of sound mind, and were very annoyed at the capriciousness of the Seventh Brother.
No one could figure out what kind of temper the Seventh Prince was playing at this juncture when he "ran away from home".
In the end, it was up to Xue Yao to try desperately to calm down, to try to get into the little fat cub's mind, to think about things the way he did, to guess where he had gone.
Xue Yao had a bad guess--
The chubby cub's father died, the Khitan prince was exchanged for Fifth Brother, and only the Khitan king remained in this fair exchange.
The little fat cub was going to kill the King of Khitan, Xue Yao thought to himself.
The first thing the original King Ning did when he ascended the throne was to secretly turn a Khitan general, bring the Khitan King back alive, and kill him by killing his father and elder brother in battle.
There is a significant difference between today's Lu Qian and the original King Ning, that is, he hasn't touched the wall and doesn't have enough stoicism and patience.
King Ning Jr.'s revenge plan is ahead of schedule.
The Sword Saint and Old Man Xu calmed Xue Yao, who was going crazy with anxiety, and promised to bring his disciple back safely.
Wanting to cross the river at least one pass, with the two masters' lightness, wanting to reach the pass in advance and block the young apprentice's way, it was as easy as a slap in the face, there was nothing to worry about.
Xue Yao, however, couldn't possibly not be worried, wanting to join the two seniors in searching for them, and knowing his own speed, he could only obediently wait for news at the camp.
The Crown Prince also arranged for his soldiers to notify all the gates with fast horses: tighten the defense and send the Seventh Prince back to the capital in time.
Because his father's funeral could not be delayed, the Crown Prince could not wait for the harebrained seventh brother to be escorted back, and first led his other brothers back to the capital at a rapid pace.
Xue Yao had wanted to stay at the border and wait for Little Fatty Pup to go back together, but the Crown Prince asked him to return to the capital first to testify: the Third Prince had sent troops after him and the Seventh Prince.
In order to avoid the turmoil in the dynasty and let the Third Prince take advantage of the situation, Xue Yao could only return to the capital with the Crown Prince.
*
Tong Ningzhao's spies had already found the postal guards along the road, confirming that the Crown Prince had made a trip back to the palace before the battle was settled.
The emperor's posthumous edict clearly wrote that the prince was due to save the driver's whereabouts is unknown, can show that the prince returned to the palace before, did not inform the emperor.
There's a lot to be said for that.
The news of the emperor's death had smashed half of the empress's life, and the remaining half of the empress was in a trance, not yet comprehending the meaning of the posthumous edict to change the king of Ning as the reserve.
She couldn't even remember for a moment who the King of Ning was, what it had to do with her, and what it had to do with her husband.
The news of her husband's death made all the complaints she had been brewing for decades a bad debt, and as she stood by the Zigong, the Empress had eyes only for her husband in the coffin and her overworked son.
The Queen dragged her son around the coffin to talk to her husband.
After nearly twenty years, her second master finally had time to listen to her so quietly again.
The Crown Prince didn't even think that the Mother Empress wasn't furious at his private return to the palace.
Women who have lost the care of their husbands tend to seek security in power, and he thought that his mother had long since lost the gentle and tender nature of her youth.
The death parting, surprisingly, reconciled the mother in armor and sword in hand with the man she had hated for twenty years in the coffin.
It's so unfair. Women are always too soft-hearted.