Chapter 142

At that moment, the letter in her hands suddenly felt scorching hot.

After reading it, Ji Wujiang immediately voiced his opposition, refusing to allow the monarch to take such a risk alone.

Since Anxi City was already under Feng Liwu’s control, if the monarch went there and was detained, wouldn’t it be a repeat of Wei’s downfall?

Jiang Xiurun pondered the matter for a long time before finally sighing deeply and saying,“If he wished, he could simply replicate the Anxi chaos in Bo.”

This entire Anxi rebellion was, in truth, a silent warning—Bo must not think itself safe just because it was far from the reach of the imperial court.

Now that Feng Liwu occupied Anxi, he had established a foothold in the northern, making the overthrow of Bo not as far-fetched as she had once thought.

By the time the letter arrived, it was already August, and there were only a few days left until the meeting date.

Although Anxi was close, it was now a den of wolves and tigers.

Bai Qian was adamant about accompanying Jiang Xiurun.

She had recently been promoted from centurion to general of a thousand and had already fought multiple skirmishes with bandits from Rong at the border.

After many brutal face-to-face battles, Bai Qian had begun to resemble the formidable general she had been in her past life.

Hence, her preparations for the journey were straightforward and direct—she simply readied an array of daggers, sharpening them to razor edges and concealing them all over her body.

When Bai Qian displayed her arsenal, Jiang Xiurun’s heart nearly leaped out of her chest.

Seeing this, she realized she should also make some preparations, lest the situation turned into open conflict.

Otherwise, knowing Feng Liwu’s nature, their entire group would be swallowed whole, never to return.

However, Jiang Xiurun’s preparations had nothing to do with weapons.

Instead, she instructed the palace kitchens to prepare an assortment of mooncakes in the Luo’an style.

Once the pastries were done, they were removed from their molds, carefully packed into food boxes, and loaded onto the carriage.

On the appointed day, Jiang Xiurun boarded her carriage, escorted by her guards, and headed toward the Bo border.

The Bo and Anxi were separated by a river.

When Jiang Xiurun boarded the ferry, the boatman bluntly stated that her escort was too large, and they would need to split into two boats to cross.

But midway through the crossing, the other boat—carrying her guards—began to take on water and sink.

In moments, the soldiers plunged into the river, floundering like dumplings scattered across the water.

Bai Qian’s eyes widened in fury.

She drew her dagger, ready to force the boatman to turn back.

Before she could act, however, a swift kick sent her dagger flying from her hand.

She looked up to see that the man who had just been coiling ropes at the bow of the ship had removed his straw hat.

It was none other than Dou Siwu.

Bai Qian hesitated for a moment, but in that instant, Dou Siwu had already closed in, locking her in a grappling hold.

But Bai Qian wasn’t one to be easily subdued.

In a flash, she drew another dagger from behind her back and aimed it at Dou Siwu.

Yet Dou Siwu was no novice.

With practiced ease, he disarmed her and tossed the blade into the river.

Then, as Bai Qian reached for yet another hidden weapon, he finally lost his patience and shouted, “Just how many daggers do you have?!”

Bai Qian shot him a glare, sneering, “You dirty bastard, playing tricks! You want to get stabbed? My mother has more where that came from!”

And with that, they fell into another fierce struggle.

Over the past two years, Bai Qian’s martial skills had improved considerably.

But Dou Siwu’s progress seemed even more terrifying.

Whatever he had experienced had honed him into a deadly fighter.

His strikes were swift, precise, and merciless—each move targeting joints and weak points with the practiced efficiency of someone who had survived countless life-or-death battles.

For a moment, Bai Qian found herself at a disadvantage.

Meanwhile, Jiang Xiurun’s boat had already docked.

Warriors clad in full armor lined the shore, their sinister presence forming an unmistakable show of intimidation.

Jiang Xiurun finally understood—Feng Liwu had spent nearly two years stewing in resentment, and time had done nothing to quell his fury.

Now, he had seized the opportunity to let it all out.

The sight of her guards struggling in the river was his way of issuing a warning.

If they resorted to force now, it would only end in humiliation.

Jiang Xiurun swiftly commanded Bai Qian to stand down.

Then, turning to the lead soldier on the shore, she said calmly,“Might I trouble you to rescue my guards from the water? Some of them are not strong swimmers.”

The soldier exchanged whispers with another before nodding toward the disguised “boatmen.”

Immediately, small boats were sent out, and wooden planks were tossed into the river for the struggling soldiers to cling to and float back to shore.

In the end, though Jiang Xiurun had brought a sizable escort, only a handful made it to land.

The rest were detained.

When the soldiers moved to disarm Bai Qian and conduct a body search, Dou Siwu stepped forward, raising a hand to stop them.

After all, he had already frisked her thoroughly during their struggle on the boat.

There was no need for anyone else to risk broken bones at Bai Qian’s hands.

With the situation now beyond her control, Jiang Xiurun had no choice but to comply.

She boarded the carriage arranged by Feng Liwu and was taken into Anxi City.

The city bore the scars of recent warfare—corpses of Liang’s soldiers still littered the roadsides, some yet to be removed.

The stench of death was suffocating.

When the carriage finally stopped inside the city, Jiang Xiurun could no longer endure it.

She stumbled out and vomited.

As she struggled to regain her composure, Bai Qian handed her a cup of water to rinse her mouth.

Lifting her head, Jiang Xiurun suddenly noticed a tall figure standing on a high balcony.

He looked down at her with an arrogant, condescending gaze, taking in every bit of her disgrace.

Jiang Xiurun slowly lowered her head, wiping her mouth with a handkerchief as she let out a quiet sigh.

People said the emperor of Wei was a fool, easily tricked by Feng Liwu into his own downfall.

But how many truly understood the sheer cunning of this new Emperor of Qi?

When he wished, he could disguise himself as a refined and courteous gentleman, his warmth and attentiveness almost convincing.

But the moment the tide turned, one would already find themselves ensnared in his trap, with no chance of escape.

At that moment, Feng Liwu’s cold voice rang out:

“Do you not see that the illustrious Empress of Bo, the noble Saint Yaren, has arrived? Why are you not hurrying to escort Her Majesty upstairs?”

He deliberately enunciated her title slowly, each word dripping with mockery.

Jiang Xiurun took a deep breath before slowly stepping up the stairs and walking into the hall.

It had been nearly a year since she last saw this man.

They say girls change the most as they grow, but when a man changes, it can be even more astonishing.

Though he was not wearing the imperial dragon robe of Great Qi, his entire demeanor already carried an unmistakable imperial aura.

The young man who once, in the dead of night, secretly wept upon her lap had completely disappeared.

The man before her no longer had even a trace of an ordinary mortal about him.

His brows and eyes exuded a cold and ruthless air.

At this moment, he sat composedly in the high seat of the hall, silently watching as she approached.

His gaze moved from her loosely braided hair, adorned with pearl strands in the style of Bo, down to her smooth forehead, her high-bridged nose, her full, petal-like lips, and then further down to her snow-white chest and slender waist—examining her thoroughly from head to toe.

Yet, his gaze did not carry the admiration of a man looking upon a beautiful woman.

Rather, it was the detached, callous scrutiny of a bandit who had just finished a massacre and was now tallying his spoils.

After assessing Jiang Xiurun, he did not invite her to sit but instead looked at the large box Bai Qian was carrying and asked, “The Empress of Bo is too courteous. What has she brought me this time?”

Jiang Xiurun let out a slow sigh, feeling that what she had brought was entirely inappropriate for the occasion.

Had she known what awaited her, she would never have brought pastries and sweets to pair with tea and wine.

Instead, presenting a map of Bo might have been a more fitting tribute to win the favor of the Great Qi Emperor.

With that thought, she gestured for Bai Qian to open the gift box.

“Since we agreed to meet here during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I thought that, being far from your homeland, Your Majesty might appreciate a taste of Luo’an City’s mooncakes. I’m not sure if they will suit your palate…”

As she spoke, she picked up a mooncake, broke it in half, and took a bite herself to prove it was not poisoned.

Feng Liwu watched her and laughed, though his smile never reached his eyes.

“How very thoughtful. If I didn’t know of your cold and unfeeling heart, I might have been moved. But tell me, before you came here, did you consider that after today, you may never see the full moon of your homeland again?”

She had repeatedly taken advantage of his soft heart.

This time, he would make her understand the price of wounding a man’s heart to the point of no return.

Jiang Xiurun glanced around the hall, noting the barren tables—there wasn’t even a single dish or cup of wine.

She sighed lightly and said, “Had I known Your Majesty hadn’t prepared food, I wouldn’t have brought pastries. I should have prepared Bo ’s specialty roasted lamb and beef for Your Majesty to taste instead.”

As she spoke, she gave Bai Qian a slight nod.

Bai Qian then pulled a sheepskin map from the hidden compartment of the food box and spread it across the table.

Feng Liwu sneered.

“What is this? Do you intend to offer up Bo ’s lands to avoid conflict? Or do you think the throne you worked so hard to obtain can buy your freedom?”

Jiang Xiurun said nothing, allowing the fully armed Great Qi guards beside them to pick up the map and present it to Feng Liwu.

When Feng Liwu took the map in his hands, he saw that it was a hydrological map—drawn by Jiang Xiurun herself.

The meticulous annotations were just like those in the dozens of hydraulic engineering scrolls she had once left him, precise and detailed.

If the map was accurate, opening the dam from within Bo would flood Anxi City, turning it into a vast lake within the time it took to burn two sticks of incense.

Anxi was bordered by water on all sides—there was no escape.

If Feng Liwu had guessed correctly, Bo’s troops were already stationed at the dam, waiting for Jiang Xiurun’s signal to unleash the flood.

When had she constructed this reservoir? Was this the true reason she insisted on meeting in Anxi City?

Until this moment, Feng Liwu had believed that, after nearly two years of tempering, his patience had reached an unshakable level.

But this woman had once again provoked his fury—she actually dared to play a mutual-destruction game with him.

How capable she had become!

So after letting out a cold, mocking laugh, he furrowed his brows tightly and gritted his teeth.

“Jiang Xiurun, are you trying to scare me with this?”

But Jiang Xiurun merely smiled gently and said, “If Your Majesty hadn’t tried to frighten me all the way here with those rotting corpses, why would I need to bring this out to startle you? Besides, even a prisoner on the way to the execution ground is given a final meal. Now, during this festive night of a clear moon—when the flowers bloom and the moon is at its fullest—does Your Majesty truly intend to let me starve here without food or drink?”