His Peasant Wife : Yao Ling

After knowing what to ask, they called one of the servants to call the old man out. It didn’t take long for him to come out. The old man sat down leisurely and asked, "Have you decided yet?" The old man was quite confident with himself. Who dared to refuse such a good bargain to obtain secret information? In his eyes, no one would be able to resist.

"We’ll do it," Yao Ying answered.

The old man nodded. The man that he wanted them to kill was called Hei Yue and just like his name, his skin color was dark so they wouldn’t mistake him from someone else. He gave him the location where Hei Yue stayed and he said that he was only accompanied by four people.

Yao Ying and Lin Jian looked at each other. They knew that it wasn’t only killing one man, but the man had his own guards too.

"So... what kind of information do you want from me?" The old man asked.

"About the Han Princess..."

"Han Xiang?" The old man was surprised. Why were they so curious about this matter?

"Yes..." Yao Ying said.

"Are you here to do something?" The old man asked cautiously.

Yao Ling laughed. "No... we are here because we are on a honeymoon trip. Double honeymoon..." She explained, making the others dumbfounded but they didn’t let it show on the surface. However, Xiao Fang blushed and looked down shyly.

"Double honeymoon?" The old man asked once again.

"He’s my husband and that one is my best friend’s husband," Yao Ling smiled while pointing at Lin Jian when she said her best friend’s husband. Lin Jian could only grit his teeth and smile. What now? He only came out for a job and he suddenly had a wife?!

However, the trio knew Yao Ling’s intention. She did this in order to let the old man’s guard down and besides, it would lower his suspicion because of their question about Han Xiang.

"You are on a honeymoon trip, so why do you need to ask about Han Xiang?" The old man asked carefully. He scrutinized them... was their background not simple? He felt a bit regretful for not checking out their identity first.

"We are only passing by, but from listening to the scholars’ words... it seems like this marriage alliance isn’t that simple. We actually only came here because I’m forcing them to see the wedding entourage..." Yao Ling said while grinning sheepishly.

The old man laughed, but he knew that he needed to check on their background later.

"What do you want to know about her?" The man furrowed his eyebrows while asking.

"We want to know what exactly both of the kingdoms want to suddenly have this marriage alliance? At first, we only thought that it was only a simple building good relationship with the other kingdom, but it doesn’t seem like that now." Lin Jian asked and explained at the same time.

At this point, even Mi Hui hadn’t found out the reason why. There was no use for them to be blatantly having a marriage alliance that could anger the Shu Emperor --- after all, the Shu Kingdom was the strongest and the two other kingdoms could be said more like vassal kingdoms. This sudden decision was quite fishy.

The old man laughed and admitted, "You cleverly used me and asked me a good question. The Shu Emperor also asked me the same things and he had to pay a hefty amount to me and yet, you will get this for free."

They didn’t think that it was free. Did the old man forget that they needed to do something for him too? Judging from this old man’s behavior, he would never eat a loss when bargaining something with the information that he acquired.

The old man could see the silent complain in their eyes and laughed once again. "I know... I know... you pay me with the different thing..."

"So... can you tell us now?" Yao Ying said, feeling a bit impatient.

The old man nodded. "Yes..." He shook his head inwardly, the youngsters nowadays lack patience. He didn’t dilly-dally any longer and quickly go into the details.

The old man told them that the two kingdoms were working with an insider that more or less betrayed the Shu Kingdom by doing this. Hei Yue was one of that man’s people. They planned this marriage to let the Shu Emperor get angry and lose his rationality, then did something to prevent the marriage. They indeed tried to find a reason to start the war. They needed a catalyst to prove that they didn’t start the war and had a justified reason to appease their own people.

"Is the one who started this plan someone from our kingdom?" Lin Jian asked. He felt that that insider must have been the one who started everything.

"Yes..." The old man nodded. He thought that there was no harm in telling them about this information so he didn’t hesitate to tell them everything. He didn’t think that they would be able to do anything at this point in time. "Or else... how the two kingdoms are suddenly able to talk to each other and even have a marriage alliance so smoothly?"

It was known to many people that both kingdoms’ relationship wasn’t that good, so by doing this, they would increase the Shu Emperor’s distrust. The old man gave this information to the Shu Emperor because he wanted to prevent war. He still wanted to continue enjoying the peaceful era.

The old man explained that Hei Yue’s Boss was the one who started to shake the foundation of A Thousand Words and then started to become rebellious all of a sudden. He incited the distrust between Hei Yue and him.

Hei Yue’s Boss needed his position to grasp an important bargaining chip in this deal and the old man didn’t want to give any information to him because he knew that the man was dangerous. He was too ambitious and because of that, the life of the commoners would be affected the most.

The two kingdoms were offered information in exchange for their bits of help because Hei Yue’s Boss didn’t want to give up any of Shu Kingdom’s territories after he was able to become the new Shu Emperor. He had even cleverly controlled the deal and stated that he would choose the information that would be shared. He used this old man’s motto --- not sharing any secrets that would lead to a war.

"What’s his purpose?" Lin Jian asked. Hei Yue’s Boss must be one of the royal blood and it baffled him that this man could be so meticulous in arranging the plan. Only a few people that were able to do this kind of meticulous planning --- his princes were the example. However, he was certain that this had nothing to do with the princes and he needed to let them know about this information soon.

It seemed like they needed to tweak their plan to rescue Han Xiang for a little bit. Lin Jian knew that they needed to find a scapegoat and the involvement of them as Shu persons had to remain unknown or it would be used as a reason to start a war. They had already received the order from the princes and they needed to finish this mission no matter what the consequences were.

"Of course, he wants to become an emperor. What else? That man is too ambitious. However, what drives him mad and makes him want to rebel is revenge," The old man said while shaking his head in defeat.

’Revenge, huh?’ Lin Jian thought to himself, but couldn’t find a man that fitted into that description. He became more curious...

Xiao Fang asked out of curiosity, "Who is that man?"