Upon seeing Qi Yue approach in just a single layer of clothing, her cloak having disappeared, Zhao Xiyan's brow furrowed. He turned back to retrieve a turquoise cloak from inside the carriage and walked over to et her.
"Cold?"
"Not so bad," Qi Yue said, tucking in her fingertips.
The tail end of autumn in Donggao was still a bit chilly.
Zhao Xiyan, without a word, wrapped the cloak around her and then took her hands to warm them before leading her towards the carriage.
Noticing his displeasure, Qi Yue remained silent, curling up like a kitten in Zhao Xiyan's embrace, her body moving with the swaying of the carriage.
The man ultimately sighed deeply and held her tighter, calling out softly.
"Yueyue."
"Hmm?"
"You need to learn to take care of yourself."
This ca out of nowhere, sounding strange. Qi Yue, feeling mischievous for no reason, looked up with a smile and asked.
"Why, you're not going to take care of anymore, planning to let wander the Martial World alone?"
"..." Zhao Xiyan looked deeply into her eyes, the profound pools reflecting two miniature images of her, laughing like two little fools.
"Ungrateful little thing, even daring to say such a thing," he remarked as he embraced her tightly, his chest emitting a deep, secluded sigh.
Qi Yue laughed out loud, her giggles echoing off his shoulder. Once she had laughed enough, she asked, "What's the matter, what happened?"
She felt Zhao Xiyan swallow twice.
"Nothing much, I'm here," he replied.
Clearly, this was a sign that sothing was amiss, and Qi Yue knew well that whatever Zhao Xiyan didn't want to disclose was sothing she could never find out by asking, so she simply "hmm"ed with a smile.
Qi Yue inquired about the Lou Family's situation, and Zhao Xiyan said it had been resolved.
Lou Chuhe's request was nothing more than a cure for his son's illness.
With his eldest son dead and hope seen in his youngest, he naturally pursued relentlessly.
This old man held a certain prestige among Yecheng's large households and was quite beneficial in maintaining the stability of Yecheng's business community.
Moreover, by killing Song Chengye by his own hand, Lou Chuhe had completely broken with the Song Imperial Dynasty.
Such a person, both capable and sharing a common goal, was naturally soone to win over.
"It just ans Yueyue will have to work a bit harder."
"It's no trouble, treating illnesses is my specialty," Qi Yue said, smiling at Zhao Xiyan, her mind persistently pondering over the mysterious reason for his odd behavior, until she surmised that sothing must have happened during the ti she followed Caicai away.
Without Zhao Xiyan saying, she could not guess it, but she dimly felt it concerned her own safety.
Upon returning, she questioned a few Imperial Guard officers, only to find that they all claid to have received no news.
Qi Yue concluded they were being tight-lipped, so she decisively played her trump card.
Using the pretext of inspecting the new warehouse, she called over two people close to Zhao Xiyan.
En route, she took the two n to a secluded spot and administered the Obedience Pill to them.
Since these n trusted her completely, they readily accepted the drug without any resistance and promptly spilled everything they knew.
It turns out that recently, rumors had begun to circulate in Yanjing and the Beiyuan Kingdom's capital city.
The rumors claid that the current Qi Yue was not actually the daughter of the Great General Qi Yunzhang but was a demon from who-knows-where.
That was the reason for her extraordinary dical skills and those mysterious and unfathomable weapons.
The rumors even suggested that the gold, silver, and jewels that had mysteriously vanished were not the work of thieves from Guyang, but the result of Qi Yue's supernatural thods.
There were even those who believed that the widespread chaos and calamities befalling the land were due to the disturbance of the natural order caused by the appearance of a demon like Qi Yue.
The rumor-mongers went on to say that it was because of the enchantnt of the demoness Qi Yue that War God Zhao Xiyan started the rebellion and opposed the entire world.
If only the evil demon were to be killed, peace and tranquility would naturally return to the world.
Qi Yue snorted repeatedly as she listened.
What demon? They're just coveting her powerful weapons, aren't they?
What a bizarre leap—there were still so many things she hadn't used yet!
As for the emptying of treasures and precious tals...
These unimaginative people actually believed she was so kind of creature that devoured gold, ingesting all those tals and fine goods into her belly.
"How absurd!"
She almost wanted to laugh but didn't know if she should.
She wasn't actually surprised by the arrival of this day.
As the saying goes, "You can't frequently walk by the river without getting your shoes wet."
From her exile from Beiyuan, to Longnan County Governnt, to Dongjiang, to Donggao, how many treasuries filled with gold and silver had she emptied? And how many flaws and slip-ups had she revealed?
Though these ancient folks may have been slow-witted, there were still smart ones among them. With thorough analysis and bold assumptions, it wasn't hard to co up with those rumors ntioned above.
Moreover, most people here believed in the supernatural, which made it even easier for them to think in that direction.
But even if she was discovered, she didn't have anything to fear!
After all, those people couldn't do anything to her. The only person she wanted to explain to was Zhao Xiyan.
She just couldn't understand Zhao Xiyan's reaction.
He didn't think to question her but instructed people to conceal the matter!
Qi Yue rembered the man who had helped her when she emptied the treasuries of Yewang Prefecture and Fox King Residence in Yanjing.
Although Zhao Xiyan denied being the man that night, the more Qi Yue thought about it, the more convinced she was that it was him.
Especially after knowing that Zhao Xiyan had launched a military expedition to Donggao for her sake, she beca even more certain.
If he dared to commit the great taboo of rebellion against the world, what wouldn't he do for her?
Thinking this, she had even made a special hypothesis.
Assuming soone had discovered her secret and wanted to verify its truth, they might stealthily clear the path for her to see if she could whisk away the goods effortlessly.
Such a person must be a fool!
Logically, it doesn't make sense.
Normally, if that person had guessed what she was about to do, they could just watch secretly, so why go to such lengths?
Therefore, she was almost certain that Zhao Xiyan had already learned so secrets about her.
After all, she had exposed the most in front of him, and with his intelligence, he must have been suspicious long ago.
She didn't know when he found out, and he'd been holding back from asking and speaking of it.
"He really can endure!"
Qi Yue snorted with laughter and took action to restore the Imperial Guard Officers to normal.
Once the party returned to the residence, Qi Yue had already planned out her approach. Since Zhao Xiyan hoped she'd remain oblivious, she would pretend to be just that. However, so matters required advance planning.
She needed to find an opportunity to discuss this matter with Zhao Xiyan.
After all, at this stage, concealing it further was probably pointless.
The days she would spend with Zhao Xiyan were far from over; they couldn't keep hiding and shielding things forever.
Furthermore, giving Zhao Xiyan a hint would also facilitate her actions in the future.
But she had to consider how to broach the subject.
In the following days, Qi Yue administered several acupuncture treatnts to Lou Zhifang and prescribed dicine, which helped him recover by half.
The Huang family's fourth daughter-in-law, whom she had saved, was taken ho by old Lady Huang, and Caicai even brought homade tofu to Qi Yue in gratitude for saving a life.
As Qi Yue had guessed, old Lady Huang began treating the fourth daughter-in-law better for having borne a son.
Through this incident, Qi Yue's exceptional dical skills were once again talked about throughout Yecheng.
Old Lady Huang even went around claiming Qi Yue was a divine bringer of sons.
She claid that originally her divination revealed the daughter-in-law would give birth to a base child, but after Qi Yue's intervention, it turned out to be a boy!
For a ti, Qi Yue's na stirred up quite a buzz in Yecheng.
anwhile, Zhao Xiyan was also busy with the reorganization of the new army and was extrely occupied.
This ti, Song Chengye's army of 300,000 was almost entirely captured. Excluding the elderly and the very young who didn't wish to stay and beco soldiers, there were about 160,000 n left.
Zhao Xiyan absorbed them as new recruits, retrained them, and the two had no appropriate ti to discuss their matter.
That day, the assistant had already compiled the research related to Poisoned Blood. As Qi Yue was analyzing viable counter-poisons with her, hurried footsteps ca from outside. Zhao Chong rushed in to report, saying that there was an urgent military dispatch from Longnan.
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