“Second Uncle never gets up early unless there’s something in it for him. He definitely is.”
Lüdou’s eyes darted back and forth as she leaned closer to Duoduo.
“Commandery Princess, why don’t we take advantage of the confusion too?”
Duoduo looked at Lüdou in surprise.
Lüdou’s idea was exactly the same as hers!
Seeing Duoduo’s expression, Lüdou thought she disapproved.
“Commandery Princess, I was only suggesting it…”
“Lüdou, how did you come up with the same idea as me?” Duoduo’s eyes gleamed with sly amusement.
Lüdou froze for a moment, then smiled.
“Really?”
“That must mean we’re of one mind, Commandery Princess!”
Duoduo nodded excitedly as well.
Lüdou could finally keep up with her way of thinking. This was a huge improvement!
“Come on, tell me why you thought of it.”
Lüdou looked a little embarrassed.
“I was just thinking… didn’t you ask Shitou to buy more people a few days ago?”
“So many people need food, drink, and everything else. That’s a considerable expense.”
“If Shitou and the others could take advantage of the chaos to get hold of some provisions, it would ease your burden a little.”
Duoduo shook her head. “There aren’t that many of them. I can still afford to feed them.”
Lüdou paused for a moment. “They’re growing boys. They can eat you out of house and home.”
“Besides, if we train soldiers for a thousand days, we have to use them when the time comes. We can’t support them for nothing!”
Shitou and the others were all half-grown boys. No one would notice that they had deliberately gone out to scavenge what they could.
Duoduo nodded.
“You’re right. We should test their abilities.”
“However, we need to think carefully about how to go about it.” Duoduo began to ponder.
“Isn’t the Crown Prince plotting to seize the provisions?”
“Why don’t we leak the news?”
“When the time comes, plenty of people will go after the Crown Prince’s men.”
“Then Shitou and the others can take advantage of the opportunity to steal the provisions!” Lüdou’s eyes shone with excitement.
Unexpectedly, Duoduo shook her head.
“No!”
“That would only draw everyone’s attention to the provisions.”
“It could easily backfire.”
Lüdou felt that Duoduo’s reasoning made sense, so she nodded.
“Have Shitou and the others keep an eye on Second Uncle. If Second Uncle and his men succeed in robbing the provisions, Shitou and the others can find a way to steal them.”
Lüdou’s face filled with confusion after hearing this.
“Commandery Princess, do you mean you don’t want the Crown Prince to make a move against the provisions?”
Duoduo looked up. “Of course not.”
“But didn’t you just agree with me about taking the provisions?” Lüdou’s head was full of questions.
Why did she feel that the Commandery Princess meant something completely different from what she had said?
Duoduo blinked.
“I just don’t want Second Uncle to get his way!”
“Think about it. What is the army going out to do?”
“They’re going to war—to fight the Xiongnu.”
“The common people at the border are waiting for the imperial army to save them!”
“But Second Uncle, for the sake of his own selfish desires, doesn’t want the army to reach its destination safely.”
“Of course I can’t let him succeed!”
A look of shame appeared on Lüdou’s face.
“Commandery Princess, I was too shortsighted.”
“I only thought about what was right in front of me. I didn’t think about the common people at the border.”
Duoduo patted the back of Lüdou’s hand. “You were only thinking of me.”
After her dejection passed, Lüdou suddenly remembered something.
“Oh, right, Commandery Princess. I happened to hear that the prince also sent people to keep an eye on the Crown Prince.”
A smile immediately spread across Duoduo’s face.
“Father must have had the same idea as me!”
“Now we’ll see whether Shitou and the others are better than Father’s men this time!”
As she spoke, Duoduo began flipping through a book and writing a secret letter.
Several days later, the imperial grain convoy was ambushed.
The provisions were seized by a group of masked men.
Before the soldiers escorting the grain could even submit a report, the missing provisions somehow returned on their own.
Although not all of them came back, there was still enough to account for.
The soldiers escorting the grain did not dare to make the matter public. After all, losing military provisions was punishable by death.
The few carts of grain that had gone missing could be replenished in the cities and commanderies along the route.
Taking a scolding was better than losing their lives!
Unexpectedly, after the convoy had traveled for half a day, the remaining carts of provisions inexplicably appeared again.
The soldiers escorting the grain could not help muttering among themselves.
What kind of tactic was this?
Were they being deliberately tested?
They did not dare think too much about it. All they could do was stay alert and hurry toward the border through the night.
The sooner they joined up with the army, the sooner they would be safe.
At Prince Ling’s residence, a group of injured guards knelt on the floor.
“You’re all useless!” Prince Ling was so furious that he smashed a cup onto the ground.
The porcelain shards flew up and sliced the face of a guard standing nearby.
Blood ran down the guard’s face, but he did not dare move.
“Crown Prince, we never expected that after successfully seizing the provisions, several groups of people would suddenly appear and attack us with their blades without saying a word.”
“We had no choice but to engage them, so we lost track of the provisions.”
“By the time we drove them off, we discovered that the provisions were gone!”
The guard captain kept his head lowered as he desperately tried to explain.
A flash of cold steel passed through the air.
The guard captain’s head separated from his neck.
With a heavy thud, both the body and the head fell to the floor, splattering blood everywhere.
The other guards stared at their leader’s lifeless, unseeing eyes, each of them terrified out of their wits.
“I don’t keep useless people!”
“If you failed, then you failed!”
“I don’t listen to excuses!”
“If this happens again, kill yourselves!” Prince Ling’s entire body radiated murderous fury.
“Thank you for sparing our lives, Your Highness!”
The guards hurriedly kowtowed to Prince Ling before withdrawing.
The severed body was carried out as well.
Soon, someone came in to clean the floor.
In less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the room was spotless, as though nothing had ever happened.
The air was filled with the sharp, invigorating scent of borneol incense.
Prince Ling’s personal attendant carefully replaced the lid on the incense burner, not daring to make a sound.
Recently, the Crown Prince’s temper had grown increasingly violent.
Everyone was walking on eggshells. No one knew when their head might end up on the floor.
When Prince Ling inhaled the fragrance, the oppressive feeling in his chest eased considerably.
He gave a soft cough.
A dark-red clot of blood flew onto the writing desk.
Prince Ling calmly wiped it away with a handkerchief.
Then he casually tossed the handkerchief onto the floor.
The attendant silently walked over and picked it up.
When he saw the blood clot on it, he froze for a moment.
He discreetly glanced at Prince Ling. Seeing that Prince Ling had lowered his head and was reading official documents, he slipped the handkerchief into his sleeve and retreated to the side.
At the residence of the Prince of Pingyang, Ling Yu was also reporting the situation to Xiao Yi.
“Your Highness, I followed your arrangements. Once the Crown Prince’s men successfully intercepted the grain convoy, we would make our move.”
“Then the others would transport the provisions away while taking advantage of the chaos.”
“But when we counted everything afterward, we discovered that several carts were missing.”
