Lu Qianning remained in her room and did not show herself. Although everyone in the residence was on her side, it was still wiser to be cautious, just in case.
She had barely taken a sip of tea when someone knocked on the door. A moment later, the door was pushed open.
Only Luo Ling and Mu Jin could enter without permission. Lu Qianning remained seated and simply looked up. The person who entered was Luo Ling.
“Weren’t you teaching Little Lan’er how to use qinggong? Why have you come back?” Lu Qianning asked, puzzled.
Luo Ling walked over with a smile. “Princess, Little Lan’er is very talented. She can already fly up to the courtyard wall. The problem is that she can get up but can’t get back down. I couldn’t help laughing too loudly just now, so I left Mu Jin to teach her instead.”
Lu Qianning couldn’t help chuckling. “You were afraid the sisters would deal with you, weren’t you?”
She knew Luo Ling well. The moment they had returned, the two sisters had frightened her badly. Luo Ling was genuinely afraid of them.
Lu Qianning didn’t take it to heart. As long as there was no malice involved, Xi Qingyue and her sister would not hold a grudge.
“Go back and rest for now. Come over again tonight.” Lu Qianning waved her off. They would have to stay up late that night.
Luo Ling was about to leave when she suddenly remembered something and turned back. “Princess, the estates that were robbed last night were all estates whose addresses I had given Yue. Some others weren’t robbed, but the homes of the officials who proposed punishing the two of them in court were. The Duke Anguo’s and the Grand Tutor’s residences were hit the hardest.”
At that, Lu Qianning didn’t even raise her eyelids. “Those people are quibbling over every little thing with two children. Let them be robbed. Stop indulging your curiosity. Some things are enough to know in your heart.”
She understood what Luo Ling meant. Luo Ling was curious whether Xi Qingyue had been responsible, and how she had managed it. At the same time, she was frightened of the sisters yet unable to suppress her curiosity—a truly contradictory combination.
Even if they had done it, that was still their ability. The blame lay with those people in the first place. Xi Qingyue had bought out entire shops more than once along the way, yet nowhere else had people in the capital been so idle as to target two children. They truly had nothing better to do.
As court officials, they neither thought about settling the refugees nor sought ways to repel Northern Yue. Instead, they had made things difficult for two children simply because they hadn’t gotten the pastries they wanted. They deserved to be robbed.
Luo Ling pouted and left, muttering inwardly, “The princess really is biased. No wonder those two little brats don’t bother hiding anything from her.”
Not long after she left, Xi Qingyue pushed open the door and entered.
She walked straight to the table and sat down. Lu Qianning poured her a cup of water and handed it over. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching Little Lan’er?”
Xi Qingyue shook her head with a smile. “She’s tired. She’s eating with Mu Jin right now. I came to discuss tonight’s plans. Aside from Luo Ling and Mu Jin, take as few people as possible. Just bring a few who can carry bodies. Too many people will only cause trouble.”
Lu Qianning nodded with a smile. “All right. But you’ll have to handle the imperial guards outside the palace. There are quite a lot of them.”
Xi Qingyue had no objection, but another matter occurred to her. “What about the Tenth Prince? How do you plan to deal with him?”
At the mention of the Tenth Prince, Lu Qianning’s expression remained calm and emotionless. Perhaps she had already come to terms with it. She spoke as if she were merely stating an ordinary fact.
“When I was young, I loved him just as you love Lan’er. Yet he helped the Fourth Prince plot against his own sister. I’m better off without a brother like that.”
Lu Qianning had never been indecisive. Keeping a treacherous ingrate like the Tenth Prince alive would only create trouble in the future. Since he had disregarded their bond as siblings, she would show him no mercy either.
After returning from the brink of death, she had understood that so-called blood ties were not nearly as reliable as her subordinates.
The people she had taken to Northern Yue could not have died for nothing. They had sacrificed themselves for her, so she had to avenge them.
If she continued pretending to share a close bond with the Tenth Prince, then those people would have died in vain.
Xi Qingyue never interfered in other people’s family affairs. She merely said, “Fine. Handle it as you see fit. We’ll act at midnight. I’ll come back then.”
With that, she rose and left the room.
The Ninth Princess’s residence was peaceful and harmonious, but the capital outside was unusually lively that day. The officials of the Capital Prefecture were especially busy.
People from one household after another came to report the thefts. Every complaint was the same: everything in their estates outside the capital had vanished, leaving behind nothing but empty grounds overnight.
The fruit trees they had planted were gone. Every fish in their ponds had disappeared. Not a single chicken, duck, pig, or sheep remained. Even the grain they had stored for future use was gone. Only the empty fields, which had not yet been planted, were left behind—and even the seeds intended for planting had vanished.
The officials of the Capital Prefecture went everywhere with dark expressions. They wanted nothing more than to catch the thieves and beat them soundly. The thieves had kept them from resting for even a moment.
After the Capital Prefecture, the busiest people in the city were the physicians and the imperial doctors of the Imperial Medical Bureau. Mu Jin had only just driven them out of the Ninth Princess’s residence when people from one household after another began urgently summoning them. In one home, a mistress had fainted; in another, an official had been angered into unconsciousness.
The physicians of the capital were so busy that their feet barely touched the ground. Yet there was hardly any profit in it, because those noble households were all impoverished.
Still, they dared not refuse. They could not afford to offend those officials.
When the Seventh Princess heard the news in her residence, she laughed delightedly and even had a table laden with fine food and wine prepared for a celebration.
“Ah, if only Yue and Little Lan’er were here too. They’re such ungrateful little things—my Ninth Sister comes back, and they stop paying any attention to me.” She took a sip of wine and sighed.
Dongxue smiled as she refilled her cup. “Princess, the Ninth Princess is still ill. The two of them are simply showing their loyalty.”
Lu Jinshuang rolled her eyes. No one else knew, but the two of them were perfectly aware that Lu Qianning wasn’t truly ill. She was obviously pretending—though she was pretending far too convincingly.
Resting her chin on one hand, she lazily swirled the wine in her cup. “Dongxue, do you think those people will suspect that my people were behind this theft as well? Will they think it was done by my Ninth Sister’s people? Those two little ones are staying at her residence, after all.”
Dongxue answered without hesitation, “They will, Princess. Those people love shifting the blame. As long as someone can serve as an outlet for their anger, they won’t care whether the accusation is true. People like that need someone to teach them a serious lesson.”
She applauded the thefts from the bottom of her heart. She truly wondered when such a powerful force had emerged in the capital. It was practically the natural enemy of those officials.
Lu Jinshuang drained her cup, her smile bright and radiant. “Well said. Someone really does need to deal with that bunch. By the way, stay in my room tonight. I’m going to visit my Ninth Sister.”
“Yes, Princess. I promise no one will notice.”
At dusk, Lu Jinshuang changed into an ordinary outfit and slipped quietly out of the Seventh Princess’s residence.
The streets outside were still bustling, as curfew had not yet begun. She strolled leisurely through the streets alone. When she passed a roast-chicken shop, she even bought ten roast chickens.
Looking down at the chickens in her hand, she smiled. Little Lan’er loved roast chicken best of all. Ten should be enough for her.
When she arrived outside the Ninth Princess’s residence, she nimbly vaulted over a section of the courtyard wall and entered the estate. The guards inside not only failed to stop her but also respectfully saluted her.
“Seventh Princess!”
Lu Jinshuang nodded and smiled at the guards, then headed straight for Xi Qingyue’s courtyard with the roast chicken in hand.
