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Chapter 245 There are still people in the know.

"No." Before Zhu Yu could finish speaking, Lu Qing had already voiced his objection. His brows furrowed slightly, his eyes full of disapproval. "Your father isn't important enough to us for you to pay such a high price to win him over."

His words made Zhu Yu almost laugh.

A few months ago, she was just a lowly concubine's daughter in the Shuo Prince's mansion, barely noticeable, and most of the time she couldn't even see her high and mighty father.

Months later, the alliances of the mighty King Shuo are now worth less than a drop of her blood.

"I only said I was going to donate blood, I didn't say it was mine." Zhu Yu glanced at Lu Qing and whispered, "With such great power of runes and talismans, surely you can get some chicken blood to do it?"

“That’s right, I don’t believe your dad is so picky that he can drink chicken blood and human blood!” Yan Daoxin was delighted with this crazy idea, and he found Zhu Yu to be even more compatible with him.

Looking at Lu Qing beside him, he quickly pointed and said, "You absolutely mustn't say anything like 'Even so, we still have to make a cut'!"

For someone destined for great things, a small cut won't kill or cripple them; don't be so hesitant.

Lu Qing glared at him and said to Zhu Yu, "Madam's method is indeed brilliant, so let's do it that way."

However, now that your father has realized through this incident that the Pang family was behind the tampering with the tonics, what do you think his reaction will be?

“Perhaps you won’t see any reaction in the short term,” Zhu Yu shook his head. “Given my father’s personality, his first instinct would be to try to find evidence to prove that this matter has nothing to do with the Pang family.”

Upon hearing this, even Yan Daoxin, who was standing next to him, frowned.

"For more than 20 years, the entanglement of interests between the Zhu family and the Pang family has become so complex that it is no longer easy to separate them."

"Separating would inevitably involve risks and losses. Given my father's personality, stability is his top priority. So, unless he believes the situation is critical enough to require immediate action, he won't be so decisive." Zhu Yu sighed. "And I can also guess what his concerns will be."

Although the Pang family's ambitions are growing, they are still related by marriage with the princess, and both sides are located in Shuodi. Unless it is proven that the Pang family really has the ambition and plan to usurp power, abandoning such an ally will come at a great cost.

Although our return this time has greatly changed Father's impression of us, we are still far away in Jin Kingdom. It cannot be said that it has no benefit for him, but overall, it may have been more of a gamble, which does not conform to his usual desire for stability.

After receiving the news, Zhu Jie began to investigate the missing able-bodied men. It would take time for the Pang family to feel threatened. Whether the Pang family would really sacrifice him as a puppet is still just speculation. Whether things will go smoothly depends on many factors, including timing, location, and people.

Before that, we also need to influence others where necessary and discipline them where appropriate.

“It’s not difficult to give them a warning. Tomorrow I will go to your father and ask him to inspect that batch of weapons that the Pang family supervised to manufacture.” Lu Qing said, and seeing that Zhu Yu seemed to have a question, he guessed what she wanted to ask. “The court has regulations that all weapons required by the Ministry of War must be supervised by the Prince of Shuo himself and cannot be handed over to others.”

Only weapons requested by other vassal states and reported to the Ministry of War could be manufactured by qualified ironware merchants in the Shuo Kingdom through a process of soliciting and purchasing them. Therefore, it was perfectly acceptable for the Pang family to simply accept the business assigned by the Ministry of War and make a profit.

But the problem now is that they've done the forging that your father should have supervised himself.

Zhu Yu narrowed his eyes: "So it really is necessary to carefully examine that batch of weapons."

I don't know much about weapon forging, but if the privately manufactured weapons found in Jie and Lan, and the batch from the Ministry of War, were all made by the Pang family... is it possible to find a common thread?

"It shouldn't be difficult." Lu Qing agreed and nodded. "We've had a long and tiring journey these past few days, so let's not worry about it too much today."

After a while, the servants brought over some food. We've all eaten our fill, so let's rest early.

Since Yan Shu has already retired for the night, I don't think we need to wake her up.

"Yeah, she looks really tired. She was sleeping so soundly just now. Anyway, one more meal won't make a difference. She can have a proper meal tomorrow morning." Zhu Yu replied, but a vague unease suddenly welled up inside her. She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but it just popped up when Lu Qing mentioned Yan Shu.

The feeling was somewhat elusive, and she couldn't quite grasp it at first. She only vaguely felt that it was related to Yan Shu, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why she felt uneasy.

Because she was caught up in this elusive thought, Zhu Yu was eager to sort out her thoughts, which made her somewhat absent-minded during the meal. She ate in silence, chewing her food for a long time without swallowing.

Yan Daoxin saw this and winked at Lu Qing, wanting Lu Qing to ask Zhu Yu what was wrong.

Lu Qing silently placed a piece of fish, its bones removed, into her bowl without saying a word to disturb her.

Even after finishing their meal and returning to their room, Zhu Yu remained focused on organizing her thoughts, while Lu Qing remained silent, taking a book and sitting quietly at the table.

"Oh! I finally remembered!" After a while, Zhu Yu's expression became lively again. He clapped his hands, his voice filled with the joy of having sorted out his thoughts.

However, when her gaze fell on Lu Qing's face across the table, that momentary joy quickly faded, replaced by eyes full of worry.

“Besides that person, there should be others who know about your other identity.” She said to Lu Qing, “I mean, besides Yan Daoxin with his runes and talismans, me, and Situ Jing.”

"Madam has been racking her brains over this matter all night?" Lu Qing couldn't help but laugh helplessly after hearing her words.

“Yes, when I heard you talk about Yan Shu, I always felt a vague unease in my heart, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, so I kept trying to figure out what was wrong with me.” Zhu Yu sighed. “Originally, I wasn’t worried about this kind of thing, after all, even the eunuch Gao who was by my side didn’t know about it.”

But upon closer reflection, something didn't seem right. In fact, we could already glean clues from what happened at the Lizhou camp.