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Chapter 656 is strange.

"Mountain bandits? They kidnapped the eldest grandson of the Prince of Lan?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yu seemed to have heard some kind of fantastical tale or bizarre joke. However, recalling Lu Qing's action of lifting the curtain to look outside earlier, she had a general idea of ​​what had happened and suppressed the doubts that had surged in her mind for a moment: "Isn't the Prince of Lan skilled in riding and archery, and proficient in both literature and martial arts? How could he have fallen from his horse for no reason and been trampled to death by the horse's hooves?"

"We have no way of knowing about this matter; this is the only result we've heard." Lu Qing's tone was calm, but his expression carried a hint of sarcasm.

"What about the others?"

“No one else has heard any strange stories, but the story about the third son who was struck by lightning is a bit unusual.” Lu Qing raised an eyebrow. “After he died, the servants in the house burned the clothes and shoes he was wearing when the accident happened. It would have been better if they hadn’t burned them, because strange things started to happen.”

After the cloth turned to ash in the fire, the servants found something in the stove that couldn't be completely burned. When they pulled it out, they found it was a lump of iron powder and shavings that had melted from the heat.

Afterwards, rumors circulated that the third son's clothes and shoes had been laced with a large amount of iron powder, and that there were iron wires as thin as hair in his outer robe and the soles of his shoes. This, they claimed, caused him to be struck by lightning while walking outside during a thunderstorm.

"Even so, being struck by lightning means the lightning that day was extremely powerful. Otherwise, to be struck by lightning, he'd need a really tall iron rod stuck in his head." Zhu Yu pursed his lips and asked, "You said the youngest son of the Prince of Lan was only nine years old when the accident happened, so this third son shouldn't be much older, right?"

"I've just passed the age of aspiring to study," Lu Qing replied.

Zhu Yu calculated that he would be about fifteen or sixteen years old.

Teenagers at this age are in the process of shedding their childishness. It is certainly not something a person of this age would do if they insisted on going out to play on a stormy day.

"So who made him go out in such terrible weather?" With that thought in mind, her question became very direct.

Lu Qing smiled and said, "The rumor is that the Prince of Lan sent him out to do something for him, but after the death of the third son, there is naturally no way to verify this. We can only take it as it comes."

Hearing this, Zhu Yu smiled.

If Emperor Jin were to send people to investigate this matter, at least they could go through the motions and ask some questions. But on Lan Kingdom's territory, who would have the audacity to confront the Lan King about this?!
Unfortunately, Emperor Jin had no time to concern himself with such matters, and in the end, the matter was naturally left unresolved.

Zhu Yu found the Lan King increasingly strange. Fortunately, given her previous experience in the Brahma Kingdom, she could easily deduce the situation in Lan Land. She could only sigh that the person who secretly plotted all this was truly adept at using people—both had used some method to turn a vassal king into a puppet to be manipulated, but the roles played by the Brahma King and the Lan King were completely different.

Because of the long-standing reputation of the Brahma Kingdom for its skillful use of witchcraft and its strange and ruthless style, the Brahma King's role, besides unknowingly testing medicines on people, was more about allowing some originally forbidden and insidious substances to continue to be transported elsewhere. Incidentally, at the end of his life, he also served as a "tool" for the other party to frame Lu Qing.

As for the Prince of Lan, because of his kinship with Emperor Jin, Lan should have been the most trusted of the several vassal states, and Emperor Jin had never taken any special precautions against it over the years. However, the other side took advantage of Emperor Jin's natural trust in his distant relative. In addition, Lan's fertile land and peaceful, uncontested state provided excellent cover. Under the pretext of cultivating flowers, dyes, and spices, they produced a large quantity of poisonous incense and sent it into the capital of Jin, into the imperial palace, without any hindrance.

If the roles of these two puppet princes were reversed, this long-standing conspiracy would probably not have been able to proceed so smoothly.

"After that, you didn't find out that anyone tried to ask Prince Lan for gold and silver to redeem his only surviving grandson, right?" At this moment, Zhu Yu already understood what Lu Qing had just told him.

Lu Qing naturally nodded in response.

“I don’t believe that the young grandson was kidnapped by bandits back then,” Zhu Yu sighed. “Not to mention that the people of Lan Kingdom are generally mild-mannered, even in the relatively fierce Shuo and Jie regions, there wouldn’t be any bandits who would be so bold as to abandon their usual robbing and plundering to kill the Crown Princess and kidnap the prince’s grandson!”

Originally, secretly robbing people in the deep mountains and forests might be less likely to be discovered by the government because of the high mountains and long distances. But to run off and kidnap the grandson of a prince would be a truly suicidal act.

So you were clearly keeping a low profile before, but once you got to this area, you suddenly changed your mind and deliberately used a horse-drawn carriage and a wooden box wrapped in silk. Are you trying to use us as bait to test whether the other side is a bandit?

So this area is the hideout of the bandits who kidnapped the grandson of the Prince of Lan back then, as you claim?

Lu Qing did not answer her question directly, but sighed softly, "Putting aside everything else, just for this one matter of bestowing a marriage, I should indeed feel grateful to His Majesty."

If it weren't for that imperial decree, I would never have dared to imagine that I would have such a beautiful and intelligent wife who shares my ideals.

Zhu Yu felt that Lu Qing's tongue had become increasingly smooth lately. He could praise people without batting an eye, and he did so with extreme composure, without showing any embarrassment.

However, no one can have too many nice words. After hearing Lu Qing's almost blatant flattery, Zhu Yu smiled, but then immediately straightened up and coughed lightly: "Don't forget, it was this same Emperor who said he would allow me to divorce you in the Southern Study."

Furthermore, my name, Zhu Yu, was not on the original imperial decree for the marriage; it only stated that the Prince of Shuo should send a daughter of suitable age to marry me.

So the person you married back then might have been me, or it might have been my pampered elder sister; nobody can say for sure.”

Lu Qing knew that Zhu Yu still held a lot of grievances against Emperor Jin, and that these grievances stemmed from his indignation on Zhu Yu's behalf, which made him feel particularly heartened.

“You’re right, so I should attribute this favor to my father-in-law.” He said with a smile, his eyes looking at Zhu Yu with amusement, yet also with an undercurrent of emotion.

(End of this chapter)