After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

Ning Nan sighed, feeling a mix of emotions. He couldn't help but reach out his left hand and put his arm around his pregnant wife.

They knew that the woman was pregnant.

It was the day before yesterday, New Year's Day, when she returned to her cell that evening.

The two then had dinner together again.

After dinner.

A palace maid brought over a bamboo basket containing large and small packets of medicinal herbs, as well as a medicine pot.

"My elder brother has been sickly since childhood, but I still know how to decoct medicine."

talking.

She then began to unpack the herbs and put them into the jar, first soaking them in cold water.

Ning Nan frowned and asked his wife what was wrong. Was she sick?

Cui Cui's wife merely glanced at him, her eyes showing a mixture of smugness and bewilderment, without saying a word, continuing with her own affairs.

The medicine was simmering on the stove.

Later that evening, the woman sat at the table reviewing memorials.

"My brother's health has finally improved a little,"

Holding a vermilion brush, she read the memorial and said calmly,

"These past few days have been tough again."

Ning Nan lay in bed, listening to her rambling, silently gazing at the brilliant stars through the small fence.

The night sky, washed clean by snow, is ablaze with stars tonight.

He rested his hands behind his head and suddenly said:

"What were you writing that night?"

Which night?

Ning Nan pursed her lips, her heart filled with mixed feelings, but the scene from that night was deeply ingrained in her mind.

The two decided to lay many things out on the table again, so they couldn't help but ask.

"It was the night of my county exam... um... September 15th, I think... It was very late that day... You, you hadn't come back by midnight... Later you came back, and you went to the study... um... it seemed like you were writing something... You wrote and then tore it up... You tore it up and then wrote it again... It seemed like you even cried..."

Zhu Cuiwei stopped writing with her vermilion brush.

He frowned.

After thinking for a moment, I remembered which night the other person was referring to.

He then bent down and took out a small pouch from his bosom, from which he retrieved a letter.

"Here," she handed it to Ning Nan, "this."

Ning Nan paused for a moment, glanced at it, but then didn't want to look anymore, and simply said:

"Was it written for me?"

"no."

He felt a sense of relief and smiled slightly.

"If it wasn't written for me, why should I even look at it?"

Zhu Cuiwei, however, refused to accept this and stood up to slap the paper across his face.

Ning Nan, smelling the ink, finally opened the letter...

"Your Majesty, I beseech you: My younger sister, Cuiwei, since ascending the throne, has risen early and retired late, fearing for the ancestral temple and willing to die for the country… However, Cuiwei is of meager virtue, and our neighboring states are like tigers and wolves… If war breaks out… Cuiwei will go to the two cities north of the river and die, north of the ancestral temple… Cuiwei is unworthy… The ancestral temple must be honored, the national enemy awaits vengeance… The foundation of the nation must be stabilized… I beseech Your Majesty to consider selecting a virtuous and talented member of the imperial clan to succeed her as Crown Prince…"

By the dim light of the oil lamp, Ning Nan saw that the other party had already stamped the jade seal on it.

"This is the original letter," the woman said, picking up her vermilion pen again and continuing to review the memorials. "I made a formal copy and read it to the Empress Dowager and her group, then gave it to my brother for safekeeping... so they won't bother me with all sorts of trivial matters all the time..."

Her voice was filled with resentment as she said, "Instead of bothering me... why don't you go and train a capable person for the Zhu family to take my place?... You've only trained a bunch of rats..."

The woman muttered to herself, saying that they had all been imprisoned, and that the Prince of Anfeng, the Prince of Weinan, and several other imperial relatives had been stripped of their titles and their descendants demoted to commoners.

The position of Imperial Clan Leader of the Liang Dynasty has changed from Prince Anfeng to Prince Jing.

Ning Nan was taken aback. If the emperor, who held military power, was truly enraged, these princes would naturally have no power to resist.

People often don't know the pain until they're cut; they assume they won't die as long as they're not dead.

After a while, he lowered his eyes, folded the letter, and put it into his pocket.

"Northern Dynasty... Jiangbei Two Cities..." He lay back down, his hands behind his head, his eyes gazing at the stars outside the small fence, uttering a few words.

But his eyes looked different again. He slowly inhaled and then slowly exhaled.

"Fuck you Tartars..." he suddenly muttered a curse under his breath.

A moment later.

The smell of medicine filled the cell.

"Help me brew the medicine," the woman said without looking up.

"What exactly is wrong with you?" He sat up abruptly, staring at the woman who spoke calmly and seemed perfectly healthy, and asked with some annoyance.

Even if the woman coughed twice, knowing what illness she had would put him at ease.

But seeing that the other person seemed perfectly fine, yet still needed to take medicine, he could only keep looking the other person up and down, wondering what was going on.

At this moment, Zhu Cuiwei, holding a vermilion brush, said casually:

"Medicine to prevent miscarriage..."

Ning Nan's eyes widened in surprise.

He glanced at the dim, yellowish light and shadows moving across the woman's fair face.

He froze instantly, then sprang up from the bed with a "whoosh"...

……

……

The orderly footsteps of nearly three hundred guards thundered down the long street.

The rumble of the carriage had long been drowned out by the deafening footsteps.

It was late afternoon, around 3 PM.

The guards arrived outside the palace and watched the imperial carriage enter.

Zhu Cuiwei sent the young doctor who had been released from the Imperial Clan Court to Jingren Palace.

The Emperor wants to see him.

She watched the young doctor walk into Jingren Palace, and silently pursed her pink lips.

After leaving Jingren Palace, the young physician no longer needs to go to the Imperial Clan Court's prison, but for now he can only be confined to Ning Mansion.

She lowered the carriage curtain.

Of the ten memorials submitted to the court, seven are impeaching the junior official.

She had a slight headache.

Following the imperial carriage, we returned to the long-missed Qianqing Palace.

He summoned Yan Yuqing, Wang Bing, Gao Congzhe of the Cabinet, Luan Zongyuan, Minister of War, Jia Shi'an, Vice Minister of War, Fang Xiaofan, Minister of Revenue, and several others to discuss matters.

"The Third Prince of the Northern Dynasty... that is, Hongchang, the third prince of the Northern Emperor, was just granted the title of Prince a few years ago... He is currently in Huai'an. Hongchang has already given orders to Dachun, saying that our dynasty must escort the Grand Prince Consort to Beijing, otherwise not only will the alliance fail, but the Northern Dynasty will also march south in an instant..."

"The three major camps of the Northern Dynasty north of the Yangtze River originally withdrew thirty miles north a few months ago to show their sincerity, and then withdrew another twenty miles. Now..." Yan Yuqing frowned his white eyebrows, "Now the vanguard of the three major camps, more than ten thousand men, has moved south again and is approaching the two cities north of the Yangtze River."

Luan Zongyuan, dressed in a scarlet robe, nodded and said, "Your Majesty, the intelligence from the Ministry of War confirms this. The scouts in the two cities north of the Yangtze River have already engaged in combat..."

Inside the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Cuiwei sat silently at the head of the table, while the ministers discussed amongst themselves...

……

Jingren Palace.

Zhu Boqing, his face deathly pale, leaned against the bed, a smile playing on his lips as he looked at the young man beside the bed and said:

"It was my idea to send you to the Imperial Clan Court prison, so don't blame Cuiwei."

Ning Nan felt somewhat ashamed and lowered his head, saying, "I wouldn't dare."

Zhu Boqing laughed and said, "You, the dignified leader of the Heavenly Principle Sect, shattered the alliance that the Northern and Southern Dynasties had been negotiating for nearly half a year with a single move. Is there anything you wouldn't dare to do?"

Ning Nan was taken aback and looked up at his smiling brother-in-law, though he knew that there might be some joking in his words.

But if… his pupils contracted… but if we really consider the Heavenly Principle Sect’s long-standing goal of overthrowing the Northern Dynasty, what he did in the Golden Hall might actually have helped them.

Thinking this way, he had no choice but to lower his eyes again, unsure of what to say.

Zhu Boqing looked at this audacious young man who shocked him and even made him slightly worried, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

He threw the other person into jail to see how bold they really were, and to see if such an impulsive nature could be tempered to some extent.

But unexpectedly... a hint of helplessness flashed across his brows... No sooner had his brother-in-law gone in than his sister, the emperor, followed him in.

"I have summoned you here today."

He picked up a piece of paper with two fingers, handed it to Ning Nan, and said:

"It's because I received a secret letter."

Ning Nan took it, unfolded it, and frowned the moment he saw it.

He hadn't even read the contents of the letter, but the signature alone had already left him speechless.

The letter's closing...

The Third Prince of the Qing Dynasty...

Hongchang.

"Bai Xuan,"

On his sickbed, Zhu Boqing looked at his young brother-in-law with deep eyes and calmly said:

"Do you dare to be an envoy to the Northern Dynasty?"