Joy of Life: Starting from Teacher Fan Xian

Chapter 77: Entering the Governor's Mansion at Night

At daybreak, Cangzhou City sent nearly one hundred cavalrymen to escort the delegation into the city.

The carriages pressed on the meadow, dragging a long team across the vast grassland, heading towards the shadow of Cangzhou City.

Lin Ruo sat in the carriage, opened the curtain and breathed in the fresh air of the grassland. He choked and thought that Cangzhou City was not a place to stay for long.

"There is no need for the delegation to stay in Cangzhou City for long. Just replenish supplies and continue heading north before noon." The carriage has already set foot on the official road and will reach Cangzhou City in half an hour at most.

Wang Qinian answered from outside: "I will listen to you, sir."

Xin Qiwu was also in the car. He was totally opposed to this and raised his eyebrows in surprise: "It's too fast. We should at least take a day off."

Lin Ruo smiled and said, "Why, Master Xin, didn't you get enough rest yesterday?"

"That's not the case." Xin Qiwu stretched himself lazily, pouted his lips, and used an elder's teaching tone, "Your Excellency is still too inexperienced. Cangzhou City is a big border city, and the Cangzhou Governor has considerable power. In order to show courtesy, they will naturally entertain us. If we just pass through the border for half a day and leave, it will be too disrespectful to them."

"We can discuss the hospitality after we return to the border after the negotiations." Lin Ruo rejected it, "The Northern Qi delegation is almost at the border, and they are much faster than us."

Hearing this, Xin Qiwu slowed down his voice and smiled, "Sir, if that's the case, we should slow down even more, to give Northern Qi a head start and teach these people a lesson about their arrogance as the Celestial Empire."

"There's nothing wrong with what you said." Wang Qinian responded from outside again.

Lin Ruo didn't say anything else. He just stared out the window, thinking about what he would do that evening.

Soon, the majestic and towering Cangzhou city finally appeared before their eyes. The shadow of this area seemed to cover the sky.

The city gate had already been cleared and there were no outsiders. On the road outside the city, the defenders and officials of Cangzhou City were waiting for the delegation.

The journey lasted nearly a month, and the exhausted officials of the Honglu Temple tried to cheer themselves up.

Etiquette and communication were naturally their job. Xin Qiwu took the lead in exchanging courtesies with the officials of Cangzhou City, greeting them actively and enthusiastically, praising the achievements of the Cangzhou defenders and complaining about the difficulties and dangers of the journey northward.

Lin Ruo watched all this calmly, waiting for someone to mention his name before he would go up and cooperate with Xin Qiwu to deal with it perfunctorily.

"Greetings, General Envoy Lin." Yang Hui, the governor of Cangzhou City, arrived late, his eyes fixed on the young general envoy.

"Lord Yang is too polite." Lin Ruo returned the greeting and looked at the handsome commander of Cangzhou City, Lord Yang, who was neither high nor low, and had only a superficial understanding of both civil and military affairs.

I was wondering if the assassination last night was done by this person.

Yang Hui interrupted Lin Ruo's thoughts with a half-smile, and continued: "Envoy Lin's ten thousand-word national policy theory has long been heard inside and outside Cangzhou City. Now that you are here, don't just stay on paper. I suggest Envoy Lin to investigate more and accumulate experience."

Writing an essay, right? And accumulating experience... Lin Ruo realized that this person was mocking him vaguely.

Lin Ruo smiled and replied, "I am ashamed that I only know a little bit, not as good as Lord Yang in both literature and martial arts."

Yang Hui laughed twice, his expression unchanged: "A young and talented person like General Envoy Lin, a new top scholar with talent and fame, should stay in Beijing and make suggestions for the country. It must be hard for him to come all the way north to the border."

The sarcasm in this sentence was even stronger. Lin Ruo smiled and said, "Thank you for your concern, Lord Yang. However, the customs in Cangzhou City are not much different from those in Kyoto. It is not difficult to adapt to it."

The two of them were arguing fiercely, and the people around them were watching in silence.

After a while, Yang Huicai ended the topic and said, "Tonight, I will host a banquet at the Governor's Mansion. Please come and show me your kindness."

"It would be disrespectful to refuse." Lin Ruo agreed on behalf of the delegation. Originally, he wanted to leave Cangzhou City as soon as possible, but now it seems that he would like to see what Lord Yang is up to and find out whether the assassination last night has anything to do with him.

Receiving the reception from Cangzhou officials, the diplomatic envoys rested in the guild hall in the city.

When the sun set, officials from the Governor's Office came to the guild hall as agreed and invited a group of people from the Honglu Temple to have a chat.

When he arrived outside the Governor's Mansion, Lin Ruo discovered that this banquet was not just for entertaining the diplomatic envoys, but all the important figures in Cangzhou City were present.

Outside the heavily guarded palace, officers and soldiers strictly carried out the work of checking the guests and had no scruples about attacking the wealthy businessmen.

These people were not angry. They naturally knew that the participants were the Kyoto delegation, and they were overjoyed at the great social opportunity that fell upon them.

While Lin Ruo was waiting, he took a quick walk outside the mansion and memorized the guard deployment around him in his mind.

When the delegation entered the palace, the officers and soldiers respectfully made way and did not dare to take any action.

After entering the huge Governor's Mansion, Lin Ruo asked his servants to take him around for a week on the pretext of going to the bathroom, and took note of every detail in the Governor's Mansion and the deployment of the guards.

In this way, the actions at night can be foolproof.

In a short while, the banquet was served, and Yang Hui entertained the guests with a smile on his face. Because of the fact that he was the garrison commander of Cangzhou, his smile was a little reserved. The guests in the hall clinked their glasses and chatted non-stop, creating a lively and peaceful atmosphere.

Watching the movements of the Honglu Temple group, Yang Hui's eyes moved, and the guests came forward one after another, indulging in drinks with these Kyoto officials.

As the host, the reception around Yang Hui seemed much more monotonous.

The officials of the Honglu Temple were no pushovers either. They interacted with the guests, playing Tai Chi, and tried their best not to drink too much.

In such scenes, Xin Qiwu is always a rare shining point. He can convince the guests and make them drunk.

As the time grew late, a cunning look appeared in Yang Hui's eyes. He picked up the wine cup and went to the hall to drink with Lin Ruo.

Lin Ruo naturally would not back down, and he and the governor attacked each other back and forth. Before long, his face turned red from being drunk, and his eyes became blurred.

Seeing this, Yang Hui left with satisfaction, saying something mocking the drunkenness: "A scholar is a scholar, how can he have any heroic sentiments."

The banquet ended at midnight. The people from the Honglu Temple returned to the guild hall in a half-drunk state and drank some sobering soup to sober themselves up.

Lin Ruo was helped into the room by the officials and the lights were turned off. After a while, he sobered up on his own. He used the internal energy of a ninth-grade master to secretly force out the alcohol, and his complexion finally returned to normal.

Hearing the movement outside the door, Lin Ruo quietly pushed open a corner of the room and found that the Governor's Office had sent a lot of singing girls and beauties to the guild hall, knocking on the rooms of the officials of the Honglu Temple one by one and sending them in.

This is to be a good person to the end. Seeing the soldiers coming towards his room, Lin Ruo closed the door, lay on the bed and covered himself with the quilt.

The soldier was about to knock on the door with the beauty, but Wang Qinian stopped him at the right time and said, "The master is still drunk, so we should not disturb him."

The soldier took a look calmly, thinking of the unconscious figure in the mansion, and without thinking too much, he just asked, "What about this singer?"

"Send it to my room." Wang Qinian left with the singer and the soldiers.

When it was late at night and everyone was asleep, Lin Ruo put on his night clothes, left the guild hall, and headed for the Governor's Mansion along the road.

The Governor's Mansion is very large, occupying almost half of the street. Apart from the heavily guarded main gate, there are large areas with weak defenses. No one would have thought that someone would dare to sneak into the Governor's Mansion at night.

Lin Ruo lowered his head and jumped lightly from an alley into the mansion.

In the entire Governor's Mansion, except for the banquet hall which was still dimly lit, most of the other rooms were dark. The guards had lost their energy and were dozing off on the ground.

Without any effort, Lin Ruo found another room with the light on.

This is Yang Hui's study, where the Grand Commander is writing a letter.

"It should be sent to the Qin family at the border." Lin Ruo declined in his heart.

A patrolling guard came over and Lin Ruo's figure disappeared in an instant.

After an unknown amount of time, the exhausted commander returned to his bedroom, closed the door, took off his clothes, and was about to go to sleep, but was horrified to find a night walker sitting by the bed, looking at him teasingly with his arms folded.

The night walker gestured with his fingers to silence him, but Lord Yang naturally would not listen. He immediately turned around, shouted, and ran out the door.

Unfortunately, his movements were far slower than those of the night walker. As soon as he moved half of his body forward and opened his mouth, his mouth was covered. His legs were bent and he was kneeling down with his head on the cold ground.

"I'm letting go of your hand now. Grand Commander, please speak more softly. If your voice is louder than my standard, you won't have to speak again." Faced with the naked threat, Yang Hui didn't dare to breathe. He was a fifth-rank warrior after all, but under this man's suppression, he couldn't even move his legs.

"Good man, let's talk it over." Yang Hui begged for mercy humbly.

"Who has the chance to talk to you? Don't you even look at who I am?" Lin Ruo said seriously.

Yang Hui couldn't tell the man's identity, and kept begging for mercy: "I really don't know your identity. If I have offended you in the past, please let me know. I will definitely pay you back handsomely."

"General Yang is really a forgetful man. You were just drinking in the palace and you forgot everything so quickly. Your memory is like that of a fish." Lin Ruo complained indignantly, which meant that this guy didn't take him seriously at all.

Yang Hui was shocked and said bitterly, "You are Lin Ruo? Impossible, how can a scholar like you have such brute force?"

Lin Ruo didn't want to deal with his questions, so he brought up what happened last night and said, "Commander-in-Chief Yang sent assassins to investigate the situation of the envoys. He didn't really think that I could get away with it without investigating. I released them last night just to give the Qin family face. Commander-in-Chief Yang doesn't want to pay for the Qin family, so I have no choice but to come and ask for it myself."

"You already said it was the Qin family, what does it have to do with me?"

Lin Ruo couldn't help but laugh after hearing these stupid words. He finally understood why Yang Hui didn't come to him for explanation. It turned out that he was stupid.

"You are just being stubborn, right? Cangzhou City is led by Governor Yang, and Qin Heng is leading the army on the border. How can he know the news from afar and make the decision to spy quickly? Who else can know the news and give instructions the fastest except you, Yang Hui?"

(End of this chapter)