That wretched vixen has disguised herself as my wife!

I find some of this young lady's tendencies rather alarming.

"Yes, there are, but they usually have a time limit. Once the time is up, the person dies along with the Gu."

Fang Zhiyi continued to explain patiently with a slight smile.

"Ugh! I don't want it! It's boring!"

Xie Yunqi pouted in disappointment.

Jiang Jingming remained silent for a moment, then suddenly felt a little fortunate, because he always felt that he was the young lady's target for poisoning.

"Jingming, what are you doing...?"

Xie Yunqi turned to look at him, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Lu Zhao, who looked sentimental.

Why is he crying?

"It's nothing, I was just thinking about my future wife."

Jiang Jingming thought for a moment, then added:

"Brother Lu Zhao is the kind of hero who would calmly face death to protect his wife."

"Oh? Even a soldier has someone he likes?"

Xie Yunqi blinked in surprise, then suddenly remembered something and clapped his hands.

"Oh, right! I suddenly remembered!"

"Remembered what?"

“My father said that Lu Zhao is not young anymore and it’s time for him to get married. After this mission is over and he sends me back to the capital, he will personally arrange a marriage for you!”

Xie Yunqi tugged at Jiang Jingming's sleeve with a gossipy look on his face, talking and laughing as he spoke.

"Huh? This! You! Oh dear!"

Lu Zhao's expression instantly changed from sentimentality to the shyness of a young man in love. He nervously rubbed his hands together and leaned forward to ask:

"Did the commander reveal which family's young lady she is?"

“There are so many young ladies in the capital who are ready to be married. My father said that with your official position and age, there are plenty of suitable matches for you.”

Xie Yunqi looked as serious as a matchmaker.

"If you're lucky enough to be chosen by a young lady from a wealthy family and marry the right person, it will be a great help to your career in the future."

"Living off a woman."

Aqing hit the nail on the head.

Chapter 104 Burning Fire to Exorcise Evil

"Being able to live off a woman is a skill in itself."

Jiang Jingming smiled and winked at A Qing.

"That's true!"

Xie Yunqi nodded seriously and recounted an experience that made her very unhappy.

“The young ladies of wealthy families have very discerning tastes. Last spring, I attended the flower-viewing banquet hosted by the Empress. I heard it was a great opportunity for young noble families to find a partner. If they hit it off immediately, they could ask the Emperor for a marriage decree on the spot.”

"That was so boring! We had to bow so many times, and the way everyone talked was so roundabout! The women would blush and run away after saying just a few words, and they would write several lines of poetry and pass them back and forth for things that could be said in one sentence! It was so tedious!"

"So I helped them out. I climbed onto the roof and shouted loudly, 'Hey, you tall guy over there, the girl in the blue dress says you're not bad looking! Hey, hey, girl with the crabapple blossom in her hair, don't go! That fat guy hasn't finished writing the love poem for you yet!'"

"..."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Jingming couldn't help but laugh and raise his hand to his forehead.

One can already imagine the young lady causing a ruckus at the flower-viewing banquet, probably ruining the mood of a group of lovesick young men and women.

I've heard about this too.

Lu Zhao's expression was very complicated.

"At the time, everyone said that Ming Zhaojun was lawless, but the emperor favored her. Afterwards, he not only did not blame her, but was also very pleased and praised the Xie family's young lady for her cheerful and pleasant personality, saying that she was worthy of the name Mingzhao."

Jiang Jingming smiled; he could actually understand why the emperor was so tolerant of Miss Xie.

Firstly, it must be because of Xie Jichuan's important status, and secondly, it's because her personality is truly rare in this world.

Having seen so many well-behaved and self-disciplined children from respectable families, encountering such a lawless young girl is like the first ray of sunshine breaking through the dark clouds.

No one can dislike it.

"What then?"

Jiang Jingming noticed Xie Yunqi's slightly furrowed brows. So far, what had happened shouldn't be enough to make the young lady hold a grudge for so long.

"Later, the empress suddenly insisted on dragging me to watch the play with her, saying that I was too beautiful and that if I stayed there, everyone would look at me and no one would look at the flowers."

Xie Yun pouted angrily, and even now, thinking back on it, she is still very unhappy.

"The Empress is so sweet-talking! I know she's just afraid I'll cause trouble! I've been sitting next to her all day watching the show, it's so boring, I almost fell asleep sitting there!"

"What's worse is that the pastries were also terrible! The osmanthus cake was so sweet it was cloying, and the tea the Empress gave me to cut through the sweetness was as bitter as medicine! From that moment on, I swore I would never go to such a banquet again!"

After listening to Xie Yunqi's accusations, Lu Zhao couldn't help but sigh:

"I think all the eligible men and women in the capital should thank you for your absence."

"what?"

Xie Yunqi glared, then suddenly remembered something funny, leaned close to Jiang Jingming's ear, and whispered:

"Jingming, let me tell you, at that flower-viewing banquet, I heard that the daughter of the Vice Minister of Revenue was very fond of Lu Zhao! It's a pity he wasn't invited!"

"What? Vice Minister Liu of the Ministry of Revenue? I don't remember him having a daughter."

Lu Zhao quickly came over; his ears were particularly sharp at times like this, and he excitedly shouted loudly.

"It's that girl with the bun hairstyle. She told me you've met her before, during the Lantern Festival, when you found the lantern she lost."

Xie Yunqi grinned slyly.

"Lanterns..."

Lu Zhao pondered for a moment, then suddenly turned pale, swayed, and almost fell over.

"What's wrong, Brother Lu Zhao?"

Jiang Jingming quickly helped him up.

"That...that's my daughter?"

Lu Zhao's face was pale, and he couldn't believe it.

"Hey, of course it's my daughter!"

Xie Yunqi nodded solemnly.

"You can't deny that someone is a girl just because she's a little bit strong and muscular!"

Are you sure it's just a little bit?

Lu Zhao grabbed Jiang Jingming's arm, his knees feeling a little weak.

"Jingming, do you remember Master Fu from before? That girl was only a size younger than Master Fu. When she stood there, I thought the Imperial Guard instructor had come out to see the lanterns..."

Hearing his slightly trembling voice at the end, Jiang Jingming patted his shoulder sympathetically, trying to comfort him.

"Look on the bright side. With such a formidable wife as your support, you'll be able to get by anywhere. If there's a road you can't walk, she'll use her fists to clear it."

"Brother, are you sure her iron-clad fist won't swing at me first?"

Thinking about the bloody and turbulent married life, Lu Zhao was already teetering on the brink of collapse.

Xie Yunqi clapped his hands and laughed loudly:

"But that's not necessarily true. You're just a fugitive now, and the daughter of the Vice Minister of Revenue might not even look at you!"

"Thank God, this is the first time in my life I've been so grateful to be a fugitive."

Lu Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, and his determination to persevere on his path as a fugitive became even stronger.

"Let's get back to the important matter, Sister Fang. If we want to destroy these monstrous things, what should we do?"

Xie Yunqi turned his head and looked at Fang Zhiyi, who had been smiling silently.

She always listened quietly when others were talking, rarely interrupting, until someone spoke to her.

Although Aqing was like this most of the time, Jiang Jingming thought she was catching up on sleep with her eyes open, but in reality she was daydreaming and didn't hear anything.

"It's actually not difficult, you just need fire."

Fang Zhiyi's lips curled slightly.

"That ancient book records that the Crimson Bone Flower prefers cold and dislikes fire; burning it with fire will reduce it to ashes."

"That simple?"

Xie Yunqi was slightly taken aback:

"I thought they looked so terrifying that it would be difficult to kill them and I would have to ask a Taoist priest to perform a ritual."

"The Crimson Bone Flower is a flower that imitates human flesh and blood. If you think about it carefully, killing a person is just as simple."

Fang Zhiyi smiled faintly.

That seems to be true.

Jiang Jingming gazed at the flowers swaying gently in the flower field.

If they are not burned, they can remain here for hundreds of years without decaying.

If a careless person were to pass by, they might think they had stumbled into purgatory.

"But it's still raining now, so the fire probably won't catch fire."

Lu Zhao looked up at the gloomy sky and sighed helplessly.

He always stood furthest away from the flower field, genuinely feeling that the place was eerie and not wanting to get involved at all.

He just wanted the rain to stop quickly, so he set the place on fire and burned it to the ground.

It would be best to burn down the entire Tingpu Mountain Villa. Planting these flowers to raise Gu poison, what kind of good things could they be?

"In that case, let's go into the manor to investigate first. Be careful not to disturb the Gu in the flower field."

Jiang Jingming pressed the knife at his waist and turned to look back.

From here, you can already see the walls of Tingpu Villa.

"Wait until the rain stops, then burn fire to drive away evil spirits."

Chapter 105 Blood Letter

Listening to the Waterfall Villa.

There was no plaque above the gate, and the deep red gate was tightly closed.

The courtyard wall was built extremely high, and standing outside the gate, one could not see anything inside the courtyard.

The sound of the waterfall sounded like distant, muffled thunder at the entrance. The shady trees covering the mountainside made the whole resort look secluded and tranquil.

Jiang Jingming stood at the door, looked up, and gazed at the corner of the eaves at the edge of the courtyard wall.

If you didn't know what happened here, you'd probably think it was a wealthy family's summer retreat built deep in the mountains.

The premise is to ignore the seal on the door that bears the signature of the Divine Capital Guard.

"It's not quite what I imagined."

Xie Yunqi put his arms around his arm and looked him up and down for a long time, feeling that this did not seem like one of the five major sects of the Righteous Path Alliance at all.

The gate of the Shen Du Wei residence was built in a grand and solemn manner, with the emperor's own words of precepts inscribed on both sides: "The mirror hangs in the sky, I burn myself."

She had also visited the Xiquan Sword Sect in Zhige City. From afar, one could see a huge stone sword, half of which was submerged in the mountain spring, like a flying sword from the sky, which was enough to stir one's heart.

This Listening Waterfall Villa looks... only ordinary.

It's not grand enough, nor elegant enough, and it doesn't even have a sinister atmosphere.