Chen Ping was completely baffled, unable to figure out why Murong Ke had suddenly relented.
It wasn't until the two of them had walked a long way away that Chen Ping suddenly slapped his forehead, his legs turning to jelly as he collapsed to the ground.
He pointed ahead and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Men! Go check the cellar! Are the provisions... are the provisions still there?!"
Meanwhile, Murong Ke and Su Mingyu were spurring their horses at full gallop toward Liangzhou.
Su Mingyu rode a white horse in the lead, followed by carriages racing at full speed.
Watching that white-clad figure, Murong Ke felt a brief moment of distraction.
Chiyan approached Murong Ke with a look of visible relief and said, "Your Highness, this time we owe it all to Baixue's strategy. Chen Ping never would have imagined that Your Highness would personally act as bait. He diverted all his forces to deal with you, so the prefectural estate must have been heavily guarded precisely where the provisions were kept. Still, who would ever expect someone to build such a massive cellar right inside their own home? How did Baixue ever guess it?"
Murong Ke pressed his lips together. He had asked that woman the exact same question, but the answer remained a mystery to this day.
He couldn't help recalling her cheeky, smiling expression back at the granary.
"I have a plan, Your Highness. Why don't you hear it out before making a decision?"
With a cold face, Murong Ke had replied, "This Prince has no time to waste with you."
He turned to leave, but the woman grabbed the lapel of his robe.
Glaring down at her fair, delicate hand, Murong Ke furrowed his brow and snapped in displeasure, "Do you wandering martial artists have no regard for propriety or shame whatsoever?"
To his surprise, she wasn't the least bit angry. Instead, she grinned and said, "Speaking of propriety and shame, I wonder who it was last night that called me 'wife' before they even knew what I looked like?"
Murong Ke was left completely speechless by the retort.
In the twenty-plus years of his life, he had rarely done anything to cross his conscience, yet this once he had let the woman catch him by the tail, and she kept endlessly throwing it back in his face.
"This is no place to talk. Follow me back to the post station first," he said with a dark expression.
Instead, the woman brazenly grabbed his arm. "What post station? Why are you dawdling like some old biddy? Hurry up and call your men, I'm taking you to find the provisions!"
"You know where the provisions are?"
Murong Ke was astonished, momentarily forgetting that he had let her pull him along against his better judgment.
The woman turned back with a brilliant smile on her face. "Nope."
Just as Murong Ke was about to lose his temper, he heard her continue:
"But when I scouted Chen Ping's estate, I noticed his garrison had grown considerably. Knowing Chen Ping's temperament, provisions are his most prized possession right now, especially with a fierce Prince like you breathing down his neck. How could he possibly sleep at night if he didn't keep the provisions right under his own nose?"
Warily, Murong Ke looked the woman up and down from head to toe. "We arrived here around the same time. When on earth did you have time to scout the Prefectural Office?"
The woman paused for a second, though she offered no explanation. She merely gave two soft coughs and said, "Never... never you mind how I found out. In short, I won't lie to you, and I certainly wouldn't make a mockery of a disaster. Just tell me—are we going or not?"
Truth be told, Murong Ke didn't fully trust the woman before him, but he trusted his own judgment.
As it happened, his own deductions were practically identical to hers.
Yet whatever her actual motives might be, he found them growing increasingly difficult to read.
As Su Mingyu raced onward like lightning, she couldn't help but notice the guarded and probing glances directed at her from behind.
Aside from her concern over the disaster, there was a far more important reason she had lent a hand: she needed to win Prince Ning's trust, penetrate deep into Liangzhou, and complete the mission Emperor Chen had assigned her.
She hardly believed that he was bustling about the Liangzhou disaster relief out of the goodness of his heart.
If he truly possessed such an innocent and kind nature, Emperor Chen would never be so wary of him.
Liangzhou was his power base. If he truly intended to rebel, his first priority would be winning the hearts of the people, and his second would be keeping Liangzhou stable.
The situation in Liangzhou must be truly urgent; otherwise, what on earth could possess him to risk Emperor Chen catching him in the wrong just to steal a provincial prefect's official seal?
While Su Mingyu was lost in thought, a woman riding a horse came galloping toward them at breakneck speed.
"Whoa—"
The rider suddenly reined her horse to a halt.
"Is that Prince Ning?" the woman shouted.
Su Mingyu glanced back at Murong Ke. The woman was quite a looker—could she be Prince Ning's lover?
She watched as Murong Ke calmly rode forward. "Rong'er? What brings you here?"
The woman vaulted off her horse, dropped to one knee with a cupped-fist salute, and spoke with intense emotion.
"Your Highness, the refugees are rioting! Liangzhou is on the verge of collapsing!"
Murong Ke's expression darkened severely as he demanded, "What happened?"
"Not long after Your Highness left Liangzhou, someone among the refugees started spreading rumors that Your Highness had already fled back to the capital in secret, and that keeping them barred outside the city walls was just a plot to starve them to death.
The refugees grew frantic and tried to force their way through the checkpoints.
Strictly obeying Your Highness's orders, the Shenwu Army dared not resort to weapons against the common folk.
Yet those madmen of refugees actually ganged up and brutally murdered a squad leader who had gone out to reason with them.
The refugees went completely too far. Unable to stomach it, the squad leader's subordinates disobeyed military orders and insisted on revenge.
Yet the five men who went were tortured to death right in front of the Shenwu Army, while the refugees jeered that... they said they were so starved they could eat any kind of meat..."
"Right now, the Shenwu Army in the city is at the end of their patience. Several colonels have asked for battle, and my father—the General of Cloud Cavalry—talked until he was blue in the face just to keep them in check.
Even so, the city residents are boiling with rage, vowing to fight the refugees outside to the death, and they've even opened the city gates on their own authority..."
With an ugly expression, Murong Ke frowned and asked, "What were the guards at the gates doing? How could a few civilians manage to open the gates?"
Lowering her head in helpless resignation, the woman replied, "Your Highness has no idea how horribly those soldiers died! The city guards witnessed the whole thing with their own eyes.
Even the ordinary citizens couldn't stand it—how could hot-blooded soldiers swallow that kind of insult? So..."
So the Shenwu Army had essentially looked the other way, Su Mingyu realized.
With a solemn expression, Murong Ke swung his riding crop and instructed, "Han Bing, take the provisions and press on. Chiyan, accompany me back to Liangzhou first."
Su Mingyu hurriedly called out, "Hey? What about me?"
Murong Ke glanced at her once and rode off without looking back.
What was the meaning of this? Su Mingyu froze for a second, then hesitated briefly before urging her horse to follow.
She had stubbornly insisted on tagging along with the provision transport tonight precisely to slip deep into Liangzhou and see what game they were playing.
She had initially worried that once they reached Liangzhou, Prince Ning might suddenly turn hostile and be on guard against her.
Now, it seemed he would have no time to spare for her.
Suzhou and Liangzhou were barely a hundred miles apart; after riding through the night, they were now only half an hour away from Liangzhou.
Outside the gates of Liangzhou City, the sound of shouting and clamor could be heard from afar.
Yet at a single glance, there was nothing to be seen but commoners shoving and arguing—not a single soldier in sight.
Perplexed, Murong Ke turned his gaze toward the woman named Rong'er.
"The soldiers said that once they take off their armor, they are no longer the Prince's troops. Even if they accidentally hurt someone, they will bear the punishment themselves, and it has nothing to do with the Prince.
Yet despite their anger, they always kept Your Highness's military orders in mind, so they remained relatively restrained..."