Thousand Miles of Bright Moonlight

Chapter 138: Departure

In the afternoon, Xie Peng returned from outside the city and told Yaoying that the city had indeed begun to prepare for the Begging Winter Festival. The major government offices were sweeping the courtyards, setting up a stage for the music and dance performances. The musicians and singers hired by the Hu merchants from the Qiuci region had also arrived. Recently, the post station inns outside the city have been full of people who came to take part in the Begging Winter Festival.

Yaoying had doubts in her heart. One day, when she visited Ashina Bisha before her departure, she said tentatively, "I heard that the Begging Winter Festival is coming up soon. The regent is from the Royal Court, so I think he should also reunite with his family and friends. Why don't we postpone for a few days and wait until after the Begging Winter Festival to depart."

Bisha froze for a moment and shook his head with a bitter smile, "If it were up to me... I would accompany the princess to Gaochang, and it would be best to postpone it for another month."

Unfortunately, Tumoruga did not agree.

He looked melancholy, lost in thought for a moment. A vague emotion lightly drifted across his turquoise eyes. It took some time for him to snap back to his senses. He smiled and said, "The regent has no relatives and no friends. He has never attended the Begging Winter Festival. The departure date has already been set, the princess does not need to be worried by this."

Yaoying remembered the way the attendant shivered when he mentioned Sultan Gu.

To the attendant, the devil-like regent was not present at the Begging Winter Festival, which allowed the people of the city to celebrate the festival to their heart's content.

Sultan Gu never showed up at the festival. Maybe he didn't want to scare people?

Yaoying thought for a while, but she put this matter aside for the time being. Her eyes fell on Bisha's leg and asked, "Was it Haidu Aling's doing?"

Bisha returned with an injury and was immediately taken in by Princess Chima to the Princess Residence to personally nurse back to health. Aware of Princess Chima's taboo, she could not find the opportunity to ask Bisha until today when Bisha moved back to live in his own house.

"It wasn't him who did it." Bisha looked cold, "It was his personal soldiers."

He leaned back on the couch and said slowly, "After I arrived at Northern Rong, I saw Haidu Aling lying in his tent pretending every day. He urged several princes to examine his wounds. After seeing his lrg, the youngest prince vomited. The second prince took a dagger to scrape off the rotten flesh of his wounds. Each and every cut practically scraped to his bones. He didn't even blink an eye."

Yaoying frowned: "Could it be that his wounds are real?"

Bisha shook his head, "No. His injury was just a minor one."

Yaoying drew a cold breath.

Haidu Aling's wound was only minor. He deliberately did not treat it in time, and let it putrefy and grow maggots, making others mistakenly believe his whole leg was ruined. The second prince took a knife and scraped off his skin and flesh, yet he did not react at all-this was a tactic used to confuse the princes!

This man was really deep-scheming. He could go so far as to be this ruthless to himself. No wonder Wakhan Khan and his several sons were fooled by him.

Bisha sighed: "Haidu Aling is worthy of being the first warrior of the Northern Rong, able to endure what ordinary people cannot. If you had not warned me, I would have believed that his leg was truly ruined! I remembered your advice and watched his tent day and night, and finally found some oversights. I was about to make him 'make it real' as you said, but I didn't expect him to be prepared. I did not succeed at attacking him, and in my haste to get away, I was stabbed by his personal soldiers."