Chapter 395: Chapter 303 Dayue
In the west-wing room of the mansion, Lu Chongyang stepped out and immediately encountered Pei Zhan, Du Mingqian, and Fu Zhen coming from the other side.
Before they could speak, Lu Chongyang pointed behind him: "He’s awake now. Besides some broken tendons in his hands, he’s fine. But he’s still quite fierce. Be careful."
The three exchanged glances before stepping inside, where they immediately saw the man being held down by the guards.
At this moment, his hands and feet were bound again. Upon hearing the noise, he turned his head, revealing eyes filled with vigilance, fear, and confusion under his unkempt hair.
"Who is this?" Du Mingqian asked, puzzled, looking at Pei Zhan. "Why is he all wet, too? Where on earth did you get him from?"
"Tongzhou Pier," Pei Zhan waved his hand, "Take off his shirt."
The guards obeyed the command.
The man, powerless to resist, lost the cover of his clothes, revealing a tattoo beneath the light on the back of his neck.
Staring at the tattoo, Du Mingqian first frowned and closely examined it. Then his eyes suddenly widened as he blurted out, "Is he from Dayue?!"
He quickly turned to the couple in front of him, puzzled: "Isn’t this tattoo exclusive to the bodyguards of the Dayue Royal Family? How did you catch such a person? And how did he appear in Tongzhou?"
Although Pei Zhan had previously withheld details, Du Mingqian could hardly contain his astonishment.
Dayue was annihilated by Pei Zhan, a complete destruction in every sense, capturing the Monarch alive in the capital. Following Pei Zhan into Dayue’s capital was Du Mingqian’s elder brother. Though Du didn’t go, he had heard from his brother the complete account of the city’s fall. Great Zhou had been harassed by Dayue for years, several times on the brink of survival, with many family members of border military leaders lost on the Northwest Battlefield. To capture and annihilate the enemy’s capital—how could they have not exerted every effort to root out every trace?
After the annihilation of the Dayue Royal Family, not all of the bodyguards and palace attendants of the royal clan were slaughtered, but once their masters perished, the rest naturally became nothing more than a disorganized rabble. Even those fortunate enough to survive the great battle had been fleeing ever since.
Nearly a year after the war ended, yet here was a bodyguard appearing in the Capital of Great Zhou and being captured at Tongzhou Pier by Pei Zhan—how could this not be surprising?
"That’s correct. The tattoo on him is precisely that of a Royal Bodyguard of Dayue. He appeared at Tongzhou Pier because Xu Yin had He Qunying rent two ships from Ning’s Trading House to secretly transport him to the capital city."
Du Mingqian immediately understood why Xu Yin had previously left the city, remarking, "The canal transport travels north from Hangzhou. What connection does Xu Yin have with Hangzhou?"
Pei Zhan looked at the man on the ground: "Xu Yin has no ties to Hangzhou, but this man was sent from his ancestral land in Tanzhou to Hangzhou. In other words, this man, marked with a Dayue Royal Bodyguard’s tattoo, sought out Xu Yin’s ancestral land from thousands of miles away!"
For someone accustomed to leading troops into battle, Du Mingqian quickly grasped the crucial point: "What is the connection between Xu Yin and Dayue?" After asking this, he turned to the man on the ground: "Why did you seek out Xu Yin’s ancestral land? Why did Xu Yin go to such lengths to secretly transport you to the capital?"
As a high-ranking official in the court, Xu Yin must have known that post-war relations between the two countries were still tense, making it standard procedure to immediately apprehend such a person of sensitive identity for interrogation by the government. Yet, he chose to secretly bring him to the capital. What does he intend to do?
The man, however, kept his lips tightly shut, adopting a defiant countenance.
Du Mingqian lifted his head, looking back at Pei Zhan and Fu Zhen: "How did you know all of this? How did you know he was sent from Tanzhou?"
Fu Zhen replied, "Because we dispatched people to Tanzhou last month, and just yesterday, they’ve returned."
With that, she handed over the copper token from the Prince Yi Mansion that she carried on her person: "This item was taken from the steward whom Xu Yin dispatched to guard the Xu family’s ancestral estate in Tanzhou."
Having spent many years in the Northwest, Du Mingqian was well-versed in the history of royal power struggles within Dayue, and just the sight of this token left him once again astonished.
But before he could express his surprise, the man on the ground rasped out with a hoarse voice: "Flying Horse Order!"
The three of them simultaneously looked at him, and Fu Zhen asked: "Finally willing to speak?"
The man gritted his teeth, staring wide-eyed at the distance, as if great tides were surging within his eyes, though it was unclear what he was thinking.