The guard said with shame, "Our brothers tried to strike up a conversation with them, but they just shook their heads and left, glancing back occasionally as if worried about being followed. We didn't dare to alert them, so we retreated. They headed east!"
Liang Xiao immediately went to find Kristie.
Kristie gave him the second chapter of "The Heavenly General" again.
After reading it, Liang Xiao was even more torn between laughter and tears, "Good heavens, the Heavenly General can also be a nanny..."
It described how among the people saved by the Heavenly General, there were more than a dozen infants only a few months old, crying incessantly. No matter how others tried to comfort them, it was useless. The Heavenly General simply held them one by one and soothed them with a few words, and the infants either giggled or stopped crying.
"What is a nanny?" Kristie was startled.
"Nothing, it's probably the meaning of a wet nurse..." Liang Xiao chuckled dryly.
Kristie snorted, "You said it yourself, to let me use my imagination freely and write the Heavenly General as I see him..."
Liang Xiao could only nod.
Kristie saw Liang Xiao's reaction and became even more suspicious.
In fact, she had heard about Liang Xiao's public trial in Jinling, and that he had coaxed a child!
Kristie used this to test Liang Xiao's reaction again.
There was no surprise, only dejection!
Even if it was confirmed in the future that Liang Xiao was not the Heavenly General, she wouldn't care. The Heavenly General, in her heart, was omnipotent!
Was being able to coax an infant such a big deal?
Jian Qinwan, who was beside them, simply watched Liang Xiao, a smile playing on her lips.
The reaction of this flower-picking thief, being so thoroughly investigated, was also quite cute, wasn't it?
Liang Xiao then relayed the guards' experience to Kristie, saying, "You Westerners should have appearances like Butei and those warriors from the Kingdom of Qiuci. Your golden hair and blue eyes are..."
Kristie had long considered herself a citizen of the Great Gan Kingdom and believed Liang Xiao completely, so she told him the truth.
It turned out that her appearance was almost identical to her mother's, not at all like the King of Qiuci.
Her mother, Lisa, was not the Queen of the Kingdom of Qiuci, but an unknown "consort," much like the concubines in the imperial harem of the Great Gan or Great Liang.
After giving birth to Kristie, Lisa succumbed to excessive bleeding and passed away. Kristie was raised entirely by the King of Qiuci.
It was only many years later that the King of Qiuci revealed the truth to Kristie.
Lisa was actually a royal consort who had fled from the world to the west and sought refuge in the Kingdom of Qiuci. She was later branded a "witch" who brought ruin to the country, and even the emperor supported her execution.
Not long after the King of Qiuci took Lisa in, he discovered that Lisa was already pregnant and covered in scars, which was the root cause of her death after childbirth.
However, out of his love for Lisa, the King of Qiuci chose to accept her, making vows to treat the unborn child as his own.
After Lisa's death, the King of Qiuci did not break his promise. He did not harm Kristie just because she resembled Lisa; instead, he truly raised her as his own daughter.
However, later, the King of Qiuci chose Kristie from among his many children to be a princess for a political marriage. This greatly angered Kristie, who felt her father had broken his vow to her mother and was treating her as a pawn.
Because of her mother's experience, Kristie only wished to marry for love in the future, so she vehemently resisted the political marriage. In the end, after much persuasion from the court officials and in order to repay her father's kindness in raising her, Kristie was forced to accept.
"Heaven has eyes, allowing me to encounter the Heavenly General..." Kristie said at the end, her face flushed, not daring to look at Liang Xiao and Jian Qinwan.
Liang Xiao sighed, "Perhaps your father sent you to Great Gan out of concern that those people from the west would come looking for you again, thus protecting you indirectly. After all, no matter how brazen they are, they wouldn't dare to attack the Great Gan Kingdom."
Kristie nodded, "I no longer resent my father, and I am even grateful to him! However, the main reason is your and the Great Gan Emperor's magnanimity in allowing me to stay with the Heavenly General forever..."
"What if, one day, your biological father or other relatives come looking for you to return?" Liang Xiao asked.
"Impossible!" Kristie replied without hesitation, raising her head, her face flushed with anger, "They caused me to lose my mother from childhood. My greatest bottom line towards them is forgiveness; I will never go back to them, nor will I betray the Kingdom of Qiuci and the Great Gan Kingdom!"
As she spoke, Kristie became flustered again, lowering her head and timidly saying, "After all, the Heavenly General is not there. He cannot protect a country that harmed my mother..."
Liang Xiao's old face turned red, and Jian Qinwan almost burst into laughter.
In the end, this girl was still planning to stay in Great Gan forever because of the Heavenly General!
Liang Xiao resumed a serious expression and reminded her, "Kristie, just in case, I hope you can promise me one thing. You must remember: if people with golden hair and blue eyes come looking for you in the future, you must report it to me truthfully, and I will make the decision, okay?"
"I have already surrendered my life to you and Your Majesty. You can do whatever you wish with me. I, I only have one request, you remember it..."
"Remember, your virginity belongs only to the Heavenly General..." Liang Xiao said, so embarrassed that he couldn't help but cough violently at the end.
After returning to their room, Jian Qinwan quietly asked, "Are we still going to hide it from her? She's so pitiful..."
"Let's keep it a secret for now..." Liang Xiao said helplessly.
What if Kristie, because of her kindness, were approached by ill-intentioned people, or even kidnapped, and then subjected to hypnosis or something?
Liang Xiao still did not want the enemy to fully confirm that he was the Heavenly General himself, even if they only remained suspicious.
It was better to have one less trouble; this was his usual caution.
"Besides, if she knew I was the Heavenly General, I'm afraid you two would stare at me every day, making me blush," Liang Xiao pouted.
"Bah! You blush?" Jian Qinwan couldn't help but spit.
Liang Xiao said earnestly, "Really, being stared at by you with affectionate eyes every day, although I appear calm on the surface, I am actually very shy. If you don't believe me, kiss your husband and I'll blush for you right away."
Jian Qinwan: "Who would believe you!" "..." "Mwah~" "You're not blushing!!"
"I blushed in my heart." The person finally revealed his extremely shameless face.
"You, you, you..."
Prefect Zhuo Ping took Liang Xiao to visit the Suzhou Academy. Some of the scholars there had specifically gone to Jinling to participate in Liang Xiao's examinations.
A very small number of scholars from Jinling had also rushed here, just to wait for Liang Xiao to come to Suzhou for another talent selection.
Liang Xiao did not skimp on silver, still giving three taels of silver as a subsidy.
The travel expenses from Jinling to Suzhou were not insignificant, and the exam questions were always completely different from previous ones.
However, each participant was only allowed to take Liang Xiao's examinations twice a year.
This measure was also intended to encourage students from all regions to participate enthusiastically in the examinations and to win the favor of the participants.
There were nearly half as many literati in Suzhou as in Jinling, the center of Jiangnan. However, Liang Xiao still selected two hundred with relatively good scores and hired them to participate in various trials arranged by Zhuo Ping and the Suzhou military commander.
Among them, three scored over eighty, indicating great potential.
Zhuo Han accepted Liang Xiao's arrangements and, with Liang Xiao's letter of recommendation, returned to Jinling to find her great uncle Zhuo Zifang, only asking her father Zhuo Ping to send word to Su Wanqing to bid farewell.
After Liang Xiao arranged the talent, and inspected his bookshop and other workshops, he led everyone to a new destination.
Qiantang!
Liang Xiao compared it with the map. Qiantang was located in the area equivalent to present-day Hangzhou.
According to his grandfather Liang Qing, there was an old acquaintance of Liang Xiao's father, Liang Anguo, in Qiantang.
The leader of the Hui Chun Sect had not let Liang Xiao go and was following him, maintaining a distance of ten li, preparing to trail him all the way to Qiantang.
The news of Liang Xiao selecting talent through examinations had also spread to the Great Liang Kingdom, causing widespread unease among the major noble families.