Fang Quan had stayed in the cell for a whole day, listening hard to see if there were any movements elsewhere, but it had been quiet all along. The Court Prison, which was menacing even during daytime, was as dead as always.
At night, Fang Quan, who had waited long for that prison guard that had talked to him the night before, became somewhat anxious and fretful.
“Your Lordship,” said a voice abruptly, making Fang Quan start.
That fake prison guard who’d shown up the day before suddenly materialized outside the cell railings. There hadn’t been any footsteps whatsoever, as though he were a ghost.
Fang Quan loathed this man, feeling that this man was just as menacing as this prison, but he didn’t have a choice, for currently this man was his only chance to escape from this place.
“How did it go? Did you get in touch with them?” asked Fang Quan.
“I’ve got in touch with both of them. Rest assured, Your Lordship, I’ll bust you and them out of here together,” replied the man. “I came here to tell you you need to wait for one more day. I’ll come here again in one day, and that’s when we make our escape.”
“How do you plan to do it?” Fang Quan asked urgently.
However, the man was still unwilling to tell him the details, as though he didn’t trust Fang Quan completely. “Just escape from this place with us when the time comes. There’s no need for you to know any specifics, Your Lordship.”
Fang Quan gripped the iron railings. “Why are you not telling me the plan when you’ve decided to break me out?”
“This is for your own good, Your Lordship,” responded the man slowly. “The more you know about the plan, the higher the risk you might raise someone’s suspicions. To make sure that we’ll make it out of here without any trouble, I’m afraid I have to keep it secret from you.”
Fang Quan was displeased but didn’t dare offend the man. “Is this what your commander instructed you to do?”
The man answered, “Our commander’s orders are that we do whatever it takes to rescue the Eighth Prince and the Concubine Jin.”
Fang Quan gave a start. What did this man mean? He looked at the man and saw an admonitory expression in his eyes. Tightening his grip on the railings, Fang Quan hissed, “Are you threatening me?”
“You misunderstood me, Your Lordship. It’s just that the main purpose of this operation of ours is indeed to rescue the Eighth Prince and the Concubine Jin,” replied the man.
Cold sweat was breaking out over Fang Quan’s back increasingly quick as he listened to these words. This was unmistakably a warning. Most importantly, Fang Quan found that he was unable to contradict the man, because if he were the commander of Jiangzhou garrison, his would also regard rescuing the Eighth Prince and the Concubine Jin as the first priority. These people were just planning to rescue him in passing, and they would give up on him without hesitation if things went south.
Fang Quan panicked somewhat, his hands clenching around the iron railings. “You can’t give up on me. I’m the Concubine Jin’s father and the Eighth Prince’s grandfather.”
The man gave a smile. “You’re worrying too much, Your Lordship. Like I said, I will bust you out of this place when the time comes. All you have to do is wait patiently. There’s no need to panic.”
Fang Quan gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’ll stop asking about it.”
The man turned around and was about to leave.
Fang Quan raised his voice a little and said, “Wait a moment.”
The man pivoted around to face him. “Do you have any other questions, Your Lordship?”
“What are you going to do with the Ninth Prince?” inquired Fang Quan.
After a brief moment’s surprise, the man responded, “The Ninth Prince is too young to journey with us.”
“Then kill him,” said Fang Quan, a malevolent look on his face.
The man was somewhat astonished. “May I ask why you’re suggesting such a thing?”
“You may be able to rescue the Eighth Prince, but the Ninth Prince would still be under Yuwen Tong’s control. If Yuwen Tong uses it to his advantage to do something, having the Eighth Prince in our hands would be totally pointless. Besides, how do you know the Ninth Prince wouldn’t be rescued by someone as well? If that does happen, we’d have yet another rivalry, which wouldn’t be good news for your commander or the Eighth Prince,” explained Fang Quan quickly.
Fang Quan was the Eighth Prince’s grandfather after all, and given the current circumstances, he relied on the Eighth Prince to survive. Only if the Eighth Prince came to power would he be able to have a good life, and if he was to use the Eighth Prince’s identity as a rightful heir to the throne to achieve anything, he must make sure that the Eighth Prince was the only one having a claim to the throne, because only in that case would people flock to his banners.
Eyes on Fang Quan, the man said, “I think you have a point. I’ll keep this in mind, and we’ll take the Ninth Prince’s life when we have the chance.”
Secretly relieved, Fang Quan suggested, “If you do it cleverly enough, you might be able to have Yuwen Tong take the blame for the Ninth Prince’s death, which would ruin his reputation.”
The man replied, “There’s no need for you to concern yourself with that, Your Lordship. We know what to do.”
…
In a quiet palace of the complex of imperial palaces.
This palace was fairly far away from the heart of the complex of imperial palaces, but the security here was so tight that even flies would be scared away if they strayed into it. Nobody dared approach this place during the day, and at night it was so silent as though it were a palace of death. Everybody found it hard to believe that there were people living in there.
It was the Eighth Prince and the Concubine Jin who dwelt in this palace. Presently, all eunuchs and maidservants serving them were strangers to them, except for two ladies-in-waiting. All their faces were apathetic and unconcerned, and when they were walking in the palace, they looked like a bunch of corpses with mobility but without power of speech. No matter how hard the Concubine Jin and the Eighth Prince tried to drop a hint to them, they always pretended they couldn’t understand. There was no way to communicate with them, and escaping from this place seemed next to impossible, because there were densely posted guards in this palace, all of whom stared at the two of them with cold faces whenever they came into sight.
Anybody would get anxious and fretful if they were forced to live in a place like this, not to mention the Concubine Jin, who was never a strong woman. As a result, she had started beating maidservants and smashing things during the past few days, and she couldn’t at all sleep at night, fearing all the time that someone would come to kill her. She had even begun to blame the Eighth Prince for it, believing that if it weren’t for the Eighth Prince, she would definitely have been stripped of her title and sent back home like the other concubines of the former emperor, getting out of the imperial palace alive instead of living in fear every day. This situation was virtually driving her crazy.
On this night, sleep still eluded the Concubine Jin. She instructed the maidservants to light all the candles in her chambers, and it was only after they did as she asked that her fear dissolved somewhat.
When a maidservant went inside to trim the wicks, the Concubine Jin didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. It was not until she heard the maidservant stepped up to her bed that she had an inkling that something was wrong. Scared, she hastily opened her eyes and felt a lurch of fear at the sight of the poker-faced maidservant standing over her. She opened her mouth and was just about to scream when the maidservant quickly clapped a hand to her mouth.
Horrified, the Concubine Jin struggled madly, a muffled sound emanating from her throat.
“Please calm down, Your Highness. I’m here to help you escape from this palace. If you scream, those guards out there will be alarmed and then nobody will be able to get you out of this prison-like place,” breathed the maidservant.
At first the Concubine Jin couldn’t distinguish the maidservant’s words at all, but the maidservant was very patient and explained to her several times in a row. After the Concubine Jin cooled down, she added, “Stop trying to scream, Your Highness, so that I can get my hands off your mouth. Do you not want to see your father’s token?”
The Concubine Jin struggled for another few moments. Seeing the maidservant was just silencing her and showed no inclination to kill her, she gradually was swayed and collected herself.
Seeing she had cooled down, the maidservant slowly took her hand off her mouth. Having confirmed that the Concubine Jin wouldn’t screech, she produced the Jade pendant from Fang Quan. The Concubine Jin, who recognized the familiar pendant and knew that it was indeed her father’s token, finally let her guard down. “My father is now in the Court Prison. How did you come to get his token? Who are you? And why did you come to my rescue?”
“I’m from Jiangzhou. Our commander sent us here to rescue you and the Eighth Prince and escort the two of you to Jiangzhou. Right now you’re at the mercy of Yuwen Tong. He won’t kill you right away, but after his enthronement, he would definitely take your lives by hook or by crook. Both you and the Eighth Prince are members of the imperial family, and the Eighth Prince is a rightful heir to the throne. How could you let a traitor take it away from him? Our commander knows you and the Eighth Prince did that under duress, so he invites you and the Eighth Prince to go to Jiangzhou. With the Jiangzhou garrison at your back, you can make a comeback and take the throne back from Yuwen Tong,” replied the maidservant.
The Concubine Jin was still a little flustered, her breath rasping in her heaving chest. After hearing the maidservant’s explanation, she didn’t believe the story immediately. “How do I know you’re capable of rescuing us? Currently the whole complex of imperial palaces – even the whole city – is in Yuwen Tong’s pocket. We’ll meet our ends even sooner if your attempt to get us out fails.”
“There’s no need to worry about that, Your Highness. I’ve got in here without anybody noticing, so you can trust that I’ll get you and the Eighth Prince out of this place. This is your father’s token. One of us have infiltrated into the Court Prison as well. Your father will be going with us when the time comes. Surely you don’t want to be left alone in this place? Yuwen Tong would by no means let you live. For what it’s worth, even if it doesn’t work out, you would only die sooner. I mean, if you stay, your death would be certain anyway, right?” said the maidservant.
Biting her lip, the Concubine Jin hesitated, an intense struggle going on within her breast.
“Look at yourself, Your Highness. You don’t even dare sleep at night, and you have to have all the candles in your chamber lighted before you could summon up the courage to close your eyes. Have you not had enough of this kind of tortuous days?” the maidservant added slowly in a low voice, her face breaking into a gentle smile. “Trust me. There are a lot of us, and we have more than enough strength to break you and your son out of this palace.
Jiangzhou has always been at the Eighth Prince’s back, and the Jiangzhou garrison would have some time ago successfully helped the Eighth Prince succeeded to the throne were Yuwen Tong not so cunning, but one setback doesn’t mean the end of the game. As long as Your Highness and the Eighth Prince are still alive, we’ll always have a chance of saving the situation, and when we do, the Eighth Prince will be the emperor, and you will be the empress dowager, and nobody would dare lay hands on you ever again. You and the Eighth Prince are the ones meant to rule this country. How could you give up after encountering a mere frustration of your efforts to get what’s rightfully yours? Have you considered the interests of the Eighth Prince? He’s your son after all.”
The Concubine Jin’s eyes gradually became unfocused as though she lapsed into some kind of reverie. The maidservant, standing in front of her, smugly watched the Concubine Jin succumbing to the temptation, waiting quietly for her to come to herself.
It was quite a while before the Concubine Jin slowly pulled herself back to the present, bit her lower lip and asked, “You really can help us get back to this city and make me the empress dowager?”
“Certainly,” answered the maidservant, immediately came to realize that for the Concubine Jin, her becoming the empress dowager was far more tempting than her son succeeding to the throne, so she cajoled slowly, “You’re still in your prime, and even another couple of years wouldn’t leave a mark on your youth and beauty. Also, you’ll have supreme power, and even His Majesty will do your bidding. Your status will be second to none. You’ll be the de facto ruler of this country.”
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