Chapter 1114: Chapter 1105: Carrier Pigeons
The accounts at the border were more or less settled, and Yuanyuan had reached his full month.
Su Jin was a princess, and Yuanyuan was the Prince’s eldest legitimate grandson, the grandson of Marquis Dongxiang.
His full-month celebration naturally had to be held with great pomp.
Su Jin had suffered plenty on her way to the border, and had also rendered a lot of service; whoever got slighted, it could not be her and her son.
Nanliang had sued for peace, Daqi had won a great victory, and they were going to hold a celebration banquet anyway.
Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince did some calculations and decided to combine the celebration banquet with Yuanyuan’s full-month banquet.
Thus, on the day of Yuanyuan’s full month, the camp was unprecedentedly lively.
Cups and chopsticks clinked, toasts went back and forth; it was bustling and merry.
Su Jin had been cooped up in the tent for a month and could finally come out.
Although Yuanyuan was full-month, he was still very small; after being carried out for a round, he fell asleep and was taken back by the wet nurse.
The Little Princess was much more energetic; especially over this past month, she had already learned to walk.
When everyone was drinking, she fussed to get down from the Princess Consort’s arms.
A tiny little bundle, wobbling along the red carpet, swaying this way and that, making everyone break out in a cold sweat for her.
But that cold sweat wasn’t for nothing.
She took a few steps.
With a smack.
She pitched forward.
It really made people’s hearts shatter.
The Prince hurried to his feet to scoop the Little Princess up.
The Little Princess didn’t cry, but she refused to let the Prince hold her and insisted on going outside.
The Prince had no idea what she wanted; only when he followed her out did he realize she had taken a fancy to the snow-white carrier pigeon kept in a cage outside the tent.
The Little Princess lunged toward the pigeon cage; it was filthy, and there was no way the Prince could allow that. With one long-armed swoop, he scooped the Little Princess back up.
The Little Princess was carried back into the tent; as she watched herself get farther and farther from the pigeon cage, she wailed at the top of her lungs.
The Prince’s head was splitting.
The soldiers’ shoulders were shaking.
It seemed there was never a time the Little Princess didn’t cry when the Prince held her.
She cried for ages; afraid of spoiling everyone’s drinking mood, the Princess Consort was going to take the Little Princess back.
She had just started to rise when Uncle Lin had already ordered someone to wash the pigeon cage clean and bring it in.
The Little Princess saw the pigeon and finally stopped crying.
The Prince looked at that pigeon with extreme distaste; in this tent full of people, including himself, the father prince, not one of them was as attractive as that pigeon.
The Little Princess’s whole heart and eyes were filled with nothing but that pigeon.
The Princess Consort only let the Little Princess stay for a quarter of an hour; the tent was heavy with the smell of wine, even she could hardly stand it, and she was all the more afraid it would be bad for the Little Princess.
The Princess Consort told Xique to carry the Little Princess down, and Caiju to carry the pigeon cage.
The Little Princess bent over to look at the pigeon and even reached out to grab it; Caiju, afraid she’d cry, had no choice but to indulge her.
Only, with those tiny arms and hands, there was no way the Little Princess could lift the pigeon cage; with a thud, the cage crashed to the ground.
Caiju had no time to catch it; she only managed to brush the cage, failing to get a grip, and it hit the ground, the door flying wide open.
Just as she was bending down to close it, the pigeon had already flown out.
The Little Princess just stared blankly as the pigeon flew away...
At first she was delighted, but when she didn’t see it come back for a long time, she started crying again.
Caiju and Xique couldn’t coax her no matter what; they could only fetch another pigeon.
The Little Princess was still young and didn’t know the pigeon had been switched; she played happily with the new one.
But the pigeon that had flown away was supposed to deliver a message to Old Duke Chong and the others.
The pigeon, unaware it carried no letter, still flew to where Old Duke Chong was.
They caught the pigeon, but there was no letter; Old Duke Chong and the Old Prince mulled it over for half a day and still couldn’t figure out what it meant.
The Old Prince looked at Old Duke Chong and said, "Since last night my heart’s been uneasy; I keep feeling something’s going to happen."
"Now the carrier pigeon has flown back but there’s no letter. I don’t believe Marquis Dongxiang and the others would be so careless; there must be something wrong."
Old Duke Chong and the Old Prince had drawn up a plan to attack the city and were preparing to launch the assault at dawn the next day.
They had no idea this pigeon’s arrival was nothing but an accident.
But when you’re already on edge, any little accident will be taken as a warning sign.
The Old Prince, erring on the side of caution, said, "I think we’d better cancel tomorrow’s assault on the city."
Prince Qi was already a spent arrow.
He merely occupied the advantage of the terrain, easy to defend and hard to attack.
Now that the crisis at the border was resolved, Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince would soon be bringing the main army to join them; there was no need to rush the siege.
Old Duke Chong agreed with the Old Prince’s proposal.
And so poor Duke Chong had set his ambush and was waiting for the Old Prince and the others to bite.
With Nanliang no longer able to hold Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince in check, and Beimo pressing Nanliang as well, Nanliang’s fortunes had already collapsed.
Before Marquis Dongxiang and Prince Zhenbei brought their armies down on them, they had to find themselves a few amulets.
Whether it was Old Duke Chong, the Old Prince, or Su Chong, each was an ideal choice.
Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince would never abandon the life of any one of them.
This trap was laid with the determination to sacrifice the city if need be just to capture them alive; who could have guessed a pigeon would ruin it.
Knowing that the Old Prince and his group were planning to attack, Duke Chong waited from morning till night; as dusk fell and still no assault came, he was so furious he stood on the city wall pounding the parapet.
But in the next two days, another two pigeons flew in, both without letters.
The Old Prince, "..."
Old Duke Chong, "..."
Because Uncle Lin had first given the pigeons to the Little Princess to play with, Xique and Caiju took it for granted that these pigeons were just toys.
One flew away, they’d catch another.
As long as the Little Princess didn’t cry, all was well.
By the time the Prince discovered it, the Little Princess had already played three carrier pigeons into the sky.
Afraid the Old Prince and Old Duke Chong would overthink things when they received the letters, the Prince hurriedly released the last carrier pigeon, letting it deliver a message to explain.
When the Old Prince and Old Duke Chong received the letter, their faces went dark with black lines.
They had spent days puzzling over it, only to learn this was how the pigeons had come flying.
Upon hearing that Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince had already set out to join them and would arrive in about ten days,
the Old Prince and Old Duke Chong finally felt at ease.
After the hubbub of the full-month banquet, Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince led half the army off to join Old Duke Chong.
Previously, the reason Su Jin stayed in the camp was because Marquis Dongxiang was there; only when she was kept under his very eyelids could he feel at ease.
Now it was Xie Jingchen accompanying Su Jin, and the Princess Consort and the Little Princess were there as well; it wasn’t appropriate for so many women to remain in the army camp.
So after living in the camp for more than half a year, Su Jin moved to a town not far from the border but the most prosperous in the area.
The Hidden Guards had acquired a four-courtyard compound, where Su Jin, the Princess Consort, and Qin Hanhan all took up residence.
Prince NanAn and the Eldest Young Master of Duke Dingguo followed the Prince to attack Prince Qi, while Chu Shun and Xie Jingchen stayed at the border.
Marquis Dongxiang and the Prince going to deal with Prince Qi was already using an ox-knife on a chicken; there was no need for the others to go, and even whether Prince NanAn and the others went hardly mattered.
The two of them just planned to go watch how Prince Qi and Duke Chong got trounced, then head back to the Capital.
The border was dry and flowers were rarely seen, but in the little courtyard blossoms were all in bloom, the surroundings quiet and elegant; it couldn’t be compared to the camp at all.
Only, after getting used to living in the camp, Su Jin actually felt a bit out of place now that she’d moved into a proper courtyard.
What she found even harder to believe was that she hadn’t gone shopping in eight months.
Once she entered the little courtyard, the first thing Su Jin did was insist on going shopping.
Xie Jingchen objected. "The wind’s strong outside, and you’ve only just finished your confinement. Wait a few days and I’ll take you shopping then."
Su Jin fixed her eyes on Xie Jingchen.
Xie Jingchen frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Am I the doctor, or are you the doctor?" Su Jin asked.
"..."
The Princess Consort walked over, just in time to hear this. She laughed and said, "The weather’s quite nice today. Going out for a stroll won’t hurt, just remember to come back early."
Su Jin hooked her arm through the Princess Consort’s and said to Xie Jingchen, "See, even Mother Consort says it’s fine."
What could Xie Jingchen do?
He could only give in to her.
