Qin Lang heard footsteps and looked up.
Luo Qingzhou looked at him, then walked past him without saying a word.
After taking a few steps, Qin Lang suddenly turned around and said, "Stop."
Luo Qingzhou stopped.
Linghu Qingzhu next to him also stopped.
Yueying, who was walking in front, turned around.
Qin Lang ignored the others, looked at Luo Qingzhou's back, and said, "Chu Feiyang, right?"
Luo Qingzhou turned his head, looked at him and asked, "What's the matter?"
Qin Lang looked at him with complicated eyes and said, "This is the first time we meet, but I have heard of you for a long time."
Luo Qingzhou looked at him and said nothing.
Qin Lang cupped his hands and said, "My name is Qin Lang, the eldest son of the Qin family, and the current commander of the Jinyiwei. First of all, I want to thank you for saving my mother."
Luo Qingzhou said calmly: "It's just a piece of cake."
Qin Lang added: "However, private is private, public is public. I have been investigating the case of the extermination of the Earl of Zhongwu's mansion and the murder of the Jinyiwei, so I want to find your cooperation."
Luo Qingzhou asked, "Has Lord Qin told His Majesty about this?"
Qin Lang was silent for a moment, then said, "Your Majesty asked me to suspend the investigation."
Luo Qingzhou shrugged and said, "Since His Majesty has said so, what is Lord Qin insisting on?"
Qin Lang looked at him and said calmly, "I was just a student in Dragon and Tiger College. I was an ordinary person among so many people and had no idea about my future. That day, His Majesty suddenly summoned me and gave me the position of Commander of the Imperial Guards. He asked me to investigate the case of the Zhongwu Earl's Mansion and the murder of the Imperial Guards... I am the eldest son of the Qin family. Since I was born, I have been responsible for revitalizing the family and restoring the glory of my ancestors. Therefore, I cherish this opportunity and am very grateful to His Majesty for giving me this opportunity..."
At this point, he lowered his head slightly and said, "Although His Majesty has asked me to give up now, this is my first case. Even if I can't close the case, even if I can't do anything to the murderer, I still want to find out... I want to prove myself, I want to be responsible to His Majesty, and also to myself..."
Luo Qingzhou looked at him with complicated eyes and said, "Don't you think you are stupid?"
Qin Lang showed a bitter look on his face, and said to him, "Of course I can't compare with you, Brother Chu."
At this point, he glanced at Linghu Qingzhu beside him, then at Yueying in front of him, and said with a bow, "Brother Chu, I won't bother you any more, go and do your work. I just finally got to see you today, so I have some things to say. I also want to tell you that I will never give up on this case."
Luo Qingzhou nodded, was silent for a moment, and said: "After the Taikang Feast is over, you can go to Lingxiao Sect. At that time, I can cooperate with your investigation."
Qin Lang's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he immediately bowed and said, "Thank you, Brother Chu!"
Luo Qingzhou said nothing more and continued walking forward.
Linghu Qingzhu followed beside him, silently, turning his head from time to time to steal a glance at his expression.
When they were almost at the Princess's Yaohua Palace, she couldn't help but whisper, "Is that your eldest brother?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "Yes."
Linghu Qingzhu whispered: "You want to tell him the truth?"
Luo Qingzhou was silent for a moment, then said, "Maybe."
Seeing that he seemed to be in a bad mood, Linghu Qingzhu did not dare to ask any more questions.
Yueying led the two of them into the palace, walked through the corridor, and came to the study room at the back.
In the study, there were lights, a heater, and incense.
In front of the eucalyptus table, the eldest princess in a bright red dress was sitting there, quietly reading the book in her hands.
Yueying said at the door: "Your Highness, Master Chu is here."
Nangong Huoyue's voice sounded faintly: "Let him in."
Yueying looked at the young man behind her, then at Linghu Qingzhu beside her, and said, "Your Highness, please let Master Chu go in alone."
Linghu Qingzhu was about to speak, but Luo Qingzhou touched her hand in her sleeve and said softly, "Uncle Master, wait for me outside."
Linghu Qingzhu retracted his hand and said nothing more.
Luo Qingzhou took off his shoes at the door, pushed aside the bead curtain, and walked in with his head lowered.
After walking a few steps, he suddenly raised his head again and looked confidently at the girl in the red dress sitting behind the table.
At this moment, Nangong Huoyue was also looking at him.
Luo Qingzhou came closer and bowed, "I wonder what you want me to do, Your Highness?"
Nangong Huoyue looked at him quietly again, and then said calmly: "Thank you for what happened today."
Luo Qingzhou said: "It should be."
Nangong Huoyue looked at him and asked, "Why should it be so?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "Your Highness is the goddess of my Great Yan, and is loved by all the people of my Great Yan. How can you allow those barbarians to be so presumptuous and humiliate you in public?"
Nangong Huoyue looked at him a few more times, picked up the teapot, poured a cup of tea, pushed it in front of him, and asked, "Are you really not coming to the banquet this time for me?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "No."
Nangong Huoyue smiled faintly, picked up the teacup in front of her and took a sip, and said: "I thought that you had already discussed it with him a long time ago, and you were just putting on a show."
Luo Qingzhou asked: "Who is he? His Majesty?"
Nangong Huoyue did not answer, but looked at him again and said, "To be honest, I don't quite understand your behavior during the day. Do you really have no other purpose for doing that? Or is there anything you need my help with?"
Luo Qingzhou bowed and said, "I have no other purpose, and there is nothing I need your help with."
Nangong Huoyue raised her eyebrows: "What about Meijiao's matter?"
Luo Qingzhou looked at her and their eyes met.
Nangong Huoyue said: "As far as I know, you have a very good relationship with Nangong Meijiao from the Southern Kingdom Prince's Mansion. However, I heard from my mother that this time they have decided to use her as a tool for marriage and marry her off. Maybe she will marry the eldest disciple of Huashan Sect, or maybe she will marry her to Loulan Kingdom."
Luo Qingzhou remained silent and did not speak.
Nangong Huoyue looked at him and said, "Since I know about your relationship with her, His Majesty and the Queen Mother naturally know it too. However, they did not choose you, and they are going to make this decision in front of you. Have you ever thought about the reason?"
Luo Qingzhou bowed and said, "Your Highness, please answer."
Nangong Huoyue paused for a moment and said, "I remember that your Lingxiao Sect and Huashan Sect have an old feud, right? So if they want to win over one of them, they have to offend the other... From the current situation, it seems that they have already made up their mind. Perhaps, they have already contacted the top leaders of your Lingxiao Sect, but you have already rejected them. However, before today, they seemed to still have some hope, until you went on the martial arts stage and said those words... At that moment, they may have completely given up on you."
Luo Qingzhou asked: "Your Highness asked me to come here just to tell me this?"
Nangong Huoyue was silent for a moment, then looked at him and said, "You have no other choice, so I want to ask, are you willing to join my camp?"
Luo Qingzhou looked puzzled and asked, "Your Highness, I don't quite understand what you mean? What camp are you in?"
Nangong Huoyue smiled calmly and said, "You are only a direct disciple now. It is indeed difficult for me to tell you these things now. But your cultivation is very good. If you can follow me, you will definitely achieve great things."
Luo Qingzhou bowed and said, "I am focused on cultivation and have no other thoughts."
Nangong Huoyue nodded and said, "Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. It's getting late, Mr. Chu, you should go back and rest first. You may have to participate in a competition tomorrow."
Luo Qingzhou bowed and took his leave.
Nangong Huoyue looked at his back, a light flickering in her eyes.
After both of them left, she said to the outside: "Yueying, can you see his true strength?"
Yueying's cold voice came from outside the door: "I can't see it."
Nangong Huoyue frowned slightly, revealing a solemn look between her brows, and sighed softly: "The foundation of the five major sects is already extraordinary, and there are more and more talents in recent years. I am afraid that by then, it will really threaten the court... So, his idea of wanting to win them over or weaken them is right. However, this trick is too stupid..."
On the road outside Yaohua Palace.
Luo Qingzhou and Linghu Qingzhu were walking towards their residence.
Occasionally, a palace guard would pass by and would just glance at them without asking any further questions.
Linghu Qingzhu had been holding back all this time, but in the end he couldn't help himself and asked, "What did the princess say to you?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "Thank you for what happened during the day, and also, she thinks I'm good and wants me to hang out with her."
Linghu Qingzhu looked at him and asked, "How did you answer?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "Of course I refused. I am doing so well with my uncle now, how could I change people?"
Linghu Qingzhu rolled his eyes at him and said, "Didn't you lick me like that on the martial arts stage during the day?"
Luo Qingzhou changed the subject and said, "Uncle Master, do you think that our Lingxiao Sect will never take sides in the future? What if other sects take sides first?"
Linghu Qingzhu was silent for a moment, then said, "This matter is not something you and I can worry about, so don't think too much about it. Be careful when you speak and act outside in the future, and don't give others a handle on you."
Luo Qingzhou was about to speak when he suddenly saw a figure kneeling outside the Chongming Palace in front of him, motionless.
The cold night wind blew by, and the fallen leaves on the ground swirled.
Inside the gate, the lights were still bright, and there were sounds of singing, dancing, and clinking cups. But outside the gate, it was pitch black, and that figure was kneeling there alone, looking cold and desolate.
Linghu Qingzhu also looked over there.
The two walked to the big tree next to them and looked at the person kneeling on the ground.
Two bloody whip marks appeared on Qin Lang's face, and one whip mark passed through the corner of his eye, looking particularly hideous.
The clothes on his back were torn, revealing his bloody back covered with whip marks.
He knelt there with his head lowered, motionless, with no other emotion visible on his face.
Luo Qingzhou stood in the shadow of a big tree nearby, looking through the gate of Chongming Palace at the bustle inside and listening to the music inside. There was no other emotion on his face.
"Squeak..."
At this time, the door opened, and a short man in Jinyiwei uniform walked out. As soon as he came out, he sneered, "Qin Lang, you still have the nerve to kneel here and beg His Majesty for mercy? You let those prisoners go without permission, betrayed His Majesty's trust in you, and you should die to apologize! If His Majesty was not receiving foreign guests today and didn't want to dirty his hands, you would have been beaten to death long ago!"
Qin Lang looked up at him and said, "What crime did the Qin family commit? You said they are criminals, do you have any evidence?"
The Jinyiwei man sneered and said, "If they didn't commit any crime, why would they flee with their family overnight? They are obviously guilty and eager to escape! Qin Lang, His Majesty has been very kind to you. It's ok that you didn't kill your relatives for justice, but you actually broke the law knowingly and deliberately let those criminals go. You are so bold! His Majesty has just issued an order to deprive you of your Jinyiwei commander. Now I, Zhang Pei, am the real Jinyiwei commander. Kneel down first, and wait for me to capture all the prisoners of your Qin family and put them in the cell, and then I will come to settle the score with you!"
After saying that, he left quickly.
Qin Lang knelt on the ground, slowly clenched his fists, and looked inside through the crack in the door.
Luo Qingzhou suddenly walked out from the shadow of the tree and said, "Master Qin, I want to ask you a question. In your heart, do you think your family is more important, or do you think your husband is more important?"
Qin Lang lowered his head slightly and did not answer.
Luo Qingzhou said: "What if you are wrong? What if you never really treat you as a person? In this case, do you think your family who loves you and gives you warmth is more important, or do you think you are more important, the cold and icy you who treats you as a tool?"
Qin Lang raised his head, looked at him and said, "You are a member of the sect. If one day, your sect is at a critical moment of life and death, your master's life and death are also hanging by a thread, and on the other side are your family members, what will you do?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "I will save my family first without hesitation."
Qin Lang said: "You are a martial artist, do you know what righteousness is?"
Luo Qingzhou said: "If a person cannot even protect his own family, and can even abandon his loved ones, then he is not worthy of being a human being! If he is not even worthy of being a human being, how can he be qualified to talk about justice?"
Qin Lang paused and said, "If I'm not mistaken, when you first entered the sect, you should have sworn an oath in the ancestral hall of your ancestors, swearing to be loyal to the sect and swearing to sacrifice everything for the sect, right?"
Luo Qingzhou said calmly: "Yes, I did swear, but so what? I swore in order to enter the sect to practice, and I practiced to protect my family. If I can't protect my family, why would I go in to practice? Why would I swear? I can do anything for the sect, but it does not include sacrificing my family."
Qin Lang looked at him in shock, still stubbornly saying: "But you swore an oath."
Luo Qingzhou sneered, "What a bullshit oath. I swear every day. I have sworn hundreds of oaths, if not thousands. Even if I can't do it, so what? People call me ungrateful, a bad person, and immoral, so what? I am happy, my family is happy, and that's enough."
"you… "
"Master Qin, that's not some bullshit righteousness. It's completely selfish and shameless! If you want to use your family to fulfill your own reputation, this isn't selfish and shameless. What is this? Of course, from what that person said just now, it can be seen that Master Qin is not hopeless. Master Qin, you'd better sit here in the cold wind and think about it carefully."
Luo Qingzhou heard footsteps coming from inside, and without saying anything more to him, he immediately left with Linghu Qingzhu.
Qin Lang looked at his back, his mind filled with the words "shameless" and "scoundrel" that he had just said.
"Chu Feiyang, I will tell the sect master and my uncle what you just said."
On the way, Linghu Qingzhu said coldly.
Luo Qingzhou said indifferently: "It's up to you."
Then he added: "Master, feel free to backstab me, but when the time comes and Master needs me to backstab you, don't blame me for ignoring you."
Linghu Qingzhu turned his head, looked at him and asked, "What are you talking about?"
Luo Qingzhou was about to speak when he looked towards the intersection ahead.
A familiar figure stood there, looking at the two of them with a stern face.