Chapter 75

As Zixiu and his father raced to the mountains day and night, Luanzhou was in chaos.

It was said that Princess Liuxu was kidnapped by a masked man the day she was diagnosed with pregnancy. As he was severely traumatized, Prince Mu’s illness even worsened and he might die at any time.

Officials from the Ministry of Justice and the administrative office of Luanzhou hurried to the Prince Mu’s Mansion on the night of the princess’s abduction and searched the mansion carefully before they found a bracelet broken in two in the grass in the back yard. After the appraisal, experts believed that the bracelet was made of fine white jade unique to the Ning Kingdom, which was too expensive for ordinary people to afford. Except for Pince Mu, his personal guard, Yueying, and the physician who had come to check Prince Mu’s conditions, Ling Xiao, witnessed the abduction of Princess Liuxu as well. None of the guards, servants in the mansion, or even the imperial guards sent by the emperor had noticed when the assassin sneaked into the mansion and no soldiers had ever found anyone suspicious enter or leave the gate of the city. Apart from the above information, the officials got no clue.

Three days later, the news reached to Linyang, the capital city of the Wen Kingdom. Everyone was shocked and the new emperor, Yuwen Weixia, flared up in an instant. Only a month after his younger sister had married the prince of the Nan Kingdom, so many things had happened to her! First, her maidservant was killed, and then she was almost assassinated, and now she was kidnapped as soon as she was found to be pregnant! Who would be so daring that he didn’t even take the great Wen Kingdom and its emperor seriously!

Burning with rage, Yuwen Weixia sent an emissary to the Nan Kingdom with a letter he wrote in person, urging the emperor of the Nan Kingdom to find Princess Liuxu and punish the kidnapper asap. Otherwise, he might send his troops to cross the border to find his sister!

Under pressure from all sides, officials of the Ministry of Justice and the governor of the city sped up their investigation. However, though they had asked the local officers to put up notices in their jurisdictions, offering a handsome reward to anybody who could give information about Princess Liuxu, they still had no leads. The princess and the masked man seemed to have vanished into thin air!

As the three people who had broken into Nangong Du’s bedroom that night didn’t masks at all, it was no wonder that nobody had ever seen the masked man! Actually, Prince Mu, who claimed himself devastated, was just talking nonsense. If Princess Liuxu had really been kidnapped, it would have been the night before their wedding a month ago. So if the relative departments started seeing into the case now, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack! As for the broken white jade bracelet, it was actually a gift Lingxiao was about to give Zixiu. He broke the bracelet in two, intending to give Zixiu half and keep the other half for himself, but it was a pity that he had never found a chance to give it to his ‘fiancée’. As his father had been lecturing him furiously that night, he didn’t notice when the two halves of bracelets fell out of his pocket into the grass. To everyone’s surprise, through investigation, it was found that the white jade bracelet was related to another case: the theft of the state Treasury of the Ning Kingdom!

A month later…

The theft of the Treasury has been solved, but Princess Liuxu’s whereabouts were still unknown, which caused sudden tension between the two countries, and just as before the intermarriage, the war was on the verge of breaking out. As Prince Mu’s health was ‘deteriorating’, following Physician Ling’s suggestion, he asked the emperor for permission to return to his fief and recuperate. With the emperor’s approval, Nangong Du left the capital city, and for fear that she might be heartbroken to watch his son go, the empress dowager didn’t see him off.

Prince Mu’s fief lay in the south of the country. Though it was far from the border between the Wen and the Nan Kingdom, for the sake of the tension between the two countries, even if there were no spies came to make trouble, everyone in the Nan Kingdom was in a state of panic. Anyway, Nangong Du’s journey to his fief was likely to be dangerous. However, the emperor granted his request so easily. Therefore, it was obvious that the relationship between the royal brothers wasn’t as close as rumored. Needless to say, Nangong Du did conceal his actual physical condition from the emperor, and he was out of Luanzhou for another purpose.

Lingxiao wasn’t interested in speculating on the intrigue between the royal family at all. If his father hadn’t been so reckless and lashed out to punish him with their family rules before he could explain to him, and even forced him to stay at the Prince Mu’s Mansion to go on treating that asshole, without allowing him to look for Xiuxiu, he would have gotten Xiuxiu back and led a happy life with him now! ‘What was wrong with dad and Senior Brother? How come they even forgot the common sense that men can’t get pregnant? Dad chased me and beat me in front of Xiuxiu and Uncle Liu… How embarrassing!!’

After spending a day with a heavy heart on horseback, Lingxiao left Prince Mu’s team the next morning when they were out of Luanzhou. Anyway, Nangong Du had recovered, which meant Lingxiao had not only lived up to his word but also fulfilled the task his father assigned him, so it had nothing to do with him to take care of that asshole anymore!

As soon as he left, Nangong Du, who was resting in a spacious, luxurious carriage, got the news. However, he only nodded without a word.

“Your Highness, do you want me to send someone after him?” Xingyi asked in confusion. She thought Prince Mu wouldn’t spare Liu Zixiu easily, so she didn’t understand why he gave up the opportunity of finding him through Lingxiao.

Nangong Du shook his head with a snort. He knew well that Yan Lingxiao was not only a skillful physician but a great martial artist as well, so he would be asking for humiliation if he sent anyone to follow behind him. Moreover, as Zixiu punched Lingxiao as well the other day, he was certain that even if Yan Lingxiao found Liu Zixiu before he did, Liu Zixiu wouldn’t go anywhere with him.

“Liu Zixiu, how dare you punch me and leave me without my permission! Seems I’ve been too kind to you!” With a sneer, Nangong Du clenched his fists gradually.