Chapter 118 - Digging Rascal

"You little rascal, you've grown up so well!" Lao Wang exclaimed as he wrapped an arm around An Hao's head and rubbed it to An Hao's annoyance. 

An Hao freed his head and haughtily said, "I'm no longer a child."

Lao Wang laughed and drank the wine An Hao poured, "Of course not! You're now a general and the An family is now officially a military family, who said scholars couldn't fight." He burst out laughing and then sighed, "Now that you're all grown up and settled, all that's left is to get married." 

An Hao pursed his lips, did not respond and simply refilled Lao Wang's cup. 

"Oh, by the way, what did you do to the young miss?" Lao Wang finally recalled that issue. After he escorted An Hao out and covertly arranged their meeting at this restaurant, he went back to check on the girls. He found them at a pavilion with Xiao Ting sitting down demurely attentively listening to Tung Mei's lecture on how she should have handled An Hao. They looked busy so he quietly retreated and did not intrude on their self-defense session. 

An Hao knit his brows, "I didn't do anything."

Lao Wang knocked his head, "Don't lie. The young miss may be a bit fragile compared to the older miss but she doesn't break into tears just for every little thing. Not to mention, her clothes were dirty. Miss Tung is also not someone unreasonable so if you didn't do anything you wouldn't have been treated like that. Hurry up and talk!"

An Hao looked at him and then pouted, "It was an accident..."

Lao Wang went wide-eyed, then he blinked, "Accident? You...you wouldn't have...? No way, right?"

An Hao knit his brows and honestly admitted, "I accidentally bumped into her...then may have...perhaps, fallen on her...and thinking back on it, I may have also been a tad...mean about it...but she should have been watching where she was going, okay maybe I shouldn't have been walking backwards but if she were looking, then she could have avoided me so in conclusi-"

"Ow! Why do you keep hitting me?!" An Hao barked when Lao Wang gave him a hard knock on his head.

"You little brat! How could you crush our little miss?! Are you trying to kill her?!" Lao Wang hollered.

"I didn't see her and she won't die just from that!" An Hao indignantly responded.

"You still have the mouth to talk!" Lao Wang roared and An Hao lowered his head, feeling aggrieved.

{...How can they be treating me like this? I am a general! These old men keep making me feel like a child. It's annoying...}

"You better go apologize to the little Miss, otherwise, you will have to fight me! She's a sweet girl." Lao Wang then settled down and downed his wine,

An Hao covertly rolled his eyes then put on a smile and refilled Lao Wang's cup, "I've got it. I understand, it's my fault. I'll apologize later."

"Hmph! You better." Lao Wang drank the wine and looked An Hao over, "So what did you want to see me for?... Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see you but you never go looking for someone unless you want something. So what do you want?"

An Hao's smile widened, "Of course, I was going to come to greet you eventually...once I found you that is. It's not that I wasn't thinking about it, but since fate arranged it like this I have no choice but to oblige it. Not my fault."

Lao Wang laughed, "Cheeky brat...Okay, I'll believe you for now. So tell me what is it?"

An Hao straightened up and became serious, "I was curious about the eldest miss of the Lei family...Is there anything weird about her? Any incidents?...or about her personal maid? Anything you can think of?"

Lao Wang raised an eyebrow, "Her again? And here I thought she was doing well with the Emperor...It seems he still doesn't trust her. She is a good girl too..."

"The Emperor investigated her before?" An Hao asked with raised eyebrows.

"En. Your father came to meet a few days after she entered the palace. The Emperor didn't mention that?"

An Hao blinked and quickly played along, "He must have wanted me to look at the case with completely fresh eyes."

Lao Wang nodded and then began, "Well as a child she wa-"

"I don't need to know about her entire life...The Emperor specifically asked me to look into things from three years ago." An Hao then narrowed his eyes, "Anything peculiar around that time? Three years ago?"

Lao Wang sighed, "Hmm...If it's three years, she did go missing for a b-"

"She went missing? For how long? Where did she go? Tell me more..."

Lao Wang laughed, "You still get excited so easily, you haven't changed at all..." 

An Hao frowned, "Focus! Just tell me..." Lao Wang chuckled, it was really easy to get under An Hao's skin. It seemed his years in the military did not change him much, it was good to see him still so lively.

Lao Wang sighed, "I don't know where she went...At first, we thought maybe she was kidnapped, but then found a note she left saying she was going horse riding. In the middle of the night too! And she didn't even tell anyone!"

"Not to mention that she even drugged and tied up Ah Jin...Ah, that's her personal maid. Anyway, she did that and disappeared. It was very weird. We were all really worried, the eldest miss rarely went out over the years, only going out once in a while with the younger miss. You see she did not like being disturbed, for her to suddenly leave like that was very perplexing an-"

"So her maid didn't go with her?" An Hao interrupted with a frown.

{...If the maid wasn't there, then...then was I really dreaming? But then why and how the hell did I dre-...}

"Oh, Ah Jin eventually went to join her."

"Oh?" 

Lao Wang sighed, "That was another weird event, a few days after the eldest miss left, Ah Jin disappeared too, apparently to go find the Miss. A few weeks later the two came back together saying they met on the road."

An Hao's face lit up, "What time of year was this and how many weeks?"

Lao Wang held his chin and thought for a bit, "Um...a little over two weeks, no more than three...Ah, for the time of year, hmm, it was a few days before the Crown prince's rebellion..."

An Hao knit his brows in thought, calculating the timing.

Lao Wang sighed and continued, "It was really at a bad time too, Defense minister Lei was really stressed at that time, there was the looming rebellion, not to mention the report came about the young master going missing on the front lines...The young miss then did this on top of everything too...It was really stressful for him. We were starting to consider that some trickster deceived her into eloping and that we would never see her again...but thankfully sh-"

An Hao suddenly stood up, "We'll hang out later. I have something to see to do." An Hao hurriedly said and bounded out the door, leaving Lao Wang sighing in his wake.

An Hao quickly went back home and pulled up a map and started mapping out the routes between the two locations; the capital and the army camp from three years ago.

At that time, they had just finished the won the final battle with Nanjing. Their king was dead and now it was just a matter of storming the unguarded capital. After the battle ended, they realized that Lei Yong and a few others were missing. The Nanjing army had dispersed when their king died and they had chased after them to capture them. They managed to subdue most of the units but there were still a few remnants hiding deep in the forest. A few days passed and there was still no sign of Lei Yong.

The Emperor delayed the main army's move to the capital to send out search parties. But unfortunately, the search parties yielded no results, no bodies or anything. It was becoming likely that his group had somehow been captured by those hiding Nanjing soldiers. Two weeks had gone by and they still had not found anything.

Lei Yong's name and face were widely known so if they had him, they definitely knew who he was. Given his status and the state of their fallen country, the most they could hope to get for him was money to escape with. But with two weeks gone by and no news, it was likely they chose the revenge route. And they all had to come to terms with the grim reality that Lei Yong and the others were lost.

They had finally secured the victory and the Emperor's name had surged to new heights, but he took no joy in the win with Lei Yong's loss. The Emperor's dampened mood made An Hao feel worse. He had grown quite fond of Lei Yong, he even thought him to be almost as great as the Emperor so he was in a very bad mood himself.

That fateful night, An Hao could not sleep and so decided to go off on a walk around the perimeter of the army camp. Then he heard voices, female voices.