novelAbuy Chapter 071: Rescue
Chapter 071: Rescue
She was eleven or twelve years old, with a round face and almond-shaped eyes, and her hair was tied in messy double buns.
Xiao Jinluo didn't cry, nor did she shrink into the corner. She just sat on a straw mat in the middle of the cell, holding an old rag doll rabbit that the jailer had somehow gotten.
The rabbit's ears are different from the original, but it's still a rabbit.
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard was stunned for a long time.
He recognized the girl; her portrait had appeared in the Imperial City Guard's internal reports.
Xiao Jinluo, the younger sister of Xiao Bieli, the vanguard officer of Yue Family Army, was taken away from Wazi Lane by the scouts two hours ago.
"What's your name?" the girl asked first, her voice soft and gentle, filled with curiosity rather than fear.
"My surname is Jin." He sat down against the iron fence. "And you?"
"My name is Xiao Jinluo." She hugged the plush rabbit tighter. "The blood is still flowing from your face, does it hurt?"
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard reached out and touched the corner of his mouth. The scab had been torn open again, and his fingers were covered with a sticky, warm substance.
"It doesn't hurt."
"You're lying." Xiao Jinluo stood up from the straw mat and walked to the iron fence. "But it's okay, my brother often lies to me too. He says his hands are always icy even when it's not cold."
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard didn't know what to say.
He endured two rounds of torture in the Imperial City Guard's interrogation room without uttering a sound, but now, facing an eleven-year-old girl, he suddenly felt a tightness in his throat.
"Where's your brother?"
"He will come." Xiao Jinluo said this without hesitation, her voice steady. "So I have to wait for him."
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard remained silent.
After a long silence, he said, "Aren't you afraid?"
"I'm scared." Xiao Jinluo looked down at the plush rabbit in her hand. "But what I'm scared of isn't this place. What I'm scared of is that my brother got hurt again while trying to save me. He always gets hurt every time he saves me." She paused. "This time I wanted to save him, but I'm locked up here, and I've lost my gun."
When Xiao Jinluo said "the gun is gone too," her voice sounded a little sad, as if she were saying that she had lost something very precious.
The cell remained quiet for a long time.
Then the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard spoke up.
"You just asked me what my name is—I don't have a name. I'm an orphan, raised among refugees. Later, someone picked me up and taught me how to deliver messages, and I learned to distinguish who could be trusted and who couldn't. You asked me what my name is, I really don't know. But some people call me Imperial Guard."
He leaned against the iron fence, his voice hoarse, "If you insist on calling me that, then call me that."
"Brother Imperial Guard," Xiao Jinluo called out.
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard trembled slightly. When he worked as a waiter in a teahouse in Xiuzhou, people called him "waiter"; when he delivered messages in Lin'an, people called him "that guy".
No one ever called him "brother".
"Are you hungry?" he suddenly asked.
Xiao Jinluo nodded.
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard took out half a cake from his pocket.
This was the prison ration he was given when he was locked up yesterday. He only took one bite, and hid the rest inside his clothes, so it wasn't taken. He passed the biscuit through the gap in the iron bars.
Xiao Jinluo took the cake, looked down at it, then broke it in half and handed one half back to Xiao Jinluo.
"You eat."
"I'm not hungry," he said.
"You're lying." Xiao Jinluo shoved the half-eaten pancake back into his hand. "You said you weren't in pain when you said you were, but you were definitely hungry when you said you were. My brother is the same way, so I know exactly what you mean."
The deputy commander of the Imperial Guard looked down at the half-eaten pancake in his hand and suddenly smiled.
He couldn't remember the last time he laughed. Maybe it was in Xiuzhou, maybe it was even earlier, or maybe he had never really laughed in his life.
He stuffed the biscuit into his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it.
"Xiao Jinluo," he said, "your brother raised you very well."
Xiao Jinlu shook her head. "It wasn't my brother who taught me, it was Sister Shen."
"Sister Shen?"
"Sister Shen Qingci from Xiuzhou." Xiao Jinlu put a small bite of the cake in her mouth, "She bought me osmanthus cake, taught me embroidery, and even cooked me an extra bowl of porridge. I embroidered a handkerchief for her with 'Sister' written on it, but the embroidery was crooked and messy."
As she spoke, her voice lowered, not because she was afraid, but because she missed Shen Qingci.
This child could stand with a gun in hand and say, "If you take another step forward, I'll stab you," while being pursued by the Imperial City Guard; and after being imprisoned in the Dali Temple, the first thing he did was not to cry but to ask the person opposite him, "Does it hurt?"
But when Shen Qingci taught her embroidery, her eyes welled up with tears.
......
It was the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month, early morning.
Zhao Bozong spent the entire night in the study of the Prince's Mansion without sleeping.
Before him lay a map of the bell distribution drawn overnight by Yuwen Xu, intelligence on the Jin cavalry submitted by Xiao Bieli, and recent mobilization records of the Imperial City Guard compiled by Qin Keqing.
On the top page of the table was a line written by Qin Keqing in extremely fine charcoal: "On the 23rd of the twelfth month, the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard was arrested, Xiao Bieli's sister was kidnapped, and Qin Hui's target is suspected to be Xiao Bieli."
He put down the paper and did a very simple deduction in his mind.
The reason why the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard was exposed is likely because a link in the messenger chain that Qin Keqing had previously set up had gone wrong.
The Imperial City Guard discovered the drop point in Wazi Alley through the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard. They also encountered Xiao Bieli's sister near Wazi Alley. This was most likely a coincidence rather than a premeditated plan.
If he had known Xiao Bieli's identity beforehand, he would not have allowed the scouts to act arbitrarily on the street. Instead, he would have waited for Xiao Bieli to appear and then captured them all at once.
But coincidences can also be intelligence.
The Imperial City Guard now holds two bargaining chips: the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard and Xiao Jinluo.
These two people don't know each other and have no connection with each other, but they are locked up in the same place.
Qin Hui will eventually discover that Xiao Jinluo's brother is the vanguard officer of Yue Fei's army. At that time, Xiao Bieli will become his third pawn.
"Your Highness."
Qin Keqing's voice came from the study doorway. She stood there, holding a bowl of porridge that had gone cold, clearly indicating that she hadn't slept all night.
"General Xin has arrived, along with Mr. Yuwen, Officer Feng, and Commander Jiao, all waiting in the woodshed."
"Let them in."
Xin Qizong was the first to enter, still wearing his old military robe from the old camp in the southern suburbs, with a patch of dew on his cuff. He had ridden his horse from the southern suburbs to the palace overnight.
He was followed by Jiao Qiong, Yuwen Xu, Feng Yi, Liu An, and Zhang Quwei, who had come from Cining Palace.
Qin Keqing was the last to enter. She brought in a bowl of porridge and placed it on Zhao Bozong's table, as if to remind him that it was time to eat something, but she didn't say anything.
"Gentlemen," Zhao Bozong stood up and gestured for everyone to sit on either side of the study. He then pushed the bell distribution map towards the center of the table so that everyone could see the three locations circled on the map: Cining Palace, Dali Temple, and Wazi Lane.
"The arrest of the deputy commander of the Imperial Guard, the kidnapping of Xiao Jinluo, and the disappearance of Xiao Bieli—this is Qin Hui's first move. But it won't be the last. Before he takes the next step, we need to figure out three things: What is Qin Hui's purpose? What do we still have? And what's the next step?"
"Does Your Highness mean that the two people who have been captured should be rescued?" Jiao Qiong asked.
"Save them," Zhao Bozong said, "but not now, when we rush in to save them."
"Why?" Jiao Qiong frowned. "Xiao Bieli's younger sister is only eleven years old and is locked up in a lower-level prison at the Dali Temple—"
"It's precisely because she's in the Dali Temple," Qin Keqing said, her voice cold. "Qin Hui imprisoned her there not to kill her, but to use her as bait."
If she lives, Xiao Bieli will walk into the Dali Temple on his own; if she dies, Xiao Bieli will become a mad tiger, and a mad tiger is of no value to Qin Hui.