Chapter 167: Spare the Big Guy

The cell door opened and a gust of cold wind poured in, curling up the scattered pages on the ground and slapping against Yan Chengxue’s head and face and prison clothes.

Yan Chengxue threw the burnt pages in her hand with only a corner left into the charcoal basin and looked up at the door of the cell, her pale and greenish face showing a little bit of surprise.

“Soo Imperial?”

Su Yan walked in and surveyed the cells and the prisoners.

When Yan Huo was escorted to the capital and sent to the imperial prison, he had written to Shen Qi to explain that these two people might still be useful and not to be too hard on them.

Nowadays, it seems that the jailers treated them quite favorably. On a cold day, the cell had a fire pit, a wooden bed, bedding, and a pair of poorly colored ink and paper on a low table.

Su Yan approached and squatted down. Body, picking up the pages on the ground full of ink stains, “What is written?”

A jailer chimed in behind him, “Who knows, all day long writing and burning, burning and writing, as if paper and ink don’t cost money ……”

A companion next to him poked him with the tip of his elbow, signaling him to shut up, and said himself, “Lord Su be careful, wait for the little ones to put him in handcuffs and shackles before approaching for questioning.”

Yan Chengxue smiled mockingly.

Su Yan waved his hand, “No need. He’s a skinny civil official, even if he’s against me, I’ll still be able to fuck him.”

The jailer had to move a tai shi chair and ask Su Yan to sit down, and pick up all the papers that were messed up on the ground.

Su Yan flipped around and looked carefully, gradually seeing something.

“…… You are writing a military book?” He tsked, “You say you this person it, this job is not properly do, in the line of the Imperial Servant Temple corpse, non-running to the Qing Shui camp meddling in military affairs, Huo’s soldiers to bring their own practice, the result of the practice of the soldiers even their own generals to fight. What is this called, unauthorized duties overstepping authority, dog with a rat!”

Yan Chengxue said, “I originally had no interest in managing horse politics, and was offended and relocated and relegated to the Shaanxi line of the Imperial Servant Temple.”

Su Yan laughed: ”Then why don’t you ask for your resignation and vacate your post for someone who wants to do it? Oh, can’t give up the official body and salary. So on the one hand, you did nothing, and wasted Shaanxi’s horse politics into a mess; on the other hand, you boasted of your talent, and in order to get addicted to leading soldiers, you didn’t hesitate to drag your best friend into the water, and together, you violated the national law and military discipline. Right?”

Yan Chengxue’s greenish-white and thin cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, and she gritted her teeth and said, “Set in the wrong place, even the most rare pearl is like a fish’s eye, but it’s not the pearl’s fault!”

Su Yan laughed out loud, “You are conceited. To this day, you still feel that the court has failed you by not recognizing the pearl.”

Yan Chengxue pursed his thin lips, crumpled another ball of paper pages, and threw it into the charcoal fire pot. The fire leapt up, swallowing the paper in the blink of an eye.

Su Yan said: ”I am not good at the art of war, but I also know that the use of troops is about the complementarity of odd and positive, with the positive, with the odd to win. Your method of practicing soldiering is only odd, not positive. It only emphasizes the ability of individual soldiers and the cooperation of small teams, while ignoring the overall strategy and battle planning. It only emphasizes the importance of intrigue and trickery, but has no far-sighted strategic vision.

“Your art of war, like you as a person, is bigoted, mean-spirited, and narrow-minded!”

Yan Chengxue was full of disbelief and said indignantly, “The art of war is also a tricky way, the vertical son is not enough to discuss with!”

The more annoyed he was, the more he fell out of the bag, angry to the madness of “the classics” all out, Huo knows his temperament, to this point will not dare to go against him.

Su Yan but do not know and do not care, deliberately contemptuously shaking the paper in his hand, “according to your virtue, really tens of thousands of troops to you, it will not take long to be wiped out. You ah, when a team, with fifty people top day, the court appointed you as the line of the Secretary of the Imperial Household Servants Temple, are lifting you up!”

Yan Chengxue put her fist against her chest and coughed violently.

“–Sama Su!” An urgent voice came from behind.

Su Yan turned around to see that Huo was dressed in prison clothes, wearing handcuffs and shackles, being escorted by the jailers from another cell.

Huo spoke to him, but his eyes fell on Yan Chengxue, pleading, “My lord have mercy. Old Yan’s hometown suffered a great disaster when he was a teenager, and he fell ill during the Tartar massacre, his heart and lungs are weak and cannot withstand the excitement, I hope your honor will have mercy!”

Su Yan thought: he made poison, made hidden weapons, and ordered to release arrows to kill Altan, his heart and lungs can be strong na. A cannibalistic flower, only you treat him as a white lotus.

Huo took a few steps closer to Yan Chengxue amidst the sound of clattering chains, “Old Yan, now that we are prisoners, and Lord Su is an official in the hall, listen to what you should listen to, and suffer what you should suffer, and don’t be stubborn anymore, or else you’ll just be going through the motions with yourself.”

Yan Chengxue coughed a large bout of coughing in a rush of fire, miserably white, sneered, “You get by on your own, it’s fine to put all the charges on me, just don’t mind me!”

Huo was choked enough by him that anger surfaced under her eyes, “You people – how – are you so good and bad?”

Yan Chengxue coldly said, “I’m a good and bad person, it’s not worth the trouble, and it’s not the first day you’ve learned about it, so why make a fool of yourself.”

“Well.” Su Yan stroked his palm, lazily said, “This official was also worried that you two are more difficult than gold, afraid that they will take the blame for each other, now it seems that too much worry.

“Saving time, I’ll get right to it. In the state letter from Varat, it names Yan Chengxue as the one who will have to pay for their prince’s life. His Majesty, after much deliberation, decided to use his head to first ease the tense situation at the border, so as not to allow Walar to join forces with the Tartars and raise an army to invade. I thought, well, at least in Shaanxi half a year is considered to know each other, so I asked the decree to come to send him off.”

Huo exclaimed, “Your Majesty is really going to kill him? He really isn’t the murderer who plotted to assassinate the Prince of Warrat, Your Majesty, please be clear! Lord Su, you know the inside story, please explain to His Majesty that Old Yan is really innocent!”

Su Yan faintly said: “now, no innocence is important? Not to mention his head of a guilty official, is ten twenty, for the sake of the general situation should be cut also have to cut.”

Huo despairingly fell to his knees with a “thud” and walked to Su Yan, begging bitterly: “Lord Su! I know that you have His Majesty’s trust, as long as you are willing to plead in front of His Majesty, His Majesty will definitely reconsider. How about this, I admit everything, anyway, I can’t get out of this matter of Altan. Those Warrat guards saw me fighting with Altan, and the poisoned concealed weapon was also recovered from me, so wouldn’t it be more justifiable to use my head to pay for my life?”

Yan Chengxue violently stood up, staggered twice, and angrily shouted: ”What does my matter have to do with you, don’t bother telling me what to do here! Surname Huo, if you want to take the blame, you have to see if I appreciate it. I’d rather lose my head than see you as a soft-boned coward, get out! Get out!

Su Yan spread his hands to Huo, “Did you hear that, he told you to get lost.”

Huo gritted his teeth and just knelt still, pleading with Su Yan once again, ”Lord Su, this life of Old Yan was picked up from the dead with great difficulty, so let’s just pretend that heaven has the virtue of goodness and let him live out the rest of his life as he deserves. As for me, anyway, every time I go to war I’m ready to wrap my body in horse leather before I go to war, this time dropping my head may be more useful to Daming than me fighting ten or twenty battles. I’m not losing out, really!”

“You don’t lose, I lose.” Su Yan said, “Seeing that you have been guarding the Qing Shui camp for many years, have not made any major mistakes but have minor merits, and are only an accessory to the crime, I will plead with the Emperor to leave you a life and continue to serve the country. If you die, my favor is not in vain, face is not in vain? His Majesty has agreed to remove you from your official position, demote you to the most common soldier, and go to the border to serve-not at any of the guardhouses, but at the Night Nocturne.”

Before Huo could react, Yan Chengxue’s face changed at first: “What’s the difference between that and sending yourself to death? Night and day, no matter how cold or hot it is, we go deep into enemy territory to carry out the most dangerous missions, and we will die once in a lifetime. Nowadays, the team is even more depleted, and there is no one to take over as the chief officer. I’m afraid he has the life to go, but not the life to return!”

Su Yan was unmoved: ”You’re worried about Huo not having a life, how come you can’t worry about worrying about the other soldiers? Until now, you and I are talking in a charcoal-burning room, there are still a lot of night not to be harvested are on a mission in the icy north desert, how, their lives are not lives? Only your old Huo’s life is precious, but they are cheap? Besides, anyway, you’ll soon have your head on the ground, even if he dies halfway to his mission you won’t see it, what’s there to worry about.”

Huo anxiously said, “Lord Su! I’m willing to go to the night without harvesting and be the lowest level sentry at the mercy of others, but please leave Old Yan alive. Although he is a Confucian scholar, he is extremely good at practicing soldiering, much better than I am at leading soldiers, you keep him, more useful than me!”

Su Yan said: “How his ability I have not yet seen, how the attitude is the nail in the coffin. Neither is willing to be lowly, nor is willing to be used for me, what is left to do, wasting the Imperial Prison’s prison meal?”

“Stop it!” Yan Chengxue strides to Huo’s side, flings the hem of his robe and kneels side by side with him, gritting his teeth unwillingly and helplessly, “Lord Su has long suspected me of being arrogant and mean, disrespecting the angels, and came to the Imperial Prison this time to teach me a lesson, to ruthlessly grind this stinking hard bone of mine. Now that Lord Su has gotten his wish, I, Yan Chengxue, have not knelt to anyone except heaven and earth, ruler, parent and teacher, and here I kowtow to Lord Su!”

He kowtowed to Su Yan three times in a row, so hard that his forehead bled on the rough, hard ground. Huo rushed to help him, but he pushed him away and continued, “These three heads are not for my own survival, but only for Huo, this idiot. Although he is stupid, he is obedient, has excellent marksmanship, and fights bravely, even if he doesn’t become a soldier, he is more than enough to be a guard. I see that Lord Su only has one personal guard by his side–“

“But don t,” Su Yan immediately interrupted, “a personal guard on this adult suffered, and then one more is even more eaten …… eat eat eat eat eat eat eat.”

Yan Chengxue’s eyes showed her disappointment, and she said more and more pointedly, “If not, let him be a lowly jailer, or go over to Night Uncollected.”

Rear jailer: “……”

Su Yan contained a smile, ”You want to seek a way out for him? It’s a pity that your knees aren’t worth that much. Night does not accept that he is bound to go.”

“I’ll go! I’ll do any job,” Huo said in a deep voice, “and beg Lord Su to keep Old Yan alive.”

Yan Chengxue no longer spoke, her eyes staring grimly at Su Yan, like a poisonous snake that had been forced into a desperate situation, injecting all its venom into its tube fangs, just waiting for a fatal blow.

Su Yan waved his hand, signaling the jailer to exit the cell.

The jailer immediately changed his face, stammered: “Su adults, it is not that the small ones do not follow orders, the truth is that they do not dare to go, the Tongzhi adults have given strict orders to ensure the safety of adults. Although the prisoner is wearing handcuffs and shackles, but after all, he is a practiced …… man.”

“Stand down, the next words are not for you to hear.” Su Yan said without question.

The jailers were still hesitant when four guards with swords came around the corner of the passageway and entered the cell, standing behind Su Yan. Only then did the jailers breathe a sigh of relief and busily retired.

Since he was an imperial guard assigned by the emperor, there was no need for Su Yan to keep it a secret, and said to Yan Chengxue, “He must go at night. But I can put his life in your hands and let you decide whether he lives or dies.”

“What do you mean?” Yan Chengxue asked.

“You will do the scheduling for the missions he is involved in, both individually and in small groups. All intelligence, beforehand, will be sent to you, and you will analyze the enemy, judge the situation, and formulate tactics, and he will execute them.”

Su Yan paused for a moment, leaned forward and forced himself closer to Yan Chengxue, staring at the gaunt, deep-set eye sockets on his pale face, and said softly and clearly, “Remember, his life is in your hands. If you make a wrong judgment or give a wrong order, you will let him die because of you.”

Yan Chengxue clutched the hem of her coat, her fists clenched so tightly that it seemed as if even her entire body was trembling slightly.

Su Yan slowly laughed: ”I just said, according to your ability, as a team leader, bring fifty people to top the sky. Don’t worry, Night Harvest never sends out a large army, each time they carry out a mission, there are only a few people, at most a dozen or so, if the number of people is too large, it’s easy to expose the target.

“You, Yan Chengxue, will start from the Night Uncollectible Chief Flag, take the mission properly and arrange the flag to execute it, but you are not allowed to follow his action. Anyway, you have no hands, go can only drag him down.

“If you dare to collaborate with the enemy and commit treason, the thirty-six members of the Huo family–“

Su Yan slapped his knee and got up, saying to the guards, “Let’s go.”

“…… Wait.” Yan Chengxue called out to him, “You just said that Wala named my head, how are you going to settle this?”

Su Yan sidled his head, “I have my own methods. You’d better think more about how to save the lives of your dear friends over and over again with your little bit of practicing the art of the sword.”

Watching Su Yan leave with his guards, Huo Qingxin comfortingly says, “It’s fine, just go. At least you and I will be alive.”

Yan Chengxue wiped the blood on his forehead with a swipe of his sleeve and said gloomily, ”He didn’t intend to kill us in the first place. This is to make the best use of things! This Su XII ……”

Hoh said, “No matter what, there’s still a chance if you’re alive.”

Su Yan out of the imperial prison. Road, take a deep breath of the cold air after the snow, feel the lungs within the dirt a clear, can not help but lose a smile: “adults I do not look like a stick to beat the villain?”

No one answered him.

The four imperial guards behind them are the four heavenly kings who have cultivated themselves to be righteous, and they honor the Jade Emperor’s decree that they will never make immodest jokes with the male Chang’e who has descended to the earth.

Su Yan skimmed his mouth in a very uninterested manner, missing the personal guard who was cold and mute on the outside, but was actually shy and bold.

He walked towards the lobby of the Northern Zhenfu Division, with the four guards following behind him step by step.

When he asked outside the hall, he learned that Shen Qi had personally brought men and horses to investigate the murderer’s whereabouts at the location identified by the night watchman, leaving Shi Yanxiang, the head criminal, to guard the division.

Shi Yanxiang peeked at the elegant and handsome young minister in front of him, speculating wildly about his relationship with his own superior officer, and even flashed a thought in his mind: is this the “demoness” that was hidden by Shen Tongzhi?

As if sensing something, the four guards at the back glared at him in unison. Shi Yanxiang shrunk his neck and broke out into a back of white-haired sweat, secretly sighing that he couldn’t afford to mess with them, what a strong aura!

Su Yan asked him to give Shen Qi a message that when the murderer is caught, the case will be closed. If there is any doubt, let’s put it aside for the time being, and when he has a clear picture, he will tell the truth.

Shi Yanxiang promised to bring the word before he left the Northern Zhenfu Si with his guards.