Chapter 331 - A Conspiracy (2/2)

Qingxue was surprised that Mo Junyang would get mad at her. This man was too cunning in the past, and he wouldn’t show his feelings clearly to let her notice it even if he was unhappy.

Did this show that Mo Junyang was closer to her?

Shi Qingxue wasn’t sure about it, yet she certainly wouldn’t let Mo Junyang continue to sulk in silence.

She hurriedly grabbed Mo Junyang’s hand and twined her fingers into his. Meeting the man’s deep eyes, she explained flatteringly, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but if I tell your subordinate to send a letter to my family, it doesn’t make sense even though…we are engaged.”

Mo Junyang paused for a moment and then accepted Shi Qingxue’s explanation.

“I will prepare a horse for you.”

Shi Qingxue looked at Mo Junyang walking out of the room quickly like the wind, in a daze.

She seemed to have seen a suspicious red mark on Mo Junyang’s neck.

Was she dazzled?

Shi Qingxue shook her head and stopped herself from making blind and disorderly conjectures. Then she went to write a letter.

The little monk who would send the letter was less than twenty years old. He was bald at a young age, and the food was vegetarian in the family temple, so he looked thinner. When he stood at the door of the temple, the wind and frost were strong, as if he could be blown away in blizzard.

Shi Qingxue had told him everything that she should tell him, but seeing the little monk, she still couldn’t help asking worriedly, “It’s a long journey to the capital city. Are you okay with it?”

Only at this thought, she was worried.

The little monk saluted her in a Buddhist way. “Amitabha. Please don’t worry, Benefactor. I won’t let you down.”

“Thanks, Master. The weather is so bad now. After you send the letter, just stay in Duke Shi’s mansion and come back when it is warmer,” Shi Qingxue advised.

The little monk agreed in a hurry, and he couldn’t help but show a smile which couldn’t be concealed on his young face.

The noble families provided for the real monks and nuns in the family temples, yet they were not as strict as the Buddhist temples where the others cultivated in seclusion, and these monks and nuns couldn’t be void of vanities.

This little monk lived in the family temple since childhood and had never seen the prosperous capital city, and this job was assigned to him by his master specially because he was smart.

Thinking that he could finally see the bustling capital mentioned by others, the little monk couldn’t help but feel excited. He rode the fast horse and ran down the mountain.

Wei Zichao looked at this little monk’s rash actions and pouted involuntarily.

Dong Shuang saw that and asked with concern, “What’s wrong with you?”

“That little monk hasn’t seen the world obviously, and he is rash and unskilled. I don’t know if he can finish the job smoothly,” Wei Zichao commented coldly.

He still took it to heart as Shi Qingxue chose a little monk instead of him to send a letter.

Dong Shuang didn’t understand the masters’ scruple, either, while she had her own opinion.

She patted Wei Zichao’s shoulder and comforted him softly and quickly. “Because this job is easy, just to send a letter. They don’t need you to do it. You have more important jobs.”

As Wei Zichao heard that, his cold face softened a little, and he was finally comforted.

However, he still showed off his ability in front of Dong Shuang. “It’s such a simple job. If I whip the fast horse, it will take less than three days to go and come back.”

Dong Shuang didn’t doubt him. “Hmm, you are awesome.”

Wei Zichao’s tense face started to get red suspiciously, and he lowered his head in silence.

Dong Shuang didn’t notice it but continued, “However, this job is not urgent. Didn’t Lady Qingxue say that the little monk didn’t need to come back in a rush? She just told him to send the letter in safety to Duke Shi’s mansion, right?”

“Who knows if he can finish such an easy job?” Wei Zichao snorted and tried to distract his attention to lower the temperature on his face.

“It’s not dangerous all the way. Can he freeze to death on the way?” Dong Shuang replied casually and didn’t take it seriously.

They didn’t know that her casual words came true.

There was still snow falling on Tan Mountain, yet it was much lighter than that when Mo Junyang and Wei Zichao came up the mountain.

There was a series of indentations left by a horse’s hooves on the mountain path covered with white snow.

They were going down from the mountaintop. Near a cliff, they became a lot of messy prints of the horse’s hooves with scratches spreading to the cliff.

The horse seemed to have been lingering here for a long time.

Then the prints of the horse’s hooves went down to the foot of the mountain.

However, if people observed carefully, they could find that the steps of the horse were different from the previous ones and more orderly with a greater distance between them.

It seemed that somebody else who was more skilled in horsemanship rode the horse.

Nevertheless, nobody found this incident. Duke Shi’s mansion in the capital far away had got the news that Shi Juncai died of an illness. Then somebody came to report that the Princess Royal Mo Shujun fell sick.

Shi Junhe knew what Shi Juncai meant to Mo Shujun, so he instantly sent for a doctor and rushed to her residence.

He didn’t know that a letter which was supposed to be from Tan Mountain to his mansion didn’t arrive after a long time.