Young man, please stay

Chapter 321 Mid-Autumn Hunting in the North
"A sudden rise...?"

Qin Lang stroked the word "异" on the brocade handkerchief with his fingers. His eyes were sometimes solemn, sometimes puzzled, and sometimes shining. His gaze swept back and forth between the brocade handkerchief, the ceiling, and the scattered lapels of the empress.

"Traitor, what are you looking at?"

The empress tugged at the collar of her dragon robe and gently pressed the heaviness on her chest with her jade arms. Although it was not before he had seen it, as the emperor, she still had to give him a cold shoulder.

"Ahem...I won't watch it anymore. I won't watch it anymore."

Qin Lang pretended to be a "loyal minister" and deliberately muttered:

"It's the same to go home and look at the silver bottle..."

"?!"

A red light flashed, and Qin Lang felt a sudden pain in his waist.

That was the invisible hand from the great empress.

Qin Lang also secretly complained, as a dignified empress, she would use such a powerful method on her man at any time, and when it came to the specific actions, she still used the classic waist pinching routine. Tsk, it was really...

...Hey, it's so cute~
"You look like a traitor. What are you thinking about?"

"Huh? No."

Qin Lang denied that he had a traitorous face, and approached the empress and said solemnly:
"Honestly, baby, what does this brocade handkerchief mean? What does it mean to emerge as a new force?"

"..."

The empress rolled her eyes at Qin Lang, twisted her waist, and tried to struggle against his arms, then "as it should be" that "a weak woman can't beat a big man" and "a little sheep can't escape the big bad wolf", her warm and fragrant body softened against Qin Lang's chest, and she sighed:

"This handkerchief was sent by General Zhu from Mangzhou. According to the messenger, it was received from our spy in Beili. The spy is dead. This handkerchief was obviously some important news he learned before his death, and he reluctantly passed it on... As for its meaning, I am not sure... As for the four words [unusual military rise], I think it is probably some unusual military action in Beili."

Qin Lang's expression was solemn and serious, and even the movement of one of his hands hidden in the empress's clothes slowed down:

"Before receiving this handkerchief, was there any sign?"

"No."

The empress frowned and thought:
"But it is precisely because there is none that I feel there is something wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"How should I put it? The Northern Territory has been a little...too quiet in the past two years. The King of Zhenbei hasn't returned to the capital for a long time, and the news he sends back every year is the same..."

"Oh."

Qin Lang understood immediately:

"Are you worried that this is the calm before the storm?"

"But according to the reports from the Tingyuxuan in the two northern states, Mangzhou and Liangzhou, there is indeed nothing unusual in Liangzhou, including the northern garrison, so I am not sure..."

Qin Lang was surprised:

"Then with your strength, baby, why don't you take some time to go to the North Territory and see for yourself?"

The empress shook her head:
"I would like to, but I can't do it."

"Can't do it?"

Qin Lang was stunned. The empress was a person who could fly and hide underground. What did it mean that she couldn't even do that when she went to the northern border to check the situation?
But then, Qin Lang also remembered that when the empress went to the Ten Thousand Mountains in Yizhou to find the Tianhe Sect, even though the empress was extremely beautiful, she would still be restricted in Nangong Zhuo's territory in the Ten Thousand Mountains.

So is there a similar situation in the North?

In response to Qin Lang's doubts, the empress gave a positive answer:

"Back before the death of the previous emperor, during the reign of Emperor Zhaotong, there was a major war in the northern border. The enemy and our army once fought from the border to the mainland of Great Zhou, and the battle line stretched across Liang and Mang states..."

"…In fact, in that battle, the two armies did not deploy many ordinary soldiers, but the destructive power they caused was extraordinary, and in the end, countless deep valleys and ravines were formed on the border between the two states…"

"…After the war, the famous Ten Thousand Souls Forest that now spans two states grew around these long gullies in a very strange way. Together with the gullies, it formed an extremely strange barrier, just like the Tianhe Sect's formation, but more powerful than it. All masters above the Grandmaster level will be suppressed by the Grandmaster, including me, so I have never been able to easily cross the border to explore anything..."

……

This was the first time Qin Lang had heard such a story about the Northern Territory. He was also stunned: "Even someone as powerful as you are suppressed? Then...the Ten Thousand Souls Forest in these two states must be quite powerful. How was this war fought? I'm afraid it wasn't a battle between heavenly soldiers?"

"There are no heavenly soldiers. The soldiers on both sides are elite, but in terms of individual combat power, they are at most similar to the so-called "Martial Master" level people in the market."

"Then how..."

"But there are no heavenly soldiers, but there are heavenly generals."

"Heaven general?"

Qin Lang suddenly realized something and guessed something. The shadow of Zhu Hongling quickly flashed through his mind.

"In that battle, the main forces of both sides were actually the generals of both sides. On our side, it was General Zhu Yueshan, together with the 28 deputy generals at that time, and the enemy was Yi Mo Jucilan, who was known as the [Demon General] in Beili."

"Yimo...Jucilan..."

This was the first Beili person's name Qin Lang had heard of. It was a little hard to pronounce, but that was not the point:
"You didn't mean to say that Yi Mo... fought against Zhu Yueshan and twenty-eight lieutenants alone?"

"Yes."

"So awesome? Compared to you, baby?"

"I don't know, at that time I..."

"Oh, that's right. Hey, the baby was really a baby at that time~"

"..."

In fact, to be precise, the daughter emperor had not been born at that time.

However, the longer the empress lay in the arms of the traitor, the softer her heart became. She could not muster the energy to rebuke him, so she silently reached out and pinched his waist again:

"The fierce battle between the two sides of the heavenly generals created the Ten Thousand Souls Forest, the natural barrier of the northern border. In some senses, it also contributed to the truce between the two sides. Although the contradictions between my Great Zhou and even the previous dynasty and Beili have not been resolved to this day, the current truce has allowed the people on the border to finally recuperate. Even on the several passages between the two countries that can pass through the Ten Thousand Souls Forest normally, the normal trade between the two countries is also prospering. I just don't know what happened this time..."

"Do we need to investigate?"

"of course yes."

"Isn't it easy?"

"It's not easy. Although the trade on the border between the two countries is prosperous, we still maintain a high level of vigilance against the other side's citizens. Many of the spies I planted there in the early years have disappeared. The one who sent the handkerchief this time must have died in a foreign land. Of course, we have also caught several spies from Beili from time to time... However, if we want to conduct more in-depth planting and investigation, there is actually an opportunity recently."

"what chance?"

"Mid-Autumn Hunting in the North."

"Northern Hunt?"

Qin Lang thought that the world was really big and he was still very young. He thought he had seen a lot since he came down from Tianshan Mountain, but now he found that there seemed to be many things he had not explored yet.

"Every Mid-Autumn Festival, the Emperor of Great Zhou goes north to the Ten Thousand Souls Forest to hunt. This is a tradition passed down by the previous emperor after the war in the northern border. This is the time when the forces of Great Zhou are closest to the border of Beili every year, and it is also the time when Beili is at its highest alert..."

Qin Lang understood, but apart from the secret military operation, he was also very interested in the Northern Hunting capability.

"Baby, it will be a grand occasion, right?"

"Well, all civil and military officials will go, and..."

The empress's beautiful eyes showed some helplessness:
"There is still a competition..."

"What's the competition?"

"Hunting. Since the founding of our Great Zhou, we have always been strong in military power. It is impossible for the Northern Hunt to be carried out casually. The ministers can just compete casually, but I will compete with her when the time comes..."

she?
Qin Lang heard something was wrong:

"Who?"

"Of course it's the Regent, Bai Qingqing."

(End of this chapter)