Chapter 511: Writing a Letter

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Looking at the pen and ink on the table, Li Jinghua sighed and asked, “Should we write this letter or not?”

“Yes.” Mu Yangling answered firmly, “And we should write it now.”

Li Jinghua frowned slightly. Mu Yangling smiled and said, “Sister-in-law, Big Brother is the Emperor’s subject. It’s his duty to guard the Great Zhou, and it’s not like the Emperor is asking him to do anything unjust. Why shouldn’t we write it?”

“But being detained in the palace and forced to write these letters, I can’t help but feel a little angry.”

“Just treat it as coming to the palace to play for free for a period of time.” Mu Yangling spread out the paper and said, “Sister-in-law, write more interesting things about Little Treasure. This way, even if Big Brother doesn’t get to see Little Treasure, he can still find out how he’s doing by reading the letter.”

Li Jinghua took a pen and began to write the letter. She asked softly, “Will Matriarch Yuan write the letter?”

“I don’t know if she will, but Madam Yuan will definitely write it.” Mu Yangling frowned slightly. In fact, she disapproved of Matriarch Yuan’s confrontation with the Emperor and Empress. That would not only make the Emperor even more suspicious of the Yuan family, but also put them in a more dangerous situation, including General Yuan, who was far away at the border.

No matter how much Mu Yangling disliked the Emperor, she would never cross his bottom line openly at a time like this, because that would be courting death. She had a husband, a son, parents, and siblings. To be showing such signs of disobedience or rebellion in the current era of imperial power, was it that Matriarch Yuan had lived for long enough?

Furthermore, the Yuan family’s prestige and status were too lofty, and General Yuan controlled an army of 260,000. If he listened to orders, the Emperor might not be so wary of him. The key was that General Yuan often did not obey the orders of the Imperial Court. Alright, Mu Yangling admitted that the Emperor’s orders did often screw over the people of Great Zhou and his own army. As such, it seemed reasonable for a general to not listen to orders, but from the perspective of the Emperor, this definitely posed a threat to him.

From this, it could be seen that the most direct and effective way to reduce the threat that Qi Xiuyuan posed to the Emperor and protect Qi Xiuyuan, them, and their children was to use their actions to tell the Emperor that the Qi family was not a threat. And also, that the hundreds of thousands of soldiers under Qi Xiuyuan listened to him.

Although heroes were admirable, it was more beneficial to ‘pretend to be a pig to later prey on a tiger’.

Li Jinghua’s letter to Qi Xiuyuan discussed Little Treasure’s daily life as usual. Then, she ended the letter by asking him to serve the Imperial Court at the border and to take care of his health.

She showed the letter to Mu Yangling. After scanning it and checking that there were no problems, Mu Yangling sealed it.

Li Jinghua quickly stopped her and said, “Do you want to write a few lines too?” The more Li Jinghua thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. She felt that there was no information on the letter at all. She wondered if Qi Xiuyuan would be held back because he received less information than others after reading her letter.

However, it seemed a little inappropriate for the sister-in-law to write a letter to her brother-in-law. Li Jinghua immediately regretted it after suggesting that.

Mu Yangling propped her chin on her hand and thought for a moment. “That’s fine too…”

Mu Yangling grabbed a pen and wrote a letter to Qi Xiuyuan, but in the letter, she only talked about Qi Haoran. There had been no news of Qi Haoran for a month. She was anxious and hoped that he could send someone to Jinghu’s south road to look for him or talk to the Emperor and ask him to send a team to find Qi Haoran…

Considering the south road of Jinghu was in chaos now, perhaps Qi Haoran had encountered danger. In the letter, she sounded naive and ignorant.

However, she acted like she knew a lot and said, “The Imperial Court has 800,000 troops, while General Yuan has 260,000. There are also 400,000 troops in Guanzhong. This doesn’t include the 100,000 imperial guards guarding Lin’an City. If you send a battalion to save Fourth Master, it shouldn’t affect the battle too much…” She also said that Little Bear was still young and had yet to reach 100 days old. The baby had never even seen his father before. She tried to invoke pity and appeal to emotion.

Li Jinghua was dumbfounded as she watched from the side. She did not know why Mu Yangling’s style had suddenly become so… naive and unreasonable.

However, the more Mu Yangling wrote, the more easily her words flowed. In the end, she almost forced Qi Xiuyuan to swear that he would send someone to save Qi Haoran.

After the letter was dried, she placed it together with Li Jinghua’s and sealed it in an envelope. Mu Yangling’s eyes lit up as she said softly, “Sister-in-law, don’t worry. Not only Big Brother and Fourth Master, but even we will be safe and sound.”

For some reason, Li Jinghua felt uneasy.

In the afternoon, a female official came to collect the letter. Li Jinghua glanced at Mu Yangling and handed the letter to her. Surprised to see things go so smoothly, the female official comforted her with a bright smile. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Qi. This letter will arrive in seven days. You should be able to receive a reply in half a month.”

Li Jinghua thanked her with a smile.

The Qi family handed over the letter most readily. The Yuan family’s letter was only written when the sun was about to set. When the other three families saw that the Yuan family had written it, they also wrote it.

The Emperor read through all the letters and finally tapped his finger on the Yuan family’s letter. He said with an emotionless expression, “Send them out.” The Yuan family’s letter was too simple. They only reported that they were safe and then simply mentioned that they wanted General Yuan to guard the border in peace. Although the content met the Emperor’s requirements, anyone could tell that the Yuan family was in a bad mood. These few sentences were like their protest against the Emperor.

The Emperor’s expression was a little ugly. After reading the letters from the other three families, he picked up the one from the Qi family. The reason why he left the Qi family’s letter for the last was because this letter was the thickest. As soon as he held it, he felt a thick stack.

There were clearly two letters inside. The Emperor first read the thinner one which consisted of only three pieces of paper written by Madam Qi-Li. Most of them were about interesting things about their child. Only at the end did she tell Qi Xiuyuan to guard the border in peace and be careful.

The Emperor felt a little better. This was more like a family letter. Writing about their child could arouse Qi Xiuyuan’s fatherly love and tie him down. The Emperor was very satisfied with Madam Li’s understanding of the situation.

When he opened another letter that had six pieces of paper, the Emperor’s lips twitched. If he didn’t know that Madam Mu was Qi Haoran’s wife, he would have thought that he had mixed things up just by looking at the thickness of the letter.

After opening the letter, the Emperor no longer had any doubts that this person was indeed Qi Haoran’s wife. This was because she had extensively written about how dangerous and arduous Qi Haoran’s situation was on the south road of Jinghu. It was as if she had seen it with her own eyes. She only had one goal, and that was to get Qi Xiuyuan to quickly send someone to save him.

Seeing this, the Empress smiled. “Madam Mu is very innocent. After entering the palace, she rarely goes out and rarely speaks when she does go out. I didn’t expect her to be a little domineering in private.”

“I’m afraid she’s restrained by Madam Qi-Li.” The Emperor calmly folded the letter again.

The Empress thought about it and agreed. The two sisters-in-law seemed to get along quite well. When they were outside, Madam Mu always acted according to Madam Li’s wishes.

“Then should we keep this half of the letter? We don’t want to make General Qi feel uneasy.”

The Emperor shook his head. “Why should we keep it? Although Madam Mu is a little unreasonable, Qi Xiuyuan dotes on his younger brother very much. Perhaps he will really beg me to send some men to the south of Jinghu to look for him. When he comes to ask me for a favor, I can make him restrain General Yuan in the north.”

“He only has 150,000 men, which is far inferior to the Yuan family’s army. Can he hold them back?” The Empress asked worriedly.

Smiling, the Emperor said, “Don’t worry. If the Yuan family’s army really wants to rebel, even if Qi Xiuyuan’s army can’t stop them, it won’t be a problem to delay them for a while. Just send the letter to them..”

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