“A Yao?” My elder brother raised his hand, waving worriedly in front of my eyes. “We only heard Song Si Tian say this; it may not be true. Don’t be anxious!”
Miao Yin gripped my hand. “A Yao, calm down. Only by staying calm can you see the truth. This matter is truly suspicious. What exactly went wrong? Why did His Majesty know their escape route? Why did he send the Tang Clan and the Crimson Guard to ambush them? Why must he ensure An Jin’s death?
The situation is not yet clear, so you must not lose your composure.” My younger sister kept nodding, no longer sobbing, and forced a smile. “That’s right, second sister. You know Sitian’s personality – she’s always dramatic. Maybe she just misheard?” I wanted to smile reassuringly at them, but my facial features had already stiffened, and I couldn’t even manage a fake smile. They didn’t know that I was unable to calm down precisely because I had seen the truth. All the clues in my mind were now clearly connected, forming a complete chain of cause and effect. The entire affair was simply a trap set by the Qi Emperor to lure the An family into a net. What pretend defection? What investigation into the Third Prince’s whereabouts?! The Qi Emperor was simply trying to lure An Jin out of Yan Feng by surprise, to eliminate him quickly. After removing An Jin, the next step would be to use the entire An family to threaten my mother-in-law into handing over the secret department. By now, my mother-in-law had surely been secretly imprisoned by the Qi Emperor, deprived of her freedom. On the surface, this was just an undercover mission for the secret department, and without orders from An Jin and my mother-in-law, no secret agent would act rashly, thus the Qi Emperor wouldn’t need to worry about being counterattacked by the secret department. Truly a meticulously crafted, world-class evil scheme.
The Qi Emperor was wary of the secret department’s informants and dared not trust other military forces, relying solely on the Crimson Guard specially cultivated by the royal family. The Tang Clan was presumably planted by the royal family long ago, becoming a secret force exclusively serving the emperor.
