Chapter 119 – Escaping from the Marriage (1)
Emperor Le Xuan’s face became overcast like clouds on a rainy day.
‘That girl… She most likely ran away to avoid this marriage!’
He was the almighty and majestic Emperor, and unexpectedly, that little girl ran away from a marriage with him!
If this situation leaked out, how could he have any face left?!
This was simply a tremendous loss of face! Perhaps, he would even become a joke to the whole continent!
That extremely daring girl, could it be that she didn’t know that trying to escape from an imperial marriage was a crime punishable by decapitation?!
After Old Zhong, who was lying on the floor, finished answering the questions, he loudly broke into tears. “Your Majesty! Our young lady must have been kidnapped by strong people! Only people with strong cultivations would be able to release such a poisonous fragrance. A moment ago, when I was poisoned, they must have used that opportunity to capture our Miss… That girl must be so pitiful and helpless right now, suffering hardships in some unknown place. When praying to the Heavens, the Heavens don’t hear. When praying to the Earth, the Earth doesn’t respond… I beg your Majesty to help find the people who took her and to bring her back home… Have pity on our Marquis’ only daughter! Originally, I believed that she finally received your Majesty’s appreciation by being granted the rank of imperial concubine, reaching heaven in a single step. Who could have anticipated such a situation would happen?”
Old Zhong continued to wail and cry loudly, while kowtowing to the Emperor and slamming his head on the floor. All the officials who accompanied the Emperor and even the imperial guards were moved without exception by this scene.
In the end, this time Emperor Le Xuan had to go with the flow and agree with Old Zhong’s reasoning that Ning Xuemo was kidnapped by experts.
When all was said and done, it was better for his imperial reputation if she was kidnapped and went missing, instead of announcing that she fled in order to avoid marrying him.
Whether she really did escape by herself or was captured and fortunately escaped from her kidnappers, it did not matter anymore. For the former crime, she would be killed for defying the edict. For the latter, her reputation will be completely destroyed. No matter how her situation was worded, she still would not be able to marry the Crown Prince, Ji Yunhuang…
As for his son, he now has an excellent reason to justify refusing to marry them to each other.
Emperor Le Xuan was fully aware that the other party fled from him to avoid the marriage, but investigating the truth was not possible, making him feel as if he just ate some flies. He became immensely infuriated.
He was even tempted to kill everyone in the Marquis Jingyuan Mansion as a warning to that girl!
However, that girl did not hesitate to use fatal poison on everyone in order to escape from him. Clearly, she did not care about these people’s lives.
Even if he killed everyone, that girl might not even grieve over them for a second, and it would make him look like a brutal and vicious Emperor. What’s more, he would be thoughtlessly slandered by the commoners as someone who takes out his anger on innocent people, and would be censured by the imperial censors…
He took a deep breath and exhaled. He could not vent his anger but repressing it is also not an option. First, he had to grind his teeth and swallow his anger in the pit of his stomach.
Again, he took a deep breath and suppressed the boiling anger in his heart, before he continued to inquire about the situation at the time Ning Xuemo went missing.
Contrary to what he expected, Old Zhong did not hide anything and truthfully answered every question. He even talked about exchanging most of the Emperor’s gifts into silver notes and giving it to his Miss, leaving only 1,000 taels of silver in the treasury.
The young miss felt glad to be conferred the rank of imperial concubine; therefore, she gathered everyone together to share her happiness. No one expected that while the young miss was lauding everyone’s efforts, they were plotted against. From the time everything took place until now, more than two hours had passed.
Emperor Le Xuan tightly clenched his fists inside his sleeves. ‘More than two hours! It was enough for that brat to escape out of the city!’
A fleeting glint passed through his eyes. Immediately, he sent down the order to seal off the whole city, imposing martial law and forcing everyone to search for Ning Xuemo’s whereabouts. Of course, there would also be a search party outside of the city blockading and searching every road.
The order was sent to everyone without exception, be it the imperial guards, prefecture officials, or bailiffs from the government office…
Because Ning Xuemo carried a large amount of money at the time she went missing, it was highly probable that some group of people might be greedily coveting it. As a result, people who received Marquis Jingyuan’s grace in the past, all reappeared and lined up to volunteer with the search…