Chapter 68: Successful Seizure of Power |
"General Wang!"
Deep in the night, a soldier rushed to Wang Dalong's barracks, reporting loudly.
Waking from deep sleep, Wang Dalong sat up directly, his face showing no trace of fatigue as he immediately said, "Enter."
The soldier came in, ran to his bedside, knelt on one knee with a clenched fist in salute. Then he rose and spoke urgently: "General Wang, I was on guard duty in the main hall of the commandery office when I heard voices from inside—the General, the Sixth Prince, and several others."
"What were they saying?" Wang Dalong asked.
"..."
The soldier's face showed difficulty, hesitating to speak.
"I'll take responsibility. Just speak directly," Wang Dalong said without hesitation.
With his concerns removed, the soldier spoke plainly: "From inside the hall came the Sixth Prince's roaring voice, saying the General was arrogant. After that, there was another person's voice, rebuking the General and asking if he intended to rebel. Finally, I heard the General's voice, saying something like—'Death would reduce my crime by one degree, I ask Your Highness to grant this subject his end.'"
Then, his mind raced as fast as possible.
After a moment, he concluded: "His Highness is seizing military authority!"
These words were enough to deduce the situation.
Wang Dalong could even reconstruct the entire process without missing a detail.
His Highness pressed step by step, the General tried to defend himself, then after being rebuked, laid down his weapons.
This won't do—General Luo Ting's life is in danger.
"Immediately take a military force and surround the commandery office. Keep this matter absolutely secret, don't leak it to anyone else," Wang Dalong said as he stood up and began donning his armor. "Also, do not bare blades toward His Highness, and absolutely cannot harm His Highness, understand?"
"Yes!"
The soldier responded loudly.
"By the way, who was the person rebuking the General?" Wang Dalong asked.
"The Chief Clerk briefly received His Highness and several others at the inn. Among them was one official with the rank of County Magistrate, and another without official position," the soldier answered.
"Good. Now go notify the commandery garrison officers—surround the Commandery Office directly!" Wang Dalong ordered.
"Yes!" The soldier was about to leave, but seeing him still putting on armor, and being quite afraid of this matter himself, couldn't help but ask, "Then General, will you be coming later?"
"The time it took for you to deliver this news to me, going back and forth, has already wasted too much time. If something has truly happened, I fear it's already too late."
After muttering in thought, Wang Dalong quickly determined his objective: "I'll go directly to the military camp."
………
Buzz—
Wei Wusheng felt as if inside his brain, someone was forging an iron sword.
The hammer continuously struck the unformed raw iron, producing piercing, shrill ringing.
His entire person's thoughts were in complete chaos.
"Your Highness!"
Hearing Song Shi'an call to him once again, Wei Wusheng extended his hand, closed his eyes, and furrowed his brow.
The next moment, he opened his eyes.
Sheathing the blood-soaked sword back into its scabbard, he turned around and quickly ran out from the main hall, his steps no longer showing the slightest hesitation.
To adjust this quickly after seizing power for the first time was already quite remarkable.
Honestly speaking, Song Shi'an was also a bit nervous.
In the moment when that bastard Luo Ting thrust his sword toward his own neck, he had even felt somewhat suffocated.
After all, at such a moment, the slightest mistake would mean death without a burial place.
Fortunately, his survival instinct allowed him to make the correct judgment as quickly as possible.
Of course, the fact that he only needed to tug at Xinyue's arm for her to comprehend his meaning was also key to the action's success.
Kneeling on the ground, Xinyue very deftly bandaged Luo Ting's palm and tied it securely.
"He won't die, will he?" Song Shi'an asked.
"I don't know. He might die, he might not," Xinyue shook her head. "I already did my best not to strike the back of his head."
"But he can't wake up right now. Having governed Langya for several years, military morale is in his grasp. Even without the tiger tally, he can still mobilize the army," Song Shi'an said.
"Right now he definitely can't wake up..."
As Xinyue spoke, she also bound his hands together: "But if he's discovered very quickly and someone wakes him, that will also ruin things."
"Come, let's hide him."
Song Shi'an directly lifted his upper body while Xinyue, seeing this, also supported his legs.
The two of them hoisted him up and began transporting him toward the door.
But halfway there, Song Shi'an stopped: "No, this way he'll definitely be discovered very quickly. Moreover, we're not His Highness—we don't have immunity. If we're caught, we'll definitely be arrested."
Originally the plan had been hostage-taking, and all the strategies after taking a hostage had been formulated.
But now a special situation had occurred.
An unconscious person was the most troublesome.
Especially when he was also a burly man in full armor—that made things even more headache-inducing.
There was an episode of Detective Conan like this, where the criminal took a hostage. Mouri Kogorou aimed for a long time, then shot the hostage in the leg with one shot.
And after the hostage became a burden, the criminal had no choice but to let go and give up, then was subdued.
Right now it was the same principle.
Luo Ting could be conscious, could have a severed hand, but he had become precisely this unconscious large lump.
"Then let's kill him."
Xinyue revealed a fierce look in her eyes. Even as she made this suggestion, she was already prepared to draw her sword.
In her view, not killing him earlier was to avoid giving the Sixth Prince too much psychological trauma.
Now that he wasn't here, there was no need to be so considerate.
"Wait!"
Song Shi'an directly stopped her with a shout.
Then he looked toward the general's desk.
"Come this way."
Song Shi'an called Xinyue over, and together they moved Luo Ting toward the general's desk.
After turning to the back, the two of them directly stuffed Luo Ting under the desk.
They also adjusted his hands and feet, curling his body as much as possible to maximize concealment.
Then he walked to the pool of blood in the center, stepped on it with his foot, then rubbed his sole, dragging the blood all the way to the threshold.
This series of operations left even Xinyue somewhat stunned.
This person's scheming ran far too deep.
After completing this, Song Shi'an briefly observed from the perspective of someone outside the door and confirmed that Luo Ting wasn't exposed.
"Let's go, Xinyue!"
This was the first time Song Shi'an had also called her by name like the prince did.
However, no one cared about this detail.
The two of them didn't dare linger for even a second as they left the main hall and kept running forward.
The moment they rushed out of the commandery office, the two halberd-bearing guards at the entrance could only stare blankly as they ran into the distance.
"What's going on?" one of them said. "Just now the Sixth Prince ran out, and now these two are running out."
"Yeah, they looked very anxious. Who knows what happened inside."
After the two left the office, they ran at full speed through the darkness toward the main road.
At a side turning, dozens of soldiers rushed over. Though they didn't encounter the two directly, they were only separated by a few dozen paces.
Xinyue felt a trace of vigilance.
"Run! Don't worry about it. They probably aren't looking for us."
Just now the door had been shut tight—whatever happened inside, those outside definitely wouldn't know.
Even if they heard the content of the argument, without confirming the situation, the first thing they could only do was go to the scene to verify.
In any case, it was absolutely impossible to arrest people close to the prince based merely on suspicion.
Sure enough, after the two rushed past the intersection, those soldiers who had run to the crossroads headed in the opposite direction from them, running straight toward the commandery office.
At this time, the two had already reached the nearby inn, pulling the horses they had ridden here from the stable and climbing onto them.
"Can His Highness handle Langya City alone?" Xinyue asked.
"The most difficult part is complete. From here on, we can only trust absolutely," Song Shi'an wasn't certain, but this was no longer under his control. "Act according to the original plan. His Highness is responsible for mobilizing troops in Langya, we return to the camp."
"Alright."
The two mounted their horses and rode toward the city gates.
Under the cover of night, like wandering spirits.
"Has anyone come out?"
The centurion leading the troops arrived at the office entrance with his soldiers and asked directly.
The guards were startled by this display of force, then answered: "The Sixth Prince went out first, and those two people he brought left afterward."
Hearing this, the centurion gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, his face contorting in pain. After a moment, he asked: "What about the General?"
"The General hasn't come out," the soldier answered fearfully.
"You all go pursue them. Do not bare blades toward His Highness, and absolutely cannot harm His Highness!"
After dispatching the vast majority of his men to chase down the fugitives, the centurion led a dozen or so men and ran into the commandery office.
Charging straight to the main hall.
Pushing open the door and seeing a pool of blood, his heart immediately went cold.
But he quickly realized the person probably wasn't dead yet.
If they had already killed him and there was a corpse, there would be absolutely no need to hide it.
Looking at the blood trail extending to the threshold and continuing outside the door, growing fainter and fainter, the centurion immediately ordered: "Search everywhere thoroughly. Within a quarter-hour, we must find the General!"
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