Da Tang: Father, can I resign?

Chapter 86 Saving Marshal Hou Junji

"God bless me! ..."

Relying on the instincts acquired from many years of military career, Li Shimin subconsciously rolled on the ground.

Just barely avoided the fallen pillars and broken bricks and tiles.

If he had been a beat slower, he would have been crushed.

“Did the fire burn away the foundations, causing the towers to collapse?”

The wreckage of these buildings blocked the entire road and burned fiercely under the fanning of the strong wind, separating Li Shimin from the main force.

Li Shimin looked helplessly at the roadblock that was spewing flames. Through the gaps, he could just barely see Li Zhi and the imperial guards on the opposite side who were almost going crazy with anxiety.

"I'm fine!"

Li Shimin shouted to them, intending to wait there for them to take a detour and meet up.

Buzz!

There was a loud bang in the air, this was the sound of a bowstring!
Li Shimin dodged to the side, and two arrows pierced the place where he had just stood.

Among the wreckage, the chattering of Turkic language could be heard.

"It was the Turks. They knocked down the building?"

Li Shimin's heart was filled with alarm and he did not dare to delay any longer, so he turned around and ran away.

As he ran, he heard the Turks shouting:
"Aim at the one in the yellow robe! He is the emperor of the Tang Dynasty!"

Li Shimin looked down and saw that, indeed, the yellow dragon robe was as bright as a torch under the flames.

He took off his dragon robe on the spot, wearing only his inner clothes, and continued to hide.

The Turks among the ruins were shouting again:
"The one wearing black leather boots is the Tang Emperor!"

"The one wearing the black fu is the Tang Emperor!"

"The one with the mustache is the Tang Emperor!"

Damn it, you’re forcing me to cut off my beard and break my robe... Li Shimin ignored them and dodged all the way to the fork in the road.

One road leads to a winding path, and the other road leads to a fire with billowing smoke and raging flames.

"It's easy to get blocked if you walk on the trail. The fire scene looks scary, but the road is very wide. Apart from being a little hot, it's actually quite safe..."

After some consideration, Li Shimin rushed into the fire leading to the pavilion in the east.

…………

Inside Lihua Pavilion.

"Open the door! Open the door quickly!"

Hou Junji banged on the doors and windows frantically.

However, the doors and windows were locked tightly and did not move at all.

Although Lihua Pavilion is called a "pavilion", it was actually a place inside the palace where concubines who committed mistakes were imprisoned.

Although it is luxurious, the window bars and doors are very sturdy, and all the facilities for keeping people inside are available.

After all, Hou Junji was a criminal, and Li Shimin was already under pressure when he brought him to Jiucheng Palace.

If we let the Marquis enjoy "recuperation" here, then after we return to Chang'an, Wei Zheng, Tang Jian and his ilk will be very angry.

This is what Hou Junji thought at first, so he accepted this arrangement.

But he doesn't see it that way now.

"Changsun Wuji, you are a slave-raised bastard, a Xianbei barbarian, a waste who only knows how to eat my sister's food!"

Hou Junji roared angrily and exposed Changsun Wuji's shortcomings crazily.

He felt that it was Changsun Wuji who wanted to kill him.

He was sleeping in the middle of the night and seemed to hear the sound of trumpets blowing in the camp in his dream.

He had been away from the battlefield for only half a year, and he woke up immediately.

When I woke up, I found that there was flickering fire outside the window and it was extremely hot.

The pavilions, terraces, rockery and green bamboos surrounding Lihua Pavilion were all turned into a sea of fire!
Although Lihua Pavilion was not directly set on fire, the wind blew the flames to the upper floors, where they soon caught fire.

Hou Junji shouted for help, but the palace maids and eunuchs who usually came and went seemed to be dead, and not a single one came!
The fire, driven by the wind, first quickly engulfed the area on the top of the attic, and then spread downstairs little by little along the main wooden structure.

Hou Junji was isolated and helpless, and was forced step by step into a small corner on the first floor.

He didn't know that the Turks in the imperial guards had rebelled.

All he knew was that someone had set fire to the place where he was imprisoned and was preventing the palace servants from coming to rescue him!
There are many people who can come up with such a dirty trick.

But in today's Tang Dynasty, who has the greatest motivation to use this extremely vicious trick on Hou Junji...

Then it must be Crown Prince Li Chengqian and Zhang Sun Wuji!

"Xianbei slaves! Sissies! You guys are such cowards!"

Hou Junji was incompetent and furious, and he cursed Li Chengqian, Zhangsun Wuji, and all the way to Li Shimin.

"Li Shimin! I, Hou Junji, have sacrificed my life for you and conquered the four barbarians for you, and in the end, is this how you treat me?!

"I just don't like your sissy son. Are you going to kill me for this reason?"

He felt that Li Shimin must have known about the matter from beginning to end and condoned what Changsun Wuji did!
It is even possible that this was Li Shimin's idea!
Because it was Li Shimin who brought Hou Junji to Jiucheng Palace.

And the only one who could order the palace servants to stay away from Lihua Pavilion and not allow rescue was Li Shimin!
After all, no matter how powerful Changsun Wuji is, he can't mobilize the palace people!

"A farmer from Guanzhong, a bastard who wanted to take advantage of the Longxi Li family name, a beast who forced his father to kill his brother!
"In order to protect your pitiful reputation, did you deliberately fake a fire to burn me to death in order to cover up your crime of slaughtering meritorious officials?!"

Hou Junji poked Li Er's lungs wildly, moved tables and chairs, and smashed the doors and windows of Lihua Pavilion frantically.

However, the doors and windows remained motionless.

The wood outside the doors and windows is just decoration, the inside is cast with iron core, which is very strong.

"Ah, it's no use! They're determined to burn me!"

Hou Junji threw the table to the ground in frustration and sat cross-legged on the ground in despair.

"If Li Shimin is so eager to kill me, then he must be eager to kill other meritorious officials, just like Liu Bang in his later years...

"Could it be that he feels that he will die soon and wants to pave the way for that sissy prince?
“But he looks healthy…

"No, Li Shimin is very calculating and good at acting, so he might be pretending. He almost died a few days ago. If it weren't for Li Ming...

"If Li Ming was in Jiucheng Palace, would he come to save me...

"Hey, Hou Junji, wake up!"

Hou Junji suddenly realized that he was blurred in consciousness by the smoke and his thoughts were wilder than those of the prostitutes in Pingkangfang.

He quickly slapped himself twice and stood up in a hurry.

Before I get burned to death, I will most likely be suffocated by the smoke.

Out of the instinct for survival, he put his mouth and nose close to the window and tried hard to breathe in fresh air.

However, the fire outside was also raging, and the air was just as hot.

Is this the end of my life...?

Hou Junji's consciousness gradually became blurred, and a kaleidoscope of images flashed before his eyes.

In the dim light, he saw his life in the military, his dead comrades and enemies, and his adorable grandson who was begging for a hug with a runny nose...

He saw a big door open, and behind the door was pure white light.

A small figure stood in the middle of the light...

…………

"So hot, so slow..."

Li Ming and Wei Daijia were waiting at the entrance of the alley, stomping their feet until they were almost broken.

He originally wanted to wait and meet up with the imperial guards who were searching for them, and "take the opportunity" to go to Lihua Pavilion deep in the alley to rescue Hou Junji.

However, the expected imperial guards were slow to arrive.

"Could it be that this plan is wrong? Father never intended to send anyone to find me and let me fend for myself?"

Li Ming also has the old paranoid delusion. Once he starts thinking, the basic idea is that the son will leave his father and laugh at him.

"Impossible! Is Your Majesty such a heartless person?" Wei Daijia immediately refuted the young master's bottom line thinking and expressed his own opinion:

"Could it be that during this chaotic time, His Majesty didn't notice that we were gone? Or maybe His Majesty didn't know that we were looking for Hou Junji and sent people to search aimlessly?"

"Impossible! How could my grandfather be such a mentally retarded person?" Li Ming also refuted immediately.

Neither being ruthless nor being brainless fits Li Shimin's personality.

The two looked at each other and thought of another possibility at the same time.

"Then it can't be..."

"What kind of accident did the rescue team encounter? Did they get lost?"

"...Your Highness, please respect the professional skills of the Imperial Guards. They can find the Lihua Pavilion with their eyes closed."

"Could it be that we were attacked by the Turkic rebels and that delayed us?"

"It's possible."

The two fell silent at the same time.

How to do?
Continue to wait here? Or... Li Ming looked at the blazing fire in the depths of the alley and smiled at Wei Daijia:
"Look, this alley is quite spacious. I don't think it's dangerous..."

"No." Wei Daijia refused.

Li Ming also got involved:

"The fire is too dangerous. If we delay any longer, Hou Junji will be burnt to death!"

So what do you think, is it dangerous or not... Wei Daijia didn't want to complain, so he advised kindly:

"If we leave just before His Majesty's men arrive, wouldn't we just miss each other?"

Li Ming pondered for a moment and nodded:
"You have a point."

His Highness still made sense at the critical moment...Wei Daijia breathed a sigh of relief.

Unexpectedly, the moment he let down his guard.

Li Ming actually stretched out his short legs and ran towards the fire!
"Hey, Your Highness!"

Wei Daijia chased after him like crazy.

Li Ming was running in front, still talking trash:

"What you said makes sense! If they can't find us at the alley entrance, won't the Imperial Guards go deep into Lihua Pavilion to look for us?"

"I #$%&*!"

Wei Daijia just wanted to swear.

However, in the scorching alley where there was no room for maneuver, the short-legged kid was no match for the gatekeeper general (his predecessor).

Wei Daijia made a sprint and finally caught Li Ming.

"Your Highness!" Wei Daijia said in an unfriendly tone.

"Hey, what a coincidence that you're here too." Li Ming said with a wry smile:
"I think the alley entrance is still too far from Lihua Pavilion. If the imperial guards fail to follow their 'we're already here' strategy and forcibly drag us away without rescuing Hou Junji, we will have no way to stop them..."

Wei Daijia raised his eyebrows: "So?"

"So..." Li Ming tilted his head towards a building at the end of the alley.

The upper floors of the pavilion were engulfed in flames, but the first floor remained largely intact.

The people inside still have a great chance of survival.

The plaque on the locked door of the pavilion looked particularly dazzling in the surrounding firelight:
Lihua Pavilion.

"I'm here anyway."

Li Ming's lips curled up into a wicked smile.

So this plot is meant to target me, Your Highness...

Wei Daijia felt like he was getting angry, he let out a long breath and said with a wry smile:
"When it comes to playing tricks, who can outsmart you?"

The young master and the young minister braved the increasingly suffocating heat and headed towards Lihua Pavilion.

Except for the sound of wind, fire, and occasional thunder in the distance, there was dead silence all around.

The two continued to advance for dozens of feet in the burning alley and finally arrived in front of Lihua Pavilion.

Wei Daijia reached out to open the door.

"Hiss!" His body trembled from the heat and he immediately pulled his hand back.

"The doors and windows are all locked. Can you open them? If you could, Hou Junji would have escaped long ago. Would it be your turn to rescue him?"

Li understood after taking a look at his naive subordinates and observed Lihua Pavilion.

There was a sea of fire upstairs and the doors and windows downstairs were closed. Hou Junji must still be trapped inside.

"Can you see inside? Did Hou Junji escape to the first floor?" Li Ming asked anxiously.

Wei Daijia almost pressed his face against the scorching window, his eyes narrowed into slits:

"No, there's too much smoke and dust inside, I can't see clearly!"

Li Ming's heart skipped a beat.

As we all know, the leading cause of death in a fire is never burns, but suffocation from thick smoke.

Hurry up, rescue them quickly!
"Can the window be broken open?"

Wei Daijia lifted a heavy landscape stone with both hands and smashed it directly on top.

boom!
The landscape stones were shattered into pieces, but the iron core window frames remained motionless.

Wei Daijia shook his head.

Tsk, trouble... Li Ming smacked his lips and walked around Lihua Pavilion, looking for a gap.

Although it is part of the garden, it is, after all, a place used to imprison royal prisoners.

Putting aside the extravagant decoration on the outside, it is still an iron prison inside.

"Without the key, I can't open it..." Li Ming muttered.

We can't wait for the fire to burn the door open, can we?
I'm afraid the people inside are already familiar with it...

He made his way to the back of the attic.

At this time, a strong wind blew.

Fragments such as wood chips, cloth, rubble, and tree branches with flames fell on their heads.

Li Ming was dodging the sky in a panic and had no time to pay attention to his feet.

Suddenly he was tripped by something and fell to the ground with a thump.

"What am I wiping..."

Li Ming patted his butt, got up, and took a closer look.

What tripped him was a corpse!
"Fuck, dead person? Tsk, just a dead person."

Li Ming said that he had already mastered it and he had no fluctuations in his heart. He also observed it by the way.

In addition to the one under his feet, there were several other corpses lying behind Lihua Pavilion.

They were all dressed in the casual clothes of the clerks of the Menxia Province.

Most of them died from being stabbed or shot in the back.

"Are they... the clerks that Lord Changsun mentioned?"

Wei Daijia couldn't help but reveal a relaxed expression on his face.

"It turns out that Lord Changsun really sent someone to release Hou Junji, and he didn't really want to kill him..."

Fortunately, I was overthinking it. Everyone in the court is still united, and I don’t have to worry about being killed by my idol.

Li Ming also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

When doing things, one should leave a way out so that they can meet again in the future. Changsun Wuji still left a way out and did not do things to the extreme.

This shows that the confrontation between the two sides has not yet become so acute that it is either you or me.

There is still room to continue practicing Tai Chi for a while.

"Stop sighing and search them for the key!" Li Ming urged.

"Indeed!" Wei Daijia did not dare to delay and immediately started looking for it.

The fire in Lihua Pavilion was blazing, and Hou Junji's life or death was still uncertain.

Moreover, these clerks were apparently killed by the rebels along the way.

The murderer may still be nearby, we need to rescue him and move him quickly!
"found it!"

Li Ming took out a bunch of keys from the arms of the corpse at his feet.

hurry up!

He stood up with a grunt, ran to the main door and grabbed the heavy door lock.

"So hot!"

The pure copper lock had been scorched hot by the heat.