Unknown Knight

After the night meeting with Cress, Axel felt much more at ease. He presided over the porridge distribution in the city for several days and did not talk about returning to the territory.

But every day he was like a taut bowstring, maintaining a high level of vigilance. Liu Tang and Sophia were also guarding on his left and right at all times, fearing that an arrow would fly from his side.

Katia never came out to meet him from beginning to end, and Voldrat never mentioned to him about sending Katia back to Tangquan Fortress. Aix didn't ask about it actively either. Even when the leaders came to give him suggestions, they were stopped. He just kept wasting time with Voldrat and his daughter, waiting for them to make a move.

He was even afraid that the ten ships of food would not be enough, so he sent people back to the territory to ask them to transfer more food and fodder.

Voldrat is also having a headache now. After listening to Katia's words, he realized how rich the Tangquan Fortress controlled by his son-in-law Aix is.

He previously thought that Aix was able to raise these troops because it relied entirely on business for profit. He did not expect that the bitter and cold place in his impression has now become a town that is no less important than Kudan City.

Not only were nearly 10,000 acres of land reclaimed there, but the ranches of Schulers and Hanen were said to be home to countless horses, cattle and sheep. Not only that, they even had their own workshops, and the equipment that Aix had been eyeing so much was actually produced in their own territory.

Faced with the huge temptation and instigated by his own daughter, Voldrat, who was so poor that he could barely make ends meet, became as vicious as a wolf and even dared to dream of swallowing up Aix's power in one gulp.

In fact, from his point of view, this is not impossible. Aix married his daughter and inherited the legal system of Kudan City. On the contrary, for Aix, who has no relatives or heirs, Kudan City also has the same legal system.

Once Aix is ​​gone, his daughter, Lady Katia, will be the nominal mistress of Tangquan Fortress. When the time comes, his daughter will claim to have Aix's child, and this legal succession will be even more solid.

Or they could just find an illegitimate child and put his name on him to fool people. In his opinion, having no relatives was Aix's biggest flaw.

As for Aix's subordinates, they can be easily bribed by giving them some substantial rewards, or even simply promoting them and allocating some territories to them.

As for the so-called friendship between his men and Aix, it was worthless in his eyes. He could not even count on his relatives, let alone these outsiders. As for outsiders, he would use them if he could, and drive them away if he could not.

It was this narrow worldview that misled him. After a conspiracy between father and daughter, they worked together to formulate a plan to seize the Aix industry.

What he didn't expect was that Aix would mobilize such a large number of troops, sending out twice as many soldiers as he expected. These elite soldiers made Voldrat show his weakness. Not only that, his daughter, for some unknown reason, hid herself and was unwilling to paralyze Aix as they had planned before.

For a moment, he was hesitant and could not make up his mind. He had to let Aix distribute porridge in the city to win the hearts of the people. Seeing Aix becoming more and more supported and loved by the common people, his heart was in agony.

Just when he was at his wit's end and was preparing to use the excuse of a banquet to gather all his elite troops to kill Aix at the banquet, his good daughter found him, and with her came the woman's latest lover, Moros.

It turns out that the reason why Katia didn't show up for so many days was not just because she was afraid of facing Aix, but because she was waiting for an item from her lover Moros. To be exact, it was a bottle of poison shipped from the distant city of Aaron.

Voldrat immediately rejected the two's sinister plan. He was experienced and had seen people killing people with poison. However, the poisons of this era did not have the extraction technology of later generations, so the toxicity was not very strong. They usually had a strong odor and were easily discovered.

Even if it is not discovered and the person being poisoned is not killed, it will still cause a lot of trouble.

However, Moros' explanation put Voldrat at ease. It turned out that the poison was made from the ovaries of a pufferfish. It was colorless and odorless but extremely toxic. Just one drop could be fatal.

The three men also found a goat for the experiment. When they tried it, it was just as Moros said. The goat died in an instant.

However, Voldrat was still not reassured, so he decided to ambush his 100 most elite soldiers in the city lord's mansion on the day of the action.

The three conspirators thought their plan was flawless, but they didn't expect that the servant who was casually assigned to discard the inexplicably dead goat was Cress's man, and he immediately reported the city lord's unusual behavior to Cress.

Not only that, Kress also noticed the abnormal movement of soldiers in the lord's mansion, and the armaments had obviously increased by more than double. That night, Aix received the news of these two abnormalities and organized everyone to make corresponding preparations.

Sure enough, the next day, Voldrat came to Aix in person and said that Katia, who had gone out to meet friends, had returned to Kudan City, and that a banquet would be held in the evening to resolve the minor conflict between the couple.

Aix agreed on the surface, but he sneered in his heart. Going out of town to meet friends in such a cold weather, and considering Katia's delicate figure, he couldn't even find a decent excuse. Wasn't he pretending?

At night, the City Lord's Mansion is brightly lit.

Today's dinner was exceptionally sumptuous, many times better than the first day in Aix. Not only the dishes, but even the lighting was luxurious smokeless candles, as if Voldrat had become wealthy again overnight.

Except for Aix, all the guests attending the banquet were relatives of Voldrat's family. It seemed that those who came to eat were not outsiders. Voldrat was prepared to resolve the conflict among his relatives.

These people were all wearing bulging clothes, not sure if it was because of the cold or for some other reason. The same was true for Aix and his group. Under their linen coats were stamped plate armor specially made for the territory.

Not only that, the three hundred elite soldiers were also fully armed. Except for ten people left to guard the station at the dock, the rest of the troops were taken to the outer courtyard of the City Lord's Mansion by Resarit.

Just these rows of neatly-lined soldiers made the entire banquet tense, and frightened relatives like Voldrat so much that they would run to the outside of the banquet hall to take a look from time to time under various pretexts.

After Aix and his party sat down opposite, Katia, who had not been seen for many days, came to the banquet hall slowly under the guidance of his old father. She did not follow the rules of a married woman, but sat next to Voldrat.

But Aix couldn't be as undignified as a woman, so he walked straight to Katia's table, grabbed Katia's chin, and lifted her up to look at her.

There was no blush on her pale face caused by the cold wind. Instead, her eyes were dark and her bags were slightly puffy, indicating that she had been drinking too much.

Aix sighed with some regret:

"My dear wife, you are pregnant. Don't overwork yourself. Come sit here with your husband and let me make you some delicious food to nourish you."

After that, he stopped her from talking, reached out and grasped her cold wrist, and pulled her to his seat.