First-rank palace maid Su Jixiang

Qian Feng was rewarded for his meritorious pursuit, while Nangong Rui, who stayed behind in the military camp, was not only given a hundred military sticks for dereliction of duty, but was also stripped of his rank as a captain and demoted directly to a lieutenant, a two-level demotion.

Wei Ling and Xie Yingfeng were already very busy. They checked one by one, and they had to find out the spies that the Turks had planted in the army and in the city. After a thorough investigation, they actually found several soldiers who were bribed by the Turks in the remaining army. There were eight people in total. These eight people marked the locations of the stables and granaries to the Turks. The Turks gave them kerosene and explosives and asked them to bring them into the city and the army, and to place them around the granaries and stables in the army and the cloth shops and grain and oil shops in the city.

It was only because of the arrival of the palace maids that Nangong Rui temporarily converted the stable and thus avoided causing greater losses, and the army's food and fodder were also preserved because of them.

If we really want to reward people based on their merits, these palace maids have also made contributions...

The Mangcheng defenders temporarily moved the stables and granaries, and the people lurking in the army had no time to move the explosives and kerosene they had hidden, so once the fire started outside, they could only blow up these two places inside...

They confessed that the Turks gave them 500 taels of gold each. They had taken half of the gold, but the other half would not be given until the matter was completed. The Turks wanted to give Wei Ling a wake-up call.

They understood that this time Wei Ling brought the Black Tiger Army back to consolidate the border defense and expel them...so they decided to take the risk to teach Wei Ling a lesson and kill his fighting spirit first.

However, the Turkic invaders who attacked the city were all captured, and the stables and food supplies were basically undamaged, so the Turkic invaders' plans all failed. The food in the city was burned, but it didn't matter. Wei Ling had already asked Xie Yingfeng to go to nearby towns to gather food to stabilize the food price in Mangcheng first.

As for the spies who defected to the Turks, no one dared to use the 250 taels of gold, and they could not get the balance, so they worked in vain and lost their lives. All the gold they got was used by Xie Yingfeng to buy food to subsidize the merchants who suffered losses. Two thousand taels of gold was enough to buy their shops twice.

The house burned down, so Su Jixiang and his friends had to move back into the carriage.

Zhao Xiuwan was very scared and looked forward to Jiang Xia's reply every day.

But she really did receive a reply.

Zhao Xiuwan couldn't wait to take the letter from Qian Feng, with an uncontrollable smile on her face. She even shouted to the other palace maids, "My family has sent me a letter! They finally replied. I said they would definitely reply to me! I was right, wasn't I?"

When the other palace maids heard Zhao Xiuwan shouting, they all gathered around to watch the fun. Although they said they were watching the fun, in fact, they were all envious of Zhao Xiuwan in their hearts. At least she had a place to write letters. Most of them could no longer contact their families, and the separation caused by war was the most difficult to find.

Finally, a reply came! Zhao Xiuwan's heart was about to fly away. She didn't believe that her father and brother really didn't care about her. They were still the governors of Jiangxia and were powerful people! How could they let their daughter squat in this place where no one even shits?

But the more she read the letter, the smile on Zhao Xiuwan's face froze.

Gradually she began to become irritable.

"What's going on?" She held the letter in her hand, her fingers shaking constantly, "Impossible!" Her eyes turned red, and finally the tears couldn't stop rolling down.

"They can't do this to me!" Zhao Xiuwan covered her face and let the letter fall through her fingers.

None of the other palace maids present dared to come up and pick up the letter. Zhao Xiuwan squatted down crying, hugged her shoulders tightly, and curled herself up into a ball.

Bihe finally couldn't help it, and went forward to pick up the letter to read it, but was stopped by Su Jixiang.

"Are you going to meddle in other people's business again?" Bihe looked at Su Jixiang with concern.

"I think you are the one who is meddling in other people's business!" Su Jixiang raised his eyebrows at her. "It's someone else's letter, why are you trying to get involved? It's not yours!"

Bi He was so touched by what Su Jixiang said that she had to give him a cold look, "You just knew I was going to read the letter? What's so good about it? Seeing her crying like that, it must be that she didn't write anything nice."

"It's not your turn to see it!" Su Jixiang snorted.

"If you don't want to look, then don't look. It's no big deal." Bihe also snorted, shrugged, curled her lips, and turned around and walked away.

"Everyone, go home!" Qu Wanning sighed and said to the others, "Let her calm down."

The palace maids who had come to watch the fun then left one by one.

Qu Wanning and Su Jixiang were the last to leave, leaving Zhao Xiuwan alone at the fence.

Qian Feng looked at Zhao Xiuwan, who was squatting on the ground and crying silently, at a loss. It was the first time he knew that this was what girls' tears were like... Even if she didn't cry out loud, it was enough to break his heart.

Just like that, Zhao Xiuwan squatted inside the fence and cried, while Qian Feng squatted outside the fence and accompanied her silently. He could touch Zhao Xiuwan's hair with just one hand, but he didn't dare...

When Qian Feng first met her, he felt that Zhao Xiuwan was like a fairy from heaven, and he could only accompany her when she was in pain...

Zhao Xiuwan didn't know how long she cried before she turned around and silently returned to her carriage. She didn't even pay attention to Qian Feng, not even giving him a glance.

Qian Feng watched Zhao Xiuwan's figure disappear behind the curtain of the carriage, then he sighed. Just as he was about to get up, the wind blew the letter that Zhao Xiuwan had thrown on the ground over to him.

Qian Feng was anxious, fearing that the letter would be blown away by the wind, so he had to chase after it and pick it up.

Although this letter brought sadness to Zhao Xiuwan instead of joy, Qian Feng still felt that he should keep the letter for Zhao Xiuwan.

After all, this was something she had been looking forward to for a long time. Even if the content of the letter was not satisfactory, it was still a handwritten letter from Zhao Xiuwan's relatives.

Qian Feng didn't dare to read the contents of the letter. Instead, he hurriedly folded the letter and carefully put it in his arms.

Maybe I can return it to her in the future. But that would have to wait until she was in a different mood. Qian Feng was honest, but not stupid. He knew Zhao Xiuwan didn't want to see this letter now. After all, it made her cry for so long.

In fact, the content of the letter was very simple. It was written by Zhao Xiuwan's brother. The meaning of the letter was to ask her to obey the emperor's order and marry, and not to think about returning to Jiangxia. He said that their family had a hard life because they were surrendered officials, and they should not stand up for Zhao Xiuwan anymore, so as to avoid being accused of disobeying the emperor's order.