The Empress’ Livestream

The streaming room was full of talented people.

It was Jiang Pengji’s first time feeling as though the viewers in the streaming room were not entirely useless. At least they had the gift to make up swear words.

Qiguan Rang was completely stunned about it. There was no way for him to know that a well-mannered, gentry clan member could swear so well.

Even though it felt good for him as well, it was just hard to believe that Liu Xi was a gentry clan member.

The gate opened a new world for Qiguan Rang. About a hundred of the troop members shouted simultaneously, which was echo infused from being around the mountains. The head of the entourage felt a spike of fear stab into his heart and he almost fainted.

He looked at the dead bodies around him, which made him start to black out, tremble, and almost fall on the ground.

The hunter sneakily crawled out of his hidden spot. He didn’t have the guts to look around. His shirt was smeared with the soldier’s blood and he could still feel the sticky and warm liquid on his hands. He freaked out and his face went pale. He rolled and crawled away on his hands and knees, desperate to keep his life.

It was tempting pay for guiding the way for them, but it was not good enough for him to risk his life for it. It didn’t make sense if he was wealthy after losing his life. He was determined that he was not going to take any jobs like that anymore.

The head of the entourage was a person who cherished his own life. Staying in the bandit stockade would be a wiser idea than hanging around outside of it. At least there were buildings and shade in the stockade to protect him from the scary arrows. However, when he and surviving subordinates abandoned the dead bodies of their own troops and broke into the stockade ablazed with lights, they were even more terrored by the bloody scene inside. The dead bodies in the stockade were several times more than those outside, and each of the dead bodies had multiple arrows penetrating them.

Some of the fatal wounds on the dead bodies were not from the arrows. Not even one of them survived, which proved that their lives were taken individually after the attack.

The head of the entourage, who couldn’t care less about people’s lives, got cold feet and went mute after he saw the scene.

“B… boss, that looks to be the Second Langjun…” An injured soldier, trembling with fear, pointed at a blackened, dead body.

What? What the soldier had said brought the head of the entourage abruptly to his senses. He scrambled over to the dead body.

The body was extremely cold, stiff, and there was a rotten smell to it. It was only the face that was recognizable, so he knew who it was.

The head of the entourage came to realize why Meng Hun and his people were shouting that his descendants had lost a son as well as the grain… because Meng Liang was long gone before that night and the coldness of the dead body resembled the frozen meat in an icehouse. He dropped into a deeper desperation…

Based on the condition of the body, it wasn’t hard to guess that Meng Liang wasn’t killed recently.

The head of the entourage blanked out from terror the moment he realized this. He felt a harsh stab of anger drive into his heart––he felt so angry that he tasted blood in his mouth, but he suppressed it. It was not the only stimuli. “B… boss, the grain disappeared, too…”

It was entirely vacant in the stockade. There wasn’t a piece of grain left at all.

The head of the entourage finally couldn’t hold the blood in his mouth any longer. He puked it out after he heard the additional news. His eyes eyes rolled back and only showed the whites as he fell into a coma.

How could he not be so furious that he puked blood? How could he not be so furious that he fell into a coma?

Meng Liang was killed awhile ago, but Meng Hun deceived them by saying that Meng Liang was still alive. He snatched the Mengs’ grain and made up those humiliating words. He made sure that they were shouted loud so that no one would miss the fact that he murdered Meng Liang and deceived them for the Mengs’ grain.

Meng Liang destroyed Meng Hun’s wife and daughter and Meng Hun finally got revenge. Meng Hun didn’t just kill Meng Liang, he also took the three thousand dans of grain away from them and made the Meng’s feel smug about it. Meanwhile, he just watched them as though he was watching a comedy show… It was very likely that Meng Hun had laughed at the Meng’s while they were being as stupid as pigs.

They had truly lost the son as well as the grain.

“It was depressing earlier. But do you feel joyful now?” Jiang Pengji was riding high.

“How could I not be?” Meng Hun’s hands were shivering and he kneeled hard on the ground. He bowed to her with his massive body. “From now on, you are just my second parent to help me be reborn. My life belongs to you. My whole life’s goal is to be busy doing whatever you ask. I won’t hesitate to give up my life for you as long as you request it!”

Jiang Pengji schooled her smile and said something significant instead of helping him stand up. “Remember your oath today. I hope nothing will change your loyalty no matter what happens to you.”

It was a great disguise for her to keep pretending to be a man, but it didn’t mean she was going to keep the secret forever. There would be a day when she would tell the whole world that Liu Xi was a genuine woman, not the son of the Liu’s.

The way people treated men and women was nothing similar. Even if both sexes did the same thing, men would very likely be praised, but women would be criticized. It would be as though a hen crowed in the morning. Jiang Pengji was extremely curious about Meng Hun’s attitude and if he would stay loyal to her after he learned about her secret.

Meng Hun was steadfast about it and said, “I will be struck by lightning and split into pieces if I infringe on my oath.”

“Get up. It’s rather cold on the ground.” Jiang Pengji beamed with a grin as she brought Meng Hun to his feet.

“It’s indeed joyful, but have you considered how we are going to cope with the consequences?”

Qiguan Rang watched them both. They were relaxed and pleased, but he had to dampen them with a fair warning.

“I have had my route of retreat since I planned this. We will only leave a small portion of the troops in the cottage and the rest we will disguise as bandits. We will still be working on suppressing the bandits under the table and absorbing some of the bandits as potential assets in order to expand our troop,” Jiang Pengji said calmly. “There are divided groups of bandits in Hejian County that even the government can’t take measures against. But they make a perfect disguise for us to hide out in.”

“The Meng’s might deploy some troops in retaliation…” Qiguan Rang paused for a second when he mentioned this.

Meng Hun was the one taking all the blame and retaliation from the Meng’s. The Meng’s would be looking for a trace of Meng Hun instead of picking on the bandits in Hejian County. They didn’t have that good of a heart to make a contribution and gain credit from Hejian County Chief by doing the work for him.

“They do what they want to. But we are not so silly as to stay still after we make a blunder,” Jiang Pengji responded indifferently. “In a couple more days when the tension is lower, I plan to leak the information that Meng Hun has fled somewhere away from Hejian County to distract the Meng’s attention. The Meng’s are too busy to wipe their own a** from all the chaos in Meng County, Cang Prefecture. There is not enough force for them to deploy here to get revenge for his own son.”

It was already an eventful year. The Meng’s still had messes that needed to be cleaned up. Where could they split extra forces?

She would be departing Hejian County in around three months, anyway. She would be impressed if they could keep track of her.

“So we are just going to keep the grain in stock?” Qiguan Rang asked.

“We will stock the grain in the cellar for now and I will assign some guards for surveillance. The most dangerous place is also the safest. Those dumba**es must have bought that Meng Hun and his people had transferred the grain, but they won’t expect that we only moved it from above ground to underground.”

Jiang Pengji’s eyes were incisive and she talked with acrimony, but no one found it obnoxious.