"Brother Lin! Brother Zhe! How is it you?" Lu Yun ran over excitedly.
"Ah, Brother Yun, we're saved!" Tian Ya also cheered and followed.
Wei Lin smiled, "We happened to be handling some business nearby and unexpectedly discovered this person tracking you, so we took the opportunity to subdue him. Let's go, we'll send you home."
Wei Lin and Wei Zhe looked at Lu Yun with newfound respect. At such a young age, he could detect someone tracking them and react so spontaneously. Seeing there was only one tracker, he thought of splitting up, demonstrating remarkable calm and resourcefulness.
Indeed, the sect leader's younger brothers were no ordinary children.
The little beggars following far behind, seeing that Lu Yun and Tian Ya had met acquaintances and the tracker had been apprehended, and that Brother Yun and the others were safe, left.
Meanwhile, Lu Yu San Wa, the three children, ran home quickly and hurriedly reported this news to Lu Ye.
Lu Ye, however, was not worried. He comforted San Wa, "Don't worry, Xiao Yun and Tian Ya will be fine. This afternoon, we captured someone who confessed to having accomplices who would track Xiao Yun. Therefore, I had already asked Wei Lin and Wei Zhe from next door to intercept Xiao Yun. They should be back before long."
Lu Yu San Wa then felt relieved. They walked to the table one by one, picked up their water cups, and gulped down the water. After drinking, San Wa still felt a bit scared, sitting blankly on the chair, panting.
Earlier, to rush back and report, they had run desperately without stopping for a moment, fearing that the bad guy would harm Brother Yun and Tian Ya.
Seeing them still looking nervous, Lu Ye smiled and praised them, "You handled this sudden situation very well with your calmness and resourcefulness."
Tian Dou snapped back to attention, scratching the back of his head sheepishly, "Master, this is all Brother Yun's credit; it was Brother Yun who arranged it for us."
"Xiao Yun's decisions also require your support, so you all deserve praise," Lu Ye said with a smile.
San Wa all smiled happily, their moods gradually relaxing.
"Big Brother, who are these two people? Why were they tracking us?" Lu Yu asked, tilting his head up.
It was not good to keep matters involving life and death from the children. Lu Ye thought for a moment, then spoke plainly, "When we were at Red Tree Slope before, the nearby mining pit caused trouble. Didn't we capture a few troublesome mine bosses?
Through interrogation, it was learned that the mining pit was an iron ore mine secretly excavated by a faction within the imperial court. That faction was also privately forging weapons with this iron ore. The Emperor was very angry upon learning of this and severely punished them.
In retaliation, they harbored resentment and continuously sent assassins to kill our entire family. You children must remember to be extremely careful when you are out from now on."
"So that's how it is," Lu Yu frowned. "Big Brother, since we caught these two bad guys, will there be more bad guys continuing to trouble our family?"
A fierce glint flashed in Lu Ye's eyes, "This time, I won't give them another chance. I will make sure they never dare to harm a single hair of our family again!"
Wei Lin and Wei Zhe locked Dark Guard Jia and Dark Guard Yi in the secret prison of the Wei residence.
In the following days, Jue Sha, who was responsible for the interrogation, had to ensure that these two did not die, but also that they suffered immense pain, and then honestly confessed that the Empress had sent them to assassinate the sect leader's family.
Meanwhile, in Tianshui Town, Tasha County, the Imperial Prince, who was engaged in tree planting and desertification control, received a letter pigeon from Bai Sheng.
The Imperial Prince was overjoyed to see the letter pigeon, thinking it was a personal letter from the dark-faced one. However, upon opening it, he found it was from that scoundrel Lu Ye.
However, after reading the letter, the Imperial Prince was furious. The Empress, that old witch, still hadn't given up and was still sending people to assassinate Lu Ye's family.
If Lu Ye died, he wouldn't feel heartbroken. But if the dark-faced one died, or if his four adopted sons met with any misfortune, he would be heartbroken to the point of wishing he were dead.
Since he would rather wish the Imperial Prince were dead than live, he would make whoever caused him to wish he were dead suffer even more.
Therefore, the Imperial Prince immediately wrote several pages of memorials impeaching the Empress, scolding her for being the mother of the nation and supposed to care for the people and embody queenly virtue, yet being narrow-minded, selfish, and unworthy of her position.
The Crown Prince and the Jiang family illegally mined iron ore and privately manufactured weapons, which was a violation of Great Xia law and endangered the safety of the court. Lu Ye's family in Red Tree Village bravely reported this, eliminating a hidden danger to the court and serving as great benefactors to the state.
However, the Empress harbored resentment towards this matter and continuously sent assassins to assassinate Lu Ye's family. Such despicable actions constituted an abuse of power, personal gain through authority, contempt for imperial authority, and treating Great Xia's laws as nothing!
Furthermore, in the accusation letter, the Imperial Prince vividly and graphically praised Lu Ye's family for being the first to successfully dig wells in the desert and to cultivate trees and crops, accumulating rich experience in desertification control and tree planting. Ji Chenghe's agricultural books were all written after researching their techniques and experience.
In short, the Imperial Prince actively affirmed the great help Lu Ye's family provided him in governing the border regions. It could be said that without Lu Ye's family, his governance of the border regions would have been mere fantasy.
Finally, the Imperial Prince threatened his imperial father in a madman's tone. If anything unfortunate happened to the Lu family, it would certainly be the Empress's doing. If the Emperor did not punish that old witch, he would abandon desertification control and become a dissolute prince who only knew how to eat, drink, defecate, and urinate in his fief.
Alternatively, his imperial father could just kill him, pretending never to have had such a son.
After writing the letter to his imperial father, he also wrote a letter to his mother, Consort Mei.
Two letters were sent by express horse to the capital.
While the Imperial Prince was writing, Lu Ye had already spread the news throughout the capital about Empress's frenzied retaliation against the farmers who reported the Crown Prince's private mining of iron ore.
Many opera stages had already turned this matter into dramatic creations, with actors performing it in turn on stage. The scenes were extremely popular, and the image of the wicked Empress became increasingly deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Now, the only thing missing was the confession of those two dark guards.
Dark guards were trained from childhood into elite assassins, and making them confess was very difficult.
No matter how Jue Sha and the others interrogated them, the dark guards refused to confess.
Lu Ye decided to personally oversee the interrogation.
He personally wrote a confession statement, then gently pressed the fingers of the two dark guards onto it.
This maneuver left Jue Sha and the others dumbfounded.
Lu Ye walked up to the two dark guards, who looked like "rags" after being tortured, and sneered, "Actually, you don't need to be so tight-lipped. I said I would interrogate you, but I just wanted you to suffer a good bit.
To tell you the truth, anyone who dares to harm my family, I will strip their tendons and flay their skin, no matter who it is!
Although you are the Empress's people, you are also two obscure dogs. Apart from the Empress, perhaps no one has seen your handwriting. Therefore, who can prove that the confession statement I wrote was not written by you?
Once this confession statement is sent to the Emperor, coupled with the corroboration from your two corpses, I'm not afraid that the Emperor won't believe the Empress's actions."