Thousand Miles of Bright Moonlight

Chapter 4 - Senior Monk of Tianzhu

(Tianzhu means India in Chinese )

Early the next morning, Xie Qing reported to Li Yaoying, "Your Highness, the soldiers of Yining Square said that Princess Fukang has been going to Yining Square a lot recently; three times this past half month."

　　Yaoying finished her morning makeup. Looking at herself in the mirror, she pressed her fingertips on the green jade gold leaf ornament between her eyebrows and asked, "What was she doing at Yining Square?"

　　Xie Qing stood outside the twelve panel vertical folding screen, back perfectly straight and replied, "Heard that she went to the Zoroastrian shrine to watch the a ceremony for the Zoroastrian God."

　　Most Hu merchants believed in the Zoroastrian religion, and Yining Square had a Zoroastrian shrine where the Hu people often held sacrificial rituals.

Yaoying put down the circular1 copper mirror with sunflower carvings, and her doubts became heavier.

　　Zhu Luyun was bent on revenge. She absolutely would not have leisurely gone specifically to the shrine to watch the Zoroastrian followers shooting fire and wielding swords for no reason.

The ritual was simply a pretense to fool people.

　　She suddenly got off her high horse and deigned to associate with Hu people, for what purpose?

　　Did she want to bribe the Hu people to assassinate Li De?

　　In the novel, Zhu Luyun repeatedly attempted to assassinate him and failed every time at the last minute.

　　At first, Zhu Luyun thought that Li Xuanzhen was secretly obstructing her revenge plan, but later she realized that Li De had already in fact known that she wanted to assassinate him.

Li De feigned ignorance, keeping her around in order to wipe out the remnants of the former dynasty.

　　Yaoying had Xie Qing continue sending people to follow Zhu Luyun.

　　She was not worried about Li De's safety, only that it would implicate Noble Consort Xie and Li Zhongqian.

　　Xie Qing asked to be excused.

　　Her maid, Chun Ru, entered the room, smiling and bringing a blue ink birds and flowers embroidered shawl.

Li Yaoying took it and put it on her arm. The silk was painted with silver powder to look like stars. When sunlight shined on it, the flowers and birds were like stars floating in a river: vivid, lifelike and dazzling.

　　Chun Ru smiled and said, "In next month's spring appreciation banquet, Your Highness will surely have the most beautiful flowers in the capital."

　　As usual, the spring appreciation banquet would be a competition of peonies, but everyone knew that the final decision of the flower competition depended on the person.

　　The seventh princess was peerlessly magnificent, and she always had a new and unique bright brocade dress to match, in addition to the 'king of flowers' Moutan peony the second prince purchased for her for thousands of gold from Luoyang, the capital city of the East. At that time, she would have beautiful clothes and flowers. Who could possibly compare to the princess?

　　Yaoying gathered the shawl: "Don't concern yourself over this, I won't go to the spring appreciation banquet this year."

She and Li Zhongqian had agreed to go to Qujiang together to race horses and take a spring hike.

　　Chun Ru was dumbfounded, having a lamenting look on her face: "The prime minister furen's maid I met by chance said that you definitely had to attend the spring appreciation banquet this year. The sons in the capital were so happy that they jumped up and down. This servant heard people say that they were all busy making new clothes that the brocade from the east and west market was almost depleted because of them. Face powder and gemstone carved jade belts have also increased in price. Hu merchants have made a fortune."