Silver Castle, King's Tower, Observatory.
The huge telescope points to the sky, like an ancient cannon. This is the largest traditional astronomical telescope in the Ambergris River. Although the observation distance is far inferior to the most advanced radio telescopes, it can observe the starry sky with the naked eye.
The Wei family has been astronomy enthusiasts for several generations, and some family members have discovered new stars.
Beside the telescope, stood a man in his early thirties. Wearing a long gown with a jade belt and holding a sword at his waist, he looks like a new Zen Confucian scholar. At this moment, the Confucian scholar looked up at the sky and seemed to be thinking about something.
Quietly, a shadow appeared at the entrance of the corridor.
"Young Master, they are going to blow up the tower." The voice was low and hoarse, like the sound of sharpening a knife.
The Confucian scholar looked at the sky quietly and seemed not to hear.
"Young Master..." Shadow spoke again.
"Let them blow it up..." The Confucian scholar turned around, stared at the shadows in the corridor, and sighed, "The country is about to perish. As the crown prince, I no longer have the dignity to live."
"Little Lord……"
"You go." The Confucian scholar raised his hand, "From today on, you are free."
"No, I won't leave." The hoarse voice seemed a little excited, "Once a slave, always a slave!"
"Why are you doing this?" The Confucian scholar shook his head and sighed slightly.
"Finally, let this slave accompany the young master for a journey." The hoarse voice sounded begging.
"You..." the Confucian scholar exhaled a long breath, "well, it would be nice to have a companion on the road to hell."
"Thank you, young master!" The hoarse voice was full of surprise, as if he had received a great favor.
The shadows on the corridor gradually disappeared.
The expression on the Confucian scholar's face gradually became cold, "Please guard the door for me for the last time."
He whispered, walked to the wall, found a funnel-shaped constellation of stars on an astronomical mural, and pressed hard. The hidden mechanism is activated, and the mural opens upward, revealing the metal tab inside.
The Confucian scholar grabbed the pull ring and pulled it outward. The iron chain rattled, the friction of gears came from the wall, and a secret passage appeared in the corner of the wall.
It was dark inside. The Confucian scholar squatted down and shined a flashlight inside. Inside was a spiral slide, just like a garbage disposal channel in a hotel.
The Confucian scholar dived in without much hesitation. With a soft sliding sound, it disappeared at the entrance of the passage.
"Did you hear that? If you don't surrender, we will blow up the tower!"
Below the tower, a tall fat man shouted towards the spiral staircase.
However, the corridor was quiet and there was no response.
"Big cat, they ignore us, what should we do?" A black guy came up and asked.
"If it doesn't work, just blow it up!" said the big cat.
"No, big cat, there are a lot of valuable things on it, and they will be gone if they explode." Cassie waved her hands and shook her head, like a chimpanzee that could speak human language.
"If the money is gone, it's gone. It's better than letting the brothers die." Big Cat said.
"No, Mr. Qin will be unhappy." "It's okay, I will ask the boss for instructions before blowing up."
The two were arguing when a cold voice suddenly sounded from behind them.
"Let me do it."
Big Cat and Cassie were startled at the same time. Both of them are guardian-level experts of alien blood, with keen senses, but the other party can appear quietly behind them, so the danger factor can be imagined.
When they turned around, they saw it was the head maid, and the two of them breathed a sigh of relief.
"Why is it you? Don't you have to follow Mr. Qin to carry the teapot?" Cassie asked curiously. In his impression, every time he saw the head maid, she would always have a teapot and a plate in her hands.
"The master asked me to come over and see if anyone needs help." Jian Yue Canglian replied, then passed the two people and walked towards the spiral staircase.
Just as Cassie and Big Cat moved away to follow and help, they heard her say, "This is a duel between warriors, please let me face it alone."
Before he finished speaking, countless pink petals floated out of the void, as if encountering vortex airflow, spinning and flying around the slender body, gradually attached to the body surface, forming a pair of bright red armor.
"Be safe!" "Don't tell Mr. Qin that we were hiding behind and not helping!"
Seeing Yue Canglian turned her head sideways, nodded slightly, and then walked up the spiral staircase.
It was quiet for a few seconds, then a red light flashed, and there was a fierce clash of swords.
The tinkling sounds are non-stop and the frequency is very high, at least three to four times per second. If they were not promoted to the guard level, they would not be able to hear it at all.
The sound of swords clashing continued for several minutes. Suddenly there was a soft sound and the sound suddenly stopped.
"puff!"
It was the sound of swords entering flesh and blood splattering.
The corridor fell into dead silence. Big Cat and Cassie stared at the corridor nervously, their breathing stagnant. If the head maid was lost here, they didn't know how to explain it to Chen Xing.
"Deng Deng Deng!"
The crisp sound of heels sounded, and two long legs came into view, and the two finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Let's go up and arrest them!"
"Wei Qingshan is up there, that's a big fish!"
"Everyone, listen up. Capture the Silver Claw Prince alive and get a reward of one hundred!"
Military police wearing white gloves filed up the spiral staircase and rushed into the observatory.
But it was empty inside, no one was there. After some searching, a gendarme discovered the mechanism on the astronomical map.
"There is a secret passage!" "Hurry up and chase!"
At the same time, people were coming and going in the castle hall. The military police and the captured servants were busy carrying the corpses, cleaning up the blood stains, and cleaning the house.
"Quick, quick, quick!" "Hurry up!" "Hurry up, the adults are still waiting outside, hurry up!"
Under the constant urging of the gendarmerie captain, the castle hall was cleaned and the floor was as smooth as a mirror and spotless. The throne was wiped repeatedly with alcohol to make it look brand new.
"The castle has been cleaned, sir, please come in!"
"Brothers, get in!"
Chen Xing waved his hand vigorously and led Xiang Caidi, Huo Zui, Lin Shiyuan and other senior officers into the castle hall.
At this time, the double doors had been barely repaired and opened to both sides.
The gold-painted red carpet was spread from the door to the bottom of the Silver Claw Throne.
"Oh, it turns out this is the palace." "It's really grand." "It's so big that it can even play ball."
The castle hall is luxuriously decorated, spacious and bright, covering thousands of square meters. It has a square porch and a towering dome, which is full of grandeur.
The throne is located in the middle, with two steps.
According to convention, noble lords are on the first step, heads of principalities are on the second step, and kings of kingdoms are on the third step.
The throne is made of sterling silver, with leather inserts in the middle and armrests, making it look extremely luxurious.
It turns out that this is the seat of power...
Chen Xing circled the throne and gently stroked the back of the throne. After much hesitation, he finally did not sit down. Instead, he sat on the second step of the high platform, leaving the throne empty.
If one day he is going to sit on the throne, it must be the day when mercenaries establish a country.
Except for some responsible for security work, all officers at the brigade and regiment level or above entered the hall.
Most of them were low-level mercenaries and had never entered the palace, let alone entered as victors. They were all very curious, touching this and that.
"Isn't this thing made of fine gold?" A brigade commander touched the knight's armor that was used as decoration next to the stone pillar. The surface of the armor exudes a faint golden light, which is different from the dazzling gold, and has a very soft luster.
"How much is such a big piece of fine gold worth?" another group leader said. As he spoke, he pulled out the gloves of the armor, but he used too much force and the entire armor fell to the ground with a crash.
"Haha, are you a primary school student? You break everything." The brigade commander laughed.
"Oops..." The regiment leader who had scattered his armor was a little embarrassed.
At this time, the quartermaster Lu Shanhai happened to come up from behind, patted the other party on the shoulder and said, "It's okay, maybe I will move out and sell it later, do whatever you want!"
When Chen Xing saw this scene, he immediately said loudly, "Everyone is welcome, just treat it as your own home."
"We are the victors, these are our spoils!"
"If you see anything you like, take it!"
"Whatever good wine or meat you want, eat whatever you want!"
"Hahaha!" "How proud of you, boss!" "We won't go home until we get drunk tonight!" "Long live!"
The atmosphere suddenly became extremely heated, but everyone maintained considerable restraint and did not really rummage through the boxes or loot things. Anyone who can enter here is a senior officer of the expeditionary force and will not covet property casually.
Chen Xing pointed at an old man who looked like a butler, who immediately trotted over. It is not difficult to tell from his appearance and actions that this man is one of the servants of Silver Castle.
"The palace steward, young Trollope, has met your lordship."
"Go, let people prepare food and drink!"
"yes!"
"If you do this well, your original position will be the same position in the future." Chen Xing said.
Little Trollope, the butler, suddenly looked ecstatic and said, "Thank you, sir, thank you, sir!"
Little Trollope was originally just one of the more than thirty palace stewards in Silver Castle. He was mainly responsible for the restaurant and a small part of the living area, and had a low status among the stewards.
Being able to gain the appreciation of important people in advance at the critical moment of power transition will not only stabilize your position in the future, but also make it possible to move to the next level.
"If you have any good wine, delicious food, this or that, just bring it up."
"There are three hundred years of brandy in the cellar, and two hundred and seventy years of Eastern Continent Tenglong liquor."
"Bring them all up!"
“The ice cellar contains Antarctic tuna, polar bear paws, deep-sea crabs, smoked venison legs from the Andes, and Kunlun matsutake…”
The housekeeper knew all the family treasures, but Chen Xing had never heard of most of them and was too lazy to study them. He waved his hand as if to ward off flies, "Okay, okay, just go get it and eat it. No need to be verbose!"
"Yes, sir!" The butler bowed ninety degrees and saluted, then faced Chen Xing and slowly backed away.
Xiang Caidi winked at Lin Shiyuan who was standing aside. The latter understood and immediately called on seven or eight staff officers and personally led the team to leave with the housekeeper.
These people are ignorant and need to be monitored to ensure the safety of the food and drink.
Although the universal antidote can cure most poisons now, they are entering the royal city for the first time, so it is better to be careful in all aspects. No one can tell whether there are die-hard loyalists of the Wei family hiding among these servants, hiding evil intentions, waiting for opportunities, and ready to cause accidents at any time.
"Sir, the results of the preliminary count have come out..."
While waiting for food and drinks, Ye Yangzhengxiong came back to report on work.
"Killed five hundred and seventy-six soldiers of the Silver Castle, one magic guard, and fourteen servants who tried to resist..."
"How come there are so many servants resisting?" Chen Xing asked doubtfully.
Servants are not soldiers and generally will not resist when faced with heavily armed military police.
"Maybe it's a misunderstanding..." Ye Yang Zhengxiong wiped his forehead. More than half of them were military policemen who saw beautiful women and couldn't help but rape them. As the captain of the military police brigade, he must protect his own people, so he simply killed him and treated it as a manslaughter to avoid being corrected by the other party.
Chen Xing could see that Ye Yang Zhengxiong was avoiding the important matter, but he did not continue to investigate the matter of several people's deaths. The reason why he asked was to give the other party a blow to prevent something more extreme from happening.
"There are 2,106 servants, 193 noble attendants, 432 direct and collateral dependents of the Wei family, including 315 female dependents, those of marriageable age and good looks. Accounting for about 40%..."
"There are more than 27.2 million gold coins in stock, more than 1,270 cultural relics and antiques, more than 790 precious calligraphy and paintings, 65 100,000 gold-level luxury cars, and 46 precious swords. One hundred and seventy-eight precious firearms, eleven luxury yachts, seven million-gold-class luxury aerostats, and one million-gold-class luxury aerostat..."
"You are so rich." Chen Xing couldn't help but sigh.
"A royal family with a heritage of two hundred years has far more savings than this, but the place where the treasure is hidden has not yet been found." Ye Yang Zhengxiong said.
"I'm just saying casually, keep going."
"yes."
"Crown Prince Wei Qingshan escaped through a secret passage and is being hunted..."
"The second prince Wei Qinghe was successfully captured and has been imprisoned in the dungeon..."
"Wei Qingshan ran away?" Chen Xing asked.
"This..." Ye Yang Zhengxiong wiped his forehead, something he would do every time he was nervous.
"Forget it if you run away." Chen Xing waved his hand, not really caring. After all, he promised Dongfang Xuanyuan not to kill Wei Haitang's other two sons except Wei Qinghai.
Even if he is caught, it will be a problem. If he is accidentally killed by his subordinates, it will be difficult to explain.
"No need to chase." Chen Xing said.
"Yes!" Ye Yang Zhengxiong felt like he was receiving amnesty. Not catching Wei Qingshan was his biggest mistake, so he said it last. But luckily, Chen Xing didn't blame him. He was happy in his heart. It seemed that this son-in-law was quite good and knew how to take care of his uncle's face.
