Chapter 876: The more you try to hide, the more obvious it becomes (Part )

Now or never.

To take a step back, even if Qin Wei lowered his status, Lord Qian would never really let him be a low-ranking official.

Therefore, Qin Wei had nothing to fear and did not have to worry about being dismissed from office and deprived of power by Lord Qian, thus returning to his original state.

"Your filial piety is enough to prove that I was not wrong about you."

Faced with Qin Wei's enthusiasm and generosity, Lord Qian's reaction was indifferent. He just casually praised him, which was neither an agreement nor a rejection.

Hearing this, Qin Wei couldn't help but look disappointed: "My Lord, you don't want to agree. Do you think I'm incompetent..."

"You don't have to belittle yourself. I'm just weighing the timing." Lord Qian said meaningfully, "If there hadn't been this farce this morning, I could have transferred you to the West Mansion right away. But now... I have to wait a while."

"Why?" Qin Wei was unwilling.

"Can't you see that Lord Jia is trying to win you over?" Lord Qian teased, "After all, he is now the Prime Minister of the East Palace. How can I take away his love?"

"But……"

"Forget it! I know what I am doing. You don't have to worry about it." Lord Qian straightened his expression and waved his hand to interrupt Qin Wei's questioning, as if he had made up his mind.

"Lord Jia has always disliked me. Since I took office as Marquis of Tianji, he has been causing trouble every now and then." Qin Wei said indignantly, "Is the sun rising from the west today? He suddenly changed his nature and took the initiative to show goodwill to me. Really...really..."

Seeing Qin Wei hesitating, as if he dared not speak, Lord Qian couldn't help but look treacherous, and asked curiously: "What is it really?"

"To be disrespectful, I think Lord Jia's intentions today...are not good." After hesitating for a long time, Qin Wei finally answered timidly.

"Tell me about it." Lord Qian seemed to be interested in Qin Wei's words.

"He deliberately made peace with me in front of the adults. It was clearly an attempt to sow discord between me and the adults..."

"Of course he has bad intentions, but not towards you, but towards me." After hearing Qin Wei's explanation, a hint of disappointment flashed across Lord Qian's eyes. He shook his head slowly and interrupted absentmindedly, "I have dealt with him for decades, and I know him very well. He is a scheming and cautious person who never does business at a loss. But today he willingly told me the secret of Liu Xunyi and Young Qin Wang, and took the initiative to give up the opportunity to seek credit in front of the emperor. Don't you find it strange at all?"

"My lord, what you mean is..."

"The East Palace is seriously injured, and Lord Jia is a new official with an unstable foundation. Therefore, with his current strength, he cannot fight against the Shao Qin King who is thousands of miles away and dominates a region. He can't even find Liu Xunyi who is on the run. So he came here uninvited today, pretending to make peace with me, but it is actually a very obvious 'killing with a borrowed knife' strategy that cannot be more obvious."

"This matter is indeed strange..." Qin Wei frowned and muttered to himself, "But what exactly is strange about it? I just can't figure it out."

"The punishment of Liu Xunyi was pushed forward by the West Mansion from the beginning to the end, and the East Mansion had very little involvement." Lord Qian said calmly, "Not long ago, Lord Jia almost died in the East Mansion turmoil. In fact, he is our enemy, not our friend. He should have confronted us head-on and made things difficult for us. He even hoped that we would fail in the matter of Liu Xunyi. But now, he has taken the initiative to provide us with clues about Liu Xunyi, which is the first strange thing."

"That's true!" Qin Wei nodded repeatedly as if thinking about something.

"Lord Jia and Liu Xunyi not only have no hatred, but also have some friendship. Even if he considers the overall situation and disdains to associate with Liu Xunyi, there is no need for him to add insult to injury, let alone to use our hands to get rid of Liu Xunyi." Lord Qian continued, "In this way, not only will he not benefit at all, but we will be helped in vain. Therefore, why he wants to kill Liu Xunyi by any means, this is the second strange thing."

"That's right!" Qin Wei's confused thoughts suddenly became clear after Lord Qian reminded him, "Why did Lord Jia use a knife to kill someone?"

"The most likely reason that the shrewd Lord Jia would do the opposite is that Liu Xunyi's survival might be disadvantageous to him." At this point, a sinister light suddenly flashed in Lord Qian's eyes. "In other words, Liu Xunyi knows some of Lord Jia's secrets that he cannot tell anyone about, which makes him unable to sleep or eat. He must be killed as soon as possible."

"What secret?"

"Recalling the Double Ninth Festival, Lord Jia still had some sympathy for Liu Xunyi at that time, but now he wants to kill him. I think the hatred between him and Liu Xunyi must have been formed recently. To be more precise, it was after the Double Ninth Festival banquet and before Liu Xunyi assassinated me..." "This..." Qin Wei was shocked, "It was only a day or two before and after, they..."

"The more you try to hide, the more obvious it becomes!" Lord Qian revealed the secret, his tone becoming increasingly gloomy. "Who rescued the 'bait' we used to lure out the snake from its hole from the Lin'an government office? And who knew my whereabouts so well? At that time, you were clearly the first to arrive, so why did Lord Jia insist on identifying 'Xunzhen' when even you couldn't recognize him?"

"What your Excellency means is..." At this moment, a terrifying thought slowly rose from the bottom of Qin Wei's heart, making him feel cold and pale, "What your Excellency means is...Master Jia has known about Liu Xunyi's assassination plan for a long time, and he..."

"Qin Wei, why don't you be bolder?" Lord Qian sneered, "Rather than saying that he knew about it a long time ago, it's better to say... he was behind it."

"hiss!"

Lord Qian's blunt words made Qin Wei's face turn pale as paper in an instant. He subconsciously took a breath of cold air and muttered incoherently: "This... How is it possible? How dare Lord Jia... Lord Jia is the deputy envoy of the Privy Council and a trusted minister of the Emperor..."

"This morning's good show, at first glance, was 'the reconciliation of the generals and ministers', and at second glance it was 'killing someone with a borrowed knife', but after careful consideration, I found that it was actually 'the thief crying 'stop thief'."

"Why did Lord Jia do this?"

"Because using Liu Xunyi to get rid of me will only benefit him..."

"No, no, no!" Qin Wei, still frightened, waved his hands repeatedly, "What I mean is... since Lord Jia was secretly doing something, why did he take the initiative to come to the Privy Council today to 'tell the secret'? This is so reckless, isn't it 'trying to cover up the truth'?"

"Not at all! Far from being reckless, this is precisely his brilliance." Lord Qian said cryptically, "First, our speculation is just conjecture after all, and there is no real evidence. Of course, with Lord Jia's cunning, he will not leave any clues for us to prove. Second, he showed goodwill to the West Mansion in a big way today, and the news will soon spread everywhere. By then, everyone from civil and military officials to ordinary people will admire his generosity, and even the emperor will praise his integrity of 'putting the overall situation first'. Third, he used Liu Xunyi's incident to turn his spearhead against the King of Shao Qin, which undoubtedly created another powerful enemy for the West Mansion, just like we used the Mongols to suppress the East Mansion. Who can guarantee that the East Mansion will not... Using the Liao people to destroy our stage? Now, let's not talk about whether Liu Xunyi is dead or alive, and how difficult it is to capture him from the hands of the young king of Qin, and whether Liu Xunyi can listen to our arrangements and testify against Lord Jia. Even if we go smoothly and capture Liu Xunyi alive and bring him back to Lin'an, and he is willing to confess to the emperor that Lord Jia is the mastermind, will the emperor believe it? Will the civil and military officials believe it? Will the people of the world believe it? Lord Jia will not leave us any clues, nor will he leave any ironclad evidence for Liu Xunyi. Can Liu Xunyi really bring down the prime minister who is second only to one person and above ten thousand people with just his red mouth? What if Lord Jia turns the tables and falsely accuses us of colluding with Liu Xunyi? What will be the result?"

"This……"

"There is only one result, that is, the East Mansion is 'a gentleman who is open and honest, repaying grievances with virtue', and the West Mansion is 'a villain who is long-term dependent, repaying virtue with grievances'." Lord Qian laughed in anger, "Maybe Lord Jia is now hoping that we will quickly discover that he is the mastermind behind the scenes, quickly become the enemy of the Young Qin King, and quickly capture Liu Xunyi... In this way, he will have a chance to fight back and survive. In the final analysis, Liu Xunyi is insignificant in his heart. The people he really wants to deal with are not Liu Xunyi, but the West Mansion, the Privy Councilor, and you and me. His 'borrowing a knife to kill people' is not to borrow our knife to kill Liu Xunyi and the Young Qin King, but to borrow the knife of the Young Qin King and Liu Xunyi... to massacre the West Mansion. This is the real hidden 'cutting off the firewood from under the cauldron' strategy after 'the reconciliation of the generals and ministers', 'borrowing a knife to kill people', and 'the thief crying 'stop thief'."

"Your Excellency means... that everything today was part of Master Jia's plan? Including... our suspicions about him?" Qin Wei became more and more frightened and terrified as he listened. "I never thought that such an ordinary 'visit' would contain four conspiracies..."

"It's not a conspiracy, it's an open conspiracy!"

"This..." Qin Wei was stunned, looking confused, "What do you mean?"

"A scheme that can be seen through, no matter how many hidden meanings it has, cannot be called 'flawless'. Moreover, I can guess Lord Jia's intentions, so how can Lord Jia not guess what I am thinking?" Lord Qian's eyes were gleaming with a sharp light, and he sighed bitterly with an inexplicable meaning, "Being able to see through it does not necessarily mean being able to break the scheme. This is an open conspiracy. We know that Lord Jia has ulterior motives and that he is deliberately luring us into the trap under the guise of a visit, but I have to pretend to be confused and act according to his arrangements."

"Why?"

"Because he has walked into the Privy Council with a swagger and told me the news about Liu Xunyi and the Young Prince of Qin in front of you. In this case, I can't pretend that I don't know. I must do something, otherwise the emperor, the officials and even the people of the world will not let it go. Even if we know that everything is a trap set by Lord Jia, we have to fall into it. Even if we don't want to fall into it, the emperor and the court will force us to fall into it. Just now, Lord Jia deliberately showed weakness in front of me, saying that 'the East Palace has no ability to control the Central Plains martial arts world, so it should abdicate and let the West Palace take over' and so on. He made a bunch of excuses just to escape, and stuffed the hot potato of Liu Xunyi into our arms, and stuffed it so tightly that we can't push it away or get rid of it."

Having said that, Lord Qian glanced at the troubled Qin Wei with his peripheral vision and said self-deprecatingly, "Next, we will be working under great pressure from the Emperor, the court, and even the people of the world. Lord Jia, on the other hand, can watch the fire from the other side of the river with his reputation of 'strong character and sincere heart', and wait for the times to change."

"Then... how do you plan to deal with this, my Lord?"

"Although Lord Jia has evil intentions, one of his words makes a lot of sense." Lord Qian said calmly, "Xunzhen and his gang are very good at hiding. Relying on the government to hunt them down is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We must rely on the martial arts people. With their connections and means, we can help us follow the clues and eradicate the root of the problem. Right now, I am out sick to solve this matter."

"Is it possible that Your Excellency is going to meet the martial artists now?"

"He is not a martial artist, but... the leader of the martial arts world."

……

(End of this chapter)