Chapter Twenty-Three: The King Disappears
"Everyone, be quiet, be quiet!"
Umas shouted at the ministers standing in the main hall of the palace and motioned for everyone to be quiet.
The crowd heard Umas's cry and fell silent.
Everyone still respects Umas, because Umasi is an important minister of the Tibetan State of Umas, and he has prestige.
"Today's matter, I have to ask the eldest prince to come up with ideas!"
Umas shouted to the crowd.
"Yes!"
"Yes!"
"The eldest prince is the heir to the throne, and it should be up to the eldest prince to decide!"
Everyone agreed.
"What do you want to do, Prince?"
Umas asked Ushige, who was standing next to him.
Wu Chongzhen stood up and faced the people in the palace hall, his eyes were resolute, and he said calmly and loudly: "For today's plan, it is to ask Commander Wu to bring more palace guards to search for the king, queen and little prince outside the palace, protect them, and everyone stay in the palace hall to wait for news!"
A great prince with an extraordinary bearing and unfazed appearance was presented in front of everyone.
"Yes, going out of the palace to search for the king is a top priority!"
Umas immediately agreed.
"Hmm!"
The others nodded in agreement.
"Commander Wu, you immediately take the three hundred palace guards out of the palace and search for the king!"
Seeing that all the people in the main hall agreed, Ushige immediately gave an order to Ubatu, the commander of the palace guards.
"The eldest prince, obey your orders!"
Ubatu came over and knelt down on one knee to accept the order of the eldest prince.
He stood up, turned around and walked out of the main hall, and went to gather the three hundred palace guards and go out of the palace to search for the king, queen, and little prince of the kingdom of Usz.
As soon as Ubatu left, Uzhongzhen went to the harem alone and asked the guards of the harem in detail.
The guards of the harem revealed a detail to Wu Chongzhen, the two guards who were carrying by the king were still wearing masks on their faces, and they couldn't recognize who they were, and the guards of the harem didn't dare to ask more, so they let them go.
It stands to reason that the palace guards do not wear masks on their faces, and the purpose of wearing masks is not to let others know their identities, so who are the two guards with masks on their faces? Wu Chongzhen is a little suspicious that those two guards are not palace guards, but two other people pretending.
Who are these two?
What purpose do they have?
Wu Chongzhen thought about it for a long time, but he was still confused and couldn't find a clue.
He left the harem and did not go back to the main hall, but came to the front, climbed the wall of the palace and stood on it, looking out of the palace with a pair of eyes.
Ubatu, the commander of the palace guards, was outside the palace with three hundred palace guards, going from house to house searching for the king, queen and little prince.
Ushige stayed on top of the city wall for a while, and then went back to the palace hall.
At noon, the eldest prince's princess, Little Bell, asked the palace dining room to make some delicious meals, and brought them to the palace hall for the waiting courtiers to eat, so that they would not go hungry.
The courtiers in the main hall of the palace waited from morning to evening, and waited all day.
Ubatu and the three hundred palace guards spent the whole day searching all the places in the vicinity, but found no one, and prepared to search farther tomorrow.
When Ubatu returned to the palace with the palace guards in vain, the ministers learned that the king was missing.
The queen and the little prince also disappeared.
The eldest prince Wuzhong really told everyone to go back first, and then come to the palace tomorrow.
After the ministers left, there were only three people left in the palace hall: Wu Chongzhen, Xiao Lingzi, and Ubatu.
Uzhongzhen told Ubatu about the situation of the king with two guards by his side.
It was unusual for Ubatu to hear him say that the two guards wore masks on their faces, and that the palace guards never wore masks, and they were very suspicious.
The three of them deliberated for a while in the main hall of the palace, and then went back to their respective places.
For seven days.
Ubatu led the palace guards to search for the king, the queen and the little prince, and the farther and farther they searched, the more and more guards they brought with them, increasing from 300 to 600.
The ministers of the Tibetan Kingdom waited for news of the king in the palace hall every day, and the queen and the little prince did not care much if they could find it, but it was important to find the king.
The disappearance of the king made them uneasy.
Only when the king is present they are powerful and of position, and if the king is gone, their power and position are gone.
Ubatu and the palace guards searched outside for seven days, but still found nothing, and found no trace of the king, queen and little prince of the Tibetan kingdom of Usi.
On the eighth day.
As the eldest prince, Wu Chongzhen couldn't stay in the palace, so he asked the princess Xiao Suzuko to stay in the palace and go out of the palace to find someone by himself.
He changed into the costume of a noble prince and went out of the palace alone.
Outside the palace, near Ubatu, they searched for it.
Wu Chongzhen walked a long way to a bustling town, and searched carefully.
He spent a morning searching the town and found nothing.
At noon, I walked into a restaurant in the town, sat down at an empty table, ordered three dishes and a pot of wine, and ate and drank there alone.
There are a lot of people in the restaurant.
At his collar table there were two elderly men drinking, one in a long shirt and the other in a short shirt.
The two of them chatted while drinking.
"Lao Zhao, you don't know yet, the king is already missing!"
The person who wears the long shirt tells the person who wears the short shirt.
"The king is missing?Lao Yang, is this true?"
The man in the short shirt was surnamed Zhao, and he looked at the man in the long shirt in surprise.
"This is the news revealed by those palace ministers, it is absolutely true! Ubatu, the commander of the palace guards, has been searching for the whereabouts of the king, queen and little prince outside with a large number of palace guards in the past few days, and I think we will be searched soon!"
The person wearing the caftan is surnamed Yang, and the person who answers the surname is Zhao.
Both men are locals.
"Old Yang, even the queen and the little prince are missing?"
The man surnamed Zhao asked in surprise.
"Not only the queen and the little prince, but also the national teacher Usiba and several of his disciples have also disappeared!"
The man surnamed Yang replied.
"Old Yang, this is too strange!"
The person surnamed Zhao shouted at the person surnamed Yang.
"It's not strange, I've seen ghosts these other nights!"
The person surnamed Yang changed his face and screamed.
"What the hell, Lao Yang, what the hell did you see?"
When the person surnamed Zhao heard this, he looked surprised.
"My son Yang Qizhen opened a medicinal herb shop next to the National Teacher's Mansion, these days I have been watching the shop alone, at night I can always see people walking around in the attic, and when I go to check but there is nothing, what do you say is not the hell? My son came back this morning and I left, looking for you to drink and relieve boredom!"
The man surnamed Yang drank a glass of wine after speaking, and there was a look of horror on his face, as if he had been frightened.
When Wu Chongzhen heard what the person surnamed Yang said, he felt very strange in his heart, the national teacher Wu Siba and several of his disciples had been eliminated by himself, the little bell, and Ubatu, and there was no one in the National Teacher's Mansion, so how could anyone be moving around? He felt that there was something suspicious in the National Teacher's Mansion, and it was worth taking a closer look.
After eating and drinking, Wu Chongzhen left the town and went to the National Teacher's Mansion to check.
The National Teacher's Mansion is outside the royal palace, far from the royal palace.
Wu Chongzhen rushed to the National Teacher's Mansion in the afternoon and searched it carefully, but found nothing.
It's not too early.
He went out to find a small restaurant to fill his stomach, and when he returned to the National Teacher's Mansion, he lay down on the bed in one of the subordinate rooms, and he wanted to see what was strange about the night in the National Teacher's Mansion.
Two hours later.
A slight sound of footsteps woke Wu Chongzhen up.
There was moonlight streaming in through the dilapidated windows.
Tonight is the night of the full moon again.
U Chong Zhen got up from the bed, walked to the window and looked outside, and saw two people dressed in black and wearing masks on their faces walking towards the room where the national teacher U Siba lived.
One of them held a sheathed sword in his hand.
Uspa's room was just across the street and was the largest room in the National Teacher's Mansion.
Wu Chongzhen waited until the two of them opened the door of Usba's room and went in, closed the door, and then he went out of the next person's room, walked around lightly, and approached Usba's room.
He quietly walked outside Uspa's room and pressed his right ear against the wooden wall outside the room, listening to the movement inside the room.
"Master, since you escaped from the cave and saved your apprentices, why did you only take the king, queen and little prince out of the palace, instead of killing Ubatu, the eldest prince and the princess?"
A man's voice could be heard in the room.
It turned out to be the voice of a black ghost.
The black ghost was slashed obliquely by Ubatu in the face, and the person did not die.
The person in the room who was called Master by the black ghost must be the national teacher Wu Siba.
Wu Siba was able to escape from the cave that was closed by Wu Chongzhen, Xiao Lingzi and Ubatu, and his skills were indeed extraordinary and powerful.
"I used the 'Ice Devouring Soul Palm' to open the cave for my teacher, and I also hurt my own intestines, and after I got out of the cave, I lost my strength to save you, and I was no longer able to fight with them, so I had to pretend to be a palace guard with you early the next morning, and take the king, queen and little prince out of the palace!
In the room, Usipa told the ghost the reason.
When Uspa spoke, he was out of breath, as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.
Wu Chongzhen, who was eavesdropping on the conversation between the two in the room, was shocked when he heard what Wu Siba said, and at the same time, he was also very glad that Wu Siba's "Ice Devouring Soul Palm" had been practiced in advance, if it weren't for himself and Xiao Lingzi, the three of Ubatu would make the first move, and if the other party did it first, their side would definitely suffer a big loss, and they might die in the hands of Wu Siba's master and apprentice.
"Master, in the past few days, when we returned to the Master's Mansion at night, we were all seen by Old Man Yang from the medicinal herb shop next door, do you want to kill Old Man Yang in vain?"
The black ghost voice in the room asked Usba coldly.
"Choke!"
Then there was the sound of a sword being drawn.
"No need! The old man Yang didn't see our appearance clearly, and thought he had seen a ghost, so don't make any extraneous branches!"
Usba stops the black ghost.
The black ghost in the room returned the sword to the sheath.
"Black ghost, you take out the Pisces jade pendant that you put in the box for the teacher!"
The Usiba inside is called the black ghost.
"Yes, Master!"
The black ghost obeyed and placed the sword on the table.
Inside, there was the sound of black ghosts walking, opening and closing boxes.
"Pisces Jade Pendant?"
Wu Chongzhen outside heard Wu Siba inside talking about the Pisces jade pendant, and secretly screamed in his heart, and immediately fell there.