Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 1164 - 1161_1

Chapter 1164: Chapter 1161_1

Lei Wu’s heart skipped a beat upon hearing this. Glancing over, he found the homing pigeon in his hand oddly familiar: it couldn’t possibly be the same one he released last night, could it?

But a whole night and morning had passed, that pigeon shouldn’t still have been in this forest!

"Zhang Qiang, quickly check what’s written on the letter!" someone was eager to know.

Zhang Qiang was the one who shot down the pigeon.

"Isn’t it wrong to read someone else’s privacy?" protested Zhang Qiang.

"Since we’ve already shot and killed the pigeon, forget about privacy! This message won’t be delivered now! There’s no harm in checking what’s on it!"

"Exactly! You don’t even know who sent the message or to whom, if it’s secret then we don’t even know whose secret it is! This no longer counts as privacy!"

"Correct, quickly read it out!" urged other soldiers.

Zhang Qiang, too, was interested in learning what was written on the pigeon’s letter. Seeing everyone’s curiosity, he said: "You’re right, since we don’t know whose privacy it is, there’s no harm in knowing. Let’s check it out."

Zhang Qiang unwrapped the note from the pigeon and glanced at it: "What is this? I can’t make any sense of it. Can anyone understand it?"

He handed the letter out.

Everyone huddled close, looking: "What does this say? Are these even words?"

"Can’t understand it, really confidential! Such a secret message!"

"Is this note written in celestial scripts? I may not be literate, but even I know letters don’t look like this!"

...

The soldiers discussed amongst themselves.

After hearing everyone else, Lei Wu was overcome by a foreboding feeling. Leaning in for a closer look, he almost spat out blood. This was undoubtedly the note he himself had written the previous night.

How could all of this be purely a coincidence?!

Was the pigeon slacking off last night? After he released it, did it sneak off to sleep under a tree, hence only making its way to this forest this morning? Was it so unlucky to get shot by his own men?

Lei Wu put his imagination to good use, conjuring a logical explanation for the pigeon’s appearance in this location.

You couldn’t blame him for thinking this way because when Lei Wu was catching the pigeon from its cage last night, it was already asleep!

But another worry lingered in his mind, was he discovered while releasing the pigeon last night? Was the pigeon intercepted and released again?

Worried it was a deliberate trap.

With these thoughts in mind, Lei Wu refrained from observing Zhang Qiang and the other soldiers’ reactions.

"Could this be a secret letter from the Imperial Court? I’ve heard some secret letters are written in unrecognizable scripts that outsiders can’t understand!" Zhang Qiang suddenly considered this possibility and couldn’t help expressing his concern.

Following Zhang Qiang’s statement, silence fell over the group.

Everyone felt there was a high chance of this being the case.

Considering this was still Minze controlled territory, if the note used strange symbols, it must contain extremely important news. It must have been written like this to prevent information leaks!

"If this truly is a confidential letter coming from or going to the Imperial Court, and you interrupted it by shooting down the pigeon, delaying an important affair, then...." The speaker didn’t finish.

But everyone understood the severity of the situation!

It must be understood that we’re in the midst of a war between two nations!

If it was a secret letter delivered by a pigeon, it clearly indicated that the matter was urgent and important!

Otherwise, they could’ve sent an express courier over a distance of 30 miles!

Hearing this, Zhang Qiang threw away the pigeon and the note in a panic: "I didn’t know this was a messenger pigeon! I thought it was just a common pigeon! Isn’t a pigeon supposed to fly overhead instead of stopping in a forest?"

One soldier picked up the pigeon and examined it carefully, then touched its crop: "This pigeon’s crop is filled, it was probably hungry and stopped by this forest looking for food!"

Lei Yong took the pigeon and examined it: It looked strikingly similar to the one he had released the previous night, almost identical.

He then felt the pigeon’s crop, it was distinctly bulging!

So, this lazy pigeon was shirking its duty and scavenging for food in the forest only to be shot by Lei Wu’s men?

How unlucky did he have to be to stumble on such an extraordinary coincidence?!

"What do we do now? Should we send this confidential letter to the lord?" someone asked.

Hearing this, Zhang Qiang quickly responded: "If we’re to send it to the lord, could we not mention that I shot down the pigeon? In case this delays something important, I don’t want to be..." Zhang Qiang couldn’t help but make a throat-slitting gesture.

"If we don’t say you shot it down, do we claim the pigeon flew into your arrow?" An irritated soldier commented.

"...or we could avoid reporting it altogether, right? After all, if we don’t report it, nobody would know the pigeon was shot down by me, right?" Zhang Qiang suggested anxiously.

"Aren’t we people? We all know!"

Zhang Qiang said: "We are all brothers, can’t you all just pretend you don’t know?"

Observing Zhang Qiang and finding his reactions genuine, Lei Wu said: "This doesn’t seem to be a confidential letter. What’s written on it looks more like a tune. Maybe lovers are transmitting music to each other. In that case, we don’t need to report it to the lord. Besides, our current task is to get the food supplies to the front line as quickly as possible. We are short-handed and have no one to spare to deliver the note. It’s better to do less than more. We better hurry up."

"General, now that you mention it, I recall this is a flute score. I’ve seen a scholar from the neighboring house learning it."

"So, it’s a flute score, isn’t that a relief! Guess we won’t have to bother about it. The pigeon looks rather plump, we’ll make soup out of it for dinner tonight. What do you say, Zhang Qiang?" Their hearts lightened, their thoughts turned towards preparing the pigeon for dinner.

, "Of course it’s plump, look at it stuffing itself until its crop bulges. I reckon you brought it down because it ate so much it couldn’t fly! Whoever reared this pigeon must be questioning their decision, how can such a gluttonous and lazy pigeon be trained to deliver messages!"

Lei Wu on hearing this glanced at the pigeon, which did indeed appear to be both lazy and greedy. He wondered why he picked such a pigeon as a messenger in the first place!

...

And so, they concluded the pigeon incident and continued their journey.

In the evening, Zhang Qiang did indeed turn the pigeon into soup.

Lei Wu sneaked a look at the pigeon’s insides, which was removed during preparation, finding its crop filled with wild fruits thus assuaging his doubts.

Apparently, his pigeon got delayed in the forest scavenging for food!

Bearing in mind that domesticated pigeons are usually fed a diet of mixed grains and cereals, no one would bother to forage for wild fruits to feed a pigeon.

He would make it a point in the future to avoid such lazy and greedy pigeons for training as messenger birds. It seemed, not only were lazy and greedy people unreliable, but the same applied to pigeons as well, Lei Yong thought to himself.

That night Lei Yong sent out another pigeon, using the note he had earlier picked up from the ground.

On the rooftop, a person dressed in black secretly witnessed everything, then quietly left the roof and took this information back to the Imperial Capital.