Old case

Mujing, the Niu family mansion in the south of the city.

It was late at night, and Niu Wenyuan sat alone in his study, covering his mouth as he let out a long yawn.

Yellowed books were piled haphazardly on the table, and the incense in the burner had long since burned out. The study window was half-closed, and Niu Wenyuan felt that breathing fresh air was the only way to stay awake while reading at night. Occasionally, a cool breeze would drift in, turning the pages of old paper on the desk.

The servant tiptoed forward to refill the cup of tea. Seeing how hard the master had worked every day since being promoted to Minister of Justice, he felt a pang of heartache. "Master," he said, "you've already read these cases more than ten times. With your memory, you should be able to recite them from memory by heart. Why do you still have to go through them every night?"

Niu Wenyuan rubbed his forehead and sighed, "What do you know? It's precisely because things are strange that we need to be even more cautious. The Ministry of Justice has only a handful of cases, but none of them can compare to this one. I want to see what Jiang Hengcheng is really up to all day."

The servant knew that his master had been disliking Magistrate Jiang of the Censorate for quite some time. The two openly argued over the attribution of major court cases, and at night, his master would secretly study, determined to outdo Magistrate Jiang. That's why he spent his days poring over these very old local chronicles and drafts on border military affairs. Knowing that further persuasion would be useless, the servant could only drape a coat over Niu Wenyuan and then quietly withdrew.

Niu Wenyuan took a sip of tea, his gaze casually falling on a fragmentary copy of the "Hecheng Gazetteer" from the early years of the dynasty.

The servant was right; he indeed knew this old case by heart.

He City is located on a strategic border of Dayu, and has been an important territory since the previous dynasty. However, the former governor of Hezhou betrayed the country and colluded with the remnants of the previous dynasty, which led to the loss of most of Hezhou's territory in the early years of Dayu. As a result, the prefecture was changed to a city, which is the He City we know today. Legend has it that the former governor, Liang, was pardoned by Emperor Taizu for committing suicide to atone for his sins, and his entire family was spared execution.

This history is known to almost everyone in Dayu. In the past, the Wei family fought on the battlefield, and the founding emperor personally pacified the enemy state, recovering the lost territories of the previous dynasty, thus ushering in the prosperous era of Dayu. Such heroic deeds, though three generations have passed, are never forgotten by the people of Dayu. Even though the Liang family withdrew from politics after this incident and retreated to Hecheng, living a secluded life, they still hold a place in Hecheng as a family of military strategists for generations.

One of the suspects implicated in the case of the murder of the son of the Prefect of Huidong, which was handled by Niu Wenyuan, was Liang Zhengyuan, a prominent member of the Liang family's grandchildren.

If Liang Zhengyuan hadn't recently returned in triumph and been ennobled for saving the princess, Niu Wenyuan wouldn't have remembered this case again, nor would he have thought of Hecheng, which Jiang Heng had subtly alluded to when he passed him a message.

Thinking of Jiang Heng's smiling face, Niu Wenyuan felt inexplicably irritated.

He turned to the yellowed page, held it up to the light of the candle, and frowned as he examined it more closely.

"...The battle of Hezhou was exceptionally arduous, lasting for forty days, with more than three thousand civilians dying. The prefect, whose name was not recorded, committed suicide on the city wall..."

Niu Wenyuan wanted to continue reading, but carefully moved his fingertips away. He found that the ink on the few lines of text he had covered was darker than the rest of the text. He hadn't noticed it in the daytime before, but now, under the candlelight, the marks were even more obvious.

His heart skipped a beat.

This manuscript has been altered!

However, this person's method was very clever. It seemed that he had carefully erased the previous handwriting and then rewrote it, so some characters could not be completely covered. For example, very blurry traces could still be seen on the paper, which, upon closer inspection, resembled the characters "Liang Feng".

Niu Wenyuan remembered that when he committed suicide to atone for his sins, the prefect of Hezhou at the time was surnamed Liang, and his name seemed to be... Liang Dongfeng.

Could the two be related?

Suppressing his excitement, he stood up and rummaged through a hidden compartment on the bookshelf behind him to find a scroll he had just managed to borrow from the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. It was "Chronicles of the Northern Frontier," written in the early years of the Dayu Dynasty.

He hurriedly turned to one of the pages, his expression extremely tense. Now, as he compared each word, his eyebrows furrowed even more tightly.

This copy of "Chronicles of the Northern Frontier" was a discarded manuscript copied by a clerk during the early days of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. It had remained unknown for many years, and presumably few people would have the leisure to even glance at it. He carefully read down, and saw a line of small characters written horizontally in the corner of the page:

"The prefect of Hezhou was besieged in an isolated city, without military provisions and cut off from reinforcements for more than sixty years. Corpses were everywhere in Hezhou, and a plague was spreading rapidly. The prefect died to prove his loyalty, but his body was not yet properly buried. The people pleaded with him to stay in the city..."

Even Niu Wenyuan, who was used to handling major cases, couldn't help but feel his heart pounding! Sure enough, he knew that there was something fishy about the incident in Hecheng back then!

These two records not only don't match the length of time He City was besieged, but also differ greatly in the specific reasons for the siege and the process involved. The person who could tamper with these details is definitely not an ordinary person! Niu Wenyuan took a deep breath, feeling the veins on his forehead throbbing—if He City were to be investigated more thoroughly, it would probably be a huge secret that would shake the court and the public!

Having been immersed in officialdom for many years, even though he was obsessed with cases and considered himself upright and incorruptible, Niu Wenyuan was not stupid. What he saw before him was enough to make him realize that this was probably a truth that had been covered up by thousands of people.

If he were to stir up this matter, he would likely be touching upon deeply entrenched interests, and he himself would be in grave danger.

He couldn't help but recall the case from long ago, when Jiang Heng visited him late at night during the trial of the murdered son of the Prefect of Huidong, and the meaningful words he spoke to him, as well as the letter he left behind when he hurriedly departed.

He had long known that Jiang Heng was as cunning as a fox... Could it be that this man already knew everything about Hecheng back then? Or perhaps he had misunderstood all along. At that time, Jiang Heng was hinting at something to him, and he thought it was the Golden Palace's instruction to stop the investigation. But now it seemed that Jiang Heng might have already discovered that this would inevitably involve the old affairs of Hecheng, a major case that would affect everything, and that was why he had come to subtly remind him?

For the first time in his life, Niu Wenyuan felt that he had never truly understood the always smiling young man.

.

This winter was extremely short. Once the first month of the lunar calendar was over, the willow leaves, which had just shed their frost, couldn't wait to sprout new buds, and the days gradually warmed up.

Lin Xu still felt somewhat dazed; how could it have suddenly become the eighteenth year of Yuanzhen...? She felt as if time was flying by, and according to her previous life, in just over half a year, the Lin family would face another catastrophe...

But she wasn't fully prepared.

Now that Jiang Heng and Dou Zhen have completely lost contact, Dou Zhen hid in her room and cried for several days. Now she has come to terms with it and is quite willing to let Bai Shi arrange her marriage. Seeing this, Bai Shi was naturally very happy. People from the Dou family often came to visit under the pretext of drinking tea, and for a while it was very lively.

At first, Madam Bai was deeply disappointed by the loss of Jiang Heng's connection to Dou Zhen. She was not only heartbroken that Dou Zhen had lost a suitable husband, but also worried that failing to form a marriage alliance with the Jiang family would be detrimental to her eldest son, Dou Yanzhou. However, after hearing that the Prince Gong's heir seemed to have taken a few extra glances at Dou Zhen when she came of age, she immediately put the Jiang family out of her mind.

The Gong Prince's family are imperial relatives, and the heir is a handsome and promising young man, a truly excellent choice for a husband in Mujing. If Dou Zhen could secure this marriage, it would undoubtedly be beneficial to her family, and the problem that has been giving Dou Yanzhou such a headache would surely be resolved.

Therefore, in recent days alone, the people of the Prince Gong's Mansion have frequently received warm invitations from the Bai family to come and sit for a while.

Since Lin Xu made enemies with the Princess Consort of Gong, the Fourth Miss, and Miao Yiyun in front of everyone, she naturally avoided them. She stayed in the villa all day, leaving Bai Shi and Aunt Guo to take care of entertaining guests. Because she was pregnant and because Dou Yanxun was gradually gaining power, Bai Shi did not dare to embarrass her openly.

The only thing that made her feel fortunate was that, no matter how difficult her situation was or how exhausted she was, her pregnancy had been quite stable since she became pregnant. Although Lin Xu sometimes felt nauseous, she hadn't experienced much morning sickness. Even the imperial physician who took her pulse was surprised, saying that her pulse was unusually stable for a pregnant woman.

She was comforted, feeling that she was a truly inadequate mother. She hadn't expected the little one in her belly to be so considerate, and she wanted even more to treat the baby well after birth, giving it all the best things in life. She wanted to make up for all the care and love she hadn't been able to give her child before.

However, Dou Yanxun seemed to think differently from her on this point.

At night, after taking a bath, Dou Yanxun was still exhausted, so he lay down on his side next to her.

Since he entered the Censorate, he has been extremely busy. Dou Yanxun was just a minor official in the Ministry of Works before being transferred to the remote and impoverished Lai Ning as a county magistrate. Even now that he has officially returned to Mu Jing as an Inspector General, such a political career is something that the hereditary nobles and the officials who have climbed up step by step through the imperial examinations are not satisfied with.

Within two months, a series of civil officials submitted memorials, arguing that Dou Yanxun had not participated in the imperial examinations but had only entered officialdom through the patronage of his father, Dou Huaisheng, and father-in-law, Lin Fu. They feared that with him overseeing all officials, it would be difficult to maintain public trust. Even the group of white-bearded old men in the Censorate laughed, saying, "In the past, we in the Censorate were the ones impeaching others; now it's our turn to be impeached! How strange!"

Lin Xu was worried that these rumors would affect his mood, and she didn't want him to lose weight, so she comforted him gently. Unexpectedly, Dou Yanxun just smiled faintly, but his expression had a bit of self-mockery.

"Does Madam think I can't even handle this little bit of mockery?"

The moonlight streaming in through the window was pale and jade-like, enveloping his gentle lips, yet the smile that bloomed within him carried a hint of sternness.

“I am the son of a treacherous minister, the illegitimate son born to a lowly concubine, and I have always been weak and sickly, incapable of great use. For many years, I have been like a reed by a stream, unnoticed by anyone. How could I, who have grown up like this, possibly take these few words to heart?”

He gently brushed the stray hairs from her ear, his warm breath lingering on her brow as she looked startled by his words, but he smiled calmly, "My lady, there's no need to worry. Your husband is tough and resilient; this little bit of wind and rain won't be a problem for him."

"That's true..." Before she could finish speaking, he cut her off.

Dou Yanxun’s low voice came from her chin, “Those people are unhappy that I entered officialdom because of my father and brother’s recommendation, and what they said is true. Now my elder brother is in trouble himself, and the Zhao family is determined to thoroughly investigate corruption, so naturally the fire has spread to me. Now even my father can’t refute these words.”

Even though they had been married for over two years, Dou Yanxun never discussed politics with her, especially matters concerning him. The two had previously harbored some resentment towards each other due to mutual suspicion and distrust.

Even though they've reconciled, Lin Xu doesn't want to interfere in his affairs. But even so, her heart skipped a beat, and she looked up at his eyes, which were gradually being enveloped by passion, in the moonlight.

"Will my brother be safe this time...?"

Dou Yanxun stopped burying his face in her chest. When he looked up again, his eyes had regained their usual clarity.

“Xuxu, do you know how many things your elder brother has asked me to do over the years?”

As intelligent and perceptive as she was, how could she not know that the two brothers, who had appeared to be amicable in front of outsiders for so many years, had long since broken their relationship? Even though it had never been confirmed, Dou Yanzhou's womanizing was an undeniable fact. On the contrary, Dou Yanxun, who used to be known as a playboy, was clean. Over the years, how could she not know that Dou Yanzhou had used Dou Yanxun for his own benefit and made his half-brother take the blame for him?

Moreover, Bai Shi was completely biased towards this son and was even willing to kill herself and Dou Yanxun. Even if Dou Yanxun really wanted to deal with Dou Yanzhou, why would she want to stop him?

Furthermore, if Dou Yanzhou had truly not abused his position to plunder the people, there would have been no collapse of the water conservancy system and no repeated floods that plagued the people year after year. No matter how small his role was at the time, once he became involved, there was no way he could have escaped unscathed.

However, there was one person she couldn't let go of in her heart.