The Misfortune of the Rich (Part 1) "Qin Luo, Xiao Qing isn't here..."

The letter in her hand fluttered to the ground. Qin Weixi stared at him in astonishment, her heartstrings trembling. It was as if a torrential downpour had just passed through the Qin family mansion, and the clear sky after the rain had dispelled the gloom that had been buried deep within her heart for ten years. Seeing his calm expression, as still as water, she understood. She asked, "When did you recognize me?"

Chu Yening glanced at the letter lying on the ground with her eyes down, then fixed her gaze on the closing words of the letter: "May you live a peaceful and carefree life."

He picked up the letter and suddenly smiled, "Very early. Well, it's fortunate that I've been with the Luo family all these years."

Her tears subsided, and Qin Weixi looked at him, choking back sobs, "Why didn't you say so? Did you believe me?" She shook her head, giving a bitter smile, "No. Back then, the Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, Cai Yuan... back then, they knelt in the snow before the palace to plead for you. Fourth Brother, I know it all. How could I pretend not to know?"

Chu Yening neatly folded the letter and placed it back in her hand. Then he looked at her and said, "I was waiting for you to say it. But I can't wait any longer." He took off his cloak and draped it over Qin Weixi's back. Then he walked to the stone steps not far away, sat down, and smiled, "It's getting windy, don't get chilled."

Upon hearing this, Qin Weixi tightened her grip on the letter but did not step forward. Chu Yening raised an eyebrow and said gently, "Come here, I have something to say to you."

"Qin Luo, there are no little green snakes here."

"What!" Her eyes widened, and she suddenly realized—it was the little green snake on the summit of Xiaguang Peak. Grandmother Zhao knew she was afraid of snakes, so every year she would order palace servants to catch them, hoping to frighten or bite her. But this secret of her fear of snakes was known only to her father, mother, brother, and Grandmother Zhao, who had appeared on Xiaguang Peak. And also to her childhood nickname.

How did he know that?

"It's you!" She frowned, her eyes filled with anger. She turned away from him, slightly raised her chin, looked up at the moon, and said no more.

At that moment, Chu Yening, who was standing beside him, felt as if a sharp sword had pierced through his heart meridian, causing him so much pain that he could not speak.

When she was young, she was like a cat with its fur standing on end. If anyone touched her fluffy fur, her temper would flare up and she would never hold back her words.

Now, she is as serene as Haizi Lake, where even a gentle breeze cannot stir a ripple. He suddenly recalled the day he first returned to the capital, when he rescued her from the collapsing Star Gazing Tower and then let her dismount from her horse at the shore of Haizi Lake.

"Seventh Sister, I also wanted to take A-Shuo's body with me back then."

Qin Weixi turned to look at him with disbelief, then suddenly walked over as if possessed.

"Old Zhong said that if this happens, the royal family will definitely punish and implicate the remaining women of the Qin family. At this time, the emperor's suspicions will be extremely high. If we then condemn the Xiao family, the maternal family of the Duchess of Dingguo, we would be making a big mistake."

His eyes were filled with sorrow: "But I had no way of knowing that Aunt Xiao had already died under the Dengwen Drum at that time. Perhaps if I had tried harder and arrived earlier, I might have been able to save Brother A-Shuo and Aunt Xiao."

She looked down at Chu Yening, the cool moonlight bathing him. Then, with eyes full of frost, she looked over the eaves towards the direction of Penglai Peak. After a long while, she walked to him and sat down beside him.

Chu Yening looked up at her and smiled faintly: "I never thought that anyone would harm an eight-year-old child. Before entering the capital, I learned that you were in Jiangnan, so I sent eight hundred elite soldiers who were loyal to my father to Jiangnan to find you. All the officials in the court thought that these eight hundred soldiers had died at the border."

"But news of your drowning soon reached the capital. As for me, the capital is more than a thousand miles from the battlefield, and everything will end up like a dried fish in a market."

Or perhaps, if he hadn't been injured back then, he might have found her brother before the Luo family and protected her mother's health.

Qin Weixi turned to look at him, opened her mouth, and asked, "You sent someone to look for me?"

Chu Yening was also looking at her: "We've never been on opposite sides, have we?"

He smiled self-deprecatingly: "My father went on his last campaign with the resolutions of the entire court. That battle lasted from spring to winter. The remnants of the Yu Dynasty were cunning and brutal, and were eventually decimated by our army. The remaining tens of thousands of people, along with their leaders, hid on the loess slope. I also nearly lost my life there after being wounded by an arrow while saving Li Mou. On the way back to the capital, I was chased all the way, probably because they thought there was no one left in my Chu family to return to."

"You're injured?" Qin Weixi was greatly shocked. Two lives were lost in the Chu family. Even if his father and brother were still alive at the time, they would certainly not be able to recover under the pressure from the entire court. Liang Xu must have known that he would not be able to return. Even though he felt something was amiss at the time, he immediately took the item that symbolized his brother's identity and returned to the palace after murdering his brother, leaving the rest of the matter to Liang Bai with peace of mind.

She dared not think any further. She looked at Chu Yening, speechless for a long time, as if a huge, hard rock was stuck in her throat.

Chu Ye Ning paused for a moment, looking at the letter clutched tightly in her hand. Suddenly, her face tightened, and she said, "There's something else that's really strange. Long before this, after Father fought with the leader of the Yu Dynasty, he urgently sent a messenger back to the capital with a secret letter, entrusting His Majesty to deliver it to Uncle Qin. It seems to be related to the Qin family. Later, the messenger disappeared. I don't know what was written in that letter. Father seems to be intentionally hiding it from me. Perhaps Uncle Qin received that letter, and when the Qin family was raided, everything in the palace was confiscated."

"Perhaps Uncle Qin never received the letter at all, and it was deliberately intercepted en route. Then I learned from my father that some court officials had long wanted Uncle Qin to come and help, since he had been to this place before to pacify the enemy and should be more familiar with the terrain where the enemy was hiding than anyone else. However, Uncle Qin had injured his leg during that pacification mission and had some lingering health problems, so he could not go to the battlefield. His Majesty did not agree. Later, General Chen Chuansong of Dingyuan came, and he was received by his deputy, Li Mou."

"But later, most of the remnants of the Yu Dynasty gathered at Huangtupo. My father and the strategist devised a plan and attacked Huangtupo a few days later. This tough battle should have been over by the time the heavy snow came that year."

Qin Weixi listened quietly the whole time; she had no idea what was going on. And what about her brother? Did he know anything about these things?

She suddenly said, "So this inevitable death trap of the Qin and Chu families has been planned by someone for a very, very long time?"

Chu Yening smiled and did not deny it. He continued, "However, the next day, the scout in charge of reconnaissance suddenly carried Li Mou back to the camp. Li Mou returned with serious injuries and said that General Dingyuan was ambushed at Huangtupo. The original plan was that General Dingyuan should have come to the camp, but he went to Huangtupo for no reason."

“My father thought that Chen Chuansong must have fallen into the enemy’s trap. Moreover, the deputy general Li Mou was someone my father trusted very much. I was almost killed by an arrow wound. In the end, my father left me in the military camp and left most of the troops behind, only taking Li Mou and more than 10,000 soldiers, including the adjutant Zhao Xian, to rush to the rescue of Chen Chuansong.”

"Later, I struggled to my feet but found that my sword was missing. The army doctor, my father's confidant, took good care of me for several days. Although I was able to walk with difficulty, I could not exert too much energy. At that time, the only people who could come to the camp and get close to me besides Jiuqu and the others I brought were my father, the army doctor, and Li Mou."

"When I arrived, I found only Li Mou, a soldier, and Chen Chuansong had escaped death. Li Mou was covered in blood and on the verge of death. He said he had found a secret letter from the Yu Dynasty treasonous people. The handwriting on the letter belonged to the Duke of Dingguo, and the soldier was the one who had informed General Dingyuan that his father was fighting the enemy at Huangtupo. The soldier, who was holding my sword, saw his father die and immediately poisoned himself, also on the verge of death. As for the adjutant Zhao Xian, he had been tortured by the enemy and was unrecognizable. Chen Chuansong also succumbed to his injuries."

"General Chen only said one word to me at the time."

"Walk--"

Qin Weixi's face was deathly pale, devoid of any color, and her teeth chattered slightly. She said, "So it was Li Mou who stole your sword? And General Zhao died for Uncle Chu."

This secret letter was simply to inform everyone that the Duke of Dingguo had informed the Yu Dynasty people in advance, using Li Mou as bait to indirectly and severely injure General Chu Lanzhe's son. He then tricked Li Mou into stealing the sword that Chu Yening never parted with, which he always carried if he hadn't been seriously injured and on the verge of death. This made Chen Chuansong believe, upon seeing the sword bestowed by the late emperor, that Chu Lanzhe had indeed gone to rescue him before the battle at Huangtupo. Chen Chuansong was indeed ambushed, and Li Mou was sent back to find General Chu Lanzhe.

The Duke of Dingguo bribed soldiers and Li Mou to ensure Chu Lanze's death in a foreign land, avenging the humiliation his mother suffered and the bitter death of his father. When news reached the capital, the Emperor secretly summoned the Duke of Dingguo, who, determined to take responsibility for his actions, entered the palace and committed suicide. However, Zhuang Shijun, a staff member of the Qin family, fearing involvement in their secrets, fled overnight.

Not long after, things changed in the capital, and the Qin family was plunged into turmoil. Li Mou returned to the capital in glory with that secret letter.

Chu Yening raised his head and looked at the cold crescent moon overhead, his gaze as cold as ice: "So, from beginning to end, only Li Mou and Chen Chuansong knew what happened in the later battle at Huangtupo."

"Back then, Old Zhong said that the matter had already happened and there was no way to reverse it; the living were already dead. So after that, I used a counter-strategy, letting the enemy be in the open while I was in the shadows, and went to the Northwest to temporarily keep the Qin and Chu families in check."

He turned to look at the girl beside him, dressed in a snow-white silk dress, her aura serene and cold, tears welling in her eyes. A smile curved his lips as he gently wiped away her glistening tears with a finger.

She felt a sudden chill on her face, and her mind was suddenly filled with memories of that brief stay with him on the sunlit boat on Xiaguang Lake, where he was covered in a thick cloak, then the cold embrace in the Peach Garden of Xiaopenglai, and Tao Qingyun's description of the raging sandstorms and falling snow in the northwest.

Qin Weixi felt her heart twisting in agony, a pain so intense it was almost unbearable. She forced herself to sit up and rushed to a stone table and bench in the courtyard, intending to sit down and recover. But then everything went black, and she nearly fainted.

Chu Yening's gaze had been following her the whole time. Sensing something amiss, he immediately got up and rushed over. He grabbed her and steadied her, helping her to her feet.

The icy touch returned silently, as if spreading to every part of her body. She looked at him, her voice choked with emotion, and asked, "Fourth Brother, are you cold?"

Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision and soaking her cheeks.

Chu Yening gently and carefully embraced her in his arms, and this time, the girl in his arms did not struggle.

Her body was both cold and warm; the night breeze was cool, and the branches trembled gently in the wind. She responded to him slowly, clasping her arms and hands tightly behind his shoulders, and burying her head firmly in his shoulder. A series of sobs escaped her lips.

"Fourth Brother, do you still remember this osmanthus tree in the yard? During the time you lived in the Qin family, when you were little, Mother often made many snacks and sweet cakes and put them under the shade of the tree, often inviting us to come and eat them."