The Golden House is Still There

In order to get rid of the madman's sight, she took off her shoes, threw away her rings and jewelry, and ran faster. There was no light in the inner room, which gave her a little hope.

Following closely was the sound of Liu Che's footsteps, getting closer and closer. She pushed open a door and squeezed in through the crack. She could only rely on groping. It seemed to be a cabinet. She opened it, climbed to the narrow grid at the top, and curled up to go in.

Liu Che did not shout loudly, so she could only guess his distance by the sound of his footsteps, which sometimes came closer and sometimes farther away. There was the sound of something scratching, a thud, something fell, and something else shattered, sometimes there was a muffled sound, and then something fell to the ground.

It's the sound of arrows.

She covered her nose with both hands to prevent her from breathing loudly.

Liu Che had a keen ear. Once, when he accompanied her into the woods to hunt, she would draw her bow and shoot her arrow while she was still searching for prey. She also discovered that he enjoyed playing hide-and-seek with his prey.

In a hidden world that no one can see or explore, he relies on his natural keenness to enjoy the joy of making the night as bright as day.

She heard doors being pushed open, and he seemed to be walking away, going deeper into the room.

Her limbs were stiff and she still dared not move. After a long time, until there was no sound at all, she carefully climbed down.

She fumbled to hold the door, and very slowly moved her body to the side to look. Before she could see anything, she suddenly felt a warm touch on her hand.

Her heart sank and she shuddered.

Liu Che pushed the door open and came in, holding her hand tightly.

She stepped back, her eyes alert, and he pressed forward, blowing out the tinder and lighting the candle.

She had nowhere to retreat, and in the corner, Liu Che suddenly picked her up and threw her on the couch, then began to unbutton her clothes.

"Your Majesty!" She was horrified and struggled to grab his neck. He pulled off her belt and bound her hands. Seeing her clothes peeling off layer by layer and his clothes in disarray, she was shocked to find that her body was also beginning to get hot.

It was the incense burner. The incense burner in the main hall was different. He had already calculated all this.

She sneered, "Your Majesty has been planning this all along. It's clear that you are shameless and covet my wife, yet you are so confident in your words, destroying my innocence and fabricating charges against me!"

Liu Che did not stop what he was doing. He seemed to have no intention of being affectionate with her, but was only venting his anger. He tore her clothes to shreds, leaving only the last layer of her inner garment, a thin gauze mantle.

He put his big hand over her, and the intense pain made her curl up suddenly, her eyes filled with heat.

"Aren't you content now? You're shameless and greedy for fame and fortune, so why put on airs? You've been teasing me and provoking me so many times, do you really think I can do nothing to you?"

As he spoke, he leaned over her, lowering his head to bite her. The wet and tingling sensation made her unconsciously clasp her fingers together, her mind and body at war.

"Your Majesty, you're always belittling and hating me for imitating the deposed empress. You seem to have deep feelings for your old friend, but it turns out you've long been obsessed with beauty and indulged in lust. If the deposed empress knew this, she'd probably crawl out of her grave in disgust."

Her breath suddenly stopped, and her slender neck was restrained by him.

"How can you interfere in the relationship between me and my predecessor? Who do you think you are?"

Her face had turned from red to purple, and she kept slapping his hands, but she looked at him with a mocking smile, "I am nothing. Even as noble as my predecessors and my wife, Your Majesty, I ended up in a miserable state, retired to the long gate, and burned to death! My life is like an ant. In Your Majesty's hands, I will naturally be skinned and torn apart."

Liu Che was obviously furious. In the dark night, he seemed to have lost all reason and allowed his senses to vent.

Rage masked lust, which was better than her being toyed with.

Seeing that the woman in front of him was not afraid at all and instead smiled contemptuously, his eyes darkened and he almost lifted her up with one arm.

Her face turned pale, and tiny streaks of blood began to appear on her fair face. She began to panic. She struggled like prey that he had grabbed by the scruff of the neck and was about to slaughter.

It didn't matter, it was normal for prey to fear death. He didn't want to kill her easily, but for some reason, her body had an inexplicable attraction to him. Although the two faces were obviously not similar, he could always find her shadow in her.

He had indeed lost his mind a little, but fortunately, the prey was smart and reminded him that she was not herself.

Since it's useless, just kill it...

A Jiao realized that Liu Che really wanted to kill her. Her goal had been achieved and she could not continue.

"Liu Che!"

She struggled and called out his name with all her might. The anger and arrogance in her voice startled him and he subconsciously let go of her hand.

Then a loud slap hit him in the face.

The right side of his face was burning, his eyes were a little blurry, and under the dim light, he seemed to see Gillian's coquettish face.

"What right do you have to kill me? My husband fought and shed blood for the Han Dynasty, and you, as the king, indulged in pleasure and raped someone else's wife. With such behavior, who else would dare to serve the Han Dynasty?"

Liu Che did not respond abnormally. He had a headache at the moment. He knew that the face in front of him did not belong to A Jiao, but the person in front of him had moving lips and teeth, and angry eyes, which looked very much like A Jiao.

"Who are you?"

He asked, holding his head and frowning.

What answered him was a loud bang. Cheng Jiao slowly got some air, the purple color slowly faded, and the woman in front of him slowly fell down.

She closed her eyes and pretended to faint at first, waiting for Liu Che to leave. Later, she really fell asleep and was sweating all over.

When she woke up, Liu Che was gone. The stone door was locked with a special mechanism. She pushed it, but it didn't budge. It was pitch black inside.

Liu Che finally did not kill her, as he still had some desire to spy on her.

So she couldn't get out.

After confirming this, the woman in the dark room smiled.

Huo Changqing was at the front, and the Empress was confined to the inner palace. No one except those in the Huo residence would care about the whereabouts of a minor figure like her. She had to find a way to spread this news, so that no one would believe her in the future confrontation.

The emperor imprisoned his minister's wife.

It wasn't enough for Huo Changqing to know. He had to let the court officials know, those who were courageous, prestigious, and capable, and push the secret to a point where it could no longer be avoided or concealed...

She walked to the door and tentatively twisted the bun on the head with the snake figure carved on it, and the door slowly moved open.

The outer room was brightly lit. She expertly walked around a long corridor and turned right at the end. This corridor seemed completely different from the one before. It was paved with jade, and the lamps on the wall were exquisite and beautiful, with colored glaze covers. The candlelight didn't produce much smoke.

When she got here, she frowned, feeling a little hesitant. After thinking for a while, she continued along this path to the room at the end.

There were still two demons with human bodies and snake tails painted on the stone door. She twisted the round bun of the human body as before and pushed the door open to enter.

The moment she stepped into the door, her heart was struck hard and trembled violently.

Under your feet is a pool of pure glass that looks like water. When you step on the ground, the water separates you from the gold bricks.

On either side were walls of pure gold, with eight golden pillars rising like dragons, their mouths gaping as they stretched out towards the roof. Looking up slightly, one could see the Celestial Palace, the fairy trees of the Jade Pool, and the steeds of the Jade Pool... the relief carvings were vivid and lifelike.

The golden light in the room became brighter under the fire, making people feel like they were in a dream.

She sat in her mother's arms, playing with the golden ring on her hand. Guan Tao hugged her and teased Liu Che, "A Jiao broke your wooden sword, are you angry?"

"Don't be angry. I can make another wooden sword for my cousin."

As he spoke, he pieced together the wooden sword that Gillian had just broken.

Guan Tao was just joking. When he saw Liu Che really handed over the broken wooden sword, he smiled and pushed it away: "Cousin, you don't like wooden swords. You like gold ones."

Liu Che thought for a moment and said, "Then I'll make a golden sword for my cousin when I get back."

Guan Tao saw his serious expression and laughed, "Zhi'er likes cousin so much."

Liu Che nodded.

Guan Tao laughed when he heard this and said, "Then how about marrying A Jiao to Zhu'er, Aunt?"

Liu Che immediately dropped the wooden sword in his hand and said seriously, "If I marry cousin A Jiao, I will build a house made of gold for her to live in. I will give her all the gold in the world!"

——

The childhood dream had now come true, but her heart ached, as if she were being beaten and whipped by millions of people.

Suddenly, she became furious and began to stomp on the glazed ice bricks with her feet. She tried to destroy everything here with her brute force, everything that was unreal, cruel, and ridiculous.

Liu Che, oh Liu Che, you couldn't forget A Jiao after she died, and you kept the death of your late wife a secret. If you loved her so deeply, why did you have Wei Zifu in the first place? And why did you abandon her to the deep palace because of her?

Chen Ajiao is dead. Who are you trying to show off by building a golden house here to enshrine her spirit?

Tears welled up in her eyes. She took a deep breath and wiped them away. She walked to the front right, leaned over, and felt around with her hands. This was just an ordinary stone chamber. Emperors of all dynasties had escaped disasters or had secret secrets in the underworld.

When my grandmother was young, she followed my grandfather to take my uncle and mother to seek refuge. My mother told her about this underground palace. She also told Liu Che that her uncle had already appointed Azhu as the crown prince, and the crown prince would be the future emperor, right?

She and Liu Che came here through the secret passage, and often did things here that her mother forbade her to do, such as swordplay, playing with katydids, cockfighting, and alchemy...

This room was the smallest and furthest away. My uncle usually didn't come here, so he wouldn't be able to find them. Even if he did, they could still go up through the secret passage here. The underground palace was so large that it spanned the interior and exterior of the imperial palace.

Cheng Jiao pressed the brick of the wall on the lower right side and held her breath. Liu Che had reshaped this place, and she could only rely on her memory to find the mechanism.

After waiting for a while, I saw a small hole slowly appearing.

It's still there, and everything seems to remain the same as before...

She suppressed the strange feeling in her heart and went in through the opening. It was an extremely narrow stone wall with a rope ladder hanging on it. Climbing up, she could reach the outside of the palace.

The rope ladder had been in disrepair for a long time. She struggled to climb out of the stone chamber, pushed the stone above her head, tidied her clothes, and finally saw the long-lost sunlight.

This was a dilapidated temple, its golden and bronze Buddha statues corroded by the passage of time, the bronze stained with rust. Cobwebs formed scars, and the pillars and beams were hollow and worm-eaten.

She squinted her eyes as she walked out of the dilapidated temple, peering out from the gate. Smoke rose from where the white clouds were setting. In the capital, on Suzaku Street, where dignitaries gathered, ordinary little houses like this were rare. She could vaguely see an old woman gathering firewood and entering the kitchen.

That was where she was going on this trip - Zhang Yannian's mansion.