"Gao Liu and Gao Shen, how dare you! Why aren't you kneeling down to receive the imperial decree?!"
With the help of her maid, Gao Liu knelt down.
Shen Qing snapped out of her daze and knelt down as well.
A dozen or so officers and soldiers stood in two circles, the atmosphere tense and grim, while the official holding the imperial edict glared at them coldly.
Shen Qing placed both palms on the ground and kowtowed.
The official opened the imperial edict and proclaimed: "By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: The Gao family of Jiangzhou donated goods containing a deadly poison. Soldiers at the front lines suffered from vomiting and diarrhea after consuming them, resulting in repeated defeats! The Gao family is guilty of treason, colluding with foreign traitors, and should be executed along with their property! The head of the Gao family, Shen, and all related individuals are hereby escorted to the Provincial Judicial Office for execution in the autumn! This is the imperial decree!"
The Provincial Judicial Office was a large prison specifically for detaining death row inmates to be executed in the autumn. Once someone was imprisoned here, it meant there was no possibility of overturning their conviction.
Shen Qing's mind went blank for a moment, then her will to survive prompted her to react immediately.
"My lord!" she cried, rising to her feet. "There is absolutely no problem with my donation! I'm innocent!"
The official, with a stern look, waved his sleeve and said, "Take him away!"
The officers and soldiers immediately put wooden handcuffs around Shen Qing and Gao Liushi's necks and took them out of the dining hall.
Shen Qing turned around and saw that Chunju, Sulan, and a group of maids and servants also had their hands cuffed and were being driven out of the dining hall by the bailiffs.
Wailing cries filled the air.
Shen Qing forced herself to calm down.
She searched for Jiang Shen, He Fei, and Lao Xu all the way until she left the Gao family's gate. The place where the carriage should have been parked was empty, and she knew that the three of them had escaped a disaster.
That's fine too.
They will definitely help her notify Qi Zhenheng, and Qi Zhenheng will definitely find a way to save her and the Gao family.
Even if Qi Zhenheng is powerless to save them, at least the three of them can survive.
...
The prison van slowly drove through the busiest street in Jiangzhou.
Shen Qing and Gao Liu were both locked in a prison cart, while pedestrians lined both sides of the road to watch the spectacle.
"Aren't these the old lady and young mistress of the Gao family? What happened?"
"I heard they poisoned the soldiers' food supplies, causing them to lose the battle!"
"Tsk tsk, these merchants will do anything for money..."
"Isn't that right? Now look what's happened, they're being taken away to be beheaded..."
Shen Qing listened expressionlessly, but his heart was in turmoil.
If compressed rations are truly toxic, then it must be because someone secretly poisoned them after they left the factory.
If it was a recent battle that was lost, it must have been against the Japanese.
The year following in history would have been the First Sino-Japanese War, but before the official start of the war, there had already been many frictions with the Japanese.
Japanese……
Suddenly, Cheng Zhiwen's figure flashed before Shen Qing's eyes.
Cheng Zhiwen is also active in Japan; perhaps he knows who did this...
Shen Qing silently noted down this clue.
She looked up at the blazing sun overhead and squinted.
The earliest time for executions after the autumn harvest is the tenth month of the lunar calendar, and it's currently the beginning of the ninth month, so there's still a month to go...
She hoped she could live to see Qi Zhenheng.
...
"Squeak...squeak squeak..."
A fat, black rat crawled past Shen Qing.
A bowl of steaming food was placed on the ground; it had just been delivered by the constable.
The mouse crawled over and began to eat, squeaking.
"Little girl," the prisoner in the opposite cell advised, "hurry up and eat your food, otherwise the rats will have eaten it all, and you won't be able to eat it even if you want to."
Shen Qing glanced at the food on the ground, then turned her head away.
She leaned against the wall, breathing weakly.
She had been imprisoned in the provincial prison for several days. On the first day, in order to conserve her strength, she forced herself to eat the food even though she knew it was sour.
The next day, she started to have a fever and vomit, which she guessed was food poisoning caused by stale food.
She stopped eating the food brought in by the servants and to this day, she has difficulty even breathing.
If things continue like this, she will starve to death here before she can be executed in October.
With a loud bang, the prison door was opened.
The constables came to take the prisoners from the opposite cell.
The man was eating when the bailiff entered and kicked over the food he was holding. The man looked at the bailiff in astonishment and asked cautiously, "Sir, isn't the execution day yet? It's only the middle of the ninth month of the lunar calendar."
Shen Qing looked over upon hearing the sound.
The constable kicked the man in the shoulder blade: "I'll change your cell! Enough with the nonsense! Let's go!"
The man quickly scrambled to his feet and followed the constable out.
The sound of chains dragging on the ground was incessant, and Shen Qing became increasingly irritated.
She buried her face in her knees, letting her emotions sink into boundless darkness.
The cell door was opened again.
It's possible that another bailiff came in and took other prisoners out.
Shen Qing didn't look up this time; her mind was becoming increasingly sluggish and lazy, and all she wanted to do was sleep.
She simply lay down on the ground, intending to fall asleep there.
Only when she falls asleep can she temporarily escape all of this.
"Qing'er... Qing'er..."
Half-asleep, Shen Qing heard someone softly calling her name.
You must be dreaming.
She continued to sleep, hoping to make the dream last longer.
"Qing'er, it's me, your older brother. Wake up..."
Big brother...
Shen Qing woke up with a start and got up to look at the cell door.
Qi Zhenheng squatted there, his hands wrapped around the thick wooden railing, looking at her with red eyes.
Shen Qing sat up abruptly, immediately scrambled over, and looked at Qi Zhenheng through the wooden railing, anxiously saying, "Big brother, you've finally arrived. Do you know what happened?"
Qi Zhenheng, his thick eyebrows drooping and his eyes red, said, “Some time ago, a peasant uprising broke out on the Korean Peninsula. The imperial court dispatched several large armies to the peninsula, but they suffered defeat after defeat in the battles against the Japanese invaders. A letter came from the peninsula army, saying that the defeat was because the soldiers ate the rations you donated and suffered food poisoning. The emperor was furious and ordered the execution of all those involved.”
Shen Qing was taken aback: "So this is just one person's story, right? He said the defeat was because the soldiers ate the rations I donated. Is it possible that someone poisoned them? Or is the defeat not related to the rations at all, and it's just an excuse?"
Seeing Qi Zhenheng remain silent, Shen Qing knew she had guessed correctly.
Overwhelmed by a surge of grievance and resentment, her eyes reddened, and tears welled up and streamed down her face.
"Without any investigation or evidence, just because someone said the defeat was due to those rations, the Emperor believed it and immediately ordered the execution of us innocent people... How absurd!"
Qi Zhenheng glanced behind him to make sure no one had entered before lowering his voice to say to Shen Qing, "Qing'er, calm down and listen to me—"
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