Chapter 464 I Can't Live Without You (Happy Chinese New Year!)
As the door of the Buddhist hall was pushed open by a servant from the outside, a thin figure appeared in Ma Wan's sight along with the light leaking in from outside the door.
It was already the end of March and the beginning of summer was approaching, but the man was still wearing a thin cloak. Under the cloak was a silver-gray bamboo-embroidered robe, which complemented his warm and elegant aura.
He walked into the Buddhist hall slowly, but his eyes immediately found Ma Wan.
Ma Wan, who stood up and looked towards the door when she heard the noise, did not miss his searching gaze.
When their eyes met, Ma Wan's heart was tense and her eyes were red. She wanted to call him "Prince" as she did before, but she couldn't open her mouth.
Having not seen him for many days, she had no idea of his attitude and thoughts during these days, nor the purpose of his visit at this time. So in this situation, she did not dare to speak rashly, and did not know what to say.
The moment their eyes met, thousands of thoughts flashed through Ma Wan's mind.
It all started with the letter she received from home last winter...
In the letter, her grandfather asked her to secretly investigate whether the Prince Rong's Mansion had any connection with Yu Zeng, the head of the Palace Office, and gave her a very clear clue - before Yu Zeng entered the palace, two of his familiar companions were sent to the Prince Rong's Mansion as servants. Many years have passed, one of them is no longer alive, and the remaining one came to Yizhou with Prince Rong.
According to Ma Wan's investigation, the man is now a small steward in the Rongwang Mansion in Yizhou. In terms of talent and qualifications, this person is only average, and in terms of family background, he is not as good as those family-born children in the Rongwang Mansion. It takes many years of hard work to get a steward position.
Therefore, objectively speaking, this person was not highly valued by Prince Rong, but since her grandfather had given her clear instructions, Ma Wan could only try to do it.
It was precisely because of this person's nebulous situation in Prince Rong's Mansion that Ma Wan was able to "smoothly" win her over by presenting herself as the Crown Prince's Consort.
Afterwards, this person secretly treated Ma Wan, the Crown Prince's Consort, and showed his kindness in many clever ways, revealing his willingness to please Ma Wan.
Once, Ma Wan chose the right time to ask this person indirectly about the past events related to Yu Zeng, the head of the Palace Office. This person did not show any strangeness, nor did he deny that he knew Yu Zeng when he was a child. But he told Ma Wan that since Yu Zeng entered the palace, the two of them had gradually had fewer opportunities to interact, and finally sighed that "same person, different fate".
Although no valuable information was provided, the other party's reaction seemed to be normal and his answers were very detailed and attentive, without any evasion or perfunctory response.
But after this person left, Ma Wan felt a chill in her heart and an indescribable uneasiness emerged.
Because his reaction was so "normal", he didn't even show a trace of surprise when she asked about Yu Zeng, and this was an old story that was older than her age... He wasn't even curious about how she knew about it? Why did she ask about it? Was this a sign of being a smart person, or was there another reason? That night, Ma Wan didn't sleep all night, thinking a lot about this steward, about the Rong Palace, about her grandfather and the saint...
The next day, she went to pay her respects to Princess Rong as usual, but when she was about to leave, she was stopped by two maids who politely told her that the princess's illness was difficult to recover and asked her to go to the Buddhist temple to fast and copy scriptures to pray for the princess.
As a daughter-in-law, especially a daughter-in-law of the Li family, it is very common to take care of her mother-in-law when she is sick or pray for her mother-in-law. She has also taken the initiative to propose it, but the princess always smiled and said, "It's enough to have this intention."
So this couldn't be what the princess meant... Thinking about the conversation she had with the steward yesterday, it was hard for Ma Wan not to think too much.
She subconsciously said that she wanted to go back and prepare something first, but the two maids' submissive attitude revealed a toughness, and they only said, "The maids will prepare everything the Crown Prince's wife needs."
At that moment, Ma Wan's head was buzzing and there was no hope at all.
The steward must have passed on what she had discovered to Prince Rong...
Admittedly, her means of eavesdropping were not very sophisticated... but looking at the huge Rong Palace, everyone was staring at her, and there was no one she could use, so she had no more reliable and comprehensive means to use.
Most importantly, her grandfather had told her in the letter to "make sure to get to the bottom of this matter"... In her current situation, the word "must" itself meant taking risks and sparing no expense.
But if such a secret thing is true, can she really find out at all costs? It is said that her grandfather would not be so whimsical, and a saint would not be able to...
She was not a stupid person, so from the moment she saw the letter from home, she realized the significance of this mission. Perhaps it did not lie in the answer, but in the process of her following orders.
She sensed something strange and realized the danger, but she had no choice but to follow her grandfather's arrangements... She still hoped that the Prince Rong's Mansion was "innocent", and secretly hoped that the saint could dispel his doubts through this matter.
But she was not unaware of the changes in the situation in Yizhou during these days, and the string in her heart had unknowingly become extremely tight and thin.
On the first night spent in the cold Buddhist temple, the string in Ma Wan's heart finally broke when the maid Lan Ying, who came with her as a dowry, could no longer hold back her tears.
She could no longer deny that her attempt to investigate the connection between Yu Zeng and Prince Rong's Mansion had probably touched upon the taboos of Prince Rong's Mansion, or at least Prince Rong. Or perhaps she had stepped into a part of the political struggle that she had no right to know the full picture of...
As ten, twenty, and fifty days passed, Ma Wan gradually realized that as the eldest granddaughter of the current right prime minister and the Crown Prince's Consort of the Rong Palace, who was married by the emperor's decree, she was being openly imprisoned here by the Rong Palace in such a dignified manner. It was obvious that the Rong Palace was no longer as afraid of the court and the emperor as before...
Even if we only look at this action, it is enough to show the Rong Palace's ulterior motives, isn't it?
Several months have passed. Grandfather, saint... do you know her current situation?
This question seemed meaningless. Perhaps when her grandfather wrote to her, he had already anticipated her current situation, or even worse... But could she blame her grandfather for being cruel to her?
She married into the Rong Palace not because of her grandfather's coercion, but because she knelt down and begged her grandfather for his approval... At that time, she kept saying that she did it for the Ma family, but the fact was not so.
As for the Saint... since she became the Crown Prince's Consort of Prince Rong, she has never obtained any useful information for the Saint. On the contrary, she has repeatedly explained and testified for the Prince Rong's Mansion...
In the eyes of the saint, she had probably already been an extremely disappointing and useless piece, and this time she had simply been turned into an abandoned piece.
Ma Wan often could not sleep all night. Thinking back on everything that happened after she married into Prince Rong's Mansion, she felt that she was really naive and foolish, and that everything she did was full of absurd traces of self-deception.
She thought Prince Rong was kind and benevolent, so she was convinced that he would not harbor any rebellious intentions. But were human hearts really that simple?
She had always been looking forward to a "win-win solution", so when she looked at the matters related to Prince Rong's Mansion, she unconsciously became biased.
She thought that she could only do so much, and that there was no one available in the Rong Palace. However, all the available people and things would never appear out of thin air. Did she really try to manage them? She didn't, because she subconsciously didn't want to "break away" from the Rong Palace, and didn't want the Rong Palace, especially her husband, to see her as a scheming spy with no sincerity.
So she has always been acting passively and perfunctorily, and has never actively faced her situation.
She is in this situation now, it can be said that she has brought this upon herself.
But... what about him? From the beginning to the end, what was his attitude and mood when he treated her? Were those music and promises all fake? After waiting day after day, just when Ma Wan was almost discouraged, that man suddenly appeared.
At this moment, their eyes met, and Li Lu approached her, with guilt and pity in his eyes, but he turned all of this into just one sentence: "Wan'er, I'm here to take you back."
Take her back?
Ma Wan was stunned, and finally spoke: "Mother...is she recovered?"
This was naturally not the most important thing for her, but nominally she was praying for Princess Rong. The maid who came to deliver the meal had said that she could leave after the princess recovered from her illness.
Furthermore, apart from this, it is inconvenient to say anything else rashly at this moment.
Li Lu looked at her and said in a noncommittal voice: "Wan'er, come back with me first."
As he spoke, he reached out his hand to her to reassure her.
Ma Wan looked at the hand that was stretched out to her. It was white, thin, and slender, but it seemed to be filled with heavy determination and the power to take her away.
It has been so long, and as the prince of Prince Rong's Mansion, he must have known the real reason why she was under house arrest... From a standpoint, there is no right or wrong, but she was the one who spied on his family affairs first.
Ma Wan's mind was in a state of confusion and she did not move for a while.
Li Lu took another step closer and gently held Ma Wan's hand. Noticing that the hand had become much thinner, Li Lu used a little more force with his fingers and held Ma Wan's hand tighter. His action seemed to contain infinite heartache.
But he didn't say anything more, just holding her hand, walked out of the temple, his steps were neither fast nor slow, but calm and firm.
The servants guarding outside the temple bowed and no one stopped them.
The sunlight outside the Buddhist temple was dazzling. Ma Wan looked around and truly felt that it was already late spring.
The bright spring scenery and the warm hands of her lover silently soothed and dispelled the coldness, darkness, fear and anxiety that had enveloped her body and mind for these days.
But all these emotions were destined to not be completely removed. She already had many clear answers in her heart, and too many questions she wanted to ask.
But should she bring it up? Or should she pretend nothing happened and continue to play her role? Reason and emotion were struggling, and Ma Wan was confused when she returned to the courtyard she had not seen for a long time.
To her surprise, Li Lu chose to take the initiative to explain everything to her.
Before this, Li Lu dismissed all the servants in the room.
Lan Ying, the dowry maid who came back from the Buddhist temple with Ma Wan, stood there without moving.
Seeing this, Ma Wan said, "Lan Ying, you should go out first."
Lan Ying, who dreamed of tearing the red string between her maid and Prince Rong apart, was very reluctant. She was afraid that the maid, who had finally begun to see the situation clearly, would be bewitched by this foxy Prince Rong again! However, facing her maid's gaze, Lan Ying knew that this was not the time for her, a maid, to act willfully. The girl was walking on thin ice at the moment, and as her maid, she had to be more cautious than before.
Lan Ying could only bow reluctantly and leave, closing the door.
In the inner room where no one else was, Li Lu took Ma Wan's hand and asked her to sit down on the couch by the window.
He did not sit down, but bent one knee and squatted in front of her, gently holding her hands on her knees.
For Ma Wan, who was in panic, this action was a comfort, a gesture of goodwill, and a manifestation of lowering one's posture.
Ma Wan felt something was wrong and tried to get up, but he held her hands.
He looked at her thin and bony hands, lowered his eyes to hide his pity, and said in a hoarse voice: "Wan'er, I left too late. You have suffered in the past few months."
Ma Wan's eyelashes trembled slightly: "Prince..."
"My father...indeed has the intention of starting a rebellion." Li Lu looked up at her with a complicated expression.
Ma Wan was stunned, not because of his words, but because he chose to tell her.
"I have argued with him a lot over this period of time..." There was a trace of struggle in Li Lu's eyes: "But my father said that the general trend is what the people want. Even if he is unwilling to follow the general trend, the saint will never tolerate the existence of the Rong Palace now. This is a situation that will inevitably cause someone to be injured. It is not his choice."
"Besides, the world is in chaos now. As a descendant of the Li family and the younger brother of the late emperor, father has an unshirkable responsibility to protect the people of this world..."
Li Lu's voice gradually became lower, and it seemed that he found it difficult to judge the right and wrong. It seemed that he was just an indifferent person who did not want to compete with the world, and being forced to be involved in these sharp and cruel life and death struggles was a kind of cruelty to him.
Ma Wan listened to his words and felt confused for a moment.
This is the first time the two have raised this issue of political stance directly since their marriage.
"Wan'er, I have always known that the reason you married me was because of the instructions of the saint..." Li Lu raised his head and looked at Ma Wan, saying: "But I can also sense that you treat me with sincerity, right?"
This question made Ma Wan's heart hurt.
In such a complicated position, she had clearly tried to spy on the secrets of Prince Rong's Mansion, but the person in front of her was still willing to believe her sincerity... This had extraordinary significance for Ma Wan, who had become an abandoned child and was on the brink of life and death.
His eyes were filled with sincerity that he didn't need her to explain, he just wanted her to answer.
Ma Wan, who had been tense all the time, still didn't say anything, but tears suddenly rolled down her eyes.
Li Lu seemed to have gotten the answer. He held her hand with a stronger force, but it was full of cherishment and relief. The corners of his eyes were a little red. He said in a frank tone: "Wan'er, I was indeed on guard against you at the beginning..."
"But I don't know when this defense disappeared completely... I gradually found that you and I are the most suitable people in this world. It is my great fortune to be able to marry you."
"These days, my father and I have discussed this for a long time..." He said, "Wan'er, I can't live without you, and I can't let anything happen to you."
Ma Wan was stunned and burst into tears again. So, it was he who pleaded with Prince Rong to save her?
Update from the first day of the Lunar New Year, Happy New Year to everyone! Thank you for your tolerance and understanding~
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