Chapter 116
The night was as cool as water, and the clear rippling water was reflected on the red-painted wooden pillars of the waterside pavilion.
The person in the pavilion stood with his back to the outside world and his hands behind his back. His dark robe seemed to blend into the thick night.
"Master Li, have you thought about how to write the memorial to the capital?"
A deep voice came from the waterside pavilion, wrapped in the night breeze, adding a touch of coolness.
Li Huai'an said respectfully, "I will report the truth to Your Majesty."
He was the military inspector, and as the emperor's eyes in the northwest, he had to report all the progress of the war on the front line back to the capital as soon as possible.
Xie Zheng turned around with his hands behind his back, his eyes cold and sharp: "Lord Li was the military supervisor and was in Chongzhou that day. The rebels were able to escape from Chongzhou at night. Lord Li is also to blame, isn't he?"
Li Huaian maintained his bowing posture, his wide sleeves that reached down to his knees were blown by the lake breeze, and he still looked like a dignified gentleman.
He nodded and said, "It is true that I failed in my duty of supervision. I will report the matter to Your Majesty and ask for punishment myself."
The wind was strong by the lake. The two men faced each other at a distance of ten feet, their long hair and clothes being blown by the night wind.
Xie Zheng was half a head taller than Li Huaian, and when the other party bowed, he was almost half looking down at the person in front of him.
He remained silent for a long time.
His coldness was hidden under his handsome and resolute face, so others could not catch any of his emotions or guess what he was thinking.
But the sense of oppression Li Huaian felt did not ease at all.
He could not help but look at the young man about ten feet away without making a sound.
He was made a marquis at the young age of twenty, so it is not an exaggeration to say that he was a child of destiny.
Before the Battle of Chongzhou, Xie Zheng had never lost a battle and never restrained his sharpness. Everyone knew that he was the sharpest sword of Dayin.
But now, he is no longer sharp, but more like a rock on a cliff that has been exposed to wind and sun for many years but still remains majestic.
Xie Zheng asked him, "Master Li is a man of great learning, I think you have also heard of "Battle in the South of the City"?"
Although he and the person in front of him were of the same generation, for some reason, Li Huaian felt a bit nervous, as he usually does in front of his grandfather.
He tried his best to suppress the emotions in his heart and looked at Xie Zheng calmly: "What do you want to say, Lord Hou?"
Xie Zheng said: "I would like to give you two lines of poetry from the poem "Battle in the South of the City" by Lord Li: 'The soldiers are lying in the grass, and the generals are at your service. You know that weapons are deadly weapons, and sages use them only when they have no other choice.'"
The tone was cold and every word struck Li Huaian's heart.
Although he had guessed it, Li Huaian's pupils still shrank suddenly when he heard these words with his own ears.
He really knows everything!
The guilt and the fear that the Li family would be cursed for eternity after discovering the truth tore at each other in his heart, and in an instant his back was soaked with sweat.
Xie Zheng walked out of the waterside pavilion and paused as he passed by Li Huaian. He said, "I hope Lord Li can comprehend this poem "Battle in the South of the City" carefully."
Even after he walked away, Li Huaian still stood there without moving.
Ever since his grandfather decided to join forces with the emperor's grandson to overthrow Wei Yan, he knew that many people would die.
But compared with overthrowing the Wei Party and clearing the court, what does the death of a few soldiers in this border area in the northwest matter?
Has any political reform in history always resulted in deaths?
When making minor changes to governance, people should be the primary focus, with laws as the last resort. When making major changes to governance, laws should be the primary focus, with people as the last resort.
In order to completely overthrow Wei Yan, there must be a major reform to revitalize the corrupt Dayin officialdom.
Since man is the last, sacrifice is inevitable.
But after Xie Zheng said that "the sage had to use it when he had no choice", he made a series of rebuttals, saying that he had lost the courage to support the country.
From Chongzhou to Lucheng, he followed the army all the way and knew how cruel the battlefield was, with corpses piled up like mountains and blood flowing like rivers.
In order to bring down Wei Yan, they personally designed a purgatory on earth.
Li Huaian covered his face with his hands, and suddenly laughed out loud in sorrow.
They were wrong, he thought.
-
As soon as Xie Zheng returned to the temporary residence, Xie Shiyi came to report: "Master, I have secretly arranged for Zhao Wen to see Sui Yuanhuai's body. As you expected, the dead person is not Sui Yuanhuai, but a substitute who has been raised by his side since childhood."
Lan used to be someone close to the Crown Princess and was very cautious. After the fire in the East Palace, she prepared a substitute for Sui Yuanhuai just in case.
Not only did the substitute have a body shape similar to Sui Yuanhuai, but in order to avoid being discovered as abnormal by the people in the palace, the scars on his body were even branded one by one with a branding iron, modeled after the burns on Sui Yuanhuai's body.
In order to regain the dragon throne in the future, Sui Yuanhuai endured the severe pain and replaced the burned skin bit by bit, and the substitute always looked like the one that had been burned.
After all, the servants in Sui Yuanhuai's courtyard were all from the Lan family, and Sui Yuanhuai had a reputation for being violent, so the other servants in Prince Changxin's mansion did not dare to go to his courtyard easily.
He seldom saw people, and even when he met Princess Changxin, he would wear a mask.
Therefore, over the years, almost no one in the entire Changxin Palace had ever seen Sui Yuanhuai's true appearance.
I think the Lan family prepared a substitute for Sui Yuanhuai in the hope that the golden cicada would escape from its shell and leave the Prince Changxin's Palace one day.
Xie Zheng took off his dark outer robe and handed it to the guard at the door without saying a word.
Xie Shiyi said cautiously: "Zhao Wen went to see the imprisoned mother and son, and said that they were not Yuan Huai's concubine and only son."
Xie Zhengxing sat down behind the desk, poured himself a cup of tea, and said, "I know."
The woman next to Yuan Huai was Yu Qianqian. When the mother and son were caught, he went to see them, and they were not Yu Qianqian and her son.
He didn't know before that Sui Yuanhuai's attack on Lucheng was a plan, but now it seems that Sui Yuanhuai had already made preparations for the Golden Cicada to escape from its shell.
Even the substitutes for Yu Qianqian and her son were found from the beginning.
If he hadn't arrived in time today, Lucheng would have fallen, but as soon as Tang Peiyi's reinforcements arrived, the crowd in the city wouldn't be able to hold out for long.
But before that, the ragtag group will kill many people.
Sui Yuanhuai would not control them. What he wanted was for the city of Lu to be filled with grief after it was captured.
Only in this way, when the censors impeached Wei Yan, those tragic cases could become sharp swords under their tongues, nailing Wei Yan to death in this bloody case that aroused hatred among both humans and gods.
It was after he figured this out that Xie Zheng's expression became even more gloomy.
Seeing that he looked unhappy, Xie Shiyi thought it was because Sui Yuanhuai and his companions had escaped, so he said, "Xie Yi and others are digging deep in the city to find someone. I think there will be results soon."
Upon hearing this, Xie Zheng ordered, "Let them come back first."
Xie Shiyi was puzzled: "Master Hou, why is this?"
Xie Zheng's dark eyes reflected the shadows of the two candles on the bronze table: "Sui Yuanhuai has already established contact with the Li family. Zhao Wen has not returned yet. If he is careful enough, he will not hide under the influence of the Zhao family after escaping. He can only seek shelter in the Li family first. If he does not show up on his own initiative, it will be a waste of effort to find him."
When Xie Shiyi heard this, he immediately realized that things were not simple. He asked, "Master Hou, then all we can do now is wait?"
Xie Zheng did not answer but asked: "Princess Changxin is also dead?"
Xie Shiyi nodded: "The bodies of Yuan Huai's substitute were all found in the tent and committed suicide."
"Suicide" is naturally to avoid being captured alive and interrogated.
The reason why the generals who went to chase the deserters were able to identify the corpse as Sui Yuanhuai was not only because of his luxurious clothes and the burns on his body, but also because the person who died next to him was Princess Changxin.
When Yuan Huai fled Chongzhou, he brought Princess Changxin with him, probably to ensure that he would be safe when escaping.
Xie Zheng said: "Pass this news to Sui Yuanqing."
Xie Shiyi was the youngest of Xie Zheng's personal soldiers. He was not as steady as Xie Wu and the others. He shook his head and asked, "My Lord, Sui Yuanqing is only a first-class prisoner now. Even if there is a vengeance for the murder of his mother, what's the point of telling him if we can't find Sui Yuanhuai?"
Xie Zheng just said: "Just do as I say."
He said those words to Li Huaian tonight on purpose.
Li Huaian had no idea how much he had found out, he only knew that their plan had been exposed and he would definitely find a way to contact Sui Yuanhuai to discuss countermeasures.
All we need to do is send someone to keep a close eye on Li Huaian and wait for them to reveal Sui Yuanhuai's hiding place.
Just as Xie Shiyi was about to leave, he suddenly remembered that there was another important matter. He looked at Xie Zheng hesitantly and said, "My Lord, I have also found out about Miss Fan's matter..."
-
The moonlight shone into the room through the screen window, casting a silvery frost on the ground.
The girl on the bed had her black hair spread all over the pillow, her head slightly tilted, sleeping soundly.
A person had been sitting quietly in the armchair in front of the window for who knows how long, and the moonlight cast a long shadow in front of the bed.
Xie Zheng held in his hand the gauze that Fan Changyu had changed and was stained with large patches of blood, and quietly looked at the bulging thin figure under the thin quilt.
She had lost a lot of weight and had countless injuries of varying sizes on her body.
Lying on his side in a curled-up position, he looked like a leopard that was always on guard even in its sleep.
Xie Shiyi's words were still ringing in his ears: "When the rebel army was approaching, Miss Fan was afraid that Lucheng could not be defended, so she asked to go out of the city to fight the rebel generals in order to delay time. It is said that Miss Fan called herself Meng Changyu, and was the descendant of Changshan General Meng Shuyuan. She was willing to die to continue the good name of her ancestor."
"The sixteen people fighting against the bandits had extremely fierce martial arts moves. They didn't look like soldiers. Miss Fan was outnumbered and nearly lost her life..."
Every word weighed heavily on Xie Zheng's heart, making it difficult for him to breathe.
A sharp and intense pain arose in his chest and his throat was itchy. Xie Zheng was afraid of disturbing her, so he covered his lips with his hand and coughed twice before suppressing the cough.
When he thought that she had really gone out with the intention of dying, and that if he had been a step later, she would have been a cold corpse under the tower, he suddenly couldn't control the anger and fear that was roaring in his bones.
The blood-stained gauze in the clothes basket that she had taken off when changing the dressings became extremely eye-catching.
When he first saw her in the daytime, her wounds had been bandaged and there was no sign of anything wrong. Only after he heard from Xie Shiyi that she had fought with more than a dozen assassins under Sui Yuanhuai's command did he realize what she had been through.
The death warriors around Sui Yuanhuai were the ones left by Prince Chengde for the Crown Princess. After the Crown Princess burned herself to death in the East Palace, those shadow guards obeyed Sui Yuanhuai. Each of them was a top master, and few could survive under their hands.
Xie Zheng only felt a sour sensation at the roots of his teeth, as if ants were biting his blood vessels, and veins bulging on his forehead. Even the pain from the whip marks on his back became negligible.
The knowledge that she had nearly died came back to grip him like a nightmare that had haunted him throughout his teenage years.
Nothing else matters, as long as she's alive.
In the darkness, Xie Zheng pressed his aching forehead. His pale face looked cold and yet indescribably gorgeous under the moonlight. His dark eyes stared at Fan Changyu who was sleeping soundly on the bed.
Perhaps he felt his overly sinister gaze even in his dream, but the person on the bed shrank uncomfortably.
Xie Zheng helped her put a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingertips were touching her cheek, as if he wanted to touch it but was trying hard to hold back. He said softly, "No one in this world has the right to kill you."
The author has something to say:
This chapter is even later, I will send 100 red packets to my dears, and I will try to be on time for the next chapter QAQ (I am a waste, don't scold me)
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