Chapter 133
The slight annoyance in Fan Changyu's heart disappeared in an instant.
She looked at Xie Zheng, then at the old man with one arm and one leg missing who came out of the manor. Although she was still confused, she pushed open the half-open gate and walked in with a little hesitation.
Xie Zhong stared at Fan Changyu's back and saw that she walked with steady steps and breathed heavily, unlike an ordinary lady from a noble family. He immediately had a guess in his mind and looked at Xie Zheng: "My Lord, this girl... could she be a descendant of the Meng family?"
It’s just that... the relationship between the Marquis and this girl seems a little unusual?
Xie Zheng did not comment.
The sun was setting, and half of his face and eyelashes were coated with a layer of light gold in the sunset. His pupils reflected Fan Changyu's receding figure, and the look in his eyes was so intense that it was impossible to see.
He said, "Later, you can send her back in person."
Xie Zhong was slightly stunned, and then he remembered what day it was, and his eyes couldn't help but become a little sad: "When you go there, take a few more people with you, I'm afraid of Wei Yan..."
"I know my limits."
Xie Zheng interrupted Xie Zhong, took one last look at Fan Changyu's back bathed in the glow of the sunset, and turned away.
The setting sun stretched his back extremely long, and he fell under the rays of light, looking even more lonely and isolated.
-
When Fan Changyu entered the courtyard, he heard noisy voices coming from a room with the door half open.
"I won't drink this bitter medicine that makes me puke. Bring me some wine!"
"General Zhu, please don't make things difficult for me. You have a chronic illness and the doctor has repeatedly warned you not to drink alcohol."
"Oh my god, I've been locked up for seventeen years. If I don't try the burning knife, my tongue will get rusty!"
Fan Changyu approached and looked inside through the half-open door. He saw a square-faced bearded man leaning against the head of the bed. A young man who looked like a servant was standing beside the bed with a bowl of medicine in his hand.
The place where Fan Changyu was standing blocked some of the light, which attracted the attention of the people inside.
The square-faced bearded man turned his head and looked outside. His eyes suddenly turned red and he called her uncertainly, "Ms. Lihua?"
Fan Changyu didn't know the person he was calling, so he stood at the door without moving or responding.
But after the other party carefully looked at her, he suddenly changed his words: "No, these eyebrows and eyes don't look like Lihua... Lihua is no longer in this world..."
He seemed both happy and sad, and almost didn't dare to recognize her. He asked with a trembling voice: "You... are Changyu, right?"
When Fan Changyu heard him calling out his name, and thought of Xie Zheng's previous purpose of coming to Beijing, and the fact that he suddenly said today that he wanted to take him to see someone, he guessed that this person should be an old subordinate of his grandfather, and for a moment he could not hide his excitement and sadness.
She pushed the door open and said, "Do you recognize me? I wonder who you are..."
The other party almost covered his face and cried, and said in a rough voice: "God has eyes! I, Zhu, can see the descendants of General Meng again in my lifetime!"
After seventeen years of injustice and death, Zhu Youchang, a man of seven feet tall, could not help crying when he saw the daughter of an old friend again. He looked at Fan Changyu and said, "I am your uncle Zhu. I joined the army under your grandfather at the age of fourteen, and rose from a vanguard to the rank of Zhenhu Captain. Your mother is also my half-sister."
When Fan Changyu learned that this man was an old friend of his parents, he was extremely excited. However, when he got closer, he found that the two legs of Zhu Youchang hidden under the quilt were too thin and did not look like the size of an adult man's legs at all.
She felt her throat suddenly harden, and tried to control her emotions as much as possible, "Uncle Zhu, what happened back then? How did your leg... get injured?"
Zhu Youchang also had a sad face. He said angrily, "General Meng's failure in transporting grain was framed by that bastard Wei Yan! As for my crippled legs..."
As he spoke, he patted the thin leg bones under the thin blanket, pretended to be indifferent and smiled bitterly, "It was injured on the battlefield in Luocheng that year. Let's not talk about it. I didn't feel anything for more than ten years, which saved me the pain in prison."
Fan Changyu felt sad when he thought of what Xie Zheng's men had said at the door before, that Zhu Youchang's leg could not be cured.
She asked, "Wei Yan imprisoned you for seventeen years?"
When Wei Yan was mentioned, Zhu Youchang gnashed his teeth in hatred: "As long as the tiger talisman is not found, the bastard will not be at peace. He had no choice but to lock up those of us who wanted to overturn the case for General Meng and avenge General Xie and Prince Chengde."
Fan Changyu was shocked and asked, "The deaths of General Xie and Prince Chengde are also related to Wei Yan?"
Zhu Youchang told Fan Changyu in detail how Wei Yan had used the tiger talisman and a personal letter to get Meng Shuyuan to turn back to Luocheng to rescue the sixteenth prince, and also shared his and Xie Zheng's speculations.
He gritted his teeth and said, "That bastard must have had ulterior motives. He must have wanted to support a puppet to take the throne and control the government himself, so he planned all this. Otherwise, why would he rely on the influence of the Wei and Xie families in the army and push the nineteenth prince, who had no foundation, to succeed the throne after the death of the Crown Prince Chengde and the sixteenth prince and the death of the previous emperor?"
After Fan Changyu learned the real reason for the failure of grain transportation and the truth about his grandfather being wronged, he was unable to recover for a long time.
In addition to sadness and anger, she felt that the truth of that year must be hidden.
My father had been in Qingping County for more than ten years. Although he was taciturn, he was a loyal and kind person. He killed pigs and sold meat. If poor people came to buy meat, he would deliberately charge them less.
If anyone has a problem, he will try his best to help. Even if he encounters a beggar, he will give some charity.
It was precisely because of this that when the old scholar Song died, Song's mother, orphan and widower, knelt on the street begging for alms and a thin coffin for burial. Her parents did not hesitate to help the Song family.
Since his father was an important general under his grandfather's command, it is impossible for him not to know what a delay in grain transportation would mean to the Meng family, to Jinzhou, and to Dayin.
Fan Changyu didn't believe that he would help Wei Yan frame his grandfather for the so-called power, causing his grandfather to be branded as a sinner for all eternity and bear the blood debt of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Moreover, Yu Qianqian once said that Qi Min hated the Sui family, and that might be the reason why the Crown Princess chose the Sui family to help Qi Min escape.
The army that his father had gone to find to replace the supply transport troops was none other than the Chongzhou Army that Sui Jia had brought with him.
Something else must have happened!
Fan Changyu suddenly raised his head and looked at Zhu Youchang: "Uncle Zhu, Wei Yan may really be a treacherous and evil person, but I don't believe my father would help Wei Yan do such a conscienceless thing! If he really let my grandfather down, my mother would be the first one who would not forgive him. Why would she follow him into seclusion for sixteen years?"
When Zhu Youchang heard that Meng Lihua had followed Wei Qilin into seclusion, he angrily said, "It must be that cunning Wei Qilin who deceived your mother!"
Fan Changyu shook his head and said, "If my mother had no idea what happened back then, she wouldn't have followed my father after he was forced to commit suicide."
Zhu Youchang's eyes were red and his tone suddenly changed: "Did your mother die with your father?"
Fan Changyu lowered his eyes to hide the sadness in his eyes: "Or...she committed suicide in order to protect me and my younger sister."
Zhu Youchang asked anxiously, "What's going on?"
The dusty memory was opened, and in a trance, Fan Changyu saw again the miserable winter of Lin'an Town last year. White paper money was floating down with the snow, and on the ground covered with a thin layer of snow, the government used a cart to transport the bodies of her parents back...
She said hoarsely, "Sixteen years ago, my parents relied on He Jingyuan and He Shibo to cover up the truth and faked their household registration in Qingping County. The handwritten letter that Wei Yan wrote to my grandfather has also been in my parents' hands.
"In the early winter of last year, He Shibo was instructed by Wei Yan to take my parents' heads. He Shibo wanted to inform my parents and let them take me and my little sister to flee. My parents were afraid of implicating He Shibo, and they also guessed that with Wei Yan's methods, he would definitely not let Ning Niang and me go, so they chose to commit suicide. They put the letter in a box and gave it to He Shibo, asking him to give the box to Wei Yan when he searched my house, so as to save my life and Ning Niang's life."
Talking about that past event again, Fan Changyu couldn't help but choke up. "My parents must have known some inside information, which is why they were silenced by Wei Yan. And my father must have never betrayed my mother and grandfather! The only people who know the inside story may be the Sui family. Unfortunately, Prince Changxin and his wife are both dead, so we can only interrogate the servants of the Sui family to see if we can gain anything."
Others who don't know Meng Lihua's character may not take Fan Changyu's words as evidence.
Zhu Youchang, however, was like a brother to Meng Lihua and knew her very well. He said, "I can't trust others, but I can trust your mother. She may seem gentle, but she is actually very strong at heart."
"Back then, your grandfather fell into a trap and was ambushed by a group of Northern Jue soldiers. Your mother, a weak woman, was in the tent and cleverly killed two Northern Jue soldiers who broke into the tent. If your father hadn't arrived in time, your mother would have almost committed suicide rather than let the Northern Jue soldiers take her hostage to threaten your grandfather."
Talking about these past events again, Zhu Youchang could hardly hide his loneliness.
Seventeen years have passed, the old friend has long been sleeping in the ground, and everything has changed!
He looked at Fan Changyu and said, "You are right. If Wei Qilin really betrayed the old general, your mother would be the first to kill him if she knew about it."
Fan Changyu was distracted for a moment because of what Zhu Youchang had just said.
The mother in her memory had always been gentle and kind, and she rarely even yelled at people. The mother that Zhu Youchang described was a side of her that she had never seen before, one that was as brilliant as fireworks.
She smiled slightly, feeling proud of having a mother like that, but also sad that she would never see her mother again, no matter what she looked like.
Zhu Youchang said, "I have heard about the Sui family's rebellion. If the Sui family really knew the inside story, wouldn't they have something to hold against Wei Yan? When they raised the banner of rebellion, they should have announced it to the world."
These words brought Fan Changyu back to his senses.
She said, "Not long after the Sui family rebelled, rumors did circulate that Wei Yan had planned the Jinzhou massacre."
It was because Xie Zheng heard such rumors and went to investigate what happened that year that he was nearly killed in the Chongzhou battlefield due to Wei Yan's scheme.
Fan Changyu only felt that those trivial clues seemed to be slowly connected together.
Zhu Youchang immediately asked, "Did the rumor spread by the Sui family?"
Fan Changyu thought for a long time, shook his head and said, "It is impossible to be sure at the moment. I can only make a decision after examining the servants of the Sui family."
Zhu Youchang's previous words actually enlightened Fan Changyu. If the Sui family knew the hidden truth of that year and had solid evidence, why didn't they just tell the world and expose Wei Yan's crimes?
But spreading some unfounded rumors?
Thinking back to what Yu Qianqian had told her at the beginning, Fan Changyu could only tentatively speculate one possibility - the Sui family also had dirty hands in the Jinzhou case that year!
As to why Wei Yan left this hidden danger in the Sui family until now, the original reason is unknown.
In order to verify his guess, Fan Changyu wished he could go back right away to interrogate the family servants who were escorted to the capital.
After bidding farewell to Zhu Youchang, she hurried out of the courtyard, but she only saw the middle-aged man with one leg and one arm missing at the carriage outside the gate.
The other party had lost one arm, so he couldn't clasp his fists to salute her, so he just nodded and said, "I am Xie Zhong, a servant of the Xie Mansion. I am here to wait for the general and send him back on the order of the Marquis."
Just based on the words "Xie family general", Fan Changyu would never treat him as a servant. He guessed that his leg and arm must have been broken on the battlefield, and he respected him even more.
She also nodded slightly towards Xie Zhong as a greeting.
Since Xie Zheng was not there, she could not help but ask one more question when she got on the carriage: "Where did the Marquis go?"
Xie Zhong was holding the reins with one hand while leaning on a crutch. When he heard Fan Changyu's words, he paused, looked at Fan Changyu for a while, pondered for a moment, and then did something presumptuous for the first time without Xie Zheng's knowledge.
He said, "Today is the anniversary of Madam's death. The Marquis must have gone to the Xie family mausoleum."
Xie Zheng returned to Beijing secretly. If he worshipped in the daytime, he might be discovered by the people lurking in secret, so he chose to go at dusk.
This answer made Fan Changyu pause as he was about to lift the curtain - the answers to all of Xie Zheng's abnormal behaviors had been found.
She had never heard him mention a word about Madam Xie, but after listening to Zhu Youchang's account of the details of his imprisonment and Madam Xie's death, even Fan Changyu, an outsider, felt sad, let alone Xie Zheng, a son.
He didn't want to tell me this, probably because he didn't want me to see how vulnerable and painful he was at certain times.
Fan Changyu's five fingers gripping the thick silk curtain tightened unconsciously. After thinking for a moment, he felt that he should respect Xie Zheng's decision.
Forget it, I'd better go back to the Jinzouyuan first.
Xie Zhong seemed to have seen through Fan Changyu's decision and continued, "The Blood-Cloaked Cavalry rescued General Zhu, and Wei Yan already knew that the Marquis was hiding in the capital. I was afraid that Wei Yan would take this opportunity to set up an ambush at the Xie family mausoleum and ask the Marquis to bring more people with him. However, the Marquis went there to pay homage every year, always alone, and I couldn't persuade him..."
Fan Changyu's eyes changed color, and he pursed his lips slightly. After two breaths of silence, he asked Xie Zhong: "Can you take me to the Xie family cemetery?"
The author has something to say:
I always thought that I was often sick and had insomnia because of my poor physical condition. After I recovered, I thought about exercising to enhance my immunity, but it made me feel worse. I checked and found out that I can’t exercise after I recovered. QAQ, my dears, don’t learn from the stupid author and make stupid mistakes. Try your best to protect yourself during the emergency period, and have a good rest after you recover.
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