Chapter 30 Fate: When the hidden truth is revealed, they avoid...
Shen Yujiao had been in a coma for a whole week. When she woke up, she felt extremely stiff all over. Even the slightest movement was very difficult. She opened her eyes with great effort and saw Jiang Chen looking at her with surprise and joy. His bloodshot eyes were filled with tears, which fell in large drops when he saw her looking over.
"Jiaojiao...is awake?"
Jiang Chen spoke with difficulty, his words filled with disbelief. He trembled as he grasped her hand, pressing their clasped hands against his forehead. He breathed heavily, as if it wasn't Shen Yujiao who had been seriously ill, but he himself who had been reborn after drowning for several days.
Shen Yujiao lay on the bed, her knuckles as if rusted. She wanted to hold Jiang Chen's hand back, but it was too stiff to bend. She had never seen Jiang Chen so emotionally broken in front of her. She wanted to comfort him, but she couldn't even move.
“Sir,” Jiang Chen stood up and bowed deeply three times to the doctor in white. He tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “Thank you so much for saving my wife. I can never repay your kindness in this lifetime.”
The doctor in white stood and accepted his greeting, then waved his hand and said, "No need to be so polite. I'm not just a Tzu Chi volunteer. The consultation fee for this house call is already sufficient."
"Please speak, sir. No matter how much the consultation fee is, Jiang Chen will definitely pay it in full." His expression was extremely solemn, as if he were making a vow.
Unexpectedly, the doctor in white waved his hand again: "No need, Your Highness. The consultation fee has already been paid. Besides, I came here by fate, and now that I have saved the Crown Princess, I am also following her destiny."
Jiang Chen was surprised by this. He paused and asked, "Who paid the consultation fee? I am willing to pay several times that amount to repay it."
"Your Highness has your principles, and I have my rules. Your Highness need not be so polite. Although the Crown Princess has regained consciousness, she still needs to be well taken care of."
"Yes." Jiang Chen nodded seriously in response.
The doctor in white glanced at Jiang Chen with appreciation, then stepped forward to the bedside. Looking at Shen Yujiao's still weak face, he shook his head and smiled faintly, his expression full of pity: "It is fate, it is destiny, everyone has their own destiny."
Shen Yujiao neither recognized the man nor understood what he was saying, so she could only cast a puzzled look at Jiang Chen. Jiang Chen was also completely baffled at the moment. "Please enlighten me, sir."
“No need to resolve it,” the doctor in white shook his head, looking completely at ease. “Those who are destined to meet but not to be together, or those who are destined to meet but not to be together, were originally destined to be calamities that could not be resolved. But now, as long as one of them is resolved, there is no need to undergo the calamity again. Not to mention, both of them have been resolved.”
The two men couldn't understand what he was saying to begin with, and after this whole ordeal, Jiang Chen was even more confused. Seeing that he was about to turn and leave, he quickly chased after him and said, "Sir, if you don't mind, why don't you stay for a simple meal so that I can express my gratitude?"
The doctor in white stopped upon hearing this, turned around, and asked with a smile, "Is Your Highness certain that you have time to dine with me?"
"This..." Jiang Chen was speechless. He turned to look at Shen Yujiao, and just as he was thinking of saying something else, he heard the other person speak again:
"Your Highness need not trouble yourself. If fate allows, we will meet again in the future."
"May I ask your name, sir?"
"I am a humble commoner named Lüqiu."
"Jiang Chen is here to express his gratitude to Doctor Lüqiu."
Seeing Jiang Chen bow respectfully to him, Doctor Luqiu nodded in satisfaction. Without lingering any longer, he turned and walked outside. Zhu Yu, seeing this, quickly stepped forward to lead the way.
"Jiang Chen..."
Hearing Shen Yujiao's weak voice, Jiang Chen straightened up. Seeing that she was already gone, he didn't look at her anymore and turned to go to the bed. He sat down and asked softly, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell? Do you want some water?"
Shen Yujiao said with difficulty, "I want to get up and move around."
“Okay,” Jiang Chen said, then reached out and wrapped his arms around her, bedding and all, and gently lifted her off the bed. He then placed a pillow behind Shen Yujiao and slowly helped her lean against the bed rail. “Is this okay?”
After sitting up, Shen Yujiao was finally able to move her neck slightly. She hummed in agreement and then watched Jiang Chen help her move her wrists and neck. With Jiang Chen's movements, she felt as if she had finally been wound up again.
“Jiang Chen, I think I know why we traveled here,” Shen Yujiao paused, her clasped hands moving, and continued looking directly at him, “Because, Miss Shen is dead.”
“I saw her die with my own eyes.”
In Shen Yujiao's narration, Jiang Chen also seemed to be immersed in the scene she was trying to recreate: Miss Shen who burned herself to death, Mu Jin and Liu Mama who risked their lives to save their master, the Duke and Duchess of Cheng Guo in immense pain, the Crown Princess who lay like a vegetable for several days before her marriage, and that scene that was comparable to movie special effects—
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that I would walk step by step towards Miss Shen like a ghost and then merge with her body. In that fire, no one actually saved Miss Shen; she was really dead.”
Jiang Chen remained silent for a long time, then tried to say something, but finally sighed deeply. After a while, he asked, "How dare the Duke of Cheng's mansion not report such a serious matter to the imperial court? They even received the imperial decree on her behalf while she was unconscious? If..."
If Miss Shen hadn't become Shen Yujiao, then the only person delivered to the Eastern Palace in the wedding sedan chair would have been a person in a vegetative state.
Jiang Chen couldn't bring himself to say what came next. He couldn't understand why the Shen family would risk the crime of deceiving the emperor to gamble on this. Was the power of the Crown Princess's maternal family and the powerful maternal relatives of the Great Xia Dynasty really more important than their own daughter?
The room remained silent for a long time before Jiang Chen spoke, saying, "So... Crown Prince Chen is also dead."
"I think that's probably it. What we don't know now is the cause of death."
At this moment, the air seemed to freeze. Although there was a floor heating and a stove in the room, the two of them saw a chilling fear in each other's eyes. If Miss Shen's death was due to her own hidden story, then what about Prince Chen's death?
The current Crown Prince, the heir apparent of the Eastern Palace, died mysteriously before his wedding? Moreover, recalling what Jiang Chen had said, the scene when he first transmigrated was no different from the present. In other words, the entire Eastern Palace was operating smoothly, not at all like a situation where the Crown Prince was seriously ill or something had happened.
The death of Crown Prince Chen was completely silent.
"Jiang Chen," Shen Yujiao gripped Jiang Chen's hand tightly, a lingering fear filling her heart, "You're right, we have to go. We... we have to find a way to get to the bottom of this. Jiang Chen, we have to go back..."
Her voice grew increasingly choked with sobs, and Jiang Chen noticed her trembling, pulling her tightly into his arms.
He's not much better off than her right now. If Prince Chen didn't even know about Miss Chen's unconsciousness, then it means no one noticed his death. Perhaps to outsiders, his death was just a nap, but no one knew that in just one night, the person inside had changed.
Jiang Chen dared not think too deeply about it; he didn't know if he had been living under the nose of a murderer all along.
The thought was too terrifying. He tightened his arms around Shen Yujiao again. The two were like wild geese frozen in the extreme cold. All they could do at this moment was to embrace each other, as if only in this way could they draw some warmth from each other.
"Jiaojiao, I have something I want to tell you."
"Okay, go ahead."
"Miss Shen's cause of death... may have been a suicide pact."
Shen Yujiao's breath hitched, and she stiffened again. She slowly pushed the person in front of her away and looked at him in disbelief: "Die for love?"
"I didn't mean to hide it from you," Jiang Chen quickly explained when he saw her like this. "I've actually been investigating this matter, but the real confirmation came from three things: first, after He Zhiju returned to Beijing; second, when I asked Liu Mama when you just fainted; and third, what you just told me about Miss Shen burning a letter and setting herself on fire."
Immediately afterwards, Shen Yujiao listened to Jiang Chen recount his entire investigation process, from sending people to Jiangnan to investigate before returning to his family home, to his probing of Jiang Yu each time he faced him, and finally to how he used the support of the court as leverage to force He Zhiju to reveal all the inside information he knew.
"So... Miss Shen, who was destined to be a phoenix, was originally to marry the late Crown Prince Yu. But in reality, she and Prince Huan were the ones who truly loved each other. After the death of the late Crown Prince Yu, Miss Shen's engagement fell through for a time, until Crown Prince Chen succeeded to the throne..."
Shen Yujiao struggled to sort through the massive amount of information. After Jiang Chen finished explaining the ins and outs of the investigation, she found it hard to believe the love-hate entanglements of these people: "Because she was born to marry the crown prince and never had the option to choose her marriage partner, so... that's why she chose to commit suicide after the imperial decree of marriage was issued?"
To some extent, Miss Shen is a crazy woman. It's not hard to guess what consequences the Shen family of Jiangnan would face if the Crown Princess committed suicide. But when she thought about how the Shen family still insisted on marrying her into the Eastern Palace after Miss Shen's death, Shen Yujiao felt that Miss Shen's revenge was nothing.
Throughout the whole affair, although the Crown Prince's role was like cannon fodder, it's not hard to guess what kind of bloody storms the position of Crown Prince caused during the period when Miss Shen's marriage fell through.
Jiang Yu, Jiang Yu, and Shen Yujiao—the secrets of these people are truly remarkable...
"So, the reason I didn't tell you at first was because I was afraid you would be influenced by Prince Huan." After explaining everything, Jiang Chen sighed rather helplessly.
Upon hearing this, Shen Yujiao couldn't help but sneer: "I'm influenced by him? What have I been influenced by him for?"
At this moment, she suddenly recalled the scene when the two of them met by chance in the palace during the New Year. She had felt uncomfortable then, and now she felt that the encounter was even more ironic.
"Miss Shen died because of love, but he is still alive and well. Why is that... Why is he the high and mighty Prince Huan? And why is he and Princess Huan so loving and devoted to each other?"
Shen Yujiao's eyes were filled with an unyielding sorrow. She felt sorry for Miss Shen, for her being born into the Shen family, for her death that no one cared about, and for that love that may have been misplaced.
A girl born with the most noble destiny ultimately withered away like a dried flower petal. The hidden truths she had never thought about were so brutally exposed before her. Shen Yujiao faced the facts almost without any defense. She had no way to avoid them, and her current situation had become even more difficult.
"Jiang Chen..." she whispered to the person beside her, "From now on, let's not hide anything from each other, okay?"
"Okay, I promise you."
The moon was bright and the stars were few. A bright moon hung high in the night sky, and a field on the outskirts of Beijing was shrouded in the cold moonlight. In the desolate landscape, two people, one in black and one in white, stood facing each other.
“Mr. Lüqiu, please accept my bow.”
The man in white reached out and helped the person up. "Since you have come by fate and I have received payment for your consultation, I will naturally do my best to fulfill the prince's request. However... I have something to say."
"Sir, please speak."
"The ways of the world are all predetermined; cause and effect are interconnected and cannot be forced."
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