Chapter 1 The Wind and Rain of That Year
In the 15th year of Xuanqing, Zhuxitang, Qinglu County.
It was early summer and not yet hot. The courtyard wall was covered with pink roses, layer upon layer, shining like a brocade. A few branches extended outside the wall. When the evening breeze blew, the branches swayed in the wind, emitting wisps of fragrance.
In the evening, smoke rises from cooking and the yard is filled with the aroma of food.
There was a swing under the rose wall. A little girl was sitting on the swing. She was wearing a brand new shirt and had a cloth tied around her eyes to cover them. The swing was swaying gently. The old woman next to her was holding the swing carefully, fearing that she would fall down.
The little girl sniffed and muttered to herself, "Mother is the most partial. She made braised pork for the miracle doctor grandfather again."
The old woman patted her head gently and said with a smile, "Doctor Yang loves to eat braised pork the most. He will be going to the capital in a few days, and he won't be able to eat it there. Before he leaves, your mother should make a few more meals so that he can eat as much as he wants."
The little girl raised her crystal-clear face and asked curiously, "Isn't there any braised pork in the capital?"
The old woman chuckled, "Doctor Yang often said that your mother's braised pork was the best he had ever tasted."
The evening breeze was blowing gently, and the smell of the braised pork became stronger and stronger. The girl reached out to touch the cloth covering her eyes. There was a cool medicine bag under the cloth.
The old woman saw this and forcefully took her hand away: "Don't touch it. Doctor Yang said it will take three days before you can remove it."
The girl asked, "Grandma, can I see it in three days?"
The old woman smiled, her eyes narrowed. "Yes, it will happen. Then my Nan will be able to see the roses all over the yard."
When the girl was still in her cradle, she had a high fever that wouldn't go away. Although the fever subsided later, she lost her sight. The family was deeply worried about this and searched for famous doctors but to no avail.
Therefore, her parents, family, flowers, plants and trees are all based on her imagination. In this colorless world, it has become a habit for her.
It was not until her father brought Dr. Yang and his grandchildren home that she realized that her eyesight was not incurable.
The little girl didn't know where Dr. Yang and his grandchildren were from, nor did she know why they came to Qinglu County.
She only knew that the Yang family's carriage fell into the river, and her father brought people to rescue them. The coachman and servants died, and the grandfather and grandson were also seriously injured.
My father was a kind person and took the grandparents and grandchildren to his home to stay and recuperate, and they stayed there for more than half a year.
In return, Doctor Yang treated the girl's eye disease after he recovered from his injury. Now it has come to the final moment. Today, Doctor Yang gave the girl an acupuncture injection for the last time. He will only wait for three days to remove the medicine bag on the girl's eye, and then we will know whether she is cured.
And just this morning, someone came to Zhuxitang to find Doctor Yang. After seeing that person, Doctor Yang told my father that he was going to the capital.
After dinner, Doctor Yang said to my father, "Alas, I didn't expect you to stay in Qinglu for half a year. I've worked so hard for your family. Now I have to trouble you to help me take care of Xiaoqiu for a few more days. I will come to pick him up when I return from the capital."
Doctor Yang's grandson, Yang Qiu, was just eight years old. After recovering from his injuries, he went to a private school dozens of miles away. It wasn't because there weren't any private schools nearby, but because this one not only taught reading but also martial arts. Learning some martial arts would strengthen his body after recovering from a serious injury.
Hearing Doctor Yang say this, my father quickly said, "Doctor Yang, you are too polite. You treated my daughter's eyes and are a great benefactor to our family. Don't worry about this trip to Beijing. I will bring your grandson home on the first and fifteenth day of every month and ask my wife to prepare a table of delicious food for him to nourish his body."
Doctor Yang thanked him again, took out a letter, and said to his father, "I will be leaving for the capital in three days, so I won't be going to the private school to see him. Please give this letter to him for me."
Dad was about to take the letter when a small, white, tender hand suddenly appeared before him. "Give it to me, give it to me. I'll keep it for Brother Xiaoyang. Mom says Dad is forgetful. What if he loses the letter?"
The father was helpless. Although he felt a little embarrassed by what his daughter said, he couldn't bear to scold her in front of his only daughter, so he could only smile and shake his head.
Doctor Yang laughed heartily. He liked this family very much and also liked this lovely little girl.
He stuffed the letter into the girl's hand and said, "Okay, I'll give it to you to keep."
Seeing this, my father hurriedly said, "How can this be possible? She is still a child."
Doctor Yang smiled and said, "It's okay, it's okay. It's not an important letter, just a few words of advice."
The girl took the letter, which was not thick and light. She said with a smile, "Don't worry, Grandpa Divine Doctor. I will definitely give the letter to Brother Lamb."
A Niang came over and took the girl's hand: "Okay, stop making trouble, A Niang will take you to bed."
"I didn't cause any trouble, I really didn't..."
The tender child's voice became farther and farther away, and the girl was taken away by her mother to wash.
She has been sleeping with her grandmother since she was a child, and she likes the faint soapberry fragrance on her grandmother's body.
After washing up, A Niang sent the girl to her grandmother's room. Grandma smiled and said to A Niang, "You've been busy all day. Go and have some rest."
After her mother went out, her grandmother helped the girl take off her clothes and change into pajamas, but she saw the girl groping to take out a letter from her clothes.
Grandma hurriedly asked, "Whose letter is this? Where did you get it from? Give it to Grandma."
As he said this, he was about to take the letter.
The little girl hid the letter behind her back with her two little hands and shook her head. "No, no, this is a letter from Brother Xiaoyang. Grandpa the Miraculous Doctor asked me to keep it. I won't damage it. Grandma, please go out first. I'll hide this letter and then you can come in."
Although she knew that her granddaughter would not lie, grandma still went to ask her father. After learning that it was indeed Doctor Yang who asked her granddaughter to pass on the letter, grandma stopped caring about it and let the children deal with it as they pleased.
Before entering the house, Grandma knocked on the door and asked with a smile, "Are you hiding?"
"Grandma, is the little rabbit hiding well?"
Grandma smiled and said, "Is the little rabbit hiding well?"
"It's hidden, grandma can come in now!"
Grandma entered the room and saw her little granddaughter lying on the bed, smiling at her with her little face twisted.
No one knew where she had hidden the letter.
Grandma smiled and shook her head, took off her shoes, got on the bed, blew out the small lamp at the head of the bed, and lay down next to her little granddaughter.
"Grandma, the family living at the foot of the mountain is quarreling again. The father of that family is stealing a widow. Grandma, can you steal a widow?"
"How come you even know this? That family lives so far away. Who told you this?"
"I heard from the little sparrow that the family is always quarreling, and the swallows no longer build nests in their house."
Grandma laughed but didn't care. He was such a child, and all he said was childish words.
Grandma patted her little granddaughter and hummed a little tune whose name she couldn't remember. Sleepiness came over her and the girl's consciousness began to blur. A faint fragrance wafted in, which was not the soapberry scent of Grandma's body.
The girl said, "Grandma, there is a fragrance, do you smell it?"
Grandma yawned and patted her gently: "The room was burned with mosquito coils, and the smell hasn't dissipated yet."
The girl wanted to say, this is not the smell of mosquito coils, grandma, your nose is blocked again.
But her eyelids seemed to be weighed down, and she murmured a few words before falling asleep...
......
The girl was awakened by a start. She had always been a deep sleeper. Once, her father took her to see a doctor. The road was bumpy and the mule cart was shaking, but she slept all the way. When she woke up, she was already in the doctor's house.
But today she woke up, it was pitch black all around, there were chaotic footsteps and the sound of clothes rubbing against bamboo leaves, this was not her home!
A strong arm was wrapped around her waist, and she was held under the armpit by the man, walking hurriedly in the bamboo forest.
Although the girl grew up in Zhuxitang, she rarely had the opportunity to go out except to see a doctor because of her eyesight. But she knew that this place must be far away from her home, and there was no bamboo forest near her home.
Although she is still a child, her blindness gives her a sense of smell and perception beyond that of ordinary people.
She smelled the blood on that person!
This is not the smell of killing chickens and fish, this is human blood. Doctor Yang smelled this smell when her grandfather and grandson were injured. This is the smell of human blood!
She reached out and touched it. It was cold and hard, but there were winding lines on it. She felt along the lines inch by inch. She didn't know what it was, but it scared her.
Where is this?
She slept with grandma, but where is she now? Where is grandma?
Just as she was about to call Grandma, a strong hand fell silently on her head, and she fell into chaos again.
The man holding her breathed a sigh of relief. The drug was very powerful. He didn't expect that the little girl would wake up in the middle of the night and almost cried out.
A man's voice came from not far away: "Ah Si, why did you come here just now?"
The man named Ah Si said hurriedly, "We found a child under the bed. I guess the old woman wasn't knocked unconscious, so she heard the noise and hid the kid under the bed."
Ah Si kept walking as he spoke, getting closer and closer to the man in front. The man asked, "There's another one? Yeah, there's a blind kid in that house. I was wondering why I didn't see him. Did he strangle him to death?"
Ah Si said, "Strangle her to death. She'll die in her sleep just like her parents did."
The man opposite laughed and said, "No wonder the master always says Ah Si is careful. If it weren't for Ah Si, we would have almost let a person live today."
Ah Si hurriedly said, "Second brother, you're too kind. There's no way we'd let anyone live. At most, Ah Si would just go back and kill him. Ah Si is just saving himself the trouble."
He didn't want to continue the topic and lifted the girl high up: "A blind person is suffering even if she lives. The sooner she dies, the sooner she can be reincarnated and go find her parents."
As soon as his grip loosened, the girl's body was thrown into the pre-dug pit. When she landed, it was warm and soft. Beneath her were her recently deceased parents and relatives...
Several people worked together to fill the hole and stomped the new soil down with their feet.
"Ah Si, you're the most attentive. You should stay and clean up the mess. Make sure everyone here thinks the whole family went with the Yang family."
"Ah Si obeys the order!"
…
Several people climbed onto their horses. Ah Si waved to them, looked back at the new soil that had been trampled down by them, and turned around to gallop in the direction they came from.
On the starless and moonless night, darkness surged like a tide.
Ah Si returned to the deserted yard, opened the doors and windows, and let the remaining smell of drugs and blood dissipate. He put the furniture in order and even washed away the bloodstains on the blue bricks.
Finally, Ah Si locked the door and left.
The courtyard was quiet and peaceful. Only the night birds that flew away in fear knew that a massacre had taken place here.
When the sky was about to get light, it began to rain. The rain hit the bamboo leaves, washing away the dust and covering all the secrets in the mist.
Ah Si raised his face and let the cold raindrops fall on his face.
He liked this feeling, as if it could cleanse away the filth from inside and out.
At this moment, his heart was calm and peaceful, and he thought of the little girl.
Instead of killing her like one of her relatives, he buried her alive while she was unconscious.
Ah Si believed that letting the person being killed die without pain was a good deed he could do every day.
Ah Si's mood became unusually cheerful. As expected, doing good deeds brings happiness.
The rain was getting heavier, and Ah Si decided to go back to the place where the body was buried and put a few stones on it to prevent the grave from collapsing and exposing the body.
Ah Si has always been very meticulous.
This time, the mission was to make sure that the doctor, alive or dead, could not be seen by anyone. Everyone had to believe that the doctor and the family that took him in were not dead, they were just away on a long journey.
Ah Si ran in the rain, through the bamboo forest, and came to the place where the bodies were buried.
But what he saw shocked him. A pit now appeared on the place that was originally flattened. There were four corpses in the pit, and the girl who was supposed to be lying on the top was gone!
Ah Si felt as if he was falling into an icy cave. Could it be that the girl had woken up and climbed out by herself?
But Ah Si quickly denied this possibility. It was impossible. It was impossible for the girl to climb out on her own.
Ah Si lit a tinder and looked around carefully. On the wet ground, there were claw marks and dragging marks left by wild dogs.
I think it was some extremely hungry wild dogs that dug out the body buried in the soil following the scent, but I don’t know where they dragged the girl to.
Ah Si's heart sank. It would be fine if the girl was already dead after being buried alive, but what if she wasn't?
If the master knew about this...
Ah Si shuddered, remembering the last person who had been ordered to be executed by his master because he failed in his mission...
The rain gradually stopped, the sky in the east began to turn pale, and the dark clouds quietly disappeared. There was not much time left for Ah Si.
He gritted his teeth and reburied the body as quickly as possible. This time he put a few stones on top of the pit so that he wouldn't have to worry about it being washed away by rain.
After doing all this, Ah Si began to search around for traces of the wild dog and the girl, but those traces disappeared when they reached the low-lying areas. Ah Si searched for a long time but found nothing.
......
The sky was bright, and the bamboo leaves washed by rain were lush and green. A few horsemen were approaching from afar, and the sound of horse hooves startled a few wild dogs in the bamboo forest by the roadside. The barking of dogs was mixed with the crying of children, which was particularly harsh in the mountain forest in the early morning.
"Listen, there's a child crying."
The knights on horseback pulled the reins and looked at the young boy who was protected by them. The young boy was still a child, only eight or nine years old, and was looking at the bamboo forest where the crying sound came from.
"Go and take a look!"
The voice was childish, but it carried an irresistible majesty.
Before he finished speaking, the group had already turned their horses around and headed towards the bamboo forest.
In the bamboo forest, several wild dogs surrounded a little girl covered in wounds. Hearing the noise, the wild dogs bared their teeth and growled, eager to fight. The young boy waved his hand, and his followers drew their swords and pounced on the wild dogs!
The leading wild dog is nicknamed Heizi. He used to be a domestic dog. Although he was often hungry, he was still loyal and guarded the house.
One day, the owner took a newly sharpened knife to kill it for meat, but Heizi ran away and wandered in the mountains. He had a younger brother, a wife and children, and from then on he had something to worry about.
Once people have something to worry about, they will be afraid of death, and the same is true for dogs.
And Heizi can't forget the knife in his master's hand. It is his nightmare.
At this moment, the cold light flashed in the followers' hands, which stung Heizi's sensitive heart. He let out a wail from the depths of his soul and fled into the depths of the bamboo forest!
Heizi doesn't want to die.
The younger brothers were shocked and didn't care about the little girl who could talk to them. They ran after Big Brother Heizi.
The wild dog disappeared from sight. The young boy snorted disdainfully. He sat upright on his horse, looking down at the little girl lying on the ground. An attendant walked over and picked up the little girl. The little girl was frightened and couldn't stop crying.
The young boy frowned and said to his followers, "She is seriously injured. Ask along the way to see if there is a doctor."
The attendants agreed, and several of them got on their horses and continued on their journey. An hour later, they finally found the doctor in a village. The little girl had already fainted from the pain.
An attendant carried the little girl into the house. The doctor examined the little girl and then glanced out the window seemingly casually. The tall horses, the saddles that were obviously worth a lot of money, and the young boys sitting on the horses in gorgeous clothes all told him one thing: these were a few wealthy passers-by.
The doctor looked at the little girl again. Her clothes were tattered and it was obvious that she was not with these people. She was most likely picked up on the road.
He cleared his throat and said, "This little girl is blind and has broken bones. Even if I set her bones now, it will take a hundred days for the broken bones to heal. She needs to be well cared for. She can't afford a long journey."
As soon as the doctor finished speaking, two silver ingots fell on the table in front of him.
The doctor swallowed his saliva. Ten taels of silver ingot, a full twenty taels!
An attendant's impatient voice came to my ears: "Since we can't hurry on, let her recuperate here with you. Is this silver enough?"
The doctor's eyes fell on the sword at the attendant's waist, and he hastily looked away: "Enough, enough."
The attendant nodded and said, "Please ask around to see if there's anyone else who's lost a child nearby. Or wait for this child to wake up and find out where her home is."
The doctor hurriedly said, "Don't worry. I was born and raised here and I know this area very well. I will definitely be able to send this little girl home safely."
The attendant was satisfied, gave a few more instructions, and then said goodbye and left.
Xiao Zhen rode his horse forward without looking back, and quickly put everything that had just happened behind him.
This place is more than a hundred miles away from Baifeng City. He ran away from home secretly. The people his parents sent to find him may have already entered Wu. He doesn't have much time left. He must reach Baifeng City as soon as possible to see what his cousin looks like with his own eyes.
In recent months, Xiao Zhen has been having the same dream over and over again. In the dream, a man led his troops to kill him, but someone blocked the sword for him and died in his arms.
The man who wanted to kill him called himself his "cousin", while the person who died in his arms called him "brother".
As everyone knows, his mother is Princess Jiayi, his father is Prince Consort Xiao Jingyan, and he is the only son in the family. He has no younger brother at all.
Xiao Zhen didn't believe this dream at first, but not long ago he met his cousin Zhong Zhanbo and unexpectedly discovered that Zhong Zhanbo was somewhat similar to the cousin in his dream, and Zhong Zhanbo's father Zhong Ziyang was also one of his cousins.
The Zhong family has lived in Baifeng City in Wu for generations. Zhong Ziyang has not been to the capital for many years. Therefore, Xiao Zhen has no impression of his cousin Zhong Ziyang. Hearing that Zhong Zhanbo looks like his father, Xiao Zhen decides to come to Baifeng City to see with his own eyes whether Zhong Ziyang is the cousin who wants to kill him in his dream.
So Xiao Zhen took advantage of the time when Princess Jiayi and Prince Consort Xiao went to stay in the temple, and quietly left the capital with several of his guards.
At the entrance of the village, the doctor watched the group of people leave the village and let out a long sigh.
"It hurts... It hurts so much..." The little girl woke up from her coma. The pain came over her and she started crying again.
The doctor took out a small porcelain bottle, poured out some medicine powder, dissolved it with warm water, and poured the medicine into the little girl's mouth.
The little girl soon fell into a coma again, and this time she didn't wake up for several hours.
The doctor looked at him carefully. Although he was blind, he had an adorable and delicate face. This was the kind of child Wang Guaizi wanted.
The doctor was a little proud of himself. He had deceived the attendant. The little girl seemed to be seriously injured, but in fact, apart from two broken ribs, the rest of her injuries were just superficial, except for her eyes, of course. The broken ribs were probably caused by hitting a hard object during the dragging.
He deliberately made it sound serious because he wanted the group to keep the little girl.
However, the doctor did not act rashly. It was not until the evening, when he was sure that those people would not come back, that he asked his son to call Wang Guaizi.
"Old Wang, didn't you ask me to help you find some disabled children? I just happened to find one today, a little blind boy..."
......
Half a month later, at Wuji Temple on the outskirts of Beijing.
"Your Highness, the people we sent out have returned..."
Crown Prince Zhao Xian stood up excitedly, his lifeless eyes looking in the direction of the sound.
"Has Dr. Yang arrived in the capital? Hurry and call him in to treat me, quickly!"
Eunuch Liu struggled to move his body to a position where he could not be hit by anything thrown by Prince Xian.
Ever since Prince Xian suffered from eye disease, he hid in Wuji Temple under the pretext of praying for the emperor. As several imperial doctors were helpless, the originally gentle Prince Xian became more and more irritable. In recent days, Prince Xian became completely blind. He began to lose his temper and people were hit on the head and bleeding every day.
Eunuch Liu gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness, the old genius doctor Yang...Yang Wei did not want to go to the capital and fled overnight."
Nothing fell on him. Eunuch Liu touched the ground with his head. Suddenly, everything around him became quiet, so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat.
After a long moment, Prince Xian's voice rang out again: "Impossible. The Meng family has done Yang Wei a favor. Yang Wei wouldn't run away. No... This must be a misunderstanding. Perhaps the old genius doctor Yang couldn't wait any longer and went to the capital on his own, and got lost with the people who were going to pick him up."
Eunuch Liu wanted to say: Not only Yang Wei ran away, but even the family that took Yang Wei in disappeared. The door was closed and no gold or silver was found in the house. It was obvious that the whole family had run away.
Think of Yang Wei, who was framed when he was in the Imperial Hospital. If it weren't for Lord Meng pleading for him, the grass on Yang Wei's grave would have been green for more than ten rounds.
After escaping death with great difficulty, why would I return to the capital?
But Eunuch Liu didn't dare to say it and could only swallow the words back into his stomach.
But soon, with the arrival of his father-in-law, Lord Meng, Prince Xian had to believe that Yang Wei was really missing!
The people sent by Lord Meng brought back news that Yang Wei and the Shi family had all disappeared. It was said that the Shi family went to another place to seek medical treatment for their daughter, and Yang Wei went with them.
What a joke!
The daughter of the Shi family is blind. Even Yang Wei cannot cure her eye disease. Which other doctor in the world can cure her?
Going to other places to seek medical treatment is all nonsense!
Yang Wei refused to go to Beijing, and was worried about bringing trouble to his savior, so he fled with Shi's family!
This time, the prince did not lose his temper. He curled up like a child who had made a mistake, and kept talking to himself...
The Eastern Palace suppressed the news of the prince's eye disease, and only told the outside world that the prince had been praying for the emperor for a hundred days at Wuji Temple. However, the hundred-day period was about to pass, and the imperial doctors were still helpless, and the people sent to look for Yang Wei never sent back any news.
However, the secret that was kept secret still spread like wildfire. A few days later, the streets and alleys of the capital were all talking about the same topic -
The prince has become blind!
This topic spread from the streets to the court. How could the crown prince of a country be blind?
The civil and military officials were divided into two factions. One faction begged the emperor to depose Crown Prince Xian and appoint another prince as the heir; the other faction believed that the most urgent task should be to announce to the world to search for famous doctors to cure the crown prince, rather than appointing another heir.
The two factions each held their own views, which caused Emperor Xuanqing, who was already in poor health, a lot of headaches.
......
In Wuji Temple, the prince seemed depressed. Regardless of being in the Taoist temple, he drank to drown his sorrows and got drunk. The next day, he was found dead in his sleep. The imperial physician confirmed that he died of a heart disease caused by drunkenness.
Princess Meng, concubines Lu, and Sun committed suicide. In the chaos, the three-year-old grandson Zhao Yuan fell into the water and died.
Emperor Xuanqing was shocked by the bad news and fell ill.
......
In the autumn of the fifteenth year of Emperor Xuanqing's reign, Emperor Xuanqing appointed the second prince Zhao Yu as the crown prince. Of the three children of the former crown prince Zhao Xian, except for Zhao Yuan who died young, the remaining two daughters were brought into the palace to be raised.
In the same year, Emperor Xuanqing ordered people to build a Taoist temple on Cuiping Mountain, 200 miles away from the capital, and named it Changshou Palace.
......
In the summer of the 16th year of Xuanqing, Changshou Palace was completed.
A month later, Emperor Xuanqing passed the throne to the crown prince and became the emperor emeritus.
Not long after, the emperor left the palace and went to Changshou Palace to practice Taoism.
The following year, the new emperor changed the reign title to Yongjia, and was known in history as Emperor Yongjia.
Emperor Yongjia posthumously honored his deceased eldest brother Zhao Xian as Emperor Xiaokang, Meng as Empress Xiaokang, and both of Zhao Xian's daughters as princesses.
Emperor Yongjia's actions were highly praised by the court and the public.
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