This is that person! When Shi Mingji thought of this, his fear was swept away and he glared at the man: "Who are you?!"
The man did not answer his question, but walked towards him step by step. There seemed to be dark clouds and haze around him, which made people feel breathless.
Shi Mingji was not afraid of him. Instead, he glared at him and wondered why Fu Yueli hadn't come yet. Just as the thought came to his mind, he heard the screen suddenly break apart, and a cold shadow rushed towards the masked man.
The masked man was startled, realizing it was a trap. Desperate, he tried to escape, but Fu Yueli pressed on, his sword still raging. Wherever they went, porcelain shattered and sword marks covered the walls.
The house gradually filled with people who had come to watch the excitement, and the bravest ones began banging on the door. Teapots, teacups, stools, tables—anything handy—were used as weapons by the masked man, who hurled them at Fu Yueli. Fu Yueli dodged what he could, and cleaved what he couldn't with his sword. During his fight with the masked man, he noticed something unusual: his light-weight movements seemed remarkably similar to those practiced by the royal family.
The masked man was forced into a corner and suddenly threw a dart at Jiayu on the ground. Seeing this, Fu Yueli could only fly up and block it with his sword. The masked man took this opportunity to escape through the window.
Fu Yueli did not give him the chance. He blocked the dart and chased after him, cutting the man's left wrist with a sword. The man felt pain and turned around and threw another dart with his right hand. Fu Yueli dodged to the side, and the man took the opportunity to jump out of the window.
Seeing this, Shi Mingji rushed to the window, only to see that the figure of the man in black had disappeared into the night.
"Let him escape!" he said unwillingly.
Fu Yueli picked up the dart on the ground and found that it was just an ordinary dart, nothing special. Thinking back to his fight with the masked man, he still underestimated him.
The knocks on the door became more and more intense: "Open the door quickly, what's going on in there?!"
Fu Yueli pressed Jiayu's acupoints, and Jiayu woke up from his sleepy eyes. When he saw Fu Yueli and heard the fierce knocking on the door, he realized what had happened, opened his mouth, but still said nothing.
Shi Mingji was already feeling annoyed because he hadn't caught the man. A group of people outside who were just watching the fun were making a lot of noise, which made him even more annoyed. He was about to open the door to let those people quiet down when the door was kicked open with a bang.
Qin Zheng, who rushed in, was looking at him in confusion. Qin Zheng was the first to react and shouted to the group of onlookers behind him: "Go back!" and asked his men to barely close the two unstable doors.
"Why are you here?" Qin Zheng asked. He turned around and saw Fu Yueli standing with a scantily clad androgynous person. His face lit up instantly: "Why are you here too?!"
Fu Yueli was very calm: "It has nothing to do with you."
"Who said it has nothing to do with me? Are you doing this to Mingyue?" Qin Zheng scolded the other party angrily.
Shi Mingji suddenly realized that his sister and Qin Zheng were childhood sweethearts, and hurriedly asked, "Jin Sheng, why are you here?"
Jinsheng is Qin Zheng's courtesy name, as the Shuowen Jiezi (Explanation of Chinese Characters) states that "zheng, the sound of gold," and so his father gave him this name and courtesy name. Qin Zheng and Shi Mingji had been friends for many years, so he said, "I happened to be on patrol outside and passed by Nanfeng Pavilion. Someone said there was a fight going on there, and weapons were used, so I came here. But you haven't answered my question yet. Why are you here?"
Shi Mingji didn't know how to answer his question. He couldn't talk about that person, nor could he say that he was here for fun. No matter how he answered, it would be wrong. He had always been eloquent, but now he seemed to have become mute.
Fu Yueli explained calmly, "We were trying to protect Jiayu. Someone wanted to kill him, and I was fighting that person just now."
Qin Zheng looked at the androgynous figure beside Fu Yueli with suspicion: "Is he Jiayu?"
Fu Yueli said, "His real name is not Jiayu, but Yan Jiajie. He is the son of Yan Zhenru."
Yan Zhenru! Qin Zheng's gaze towards Jiayu changed. The year before last, the examination papers were leaked. Yan Zhenru, one of the examiners, was accused of accepting bribes and leaking the papers, which resulted in him being sentenced to death. His family members were all enslaved by officials. Had his only son, Yan Jiajie, actually ended up in a place like Nanfeng Pavilion?
"You're Jiajie?!" Shi Mingji exclaimed in shock. He hadn't really looked at the man since entering the room, and now, staring at this man, painted and full of effeminate looks, his eyes couldn't help but moisten. Back when they were studying together at Chongwenguan, Yan Jiajie was a handsome young man, like a jade tree. How could he have become like this?
Yan Jiajie just lowered his head sadly, unwilling to face the shocked eyes of the two men again. Their eyes were like sharp knives, cutting through his flesh layer by layer, forcing him to remember his own ugliness and embarrassment.
Fu Yueli glanced at him with pity, patted his shoulder gently, and then said to Qin Zheng: "Qin Zheng, please clear the area outside. We need to leave here."
Qin Zheng said nothing more and immediately went out, showing the weapon at his waist and shouting away the group of onlookers. A moment later, there was no one left in the corridor.
With the money in one hand, the owner of Nanfeng Pavilion handed Yan Jiajie's indenture to Fu Yueli. Fu Yueli looked at the thin piece of paper. It was ridiculous that just a few words and a fingerprint could determine a person's freedom. He slowly tore the indenture into pieces. The owner of Nanfeng Pavilion guessed his identity from his white eyes alone and did not dare to neglect him, but smiled.
He put the shredded paper back into the boss's hand and said, "Throw it away."
The boss said with a smile on his face: "Okay, take care."
A group of people walked out of Nanfeng Pavilion. At the door, Fu Yueli turned around and looked at the sign on the gate, "Nanfeng Pavilion". Two seductively dressed men were standing at the door greeting the guests. He thought that this place should not exist. There must be many people like Yan Jiajie inside.
The few of them separated, and Fu Yueli returned home with Yan Jiajie. It was almost dawn. He was not sleepy, and did not want to wake Shi Mingyue, so he went to the study alone.
The day before yesterday, he had learned from Lu Lingyan that Yan Jiajie had been living in Nanfeng Pavilion. He was filled with emotion. There was something else going on with the leaked exam papers the year before, and Yan Zhenru was just a scapegoat. The first time he actually met Yan Jiajie, it completely overturned his expectations. It was the first time he had seen a man dressed like that, speaking in that soft and charming voice, and doing everything to please him, or rather, his guests.
Until Fu Yueli called out his real name: "Yan Jiajie."
The other party was stunned for a long time, then asked woodenly, "Who are you?"
Fu Yueli was consumed by a thousand thoughts at that moment. What could change Yan Jiajie's fate? Was it the Dazhao Code? Or were it the centuries-old, stagnant, outdated conventions? How could a person fall to such a state of utter depravity and dehumanization? He thought, he wanted to change all this, and so he said to Yan Jiajie, "I will rescue you."
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