Chapter 127
After Wang Huiwen left, Qin Sang asked Lingding to find Qin Baoyun to inquire about the scholar surnamed Wen she had met at the teahouse that day. Then, she became so sleepy that her eyelids were drooping. After taking a short nap on the couch, when she opened her eyes again, dusk had fallen and a crescent moon hung on the treetops.
"It's time to get off duty," she said to herself, then, remembering Xie Sui'an, she got out of bed.
Just as I put on my coat, I heard a tender female voice from the outer room: "You're finally awake. The dinner that was brought in is all cold."
Qin Sang recognized the voice and her alarm bells went off. She craned her neck to look out and saw Xie Xiao sitting at the table, brazenly gnawing on a bone.
"Why are you eating here? Don't you have any in your yard?" She felt both helpless and amused.
Xie Xiaoli replied confidently, "Yes, I had them send it to you."
"ah?"
"Good sister, I want to have dinner with you, is that not allowed?" Xie Xiao didn't even lift her eyelids, focusing on gnawing on the big bone in her hand. It was impossible to tell that she genuinely wanted to have dinner with Qin Sang.
Ying'er helped Qin Sang put on her clothes and shoes, and combed her hair. Qin Sang walked out of the side hall and sat down at the round table. Just as she was about to pick up her chopsticks, she heard Xie Xiao say again, "How did your audience with the Emperor go today?"
Qin Sang felt a headache coming on: "Now that you know I've already gone to the palace to see the emperor, you little brat, you'd better put away your unrealistic ideas, or your mother will find out and put you out of the house."
“Grandpa taught me,” Xie Xiao said, still slowly gnawing on a large piece of meat, “that as long as things aren’t settled and the outcome isn’t yet in sight, you have to do everything you can to try. Who knows what might happen? But if you don’t try at all, there will definitely be no result. Are you just going to give up already? Don’t you want my brother anymore? Can’t you be a little more mature and take some responsibility for your actions, hmm?”
Qin Sang: "...??" Huh?
The little girl spoke with the composure of an elderly person, clearly someone Xie Zhongxu had personally trained.
"You're probably the one in your Xie family who most resembles the Prime Minister, aren't you?" Qin Sang clicked her tongue and shook her head. "It's a pity you were born in this dynasty as a girl."
Xie Xiao ignored her words, raised her chin and said to the old woman guarding the door, "Mama Zhao, I have something private to say to my sister. Could you please close the door for me and stand back so you don't eavesdrop?"
Qin Sang's mouth opened slightly. After Zhao Mama, whom Wang Huiwen had sent to guard her, closed the door and left, Xie Xiao walked to the door to make sure that no one was eavesdropping. Only then did Xie Xiao return and say condescendingly, "After you left the palace today, I went to see Prince Ning'an."
Qin Sang nearly spat out her soup: "You went to see... how did you see him? He dared to mess with a little girl like you? Didn't he have you beaten up?"
Xie Xiao wiped her hands with a handkerchief and said leisurely, "Don't look down on me like that. You said it yourself, I'm the one in our family who's most like Grandpa. I can see him with just a little trick. Why fight? That's so rude."
Qin Sang sneered: "Heh, so when you met him, what did you say to him? You didn't just say you wanted to replace me, did you?"
"I told you." Xie Xiao's face was smug and calm, with a hint of self-satisfaction.
Qin Sang was about to explode again, patiently waiting for the other person to continue, but the other person clearly wanted her to ask.
Helpless, she asked, "What did you say?"
“I told you that you like my brother, and he won’t be happy if he marries you. Why don’t you consider me?”
Qin Sang: "...And then?"
Xie Xiao sat down again, head held high, arms crossed, and raised her chin as if in utter confusion, saying, "Shouldn't you thank me? If it weren't for me, you and my brother would have been unable to be together, and you would have married a man you didn't love. Wouldn't that have been a lifelong regret?"
Qin Sang couldn't help but laugh: "You're so young, where did you learn all this? Do you even know what it means for lovers to be united in the end?"
"Of course I know, Grandpa and Grandma were them. When Grandma passed away, Grandpa was depressed for a whole year!"
Qin Sang was speechless.
She stared at the determined-looking girl in front of her, and for a moment, she actually began to seriously consider her words.
Finally, he asked, "Prince Ning'an, does he agree to your plan?"
"Well, plans can't always keep up with changes. Now that you've met His Majesty, the idea of a substitute marriage is obviously not going to work. We need to reconsider and plan carefully. That's why I didn't say anything, but just met with him first so that he could be mentally prepared."
"...Then, may I ask, how do you plan to take this long-term?"
The little girl stared intently at Qin Sang with her bright, watery eyes, making Qin Sang's skin crawl. Finally, she said in a sinister tone, "The tradition of newlywed brides dying suddenly in the Ning'an Prince's Mansion shouldn't be broken with you, right?"
Qin Sang sat up straight, her body subconsciously leaning back a little.
***
Two days later, Qin Baoyun returned with the information he had gathered.
"He took the imperial examination three years ago, but failed. According to his attendant, he had befriended a student from another place before the exam. Later, that student passed the exam, while Wen Qiyan failed. After failing the exam, the two had no further contact."
Qin Sang tapped her fingers on the table and frowned slightly: "Is there something wrong? People's life circumstances are different, and their circles are different too. What does it mean if there is no overlap?"
Qin Baoyun said, "The servant said that he had heard his young master cursing people after drinking, saying that the examinee was a fake."
"Fake? How fake? Did someone take the exam for you?"
Qin Baoyun shook his head: "That's all we've found out. The servant doesn't know much more. We can probably only start with that Young Master Wen."
Qin Sang paused for a moment, then asked, "Do you know the names of those students taking the high school entrance exam?"
Qin Baoyun: "Liang Mochang. I've already inquired about him. I heard that all his relatives are gone, and now he's all alone, struggling in the capital. He's currently working for the Crown Prince's faction, and he's gotten a good job and is doing very well in his career. He's already a sixth-rank official, working as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy. He got married two years ago to a distant relative of his maternal uncle from the Han Dynasty. They live on Yuanrong Street and have a three-courtyard house."
"Yuanrong Street? All by himself?" Qin Sang raised an eyebrow. "He's risen through the ranks, bought a house, and married in just three years. His life has been far too smooth."
Qin Baoyun: "So there's a problem."
Qin Sang nodded and decided to go and meet Wen Qiyan again.
Two months before the exams, the Confucius Temple outside Kyoto became especially bustling. A constant stream of people came to offer incense. These scholars would say that one shouldn't blindly believe in supernatural phenomena, yet the entrance was always filled with scholars in long robes.
Wen Qiyan, who failed the exam twice, was also dragged along by his wife and mother to burn incense.
While the women inside were praying, Qin Sang stood in front of Wen Qiyan and flirted with him, saying, "If you don't want your wife to misunderstand, young master, come with me to the side and talk."
Today, Qin Sang was dressed in women's clothing, with bright eyes and white teeth, her eyes as clear as autumn water. Wen Qiyan's eyes widened, but he still recognized her at a glance as the woman who had been disguising herself as a man and rudely sharing a table with him that day.
"What...do you want?" Wen Qiyan asked incredulously and angrily, perhaps sensing that Qin Sang wanted to ask him something, and he seemed a little nervous.
Qin Sang smiled: "The less time you linger here with me, the less danger you'll face. I just want to ask you about someone, there's no need to panic."
Wen Qiyan flung his sleeves and turned to leave: "I don't know anyone, don't ask me!"
Qin Sang stepped forward to stop him: "Lord Liang Mochang is about to rise to prominence. When the Crown Prince ascends the throne, his future will be limitless. If he has the opportunity to eliminate some of his friends who have seen him fall from grace, wouldn't it be a piece of cake? Mr. Wen, of course, you should prepare in advance for things like self-preservation."
Wen Qi's expression changed, his eyes filled with doubt: "Who... exactly are you?"
Qin Sang: "The person who will save your life."
***
As soon as the carriage curtain was lifted, Xie Sui'an's composed yet handsome face appeared before Wen Qiyan. He wanted to turn around, but Jinyun pushed him inside with a palm strike.
The scholar, who nearly fell over, asked in a trembling voice, "Who are you? What do you want to do to me?"
Qin Sang followed closely behind, smiling and saying, "I already told you we're here to help you. Look how young and kind we are, would we eat you?"
Xie Sui'an was both amused and exasperated: "Don't scare him."
He then politely gestured to Wen Qiyan, "Please sit down. Don't worry, we won't hurt you."
When Wen Qiyan saw Xie Sui'an's face clearly, he was taken aback again: "You are..."
Xie Sui'an smiled, pursing her lips.
Wen Qiyan was, after all, a native of Kyoto, so it wasn't surprising that he had seen Xie Sui'an on some important occasions, but he ultimately didn't utter Xie Sui'an's name aloud. He just felt much more at ease.
After a brief moment of reassurance, he asked anxiously, "What do you want to ask?"
"Naturally, we want to ask about Lord Liang Mochang now." Qin Sang sat down opposite him with a smile. "We want to know what the inside story of the scientific expedition is. How come most of the new students in recent years have become the Crown Prince's men? Haven't you all been studying for so many years and still been blind to support such a good-for-nothing?"
Wen Qiyan's eyes widened for a moment, then dimmed again: "So what? It's the trend of the times. Throughout history, countless dynasties have followed this path. When the arm and the leg fight, it's not always clear who will win or lose. Even if the Prime Minister were alive, he couldn't do anything about that person, let alone now..." As he spoke, he glanced lightly at Xie Sui'an.
Qin Sang: "You're quite clear-headed, so you don't think there's anything wrong with that your friend surnamed Liang forgetting about you after getting promoted and making a fortune?"
“He is not my friend,” Wen Qiyan said. “He is not Liang Mochang.”
After a brief silence in the car, Qin Sang and Xie Sui'an exchanged a glance.
The latter asked, "What do you mean?"
“He’s not Liang Mochang. Liang Mochang disappeared two days before the results were announced. The person now wearing official robes and bearing Liang Mochang’s name is not the real Brother Liang at all.” Although Wen Qiyan appeared calm, his voice trembled slightly. “And Brother Liang’s family… they say they’re all dead. But when I met Brother Liang, he told me that his wife had just given birth to a son before he went to the capital. How could his entire family have disappeared overnight? Is such a coincidence possible?”
Qin Sang's heart sank slightly.
Wen Qiyan roared excitedly, "They killed Brother Liang! And they had someone take his place! To cover it up, they even sent people to kill his entire family! They're practically controlling everything! You can investigate how many people in the court are holding official positions under someone else's identity, and how many scholars have been brutally murdered!"
Before the two could express their opinions, Wen Qiyan suddenly deflated, his voice becoming extremely soft as if swallowed by boundless anger and helplessness: "But what good will it do to find out? Unless you can stop everything... otherwise, these things will never see the light of day."
Qin Sang thought that in this scholar's eyes, the Kingdom of Namo was already finished.
Perhaps on the day Xie Zhongxu died, the people of Nanwu Kingdom no longer held any hope, so even when facing the descendants of Xie Xiang, his eyes were filled with deep darkness and indifference.
“We won’t never meet,” Xie Sui’an said calmly and firmly. “How can you know what the outcome will be until the very last moment? If there was really no hope, you wouldn’t be here now.”
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