Chapter 128 The murderer has also become a prisoner; what will become of Cui Ying...?
As soon as the rain stopped, the Censorate summoned Xiao Qiyu, saying that the mastermind behind framing the Marquis's mansion and killing someone had been caught.
Deep inside the prison, the air was thick with the damp, rotting stench. Torchlight flickered menacingly on either side of the corridor, and the occasional hoarse groans of condemned prisoners from the cells only added to the eeriness.
The lock was opened with a key, the jailer pushed open the cell door, politely bowed to the tall, slender boy in front of him, and withdrew.
Xiao Qiyu stepped into the prison and looked at the figure huddled in the corner.
When Yun Cheng was arrested, he was attending class at Luming Academy. Now, his clean white robe was stained, his neatly combed hair was disheveled, and his face was covered in bruises. He stared blankly at the rat hole door in the corner of the wall, a far cry from his former refined and clean appearance.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up, and a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes when he saw Xiao Qiyu's face.
Xiao Qiyu stood before him, silent and quietly watching Yun Cheng, his gaze calm and serene.
“I really didn’t expect,” Xiao Qiyu said slowly, his voice as cold as frost, exceptionally clear and ruthless in the empty prison, “that you would actually have the audacity to kill someone and frame someone.”
Yun Cheng listened to the words and felt they sounded like mockery.
Yes, who would have thought that such a weak and useless scholar, who couldn't even kill a chicken, would have the audacity to beat someone to death?
He sneered, raised his chin, narrowed his eyes, and looked at Xiao Qiyu: "I haven't admitted it myself, so what makes you think I killed him?"
He spat out a mouthful of blood, displaying an unprecedented level of vulgarity, and retorted, "By coercing a confession through torture?"
Xiao Qiyu's eyes remained unchanged, and his tone was calm: "The deceased had a fatal kick wound in his chest. The coroner found two main footprints on the body. One was a man's footprint, which matched yours perfectly. The other was smaller and looked like a woman's."
As soon as she finished speaking, Yun Cheng's face turned deathly pale.
Xiao Qiyu scrutinized his expression and continued, "Tell me, whose footprint is that woman's?"
Outside the tiny window of the prison cell, dark clouds piled up across the sky.
Outside the Censorate, the three main gates were tightly closed, and the plaques hung high, appearing especially solemn in the dim light of the day.
The girl, with her dry, yellow hair and emaciated frame, stumbled to the door and frantically tugged at the guard's sleeve, her voice trembling: "I killed him! I beat him to death! It has nothing to do with my brother!"
The constable glared at her with disdain, shoved the girl aside, and shouted angrily, "Get out of my way!"
The girl fell to the ground, rolling around covered in rain and mud, attracting the attention of countless passersby.
She didn't care at all. She got up again, ran to the constable, knelt down, looked up, held back her tears, and solemnly confessed: "I've been stealing chickens and dogs since I was a child. I love to pickpocket. My brother tried to stop me from doing that, but I just couldn't change. Over time, I felt that killing someone wasn't a big deal. So I really did kill the person. It has nothing to do with my brother! It has absolutely nothing to do with him!"
"Arrest me! Cut off my head! My life is worthless!"
The girl, tears streaming down her face, kept kowtowing: "But my brother is different. He's good at studying, sensible, and everyone who's met him says he's intelligent. He's destined to be a high-ranking official! I beg you, please don't ruin him, please don't ruin him..."
She seemed oblivious to the pain, repeatedly banging her head against the ground. Bright red blood quickly seeped from her forehead, trickling down her skin like a stream.
In the dark and damp cell, a drop of dew that had condensed on the ceiling fell and landed on Yun Cheng's forehead, making him awake and painful.
Xiao Qiyu's voice still echoed in his ears, cold and clear:
"The coroner found two main footprints on the body. One was a man's, which matched your footprint perfectly. The other was smaller and looked like a woman's."
"Whose footprint do you think that woman's is?"
Yun Cheng's expression changed.
His eyes lowered slightly, his sophistry vanished into silence as he stared intently at the stains on his clothes.
"If you don't want others to know, then don't do it in the first place."
Xiao Qiyu paused, then called him by his full name for the first time: "Xiao Yuncheng, your parents are watching from heaven, don't let them down."
Xiao Yuncheng suddenly raised his face, his eyes filled with light, but there was no warmth in them. Instead, he looked as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world and asked in surprise, "Father and Mother?"
He laughed, a sudden surge of overwhelming hatred appearing in his eyes. He sneered, his teeth clenched as if he were chewing up a knife and spitting it out, blood streaming down his face: "Are you saying that couple who were so obsessed with love that one of them didn't care about his health and took health-preserving pills like food, while the other, at his advanced age, committed suicide for love, and were a pair of despicable people who gave birth but didn't raise their children?"
Xiao Qiyu was slightly taken aback, his gaze fixed on Yun Cheng's eyes, which were filled with resentment.
This was the first time he had ever looked at his half-brother with a straight eye.
Yun Cheng stared straight at him, her voice trembling with excitement: "Young Master Xiao, I envy you so much. We both lost our parents, but you were raised by the old lady with all her love and care, while I was destined to fall into the hands of that gambling addict who was addicted to alcohol. I've been living a life worse than a pig or a dog since I was a child, and I've almost forgotten what my own name is!"
Hearing these words, Xiao Qiyu felt a mix of emotions, and said in a deep voice, "I have also envied you."
"Envious of me?" Yun Cheng laughed loudly, his gaze sweeping down on Xiao Qiyu, his condescending tone full of sarcasm. "Do you know what kind of life I live, yet you dare to envy me? You wear Hangzhou brocade, and cloud-patterned boots that only nobles and officials can wear. Have you ever worked in the fields? Have you ever cut pig feed? Do you know what it's like to be hungry and cold, to have to hide in a cellar like rats in the dead of winter, huddling together for warmth?"
He suddenly ripped off his dirty robe: "But you and I should have been the same!"
In the dimly lit cell, Yun Cheng's eyes seemed to be tempered with fire: "I just wanted to take back what was rightfully mine! What did I do wrong? Of course I know that killing that gambler and pinning the blame on the Marquis of Dingyuan's mansion is useless. It won't shake you, and it will only make you despise me after the truth comes out. But isn't this the only chance to get your attention? I just want you to remember me, to remember that I am also a descendant of the Xiao family, no matter what method I use!"
Amidst the accusations, Xiao Qiyu's shadow was cast on the ground, its length alternating between long and short by the firelight.
He suddenly asked, "Is it true that the deceased owed the gambling den eighty taels of silver before his death?"
All the accusations came to an abrupt halt, and Yun Cheng immediately fell silent, speechless and with a stiff expression.
Xiao Qiyu's gaze was sharp as he calmly said, "You don't need to play dumb in front of me."
“If you were truly someone who was eager to achieve success, you would have gone to the Marquis’s residence to acknowledge your relatives on the very first day you arrived in the capital. Why would you have deliberately concealed your identity and enrolled in the Luming Academy?”
Without pausing, Xiao Qiyu blurted out, "What truly made you want to kill him was his plan to sell your sister to a brothel to pay off his debts, wasn't it?"
Yun Cheng's expression remained stiff, but his lips trembled uncontrollably. Finally, he grinned and said, "There's no need for that nonsense. I admit I'm the murderer. I did kill the person. Do whatever you want with me."
His voice was utterly exhausted, as if his soul had been drained away; all his resentment and unwillingness vanished in that instant.
Xiao Qiyu stepped forward and took out a money pouch from his pocket, the very one that Cui Ying had lost and then recovered from Yun Cheng:
"Here is a household registration for a man named Qiao Yunfei and five hundred taels of silver. You must leave the capital immediately for three years. After three years, whether you want to use this identity to go to the capital to take the imperial examination or want to leave for good, it's up to you."
Yun Cheng seemed not to understand what was being said, and remained frozen in shock for a long time.
He stared incredulously at the money pouch, then looked up at Xiao Qiyu, finally managing to stammer out a jumbled sentence: "You...why did you..."
"Why would I help you?" Xiao Qiyu asked, her tone calm and even.
He said, "To be honest, I didn't want to come today. It was Cui Ying who asked me to come. She also prepared this money and household registration."
Upon hearing Cui Ying's name, Yun Cheng's mind conjured up the girl's bright and vivid face, as warm and gentle as the spring sunshine, yet untouchable.
His eyes reddened, and he lowered his head.
She said, "It wasn't easy for you to get to where you are today, and it's a pity that a rotten person ruined it."
Xiao Qiyu's voice drifted into the dampness of the prison cell, faint and without a trace.
But actually, Cui Ying had a second part to say.
Cui Ying also said that whether or not to give the items away was Xiao Qiyu's own freedom. If he gave them away, she would not be proud of him; if he didn't, she wouldn't feel anything was wrong. The important thing was not whether he gave them away or not, but that Xiao Qiyu followed his own heart's choice.
Xiao Qiyu did indeed make a choice.
Let the grudges of the previous generation end with the previous generation. Those who deserved to die and those who didn't are all dead. What right or wrong can be argued about? Two young people, one buried in his studies and the other buried in martial arts, what deep hatred could they possibly have?
Yun Cheng didn't look at the money pouch, nor did he reach out to take it. He just lowered his head, remained silent for a long time, and his fingers trembled slightly.
"Don't even dream of ever returning to the Marquis's mansion."
Xiao Qiyu's voice turned colder: "I don't hate you, but I can't let my mother down. The best relationship we can have is if we can't be brothers in this life and never see each other again."
He looked up through the tiny window at the increasingly dark sky and remarked casually, "It's going to rain again."
"Your sister is still crying outside."
Yun Cheng instantly raised his head, stretched out his hand, and almost snatched the money bag containing the household registration and banknotes, his knuckles turning white from the force.
Like a hungry wolf pouncing on its prey, it bit down hard on a piece of meat that could save its life.
...
On the eve of an impending storm, the brother and sister were finally reunited.
Yun Cheng clutched the life-saving money bag tightly and struggled to help her younger sister, who was kneeling on the ground, to her feet.
The girl clung to him tightly, as if she were dreaming, her voice trembling uncontrollably: "I thought you would never come out again, brother, brother..."
Yun Cheng wiped the blood and tears from her face with his sleeve, his voice gentle: "Don't cry, brother will take you away."
He glanced back at the imposing plaque of the Censorate: "We'll never come to this capital again."
The two supported each other and staggered away into the crowd.
Xiao Qiyu watched their departing figures in silence, and couldn't help but imagine what Cui Ying's feelings would be if he were to become a prisoner one day.
The moment this thought crossed his mind, he seemed to see Cui Ying's almond-shaped eyes, which always held a smile, filled with tears; he saw blood seeping from her smooth forehead; he heard her sobbing cries...
A sudden, sharp pain shot through my chest, as if I had been pierced by a sharp blade.
no.
He absolutely cannot let that happen.
no way.
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Author's note: I made it in time, at least! Please read on while I edit. [crying emoji]
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