62 Chapter 62
He reached in...
On the way back home, Xu Qinghe asked about the new top scholar.
Wei Che said, "I don't know anything else. I only know that he was a candidate who came from a remote county to take the imperial examination. He saved money on his way to the capital, was bullied by the powerful, and nearly lost his books. Fortunately, he received a generous donation from a noble, and was able to reappear in the examination hall. In the end, he won first place in the palace examination."
Emperor Yongshun was unwilling to let a member of the Wei family win the top spot in the imperial examination. Coincidentally, another scholar from a poor family emerged whose literary talent was comparable to Wei Ming's. Naturally, he wanted to support him to become a disciple of the emperor, rather than let the Wei family take the credit for nothing.
Therefore, Wei Ming could only be ranked third in the imperial examination.
Perhaps because this fact was so embarrassing, Young Master Wei never mentioned it to Xu Qinghe, which made her unable to react for a while.
"What about the brother of the top scholar?" Xu Qinghe asked. Judging from Wei Si's tone just now, this brother who was said to be no longer alive should still be related to Wei Si.
Wei Che shook his head, admitting he knew nothing about it.
Xu Qinghe frowned: "Haven't you already entered the officialdom? How come you don't even know the specific situation of the officials in the court?"
Wei Che: "...Let's not talk about whether this newly crowned number one scholar has been granted an official position. I have indeed entered the officialdom, but I only entered today. Why do you think I know all this?"
Xu Qinghe ignored him for once. She just turned her head, pushed aside the curtains by the window, and looked out at the bustling night market.
It was only half past the hour of Xu, a time of leisure for people in the capital after a busy day. The students from the academy had already finished school and were walking down to the street to eat some snacks.
Xu Qinghe is only 29 years old now, and still has a childish heart. He can't take his eyes off the steaming snack stalls.
"If you want to eat, go down and buy it. Princess, do you still have to pretend to be dignified in front of me?" Wei Che asked with a smile.
Xu Qinghe turned around and said unhappily, "Then you pay?"
She was not pretending to be demure, she just didn't want to use her own money to buy it.
Today, Mr. Jiang gave her another ingot of gold, which she kept together with the previous one in Jing'an Mansion. In addition, there were of course those given by the wife of the Duke of Fuguo today.
Everything brought out of the palace, whether jewelry or money, would be registered.
The jewelry couldn't be sold, but the money could be used directly. Unfortunately, she left in such a hurry today that she didn't bring any money with her.
When she had asked Wei Che to investigate Wei Si, he said that all his men had been sent to the southern border, and there were not many people working at the moment, and it was unknown when he could investigate thoroughly.
If I had enough money, I could hire someone to do things for me. Why should I rely entirely on him?
Wei Che naturally couldn't let her pay for the trip when he went shopping with her, so he ended up buying a lot of cakes and snacks, most of which were spicy.
"Princess, please eat slowly. You have only just recovered." He followed the girl and advised her softly.
Xu Qinghe still had donkey meat hotpot in his mouth, and for the moment he couldn't argue with him, so he just rolled his eyes at him.
After swallowing everything in his mouth, Xu Qinghe finally sneered, "I don't know who caused my previous discomfort."
Wei Che was stunned: "...You know everything?"
Xu Qinghe glanced at him and said, "Just now I was just guessing, but now seeing Prince Wei's reaction, I know for sure."
Wei Che: ...
How come this girl is still like her childhood days, always setting traps for him?
"After you went to the Qi Mansion, I discovered that someone had replaced the food sent to you on your wedding night, mixing it with peanut powder. Later, I traced it all the way back to Wei Fu's subordinate. And that bowl of kumquat and pear soup was also tampered with, just as the palace doctor said."
Since she had already guessed it, Wei Che had no choice but to tell her the truth.
It was for this reason that he later secretly instructed the wife of the Duke of Fuguo to replace all the people in his courtyard, and in the name of pleasing the princess, he bought new furniture and utensils in the entire courtyard, so as not to give Wei Fu any chance to take advantage of him.
"I wanted to wait until I had thoroughly investigated her intentions before bringing this up with you, but I didn't expect you to already know."
Xu Qinghe had already finished eating the fire cake. He wiped his lips with a handkerchief and said, "There's no need to investigate further. Princess Yongyan and I have a grudge, and your eldest sister is on good terms with Yongyan. This is her intention."
Wei Che knew that Concubine Zhao and her daughter had always had conflicts with Xu Qinghe.
But she didn't expect Wei Fu to get involved in this matter and even wanted to kill her with peanuts.
Now it was finally confirmed that Wei Fu was the one who had tripped him up as soon as she entered the Prince of Fuguo's Mansion. When Xu Qinghe saw her again later, he remained expressionless on the surface, but was secretly on guard against her.
Fortunately, the wife of the Duke of Fuguo was a really good mother-in-law. She would pay her respects to her every now and then according to the etiquette of a newlywed. She was always kind and never set rules for herself. She would just hold her hand and ask if she was used to her daily life. She would cleverly bring up some topics and let her have a friendly conversation with the girls from the Wei family.
Although the Duke of Fuguo is a playboy and has countless concubines in his harem, his wife is a resourceful woman. In such a large Duke of Fuguo's mansion, there are only three sons and two daughters. The eldest and second sons have already started their own families and are now serving as officials in the Southern Border Army.
In the entire mansion, there were only the third-ranked prince Wei Che, the fourth son Wei Hao, the eldest daughter Wei Fu and the second daughter Wei Yun. Wei Hao was still young and had not yet married, and the only female relatives were Xu Qinghe, Wei Fu and Wei Yun.
Wei Fu looked gentle and dignified, and was very caring towards Xu Qinghe. The second girl, Wei Yun, was more silent. Most of the time, she just listened carefully to what everyone said without saying a word herself.
She had heard Wei Che mention that Wei Yun was born to Concubine Jin, the most beloved concubine of the Duke of Fuguo, but Concubine Jin was well-behaved and raised her daughter to be well-behaved.
Xu Qinghe just felt sorry for her. How could a girl of her age be well-behaved or not? She would just want to play around.
She thought of herself again. She used to be carefree because she had her father and mother to look after her. Later, when she entered the palace, wasn't she pretending to be well-behaved because she had no one to rely on?
Wei Che said that Aunt Jin was just an orphan rescued by the Duke of Fuguo from the battlefield in the southern border. She thought that it was because she had no family to rely on that she was so obedient and taught her daughter to be so well-behaved.
**
After a night in Yichun Tower, Wei Che went to the Imperial Guards to take up his duty as usual. He was ordered by the emperor to come here for training, but in reality it was just an unassuming job, and he only had to follow Commander Qi. In fact, he didn't need to do anything.
This actually wasted his time, forcing him to only find time at night to inquire about the top scholar's situation.
But he also knew some ways of "abusing his power". He relied on his status to neglect his duties and chatted with people drinking everywhere, and did get some information out of them.
"The top scholar's surname was Xu Zhou. His parents died young, leaving behind a teenage brother named Xu Ji. The two brothers had a close relationship. When Xu Zhou went to Beijing to take the imperial examination, he entrusted his brother to the care of his neighbors. After passing the imperial examination, he went looking for someone to bring his brother back. However, his brother disappeared along the way. Xu Zhou immediately reported the matter to the authorities, but there has been no news since. Roughly speaking, it must have been over half a month."
In this case, either Xu Ji’s disappearance was just an accident, or... it was Wei Sixia’s doing.
In the afternoon, Xu Qinghe talked with the women of the family in the main house for half a day. He originally intended to find out some news from the Duke's wife, but when he mentioned the number one scholar, Miss Wei took the opportunity to mention Wei Ming, the third place scholar.
As soon as his name came out, the expressions of several people at the small table became a little strange. After all, Wei Che had snatched this marriage from Wei Ming, the third place winner in the imperial examination.
Besides, everyone in the capital still thought that she and Wei Mingcai were a perfect couple.
This made Xu Qinghe unable to ask about the number one scholar later. Otherwise, what would happen if her mother-in-law thought that she was involved with the number one scholar again?
After taking a bath at night, Xu Qinghe sat on the couch and lamented that she had not gotten any information in the past hundred days. Wei Che stood beside her, combing her hair and telling her in detail what he had learned.
This time, the two of them were calm and only focused on guessing where Xu Ji had gone, without any conflicts.
Therefore, the force with which Wei Che twisted the hair was always neither too light nor too heavy, just right.
Xu Qinghe closed her eyes comfortably again, thinking back to that night in Yichunlou when Wei Si mentioned that Xu Zhou had no parents and even no younger brother.
I don't know whether he said this out of speculation because the government had no news for a long time, or whether Xu Ji's disappearance was related to him.
What's more... he had already killed Xu Ji, and the young man is no longer alive.
She suddenly remembered the first painting Mr. Jiang asked her to draw. It was on a rainy and thundering night in the dense forest, with Wei Si's face full of fear.
Xu Qinghe opened his eyes, raised his head and told Wei Che this.
"How do you know this?" Wei Che asked.
Xu Qinghe simply said, "Just have your people search for him in the nearby dense forest. Don't ask any other questions."
Wei Che laughed and said, "You are so overbearing. You just make me do things without giving me any benefits. You even forbid me from asking."
It has been more than half a month since the wedding. Which groom in Beijing is like him? He can only sleep on the couch in the second room until now!
I'm afraid he is the only one!
He was just complaining helplessly and didn't expect Xu Qinghe to let him sleep in the inner room or tell him the reason, so he was not surprised when the girl in front of him remained silent.
But unexpectedly, when he wrung her hair dry and was about to go to bed, the girl suddenly looked up at him and said, "Then you can sleep in the inner room."
Her pretty, fair face was made even smaller by her thick, jet-black hair, about the size of a palm. She just looked up at him in the warm candlelight.
Wei Che was overjoyed and was about to agree, but the girl said, "I'll sleep on the couch from now on."
Wei Che was immediately extinguished by the cold water and curled his lips: "Forget it, with the princess's physique, she will get sick after sleeping for one night, so why bother?"
He resigned himself to his fate and went to pick up the bedding.
Unfortunately, the weather was bad tonight. It suddenly started to rain heavily at midnight, and the cold wind blew so hard that the windows rattled.
Xu Qinghe was woken up and remembered that Wei Che had taken out a summer quilt. She was afraid that she would get sick in such a cold and rainy day.
But even if he was sick, what did it have to do with her? She had just told him to sleep inside and she would sleep outside, but he just refused.
She turned over in the thunder, and suddenly there was a loud bang. The window beside the bed was blown open, and specks of rain mixed with strong wind came in, and a chill immediately hit her.
Xu Qinghe didn't feel very cold lying on the bed wrapped in two layers of gauze curtains, but she thought of Wei Che in the next room again.
After a while, the door of the inner room was pushed open and someone walked in with heavy footsteps.
Xu Qinghe was startled and immediately took out the red jade hairpin from under the pillow. She stared at the fluttering curtains, her heart pounding.
If Wei Che came in, she would use the hairpin to knock him unconscious, then tie him up and throw him into the main hall.
If he didn't come in and do anything, she would pretend to know nothing and pretend to be asleep.
However, the man did not do much in the end. He just walked to the window and closed it tightly, then lifted the curtain and walked into the bed.
Xu Qinghe hid his hands in the quilt and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.
A corner of the curtain was lifted, and Wei Che reached in...
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