His comfort
It was dusk when Pei Songsheng hurried back home after receiving the news.
He hurried into the inner courtyard and saw Lan Yue and Yi Xing standing in the corridor. Yi Xing's hair was disheveled and her dress was dusty. She didn't bother to clean herself up. She just wiped her tears and cried, "It's all my fault. I didn't protect the young lady well."
Lan Yue patted her shoulder gently to comfort her, her eyes red, and she said in a choked voice: "It's not your fault. Don't be like this, the one who is suffering the most right now is the young lady."
Seeing Pei Songsheng approaching, the two of them greeted him in unison. Pei Songsheng asked, "Where's she?"
Lan Yue looked at the closed door with a gloomy expression, "The young lady locked herself in the room as soon as she came back. She didn't let anyone in and refused to apply medicine on her wounds."
Pei Songsheng's pupils trembled. He looked at the tray with the medicine bottle in Lanyue's hand and whispered, "Give it to me."
He took the tray and pushed the door open to go inside.
The room was dimly lit and unlit. He walked in and saw the small lump on the bed, still trembling. The muffled sobs could be heard faintly through the quilt, making his heart ache as if it were being stabbed by a sharp knife.
He walked over quickly, placed the tray on the table, sat down on the edge of the bed, grabbed a corner of the quilt and tried to lift it. Cheng Yayin noticed his movement, but she hugged the quilt tighter and hid to the side of the bed.
"A Zheng, you'll bore yourself to death if you do this." Pei Songsheng said with great distress, "Let me take a look at you."
Cheng Yayin still hid under the quilt and refused to come out, her crying becoming more and more mournful. Pei Songsheng was extremely anxious and, despite her resistance, he forcefully pulled the quilt away.
Cheng Yayin was peeled out of the quilt by him. Her little face was covered with tears, and her hair was wet with sweat and tears, sticking to her cheeks in strands. Her face was flushed red from being suffocated, but even so, the crisscrossing finger marks on her face were still shocking, and Pei Songsheng felt a pain in his heart.
Under Pei Songsheng's gaze, Cheng Yayin's tears flowed more and more violently. She turned her head away embarrassedly, hiding in the quilt and said, "Don't look, get out quickly." She was in such a mess now that she didn't want him to see her.
Pei Songsheng did not let her do as she wished. He not only pushed the quilt away, but also grabbed her shoulders and made her face him.
Cheng Yayin twisted her arms to avoid being hit, but she gasped in pain when Pei Songsheng accidentally touched her wound. Pei Songsheng hurriedly let go of her, and she tried to turn around and grab the blanket again. He had no choice but to hold her whole in his arms.
Cheng Yayin's face was forced against his chest. She struggled hard at first, but later she couldn't move anymore. She grabbed the clothes on his chest, buried her face in it, and cried bitterly.
Pei Songsheng held her motionlessly, his warm tears quickly soaking through his clothes. He felt as if his whole heart was soaked in her salty tears, feeling sour and painful.
Cheng Yayin cried breathlessly in his arms, crying out all the grievances, shame, and hesitation she had experienced that day. Finally, she stopped crying and sobbed in his arms, "I'm... so embarrassed today. I was beaten up in public, and... and they all know that I am Song Lingjun. Tomorrow this news will spread throughout the city, and everyone will make fun of me..."
"No, you haven't done anything harmful. You just wrote what you wanted to write. No one can laugh at you for it." Pei Songsheng suppressed the sadness in his heart and comforted him in a gentle voice.
"But you didn't see the way they looked at me. After they knew I was Lord Song Ling, they treated me like some kind of filthy thing." Thinking of this, Cheng Yayin's crying voice became heavier.
"That's just the look of a superficial person, don't worry about it. Ah Zheng, don't dwell on it anymore. No matter what happens, I will face it with you. But now let's apply medicine to the wound on your face first, okay? Otherwise, you will be in pain all the time."
After being comforted by him, Cheng Yayin felt much better and nodded.
Pei Songsheng took the small medicine jar from the table, gently brushed away the hair on Cheng Yayin's face, picked up a little milky white ointment, warmed it in his palm, and carefully applied it on her face.
Cheng Yayin winced in pain as the ointment touched the swelling on her cheek. Pei Songsheng's heart trembled, and he frowned, moving even more gently, as if he were handling a fragile treasure.
The more gentle he was, the more aggrieved Cheng Yayin felt for some reason. She raised her eyelashes and looked at him, tears condensing in her eyes as she asked, "Am I ugly now?"
"Not ugly." Pei Songsheng said seriously, "A Zheng is beautiful no matter what."
Cheng Yayin felt a pang of pain in her nose. Afraid that he would worry, she endured it and waited until he finished applying the mask on the wound on his face.
"Can I let Lan Yue and the others apply medicine to your wounds?" Pei Songsheng asked softly after applying the medicine.
Cheng Yayin nodded. After her wounds were carefully treated with medicine, Pei Songsheng ordered the kitchen to prepare some porridge, which contained some tranquilizing herbs. Cheng Yayin fell asleep soon after drinking it.
Pei Songsheng stayed by the bed until her breathing became regular, then he slowly walked out of the room. After the door was gently closed, all the gentleness and patience on his face instantly disappeared. He heard coldly, "Where is that foolish woman?"
Jian Zhu also said with a serious face: "She injured someone in the street and has been imprisoned in Jingzhao Prefecture Prison."
Pei Songsheng's face was as gloomy as water, and he walked out of the door in the moonlight without saying a word.
Jingzhao Prefecture Prison.
Xia Zhou injured someone in the street, and the victim was the wife of a court official. As soon as she was put in prison, she was whipped without any explanation, and her skin was torn and her flesh was exposed. She no longer dared to be arrogant.
She lay on the hay in the cell, groaning in pain. Even the most clueless person would know that she had caused a misunderstanding and offended a powerful person. She was terrified and unsure whether she would be able to leave this cell alive.
When the cell door was opened, Xia Zhou was so frightened that her whole body trembled. Seeing that it was a man in official uniform, she quickly endured the pain and crawled up, knelt down in front of him, and kowtowed for mercy.
As he kowtowed, he stole a glance at him and was startled again. What a handsome man, but his expression was frighteningly cold. It seemed he was the "Lord Zhongcheng" the jailers were talking about. He had mistakenly believed that such a godlike figure's wife was having an affair with his own man. He was simply blinded by greed.
Xia Zhou was even more horrified. She didn't even bother to kowtow, but knelt on the ground and slapped herself, begging for mercy as she did so: "Please spare my life, sir! I didn't realize it was your wife I offended. It was out of my foolishness that I was instigated by someone, and that's why I committed this crime. Please spare my life, sir!"
Pei Songsheng watched coldly until she slapped her cheeks until they were red and swollen, and blood flowed from the corners of her mouth. Then he interrupted her: "You just said that you were instigated by someone. Who instigated you?"
Xia Zhou said incoherently, blood in her mouth: "I don't know them either. I just heard a few people talking when I was buying vegetables. They said they kept seeing the owner of Zhijin Bookstore and a woman dressed as a man doing something unclear. Whenever they met, they would send away the servants and wait in a quiet room for most of the day.
"They spoke so seriously, and I was impatient, so I didn't think to ask more questions before rushing off to catch them in adultery. I never expected that lady to be so noble. If I had known, I would have cut off my tongue rather than defame her..."
As Xia Zhou spoke, she began to sob, feeling both apprehensive and aggrieved. Pei Songsheng looked at her utterly miserable state expressionlessly, figuring she had spilled all she had to say, and that no further questioning would yield any results, so he turned and left.
Before leaving the government office, he instructed the jailer, "Keep an eye on her. Tomorrow someone from the Dali Temple will come to interrogate her. No one else is allowed to visit her."
When the jailer heard that the matter involved the Dali Temple, he realized the seriousness of the situation and agreed solemnly.
*
Although Pei Songsheng could severely punish those who hurt Cheng Yayin, he could not stop what happened that day from spreading throughout the city like wings overnight.
Cheng Yayin hadn't slept well that night, and she woke up feeling dizzy. She looked in the mirror and found that the swelling on her face had mostly subsided, but she looked too haggard, as if she were ill.
She remembered that Pei Songsheng had been sitting by the bed watching over him before he went to bed. When she woke up, she found that he was not there. She also couldn't find him in the mansion, so she asked the two maids.
They said that Pei Songsheng went out after she fell asleep last night, came back very late, sat by her bed all night, and went out again early in the morning, looking very busy.
Pei Songsheng certainly had his own things to do, and it wasn't like he was constantly around her. Cheng Yayin understood this, but she still felt unhappy. Although she stayed indoors, she knew that for a long time to come, the talk of the town would be about her exposed identity. So much was weighing on her mind that she couldn't concentrate on reading or eating all day.
Until a servant came to report that someone from the Cheng family had come to ask her to go back.
When the two maids heard this, they both showed an uneasy look. Cheng Yayin's expression did not change much. She stood up and let them help her dress up.
On the way to the Cheng residence, they passed a bustling street market. Cheng Yayin had been leaning against the carriage wall, resting her eyes when words like "Song Lingjun," "woman," and "shameless" drifted into her ears through the windswept curtains. She didn't open her eyes, but her eyelids trembled slightly. Lan Yue and Yi Xing quickly closed the curtains and began discussing dinner, drowning out the chatter outside with their conversation.
When they arrived at Cheng's house, Cheng Yayin got off the car. Uncle Chen was waiting in front of the house. When she saw his face, she knew that today would not be an easy day.
Even though I had expected it, my heart inevitably sank.
Uncle Chen led Cheng Yayin in and said nervously, "The master is waiting for you in the ancestral hall."
Cheng Yayin's heart skipped a beat. The ancestral hall was a sacred place in the family. When her eldest brother was a child, he had a bad temper. Whenever he got into trouble, their father would have him punished in the ancestral hall.
Arriving at the ancestral hall, the scene was truly extraordinary. Even my second brother, Cheng Qigu, had been summoned back from the palace and stood aside with a solemn expression. My father stood facing the ancestral tablet with his hands behind his back, his back radiating a solemnity.
Cheng Yayin nervously stepped forward to greet him: "Father, Second Brother."
Cheng Qigu forced a smile at her, but her father turned around and looked at her coldly: "Kneel down."
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