Chapter 24 Mr. Bad's cold sweat dripped from his forehead.
Just as Zhu Qing was about to reply, Feng Huaihe suddenly turned his back to her, his voice icy: "Why has the Grand Master come?"
Zhu Qing was confused, not knowing who he was talking to. She peeked out slightly and saw that there was someone standing opposite Feng Huaihe.
The man was around thirty years old, with a Taoist-style topknot and a long beard that fluttered in the wind, giving him an air of otherworldly elegance.
He looked like a Taoist priest. Zhu Qing had never seen this person before and could not recall him. She was even more surprised and suspicious. Even Tian Lingzi, the head of Feng Huaihe's secretariat, would not come here. Why would he come so quietly?
Amidst her doubts, the man's cloudy, narrow eyes looked at her: "Who are you? What brings you here?"
"I……"
Before Zhu Qingcai could speak, Feng Huaihe interrupted her, saying, "You go out first."
He moved slightly, his tall figure blocking Zhu Qing's path.
"oh……"
She noticed a subtle change in Feng Huaihe. From the moment that Taoist priest appeared, he was like a taut rubber band, stretched taut.
A silent tension spread through Feng Huaihe.
She lowered her head and quickly walked past him as if trying to escape.
Jing Wan watched Zhu Qing's hurried departure with a probing gaze, sensing something was amiss. No one other than himself had entered the Secretary's Courtyard before.
He slowly withdrew his gaze, gave Feng Huaihe a probing look, and then stepped into the chief secretary's office: "Come in with me."
-
As the last rays of the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky darkened, the candlesticks in the secretary's room emitted a faint glow, illuminating the poppy shells scattered on the table.
As soon as Jing entered the door, he saw it.
His hand, which was turning the prayer beads, paused: "What is this?"
Feng Huaihe said bluntly, "Didn't you see it all?"
Poppy shells, this medicinal herb, was given to Feng Huaihe by the doctor when he was sick in his previous life.
After each dose, Feng Huaihe felt his limbs floating, as if he were falling into the clouds, his soul wandering away, free from the suffering of the mortal world.
At these times, he not only forgets the pain of losing Zhu Qing, but also occasionally sees Zhu Qing standing in front of his bed, smiling sweetly at him and calling him "sir".
Gradually, he became addicted to the drug.
The doctor repeatedly warned that this medicine is highly addictive and should not be taken in large quantities.
But since the medicine could make his days of being bedridden a little easier, Feng Huaihe couldn't control himself.
Having been given a second chance at life, he thought he would no longer need to rely on this medicine to relieve his pain, until he met Zhu Qing and Zhang Yin in Qingxi Village.
His jealousy and hatred crumbled completely, returning him to square one.
Fortunately, this young body was taking the drug for the first time and had not become addicted. Feng Huaihe thought that perhaps, like Zhu Qing, it was still not too late.
During Feng Huaihe's silence, Jing Wan kept observing him.
Jing Wanxin noticed that Feng Huaihe was quite different from usual.
In the past, Feng Huaihe was very cautious in front of him, and his eyes and demeanor revealed his respect and fear.
She was completely obedient to him, listening to and obeying his every word.
The way Jing Wan looked at him, with eyes that seemed to both depend on him like a young animal and fear being abandoned, gave him a tremendous sense of presence.
But at some point, Feng Huaihe stopped being like that.
Not only did he no longer obey orders, but when he occasionally looked over, Jingwan could also detect a subtle hatred in his eyes.
“Zhijian,” Jingwan said, sitting at Feng Zhijian’s desk, playing with a string of smooth, round Buddhist beads, and speaking in a caring tone like an elder, “have you still not thought about what I told you last time?”
He glanced at Feng Huaihe, his eyes filled with a hidden pressure.
Feng Huaihe quietly clenched his fist: "I will not go to the Feng family." Nor will I go to acknowledge my ancestors.
Jingwan sighed, "But your mother doesn't have much time left, and she wants to see you one last time before she passes away. Have you forgotten how I taught you?"
"I haven't forgotten. It's nothing more than utmost loyalty, utmost filial piety, and utmost righteousness."
"Then why don't you go?" Jing Wan said earnestly, "Your behavior is contrary to filial piety."
"I'm being unfilial?" Feng Zhijian scoffed coldly. "Then what about you, sir, who deliberately killed your daughter for the sake of honor and disgrace?"
"What did you say?"
Jing Wan's face darkened.
As Feng Huaihe looked at it, he felt a sharp pain return to the wound on his knee that had already scabbed over.
He never imagined that his fear of Taoist Jingwan, accumulated over the past few decades, would still be so deeply ingrained in his bones.
In his previous life, the Feng family, a century-old merchant family, was very wealthy and had countless riches. Feng Huaihe was taken back by the Feng family and transformed from a poor boy in Qingxi Village into a rich young master.
But he felt no warmth whatsoever in that vast mansion.
His father, Feng Ruling, always looked at him with a complicated and unsettling gaze. His mother, Li, also did not care for him. On the few occasions they met, she was always cold towards him.
Feng Huaihe got used to it until his family arranged for him to have a tutor named Jing Wan.
Only by respecting and accompanying him, educating him, and passing on the principles of morality to others can we truly help him.
Occasionally, Jingwan would pat his head and say, "You were born for the people, and everything you do should be based on the people. This is your way in life. In the future, I will give you the title 'Zhijian' (meaning 'simplicity'). Do you understand?"
In order to gain the continued attention of his only elder, Feng Zhijian tried hard to please him, nodding vigorously.
He respected Jingwan and liked the way Jingwan looked at him with admiration. So he was also a little afraid that Jingwan would be disappointed and stop admiring him, and abandon him like his elder sister, father, and mother.
In his previous life, he made too many mistakes in order to respect Wan's so-called 'Dao'.
On the eve of Zhu Qing's departure after completing her training, he was ready to express his feelings to her and ask her to stay.
But he couldn't make up his mind, so he went to ask Jingwan for advice, hoping to get some guidance.
Jing Wan replied, "If I can kill a woman, you should also abandon your disciple."
So Feng Zhijian watched helplessly as Zhu Qing left.
After the Sixteen Prefectures were ceded, Jing Wan forced him to trick Zhu Qing into coming to Chang'an and killing him.
Jing Wan reiterated his previous statement: "If I can kill a woman, you should also abandon your disciple, especially one who cedes cities."
Feng Zhijian resisted and struggled, but whenever he did, Jing Wan would look at him with that disappointed look.
He was terrified. Jingwan was utterly disappointed in him and then left him.
After all, Zhu Qing had already married, and her family had been wiped out by Zhu Wen. He was all alone, and Jing Wan was his last lifeline. He was unwilling to lose even that last lifeline!
He did heed Jing Wan's advice, but the two compromised; he killed Zhang Yin and released Zhu Qing.
Jingwan simply said, "You should spread the word that no matter which of the two of them comes to the appointment, they should not be sent back."
Jing Wan had arranged archers; no matter which of Zhu Qing and his wife came, they would die.
Feng Zhijian was surprised to see Zhu Qing arrive alone.
He hadn't expected that Zhang Yin would actually let her go alone.
He hated Zhang Yin to the core, and even more so himself.
After Zhu Qing's death, he wanted to commit suicide to follow Zhu Qing in death, but Jing Wan said that since things had already come to this point, even if he died, it would be of no use.
He should live to fulfill Zhu Qing's ideals, assist a monarch, and usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity.
He watched the people suffer, with sheep being served to them one after another. In the end, he chose to eke out a living, guarding Zhu Qing's lonely grave, bearing the infamy of killing his disciple, and living a lonely life.
Looking back on his life alone in his later years, he still feels extremely bitter. This bitterness flows through his entire body, making his hands and feet numb.
Feng Huaihe forced himself to pull himself out of those painful memories and looked calmly at Jing Wan, saying, "There is no such thing as divination in the world. You predicted that your daughter would harm the Tang Dynasty and killed her, but it was only to shock the public and gain honor and respect."
Jing Wan stood up from his chair with a smirk, "What nonsense are you talking about?"
"Whether it's nonsense or not, you know better than the students."
'Snap—'
Jing Wan slammed his hand on the desk, his chest heaving with anger, and pointed at Feng Huaihe's nose, ordering, "Kneel down!"
To defy one's superiors, what a feat!
Without hesitation, Feng Huaihe knelt down. The wound on his knee reopened, and the pain brought him back to his senses.
He knew all too well that he had been tamed too stubbornly by Jing Wan, and even if he were to be reborn, he still couldn't help but feel fear. But on the surface, he had to pretend to be calm no matter what.
Having lived past one hundred years old, Feng Huaihe had come to realize that if he could find a good teacher to guide him when he went astray, prevent him from making many serious mistakes, and pull him out of the abyss of decay, he could avoid many detours.
Perhaps things wouldn't have ended this way with Zhu Qing.
Mr. Jingwan should enlighten and educate him, not tame or subdue him.
He didn't blame or complain about Jingwan, but he just didn't want to be Jingwan's student again in this lifetime.
After all, neither he nor Jingwan were good men.
One only wanted to tame the students, while the other harbored lustful desires towards them.
“My daughter’s matter happened many years ago. I want her to rest in peace, so I won’t argue with you,” Jing Wan said. “I only ask you, are you going back to the Feng family or not!”
"I'm not going back!"
"Do you know that the debt of giving birth to a child is greater than heaven and earth? She was your birth mother, and she just wanted to see you one last time before she died!"
Feng Huaihe gritted his teeth: "I'm not going back!"
"Treason!"
"I will never go back!"
He had already died once for the Feng family in his previous life, and even if the debt of being born was as great as the heavens, he should have repaid it. As for the debt of being raised, he was raised by his elder sister.
He didn't want to be entangled with that Feng woman anymore; he just wanted to live, to live for Zhu Qing, and to give her everything he had that he had.
He should belong to Zhu Qing, to make up for everything he gave her.
"You, you," Jing Wan paced back and forth angrily, wishing he could spin in circles, "I had no idea you had become so stubborn!"
He glanced around and his gaze settled on a rope on the wall.
The rope was the one Feng Huaihe used to use to tie books. Jing Wan took off the rope, bent it in his hand to make it stiff, and whipped it hard on Feng Huaihe's back.
-
As soon as Zhu Qing stepped out of the Secretary's residence, he took a deep breath. Although it was the same sky, the air outside was fresher than that inside the Secretary's residence!
She walked out of the shogunate, squatted by the gate, and waited for Zhu Feichuan's oxcart to come and pick her up.
Before Zhu Feichuan arrived, she met Feng Ruling.
Feng Ruling was only in his fifties, but half of his hair had already turned white. He arrived in a hurry with a dozen servants, who were carrying boxes.
The box had Wenmofang's stamp on it, so it must have contained items he bought from Wenmofang today.
Feng Ruling looked anxious, but stopped outside the gate of the magistrate's mansion, as if he dared not go in. When he saw Zhu Qing, he came up to her: "Young lady, judging from your appearance, you are on duty at the magistrate's mansion, right?"
Zhu Qing didn't understand what he was going to do, so she nodded.
"Could you please pass on my message? I would like to see Secretary Feng."
"...I can't see him either." Zhu Qingcai had just escaped Feng Huaihe's den of wolves and had no intention of going back.
Feng Ruling wiped the sweat from his brow and gasped, "Young lady, please inform them, I'll give you a string of cash as a token of my gratitude. To tell you the truth, Huaihe's mother is dying..."
Zhu Qing looked at the middle-aged man, whose face was filled with both haggardness and loneliness, but she did not feel any pity until she heard him mention Feng Huaihe's mother.
She was in a daze.
A moment later, she stood up and refused the string of coins that Feng Ruling offered her: "I'll go, you wait here."
Zhu Qing mustered her courage. It was just a trip, and she secretly vowed in her heart that this would be the last time she entered the Secretariat!
One last time!
She stepped into the courtyard, and the evening breeze just happened to blow past her ear, carrying with it Feng Huaihe's faint, muffled groans of pain.
Zhu Qing frowned. He had just seen him using poppies. Could it be that his illness was acting up again?
She quickened her pace and rushed into the chief secretary's office like a gust of wind.
She ran so fast that she reached out and grabbed the door frame, panting heavily. When she looked up, she saw Feng Huaihe kneeling on the ground, with Jing Wan behind him raising a long whip and lashing it hard on his back.
With a whoosh, the whip tore open the flesh, leaving bloodstains everywhere.
Scattered around him were the shattered clods of earth from the vase he had seen earlier that day. His tall body was bent over, lying prostrate on the ground, arching into the shape of a small bridge, like a broken pine branch or a collapsed green hill.
The surrounding air froze in that instant.
Hearing the sound, Feng Huaihe turned his head and looked over. His cheeks were flushed red from the pain. When he saw Zhu Qing by the door, he was stunned and slowly clenched his hands into fists.
Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, slid down his high nose bridge, and disappeared on the ground.
Zhu Qing stood frozen in place, not daring to go any further.
The look in Feng Huaihe's eyes was filled with shame, resentment, and the vulnerability and inferiority she had seen.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Thank you babies for the nutrient solution and the landmines!
Please!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com