Chapter 71 Chapter 71 Jinjiang First Release
Chapter 71
That night, Pingyao City was littered with corpses.
Cui Jue held the reins in one hand, held the sword in the other, and led his troops on horseback to charge into the fleeing enemy soldiers.
She usually looks so bright and beautiful, but today she seems to be possessed by a ghost and is full of evil spirit.
The man's killing method was brutal. He twisted his wrist and swung his sword skillfully. With just a chop or a cut, he could take off several heads in the blink of an eye.
The heads that fell among the wild grass and Gobi were crushed by Chixia's fierce horse hooves, and the snow dust flew and the sand and stones were vast.
Cui Jue completely ignored the blood and flesh stuck to his body. He pursued the enemy for dozens of miles, intending to kill all the blind attackers along the way.
The ground was covered with blood, and clouds of blood mist came from the sharp blade of the thin knife, splashing onto Cui Jue's long eyebrows and seeping into his cold starry eyes.
Cui Jue's black armor robe was soaked deeper with blood, and sticky bloodstains hung from the corners of his clothes, and every time he twisted it, his hands would be covered in blood.
Cui Jue fought bravely and finally won the battle after a night of fighting.
Cui Jue ordered his men to carry all the enemy corpses out of the city and pour tung oil on them. He looked at the piles of broken limbs and arms, holding a blazing torch in his hand, staring coldly.
Cui Jue wanted to burn all the corpses with fire and turn their bones into ashes... There is a saying in the north, that is, after a person dies, the body should either be buried intact or abandoned on the snow top to be eaten by hawks and falcons, completing a sky burial. In this way, the soul can be brought to the gods and Buddhas by the sacred hawks and receive the protection of heaven.
But Cui Jue insisted on burning them all to ashes with fire, leaving not even a trace of flesh and blood.
Outsiders believed that Cui Jue did this to prevent the corpse from rotting and causing plague, which would harm the people.
Only Wei Zhiyan noticed that something was wrong. His master was so silent and gloomy, personally dismembering the bodies and carrying out the execution by burning. I'm afraid he wanted to destroy even the souls of these enemy soldiers.
The troops of the powerful tribes in the northwest launched a surprise attack at night and brutally slaughtered all the garrison and civilians in Pingyao City. Cui Jue avenged the common people, and everyone applauded.
Everyone knelt down, weeping bitterly, and shouting, "Lord!"
Cui Jue didn't even look at anyone. He coldly held a bag of charred bones, a piece of broken jade, and a few clothes that had not been burned by the fire, and returned home silently.
When Chen Heng had defeated all the Li family soldiers in the fort and led his army back to Pingyao City, Wei Zhiyan approached him and said, "General Chen, if you have time, please try to persuade the prince. I think something is wrong with him."
Chen Heng was delighted with his victory, but he couldn't help but frown when he heard this: "What's wrong? This is a great victory, and your Excellency no longer has to worry about anything. Isn't that a good thing?"
Wei Zhiyan sighed: "Madam Su... couldn't save her."
Chen Heng's heart skipped a beat. He frowned, and thinking of Su Li's smiling face all day long, he felt a little lost.
"I could have returned to Jianye and lived a good life, but why was it so short of that..."
Cui Jue in the room was also wondering why it was just a little bit short.
Why is there always one last step missing?
If his horse had run faster, if he had not taken the risk of bringing Su Li to the front line, could she have been prevented from dying in the wilderness?
Cui Jue avenged her, thinking that this would clear the cause and effect and alleviate the resentment in his heart.
But he still couldn't find relief. It was as if his chest was filled with heavy stones, blocking his larynx and pressing on his lips and tongue, like a thorn in his throat, making it impossible for him to utter a word.
Cui Jue sat silently in the room. He did not drink any wine, nor did he light a lamp. He just sat there immersed in the foggy dark room, not saying a word for a long time.
Cui Jue suddenly thought of some things from his youth.
He remembered being abandoned in the outer courtyard. After his father died in the battlefield, his mother was heartbroken and died with his father.
At that time, Cui Jue was puzzled. Why did his mother miss his deceased father so much, but not consider his legitimate son? Moreover, his father had a wife and concubines, not just his mother. Why would he be buried alive with such a man?
Cui Jue imitated the thinking of ordinary people, and he could not deduce the reason with his clear mind.
But he understood, perhaps this is what the world calls love, and love is unreasonable. Love is binding, restraining, fusion, and dependence on each other.
He also loved the bird so much and loved Su Li so much.
But the bird died in the cage and Su Li died in the fire.
Cui Jue was unable to leave anything behind.
The feeling at this moment is the same as when I was a girl, yet completely different.
When he was a child, he saw the bird lying dead in the cage, and he felt nothing. He just thought that it might be bad luck, and he would raise another one when he had the chance.
But when he saw Su Li turned into a pile of charred bones and a handful of black ashes, he felt dazed, and his chest felt like it was cut open with a scar, and the pain spread to every part of his body.
He never cared about other people's feelings, but today, he would imagine over and over again the scene before Su Li's death... Was she injured? She was so afraid of pain, did she shed tears? She was so timid, did she say his name before she died?
Every time Cui Jue thought of Su Li crying, he would feel a slight stinging pain in his heart, as if a thin needle was hidden in the flesh, which would break the skin and pierce the flesh with a single squeeze, causing blood to ooze out. Although it would not cause any severe injuries, the pain would be long-lasting.
Cui Jue couldn't fall asleep that night.
He placed Su Li's belongings and charred bones at the head of the bed and went to sleep with him. When Cui Jue closed his eyes, what he was thinking in his heart was... This time he didn't have to worry about Su Li sleeping badly. At least she wouldn't toss and turn in bed and get tangled up with him again.
The next day, Wei Zhiyan found the puppy Taxue hiding in the yard.
Taxue seemed to be frightened by the bloody massacre. He bared his teeth at everyone he saw and refused to eat meat.
Only when Cui Jue reached out to touch its head would Taxue calm down a little, humming and biting Cui Jue's clothes.
Cui Jue thought that this was the dog Su Li had raised, so even though he disliked it, he did not drive it away.
For the first time, Cui Jue took a puppy into his arms and brought it back to Jianye City.
When Cui Jue returned to the court in triumph, the noble families naturally lined the streets to welcome him.
Cui Shunying took the shivering Taxue from her brother's arms, looked around in his carriage, and asked, "Where is my sister-in-law?"
Cui Jue's eyes darkened slightly, his Adam's apple rolled, and he finally spoke: "Your sister-in-law...died at the hands of the rebels."
Only after Su Li's death did Cui Jue admit that she was his fourth sister's sister-in-law and his legal wife.
Cui Shunying was struck by lightning, her eyes were hot and tears came to her eyes.
The little girl thought about how scared Su Li, such a petite girl, would be when facing the enemy's butcher knife.
Cui Shunying's tears rolled into the white dog fur on the snow. She gritted her teeth and asked Cui Jue, "Brother, have you torn those villains into pieces?! Have you avenged my sister?!"
She no longer teased Su Li as her younger sister-in-law. She always regarded Su Li as her elder sister. She was sad and resentful. She was not that kind of delicate young lady. If anyone dared to hurt her family, she would tear them into pieces!
Fortunately, Cui Jue nodded and whispered, "They are all dead, not a single one is left."
Cui Shunying didn't say anything else. She hugged Taxue and whispered, "Is this the dog that my sister raised?"
The eldest brother doesn't like cats and dogs. He would never be as naughty as a child and carry a living thing back to the city. This must be the puppy that Su Li raised when she was alive.
"Yeah." Cui Jue responded softly.
Another month passed.
With the support of civil and military officials, Cui Jue ascended the throne of Wu.
Cui Jue offered sacrifices to heaven and earth, accepted congratulations from the elders of the noble families in various prefectures and counties, and established the reign title as "Yuanchang".
After the New Year, Cui Jue posthumously named Su Li the Empress Deshun Yuan, and sent Su Li's remains and clothes to the imperial mausoleum without a dragon gate, burying her next to the emperor's coffin.
Wait until Cui Jue passes away a hundred years later and be buried with her.
Even Su Li's grandmother was conferred the title of First-Rank Lady of Rongguo by Cui Jue, who also gave her gold, silver, and a house to support her in the capital.
Cui Jue treated a dead concubine as his wife and even arranged for joint burial early on. This move caused an uproar in the court.
The elders of the aristocratic families came to the emperor to make frank remonstrations, denouncing Cui Jue's absurd behavior, disregarding the etiquette of the gentry, violating the wishes of his ancestors, and promoting the lowly and humble commoners.
However, they all forgot that Cui Jue was not a puppet emperor who could be controlled by others. He was an iron-blooded emperor who held military power and pacified the world. He was violent by nature, so why would he care about his reputation after his death?
At the beginning of the founding of the country, if one wanted to take power, he had to use drastic measures. Cui Jue brutally suppressed the aristocratic elders who were acting very aggressively, and took advantage of the situation to implement the new imperial examination policy to select talents from poor families in order to counter the powerful families.
In addition, Cui Jue also planned to move the capital.
When the court regime changes, most monarchs will move the capital, build a new city in their hometown or a rich place, and establish the capital.
Jianye, as the capital, has a history of hundreds of years. Many aristocratic families have raised slaves and cultivated land here to accumulate family wealth. The big families have intermarried with each other, and the relationships between them are complicated and difficult to shake.
In order to truly recruit officials from the common people, cultivate talents, and break the hereditary system of the Jianye clan, Cui Jue even intended to move the capital south and build new cities in Jiangzhou and Liuzhou.
In this way, Cui Jue established official schools in the Jiangnan prefectures and counties with a good reading atmosphere, where "study is based on academic performance regardless of family background". This could fundamentally solve the problem of aristocratic families monopolizing teaching resources, support poor students in poor prefectures and counties, and even allow the common people at the bottom to no longer worry about the few taels of silver for travel expenses to take exams and tuition fees.
After the government stabilized, Cui Jue sent someone to Lanhe County to retrieve Su Li's belongings from the Su family.
But he found that Su Li had very few personal belongings.
She had never bought clothes, dresses, hairpins or jewelry according to her own preferences. Most of the things she left behind were summer and winter clothes in calm colors bought for her by her stepmother Zhou according to the preferences of Xiao Cui's mother-in-law.
There were only a few paintings that Su Li had created when she had nothing to do. She hid them deep in a box. Cui Jue had people rummaging through them before they were finally found.
They were just a few crude drawings of little fluffy birds with green eyes.
Even if Cui Jue wanted to praise Su Li, he could not go against his conscience and say that her paintings were worthy of being displayed in a refined setting.
But with just a few strokes of thick ink, he was able to depict the expression of a little bird wanting to spread its wings and fly high, making it vivid, lively, and quite wild.
Cui Jue's fingertips gently stroked the little bird in the painting and lightly pulled the corner of his lip.
At this moment, he seemed to understand what Su Li was thinking.
She doesn't like being restricted and is unhappy. She has been locked up in the Su family since she was young, being manipulated like a puppet.
She was imprisoned in her yard.
Just like Cui Jue was imprisoned in the dogma and rituals of the aristocratic family.
Su Li didn't have many wishes, some were even very small. She just wanted to fly out of the high wall from the beginning to the end.
In the early spring of the second year of Yuanchang, when Cui Jue woke up, he took a quick glance and saw that the pear tree transplanted in the courtyard was in bloom.
The petals are small and white, silent and without any sound, only a faint fragrance comes with the wind.
Cui Jue vaguely remembered that today was the sixth day of the second lunar month, Su Li's birthday.
After Cui Jue finished his state affairs, he rode out of the palace. He didn't know where to go, so he just stopped outside the official residence of Su's grandmother.
During festivals, Cui Jue would send food, clothes, gold and silver to Su's grandmother's residence. The grandmother never refused, but treated Cui Jue indifferently. She accepted the rewards but refused to let him into the house for tea. Her attitude was arrogant and she deliberately treated the king coldly.
Cui Jue was not annoyed, nor did he say anything more.
He expected that he would not be able to see the grandmother of the Su family today, so he lowered his eyes and thought carefully for a while, then took the reins and returned to the palace.
But before Chixia could turn around, the door suddenly flew open, and Qiugui shouted angrily, "Your Majesty, the old lady has seen you wandering outside the house for a long time. Seeing you freezing in the wind, she will sooner or later punish you for disrespect. She invites you to the courtyard for a cup of tea. If you don't mind our small temple and humble home, then please come in."
Qiu Gui knew, of course, that her wife had died at the hands of the rebels, but she couldn't help but blame Cui Jue... They said the eldest son of the Cui family was incredibly intelligent, possessing all-powerful intelligence, so how could he not even predict a situation like this? If he couldn't protect her wife, why bother marrying Su Li?
After hearing this, Cui Jue finally dismounted in silence and walked into the house.
Old Madam Su was not used to having servants, so she cooked herself and made three bowls of chicken soup longevity noodles.
She moved a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup in front of Cui Jue and said to him, "Your Majesty, do you remember what day it is today?"
Cui Jue politely thanked him and then said in a low voice, "It's Su Li's birthday."
He did not pick up the noodles, but stared at the soup for a long time. He vaguely realized that Su Li must have eaten a bowl of chicken noodle soup like this on her birthday when she was young.
Madam Su sighed softly, "Lili has been a well-behaved child. Every time we stew chicken, she'll scoop the chicken legs and soft chicken livers into my bowl. She'll also save any delicious food or drinks and bring them to me first... A little girl of five or six can be so sensible. I think it's all because of me. If only her family were wealthier, if only her parents were still alive, she wouldn't have to live so frugally and put herself in such a difficult position."
"So, when Lili was adopted by the Su family, I would often comfort myself in my dreams at midnight. At least Lili was living a life of luxury in a wealthy family. Seeing her wearing fine silk and satin and eating meat every day, I felt quite comforted."
"But Lili's life has improved, but she's become more reserved and smiles less often than when she was little. Even when she finds time to come visit me at home, bring me clothes and food, and joke with me, I can tell she's got a lot on her mind, but she's forcing a smile in front of me..."
Old Madam Su still remembers Su Li lying on her knees, crying softly to her: "Grandma, Lili is not well. Lili is not having a good life at all."
From Old Madam Su, Cui Jue learned a lot about Su Li's childhood.
For example, Su Li doesn't like to eat too sour fruits, but in order to sell the wild plums she picked up from the mountains, she would deliberately take a bite in front of others, and say that the plums are very sweet despite the sourness.
For example, Su Li likes meat the most, but she is afraid that her grandmother will kill the only laying hen in the family to make soup for her, so she will deliberately say that she has gained a lot of weight recently and she still needs to become a vegetarian and eat more wild vegetables in order to lose weight.
For example, Su Li actually doesn't like reading. She loves going to the river to catch fish and crabs. She is a very good swimmer and she even saved a fat boy who fell into the water from the next village.
Su's grandmother blamed her for being reckless, but Su Li deliberately moved the basket of eggs in front of her grandmother and told her that she was not disregarding her own life, but saving people for the reward, so she was not stupid.
But the Su family's grandmother knew that Su Li was clearly too soft-hearted. She knew that the woman in that family had been exorcised and scolded by her mother-in-law for not being able to give birth to a son. She finally had a boy, and if he died in the pond, her life would be difficult in the future...
Cui Jue heard many stories about Su Li from his grandmother.
He has always been eloquent and could respond fluently to all the guests, whether they were court officials, nobles, or scholars. But tonight, he was unusually silent.
When everyone left and the tea got cold, Cui Jue vaguely understood what Su Li had shouted at the top of her lungs, and understood what she meant by "unequal status".
Cui Jue was born into a noble family, with a respected status and admired by others; while Su Li was a commoner who grew up in the countryside on the farmland.
The two of them have always been worlds apart, with very little overlap in their lives...
That night, Cui Jue stayed up for a long time before falling asleep.
It was rare for him to wait until Su Li fell asleep.
He dreamed of the summer two years ago, when he was wearing a flowing green robe, holding a guqin, and passing by the school.
The hall is ventilated on three sides, and only the bamboo strips sway slightly under the swaying shadows of the trees.
A slim and graceful girl was leaning against the table, dozing off and yawning.
The moment she lowered her head, two long green silk ribbons slid down from her fox-ear-like buns, like soft willows swaying in the water by the lake.
Cui Jue paused, his eyes narrowed suddenly, and he stopped behind her, unable to look away.
The man stood tall and straight, his eyes lowered, silently gazing at the girl's smooth neck, plump back of the head, and lazy and slightly curled shoulders, as if he wanted to engrave her appearance in his heart.
Cui Jue even slowed down his breathing.
Until two trumpet creepers with brightly colored petals fell from the courtyard, bringing people back to life.
I don’t know if Cui Jue alarmed her.
Soon, the girl turned around in surprise, looking up at Cui Jue with her round almond-shaped eyes.
Cui Jue pursed his thin lips, said nothing, and did not reach out to touch her.
Until Su Li smiled sweetly, put her tongue on the roof of her mouth, and called him playfully.
"It's the eldest master...long time no see."
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