Chapter 100 Karma
He thought he could say goodbye to his dirty past, and from now on, whether good or bad, he would just listen to his heart and continue on the path he should take.
However, because of this injury, Taibu Ling gave him a long vacation. After he recovered from his injury, he returned to his hometown to pay homage to his mother and siblings.
The clansmen who had tried to seize his family's land and property now flattered and groveled to him; the friends who had played with him in his youth only dared to look at him from afar, and were now completely different from him.
The pear tree at home is still in full bloom with large snow-like flowers. His disabled bedridden father is unaware of his current situation and boasts to everyone that his son is very promising and has become a high-ranking official in the court.
He found the person who had reported his father for stealing apricots and asked him what grudge his father had against him and why he would take advantage of such a small opportunity to kill him.
"No... no festival." The foreman supervising the labor was terrified and immediately confessed the whole story. "It was the former County Magistrate Zheng who asked me to keep an eye on the bricklayer Yan. If he made a mistake, I would find him guilty. If he didn't make any mistakes, I would make him suffer."
Yan Penglai thought of the person who had appeared in his most desperate moment, and of Zheng Raoan, who had carefully planned a way for him to save his father and taken him to Chang'an. He asked in confusion and difficulty, "Why?"
"I don't know... but from what County Magistrate Zheng said, it seems that there was a noble lady in the capital who... she took a fancy to you."
Therefore, he was designed and arranged by Zheng Raoan to become his token of submission to seek an official position in Beijing.
Therefore, after he entered the capital, he reunited with Princess Gao, and both he and Zheng Raoan had a good future.
How easy it is for powerful people to fulfill their wishes, whether they want a dead object or a living person.
But because of that one encounter under the pear tree, his family was broken up and his life was shattered.
When he returned to Chang'an, he brought two baskets of ringing apricots.
One basket was given to Zheng Raoan to thank him for his support; the other basket was given to Princess Gao to reconcile their old relationship.
He waited at the gate of the princess's mansion for a long time, and Princess Gao finally had someone lead him in.
Before the splendid flowers of the Princess's mansion, she leaned back on the eight-treasure glazed couch, fiddling with the pearls hanging from her hair, a mocking smile on her face: "What kind of rags from the countryside could possibly catch my eye?"
He just lowered his eyes obediently, carefully opened the apricot for her, and removed the apricot kernel in the middle.
When the bell apricots are ripe, the kernel splits and can be cut in half with a knife. One half is orange-yellow and the other half is bright red. They are sweet and soft like honey when eaten.
He presented the apricots to the princess and said in a low and gentle voice, "But when I first met you, you insisted on drinking a bowl of well water offered by a country boy like me."
Princess Gao looked at his drooping eyelashes and finally smiled.
She didn't want the apricot juice to stain her fingers, so she leaned over and ate half an apricot from his hand.
The next day, she brought him into the palace and personally helped him present the apricots to the Queen Mother.
His crime of defiling Buddhist scriptures was thus easily wiped out. Soon after the Chief Secretary of the Taibu Office retired, he took over the position and soon took charge of the Taibu Office from the elderly Taibu Ling.
He reconciled with Princess Gaoguo, but when he wanted to cancel his candidacy for the husband of the Princess of Lingling County, the princess stopped him and said, "Keep it for now. There is still a long time and many things will change. Perhaps there will be a chance to use it in the future."
As a result, it was really used.
However, she thought she could use it, but in the end, the person who used it was him.
He had been making careful advances and lying in wait for three years. Today, he finally overthrew Princess Gao's mansion, eliminated Zheng Raoan, and cut off the way for Princess Changyi to rise again.
Everything was perfect, except for the dark waves that dragged the innocent boy into the situation and ruined Shangluo's life. It was also a pity that he could never go back to the small courtyard in Mianchi with pear blossoms in bloom, to the home where his parents were busy and his brothers and sisters were laughing and playing.
Only the pear blossoms in the reflecting pool were left floating on the waves. On a sunny and warm spring day, he stood in front of the girl whose fate he had decided in the past. The distance between them was so close, but it felt better than a thousand miles.
The girl in mourning with a disfigured face has now lost her horrific scars.
The deep bloodstain that split her face became a unique brilliance on her face.
She is a half-opened golden peach blossom. On the pure white petals, a thin trace of pink breaks through, making the originally bright and moving appearance evolve into a dazzling brilliance.
He was self-righteous. She didn't need his atonement or salvation at all.
She has grown into a determined and intelligent girl, but her thin body is strong enough to bear all the storms in Changhua Palace.
On Leyouyuan, when the rebel soldiers were chasing her, she dropped her veil to save Shangluo, allowing him to see her grown-up appearance.
She was not a woman who needed him to save her. Even though he had arbitrarily imposed an unfair fate on her, she was still able to face life without fear of rumors and walk calmly on her own path, which was completely different from him, an incompetent man who had abandoned his ideals.
And now, it was this girl who ruthlessly exposed everything he had done, exposing him as a heinous murderer to the world.
But when he looked at Qiandeng, a relieved smile appeared on his pale face.
The words "cause and fate" mean there is cause and fate.
What he sowed, she burned.
Just three years ago, when he wrote his name, how could he have imagined that the heart that he thought had sunk into eternal silence in this life would find its own place to stay in the stormy night, and the Gan Nan Buddhist beads that he thought would last a lifetime would scatter and go to the abyss.
With a single thought, he was trapped in the mundane world and could no longer become the immortal king who was not tainted by the mundane world.
He spent countless starry nights on the Sitian Terrace, writing over and over again what he wanted to confess to her.
The relief welling up in his heart was mixed with a bittersweet longing, making his voice hoarse: "County Princess, no matter how much I want to follow you, I can only go so far... Princess Gao naturally can't trust me for no reason. I... I want to go home, in the last days of my life, go home..."
The waves of the Reflection Pool were rippling, just like the moment when his mother walked towards the Mianchi Pool.
The water waves swallowed up his mother, his brothers and sisters, and the Princess of Gao.
Princess Gao, who had prepared a retreat in her fiefdom and was trying to escape death, once asked him, what kind of accident would be best to escape from?
In an instant, the bodies of his mother and siblings lying on the door panel appeared before his eyes. They were covered in mud and sewage, and their bodies were pale and yellow. It became a scene he would never forget.
"Water..." he said slowly, "Of course it's most convenient to have an accident in the water."
Princess Gao then made a big fuss about her nightmare, letting the whole of Chang'an know that she dreamed of drowning in the water. While paving the way for her own escape, she also cast suspicion on the Changhua Palace, adding another layer of filth to the Princess of Lingling.
When heading to Qujiang Lake, Princess Gao, who had arranged everything, was still afraid.
Thinking of the black water that had drowned her in her nightmare, she hugged the docile and obedient man in front of her for three years and asked in a weak and trembling voice, "Can I trust you?"
Yan Penglai held her in his arms, as gentle and considerate as ever: "Princess, do you want Penglai to cut out his heart and show it to you?"
"No, if I cut out your heart, how can you help me?"
She led him into the secret room of the study and came to the crystal tank where she kept the little red fish. She used her fingernails to stir up a little red at the bottom of the water, dipped it in a cup of water, and handed it to him.
Agashine's fish eggs, painstakingly sourced from the Western Regions by Princess Gao, are a form of sorcery. After ingestion, they attach to the epiglottis, incubating with flesh and blood, slowly releasing toxins that stimulate the brain and cause a drastic change in personality, ultimately leading to death from madness.
He held the jade cup, lowered his eyes to look at the barely visible red spot in the cup, and was silent for a moment.
"What? So you're not sincere towards me?" Princess Gao stared at him, her voice trembling and tense. It was obvious that the fear in her heart was no less than his. "It's only for a short time. I'll prepare the antidote. When I escape, you can come to Huayan Temple to find me."
My mother’s smile, the figures of my younger siblings, and the poem I wrote when I was thirteen flashed before my eyes.
He looked up at the princess and smiled faintly. His ethereal face seemed to be shrouded in the mist that had been rising from the Jade Pool for thousands of years. "Of course, I am sincere to you, Princess."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com