Coming out of Li Yuan’s palace, Yun Ye’s face was gloomy and his steps were light.
Things on his side developed pretty much as expected. The retired emperor Li Yuan did call Pei Ji and the old man from the Dou family, and asked Yun Ye to play mahjong with him, trying to solve the problem at the table.
At the beginning, with Li Yuan there to pressure them, the atmosphere at the card table was pretty good.
But when Old Man Dou said sinisterly that there was already a wax-painted girl kneeling in his grandson's mourning hall and a boy was still missing, Yun Ye's anger, which he had been suppressing for a day, finally erupted.
He had a complete falling out with Old Man Dou at the poker table and officially declared war.
Neither Emperor Li Yuan nor Pei Ji expected Yun Ye to be so angry, and they looked at him in astonishment.
It was obvious that they all had the mindset of carnivores and did not take the life of a singer seriously at all.
Such behavior made Yun Ye even more angry. He became ruthless and threatened that the Dou family must pay the price for it.
From then on, the card game ended in a bad mood. Yun Ye did not show them any mercy. After saying some harsh words, he strode out of the palace.
Crown Prince Li Chengqian chased after him, grabbed Yun Ye, and asked worriedly, "Ye Zi, do you really want to avenge that singer?"
Yun Ye hit the palace wall with one fist and said bitterly, "I don't want to avenge Lu Zhu, I just want to give justice to the innocent souls who died tragically in the world. Confucianism always talks about benevolence and forgiveness. Old man Dou must also like benevolence and forgiveness. It's just that he uses this noble virtue on himself and is only cruel to others..."
"There was an article called 'Song of Righteousness' before, which I could never understand. Now I suddenly understand that when those noble people first did these things, they all had a sense of injustice in their hearts, which made them toss and turn and unable to sleep. Only by doing this thing can they truly sleep peacefully."
Li Chengqian looked at Yun Ye's expression and nodded, "It seems that you are serious this time."
Yun Ye glanced at him: "Why do you think so?"
Li Chengqian sighed and said, "You were so angry just now that you even forgot to take the gold you won. This is not your character, so I said that you are serious this time. At least this matter is more important to you than that pile of gold."
Yun Ye frowned, paused, and asked, "Where's the gold?"
Li Chengqian smiled and said, "I've collected it for you. I can send it to the Yun family anytime you want."
Yun Ye shook his head and said, "No, I will write a petition and send it to your house later. You can use the gold to print hundreds of thousands of copies of my petition. I want all the people in Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, to know the beastly behavior of the Dou family!"
"Ah? This..."
Li Chengqian looked at Yun Ye in astonishment, hesitated for a moment, and finally agreed.
After Li Chengqian left in a hurry, Yun Ye took another step and walked forward.
Just then, a voice came down from above and floated into his ears.
“Are you going to hand out flyers?”
“…”
Yun Ye paused, looked up at the top of the palace, and sure enough, he saw the figure in black.
Lin Zhongtian descended from the sky and landed gracefully. He looked at Yun Ye's seemingly calm but actually angry face and said, "It seems that you already know Miss Green Bamboo's fate without me telling you..."
Yun Ye clenched his fists tightly and looked at Lin Zhongtian with red eyes.
“Human wax… was actually made into human wax!”
"As human beings, why can they do such cruel things?"
Lin Zhongtian said calmly: "Maybe it's because there are no crimes against humanity in this world!"
In this era, there is no such thing as human rights for the lowest class of people.
Civilization only exists among the powerful and wealthy, and at most benefits a part of the middle class. As for the rest, they are just the naked exploited.
Yun Ye knew this a long time ago, but he still had a glimmer of hope in his heart.
It was not until just now, when Old Man Dou calmly said that the Dou family had turned the singer into human wax, and Li Yuan, Pei Ji and others beside him did not care about it at all, that Yun Ye finally saw the cruel reality of this era.
Lin Zhongtian glanced at Yun Ye's expression and said softly, "What can I say? With just one word from you, I can rush back to the Dou family and kill all of them. No one will escape."
"No!"
Yun Ye shook his head and said firmly, "Killing the Dou family will only make the court afraid of me and the emperor wary of me. In this way, they will only be concerned about me, not the people of the world. This is not the result I want."
Lin Zhongtian smiled and said, "So, you want to mobilize public opinion and let the officials in the court see what it means that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it."
This is Yun Ye’s strategy in the original novel!
He spread the petition for justice for Green Bamboo Girl throughout the world, trying to arouse the sympathy of the people and stir up their anger, so as to use public opinion to destroy the Dou family.
But this approach is really too idealistic.
Yun Ye was able to do this in the original plot because Li Er was secretly helping him behind the scenes.
Once the Dou family's reputation was ruined, Li Er immediately took action to uproot all of the Dou family's businesses in Guanzhong, Longyou, Luoyang, and Hebei.
If not for this, the short-lived arousal of public opinion alone would never be able to shake the giant Dou family.
Yun Ye's actions will indeed make the powerful and wealthy feel a little awe towards the people, but this awe is still under the imperial power.
Moreover, the thinking that has been passed down for thousands of years will not be changed so easily. The powerful and wealthy will still eat people when they should. At most, they will do a better job on the surface and act more secretively.
Lin Zhongtian mercilessly analyzed all of Yun Ye's thoughts.
After listening to this, Yun Ye's face remained expressionless, but his hands were clenched tightly.
"Can you think of a better way?"
Lin Zhongtian shook his head: "Under your current conditions, you can't... However, I do have a few ideas that will icing on the cake, and perhaps shock the dignitaries in Chang'an City."
Yun Ye was in high spirits and asked quickly, "How can we add icing on the cake?"
Lin Zhongtian smiled slightly and did not give a direct answer. Instead, he raised his head and looked at the sky where dark clouds were gradually gathering.
"Yun Ye, don't you think the dark clouds in the sky are a little thick?" Yun Ye was slightly startled, looked up at the sky, frowned and said: "Yes, it is a little thick. It looks like it will rain tonight."
Lin Zhongtian smiled mysteriously and said meaningfully: "Not only is it going to rain, but there might even be thunder!"
…
…
“Hua La La—”
In the dim night, heavy rain suddenly poured down.
In the Dou family mansion, old man Dou, who had just returned from the palace, had not yet calmed down his anger from Yun Ye's vicious words when he received news of an unusual situation in the mourning hall.
After hearing the servant's report, Old Man Dou suddenly sat up from the low couch and looked at the servant with an angry face.
"What did you say?!"
The servant was so frightened that he fell to his knees and quickly repeated, "Reply... reply to the master, the old Liu who was guarding the funeral hall was killed, and Xiao Si was also knocked unconscious for no apparent reason. It seems, it seems that someone sneaked into the young master's funeral hall."
“…”
Old Man Dou's face was gloomy, and he asked in a deep voice, "How is the coffin?"
The servant hurriedly said, "Master, he is still here."
Old Man Dou's expression eased slightly, and he asked again, "Where is that slave girl?"
The servant hesitated: "Yes...it's still there, but the posture has changed!"
"What?!"
Old man Dou looked surprised and exchanged glances with the old servant beside him.
After a little thought, he immediately stood up and decided to go to the mourning hall.
When they arrived at the mourning hall, the eldest son of the Dou family, Dou Huaiyi, and the third son, Dou Huai'en, had already arrived. The hall was full of people standing inside and outside. Everyone stood there in silence, looking at the figure sitting cross-legged in the hall.
"What's going on?"
Old Man Dou's angry voice came from behind.
Everyone turned their heads and quickly made way.
Dou Huai'en, the third son of the Dou family, fell to the ground, holding a long knife in his right hand, looking ahead with fear on his face.
Hearing Old Man Dou's voice, he woke up suddenly and crawled to Old Man Dou's feet.
"Dad, Dad, the funeral hall is haunted!"
“Bang!”
Before he finished speaking, Old Man Dou slapped Dou Huai'en in the face, pointed at him with a trembling finger, and said angrily: "A man should not talk about strange things. Have you read so many books in the past few decades?"
Dou Huai'en covered his face and said in horror: "Dad, I'm not lying, it's true!"
Old man Dou froze for a moment, then slowly raised his head and looked towards the mourning hall.
I saw the Green Bamboo Girl, who was originally kneeling on the ground beside the coffin, had somehow changed into a cross-legged sitting position.
She sat cross-legged on the ground, her eyes closed, her hands clasped together, her neck slightly lowered, and she seemed to be chanting scriptures in a low voice.
Old man Dou widened his eyes and stared blankly at Luzhu who changed her sitting position, without saying a word for a long while.
Suddenly, Old Man Dou drew out the sword from the guard beside him, roared, rushed forward, swung in a semicircle, and hit the green bamboo girl's white neck heavily when she lowered her head.
His action was so sudden that the people around him who were stunned did not react in time.
Dou Huai'en's eyes widened and he quickly exclaimed, "Dad, don't!"
“clang!”
A sound similar to the collision of metal was heard.
Golden light burst out from Green Bamboo Girl's body, and the long sword that Old Man Dou was chopping at was heavily deflected.
The rebound force was transmitted to Old Man Dou, causing the long knife in his hand to fly out, and his already hunched body suddenly fell backwards to the ground.
Everyone exclaimed and rushed forward to help the fallen old man Dou up.
Old man Dou didn't care about the pain in his body. He helped the people around him to get up, pointed at the wax statue with trembling fingers, and glanced at the people around him who also had grim expressions. His tone was horrified and angry.
“This…what’s going on?”
"Who knows what's going on?!"
Old man Dou's roar echoed throughout the mourning hall. Everyone looked at each other, unable to answer.
Dou Huai'en showed a bitter smile. He had just chopped with his sword in anger, but was also unable to hurt Green Bamboo as it was blocked by the golden light.
“Boom boom—”
At this moment, there was a loud thunder in the sky outside the mourning hall.
The cold wind mixed with drizzle blew in from outside the door, blowing up a piece of paper nailed to the coffin.
The people in the mourning hall only then noticed the note on the coffin. They all turned their heads to look at it, and saw sixteen large characters written on the note:
"The Dou family is an evil villain who has lost all conscience. If people don't get rid of them, God will punish them!"