Chapter 49 Results
"Wait a minute!" A steady and powerful scream broke through Wen Youqing's throat and echoed in the execution ground, like the wail of a dying swan.
Wen Youqing rushed forward recklessly, screaming with all her might, letting her voice penetrate the layers of the crowd so that everyone could hear it, tinged with the sweet smell of blood foam: "Spare his life! Here's the evidence! Shen Zijie is innocent!"
The crowd's clamor was suddenly silenced as if by an invisible hand, and for a moment, there was an eerie stagnation. Countless gazes—astonished, curious, sympathetic, indifferent—were fixed on her.
The ferocious-looking soldier who was in charge of maintaining order was also stunned for a moment and subconsciously stopped pushing.
Wen Youqing seized upon this moment of stagnation, grasping at a lifeline. She yanked the remaining half of the evidence from her sleeve—a stack of papers also soaked in blood and tears, the edges wrinkled from her tight grip.
She raised them high, her arms shaking violently from the effort, and the papers rustled in the midday sun like a group of dying white butterflies.
"Sir! Please review this!" She roared towards the awning with the last breath in her lungs, each word a cry of life and death. "This is ironclad evidence that the aristocratic family framed Minister Shen! The false accusation is completely false! There's something fishy about the burning of Xunyang City! Please, sir, review this case! Reexamine this case!"
Her voice echoed in the empty execution ground, carrying with it the tragic grandeur of a desperate gamble and the penetrating power of despair.
At this critical moment when everyone was watching, the man with a straight back on the execution platform shook his head for the first time.
Wen Youqing's vision blurred instantly.
In just one night, that once handsome and gentle face was now covered in a crisscross of scars and bruises, swollen to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Only those eyes, once filled with wisdom and a gentle smile, now shone with a startling brightness. Like two faint flames burning tenaciously in the cold wind, they pierced through the messy hair and bloodstained face, locking onto her with precision and conviction.
No anger, no fear, no pleading.
There was only a nearly solidified, suffocating sadness. The sadness was so intense, so complex, like a huge, cold stone, weighing heavily on Wen Youqing's heart.
But she doesn't believe it! She wants to fight!
Wen Youqing continued to hold up the bloody evidence and shouted at the top of her lungs, "The timber was adulterated, and large quantities of saltpeter and kerosene were brought into the city, yet there's no record in the city's account books. I submitted the memorial last night. Did Lord Lu use it to curry favor, or did he use it as toilet paper?"
Under the suspicious gazes of all the soldiers and executioners, Shen Zijie shook his head at her very slightly but clearly.
The movement was small, but it carried a firm and unquestionable determination.
It was a silent prohibition, a warning with the last of his strength. He was telling her: Stop! Don't argue! It's useless!
"Oh?" Lu Zhixue said calmly, "Mrs. Shen must have gone insane. I've never met you, let alone seen any evidence of you. What you just said is truly slanderous to the court officials."
Wen Youqing's raised arm suddenly froze in mid-air, as if frozen by invisible frost. The half piece of blood evidence she held high, carrying all her hope and despair, suddenly became light and weightless in the pale sunlight.
Shen Zijie's extremely heavy eyes and silent shaking of his head were like a red-hot iron, burning deep into her soul. All her screams, all her struggles, all her hopes were completely crushed into dust at this moment.
No, at worst she'll die with me.
"Your Excellency has never seen it before, but now that we have the witnesses and evidence, you may take a look. Are you afraid to investigate? Do you need me to read it word for word to the people?"
Once again, Shen Zijie shook his head at Wen Youqing, and she saw his tears and worry dripping down his face.
She understood. Completely.
The half of evidence that didn't make a splash wasn't just to destroy evidence. They were telling her through their actions: Look, we are everywhere and omnipotent. Your supposed integrity, the things you have in your hands, can't save him. And if you insist on giving away the rest, it will only bring about a more complete and brutal disaster.
Shen Zijie saw through it all. With this final, silent refusal, with his own head, which was destined to fall, he exchanged for her a very slim, extremely cruel hope of survival - the possibility that the aristocratic family would temporarily stop its ruthless pursuit of her.
The overwhelming grief and despair were like a surging wave, instantly drowning Wen Youqing. Her vision darkened, and her raised arms drooped limply. The shrunken stack of papers slipped from her trembling fingers, like lifeless, dead leaves, fluttering onto the dirty mud.
At this moment——
"It's three quarters past noon - execution!" The emotionless voice of the supervising officer, declaring death, exploded like thunder, cruelly tearing apart the brief silence above the execution ground.
The word "execution" was like two cold iron spikes, fiercely piercing Wen Youqing's last barrier of consciousness. She raised her head abruptly, her gaze passing over the soldiers who were beginning to stir, their faces filled with bloodthirsty excitement, and remained firmly fixed on the execution platform.
Lu Zhixue personally took the evidence from Wen Youqing's hand. Wen Youqing was still holding on tightly, but Lu Zhixue gave Wen Youqing a deep look, as if with deep meaning. He said loudly: "Mrs. Shen is really desperate and is trying all sorts of remedies. She just picked up a clothing account book to delay time."
The conclusion can be made in one sentence.
The executioner, dressed in a filthy red robe, half his muscular chest exposed, took a step forward expressionlessly, like a demon crawling out of hell. His rough hands grasped the thick hemp rope suspending the guillotine, and the knotted muscles on his arms bulged like rocks.
In the sunlight, his fleshy face was expressionless, as if what he was about to do was not to harvest a life, but to chop off a piece of worthless rotten wood.
"Shen Qingtian—!" A shrill, inhuman wail erupted from the crowd, like a lit fuse. Instantly, the dense mass of people outside the execution ground, like a lake tossed with a boulder, erupted in a surging wave of wailing.
“It’s unfair—!”
"Heaven is blind! Loyal and good people are being slaughtered!"
"Lord Shen--!" The heart-wrenching cries, the chest-beating and stamping wails, the suppressed and desperate sobs... were like countless blunt knives, cutting back and forth in Wen Youqing's heart.
Countless pairs of gnarled hands reached in vain toward the scaffold, only to be slammed and pushed back by the ferocious soldiers with their scabbards and rifle barrels. The screams of women, the cries of children, the wails of the elderly, the roars of men… merged into a vast, suffocating torrent of grief, violently impacting the death zone at the center of the execution ground.
Dust, kicked up by countless hurried footsteps, billowed in the pale sunlight. Only Wen Youqing walked back, against the crowd. The dust blurred her vision, blurring the line between life and death.
However, closer to the execution platform, out of sight of everyone, there was a secret "safe zone" forcibly separated by the soldiers' bodies and weapons, which presented a completely different scene.
Several men and women from aristocratic families, occupying prime positions, were able to take in everything on the execution platform. At this moment, they were covering their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs—either exquisitely embroidered Suzhou handkerchiefs or fans—and also hiding the undisguised, contemptuous, and gleeful sneers on their lips.
The laughter was very low, but it carried a deep malice and cruel pleasure, like the hissing of a poisonous snake in the grass.
"Tsk, look at him like that, where's the dignity of an official? He's like a stray dog." A woman wearing a crimson jacket with gold all over it gently fanned herself with a handkerchief, as if to dispel the non-existent odor in the air, her tone full of contempt.
"Isn't it? Falsely accusing a loyal and honest person deserves death!" A young woman wearing a pink flowered jacket interjected, her voice clear but icy. "Thank goodness Lord Lu is so perceptive, otherwise who knows how many loyal and honest people would have been harmed!"
"Lord Lu is undoubtedly a pillar of the country, but you women are so short-sighted," another young man in royal blue satin spoke slowly, his eyes fixed on the executioner's movements on the platform, with a hint of barely perceptible excitement, "It's a pity that Lord Shen has worked so hard to build up such a huge family business... However, someone has to fill the vacant position, right?" His words were meaningful, causing the people next to him to exchange a tacit glance, and the smile on their lips deepened.
Their gazes, as if watching a carefully rehearsed opera, were fixed with condescending indifference and a hint of morbid satisfaction on the figure in the center of the execution platform who was about to be beheaded.
Wen Youqing's vision was completely blurred by tears, and she could only be pushed out by the crowd.
Shen Zijie's eyes, filled with heavy sorrow as he gazed at her for the last time, were etched in her mind with uncanny clarity, lingering forever. "My wife has an old illness and has become insane."
In one sentence, she saved her life.
The executioner exerted force suddenly, and his arm muscles swelled like iron!
"Crack—crash!"
The heavy mechanism was triggered, and the thick hemp rope suspending the huge guillotine was instantly loosened! The huge blade, flashing with the cold light of death, came down with a dull sound of wind!
Time seemed infinitely stretched and solidified in Wen Youqing's hearing.
Tears blurred her vision, but she could clearly imagine the scene: the sharp edge of the guillotine tore through the air, cut through the light, and fell precisely on Shen Zijie's straight neck.
She could even imagine that Shen Zijie seemed to close his eyes very slightly at that moment. There was no fear on his face, only a kind of calmness that was settled and almost relieved.
Then--
"puff!"
A dull sound so loud that it could make your heart stop!
It was not the crisp sound of metal cutting through bones, but the tooth-grinding, sickening, wet crushing and breaking sound when a huge force acted on flesh and blood!
Blood!
Hot, thick, and carrying the final warmth of life, blood, like volcanic lava suppressed for tens of millions of years, suddenly gushed out from the broken neck under immense pressure! In the pale midday sun, it drew a dazzling, eerie, scarlet fan-shaped line!
The air is filled with blood mist!
The once wise head, with a heavy and sad look in its eyes still remaining, suddenly rolled forward under the impact of the blood fountain, and hit the wooden platform covered with dirty straw heavily with a dull "bang" sound.
Those eyes seemed to still have a last glimmer of light looking in Wen Youqing's direction, but as they rolled down, they quickly dimmed, solidified, and were covered with a layer of grayness of death.
The headless body lost its support, but remained in a kneeling position, frozen in place for a moment. The blood gushing from its neck slowed down slightly, turning into a gurgling stream, dyeing a large area of straw beneath it red. Then, with a strange feeling of stagnation, it heavily tilted to one side, making a muffled "bang" sound and stirring up a piece of blood-soaked straw.
The suffocatingly strong smell of blood, like a tangible entity, instantly spread over the execution ground, so thick that it was almost impossible to dissolve.
"Uh..." Wen Youqing promised him not to look, but she could hear it. A short, dying sob, as if being strangled, emanated from her throat, and her body shook violently, unable to hold on any longer.
The world before her was completely devoid of color, leaving only a bloody mist swirling across the sky. Every sound—the deafening cries of the people, the brutal shouts of the soldiers, the excitement of grabbing blood—was blurred, distorted, and receded as if through a thick curtain of water. She fell backwards like a leaf torn apart by the raging wind.
"Madam!" The maid's shrill cry seemed to come from the distant horizon. A pair of trembling hands held her falling body tightly before she completely fell into the cold darkness.
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