Chapter 227 She is my lawfully wedded wife.
A maidservant who shares a room with a man doesn't even have a formal title.
Miss Xu was blinded by love at the time and actually agreed to such a condition.
"I asked her about it later, and she said she thought that as long as she was close to Zhao Can and stayed by his side, the ice in his heart would eventually melt away." Yang Defa's voice was indifferent, devoid of emotion, yet filled with a sense of desolation.
"The matchmaker was arranged by the Prime Minister. I was just a puppet with my hands and feet hanging by strings, cooperating with them to put on this show."
Back then, Yang Defa did not live such a difficult life as he does now.
He had his own independent Yang residence, and his monthly salary was quite considerable. The only thing he lacked was the right to choose.
Because his elder brother Yang Qingyun held a position in the Ministry of Revenue, he felt extremely cautious in the Prime Minister's residence, fearing that he might cause trouble in his brother's otherwise promising career.
That year, the case of Crown Prince Li Mu's rebellion caused panic in the capital. At the same time, Miss Xu's child was born, and Zhao Can had no time to care for her, so he abandoned her in Yang Defa's mansion.
Two people: one had no choice, and the other ruined his own promising future.
Yang Defa said nothing, but gave her a side room. He worked tirelessly day and night for her and the child in her arms.
The capital city changed its crown prince overnight, and the world changed dramatically.
Once everything had settled down, Zhao Can unexpectedly came to his door seeking pleasure.
But by then, Miss Xu, having seen through his true colors, refused to comply even at the cost of her life.
“I used to call Zhao Can a scumbag, but now I think that’s an insult to scumbags,” Yang Defa said. “He used my life and my child’s life to coerce Miss Xu, forcing her to comply and continue to be a concubine in such a humiliating way.”
Heaven knows what Yang Defa, standing at the door, felt as he listened to the sobbing behind it.
He felt frustrated and upset, but he didn't even have the courage to go in. He knew he was too insignificant and couldn't change anything.
"After that, Miss Xu would come back for a few days every week, her body covered in large bruises, and sometimes she even had a wound on her forehead."
Looking at the light on the ground, Yang Defa fell silent.
He leaned against a prison pillar, as if he had turned into a stone statue, trapped in a quagmire of memories, unable to move.
After a long while, Li Jin looked at his back and asked indifferently, "What are you doing? And why did you leave the Prime Minister's residence?"
Yang Defa paused, then vaguely came to his senses.
He stood up and stood in front of Li Jin: "My brother, Yang Qingyun, when he realized that the Crown Prince was going to kill me to silence me, secretly sent me a letter from home."
“The contents of the letter were strange. I looked at it for a long time before I suddenly noticed the hidden code.” He said, “When I was a child, I often played with acrostic riddles. I never thought that I would use them to escape.”
“I asked Ms. Xu, who had already given birth to her second child, to come with me. She thought about it all night but chose to stay.”
Yang Defa knew that the Crown Prince was always decisive and efficient. Decisiveness meant he would rather kill a hundred than let one go, and efficiency meant he would come when he wanted to, without giving any chance to change his mind.
His Yang residence was no longer safe, and he could no longer protect Miss Xu and the two children.
“With two children, you can’t go far,” Ms. Xu said while breastfeeding. “Without me and the children to hold you back, you can escape.”
In the candlelight, she looked at Yang Defa's face and smiled: "Defa, you go. I will definitely find a way to survive, and you will too." She said, "I will wait for you to come back."
For several years, Miss Xu failed to warm Zhao Can's heart of stone.
Yang Defa warmed the broken heart of Miss Xu.
Human hearts are made of flesh and blood. After years of companionship, Miss Xu found her home with Yang Defa.
Fate played a cruel trick on them, and because he got involved in the conspiracy of that rebellion, they were forced to become a pair of lovers on the run.
“In the end, I didn’t leave.” Yang Defa chuckled. “We burned down the Yang Mansion and then went to a small village outside the city where no one knew us, intending to start a new life.”
He lowered his eyes: "But Zhao Can chased after us."
Yang Defa took a deep breath and stared blankly at Li Jin: "Miss Xu pushed me into the donkey shed next door. I hid under the haystack and was not discovered. But she and the child were taken away."
“Zhao Can said that as long as the three of them were still alive, they would find me sooner or later.” Yang Defa raised his hand and wiped his cheek. “After that, I became a ragged scavenger, trying to survive while looking for an opportunity to rescue the mother and daughter.”
Yang Defa never left Beijing.
His hands, those of a scholar, had done all sorts of rough and tiring work; he had slept on street corners and lain under bridges.
Miss Xu knew he was right beside her. Others might not recognize Yang Defa, who had become neither human nor ghost, but she recognized him at a glance.
For him, she was no longer the educated and innocent girl. She stole many valuable little items from Zhao Can that he had forgotten for many years.
They stole it, resold it, and exchanged it for silver. Then, far from the Prime Minister's residence, they bought this dilapidated courtyard in Xianxingfang, at the southernmost tip of the capital.
I finally have a home.
“I have a home, but we can’t see each other often,” Yang Defa said. “To avoid arousing suspicion, we only see each other twice a month.”
"Both she and I felt that as long as we were alive, there was hope."
But all of this came to an abrupt end on the night before the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Miss Xu, who always acted suspiciously and left the Prime Minister's residence with her two children, had long caught Zhao Can's attention.
In order not to alert her, he deliberately let her leave.
He knew that Yang Defa, who had been missing, was very likely to return in order to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Zhao Can himself was surprised that a strange decision made by his father, the prime minister, a few years ago would become the only clue to restrain Yang Defa and find him.
At the time, even Zhao Can didn't understand why the Prime Minister had made such an arrangement.
Now, he suddenly realized what it meant to have a long-term plan and to strategize meticulously.
Without that meticulous plan, how could he have had the opportunity to eliminate this woman and her two troublesome children at the same time as eliminating Yang Defa?!
Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhao Can found an excuse to let Miss Xu take her two children back to her parents' home for a visit.
He only gave her two days, not enough for a round trip back to her parents' home.
Without thinking too much, Miss Xu took her two children and returned to the courtyard of Xianxingfang.
Zhao Can and his small group followed closely behind.
He locked the two children in another room.
He kicked open the door to the main hall and looked at the terrified Miss Xu inside.
Perhaps it was fate, but that day, Yang Defa did indeed go to Suizizhuang, five miles away, to buy Miss Xu a Mid-Autumn Festival gift, and spent the whole day picking corn.
But as soon as night fell, a group of young men who looked like businessmen found him.
The girl at the head of the group, dressed in a clean and neat outfit typical of the martial arts world, tied him up without saying a word, gagged him, put him in a sack, hid him in a caravan's crate, and dragged him into the capital.
By the time he struggled out of the sack, the men had vanished.
“I was completely bound and couldn’t move, but I still recognized him. He was right behind the mud wall in the yard.” Yang Defa clenched his fist. “There was a hole in the wall, and when I peered through it, I saw him…”
His voice trailed off, his eyes red-rimmed.
After a long while, laughing and crying at the same time, his lips trembling, he said proudly, "I saw Miss Xu standing righteously in front of Zhao Can."
She said that she was my wife in life, she was my wife in death, and she would still be my wife in the next life. She owed me so much, but never had the chance to repay her.
"If she lives like bait, it's better for her to die here. That way, I'll have no more worries, no more constraints."
He looked at Li Jin and laughed happily like a child: "She is my lawfully wedded wife."
"And me!" he said, "And me!" he roared, "I was tied up there, my mouth gagged, and I could only watch helplessly as Zhao Can strangled me to death with his own hands!"
"I'm not taking the blame for Zhao Can's murder!" he roared. "I'm going to the underworld to be with my wife who went before me!"
The underworld is cold and damp, and Miss Xu is frail; he fears she might catch a cold again.
In the darkness, with no light, Miss Xu was all alone, and he feared she would be reminded of her past heartbreak.
She said she was waiting for him to come back.
But she walked alone on the cold road to the other side.
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