After several days of interrogation and torture, Tang Jiu has lost a lot of weight. His eyes, which were once as bright as stars, have become very cloudy. His neck and hands are in shackles, and he cannot move at all. He remained silent, but Tang Peng, who was kneeling behind him, shouted at the top of his lungs: "We are innocent. It's all my fault. If you want to kill me, don't touch my family! Brother Jiu, Brother Jiu, I was wrong! You told me not to hang out with Yan Langqing, but I didn't listen. All this is my fault! The token was borrowed by Yan Langqing, and she was the one who released the Huns. I didn't expect that she borrowed the token for this. I really didn't expect it!"
When the executioner heard him talking nonsense about the empress in the palace, he quickly ordered the guards to cover his mouth.
Lin Dan stood in the crowd and listened for a moment, seeming to understand what was happening. No wonder the capital was under martial law several times last month. It turned out that they were searching for the Xiongnu King, who escaped from the city with the token of the Yongding Marquis' Mansion. So what if Yan Langqing is involved in this? What the emperor wanted was not the truth, but an excuse to suppress the Yongding Marquisate. He transferred Tang Jiu, who was known as the God of War, back to the capital, placed the Prince of Dian and Qian under house arrest, intended to marry the young princess, and recalled Marquis Weiyuan in the name of recuperation. All these measures were aimed at consolidating the imperial power and eliminating dissidents.
He probably had the idea of destroying these people a long time ago, but just had no chance. Now that Yan Langqing handed him a knife, he naturally swung the knife at the enemy.
Lin Dan understood the key after a quick thought, but he did not have the ability to rescue Tang Jiu and others. Seeing that the executioner was about to issue the warrant, she quickly ran up to the platform and shouted, "Please give me some time, sir. I'm here to see them off." As she spoke, she raised the food box in her hand.
It is the rule that the prisoners must have a full meal before beheading, so as to avoid starving to death in the underworld. The executioner had done a lot of dirty work like killing people and beheading people, so he was superstitious about these things. He immediately waved his hand and said, "The time is almost up, hurry up."
Lin Dan nodded repeatedly, quickly took out the food from the lunch box and laid it out. As the prisoners were all in shackles and had difficulty eating, she asked Xiaozhu, Shaoyao and Dujuan to feed them one by one, while she herself held a bowl and knelt beside Tang Jiu.
The people's abuse and Tang Peng's cries of injustice failed to stir the slightest ripple in Tang Jiu's heart. He knelt there with his eyes half closed, neither sad nor happy. Until the moment Lin Dan appeared, he suddenly raised his head, looked at her with disbelief but burning eyes, and his dark pupils suddenly lit up.
"Everyone else is busy distancing themselves from me, but you took the initiative to come up to me." He said hoarsely, "You shouldn't have come."
"If you don't come, I won't be able to live with it." Lin Dan tore the chicken leg into strips, put it on rice and pickled vegetables, and fed it to Tang Jiu mouthful by mouthful, saying slowly: "Is it delicious? This is a chicken I raised myself. It was only two months old and I killed it. My mother was so distressed that she kept crying."
As death approached, Tang Jiu actually chuckled, "Do you still remember what I said?"
"Remember, you said you liked eating chicken the most and you would never get tired of eating it every day." Lin Dan wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and whispered, "I killed all the chickens at home. You can eat as much as you like today."
Tang Jiu stared at her for a long time before he lowered his head to eat with big mouthfuls of food, tears gradually forming in his eyes. The sun climbed above our heads unknowingly and noon was approaching. Tang Jiu swallowed the last bite of rice and said in a low voice: "If you can't leave the city later, you can go to the hometown restaurant and wait. I have bought the store. You can stay there temporarily. Someone will come to pick you up from the city later. Lin Dan, please take care of yourself in the future."
Lin Dan was shocked in his heart but did not show it on his face. He put away the food box, bent down and bowed to the other people in the Marquis' Mansion before disappearing into the crowd. Behind him, he could hear Tang Peng's shouts intermittently: "Manager Lin, I'm sorry, please forgive me!" It was a pity that he understood it too late. Because of a fantasy, he ruined himself and his entire family.
After leaving the execution ground, Lin Dan thought about it over and over again, and always felt that there was something else behind Tang Jiu's words. What does it mean to be unable to leave the city? Why can’t I leave the city? Unless the whole city is under martial law and the court’s important criminals are being hunted down, such as the Huns’ king last time... would anyone come to rob the execution ground?
Yes, all the women in the Yongding Marquis’s Mansion committed suicide, including Concubine Tang in the palace. Without them as hostages, Marquis Yongding would be free of constraints and would certainly send people to rescue his only legitimate son, but the prerequisite was that he was forced to rebel by the emperor.
Will Marquis Yongding rebel? Lin Dan had already gotten the answer to this question from Tang Jiu, so he immediately turned the car around and headed for Sanchakou Hutong. It would be too late to go to the city gate now. The execution ground must be in chaos now as they have to rescue the prince before he is beheaded.
Lin Dan's guess was correct. As soon as she left, Tang Jiu broke free from the shackles, rescued his family, and rushed towards the city gate after joining the black-clad men who came to help. They ran all the way, unstoppable, and soon escaped from the capital successfully. Half a day later, everyone discovered that the Prince of Dianqian and the little princess were also missing, and the capital was suddenly in chaos.
All eight city gates were closed, and the streets were filled with guards searching back and forth, creating a somewhat terrifying atmosphere. Lin Dan and Tang Jiu are old acquaintances. If she stays in the capital any longer, someone will come to interrogate her to see if she knows Tang Jiu's whereabouts. She was just about to dismiss the servants and bear the consequences alone when there was a knock on the shop door. A tall and strong man took out a letter and asked Lin Dan to go out of the city with him.
The letter was written by Tang Jiu himself, and it contained many interesting childhood memories that they both had. Lin Dan confirmed the authenticity of the letter before following the man away. They boarded a luxurious carriage and drove out of the capital without any inspection. When they were about to leave, Lin Dan found out that the man was actually a prince from Mongolia, who was entrusted by Tang Jiu to escort her.
"Before he was about to go to prison, he told me that he was in great danger this time. If you come to see him off for the last time, he will ask me to escort you away. If you don't come to see him off, let me give you this box." The man took out a heavy box, bowed, and then rode away.
Lin Dan opened the lid of the box and found it was filled with gold and jewels, which warmed her heart. Ten years ago, also at Shili Pavilion outside the city, the servant sent by Tang Jiu gave her a small box full of silver, but she flatly refused. Ten years later, faced with the same scene, she wanted to accept it. After all, she did not come into this world alone, nor would she leave alone. There would always be one or two people who would remember her.
After that day, Lin Dan left the capital and wandered around. The originally prosperous and stable Chu State began to fall into war. First, the King of Dian and Qian raised the banner of purging the court, and then the King of the Xiongnu led his army to invade. The food and military pay of the Yongding Marquis were cut off by the court. He wanted to fight against the Xiongnu but had no way to do so, so he was forced to rebel.
The war lasted for several months. Suddenly one day, the King of Dianqian died inexplicably in his tent. The Prince of Dianqian immediately succeeded to the throne and joined forces with the son of the Marquis of Yongding to fight against the Huns. The precarious Chu State finally had a chance to breathe. However, they did not expect that at this critical moment, the emperor actually issued an imperial decree, ordering Weiyuan Hou to lead the army to attack the two's troops from the rear and make sure to eliminate the rebels.
This order was undoubtedly absurd. Once the two armies were defeated, the army led by the Xiongnu king would be able to march straight in and threaten the heartland of the Central Plains. The Great Chu State lost its northwestern and southwestern armies one after another, and the remaining troops were no longer able to resist the Hun cavalry. Once the situation got out of control, the Great Chu State would cease to exist.
However, the emperor seemed to be confident and issued three imperial edicts in succession ordering Marquis Weiyuan to send troops. The war was about to break out and the consequences were unimaginable.
At this juncture, Lin Dan, who lived in seclusion in the mountains, actually had a dream. She dreamed that little Lin Dan lost the competition. She felt guilty and angry, so she threw the golden knife, the recipe, and her master's tablet into the fire and burned them. Tang Jiu and Yan Langqing, who came in a hurry, happened to see this scene and were very disgusted with her. Although the old marquis guaranteed her and kept her, they treated her as if she didn't exist and avoided her whenever they saw her. The more Tang Jiu hated her, the more she clung to him, and even came up with all kinds of vicious schemes to frame Yan Langqing. Originally, it was the Yan family who slandered her father, but because of her recklessness, she confirmed the accusation that Lin Baotian was guilty of betraying his teacher and destroying his ancestors, and she ended up being unable to defend herself and was ruined.
Gradually, she became more and more extreme, pushing Tang Jiu further and further away, and even wearing away the last bit of protective feeling the old marquis had for her. On the contrary, Yan Langqing gradually gained the recognition of the old marquis, and after many twists and turns, she developed a deep relationship with Tang Jiu, and they eventually got married. The happier they were, the more painful Lin Dan felt.
As time went by, Yan Langqing gradually became a qualified marquis' wife, and was praised by others everywhere. Even the emperor developed a special affection for her, and often summoned her into the palace to meet her under the pretext of accompanying Concubine Tang. After this happened many times, she was targeted by certain people and became a pawn in their plot to frame Concubine Tang. They poisoned the dishes she cooked, causing her to have a miscarriage.
The emperor investigated and found out that the case was Yan Langqing. He was reluctant to touch her, so he let Lin Dan, who was always competing with her, take the blame and beat him to death in public. Lin Dan’s short life ended just like that, but Yan Langqing’s story continues.
The more he couldn't get it, the more the emperor missed her. He tried to transfer Tang Jiu to the battlefield and killed her secretly. Then he used other concubines to deal with Concubine Tang, and then summoned Yan Langqing into the palace to keep her in the emperor's favor. A few years later, the Xiongnu king, who was accidentally rescued by Yan Langqing, began to attack Da Chu fiercely, and repeatedly threatened to take Yan Langqing away to be his queen. The two countries had been at war for years, with both sides suffering heavy losses, but Tang Jiu "came back to life" at this time and joined the battle. The King of Dian and Qian took advantage of the chaos to rebel and proclaimed himself emperor. The peaceful and prosperous era eventually turned into a living hell. As for the Prince of Dianqian and the little princess, they fled secretly in their early years and committed suicide by taking poison after being caught up by Tang Jiu.
Everyone's fate is so absurd and tragic, and all this is just to fight for a woman.
After waking up, Lin Dan felt both amused and annoyed. She believed that if she had not come, this would probably be the fate of the original owner and the established development trajectory of this world. Because of a woman, the family is broken, the country is broken, and the people can’t live in misery. Is this God’s will? This is too ridiculous!
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