Uncle Miao was a man of high rank, a third-rank Jinzi Guanglu doctor, and the empress dowager's brother from her mother's family. Even the emperor of the time had to respect him.
Shen bowed to him politely, and when he didn't respond, he lowered his head and tried to walk to his side.
Miao Zongping snorted coldly, and the Kunlun slave behind him immediately stepped forward and grabbed Shen Que's collar to force him to stop.
"Did I let you go?" Miao Zongping glanced at him sideways and raised his hand. The attendant following him immediately overturned the offering tower on the tray in his hand to the ground.
The white silver bones rolled all over the ground.
"Come here," Miao Zong said in a calm voice like a loud bell, "This man has been with me all the way, lying in ambush in the temple, intending to assassinate me, arrest him for me!"
At his command, more than a dozen servants rushed up, grabbed Chen Que's neck and pressed him to the brick floor.
If a fight really breaks out, all these people combined may not be able to stop Shen Que alone, but if Shen Que really takes action and blood is seen, then he will be charged with the crime of "assassination".
Therefore, Shen hardly moved, allowing these people to tie his hands and feet.
Half an hour later, at Prince Yan's Mansion.
It was getting dark, the sun was setting, the sky was grey and it looked like it was going to snow again.
The emperor was still young and lazy by nature, so the memorials of the past few days were all submitted to Prince Yan's Mansion by the eunuchs. Xie Shiguan sat in the study for half a day with a blue tablet in his hand. Now he stopped writing and looked outside through the small window.
Suddenly, I heard two hurried footsteps coming into the yard. They didn't even remember to report and just barged in.
Xie Shiguan frowned and looked at the two people who came in one after the other. Shen Luo was panting, with worry and anxiety written on his face. Even Shen Xiangzhi, who was always very calm, had a bit of anxiety in his eyes.
"What happened?" Xie Shiguan was still lazy, "Why are you so anxious?"
Shen Luo knelt on one knee and spoke hastily: "Your Highness, Ah Que was captured by Miao Zongping!"
Xie Shiguan's expression changed slightly, but that emotion was fleeting. He stood up and asked, "When did it happen?"
"It happened about an hour ago," Chen Luo looked like he was about to cry, "It was a message from an eighth-rank Zuo Shiyi, the person you promoted last year. When the incident happened, he and his wife were at the Wanfo Temple to fulfill a vow. When he saw that the uncle of the emperor had kidnapped someone, he hurried over to report the news."
Xie Shiguan didn't say anything. He thought that since he had not been taken away for long, he could still live.
As he walked out, a maid caught up with him holding a fox fur coat. Shen Xiangzhi hurriedly took it and put it on Xie Shiguan.
"What excuse did Miao Zongping use?" Xie Shiguan asked again.
Shen Luo quickly replied: "Intent to assassinate."
"Assassination?" Xie Shiguan sneered, "Is he worthy of having my personal guards take his life?"
At the same time, inside the prison.
The two jailers looked at the person being escorted in. One of them recognized the badge hanging on Shen's waist and whispered to the other, "That's someone from Prince Yan's Mansion."
There was a bit of fear in the eyes of both men, and the fatter one also spoke up: "Should we send a soldier to Prince Yan's Mansion to inform him? You know that guy, if we hurt him, he will destroy everything here."
In front is His Royal Highness Prince Yan, and behind is the King's Uncle. It will be difficult to offend either of them.
Just as the two were hesitating, Miao Zongping suddenly came in with his men.
His eyes were full of bloodshot, and his eyes were also blue. He came up and grabbed Chen Que's neck, and slammed his head against the wall.
"Xie Shiguan sent you to assassinate me," he shouted, "isn't he?"
The day before yesterday, Miao Chunyu changed his confession in the Dali Temple prison, and several witnesses involved in the case also changed their testimonies. The Dali Temple Minister changed the sentence overnight, exempting Miao Chunyu from hanging and commuting it to exile 3,000 miles away with three years of hard labor, and he would never be allowed to return to Beijing.
It was not until the next morning that Uncle Miao received the news that the officers and soldiers escorting Miao Chunyu had already left the capital.
The king's uncle hurriedly dispatched a group of guards and asked them to chase after him and protect his only child. While he was thinking about how to kidnap Miao Chunyu without anyone noticing, news came back that Miao Chunyu had been kidnapped and his whereabouts were unknown.
At first, Miao Zongping guessed that it was his sister who did it. Since she was in the palace, she would naturally get the news quickly.
But who would have thought that in less than an hour, another piece of news came that Miao Chunyu had been ripped open, the thing under her body had been cut off, and she was thrown into the river in a horrible state.
The uncle didn't believe it at first, but after seeing the body, he had to believe it. He looked at his body again. It didn't look like he was cut by a knife. It was clearly bitten by a wild dog!
Everyone knew that it was Marquis Wu'an who did it, but the people he sent didn't have the chance to see Miao Chunyu for the last time, so he couldn't find any evidence at all.
Miao Zongping was furious and rushed to the emperor's presence, asking the young emperor to arrest Marquis Wu'an first so that he could get an explanation.
But who knew that the imperial edict had already been issued, and Marquis Wu'an would set off for Xichuan the day after tomorrow to quell the rebellion. Moreover, he had no evidence at all. On what grounds could he put Marquis Wu'an, a loyal and old minister, in prison?
Miao Zongping's fingers gradually tightened, but Shen's face turned red because of the strong feeling of suffocation, but his eyes remained fixed.
Miao Zongping knew that he was not afraid of death.
He was a loyal dog raised by Xie Shiguan. The Miao party had been trying to persuade him for more than ten years, but nothing, no matter what, could move him.
Seeing that the prince was about to strangle the man to death, the two jailers looked at each other, rushed up and grabbed the man.
Miao Zongping then let go of his hand, turned around and kicked each of the two men: "Stupid!"
There is no confession at the moment, and no signature or seal. If Miao Zongping strangled the man to death like this, and Prince Yan investigated, everyone in the prison would probably be held accountable as well.
That gentleman is indiscriminate and will not sympathize with the difficulty of your job as a small jailer. When the time comes, the world here will be turned upside down and nothing can stop it.
"Does Xie Shiguan think I'm stupid? He said he was fair and sympathetic to the fact that I only have one bloodline left," Miao Zongping laughed. "My silly nephew thought he was kind and was willing to give the Miao family some face, but in fact he had already colluded with the Marquis of Wu'an. Poor Chunyu!"
"What crime has this child committed?"
However, Shen looked at him coldly. The innocent child he mentioned tried to marry the legitimate daughter of Marquis Wu'an but failed, so he plotted to kill her fiancé and colluded with a group of hooligans to defile the girl's innocence.
Afterwards, the daughter of a marquis family was so desperate that she hanged herself in her boudoir with a white silk thread.
In his eyes, it seemed that the young official who died was not innocent, the woman who lost her innocence and was forced to death was not innocent, and the Marquis Wu'an who saw his son die before him was not innocent.
Only the culprit in his family is innocent. How ridiculous.
As if he had sensed the contempt in Shen Que's eyes, Miao Zongping became angry again. Since he couldn't touch Xie Shiguan, could he not beat the dog Xie Shiguan raised?
"What are you laughing at?" Miao Zongping slapped him. "You lowly thing, who allowed you to look me in the face?"
However, Shen was hit with all his strength and his head tilted to the side. His teeth pierced his lower lip and he tasted a little blood.
"Let me ask you again," he roared, "was it he, Xie Shi, who couldn't stand my Miao family and sent you to assassinate me? Yes or no!"
Shen pursed his lips and this time really laughed, spitting a mouthful of blood foam on Miao Zongping's face. He couldn't speak, but the meaning in his eyes was clear.
Even if you kill him, he won't admit it.
Another slap in the face. Miao Zongping wiped the blood foam from his face, his hair and beard shaking with anger.
"To torture him," he stiffened his neck, "the thief is stubborn and refuses to confess. Beat him to death!"
The jailer here was also a member of the Miao family. When he heard the order, he sent two jailers to fetch the cloth bags, and then he personally went to bring a chair for Miao Zongping.
"My Lord, please sit down," the jailer said with a smile, "It's not nice to be beaten with whips and sticks. This cloth bag is filled with stones. You won't see a single wound on your body until you die. All the injuries are inside."
As he spoke, the jailer in front had already started.
A bag weighing dozens of kilograms hit Shen Que hard, but he didn't even frown and just took it. A bloody smell surged from his mouth and nose, and his internal organs felt as if they were broken.
"It's not good to be dumb," the prison boss said, "and there's no screaming, it's really boring."
I don't know how many times the stone bag hit him, but it hit him right in the heart. Shen couldn't hold it back any longer and vomited a mouthful of blood, which splashed on the tip of his shoe half a step away.
Drops and splashes, a flower of blood.
Shen only felt dizzy, with a noisy sound in his ears, and suddenly he could not hear anything clearly.
However, the next moment, a basin of cold water was poured down on him. In the winter, this basin of melted snow was freezing cold.
Shen shuddered physiologically and regained consciousness. His hair was disheveled and icy water dripped down his wet hair.
"You followed the emperor's uncle and ambushed him in the Wanfo Temple with the intention of assassinating him," a jailer grabbed his disheveled hair and said coldly, "Who ordered you to do that? Tell me!"
Miao Zongping calmed down a little now. He sat on the armchair and drank the tea prepared by the jailer. "As long as you admit it, you won't have to suffer anymore. They will give you a painful block."
However, Shen raised his face following the force of the jailer, the mockery in his eyes became clearer, his lips opened and closed, spitting out two words, visible but silent.
Miao Zongping didn't see clearly, so he hurried to ask the prison boss next to him: "What did he say?"
The jailer was stunned for a moment, then answered: "He said..."
"My condolences."
As expected, Miao Zongping was enraged again. His only remaining legitimate second son passed away, and he had not slept for days. He hated Xie Shiguan so much that he gritted his teeth and tossed and turned, but he couldn't even touch a hair of his.
These two words reminded him once again that his only bloodline had passed away.
Miao Zongping could not hide his grief, and as if he had lost all his strength, he slowly leaned back, and after a long while he spoke, "Give him the punishment of combing his clothes and washing his clothes."
He wanted him to die miserably.
The jailers set up an iron pot in front of Shen Que and boiled some water in it. Then they took him down from the rack and pressed him on the wooden bed. Then two soldiers came with long nails and hammers and stabbed them into his shoulder blades, pinning him to the wooden bed.
When the long nail pierced into his body, Shen only felt a flash of white mixed with blood-red before his eyes, so bright that it made him breathless.
That hurts, he thought.
He saw a jailer taking out a black iron comb. He knew this punishment: boiling water was poured on the person to scald the flesh and blood, and then the skin and flesh were combed down over and over again with the iron comb.
People with poor physical constitutions often die before their bones are exposed.
Chen was not afraid of death, but when the boiling water was close to him, he was still afraid. However, despite this, he still gritted his teeth.
He believed that if he died unjustly like this, His Highness would definitely avenge him. As long as he could remember his loyalty in his heart, that would be enough.
He died without regrets as long as he was remembered by the prince.
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