Chapter 391 Two are missing, but they are still alive.
Lu Zhong froze, his hands covering his face clenching into fists.
The veins on his fists bulged, as if they were about to burst through his veins.
After a long while, he weakly pounded his fist on his knee and sobbed softly:
"I saw the Duke. He was standing at the city gate, holding a long spear. His arms, legs, chest, abdomen... there wasn't an inch of good ground left, all of them were covered with arrows."
The Duke... he was pierced through the heart by a thousand arrows, but he did not fall. He stood straight at the city gate, his face covered in blood and tears.
The Duke is determined to defend Liangzhou City to the death.
Chen Chu slid weakly to the ground, covered her mouth with her fist, and silently shed tears.
Uncle Lu, that upright and indomitable man, that Duke Zhenguo who would prick him with his beard, that man who had made great contributions to the Great Wei, actually died from being pierced by ten thousand arrows.
Arrow after arrow, and given Uncle Lu's character, even if he was hit by an arrow, he would definitely continue to fight bravely.
But there were too many enemies, and more and more of his brothers were falling.
How desperate must Uncle Lu have felt watching the city of Liangzhou, which he had so carefully protected, be massacred?
He refused to fall until his death, his despair was so intense that tears of blood streamed down his face, but in the end, he still couldn't wait for reinforcements.
"Didn't Zhou Qi go to the rescue in time?"
Lu Zhongdao said: "I fainted after meeting Zhou Qi. Later I learned that Zhou Qi immediately began to mobilize troops after seeing the letter."
They mustered their men and set off overnight, but were unexpectedly attacked by the Northern Rong on the way, which delayed them for two days.
By the time they arrived in Liangzhou, it was already too late.
Shen Chu closed her eyes, feeling a tightness in her chest that made it hard to breathe.
"Where are the others?"
Lu Zhong wiped away his tears, suddenly sat up straight, and said in a low voice:
"When I later collected the bodies, I found that two people were missing."
"Whose is missing?"
"The bodies of the young master and the third young master Shen were not found, but they are your third brother's remains."
Chen Chu's breath hitched, and she asked urgently, "You mean Brother Zhan and my third brother, they might still be alive? Are you sure?"
Lu Zhong nodded, "At the time, it was uncertain. The bodies of the young guards that the prince brought were found in the alley."
It must have been the enemy entering the city that led them to protect the women and children as they retreated, and they engaged in street fighting with the enemy.
The street fighting was fierce, so many of the teenagers were covered in wounds, some even disfigured beyond recognition.
He pointed to the jade pendant in Shen Chu's hand.
"When we found the prince, his face was covered in wounds and he was unrecognizable. We were able to identify him by the jade pendant he was wearing."
I personally carried the young master back and prepared his body for burial. But when I was preparing it, I discovered that although he was wearing the jade pendant, the body he was in wasn't the young master's.
"How can you be sure he's not Brother Zhan? Are you saying someone took Brother Zhan's place and helped him escape?"
Lu Zhong smiled wryly and pointed to his armpit, "Have you forgotten? The young master has your teeth marks here."
The body had no teeth marks, and not only that, there was a black birthmark the size of a fingernail on its right arm.
Shen Chu's face paled. "A black birthmark? You mean the body with the jade pendant on it is...is..."
Her lips trembled, but she couldn't utter the words that were on the tip of her tongue.
Lu Zhong sighed and nodded.
"That's right, it was your second brother. If I'm not mistaken, it was your second brother who deliberately tore off the prince's jade pendant."
Then he hung the jade pendant on his waist. I looked at it carefully, and the wound on his face looked like he had cut himself before he died.
Your second brother traded his life for the prince's, and your eldest brother—when we found him, he had been stabbed fifteen times, and his arms and legs had been severed…”
Shen Chu bit her lip hard, tears streaming down her face.
My heart ached as if it had been stabbed hard and then churned inside my flesh.
Her second brother, who was only eleven years old at the time of the incident and a year older than Lu Zhan, usually disliked Lu Zhan's old-fashioned manner and always clamored to beat Lu Zhan to a pulp in the training ground.
But in the end, the second brother died in place of the elder brother Zhan.
And then there was her eldest brother, who had just turned fifteen. He was the one who doted on her the most, and he was killed by the enemy, one blow after another.
That must hurt so much.
Shen Chu cried until she was almost speechless, tugging at Lu Zhong's sleeve and pressing him for answers.
Where's my brother?
Lu Zhong shook his head. "After discovering that your second brother died in place of the heir, I didn't dare to make a fuss. That night, I searched through all the children's bodies."
I searched for two whole nights, and I can confirm that neither the Crown Prince nor Shen Mo are there.
Shen Chu wiped away her tears with her sleeve, and when she looked up again, her face was covered in tears.
"So, Brother Zhan and my little brother are still alive? They're still alive, right?"
Lu Zhong nodded.
“I’m sure they’re still alive, but over the years I’ve wandered around, searching all over Liangzhou and the surrounding prefectures.”
But I couldn't find any information about them until more than two months ago when I heard about the exoneration of the Ning'an Marquis's family.
It is said that he entered the court as an official in silence, investigated the cause of Lord Shen's case back then, and cleared the Shen family's name.
I immediately rushed to the capital to find you and ask if you knew where the Crown Prince was.
Before they even reached the capital, they were found by Young Master Luo's men. Young Master Luo said, "Little Chuchu, you are in Yangzhou."
I was a little skeptical, but I thought I'd come and see for myself first, and it really was you.
When Shen Chu heard that it was Luo Heng who had found Lu Zhong, she was somewhat surprised.
She sniffed and said, "Uncle Zhong, it's a good thing you didn't go to the capital. It wasn't my brother who became an official in the court."
It was I who disguised myself as a man and entered the imperial court to seek justice for my family.
Lu Zhong stared wide-eyed in surprise.
"It's you?"
Shen Chu nodded.
Lu Zhong stared at Shen Chu in shock, his gaze shifting downwards to Shen Chu's stomach.
"You... Chuchu, you're already married? Is it that Young Master Luo outside?"
Shen Chu quickly waved her hand, unsure how to explain her entanglement with Pei Yuan, and could only vaguely reply:
"I'm not married yet, and I'm not Young Master Luo. This is a long story, and I'll explain it to you in detail another day."
Lu Zhong stared at her stomach for a moment, then sighed, his expression complex.
“If those things hadn’t happened, if the prince were still alive, you would definitely be married by now.”
Chen Chu remained silent.
If it weren't for the tragedy of that year, she would have been pampered by her family and grown up happily in Liangzhou, and probably would have married Brother Zhan, right?
But there are no "what ifs" in this world.
She closed her eyes, her voice hoarse from crying.
"Uncle Zhong, what exactly happened back then? If it was just the Northern Rong massacring the city, Brother Zhan and my younger brother would never have left first?"
Based on her understanding of Lu Zhan and Xiao Ge's personalities, something else must have happened besides the massacre of the city by the Northern Rong.
If it were just the Northern Rong massacring the city, Lu Zhan and Xiao Ge would never have endured the humiliation and survived. They would have fought alongside Uncle Lu, the Lu family army, and his young guards to the very last moment, until their deaths.
Lu Zhong shook his head. "I don't know what happened either. I think only by finding the Crown Prince and your brother can we find out what happened."
Shen Chu was somewhat bewildered at first.
The world is so vast, where can she find Brother Zhan and Little Brother?
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