Chapter 875: The beloved cousin escaped from control (1)
However, the original owner was fooled by Zhou Yizhu who seemed to be thinking about her in every way. Zhou Yizhu said that if she entered the palace, she would lose her freedom and would not be able to enter and leave the palace freely. Moreover, there were so many concubines and princesses in the palace, and there would definitely be people who would be jealous of her being favored by the emperor and make things difficult for her...
Zhou Yizu described entering the palace as being like entering a dangerous place, and she was just a poor little rabbit that could be eaten at any time.
The original owner was only twelve years old and was very much loved by her father. She was too simple and naive and easily trusted others. Therefore, she believed everything Zhou Yizhuo said and really regarded the palace as a den of wolves and tigers. She was afraid that her life would be in danger once she entered. So she refused to enter the palace no matter what and only wanted to live in the home of her aunt who "loved" her. The emperor tried to persuade her in vain and had to agree.
In fact, if she knew more about the ways of the world, she would not be easily fooled by Zhou Yizu, because as the only child of the prince who saved the emperor's life, as long as she did not commit heinous crimes such as treason, the emperor would favor her. After all, both her parents were dead, and her father died early because of defending his country. She was the descendant of a meritorious minister. The concubines and princesses in the harem would only please her and build a good relationship with her. It is impossible for them to frame her out of jealousy.
The reason why the Zhou family lied to her was to tie her firmly to the Zhou family. In this way, the Zhou family, as the family that raised the only descendant of the emperor's benefactor, would come into the emperor's eyes. Even if it was just to make the original owner's life better, the emperor would make use of the Zhou family.
Before the original owner was raised by the Zhou family, the highest-ranking official in the Zhou family was Zhou Yizhuo's father, a fourth-rank Minister of Rites. But he was already in his forties, and at this age he had not yet entered the ranks of third-rank officials. That meant his career was basically over, unless he had great talent. But Zhou Zhen was not a talented person. His talent was mediocre, and he became the Minister of Rites because of the struggle between officials and the field. He was lucky and benefited from the conflict between the snipe and the clam.
The next generation of the Zhou family, Zhou Yizu, passed the imperial examination and became a juren, but it took him two attempts to become a juren, and it was unknown when he would be able to pass the imperial examination and become a jinshi.
Precisely because the family was poor and the descendants had no talents, the original owner's aunt set her sights on the original owner. First, she tricked her into being raised by the Zhou family, and then let Zhou Yizhuo seduce the original owner.
The original owner was young and had only met a few men. Zhou Yizhui was the young man she had met the most. In addition, he was handsome and sweet-spoken, which made the original owner dizzy. It didn't take much effort to make the original owner fall in love with him.
So when the original owner came of age, the emperor wanted to select a young talent from the capital to be her princess, but the original owner said that she and her cousin Zhou Yizhu were in love and wanted to marry him...
The emperor advised her that Zhou Yizu was not a trustworthy person, but the love-brained original owner naturally did not believe it. Under Zhou Yizu's sweet words, she thought that the emperor wanted to use her to marry other princes and nobles, so she became even more stubborn. Finally, the emperor had to agree to let her marry Zhou Yizu.
The emperor originally thought that as long as he was around, even if Zhou Yizu had any bad intentions, he would not dare to treat the original owner badly, and the Zhou family would have to support her, so marrying Zhou Yizu was not too bad.
But the emperor didn't expect that Zhou Yizhu was so bold that he didn't like the original owner. After all, he was eight years older than the original owner, so how could he like a yellow-haired girl? But for the glory of the Zhou family, he had to pretend to be deeply in love with the original owner in order to firmly bind the original owner, who could make him successful.
He had a woman he really liked, and he secretly arranged for that woman to work as an embroiderer in the princess's mansion. He had an affair with that woman without telling the original owner, and the woman accidentally became pregnant. Zhou Yizu was afraid that the matter would be exposed and discovered by the original owner and the emperor, and he was also overwhelmed by the woman's pleading and crying, so he decided to go all out and started to give the original owner some kind of secret chronic poison. A few months later, the original owner really "died of illness". Zhou Yizu was "heartbroken", and then he accepted the inheritance left to her by the original owner's father, who was a man of a different surname.
In the end, the emperor felt that the original owner's death was suspicious and sent people to investigate. The investigation revealed that Zhou Yizhu was the murderer of the original owner. The emperor was furious and executed Zhou Yizhu's three clans.
Although the emperor avenged the original owner, the original owner was dead after all and would not be resurrected. He was used by the Zhou family in vain and then killed.
Shi Chu has now become the original owner, and this is the time when Zhou Yizhui starts to coax her. If Zhou Yizhui had half the talent and ability to talk as well as he did, he would have passed the imperial examination and become a Jinshi long ago.
"Cousin? What's wrong with you? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something wrong with what I said?" Zhou Yizhuo was startled when he saw Shi Chu's sharp eyes. He felt a little guilty, wondering if she had seen through the shameful plots in his heart.
Du Shichu quickly returned to his original sad and frightened look, shaking his head and saying in a low voice, "It's nothing, my eyes were just too swollen, and my eyelids were stuck together by tears, so I used a little more force when I opened them."
Zhou Yizhu was relieved when he heard her words. It turned out that she hadn't seen through his plan. That was good...
"Cousin, you are right. Father certainly doesn't want to see me hurt my body because of excessive grief. I will go back and rest now." Du Shichu nodded to Zhou Yizhui and went back to the yard with the maid.
In fact, the emperor also sent officials from the Ministry of Rites and maids from the palace to help with the funeral of the original owner's father, so Du Shichu didn't need to worry about anything else.
After she got back, she ordered hot water, took a nice bath, and applied a hot towel to her red and swollen eyes.
The original owner was only twelve years old, and her father, the only person she depended on, passed away. Naturally, she was terrified and sad, and she almost cried to death.
Du Shichu applied the mask to his eyes for a quarter of an hour, then took a comfortable bath, which made his whole body relaxed. Only then did he feel better and began to feel like sorting out the affairs of the house.
Now that her father has passed away, she will live in the capital city in the future. She will most likely never come back to this palace in the frontier city, so she plans to take away everything she can and dispose of everything she cannot take away.
The original owner was so sad in her life that she had no time to care about these trivial matters, so the maids in the palace and the officials from the Ministry of Rites helped her deal with them, and returned them to her when she arrived in the capital.
It’s not that Zhou Yizhui didn’t covet these riches, but he knew that there were people sent by the emperor, and it was not his turn to deal with them.
Of course, even if he planned everything in the future, he only possessed the wealth for a few days before he lost it completely, and even his entire family’s lives.
Now Du Shichu has no intention of letting outsiders deal with these things. In fact, the original owner's father left not only wealth to the original owner, but also many invisible connections. This was the backup plan left by the original owner's father after he knew that he would not live long, in order to ensure that his daughter would live a happy life. However, the original owner failed to live up to his expectations and ended up dying young.
(End of this chapter)
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