trust
The ancestral hall of the Marquis of Zhenyuan's mansion was cold and solemn. The candlelight flickered before the ancestral tablets, casting a half-light and half-shadow on Chu Zhongling's face. Chu Yiran knelt upright on the blue bricks, his back taut like an unyielding spear.
"You unfilial son! How can you face the ancestors of the Chu family?" Chu Zhongling's voice trembled with extreme pain. "My Chu family has been loyal and righteous for generations, yet we have produced a wicked child who helped a traitor usurp the throne! I taught you to read and write and to be polite since you were a child, and I sent you to the Taixu Temple to learn Qimen Dunjia. Did I do this so that you could use tricks to fool the people and defend the traitor?"
Zheng Shuyi stood silently by, tears streaming down her face, her fingers gripping her handkerchief tightly. Finally, she couldn't help but ask softly, "Aran... they're saying you're staying overnight at the Qianqing Palace every night, with His Majesty... you two..." Her voice choked with emotion, "...is it true?"
After Su Jing ascended the throne, he bestowed a separate residence upon Chu Yiran. Knowing that Chu Zhongling did not want to see him, Chu Yiran usually either returned to his own residence or stayed overnight in the palace, and never returned to the Zhenyuan Marquis's residence.
Chu Yiran lowered his eyes and remained silent, his tacit agreement like a knife piercing his parents' hearts. Zheng Shuyi staggered, tears streaming down her face.
"Good! Very good!" Chu Zhongling slammed his hand heavily on the table, causing the candlelight to flicker violently. "From this day forward, I will remove you from the Chu family genealogy. From this day forward, I, Chu Zhongyi, will consider you as no longer my son!"
"Father! Why won't you believe him?" Chu Yiran suddenly looked up, his eyes burning with a scorching light. "After he ascended the throne, he reduced taxes and reorganized the military and defenses. He is a hundred times better than that retired emperor who only knew how to indulge in sensual pleasures and kept ceding territory and paying indemnities!"
"What about when he used refugees to storm the city gates? What about when he caused chaos at the examination hall and massacred Nanjing?" Chu Zhongling sneered. "This man is vicious and stubborn, and he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Does he care about the country and the world? Besides, do I need to say more about how he got the throne?"
"Father, you've misunderstood! Su Jing isn't—"
"Guards!" Chu Zhongling interrupted directly, "Bring this family discipline and give this disobedient and unfilial son a good beating!"
The servants struck Chu Yiran hard on the back with sticks, but Chu Yiran gritted his teeth and stubbornly refused to bend over.
Zheng Shuyi clung to her husband's arm, pleading desperately. Chu Zhongling stood there coldly, saying nothing. Gradually, the sounds around him faded away, and Chu Yiran's consciousness began to blur.
Just then, the ancestral hall doors were flung open with a bang. Su Jing, dressed in a black dragon robe, stood at the entrance, his bright yellow sash making his expression even more stern. The imperial guards behind him knelt down in unison, the clanging of their armor particularly jarring in the silent ancestral hall.
The servants stopped what they were doing and stood trembling to the side. Chu Zhongling bowed slowly and deliberately: "Your Majesty, what brings you to my family ancestral hall so late at night?"
Su Jing's gaze swept over Chu Yiran's blood-soaked back, and his eyes instantly turned cold: "Is the Marquis of Zhenyuan's family law intended to discipline the Imperial Preceptor on my behalf?"
Hearing the noise behind him, Chu Yiran turned around with difficulty, but the next second he collapsed from exhaustion.
"Ah Ran—" Zheng Shuyi exclaimed and rushed forward to hug her son.
Su Jing frowned and was about to step forward when Chu Zhongling stopped him, saying, "Your Majesty, this is my family matter."
Su Jing's voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable authority: "Since Your Excellency has just removed his name from the Chu family genealogy, A-Ran's life, death, honor, and disgrace from this day forward will all be under my control!"
After saying that, Su Jing walked straight to Chu Yiran's side, ignoring the mess on the ground, bent down and picked him up horizontally. The blood on Chu Yiran's body smeared on the embroidery of the dragon robe, like blooming red plum blossoms.
——
The night wind, carrying the stench of blood, swept through the palace corridors. Su Jing gently placed Chu Yiran on the bed in the Qianqing Palace, her movements as delicate as if she were handling a fragile piece of glass.
Chu Yiran was burning hot and still unconscious. Su Jing instructed the imperial physician to apply medicine to him. The bitter smell of the ointment filled the air. Chu Yiran curled up in excruciating pain, his fingernails digging into his arm as he murmured, "Father..."
A sharp pain gripped Su Jing's heart. He gently brushed away the strands of hair on Chu Yiran's forehead that were damp with cold sweat with his fingertips, his movements so gentle they were almost reverent.
After an unknown amount of time, Chu Yiran finally opened his eyes. Looking at Su Jing standing beside him, he felt extremely aggrieved. His voice was hoarse and broken, with a slight, almost imperceptible tremor: "Su Jing... I was kicked out by my father... I can't go home."
"How could this be..." Su Jing leaned closer, his warm breath brushing against Chu Yiran's ear, carrying the refreshing scent of ambergris: "From today onwards, I am your home."
He reached out and pulled the man into his arms, avoiding the wound on his back, and gently patted Chu Yiran's back as if soothing a frightened little animal. "Every brick and tile, every inch of land here, as long as I'm here, is your home."
Chu Yiran buried her face in the crook of the other's neck, and her tense back finally relaxed slowly.
The dizziness from the high fever returned, and he gradually fell asleep in Su Jing's arms.
In the ancestral hall on the other side, Zheng Shuyi looked at her husband's tense profile and finally couldn't help but ask, "Do you really want to drive him to the brink? He's your only son!"
Chu Zhongling stood with his back to her, staring at the empty doorway, his voice weary: "Have you forgotten your eldest and second brothers in the imperial prison? Su Jing is vengeful, and the Chu family will suffer sooner or later."
Zheng Shuyi was taken aback: "No way... the Dali Temple hasn't made a decision yet..."
After Su Jing ascended the throne, Chu Zhongyue and Chu Zhonghe were imprisoned in the imperial prison on charges of "colluding with the rebel Su Qi." However, Su Jing had been dealing with floods and military affairs for the past few months and had not yet had time to deal with the rebels.
"Why not?" Chu Zhongling sneered. "Your Majesty has only recently ascended the throne. Whether it's reorganizing the military or dealing with the floods, you need money. But have you thought about where this money will come from? The Southern Su royal family has been plagued by problems for a century, and the national treasury has long been emptied. If Your Majesty wants to do great things, you will naturally have to find a way to get money from the powerful families."
“My eldest and second brothers are ready-made hilts in the imperial prison! His Majesty can use the Chu family as a scapegoat, both to confiscate their property and to make an example of them!” The candlelight flickered, reflecting the bloodshot in his eyes. “Besides, don’t you know His Majesty’s temperament? How could he let such a resentful and vindictive person off so easily…”
Zheng Shuyi's voice trembled: "What about A-Ran?"
Chu Zhongling's expression changed, and he turned and left, saying, "Let this unfilial son fend for himself!"
A storm is brewing—
Chu Zhongling didn't know where the future lay, but since things had come to this, he might as well push Chu Yiran out completely, let all the aristocratic families see that Chu Yiran had long since distanced herself from the Chu family, and let everyone know that Chu Yiran had already stood by Su Jing's side.
His foolish son still doesn't understand what price he has to pay to get close to Su Jing.
——
Chu Yiran slept for three days and three nights on his bed in the Qianqing Palace. While feverish, he kept dreaming of playing with his childhood friends under the pear tree at school, of his father's stern face as he taught him to read and write, and of Su Jing's gentle smile under the locust tree. These fragmented memories spun in his mind like a revolving lantern, making it impossible for him to distinguish between reality and dreams.
On the morning of the fourth day, he finally woke up with a fever. The sycamore leaves outside the window were swept away by the autumn wind and fell onto the windowsill, bringing a touch of coolness. He struggled to sit up, but heard the palace servants whispering about the new policies implemented by His Majesty. Chu Yiran felt a strange sense of foreboding and called a palace servant over to ask him a question.
"By the grace of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: First, the decree of bestowing favors shall be implemented, whereby upon the death of any prince or nobleman, his fief shall be equally divided among his sons, and shall not be solely inherited by the eldest son; second, the civil service examinations shall be expanded, abolishing the restrictions based on family background, and increasing the number of successful candidates by 30%; third, the decree of eradicating corruption shall be issued, thoroughly investigating the accounts of grain and silver throughout the country, and anyone found to have embezzled relief funds or military pay shall be executed without pardon; fourth, the army shall be reorganized for a northern expedition, reducing redundant troops, selecting elite soldiers, and immediately launching a northern expedition after the New Year to recover lost territories..."
As Chu Yiran listened to the palace servants describe Su Jing's decree, he felt his heart grow colder and colder. He asked in a hoarse voice, "Where is His Majesty?"
The head palace servant trembled like a leaf in the wind, his legs buckled, and he knelt down: "Your Majesty... Your Majesty is at the Meridian Gate... supervising the execution..."
Chu Yiran frowned: "What kind of torture?"
The palace attendant stammered, "The Chu family is a traitorous faction... His Majesty has decreed... that their three generations be executed, their female relatives be confiscated and sent to the Imperial Music Bureau... the ringleaders will be executed by slow slicing, and their remaining property will be used as military funds. All civil and military officials of the third rank and above are ordered to be present to witness the execution..."
Before he could finish speaking, Chu Yiran staggered out the door. Barefoot, he stepped over the nine palace steps, and the stench of blood from the execution ground, mixed with saltpeter and decay, hit him from three miles away, making him almost vomit.
Outside the Meridian Gate, it was a living hell. The white marble square was soaked in blood, turning a dark red. Chu Zhongyue and Chu Zhonghe were bound to iron crosses, their bodies covered in wounds. The executioner's blade was as thin as a willow leaf; with each piece of flesh sliced off, an official would loudly announce the number:
"The ninety-seventh cut!"
Chu Zhongyue and Chu Zhonghe's children and grandchildren cried out in despair as they were pressed to the side of the execution platform. Civil and military officials stood trembling below the steps, while Su Jing sat high on the execution platform, his black dragon robe gleaming coldly in the scorching sun.
He casually tapped the roster with his fingertip and announced loudly, "Look carefully, the two Chu brothers embezzled 3.87 million taels of disaster relief funds from Jiangbei!" He raised his hand, and the Imperial Guards carried out dozens of sandalwood boxes. When the lids were opened, they were filled with mountains of silver ingots.
"The punishment of the Chu family is by no means the end!" Su Jing's voice was like an icy blade scraping against everyone's spine. "The Dali Temple has been very busy these days. The Meng family of the Duke of Yue, the Yang family of the Duke of Su, the Zhao family of the Marquis of Pingning, and a group of people who colluded with them, totaling 3,769 people, these parasites who gnaw on the country and plunder the people's wealth, I will not let any of them go! They will all be executed in the autumn!"
"With them as examples, I'll see who dares to be greedy from now on!"
Chu Yiran watched as Su Jing stood amidst pools of blood and silver light, the hem of his dragon robe soaked in dark red, with mountains of convict silver and blood-soaked racks behind him, like a demon king returning from hell, ready to wash away the accumulated evils of the entire dynasty with a boundless sea of blood.
As if sensing something, Su Jing on the high platform suddenly turned his head, and their eyes met through the blood mist.
This time, the last spark in Chu Yiran's eyes was extinguished, leaving only a cold, complete pile of ashes.
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