24. The Truth
◎Save me◎
Chapter 24
The strong wind outside took away the temperature in the room, but it still did not take away the endless poisonous heat in Jiang Qiuye's body.
She glanced at the bright moonlight outside the house, which was gradually covered by dark clouds.
Manager Wang retracted his arms and the smile on his face and said, "Let you go? Miss Qiu, I once thought about letting you go. But now that you know my identity, how can I let you stay in this world? Only the dead cannot speak."
Jiang Qiuye sat back down opposite Wang Zhangshi and murmured, "Only the dead can't speak... Yes, I understand this principle better than you."
Looking at the woman across from her, she keenly sensed the siege on Guihong Hall. Now that she had no internal energy and was poisoned, let alone fighting her, if Ji Ci didn't come to save her, she would definitely not survive the night.
Manager Wang, who is she?
He has such a great hatred for the Zhang family and has a group of well-trained assassins.
The entire so-called Jinpin Pavilion is probably her base for death squads.
The only option now is to delay.
"Master Wang, you see I'm still suffering from a cold. If you hold my hand, you must know I have a fever." Jiang Qiuye's face became paler.
Manager Wang looked at her coldly without saying a word.
Jiang Qiuye continued, "I'm a weak woman. There's no way I can escape tonight. Whether I deserve to die or not, I must die knowingly."
"Didn't you say I looked like your sister?"
Wang had once said that he resembled her childhood sister. He'd spared her life back then, perhaps because of this connection. So, let's take a gamble on the so-called sister in her heart.
Manager Wang took the cup of water on the table, poured the water in the cup onto the ground, rinsed the cup with boiling hot water from the kettle, added another cup of warm water, and handed it to Jiang Qiuye.
Jiang Qiuye looked at the spilled water on the ground, raised his hand to take the new cup, smiled slightly and said, "Poison."
"Don't worry, there's no poison in this new glass of water."
Jiang Qiuye lowered her eyes and glanced out the window. The whistling wind blew up some debris on the street. She finally drank the warm water in her hand.
"Can you tell me now, Master Wang?"
Manager Wang smoothed his temples and said gently, "My sister died when I was a child. I was fourteen that year. My entire family of 132 died in Pinghuai that year."
"Ping Huai?"
Jiang Qiuye lowered his head and thought for a while, remembering that Zhang Liang was awarded the title of Second Rank General of Cavalry by the court because of his military achievements in the Pinghui Campaign.
Manager Wang smiled wryly and said, "Indeed, it was during the Pinghuai Campaign. My original name was Wang Fen. My father was the long-time, renowned General Dingbei. My mother and sister were both female soldiers, true heroes. Our family defended Pinghuai County, fighting for the State of Jin against the State of Li."
Jiang Qiuye frowned, as if thinking of something, and said, "General Dingbei, you mean the General Dingbei who was convicted of defecting to the enemy back then."
Upon hearing this, Wang, the headmaster, flew into a rage. He smashed the white porcelain kettle on the table to the ground, shattering it into pieces. He said, "My father, General Dingbei, did not surrender to the enemy!"
"All of this is because of that kid Zhang Liang. He was just a mere deputy general under my father's command. The Li Kingdom's army of 10,000 suddenly attacked Pinghuai County, and my father had only a mere 1,000 soldiers to defend the city. 132 of them were my family and our household soldiers. On the first day of the Li Kingdom's attack, Zhang Liang was dispatched with a team of ten to deliver the battle report to Shengjing and the Beiting Protectorate."
"At that time, the Protectorate was not far from Pinghuai, a round trip of just five days. Yet, my Wang family, along with over a thousand soldiers, defended Pinghuai County for twenty-eight days, only to perish when the city fell. Twenty-eight days, a thousand men. Although the city fell, we depleted the enemy's strength, supplies, and morale. Zhang Liang, on the other hand, only dispatched troops from the Beiting Protectorate on the very day the city fell, and was able to reap the benefits and repel the already exhausted Li army."
Jiang Qiuye held his hand and hesitated, "Is there any misunderstanding here? For example, what happened to Zhang Liang on the way?"
Wang, the head official, chuckled sarcastically and said, "Oh, I wish it were as you say. But Zhang Liang, blinded by profit, returned to the capital and reported that my father, General Dingbei, had surrendered the city to the enemy. He claimed that he had borrowed troops from the Beiting Protectorate to defeat the rebellious General Dingbei and the Li army. It was for this military exploit that he ascended to his position as General of the Cavalry. My father, on the other hand, became a pariah, a denigrated figure."
"The funny thing is, no one can testify for my father. All his subordinates died in the battle to defend the city. Only I, a mere fourteen-year-old, was sent out of Pinghuai County and escaped all the way, and I survived."
"It's a pity that the dead can't speak."
Jiang Qiuye smiled helplessly, "No wonder, no wonder you want Zhang Liang's family to pay with their lives. But aren't you a living person? Haven't you thought about seeking justice from His Majesty? Or even Prince Qi?"
Wang, the steward, leaned over and smoothed the hair by Jiang Qiuye's ear, saying, "Miss Qiu, you're too naive. The current emperor is wary of important ministers, especially those like General Dingbei who hold significant military power. This battle will remove a major concern, which is quite to his liking. As for Prince Qi, I think he's also a serious concern for His Majesty."
"So you've been secretly accumulating power, waiting for the right moment to start a rebellion? The Zhang family is just part of your plan. But Prince Qi may not be as incompetent as you think. If he knew the truth, he would definitely seek justice for your Wang family."
Manager Wang was stunned. "How could you trust him so much?"
Jiang Qiuye nodded and said, "I believe his reason doesn't come from the comments and praises from the people, but from the daily interactions we've had over the past few days, and from that book 'New Laws of the Great Jin Dynasty'."
She lowered her eyes, her expression suddenly dimming. "He has qualities I cannot understand, such as... kindness."
"Maybe you are right, but I have long been unable to trust the Ji family."
"Yes, if I were you, I might make the same choice." Jiang Qiuye smiled and stood up, with his back to Director Wang. "Unfortunately, I'm not you..."
As he spoke, Jiang Qiuye quickly pulled out a series of wine jugs from under the bed and threw them at Manager Wang. Manager Wang reacted quickly, immediately standing up and stepping back to avoid the attack. He drew his dagger and slashed, shattering the five wine jugs. The wine spilled onto the candlesticks on the table, and with the strong wind blowing in from outside, a fire suddenly broke out.
"liquor!"
The fire spread along the wooden table, toward the bamboo curtains and window frames, and soon the bed was also ablaze. The sudden blaze spread to the sleeves of Manager Wang. She quickly moved away from the fire and put out the flames on herself. Turning around, she found that Jiang Qiuye had already taken the opportunity to escape downstairs.
Manager Wang was furious, but he sarcastically said, "Just relying on this little trick? Do you think you can get away with it?"
The fire spread rapidly due to the strong wind, and the entire second floor of Guihong Hall was engulfed in flames.
Jiang Qiuye was stumbling to the first floor, enduring the intense heat and discomfort in his body, when a group of men in black broke in through the window, each holding a sharp sword that shone silver in the moonlight.
The sword tip flickered slightly, and one of the men in black lunged at Jiang Qiuye. Quickly, she lifted a chair and hurled it at the man in black. As the chair split, she rolled on the table, dodging the other man's incoming blow.
But the poison in her body made her reaction far slower than usual. She rolled off the table and fell heavily to the ground. Before she could cry out in pain, she saw another man in black attacking her. She jumped up and barely avoided the man's move.
It was dark at night and without a sharp blade, Jiang Qiuye could only keep using the terrain in the house to dodge and use a wooden chair to block the countless swords.
Manager Wang quickly reached the first floor and watched the battle between the assassins and Jiang Qiuye from a distance. She didn't seem to have expected that the seemingly weak Miss Qiu had such abilities.
At this moment, the fire had spread from the second floor to the first floor. As the pillars collapsed, the beams of Guihong Hall also began to fall.
Seeing this, Manager Wang was unwilling to continue the fight. Just as he was about to join the battle, he heard a "bang" and two fastened wooden doors suddenly fell to the ground. Dozens of armored guards surrounded Guihong Hall in an instant and rushed in.
Flames shot up into the sky. In addition to the fire in Guihong Hall, there were also torches in the hands of the guards surrounding it outside.
When everyone saw this, their faces changed drastically.
The armored guards didn't hesitate, nor were they afraid of the fire in the building. They put on heavy armor and entered with swords in hand. Soon, Guihong Hall fell into a melee. Seeing this, Jiang Qiuye hid in a corner.
How could just a few assassins defeat dozens of heavily armored soldiers? They were quickly defeated. With one blow from a knife, the assassin's head was separated from his body, and blood gushed out, splashing several feet.
Jiang Qiuye crouched in a corner and peeked out. She saw Ji Ci, dressed in black, looking sharply at the burning Guihong Hall. She couldn't leave yet. Everything she did wasn't to catch the Zhang family's murderer, but to enter the palace.
Strangely enough, tonight, the secret guards who usually followed her everywhere were nowhere to be found. However, this gave her an opportunity. She had been planning from the beginning to lure Master Wang and his assassins into Guihong Hall.
Later, when she was talking to Manager Wang and opened the window, she found that the secret guard had returned to the vicinity of Guihong Hall. She opened the window to let him hear her conversation with Manager Wang so that he could go and inform Ji Ci.
The sudden strong wind tonight is just right, the time, the place and the people are all right.
Seeing the assassins in front of him being killed or captured alive, even the headmaster Wang was captured by the heavily armored soldiers.
Jiang Qiuye then slowly stood up and appeared, calling softly, "Save me."
After he finished speaking, his eyes went dark, and he could no longer hold on to the heat in his body, and fainted on the ground.
…
It had been a long time since Jiang Qiuye had felt the pain of poison. When was the last time? It seemed to be the summer three years ago. She had accidentally let her target go, and thus was unable to obtain the antidote in time.
She endured the pain of being tortured to death and chased the man for seven days and seven nights, finally completing the task.
She had never hated her father or mother. Perhaps she was born cold-blooded. Because she didn't know who her mother was and didn't care about her father, she didn't hate him much even when he sold her and her sister to human traffickers.
Apart from the physical hug that I suddenly wanted at that time.
It seemed like that summer night, standing on the mountaintop, she took the antidote and lay on the dewy grass, a gentle breeze caressing her. She began to think about her future. Gazing at the distant sky and the white eagle, she suddenly wondered what freedom felt like.
It was also at that moment that I suddenly hated my father and my own fate.
Qiu Ziye was a person abandoned by her father, and so was Jiang Qiuye.
In the past, she lived in hell every day. It was also on that summer night that she wanted to see what worse things were waiting for her after she crossed that mountain.
This thought was suppressed in her heart for three whole years. Three years later, she finally plucked up the courage and resisted the person she feared the most for the first time.
After a severe headache, Jiang Qiuye slowly opened his eyes.
There was a faint scent of bergamot in the air, and she curled her lips slightly.
This time, as always, she would succeed.
The author has something to say:
Jiang Qiuye: No way, my friend, I've been waiting for you for so long, and you still don't come to save me!
Ji Ci: I'm going to kneel on the washboard...
There is another chapter at noon~
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