Chapter 83 Ku San only wishes for talent to be like people.
After a long pause, Wang Yuying spoke with difficulty, her voice tinged with guilt: "Zheng Yangzhi, how have you been these past years? I heard that your father passed away several years ago, and I am truly sorry that I was unable to express my condolences immediately."
After a short while, Zheng Yangzhi chimed in: "You have your own difficulties."
His tone was so gentle that Wang Yuying could only stare at the table when she heard him.
"Actually, it was my mother who passed away first, her coffin was in the hall, and only five days later, my father also passed away peacefully in his sleep." Zheng Yangzhi suddenly took the initiative to confide in her.
It is rare to see a couple who are devoted to each other for life, even in death. Wang Yuying couldn't help but sigh, "'The phoenix tree waits for the old mandarin ducks to grow old together, and the mandarin ducks will die together.' Now, hearing from my uncle and aunt, I know that this poem is not an exaggeration, but the deepest affection in the world." She looked at Zheng Yangzhi, "Your earthly ties have been fulfilled. Please accept this with composure and let your parents have peace of mind."
Zheng Yangzhi stared at her intently and replied, "Of course it's not an exaggeration."
Wang Yuying then realized she shouldn't have recited that line of poetry, and quickly grabbed the wine jar: "I'll make up for the wine I owe you today!"
She stopped touching the rim of the jar, poured the wine into her mouth from a distance, and two streams of wine flowed down the sides of her lips. After drinking half the jar in one gulp, she put the jar back on the table.
Zheng Yangzhi immediately grabbed the wine jar and brought it to his side, still pressing his lips against hers as he drank. At first, Wang Yuying was worried that the strong liquor would choke him and he wouldn't be able to handle it, but she saw that Zheng Yangzhi remained calm, drinking the rest of the liquor slowly and steadily, his face turning white by the end, with only his ears slightly red.
I never imagined that his alcohol tolerance had become so high over the years.
Zheng Yangzhi put down the empty jar: "'Life is short, like morning dew, and the days gone by are many.' How can we relieve our sorrows? It is not only wine."
Wang Yuying blinked repeatedly, then feigned ignorance and corrected, "This isn't Du Kang (a type of Chinese liquor), it's Shao Dao Zi (a type of Chinese liquor)."
Zheng Yangzhi narrowed his phoenix eyes slightly and smiled at her.
Wang Yuying never brought the liquor back to Yongjia Lane. She shared the jar with Zheng Yangzhi, and it remained forever on Niuyang Mountain.
After knocking, Juanxue opened the door, and Wang Yuying immediately asked, "Where's Yinyin? Has she come back yet?"
"His Highness has not yet returned," Juanxue immediately informed him.
Wang Yuying said nothing more. When it got dark, the princess opened the door and found her mother sitting in her room.
The princess's smile didn't lessen; instead, it deepened: "Mother, what are you doing here?"
Wang Yuying had watched the water clock countless times and knew it was already past 7 PM. Despite having a thousand words to say, she first inquired about her daughter: "Have you had dinner?"
The princess nodded: "When I reported back, His Majesty invited me to stay for a meal."
"Why are you back so late?" Wang Yuying pressed.
"I went to inspect the fields in the outskirts of the capital today." The princess sat down next to Wang Yuying and took her mother's arm. "It's so far! It must have taken a long time to walk there and back. It was too rushed to go all day!"
Wang Yuying smiled faintly: "Where did you go today?"
The princess then recounted in detail what she had seen and heard during her journey through the capital region, even telling Wang Yuying about the runaway horse on the way back to the city: "Thanks to that young swordsman who saved us, I heard that he comes from the General of the Western Garrison and his left-handed swordsmanship is superb."
The princess leaned on Wang Yuying's shoulder, her eyelashes fluttering slightly.
Upon hearing the words "General Who Conquers the West" and "Left-Handed Sword," Wang Yuying couldn't help but feel a pang of longing and melancholy. However, given the urgency of the situation, she suppressed her emotions for the time being and pressed on, "Are you going anywhere else?"
The princess remained silent for only a moment before firmly denying it: "No."
Instead, Wang Yuying remained silent for a long time before finally asking directly, "Why did you conceal the fact that you were secretly meeting with an important official on Mount Niuyang?"
Her voice trembled slightly.
After a moment, the princess replied casually, "It was just a chance encounter and a casual chat, Mother, why make such a fuss?"
"Yinyin!" Wang Yuying scolded, sitting up straight, and the princess immediately separated from her mother.
The oil lamp illuminated Wang Yuying's angry eyes as she stared intently at her daughter, thinking: I'm so disappointed in my daughter!
Knowing that his words were too harsh and would surely hurt each other if spoken, he held back.
The princess's smile faded, her gaze and tone turning icy: "So Mother has been following me all this way? The rules of the palace are restrictive enough; are you going to take away even this little bit of freedom?"
Wang Yuying closed her eyes. If she had known her temper when she was young, she would have immediately started to teach him a lesson. But now she kept breathing to calm her agitation and made her tone as gentle and reasonable as possible: "Spying on secret reports is already very dangerous. You saw the selection of an heir in the secret report, and the first thing you thought of was to discuss it with Zheng Yangzhi? Who is Zheng Yangzhi? Aren't you afraid that His Majesty will become suspicious!"
The princess stared at Wang Yuying, her neck held straight, her throat twitching violently: "The Book of Reversal says: 'Doubt leads to change, and change leads to a change of heir.' He is already wary of me, otherwise why would he abandon me and establish another heir?"
"What do you want to establish?" Wang Yuying immediately countered.
The princess raised her chin slightly: "The practice of imperial daughters inheriting the family line has existed since ancient times."
"Yinyin, listen to me—"
"If His Majesty had no intention of passing the throne to me, why did he personally teach me the principles of imperial edicts and instruct me on the essentials of governance? Why did he entrust me with all the affairs of state?" The princess interrupted her mother for the first time. "Now that I've unintentionally said a few words, he wants to take them all back?"
That's just the kind of person he is—
“Mother,” the princess suddenly interrupted again. She looked at Wang Yuying and lowered her voice, “What we say tonight will only be known to us for the rest of our lives. Am I... really His Majesty’s daughter?”
Wang Yuying opened her lips and then closed them again. For Yin Yin's sake, she should have insisted that she was the emperor's only heir, but suddenly she saw the princess caught off guard, silently bursting into tears. Wang Yuying's eyes instantly welled up with tears as well, and she finally bit her lip: "It's my incompetence that made you recognize a thief as your father..."
"I knew it!" The princess's tears kept flowing. "I've always felt something was wrong since I was little. I always felt that His Majesty's kindness towards me wasn't genuine!"
Wang Yuying suddenly looked up at her daughter again, and belatedly realized that Yinyin had always addressed Xu Heng as "Your Majesty" when they talked in private. She had been doing so since she was three or four years old.
Then he realized that he was the same way, stubbornly calling her by her childhood name and refusing to call her Zhaohui, let alone Xu Luan.
Overwhelmed by boundless self-reproach, Wang Yuying couldn't help but tremble slightly.
The princess seemed to be affected by her mother's trembling, and her voice, unusually, carried a hint of fear: "So... I'm so scared... Mother!"
The cry of "Mother!" broke Wang Yuying's heart. She stopped trembling and reached out to pull her daughter into her arms.
The princess immediately wrapped her arms around Wang Yuying and murmured, "I am afraid every day, but I don't want to tell my mother about it, I don't want my mother to become as fearful as I am."
"Silly child..."
Upon hearing this, the princess's tears flowed even more fiercely. She seemed to have suddenly ceased to be the precocious and capable Princess Zhaohui in public, and reverted to the innocent child she once was. At this moment, she longed for her mother's warmth and buried her head in Wang Yuying's arms: "I could have continued to pretend that nothing was wrong, but when I saw that secret report during the day, I panicked immediately, and my heart felt as white as fog."
Tears soaked Wang Yuying's chest and also stained the princess's cheeks, but the princess felt much better: "Mother, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked back to you just now, I shouldn't have complained to you in that tone, and I shouldn't have kept anything from you."
Wang Yuying hugged her daughter tightly and explained, "Mother doesn't want to monitor you, nor does she intend to forcibly interfere or make decisions for you. You are Yinyin, not me, Wang Yuying, and you weren't born into this world for me. You should follow your own path. But Mother... Mother just can't help worrying that you'll get hurt on this path..."
A young girl in her prime shouldn't bear heavy burdens; it should be her mother who charges into battle, protecting her daughter from behind.
She recalled that when she was Yinyin's age, she lived a carefree life thanks to her parents' protection, while she herself was far less capable than her parents, causing Yinyin to suffer: "It's my fault, I didn't do enough."
Wang Yuying held back her sobs, cupped her daughter's face in her hands, and wiped away her tears with both hands. In truth, Yinyin was the person she cared about most in this world, but she wouldn't say those words to her daughter, unwilling to add any more burden to her: "Mother only hopes that you grow up safely and happily. From now on... Mother will always protect you."
The princess suddenly burst into tears and threw herself into Wang Yuying's arms again.
After a long silence, she choked up and said, "I don't care who my father is, I only have my mother in this life. I also hope that my mother can live a peaceful, happy, and free life in her later years, and have her own path!"
Tears welled up in Wang Yuying's eyes again as she wiped them away. "Neither my daughter nor I want to live like this." She now treated Yinyin not only as a daughter but also as a confidante, speaking frankly, "Before, I was too timid. I didn't dare to take any action, afraid of failure, afraid of making rash plans, worried that I wasn't resourceful enough..."
“Mother is doing very well,” Yin Yin interrupted. “There’s no need to belittle yourself.”
After a while, Yinyin whispered, "Actually, I did something that I'm sorry to my mother this morning."
She recounted the story of Zhao Dingrong's fire storage incident, admitting that in order to plead for Zhao's life, she had implicated Wang Yuying and lied, saying that Wang Yuying was going to invite the emperor to go boating on the lake.
Wang Yuying was silent for a moment, then hugged Yinyin tightly: "Whether he said it or not, he doesn't have that chance."
She said firmly, "The most important thing now is to get him to make you his heir, then everything will be much easier."
“We can temporarily establish good relations with the Zheng family, who have a century-old foundation, and use their strength to strengthen ourselves.” Wang Yuying spoke her mind tonight. “But we cannot trust people completely. We must respect their principles, observe their hearts, repay kindness with kindness, and repay evil with evil.”
"Mother, rest assured, I will not easily believe." The princess's gaze sharpened, and she suddenly tightened her grip on Wang Yu's arm. "I know that Mother was deposed back then because the teacher's blood stained the dragon pillar!"
Wang Yuying raised her hand and gently patted her daughter's back: "You don't need to get involved in my entanglement with him."
The next day, Zheng Yangzhi returned home after his shift. As soon as he sat in his carriage, his attendant presented him with a book bag. Zheng Yangzhi opened it himself and found that it contained the flowery stationery that the princess often used to communicate, inviting him to meet again that night.
Zheng Yangzhi read through the text word by word. The address agreed upon in the last line was no longer Niuyang Mountain, nor any of the places where the two had met before, but the Shuyulou teahouse across the street from Yongjia Lane.
He bought this place more than a decade ago and frequented it, but he kept it a secret and never mentioned it to Princess Zhaohui.
Zheng Yangzhi's gaze lingered on the address for a moment before he lowered his head and tucked the letter into his pocket.
"Go to Shuyu Tower," he casually instructed the coachman.
Entering through the back door, no one along the street knew about it. The teahouse had already closed, and those standing in the back room were all trusted confidants.
One of the attendants stepped forward and bowed: "Young Master."
Before he could even pinpoint Princess Yan Ming's location, Zheng Yangzhi had already slowly ascended the stairs, stopping at the door of a certain room on the third floor—for the past ten years or so, only he had been allowed to enter and exit this private room.
A warm current emanated from the gap at the bottom of the door, indicating that an earth dragon had grown inside.
Zheng Yangzhi raised his hand to push the door open, but hesitated for a moment, his arm hanging in the air.
Inside the room, Wang Yuying sat in front of her dressing table, looking at herself in the bronze mirror. Years ago, Juanxue and Shuangtian told her that she had no neck wrinkles, which she thought was a lie and a compliment. Now, she really hoped that the lines on her neck could be even shallower.
At first, she hadn't intended to sit on the dressing stool, but apart from the dressing stool, there was only a round-backed chair and a square table by the window. Although the window was tightly closed, she knew at a glance that it offered direct access to her home.
There was a soft knock at the door. Wang Yuying turned her head and saw Zheng Yangzhi enter. She sat down in the armchair with practiced ease.
When their eyes met, Zheng Yangzhi realized he had been seen through and lowered his phoenix eyes—there was no way around it, it had become a habit over the years, and sitting here looking down had become as indispensable as eating and drinking.
He always falls silent when he sits in this chair, and he is no exception now.
Wang Yuying appeared calm on the surface, but was nervous inside. So many years had passed, and she wondered how he would react, with truth and falsehood intertwined.
Zheng Yangzhi closed his lips, first raised his eyelids, then his chin, and slowly looked at Wang Yuying.
Putting aside ordinary people, even his personal attendants would find it hard to understand why their master had stayed for more than ten years. She probably wouldn't believe it either, just as she would no longer believe in the possibility of selfless and willing sacrifice between men and women.
He also bears some responsibility for her developing this personality.
“Actually, even if you do nothing, I’m willing to help you, Yingniang.” Zheng Yangzhi’s throat was quite dry. “I haven’t yet redeemed myself for the mistakes I made against you back then.”
He lowered his head: "You can go now."
Instead of feeling relieved, Wang Yuying felt tense, overwhelmed by an indescribable emotion.
Zheng Yangzhi was not far from her; his scent lingered around her, endless and persistent. She suddenly felt restless. The withered flower in the desert had not died, but it was not content with just drawing a few drops of water from the sand and stones; it longed for a heavy rain to nourish it.
Wang Yuying's feet, hidden beneath her skirt, had long since lost their shoes and socks. Fortunately, there was underfloor heating, so the ground wasn't cold. She slowly raised her right leg: "Yangzhi, come here."
Zheng Yangzhi suddenly raised his head, a flash of surprise crossing his phoenix eyes, but he quickly regained his composure and stared straight at her slender legs as they were raised higher and higher, crossing over each other.
He approached step by step, and when they met eyes, Zheng Yangzhi suddenly knelt down, grabbed her right foot with one hand, and lifted her robe with the other, wrapping it with her foot and his own hand, gradually increasing his speed. He could no longer suppress his heavy breathing, his hair disheveled, sweat rolling down his face, and the white-robed, lotus-crowned immortal became increasingly ferocious, his back hunched and disheveled.
Finally, Wang Yuying's feet trembled slightly. She pulled her feet back, thinking it was over, but Zheng Yangzhi took another step forward to kneel. Although it was a dressing stool, not a bed, he still instinctively dared not step on her. He originally wanted to lift Wang Yuying down a little to kiss her lips, but because he was out of breath, he supported her slightly, and Wang Yuying fell against his chest, her lips brushing against Zheng Yangzhi's neck.
His body tensed abruptly; her lips were so close to his most vulnerable, fatal veins that a single bite of her teeth could kill him. His heart, the veins in his neck, and even the back of his hands throbbed violently. This feeling of fear and submission was exhilarating. What you hold dear will eventually come back to you; after so many years, he finally experienced that chilling sensation again.
Zheng Yangzhi hugged Wang Yuying tightly, took a breath, and pulled her onto his lap. He held her close and sealed her lips with a kiss, their lips pressed tightly together. He finally got what he wanted. It was true that he had said he loved her so much that he was willing to die for her, even if it was a dark and long road of no return.
People who have been close before can quickly regain their familiarity. Zheng Yangzhi lifted her back onto the stool, parted his lips and gazed at her intently: "Yingniang, let me offer you happiness as well."
He remained kneeling, his head bowed low.
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