I'm at a loss for words again.
After the mess in Jinan was mostly cleaned up, Cheng Junshi finally had time to stand in front of the door. He had found this place by following the note given to him by Wu Shunyi, and Tang Qi was still by his side.
"After going around in circles, we've finally arrived." Tang Qi looked at Cheng Junshi, who was clearly a little nervous, and said with a smile, "What's wrong? Haven't you been waiting for a long time? You're not telling me you're feeling nervous about getting closer to home, are you?"
Cheng Junshi nodded: "I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel very uncomfortable."
He wasn't lying. From the moment he approached this place, Cheng Junshi felt uneasy. Although he didn't know where it came from, this panic made him tense.
"I'll knock on the door for you, take a moment." Tang Qi stepped forward, and the door creaked open as soon as he raised his hand. The old woman inside looked at him, but before Tang Qi could speak, she suddenly walked straight towards Cheng Junshi.
"Xiao Zhao... Xiao Zhao... My Xiao Zhao..." The old woman, leaning on her cane, walked shakily to Cheng Junshi, touched his face with boundless affection, tears etched into her wrinkles, just like she had been trapped here for many years.
Tang Qi looked at Cheng Junshi with a puzzled expression, only to see that he was not moving and just staring intently at the face of the person in front of him.
"I am not Xiao Zhao."
As Tang Qi approached, he heard Cheng Junshi finally speak. His tone sounded more of a helplessness than confusion at being mistaken for someone else.
"Yan Zhao, how are you, Yan Zhao?" The old woman continued to touch his face. Cheng Junshi lowered his head. The old woman's eyes were cloudy, and her hand that touched him was rough, even a little prickly.
“I am not Yan Zhao.” Cheng Junshi gently grasped the old woman’s hand, which was almost as soft as water, and said softly, “I am Yan Zhao’s son. My name is Junshi, Cheng Junshi.”
The old woman's cloudy eyes seemed to move slightly, but she continued to call out "Yan Zhao, Yan Zhao".
Not clear-headed. Don't understand.
Tang Qi helped the old woman into the house, and he glanced at Cheng Junshi and asked, "Is Yan Zhao your mother?"
Seeing Cheng Junshi nod, Tang Qi turned his gaze back to the old woman: "Then who is she...?"
"I've never seen it, never."
Tang Qi was taken aback for a moment, and just as he was about to speak, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He turned his head and saw a young man carrying a pile of firewood, shouting menacingly at them, "Don't touch my grandma!"
Before he could react, firewood flew at him. Tang Qi dodged it with a few quick movements, then grabbed the boy by the back of his collar without any mercy and said, "The rules of the martial world dictate that you don't hit someone in the face. Why don't you follow those rules at all?"
His voice was serious, which startled the young boy for a moment, but he quickly broke free from Tang Qi's grasp and spread his palms to protect the old woman.
Seeing this scene, Tang Qi was unusually stunned for a moment.
"Who are you! Why are you arresting my grandmother!"
"Yan Zhao, Yan Zhao." The old woman behind him was still murmuring. The young boy paused when he heard her voice, and when he turned around, his eyes were mostly filled with inquiry.
"Who are you asking about Yan Zhao?" the person on the other end asked.
"Do you know Yan Zhao?" Cheng Junshi asked in a deep voice.
The young boy's gaze lingered on him, and he asked, "What is your relationship with Yan Zhao?"
"She is my mother."
...
The air hung in the air for an eerie two seconds.
"—Cousin?"
The firewood clattered to the ground, and the man who had been so aggressive just moments before was now staring at Cheng Junshi in disbelief.
"Cousin?!" Tang Qi and Cheng Junshi exclaimed in shock almost simultaneously.
"You...you," Cheng Junshi tried to understand, his mind a jumbled mess, before he could finally manage to ask, "Why do you call me cousin?"
“My name is Jin Jibai, and Aunt Yan Zhao is my father’s second sister.”
Tang Qi looked at Cheng Junshi and saw that he also looked shocked. She couldn't help but whisper to him, "You don't know any of the people on your mother's side?"
Cheng Junshi nodded gently and said to him, "I was born in Luocheng. In the past, none of my mother's relatives ever came to visit. After my mother had an accident, my father became even more reluctant to talk about it. I have never met anyone from my mother's side."
"That's strange. Logically, we should have been interacting, so why don't I recognize a single one?" Tang Qi said, pouting in confusion.
The two were still whispering together when Jin Jibai suddenly spoke up again: "Since you are my cousin who has come from afar to visit, please come in."
Tang Qi and Cheng Junshi exchanged another glance before following Jin Jibai into the house.
There weren't many items in the house; the only decent thing was the bed. Even the firewood for starting a fire was scattered around, indicating that the owner of the house wasn't living well.
"You just said your name is Jin Jibai, so let me ask you something—" Tang Qi had just started to speak when the person opposite him suddenly raised a finger and shushed him, saying, "There is no Jin here, only Jibai."
"All those surnamed Jin are dead."
Cheng Junshi was taken aback for a moment, then asked, "What do you mean?"
"You were able to find this place, didn't he tell you?" Jin Jibai said.
You mean my father?
Jin Jibai nodded and scanned Cheng Junshi's face, saying, "You really don't know anything. It's really annoying to look at you like that."
He was speechless from the scolding, but Tang Qi next to him couldn't help but burst out laughing. This was the first time he had seen Cheng Junshi so embarrassed.
"Since you know nothing, then continue to know nothing." Jin Jibai suddenly urged Cheng Junshi to leave, forcing him to retreat.
As soon as they reached the door, Tang Qi suddenly spoke up: "Hey, did you guys forget something?"
Tang Qi showed no regard for being a guest, taking over the only chair in the room and then pointing to the old woman sitting on the bed, staring at Cheng Junshi and still muttering to herself, saying, "Grandma seems to not want him to leave."
The old woman's mouth kept moving, but her words were incoherent and she couldn't hear or understand what she was muttering.
Jin Jibai remained motionless, so Cheng Junshi seized the opportunity to slip over and squat down beside the old woman. She was as thin as a rake, and the skin on her hands was soft and wrinkled, hanging loosely. When Cheng Junshi touched them, the flesh seemed to have turned into water, leaving only bones.
Cheng Junshi's throat tightened. The person in front of him was clearly a stranger, yet he felt a pang of sadness in his heart: "Ji Bai, is she... is she my maternal grandmother?"
Jin Jibai neither confirmed nor denied it, but simply looked at him and said, "She is Aunt Yan Zhao's mother. As for you—"
"She probably won't admit it."
"Whether we acknowledge it or not is another matter. We're visiting today because we genuinely have something we want to inquire about," Tang Qi said.
"My cousin is doing very well in the court, why would he need to ask people like us about anything?" Jin Jibai sneered sarcastically.
"Hiss." Tang Qi gasped. Something's not right. Why does Jin Jibai seem to harbor so much resentment towards Cheng Junshi?
"You just said that all the people with the surname Jin are dead. What do you mean by that?" he asked hurriedly.
“Dead? Is that hard to understand? Apart from me, the entire Jin family is dead. Oh, and—” Jin Jibai looked at Cheng Junshi: “And my cousin who has lived in Luocheng for a long time. Now, we are the only two people with Jin blood… No, I almost forgot, your surname is Cheng.”
"The Jin family is not worthy of our attention."
The hatred in his words was undisguised, which made Cheng Junshi look up in surprise for a moment: "You hate me? No, you hate my father." Cheng Junshi keenly sensed Jin Jibai's targeting.
"Is his father related to the massacre of the Jin family?" Tang Qi asked from the side.
Jin Jibai was silent for a moment before saying to him, "It's alright, he just did what he should do as a husband and father."
Jin Jibai knew that when the Jin family was in trouble, almost everyone related to the Jin family was in danger. His father had fled to Luocheng at that time and found Jin Yanzhao, who had already married into the Cheng family.
Unfortunately, the request for help was unsuccessful, as Cheng Du, the head of the Cheng family, refused his second aunt's request for assistance.
In a turbulent world, everyone is on edge, and self-preservation is the best course of action. Jin Jibai, of course, knew that Cheng Du's actions were entirely blameless.
But it was his father who died.
He couldn't convince himself not to hate at all.
"So what exactly happened to the Jin family that they couldn't even leave a way out?" Tang Qi asked, looking at Jin Jibai.
Jin Jibai was silent for a moment, then slowly looked at the old woman over there: "Grandpa was once the Crown Prince's tutor, and Grandma also served the late Crown Prince as his loving mother, taking care of his food, clothing, and other daily needs. But who would have thought that the late Crown Prince would suddenly pass away from illness, and not long after, the late Emperor would also die suddenly."
Jin Jibai's expression shifted, and he swallowed hard before continuing, "After the new emperor ascended the throne, everyone who had served His Majesty and the former crown prince was held accountable—"
"Wait—" Tang Qi suddenly interrupted, his expression strange, "There were so many people at the time. Even if everyone was held accountable, were they all left without a way out, just like the Jin family?"
That's highly unlikely. If Emperor Ming really did that, he would inevitably be known as a tyrant. As things stand now, it seems that only the Jin family suffered the calamity of being wiped out. But what's so special about the Jin family?
"No, only the Jin family, only the Jin family." Jin Jibai's voice turned resentful.
Tang Qi and Cheng Junshi looked at each other again. The Jin family... the Jin family... what is so special about the Jin family?
“Jin Ye.” The old woman, who had been sitting on the bed in a daze, suddenly spoke up and called out a clear name.
"Oh dear!" The old woman's voice was choked with sobs. Jin Jibai immediately went over to support her, but she still clung to him, her expression agitated and pained: "The historian, my dear, it's the historian!"
Tang Qi and Cheng Junshi were stunned, their eyes filled with disbelief.
"Jin...Jin, is he a historian?" Cheng Junshi spoke slowly, his voice carrying a lingering fear that he himself was unaware of.
"The change of historian families has only one reason - confiscation of property."
He suddenly remembered what Tang Qi had said before.
“My father is… a historian…” Not only Cheng Junshi, but even Jin Jibai stared blankly at the old woman.
He had never known these things.
The old woman seemed to briefly regain her senses, her words became clear, and then she began to tremble as if she had remembered something terrifying.
Jin Jibai immediately wrapped his arms around him.
"So, when the historian's family changed hands, the one who was replaced by Xi Kai was actually... your uncle?" Tang Qi stared at Cheng Junshi in disbelief, clearly unaware of this as well.
"Since the entire Jin family was raided, how did you escape to Jinnan?" Cheng Junshi asked Jin Jibai after calming down slightly.
"Are you stupid?" Tang Qi bumped his shoulder and said softly, "How old was he back then? How could he possibly have any memories?"
Cheng Junshi also realized something was wrong and quickly turned his attention back to the old woman. She looked at him in a hoarse voice and said, "It was An He. It was An He who helped us escape along with the Crown Princess."
An He? Who is that? Tang Qi frowned.
“An He is my aunt, and the birth mother of the current Ninth Prince,” Jin Jibai explained at the opportune moment.
Tang Qi: "..."
Every word she heard here was more shocking than the last. Tang Qi was so stunned that her jaw dropped: "Ninth Prince!? You mean Sheng Xingxing?"
Jin Jibai nodded.
Tang Qi was still in shock, his mind a complete mess. This...this...he knew that the Ninth Prince's birth mother was of low status, unlike the other concubines in the palace, but he never expected to find out who she was here.
The person opposite him looked sorrowful and continued speaking slowly to Cheng Junshi, "Are you Xiao Zhao's child?"
Cheng Junshi nodded, and the old woman spoke again: "It's so similar, it really is...so similar."
Her eyes were full of longing, as if she were looking at Cheng Junshi through his eyes.
"Is your mother... alright?" the old woman asked him slowly, with a hint of hope and nervousness in her voice.
Cheng Junshi remained silent for two seconds.
"She has passed away."
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