Chapter 107 Back then...
Chapter 107 Back Then
Gong Jiu disliked Gong Ziyu because he was jealous of him. They were both abandoned by their fathers, but Gong Ziyu's fate was completely different from his.
Gongzi Yu has his elder sister protecting him and sending him out of the capital; he met a good master who taught him wholeheartedly; and now he even has someone who is deeply in love with him, who protects him wholeheartedly even knowing he is ill. It's truly enviable; why is he so lucky?
As for himself, his biological father was his mother's murderer, and his master was no better. And his lover? Ha! Gong Jiu knew perfectly well that Shaman didn't like him at all; in fact, she constantly thought about killing him and escaping from him.
They were all pretty much the same back then, but their circumstances turned out so different. How could Gong Jiu remain calm? If he could, he really wanted to kill Gongzi Yu.
Perhaps it's a kind of telepathic connection between perverts? When Gong Jiu and Gongzi Yu met again as adults, he sensed something was off about the other. He couldn't pinpoint what it was, but he assumed Gongzi Yu, like himself, was cold-hearted and indifferent to everything.
But later, when Gong Jiu saw Gongzi Yu again, he sensed something was wrong. When he was focused on knowing something, he would devote all his energy to investigating, determined to get to the bottom of it and find out the reason. So he followed the suspicious Gongzi Yu and stayed with him.
Despite being discovered every time, and despite the two always fighting, often ending up injured, Gong Jiu persisted in following him. That's when he discovered that something was wrong with Gong Ziyu; he possessed two souls.
One was Gongzi Yu, and the other was his younger brother Mingyue Nu, who died young. Although Gong Jiu was taken away from the Taiping Prince's Mansion, he would return every year. Of course, he knew who Mingyue Nu was, and he also knew that Mingyue Nu had died before he could learn to turn his life around.
Gong Jiu hadn't expected that Gongzi Yu's deceased younger brother was alive within him. When he found out, he laughed on the spot. Sure enough, Gongzi Yu was a psychopath, just like him, not a normal person. The thought made him happy, because they were the same.
It's a pity they're ultimately different. It's truly regrettable. If I killed him, would there be no regret? Gong Jiu thought to herself.
“Gong Jiu.” Ling Hao looked at him coldly. “If you talk nonsense, I will kill you.”
"Alright," Gong Jiu laughed. "Come and kill me now." He never cared about his own life; whether he lived or died was irrelevant. He had only wanted to make Prince Taiping suffer a fate worse than death, and now that the plan was set, he could begin once he returned to the capital. Therefore, whether he himself lived or died was completely unimportant.
Ling Hao watched Gong Jiu's increasingly frenzied state and fell silent. Damn it, she almost forgot that Gong Jiu was a psychopath. (No offense intended, just a simple statement about Gong Jiu's current state.)
"So, you're not going to kill me now?" Gong Jiu gripped his sword. "Then it's my turn..."
"Don't you want to know how your mother died?" Ling Hao said before Gong Jiu drew his sword.
Gong Jiu's hand paused, his expression froze, then became even more manic. "How did she die? You know? Ha, how old are you? You know? You told me, didn't you?" As he finished speaking, his sword pointed at Gongzi Mingyue. "You all deserve to die, you all..."
"Are you sure what you saw is real?" Ling Hao retorted. "If what you saw is wrong, do you want your mother's real enemy to go unpunished?"
Her words made Gong Jiu pause, as if he had been struck by lightning. After a long while, he suppressed his manic expression and became indifferent again. "Then I'll listen and see how you're going to deceive me."
Linghao said, "You've always believed that Prince Taiping killed the Princess, haven't you?"
Gongzi Mingyue looked at Gong Jiu in surprise, "Gong Jiu, have you lost your mind? How could Uncle Taiping kill Aunt Wang?" Compared to his parents, who were originally in love but whose love was worn down by mutual resentment and even murderous intent, Prince Taiping and Princess Wang were a perfect couple, right?
It's a pity that good people don't live long; the gentle Princess Taiping died so young. Gongzi Mingyue didn't realize that he shouldn't have known Princess Taiping at all, much less know her character. That was his subconscious thought, and naturally, he didn't see anything wrong with it.
"How could it be impossible? I saw it with my own eyes!" Gong Jiu's tone was intense. "I saw with my own eyes that the man killed my mother. I saw it with my own eyes, how could it be wrong?"
He hid in that cramped space and saw the man pull the dagger out of his mother's womb. How could he have been mistaken? He saw it with his own eyes; he didn't misread it.
Gongzi Mingyue frowned. "But I know that Princess Taiping committed suicide. My elder sister knows, Uncle Zhuge knows, and even the old men in the imperial clan know."
"Impossible! You're lying to me! You're all lying to me!" Gong Jiu refused to believe it. If he believed it, wouldn't that mean he'd been hating the wrong people all these years? "My mother was living such a good life back then, why would she commit suicide? She had no reason to. She was killed by Prince Taiping, I saw it with my own eyes..."
"You remember that Princess Taiping's aunt came from a small kingdom in the Western Regions, right?" Gongzi Mingyue interrupted Gong Jiu, not wanting to waste time listening to his inner monologue. "Before Princess Taiping and her aunt got married, this didn't matter. But later, Princess Taiping started leading troops, and even stationed them in the Northwest, which is where the problem lies."
Princess Taiping was a tribute offered to the Great Zhou Dynasty by a small kingdom in the Western Regions. She was beautiful, gentle, and passionate, with a pure and fiery nature—the perfect tribute, for no man could resist such a woman. Originally, she was supposed to enter the palace as a concubine, but due to a mishap, she was betrothed to Prince Taiping.
However, this was a fortunate event for her. Compared to the late emperor, the Prince of Taiping at that time had never had a woman by his side, and she was skilled in both literature and martial arts, as well as of outstanding character. She was a highly praised husband candidate in the capital. When he was betrothed, countless people lamented his fate.
Later events proved that Prince Taiping was indeed a very good husband. He respected and cherished Princess Taiping, taught her the customs of the Great Zhou Dynasty, taught her to read and write, taught her to make incense and play the zither, and transformed her from an object into a living person. Later, they had a child.
It was all as wonderful as a storybook, but the ending of the story was not as wonderful as the ending of the storybook.
King Taiping led his army to victory after victory, intimidating all sides. Later, he stationed troops in the northwest, making the kingdoms of the Western Regions wary of him. Such a person could not be defeated head-on, so the only way to kill him was through other means. Therefore, the motherland of King Taiping's wife asked her to steal the military secrets of King Taiping and then falsely accuse him of treason.
Although the plan was somewhat crude, the late emperor was not a wise ruler, so the chances of its success were high. Once the late emperor dealt with the Prince of Taiping, the Northwest Army would lose its leader, and their lives would be much easier. At least when they crossed the border of the Great Zhou Dynasty to raid, they wouldn't always have to worry about being wiped out by the Northwest Army.
Princess Taiping was no longer an object; she had her own thoughts and was a living, breathing person. She had a loving husband and lively children, and naturally, she was unwilling to protect a so-called motherland that had raised her as a gift since childhood.
At first, she was just giving perfunctory answers, but later the Western Regions realized her evasiveness and resorted to another tactic. They planned to use the identity of Princess Taiping to frame Prince Taiping. Again, the late emperor wasn't a wise ruler, so the chances of success were very high.
Princess Taiping felt she had no way out. Not wanting to implicate Prince Taiping and his son, she committed suicide. Prince Taiping, heartbroken, held his wife in his arms, his hands trembling as he tried to grasp the dagger embedded in her stomach, but fearing he would harm her, he could only shout for someone to fetch a doctor and the imperial physician.
However, Princess Taiping was determined to die. She had poisoned the dagger beforehand and died before the doctor arrived. Unfortunately, Gong Jiu, who was hiding in the cupboard, witnessed this and fainted from the shock.
Meanwhile, Prince Taiping was deeply grieving over his wife's death, and the entire palace was in chaos. The servants who cared for Xiao Gong Jiu discovered he was missing but dared not report it, fearing the wrath of the grieving prince. They could only search for him in secret.
So Xiao Gong Jiu was forgotten in the cupboard and wasn't discovered until a whole day later, when he was found with a fever. He had a fever for three days and three nights, and was almost driven mad by the fever. Fortunately, the imperial physician was highly skilled and saved him.
But when Xiao Gong Jiu regained consciousness, his memory was hazy. He didn't remember why he had fought with Gongzi Yu and ended up breaking off their friendship, nor did he remember witnessing the suicide of Princess Taiping. He only cried and called for his mother, but all he saw was a cold, lifeless coffin.
Prince Taiping did indeed take care of Gong Jiu, but he had to clear his name to the late emperor and arrange the funeral of Princess Taiping, so his care for her was somewhat neglected. Wu Ming, however, took advantage of the situation and did something to Gong Jiu's mind.
Thus, in his memory, it was Prince Taiping who killed Princess Taiping, and he even saw his own hand holding the dagger that had killed her. The poison on Princess Taiping's body also confirmed this, which was irrefutable evidence for him. Gong Jiu began to resent his father, the late emperor, and the royal family. He wanted to kill Prince Taiping, to ruin his reputation, to make him wish he were dead, and to bring unrest to the Great Zhou Dynasty.
For so many years, he had always done so. In all those years, he had also regarded the Prince of Taiping as his mother's killer. But now someone was telling him that he had misremembered, and that the truth was not like that at all?
Gong Jiu couldn't accept it. But as he clutched his throbbing head, he found that those blurry memories were gradually becoming clearer, including the reason for his fight with Gongzi Yu and how his mother died.
It wasn't the Prince of Taiping who killed him, no.
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Author's Note: Single people completely ignored Qixi Festival, so I guarantee that Ayu's disappearance was an accident [cat emoji]
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