Chapter 062: Eternal Joy (I)
A carriage stopped outside the crowd. The spring snow was like floating catkins, and the pure white color blended into the blood. Prince Jia looked at the execution platform from the carriage. He immediately turned around, knelt down trembling all over, his hands clenched into fists, and his knuckles turned white.
His eyes turned red and tears welled up in his eyes.
"Yong Geng, today, I finally dare to pay tribute to him."
The voice echoed in his ears, and Prince Jia burst into tears.
Li Xizhen's eyes were moist, but she sat on the seat and did not lean over to help him. The wind and snow blew in through the window, and it was freezing cold. She looked into the mist and saw the crowd was sad. Many young scholars in tattered clothes were kneeling under the execution platform and crying, "Your Highness, Mr. Zhang has many students in his life. Even young people who have never met him, as long as they have read his poems and heard about his life, they all respectfully call him 'sir'. They are crying for him and feel unfair for him. Then what about Your Highness? He is your teacher. Besides crying for him, don't you feel unfair for him in your heart?"
Prince Jia looked at her with tearful eyes.
" Your Highness, I want to ask you, now that you know that the man who treated you the best and was your friend died unjustly, don't you feel pain in your heart? Today, your teacher dared to die to commemorate his innocence, what about you, Your Highness?"
Li Xizhen looked at him, "Are you still going to leave Yunjing?"
"I……"
The muscles beneath Prince Jia's sleeves tensed.
"If I were Your Highness, I would be responsible for the lives of these two people," Li Xizhen said, emphasizing each word. "Even if I die, I will never leave Yunjing again."
If he leaves, who will care about the name Xu Hexue? Who will clear his name? The current emperor and father? Prince Jia's eyes are wet with tears.
But this king and father was about to execute the teacher he loved most in his life.
The blood on the execution platform has not yet dried.
Heavy snow covered the entire Yunjing City and also fell in the Imperial City. Meng Yunxian knelt outside the Qinghe Hall until his knees were stiff, cold, numb and unconscious, but he still could not see Emperor Zhengyuan.
"Mr. Meng, be careful."
Pei Zhiyuan no longer had the same smile as usual. He helped Meng Yunxian down to the white jade steps, but Meng Yunxian lost his strength. He stabilized him in time to prevent Meng Yunxian from falling down the long steps.
Meng Yunxian squatted under the white jade railing, holding the walking stick with one hand, his shoulders trembling.
Pei Zhiyuan squatted behind him, feeling sad, but he endured it and called softly, "Mr. Meng..."
"He wanted to die."
Meng Yunxian squeezed out this voice from his throat, "I thought that with the clue in the letter from Yongzhou, he would be willing to endure and seek peace in front of the emperor today. He would definitely listen to me and not make things difficult for the emperor. I thought he would cherish his life..."
"Before he went to the Qinghe Palace, he told me that after meeting the emperor today, he would go to East Street with me to get a haircut. I thought he finally stopped blaming me. I thought because of this clue, he was finally willing to talk to me properly and to socialize with me like before. I thought we could work together to seek justice for his best student."
Meng Yunxian's eyelids were filled with tears. "But Minxing, he was lying to me. He had already made up his mind to die, so he was willing to say such words to lie to me."
At this moment, Meng Yunxian finally realized why Zhang Jing always angered the emperor recently. Whether it was the memorial submitted by Wanjiang Transport Envoy Zhou Wenzhen to change private Jiaozi into official Jiaozi, or his disrespectful behavior in Qinghe Hall today, they were all his calculations.
He used words that no one dared to say to provoke the emperor and his father, and he used words that the emperor and his father were most unwilling to hear to seduce him. Even though the emperor's mind was unfathomable, he had been accustomed to the situation in the past ten years where his orders were as heavy as the sky and the subjects dared not disobey. Zhang Jing forcing the emperor to issue an edict to blame himself was tantamount to stabbing the emperor in the face.
Zhang Jing deliberately led Guan Jia into the abyss of losing control step by step. He personally handed the knife to Guan Jia, wanting Guan Jia to lose his mind and kill him.
Meng Yunxian and Zhang Jing have been friends for many years. Even though they had not exchanged any letters for fourteen years, one of them was demoted and the other was exiled, but now Meng Yunxian could understand why Zhang Jing did this.
"A letter from Yongzhou alone is not enough to prove it, and Du Cong is dead, so it is impossible to wash away the stigma of General Yujie. Chongzhi wants to use his death to ask the world to re-examine the name of his student. His students are all over the world, and his last words before his death will surely be remembered by someone. As long as someone is willing to re-examine the name Xu Hexue, as long as someone will be suspicious of his last words, he will win."
"He knows the character of Prince Jia, and he also knows that even I cannot change Prince Jia's mind. He is also using his own death to plot against Prince Jia."
Zhang Jing knew that Prince Jia valued his teacher very much, so today, he made Prince Jia watch with his own eyes the emperor and father he feared execute his teacher.
Xu Hexue's injustice and Zhang Jing's death are like two huge mountains that will forever weigh on Prince Jia's shoulders. Let's see whether he will retreat or move forward?
Zhang Jing also plotted against Emperor Zhengyuan, taking advantage of his headache to force him to lose his mind. Meng Yunxian knew that if Emperor Zhengyuan in Qinghe Hall woke up, he would regret issuing the decree today.
Zhang Jingben was going to use the sword and the weapon he wanted to use to intimidate the royal family. However, his reputation was well-known and he had countless admirers. Emperor Zhengyuan pardoned him from exile and allowed him to return to Beijing to serve as vice prime minister, which was also intended to demonstrate his benevolence.
Killing Zhang Jing would lose the support of the people.
At this critical juncture, Emperor Zhengyuan could no longer continue to perform Fengshan on Mount Tai as if nothing had happened.
"Perhaps, Mr. Zhang has never blamed you."
Pei Zhiyuan's eyes were slightly hot. "He cut ties with you back then because he was afraid that if you continued to interact with each other in the future, you would also make the government unhappy. In that case, you would not be demoted, but would end up like him..."
It was not until now that Pei Zhiyuan finally understood the nature of the relationship between these two husbands, although they seemed to be going their separate ways, they actually respected each other.
Meng Yunxian felt even more pain in his heart. He held the cane tightly and recalled what he had said to Zhang Jing: "A benevolent ruler should have upright ministers." From that moment on, Zhang Jing understood what he was thinking.
If the ruler is unbenevolent, there is no hope for new policies.
Meng Yunxian figured this out during his fourteen years of exile. If the emperor or father does not sincerely implement the new policy, but only uses it to play power games, then the new policy will fail once and will fail a second time.
Meng Yunxian no longer had any hope for his current king and father.
After returning to Yunjing, most of the items he discussed were not very important.
"Chongzhi understands me..."
Meng Yunxian covered his face and wept, snowflakes falling all over his temples, "Chongzhi understands me..."
The strong colors of snow and cold fog in this imperial city have faded, and the sunlight on the eaves has withered. It doesn't look like spring, but rather like a severe winter.
He Tong and others collected Zhang Jing's body. Ni Su followed behind them, holding the ball of light that seemed to be about to dissipate at any time.
She couldn't enter the gate of Zhang's house, so she stood outside the door for a while with those scholars who were wiping their tears. The sky quickly became dark, but the snow had not stopped yet.
She stood there for a long time without moving. Snow particles accumulated on her body, making her stiff and cold. She didn't know why the world was sometimes so cold.
It was so cold that ice formed between people's bones.
On the way back to Nanhuai Street, the lights on the street were dim. She carefully held the light in her arms and brought it back to the clinic.
Pushing open the door of his room, Ni Su found all the incense and candles, and lit them one by one all over the room. Then she sat at the table, looking at the light carefully, hoping that it would turn into his appearance.
But it didn't.
"Xu Ziling."
She held it in her hands and called out several times.
It was still that faint ball of light, hanging in her palm.
In the boundless silence, Ni Su looked at the desk opposite her. There was a kite on the desk. She stood up, walked over, and reached out to pick it up.
This is a warbler.
He cut the bamboo strips with his own hands and added colors with his own hands. From the structure to the shape, every detail is beautiful.
He often sat alone, either reading quietly or making kites under the eaves. He was like a handful of cold snow that could never be melted by the sunlight.
Ni Su sat down at the desk with the lamp on, but she didn't notice that her belt got caught on a box beside her. The box was long and square, and seemed to be used to store scrolls, but the lock was not fastened.
She put down the kite, pulled out the belt hooked on the lock, opened the long box, and found a painting lying quietly inside.
Ni Su recognized that it was the painting she and Xu Ziling had painted when they were boating in Yong'an Lake. She had it framed personally.
Ni Su reached out and touched it.
After a while, he took it out of the box, untied the string, and spread it on the table.
She remembered all the details of the painting, and remembered his expression and appearance when he was beside her that day, using the pen she had given him to depict the lake scene.
The green willows on the Yong'an Lake are like silk, the lake is sparkling, a cruise ship is on the lake, and birds are flying in a line...
But at this moment,
Her eyes fell on the Xie Chun Pavilion in the painting. The pavilion should have been empty, but at some point, a woman's silhouette had appeared in it.
She was wearing the same dress and had the same hair bun as her, and had a glass of fruit drink in her hand.
Even the light hair by her ears blown by the wind was so clear.
Tears fell out of my eyes without warning.
The lights were bright here. Ni Su raised her hand, and the floating, pale white light fell into her palm again.
She thought of the execution platform today, what Zhang Jing said, and how Xu Ziling leaned over and blocked his teacher regardless of everything.
She suddenly realized,
The falling guillotine not only took the life of his teacher, but also killed him again.
