Chapter 6 I'm Not Cruel to You 2
Last night, a thin woman got up and left the Nantong Room in the middle of the night, avoiding the heavy incense that was incompatible with the zero lacquer flower. When the woman returned to the room, she found that her roommates who had lived with her day and night had died tragically. She was terrified to the extreme and staggered on this road, thinking that she would be able to survive by going out the door. Unexpectedly, the evil ghost behind her was closing in on her and finally cut her throat.
A wild goose landed on the bare eaves outside the corner gate, crying mournfully in a low, hoarse voice.
A lone wild goose will die of loneliness. This woman who ran away from the group was also destined to be alone on her journey.
Before dark, the Dali Temple withdrew its troops, leaving only Bo Xiang and a dozen others to guard the Ruan family. Meng Fan did not find any valuable clues at the Ruan family, so Cheng Jue did not need to scold him, so he consciously stayed, ready to dig out something even if he had to dig his hands to pieces and dig three feet into the ground.
Lin Yuxiao didn't sleep much last night, and he was exhausted today. He followed Cheng Jue all day, and his mind was in a fuzzy state. His eyelids drooped, and he asked weakly, "Are all the people in Dali Temple working so hard?"
Meng Fan was already angry, and he was even more hostile to Lin Yuxiao, who was a fresher third place winner than him. He couldn't help but retort: "Of course, Lord Lin is so free, he just spends the whole day writing and looking at paintings in the Hanlin Academy."
"But I hold a higher position than you."
Meng Fan: …
"Come on, let's all go back! Meng Fan, you go back too, have a good rest tonight, and be at the yamen at 2:54 am tomorrow." Cheng Jue pinched his brows and dispersed everyone.
Lin Yuxiao was afraid that he would fall, so he wanted to find someone to hold him up. Meng Fan, who was closest to him, was lucky enough to be caught. He stepped forward and hugged Meng Fan's neck. Meng Fan's hair stood on end and his back was stiff: "What...what are you doing?"
Lin Yuxiao took the opportunity to transfer half of his body weight to Meng Fan, and the two walked out closely together: "Sir Meng, we will be colleagues from now on, and colleagues are brothers. In the future..."
Zhou Zhenzhen was stunned. There was actually someone in this world who could speak more eloquently than Meng Fan. This really broadened her horizons.
Cheng Jue patted her shoulder and said, "You haven't eaten anything all day. Are you hungry?"
"I'm not hungry." She said so, but her stomach was growling honestly. Cheng Jue smiled softly and said, "Let's go and eat something."
In Zhou Zhenzhen's memory, this was the only time she and Cheng Jue had a meal alone in a dilapidated temple during their escape.
But she guessed that Cheng Jue had long forgotten the night in the dilapidated temple and thought that this was their first time eating alone, which made her a little nervous.
Cheng Jue is an expert at reading people's expressions, so they specially chose the Manyue Teahouse for this meal. The familiar environment immediately made Zhou Zhenzhen feel at ease.
Mrs. Wang had never met Cheng Jue, but seeing him in his official uniform, sitting with Zhou Zhenzhen, looking very imposing, she guessed that he was a high-ranking official in the Dali Temple. She did not dare to neglect him and served him some of the teahouse's signature dishes and poured a glass of wine for Cheng Jue.
"This girl Zhenzhen is sometimes very stubborn and causes trouble for adults."
Cheng Jue responded politely, and Mrs. Wang went to greet others without any worries. His action made Zhou Zhenzhen feel warm.
She picked up a piece of goose with wine lees and put it in Cheng Jue's bowl: "This is very delicious, my lord, try it."
She always put success first in everything, wanted him to have the first bite of the most delicious food, and treated him like a child, which was an experience he had never had before.
Zhou Zhenzhen saw him chewing slowly and nodded in praise, then she tentatively spoke carefully: "Sir, I want to discuss something with you."
"you say."
"I see that Lord Lin only knows about this in the Hanlin Academy. Every official in the government office has to take turns to be on duty at night, but I don't have this in the Dali Temple."
Cheng Jue filled a bowl of soup and took a sip before saying, "You are a woman after all. We in the Dali Temple do not have a tradition of oppressing women."
"But I think night duty is interesting. I also want to be like the ordinary officials of the Dali Temple..."
Cheng Jue raised his eyes and asked directly: "Do you want to interrogate Zhao Ji tonight?"
Zhou Zhenzhen choked, turned her back and coughed a few times to breathe smoothly, then nodded with a slightly red face: "I'm worried that he will be the same as Huo Chi..." Huo Chi was almost dead the last time.
"You want to go on night duty by yourself? No." Cheng Jue rejected it straightforwardly. Zhou Zhenzhen was so frustrated that her eyebrows drooped. He added slowly, " But I can go with you."
The evidence of Ruan Wenqing's murder was irrefutable, and Zhao Ji, the murderer, was put on death row in the Dali Temple. After the last incident with Huo Chi, in addition to the usual prison wardens, several constables were carefully selected from the team that was integrated into the Dali Temple from the Six Gates to guard the cells. Their official positions remained unchanged, but their salaries were doubled as compensation.
Once a scholar like Zhao Ji is exposed to the world of extravagance and debauchery, and loses his integrity, he will be more afraid of death than ordinary people. When he saw Cheng Jue, he immediately rushed over and knelt down, grabbing Cheng Jue's clothes through the wooden fence: "Master Cheng, Master Cheng, please spare my life. I was forced to do it, and I had no choice. I am so honest, can you... can you show some leniency? I will repay you by working like a slave..."
The jailer opened the cell door and Zhou Zhenzhen walked in.
Before she came, she had read Zhao Ji's files, which recorded that his mother fell seriously ill after he failed the imperial examination in the year he left Qingzhou to go to Beijing, and died because she had no money to treat her. His younger sister was left alone and was abducted and sold into a brothel. When he later became famous in the capital for his paintings, he asked someone to bring money back to redeem his younger sister, but was told that his younger sister had committed suicide three years ago because she could not bear the torture.
His mother and his younger sister are the most painful and soft spots in his heart.
Zhou Zhenzhen took out the silver chain from her neck, rubbed it carefully, took a deep breath and then spoke: "If your sister were still alive, she might be my age..."
Zhao Ji suddenly loosened his grip on Cheng Jue's clothes.
This was not the first time Cheng Jue saw Zhou Zhenzhen hypnotizing people, but this time was a little different from usual.
Zhao Ji collapsed and cried because of his deceased relative, after Zhou Zhenzhen seized the opportunity to hypnotize him. Zhou Zhenzhen, who put herself in his emotions, cried even harder than him, but she was able to stay sober despite such ups and downs in her emotions, which really made Cheng Jue admire her.
Moreover, after the failure of hypnotizing Song Siyue in the case of Princess Jintai, Zhou Zhenzhen obviously adjusted her way of questioning. All her questions were based on the records in the files and archives, and she went deeper into the matter bit by bit. She no longer relied solely on hypnosis, but combined what she was good at with various existing things.
Cheng Jue leaned against the wall with a smile on his lips.
He had excellent vision and chose her to enter the Dali Temple.
Pick her and bring her to his side.
When Zhou Zhenzhen came out, she was no longer crying so hard. She just pursed her lips tightly, tears kept seeping from the corners of her eyes. She felt depressed and in pain, which made Cheng Jue's heart ache.
He had already heard the results of the interrogation, most of which were consistent with the records in the archives and there was nothing to dispute. The only thing that was still unclear was the prescription that Zhao Ji obtained that killed Ruan Wenqing.
Because there were no other suspicious points in this case, Zhao Ji was arrested yesterday and interrogated by the torture officer. Zhao Ji confessed that he found the poison by accident in a miscellaneous book. But after being hypnotized tonight, he confessed that the recipe was told to him by a little girl who picked flowers and sold them in the city.
The little girl was probably about the same age as Zhao Ji's younger sister when he left home. Zhao Ji felt sympathetic and didn't want her to be implicated.
Cheng Jue sighed, and Zhou Zhenzhen followed him without saying a word.
Lord Chen, who was supposed to be on duty in the Dali Temple tonight, was driven away by Cheng Jue. Now there was no one around, so Cheng Jue raised his hand and held her hand, which was icy cold.
"What's wrong with you? I feel like your current state is different from the previous times you put yourself in the shoes of the hypnotized person."
How can they be the same?
Her experience was similar to Zhao Ji's in some ways, with no relatives around, drifting like a lone goose. She opened Zhao Ji's wounds, poked his soft spots, took his emotions and indulged in her own grief, adding insult to injury, and the pain made her whole body numb and cold.
"What happened to you? Can you tell me?"
There was a moment when Zhou Zhenzhen wanted to let down all her guard and be honest with him, but she was not related to him... Why should she do that?
She took a few breaths and managed a smile: "It's nothing. Maybe Zhao Ji's emotions were too volatile. I've never seen a man cry like this..."
Cheng looked at her steadily, wanting to make sure whether what she said was true or not. She could easily reveal her emotions about other things, but she had repeatedly stimulated herself before coming to the Dali Temple, and she was numb to it, so she would not reveal the truth.
After a moment, Cheng Jue tightened her hand but did not let go: "Officials on duty at night have to sleep in the duty room of the Dali Temple. I will take you there when it gets dark."
Most of the officials on duty could not sleep soundly, so there was only a narrow couch in the duty room. This narrow couch was a bit tight for other officials of the Dali Temple, but it was just right for a woman of Zhou Zhenzhen's stature.
After entering the room, Cheng Jue let go of his hand and paced back and forth in the duty room, covering the gap in the window that was not yet closed tightly, still with no intention of leaving.
Zhou Zhenzhen had a bold guess, but it was not easy to say it out loud, so she hesitated and said, "Master, why don't you go back?"
Cheng Jue sat at the table next to the window and said seriously, "There are only two hours left until 2:45 in the morning. I will waste time on the way back and forth, so I will stay here for one night."
"How can that be possible?"
Cheng Jue lifted his eyelids and looked at her: "How about you give me half of the bed?"
Zhou Zhenzhen's face suddenly turned red. Cheng Jue was usually serious and never relaxed, but she didn't know if it was her illusion. Why did she feel that he had changed?
More difficult to deal with, more unpredictable emotions...but softer in words.
Cheng Jue laughed and knocked on the table: "Alright, go to sleep quickly. If you keep thinking about nonsense, you won't be able to sleep tonight."
Zhou Zhenzhen buried her head even lower and lay down on the narrow couch with her clothes on.
After all, she was still young and sleepy. Her nerves were tense all day, and now she touched the pillow and fell into a deep sleep in a short while. Cheng Jue looked at her peaceful sleeping face and closed his eyes. Her every frown and smile emerged in his mind. When she was tough, she was like the weeds growing in the cracks of the rocks, and when she was weak, she was like a delicate flower that was carefully nurtured and bloomed by the best light of spring.
No matter which version of her she is, she is so clear and vivid as if engraved in his bones and blood.
Cheng Jue slowly opened his eyes, his expression clear. He only knew about his not-so-good thoughts after Meng Fan told him indirectly, and he roughly understood it after thinking about it for a while.
How can I be willing to let go of someone I chose at first sight?
The person on the couch might have felt cold, so she wrapped herself tightly in the quilt and leaned against the wall. Cheng Jue stood up, took out a blanket from the cabinet beside her and pressed it on her.
The candles in the duty room were still on, half of her face was exposed, and a layer of hazy light was gilded on her small jade-like earlobes. He looked at her quietly for a long while, and the emotions that were locked in the square box were mixed, and they were trying to break out of the box.
This time, he didn't miss it.
He curled his lips, leaned over, covered her forehead with his thin lips, and pecked her forehead tenderly.
Liuyeju is a place where people recite poems and appreciate flowers during the day, and where people meet friends over literature and drink wine at night.
This place was not affected by Ruan Wenqing's death. Perhaps it was because Liuyeju, a place that could make people rich and famous overnight, had seen life and death many times. The furniture in Xiaoxiang House was quickly replaced, and when the door opened again, it was still greeted by a playful crowd.
Lin Yuxiao shook the wine jug in his hand, his eyes clear and not drunk at all. He pushed the man leaning on the table and said, "Brother Meng, why did you fall down? Didn't you claim to be able to drink a thousand cups without getting drunk? How come you can't even drink more than me?"
Meng Fan was in a daze and couldn't accept that Lin Yuxiao was better than him in any way. He forced himself to sit up straight, his face flushed, his eyes unfocused, but he still said stubbornly: "Who said I fell down? What a joke!"
After leaving Ruan's house, Lin Yuxiao said he wanted to go to Liuyeju to drink before going home to sleep.
Meng Fan and he were not on the same path, and he was so annoyed with him that he pushed him aside and left. Lin Yuxiao said slowly from behind: "If a normal colleague said something like this, the other party would definitely follow up with 'Then I will go with you'. Lord Meng left in such a hurry, is he afraid of me?"
Meng Fan: …
