Chapter 8 The Young Master of the Meng Family 2
Emperor Xuanhe was overjoyed, and the whole palace was also filled with joy. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the empress to give birth to a legitimate son to continue the bloodline for the Dayu dynasty.
Unfortunately, she didn't live long enough. Empress You was always weak, and it took her a day and a night to give birth to the prince. She died of heavy bleeding, and the prince also died half a month later. Duke Qing loved his younger sister since he was a child, and he couldn't stand this blow. He resigned and left Chang'an City, and Emperor Xuanhe gave him Yancheng as his fief.
The past is gone with the wind, and it has been seven or eight years since these things happened.
After drinking, everyone left. The housekeeper asked the waiter to carry the tub behind the screen, fill it with hot water, and put a towel on it before leaving. You Hu raised his hand to take off his shirt, with wounds of all sizes on his front and back. He was a man who had rolled through mountains of swords and seas of fire, and each wound showed his past merits.
The hot water surged up, You Hu sighed, put his arms on the edge of the bathtub, relaxed his body, and let it sink.
This wine was much weaker than the wine he drank before going into battle, but he was drunk at the moment, probably because he was homesick. If it weren't for the imperial edict, he would never go to Chang'an again in his life.
The room was lit with a light fragrance that smelled very soothing. In the mist of hot water, he finally revealed the loneliness and fatigue that he should have at this age. The prosperous scenes of Chang'an in the past flashed before his eyes one by one.
The Duke of Qing's Mansion, with its soaring eaves and golden carvings and jade bricks, was acquired by him at the cost of his wounds and numerous military exploits. On the golden palace of the imperial palace, the queen stood at the head in a phoenix robe. He followed the ministers in kowtow and then stood up to meet her pair of dull eyes.
He was full of energy and enthusiasm at that time, but he didn't know that was just the beginning of this journey. Afterwards, the scenery flashed by so fast that he couldn't distinguish the colors anymore.
All the chaos faded away, and what appeared before his eyes was the courtier kneeling upright in the imperial study, saying word by word with a resounding voice: "Your Majesty, I plead guilty."
Suddenly, the man turned around, with a saber on his waist, the scabbard was removed, and he attacked him in the face. This attack was too simple, and he could easily dodge it at other times, but at this moment he couldn't move at all.
At this moment, he suddenly felt a little panic and woke up suddenly, realizing that all this was just a nightmare caused by alcohol.
You Hu closed his eyes tightly and opened them again. He lowered his eyes and saw something strange in the water. Red liquid gushed out from the bottom to the top, gradually dyeing the whole bucket bloody. He stood up suddenly and walked out. There were no wounds on his body. He rubbed his eyes. The blood in the wooden barrel gradually increased, overflowing the edge of the barrel and spreading to his feet.
At this time, even though You Hu had seen many storms, he was still horrified. He pulled off the large towel on his cloak and wiped the water off his body. With a "bang", something rolled along the towel and all over the floor. You Hu stopped wiping his body and bent down to pick up one of them.
This is a spirit tablet with a line of words written on it: The 26th year of Yuanqing, Zhou Nan.
"Zhou Nan..."
You Hu repeated the sentence, his heart tightened, and he looked at them one by one.
In the twenty-sixth year of Yuanqing, Shen Jingyun.
In the twenty-sixth year of Yuanqing, Sui and Qing dynasties.
In the twenty-sixth year of Yuanqing, Lu Fang.
…
In the 32nd year of Yuanqing, there was auspicious snow.
"Who? Who is playing tricks on me?" You Hu threw the spirit tablet in his hand fiercely, stomped on the ground with his bare feet, his eyes were bloodshot, and he screamed, "If you have the guts, just stand in front of me. Why use these dead people as a cover? I have nothing to fear. They couldn't do anything to me when they were alive, let alone now that they are dead souls! Come out!"
He crushed the spirit tablets one by one, and the wood chips pierced his feet. Blood seeped out and merged with the liquid flowing out of the wooden barrel.
The candlelight was swaying in the wind that came in through the window. His sight followed the world turning upside down. The spirit tablet suddenly emitted shadows, which stood up one after another, forming a row. Some were smiling, some were angry, some were happy, and some were sad, but there was boundless hatred in every pair of eyes.
You Hu kicked the screen, and it fell to the ground with a "bang". He broke off the broken wooden strips and held them in his hand. He roared and hit them one after another.
"I, You Hu, will kill humans if I see them, and I will kill ghosts if I see them! I don't care whether you are human or ghost, anyone who dares to stand in my way will die!"
The figures were dispersed by him, and then reunited, still staring at him with hatred. You Hu gritted his teeth to hide the panic in his heart, changed his hand to hold the wooden stick tightly, sneered, and said: "Zhou Nan, as the governor of Qingzhou, you have control over everything in Qingzhou. This is the position you asked me for back then, how can you bear a grudge against me just because the matter was exposed?"
"Shen Jingyun, as the chief envoy of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory, it is your duty to explore the mysteries of the sky and observe the stars. You said that Qingzhou suffered a three-year drought. This came from your mouth, so who can you blame?"
…
"Lu Fang, Lu Fang..."
You Hu went completely crazy. These two words made him laugh so hard that his skin twitched and he almost couldn't breathe.
"Hahaha, Lu Fang, ah Lu Fang... How could there be someone as stupid as you in this world?" He abandoned the wooden stick, sat on the ground holding his stomach, looked at the last lonely thin figure in the room, and said after laughing enough, "You were transferred to Qingzhou as the governor, and wanted to do something big in Qingzhou City. You are strong-willed and righteous, and I asked Zhou Nan to sell you a flaw, and you rushed over to verify it, wholeheartedly serving your Dayu! But what happened, hahaha... The more you investigated, the deeper you got, and you didn't hesitate to sacrifice yourself for the truth. Don't you know that this was a game from the beginning, hahaha... If you weren't lucky, how could you be chosen to be the most critical chess piece in this game?"
"Why don't you come and pounce on me? Come on! You are a fool, a useless person, destined to be a tongueless dog for the rest of your life. Even when you die, you dare not bark, for fear that someone will say that the court you devoted your life to is unfair, and that your loyal king is unclear!"
Outside the door, a group of people who came from Yancheng were tied up and thrown into the corridor at the side, with their mouths blocked. They listened to the Duke's confession and roar in the room, and their faces were as pale as paper.
"General Wang, did you hear what Duke Qing said?"
Deputy General Wang nodded and said, "I have heard it clearly. I will report to Your Majesty what I have seen and heard today. This incident happened suddenly. It was only thanks to Master Cheng's reminder that I was able to see the truth when Duke Qing was going crazy."
Deputy General Wang was a confidant of Emperor Xuanhe. He was only a deputy general of the Ministry of War, but he was actually the commander of the secret guards. After dinner, Cheng Jue and his men suddenly appeared, which really startled him.
Cheng Jue smiled faintly and said, "How could someone in this world go crazy for no reason?"
He patted the shoulder of the person beside him and said, "This time, it's all thanks to Lord Lin, otherwise it wouldn't have been so smooth."
The shouts inside were getting more and more shrill, and the laughter was getting more and more treacherous. Those secrets and past events were finally revealed to the public under the influence of drugs. Lin Yuxiao still had a lazy smile, as if all this had nothing to do with him: "It was all Master Cheng's plan, and I just did my best. Now that the matter is settled, Master Cheng can let me go back to the Hanlin Academy! The daily life in the Dali Temple is really hard. I was picked up by Master Cheng and stuffed into the carriage when I was sleeping soundly. I traveled all the way here, alas..."
Cheng Jue was not really strolling around Chang'an City these days, but was waiting for Duke Qing to set off.
In the past, Cheng Jue's mother, Princess Feng Jue, served as a general in the same camp as Duke Qing. Duke Qing was decisive on the battlefield, but he was a pleasure seeker, and this became more and more obvious as he grew older. Cheng Jue expected that Duke Qing would not rush back to Chang'an City, and the best place to rest for a night was the largest Yuelai Inn in Qiling Town.
There is a kind of spring grass in Yancheng, which is considered a local specialty. The grass will wither at the beginning of summer, exuding a faint fragrance, and can be made into sachets. But if the spring grass encounters red star wood, it will cause hallucinations in people, evoke the most hateful things in people's hearts, paralyze the nerves, and excessive inhalation may even induce madness.
A piece of dried red star wood had been burned in the incense burner in every room of Yuelai Inn. When the scent of spring dry grass was brought to the clothes of Duke Qing, the truth of the Qingzhou case in the 26th year of Yuanqing was revealed from his mouth which had lost control of himself.
Cheng Jue calculated the time precisely and led the ten best men from the Dali Temple and the Imperial Guards straight to Qiling Town, finally waiting for the moment to close the net.
Cheng Jue took two steps back, and Bo Xiang and his men kicked the door open.
Everything in the room had been smashed to pieces by You Hu, and the water in the wooden barrel spilled all over the floor. The former queen's brother, the famous Duke of Qing, was disheveled, with messy hair and bloodshot eyes. He was barefoot in the mess on the ground, his feet were bleeding. He waved the wooden stick in his hand randomly, laughing wildly and screaming.
This scene made people sigh. Cheng Jue waved his hand, and Bo Xiang and his men rushed in. You Hu was weak and powerless due to the drug, so he was captured in a few moves. Bo Xiang chopped him on the back of the neck with a knife, and he fell down softly.
Lin Yuxiao watched this scene with a smile, as if he was watching a clown jumping from the sky into the abyss of hell.
"Meng Fan and Zhou Zhenzhen took my gold medal and went to Yancheng. I want to pick them up here. Lord Lin, you follow Prime Minister Bo and take Duke Qing back to Chang'an first."
Lin Yuxiao raised his eyebrows: "I am just a weak scholar, how can Master Cheng trust me so much? What if someone kidnaps Duke Qing on the way? What should I do?"
Cheng Jue said calmly, "If you can't keep an eye on him, then I'm afraid no one in this world can keep an eye on him."
The two looked at each other, Lin Yuxiao sighed again and again, and lazily pushed the door open and walked in: "It's not a good thing for this person to be too outstanding. The burden on his shoulders is really heavy!"
Lin Yuxiao and his group walked quickly. Cheng Jue chose a clean room to sleep in for the night. At noon the next day, Zhou Zhenzhen and Meng Fan arrived at Yuelai Inn.
Meng Fan drank a bowl of tea in a hurry, and then took a breath before saying, "As expected by the adults, the so-called bandit riot in Yancheng was just a show. Few people in Yancheng knew about it. Only someone in a village on the outskirts of the city saw a group of soldiers in official uniforms going to Fanghun Forest on the day of the so-called 'bandit riot', but they were never seen coming back. I showed the villagers the style of the clothes, and it was definitely the uniforms of the imperial guards."
Zhou Zhenzhen took out a piece of paper and said, "In the list of soldiers killed in battle that Duke Qing sent to His Majesty, one was a prisoner who was beheaded last month. I haven't had time to check the rest of the names carefully because of time constraints. But Duke Qing was afraid that all the dead were from the Imperial Guards, which would arouse suspicion and lead to the discovery of the banditry, so he used the previously dead prisoners to make up the number. In the final analysis, the most pitiful ones were the Imperial Guards who followed the seven people to Yancheng to 'suppress the bandits'. They were sent to Fanghun Forest by Duke Qing, and then were killed by the Duke Qing's men who were ambushed there. They didn't die on the battlefield, but died here."
Cheng Jue walked to the window, pushed open the window frame, and rain was falling outside.
This is the first rain in the summer of the 32nd year of Yuanqing. I wonder if it can wash away this dirt.
On June 14, the 32nd year of Yuanqing in Dayu, Duke of Qing You Hu was taken to the Dali Temple's Tianlao awaiting trial for his involvement in the Qingzhou case of the 26th year of Yuanqing, the Ruan family massacre that broke out on the 16th of last month, and the Yancheng bandits' fabricated case and murder of imperial guards.
