A Single Tie Of Long Hair Seals A Lifelong Commitment - Chapter 93

“That’s right.”

This was the stance Chen Luan had chosen back in Linxia when he and the Grand Princess were compiling the “Record of Ten Thousand Officials” and recalculating the land tax.

Chen Luan said, “Father and Uncle Yan both said that the people are the most important, the nation comes next, and the ruler is the least important. Even if the court is corrupt and power-hungry, there will always be someone who stands up for the common people. If there isn’t, I am willing to be that person.”

Chen Liangyu said, “But now, the ‘Sage Ruler’ is confined to Taihuang Temple, and people in the Marquis’s Residence are also under surveillance. Since things have come to this, let’s eat first.”

“You can still eat?” Chen Luan said, “We can’t just sit and wait for death.”

Chen Liangyu said, “Who said we are sitting and waiting for death? Neither you nor I can yet fathom the Emperor’s true intention. If the enemy hasn’t moved but our army is already in disarray, we will expose a weakness.”

Chen Luan said, “We can’t just stall like this and do nothing.”

Chen Liangyu said, “Xiqing is still in Yongdu. The Emperor highly respects the grassland tribes. Xiqing wants to marry Dai Qing, a maid by the Grand Princess’s side. This person can be used. At least, she can get the Grand Princess to return from Taihuang Temple to her own residence. As for An’er, since she has entered the palace, she can’t be brought back to the residence for a while. As long as she is in the Palace of Phoenix Harmony, with the Empress’s protection, her life will be easier. As for the residence…”

Chen Luan said, “Don’t worry about the affairs of the residence. You only need to guard the Northern Border. The Emperor won’t do anything to you immediately. Remember, if the Emperor orders you to leave Yongdu immediately, you must go at once and not inquire about anything concerning Yongdu or the Grand Princess. Until everything is settled, the military authority in your hands can only be used by the Emperor.”

The time was not yet right.

The former Emperor’s progeny was sparse, and the royal bloodline was thin. For all these years, no prince had been born in the Imperial Harem. To resolve this with minimal conflict, they had to wait for that “opportune moment.”

“The selection period for new concubines is imminent. I heard the relationship between the Emperor and the Empress has also improved, which is good news,” Chen Luan leaned on the incense stand, seemingly trying to convince himself. “It’s good news… Just wait a little longer. Wait for the Harem to bear a royal heir.”

“Second Brother.”

Chen Luan turned his head.

All these years, whenever Xun Shuhang was mentioned, the look of melancholy in Chen Luan’s eyes never diminished. Chen Liangyu had originally intended to bring up Xie Wenjun’s suggestion for Chen Luan to marry a daughter of the Heng family and ask for his opinion, but seeing him in this state, she found it awkward to speak.

Chen Luan waited for a long time, watching her conflicted expression. “What is troubling you so much?”

Chen Liangyu swallowed her original words and brought up another old matter instead. “After the East Residence’s birthday banquet, A-Heng once embroidered a pair of shoe vamps for tangbing boots and asked me to pass the cloth boots on to you.”

“The East Residence’s birthday banquet?”

Chen Luan didn’t recall seeing Xun Shuhang on the day of the East Residence’s birthday banquet. Before he met her again at the Prince of Shen’s Mansion in Linxia, wasn’t the only time they met a fleeting glance at the Yueyang Tower?

“Cloth boots, handmade by her, to be given…” He was too incredulous, making his question difficult to utter: “To me?”

Chen Liangyu nodded. “Yes, for you.”

The blood vessels in Chen Luan’s eyes immediately became clearly visible. He asked, “Where are the boots?”

Chen Liangyu said, “Xun Shutai ended up wearing them.”

“Xun Shutai. Of course, I’ve seen them.”

He had seen Xun Shutai wear those boots. At that time, Xun Shutai was just a ninth-rank functionary in the Ministry of Revenue, swaggering around the Six Ministries’ yamen in a pair of tangbing cloth boots, telling everyone they were handmade by his younger sister.

“I’ve seen them.”

Chen Luan snapped out of his daze, and suddenly, a laugh burst abruptly from his throat. The laughter was dry and sorrowful, yet with a hint of relief.

Chen Luan walked out, his vague silhouette torn into fragments by the surrounding candles, creeping along his feet. At this moment, the incense in the censer had burned to its end.

Chen Liangyu called out from behind him, “Second Brother, is that old fellow Gu Xie made you keep in the residence still alive?”

Jiang Bojin had been living off the residence for so long, it was time he did something.

For Xie Wenjun to return from Taihuang Temple, someone had to meet Xiqing. Xuanping Marquis’s Residence was surrounded by spies. Neither she nor Chen Luan’s people could openly meet Xiqing, and the risk of a secret meeting being discovered was also high. The Feimang Shi Flying Wasp Arrows were unpredictable and were most useful at this moment.

Chen Luan leaned on the door frame and said, “I know. I’ll send Mr. Jiang to see Xiqing.” His steps were unsteady as he crossed the threshold of the ancestral hall, leaving Chen Liangyu alone in the vast, empty space.

Chen Liangyu said, “You rest. I will go and invite him.”

Chen Luan seemed to have answered with a faint “Alright,” but his voice was weak as he walked away, and she didn’t hear him clearly.

Chen Liangyu understood that even with this old story told, Chen Luan could only hold it close to his heart and slowly make sense of it. Could a mere single encounter truly make a person unforgettable to this extent?

Perhaps when love runs deep, it can.

In the past, she would have found it utterly incomprehensible, but things were different now. She, too, held a person whom she yearned for with bone-deep longing in her heart.

The ancestral hall of Xuanping Marquis’s Residence overlooked an inner lake. Past the waterside pavilion, there was a courtyard gate, which was usually locked, separating the backyard’s stable from the storage sheds for feed and fodder. The sheds were a row of low-lying tiled houses, and Jiang Bojin lived in the last one.

This dwelling was his own chosen sanctuary.

The temperature difference between the lake by the ancestral hall and the dry ground of the stable was vast. The wind often picked up, day or night, carrying a scent of horse manure.

When Chen Liangyu found Jiang Bojin in the stable, he was not in his room but in the granary that stored the fodder and concentrated feed, with a handful of alfalfa in his mouth.

Chen Liangyu said, “Did my Second Brother not feed you? Hiding here to steal the horses’ fodder.”

Jiang Bojin chewed the grass and then spat it out. “A rare visitor!”

Chen Liangyu didn’t expect to be treated as a guest in her own home.

“A visitor is a guest. Is the Chen family so impoverished that they make guests live in a shed and eat fodder? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed if word got out? Does the Marquis’s Residence still care about its face?”

Jiang Bojin lay back on the pile of fodder, crossing his legs. “I, this old man, actually love the smell of horse manure and horse feed.”

Chen Liangyu couldn’t understand his strange habit and snapped, “Then eat more. It’s all you can eat.”

Jiang Bojin “hmph”-ed twice, indeed turned his head, and picked up two more blades of grass, taking a deep breath. “Smelling this scent, this old man feels like he’s back on the battlefield, commanding forces, not the useless, powerless, universally condemned old cripple you see before you now.”

“You are universally condemned, but not because of your crippled body.”

“Stop right there.” Jiang Bojin knew she always looked down on the Bai Gui Dao Path of a Hundred Guiles and never gave him a good look. “Are you going to say again that the Bai Gui Dao is full of wicked tricks that harm others for no benefit, and that I deserve this fate for practicing it?”

As he spoke, he vigorously waved his two severed arms on the dry grass. “Don’t forget, the Bai Gui Dao, along with the Vertical and Horizontal, Yin and Yang, and Center and Righteousness techniques, were all created by your maternal grandfather. If those who practice the Bai Gui Dao deserve this fate, then the man who created the Bai Gui Dao deserves to have his entire family executed, right?”

Chen Liangyu said, “You are the master of sophistry. When my maternal grandfather taught you the Bai Gui Dao, when did he teach you to use it for massacring a city?”

Massacring a city.

Massacring a city again.

Jiang Bojin opened and closed his mouth several times, as if wanting to defend himself, but then he gave up. This bucket of dirty water had been poured on him for decades. All the old friends and subordinates who knew the truth back then had returned to the earth, and there was no one left to clear his name.

The land had changed its ruler, and he was the defeated general and disillusioned guest in that imperial struggle.

Jiang Bojin said, “I won’t argue about that with you, but I’ll tell you this: Yan Baizhang’s Center and Righteousness technique and the Bai Gui Dao are essentially the same thing.”

Chen Liangyu said, “Nonsense!”

Jiang Bojin said, “The Vertical and Horizontal, Yin and Yang, Center and Righteousness, and Bai Gui Dao were taught in separate classes. The Master taught Yan Baizhang to prioritize the Great Way, be loyal to the ruler, and love the people, but he led me to pursue fame and profit, to feed on filth and corruption. The same curriculum, but nurturing students with different temperaments, set them on completely different paths.”

Yet, even in his pursuit of fame and profit, he had never thought of slaughtering civilians as a stepping stone to his achievements.

Chen Liangyu said, “Since they were taught separately, how did you know that the Center and Righteousness technique and the Bai Gui Dao were the same?”

Jiang Bojin’s mouth curved into a bitter smile. “I’ve told you before, I was the Master’s most perceptive student.” Perhaps this was precisely why He Niangong chose him over Yan Yong to pass on the Bai Gui Dao.

Humans possess a savage nature, with fangs.

The momentum of surging selfish desires in human nature always overshadows virtue and righteousness. To suppress the descending evil and self-interest, benevolence and morality become the cage that imprisons humanity.

In the conspiracy of the Five Kings’ Rebellion years ago, Yan Baizhang’s strategy and methods originated from the same principle as his, and he had guessed a thing or two then. After realizing it, he had resented it, resented the Master for choosing the broad and easy path for Yan Baizhang and casting him onto the single-plank bridge.

He and Yan Baizhang were both test subjects for the Master’s methods of counter-validation.

Merely a proofreading.

“Once war begins, it is bound to harm the innocent. Since the actions all bring disaster to the people, how can you talk about superiority, righteousness, or evil? Is acting for the sake of the people’s greater good noble, while plotting for one’s own century-long achievement despicable?”

Chen Liangyu said, “In your first half of life, you disgraced my maternal grandfather’s reputation as a teacher, and now you want to insult his posthumous reputation?”

“What, you want to kill me again?”

“I won’t kill you.”

Jiang Bojin briefly looked up at Chen Liangyu, then his head fell heavily back onto the straw stack. “No good ever comes without a reason. We are already at odds, so just get straight to the point. What do you want me for?”

“There is indeed something I need you to do for me.”

“Tsk!”

Jiang Bojin scrambled up, loudly expressing his displeasure. “You’re asking for a favor, and you’re still giving me attitude?”

Chen Liangyu’s voice overpowered Jiang Bojin’s. “If you want to continue living in this residence, get up and work.”

“Haven’t I gotten up already!”

Both of them were annoyed by the sight of the other, and their voices involuntarily grew louder, attracting the stable supervisor and a few servants to wait by the doorway. Seeing that one inside was the mistress of the house and the other a respected guest of the Marquis, they dared not interrupt.

This matter was not suitable to be discussed with Jiang Bojin in the granary, so Chen Liangyu turned and walked out.

The supervisor hurried forward, waiting for instructions. Seeing that both of them looked unhappy but said nothing, the supervisor dismissed the servants.

Chen Liangyu walked toward the lakeside pavilion, and Jiang Bojin, shaking the bits of straw off himself, followed with his neck craned.

After the matter was explained, Jiang Bojin spread his arms. “Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

Jiang Bojin said, “I understand. The Emperor, that little brat, is using the Grand Princess’s ritual to mourn her mother as an excuse to put her under house arrest at Taihuang Temple, and you want to use the grassland people to cause a stir in Yongdu and get the Grand Princess out.”

“That’s right.”

“Let me ask an irrelevant question: Whose side are you on?”

Chen Liangyu glanced at him.

Jiang Bojin said, “You don’t need to rush this matter at all. The Grand Princess manages the enormous national accounts of agriculture, sericulture, grain, and taxes. If you remove her now, even with two more Ministries of Revenue, it would take a year and a half to sort out the accounts and cadastral maps. The Emperor will have to invite her back sooner or later.”

Chen Liangyu understood this, but Xie Wenjun was at Taihuang Temple. Though she had eighty Longning Guards by her side, the manpower would be insufficient in a real crisis. Taihuang Temple was surrounded by barren hills. If the Emperor truly disregarded the agriculture and taxes and decided to act against Xie Wenjun, the order to deploy troops would be hard to send out.

Being completely at the mercy of others like this was truly perilous.

Since descending the mountain, she and Xie Wenjun had been completely cut off, with no communication whatsoever.

Her heart felt restless from time to time, and Chen Liangyu could only try her best to suppress it, constantly reminding herself: I cannot panic.

She must stay calm; she could not panic now.

What provided her with a calming reassurance was a message slip delivered to Xuanping Marquis’s Residence from the Lingjiu Academy at xushi (7 to 9 PM).

Danger, but no peril. Wait and see what happens.

The first four characters were a divination; the latter four were advice.

After Chen Luan read the slip and showed it to Chen Liangyu, he set it alight on a candlestick. “Mr. Gu Heng is a Grand Academician of the Hanlin Academy and is often by the Emperor’s side. Since the young lady says this, she must know something that you and I do not. Since she didn’t state it explicitly, she likely hasn’t secured a sure hold yet.”

Xie Yuan must have a scheme in mind by suddenly confining Xie Wenjun.

The Hanlin Grand Academicians were a private “think tank” and “pen-holders” for the Emperor, with six positions, tasked with discussing national policies, drafting imperial edicts, and writing documents for the Emperor. Gu Heng was the chief.

Gu Xie and Gu Heng were siblings. It was not surprising to get some news through Gu Heng, but she was worried that the Emperor might deliberately use this connection to mislead them.

Still, she could not simply wait and see.

Even if it was house arrest, confinement in the palace or the Grand Princess’s Residence would be acceptable, but Xie Wenjun could not be left alone at Taihuang Temple.