Fan Changyu couldn’t remember if she had fainted or fallen asleep from exhaustion. In her hazy state, she felt a warm, sticky rain clinging to her, which she couldn’t shake off no matter how fast she ran in her dreams.
When she finally woke up, she opened her eyes to find that daylight had already broken. Faint voices could be heard from the outer room.
“…The Li family will surely make desperate moves, and Wei Yan’s contingency plans won’t be so simple. Notify Gongsun’s side that they can proceed.”
“Understood, sir.”
This was followed by the sound of departing footsteps and the creaking of the door opening and closing.
When Xie Zheng returned to the inner room, he saw Fan Changyu sitting up, wrapped in the blanket. His usually cold eyes softened slightly. He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, tucking a stray lock of her disheveled hair behind her ear, his gesture intimate and natural: “You’re awake? It’s still early, why don’t you sleep a bit more?”
The snowstorm hadn’t stopped last night, and today there was already more than two fingers’ depth of snow outside. The room was heated by the floor furnace, so it wasn’t cold at all.
When Fan Changyu sat up, she realized she was wearing an ill-fitting undergarment, with a neckline so large it kept slipping off her shoulders.
She glanced down and saw marks from her shoulders to both arms, a pitiful sight…
As memories of last night’s chaos returned, she silently pulled the collar back up. After Xie Zheng entered the room, she looked him over twice before asking her first question: “Are you alright now?”
Xie Zheng’s hand that had brushed away her hair was still resting on her ear, touching her snow-white neck. Hearing her question, his black eyes gazed at her quietly for a moment before he suddenly gripped the back of her neck, pulled her close, and kissed her lips twice. Then he said softly, “How are you so lovable?”
Fan Changyu’s clear black and white eyes looked at him frankly: “You held back until you coughed up blood last night…”
Xie Zheng seemed to greatly enjoy touching her. His fingertips gently caressed the back of her neck as he asked, “If I hadn’t coughed up blood, would you still indulge me like this?”
The experience of losing consciousness at the end was too embarrassing. Fan Changyu felt it was a humiliation due to her inferior stamina. She awkwardly lowered her head and changed the subject: “I’m a bit hungry.”
Seeing her like this, a dark look flashed across Xie Zheng’s phoenix eyes. He said, “The kitchen always has food prepared. I’ll have someone bring it.”
Fan Changyu nodded, but Xie Zheng didn’t leave. Instead, he knelt in front of the bed, took both her hands, and kissed them. With a very serious expression, he said, “Letting you be with me like this, I’ve truly wronged you. When everything settles down, I’ll give you a grand wedding unparalleled in the world.”
Whether it was because Fan Changyu was carefree or because she no longer cared so much about worldly etiquette after experiencing so much, she wasn’t that concerned about these promises Xie Zheng made to her.
But when he spoke to her so solemnly, it was as if a small pebble had been thrown into the lake of her heart, causing ripples to spread.
This feeling of being cherished and loved made her feel that even if the road ahead was treacherous, she would fearlessly walk it together with the man before her.
So she cupped Xie Zheng’s face and leaned down to plant a kiss on his forehead, her face flushed red, but her eyes bright and clear: “You haven’t wronged me. I will marry Xie Zheng, but Yan Zheng is the one who has married into my family.”
Seeing Xie Zheng’s silence, she glared at him with a slightly red face: “We haven’t divorced yet unless you want to deny it.”
Xie Zheng tightly gripped her wrist and after a long moment raised his head to ask her: “Are you still in pain?”
Fan Changyu was stunned at first, but when she realized what Xie Zheng was asking about, the tips of her ears turned bright red. Extremely annoyed, she threw a punch at him: “Get out!”
Xie Zheng wasn’t angry about being punched. He caught her hand mid-swing, pressed her back into the bedding, and kissed her fiercely for a while. Then he took her clenched fist and kissed it too, his eyes and brows filled with irrepressible joy and delight: “Rest a bit more after you eat. I need to go arrange some things to speed up the conclusion. I’ll take you back to the Memorial Hall later.”
Fan Changyu was still catching her breath when she heard him mention making arrangements. She immediately recalled the conversation she had overheard in the outer room when she first woke up.
She asked, “Did something happen with the Li family again?”
The smile at the corner of Xie Zheng’s lips was extremely cold: “They were just outmaneuvered by Wei Yan.”
“The strategist the Li family arranged to accuse Wei Yan of colluding with rebels was Wei Yan’s man. During the final trial, he suddenly recanted his testimony, saying everything was orchestrated by the Li family. He even provided evidence of correspondence as proof.”
Fan Changyu was astonished. She knew how tight the security at the Court of Judicial Review had become after their previous jailbreak.
Initially, Grand Tutor Li thought Wei Yan wanted to kill the witness. Because Wei Yan had people in the Court of Judicial Review and the Li family only controlled the Western Bureau of Punishments, Grand Tutor Li feared Wei Yan would continue to attempt to kill the witness. He had strongly advocated for the Censorate’s forces to be stationed at the Court of Judicial Review and had heavy troops from the Five Armies Camp guard it.
Now that the strategist had recanted, it could be said that Grand Tutor Li’s previous actions had backfired on him.
She said, “When you said earlier that you were afraid the Li family would make desperate moves, was it because of this?”
Xie Zheng nodded: “Last night, Xie San led people to break into the Court of Judicial Review to rescue someone. They happened to encounter the Li family’s people distracting the Five Armies Camp guards outside the court, intending to deal with that strategist. They inadvertently disrupted the Li family’s plan. Unable to kill the man and destroy evidence, they can only fight to the bitter end now.”
Fan Changyu was greatly shocked: “Wei Yan’s schemes are far too deep.”
She frowned and said, “He must have known from the beginning that the Li family was setting him up, and deliberately left ‘evidence’ with Qi Min to lure them in.”
Xie Zheng’s brows darkened slightly, his long eyes downcast, his tone cold and sarcastic: “Isn’t he always like this, stopping at nothing?”
Fan Changyu squeezed his hand and said, “Your people have also rescued the old steward from Prince Changxin’s mansion. We might be able to find out about some dealings between Wei Yan and Prince Changxin from him. Heaven’s net is vast and loose but lets nothing through. We will eventually find evidence to convict him.”
Xie Zheng looked at the hand gripping his tightly. The gloom and anger swirling in his heart dissipated somewhat, and he responded softly, “Alright.”
After eating, Fan Changyu didn’t remain idle. She went with Xie Zheng to the private prison in the Xie mansion to interrogate the steward from the Prince’s household.
At first, the steward was extremely tight-lipped, refusing to say anything when questioned and only pretending to be confused and senile.
Later, when Xie Zheng ordered Zhao Xun and the mother-son pair to be brought in, the steward saw that feigning confusion was no longer working. Even with his grandson as leverage, he still refused to speak.
Xie Zheng ordered torture to be used. The old man, who looked like he was on his last legs, was surprisingly tough. He was willing to bite off his tongue rather than confess, showing a degree of loyalty to Prince Changxin that truly surprised Fan Changyu.
Xie Zheng also keenly noticed this point. The old man’s body was frail, and further torture might kill him in the prison. He shifted to psychological tactics instead.
The firelight from the brazier illuminated the dark, damp dungeon. Xie Zheng sat in the armchair, taking a cup of hot tea handed to him by a nearby guard. He casually scraped the tea lid twice and said in a leisurely manner: “Your son has already been beaten to death in the public court. I don’t like to have children’s blood on my hands, but my patience is limited. If you continue to be so uncooperative, the people around me are all experts in lingchi. They will slice the flesh from your grandson’s body piece by piece to feed to the dogs. I guarantee that when they reach his internal organs, he will still be alive, able to cry out and call you ‘Grandfather’ one last time.”
After speaking, he raised his eyes and looked coldly at the old man opposite him through the rising steam from the teacup.
Upon hearing Xie Zheng’s description, the woman holding the child had already fainted in fright. Only the child beside her was still crying, calling “Mother” and “Grandfather,” like the innocent bleating of a lamb about to be slaughtered, causing everyone’s hearts to involuntarily tighten.
Fan Changyu knew that to break through the old man’s psychological defenses, this intimidation was necessary. She forced herself to sit in the armchair beside Xie Zheng and observe coldly.
The old man watched his grandson lying on the ground crying while trying to shake his mother awake. He was also weeping with heartache, but only said: “Grandfather has let you down, Grandfather has let you down, but Grandfather has no choice…”
Xie Zheng’s long eyes narrowed impatiently, and he called out, “Eleven.”
Xie Eleven made a gesture towards the outside, and soon servants led in several fierce, drooling wolfhounds. Upon seeing the child inside, the dogs began to bark furiously, frightening the child into screaming and crying loudly.
The old man, covered in blood from the torture, had tears clouding his eyes. He kept kowtowing to Xie Zheng: “The child is innocent, please give him a quick death. The Prince’s kindness to me is as heavy as a mountain. Without the Prince, my family would have been long gone. These decades of my life were borrowed from the King of Hell. I swore an oath not to betray the Prince!”
The wolfhounds held by the guards were almost upon the child. The old man could only weep bitterly and kowtow, begging for a quick death for the child, still refusing to say a word.
Fan Changyu looked at Xie Zheng. Xie Zheng made a gesture, and the guards pulled back the straining wolfhounds and left.
Fan Changyu said to the old man: “You’re loyal to Sui Tuo? But the one you’re loyal to now isn’t Sui Tuo’s descendant, is he? You don’t need to pretend to be confused with me. The one who died in Jizhou wasn’t the real Sui Yuanhuai. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have let your daughter-in-law and grandson pretend to be his concubine and son.”
The old man’s cries halted as he stared at Fan Changyu: “What do you mean by your first sentence?”
Fan Changyu glanced at Xie Zheng before saying to the old man: “I mean it was a case of swapping a musk cat for the crown prince. Seventeen years ago, during the great fire in the Eastern Palace, Prince Changxin’s wife and son were also invited to the Eastern Palace. The one who died in the fire was Sui Yuanhuai. The one whose face was burned beyond recognition was the Imperial Grandson. It was all a plan for the cicada to shed its golden shell.”
The old man’s expression became panicked, seemingly unable to believe it. He repeated over and over: “How is this possible… How is this possible…”
Fan Changyu continued: “The young Princess Changxin and Sui Yuanqing also died by his hand.”
The old man’s form slumped, but his eyes suddenly flashed with ferocity: “Didn’t the Princess kill herself to cover for the Young Master? As for the Heir, didn’t he die by your hands? Don’t try to deceive this old man with such lies. I won’t fall for it!”
Zhao Xun spoke up at the right moment: “I can testify that the man indeed wasn’t the Young Master of your Prince Changxin’s mansion.”
The old man spat at him viciously: “The words of a traitor cannot be trusted!”
The old man’s stubbornness was truly giving Fan Changyu a headache.
When Fan Changyu went out with Xie Zheng to get some air after being cooped up in the dungeon for so long, she kicked at the snow on the ground and sighed: “He’s a tough nut to crack. What do we do if we can’t get him to talk?”
She had initially been confused about why Xie Zheng didn’t tell the old man that Sui Yuanhuai was an impostor and instead started threatening him with the child.
Only after this experience did she realize that for someone so stubborn and unwilling to face reality, without concrete evidence, it was impossible to convince him.
Fine snow began to fall again from the gloomy sky.
Snowflakes landed in Fan Changyu’s hair. As Xie Zheng reached out to brush them away, he looked down at her and said: “I want to use the Imperial Great-grandson to stage a play. Are you willing?”
Fan Changyu hesitated for a moment before nodding: “As long as Bao’er won’t be hurt, I’ll get him to cooperate.”
The old man was willing to disregard his own grandson’s life for the sake of loyalty to the Sui family, but he certainly wouldn’t ignore Yu Bao’er’s safety.
To get him to talk, it seemed they could only rely on Bao’er-
That afternoon, Fan Changyu secretly returned to the Memorial Hall to fetch Yu Bao’er. Chang Ning, who hadn’t seen her all day, saw her return only to leave with Yu Bao’er and not take him along. He immediately started crying golden pearls of tears in distress.
Fan Changyu was at a loss. No matter how she tried to persuade him, she couldn’t stop Chang Ning’s tears. Thinking that Xie Zheng’s mansion was also safe and that bringing Chang Ning along shouldn’t cause any problems, she informed Madam Zhao and then, under the pretext of taking the children out to play, left the Memorial Hall with them.
Little did she know that this coincidental decision would save both children from a calamity.