"Believe it or not, as long as you walk over there, those people will turn into vicious wolves. Even that seemingly useless little girl will grow claws and rob you of everything."
Shangguan Yi spoke sternly in a low voice, and only breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her sit down again.
“Ziyu, I believe you.” After a long while, she spoke softly, “When people are hungry, they only have animalistic instincts. I know that better than anyone.” Her moon-like eyes slowly moved upward to meet his eyes. “I once wandered for a year, experiencing both robbery and being robbed. But this feeling is not pleasant, especially after you become human.”
He smiled slightly, turning to block her gaze that she couldn't suppress, his tone gentler than ever before. "If you want to look, look at me instead."
She indeed looked away, focusing intently on him.
There was no moon tonight, yet the moonlight reflected in her eyes, clear and shimmering, untouched by romantic feelings. It softened his heart, and his gaze softened as well.
“Zigui, I also had one or two unpleasant things happen when I was young.”
This remark indeed diverted her attention, and seeing that she had become interested, he continued.
"In your letter, you mentioned that a wealthy family in Sichuan was robbed, and instead of arresting the thieves, the government surrounded the family, assuming they were the ones who harbored the stolen goods. Is that true?"
"Yes, I was puzzled at first too. But then I sneaked into the government office at night and discovered that the government was colluding with people from the martial arts world. The martial arts people were stealing treasures, and the government was extorting money. They were burning the candle at both ends." She said softly.
“This is called ‘the thief’s trick,’ a common tactic used by the government to extort money from wealthy households, and the Shangguan government is no exception.” Seeing her furrow her brow, his heart skipped a beat. “It wasn’t me, it was when my father was alive.”
Upon hearing this, her delicate eyebrows relaxed; she had truly been worried about him.
With a slight sense of smug satisfaction, Shangguan Yi continued, "Rather than a businessman, my father was more like an upright scholar. He believed that the innocent would remain innocent and the guilty would remain guilty, and refused to pay 'name-laundering money.' Little did he know that innocence and guilt did not lie with himself, but with the mouth of the 'official.' When the government played these tricks, they always targeted wealthy families with no one holding official positions or having powerful backers. The Shangguan family had only been in Jinling for two generations, and their foundation was not yet solid, making them a rare piece of meat in their eyes. My father's unyielding spirit was exactly what they wanted."
She listened intently, unaware that the ends of her hair were almost ablaze. He took a strand of her smooth hair and gently stroked it with his fingertips.
"Without signing anything, he was charged with harboring thieves. My father was taken to the county yamen's criminal office, where the clerks chained him to a chamber pot and told him that if he wanted to be comfortable, he had to pay a deposit. Five taels for the shackles, twenty taels for leaving the old prison. If he wanted to go to a cleaner prison, ten taels for entering the room, ten taels for removing the chains, ten taels for sleeping on the floor, and twenty taels for sleeping on a high bunk. If he didn't want to drink stale water, he had to pay an extra fifty strings of cash each time. But my father was stubborn. When I finally managed to bribe the yamen runners to go to the prison to see him, he was still in the old prison. He didn't use a single penny of the money the family gave him, and as a result, he was barely clinging to life. When my father was dying, he thought it was divine justice that allowed him to see the light of day again, but little did he know that the government had to sell most of the shops to give him a complete body. If the old man knew this in the afterlife, he would definitely jump up and curse me as an unfilial son."
He chuckled softly as she gently rubbed his hand. This girl, he wasn't cold, why was she trying to warm him? Even as he thought this, his large hand trembled almost imperceptibly, but he still returned the grip.
"'Officials cut off ten paths,' that's the way of heaven. They let you live or they let you die. Just like these disaster victims, wherever they go, there's the word 'official' above their heads, and above the 'officials' is the word 'emperor.' That's how the world is, and no one can save it."
She nodded slightly, then thought for a moment. "So that's why there's a forbidden weapon order?"
He raised an eyebrow.
“Because the martial world is not under the purview of the Emperor. Even the ‘Thief Blossoms’ only cooperates with the government, but is not its vassal. ‘With a sharp weapon in hand, the desire to kill arises.’ The ban on blades does not prohibit the blade in one’s hand, but the blade in one’s heart.” She tilted her head slightly, a hint of mockery on her lips. “Even the Emperor is afraid.”
She was suddenly pulled into a slightly agitated embrace. When she looked up again, his handsome eyes burned with a fiery passion that seemed to ignite her.
“Yu Zigui, accept your fate.” His chest seemed to pound with the power of a thousand horses. “You can’t escape.”
She was momentarily stunned by his arrogance and couldn't move.
"Young people these days..."
"The world is going to the dogs."
A mixture of excitement and sorrow in his sighs and furtive glances.
Her face flushed, and she struggled to sit up, but she didn't see the hostility in Shangguan Yi's eyes when he glanced over.
"If Prince Minhuai were still alive, things wouldn't be like this."
“Indeed,” the old scholar sighed, gazing at the fire. “Back then, there was also a flood. The late emperor was indulging in wine and women, neglecting the people’s livelihood. Crown Prince Minhuai oversaw the country. He not only severely punished corrupt officials and opened granaries to provide disaster relief, but also established disaster relief wards in the capital, forbidding the Zhili government from expelling the disaster victims. Such a wise ruler, even the Five Masters admired him…”
"The Five Masters?" the young man in the group asked.
The two old men exchanged a glance, and then understood. "That's right, that's right, it happened more than ten years ago, how would young people know?"
One of them pointed to a hill outside the city and said, "That used to be a mountain. Fifteen years ago, everyone in the world knew about it. Every spring and autumn, scholars would go to the academy on the mountain to listen to the teacher's lectures. No one remembers the teacher's original name, but there is a reason why he is called 'Five Wonders'."
"Are these five arts the same as playing the zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, and poetry, or the arts of rites, music, archery, charioteering, and mathematics?" the young man asked, trying to sound clever.
"No, no. In your book 'Cutting the Sandalwood,' you write: There are five 'poisons' in the world that should be eradicated. The first is the Jianghu (江湖, the martial arts world), where people act violently and bravely, disregarding good people while claiming to be righteous, much like the trouble caused by Zhou Chu. The second is the clan, seemingly bound by blood, but in reality driven by self-interest, calling a deer a horse, one stain leading to a hundred stains, like lice between mother and child, fleas between father and son; those who bring chaos to the world are often clans. The third is the gentry, 'behind the red gates, wine and meat rot,' sons of noble families, hereditary aristocrats, only because their ancestors were thieves who stole from their homes and country, stealing without shame, and instead humiliating good people, how despicable! The fourth…"
“Brother Feng Huai!” the white-bearded old man suddenly interrupted, “Four or five cannot be spoken of, cannot be spoken of.”
"Why can't it be said?" The young scholar was already dumbfounded and didn't care about such concerns.
The old man steadied himself. "It was because of these first three skills that you almost lost your life, let alone the last two. If it weren't for Prince Minhuai taking you as his teacher to protect you, you would have been dead long ago."
"So, Mr. Wu Jue is considered the former Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince."
"He is not only the Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince, but also the Imperial Tutor."
"The...Imperial Tutor? So that's what you mean!"
"That's right. His Majesty also studied under the same teacher as Crown Prince Minhuai. However, before the 49th day memorial service for Crown Prince Minhuai was over, the late Emperor sent people to kill the teacher, and it was His Majesty who led the burning down of the academy at that time."
"Did the gentleman perish?"
“Of course, none of them escaped.” The old man sighed. “The master had ten disciples in his lifetime. Apart from Crown Prince Minhuai and the current emperor, three of them entered officialdom, and five remained in school. The only survivor among the eight was the Minister of Personnel, Lord Ji. The other two who entered officialdom each served their own masters and died in the struggle for the throne. The five who remained in school did not achieve any official rank, and their names were not even known to the world. They perished in that fire along with the master.”
"I have heard that the late emperor originally intended to pass the throne to his grandson, the son of Crown Prince Minhuai."
"Great Lord, do you know how many people have died because of talking about the Crown Prince?" The white-bearded old man glanced at him sharply. "If the Crown Prince's words about passing the throne to him are true, then..." He pointed to the sky and did not finish his sentence.
If the late emperor truly intended to pass the throne to his grandson, then the current emperor's position would be illegitimate, and he might even be suspected of murdering his nephew, since the four-year-old grandson went missing from the current emperor's residence. But anyone with discernment knows that the disappearance was a ruse, and the truth was that the grandson died young.
Thinking of this, the young scholar broke out in a cold sweat, and the three's conversation came to an abrupt end.
"What are you thinking about?" Shangguan Yi asked softly, leaning close to her ear.
"Is that a mountain?" Yu Zigui stared at the small mound of earth below the city that resembled a grave.
“It used to be.”