Why Does Mr. Xie Favor Me? Chapter 32

Chapter 32 Swallowing the remaining manuscript

Xie Heng announced this season’s main skin: Broken Jade Sculpture

Although Xie Heng tried his best to suppress the news, it was a recurrence of old wounds, but the news that General Bian appeared near the prison late at night and suffered an unknown attack still seeped into the court through the net carefully woven by the Wang family.

Wang Yuzong made a sad and indignant speech in front of the emperor, and his words were as sharp as a sword, “Your Majesty! Is this matter of General Xiao a relapse of old wounds? Someone is clearly afraid that the truth of the Yuan Wuyou case will be exposed, and wants to commit illegal acts. The border general is good at approaching the law. If this trend continues, the country will not be in good shape.”

The emperor’s face glowed brightly under the glass lamp.He was familiar with Xiao Jue’s loyalty and ability, but military personnel interfering in politics was a taboo that touched the bottom line of imperial power.

The pressure exerted by the Wang family and other families who were already dissatisfied with Xie Heng and Xiao Jue, intertwined with the pile of seemingly interlocking evidence in the Yuan Wuyou case, finally caused the emperor’s balance to tilt irreversibly.

Tacit consent is sometimes more cruel than explicit edicts.

When Xie Heng learned about the emperor’s final decision, he was in the study looking at the half piece of mutton-fat jade pendant.The news brought by Uncle Cheng made his knuckles turn white, and the edge of the jade pendant dug deeply into his palm, causing a clear feeling of pain.

He knew that any violent reaction he had at this moment might become the last chance to crush Yuan Wuyou, and even involve more people.He could not come in person, send people openly, let alone show excessive grief and indignation.

After tossing and turning, he finally thought of one person, a virtuous old prince of the clan who was famous for his poetry and had always been aloof from the factional strife in the court. He had an old friendship with Yuan Wuyou’s grandfather.

Xie Heng spent the whole night repairing the book, expressing his sincere condolences, and asked the old prince, as an elder after an old friend, to go to prison to see him off without any worries, so as to show his last dignity.

The old prince sighed after reading the letter, and the next day he entered the heavily guarded Tingwei Prison in the name of visiting an old friend.

Yuan Wuyou was imprisoned in the deepest cell. When the prison door opened and the old prince saw the figure leaning against the mottled wall, his heart still trembled despite all the vicissitudes of life.

Yuan Wuyou’s body was covered in bruises, the blood stains on his tattered prison clothes had turned dark brown, and his face was ashen. Only his eyes remained awake in the dim light.

When he saw the old prince, he was slightly startled, and then struggled to stand up and salute, but he groaned due to the wound, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

“No need to be polite.” The old prince stepped forward to help him, his eyes full of regret, and motioned for the entourage to put down the food box and a bag he had brought, “I was asked to come and see you and give you a ride.”

Yuan Wuyou’s eyes suddenly burst out with a faint but burning light, and then dimmed again. He said hoarsely: “Thank you, Your Majesty. Please wait a moment.”

Under the gaze of the old prince, the jailer brought a basin of relatively clean water.Regardless of the pain on his body, Yuan Wuyou managed to get some water, carefully cleaned his face and washed his hands, and tried his best to tidy up his messy and tangled hair.

The movements were slow but meticulous, as if they were performing a solemn ceremony.After washing, he opened the baggage brought by the old prince. Inside was a set of plain blue cloth robes.He changed out of the filthy prison clothes. Although the cloth robe was a little too wide, it miraculously regained some of the elegant demeanor of a scholar when it was worn on his thin and blood-stained body.

After getting dressed, he solemnly bowed his head to the old prince, his voice trembling slightly due to weakness and excitement: “Please, your prince, please tell Mr. Xie…”

He paused, and the words were clear, as if they were wedged into gold and stone: “How can you blame the wind and frost when the orchid is destroyed and the jade is broken? It is not the fate of the time, the elegance and ambition are not relaxed, and the clear stream is covered with dust. When I go far away, the stigma may be difficult to wash away, but…”

He raised his head, his eyes were clear, as if he could penetrate the gloom of the prison, “The bright moon in my heart has never dimmed. Please don’t think of me, Mr. Xie, and be sure to take care of your precious body. The building will collapse, and it needs pillars to support it. When the tide hits the water, I hope Mr. Xie will leave this pillar for our generation.”

After saying that, he quietly took out a roll of paper with frayed and stained edges from his arms. The paper was rough and even mixed with linen cloth torn from unknown places. It was filled with dense but still neat small words written with charcoal scraps.

He held it up with both hands, “This is some fragmentary thoughts that Yuan Mou had while in prison, thinking about the disadvantages of setting up prefectures and counties by overseas immigrants, as well as the strategy of destroying the land and calming the people. It was written in a hurry and not in any order. If there is a chance in the future, you may be able to take a look at it, and I will take it as Yuan Mou’s unfinished words.”

The old prince Su Rong took the remaining manuscript that contained unfinished ideals and innocent ambitions, and felt that it weighed more than a thousand pounds.

On the day of the execution, it was late spring, but the wind became unusually biting, and it stirred up dust, which was quite chilling.

Xie Heng did not stay at home as the outside world speculated. He climbed to a high pavilion in Taicheng that few people visit on weekdays.The view here is wide, you can overlook the misty waves of the river in the distance, and you can see the streets and lanes of Guzang nearby.

He was dressed in plain color, with wide sleeves that rustled in the wind. His figure was as tall and straight as a lone pine standing on a cliff, but his face was so pale that it was almost transparent, and there was endless fatigue and pain in his eyes.

In the direction of the execution ground in the south of the city, crowds gradually gathered.Yuan Wuyou was escorted here. Although he was wearing prison uniform, he did not stagger in his steps and held his head and neck high.He saw several familiar faces in the crowd.

There were young celebrities who had debated mysteries with him, and there were students from poor families who had been recommended by him.Some of their eyes were red, or there were tears in their eyes, or they were hanging their heads and couldn’t bear to look at them.

Yuan Wuyou glanced at them, nodded slightly, and even evoked a hint of broad-mindedness and a touch of ridicule in the corner of his mouth, as if he was mocking this absurd world, and seemed to comfort those who cared about him.

When the execution place arrived, the prison officer shouted loudly and asked according to the law: “The sinner is far away from worries. Can he have any last words before his execution?”

There was a sudden silence in the field, and even the sound of the wind seemed to freeze for a moment.

Yuan Wuyou raised his head, looking past the dark crowd and the majestic palace walls, as if he was looking towards the mountains and rivers of his hometown that had fallen in the far north, and also seemed to be looking towards the ideal light of governing the country and bringing peace to the world that had never been extinguished in his heart.

He took a deep breath and used his last strength. His voice was hoarse but extremely firm. It even carried a penetrating power and spread in the chilling spring breeze: “I have a good heart. Even though I died nine times, I still have no regrets.”

He paused, word by word, as if he were making his final declaration: “Fu Qingbai will die straight, and he will consolidate the strength of the saints.”

After saying this, he took the initiative to take a step forward, leading his neck to kill.

Almost at the moment when the sword flashed and blood splashed, Xie Heng, who had been staring in that direction, suddenly closed his eyes.His tall and straight figure shook violently, as if he was hit by an invisible force, and as if the blade coming from far away from the house also cut off a string that was extremely tight in his heart.

He raised his hands and covered his mouth and nose tightly with his wide sleeves. A suppressed cough surged into his throat uncontrollably, making his thin shoulders and back tremble.After the coughing and wheezing barely subsided, he slowly lowered his sleeves.

The inside of the plain white cuffs was suddenly stained with a dazzling blood stain, which was shockingly red.

The spring breeze was still biting, blowing his blood-stained sleeves and blowing away the last trace of bloody smell in the direction of the execution ground.The tall building was silent, and he was alone, sinking into the boundless twilight together with the scarlet on his sleeves.

Yuan Wuyou’s blood, Xiao Jue’s injuries, and his own pain all turned into the cornerstone of silence, cushioning the increasingly rugged but increasingly decisive road under his feet.

Xie Heng did not take a leave of absence due to illness, but still showed up at Shangshu Province’s check-in office on time the next day.The papers were piled up like a mountain. He dipped his pen in the ink, and his hand when reviewing the documents was steady as usual. His handwriting was clear and neat, and there was nothing unusual about it.

Occasionally, I would be distracted for a moment by a certain statement about local household registration, and my fingertips would unconsciously rub the inside of my sleeves.

Lunch consisted of the usual porridge and side dishes. He still held the chopsticks gracefully, but he ate very slowly.Uncle Cheng stood aside and found that Master Lang’s eyes fell on the plate of green spring bamboo shoots and did not move for a long time.

Yuan Wuyou was from Wuxing, and he liked this delicacy the most during his lifetime.In the end, Xie Heng only took one chopstick and put it in his mouth to chew slowly. His Adam’s apple rolled and it was a bit difficult to swallow.At the end of the meal, the dishes were almost untouched.

In the afternoon, several subordinate officials who were supposed to report government affairs made excuses for the future.Signs of neglect in the courtyard have quietly spread.Xie Heng didn’t take it seriously and sorted out the books alone.

He opened a lacquer box that stored old Japanese documents, and his fingertips suddenly touched a roll of slightly rough paper pages.Pulling it out, I found that it was the first draft of the regulations on adjusting the taxes of a certain overseas-owned county that Yuan Wuyou had submitted a few months ago. On it were the fine words he had annotated with a red pen at the time: “Think carefully, but the implementation needs to be slow to avoid inciting popular unrest.”

The young man’s handwriting is strong enough to see through the back of the paper, and his suggestions carry the vigor of a newborn calf.Xie Heng pinched the roll of paper, his knuckles turning slightly white, and stood still for a while before gently putting it back to its original place, closing the lid with a slight “click”.

Returning home from an outing in the evening, the carriage passed near Wuyi Lane, and I vaguely heard someone talking loudly in a teahouse on the roadside, mixed with words such as “unknown people” and “clean water”.

The car curtains were lowered, and Xie Heng leaned against the car wall with his eyes closed, his face even paler in the swaying light and shadow.When he returned to the mansion, he did not go to the study, but went straight to the bamboo forest in the back garden.The bamboos rustled in the dusk. He stood where he and Xiao Jue were listening to the wind that day, and did not move for a long time.It wasn’t until Uncle Cheng came to invite him to dinner that he realized that Master Lang’s shoulders were slightly wet with dew.

The lights in the study were bright at night, and Xie Heng seemed to be concentrating on collating ancient books. When Uncle Cheng was adding tea, he saw a page of the “Book of the Later Han” spread out on the case. The ink was blurred by a sudden drop of water, blurring the word “party”.Xie Heng seemed unaware and continued to write. However, when he started writing, the tip of his pen was almost unnoticeable for a moment.

For several days, Xie Heng’s life seemed to be running smoothly along the established track, even more regular than before.Only the closest people can see a crack in those too-perfect calms.

He spent more time reviewing official documents, sometimes staring at the air.He seemed to cough less often, but when he occasionally covered his lips and coughed, the pain in the frown between his brows was even deeper.

He still ate and took medicine on time, but his figure was shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye. The robes that had always fit him now seemed a little empty.

Until that day at the court meeting, he went out to plead guilty. His words were sincere and tired, and he took the initiative to bear the responsibility for his oversight.At that moment, many people were shocked to realize that the light in the eyes of Xie Jiayulang, who once led the Qing Dynasty with outstanding grace, seemed to have dimmed a bit.

Taking the initiative to give in does not mean being dejected, but pressing all the pain and unwillingness like the stormy waves under the seemingly calm sea, and precipitating it into a more decisive reef.

The day Xiao Jue stepped into Xie’s mansion was already several days after Xie Heng closed the door to thank guests.The secret corner door between the General’s Mansion and Xie’s Mansion opened silently. Xiao Jue’s arm injury had not healed, but his movements were still neat.

The courtyard is deep, and indeed it is no longer as lively as before. Only the rustle of the bamboo leaves in the wind adds to the loneliness.

He found Xie Heng at the waterside pavilion near the river.

The dusk dyes the sky green and the water is dim.Xie Heng sat alone on the stone bench, with a roll of paper with torn corners spread out in front of him. The handwriting written on it was densely packed with charcoal chips, and some places were smudged by dark brown stains, making it almost difficult to read.

Xie Heng’s eyes fell on it, but they seemed to penetrate the paper and look further and further into nowhere.In the last daylight, the profile of the face was like a carefully carved but weathered jade, straight and straight, without a trace of warmth.

Xiao Jue approached slowly and without saying a word, he took off the dark brocade cloak he brought and gently placed it on Xie Heng’s slightly thin shoulders.

Xiao Jue stretched out his arms from behind and slowly hugged him with an undeniable and extremely gentle force.

The body in his arms stiffened slightly at first, and then leaned back into his solid chest with an almost sigh-like relaxation.Through the material of his clothes, Xiao Jue could clearly feel how cold his body was under his palms, and he was even trembling slightly unconsciously.

Xie Heng did not look back or break away.He was still looking at the dark pool, and after a long time he spoke very softly. His voice was as erratic as if it would disperse into the evening wind at any time: “Xiao Jue, do you know,” he paused, as if he needed to gather strength, “my retreat and humiliation today are not due to the power of King Yu Zongfeng Dy, nor the wrath of His Majesty’s thunder.”

A gust of wind passed over the surface of the pool, blowing a few stray strands of hair on his forehead.

“Yuan Wuyou’s death,” his voice lowered, “I can see clearly. This seemingly elegant and fair ninth-grade Zhongzheng, this powerful family Qingyi who manipulates public opinion, this chess game in which aristocratic families are interdependent and conflicting with each other is the most delicate and strongest shackles. It traps the poor family in rising up the ladder, and also blocks the people in the game from thinking about breaking the game. In this game, reputation can become a blade, and ideals can be sacrifices.”

Xiao Jue tightened his arms and rested his chin lightly on the top of his slightly cool hair, silently conveying support and warmth.

“In order to break through this iron curtain,” Xie Heng’s voice gradually solidified, “you must first have a useful body. You must endure the humiliation that ordinary people cannot bear, and let go of the fame that ordinary people cannot let go. Today’s loneliness, retreat, and abandonment are not just for the sake of safety.”

He slowly raised his eyes, and his eyes were no longer distracted, but looked outside the courtyard, to the vast world covered by high walls and night. There were royal palaces, mansions of aristocratic families, and countless silent states, counties, and common people.

“It is for the future,” he said every word, as if he was swearing, “to be able to accumulate the power of thunder, find opportunities for cracks, and wield a sword that can truly break shackles.”

The night was completely shrouded, and the waterside pavilion was dim. The two figures hugging each other almost melted into the darkness. Only each other’s heartbeat and body temperature were the only real sources of heat in this long and cold night.

[The author has something to say]

Worry-free:

You were enlightened when you were young and had the ambition to manage the world.He is a man who is bright and smooth on the outside but upright on the inside, just like the Jingshan Mountain containing jade, which will reveal its brilliance when cut open.In the past, among the turmoil among scholars, I only saw that his policies and theories had the purpose of reassuring the people and benefiting the world, so I tried my best to eliminate superficial opinions and put them to use.However, I only saw that his talent was the mainstay, and I did not expect the dangers of the world, so I broke the good material first.

All you want in your life is to clarify the administration of officials and the rule of law to bring peace to the people.Every word written in blood in prison was written by the people, and not a single word was used to defend himself.When he was about to be executed, he still recited that even though he died nine times, he still had no regrets. This was because he knew that his ambition was for the world and not just for the honor and disgrace of his life.The wind and frost destroy the orchid, which is not the fault of the orchid. The dirt and dirt trap the jade. Is this a flaw in the jade?

Now you have passed away covered in dirt, and your name has not been cleared. This pain for me is also the sorrow of the world.However, the bright moon in your heart has not dimmed in prison, but it will also hang in the history of history.The unfinished ambitions and unfulfilled promises are all on my shoulders now.Even though this body and mind are stuck in the mud, I dare not forget the support that has been my mainstay before my death.

You go ahead and see how long these shackles can trap the country.

——Teacher Xie Heng————————————————

“I have a good heart, and even though I died nine times, I still have no regrets.”

“Fu Qingbai is upright in death, and he is strong in the past and the saints” are all from Qu Yuan’s “Li Sao”