Why Does Mr. Xie Favor Me? Chapter 40
byChapter 40 Lan Ai burned together
I’m sorry Aman, I will give you happiness in the next life
The deepest cell of Tingwei Prison has no sunlight all year round. Only the pine torches on the wall cast a flickering and dim light, reflecting the wet moss on the ground and the dark red stains in the corners.
Shen Youjin was sitting on a pile of moldy straw, his hands and feet were heavily shackled, and his thin prison clothes were stained with blood and mud.The joint trial of the three divisions has passed. Murdering important ministers, fabricating evidence, and colluding with eunuchs are all capital crimes.
He did not complain, did not beg for mercy, and even rarely spoke.Just leaning against the cold stone wall every day, looking at the palm-sized iron window high up, watching the light change from bright to dim, and then from dim to completely dark.
Sometimes when the rotten rice brought by the jailer was knocked over, he would slowly crawl over, pick up the grains of rice mixed with sand and soil bit by bit with his dirty fingers, and stuff them into his mouth expressionlessly.
He is waiting to die.
In other words, I am waiting for an answer and asking myself what is the purpose of this ridiculous and sad life?
The footsteps outside the cell approached from far away and stopped outside the cell door.Not the heavy steps of a jailer, but the steady sound of official boots hitting the ground.The chains rattled and the cell door was pushed open.
Wang Yuzong stood at the door, wearing a dark purple brocade robe and a dark mink fur coat, which was incompatible with this dirty and gloomy prison.
He raised his hand to wave away the jailer and walked in alone. His eyes fell on Shen Youjin, as if he was examining an artifact.
Shen Youjin didn’t move, or even raised his eyes.
“Shen Youjin.” Wang Yuzong spoke, his voice calm.
Shen Youjin’s eyelids moved slightly and he finally raised his head.The firelight danced on his face, and the hideous old scar appeared more profound in the dim light.
“Master Wang has come to this humble place in person, what advice do you have?” His voice was hoarse, but with a hint of ridicule.
Wang Yuzong didn’t take it seriously and walked to the center of the cell to avoid the filth on the ground.”I came here to make a deal with you.”
“Deal?” Shen Youjin chuckled, “A dying person, what else is worthy of your plans?”
“Your unwillingness.” Wang Yuzong turned to look at him.
Shen Youjin was silent for a moment.
Wang Yuzong continued slowly: “Although Xie Heng escaped this time, His Majesty has a deep grudge in his heart. This person’s methods are ruthless and he is pressing forward step by step to implement the New Deal. Today it is my Wang family, and tomorrow it will be other families. If this continues, a century-old foundation will be destroyed.”
He paused and said, “The sharpest knife beside him is Xiao Jue. This person not only controls soldiers, but also has a close connection with Xie Heng. He is his most solid support. If Xiao Jue dies, Xie Heng will lose an arm and his actions will be restricted.”
Shen Youjin raised his eyes, “You want me to kill Xiao Jue?”
“Yes.” Wang Yuzong looked directly at him, “If you agree, I will have a way to get you out of here. After the incident is completed, I can arrange for you to go away from home and remain anonymous to ensure that you have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of your life.”
Shen Youjin looked at Wang Yuzong and suddenly laughed. The laughter echoed in the empty cell, desolate and strange: “Before your sister died, she thought everything was under control.”
He stood up slowly, the shackles clattering, “Why do you think that I will believe you? And why do you think that a prisoner like me can kill General Xiao?”
Wang Yuzong’s expression remained unchanged, “Because you are ruthless and desperate enough. How can a person who doesn’t care about anything be unable to do anything?”
He took a step closer and lowered his voice, “As for how to kill me, I will create opportunities for you. When Xiao Jue returns to the border of Danyang, there will be a mountainous road with deep forests and dangerous roads. At that time, I will arrange for someone to pick you up there and give you weapons to help you create chaos. You just need to find the right time.”
Shen Youjin lowered his eyes and stared at the frayed shackles on his wrists. After a long time, he whispered softly: “If I agree, how are you going to rescue me?”
“In three days, a jailer will come to bring you to the court.” Wang Yuzong said in a calm voice, “That person is my confidant. You will be taken to the execution room, passing by the morgue. There will be a corpse of a death row prisoner similar to you, wearing your prison clothes, with marks on the neck from hanging because of fear of crime. You put on the jailer’s clothes and leave through the back door. Someone will be waiting for you at the pavilion ten miles outside the city.”
Shen Youjin was silent for a long time, then raised his head, his eyes filled with indifference: “Okay.”
Wang Yuzong looked at him and suddenly asked: “Don’t you ask why you were chosen?”
Shen Youjin twitched the corners of his lips: “Because I am a mad dog with a low life. If I bite someone, no one will care if I die.”
Wang Yuzong looked at him deeply, said nothing more, and turned to leave.The cell door was locked again and the footsteps faded away.
Shen Youjin sat back on the straw pile again and looked up at the small window.The moonlight was so faint that it was almost invisible.
He remembered that many years ago, there was a war in the north, and the land was thousands of miles away.At that time, his name was not Shen Youjin, and he only had the nickname “Aman” called by his mother.
His father died on the way to escape famine, and his mother sold him to a man in exchange for half a bag of millet.He was eight years old that year, and he remembers that his mother’s hands that touched his face at the end were very cold, and her eyes were full of tears, but she gritted her teeth and said, “Follow me, I’ll have something to eat, and I won’t starve to death.”
He followed Ren Yazi and walked a long way to Guzang.Because of his good looks, he was selected and sent to the palace.Not as a eunuch, but as a waiter.Specialized in doing chores like sweeping and running errands, and also at the mercy of some internal officials with special quirks.
The palace walls are very high, and the sky is cut into small square pieces.He learned to lower his head, learned not to say anything when being beaten, and learned to pick up a bucket of rancid water when he was very hungry.
Once, because he broke a tea cup, the eunuch in charge pinned him down in the snow and whipped him twenty times with a cane.
The skin on his back was torn, the blood soaked through his clothes, turned to ice, and was slowly melted by his body temperature.That night he huddled in the corner of the woodshed, suffering from a high fever and thinking he was going to die.In a daze, someone stuffed half a piece of cold cake into his mouth.
It was another old chamberlain who was mute and couldn’t speak. He just looked at him with a trace of pity in his cloudy eyes.
That was the first warmth he felt in the palace.
Later, the emperor noticed him somehow, maybe because he was silent enough, forbearing enough, and smart enough.
He quickly learned to read and could even imitate other people’s handwriting.The emperor took him with him, taught him tactics, taught him human nature, sharpened him into a knife, and finally sent him to the palace as a gift.
He suffered all the humiliation in the palace, and the most vivid memory he had was at a banquet at the Wang family.
In order to show off his control over his servants to his close friends, Wang Xinlu ordered him to perform dog behavior in public.He was stripped of his shirt and placed on all fours, with a ribbon tied around his neck.Wang Xinlu held the ribbon and asked him to crawl on the ground to pick up the fruit cores she deliberately threw on the ground.
Among the guests were several children of aristocratic families, watching with interest.Someone said with a smile: “Ms. Wang, this slave is well trained. She is more obedient than an animal.”
He crawled to the core and was about to lower his head to pick it up when Wang Xinlu suddenly stepped on the back of his hand with his foot. The hard sole of his embroidered shoe crushed his finger bones, causing excruciating pain.
“Wait a minute.” She leaned down with a sweet smile, “I changed my mind. You don’t need to hold it in your mouth, just lick it with your tongue.”
He froze.
The surroundings were quiet for a moment, and then there was even more laughter. Some people clapped their hands and some whistled.
Wang Xinlu’s feet were still exerting force: “What? Don’t you listen to the master?”
He lowered his eyes and looked at the dusty core on the ground. He slowly lowered his head and stuck out his tongue to lick it.
The rough gravel rubs against the tip of the tongue, mixed with dust and some indescribable sour taste.He licked the core into his mouth bit by bit, and Wang Xinlu’s feet kept stepping on the back of his hand during the whole process.
“Count it,” she said to her companion with a smile, “how many times has he licked it?”
“One, two, three…”
The girls’ clear counting sounds were like needles piercing their ears.He couldn’t remember how many times he licked it. He only remembered that when he finally raised his head, his mouth was full of dirt and blood foam.
Wang Xinlu relaxed his feet with satisfaction, took the silk handkerchief handed by the maid, and wiped his hands slowly, as if he had just touched something dirty.
“Remember this number,” she looked at him condescendingly, “if you don’t obey again next time, it will be doubled.”
After returning that night, he knelt in the yard and vomited into the copper basin for a long time until he vomited bile.But the next day, he still had to serve as usual, as if nothing had happened.
There are too many such things.
When Wang Xinlu was in a good mood, he would reward him with some leftovers.When he was in a bad mood, whipping, slapping, and breaking porcelain pieces on his knees were commonplace.Sometimes she would make him kneel on the stone slab in the courtyard all night in the cold winter months, and then have him pour cold water on him to wake him up the next morning.
But occasionally, really just occasionally, like the rare raindrops in the desert, there will be a faint hint of kindness.
In late autumn of that year, Wang Xinlu caught wind and cold and had a high fever.The maids and wives in the mansion were afraid of being infected and did not dare to get close to serve him.In those days, he stayed by the bedside and waited on her. When Wang Xinlu was confused with fever, she would hold his hand and shout vaguely, “Mom, don’t leave…”
One night, she suddenly woke up. Looking at his busy figure, she suddenly said: “Shen Youjin, do you hate me?”
His hand shook and the medicine bowl almost fell over.
She didn’t wait for his answer, closed her eyes and whispered: “Hate as much as you want, no one in this world will always remember someone.”
Another time in spring, Wang Xinlu was playing on the swing in the garden when he suddenly asked him to push her.He pushed gently, but she thought it wasn’t high enough, so she asked him to push harder.
When the swing reached the highest point, she suddenly laughed, her laughter was clear, and she turned back to him and said, “Look, it seems like it’s about to fly.”
At that moment, the sun shone on her face through the leaves, and her eyebrows were crooked, like a girl who knew no worries.At that moment, he almost forgot all her cruelty.
But the next moment, when the swing fell, the hem of her skirt caught on a branch and tore with a “prick” sound.Her face instantly darkened, she jumped off the swing, raised her hand and slapped him.
“Useless thing! It can’t even look good on a swing!”
The slap was so hard that blood oozed from the corners of his mouth, but what he remembered more clearly was the pure smile that flashed in her eyes when she turned back a second ago.
These fragments were too weak to illuminate the boundless darkness.Instead, it was like salt sprinkled on a wound, making those humiliating memories sting even more.
Look, she’s not completely inhumane, she just doesn’t want to be nice to you.
You don’t deserve it.
Hate is like this, slowly suffering in the constant torture and occasional false warmth.
Later, he became the emperor’s spy and a loyal servant whom the king relied on.He watched her change from an arrogant girl to an increasingly mean-spirited daughter of an aristocratic family. In order to consolidate the family’s power, she did not hesitate to offer advice and sell her official position, and she went crazy step by step.
He watched with cold eyes, silently collecting evidence and waiting for the opportunity.
Until the end, he personally sent her to the grave…
A tear fell, and Shen Youjin slowly opened his eyes. The moonlight had moved away, and the small window was dark again.
Wang Yuzong thought he agreed just to survive.
Wrong.
He no longer wanted to live. From the moment Wang Xinlu died, the string that supported his survival was broken.Now this body is nothing but a walking zombie.
But he suddenly thought of Xie Heng.
Thinking of the two people walking side by side under the sunset outside the Danyang government office that day, Xie Heng would hold Xiao Jue’s hand sideways, and Xiao Jue would silently protect him behind him.
Why?
Why is it that Shen Youjin has been wallowing in the mud all his life, suffering humiliation and living worse than a dog, while Xie Heng can have such a life?There are ambitions, there are companions, there are people who are willing to follow you to the death, and there is a road that you can fight for.
If there really is love in this world, why has it never fallen on him?
If there is no love at all, then what does Xie Heng have?
Kill Xiao Jue?No.
He wants to kill Xie Heng.
Not for Wang Yuzong, not for anyone else’s interests.Just to prove that there is no love in this world, to prove that those who live upright and have the world in their hearts will eventually fall into the mud and be stained with filth like him, and die ugly.
If he could pull Xie Heng down from the altar with his own hands, if he could make that person who lived in the light taste the darkness and leave something behind, then the misery of his life would seem to have meaning.
Even if the price is death.
Shen Youjin slowly curled up and buried his face between his knees.The shackles were freezing cold, but he laughed softly, then turned to sobs.
“A-Niang…” He murmured to himself, his voice so soft that it was almost inaudible, “Where are you? Can you take A-Man away?”
The suppressed sobs seemed to still linger in the cold air of the dungeon, but the study a few streets away was a different scene.
The door was gently pushed open, and Xiao Jue walked in, bringing with him the cool breath of night dew.He closed the door with his backhand and looked up to see Xie Heng’s eyebrows frowning slightly.
“What happened?” Xiao Jue walked to the desk and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Xie Heng raised his eyes and looked at him, “Wang Yuzong went to Tingwei Prison to meet Shen Youjin.”
Xiao Jue’s expression turned serious and his eyebrows lowered: “He wants to borrow a knife to kill someone?”
“I’m afraid it won’t stop.” Xie Heng stood up, walked around the desk and walked to Xiao Jue.The distance between the two was very close, so close that Xiao Jue could clearly see the faint shadow under his eyelashes.
Xiao Jue’s Adam’s apple twitched slightly, and he wanted to say something, but Xie Heng suddenly raised his hand.
The slightly cool fingertips gently touched his cheek, slowly upward along the line of the jawbone, and finally stopped near the sun.The movement was very light, like confirming something, and like a silent comfort.
Xiao Jue’s body stiffened slightly and his breathing became lighter unconsciously. He could feel the temperature on Xie Heng’s fingertips, which was cooler than he thought.
“You’re too tight.” Xie Heng’s voice was very soft, and his fingertips slowly drew circles on his temples with moderate force, as if to relieve him from the fatigue of days of hard work, “My brows are always furrowed,”
His thumb gently pressed Xiao Jue’s frowning eyebrows, “There are wrinkles here.”
Xiao Jue was stunned. He did not expect that Xie Heng would suddenly act like this.
“I…” Xiao Jue said, his voice a little hoarse, “I’m just worried.”
“I know.” Xie Heng’s fingertips did not leave. Instead, they lightly traced along his brow bone, and his eyes focused on his face. “But you don’t have to worry too much about Shen Youjin.”
His fingertips moved to the corners of Xiao Jue’s eyes, which were slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep for days.”If he really wanted to take action, he gave us a chance.”
Xie Heng’s thumb gently stroked Xiao Jue’s eyes, with a rare pity in his movements, “A death row prisoner who escapes from prison will die no matter who he assassinates. If Wang Yuzong really intervenes, he will drag the Wang family into trouble.”
Xiao Jue closed his eyes and felt the cool touch on his face.It was strange that such an intimate gesture was performed by Xie Heng without any sense of intimacy. Instead, it gradually relaxed his nerves that had been tense for days.
“As long as you know what’s going on.” Xiao Jue opened his eyes and looked deeply at Xie Heng.
“Yes.” Xie Heng’s fingertips stopped on his cheek and gently rubbed the skin that was slightly rough due to the wind and sun. “If he really dares to come, let him come.”
Xiao Jue suddenly raised his hand and covered Xie Heng’s hand that was resting on his face.The warm palms wrapped Xie Heng’s slightly cold fingers.
“Xie Pushe,” he whispered, something surging in his voice, “If his target is you…”
“That would be even better.” Xie Heng interrupted him, with a slight curve at the corner of his lips. There was a slight coldness in the smile, but it also revealed strong confidence, “I am worried that there is no reason to completely clean up these poisonous snakes in the dark.”
As he spoke, he raised his other hand and gently held Xiao Jue’s face with both hands, forcing him to look at him.”I have my own plans.”
Xiao Jue looked at the unshakable determination in his eyes and his thin but straight spine, took a deep breath, and gently rested his forehead on Xie Heng’s shoulder.
This is a gesture of dependence. A person who never shows weakness on the battlefield is now exposing his most vulnerable part to another person.
Xie Heng’s hand moved from his cheek to the back of his neck, and his fingertips gently pressed on the tight muscles there, with a reassuring tone, “You don’t have to worry about anything when I’m here.”
Xiao Jue raised his head, and their eyes met again.
The smile on Xie Heng’s lips deepened. He let go of his hand, but suddenly leaned closer and whispered in Xiao Jue’s ear: “Don’t call me Xie Pushe anymore.”
The warm breath brushed against his ears, and Xiao Jue’s body trembled slightly.
Xie Heng stepped back a little, held his face again with both hands, and gently rubbed his cheeks with her thumbs. There was an almost seductive tenderness in his eyes: “You call me A Heng.”
Xiao Jue’s Adam’s apple rolled, and his eyes couldn’t help but fall on Xie Heng’s lips, which were close at hand.
“Scream.” Xie Heng’s voice was lowered, like a feather tickling the tip of his heart, “I want to hear it.”
Xiao Jue looked into Xie Heng’s eyes. His reflection was clearly reflected in those eyes that were always calm and composed.
After a while, Xiao Jue finally spoke, his voice low and hoarse, “Aheng.”
Xie Heng smiled, and he leaned closer, his forehead almost touching Xiao Jue’s forehead, and responded softly: “Yes.”
He tilted his head slightly, and his lips touched the corner of Xiao Jue’s mouth very lightly.
“Scream again.” Xie Heng requested in a low voice, gently tracing the shape of Xiao Jue’s lips with his fingertips.
Xiao Jue’s breath was stagnant, and when he looked at the clear eyebrows of the man in front of him, and the undisguised joy and expectation in his eyes, the wall in his heart finally collapsed completely.
“Aheng.” He called out more smoothly this time, his voice still low and hoarse, but a little more indescribable tenderness.
Xie Heng closed his eyes with satisfaction, put his forehead gently on Xiao Jue’s shoulder, and let out a very light sigh: “It sounds so good.”
Xiao Jue finally removed his hand from the hilt of the sword, slowly wrapped it around Xie Heng’s waist, and took him into his arms.This hug was very restrained, but it had a certain possessive meaning.
After a long time, Xie Heng gently pushed him away and turned back into the aloof Shangshu Zuopushe. However, there was still softness in the corners of his eyes and eyebrows that had not dissipated.
“Go and arrange the arrangements.” He said, his voice had returned to its usual calmness, “If Shen Youjin can really escape, he should arrive in Danyang in three days.”
Xiao Jue nodded, turned around and walked to the door, he looked back.Xie Heng had already sat back at his desk and picked up another official document. His side face was quiet and focused in the candlelight.
But Xiao Jue knew that something was different.He gripped the hilt of his sword and strode into the night.