With a sarcastic look on her face, she wiped away her tears, bowed towards Zijin, and said distantly, "Then I won't disturb your highness to rest."
Zi Jin looked at Jing Tan's back and sighed. Born in this world, he would encounter many things that were beyond his control. Even if gods and Buddhas came into the world, they could not save everyone. Therefore, he just wanted to protect Xia Yue, and that was enough for his life.
It was this thought that made him dare not look back on this difficult and arduous road step by step.
After returning to the room, Zi Jin called Chu Zhong: "How is it?"
Chu Zhong replied: "According to what my elder brother said in the pigeon letter, he will be in the imperial capital today."
The next day, Jingtan resigned silently. Her lively and willful personality had changed into a completely different person. The Southern Region was in chaos, and Zijin wanted to keep her, but he swallowed the words when they came to his lips. How could he have the face to ask her to give up what she wanted in her heart
Zi Jin was afraid that she would be in danger, so he took people to escort her out of Yunzhong. But on the way, they met refugees who had escaped from Huaizhou. Fearing that she might be accidentally injured, he escorted her a little further west.
The rain in the clouds had stopped in the past two days, but the mud on the post road had long been soaked by the rain and had become bumpy. Jingtan felt dizzy while sitting in the car.
She really couldn't help but feel like vomiting, so she had to ask to get off the bus and take a rest.
Zi Jin was riding a horse in front, but when he saw this, he dismounted and turned back to look after her.
As soon as Jingtan got off the car, he ran to a huge rock beside the post road, leaned against the rock wall and vomited. After vomiting for a while, he felt a little better, but he smelled a foul odor.
She covered her nose in disgust and tried to walk back, but she tripped over something in the bushes, causing her to stumble. She steadied her steps, looked into the bushes, and screamed.
Zi Jin and Chu Zhong, one seeing it with their own eyes and the other hearing it with their own ears, drew their swords and ran over almost at the same time.
Jingtan threw herself on Zijin's chest, not daring to look back. She pointed at the bushes behind her with a trembling hand: "Dead man..."
After a closer look, everyone found several bodies, both men and women, lying in the knee-high grass. They were probably fleeing floods and wars. There were no obvious fatal wounds on their bodies. It was unknown whether they died of starvation or disease. They gave off a foul odor, and there was not a single piece of good flesh on their faces or bodies. It was obvious that they had been gnawed by wild beasts in the countryside. In particular, one of the babies was almost bitten to pieces, with only half of his head left.
Jingtan felt his stomach churning and he vomited again.
But she had just vomited, and now only acid was coming out.
Chu Zhong looked around and found several corpses in the bushes. Fearing that everyone would be infected with the plague, he urged Zi Jin to set off.
Zi Jin stared at the corpse in a daze, his expression difficult to read.
At this moment, there was suddenly a commotion on the post road.
Two horses were chasing a woman on the post road. The woman knew she couldn't outrun them, so she ran towards the mountain road. Unexpectedly, she accidentally rolled down the slope and hit her forehead on the tip of a rock, bleeding profusely. But the two horses still didn't let her go, picked her up and threw her on the back of the horse.
After getting Zi Jin's permission, Chu Zhong sent two guards beside him to chase after him.
Zi Jin and Chu Zhong followed behind, protecting Jing Tan.
After climbing over the slope, I saw a convoy on the post road ahead. There were five or six vehicles, and probably for the sake of safety on the road, they brought several servants.
The woman who had escaped got off the horse, knelt on the ground, covered her face and burst into tears. A middle-aged fat man got off the carriage and scolded the woman loudly.
Chu Zhong was protecting Zi Jin and Jing Tan and didn't want to cause any trouble. He felt that the woman in tattered clothes was very pitiful and couldn't bear to watch her die without helping her, so he just asked someone to go over and ask what happened.
The middle-aged fat man was furious: "We were drinking water and resting here just now. My servant saw this woman sneaking around and suddenly ran away. He thought she stole something from our car and chased her. Later he found out that she was not a thief, but had stuffed her own flesh and blood into the car." As he said that, the fat man took a two or three-year-old child down from the car. The child was either sick or asleep, and he didn't move.
The woman did not answer, but just hugged the child and continued to cry, almost crying to death.
Chu Zhong couldn't bear it and said, "Sister-in-law, if you are bullied, tell us and we will help you."
Seeing Chu Zhong's burly figure and his subordinates who were all agile martial artists, the fat man couldn't help but feel a little scared, and hurriedly explained: "You woman, tell me. Did you throw the child away while we were resting?"
Zi Jin and Jing Tan also followed.
Chu Zhong briefly told Zi Jin the general idea. Then, Zi Jin looked at the woman on the ground and asked softly, "Sister-in-law, is what he said true?"
The woman nodded, covering her face and crying even harder.
In order to prove his innocence, the fat man was patient and asked people to give him a general idea after some effort.
It turned out that the woman was originally from Huaizhou. Her husband followed the King of Huai and died in the battle against Canghuang. More than a month ago, because of the war, the land was occupied and the family home was trampled to the ground. The crops were harvested and the parents-in-law starved to death. She was alone with her son and could not survive, so she thought about returning to her parents' home in Canghuang. However, after going through so much hardship and finally reaching her hometown, she saw that the whole village was flooded into a vast ocean, and from the mountain it was full of floating corpses.
She didn't know what to do, but she heard that the nearby Yunzhong was taking in refugees and opening warehouses to distribute relief. So she dug wild vegetables along the way and fled to Yunzhong with her child.
But the day before yesterday, the child was sick, and she couldn't walk, and couldn't take him to the doctor. Maybe both mother and child would die here. Just then, she saw the fat man's convoy coming from afar, and knew that this was a family with money and food, hoping that some kindness would adopt the child and let the child survive, so she secretly stuffed the child into the car.
The woman cried as she spoke, and everyone who heard her was moved.
Chu Zhong glanced at Jingtan.
Jingtan sneered and said nothing, still wiping her dirty shoes on the grass.
Zi Jin kept staring at the woman's mouth as she spoke. Every word she uttered fell into his heart, like cutting him with a knife, leaving his hands and feet cold.
Before Zijin could speak, the fat man took the initiative to say, "Sister-in-law, we were originally going to Yunzhong. Please get in my car and we will take the child to the hospital first."
Chu Zhong took out a bag of silver and handed it to the fat man, asking him to take good care of the mother and son.
The two teams said goodbye to each other and went their separate ways.
Jingtan lifted the curtain on the carriage and said, "Brother Yu, birth, aging, sickness and death are all destiny. They were born in the wrong body, so don't blame my father. Do you think they can live a happy and comfortable life without my father? They are just a bunch of untouchables."
Zijin looked at Jingtan and said nothing.
Seeing him like this, Jingtan sneered, "Are you and Uncle Jiu good people? You are just pursuing your own selfish desires."
Before leaving, Jingtan changed his face again, and said with tears in his eyes: "Brother Yu, don't you feel any pain when you see me die?"
Zi Jin replied calmly: "Then come back to Yunzhong with me, I will definitely keep you safe."
Looking at the backs of Zi Jin and his group as they walked away, Jing Tan asked the confidant of Prince Huai who came to pick her up, "If we launch an ambush later, how confident are you that you can capture Wei Ran Yu?" There was no trace of the innocent look on her face when she said this.
The man answered honestly, "The personal guard beside King Yanping is very skilled in martial arts. We are greatly outnumbered and outnumbered. We have no confidence. Moreover, this place is sensitive. If we attract David's soldiers, we may implicate the princess."
"That's fine." Jingtan said, "I had prepared some drugs, but I didn't expect them to be so cautious along the way."
Then, the man presented another letter and said, "This is the handwritten letter from the master to the princess."
Jingtan opened the letter and read it hastily. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Father told us not to return to Huaizhou yet."
"Then?" the other party asked puzzledly.
"Gather your troops and follow me north." Jingtan said.
Four
At night, Zi Jin returned to Yunzhong and sat under the moon drinking alone. He had never touched alcohol since he was a child, but after getting drunk in front of Xia Yue last time, he actually fell in love with this stuff.
After King Liang found him, he sat down and poured himself a glass of wine: "Yu'er, don't blame your sixth uncle for being cruel."
Zi Jin shook his head: "Sixth Uncle took the blame for his nephew, how can you blame him?" He had also realized that Jingtan was definitely not as simple as they saw.
"Then why do you drink alone?"
Zi Jin picked up the wine cup and looked at the clear night sky in the cup.
He lost his parents when he was young. Seeing Jingtan like this today, he suddenly remembered himself back then, and the mother and son on the hillside today. He was not good at speaking, and didn't know how to confide his frustration to others, so he drank alone here. After a long while, he could only squeeze out one sentence: "I suddenly thought of my father and mother."
King Liang sighed and drank the wine in the cup in one gulp.
Zi Jin stood up, walked to the yard, and looked up at the bright moon in the sky.
On a spring night, the moonlight is bright.
"Yu'er." King Liang called him from behind, but he didn't notice. So King Liang walked to his side with a wine cup and touched him. When he turned around, he asked again, "Yu'er, are you worried about something?"
"Is there someone that Sixth Uncle misses every day?"
"I did when I was young. I was even younger than you at that time. Later, due to changes in the court, I was forced to go to Liangzhou to serve as a vassal. I could not return, so I got married. Later, I felt that being alone was also good, so I never thought about getting married." After saying this, King Liang smiled helplessly.
The two of them returned to the table and sat down.
King Liang's expression changed, and he asked again: "Now that Xu Jingye has been eliminated and King Huai's situation is over, what are your plans?"
Xu Jingye was the murderer who killed Xianchu and his wife. Now that he is finally dead, King Liang is very happy.
"If you want to compete with him for the whole world, you can make a move now. The King of Huai is in dire straits and has lost his fighting spirit. You can go there to help him. He will definitely follow your lead. Then contact the King of Wu. Although it is risky to attack the capital directly, we can use the Hengshui River as a boundary to gather our strength and divide the world with him. When the time is right, we can march north again."
Zi Jin bathed in the moonlight, silent for a long time.
King Liang frowned: "Yu'er, are you controlled by Shang Rui because of Miss Min?" He knew that Shang Rui left a letter for Zi Jin.
Zi Jin tilted his head and said, "Sixth Uncle, I did have the desire to compete with him. Although he did not kill Grandpa Emperor, Father King, and Mother Consort personally, all of this was caused by him."
Hundreds of people in the Prince's Mansion were wiped out overnight; the loyal ministers who protected the crown prince in the court were either killed or demoted; King Liang was alone in a desolate place like Liangzhou; Yu Sheng had a displaced life, and even an inscription could not be written on his grave after his death; Xia Yue still bears the crime of being the daughter of a traitor and dares not show her real name; he was deaf and could not hear anything, and even dragged his beloved woman into humiliation.
"But is this really the right thing to do?" A trace of confusion flashed in his clear eyes.
"Yu'er, you have a pure and kind heart. You know that there is no right or wrong in many things in this world, only victory or defeat. The winner is the king, and the loser is the enemy. If you want to protect your woman, you don't have to give in step by step, but to become the winner. When you are fully grown, take out what Wei Shangrui needs, and he will certainly be happy to exchange it for it."
Zi Jin remained silent.
The waning moon in the night was gradually obscured by the passing clouds, and the light in front of him dimmed. He never liked the dark, so he got up, lit the lantern under the porch, and hung it on the pillar.
He stared blankly at the light in the lantern, and after a while he turned back and said to King Liang: "I think I was wrong."
King Liang was surprised: "Yu'er, why do you say that?"
"If I hadn't been so impulsive, how could the Southern Region have become what it is now?"
"No," King Liang retorted, "This is all the bitter fruit caused by King Huai, Queen Mother Xu, Xu Jingye, and Wei Shangrui. How can you be blamed?"
He stood up and said to Zijin, "Do you think that without you, the Prince of Huai would not rebel? When he couldn't find you before, he tried to test me many times and even carefully selected a substitute to impersonate you. He doesn't need you, he only needs the name of Yu Ranyu. Even if you died that year, he could still succeed at will. He was ambitious and unruly to begin with. The battle with Yu Shangrui was only a matter of time!"
Zi Jin watched King Liang finish saying this, then quietly turned his gaze to the lantern in front of him. The orange light shone through the paper, illuminating his profile, like a flawless white jade.
"A teacher of mine once asked me what the way of the world is. I was still young at that time, and my answer was righteousness. A gentleman puts righteousness first. Those who attack righteousness with evil in the world will perish, so the way of the world is righteousness." Zi Jin murmured to himself.
"What about now?" King Liang walked under the lamp.
Zi Jin did not answer him, but told King Liang what he saw on the way to Jingtan today. He spoke very slowly and intermittently, using very simple words, but it made others feel inexplicably sad.
Upon hearing this, King Liang sighed, returned to the table, poured himself a glass of wine, and drank it.
At this time, a moth jumped into the lantern, fluttering its wings and running around inside like a blind man, and the flame flickered.
Zi Jin took down the lantern, blew out the fire, and released the moth.
Just as the scene was falling into darkness again, the waning moon suddenly jumped out from the clouds again.
Zi Jin looked up at the sky, then looked at King Liang and said, "If you ask me again now, I will answer that the young and the orphans can grow up, the majority does not oppress the minority, the elders can succeed, and fathers and sons protect each other. This is the way I want for the world."
When he said this, his expression was calm and his tone was extremely peaceful. He stood under the night sky, as bright as the moon and as graceful as an orchid. He did not seem like an ordinary person.
It was already late at night. He had already washed and was ready to go to bed. After tossing and turning, he put on his clothes and came here to drink alone. As he was not going to see any outsiders, he did not tie his hair up and let it hang behind him. The night wind blew, and his hair moved slightly, giving people the illusion that he was flying towards the moon.
"You really have the same personality as Xian Chu back then." After King Liang finished speaking, he looked at the empty cup in his hand and sighed, "Then how do you know that Wei Shangrui is a wise ruler?"
"In his letter, Uncle Jiu not only promised to legitimize my father's throne, but also to prove Yu Sheng's innocence. He also mentioned the journey of the Great Dao to me. At that time, I was thinking of Xia Yue's comfort and didn't take it to heart. Thinking back tonight, I actually felt like he was a soulmate."
King Liang saw this and hesitated to speak.
Zi Jin lowered his eyes and said, "I know that his feelings for me are only half true and half false."
"As long as you can see clearly," said King Liang.
"I have a mentor in Jinluo, his name is Qi An, he is a person I admire very much."
"The Qi An in front of Prince Huai?" Prince Liang was surprised.
"Yes, he was the gentleman who asked me what was the way of the world. After hearing my answer, he just sighed that I was too young. Now, Uncle Six probably doesn't know that he has assisted Uncle Nine. Mr. Qi has unique knowledge and is aloof and unpredictable, but he is determined to entrust his life to Uncle Nine. I don't know Uncle Nine, but I know Mr. Qi, so," he looked at King Liang, "I want to give it a try."
King Liang clenched his fist, gently hit his forehead, and remained silent for a long time.
The night wind blew again, gently brushing my face, bringing a cool and comfortable feeling.
After an unknown amount of time, King Liang said, "Then let's give it a try."
Zi Jin said: "If I make the wrong choice, my death won't be a pity, but I will only be a burden to my sixth uncle."
King Liang smiled and said, "I am a person with nothing to worry about. I have regretted the matter of your father for ten years. I often couldn't sleep at night. I only regretted that I didn't fight for him in the court at that time, but lived in such a miserable way. Now I am lucky to have you, so I can start over again."
After saying this, King Liang bent his arms, rested his elbows on the table, and spread out his palms.
Seeing this, Zi Jin walked closer, struck it with his right palm, and then held it tightly.
King Liang nodded and stretched out his other hand to pat his shoulder heavily.