Chapter 289: Blood Debt Repaid
Lai Fu watched the figures of Xue Sui and her servant disappear through the corner gate, then turned and found Li Zhao in the courtyard, deep within the curtain of rain.
The former Crown Prince detested romance and disliked tending to flowers and plants, yet today he was squatting before the Love Silk Flower, gently stroking its withered petals, as focused and absorbed as a craftsman polishing jade…
“Reporting to Your Highness, Sixth Miss Xue has already left.”
Li Zhao, with his back to him, let out a soft hum, not turning around.
Within the rain, stood a man in dark, fitted clothing.
It was Ye Xiao, the dark guard of the Eastern Palace.
No one knew when he had arrived, standing silently like a ghost.
“If Your Highness wishes her to stay, she cannot leave.”
Li Zhao started, then let out a low laugh.
“She cannot be kept, just like this flower. Even if one tries their utmost to make it bloom, it will eventually be beaten down by wind and rain into the mud. I pity it, I cherish it, but I cannot forcibly break its branches, much less move it into a warm room. Doing so would only make it wither faster and fade sooner…”
Ye Xiao remained silent, not understanding.
Lai Fu, however, felt a pang of sadness in his heart, pitying his master.
“Her blood feud is not yet avenged, and my foundation is not yet stable.”
Li Zhao turned and stepped into the rain.
The surroundings were as quiet as the mourning hall of the deceased.
The cold rain fell on his handsome face, like a defeated general stripped of his armor, each drop as sharp as frost.
“Moreover, she does not like me. How can I force it?”
–
This year, winter arrived quickly.
The biting cold seemed to have swept through the streets and alleys of Shangjing overnight. In both noble mansions and humble dwellings, braziers burned red, yet they could not dispel the chill that seeped into one’s bones.
Next to the left auxiliary gate of Chengtian Gate, a dark “Box for Exposing Wrongs,” barely large enough to insert a single sheet of paper, was firmly nailed to the stone foundation of the palace wall.
This was the “Grievance Box” newly established by Crown Prince Li Zhao.
Anyone with a secret grievance or who wished to report illegal activities could anonymously deposit it into this box.
The dark, cast-iron opening of the box resembled the fangs of a monstrous beast ready to devour, exuding silent fear and temptation under the pale winter sun.
At first, people merely watched from afar, pointing and murmuring.
It wasn’t until the first hunched old Director, his head and face wrapped in rags, trembled as he dropped a neatly folded piece of paper into the dark opening under the cover of night and quickly disappeared, that the long-suppressed undercurrent was reignited…
No one knew who had exposed whom…
What matter had been exposed…
Fear spread silently like a plague among the nobles of Shangjing, without a sound…
Mansions that were once bustling with visitors and filled with music were now shut tight. Even the servants sent to buy provisions hurried about with furtive glances, as if ghosts were chasing them.
In tea houses and taverns, rumors about certain officials became the most appetizing side dishes…
At the Duke of Zheng’s Mansion, the atmosphere was even more heavy, as if water could be wrung from it.
The main courtyard…
Guo Pi lay deep within the brocade curtains, his eye sockets sunken, his cloudy gaze fixed on the intricate carvings above. Every word he uttered was accompanied by a rattling sound of phlegm in his throat.
“Well… well done… to be pushed to the brink of death… and then to be reborn…”
Guo Yunrong, with swollen eyes, knelt by the bedside, tightly gripping her grandfather’s emaciated hand, her voice choked with sobs.
“Grandfather, the Imperial Physician said that with this new medicine, your pulse is gradually stabilizing. You will be alright…”
Guo Pi’s cloudy eyeballs slowly rolled.
After a long while, he squeezed three words from between his teeth.
“Bring… paper… brush…”
The servant in the hall quickly brought the ink brush and ink to the small table by the bedside.
“Leave,” Guo Pi said, looking at Guo Yunrong.
He then turned to his eldest son, Guo Hong, who was sitting nearby.
“You… all of you… get out…”
“Yes.”
Everyone filed out.
Only heavy breathing and deathly silence remained in the room.
Guo Pi had his attendant help him sit up. With trembling fingers, like dead branches, he held the brush, dipped it in ink, and on the fine Xuan paper, wrote a few shocking, large characters crookedly.
【Second son Guo Mingyuan, eldest grandson Guo Zhaohuai, colluded with the Military Governor of Longxi, Xiao Yan, as well as Wang Qinian from the Ministry of Works, Ma Yuankui from the Ministry of Revenue, Xie Yanzhan from the Supreme Court, and others… falsely reported troop numbers, altered ledgers, embezzled and resold military supplies. The evidence is conclusive, and the crimes are unforgivable】
After writing, he seemed to have all his energy drained. His hand loosened, and he slumped back, utterly defeated.
“Send a fast horse. Give the ledgers to the Crown Prince as well.”
The attendant held the paper, his hands shaking like a sieve.
“Master, this… this… why must it be like this…”
Guo Pi suddenly coughed violently, almost choking to death.
“Tell Zhaohuai… Grandfather has failed him… tell him to confess… to preserve… the lineage of the clan…”
He closed his eyes, and two streams of cloudy, old tears rolled down.
“The blood of the Guo family descendants… will not be shed in vain… Xiao Song, Xie Yanzhan… these… old scoundrels… will not escape unscathed…”
–
Ministry of Justice Prison, Earth Tier, Cell C.
The stone walls exuded a bone-chilling cold. Through the fist-sized air vent, a sliver of dim light filtered in, illuminating the room filled with the smell of mold and blood, making this small space seem like the underworld.
Guo Zhaohuai huddled in the corner, his prisoner’s robe reduced to rags. Blood still seeped from the whip marks on his face. He bore no resemblance to a noble young master.
His eyes were vacant as he thought of the message his grandfather had sent through someone.
Confess and expose others.
To sacrifice his own life and his uncle’s to protect the Guo family clan.
As the legitimate grandson of a Duke’s mansion, he should be filial. However, he had truly never been involved in that Military Supplies Corruption Case in the Western Frontier, nor had he taken any spoils. He was truly wronged.
Why?
His grandfather wanted to wrong him?
Why should he be made to die?
He still had a beautiful wife and concubines at home, and a young son…
He didn’t want to die…
He couldn’t die.
Despair, like a cold viper, tightened around his heart.
“Clang—”
The cell door opened.
A subservient jailer in green entered, his bamboo hat pulled low, revealing only a stern jaw.
Behind him followed an inconspicuous young jailer, carrying a food box.
Guo Zhaohuai cursed loudly.
“What kind of trash are you? Get out, sir…”
The jailer remained silent, walked steadily before him, removed his bamboo hat, revealing a pair of clear, cold eyes…
“Eldest Young Master Guo, do you remember me?”
Xue Sui kicked aside the straw at her feet and squatted before him, tapping the food box with her fingertips, looking at him and smiling.
“An old acquaintance has come to see you off.”
Xiao Zhao opened the food box, revealing golden butter cakes. Guo Zhaohuai’s dry throat suddenly moved—
“Xue Liu, didn’t you become a nun? Why are you here? What do you want?”
Xue Sui leisurely picked up a pastry, rubbing it between her fingertips, its flaky crust falling away.
“Ten years ago, on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, in the reed marsh of Han Ya Du.”
Guo Zhaohuai’s body trembled.
“You grabbed my hair and kicked me into the icy water.”
Xue Sui stared at his widening pupils, her smile icy.
“Just to please Princess Ping Le. You used a reed stalk you casually broke to stab my eyes, and then you grinned and asked me if the sky of a blind person was entirely black…”
“Old matters, why… why are you bringing them up…” Guo Zhaohuai recoiled in terror, but was held back by the heavy shackles.
The iron chains clanked.
Xue Sui threw a pastry in front of him.
“I had a fever for seven days and almost died… Also, that winter, under the rockery at Pu Ji Temple, you stuffed me into an ice hole and whipped my back with snowballs…”
“Fortunately, a kind person rescued me, allowing me to live until today to see you off.”
One by one.
The buried sins were peeled open again in the moldy air of the prison, and then scabbed over once more…
She slowly released her hand.
Another pastry rolled to Guo Zhaohuai’s feet.
Its golden skin was stained with mud, much like his current pathetic situation…
“Xue Liu, you mere nobody, how dare you harm an official of the court?”
“You are a prisoner.”
Xue Sui stood up, looking down at him.
“Your grandfather has already treated you as a discarded piece. No one can protect you anymore. After you die, there won’t be a clean shroud. Your family will be scattered, and your household ruined… Eldest Young Master Guo, did you ever think back then that you would face such retribution today?”
“You… you madwoman!”
“Madwoman, am I?” Xue Sui said, “I will do as you wish…”
Guo Zhaohuai looked at the fierce aura surging in her eyes, his pupils contracting.
Thump!
His knees buckled, and he knelt down.
“Back then… back then I was young and ignorant… the joke went too far… Sixth Miss Xue… you are magnanimous… spare… spare me… I will kowtow to you…”
He suddenly burst into tears, struggling to kowtow and beg for mercy.
“It’s too late,” Xue Sui sneered. “The Yellow Springs Road is long. You should eat something to line your stomach, so you don’t die of hunger, and also to see for me if the world of a blind person is black…”
Guo Zhaohuai shook his head desperately.
Fear made him incoherent.
“No! I won’t eat it! It’s poisoned! It’s poisoned here…”
“How could it be poisoned? These are excellent pastries,” Xue Sui smiled gently, leaning close to his ear, her voice very soft.
“I went to great lengths to set up this situation… and I carefully prepared a farewell gift for you. How could I leave such a clumsy loophole? Eat with confidence, it’s sweeter than the pig slop you fed me back then.”
“Xue Liu, what have you done, to me… to the Xue family… what have you done… you madwoman…”
“Eldest Young Master Guo, farewell—”
Xue Sui slowly took out a picture album from her embrace, grabbed Guo Zhaohuai’s convulsing, trembling hand, and used his fresh blood to draw a large, hideous blood cross over the page depicting him.
“Xiao Zhao,” Xue Sui said indifferently, standing up.
Xiao Zhao responded, her eyes shining with wolf cub-like excitement.
Xue Sui said no more, turning and stepping back into the shadows outside the cell door.
Behind her, Guo Zhaohuai’s heart-wrenching curses echoed.
“Xue Liu… I will not let you go even as a ghost…”
Xiao Zhao grabbed a butter cake and forcefully stuffed it into his gaping mouth.
“Mmm…”
A short scream was choked in his throat.
Rats in the prison shrieked and scurried.
Footsteps faded, and the cell door clanged shut again, heavily locked…
Golden crumbs mixed with bloodstains were trampled on the ground, like Guo Zhaohuai’s once glorious, now lowly, fate.
He was dead.
With the rage of ten years ago, Xue Sui dragged a Duke’s mansion Heir Apparent from the clouds into the mud, to die miserably in this lightless prison, abandoned by all.
Li Zhao: This woman is a bit scary. Fortunately, that fox fur coat saved my life back then… Lai Fu, put that garment on display…
Lai Fu: Master, it seems you’ve been abandoned?
