Man Tang Huacai

Chapter 7
In the evening, many people were added to the cells of Jingzhao Mansion.

"Fang Daxu, a Taoist priest, plotted to set up a crown prince for the Du family with pictures and prophecies. After the defeat, he wanted to abscond. Is there such a thing?!"

"I'm wronged! Pindao didn't want to be implicated by the Du family, so he wanted to leave the Du residence."

"Ask you again, can you see that the crown prince sent someone to Du's house to discuss with Du Youlin about destroying the evidence?"

"Injustice!"

"If you dare to quibble, you will be punished!"

"..."

Ji Wen didn't enter the execution room, but stopped under the eaves, stood with his hands behind his back, and listened to the mournful howl while admiring the snow scene.

When the sound in the execution room gradually died down, Xin Twelve stepped forward and said, "Ah Lang, Fang made a false move. But Quan Rui, the steward of the Du family, refused to admit that Xue Bai was sent by the prince, and only said that he picked him up."

"Pick it up? Pick one up and show me."

"The villain will go to the trial again."

Ji Wen was noncommittal, and murmured: "According to what that cheap maid recruited, he has given the evidence to the prince, but the prince has not responded."

"We can still try to prove the guilt of the Du family."

"Is this important?" Ji Wen said: "So what if you kill all the Du family? The key is the prince, prince, prince!"

Xin Twelve hurriedly replied: "The crown prince sent Xue Bai to set fire to Liuji's house to destroy the evidence. The evidence is convincing. He was in the prince's other courtyard. The villain saw it with his own eyes."

"I'm going to see Prime Minister Right, and I'll send You Xiaowei directly to search and take it down! It's just that this is a big deal..."

Ji Wen was firm at first, but later, he asked in a questioning tone, "Are you sure he's still there?"

"The villain sent someone to watch, and he didn't see anyone coming in or out until he went to get the Du family siblings."

"Go and verify, I'm going to have an audience with the right minister."

"Alang, wait a moment."

Today, Xin Twelve first guarded Yongxingfang, arrested the Du family siblings, and then came back to torture Liu Shang. He had to ask about the prince's other courtyard.

When he returned to the palace, his face was a little dignified. He saluted Ji Wen and sang, "Ah Lang, it's not good. For some reason, the prince's other courtyard was in chaos. Cars and horses came and went, and our people were lost."

"It's really slippery." Ji Wen cursed in a low voice, but finally dared not make up his mind to search the Prince's other courtyard, so he had to order: "Send someone to look for it."

"The villain has already arranged it." Xin Twelve said: "The villain has another method. Du Youlin's son also participated in destroying the evidence. If he is captured in the prince's other courtyard..."

Before the words were finished, the concierge of Jingzhao Mansion ran into the courtyard and said: "Ji Facao, the right minister has sent someone here."

"Quick, please."

Ji Wen didn't dare to neglect, and hurriedly got up to meet him.

After walking two steps, he turned around in a hurry, found a box, took out a female lilac, and put it in his mouth.

In fact, he came from an extraordinary background, he was the prime minister's son, and he was summoned by a sage in his early years, but because of his bad breath, he displeased the sage, and said "it's a bad thing, don't use it", which almost ruined his official career, so he had no choice but to flatter Li Linfu.After this incident, whenever he saw an important person, he would always hold mother cloves to cover his bad breath.

……

This day, Jiwen, who came here, also knew him. She was a maidservant in a bearded robe named Jiaonu.

Jiaonu is very beautiful, so she can become one of Li Linfu's attendants. She often goes out to do errands for Li Linfu. She likes to wear a bearded gown and looks capable.

When she came on horseback, she tied the rope, and Ji Wen trotted to the front yard to meet her.

"Miss hard work, I don't know what orders the right minister has?"

Jiao Nu was cold and arrogant, frowning and waving his hands to keep him away from him, while walking, he raised his hands and crossed his hands to Li Linfu who was not in front of him, and said indifferently: "A Lang asked you, how is the matter going?"

"Within one night and one day, the case has been found out!" Ji Wen said loudly, "The prince secretly ordered Liu Ji to befriend the minister, and because Liu Ji had a grievance with Du Youlin, he reported the matter, and the prince ordered someone to come to the court again. The Liu residence destroyed the evidence."

"What about people?"

"Girl, please, be careful of the threshold."

Ji Wen welcomed Jiaonu into the public house, and took out some confession papers from the case.

"This is Liu Ji's confession, which records the list of ministers he bought, as well as the gifts he exchanged; this is the confession of Du's maidservant, identifying that the crown prince sent a man named Xue Bai to burn down Liu's study together with Liu Du..."

But Jiaonu didn't like to listen to Ji Wen's noise, so he raised his hand to interrupt him, and said, "Where are you from?"

"The prince is hiding, but as long as the Du family is convicted, the prince can be tracked down."

"It's useless, the crimes have been committed by Liu Ji and the Du family in private, and have nothing to do with the crown prince."

"This...why?"

Jiaonu said coldly: "Because the prince has reconciled with the second wife of the Du family."

"what?!"

Ji Wen was stunned, raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyeballs around, and murmured: "Good trick, the gecko cut off its tail again, and picked it clean."

"You react too slowly."

"Ji Wen knows his mistake."

"Two things." Jiaonu said in a haughty tone, "One, you cooperate with Luo Xishi, and all those who have made friends with Liu Ji will be captured and interrogated severely. Alang wants the world to know what it means to support the prince. "

"Here."

"Secondly, the crown prince sent people to burn Liuji's study. More convincing evidence must be found. Right now, these are far from enough."

"Here." Ji Wen hurriedly saluted with crossed hands, and said, "There is a way to do a search. I just want to ask the right minister for instructions, but I need to mobilize the right guard..."

Jiaonu heard it, nodded and said, "Just wait until I get back to Ah Lang."

"The hardworking girl is running around."

Ji Wen went to the gate of Jingzhao Mansion in person and watched Meiji's steed gallop away.

He returned to the palace, picked up the long list of Liu Ji's confession again and read it softly, like the King of Hades calling his name.

"Li Yong, the prefect of Beihai, Pei Dunfu, the prefect of Zichuan, Wang Zeng of Zhuo Lang, Xu Zheng, the number one scholar of Guiyouke..."

These people may be obsessed with calligraphy, they may be with their family, or they may be working hard for official affairs, in short, they will definitely not feel that they have done anything wrong.

But Ji Wen thinks they are not wronged at all.

To make friends who should not be made is a serious crime of being arrested and exiled!

Countless people involved in Wei Jian's case were killed at the beginning of the year. Before this year has passed, he has another chance to be imprisoned.

"Ha, the ghost is blocking the way, Lord Yan is going to work this year."

He smiled ferociously, and the flames of excitement ignited in his eyes.

~~
On the outskirts of Chang'an, flames ignited in the ruined temple.

"The fire is lit." Qing Lan turned around and shouted.

She was shivering from the cold, curled up by the fire and kept rubbing her body to keep warm.

After a while, Xue Bai came in with a handful of firewood and shook off the snowflakes on his body. Seeing Qing Lan's appearance, he took off the pair of fox furs on his body, sat down beside Qing Lan, and wrapped them in the fox fur. each other.

These were Du Wulang's clothes, and he changed them in front of the prince's other courtyard to deceive others.

Qing Lan trembled in shock, but did not escape.

She didn't dare to make a sound, and cautiously peeked at Xue Bai's side face.

Xue Bai seemed to feel her gaze, and said, "I'm so hungry."

Qing Lan said: "It's clear that I only ate at noon, you have eaten a lot."

"I just ate at noon." Xue Bai repeated in a low voice, shaking his head slightly.

Qing Lan asked: "Even the crown prince is unwilling to save the Du family, is the Du family really doomed?"

Xue Bai didn't answer, just stared at the bonfire in a daze.

Qing Lan knew that there was nothing he could do. For such a big matter, what about two slaves?
Thinking about the fate of everyone in the Du family, she couldn't help but shed tears, and then silently shed tears.

After crying hard, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand, and said: "My family name is Huangfu, and I used to be from a scholarly family. When I was six years old, my grandfather was involved in the case of abolishing the prince and was killed by a stick. Slave, like you, I have been an official slave."

"Abandon the prince?" Xue Bai asked, "Have you already abolished a prince?"

He raised his head to think, and finally remembered something, his lips moved, and he said to himself silently: "Yes, he seems to have killed three sons."

Qing Lan only heard his previous question, and replied: "Yes."

"What about the specific situation?"

"People in the world keep secrets, and I don't know the details." Qing Lan shook her head and said, "I was lucky. I was bought back to Du's house by my wife not long after. She treated me kindly..."

Thinking of the past nine years, she choked up again, sobbing endlessly.

"I've always hoped to repay my wife's great kindness. I didn't expect, I didn't expect that the Du family would be involved in such a big case. Tell me, did I restrain you?"

"Don't blame yourself." Xue Bai said: "It can only prove that there are too many innocent people involved in this kind of thing."

Qing Lan was comforted and felt much better.

Xue Bai sighed slightly, and said to himself: "The heart of one person is the heart of thousands of people."

Qing Lan couldn't understand, felt that the wind was still very cold, so she unconsciously pressed against his warm body, but soon realized something was wrong, and bit her lip awkwardly.

Snowflakes fluttered outside the temple, and the two hugged each other by the bonfire to keep warm, and there was darkness behind them.

Qing Lan gradually had other concerns, lowered her eyes slightly, and asked in a low voice: "If we really can't save the Du family, what should we do?"

"I'm still thinking."

Qing Lan lowered her head and said hesitantly: "We offended the prince, maybe we should find a place to hide our names, um, men farm and women weave..."

"I will not and do not intend to till the land."

"I mean," Qing Lan moaned like a mosquito, "maybe, maybe we can...get married..."

"why?"

"You saved me today, I wish..."

"It doesn't make sense." Xue Bai said in a gentle tone, with a hint of jokes, "Little girl is greedy. Since you know that I saved your life, you don't ask for a reward, but you still want me."

Qing Lan blinked a few times to make sure that she heard correctly, and then couldn't help but said anxiously: "I mean... I just want to repay..."

"Just kidding." Xue Bai turned his head to look at the bonfire again, and said seriously: "I won't run away, I don't want to hide my name and hide."

"But we offended the prince..."

"Only the crown prince wants to kill us, not the entire government."

Seeing that he was calm, Qing Lan froze for a moment, and said: "It's fine if you don't run away, I, I was just joking."

The two of them stopped talking about this topic.

Qinglan was a little annoyed for a moment, thinking that this Dengtuzi hugged her, but said such words again.But after thinking about it, it seemed unreasonable for him to coerce him to like him after he saved his life?

She couldn't help being very depressed, thinking that Xue Bai just didn't like her, and then she thought that she was obviously very beautiful.

My mind wandered around, not knowing where to go.

"Tell me about the things in the world." Xue Bai said: "I don't remember well, Du Wulang introduced me to the customs two days ago, but something happened."

"Okay." Qing Lan pondered: "Where do we start?"

"Say what comes to mind? As if I were a foreigner."

Qinglan propped her chin with her fingers, thought for a while, and said: "I was born in the 18th year of Kaiyuan. That year, the saint invited all the officials to drink in the Huae Xianghui Building, and my grandfather also went. The saint likes to give a drink upstairs. Hundreds of officials spread money. Grandpa had just been promoted to a fifth-rank official at that time. He picked up a few golden Kaiyuan Tongbao and placed them at home. I saw them when I was young. My mother said that when he came back, he was so happy from ear to ear. Named me 'E', and said that my fate is good, through the ages, I was born in the most prosperous Kaiyuan year since ancient times..."

She cried again while talking, and at the end, she wiped her tears and said: "But Grandpa is right, now is the most prosperous time since ancient times, even a prisoner's daughter like me has never been hungry. "

Xue Bai was silent for a long time, and replied: "It is the peak of prosperity."

It was getting darker.

The ruined temple was also quiet.

Qing Lan sat there with her knees hugged, her chin resting on her knees, thinking that it was time to go to sleep, but in such a cold day, do you want to lie down and hug him in the wild?Or sit and sleep?

In the end she decided that as long as Xue Bai didn't move, she wouldn't move either.

"Is that Chang'an City over there?"

Qing Lan looked up, and through the wind and snow, she saw the bright light in the sky.

Even in Chang'an City under curfew, the flames lit up half of the night.

She had never seen Chang'an's night from this angle before, she was infatuated for a moment, and she couldn't help but sigh: "It's so beautiful, isn't it?"

Xue Bai said: "Yes, such a prosperous Tang Dynasty..."

(End of this chapter)