Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 550: Great Execution
"Mr. Zhu, I will take a day off tomorrow and come back to make up for the lessons in the evening." Pei Ye said as he stood under the eaves and watched Zhu Wen walk back.

Zhu Wen nodded: "Yes, you must come before the hour of Xu."

"Yes."

The philosopher's expression did not change as he washed the teapot meticulously. Pei Ye moved his throat, said nothing more, and left after bowing.

The Ertian theory was still unresolved, but a criminal case that dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the scholars was about to be settled.

Wen Zai Zi was the loudest voice among the scholars in the capital in August and September.

Long before the scholars from other places came to the capital, long before the shadow of the aristocratic families was still suffocating people, and even long before the memorial of recommendation was submitted, this Confucian scholar had already been unscrupulously mocking and ridiculing those people from the five noble and inviolable surnames.

His voice was heard in Wuyun Tower, Luhua Terrace, Imperial College, and even in the Imperial City; every poem and essay that was circulated was signed with his own name, as if the shadows that silenced the literati were not in his eyes at all.

Two months later, he was finally convicted for his words and thrown into prison.

In fact, many people noticed that the Ministry of Justice had already been keeping an eye on him a month before he was arrested, just waiting for him to make more gaffes and leave more serious evidence, so that they could damn him in one fell swoop.

However, even though he was already in prison, this name and the articles that circulated still served as a soul-stirring sound like gongs and drums in the struggle among scholars in the next two months. He scolded the aristocratic families as pigs, dogs, rats and insects to their faces, and the essays and poems he wrote were full of sarcasm, almost wantonly trampling on all the authority in front of him and cursing them. The shock caused by this thorough offense in people's hearts is indescribable.

Many people were really stunned when they saw these poems and essays...the five surnames were actually the same as them, they were just the same people.

Many people who came later had never seen Wen Zaizi, but this name had indeed long become a symbol that bound together scholars from different regions and inspired the courage of everyone.

As for Pei Ye, he had met this person on the first day he arrived in Beijing, but he only realized the significance of him now.

The winter morning was as cold and quiet as ever. The white air exhaled by the woman spread out of the window. She held the teacup in her clasped hands.

It was a rare occasion for Xu Chuo to get up early, so Pei Ye went with her to the steamed buns restaurant on the next street to have breakfast. Ever since Xu Chuo brought him here once, he always came to this restaurant in the morning. He was already familiar with it, and he was busy making appointments and choosing fillings.

The woman was wearing a warm cloak, and her face and hair were undone, just tied up loosely.

"Because I protected him for two months." Xu Chuo ate three buns and stopped eating, pushing the remaining tray to the boy, "So he kept scolding me for two months, and then the influence began to show, and the family thought that he couldn't talk anymore, so I couldn't protect him anymore."

Pei Ye picked up the bun and put it into his mouth: "Aren't we going to rescue him?"

Xu Chuo lowered his eyes and took a sip of tea: "Now it is the next stage. Jingzhao and the Ministry of Justice will unify the criminal justice system for the cases of Shilin in recent months. Those who violate the law will be dealt with according to the law. Wang Jiazi is like this, and Wen Zaizi will naturally do the same."

"We don't have much power in the Ministry of Justice, right?" Pei Ye was chewing a bun. Now he could probably understand some things. The woman had taken two actions in the Ministry of Justice within a month, one to rescue him and one to rescue Xie Chuantang. The hidden chess pieces might have been used up.

“Not entirely.”

"Ok?"

"The sharpest knife tip is bound to break. You can't hand the knife handle to someone else just to avoid damaging the tip, or even let yourself be stabbed." Xu Chuo looked at the boy with indifferent eyes, "Waging a war is to win, not to keep everyone alive."

"Oh...that's right."

"Besides, I don't want to lie to you, Pei Ye - to me, Wen Zai Zi's death means more than his life."

"Hmm." Pei Ye nodded. He didn't understand these things very well, and he didn't make any comments. He just remembered the scholar who was leaning against the wall in the dim prison at that time, and he couldn't help but feel nostalgic. He swallowed the last bun and said, "But he and I had a few words in prison. Can I go see him before the execution?"

"That's nothing, I'll arrange it."

……

This was the first time Pei Ye saw the appearance of the Ministry of Justice's prison. He went down to an unknown number of places, with damp walls, cramped steps, and a narrow corridor.

The feeling of returning to this prison was somewhat strange. Two months ago, he lay here in a daze, and when he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness and dampness. Now, as he walked downstairs again, several cells seemed to have been replaced or were vacant, and there were few familiar voices and faces.

Pei Ye stopped in his tracks. The scholar was still in the cell, but his clothes no longer looked like a scholar's uniform and were dirty and messy. Pei Ye stood in front of the door for a few moments before the scholar noticed him and raised his head in a daze.

"Two quarters of an hour, leave after you finish chatting, don't stay." The jailer lowered his head and opened the cell door.

Pei Ye walked in with wine and food, smiling. The scholar stared at him for a long while before he raised his finger and said, "You, you...ah! Are you Meng Li?"

Pei Ye laughed even more: "I said my name is Pei Ye."

"Alas, true or false, who knows whether you are deceiving the jailer or us." Wen Zaizi looked at him in surprise, and grinned for the first time in a long time, "Forget it, anyway, you are out, and it seems that you are still alive and well."

He propped himself up and bowed to him earnestly - this proper bow was exactly the same as the one performed by Zhu Wen and Fang Jidao.

But once he sat down, he showed something different. Wen Zaizhi leaned on the hay and panted and laughed, "Brother Pei, you are willing to come and see me after just a few words. As the ancients said, 'Old friends are still as close as when we were young,' and it's true."

Pei Ye flicked his finger and passed a few streams of Qi to him, placed the buns and food in front of him, and sat down cross-legged: "That night we talked about food. I tasted the buns you mentioned a few days ago, and they were really good. I also bought some of the remaining ones that I didn't eat."

Wen Zai Zi was stunned: "…It was just a few words at the time, but you remember it so clearly."

Obviously a little touched.

"No, I have a good brain and can remember everything I hear." Pei Ye certainly didn't remember his cellmate's food preferences firmly in mind - he only knew that Miss Ming ate pears, and he had no idea what Piao Qing liked to eat. It was only when he was about to come that he looked for it in his mind.

"...Oh, that's quite magical." Wen Zaizi's words were already weak, and his exposed wrists looked much thinner. But facing the full table of food, he poured himself a full glass of wine and drank it in one gulp.

Pei Ye then took a closer look and saw that the man had a very upright appearance, with a high and straight nose, lips that were neither thick nor thin, and cheeks that were neither plump nor thin. The people who went to Tianliyuan to seek help at that time said that he was an upright and outspoken man, and that was exactly the temperament of this face.

Only the corners of his eyebrows and eyes suddenly had a very sharp upward point, which was indeed like the tip of a knife.

The wine glass left two dirty marks on him. Wen Zai Zi put down the glass and let out a deep and refreshing breath.

"I wanted to ask around to see if there was any way to save you, but it seems that it's unlikely." Pei Ye looked at him, "Did you say anything too extreme?"

"Brother Pei, you are so kind-hearted. You are already a first-class chivalrous man." Wen Zaizi smiled while holding up his sleeves and picking up a small dish. His eyes were weak. "My life cannot be saved, and there is no need to save it."

"I heard that the Ministry of Justice had been targeting you at that time. It would have been better if you had been more cautious at that time." Pei Ye poured him a glass of wine. "I know." Wen Zaizi said unexpectedly while eating.

"Ok?"

"If I didn't want to die, I wouldn't have come here. Now that I'm in prison, I'll just have this head on my neck for now." Wen Zaizi smiled faintly with the bloodstains on his lips. "In my article, I called them rats and maggots. If the Ministry of Justice sees this, I will stop and hide. Who is the rat?"

He lowered his head and ate his food in big mouthfuls: "If you want to beat the drum, you must exert yourself; if you value your life, you won't do this."

"……I see."

"I said a lot of really treasonous things, because we should correct the wrongs." Wen Zaizi said vaguely, "I deserve to be executed, Brother Pei, don't feel sorry."

Pei Ye did not speak again. He sat cross-legged and looked at him quietly for a while. Suddenly he said, "I have been studying with Zhu Wenzhezi these days."

Wen Zaizi's action of eating rice froze for a moment.

He raised his head, and his eyes in his disheveled and dirty face stared at the boy in amazement.

"I was thinking, if you have anything you want to bring to Zhu Zhezi, I can deliver it on your behalf." Pei Ye said.

"..."

Wen Zai Zi slowly and quietly put down his bowl and chopsticks, staring at the ground motionlessly.

After a long while, he said softly, "...I have nothing to bring. I am an unworthy disciple."

He lowered his head and rubbed his eyes with his sleeves: "Is the teacher accepting students again?"

"I received one a few days ago. His name is Fang Jidao. He is my fellow countryman and friend."

"'Fang Jidao', what a good name. It sounds like he has a good character and talent." Wen Zaizi sighed and smiled, "...I just can't follow in your footsteps."

"What do you mean?"

Wen Zai Zi was silent, staring into space, as if he had returned to a time and space that had long gone.

"Before I became your disciple, I had heard about Zhu Zhezi's deeds. His character was like a pine tree, and his ambition was like the sea... At that time, I was most proud of my strong character. I believed that even if I was killed by a sword, my ambition would not change, and I would definitely continue my teacher's path." Wen Zaizi said softly, "Later, I realized how naive that was... and how lonely and cruel the road my teacher was on was."

He lowered his head: "I was scared."

"I am not afraid of death. I am willing to devote my life, talent and courage to doing things that will go down in history...but I am afraid of throwing myself into nothingness and disappearing silently like dust." Wen Zai Zi sighed silently and drank a glass of wine.

But after a moment he looked up again and smiled at Pei Ye: "But the teacher understands me."

Pei Ye poured him some wine.

"I'm sure some of my friends have gone to ask my teacher to save me these days." Wen Zaizi leaned back and looked at the dark ceiling of the cell. "...Death is a sad thing, but everyone will die, and the time has come for me to die."

"You're not even thirty."

"Brother Pei, do you read the storybook?"

Pei Ye raised his eyebrows: "I love reading the most."

"My fellow writer, let me ask you, is a 200-page book necessarily better than a 100-page book?" Wen Zai Zi, who had had enough wine and food, said in a gentle voice, "A storybook is meant to tell a good story, not to make oneself too long. Once the story is told, it can also end - the same is true for a person's life."

"When I left Tianliyuan, I asked my teacher, God's will is so great, I am humble and afraid of it, I don't want to be like dust filling the sea, if I seek the lower, is there a way? The teacher said, choose a career in the world and die for it, and it's okay to have no regrets." Wen Zaizi's eyes were bright, "Now I have used my life as a pioneer of the literati - Brother Pei, aren't my twenty-eight years more exciting and complete than the hundred years of mediocre people?"

"Yes, that's right." Pei Ye had no choice but to nod.

After a moment, he said softly, "Anyway, if I refute you and you suddenly don't want to die, then I won't be able to save you, which would be too much of a tease."

Wen Zai Zi laughed.

There were only leftovers on the table. Pei Ye packed up and left. Before he walked out of the cell, he heard a trembling voice behind him suddenly calling, "Brother Pei."

Pei Ye turned around.

Wen Zai Zi trembled and took out a dirty and wrinkled note from his bosom, and said in a hoarse voice: "If the teacher asks for his last words, I will just give him this sentence and say it is the student's lifelong wish... Please take care of yourself, old man."

Pei Ye took it and looked down. The handwriting was vaguely legible. It was a sentence he had seen before: "The will of heaven has always been difficult to question. Life and death are trivial matters."

……

Late winter, afternoon.

Outside the execution ground, countless soldiers in gray and white uniforms gathered, with faces that were either pale, sad, or angry, and apart from the hoarse sobs, there was only silence.

Under the gaze of countless eyes, the staggering figure was finally pushed out.

He lowered his head. Some people had seen this swaying figure before, but now some did not dare to recognize his weakness and thinness. However, for more people, it was the first time they saw him. From then on, their impression of the three words "Wen Zai Zi" was a dry pine tree in winter.

Then the dry pine was pushed in front of the executioner, who wiped the knife and raised it high.

With his hair loose, he lifted his head as he raised his sword. For the first time, he smiled at the thousands of faces that gathered around him and chanted loudly, "Carrying a long sword and holding a Qin bow, my head and body are separated, but my heart remains unchanged."

The gray sky, cold clouds, dark red ground, and countless angry faces surrounded them. Wen Zaizi's death must have hurt them and made them even more angry.

Pei Ye turned his head before the knife fell, and saw the dignified and simple figure at the edge of the crowd, the same color as the dry weeds on the roadside.

(End of this chapter)