Song Yi

Chapter 402 Great sorrow and great joy
The Empress Dowager said: "Little Jiaozi, go with General Du to announce the mourning order, and let Mei Cairen and Chen Meiren be buried for the emperor at their own convenience! For Yu Ge'er, Su Cairen and Imperial Physician Wei Zhan Don't be buried!"

Eunuch Jiao hurriedly bowed and said, "Yes! Receive the Queen Mother's order!"

Du Wenhao hurriedly asked: "Queen Mother, will the minister also go to announce the decree?"

"En!" The Empress Dowager smiled, "You tried your best to persuade the Ai family to spare the three of them from being buried. Let them remember this love in your body, so that they can repay you with weeds in the future."

Du Wenhao chuckled: "This is all the grace of the Queen Mother. How can I have any credit for this humble minister, and the humble minister will explain it when he announces his decree."

At this time, the sound of the cloud board was heard in the distance. It was already the second watch, and there was only one hour left before the time-limited suicide.The Empress Dowager said: "Go! Finish the work early and go back to rest early. It will be triggered tomorrow, and you have to be responsible for guarding along the way. The responsibility is heavy!"

Du Wenhao bowed and said, "Yes! I will resign!"

Du Wenhao and Eunuch Jiao came out, led a group of eunuchs, maids, and thugs, and went straight to the side hall next to Funing Hall.Song Shenzong's funeral coffin was parked in the Funing Hall, and in the side store next to it, Yu Geer and other four concubines who were about to be buried were waiting here.

Eunuch Jiao knew that the empress dowager asked Du Wenhao to be a good person, so he said on the way: "General Du, don't rush to declare the empress dowager's decree later, after our family sends the other two empresses to heaven, you can proclaim the decree again. To show the kindness of the Empress Dowager, and secondly, to make the two empresses feel that they are with each other, and return to heaven with peace of mind. It will make you feel better. How about it?"

Du Wenhao nodded and said: "Elder-in-law's idea is very benevolent, there is no reason for me not to obey."

After the two agreed, they explained to the eunuchs and maids, and then they came to the side hall.

In the side hall, the four empresses, maids, and nuns were crying together. When they heard the hurried footsteps outside the hall, and the guards scolded and avoided them, they knew that the end was approaching, and they cried loudly.

Eunuch Jiao pushed open the palace door with one palm, walked into the hall with a sullen face, glanced at the weeping women hugging each other, and said in a sharp voice: "Our family obeys the order of the Queen Mother to send the buried concubine to heaven! The miscellaneous people wait to avoid quickly!"

None of these women had the guts to resist the decree, knowing that it would be useless to beg the father-in-law to declare the decree, they cried and retreated to the side, knelt on the ground, and wept bitterly.

Eunuch Jiao waved his hands blankly, and eight eunuchs came over with black lacquer and gold trays in their hands, on which were placed four white silks and four exquisite small porcelain vases.

Mr. Jiao said: "Four ladies, the emperor and the empress dowager will lead the funeral tomorrow. The empress dowager's order has been explained. Before midnight tonight, I invite the four ladies to take care of themselves. Now I have prepared the white silk and the crimson crest. The empress dowager You can choose one of the days."

Yu Ge'er was already in tears. Hearing this, he trembled like a little quail. He looked at Du Wenhao in despair, and mourned, "General, save me...!"

Now that Du Wenhao wanted to witness the suicide of the two empresses with his own eyes, it was not a pleasure after all. Although he knew that Yu Ge'er had been spared from being buried, he couldn't say it out loud, so he stood there expressionlessly.

Yu Ge'er's personal maids and nuns turned around and kowtowed to Du Wenhao, begging for mercy.

Chen Meiren's originally beautiful face has been scratched to pieces by Queen Xiang, and she is also blind in one eye. She has been pretending to be crazy for so long, and she has already described it as haggard, but after all, she is greedy for life, even though she already knows it It was inevitable, but after hearing Yu Geer's begging and the precedent of Du Wenhao saving his life, he couldn't help but see the hope. On the ground, he mourned in a hoarse voice: "General... help...!"

Naturally, Chen Meiren's maid also knelt down to Du Wenhao, crying and begging for help.

Su Clan was already so frightened that all three souls and seven souls almost dissipated, almost like a walking corpse, just waiting to die, but now seeing Yu Ge'er and the two of them kneeling down and kowtow begging, it's natural to be greedy for life and fear death, let alone being forced to He was even more unwilling to be buried, knowing that this General Du was a figure in the court who covered the sky with one hand, and was a famous person in front of the empress dowager. If he begged her, he might get his life, so he didn't care about face.Kneeling down on the ground mournfully, waiting to pray, he was so frightened and desperate that he couldn't speak.

Her personal maid, Mammy, cried and kowtowed, begging non-stop: "General, General! Please, please bypass our mother!" "Let this servant die for your mother!"...

All of a sudden, there was a lot of crying in the room, and the sound of kowtowing was like a drum beating. Eunuch Jiao became irritable, flicked his sleeves and robes, and said sharply: "It's an honor to die for the emperor, to return to heaven to serve the emperor, and you just did it!" This miserable look is really boring, come on! Pull away all the idlers and wait for the four empresses to go to heaven!"

The eunuchs, palace maids and thugs agreed in unison, rushed up and dragged the maids and nuns kneeling in front of Du Wenhao out of the hall by their hair and hands and feet.The eight eunuchs knelt down and lifted the tray high.

Su's body went limp, and he collapsed on the ground. He was so frightened that he couldn't even cry.

Yu Ge'er managed to remain calm. Seeing that Du Wenhao was silent and expressionless, knowing that he was unlucky, he stretched out his hand tremblingly, touched the folded white silk, and flinched as if being electrocuted. Returning, the maid next to her urged her sharply, and tremblingly went to get the porcelain vase containing the crimson crest, touched the cork, but she didn't have the courage to pull it out, and tears fell down like pearls with broken strings.

Chen Meiren prostrated herself on the ground, begging for help.

Only Mrs. Mei, who had been standing there, walked over slowly at this moment, glanced at the two things on the tray, hesitated for a moment, reached out and grabbed the white silk, and walked under the beam. An eunuch had already brought in two sets of footsteps. high and low coffee table.With the support of the eunuch, Mrs. Mei stepped up to a high place, shook her hands and hung the white silk on the beam, tied the end into a knot, pulled it, it was very strong, grabbed the white silk with both hands, and said to the sky: "Your majesty, my concubine is here to accompany you..."

Fen's head penetrated into the white silk ring rope, kicked hard with his feet, lowered his hands, twisted his body a few times, and then hung in mid-air without moving.

Mei's suicide and burial frankly made the other three empresses terrified. Chen Meiren heard the crying loudly, and saw a corpse floating in the air with one eye, she was frightened out of her wits, her body went limp, and she collapsed on the ground, her legs As soon as the room was hot, he was already incontinent to urinate.

Eunuch Jiao sneered, turned his head and said to the maids and eunuchs beside him: "Look, Madam Chen is so scared that she peed her pants. It seems that she can't go on the road. What are you standing there for? Waiting for Madam to die!"

Four or five court ladies and eunuchs swarmed up, grabbed Chen Meiren's arms, and held her legs and feet so that she could not move. One of them pulled her hair to make her raise her neck, and the other five big and three thick palace ladies pinched Chen Meiren's waist with her left hand. Nose, right hand stretched apart and pinched her cheek hard, squeezing her mouth open.

An eunuch next to him took the small bottle of Hedinghong from the black lacquer tray, pulled out the cork, and poured the whole small bottle of light red powder into Chen Meiren's mouth. The spout of the teapot was stuffed into Chen Meiren's mouth, and half of the pot of water was forced into it.

That stout palace lady has obviously done this kind of thing a lot, and her technique is very skilled. When pouring water, she turned her head up, pinched Chen Meiren's mouth to prevent her from spitting out, and pinched her nose until she was out of breath and couldn't help falling down. Swallowing, seeing that the medicine powder in the mouth was swallowed with the water, and Chen Meiren was almost out of breath because her eyes were rolling white because of breathlessness, so she let go.

Chen Meiren kept panting and coughing, and wanted to stretch out her index finger to scratch her throat, but her arms were held tightly by the maids and eunuchs on both sides, so she couldn't move.He looked up to the sky and hoo hoo repeatedly, but he didn't know whether he was crying or laughing.

After a while, Chen Meiren's stomach hurt like a knife, and her body kept twisting. The maids and eunuchs driving her arms on both sides knew that the poison in her stomach was attacking, so they threw her back and fell to the ground.

Chen Meiren was rolling on the floor with her stomach in her arms, foaming at the mouth, panting rapidly, struggling to kneel on the ground, reaching out to pick her throat, retching, only spitting out some sour water.

Chen Meiren immediately collapsed on the ground, rolled her eyes white, gasped and hissed while retching, "Water..., I'm so thirsty..., water, give me water...!"

Du Wenhao knew that this was the initial symptom of Hedinghong (arsenic) poisoning, and there were more uncomfortable ones later.

Sure enough, after waiting for a moment, Chen Meiren held her belly and screamed, rolled all over the floor, screaming that it hurts, retching, and panting.Then there was a smell of feces, and Chen Meiren's body was covered with watery light yellow feces, rolling all over the floor.

Eunuch Jiao and the eunuchs and maids held their noses and backed away.

Then, Chen Meiren screamed and had a headache, and hit her head on the ground like a drum, with blood dripping on her forehead, but she just couldn't die.After a while, he finally collapsed on the ground, with one eye turned up, from panting heavily to only exhaling but not inhaling, his body kept twitching.

After a while, Chen Meiren twisted her body a few times, then stopped breathing and remained motionless, her scarred face was twisted, very ferocious, her single eye was still wide open, staring at the ceiling, as if she was looking at something humanlike.

Eunuch Jiao glanced at Du Wenhao, saw that he didn't intend to step forward to check whether he was dead, so he stepped forward, pinched his nose and squatted down, first breathed, and then stretched out two fingers to touch the carotid artery, to confirm Chen's death. The beauty was dead, she nodded slowly, got up and walked to Du Wenhao, said with a smile: "General, our family's affairs are finished, and the rest will be left to you."

Du Wenhao walked towards Su Shi and Yu Ge'er with his hands behind his back without saying a word.

Seeing the tragic death of Chen Meiren being poisoned, Mrs. Su was already petrified. She lost control of her urine and there was a puddle of light yellow urine wet between her legs. She stared at Du Wenhao dully.

Yu Ge'er no longer had any illusions, seeing Chen Meiren's miserable appearance, she made up her mind to hang herself from the beam, and now her pretty face had lost any color. Du Wenhao smiled miserably: "General, thank you for coming to see me off!"

The probe grabbed the white silk on the tray in the eunuch's hand, looked back at the weeping nanny at the entrance of the hall, and said, "Mother...! My son is gone!"

Turning around, he got on the high table, shaking his hands and flying Bai Ling towards the beam.

Du Wenhao rushed forward and kicked off the high chair under her feet.

The white silk in Yu Ge'er's hand hadn't been put on the crossbeam yet, her feet were empty, and with an oops, she fell from mid-air. Du Wenhao reached out to catch her, put her down firmly, and said with a smile, "Your Majesty, you don't have to die!"

"Ah?" Yu Ge'er exclaimed, staring at him, not understanding what he meant.

Du Wenhao's hands holding her shoulders tightened, and he said in a loud voice: "The Empress Dowager's oral order - avoid Yu Ge'er and Mei's burial!"

Yu Ge'er's delicate body was startled, and she stayed on the spot.

Eunuch Jiao also said in a high-pitched voice: "You two ladies, this is the empress dowager's grace, and it is also the result of General Du's pleading, you must keep it in your heart!" With a wave of his hand, he led the eunuchs, maids and thugs out.

After hearing this, Yu Ge'er and Mei's maids outside the palace felt like a spring thunder on a sunny day. They were so happy that their hearts would explode, but they couldn't believe this fact. Seeing Eunuch Jiao leading people After leaving, I completely believed in the good news from heaven, and they all rushed into the hall with a huff:
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty doesn't need to die!" "Thank you Bodhisattva!" "Thank God!" "Thank you Empress Dowager", "Thank you General Du...!"

All the girls surrounded the two ladies and cheered happily, but Yu Ge'er was stunned in grief and joy, standing there, holding the white silk in his hand, staring blankly at Du Wenhao, two lines of tears flowed silently down.

Su, who was sitting on the ground, still sat there stupidly, as if he didn't hear Du Wenhao's words at all.Her nanny hugged her into her arms and cried, "My son! Empress Dowager Grace, you don't have to be buried! —— My son, don't scare your mother like this, cry! Cry out now ah……!"

Su's soul lingered and finally returned to her body. She turned her face to look at the nanny in a daze. She didn't have to kill herself, she finally understood, she put her arms around the nanny, and cried out loud.

Du Wenhao looked at it with a shy smile, turned to leave, but was stopped by Yu Ge'er: "General, please wait!"

Du Wenhao stood still and turned around, Yu Ge'er took two steps forward, knelt down and kowtowed, weeping uncontrollably: "Thank you General for your life, Ge'er never forgets!..."

Just as Du Wenhao was about to reach out to help, the Su family over there also knelt down and crawled over to kowtow: "Thank you, General, for your life...!"

Du Wenhao clasped his arms in emptiness: "Your Majesty, please rise up, please hurry up, both Your Majesties, this is the empress dowager's kindness. I don't dare to accept this great kindness."

The two empresses knelt down, and the maids and nuns naturally followed suit, bowing their heads in joy and sorrow.

At this time, a few eunuchs and maids came in from outside the door, put down the body of Mei Cairen who was hanging in the air, and together with the body of Chen Meiren who was twisted on the ground, lifted them up and placed them on the soft couch, and then carried them away for burial. Burial at dawn.

Seeing the bodies of the other two empresses who had just died being carried away, the maids and mothers of the two empresses outside the hall were crying and screaming. Wen Hao's life-saving grace.Kowtow again to thank you.

Du Wenhao said a few words of comfort. Seeing that it was late at night, he asked the two ladies' personal maids and nuns to help the two ladies go back to the palace to rest. Cited funeral.

Yu Ge'er and Mei's family were even more grateful to Du Wenhao for his thoughtfulness. They said goodbye with tears of gratitude, and left with the maids and nuns.

Du Wenhao went out of Funing Palace, Eunuch Jiao was waiting there with a team of maids, eunuchs, eunuchs and thugs, and the two went to the prison in sedan chairs.Where is Wei Zhan, the imperial physician of Dafangmai, still waiting to die? He has to rush to announce the pardon as soon as possible.

The Heavenly Prison is in the northwest corner of the imperial city, and the guards here are heavily guarded. On the way, Du Wenhao discussed with Mr. Jiao and wanted to use this matter to find out the situation of the case, so don't announce the pardon of Wei Zhan's capital crime for the time being.

So after the two came to the prison, Eunuch Jiao stayed in the prison outside, and only Du Wenhao went in to inquire about the situation.

Du Wenhao came to the basement where the death row prisoner was held. Wei Zhan was a prisoner and was locked alone in a dark and damp room at the innermost. Du Wenhao even felt a chill all over his body and couldn't help shivering.

The light in the basement was dim, and Du Wenhao could only see a figure curled up in a corner, with a thick wooden shackle around his neck, and long iron chains as thick as thumbs on his hands and feet.

Before Du Wenhao could identify who it was, the man had already recognized him and exclaimed, "Master Du? Is it you? Master Du."

Hearing the voice, Du Wenhao also recognized the voice of Wei Zhan, the Imperial Physician, and said: "Master Wei, I am Du Wenhao. I heard that you have been released from death row and will be executed tomorrow. I am here to see you off."

Wei Zhan already knew the news that he was going to be executed tomorrow, and he smiled miserably when he heard the news: "Thank you, Mr. Du, for your righteousness. I don't dare to be an old man."

Du Wenhao ordered the jailer to serve a banquet.Knowing the weight of the general in front of him, the head of the prison prison hurriedly agreed, and soon bought a table of good banquets and brought them over, and set up dishes, chopsticks, tables and chairs in the prison.

Du Wenhao ordered to temporarily remove the wooden shackle from Wei Zhan's neck, and the prison chief naturally did so, and personally helped Wei Zhan remove the wooden shackle.

Du Wenhao asked the cell boss and guards to retreat outside, and then called Wei Zhan to sit down.After Wei Zhan pleaded guilty, he sat down with his body bent.

He took a drink from the wine glass and said, "Lord Wei, I heard that on the day the emperor passed away, you were too greedy to rescue the emperor in time, did you?"

Wei Zhan took a gulp from his cup, lowered his head and said, "My lord, I failed to save the emperor. If I blame the results, I have nothing to say, and I will die without complaint. However, I really don't drink too much! It's been several years since I have not Drinking! Besides, adults should also know that the imperial doctor is on duty and always follows the emperor. How can there be a chance to drink? How can there be a drink?"

Du Wenhao nodded: "What happened at that time? Tell me and listen."

Wei Zhan let out a long sigh: "Tomorrow, what's the use of talking about it? It's better to have a big drink and go to the execution ground!" After finishing speaking, he poured himself a big glass, and bowed his hands in greeting: "Thank you, my lord! Give me wine!" He drank a large glass of wine in one gulp, choking and coughing again and again.

Du Wenhao waited for him to cough for a while, and then said in a deep voice: "To be honest, the Empress Dowager ordered me to investigate your case. If you can tell the truth, maybe there will be a turnaround."

Wei Zhan smiled wryly: "Turning? I will ask at noon tomorrow, where did the turning point come from? Besides, the old man has no idea what happened, so how can he get rid of his grievances?"

(End of this chapter)