The case of the Weicheng defeat and the massacre of General Jiang’s family by the Hu people was concluded with the verdict that General Jiang’s incompetence and underestimation of the enemy led to the defeat. The Emperor seemed to accept this conclusion and decided not to pursue it further.
But Xie Wenqiao believed there was more to the story.
Although he wasn’t familiar with General Jiang, they had met a few times and worked together. He felt that Jiang didn’t seem like someone who would underestimate the enemy.
On the contrary, General Jiang was known for his caution and meticulousness. How could such a person be careless in defending the city, leading to the complete annihilation of the army, the massacre of the Weicheng populace, and the displacement of the surviving citizens?
Xie Wenqiao found it hard to believe.
Upon returning to the capital, he immediately reviewed General Jiang’s dossier.
From the contents of the dossier, all the blame was placed on General Jiang. However, considering that he had died defending the city and his entire family was massacred, the court decided to retain his official title and not pursue further charges.
If the facts were as stated, Xie Wenqiao wouldn’t show favoritism to anyone and would accept that he had misjudged. However, the facts might not be so straightforward.
Many parts of the dossier were vague and glossed over.
Xie Wenqiao did not trust the dossier’s account.
He needed to re-investigate.
A dossier capable of determining guilt shouldn’t be this simple.
He re-rolled the dossier and set it aside, pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve his fatigue. He heard people outside the carriage discussing Princess Luoyan’s marriage, and he glanced over.
He met He Sui’an’s gaze, who had been looking into the carriage. Xie Wenqiao was slightly surprised, surprised that she and Qi Buyan had also come to Chang’an. Having met them before, he nodded in greeting.
He Sui’an also nodded to him.
Before the curtain fell, Xie Wenqiao unconsciously looked at the young man beside the girl in the red dress.
Qi Buyan hadn’t changed much since their time in Qingzhou. He wore indigo clothes with silver ornaments on his body. However, he seemed a bit taller, making He Sui’an appear even smaller beside him.
Seeing Qi Buyan, Xie Wenqiao inexplicably thought of the deal he had proposed.
At that time, Xie Wenqiao had rejected him.
Because Xie Wenqiao believed that as a court official, he should use his own power to investigate rather than rely on deals with people from the martial world. Therefore, he resolutely rejected Qi Buyan while investigating the matters in Qingzhou.
Yet, Xie Wenqiao couldn’t deny that when he heard Qi Buyan propose the deal, he had a gut feeling that Qi Buyan was capable of accomplishing it.
Later, the Qingzhou matter was resolved.
Xie Wenqiao vaguely guessed who had been orchestrating everything.
It was Qi Buyan.
He was neither hurried nor impatient, patiently guiding the Sanshan Zhenren of Xuanmiao Temple, to reveal his flaws step by step. It was like watching someone appreciate a dying struggle, observing San Shan fall from a high place to the depths.
Xie Wenqiao didn’t know why Qi Buyan did this, but he was certain it wasn’t to punish evil and promote good or to seek justice for the villagers of Hongye Village who had been harmed by San Shan.
The carriage curtain fell.
With his vision obstructed by the curtain, Xie Wenqiao leaned on the low table and closed his eyes to rest.
Outside the carriage, He Sui’an also stopped looking and prepared to return to the inn on the same street with Qi Buyan. Suddenly, a cry of pain spread across the street. Someone had fallen in front of a carriage, claiming to have been hit.
This carriage wasn’t Xie Wenqiao’s.
His carriage had the government insignia. Pedestrians would hurriedly avoid a government carriage, and even if they were hit, they wouldn’t shout loudly but would run away, cursing their bad luck, not daring to cause trouble.
The carriage that hit someone was another one, without any insignia on the outside, making it impossible to identify. However, it looked like a carriage that belonged to someone wealthy.
The man lying in front of the carriage was clutching his knee, rolling around, and continuously shouting for the other party to take responsibility.
He Sui’an was dumbfounded.
How could there be such a shameless person?
It was clear that he had deliberately rushed in front of the moving carriage and then fallen to the ground, yet he had the audacity to demand responsibility. Chang’an City was indeed a mix of all sorts of people.
But she chose not to speak out rashly, deciding to watch quietly. Perhaps the people had their own way of handling it. The maid calmly sent the driver down to check if the man was truly injured.
She asked, “Where are you hurt?”
The man, however, told them not to touch him, saying he was in such pain from being hit that he couldn’t bear any more fussing. He loudly demanded either money to see a doctor or to be taken to the authorities.
He Sui’an didn’t see anyone from the “hitting” carriage step out, but he did see Xie Wenqiao’s carriage stop. He walked over, passing through the crowd of onlookers.
The maid’s expression froze slightly when she saw him.
Xie Wenqiao ignored the maid and looked at the man.
He pulled out a waist badge and said, “No need to go to the authorities. I am an official. I won’t hurt you. Let me examine your injuries…”
Before Xie Wenqiao could finish his sentence, He Sui’an heard a clear and delicate female voice from the carriage: “Zhi Mo, give him ten taels of silver to see a doctor, and don’t worry about anything else.”
This implied she didn’t want to make a fuss.
Xie Wenqiao looked towards the carriage.
He seemed somewhat incredulous, not understanding why such a fiery person would handle things this way. In the past, she would have likely jumped out of the carriage and beaten the deceitful man herself.
The maid named Zhi Mo took out a purse and threw it to the man, saying, “Go see a doctor.”
The man grabbed the purse and quickly left.
Xie Wenqiao clenched his hand inside his sleeve but said nothing. He turned back to his own carriage, and the two different carriages went their separate ways.
The onlookers on the street dispersed, and He Sui’an also left. She had stayed just to see what would happen to the man who was trying to scam money. To her surprise, he succeeded and ran off with the silver.
Having witnesses made no difference.
The woman in the carriage had refused Xie Wenqiao’s help, clearly wanting to avoid trouble and not be delayed over some silver.
He Sui’an didn’t meddle any further.
On the way back to the inn, a gust of wind blew, and a loose silk ribbon from her hair was carried away, falling into a dark alley beside her. The ribbon was new.
He Sui’an asked Qi Buyan to wait for her.
She ran to the alley entrance to retrieve it.
In the dim moonlight, she saw a few figures in the alley.
One was the maid named Zhi Mo, another was the coachman, and the man who had taken the ten taels of silver was being pinned to the ground and beaten.
The one doing the beating was a woman in luxurious clothing. She raised her sleeve, her punches landing solidly: “Do you know who I am, daring to scam my silver? You deserve this beating.”
The man, with a bruised and swollen face, begged for mercy.
“Grandma, I know I was wrong.”
Zhi Mo said helplessly, “Princess, we should go back. You don’t need to personally teach people a lesson every time. You can just order the servants to do it.”
The coachman, having been with the woman for many years and understanding her temperament, wisely kept silent and stood like a statue nearby.
The woman snorted coldly.
She vented her anger with a few more punches.
The man cried out in pain, now genuinely injured: “Please, stop hitting me.”
The woman’s hand began to hurt from hitting, so she switched to kicking, delivering a fierce kick to the man: “Who does Xie Wenqiao think he is? I, the princess, handle my own affairs. I don’t need his intervention.”
Zhi Mo’s eyelids twitched.
She couldn’t help but remember how, back then, it was the princess who persistently pursued Xie Wenqiao, making it known to everyone.
As a princess, she could have kept many lovers both before and after marriage, yet her mistress had none, having spent all her time chasing after Xie Wenqiao.
Zhi Mo admitted that Xie Wenqiao was indeed exceptionally handsome.
But as a princess, one shouldn’t be fixated on just one person. She often felt frustrated by the princess’s stubbornness.
When she learned that the princess had given up on Xie Wenqiao, Zhi Mo was happier than anyone else. But this year, when she was informed that the princess was to be married off to the remote kingdom of Nanliang, she felt heartbroken for her mistress.
He Sui’an’s gaze passed over Zhi Mo and landed on the face of the woman beating the man.
After the beating, the woman stood up straight. The elaborate princess dress didn’t hinder her agile movements. The golden hairpin in her hair was barely holding on, and her earrings swayed, reddening her cheeks.
The hem of her dress, embroidered with peonies symbolizing nobility, dragged on the ground. The bi-colored silk draped over her arms and waist was wrinkled, but it didn’t diminish her inherent elegance. Her appearance was strikingly beautiful.
Her wrists, exposed by her raised sleeves, were adorned with several gold bracelets, and a piece of red jade hung from her neck.
The red jade emitted a translucent glow.
Standing a bit far away, He Sui’an couldn’t see the red jade clearly but heard Zhi Mo calling out to the princess. There was only one princess in the Great Zhou Dynasty, and that was Princess Luoyan, soon to be married off to Nanliang.
Princess Luoyan had quite a unique temperament.
She publicly gave the man silver, then privately dragged him into the alley for a beating.
He Sui’an didn’t disturb those in the alley. She quietly picked up her ribbon and returned to Qi Buyan, who didn’t question why it took her so long to retrieve a ribbon.
They returned to the inn before the curfew. The innkeeper closed the doors and sat in the lobby, ready to attend to any nighttime requests from guests.
Past midnight, the inn became quiet.
In her room, He Sui’an stood before the mirror, raising her hand to untie the ribbon in her hair. Moments later, the table was covered with over a dozen ribbons. Once all the ribbons were untied, her long hair cascaded down.
Qi Buyan walked to the wardrobe and took out a bundle. The bundle was wrapped in two layers, with books on the top layer, pressing down the clothes. To get the clothes out, he had to remove the books first.
He pushed the cloth-wrapped books aside.
The knot on the cloth was loosely tied.
As Qi Buyan reached for the clothes, the books slipped out of the cloth, falling to the ground with a clatter. He Sui’an was startled and wanted to go over to help pick up the books, but then the innkeeper knocked on the door to deliver water.
He Sui’an had to open the door and take the water from the innkeeper.
Qi Buyan bent down to pick up the books.
Some of the books had fallen open, and he closed them one by one, putting them back in place.
When he reached the last book, Qi Buyan’s fingers paused in mid-air. That book had somehow been mixed in with the Gu books. Its content was very different, distinguishable at a glance.
The page that had fallen open didn’t show specific features of men or women, but it did have illustrations.
There were several small illustrations, each showing a hand. The top illustration showed a single finger being inserted into a certain place; the middle illustration showed two fingers; the bottom illustration showed three fingers.
These illustrations conveyed the idea of gradually increasing the number of fingers to help someone adapt and thus please the other person. The fingers were clearly depicted, fitting into that small place.
Qi Buyan felt confused and didn’t immediately close the book.
That place was clearly very small.
How could it accommodate several fingers?
