PDLP Chapter 222 With the help of Deputy General Mao Zhong, Wei Mai Danxia was finally brought to justice
Chapter 222 With the help of Deputy General Mao Zhong, Wei Mai Danxia was finally brought to justice
He pushed up his round-framed glasses, and the wolf-hair brush, soaked in ink, rustled on the rice paper.
And look at the people's hearts in Chang'an City; they are probably even more frivolous than the willow catkins of Ba Bridge.
The emperor on the dragon throne had become a puppet in the hands of women.
Wife Wei Mai and daughter Danxia, dressed in brocade robes, tried to emulate Empress Mei Xiaosi's grand style of ruling from behind the throne, unaware that countless dreams of "female Yao and Shun" were already buried among the piles of bones outside the palace walls...
Wang Maozhong is quite a character. The son of a servant, he is exceptionally clever and quick-witted. When serving his master, he is even more astute than the high-ranking officials in the imperial court.
When the soldiers in the Wanqi Camp got drunk on yellow wine, he would take out some silver to pay the bill; if a captain contracted malaria, he would remember to send him a few doses of medicine... Such behavior would earn praise not only from Wang Sanlang Zi'an of Linzi, a discerning man, but also from the peddlers and laborers on Zhuque Street, who would say, "What a thoughtful and caring person!"
Fate loves to play tricks on people. Just moments before, Mei Xiaosi's soul had dissipated into smoke, and now this wandering spirit has returned from the Yellow Springs—it's as if the night watchman in Chang'an missed his clapper, causing the bowl of Meng Po soup to be spilled into the River of Oblivion.
Coincidentally, when Sanlang Zian rode back to the capital overnight, the dust kicked up by his horse's hooves was enough to blind even the King of Hell. At that moment, the dark-skinned, thin servant Wang Maozhong became a moving human screen in front of his master, his fingers holding the bow as steady as steel nails driven into bricks, making one wonder if he was Hou Yi reincarnated in the wrong life!
Now, it is said that Sanlang Zi'an's methods of using money were even more ruthless than those of the cheaters in gambling dens. The soldiers of the Ten Thousand Cavalry Camp ate flatbread dipped in mutton soup, completely unaware that the bottom of the soup contained the gold beans of the Prince of Linzi's mansion; half of the bugle calls from the North Gate guards were the footsteps of Wang Maozhong and Li Yide secretly delivering a secret message in the dark. The cracks in the bricks before Xuanwu Gate were seeping with the DNA of the previous dynasty, yet they insisted on pouring newly brewed rice wine into them—drunken loyalty and courage are the easiest to ignite!
Qilang Zian's wife and daughters ultimately lacked Mei Xiaosi's queenly insight. On the day they poisoned Qilang Zian, they were probably only concerned with trying on the Nine Dragons Holding a Pearl hairpin in front of the bronze mirror, unaware that three hundred poisoned daggers sent by the Prince of Linzi's manor had long been buried under the horse trough of the Ten Thousand Cavalry Camp.
Was it meager or towering? In any case, these two incompetent generals treated military command like a game of taming beasts. Today they embezzled rations, tomorrow they whipped the captains, turning what should have been a powder keg into a hot stove. When Ge Fushun and his ilk stormed into the Prince's mansion with bloodshot eyes, the bloodstains under Chen Xuanli's armor were more dazzling than the phoenix crown that Xia Dan had always coveted.
Xiao Si laughed: "Are you talking about those two idiots, Wei Bo and Gao Song? Do they really think the Ten Thousand Cavalry Battalion is their own pet hounds? They only care about whipping the enemy and striking them with their batons, but they don't know that these warriors' tempers cannot tolerate even the slightest spark!"
Ge Fushun, son of guerrilla general Ge Dewei, stormed into the Linzi Prince's mansion with bloodshot eyes, ignoring the bloodstains on his back. He was like a firecracker blazing in the sweltering heat of summer—if Liu Youqiu, that old fox, were to lightly blow a tinderbox, he would instantly cause a city-wide uproar!
The sound of the clapper stuck in the watchman's throat. The glint of the swords of the Wanqi Camp, however, was more timely than the water clock. The vermilion paint on the palace walls, splashed with hot blood, looked like a red silk draped over the newly appointed top scholar.
On one side, Wei Mai was fleeing, clutching half a tattered imperial edict. The clatter of her golden hairpin falling to the ground was even more urgent than a death knell. On the other side, Princess Danxia was trying on her pomegranate skirt in front of a bronze mirror when she suddenly saw a waterfall of blood gushing from the mirror—it was a red peony blooming on her own neck…
The most remarkable thing was that lowly soldier from the Flying Cavalry, the bald-headed soldier who had been kneeling and licking the mud off the Empress's skirt just the other day, now had his rusty knife gleaming. When the Empress's phoenix crown fell to the dust, the rolling beads looked like eyeballs that had popped out of her head!
Sanlang Zian stood with his hands behind his back under the waning moon at the palace gate, looking at the two gilded and painted heads, which looked like a pair of rag dolls torn apart by naughty children—the karmic ledger had been marked with a red circle by Yama, and the principal and interest were actually paid with rouge and blood... The king's flag changed on the walls of Chang'an, and a bloodstain the size of a bowl appeared on Danxia's "trying on new clothes".
Before the blood had even cooled, the strange tale had already spread throughout Chang'an—at the crucial moment when the signal fire was lit that night, Wang Maozhong vanished into thin air amidst the chaos of the army, as if he had been strangled by a ghost. Even more strangely, three days later, when he returned leisurely from Zhongnan Mountain, the hem of his robe was still stained with incense ash from the Taoist temple, and in his bosom was a petition for merit jointly signed by ten thousand cavalrymen.
Anyone with eyes could see the oddity: the gold-inlaid silver knife that Ge Fushun was wearing at his waist was an old item from the Linzi Prince's treasury. But when Wang Maozhong was being conferred the title of general below the steps, he looked like an old locust tree charred by lightning, without a trace of general's air about him.
The historian's pen hovered over the "Records of Meritorious Officials," hesitant to write. Children in the neighborhood clapped and sang: "Golden beans exchanged for cold iron armor, golden elixir hidden in incense ash, the general was originally a painted-skin ghost, crying every night at Xuanwu Pass..." But by the end, someone would always cover their mouth—Wang Maozhong's house was in Liquanfang, and the copper bells on the eaves rang more chillingly than the instruments of torture in the Dali Temple.
As the copper bells of Liquanfang rang in the middle of the night, Xiao Si was leaning against the observatory, peeling grapes from the Western Regions, and reading the folk songs that Wang Maozhong had sent people to find:
Hey hey listen to me sing.
It is said that a timely snowfall promises a bumper harvest.
But what does this bumper harvest look like?
We need to take a closer look.
The poor in Chang'an were busy.
Life was as tough as a battlefield.
This auspicious snow, don't go too crazy!
How can the poor endure such desolation?
Everyone says that auspicious snow is a good omen.
A bountiful harvest brings joy to the heart.
However, the poor people frowned.
When will the endless snow and sorrow cease?
The roads are difficult to travel in the icy and snowy weather.
Hunger and cold are a cause for worry.
If this snow doesn't stop...
The poor suffer endlessly.
It was chilly on the streets of Chang'an.
The poor man, dressed alone, is full of energy.
Watching the snowflakes fall,
My heart is filled with helplessness and worries.
Everyone says a good harvest is a good thing.
But this auspicious snow was excessive.
The poor long for the warm sun to leave.
Less snow, please!
The purple juice from her fingertips dripped onto the poem "Snowy Admonition," which happened to blur the "abundant fruits" of the second image—a very auspicious sign. However, as she gazed at the newly bestowed general's mansion by Wang Maozhong, the bitter taste of Meng Po soup suddenly rose in her throat.
"What a brilliant plan to kill three birds with one stone!" She chuckled, twirling a grape seed between her fingers. A crow flitting by the eaves startled the hairpin dangling from her temple.
Three days ago, when Wang Maozhong "disappeared," she clearly saw golden smoke rising from the direction of Zhongnan Mountain, and the trajectory of the smoke column coincided with the birth date and time of Sanlang Zian. Even more strangely, this morning the Wanqi Camp delivered gilded armor, and the seams of the armor plates were covered with red pine pollen unique to Zhongnan Mountain.
The palace maids all said that the newly appointed Assistant General's mansion was filled with revelry every night, but Xiao Si noticed that something was wrong with the stone beast perched on the eaves—the Suanni, which used to open its mouth to swallow the moon, now looked like it was holding half a human bone in its mouth.
She deliberately smashed the rhinoceros horn vessel used for astrology in front of the general's mansion. The hollow echo was even more startling than the chime bells of the Imperial Ancestral Temple!