“You’d better let me hit you a few times. That feels more real.”
Wei Yunzhao: “...Alright.”
“Where?” Wei Yunzhao asked sincerely.
Jiang Lin’s gaze swept over him, finally landing on the wheelchair. “Your butt. How about you stand up and let me hit you a couple of times?”
Wei Yunzhao had never been so grateful for his inability to stand.
But his feelings were complicated. “Since when did Madam develop such a hobby?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Just now. It suddenly came to me,” Jiang Lin replied with a smile, his eyes filled with anticipation.
Wei Yunzhao extended his hand, intending to substitute it for his butt. Jiang Lin didn’t hold back, slapping the back of his hand. “Alright, I won’t hold it against you this time.”
Jiang Lin still had several wounds on his body, and Wei Yunzhao wasn’t foolish enough to ask if he was in pain without thinking. He simply advised him to drink more water. It was self-evident what kind of water he should drink.
Jiang Lin poured himself a cup and drank it down. “Don’t worry. It should only take a few days to heal. Su Qiao’s wounds should also be bandaged by now. Let’s go check on her.”
As he pushed Wei Yunzhao out the door, Jiang Lin suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to ask Doctor Zhu if Su Qiao’s severed tendons could be treated.
When they arrived, Su Qiao had just finished being bandaged. Doctor Zhu was instructing Bai Zhi and Bai Wei on what to watch for and handed them two prescriptions. “The one with more medicine is for this young lady. The other is for your young master. He has a strong constitution, so one dose should suffice.”
Bai Zhi and Bai Wei acknowledged the instructions, and Jiang Lin took the opportunity to ask Doctor Zhu about Su Qiao’s tendons. Doctor Zhu sighed and shook his head. “It’s difficult. My skills are limited, and I can’t treat it. You’ll need to find a more skilled physician.”
Jiang Lin nodded in understanding and thanked Doctor Zhu. “Thank you, Doctor Zhu. You’ve worked hard today. I’ll have the steward arrange a carriage to take you back.”
After seeing Doctor Zhu off, Jiang Lin pushed Wei Yunzhao into the room. Su Qiao, covered in bandages, wasn’t lying down but sitting in a chair.
Seeing Jiang Lin and Wei Yunzhao enter, Su Qiao smiled and greeted them. “General, Young Madam.”
Jiang Lin asked about her condition, and Su Qiao replied, “Thank you, Young Madam. It’s painful, but I can bear it. It’s just that I can’t walk, so I’ll have to trouble the maids.”
“If you need anything, just call for someone,” Jiang Lin said. That wasn’t a big issue.
He then asked, “Can you tell us what happened today?”
As soon as Jiang Lin finished speaking, Wei Yunzhao suddenly spoke up. “Su Qiao, what secret are you hiding?”
Wei Yunzhao’s tone was firm, and his gaze fell on Jiang Lin, with a little more sharpness than usual.
Su Qiao said, “General, I didn’t intentionally keep it from you. It’s just that everyone who knew this secret is dead. My father, the person who delivered the letter to me, and my nanny, all of them are dead.”
Wei Yunzhao’s voice turned cold. “If you don’t speak, more people will die. Now that you’ve entered the Wei family, do you still think the Wei family can remain uninvolved?”
Even if she hadn’t entered, Wei Yunzhao and Jiang Lin had already appeared at the small courtyard and saved her. They were already implicated.
Su Qiao gave a bitter smile. “I’ve dragged them into this, and now I’ve dragged you and the Young Madam into it as well. When I saw my nanny die in front of me today, blocking a blade for me, I wondered if I hadn’t insisted on coming to Shengjing, would so many innocent people still be alive?”
Jiang Lin interjected, “But you’re already here, and what’s done is done. Regretting it now is useless. You can only think of a way to ensure that no more people are dragged into this.”
“Of course, the Wei family doesn’t count. The Wei family has never been uninvolved.”
Su Qiao slowly began to speak. “It’s about a letter. The people who interrogated me today and those who hunted me before were all after a letter. That’s why everyone else is dead, and I’m still alive. Right now, I’m the only one in the world who knows where that letter is hidden.”
Her injuries were proof. They had severed her tendons so she couldn’t run or move, slashed her repeatedly to torture her, and forced her to reveal the letter’s location, yet they hadn’t killed her.
“My father was the dog emperor’s man, a spy planted to monitor General Wei,” Su Qiao revealed a piece of news that shocked Jiang Lin and Wei Yunzhao.
“Over the years, he reported General Wei’s movements to the dog emperor through the emperor’s secret guards. My father received many secret letters. The last secret letter asked him to kill General Wei. If he failed to do so, the price would be the lives of all the people in the Su family.”
“I don’t know if it was out of guilt or because he had spent so many years by General Wei’s side that he forgot his true identity, but he chose not to carry out the order. Instead, he died alongside General Wei and the other soldiers at the border. My father made a copy of the secret letter that was supposed to be burned and sent it home, along with another letter explaining what he had done over the years, urging the family to prepare and escape early.”
“But… the letter arrived too late. By the time it reached home, I was the only one left in the Su and Lu families.”
Su Qiao gave a self-deprecating smile, her eyes red. “My father probably didn't expect that no matter what choice he made, that person would never let his family go. The letter came back too late, and the people who wanted to kill the Su family came too early. At first, those people just wanted to kill me because I was a member of the Su family, but their purpose changed after I got the letter that my father had someone send back.”
“Was the letter ordering Su Yuan to kill my father written by Emperor Changde himself?” Wei Yunzhao asked.
Su Qiao nodded. “Yes, that’s what my father wrote in the letter. The previous secret letters were also written by him. The handwriting matches.”
Wei Yunzhao continued, “Where is the letter now?”
“At the border,” Su Qiao said. “My father wrote in the letter that he buried it at the border. I don’t know the exact location, but he said the General would be able to find it if he went there.”
“The copied letter was taken by those people. After they got it, they forced my nanny and me off a cliff. Perhaps they later realized the handwriting didn’t match and couldn’t find our bodies at the bottom of the cliff, so they started searching for us again, demanding to know the location of the secret letter.”
“General, I came to Shengjing to ask you to go to the border and retrieve that letter. I didn’t burn the letter my father wrote to me, I hid it instead. If we can present both letters together, perhaps we can seek justice. I know the dead cannot be brought back to life, but they cannot have died in vain.”
So many lives lost.
The Son of Heaven, planting spies among his officials and writing secret letters ordering them to eliminate meritorious officials of the court. Such despicable behavior, if exposed to the world and made known to all, how many court officials would be able to sincerely respect or look up to him.
No wonder, a cornered dog like him would jump over a wall and acted so brazenly in Shengjing.
[狗急跳墙 (gǒu jí tiào qiáng): lit. a cornered dog will jump over a wall; fig. when someone is desperate, they will resort to extreme measures]
Wei Yunzhao’s eyes were icy with fury. “I not only want justice for the deaths, but I also want the world to know what kind of ugly face this self-proclaimed virtuous Emperor Changde truly has!”
[丑陋的嘴脸 (chǒu lòu de zuǐ liǎn): lit. ugly face, it's used metaphorically to describe someone’s true, unpleasant nature or character]
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