The Beauty Within the Gates
Chapter 79
He lay on the bed with his eyes open, facing upward, neither making a sound nor waking her.
After a while, Minzhang came in to change his medicine, and only then was the young lady lying across the bed startled awake. The sleepiness on her face had not yet faded, but she hurriedly straightened up and first looked toward her husband on the bed.
Their eyes met. Her husband’s eyes were wide open, bright and clear.
Thank goodness. He was alive…
Seeing Minzhang come in with the military physician to change the dressing, Wen Shuse was afraid she would get in the way, so she retreated to stand near the head of the bed.
As with Pei Qing last time, apart from the gauze wrapped around his shoulder, he wore nothing on his upper body. But during the night, he had been covered with a quilt, with only half his shoulder exposed.
Now that the military physician had come to apply medicine, Minzhang stepped forward first and lifted the quilt from his body. The large expanse of chest beneath the gauze was completely exposed.
Wen Shuse wanted to see just how serious his wound was. She had leaned in close and was looking very carefully when, without warning, she caught sight of a flash of spring scenery, and her gaze was suddenly dazzled.
But it only flickered away for an instant before turning back again.
Afraid of touching his wound, the military physician used scissors, carefully cutting open the gauze below his shoulder. It took a rather long time. There was nothing much to see in the expanse of white gauze, and without realizing it, Wen Shuse’s gaze slowly drifted out of place.
Last time, her husband had openly begged her to look, but Wen Shuse had been too embarrassed to do so properly. Now it was different. Borrowing a perfectly legitimate reason, she looked openly and righteously.
From this angle, she could see even more clearly.
Having touched him once herself, she knew that his chest was by no means thin. Sure enough, from his chest down to his waist and abdomen, each piece of muscle was like the wooden blocks she had played with when she was young. There was no need to touch them; just by looking with her eyes, she could feel that they must be very firm, and as they rose and fell with his breathing, they seemed to contain some kind of power that she did not understand, yet somehow seemed to understand.
Further down was the waistband of his trousers…
See no evil. She silently withdrew her gaze, thinking she had hidden her thoughts very well, but when she casually glanced at her husband’s face, she met a pair of pitch-black, calm eyes that seemed to have seen through everything.
Guilty, of course, she was guilty. Wen Shuse hurriedly turned her gaze away, intending to deny it to the death, doing her best to make her expression look perfectly proper.
The military physician finally cut open the gauze, revealing the stitched wound inside. It was a full five fingers wide, and the blood had already dried, sticking together in a shocking sight.
Xie Shao had not yet drawn his gaze back from her face when he saw her shudder, her expression twisting as though her own teeth ached on his behalf, while at the same time her feet carried her a step backward. Perhaps realizing she’d betrayed herself a little too plainly, she put on a show of concern and asked, “How did it get this serious?”
He finally understood. As long as he was with her, his emotions were always impossible to control, suddenly rising and suddenly falling, even more thrilling than jumping off a cliff.
Xie Shao closed his eyes. His chest did not hurt so much as a kind of stifled, suffocating tightness.
The military physician began changing the medicine.
Wen Shuse did not dare look at his wound. Just seeing the sheen of moisture appearing on his forehead was enough for her to know that he must be in great pain.
But what could she do? She could not help with anything. In her panic, she stepped forward and grabbed his hand, her fingers slipping on their own into the gaps between his, then squeezing tightly, interlocking their ten fingers.
Although she could not share his pain for him, when she had been little and had a stomachache, her grandmother had always held her hand like this, and the pain truly had eased quite a bit.
She kept holding his hand this way, and her husband did not struggle. Only after the medicine was changed did she let go.
Once the military physician left, the young lady sat again by his bed, looking at his shoulder now bound up once more in white gauze, asking after him with warmth and concern. “Husband, how do you feel now? Does it still hurt?”
The disdain in her eyes just now had been clear as day, yet the care and nervousness in her tone now were just as real. He finally understood that it was not that she had no feelings for him at all.
She was simply thoughtless.
Whether the days to come would be good or bad would probably still depend on his guiding her.
Did it still hurt? Of course, it hurt. Such a large iron arrowhead had pierced his body, and he had lost a full half-liter of blood. How could it not hurt? But how could a real man speak of pain? He only frowned slightly and said nothing, leaving her to understand it on her own.
Naturally, the young lady saw it. She looked distressed, yet also anxious because she could not share the pain with him. “Husband, bear with it a little longer. Once your injury is healed, I will take you to a fine restaurant. We will set out several tables, and whatever Husband wants to eat, we will order it, to celebrate Husband surviving this great disaster and being blessed with boundless fortune to come…”
Several tables of food… that wasn’t necessary.
Last time, of the thirty taels of silver, half had come from Jing Wang’s support, and the other half had still been borrowed from Commander Xu.
His salary had not yet been paid, and he could not even satisfy his little wife’s expenses for food and clothing, so where would he have the money to squander on himself? He declined her kindness. “No need to be extravagant.”
The young lady did not agree. “How can this count as extravagance? Husband has only just returned from the gates of hell. No matter how much silver is spent, it would be worth it…”
Xie Shao fell silent.
Afraid that if he kept being stingy, he would only annoy his little wife further and make her call him useless again, he thought for a moment and said, “There should be some reward silver. A little celebration wouldn’t hurt.”
Having suffered such severe injuries, nearly losing his life, if the emperor didn’t even give out some reward silver, it would chill the hearts of many. Wen Shuse nodded. “If the reward isn’t a thousand taels of gold at the least, and a rise of two ranks in office, then all this suffering Husband has been through will have been for nothing.” In truth, by what she felt in her heart, ten thousand taels of gold would not be enough.
Her husband’s life could not be traded for any sum of gold. It was priceless.
She did not speak those thoughts aloud, and he, hearing only what she had actually said, interpreted them differently.
Back when he first learned that the crown prince had arrived in the Eastern Capital, he had not reported it immediately. For a feudal prince to enter the capital without imperial summons would at most result in a reprimand and some minor material punishment, nothing that truly hurt.
Treason, however, was another matter entirely.
The moment the Crown Prince stormed the inner city gate, the crime of rebellion was sealed, a crime punishable by death. That would not only wipe out the threat root and branch but also earn him a promotion. Why not do it?
All his scheming and calculation, all his waiting for the fish to take the bait, all for the sake of this merit.
He had rendered great service; the Emperor was bound to grant him a reward. But with her putting so plain a price tag on it, he suddenly felt uneasy again. What if it fell short of what she imagined? Would his little wife be disappointed once more?
He didn’t have to wait long. Shortly after noon, news arrived from the palace.
The night before, Chancellor Yuan Ming’an had colluded with remnants of the former dynasty, thrown open the three national gates, and led the rebels into the imperial city of Great Feng. Fortunately, Xie Shao, Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard Cavalry Command, had detected it in time and led over two hundred guards of the Cavalry Office to surround them outside the inner city gate, averting a disaster whose consequences would have been unthinkable.
Yuan Ming’an and his accomplices had been escorted to prison that very night, but before they could be locked away, knowing there was no way out, he slit his own throat and killed himself on the spot.
Commander Xu of the Cavalry Office and Jing Wang pursued the remaining accomplices through the night, and before dawn, they had captured all the remnants of the previous dynasty in one sweep.
The emperor flew into a towering rage.
Those who had committed treason, without exception, were all executed. Every son of the Yuan family serving as officials in court was stripped of their posts, and even the Empress Yuan did not escape. Her title as empress was abolished, and she was demoted to a commoner.
When the news broke, there was an uproar.
The Yuan family had already reached the rank of imperial in-laws, with half the power in court in their hands. What more could they have been dissatisfied with, that they would go and collude with remnants of the former dynasty and ruin their own future? Was this not a sickness of the mind, pure courting of death?
In just half a day, countless speculations spread through both the common folk and the court. The next several rewards then pushed everyone’s guesses in one common direction.
First reward: Xie Shao, Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard Cavalry Command, had seen through the Yuan family’s treasonous intent and captured the traitors alive. His merit was foremost. He was rewarded with a thousand taels of gold and appointed Commander of the Imperial Guard, an official post of the third rank.
Second reward: Xie Daolin, Chancellor Xie, though he had resigned, retired to his hometown, still had the court in his heart. Having instructed his son properly and guided him with patient teaching, he was restored to his former post effective immediately.
Third reward: Zhou Qian, Jing Wang, was upright in character, frugal and loving toward the people, wise and decisive. His prompt suppression of the rebellion had prevented the traitors from escaping the capital, earning him great merit. He was therefore formally invested as Crown Prince of Great Feng.
…
Once these imperial edicts came out, they were like an earth dragon turning over, shocking both court and country.
Before people could speculate too much, officials in court were continuously summoned by the Court of Judicial Review, and those implicated were all members of the former Crown Prince Zhou Yan’s faction. Gradually, everyone began to understand.
This was likely not some matter of remnants of the previous dynasty, but a factional struggle between the Crown Prince and Jing Wang.
The Crown Prince had been deposed and sent back to Dongzhou. Seeing that the tide had turned against him, he took a desperate path and, together with the Yuan clan, committed treason. Unfortunately for him, he did not succeed. He was suppressed by the Xie family and Jing Wang together, captured alive, and handed over to the emperor.
The emperor was bitterly disappointed. In order to stabilize Great Feng’s realm, he had no choice but to give up his own biological son and appoint his adopted son as Crown Prince instead.
This time, no one found it strange anymore.
Who was to blame? One wrong step, and the whole game was lost.
From birth, he had held a high position, and he was also the emperor’s only biological son. Even if his talent was mediocre, as long as he made no grave mistakes, he would have become the next sovereign. No one had expected him to come to this point.
—
Inside the dungeon, the former Crown Prince was in a wretched state. His hands and feet were locked in iron chains, his hair hanging loose over his face, with none of his former majesty left. Yet the fire in his eyes had not gone out. Again and again, he shouted, “I want to see Father! Have him come see me…”
The jailer’s head ached from all his shouting. He had committed treason and rebellion, had even dared point a blade at his own father, and now that things had come to this, what more did he still want? Out of kindness, the jailer advised him, “Your Highness should save your strength.”
“Have him come see me. Otherwise, even in death, I will not rest in peace. I must go to his bedside and ask him properly. As a father, has he ever shown even the slightest fairness?” As he spoke, he suddenly grew frenzied. “My mother is the empress of Great Feng. I am his legitimate son. What is Zhou Qian? He is nothing but an illegitimate…”
“You evil wretch!” Before he could finish speaking, he was suddenly cut off by a furious rebuke.
The jailer started, turned, and hastily knelt to the ground. “Your Majesty.”
Zhou Yan’s mouth snapped shut at once, and with a face full of terror, he looked toward the source of that voice.
The Emperor was still in his sleeping robes, with only a cloak hastily thrown over his shoulders. His eyes were red now as he glared at the former Crown Prince. This son, whom he had once also poured effort and care into cultivating. He hated him for having an improper nature and refusing to change despite repeated teachings, and hated him even more for being unfilial and unrighteous, daring to turn a blade against his own father.
Was his plan tonight to storm the Eastern Capital, kill him, and seize the throne himself?
The former Crown Prince Zhou Yan finally came back to his senses. Looking at the Emperor, he cried out in agitation, “Father, Father, you’ve come to see your son at last! Your son was wrong…” With a thud, his knees hit the ground, crawling on them to the cell door, clutching the bars of the cell, weeping aloud in his anguish. “Father, your son was wrong. Please, just forgive your son…”
The Emperor gave a cold laugh. “Forgive you? You dared raise troops to take my life. How do you expect me to forgive you?”
“Father, I was confused for a moment. How could I ever mean to harm you…” He knew what he had done and knew the Emperor would not forgive him again, yet a sliver of hope still lingered. He would not believe, would not believe that the father who had once held him as a child and laughed with such joy could truly want him dead. A thought flashed through his mind, and he suddenly said, “It… it was Mother. She was the one who persuaded me. She said that if I did not seize the chance, did not get rid of that illegitimate son, Father would cast me aside, and I would be left with no road but death…”
The Emperor looked at the man before him, raving as though he had lost his mind, and the space between his brows twitched twice. He could not believe this was his own son.
Tonight, mindful of their bond as father and son, he had come to see him this once, wanting to hear what hardship had truly driven him. Had he not been given enough to eat or enough to wear? Had he no place to live? What could have driven him to the point of raising an army in rebellion?
Now, having heard all this, there was no need to ask anymore.
He had thought that this time, no matter what, Zhou Yan would have realized his mistake. But he had not expected that Zhou Yan not only harbored thoughts of killing his father but even intended to condemn his own mother as well.
Empress Yuan may have had a thousand faults, but toward this son of hers, there was nothing to criticize. Since he was young, she had doted on him dearly, exhausting all her efforts for him. Even in the final moment before her death, she had still been pleading for him, begging the emperor to leave him a path to survival.
But what about him? How utterly heartless and ungrateful was he?
In order to clear himself, he had actually pushed all the blame onto Empress Yuan.
The emperor asked himself whether, since childhood, he had ever neglected Zhou Yan’s discipline in the slightest. How had he raised such an inhuman thing?
His blood and qi suddenly surged upward. The emperor’s vision went black, and his body staggered several steps. Liu Kun, beside him, supported him just in time. “Your Majesty, please take care of your health…”
Seeing him like this, Zhou Yan thought he did not believe him and continued explaining, “Imperial Father, there is also Yuan Ming’an. He was the one who incited me. He told me that as long as the national gates were opened, I would have a fifty-percent chance…”
He was still a dog biting at another dog.
“You worthless son!” the emperor roared.
After cursing him, he seemed to have exhausted all the strength in his body. Raising a finger, he pointed weakly at the former Crown Prince. “Look at yourself. Do you have even the slightest bit of blood and spirit of my Zhou family? If you had admitted that you yourself wanted to rebel, I might have even thought a little more highly of you. You do not know remorse, and even now, you are still shifting blame for yourself. Of all virtues, filial piety comes first; of all evils, lust is the source. When you were three years old, I taught you these words stroke by stroke, holding your hand as you wrote them. Now you are twenty-three, with a wife and son of your own, and yet you still have not learned them…”
The emperor trembled as he stepped forward twice and threw the blood-written letter Empress Yuan had left behind in front of him. “Your mother was willing to hang herself in her own chamber in order to plead for you, just so I would spare your life. And what did you do? You actually still wanted her life! She is your mother. A man who cannot even tolerate his own parents. How is he fit to be human? And what right do you have to covet this realm?”
The emperor’s eyes were filled with disappointment in him as he said in pain, “The most correct thing I have ever done in this life was to depose you from the position of Crown Prince.”
Zhou Yan was stunned by the emperor’s words.
When he heard that his mother had hanged herself in the palace, he fell completely silent.
He stared blankly as the white brocade covered in blood-red writing drifted lightly down before him. Panic passed over his face; his eyes went vacant. Only after a long while did he reach out with trembling hands and pick it up.
The emperor no longer wanted to look at him even once. Turning around, he ordered, “Send him to Jingzhou immediately. Without my permission, he is not to set half a foot into the Eastern Capital again. If he offends again, there is no need to spare him.”
Even at this point, in consideration of Empress Yuan having protected her son with her death, the emperor ultimately still spared his life.
—
Today, aside from the several imperial edicts of reward announced openly, everyone in the Imperial Guard Cavalry Command received rewards as well.
This included Commander Xu, who was promoted to Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard, rising one rank in official standing.
The guards of the Cavalry Command not only received real gold and silver; each of them also had a military merit recorded under his name. Some had already served in the Cavalry Command for five or six years without ever getting a chance to distinguish themselves. This time, they had finally held their heads high.
Everyone also understood in their hearts that if not for Deputy Commander Xie, none of this would have had anything to do with them at all.
Last night, although Deputy Commander Xie had notified the Imperial Guard in advance, that group had only blocked the city gate and put on an impressive show. Once they saw that the men below were the Crown Prince and Chancellor Yuan, the arrows in their hands began to hesitate. The ones who had truly acted were all from the Cavalry Command.
Nearly three hundred men of the Cavalry Command had come out in full force. Naturally, some had fallen at the inner city gate and would never return. Those who could enter the Cavalry Command had never feared death.
Even if they died, they had earned first-class merit and brought glory to their families.
What they feared was only wasting away the years, and on the day they left the military camp, still remaining unknown, never again having the chance to display their abilities.
Knowing that Xie Shao would be going to the Imperial Guard the next day, quite a few people wanted to follow him.
At dusk, after Wen Shuse had helped Xie Shao put on his clothes and was preparing to take him back to the residence to recover from his injuries, Zhao Huai was the first to enter. Once he reached him, without another word, he cupped his hands and knelt down directly. “Chief, take me with you. I want to follow Chief and do great things.”
Xie Shao felt that he had come to the wrong person. At this moment, he did not want to do any great things at all. He only wanted to go back and have a proper sleep.
Once the court’s rewards came down, he let out a breath of true relief. Both the reward money and the rank had met the price his little wife had named.
He could see she was very satisfied, and only when his little wife was satisfied could he ease off.
He had made a point of asking Xu Xun about it. The post of Commander of the Imperial Guard drew a monthly stipend of five hundred strings of cash, and that was not all; counting in the various allowances for clothing, grain, and the rest, it came to over a thousand strings a month.
Over a thousand strings were over a thousand taels… that ought to be enough to feed his little wife, that gold-devouring beast. For now, he had no wish to strive any further.
The wound hurt too much. The night before, if not for all these men around him watching his every move, for whom he had to set a good example, and his little wife at his side observing, he would have screamed out in pain.
It hurts so much it’ll kill me.
In the instant the iron arrowhead bored into his shoulder blade, he had nearly passed out. An experience like that, who would ever want to go through it again?
Now that he had money and an official post, for the rest of his life, he only wanted to accompany his little wife and live peacefully.
But such an unambitious thought, one that would affect military morale, absolutely could not be spoken aloud. Besides, his little wife was right there beside him, a wife exalted by her husband’s glory, waiting with a face full of pride for his answer. So, sitting at the edge of the bed, he bore the pain and straightened himself, looked at Zhao Huai kneeling before him, and, left with no choice, put on a show of grand manner. “Once my wound has healed, any man willing to follow me may come. The Great Feng has never ceased facing external threats. What we lack is precisely this hot-blooded spirit in men like you. Rest assured, as long as you have real ability, I will not let you go to waste.”
Zhao Huai’s face lit with feeling, his eyes full of gratitude and admiration. He cupped his hands above his head once more and declared aloud, “Thank you, Commander Xie.”
Xie Shao nodded and made as if to rise. His little wife reacted swiftly, immediately stepping forward to support his arm. “My lord, be careful…”
A third-rank official was a high-ranking official, worthy of being addressed as “my lord.”
—
The injured were to be treated with the greatest consideration, and besides, he had been promoted, bringing back a thousand taels of gold as well. No matter how one looked at it, there was no reason to let him continue staying in the side room.
After returning to the residence, Wen Shuse led him all the way into her own room. “Husband, lie down. Careful, don’t strain your wound…”
There was no military physician in the residence, and since he had already survived the most dangerous stretch, the remaining task of changing his dressing fell to his little wife.
Wen Shuse was quite happy to do it. Once night came, she refused Minzhang’s help, prepared the scissors and medicinal paste, then stepped forward personally to peel off her husband’s clothes.
One had to say, his little wife had an extraordinary talent when it came to undressing people. Looking at her manner, Xie Shao felt as though she wished she could strip him completely bare. Clearly, she was the young lady, yet it suddenly gave him the feeling that he was the one being taken advantage of.
Unfortunately, he could not move and could only let her handle him as she pleased. He only had to turn his head away and didn’t look.
Once his clothes had been fully removed, however, his little wife did not move for a long while. Xie Shao’s heart gave a jump, and he turned back to look at her warily, only to see his little wife staring fixedly at his wound without moving her gaze. Thinking it had begun bleeding again, he frowned and asked, “What is it?”
His little wife did not answer, and suddenly asked, “Will Husband have a scar in the future?”
Wasn’t that obvious?
With such a large bloody hole, how could it possibly not leave a scar? And it would probably not be small either.
Before he could answer, the young lady sighed softly again. “If I had known, when Husband let me look last time, I shouldn’t have been polite. Now look, I never even got to see Husband’s flawless appearance.”