Chapter 99: Spicy Pot (Part 25)
When Leng Yue followed Jing Yi leaping across rooftops out of Wise Prince Manor, they happened upon an unfamiliar troop of soldiers quietly surrounding the manor under Leng Yan's silent command.
Recalling how Leng Yan had dressed in full armor and rushed out early that morning, Leng Yue couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Jing Yi was right—even if Xiao Zhao Ye was single-mindedly determined to become emperor and exhausted every means to seriously challenge the Crown Prince, he could never defeat someone who had already thoroughly mastered the art of rulership.
While turmoil was brewing outside, Crown Prince Manor remained perfectly tranquil. The Crown Prince was still comfortably nestled inside his chambers. Seeing the two appear together, he smiled leisurely as if everything was prepared and he had merely been waiting for them.
Only then did Leng Yue suddenly remember the crucial token.
Given Jing Yi's temperament, he wouldn't have lied to Xiao Zhao Ye under those circumstances. If he said the token was in Xiao Zhao Ye's residence, it must truly be there.
But since Leng Yan had already surrounded Wise Prince Manor, retrieving that item would only be a matter of time.
The Crown Prince seemed to share her thoughts, making no mention of the token whatsoever. Instead, he examined Jing Yi's stubble-covered face with great interest, speaking with a mix of jest and sincerity, "Minister Jing, you've worked hard."
Jing Yi didn't take the Crown Prince's polite remark as mere politeness. Stroking his stubble with slight resentment, he said, "Your Highness, seeing how hard I've worked, could you permit me to ask one question?"
"Minister Jing, please speak."
"That day when the Late Emperor used passages from The Biography of Nine Immortals to orchestrate the princess selection event—did Your Highness know about it?"
Leng Yue didn't know why Jing Yi suddenly brought this up. Embarrassed, her face immediately flushed red. The Crown Prince just gave her a meaningful, half-smiling glance that made her wish she could disappear into a crack in the ground.
After enjoying his fill of Leng Yue's crimson face, the Crown Prince admitted with satisfaction, "I knew."
Jing Yi pressed further, "And the part about which princess I ultimately chose and what item I selected—did Your Highness know about that too?"
The Crown Prince hadn't expected this follow-up question. After a moment's surprise, he shook his head and said, "His Majesty only gave me the general idea and asked whether this approach might help bring you two together. All the details were his own arrangements."
The thought of the two most esteemed men in the realm scheming over tea about how to trick her into becoming the Jing family's daughter-in-law left Leng Yue with indescribably complex feelings. Yet Jing Yi merely smiled carefree, pulling a crudely made pouch from his robe and presenting it to the Crown Prince with both hands.
"When the head of the Imperial City Investigation Bureau comes to pay respects later, Your Highness might try using this."
Long after Jing Yi's words had faded, Leng Yue still hadn't processed what happened. The Crown Prince wasn't much better off, staring blankly for quite some time before accepting the shabby pouch that looked like it had been casually picked up from somewhere.
Only when holding the pouch did the Crown Prince notice it seemed to contain something. Just as he was about to untie the drawstring, Jing Yi reached out to stop him.
"I found this on the street. Neither of us knows what's inside."
Only then did Leng Yue suddenly understand, and she couldn't help feeling slightly astonished.
This shabby pouch contained the token.Jing Yi did not deceive Xiao Zhao Ye; the token was indeed in his residence, but it was also in the Crown Prince Manor, and could even be found in every household in the capital. The imperial palace had it too, though it rarely appeared anywhere outside the imperial kitchens.
The Late Emperor had gone to such lengths to fabricate such an intricate lie, all because of this...
The Crown Prince nodded in understanding, tucking the pouch into his sleeve as if it were merely something Jing Yi had casually picked up on the street. Still lazily and amiably, he smiled and said, "I still have some matters to attend to here. If you have nothing else, you may return and rest." After a pause, as if remembering something, he added, "On your way back, convey my regards to Grand Tutor Jing."
Only after leaping over the wall of the Crown Prince Manor did Jing Yi explain to Leng Yue that the Crown Prince's additional remark was an instruction for them to return to the Jing family mansion.
In the midst of misfortune, there was a stroke of luck: Jing Yi collapsed from exhaustion only after vaulting over the wall into the Jing family mansion. Jing Bai, who had not made any house calls for days, was quite pleased to practice his skills on his younger brother who had delivered himself to his doorstep. However, after taking his pulse, he shook his head dispiritedly and delivered a somewhat disappointed diagnosis of sleep deprivation before returning to the garden to gather snow.
When Master Jing returned from court affairs to check on Jing Yi, he remained as composed and affectionate as ever, as if everything in court was unchanged, no different from when the Late Emperor was alive.
Leng Yue did not mention a word about Jing Qian, but Master Jing was the first to inform her that Jing Qian had returned home at noon, packed his belongings, and left. Before leaving, he locked his room, stating that only she and Jing Yi were allowed inside, and they would have to figure out how to enter on their own.
Leng Yue used the simplest method: she split the lock open with her sword. The room had been cleared out, much like Shenxiu's meditation chamber, leaving no traces to identify its owner. The only clue was that the owner seemed to have accidentally broken something, scattering red beans all over the floor.
Master Jing also entrusted Leng Yue with the matter Jing Yi had entrusted to him before his house arrest. It was only when the large wooden basin was brought into Jing Yi's room that Leng Yue remembered the turtle she had named Turtle Grandson.
Everything about her was important to Jing Yi, no matter how trivial.
Jing Yi slept for several days straight—days that saw near upheaval in the capital.
During these days, the Crown Prince became the current emperor and decisively announced the Late Emperor's cause of death to the world, executing Xiao Zhao Ye with solid evidence and reasoning.
Leng Yan followed the Crown Princess, who had become the empress, into the palace and was appointed as the captain of the empress's guards. There, she received news that the person she had long yearned for was rushing to the capital from the southern border.
As expected, Grand Tutor Jing became the chief grand secretary of the court. He continued cheerfully with his duties as usual, though he still had to kneel in the ancestral hall whenever he angered Madam Jing. Jing Bai returned to the Imperial Hospital ahead of schedule by imperial decree, working tirelessly and handling the workload of four people. Jing Qian's position in the Ministry of Rites was filled by a newcomer, and due to the numerous changes in court officials, it did not attract much attention.
Even Prince An managed to hold on and return to An Wang's residence.Prince An had already reached the gates of the underworld, and even Jing Bai could offer no viable solution. Yet early the next morning, someone stuffed the disheveled and barely recognizable Ye Qianqiu into a burlap sack and dumped him at the gates of Prince An's residence. Wu Jiang took it upon himself to agree to Ye Qianqiu's condition of never leaving the prince's residence unless dead, and only then did Ye Qianqiu pull Prince An back from the brink of death at King Yama's tea table.
Steward Zhao firmly believed this was the accumulated merit from Prince An's usual efforts to eliminate evil and uphold justice. However, Leng Yue knew perfectly well that only one group could accurately locate such a precisely useful person in the vast sea of humanity. And within that group, the ones with such intentions were likely that one person, or perhaps two, who would never reappear in their lives again.
Jing Yi was awakened in the pitch-black dead of night by sheer hunger. When he opened his eyes, Leng Yue was nestled beside him, gently stroking his hair. Startled by his sudden awakening, she nearly cried out, but Jing Yi swiftly silenced her with a kiss.
"Will you marry me again... one last time..."
During his days of unconsciousness, Jing Yi had mumbled these words no less than a hundred times. Each time, Leng Yue had to hold him and agree several times before he would calm down and fall back asleep. This led General Leng, who had returned to court to pay respects to the new emperor, to suspect that Jing Yi was feigning sleep to take advantage of the situation. If not for Leng Yue's fierce protection, Jing Yi would likely have been awakened by General Leng's iron fists.
Having heard these words over a hundred times, Leng Yue had pondered them just as often. So when Jing Yi asked again, she could now respond without joy or sorrow, "If I resign from my official duties and just sit idle at home, without any of the skills women are supposed to have, would you still want to marry me?"
Selfishly, Jing Yi wished she would give up that dangerous and arduous job. The Jing family was wealthy enough—they certainly didn't need her salary.
But based on his understanding of Leng Yue, this job meant to her what chanting sutras meant to Shenxiu, or what the Imperial City Investigation Bureau meant to Jing Qian. Unless something significant happened, she would never consider abandoning it.
The word "marry" was on the tip of Jing Yi's tongue, but he forced it back and replaced it with what seemed like an insensitive question: "Why?"
"I'm not suited for this job..." Leng Yue's beautiful face was somewhat blurred in the darkness, but Jing Yi could detect unmistakable disappointment in her seemingly calm voice. "I've thought it through carefully. If I had been in your place facing Xiao Zhaoye that day, I might have truly been swayed by his nonsense and let him go..."
Before Leng Yue could finish, Jing Yi's voice, amused yet firm, came through the darkness: "No, you wouldn't."
Leng Yue rolled her eyes at him, though he might not have seen it in the dark. "How can you be so sure?"
Jing Yi tightened his embrace, pressing his forehead against hers so she could clearly see his helpless expression and the genuine sincerity in his eyes. "If it had been you that day, would you have had the patience to listen to his rubbish?"
Leng Yue was taken aback. Jing Yi answered for her: "Definitely not... If you were me, you'd have slapped him unconscious the moment you stepped in with solid evidence, then arrested him and thrown him in jail. He wouldn't have had a chance to spout that nonsense, so how could he possibly sway you?"
Leng Yue lowered her eyes in the darkness and remained silent for a long while.Jing Yi didn’t press further, allowing her to remain silent for a long moment before holding her even tighter. “But if you truly don’t want to do this anymore, could you do me the honor and let me take care of you for the rest of your life?”
He clearly saw a glimmer of tears flash in her beautiful eyes as she looked up in surprise, but she twisted away from his embrace, threw on her clothes, and got out of bed.
“Telling me this is useless…” Leng Yue said, swiftly dressing herself while holding back tears that seemed ready to burst forth. Her tone was devoid of warmth. “My father is waiting for you at home. He said if you don’t explain clearly to him what this brothel hopping is all about, what this talk of becoming a monk is about, and what this talk of divorcing me is about, the child in my belly will bear the surname Leng.”
“No, no, no…” At the mention of General Leng, Jing Yi’s face instantly crumpled in distress. He leaned over the edge of the bed, clutching a corner of Leng Yue’s garment, and pleaded pitifully, “How about… for the child’s sake, could you pull some strings and cut me some slack?”
“No.”
As Leng Yue decisively leaped out of the window, a timely, slight pain twinged in her lower abdomen, almost like a whisper of “Well done.”
The little one in her belly would never understand that with Jing Yi’s glib tongue and sincere heart, how could he possibly fail to persuade her father—who had already begun secretly calculating how many banquet tables to set for the homecoming feast to avoid embarrassing his daughter?
No matter what, in this lifetime, she could only grow old with this one person. In their youth, it was fate’s doing; now, it was willingly chosen.
The Leng residence stood just across the street from the Jing family mansion. The moment Leng Yue leaped over the Jing estate’s wall, she could see her own front gate.
And now, standing before her gate was a figure—tall and graceful, dressed in snow-white robes—smiling radiantly at her as she landed on her feet after jumping down from the Jing family’s wall.
“You…” Leng Yue stood frozen by the wall, staring wide-eyed at the man who, under the night sky, looked as handsome as an immortal. “You… why aren’t you sleeping properly? What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
Jing Yi shrugged helplessly, carefully straightened his clothes, and smiled a little more deeply.
“I’m ready. I couldn’t wait.”
End of main text of “The Wife of the Famous Constable.”
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