Wei Zheng had just snapped back to reality from the rush of intoxication when he saw Feng Yun’s face, devoid of any emotion. He felt like he had plunged into an ice cellar, and his drunkenness vanished.
So did his stupor.
He frantically adjusted his robe.
"Feng Yun..."
He called out weakly, bowing with clasped hands, nearly pleading in tone.
"I’ve made a fool of myself in my drunkenness, please forgive ."
Feng Yun scrutinized him from head to toe, examining the woman cowering in his clothes at his side as well.
After a mont, under the eager and excited gazes of the onlookers, she spoke indifferently.
"General Wei, your words are misplaced. Holding a high position and wielding great power, how could I, a re girl from Tianzhuang, have the audacity to forgive you..."
Upon hearing her underlying ssage, Wei Zheng asked, "What do you suggest then?"
Feng Yun lowered her eyes. "General Wei, please leave. Changn Village cannot afford to host such an esteed guest as you."
Wei Zheng’s mind began to clear.
Caught red-handed, he had no defense, but Feng Yun did not press on; she likely had so other sche in mind...
"Thank you, Lady Feng."
Wei Zheng saw no way out except for the path Feng Yun pointed out to him.
He straightened his attire, made an awkward bow, and was about to step away when Luo Yue clutched at his sleeve...
"General, if you leave, what will beco of and Aqing?" Luo Yue looked desperate as if clinging to a lifeline, refusing to let go.
Then, she picked up the bed sheet stained with deep red and held it up into the bright light.
"Both Aqing and I are virgins. Are you going to deny what you did?"
Shao Xueqing hung her head in sha, standing still and not daring to look at the prying eyes of the crowd by the door.
She was different from Luo Yue.
Luo Yue could shalessly face the world; Shao Xueqing couldn’t...
She wanted to vanish into a crack in the ground, or just die, for how could she live with this disgrace.
Luo Yue grabbed her arm and shook it. "Aqing, say sothing. Aren’t you the daughter of the magistrate of Andu County, born into a noble family? How can you let soone take advantage of you and not demand justice?"
Shao Xueqing was like a lifeless puppet, unresponsive.
Luo Yue then turned to Feng Yun, who had slid to her knees. "My lady, save ..."
Feng Yun watched quietly, stepped forward, and slapped her hard.
Then, she turned to Wei Zheng. "General Wei, please go."
Luo Yue covered her face, looking incredulously at Feng Yun as tears stread down her cheeks.
"Why cry?!" Feng Yun’s usually gentle face was now shrouded with coldness. "What do you take General Wei for? Is he the kind of man to start a fire and then abandon it, shirking responsibility?"
This unexpected turn took Luo Yue from tears to laughter, almost wishing for another slap from the lady.
"Yes, I apologize. I have wronged the general, and I have misunderstood you, my lady."
Feng Yun said, "Wait then. General Wei will surely give you an explanation for today’s events."
She then looked toward the bewildered Wei Zheng. "And to the General, and to Her Highness the Empress Dowager."
When Wei Zheng heard ’Her Highness the Empress Dowager,’ his expression changed instantly.
If the Empress Dowager were to know of the vile acts he had committed at Tianzhuang, she might just skin him alive...
Wei Zheng felt faint.
He suspected that he was drugged and his mind manipulated, succumbing to that vile woman’s temptations...
He also vaguely sensed that Feng Yun had a hand in this, but, lacking evidence, he was forced to swallow his suspicion and followed her lead...
"If you two are indeed innocent, then I shall ask the General to bestow."
Grinding his teeth in resentnt, he added harshly, "Farewell."
—
Wei Zheng left.
As he left Tianzhuang, the villagers lined the path, sending him off with their gazes that laid bare his disgrace.
Back at the manor, Feng Yun had just returned from the west room and hadn’t had the chance to bathe and change before a servant girl ca to report.
Shao Xueqing had run out of the manor and thrown herself into the lotus pond.
Feng Yun, exhausted, had little energy. "Fish her out."
"Once you get her out, trouble Doctor Yao to check on her; don’t let her die here in the manor, bringing misfortune."
As a few maidservants went out to see, Xiaoman accompanied Feng Yun to the bathhouse. Occasional noises could still be heard from outside, but Feng Yun, with her eyes closed in the wooden tub, was as motionless as a ditating monk.
Xiaoman watched her.
"My lady, does today’s event have anything to do with that exam question from the other day?"
Feng Yun didn’t open her eyes. "Nobody forced them."
"Oh." Xiaoman carefully walked over, picking up the lady’s clothes that had slipped off the bench.
"Will Shao Xueqing die?"
"I don’t know," Feng Yun replied. "You can’t save those who are intent on dying."
Xiaoman said, "Why would they be so desperate? Isn’t living here in Changn Village far better than with General Wei?"
Feng Yun remained silent.
Finally, no longer speaking endlessly, Xiaoman stopped.
She recalled what the lady had once said: Everyone has their own aspirations.
Perhaps that was the life Luo Yue and Shao Xueqing wanted to live."""
He did not know how the general would react once he found out...
—
Shao Xueqing didn’t die. She was fished out of the lotus pond by two of her n. It was said she cried all night, with two maids by her side, until she finally fell asleep at dawn.
Feng Yun did not disturb them.
The next morning’s breakfast was served to the concubines as usual.
Only, the western room was quieter than usual today, and even more awkward.
Even soone like Luo Yue seed a bit distraught.
Rumors spread fast; within less than a day, they had circulated throughout Huaxi Village.
That night, Pei Jue didn’t co to Tianzhuang, but he sent a ssage stating that everything was left to Feng Yun’s discretion.
So, with an air of "turning hostility into friendship," Feng Yun publicly announced Pei Jue’s decision to reward both Shao Xueqing and Luo Yue to Wei Zheng.
Both won had received their "tips" from Wen Hui and should have been happy to achieve their wishes, but this was not the outco they wanted...
In the presence of everyone, they were caught in flagrante delicto, and not just one but two, how could they show their faces?
Wei Zheng did not want to accept this.
But as the three were caught together under the sa roof, and Pei Jue had ordered the reward, he had no choice but to reluctantly agree.
That very day, Wei Zheng wrote a letter and dispatched it with a fast horse to the Central Capital, hoping to confess to the Empress Dowager before spies could report it.
In the letter, he shifted all the bla to Feng Yun, describing how she deviously drugged his wine, causing him to lose his wits, and how the two won dragged him into the room...
He then expressed his sentints tenderly...
"As a farr, there is not a single day when I do not exalt Your Highness’s beneficence and kindness to the common people."
"I earnestly request that Your Highness imdiately issue a decree, graciously allowing this servant to return to the Central Capital to confess and apologize to Your Highness..."
In his eagerness to return to the capital, Wei Zheng was tearfully sincere, yet no decree ca from the Central Capital.
Silence can be more nerve-wracking than a thunderous fury.
During the wait, Wei Zheng noticed that not only the villagers of Huaxi but even his group of Imperial Guards began to look at him strangely...
After sending his trusted guard to inquire, Wei Zheng nearly fainted when he received the confirmation.
"They say the general, in his drunken state, blasphed the Empress Dowager..."
"Blasphe? How so?"
"The entire village is abuzz with it, saying the general himself spoke... about a black mole the size of a bean on the Empress Dowager’s chest, with hair growing from it...and claid that the Empress Dowager’s... breasts are small and sagging, barely a handful."
"What did you say?" Wei Zheng inhaled sharply, nearly choking the guard, "Say it again!"
The guard dared not repeat it.
He bowed his head, afraid to face Wei Zheng’s furious expression.
Wei Zheng asked, "Where did you hear this?"
The guard’s face turned red, "It’s not just one person saying it, it’s... spread everywhere, claiming the Empress Dowager couldn’t keep to her widowhood, entertained male favorites in the palace, debauching the harem..."
"They also say the reason the general was promoted to a guard officer was because he served the Empress Dowager well, relying on the ’two ounces below his waist’..."
Wei Zheng clenched his fists with rage, the knuckles cracking, "There’s no such reason, no such law! A bunch of lawless ruffians, daring to spread rumors about Her Highness’s tongue, I will arrest them all now and see who dares to babble nonsense."
The guard trembled, "General, I fear this has already spread to Andu County, perhaps even further, and may have already reached Central Capital..."
Wei Zheng’s face turned deathly pale.
The spread of rumors is like a plague; it’s impossible to silence people’s mouths.
With so many people in the world, could he possibly catch them all?
Wei Zheng feared the news reaching the ears at Jiafu Hall in the Central Capital, but he knew full well that there were spies and agents everywhere in Jiafu Hall, and both Pri Minister Li and the Empress Dowager would soon be inford.
When that happened, he would be the first to suffer the consequences.
Wei Zheng’s eyes were bloodshot, "Get out."
"Yes." The guard gave him a worried look and quietly left.
Wei Zheng looked stupefied.
He thought back to before he left the capital when the Empress Dowager summoned him to the palace.
That day, the Empress Dowager had just bathed, her attire loose and relaxed, her long hair soaking wet...
The Palace Maid lacked strength while wringing her hair. The Empress Dowager motioned him over to help.
Eager to show his dedication, he applied too much strength, which inadvertently caused her loose garnt to slip...
Her skin was exposed, and indeed, there was a bean-sized black mole with hair on it.
But such a private matter, even if he were drunk, he was sure he would never divulge.
What’s more, with statents like "small and sagging, barely a handful," it was clearly an intentional insult, designed to discredit the Empress Dowager, leaving her without any defense, forced to swallow her grievances in silence, unable to protest.
Wei Zheng regretted it.
He regretted going to drink the wine provided by the Feng family...
If he hadn’t gone that night, he wouldn’t have given Feng Yun the opportunity.
If it had rely been a scandal of sleeping with two concubines after drinking, he could have used his thick skin to save himself. The Empress Dowager would have believed he was set up, convinced that it was Feng Yun’s doing.
But with everything happening at once, the Empress Dowager would no longer believe a single word he said.
Because such intimate details could not have been known by Feng Yun.
Then he, Wei Zheng, would be the source of the rumors, the chief culprit.
Given the Empress Dowager’s temperant, how could she tolerate such an imnse indignity?
Wei Zheng felt unjustly accused.
Yet, for all his pondering, he couldn’t fathom who had spread the rumors, or who else would know of the unsightly mole on the Empress Dowager’s body?
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