Chapter 051: The Tomb Of The Righteous Children

The atmosphere was strangely subtle.

Everyone seemed to sense something, their eyes darting between Shen Zhiyi and Jiang Xuening, perhaps thinking that Princess Leyang was being too kind to Jiang Xuening.

The eunuch named Zheng Bao had already thanked them and left.

Jiang Xuening felt a great weight lifted from her heart. Although she didn’t know what would happen next, her previously tense body finally relaxed a bit.

If she were to use You Fangyin’s words from her previous life, what would she call this?

Thinking about it, it should be called “acting.”

She wasn’t good at much, but she was excellent at acting pitiful.

But thinking about it, it wasn’t so bad.

Although she had used Shen Zhiyi to achieve her goal, in another sense, she had also helped Shen Zhiyi form a good relationship.

It couldn’t be considered evil, it couldn’t be considered evil.

Jiang Xuening reminded herself a few times and then said, “Let’s go.”

Shen Zhiyi had no objections.

Although her Mingfeng Palace was in a different direction from the other attendants, she held Jiang Xuening’s hand and accompanied her all the way back to Yangzhi Zhai. She even sat in the hall and chatted with them for a while before leaving.

Xiao Shu remained silent throughout the process.

When Shen Zhiyi was about to leave, Xiao Shu looked at her several times, as if she had something to say. But seeing the others in the hall, she didn’t speak.

It wasn’t until Shen Zhiyi got up to leave that Xiao Shu silently followed her.

Jiang Xuening, seeing this, guessed that Xiao Shu had something to say to Shen Zhiyi alone, perhaps related to today’s events, Kunning Palace, and Empress Dowager Xiao.

But no one could follow to listen.

As soon as Xiao Shu left, the hall became strangely quiet. Everyone looked at each other, but no one spoke.

After a while, Fang Miao patted her chest, still feeling lingering fear, and sighed, “Just entering the palace and encountering such a thing almost scared me to death.”

The others nodded in agreement.

They all said, “I wonder what was wrong with that jade ruyi…”

Jiang Xuening, of course, knew the secret of the jade ruyi but remained silent.

After all, she was standing below at the time and shouldn’t know.

Yao Rongrong, looking scared, was different from the others. Despite her fear, she couldn’t hide her curiosity. After hesitating for a long time, she finally lowered her voice and timidly said, “When the Empress picked up that piece of broken jade, she was right next to me. I saw two characters. But, but, what does ‘Righteous Child’ mean?”

“Righteous Child?!”

Fang Miao, who had been frowning and calculating her fortune, trembled and involuntarily exclaimed when she heard the words “Righteous Child,” looking at Yao Rongrong with a terrified expression, her voice distorted.

“You actually saw those two words?”

Yao Rongrong was completely frightened by Fang Miao’s reaction: “I-I saw them…”

Zhou Baoying, the youngest and most naive, was utterly confused: “What’s wrong with those two words?”

*

In the early winter afternoon, the sun was obscured by overcast clouds. The ground around the stele forest of White Pagoda Temple was covered with fallen leaves, and the bare branches trembled in the cold wind.

A large brass bell hung high in the Chaoyin Pavilion.

Beside it was a low stone platform with a zither table and a tea table, and a lotus incense burner in the corner, with an incense coil burning halfway.

In the next moment, the incense burner was angrily swept off the table and fell apart!

“Clang!”

The lotus incense burner crashed down the steps, scattering pale incense ash, which occasionally landed on the fallen leaves, creating a startling sight.

Jian Shu’s eyelids twitched uncontrollably, and he lowered his head, not daring to look up.

The usually warm and gentle voice had turned cold as ice.

It was Xie Wei, who, in his fury, had become eerily calm, asking, “Who ordered this?”

Jian Shu replied, “When I received the news, the order had already been given. When I asked, they said it came from Jinling, and they were quite impatient with me, as if they were wary. After pretending to leave, I stayed for half an hour and saw a sedan chair coming from the direction of Le’an Fang. The person was in his fifties, thin, with a goatee, wearing gray clothes. If I am not mistaken, it was Master Gongyi, who is always by the leader’s side.”

When not in the palace or on official business, Xie Wei preferred to wear white.

Simple, unadorned white clothes.

This made him seem detached from worldly affairs, untouched by the dust of the mortal world. The same white clothes that might make others look like commoners gave him an air of lofty detachment.

But at this moment, this detachment also carried a hint of harshness.

He asked again, “What about Dingfei?”

Jian Shu lowered his eyes and said in a softer voice, “After learning of this, Dao Qin ordered a thorough review of the secret letters sent by Young Master Dingfei to the capital in the past month. None mentioned today’s events.”

Xie Wei laughed, “My heart remains unchanged, but who knows if others’ hearts are the same?”

Jian Shu didn’t understand at first, thinking that Young Master Dingfei had always obeyed the teacher in Jinling and continued to report the sect’s news even after the teacher came to the capital, clearly standing with the teacher.

But just as he was about to speak, he recalled his own words.

Gongyi Cheng rarely left the leader’s side in Jinling.

How could he have come to the capital without Young Master Dingfei knowing and informing them?

Realizing this, Jian Shu’s heart sank: “Do you mean…”

Xie Wei’s white sleeve was stained with incense ash. He gently brushed it, but instead of removing it, he spread it, staining the sleeve further.

His usually serene eyes now hid a sharpness.

His lips tightened, and his expression showed a hint of danger that made people shudder: “Since Gongyi Cheng is here, it must be on the leader’s orders. They think I’ve been inactive for too long and are wary of me.”

Jian Shu, recalling the sect’s complex situation, frowned: “You have been carefully planning in the palace without taking action. Now that Master Gongyi is here, he disregards your previous arrangements and recklessly stirs up trouble with the engraved ruyi. Their failure is not a big deal, but if it implicates you…”

After all, everyone involved was Master Xie’s informant in the palace.

This completely put Master Xie in danger!

Xie Wei remained silent, only raising his eyes to look at the stele forest ahead.

The ground was covered with fallen leaves.

Each stele in the forest was six feet high and one foot wide, very different from ordinary steles. They were not inscribed with Buddhist scriptures but with ordinary names.

Further back, there were no names at all.

Only blank steles stood amidst the desolation.

“The current political situation is like a drawn bow, ready to fire at any moment. It’s not a problem if I’m implicated, but I fear this matter will be used by those with ulterior motives to harm innocent people.” He slowly closed his eyes, thinking of the people in the sect. When he opened them again, his dark eyes were filled with a deadly calm, even a hint of malice. “They’ve ruined my plans. They are more of a hindrance than a help!”

Jian Shu had long been displeased with those in the sect and was about to say something.

But out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone coming from the back mountain.

It was an old monk with kind eyes and a compassionate face, wearing a kasaya.

So he swallowed his words.

The old monk was the abbot of White Pagoda Temple, known as Master Wangchen. Those who followed Buddhism respectfully called him “Master Wangchen.” Today, Xie Wei had arranged to discuss Buddhist teachings with him.

As he approached the Chaoyin Pavilion, he saw the scattered incense ash on the steps.

He stopped.

Xie Wei, standing in the pavilion, had been cold and stern, but when he turned around, his expression softened into a gentle smile, like a spring breeze. “Jian Shu was clumsy and knocked over the incense burner. I hope Master will not mind.”

Jian Shu: “…”

Master Wangchen put his hands together in a gesture of respect and said kindly, “Amitabha, it is no matter.”

*

In Yangzhi Zhai, anyone with a bit of sense could tell that Fang Miao’s strong reaction to Yao Rongrong’s words meant she knew something.

So they all pressed her for more information.

Fang Miao said, “When you hear the words ‘Righteous Child,’ doesn’t anything come to mind?”

Everyone was puzzled.

Jiang Xuening remained silent.

Chen Shuyi, reacting quickly, suddenly said, “Do you mean… the Tomb of the Righteous Child?!”

At these words, someone immediately exclaimed, clearly remembering something.

But this was an event from twenty years ago. Most of them had only heard about it, knowing there was such a place and that something had happened, but not the specifics.

Zhou Baoying was even more confused and asked repeatedly, “What, what happened?”

Fang Miao glanced at Chen Shuyi and then said, “It was when the rebel faction of Prince Pingnan and the Heavenly Sect conspired to rebel twenty years ago…”

Prince Pingnan was the late emperor’s brother, very brave and skilled in battle, and highly respected in the court.

But it couldn’t withstand the fact that the late emperor married Empress Dowager Xiao.

Empress Dowager Xiao’s brother was Duke Dingguo, Xiao Yuan, backed by the entire Xiao family. At that time, Xiao Yuan had also married the sister of the neighboring Marquis Yongyi, who was Yan Lin’s aunt. The two most prominent families in the Daqian dynasty were thus united by marriage and supported the late emperor together. How could the late emperor fail?

So, in the end, the throne was won by the late emperor.

After ascending the throne, he sent Prince Pingnan to a distant fief.

However, Prince Pingnan was not content and secretly raised an army, eventually colluding with the Heavenly Sect, which had many followers among the people, growing increasingly powerful.

Twenty years ago, he and the leader of the Heavenly Sect marched north with their troops, directly attacking the capital.

They heavily besieged the entire imperial palace.

The late emperor was hunting in Shanglin Garden at the time and thus escaped the disaster, protected by the elite soldiers of Shanglin Garden as he fled north.

However, Empress Dowager Xiao, who was then the empress, and Crown Prince Shen Lang were still in the palace.

“It’s strange. When Prince Pingnan’s elite soldiers and the Heavenly Sect rebels stormed the palace, they couldn’t find the empress and the crown prince, so they suspected there was a secret passage in the palace through which they escaped,” Fang Miao said, her voice trembling with a hint of fear. “But the rebels had already surrounded the city. If the empress and the crown prince tried to escape from the palace, they would have to pass through the city gates. So, heavy troops were immediately stationed at the gates, not letting anyone out. Prince Pingnan, hating the late emperor to the core, wouldn’t stop until he found the crown prince. He ordered a house-to-house search in the capital, capturing all boys aged four to twelve or taller than three feet.”

Everyone shuddered at this.

Jiang Xuening felt nauseous.

Fang Miao’s voice was strained, but an unseen force seemed to push her to continue, as if this story needed to be told: “Many people had already fled the capital upon hearing of the impending war, but there were still many families left. They captured over three hundred boys. The crown prince was about eight years old at the time. Prince Pingnan had palace servants who had served the crown prince identify the boys, but none of the three hundred were the crown prince. Prince Pingnan was furious. The city was tightly sealed, and he didn’t believe anyone could escape. He issued an order that if anyone was hiding the crown prince, they should hand him over immediately, or all three hundred boys would be slaughtered.”

Zhou Baoying, who had never heard of this before, widened her eyes and asked softly, “What happened then?”

Fang Miao’s face turned pale as she continued, “Later, Duke Dingguo and Marquis Yongyi’s reinforcements drove back the rebels and reopened the city gates. They found a mountain of corpses piled at the palace gate. It had snowed for three days, freezing the bodies together. The blood had turned to ice, and even iron picks couldn’t break it. When they managed to break a piece, it was still attached to the flesh. They didn’t dare to move it. When the snow melted, the bodies had rotted…”

“Ugh!”

Yao Xi, who had been listening quietly, couldn’t hold back any longer and ran out of the room, covering her mouth.

The others looked equally horrified.

Fang Miao felt her stomach churn as she recalled the scene in Kunning Palace earlier, becoming even more fearful: “Later, the late emperor ordered the three hundred boys to be buried with honors at White Pagoda Temple. They were called ‘Righteous Child’ for dying to save the crown prince. The stele forest at White Pagoda Temple is also known as the ‘Tomb of the Righteous Child.’ It’s said that the seven-year-old young master of Duke Dingguo’s family was among them…”

That would be Xiao Shu’s brother.

His status was even higher than Xiao Shu’s: besides being a son of the Xiao family, his mother was the sister of Marquis Yongyi, Yan Mu. He was the first child born from the union of the two great families.

Although the Qingyuan Earl’s family had declined, You Yue had heard of this and couldn’t help but show off: “After losing her son, Madam Yan was heartbroken and divorced Duke Dingguo, returning to the Marquis Yongyi’s residence, where she soon passed away. The Yan and Xiao families have had no contact since then.”

Yao Rongrong exclaimed in surprise, “So, Miss Xiao is actually from a second marriage?”

“Bang!”

Before she could finish, the half-open door was pushed open with a loud bang, startling everyone.

It was Xiao Shu standing at the door.

Her face was stern and angry as she coldly said, “What nonsense are you all talking about?”