After Being Mistakenly Taken for a Fellow Traveler by Emperor Long Aotian - Chapter 150

Chapter 150: “Prime Minister Lu Found Something.”

The continuous rain finally ceased on the day of the sacrificial ceremony.

The war at the border with Northern Wei had also temporarily paused. Northern Wei had suffered heavy losses in both Xizhou and Liangzhou and was now entrenched in Yunzhou. Although Yunzhou was defended by Northern Wei’s renowned General Li, the situation was dire and nearing its end.

The Emperor was scheduled to ascend the altar set up in the capital that day, praying to the heavens for peace and paying tribute to the spirits of the fallen soldiers.

Two days before the ceremony, the Emperor brought Zhou Xun over, asking him to review the clothes he would wear and the sacrificial prayers drafted multiple times by the Hanlin Academy. Zhou Xun watched his solemn demeanor and said, “I didn’t expect you to take this so seriously.”

“Hm? What do you mean by ‘so seriously’?” the Emperor asked while fixing the crown on his head.

“Nothing, I just thought of how you reacted last year when you had to attend the ceremony. You didn’t want to go and complained a lot,” Zhou Xun replied, lowering his head to adjust the Emperor’s belt carefully. The Emperor glanced down at Zhou Xun’s black hair, his face turning slightly red.

“…Things have changed. Since I’ve come to this place, I must take responsibility for the people here. As the ruler of this era, I must respect the culture and customs of its people. Mocking their traditions with so-called ‘modern views’ is no different from being detached and condescending. Without respect, there can be no understanding. If holding a sacrificial ceremony brings them peace of mind, then it should be done out of respect, not dismissed in the name of ‘science,’ as if one is superior to them,” the Emperor said. “Clinging to one’s own knowledge while viewing the people as ignorant isn’t a genuine desire for this era to improve; it’s just self-glorification. And arrogance is a form of ignorance.”

“Who said that?” Zhou Xun asked, finishing the adjustment of the jade pendant at the Emperor’s waist. “Which scholar is that from?”

“I said it,” the Emperor replied. “You mentioned before that I was too impatient. I reflected on it and realized that my impatience stemmed from arrogance and ignorance.”

Zhou Xun finished his work and looked up at the Emperor. At that moment, he realized the Emperor was half a head taller than him, gazing down with pitch-black eyes, a straight nose, and long eyelashes.

Suddenly, Zhou Xun felt his breath tighten.

If Zhou Xun and the Emperor were in the same era, he would have known his reaction now could be described as—

“Completely taken aback by the Emperor’s sudden seriousness.”

But the Emperor soon laughed, his familiar brightness and cheer returning to his brows and eyes. He reached out, touched Zhou Xun’s cheek, and said, “You’ve lost a lot of weight recently.”

Zhou Xun couldn’t help softening his tone: “A little, perhaps.”

He was pulled into the Emperor’s embrace, surrounded by his scent. Nervously, Zhou Xun grasped the Emperor’s shoulders. The Emperor buried his face in Zhou Xun’s neck and said, “We’ve both been so busy these past months, working until late every night and collapsing into bed—”

Then came a sudden sense of suspension.

Zhou Xun’s panicked “No, there’s still work tomorrow” was cut off as he realized the Emperor had lifted him up and…

…shook him.

And then shook him again.

The Emperor exclaimed, “You really have lost weight! You didn’t feel this light before!”

Then he put Zhou Xun back down.

Zhou Xun: …

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll have Lianrong and the others make you more fish soup and pork hock stew to nourish your body. Your waist is so bony it’s uncomfortable to hold—hm? Why are you glaring at me?”

Zhou Xun said nothing and walked out.

It wasn’t until an hour after Zhou Xun left that the Emperor, lying alone in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, suddenly understood why.

Tears welled up in his eyes.

The Emperor lamented, “Ugh, working overtime is ruining us!”

…

Despite the Emperor’s grief, the sacrificial ceremony on the third day proceeded as planned.

According to the arrangements, the head of the Ye family was to be transported from his place of detention that day. However, the day before his transport, Zhou Xun received an unexpected visitor.

Unexpected, yet not entirely surprising. Prime Minister Lu had been visiting Zhou’s residence frequently in recent days. Sometimes they played chess, other times they read books, and occasionally, Prime Minister Lu would share stories about his new apprentices. Prime Minister Lu was indeed very knowledgeable, and they seemed more like friends when they were together.

What was unexpected, however, was the item Prime Minister Lu brought.

He had found an undelivered farewell letter in an old case file.

The letter was stitched into the prison garment of the Lin family patriarch, addressed to his daughter.

The Lin family patriarch had not been able to see his daughter before her marriage. While being exiled, he had begged the guards for ink and paper to write this letter. He sewed it into his clothes, hoping to send it someday. Unfortunately, he fell ill and passed away, leaving the letter unnoticed in the archives for years. It had never seen the light of day.

Prime Minister Lu discovered the letter and brought it to Zhou Xun.

“Now that you are the last descendant of the Lin family, this letter should rightfully be yours,” Prime Minister Lu said.

Zhou Xun thanked him. After advising Zhou Xun to rest well, Prime Minister Lu left. It wasn’t until after he left that Xiao Duo approached Zhou Xun, informing him that the Prime Minister had also delivered two large pork hocks.

Zhou Xun, both amused and exasperated, told them to cook the pork hocks.

Alone in his study, Zhou Xun held the letter in his hands. The paper was yellowed with age, carrying the aura of two decades past. As he opened it, he recalled something the Emperor once said—that the stars in the sky are far away, and what we see is their light from hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

At that moment, as he read the words line by line, he glimpsed the starlight of a man who, decades ago, had shown kindness, naively befriended others, and was the head of the Lin family.

…

At dawn the next day.

At dawn, the head of the Ye family was transported in a concealed carriage. They took side roads, encountering few people. Shackled, he shrank into a corner of the carriage, terrified of an imminent attack.

At dawn, the Emperor departed from the palace. His carriage would traverse the capital, heading to the newly constructed altar. There, he would pay tribute to the fallen souls and inspire confidence in the masses gathered beyond the alert line, waiting in a sea of humanity.

At dawn, Old Shen set out from Princess Fukung’s residence.

He encountered the consort of Princess Fukung, the man she called “Old Lu.” Old Lu was the second-place scholar in the imperial examination that year. Talented and knowledgeable, he lacked ambition and carried an easygoing demeanor. Becoming the consort of a princess meant his official career prospects were effectively over, but he didn’t mind. When they first married, the princess refused to meet him, let alone share a room. He didn’t take offense and instead immersed himself in painting. Every time he finished a painting, he would send it to her. If she rejected it, he would simply take it back.

Day after day, over time, he transformed from “the consort” into “Old Lu.”

He exchanged a few words with Old Lu, who smiled cheerfully, holding a birdcage in his hand. After leaving the residence, he strolled leisurely through the streets of the capital.

He chose less crowded paths where there were hardly any people. Turning corner after corner, he finally stopped on a particular street.

He took off his shoes and began shaking them to remove the sand inside.

He didn’t notice the sounds around him, focusing solely on his task. Meanwhile, the carriage carrying the head of the Ye family crossed a small bridge. The emperor’s carriage was momentarily blocked at a bustling intersection.

A group of ruffians charged at the carriage carrying the Ye family head, only to retreat quickly.

The congested crowd was gradually dispersed, and the emperor’s carriage continued moving forward.

At the same time, someone grabbed the hand of a man pulling back a bowstring.

As a royal guard, Lu Xiandao keenly spotted a familiar figure in the crowd. Delegating his post to He Liang, he instinctively gave chase. Unbeknownst to him, another man in a nearby restaurant saw him leave and hurriedly followed.

“Stop,” came Zhou Xun’s cold voice behind the archer. “Your master is in the teahouse over there, isn’t she? She wants to witness her most hated enemy’s death with her own eyes.”

The archer attempted to bite his tongue, but others acted faster, gripping his throat to prevent him from ending his life. Others carefully retrieved the poisoned arrow. Zhou Xun lifted the curtain and calmly observed the old man, Shen Huanju.

Today, Shen hadn’t needed to leave his house, yet he walked through the city on foot.

—It was deliberate.

After his earlier conversation with Zhou Xun, he had chosen to make himself the bait, gambling on whether Zhou Xun would arrive in time. Or perhaps, upon seeing the happiness of Fukung and Old Lu, as well as Zhou Xun finding his own path, Shen had already stopped gambling on Zhou Xun’s timing.

Maybe he had considered the possibility of death when he left. His deputy likely informed him of the “General’s” true identity. He now knew that the “General” originated from Qin Liang’s injury and refuge in the Lin family. Pursuing Qin Liang led to uncovering his presence in the Lin household, and with Qin narrowly escaping, the case was handed over to the Jiangzhou prefect, ultimately resulting in the Lin family’s destruction.

The “General” hated him most of all. He also knew Zhou Xun was the “General’s” child.

That day, after Zhou Xun’s hints, Shen still chose to leave. Perhaps he believed that if his death could end the hatred, if it could make the “General” leave, Zhou Xun would no longer have to face the cruelty of mother and son turning against each other.

But Zhou Xun arrived too quickly, and now Shen understood his intentions.

Shen Huanju finally stopped shaking his shoes, which contained no sand. Gazing at the distant figure in the teahouse, his eyes unexpectedly grew warm.

…

The teahouse was surrounded on all sides. Zhou Xun finally ascended step by step.

The first floor. The second floor. The third floor.

At last, he reached the intended level.

As he pushed open the door, he realized that the “General” had no plans to escape.

The room was filled with the scent of incense. Zhou Xun glanced aside and saw that the incense stick in the burner was nearly burnt out, the remaining ash drooping weakly.

Such a desolate sight, as if life itself was waning.

Behind the screen, he saw the silhouette of the woman sitting there, gazing toward the window, holding a long pipe in her hand.

After so many years, it was his first time truly observing her. At that moment, they felt less like mother and son and more like strangers who had inadvertently disrupted each other’s lives. She had her fate, and he had his.

Zhou Xun sat quietly on the mat.

“You didn’t flee because you knew there was no way to escape, did you?” he asked.

The woman, holding her pipe, had her back to him, her shadow visible. She said, “In truth, I should’ve left three days ago. Qin Liang told me that was my last chance to leave the capital safely. But I didn’t. Qin Liang won’t come for me either—he’s a sly fox. His guilt toward the Lin family has been exhausted.”

“Because you were waiting for Shen Huanju. You wanted to kill him,” Zhou Xun said calmly.

“Indeed. I can forgive the emperor; when the Lin family was exterminated, he was just a clueless child. And the Ye family head? Killing him is easy, and he’s already a drowning dog. So the only one I truly hate is Shen Huanju. Everything started because of him. And you, Zhou Xun, ended up becoming his disciple…”

When she said his name, she paused briefly, though her tone didn’t change. Zhou Xun instead chuckled softly and said, “Yes, Zhou Xun—that’s the name you gave me.”

“I never thought you’d survive, let alone that you’d be the one to catch me today. That Shen Huanju would take you as his disciple… How ironic. He destroyed the Lin family, and in the end, he took you under his wing,” she said. Her voice trembled slightly as she seemed to take a puff from her pipe, exhaling slowly. “I gambled everything, staying here just to see him dead. But I was only clinging to a glimmer of hope, and you… you were too clever. You found my hiding place from the very beginning. What can I say? You are, after all, of Lin family blood, aren’t you?”

“Your wrath has implicated too many others. Destroying the Ye and Zhou families wasn’t enough? What wrong did the people of Yunzhou do? What wrong did the citizens of Jingguo commit?”

“And what wrong did the Lin family commit? What wrong did my father commit?” the woman said bitterly. “How laughable. You’ve experienced the same pain yourself. The only reason you can reproach me now is because you think of yourself as a citizen of Jingguo and consider me one as well. But do you know what the Lin family endured?”

“The drought in Jiangzhou—it was the Lin family that opened its granaries for disaster relief. The city’s waterways—they were funded by the Lin family. Rice, oil, medicine—the Lin family’s shops always offered the lowest prices. Anyone who explained their hardships could receive medicine for free. Poor scholars were given travel expenses to the capital by my father. My wet nurse, sold into a brothel by her gambler husband, was redeemed by the Lin family, which punished her husband. Yet when the Lin family was falsely accused of colluding with Northern Wei, do you know what they did?”

“All the shops were seized in the name of justice. The scholars once supported by the Lin family shut their doors and distanced themselves—some even sided with the Ye family, fabricating false testimonies. The common people who once received aid accused us of using charity to buy favor. Walking the streets, we were pelted with mud. When my mother fell gravely ill, I knelt before every pharmacy in town, but no one would sell us medicine.” Her voice grew heavier. “And the most laughable thing? Do you know who placed those incriminating letters in my father’s study?”

“My wet nurse. Her gambler husband promised they could start anew if she did.”

“If you were in my place, how would you feel? My father, who lived a life of charity and goodwill, met such a fate simply for taking in a friend. Wouldn’t you hate? But alas, he died on the road to exile. The dead cannot speak. My brother died too, leaving only me to carry the Lin family’s voice…”

Zhou Xun looked quietly at her back. After a long silence, he said, “The Grand Chancellor found something.”

“The Grand…”

“He thought you were dead. And I, as your child, was given this by him. Now, I’m returning it to its rightful owner.”

Something appeared beside her. Zhou Xun handed it through the screen.

“Take a look,” Zhou Xun said softly. “It’s a letter from the head of the Lin family—to you.”