Yunchu’s Vengeance - Chapter 174
Chapter 174 - She Was Overthinking
Yun Chu stood up to take her leave.
Chu Yi escorted her out of the Prince's Manor. Seeing that she intended to return on foot, he knitted his brows: "Cheng Xu, arrange a carriage and horses."
Cheng Xu wanted to point out that traveling by horse or carriage on the streets of the capital during the dead of night was strictly forbidden under curfew.
Yet it instantly occurred to him just who their Prince was. When suppressing bandits, he often returned to the capital in the middle of the night, and even the city gates had to be opened especially for him; what did riding a carriage in the dead of night matter?
He arranged a carriage at once.
Yun Chu naturally intended to decline.
"Qin Mingheng's remaining partisans have not all been captured yet. If Miss Yun were to be abducted on the road, it would be my failing," Chu Yi said with a courteous gesture. "Miss Yun, please."
Before she was married, people had frequently addressed her as Miss Yun.
Yet after her marriage, everyone called her Madam Xie; hearing the words "Miss Yun" made her feel slightly unaccustomed.
Even after she left the Xie family and severed ties with Xie Jingyu, outsiders should still address a formerly married woman like her as Lady Yun.
However, bringing up such a nuance regarding forms of address felt overly deliberate.
She nodded to Chu Yi in gratitude, held Qiu Tong's hand for support, bent her waist, and stepped into the carriage, which steadily rolled forward.
Hearing the distinct sound of another set of horse hooves beside her, she lifted the carriage curtain and saw Chu Yi actually riding his horse right alongside her carriage.
"I am heading to the Court of Judicial Review to take over Qin Mingheng's case."
Chu Yi offered an involuntary explanation.
Only after explaining did he realize that the Court of Judicial Review lay to the west, whereas he was following her toward the east.
Yun Chu did not pry further, lowering the curtain, and arrived smoothly outside the main gates of the Xie Manor.
The two guards stationed at the entrance immediately bowed: "Greetings to the Prince of Pingxi!"
Chu Yi nodded, watching with his own eyes as Yun Chu stepped through the main entrance of the Xie Manor.
Yun Chu felt an intensely burning gaze lingering upon her back all along. Without even turning her head, she knew it undoubtedly belonged to Chu Yi.
After her coming-of-age ceremony, she had been hailed as the foremost beauty of the capital; whenever she traveled outside, she could feel countless similar glances directed her way.
Later on, she gradually ventured out less and less.
When she stepped out in subsequent years, she had already become a married woman with her hair styled in a matronly bun, and she rarely felt such blatant gazes anymore.
She found it somewhat difficult to believe—could the Prince of Pingxi truly harbor feelings for her...
She shook her head.
Impossible.
She was definitely overthinking.
Only after the main gates of the Xie Manor swung shut did Chu Yi finally withdraw his gaze.
He looked toward the imperial guards stationed outside the Xie Manor and commanded, "Pass down this prince's order: all forces are to withdraw."
She still held a place in her heart for that man; if they could not hold a proper funeral or announce his mourning, he feared it would become a knot tied in her heart for the rest of her life.
He hoped that she would be able to forget Xie Jingyu as soon as possible...
"Your Highness, someone came to report just now." Cheng Xu stepped forward, lowering his voice: "Didn't Your Highness previously instruct us to investigate Physician Qin? This subordinate's men spent half a month inquiring all over the capital. While they did turn up three or four Physician Qins, none of them were former imperial physicians from the palace."
Chu Yi recalled the matter.
During the grand wedding of the Xie family's Eldest Young Lady, Xie Ping, he had learned from Xie Jingyu's own mouth that Yun Chu had once hired an elderly former imperial physician named Qin to treat him.
As military treatises taught: know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles.
Therefore, he had specially arranged for men to seek out Physician Qin, aiming to uncover the true state of Xie Jingyu's health.
Yet for such a minor matter, after investigating for over half a month, they had remarkably come up empty-handed.
"This subordinate altered our approach to investigate," Cheng Xu continued. "I spent some silver to have the servants of the Xie Manor who had seen the old imperial physician each draw a portrait, and then took them to the government office where an official artist synthesized a single composite sketch. It finally allowed this subordinate to track him down. It turns out that the so-called former imperial physician Qin was actually an old man who sells tofu in Tofu Alley within the capital! This subordinate had guards take the old man for tea, raising the bribe from ten taels of silver all the way to one thousand three hundred taels. It took a full three hours of effort before the old man finally relented and revealed that it was Madam Xie who sought him out, paying him to impersonate an imperial physician from the palace..."
Chu Yi, whose countenance was always composed and aloof, revealed an expression of sheer astonishment.
Yun Chu hired a tofu seller to treat her husband's illness?
In other words, she had never wished for her husband to recover in the first place?
Why would she do such a thing?
Question after question surged into his mind.
Yet there was no time for him to ponder.
He ordered immediately, "Where is that old man right now?"
What his own men could uncover, others would likely be able to uncover as well...
"After the old man spilled the truth, he was placed under custody, awaiting Your Highness's disposal!"
Chu Yi pressed his lips together.
Where Yun Chu was concerned, he could not afford to be anything less than meticulous.
As for this old man—if one claimed he betrayed Yun Chu, it took over a thousand taels of silver to pry open his mouth, when selling tofu yielded merely two or three taels a month.
Yet if one claimed he did not betray Yun Chu, under threats and inducements, he had still confessed the person behind it in the end.
Kill him?
That seemed improper.
It was not that his heart was soft.
Rather, if one day Yun Chu learned that he killed without batting an eye, he would not even have a chance to explain himself.
He paused for quite some time before speaking: "Relocate this old man's entire household to Luochuan."
Luochuan was his fiefdom and domain; by keeping the man in Luochuan under his people's watchful eyes, absolute safety could be guaranteed.
Cheng Xu immediately acknowledged the order and set off to carry it out.
The guards stationed outside the Xie Manor dispersed at once.
Xie Zhongcheng was filled with sheer disbelief; this daughter-in-law had merely stepped out in the middle of the night, yet she had completely resolved the Xie family's dire crisis, showcasing the Yun family's immense standing within the capital.
How wonderful it would have been had she acted sooner; Jingyu would not have perished from excessive drinking...
Yet now, he had no ground to reproach this daughter-in-law, fearing she might truly throw down her hands and walk away...
Xie Zhongcheng forced himself to steady his footing and take charge of the overall situation. However, the servants in the manor had all fled, leaving so few usable hands that many tasks required doing everything themselves.
He instructed the concubines to hang white mourning banners and white lanterns throughout the estate, and he personally went out to purchase the finest coffin within their means. Together with Lady Yuan, he laid Xie Jingyu inside the coffin.
"Brother Yu, my son!" Lady Yuan wept with a grief that tore her heart to pieces. "You suffered in this life; in your next life, be an upright, honorable person, and live smoothly until old age..."
As the coffin lid slid closed inch by inch, Lady Yuan collapsed weakly to the floor.
The concubines covered their faces and wept bitterly, while a crowd of young children who did not understand the gravity of the situation joined in the weeping, filling the room with mournful sobs.
Yun Chu stood before the coffin, taking one final look at Xie Jingyu.
Once the coffin was completely sealed, she lit three sticks of incense and planted them into the incense burner. From this moment forth, the grievances and blood feud between them were brought to an absolute close.
The news of Xie Jingyu's death swiftly spread throughout the entire capital.
The Xie family had already been teetering at the center of public outrage during this period, their repeated misdeeds continually trampling upon the common folk's moral baseline; now that Xie Jingyu was dead, everyone found it immensely gratifying.
"Embezzling silver—he deserved to die! Leaving behind an intact corpse was already far too generous for him."
"I was wondering why he dared to take a daughter of the He family as a concubine; turns out he wanted to consult the He family for tips on embezzlement, tsk tsk!"
"Among the three children born to Xie Jingyu and that He woman, the eldest son committed matricide, the eldest daughter schemed against Prince Anjing, and the youngest son killed his own great-grandmother. It seems they were rotten to the core from the very roots."
"Even with such an exceptional primary mistress like the Yun family's eldest legitimate daughter raising them, they couldn't be set straight. What a pity for the Eldest Young Lady of the Yun family."
"...”