Chapter 277 The shadow walls in the Seventh Stage
He Danggui ran towards the bulging stuff on the ground and picked it up. With the help of the light of the sky, she found that it was an octagonal cedar box. The box was as large as a cattail leaf fan with words written on the lid. At that time, it was dim and unclear. He Danggui felt anxious, so she lit up Huo Zhe Zi (a tight roll of rough paper keeping in an airtight tube box, which could be carried around and was easy to rekindle once it was exposed into the air again).
It did not take long before the sky turned bright. The gray sky at dawn had been gradually fulfilled with sunlight. Now, He Danggui could see the black corridor where she was in. The left and right walls even reflected people’s shadows. Upon an inspection, she found the shadows were like court ladies and eunuchs. She was alert at first, but then her alert turned into confusion. Those shadows were just colored reflections on the white walls, far from real people. Besides, they were moving with faint voices from the walls.
This kind of scene was like the “television” or “screen” described by Qing’er. It was quite novel to He Danggui, so she carefully put the cedar box in her arms and walked down the corridor. There were plenty of moving shadows on the walls, and they had triggered He Danggui’s curiosity. Although the voice from the people in the wall was far away, her ears were good enough to collect even the weakest sound.
The shadows on the left wall had surprised her, which looked like the Imperial Palace in her previous life. She had pretended to be a little eunuch and followed Zhu Quan into the palace, so she could confirm that these were all the palaces for unmarried princesses. When she went down further, a shrill voice from a eunuch was heard, “A shameless princess. If I were her, I would already commit suicide. But she is still singing in the yard. Her squeaky voice is terrible enough, not to mention her burnt face!”
Then He Danggui went further and saw that in a courtyard, a teenage girl wearing a bamboo hat was singing while wiping her tears. After a while, a young man suddenly showed up, and he seemed to be the juvenile Qi Xuanyu. The girl must be the Tenth Princess.
“Tenth Princess,” Qi Xuanyu smiled and approached the girl, “Are you looking for me?”
“You are here!” The girl stood up in surprise, “You said that once I sang, you would walk down from the sky to see me. My angel, you didn’t lie to me!”
Angel? He Danggui snorted disdainfully. This man was just a liar. He even started to fool a little girl when he was so young.
Qi Xuanyu took out a brass argyle mirror from his sleeve, and then handed it to the girl with a smile, “It’s for you. Try it.”
The girl immediately cried, “What do you mean?”
Qi Xuanyu took out a white folded paper object and said, “This is a precious stuff I asked for from other immortals. Let me put it on for you.” No matter whether the girl agreed or not, he grabbed her to take off her bamboo hat. Ignoring her elusion and scream, he held her cheeks and carefully wiped her tears. Then he said in a gentle tone, “You don’t need to feel ashamed. It’s not your fault to be like this. Besides, I have a third eye. I can see your true appearance. You are beautiful.”
Up to now, the girl was back on to He Danggui, making her even more curious about how bad the girl’s face was hurt. As far as she knew, if survivors of fire got their faces burnt, then the most fragile eyes would be damaged as well in most cases. Was the girl blind?
Qi Xuanyu entered his official career at the age of 14. He won the trust of the emperor through divination when he went to the Imperial Palace for the first time. With a promising future, he could have any kind of beauties. Why should he be so complaisant to a disfigured princess? He was a friend of Zhu Quan, so he couldn’t be a benevolent person. Was it because of a little sympathy that he ventured into the princess’s residence and played pretend with a little girl?
He Danggui walked around the shadow several times, wanting to take a look at the girl’s face from another angle, but these shadows were flat, so she couldn’t see the girl’s face at all. When she was disappointed, the view of the wall spontaneously turned around. It showed the back of Qi Xuanyu and the girl’s face.
He Danggui’s face was close to the wall. As a result, when the girl’s face suddenly appeared on the wall, it almost touched the nose of He Danggui. She was shocked to scream and stepped backward. The girl’s face was densely covered with dozens of old scars of various depths. It was too horrible to look at it... Was her face burned by fire? No! it was cut by a knife! Who dared to hurt Zhu Yuanzhang’s daughter!
He Danggui leaned against the wall on the right and took a deep breath. Just at the moment when she wanted to check how similar the girl was to her, a bloodcurdling sound came from the wall behind her. That was Zhu Quan’s voice.
“Do we really have to kill her? I... I can’t do it.”
Another voice answered, “She peeked at the correspondence between you and Zhu Yunwen. Besides, she knows your hesitation between Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di in those years. In addition, she put forward the idea that you pretended to be kidnapped by Zhu Di so that you can send your troops to Zhu Di. Once she betrays you, you will be powerless! Do you want to put yourself at risk regardless of your emperor dream?” That voice was low and hoarse with an uncomfortable retroflex consonant.
“However, Concubine He is loyal to my Lord. She has not made any disobedience in the past ten years. What’s more, she is pregnant with the Lord’s child.” That was the voice of Ming Yue. When He Danggui slowly turned around, she indeed saw Zhu Quan! The man in black beside Zhu Quan wore a transparent ice mask. The mask was pressed closely against his face and deformed his face, so she couldn’t see his real appearance at all.
Ming Yue squatted in the corner of the room, managing some colored marbles. He Danggui knew those were intelligence beads from Wuying Tower. The color and size of the beads represented the category and importance of intelligence. The lowest level was Yellow; the highest level was purple. He Danggui had also participated in work of intelligence concentration and distribution. Ming Yue was rubbing a marble in his hand and said, “Since a woman is pregnant, she is like a tree rooting here. How could she betray my Lord? Mr. Gao, you said Concubine He is cheating on my Lord, but you don’t have any evidence. I think you are just sowing discord.”
The man in black laughed and said, “A slave dares to talk to me? Lord, you don’t have any rules here, huh?”
Zhu Quan snorted and took off an orange from a mini citrus tree on the case, “Apart from booking a room at Yuelai Inn, does she have any other unusual behaviors? Did you saw that a man met her covertly?”
He Danggui was looking at this Zhu Quan on the wall. Ming Yue mentioned that she was pregnant with a child. Then, this scenario was half a year before she was killed. This Zhu Quan was very young, and he was 20 years younger than the one in Wu Xiang Ge. This proved that everything that happened in Wu Xiang Ge was fake!
The man in black laughed out in a terrible sound and said arrogantly, “She is the concubine of you. She should have been embroidering in her room. What would she do in a room of the inn in disguise? I knew I should have caught them red-handed. The reason why I didn’t is that I wanted to take care of your reputation. Lord, you should trust me. I have no grudge against her. Why would I trap her?”
He Danggui frowned. She had a vague memory about sneaking out when she was pregnant, but that was for...
Zhu Quan raised his hand and told Ming Yue, who was watching and listening in the corner, “I want to have tea and play Go with Mr. Song. Go to Jiu Lan Yard and prepare them.” Ming Yue reluctantly left, muttering in his mouth, “Mr. Song has been dead for many years. What’s wrong with my Lord?”
He Danggui knew that Mr. Song was Song You, the best tea artist in the world, known as “Senior Lu Yu”. When Zhu Quan was on his way to Daning after being conferred Lord Ning, he brought Song You with him, who could not walk because of the punishment, removal of the kneecaps. After their arrival, Zhu Quan placed him in the Jiu Lan Yard of Lord Ning’s Mansion. Whenever he was free, he would have tea and play Go with Song You. Song You was He Danggui’s teacher of tea art. He had taught her for two years and died of illness in the 3rd year of Jianwen Period.
After his death, Zhu Quan was sad and regretful, sighing that he had lost a confidant. Though He Danggui would make tea for him, Zhu Quan still complained that he would never taste the Cloud tea again. He Danggui heard that Zhu Quan often went to Jiu Lan Yard to recall the past with Song You and play Go by himself. She was very dissatisfied, so she practiced tea art and Go skills day and night, and finally, she was able to compare with Song You.
However, Song You was an ascetic monk and was careless about everything. His Go skills and tea art contained leisure without desire, not like He Danggui’s. Although He Danggui had caught up with Song You’s skills, she was too eager to win and was far from Song You’s understanding. These comments on herself were made in this life after she restudied tea art and Go skills. She was blinded by her superb skills in her previous life.
Qin, Go, Calligraphy, Painting, Poetry, Wine, Tea, and Flowers were all graceful objects. However, once they became tools to win the favor of others, there would be no difference between them and the vulgar tricks. No matter how good a Go player was, he or she would be nothing more than a Go stone on others’ Go board, and his or her life and death were not under his or her own control. He Danggui looked at the shadow on the wall and smiled sarcastically. Zhu Quan couldn’t do this to her? But when he finally killed her, he showed no mercy at all.
After Ming Yue left, Zhu Quan turned to the man in black, “Let’s pass this topic. If she really betrays me or cheats on me, I will not spare her. Gao Shenjun, what have you gained from the sea journey? Are Fang Qi’s troops available?”
“Why should we pass this? I’m here for this! Why don’t you deal with it?” The man in black snorted coldly, “Lord, don’t be immersed in love and forget our pride of Mongols, and the shame of our conquered nation. Which is more important, the annoying woman or your great cause?”
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