Tang Rou woke abruptly. As soon as she sat up and found herself in an unfamiliar bed, her fragmented memory gradually recovered. All of the blood in her face receded in an instant, leaving only tears glimmering in her eyes. 

Her mother’s persuading from the previous night still echoed in her ears. After drinking tea, her whole body became hot, her consciousness blurred. Then she was delivered here by her mother herself and stripped of her clothes, a lamb to the slaughter. She was abandoned here without concern for her dignity or reputation. 

She had lived as Tang Mu for over a decade. One moment she was working conscientiously for Nangfeng City, and the next, she received such deplorable treatment by her mother. That contrast tormented her more than any humiliation. 

Just when Tang Mu was breaking down, there was a knock on the door. Then Liu Zhenqing’s voice sounded: “Brother Tang, are you awake? It’s me and General Huo.”

Tang Rou’s head was muddled. She remembered that Liu Zhenqing was here the night before. She knew she hadn’t been bullied and that Liu Zhenqing gave her medicine, which made her feel much better…..so……she’d been found out.

Reason and despair yanked her back and forth.

But now that she was Tang Mu, ah, she had to grit her teeth and endure all the humiliation, forcing herself to deal with it calmly.

“Please wait…..” Tang Mu said with feigned serenity. In the blink of an eye, she saw a set of neat and tidy men’s clothes beside the bed. Her heart seemed to catch a sense of warmth, and she felt slightly reassured.

Once Tang Rou tidied up, she called them in.

Liu Zhenqing and Huo Fenglie entered.

Liu Zhenqing looked over and found that although Tang Rou’s eyes were distinctly lifeless, she was putting on a brave face. He couldn’t help but feel some sympathy. Just as he was about to say a few words of concern, Huo Fenglie suddenly took half a step forward to block his line of sight.

“Tang-chengzhu, please take a seat,” Huo Fenglie said coolly, still treating Tang Rou with the same attitude as before. 

Liu Zhenqing was drawn by Huo Fenglie to sit down. Tang Rou, however, did not sit. Rather, she saluted the two of them: “Apologies for causing the two of you trouble last night.”

“Please get up, I have something to say,” Liu Zhenqing said hurriedly.

Tang Rou straightened and sat down, her expression still endlessly ugly.

Liu Zhenqing smiled dryly and dove right in: “You’re Tang Rou?”

Tang Rou trembled all over. Although she knew she had to face it, she still panicked when the moment came. 

Liu Zhenqing absolutely couldn’t bear to see this, and immediately said: “You…..don’t need to worry so much. The only ones who know are me and Fenglie, and we won’t tell anyone. Do you remember what happened last night?”

Tang Rou said: “I don’t remember too much.”

Liu Zhenqing gave a simple overview of the previous night’s events.

He also particularly emphasized, “I discovered your secret when I heard your higher voice. It was the same with Fenglie later.”

He had also convinced Huo Fenglie of this last night. Although Huo Fenglie didn’t really believe him, Liu Zhenqing had many ways to deal with a disobedient Er-gou who dared to question him. He’d kissed him until his mouth softened, his heart fluttered, and his imposing manner deflated. In the end, Huo Fenglie could only say that he believed him, and didn’t dare to provoke Liu Zhenqing again.

The two of them didn’t do anything at all about the unconscious Tang Rou. After all, she was only wearing her undergarments and it wasn’t safe to send her back. It was too late at night, and Huo Fenglie had spent the day fighting, so the two of them went back to Liu Zhenqing’s room to rest.

Hearing the special emphasis Liu Zhenqing placed on his words, Huo Fenglie glanced at him noncommittally. 

Liu Zhenqing smiled at him and winked, his eyes full of ambiguity. This made Huo Fenglie feel the lingering fear of the past, when he’d become increasingly unable to resist Qing-ge’s kisses. 

In fact, Tang Rou remembered that she had lost control and embraced Liu Zhenqing, but seeing Liu Zhenqing avoid it like this, whether it was out of respect for her or because he feared the person next to him would be jealous, Tang Mu went along with it. 

“Both of you are…..good people! I’m so fortunate. Otherwise, I’d be…..” As Tang Rou spoke, she took out the willow leaf jade pendant. 

Tang Rou did this to comfort herself, but it caused the two people opposite her to fall into a strange, awkward atmosphere.

It turned out that the person who admired Liu Zhenqing back then was not Tang Mu, but Tang Rou. This was reasonable. Liu Zhenqing touched his chin in discomfort. So he had gifted the jade pendant to Tang Rou? 

Huo Fenglie looked at such a Liu Zhenqing and knew that he must have unintentionally flirted with the young girl. After all, she’d even called him Xiting. His eyes darkened and he said directly: “Why did you pretend?”

The corners of Liu Zhenqing’s lips twitched and he gave Huo Fenglie a glance. So straightforward? 

Tang Rou was no ordinary woman. When faced with this question, she took a deep breath and said, still using Tang Mu’s voice: “The original City Lord was my elder brother, until something happened to Prime Minister Liu.”

Liu Zhenqing was taken aback. How was this related to him?

Tang Rou said: “When something happened to Prime Minister Liu, the entire Great Zhou Dynasty was collecting evidence of his crimes, and his deeds in Nanfeng City became a top priority. But the truth isn’t what they said. Prime Minister Liu was actually……benevolent to our Tang family.

“……Benevolent?” Huo Fenglie looked sideways at Liu Zhenqing.

“One of you knew Prime Minister Liu for many years, and the other is his kin. Would you like to hear the truth behind those rumors?”

“Please do.”

Liu Zhenqing looked at Tang Rou with a sigh. Back then, he’d said to never mention the truth to anyone. This was their due.

But no matter how complicated Liu Zhenqing’s mood was, Tang Rou opposite them seemed to have been waiting for this day, waiting to tell others the truth.

At the same time, in the military camp, a person was seized and dragged to Dai Tingyu.

Dai Tingyu regarded the captured man with puzzlement.

“This man was smuggled in from the Western Shu Kingdom. Some subordinates saw him sneaking around, and he seemed to be hiding something.”

Dai Tingyu was happy to directly give him a beating, but the man spoke tremulously. Someone had bribed him to tell the people of Nanfeng City the truth of Nanfeng City’s fall over a decade ago.

“Does he intend to orchestrate internal chaos within our ranks?” Dai Tingyu mocked, “Can’t your King of Western Shu do something more impressive?”

The newcomer no longer dared to lie. He could only certify that it was true he was bribed, but that the truth he spread was also the genuine truth.

Because the truth of back then was known most clearly by the Western Shu Kingdom, which had been deceived.

Everyone back then knew that there were external and internal troubles within the Great Zhou Dynasty, and they all wanted to step on it and get a piece of the pie. Thus, the King of Western Shu invaded Nanfeng City. It was said that Tang-chengzhu  and the city’s defenders were struggling to hold their own while waiting for rescue. As a result, Prime Minister Liu killed the old City Lord not long after he arrived and offered his head to appease Western Shu, intending to negotiate peace talks that involved ceding Nanfeng City. In the end, the new City Lord Tang Mu led a counterattack and saved the day. Therefore, the people of Nanfeng City were grateful to the Tang family and resented Prime Minister Liu.

Most of Dai Tingyu’s subordinates were locals from Nanfeng City, and naturally knew all about this. Because of their veiled attitudes toward Liu Zhenqing, Dai Tingu had always thought that Huo Fenglie and Tang Mu must know the inside story. When he heard the other party’s words, and it was the King of Western Shu who sent him to spread the news, he sensed something fishy and had his trusted aides remain while he questioned the man personally.

“Let’s see how your story goes!” Dai Tingyu’s subordinates were naturally skeptical, and spat out this sentence.

The prisoner trembled, saying: “In fact, our king bribed the Old City Lord back then, and the reason your city’s defenders constantly lost battles was because the old city lord kept funneling information to us in order to help us besiege Nanfeng City. The beautiful concubine at his side at the time was a spy sent by our Western Shu Kingdom. The old city lord agreed to flee Nanfeng City for Western Shu, and also provided us with a map of the city defenses.” 

As soon as he spoke these words, he was punched and kicked by the others. That the hero in their hearts could be slandered with such empty words was simply ridiculous and insulting to their intelligence! How could they possibly endure it?

The prisoner was beaten until he shouted: “I’m really not lying! Think about it, wasn’t there suddenly a beautiful woman at the Old City Lord’s side back then whom he loved and cherished very much? Do any of you know that beauty’s origin? In order to make the Old City Lord prove his resoluteness, our king also told him to kill his wife and children to prove that he truly intended to leave. Wasn’t there a fire in your City Lord’s manor? The Old City Lord’s wife and children were nearly burned to death, and even accused us of sending people to do it when in fact, it was your own Old City Lord demonstrating his loyalty to our king.”

A few people were moved. They were still young back then and naturally wouldn’t have much knowledge. But there had indeed been a beauty at the Old City Lord’s side, and the man and his wife had quarreled over it for days. This gossip had reached their ears, and as for the fire, it had been witnessed by everyone in the city.

Burn his wife and children to death? Then Tang Mu also…..no wonder Tang Mu never missed having his father there. Even when others praised his father, he always scoffed. Dai Tingyu gradually became inclined to believe this confession, and his expression turned ugly.

“It was just that…..he didn’t expect Tang Mu to escape and meet Prime Minister Liu, who had arrived with reinforcements. After working together to rescue everyone in the Tang family from the fire, they discovered something strange about the blaze and realized that the Old City Lord had colluded with our Western Shu. So they killed the Old City Lord, then used the trick of offering his head to deceive the military officials of Western Shu and fought them together. Only then did the crisis in Nanfeng City end.”

The others could no longer listen when the prisoner said this. “You’re talking nonsense, how could it be possible for Prime Minister Liu to…..the lies you speak are unreasonable. Since the person your people bribed was killed, how could you still be fooled into coming to Nanfeng City?!”

He must be lying. The Old City Lord was good, and the treacherous Prime Minister Liu was bad. This was just a lie to confuse them. Some of them were already so agitated that they wanted to take out their swords and kill this prisoner.

They heard the prisoner hastily shout out an explanation: “Because at that time, didn’t you all hear that he was a traitor? Our Western Shu Kingdom also believed it to be true. A treacherous official is easy to bribe, and would be more effective than the Old City Lord. Our kingdom thought that he wanted to replace the Old City Lord when it came to making a deal with us, and we were naturally happy to do so. But we didn’t expect that everything was fabricated. It was our king who was deceived by Prime Minister Liu and set himself up as an easy target. At that time, the Western Shu Kingdom suffered heavy losses. It was rumored that our king said that as long as Prime Minister Liu was still in power, there could be no thoughts of taking advantage of Great Zhou, so we gave up attacking it.”

When the prisoner said this, he saw everyone regarding him with dark expressions and said quickly: “I’m telling the truth. I’m not lying to you. How else could the few remaining brats of the Tang family lead people to kill our general, ah? In fact, it was all due to Prime Minister Liu.”

Other than Dai Tingyu, the expressions of everyone present changed drastically. What they had just heard…..how could they believe it?

How could it be possible that the person they had criticized for over a decade and the person they had been grateful to for over a decade could be wrong?

“No evidence…..you have no evidence!”

Although much of the logic was correct, they couldn’t believe anything without evidence.

“It’s definitely not true, ah. How is it possible that the Old City Lord could be like this? He was a person of the Great Zhou Dynasty and our beloved City Lord,” one person argued.

“Right, the Tang family has guarded Nanfeng City for generations. Not only the Old City Lord, but even previous generations, firm and unyielding…..”

The prisoner could only explain: “Our king originally promised the Old City Lord that if he came to the Western Shu Kingdom, he would be a nobleman. A noble in our kingdom was assigned many manor lands and thousands of slaves, which was much better than being a city lord who may be attacked by us at any time. How much is the salary of your city lords?”

This sentence angered everyone, but…..they couldn’t refute for a moment. Even a tiger doesn’t eat its cubs, but the Old City Lord did love the beautiful concubine at that time. Perhaps some people really could abandon everything for wealth and glory. 

They dared not think it. But someone had another thought.

“It’s still not right. If the Old City Lord really betrayed Nanfeng City, it would be a serious crime. The treacherous minister…..why would a person as lofty and powerful as Prime Minister Liu allow rumors to slander him, then support the current city lord’s ascent to power…..”

This time, Dai Tingyu spoke before the prisoner could: “Because the Great Zhou Dynasty was suffering from internal and external troubles at that time. Nanfeng City is a border fortress, and the morale of the army and the common people could not be disturbed, nor their resentment aroused. As long as ‘Tang-chengzhu performed a meritorious service and the Old City Lord died with honor and glory,’ the reputation of the Tang family would be ironclad. Like this, the stability of Nanfeng City would continue, and the enemy would not be given the chance to wantonly harass Great Zhou.”

It was just a bad reputation. Didn’t Prime Minister Liu already have a bad reputation? He wouldn’t have cared at all.

As long as Prime Minister Liu took on this notoriety, the people of Nanfeng City would band together with weapons pointing outward to build the strongest city wall.

This was the result Prime Minister Liu wanted. It was also his benevolence to the Tang family.

What Dai Tingyu heard was that Tang Mu’s involvement in the arrest of the Old City Lord should be due to his righteousness in holding a family member accountable. Faced with a father who wanted to personally exterminate them and commit treason, as a loyal official of the Tang family, he would not be merciful. Thus, Prime Minister Liu chose to support him in his rise to power.

. . . . . . .

“My brother was very clever. He had long discovered that something was wrong with our father, and was killed before he had time to dissuade him. If he hadn’t run into Prime Minister Liu, the entire family would have died in that fire. Father was so vicious. He was tired of being a city lord. He wanted to take his beauty to Western Shu and live happily as a slave owner. I don’t know when he became such a person, forgetting the honor of the Tang family and Grandfather’s teachings. In the end, my elder brother and Prime Minister Liu jointly garroted father and devised a strategy to completely resolve future problems with Western Shu. In order to stabilize Nanfeng City, Prime Minister Liu did not disclose the truth to the public. Instead of pursuing charges against our Tang family, he supported my brother to ascend to the position of City Lord and left with infamy on his shoulders.”

Tang Rou paused for a long moment after speaking, holding the jade willow leaf pendant tightly in her hand as if only then she could bear the pain of hiding the truth all this time and enjoying honor by sucking the blood of the one she adored.

Liu Zhenqing didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he did. After all, he was already a traitor at the time, and glad to be one, so he naturally wanted to make good use of his reputation. Otherwise, the Western Shu Kingdom wouldn’t have been so easily deceived. What was wrong with additional infamy in the name of protecting the remaining loyal and patriotic Tang family members? In any case, Liu Zhenqing didn’t like entire families being punished for the crimes of one person. 

Just as he was musing, he felt someone suddenly hold his hand tightly under the table. Liu Zhenqing was taken aback for a moment, somewhat amused at the knowledge that Er-gou was feeling sorry for him in his own way. Since he took the initiative, Liu Zhenqing naturally wanted to tease him. So he simply clasped hands with Er-gou, then gently stroked the back of his hand with his index finger. Sure enough, Huo Fenglie was provoked and tried to extricate his hand after a moment. How could Liu Zhenqing let him off so easily?

Huo Fenglie coughed. “What happened after that?”

Tang Rou returned to her senses and said: “Before he left, Prime Minister Liu vowed to treat this matter as the rumors said and never reveal the truth. Only in this way would our family be stable. We…..were also greedy for life and afraid of death, and cared about the reputation of the Tang family, so we dared not speak up. After all, deceiving the emperor is a crime. But our benefactor…..died.”

Tang Rou took a deep breath and said: “After his death, he was scorned and slandered by everyone in the country. We didn’t know anything else about him, but we couldn’t let our benefactor bear the blame for Nanfeng City, even if…..the crimes of our Tang family were made public. So my brother discussed it with me and asked me to pretend to be the city lord while he went to the capital to clear Prime Minister Liu’s name.

Liu Zhenqing was slightly stunned to hear this, and had no intention of teasing Huo Fenglie anymore. He said helplessly: “You two…..why did you do that?”

Tang Rou shook her head and said: “If we didn’t, how could our consciences be at ease? But we didn’t accomplish anything. Not long after, I found my brother’s body on the mountain road not far from Nanfeng City. There was no telling if it was an accident or murder.

The expressions of Huo Fenglie and Liu Zhenqing shifted slightly.

Back then, anyone who wanted to clear Liu Zhenqing’s name had encountered an accident.

Tang Mu had become one of them.

Liu Zhenqing lamented inwardly. Such a good man had died for such a thing. In Liu Zhenqing’s opinion, it wasn’t worth the cost, nor was it what an intelligent person would do.

But he was still grateful.

“Anyway, that’s how my brother left. Prime Minister Liu had just passed away at that time, and other countries were beginning to take action once again. We had no choice. Because there were very few people in the know, and few who could be trusted, I could only continue to pretend to be my elder brother, stabilize people’s hearts, and assume the position of City Lord…..when things were stable later, I didn’t want to retire. Firstly, I feel that I should handle my brother’s job now that he is gone. Secondly, I have no desire at all to marry. It’s great to be able to dedicate my life to Nanfeng City like this. After all, this is the city that my elder brother and Prime Minister Liu protected together.”

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Chapter One Hundred Eleven << Table of Contents >> Chapter One Hundred Thirteen