Exclusively for the Marchioness – CH 035

Chapter 35

“I am late.”

Du Lingjing saw that although everyone’s expressions were pleasant, each of them was injured to some extent, especially Hu Tinglan, whose injuries were the most serious, requiring support to sit upright.

She said directly, “There’s no time to lose. I’ve brought men outside; let’s get out of here quickly!”

She explained that she had recruited many people along the way, and that there were all sorts of people in the mountains, “but as long as there are enough people and enough chaos, Shao Boju and his men cannot kill them all if they want to.”

These two sentences alone brought a glimmer of hope to the group that had been trapped here for so long.

But then Ruan Gong came to report, “The situation outside is not good; fog has rolled into the mountains.”

Du Lingjing frowned. Fog in the mountains meant they could easily get separated if they went out, and calling for others would only add to the uncertainty.

Hu Tinglan and the other Flicking Faction members had anticipated this, saying, “If only it had been an hour earlier. The situation in these mountains is complex. We’ve been hiding here for a long time, relying on the mountain fog for cover, but now, the fog will be an obstacle to our escape.”

Everyone agreed that emerging from the forest in the fog was not a good time. “We’ve already waited so long, what’s one more day?”

Du Lingjing was quite uneasy, but she knew they were right. After much deliberation, she could only agree. She instructed Ruan Gong to scatter the men outside to avoid being noticed by others. Since it was not convenient for her to go down the mountain now, she stayed with the others until dawn.

As darkness fell and the mountain fog thickened, the search party gradually retreated. The sounds of animals began to rise and fall in the mountains.

Du Lingjing had never spent the night in the mountains before, only hearing animal sounds in books. Hearing them now filled her with a mixture of surprise and wonder.

Surrounded by familiar faces, she was not afraid. Tingjun even brought her some boiled spring water.

Du Lingjing held the water in her hands. All the faction members were present. Master Liao carefully examined her several times, measuring her height with his hand.

“The last time I saw you was in the capital. You were not fully grown then, but you were already this tall.”

Master Hong had not seen Du Lingjing for much longer. He did not measure her height but simply said, “I’ve read all the books that Jing-niang has circulated. Studying requires even greater care.”

Master Hong’s serious tone made Du Lingjing think there was something wrong with her books, and she quickly stood up.

Master Liao glanced at Master Hong. “Why are you scaring the child? Mistakes are inevitable. How many people in the world can be more meticulous and dedicated than Jing-niang?”

Master Hong paused, a hint of gentleness appearing on his usually stern face.

“These past years, the books you’ve published are so affordable that even when I occasionally visit rural private schools, I see students buying and reading them. This was unheard of during my own school years.”

The Du family’s Mian Tower had achieved its current reputation largely thanks to the support of scholars. How could Du Lingjing possibly sell her books at exorbitant prices, raising the threshold of Mian Tower high?

She humbly replied that it was only right, secretly thinking that even Master Hong could be lenient at times, when she saw his expression turn serious again.

“But scholarship is a lifelong pursuit, for both men and women. With your father gone, you should be even more diligent.”

Du Lingjing: “…”

She quickly bowed in agreement. “Jing-niang will remember.”

The tone became more serious, and the cave fell silent. Fortunately, Feng Xiang, the grandson of Old Master Feng, quietly stepped forward.

“I did not expect Sister Jing to still remember me.”

Feng Xiang was four years younger than Du Lingjing, not yet of age, but already a successful candidate in the provincial examinations. However, after passing the provincial examinations, he did not participate in the following year’s spring examinations. He only came to the capital this year, only to encounter this incident and, along with others, search for evidence against the Shao family, ending up in the mountains.

Du Lingjing remembered him as very shy in his youth, but now, after only one sentence with her, his face flushed slightly.

The nineteen-year-old young man, as fair and straight as a poplar tree, was already much taller than Du Lingjing, but with his flushed face, he seemed to have suddenly become the boy he once was.

Du Lingjing said she remembered, “I am older than you, so it’s normal for me to remember. But you were so young back then, how do you remember?”

She had only asked casually, but he seemed to pause, his face turning even redder. His bright eyes glanced at Du Lingjing once, then quickly looked away shyly.

He said softly, “I’ve bought some of the books Sister Jing has published over the years, and I read them from time to time, so I remember.”

So that was how it was.

Du Lingjing casually asked about a few books and found that he had bought all of them at home. She could not help but guess that Feng Xiang probably had more than just a few.

She did not ask for details right away, but instead looked at a girl sitting in the corner. The girl was young and thin, with sunken cheeks. She was sitting alone, hugging her knees, lost in thought.

Was she the girl who informed Hu Tinglan, thus exposing the Shao brothers’ malicious actions?

Before Du Lingjing could ask, Tingjun approached, saying her brother, Hu Tinglan, wanted to ask her about some outside matters.

Du Lingjing went over and told Hu Tinglan everything she knew. “There are all sorts of forces in the mountains now; we do not really have many people we can trust.”

Hu Tinglan was not surprised, but he had not expected that Shao Boju’s uncle, Shao Zun, would use the Earl of Rongchang’s affair to consider exchanging people with the Marquis of Yongding, Lu Shenru.

“So you and the Marquis have fallen out?” he could not help but ask.

Du Lingjing shook her head. “No, not really. We just had to go our separate ways.”

Hu Tinglan breathed a slight sigh of relief. The imperial decree-arranged marriage was a forced union; if she broke off with her husband so soon after marrying in, her future would be difficult.

“It has not gotten out of hand yet,” Hu Tinglan thought.

“So you do not even know what the Marquis means?”

Du Lingjing shook her head, saying she did not know. “But he came too.”

Hu Tinglan raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Jing-niang parted ways with the Marquis’s Mansion, each going their own way, yet the Marquis himself came. What was the purpose of that Marquis Lu?

*

Down the mountain.

Outside the residence where Du Lingjing and her men had stayed, a man stood with his hands behind his back in the wind. It was already completely dark, and no one had returned from the alleyway.

Chong-Ping stepped forward. “Marquis, the Madam has not returned with so many men. It seems nothing bad has happened; it’s highly likely that she’s found the missing members of the Flicking Faction.”

The man nodded, his gaze sweeping over the gate of the courtyard where she had stayed. The inner room was silent and dark.

It seemed so.

He guessed she must have found the marks left by the Flicking Faction members, but to find them so quickly—in this entire mountain range, only she had accomplished that.

Lu Shenru sighed deeply, his eyes softening, but he could not help but think of her letter, the medicine she had sent, and how she had seen him in the mountains but refused to come over, instead politely telling him to make himself at home… His eyes turned cold again.

He pursed his lips, remaining silent. The wind blowing through the alley fluttered his robes. He stood in the wind for a long time before calling Chong-Ping.

“The Shao brothers have been driven into a corner. Tomorrow, we must guard against their desperate counterattack.”

Chong-Ping stiffened. “Yes.”

*

In the dense forest cave, everyone had only slept for two hours the night before, finding it difficult to sleep.

Having hidden in the mountains for so long with evidence of the Shao brothers’ crimes, today they were finally going to leave.

They had previously sent word to their relatives and friends to go into hiding. For example, Master Zhang, who ran a bookstore outside the capital, was someone Du Lingjing had wanted to inquire about—whether anyone in the capital or even Beizhili had collected or published Song dynasty books—but Master Zhang had closed his shop and disappeared.

Feng Xiang said that Master Zhang had also helped gather evidence of Shao’s crimes, and fearing Shao would come after him, he had sent him into hiding. Once this matter was resolved smoothly, Master Zhang would naturally reappear.

Everyone had been separated from their relatives and friends for far too long.

Before dawn, Du Lingjing, Hu Tinglan, Jiang Fengchuan, and the other teachers discussed the matter further. Once everything was settled, and as daylight began to break, they quietly left the cave and headed out.

Searching in the mountains, calls could be heard from the surrounding area.

Using the lingering morning mist and the dense forest for cover, they emerged from the woods after about fifteen minutes.

Following Du Lingjing’s instructions, Ruan Gong, to avoid revealing their location, had only ordered the government officials, soldiers, academy students, and the various groups of people Du Lingjing had invited to wait on a gentle slope ahead.

Regardless of their allegiance, there might be individuals with ulterior motives among them; having them all wait outside was the safest way to avoid detection.

The group quickened their pace as they passed through the dense forest, and in less than fifteen minutes, they were able to reunite with their group.

Everyone quickened their pace; the most important thing now was to stay together within the next fifteen minutes and avoid making any noise that would attract others.

However, just as they had traveled a few hundred meters, their path was blocked.

In the morning forest, the sun had just risen, and a thin mist still lingered. The birds had all flown away, and the forest was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

A man stepped slowly out of the forest, his footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves. His gaze swept over everyone; his eyes, slightly gloomy from days of mental strain, now softened with a faint smile in the morning light.

“Faction members, we finally meet.”

It was Shao Boju.

His brother, Shao Wuxing, stood beside him, a sharp knife in his hand. The Shao family’s men, who had been lying in wait, surrounded them in no time.

The Flicking Faction members fell silent. They had been hiding for so long and only needed to travel another fifteen minutes to rendezvous with the outside world, yet they were still blocked on their path.

The silence deepened, and Shao Boju’s lips curled into a smile, but this time he did not look at the others; his gaze was fixed only on the person closest to him.

He did not use his courtesy name, still using the way they addressed each other when they did not yet have courtesy names.

“Lan, I thought we were as close as brothers, but must it come to this?”

Hearing his words, Hu Tinglan chuckled softly, but the chuckle caused a sharp pain in the wound on his shoulder inflicted by Shao Wuxing’s arrow.

His face paled slightly. Shao Boju was slightly taken aback. “You are injured?”

As he spoke, his gaze fell on his cousin, Shao Wuxing. The hooked-nosed youth’s eyes were sinister, but seeing his brother’s gaze, he lowered his head, wanting to explain something, but Hu Tinglan spoke first.

“We’ve been hunted by your men for months; is it not normal to get injured?” He chuckled even more. “We can survive being injured, but those officials that you brothers killed did not even have that chance, did they?”

He looked directly at them, his gaze landing squarely on the face of his former brother with whom he had shared life-or-death experiences.

Even Shao Boju, who was now the one surrounding them, could not help but avert his gaze slightly. He admitted it was true; they could not bear to see the real official alive, since they wanted their men to impersonate him. “But what could I do?”

Initially, Shao Boju discovered that two court officials had drowned in a shipwreck on their way to their new posts. Coincidentally, the positions they were to take up were fraught with a difficult situation that he could not predict.

Since the drowning was still unknown, he pondered for a day and secretly instructed Shao Wuxing to arrange for two men who resembled the two men to take their places. He had initially thought the matter might be exposed, and planned to wait a month or so to handle the thorny issue using the positions of these two officials before withdrawing his men.

Unexpectedly, more than half a year passed, and no one noticed.

Officials stationed far from home faced severe communication difficulties. By finding someone with a similar appearance to disguise themselves, it was not impossible to slip through unnoticed. If one were to take an appointment to a remote county magistrate or similar post, they could likely remain unnoticed for three years, let alone if intentionally transferred to avoid detection.

Shao Boju admitted his greed. “Seeing this method feasible, I set my sights on another official and had someone take his place.”

This time, the official he chose happened to be a member of the Flicking Faction. This person’s position was not important, but his term was nearing its end. After having someone replace him, he would transfer the replacement to another location, making him a true member of his own faction.

This Flicking Faction official had been stationed away for over ten years without moving, and was suffering from overwork. Seeing that he was nearing death, Shao Boju had Shao Wuxing keep an eye on him. He just needed someone to die so he could disguise his men and take over. He desperately needed someone to do his bidding; his uncle, Shao Zun, was above him, and what he lacked was his own manpower.

Unexpectedly, Shao Wuxing was too impatient. Seeing that the man was still alive, he cut off his medicine on his way to the capital. However, the man’s daughter discovered this. In a panic, Shao Wuxing kidnapped her. As for the official from the Flicking Faction, unable to find his daughter, he died of anxiety.

Shao Boju said he knew nothing about this, glancing at Shao Wuxing, “I never thought this oversight would lead to such a terrible mistake.”

The one who came out to report and expose the Shao brothers’ evil deeds was the daughter of that official from the Flicking Faction.

The girl’s surname was Huang. Upon hearing this, she stepped out from the crowd. Her face was pale, and her eyes were bloodshot.

“What a convenient excuse! So this is how a top scholar like you lies!” She shouted angrily.

Shao Wuxing raised his foot to step forward, “You wretch!”

Hu Tinglan stepped directly in front of the young woman, and Shao Boju, seeing this, also stopped Shao Wuxing.

Du Lingjing saw the young woman’s face grow increasingly grim.

“He said he had cut off my father’s medicine, that my father died of anxiety, that I was just abducted by him…” She shook her head violently, saying none of it was true. She glared fiercely at Shao Wuxing.

“My father was poisoned by him, and I… I was forcibly taken by him!”

A sudden shock ran through the forest.

The members of the Flicking Faction already knew about the Huang family’s fate and were not surprised. Only Shao Boju frowned and glanced at Shao Wuxing.

“You really did such a thing?”

“Brother, I…”

No need to say more; Shao Boju already knew. He remained silent for a moment.

Hu Tinglan then asked, “You did not know?”

Though it was a question, it carried a hint of sarcasm.

Shao Boju said he truly did not know, but then looked at the young woman, Huang.

“I will have Xiao Wu give you a proper status as a form of closure…”

Before he could finish speaking, Miss Huang suddenly burst into a shrill laugh.

“My father was killed by you; he forced himself on me, and now you are giving me a proper status as closure? What evil deeds did my father and I commit in our past lives to deserve this entanglement with disgusting people like you brothers?!”

She spoke with increasing intensity, her thin figure casting a broad shadow in the morning light. She spoke directly. “Shao Wuxing imprisoned me for over a year; his evil deeds are countless!” She only asked Shao Boju, “My father was not the only one he framed and harmed. You did not know any of that, did you?”

Shao Boju froze.

Shao Wuxing told him that those officials died on their own; they merely handled the aftermath, transferred them elsewhere, found replacements for a few months, and got the important business done without anyone noticing.

But Miss Huang only questioned him, “Do you dare say you really did not know?”

Shao Boju remained silent.

Shao Wuxing had not told him, but he had indeed suspected how the impersonation had gone so smoothly. But as long as things went smoothly, why should he ask more questions? With important matters preceding him—separating himself from the Shao clan, building his own power base in the court, and establishing a firm foothold—these things could be turned a blind eye to.

He was speechless for a moment.

Shao Wuxing hated Miss Huang so much that he wanted to kill her, but dared not act directly in front of his brother.

Hu Tinglan looked at his former friend, now a favorite scholar and a top scholar in the imperial court.

“You did not kill Bo Ren, but Bo Ren died because of you. Tolerance is also a grave crime that cannot be ignored. It’s laughable that I’ve been brothers with someone like you for so many years.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Shao Boju’s face twitched twice. He did not argue, but he also did not order the others to be released.

Shao Wuxing spoke bluntly. “Brother, I was too hasty before, but it cannot be changed. These people know too much; they cannot be allowed to live!”

The best course of action was to kill them all to silence them.

Du Lingjing clenched her fists silently upon hearing this. She looked at Hu Tingjun, then at Hu Tinglan, and her gaze swept over the other faction members.

Everyone exchanged knowing glances.

Everyone was there, except for two absent faces.

It was Jiang Fengchuan and Feng Xiang.

Du Lingjing’s gaze pierced through the woods towards the distant slope, where she saw the two nod at her from afar.

As they left the forest, they considered how to escape if they were intercepted on the road.

So, at Hu Tinglan’s suggestion, they split into two groups. Jiang Fengchuan and Feng Xiang took a few of Du Lingjing’s men outside. In case of unforeseen circumstances, even if they were outnumbered and unable to provide immediate assistance, they could create chaos, allowing the others to escape in the confusion.

Shao Wuxing could no longer suppress his murderous intent.

Shao Boju’s hesitation had reached its limit. He asked Hu Tinglan one last time, “Between us, must it be a matter of life and death?”

Hu Tinglan, his wounds raw, drained away all his former affection for him.

“The ways of Heaven are constant; they do not exist because of the righteous ^(Yao), nor do they perish because of the tyrannical ^(Jie). Whatever you try to hold onto, whether it’s affection or power, there’s nothing left to keep.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Shao Wuxing drew his sword.

“Brother!”

Shao Boju took a deep breath, finally looking at Hu Tinglan.

“…No matter what, spare the Hu siblings.”

The implication was clear: no one else could be spared.

In a flash, Du Lingjing and the other teachers all looked towards Jiang Fengchuan on the hillside. They could not wait any longer; it was time to create chaos and escape for their lives.

Unexpectedly, before anyone could make a move, a voice rang out from the woods.

“Everyone, do not move!”

Du Lingjing was startled—

It was Chong-Ping’s voice.

The next instant, soldiers and generals swarmed in from all sides.

The Shao brothers’ forces surrounding the Flicking Faction members were all pinned down and encircled, but Jiang Fengchuan and Feng Xiang, who had been secretly lying in wait outside, were also surrounded by guards with swords drawn.

Chong-Ping emerged from the depths of the forest, and behind him, clearing a path with his long sword, a tall, imposing man in a dark brocade robe appeared in everyone’s sight.

“Lu Shenru,” Shao Boju said, glancing at him.

Lu Shenru only glanced at him briefly. “Shao Tanhua ^{(see nore below)}, you want to kill them to silence them? Too late.”

Whether they were members of the Flicking Faction or the Shao brothers’ men, everyone here was under his blade. If he displeased them, their heads would fall to the ground.

The forest seemed to be enveloped by an impenetrable black cloth; for a moment, no one made a sound.

For Shao Boju’s men, the appearance of Marquis Lu would bring him no benefit.

His uncle, Shao Zun, fearing that the impersonation would put the Shao family and Prince Yong in a difficult position, wanted to make a deal with Lu Shenru to secretly switch people, then use this as leverage to ensure Marquis Lu’s lifelong dependence on the eldest son’s branch of the Shao family.

However, the Earl of Rongchang’s Mansion was crucial to Lu Shenru, and he would not give it up. At this point, he had no chance of winning.

But for the Flicking Faction, the choice this Marquis would make was a double-edged sword.

If he chose to exchange people, they would surely die in Shao Zun’s hands; if he made the matter public, they could live or die.

No one knew what he would do.

Everyone looked at him, including Du Lingjing.

She looked at him, and he only slightly lowered his head, locking her gaze in his eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat for no reason.

The man’s brows furrowed, and he spoke, his voice low and deep, addressed only to her.

“Come here.”

Translator’s Note:
“The ways of Heaven are constant; they do not exist because of Yao, nor do they perish because of Jie.” – Xunzi, Discourse on Heaven, Chapter 17.

探花 (Tàn Huā): meaning “flower seeker,” referring to the third-place candidate in the highest-level imperial examination in ancient China.