Chapter 70: Discovering the Truth in Dongdu
Wei Wanlan hadn’t intended to frighten anyone.
However, in this remote mountain valley, with the wind whistling and snow falling, his words created a terrifying atmosphere.
Despite Xiao Ji’s upbringing in Confucian scholarship, his teeth chattered.
He silently muttered, “One should not speak of strange powers and spirits,” maintaining his noble demeanor. Xiao Mengshi grabbed the young emperor’s sleeve, pulling him slightly away:
“Forgive me, I’ll check for Your Majesty.”
“Okay… thank you, Hero.” Wei Wanlan also felt afraid.
Of the two, Xiao Ji was older and braver, making him the natural leader.
Xiao Mengshi steeled his heart, closing his eyes briefly, and rolled up his wide sleeves. He leaned down, first probing the snow with his fingertips, feeling the piercing cold, and then he probed deeper.
His fingertips touched a hard object.
Xiao Ji retracted his finger, thinking that finding a severed arm in this wilderness would be truly exciting.
He twitched his mouth slightly, not daring to look at the young emperor, still wondering how to explain a severed limb if it was one, how to comfort the young emperor who was almost crying.
He saw Wei Wanlan covering his face, but peeking through his fingers:
“What is it?” Wei Wanlan asked, ready to run with Xiao Ji.
Xiao Ji bent down.
He saw a small, yellowish, skin-like object, about the size of a fingernail, exposed on the snow surface. Gritting his teeth, he dug the object out of the snow. The snow made a “plop” sound as the object hit the snow.
Xiao Ji took a deep breath.
Wei Wanlan covered his eyes with his hands in fright: “Is it scary? Is it scary?” He didn’t want to have nightmares.
Xiao Ji, gathering his courage, opened his eyes. He calmed down. It wasn’t a limb; he patted Wei Wanlan:
“Young Master, it’s not scary. It’s just a farm tool.”
“A farm tool?”
He hadn’t expected that answer at all.
Wei Wanlan opened his deer-like eyes.
He saw a hoe, about eight-tenths new. The wooden handle was painted with a light yellow paint, to prevent splinters, the paint simply resembled skin color.
Wei Wanlan breathed a sigh of relief.
“Phew.” He composed himself, but didn’t touch the mysterious farm tool, reminding Xiao Ji, “Let’s find a village quickly.”
Xiao Ji said, “Following this path, we’ll surely reach a village soon. I predict no more than half a li.” His voice was lighter and faster, filled with joy.
Wei Wanlan was slightly puzzled. Why?
He hadn’t forgotten that Xiao Ji had the setting of a wise ruler and was trying to act like a genius. Smart people didn’t need words.
Wei Wanlan said, “Let’s go then.”
Xiao Ji was willing to show off in front of Wei Wanlan, walking and sharing:
“The Huainanzi says, ‘The falling leaves tell of autumn.’ Seeing the hoe, I immediately thought that there must be residents nearby farming, and they might have dropped the hoe here, but not far…”
Right, right, right. Thanks to you, I understand.
Wei Wanlan tried his best to appear smart.
Knowing that a village was nearby, Wei Wanlan’s steps were light, even though he was tired, all that remained was anticipation.
He didn’t know where his energy came from, but he was able to jog all the way to a village boundary marker, which read: 豐穀 (Fēng Gǔ). He didn’t recognize the two traditional characters.
He murmured, “Dòu, hé, village.” (He mispronounced the characters.) For Xiao Sheren, who had always been surrounded by the scent of ink and books and whose words had never been wrong, this was quite new.
Xiao Ji corrected him politely: “Young Master, perhaps the characters ‘Fēng Gǔ’ aren’t written clearly?”
“It’s clear enough, I was just testing you.”
Xiao Ji chuckled, “Your Majesty is wise.”
The wise Wei Wanlan excitedly entered the village—wanting tea, hot water, a carriage to sleep comfortably until his destination… But this village was unexpectedly quiet.
It was beyond his expectations.
Only the howling wind and snow, a heavy stillness everywhere.
Wei Wanlan slowed his steps, looking into the village. He discovered that almost all the buildings were buried in snow. Before him were broken wooden beams and collapsed doors, covered with snow, high and low, forming a continuous expanse of ruins!
He stepped on something.
Without warning, Wei Wanlan looked down. The thing he stepped on rolled in the snow.
Because of the previous incident with the farm tool, he wasn’t as afraid. He dug at it, and screamed when he saw what it was—a half-foot-long, thick human arm, still wrapped in a leather arm guard!
“Ooh—” He wanted to cry but held back.
Wei Wanlan’s nose felt sore, his tears held back.
As a young emperor, he couldn’t appear too cowardly. Wei Wanlan pretended to be strong, but his voice trembled slightly:
“Xiao Sheren, you said there must be a village nearby, and you were right. But you didn’t expect it to be a deserted village, Xiao Sheren, you were mistaken…”
Xiao Ji bowed in apology, equally shaken. The young emperor’s deer-like eyes were red again, the skin at the corners of his eyes delicate and stunning.
Xiao Sheren slightly averted his gaze, squatting down to examine the arm, suppressing his nausea. Luckily, the snow had frozen the arm, pale and grey, sparing the two from seeing bloody flesh.
Xiao Ji said, “It’s a grown man, about forty years old. But because it’s frozen in the snow, it’s hard to tell how long it’s been there.”
Wei Wanlan nodded, knowing that Xiao Ji could only determine this much; he wasn’t responsible for autopsies, that was the Dali Temple’s job.
Wei Wanlan asked, “With so much snow, could this be the result of the Luoyang snow disaster?”
His deer-like eyes widened as he looked at the village. But he didn’t want to move, fearing he might step on something else.
“Fēng Gǔ village has had a lot of snow. If the whole of Luoyang is like this,” Xiao Ji said, “then it can indeed be called a snow disaster.”
“But wouldn’t that contradict our previous deductions?”
This was what Wei Wanlan thought to himself.
If the current snow situation was the same in Luoyang City, then Yuan Xizai should have ample funds for disaster relief.
But then he would truly become a famous minister, and Wei Wanlan’s investigation would be pointless.
A thought flashed through his mind, Wei Wanlan was disheartened. He couldn’t explain this to the big bad guy.
But they couldn’t freeze to death in the deserted village. They couldn’t hire a carriage, so they had to cross Fēng Gǔ village to find another village to stay.
Wei Wanlan dragged his feet, moving slowly, looking at the ground as he went. The energy that had been rekindled by hope was now completely depleted.
The snow crunched under his feet.
Passing through the ruins. But then he remembered the arm in the snow. He felt uneasy.
“Can I check the snow situation?” Wei Wanlan said.
If they couldn’t convict Yuan Xizai in Luoyang, the emperor could come to express his condolences. Xiao Ji thought this was feasible, and supported the emperor as they walked through the ruins.
“Young Master, be careful,” Xiao Ji warned.
But Wei Wanlan’s balance wasn’t very good, so he kept falling. Wei Wanlan struggled, grasping Xiao Ji’s arm, causing Xiao Ji to pause slightly. He used the support to reach the top of the ruins.
Beneath his feet was the collapsed roof of a thatched hut.
There might be people under the roof, but they must have been crushed or frozen to death. Wei Wanlan knew it was too late to save them, and his heart felt heavy.
“Sighing deeply and wiping away tears, I lament the hardship of the people’s lives,” Xiao Ji sighed, reciting a mournful poem.
Wei Wanlan grabbed a handful of snow.
The snow on the ruins was more than half a foot thick.
The snow in the Taiye Pool, the snow in the Imperial Garden, the snow that adorned the peaceful beauty of Chang’an… he had never truly realized that snow could sometimes be a destructive force.
The snow began to melt in his palm, coldly piercing.
Wei Wanlan brushed his hands, the snow falling to the ground. Some snow particles remained in his fingers, slowly melting into water. But Wei Wanlan felt something prickly in his fingers. He examined them in the moonlight.
In his clean fingers, there were tiny brown sand particles, like sesame seeds. It had just been a handful of snow.
Wei Wanlan hung his head low, unable to understand.
But he knew that the consultant next to him could explain why there was sand in the snow.
So Wei Wanlan spread his hands, palms up, showing them to Xiao Sheren.
“Young Master?” Xiao Ji was puzzled, “What’s wrong?”
The young emperor said nothing. He obediently held out his hands. His palms were whiter than his backs.
Xiao Ji held his fingers, examining them carefully, thinking there might be a thorn. Because the snow had completely melted in Wei Wanlan’s hands, the sand particles were even more visible. Xiao Ji’s eyes stared at the sand, his tea-colored pupils flashing.
He squatted down and grabbed a handful of snow from the roof, melting it. The snow also contained fine sand particles.
These brown sand particles were identical to the soil of this place!
Xiao Ji was shocked.
His handsome face tightened. He whispered in the night, looking at Wei Wanlan:
“The houses were pushed down. Someone used shovels to cover the ground snow on the roofs, creating a false impression of a heavy snowfall collapsing the houses. Countless people in Fēng Gǔ village were killed—this disaster scene is fake…”
As soon as he finished speaking.
Wei Wanlan’s back was instantly covered in goosebumps. He felt as if countless ghosts were rising in the desolate village.
“Injustice!”
“We are wronged!”
“Who will stand up for us? Does Da Wei still have the law?”
At that moment, the half-arm he had stepped on brought a series of complete images to Wei Wanlan’s mind:
The officials of Luoyang’s prefectural office, following Yuan Xizai’s orders, created a fake disaster scene.
The officials destroyed the village…
The villagers were forced to relocate…
Some people refused and fought.
Some people couldn’t walk and died in their homes.
Someone dropped their farm tool along the way.
Someone fought with the officials, their arm cut off, their fate unknown.
The valley was filled with cries of sorrow.
Fēng Gǔ village had become a hell on earth.
Then the so-called “disaster scene” became a designated place for Yuan Xizai to bring groups of officials and censors to inspect. Yuan Xizai would first take these officials out for food, drink, and entertainment, and then cooperate with them to stage a play.
They all had their own goals, and everyone was happy.
The information from the mind-reading Gu was all clear:
——I prayed before the Lushan Dafo for blessings…
Perhaps he was praying to the court, begging for safe passage from Luoyang.
Or perhaps he was begging the court to discover Yuan Xizai’s deception, begging not to be implicated in this case.
“Yuan Xizai is a bastard. I’ll kill him.”
He wanted to be an emperor who traveled incognito to uphold justice for the people. Wei Wanlan’s kindness and sense of justice, which should have made him cry, turned into sharp dragon claws. The once obedient young emperor’s aura surged, overwhelming Xiao Sheren.
At that moment, in the distance, they heard the sound of a large animal’s paws on the snow!
Xiao Sheren suddenly turned around and saw a large wolf running towards them on the snow.
The wolf was strong, with black fur and glowing eyes.
As the wolf ran, Xiao Ji supported a broken door panel to protect Wei Wanlan, but the wolf’s speed and strength far exceeded the limit of the dilapidated door.
Xiao Ji watched as the wolf jumped over the door…
“Your Majesty, be careful—”
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