/
Chapter 50: 直截了当
(Straightforward)
On that day, Zhao Zheng’an soon returned because he was not in fault. Besides that, the big brother officer who had taken the money said a good word for him so after the County Grand Master asked him several questions ,he was released.On the contrary, the three men were taken to the prison, when they went in, they were all dazed. It was clear that Hong Ying’s kicks were not light.
“You’re back? The Feudal Officials didn’t do anything to you,right?” Zhong Ziqi’s sharp eyes were the first to notice Zhao Zheng’an’s return.His worried heart finally could be in ease as he promptly asked.
“Nothing! They just asked me to come over and ask questions. After that, I could go back.” Zhao Zheng’an swept a glance out of the corner of his eye at the master and servant who were still sitting comfortably drinking tea. The landlord wasn’t even this relaxed.
“That’s good! How are those few people?” Zhong Ziqi asked.
The others were also quite curious and pricked up their ears.
“They’re locked up. I’m sure they’ll get a good beating.” Because when he was leaving, Zhao Zheng’an had a word with the head of the officers.
“Such people need to be taught a lesson.” Zhao Amu said with a sigh of relief, as he was still in shock, his hands and feet were still weak.
“That’s right, it’s lucky my son isn’t like that, or I’d break his legs.” Huang Amu also nodded and said.
After the fuss just now, the customer traffic in the shop did not decrease, but rather increased. They could not talk anymore, each going to get busy with their own business.
Zhao Zheng’an stood in the same place not knowing what he was thinking, but soon he moved and walked towards the master and servant who were drinking tea peacefully.
“Thank you both for your help today.” Zhao Zheng’an clasped his hands as he sincerely thanked them. He was a person that was still clear about public and private matters.
“No need to bother, it’s just a small effort.” Shen Yu Bei smiled faintly.
“This place is noisy, so I wonder if I could have a word with you? I have something I want to talk to you about.” Zhao Zheng’an thought it would be better to ask straightforwardly since It was too tiresome to keep guessing.
“Fine.” Shen Yu Bei thought about it and nodded his head and agreed.
Zhao Zheng’an smiled faintly and took them to the Jin Hua Restaurant, where coincidentally Shen Yu Bei also stayed there. Zhao Zheng’an asked for a single room and a pot of tea. They poured a cup of tea for each of them before sitting down.
Shen Yu Bei picked up the cup of tea and blew on it, not saying anything either. Hong Ying stood behind him with an expressionless face and a completely vacant expression.
Zhao Zheng’an was silent for a moment before he opened his mouth and asked, “Mr. Shen came to Qing Shui Town for a purpose, right? Our Qing Shui Town is normally nothing extraordinary. There are only one or two powerful people in Qing Shui Town.It’s rare for someone with extraordinary status like you to come here.I wonder who is so capable of attracting you here?”
Shen Yu Bei looked at him as he played with his tea cup: “Who is it? Don’t you already have the answer in your mind!”
Zhao Zheng’an put his attention on him : “It’s really ….but I don’t understand, my Fu Lang’s family circumstances are clean and three generations of his family have lived here. What is it that attracts you?”
Shen Yu Bei put down his tea, looked serious, his voice was a bit low as he asked, “Do you …… know what his Amu looks like?”
Zhao Zheng’an was shocked after hearing his words. After that, he remembered that there was a disclosure. His Fu Lang’s Amu was an unidentified person. Everyone said that he was fleeing from another country but what exactly happened no one knew. No one ever suspected anything.
Could it be that he was a relative from his wife’s Amu’s side of the family?
While he was thinking about it, Zhao Zheng’an couldn’t help but take a closer look at the man in front of him. As he tried to remember Shen Amu’s face from the past, the comparison was immediate.Only then did Zhao Zheng’an realized that they really did look alike, not to mention Shen Amu, the man in front of him and Zhong Ziqi, on closer inspection, had the same eyes, eyebrows, ears and so on.It just that one has a heroic look and the other one was gentle and delicate. Because of these differences, people could not see the resemblance between them.
“Are you a relative of … Shen Amu?” Although Zhao Zheng’an already had a guess in his mind, he still couldn’t help but ask the question.
“If there is no mistake, the Shen Amu you are talking about should be my Ge ge, my long-lost brother.” Shen Yu Bei said slowly, with a look of imperceptible sadness. To think that he himself had come a step too late.
Zhao Zheng’an’s eyes were wide, still surprised so he didn’t know how to answer the question for a while.
“You tell me about him ba! How has he been doing all these years?”
“Shen Amu …” Zhao Zheng’an mutterred to himself irresolutely: “Actually, we haven’t had much contact with each other. But Shen Amu is a famous beauty in our village ,even in the surrounding villages.I heard from people in the village that Shen Amu had fled from a foreign country and this was also said by Shen Amu himself, saying that he had come from a disaster-stricken small town in the south. Later, somehow he ended up in Qing Shui town and met Zhong Zhen Hang,Zhong Er Shu (Second Uncle Zhong) who was just starting to work in the town at that time. That’s Ziqi’s father.”
“Both of them are the kind of people who stand out from the crowd just by a glance.
Naturally, they were attracted to each other. That’s how they met but I don’t know the details.Later, Shen Amu married Uncle Zhong.He loved him very much and spoiled Shen Amu, did not let him do any hard work. Usually, Shen Amu would just sew off and cook a meal,that was it.The farming work, he would never let Shen Amu to do it. The money earned by him was also given to Shen Amu. Many people in the village wanted to marry off their own gers as the ‘little wife’ because they coveted the money earned by Uncle Zhong, but he refused to do so and stated sternly that he would never marry anyone else beside Shen Amu in his life. Even after the birth of Ziqi, a ger, he loved him as a treasure and never thought of marrying again.There was no one in the village who didn’t envy the love between the two.”
Shen Yubei had these mixed feelings in his heart after he heard these words. He was heartbroken that his brother, who had been brought up in such a pampered way, had gone to such a faraway place and married a farmer although the metaphor was inappropriate, he still could not imagine his brother doing farm work.
But at the same time, he was happy that his brother had finally found the person he loved, fulfilling what he had told him, to find someone who would love only him with all his heart, at the very least, he would have no regrets in his life. Having a lover, having a lovely child and forming a complete family.
Shen Yu Bei took a deep breath, knowing that he was living a happy life, the knot in his heart loosened up a bit, but: “He … he …” Shen Yu Bei still couldn’t accept the fact that his brother had died. He couldn’t even say it out of his own mouth.
Zhao Zheng’an understand intuitively with the same voice carried along hint of depression: ” About spring, almost time to enter the summer, Shen Amu and Zhong Er Shu went away on business trip, it’s said that they have met robbers … Originally they only robbed money, but then coveted by Shen Amu’s beauty,they want to ….Zhong Er Shu and Shen Amu resisted. That’s why,they were eventually killed.”
When the bodies of Shen Amu and Zhong Er Shu were found, they were in that disheveled and bloodied state, but there was nothing too unpleasant to look at and the bodies had not been defiled.
Shen Yu Bei was silent, his eyes closed, his clenched fists proved how angry he was at the moment, how unsettled, if that group of robbers appeared in front of him, Zhao Zheng An had no doubt that he would have dismembered them all and split their bodies into five pieces.
It took a while for Shen Yu Bei to stabilize his emotions and asked him, “According to the Da Ze State of laws, a family member whose parents die has to observe mourning for a year, so how come Qi Ge’er is married to you?”
Hearing this, Zhao Zheng’an smiled a little awkwardly. He rubbed his hands; he was too embarrassed to answer this question, their wedding was really ‘too unethical’.
“What? Is there something you can’t say?” Shen Yu Bei was puzzled, when Hong Ying was investigating, he didn’t investigate these details. He mainly went to inquire about his brother, so there were some things he didn’t know, but he also knew that his nephew had married a fool, who let Gao Han Jin sigh at him several times. Even if he didn’t want to remember, he couldn’t.
Zhao Zheng’an felt that he couldn’t hide it.
Who doesn’t know about this? So he might as well broken the jar and told the truth:
“Ziqi, he has this snobbish, small-minded, petty, thinking of nothing but the personal gain of elder uncle, who coincidentally, I also have such parents. After I was injured with no hope of recovery, they wanted me to have my own family,get married then split up the family. It just so happened that Ziqi’s eldest uncle’s family also didn’t want to take care of Ziqi, this drag, so the two families willingly hooked us up and put us together.”
“….” Shen Yu Bei didn’t even know what to say, his brother escaped the forced marriage, but his child didn’t escape the cycle of karma. He was still forced to marry someone he didn’t want to marry, although today, they both seem to be happy.
In the past two days, he had been at ‘Quite Delicious’ as he watched the two of them carefully. He found that they were both ‘in love with each other, interested in each other’ and also ‘very sweet, lovey dovey’. Perhaps, the once reluctant, after a long time of togetherness followed along with understanding. It also gradually changed the feeling!
Shen Yu Bei couldn’t stop thinking about it, if he hadn’t let his brother go in the first place, if his brother had tied the same knot with the third young master from that family. Would he have changed his mind in the end? Would he have been able to live a good life?
[tied the same knot = married)
But there was no pill for regret in this world, and there were no ifs. Everything was fate!
***
Zhong Ziqi finished frying the deep fried breadsticks, put them aside and leaned against the wall, staring at the door.
“Ziqi? Ziqi?” Zhao Ning waved his hand in front of his eyes.
“Huh? What’s wrong?” Zhong Ziqi turned his gaze on Zhao Ning.
“You ah! What are you thinking about? Absent-minded.”
“Oh, nothing! By the way,do you see where Zhao Zheng’an go?” Zhong Ziqi chucked the fried breadsticks onto his plate and handed it to him.
“Didn’t notice. He seemed to have gone with those two guys. Hiss, when did they get that close? Or did Zheng An invite them to dinner in order to thank them?” Zhao Ning tilted his little brain, guessing.
“Don’t guess blindly! Hurry up and serve it up to the guests.”
“Oh.”
Zhong Ziqi’s eyes drifted to the door again, of course he saw that Zhao Zheng’an had gone with those two men.
But what he was worried about was that Zhao Zheng’an had always disliked them. What if they got into a fight? He was worried, in case they got into a fight. Relying on the force of the other side,Zhao Zheng’an would be at a disadvantage.
While Zhong Ziqi was still worried, Zhao Zheng’an came back.But to his surprise, he was the only one who had come back.
In the past, both the master and servant would sit in their small shop for a long time. Although he was tired of watching them, he was quite uncomfortable with the sudden absence of them.
“What are you looking at?” Zhao Zheng’an puzzled towards what’s on his own back. Moreover,only the customers and the customers in his back, nothing suspicious ah!
“What were you doing?” Zhong Ziqi asked him.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me the truth, where are those two? You left together with them, right? Where did you go?” Zhong Ziqi flew an eye-dagger eyes over to him, signalling ‘leniency to those who confess their crimes and severity to those who refuse to’. (坦白从宽、抗拒从严)
“I went to Jin Hua to treat them to a meal after they had done us such a great favour. After eating, the two of them went back to rest. It just so happens that they also stay at Jin Hua.” Zhao Zheng’an secretly wiped his sweat.His wife’s eyes were too powerful! He was under so much pressure ah!
He and Shen Yu Bei had a long talk. Finally, it was decided by both of them that Zhao Zheng’an should give Zhong Ziqi a chance to talk to Shen Yu Bei but before that Zhao Zheng’an should find out first what Zhong Ziqi real attention regarding this. Let’s see, what did he really think about this? Would he…resent them (Shen Family)?These were the things that Zhao Zheng’an needed to find out. Furthermore, he still needed to think about some ideas about this matter so Zhao Zheng’an expressed that his pressure had increased.
“Is that it? Didn’t say anything else?” Zhong Ziqi suspected him while sizing him up once more, not expecting Zhao Ning’s lucky guess to be right.
“No, you’re thinking too much . He’s done us a great favour, so we should treat him to a nice meal. Do you think so?”
“En … for now, I’ll believe you once.” Zhong Ziqi couldn’t find the flaw so he reluctantly believed his words.
Zhao Zheng’an sighed with relief.