He looked at Xie Lin Lang’s purple and greenish face, already at a loss of words and types of expressions he should be facing her with…
It really must be tough on her, that she has to keep living after all this!
“So?” Xie Lin Lang lifted her head and tossed a stiff, bone-chilling smile in his direction, “The gamble, did I win?”
What could Xiang Yun Yi still say at this point? This fellow wasn’t even scared of the deadly poisonous Chai Valley, who knows what he still had up his sleeves? If he offended this type of figure, then he must really think the thing growing above his neck is just for decoration!
So Xiang Yun Yi nodded his head repeatedly, speaking with a ghostly pale face, “You win, you win. I-I knew you could win. Since you’ve already gotten what you wanted…you can… go now?”
Seeing his dramatic difference in attitude, she saluted with her hands* with a chuckle.
* 拱手[gǒng shǒu]–saluting by cupping one hand in the other before one’s chest.
“Then I’ll thank the leader for bestowing this medicine to me! WoJiang City isn’t far from Xiang City, so maybe our paths will cross in the future. I hope that the next time we meet, we can still be friends.”
After she finished speaking, she procrastinated no further, turned, and left immediately.
When she returned to WangJiang City, it was already dusk.
Seeing the candlelights dimly passing through windows from both sides of the road, Xie Lin Lang’s tight expression instantly loosened up greatly. She had already obtained the necessary medicine and now Xiao Xi just needs to successfully remove the toxin from inside Qin Jue’s body and then Qin Jue’s body will grow stronger. That way, his inner injuries will be healed and even his invisible illness will not pose a threat anymore.
She remembered that in the past, the Empress had poured large amounts of money into alms giving and lighting up altar lamps to pray for Qin Jue’s body.
As she saw it, these types of behaviors were completely useless, but the Empress must really have run out of ideas for her to entrust her hopes onto these illusory beliefs.
But perhaps faith really does have an outcome, because who would’ve known that her wish would be fulfilled in this time of manner?
Xie Lin Lang smiled at her thoughts, and then suddenly furrowed her brows. Before she could react, a tall and large man appeared in front of her, blocking her way!
As she backed up, she noticed the route behind her had also been completely sealed off. And in this entrapment, Shen Shao Feng walked towards her step by step.
His mood was already terrible from being ditched by Xie Lin Lang earlier, but when he saw her body full of injuries, he was even more full of dissent.
“Xie Lin Lang, this was the path that made you abandon all the riches and glory of Capital City for? Have you seen how you look right now? Surely you already regret it by now?”
Xie Lin Lang looked at him annoyingly. Because she had been poisoned, her five senses were so depleted that she let these people sneak up on her!
She wrinkled her eyebrows, “Regretting or not is my business. Why must you chase after me like this?”
Hearing her, Shen Shao Feng pressed harder, “There’s nothing I can do about that. I’m under the Imperial Preceptor’s orders to bring you back under any situation! You shouldn’t be so stubborn either! Falling out with the Imperial Preceptor just over a dead Empress, are you stupid?!”
As he spoke, he tried to grab Xie Lin Lang’s hand, but was evaded. She took a few steps back and spoke coldly.
“Shen Shao Feng, I have already told you last time, the reason for conflict between me and the Imperial Perceptor wasn’t only because of the Empress issue.”
“Then what else is there!”
Xie Lin Lang shook her head, “Originally I wasn’t planning on telling you, but since you must know, I’ll tell you.
Her Majesty’s case was only the catalyst…our contradiction wasn’t formed just from one time of disagreements. All of these conflicts are the embodiment of our paradoxes in different political views!”
As she spoke, an aura of piercing coldness spread throughout the area around her! Some of these thoughts, she had planned to keep it to herself in her grave, but as the Imperial Preceptor kept pressing on so much, she’ll just say it now!
“Back when I created a softer and cheaper type of paper, my intention was to lower the price of production in order for more people to be able to read, to obtain education. But what happened? After the Imperial Preceptor got his hands on the production technique, he began dyeing the foundations of white paper and made them into expensive flower paper, causing the price of paper to increase even more! While the poor stare at the dust helplessly, the rich scramble for the fancy papers just to get a piece of prose to a poem!”
Shen Shao Feng argued, “But didn’t the Imperial Preceptor also listen to you and donated ten percent of the profit to education? He’s also doing good deeds just in a different way!”
Xie Lin Lang laughed, but she didn’t refute. Instead, she talked about another incident.
“A few years ago when I was involved with the chaos happening in the Northern territories and saw that Qin soldiers’ military strength were extremely weak and the enemy country was ready to pounce at any moment. So I compiled a book of the military training techniques that I knew, hoping that he could present it to the Emperor to have it take place immediately, but what happened?
By the time I got back, only the Imperial Preceptor had been using this method of training with the other aristocratic families scrambling to imitate the same, while Qin’s soldiers’ training were exactly the same as before. How do you think I would feel?”
Shen Shao Feng’s voice unconsciously weakened considerably, “But…the Imperial Preceptor didn’t disclose it to His Majesty in consideration of the national treasury. After all, your idea was good, but it didn’t cost a small amount either. Rather than letting His Majesty know and allocate a large amount of money to train the military and hurt the citizens, it was better to hand the responsibility to the aristocratic family and let them focus training in small amounts.”
Xie Lin Lang was once again amused by his words. After laughing, she continued in a low voice.
“…Perhaps no matter what I say, you will be able to find some sort of reason to refute me with. But do you know? No matter if it’s creating paper and ink, the design of seating, less bumpy horse carriages, or the production of ice. I created all that not in order for the aristocratic families to make money. But clearly, the Imperial Preceptor and the aristocrats value their family overwhelmingly more than they value their country.”
“And those military training techniques and the saddle design, I had hoped that their appearance could be used to protect the country, not for them to become a tool for the aristocratic family to centralize authority, to exploit their power, and to only protect themselves.”
“You said the national treasury lacked money. Isn’t the reason because under the Imperial Preceptor’s lead, these aristocratic families all arrogated power to themselves without restraint and excessively monopolized all the wealth? Did you say the Imperial Preceptor never did anything bad by hogging these? Are you really going to wait until one day all the citizens outside of Capital City are forced to revolt and the soldiers of enemy countries invade without having anyone blocking in their way, then will you consider what he did as wrong?”
As she spoke up to here, she straightened her back, looking at him apathetically with her two eyes.
“From my first time relieving disaster with the army, the contradiction between me and the Imperial Preceptor had already begun. But this whole time, I had always been thankful of him for taking care of me and understood his predicament, so I chose to concede.
What’s more, the Imperial Preceptor values and trusts me very much. He helped me move up in my social standings rapidly. In fact, my Number One Scholar title was also obtained because I was the Imperial Preceptor’s disciple. Otherwise, how would it be possible for a peasant to test into the top three rankings?
But he seems to have mistaken something. All along, my efforts to climb up had always been in hopes that when I achieved a high status, I would be able to do more things for others.
But he seems to think that the reason I do all these things, is just so I can climb up higher…
Seeing how his and my stance were so vastly different, adding the situation with the Empress’, he had already crossed my bottom line!
That’s why I will not go back. If you still want to force me, then don’t blame me for not holding back!”
She finished speaking and slowly removed the Buddha beads from her left wrist, her eyes fully filled with determination.
Seeing her take off her beads, Shen Shao Feng’s expression turned extremely sour! He never would have thought there would be a day when Xie Lin Lang would take off her beads to deal with him. This made him so furious and frustrated that he almost spoke without thinking!
“Xie Lin Lang! Why? Obviously, everyone is the same, all of the aristocratic families, and those that try their best to become the aristocrats! None of them would even care about these peasant’s survival, neither would they bother to care about some country or some righteous cause, but they’re all living a good life. So why can’t you do the same?”
Xie Lin Lang lifted her head and looked at him silently.