PCA Chapter 223

Su Cen went straight to the imperial prison.

 

Thanks to his previous instructions, the jailers no longer made things difficult for the Three Guards of Tuduo. Su Cen was surprised by these Turkic people’s resilience and even more amazed by their recovery ability. After just a few days, these people were lively again, and they could still warmly call out “Young Master Su” when they saw him.

 

These people were Li Shi’s right and left arms. They had drunk and eaten together and fought side by side. When he first returned, his anger had indeed been misdirected at this group, but thinking it over later, they valued Li Shi more than their own lives—how could they possibly betray him?

 

Su Cen walked silently deeper inside and found Qi Lin eating in a corner.

 

Qi Lin had been more seriously injured that day, but now he could sit up and eat something. A broken bowl held some thin gruel, which looked far from filling when held by such a large man. Qi Lin was stunned to see Su Cen and quickly finished the gruel in a few gulps, about to stand up.

 

Su Cen pressed the man down to prevent him from getting up, saying: “I just came to ask about two things. I’ll leave after asking.”

 

But Qi Lin suddenly hesitated, his pale eyes flickering several times before saying: “Ask away.”

 

Su Cen said he was asking, but his tone was certain: “The one who went to find Chen Ying that day was the Prince, wasn’t it?”

 

Qi Lin lightly traced a line along the edge of the broken bowl with his index finger: “I can’t say.”

 

Su Cen already knew the answer from the response, but still persistently asked again: “Was it or wasn’t it the Prince who went to find Chen Ying?”

 

Qi Lin kept his head down, pressing his lips together, staring at the plain white porcelain as if trying to see a flower bloom from it.

 

Su Cen snatched the broken bowl from Qi Lin’s hands and smashed it on the ground. The crisp sound made all the surrounding Three Guards of Tuduo look over. They saw Su Cen with bloodshot eyes, fingertips trembling slightly, his voice carrying a hoarse edge from desperate suppression: “Are you really going to watch him die?!”

 

The prison cell instantly fell silent, without even the slightest rustling sound. But just a moment later, Wuchi Ha stood up with red eyes, his Chinese not fluent, only able to force out words one by one: “If you won’t say, I will! Master he…”

 

Qi Lin raised his hand, stopping Wuchi Ha’s unfinished words, then looked up at Su Cen: “Can you really save him?”

 

“Besides me, who else can you count on now?” Su Cen turned his head and pressed his lips together. “What ‘below one person, above ten thousand’—from beginning to end, he only has people like us by his side.”

 

“Yes,” after a long while, Qi Lin nodded lightly. “It was Master who went to find Chen Ying.”

 

Su Cen clenched his fists tightly to suppress the trembling throughout his body, took a deep breath, and continued: “One more question. Miss Wen… how exactly did she die?”

 

This time Qi Lin was silent for even longer before softly uttering two words: “Suicide.”

 

“When Miss Wen died, she was already three months pregnant. Master said that whoever speaks of this matter should consciously leave the Three Guards of Tuduo and never be allowed to return.”

 

Su Cen rushed back to Xingqing Palace just before curfew. Though Li Shi was now confined to Xingqing Palace, his dining standards hadn’t been reduced—eight dishes and eight bowls filled the entire table. But Li Shi hadn’t touched his chopsticks, clearly waiting for Su Cen to return to eat together.

 

Seeing Su Cen standing at the doorway with half his face immersed in darkness, not coming in, just looking down at him quietly.

 

Li Shi smiled helplessly and got up to gently pull the person into his embrace: “What’s wrong? Who made you feel wronged?”

 

Only when he embraced him did he discover that the entire body was trembling lightly, teeth chattering as if extremely cold or extremely frightened.

 

Li Shi frowned, but before he could speak again, he was suddenly pushed away forcefully.

 

After retreating several steps before stopping, Li Shi’s smile disappeared, and his eyes sank deeper and deeper.

 

“What exactly are you trying to do?” Su Cen nearly roared. “What exactly do you want to do?!”

 

“Chen Ying was found by you. You made him falsely accuse you of murdering the former emperor. Qi Lin and the others were also instructed by you to forcibly give yourself the crime of colluding with the Turks. You directed and acted in a great drama, then had me investigate it. What do you want me to investigate? How you’re determined to seek death?!”

 

“Zixu…” Those eyes were so deep they couldn’t be seen to the bottom, carrying an abyss that would swallow people whole. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

 

Su Cen bit his lips until they were nearly transparent. Li Shi had said he shouldn’t have come back before, and at the time he thought Li Shi was afraid of implicating him. Only now did he understand the deeper meaning—he shouldn’t have come back because there was no murderer in this case, no victim. Whether he investigated or not, whether there were results or not, it was all meaningless.

 

“Why?” Su Cen stared at those eyes, feeling his chest tightly compressed, unable to breathe, as if he were about to drown in them.

 

“Have you ever heard of the Nine Dragon Whip?”

 

“The Nine Dragon Whip that can strike the emperor above and execute ministers below?” Su Cen said. “Isn’t that just a folk legend?”

 

There had been rumors that Li Shi held an edict that could replace the young emperor. But he knew that the former emperor and Li Shi had long had grievances. If there truly was no one else to entrust, the former emperor would have preferred to keep Li Shi at the frontier forever. How could he possibly put something related to imperial stability in Li Shi’s hands?

 

“Folk legends must have some basis to spread. This thing does exist, but it can’t strike the emperor above or execute ministers below. It can only affect two people.” Li Shi found a nearby chair to sit down and pulled over a stool, beckoning to Su Cen. “Come, sit down and I’ll tell you slowly.”

 

Su Cen pressed his lips and remained silent for a moment before slowly walking over to sit down.

 

“In Li Xun’s last two years, he actually already sensed that the Secret Door he had wholeheartedly cultivated was no longer under his control, and he also knew that Li Sheng wouldn’t be content to remain hidden forever. Sooner or later, he would emerge to reclaim what originally belonged to Crown Prince Chongde. He recalled me from the frontier to check Li Sheng, but was also afraid that too much power would threaten his own son, so before dying, he left this thing along with a testament to Imperial Tutor Ning.”

 

Su Cen felt his throat tighten inexplicably: “…What testament?”

 

“This thumb ring…” Li Shi removed the ring from his hand and handed it to Su Cen. “Along with the one Li Sheng wears, they were carved from the same piece of seed jade. Li Xun gave one each to me and Li Sheng to tell us: live together, die together.”

 

“So you chose to die together…” Su Cen’s heart trembled, and his words trembled lightly too. “Do you think that if you die, Li Sheng will obediently surrender and await judgment? That if you die, he’ll follow the testament and willingly go to his death?”

 

Li Shi shook his head gently: “Li Sheng alone isn’t frightening. The reason he can stir up so much turmoil is because the Great Zhou is strong on the outside but weak within, already rotted from the inside. I’ve said it before—the Great Zhou is sick. The great ills of the nation are poverty, weakness, corruption and negligent governance, factional self-interest, the ruler’s ignorance and blocked channels of communication, living in comfort while forgetting danger and perishing through indulgence. Since Emperor Taizu pacified the realm, they’ve lived in peace too long, forgetting when internal troubles and external threats hung like a sword over their heads. They always think this hollow shell can hold up a bit longer, that even if the sky falls, it won’t hit them. That’s why Li Sheng found opportunities to exploit. If everyone only cares about private gain, naturally there are plenty of weaknesses for others to grasp. If they only see their own small plot of land, can they defend the Great Zhou’s vast territory?”

 

Su Cen suddenly understood why Li Shi had gone to such lengths to stage this drama—murdering the former emperor. When the former emperor died, only the two of them were in the room. As long as Li Shi didn’t speak, unless they opened the imperial tomb to examine the corpse, this case could never be solved.

 

A case that could never be solved could only be guided by the heart—if you believed he did it, then he did; if not, then he didn’t. Li Sheng using this case as pretext to force the death of a regent prince who devoted himself to the country was actually digging his own grave. The so-called Nine Dragon Whip was merely a trigger. Even if Li Sheng wouldn’t go to his death then, there would be no place for him in the court.

 

What Li Shi sought wasn’t to take Li Sheng with him, but rather—with the abyss at their side, he was currently the Great Zhou’s pillar. If one day this pillar was gone and the sky collapsed, the court ministers would have to support it themselves.

 

Su Cen asked tremblingly: “Aren’t you afraid Li Sheng will rebel with his army?”

 

“He has no army,” Li Shi said. “After my affairs are settled, military power will be left to Wen Xiu. I’ve had Wen Xiu reorganize the replaced imperial guards. Except for the Longxi troops which won’t move, and the southwest which is too far to march, garrison troops from all other regions will come to defend the king.”

 

“But Wen Xiu doesn’t want you to die!” Su Cen said. “He didn’t hesitate to use Miss Wen’s cause of death to tell me the truth, just to have me stop you.”

 

“It’s too late.” Li Shi said softly.

 

The overall situation was set. Chen Ying was dead, Feng Yiming was dead too. This matter was already an arrow that had left the bow—it couldn’t be recalled.

 

“You’ve arranged everything. You, Chen Ying, the Three Guards of Tuduo, even Feng Yiming—you’re all martyrs,” Su Cen’s eyes were bloodshot, as if about to weep blood. “When did this scheme begin? A month? Half a year? Or did it already start when you had me investigate Tian Pingzhi’s case? Just to draw Li Sheng out?”

 

Li Shi sighed lightly: “The Secret Door is like a festering sore. If left untreated, it will rot bigger and bigger, rotting to the bone and endangering life. So rather than concealing it, it’s better to expose it under daylight, let people see it, know the pain, then think about cutting it out.”

 

“I was supposed to die in place of Feng Yiming, wasn’t I?” Su Cen suddenly realized. “So the decision to strip me of office and never employ me again was something you acquiesced to! You sent me away so you could implement your grand plan. You want to be Shang Jun, to be some great bodhisattva! You want to save all people with your own body!”

 

Su Cen slid down from the stool to the floor, curling up at Li Shi’s knees in an extremely low posture, crying like a child for the first time: “Then can you… save me first…”

 

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