In August, it was cold and dewy.
When Qiu Che received the emperor's summons, he was still writing memorials in the study of Qiu Mansion.
At this time, six years had passed since Li Qingwu left Beijing, and more than two years had passed since Wang's death.
The major forces in the court were checking and balancing each other, and the power struggle had entered a white-hot stage.
As a young official of the new power in the middle and upper levels, Qiu Che took the lead and stood on the side of the emperor after several considerations.
Therefore, after learning that "Qiu Che" forced a woman from a civilian family, causing her miscarriage, and then hanged herself because she could no longer get pregnant, the emperor was also very troubled.
After all, in the eyes of outsiders, Qiu Che was still the royal son-in-law and the husband of the emperor's most beloved daughter.
At this time, such a scandal had caused two lives, and it should not be lightly exposed.
Qiu Che was taken to the lobby of the Dali Temple. The emperor and several respected old ministers sat in front of her like a three-court trial, asking her if she had ever done such a thing.
Qiu Che was confused at first, but when he heard that the husband and family of the innocent woman had come to the door to complain and the rumors spread overnight, he immediately reacted.
The woman must have seen her somewhere and mistook Qiu Zhe for her, so in the suicide note she left behind, all the clues pointed to Qiu Che.
Qiu Zhe had done a lot of bad things in the past, but at least he knew how to cover it up, and only went to places of entertainment, not daring to let outsiders know.
This time, somehow, he dared to force the girl of an innocent family.
Qiu Che learned about the back and forth of the matter, and learned that it was Qiu Zhe who gave him an alibi, saying that Qiu Che was not in the Qiu Mansion that day, and she had not lived in the Princess Mansion for a long time, and she had no other real estate, so where else could she go?
He had a hint, and everyone in the Qiu Mansion was also influenced by Qiu Chudong, so they all lied with him.
Even her personal maid "Yunyan" swore that she had never seen Qiu Che that night.
This was undoubtedly the biggest evidence of a crime for Qiu Che.
She knelt in the hall, her fists clenched tightly under her sleeves, wanting to defend herself, wanting to refute, but over and over again, the only thing she could say was "I have never done this, heaven and earth can bear witness, and I have no regrets."
But she had no evidence to prove that she "didn't."
The emperor seemed to want to believe her and brush the matter off, but Prime Minister Wu didn't believe it. He stroked his beard and said with a smile, the best way would be to ask a palace maid to verify the identity?
In the woman's last letter, she said that the person who violated her had a scar on the inside of his thigh - it was the mark of scratches caused by the sharp cushion on the horse when Qiuzhe was riding a horse when he was young.
But Qiuche didn't have that on her body.
It was impossible for her to let someone verify her body - in this way, her identity as a woman could not be concealed at all.
The crime of disguising as a man and deceiving the emperor is much more serious than the crime of violating a decent woman.
Qiuche then fell silent and stopped defending herself.
Seeing her resistance, the emperor had already determined that she was the one who did it. He was quite disappointed, but in order to prevent this from becoming an ironclad fact, when Prime Minister Wu asked in a sarcastic tone, "You are so resistant, are you telling lies just now?", the emperor stood up, flicked his sleeves and left, skipped the step of body examination, and had her taken directly to the imperial prison.
The imperial prison is different from the Dali Temple. It is the territory of the Jinyiwei, and the Jinyiwei only obeys the emperor.
If the emperor wants to release her, it is also a matter of a word - of course, this depends on whether she is still useful to the emperor.
In the power struggle of politicians, there is no concept of who is right or wrong. In their eyes, only interests are supreme.
Qiu Che breathed a sigh of relief, but he could not relax completely.
The Jinyiwei who was ordered by the emperor to interrogate her was a fool. The emperor casually said that he wanted to interrogate her, so he really killed her -
it was like this in the imperial prison. Anyone who was arrested by the emperor himself basically could not get out alive.
Such a punishment is perfectly normal in the imperial prison.
But this time, Qiu Che was the one that the emperor was still hesitating whether to protect amidst the rumors that were spreading all over the place.
His diligence and diligence became a mistake.
That night, when Qiu Che was being whipped to death, he waited for Liu Buxiu who came late.
The other party scolded the young man, and when he saw her miserable state of torn clothes and bloody flesh, he was silent for a while, waved his hand, and asked someone to take her down and change clothes.
Qiu Che's female body was also exposed at this time.
Hearing that she was injured like this, she was still able to fight to beat up the Jinyiwei who took her to change clothes, Liu Buxiu frowned and rushed over again .
Then he heard the other person covering his arm and saying with a strange look: "This... this person, he, wrapped his chest...?"
Liu Buxiu was stunned for a moment and waved his hand to let the others leave.
Qiu Che knew that he had seen her true gender. They tested each other and talked back and forth. Qiu Che saw that his attitude seemed different from before.
When asked about this, the two sides confronted each other for a long time. Finally, it was Liu Buxiu who sighed and spoke first: "To be honest... my wife's innocence was tarnished because she was doing business abroad as a civilian woman. Because she couldn't stand the rumors around her, she jumped into the river and committed suicide."
But the bastard who defiled his wife was perfectly invisible in this matter, and soon he couldn't track down his whereabouts.
It was also because of this incident that Liu Buxiu, who was still young and strong at the time, made up his mind to abandon the idea of joining the barracks and turned to Jinyiwei.
At the same time, he was depressed about this matter for many years, and always doubted whether his idea of supporting his wife to open a shop and do business as a woman was correct.
Many years later, he became the Jinyiwei's Zhenfu Division, in charge of imperial prison punishment. Finally, two years ago, he secretly tracked down the case of that year for a long time and found the person who defiled his wife that year.
"...In the end?"
"In the end?" Liu Buxiu smiled, but his smile did not have the joy of revenge, but rather a bit of sadness. "I cut off his evil roots, scraped off his flesh and blood one by one, and tortured him for three months. Three months later, he died without a human form."
Qiu Che adjusted his breathing, slowly closed his eyes after hearing the words, and commented softly: "You should let him kneel in front of your wife's grave and die, so that she can see the end of her enemy with her own eyes."
Liu Buxiu said: "I know."
"At the beginning, I thought so too."
"But I don't want the blood of this evil beast to pollute her reincarnation path."
In the end, Liu Buxiu brought her a set of clean clothes.
This big and strong man had a bit of melancholy in his eyes, and a kind of strange calmness.
He said: "I probably understand your suffering. Don't worry, no one will spread what happened today."
What's more, he couldn't help Qiu Che.
Qiu Che looked at him sideways, his tone still cold: "Master of the Pacification Department, what is your reason for helping me?"
"No reason," Liu Buxiu was silent for a moment and smiled bitterly, "I just want to verify whether what I said to my wife at the beginning is correct - whether it can be truly realized one day." "
I always think that it's not me or my wife who is wrong, but this damn world."
After he left, Qiu Che slowly came back to her senses from the pain that almost paralyzed her mind, and remembered what Liu Buxiu had said to his wife.
"Women are human beings just like men, so why can't they do what they want?"
He supported his lover with this sentence, and his lover was forcibly defiled in the second year after that. In
the third year of marrying him, she left him forever because she couldn't stand the gossip of the neighbors.
For a long time, in the dimly lit cage, Qiu Che sat on the couch and bent down to pick up the clothes beside the couch.
She was swaying and thought:... Me?
I'm afraid I will disappoint Liu Buxiu.
She is now a clay Buddha crossing the river, and she can't save herself.
After staying in the imperial prison for more than a month, the emperor never summoned Qiu Che again.
Her wounds were all scabby, and as expected, from that day on, the people in the imperial prison were very polite to her. Although they still restricted her from traveling, no one tortured her privately anymore.
Soon, Liu Buxiu came to see her and asked someone to open the lock. He said with a complicated look: "Someone has guaranteed you in front of His Majesty."
Qiu Che asked: "Who?"
Liu Buxiu did not answer, but just shook his head.
I don't know whether he didn't know or couldn't say.
Qiu Che followed the steps of the Jinyiwei silently and walked out of the cage where she had been trapped for a month.
As expected, even if she was released from prison, there was no figure of any Qiu family member outside the door, only waiting for a carriage.
Qiu Che thought that Liu Buxiu called her, and turned around and thanked Liu Buxiu seriously.
If it weren't for the other party's instruction, she wouldn't have lived so peacefully for more than a month.
Liu Buxiu waved his hand and just said: "Lord Qiu, see you later."
Qiu Che bowed to him, lifted his robe and got on the carriage.
After returning to the Qiu Mansion, Qiu Che heard that it was Qiu Zhe who was examined and confirmed that he was the one who forced the good girl that day, so Qiu Che was released.
The emperor waved his hand and exposed the matter, obviously not wanting to mention it again.
But in order to appease the public anger, Qiu Zhe was given fifty strokes of the cane, and his name was removed from the imperial examination for the next three generations, and the matter came to an end.
Qiu Che never knew who was the person who saved her and pushed Qiu Zhe in front of everyone for a physical examination that day.
Just like she didn't know that when Qiu Zhe killed someone in the name of Qiu Che and Qiu Che was forced to go to jail without any excuse, the Qiu family avoided it.
It was Li Qingwu who heard the news and knew that she couldn't do such a thing - even if she wanted to do it, she was a woman, how could she tarnish the innocence of the girl?
So, she rushed back from a long distance, exhausted. When the Qiu family even considered directly announcing to the outside world that they had severed their relationship with Qiu Che in order to clear their suspicion, Li Qingwu used the money she had earned in the past few years to run around, didn't sleep for several days, and even begged in front of His Majesty.
In this life, Li Qingwu had no political sense at all, and she didn't know that the emperor was also trying to save Qiu Che. She only knew that Qiu Che's reputation was very bad and he was in danger.
She also heard people discussing that once he was put in prison, the possibility of being released was very small.
In addition, the emperor had long been very dissatisfied with her because she willingly married Qiu Che in her early years. Seeing that she was now coming for Qiu Che's matter, he didn't even give her a good face.
Li Qingwu hit a snag twice and couldn't see the emperor, so she took out the gold medal of exemption from death that the emperor gave her that year -
this gold medal of exemption from death was given to her at the age of fifteen at the coming-of-age ceremony to show the glory of the eldest princess. Now she took it out without hesitation.
Just to ask the emperor to spare Qiu Che's life again.
Because of this time, the emperor completely hated her.
He found a random reason and beat Li Qingwu, a married princess, with thirty boards for trespassing into the palace.
Later, because she listened to the Queen's words and was jealous of Li Qingwu's booming business in Jiangnan, she got an eight-point dividend from Li Qingwu for this matter.
Finally, she pretended to be reluctant and released Qiu Che from the imperial prison.
But the Qiu family kept silent about this.
So Qiu Che only knew that his wife came back when she was in prison, and soon returned to Jiangnan.
She just thought that he came back to take a look after hearing that she was in trouble, and never investigated it deeply.
Now, from an outsider's perspective, she watched Li Qingwu limping out of the palace, getting on the carriage, and then going to the imperial prison with Liu Buxiu who was delivering the imperial decree.
But he just stood in the corner, watching Qiu Che being picked up safely, and then watching her get on the carriage safely, showing a relieved expression.
From beginning to end, there was no intention of going forward to meet Qiu Che.
After a long time, she lowered the curtain and said, "Let's go" in Fu Feng's low voice.
At this time, she and Qiu Che had not thought that in this ten-year separation, this time would actually be the last time Li Qingwu saw her. The
first two times Li Qingwu returned to Beijing, one was Qiu Che's birthday and the other was Qiu Che's imprisonment. She came too late. Fortunately, it was
harmless in the end.
Unfortunately, the third time was a matter of life and death.
Ten years later, Qiu Che was the prime minister. She hurried back. She was supposed to attend the banquet to congratulate him, but ended up collecting corpses.
When "Qiu Che" came up to her with a smile in his eyes and called her "wife", Li Qingwu realized that something was wrong.
She had been thinking about the man in her dream for ten years, but he would never look at her with such a smiling look.
He would never call her wife so affectionately.
Li Qingwu always knew that there was a butterfly like a birthmark on Qiu Che's wrist.
When Qiuzhe pretended to be Qiuche, he imitated Qiuche in every move, and he also tattooed a butterfly scar on his wrist that was almost exactly the same as Qiuche's.
People who are not familiar with Qiuche may be able to be deceived by him.
This is also the confidence of Qiuzhe to pretend to be Qiuche -
in order to replace Qiuche, he and Qiuchudong have been planning this drama since four years ago when they were banned from participating in the imperial examination for forcing decent women. In order to replace Qiuche,
he secretly learned from Qiuche for four years and lived in peace for four years, just for this moment.
Although Li Qingwu is Qiuche's wife, it is hard to say whether she can recognize her after not seeing her for ten years.
In the end, what made Li Qingwu sure that the other party was not Qiuche's was actually the wooden comb.
She knew that the other party was not right, and she tactfully rejected Qiuzhe's very enthusiastic invitation to her to reminisce about the past in bed, saying that she was really tired after coming back all the way, so it would be better to wait for her to remove her makeup before going to bed together. Qiuzhe
thought about it and was not in a hurry. He was probably afraid that she would see something, so he suppressed his lustful heart.
Li Qingwu sat in front of the dressing table and deliberately took out the old wooden comb from under the bag to comb her hair. Qiuzhe asked casually, "Why do you use such an old comb to comb your hair?"
Li Qingwu paused, pretending to be unintentional, and mentioned the events of the wedding night, and asked him, "Husband, don't you remember? It was you who gave me this comb in the bridal chamber that year."
"My husband also said that when a husband gives a comb to his wife, it means that we will definitely be able to live in harmony and grow old together."
Li Qingwu lowered his eyebrows, stroked the comb, and said softly, "Lehe has kept it well and can't bear to throw it away."
Qiuzhe had no idea about this and could only laugh and say, "Really? I remember, of course I remember--"
But as soon as he said this, Li Qingwu became more certain.
He is not Qiu Che.
This was all made up by her, even the comb was secretly hidden by Li Qingwu.
What about living in harmony and growing old together... Qiu Che never said such a thing.
Li Qingwu did not speak again.
She still had that gentle smile, slowly raised her hand, combed her hair and removed her makeup.
But because her fingers were too strong, her knuckles turned white, and she accidentally broke the worn-out wooden comb.
When the half-broken comb rolled to the ground, she smiled faintly and said it was okay, lowered her head to pick it up, and thought absentmindedly:
the old things she had kept for ten years, after all, left with the old man.
She once thought that once she combed her hair with the wooden comb, it would really be like what the matchmaker sang in the lyrics-
"Husband and wife live in harmony, and grow old together with white hair."
But she did not wait for living in harmony, nor did she wait for growing old together.
Li Qingwu knew that she was late again.
She was late to a banquet without old friends.
When she found Qiu Che's body, the first thing Li Qingwu saw was the jade pendant tied around Qiu Che's waist. The
lotus pattern was just beginning to bloom, shining brightly under the moonlight.
When she was young, she said "wait for me to find you", and Qiu Che really wore this jade pendant and waited for more than ten years.
Even though Qiu Che might have actually forgotten what kind of agreement she had made with the girl who met on a narrow road on that moonlit night.
She always kept her promise and never threw away the jade pendant.
Unfortunately, Qiu Che did not become the best carpenter in the capital city that she most hoped to become when she was young .
Li Qingwu was unable to escape the cage of the deep palace, let alone break free from the secular eyes.
She was still a chess piece in the hands of the emperor.
It was just that she changed from a chess piece to a chess piece to a chess piece to make money -
and the name "Qiu Che" was the shackles of this chess piece.
For a moment, Li Qingwu even felt that they seemed to be dead.
Died eleven years ago, died on the night they first met.
Died in the power, human hearts, and suffocating family affection.
In this short life, they all seemed to be victims of fate's joke.
Li Qingwu did not shed a single tear.
She calmly collected Qiu Che's bones, and then calmly rejected Qiu Zhe's request to sleep together and locked him out.
Then she got up in the middle of the night, dressed neatly and walked out of the door, locking the room where Qiu's father and son lived.
Just like the dream Qiu Che had at the beginning, she carried Qiu Che's body on her back, holding the sword that Qiu Che hung in the study and practiced every day, and walked step by step into the deserted wilderness with the flames of the prime minister's mansion behind her. It was
also towards her own end.
Qiu Che always thought that she took the sword and cut her own throat to commit suicide.
She was actually dying for love.
In a trance, Li Qingwu felt the cold body temperature on her back, and looked up at the moon above her head, which was as bright as the Lantern Festival.
It seemed that she heard again what Yaotai had vowed to her many years ago when she just married Qiu Che.
"I can tell fortunes - I have told you your future, and you will be happy and healthy for the rest of your life."
Li Qingwu did not answer at the time.
But in fact, she believed it.
She was waiting for a joking prophecy, not knowing whether she was waiting for her own persistence, or waiting for something else... She waited for ten years in vain.
In the first three years, she was thinking, can I really be happy? In the second three years, she
was thinking, if I don't want happiness, it's okay, as long as Qiu Che is healthy and comfortable.
At this time, the moonlight is bright, and the breeze is blowing, and she thought again: It turns out that Yaotai lied to her.
She doesn't know how to tell fortunes at all.
They will not be happy in their lives, nor will they be healthy in their lives.
- What's more, there is no future to speak of.
* Modified some details