Chapter 24: Chang'an Tong Que Ming (Melody of Golden Age)

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Chang'an Tong Que Ming (Melody of Golden Age)

 Chapter 24: 

 The Wicked Marshal

“Why is Madam looking at me?” Shen Du, having not slept well, seemed even colder and more aloof.

Zhu Yan remained calm and composed. “I’m looking at my husband because he is handsome, so I want to look a few more times.” To stay alive, she didn’t even blink.

This answer took Shen Du by surprise. He had expected Zhu Yan to snap back at him with something like, “Who’s looking at you?” or “I was just looking at the cat by the wall over there,” but he hadn’t expected such a response. He stood there, momentarily stunned, swallowing all the mocking remarks he had prepared.

Jing Lin pretended he hadn’t heard anything, doing his best, really his best, to minimize his presence.

At this moment, Zhu Yan dismounted and walked to a corner under the eaves of a house, where someone dressed in various robes approached and began conversing with her.

Shen Du exchanged a glance with Jing Lin. Just a moment ago, neither of them had noticed anyone was there.

In just a short while, Zhu Yan returned and got back on her horse, and that person disappeared around the corner.

Sensing the shift in atmosphere, Zhu Yan quickly figured out what was going on and explained, “Brother Xu was wanted by the court for a bounty of 100,000 taels of silver before he became the Wicked Marshal.”

“One hundred thousand taels?” Jing Lin recalled something.

“Yes, the one who infiltrated the palace back then and stole the Emperor’s jade pillow...” Zhu Yan didn’t say much more, but Jing Lin already understood.

"But how did he end up becoming the Wicked Marshal?"

Zhu Yan pursed her lips, ready to explain, but Shen Du spoke up first: "His Majesty values talent and thought it would be a waste to execute him. So, instead of punishing him, he removed his slave status and appointed him as the Wicked Marshal, putting him in charge of all the covert agents in Chang'an. To this day, none have disobeyed him."

Zhu Yan frowned. She had pieced together this information after becoming well-acquainted with Xu Zuo and hearing some of his speculations. How could Shen Du know about this?

Her pupils gradually widened as she boldly considered a possibility: "Could it be that you were the one who captured him back then?"

Shen Du's thin lips pressed slightly downward, and he did not answer the question, but the answer was already obvious.

Jing Lin immediately looked at his master with admiration. His master—no doubt about it—was truly formidable.

"So, it was because of this incident that His Majesty appointed you as the Grand Chief of the Inner Guard, to lead the inner council."

Zhu Yan’s rosy lips parted slightly, unsure of what to say.

Surprisingly, Shen Du, rarely the one to initiate conversation, asked, “What did Xu Zuo just tell you?”

Zhu Yan’s chaotic thoughts were pulled back. She glanced at Shen Du and frowned, “Brother Xu came to tell me that the Liang family sent someone to the Tongwen Pavilion to find Rongzhui.”

Shen Du waited for her to continue.

“The Liang family’s main branch is discussing with Rongzhui to simply arrange a ghost marriage between Liang Chenzhong and Kuang Zhanxin.”

Shen Du’s expression visibly darkened after Zhu Yan finished speaking.

A ghost marriage, as the name implies, is arranged to find a spouse for someone who has passed away. Sometimes, young men and women are betrothed but die before they can be married. The elders believe that if they don’t arrange a marriage for them, their spirits might cause trouble and bring unrest to the household. Thus, they must perform a ghost marriage ceremony, and finally bury them together as husband and wife, their bones interred in the same grave. This prevents a lone grave from appearing in either family’s burial grounds, which is believed to affect the prosperity of future generations.

The Liang family has the means to do this, so arranging a ghost marriage for Liang Chenzhong isn’t surprising. What’s surprising is—why Kuang Zhanxin?

After all, the Liang family is distantly related to the royal family. If they were to arrange a ghost marriage, they should be looking for a deceased girl from a respectable family, not the Tongwen Hall's top courtesan, Kuang Zhanxin, who was also disfigured and had her heart removed.

Thinking back to when the bodies of Liang Chenzhong and Kuang Zhanxin were first discovered, Lu Chui-chui mentioned that the main branch of the Liang family "immediately requested the Chang'an Magistrate to perform an autopsy and left right after seeing the bodies." Now, they are impatiently demanding a ghost marriage between Liang Chenzhong and Kuang Zhanxin.

This urgency seems highly suspicious.

“They claim that a powerful diviner calculated that Liang Chenzhong, having lost his heart, has an incomplete body, which affects the Liang family’s fortune. He cannot be paired with an ordinary woman, so he must be matched with someone who suffered the same fate—Kuang Zhanxin. Besides, the two were supposedly fond of each other.”

Zhu Yan had indeed heard of a powerful diviner before, one whose prophecy was said to have predicted the Empress Dowager’s ascension to the throne.

"Dragon eyes, phoenix neck—the highest of omens."

Heh, but how many truly powerful diviners could there be? Most likely, these are just some charlatans roaming around trying to swindle money from the Liang family.

Shen Du seemed to have thought the same. “Did Xu Zuo mention anything else?”

Zhu Yan shook her head. There were other things Xu Zuo had told her, but she couldn’t reveal them to Shen Du at this moment.

Shen Du seemed to see right through her thoughts but didn’t press further. In no time, they had reached the entrance of Li’s Family Bank. The clerks were in the process of unfastening the wooden planks from the doors and setting them aside, splashing water to clean the ground in preparation for opening to customers.

“Clerk!”

“Huh?”

The clerk who was called out stared in shock as the water he had just thrown splashed directly onto a petite and delicate figure.

Zhu Yan hadn’t expected that simply calling out “Clerk!” would get her drenched.

Shen Du was turned to the side, observing the surroundings of the street, but when he turned back and saw Zhu Yan looking like a drenched quail, his brow twitched involuntarily. He then stepped forward and took off his dragon-patterned cloak, draping it over her shoulders.

The morning glow of dawn was radiant, casting a golden hue over the woman's face. Her ink-black hair dripped with water, resembling a water flower blooming in the mountain stream on a May morning, breaking through the water with vibrant freshness.

Her eyes were like a lost deer in the mountain mist, shimmering with a pool of spring water, looking in confusion at the man in front of her, who was pressing down on her shoulder to put the cloak on her.

Was this concern? Or a veiled insult?

"There's no need, Grand Chief Guard. I'm not cold," Zhu Yan said.

The bucket of water hadn’t entirely drenched her, and the May air was already filled with the warm scent of gardenias.

“Once the sun rises, it’ll dry off,” she said calmly.

Meanwhile, Jing Lin couldn't help but twitch his lips in exasperation. His Commander was already unusual, and now his lady seemed to have her own quirks.

Which woman would respond to her husband offering a cloak by saying that it would dry off soon enough?

“Be quiet,” Shen Du said.

Zhu Yan fell silent, tightening the cloak around herself.

She had heard before that some women had fainted in the streets and fallen into Shen Du’s arms, only to be detained by the inner guards for a day, under the accusation of offending the Grand Chief Guard.

It was the extreme of being insensitive.

Since then, women throughout Chang’an avoided the White King of Hell like the plague.

Do you like the White King? The kind of liking that lands you in jail?

Shen Du frowned as he looked at Zhu Yan standing there with her eyes lowered and a faint smile. Feeling his ears grow warm, he turned to the kneeling attendant on the ground, who was trembling and repeatedly bowing:

“I’m sorry, Grand Chief Guard, Madam Grand Chief Guard, I didn’t mean to, I—”

Shen Du, barely glancing at him, stood on the steps and ignored the attendant’s continuous bows. His displeasure was evident as he said:

“Get inside.”

Zhu Yan, unfazed, helped the attendant to his feet and whispered a few words. The attendant, wiping his tears and expressing countless thanks, hurried inside to the back hall. Soon, a middle-aged man emerged, wearing an outer robe and dragging a woman from behind him. He nervously buttoned his robe and bowed deeply:

“I didn’t realize the Grand Chief Guard had come from afar. I beg your forgiveness for the lack of a proper welcome.”

The middle-aged man pushed the woman forward, saying:

“This is the clothing my wife managed to find for the young madam. Please, Madam Shen, follow my wife to the inner hall to change out of your wet clothes and have a cup of hot tea to warm up.”

Zhu Yan looked at Shen Du, while the shopkeeper, drenched in cold sweat and on the verge of tears, glanced anxiously at Shen Du.

Shen Du curved his lips into a detached smile, saying, “Madam, please be quick.”

He watched as Zhu Yan disappeared behind the door.

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