Chapter 45 Chapter Nineteen
Early the next morning, Ma Rong rushed to Zuogezi.Di Gonggong is eating morning tea, a cup of fragrant tea and a few slices of fragrant cakes for breakfast.
"Ma Rong, wait for a while, we will go to Ling Xiangu's thatched tent. If Ling Xiangu has not returned home, we will go to Baisha Mountain in the northwest corner for a stroll."
Ma Rong laughed and asked: "Master, Jia Yubo Xiucai wanted to meet a prostitute who was redeemed in the countryside of Quzhou. I don't think the murder here is related to him."
Di Gong said: "Let him go. I didn't look for him yesterday, so it's all right. How can this Jia Xiucai have the money to redeem the prostitute? Could it be that he abducted Feng Dainian?"
Ma Rong waved his hands and said, "No, no, this Jia Yubo won back all the money he lost that day in Hengfeng Manor, just in time to redeem the silver fairy, and there is still a few money left to entangle. I am afraid that Feng's mansion will force the marriage, Xingye wants Go, stop me."
"Why stop him? Don't worry about that silver fairy. Chickens eat, ducks eat fish and shrimps, each has its own temperament, so you can't force it. Only poor Feng Dainian and his daughter will spoil the fun. —— Ma Rong, we can leave today. They are all guests, so how can they retire here? Although Leyuan is good, how can you not miss Shu? You have played enough in Jinshan Leyuan in these two days."
"Exactly. This Leyuan is indeed a good place to have fun. No matter how much money is thrown, there is not even a sound." Ma Rong said with emotion.
Di Gong was alert: "You threw down the two taels of silver too? Oh, no, you spent another four taels, a total of six taels, right? Did you throw all the six taels of silver in?"
Ma Rong gave Qiu Gong a timid look: "It's not just six taels of silver? The twenty taels of gold given by the second uncle are also thrown in!"
"What? Those two ingots of gold were left by your second uncle to live with you in your later years, so they were thrown into the world anyway." Duke Di angrily tugged at his long beard.
"My lord, the girls here are too charming and too expensive. When I throw away the silver and gold, I feel regretful. Where can I get them back?"
Di Gong said sullenly: "Scattering envoys like this is like dust. You just don't remember your lesson, and I knew I wouldn't bring you with me."
Ma Rong pointed to a pine forest at the foot of the hill: "Master, this is where the virtuous brothers Xia Xie and I encountered bandits that day."
Di Gong looked at the situation carefully, and said: "Ma Rong, those gangsters didn't come here to avenge shrimp and crabs, they were lying in ambush here, and it turned out that it was you and me who attacked."
Ma Rong was startled, and when he was about to ask again, Duke Di had galloped forward.
Walking around a big yew tree, Ma Rong called out: "The hut in front is just right."
Duke Di got off his horse and handed the reins and long whip to Ma Rong: "You stay here for a while, don't go near the hut. Pay attention to the movement around you." Then he walked towards the hut on the wet and rotten leaves.
There was a faint candlelight in the small window of the hut.
Di Gong listened carefully, someone in the room was singing an old grievance lyrics softly, accompanied by the strings, it was very pleasant. ——I also heard faint weeping, intermittently.
Di Gong pushed hard, and the wooden door opened.A candle in the corner of the room flickered for a moment, then went out, and a wisp of blue smoke rose. —— Ling Xiangu sat cross-legged on the bamboo bed, playing the piano with one hand, and stroking the head of a mad skinned beggar with the other.
The sound of the piano stopped abruptly, Ling Xiangu stared blankly at Di Gong with her pair of eye sockets.Duke Di's piercing eyes stabbed at the lunatic beggar.
The epileptic beggar was covered with abscesses, and the ulcers were covered with blood and yellow scabs.Wearing a dirty and torn gown, one eye stared fiercely at Di Gong.
"Who are you? Unexpectedly, I heard that you entered the house." Although Ling Xiangu was sullen and angry, her voice was still like a swallow's language.
"Di Renjie from this county took the liberty to visit."
The epileptic beggar sneered, his lips crooked, and jumped off the bamboo bed.
"If the county's judgment is not wrong, the next step should be His Excellency Li Jingwei, the biological father of Young Master Li Lian."
The insane beggar stared blankly at Di Gong with one eye, his gaze changed from excitement to timidity.
"You don't have to hide it, Xiangu Ling. You are Fei Cui, the oiran lady of Leyuan twenty years ago. —— You didn't die of illness that year. You survived by luck, and you have kept your name incognito until now."
Ling Xiangu listened carefully, looked up to the sky and sighed: "We are a pair of poor people!"
Di Gong said coldly: "Mr. Li heard that your son Li Lian died at the hands of Qiuyue, and he wanted revenge. He came to Leyuan from Baishashan Port, and spied on Qiuyue's whereabouts every day, looking for opportunities to strike. ——Is this true?"
Li Jingwei blinked with one eye, noncommittal.
"This county might as well state clearly that Mr. Li believed the misinformation. Mr. Li Lian didn't die of love for Qiuyue, but he suspected that he had the same incurable disease as you and fell into despair. ——After he came to Leyuan, he suddenly found that his neck was broken. There are two bruised and purple swellings, and I am incessant. Because I have been in frequent contact with you before, I firmly believe that a serious illness is about to break out, and the pain is beyond words. In despair, I seek suicide. ——Mr. He is like the sun in the middle of the sky. He really has no courage to survive like you in such a calamity.
"Li Lian and Qiuyue have no love affair, let alone ransom. It's just that before she died, there was a letter trusting her to take Baisha Mountain with you. It's a pity that Qiuyue was arrogant and untrustworthy, so she didn't take this matter to heart. She It was only after she died that I found Li Lian's last suicide note in a drawer in her bedroom, which has not been opened yet."
As he spoke, Di Gong took out the letter from his sleeve and threw it on the bamboo couch.
Li Jingwei picked up the envelope, opened it and read it with trembling hands.Suddenly his expression changed drastically, his lips twitched, and dirty tears flowed from his one eye.His whole body was trembling, he was panting heavily, and he was restless.
"Mr. Li has been following Qiuyue since he sneaked into Leyuan. He overheard my conversation with Qiuyue outside the terrace of the Red Pavilion the night before, and he was even more convinced that Qiuyue was the enemy who brought back Li Lian's life. So he took the opportunity to kill him to avenge his shame.
"In the middle of the night, Qiuyue returned to the Red Pavilion from the White Crane Tower. She entered the bedroom, undressed and went to bed. You lurked outside the window and called her name in a low voice. When Qiuyue heard it, she got up and looked out the window. Her neck, intending to strangle her to death.——Qiuyue struggled hard, and finally escaped. After all, you are old and sick, and your hands are bent, how can you have the power to last?——However, Qiuyue was frightened by this, and fell down in a frenzy of fright. On the ground, a sudden heart attack led to death.—Although Qiuyue had laid down the root cause of this disease, she died at your hands the night before."
Li Jingwei was sweating profusely, his face was pale, and he collapsed to the ground.
Ling Xiangu hurried down to the ground and held her up with one hand.With kind words, he comforted him: "My heart, don't listen to that stupid official's nonsense. If you want to be imprisoned and beheaded, I will accompany you."
Di Gong pretended not to listen, and continued: "Mr. Li did not hesitate to spend huge sums of money to campaign for the capital's joint ventures for his son's fame and future. The money was dwindling, so he came up with the idea of Leyuan. The former sent people to rob Leyuan's tax and silver post car, It was your method. It is a pity that you were defeated by Ding, the chief of Fengli. Wu was not good enough, and he used a conspiracy to take advantage of Wen Wenyuan's selfishness, and designed to collude with Feng Lichang to replace him, and seize Leyuan's financial resources.
"The so-called 'instructing' in the letter from Mr. Li Lian is exactly your father and son's conspiracy against Feng. It is a pity that he changed his mind and committed suicide midway, so he could not complete his work. With Li Lian's death, Mr. Li's overall defeat was beyond control. Now that he has killed Qiuyue again, I'm afraid I don't intend to be in love with the world for a long time, I just want to hang out with jade for a few days."
Li Jingwei just said "hey" a few times and did not refute.
"The night you killed Qiuyue, you turned around and hid outside the window to spy on me. I smelled the stench on your body and had a nightmare all night. After Qiuyue died, you planned to sneak back to Baisha Mountain with jade .That day when you took a boat at the pier, you were rejected by the boatman.——You simply didn’t leave, and temporarily hid in this hut to reminisce with Jadeite.
"Yesterday you sneaked into the Red Pavilion again to listen to the truth. I heard that my relatives and I were going to come here to visit Ling Xiangu in the Mao Peng. I was so timid that I planned to kill me. In the end, I was defeated by the shrimp and crab again, and a gangster who was on the verge of death confessed your last name."
Li Jingwei nodded deeply, with an intoxicated complacency in his heart.A one-eyed gleam that seemed almost weary of everything, death-defying.
"Mr. Li is suffering from a serious and incurable disease. According to the law, he can be exempted from the criminal law. This county is just promulgating the law, and has no intention of arresting Mr. Li. It is not intended to go to court, humiliate Mr., and make the world laugh. —— In detail, twenty years You should be convicted of murder."
"What?" Ling Xiangu screamed.An ugly face distorted with anger.
Di Gong's face was frosty: "When Mr. Li killed Tao Kuang in Honggezi 20 years ago, he killed Qiuyue in Honggezi 20 years later. How does this county judge?"
Li Jingwei raised his head in horror, showing a little admiration.
Immortal Ling suddenly giggled and laughed: "Twenty years! Twenty years! Twenty years have been like a dream. It seems like yesterday, as if the two of us were hugging each other in the red pavilion and dreaming of sex. ——At that time, you were romantic and handsome , talent is unrivaled in the world, and I am the oiran queen of Leyuan, the number one beauty—the number one in Tianzi, talented and beautiful, with ten features. I am really a prince and grandson, gold buys a smile, Li Ji is a fairy, and I am happy every day. Hehe, this The scene is like before my eyes, as if I was drunk for a while, looking at flowers in the mist, riding a boat on spring water, and now I am still drunk and swaying.——Tell you, I was pregnant at that time, but it was only the terrible epidemic that made me young I gave birth, and it's still a boy."
Seeing that Aunt Ling was silent, Mr. Di said, "At that time, both Feng Dainian and Tao Kuangshi were madly infatuated with your beauty, but you were just coaxing blindly, ignoring it, and deliberately procrastinating for time. You secretly communicated with Mr. Li Meeting Tu Huan day and night. For the sake of a bright future, Mr. Li did not want to disclose his identity, fearing being criticized, and kept it under wraps until Tao Kuangshi was killed..."
"Ah! Is it the evening of yesterday?" Ling Xiangu shouted again, "The sunset glow of the rice people shone into the Red Pavilion, and a piece of red light floated, as if on fire... I am trembling in your broad chest, that one who wants to die It’s coming. You are still yelling and threatening. You jumped out like a god, raised your knife and dropped it, and blood splashed on your face and body. ——The setting sun shines like a bunch of delicate red flowers that are about to burn. Haha .
"It was only when that brat ran into the Red Pavilion that I woke up and knew that something was wrong. You said, quickly, quickly, drag the dead body surnamed Tao into the bedroom. Then put the dagger in his hand. Lock the door, Throw the key in through the window grille, and you and I escaped from the Red Pavilion in a hurry. —— Who knows that it will be twenty years since we broke up that day. I have never seen your trace again, and I want to kill me. There are many changes in the middle, The epidemic came and the government burned the streets. I crawled out of the pile of dead bodies and lost my life. So I assumed the identity of a prostitute named Ling Biyun and survived to this day.
"I have been thinking about you for twenty years, almost for a moment. I once heard that you became a high-ranking official in the court, and then I heard that you contracted an incurable disease and never dared to see anyone again. ——Okay , I woke up from yesterday’s nightmare, the black clouds were driven away, and you lay quietly on my chest again, like an obedient lamb. Your figure is still as powerful as the god under the setting sun that day, shining everywhere Shoot. Whoops..."
Ling Xiangu gently stroked Li Jingwei who was lying on her chest like a lamb.Calling and sighing with a cry.
When Di Gong looked again, Li Jingwei's one-eyed eyes had already been closed, and he was already a new smelly corpse, curled up in Ling Xiangu's arms, motionless.Ling Xiangu's ghostly chattering voice was getting weaker and more bitter, like a gossamer, slender and floating. — finally broke.
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