CH 90.2

Translator – Xiao He Lian

Chapter 90.2

As time went by, Wen Chi gradually felt awkward. Although he and Liu De had a short mentoring relationship, the relationship between them was not that deep after all, and it was not enough to reminisce about the past.

Wen Chi quietly clutched the hem of his clothes and was thinking of finding a reason for Liu De to leave, when he suddenly heard Liu De say: “Since Young Master Wen has recognized me, let’s arrange some classes.”

Wen Chi: “???”

Liu De silently squeezed out a little smile, looking a bit creepy.

Wen Chi: “What class?”

Wen Chi faced Liu De with an expression of seeing a ghost. Liu De didn’t think there was anything wrong. Instead, he explained seriously: “Learning martial arts requires diligent study and hard practice, if you give up halfway, I am afraid you will waste your previous efforts along with it, not to mention ……”

Seeing Liu De pause, Wen Chi subconsciously asked, “What?”

Liu De took a meaningful look at Wen Chi: “What’s more, Young Master Wen is not a talented person in learning martial arts, it’s better to be down-to-earth.”

Wen Chi: “…”

That was enough, let’s not say the last sentence.

Ten days passed in a blink of an eye.

As autumn left and winter came, the weather became colder and colder.

There was no news from the capital, maybe Zuo Zhi and Liu De knew something, but they didn’t tell Wen Chi nor did Wen Chi take the initiative to ask, the three of them maintained a mutual understanding in this regard.

Later, for the convenience of learning martial arts, Wen Chi arranged the guards and maids sent by the emperor in the courtyard next door. With Liu De and Zuo Zhi watching at the same time, Wen Chi’s martial arts really…had improved by leaps and bounds.

As the new year approached, every household in Jinzhou was preparing to welcome the new year.

The Zhou mansion was no exception. The Governor of Zhou arranged for people to clean the inside and outside of the mansion carefully and replaced all the lanterns with festive big red lanterns.

However, on the second day after the Zhou Mansion was completely renewed, a major event happened in the mansion—Lord  Yin found out the person who colluded with the kidnappers.

It turned out that those kidnappers didn’t break into the Zhou Mansion on a whim, but cooperated with the people in the Zhou Mansion, taking advantage of the time that Governor Zhou, the fourth prince, General Lin and others to gone out and ransacked the Zhou Mansion.

The people who colluded with the kidnappers were Governor Zhou’s relatives and younger siblings.

Governor Zhou was born in a small mountain village. He had no background and no backer. He climbed to his current position all by himself. 

Who knew that his younger brother was not up to snuff, he was just ignorant and he used his name to do some sneaky things outside and now he even targeted the distinguished guests…

Originally, the couple insisted that they were simply framed by Lord Yin and did not know the kidnappers at all. Unexpectedly, Lord Yin snorted coldly and threw out the letters between them and the kidnappers.

The couple saw clearly the contents of the letter, their eyes went dark and they both collapsed on the ground.

Seeing that the situation was wrong, Governor Zhou quickly picked up one of the letters from the ground, took a closer look, and found that it was indeed the dog-pile characters that only his younger siblings could write.

“You…” Zhou Fang felt blood rushing to his head, making him dizzy. He finally stabilized his footsteps, pointed to his brother and younger siblings who were kneeling on the ground and said in a trembling voice, “You are a white eyes wolf!” What have I done to you? Is this how you repay me?!”

“I was wrong, brother, I was wrong!”

“Brother, we were also deceived by those people. We didn’t do that on purpose. You should blame those machete-carrying people!”

Seeing that they couldn’t deny it, the couple cried and crawled towards Governor Zhou, the two of them hugging his thighs left and right.

Governor Zhou’s face was pale and he froze in place, as if his whole body had been emptied, even his brain was empty.

For the sake of Justice, Lord Yin specially called all the people who temporarily lived in the Zhou Mansion, including several officials who came to Jinzhou with Lord Yin. Everyone did not say a word, watching as quietly as chickens as they waited for Governor Zhou to make his final decision.

Wen Chi stood at the edge of the crowd. He looked at Lord Yin with a heavy expression and at the couple kneeling at Governor Zhou’s feet, hugging each other and weeping, and a strange feeling suddenly surfaced in his heart.

He backed away calmly, to Zuo Zhi’s side who was standing by the door and whispered: “Tell me,why do you think Lord Yin suddenly remembered to investigate what happened before?”

Zuo Zhi also whispered back: “I don’t know.”

Wen Chi paused, then whispered: “Do you think Lord Yin’s actions were ordered by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?”

Since Lord Yin came to Jinzhou, he had always taken Wen Chi with him. The two of them have been inseparable during work. So apart from work matters, they would naturally talk about personal matters, but Wen Chi had never heard Lord Yin talk about these matters.

Unfortunately, Zuo Zhi still gave the same answer: “I don’t know either.”

Wen Chi looked back at Zuo Zhi.

Zuo Zhi blinked innocently, as if she didn’t know anything.

However, after getting along with Zuo Zhi for a period of time, Wen Chi had long since figured out Zuo Zhi’s character as an old greaser, so she couldn’t believe everything Zuo Zhi said anyway.

Wen Chi originally wanted to ask Lord Yin, but Lord Yin was busy supervising Governor Zhou handling of family affairs. Until the end of the meeting, Wen Chi didn’t find a chance to talk to Lord Yin alone.

Then came New Year’s Day.

In ancient times, New Year’s Day was not called New Year’s Day1(New Year here is referring to January 1st new year not the Chinese new year. So they call it 元旦 yuan dan in modern version and 岁旦 [suì dàn] in some eras). People in this era called the first day of the new year “Sui Dan2(Suidan, the first day of the first year, is the beginning of the year in the Ganzhi calendar. Also used to refer to the first day of the year. In the early era of observation and time service, the age was determined according to the changes of the stars. In the Ganzhi era, ” Doubing Huiyin ” is the “Chunzheng” (the first month), and the beginning of spring is the beginning of the year.)“, but there was no uniformity in the way they called it, for example, Lord Yin said that he would give everyone a three-day holiday on the day of the New Year. 3(Okay to summarize what Wen Chi means is that January 1st, can be called in different ways in the past, modern version is 元旦 yuan dan, ancient version 岁旦 [suì dàn] and Lord Yin calls it another name 开年之日 Kāi nián zhī rì, which also means beginning of the new year)

Wen Chi held himself back in the room for two days but finally he couldn’t hold it anymore. He remembered the note that Shi Ye had written to him, so he took it out of the wooden box.