Ink Burns

Chapter 251: No Clues
Fu Mingjiang looked at her father-in-law, Cui Bainian, in fear.

Usurpation?

If it were a regent, she could understand.

Usurpation of power?
My mother is, after all, a princess of the Great Wei!

How could we allow the Great Wei dynasty to be destroyed?
Fu Mingjiang held her stomach with both hands and swallowed hard: "Mother, she doesn't know anything about me?"

Fu Mingjiang was so surprised that she spoke in the local dialect of her hometown.

Cui Bainian laughed: "I won't let her know, but you are my daughter-in-law, so I will let you know."

Cui Bainian replied in dialect, then switched to Beijing accent: "Now that the Cui family has ascended the throne, I only have one son, Yulang, so all the benefits will naturally be borne by your family."

Cui Bainian spoke solemnly and with a serious expression: "Linniang, think it over carefully, is it more noble to be a princess or an empress?"

Fu Mingjiang murmured, "I am already very honorable." She turned to look at Cui Yulang, whose face was pale on the bed, and said, "If I were to climb higher, I would feel lonely at the top. Wouldn't Yulang and I become more and more distant? No matter how much my uncle likes the Imperial Concubine, there is still one Empress, four Concubines and six Concubines. People in high positions are not free to do as they please. I only wish to spend the rest of my life with Yulang, day and night."

These are things that should never be said in front of her mother—they're both stupid and unambitious.

But she was willing to tell her father-in-law.

Her father-in-law understood her, tolerated her, and loved her, ever since she was a child.

Although her mother truly loved her, she treated her strictly.

That slap that day left her utterly humiliated!
Cui Bainian paused upon hearing this.

He then smiled. Although Cui Bainian was over forty, he was more relaxed than the younger men, displaying the demeanor of a scholar-general. He suddenly realized, "So that's what you were thinking." Cui Bainian replied with satisfaction, "With a wife like this, I am very pleased, very pleased!"

But then he abruptly changed the subject, saying, "Do you know why Yulang and you always seem so distant?"

"Why?" Fu Mingjiang asked urgently.

“You are at a high position, and he has looked up to you since childhood. No matter how much Yulang loves you, he is still a man. His wife is high above him, like the bright moon in the vast sea. Naturally, a man should avoid her sharp edge and treat her with respect. Of course, there should be less affection and tenderness between them.”

"Just like your mother."

"Her husbands were all inferior to her. They treated her with utmost respect, never offending her, but there was no warmth between them."

“Father knows that you are different from the Grand Princess. You don’t have those grand ambitions. You just want to live a good life. Linniang, think about it. Your mother taught you to control Yulang and the Cui family. Isn’t that right?” Cui Bainian tightened his wrist on the armrest of the chair, and the Hetian jade beads clicked again.

Fu Mingjiang pursed her lips, which was taken as tacit agreement.

"Is your mother's teaching effective?" Cui Bainian asked again.

Fu Mingjiang shook her head.

Her mother always insisted that she maintain a firm stance, that whenever Cui Yulang asked her for something, she should naturally respect her, honor her, and dare not disobey her—but she never clung to her! Loved her! Embraced her! Thought of her!
She wanted Cui Yulang to truly love her!

Cui Bainian smiled knowingly and said, "Then it's useless." He said earnestly, "Yulang loves you. If he didn't love you, why would he marry you? When you help a man to his position and look up at him, he can see your beautiful nose, bright eyes, and delicate lips when he looks down from his height."

"If a man looks up at you from below, he can only see your raised chin, your nostrils, and your arrogant mouth."

"What man would like that? What man would want to get close to him?"

Cui Bainian patiently persuaded her: "The Grand Princess has spent her life seeking love, but she has often failed miserably. She is not a good role model for you. In this matter, don't listen to your mother, listen to your father." Fu Mingjiang lowered her head, her hand stroking her high, protruding belly, and a sense of agreement arose spontaneously in her heart.

Her mind was filled with love, love, love, and she couldn't spare any time to think about something very important: why her father-in-law was talking to her about these things at this time.

Cui Yulang's eyelids twitched slightly. Cui Bainian smiled, stood up, and reached his hand into the blankets again, skillfully and accurately pressing through the wound on Cui Yulang's shoulder.

Cui Yulang opened his eyes in a daze and instantly became fully awake.

"Yulang!" Fu Mingjiang didn't have time to think about her father-in-law's instigation. She immediately rushed over, her eyes filled with tears: "Yulang! You're awake!"

Due to blood loss, Cui Yulang's eyes were still shrouded in a white mist when he closed them. He heard the voices calling "Yulang" in his ears. He opened his mouth to call "Shanyue," but before he could utter the word "Shan," a burning pain ignited in his wound. When he opened his eyes, he saw Fu Mingjiang's disgusting face, which resembled a silver plate.

"Ugh—" Cui Yulang gagged instinctively.

Fu Mingjiang urgently cupped his face in her hands, and embraced him with a tearful voice, saying, "You scared me to death! The Prefect of the Capital brought you back, and you were covered in blood! Your chin was covered in blood too! If you died, I would jump down and die too!"

Cui Yulang was held in Fu Mingjiang's arms, his elbow resting against Fu Mingjiang's thin, swollen belly, which resembled a melon rind. The smooth, bouncy texture made him feel cold all over, and waves of nausea surged in his abdomen. After seeing He Shanyue, he found it even more unbearable to tolerate Fu Mingjiang than usual.

He was powerless to push her away. He weakly looked up and saw his biological father, Cui Bainian, leaning back in his armchair with a cold and calm gaze. He dared not push her away.

"Who did this!" Fu Mingjiang cried hoarsely, "Did you see clearly who did it?"

The fact that he was asked if he had seen it clearly implies that the Prefect of the Capital, who appeared halfway through the journey, had not seen it clearly.

Cui Yulang breathed a sigh of relief, and a sense of fatalistic madness arose from within him: he had given He Shanyue a chance to kill him. As long as He Shanyue killed him, he would die, He Shanyue would be captured, and they would go to the Yellow Springs together.

Shan Yue couldn't kill him.

This proves that the King of Hell won't take them!
If even the King of Hell won't take them, then it must be the Old Man of the Moon who's in charge!
They can't die together, so let's all live! Live together!

Cui Yulang remained silent, but his eyes welled up with a deep, viscous emotion. He muttered, closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly: "They attacked from behind, and I didn't see them clearly." He paused briefly, then added: "Perhaps it was Kan Fu, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, who was on my behalf."

Cui Bainian narrowed his eyes: "Kan Fu?"

Cui Yulang looked past Fu Mingjiang and at his father: "When I was surveying in Ningwu Pass and Xinzhou, Kan Fu suspected that I was secretly keeping geomantic maps. Today, it is highly likely that he sent someone to follow me and noticed that my behavior was unusual, so he tried to find out the truth. Apart from him, I never have any disputes with anyone."

Cui Yulang threw out a name, like throwing a lump of meat to a pack of vicious dogs, using it to buy time for the lamb hiding in the cracks of the rocks.

He went to East Twelfth Alley today to do something extremely important.

If the matter is accomplished, the Cui family can extricate themselves from the "Entrapment" case.

Cui Bainian couldn't possibly be indifferent to it.

As he had expected, Cui Bainian tilted his head back and pursed his lips, pondering Kan Fu's origins. After careful consideration, he still felt that the perpetrators of today's crime were not from the court. He leaned forward slightly, put away the Hetian jade bead string, and frowned as he asked again, "Is it true? Did the thief leave any clues?"

Cui Yulang braced himself with his right arm behind him, half-standing up, while his left hand was carefully curled up in his sleeve, his fingers tightening little by little until the thin blade embedded itself in his flesh.

Before he lost consciousness, he used all his strength to pull out the butterfly bone knife belonging to He Shanyue from his chest cavity and hide it before the person who came.

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my fingertip.

"No."

Cui Yulang looked up, his eyes unwavering, weak yet resolute as he gazed at his biological father: "No clues were left behind."