CH 19

Looking at this man, Fu Zhiyu couldn’t help but recall all kinds of things that happened between him and Shen Yang. Now he looked at the young face of this talented commoner who was still wearing an old washed-out robe, and he had mixed feelings for a moment.

Shen Yang was not a nobody. He was already well-known, the top talent among the scholars from poor families. He had been Grand Master Xu’s student for five years and was a popular candidate to win this year’s imperial examination.

In Fu Zhiyu’s previous life, he did take the lead and was personally named the top scorer by the emperor.

It was just that Shen Yang had no background, and a tall tree attracts the wind. Less than a month after the Qionglin Banquet (a banquet for the new scholars after the imperial examination), he was in trouble, caught in a fraud case, accused of secretly conspiring with the supervisor of the examination and failing to live up to his reputation of literati.

In order to solve this trouble as soon as possible, Fu Zhiyu in the book did not investigate carefully and pushed out the supervisor and Shen Yang as scapegoats, taking himself off the hook.

But the real Fu Zhiyu was very firm, and he didn’t believe that Shen Yang would cheat at all. He knew in his heart that this was a deliberate game set up by the Crown Prince, and it was aimed at him. Shen Yang was just an innocent victim of the incident. He had investigated the matter for a month and restored Shen Yang’s good name.

Shen Yang was very touched and had been following Fu Zhiyu wholeheartedly since then. He did do a lot of things for Fu Zhiyu in the times of turmoil but backstabbed him at the last critical moment.

There were really few people like Yuan Mingdao. After all, the truth is that people always choose what’s best for them, like birds choose the best trees to live in. Fu Zhiyu had been bitterly disappointed by this matter, but after he read the original book, he realised that Shen Yang didn’t belong to him.

Because of the different choice of Fu Zhiyu in the original book, although Shen Yang did not die, he suffered a lot until Xie Ke rescued him, restored his innocence, and gave him a brand new life.

Shen Yang followed Xie Ke, fighting his way up the ladder. After Xie Ke unified the continent, he became Xie Ke’s Prime Minister, the position under one person and above ten thousand people.

Fu Zhiyu originally changed Shen Yang’s fate and robbed the protagonist of the opportunity. In fact, everything was just returning to the main plot.

Only then did Fu Zhiyu understand.

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After he had an epiphany, he let go of this heart knot. He even thought that Shen Yang was really wronged by following an incompetent emperor who didn’t deserve to be followed. Although he was the Prime Minister at that time, he had to suffer the anger of the old officials in the court countless times, nowhere as cool as following Xie Ke would be.

Fu Zhiyu also felt that Shen Yang had actually repaid his so-called kindness a long time ago. He was not the kind of person who would ask others to repay his kindness for a lifetime. Now he only felt that what happened between the two of them had offset each other’s actions and they no longer had anything to do with each other.

Now as he looked at this man, except for some emotions brought about by the memories, only peace of mind was left.

He clenched Yuan Mingdao’s hand tightly, glanced at Shen Yang and said lightly: “This wang has had a serious illness and can’t remember many people clearly. Mingdao, let’s go.”

“Wait-” Shen Yang seemed a little anxious, “This commoner really has something important to discuss with Wang Zhao!”

The guards didn’t have the order of Wang Zhao, so they naturally stopped him. Shen Yang, a scholar, couldn’t move a step further when he was stopped by the guards. Meanwhile, Fu Zhiyu had already taken Yuan Mingdao into the carriage and pulled the curtain up.

“Let’s go, go to the Yuan residence,“ he said to the coachman, not caring in the least about what was going on outside. “Go faster, it’s already noon, don’t waste time here.”

The coachman received the order, and as soon as he raised his whip, the carriage left. Naturally, the guards also got on their horses and followed. Shen Yang, who wasn’t impeded anymore, didn’t give up. He chased after Fu Zhiyu’s carriage, running after it.

“Wang Zhao!” He was not in very good health and panted after a few steps. He seemed to be really anxious. In the end, he couldn’t care about his face and shouted loudly in the street, “This commoner really has important things to discuss. Please, Wang Zhao, please stop the carriage for a moment, I really only have a few words to say, please…”

But the carriage moved too fast, and Fu Zhiyu couldn’t hear him after turning a corner.

“We don’t care about him,” he said to Yuan Mingdao in the carriage, his tone and expression softening all at once, “Don’t pay attention to such strange people in the future. There are some pastries I brought from the palace. Try them?”

Yuan Mingdao nodded; his bright eyes kept looking at Fu Zhiyu, sweeping away his somewhat unhappy mood.

“We are going to the house of my mother’s parents,” Fu Zhiyu explained patiently. “Everyone in the Yuan residence is very nice, and I miss them very much.”

After a while, the carriage stopped in front of the Yuan residence.

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The daughter of the Yuan family had just been made the Imperial Noble Consort, but the atmosphere in this mansion was very low-key. Only two red lanterns that would be hung during the New Year were hanging at the gate. The gate was not large, and if you took a closer look, you would see that the paint on it was peeling off. Who knew how long it had not been repaired.

The master of the Yuan family, whose name was Yuan Herong, was a military general in the imperial court and a third-rank imperial envoy. To put it bluntly, he was an official in charge of all kinds of resources of the army. Old Master Yuan was now in charge of forage, and there was indeed a lot of opportunity for ill-gotten gains. But since Old Master Yuan had taken on this responsibility, he had made this department a clean government office, and nothing had ever gone wrong.

He was a bit high-minded by nature and a bit pedantic, but he was upright, never worshipped the high and stepped on the low. He was a good man.

In addition to his daughter Yuan Wanyun, the Yuan family also had two sons, Fu Zhiyu’s two uncles.

The elder uncle Yuan Jiangxing was away with his family, guarding a small town on the border, and only returned to the capital for debriefing every three years. The younger uncle Yuan Jiangwen didn’t choose to become an official. After he took the examination, he became interested in doing business. He travelled with a caravan all year round and made a lot of money, but being a merchant in this dynasty was always inferior to being an official in the eyes of others. No matter how much money he made, he couldn’t compare to some ninth-rank official.

It was no wonder that Emperor Qingyuan felt that there was no real threat from this family.

But in Fu Zhiyu’s eyes, his mother’s family was not useless. He felt very fortunate that he still had such a family. Although it was not as powerful as the Xue family, everyone in the Yuan family was really good to him, untainted with any private interests.

But the Yuan family didn’t end well. At the time when his rivalry with the Crown Prince was heating up, everyone in the Yuan family was killed due to the Crown Prince’s scheme, leaving not even one survivor.

Fu Zhiyu was in so much pain at that time that he couldn’t sleep night after night. Even though he later killed the Crown Prince and became the emperor, he couldn’t bring back his loved ones. The wound remained in his heart and could not be healed.

After he was reborn, although his heart was much calmer, he had some regrets, such as his mother consort, such as Mingdao, and such as the Yuan family, and he felt that he needed to make up for them.

It was probably because he had really died once and knew the nature of this world that he could understand more deeply what true love was.

Holding Yuan Mingdao’s hand, he walked all the way through the gate to the familiar small flower-patterned porch, where he could smell the smell of the stewed meat from afar.

The old lady of the Yuan family stewed beef. Her cooking was very good. The beef was so soft that it melted in the mouth. Fu Zhiyu liked to eat it. Every time he came, the old lady put it on the stove in advance, stewing it in a large pot, so big you couldn’t finish it for three days.

This fragrance seemed to sweep away the bad memories, leaving only the beautiful ones. Shen Yang, whom he had just met, and Xie Ke, whom he was about to meet, were left behind. Fu Zhiyu felt that none of them were important. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

The courtyard of the Yuan residence was not large, and there were not many servants in the family. Unlike other families with three wives and four concubines, the old master and his two sons each only married one woman and made a vow to grow old together, abiding by it to the end.

Fu Zhiyu guessed that his infatuation in the previous life was probably inherited from the Yuan family, but neither he nor his mother were lucky to meet a true person who would only have them in their hearts.

Now he was standing in the hall, looking at the small and simple courtyard in front of him, only to feel incredibly relaxed. It made him feel more comfortable than the magnificent Liuli Palace, as if this was really his own home.