Strong Winds Return Home

The little girl was sweating profusely, dressed as a bride and crying like a weak animal. Tong Ou hugged her tightly, the hand on her back trembling slightly. And the common people who were watching were already frightened by this scene. Using a living person as a sacrifice to the River God, they had thought this kind of thing only appeared in the older generation’s stories, and didn’t expect to witness it with their own eyes today.

The stone shell was thick and hollow, like a human-shaped sarcophagus. It fell with dark eyes onto the bright red firecracker debris all over the ground, looking particularly terrifying. The world seemed to stand still at this moment. There was only the chilly wind blowing across the river bank, giving the common people goosebumps. Everyone had originally come here in the mood for a wedding celebration, but couldn’t imagine that they had almost sunk a little girl into the river while applauding and cheering.

The little girl was still whimpering half-consciously. A-Ning brought a few guards from Xiao Wang Palace to help, and at this time there were a few kind-hearted aunts who saw that it was inconvenient for all of the people around her to be men, so they bravely stepped forward together. They were locals and knew all the little dolls in town, but they had never seen this girl. Although ill and haggard, she was still a little beauty, with curved eyebrows and a slightly rounded nose tip. One of the aunts took a second look and murmured to herself, isn’t that nose just like Wan Yuan’s when she was a child?

“Commander Tong.” A-Ning urged, “It’s too cold here, let me take her back to rest first.”

Only then did Tong Ou release his grip, and the little girl was sent into a carriage that had already been prepared on the street. Presently, the local magistrate Dan Qing also rushed over with some officials. On the way, he had already heard about the real person hidden inside the stone shell, and his head was about to explode. As a magistrate, he actually knew that Yu Manor was not as clean as it appeared on the surface, but as long as there were no major disturbances, he also didn’t bother to care. After all, which manor with many courtyards didn’t have any dirty laundry? But who would have thought that although there were no accidents in the Yu family, there would be the huge event of human sacrifice. This……would this fall on the head of those at the top?

Tong Ou stood up slowly and looked at the three people on the platform.

The Yu family father and son didn’t know that he was the hunter from back then. They only thought that he was a soldier sent by his superiors to catch the ghost, and this just happened to occur.

Yu Cong sat on the chair, out of breath, and after Yu Zhong angrily reprimanded Aunt Liu, he belatedly realized his recklessness. Seeing that Dan Qing and Tong Ou were both there, he could only grit his teeth and continue on to say: “Master Dan, Commander Tong, this……this marriage was proposed by the wizard. My father is very old and got obsessed. Once he heard it, he couldn’t unhear it, and I really couldn’t persuade him, ah.”

“Fool!” Dan Qing scolded in front of the whole city, “Whose girl is that?”

“…….” Yu Zhong hesitated for a moment, then said, “She was bought from a kidnapper.”

“She wasn’t bought from a kidnapper.” Suddenly, another voice came from the crowd. It was Aunt Liu. She stood at the front and said loudly, “This child has been raised in the back courtyard of Yu Manor since birth!”

Yu Zhong’s expression changed. Disregarding that Dan Qing was still there, he ordered his servants to drag her away. Liu Meng stood in front of her with a big knife and said, “I’ll see who dares to touch my mother!”

Dan Qing saw that Aunt Liu knew a lot of the inside story, so he ordered servants to take her to the government office first. There was also a selfish desire to not let her tell more shocking scandals in public. The trouble of a human sacrifice was shameful enough. If she revealed something else, how could he be promoted or transferred in the future? He feared that even the official position he held now would be hard to protect.

Liu Meng stood in front of Aunt Liu, preventing the servants from approaching. Dan Qing’s expression sank: “Bold! Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Did Liu Meng not hear what Shan-daren said, or did Shan-daren not want to listen to the common people?” Liang Shu glanced at the circle of government servants, and finally set his eyes on Dan Qing. Dan Qing’s heart went numb from the shock of this look, and he still couldn’t determine the identity of the other party. Yu Zhong sensed that the government didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, so he shouted: “Our lord is talking, how can you interrupt!”

Dan Qing saw that everyone was looking his way and knew he had to make a decision, so he gritted his teeth and waved his hand: “Forget it, everyone go back to the government office first. Wizard Yin Die, you come as well!”

Yu Zhong was relieved, and hurriedly ordered his servants to come over with the sedan chair, ready to put his father inside. Yin Die also followed behind the government servants with a gloomy expression. Seeing this, the common people murmured one after another, and when Liu Meng saw that the government servants were going to take his mother away, he was also anxious. While stretching his arms out to block them, he quickly shouted: “Hey, didn’t you say you’re a prince?”

As soon as these words came out, Dan Qing’s brain buzzed! But Yin Die’s reaction was even faster than his. He immediately fled into the crowd, his thin body like a fluttering kite as he flew several zhang away in a flash. Where could the common people have seen these strange movements before? They hurriedly hid with their heads in their hands, for fear that they would be taken away as hostages if they hid too late. But Yin Die had already fallen from the air with a scream. Gao Lin retracted his sword and landed on the ground. With one hand wearing a silver glove, he dragged the old villain covered in poison and threw him in front of Liang Shu: “Your Highness.”

Dan Qing knelt on the ground with a plop and saluted with no color to his face: “Xiao Wang……Your Royal Highness Xiao Wang.”

The surrounding people also reacted and knelt in a circle. Yu Cong was still having difficulty breathing in and out. Liu Xian’an stepped forward and opened his eyelids to look, and said: “Carry him to that empty temple, I’ll give him acupuncture.”

Yu Zhong’s head was drenched in sweat, and he only nodded, but didn’t hear what he said at all. Several servants hurriedly carried their master away. Gao Lin had already asked the common people to get up, and helped Aunt Liu sit down on a chair. She had been working in Yu Manor all these years, mainly to support that little girl. 

The little girl’s name was Shi Taisong. The name sounded sturdy, but it was calculated by Yin Die, and implied the stubborn stones and green pines on Mount Tai, signs of longevity. Aunt Liu said: “The child’s mother is Wan Yuan.”

The common people were dumbfounded. Wan Yuan, that girl from the Wan family? When did she have a baby?

It was born a few months after her imprisonment.

Back then, the hunter had not returned for a long time, and Wan Yuan had a child in her belly, so she knew that she must live in the city for a short time. She planned to take Wan Gui with her to a foreign country, but when she was inquiring about horses and a carriage, she saw that Yin Die was preaching to the proprietress of the carriage shop and stepped forward to expose him, thus incurring his hatred.

All of these things were told by Wan Yuan herself to Aunt Liu later when she was imprisoned in the back courtyard of Yu Manor. She was young and bold, straightforward in everything she encountered, and never thought that someone would catch her with a dirty trick. A few days after buying the carriage, she went to the street to buy other things, but a ruffian approached her out of nowhere with an unclean mouth and vulgar hands, and said not to follow the hunter, but follow him instead. How could Wan Yuan bear this humiliation? So she raised her hand and slapped him, and the ruffian also slapped her. The two scuffled together, and neighbors rushed to pull them away. After they were pulled apart, government officials also rushed over and brought the two of them to the government office.

Then came the news of Wan Yuan’s suicide.

Aunt Liu said: “But in fact, she was drugged into fainting, and was sent to the Yu residence.”

Liang Shu looked at Yu Zhong coldly, and Yu Zhong said in a trembling voice: “It was Yin Die. He got very close to my father seven or eight years ago, and my father obeyed him. My father happened to be in poor health at that time, so Yin Die said that he had done the calculations. Wang Yuan was auspicious, and if they married, my father could live a long life. But my father didn’t agree at that time!”

The common people would secretly spit at him. A seventy-year-old man and a seventeen-year-old girl, you want him to agree?

“But Yin Die insisted that if he wanted to continue his life, there was only one way. My father finally believed it and gave him a large sum of money, which almost emptied half of the family’s wealth. Yin Die also said that he gave Li-daren a lot.”

Wan Yuan “died” in just one day. She was unconscious when she was sent to Yu Manor, and when the doctor performed a routine check of her pulse, he found that there was already a child in her stomach. Yu Cong was cuckolded before he could marry, and was instantly furious. Yu Zhong was also waiting to see Yin Die become a joke, but the old wizard told lies one after another without blinking his eyes.

Yu Zhong said: “He insisted that his fate was calculated correctly. If Wan Yuan was of no use, then the child in her belly would do as well, regardless of whether it was a girl or a boy. The child would be raised to the age of fourteen before consummation, and my father could at least live another twenty years.”

In addition, Yu Cong’s body really did feel better the night Wan Yuan entered the manor, so he believed it again.

Wan Yuan was cared for by Aunt Liu at the time. After she woke up, she begged her to help her report the news, but Aunt Liu knew in her heart that the officials in the city were colluding with the Yu family, and Wan Gui had an unreliable, disagreeable mind. If he knew the truth, he would in all likelihood go to Yu Manor with a knife in his hand and ask for his daughter. Not only could he not save her, but he would also be implicated.

Aunt Liu lamented: “I didn’t know that the Yu family only wanted the child, and thought they wanted to lock up both the mother and child. I advised the Wan girl to live with peace of mind first, and I went out to be her eyes. If there was news of the hunter, I would tell her.”

There was nothing Wan Yuan could do, and she was concerned about her child, so she could only agree. She was locked in a small, lonely courtyard, seeing few people and full of worries. Thus, she was constantly ill and the child was born prematurely. The baby cried weakly and did not even drink a mouthful of mother’s milk before being taken away by the midwife. Wan Yuan was already dying at the time, but seeing that the child was about to be snatched away, she summoned her strength and rushed forward to grab it, but was kicked by Yin Die at the door, causing her to spew a mouthful of blood.

Aunt Liu hurriedly shielded her and dragged her bodily to the bed, wanting to call a doctor, but apart from the guards, there was nobody in the courtyard who could be of help. There was not even a brazier in the cold winter, so Aunt Liu could only pick up some charcoal from her own house. But when she returned, Wan Yuan was already dead.

Tong Ou stood to the side and listened quietly with no expression on his face. Only those near him could detect the bulging veins on the backs of his hands.

Because of the charcoal, Aunt Liu was given a severe lesson for meddling in other people’s business. At that time, Uncle Liu’s leg was injured and Liu Meng was only ten years old, so she had no way out, and couldn’t worry about that poor child, either. So she swallowed everything back into her stomach, and could only use the little money left in the family to ask a servant close to her not to abandon Wan Yuan’s body in the wilderness.

“Don’t worry, Auntie,” the servant whispered. “The dead still need to be buried. It happens that the grave is ready-made. If she was thrown outside and dug up by wild dogs, there would be no way to explain it.”

Wan Yuan was buried just like that.

Aunt Liu continued to stay in Liu Manor in order to take care of the child. She hated the name “Shi Taisong” from the bottom of her heart, so she called her Xiao Hua, Little Flower. Firstly, it was fresh and lively, and secondly, even if someone else heard it, the little doll’s nickname was so common that she couldn’t be blamed, ah.

Xiao Hua’s health wasn’t good, and her personality was dull, but she grew up well. Yu Cong came to visit her every now and then, with gray hair and liver spots all over his face. Aunt Liu was horrified to see him sitting in the courtyard and holding this girl who could be his great-granddaughter. She had discussed with her son a long time ago, and wanted to find a chance to take Xiao Hua and flee elsewhere, thinking that there were at least five or six years to slowly plan. But she didn’t expect for Yu Cong to fall ill again this winter, so sick that he could only breathe his last breath.

It was unknown whether Yin Die still held a grudge against Wan Yuan, or if he was just used to disregarding human life, but with a single word about worshiping the River God, he pinched the budding little flower by the roots. Security in the back courtyard got tighter and tighter, and even if Aunt Liu wanted to take the risk of whisking the girl away, she was unable to. Liu Meng proposed to dig up Wan Yuan’s grave himself, and used a kite dummy to create the illusion of a female ghost, forcing Yu Manor to cancel the Many-Color Festival. 

Liu Meng said: “The ghost was indeed my invention. The kite and clothes are in the cellar of my house.”

There were a few other young men beside him who heard this tale in disbelief, and they all patted his arm at this time, saying in admiration: “Brother Meng, a hero of the jianghu, ah!”