diskusbooks Chapter 187 Ingratitude and Deceit (22)
Chapter 187 Ingratitude and Deceit (22)
The continuous hard work and the incessant autumn rain finally took their toll on Gu Yao's body.
Yesterday, I forced myself to finish processing the memorials and picked out the ones that the young emperor could handle and that weren't too difficult.
He approved the remaining tricky and time-consuming matters.
He could imitate Bu Shaoluan's handwriting quite well.
After all, he had brought the boy out of the cold palace, and it was he who had taught the boy to read.
Since they come from the same source, they are naturally similar.
The boy's handwriting was just sharper, carrying the unique drive of youth.
This is not a big problem for Gu Yao.
After finally finishing dealing with the matter, he felt dizzy and lightheaded.
I took off my coat and lay down on the bed to take a nap.
I didn't sleep very soundly.
The dream was bizarre and fantastical, filled with broken walls and ruins.
That was the Duke's mansion, reduced to ashes.
He saw the wronged souls of the Gu family being burned in the fire, their postures distorted, as if they had suffered endless torment.
But they still didn't want to leave.
Gu Yao felt as if he had become one of them, trapped in a fiery inferno.
There's no escaping it, no hiding from it.
My whole body was burning with pain.
From body to soul.
Every inch of skin, flesh, bone, and blood was burned to ashes.
When the attendants saw that Gu Yao had developed a high fever, they quickly summoned the imperial physician.
However, even after the palace gates opened, Gu Yao's fever still hadn't subsided.
Instead, it burned even more intensely.
The attendant had only temporarily taken over Shen Shenwei's position recently and wasn't very capable, so he panicked upon seeing this.
They could only send a letter to the Shen residence outside the palace. The Shen family steward led people into the palace and took Gu Yao out of the palace.
The person brought into the palace was Ying Lian.
Ying Lian never expected that after he returned to his sect with Han Shu after the imperial examination, and then returned to the capital, Gu Yao would give him such a big surprise.
Gu Yao leaned against Ying Lian, and Mengmeng began to ramble incoherently.
In the dream, Gu Yao was like an observer, glancing back at the events of the past few years in a cursory manner.
After the Gu family was executed, the Duke's mansion also mysteriously collapsed.
Nothing was left behind that could be recalled.
Gu Yao built his mansion on the original site of the Duke's mansion.
Nearly ten years have passed, and it has long been forgotten.
Even if Gu Yao unearthed the evidence buried under the old osmanthus tree in the center of the courtyard and overturned the wrongful conviction, it would still be a case in point.
But it only caused a sigh of regret both inside and outside the court.
They ignored the many lives lost in the Duke's mansion.
No one even cared about the human heads hanging above the market.
In the end, Shen Xuntang personally removed the skull, carefully placed it in a box, and buried it in the Gu family ancestral graveyard.
When the court heard about this, they simply said, "The eunuch has shown great mercy."
On the day of the burial, only a handful of people came to pay their respects, most of whom were people who had stood up for their families in the past.
Gu Yao looked at them without saying anything.
However, afterwards, the Gu family ancestral graves were renovated.
The Gu family ancestral graves, which had been abandoned for nearly ten years, have finally become more orderly.
When asked about Shen Xuntang, he could only jokingly reply, "I did occupy someone else's land to build a house, so it's only right that I take care of their ancestral graves. Consider it an act of charity. Maybe when I'm gone, the Gu family will still take care of me."
Many people just took this as a joke.
Shen Xuntang, however, seemed to genuinely want the Gu family to remember him.
Every year on the anniversary of Gu Jia's death and during the Qingming Festival, he would go to clean and pay respects to people.
Over the years, everyone has gotten used to it.
Only Shen Xuntang knew that beneath these tombstones, most were cenotaphs, but in reality, they were all the remains of his relatives.
Whenever he stands among these black tombstones, he always feels a chill in his heart.
My father cultivated many good relationships during his lifetime, but none of them brought him any good results.
Gu Yao did not understand what retribution was.
All he knew was that he had to take revenge himself!
How can someone with such an ugly face, sitting high above others, receive the worship of thousands?
But his loyal family of hundreds of people could only suffer endless torment in this dark place.
He felt that Heaven was unjust, so he sought justice for himself.
It was after the Gu family was exonerated that Shen Xuntang began to rapidly expand his power.
Whether good or bad, anyone who joins his ranks will receive corresponding benefits.
For a time, the eunuch faction gained immense power.
Inside the palace and in the imperial court, everything became Shen Xuntang's personal domain.
At the height of his power, even Grand Secretary Feng, a veteran of three dynasties, claimed illness and stayed at home, not daring to directly confront him.
Not to mention the others.
None of them are good enough to fight.
In today's terms, to be frank, everyone here is trash.
The rapidly expanding power was ultimately unstable, and many internal problems arose.
Taking advantage of their power, they frequently bully men and women and embezzle public funds.
Shen Xuntang used to not want to get involved.
At that time, revenge was his top priority.
Now everything that needed to be liquidated has been liquidated.
Now is the time to purge the corrupt elements within our own party.
With the eunuch faction in power, the people suffered greatly.
It wasn't entirely due to dissatisfaction with eunuchs in power.
There are indeed many problems.
Even though Shen Xuntang was trying his best to control the situation, he had many officials under his command, and countless unsavory deeds were being committed in secret.
After he avenged the Gu family, Da Qi was also exploited by the eunuch faction for several years.
What he had to do was to do his best to cure Da Qi's serious illness.
Even if it would cost him his life.
The Gu family is patriotic at heart.
Gu Yao risked the fate of the Great Qi Dynasty to avenge the Gu family. Even if it meant facing the ancestors of the Gu family after death, he was determined to eradicate the cancer in the court.
Even if it hurts a lot.
Gu Yao didn't know if his father would blame him.
The Gu family had a century of integrity, yet he became a veritable traitor.
They persecuted loyal and virtuous officials and engaged in favoritism and corruption.
These are all things he has done.
Those hands, which should have been holding a pen, were now wielding a butcher's knife, soaked in blood.
It can't be washed clean.
There's no way to wash it.
He ran in the darkness, unable to see a glimmer of light.
Countless nights filled with hatred, awakened by nightmares and bloodshed, he would sit alone until dawn.
The heads hanging at Caishikou are no longer recognizable due to the daily exposure to sun and rain.
When Gu Yao was still a young eunuch, he would go to the vegetable market to buy things when he went out of the palace.
Looking at the skeleton, I gradually pictured its original form in my mind.
Each time I see it, the hatred in my heart deepens.
But when the blood of his enemies washed away the blood on the bluestone steps in front of the Shen family mansion, Gu Yao felt a sense of bewilderment and emptiness.
His father always taught him to be a gentleman, but now that Gu Yao is covered in blood and sin, will they still accept him?
Oh no, he can't even use the name Gu Yao; he's just Shen Xuntang.
Shen Xuntang, the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial.
It seems that Shen Xuntang has no real remorse.
He just wanted to clean himself up.
I don't want to see my parents after I die, covered in blood and making them dirty too.
He wanted to embrace them as Gu Yao.
Gu Jiazi is clean and tidy.
Gu Yao was clean and tidy.
Gu Yao struggled to run in the darkness, and when he saw a point of light ahead, he ran as fast as he could.
Suddenly everything went white, and Yinglian turned her head in the flickering candlelight.
"Hey, you're finally awake. I thought you were going to die!"