Yang Wan leaned against the door saying: “To keep an eye on you, we’re worried you might do something rash.”
“Me? Do something rash?”
Yang Lun gave a bitter laugh, “Yang Wan, how did you come to terms with it?”
Yang Wan shook her head, “I still haven’t come to terms with it.”
Yang Lun turned sideways asking: “Then why don’t you curse at him?”
Yang Wan was silent for a while before saying: “Knowing good days are numbered, yet still being angry with him, not living well—wouldn’t that be foolish? Look how good we are now. If it weren’t for wanting you to avoid suspicion, I’d often invite you to Qingbo House, and after everyone’s finished their work, we could all eat hotpot together lively.”
Yang Lun rubbed his itchy eyes, “If it had happened to me, your sister-in-law’s eyes would be swollen from crying by now, how could she have the heart to eat hotpot?”
Yang Wan lowered her head, saying softly: “There’s no need to hurt him with tears at this time. What I’ve always loved is his original intention toward the Great Ming, he has never betrayed that—this proves my love wasn’t wrong.”
After speaking, she changed the subject: “Do you want someone to escort you back after drinking?”
“No need, I’ll walk a bit.”
“Alright, I’ll see you to the gate.”
As they passed through the crossing gate together, Yang Lun casually asked: “Qingbo House, anything happening lately?”
Yang Wan said lightly: “Oh, occasionally people come to burn some books, but with the Military Police and Northern Pacification Guard watching, it hasn’t caused any big disturbance. I’ve temporarily stopped the inner chamber business, so it’s been quite idle these days.”
Yang Lun turned his head saying: “His Majesty misses you and the Imperial Consort very much. The Imperial Consort cannot enter the palace again, but you can. If you’re free, return to the inner court.”
Yang Wan shook her head, “The Liuli Factory case and Tongjia case are both being retried, His Majesty would be very troubled seeing me.”
“Wan’er.”
Yang Lun hesitated, then pleaded: “You could beg for mercy.”
Yang Wan pressed her lips together, “I won’t beg.”
“Why not?”
Yang Wan stopped in her tracks, “Because there was no wrongdoing, to begin with, why should we kneel and beg for forgiveness? Who can forgive him? In this world, apart from Master Zhang, no one has the right to make him kneel. I won’t kneel either, I’ll just live by his side and see how this world will treat us.”
Yang Lun looked behind Yang Wan and shook his head, suddenly saying: “I don’t know if he accumulated sins or merits in his previous life, to end up in such a situation in this life, yet still meet you.”
Yang Wan smiled saying: “Whether he accumulated sins or merits I don’t know, but I must have accumulated merits.”
“You talk nonsense when he’s not around.”
As he spoke, he withdrew his gaze, “I’m leaving, take good care of yourself. No matter what happens in the future, you can always come home.”
“I know.”
“Don’t see me out.”
Following his words, Yang Wan stopped, watching Yang Lun walk out the main gate before returning to the inner hall.
The wine and meat inside had gone cold, and Deng Ying was sleeping soundly sprawled on the table. His alcohol tolerance was poor, even drinking a little would make his head heavy, and with several days of little sleep, he had gradually fallen into a deep slumber.
Yang Wan rolled up her sleeves and cleaned up the mess on the table, washed her hands, and returned to sit beside him, looking at Deng Ying’s sleeping face and couldn’t help but touch his nose.
Deng Ying coughed once but didn’t wake up.
The window let in a clear breeze, gently blowing his robes, and facing the wind, his bone structure would occasionally show through.
Yang Wan also lay down beside him, the outside gaze gradually fading away, thick clouds drifting in, the earthy smell wafting up faintly from the grass and trees, mixing with the scent of wine and meat, yet not unpleasant.
Rain fell drizzling, soon becoming heavy.
Yang Wan raised her head to look at the eaves, where rainwater flowed down forming a water curtain, like a fragile yet gentle barrier, enclosing her and Deng Ying within.
Yang Wan rested her head on Deng Ying’s arm and also closed her eyes.
The first half of the Jinghe era had passed.
Historically, Deng Ying died in the autumn of this year.
“Counting autumn sounds, dreams grow short, plantain leaves beneath the eaves in rain.”
Yang Wan wrote this line of poetry on the last page of her notebook.
At the end of April, the ‘homicide case’ of the Tongjia Academy students’ wives and children was transferred from the Shuntian Prefecture to the Eastern Depot prison. The Censorate erupted in a chorus of condemnation, and with the retrial and overturning of both the Liuli Factory case and Tongjia case, memorials impeaching Deng Ying flew like snowflakes onto the Cabinet’s desk. Bai Yuyang piled all these memorials on Yang Lun’s desk, and just as Yang Lun was struggling to write official notes and draft responses, Yang Wan turned to the first page of her notebook at Qingbo House.
That page clearly stated:
In the twelfth year of Zhenning, in the torture chamber at Nanhai, Deng Ying had a huge misunderstanding about me, thinking I was the only woman in the world who hadn’t given up on his remaining life, when in fact I was just an academic female pervert trying to extract first-hand material from him.
The text was in English.
The sense of playfulness in the writing style, like her former sense of disconnection from this era, had gradually become somewhat unfamiliar.
She wasn’t an academic pervert, she was a careful recorder, a professional historical researcher, and among the surging crowds, one of the few warm-hearted people.
Yang Wan tore out this page and spread a new sheet of paper before her, rolled up her sleeves to grind ink, and fed the brush tip until saturated. When she began writing, her strokes were proper, trying as much as possible to restrain modern grammar, yet the writing style wasn’t deliberately formal either.
In the summer of the first year of Jinghe, she began translating this notebook herself.
Compared to “The Biography of Deng Ying,” this ‘flowing account’ had no system, no logic, referenced no documents, and had no systematic research theory for support—it was just her account. From a professional perspective, this couldn’t be considered serious academic work, but it was her most complete understanding of the Great Ming Dynasty where Deng Ying lived, as a researcher.
She organized and revised day and night, and her cough illness also grew increasingly severe.
Song Yunqing helped her find a doctor, but taking medicine showed no improvement.
However, what left her somewhat speechless was that she began losing hair, just like when she was writing her doctoral dissertation.
Yang Jin advised her: “It’s not good to keep pushing yourself like this.”
Hearing this, Yang Wan just smiled, “Writers all pour their hearts and souls into their work, I’m barely getting started.”
Yang Jin said: “That’s mostly for the sake of achievement and literary fame, what are you doing this for?”
Yang Wan lowered her head, looking at the ink characters beneath her hand.
“I’m the same, it’s all for ‘fame.'”
Yang Jin said: “Wan’er, you’re not someone who seeks fame.”
“Seeking ‘fame’ for someone else is the same.”