“Your Highness!”
Yang Lun urgently interrupted him, “Such words cannot be spoken carelessly!”
Yi Lang pressed his lips together, “Minister Yang, I know you mean well, but as the Crown Prince, I have things I must do.”
Yang Lun looked around, seeing the palace servants had kept their distance, and finally knelt before Yi Lang, lowering his voice to ask, “Who taught Your Highness to do this?”
Yi Lang didn’t answer, only saying, “Sir, please just relay my message to Father Emperor.”
Yang Lun pressed, “If Your Highness doesn’t explain clearly, your subject’s heart is uneasy and dares not relay your message.”
Yi Lang finally raised his head, speaking softly, “Aunt taught me.”
“Wan’er…”
“Yes. The aunt told me before, that if His Majesty were to punish the academy students, I should use the method of ‘taking punishment in their stead’ to plead for them.”
“Why?”
Yi Lang shook his head, “I don’t understand either, but I want to save these students.”
Having said this, he steadied his voice and repeated his earlier words, “Please, Minister Yang, relay my message.”
At Clear Wave Lodge, Yang Wan still sat hugging her knees on the stone steps outside the rear hall.
No one in the lodge had slept; some were reciting texts, others reading books, while the innkeeper and servants bustled about, bringing in candle after candle.
Truly worthy of being scholars.
Yang Wan propped her chin, listening to the gradually rising sound of reading from the hall, feeling somewhat comforted.
She pulled down her sleeve to cover her hands, drawing herself tighter.
That was the first night Deng Ying entered the prison. She too was alone, at Clear Wave Lodge, watching over these frightened students.
Between her and that man, it was hard to say who was braver, but she could imagine that with Deng Ying’s cultivation, he must be calmer than Yang Wan right now, though his inner wounds were far more numerous than hers.
When Yang Wan first met Deng Ying, she felt he was a person who shared nature with Frost.
Even the thickest clothes would seem thin on his body.
By now Yang Wan no longer wished to see him stripped to just a prisoner’s garment for cover. She understood that while he had accepted his status, he had never truly accepted his own body, but at the same time, this was also the reason he maintained his humility in this world.
He had always feared entering the ranks of the respected.
In the Great Ming, people like him who bore punishment scars were no different from women. Beyond the physical suffering itself, the greater punishment was a kind of humiliation of the flesh born within proper social order. Sometimes Yang Wan would regret why she had been so skeptical of psychology as a discipline in those years. If she had been a bit more humble then and seriously engaged with some rigorous scientific psychology, her understanding of Deng Ying’s psychology would not have remained at just the sociological level as it does now.
Perhaps she could have done some practical work, even if the effect was small, but at least it could have helped this man relax somewhat.
When was Deng Ying most relaxed?
The image of him lying beside her floated into Yang Wan’s mind.
At a time like this, thinking about making AI, Yang Wan felt somewhat speechless with herself.
She bit her arm, forcing herself to pull her soul back. However, Deng Ying’s face, his undergarments pulled down to his ankles, the way he would lower his head without speaking when aroused—these images sparked Yang Wan’s desire in an instant.
She sat in the wind, allowing herself to suffer absurdly between reason and desire, closing her eyes, forcing herself to observe her desire, and gradually realizing that perhaps only when he was with her did Deng Ying not lose in the game of respectability.
“Here.”
Qin Wende’s voice interrupted her “suffering.”
Yang Wan hurriedly patted her face, looking up to ask, “What is it?”
“The steamed buns we’re eating.”
Yang Wan took it and took a bite, smiling slightly, “It’s already hard.”
Qin Wende sat down, “It’s almost midnight hour, how could it not be hard?”
Yang Wan stood up holding the bun, looking toward the courtyard wall.
“How many Northern Guard troops are watching outside?”
Qin Wende stretched his legs, “A hundred or so. But we’re not afraid of them.”
Yang Wan shook her head, “You shouldn’t talk like that. We had you seal off Clear Wave Lodge to buy time, not to send you to your deaths.”
“Old Qin isn’t afraid, I just don’t get along with their Guard.”
“You can’t talk like that. Who doesn’t have a wife and children? Just because you’re not afraid to die, can you force others to die?”
“Yes… Madam speaks truly.”
While speaking, Qin Wende scratched the back of his head, “Come to think of it, the Superintendent said similar things.”
“What things?”
“Ah, how could my brain remember clearly? Roughly that we who took money should be good to our families, but he… Madam, I’ve wanted to ask you, are you suffering?”
“I’ve long known he was a scumbag.”
“Scumbag… what’s that?”
Yang Wan laughed shortly, lowering her head to brush away hair stuck to her lips, “A scumbag is a man who isn’t good to his wife.”
“Oh…”
Qin Wende nodded seriously, “Then the Superintendent is indeed a scumbag.”
Yang Wan burst out laughing, “When he returns, you can’t talk to him like this.”
Qin Wende said, “What’s wrong with that? All of us brothers think he’s not good enough for you. How could anyone be like that? A scumbag… tsk… no good.”
After hearing these words, Yang Wan laughed so hard she had to hold her waist, taking a long time to recover. Just as she was about to speak, suddenly there came banging sounds from the main gate, “bang bang bang” several times in succession, then commotion arose outside. The students in the hall all awoke startled, crowding anxiously to the door with worried expressions.
Qin Wende grabbed his sword and stood up with a “shing,” “What’s happening!”
The guard at the door reported, “Commander, the Northern Guard Commissioner has come.”
“Damn it.”
Qin Wende wiped his face, “Come with me.”
“Don’t fight.”
Yang Wan stood up, “You can’t stop them.”
Qin Wende said, “What about these students? We’ve protected them all this time, we can’t just hand them over like this.”
Yang Wan tidied her somewhat disheveled hair, “I’ll go myself.”
She turned to address the students behind her, “If I fail to save you this time, then I’ll enter the prison with you. If I do save you, I want to ask one thing of you.”
Hearing this, everyone nodded to her dumbly.
Yang Wan raised her head, “I want to ask that in your writings and speeches, you spare Deng Ying’s life.”