Zheng Xiao Mistake: The Mistake of Rebirth Provoked the Cold Master

Rong Yan didn't say anything, and didn't even look at what was rolling on the ground. He just stared at Zhu Zheng's eyes, his expression suddenly darkening and showing a bit of fatigue.

Such calmness made Zhu Zheng's heart sink gradually. She picked up the wooden box, turned it upside down, and shook out all the contents.

Hundreds of paper strips fluttered in the air, some yellowed, some still white, falling on the shoulders of the two men and then falling to the ground, like a mountain made of paper.

"And what are these official reports used for?" she asked.

There is still a secret compartment underneath those old things. If it were usual, Zhu Zheng might not open it.

But now all of it was her stuff, and Zhu Zheng subconsciously felt that it was related to her.

So she opened it.

It really has something to do with her.

Every word in these official reports was about her, from the time of the school banquet to the details of food, clothing and daily expenses.

I remember the days clearly.

Zhu Zheng read them one by one, recording every detail, which was bland and a bit boring. Until she saw one of them, she suddenly stopped.

It was the day Zhu Long died.

The official report said that he was suffocated to death by a poison that was tribute from Nanzibo.

Then he was stripped naked and thrown onto the prostitute's couch, making people think he was having a stroke.

She thought this way for more than ten years.

My grandmother has thought so for more than ten years.

Zhu Zheng had never thought that someone would set up a trap to kill the useless Zhu Long. At that time, she thought her grandmother was crazy and that was why she went to the government to beat the drum day and night to complain.

The government accepted the case, investigated the person and performed an autopsy, but in the end, they found nothing.

Now, the truth behind his murder appeared before his eyes.

Even though she hated Zhu Long and hoped for his death more than anyone else, his death was so blatant and so fatal that Zhu Zheng felt a little breathless for a moment.

Rong Yan had never seen such an expression on Zhu Zheng's face. It was a bit sad and she seemed to be at a loss. He thought that she probably had no appetite to eat any cakes. He wondered when she saw it. If it was earlier, she probably hadn't eaten anything all day.

After a while, Rong Yan heard his own voice, which sounded a little pale.

"It's not what you think."

Zhu Zheng sat among countless official newspapers, her gray life spread out before her eyes, surrounding her. She raised her head and asked Rong Yan in a serious tone.

"Since you are so powerful, why don't you tell me what I am thinking?"

"I think that the master knew about my sister's visit to Sihai Academy on the first day. For the sake of the Grand Prince, he had been sending people to guard the Zhu Mansion. It was not an accident that my second brother Zhu Long was found dead in the Jinxiang Tower. The temporary change of rooms on the day of the poetry meeting was also arranged by the master..."

"Can you tell me, sir, which sentence is wrong?"

Rong Yan felt a heavy feeling in his chest and lowered his eyes, saying, "They are all correct."

When Zhu Zheng heard his admission, her helpless look finally turned into sadness. She covered her face and slumped her shoulders.

"It turns out that the one who is best at acting according to the situation is you, my Lord..."

The official newspaper recorded that her whereabouts at the Waterside Poetry Party had been reported in detail early in the morning.

But when Rong Yan met her, he pretended to be flawless, as if it was a formal first meeting.

In fact, just looking at her fearful performance, it was like seeing through something, just like watching a clown.

Every "coincidental" encounter and every "sudden occurrence" that followed were all "accidents" that were carefully planned.

She didn't know why she was so sad, and felt a piercing pain in her heart. She even had a glimmer of hope just now, hoping that someone had framed Rong Yan. She didn't care why, she just wanted to find a reason so that she could continue to admire the flawless illusion in front of her.

But the words in the official newspaper were so densely packed that they were like an airtight net that made it hard for her to breathe. She found many ridiculous excuses for him, which only made her feel more uncomfortable in the end.

Zhu Zheng paused, and asked calmly, "I think I have no special skills and am useless. Is it because I will be an important chess piece in the future? Is it worth your long-term concern?"

Rong Yan's eyelashes trembled, and his amber eyes were very dark, "You are not a chess piece."

Zhu Zheng laughed, "I am really useless. Even the Grand Tutor hasn't found any use for me. I am not even worthy of being a chess piece..."

Rong Yan frowned deeply and did not continue the topic of chess pieces. He looked into her eyes without dodging for a long time and said, "I didn't intend to hide it from you. I was just waiting for the right time."

"The right time?" Zhu Zheng asked back, "Cheng Xushan and Ting Xiaoyuan, we are together day and night, don't you think it's the right time for me?"

Knowing her sharp tongue, Rong Yan was speechless for a moment. He thought that he should not explain anything else, and said desperately, "I kept these because I love you..."

But when he opened his mouth, he saw Zhu Zheng's face suddenly changed. Maybe she didn't want to hear this answer, so Rong Yan stopped abruptly.

Zhu Zheng pulled the corner of her lips and added the second half of the sentence for him, "Because, you are interested in me?"

"So they coax me and go along with me, but in fact they control my every move. How is it different from these diabolos on a rope and shadow puppets on a stand? These are beautiful things that are new for a while, and they can be seen everywhere. The adults find it fun and novel today. If they find it no longer fun one day, then what does it matter if the adults interfere with my life so much..."

This questioning made Rong Yan stunned, and his voice sounded a little ethereal.

"That day will never come."

Zhu Zheng looked at his determined expression, smiled bitterly, and said in a tearful voice, "But people's hearts are like floating clouds, gathering in the morning and dispersing in the evening, unpredictable..."

For example, her biological father once had a deep affection for Zhou, but when he later met her biological mother Qin Ji, he never mentioned Zhou again.

Rong Yan also did not sleep all night. At this moment, his forehead was aching badly. He suddenly didn't know what to say. The anxious premonition when he let go last night finally condensed into a rain, soaking him completely.

In the heavy wet fog, there was only one thought left: I was really late to come back today.

The warmth from the snacks in his sleeves dissipated, Rong Yan loosened his hand and placed the cold box of snacks on the ground.

Zhu Zheng only took a glance, but she could see clearly that it was her favorite chestnut cake, even the one in the east of the city, an inconspicuous little shop that she loved to visit when she was young.

But she never told Rong Yan.

He knew all her temperament and preferences. As long as he wanted, he could interfere with her family, love and hate, and manipulate her emotions easily and effortlessly.

During the long silence, Zhu Zheng thought of the scenes in Cheng Xushan and her own increasingly shaken heart, and asked a question with a trembling voice.

"I would like to ask one last question. Was the arrow that shot me in the red maple forest arranged by the adults?"

Rong Yan seemed to be hurt by this question, his face lost all color and a layer of heaviness spread between his brows.

He was silent for a long time, so long that Zhu Zheng thought he would not answer. He moved his lips for a while and whispered, "No..."

Zhu Zheng felt a little relieved, but she didn't know whether this was true or not.

Those days in Chengxushan were like a dream. His meticulous care, his kind and friendly fellow disciples, and even the "Chengyi" mentioned by Master Chonghong and the apprenticeship ceremony on the high platform of Rukawa might have been a scam he had carefully arranged.

And when she was away, her sister "happened" to be trapped in the deep palace by the eldest prince. Was this also a move by the Grand Tutor?

Zhu Zheng's eyes were dim and moist, and in Rong Yan's eyes, it was like watching a firework display disappear in the fog.

Rong Yan suddenly picked up the candlestick beside him and lit it.

"If you find it inconvenient, the people around you will leave. If you don't like these, don't keep them."

As the words fell, the candlestick fell.

The newspapers on the floor were ignited and burst into flames, and the spilled lamp oil flowed onto the back of his hand, burning a red spot.

The flames suddenly illuminated the dim study room, and the face in front of him reflected a bright and dazzling light. The person with pain in his eyes suddenly became distant and unfamiliar.

He rarely had such an undisciplined look on his face. His lips were pursed until they were almost bloodless. There was a light flashing in his eyes, and his expression was full of stubbornness and determination.

Zhu Zheng had a splitting headache. The long flame burned rapidly, as if it was a very long road she had traveled before. She walked in front of Rong Yan according to the arranged route.

Her face was empty, the flames licked the things that once belonged to her, and a complex smell floated in the air, a mixture of stale spices from the sachet and the burnt smell of the oak horse.

An old story was burned to death. In a trance, she seemed to hear their shrill screams, and there was a noisy noise in her ears. A series of words emerged, what Rong Yan had said to her, and what she had said to Rong Yan, in a mess, confused and noisy.

No one knew what was burning, and the fire was raging for a while, but the two people in it just looked at each other and no one moved.

She looked at the person in front of her, wondering what he was thinking at the moment.

Are you thinking that it would have been better to burn it earlier?

If it is burned early, the ashes will return to ashes, and the earth will return to earth, and no one will ever know about it.

Or was it that the fact that she saw these official reports today and burned them in front of her was also part of his plan?

She could no longer tell which words, which sentences, and which moments were sincere...

Even when the flames almost burned the corners of Rong Yan's robes, he did not frown. At the moment he impulsively set the fire, he had already prepared himself to not let them die in the sea of ​​fire.

This is how he should look, controlling all the rhythms, watching the prey calmly enter the game, even how they struggle is within his expectations.

The burning flames quickly burned everything clean, and the people who were burned by the fire felt warm all over, but she was cold all over. The old wound in her heart began to ache again, and then spread, as if her whole body was in pain.

Before today, she had regarded him as her only hope and her only support.

She thought that she had not been very lucky in the past, and perhaps she was accumulating luck to meet such a good person.

He was so meticulous and considerate that she felt uneasy all day long. She often felt ashamed and wondered how she could be worthy of such a handsome man.

It took her a long time to overcome this uneasiness, and she was determined to cherish this relationship. She had also thought of how to explain the previous misunderstandings.

It turned out to be nothing but an illusion, an empty dream.

Only dreams can be so flawless. In dreams, I always worry about waking up. Now that I am really awake, I feel strangely at ease.

Her sister said that she didn't know people well enough and didn't understand how unpredictable human hearts were. In fact, she refused to admit it.

Because she was sure that Rong Yan was different.

It's different after all.

He was clearly a powerful and influential official in the imperial court, but he always told her to forget his status and accompanied her to play in the snow, watch flowers, climb mountains and practice archery...

He had never shown his full appearance in front of her, and even what was in front of her was not his full appearance.

And she is all of her.

Since I was a child, I have been treated like a toy by my grandmother. Although I hate it very much, I have gotten used to living with this feeling.

But Rong Yan is not a character like her grandmother. He is persistent and courageous, good at planning, and will do anything to achieve his goals. He is not someone she should mess with.

If you play on his chessboard, one wrong move could result in your life.

He had paved the way for the prince to succeed to the throne smoothly for such a long time, and she and her sister were variables that emerged halfway. He liked her now, so he could enjoy her arrogance and let her disrupt his plan harmlessly.

If one day he no longer likes me or I block his way.

She would be killed casually like in her previous life and become the next Zhu Long...

Zhu Zheng forgot whether she had cried or not, and why she was not crying. Her expression was empty and confused, but tears were flowing slowly down her cheeks like pearls that had broken off the string.

The fire on the ground burned to an end, and finally illuminated her black eyes, and those colorful and brilliant emotions were extinguished together.

Rong Yan felt a dull pain in his heart and raised his hand in panic, wanting to wipe the tears from her face. He even wanted to cover her eyes and teach her not to look at him like that.

"Master Taifu..." Zhu Zheng's eyes were red, and she shrank her shoulders and hid back, "I'm a little...scared of you..."

Rong Yan paused for a moment and fell silent.

When the wind blew, pieces of ashes fell and collapsed, breaking into tiny pieces.

It was like a silent snowfall.