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

There was a canopied palace carriage parked outside the Zhu residence. Zhu Qing, dressed in gorgeous clothes, stood beside the carriage, her clothes fluttering in the night wind.

"It's so windy, why don't you get in the car first?"

As soon as Gong Yihao opened his mouth, he saw Zhu Qing turned around, raised a hand, and slapped him hard in the face.

On a moonlit night, a loud slap broke the silence.

"Your Majesty!" exclamations rang out everywhere.

"Stand back." Gong Yihao shouted.

He felt a burning pain on his face. Zhu Qing had used up all his strength in this slap. His body was shaking, and the slap also deflected his face.

Since ascending the throne, there is no need to keep a low profile anymore. Gong Yihao no longer has to cover his eyes, and his gray eyes are revealed in the moonlight, making his expression difficult to discern.

After a while, he curled his lips without any resentment, and took Zhu Qing's hand in his own.

"Your hands are cold, put on some clothes."

Zhu Qing looked cold and said, "You clearly promised me that as long as I obeyed you, you would let them go..."

Gong Yihao took the cloak and paused for a long time, then looked at her with a frown.

"Qingqing." He called her as he used to. "Since you're going to pretend to have amnesia, why not just keep pretending?"

The autumn night was cool, and the two stood facing each other in matching gowns.

"Because I found it's useless." Zhu Qing's voice was ethereal.

"When you drugged and raped me that day, you begged me to give you a second chance."

The tears in her eyes finally fell, as if she was extremely tired, "Ayin, this is the second chance I give you..."

Gong Yihao's face gradually turned cold and he sneered from his throat.

"So, you think I did it?"

Zhu Qing said calmly, "Does it make any difference whether you do it yourself or let others do it?"

Gong Yihao said in a light tone, "If I say no, will you believe me?"

"Your Highness has always claimed that he only cares about the results and will do whatever it takes." Zhu Qing smiled bitterly, "Why do you have to keep pretending to be nice to me?"

She was smiling, but tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. With the white banner on the lintel of the Zhu Mansion behind her, she looked extremely distressed.

Gong Yihao's face turned pale, and he listened to her continue, "The thing I regret most in my life is provoking you in the academy."

"I have evil intentions and I am willing to be humiliated. I deserve to be cut into pieces. But why don't you let them go..."

Zhu Qing's voice became louder and louder, and her pregnant body was shaky. "What do you want? What else do you want? How much more obedient do I have to be? In order for my whole family to be safe and sound!"

Zhu Qing was breathing shortly, grabbing Gong Yihao's clothes, and gradually lost his composure.

He knew her weaknesses best, and he also knew who she was playing along with and compromising for.

If she killed her sister and grandmother, she would become a lonely bird in a cage and would never think of flying out to reunite with anyone.

When Gong Yihao heard her use those words to describe him, he felt as if his heart was being cut by a knife. He grabbed her arm and picked her up.

When he carried Zhu Qing into the car, she struggled so hard that she almost wanted to overturn the car.

Gong Yihao used a lot of strength, but for fear of hurting her, he twisted her wrists behind her back and pressed them against the wall of the car.

"Go back to the palace!"

In the palace carriage, Zhu Qing's emotions fluctuated greatly, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, and finally returning to a calmness like a pool of stagnant water.

She didn't know since when, but when she faced him, there was only this kind of calmness without any sadness or joy.

Gong Yihao hugged her, his expression almost pleading.

"I know you blame me."

"Qingqing...I have my reasons."

"Trust me one last time, okay?" He said in a low voice, "As long as we give birth to this child, everything will change completely, and we will be the same as before."

When Zhu Qing heard these words he often said again, he raised his head and pulled the corners of his mouth, letting the tears fall into his hair.

"You knew I didn't want this child at all..."

Her voice gradually weakened, Gong Yihao lowered his head and saw spots of red seeping out on the hem of her skirt.

The red color grew larger and larger, and soon, the faint smell of blood filled the entire carriage.

The carriage was speeding along, and when Gong Yihao staggered and carried Zhu Qing down, her face was as pale as a sheet of paper.

"Zhu Qing." Gong Yihao's voice trembled, "You'd better try your best to survive, otherwise I will ask your beloved sister to go down with you!"

Zhu Qing's hanging hands suddenly clenched around him, leaving a bloody handprint on his newly made dragon robe.

Gong Yihao said sternly, "Imperial Physician!"

*

The funeral at the Zhu family lasted for seven days.

There was a constant stream of people coming to pay their respects, most of whom were people Zhu Zheng didn't recognize.

On the eighth day, an official came from the palace and said that Zhu Qing had safely given birth to a baby boy.

The emperor named him Gong Yiping and immediately announced him as the crown prince. He declared amnesty and the whole country celebrated.

Zhu Zheng calculated the date and found out that her sister was giving birth prematurely.

She was anxious to go to the palace to take a look, but unexpectedly she was politely rejected by Gong Yihao's envoy, who also brought back another piece of news.

The Criminal Justice Department said that Rong Yan refused to see anyone outside.

Zhu Zheng felt as if there was a hole in her heart, and a handful of dry grass was stuffed into it, causing waves of aching pain.

In a trance, I seemed to have turned into an isolated island, with not even a piece of duckweed to grab around me.

When Nie Ruke arrived, Zhu Zheng's tears had already dried up, and her eyes were red and bloody, which looked particularly creepy on her pale face.

Zhu Zheng was not surprised to see him. She skillfully and woodenly collected the elegiac couplets and went to the small tea room to entertain the guests.

"Commander Nie, are you here to cancel the engagement?" she said straight to the point.

Nie Ruke had just picked up a cup of tea, but before he could even take a sip, he choked.

"You think so bad of me."

Zhu Zheng didn't say anything. Firstly, she didn't have the energy to speak, and secondly, she didn't want to say more.

The sisters' marriage was originally arranged to please their grandmother, and there was no need to pretend anymore.

What's more, they all said that Rong Yan had forged the imperial edict, so it was reasonable to cancel such a forced marriage.

Nie Ruke first took a sip of tea to moisten his throat, "Miss Zhu, please rest assured that this marriage is very solid. As long as you don't ask to back out, I will never say so."

Zhu Zheng sensed something strange in his words, "Why?"

Nie Ruke pulled out an envelope from his sleeve, took out several sheets of letter paper inside, and shook them out in the sunlight.

"Because that's what the letter said," he said.

"What letter?" Zhu Zheng took a quick look and found the dense small regular script on the letter very familiar.

She looked stern and said, "Bring it here."

Nie Ruke dodged immediately, "Hey, it's written to me, not to you."

"Who wrote it?" Zhu Zheng asked.

Nie Ruke raised his eyebrows and asked, "Is it hard to guess?"

Of course it's not hard to guess.

Zhu Zheng's lips were pale, and she bit them to reveal some bloody color.

Rong Yan refused to see her and did not even leave a single word, but wrote such a long letter to Nie Ruke.

Nie Ruke shook out all the letters and collected them one by one. Zhu Zhengsheng tried to grab them several times but failed, so he had to ask in a roundabout way, "What else does the letter say?"

Nie Ruke was holding the letter, which contained no greetings to him except for his own letter, and felt quite angry.

"There's too much to say, let's get down to business first."

He rummaged in his sleeves again, took out a neatly wrapped square cloth bag and handed it to Zhu Zheng.

Zhu Zheng took it suspiciously, opened it and found a thick stack of silver bills from the money shop inside, as well as various house deeds and pawn tickets, which were classified and neatly stacked together.

Zhu Zheng held the considerable sum of money in his hand and asked, "What is this for?"

Nie Ruke: "I'll give it to you as a support, just as..."

Zhu Zheng had no intention of responding and waited for him to finish.

"Tsk, I still can't say it."

Nie Ruke hesitated for a long time, "This money was originally...said to be considered as a gift from me..."

"But I, Nie Ruke, am a man of integrity. I really can't be that kind of person."

Zhu Zheng had already guessed most of it, and after hearing him say that, how could she not know who gave it to her?

Seeing Zhu Zheng lowering his head to look at the banknotes, Nie Ruke continued, "Speaking of which, the court salary is not actually very generous, but he has never seen a place to spend money except for eating, drinking and sleeping. He is so frugal and thrifty that he has saved a lot."

"Most of the houses and carriages under your name were given by the late emperor. I was afraid that giving them directly would implicate you, so I exchanged most of them for silver."

"Except for Tingxiao Garden, which was bought in your name. If you like it, you can still live there... If you don't like it, it will be left idle. He specifically instructed... not to sell it to anyone else..."

Zhu Zheng's heart suddenly thumped, and she felt a dull pain. Her hand holding the banknote trembled slightly.

Just as Nie Ruke said, this amount of money is quite a lot, enough for her to have food and clothing for the rest of her life.

He always liked to go down dead ends. When she heard this, she really realized... Rong Yan was saying goodbye to her.

In his usual way, without any hesitation and without any sound.

If I grant her a marriage and leave her money, she can leave peacefully, right...

He thought he was respectable? Thoughtful? Wasn't it grand and magnificent when he planned his life to help others? But when it came to her, he just told her about his affairs without any worries... He didn't even want to see her, thinking she was someone who could be easily dismissed...

Zhu Zheng felt extremely upset and tears rolled down her cheeks like broken strings.

Seeing Zhu Zheng crying heartbrokenly, Nie Ruke said in a panic, "Don't cry, what did I say? It's really a sin."

Zhu Zheng cried for a long time, until her eyes were so sore that she couldn't cry anymore. Suddenly she wiped her face, stood up, grabbed Nie Ruke and was about to walk out.

"Let's go to the Imperial Prison now. You are the commander, so you must be able to let me see him."

He then stuffed all the banknotes in his arms to Nie Ruke, "These are all for you, please, let me see him..."

"He is guilty of a serious crime." Nie Ruke grabbed Zhu Zheng and said, "Are you trying to bribe me? Do you think the imperial prison is a vegetable market?"

Zhu Zheng was in a state of panic, and suddenly remembered something, as if grasping the last straw to save her life, "Hasn't there been a general amnesty recently? He..."

"General amnesty... Have you ever heard of the 'Ten Unforgivable Crimes'?" Nie Ruke knew what Zhu Zheng wanted to say and interrupted, "Go and see what is written in the Ten Unforgivable Crimes: treason, conspiracy, usurpation of power, stealing the imperial seal, falsely transmitting the imperial edict, setting fire to the palace, poisoning and regicide... He has almost committed all ten of them. There is no way to pardon him."

Zhu Zheng saw that his mouth was grinning, "What are you laughing at?"

Nie Ruke said, "I suddenly feel that he lives a much happier life than me."

Zhu Zheng was anxious, "He's going to die!"

Nie Ruke calmed down and said, "This is an important matter."

Of course it is an important matter.

Zhu Zheng had calmed down a lot by now. Since Gong Yihao had asked her on his own initiative, it meant that it was not that they could not meet, but that Rong Yan had insisted on refusing.

Since he likes to arrange things for others so much, what would happen if she refused to follow his instructions? Would he be so angry that he would agree to meet her?

Zhu Zheng took a deep breath and suddenly said, "I want to cancel the engagement."

Nie Ruke was so confused by her constant chatter that he couldn't react quickly enough.

"Why do you want to cancel? This engagement is with you now, there is actually no harm in it..."

Before she could finish, her sword was suddenly snatched away. Zhu Zheng placed the cold and gleaming blade across the thin neck and repeated, "I want to cancel the engagement."

Nie Ruke froze in fear. "Back off, back off, back off. Can you let me finish what I'm saying, auntie? I didn't say I wouldn't back off, did I?"

"I owe him, not you. You are both threatening to die in front of me."

Nie Ruke snatched back his sword and said, "Give it back to me now. If you get scratched in front of me, I'll blame you later."

Zhu Zheng had her knife taken away from her, but her pair of red eyes were still staring at him, as if she would die together with him if he dared to say anything against her.

Nie Ruke stared back, not wanting to be outdone, and kindly reminded him, "If I really quit, and he really wants to die calmly, he can't regret it and come back to me."

Zhu Zheng's expression was slightly tense, and she said softly, "Don't worry, I have promised my life to him."

This is easy to say, but it is not easy to promise.

The sunlight outside the teahouse was blinding, and the sunlight shining through the window made Zhu Zheng in mourning clothes even more dazzling. There were half-dried tear marks on her face, but her expression was stubborn and resolute, making her look like a bunch of calamus that could not be broken by the wind.

Nie Ruke was silent for a while, then looked away, "I'm suddenly quite envious."

Zhu Zheng: "What are you envious of?"

Nie Ruke: “I don’t know.”

Zhu Zheng: “…”

Nie Ruke had completed his mission and was not going to stay any longer. He said casually, "Well, I've finally retired. Don't forget to treat me to your wedding."

Zhu Zheng was lost in thought and didn't respond.

Nie Ruke walked out of the small teahouse, then suddenly turned back and asked a question.

"By the way, do you need help breaking out of prison?"

Zhu Zheng was startled, "Can you?"

Nie Ruke smiled and said, "Let's give it a try."