Chapter 66: CH 66

Cheng Youhai still tried to make excuses, but Lu Heng didn’t have any patience to listen and signaled the Imperial Guards to take him away. Cheng Youhai was tied up, something was stuffed in his mouth, and the world immediately became clean.

Knowing that it was his turn, Tao Yiming bowed his hands to Lu Heng and said: “Thank you Commander for saving my life. If there is ever anything you need assistance in, this humble minister will personally come himself.”

Lu Heng was quite satisfied with Tao Yiming’s sense of interest. He waved his hand, and an Imperial Guard immediately stepped forward and tied Tao Yiming’s hands. Lu Heng said: “Watch the two of them, don’t let anyone get close. I’m going to report to the emperor.”

“Yes.”

Lu Heng then went to the emperor’s palace. Tao Yiming was escorted into the dark room by the Imperial Guards. Before entering the door, he turned his head inadvertently and saw Lu Heng wearing a red flying fish robe, stepping into the sunlight and striding away.

The emperor was going to wear an official uniform, so Lu Heng also changed into his real high-level official uniform—the crimson flying fish uniform. The flying fish was made of high-quality brocade fabrics. When he walked in the sun, it was as bright as clouds and full of brilliance. The flying fish with four claws and two wings seemed to be really flying on the clouds.

Not everyone in the Imperial Guards was qualified to wear a flying fish robe. This flamboyant outfit represented both glory and power. The Imperial Guards following him, also dressed in brocade clothes and carrying blades to defend, could only act as a backdrop. People in the officialdom endured the Imperial Guards, they only thought that Imperial Guards paraded themselves across town and felt that they made a disgusting appearance with hideous faces. When mentioning the Imperial Guards, no one had a good face. However, when talking about Commander Lu, everyone was very secretive.

Tao Yiming thought of the news he heard at the banquet that Lu Heng was just born the year he passed the imperial examination. Now he was still a seventh-rank official, and Lu Heng was already driving ahead as the commander of the third rank, and even the old men in the cabinet were polite when they saw him.

Tao Yiming sighed, everyone had their own destiny, and there was nothing he could do about it.

As Lu Heng walked along the path, people on both sides hurriedly bowed when they saw him. He soon arrived at the imperial palace, and the eunuch guarding the gate hurried up to greet him, with a smile taking over his face and saying: “Greetings Master Lu. Master Lu, did you come back today?”

“Yes.” Lu Heng nodded with a smile, “I came to report to the emperor. I will need to trouble the eunuch to make a report.”

“Master Lu is polite.” The eunuch waved his whisk and said, “Master Lu, wait here for a moment. When the philosophical school leaves, you can come.”

The eunuch went inside to deliver the message, and Lu Heng stopped in front of the hall, waiting calmly. The sun was setting in the west and the light reflected brilliant gold. He stood upright in the sun with an embroidered blade hanging from his waist. In addition, his skin was white, his neck was long, and he was tall. The flying fish suit on him was especially beautiful and gorgeous. It seemed to glow in the grand sunset.

People passing by couldn’t help looking in his direction. Facing the gazes of so many people, Lu Heng remained calm. He rehearsed what might happen next in his mind and the conversation from last night suddenly appeared in his mind.

Wang Yanqing asked him, what exactly do you want to do.

Lu Heng thought he had indeed not met such an interesting person for a long time.

Lu Heng always felt that the world was afraid, yet loathed him, envied him, and respected him. They wished to have his experiences and replace him, but no one really understood him.

Including the emperor.

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They were monarch and official. What friendship were they talking about? It was just the interests that were beautified by childhood friendship. But after Wang Yanqing asked that sentence last night, Lu Heng unexpectedly discovered that this person seemed to have appeared.

She could see through his disguise and sense his true intentions beneath the smile. Lu Heng was indeed acting with Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming these past two days, but Lu Heng never thought that Cheng Youhai would be so bold as to involve the White Lotus.

Lu Heng secretly thought that Cheng Youhai wanted to die, but Cheng Youhai gave Lu Heng a new way of thinking.

At Qingxu monastery that day, Lu Heng smiled and told Cheng Youhai about the rumor that Tang Sai’er cut paper as a soldier. Cheng Youhai thought that Lu Heng was testing him, but in fact, that was Lu Heng’s real thoughts.

Lu Heng did not believe in seeking gods and worshiping Buddhas, reincarnation, and rebirth, but the emperor believed it. There were three layers of truth in this case. The first layer was that Cheng Youhai lied to Tao Yiming. Cheng Youhai claimed that the two of them could work together to deal with the aftermath. First, they forged altars, and then pretended that Taoist priests of the Qingxu monastery colluded with the White Lotus to turn living people into paper. In this way, the disappearance of the villagers in Hegu Village can be blamed on Tang Saier’s sorcery, and none of them would be implicated.

The second layer was Cheng Youhai’s real intentions. The gaudy paper figurines were just blindfolds. What Cheng Youhai really wanted to do was to kill Tao Yiming, leading everyone to think that Tao Yiming colluded with the White Lotus to detain the young man. After the defeat, he would commit suicide in fear of crime.

And the third layer was the truth of the whole thing. There was no White Lotus Sect or sorcery at all. In fact, the villagers accidentally discovered the gold mine, and the local officials wanted to take it for themselves. To cover up the gold mine, the prefect and the county magistrate tried to evade the responsibility, leading to such big drama.

Compared with the first two versions, the real result seemed dull and crude. The real motives for crimes were often very ugly. It was nothing more than money, sex, or hatred. They were no different from animals, and there was no dramatic or unavoidable reasons at all.

Lu Heng had an insight into Tao Yiming and Cheng Youhai’s respective thoughts, but he didn’t expose them. Instead, he beat them at their own game and brought Cheng Youhai and Tao Yiming back to the palace. He provided the emperor with all three possibilities. Whatever truth the emperor needed, he could form the result from solving the case.

Cheng Youhai’s arrangements were too rough, leaving many flaws. But if Lu Heng did it, it could be handled seamlessly.

This was his real purpose of instigating Tao Yiming’s acting and tricking Cheng Youhai into the palace. The Imperial Guards who were with him day and night didn’t notice it, but Wang Yanqing did.

Lu Heng was sighing in his heart at that time. She was so transparent and cute, how could he be willing to let her go? The scene of last night was still vivid in his memory. When he told Wang Yanqing his thoughts, Wang Yanqing opened her eyes wide, in a face of disillusion, and asked: “Why did you do that?”

In her opinion, since Lu Heng found the truth, all he had to do was expose everything and set things right. But Lu Heng kept it secret and even falsified the results of solving the case for their sake.

Wang Yanqing couldn’t accept it. Lu Heng just smiled at her and said: “Because I am an Imperial Guard.”

“Bao Qingtian”, who was upright and plainspoken, hated evil as much as hatred and wanted to make the truth known to the world no matter how ugly it was, was made by civil servants. They could stand with ease and admonish their lives, but Lu Heng could not. He was an Imperial Guard, walking in darkness and conspiracy. What he did was not to leave his name in history, but to maintain the imperial power and let the dynasty run smoothly.

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Some people stood in the light and were praised by history books and admired by all people, while other people stood in the dark and did the shady, dirty work.

Maybe Wang Yanqing didn’t understand these things now. But it didn’t matter, she didn’t need to understand either.

Lu Heng controlled Wang Yanqing’s movements, imprisoned her in the disguise of the courtyard, and then returned to the palace. As soon as his thoughts fell on this, the eunuch who left to report came back.

Lu Heng nodded, smiled at the eunuch, and calmly stepped into the throne room.

When Lu Heng entered, the emperor was talking to Taoist Tao Zhongwen. The emperor asked: “During the day, I saw a gust of wind whirling around my carriage. How auspicious is this?”

Wearing Taoist robes, Tao Zhongwen calculated for a while and said: “Emperor, that was the main fire. I am afraid that this may be a sign of a big fire.”

The emperor heard and asked: “What is the solution?”

Tao Zhongwen replied profoundly: “To some extent, your Majesty, you should not know. This fire is by God’s will, and it is inevitable. The minister has used Taoism to eliminate disasters, so he can protect the health of the emperor.”

The emperor looked thoughtful, and although the maids and eunuchs serving on both sides lowered their heads, they didn’t take it seriously. The emperor asked what happened with the strange wind today. Tao Zhongwen said that there was a fire, but when he asked him where the fire was, Tao Zhongwen couldn’t tell. Tao Zhongwen also said that this was the will of the heavens and could not be avoided and that Taoism could be used to eliminate disasters for the emperor. Inconsistent and vague. What else could it be if it was not cheating?

But the emperor was willing to believe it, so they also showed a look of awe, and praised Tao Zhongwen’s profound Taoism. Lu Heng stood outside the partition and heard the conversation in its entirety. After the emperor and Tao Zhongwen finished their discussion, the eunuch came forward to report: “Your Majesty, Master Lu is here.”

“He is back.” The emperor was not surprised and said, “Call him in.”

Tao Zhongwen resigned after asking to be excused. When Lu Heng came in, he happened to catch a face-to-face meeting with Tao Zhongwen. Lu Heng smiled, bowed his hands to Tao Zhongwen, and Tao Zhongwen also greeted back, nodding slightly to say a salutation: “Commander Lu.”

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The emperor was still waiting inside, and the two of them didn’t delay and went their separate ways after finishing the face-to-face relationship. Lu Heng entered and greeted the emperor: “Long live your Majesty.”

The emperor waved his hand casually: “You may dispense of formalities. After you left for two days, did you find out why the women complained?”

Lu Heng raised his arms parallel to his chest, folded his hands, narrowed his eyes slightly, and said clearly: “I am fortunate that I have brought the officials involved back. The people of Weihui Mansion filed a complaint, which involved a gold mine.”

When the emperor heard about the gold mine, his expression became serious, and he asked: “What’s going on here?”

Lu Heng told the emperor about the matter from the beginning to the end. He didn’t say a word of nonsense, and the complicated case was greatly reduced, but the cause and effect were well-organized so that he could understand what was going on after hearing it. The emperor understood what these officials were doing when he heard half of it. Deception, greed for money, and profit were all too common, but unexpectedly, there were a series of tricks such as the White Lotus and resurrection through paper figurines.

The emperor was silent for a while after hearing this, and asked curiously: “Why did they make it so complicated?”

The more complex the scheme, the more error-prone it is. On the contrary, the simplest and most primitive means of committing crimes were the ones that were truly difficult to investigate. Lu Heng said: “If they don’t muddy the water, how can they cover up the disappearance of more than a hundred people.”

More than a hundred young and strong men disappeared. This was not a small case, and it was enough for the three divisions to be interrogated. The Liu family’s mother and daughter-in-law were able to break into the palace beyond everyone’s expectations. Cheng Youhai was caught off guard, time was too tight, and he had no time to wipe out Hegu Village, so he could only do bigger things to cover up his crimes.

What was bigger than a homicide case, it could only be a rebellion case. They didn’t dare to frame the state monarch for rebellion, so they could only use the name of the White Lotus.

After Lu Heng reported the cause and effect, he bowed his head and remained silent. If the emperor needed Tang Sai’er’s “Book of Heaven” and “Sword of Heaven” to prove that he was ordered by the sky, and his name is justified, Lu Heng could arrange it now. This matter was all taken over by the Imperial Guards and no one would know the truth behind it.

Things in this world were disturbing, true, and false, separated by a layer of people’s hearts. Who knew what was true? What the Ming Dynasty needed most was not the truth, but stability.

They were tacitly aware of the moment’s silence. The emperor once again lamented that Lu Heng was really good at handling things, not only to relieve the king’s worries, but sometimes he would take the initiative to create opportunities to share his worries.

The emperor did not express his position immediately, but said: “Let’s find the gold mine and the missing people first.”

Regardless of whether the White Lotus was real or not, this gold mine must belong to the emperor. The emperor was worried about the lack of money in Taicang. Coincidentally, the people below sent him money.

Lu Heng lowered his head and cupped his hands, calmly retreating. The emperor would not make a decision so quickly, and anyway, there was Chen Yin in the palace. Lu Heng unceremoniously put pressure on Chen Yin to maintain security and went to find the gold mine easily.

He sent someone to look for it yesterday, and there should have been a reply in the past two days. Protecting the emperor’s safety was his job, but searching for gold mines was a meritorious service. With such a simple multiple-choice question, Lu Heng couldn’t make a wrong choice.

After Lu Heng came out, looking at the sunset gradually sinking in the sky, he finally relaxed. He successfully solved the case within three days and even gave the emperor a handle and a treasury. After that, Chen Yin could no longer be his opponent.

Lu Heng never traded at a loss. When he issued the military order three days ago, he had already weighed the pros and cons in his mind. Someone rushed into the palace to complain and the emperor compared himself to a public monarch. If the emperor did nothing, it would be embarrassing. But the emperor didn’t know the situation, and he didn’t dare to speak rashly. At this time, someone needed to rescue the emperor. Lu Heng took the initiative to stand up and agreed and also promised not to delay the southern tour. All the worries of the emperor were eliminated, and he happily agreed to Lu Heng’s request.

If Lu Heng made a military order in front of so many people, it would be ugly if he failed, but once he succeeded, it would be a huge boost to his prestige. The reward was worth his risk, and Lu Heng was not hesitant to take the gamble. Facts proved that he did not overestimate his strength, he indeed succeed.

Lu Heng walked towards the hospital in high spirits. Halfway through, a hidden sentry post ran over quickly and whispered something in Lu Heng’s ear.

When Lu Heng heard his old acquaintance’s name, his brows raised happily. The happy occasion truly doubled, and the other fish also took the bait.

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