History of Women in the Wei Dynasty

Chapter 447 This King Has Been Reborn
Time reverses, past lives revisited.

November of the first year of Yongping in the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Prince Pengcheng, Yuan Xie, was murdered by treacherous officials such as Gao Zhao and Yuan Zhen. Because of the merits of the virtuous officials, the court could no longer cover up the secret of the prince's wrongful death and allowed the Prince Pengcheng's palace to hold a funeral.

Today, the hearse left Luoyang City through the North Gate. People who volunteered to accompany the hearse followed the funeral procession, weeping. Those who sang dirges expressed their grief and indignation through their songs, moving heaven and earth.

"The dark clouds weep, as if to bid farewell to the wise king!"

Someone shouted this, and instantly, the cries following the hearse stretched from one end of the street to the other. The grief of tens of thousands of people drew in the low rumble of thunder from afar.

Among the dense crowd, there were also ordinary people leaving Kyoto as usual.

The monk Yuan'an was worried that the oxcart behind would be scattered, so he got off the horse-drawn carriage in front and followed the oxcart on the left. He kept looking at the coffin on the carriage. Whenever the progress was blocked, he would hold onto the coffin and secretly comfort himself: "Ayao, don't be afraid, we will be out of the city soon."

Yuan'an's secular name was Xi Jiao, and the person in the coffin was Wei Yao, a woman he could never let go of from his youth until he became a monk.

He was foolish to think that distancing himself from her was for her own good, and he thought that becoming a monk was not a betrayal of her. However, all his self-proclaimed deep affection turned into unimportant self-deception the moment he saw her die in the street.

Yuan'an gazed ahead and murmured, "Love allows no hesitation, and so surely power. Prince Pengcheng, if you had known you would die young, would you still have chosen to be loyal?"

The procession carrying the coffin of Prince Pengcheng left the city gates, and the people spontaneously shouted, "Farewell to the wise prince!"

"Farewell to the Wise King—"

Yuan'an looked around for a while, then looked back at the mulberry coffin with guilt. His sorrow was mixed with a kind of madness that did not belong to a monk.

“Wei Yao, I was wrong, I was foolish. Only after you died did I realize the sins of the Zong family. I burned them all to death, but what good did it do? They are all dead, and they can't bring you back. A Yao, I will never dare to abandon you again. After returning to Pingcheng, I will spend my whole life reciting scriptures at your grave to atone for my sins, so that you, in the prime of your life, can watch me grow old alone and suffer the retribution of illness, to appease you, okay?”

“Ayao, listen, so many people are singing dirges. Do you know what happened? The Prince of Pengcheng was murdered by treacherous officials. Beneath the prosperity of Luoyang, there are actually many scars.”

When he and Wei Yao were studying together, he would often tell her the news he received from the court. Now that she was dead, he wanted to continue this habit.

He continued to say to Wei Yao, "The Prince of Pengcheng was murdered, and the court openly honored him. However, I didn't see any monks or Taoist priests escorting his coffin along the way. What does that mean? It means that the court doesn't feel the pain of losing a virtuous minister, and the emperor will continue to allow treacherous officials to cause harm! When the court completely loses the hearts of the people, how long can Luoyang remain prosperous? A Yao, it was the right thing for us to leave."

After leaving the North Gate and passing several Imperial Guard camps, a Xianbei shaman was performing a ritual for the King of Pengcheng by the roadside, shaking drums, dancing, and worshipping the gods.

Yuan An had a sudden thought and stopped the oxcart.

His father used to be in charge of the gods, so he knew about an ancient Xianbei ritual. Legend has it that this mysterious ritual could make the soul of the dead be favored by the heavens and be reborn.

The witch shaking the drum looked towards Yuan'an and the coffin, her eyes filled with understanding. She approached the mulberry coffin with ceremonial steps, her wrinkled fingers hovering over it, and began chanting from the head of the coffin to the tail.

Yuan'an flicked his monk's sleeves, stepped to the side, and began chanting Buddhist scriptures to deliver the souls of the deceased.

On one side, there was the crisp sound of drums and mysterious, incomprehensible blessings; on the other side, there was a handsome monk solemnly chanting sutras. These two incompatible scenes were forcibly combined into one picture, separated by a coffin. Soon, passersby gathered around them.

boom--

Thunder rumbled from the deep mountains to the north, pressing closer to the city.

boom--

Another clap of thunder.

In the distance, those singing dirges for the Prince of Pengcheng continued to shout amidst the thunder: "Wise Prince, come back!" In the same clap of thunder, Yuan'an pinched her hand until it bled, and prayed in her heart: "Wei Yao, come back."

The water clock drips its beads, one bead at a time.

It was early morning of the first day of the first month in the third year of Jingming.

The court officials entered the Taiji Hall one after another. As is customary, the New Year's meeting would not last long, and the emperor would announce the January holiday after the meeting.

"Ah—" Prince Guangling, Yuan Yu, arrived with a yawn. He saw Prince Pengcheng, Yuan Xie, standing in front of the Taiji Hall, so he walked to Yuan Xie's side, looked up and looked him up, and then frowned and asked, "What are you looking at, Sixth Brother?"

Yuan Xie's feelings were extremely complicated. He couldn't tell whether he felt more bitterness or resentment. When he saw the other person's face clearly, all his emotions condensed into a relieved sentence: "Fourth Brother."

In his previous life, he was first framed by the treacherous minister Gao Zhao, then tricked into the palace by the imperial decree of a banquet. After he got drunk, the Imperial Guard Minister Yuan Zhen led the elite Imperial Guards to pour a pot of poisoned wine into his stomach.

Heaven has a way of letting Yuan Xie be reborn on the first day of the first month of the third year of Jingming, on his way to the morning court. Perhaps because the time since his rebirth was too short, the memories of the two lifetimes are clashing, making him quite confused about what happened in this life. He has to slowly recall and sort it out.

So he stood in front of the Taiji Hall, searching for memories from every passing official. Now he saw that his fourth brother, Yuan Yu, who had been killed by Feng Junxing in his previous life, was still alive, and he couldn't help but feel even more that fate was unpredictable.

Even between brothers, there can be deep affection or estrangement. When Yuan Xiang, the Prince of Beihai, passed by Xie and Yu, he only let out a cold snort.

Yuan Yu snorted back, then turned around with a broad smile, calling out from a distance, "Minister Wei, did your mother send a letter home? Don't forget to tell her to take good care of me..."

Yuan Xie stomped on Yuan Yu's foot.

Yuan Yu shut his mouth in pain and quickly swung his foot to relieve the pain.

Wei Yao walked over with a smile, bowed to the two kings, and replied to Yuan Yu: "Don't worry, Minister Situ, as long as my mother sends a letter, I will definitely tell her to take good care of Minister Situ's warhorse."

So it was to take care of the horses. Yuan Xie asked Yuan Yu awkwardly, "Does your foot hurt a lot?"

Yuan Yu glared at him: "Don't you know how strong you are?"

The three of them entered the Taiji Hall together. When Emperor Yuan Ke arrived and sat on the throne, the vague memories of the Prince of Pengcheng in this life were completely filled in.

The treacherous Gao Zhao died so young!
The treacherous minister Zhao Xiu died even earlier!

Prince Rencheng, Yuan Cheng, who was supposed to oversee the war in Yangzhou, was serving in the capital.

Yuan Zhi, who should have been serving as the governor of Jingzhou, was instead appointed as the deputy governor of Sizhou.

The officials whose positions changed the most were Wei Yao and her mother Zhao Zhi!

Yuan Xie remembered Zhao Zhi. If Zhao Zhi was able to lead troops with the rank of general, then she was indeed capable. The late emperor wanted to promote her when he was alive. But what about Wei Yao? She was only a teenager and had only been in the palace for a short time, yet she had squeezed out the Chamberlain Yuan Hui!
Yuan Xie was confused. Could it be that the world he was reborn into was not the same as the world he was in before?
Or perhaps the world he was reborn into hadn't changed, and someone else had been reborn before him, altering the political landscape? Since that's a possibility, we have to rule it out before we can conclude that it's the first possibility.

There were few court meetings on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Soon the emperor issued an edict that officials without important matters to attend to should take a break until the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, during which time no further meetings would be held.

The court officials left the palace one after another, with Yuan Xie walking at the back, his gaze fixed on Wei Yao's back.

Then start investigating from the person he suspects most!

Upon exiting the palace gates, he instructed his official: "Go to the Sizhou government office and find a man named Gou Qi. Tell him that he owes me a debt of gratitude, and if he doesn't want to repay it, then he will never have to."