The Word of Heaven

Chapter 187: Being too old to die is a thief
The queen said, "I am used to remembering everything very well, so I will never forget a name."

Pei Jinge laughed at himself and said, "I thought you had forgotten."

The queen asked softly, "Are you here to reminisce about the past?"

Pei Jinge thought about it and said, "I guess so."

The two spoke every word with a smile, without any trace of gloom, just like when they met again as ordinary close friends.

But in fact, they had just met not long ago, and they were not like this at that time.

"Besides reminiscing about the past..."

Pei Jinge smiled and said, "I just want to see you more."

The queen's eyebrows were slightly frowned, but it was not disgust or annoyance, but a look of deep thought.

For some reason, she looked inexplicably innocent and happy at this moment, with an indescribable charm.

This is a scene that is hard for people to imagine.

Pei Jinge should have thought it was normal.

In the past years, she had seen such angry and happy scenes too many times, but today she watched it very seriously.

The queen raised her eyebrows slightly, shook her head and said, "If you want to see the phoenix robe, forget it."

Pei Jinge was a little surprised and said, "Even you find it troublesome to put on?"

The Queen said, “Actually, I find everything troublesome.”

Pei Jinge said: "I thought you were used to it."

"Easier said than done?"

The queen smiled and sighed, then raised her head slightly to look at the sky, quietly watching the white clouds painted golden by the spring day.

Her voice was very pleasant: "I'm just holding on."

Pei Jinge said: "This is even more false."

The queen burst out laughing.

Compared with her previous smile, her smile this time had a hint of mockery.

Then she said, "It seems a little fake. After all, no matter how much I say I am holding on, there are still people standing behind me."

Pei Jinge suddenly changed the subject and said, "In fact, being fearless is a very scary thing."

"Is it because I have lost my true self, or have I forgotten my true self, or something else?"

The queen chuckled and said, "I'd like to hear more about it."

Pei Jinge said: "It's just a random feeling. There's nothing to say. Just like me standing here chatting with you, it won't change anything in the end. It's just a casual chat that will be hard to recall many years later."

The queen put away her smile, looked at her quietly, and said, "But you still came."

Pei Jinge said: "It will come eventually."

The Queen asked, “What’s the point?”

Pei Jinge said: "Maybe not everything in this world needs to have a meaning."

The Queen said, "Perhaps I am such a person."

Pei Jinge said: "So you have been asking for trouble from the beginning to the end."

The Queen said, "So I envy you the laziness you have enjoyed in the past years."

Pei Jinge said: "It's all in the past."

The queen closed her eyes and raised her head to meet the spring sun again, letting the sunlight fill her gorgeous face.

At this moment, she seemed to be dreaming of many years ago. She stretched out her hands and rubbed her sore shoulders and neck, as if this could make all the fatigue disappear into thin air and never exist again.

She said, "Since it's all in the past, why not find someone for yourself?"

"It's a bit vulgar to think like that."

Pei Jinge looked at her and asked seriously, "Besides, who in this world can be with me?"

The queen thought about it very seriously for a long time, but she still couldn't think of a name until a long time later, so she had no choice but to remain silent and end the topic with some regret.

She knew this would most likely be the last time the two of them would have a casual chat as friends.

It has nothing to do with interests or positions.

Just like many afternoons in the past few decades, it was all just random, aimless nonsense. It was hard to find any specific meaning from it, and it was even more difficult to make people remember it. Forgetting seemed to be inevitable.

Thinking about it this way, I don’t feel sad, but there are many regrets.

The queen thought so.

The next moment, she threw these meaningless thoughts out of her mind and said, "Let's talk business."

Pei Jinge was silent for a moment and then said okay.

……

……

"The death of the Supervisor is directly related to you. If you hadn't used a knife to help Gu Zhuo, this case would not have been possible. As the head of the Patrol Department, you should be aware of the consequences of doing so. This is knowingly committing a crime."

The Queen stated in an objective manner: "At that time, the Supervisor was in the old imperial city, and he never attacked Gu Zhuo from beginning to end. Now there is no evidence to prove that Song Jinglun was influenced by him and tried to kill Gu Zhuo, so what you did was unreasonable."

Pei Jinge listened casually without saying anything.

The Queen continued, "If Song Jinglun is proven to be influenced by the Supervisor and secretly tried to kill Gu Zhuo, it still doesn't make sense for you and Gu Zhuo to kill him on the spot."

Pei Jinge's expression was very calm.

Just like what she said, she did it knowingly and was well aware of the consequences of doing so.

She even knew how to make this matter make sense - to prove that the supervisor had never given up his murderous intention and had always been trying to attack Gu Zhuo, and was forced to kill in order to protect himself.

But she said nothing at this time, the corners of her lips even curled up slightly, and her smile was very gentle and appropriate.

It was as if the person who committed so many crimes was not her, but someone else.

The queen looked at her and suddenly said, "It is indeed a terrible thing to be fearless."

Not long ago, Pei Jinge said this.

The queen didn't expect that she would have to repeat it all soon.

Pei Jinge shrugged and said, "Who said that the dead can't defeat the living?"

The Queen said: "More importantly, you are only a step away from becoming a fairy."

Pei Jinge said with emotion: "I am really amazing."

When she said this, her smile was obviously reserved, but also sarcastic.

The Queen's expression remained unchanged as she said, "But this is not absolute, because you are still a step short."

"Yeah, so what are you going to do?"

Pei Jinge's voice was full of sincerity: "I'd like to hear the details."

I'll just say it again.

This is of course a mockery.

The queen looked at her and said nothing.

No matter Pei Jinge or Gu Zhuo, they both have a rather troublesome identity, and in the final analysis, it was the Supervisor and the Patrol Department who took the initiative, and they failed to kill someone but were killed instead.

However, the death of Jianzheng could not be justified according to the rules.

If Pei Jinge had really achieved enlightenment, this incident would definitely not have caused such a stir. However, she has not yet achieved enlightenment, but is only a step away from it, and she could break through at any time.

This is where the thorny part of the case lies.

How to make things have a satisfactory outcome, let most of the crimes be attributed to the dead, and make all parties satisfied? This is never an easy task, because there are always living people who get in the way.

Pei Jinge smiled slightly and said, "It seems that you haven't thought about this question yet, so let's talk about it another day."

……

……

That night, rumors suddenly spread in Shendu.

Even if the person who spread the rumor was arrested almost immediately, it still couldn't stop the rumors from spreading like wildfire.

That was the news of the death of the supervisor.

This was obviously the work of someone with ulterior motives, because the rumor did not mention the ins and outs of the matter. The focus was on the relationship between Gu Zhuo and the Queen, and the relationship between Pei Jinge and the Queen. These two relationships were in turn related to the unusual celestial phenomena witnessed by the Imperial Observatory last summer.

Even though no one dared to say things like the evil queen was causing chaos in the country or that a hen was crowing at dawn, such thoughts could not be stopped after all.

The storm has begun.

unstoppable.

……

……

In fact, the relevant officials had a premonition before the convoy arrived in the capital.

Everyone knew that the matter could not be suppressed any longer, but they did not expect the news to leak out so quickly that they could not rest until late at night and were so busy that they could not go home.

Especially because the Sky Patrol was involved in this case, in order to avoid suspicion, it almost completely withdrew from the relevant investigation, not to mention tracing the spread of rumors.

When faced with this sudden change, the various government offices felt the pain of lack of manpower and endless fatigue. The lights were kept on all night.

Before the morning light, an official came to the palace and asked to meet with Gu Zhuo.

After the meeting, the official followed the routine and asked about the case, trying to understand as many details as possible and record them.

Soon after, another noble family from the Divine Capital came to ask for a meeting, and Gu Zhuo still did not refuse.

So he heard a lot of words that were very meaningful but just bored him.

Although there were hidden meanings in his words, they still had the same meaning - expressing goodwill sincerely, angrily condemning the Supervisor, sorrowfully blaming the Sky Patrol, and then sincerely asking him to stand up and clean up this unhealthy trend.

In the final analysis, it is nothing more than killing someone with a borrowed knife.

Gu Zhuo naturally wouldn't agree.

But he didn't refuse either.

The heavy pressure like a tide surged towards the imperial city, gathered in the imperial study, and fell on the shoulders of the queen.

Along with this came memorials like pieces of paper. The censors began to follow the public opinion stirred up by those with ulterior motives and demanded that the case must be enforced impartially to the end. There must be no compromise on such matters, otherwise where would the spirit of the thousand-year-old Qin Dynasty be?
What is even more interesting is that there are equally important officials who hold completely opposite opinions, saying that governing a large country cannot be so rash and requires repeated caution.

As for the participants who took part in the meeting in the side hall ten days ago, they certainly would not deliberately remain silent at this time and make themselves extremely conspicuous, but this does not mean that they did anything, they were just fishing in troubled waters.

……

……

Isolated, helpless, alone, and fully equipped... countless similar words can be used to describe the queen's current situation.

Apart from the people living in the palace, she seemed to have fallen into a situation where no one was available to her. She had lost the possibility of escaping the current situation, and only had one last way left.

——Let His Majesty the Emperor step forward and resolve this matter.

But this is also the picture that her enemies want to see.

The imperial study was brightly lit.

However, the queen did not sit on the chair, and the memorials that piled up like snowflakes were ignored, like a pile of waste paper.

……

……

The queen went to Jinghai.

Jinghai is the Taoist temple of His Majesty the Emperor. The scenery here depends entirely on his will. It is different from the four seasons in the human world. It is drizzling tonight.

Walking by the lake, the two of them bathed in the rain side by side.

His Majesty the Emperor has some gray hair on his temples, but this does not make people think of the word "aging", but rather a calm and graceful demeanor.

"This is not an easy matter."

His voice was casual, as if he was nagging about ordinary things at home: "But things are often like this in the world. You get used to it after doing it many times."

The Queen suddenly asked, "A hundred years ago, Your Majesty, did you come here like this?"

Hearing this, His Majesty the Emperor fell into memories, his eyes slightly confused.

After a moment, he came to his senses and said, "No."

The Queen was a little surprised and raised her eyebrows and asked, "Your Majesty was still young at that time, how could you have such skills?"

The emperor smiled and said, "You guessed wrong."

"Because at that time, I was no different from a puppet, just a noble child emperor in name only."

He said: "If this really happened, how could I have said anything? The ministers had already exchanged interests with the sect outside the court and discussed a suitable solution."

The queen listened to these words and thought about the scene at that time, and was deeply moved.

Perhaps because it had been a long time since he had chatted about the past with others, His Majesty the Emperor was rarely interested and continued the conversation on this topic.

"In fact, it wasn't that sad at that time. Although the history books nowadays all say that the Qin Dynasty was on the edge of a cliff at that time, and I was only one step away from being the king of the fallen country, I don't think so."

"Why?"

"Because the Qin Dynasty at that time was corrupt enough, like a dying patient, it was too easy to manipulate. How could the Taoist sect be willing to give up such a useful puppet? It must have been used for many years."

“How is this different from the destruction of a country?”

"I thought so at the time, which led to all the changes that followed. Now when I think back...if I were asked to walk the same path again, I would still do it, because I was not perfect back then and had many flaws."

"Is there any real perfection in the world?"

"That may be true, but the troubles I left behind are too great. Sometimes I even think that the loss of the country is not a bad thing."

The queen stopped talking.

This sentence was too heavy and she didn't want to accept it.

The emperor smiled and said, "Don't take this idea too extreme. It's not that I'm tired of this world and ready to die, but because I've grown to hate those aristocratic families and sects more and more over the years."

At this point, his smile was still there, but his tone was cold: "What makes me even more helpless is that I have no way to solve their existence, because they are the Great Qin itself, and no matter how powerful I am, I cannot defeat the Great Qin, because I myself am the other side of the Great Qin."

In recent years, the Queen has been handling government affairs in the Imperial Study. How could she not understand this fact?

Daqin has never been just the Bai family’s Daqin.

However, when the White Emperor said these words himself, they still made her feel complicated.

The emperor was silent for a moment, then he stopped smiling and said casually, "Later, I read many history books and learned that things have always been like this. So I gave up the idea and thought, out of sight, out of mind."

The queen looked at him, shook her head and said, "There may be a more important reason."

The emperor said, "Yes."

The Queen said seriously: "If you do this, many people will die. Your Majesty, after experiencing the chaotic times a hundred years ago, you don't want the world to return to that era where life was worse than death."

The emperor thought about the scenes of blood and pestles, the tragic incidents of cannibalism, the people who were willing to do anything to serve as dogs for the sect's people on the mountain, and countless other such past events.

He said indifferently, "After all, it's better now. We haven't reached the point where life is unbearable yet. Why bother making so many troubles? No one can guarantee that the future will be better. Not me, and not even the laws of nature."

Before they knew it, the emperor and the empress had arrived at a pavilion.

The night rain was stopped and tapped lightly on the glazed tiles, making a rustling sound.

For a long time afterwards, the two of them hardly spoke to each other. They just watched the rain that refused to stop and passed the time with a cup of hot tea.

This has been the way they have been getting along for many years.

It was not until the night ended and the day dawned that the queen stood up and prepared to leave.

Use this night to relax and relieve your worries, so that you can eventually face the reality of the world.

Just then, the emperor's voice rang out.

"It's time for the Sky Patrol to behave itself."

The queen understood what he meant and asked, "What about the Imperial Observatory?"

The emperor was silent for a while, then said, "In any case, the reason why the supervisor died was because he was doing his job, so he needs to be given an explanation."

The queen asked no more questions.

If she had to ask even this, then why did she have to sit in the imperial study?
What's more, she would never hear such words under normal circumstances.

But the reason why today was an exception might not have much to do with her, but more likely it was because of the Chief Secretary and the Supervisor.

Sure enough, before she had gone far, the emperor spoke again with emotion.

"It is really hard for people to accept old age, but if they are old and don't die, they will become thieves, so I still feel sorry for my kindness when I was young."

……

……

After leaving Jinghai, the queen was still thoughtful.

To her, the White Emperor's last words did not sound complicated.

The most obvious meaning is undoubtedly to let her not let Pei Jinge be really blamed for this crisis, and not to let him stay out of it, but at least he should be able to land safely. The appreciation implication is clear.

As for whether there is any more meaning, maybe there is, but she won't think about it.

For things like this, it's better not to think about them than to think about them, because no one can guarantee that they will never think wrongly.

……

……

When the morning light came again, the palace outside the capital welcomed guests again.

What was different from yesterday was that this time the person standing in front of Gu Zhuo was no longer overly gentle.

He was a eunuch from the imperial palace, his surname was Cao.

As everyone knows, Eunuch Cao is the Queen's confidant. He often stands in the imperial study and has witnessed the implementation of countless important decisions.

To a certain extent, he can fully represent the will of the Queen.

So when his tone was no longer gentle, the meaning behind it became clear.

The Queen has made her decision.

Gu Zhuo sat in front of him and asked calmly, "What's the matter?"

Eunuch Cao took out a piece of white paper from his bosom and said, "Please explain these questions on the paper, Master Gu."

(End of this chapter)