good season

Chapter 1 The Wind and Rain of That Year

In the fifteenth year of Xuanqing, Zhuxitang, Qinglu County.

It was early summer and not yet hot. The courtyard walls were covered with pink roses, layer upon layer, glowing like a brocade. A few branches extended over the wall. When the evening breeze blew, the branches swayed in the wind, emitting wisps of fragrance.

In the evening, smoke rises from the kitchen and the yard is filled with the aroma of food.

There was a swing under the rose wall, and a little girl was sitting on the swing. She was wearing a brand new shirt and had a cloth tied around her eyes to cover her eyes. The swing was swaying gently, and the old woman next to her was holding the swing carefully, fearing that she would fall down.

The little girl sniffed and said to herself, "Mother is the most partial. She made braised pork for Grandpa the miracle doctor again."

The old woman patted her head gently and said with a smile, "Doctor Yang likes to eat braised pork the most. He will be going to Beijing in a few days. He won't be able to eat it when he gets there. Before he leaves, your mother should make a few more meals for him to eat as much as he wants."

The little girl raised her crystal-clear face and asked curiously, "Isn't there any braised pork in Beijing?"

The old woman chuckled: "Doctor Yang often said that the braised pork made by your mother is the best he has ever eaten."

The evening breeze was blowing gently, and the smell of the braised pork became stronger and stronger. The girl reached out to touch the cloth covering her eyes. There was a cool medicine bag under the cloth.

The old woman saw it and took her hand away forcefully: "Don't touch it. Doctor Yang said it will take another three days before you can take it off."

The girl asked, "Grandma, can I see it in three days?"

The old woman smiled and narrowed her eyes: "Yes, it will happen. Then my Nan will be able to see the roses all over the yard."

When the girl was still in her cradle, she had a high fever that wouldn't go away. Although the fever subsided later, she lost her sight. The whole family was worried about this and searched for famous doctors but to no avail.

Therefore, her parents, family, flowers, plants and trees are all based on her imagination. It has become a habit for her to live in this colorless world.

It was not until her father brought Dr. Yang and his grandchildren home that she realized that her eyesight was not incurable.

The little girl didn't know where Dr. Yang and his grandchildren were from, nor did she know why they came to Qinglu County.

She only knew that the Yang family's carriage fell into the river, and her father brought people to rescue them. The coachman and servants died, and the grandfather and grandson were also seriously injured.

My father was a good man and took the grandparents and grandchildren to his home to stay and recuperate. They stayed there for more than half a year.

In return, Doctor Yang treated the girl's eye disease after he recovered from his injury. Now it has come to the last moment. Today Doctor Yang gave the girl an injection for the last time. He will only wait three days to remove the medicine bag on her eyes to know whether she is cured.

And just this morning, someone came to Zhuxitang to find Doctor Yang. After meeting that person, Doctor Yang told my father that he was going to the capital.

After dinner, Doctor Yang said to my father, "Alas, I didn't expect to stay in Qinglu for half a year. Thank you for your hard work. Now I have to trouble you to help me take care of Xiaoqiu for a few more days. I will pick him up when I return from the capital."

Doctor Yang's grandson Yang Qiu was just eight years old. After recovering from his injury, he went to a private school dozens of miles away to study. It was not because there were no private schools nearby, but because this private school not only taught reading but also martial arts. He had just recovered from a serious injury, and learning some martial arts could strengthen his body.

Hearing what Doctor Yang said, my father said quickly, "Doctor Yang, you are too polite. You treated my daughter's eyes and you are a great benefactor to our family. Don't worry when you come to Beijing. I will bring your grandson home on the first and fifteenth day of every month and let my wife cook a table of delicious food for him to nourish his body."

Doctor Yang thanked him again, took out a letter, and said to his father, "I will be going to the capital in three days, so I won't be going to the private school to see him. Please give this letter to him for me."

Dad was about to take the letter when a white and tender little hand suddenly appeared in front of him: "Give it to me, give it to me. I'll keep it for Brother Xiaoyang. Mom said that Dad is always forgetful. What if he loses the letter?"

The father was helpless. Although he felt a little embarrassed by what his daughter said, he couldn't bear to scold her in front of his only daughter, so he could only smile and shake his head.

Doctor Yang laughed out loud. He liked this family and this lovely little girl very much.

He stuffed the letter into the girl's hand and said, "Okay, I'll give it to you to keep."

Seeing this, my father hurriedly said, "How can this be done? She is still a child."

Doctor Yang smiled and said, "It's okay, it's not an important letter, just a few words of advice."

The girl took the letter, which was not thick and light. She said with a smile, "Don't worry, Grandpa Divine Doctor. I will definitely give the letter to Brother Little Sheep."

A Niang came over and took the girl's hand: "Okay, stop making trouble, A Niang will take you to bed."

"I didn't mess up. I really didn't."

The tender child's voice became increasingly distant, and the girl was taken away by her mother to wash.

She has been sleeping with her grandmother since she was a child, and she likes the faint soapberry scent on her grandmother's body.

After washing, A Niang sent the girl to Grandma's room. Grandma smiled and said to A Niang: "You have been busy all day, go and have a rest."

After her mother went out, her grandmother helped the girl take off her clothes and put on pajamas, but she saw the girl groping to take out a letter from her clothes.

Grandma hurriedly asked, "Whose letter is this? Where did you get it from? Give it to Grandma."

As he said this, he was about to take the letter.

The little girl hid the letter behind her back with her two little hands and shook her head: "No, no, this is a letter from Brother Yang. Grandpa the Divine Doctor asked me to keep it. I won't damage it. Grandma, please go out first. I will hide the letter and then you can come in."

Although she knew that her granddaughter would not lie, grandma still went to ask her father. After learning that it was indeed Doctor Yang who asked her granddaughter to pass on the letter, grandma stopped caring about it and left it to the children.

Before entering the house, grandma knocked on the door and asked with a smile, "Are you hiding?"

"Grandma, are you sure the little rabbit is hiding well?"

Grandma smiled and said, "Did the little rabbit hide well?"

"It's hidden, grandma can come in now!"

Grandma entered the room and saw her little granddaughter lying on the bed, twisting her little face to smile at her.

No one knew where she had hidden the letter.

Grandma smiled and shook her head, took off her shoes, got on the bed, blew out the small lamp at the bedside, and lay down next to her granddaughter.

"Grandma, the family living at the foot of the mountain is quarreling again. The father of that family is stealing a widow. Grandma, can he steal a widow?"

"How come you know this, little guy? That family lives so far away. Who told you this?"

"I heard from the little sparrow that the family always quarrels, and the swallows no longer build nests in their house."

Grandma laughed but didn't care. He was such a child, he only spoke childish words.

Grandma patted her granddaughter gently and hummed a little tune whose name she couldn't remember. Sleepiness came over her and the girl's consciousness began to blur. A faint fragrance wafted in, which was not the soapberry scent of grandma's body.

The girl said, "Grandma, there is a fragrance, do you smell it?"

Grandma yawned and patted her gently: "The room was burned with mosquito coils, and the smell hasn't dissipated yet."

The girl wanted to say, this is not the smell of mosquito coils, grandma, your nose is blocked again.

But her eyelids seemed to be heavy, and she murmured a few words before falling asleep.
The girl was awakened by shock. She had always been a deep sleeper. One time, her father took her to see a doctor. The road was bumpy and the mule cart was shaking, but she slept all the way. When she woke up, she was already in the doctor's house.

But today she woke up, it was pitch black all around, there were chaotic footsteps and the sound of clothes rubbing against bamboo leaves, this was not her home!

A strong arm was wrapped around her waist, and she was held under the armpit by the man, walking hurriedly in the bamboo forest.

Although the girl grew up in Zhuxitang, she rarely had the opportunity to go out except to see a doctor because of her eyesight. But she knew that this place must be far away from her home because there were no bamboo forests near her home.

Although she is still a child, her blindness gives her a sense of smell and perception beyond that of ordinary people.

She smelled the blood on that person!

This is not the smell of killing chickens and fish, this is human blood. Doctor Yang smelled this smell when her grandparents and grandchildren were injured. This is the smell of human blood!
She reached out and touched it. It was cold and hard, but there were winding lines on it. She felt along the lines inch by inch. She didn't know what it was, but it scared her.

This is where?

She slept with grandma, but where is she now? Where is grandma?
Just as she was about to call Grandma, a strong hand fell silently on her head, and she fell into chaos again.

The man holding her breathed a sigh of relief. The drug was very powerful. He didn't expect that the little girl would wake up in the middle of the night and almost cried.

A man's voice came from not far away: "Ah Si, why did you come here just now?"

The man named Ah Si said hurriedly, "We found a child under the bed. I guess the old woman wasn't knocked unconscious, so she heard the noise and hid the kid under the bed."

As Ah Si was talking, he kept walking and was getting closer and closer to the man in front. The man asked, "There's another one? That's right, there's a blind kid in that house. I was wondering why I didn't see him. Did he strangle him to death?"

Ah Si said, "Strangle her to death. She will die in her sleep just like her parents did."

The man opposite said with a smile: "No wonder the master always said that Ah Si was careful. If it weren't for Ah Si, we would have almost let a person live today."

Ah Si hurriedly said, "Second brother, you are too kind. There is no way that a person would be left alive. At most, Ah Si will go back and kill him. Ah Si is saving himself the trouble."

He didn't want to continue the topic, so he lifted the girl up high and said, "A blind person is suffering if she lives. You should die early and be reborn. Go find your parents."

As soon as he loosened his grip, the girl's body was thrown into the pit that had been dug in advance. When she landed, she was soft and warm. Under her were her parents who had just died.
Several people worked together to fill the hole and then stomped the new soil down with their feet.

"Ah Si, you are the most careful. You should stay and clean up the mess. Make it clean so that people here will think that the whole family followed the man named Yang."

"Ah Si, I obey your orders!"

……

Several people climbed onto their horses. Ah Si waved to them, looked back at the new soil that had been trampled by them, then turned around and galloped in the direction they came from.

On the starless and moonless night, darkness surged like a tide.

Ah Si returned to the empty yard, opened the doors and windows, let the remaining smell of drugs and blood dissipate, put the furniture in order, and even washed away the bloodstains on the blue bricks.

Finally, Ah Si locked the door and left.

The courtyard was quiet and peaceful. Only the night birds that were frightened and flew away knew that a killing had taken place here.

When it was about to dawn, it began to rain. The rain hit the bamboo leaves, washing away the dust and covering all the secrets in the mist.

Ah Si raised his face and let the cold raindrops fall on his face.

He liked this feeling, as if it could cleanse away the filth from inside out.

At this moment, his heart was calm and peaceful, and he thought of the little girl.

Instead of killing her like one of her relatives, he buried her alive while she was unconscious.

Ah Si believed that letting the person being killed die without pain was a good deed he could do every day.

Ah Si was in a rare good mood. As expected, doing good deeds brings happiness. As the rain was getting heavier, Ah Si decided to go back to the place where the body was buried and put a few stones on top to prevent the grave from collapsing and exposing the body.

Ah Si has always been very meticulous.

The mission this time was to not let anyone see the doctor alive or his body after death. We had to make everyone think that the doctor and the family that took him in were not dead, they just went on a long journey.

Ah Si ran in the rain, through the bamboo forest, and came to the place where the bodies were buried.

But what he saw shocked him. A pit now appeared on the flat place. There were four bodies in the pit, and the little girl who was supposed to be lying on the top was gone!

Ah Si felt as if he was falling into an icy cave. Could it be that the girl woke up and climbed out by herself?

But Ah Si quickly denied this possibility. It was impossible. It was impossible for the girl to climb out on her own.

Ah Si lit a tinder and looked around carefully. On the wet ground, there were claw marks and dragging marks left by wild dogs.

I guess the extremely hungry wild dogs followed the smell and dug out the body buried in the ground, but I don't know where they dragged the girl to.

Ah Si's heart sank. It would be fine if the girl was dead after being buried alive, but what if she wasn't?
If the master knew about this
Ah Si shuddered. He remembered the last person who was ordered to be executed by his master because he failed in his mission.
The rain gradually stopped, the sky in the east began to pale, and the dark clouds quietly disappeared. There was not much time left for Ah Si.

He gritted his teeth and reburied the body as quickly as possible. This time he put a few stones on the pit so that he would not have to worry about the pit being washed away by rain.

After doing all this, Ah Si began to search around for traces of the wild dog and the girl, but the traces disappeared when they reached the low-lying areas. Ah Si searched for a long time but found nothing.

The sky was bright, and the bamboo leaves washed by rain were lush and green. A few horsemen were approaching from afar. The sound of horse hooves startled a few wild dogs in the bamboo forest by the roadside. The barking of dogs was mixed with the crying of children, which was particularly harsh in the forest in the early morning.

"Listen, there is a child crying."

The knights on horseback pulled the reins and looked at the young boy who was protected by them. The young boy was still a child, only eight or nine years old, and was looking towards the bamboo forest where the crying sound came from.

"Go over and have a look!"

The voice was tender, yet it carried an irresistible majesty.

Before he finished speaking, the group had already turned their horses around and headed towards the bamboo forest.

In the bamboo forest, several wild dogs surrounded a little girl covered in bruises. Hearing the noise, the wild dogs bared their teeth and growled, eager to fight. The young boy waved his hand, and his followers drew their swords and pounced on the wild dogs!
The leading wild dog is nicknamed Heizi. He used to be a domestic dog. Although he was often hungry, he was still loyal and guarded the house.

One day, the owner took the knife he had just sharpened and was going to kill it for meat, but Heizi ran away and wandered around the mountains, where he had a younger brother, a wife and children, and from then on he had something to worry about.

Once people have something to worry about, they will be afraid of death, and the same is true for dogs.

Moreover, Heizi can't forget the knife in his master's hand. It is his nightmare.

At this moment, the followers' hands flashed with cold light, which hurt Heizi's sensitive heart. He let out a wail from the depths of his soul and fled into the depths of the bamboo forest!
Heizi doesn't want to die.

The younger brothers were so shocked that they didn't care about the little girl who could talk to them and ran away after big brother Heizi.

The wild dog disappeared from sight. The young boy snorted disdainfully. He sat upright on his horse, looking down at the little girl lying on the ground. An attendant walked over and picked up the little girl. The little girl was frightened and couldn't stop crying.

The young boy frowned and said to his followers, "She is seriously injured. Ask along the way to see if there is a doctor."

The followers agreed, and several of them mounted their horses and continued on their way. An hour later, they finally found the doctor in a village. The little girl had already fainted from the pain.

An attendant carried the little girl into the house. The doctor examined the little girl and looked out the window seemingly casually. The tall horses, the saddles that were obviously worth a lot of money, and the young boys sitting on the horses in gorgeous clothes all told him one thing: these were a few wealthy passers-by.

The doctor looked at the little girl again. The little girl's clothes were tattered and it was obvious that she was not with these people. Most likely, she was picked up on the road.

He cleared his throat and said, "This little girl is blind and her bones are broken. Even if I fix her bones now, it will take a hundred days to heal. She needs to be well taken care of. She can't travel long distances."

As soon as the doctor finished speaking, two silver ingots fell on the table in front of him.

The doctor swallowed his saliva. The ten-liang silver ingot was a full twenty liang!

An impatient voice of an attendant came to my ears: "Since we can't hurry on, let her recover here. Is this silver enough?"

The doctor's eyes fell on the sword on the attendant's waist, and he hastily looked away: "Enough, enough."

The attendant nodded and said, "Please ask around to see if there is anyone who has lost a child nearby. Or wait for the child to wake up and ask where her home is."

The doctor hurriedly said, "Don't worry, I was born and raised here, and I know this place very well. I will definitely be able to send this little girl home safely."

The attendant was satisfied, gave a few more instructions, and then said goodbye and left.

Xiao Zhen rode his horse forward without looking back, and quickly put everything that had just happened behind him.

This place is more than a hundred miles away from Baifeng City. He ran away from home secretly. The people his parents sent to find him may have already entered Wu. He doesn't have much time left. He must reach Baifeng City as soon as possible to see what his cousin looks like with his own eyes.

In recent months, Xiao Zhen has been having the same dream over and over again. In the dream, a man led his soldiers to kill him, but someone blocked the sword for him and died in his arms.

The man who wanted to kill him called himself his "cousin", while the person who died in his arms called him "brother".

As everyone knows, his mother is Princess Jiayi, his father is Prince Consort Xiao Jingyan, and he is the only son in the family and he has no younger brother at all.

Xiao Zhen didn't believe this dream at first, but not long ago he met his cousin Zhong Zhanbo and unexpectedly discovered that Zhong Zhanbo was somewhat similar to the cousin in his dream, and Zhong Zhanbo's father Zhong Ziyang was also one of his cousins.

The Zhong family has lived in Baifeng City in Wu for generations. Zhong Ziyang has not been to the capital for many years. Therefore, Xiao Zhen has no impression of his cousin Zhong Ziyang. Hearing that Zhong Zhanbo looks like his father, Xiao Zhen decides to come to Baifeng City to see with his own eyes whether Zhong Ziyang is the cousin who wants to kill him in his dream.

So Xiao Zhen took advantage of the time when Princess Jiayi and Prince Consort Xiao went to stay in the temple and quietly left the capital with several of his guards.

At the entrance of the village, the doctor watched the group of people leave the village and let out a long sigh.

"It hurts so much." The little girl woke up from her coma and started crying again as the pain came over her.

The doctor took out a small porcelain bottle, poured out some medicine powder, dissolved it with warm water, and poured the powder into the little girl's mouth.

The little girl soon fell into coma again, and this time she didn't wake up for several hours.

The doctor looked at him carefully. Although the boy was blind, he had an adorable and delicate face. This was the kind of child Wang Guaizi wanted.

The doctor was a little proud of himself. He had deceived the attendant. The little girl seemed to be seriously injured, but in fact, apart from two broken ribs, the rest were just skin injuries, except for the eyes, of course. The broken ribs were probably caused by hitting a hard object during the dragging.

He deliberately spoke in a serious manner because he wanted that group of people to keep the little girl.

However, the doctor did not act rashly. It was not until the evening, when he was sure that those people would not come back, that he asked his son to call Wang Guaizi.

"Old Wang, didn't you ask me to help you find a few disabled children? There happened to be one today, a little blind boy."

Half a month later, at Wuji Temple on the outskirts of Beijing.

"Your Highness, the people we sent out have returned."

Crown Prince Zhao Xian stood up excitedly and looked in the direction of the sound with his lifeless eyes.

"Dr. Yang has arrived in the capital? Hurry up and call him in to treat me, quickly!"

Eunuch Liu struggled to move his body to a position where he could not be hit by anything thrown by Prince Xian.

Ever since Crown Prince Xian suffered from eye disease, he hid in Wuji Temple under the pretext of praying for the emperor. As several imperial doctors were at a loss, the originally gentle Crown Prince Xian became more and more irritable. In recent days, Crown Prince Xian became completely blind. He began to lose his temper and people were hit on the head and bleeding every day.

Eunuch Liu gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness, the old genius doctor Yang Wei did not want to go to the capital and fled overnight."

Nothing fell on him. Eunuch Liu touched the ground with his head. Suddenly, everything around him became quiet, so quiet that he could hear his own heartbeat.

After a long time, the voice of Prince Xian was heard again: "Impossible, the Meng family has done a favor to Yang Wei, Yang Wei will not run away, no, this must be a misunderstanding, maybe the old doctor Yang couldn't wait, went to the capital on his own, and got lost with the people who came to pick him up."

Eunuch Liu wanted to say: It was not only Yang Wei who escaped, but even the family that took Yang Wei in was missing. The door was closed, and no gold or silver jewelry was found in the house. It was obvious that the whole family had escaped.

Think about Yang Wei. He was framed when he was in the Imperial Hospital. If it weren't for Lord Meng pleading for him, the grass on Yang Wei's grave would have been green for more than ten times.

After escaping death with great difficulty, why would I return to the capital?
But Eunuch Liu didn't dare to say anything and could only swallow the words back into his stomach.

But soon, with the arrival of his father-in-law, Lord Meng, Prince Xian had to believe that Yang Wei was really missing!

The people sent by Lord Meng brought back news that Yang Wei and the Shi family were all missing. It was said that the Shi family went to another place to treat their daughter's illness, and Yang Wei went with them.

What a joke!

The daughter of the Shi family is blind. Even Yang Wei cannot cure her eye disease. Which other doctor in the world can cure her?
What about going to other places to seek medical treatment? That's all nonsense!

Yang Wei refused to go to Beijing, and fearing that he would bring trouble to his savior, he fled with Shi's family!
This time, the prince did not lose his temper. He curled up like a child who had made a mistake, and kept talking to himself.
The Eastern Palace blocked the news of the prince's eye disease, and only said to the outside world that the prince was praying for the emperor for a hundred days in Wuji Temple. However, the hundred-day period was about to pass, and the imperial doctors were still helpless, and the people sent to look for Yang Wei never sent back any news.

However, the secret that was kept secret still spread like wildfire. A few days later, the streets and alleys of the capital were talking about the same topic -

The prince has become blind!
This topic spread from the streets to the court. How could the crown prince of a country be a blind person?

The civil and military officials were divided into two factions. One faction begged the emperor to depose Crown Prince Xian and replace him with another prince; the other faction believed that the most urgent task should be to announce to the world to find a famous doctor to cure the crown prince, rather than to appoint another crown prince.

The two factions each held their own views, which caused a headache for Emperor Xuanqing, who was already in poor health.

In Wuji Temple, the prince seemed depressed. Regardless of the fact that he was still in the Taoist temple, he drank to drown his sorrows and got drunk. He was found dead in his sleep the next day. The imperial physician confirmed that he died of a heart disease caused by the drunkenness.

Princess Meng, concubines Lu and Sun hanged themselves to death. In the chaos, the three-year-old grandson Zhao Yuan fell into the water and died.

Emperor Xuanqing was shocked by the bad news and fell ill.

In the autumn of the 15th year of Emperor Xuanqing's reign, Emperor Xuanqing appointed the second prince Zhao Yu as the crown prince. Of the three children of the former crown prince Zhao Xian, except Zhao Yuan who died young, the remaining two daughters were brought into the palace to be raised.

In the same year, Emperor Xuanqing ordered people to build a Taoist temple on Cuiping Mountain, 200 miles away from the capital, and named it Changshou Palace.

In the summer of the 16th year of Xuanqing, Changshou Palace was completed.

A month later, Emperor Xuanqing passed the throne to the crown prince and became the emperor emeritus.

Not long after, the emperor left the palace and went to Changshou Palace to practice Taoism.

The following year, the new emperor changed the reign title to Yongjia, and was known in history as Emperor Yongjia.

Emperor Yongjia posthumously honored his deceased eldest brother Zhao Xian as Emperor Xiaokang, Meng as Empress Xiaokang, and Zhao Xian's two daughters as princesses.

Emperor Yongjia's actions were highly praised by the court and the public.

　My dears, a new book has been opened. I, Yao Hansan, am back! Are you surprised? Are you surprised? Hahahaha~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)