Jinyi Spring

Three days later, one afternoon, Zheng He invited Feng Chuchen to the Zheng family home.

Ming Shanyue was waiting in the hall.

Before Feng Chuchen could even sit down, she asked, "How is Uncle Wang?"

Ming Shanyue said, "I'm much better. These past few days, my father, my eldest uncle, and Lord Xiao have all gone to see him..."

Wang Tu recounted that past event...

In mid-July of the fifth year of the Jianzhang era, the weather took an unusual turn. Despite it being the height of summer, it was unusually cold, and a chilling wind blew for three days. Then, on the evening of the fourth day, hail began to fall with a deafening crack. Large hailstones pelted the roof tiles, creating a chilling, sharp sound throughout the city.

Just then, the Empress Dowager fell ill.

It is said that she had a nightmare that night, in which a blood-soaked, skinned monster lunged straight at her. After waking up, the Empress Dowager was filled with unease, lost her appetite, and worried day and night about the Emperor who was leading troops in battle, fearing that the dream was some kind of ominous sign.

People get sick from staying up all night like that.

Upon hearing the news, Consort Xue, who was eight months pregnant, immediately knelt before the Empress Dowager's bedside, tearfully requesting permission to go to Zixia Nunnery to offer incense and pray for the safety of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor.

Empress Xiao was also eight months pregnant. Since Consort Xue had gone, she had no choice but to go as well.

Empress Dowager Xue, moved by their filial piety, agreed.

On the morning of July 13th, the sky was overcast. Wang Tu's Imperial Guard was ordered to escort Empress Xiao and Consort Xue to Zixia Nunnery.

Among the female doctors accompanying him was his cousin-in-law, Dr. Cai.

In the evening, Wang Tu was patrolling outside the nunnery when he saw Cai, the female physician, emerge from the side gate. As she passed by him, her eyes met his briefly before she walked to a tree, squatted down, and pretended to put on her shoes.

Wang Tu understood immediately.

After Dr. Cai left, he looked around to make sure no one was watching, then quickly walked to the tree. In the green grass, a small stone pressed down a tiny folded piece of paper.

Wang Tu pretended that a pebble had gotten into his shoe, bent down to take off his shoe, and quickly crumpled the note into his palm.

In the outhouse, he unfolded the note.

There is a line of small characters above: "At 1:15 AM, see behind the artificial rock on the right side of the Guanyin Hall; there is important business to attend to."

Wang Tu's heart tightened. His cousin-in-law was a cautious person; she would never have offered to see him in the middle of the night unless something extremely serious had happened.

At midnight, the bright moon hung high in the sky, its cool light casting a soft glow on the glazed tiles of the Guanyin Hall. A mountain breeze rustled the leaves.

The chill was bone-chilling; this was hardly the weather of mid-July.

Wang Tu crouched low, walked briskly along the wall, bypassed the night patrol guards, and crept to the right side of the Guanyin Hall.

A dark figure was already waiting in the crevices of the artificial rockery. The person was curled up, almost blending into the rock.

"Sister-in-law," he called out softly.

The shadowy figure stirred and raised its head. Moonlight slanted in, illuminating Dr. Cai's face, which was streaked with tears.

Wang Tu's heart tightened. "What's wrong?"

Dr. Cai didn't say anything, but moved her body to the side, barely making room for Wang Tu to squeeze in.

The female doctor, Cai, grabbed his arm, her knuckles trembling. "Uncle, I'm so sorry for dragging you into this mess. But I really have no other choice."

"What happened?"

The female physician, Cai, wiped her face haphazardly with her sleeve, her voice extremely low, "Consort Xue will find a way to make Her Majesty the Empress give birth prematurely, sometime tomorrow night or tonight. Regardless of whether it's a prince or a princess, she wants me to... kill the child before it cries."

She choked back tears, forcing herself not to cry out. "Then, they'll replace it with a skinned rabbit and say I delivered a monster. The child will be taken to Qingmiao Mountain and buried."

Wang Tu was so shocked that he couldn't speak, and then his fists clenched so tightly they cracked.

After a long pause, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence through gritted teeth, "Utterly depraved! They'd do such heinous things just to help the Second Prince seize the throne!"

Tears welled up in Doctor Cai's eyes again. "Consort Xue said that if I don't do it, everyone in the Wang and Cai families will die..." Her eyes were filled with despair. "But Her Majesty the Empress has been kind to me, I can't harm her..."

Wang Tu's voice was low and firm, "Regardless of whether there was any kindness or not, we cannot harm her. This is a capital crime punishable by the extermination of an entire family!"

Dr. Cai murmured, "I don't care anymore. Whether I do it or not, I'll die anyway. I just don't want to burden my family... so many people, young and old..."

She covered her mouth tightly, suppressing her sobs, her shoulders shaking violently.

Upon hearing this, Wang Tu felt a weight pressing on his heart. If he didn't do it, the Xue family wouldn't let them off the hook, and the whole family would die. If he did it, he would be morally corrupt, and if the truth came out, the whole family would still die.

The night wind stung his eyes. He blinked, then punched the artificial rock, the impact making his hand ache.

Suddenly, a patrolling soldier's shout rang out from afar, "Who's there?"

Wang Tu's heart tightened, and he quickly shrank back, mimicking a cat's meow in a high-pitched voice: "Meow—"

The footsteps paused for a moment, then gradually faded into the distance.

Wang Tu breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his voice, saying, "Sister-in-law, I think... we can't do this. Either way we're going to die, so it's better to be a loyal subject."

When Dr. Cai saw that her brother-in-law was thinking the same thing as her, a hint of relief flashed in her eyes.

She gritted her teeth and said, "I know a medical skill that no one else knows, not even my family. It was taught to me by the elders of the Li tribe. It can make a newborn baby hold its breath and appear dead for two hours. Can you think of a way to get away, track down the people who buried the child, and rescue the child within two hours? That way, the child won't die, and our family can be saved."

Wang Tu was silent for a moment, his brows furrowed. "What happens after we save the child? He's premature. Even if he didn't appear dead, he won't be easy to raise. Besides, I'm a man, how would I know how to raise a child? I can't take him home, and I can't ask someone else to raise him..."

Dr. Cai said urgently, "There's a village called Baima Village in the southwest of Qingmiao Mountain, and Dr. Feng lives at the east end of the village. She's not only good at midwifery, but also at pediatrics. She's kind and compassionate... If you leave your child at her doorstep, she'll definitely save her and protect her. I trust her!"

Wang Tu had heard of Doctor Feng and knew about the reed marshes she had cultivated. He lowered his head and thought for a long time. The night wind howled and blew into the cracks in the rocks, chilling him to the bone.

After a long pause, he raised his head, his eyes filled with determination. "I'm good at swimming. Tomorrow, I'll find a way to fake my death by falling into the water. Then I'll hide, follow the person who buried the child, rescue the child, and take him to the Feng family's doorstep in Baima Village."

"Feigned death?" Doctor Cai was taken aback, and her tears flowed even more profusely.

“My uncle has chosen this path, so the rest of his life will be hard. I can't help dying, but it's causing my uncle to suffer as well…”

“Sister-in-law,” Wang Tu interrupted her, his voice soft but each word like a hammer blow, “you, a woman, can calmly face death for the greater good, what is a little suffering to me!”

He looked up at the moon in the sky.

The moon was still the same moon, hanging coldly and forlornly in the sky. But he knew that from this day forward, his life would never be the same again.

He lowered his head and looked at the woman in front of him.

Delicate, petite, her face streaked with tears. Yet, this very person dared to risk everything to save the life of a child she had never even met.

What do I have to be afraid of?
“Sister-in-law,” he said in a deep voice, his tone no longer hesitant, “if I can save the child and escape, I will definitely find a way to overturn the case and avenge you. Wang Tu swears this.”

He raised his left hand, his gaze piercing, the vow weighing heavily on the night, on their hearts.

Dr. Cai raised her hand and fiercely wiped away her tears. When she looked at him again, the panic and despair in her eyes were gone, replaced by a firm and bright light.

"I believe you, sister-in-law." The next afternoon, Empress Xiao indeed encountered a wild cat that jumped down from a tree. She was so frightened that she had a miscarriage.

At dusk, Wang Tu patrolled to the banks of the Baicang River. He walked slowly, as if admiring the scenery, or perhaps waiting for something. Once the people in front of him had created some distance between them, and the current in this area was extremely swift, he suddenly slipped—and fell into the river.

Chaos erupted on the shore, with some shouting "Help!" and others running to grab bamboo poles and ropes.

Wang Tu struggled in the water for a few moments before being swept away by the swift current and disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye.

By the time they found bamboo poles and ropes, the river was already empty, with only ripples gradually disappearing.

After it got completely dark, a figure quietly emerged from the reeds downstream on the opposite bank.

Wang Tu waited in the darkness until midnight.

At the beginning of the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), a figure finally appeared on the small bridge—a eunuch, carrying a wooden box, sneakily jogging towards the other side of the river.

The moonlight tonight was eerily bright. Even from a distance, Wang Tu recognized the eunuch as Eunuch Bai, who served Consort Xue.

Wang Tu quietly followed them.

The deeper we went into the mountain, the more the shadows of the trees loomed, like countless menacing ghosts. In the distance came the howls of wild animals, one after another, particularly eerie.

The more Bai Gonggong walked, the slower he became, and the more frightened he grew.

Finally, he stopped in a secluded mountain hollow.

He took out the small shovel he always carried and, with trembling hands, dug a shallow hole. He placed the wooden box inside, squatted there, and muttered something under his breath:
"Every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor... Blame Consort Xue and Lord Xue... It has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with me..."

After only a few shovelfuls of soil, Grandpa Bai threw down the shovel and ran away without looking back.

Wang Tu rushed out from behind the tree, pounced on the shallow mound of earth, knelt on the ground, and frantically dug away the thin layer of soil with both hands.

The wooden box was revealed.

Upon opening the box, in the moonlight, a small face, as pale as paper, with eyes tightly closed, and a small body wrapped in a cloth, appeared as if dead.

Wang Tu's heart clenched tightly, as if gripped by an invisible hand, the pain making it hard to breathe.

He faked his death; it was just a fake death.

He took a deep breath, hugged the wooden box tightly to his chest, and turned to walk quickly toward Baima Village.

He could reach Baima Village in an hour at this speed—but he dared not run too fast, for fear of hurting the baby in the box. Nor did he dare to take the baby out; he didn't know how to hold a nursing baby.

More than half an hour later, they finally emerged from Qingmiao Mountain.

Suddenly, a vast expanse of reeds opened up before me, swaying and rolling in the night wind, their backs bent low. Under the moonlight, the white expanse stretched out like clouds and mist, boundless and endless.

He knew that this was the famous Green Reed Marsh.

To his surprise, deep in the reeds, there stood a lone plum tree. Even more strangely, in the height of summer, the tree had blossomed—it had only one branch, yet it was covered in dense blossoms, the pink petals trembling slightly in the night breeze, as if it were separated from the outside world.

Without thinking twice, he continued walking briskly towards the village, clutching the wooden box.

Baima Village lies quietly at the foot of the mountain, not far away.

At the east end of the village, there was a small courtyard with a tiled roof, dark and quiet—that must be the home of Doctor Feng.

But the small fenced courtyard next door was quite lively. Two people were standing in the courtyard, and three or four people were going in and out. The faint sound of a woman's moans could also be heard.

Wang Tu dared not step forward. The moonlight was too bright; he was afraid of being seen.

He crouched down behind a tree, his heart pounding. He clutched the wooden box in his arms even tighter; the tiny figure pressed against his chest through the wooden board, so light it was almost weightless.

Just as they were hesitating, a heart-wrenching wail suddenly came from the fenced courtyard—it was a woman's cry, "My eldest grandson, just like that, gone..."

That family's child is gone.

Wang Tu was taken aback, then breathed a huge sigh of relief.

He lowered his head, looking at the wooden box in his arms, and murmured, "Child, even God is on your side, you are not meant to die..."

He turned back and walked towards the reed marshes.

I ventured into the reeds and came to the flowering plum tree. Moonlight filtered through the petals, creating a dappled and hazy effect.

He remembered the old saying that trees that bloom in the twelfth lunar month often hold children who didn't survive the winter. But this was the height of summer in July; these flowers bloomed specifically for this child, telling a story of unspeakable injustice…

He broke off a thick branch and began digging a hole under the tree.

It took them more than fifteen minutes to dig a shallow hole.

He placed the wooden box inside, which was more than an inch above the ground. In daylight, people would easily see the partially buried wooden box.

He paused, opened the box, and looked at the small face in the moonlight. Pale, quiet, as if asleep.

He gently patted the child's face, silently saying: Cry, cry out loud, let Doctor Feng hear you and come to save you...

The child didn't cry.

He had no choice but to close the lid and sprinkle some sand on it.

Suddenly, footsteps approached.

He slipped into the reeds nearby.

The footsteps grew closer.

Under the moonlight, two women led a large dog into the reed marshes.

They stopped not far from the plum tree and began digging a hole.

Wang Tu was extremely anxious, so he lowered his voice and imitated a cat's meow twice, "Meow...meow..."

The two women did indeed raise their heads and look in their direction.

Just as Wang Tu was about to call out again, a faint cry suddenly came from inside the wooden box.

The cry was soft and gentle, like that of a newborn kitten, and it was especially clear in the quiet night.

The two women were startled, then dropped what they were holding and ran towards the plum tree. The big dog barked wildly at Wang Tu in the reeds, but the two women were distracted by the child's cries and didn't notice the dog.

Wang Tu stared intently at that direction through the gaps in the reeds.

A woman pulled a child out of a pit, while another woman picked up a rolled-off bead from the ground.

He heard their conversation and watched them put another dead child into the pit and hastily bury it; then they broke off the flowering branch and threw it into the reeds beside him.

Then, pulling the still-barking dog along, he turned and walked back towards the village. (End of Chapter)