Palace maid Shuoning

(Up)

Zhou Zhengyin pushed open the door to the room in the southeast corner again. Song Zhang, who was on the bed, heard the noise and instinctively shrank to the corner of the bed.

Song Zhang. The name that Eunuch Xin mentioned that night was Yu Mama's younger brother.

The room still had that stuffy, suffocating smell, a mixture of mold and excrement.

Zhou Zhengyin carried a candle to the bedside and placed it on the corner of the bed.

The candlelight flickered, illuminating Song Zhang's huddled silhouette.

"It's me again." He said softly, taking out the packet of osmanthus cake from his pocket and placing it by the bedside. He picked up a piece and gently smelled it. "Osmanthus cake. You haven't had anything good in a long time."

Song Zhang did not move. The dark line on his eyelid reflected slightly in the candlelight, like a scar that had long since healed.

Zhou Zhengyin pushed the osmanthus cake towards him again, took a half step back, and squatted down.

The candlelight cast the shadows of two people on the wall, one huddled up and the other crouching, separated by the distance of a piece of osmanthus cake.

"My aunt brought this to me. Try it." Zhou Zhengyin's voice was a little softer than before.

Song Zhang stirred, making a muffled hoarse sound, but did not crawl over.

Zhou Zhengyin didn't insist. He simply sat down on the ground, glanced out the window, and then slowly spoke:

"My mother was Consort Mi back then. Eunuch Xin told me everything."

Upon hearing this, Song Zhang seemed to have been struck hard by something, his whole body pressed tightly against the wall and trembling violently, squeezing out intermittent hoarse sounds from his throat.

It seemed like he wanted to say something, but he couldn't say anything at all.

Zhou Zhengyin didn't look at him; his gaze remained fixed on the view outside the window, and his voice was neither hurried nor slow:

"But I've been thinking about something these past few days. Granny Yu is your sister, and the two of you are the closest people to my mother."

My mother drank the medicine your sister brought her, which is why she started behaving strangely. That person then used the Imperial Observatory to convict my mother.

But after my mother was given a death sentence, none of her acquaintances should have escaped. Why was Granny Yu still able to go to the imperial mausoleum to take care of me? And you didn't die either; you were just stripped of your tongue and hands and thrown into Changmen Palace.

He paused for a moment, then finally turned his gaze to Song Zhang, his voice lowering:

"We cut off your tongue to prevent you from exposing us, and we chopped off your hands to prevent you from writing. Then why did we even sew your eyes back on? Was it to prevent you from recognizing someone?"

Song Zhang froze abruptly, as if frozen in place, even his groans ceasing. The room was so quiet that only the occasional crackling of the candlelight could be heard.

Zhou Zhengyin looked at him quietly, his gaze gradually turning cold, like a candle flame burning out its last wick.

"So, half of what Eunuch Xin said is false. No, most of it is false."

He began to recount his bold speculations from the past few days:

"He said you were tortured like this because you discovered that bowl of medicine. But I thought about it, and that doesn't make sense. You and your sister might have been planted by someone to serve my mother. You were working for that person from the very beginning."

That person spared Granny Yu because he wanted her to kill me in the imperial tomb. But he didn't expect that Granny Yu might have a conscience and hesitated to act.

That's why there was that fire; they wanted to burn us both alive. In the end, she died, while I was so traumatized that I became mentally impaired, disabled, and unable to speak, which finally dissuaded that person from ever doing anything about it.

He paused, his gaze heavy as he looked at Song Zhang:

"But you're different. That person ultimately couldn't bring himself to kill you, because you're more than just a pawn."

Zhou Zhengyin suddenly stood up from the ground, clenched his fists, bent down and grabbed Song Zhang's tattered clothes, pulling him in front of him, his voice low and deep:

"In this palace, there are only two kinds of people who can make you and your sister serve you loyally. One kind is those who have been kind to you, and the other is your blood relatives, right?"

(under)

Upon hearing this, Song Zhang let out a series of rapid hoarse sounds, as if he had choked on something, or as if he wanted to deny something.

He desperately tried to shrink himself into the wall.

Zhou Zhengyin didn't loosen his grip; instead, he tightened it even more, his voice low and deep:

"I guessed right, didn't I?"

Song Zhang's body stiffened for a moment, then trembled even more violently.

Zhou Zhengyin stared at his sewn-up eyes and said, word by word:

"Not killing you is either out of kinship or some other kind of affection, right?"

Song Zhang seemed to be nailed to the spot, even his groans stopped, and his chest heaved rapidly, as if some words were stuck deep inside him.

Suddenly, he jerked his head back, opened his mouth wide, and made a "hoarse" sound in his throat, like crying or laughing at the same time.

Tears streamed from her stitched-up eyes, running down the scabs on her face. She shook her head violently, her tattered clothes trembling with the movement.

Zhou Zhengyin was taken aback, slowly released his grip, took a few steps back, and quietly watched his madman-like behavior.

After a long while, Song Zhang slowly crawled to the edge of the bed and slid down to the floor.

Zhou Zhengyin's heart softened, and he was about to squat down to help him up, but Song Zhang pushed his hand away forcefully, as if resisting, or as if trying to maintain his last bit of dignity.

He struggled to sit up, raised the shrunken, fleshy part of his right wrist to his mouth, and bit down hard with his teeth.

Zhou Zhengyin's pupils suddenly contracted. Before he could stop him, Song Zhang's mouth was already full of blood, but he seemed not to feel any pain.

Then, with great effort, he pressed the bloody severed wrist to the ground and slowly dragged out a few words.

The candlelight flickered, illuminating the dark red strokes.

Zhou Zhengyin squatted down and looked closely. It was half a line of poetry, the handwriting crooked and twisted, as if the sentence had been bitten off, leaving only a few incomplete words.

Even the mimosa tree knows its time...

Zhou Zhengyin was stunned.

The next sentence is:

"Mandarin ducks do not sleep alone."

He looked up at Song Zhang in confusion. Song Zhang was already slumped on the ground, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He was breathing heavily, and his sewn-up eyes were looking in Zhou Zhengyin's direction, as if waiting for a response.

Zhou Zhengyin recited the half-line of poetry in his mind again, and suddenly understood something. His voice was very soft:

"Who wrote this poem for you?"

Song Zhang did not answer, but slowly lowered his head, pressed his forehead against the cold ground, and his shoulders trembled violently.

Zhou Zhengyin didn't ask any more questions. He stood up, gently placed the osmanthus cake into Song Zhang's arms, and turned to leave.

The moment the door closed, he stood under the eaves and recited that half-line of poetry again.

Even the mimosa knows when to sleep, and the mandarin ducks do not sleep alone.

Looking at the night sky, he suddenly realized that there were far more things hidden in this palace than he had imagined.

In the latter half of the night, Zhou Zhengyin tossed and turned in bed, Song Zhang's poem replaying in his mind, unable to close his eyes.

Suddenly, a sharp, urgent shout came from the courtyard: "Get up quickly! There's a fire! There's a fire!"

Zhou Zhengyin suddenly sat up, looked out the window, and saw thick smoke billowing and flames shooting into the sky, clearly pointing towards the southeast corner.

His heart sank suddenly. Without thinking, he jumped out of bed and rushed out.

The courtyard was in complete chaos. Thick smoke made it impossible for people to open their eyes. Everyone rushed out, carrying buckets of water, and ran desperately towards Song Zhang's room.

The fire was incredibly fierce, with bright red flames shooting out from the doors and windows, crackling and popping, and the heat was so intense that people couldn't get close at all.

Several eunuchs rushed forward but were scalded and retreated. Water was poured on them, but only a puff of white smoke was stirred up, and the fire did not diminish at all.

The patrolling guards were also alerted. Footsteps, shouts, and the clattering of buckets mingled together, turning the entire Changmen Palace into a boiling pot of water.

The fire, fueled by the wind, soon spread to the neighboring houses, leaping up one after another, billowing thick smoke that choked people's throats.

Zhou Zhengyin also rushed forward with a bucket of water, but the fire was too big, and he couldn't get close at all. He took two steps back, looked up, and saw that the flames had already licked at the eaves of the house where he lived.

His pupils contracted sharply; his valuables were inside. Almost without hesitation, he pushed through the crowded room and rushed inside.