Chapter 201 - The man who fettered Zhu Quan
Chapter 201 The man who fettered Zhu Quan
Feng Yang waved the folding fan and then paused. Blinking his innocent eyes, he asked, “Ha? Bai Yangbai? Sister He, how can you call Taoist Sage by his first name? Be careful that your backyard will be flooded with rain as soon as he gets angry. Please show a bit of respect for him in the future.”
“Oh?” He Danggui raised her eyebrows and hanged up her lips. She said, “Do you mean that I misunderstood you? In that way, the man who is a little interested to me and wants to be my ‘umbrella’ is not Taoist Sage, but you, Childe Feng? It’s a great pleasure. So, Childe Feng, when do you become interested in me? I don’t even know.”
Feng Yang was stunned again. He didn’t expect to pass the test by this way. Really? Did Girl He really regard him as Feng Yang? He thought, “Whatever, let me find out whether her attitude towards Feng Yang is the complex feelings of ambivalence at first.”
She had just regarded him as Feng Yang. And when she heard that he was going to take her away, her attitude towards friends turned into the attitude towards enemies immediately. And she was on a state of combat! Then she said, “You won’t get what you want. You can only take my body away.” It was so exciting about what kind of entanglement between her and Feng Yang. Was Feng Yang’s feeling towards her the same as Duan Xiaolou’s feeling? Feng Yang pursued but failed, and then he tossed and turned. Maybe she had admired Feng Yang for a long time, but she couldn’t lower her noble head. Then she caused the hate instead of love and avoided Feng Yang until she heard that he was a gay man.
Bai Yangbai thought, “Girl, don’t blame me for my strong curiosity. Just because you have multiple mysteries, people around you will like to explore the mystery one by one. Then I will explore immodestly!”
“Eh-hem!” Bai Yangbai cleared his throat with the face of Feng Yang. “Sister He, I’ve been loving you actually for a long time. I heard that you were also interested in me, so I proposed to the Madam Luo. However, your reaction was not very good, and I suspended the proposal temporarily. I want to ask you privately. What’s your opinion of me?” While saying, he thought, “Come on. Go ahead. What’s your opinion of Feng Yang?”
Holding her chin with forefinger, He Danggui thought and said in the meantime, “Let me think, Childe Feng. You are young, promising, generous and full of justice. Your family have so much money, and you have so many sisters. You are the person who makes all men with envy and the object of all the women competing for marriage. But then, I have never told you about my thoughts. How do you know that I have been interested in you implicitly?” Since Bai Yangbai liked to play, she could play with him.
Bai Yangbai was surprised. It was so fast to confess! He didn’t expect that Girl He liked Feng Yang who was a marked man. Although Chang Nuo under the mask was not inferior to Feng Yang, Chang Nuo had been hanged out with Zhu Quan all these years and was not cute at all. Chang Nuo’s real temperament in the childhood was covered by that mask. Now, Chang Nuo couldn’t find himself either. Well, in short, Chang Nuo had gradually become the second Zhu Quan. And all his head and heart were full of ambition.
Bai Yangbai still felt a bit of guilty when he thought of Zhu Quan. When he saw the Seventeenth Prince of Zhu Yuanzhang for the first time, he found that Quan’s outline and brown eyes were much alike Prince Ji. So, he suspected that Quan had the same Mongolian noble blood as himself.
Taking advantage of the opportunity that Zhu Yuanzhang called him into the palace, he ran to see Consort Yang, who was the mother of Seventeenth Prince. Ha, his cousin Yang Hua who was the Infanta Xiye in those years had become the favorite consort of Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang! She could not leave the extravagant palace life, or she wanted to hide around Zhu Yuanzhang and waited for the opportunity to avenge the country’s destruction?
He didn’t know the answer. His mood was too complicated, so he didn’t go to ask her. When he wanted to ask her, Consort Yang had offended Zhu Yuanzhang and been cut off her beautiful head. As a result, he could no longer get the answer. So, he had to train the Seventeenth Prince with great care, instilling in Quan the political strategies that he had learned and seen from the imperial palace of the Yuan Dynasty and passing on to him all kinds of ingenious skills that he had learned from the marketplaces and Jianghu of the Ming Dynasty. Then the Seventeenth Prince could become an independent man and not lose the face of their Mongolian aristocratic men.
Seeing that the Seventeenth Prince had becoming more and more interested in imperial skills, Bai Yangbai had a complicated feeling. He didn’t know when Quan was more like his father who was a kind of person living in a cover. Had this natural noble blood wakened up so that Quan yearned for the supreme position? Was the learning from him and his deep hatred for Zhu Yuanzhang, infected and assimilated Quan? And it finally put Quan into that cover?
At the beginning, Bai Yangbai couldn’t help but give his nephew a hand when he saw his nephew was living too hard in the capital. He helped his nephew go further and stand on a higher position. In this way, people who treated Quan with tease would become fewer. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Quan as Lord Ning and let him be in charge of the 40,000 cavalries of Daning. However, Quan asked him for some advice about how to go further and gain more power to master more troops. Quan also wanted to know how to make more civil and military ministers attach to him, and let Zhu Yuanzhang trust him more and rely on him.
At that time, Bai Yangbai had a thought. Was there anything wrong when he originally wanted to help Quan “go further”?
Since Quan was a prince, did the power of “going further” and temptation of killing completely change him? He went further and then went further again. He would face the struggle for the crown prince and the throne in the future. Although Quan was a prince, he was the seventeenth in the family. How many obstacles did he have to clear to take the throne? Those obstacles were all his siblings. Wouldn’t he care about them?
However, no matter whether Bai Yangbai regretted or not, he couldn’t correct and control Quan anymore. As soon as Quan was put into the sky like a former paper kite, he became an eagle on the prairie. “The vast sea leaps by fish and the sky is high enough for birds to fly.” Left him to pursue his power ambition and the desire to kill. There was nothing could fetter him anymore on the earth. Even his only mother who was always in his heart, was taken away by Zhu Yuanzhang. What should he have to worry about? Could it be said that one day, the young man in white who used to lute by the sidewalk in the capital, would really follow a road that full of blood and directly split a road of king?
Well, it’s too late to repent. Now there had no choice in this matter. Even as his little Uncle and also his teacher, had no idea of him. A demon went into Quan’s heart, but he confused the world with a perfect mask of Immortal. All the civil and military officials in the court as well as little girls who dreamed of love in their boudoirs admired him. Even the Girl He, who was as hard as stones, also interested in him... Alas...
Oh? Girl He liked Chang Nuo who disguised himself as Feng Yang. Was it because Chang Nuo and Quan had a similar temperament? The people Girl He actually liked were a kind of figures as domineering as Quan, who trampled all women under the feet, right?
Bai Yangbai glanced at the beautiful calm face and said something in the heart. She required all the men who pursued her to achieve monogamy in all her life. In fact, she was afraid that the other could not control such a queen like her. It was a way of gentle refusal! When Quan came to her one day, she would change from a crow which pecked everywhere to a gentle little canary and jump into Quan’s cage obediently.
Tut-tut, he didn’t expect that she was a masochist... But when did she fall in love with Quan?
As he thought it, he blurted out, “Well, Sister He, although I like you a little bit, but I still think I prefer a man rather a woman. So, I have to think about it carefully for your admiration.” Bai Yangbai shamelessly brought shame on Feng Yang with the face of Feng Yang. He thought that Feng Yang always chased after him and asked for studies. Maybe there was really something about impure love. Bai Yangbai asked tentatively while playing a fan, “I also heard that you had a little admiration for Zhu Quan, the Lord Ning. When did you meet and fall in love with him? I’m so curious!”
Bai Yangbai didn’t know that he had thoroughly exposed himself because of his last words.
As early as the day when Feng Yang brought the rare pearl and blood coral to He Danggui as the “love token” of Zhu Quan for the first time, He Danggui was forced to receive the gift, but she also took the opportunity to make some rules with Feng Yang. The first rule was that he should not mention “Lord Ning” or “Zhu Quan” casually in front of her. And if he had to mention, he should use the pseudonym “Ning Yuan” to replace it.
Although this request was a bit of deceiving herself, He Danggui could not stand the disgust from her heart when the name rang around her ears. She disgusted the utilitarian and selfish Zhu Quan, and also deeply disliked herself who was deceived and confused by Zhu Quan in the previous life. She had made up her mind to say goodbye to herself who had no self in the previous life. She had started again in a new body. Why not let her go? She did not understand why the Immortal made such an arrangement. Since she was given a new life, why did she suffer in the fog of the previous life?
The second rule was that Feng Yang could not mention that some bigwigs were interested in her in front of the Madam Luo. At the same time, he should be so cautious in his words. Otherwise, Madam Luo may think that there was something between Feng Yang and her, and then discussed the marriage with Ms. Feng. She did not want to be sold at a low price unconsciously.
What He Danggui had planned in the heart was that as long as she seized opportunities at the end of Hongwu Period, she could pick up some treasures in the gap of the power center and get a new identity. She would no longer be criticized in her life, and she could benefit her mother as well. Her mother did not have to hide in Taoist temple all her life. The most important thing was that she could find a person who liked her and get married as his wife with her gorgeous identity. Then she could refuse him to marry concubines with the status of wife, so as to achieve her wonderful wish of monogamy.
At that time, Feng Yang casually agreed to her in first two requests, and then comforted her with soft words. He said that she didn’t have to be too nervous or afraid. “Lord” was also the human being instead of a kind of monster which ate people. Ning Yuan just appreciated her temperament which was different from the ordinary girl from a pure man’s point of view. At the same time, he pitied her desolate life experience and wanted to help her live a better life. And then he would let those snobs of Luo’s Family look up to her.
He Danggui jeered. Ho-ho. If she were still herself in previous life, maybe she would be really deluded by his words. It was so attractive and infectious! However, she had a deep common sense since she had already spent two lives. It was that there was no free lunch in the world. Any attractive foods couldn’t be put on her mouth in vain, because all the good appearances were exchanged for the interests behind it equivalently.
She was “appreciated” by Zhu Quan just because she had aroused his interest in a wrong way, which made him feel that she was a person who could help his great cause of kingship. At that time when Zhu Quan’s Zhenqi was so frenzied that almost led Zhu Quan to be possessed by the devil, if she had behaved like a normal woman after she woke up from his bed, he would have not been interested in her. She would kneel down in tears and pester him repeatedly when she heard that he would let her be his concubine. She would ask him not to leave her and take her together. Then he must have a disgust for her and avoid her, as if avoiding a snake or a scorpion.
If she could reborn again, she would not offend Zhu Quan and hurt Duan Xiaolou.