How to Easily Capture a Long Aotian [Quick Transmigration] 76

Chapter 76: The Peerless Minister of a Troubled World (Part 7)

With a pile of things weighing on his mind, Wei Zhiji had been brooding for several days. He finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and, during a break, he had run to a tavern in the city and had ordered a pot of wine.

Drinking was bad for the body, but he was strong and healthy, so it was not a problem. After the banquet, and having witnessed Yu Lin’s weakness, he did not want Yu Lin to drink too much, so he had not touched it for a long time.

He had originally intended to take just a few sips to ease the heaviness in his heart, but as he drank, Wei Zhiji grew more and more restless, as though a fire were burning inside him.

The person was now right under his nose. Whether to keep him or not was all up to him, and it was all up to his will.

The wine seller in the city tavern was an old man. He had been in Huaizhou for decades, and he had a daughter and a grandson.

When the drought had come, his grandson had still been young, and he had almost died of starvation. He was only grateful to Wei Zhiji and the others who had followed Yu Lin to save them.

Wei Zhiji was drinking, and he was by his side. Seeing that Wei Zhiji was just drinking the wine in large gulps, he got up and specially went to the steamer to get some dishes, and he said in a gentle voice, “It’s on the house. These are free. Please eat.”

Under the disaster, there was no good food in Huaizhou. These dishes were wild vegetables that a family had dug up in the mountains before the New Year, and they were pickled in a jar. Although they were rough, they had some flavor.

Grain was so important in Huaizhou. Wei Zhiji lowered his eyes to look at the pickled vegetables on the table, and then at the patch on the old man’s sleeve, and he shook his head. “No. You can take them back and eat them yourself.”

The Wei family’s upbringing was strict, but he had been without a father or older brother to discipline him since he was a child, and his grandmother had doted on him, and he had a lazy personality.

His words and actions, and his thoughts, had only been regulated by someone after the rain in his seventeenth year.

He would not take things from the hands of ordinary people, and he would not scrape these trivial bits of the people’s fat and ointment.

The old man looked at him, his expression gentle. After a while, the wrinkles on the corners of his eyes, which had been weathered by the years, softened, and his voice was hoarse, and his back was hunched. He persuaded Wei Zhiji, “It’s nothing. It’s homemade, and it tastes good. Please try it.”

Wei Zhiji frowned and looked at him.

When he was under his own rule, he would sometimes take people to patrol the streets, and some shopkeepers would come up hesitantly, and without speaking, they would give them wine and sesame seed cakes.

Wei Zhiji did not allow his generals to take them at will, but he could tell that these gazes were not related to fear, and they were not because of the King of Wei, but rather… as if they were concerned about them.

When he was in Luojing, he had been a high and mighty little marquis, and the shopkeepers had been afraid of him, and they would also have waived his wine bill, but the two were completely different.

These differences, not to mention the emperor, even Wei Zhiji himself, sometimes could not figure them out.

He pressed his lips together and looked at the old man who was smiling and pushing the plate over, and his gaze was gentle. After a moment of silence, he asked in a low voice, “You don’t have enough to eat in your own home. Why are you giving it to me? Because I am an official and I control the lives of the common people? Do you want to please me?”

“No.” The old man shook his head when he heard this and said quickly, “I dare not trouble you again.”

“Then is it because I brought grain and let you eat your fill?” Wei Zhiji’s eyes were red from the wine, and his eyes were dark and bright in the night. He continued to ask him.

“No, actually, I don’t know either…” The old man was hunched over, and he was also a little confused when he was asked. He had never read a book, and he couldn’t figure out the reason for this.

After thinking for a moment, he could only stutter, “It’s just that when I think about it, you followed the great lord, and you led us to repair the canal, and you gave us land, and you gave us seeds, and you gave us hope to live. My heart feels hot, and I want you to accept it.”

The old man was just an ordinary old man in Huaizhou. His clothes were patched, and he had been lifeless for his entire life. In his old age, he had actually been given a thin piece of land, and he had a little bit of hope to live, and a little bit of spirit had burst out from his gaze.

Wei Zhiji looked at him and thought to himself, the person he was looking for seemed to have discovered these things long ago.

Wei Zhiji looked at the old man and was silent. After a long while, he nodded slightly. “I know. I’ll take it. Thank you.”

The old man smiled and left.

Wei Zhiji had drunk pot after pot of wine, and his eyelids and cheeks were red. Someone had reported it to Yu Lin, and when Yu Lin had come to find him, he was already drunk.

The night was as cool as water. He was leaning against the wine table and was drinking. The old man did not close his stall, but he lit a lamp and waited on the side.

A little bit of rain was falling at night. Yu Lin was holding an oil-paper umbrella, and he walked in in the faint light of the roof.

He walked in front of Wei Zhiji, and under the light, his eyelashes cast a small shadow on his eyelids.

He reached out lightly, and his slender fingers lifted, and he touched the corner of Wei Zhiji’s eyelid. “Why are you drinking like this alone?”

Wei Zhiji pressed his lips together and looked at him. He glanced at him, and his gaze shifted slightly. He looked up, and he looked at the void in the night outside the wine shed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. “No. I’m just a little stifled.”

“Are you unhappy?” Yu Lin looked at him, his gaze gentle. After a pause, he closed his umbrella, and the fine raindrops still had a hint of coolness, and they were collected into the umbrella ribs.

He was in a green robe, and he was elegant and handsome. He stood in front of Wei Zhiji, and he was like a pearl and a jade. He bent down slightly, and behind him was the moon that was hidden in the layered clouds.

He was also like a moon.

Wei Zhiji looked up at him, and his fingers tightened. He had been training troops for many years, and there was a layer of calluses on his fingers.

He had met this person when he was seventeen, and his love had been deep. After eight years of separation, for a moment, he did not want to let him go.

But this was not his moon alone.

Wei Zhiji’s eyelids were red. He gritted his teeth, and his features were sharp, like a ferocious beast that was about to get angry.

A moment later, he just moved forward, and he lightly pressed his cheek against the side of Yu Lin’s waist, and he nuzzled him, and he said in a muffled voice, “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to let you go.”

His fingers lightly came up and held the side of Yu Lin’s waist. Yu Lin let him hold him, and a moment later, he looked down in a daze and saw a small patch of water on the side of his waist.

The insects in the night were loud, and they were piercing through his eardrums. Yu Lin’s eyelashes drooped slightly, and his fingertips lifted and then fell. After a long while, he moved forward a little, and he lightly touched the corner of his eye. “Okay.”

***

The next day, Wei Zhiji did not admit to the embarrassing thing he had done, but no one dared to laugh at him.

Yu Lin would not laugh at him, and Zhao Lang, who had come to pick him up, wished he could poke his own eyes out, and he did not dare to say a word.

The crisis in Huaizhou had gradually come to an end.

Yu Lin had gone to Huaizhou and had solved the people’s suffering. The people were overjoyed, and they lay on the ground and cried. Some people even set up a longevity tablet for him in their homes.

The powerful families hated him to the bone, but they could not find any leverage, so they had to hold back.

When the matter was settled, and he was about to return to the capital, different voices appeared in the court. Some people asked for credit, and some people were watching.

Many messages were sent to the imperial city. The emperor threw down the memorial and just kept sneering.

For several days, he had been tossing and turning, and his heart had become more and more unhappy. In the past, when the wind and rain were precarious, and there was a rebellion, the person he had needed to rely on in his panic, now that the crisis had passed, and he was also capable, had become a thorn in his side.

The noble consort’s uncle, Chen Zhuo, had sent a secret letter through a dog hole, and it was a timely rain.

Chen Zhuo was cunning. He had first written a long and eloquent letter of loyalty, saying that he was dedicated to the people and the monarch, and he had worked hard, and he was tireless.

He had also said that Yu Lin was in power, and his heart was as hard as iron, and he had turned hostile in the court, and he had killed the innocent, and he had the appearance of a rebellious minister.

In the very end, he had said that Yu Lin had deceived the emperor, and the people of Huaizhou… no, not just Huaizhou, but the world of the Zhao family, since Li Gelin’s death, and Yu Lin had come to the fore, in just a few years, they had only known the minister, Yu, and not the emperor.

After the emperor had read it, he had sneered endlessly, and an ambiguous imperial edict had been issued from the imperial city and had gone straight to Huaizhou.

When the imperial edict had been sent over, Wei Zhiji was leaning against the window of the prefectural yamen with his legs bent. He frowned and looked at this imperial edict, which seemed to have no major problems, and he just felt that something was wrong.

He had a blood feud with the emperor, and he did not hesitate to speculate on the other party with the greatest malice.

In the room, Yu Lin was bending down to sort out the documents, and he was preparing to leave. There were many official duties during this period of time, and he had accumulated a thick box of official documents, which had been sent from various places, and many of them had to be read on the road.

The emperor was afraid of him, but he also relied on him. Since the rebellion, the court of Dayong had been in this kind of deformed coexistence.

Wei Zhiji was leaning against the sunlight, and his arm was supporting his neck. The shade of the trees in the courtyard was cool, and he was holding the imperial edict, and he was looking at it over and over again, and he was looking at Yu Lin with his lips pressed together, and he was hesitant. “This thing, hiss…”

He frowned. “I think something’s wrong. This dog emperor has ill intentions.”

Hearing this, Yu Lin looked up at him, and he was not surprised by his sharpness. After a pause, he put down the document in his hand.

In the bright daylight, Yu Lin’s long sleeves were hanging down, and his eyes were slightly curved, and he looked at Wei Zhiji’s worried face with a comforting look. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

The emperor certainly had ill intentions.

In the script, in the fifteenth year of Chang’an, the minister who had supported Dayong for several years had been killed by the emperor’s suspicion. The world had been shocked, and all the people had pleaded, but it could not be stopped. After the minister had died, there was no one to restrain the four directions, and the heroes had vied for supremacy, and the world had been in chaos.

In the script, this troubled time had lasted for several years. The Central Plains had been broken, and the barbarians had invaded. There were internal and external troubles, and they had fought with each other. When it had ended, not even one in ten of the people in the world were left, and the foreign tribes had invaded, and human life was like pigs and dogs.

But it would not be like that now.

Yu Lin had sorted out the various states of Dayong for several years. Even if there was chaos, with the people he had left behind, they would also guide the people to have a way to live.

And Wei Zhiji had been lying low for eight years, and he had been accumulating his strength. His troops were strong and his horses were strong, and his supplies were sufficient. The feudal lords of the world, and the iron hooves of the barbarians, were no match for him.

This unstoppable change of dynasty would be carried out in a gentler way. Although death would still exist, it would not make a nation linger on its last breath, and be trampled by foreign tribes, but it would leave hope and be reborn.

When he had gotten the script, Yu Lin had seen the scene of the broken mountains and rivers at the end, and the people being slaughtered like pigs and dogs, and he had designed such a route.

He had checked, and his points were almost enough. He would continue to carry out the mission, and besides wrapping things up, it was for this person who was looking for him in every world.

He could not be sure of the other’s identity, and he was worried that the other would not be able to find him, so he had not left at will, and he had wanted to wait until things were a little more stable.

This was the purpose, but facing the background of this world, Yu Lin’s instinct made him unable to ignore the warmth of being a human.

He could not turn a blind eye, and he had to do something.

He was tall and slender, and he was standing in front of the desk. Wei Zhiji jumped down from the windowsill, and he walked to his side, and his pair of eyes were sharp, and his eyes were dark, and he was looking at him without blinking.

“I will support what you want to do.” Wei Zhiji looked at him, and he frowned slightly, and as if he had thought of something, he gritted his teeth. “Do you know something? Do you have to go back?”

His hand was quietly holding the hilt of the sword at his waist, and he had already sensed that something was wrong. He threw down the imperial edict, and his lips were pressed together deeply, and he said without a doubt, “You can do it. I’ll be with you.”

He had grown up, and he was no longer the seventeen-year-old little marquis who would ride his horse through the streets and would bite people in a fit of pique if he didn’t understand.

He was now a general, and a king who had a territory. He had troops, and he had grain, and he had the ability and the confidence. As long as he wanted, he could do anything he wanted in this world.

He would not be heartbroken in another impending autumn rain, and he would not continue to be helpless.

Yu Lin looked at him and reached out to close the box by his side.

A moment later, his eyelashes lifted slightly, and his features were quiet. He gently shook his head at Wei Zhiji and smiled. “I need you, but not to go back with me.”