Marriage of the Di Daughter

Chapter 109 Part 2: Seven Days

After waiting patiently for a while, someone finally came out from inside. However, it wasn’t the leading officer just now, rather it was an ordinary attendant. After he walked to the front of Jiang Li and her group of people, he sized them for a while before saying, “Master permitted you to go in.”

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Ye Ming Yu snorted and said, “No need to say Master here and Master there, I’m not someone from Tongxiang, why do I care whether he’s a Master or not?”

That attendant was probably also angry, yet he was afraid of Ye Ming Yu’s cloth wrapped big fist. So he endured his anger and said, “Come in.”

Jiang Li and Ye Ming Yu followed.

The further inside she walked, Jiang Li discovered that the yamen had changed beyond recognition. It didn’t just look brand new, even all the officers, bodyguards, and even the people bringing tea had all changed. There was no shadow of a single person she was familiar with.

It should be due to fear of falling into people’s tongues1, thus in such a hurry to destroy evidence. 

When they walked into the main hall, they saw a group of officers standing on both sides of the hall holding sticks and looking ferocious. Jiang Li and Ye Ming Yu walked inside resembling sinners who were brought into the hall and were going to accept punishment.

The attendant spoke, “Master, the people have been brought in.”

Jiang Li looked up to see.

Sitting on the high seat at the front of the hall was a thin middle-age man. This person’s pointed mouth and monkey cheeks made people unwell at first glance. Especially his pair of triangle shaped eyes, spinning around and around as he sized the people up and down, was especially vulgar. If nobody said it, nobody would normally believe that this was the county deputy. Though a person should not be judged by their appearance, there’s also a saying that the appearance followed the heart. One look and it could be seen that this person was not upright and a schemer, not much different from a street gangster, really too far from his appellation as an official.

His sitting posture was also not proper. Jiang Li frowned slightly as she noticed. The position where this person was sitting was previously the place where Xue Huai Yuan often sat. Her father sat here to decide for the people, while this person sat here like a monkey wearing a hat, making people unhappy upon laying eyes on him, as if he was insulting the county yamen.

“Are you looking for this official?” That thin monkey-like official asked arrogantly.

Jiang Li had a glimpse of this person’s face and felt a bit familiar. She couldn’t help thinking where she had seen this person before. The person saw Jiang Li looking at him and looked back at her. When he saw Jiang Li’s appearance clearly, greed flashed in his eyes. 

Ye Ming Yu captured his greed and was furious. He pulled Jiang Li behind him to protect her, nearly cursing out.

Right at this time, Jiang Li suddenly recalled this person’s identity, Feng Yu Tang!

She was very surprised, not expecting the person to replace Xue Huai Yuan as the new deputy county to be Feng Yu Tang!

Jiang Li had met this person, Feng Yu Tang, before. That time, the mother of the teacher in the county yamen was seriously ill and he needed to go back to his hometown to take care of her, thus the teacher resigned. Afterwards, someone elected Feng Yu Tang, a scholar who had passed the county level imperial exam in Tongxiang but failed the next exam many times. However, he recognized words and could write articles. Xue Huai Yuan took him beside him, thinking that he would do a good job with the given job. Who knew Feng Yu Tang was greedy for money while working at the yamen, colluded with the litigator, tampered within in an attempt to influence Xue Huai Yuan’s sentencing of cases.

Afterwards, this matter was discovered by Xue Huai Yuan. Xue Huai Yuan exploded in anger and Feng Yu Tang lost a lot of money due to this. Xue Huai Yuan punished Feng Yu Tang by hitting him with a few tens of boards before expelling him from the county yamen. She remembered at that time, Feng Yu Tang still threatened to make Xue Huai Yuan pay the price and was almost beaten away by Xue Zhao.   

Unexpectedly, she once again saw Feng Yu Tang here. Moreover, he managed to realize the threat at that time, sitting in Xue Huai Yuan’s position and still imprisoned Xue Huai Yuan!

Jiang Li’s heart instantly turned cold. No wonder, no wonder it’s him. Letting someone who harbored a grudge against Xue Huai Yuan to sit in this position, without Yongning’s reminder, Feng Yu Tang would intensify Xue Huai Yuan’s torture, using all kinds of means to make Xue Huai Yuan not as good as dead. 

Feng Yu Tang saw Ye Ming Yu blocking Jiang Li behind him and there’s disappointment in his eyes. He coughed lightly and shouted, “Who is here? For what matter do you people cause trouble in Tongxiang?”

Jiang Li turned sideways, passed Ye Ming Yu, and looked calmly at Feng Yu Tang.

Originally, Xue Huai Yuan was disgusted with Feng Yu Tang because Feng Yu Tang was greedy and ill-mannered. Jiang Li was disgusted with Feng Yu Tang because when she was still Xue Fang Fei, everytime she looked for her father and ran into Feng Yu Tang, he would look at her with some kind of drooling, sticky expression. She loathed that gaze very much, as if she was someone else’s prey and remained at a respectful distance.

After not meeting for so many years, Feng Yu Tang who used his position as a deputy county to bully others, had still not changed his damning character. However this time, she would no longer remain at a respectful distance, she must peel a layer of his skin.

“We are not causing trouble.” Jiang Li smiled and said, “We just came to meet with Master, that’s all.”

She spoke softly, her expression was much gentler compared to Ye Ming Yu; in addition, she was an elegant beauty. Feng Yu Tang swept his eyes on her body. Though his tone eased up, it still carried an arrogance of a fox exploiting the tiger’s might2 as he said, “Oh? Why do you want to meet this official?”

A look could tell that these people were not from Tongxiang. However, they were asking around about Xue Huai Yuan in Tongxiang. From the start, he already received instructions, naturally he didn’t dare to treat it lightly. He never thought his subordinates would say that these few people did not seem to be ordinary people and especially came to meet him. Feng Yu Tang had not been an official for long but he was well versed in the old ways. This time they came to chat a few sentences with him, while in fact, it was to probe. But the result of probing, not only did it let him find anything out, on the contrary, it made him more confused. 

Jiang Li looked at him and lightly opened her red lips to spit out a sentence, “We came to meet Master Feng wishing to find out clearly, why was the former county deputy of Tongxiang, Xue Huai Yuan in prison?”

When this question came out, all the people in the room were quiet.

The thing that Ye Ming Yu and the rest of the people were puzzled about was, during the whole way, nobody mentioned the surname of this Master. How did Jiang Li know to call him “Master Feng”, when did she find out? Has she heard about it before?

Feng Yu Tang was shocked, Jiang Li actually dared to ask this question in his face!

Footnotes:

1: being talked about, object of gossip 1.2: using his position to bully people 2