Shen Yunyue looked up and spotted a man in fine cotton clothing hiding among the crowd, deliberately stirring up the commoners to curse the Crown Prince.
She was so furious that her teeth itched with anger, wishing she could beat that man to death.
Someone threw a clump of mud.
"Beat the useless waste to death!"
"The deposed Crown Prince deserves to die!"
"The waste is just wasting food by staying alive!"
…
Shen Yunyue felt that it was no wonder Fu Xuanheng would later turn dark—anyone would go dark after such experiences.
If it were her, she'd probably turn into a full-blown Black Mountain Old Demon version of herself.
Her petite body shielded Fu Xuanheng from the mud being thrown at him. She figured that later, when Fu Xuanheng turned dark, he might remember her mud-blocking kindness and become the Shen Family's backing.
Let her live as a wealthy idler in Shihanzhou.
Spending silver idly and admiring handsome young men—that would be a pretty good life.
"Do you people have no brains? You believe whatever you hear without using your own eyes or heads?" Shen Yunyue roared angrily.
Feng Xiao'e hugged her daughter tightly, shielding her from any harm.
She wore a timid, pitiful, and aggrieved expression.
Fu Xuansheng's small body curled up in a corner.
Fu Xuanheng, shielded beneath Shen Yunyue, caught the scent of flowers on the young girl.
Hearing her loudly rebuke the passersby, an inexplicable feeling stirred in his heart.
What kind of Shen Family girl was this?
"You damned wench, speaking up for that waste! Stone her!"
"That's right, stone her!"
They were serious?
Shen Yunyue quickly crouched down and covered her head with both hands.
Fu Xuanheng struggled to pull her into his arms, using his thin shoulders to block the flying vegetable leaves, mud, and sour, foul-smelling liquid.
Shen Yunyue and Fu Xuanheng stared at each other, eyes wide.
"I think I've caused trouble."
"It's fine. Hide behind me." Fu Xuanheng could barely catch his breath between words.
A clod of dirt came flying over. Shen Yunyue yelped and tried to kick it away, but Fu Xuanheng pressed her firmly into his embrace with all his strength. The clod struck Fu Xuanheng square on the head.
His eyes rolled back, and he completely passed out.
Shen Yunyue angrily pushed Fu Xuanheng away, rolled up her sleeves, and cursed at the crowd:
"You bunch of ignorant fools! You deserve to be useless for the rest of your lives! You can't tell right from wrong—those two eyes of yours are just for decoration!"
She was young and had never weathered storms before.
The yamen runners turned a blind eye to her behavior.
Shen Yunyue picked up the clod of dirt that had fallen on the carriage and hurled it hard at the man who had been egging everyone on to attack Fu Xuanheng. "I'll smash you, you villain!"
Relying on the fact that her body was only thirteen, and not yet fully grown so she looked about ten or so, Shen Yunyue completely let herself go.
I'm small, so who am I afraid of?
The man dodged too slowly and got hit on the forehead by Shen Yunyue's clod.
"Ow! You damned wench! I'll kill you!"
Shen Yunyue planted her hands on her hips like a tigress.
"You dare!"
The yamen runner raised his gleaming blade and let out a cold snort.
"No causing trouble!"
The crowd fell silent at once.
Say what you will, but they were definitely afraid of the yamen runners.
In less than half an hour, the carriage arrived outside the city walls.
Five li beyond the city, there was a place called Hefeng Pavilion, where the Shen Family, the He Family, and several other families loyal to the Crown Prince were all waiting.
Shen Yunyue stood on the carriage but couldn't spot the Shen Family.
Compared to these other households, the Shen Family had the simplest population. After all, they were a newly risen official family—other families lasted three generations in wealth.
The Shen Family couldn't even last twenty years.
Just thinking about it was infuriating.
"Mother! Mother!" Shen Yunyue stood recklessly on the carriage and shouted at the top of her lungs.
She had inherited this body, so she had to take care of her mother and family.
Her delicate, helpless beauty of a mother was probably crying her eyes out by now.
Besides, from her memories, this family was all very kind.
Even the in-laws and sisters-in-law never had a cross word between them.
Feng Xiao'e hugged her daughter and bit her lip in displeasure. This Shen Family girl had no manners at all.
Being so loud and boisterous—what kind of behavior was that? No wonder Her Highness the Crown Princess favored her own niece, Miss Shuang.
"Big sister!" Shen Yunfeng came running over with a slingshot in hand, and immediately spotted Fu Xuanheng lying unconscious on the carriage.
"Xiaojunwang? He's my brother-in-law?" Shen Yunfeng wasn't happy about his sister marrying so early.
He was Fu Xuanheng's study companion and knew that this guy was full of schemes and quite cunning.
Well, well. I treated you like a brother.
And you went and stole my sister. Consider this brotherhood over.
"Yunfeng. Fu Xuanheng got knocked out by a clod of dirt. Hurry, take us to Mother." There were some things Shen Yunyue couldn't easily say to Shen Yunfeng.
It was chaotic here at Hefeng Pavilion.
They needed to get to their family quickly.
"Mother and Grandmother are under that locust tree. Mother has been crying nonstop. Big sister, they say Father committed a crime and was beheaded."
Shen Yunfeng's stubborn little face had held back tears all this time, but now seeing Shen Yunyue, he couldn't help but cry.
"Sister, are we children without a father now?" Shen Yunfeng tilted his little head up and wiped his tears with his arm.
"Yunfeng, as long as our family stays together, Father will be happy for us." Shen Yunyue looked at Shen Yunfeng, who was only nine years old, and couldn't help but feel relieved that he was only nine.
At ten, he would have been executed too.
"Fu Xuanheng has lost his father and his mother as well."
Shen Yunfeng's mouth fell open, his anger at Fu Xuanheng for stealing his sister's heart fading somewhat.
"Ah… he's really quite pitiful."
He glanced again at Fu Xuanheng, whose eyes were tightly shut, and felt even more sorry for him.
The carriage arrived at the Shen family's lodgings.
Shen Yunyue gave the carriage driver a silver ring. "Thank you for your trouble, young man."
"Thank you, Miss Shen." The young driver bit the ring with his teeth, smiled, and left with it.
Mo Yiran saw Shen Yunyue arriving with Fu Xuanheng, Feng Xiao'e, Fu Xuanting, and Fu Xuansheng in tow.
She first bowed to Feng Xiao'e, then swept Shen Yunyue into her arms.
"Yuebao. Your father, that bastard, left your mother and went away. What do I do if he doesn't want me anymore?" Mo Yiran sobbed.
She and Shen Cixuan had been married since their youth, a couple so harmonious and deeply in love.
She too had wanted to dash her head against a wall and follow Shen Cixuan in death.
But the last words Shen Cixuan left her were to take care of their children and the two elders of the Shen family, so she lived on, full of reluctance.
"Mother, you still have us."
Shen Yunyue's chubby little hands patted Mo Yiran's back. Her beautiful mother's tears rivaled the overflowing waters of West Lake.
Her eyes were swollen like walnuts, and her voice had become hoarse as a duck's.
The two elders of the Shen family stood nearby leaning on their canes, having aged decades in an instant since their son was beheaded.
Their bodies hunched like old dogs waiting for death.
It made Shen Yunyue's heart ache with unbearable sorrow.
"Grandfather, Grandmother." Shen Yunyue stepped forward to pay her respects.
Old Madam Shen grabbed Shen Yunyue in a tight embrace and wailed, "Yuebao. Grandma's heart hurts so much. They always said raise children to care for you in old age, but Grandma only wanted her son to live. Your father and your second uncle are both gone. They've left us old ones to bury the young."
The old couple dared not complain aloud—their family still had over a dozen members. If they slipped up even slightly, that capricious Emperor might have them all beheaded with one stroke. What would they do then?
Shen Yunyue's second aunt, Liu Xiaoyun, held her daughter, born just over three months ago, and wept uncontrollably.
Beside her, eight-year-old Shen Yuncheng joined in with loud wailing.
Alas, the scene was one of utter devastation.
That morning, none of these people had known disaster was about to strike.
They had been caught completely off guard.
Perhaps the wailing was so heart-wrenching that Fu Xuanheng actually woke up. Shen Yunfeng saw him awake and fetched a bamboo tube to feed him water.
The two of them muttered quietly to each other about something.
A deputy commander of the Five Wards Military Patrol arrived, holding the Emperor's decree, and read it aloud once more.
With a rustle, everyone knelt and kowtowed in gratitude.
Shen Yunyue had no intention of kneeling to this Emperor who delighted in beheading people.
She half-squatted on the ground, cursing the Emperor under her breath.
The deputy commander finished speaking and left, replaced by thirty or forty Jiechai escorts who would escort them to their place of exile.
They were to be exiled to Shihanzhou, with the Shen and He families settled in the same town.
The Lujia and Peijia families were assigned to another town. Several other families were also nearby.
The Emperor, in his "benevolence" toward the exiled—all of them old, weak, women, and children—permitted the He and Lujia families each to have one carriage.
Twenty li ahead lay Hefeng Pavilion, the place where relatives and friends could bid farewell.
There, they would have silver to buy carts and supplies, but these twenty li they would have to walk on foot.