Chapter 1338 - 17: Filing a Complaint
Shen Junshan and his companions were resting at a post station when they ran into a man holding a painting, asking others to verify whether it was genuine.
The painting was fake, done by an old man from Sui Province, whose skill at copying was practically godlike.
Unfortunately, four months ago, his only son was kidnapped; when he heard the terrible news, he couldn’t catch his breath and died on the spot.
And the old man’s son had had his throat pierced by a single sword; to this day no one knew who had killed him.
When this matter was mentioned, those discussing it could not help sighing in regret.
Sui Province bordered Liangzhou, and it was exactly four months ago that the Wenyuan Bo Mansion was "found" with evidence of colluding with the enemy and betraying the country.
Uncle Wen Yuan had never colluded with the enemy or betrayed the country, so where had that evidence come from?
His instincts told him there had to be some connection.
Shen Junshan turned back toward Sui Province to investigate the case of the old man’s murder.
The net of heaven is vast and wide, yet it lets nothing slip through.
The old man had loved calligraphy and painting all his life and excelled at copying; he had used up countless sheets of paper, and most of those spoiled sheets were thrown into the wood shed for the cook to use as kindling.
Among the discarded sheets the old man had written in the two months before his death, Shen Junshan really did find one that was exactly the same as the so‑called evidence of colluding with the enemy and treason...
This was ironclad proof of a frame‑up.
Although he still didn’t know who wanted to frame Uncle Wen Yuan, with this scrap of paper, he could prove that Uncle Wen Yuan had been falsely accused.
Shen Junshan set off for the Capital City with the evidence.
From the moment he found the evidence to the moment he returned to the Capital, Shen Junshan escaped death twice; never mind that the evidence had nearly been destroyed.
Yet making it safely back to the Capital City was only the beginning.
During the more than two months Shen Junshan had been away from the Capital, too many things had happened: the Crown Prince died after a long illness, and the Emperor, devastated by the loss of his beloved son, fell gravely ill himself.
Even though the evidence was in hand, with the Emperor seriously ill, no one dared present it for his eyes, much less had the courage to urge the Emperor to admit he had wrongly killed a loyal subject.
The Third Prince, in order to win Yan Ninghuan’s favor and do his future brother‑in‑law a good turn, tried to mention it tactfully while visiting the Emperor’s sickbed, only to be harshly scolded.
If even the Third Prince had been reprimanded, how could anyone else dare speak?
Half a month after Shen Junshan returned to the Capital, there was still no progress.
Yun Chu was not a hot‑tempered person; she could wait, but her mother and elder brother could not.
They were still suffering in exile.
That night, Yun Chu dreamed that her mother collapsed under the strain of hard labor.
But if she didn’t clear her father’s name and the court didn’t issue a decree, her mother could never come back.
She had to make the court restore her father’s innocence!
She could not let her father bear the crime of colluding with the enemy and selling out the country, to be reviled by the world, just because the Emperor cared about his face.
Yun Chu did not want to implicate the Jibei Marquis Mansion; Shen Junshan and Shangguan Ji helping her find the evidence to clear the injustice was already a favor she could never repay in this lifetime.
Yun Chu left a letter and departed from the Capital.
Shen Junshan searched the entire Capital City for her, but Yun Chu had already gone to the Imperial Palace to strike the Injustice Bell and submit a complaint to the Emperor.
Anyone could submit a petition, but to deliver it to the Emperor personally, one had to pass a trial—
Rolling over a nail board.
The board was covered with closely set nails; after rolling across it once, whether one survived was in itself uncertain.
Clenching her teeth, Yun Chu rolled across the nail board, her entire body punctured with countless tiny holes.
A young woman enduring such torment to file a complaint in order to clear her father’s name shocked the entire court.
The uproar was so great that the Emperor had no choice but to accept Yun Chu’s petition.
If, with things having escalated this far, the court still chose to ignore it, then it truly would be a case of wrongly killing a loyal man, then refusing to admit the mistake and doing everything possible to cover it up.
Such a dutiful daughter, willing to risk her life for her family, even the Emperor could not bear to blame her.
The case was handed over to the Ministry of Justice for a thorough reinvestigation.
The Minister of the Ministry of Justice compared the evidence Yun Chu had submitted and confirmed that the charge of Uncle Wen Yuan colluding with the enemy and betraying the country had been fabricated; the Emperor thereupon issued a decree pardoning the entire Wen Yuan family and returning all confiscated property.
Although the person who had framed them had not yet been found, since the case had been handed to the Ministry of Justice for investigation, and Shangguan Ji and Shen Junshan had both said they would help pursue it to the end, what Yun Chu most longed for now was to see her mother.
Shen Junshan sent people to the place of exile to escort them back to the mansion.
Day after day, Yun Chu waited.
One day, Shen Junshan came to her and took her out of the Capital City.
After three days of hard riding, at a post station, Yun Chu finally saw Madam Wen Yuan.
Madam Wen Yuan was already at death’s door; the servant Shen Junshan had sent to escort them back, seeing how bad her condition was, had quickly sent a pigeon message to Shen Junshan.
Shen Junshan had taken Yun Chu out of the Capital precisely so that mother and daughter could see each other one last time.
Yun Chu knelt at the bedside, weeping herself into a tear‑streaked mess.
Madam Wen Yuan, however, was very pleased; she had never imagined Yun Chu could help clear Wenyuan Bo Mansion’s injustice and restore Uncle Wen Yuan’s good name.
On the road into exile, although Madam Wen Yuan missed her daughter, with Yan Ning having spoken to the escorting government officials, though the journey was hard, it was still bearable.
But once they reached the place of exile, life became much harsher; Madam Wen Yuan had lived half her life in comfort and had never done manual labor.
On top of that, she missed her daughter terribly, her longing turning into illness, and she fell gravely sick.
If not for the servant from the Jibei Marquis Mansion arriving in time, Madam Wen Yuan would probably have been dead already.
She had survived solely because the servant had constantly urged her to hold on—once they reached the Capital City, she would see her daughter.
Now that her wish was fulfilled, Madam Wen Yuan exchanged only a few words with Yun Chu before breathing her last.
Yun Chu cried until she fainted at Madam Wen Yuan’s bedside and was carried back to her room by Shen Junshan.
Clad in coarse mourning clothes and hemp, Yun Chu returned to the Capital City, scattering paper money from the city gate all the way to the Wenyuan Bo Mansion.
Many who saw this could not help but feel sorry for Yun Chu; such a good family, with both parents alive and well, had, for no more than blocking some unknown person’s path, been framed, leading to the loss of both parents.
How pitiful this dutiful daughter was; how unjustly heaven treated her.
The Emperor had never expected Madam Wen Yuan to die of illness on the way back; the Wenyuan Bo Mansion’s misfortune was all due to his excessive suspicion.
The Emperor ordered three days of music ban in the Capital City as a sign of mourning, and allowed the Wenyuan Bo Mansion to retain its title without demotion or interruption of succession.
As for Yun Chu, her filial petition had moved even heaven; she was not yet betrothed, and now that both her parents were gone, she was supposed to observe three years of mourning.
But by the time the three years were over, she would be eighteen or nineteen.
Hearing the concubines discuss Yun Chu, the Emperor sighed repeatedly in regret and was moved; citing her exemplary filial piety, he allowed her to marry after just three months of mourning.
Lady Ji Bei was exceedingly fond of Yun Chu and planned to propose marriage as soon as the three months were over, to bring Yun Chu into the family.
But man proposes, heaven disposes; the Empress Dowager conferred a marriage on Shen Junshan.
The imperial decree came so suddenly that it caught both Shen Junshan and the Jibei Marquis Mansion completely off guard.
Shen Junshan had not expected that just as he had traced the case of Uncle Wen Yuan’s frame‑up to being connected with the Empress Dowager’s faction, the Empress Dowager would strike at him.
By granting him a marriage, she sought to bind him, forcing him to wed early and withdraw from the case of Wenyuan Bo Mansion’s frame‑up.
How could Shen Junshan submit? He claimed that he and Yun Chu already had a betrothal agreement, hoping this would make the Empress Dowager rescind her decree.
Unfortunately, not only did the marriage fail to be withdrawn, he ran headlong into the Empress Dowager’s gun barrel.
The Empress guessed that Shen Junshan and Yun Chu had feelings for each other and that they were spoiling her plans; how could she possibly allow them to be together?
She had already confirmed from Yun Chu’s elder brother that Yun Chu and Shen Junshan were not engaged; now that Shen Junshan said this, it meant either that he and Yun Chu had privately pledged themselves for life, or that he was making up lies to defy the decree, not taking the Empress Dowager seriously!
"Privately pledged for life"—those four words were too heavy.
How could Shen Junshan let Yun Chu, who had just lost both her parents, bear such a stigma?
It was only an engagement; they could slowly find a way to dissolve it later.
If he did not wish to marry, who could possibly hold a blade to his neck and force him to?