Quick Transmigration: The Supporting Female Lead Stays Out of It - Chapter 37: Chef 36

After several days of interrogation and torture, Tang Jiu had already lost a lot of weight. His eyes, originally as bright as stars, had become very cloudy, and his neck and hands were in shackles, unable to move at all. He remained silent, but Tang Peng, kneeling behind him, shouted at the top of his lungs: “We are wronged! All the mistakes are mine alone, you can kill me, don’t touch my family! Ninth Brother, Ninth Brother, I was wrong! You told me not to associate with Yan Langqing, it was I who didn’t listen, this is all caused by me! That token was borrowed by Yan Langqing, the Xiongnu King was also released by her, I didn’t expect her to borrow the token for this, I really didn’t expect it!”

The executioner, hearing him recklessly implicate the imperial concubine in the palace, immediately had the guards block his mouth.

Lin Dan stood in the crowd and listened for a while, and seemed to understand what had happened. No wonder there had been several citywide security measures in the capital last month; it turned out they were searching for the Xiongnu King, who had escaped the city using the Yongding Marquis Manor’s token. How could Yan Langqing be involved in this? What the Emperor wanted was not the truth, but a pretext to suppress the Yongding Marquis Manor. He had transferred Tang Jiu, known as the God of War, back to the capital, put the Prince of Dianqian under house arrest, was seeking a marriage with the young princess, and had also summoned the Marquis of Weiyuan back under the pretext of illness. All of these measures were to consolidate imperial power and eliminate dissidents.

He probably had the idea of destroying these people long ago, but just lacked the opportunity. Now that Yan Langqing had handed him a knife, he naturally swung the knife at them.

Lin Dan thought it over briefly and understood the crux of the matter, but she also didn’t have the ability to save Tang Jiu and the others. Seeing the executioner preparing to give the signal, she quickly ran onto the execution platform and shouted, “I beg the authorities to give them some more time, I’ve come to see them off.” While saying this, she raised the food box in her hand.

Before execution, the prisoners had to eat a full meal, to avoid becoming a hungry ghost in the underworld; this was a rule. The executioner, who had done a lot of dirty work like killing and beheading, was especially superstitious about these things, and immediately waved his hand, saying, “The time is almost up, hurry up.”

Lin Dan nodded repeatedly and quickly took out the dishes from the food box and laid them out one by one. Since the prisoners were wearing shackles, it was inconvenient to eat, so she had Xiaozhu, Shaoyao, and the others feed them one by one, while she herself held a bowl and knelt beside Tang Jiu.

The people’s curses and Tang Peng’s cries of injustice failed to stir even the slightest ripple in Tang Jiu’s heart. He always knelt there with his eyes half-closed, neither sad nor happy. Until the moment Lin Dan appeared, he suddenly looked up, looked at her with disbelief yet burning eyes, and in the blackness of his pupils, there was a flash of light.

“Everyone else is busy distancing themselves from me, only you are the one who came forward,” he said hoarsely, “You shouldn’t have come.”

“If I don’t come, I won’t be able to get over it,” Lin Dan tore the chicken leg into strips, combined it with rice and pickled vegetables, and fed it to Tang Jiu mouthful by mouthful, saying slowly, “Does it taste good? This is the chicken I raised myself, it was slaughtered when it was only two months old, and my mother was heartbroken.”

Facing death, Tang Jiu actually laughed, “You still remember what I said?”

“I remember, you said you liked to eat young chicken the most, you wouldn’t get tired of eating it every day.” Lin Dan used a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and whispered, “I killed all the young chickens at home, you can eat as much as you want today.”

Tang Jiu stared at her fixedly, and after a long time, he lowered his head to eat heartily, and tears gradually welled up in his eyes. The sun had unconsciously climbed to the top of his head, and noon was approaching. Tang Jiu swallowed the last mouthful of food, and said in an almost inaudible voice, “If you can’t get out of the city later, go to the Hometown Cuisine Restaurant and wait, the shop has already been bought by me, you can temporarily settle there, and someone will come to pick you up later to leave the city. Lin Dan, please take care in the future.”

Lin Dan was startled in her heart, but there was not the slightest expression on her face. She put away the food box, and also bowed to the others in the Marquis Manor, and then disappeared into the crowd, with Tang Peng’s shouts echoing behind her: “Manager Lin, I’m sorry to you, please forgive me!” It was just a pity that he understood too late, because of a fleeting thought, he ruined himself and also ruined the entire family.

After leaving the execution ground, Lin Dan thought over and over, and always felt there was more to Tang Jiu’s words. What did he mean by “can’t get out of the city?” Why couldn’t they get out of the city? Unless the whole city was under martial law, searching for wanted criminals of the court, such as the Xiongnu King last time… Could someone be coming to raid the execution ground?

That’s right, all the women of the Yongding Marquis Manor had committed suicide, including Tang Guifei in the palace. Without them as hostages, the Marquis of Yongding would have no constraints, and would surely send people to rescue his only legitimate son, but the premise was that he was forced to rebel by the Emperor.

Would the Marquis of Yongding rebel? Lin Dan had already got the answer from Tang Jiu’s mouth, so she immediately turned the carriage around and went to the three-way alley. It was probably too late to go to the city gate now, because the execution ground would be trying to rescue the son of the Marquis before the beheading, and it would be chaotic by now.

Lin Dan guessed correctly, she had just left, and Tang Jiu had broken free of his shackles, rescued his family, and joined forces with the black-clothed people who had come to the rescue and rushed to the city gate. They rushed all the way, unstoppable, and soon escaped the capital successfully. Half a day later, everyone realized that the Prince of Dianqian and the young princess were also gone, and the capital was in a mess.

All eight city gates were closed, and the streets were filled with guards searching back and forth, the atmosphere was somewhat terrifying. Lin Dan and Tang Jiu were old acquaintances, if she stayed in the capital any longer, someone would come and question her about Tang Jiu’s whereabouts. She was about to dismiss her servants and bear the consequences alone, but the door was knocked, and a strong, burly man brought a letter, asking Lin Dan to leave the city with him.

The letter was written by Tang Jiu himself, and wrote many childhood anecdotes that existed in their shared memories. Lin Dan confirmed the authenticity of the letter and then followed the man to leave. They boarded a luxurious carriage and left the capital without any inspection. At their parting, Lin Dan learned that the man was actually a prince of Mongolia, and at the request of Tang Jiu, he had come to escort her.

“Before he was about to be imprisoned, he told me that he was in a bad situation this time, and if you came to see him off, he would ask me to escort you away. If you didn’t come to see him off, then let me give you this box,” the man took out a heavy box, and cupped his hands, and then rode away.

Lin Dan opened the box, and found that it was filled with gold and jewels, and her heart warmed. Ten years ago, it was also at the ten-mile pavilion outside the city, when a servant sent by Tang Jiu gave her a small box filled with silver, which she flatly refused. Ten years later, facing the same scene, she wanted to accept it. In this world, she was ultimately not alone in coming and alone in leaving; there were always one or two people who would remember her.

After that day, Lin Dan left the capital and wandered around. The originally prosperous and stable Great Chu state began to fall into war. First, the Prince of Dianqian raised the banner of “clearing the emperor’s side,” then the Xiongnu King led an army to invade. The Yongding Marquis’s food and military supplies were cut off by the court. They intended to resist the Xiongnu but were helpless and were forced to rebel.

The flames of war lasted for months, and one day, the Prince of Dianqian inexplicably died in his tent. His heir took over and joined forces with the Yongding Marquis’s son to fight against the Xiongnu, and the precarious Great Chu state finally had a chance to breathe. But unexpectedly, at this critical moment, the Emperor issued a decree ordering the Marquis of Weiyuan to lead the army from the rear to attack the two men’s troops, and to eliminate the rebels.

This order was undoubtedly absurd in the extreme, and once the two armies were defeated, the Xiongnu King’s army could advance directly, threatening the Central Plains. And the Great Chu state had successively lost the Northwest and Southwest armies. The remaining army could not resist the Xiongnu cavalry. Once the situation got out of control, the Great Chu state would no longer exist.

However, the Emperor seemed to be confident and issued three decrees in a row ordering the Marquis of Weiyuan to send troops. The great battle was about to break out, and its consequences were unimaginable.

At this moment, Lin Dan, who was living in seclusion in the deep mountains, actually had a dream. She dreamed that little Lin Dan had lost the competition, feeling both guilty and angry, and threw the gold knife, the cookbook, and the master’s tablet into the fire to burn. Tang Jiu and Yan Langqing, who arrived in a hurry, happened to see this scene and were very disgusted with her. Although she had the old Marquis’s guarantee and was allowed to stay, they acted as if she didn’t exist, and avoided her whenever they saw her. The more Tang Jiu hated her, the more she stuck to him, and she also came up with various vicious schemes to frame Yan Langqing. It was originally Yan’s family who slandered her father, but because of her recklessness, she actually confirmed Lin Baotian’s crime of betraying his master and ruining his reputation, and she was left with a dead end.

Gradually, she became more and more extreme, and also pushed Tang Jiu further and further away, and she even wore down the old Marquis’s last bit of protection for her. In contrast, Yan Langqing gradually gained the old Marquis’s approval, and in her stumbling ways, she developed a deep relationship with Tang Jiu and eventually married him. The happier they were, the more painful Lin Dan felt.

As time went on, Yan Langqing gradually became a qualified Marquis’s wife, always getting praise from others, and even the Emperor developed a different affection for her, often calling her into the palace under the pretext of accompanying Tang Guifei to meet her. After many times, she was targeted by some people and became a pawn for them to frame Tang Guifei, poisoning her food and causing Tang Guifei to miscarry.

The Emperor investigated and found out that Yan Langqing was to blame, but he was reluctant to move her, so he let Lin Dan, who always bickered with her, take the blame, and publicly had her beaten to death. Lin Dan’s short life ended like this, but Yan Langqing’s story continued.

The more he couldn’t get her, the more the Emperor missed her, finding ways to transfer Tang Jiu to the battlefield and secretly killing him. Then, he used the hands of other concubines to dispose of Consort Tang, and then summoned Yan Langqing into the palace, where she enjoyed unfailing imperial favor. After a few more years, the Xiongnu King, who had been inadvertently saved by Yan Langqing, began to fiercely attack Great Chu, repeatedly declaring that he would snatch Yan Langqing away to be his queen. After years of war between the two countries, both sides suffered heavy losses, but Tang Jiu “returned from the dead” at this time, joining the battle. The Prince of Dianqian took advantage of the chaos to rebel and declared himself emperor. A peaceful and prosperous era was ultimately turned into a human hell. As for the Prince and princess, who had secretly escaped, and after being chased back by Tang Jiu, they committed suicide by taking poison.

The fate of everyone was so absurd, and also so tragic, and all this was just to compete for a woman.

Lin Dan, after waking up, felt a sense of both laughter and tears. She believed that if she hadn’t come, this would probably be the fate of the original owner, and also the predetermined trajectory of this world’s development. Because of a woman, families fell apart, countries collapsed, and people suffered, was this really fate? It was just too ridiculous!