The malicious laughter was left behind. It wasn't until there was no other sound in his ears that Ye Wanmian finally let go.
It felt as if a huge boulder was pressing on Xiao Jingcheng's chest. He gritted his teeth tightly, his eyes turning blood - red with anger.
"Now you should understand, right?" Ye Wanmian said calmly. "Your current situation is no different from mine back then in the capital."
So, she was also in such a situation where no one would listen to her explanations back then?
Moreover, because of this incident, she was forced by the Ye family to marry an extremely despicable man just to appease his so - called "anger".
When he woke up and heard her mention these things, he only thought that the Ye family was making a mountain out of a molehill.
Many things can only be truly understood when one experiences them personally.
Looking at it from another perspective, wasn't this a kind of retribution for him?
No wonder she was so cold to him. If it were him, not only would he not save the person, but he might even step on the enemy hard the moment he learned of the enemy's death.
It was really not easy for her to do what she had done.
She was right. He owed her.
Xiao Jingcheng gradually calmed down, and his fists slowly relaxed.
He let out a cold laugh and said, "The person behind all this has really a vicious scheme. While I was in a coma and my whereabouts were unknown, they spread these rumors. If I died, these rumors would be confirmed. If I woke up, even if I wanted to defend myself, no one would listen."
He had long known that Xiao Yixuan was not a good person, but he didn't expect him to be so bold and ruthless.
It seemed that the emperor's favor had emboldened the imperial concubine and Xiao Yixuan's ambition. In order to seize the crown prince position, they had set up numerous traps and forced him to this point.
He wondered how his mother was now. Would she be sad when she heard the news of his "death"?
This thought flashed through Xiao Jingcheng's mind, making him a bit dazed.
Thinking of the cold and strict Empress Shen in his memory, he pulled at the corner of his lips bitterly.
Maybe when his mother heard the news of his accident, she would only think that he was as stupid as a pig, falling into others' traps so easily and ending up in such a mess.
Xiao Jingcheng came back to his senses and found that they were standing on a river embankment.
"Where is this?"
Ye Wanmian glanced at him. "This is where the body was found."
Xiao Jingcheng gasped and cast his gaze forward again.
In front was a river beach with lush water plants growing around it. Many village women were squatting on the shore, washing things in the river. The river was dark - green and the water flowed slowly. One or two small fishing boats floated by from time to time. It was a quiet and beautiful picture, and it was hard to imagine that a body that had been soaked rotten in the river had once appeared here.
For some reason, he always felt that this place was familiar, as if he had been here before.
But he had been in a coma ever since he fell off the cliff...
"On that day, Dahuang noticed something strange. It led me all the way to the river. The body was lying right there." Ye Wanmian's voice woke Xiao Jingcheng up. He looked in the direction of her finger and his eyes fell on the river beach.
"The body was wearing the clothes you were wearing when you fell off the cliff. Bu Hua recognized the identity of the body at a glance. He insisted that the body was you, Your Highness."
Xiao Jingcheng's eyes turned cold.
After leaving Ningzhou, the boat he was on was attacked by water bandits in the river. Bu Hua led the guards of the Eastern Palace to resist desperately, and told him to go to the nearby town to find reinforcements first.
However, after he and his men landed on the shore, they were surrounded by mountain bandits. Those mountain bandits had been lying in ambush for a long time, and every attack was aimed at the vital parts. Their goal was also to take his life.
He didn't have many people with him, and there were other court officials on this trip. They had a hard time resisting. Just when he was about to fight to the death with the mountain bandits, Bu Hua led the remaining soldiers to come to the rescue in time.
Bu Hua sent a few agile guards to help him break through the siege, but they didn't expect that there was another enemy waiting in the wings.
It was not until he was shot off the cliff by an arrow that he realized that the water bandits, mountain bandits and assassins were all part of a trap, aiming to force him into a desperate situation.
Now when he recalled the details of that time, he could detect more and more strange things.
To be honest, until today, he had never suspected Bu Hua.
But when he was in a coma, Bu Hua spread the news that he had been assassinated and his whereabouts were unknown in the folk. And in order to search for his whereabouts, he searched every household, which aroused a lot of public resentment.
Moreover, according to her, Bu Hua also drew many portraits of him and spread them all over the street.
This act didn't seem like looking for someone, but more like hunting down a wanted criminal.
He was the crown prince, and his existence was related to the situation in the court. After this incident, the news of his disappearance after being attacked had spread throughout the country. Even if he was finally found, he had been missing for several months. There would surely be new debates in the court about whether he was capable of inheriting the throne.
Of course, the person who had planned all this secretly wanted him to never return to the capital and the Eastern Palace. In their eyes, he was doomed to die, so they naturally had no scruples.
"Strange." Xiao Jingcheng frowned. "Since I had fallen into their hands, why didn't they just kill me directly? Why did they have to make a fake body to confuse people?"
This was also what Ye Wanmian had always found strange.
She thought for a while and still chose to tell the truth. "Daoist Yuanzheng said that it was because you are a person of destiny, carrying the fortune of a country. So you can always turn bad luck into good luck. Those who can't suppress your fortune can't kill you directly. They can only use such heretical methods."
He had never believed in ghosts and gods before. Even after experiencing it personally and learning that it was Daoist Yuanzheng who had set up a formation to call back his soul and wake him up, he still had some doubts in his heart.
It was normal for him to be in a coma because of a head injury after falling from such a high cliff. He actually preferred to think that those people had hidden his body and used a fake body instead for some other purpose.
In short, the whole thing was filled with a strange atmosphere.
"Let's go. So many days have passed. The evidence here has already been lost. There's nothing to see." Xiao Jingcheng turned around and left. Ye Wanmian quickly followed him.
"Take me to see where Xiao Yixuan and Xiao Wuchen are staying now." Xiao Jingcheng said.
It was still early, so Ye Wanmian didn't say anything. She walked beside him and led the way.
Strangely enough, walking on the streets of Dongli Town, although the scenery in front of him seemed very strange, Xiao Jingcheng always had a sense of familiarity. He even knew which direction to turn at which intersection...
"Go..."
Ye Wanmian was about to remind Xiao Jingcheng to turn right, but saw that he had already taken the lead and turned right.
Ye Wanmian suppressed the surprise in her heart.
It was really strange. Hadn't he been in a coma all the time before? Why did he seem so familiar with the roads in Dongli Town?
Could it be that he was gifted with a good sense of direction?