Xiao Jingcheng fell into deep thought.
As the crown prince of the Great Sheng Dynasty, he was required to be well - acquainted with all the court officials. He did remember looking into the promotion history of Ye Ping'an, the Ye Censor.
The Ye family was not a prominent one. When Mrs. Ye married Ye Ping'an, he had obtained the position of the county magistrate of Weiji County in Yongzhou through hereditary privilege. When the Xiao family rebelled against the Chu court, because Mrs. Ye and Concubine Feng were cousins, Ye Ping'an managed to persuade the military governor of Yongzhou to open the city gates and welcome the Xiao family's army, thus earning himself a merit.
However, after the Xiao family took control of the empire, Ye Ping'an didn't get to stay in the capital as a court official as he had hoped. Instead, he was sent to Cangzhou as the prefect.
The position of prefect was, of course, much higher than that of the county magistrate of Weiji County. If he did his job well for ten or twenty years without making any major mistakes, he should still be able to be transferred back to the capital, but it would take a long time.
The problem was that Cangzhou had been hit by continuous heavy rains, resulting in a disaster. The entire area of Cangzhou was flooded. This concerned the lives of countless people in Cangzhou. If not handled properly, not only would there be no chance of promotion, but he might even lose his head.
Ye Ping'an was an unblemished official. During the flood eighteen years ago, he had tried his best to contact all parties to evacuate the people. However, some counties and towns still suffered heavy losses.
After the flood receded, he even wrote a letter of apology to the capital, enumerating his own faults and taking all the blame for the flood in Cangzhou.
Natural disasters were merciless, and human power was limited. The court didn't blame him too harshly. It allocated some funds for him to supervise the repair of the damaged houses. Just one year later, due to a vacancy in the capital and the occasional help from Concubine Feng, the Ye family finally managed to leave Cangzhou and return to the capital.
Ye Ping'an was promoted once every two years and quickly entered the Censorate, reaching the fourth - rank official position and becoming a censor. Coupled with the kinship between Mrs. Ye and Concubine Feng, the Ye family gradually rose in prominence.
Xiao Jingcheng calculated that when the Ye family was transferred back to the capital, Jiang Mian was only about one - year - old, still in swaddling clothes.
It was indeed after she entered the Ye family that Censor Ye began to prosper. Otherwise, with Ye Censor's achievements, it would have taken at least three or four years for him to be transferred back to the capital.
"So, does it mean that Mrs. Ye took a fancy to your fortune and thus swapped you from your mother's side?" Mo Zhizhang asked.
Xiao Jingcheng gave him a quick glance and scoffed inwardly.
Wasn't this obvious?
Wait a minute. Why was he so close to her?
Didn't he see that their clothes were overlapping?
Xiao Jingcheng broke free from Jiang Mian and forcefully squeezed between them, separating Jiang Mian and Mo Zhizhang.
Mo Zhizhang, who was just about to take this opportunity to get closer: "..."
He was sure that this dog of Jiang Mian's was definitely targeting him.
Xiao Jingcheng bared his teeth and barked menacingly at him: "Woof!"
Just as Mo Zhizhang was thinking about whether to poison it, Jiang Mian said, "But I still have some doubts in my mind."
"If they just wanted to use my fortune to prosper the Ye family, why did they search for their biological daughter and drive me away after sixteen years?"
"Moreover, my mother has been trapped in that small courtyard all along and never raised any children. So where has Ye Wanxing been all these years?"
"My birth date was fake, while hers was real. She was born with a destiny of being separated from her family at a young age."
Rubbing her temples with a headache, Jiang Mian said, "Forget it. It's hard to guess other people's thoughts. Now that my mother has regained her sanity, we can just ask her what happened back then."
"Maybe there are other people who also know about what happened back then." Mo Zhizhang looked at the shadow hidden in the night in the distance and said meaningfully.
Jiang Mian thought for a while and said, "Uncle means the abbot of Ling'an Temple? Right. Ye Wanxing has been wanting to see Master Huaihai of Ling'an Temple since she came to Dongli Town. But I heard that Master Huaihai has been traveling and hasn't come back. It might be very difficult to get information about that year from his mouth."
Traveling?
Xiao Jingcheng scoffed in his heart. He doubted that.
Mo Zhizhang also said, "It's hard to say."
Jiang Mian frowned slightly: "Uncle means..."
Mo Zhizhang said, "Little sister, don't forget that when we came to Ling'an Temple, they didn't want to let us stay in the temple. They even said that the meditation rooms were full of disaster - stricken people. If we hadn't insisted and said that we could stay in the main hall and leave the next day, we might not have been able to enter the temple."
"There must be some dark secret hidden in their back meditation courtyard." Mo Zhizhang curled his lips, a hint of evil flashing in his eyes. "As for what's really hidden in the meditation courtyard, we'll know if we investigate."
Jiang Mian's eyes lit up: "Uncle is right! But how should we investigate?"
She scratched her cheek and said a little shyly, "I don't know any martial arts. I'm afraid I'll alert them."
Mo Zhizhang said leisurely, "With me here, what are you afraid of?"
He stood up, reached out his hand to Jiang Mian, and said with a smile, "Well, little sister, do you want to go with me?"
Realizing what he was up to, Xiao Jingcheng was extremely anxious. He bit Jiang Mian's skirt and tugged, whining in his throat.
This guy had bad intentions. She mustn't agree to him!
He could also help her find out the information!
Jiang Mian didn't understand dog language originally, but she had been living with the yellow dog for a long time and had developed a tacit understanding. At this moment, she seemed to understand what the yellow dog meant. She bent down and gently rubbed the yellow dog's head with a smile:
"Big Yellow also wants to help mother and grandmother, right? Okay, let's go together. Mother believes in your ability."
Standing up straight, she explained to Mo Zhizhang, "Big Yellow is very spiritual. Its sense of smell and hearing are several times more sensitive than ours. It can give us an early warning."
Mo Zhizhang looked at his outstretched hand. The girl didn't respond to him in the end. He calmly withdrew his hand and smiled faintly: "Is that so? Then let's go together."
Every night, there were monks patrolling Ling'an Temple. But tonight, for some reason, the monk seemed to be lost in the temple. He was clearly walking towards the Earth Treasury Bodhisattva Hall, but when he came to his senses, he was on another path.
He didn't believe in such superstitions. He turned around and walked towards the Earth Treasury Bodhisattva Hall again, but still, he somehow ended up on a different path.
He only had a lantern in his hand. It was pitch - black all around, and the only sound he could hear was his own breathing.
The monk shivered, raised his hand, and said "Amitabha". Then he didn't go in that direction anymore.
After patrolling for a while, he gritted his teeth and tried to go to the Earth Treasury Bodhisattva Hall again. To his surprise, this time he passed through that path without any hindrance and came to the outside of the Earth Treasury Bodhisattva Hall.
He knew that there were outsiders staying in the hall, so he stopped and took a look. There were candles lit inside the hall, and it was very quiet. He thought they must have fallen asleep.
Only then did he turn around and leave contentedly.
But he didn't know that there were two figures and a big yellow dog quietly following him.