For this year's Lunar New Year's Eve palace banquet, Zhao Ze and Du Chunzhi took Linglong and their six sons to the palace. The Old Princess Consort, finding the commute too tiring, chose to stay home, and little Tongguo volunteered to stay behind to keep his grandmother company.
Zheng Duan had returned to the Capital before New Year's Eve. The long list of names he carried had already been cleared of one page. The rest of those involved lived in constant fear, never knowing when the investigation might reach their own doorsteps. Some, feeling that their turn would come sooner or later and knowing the amounts involved weren't astronomical, confessed early; others still held onto hope, merely waiting for the post-holiday crackdown.
Zheng Duan had grown significantly thinner. Rooting out corruption required gathering evidence, bearing immense pressure, and sometimes even physically taking up the sword. In just a few months, his sideburns had turned white, but his posture remained as straight as ever, and his spirit was high. On this trip, Zheng Duan had found his daughter! Back then, when they were watching fireworks in the bustling market, his attendants had lost her, a tragedy that had become an unresolvable knot in Zheng Duan’s heart. In his previous life in Qiyuan Prefecture, because a hired assassin happened to look like his daughter, Zheng Duan had foolishly thrown his own life away for it. At the banquet, Du Chunzhi took Zheng Duan’s daughter by the hand and adopted he…
Chapter 267