Chapter 68 Parting Sorrows Xue Chan suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Zheng Shaoyu had just returned from brewing the medicine when he found no one in the house.

"Where is Erlang?!"

"It was just here! The master said he wanted some water, so I went to fetch a pot." The maid hurriedly brought in the tea.

Zheng Shaoyu looked around in a panic and found some bloodstains on the bed near the window.

Jiang Ce climbed out the window.

"..."

"Find it for him quickly!"

So this group of people followed the trail of blood that had dripped onto the ground.

Their hurried footsteps disturbed the cold tiles of the Green Shade Terrace, and even shook the vat of Lotus Moon Water in the courtyard.

The smooth water rippled, and the crescent moon reflected in it wrinkled. Like an embroidery pattern on soft gauze, it was smoothed out by the embroiderer as she began to stitch.

Then, gently pull it open and spread it out, and the soft, gauze-like water swayed.

Swaying and swaying, the crescent moon transformed into a silvery full moon, hanging lonely in the sky.

Xue Chan looked up at the moon and, for some reason, felt a strange sense of familiarity with it.

But the moon is clearly the same moon.

She looked around in a daze and saw a little girl sitting under the window drawing through a small window.

Xue Chan approached, but the little girl seemed oblivious, continuing to draw intently.

She gently shifted her gaze, which landed on the painting.

Osmanthus flowers, full moon...

It was a painting that had been destroyed, but now it's being recreated perfectly on the canvas.

"Stop drawing!"

Xue Chan rushed forward to brush away the painting, reached out and shook the little girl, her eyes red as she cried out.

"Hurry home!"

"Go home quickly!"

"Go home quickly!"

She merely passed through the girl's hand, and the girl didn't react at all, continuing to draw intently.

Xue Chan retreated repeatedly, running towards the house she remembered.

The next moment, he was already inside the house.

A young woman lay on the bed, but the blood flowing from beneath her had already soaked a large area of ​​the bedding. Soaked through, it dripped down, forming streams of blood that flowed down to her knees.

"Crack!"

Xue Chan felt a sharp pain in her palm as a paintbrush broke in her hand, and she heard her own childish cries.

"It's all my fault, it's all my fault, I'll never draw again..."

"I'm never drawing again..."

Someone touched her palm.

The person on the bed was pale-faced and struggled to lean out, grabbing her hand.

"Qiao Niang, didn't you say you wanted to become even more amazing than Father? Didn't you say you wanted people thousands of years from now to know your name and see your paintings? If you give up now, you'll regret every single stroke you made in those scorching summers and freezing winters..."

"Qiao Niang, if you give up now, you will regret it for the rest of your life."

But the girl simply used her blood-stained hands to throw away the broken pen, tore the osmanthus painting to shreds, and threw herself at the bedside, weeping uncontrollably.

"No, no, I'll never draw again..."

The woman, panting, forcefully lifted her face, tears welling in her eyes, and said solemnly, "If you... give up now, wouldn't I die with regrets?"

Xue Chan looked up and shook her head frantically.

“Listen to me, I want you to keep painting until you are remembered for all time.” She grabbed her collar and pulled her close, her voice trembling. “If you give up now, I will no longer acknowledge you. Even if I die, I will never allow you to worship me.”

Xue Chan stared blankly at her, speechless, only tears streaming down her face.

Her expression changed, and she rebuked him sharply.

"Did you hear me!"

Xue Chan nodded through her tears.

"I understand... I understand..."

The woman said, "I want you to make a vow."

"What oath?" She didn't quite understand, but with just one look, she raised her hand while crying.

The woman said, "If in this life I have the heart to abandon the Way, and have not left a name for myself in the world..."

She repeated after her: "If in this life one harbors thoughts of abandoning the Way, and has not left a name for oneself in the world..."

"His mother, Cheng Zheng, has fallen into hell..."

Xue Qiaoniang shook her head, crying, and refused to continue.

Cheng Zheng slapped her: "Read it!"

The candlelight flickered dimly, and only the clear moonlight streamed in through the window, enveloping the two people, one large and one small.

Xue Qiaoniang finished reciting the poem intermittently and then collapsed to the ground, weeping.

Cheng Zheng raised his hand and gently stroked her hair, which was adorned with a silk flower she had made herself.

"Qiao Niang, you...you...you must take good care of yourself..."

Xue Qiaoniang screamed and rushed to her side, grabbing her hand and repeatedly asking, "Are you going to leave me? Are you going to leave me alone in this world? But what am I going to do? What am I going to do? I'm scared."

She said to her, "Don't be afraid, I just... I just have to go back."

Xue Qiaoniang looked up in confusion and panic; she couldn't understand it.

Going back? Where are we going back to? Why not take her with us?

She asked her.

"Go back where?"

She answered her.

“Go back to where you came from.”

Go back to where everyone has to go...

Cheng Zheng first raised his hand and gently placed it on the top of her head.

“My… Qiaoniang…”

Keep moving forward.

Xue Qiaoniang's eyes were blurred with tears, even her mother's face was indistinct. She tried to wipe away her tears to see more clearly, but the more she wiped, the more tears flowed, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see clearly.

Such a young child, knowing where his mother was going but not knowing what kind of place it was, felt a great sense of panic.

All she knew was...

She's leaving; she's leaving her.

But she was too young and too confused.

Therefore, Xue Qiaoniang could only crawl to the bedside, desperately clutching her hand and burying her face in her arms. She cried and begged her not to leave, as if this could hold onto the life that was about to dissipate.

Those warm hands gradually lost their warmth in her soft palms.

Cheng Zheng took a breath, looked up at the door, and called out "Mother" a few times to the empty room, but there was no response.

She clutched her mother's hand and cried out, but there was no reply.

Xue Qiaoniang got up and stumbled as she ran outside.

"Doctor...doctor...if we can just find a doctor..."

She ran through the long street, knocking on every door, but no one answered. The streets and alleys were deserted, with only the moon following her, illuminating her path.

Xue Qiaoniang ran home again.

"Clang!"

She suddenly pushed the door open.

His eyes were drawn straight to a pitch-black memorial tablet, on which were written several pale white characters.

"The memorial tablet of the late Madam Cheng Zheng, mother of the late Xue family."

From a young age, she learned her own name first, then her mother's. But the name Cheng Zheng had long since become a memorial tablet, replacing the person's name.

The word "person" has been replaced by two empty characters.

Xue Chan reached out to touch the memorial tablet; it was ice-cold.

She began to pray.

He pleaded with Heaven and Earth, knelt before the gods and begged Buddha, but all he received was a single lamp flame and a basin full of embers and white ash.

The sky was a deep, bluish-green, like the color of crab shells, and as the last rays of the moon faded, the faint cries of a flower seller could be heard from outside the wall.

Life goes on as usual, full of mundane routines.

She sat there for a long time, holding the memorial tablet, until it was gradually eroded and decayed. With a sudden grab, it instantly turned into dust and scattered away.

Xue Qiaoniang chased after the drifting powder, getting further and further away.

The peach blossoms on Banzhong Mountain bloom again and again, and the slender willows by the Golden Bridge grow taller and taller. The sounds of gongs and suonas fill the air; new people arrive in the neighborhood, and old friends depart.

Until the flower seller's cries from outside the wall ceased to be heard again after a certain apricot blossom season.

She suddenly came to her senses and realized that she, too, was growing at an astonishing rate. Taller and taller, bigger and bigger, until she had grown up.

"how so......"

Xue Qiaoniang turned around and looked back.

Ten years have passed in a single line; she stands on one end, while her mother remains on the other, separated by an irreversible decade of time.

She ran back desperately, stumbling and falling, getting up again as she went.

But the road ahead seemed to grow longer and longer, and home seemed to drift further and further away.

Even as she ran in that direction, she continued to walk forward, getting further and further away from her mother, until she became a dot, until she could no longer see her.

The joyful laughter of the past has faded and become colorless; everything is rapidly fading and becoming mottled.

Xue Qiaoniang ran while crying and shouting.

Don't leave me!

Don't leave me!

Don't leave me!

She ran until she was exhausted, until her knees and feet were bloody and raw. In the end, she ran from a graceful young woman back to a naive child.

The courtyard's latticed windows were dusty and decaying, the stone steps overgrown with moss. The osmanthus tree was now a rotten log, and a few crows cawing in harmony. Wind and rain had come, and several frosts and snows had passed...

Only a section of collapsed wall remains, overgrown with weeds.

She is a newly sprouted willow, a fledgling swallow. The willow pond, a hundred feet deep, no longer bears the image of the planter; the swallows, murmuring and flying away, no longer nest on the beams.

Life is like flowing water; when you think about it occasionally, it seems distant and insignificant.

Now, ten years have passed, and only now do I realize it.

So this is what separation is called.

So this is what death is.

But her mother eventually left her; her mother eventually abandoned her.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Xue Qiaoniang wondered: Did I cry then? Did I shed so many tears?

But she forgot.

Xue Qiaoniang still remembered her mother's words, "Go back."

There was a time when she longed to go back, to return to that warm, cramped, yet vast place where she had huddled when she was young and naive.

But alas, alas...

She can't go back; she has nowhere to go.

She is her mother's daughter, and her mother is also her mother's daughter.

Her mother had long since returned to her mother, together with her mother's mother, returning to the embrace of the Mother of all things.

After several nights of haunting dreams, I am filled with sorrow and unease.

Even the path between her and her mother was overgrown with weeds and overgrown with branches.

There is no way out, and no way back.

Xue Qiaoniang wandered aimlessly through the desolate, decaying landscape, until she suddenly turned around.

All that remains of that place are two mounds of yellow earth, a cold stele, three clumps of thorny grass, and two pine and cypress trees.

Xue Qiaoniang collapsed to the ground, wailing loudly, her cries as bewildered and fearful as when she first came into this world.

She seemed to have never shed so many tears before, so many that her small body could no longer bear the overwhelming regret and self-blame.

She fell down, curled up under the cold monument, on the yellow earth.

The soft yellow earth enveloped her, just as it had when she was a tiny lump of flesh, curled up in her abdominal cavity. Tears welled up like a trickle of water, flowing down and mingling with the earth.

In a daze, it seemed as if she were still her flesh and blood, never to be separated.

That's it, let's just stay here like this.

Return this flesh and blood to them, let their blood flow together, let their flesh dissolve together. As her body begins to decay, it will gradually merge with the earth.

She became her flesh and blood again, never to be separated again.

I don't know how much time passed...

The rain was heavy and the wind was fierce, the sky was dark and it was almost dusk. The heavy rain that fell from the sky washed away the earthen mounds and caused them to collapse.

Xue Qiaoniang rushed forward, scooped up handfuls of yellow earth, and covered the wound again. But the rain was so heavy that she couldn't see clearly, and the knee-deep water slowly rose, eventually becoming a great river. This water submerged them, severing her tightly clasped hand from her mother's.

She tried desperately to grab it, but her mother's tombstone was carried away by the current and drifted to a distant place she could never reach again.

"Take me with you!"

She cried and chased after her, wanting to grab her mother's hand again, but she could only drift and sink in the long river, carried away by the current.

The water churned and surged, like shattered pieces of glass. Within them lay those long-forgotten memories, those blurred and distant recollections, those long forgotten…

She caught a ripple in the water.

I was six years old when I lost a football match by a hair's breadth. I was young then, and my worries were young too. I cried for several days because of this.

She even cried on her birthday.

Cheng Zheng wiped away her tears and coaxed her gently, "Why are you unhappy on your birthday, my darling? I made a lot of your favorite foods today. Even your sister Ashuang and the others came to play with you."

She looked up, sobbing uncontrollably, "But I really liked that prize..."

"Mother likes it." As she spoke, she threw herself into his arms and cried. Cheng Zheng couldn't help but smile when he heard the reason.

“Your father has already bought it for your mother.”

"real?"

"Really? Go and see for yourself!"

She immediately strode towards the study and, sure enough, saw a set of Huzhou brushes.

Xue Chenghuai brought out a bowl of longevity noodles and said with a smile, "Now you can celebrate your birthday happily, right?"

She nodded.

Xue Chenghuai gently wiped away her tears: "Don't mix your tears with longevity noodles."

She still remembers him asking her, "Our Qiaoniang is five years old this year. In a few years, she will grow up. What kind of person do you want to be when you grow up?"

She thought about it carefully, sat on her father's shoulders, put her arms around his neck, and pointed to her mother who was playing Cuju (ancient Chinese football).

"I want to be like my mother! To play football well and beat them to a pulp in football matches!"

Cheng Zheng laughed and said, "Qiao Niang has great ambition! We will definitely win the Cuju tournament next year!"

next year……

Xue Qiaoniang tried desperately to grab and clench the water, but the ripples slid slowly across her palms. Patches of water swayed in that visible yet untouchable place.

The endless tears flowed out, causing the tide to surge and swell.

She began to suffocate, gradually losing all her strength. In the torrent, all she could grasp was that broken pen.

Xue Qiaoniang clutched the broken pen to her heart, closed her eyes, and let the tears of blood wash over her as they fell.

She thought...

She will sink down like this, and when her life ends, she will go back, she will see her mother again, and she will return with her to the place where all living beings return.

Suddenly, someone grabbed the hem of her clothes and pulled her upwards.

Xue Qiaoniang opened her eyes and saw a seventeen or eighteen-year-old man who looked similar to her.

She asked, "Who are you?"

She replied, "It's Xue Qiaoniang, it's Xue Chan, it's you, it's me."

That hand desperately pulled her upwards, but Xue Qiaoniang saw those fragments carrying joy slip past her eyes and gradually disappear into the distance.

"No, no, I don't want to wake up, and I don't want to face the future. The road ahead is too difficult. I'm tired, I'm scared."

She abruptly brushed away the hand that was grabbing her, wanting to take the broken pen to her mother.

She wants to go back.

She wants to go home.

The waves carried her up and down, drifting her towards the distant place she longed to go.

But Xue Qiaoniang felt that there was still something to cherish in this world. Deep within her heart lay something profound and enduring, something she could not yet fathom.

She was a little confused, wondering what that feeling was like?

When the broken edge of the pen stung her palm, and when she still couldn't bear to throw away the broken and useless pen, she understood something.

That's called being unwilling to accept it.

She saw a glimmer of light, and a surge of energy welled up in her heart. So she reached out, trying desperately to grasp that light.

"She's awake! She's awake!"

She had been suffering from nightmares for a long time before finally waking up.

When everyone saw Xue Chan open her eyes and suddenly sit up to grab the embroidered ribbon under the lamp, they were overjoyed.

The door was pushed open, and someone hurried in.

Chu Tao looked up and saw Jiang Ce, pale and frightening, burst in. He swayed and had to hold onto the screen to steady himself.

When they reached the vicinity of the bed, they could see that his bandaged wounds had burst open, and his robes were already soaked with blood, which dripped onto the floor.

He held tightly to the screen, and when he saw that Xue Chan had woken up, he felt a little relieved.

Yun Sheng wiped away his tears and, smiling happily, helped Xue Chan up.

Jiang Ce took a small step and tremblingly reached out his hand to Xue Chan.

"Xue Chan..."

Xue Chan raised her face blankly, her weak gaze sweeping over everyone in the room before finally landing on Jiang Ce, who was now half covered in blood.

"puff--"

Before anyone could even feel a surge of joy, blood spurted from her mouth, splashing onto the lamp and the pale daylilies painted on the silk. It also splattered onto Jiang Ce's outstretched hand and his smiling face.

"ah!"

Yun Sheng screamed and hugged Xue Chan, crying bitterly.

Zheng Shaoyu chased all the way to Xue Chan's place, and as soon as he entered, he bumped into Xue Chan vomiting blood, causing everyone to cry and panic.

"Xue Chan..."

"Bo Zhou!"

Xue Chan fell into Yun Sheng's arms like a light, floating piece of silk gauze, pale and lifeless.

Jiang Ce was greatly shocked and fell headfirst into the pool of blood.