Chapter 97 Chapter 97 He stared at himself blankly, his eyes full of circles...

Dusk was falling, and the lanterns hung high made the streets as bright as day. Ji Yanlang pulled Fang Ying and went wherever there were many people. They first watched strong men wrestling, and then went to see people breathing fire, drinking swords, and somersaulting through fire rings.

Fang Ying rarely went out to see a variety show, and she was excited at first. But then the crowd grew thicker, and the fire rings began to emit black smoke, choking her throat. She pulled Ji Yanlang and said, "It seems like someone is singing over there."

Ji Yanlang tilted his head to listen, then asked his attendants to clear the way, and he stretched out his arms to protect her, walking out through the crowd inside and outside.

The night in late autumn was already chilly, but there were quite a few people gathered around to watch the fire ring game. Fang Ying was wearing a cloak, so she didn't feel cold at all and was even a little sweaty.

It wasn't until she left the crowd that the cool night breeze blew towards her, clearing away the lingering smoke from her nose. Fang Ying's spirits lifted. "It seems she sang quite well."

Ji Yanlang, relying on his height, stretched his neck to look in the direction of the pipa sound. "Hmm, there are quite a few people over there."

He turned around and told his servants to go see if there were any empty tables in the nearby restaurants. He wanted to take Fang Ying in to sit down so that she could rest her feet and not have to squeeze in and out of the crowd.

"There are sweet-scented osmanthus cakes over there. Would you like to buy a pack?" Ji Yanlang pointed ahead and asked Fang Ying.

"OK."

Fang Ying nodded, and someone immediately went to buy it. Ji Yanlang held her hand and walked slowly forward.

"Do you feel that this situation seems familiar, as if you have experienced it before?" he suddenly asked.

Fang Ying shook her head: "The war was still going on during the Lantern Festival. You were not at home, and we did not go out either. How could we..."

Seeing that she took it seriously, Ji Yanlang smiled and said, "Then you must have dreamed about it, right? I always feel like I've seen the bustling scene on this street before..."

He was halfway through his words when the servant who had bought the sweet osmanthus cake came back. Ji Yanlang reached out to take the cake and was about to hand it to Fang Ying when a child suddenly rushed out from the side. The servants were afraid of offending their master, so they all reached out to stop him.

"Whose child is this...Ah!" The servant who caught the child cried out in pain, and then scolded, "Where did this wild child come from? Why is he biting people?"

Fang Ying saw that the child had a pigtail tied with a red string on her head, and it was a girl. She hurriedly called out to the young maid who had accompanied her, "Go and ask her carefully, and don't scare the child."

This maid was one of the young wives that Ji Yanlang had helped her choose a while ago. She had originally worked as a maid in the mansion, but when she reached a certain age, the mansion arranged for her to be paired with a servant.

Fang Ying asked her name and found it was Mai Cao. She thought there was nothing wrong with it, so she continued to call her that.

The child bit someone and wanted to continue running, but there were many people on the street and the servants of the Ji Mansion blocked her way. She couldn't run away and could only stumble around, unable to help crying.

Mai Cao took two quick steps over, squatted in front of the child, and coaxed him softly.

"Something's not right." Ji Yanlang's eyes darted around as he said to Fang Ying, "This child has delicate skin and neat clothes, he doesn't look like a beggar. He's been crying for a while, and no one has come to find him yet."

"Maybe he got lost because of the large crowd?" Fang Ying guessed.

Ji Yanlang said, "He's just lost, he won't bite anyone he sees." He led Fang Ying over to the child and asked, "Did you find out anything?"

Mai Cao quickly replied, "He must have gotten lost and met some bad guys."

Ji Yanlang first ordered someone to find the night patrol soldier, and then asked Mai Cao to try to ask the child if he remembered where his home was.

The child's crying had already subsided, but when he saw Ji Yanlang coming, he started crying again in fear.

Seeing that Mai Cao couldn't coax the little girl, Fang Ying asked Ji Yanlang for the osmanthus cake, asked him to step aside first, took out a piece of cake, squatted down, and handed it to the little girl.

"Would you like some sugar cake? I just bought it, it's so fragrant and soft."

The little girl stopped crying and looked at the cake and then at Fang Ying while sobbing, as if she wanted to eat it but didn't dare.

Fang Ying saw that the child was about four or five years old, with a round face and dimples on his hands when he wiped his tears. It was obvious that he was a child who was raised with love.

She took the cake back, put it in her mouth and took a bite, praising it as she ate, "Mmm, it's really sweet, and it tastes like osmanthus."

The little girl looked at her with tears in her eyes, and forgot to cry for a moment. Fang Ying stuffed the cake into her mouth, took another piece, and handed it to the little girl, "Try it."

The little girl looked at Wheat Straw hesitantly, and Wheat Straw encouraged her, "Eat it. This is our wife, the best person in the world."

Seeing the child finally reach out her hand, Fang Ying smiled and stuffed the candy cake into her palm, then asked, "What's your name?"

"Xiu'er." The little girl answered softly, holding the candy cake.

"Xiu'er, do you know where you live? Who brought you out?" Fang Ying asked in a softer voice.

The little girl began to sob again: "Mom, I want you."

"Let this aunt hold you and go find your mother, okay?" Fang Ying pointed at the wheat straw.

Mai Cao has a two-year-old daughter. She has the aura of a mother, and the little girl is more willing to get close to her and nodded.

Fang Ying asked Mai Cao to pick up Xiu'er, and she stood up with the help of Lichun's hand. Seeing that Xiu'er's face was covered with black and white lines due to crying, she took out a silk handkerchief and wiped her face clean carefully.

"Have some candy cakes. Here's another bag. I'll give it all to you."

Xiu'er was comforted and obediently took a bite of the cake. She tasted the sweetness and finally stopped crying.

But she was too young to tell where her home was, nor did she know how far she had run. She could not recognize the way back, and when asked urgently, she started crying and asking for her mother.

Fortunately, the patrolling soldiers came over quickly, saluted Ji Yanlang, and said that many families had lost their children today, and many of them were deliberately abducted by kidnappers. They were short of manpower and the streets were too crowded, making it difficult to catch them.

Ji Yanlang suspected that the child was abducted, which was why he was afraid of adult men and even tried to bite them. But when the child saw him and the soldiers approaching, he buried his face in the straw, not daring to speak, and he could not get any information from them.

The soldiers asked around on the way here and learned that Commander Ji was out for a trip with his female family members and happened to come across the child. Seeing this, they suggested that they take the child back first and wait for the child's parents to come and look for him.

This is indeed the right thing to do, Ji Yanlang looked at Fang Ying.

Fang Ying was worried that the child would be scared, so she hesitated and said, "How about letting Mai Cao accompany him..."

He had barely said half of his words when he heard a woman's heart-wrenching cry in the distance. The street was already very noisy with all sorts of sounds mixed together. They had to stand close to each other to hear each other clearly when they spoke, but the cry was so sharp and high-pitched that everyone was attracted by it, and even the performers stopped and looked in the direction of the sound.

The noisy street suddenly quieted down, and then the second shout was heard. Fang Ying didn't hear clearly what was shouted, but the shout was full of heart-wrenching pain, which made people's hearts tremble.

Xiu'er in Mai Cao's arms struggled at this moment and cried, "Mom!"

Fang Ying turned around and looked at her: "Is she your mother?"

"Mom, I want mom..." Xiu'er struggled to get down.

"Maybe it's really Xiu'er's biological mother who has come." Fang Ying asked Mai Cao to put the child down, and turned to discuss with Ji Yanlang to send an extra servant to take the child with Mai Cao to look for someone.

Ji Yanlang asked a close follower and a soldier to go with Mai Cao and Xiu'er to look in the direction where the shouting came from.

"Let's go." Ji Yanlang took Fang Ying's hand, "Let's find a place to sit down and rest."

Fang Ying nodded and followed him, but she was still thinking about those two shouts in her heart. She couldn't help but say, "It would be great if she really is Xiu'er's mother."

"Even if this is not the case, as long as the child's parents are looking for her, they will always find her." Ji Yanlang thought she was worried about the little girl and comforted her.

Fang Ying shook her head: "I mean, if she is really Xiu'er's mother, there will be one less sad person in this world."

Ji Yanlang was stunned for a moment before nodding: "Yes."

The two held hands and walked silently for a while. Then they heard the sound of a pipa in the front and started singing again.

The servant who had been sent away earlier had already reserved an empty table and came over to lead the couple into the restaurant to sit down.

They ordered some food casually. Lichun asked for hot water and made two cups of tea with the tea leaves he brought with him.

Fang Ying picked up her teacup, listened to the five-o'clock tune being sung outside, and asked Ji Yanlang, "Didn't they say there was a military drama? How come we didn't see it on the way here?"

"I'll ask them to look for it." Ji Yanlang called an attendant and gave an order, and the attendant took the order and left.

The military drama was a kind of comedy. Fang Ying had seen it several times when she was young, but she had never seen it again after she got married. This kind of comedy inevitably contained some indecent language and would not be performed in front of the ladies of wealthy families.

Ji Yanlang's mind was not on this. He kept thinking about Fang Ying's words, "There will be one less sad person in the world" - at first it sounded like this was referring to the woman who screamed miserably, but when he thought about it carefully, wasn't it also referring to herself?

Thinking back to the day she married into the Ji family, she had no news from him and no one knew whether he was alive or dead. The hope of his safe return was even slimmer than finding a lost child today. Her heartbreak must have been no less than hers.

The woman could still shout out, but Fang Ying could only hold it in.

For more than two years, more than seven hundred days and nights, I don’t know how she managed to get through it.

Fang Ying finished the tea in her cup, put it down, turned around to talk to Ji Yanlang, but saw him staring at her blankly, his eyes red and full of tenderness, and she was stunned for a moment.

"What's wrong?" Ji Yanlang came back to his senses first and asked.

Fang Yingxin said, I was just about to ask you what's wrong with you - you were just sitting there listening to music, and there was nothing that brought up any emotions, why did you suddenly look like this?

But the restaurant was packed with people, and the servants were all huddled close together, so some things were awkward to say. Fang Ying simply said, "If we go to see the military drama, won't it be too late to return home?"

"It's okay to be late. Mom told us to have fun before going back."

Ji Yanlang originally wanted to take her out for fun before returning home, but now he felt especially fond of her and felt that he had to watch the military recruitment play tonight.

But the followers who went out to look for him had not returned yet, and Mai Cao and others came back to report first.

"Found it?" Fang Ying asked without waiting for her to reply when she saw Xiu'er didn't come back.

"Found it." Mai Cao replied with a smile, "Xiu'er's mother is on the street ahead. I just turned around and ran into her."

Ji Yanlang asked, "Is that the person who was shouting?"

Wheat Straw shook his head: "No, the one shouting was another crazy woman."

When they went to look for her, the woman had been taken away by her family and they did not see her. However, they heard people talking about how pitiful she was. She had been married twice, and her first husband died in battle. After she remarried, she finally gave birth to a child, which she raised until the child was four years old. Then, her husband took the child out to see the lanterns, but the child accidentally got lost and has not been found to this day.

"I heard that he's been insane for three or four years since then. He's usually locked up at home and not allowed to come out. I don't know what happened today..."

When Mai Cao said this, he saw that Liu Lang and his wife's faces had darkened, so he quickly said to Xiu'er, "But she did something good by making a fuss unintentionally. Xiu'er's mother heard the commotion and came looking for her, which is how we ran into each other."

Fang Ying nodded: "I'm glad you found it."

"They were both terrified, hugging each other and crying. The officer reminded her that she should kowtow to her wife, but she didn't understand. She held Xiu'er and tried to kowtow to me. I was so scared that I hurried back."

Fang Ying said, "Why kowtow? We didn't do anything wrong. Besides, the child has been lost once. It's time to go home quickly so that everyone in the family can be at ease and we can take good care of the child."

"My lady is right."

After Mai Cao finished replying, the servant who had gone to look for the military play came back and said that there was a performance at the back street and it was at its most lively part, with a lot of people watching.

Ji Yanlang immediately stood up, took Fang Ying over, found a tea table on the second floor, and sat down with her to watch the show.

Fang Ying hadn't watched a military enlistment play for several years. This time, she had no worries and was extremely happy watching it, laughing non-stop. When the play was over and she was riding in the car to go home, she couldn't help but imitate the jokes told by the actor with Ji Yanlang.

Ji Yanlang also joined in the fun, reciting lines with her from time to time, which made her laugh a few more times.

When the carriage arrived at the palace, Fang Ying was surprised: "It arrived so soon?"

"What? Not satisfied yet?" Ji Yanlang asked with a smile.

Fang Ying waved her hand and smiled, "I feel like I just got in the car."

Ji Yanlang got out of the car first, turned around to help Fang Ying down, and said with a smile: "It's not fun, let's go again tomorrow."

Fang Ying landed on the ground and wanted to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly. It was already late and there were not many people in the yard, so she let Ji Yanlang do as he pleased and did not pull her hand away. The two of them walked into the second gate hand in hand.

"Are you tired?" Ji Yanlang asked when he saw Fang Ying didn't say anything.

"Well, I haven't walked such a long distance in a long time, and my feet are a little sore."

"Soak your feet in hot water later, and I'll give you a good massage."

Fang Ying didn't believe it: "You? Massage your feet?"

"Ah, what's wrong with me massaging your feet? Can't you believe it?" Ji Yanlang joked.

"It's not that I can't trust you, it's that I can't afford to use you." Fang Ying shook the hand he was holding. "Wouldn't it be too much for me to press my feet with the hands that hold a bow and a knife?"

"You overestimate these two hands," Ji Yanlang said with a smile. "From chopping wood and killing fish to mending, they've done everything."

Fang Ying had forgotten about this. She paused and was about to ask about Aunt Deng and her daughter when Ji Yanlang suddenly leaned close to her ear and continued, "Massaging your feet is a good deal for them."

"..." Fang Ying couldn't help it and reached out to pinch his waist.

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