You could hear a pin drop in the small room.
Yuan Zhao looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar face in front of him, and for a moment he was unable to say anything.
How long has it been since they last saw each other?
It seems like ten years...
The year she came to Yangzhou, Huo Yan was stationed in the northwest.
The two parted at the city gate and never met again.
In the first few years, she occasionally heard news about him, mostly from letters from her royal brother.
They said he had won another battle or been promoted again.
Just a few words to convey some of his information.
In just ten years, the distance between the south of the Yangtze River and the northwest of the Yangtze River has become the distance between the ends of the earth.
Yuan Zhao thought less and less about the young general who grew up with him as a childhood sweetheart.
But even so, she could still recognize him at a glance today.
Compared to ten years ago, his facial features, which were already perfect when he was a teenager, have become more profound, and the aura between his eyebrows has become more compelling.
Yuan Zhao had always felt that Huo Yan was handsome and the second most handsome man in the Dacheng Dynasty besides her royal brother.
Perhaps because he has been in the northwest for a long time, his face now has a sense of weathering.
Having shed his youthful immaturity, he looks more mature and has a different flavor.
…
The two of them lay on their sides, facing each other, their breaths entwined.
When they met old friends again, Yuan Zhao really couldn't think of what to say.
She didn't speak, and Huo Yan didn't speak either.
But those dark eyes stared at her without blinking.
Yuan Zhao was the first to feel some discomfort and was about to look away when the person in front of him broke the silence.
"Are you...doing okay?" His voice was steadier than before, yet contained an imperceptible tremor.
After not seeing each other for ten years, this was the only question he could ask.
On a snowy night, the air is filled with lingering moisture.
There were gaps in the paper-pasted windows, and cold wind blew in from time to time.
Yuan Zhao felt cold and shivered.
The people around her subconsciously helped her to gather the quilt around her.
Yuan Zhao's tears fell instantly.
The hot tears flowed out uncontrollably as if the string had broken.
In the past two months, except for the tears she shed that night in Xingyu Lane when she witnessed with her own eyes that her years of happiness were all an illusion, she no longer cared about being sad as the things were laid out before her one by one.
Busy saving the child, fighting with the mother-in-law, and dealing with the sister-in-law...
She didn't dare to be sad or cry. Several children depended on her, and her concubines and illegitimate children were eyeing her covetously. She didn't dare show her vulnerability for a moment.
I'm afraid of being eaten alive again.
But at this moment, perhaps because of Huo Yan's question "How are you?" or something else, Yuan Zhao could no longer bear it, and the emotions that had been accumulating in his heart for the past two months burst out all at once.
The grievances in my heart flooded over me like a tide.
She sobbed softly, but was afraid that Aunt Zhou would hear her, so she could only clutch Huo Yan's clothes tightly on her chest, and lay in his arms, covering her face and crying.
Huo Yan felt a wetness on his chest, and the person in his arms was trembling all over.
Princess Showa, who used to cry loudly whenever she got a little skin broken, now had to suppress her sobs even when she was crying so hard.
There was a shadow in Huo Yan's eyes. He finally couldn't help himself and reached out to hug her tightly.
The person in my arms cried bitterly and did not resist.
He whispered in her ear, "Wei Shaoqing, is he not good to you?"
If he was good to her and was really as happy and loving as he had heard, why would she cry like that?
At least before Yuan Zhao got married, in the more than ten years that Huo Yan had been with her, he had never seen her endure and bear grievances like this.
Hearing this name, the person in his arms trembled subconsciously, and his hands gripped the corner of his clothes even tighter.
"I'm going to kill him!" The man's eyes in the darkness suddenly became fierce, like a wolf ready to pounce.
After a long while, Yuan Zhao finally controlled his emotions, raised his head from his arms, and slightly widened the distance between them.
"Why... are you here?" Yuan Zhao's voice still had a lingering hoarseness from crying.
Huo Yan wiped her tears, his eyes full of pity.
"Something happened in Nanyue, and His Majesty sent me here to investigate, so I passed by Yangzhou..."
"Aren't you in the northwest? Why did you suddenly come to the south?" It seemed that because of this cry, the strangeness between the two people who had not seen each other for many years was dispelled a lot. Yuan Zhao asked while calming down his emotions.
"I returned to Beijing to report on my work before the New Year, and I happened to come here because of this incident."
He didn't say that he asked the prince to assign this task to him because he wanted to come here on the way and hoped to see her from afar to see if she was doing well.
I heard that she came to the Big Buddha Temple to pray. I had planned to go to the Big Buddha Temple after finishing the matter in Heishan Village, but I didn't expect to meet her here.
When the branch fell, and when he saw that the person below was her, he felt like he was dreaming and rushed out without thinking.
He tucked her tear-soaked hair behind her ear and then asked, "Why are you here?"
This question brought Yuan Zhao back to her senses. She sat up suddenly, and then thought about the current situation and calmed down.
Huo Yan also sat up.
Yuan Zhao turned to look at Huo Yan and grabbed his wrist as if he had grabbed a life-saving straw.
"Huo Yan! My child! My child was abducted into this village and his whereabouts are unknown. I am here to save him!" Her eyes were full of panic and helplessness. She didn't know what had happened to Qi Yu and Biyun after such a long time.
Huo Yan held her hand in return, his tone neither hurried nor slow, "Don't worry, tell me what's going on."
Feeling the warmth coming from his palm, Yuan Zhao's heart calmed down a lot.
Yangzhou City is a densely packed net woven by Wei Shaoqing, and this net is specifically used to tie up Yuan Zhao.
She didn't dare to trust anyone in the Wei Mansion except her own children and Biyun Gantang.
But Huo Yan was different. Whenever she got into trouble since she was a child, he was always there to clean up the mess for her.
Rather than saying that Huo Yan was the prince's tutor, it would be more accurate to say that he was Yuan Zhao's tutor.
The two have been together for many years, and Huo Yan has never harmed her.
But after marrying Wei Shaoqing, he became an old friend and was abandoned in the capital by Yuan Zhao, just like his brother the Crown Prince.
Now that he saw Huo Yan again, Yuan Zhao felt as if he had regained some connection with the capital's past.
In the past two months, she has been racking her brains and has even thought about writing a letter to her brother, the Emperor, for help.
But I am afraid that if the letter is discovered by Wei Shaoqing, the consequences will be unpredictable.
Now in front of Huo Yan, she did not hide anything and told him about Qi Yu.
After all, it was not said that the mastermind behind Qi Yu's kidnapping was Wei Shaoqing's mistress.
This was a matter between her and Wei Shaoqing, there was no need to drag Huo Yan into it.
Hearing the unspoken meaning in her words, Huo Yan's eyes flickered slightly, knowing that there was another hidden story.
No problem, he could find out for himself.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
