47 Ancient City (II)
◎Do you want to cry too?◎
The wind blew past the window, blowing away the dust stuck on the pane, but also brought a petal.
Li Jintang leaned forward to flick away the red streak. Suddenly, she heard the creaking of wooden boards. She shrank back from the window, glanced back at the person who had come, and a faint smile curved her lips. "Sister Qiuyan, why are you here?"
"That senior brother just now was really too much. I was so angry that I ran away," Qiu Yan sat down on the bed beside her, her hands resting on her sides, her cheeks slightly flushed with anger. "Tang, tell me, who is at fault in this matter?"
Li Jintang listened silently as she recounted the entire story. After thinking it over carefully, he felt he really didn't know how to judge right or wrong. So he pursed his lips, smiled, and said softly, "Don't be angry, sister. How about I go play with you?"
"How did you know I wanted to go out?"
"I heard everything my sister said just now."
Qiuyan blinked, then jumped up and took her hand, "Atang, I knew you were the best."
As they walked out the door, they happened to run into Qu Lingfei and his three companions coming out of the next room. Li Jintang immediately felt someone tug on her arm. She turned around and saw Qiu Yan hiding behind her, deliberately turning away from him.
"..." Li Jintang hesitated for a moment, then raised his head and smiled at Qu Lingfei, trying to find something to say: "Brother Qu, are you guys going out too?"
Qu Lingfei glanced past her, forgetting to answer for a moment. He awkwardly reached out with his hand, which dangled at his side, but the next second he heard Qiuyan snort and walk past him, taking the girl's hand.
He extended his hand, turned it, and scratched his head a few times, feeling quite embarrassed.
But what was worse than the embarrassment was that his junior sister ignored him...
"What are you doing?" Nangong Xiu frowned. Seeing his distracted look, he said with a "tsk," "Go after him if you want. Why are you being so fussy?"
"If I chase her now, she'll probably get even angrier," Qu Lingfei muttered quietly. Before Nangong Xiu could say anything more disgusting, he said loudly, "Let's go for a walk too."
As they walked further, the two girls' silhouettes came into view again. Tian Heng suddenly shouted, "If you don't let me go, I'll call for help!"
After he said that, no one paid any attention to him for a while, so he really started shouting: "Help! Someone is trying to kidnap your distinguished guest..."
"What are you yelling about?!" Nangong Xiu impatiently covered his mouth with his hand, then pulled the knife out of the sheath a few inches, and the blade cut the rope tied to his hands.
As they passed by a shop with a dilapidated door frame and a signboard with paint almost peeling off, they heard a sudden burst of cheers from inside. Qiuyan was drawn in and pulled the hand of the person next to her, "Atang, it's so lively in there."
"Let's go in and take a look." Li Jintang let her pull him in.
The shop was packed with tables and chairs, and almost every table was filled with people. When they entered, the people at the table near the door were getting up and leaving, so the two of them sat down.
As soon as she sat down, a figure suddenly appeared beside her. Qu Lingfei pulled a chair over and sat down beside her. He touched his nose and chuckled, "I see there are a few extra chairs. Junior Sister, would you mind sitting with us?"
After walking around, Qiuyan's anger had subsided a lot. Now that she could tell he was trying to make peace, she didn't want to be awkward anymore, so she simply moved to the side, keeping her eyes on the stage, "Whatever."
Xie Changyan lowered his eyes to look at them, and after a moment, he sat down beside them very cooperatively.
The chair legs creaked, too close. Li Jintang involuntarily moved closer to Qiuyan, but then immediately felt that this was not a good idea, so he quietly moved back. Unexpectedly, the other party quietly moved closer to him, and their hands on the armrests touched lightly without any warning.
There was a thud next to him. Nangong Xiu had no idea that there were so many twists and turns between them. He sat down casually on a chair and pushed Tian Heng to sit down with him.
The water in the teapot on the table was filled, and the curtain of the stage was drawn again. A man in costume came out, waving a folding fan, and laughed twice. His mouth started to speak as if a floodgate had been opened, and words kept coming out.
"Brother, who did he speak better, or did you sing better that day?"
Hearing her take the initiative, Qu Lingfei was immediately delighted. Without carefully considering his response, he simply agreed with her, saying, "Of course, I can't compare with the master, but Junior Sister and I are good friends, so she compared me to him." He finished speaking and smiled. "As soon as Junior Sister asked this question, I was very happy."
Qiuyan's eyes were fixed on the stage when she said this. Her cheeks flushed slightly when she heard this, and she quickly glanced at him, "Who is good with you? I was just asking casually, you're just overthinking it."
Qu Lingfei smiled happily even after being scolded, and the sadness on his face disappeared.
"The story I want to tell today is called 'Compassion,'" the person on the stage began slowly, fanning himself. Everyone in the audience immediately fell silent. "Why is it called 'Compassion,' please tell me slowly..."
"If you want to say something, just say it. Why keep it a secret?" The audience became restless.
The storyteller chuckled, folded his fan, and cleared his throat. "This story begins several years ago. It was a dark and windy night when two figures in black robes leaped out from the rooftops, one after the other. Yes, they were none other than the protagonist of this story, the Bodhisattva of Compassion."
A child's voice rang out from the crowd: "He's wrong. How can a Bodhisattva wear black?"
The storyteller waved his fan slowly, ignoring the words, "No one knows what they did that night, but the figures of the two heroes were like ghosts, making it extremely difficult for onlookers to see clearly..."
The child exclaimed, "Eh!" in a clear voice that was particularly noticeable in the crowd. "Just now I said it was a Bodhisattva, so why is it a hero now? If it was 'hard to see clearly,' why can I see a 'ghostly figure'?"
The woman holding him immediately scolded him, "Be quiet, or I won't take you to the opera next time."
This statement drew roars of laughter from the crowd. The storyteller, unfazed, simply smiled and waited for the audience to quiet down before slowly unfurling his folding fan and saying, "The two young heroes ran for several miles. Ahead, they saw flashes of silver light, and hidden weapons were launched from all directions. With a few crackling sounds, the weapons fell, but the enemy lurking in the shadows was not prepared to give up. The young heroes, back to back, longsword in hand, handled the situation with ease. But at that moment, a cry suddenly echoed from the corner of the wall, a startling sound in the darkness."
The two young men were stunned. Who would leave a child alone in a place like this in the middle of the night? But there was no time to think. Hidden weapons rustled through the air. With their skills, dodging them would have been easy, but the child was likely to die.
At the climax of the conversation, the audience fell silent. Suddenly, someone lost their patience and interrupted hurriedly, asking, "What happened next? Did they save the child?"
The storyteller glared at him, then paused for a moment before continuing. "Instantly, the two young warriors exchanged glances. The female warrior swung her sword to block the hidden weapon, while the male warrior leaped down, scooping up the child and holding it in his arms. Yet, why was there no sound of the weapons dropping? It turned out that the female warrior didn't draw her sword. Instead, she tapped the ground with her toes and lightly leaped to her feet. With a single twitch, she reached out and snatched all the hidden weapons away. With a single backhand swing, only a few screams were heard. In the darkness, in just a few moments, she had completely eliminated the enemy hiding in the shadows."
There was an immediate cheer from the crowd, and everyone couldn't help but praise the young hero for her excellent skills despite being a woman.
Nangong Xiu frowned upon hearing this—this lousy storyteller was talking nonsense. Looking across the entire demon world, besides the two commanders, who else possessed such skill? He sneered and took a sip of tea, eager to hear what more outrageous stories this man could fabricate.
"When the murderous intent faded, the child stopped crying. His eyes were tightly closed, and only the rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive. It turned out that the child was only four years old, but his family had been brutally murdered. His mother had sacrificed herself to save his life."
At this point, sporadic sobbing could be heard from the audience. Li Jintang couldn't help but curl his hands on his knees, and his lips turned pale for a moment.
"Why, you want to cry too?"
A faint voice beside her reached her ears. She turned her head and saw the young man leaning lazily on the back of his chair with his hands on the back of his head, meeting her gaze calmly.
Li Jintang was about to answer when her nose suddenly felt sore. She wrinkled her nose, unable to sneeze. To him, her expression was like someone trying desperately to hold back tears. Xie Changyan stood up, one hand on the table, his eyes brushing across her face. He said soothingly, "What's there to be sad about in books?"
She was stunned for a moment—yes, she was an outsider...
Whether it is the storyteller's book or now, she is an outsider of the book. These friends sitting next to her who have lived and died together are also people in the book whom she will never see again after leaving.
She felt inexplicably lost and hung her head. She missed a large part of what the storyteller said next.
The storyteller, tirelessly narrating, continued, "So these two young heroes were on their way to war. They had thought the demon world was at peace, but now, encountering such a helpless child, they were overwhelmed with grief, knowing that if they left him alone, he would not survive long. But with war approaching, how could they bring him with them? The couple carried the child along as they walked until they saw a brightly lit house. Overjoyed, they picked him up and went inside to find the owner."
"They gave the manor owner a large sum of silver and left some elixirs for the child. They also promised that if the child was still healthy and safe after their triumphant return, they would give the manor owner a thousand-year-old elixir as a reward."
The crowd sighed, "These two young men are truly living Bodhisattvas. That's a thousand-year-old elixir. Where have we ever seen such a thing?"
After everyone quieted down, he continued, "The owner of the manor immediately agreed, and the two young men immediately named the child—"
The storyteller paused for a moment, waving his folding fan again. "The two young men smiled at each other and said, 'We hope he will be an upright man, able to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil.' So let's give him the name Tian Heng."
【Author’s words】
Happy Dragon Boat Festival! [scatter flowers]
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