Chapter 53 Do you want to leave here?
Dai Li vaguely remembered having a dream, but after waking up, everything was shrouded in a hazy veil, making it impossible for her to see clearly the wonderful dream that had brought her so much joy the previous night.
Lying blankly on the couch, Dai Li stared at the canopy above her, trying to recall fragments of her dream.
Just then, low voices could be heard coming from outside.
“I just went in to check, and the lady is still not awake. It will be 9:00 in a quarter of an hour. I will go to Mr. Ding’s place later and invite her over.”
"Should we inform the Lord?"
"Let's wait until Mr. Ding finishes his consultations before we take a look. By the way, young master, you truly are worthy of being the lady's son. I'll tell you a secret, last night I felt that if he didn't have the scars on his face, young master would definitely be extremely outstanding."
Dai Li jolted awake, all her confusion vanishing instantly, and she immediately sat up. As she did so, something slid from beside the couch to the footrest.
Dai Li turned her head and saw that it was a black outer robe.
Unlike the robe Qin Shaozong wore with silver trim on the cuffs, this outer robe was very ordinary, made of the most common linen. Such robes wouldn't normally appear in her room.
It's not a dream, Zhouzhou is back!
Dai Li hurriedly got up and got off the bed, but she gasped as soon as she took her first step, lost her balance, and fell to the ground.
As soon as the voices outside stopped, Nianxia and Bipo went inside.
"Madam!" The two quickly helped Dai Li up.
"Be careful, your left foot is badly injured, you need to be extra careful these days."
Dai Li grabbed their arms and asked somewhat nervously, "Has my son returned?"
“Of course, the young master is outside. He’s been outside since early this morning.” Nianxia nodded.
Dai Li suddenly relaxed. "I'd like to wash up. Thank you for your help."
“Madam is being too polite with me,” Bibo chuckled.
After everything was tidied up, the door was opened.
The bright, warm sunlight streamed into the room, seemingly dispelling all the gloom.
Bathed in sunlight, Dai Li saw a tall, slender figure standing outside the door, as upright as a pine tree. She was about to call him in when her gaze fell upon him, and she couldn't help but pause in surprise.
The young man had a face as white as jade, radiant and dazzling. His eyebrows and eyes were particularly outstanding. His eyes were classic peach blossom eyes, with contours like peach petals blooming in spring. His upper eyelids were layered, and when they reached the outer corners of his eyes, they were slightly upturned like a fine brush painting, making him just as beautiful as his birth mother.
The horrifying "flesh worms" were no longer visible on his cheeks; his smooth, fair skin was intact, gleaming softly in the sunlight.
Qin Yanzhou changed into a moon-white brocade robe with unique black piping at the cuffs. Because he had not yet reached adulthood, his black hair was tied into a bun at the back of his head with a hairband.
Looking at him now, he is completely different from the man he was last night.
If Qin Yanzhou last night was an ugly, unassuming assassin, a cold knife casually stuck in the mud, then now he is like jade soaking in a hot spring, much like a handsome young nobleman from a wealthy family, unaware of the hardships of the world.
He seemed a little uncomfortable dressed like this, and with Dai Li staring at him intently, he couldn't help but feel a little shy. He whispered, "Good morning, Mom."
The cruel river of time began to flow backward, and Dai Li seemed to have returned to the time before everything happened.
Every day after she wakes her up, her nine-year-old child rubs his eyes and says "Good morning, Mom" as if he's about to fall asleep again.
Years have passed, in different places and in different eras, and people who are the same, yet not entirely the same, meet again.
"Good morning, Zhouzhou." Dai Li's eyes welled up with tears as she recalled the two scars on his neck.
If what is exposed is so terrifying, how much more so what is unseen? Her child suffered countless hardships in places she couldn't see...
Dai Li lowered her head and took two rapid breaths, but still felt extremely uncomfortable, as if an invisible rope was constantly tightening around her neck.
Seeing her lower her head and wipe her eyes, Qin Yanzhou quickly took two steps forward, wanting to say something, but for a moment he didn't know where to start, and suddenly felt a little flustered.
Dai Li noticed his panic and tried hard not to think about the suffocating grief. She looked up and greeted him, "Come and sit down. Have you had breakfast yet?"
Qin Yanzhou sat down opposite her, lifting his robe. "Not yet."
"Then eat here." Dai Li looked at his unharmed face, and the sadness in her heart finally eased a little, but this relief was mixed with a trace of unease that she couldn't explain.
“Zhouzhou, I heard that you were adopted by Fan Yanzhou many years ago. How many years ago exactly?” Dai Li asked, feeling inexplicably uneasy.
She learned about Fan Yanzhou adopting her son last night from Qiao Wangfei's report. His exact words were: "This person claims to have been adopted by Fan Yanzhou many years ago and renamed Quan Jie."
The name "Inu-ga" was a thorn in Dai-li's heart. The person who named her son was disrespectful and full of malice, and did not regard him as a human being at all.
Qin Yanzhou paused for a moment, then said, "Seven years ago."
Dai Li's breathing became slightly sluggish.
Seven years, it really was seven years.
At that moment, Dai Li suddenly realized where her unease had come from.
The timing just doesn't match.
Nianxia and Bibo went to the kitchen to get breakfast, leaving only Daili and her son in the room.
Today was neither rainy nor overcast; the sky was clear and the morning sun was warm—a rare and beautiful day. But Dai Li inexplicably felt cold in her hands and feet, and her ankle, which she had injured last night, was now throbbing with sharp, stabbing pain.
“Zhouzhou, tell your mother the truth, where else did you go before you went to the Fan residence?” Dai Li asked urgently.
Not ten years ago.
It's been seven years. Seven years ago, my son went to Fanzhou. This means that before being adopted by the Fan family, he spent three years elsewhere.
Nine years ago, this region experienced a great famine. The famine covered a wide area, affecting not only the Central Plains and the north, but also the south.
Ten years ago, Old Man Sun saw his son standing on the riverbank in Qiantang, indicating that Zhouzhou was in Qiantang at that time. In ancient times, transportation was extremely inconvenient; a distance of a hundred li would take a commoner almost half a month to travel.
Traveling far is as difficult as climbing to heaven, let alone the fact that Zhouzhou had no messengers or relatives by his side at the time, making him a completely unregistered person.
She guessed that when the famine struck, Zhouzhou probably didn't escape the disaster area. In that catastrophe where selling children and even cannibalism were commonplace, who adopted him?
"By chance, I was adopted by a kind and wealthy family. They live in the mountains, isolated from the world, and have fertile fields to provide food. Therefore, they had stored up a lot of food beforehand, and they could easily support me." Qin Yanzhou lowered his eyes, avoiding Dai Li's gaze.
Dai Li's expression softened a bit, and she asked again, "Was the disguise on your face taught to you by that wealthy family?"
Qin Yanzhou nodded. "That wealthy family had two young masters around my age who were particularly fond of studying various esoteric arts. They said my face was too conspicuous and inconvenient to travel with, so they taught me a method of disguise. After the famine passed, I became a servant and traveled with a branch of that wealthy family. However, one day we unfortunately encountered bandits and I fell into a river and was swept away by the current, becoming separated from them. Later, I was unexpectedly rescued by Fan Yanzhou and adopted as his son."
After saying this, Qin Yanzhou added, "I do have some scars, but those were from before I was adopted by wealthy families. After meeting them, life wasn't actually that hard."
Dai Li sensed something was amiss and was about to ask again when her son immediately followed up with, "Mom, why are you in the Northern Army? What's going on between you and Qin Shaozong?"
Dai Li froze. "...This is a long story, and it can't be explained in a short time."
Qin Yanzhou sat quietly, looking like he was listening attentively.
However, Nianxia and Bipo returned at this time.
The two women brought out breakfast. Earlier, Dai Li had nothing to do at home, so in order to satisfy her appetite, she improved the stone mill of this era.
At this time, the stone mill was in the middle of its development history. The shape of the grinding teeth was radial and diagonal, which was more efficient than before, but it still had significant shortcomings compared to the later eight-diagonal grinding shape.
The improvement of stone mills undoubtedly had the greatest impact on wheat. Because the hulled wheat grains were still coarse, and even after cooking, they would still feel like they were stuck in the throat.
For this reason, the soft, smooth, and delicious millet rice was favored by wealthy families and was a symbol of rich people.
Those who ate wheat were mostly poor commoners, or it was provided to the thousands of soldiers in the army, in order to minimize the army's expenses.
However, if wheat grains are ground into fine wheat flour, the taste will be dramatically improved, and it can also be used to make other products such as steamed buns and noodles.
What Bibo and Nianxia are serving now is soup noodles. Not the kind of soup noodles that are common in this era, but a soup noodle dish that has been improved by Dai Li and is exactly the same as the ones in later generations.
Thin white noodles, topped with shredded meat and egg, sprinkled with a handful of chopped green onions, and drizzled with a drop or two of golden oil.
A bowl of noodles that would be very ordinary in modern times, probably costing less than ten yuan, and could be found everywhere on the streets, yet Qin Yanzhou stared at it for a long time.
Some memories are like old photographs. Even if you take them out and look at them again and again, over time, the edges will become frayed and curled, and they will become blurry.
A small bowl of noodle soup, and when we met again it was like a lifetime had passed.
After looking at the soup noodles, he looked up at Dai Li across from him, as if to confirm that she was still there, before Qin Yanzhou began to eat his noodles.
He ate very slowly, chewing each bite carefully, as if trying to recapture the feelings from ten years ago and erase all the hardships in between.
Neither the mother nor the son spoke, yet the atmosphere was anything but tense.
After breakfast was finished, the maid went inside to collect the bowls and chopsticks.
The time it took for breakfast to cool down gave Dai Li time to figure out how to talk to her son.
She took the initiative to tell him the beginning, "Zhouzhou, I came here by crossing the river about six months after the school bus plunged into the river. I haven't been here long, less than four months. When I first arrived, I unexpectedly met Qin Shaozong. At that time, he had not yet taken over Ying County, and he needed a woman to act out a play with him to deceive the henchmen of that salt smuggler. I am not affiliated with any faction, so he chose me, and I used him to find you."
After a pause, Dai Li continued, "The Xian Shi that is popular in various states is a formula I gave him. Qin Shaozong and I have a cooperative relationship."
As for the twists and turns in between, such as how she escaped to Taiping County and how he caught her and brought her back, as well as her one-year agreement with Qin Shaozong, Dai Li felt that her son had no need to know.
Zhouzhou has already suffered enough over the years; he doesn't need any additional burdens.
“Mom, do you want to leave here? If you do, I can help you make arrangements,” Qin Yanzhou suddenly said.
Dai Li was startled.
arrange?
How will Zhouzhou arrange this? Is he capable of doing so?
Author's Note: I had a feeling I was about to catch a cold yesterday, and sure enough, I feel terrible today. My head is spinning, and I'm only managing to write two words at a time. I can only update briefly now. I'll try to pull myself together again tomorrow. [emoji]
By the way, you can pay attention to the timeline that Zhouzhou mentioned to Daili.
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