59 Chapter 59 Thornwood
◎Only Yunhe◎
Yuliu spoke to Su Yunyue, who was hiding behind nine painted screens, blocking out external interference as if she were using a solid wall to block out external interference. She expressed her position as Yuliu and said sincerely:
"Sister, if you don't want to go back, then don't go back."
"Actually, I'm not here to try to persuade you, sister. I just remembered that when you first came to Yuqingyuan to look for me, we missed each other once." As Yuliu spoke, her eyes gradually became vague, as if reminiscing about something. She whispered to Su Yunyue, "Sister, do you still remember the night of the lantern festival?"
"Actually, during the days since you were taken away, when I worried about your safety, I've always felt regretful... I regret whether I should have spoken to you more that night, or whether I shouldn't have persuaded you to go hand in hand with the Fourth Prince so soon."
Yuliu rarely reveals her feelings, and now she is confessing to Su Yunyue, which is a rare time when she acts according to her heart. She feels that her original choice was really wrong.
Yuliu didn't know whether she was talking too much, nor did she know whether it was appropriate to tell Su Yunyue about her current mood at this time.
But at this moment, Yuliu and Su Yunyue were separated by a nine-panel painted screen. As they faced each other from afar, her thoughts suddenly became clearer than ever before.
The Fourth Prince will indeed protect the Fourth Prince's wife.
But all along, it was the Fourth Prince who pushed the Fourth Prince's wife into the vortex of crisis time and time again, using his wife's sacrifice in exchange for the greatest benefit he could achieve.
Su Yunyue strives for perfection in everything for the sake of her family and country. Day and night when she is married to a foreign country, she does her best to fulfill her duties as a minister and a wife.
However, Xiao Tianmin never fulfilled his duties as a minister and a husband.
So, if the Fourth Prince Xiao Tianmin made a mistake, why did the Fourth Prince's Consort Su Yunyue always have to be tolerant and give him chances again and again?
Is it because he is the center of the world?
Is it just because he is the chosen male protagonist?
It's so weird.
It's totally wrong.
Yuliu thought so.
Su Yunyue, who was hiding behind the nine painted screens, suddenly trembled violently, and the trembling of her body caused the candlelight she was holding to drift away like a shooting star.
Su Yunyue raised her head and pursed her lips tightly, almost straightening them, trying hard to hold back her voice and not let it leak out.
The pale fingertips of her other hand, which was not holding the candlestick, trembled like a sieve, but she kept moving forward from the second fold of the screen, following the undulating relief carvings on the screen.
When her fingertips touched the outermost thickened edge of the first fold, Su Yunyue's eyes suddenly turned red, and she bit her lower lip hard, leaving a red mark on the bloodless lip.
Su Yunyue was taught and studied the female virtues of books such as "Female Commandments", "Inner Training", "Female Analects", and "Female Model Records" in the Su family since she was a child. She learned this set of rules and also followed this set of rules.
The teacher Momo always boasted about her, saying that the eldest daughter of the Su family was the living "Four Books for Women".
This is indeed the case with Su Yunyue. Over the years, her words and actions have never deviated or exceeded the rules in the slightest.
But at this moment, Su Yunyue suddenly seemed to vent her anger. Her pale fingertips clasped the thickened outer edge of the screen. Her movements were usually graceful and gentle, and she would not let the screen make any sound during her movements. But her fingertips suddenly exerted force, and she suddenly exerted force with her wrist, folding the nine painted screens and pushing them inwards.
This was the first time since Su Yunyue was born that she heard the sound of the wooden screen rubbing against the ground.
It was very novel, as if she had broken the rules and regulations that had bound her for so many years.
But actually, this sound is not that bad.
Su Yunyue's eyes were still red, but when she looked at Yuliu for the first time tonight without any obstruction, whose worry was about to overflow from between her eyebrows, she suddenly chuckled happily.
Su Yunyue has been reserved and polite for so many years. Even when she smiles, she just slightly bends her eyes and is too shy to show her teeth.
She had never laughed out loud so freely and comfortably before, with her chest rising and falling, her thin shoulders shaking.
Su Yunyue lowered her head and turned her wrist, revealing her tender white fingertips that had been rubbed by the hard wood with carved patterns. She felt a lingering pain, and the cold night wind blew over her fingertips, which were red and swollen due to the strong friction, making her skin even more sensitive.
Like a needle prick or a burning sensation.
It's both painful and refreshing.
Yuliu stood in the middle of the outer hall, listening to Su Yunyue's suppressed laughter that sounded like crying, and looking at Su Yunyue from afar with a raised corner of her mouth, but a frown and drooped eyes as if her face was extremely sad. She raised her hand with empathy to cover the corner of her mouth, which was also drooping because of Su Yunyue's sadness.
Then, Yuliu instinctively ran towards Su Yunyue faster than he thought.
The silver thread tassels with beads inserted diagonally on the bun on her head floated in the air like straight lines. Yuliu did not lift or hold down the hem of her skirt, but opened her arms and hugged Su Yunyue's trembling shoulders.
When Yuliu entered the palace last time, Su Yunyue had an excellent figure, with a long, straight neck and upright shoulders. She could hold up the intricate and layered gold-red satin palace ceremonial skirt with a Ruyi cloud pattern in a grand and dignified manner, like a static and beautiful peony flower.
But at this time, Su Yunyue, who was held in Yuliu's arms, bent her neck, and her body was as thin as a snow-white feather that could fall from the sky to the dust at any time.
Yuliu's hand was like the one Su Yunyue had held in hers when they had a heart-to-heart talk. She gently patted Su Yunyue's back and said softly, "It's okay, it's okay. It's not like a girl from our Su family can't live without a man. If you don't want to go with him now, then don't go with him..."
For a long time, Su Yunyue had only heard people say, "As the legitimate daughter of the Su family, you should do this and that," and "As the fourth prince's consort, you shouldn't do this or that."
It was the first time she heard someone say to her, "You can be independent" and "If you don't want to do something, then don't do it."
It was even the first time that someone told her that they regretted entrusting her, Su Yunyue, to the Fourth Prince Xiao Tianmin.
Because I never told her that it was wrong to obey Xiao Tianmin.
So when Su Yunyue learned what kind of deal her husband Xiao Tianmin and her brother Su Yunyan had made with her, she subconsciously looked for the reasons in herself.
But now some people regret it and think that this is a bad thing, and the person who said this to her is actually her own sister.
Su Yunyue looked at Yuliu at this time, and seemed to have found a support point.
——Although, not long ago, when she looked at Yuliu and Yunhe in the palace, she still felt like the eldest sister and elder.
But at this moment, Su Yunyue was gently held in Yuliu's arms, being comforted and supported by her. For some reason, the emotions that had been suppressed and unable to be expressed before seemed to suddenly find an outlet at this moment.
Many years ago, when she said goodbye to her mother's Su clan, left her homeland and went to a foreign land, burdened with responsibilities and loneliness, she married a strange man she had never met in a foreign country, Su Yunyue did not cry;
After learning that the decline of her mother's family was due to the conspiracy of her partner, Su Yunyue felt nothing but death. During the difficult half-month period of survival after falling from the cliff of broken love, she did not shed a single tear.
But at this moment, when Su Yunyue buried her head deep in Yuliu's slender neck, she shed tears for the first time since she could remember.
At first, Yuliu only felt a slight chill on her shoulders and neck. Gradually, when she heard the mournful sobbing sound coming from the crook of her neck, she realized that the large area of wetness was Su Yunyue's tears.
The heroine of this ancient melodramatic novel seemed to have never shed tears in all these years, so this time she wanted to vent all the grievances, regrets, and hatred that had been suppressed for so many years at once, and let them fall like a gurgling stream.
Yuliu hugged Su Yunyue and patted her back, which seemed tough but was actually thin. Her heart also felt inexplicably twisted and she felt uncomfortable with her.
Yuliu had never regretted so much.
Perhaps at the beginning of this story, the Fourth Prince and his wife joined hands and worked together to overcome difficulties.
But the ending of the story should not be that Xiao Tianmin and Su Yunyue support each other, and it should not be that at the very end, the male protagonist ascends to the highest position, sits on the top throne and is admired by thousands of people, while the female protagonist is tamed and conquered by the imperial system of monarch and ministers, and becomes a perfect emperor's wife who exists only to take care of her husband and children.
It shouldn't be like this.
This is unfair.
Yuliu thought so.
Why is it that they went through all the hardships together, but in the end only the male protagonist became a better version of himself, while the female protagonist just became an accessory of the man and became his "thing"?
Ever since Yuliu came to this copy, which is said to be the last world line, he felt that the system was weird.
At first, when she was not close to the hero and heroine, the system frantically urged her to advance the plot line. However, when she needed to know the plot, the system was perfectly invisible. Even since she began to really come into contact with the Fourth Prince's Consort Su Yunyue, the system gradually began to stop communicating with her directly.
Yuliu remembered that the system had lied to her before, saying that it was because of the big villain named "Shen Yuan", so it could only use the teahouse next to Chunfeng Fulan to secretly pass on relevant information about the world plot to her.
If her previous speculation was correct, then there must be a reason why the system with the highest authority had to indirectly convey the message to her through the mouths of the world...
She recalled Master Chen, who was as obedient as a private school student in front of Yun He. Although Master Chen seemed mysterious, he was actually very carefree and he really loved to join in the fun.
Yuliu suddenly felt that the system's statement was a bit absurd and ridiculous.
But why did the system deliberately obscure the truth and try every means to prevent her from telling the real story?
——This is not allowed by the rules.
Thinking of this, Yuliu's hand, which was gently patting Su Yunyue's back, which was trembling slightly due to crying, suddenly stopped in the air for a moment.
The cold night wind sneaked through the gaps between the slender fingertips of Elm and Willow.
She was so excited that her fingertips suddenly curled up.
Another possibility suddenly emerged in Yuliu's mind.
The system tells the truth.
But the system doesn’t know what the so-called truth is.
Perhaps the system really had to carefully hide its existence as a world system that was beyond the world's cognition and common sense because of the terrifying innate intuition of the villain named "Shen Yuan".
But the main villain may be Shen Yuan, but... he is no longer "Shen Yuan".
Yuliu's curled fingertips suddenly became stiff, and her movements to comfort Su Yunyue became a little slow.
The system needs to avoid and cannot detect the object. So far, Yuliu knows and only knows one person.
Those were the words the system had once said to her:
"In the final world, there will be a destined person, and the destined person is an existence beyond the system."
The system doesn’t know who her destined person is, but Yuliu knows that her destined person is Yunhe.
The name Yunhe was the name he personally gave to his blank-slate amnesiac self after he woke up from a serious injury.
But Yuliu never really wanted to explore what kind of existence Yunhe was in the past, what name he used, and how he lived in this world.
if……
Yuliu's fingertips trembled almost at the same frequency as Su Yunyue's, and fell on Su Yunyue's back.
What if Yunhe's former identity was that of a villain hidden in the dark corners of the world, impossible to discover, and never described in the main text?
If Yun He is Shen Yuan...
Is it just because of an accidental amnesia that he changed his identity, got a new name, and started living again in this world?
It is precisely because of the name change of "Shen Yuan" that everything about "the villain" seems to be nowhere to be found and hidden very deeply.
Yuliu's previous sadness was only because she felt deeply that it was not worth it for Su Yunyue to have experienced everything over the years.
But it was not until this moment that Yuliu truly understood why Su Yunyue cried so sadly and heartbrokenly because of an unworthy person.
Because I really loved you.
Because of love, when all the good things are shattered, we will show such sadness and despair.
Yuliu has a very clear positioning when walking in the copies of various world lines, which is to complete the task and return to his own world line.
So Yuliu never thought that she would fall in love with anyone.
However, at the moment when the white fingertips were blown red by the cold wind, the myriad emotions in Yuliu's heart filled the sky like stars.
——She never thought that one day, she would realize her feelings for Yun He through Su Yunyue's feelings.
Yuliu had never felt so grateful for Yunhe's amnesia.
It's like a drowning person who is in dire straits suddenly finds a piece of driftwood that can help her reach the right destination.
Although this piece of driftwood was once covered with sharp thorns, after experiencing a sudden and unexpected flood disaster, the thorns had long since fallen off, leaving only a smooth piece of wood.
He was her only support when she was drowning.
【Author’s words】
Note: The Four Books for Women: "Female Admonitions", "Inner Training", "Female Analects", and "Female Fan Jie Lu" are from Baidu
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
