Chapter 33 Feigned Sincerity, Another Farewell Song
One day in a water town in southern China, Yu Wangshu finally asked that question again:
"What is your relationship with Elder Qi?"
Amidst the misty rain, Yu Wangshu stopped in her tracks. Dressed in a light blue robe, she seemed to melt into the painting.
A sparrow turned to look at her, intending to confess everything, and said:
"He saved me, and I hope I can do something for him."
But through the misty drizzle, he saw a faint sparkle in Yu Wangshu's eyes.
He was so afraid that the little flame would go out that he opened his mouth, but swallowed the first part of his sentence:
"...He wants me to do something for him."
The melody of "A Trip to Suzhou" drifted through the misty rain, scattering the light in Yu Wangshu's eyes like the wind.
Perhaps she had a premonition, or realized that the relationship between Yizhique and Old Qi was not close enough, and that she might not be able to persuade him to treat her illness.
But she was still willing to give Yizhi Que such a chance, it's just a pity...
Yu Wangshu remained calm, just as he had when Qi Lao was first mentioned, and did not ask any further questions.
The melody of "A Trip to Suzhou" gradually shifts to an andante tempo, becoming melodious and graceful.
The flute's melody is moist, blurring the misty rain and also blurring the inextricable entanglement of their destinies.
A sparrow felt uneasy. As the flute music ended, he spoke up, "The music is over, and we should leave now."
Before Yu Wangshu could speak, an old woman's voice suddenly came from behind her: "Miss, are these your things?"
She turned around and saw that the other person was holding the anemone flower in their hand.
Yu Wangshu wanted to use feigned sincerity to win genuine affection, so she naturally had to show how much she valued this anemone. A few days ago, she had accidentally lost it and even put on a show of sadness in front of a sparrow.
She had no time to deny it: "Yes, this is mine, thank you for bringing it over."
Yu Wangshu reached out to take it, but as soon as she touched the old woman's palm, her fingers were clamped tightly by her!
With strong hands and bright eyes, could this be a frail old woman?!
The old woman abandoned her pretense, her voice turning from aged to cold and menacing. She gripped Yu Wangshu's fingers tightly, refusing to let her go: "Is it really yours? You'd better think this through!"
Yu Wangshu and Yizhique were both completely bewildered and had no idea what had happened.
One Sparrow frowned and reached out to pull the two apart, but it was this action that caught the old woman's attention to the young man wearing a straw hat!
“Maso…” the old woman murmured softly. She released Yu Wangshu and went to catch a sparrow!
What else could Yizhique not understand? The other party was probably an elder from the Western Regions who had accidentally obtained the silver lotus and thus discovered his whereabouts!
"Run!!" Unable to dodge the old woman's hand, the sparrow turned to Yu Wangshu and said, "She's here for me, you'd better run!!"
Yu Wangshu couldn't help but take a step back, but before she could run, another old man grabbed her shoulder!
Her back was pressed against the "old man's" chest, her heart pounding, and all she could hear was his mocking voice: "Didn't you say that the anemone was yours?"
"Then you won't be able to leave."
As soon as she finished speaking, a sweet and cloying fragrance wafted into her nostrils. Before Yu Wangshu could utter a single word, she went limp and fainted.
Seeing this, the sparrow's anger instantly surged!
"She's not Marceau! Let her go!!"
The old woman snorted coldly, too lazy to answer any questions. Grabbing a sparrow's arm, she spread her body and soared up like a gray crane, disappearing into the depths of the misty rain in the blink of an eye.
The old man grabbed Yu Wangshu and followed her, gradually disappearing from sight.
...
When Yu Wangshu woke up, she and Yizhique were tied up in a cave.
The cave was pitch black, and it was impossible to see where it led. Outside the cave, the "old woman" had removed her disguise, revealing an exceptionally beautiful face.
The woman wore silver rings around her neck and her hair was adorned with anemones.
At a glance, Yu Wangshu knew that she and Yizhique were from the same place.
They are from the Western Regions!
She turned to look at a sparrow, only to find that its straw hat had been removed at some point, revealing a shocking face.
The upper half of his face, from the brow bone upwards, was completely destroyed, with crisscrossing scars like a centipede, making it almost impossible to see his original features.
His right eye socket was empty, and the skin around it was curled up like withered tree bark.
Only his intact left eye remained clear, and it was quietly looking back at her.
Seeing Yu Wangshu's gaze, Yizhique gave a bitter laugh.
"It's ugly, it's terrifying, isn't it?" he whispered, tears glistening in his only eye.
Yu Wangshu remained silent for a moment, unable to lie and say that it wasn't ugly.
So she nodded sincerely: "A little."
The woman waiting outside smiled, seemingly finding it amusing.
"You're such a cute little girl."
She walked into the cave, ringing her silver bells, and stopped at the entrance, her figure instantly separating the inside from the outside.
The only source of light disappeared, and darkness engulfed us.
Yu Wangshu's throat tightened, and she unconsciously swallowed.
Hearing Yu Wangshu's nervous movements, the woman chuckled and released her restraints: "I only kill traitors from the Western Regions. As long as you admit that the anemone flower does not belong to you, I will let you go."
Upon hearing this, Yu Wangshu turned his head again to look at Yizhique.
But in the darkness, she couldn't even see the only pair of eyes.
Should she admit it? Admit that the anemone wasn't hers; she had merely accepted a sparrow's kindness and taken advantage of his affection...
She had known Yizhique for less than a month, and their relationship was entirely built on a false premise. Did she really have to take the blame for such a mistake?
Yu Wangshu thought of the brief month they spent together, of the surging forest, of the misty fog, and of the countless landscapes she had never seen before in her life.
She didn't want to die, but she couldn't bring herself to kick someone when they were down, so she didn't speak for a long time.
Ever since being captured, Yizhi Que's heart had been as cold and lifeless as ashes. But Yu Wangshu's silence was like a spark that rekindled his heart.
He thought that this had nothing to do with Wang Shu in the first place, and the fact that she was able to remain silent showed that she cared about him a lot.
In the darkness, a sparrow groped and grasped Yu Wangshu's cold hand.
He took a deep breath and spoke first: "That anemone is mine, please don't make things difficult for her."
"She...she's just soft-hearted, that's why she admitted it for me."
"Elder Yizhi, let her go."
Yizhi Que closed her eyes and felt Yu Wangshu's fingers twitch in her palm.
He easily released his hand, and fearing that Yizhi would kill him, he quickly lied and said, "Elder, she was deceived by me to travel the world with me."
Sure enough, upon hearing this, Yizhi narrowed her eyes and quickly glanced at the dumbfounded Yu Wangshu.
She hated deception more than anything in her life, let alone that a sparrow dared to be so audacious as to bring it up in front of her!
In the darkness, she precisely gripped a sparrow's neck, her voice chilling: "Marceau, you could have gotten out of here alive, but why do you keep challenging my authority?"
"Not eliminating you completely back then was the biggest mistake I ever made!"
The sparrow was almost out of breath, but still bluntly pointed out: "Let me go? I don't think so."
"When you learned I was still alive, you probably already planned to kill me." Breathing more and more labored, the sparrow weakly kicked its legs. "I took the Western Regions' Antidote for All Poisons with me; I don't believe you'd be willing to let me go!"
Yu Wangshu listened with a pounding heart. She couldn't see the expressions on the two people's faces, but she could still piece together the general outline of the story from their fragmented words.
Amidst my chaotic thoughts, a voice said, "Go on, what business is it of yours?"
Another voice said, "You've spent a month with Yizhique, watching the sunrise and sunset and the roar of the forest together. Can you bear to watch her die?"
Let's go, it'll be clean once we're gone.
Let's go. Didn't I only cling to a sparrow in the first place to live?
Let's go...
She was like someone nailed to the crossroads of fate. In the extreme silence, she could hear the sound of her blood rushing and the silent lament of her soul being torn in two.
Pain condensed into a blurry, watery light in her eyes.
Finally, Yu Wangshu reached out and grabbed the hem of Yizhi's clothes.
"Please... let him go..."
Yi Zhi sneered, and was about to shake off Yu Wangshu's hand, but in an instant, she felt her pulse.
"Oh? Your little girl has been poisoned?"
...
“Initially feigned, ultimately genuine…” Zhou Ziheng clicked his tongue, “So this is the real story.”
The portly shopkeeper looked wistful, sighing repeatedly, almost wiping away tears.
"Poor young lady, she never got to see Elder Qi in the end..."
From his description, Zhou Ziheng already knew that the fat shopkeeper was someone secretly protecting Yu Wangshu from the Yu family of Chang'an.
After Yu Wangshu died, he opened a restaurant in Tanglin and, while having nothing else to do, would cause trouble for Yizhique.
The anemone flower that Yizhique gave to Wangshu ultimately brought them a fatal disaster.
Just as they were about to set off to find Elder Qi, the Western Region Elder unexpectedly found the silver lotus flower that Yu Wangshu had left behind, and easily discovered that Ma Suo from the Western Region was still alive.
"Our poor young lady could have escaped on her own, but she chose to live and die with him..."
"After she put aside her scheming and treated him with honesty, she realized that the first thing the sparrow said to her was a lie!"
“Even every single word he said was a lie…”
As the fat shopkeeper spoke, he began to sob.
Zhou Ziheng asked in surprise, "You were Yu Wangshu's bodyguard, why weren't you there at that time?"
The portly shopkeeper's eyes darkened, and he sighed, "That's why I can't go back to Chang'an either."
Zhou Ziheng silently drank the wine in his bowl, gazed at the high-hanging moon, and said nothing more.
A story of fate playing tricks on people.
The fat shopkeeper spoke briefly, but one could still sense a deep sense of powerlessness in his words.
The cruel tricks of fate, the tragedy of destiny playing tricks on people.
Yu Wangshu wanted to live, and driven by a strong will to survive, she feigned affection and tied a sparrow to a branch.
A sparrow fell in love with Wang Shu at first sight, and thus fabricated one false lie after another about her background.
The two interacted with each other under false pretenses, and true feelings grew within those pretenses.
Zhou Ziheng sighed: "If you ask me, it would have been better to go find Old Qi before the journey even started. That might have led to a different outcome."
Instead of what we have now, one resting eternally underground, and the other tormented by guilt and remembrance.
After hearing the story, Zhou Ziheng had no reason to stay.
He downed the drink in one gulp, tossed it lightly on the table, and left without looking back.
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