Chapter 263 Xiao Qidi's Childhood Residence
Amidst the teasing, the captain of the guards slowly collapsed, landing on top of the girl, a metal rod embedded in the back of his head, blood gushing out continuously.
The four guards were taken aback at first, then reacted and hurriedly drew their swords, looking towards the back of their captain.
Before they could even utter a sound, four more arrows flew in and struck them in the throat.
The four men collapsed in the snow, clutching their necks and convulsing. They wouldn't die anytime soon, but they couldn't escape either.
"Sister... Sister!" The boy scrambled to his feet and rushed to the girl's side without regard for anything else. He pulled away from the already dead guard captain and frantically covered the girl's body.
Crunch, crunch—
Several figures approached rapidly in the darkness.
The siblings were both shocked and frightened. They huddled together in the snow, watching the tall figures appear before them.
The two had no idea why the five patrolling guards had been suddenly killed, nor did they know who had emerged from the darkness.
Moreover, these people were dressed in strange clothes and helmets, completely covered from head to toe.
"Little girls, don't be afraid." The leader opened his arms and slowly squatted down. "We are not bad people. We just happened to be passing by and saw you being bullied, so we intervened."
After saying that, he lifted the visor on his helmet, revealing a rough yet resolute face.
"You are...you are...you are the Great General!" The girl recognized him at that moment.
Mu Cheng asked in surprise, "You know me?"
"I recognize you! I've seen you before!" The girl cried with joy. "That's wonderful! General, you're still alive!"
She immediately told the boy in her arms, "Look, this is our famous general of the Great Wilderness!"
The boy's eyes were full of vigilance. "Among the soldiers of the Desolate Kingdom, there isn't a single good person except for the Mu family army! But the Mu family army was executed by the king of the Desolate Kingdom for protecting the people... The other soldiers only know how to bully us!"
The young woman explained, "This is General Mu of the Mu family army! During the prison break that shocked the capital, our parents even went to the streets with many ordinary people to stop the palace guards and help the prison cart escape! Didn't we see it too? The prison cart was filled with General Mu Cheng and his family!"
Upon hearing this, the boy's wariness immediately turned into joy and admiration. "You...you are really General Mu Cheng?"
"Yes, I am Mu Cheng." Mu Cheng's eyes welled up with tears, and an apologetic look appeared on his face. "I'm so sorry for making you suffer so much."
The girl's face was full of hope. "We heard that General Mu has brought a lot of troops to attack the royal city. General Mu has come to rescue us, right?"
Mu Cheng nodded vigorously, "Go back quickly and stay at home. I promise you, after tonight you won't have to suffer anymore."
Filled with joy, the siblings kowtowed several times to Mu Cheng and quickly left this place of trouble.
Watching the two leave, Mu Cheng's face turned icy cold.
The four guards, whose throats had been pierced by crossbow bolts, were still alive. When they heard from the conversation that the man was Mu Cheng, they were so frightened that they crawled on the ground with all their might, trying to struggle in their death throes.
Mu Cheng stood up, drew the sharp knife from his back, took a few steps forward, and stepped on a guard's waist.
The guard, clutching his bleeding neck, turned his head in horror.
He could no longer make a sound, and blood kept flowing out of his mouth, but his eyes were full of pleading.
Swish—
A cold glint flashed by.
Without hesitation, Mu Cheng swung his sword and severed his head.
The other three were also beheaded by the Xuanjia soldiers around Mu Cheng.
After burying the five bodies with snow, the group headed to the nearby royal city garrison camp.
Mu Cheng was very familiar with the layout of the capital city of the Desolate Kingdom and the various guard posts, which is why Xiao Qidi asked him to draw a map so that all the Xuan family soldiers participating in the operation could memorize it.
Everyone has now successfully infiltrated the royal city. Mu Cheng and the Xuanjia soldiers are responsible for dealing with the guards. They have now divided into several groups and are acting according to plan.
Mu Cheng's group, including himself, had the largest number of people, totaling six, because he was going to deal with the guard general's camp.
Other groups, consisting of two or three people, each took charge of one or two guard points.
While the Xuanjia soldiers were taking action, Xiao Qidi and Ning Jinli were already in the palace.
The royal city had 40,000 to 50,000 guards, while the royal palace housed about 20,000 imperial guards.
The palace walls and entrance gates were even more heavily guarded, so much so that not even a bird or a mouse could get through.
However, the two landed directly on the roof of a palace using parachutes, without the Imperial Guards noticing at all.
Xiao Qidi stood on the rooftop and looked around.
Looking around, all the palaces in the royal palace were brightly lit, the royal guards were fully armed, there were sentries every three steps and patrol teams every five steps.
"This is the first time I've ever looked down at the palace from this vantage point," Xiao Qidi said with some emotion. "When I was a child, I thought the palace of the Wilderness Kingdom was vast and boundless, and that I could run to the end of it no matter what I did. But it turns out... it's not that big. All the princes, nobles, and even the court officials of the Wilderness Kingdom have crowded into the palace. It looks much more lively than before."
Ning Jinli noticed that his gaze lingered in a certain direction several times, which was the most remote northwest corner of the palace. She gently took his hand and asked, "Did you used to live over there?"
Xiao Qidi nodded. "According to my mother, at first, she and my father lived in a palace in the south. The king of the desolate kingdom arranged for palace maids and eunuchs to serve us. Although we were always accompanied, our lives were not bad, and we could sometimes go out of the palace to go shopping. This situation continued until the third year after I was born. Situ Wei secretly plotted to take my father back to Da Xuan, leaving my mother and me behind. From then on, Jiang Peihuan and I were arranged to live in the abandoned palace in the northwest corner."
When he said this, Ning Jinli could clearly feel his hands tense up a little.
Although his expression was normal and his tone was calm, Ning Jinli knew that the years he had been a hostage since birth were a pain he would never forget.
At this moment, in the palace where the king of the desolate kingdom was located, the nobles and nobles were gathered. Laughter and music could be heard from afar, and at least a thousand imperial guards could be seen protecting the palace like an impregnable fortress.
It would be unwise to rush through now.
The two could only wait for the right opportunity, until the group had tired themselves out and left the royal palace before taking action.
"Jinli, would you be interested in visiting the place where I lived when I was a child?" Xiao Qidi suddenly suggested.
Ning Jinli hesitated, "To be honest, I don't want to go. I'm afraid it will bring back unpleasant memories for you."
Xiao Qidi smiled slightly, “Those memories did cause me a lot of pain, but things are different now. Although it is still painful to think about them, with you by my side, I will never be unable to face them like before. Besides, I am going to unify the world, so how can my heart be so fragile?”
Ning Jinli secretly breathed a sigh of relief, "In that case... I'll go with you to take a look."
"Okay, keep up!" Xiao Qidi released his grip and used his lightness skill to leap into the air.
His tall and robust figure moved with the agility and speed of a dragon, and in the blink of an eye, he had already reached the roof of another palace.
Ning Jinli also activated her cultivation technique and quickly chased after them.
The two of them, one after the other, silently passed over the rooftops and soon arrived at their destination.
Standing on the wall next to the palace and looking down, everything was dilapidated and desolate.
Its roof had many holes, the walls had collapsed in many places, dead trees were leaning and weeds and vines were piled up, and it was covered by heavy snow. It was not much better than the dilapidated temple outside the city of Ting County.
It was clear that no one had set foot here for many years, and even now, the Imperial Guards did not patrol here.
Xiao Qidi first climbed down the wall to check the ground before letting Ning Jinli come down as well.
Then he walked to a corner of the front yard, squatted down and dug through the snow. After searching for a while, he found a thick wooden plank under layers of weeds. There were rusty bronze hooks on both sides of the plank, and half of a rusty chain was left on one side.
Ning Jinli, shining a flashlight, asked curiously, "What is this?"
“It’s the swing I used to play on when I was a child…” Xiao Qidi stroked the wooden board and slowly looked up. “I remember there used to be a big tree here, and the swing was hung on a branch that grew horizontally. This swing… was something my mother got for me, otherwise I would have had almost nothing to play with.”
Xiao Qidi casually buried the swing planks again and walked through the snow towards the house in the courtyard.
The doors and windows of the house were rotten. He just pushed them gently, and the remaining fragments of the door panel shattered on the ground.
The snow prevented the surroundings from becoming completely pitch black, and even standing at the doorway, one could still see the general layout of the interior.
Ning Jinli turned up the flashlight and shone it into the room.
Hsiao Chi-ti said that it is still the same as before, and even the old household items are still there.
However, they are all in a state of complete disrepair.
The two slowly stepped inside.
In the corner, there were several earthenware jars and bronze containers, which could be roughly identified as having been used for cooking and storing grain.
There was a small table and a bed next to the window, and next to that was a dilapidated, half-person-high cabinet.
Xiao Qidi walked to the cabinet, lowered his eyes and stared at it for a moment, "So the cabinet is so small. In my eyes, it was as big as a room."
As he spoke, he opened the cabinet door.
With the sound of rotten wood scraping against each other, the two cabinet doors, after being opened more than halfway, fell down and shattered on the ground.
Xiao Qidi slowly squatted down, turning his back to the cabinet and looking elsewhere.
Ning Jinli squatted down next to him, followed his gaze, and asked, "What are you doing?"
Xiao Qidi narrowed his eyes, staring at the bed opposite him, and said, "Every time my mother brought a man back, she would lock me in the closet and put a lock on the outside. At first, I was very scared, and I would also hear strange noises from my mother. I thought she was being bullied, so I would shout in the closet, but all I got in return was her and the man scolding and cursing me."
Ning Jinli instantly understood the situation, and her heart felt as if it were being gripped by an invisible hand.
Xiao Qidi continued, "After a while, I got used to it. Although I didn't know what was going on, every time it ended, my mother would let me out and give me some food that I didn't usually get to eat. Later, I stopped making a fuss and I don't know when it started, but my mother stopped avoiding me... For a very long time, I didn't understand whether she was forced to or... enjoying it."
Ning Jinli asked, "So you understood later?"
Xiao Qidi smiled bitterly and shook his head, saying, "No, I don't understand her. She could shield me with her own body when I was bullied and beaten, and she could also humbly fawn over men so that I wouldn't go hungry... She could even try to kill me for Lao An and her bastard child. Who could understand such a woman? Even two thousand years from now, no one would be able to see her clearly..."
Ning Jinli said, "She protected you and raised you because she was your biological mother. Perhaps in those early years, you were her only motivation to live. Later, she colluded with Lao An and did all sorts of wrong things because she was a human being. Human nature is inherently complex, and too many people are easily lost in their desires. And perhaps she never lived for herself in her entire life."
Xiao Qidi frowned. "You mean she had no choice? Does that mean that when she later fought for power and became so ruthless as to try to replace me with her bastard child, wasn't that also for her own benefit?"
“It was for her own sake, but I think it wasn’t for her true self,” Ning Jinli said softly. “In other words, she herself is a huge tragedy. I’m not trying to whitewash her mistakes, but I feel that we can’t blame all the mistakes caused by the ills of the times on her.”
Xiao Qidi frowned even more deeply. "A mistake caused by the ills of the times?"
Ning Jinli held his hand and said slowly, "Imagine if the world were at peace, without strife and oppression, and men and women could live and work in peace and live together equally, would she have become Situ Wei's concubine? Would she have been given to your father as a tool by Situ Wei? Would she have mistaken Lao An for her emotional support when she met him later?"
These words made Xiao Qidi fall into deep thought.
boom--
Suddenly, a muffled thud was heard.
The cabinet behind the two, which had been neglected and decayed for years, collapsed at that moment after Xiao Qidi opened the cabinet door, destroying the fragile structure that was barely maintained.
Xiao Qidi hurriedly pulled Ning Jinli to her feet, and just then, he saw some bamboo slips pressed under the broken wooden planks.
Out of curiosity, the two checked it out.
They discovered a small hidden compartment in the cabinet, from which the scattered bamboo slips had fallen out.
Xiao Qidi picked up the bamboo slip and looked at it, stunned. "This is my mother's handwriting."
Ning Jinli couldn't understand the seal script, so she asked him what was written on it.
Xiao Qidi cleaned up the bamboo slips. Of the large pile of bamboo slips, only a dozen or so were still intact and the text could be read. The others were damaged.
Xiao Qidi's lips moved slightly, "My son Qidi can walk today. He's wobbling and so cute. I pray that God will bless my son with peace, health, and a long life."
Ning Jinli asked in surprise, "This is your mother's diary?"
“It seems…yes.” Xiao Qidi gritted his teeth, picked up another bamboo slip, and read aloud, “My son, Di’er, was tricked and beaten by noblemen from the desolate kingdom using food as bait. I am their mother, yet I was powerless to stand up for him. I am ashamed before my son…unworthy of being a mother…”
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