Musician (15)
After being diagnosed by a doctor from Zhongyuan, it was found that Li Chiyin's last coughing up of blood was caused by anger. She was too weak to get angry.
After that, Huyan Jun never mentioned the matter of sending troops in front of her again. On the contrary, he would take time out from time to time to come to Li Chiyin's bedroom to look after her and bring her some nourishing cattle and sheep or her favorite fruits.
When Jiang Yu learned that such a big thing happened because he was away for just a short while, he never left Li Chiyin again.
From then on, he stayed by Li Chiyin's side every day, never leaving her side.
Xiao Lin was the same, and would take time out from time to time to visit the palace to check on Li Chiyin.
Unconsciously, the coldness gradually deepened, and Fujue, located in the north, was the first group of people in China to feel the chill.
All the trees have withered, and the grasslands of Fujue have been quietly covered with a thick woolen coat by the winter wind. The herdsmen are wearing heavy leather boots and stepping on the snow. The soles of their feet make a regular clicking sound, and there are ice crystals on their eyelashes.
In order to see Li Chiyin more often, Xiao Lin and Mu You voluntarily lived in Fujue for several months, during which time they also learned a lot of Fujue dialect.
After several months, the depths of winter quietly arrived.
It was about the same time that Li Chiyin was ordered to go to Fujue to marry a princess. In the blink of an eye, she had been in Fujue for nearly two years.
But the poison has already entered the body, and no amount of medicine can help.
Li Chiyin herself knew it very well. Not only was her body getting weaker, but she even began to feel pain all over, from the inside out, as if she was being chewed to pieces by poisonous insects at all times.
The chilly wind blew in. Li Chiyin sat on the bed, watching Jiang Yu busying around with Xiao Lin and Mu You, and rarely smiled.
In a moment, Jiang Yu's eyes met Li Chiyin's. He immediately put down the chores in his hands, walked to her side, and sat on the edge of the bed.
At this moment, Li Chiyin's complexion seemed to have regained some of her youth. She smiled and said, "Ah'er, can you take me out for a walk?"
Jiang Yu subconsciously rejected her request.
She was so weak that she couldn't withstand the wind outside.
But when he looked up at Li Chiyin's eyes again, he immediately understood what she meant.
Afterwards, Li Chiyin turned to Xiao Lin and Mu You and said, "You two have been here for so long, it's time to go back and help out, right?"
Mu You was a bit of a snob and immediately declined: "The reward you gave us has already covered several months' wages. We don't owe Boss Chu anything..."
Li Chiyin smiled at this.
Xiao Lin said nothing, but he understood what she meant, so he quickly dropped the work in his hands, took Mu You's arm and walked out the door.
Mu You didn't understand what was going on and kept chattering away.
"Your Highness, please have a good chat!" Xiao Lin specifically instructed before leaving, and then pulled the dull Mu You out of her bedroom.
At this point, only Li Chiyin and Jiang Yu were left in the bedroom.
Jiang Yu helped Li Chiyin up from the bed, helped her put on warm clothes, held her elbows so that she could lean on him, and finally put a cloak on her and slowly walked out of her bedroom step by step.
Walking through the familiar corridor and passing the corner with no end in sight, she felt the last bit of warmth that belonged only to the Fujue Palace with his support.
Along the way, she returned the greetings to the servants who saluted her. After walking for a while, Li Chiyin even felt her chest become unblocked.
Not long after, the two walked out of the palace. Jiang Yu borrowed a horse for her. After he helped Li Chiyin onto the horse, he jumped on it.
The horse walked to the street market where the marriage team had passed by, and the hawking sounds in his ears were still so familiar.
Li Chiyin seemed to be dreaming of the first time he came to this place, and the strange feeling at that time had disappeared with the wind.
Then, the two passed by Aili's clothing store. Li Chiyin insisted on getting off the horse to greet Aili. Jiang Yu had no choice but to agree to her.
The two of them leaned on each other as they entered the store and found that the clothing store had expanded a lot during the few months she had been recuperating.
Although it is winter, the store not only displays traditional Fujue animal skin clothing, but also sells linen clothes made with the skills taught by Li Chiyin. Even though the linen dyeing technology is not as mature as that in the Central Plains, it is still bright and beautiful.
Coincidentally, Aili, who was greeting customers in the store, noticed the two people and quickly put down her work and walked up to them to chat.
The three of them were like old friends, chatting happily.
Perhaps because she was too happy, Aili didn't notice that Li Chiyin was leaning all his weight on Jiang Yu.
When Aili saw the veins bulging out of Li Chiyin's thin wrist bones, tears welled up in her eyes.
Finally, she feigned strength, glanced up at the sky, and said, "My Lady, you don't owe us anything. From now on, please be yourself, just be Li Chiyin."
Li Chiyin smiled, and his cheeks seemed to have regained some color.
After bidding farewell to Aili, the two mounted their horses again and headed off into the distance.
Gradually, the horse walked out of the city gate.
It was a vast grassland that seemed to have no end. There was no heavy snow yet, just a slight cool breeze. Therefore, Jiang Yu hugged Li Chiyin tighter.
"Ah'an," Li Chiyin suddenly said, "You said, the end of the road is Kuixi..."
"Yes, if we keep going along this road, we will reach Kuixi."
Perhaps because of the strong breeze, Li Chiyin narrowed his eyes. "I wonder what Father and Grandmother are doing right now... Are they warming themselves by the stove?"
"I think they should be holding a bowl of glutinous rice and red date porridge made by the imperial kitchen. The imperial kitchen makes this porridge every winter. It is so fragrant."
"That's great! I want to drink it too..."
Li Chiyin's voice gradually began to weaken.
"Wait until I get back... I'll do it for you when I get back..." Jiang Yu's voice seemed to have inadvertently inhaled the cold wind, with a hint of sobbing.
"Okay." Li Chiyin replied, "I haven't eaten the glutinous rice and red date porridge that Ah Yu made for me yet..."
Jiang Yu's throat was suddenly choked by sadness and he said nothing.
"Ah'an, you say... you say, do my father and the others still remember me? But I... but I miss... I miss them so much, I want to go back to Kuixi... I want to see the trees there, see the plum blossoms there, and then... and then... and then see the winter jasmine there one last time..."
Li Chiyin's voice became weaker and weaker.
At that moment, she lost her strength and fell off the horse, lying on the grass.
The moment she fell, Jiang Yu immediately jumped off his horse and held Li Chiyin in his arms, patting her cheeks gently.
But from the moment he touched her cold hands and sensed her almost faint breath, he knew that his lover was about to leave him forever.
He had imagined this scene thousands of times in his mind, but when it actually happened before his eyes, his mental preparation collapsed in an instant.
Despair was like the sea, breaking down the last dam he had tried so hard to reinforce.
He sat like this holding her for a long time, and finally took her on horseback and returned to the Fujue Palace.
He couldn't bear to see her fall in the snow and ice - it was too cruel.
But he did not expect that when he sent the sick body of Queen Fujue to the palace, he would only receive condemnation.
Taking the Queen Consort out of the palace without permission was a serious crime, so when Hu Yanjun learned about this, he ordered his men to put him in jail without saying a word.
After checking her breathing, Huyan Jun knew that Li Chiyin would not stay long.
"Hurry up and ask the great witch god to perform a ritual! The queen's soul must stay in my Fujue!" Huyan Jun said.
Jiang Yu was enraged when these words came out. He struggled with his arms being held captive and yelled at him, "No! Let her soul return to her hometown!"
"She is the Grand Concubine of Fujue! She is a fairy who has come to the world as the people say! Now that she has come to Fujue, she will protect the people of Fujue for eternity!"
"She doesn't belong here! Her home is in Kuixi!"
"Don't pull him down yet!"
No matter how Jiang Yu resisted and shouted, he could not shake Hu Yanjun's determination to trap Li Chiyin's soul to death in Fujue.
He struggled desperately, but when he saw the Great Witch God passing by him, he completely lost hope.
Fujue's prison was very gloomy, with a foul stench mixed with a damp smell. Small insects would occasionally crawl out of the blackened straw on the ground.
Coming here again, Jiang Yu could still feel the pain from his fingertips.
But even such heart-wrenching pain could not arouse Jiang Yu's soul.
He had lost his mind.
Wearing tattered prison uniform and shackles, Jiang Yu was pushed back into the cell by the jailer as soon as he stepped into it, and fell headfirst.
But he still got up silently, walked to the corner and sat down, hugging his knees and burying his head.
When the jailer saw him like this, he thought he was insane and walked away with disgust.
But for Jiang Yu, although he was alive, he was dead. His heart had long followed Li Chiyin, and now he was just a shell in prison.
In the following days, his thin clothes and the increasingly cold wind made him catch a cold.
During this time, Huyan Jun also came to see him, but he still ignored him and did not eat a single bite of his daily meal.
Seeing that he was so determined, Huyan Jun did not make things difficult for him. He turned around and instructed the jailer to keep a good watch on him.
But after a few days, Jiang Yu collapsed on a quiet night.
His worsening illness and unbearable hunger ate away at his remaining life. Not only that, the prisoners around him were also infected by him and began coughing constantly.
In desperation, Huyan Jun had to order his men to drag him to the wilderness and leave him on the grassland to fend for himself.
The cold wind raged across the entire earth, corroding every inch of Jiang Yu's skin, from his toes to his fingers.
He had lost all consciousness in his body and gradually gave up struggling, fantasizing that Li Chiyin could take him away.
He has lost everything.
Suddenly, the dim light in front of him was blocked by a figure. He wanted to open his eyes but he had no strength to lift his heavy eyelids. He could only vaguely hear the man say "I finally found you" before he fainted.
After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Yu felt a surge of warmth from his head.
He seemed to see Li Chiyin's smile again, as if he had stepped into Kui Xi, which was full of spring, with her.
He suddenly had strength.
As his eyes opened, he found himself lying on the forest floor, the cold wind blowing on his face, scratching the tear marks on his cheeks.
After struggling to stand up, Jiang Yu suddenly found that the person standing in front of him was a man in dark and gorgeous clothes. What was even more eye-catching was the evil mole above his left eye.
"Boss Chu..." he began slowly.
It was not until he opened his eyes completely that he discovered Xiao Lin and Mu You standing on both sides of Chu Mo.
Chu Mo still looked at him with a contemptuous attitude and asked, "What do you want to do most now..."
Jiang Yu was silent for a long time and was unable to give an answer.
"I want to take her back to Kuixi."
This was the final answer he gave, every word of which was packed with power.
He didn't know whether Li Chiyin was alive or dead, nor did he know whether Huyan Jun had trapped her soul in Fujue, but he wanted to give it a try. He still wanted Li Chiyin to take one last look at the winter jasmine in her hometown.
Xiao Lin started crying again and bit his lower lip.
Chu Mo didn't say anything, but just looked into the distance.
"An ancient book records: 'It is said that sandalwood has grown in the south of China for thousands of years. If it is made into a guqin, it is matched with fish glue produced in the north and refined for five years, and fine silk threads made from thousands of strands of silk. The whiskers of beasts and dragon tendons from the East Sea, silk made from hundreds of families in the West, and the intestines of head sheep are used as strings. Then, it can produce a magnificent sound. Anyone who hears the strings will have a peaceful life. When the strings are broken, the player can see the soul of the person who misses them day and night.'"
Jiang Yu, however, noticed something was wrong and quickly pressed the issue, "But you should know that the guqin has seven strings: Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Yu, Wen, and Wu. From what you just said, it only has six."
"When you have collected all six strings, come find me at Liuxiang Residence in Tianling City, and I will tell you what the seventh string is."
Jiang Yu looked up at Chu Mo and saw that he had an indifferent expression, so he decided to embark on his journey from then on.
After bidding farewell to his savior, Jiang Yu walked straight north.
He knew very well that this was nothing but a rumor without any basis, and that the material might have long since disappeared from the world.
Six kinds of strings are commonly found: fish glue boiled for five years, fine threads twisted from thousands of silk threads, beards of sea beasts, dragon tendons, silk yarn woven by hundreds of families, and sheep intestines of leading sheep.
Not to mention the difficulty of obtaining the six materials, it is also a mystery whether the so-called "sea beast whiskers" and "dragon tendons" still exist today.
But Jiang Yu was unwilling to give up. He was a disabled man, so he had to grasp the last glimmer of hope and take Li Chiyin back to his hometown.
Even though there were dangers ahead, he still walked forward with an extraordinary determination in his eyes.
"Hold the note, hold the note, hold the note..."
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