Chapter 88
The master and the apprentice, who had not seen each other for many years, talked for a while at night by candlelight. Xie Zheng wanted to personally send Master Tao back to his residence. Master Tao said, "Okay, there is no need for us to be so formal. You should go and have a rest. I will go back by myself."
Xie Zheng asked Xie Qi to send Master Tao back. He paused and said, "If she knew that I asked the teacher to adopt her as my adopted daughter, I'm afraid she would not be willing to accept this favor. Tomorrow when we move camp, I will arrange for her to ride in the same car with the teacher down the mountain. She can read some books in her spare time. She respects knowledgeable people very much. The teacher can give her some pointers and coax her to accept the teacher as her adopted father."
When Master Tao heard how meticulously and carefully he arranged things, he raised his old eyelids and asked, "Is it worth the trouble?"
Xie Zheng had already escorted Master Tao to the door of the tent. Facing the candlelight, his handsome profile was hidden in the darkness. He said firmly, "She's worth it."
Master Tao smiled and said, "Okay, I'll do as you say."
Then he asked, "What's the girl's name? Do you know her date of birth? Since I've adopted her as my daughter, I'll give her a name."
Xie Zheng replied: "My surname is Fan, my given name is Changyu, I am sixteen this year, and I should have been born in the first month of the second year of the Qingli reign."
He didn't know the exact date of Fan Changyu's birthday. He had asked him before in Qingping County, but Fan Changyu didn't tell him.
Master Tao's expression suddenly became extremely interesting. No wonder Gongsun Yin said before that he had met Fan Changyu but refused to reveal more information to him. It turned out that he was waiting for him here!
Xie Zheng saw that Master Tao looked strange, and frowned and asked, "But what's wrong?"
Master Tao looked at him and said with mixed feelings: "The girl I met on the road was also named Fan, Changyu."
Xie Zheng remembered what Fan Changyu had said before, about an erudite and weird old man he met while building the dam, who scolded his students every day. His eyelids couldn't help but twitch a few times.
The entire tent fell silent in an instant, and the master and disciple looked at each other in silence for a while.
After a while, Xie Zheng asked, "Teacher, were you captured on the road by soldiers who were building a dam upstream of Jizhou?"
The memory of being forced to dig rocks in the mountains was not a pleasant one. Master Tao felt ashamed, and his beard trembled as he turned the tables and asked, "The girl told me that the one who divorced her was her live-in husband?"
He glanced at Xie Zheng and asked, "When you were in trouble, did you become her son-in-law?"
Xie Zheng was silent for a moment, then slowly said "hmm".
Master Tao glanced at Xie Zheng in surprise. How could he not know how arrogant his student was!
When he heard Xie Wu mention that Fan Changyu killed Shi Hu, he subconsciously thought of Fan Changyu. However, Fan Changyu's ex-husband was married off. With Xie Zheng's personality, how could he possibly marry off his ex-husband?
Besides, Shi Hu was a fierce general after all. All the generals of the Vanguard Army and the Left Guard Camp were defeated by him. Although Fan Changyu was skilled in martial arts, he was a rookie. How could he achieve such a great feat?
Moreover, the girl Xie Zheng described was very smart and insightful, while in his impression, Fan Changyu was clearly a stubborn and naive girl.
Master Tao then stopped thinking of the two people together, thinking that they just happened to have the same surname. But he never thought that things in the world are sometimes just such coincidences!
He looked at his proud student, who had a rare smug look on his face, stroked his goat beard and coughed softly, "If that's the case, then forget about finding another successor for her."
Xie Zheng glanced at Master Tao, and Master Tao clearly read from his eyes the meaning of "Do you think I will still look for someone?"
Xie Zheng said: "I still have to trouble the teacher to adopt her as my adopted daughter."
Master Tao shook his head and sighed, "You won't believe me, but when I met that girl on the road, I felt that she was a good talent. Although she was a little lacking in intelligence, she was kind-hearted and determined. With a little polishing, she would be a capable person. I wanted to take her in as my apprentice, but she refused repeatedly."
Xie Zheng recalled that not long ago Fan Changyu had told him with sympathy that the weird old man was helpless and alone, and that he probably wanted to take her in as a disciple in order to support him in his old age. She was in a hurry to find Changning, and could not spare the energy to take care of an old man with a weird temper, so she declined. The weird old man was angry for a long time because of this.
Now, listening to Master Tao's explanation of the cause, he suddenly felt very complicated.
Seeing that he was silent, Master Tao continued, "She was unwilling to become my disciple at first, and now I dare not guarantee that she will accept me as my foster father."
Xie Zheng said: "Do your best and leave the rest to fate."
Master Tao sighed, "You two are just two stubborn donkeys stuck together!"
Xie Zheng remained silent.
After Master Tao left, he sat alone with his hands behind his back, staring at the dark night outside the tent in a daze.
The sound of rain had stopped, and the army tents arranged in a regular pattern in the distance became small dark raised dots under the campfire.
Xie Wu stepped forward hesitantly and said, "My Lord, it's three quarters past midnight, you should take a rest as well."
Xie Zheng was in a state of confusion and had no desire to sleep. He ordered, "Go to the Zuowei camp and talk to them about her killing Shi Hu. Suppress the matter first."
Xie Wu knew that this was to protect Fan Changyu. If Fan Changyu did not plan to serve in the army in the future, publicizing this matter would only bring trouble to her.
He immediately clasped his fists and said, "I understand."
After Xie Wu retreated, Xie Zheng ordered his men to lead his warhorse. He did not let anyone follow him, and he and his horse wandered aimlessly around the camp. Unknowingly, he came to Fan Changyu's tent. He sat on the horse and watched quietly for a while. After a while, he pulled the reins, and the warhorse with a black body and smooth hair like satin turned around and walked into the deeper night.
-
Inside the tent, Fan Changyu was lying on the bed with her clothes on, but she hadn't fallen asleep at all.
When she heard the sound of horse hooves outside the tent, she subconsciously held her breath. The sound of horse hooves was very light, as if the horse was afraid of disturbing others and deliberately slowed down its pace.
After a long pause, the faint sound of horse hooves was heard again, obviously in the direction of leaving.
Who else would be free enough to come outside the tent in the middle of the night to see her?
After realizing this, Fan Changyu felt a little uncomfortable. All the things that happened in the past few months emerged in her mind one by one, making her feel even worse.
She turned over and over repeatedly to try to relieve her anxiety, but almost woke up Changning. She rubbed her brows and sat up, thinking about going out for a walk.
She got up quietly, put a boning knife on her body, and when she left the tent, she found an unfamiliar soldier guarding near her tent. He looked like he was on guard nearby, but there was no one guarding the tent at night before.
Fan Changyu's eyes met the other person's. The other person stared at her stupidly at first, with a look of half panic and half admiration. After a while, he seemed to remember his duty and quickly looked away like a guilty thief.
Fan Changyu guessed that this was probably the work of Xie Zheng, and his mind became even more confused.
She was very familiar with the camp and walked to the outskirts of the camp without saying a word.
That bodyguard was indeed sent to protect Fan Changyu and her sister. Previously, Xie Wu and Xie Qi were in charge of this matter, but Fan Changyu had already become familiar with them. Fan Changyu could recognize them at a glance, so Xie Zheng was afraid that she would be annoyed, so he transferred a bodyguard she had never seen before to guard the place.
-
In the second half of the night, the moon emerged from the dispersing dark clouds.
The mountains in the night seemed to be covered with a layer of silver light, and the surrounding scenery could be seen clearly without a torch.
Fan Changyu walked on the soft soil after the rain and headed towards the river following the sound of flowing water.
The mountains and fields are empty, the chirping of insects and frogs rises and falls, and the air after the rain is indescribably fresh. I take a deep breath and feel the depression in my heart dissipate a little.
If the grass hadn't been extremely wet after the rain, she would have wanted to just lie down with her arms outstretched, sinking into the soft green grass, and in this peaceful night, calm all the restless thoughts in her heart.
There was a rustling sound coming from the bushes not far away. Fan Changyu was startled. He looked over and saw a black warhorse tied to the bushes. There was also a faint sound of water coming from the river bank ahead.
Fan Changyu recognized the warhorse and was startled. He turned around and was about to go back, but the people on the river bank had already noticed him.
"who?"
As the cold voice fell, several stones flew towards her like meteors. Fan Changyu quickly rolled on the ground to avoid the stones that could almost make holes in her body.
She was about to get up with her hands on the ground when she suddenly felt a chill on her neck. The man who had been on the river bank a moment ago was now standing in front of her, dripping with water, with a steel knife in his hand pointing at her throat.
"It's you."
After seeing her face clearly, the fierce look in Xie Zheng's eyes disappeared. He put away the knife in his hand, looked her up and down, stretched out a hand to help her, frowned and asked: "Are you hurt?"
Fan Changyu shook his head, did not take his hand, and climbed up by himself, but was secretly amazed at his speed.
She had seen him kill before, but this was the first time she had witnessed his bestial alertness.
The knife was gone, but she could still feel the hairs on the side of her neck standing up.
The feeling of having her life in the hands of someone else at that moment really made her heart beat fast.
Xie Zheng said: "I thought it was an enemy spy."
She was wearing a soldier's uniform and her hair was tied into a bun for convenience. At first glance from a distance in the night, it was impossible to tell who she was.
Fan Changyu thought that if he was really an enemy spy, even if he was not hit and injured by those stones, he would not be able to escape his final knife attack.
She explained with some embarrassment why she was here: "I couldn't sleep at night, so I went out for a walk to relax. I happened to see your horse, and I thought you were by the river, so I decided to avoid you."
Xie Zheng was only wearing a pair of military trousers. He had just come out of the river and was dripping with water. He did not care whether the grass was wet or not and just sat down. His long, wet hair fell out from his hair crown and stuck to his face and shoulders in a messy manner, adding a bit of youthfulness to his appearance.
Hearing Fan Changyu's words, he looked up at her with some surprise: "You can't sleep either?"
The sunken collarbone was more obvious because he was sitting on the ground with his hands propped up. His skin looked a cold frosty white under the moonlight. Water drops from the ends of his hair dripped onto his collarbone, sliding down along the tight skin, leaving a water mark. Further down, there was a narrow waist...
Fan Changyu suddenly felt a little embarrassed and quickly looked away, fearing that he might misunderstand something. He said, "I killed a lot of people during the day, and I feel depressed."
The word "also" in his words clearly showed that he came here because he couldn't sleep.
As for why he couldn't sleep, the reason was obvious.
Although I was indeed disturbed by his words and couldn't sleep, I had already clearly rejected him. It would be strange to admit that I couldn't sleep because of his words.
However, the various things on the battlefield did make her uneasy.
Xie Zheng recalled the scene in Lin'an Town where she was so scared after killing someone that she came to sit beside his bed at night, and his eyes softened.
He had learned from Xie Wu that she could not kill the soldiers on the battlefield. She would just avoid their vital parts and hit them so that they would have no chance to fight back.
Even though she had such a fear of life and death, she still went to the battlefield to fight for him.
How dare she?
His chest felt like it was burned by something, and a voice in his head clamored to hold her in his arms. His finger bones were deeply embedded in the grass and mud, but he didn't dare to go beyond that.
It felt like there were bugs burrowing in his blood, and every bone in his body was trembling with fear. He finally suppressed the surging thoughts in his heart, forced himself to calm down, lowered his eyes and said, "When I first came down from the battlefield, I also had a nightmare all night."
"The second time I went to the battlefield to kill enemies, I killed more people than the first time. That night I did not sleep, and went to the martial arts field to punch stakes all night. Finally, I fell to the ground exhausted, closed my eyes and fell asleep. I did not have any nightmares."
When he talked about these old memories, a hint of sneer crept up the corners of his mouth, and he himself did not notice the hostility rising from his body.
Like a stray dog on the street, covered with scales, it senses someone approaching and instinctively barks its teeth and barks ferociously, as if this would protect it from the next injury.
A hand covered the wet hair, and through the cold wet hair, I could feel the warmth of her hand.
Xie Zheng's eyes were raised, reflecting a silver moon in them, as well as Fan Chang's eyebrows and eyes that were as bright as the sun.
She pursed her lips, gently touched his head, and said like she was coaxing a child, "It's all in the past."
The author has something to say:
I am guilty. It was probably because my mind was not clear at night when I wrote this chapter. The last scene in my mind was that the honest and kind-hearted little tiger lowered her puppy eyes and touched what she thought was a wet wolf-like dog. In fact, the other party was a big wolf that wanted to swallow her in one gulp...
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