Chapter 12 Mother's Death
"Mother!" Jin'an threw himself on Jiang's gradually stiffening body, crying uncontrollably.
Grandpa Ling held him and comforted him, saying that he should not shed tears on his mother, otherwise his mother's soul would not be able to rest in peace and would become a wandering ghost.
Only Jinsui calmly took care of Jiang's funeral. She took out clean water from the space, wiped Jiang's face and hands, and wrapped Jiang with the clean blanket.
He said to the two men, “We must bury our mother as soon as possible, otherwise the soldiers outside will come in and drag her to a mass grave and burn her.”
Jin'an had seen the burning pit of corpses before, and he was afraid that his mother would be dragged in and end up with no body left for burial.
The eight-year-old child was surprisingly strong. He quickly wiped away his tears and wiped Jiang's face with Jinsui.
Grandpa Ling was about to go outside the cave to dig a grave, but was stopped by Jin'an, who took off the inconspicuous wooden hairpin on Jiang's head.
It is called a wooden hairpin, but in fact it is just a round wooden stick that can barely hold up the hair.
Unexpectedly, the wooden stick had a secret. Jin An twisted one end and a key appeared: "Grandpa, Mom said that the box in Dad's coffin contained evidence of his exoneration."
"Here is the key. Once we return to Chang'an and obtain evidence, we can redress Dad's grievances."
Grandpa Ling sighed softly, said nothing, and put the wooden hairpin into his arms.
Jin Sui instinctively felt that Grandpa Ling didn't seem to be that concerned about clearing Ling's father's name.
On the contrary, Jin'an should have heard his mother talking about this matter day and night, and inherited her last wish from Jiang.
Clearing his father's name has become the most important thing in this child's mind.
The three of them took advantage of the fact that it was getting dark and no one was noticing, and dug a shallow grave outside the cave. The location was chosen by Grandpa Ling through divination.
Jin'an picked a lot of fresh leaves nearby and spread them on the grave. His mother didn't even have a straw mat to wrap herself in, so she could only be buried hastily in this way.
Jinsui and Grandpa Ling carried Jiang's body in, buried it, and then built a circle with stones, but did not erect a tombstone.
Jin'an stared at his mother's grave for a long time, trying to memorize everything around it so that he could relocate his mother's grave and give her a grand funeral someday.
The talisman paper that Grandpa Ling asked for from the Taoist temple was never used along the way, so this time he burned all of it in front of Jiang's grave.
He whispered, "Go with peace of mind. I will take good care of the two children."
Jinsui didn't have much affection for the little brat Jinan, but at this moment, he couldn't help but hold the poor child in his arms.
Stroking his dirty head over and over again, the little kid pretended to be strong at first, his body was stiff and he didn't lean into Jinsui's arms.
When a breeze blew, the burning talisman paper circled and flew into the air.
Jin'an called softly, "Mom." Unable to hold back any longer, he hugged Jinsui's waist and sobbed.
At this moment, although not affected by the original owner's obsession, Jinsui still felt a bit like an older sister.
She didn't expect that the difficult journey to find her relatives with Grandpa Ling would end like this.
However, even if they had come a few days earlier, Jiang would not have been able to recover.
However, after only meeting him once, the poor woman didn't even have a full meal and died miserably in the cave.
Jin Sui felt very sad. What kind of era is this? Why is it so difficult for people to live? After all the talisman paper was burned, Grandpa Ling made a prompt decision and said, "The outside of the mountain is under strict surveillance. If we want to go out, we can only do it after dark."
"Let's go. We can't delay any longer. Leave Los Angeles as soon as possible."
Jin'an's name is still on the list of people to be exiled to Yan, and Jinsui is also on the wanted list. If the soldiers in Luocheng notice anything unusual, the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren will be doomed here.
Jin Sui took off her own Taoist robe and gave it to Jin An, admonishing her, "Don't be afraid, follow your sister closely."
Fearing that he was exhausted, he quickly gave him a bag of remaining glucose water and took out three energy bars, and the three of them ate while walking.
Jin'an was calm beyond the expectations of a child. He asked no questions and held Jinsui's hand silently, not falling behind for a moment.
Following the same path they had taken, the three saw those tragically dead bodies again. Under the dim moonlight, they were even more creepy than in the daytime.
For a moment, Jinsui felt that he had not traveled back to the feudal era, but to the end of the world.
Even Jin'an, a brave child, held her hand with a little more force.
She whispered, "Don't look."
At this moment, dozens of sick-looking people suddenly appeared from nearby trees, rocks, and bushes.
These people looked at the three people, but did not embarrass them. Instead, they discussed among themselves:
"It's not that Luo Yanwang who is on duty tonight. We must take the opportunity to escape. We can't stay in this damn place for a moment."
Grandpa Ling hurriedly pulled the siblings to hide behind a tree, and Jinan hurriedly asked, "Grandpa, should we follow them?"
Then Jinsui saw Grandpa Ling squatting down and throwing the copper coins he used for divination.
He quickly stood up and said, "No, they are very evil. There is no way to survive with them."
Jin Sui was about to say that Grandpa's divination sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, so it would be better to escape when there were many people and chaos.
At this moment, a fire suddenly appeared at the entrance of the valley not far away, as if it was lit by kerosene, and instantly turned into a fire dragon.
Then came the 'whooshing' sound of arrows cutting through the sky, followed by the painful howls of the people who were hit by the arrows.
Dozens of people who had just tried to escape from the valley at night were mercilessly shot to death by sharp arrows.
There was one person who ran fast and rushed out of the valley, but the soldiers chopped off his head with swords on horseback as if he were playing a joke.
The bloody scene made Jinsui think he had accidentally entered hell on earth.
The three generations of grandparents and grandchildren were almost crawling back in the woods. A man's roar came in the night wind: "Don't let any of them go! We must not let the plague spread to Los Angeles!"
Grandpa Ling looked back and saw that the outside of the valley was full of soldiers, and the fire dragon made half the sky glow orange.
He said timidly, "Quick, go back to the cave first."
Jin Sui said sincerely: "Grandpa, I was wrong, your divination is very accurate!"
The three wanted to rest in the cave for a while, but they soon discovered that the soldiers were entering the forest with torches.
They carried the corpses along the way to one place and burned them all.
Grandpa Ling still wanted the siblings to hide deep in the cave, but Jin Sui disagreed:
"No matter how long we hide here, we won't be able to escape from the valley."
"Even if we escape, there are many checkpoints in Los Angeles, and it will be difficult to move forward."
"Grandpa, why don't we go deep into the mountains? We can go to Chang'an by crossing the Qiaohan Mountains."
Jin'an also agreed with his sister's opinion. He wanted to return to Chang'an as soon as possible to fulfill his mother's last wish.
The child never thought about how difficult it would be to overturn his father's case as it involved the deposed crown prince.
Grandpa Ling glanced to the south, which was the direction of his home, and then looked at the soldiers whose fire was getting closer and closer.
Finally, he made up his mind: "Okay, let's cross the Qiaohan Mountain first."
Jin'an didn't understand the meaning of his grandfather's words, but Jinsui did. They would cross the mountain first, but whether to go to Chang'an would be another matter.
The three of them walked crouching down into the pathless forest. After walking only a hundred meters or so, Jin'an was suddenly tripped by something.
Jin Sui hurried to help him, and in the dim moonlight he discovered that the person who tripped him was a dead body.
The body of a little boy, who looked to be about the same height as Jin'an.
Her heart moved, and she hurriedly asked Jin An, "Do you have any marks on your body?"
In this era, all prisoners would be branded. Generally, young men would be branded on their faces, while women and children would be branded on the back of their hands or behind their ears.
Jin'an opened his collar and saw a blue mark the size of a bowl on his chest.
Jinsui was heartbroken. How painful it must be for such a young child to have such a big blue mark from the tattoo!
(End of this chapter)
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