It was Zhao Zhen. She had no idea when their relationship had become so close that they would go out arm in arm and have heart-to-heart talks late into the night. Imagining certain scenes of the two of them together, Zhao Zhen's words of comfort drifted towards her from the bridge: Sun Xiuxue has given birth, so you can relax now.
Zhu Jiansu smiled bitterly: "She's in the palace now; one wrong step could mean life or death. How can I be at ease?"
"What can I do if I'm worried?" Zhao Zhen laughed listlessly. "Neither of us can control our own lives, let alone our deaths."
Zhu Jiansu turned to look at him and suddenly sighed: "It is my parents who have wronged you, making your life so unhappy."
Zhao Zhen wanted to laugh, but ultimately couldn't. He sighed and said, "Life is full of suffering, and every path is thorny. If I had a choice from birth..." He suddenly fell silent at this point.
He saw a jar of wine at the door of Zhu Jiansu's house, a place rarely visited by anyone. He quickly went over, bent down to pick it up, and then noticed a bag of red eggs next to it. His eyes suddenly darkened, and he looked around before raising his voice to ask the quiet surroundings: "Xiuying?"
Only the chirping of insects and croaking of frogs echoed, there was no human voice. Zhu Jiansu strode over, glanced at the red egg in his hand, and his expression immediately became as heavy as Zhu's. He lowered his voice: They've probably left.
Zhao Zhen nodded reluctantly. She didn't move, and even after they left, she still didn't budge.
She couldn't understand why, given their close personal relationship, they would pretend to be strangers in public. Moreover, judging from Zhao Zhen's demeanor and speech, he was far beyond the reach of ordinary bandits, so why would he lower himself to such a low level?
Unexpectedly, some previously unnoticed details became exceptionally clear on this dangerous night: Sun Xiuxue had given birth to Zhu Jiansu's child in the palace, and Zhao Zhen had repeatedly hinted that she should spare the child; the elixir used to conceal Sun Xiuxue's delivery was also a gift from Zhao Zhen himself. Her heart suddenly turned cold in an instant.
Zhao Zhen came to see her seven or eight days later, one afternoon. Carefree and unconcerned with details, he acted no differently than she remembered. However, she recalled more than once the sentences he had said that night. It seemed that his worries and depression belonged only to the night. During the day, he was again the arrogant and domineering bandit ancestor Zhao Zhen, who ruled the mountain.
She still asked. She said: "Have you known Zhu Jiansu before?"
There was a strange silence for a moment. His downcast eyes held a resolute look of desperation, as if he were about to make a desperate gamble. She couldn't help but hold her breath, recalling how she had been taken to a gambling den when she was young. The moment the dice were rolled, the gamblers' faces flashed with cold light, and success or failure, life or death, were just a matter of a moment's thought.
When he looked up at her again, he asked an unrelated question: "You came to Zhu Jiansu's house that night?"
Sun Xiuying hesitated for a moment, then quickly replied: Yes. I heard those words clearly.
With his usual playful expression gone, Zhao Zhen stared at her and suddenly asked: "If I told you that I was the one who should have married Sun Xiuxue, would you believe me?"
Four:
When the previous dynasty, Dayun, fell, Sun Xiuying was not yet born, and all information about the previous royal family gradually became taboo after the new king ascended the throne. She only knew that the current emperor, taking advantage of the late king's critical illness and the crown prince's youth, gathered his former generals and launched a military campaign from beyond the Great Wall to force the emperor to abdicate, seizing the throne that originally belonged to his nephew. The former royal family and nobles, along with their relatives and in-laws, were burned alive in the imperial city, sacrificing their lives for their country.
To demonstrate that he is acting in accordance with the will of Heaven, all old systems are still followed, and even the young girls previously chosen for the crown prince from among the common people are now accepted by the current emperor.
The old ministers and generals who still harbored feelings for the previous dynasty firmly believed that the crown prince was not dead and were currently somewhere preparing for a possible comeback.
Sun Xiuying never imagined that this seemingly smiling bandit from Xishan standing before her was once a prince who lived in the imperial palace years ago and was rumored to have died in an accidental fire. She thought she finally understood his melancholy and unspeakable loneliness behind the scenes.
She nodded: I believe you.
He said very slowly: But you still resent me, don't you?
His silent and anxious face showed a kind of haggard and sorrowful look that was unbearable to look at. In the occasional moments of absentmindedness, there was still a faint light flickering. Was it a fragment of auspicious light from the past, or a rare divine thought that occasionally adorned the long river of loneliness?
She looked at him and shook her head firmly: I know your difficulties, I know.
Zhao Zhen smiled absentmindedly: "The country and the world, but I know that everything I have done has never been for the so-called common people. What I risked my life for is simply to prevent those who care about me from continuing to feel lost and sad."
He was laughing when he suddenly turned his head to the side, and a thick fog appeared in his eyes.
Since then, Zhao Zhen has never appeared in her world again. The gatekeeper of West Mountain has changed. A day in the mountains is like a thousand years in the world. She descended the mountain in melancholy, returning to the human world from a thousand years away, but her soul had long since disappeared.
That was the most prosperous year for the Sun family. Such is the way of the world; joy and laughter are shared, sorrow and tears are shed alone. After learning that the Sun family still had a daughter of marriageable age, the unpleasant, gray rumors of the past no longer hindered her marriage. Soon, matchmakers flocked to the Sun family's door. After careful consideration by the Sun family elders, they settled on the son of a wealthy merchant from the same city, a man with substantial assets but no connection to the imperial family.
Sun Xiuying agreed quickly. After the betrothal ceremony, the presentation of betrothal gifts, and the matching of birth dates, both sets of parents learned that this marriage was truly ordained by heaven, and the wedding date was quickly set for a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime auspicious day in the following month.
From then on, there was still no news of Zhao Zhen. On the night before her wedding, Sun Xiuying suddenly remembered that Zhao Zhen had first appeared before her in such a dark and gloomy night. But when he actually appeared, she thought it was just a confused dream.
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