The tenth year of the Taikang era of the Great Jin Dynasty.
In a deep forest in the south, two tall, young men ran swiftly and nimbly into the deepest part of the forest, clearly skilled in martial arts.
They were in a sorry state, one was lame and the other had an injury on his right shoulder. Their black clothes, meant to conceal their identities, were disheveled and covered with several tattered sores, with traces of scorching visible upon closer inspection.
"This little princess is incredibly strange. If I'm any slower, I'll really be struck by lightning!"
"Strange? Ha, she was born amidst a long drought and auspicious signs of rain. The emperor considers her a lucky star sent from heaven. You call her strange?"
Hearing the howls of wild beasts coming from all around, the two exchanged a glance and became even more nervous.
One of them, with his cloak open, indeed carried a small child on his back. He tossed the child in his hand and looked at the cliff in the distance, saying, "Although the prince kidnapped Princess Fuxing, he still ended up failing in his attempt to force the emperor to abdicate. Before he fled, he ordered us to kill Fuxing. But along the way, every time we tried to kill her, either a tree fell or wild beasts appeared, creating unexpected obstacles. Every time I raised my sword, lightning struck down..."
Another person gasped, "It seems that God really wants to keep her."
"If we keep her, we can't keep me waiting... Failure of the mission means certain death!"
Upon hearing this, the other man raised his hand again. The little girl was only four or five years old, tenderer than a radish, and could be strangled in an instant. However, he raised his hand but hesitated to move, looking around warily, fearing that something unexpected might happen again.
The little girl smacked her lips in her sleep, completely unaware of the danger. Her round face was like warm jade, smooth and charming.
"No need. This cliff is bottomless. I don't believe that God can keep her here."
After speaking, the man raised his hand and gently tossed the girl into the air. She plummeted in an arc off the cliff, quickly disappearing into the dense mist. The two men, relieved, looked at each other and said firmly, "The princess is dead."
"The princess is dead."
Why is it constantly falling...?
This dream was so strange. The little girl rubbed her eyes, but couldn't see anything. She flailed her arms and legs, and as she fell, she landed in a pile of fluffy, dry grass and branches... Before she could settle down, she kept falling.
Bird nests, tree branches, vines... all caught her and slowed her fall until she rolled over onto a branch.
Boom.
This time she landed on the ground. She bumped her head on a tree root; it hurt!
She pouted, "Father..."
Then she fainted again.
Shortly after, two people walked out of the woods.
"Honey, come here quickly." Zhao Guihua lowered her voice, looking around cautiously, afraid of being discovered.
Old Zhou's sallow, square face twitched slightly. He quickly walked over to his wife, parted the dead leaves on the ground, and sure enough, saw more than a dozen fresh, tender mushrooms.
The two quickly took them off and stuffed them into their clothes.
Zhao Guihua whispered happily, "There must be even more here. Let's hide more so the children can have a full meal when we get back."
She rummaged through the pile of withered leaves, dreaming of picking more mushrooms.
But the more they dug, the more something seemed off; it felt like there was something buried under the leaves...
"Oh my God, someone's dead!" Zhao Guihua was so frightened that she fell to the ground, but she still subconsciously lowered her voice so that no one else could hear her.
"What's wrong?" Old Zhou leaned over and gasped. "Whose child starved to death and was left here?"
What a terrible thing to do.
"Hey, it seems like he's still breathing. The baby's moving." Zhao Guihua stared intently at the baby lying there with his little bottom sticking up.
"Who, who hit me?" The little girl, who looked about four or five years old, woke up with a bump on her forehead, her big, dark eyes blinking as she looked at the two people in front of her.
"Oh my, what a pretty little girl. Little one, what's your name?" Zhao Guihua touched the bump on her head; it wasn't serious.
"I...I..." The little girl hesitated for a long time, then said with a sigh, "I don't remember."
My mind was blank, a rumbling sound came from my stomach, and my stomach was empty too.
The couple looked at each other and thought, "Could it be that the child was abandoned? And with the famine going on, the parents probably don't want to raise the child anymore."
"Everyone is short of food. Alas, God is cruel."
The little girl looked at the mushrooms in their arms and smiled, with an innocent and naive air, "I want to eat mushrooms, mushroom soup, mushroom vegetables... and there are mushrooms here too."
She turned around and pointed to a pile of dry grass not far away. Seeing that the two adults didn't move, she got up and started to clear away the dry grass. "There are so many mushrooms. I'll give them all to Auntie."
Wow... so many mushrooms!
Zhao Guihua inhaled, "A huge patch of mushrooms! This will feed the whole family for several days!"
The little girl grabbed Zhao Guihua's leg and sat firmly on her feet, saying, "I want to drink mushroom soup and eat mushroom dishes. Auntie, please make them for me."
The soft, tender bundle was pressed against her, and Zhao Guihua's heart melted. She couldn't help but hug her.
"Honey, look..."
Old Zhou frowned and sighed, "Let's take them home to eat first, then take them to the village chief's house."
"Okay, let's pick the mushrooms first."
Evening. Yegou Village.
"Whose child is this?" the village chief asked, looking at the little girl who was leisurely playing in his yard.
The Zhou couple couldn't tell, but he could tell at a glance that the little girl's dirty clothes were made of high-quality fabric. In this year of famine, there weren't many families in the surrounding villages who would be willing to raise a little girl to be plump and healthy. Moreover, she had an air of nobility about her, and she didn't look like a country child at all.
"I found it," Old Zhou said honestly.
Zhao Guihua added, "When we found her in that valley, she was still unconscious and had nothing on her to prove her identity. She didn't remember who her parents were, and she didn't even know her own name."
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