Seeing her trapped in the realm of reality and illusion, unable to extricate herself, Xu Jiang felt a great pain in her heart, but she forced herself to hold back her tears. She hardened her heart and held her face, saying, "Madam, wake up, look at me."
Xizhi looked at her face helplessly.
"The one waiting outside is Wan Sheng, Master Wan, your husband, not Xu Yuan." Xu Jiang took a deep breath and said as calmly as possible, "Everything is over. Xu Yuan has left."
"leave?"
"Well, leave, leave this world."
"Left this world." Xizhi suddenly remembered that it was a rainy day when the Xi family came to ask for money and told Wansheng about Xu Yuan's death.
She said that Xu Yuan's legs were broken and he died, and she told Wan Sheng not to worry, saying that she had given up her thoughts and would live a stable life with him from now on.
She stared at Xu Jiang, stunned and said, "He's dead, he's already dead?"
"It's death, but it's also liberation, escaping the eight sufferings of this world. It's also a return, a return to heaven and earth, to nature, to the beginning of time." Xu Jiang wiped away her dazed tears, reluctantly looking back at those memories, and recounted them to Xizhi. "When he left, he was very calm and peaceful."
Calm and peaceful.
At first, Xu Yuan's death had been portrayed as tragic and painful by the Xi family. She remembered their gloating tone, saying he deserved it, that he was getting his comeuppance. Those vicious words shattered her, leaving her wishing she would just die.
Afterwards, he was filled with remorse, felt like he was living a life worse than death, and even went crazy.
But now Xu Jiang heard that he passed away peacefully and serenely, and in an instant, her shattered flesh and bones slowly pieced together and reshaped into a human form.
Xu Jiang smiled slightly, let go of her, and then took her hand. She continued, "The day before he left, he asked me to make him his favorite pancakes and drink his favorite pine flower wine. He was very happy."
"Pancakes and...pine flower wine." During the time they were in the mountains, she often made pancakes for him. She would get angry when she got tired of them, but he said that as long as he was with her, he would never get tired of eating them even if he ate them for the rest of his life.
They also brewed pine flower wine by themselves, but were forced to separate before the wine was ready.
"Yes, he finished it all." Xu Jiang imitated Xu Yuan's tone and said, "After he finished eating, he said, 'I have no regrets in this life.'"
Xizhi stared at her, as if she saw the expression on Xu Yuan's face when he said this.
"He left at night without calling me. The next morning when I went to see him, he seemed to be asleep."
Xu Jiang described Xu Yuan's death in a very casual way, as if she was just talking to Xizhi about an old friend's journey.
"He left me a letter asking me not to hold a funeral or set up a memorial tablet, saying, 'Life and death are the natural process of life and death, so let it take its course.'"
"Life and death are like the transformation of qi, just follow nature's will." This sentence had been kept for nine years, and after traveling thousands of miles with Xu Jiang, it finally reached Xizhi's ears and fell into her heart.
"He has left the world behind and found great freedom, but I still miss him and care about him."
Xu Jiang took out a badge from her bosom and put it in Xizhi's hand.
"Whenever you think of me, take it and look at it as a spirit tablet and worship it. Tell him not to forget that he has me as his disciple and to remember to come back and see me often."
Xizhi stroked the waist badge engraved with the words "Zheyun" and found out that it was carved by Xu Yuan, but there were some differences in the details, so it should have been carved by Xu Jiang.
"At first, she often appeared in my dreams, but later she seemed to be tired of my visiting her, so she came less often." Xu Jiang held Xizhi's hand and put 'Zheyun' in their palms.
"He has gone far away and will never come back. He is also in our hearts and will never leave. We should also move forward, to the end, to the same place, and we will meet again."
At this point, the chaotic realm of reality and illusion was split apart, and all the love, resentment and separation in the past floated up to the sky, turning into wind, rain, clouds, stars, and the dry hearts.
What is lost and recovered before our eyes are the buds that sprout, the flowers that bloom and the fruits that bear in our hearts.
She is not without anything.
"You still have me, mother." Xu Jiang called her mother, but she acted like a mother, holding Xizhi in her arms.
Xizhi brought her into the world and gave her to Xu Yuan. She accompanied him for fourteen years, relieved his loneliness and sorrow, taught her skills, and raised her to adulthood.
Now God has sent her back to Xizhi to heal her heart and comfort her from her suffering. This can be considered as fate.
Xu Jiang's cry of "mother" pierced the poisonous sore in Xizhi's heart, squeezing out the love, hate, sorrow, resentment and disgust that she had suppressed for many years. She gasped, then hugged Xu Jiang tightly, and only let out a cry after a long while.
"Cry if you want to. Cry as much as you can. Just think of it as saying goodbye to him."
Xizhi burst into tears.
Xu Jiang could no longer hold back her tears, which instantly flowed down and soaked her mother's clothes.
Outside the house, Wan Sheng was startled when he heard the crying and immediately rushed into the house. As soon as he stepped into the door, he saw the mother and daughter hugging and crying on the couch, and he immediately froze in place.
After a while, he retracted his legs and turned to leave.
But when he reached the courtyard, he couldn't bear to leave, so he stood in the moonlight until three o'clock in the morning.
Xizhi was tired from crying and was weak, so she fell asleep in Xu Jiang's arms.
Xu Jiang and Liu Mei helped her to the bed, took off her boots and changed her clothes, and let her settle down.
The maid brought hot water to wash the lady's body. As she soaked the towel, she said to Xu Jiang, "The master is still waiting outside. I tried to persuade him to go back and rest, but it didn't work. Why don't you go and talk to him?"
Wan Sheng was outside before, so he should have known what was going on inside the house. He neither broke in nor left, but just stayed there for most of the night, neither too far nor too close. This shows how anxious and conflicted he was.
"You guys stay with the lady, I'll go take a look."
Xu Jiang wiped his face and walked outside.
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