Cold Year (12)
Chapter 27 Cold Years (12)
Feng Siji carried Li Qi on his back and walked slowly and arduously towards Jinshan, leaving behind a trail of deep footprints in the snow that were quickly covered by new ones.
There was a large cave on Jinshan Mountain, which he had seen when he went there yesterday. It was the perfect place for her to stay. Now that she was seriously injured, he was afraid of meeting someone if he went down the mountain again. The cave on Jinshan Mountain was secluded and would be a better place for her to hide.
There were traces of human life at the shallow entrance of the cave. Feng Siji guessed that it must have been where the people who had dug it before lived. There were many stone beds inside, and he carefully placed Li Qi on one of them.
She was shot in the back, so he asked her to lie down. He saw that the arrow feathers at her wound had broken off due to rolling down the slope. Only part of the arrow remained in the wound, with a short piece protruding, which was difficult to pull out.
He didn't dare to pull it out casually. There was no medicine or doctor in the snowy Ghost Mountain. He was afraid that she would bleed profusely after pulling it out, so he could only do it this way for now, planning to wait until it was dark and then carry her down the mountain to find a doctor.
The weather was too cold, and she lay shivering on the stone bed. Feng Si quickly lit a fire, picked her up and sat beside it, shielding her from the wind and snow with his body. She gradually warmed up and stopped shivering. Her face was pale, and she called out in a daze, "...Mingrong..."
In these sixteen years, the person she missed most was Dong Mingrong.
Although her father Dong Yan treated her well, she could not call him "Dad" in public. He was busy with official duties or his wives and concubines, and rarely spent time with her in private. Their feelings were pitifully weak.
Her deepest impression of him was when Yunzhou City was broken and he was shot to death by arrows from the Southern Yan army. He bled a lot, looked sadly at the distant sky, and fell down in the eyes of the soldiers and her.
Her mother, Mrs. Li, was busy clinging to and currying favor with the principal wife to protect her and her daughter from being harmed by her, and she seldom had time to pay attention to her.
She vaguely remembered that one month before the fall of Yunzhou City, she went to find Li and begged her to spend her birthday with her.
Li touched her head and said, "Mother has to accompany Madam to appreciate the flowers. I'll give you some money, and you can go find Miss Ming to play with her."
Li Qi asked unhappily, "Can't you just turn down the first lady's request? I always feel like Nanyan is about to break through the city gates. Maybe this is our last birthday."
Mrs. Li was stunned for a moment, then she took her hand and smiled in relief, "That's our fate. For the past sixteen years, I've done my best to protect you, not letting you suffer like other concubines. Even though I've spent less time with you, mother has no regrets."
She turned around and took out a red agate hairpin from her dressing box and pinned it into Li Qi's bun. Looking at her only daughter who was so emotionally indifferent, she said with a faint smile, "I named you Qi because I hope your life will be gorgeous and brilliant, like red, which will always be the brightest and most difficult to fade among all colors.
"If the city gates are truly breached, your father will definitely find a way to protect the three of you. You are the eldest daughter, and Miss Ming has always privately respected you as the eldest sister. When you are on your way to escape with them, no matter what happens, you must not abandon them."
Li Qi bit her lip and asked bitterly, "What if I can't survive?"
"That day will never come. I know my daughter Li best."
"What if one day I have to choose between the two of them?"
Li pinched her shoulders, made her look at her, and said seriously, "No need to think, of course, save Mingrong. She has the heart and mindset that you don't have, and she lacks the tenacity and ruthlessness that you have. As long as the two of you work together, you can accomplish many things.
"Always remember, no matter what the relationship is, as long as he's a man, he's just a tool to help you. Since he's a tool, you can choose him or discard him at any time, including Dong Linche."
Li Qi lowered her eyes: "So this is why you have always been dependent on the eldest lady."
Mrs. Li sighed: "If your father is reliable, I, your mother, will not be nameless and without status."
"Then... why do you still want to rely on him?"
Li Qi didn't understand. She only felt that her mother seemed to be awake, but not completely. In the chaos, she felt a sharp, cutting pain in her shoulders and back, so painful that she almost lost consciousness. Her body was hot and her head was dizzy and swollen.
Her voice was so low that Feng Siji couldn't hear clearly. He put his ear close to her and was able to hear a word clearly.
He didn't know what this meant, he just thought she needed support, so he hugged her even tighter, enduring the hardship.
-
Feng Siji didn't know what time it was. As he waited agonizingly, the bright sky gradually dimmed. Outside the cave entrance, it was pitch black, and a strong wind was blowing. The fire in front of him had gone out, leaving only a few sparks of light.
The arms that were holding Li Qi were sore and swollen from being pressed, so he quietly stretched out his arms to stretch his muscles, intending to take her down the mountain in the dark and windy night.
At this moment, a fire suddenly lit up outside the dark cave. Feng Siji's nerves collapsed and he hugged Li Qi and stood up suddenly. She seemed to be uncomfortable from the shaking and let out painful moans.
He stared vigilantly at the increasingly brighter fire outside the cave entrance. Two hurried footsteps on the snow came closer and closer. As he was quickly thinking about how to get her out, the figures of Ye Lan and Dong Linche appeared at the cave entrance.
They each carried a small backpack and stood at the cave entrance holding a torch. The bright firelight reflected their worried faces. Ye Lan was exhausted and panting. He wiped the sweat off his face and said, "Finally I found you."
Seeing that it was the two of them, Feng Siji's heart slowly settled. He laid Li Qi on the stone bed and asked, "How did you find us?"
Ye Lan led Dong Linche in and put down the small basket on her back. She told Dong Linche to light a new fire while she took out the medicine from the basket. "You haven't come back yet, so we can't find you. Wang Mo said you might have come to Ghost Mountain. I guess no matter where you went, you must have encountered trouble after not returning for so long, so I brought some food and ointments with me to look for you.
"I didn't expect to find it. We weren't sure at first, but this is the only place in the whole Ghost Mountain where someone could hide."
With the ointment, Feng Siji could treat Li Qi's arrow wound. He took the scissors handed to him by Ye Lan and carefully cut open the clothes on Li Qi's back. Hearing Ye Lan's words, he paused and asked curiously, "You seem to know a lot about Ghost Mountain?"
Ye Lan came over with a water bag filled with medicine for cleaning wounds and replied, "Of course. We lived here before when we had nowhere else to go and couldn't afford Tingzhuyuan."
She looked at Li Qi and was very worried. She wanted to ask Feng Siji what happened, but she felt that she was not familiar with him and was embarrassed to ask him. So she thought she should wait until Li Qi woke up before asking her.
Feng Siji took the water bag and carefully cleaned the area around the arrow wound for Li Qi. Her arrow was broken inside and needed to be pulled out.
He grasped the finger-long arrow feather that had emerged. Before he could move, Li Qi's facial features were already wrinkled in pain, and a painful groan came from his throat.
He didn't dare move again, and Li Qi's moans faded. But waiting like this wasn't an option. If he didn't deal with it, her life would be in danger. He stared at her pale face for a moment, then lifted his sleeve and extended his arm. "It might hurt a little, bite me."
Li Qi had woken up from the pain, her eyes hazily open, but she seemed to have lost the ability to think. After hearing what he said, she numbly did as he said. The moment her teeth bit his arm, he pulled it hard.
The arrow was pulled out, bringing out muddy blood, which splattered on his face. He looked at the small bloody hole and his heart trembled, as if a big hole had been nailed in his heart, and it was bleeding.
The pain in his heart was greater than that in his body, and he could hardly feel the pain of her biting his arm. When she let go, he discovered a row of deep, wet teeth marks on it.
She lay back weakly, motionless, with a fine layer of cold sweat covering her smooth forehead.
Feng Siji continued to clean her wound, apply medicine, and wrap it with gauze. His hands were shaking all the time. At first, he could control it steadily, but when it came to wrapping the gauze, he couldn't tie a knot. He was so nervous that beads of sweat formed on his temples and dripped down his cheeks.
Ye Lan couldn't bear to watch it any longer and reached out: "Let me do it."
"No need!" He refused coldly. Ye Lan was stunned for a moment. She had never seen him like this before. His eyes were red, his face was red, and his body was shaking violently.
Suddenly, he picked up a pair of scissors that had been discarded and stabbed his own arm with force, creating a bloody hole. Ye Lan jumped away in shock: "What are you doing?"
He said nothing and looked at her coldly. His eyes were like the tongue of a poisonous snake, emitting a poisonous deathly aura. Ye Lan's heart skipped a beat. She lowered her head and hurried away and sat next to Dong Linche.
Perhaps the intense pain calmed Feng Siji down and he stopped panicking, and he finally tied up Li Qi successfully.
He turned around and asked Ye Lan, "Did you bring clothes?"
"I brought it, I brought it." Ye Lan was inexplicably afraid of him and hurriedly took out a red dress from the basket.
Feng Si said quickly: "Change it for her."
Ye Lan approached the stone bed with clothes in hand, and deliberately went around to the opposite side of him, obviously avoiding him.
He was keenly aware that if Li Qi noticed him just now, would she also be afraid and hide from him? If so, even if his mind was clear, he would scare Ye Lan to the end.
He said in a calm and cold voice: "Don't tell her what happened just now."
"oh……"
"Also, change your clothes gently."
After saying that, he walked to the fire, turned his back to them, and stood in front of Dong Linche.
Dong Linche frowned: "You are blocking my eyes."
Feng Siji lowered his eyes and glanced at him calmly without moving: "Roast your chicken well."
Dong Linche flipped the roasting wood in his hand. Among the food he and Ye Lan carried was a slaughtered chicken. His main task in coming here was to roast the chicken.
Listening to the rustling sound of Ye Lan changing clothes, Feng Siji remembered the topic he had just interrupted and brought it up again, "You said you lived here before?"
I heard her soft "hmm" from behind.
Feng Siji was full of doubts. This place was not far from Wei Ming's gold mountain, and it could be said to be his territory. The people who came to mine gold for Wei Ming in the past lived in this cave, and those stone beds were left by that group of people.
If they had lived here before, how could Li Qi not know that Wei Ming's gold mountain was empty?
"I've changed it."
Ye Lan interrupted his thoughts. He turned around, took the clothes that Li Qi had changed and carefully wiped the area around the stone bed. Then he threw the clothes away, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched over her silently.
Ye Lan sat back down by the fire and asked, "When are we going down the mountain?"
Feng Siji thought for a while and said, "Since she has enough food, let's wait until she wakes up and her injuries are better before leaving."
-
Li Qi woke up at noon the next day.
She opened her eyes hazily, and bright sunlight slanted in from the cave entrance, allowing her to see everything inside clearly.
Ye Lan and Dong Linche fell asleep leaning against the wall. The fire in front of them went out, leaving only black ashes. Feng Siji lay on the stone bed beside her, holding her hand and fell asleep.
She had been lying down for a while, and her back and waist were sore and numb that if she didn't move any more, they would become numb like wood. She moved her fingers slightly, and Feng Siji woke up immediately, raised his head, and looked at her with tired eyes: "You're awake, are you still in pain? Is there anything else that's uncomfortable?"
Li Qi shook her head and was helped to sit up straight by him: "You look very tired."
Feng Siji touched her head and said, "I'm glad you're okay."
Ye Lan and Dong Linche, who were sound asleep, woke up upon hearing the two people talking. The big one and the small one hurried forward and said, "Sister, you're finally awake! What happened to you two?"
Ye Lan breathed a sigh of relief, took her hand and said, "Are you hungry? I'll make you something you want to eat. We have a chicken. Do you want roast chicken? Roasted sweet potatoes? Roasted fish?"
Li Qi smiled and said, "Baked sweet potatoes and grilled fish, your grilled fish is the best."
Ye Lan patted his chest proudly. "Of course I did. I knew you'd enjoy this. I even killed three fish to bring here. As expected of me, I'm quite the foresighted person!"
The small fish she brought were buried in the snow to keep them fresh. She went to dig in the snow outside the cave and soon came back with three fish and a bag of sweet potatoes.
She planted the sweet potatoes herself and stored a lot of them so that she could eat hot roasted sweet potatoes in winter. The three of them would roast them every winter and eat them with a wooden spoon. They were sweet, sticky and especially fragrant.
Li Qi got off the stone bed and asked Dong Linche to light a fire. She and Feng Siji sat by the fire to warm themselves.
Feng Siji seemed to be afraid that she would fly away, so he held her hand tightly in his and kept staring at her without saying a word. Li Qi couldn't describe the deep and solemn look in his eyes, but she felt that his gaze was very strange.
She couldn't stand being stared at by him all the time, so she made an excuse and said, "I'm going to go see how Ye Lan's fish are doing."
The water for washing the fish was melted snow. Ye Lan was just outside the cave. She tried to break free from Feng Siji's hand, but he held her tighter and said, "I'll go with you."
Li Qi didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Are you going to keep holding me like this?"
"I think so."
Li Qi was joking, but she saw that his eyes were serious, with a hint of stubbornness in them. She couldn't understand and wasn't sure what kind of emotion it was. She just felt an inexplicable chill down her spine at that moment, and a sense of horror.
But because she had never been exposed to it, she was ignorant of it, and this feeling quickly faded and disappeared without a trace.
Seeing how serious he was, she had no choice but to let him go. She sat back and teased her, "Why do you seem like a different person when I woke up?"
"Nothing has changed, it's just your illusion."
Feng Siji spoke calmly, fiddling with the firewood in front of him. The heat waves from the flames rose and fell before his eyes. He said, "When I saw you injured and unconscious that day, I thought..."
He paused and said nothing more. Li Qi smiled and continued, "Are you afraid that I'll die?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid. Seeing you in so much pain, I hate myself for not being able to take your place."
"What if I die? Are you willing to die in my place?"
"willing."
Li Qi hugged his arm and leaned her head on his broad shoulder: "So, Lord Feng is willing to die for me?"
"willing."
At this time, Ye Lan came in with the fish. Li Qi raised her head embarrassedly and let go of his arm.
Ye Lan squatted on the stone by the fire, put the fish on the grill, and instructed Dong Linche to turn the sweet potatoes over.
As time passed, the aroma of grilled fish spread out, accompanied by the unique spices of Qianzhou, rich and fragrant.
Li Qi's mouth was watering and her stomach started to rumble. She was the first to pick up a piece and put it in her mouth.
The delicious aroma fills the tip of your tongue, and the tender fish meat almost melts in your mouth, leaving a lingering fragrance on your lips and teeth.
She licked her tongue and gave Ye Lan a thumbs up: "You are as talented as always, it smells so good! Lord Feng, please try one." She picked up another piece and handed it to Feng Siji. He hesitated for a moment and ate it from her hand.
She looked at him expectantly: "How is it? Ye Lan's cooking skills are amazing, right? She's lazy, but she's particularly diligent in cooking while farming."
Ye Lan disagreed: "How can I be lazy!"
Feng Si nodded quickly, used a wooden stick to dig out the roasted sweet potatoes from the fire, picked up one and peeled it for Li Qi.
The moment he stretched out his hand, his sleeve slid up, revealing his forearm wrapped in gauze.
Li Qi was slightly stunned, then hurried forward and took his hand: "What's wrong with your arm?" She remembered that he was not injured yesterday.
Hearing this, Feng Siji's eyes flashed, he pulled down his sleeve to cover it and said, "Nothing, I accidentally scratched myself while collecting firewood."
After he finished speaking, he glanced at Ye Lan guiltily, and happened to meet Ye Lan's inquiring gaze, so he looked away guiltily.
"Why are you so careless?" Li Qi looked at him distressedly and fed him another piece of fish: "Eat more, it will replenish your body."
Feng Siji wanted to say that she was the one who should be compensated, but seeing that there was nothing in the wilderness, it would be meaningless if he said it out loud, so he suppressed his words. He planned to prepare three meals a day for her when he got home.
After they had their fill, Dong Linche put out the fire, and Ye Lan began to pack up, wanting to go down the mountain as soon as possible. Before that, Li Qi still had to go to Jinshan to take a look.
The four of them walked forward together. Jinshan was not far from the cave and could be reached in a cup of tea.
Li Qi was injured and was carefully led by Feng Siji. They walked slowly and it took them two cups of tea to reach their destination.
A huge hole was mined out of the gold mountain. From the outside, it looked pitch black inside, so dark that it made people feel inexplicably stuffy and anxious in their chests.
Li Qi threw away the snow pile, picked up a stone and threw it in. The ding-dong sound echoed for a long time, which showed how deep the bottom of the cave was.
Dong Linche took a step forward, looking down into the well. He couldn't see the bottom and said, "When they were digging it, they dug a deep well. Those people used ladders to go up and down. It would be very dangerous to go in now."
He turned around and said to Li Qi seriously, "Sister is injured. You all stay here. I will go down and take care of her alone."
Only he and Li Qi were good at martial arts, so climbing walls and flying over rooftops was no problem for them. Li Qi trusted his younger brother and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Then be careful. If anything goes wrong, get out immediately. Don't delay."
Dong Linche nodded, looked down, opened his arms and leaped down.
It was pitch black at the bottom of the cave, and he disappeared after he went down. Li Qi stood at the edge and couldn't see anything, so he pulled Ye Lan to sit at the entrance of the cave and wait.
Feng Siji stayed with Li Qi for a while, then said he wanted to explore the area around the cave entrance.
Seeing him walk away without paying attention to them, Ye Lan quickly leaned close to Li Qi's ear and whispered, "I always feel like something's wrong with Lord Feng. Yesterday..."
Ye Lan had a vivid memory of the incident yesterday when he bandaged Li Qi. He told her everything word for word and even complained, "He even told me not to tell you. Who the hell is he? We are obviously together, how could he not tell you?
Li Qi pondered for a moment, recalling the stubborn emotion in his eyes that she hadn't understood, and asked doubtfully, "Is everything you said true?"
"When did I lie to you?" Ye Lan stared at Feng Siji's silhouette not far away with his eyes wide open, muttering, "I think he might have some hidden illness. You're close to him, so you must be careful.
"You didn't see it. When he bandaged his arm, he didn't even frown, let alone make a sound. He was as still as a mountain. It was very strange no matter how you looked at it. Lin Che and I were terrified. I didn't even dare to talk to him when you were still asleep."
Feng Si quickly turned around and walked back. Ye Lan immediately stopped talking and turned away his eyes guiltily.
Li Qi looked at Feng Siji thoughtfully as he slowly approached. She didn't quite understand why. It seemed that when he exposed her plot against him, he also seemed a little abnormal, but not as exaggerated as Ye Lan said.
If what she said was true, then what kind of person would be like him, able to poke a bloody hole in himself with a pair of scissors without a struggle? And then calmly bandage it afterwards and then casually say it was a scratch from firewood?
Feng Siji walked closer and was about to say something when there was a whirring sound from the cave entrance behind them. Dong Linche flew out from inside and landed steadily on the ground.
Li Qi quickly stood up and looked at him. He was uninjured, not even a scratch. However, his clothes and hair were covered in dirt, and his face was dusty and a bit dirty.
"What's it like in there?" she asked.
Dong Linche dusted himself off and said solemnly, "It's getting dark, let's talk about it when we get back."
-
The sky gradually darkened, and when it was completely dark, we arrived at Tingzhu Garden.
From a distance, I could see that the small courtyard of Tingzhuyuan was crowded with people. A sedan chair was parked on the muddy road outside, and two rows of soldiers stood in a straight line. The leader was Wei Ming, who walked back and forth with his hands behind his back, looking very uneasy.
Li Qi and Feng Siji looked at each other, both not knowing what was going on.
Wei Ming turned around and saw her. He hurried over in two steps and said with a bitter face, "My ancestor, you are finally back! Do you know how long I have been waiting for you? I have been waiting since last night, and you are trying to kill me!"
Li Qi frowned: "What happened?"
Wei Ming said, "His Majesty and his entourage have arrived. Concubine Li specifically requested you to play the qin, and she's been waiting for you for a long time. When she's unhappy, His Majesty gets angry! Who can withstand such a thunderous wrath? Quick, hurry, follow me to see Concubine Li!"
Li Qi was stunned for a moment, her heart beating violently like a drum. Expectations, sorrow, doubts and longings all poured in like the sea, sweeping over her whole body.
Dong Mingrong, she really came.
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