Chapter 108 The Long Night (5) The Tests and Schemes of Fellow Disciples...
Changsun Qingjing turned his back, unable to bear it any longer, and said, "Mr. Wei, I admit I'm old-fashioned, but I still have to give you some advice. Now that he's dead, and we're all safe and sound, you should at least leave him some decent clothes before burying him..."
"Alright. I'll search around a bit more and then bury him." Mr. Wei reached into the pocket behind the man's robe and pulled out a few pieces of jade. "Hey, scholar, these jade pieces look quite nice. Do you want them?"
"I don't want it, you keep it." Changsun Qingjing dug a few more shovelfuls of dirt, tilted his head and rubbed his temples, saying, "I'd rather go steal Yang Guang's..."
"Hahahaha!" Mr. Wei, who had always been cautious since they met, suddenly burst into unrestrained laughter, causing the torch tip stuck between the branches to shake violently. "Stealing from Yang Guang's house is considered punishing the wicked and relieving the people, right? You really are a proper scholar!"
Mr. Wei bent down and pushed hard, shoving the waiter's corpse into the pit he had just dug.
Changsun Qingjing uttered a Buddhist prayer, feeling utterly dejected.
Upon hearing the phrase "Even Li Shimin cannot escape," Changsun Qingjing fell silent. He then joined Mr. Wei in searching for withered branches and leaves, mixing them into the swirling soil and refilling them into the newly dug pit.
"Once the sun shines in the morning, even the gods won't be able to tell," Mr. Wei muttered to himself as he walked back and forth across the pit, tamping the mud down.
"Hey, have a drink, and find some moss to trample on together!" Mr. Wei tossed the gourd from his waist to Changsun Qingjing.
"How many times have you escaped from Yuwen Shu's henchmen?" Changsun Qingjing tossed the gourd back and said, "Thanks, but I'm in mourning and won't drink."
"You almost reunited with your family in the afterlife before you were even out of mourning. Why don't you have a couple of drinks to celebrate that your family doesn't want you to go down and join them?" Mr. Wei uncorked the bottle and started drinking by himself.
The two sat on the ground, remaining silent for a long time in the night breeze. Mr. Wei, moved by the scene, sighed deeply. Facing Changsun Qingjing, he felt a sense of closeness, like meeting an old friend in a foreign land, and suddenly began to speak eloquently.
“Young Master Gao, I don’t remember how many times I’ve escaped Yuwen Shu’s henchmen. I just want to say that it’s not that I, the Grand General Han Zitong, have any particular favoritism towards me. That was just me boasting, and it only fooled Duan Zhixuan who had drunk the datura wine. If he really favored me, he shouldn’t have watched my daughter die of illness while I was on the run with her…” Mr. Wei wiped his eyes and said with a bitter smile, “…What kind of favoritism is this? It’s clearly death by a thousand cuts.”
“You…” Changsun Qingjing carefully considered his words.
"I don't regret raising an army. I only regret not advising Xuangan to take Li Mi's best strategy: seize Zhuojun, control Linyuguan, and let the tyrant be trapped in Liaodong and suffer the consequences of his own actions," Mr. Wei defended himself.
“I mean, you should live well,” Changsun Qingjing said, resting his chin on his hand. “Li Fanniang cannot live without her father.”
"Yes," the old man said with an embarrassed smile. "I misunderstood you. I was afraid you would ask me things I didn't want to hear. In my dreams, I'm always being asked by those noble relatives who didn't participate in the rebellion if I regret it. It's so annoying... You rascal, you're both serious and unserious. You're reliable in your actions but your words can be quite hurtful."
The two returned to the room, where Duan Zhixuan was already fast asleep, his snoring echoing the flickering of the chandelier, giving them a strange feeling of having narrowly escaped death.
“He doesn’t have a fever anymore, and he’s not complaining of pain.” Li Fanniang, who hadn’t been sleeping soundly, almost fell off the small table, but she was relieved to see that it was someone she knew.
“But he talked in his sleep,” Li Fanniang said with a smile. “Do you want to hear it?”
"Did he admit in his dream how many soldiers and officers he killed along the way?" Mr. Wei breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Duan Zhixuan was alright. He took the cinnamon drink that Li Fanniang handed him and asked with a smile, "Did you write it down for him? Let me calculate which punishment in the Great Law matches his crime."
“It’s not what you think. He keeps having nightmares about being beaten by his father and about his fiancée leaving him.” Li Fanniang reapplied honey ointment to Duan Zhixuan’s stitches. “It’s all Mr. Wei’s fault. He clearly used mulberry bark sutures because he was worried that no one would remove them in Xin’an, but he still scared him like that. Promise me that when he wakes up, you’ll personally explain to him that the mulberry bark sutures will be absorbed by the skin and won’t leave much of a scar, so he won’t have nightmares about this!”
"I originally thought this kid was a tough, rough guy, but who knew he was so fussy," Mr. Wei laughed. "It's just a scar, what's there to worry about! I'll definitely make fun of him when he wakes up."
By the light of the wicker lamp, Li Fanniang could clearly see the bloodstains on Mr. Wei and the dust and withered leaves on Changsun Qingjing. Of course, she had heard the strange noises outside, and she remembered Mr. Wei's instructions not to meddle. She guessed that the two people in front of her had probably done something like murder and burying a body, and then, so as not to frighten her, they sat back down and chatted as if nothing had happened.
"Wait a moment." The seemingly frail but resolute young girl carried the oil lamp into another room and silently took out a set of clean clothes and handed them to Mr. Wei.
She then gestured to Changsun Qingjing to remove the loose soil and decaying leaves from his body.
"Young Master Gao, are you alright?" Li Fanniang asked cautiously.
"It's nothing." Changsun Qingjing casually brushed the mud and leaves off his clothes and chatted softly with Li Fanniang, "I slipped and fell while collecting medicinal herbs. Who knew the ground in the courtyard would be so uneven."
Mr. Wei shook his head at Li Fanniang, signaling her not to ask any more questions. He changed out of his blood-stained clothes and, at Li Fanniang's urging, washed his face. He then wiped his hands with strong liquor, went closer to examine Duan Zhixuan's wounds, touched his forehead, and checked his pulse.
“Now he really won’t die.” Mr. Wei confidently filled a clean medicine box with various medicinal herbs, pills, powders, and ointments, preparing to have Duan Zhixuan take it to Xin’an.
He instructed Changsun Qingjing and Li Fanniang, "You two take a short rest. Xin'an will be here soon. Given Li Shimin and Zhang Liang's temperament, they should be able to bring reinforcements in about an hour... You two get some sleep, I'll guard the door."
The two dared not disobey their elder, and were indeed exhausted, so they casually found a corner where they could barely find shelter and pretended to sleep against the wall.
The rhinoceros of the Great Wilderness Marsh appeared once more in Changsun Qingjing's dream, but this time, it struggled in a trap, bleeding profusely; she was bound to a stake outside the trap, powerless to escape. The hunters were discussing how to deal with them—whether to hack them to death, pierce their hearts with a thousand swords, strangle them, or burn them alive…
"Wake up, where did you get this?" Mr. Wei woke up Changsun Qingjing, holding a pellet engraved with the name "Daddy Goose King".
Changsun Qingjing immediately became alert and snatched the bullet back: "Sir, searching me while I was asleep is not exactly gentlemanly behavior, is it?"
Mr. Wei looked at her warily as well: "I never go through my friends' things. But you were having a series of nightmares just now, and I was in great pain listening to them. I was torn for a long time, and when I saw that you were having a nightmare, I woke you up in time. The bullet was the one that fell off you when you were having a nightmare."
Seeing that this man was impeccable in his speech and conduct, Changsun Qingjing told him a mixture of truth and lies: "This is an antique I bought in Liren Market in Daxing. The shop owner's surname is Mu. He sells a mix of genuine and fake goods... Could it be that I accidentally obtained something from your family, sir?"
“No,” Mr. Wei said with a smile, “I was just thinking of an old friend…” He suddenly began to scrutinize Changsun Qingjing’s face closely.
Changsun Qingjing felt a chill run down her spine and instinctively pulled up her collar to cover her neck, so as not to give herself away.
Fortunately, Mr. Wei apparently did not suspect that she was a girl, but only that she was hiding her background.
"I don't know." Changsun Qingjing laughed and teased, "Why are you so excited? Maybe it's a fake antique. Mu Boxiu is good at doing these things, and then he tells a touching heroic story to deceive naive and rich young people... Maybe I've fallen for his tricks too."
"The bullets may be fake, but the hero stories are real. So we're destined to meet."
Dawn began to break through the cracks in the windows. At first, it was as still as night; nothing could be seen—not the specks of light peeking through the clouds, the lines of the mountains, the outlines of the villages—all were shrouded in impenetrable darkness. However, visibly, clear water seeped into the darkness, and the blackness began to thin…
Mr. Wei seemed to have found a true friend despite their age difference, and began to talk incessantly about his connection with the owner of the bullet.
"Is that so?" Changsun Qingjing had experienced the unknown bandit's skill in extracting information from him several times, and dared not believe a single word he said, so he just gave a perfunctory reply with half-believing and half-doubting.
"Of course, the insults I endured when I was young, the countless times I was forced to copy the talismans, the pain of being thrown into icy water on winter nights, and the torment of wearing straw clothes and smearing mud on summer days made it impossible for Pei Yun and Yuwen Shu, those two foxes, to catch me..." Changsun Qingjing remained unmoved, only smiling apologetically.
"Don't they even consider whose student I am? Losing to me isn't shameful. It's just a pity I didn't have the chance to pay my respects to him..." Mr. Wei sneered, "May that tyrant Yang Guang have sweet dreams every night..."
"Thank goodness I'm not too late!" The door was gently pushed open.
Li Shimin landed silently like a hawk. He carefully inspected the room; all three were present. He breathed a sigh of relief and gestured towards the door. The deliberately suppressed sounds of carriages and horses reached everyone's ears.
Author's Note: Guess if the next chapter will feature a safe landing or a completely new plot twist? [Winking face]
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