Chapter 82 Chapter 82 Who am I and where am I
Jiang Ci was stunned for a long time, his voice tense: "Who... asked you to deliver it?"
The man replied, "A general named Shen. He didn't leave his name, but said the girl would definitely know who he was."
Lou Qi couldn't help but lean over to take a look, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "This is the seal of Xiliang, and the surrender letter is genuine... Tsk, this Shen guy is really generous. Jiang Ci, you now control Liangzhou, Dongyang, and Xiliang. If you can also take over Beiting, why don't you really become a female monarch?"
Jiang Ci didn't say anything, but just closed the letter of surrender and put it back into the tube.
"Becoming a king? I don't have that in mind." She smiled lightly, her expression nonchalant. "Daily attendance, a lifetime of worry, endless memorials to review, endless matters to manage, and all the while battling with a bunch of ministers. It's too tiring. I prefer a more relaxed life."
Lou Qi raised his eyebrows: "So what kind of day do you like?"
Jiang Ci looked at the slowly flowing river, thought for a moment, and suddenly said, "I want to ride a horse and explore."
"Go and see the mountains and rivers of this world. Maybe one day, I'll meet someone who has traveled a long way to see me from afar." Her voice was so soft that it was almost blown away by the river breeze.
Lou Qi looked at her and felt something in his heart.
He knew that she was talking about Ji Yang.
On the river in the distance, a small boat was quietly moored away from the crowd on the shore. Hidden between the lights and the waves against the backlight, it looked particularly inconspicuous.
In the cabin, Shen Tingan was wearing a green shirt and sitting quietly by the window.
He turned sideways to look out the half-open window and saw the figure on the shore. Jiang Ci stood under the lamplight, holding the gift he had given her, his brows and eyes softened by the light.
He looked at her for a long time, his eyes dark.
After a moment, he lowered his eyes and reached out to gently lower the bamboo curtain.
"This Lantern Festival in Zichuan..." he murmured softly, "It's really lively."
As the night deepens, the streets are still bustling with people, and fireworks and lanterns interweave into a lively scene.
Jiang Ci and Lou Qi were walking side by side along the river. Just as she stepped off an arch bridge, the crowd in front of her suddenly made way and she stopped abruptly.
A familiar face came into view in the crowd.
The woman had changed from her usual plain appearance. She was now dressed in luxurious clothes, with a delicate face and exquisite makeup. However, her eyes and eyebrows were more reserved and sharper than before. She was holding her bulging belly, and was followed by two maids, dressed in the style of the Xie family.
Jiang Ci's lips moved slightly, and he whispered, "Chu Yao."
Lou Qi, who was standing beside her, noticed the change in her breath and stopped as well.
Chu Yao, who was three meters away, also happened to see her.
Their eyes met, and the air seemed to freeze at that moment.
Chu Yao gently stroked her abdomen, her expression calm and distant, no longer the humble, docile, and pitiful look she used to have in the mansion.
Jiang Ci looked at her, and countless possibilities flashed through his mind: How could a sold slave climb up step by step to the present day, and appear in Xie's mansion with legitimate reasons, and have no worries about food and clothing, and be served by others?
I thought about it for a long time but still couldn't figure it out.
Lou Qi moved closer and asked her softly, "Do you know her?"
Jiang Ci retracted his gaze and said indifferently, "I don't know him."
As soon as she finished speaking, she walked forward quickly, passing Chu Yao side by side. Chu Yao seemed to be moved, slightly tilting her head, as if wanting to speak to her, but in the end she just glanced at her.
Jiang Ci never looked back.
The two passed each other as if they had never really known each other.
After walking a little further, Lou Qi still insisted: "It seems like you two have a grudge against each other... If you don't like her, I'll go back now, chop her up and throw her into the river to feed the fish, how about that?"
Jiang Ci remained calm and said calmly, "No need to bother with her. If you argue with her too much, it will only make you look like the same type of person as her."
After saying that, he walked back home with his posture straight.
After sending Jiang Ci to the gate, Lou Qi didn't rush to leave. He walked to the corner, quietly pulled Wan Niang aside, and asked in a low voice, "Who was the woman your young lady just met?"
Upon hearing the word "Chu Yao", Wanniang's anger immediately soared: "Are you talking about that bad guy?! He pretended to be weak and seduced men in the Dongyang Marquis's mansion, causing the girl and the governor to fall out, and was divorced. Now, I don't know how he climbed into the Xie family's threshold. It's outrageous!"
Lou Qi raised his eyebrows when he heard this: "...there is such a thing."
He smiled and said nothing more.
After he turned around and the footsteps faded away, he walked alone to the outside of Xie's house and happened to see Chu Yao slowly returning to the house surrounded by maids.
She walked carefully, her steps slow due to her pregnancy. Just as she was about to step over the threshold, suddenly, there was a "bang"!
A small stone hit her knee accurately. She was caught off guard, her legs went weak, and she fell to her knees on the ground, her palms supporting the stone slab, with an embarrassed expression.
The two maids behind her were startled and hurried to help her.
Chu Yao ignored the pain and looked around with an alert look.
But in the dark night, I saw nothing.
The wind blew at the alley entrance, and the lights flickered, but the man had long since disappeared, leaving only a string of low humming laughter with a hint of evil humor behind him.
The next day, the wind and snow outside the village gradually subsided, but the night had not yet completely passed and the snow on the thatched roofs had not yet melted.
In a simple house, hay was laid out as a bed, medicine jars and leftover medicine residue were piled in the corner, and the house was filled with a strong herbal aroma.
The man on the bed twitched his fingertips slightly, and then his brows slowly furrowed, as if struggling to wake from a long sleep. After a long moment, he finally opened his eyes with difficulty.
What caught his eye was a low roof, with dried wormwood hanging between the beams. The faint whistling of the wind against the cracks in the door reached his ears. He stared at all this, his face blank, his lips slightly parted, his voice hoarse and low, almost inaudible:
“…Where is this?”
Footsteps were heard, and a village woman in her early thirties pushed the door open and came in, holding firewood in her arms. When she saw that he woke up, surprise flashed in her eyes. She hurriedly put down the firewood and walked over quickly.
"Oh, little brother, you're finally awake! After being unconscious for so many days, God has finally opened his eyes." She took off her coat, untied the rabbit fur collar around her neck, and placed it next to his pillow. Although the coarse cloth she was wearing was old, it was washed very cleanly.
"Yesterday was the Lantern Festival. It's a pity that you missed the excitement." As she muttered, she poured a bowl of warm water and carefully fed it to his lips.
The man's throat felt as if it had been burned. He swallowed a few mouthfuls with difficulty, his eyes still somewhat dazed. He hesitated for a moment, his voice hoarse as he asked, "Who am I?"
As soon as he said this, it was as if he had touched a blocked nerve in his heart, and his head suddenly felt a sharp pain. He frowned, raised his hands to hold his head in pain, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
The village woman was startled and quickly put down the bowl of water. She stepped forward and patted his shoulder gently, "Slow down... Don't be anxious, don't be anxious. Is your head hurting again? You're seriously injured. You can't bear to think about these things right after waking up."
The man struggled to sit up. Seeing this, she had no choice but to reach out and hold his arm, lean him against the hay pillow, and wipe the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
He turned his head and looked at her face, his tone slow but with a hint of alienation: "Who... are you?"
"My name is Yu Niang." She sighed and pulled the blanket for him. "I live in this shabby thatched hut with my husband. You've been unconscious these days because he and I took turns feeding you the medicine soup. Don't be afraid, we're not bad people."
The man nodded, then lowered his eyes to look at his scarred body, wrapped in a ragged shirt and a knife wound on his shoulder that hadn't yet scabbed over. His voice was as low as the wind blowing through old window paper: "Then who am I..."
Yu Niang paused for a moment before she whispered, "How would I know who you are? We found you by the river a while ago. You were covered in wounds, your armor was tattered, and you weren't moving. It was freezing cold... We almost thought you were dead. It was only after my husband said your finger twitched that we carried you back."
She paused and muttered, "You looked like you had just rolled off the battlefield."
The man's expression became even more confused, his eyes filled with bewilderment. He looked down at himself, touched the tightly wound, and then touched the top of his head. For a moment, he could not find any memory of himself.
He felt his head splitting with pain and his stomach as empty as a broken bowl. He spoke softly:
"I'm...very hungry now."
Yu Niang chuckled and said, "Are you hungry? Now you act like a living person."
As she spoke, she stood up and walked towards the kitchen: "Wait, I'll go get you a bowl of hot rice porridge. You'll feel better after drinking it."
The man leaned against the head of the bed, staring blankly at her back. His throat rolled twice, but he couldn't call out his own name.
Because he doesn't even know who he is.
I only remember that in that dream, there was always a pair of eyes, full of tears, whispering to him:
"Ji Yang...I'll wait for you to come back."
But who is "Ji Yang"?
who is he?
A few days passed and the snow stopped, but there was still a thin layer of frost on the branches at the village entrance.
Ji Yang's injury has healed a little and he can finally get out of bed and walk.
Yu Niang brought in some clean clothes and handed them to him, saying, "These are my brother Dongzi's clothes. Try them on. I see you two have similar body shapes."
Ji Yang took it and looked down at the pile of washed-out cloth. He was stunned for a moment, but didn't ask any more questions. He slowly put on his clothes, his movements still a little awkward.
After changing, he walked out of the house. Outside the yard, Yu Niang and her husband Xu Jiuge were busy around the stove.
When Yu Niang turned around and saw him standing at the door, she couldn't help laughing: "Oh, Dongzi's clothes really fit him well."
"That's right!" Brother Xu Jiu looked him over and grinned, "This dress looks much more stylish on you than on my kid."
Ji Yang looked down at himself, said nothing for a moment, and just nodded slightly.
Yu Niang took out a freshly cleaned chicken from the pot and said, "Since you can go out to the fields now, I will kill a chicken today and we can celebrate."
As she plucked the chicken's feathers, she said to him, "Don't worry, take care of yourself. After all, this body was saved. When you remember where home is, we'll send you back. I'm sure your family must be waiting for you with tears in their eyes."
Ji Yang stood leaning against the doorpost, his eyes wandering between the firewood pile and the eaves. He was silent for a while, then suddenly said, "...I often dream."
Yu Niang was startled, stopped what she was doing, and asked, "What did you dream about?"
He looked at the faint light beneath the thick clouds in the sky and said in a low voice, "In my dream, there was a woman holding a lantern, walking in the rain, and she walked straight up to me."
"What did she say?" Yu Niang asked.
Ji Yang shook his head: "I can't hear clearly... and I can't see her face."
When Yu Niang heard this, she felt her heart sink slightly, but she smiled and joked: "That must be your wife, she's thinking about you even in her dreams."
Brother Xu Jiu joined in the fun, deliberately lowering his voice and saying, "You said, when he found it, he was holding an amulet embroidered with a tiger head. It was obviously embroidered by a girl. It must have been given to him by his wife."
"He already has a wife, so let's not worry about him." Yu Niang said.
"I was wondering," he turned to look at Yu Niang, "isn't our third sister still married? He's handsome. If he could stay, it would add more strength to our family. Why don't we let him marry into our family?"
As soon as the words fell, Yu Niang rolled her eyes at him and punched him with her fist: "Are you heartless? She has lost her memory now, and you are taking advantage of her misfortune by saying this? Aren't you ashamed!"
Brother Xu Jiu covered his arm and cried out: "I'm not talking nonsense, I just feel sorry for my sister..."
Yu Niang ignored him and turned to Ji Yang and said, "Don't listen to his nonsense. We are not that kind of people. Just take care of her slowly. When you remember where home is, we will send you back together."
Ji Yang listened to their bickering, the corners of his lips twitched slightly, but he didn't smile.
He just lowered his head and looked at his cloth shoes that were washed white. His fingertips could still feel the amulet hidden inside his waist shirt. The little tiger head had blurred stitches, but it still had a faint warmth.
He always felt that the woman under the lamp was at the end of his dream, walking towards him step by step.
But he just couldn't see her appearance clearly.
That day, the sky was just getting light and the weather was a little warmer.
Yu Niang wrapped herself in a thick coat and stuffed some dry food into her backpack while calling out to the house, "Little brother, are you up yet? We have to go to the market early today!"
Ji Yang responded and came out of the house with an axe on his shoulder.
Brother Xu Jiu had been waiting at the door for a long time. When he saw him come out, he picked up his backpack and said with a smile: "There is a lot of firewood today. Let's leave early to grab a good spot and sell it quickly."
The three of them went into the forest together.
The mountain path was slippery, so Ji Yang, holding a tree trunk with one hand and an axe in the other, followed them through the dense forest, found a pine forest and started chopping wood. He was strong and worked without hesitation, and in a short while he had chopped down a whole pile of wood.
Yu Niang squatted aside to rest. Seeing a light sweat on his forehead, but he didn't complain, she couldn't help but feel pity for him. "You said that your physique, if you were in the city, you must have been trained."
Brother Xu Jiu nodded: "Not only is he strong, but also look at the way he chops wood, steady and neat, with a clean blade. I can tell he's been to the military."
Ji Yang was slightly startled when he heard this, and the axe in his hand paused.
"Barracks?" he repeated softly, a blur of images flashing through his mind: the sound of horns, the neighing of horses, the rustling of cloaks in the cold wind. He seemed to be standing on the top of a city wall, with an army behind him...
But the scene was fleeting and I couldn't catch it no matter how hard I tried.
"...Maybe," he muttered, continuing to chop wood.
Once the firewood was bundled, the three of them carried their loads down the mountain and headed for the town market. The market was built by the river, and at daybreak, many early-rising villagers were already setting up stalls and hawking their wares. Yu Niang chose an empty spot near the bridgehead, while Xu Jiuge and Ji Yang neatly stacked the firewood.
Someone walked by and saw that their firewood was dry and burning well, and was cut neatly, so soon someone came forward to inquire about the price.
"How much is this?"
"This bundle is six cents. If you buy more, you can get a cheaper price."
Ji Yang was a man of few words, merely loading and weighing the firewood, leaving Yu Niang to do all the shouting. However, his tall and straight figure and handsome features attracted many girls to turn their heads furtively.
Brother Xu Jiu smiled and whispered to Yu Niang: "Look, everyone is almost stunned. If our third sister were here, wouldn't she take the initiative to propose marriage?"
Yu Niang pinched him hard and said, "You're the only one who keeps talking. Shut up."
The market was getting bustling, and the firewood was almost sold out. Yu Niang bought everyone a hot sugar cake, biting into it while saying, "Next time we'll chop more."
Ji Yang took the sugar cake and stood by the river, staring at the water in a daze. The river reflected the bustling crowd, but he was suddenly stunned, as if he heard a voice in the midst of the clamor -
"Ji Yang."
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