Chapter 281 Lacquerware
The green-clothed female ghost gave Zhang Yao an orange soft candy.
Zhang Yao held the candy in his hand and looked at the camera with some confusion, "Host, why are you giving this to me?"
"After eating this, you will fall asleep temporarily, and in your dream, you will remember everything from your past life."
Huo Ning's calm voice came through the screen and fell into Zhang Yao's ears.
If this happened face to face and someone gave her a candy and said something like this, it would sound ridiculous.
There is a high probability that Zhang Yao will call the police.
But through the screen, she had clicked on Huo Ning's live broadcast several times when she was bored, and she already had a basic judgment of the other party's strength.
Without hesitation, she tore open the candy wrapper and ate the candy.
I was gradually becoming sleepy.
Zhang Yao's body fell into a dream.
…
Smoke of war rose up everywhere, the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, blood was flowing like a spring in every household, and cries of injustice shook the earth everywhere.
The capital city, which was once bustling with music and flowers, is now being trampled by the iron hooves of foreign enemies.
The walls were stained with blood, the city gates were mottled, and the sound of mournful cries could be heard everywhere.
The inner treasury was burned to ashes, and the streets were filled with the bones of officials.
In the Zhang Mansion in the north of the city, blood seeped into every brick, and the fishy stench that filled the sky almost submerged the entire mansion.
Zhang Yao hid in the cellar, not even daring to cry out loud.
Just now, her grandfather held her hand tightly, coughing up blood, and breathing weakly, "Yaoyao, you... remember, you must protect the lacquerware around you, don't let it..."
"Don't let it be taken away..."
The lacquerware of the Zhang family in Beijing is famous.
Once a merchant from another country came to the capital to buy jewels. He spent a huge sum of money, but he only took the dressing box containing the pearls and discarded the jewels inside.
The Zhang family's lacquerware is exquisite and was once favored by the royal family.
This brought infinite glory to Zhang's lacquerware, but also aroused the envy of countless people.
A tree that stands out in the forest will be destroyed by the wind.
In the past, the Zhang family was protected by people in the palace, and those who were jealous of the Zhang family could not do anything to them.
But now, the country is in ruins, foreigners are marching into the capital, and the people in the palace are busy taking care of themselves, so how can they care about the Zhang family?
A group of people took advantage of the chaos and ran into Zhang's house, and together with outsiders, they robbed and burned Zhang's lacquerware.
Most of the Zhang family members also died at the hands of those people.
Only Zhang Yao, who was only ten years old, was dragged into the cellar by his grandfather who was bedridden.
In my grandfather's arms, he was dragging a bag of lacquerware that the group of people had not had time to snatch away, and a book he had written with great effort on how to make lacquerware, which was passed down from father to son and not from father to daughter.
My grandfather was almost dead. His voice was getting weaker and weaker, and his face was getting bluer and bluer.
His skinny hand, however, was tightly grasping Zhang Yao's wrist.
"Yaoyao...stay alive..."
"If you can survive... you must bring... you must bring the Zhang family lacquerware back to the light of day..."
After he said this, he closed his eyes forever.
Outside, one could still vaguely hear the cursing and shouting of the outsiders and the murderers who had destroyed the Zhang family. Every blow struck hard at the ten-year-old Zhang Yao's heart.
She stared blankly at her grandfather's body, not even daring to cry out loud.
Suddenly, a burden too heavy to lift was placed on her tender shoulders.
The weight of the shoulder pole was like a mountain filled with huge rocks, which almost crushed her.
In just one day, the Zhang family was destroyed.
Her grandfather, parents, uncles, aunts, and brothers are all dead.
She was the only one left alive.
The Zhang family's lacquerware is well-known, but she has never touched it before. She only watched her father and brothers make it from a distance.
She once tried to learn it secretly, but was scolded by her grandfather and parents.
Saying girls shouldn’t learn these things.
She should learn how to manage housework, how to do housework, and how to be a virtuous wife when she grows up.
She loves the lacquerware in her home.
But she never had the chance to learn.
In the past, Zhang Yao dreamed that one day her grandfather would abandon those outdated ideas and let her join her brothers in making the Zhang family lacquerware famous.
But when this day really came, Zhang Yao was not happy.
There is only endless pain and confusion.
In such a chaotic world, it was doubtful whether she, a ten-year-old girl, could survive with these priceless treasures.
Not to mention letting the Zhang family lacquerware see the light of day again.
The cellar is connected to the outside exit.
When Zhang Yao was young, he loved to play. He once sneaked into the cellar, ran out quietly, and then ran back quietly.
Zhang Yao dragged her small body, holding the lacquerware and the book her grandfather had given her before his death, and ran towards the exit little by little.
The road that she could climb out of when she was a child now seems as long as countless insurmountable hills to her.
The further he walked, the more tired Zhang Yao felt.
Until she couldn't walk anymore.
She was crying as she flipped through the book her grandfather taught her.
She didn't know how long it would take for her to be found by those people.
But she knew that the things her grandfather gave her must not fall into the hands of outsiders.
She was young and had a photographic memory, so she read with tears in her eyes and tore up each page as she read.
She secretly hid the lacquerware her grandfather had given her in a corner where no one could see it, and covered it with dust and gravel.
The little body finally regained some strength, and Zhang Yao dragged his tender but heavy body, step by step, towards the exit, which he thought was the way to survival.
But she was wrong.
The cellar is not safe.
The road ahead may not necessarily be a way out.
She had only taken a few steps when two groups of people swarmed over her.
They forced her to hand over the remaining machines.
Forcing her to tell the entire contents of the torn book.
Zhang Yao's eyes were red as he glared at those people fiercely, "You are dreaming!"
Although she is only a ten-year-old girl, she has her own integrity.
She would rather die than hand over the belongings in her house to these robbers.
Robbers are never humane.
She refused to speak, and they killed her with their swords.
The blood from her body soaked into the ground.
Into the lacquerware she had hidden.
Those lacquerwares were never found.
Just like Zhang Yao never walked out of this cellar in the end.
Before closing his eyes, Zhang Yao turned around and glanced in the direction he came from.
She wanted to say to her grandfather, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
I didn't survive.
Nor was the Zhang family lacquerware able to see the light of day again.
…
The sound of wind blew past his ears, and Zhang Yao woke up from a bloody dream, staring blankly at the glass window in front of him.
The sun is out.
Just now, there were still snowflakes flying outside.
But now the clouds have cleared and the sun is shining.
Zhang Yao still couldn't come out of that dream. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw blood everywhere.
But she also felt as if she were alive again.
No longer as confused and miserable as before.
She slowly raised her head, looked at Huo Ning on the screen, and asked in a trembling voice: "So I was able to survive all those times I wanted to commit suicide, was it because my grandfather was protecting me?"
Huo Ning shook her head, "No."