Chapter 190: The Metamorphosis of a Mayfly
In Rong Xie's imagination, the father and son would meet, clear up the misunderstanding, and put aside their past grievances. Even if they didn't end up crying in each other's arms, at least they could resolve Shen Bingsi's inner conflict, stop him from vomiting blood after taking just a few steps, and Rong Xie could take him back to Elder Hong to begin the next stage of his cultivation.
To everyone's surprise, the father and son initially exchanged a few words, but later, sitting face to face, they didn't exchange a single word, and even stopped making eye contact.
Cui Yuqing looked at Shen Bingsi, while Shen Bingsi looked at the table.
After a long silence, Cui Yuqing let out a long sigh.
"Bing Si, I don't have the right to ask... but I still really want to know, how is your mother doing now?"
Shen Bingsi crossed her arms over her stomach, shrugged her shoulders, and rested her toes on the table leg, looking indifferent: "You know you have no right to ask."
Cui Yuqing lowered her head: "I..."
"But I don't know either. I left the Shen family a long time ago. After I left, she left too. I don't know where she went. With her willpower and determination, she should be living the life she wants now," Shen Bingsi said calmly.
Cui Yuqing raised her eyebrows slightly, revealing a relieved expression: "Is that so? That would be perfect, perfect indeed."
With Cui Yuqing's help, Rong Xie and Shen Bingsi successfully descended the mountain and left the territory of Yunshan Sect.
It was raining on the mountain, but sunny down below. The twilight cast long shadows from the trees.
Cui Yuqing asked a familiar coachman to take Rong Xie and Shen Bingsi for a while. The horse was tied under a tree, and Cui Yuqing and the coachman stood in the shade of the tree.
Before parting, Cui Yuqing took out a bag of top-grade spiritual herbs from the Yunshan Sect and explained their effects to Shen Bingsi one by one. Shen Bingsi did not want to accept Cui Yuqing's favor and refused to take the medicine, but Rong Xie accepted it for him.
After all, whether or not one receives favors, one must first survive to even begin to talk about them. It's more enjoyable to be a living person who owes favors than to be a dead person who has nothing to be ashamed of.
"Are we... leaving already?" Rong Xie asked uncertainly.
Shen Bingsi's hair was still white, and her complexion didn't look good either. She needed to ride in a carriage, which meant she was probably unable to circulate her spiritual energy normally.
I always thought that after traveling all this way and going to great lengths to see Cui Yuqing, I could finally resolve my inner conflict, but nothing significant has changed since then.
Has the knot in your heart been untied? Or not?
Was the conversation not handled well? Or did they contact the wrong person?
"Let's go."
Shen Bingsi stared at the shadows of poplar trees along the road, and memories of the past flooded back, filling her chest with a sense of emptiness.
Rong Xie walked towards the carriage first, but found that Shen Bing Si did not follow.
"Bing Si?" Rong Xie turned around and found Shen Bing Si still standing in the middle of the road, staring blankly in the direction where the sun was setting.
"What's wrong?" Rong Xie had never seen Shen Bing Si so absent-minded.
“Thirty years ago, this road wasn’t this wide, and there were no trees on either side,” Shen Bingsi said absentmindedly, gazing at the setting sun. “It was only wide enough for one carriage to pass at a time… Back then, the carriage was stopped in the middle of the road, and she stood here, telling me to get in quickly.”
Rong Xie approached Shen Bingsi and asked softly, "Miss Shen?"
"Yes, she came to pick me up." Shen Bingsi looked blankly at Rong Xie, then at his own hands, as if he had become that six-year-old child again, his hands stained with his biological father's blood. He raised his head again, his eyes changed.
Shen Yingmei greeted him with a smile. Seeing his hands covered in blood, she bent down, grabbed his arm, and scolded him for being so careless, getting himself covered in blood, while gently wiping his hands with a handkerchief.
Like an ordinary mother scolding her child who runs around everywhere and gets covered in mud.
Shen Bingsi looked up at her, too frightened to speak.
She asked, "Is Cui Yuqing dead?"
Shen Bingsi shook her head.
Shen Yingmei's smile faded slightly, and she asked again, "Are you badly injured?"
Shen Bingsi managed to squeeze out an answer: "Amazing..."
Shen Yingmei put her arm around Shen Bingsi's shoulder, rubbed it affectionately, and then cupped his face in her hands: "Good boy. You're not skilled yet, so it's normal to make mistakes. But once you join one of the three major sects and learn all the skills you need, you won't make any more mistakes."
"But...but..." Shen Bingsi's voice was hoarse, "He...he didn't..."
"What?" Shen Yingmei moved closer to Shen Bingsi's face. "He didn't do anything?"
“He didn’t get married…” Shen Bingsi’s eyes stung, a deep sense of guilt tearing at his heart. “He didn’t…”
"Don't cry!" Shen Yingmei said sternly.
Shen Bingsi shuddered in fright, and her tears welled up in her eyes.
“Speak properly and explain yourself clearly.” Shen Yingmei stared at him.
Shen Bingsi took a deep breath. He felt his throat was swollen and he had to exert a lot of effort to make a hoarse sound: "Cui Yuqing, no, marriage... that young lady is his relative. The marriage is a rumor."
The surrounding air was quiet, and in the backlight, Shen Yingmei's expression was not visible.
Shen Bingsi suddenly felt remorseful; he shouldn't have told his mother.
As long as he doesn't tell his mother, the misunderstanding will remain a secret to him, and he will bear the guilt alone.
My mother already has a lot of worries, and I shouldn't add to them with this. Yunshan Sect is so far away from Heyang County, it's normal for there to be a mishap in the transmission of information. Does he mean to blame my mother for the wrong assassination?
Shen Bingsi was still feeling annoyed when a very soft laugh came from above her head.
Shen Bingsi initially thought she had misheard; how could her mother possibly be laughing at that critical moment?
He looked up as the afterglow of the setting sun began to fade. The golden light, like a splendid veil, draped over Shen Yingmei's hair and shoulders. Her already radiant beauty was enhanced by this light, making her resemble a flying apsara in a mural.
Shen Yingmei was indeed smiling, and she was smiling very happily.
She didn't say anything, she just smiled.
Shen Bingsi was initially bewildered, then at a loss, and then he became angry.
"You...you knew?" Shen Bingsi demanded angrily, "You knew it was a rumor, didn't you?"
Shen Yingmei did not answer, but smiled and pushed Shen Bingsi into the carriage, arranged for him to sit down, and then smiled and told the driver to set off.
The carriage rumbled along, and the rays of the setting sun fell on the two people's feet as the curtains swayed. Shen Yingmei's smile finally stopped, but a hint of a smile still lingered on her lips as she gazed at the curtains, lost in thought.
"Answer me!" Shen Bingsi shouted, grabbing Shen Yingmei's arms and forcing her to acknowledge her presence. "You knew it was a rumor? Yet you still made me go? Why?!"
Shen Yingmei turned her eyes, as if she had finally seen Shen Bingsi, and was startled by his annoyed look: "I don't know."
"You don't know why you're laughing?" Shen Bingsi asked, puzzled.
“Because,” Shen Yingmei laughed again, “it’s hilarious, how could something so funny happen? You’re taking a walk in your own garden with relatives, and then you get stabbed and seriously injured by your own son who suddenly rushes out. Hahahaha…”
Shen Bingsi stared at Shen Yingmei in astonishment.
“Cui Yuqing, this is all retribution, this is all retribution! Hahahaha…” Shen Yingmei laughed so hard she almost fell over.
Shen Bingsi slowly released her grip on Shen Yingmei's arm.
He stared at Shen Yingmei in disbelief.
From beginning to end, Shen Yingmei did not look at him once.
She was just laughing at herself, laughing at how that heartless man had finally tasted the feeling of being punished for being innocent. This was much more exciting than being punished for being guilty, and it fit the feeling that Shen Yingmei wanted to leave on Cui Yuqing. For the rest of her life, Cui Yuqing would rumination on the trauma of this day with anger, doubt, and in detail. What could be a more perfect arrangement than this?
"Why, why are you always laughing?"
"I'm in so much pain, but... she just keeps smiling."
"I don't know when it started, but she always looks at someone else through me. Whether it's hatred or love, it's never directed at me."
"From the day I realized it, I suddenly felt very relieved. I knew it wasn't my fault, nor was it hers, it's just... we've drifted further and further apart."
“I watched her being tormented by that thing called love, her personality becoming more and more eccentric, tormenting herself and others, unable to see what was worth cherishing in front of her, immersed in hatred every day, and wanting to drag everyone around her into that quagmire.”
“I don’t blame her. She was just caught up in ‘love’. If there were no such thing as ‘love’ in the world, she wouldn’t have become someone she wasn’t, and I wouldn’t have been immersed in pain and self-doubt for so many years.”
"If only there were no 'love' in the world..."
"Ice crystals?"
A gentle voice came from beside my ear.
Just like every time he was trapped in a nightmare and couldn't escape, there would be a voice slowly waking him up.
Like a life-saving tree branch in a quagmire, as long as you cling to it, you can breathe a sigh of relief and wait for it to pull you out of the quagmire.
The world is wonderful when you wake up, because he will be there beside you.
"Bing Si, are you alright? Those are all things of the past. Now that I'm with you, everything will be alright."
Gentle arms encircled Shen Bingsi's arms, pulling him into an embrace that exuded a faint scent of ink and orchids. Shen Bingsi's mind relaxed, and he silently gripped the fabric behind Rong Xie's back.
The setting sun still hangs at the edge of the plain. Memories, dredged from the dust of time, are long enough to influence a lifetime, yet in the eyes of nature, they cannot compare to the sun setting an inch.
The torrent of time and space casts people into vast loneliness, and even those who are connected by blood cannot cry or laugh together. Those who realize this become mayflies, and then embrace each other at some moment and become human again.
Their embrace lasted until sunset, when the stars rose, the earth turned a deep blue, daylight faded, and new lights were lit in the sky.
On the rumbling southward carriage.
After Shen Bingsi finished recounting the entire assassination attempt from thirty years ago to Rong Xie, a feeling of relief washed over him, making him feel lighter than ever before.
Rong Xie listened without saying a word, and after listening, he silently tightened his grip on Shen Bingsi's hand.
The two men stood shoulder to shoulder, swaying and bobbing with the carriage. At that moment, they seemed to be truly connected, their hearts and souls intertwined, their flesh and blood intertwined.
This complete and warm feeling was something she had never experienced anywhere else. Shen Bingsi pressed her forehead against Rong Xie's, feeling the cool breath from his skin, and seemed to understand why people would so relentlessly succumb to "love" and become foolish slaves to their lovers.
Despite his vehement denials and attempts to disguise his feelings as deep friendship, true feelings cannot be deceived. The ringtone eventually pierced through his palm and resounded throughout every corner of his mind.
"Do you know what?" Rong Xie whispered in Shen Bing Si's ear, "I just gave the driver a lot of money."
"Hmm?" Shen Bingsi half-closed her eyes, comfortably enjoying the time they spent together.
Aren't you going to ask why?
"Why?"
"Because you were standing in the middle of the road and suddenly started crying very hard."
"..."
“I gave the driver a lot of money, enough for him to work a month outside,” Rong Xie said in a low voice, as if whispering intimately, “I said we have to wait a little longer, because we have a child who has been wronged who has fallen behind, and we have to wait a little longer for him to catch up.”
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