18 to Anhuai
◎Why are you crying?◎
The accompanying guards simply buried the child's body, and Ci Ying returned to the carriage in silence.
Along with a clean handkerchief, a cup of warm tea was handed to her. Xie Huaijin looked at her tenderly. Ci Ying took it, and the temperature of the tea flowed down the wall of the cup into her cold fingertips.
She whispered "thank you" and wrapped her hand, which had just been accidentally cut by gravel, with a clean handkerchief. Xiaowan pulled out the stopper of the medicine bottle, scooped a little with her fingers, and carefully applied it to Ciying's hand.
The refreshing aroma of herbs mixed with the warm tea, Ci Ying stared out the window in a daze. Just as they were about to depart, Mo Yu boarded the car and reported, "It's unlikely to be banditry or murder. The body looks calm, with no signs of struggle. If nothing goes wrong, it must be my parents."
Mo Yu pointed to the mound in front of him and said, "It's probably not a body left exposed in the wilderness. It's just that the pit was dug a little shallow due to the urgency of the situation. A few days ago, a heavy rain washed away the surface mud and sand, and the body was exposed."
Ci Ying's eyes trembled slightly, and she remembered a lot of things.
The night before she was to be sold by the scholar, the blind embroiderer stumbled to her side, feeling for the dead branches, and woke her up from her sleep, telling her to run, run.
The embroiderer was blind, yet she still shed tears. The rope that bound her rotten hands cut her, leaving blood and flesh everywhere. She cried and apologized. Ciying opened her mouth to call for her mother, but the showgirl's bloody hand covered her mouth.
Ci Ying closed her eyes, trying not to think about the past anymore.
No one spoke along the way. Zhu Yi and Zhu Er went to investigate and arrived in Anhuai City before them. The others were busy with their own things, and the figures following behind the carriage gradually disappeared.
Xiaowan was invited to board another carriage, and gradually only Xie Huaijin and Ciying were left in the carriage. The two sat on either side of the carriage, looking out the window.
The dusk light had completely faded. The child's body was only the beginning. The carriage avoided the refugee gathering area, but the tragic scene could still be seen. The bodies in the forest bore signs of gnaws, the trees had been stripped of their bark, and people, choking on the bark, lay on the road. The screams of children mingled with the muffled sobs of adults.
It was like a summer rain that hadn't fallen, making Ciying feel suffocated.
"...Has it been a long time?" This was the first sentence Ciying asked.
Such a devastating situation couldn't have happened in a few days. Even the flood when she was six years old wasn't as devastating. Anhuai was dozens of days' drive from Chang'an, and the long line of human bones along the way must have been piled up for at least several months.
"It started in mid-June, but the news never reached Chang'an. When it did in August, the Emperor sent officials down to provide disaster relief." Xie Huaijin paused, half-lowering his eyes as he continued, "But two officials died on the way. The Emperor was furious and sent two more, but they also died on the way before reaching Anhuai."
Ciying frowned.
Xie Huaijin opened the curtain, and Ci Ying looked over with Xie Huaijin. A mother and daughter were snuggling in the night.
The mother put her wrist to the child's mouth. The wrist was dripping with warm blood, but it also turned cold in the cold wind. The child in her arms did not move, and the hand always drooped limply.
The curtain was lowered, and the candlelight reflected its rippling waves. Ci Ying turned and looked at Xie Huaijin.
As she looked, she lowered her eyes, and her tears fell into the cup that was still warm, with a sound of dripping, and blended into the vast night.
Xie Huaijin stroked the white jade ring on his hand. The wind lifted the curtain of the carriage again. At the end, Mo Yu left some silver and money in the mother's arms.
When she arrived at Anhuai City, Ci Ying was prepared to see even more tragic things, but to her surprise, Anhuai City was still relatively stable. Although there were some ragged people on the roadside, it was much better than outside the city.
It was daytime when they arrived. There were long queues at the city gate. Ci Ying opened the carriage and looked inside, and found that the soldiers were holding weapons and chasing people in tattered clothes.
Ci Ying frowned more and more as she looked. The voice of a soldier could be heard from the front of the carriage. After asking a question, he knelt down hurriedly. The officers and soldiers around him also followed suit and knelt down.
"Thank you, sir. I am Ouyang Yan, the prefect of Anhuai. Upon hearing that you were coming, I have been waiting at the city gate for many days. Now that you have finally arrived, I hope you will do me the honor of welcoming you."
Ci Ying couldn't comment, but she had to say it was flattery to the extreme. With this kind of scene, they didn't seem to be here to provide disaster relief, but rather to be on a trip.
The officers and soldiers over there were still chasing people away: "Hurry up, hurry up, there is an important person here today. If you disturb the important person's leisure, you will be punished."
On this side, Xie Huaijin didn't even say a word. Mo Yu said something coldly to Ouyang Yan, and Ouyang Yan had already ordered the soldiers to open the city gate.
As the carriage started moving, and passed a corner of the city gate, a ragged man came up and stopped the carriage, shouting, "Sir, sir, I want to sue the corrupt official Ouyang Yan, he..." He had only said two sentences when the soldiers who reacted quickly covered his mouth and pulled him away.
Ci Ying looked at Xie Huaijin. Incense was burning on the coffee table. The young man did not move his sleeves at all and drank his tea calmly.
There were intermittent cries outside. The carriage started moving. Ci Ying looked out along the curtain that was blown by the wind. The man who was crying out for justice was pinned to the ground by several soldiers, and the man in official uniform kicked him hard.
The carriage stopped outside a quiet house.
Mo Yu went up and knocked on the door. After a long time, an old housekeeper opened the door.
That evening, Xie Huaijin told Ciying that Ouyang Yan had hosted a welcoming banquet for them and asked if she wanted to go. They were strolling to a bridge in the palace. Standing side by side on the ebony bridge, the girl bent over to see if there were any fish in the lake.
When she heard this, Ci Ying asked the question that she had not asked in the carriage.
She asked in a low voice, "Why?"
She spoke slowly: "Why did the disaster relief officials die on the road? Why were all the refugees stopped outside the city gates? Why didn't they even cover themselves?"
She spoke very slowly, and hesitated before speaking each word. It was not that she did not have an answer, but looking at Ouyang Yan's matter-of-fact attitude, she realized that the matter might not be as simple as corruption.
Everything she saw along the way made her hesitate. Compared with what she had seen and heard along the way, and the devastation that was everywhere, the Xie Mansion could even be considered a big honey jar.
Ci Ying felt a little exhausted, so she simply sat on the bridge and let her legs hang down.
This might be the first time she acted like this in front of Xie Huaijin. She lowered her eyes and said softly, "Anhuai is low-lying and close to rivers and seas, so it's prone to flooding. It's been like this since I was very young. But even the flood when I was a child wasn't this..."
Ci Ying couldn't say the rest of the sentence. After a moment of silence, she said softly, "Xie Huaijin, why?"
Ci Ying wasn't even sure what she was asking anymore. She just stared blankly at the lake, which was devoid of fish. In the reflection, a tall young man stood behind her, watching her quietly.
Ci Ying turned and met Xie Huaijin's gaze, then slowly stood up and walked over to him, resting her head on his chest. Xie Huaijin was dressed in a turquoise robe, his entire figure like a tranquil mountain lake. As Ci Ying leaned in, ripples appeared on his turquoise robe.
The autumn wind was chilly. Xie Huaijin lowered his eyes and looked at the person in his arms. The distance between their breaths seemed intimacy.
After a while, he raised his hand and gently touched the girl's head.
Crying sounds rang out in his arms. Xie Huaijin looked up at the sky outside. The wind was howling and the rain was rustling.
At some point, the girl threw her arms around the young man's waist, clasped her hands together, and burst into tears. She hadn't cried like this in a long time. Everything that had happened in the past few months, mixed with what she had seen and heard in the past half month, turned into her glistening tears.
She had no one else to cry to like this, except the young man in front of her. They were still strangers, but he was her husband and lover.
With one layer piling up on top of another, Ci Ying couldn't bear it any longer.
The moment the embroiderer untied the rope behind her, the scholar stood behind her with a cold face. She cried and called for her mother, but the embroiderer still bent over to untie the rope on her hands.
Ci Ying hugged Xie Huaijin, tears streaming down her face.
She didn't want to talk about what happened next.
The cries echoed throughout the night. The embroiderer was beaten to the point where she was only breathing her last breath. There were people all around her, but no one stopped the scholar. Their hungry eyes stared at the dying embroiderer and Ciying, who had been starving for several days behind her.
Several brothers and sisters also looked at Ciying with the same eyes. It was raining that day, and the embroiderer was crying. She had no strength left in her body, but she still kept saying sorry in the direction of Ciying, again and again, until the boy came and she stopped.
When Ci Ying saw the embroiderer for the last time, it was raining and long water marks flowed from her lifeless eyes, making it difficult to tell whether they were rain or tears.
The traffickers tied Ciying's hands behind her back and led many children like Ciying, mostly girls of five or six years old, like animals. They cried and shouted. Ciying kept turning around to look at the embroiderer, and was finally kicked into the mud by the boy.
Later, Ci Ying set a fire. Except for the drunk boy, all the children escaped in the chaos. In the confused eyes of the children, Ci Ying risked her life to run into the fire and woke up the boy who was sleeping due to drunkenness.
Half of the girl's hair was burnt off. When he carried her out, he squatted down and touched her face with complicated eyes. When the two of them came out together, some children took advantage of the chaos to run away, while some people still stood there in a daze, not knowing where to go.
The boy sighed and touched Ciying's head. Ciying, who was originally going to be sold to a brothel, got the chance to be a slave in Xie's house.
Xie Huaijin's clothes on his chest were soaked with tears, and he comforted the girl's hand for a long time before stopping.
In the study of Zezhiyuan far away in Chang'an, there was once a file about Ciying, which was far more detailed than the one about Xie Qingzheng.
The difference was that Xie Qingzheng's copy only contained a few words about Ciying's past before she was six years old, while the copy he had given to Xie Huaijin was densely filled with all the two girls' fantasies about freedom.
Xie Huaijin looked at the child in his arms who was raised with innocence by his aunt and sister. After his aunt and sister passed away, she was left in his hands like a relic.
He treats her well.
He showed her the freedom she and her sister had imagined when they were young.
Warlords fought for power, the land was full of starving people, and people suffered.
Why are you crying?
But thinking of this, the young man's hand still gently stroked it.
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