Chapter 49 No Return
"Immortal... I love you to death! Quickly take me out of the mansion!" I said, my face beaming as I grabbed his sleeve.
His clear eyes stared at me intently for a long while before he smiled faintly, "No regrets?"
"Regret? Why would I regret it?" I blinked, my face full of confusion.
"Once you leave the Prime Minister's residence, you will have to leave Xuchang City and Mengde's sphere of influence. In these chaotic times, have you thought about where you want to go?" Guo Jia said to me in a clear and gentle voice.
"Relax, I'm just a weed, not meant to be kept in seclusion like a peony," I said with a smile, raising my hand to pat his thin shoulder.
Guo Jia suddenly paused for a moment, and abruptly raised his hand to grasp my left arm. As I raised my hand, the wide sleeve of my robe slipped down slightly, revealing the strange and exquisite bracelet on my left wrist.
After staring blankly for a long time, Guo Jia suddenly sighed.
"What's wrong? Is this bracelet very valuable?" Noticing something was off about his expression, I leaned closer and said with a slightly joking smile, "It's not that I wanted to take advantage of him, but I couldn't take it off, so I had to take it with me."
"The centrifugal buckle," Guo Jia looked at me, his clear eyes revealing an unreadable expression, "and it really is on your wrist."
"You know it's called a centrifugal buckle?" I asked in surprise. "Is it famous? Is it valuable?" (Young man: --- #Money money money... Be careful you don't fall into money-grubbing traps! Money-grubber! Smiling: Hmph! Even gentlemen love money! Young man: Oh? How so? Smiling: A gentleman loves money, but acquires it in a proper way. Young man: --- Brother, don't say I didn't warn you, you're a thief... Smiling: Pshaw, that's called a thief on the roof! Young man: *twitches* You're ruthless...)
Do you know the origin of this heart knot?
“…I don’t know,” I sighed. “Stop dawdling and get me out of the manor first. We can study this bracelet later.”
"This was originally a pair of anklets."
"Huh?!" I looked at my left wrist in surprise. What was supposed to be a delicate and elegant bracelet was actually an anklet? "That stingy Cao Cao! I'm going to confront him! It was supposed to be a token of our love! He just casually made a bracelet out of an anklet and tried to fool me. It's so unfair!" I said angrily. "Luckily, I was planning to run away. Marrying him would have been a huge mistake!"
Guo Jia looked at me in astonishment, his pale face slightly flushed.
"Hehe, laugh if you want to, don't hold it in and hurt yourself." I nudged his thin chest with my elbow and said with a smile.
He paused for a moment, then a series of low laughs finally escaped his lips.
"See? Isn't this better?" I smiled. Only now did Guo Jia seem more human. Then I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist and asked seriously, "Is there any special taboo surrounding this Heart-Binding Knot?"
“Well, the original owner of that anklet was a cursed lone star. The anklet was meant to lock away evil energy. Later…” Guo Jia paused slightly, “Later, that person died, and Brother Mengde obtained the anklet. He asked a reclusive master to remake it into this bracelet, which he named: Centrifugal Knot.”
"What will happen if I wear it?" I hesitated for a moment, then bit my lip and asked.
"This is a lock, a chain, locking your body, and fastening... your spirit."
I chuckled foolishly, "So what? What do you mean? I'm going to be locked up by Cao Cao's side for the rest of my life, unable to go anywhere?"
Guo Jia shook his head, "Not by Brother Mengde's side, but in this era."
I paused, then suddenly felt a chill.
"When I first met Ruoruo in Liangzhou, I gave her the six words my master had written before his death: 'Where you came from, where you are going,'" Guo Jia said, looking at me. "But you..." (The Ruoruo mentioned here is An Ruo, as detailed in the Four Beauties series, "The Tragedy of a Beauty.")
How am I?
"Never to return." The words were uttered slowly from those pale lips. "By putting on the Heart-Binding Knot, you are trapped in this era, never to return to where you came from."
"No return..." I blinked, repeating unconsciously, my right hand gently stroking the ring on my left wrist. It wasn't a bracelet, but a pair of handcuffs...
"Pei'er..." Guo Jia placed a hand on my shoulder, "Now, do you still want to leave the manor?"
“That annoying big fox…” I clenched my fist slightly, “He clearly knew who I was, yet he calmly and arbitrarily put these damn handcuffs on me. I’m not his prisoner!”
"Perhaps, he was just afraid, afraid that you would disappear inexplicably like Ruoruo," Guo Jia said, his voice seemingly filled with pain. "You will return to where you came from, a place he cannot reach. Even if he holds supreme power, even if he ascends to the throne, he is still powerless... From now on, they will never see each other again, not even in death..."
I suddenly remembered what I said to Hua Yingxiong at Guo Jia's house that day: "Even if you wanted to die for love, even if you really died, you wouldn't see her in the afterlife..." Because she is still alive, living in another dimension. Perhaps she is in the same place as you, even under the same sky, but... they are in two different times, separated by a thousand years...
Even if we are worlds apart, as long as we exist in the same time and space, there is hope for us to meet again. The same place, the same sky, but if we are in different times and different spaces, then… even if we search the highest heavens and the deepest hells, we will find each other nowhere…
How painful must it be?
Looking up at him, I smiled faintly. "I understand your pain, but... the one he wants to keep is another Xiaoxiao, not me. He can't keep the one he wants, so why should he hold me back? Even if it were me, even if it were me, I have people I care about... From the moment I inexplicably fell into this inexplicable era, I hoped that one day, like An Ruo, I would return to my own time and space. But now... just because of this damn bracelet, am I to be trapped in this era forever? And then die in another time and space?"
It was because I had hope that I walked happily all the way, but now? Where should I go from here?
At the gate of the orphanage, Ah Man, the man whose mental age is forever stuck at ten, is he still waiting for his mother?
"Xiaoxiao, are you going on a long trip? Then Aman will wait for you at the door, and I'll wait for Mom to pick me up."...
Ah Man's voice is already very distant.
Is that fool still waiting for me to come back?
But like his mother, I can no longer appear before him.
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