I love you (Cao Cao Side Story Part 2)
He lay half-reclined on the stone steps, gazing at the starry sky.
The same bright moonlight, the same sky full of stars...
Suddenly, the woman's face appeared before his eyes, filled with anticipation, cunning, and a touch of roguishness...
"Don't run away." Looking up at the woman's face, Cao Cao spoke softly, as if afraid of startling her.
The woman continued to look at him, without saying a word.
"Wouldn't it be better if you stayed obediently by my side?" Cao Cao murmured again.
The wretched woman remained silent, only smiling at him.
"You can't escape, you can't escape! I will chase you down to the ends of the earth!" Cao Cao continued to himself.
"What if...it's beyond the ends of the earth?"
In a daze, he seemed to hear the woman speak softly.
"Whether you go to heaven or hell, you can't escape!" Cao Cao gritted his teeth, like a child throwing a tantrum.
"What if... it's a place you can never go to?" The woman looked at him, as if she were smiling.
A place I can never...go to?
Where in this world is there that he cannot go?!
"You are mine, forever!" Cao Cao roared, a stubborn roar.
Do you love me?
The voice whispered in my ear.
Cao Cao nodded, as if bewitched.
He was immediately stunned and jumped up.
He nodded?
Did he just nod?
He...loves her?
So... is this love? So stubbornly wanting to keep someone, wanting to give her the best things in the world, wanting to see her laugh wildly, returning home from a battle, liking to force her to cook soup for him, even if... it's the worst thing in the world, he can still drink it heartily under her glare...
So this is love?
He was never short of women.
But no woman had ever asked him about love with such stubbornness, almost obsessively, as she had...
For the first time, he knew the definition of love.
"I love you." Under the moonlight, he spoke softly, telling her, and telling himself as well.
He reached out and touched her cheek, but... all he felt was cold air.
He shook his head violently, but the moon overhead remained cold and clear; there was no sign of the woman anywhere.
He slowly reached out to touch the jade pendant he kept close to his body, but instead touched a handful of powder.
He was stunned. In a panic, he ripped open his clothes, and a few specks of dust fell to the ground from his bosom... The jade pendant was gone.
He had never been so distraught before. He got up and rushed into the room, hurriedly opening the brocade box on the couch. Inside the box was a cracked bracelet.
That's a centrifugal buckle.
It slipped off Pei Xiao's wrist.
The centrifugal clasp is still there...
For some reason, Cao Cao breathed a sigh of relief...
He was afraid, he was actually afraid, he had never known what fear was...
Now, he was terrified. He was terrified that everything about that woman would vanish, terrified that she would disappear from his life completely...
He lowered his head and gripped the bracelet tightly in his palm.
Holding it tightly, as if trying to embed the clasp into the palm of your hand...
Holding the bracelet, his head began to throb with pain, a sharp, intense pain.
It looked as if it was about to split open.
pain!
pain!
pain!
The world spins...
It felt like he was in hell, as if hundreds of arrows were piercing his head...
He froze, as if struck by lightning.
It was as if a door had been opened in his mind, and suddenly, he remembered many things.
Many... he lost without realizing it... some incredible memories.
The origin of this heart-shaped knot, and the story of that woman named An Ruo...
He paused for a moment, then suddenly understood something: Pei Xiao, like An Ruo, came from another time and space unknown to him…
And she... finally went to the place he could not go.
After Chong'er and Zhou Buyi's funeral, she said she wanted to go home...
She finally went home.
And her home... he could never go there.
The heart knot, a "token of love" he gave her, was meant to keep her by his side.
...it was to keep her locked up.
Lock her up and don't let her leave.
It turns out that from the very beginning, he was afraid she would leave...
It turns out that he had already planned ahead from the very beginning...
So, what does it mean now?
What's this?
Was it destined?
Was it destined that she would leave?
Therefore, the centrifugal mechanism broke the seal.
So, she still left.
She finally returned to where she came from, a place he could never reach. Even with all his power and the throne, he was powerless to stop her... From then on, they could never meet again.
Even death is not an option...
How cruel.
"I love you, I love you, I am in love with you..."
He murmured softly to the air.
If that stubborn woman heard this, would she forgive him?
His body tensed slightly, and he covered his head with both hands, his face full of pain. As he raised his hand, he knocked over the brocade box beside him.
"The Prime Minister's headaches have flared up again! Quickly, fetch the imperial physician!" A maidservant, hearing the commotion, hurriedly pushed open the door and said.
"Get out of here, all of you!" He gritted his teeth, squeezing out the words with a chilling, menacing tone.
Everyone was afraid, and no one dared to step forward.
He was alone in the room again.
"Damn it! Where are you?! How could you disappear so completely?! Didn't you ask me if I loved you?! I'm answering you now! I love you! Do you hear me?! Come back! Come back!"
He placed the centrifugal clip on the table and roared.
In the empty room, only his painful growls could be heard.
Suddenly, the centrifugal clasp seemed to be corroded, gradually turning into a ring of dust. A breeze blew in from the window, and the dust flew around in the wind...
Cao Cao was suddenly greatly alarmed.
"No! Close the window! Close the window now! Close the window!"
He roared.
But……
The powder had already been lifted into the air and disappeared...
"Prime Minister! Prime Minister, what's wrong!" Someone rushed in from outside the door.
Cao Cao turned to look at them, his face slightly alarmed. "Do you... still remember Lady Huan?"
"Madam Huan?" The crowd exchanged bewildered glances.
"Father, didn't Lady Huan die of illness?" Cao Pi asked as he entered.
"No! No!" Cao Cao shook his head. "Where is Pei Xiao? Does anyone remember Pei Xiao?"
"Who is Pei Xiao?" Everyone was completely confused.
I don't remember...
They don't remember...
"Get out," Cao Cao said through gritted teeth.
Everyone looked frightened and retreated.
"Pei Xiao... Pei Xiao..." Cao Cao gritted his teeth and slammed his fist into the wall. Crimson blood slowly flowed down from the cracks in the wall. He called out softly, like a cuckoo crying blood.
It was as if... that name was to be ingrained in one's very bones.
"Why... won't you even leave me with memories..."
"Why……"
I can't forget, I can't forget, how could I forget...
He couldn't let all those memories vanish like the jade pendant and the bracelet... just like the wind.
"I don't want to be a substitute piece in the puzzle! Look carefully! My name is Pei Xiao! Not An Ruo! I only want to be Pei Xiao, even if I die, I will only be Pei Xiao! I hope that whether someone loves me or hates me, it will only be because I am Pei Xiao! Not anyone else... just Pei Xiao..."
I could almost hear her arrogant voice.
Cao Cao suddenly chuckled softly, "Fool, I see it very clearly, I've always seen it clearly. You are Pei Xiao, not An Ruo, just Pei Xiao. I love you only because you are Pei Xiao, not anyone else... just Pei Xiao..."
He closed his eyes, imagining her face over and over again—happy, angry, sad, arrogant…
Trying hard to remember...
She said, "Of all the waters in the world, I only need a single sip..."
He asked her, "What will it take for you to stay by my side obediently?"
Drunk, she smiled with her eyes narrowed, gently shook her index finger, and loudly declared, "NO! I will never stay by your side no matter what!"
He then asked, "Why?"
"Hehe, I'll only tell you this in a secret!" She lowered her voice, beckoned to him mysteriously with her index finger, and wrapped her arms around his neck, making him lower his head. She leaned close to his ear and whispered, "That Cao Cao is so wicked. He couldn't keep An Ruo, so he forced me to stay as a substitute! He even put this damn separation knot on me... preventing me from going back... I want him to know that even if I can't go back to my own era, I can't keep me here!"
That stubborn woman...
Cao Cao lay down on his back.
She was so stubborn... so stubborn...
The sixteenth year of Jian'an...
The seventeenth year of Jian'an...
Jianfa's 18th anniversary...
Jian'an 19th year...
The twentieth year of Jian'an...
The 21st year of Jian'an...
The twenty-second year of Jian'an...
In the twenty-third year of Jian'an...
In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an...
In the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an...
I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me.
Only after the smiling woman left did he realize that he would rather betray the whole world than betray that woman even a little bit.
That woman, so arrogant and ignorant, that woman who kept asking him if he loved her, was the woman with the softest heart in the world, who entangled him for his entire life.
A whole lifetime...
He grew older year by year, and he often wondered what he would do if Pei Xiao came back one day, but he was too old.
what to do?
But what he feared even more was what if he never saw her again before he died?
He campaigned in the south and north, fighting battles everywhere.
He relived her appearance and her voice every day...
He had ingrained her name, her every smile and frown, into his very bones.
He told himself, "I can't forget, I can't forget..."
He's really getting old...
In the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an, he lay on his couch, gazing out the window at the bright spring sunshine.
I vaguely saw a woman descending from the sky...
"Aman! Aman!" she cried as she fell down.
Cao Cao smiled with his eyes slightly narrowed, his eyes showing deep creases.
Pei'er...
When we first met, she seemed to have fallen from the sky.
Looking back now, the happiest time for them was only during the period when he lost his memory...
That innocent and guileless Cao Cao was the one who never harmed her in the slightest...
He hurt her too deeply.
"Is that fool really that good?" he once asked her with a smile.
She actually jumped up to defend him, shouting, "You're not allowed to call him stupid!"
"You're lying, I clearly heard you shout 'idiot' in your dream," he scoffed.
"If anyone's going to shout, it's only me who can shout. What's it to you?"
Pei'er, my Pei'er...
I've searched my whole life, longed my whole life, and thought about it my whole life...
If there is an afterlife...
If there were another chance...
He would rather be that fool.
That way... he would never betray her again...
Never again.
Historical records indicate that Cao Cao died in Luoyang in the 25th year of Jian'an (219 AD), at the age of 66.
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