Chapter 107 The path I chose is worth it, and I will never regret it.
Yue Yining was stunned.
"You ask me if it's worth it..." A pair of long, curled eyelashes swept down, covering half of her eyes, and she said slowly, "I don't think I've ever considered it."
When it comes to whether something is worthwhile, we often hesitate, because most things in life are ultimately not worthwhile.
She never considers whether it's worth it or not, because there are some things she has to do regardless of whether they are worth it or not. If she thinks about it clearly and thoroughly, it will only add to her worries.
Her answer clearly failed to dispel his doubts. Yue Yining looked down at his profile; his handsome blue eyebrows were still tightly furrowed, as if he were deeply troubled, but she didn't know why.
Night deepened, and rain began to fall again outside the cave, a light drizzle. The water, damp with the pale moonlight, blurred the entire autumn night.
Yue Yining assumed Xie Qingyu's gloomy expression was due to her injury. Intending to comfort him and ease his mind, she chuckled and said, "After all this commotion, I'm not sleepy at all. Perhaps we should wait and see. I fed her some charcoal powder; if the poisoning isn't severe, she might wake up tonight."
If you're sleepy, go to sleep first.
"I'm not sleepy." Xie Qingyu gently shook her head, her waist-length black hair rustling softly as it brushed against the ground. He asked in a low voice, "How did you come up with the idea of using charcoal powder to save someone, Miss?"
"...Hmm, I also ate disaster relief porridge made from moldy rice in my younger years." Yue Yining laughed out loud, seemingly remembering something. "I was young then and didn't understand anything. During the famine, I would wolf down the porridge as soon as I got it, and by nightfall my stomach would start to hurt."
"And then what?"
“Later, my older brother saved me,” she said. “Back then, the homeless beggars on the streets all knew each other, and some would stick together for warmth and move around in groups. He was very capable at the time, so I followed him.”
It's ironic that these beggars, who were penniless, fared better during famine years. This was because the government would provide relief to the victims, allowing them to mingle in the procession and receive food without having to steal, rob, or rummage through swill buckets for cold, spoiled scraps.
“He was two years older than me and knew a lot. When he told me that I had drunk the disaster relief porridge, he told me to quickly vomit it out. He also found me some charcoal powder and told me to mix it with water and drink it down.”
When young Yue Yining first tried to gag herself down, she accidentally used too much force, which made her feel nauseous. She vomited up all the porridge she had drunk and almost brought up her bile.
Back then, Dasheng used this hand to pat her back and calm her down. He had a deep, hard scar on his hand, like a centipede running across the back of his hand. He used a lot of force, and the pat made her shake, but it really calmed her down.
While patting her back, Dasheng didn't forget to scold her: "Seeing how shrewd you are, I thought you knew everything. So this is your first time eating government relief food?!"
Young Yue Yining had been starving for two days and had vomited up all the rice she had just eaten. She was now almost exhausted: "It's...it's the first time..."
She became a homeless beggar at the age of four. Before that, she had a home and loving parents. Although they were not rich, they were well-fed, clothed, and cared for.
However, at the beginning of the Jiahe era, the imperial throne was unstable. There were Xiongnu outside and rebels inside. Her father was forcibly conscripted into the army and died on the battlefield as expected. Rebels attacked the city, leaving her and her mother to face the war.
Her house was looted and burned to the ground. Her mother took her and fled to the outskirts of the city, but in the midst of war, even walking on the streets in broad daylight was dangerous for the displaced mother and daughter.
They could only walk along narrow paths and through the woods, trying not to be seen. Yue Yining lay on her mother's back, wading across rivers and climbing hills, feeling at peace even in the darkest night.
The only major city nearby was Luoshui. Her mother settled down in a small town outside Luoshui with her, where they did weaving work every day to support the two of them.
The first year the mother and daughter settled outside Luoshui City was a harsh winter. Heavy snow fell for several days in a row, turning the world into a white expanse, like a piece of coarse linen with new starch. The guards at the city gates blocked the drawbridge, and the moat froze into a grayish-blue stone belt. The area outside the mother and daughter's thatched hut was covered with ice, like a string of crystal-clear glass lanterns.
On snowy days, people walking on the road would turn into snowmen in no time, but my mother still went out every day to find work, wearing a pair of cloth shoes as thin as paper.
Charcoal is needed for heating and cooking at home, but charcoal is becoming more and more expensive. For several days in a row, my mother sat by the window, sewing clothes and jackets sent by others by moonlight.
She always felt empty inside, and whenever she timidly called out to her mother, asking her to come to her bedside to keep her company, her mother would always smile and shake her head.
"Mother isn't sleepy, Ningning, you should go to sleep."
She always said that, but her cloudy eyes were bloodshot.
One snowy morning, Yue Yining woke up in her mother's arms and felt unusually cold.
Looking up, she saw her mother holding her for the first time in a long time. The needle and thread were on the footstool, and the patched-up jacket from someone else's house was wrapped around Yue Yining's thin body.
The mother, who hadn't slept for days, finally fell asleep peacefully, her pale skin hard as ice and snow.
She never opened her eyes again to take a good look at her daughter.
The fortune or misfortune in life is always so hard to distinguish. If she was an unfortunate person, she should have perished in the fire with her mother, but they survived and even escaped the city on the verge of falling. If she was lucky enough, she should have lived with her mother from then on, but a heavy snow ruthlessly took away her last loved one.
It is also possible that life swings back and forth between fortune and misfortune, with nothing certain and nothing secure.
After that, she wandered alone in Luoshui City, making a living by begging, until she met Dasheng.
She had never experienced a true famine, a famine where floods submerged entire fields and villages, a famine where impoverished people had to sell themselves into slavery to survive. She only came to know and witness it firsthand later. Although she often suffered from hunger pangs, this was indeed the first time she had ever eaten a meal provided by the government.
Da Sheng snorted: "Then you're actually quite lucky."
"Listen up, none of the officials are good. Most of the rice they give out for disaster relief is rotten and moldy rice. They wash off the surface color, cook it into porridge, and use it as disaster relief food. They then give it to us disaster victims. Anyway, no one will care if people die from eating it."
"Remember this from now on: when you eat the government's grain, remember to take some charcoal powder from under the stove and mix it in before drinking it." He glared at her, but instructed her very seriously, word by word, "Do you understand? This way you can both fill your stomach and stay alive."
Yue Yining curled her lips and said, "That's what he said."
Xie Qingyu stared at her without moving. The hardships and pain she had endured seemed to be tearing at his heart with each word she spoke. She could now speak of those unbearable past events with a smile and a light tone, but he felt as if a heavy mountain was pressing down on his shoulders, making it hard to breathe.
He was infected with all those heavy illnesses.
"...And then?" Xie Qingyu didn't know what he was asking anymore. He was just obsessed with knowing her past, the past that was neither in books nor recorded in historical materials. "Did you live with him all this time?"
“It wasn’t long, only two years. Many beggars followed him, and I was just one of them. He was very kind to every beggar who followed him, just like our elder brother.” Yue Yining smiled, her voice suddenly becoming more relaxed. “Later, as you know, I met my master and followed her to the mountain. After that, I had a good life.”
"However, I met him again later."
That was her third year studying at the Heavenly Temple; she was eleven years old, in the prime of her youth.
She went down the mountain with the disciples and servants of the temple to make offerings once a month. In years with poor harvests, many ordinary people who could not afford to eat relied on the rice and grains donated by the temple to survive.
Yue Yining, dressed in fine clothes with her hair styled in a cloud-like bun and adorned with jade hairpins, looked like a celestial child descended to earth. Standing under the thatched shed, she carefully ladled porridge for each person who brought a bowl to her.
A series of hands passed before her, emerging from rough hemp sleeves like clumps of withered branches scorched by lightning. The old woman's palm lines were studded with millet husk fragments, and her fingernails were bruised with purple spots from frostbite; the children's knuckles were twisted from stealing ashes from the stove for warmth, and their palms bore tiny burn scars.
Until a pair of rough hands reached out in front of her, with a familiar, centipede-like scar across the back of the hand.
Yue Yining was stunned. She looked up and saw who it was.
The porridge was poured into his bowl, and the two of them looked at each other across the steaming bowl of rice porridge.
This was the first time Yue Yining had seen Dasheng in three years.
Dasheng has grown up, his body has become taller and stronger, but his face is still the same, covered in mud and ash.
He recognized her too, and the light in his eyes narrowed into a thin sliver, trembling as if in astonishment or a mixture of emotions.
He slightly opened his lips, then closed them tightly again.
This isn't Luoshui, so they shouldn't have met again here. Since they did, it must be fate. Fate brought them together for one last farewell, a farewell amidst changed circumstances.
He gazed at her one last time, then lowered his head, picked up the bowl of porridge, and left.
Yue Yining didn't chase after them. There were still people in front of her holding bowls of porridge, waiting for her to scoop some porridge for them. She couldn't catch up either. From the moment she saw Dasheng, her feet felt as if they were filled with mud, so heavy that she couldn't lift them.
There was a corner in her heart weighed down by a heavy boulder, making it hard for her to breathe.
She could clearly feel that it was guilt.
Even though Da Sheng's poverty and misery were not caused by her, she still felt guilty.
She stood there, radiant and beautiful, as if it were a betrayal.
Upon seeing Dasheng, Yue Yining was in turmoil. She regretted watching him leave like that; even if she had gone up to him, called out to him, and given him some valuables, it would have been some consolation. But she watched helplessly as he disappeared into the crowd, never to be seen again.
She had countless dreams that night.
He dreamt of great victory. He gave her a deep look, then left without looking back.
The next day, she went to find her master with bloodshot eyes. She knew that a powerful celestial master like Qiu Wuzhu would surely find Dasheng. She wanted to make it up to him, to let him live the same life as her. She didn't want to dream of those unfathomable eyes again.
Qiu Wuzhu remained unmoved in the face of her tearful pleas.
"Yue Yining," Qiu Wuzhu called her name calmly, "You pity him and want me to take him as my disciple because you want to make yourself feel better."
"It's not that I can't make an exception. Even if I let him work as a janitor at the temple, it would be better than him continuing to be a beggar, and it would put your conscience at ease. But why did I still refuse you? Do you understand?"
With tears welling in her eyes, Yue Yining looked pitiful, as if she were about to fall: "Disciple... Disciple is dull-witted and cannot understand."
“If I make an exception for you today, and another person claiming to be an old friend of yours comes knocking on my door tomorrow, should I take them in or not? If I take them all in, can my temple accommodate so many idle people?” Qiu Wuzhu said. “There are so many people in the world with miserable circumstances, how can you possibly pity them all?”
Tears clung to her pointed chin as Yue Yining gritted her teeth: "But if I can save them, I will. I will save every single one of them."
"Then you'll pay with your life sooner or later." Qiu Wuzhu's voice turned cold. "Yue Yining, on your first day learning divination, did you not remember anything I told you?"
Yue Yining knelt on the ground and said in a hoarse voice, "...I remember."
Never interfere with a predetermined destiny, whether it is someone else's or my own.
“That’s why I didn’t save him,” Qiu Wuzhu said.
Drip. The moss in the cave was covered with water droplets, which dripped down in a full, round drop.
Xie Qingyu gradually understood. He asked softly, "Did you leave the mountain because you disagreed with your master's methods?"
"...Not entirely."
Yue Yining responded with a mischievous tone, uttering those few words before falling silent.
The babbling raindrops, like drumsticks, struck the surrounding stone walls, their echoing clear sounds spreading like ripples throughout the cave, their rhythms deep and resonant.
Xie Qingyu continued to stare at her intently until Yue Yining turned her face. When their clear, bright eyes met, her pupils seemed startled and trembled slightly for a moment.
“…If, I mean if,” Yue Yining said softly, her voice hesitant and uneasy, as if she was still undecided about whether or not to say it.
"If you knew that you could save everyone in the world, only you could, but the price would be your death."
"Xie Qingyu, if it were you, would you do it?"
Xie Qingyu was extremely quiet, as if even her breathing had stopped.
"No," Xie Qingyu said. "I would never do that."
"Hey? You're so heartless and ungrateful!" Yue Yining laughed and scolded him.
"...It's not that I'm heartless or ungrateful, it's just that I feel that matters of life and death cannot be decided solely based on numbers."
"Why not?" Yue Yining said, "One person's death can bring life to the whole world. What could be a better deal? In any war-torn year, even if an entire city dies, it won't bring peace and prosperity. Now, with just one person's death, everyone in the world can enjoy a peaceful and happy life."
“Then I’d rather not have happiness,” Xie Qingyu said hoarsely. “Can one person’s death bring life to the whole world? Who said that? Did the Heavenly Ancestor say that? Can we believe everything he says? Miss Mingming also said that you don’t believe the Heavenly Ancestor exists at all.”
"When someone dies, who will cry for her? Who will remember her kindness? How will those who loved her feel good about it?"
Yue Yining smiled and said, "Then you don't need to worry. Such a great person will definitely be remembered in history. Everyone will remember her, and even thousands of years later, her name and achievements will still be on some stone tablet. She will not die alone."
She will.
Xie Qingyu's fingernails dug into his flesh. For the first time, his eyes welled up uncontrollably, and he lowered his head in embarrassment, afraid that she would see the tears that were about to spill from his eyes.
No one remembers her; no one remembers that there was ever a Yue Yining in this world.
In the novel, Dongxi still met the fate of being a tyrannical ruler who ruined the country, and thus perished; in history, not a single word was left on the bamboo slips, not a single word was written in the unofficial records, and not a single radical related to her could be found in the gaps of the long scroll.
Her painstaking efforts yielded nothing; after her death, everything related to her was completely buried by the dust and embers of history.
His throat tightened several times as he struggled to maintain his body's order, yet he could clearly feel the resistance from his limbs and the dull pain emanating from his internal organs relentlessly destroying his mind; he was on the verge of collapse.
"...Since you've asked me this question, I'd also like to know your answer."
"Me?" Yue Yining withdrew her gaze, looking down at the palm of her hand resting on her knee. Every line on her palm was smooth and even. She was mesmerized by it and replied softly, "I think I can."
"Why?" Xie Qingyu asked, "Doesn't Miss want the most ordinary and simple life?"
Yue Yining smiled and said, "You still remember?"
“I remember every word you said, Miss. You said that all you wanted was a peaceful life. A courtyard of your own, where you could hide under the eaves when it rained, holding a cup of tea, and quietly listen to the rain stop.” Xie Qingyu repeated in a low, hoarse voice, “That’s the life you truly wanted.”
Yue Yining blinked and said, "That's not wrong. Holding tea and listening to the spring rain, sitting in oblivion as the clouds drift by, just thinking about it makes me feel relaxed and at peace."
“That is indeed the life I want to live,” she said. “But I can’t watch others die because of me just because I want to live that kind of life.”
"I have obtained a five-colored stone that mends the sky, and I cannot pretend not to know it and simply carve it into a jade pendant for my waist; I have been favored by fate and have the ability to save the world, and thus I also have the responsibility to save the world and bring peace to the people. A person who has the ability to change the world cannot refrain from doing so just to protect himself."
I do not emulate the inchworm out of fear of death, nor do I adorn myself as a mayfly when I am a roc.
Having been granted the Snow Blade to pierce through nine layers of heaven, how dare I conceal my edge and betray the common people?
"And sometimes I feel that if millions of people in the world could live the life I want, it would be like my dream has been realized millions of times over," Yue Yining said with a smile. "Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
With her back to the moonlight and bathed in the mortal world, she was the most radiant and gentle.
Xie Qingyu's eyes were already filled with tears. He forced back a sob and said, "But how do you know you can definitely do it?"
"What if you fail to save everyone and instead lose your own life in vain? What if you only realize on your deathbed that all your efforts were in vain?"
Yue Yining: "But how will you know if you can do it if you don't try?"
Xie Qingyu recalled the original ending of the book, in which Yue Yining suffered torture and, on the verge of death, received a cup of poisoned wine from the Fourth Prince.
In the book, Yue Yining, who never wore red in her life, wore it for the first time in prison, her blue clothes stained red with blood; and the first time she drank alcohol, it was poison that broke her heart.
Before she died, the eldest princess asked her a question.
—Yue Yining, do you regret anything in this life?
"...What if you regret it?" Xie Qingyu asked her in a barely audible voice.
"No, I won't." Yue Yining's eyes sparkled with laughter, like stars in the night sky. "I will never regret the path I've chosen."
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The author says: Everything is predestined, and nothing is up to us.
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