Distant Past
The winter wind that had been blowing all day finally stopped in the early morning of the next day. Yue Qiongfang packed her luggage and prepared to set off again.
Just as she was about to get on the carriage, she heard the sound of horse hooves coming from afar. She did not show any surprise, but turned around and looked at the end of the road, where several people were riding horses.
Pei Songsheng took the lead and galloped up close. He reined in his horse and abruptly stopped. He dismounted and asked anxiously, "Mother, where is A Zheng?"
Yue Qiongfang looked at him coldly without answering.
The Cheng Qiwang brothers fell behind, reining in their horses and stopping beside Pei Songsheng. Seeing Doctor Hu in the carriage, Cheng Qiwang cursed, "Traitor, why did you kidnap my mother and sister? If you don't let them go, I'll make you pay!"
"Awang!" Yue Qiongfang scolded harshly, "I'm not being coerced, so don't be rude. Besides, based on seniority, you should call him uncle."
The two brothers were stunned. Pei Songsheng stepped forward and said, "Mother, this old grudge has nothing to do with A Zheng. Please don't make the same mistake again. Let her go."
"You think you can call me mother?" Yue Qiongfang sneered at him. "Even she's not worthy of calling me that, so why are you pretending to be so? It was you who locked me up in Ganye Temple for four years."
Cheng Qiwang and Cheng Qigu looked at the two of them in surprise, but the events of the past few days were confusing. They knew that the truth would not be so simple. Cheng Qigu looked around and did not see Cheng Yayin. If she heard what they were talking about, she would definitely come out to see what was going on. He felt a little uneasy and asked, "Mother, where is my little sister?"
"In the carriage. She fell asleep due to the fatigue of the journey." Yue Qiongfang said lightly.
The carriage stopped quietly behind her. Doctor Hu blocked the curtains, preventing any outside eyes from entering. Pei Songsheng anxiously took a step forward, wanting to investigate. Yue Qiongfang immediately said, "She's just been drugged and asleep. Her life is safe. But if you take another step forward, I will kill her immediately."
As if to verify her words, Doctor Hu drew the dagger from his waist and pointed the tip of the blade, which gleamed coldly, at the carriage curtain. Pei Songsheng was forced to stop. The Cheng brothers were horrified and asked, "Mother, what are you doing? That's my little sister!"
"Shut up!" Yue Qiongfang shouted angrily, "I know what I'm doing, but you two fools are helping outsiders stop me. You don't know that I'm doing this to avenge your grandfather!"
The two brothers stood there in shock, but Pei Songsheng seemed to have known the situation for a long time and pleaded with them, "Madam Cheng, please don't let yourself be trapped again. What happened back then was the result of revenge. Your mother's fate is the result of your evil deeds. Now both the victim and the perpetrator are gone. Why do you continue to carry on with your hatred?"
"Whether my father was a villain or not is not for you, a junior, to judge." Yue Qiongfang gritted her teeth and said, "Back then, my entire Wanchuntang family was wiped out. I was kept in the dark and raised a child for my enemy for over a decade. I must personally avenge this!"
She turned and got on the carriage, signaling Doctor Hu to set off. She turned back and said to the others, "I will keep her alive on this journey, but if I see you following her again, I will kill her immediately."
Her tone was cold and devoid of tenderness, as if she wasn't talking about the daughter she had raised for over a decade. After she finished speaking, she got into the carriage. Doctor Hu cracked his whip, and the wheels started to rumble, and she quickly disappeared from view.
Pei Songsheng and his companions were extremely anxious, but because of what Yue Qiongfang said, they could only watch them leave.
Cheng Qiwang walked up to Pei Songsheng and grabbed his collar angrily. Unable to contain his anger and anxiety, he said, "It's come to this. What are you still hiding? If you don't explain clearly, A Zheng will be in trouble!"
"Brother!" Cheng Qigu came over and separated the two. Cheng Qiwang wanted to go forward but was stopped by him. He turned around and looked at Pei Songsheng. He seemed to be unaware of what had just happened. He just stared blankly at the place where the carriage left. His eyes were so empty that it was frightening, as if all his energy and spirit had been taken away.
Cheng Qigu was angry and anxious, and said helplessly: "Moxing, what do you know? Tell me now. At this point, there is no need to hide it."
Pei Songsheng's eyes slowly turned, a hint of anger flashing in his eyes. After thinking for a moment, he finally said, "Four years ago, when A Zheng was seriously ill and could not recover, you still remember that, right?"
"Of course I remember," Cheng Qigu said. He remembered that incident vividly. His younger sister suddenly fell ill, and the family had invited famous doctors, but none of them could help. That period was a nightmare that the entire Cheng family didn't want to look back on. "But, Ah Zheng said a few days ago that she wasn't sick, but poisoned?"
Pei Songsheng nodded and said, "No one knew at first. I heard at home that she was ill and that many doctors had been consulted but none of them could cure her. I was very anxious. Coincidentally, my father had befriended Dr. Wang from the Imperial Medical Bureau in his early years, and I was also very close to him. He was a skilled doctor, so I privately asked him to go to the Cheng Mansion to treat A Zheng.
"Doctor Wang didn't say much at the Cheng residence, but when he came back he told me that Ah Zheng wasn't sick, but had been poisoned. He was afraid the poisoner might be in the Cheng residence, so he didn't tell Mr. and Mrs. Cheng.
"I immediately asked what kind of poison it was, and he said that was the strange thing. This poison is called "God's Sorrow," and it's not widely known in the world. It's a secret passed down from his master. This poison is extremely sinister. The symptoms and pulse of the poisoned person are completely undetectable. It just looks like they're sick. Within a few months, they will die from both qi and blood depletion. Even an autopsy wouldn't be able to detect the cause.
"This poison was developed by his master. His master's medical skills were unparalleled, and his use of poisons was even more remarkable. He was from Chongzhou, where he founded the Wanchuntang, a local shrine that was once quite famous. Wanchuntang recruited many disciples, ostensibly offering medical treatment, but secretly engaged in numerous poison-related crimes. From the officialdom to the underworld, traces of their silent manipulation of the situation could be seen everywhere.
"Doctor Wang had also gone astray in his youth. Feeling it was too detrimental to his virtue, he betrayed his master and left Chongzhou to seek a living in Shengjing. Later, he heard that his master's sect was being annihilated by someone seeking revenge. He felt deeply moved and thought that the poison of the Immortal Sorrow should have disappeared from the world. Unexpectedly, he saw someone poisoned by it again after so many years. He felt that the Cheng Mansion must be hiding a survivor of the Wanchun Hall disaster.
"Doctor Wang said he didn't know what grudge the murderer had that would lead her to use such a sinister method to poison a young girl. He could detoxify, but if the perpetrator couldn't be caught, she would strike again in the future. At that time, the Cheng family was a place full of dangers for A Zheng. In order to rescue her and to test the identity of the poisoner, I came up with a plan. I had someone in my house pretend to be a Taoist priest and propose a method to the Cheng family to bring good luck and dispel the evil. My father-in-law agreed immediately and soon went to the Pei Mansion to propose marriage. But when I heard that my mother-in-law was obstructing it in every way, I felt something was wrong.
"Although the method of bringing good luck was absurd, as a parent, as long as it can save the life of the child, no matter what, how could they obstruct it? I guessed at the time that perhaps my mother-in-law was the real culprit of the poison, but this idea was too bold and I couldn't be sure myself. In the end, my marriage to A Zheng was still as planned. The day after the ceremony, I found an opportunity to meet with my father-in-law alone and told him about Wanchuntang and Shenxianchou. When my father-in-law heard it, his face changed and he hurried home, saying that he had to verify something.
"A few days later, he came to see me, looking depressed, as if he had suffered a great blow. He told me something, something that happened twenty years ago."
This matter started twenty years ago. A young man who was only interested in studying heard that there was a stone carving on Qingguan Mountain in Chongzhou. It was left by an unknown hermit. The writing style was extraordinary and its power remained unchanged after a hundred years of wind and rain.
The young man took his brother and traveled thousands of miles to Chongzhou.
The road in the deep mountains was difficult to travel. The two brothers got lost. When they were tired and thirsty, they met a girl, a girl with a temperament like a secluded orchid in a valley, like a fairy in a painting.
The girl gave the two brothers water and food, and led them out of the complex valley and found the stone carvings. She seemed to live in the mountains and rarely interacted with the outside world. Seeing the two strangers, she was very curious.
The two brothers rented a house at the foot of Qingguan Mountain. Cheng Hongyi went up the mountain every day to copy stone carvings. His eldest brother, Cheng Hongye, wasn't particularly interested, but he loved the scenery. So he joined him, painting the mountains and the water every day. The girl, who lived on the other side of the mountain, also crossed the mountain every day to watch the two men writing and painting, chatting from time to time. They quickly became close friends.
From the girl, Cheng Hongyi learned her name was Yue Qiongfang. Her father was a doctor. Although her mother died young, her father loved her very much. Her family had a clinic, and her father had many apprentices, who were very capable.
The girl's words betrayed her unabashed admiration for her father. She appeared quiet, but perhaps because she rarely met anyone she could talk to, she was a constant chatterer in front of the brothers, unable to stop for a moment. Cheng Hongyi initially found her boisterous, but as they copied her day after day, his attention drifted, watching her weed, pick flowers, weave garlands, and catch butterflies—every move so vibrant and lovely.
Cheng Hongyi's heart has always been filled with classics and historical books, as if someone had stuffed a bunch of butterflies into it, fluttering their wings.
Because of this mindset, he was able to keenly notice more things. For example, although she always chatted with him, when she spoke, her eyes could not help but glance at her elder brother who was not far away. When she was silent, she would always stare at her elder brother in a daze. When she picked flowers, she would always deliberately pick them around her elder brother, clumsily and immaturely, hoping that he would look back.
But the eldest brother only had the paintbrush in his mind, and seemed to have never noticed the girl's eager eyes.
They knew the Qingguan stone carvings by heart, and had already painted every detail of the scenery, but neither brother suggested leaving. Cheng Hongye was drawn to Chongzhou's scenery, while Cheng Hongyi was haunted by the unattainable desire to reach his destination.
But what really made them stay in Chongzhou was another woman who suddenly appeared.
She is also the result and cause of all things.
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