Chapter 59: If you don't love me, we'll die together.
Her face immediately darkened: "Aren't you leaving?"
Feng Huaihe stopped chopping wood, looked up at Zhu Qing, who was wearing a plain white long gown with a gray-brown jacket over it. Her long hair was simply tied up with a wooden hairpin, and she was as plain as a leaf and as clear and beautiful as a lotus.
It was this Zhu Qing who kept him tossing and turning all night, unwilling to give up.
Feng Huaihe leaned the wood-chopping knife against the corner of the wall and walked towards the kitchen, saying, "I've prepared a meal. Let's eat first."
Zhu Qing followed him, staring at the back of his head and said irritably, "Back when I was in charge of the Secretariat, and when we went to Jinyang, whenever we negotiated with you, you would only say this one sentence to appease me."
Stepping into the kitchen, Zhu Qing suddenly smelled a rich aroma of food. She paused, then couldn't help but glance at the dining table.
The table was laden with delicious-looking dishes, each one catering to Zhu Qing's tastes.
Feng Zhijian ladled out a small bowl of porridge and handed it to Zhu Qing, saying, "Eat your food first."
Zhu Qing stood still and didn't take it, stubbornly saying, "I said I wanted you to leave."
Feng Zhijian remained in the posture of handing out the porridge, staring intently at Zhu Qing. His meaning was clear, but Zhu Qing remained unmoved.
In the past, Zhu Qing would have been afraid that Feng Zhijian would get angry, go crazy, and then punish her.
But now, Zhang Yin's incident has made her realize that her constant forbearance and fear will only make things worse, and she will never be able to escape.
The more Zhu Qing thought about it, the more principled she became. She resisted the temptation of the aroma of the food and stubbornly stood still.
Feng Zhijian frowned, put the bowl of porridge back, then walked up to Zhu Qing, put his hands on her shoulders, looked deeply into her eyes and said seriously, "I have thought about what you said last night. I still feel that if you are not willing to stay, then I will stay instead."
In short, he wanted to stay by Zhu Qing's side.
Zhu Qing's voice turned cold: "I don't need it."
Feng Huaihe pursed his lips, determined to compromise: "I will live with you day and night, like an ordinary couple, and I will no longer force you to do anything."
In truth, he discovered that Zhu Qing's failure to tie her hair up meant that she didn't acknowledge their marriage certificate from the bottom of her heart.
Feng Huaihe's original desire for her to tie his hair up had been put on hold. Now, it was no longer so strong; as long as Zhu Qing was still by his side, he could accept anything.
But Zhu Qing refused.
She absolutely refused to stay with Feng Huaihe and become his tool in his struggle against Zhang Yin.
Zhu Qing didn't want to argue with him pointlessly. "If you won't leave, I will."
After saying this, she turned around, but Feng Huaihe grabbed her wrist in a hurry and pulled her back.
Zhu Qing turned around and saw Feng Huaihe's cold eyes. "Qingqing, is this really necessary?" He was no longer as calm and easy to talk to as before. Every word seemed to be chewed up in his mouth as he asked, one word at a time, "Do you really have to leave me?"
His appearance made Zhu Qing feel uneasy, but she still stood firm and said in a strong voice, "Yes, I think I have said it many times."
She didn't like Feng Huaihe at all, but fortunately, Feng Huaihe was one in a million in appearance. Every time they made love, she thought she had ordered a clean and handsome male escort.
Feng Huaihe pursed his lips unhappily.
He didn't know what else to do, or what he could do. He had lived half his life alone in his previous life, and only on his deathbed did he realize what was most precious.
After a difficult reunion with Zhu Qing, Feng Huaihe went to great lengths to write an official marriage certificate, seeking a legitimate status by her side. He truly did not want to face Zhu Qing's departure.
Otherwise, he would be losing Zhu Qing in both his past and present lives.
Feng Huaihe didn't want to.
He gripped Zhu Qing's hand tightly and slowly pushed her into a corner, trapping her against the wall.
Unlike before, Feng Huaihe did not hug Zhu Qing or grab her hand to control her. Instead, he stood half a step away from her, his head bowed deeply, buried in the shadows, making it impossible to see his expression, but one could feel the oppressive and melancholic aura emanating from him.
Zhu Qing subconsciously gripped the hem of her skirt, her palms slowly sweating.
After a long pause, Feng Huaihe lowered his head and asked in a very low voice, "What if I don't allow it?"
"You have no choice."
Zhu Qing looked up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were clear and firm, without any impurities, and of course, without him.
“I’ve gotten this far through trickery, and I don’t mind continuing to use despicable means to forcibly keep you here.”
As he spoke, Feng Huaihe moved closer to Zhu Qing and lowered his head to kiss her.
Zhu Qing quickly turned her head to dodge, "Do you really have to do this too?"
"I have no other choice."
"You forgot what I wrote on my wishing plaque."
Upon hearing this, Feng Huaihe froze, stunned for a long while. He slowly raised his head, his dark eyes fixed on Zhu Qing.
"Are you threatening to kill yourself?" Feng Huaihe's voice was extremely low, like cold autumn raindrops brushing past the ear, and Zhu Qing almost didn't hear it.
"This is the only way I can intimidate you."
Upon hearing this sentence, the air fell into a deathly silence.
Silence fell for a long time. The food on the table gradually cooled, the rich aroma dissipated, the sun set behind the mountains, and the heavy autumn night descended.
A thunderclap boomed across the sky, just like the night the two lost control in the secretary's courtyard. The autumn wind howled, rattling the kitchen doors and windows, a sign that a storm was brewing.
Feng Huaihe looked up and saw a strong wind blowing outside, swirling up the autumn leaves and dust piled on the ground and sending them flying into the sky. The dark sky was low and heavy with dark clouds, as if it could press down and destroy the small fenced courtyard at any moment.
A surge of intense disgust and hatred welled up in his eyes, as if he had returned to his previous life. He found the world utterly ugly and repulsive, so he locked himself in the secretary's office and never went out unless absolutely necessary.
Later, Zhu Qing came to the Secretariat to study.
She was far less composed than she is now, happily appreciating every scene and object in the courtyard. One afternoon, when she brought him sweet flower soup, Zhu Qing asked him, "I see there's an empty space in the southwest corner of the courtyard. Can I plant a forsythia there?"
At that time, Feng Huaihe was reading an urgent report on the war in Chang'an. Hearing this sentence, he was stunned for a moment before asking, "Where is there an open space?"
Planting a flower is nothing, but Feng Huaihe doesn't completely trust Zhu Qing. He didn't know that there was still empty space in his yard. Even for such a small matter, he needs to have overall control before letting Zhu Qing handle it.
So Zhu Qing took him to see it.
Sure enough, there was a vacant lot in the southwest corner, which looked like it had been dug out by some animal, but Feng Huaihe didn't notice it.
After he agreed, Zhu Qing asked in confusion, "Master, you live in the Secretariat every day, don't you even know about this open space? This was dug out by Bao Bao, who often buries manure here."
Feng Huaihe gave a faint "hmm" and turned to leave.
Zhu Qing followed behind him and asked, "Now that you mention it, I just remembered that you seem to have been reading and writing in the Secretary's office the whole time, and have never come out to look at the courtyard. But the Secretary's courtyard is clearly very beautiful. I have never seen such a unique and elegant place. Why don't you come out and take a look more often?"
Because of disgust.
Feng Huaihe answered in his heart that he loathed this ugly world, which bred so many vicious and dark people, yet they all used gentleness and politeness as a disguise.
Who knows if every blade of grass, every tree, every stone, and every drop of water is the same? Like his father, a promising young man who cruelly murdered his daughter; like his mother, beautiful and talented but unfaithful in her marriage.
Feng Huaihe didn't believe there were any beautiful things in the world, so he never looked at the world or paid attention to the scenery of the Secretariat.
It wasn't until he saw Zhu Qing squatting in the soil planting forsythia, holding the seeds and saying a lot of nice things, such as "good seed, cute seed, you must sprout well," that he carefully buried the seeds.
The pure and innocent beauty was like a club, smashing open Feng Huaihe's chest and pouring in beams of warm spring sunshine.
So much time has passed, and if it weren't for seeing this suffocating scene of dark clouds looming overhead, Feng Huaihe would have almost forgotten that the world's wickedness remains unchanged.
His own perspective had shifted to follow Zhu Qing; how he viewed the world now depended entirely on Zhu Qing's attitude towards him.
When she leaves, everything seems terrible and disgusting to Feng Huaihe. But when she stays by his side, everything seems wonderful to him.
"I'm going back inside. If I see you again tomorrow..."
Before Zhu Qing could finish speaking, Feng Huaihe suddenly interrupted her: "Then let's die together."
Zhu Qingmeng froze on the spot, staring at him in astonishment: "What did you say?"
Feng Huaihe turned around, his expression gloomy and his eyes fierce. "I said let's die together."
“When you died in my past life, I was thirty-four, but I lived to ninety. I lived alone for sixty-two years.”
His eyes were red at the corners, and Zhu Qing looked closely and saw that there were tears glistening in them, but the next second he burst out laughing.
"You know this is an era comparable to purgatory, let alone living for sixty-two years without you. To be honest, I've wanted to die for a long time. Since you've made up your mind not to love me, then let's die together."
"You're insane!"
Zhu Qing, seeing that Feng Huaihe didn't seem to be joking, said loudly, "You already killed me in my previous life!"
"But in those times, was it better to die or to live? Or was it more painful for the dead or for the living?"
Feng Huaihe grabbed Zhu Qing's arms tightly and questioned loudly, "Tell me, back then, what exactly was liberation?"
"Is it to keep you alive so that Zhang Yin can continue to use you as a tool to gain a sense of superiority by dealing with me, or to vent the anger of the Sixteen Prefectures so that you suffer the same fate as Zhang Yin, with you and your husband hanging in the city walls and subjected to the extreme punishment of being slowly sliced to death with seventy-nine cuts, and then having your flesh cut out and bones removed to feed the starving people?"
He seemed to be on the verge of death, gasping and roaring, "I don't want to! Rather than that, I would rather cruelly let you die by my hand, and build you a grave, so that at least your remains will have a place to rest. Just like you stayed with me in the Secretariat, I will always stay by your grave."
Zhu Qing also shouted loudly: "But this is not the past. The Sixteen Prefectures still exist, and no one has made a mistake. I just don't want to be imprisoned by you!"
"That's why I said let's die together."
“When the body dies, the soul is free. If even the soul is free, what else cannot be free?” Feng Huaihe stubbornly asked, “Isn’t this what you want?”
"I really can't stand you anymore!"
Zhu Qingzhen was now certain that the Feng Huaihe before her was not human, but a delirious madman. She shoved Feng Huaihe hard and turned to rush out of the kitchen.
The sound of footsteps clattering behind her grew louder and louder. Feng Huaihe was tall and had long legs, and Zhu Qing knew that he would catch up with her soon.
She followed the place where her eldest brother had left his hunting knife, running into the main room, and sure enough, she saw a small, curved hunting knife hanging on the wall.
When my elder brother went to Jinyang to join the army, he stopped hunting and didn't take any of these knives with him.
Zhu Qing had just taken the hunting knife off when the door to the main room was kicked open with a bang. She gripped the knife tightly and turned around urgently.
Feng Huaihe stood straight by the door, and lightning flashed across the sky behind him, making his expression appear even more sinister and terrifying.
Zhu Qing had never seen a horror movie scary like this. She was so excited that her voice cracked: "You better not come near me, or I really will pull out a knife!"
Feng Huaihe chuckled and stepped inside.
"I already said if you don't love me, we'll die together. Do you think I'm afraid of you using a knife?"
"I won't die with you, so why should I be dragged down with you when you die?"
Feng Huaihe approached Zhu Qing, completely unafraid of the small hunting knife; his own skills made it far too easy for him to subdue Zhu Qing.
Zhu Qing was so nervous that she didn't know what to say. She was really afraid that Feng Huaihe would really die with her, take her knife, kill her first, and then kill himself.
Seeing Feng Huaihe suddenly accelerate and rush over, Zhu Qingyi panicked and couldn't care less about anything else. She decided to kill the man who had forced her to do so.
She raised her hunting knife and charged at Feng Huaihe, shouting, "I've really put up with you for too long!"
Zhu Qing had only taken two steps when she suddenly tripped over the bench next to the table, causing her to stumble forward. The knife in her hand felt a sudden force, as if it had pierced something.
Zhu Qing fell to the ground with a thud, her chest throbbing with pain. Instinctively, she released her hunting knife and pulled her hand back to her chest, "It hurts so much..."
But then she saw that her hand was covered in bright red blood, warm and sticky. Zhu Qing's mind went blank, and she stiffly and slowly raised her head. Feng Huaihe was standing in front of her, with the knife from before stuck in his abdomen.
Fresh blood flowed down the hilt of the knife, dripping slowly from before Zhu Qing's eyes.
Zhu Qing was so frightened that she stood frozen in place, straining with all her might to fight him, but when she actually saw his blood, she became afraid again.
"Zhu Qing..."
Feng Huaihe suddenly spoke, pulling Zhu Qing back to her senses. She scrambled to her feet, backing away as she said, "I told you not to come any closer! You ran into it yourself, it wasn't me..."
Seeing Feng Huaihe reach for the knife hilt, Zhu Qing's teeth chattered with anxiety: "Don't pull it out! If you do, you'll die even faster!"
Feng Huaihe stopped moving and looked up at Zhu Qing. Her face was pale with anxiety. Feng Huaihe paused for a moment and asked her, "Are you very scared? Are you worried? Are you afraid that I will really die?"
"I'm just afraid that I'll kill someone..." Zhu Qing's deeply ingrained values still influence her even after arriving in ancient times.
Feng Huaihe walked toward Zhu Qing, blood still flowing from his abdomen, like a vengeful ghost crawling out of hell to claim a life.
All the horror movies Zhu Qing had ever watched flooded her mind at that moment. She was so scared that she wanted to run away, but she found that her legs were too weak to move, and she just stood there stiffly.
Feng Huaihe knew he should treat his wounds, or he might really die, but for some reason, his reason was like the Yellow River rushing away and never returning. A strong impulse and intuition drove him to grab Zhu Qing, otherwise she would really leave.
Feng Huaihe wasn't sure where this strong intuition came from, but he had a fear that Zhu Qing was about to leave him. Perhaps it was because her attitude today was too resolute, and he felt that he was really going to lose her.
The more Feng Huaihe thought about it, the more anxious he became. He seemed to feel no pain from the knife wound. He rushed forward and forcefully grabbed Zhu Qing's hand: "Qingqing..."
“Feng…”
A thunderbolt, so powerful it seemed to shake the entire land, struck down fiercely from the horizon. A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, and the warmth Feng Huaihe had just held in his palm vanished instantly.
Autumn rainstorms followed, pounding against the roof. Amidst the chaotic and noisy sounds of wind and rain, Feng Huaihe stared at the empty main room before him, frozen in place.
"Qingqing?"
A cold wind, carrying with it cold rain, violently blew into the main room.
Feng Huaihe stood there alone, looking around in panic, but Zhu Qing was nowhere to be seen.
There was one of her embroidered shoes lying on the ground.
Feng Huaihe didn't care about anything else. He forcefully pulled out the wood-chopping knife, tore off the curtain at Zhu Qing's door, and forcefully stuffed it into the wound to stop the bleeding. Then, he bent down with difficulty to pick up the shoe.
I touched it; it was still warm.
"Qingqing?"
Feng Huaihe clutched his abdomen and dragged his heavy steps outside.
He trembled uncontrollably, terrified to see the lonely grave outside, and the wishing tree beside it, covered with plaques bearing wishes for him to see it again.
He feared that this period of time was just a dream formed from his obsession, and that Zhu Qing had never actually returned; he was still guarding her lonely grave, suffering day and night.
He climbed to the outside of the main room. In the small courtyard with its fence, there was no lonely grave or wishing tree, but two large jujube trees, one on each side, growing luxuriantly.
The yard was kept clean, but there was no sign of life, as if Zhu Qing had never been there.
Feng Huaihe suddenly realized that rather than waking up from a beautiful dream and continuing to live a lonely life guarding Zhu Qing's grave, he was more afraid of being in this state, empty and without any trace of her.
One is at least a shattered hope, the other is completely gone.
Feng Huaihe looked at the empty courtyard and collapsed to the ground.
The candlelight in the small kitchen was still burning, and the faint light shone through the window, illuminating the floor where Feng Huaihe's blood flowed with the rainwater.
He remembered his previous life.
Zhu Qing's blood, bathed in the spring sunshine, flowed down the steps of the headmaster's office, staining the forsythia she had planted red.
How is he any different from who he is now?
Feng Huaihe clutched his abdomen and curled up on the ground like a shrimp. So that's how Zhu Qing felt back then.
There was no hope anywhere, not just in terms of life. They were losing everything and wanted to reach out and grab something, but they had no strength to grasp anything.
Where did "Zhu Qing" go?
Feng Huaihe believed it wasn't a dream; the warmth of her body when he hugged her, her roars when she was angry—everything was real.
But Feng Huaihe had no strength left to think. His strength kept flowing out with the blood until his vision went black and he lost consciousness.
-
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On a bright sunny day, the sun shone directly in, and Feng Huaihe felt uncomfortable in his eyes, so he rubbed them as he woke up.
Above them was a gray-brown bed curtain, and all around were low houses made of mud walls, with broken and peeling furniture, giving the impression of a destitute household.
Outside the open door, the sun shone brightly.
The young man carried a bucket of paint in and, upon seeing Feng Huaihe, exclaimed, "Ah, you're awake?"
Feng Huaihe looked over and saw the sunlight shining on the young man's face; it was Mu Zao.
Mu Zao squatted by the table, touching up the paint, while turning her head and shouting outside, "Mother, he's awake! Have some porridge and side dishes!"
Feng Huaihe sat up from the head of the bed, touched his abdomen, which was wrapped in a thick wad of gauze.
Memories of what happened before he fainted flooded his mind. Feng Huaihe hurriedly got out of bed and asked Mu Zao, "Have you seen Qingqing?"
"No, didn't she go to Jinyang? Speaking of which, how come you were at her house? Didn't you leave too?" Mu Zao turned around and asked suspiciously, "Besides, you were injured by your older brother's hunting knife. Your mother saw you when she went out for the autumn harvest and saved you. You wouldn't be thinking of taking your own life with the hunting knife, would you?"
Feng Huaihe frowned but did not answer. Enduring the severe pain in his abdomen, he limped out the door.
He was looking for Zhu Qing, a living, breathing person who couldn't have just vanished.
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