newborn
The next morning, dim light filtered through the curtains. I looked at the face still sleeping in my arms, and the barrier of memory collapsed. The past that had been sealed by the "Forget Worry Gu" - our acquaintance as teenagers, being forced to take the blame, falling in love through fireflies, a sweet marriage, the ecstasy of finding out I was pregnant, and... the excruciating pain of having my father take my child away - came flooding back.
My heart felt like it was being clenched tightly, the suffocating pain nearly making me groan. My love for her, now fully recollected, became immense, yet also saturated with unspeakable guilt and the pain of losing my child. My first thought wasn't my own grief, but how would she endure this again?
Looking at her peaceful sleeping face, I made up my mind that I would never let her remember that heartbreaking scene again. All the pain, I alone would bear it.
Morning light streamed through the curtains, illuminating the half-palm gap between them. One pretended to sleep, the other, awake, staring at the lotus pattern on the ceiling, eyes heavy with the ashes of last night's burn. "My poor child..." Zi Ling burst into tears, the sob ripping out from the deepest recesses of her heart and lungs, blood-soaked with pain, shattering the deathly stillness of the room.
My whole body shuddered, and I realized instantly—she had remembered everything. He stood up almost in a panic, and without saying anything, he hugged the curled up, trembling body tightly in his arms. "Zi Ling... Zi Ling..." I called her name over and over again, my voice filled with unprecedented panic and regret. Zi Ling did not struggle, but just let me hold her, tears silently flowing on my chest. After a long time, she whispered in a fragmented tone: "Tomorrow... I remember everything... I... I said I don't want to have anything to do with the Ouyang family anymore..." Zi Ling no longer spoke, just like a dead tree.
Those words were like a dagger, piercing my heart with pinpoint accuracy. I tightened my grip and said urgently, "You said we'd be together forever! That was the oath we swore before heaven and earth!" I tried to hold her back with our past vows.
Zi Ling slowly raised her head and looked at him through tearful eyes. There was no hatred in her eyes, only a deep weariness and despair. She forced a smile that was uglier than crying. "I did say I'd never leave you... but you also said you'd come back before I gave birth."
She paused, each word light and airy, yet it weighed heavily on my heart: "..." I felt like I'd been struck by lightning, and all my words of defense were stuck in my throat, transforming into a silent, sharp pain. My arms around her slipped away, as if all the strength had been drained from me. Yes, I was absent when she needed me most. This is a rift that can never be healed.
I lowered my head, sweat dripping from my forehead. Finally, I managed a few words through my teeth, a resolute and tragic tone: "Yes... I broke my promise. I will pay the price for what I did..." I emphasized the word "price," as if I had already foreseen some cruel outcome. The room fell silent again, only Zi Ling's suppressed sobs mingling with my own heavy, almost unbearable breathing. Last night's tenderness and affection vanished, leaving only a bloody reality torn apart by cruel memories.
My father's face flashed through my mind, and I finally made up my mind. I let Yi Shan push me to the palace. The moment I saw him, I couldn't help but scream, "Why? Why did you kill my child and hurt my wife? That's your grandson, and I haven't even met him. Ziling is my wife!" I watched his face transform from confusion to ecstasy, and as he shouted, "I actually have a grandson!" I wanted to wrap a golden thread around his throat. When Ouyang Feiying heard the question, the confusion on his face only lasted for a moment, and then a mixture of surprise, understanding, and even... pride emerged. Far from feeling guilty, he clapped his hands and laughed: "Good! Good! He is worthy of being my son! He has an offspring so early! He gave me a healthy grandson." He stared at Ouyang Mingri with sharp eyes: "Father has always raised that child well. I wanted to use him as the most powerful chess piece to restrain the Shangguan sisters when he grew up. Now it seems that he is a gift from God to me. I have an offspring!" The news that the child was still alive was like timely help. The word "healthy" hit him psychologically: I am a disabled person, but I have a healthy child. This child is the fruit of the love between Zi Ling and me. He pushed me to a yard, and the child was carried out - his eyebrows and eyes looked very much like me, and the curve of his lips was exactly the same as hers - my outstretched hands were so trembling that I couldn't catch the three-year-old child. So this is the feeling of losing and finding. Back at the villa, there was no sign of Zi Ling! Zi Ling left two letters, one for separation and the other saying that she wanted to stay with her family and hoped that I would not disturb her. I immediately asked Yi Shan to take me to Shangchunfengdeyi Palace, but there was no sign of anyone. When I asked the maids, they knew nothing, only that Young Master Nong Yue had asked them to prepare dry food, as if he was going on a long journey. A long journey! I immediately thought of Fengyu Pavilion; it was the most likely place Zi Ling had gone after regaining his memory!
I immediately told Yishan to get ready for the journey. I'm taking our child with me to find our mother!" Finally, at the inn along the way, I saw Ziling and her group. Sima Lingfeng was handing Ziling a handkerchief. "Ziling," I began, my voice so hoarse it almost sounded unfamiliar to me. I lifted the child slightly higher in my arms. "This is our child. I've brought him here. Can you hold him?" I'd traveled thousands of miles just to bring our shared blood to her. I watched her expression change in an instant, then wheeled forward, gently handed the child to her. In a tone that bordered on pleading and desperate, I said, "Now, you're inextricably linked to my Ouyang family..."
She froze, as if struck by lightning. The others also watched this reunion scene in bewilderment. Sima Lingfeng was the first to react, his face grim as he stared at me and the child, his hand holding the handkerchief frozen in the air. The moment Zi Ling saw the child's face clearly, she collapsed like melting spring snow. I hurriedly embraced her, but she broke free, clutching the child. Her tears fell heavily on her lotus-embroidered brocade dress. The child, startled, looked at her with dark eyes, then suddenly broke into a toothless grin.
"He recognized me..." She turned to look at me, tears streaking her face. "Will you see tomorrow? He recognized his mother!" My Adam's apple rolled. "My father has been raising the child in the villa. He wants to use him to control you, but he doesn't really want to..." Zi Ling said with tears streaming down her face, "As long as our child is alive, it's good!" The moment Zi Ling looked at me again, she no longer saw the almighty Hua Tuo, but the father of her child, whose eyes, like hers, were red, filled with pleading and hope. Perhaps this gaze made her realize that she was not the only one suffering, that we were also parents who had lost a child. Then she leaned on my shoulder.
Seeing Shangguan Yan and my mother-in-law, Ding Xuelian, looking suspicious, I took out my marriage certificate and showed them. Shangguan Yan looked at me and the child in my arms, her eyes as complicated as a tangled mess. Before I could say anything, she suddenly snatched the child away, the tip of her sword holding a safety lock, and gently slung it back around the baby's neck. "Sister..." Shangguan Ying called her, her voice trembling. Shangguan Yan turned her face away and said sternly, "If you betray her again, the Phoenix Blood Sword will not recognize you." My mother-in-law stroked the child's head, then Shangguan Ying's face, and finally landed on my wrist. She said with a gentle look, "Tomorrow, Ying'er will be willful, you... bear with her." I bowed and said, "Mother-in-law, I dare not. She is my wife, and I will never leave her for the rest of my life." My mother-in-law said she wanted to hold the child. The child got along very well with her grandmother. My mother-in-law had experience raising children, and the child soon became well-behaved in her hands.
The child had just been brought home and was timid, both curious and afraid of me, his sudden appearance as his "father." At dinner time at the inn, Ouyang Mingri coaxed the child to eat. "Come on, open your mouth," I tried to sound gentle, but my hand trembled slightly with nervousness as I scooped a spoonful of steamed egg. The child looked at me, then at the spoon, his mouth tightly shut. I had never been so frustrated. I could use a golden thread to precisely penetrate the most private acupoints, but now I couldn't safely deliver a spoonful of food to my own son's mouth. After several attempts, a little egg custard rubbed against the child's cheek, causing him to pout and look like he was about to cry. Zi Ling and the others watched from the sidelines, not immediately intervening. They watched as this once calculating, aloof man fumbled with a child. Zi Ling's lips smiled, but his eyes were quietly moist.
I panicked, instinctively trying to tell him to stop crying in a commanding tone. But the words faltered as they reached my lips. I saw myself reflected in the child's clear eyes—a strange figure with a frown on his face, looking a bit scary. I took a deep breath and dropped the spoon. "Daddy's fault," I said awkwardly, my tone tinged with guilt and clumsiness, a tone I wasn't even aware of. I scooped up another spoonful, blew on it patiently, and offered it to the child again. "This time, it won't get dirty." The child, observing his relaxed expression, hesitated, then finally opened his little mouth. As the spoon made its way smoothly into the child's mouth, the sense of accomplishment that welled up in me was no less than cracking a game of chess. I suddenly remembered how I once boasted to be "the equal of Hua Tuo." Only then did I realize that healing a child's fear requires far more wisdom and patience than healing even the most complex internal injuries.
That night, the three of us shared a room, and I took the child to the bath. Ziling filled the water for both of us and wanted to bathe him. I deliberately flaunted my strong arms, eager to give him a bath. Ziling, observing our similar faces, smiled and stepped aside, giving us some space to be together. The child was afraid of the water, his tiny hands clinging to my shirt tightly. "Don't be afraid," I whispered soothingly. "Daddy's here." I had never bathed anyone before, and my movements were as stiff as if I were operating a delicate instrument. The water splashed across my hair, but I didn't care. When my fingertips touched the faint scar on the child's back, left by his early neglect, my hand suddenly stopped. A mixture of anger and heartache washed over me—hatred for my father, and even more so, hatred for myself. If I had been stronger earlier, wouldn't the child have ended up like this? Just then, a small, wet hand pressed against my furrowed brow. The child babbled, a language no one understood, as if comforting him. In that moment, the rage and coldness within me were strangely soothed by this little hand. The next moment, my paternal instinct overwhelmed everything else—my fingertips subconsciously massaged the scar, drawing on my inner strength to loosen any remaining fascial adhesions. I lowered my head and gently pressed my forehead against the child's, hiding the faint redness of my eyes beneath the mist.
At night, the child was afraid of the dark and refused to sleep alone, so he would roll over to my side and snuggle into my arms. "Daddy, tell me a story," he asked in a baby voice.
My mind was filled with classics, histories, and medical and poison book collections, but I didn't have a single story suitable for children. I pondered for a moment, then picked up a medical book and turned to a page with illustrations of herbs.
"This is Poria cocos," I pointed at the picture, my voice unconsciously soft. "It will calm your mind and spirit, just like Daddy is with you now, and you will be able to sleep peacefully."
"Haha, the stories you tell really help me sleep!" Zi Ling couldn't help laughing.
Encouraged, I pointed to another herb. "This is licorice, which harmonizes all medicines. Just like your mother, she 'harmonized' Daddy and you together, forming a family." I turned the page, my fingertips resting on a lotus with two stems. "This is a lotus with two stems, two flowers on one stem, connected by the same spirit. Just like Daddy and Mommy, we were meant to be together, only then will the most beautiful flowers bloom and the sweetest fruit bear - and that fruit is you." The child naturally didn't understand any of this, but listening to Daddy's low, steady voice and smelling the reassuring aroma of the medicine, he nodded his little head slowly, and eventually fell into a deep sleep.
I put down my book and gazed at the child's sleeping face, which resembled me, with a touch of Zi Ling in it. My heart was filled with an unprecedented happiness. I gently took the child's soft little hand and pressed it against my palm. The moonlight outside the window was like water. Zi Ling leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on the child's forehead. Zi Ling and the child each rested on my shoulder, and I felt like I was carrying the whole world on my shoulders!
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