On his last glance back, he saw the little figure, now less chubby and childlike, standing under the eaves, smiling and waving at him.
Qi Qi sighed, thinking to himself that things were settled. They had even given him the ancestral jade pendant, so he should be able to keep his head.
Gu Siyan left.
That night, I heard that the horse farm had caught fire. They put out the fire in the middle of the night. Those who escaped said that someone woke them up in their sleep. In the end, only four or five people died. Some of them had a bad reputation. There was also one who, I heard, went back to let the horses out after everyone else had gotten up. I heard that he was burned beyond recognition. I heard that he was only seventeen years old this year, in the prime of his youth.
Since the area burned was actually very small, just the stables and the dormitories next to them, fortunately no horses were injured or killed, so the emperor didn't bother to blame the remaining people.
That evening, Qi Qi held the jade pendant and examined it again and again. It was an heirloom, but its quality wasn't very good; it had many impurities and even some scratches.
It's very smooth and feels warm to the touch, like it's been nurtured and cared for by someone day and night.
The Ninth Prince woke up in the middle of the night with a start, and, using the moonlight, leaned over to wipe his eyes: "Why are you crying?"
Qi Qi: "I didn't cry."
"Your eyes are so red, why aren't you crying?"
The Ninth Prince sighed, knowing that he and the stable boy often talked, and probably considered them friends.
He pulled Qi Qi close and comforted him in the same way he had comforted himself when they were children: "Don't cry..."
Qi Qi didn't cry.
It's only been five years; I've only come to know five-sixths of the length of my life.
He didn't cry; it was the emotions of this wretched human that were causing this human body distress.
...
Three years have passed in the blink of an eye.
Spring has not yet passed, and that familiar heat in the air has returned, making people recall the great drought a few years ago. Outside the capital, there were corpses everywhere, and the fields were filled with bones. In remote areas, cities and villages were almost empty, and people resorted to cannibalism. Nearly half of the population of the country perished.
The Ninth Prince was finally among those who visited the Summer Palace this year. The thirteen-year-old boy inherited his mother's delicate and beautiful features, but his eyebrows and eyes were extremely handsome and exquisite, as if carved and polished, beyond the description of ordinary poetry.
Such a striking appearance was somewhat diminished by the boy's icy eyes, and his temperament made him seem a little too cold.
Qi Qi glanced at him, then at the Seventh Prince at the opposite table.
Wow, this man is even more of a heavyweight, somewhere between a boy and a young man, radiating glory and impossible to look directly at. He was dressed in his usual red clothes, and just sitting there, his phoenix eyes with a hint of drunken haze, drew whispers from countless women at the table.
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