I remember that year when we returned from Wumu Town, An Yuan'er hesitated and felt timid. Like a rabbit afraid of being devoured by a lone wolf, she was too afraid to return to Chenyang Palace.
At that time, the lone wolf stood guard outside the rabbit's door for three whole nights, and finally won the rabbit back into his arms.
On that day, Yi Chenli also took this route, the distance from Chenyang Palace to An Mansion was neither far nor close.
Now, An Yuan'er is also walking on this road. She is thinking: what was Yi Chenli feeling when he guarded this place back then? Did he ever worry about what would happen if she didn't return to Chenyang Palace with him?
Will he take her back? And punish her, this runaway bad rabbit, with the harshest punishment a tyrant can inflict?
Unfortunately, no one can tell An Yuan'er the answer to her question.
Halfway there, they found people kneeling on both sides of the street. They were dressed in white and carrying white lanterns; they had all come to see Yi Chenli off.
Upon closer inspection, An Yuan'er realized that these people were all familiar; most of them were disaster victims.
An Yuan'er saw a familiar face and cried as she rushed into her arms.
It's Sanbao. The child among the disaster victims.
“Fairy Sister, everyone says that Big Brother, like Father and Mother, has died and will never come back, right? What if someone bullies Fairy Sister while Big Brother is gone? Sanbao must grow up quickly to protect Sister.”
An Yuan'er took out a small handkerchief and wiped away Sanbao's tears.
"Sanbao, don't cry. They're not dead. They've just gone to heaven to become gods. They'll protect us from there. And we'll be reunited with them someday."
Sanbao's eyes were wide open as he innocently asked, "When will Sanbao be reunited with them?"
An Yuan'er said slowly, "When Sanbao grows up, gets married, has children, and has grandchildren... after that, we can be reunited. So Sanbao, don't cry anymore, we will meet again one day."
Children are naturally innocent, and Sanbao burst into laughter after hearing Anyuan'er's words.
"Then fairy sister, don't cry. Fairy sister will be reunited with big brother one day."
An Yuan'er patted Sanbao's head: "Okay. Sister has stopped crying."
Although Yi Chenli usually doesn't like to get close to people and doesn't often show his emotions, these disaster victims are genuinely grateful to him.
Although the tyrant's life was short, like a shooting star, he was no longer a tyrant. He was Yi Chenli, a Yi Chenli who wasn't so bad. In fact, he kindly saved the disaster victims from a great calamity and received many blessings.
An Yuan'er wondered: If the tyrant is no longer a tyrant, would Yi Chenli want to become like that?
An Yuan'er smiled. He would. Because his Ali was never a truly bad person.
*
After walking along the long street and through the alleys, the gate of Chenyang Palace came into view.
The entire palace was draped in white silk, and deep inside the main hall, the character "奠" (meaning "offering sacrifice") was written in large characters.
Before even entering the palace, the suppressed sobs of eunuchs and guards could be heard, all of which indicated that the palace's owner had passed away.
Chenyang Palace has always been deserted. Most of the time, there are only Yi Chenli and An Yuan'er, along with a few eunuchs.
But the number of people coming to mourn is so great that they're practically breaking down the threshold of Chenyang Palace.
Some ministers who had never dealt with Yi Chenli before, and even those who had looked down on him, came to mourn him when he died.
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