Chapter 54
"Qingning, blame me, blame me..."
A long and menacing voice came slowly from afar, carrying with it infinite sadness and regret. It echoed and floated closer, surging into waves before her eyes.
Yue Qingning blinked her eyes, watching the circles of lake water spreading around her waist, bringing with it a pain that almost penetrated into her bones, drowning her layer by layer.
She opened her eyes in the water. In the distance, a circle of dim light was like a guide, attracting the footsteps of passers-by. She followed the light and walked forward.
The man who could not come back was holding a white wax in his hand and waiting slowly under the lamp. The candy figurine maker opposite was pinching a rooster and blowing on its belly, making it round and plump, almost as fat as a ball.
Yue Qingning walked closer to the light, looked at his features carefully under the bright yellow flickering light, looked for a long time, and then took one of his hands.
"Qingning, wait a moment! It will be ready soon!"
He said without looking back, still staring at the fat rooster in the master's hand.
Yue Qingning pursed her lips and couldn't help shedding two strings of tears. She trembled and anxiously pulled his arm to ask him to turn around.
"Don't leave! Don't go to Shuhu..."
The more she spoke, the more she sobbed, and she pulled his robe sadly and slid to the ground. Cui Hu finally turned his gaze from his master's hand, looked down at her tearful eyes, and stared at her for a long time.
"Qingning..."
He seemed to sense what was happening to him. He silently lowered his eyes, dimmed the light, and squatted before her. His tall body blocked the cold night wind, making the faint light seem incredibly bright.
"Why are you crying again?"
The slightly cool fingertips brushed across her cheek. Yue Qingning's eyes were blurred, red and swollen from crying, and she clenched his fingers tightly and refused to let go.
All these changes were because of her. Now facing such an end, she could not live on indifferently. The heavy burden of guilt made her breathless. She had been ill for a long time and her illness was incurable.
The Teng family even came to check on her condition, but her mental illness had no solution, and her mind was about to tear her body apart.
"I made the wrong choice... I shouldn't have come back. I was destined to die. It's all my fault for not believing in fate and insisting on coming back... and dragging you down with me."
She sobbed, and the cold night wind seemed to respond to her sadness, sobbing and complaining in her ears, tossing and turning.
Cui Hu watched her lower her head, revealing a small part of her fragile neck, so white, so thin, and trembling as if it was about to break. The tears she shed for him were like autumn rain, passing across her palm, leaving a cold wet mark.
He met the person and figured out what was going on, so he didn't die with regrets.
This was a calamity destined for her. She had suffered from it in her previous life, and no one could help her in this life, so her end was death.
During the days he was confined to his bed after being plotted against, he wondered who he had offended. Was it the King of Shuhu, angry that he had not helped him? Was it the other tribes who resented him for being an accomplice to the evil? Or was it someone in the imperial court who was wary of his family's influence?
He thought that if he could return alive, he would definitely catch them and cut them into pieces. Even if he died, he would turn them into evil spirits and haunt them for the rest of their lives.
But when he really arrived at the chaotic land and saw her red eyes from crying, he suddenly understood the so-called cause and effect.
Since there is a cause, someone must bear the consequences. If it's not him, then it will be the people related to him. He doesn't even need to think about it and naturally accepts his fate.
In fact, all the choices along the way were his own. He had too many times to choose to live, but every time, he wanted to go to her.
Therefore, I don't feel wronged to bear the consequences for her.
Cui Hu held her face lovingly and saw that she had lost all her usual reserve in crying. Tears streamed down her face as she grieved the loss of her loved ones. Suddenly, she felt that her life was worth it just to earn these tears.
He rolled up his sleeves and wiped away the tears on her face bit by bit, pinching her cheeks with a smile.
"Don't blame yourself. This is the fate I chose. It's not your fault."
Yue Qingning opened her red and swollen eyes, and shook her head with difficulty, wanting to say something, but Cui Hu already knew what she was going to say, and he stopped in front of her and helped her up.
"If you can't let go of yourself, I can't let go of you either. How can you enter the cycle of reincarnation and seek liberation?"
As soon as he finished saying the word "reincarnation", the woman who had stopped crying began to cry again. She stood there silently, feeling extremely wronged and sad. She was small and lonely, and tears accumulated in her round apricot-shaped eyes. After a while, they squeezed out of her eye sockets and fell to the ground with a plop, which made people feel very distressed.
Cui Hu couldn't bear to see her cry. When he saw her tears, his eyes would become sore. He thought he had seen through the cause and effect of fate and life and death, but he still couldn't bear to see his beloved shed tears.
"Don't cry."
He was very tongue-tied, and that hadn't changed much, so he pulled her into his arms, listening to her soft sobs whimpering against his chest, her two delicate arms tightly clutching the fabric of his back, and he couldn't help but fan out two cold tears.
"Qingning, my time is running out. I still need to go see my father and brother and give them some instructions."
He pulled her up, held her shoulders and asked her to look into his eyes.
"You have to eat well, take your medicine well, don't make things difficult for yourself, and fight to survive no matter how difficult it is. Promise me, okay?"
The candlelight on the ground flickered, as if it was about to burn out. Yue Qingning opened her eyes wide, stared at his face reluctantly, held his hand and shook her head.
"I'll go with you...I don't want to go back."
Cui Hu frowned and sighed for a long time, then pulled her hand away. "No! You still have things to do and old scores to settle with him. How can you follow me without knowing the reason?"
Yue Qingning wanted to continue being stubborn, but the light was getting dimmer and dimmer. She couldn't see his face clearly, so she anxiously looked for the white candle on the ground, wanting to light another one.
However, the man in front of her held her in his arms, hugged her tightly, and called her softly in her ear.
"Qingning, listen to me this time. I swear to you that I will find you first in my next life. Then, we will continue our fate in this life..."
The voice became fainter and fainter until it completely disappeared from her ears. Yue Qingning hugged him back and nodded heavily. She felt his chest tremble as he laughed and then completely disappeared from her sight.
The lights went out and darkness enveloped her whole body. Yue Qingning broke down and cried out in the night, sobbing and almost suffocating, until someone couldn't bear it anymore and shook her shoulders to wake her up.
There was only a light in front of her. She struggled to open her tear-filled eyes, and saw a light on next to Prince Shou. He had his hands dipped in a basin of water, gently washing a towel.
Seeing that she woke up, he reached over to her, grabbed a soft pillow, placed it on the head of the bed, and helped her up.
"You had a nightmare, didn't you? Seeing you crying so hard, the servants didn't want to disturb your aunt, so they asked me to come and take a look."
He wrung out the cotton towel, folded it into three pieces and gently pressed it under her eyes. The warm touch was like a good medicine to cure reality, bringing her endless longing.
She slowly raised her hand to take it, and pressed it against her eyes for a long time.
Prince Shou looked at her trembling shoulders. In less than half a month, her thin back had become emaciated. He really couldn't leave her alone.
She was too kindhearted, so she blamed all the faults on herself. Even though the culprit was clearly someone else, she still refused to let herself go.
After pondering for a while, Prince Shou said, "The pain is so severe that it hurts the body, and it's hard to leave someone. General Cui probably doesn't want to see Qingning so sad for him."
The woman who was holding the scarf tightly did not move. She still had her head down, as quiet as if she was asleep, only her shoulders twitched from time to time, accompanied by almost inaudible breathing, and the silence was long and quiet.
"Don't worry. I remember all the suffering the General endured today. One day, someday, someone will pay for it."
After he finished speaking, the little person who had not moved for a long time suddenly trembled. Prince Shou stared at her thin back for a long time, and when he thought she would not respond, a hoarse voice suddenly came out from between her sleeves.
"Who harmed him?"
Prince Shou pursed his lips and hesitated for a moment. He felt a little regretful and didn't want to involve her, but there was no better way to divert her attention at this time.
"The envoy accompanying the army is Yao Huanye, the eldest son of the Yao family. His daughter was recently engaged to the Crown Prince. Before General Cui left, Yao Chunying visited the Eastern Palace."
"Prince...why did he want to harm Cui Lang?"
Xiao Heng sighed deeply, somewhat reluctant to tell her the truth, but in the end...
"The Crown Prince can't stand anyone getting close to me. I'm afraid he's already been secretly plotting this the day my aunt introduced me to General Cui. He can't touch me, so he's inevitably going to expel everyone around me. General Cui... has walked into this trap by mistake."
He turned around and saw Qingning raising her head from her knees. Her delicate face, as soft and delicate as a peony, was now stained with red marks, and her eyes were flashing with countless wet light.
She was surprisingly quiet, not at all like other women who put on airs. Even when she was extremely sad, she would still cry silently. Therefore, when people saw her, they would not want to see her eyes red.
Prince Shou's heart twitched violently. He couldn't bear to look at her anymore and turned his head away, but Yue Qingning suddenly grabbed his arm.
"How dare Yao Huanye poison an important official from our frontier region?"
She stared, her calmness unusual. "Besides the Crown Prince, there are others who are backing him up."
"It was the Marquis of Qingyuan. He had already informed Shu Hu to set a trap for Cui Lang. Otherwise, how could Yao Huanye poison Cui Lang in such a foreign country without being noticed?"
Yue Qingning was more lucid than ever before. Cui Hu was right. She had not yet avenged him. How could she go to see him empty-handed?
She wanted to make her enemy die a miserable death and be trapped in the Avici Hell forever, so that she would have the face to see Cui Lang again and confess in front of him in person.
"I heard that the Marquis of Qingyuan was born into a merchant family? Thirty years ago, he served the emperor with great merit and offered money to His Majesty, whose foundation was still unstable, to obtain the title of marquis. Was he really just a commoner during the time of Shu Hu?"
The first half of the sentence, which wantonly discussed the past affairs of the royal family, made Prince Shou's ears jump. He could not believe that Qingning was so bold as to say such words in front of him.
But the second half of the sentence did make sense. Because it concerned the emperor, no one dared to delve into the details of what happened back then, including the identity of Qingyuan Hou. They only knew that he was a merchant who came to Beijing to do business and happened to have helped his father back then.
But wasn't all this just coincidence? He suddenly appeared in the capital, carrying a large amount of money, at a critical moment of imperial turmoil. Not only were merchants driven by profit, but even wealthy gentry at the time feared having their wealth confiscated. He actually dared to go against the flow and enter the capital. Thinking about it carefully, it's hard to believe that he had no ulterior motives.
He and his step-sister are both extraordinary people. Thinking of this, it is even more necessary to investigate.
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