Chapter 34 Chapter 34 Don't expose her fear
"Miss, Uncle Zhang has sent people several times to ask when you will be back."
"My cousin is still in Beijing purchasing goods, and the letters are coming one after another."
"And the young master also wrote today, saying that he will deal with the indecent rumors about you and Master Pei in the capital, so you don't have to worry."
The more Fang Dian talked, the more uneasy she felt. If her brother knew that she was with Pei Zhiji now, she would probably be very upset.
Just now the setting sun was molten gold, but now the bright moonlight could be vaguely seen rising. Even with the window open, the weather was stuffy. The little yellow dog from Shen's house was brought out by her. At this time, it pressed its soft belly against the ground and panted with its long tongue.
She was only wearing a small dress. When she put down the needle and thread in her hand, she twisted her slightly stiff neck and looked out the window in the dim moonlight. She finally mended Pei Zhiji's clothes that were scratched by branches.
Otherwise he wouldn't even have a change of clothes.
"You can just hold off for now. My parents are still in Yunshui County. I'll just say I'm here to tidy up the piano room. Uncle Zhang can't take me back no matter how anxious he is."
Fangdian nodded, closed the door when she went out, and added two bowls of warm water to the little yellow dog's sink.
Just as I was about to turn off the lights and go to bed, I heard the very untimely sound of a vase falling to the ground next door.
During the first few days after Pei Zhiji became blind, there were occasional sounds of things falling in the house. After getting used to it for a few days, this kind of sound hadn't happened for a long time.
Quickly slipping on the embroidered shoes beside the bed, Lu Suizhu pushed his door open anxiously.
The window trembled slightly and creaked. It turned out that a skinny tabby cat crawled in through the gap in the window and accidentally knocked over a white vase with its hind legs.
As if it knew it had made a mistake, it curled up into a furry ball on the ground, looking at Lu Suizhu who suddenly came in with a sharp look in its eyes, its fur slightly standing up, in a defensive posture.
"What happened?" Pei Zhiji asked.
"Nothing, just a naughty tabby cat came in."
Walking past the kitten without a care, Lu Suizhu raised his arm and removed the wooden poles supporting the window one by one and put them aside.
"After all, we're in the mountains. You can't see anything now. If something alive comes in again, it's better to lock it up tightly."
When he reached the window closest to Pei Zhiji, he stood up abruptly, his expression showing a hint of suspicious panic: "I'll do it myself, you go out first."
Although it was a bit strange, Lu Suizhu still nodded, grabbed his sleeve and put it on the window, letting him do it himself.
Xu Shang felt that it was not appropriate for a single man and woman to be in the same room so late at night. He had always been a man who followed the rules, so Lu Suizhu didn't think about it anymore and turned around to push the door open to leave.
At this time, I heard the man behind me say: "There is blood in the cat's mouth."
I just took a quick look at it, and now it's squatting down, and sure enough, it has a piece of rotten meat in its mouth.
"The surface is smooth, and doesn't look like animal flesh. But the color is dark, so it must have been dead for a few days." Pei Zhiji took down the oil lamp on the table with ease and examined it carefully under the light.
After talking for a long time without Lu Suizhu saying a word, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
After adjusting himself mentally for a long time, he finally forced himself to look into the questioning, angry, aggrieved and unwilling eyes of the pretty woman in front of him.
Pei Zhiji was not good at dealing with young women. He had no idea that a person's eyes could have so many complex emotions. What was even more incredible was that he could see every emotion.
"Listen to my explanation..."
"Pa——" Before he could finish his explanation, a slap filled with resentment came down like the wind.
A rare expression of surprise appeared on his handsome face. Pei Zhiji, who had never been beaten before, was stunned for a long time before he stood up, took off his clothes from behind, and draped them over Lu Suizhu's exposed shoulders.
"When will you see it? How long have you been lying to me? You just watched me wandering around naked in front of you without saying a word, and I was so kind as to sew clothes for you."
The clothes that had just been mended were ruthlessly thrown to the ground along with questioning.
"I really just saw it, really." His voice was no longer calm as before, with a hint of anxiety in his defense.
When Lu Suizhu looked at him intently, the familiar eyes and brows were revealed again, the white cloth around the bridge of his nose disappeared, and his pupils were as black as ink, like a gradually receding tide, revealing a clean and beautiful background.
He still stood somewhat stiffly on the opposite side, with a noticeable red mark on his angular jaw.
If it were in the past, she would never dare to hit Pei Zhiji, but now she has become more and more courageous. When she calms down and thinks about it, he is not that playboy, and she is not as beautiful as Wang Qiang. There is really no need for him to deceive her.
She straightened the man's loose coat and slowly straightened up. Her feet were a little numb from squatting for so long, and she staggered when she stood up.
Pei Zhiji originally took half a step forward, but when he reached out his hand, he retracted it, fearing that he would lose his composure, so he hesitated for a long time. In the end, what he received in his hand was the clothes that Lu Suizhu had handed him, the clothes that he had worn when he first came to Fanxi and that were torn in the forest.
"It's not sewn very well. If you don't like it..."
"It's pretty good, no worse than the embroiderers in the palace." After saying that, he folded the clothes and put them neatly into the empty closet.
"How do your eyes feel? Are you feeling any discomfort? I'll ask the doctor to check you out tomorrow."
"……good."
He was a little hesitant in his response. Lu Suizhu's change of mood made him feel very... weird. If it weren't for the burning pain still on his face, he would have doubted whether the slap just now was real.
The tabby cat on the ground hid under the cabinet for a long time. The meat that it had finally found in its mouth fell out of fear. While no one was paying attention, it whooshed out of the window.
He accidentally stepped on a broken vase on the ground and let out a long, painful whimper.
Their eyes met briefly, and then the two people in the room followed the cat, one in front and one behind.
The cat's paws were blown apart and the broken vase made it cough up blood. Its light body was dragged down by one foot and it had to limp into a deserted forest.
Looking at the surrounding scenery, it was the miasma that Pei Zhiji accidentally entered that day. He put one hand behind his back, and once bitten by a snake, he couldn't help but feel alert.
Miasma suddenly appears in the morning and disappears without a trace in the evening. Many people are unaware of this law and only know that miasma can kill people, so this place has become a completely deserted place.
Spots of sparse light shone through the gaps in the forest onto the men and women traveling with them. Lu Suizhu rubbed her arms lightly. Although she wasn't cold, she still felt a chill on her body. She took every step forward tentatively.
"ah--"
I don't know what I stepped on, it was a soft lump. I kicked it and it turned over due to inertia. Lu Suizhu screamed in surprise, goosebumps all over her body, and she felt like her soul was about to fly away.
"Don't be afraid, I'm still here."
Although Pei Zhiji was frightened by the sound, he still kept his voice down and appeared very calm.
He picked up a thick branch and used the blunt end to dig up the "thing" lying motionless on the ground. He turned it over with force and breathed a sigh of relief: "It's okay, it's not alive."
Aren’t dead people scary anymore?
"The living are more terrifying than the dead."
He used a wooden stick to pick at the clothes on the corpse, which were no longer in their original appearance, and suddenly said this, which scared Lu Suizhu who was lost in thought.
Could this guy be able to read minds?
He turned the corpse over and over, tilting his head from time to time, then suddenly squatted down, lightly pinched with two fingertips, and used a little skill to push open the collar of the corpse, revealing a dark hairy chest.
I turned my body and in the bright moonlight, I could clearly see the tattoo on my collarbone.
"He's on death row."
"Death row?"
Lu Suizhu often went to the county government office and was very familiar with the officers. She knew a lot about the county government. She squatted down and checked with Pei Zhiji: "That's not right. My father said that after execution, the death row prisoners would be thrown into the mass grave and burned. How could he be here?"
"Will someone pay to buy his whole body?"
"No, my father has always been an upright official and has always been strict in his administration. Such a thing would never happen."
Hearing her firm tone, Pei Zhiji opened his mouth but didn't say anything. He had been an official since he was young and had been in the officialdom for many years. He was used to seeing all kinds of people. The complexity of human nature could not be summed up by the word "honest".
"There must be more than one body nearby. You go back first, I will go look for it myself."
"It's a dark and windy night. I'd be so worried if you got lost."
The woman in front of him was clutching her fingers tightly and forcing a smile on her lips. Pei Zhiji did not expose her fear, and his voice was surprisingly gentle in the quiet of the night.
"Okay, let's go together."
As he had expected, he found three or four bodies, all in varying stages of decay. Lu Suizhu, having initially been terrified, felt somewhat numb. "How could such a thing happen in Fanxi? I'm going to report it to the authorities tomorrow."
"What's behind this miasma?" Pei Zhiji pointed in a direction.
"Oh, that place. I heard from the old people in the county that there used to be an iron mine on the top of Xiaofeng Mountain. Later, miasma often appeared in the forest, killing many people, so the iron mine was naturally abandoned."
As she spoke, Lu Suizhu reacted: "Are you suspicious?"
"Indeed, although miasma is terrifying, it also serves as a natural protective shield. The prince will definitely choose a secluded location to open a mine. Furthermore, any mine requires a certain number of laborers. If he openly recruits ordinary locals, the authorities will quickly notice."
"So they sneak these death row prisoners out to work. After all, no one cares about dying people. If they try to escape, they are killed directly. Even if they manage to escape, they will probably die in the miasma."
The more Lu Suizhu thought about it, the more horrified she felt. A chill rose up from her back: "No, I have to tell my father about this serious matter immediately."
"All of this is just speculation. With so few bodies, it'll be hard for the county government to file a case. Let's not rush to report it..."
Pei Zhiji paused here, and the next words seemed a little difficult to say. He looked into Lu Suizhu's eyes and spoke in a very serious tone.
"Can you help me steal the key to the county jail?"
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