Chapter 10 On the riverbank behind us, right...
On the riverbank behind them, right where the little boy was lying, a pale, long shadow appeared. By the moonlight, it could be clearly seen that it was a young man slowly walking out of the darkness, holding a bamboo umbrella. Because of the umbrella, only his almost paper-white chin and the coarse cloth robe of indistinct color could be seen, the appearance of a young scholar.
On the other person's thin, bony hand, a leaf that had not yet fallen was lightly held between the index and middle fingers.
Wei Yin recognized him immediately and soon noticed that with his appearance, the whirlpool that was dragging her body into the water seemed to tense up and shrink back.
The young man easily parted the bamboo leaf between his fingers and let it fall to the ground. Seeing that the vortex still refused to recede, he frowned, turned his head, and quietly gazed at the stone house, his voice soft.
"Young lady, please step back."
Then, slowly, a young bride, wearing an ill-fitting wedding dress, appeared in front of the previously empty stone house, sitting curled up in the corner with her knees drawn up to her chest.
This was an extremely young girl, who looked no more than thirteen or fourteen years old. She was pitifully thin, but her long hair was exceptionally black and smooth. Her entire face was buried in her hair, and a soft voice came from within it.
"Father, why did you lock me up here? I don't want to be locked up here. I'm so scared. There's no one here at night, and I can only hear a lot of strange noises."
"Father, I'm so hungry. I want your noodle soup. Ah Zhu loves Father's noodle soup the most."
"Father, I'm so thirsty. I want to drink water. My hands hurt so much. Why are these stones so hard?"
It's unclear what she saw, but the well-behaved little girl's voice immediately turned shrill and high-pitched: "Ah... a snake has come in! A huge snake! It's going to bite me! Please save my father, please...!"
However, the sharp sound quickly faded away.
"Father, is it because Azhu stole the sesame candy meant for the guests during the New Year that you locked Azhu up here to punish her? Azhu knows she was wrong. Azhu will never be so disobedient again and will behave well. Mother is gone, but Azhu will take good care of her younger siblings for Father..."
As the last "Father" faded, she finally peeked out from her long hair, revealing a very young face. Her eyes were glazed as she looked around. When her gaze fell on Lu Hun's figure under the umbrella, she trembled as if she had seen something extremely terrifying.
She bit her lip, glanced at the little boy at his feet with great resentment, and then looked at Wei Yin, who was almost sinking to the bottom of the water. Her pitiful appearance suddenly changed, becoming resentful and vicious.
"You can't escape—"
After saying that, he suddenly buried his face in his knees and curled up into a ball, and then suddenly disappeared.
As soon as the strange little bride disappeared, the river on Wei Yin's side immediately returned to normal. However, she was exhausted and had no strength to climb back to the shore. She could only cling to the bank to keep herself from sinking.
The strange young man holding the bamboo umbrella still stared at the corner where the little bride had been sitting, his chin drooping. After a while, he seemed to remember something, turned around, and walked towards Wei Yin step by step.
His feet touched the ground without making a sound, and even his shoes were clean, without a speck of mud on them.
A moment later, Wei Yin saw a long, thin, bony hand reaching out in front of him, as if it had been dead for a long time.
Wei Yin trembled as she looked up, her gaze meeting that of Lu Hun, her classmate who had died many years ago, and his gloomy eyes hidden beneath the gray-green ribbed umbrella.
These are deep-set, extremely gentle eyes, yet no matter who they look at, they always carry an intense, inescapable sorrow and melancholy.
"Hold my hand." In a daze, she heard him say to her in the same dull voice as when he was alive, "Come up."
...
Wei Yin returned to the riverbank, picked up the little boy, and checked his breathing. He had only fainted, but was not dead. She breathed a sigh of relief, and then nervously looked behind her.
Lu Hun emerged from the river and slowly walked towards her, his bone umbrella still held above his head. Seeing that he was about to come over, Wei Yin hurriedly pulled off the amulet she had previously hung around the little boy's neck.
But because she had been struggling in the water for too long, her hands were a little weak, and she couldn't manage to take them off for a while.
However, Lu Hun had already arrived in front of her with his umbrella.
In an instant, Wei Yin recalled his illicit intentions towards her back in school. She thought, "This is it, I'm doomed!" and cried out in panic, "Lu Hun, what are you doing?! My grandfather is the Grand Tutor, my husband is the top scholar in the imperial examination, and I even have a talisman bestowed upon me by the Emperor! If you try anything reckless, even if you die, I'll grind you to dust..."
Lu Hun remained silent, his melancholy and gentle eyes under the umbrella simply watching her frantically trying to grab the amulet while screaming, but unable to do so. Then, just as he had done in life, he lowered his head without a word, and under Wei Yin's astonished gaze, he reached out with his free hand and took the amulet off the little boy's neck with one hand, then silently handed it to Wei Yin.
Wei Yin stared in astonishment at the amulet lying quietly in his palm.
Lu Hun's low voice rang in her ear: "This is a peace charm made from the precious jade on the Emperor's crown. It has the protection of the Emperor's aura. When worn, ghosts and monsters generally dare not approach. Don't take it off casually in the future."
Wei Yin stared at him blankly, hesitated for a few seconds, and then quickly grabbed the peace charm back.
Lu Hun slowly withdrew his hand, tilted the bone umbrella, and seemed to realize that the rain had stopped long ago. So, he pulled the umbrella away in mid-air, and it magically disappeared from his hand. He glanced at her again, then lifted his foot and turned to walk into the darkness not far away.
Wei Yin stared blankly in the direction he had gone for a long while. Just when she thought he had left, Lu Hun returned.
When he returned, he was carrying a pile of firewood in his arms. Wei Yin stared wide-eyed at this "ghost carrying firewood" with great curiosity, wondering what he was going to do. Lu Hun seemed not to notice Wei Yin's strange gaze, and simply lowered his head to pile the firewood in front of her. Then, he took out a flint from his pocket and started lighting a fire with great seriousness.
Wei Yin secretly observed him, not daring to make a sound, and subtly pulled the equally soaking wet little boy closer to her.
A campfire was lit in front of her.
"You should dry your clothes first."
After he finished speaking, seeing that Wei Yin was still staring at him timidly, he turned around without saying a word and sat up by the river with his back to her.
Wei Yin looked up at his back. Lu Hun died when he was sixteen. However, he was already very tall when he was sixteen, not even shorter than He Wenqing, who was already a grown man. However, because he was too thin, his figure was much thinner than He Wenqing's.
Apart from his deathly pallor, he looked exactly as he did in life.
Wei Yin was initially quite intimidated by him; after all, who wouldn't be afraid of a dead person sitting next to them? But seeing him act just like he did in life, she felt he wasn't so scary anymore. She could only pretend to be calm and turn to stare at the blazing campfire. It was truly unbelievable that a male ghost was burning firewood for her to dry her clothes.
I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them.
Although she was no longer so terrified, she still dared not relax and didn't even dare to take off her outer clothes, leaving them on as she sat by the fire.
The unconscious little boy in her arms was also soaked through and could no longer be covered up, so Wei Yin simply held him and roasted him together.
The campfire crackled and popped in front of me.
Lu Hun, sitting alone on the riverbank, seemed completely silent. Sometimes, people even wondered if he had already left. Just when Wei Yin thought he might have left, she suddenly heard him speak.
“That Ah Zhu came for this child.”
Wei Yin was taken aback, and quickly remembered the incoherent words the little ghost girl who called herself Azhu had said in front of the stone house. She roughly understood that this Azhu was probably the eldest daughter of the farmer who had been married off to the River God, as told to her by Granny Liu.
Her father, in order to pray for rain, married her off to the River God and locked her in a stone house, where she starved to death.
Wei Yin recalled what Granny Liu had told her privately the day she returned to Huangzhou.
"That farmer had a neighbor who, one night, noticed that the lights were on in the farmer's children's room and could faintly hear children playing inside. At the time, the neighbor thought the children were just playing because they couldn't sleep, so he didn't think much of it. The next day, the neighbor happened to run into the farmer's youngest son and asked him, 'What were you and your siblings playing at night? You were laughing so happily.' And guess what the youngest son said, young mistress?"
"That little kid actually said that it was their older sister who came back to play with them!"
Wei Yin paused, looking down at the little boy in her arms. Could he be Azhu's younger brother...?
Lu Hun's voice was low and weak, as if devoid of strength, continuing to drift from behind her to her ear: "This year, the barren state suffered a severe drought, and the farmers couldn't survive. A-Zhu's father, to save his family, locked her in a stone house. When she died, she was starving and thirsty, and had been bitten by snakes and terrified. Her ten fingers were also raw from scratching against the stone house wall. Before she died, she harbored resentment towards her father and her family. You ruined her plans tonight, and she won't let you off—"
Upon hearing this, Wei Yin's hands, which were holding the little boy, began to tremble involuntarily. For a moment, she forgot her situation and even asked a "ghost" behind her a question.
"Then, what should I do?"
However, Lu Hun remained silent for a long time, as if he had already left. Wei Yin quickly turned around to look, but he had not disappeared. Instead, he was still sitting there, maintaining his motionless and gloomy posture. Wei Yin glanced at the full moon hanging high above and the dark blue riverbank, and felt that everything tonight was so strange, like a dream.
Slowly, she saw Lu Hun finally move: "Send this child back first."
A note from the author:
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