Chapter 577 Background (First Update)
Gu Jiao put away the tinderbox and slowly walked to Huangfu Xian's side.
Huangfu Xian appeared to be sitting here calmly, but little did people know that he had just undergone a harrowing rescue. His limbs were already injured, and after being submerged in the river, the wounds became extensively ulcerated.
Jingkong said he slept for two days, but that's because Jingkong only saw him sleeping for the two days since he moved here. Before that, it took three days to save him at the clinic and wait for him to pass the critical period.
"Does it still hurt?" Gu Jiao asked, "your wound."
Huangfu Xian paused, wanting to say it didn't hurt, but hesitated for a moment before truthfully saying, "A little bit."
There was a slight nasal tingling sound.
Gu Jiao pretended not to understand: "Let me see."
It was already dark, and there were no lights in the house, so she couldn't see anything.
Huangfu Xian did not refuse.
Gu Jiao rolled up his trouser leg.
Huangfu Xian was a little unaccustomed to it, but he tried his best to hold back.
Anyway, we can't see it.
That's what he thought.
Unexpectedly, Gu Jiao pulled out a small flashlight from her first-aid kit and turned it on with a snap.
Huangfu Xian's expression changed: "Didn't I say we weren't allowed to light lamps?"
Gu Jiao said, "This is not an oil lamp, it's a flashlight. I call this—turning on the flashlight."
Huangfu Xian: "..."
Huangfu Xian wanted to say that he was cheating, but then he was attracted by that little glowing thing.
"Where is this luminous pearl from?"
The only things Huangfu Xian had ever seen that glowed were fire and luminous pearls, but none of them were this bright.
"Want to know?" Gu Jiao asked.
"I don't want to." Huangfu Xian stubbornly turned his face away.
Gu Jiao smiled and knelt down on one knee, holding a flashlight in one hand and untying his gauze with the other.
Huangfu Xian suddenly grabbed her hand, held his breath, and said, "It's ugly!"
Gu Jiao raised her eyes and stared intently into them. Her gaze was just like Xiao Jingkong's—pure, clean, and without a trace of disdain.
Compared to Xiao Jingkong's childlike innocence, her eyes held a more convincing calmness.
Huangfu Xian's eyelashes trembled slightly as he slowly released his grip.
Gu Jiao unwrapped the gauze layer by layer, revealing the wound that she had stitched up.
"It's healing well, and there's no post-operative infection, but you still need to take your medication on time." After saying that, Gu Jiao went back to the east room to get a small medicine box and carefully changed his dressing. "If you're not in a lot of pain, I won't give you painkillers."
"Hmm," Huangfu Xian responded listlessly.
After Gu Jiao finished bandaging him, she began to clean up the medical supplies.
"How's that chubby kid doing?"
Huangfu Xian suddenly spoke.
Gu Jiao said, "You mean Qin Chuyu? He's back in the palace. Lian'er is also in the palace. The Empress has some questions for her, but she won't make things difficult for her."
That night was dangerous; after she and Huangfu Xian fell into the water, she plunged a dagger into a rock in the middle of the river.
Long Yi defeated the men in black in a few moves, then leaped down and pulled her and Huangfu Xian ashore.
After that, they returned to the capital together.
Huangfu Xian turned his head and his gaze fell on her chin. He hadn't seen it when she was squatting, but now that she was standing up, the stitches were exposed to Huangfu Xian's view.
Huangfu Xian was stunned for a moment: "Your chin..."
Gu Jiao said nonchalantly, "I just got a scratch."
The wound was on the inside of his chin, very inconspicuous. Huangfu Xian was sharp-eyed, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to see it.
Huangfu Xian lowered his eyes and pinched his trouser leg with his fingertips: "Did you hit it underwater?"
Gu Jiao responded with a faint "Mm".
It was late at night and the water was splashing so hard that she couldn't see clearly. It was only when her chin was grazed that Gu Jiao realized there was a rock there.
Huangfu Xian said, "It's not worth it for someone like me."
Gu Jiao didn't say anything and continued with her work.
The house was quiet, but the sounds of cooking could be heard from next door and in the front yard from time to time. Little Ba was gnawing on Gu Yan's shoes again, with Little Jiu with it, while the other seven chickens obediently returned to their own cages.
Grandpa Zhao next door is scolding his youngest son, Aunt Liu in the alley is chasing geese, and Grandma Zhou is frying stinky mandarin fish again; the stench has even drifted all the way here.
Huangfu Xian looked at Gu Jiao's busy little figure again, and for some reason, a strange emotion suddenly welled up in his heart.
"She was very good to me when I was a child."
When Gu Jiao finished packing, Huangfu Xian spoke again, "She always took me out to play and cooked delicious food for me. When she went to provide relief to disaster victims, she would carry me on her back. The thing I remember doing the most was lying on her back and distributing porridge and herding sheep with her."
"Is life on the frontier always so hard?" Gu Jiao had been to the frontier and knew that the people there suffered greatly. She had also heard that Princess Ning'an had no royal baggage and endured hardship alongside the people.
But hasn't this exposed Ning'an's true colors? It inevitably makes one suspect that all that so-called hardship was just a show.
“I don’t feel bitter,” Huangfuxian said.
“That’s true,” Gu Jiao said.
Even when the countryside was so poor, Jingkong never complained about the hardships his family endured.
Sometimes what children want is actually very simple.
Huangfu Xian looked up at the dark, boundless night: "But then everything changed."
Gu Jiao looked at him.
Huangfu Xian stared intently at the brightest star in the night sky, as if reminiscing about some distant memory: "Ever since I broke my leg, she's become a different person. She's afraid to get close to me anymore, she doesn't like to carry me or hug me like before, and she doesn't let me sleep with her anymore. She said she's afraid of pressing on my wound."
“I was only five years old at the time, and I didn’t understand. As I grew older, I realized that she wasn’t afraid; she was disgusted. She was disgusted by my broken body, disgusted that I could no longer be a normal child, and she didn’t even want to be with me.”
“Every time I have bone reduction surgery, I hope she can be by my side. She doesn’t need to hug me, just hold my hand.”
"But she didn't."
Not even once.
Gu Jiao seemed to understand something. Huangfu Xian's aversion to him stemmed largely from his parents', especially Princess Ning'an's, aversion. It destroyed all his self-esteem and confidence. Compared to taking away his legs, Ning'an's various forms of violence were what truly dealt him a devastating blow.
Why doesn't his mother love him?
Just because he doesn't have legs?
What is the meaning of his life?
Gu Jiao looked at him and said, "Even after she treated you like that, you're still sad for her?"
Huangfu Xian remained silent for a long time before saying in a low voice, "...She is my mother."
...
In the pitch-black prison, Empress Dowager Zhuang stood calmly in the corridor, not taking a single step closer.
Eunuch Qin had already led the yamen runners elsewhere, leaving only a few trusted experts to guard the area.
Empress Dowager Zhuang said, "Tell me, when did you become Ning'an?"
Most people in the world can't bring themselves to admit their mistakes or break through the barrier between right and wrong, but Empress Dowager Zhuang was not like that.
She was not indecisive in the slightest.
When she speaks, she gets straight to the point.
Ning An lay on the ground, raised her head, and looked at Empress Dowager Zhuang with a half-smile: "I am Ning An, Mother!"
Empress Dowager Zhuang said coldly, "Even now that things have come to this, you still won't admit it!"
Ning An looked astonished and said, "What do I need to admit? I am Ning An! Ning An is me! Is Mother Empress senile? Don't you even remember the daughter you raised? If Mother Empress has changed her mind, just say so. If you don't love Ning An anymore, just say so. Why humiliate Ning An in this way!"
Empress Dowager Zhuang was not angered by her; she simply looked down at her as if watching an ant's last struggle.
Under Empress Dowager Zhuang's gaze, Ning An chuckled softly, her shoulders trembling with laughter: "Mother, your skill in framing people hasn't changed a bit! You framed my mother in the same way before, and now you're framing me!"
Empress Dowager Zhuang did not engage in a verbal argument with her, and simply let her laugh and talk to herself.
Every punch Ning An threw felt like it hit cotton. She gripped the wooden planks of the cell, pressing her cheeks tightly against the gaps between the planks. "Mother says I'm not Ning An. Do you have any proof? Mother, look at my face. Isn't it Ning An's face?"
Snap!
Empress Dowager Zhuang threw a stack of letters onto the walkway in front of Ning An.
Ning An lowered his gaze, slowly reached out, and took the letter through the crack in the cell door. By the dim light of the fire in the corridor, he carefully read through it.
With each page she read, her expression darkened. Halfway through, she suddenly tore the letter to shreds as if possessed!
"Nonsense! Nonsense! It's all nonsense!"
"I am Ning An!"
"I am Ning An!"
She was extremely agitated; the veins on her forehead were bulging.
Empress Dowager Zhuang glanced at her and said unhurriedly, "Very well, let me tell you a story. Where shall we begin? Let's start with the story of a noblewoman's daughter. This noblewoman was intelligent and courageous from a young age, and also possessed a beautiful appearance. However, her birth mother was not favored, and as a result, she was often bullied by her half-sisters at home. Once, on her way to a temple to offer incense, she met a wise man. The wise man and she hit it off immediately, and after several visits, they became close friends. After a year of contact, the wise man successfully persuaded his close friend to join a folk organization called the Red Lotus Society."
"The Red Lotus Society is actually another identity of the remnants of the previous dynasty, and this young lady has unsurprisingly become a henchman of the remnants of the previous dynasty. She was ordered to enter the palace through the imperial concubine selection to get close to the emperor. Her initial goal should have been to become the empress or the most favored concubine, give birth to a prince for the emperor, support him to become the crown prince, and then take the emperor's life. In this way, the country would fall into the hands of the remnants of the previous dynasty."
"Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. She neither became empress nor a favored concubine. In fact, the emperor didn't like her at all. She could only cling to the empress's coattails, and the empress lost a daughter. Coincidentally, she became pregnant only one month later than the empress. So she devised a plan and secretly prepared labor-inducing drugs to make her child be born prematurely on the same day as the empress's child."
"But what no one knew was that she was carrying another child. They were born just an hour apart, but the births occurred on two separate days."
"The two children never cry together. The older sister cries first, then the younger sister cries, and so on. To outsiders, it sounds like only one child is crying."
"The midwife who delivered her baby was her confidante, or more precisely, a confidante arranged for her by that mastermind. The fate of the two children was sealed from birth: one stayed in the palace, and the other was taken away."
"They will be two perfect pawns, even more perfect than she is as an imperial concubine. But who will stay in the palace as a princess, and who will be taken out to become a suicide squad?"
"The imperial concubine kept the firstborn sister, because the child was already lying in her arms and had taken her first milk, and she couldn't bear to let go of the child. She didn't even glance at the other one, and heartlessly had her taken away."
Ning An covered her ears: "Stop talking...stop talking..."
"Everyone is saying that the Empress dotes on that little princess because she was born on the same day as her own daughter, as if her daughter had been reincarnated. But in fact, the Empress dotes on her simply because she is indeed a beautiful and lovely child, and it has nothing to do with the so-called birth date."
"That child is lively and active, seemingly fearless, but in reality she is afraid of everything. She's just a paper tiger. She's afraid of the dark, especially afraid of it."
"But sometimes, she seems fearless. She likes to eat chestnuts, but occasionally she dislikes them. The Empress just thought it was childish and didn't take it to heart. The Empress certainly loved that child, but do you know when the Empress truly decided that she would never let this child down for the rest of her life?"
Ning An subconsciously pricked up her ears.
Empress Dowager Zhuang said, "It was on the night the Empress was banished to the Cold Palace. The Empress fell ill, and no imperial physician dared to treat her. That night, there was thunder and lightning, and the Empress lay alone on her bed in the Cold Palace, thinking that she might die. Unexpectedly, at that moment, a small, thin figure climbed over the wall of the Cold Palace and came in."
She pushed open the door, thunder and lightning chasing after her. Her small figure seemed about to be blown over by the strong wind at any moment, but she was not afraid. She rushed into the room, threw herself into the Empress's arms, and said to the Empress, "Mother, I have come to see you." "Mother, don't be afraid, Ning'an is with you."
Ning An's body suddenly stopped.
A flash of memory crossed Empress Dowager Zhuang's eyes: "It was at that time, the child who bravely ran to her in the lightning, the child who cut his hand while climbing over the wall, the child who fell many times on the road and bruised his knees... The Empress told herself that she would cherish her for the rest of her life!"
Ning An opened her eyes wide in disbelief.
“That child… even just once… just once… tell the Empress… she is not Ning’an… she is Ning’an’s sister…” Empress Dowager Zhuang’s throat choked, and she clenched her fingers under her wide sleeves.
Ning An's eyes gradually filled with tears as she stared blankly at Empress Dowager Zhuang.
Empress Dowager Zhuang took a deep breath, looked up, turned around, and gazed at the dimly lit corridor: "The Empress will save her, she will cherish her. She has no need to live in Ning An's shadow."
"Mother!" Ning An burst into tears and rushed over to grab the hem of Empress Dowager Zhuang's robe.
Mrs. Zhuang walked towards the exit expressionlessly.
A single, scalding tear rolled down her cheek, and she never looked back.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
