Chapter 129 How did she die?
The four stayed in the town for another two days. On the third day, they hurried to the thatched house in the northeast corner, but they waited and waited but still did not see anyone.
"What happened? Could Awan be lost?" Nangong Yan made this guess after hearing Xihe talk about Zhao Wanyu's amnesia.
"That shouldn't be the case. The old man said that my aunt often went up the mountain with that family." Xihe said.
Zhao Jinyuan looked at the sky and guessed, "Maybe we came too early. The mountains are difficult to walk in. Even if they want to go down the mountain, it will be daybreak."
The four of them were extremely anxious and rushed over early in the morning as soon as it was light.
Xiao Mingxuan nodded. "The mountain is very rugged and difficult to travel. Even if the princess is fast, that family can't be fast either. Let's wait."
The four of them waited by a rock nearby. After waiting for a long time, Zhao Wanyu did not show up. Instead, they saw a woman carrying a straw basket and holding a child by her side.
Xihe remembered what the old man said yesterday and hurriedly went to greet him, "Madam?"
The woman seemed to be startled and took several steps back. After meeting Xihe's innocent eyes, she turned around and forced a smile on her face, "Little girl, what's wrong?"
"Are you scared?" Xihe stepped back and put some distance between the two.
The woman smiled and shook her head, "I'm fine."
Xihe breathed a sigh of relief and quickly asked, "Excuse me, are you the owner of this room?"
The woman looked in the direction Xihe pointed and nodded, "Yes, I live here. Is there anything wrong?"
Xihe smiled and said, "Excuse me, why didn't the person living next door come back with you? Didn't she go to the mountains with you?"
As Xihe finished speaking, the woman's face changed drastically. "What girl? I don't know anything at all!"
"Ah?" Xihe blinked, a little confused.
Nangong Yan had a quick temper. If Xiao Mingxuan hadn't been holding him down, he would have rushed over. Upon hearing this, he broke free from his restraints and rushed over to demand, "Stop pretending! Someone told us that Ah Wan and you go in and out together, and go up the mountain to collect herbs every few days. Why do you say you don't know?"
For more than half a month, Nangong Yan hasn't had a good night's sleep. He wakes up every night, and nightmares invade him like a leech that can't be shaken off.
During the struggle, the straw basket the woman was carrying fell to the ground, and the child beside her started crying loudly in fear.
"Nangong! Calm down!" Xiao Mingxuan restrained the man and pulled him back.
Nangong Yan was on the verge of collapse after days of torture. "How can I stay calm? Ah Wan has been missing for half a month. I've searched everywhere I could! She's right here, but this person says she's not here!"
The woman pulled the crying child, her eyes full of fear.
Xihe walked over, squatted down in front of the backpack, took out a herb from it, and slowly asked, "Your life was not easy before, right?"
Perhaps because Xihe acted too harmless, the woman's trembling subsided a little. "That's not good. With the child's father gone, we're left alone, an orphan and a widow."
"Oh, really?" Xihe plucked a few leaves and put them in her mouth to taste. The taste was familiar and sweet. "Excuse me, my lady, what do you do for a living?"
The woman put the child aside, calmed down, and said, "My husband used to be a carpenter. I just do some needlework at home, and I can barely make a living."
"Is that so?" The smile on Xihe's face disappeared without a trace, and the wariness in his eyes made people feel cold in their hearts. "Aunt taught you to identify herbs to make life a little easier. Is this how you repay her?"
According to what the woman had just said, after the death of the mainstay of the family, they had been struggling to make ends meet, let alone buying new clothes. However, the clothes on the woman and the child were obviously new, so their family must have recently received some money due to some event.
The woman's face changed drastically, but Xihe had no intention of letting her go. She turned her eyes to the child next to her, and it seemed that something was hanging around the child's neck.
"Child, come here." Xihe smiled and waved to the child. The child did not have the adult's guard and walked over without any hesitation.
The woman wanted to follow, but Zhao Jinyuan stepped up and stopped her.
Xihe didn't look at the woman. Instead, she spoke to the child with a gentle smile, "Child, tell me, where is the sister who lives next door?"
The child subconsciously wanted to see his mother, but was blocked by Zhao Jinyuan.
Xihe followed the red string around her neck and pulled out a small jade stone. Its lustrous luster matched that of the green jade pendant. "This little pendant was given to you by your sister who lives next door, right?"
The child hesitated for a moment, then nodded, "It was given to me by my beautiful sister."
Xihe smiled knowingly, "You love your mother very much, right?"
The child nodded quickly, "My mother is very kind to me. She never lets me go hungry or cold."
"That's what family is like." Xihe recalled how she bumped into the eldest princess when she was hungry as a child. "The person living next door to yours is my family. She got lost half a month ago. We searched for her for a long time and finally found her here. I miss her so much. Can you tell me where she went? Why didn't she come back with you?"
"My beautiful sister..." The child turned his head and glanced in his mother's direction, whispering, "She...is dead."
For a moment, it seemed as if the wind had stopped, and only those hopeless words remained in my ears, circling around my ears like a ghost.
"Dead?" Xihe heard her own voice trembling, and then she was caught in a burst of empty sound. She didn't know when the wind stopped. The scene in front of her was dizzying, and her body fell backwards uncontrollably.
"Xihe!" Xiao Mingxuan was shocked and quickly stepped forward to hug the fallen Xihe.
Zhao Jinyuan was also stunned, and let the woman escape without paying attention.
The woman held the child tightly as she backed away, but her back bumped into another person. When she turned around, she saw Nangong Yan, who looked dazed.
"Xihe?" Xiao Mingxuan took out a porcelain bottle from his waist, poured a pill into it and fed it to Xihe's mouth.
After about a quarter of an hour, Xihe woke up and said, "I'm fine."
Her voice was hoarse and her eyes had lost their luster, no longer the same as before.
Xihe leaned on Xiao Mingxuan's shoulder, her face pale and her eyes filled with disbelief. She asked word by word, "How did she... die? Why did she die? How is this possible?"
The woman dodged and refused to say a word.
"Madam, that was my aunt, the one who treated me like a treasure since I was a child. Don't you think I can even know the cause of her death?"
No matter how much Xihe hoped that this was just a nightmare, she wanted to hear from the woman that this was just a joke, but the sky showed its disgusting face.
The woman shivered for a long time, her eyes fixed on the jade hanging around the child's neck. A tear welled up in the corner of her eye. "I rescued that girl from a town outside the Great Wall more than half a month ago. She didn't remember her name or where she came from, so I brought her back to Baili Town and she lived next to our house."
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