Back to Seven Years Ago (2)
He'an had quieted down. Zang Yue saw that it was more alert than ever, with a fierce look in its eyes, trying to scare the person away.
The man was very tall, and Zang Yue had to tilt his head back to see his chin.
"Who are you?" Zang Yue asked again, struggling quietly, but found that his legs were still unable to move for no reason. When he exerted force, he fell to the ground.
"My name is Shuixi." The man squatted down, showing a beautiful and kind smile, and held out his hand to her. "There's something wrong with this family. Everyone tends to avoid them. Are you new here? How dare you walk here?"
Zang Yue couldn't rest assured, but seeing the man's sincerity, she grasped his arm. Unexpectedly, the restraints on her legs vanished. Couldn't this have been his doing? Zang Yue suspected it, but the man looked like a fool, his eyes blank, his laughter unexplained. He'an leaped onto Zang Yue's body and meowed softly.
"Why is it wrong? Are they catching thieves?"
Shuixi looked fearful and uneasy. After looking around, he said to her, "They catch invisible things. Let me tell you, they catch a lot of them. They put them in jars, gourds, and even mirrors. I've seen them."
"Will that really work? How come I'm trapped too?"
"What?" Shuixi was horrified and threw herself against the wall, clinging to human skin like a leech. "You mean you... you're not human... are you..."
This tall man was actually frightened and started crying. Zang Yue found it funny and lowered his guard.
He'ai suddenly let out a sharp cry, almost breaking his voice, and was about to pounce on him. Zang Yue quickly grabbed him, stroked his fur on his back, and comforted him, "It's okay, don't get excited, my baby He'ai, be good..."
Zang Yue originally wanted to leave this unknown stranger, but when he saw him curled up and crying even harder, he couldn't help but say, "Don't be afraid, I'm leaving and I won't hurt you."
The man clung to Zangyue's legs, crying like a fool, and Zangyue couldn't get away. He'an broke free from Zangyue's embrace, leaped onto Shuixi's shoulder, and struck him on the head again and again with his claws. This time, Zangyue couldn't stop him.
"Sister, please don't leave. I know you are a good person. My brother was captured by that old man. Can you help me? My brother..."
She speaks so fluently, and doesn't seem stupid. Meddling in other people's affairs will only bring disaster upon you. There are so many pitiful people in this world, and her life is also very important. He's warned many times that this person is dangerous.
"I'm not a good person." Zang Yue raised his fist and threatened, "Let go!"
The man continued to make a scene, so Cang Yue had no choice but to knock him unconscious with a palm strike and drag him to another alley to hide. It was getting late, so she had to find someone willing to help and rush to the next location as soon as possible.
The sky grew darker, the air colder. Suddenly, a ghostly wind blew, and Cang Yue felt a chill run down her spine. Ahead, there was light, and raindrops fell slantingly. He Yan warmed her face with his body, his claws gripping her shoulders tightly, his eyes fixed on the front.
Long-lost memories slowly returned to her. For a moment, she thought she was back where she grew up. How could this be possible? Could anything be impossible? Wandering around, wandering, and back to where she grew up. Aren't there many stories like this? He kindly licked her neck, and her mind suddenly cleared up, knowing that it was absolutely impossible.
"Hello..." Zang Yue saw a hurried person ahead and quickly stepped forward to ask for help. In the dead of night, even she herself felt that the chances of a good person appearing were slim.
The man stopped, walked towards Zang Yue in the fog, and lit the lantern in his hand.
Lanterns. What time was it? They were carrying lanterns as they walked down the street. Cang Yue first saw the light, then made out the man's face in the candlelight. He was a kind-looking old man in a coarse robe, with two gourds hanging from his belt. They were what workers usually used to hold water or wine. She knew them well.
How come I'm suddenly back to a familiar place?
"Where is this?" she wondered.
"This is Xitang Street in Taohua Town, Luqi Mountain."
No, no one would introduce it like that. They'd say, "This is the territory under Lu Jingchang's jurisdiction. There's a towering stone gate on the east side. See it? Go there and leave your name." She was all too familiar with it.
Zang Yue had no idea why she had suddenly ended up in such a place, but she knew that the only thing she could do in this situation was to run, and run non-stop.
The fog thickened, making it pitch dark. Cang Yue lowered her head, unable to see He'an in her arms. If she ran any further, she might run into something. She had no choice but to stop. He'an climbed from her arms onto her shoulders, its eyes glowing green. Its small body acted like a fan, sucking in the surrounding fog.
The surroundings returned to normal. He'an jumped off Zangyue's shoulders, landing face first on the ground and falling. Zangyue knew he was getting weak, so he carefully picked him up and comforted him softly, "Don't be so stubborn, He'an. No matter what happens, we just need to be together. I don't need you to protect me desperately. I don't want anything to happen to you and leave me alone."
For her, being alone is more terrifying than death.
She ran forward again, desperately wanting to escape that troubled place. She ran until she was out of breath, wondering if she had stumbled into another time or dimension. Before her was a long bridge, its sides illuminated by bright streetlights. The moon, half hidden in the sky, quietly observed the world's events. The wind was still, without a sound.
"We are safe." Zang Yue said to He Ai.
She decided to rest for a while, so she walked slowly along the bridge. The water flowed silently, and a cool breeze blew through her hair, as if it had finally settled after years of surging. As she walked, she saw someone walking on the opposite side.
She stopped, and the person continued walking. Her eyes fixed on the person, she moved forward like a zombie. Zang Yue could see clearly that it was a girl in her teens, wearing a sky-blue princess dress and a striking red bow in her hair. Zang Yue had a premonition that something was amiss and was about to flee, but she hesitated. Then she saw the girl climb onto the bridge's guardrail and inched forward.
It's over! She couldn't just ignore it. Zang Yue abandoned her kindness and quickly rushed over, jumping down the next second after the girl did.
The girl falling from the sky turned around and smiled at her. Zang Yue realized that she had been tricked again, but it was too late.
Something opened behind her. She felt a powerful gust of wind and a massive shadow enveloping her. Then, a golden necklace fell from above, brushing past her ear. The girl who had jumped into the river reached out and grasped the object, holding it firmly in her hand.
With a "boom" sound, water splashed everywhere. Zang Yue then entered the water.
A black shadow, shimmering with golden light, quickly ascended into the air, gathering its massive, spread wings in its embrace. Soon, it appeared steadily on the guardrail. It was a young boy, holding a limp cat. He held up a bronze mirror. The surface was covered in mist, and a small shadow moved within it.
"Didn't she teach you that if you keep the green mountains, you won't have to worry about having no firewood to burn?"
Such a sentence was left in the dark night sky, floating away lightly, as if nothing had happened.
It was the sound of rushing water. Once, on the only rainy night she'd been out on horseback, she'd stopped at a crossroads and heard the rain on the road turning into a stream. A familiar memory slowly unfolded before her eyes. She gazed at the pitch-black sky, took a step, and something fell from above. She reached out her hand, and in the light from the eaves of the houses on either side of the road, she could see it was a drop of water.
Then the water droplets grew denser, stretching out from before her eyes into the distance. The road from her memory also unfolded. It all happened so quickly that Lu Cangyue half suspected she was dreaming, but she felt the dampness on the stone wall again. From somewhere, the neighing of horses echoed, and the drunken chatter of men in a nearby tavern reached a crescendo.
It was indeed at this time. Back then, she was still thinking, while everyone else was enjoying their own happiness, she had to go out and fight for her own future. That hateful old fraud lived in their house, ate their food, and even used nonsense to persecute her, so she had to go and settle the score...
She stood in front of the Taoist temple halfway up the mountain, looking back at the tiny sparks of fire along the path she had taken. Her memories suddenly became confused. There had been no light on the road that day. She had bravely made her way here out of sheer fury, now drenched in mud and utter disgrace.
The flames along the way should have been a memory from later. She stared at the scene, drenched in the rain, the torches burning brightly, faintly illuminating the shadows of certain animals. She should have noticed something was wrong, but now she stood there, staring blankly at it all, without any reaction.
They'd just been ambushed on the road, and she'd effortlessly snatched the enemy's weapon, chased him here, and kicked down the door. They were worshipped like gods, but to her, Lu Cangyue, we were all just human. Why could he control someone else's life with just a single word? She thought so, but couldn't say it. Sometimes, she'd just say such things at home in a moment of desperation, and the result was, of course, a severe reprimand.
Now, she couldn't be afraid anymore. Otherwise, she would have to marry that inherently evil young man and ruin her entire life. The moment the door was kicked open, lightning and thunder flashed in the sky, and she seemed to see a tiger in mid-air.
"So it's the third daughter of the Lu family. What brings you here so late at night?"
On the nine steps above, dim yellow candlelight flickered brightly inside the gate of the Yunsheng Hall. A young man stood in the center...
Her memory of that person's face was already very hazy. She couldn't remember the most important person, though. She remembered the face of the man she had just fought with very clearly. That young man was hiding behind someone, a look of fear and timidity on his face. He looked like a bully, a double-faced, and a scheming villain.
The person who was talking to her was an old man in his fifties with an immortal look. He had actually walked down the steps and touched the head of one of the guardian lions.
Lu Cangyue threw the Tiema Guanhua in his hand to the ground and said, "You old thieves, what hatred do you have against me?"
She couldn't remember how the other person responded. She waited for him to act, to give her a clue. But she couldn't remember, and the people and scenery in her eyes began to blur.
"You really don't remember?"
Someone was whispering something in her ear. She suddenly became alert, instantly awake. It was the spring scenery; she could feel it. But so what? The person whispering in her ear was a demon, asking over and over again, "You really don't remember?"
"I met you first..."
"I fell in love with you first..."
"You said you wanted to marry me..."
How could it be? She opened her eyes, and the face she was about to see flashed by, just as the joy of dreaming about her beloved was fleeting.
Just as she was about to regain consciousness, stricken by loss, another voice echoed from behind her. She paused, her heart racing. The voice drew closer. She could never tell whether he was calling her "Yue'er" or "Yue-ah." He lowered his head in thought for a moment, then smiled and explained that it was something in between. He called it that way deliberately, because the book contained many words for "moon," and when he recited it, he couldn't avoid thinking of her name, and fearing his father would discover, he blurred the pronunciation.
At that time, she saw love in his eyes. And in his eyes was her, and he kept calling her name.
That's not right! Why can't I see his face? Lu Cangyue walked forward in a daze, hoping to find him hiding, but the road ahead became increasingly desolate.
"Don't look back, just keep going forward..."
Those were his last words to her.
She walked out. She found herself in a void, with only a mirror of water before her. She felt like a fish trapped in an aquarium.
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