Chapter 957 Return to Beijing
When Yun Kexin called out "Mom", everyone present was stunned.
Even Yu Sanniang, who was crying bitterly, stopped crying.
She turned her head, opened her eyes filled with tears, and stared at Yun Kexin blankly.
It took her a long time to find her voice, and she asked with a sob.
"Kexin, you, you can speak now?"
Li Qingyan was also shocked.
So much so that his hold on Yun Kexin loosened a little.
Yun Kexin took the opportunity to break free from Li Qingyan's arms, rushed over and knelt beside Zhou's grave, crying and shouting.
"Mother, mother!"
She only knew how to say this one word, over and over again.
My voice became hoarse from shouting.
Li Qingyan finally came to his senses.
He walked over, knelt down in front of Zhou's grave, and promised earnestly.
"Mom, don't worry. Since I have already sworn to heaven and earth with Ke Xin, she is my wife. I will take good care of her and never let her suffer the slightest injustice. I will never let her down in this life!"
After saying this, he leaned forward and kowtowed three times.
A gust of wind blew, blowing up a few fallen leaves.
One of the fallen leaves happened to fall in front of Li Qingyan.
It was as if Zhou was responding to his promise.
Xiao Lingfeng found a relatively flat stone to serve as Zhou's tombstone.
Li Qingyan used the pen, ink, paper and inkstone he carried with him to write a line of words on the tombstone: "The Tomb of My Mother, Ms. Yun Zhou", and at the end he added a line of small words with the time, year, month and day.
Next to Zhou's tomb is Yun Changsheng's tomb.
The husband and wife's graves stand side by side, close to each other.
At the time, there were not enough stones suitable for making tombstones, so many surplus graves had to be made with wooden boards.
Li Qingyan wrote words on each tombstone so that they would have a grave to rest in and would not be left exposed in the wilderness and become pitiful wandering ghosts.
The conditions in the mountains are limited, and there are definitely no gold ingots, paper money or anything like that.
Fortunately, Li Qingyan brought some fruits, snacks and candies this time.
They placed the food in front of each grave as an offering to the villagers who had died tragically.
After the funeral was over, everyone packed up and prepared to go down the mountain.
Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang were reluctant to leave Dafu Village.
But they knew very well in their hearts that Dafu Village was gone, and even if they stayed, everything would never go back to the way it was before.
Moreover, it was difficult for two weak women like them to survive in the deep mountains and forests. Leaving here was their only way out.
Xiao Lingfeng asked someone to bring two horses over for Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang to ride.
With horses as their means of transportation, they can travel much more easily along the way.
The group left Dafu Village and slowly walked down the mountain.
Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang couldn't help but look back and take a last look at Dafu Village.
This is where they were born and raised, and it is the home they are most attached to.
Today they are leaving this home.
I don’t know when I will be able to come back.
Maybe I'll never come back.
Everything in the past has turned to ashes.
The road ahead is still uncertain.
…
After leaving Huafu Mountain, Xiao Lingfeng sent people to the nearby villages and towns to inquire whether anyone had seen Yu Jiu and his gang.
Li Qingyan took Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang to the county government office.
The magistrate of Raohe County said that he had never heard of the existence of Dafuzhai before.
He also arrived at Dafu Village yesterday and saw the more than one hundred charred corpses with his own eyes. Only then did he realize that there was such a large village hidden in Huafu Mountain.
Over the years, the government has never been to Dafuzhai to collect taxes and recruit soldiers.
Strictly speaking, this should be considered as dereliction of duty on his part.
If the people in Dafu Village were still alive, the county magistrate would definitely order people to record the information of all these villagers in the household registration book and order them to pay all the taxes that they had missed in these years.
But almost everyone in the village had died, leaving only two lonely and pitiful women.
What else can the county magistrate do?
I can only hold my nose and bear it.
Since Dafuzhai has been living in seclusion for many years, it has never paid taxes or performed military service, and there is no record of it in government archives.
This also means that Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang do not have a formal household registration.
To put it bluntly, they are two illegal residents.
Li Qingyan brought them to the county government office in order to register them so that they could walk in the world with dignity in the future.
With Li Qingyan, the Minister of Personnel, personally watching over the matter, the magistrate of Raohe County did not dare to be negligent in the slightest. He helped to finalize the household registration as quickly as possible and considerately wrote Yun Kexin's name into Li Qingyan's household registration.
In this way, they became an officially recognized legal couple.
Li Qingyan took everyone to a restaurant for dinner.
Because Yun Kexin and Yu Sanniang were still in mourning, all the dishes they ordered were vegetarian. There was not even any tea, and they could only drink water.
Li Qingyan picked up some food for Ke Xin while speaking to Yu Sanniang.
"Ke Xin is already my wife. She will definitely go back to Shengjing with me. Do you want to go with us? Or do you have any other plans?"
Yu Sanniang was very conflicted.
Her natal family and her husband's family were both from Dafu Village. Now they were all dead, and she had no relatives in this world. Yun Kexin was the only person she was familiar with, and she didn't want to be separated from Yun Kexin.
But she and Yun Kexin were just neighbors, not real relatives. If she followed Yun Kexin to join Li Qingyan, she would appear too shameless.
Yun Kexin put down her bowl and chopsticks, took Yu Sanniang's hand, and spoke slowly, enunciating each word.
"Let's go, together."
Ever since she called out "Mom", it was as if her Ren and Du meridians were opened and she could finally speak.
But because she was not used to it, she spoke very slowly and her tone was a little strange.
Yu Sanniang looked at her hand being held and felt deeply moved.
At this time Li Qingyan also spoke.
"Kexin just lost her mother. If you can stay with her, it will make her feel more relaxed."
Yun Kexin nodded vigorously, agreeing with Li Qingyan's words.
Yu Sanniang looked at the couple and couldn't help but tears up in her eyes.
She choked up and said, "Thank you."
She had always lived in Dafu Village and had never been exposed to the outside world. She knew nothing about the people and things outside and she didn't have a penny on her.
If Yun Kexin and Li Qingyan were unwilling to take her in, she really didn't know how to survive, and her future days would definitely be extremely difficult.
Li Qingyan said: "Let's eat. When you are full, go to the inn and take a nap. When you are fully rested, we will set off back to Shengjing."
Thanks to his efforts, tax reform in Fengyang County has been put on the right track.
He also trained some reliable personnel in Fengyang County.
Even if he left Fengyang County, those people could take over his job and continue to supervise tax reform.
The next day, the group left Raohe County by horse-drawn carriage and returned to Shengjing along the official road.
Taking advantage of the fact that he had nothing to do on the way, Li Qingyan began to teach Yun Kexin how to speak, and also introduced his family situation to her in detail.
(End of this chapter)
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