"Si Chengfeng, who are you? Why did you have this disease in your father's womb?"
Hua Qingcheng had so many questions about Si Chengfeng that she had never bothered to ask before. After all, everyone has secrets they don't want to share, just like her. But this time, seeing him in such agony from the cold attack, she couldn't help but ask.
Si Chengfeng, leaning weakly against the headboard, smiled wryly, his eyes hazy and his brows slightly furrowed, as if recalling some unpleasant past. Seeing this, Hua Qingcheng beside him could not help but put a light arm around his shoulders: "If you don't want to talk about it, then don't talk about it."
Hua Qingcheng's hug made Si Chengfeng feel warm in his heart. He looked at the woman who looked worried about him and smiled slightly and said:
"Chengfeng's real name is Lingfeng. He is the eldest son of the Si family, one of the four great families of Laifeng Country. He should have lived a life of glory and honor, but unfortunately, fate played a trick on him, and Chengfeng fell from the clouds in the sky to the mud on the ground."
Si Chengfeng closed his eyes slightly, then opened them again. His charming fox eyes were now filled with loneliness, and he continued to say quietly:
"My father, Meng Lishi, was brilliantly talented and incredibly handsome, and he also came from the century-old Meng clan. Back then, there was a saying in Laifeng Country, 'Lishi in the south, Lingyan in the north.' He and Feng Lingyan, the eldest son of the then-General's Mansion, were collectively known as the 'Laifeng Twins.'
My father, a man of both literary and martial talent, possessed a certain arrogance. At sixteen, he traveled, hoping to challenge Feng Lingyan for the title of Laifeng Kingdom's greatest talent. Unexpectedly, he encountered my mother, Si Tianyu, along the way, the woman who had brought him such misery.
At the age of seventeen, Si Tianyu was also beautiful, charming, and skilled in martial arts. His naive father fell in love at first sight with the woman who rescued him from the assassins of Luoshamen, but he didn't know that all this was just a conspiracy from the beginning.
The two, whose family backgrounds were comparable, their social status and appearances matched each other, faced few obstacles from their families and were quickly married. Si Tianyu, the eldest daughter of the Si family, who had been disfavored, married my father, Su Zushi, and received strong support from the Su family through the marriage alliance, becoming the new head of the Si family.
The newlyweds were sweet and happy, and their father, who was still looking forward to his future life, never imagined that the beginning of his supposed happy life would be a death warrant that would lead him to the underworld.
Seeing the tears on Si Chengfeng's face, Hua Qingcheng raised her hand to wipe away his pain and hugged him tighter. Si Chengfeng, immersed in the past, continued:
After their marriage, my father, who had always been in good health, became strangely weaker. That winter, after accidentally falling into a cold pond, he contracted a cold. Pregnant at the time, he was afraid to take any medication. Desperate for his son, he refused his wife, Si Tianyu,'s request for an abortion, and persevered through repeated bouts of the cold.
The following year, my father gave birth to me. His already frail body was further weakened. He also had to care for me, who had been suffering from a cold since my father's birth. This once stunningly handsome man could not escape the fate of growing old and haggard. Even more heartbreaking was the fact that his wife, Si Tianyu, who had previously shown him tender affection, gradually began to distance herself from him.
Finally, in the sixth year of their marriage, Si Tianyu married my future stepfather as a concubine, claiming that my father had a serious illness and only had one son, no daughters. It was then that my father learned that Si Tianyu's true love was her childhood sweetheart, her cousin, Nangong Chen, a bastard from the aristocratic Nangong family.
Looking at Si Chengfeng, whose vision was already blurred by tears, Hua Qingcheng's heart ached. She could only hug him and kiss away his sad tears.
"I'll never forget the Dragon Boat Festival twelve years ago. In the bleak and desolate main courtyard of the Si family mansion, my father and I both came down with a cold. As we were both in agony, festive music could be heard from outside the front yard..."
"Okay, that's enough, Si Chengfeng! Stop talking!"
Hua Qingcheng hugged Si Chengfeng distressedly, but the stubborn man did not intend to stop and continued to recount the past events in his memory one by one...
"Feng'er, it's so lively outside..."
Meng Lishi lay on the bed, his face pale, his hair disheveled, his lifeless eyes staring blankly outside the door, at the front yard full of guests and filled with joy and happiness. Finally, he felt a sweetness in his throat and spat out a mouthful of blood.
"I don't hear the rustling night rain, the withered flowers fall silently to the mortal world. Silently riding the wind, I return to my homeland, wordlessly waiting for my demise.
Time changes one’s appearance, and youth passes by without a trace.”
"Spring is short and rainy, and the water is gurgling. The water is dripping and singing softly, and the mountains are misty.
Mid-spring has arrived. Flowers are in bloom. The weather is warm yet cold. The wind blows through the cool night. Sleep is light, and my shadow is alone.
"Leaves fall and go with the wind, flowers wither and fade. When the song ends, people will disperse, so don't regret your friendship."
"The spring scenery is still intoxicating, with slanting wind and drizzling rain. Swallows linger and fly away, and the fragrance blows through the empty trees.
I still remember the beauty of that time, the red flowers and the willows leaning against each other. Looking back, I realize that the dream is far away, and I can’t help but feel sad.
…
Meng Lishi had empty eyes and recited the poems he wrote after his marriage one after another quietly, as if he was looking back at the past, lamenting the present, and despairing about the future.
"Dad, that's enough! Si Tianyu is simply a heartless person, she's not worthy of your deep affection!"
Five-year-old Si Lingfeng knelt on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down his face, and threw himself on Zurich, who seemed to have lost his soul and was dying.
Finally, Su Zushi, the once brilliant and gifted scholar of the Laifeng Kingdom, met his end at the age of twenty-two. He died six years after his marriage, on the night Si Tianyu, the woman he fell in love with at first sight, married her husband. As Si Tianyu embraced the newlyweds, Su Zushi, who had only experienced a brief moment of happiness in the main courtyard, closed his eyes forever with unspeakable sorrow. Like a moth drawn to a flame, like an ephemeral flower that blooms for a fleeting moment.
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