Ten days after Yinzhen left, Nan Yi spent a day each at the residence of the Eighth and Ninth Princes. In the evening, she summoned Yiren and gave her two thousand taels of silver. She gave five hundred taels to Qiu Ma and told her to keep the rest to reward the servants who performed well.
She had been looking forward to this day for a long time. The decision she had always hesitated to make finally came to her senses on the night Xiao Xi was injured.
Perhaps the price of her escape was high, and she had thought about arranging everything before leaving, but she didn't want to wait any longer. Every day she stayed here, she felt suffocated, and even the air smelled stifling.
Forgive her selfishness; the servants of Wanyue Pavilion have followed a heartless master.
She is Nan Yi, a soul from three hundred years in the future. Her life motto is free of resentment and compromise.
Life is precious, love is more precious, but freedom is the most precious of all.
Nan Yi packed up the important items: the silver notes he had saved over the past year, some loose silver, and two sets of men's clothing.
She wasn't wearing any jewelry. All the accessories she had were from different sources, and she had to cut them off, no matter how reluctant she was, to avoid revealing her whereabouts.
She covered the small bundle she was going to carry with her under the blanket and went to bed early. Perhaps because she was about to be free, she was in an exceptionally good mood and soon fell asleep.
"Qinglian," a gentle voice drifted into my ears.
She responded softly, then opened her eyes. Through a hazy mist, she could vaguely see a familiar figure standing in front of her.
"Bodhisattva, is that you?"
"Qinglian, come here," the voice said again.
Nan Yi took a light step and passed through the thin mist. In front of her was a sea of golden flowers in full bloom, and in the middle of the sea of flowers, a monk with a peaceful and serene face stood.
The flowers swayed freely without wind, each bloom displaying a unique and vibrant beauty.
"Bodhisattva, why did you summon me here?" She felt an inexplicable intimacy with the monk, as if they had known each other for thousands of years, like father, brother, and friend.
She walked slowly forward, and the flowers beside her swayed and nodded at her. Nan stroked them one by one, and the feeling conveyed by her fingertips told her that they were happy to see her.
The monk saw that she showed neither sorrow nor joy, her gaze was peaceful, and her eyes seemed to be looking at her, yet not at her; he was looking at... all living beings.
Nan Yi stood in front of him, smiling gently.
The monk suddenly smiled faintly, for he was born in the underworld, and he looked at the tall young man.
He took something out of his palm and handed it to her.
A blue lotus flower, the size of a fingernail, gradually unfolds and grows larger until it covers the monk's palm.
"Qinglian, you were originally a rare immortal lotus left over from the primordial world. You have cultivated into a human form through countless eons. Your destiny is not determined by the Three Realms and Five Elements. Do everything according to your heart's desire and do not harbor any unwarranted obsessions."
—Obsession.
Does she have some obsession? It seems, vaguely, that she is looking for someone.
"Who should I look for?" Nan tilted her head, unable to remember.
She reached out, and the blue lotus, as if seeing its master, automatically floated into her palm. A wisp of blue smoke rose, and the lotus entered her body, moving towards her hand veins and stopping on her wrist, like a mark, enchanting and beautiful.
"Bodhisattva, I only want to find him. Will it affect others?" Nan Yi heard herself say that she wanted to find someone who was very important to her.
But she had no recollection of who that person was; she couldn't find a single trace of him in her mind.
The monk raised his hand and gently stroked her head. "Qinglian, forcing things will only hurt yourself and others. You should think carefully about what you're doing."
Nan Yi felt a heaviness in his head, his mind went blank, and he suddenly woke up from his dream, everything in the dream already blurry.
She vaguely remembered that someone advised her to follow her heart and not to be obsessed with anything.
Nan Yi chuckled and got out of bed. There was no need to persuade her; she always did what she wanted and was happy as long as she was happy. What others did was none of her business.
It was already past midnight when she left a handwritten note on her dressing table, evaded the two guards, and easily climbed over the wall to leave the mansion.
The Fourth Master thought he could trap her with just two bodyguards, but he was unaware of her true strength. The poisoning had severely damaged her vitality, and she felt stagnation even when circulating her internal energy.
This time, perhaps due to proper rest, she was able to leap over the wall with unprecedented ease, her inner strength was abundant, and her power had returned to its peak state from her previous life.
The tonics that the Fourth Uncle took weren't for nothing.
Nan Yi privately thought it was because the Fourth Master's medicine was good, but little did he know that there was more to the story.
Finding a way out of the Forbidden City was no easy task. Nan Yi had already scouted the route. Half a month after the Fourth Master left, she hadn't been frivolous. The Emperor's walls weren't as sturdy as she had imagined. She found a dog hole and hid in the weeds.
This cave is well hidden, surrounded by piles of rocks, which is obviously the work of someone.
The old man took a group of concubines, his sons and daughters-in-law, and the wives of his favorite officials to escape the summer heat. They won't be back for at least two months.
Once Nan Yi left the city, she traveled day and night, rushing northwest, passing through Beijing to Yu County, and then turning to Datong to enter Chahar. Along the way, she heard from local herders that Sunite mutton was the most tender and delicious. Despite the hardships, she resolutely boarded a caravan heading to this place and traveled with them.
The caravan leader was a burly, dark-skinned man in his forties who frequently traveled between Zhangjiakou and Sunite. The caravan consisted of about thirty people and forty horses, which carried heavy goods instead of people.
They had been traveling for about half a month from inside the pass to outside the pass. In modern times, it would only take a few hours by car. Nan Yi wanted to go ahead, but unfortunately she didn't know the way.
Nan Yi's plan was aimed at the vast grasslands beyond the Great Wall. She bought two horses and some goods in Zhangjiakou, dressed like a traveling merchant, and so far no one has realized her identity.
She was naturally outgoing, generous, and straightforward, and became very close with a man in his twenties in the caravan.
The man's name was Chaolu, a Mongolian. According to him, his grandmother was also Han Chinese. She was sold to his grandfather as a slave, and the two fell in love over time. She married his grandfather and gave birth to six sons for him.
Not long ago, his grandmother passed away. She left a will expressing her deep longing for her hometown and hoping to be buried there.
Chao Lu said that his grandfather loved his grandmother dearly and had never been able to part with her, but the old man could not bear to go against his wife's wishes. Therefore, Chao Lu was ordered to send his grandmother back to her hometown for burial.
Chao Lu had thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes, and was tall and strong. Without listening to him speak, one would never guess that he had Han Chinese ancestry.
When they first met, he couldn't believe that Nan Yi was a Han Chinese. She was too thin and short, much smaller than the average Han Chinese.
Like a young boy who hasn't grown up.
At dusk that day, the caravan stopped to rest. Chao Lu rode his horse around for a while and came back carrying two rabbits, a male and a female, and a litter of baby rabbits that he had released.
The two sat around the fire, with Chao Lu roasting a rabbit while Nan Yi watched, his mouth watering. Chao Lu's cooking was simply too good. He used a knife to cut open the rabbit meat and sprinkled spices on it layer by layer. When it was almost cooked, the aroma was irresistible.
His greedy look made Chaolu laugh heartily. "Nanyi, when you come to my hometown, I guarantee you'll eat the finest mutton every day. Azhu (Chaolu's wife) is the most skillful girl in my tribe. Her roasted mutton will make you swallow your tongue."
"In that case, I won't stand on ceremony."
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