dormant
Anger, humiliation, hatred, and forbearance—this was the first time Zhong Yujing saw these emotions on a six-year-old's face. Yes, her uncle had told her that Princess Yao had taken her son back to Qing when he was six, and that Shangguan Yichen's personality had changed drastically since returning to Qi. That year, he was also six years old.
He was not as willful and mischievous as an ordinary child. Zhong Yujing could clearly see that his face was twitching, but he pursed his lips tightly and looked at Concubine Rou. His little hands were clenched into fists, and his fingertips turned white from the force. His whole body was shaking uncontrollably, but he sat there very calmly with great restraint.
After a while, I heard him say, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying in Qing Kingdom, staying with my mother!"
The tears that Concubine Rou had been holding back for a long time burst out again, and she tightly grasped his shoulders, "You must listen to your mother..."
He spoke first, "If it's as Mother said, then Uncle Prince Duan's next target will be Mother and me. In this moment of great disaster, Mother wants me to escape alone, abandoning you. If Father knew... how would I explain this to him?"
Concubine Rou cried and said, "If you have your father in your heart, then do as your mother tells you! Your father has only you as his blood, and you are the crown prince of Daqing. What did your father place his hopes on you when he was alive? Even for your father, for the future of Daqing, you must live! Prince Duan has colluded with the queen and will usurp the throne soon. Now if you and I stay in the palace, it will be a blessing to live one more day. When your aunt returns to Qi to visit her relatives, you can just follow her and escape from Qing. This is your father's wish in heaven. May the spirit protect you." Concubine Rou hugged him again and cried, "My son, if it weren't for the last resort, how could I bear to send you away to be someone else's child?" She closed her eyes and sobbed, gasping for breath a few times, sighing deeply, and then said, "No matter what happens in the future, you must remember what I said to you today. If you can achieve success in the future, like your father did in his lifetime, and kill the thieves to avenge your father, I will be at peace whether in heaven or on earth."
Zhong Yujing saw the small body trembling violently in Concubine Rou's arms. She pursed her lips tightly and endured it without saying a word.
But Concubine Rou gently pushed him away from her body, supported his shoulders, stared at him, and said softly, "Qing'er, as long as you can live safely, mother will be at peace. Mother just wants you to live well. Living is more important than anything else. You must always remember in your heart that you are a member of the Zishu family, and your name is Zishu Chen Qing."
The mother and child before her were getting farther and farther away, their figures gradually blurring… Darkness fell all around her again. When it lightened again, she was standing in a palace, not the same one she had been in. Vases and cups were shattered on the ground, and desks, tables, chairs, and incense burners were scattered everywhere. The palace was in shambles. Several palace maids and eunuchs knelt on the ground, weeping. In the center of the palace, a woman lay sprawled on the ground, motionless, a ten-foot-long white silk half-length still draped around her neck. Her face was tilted to one side, her eyes tightly closed, her complexion sallow, and she was no longer breathing. Zhong Yujing could clearly see that the woman was Concubine Rou.
Zhong Yujing's heart sank.
Suddenly she heard rustling voices at the back of the palace. She looked up and saw a young woman holding a young man quietly entering the back of the palace and coming out.
The young woman looked 70% like Concubine Rou on the ground. She was the young Princess Yao. The young man saw Concubine Rou lying motionless on the ground from a distance. He rushed out from Princess Yao's arms in panic and ran straight to Concubine Rou. After lying opposite her and observing her for a moment, he cried out in grief, "Mother!!!"
When Princess Yao saw this, she rushed over and covered the boy's mouth from behind. She looked around in fear, but seeing no one else around, she also burst into tears and asked the eunuch who was kneeling on the ground beside her. He was the older eunuch who had found the boy in the corridor, "Eunuch An, Concubine Rou was fine yesterday. How could she hang herself here?"
The eunuch's upper body climbed up from the ground and said to Princess Yao, "My Lady, Concubine Rou did not hang herself. She was strangled to death by someone sent by the Queen... The Queen specifically spread the word that Concubine Rou and the Emperor were deeply in love and followed the Emperor to his death."
Princess Yao's face was trembling. "What a sinister woman!" The young man in her arms cried even harder. She seemed to react suddenly. One hand was still covering the young man's mouth, but the other hand was holding him up, holding him up and saying, "Qing'er, we can't stay here for long. We shouldn't have come back. We must leave quickly. If they find you, you won't be able to leave anymore."
After saying that, he forcibly picked up the boy and dragged him out.
Zhong Yujing finally saw the young man's face, which was mostly blocked by Princess Yao. His entire face was soaked with tears, and he had an expression of crying, but he could not make a sound. Only sobbing could be heard, and he disappeared at the back door of the palace.
This was the third time Zhong Yujing saw him cry. She thought that he might have thought that all the tears in his life had been shed at that moment.
Zhong Yujing's thoughts began to flow backwards, and all the fragments were strung back on the thread like scattered beads.
This young man was the Shangguan Yichen she knew. He was the crown prince of Qing, the prince rumored by the people of Qing to have perished in the imperial power struggle, the son of the legendary Emperor Qing Huan, and a member of the Zishu clan. At the age of six, he was brought back to Qi by Princess Yao, living as their son. He hid in Qi for years, finally slaying King Yao in the first year of the Hongxi reign. He then avenged his father's death by personally decapitating Emperor Feng during the Great Battle of Qingqi. Why hadn't she, upon returning to the night of King Yao's murder, thought that the towering figure, half a head taller than him, possessing extraordinary agility, moving elusively, and accustomed to wearing dark, constricting clothing, clearly bore the same stature as him?
No wonder King Yao kept asking him how he knew and when he knew before his death. That was because King Yao had always thought that he did not know that Emperor Huan's death was related to him.
Since he was six years old, he lost his parents almost overnight. In more than ten years, he grew from a child to this, living with his enemies, enduring and lying dormant. When he was young, he followed King Yao to fight on the battlefield. Zhong Yujing remembered that Yi Shi once said that when he was seriously injured and unconscious, King Yao abandoned him and went back to the palace alone to receive the reward... Even Yi Shi could see that King Yao was not good to him.
In the eyes of the public, he was the son of a tiger father. Everyone said he inherited his father's ambitions, but only he knew that King Yao never treated him as his own son, but only used this nominal son to fight for his own achievements. But he resisted and lived to the present day.
Zhong Yujing recalled with a start the expression on his face whenever he mentioned his father. The father he spoke of with such pride, a figure like faith, was not King Yao, but his biological father, Emperor Qinghuan. Yes, that emperor, revered by the world, was enough to become his lifelong belief.
He had once told her that the title of "Wise King" was his favorite. She hadn't thought of it before, when her uncle had told her about the legendary achievements of Emperor Qing Huan, saying that even before he became emperor, he had been given the title "Wise King." It turned out to be his remembrance of his father.
He lay dormant for many years, taking every step carefully, and finally grew into what he is today. Zhong Yujing had never seen Emperor Qing Huan, but she only knew that he looked very much like Concubine Rou. She thought that his tall and heroic figure must have come from Emperor Huan.
Zhong Yujing couldn't help but feel comforted in her heart. If Emperor Huan saw what he looked like today, he would also be extremely proud. With such a son, what else could he ask for?
In contrast, His Royal Highness King Yao, revered and respected by everyone in Daqi, was a corrupt and treacherous man. Zhong Yujing sighed deeply in her heart. Daqi's two great princes, one a traitor who emptied the treasury, the other a hypocritical and treacherous traitor. Both were ambitious, seeking only treason and power, both coveted the throne, but ultimately failed to achieve their goals and died tragically. It was truly a pity.
Qi State was like a palace that had been completely eaten away by termites. Zhong Yujing, Jin Hong, and all those who were still struggling to support the country were merely guarding a beautiful shell, the inside of which had long been rotten.
She suddenly understood why the Purple Star was dim, why this country was declining. It wasn't because prosperity inevitably leads to decline, but rather because Heaven was taking away the decayed and vulnerable and rebuilding a stronger and more powerful entity in its place, so that all living beings in this pure land of China could live in peace. This was the true meaning of the Shan Ze Sun hexagram she had divined that night.
That even more powerful and mighty nation was exactly what he had described to her: a land without strife or war, where everyone lived in one land, speaking the same language and using the same writing system. There were no differences in currency or measurement, and no need for official documents to travel from one place to another. It was true unification, a universal peace. This was the implication of the Heavenly Fire Tongren hexagram she later received.
Between the original hexagram of loss and the changed hexagram of the same person, Zhong Yujing's heart suddenly became clear. At the same time, the blinding light shone down again. When she opened her eyes again, the person had returned to the Xianwang Mansion and was sitting by the man's bed.
She still held his hand tightly in hers, and looked at his face again, feeling strangely moved. Fortunately, he survived, fortunately, he had managed to make it to this day, fortunately, he met her, fortunately... he was still alive.
In the following days, Zhong Yujing repeated the same thing every day. Following the imperial physician's instructions, she applied medicine to him, changed the dressing, fed him medicine, wiped his body, and took care of all the affairs of the Xianwang Mansion, protecting him...
The Concubine's health had improved, and she would come to visit from time to time. Seeing Zhong Yujing always by her side, she was very relieved. The Concubine didn't say much, just told her to take care of herself, and didn't stay long.
On the tenth day, his wounds no longer bled as easily, and the frequency of bandage changes decreased significantly. His lips and face remained as pale as paper, but his hands were no longer unusually cold. However, he still hadn't woken up.
That afternoon, a light snow fell outside the window, and the fine and continuous snow reminded her of the first time they met. He joked and laughed with her in the snow, supported her with his arms, and accompanied her through the most difficult roads.
He has always been with her through the most dangerous shoals and the most difficult roads.
That day in the snow, he compared her to a mask and talked about the burdens people carry in this world. But today, she has completely seen his true face after taking off the mask, and she herself has thrown away all the shackles of her past reserve and met him honestly.
Thinking of this, Zhong Yujing felt extremely touched. She had never been so close to him before. There was no distance between their hearts.
She whispered, "Look, it's snowing again."
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