Beauty Bones (Part 4)
Chapter Four
"Young Master Song, is this your home?"
Although Xie Yuan had a fever and her head was still spinning, her eagerness to understand her little apprentice's living conditions far outweighed her tolerance for physical discomfort.
This small house is located at the end of the street, about forty or fifty square meters in size. The furnishings are simple, but it is kept very clean and tidy. There is a small square wooden table and a stool at the entrance. On the left is a wardrobe and a desk, and on the right is a carved wooden screen. After going around to the right, a wooden couch is placed at the far right, and there is a small stove next to the bed.
Song Ling was sitting on a small stool in front of the stove, brewing medicine. His movements were extremely practiced, as if he had done it many times before.
Xie Yuan sat on the wooden couch, her eyes darting around as she surveyed her surroundings.
"Home is wherever you are."
Song Ling remained noncommittal, fanning herself idly with her fan.
Upon hearing this answer, Xie Yuan fell silent for a moment, a rare occurrence. The young man was intently watching the heat, and she quietly watched him, feeling a tightness in her chest. She wanted to offer words of comfort, but the words stuck in her throat.
“Ah Ling, today they said you were born of a mother but raised without one, and that you were a monster. Why didn’t you refute them?”
“Master, what they said is true.” Four-year-old Song Ling was not even as tall as her waist. Perhaps because he had experienced many bad things at such a young age, he was very sullen and did not have the childlike innocence that a child should have. Moreover, many insects would always appear around him for no reason.
He was used to those sarcastic remarks, and if she hadn't come back and witnessed this scene, she might still have been kept in the dark.
“A-Ling, you must remember that no one in this world can define your actions or decide your future path based on just a few words, not even your parents who gave you life and raised you. In Master’s eyes, our A-Ling is the best child in the world. A-Ling didn’t have a home before, but Master promised to give you a home, and I will keep my word. In the future, Master will give you everything that your parents didn’t give you. A-Ling will also have what other children have, and she will have more and better than them.”
“Okay, A-Ling trusts Master.”
That day, after Xie Yuan took Song Ling home and settled him in, he still couldn't swallow his anger. After Song Ling fell asleep, Xie Yuan went down the mountain again and personally visited the parents of those children.
That situation never happened again.
She had promised him that she would give him a home.
She just didn't expect that day to come so soon.
How many decades does one have in a lifetime?
The facts are clear, and the past cannot be undone. Ultimately, it was she who broke her promise first, which led to her apprentice's current predicament.
"Then, did Young Master Song ever have a family?"
Xie Yuan finally couldn't help but ask.
Song Ling slowly stopped fanning himself with the small fan. His slender fingers gripping the handle were slightly white from the force. The flickering flames inside the stove cast a warm yellow hue on his handsome profile, but they couldn't conceal the sense of brokenness and sorrow that permeated his being.
His long, raven-feather-like eyelashes trembled, but he remained silent.
Xie Yuan witnessed all of this, and now she was certain that her departure must have caused immense harm to her young apprentice. He should hate her; back then, everything happened too suddenly, and she didn't even get a proper goodbye...
A long silence fell over the room, so long that Xie Yuan thought he would never answer the question again.
“I used to have a master, and I also had a family.”
Song Ling waved his small fan again, then paused, "But even she doesn't want me anymore." He looked somewhat forlorn.
Xie Yuan's slender, white fingers, resting on her lap, curled slightly as she subconsciously gripped the hem of her skirt.
“They said I was a cursed star, that I first caused the death of my parents, and then even my master couldn’t stand me and abandoned me.”
Song Ling spoke casually, as if she were just casually discussing the weather.
Xie Yuan QAQ: So that's why my little apprentice suffered so much after she left. He's back to the life of being criticized and ridiculed, just like before. Waaaaaah, my poor little apprentice was already destined for a life full of misfortune. You stinky system, what did you promise her? Didn't you say you'd keep him safe and happy after she left? Humph! Unreliable!
Xie Yuan felt both sad and heartbroken. The insults Song Ling had endured were unbearable even for her, an adult at the time. Compared to him back then, she was actually the one with the heart of a child, determined to avenge him no matter what.
"No, how could she possibly not want you..."
"How did you know?" Song Ling glanced at her quietly, as if waiting for her to continue.
Xie Yuanwei felt somewhat uncomfortable under his gaze, afraid of revealing her identity, and stammered, "What master in the world would abandon their disciple? Don't think too much about it, she might just... just..."
Xie Yuan was speechless for a moment, unable to say anything coherent.
"Just what?"
"But she has something she can't say about it?"
"Is this why she abandoned me?"
What does she take me for?
"Trash that can be disposed of at will?"
"She knew perfectly well that I had nothing but her."
Song Ling's hand holding the fan trembled slightly uncontrollably. With a "snap," he threw down the fan, turned his head away, and stopped looking at her. But Xie Yuan could still clearly see his resentment, anger, sadness, and other emotions in his eyes. Such a gaze made her eyes inexplicably sting.
Xie Yuan sighed helplessly in her heart. Indeed, it was her fault. She made promises she shouldn't have made, and then failed to keep them. She understood the pain, sadness, and despair of giving hope only to see it shattered.
"sorry.
"That's enough, I don't want to hear it."
Song Ling stood up, picked up the small stove for decocting medicine, turned and left. Her red dress fluttered and fell, this color that should have been vibrant with life, yet it did nothing to warm him...
Xie Yuan used to love wearing red clothes the most, mainly because red clothes looked very cool when she was fighting. Isn't that how the heroes in TV dramas are portrayed? Like a fleeting glimpse of a hero, with cool sword moves.
Later, after she had a young apprentice, her reason for liking to wear red became that it would make it easier for him to find her, because she was conspicuous and could be spotted at a glance in a crowd, even at night...
Ah Ling used to dislike wearing such brightly colored clothes; she mostly preferred cool colors. If she insisted on wearing something, it was only after being coaxed and tricked.
"Take your medicine."
Song Ling returned sometime earlier, handing her a bowl of dark, pungent Chinese medicine. The unpleasant smell almost made Xie Yuan faint. Her thoughts were forcibly pulled away, and she tried to push the bowl away from him, wrinkling her nose and reluctantly saying, "Can I not drink it? This medicine smells so bitter..."
To be honest, Xie Yuan used to be in very good health. A martial arts master like her, even if she caught a cold, she could recover by using her internal energy or practicing swordsmanship and sweating it out. She didn't need to drink such bitter medicine.
But my young apprentice used to drink quite a lot of it. After all, he's just a kid, and his resistance isn't that strong. It's normal for him to get sick or catch a cold occasionally.
Song Ling didn't say anything, her hand holding the medicine remained motionless, as if she were just watching him make things up.
“For people in your line of work, it should be easy for them to find out my identity, right? How could I possibly endure such hardship?”
Xie Yuan pitifully clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. She was so sweet and couldn't stand bitterness. If she really drank it, it would probably kill her. But her apprentice drank medicine like it was water. He could endure bitterness very well. Every time, he would gulp it down without changing his expression. This made the candy she prepared useless. She would just treat it as a reward for him.
"I have indeed heard about the Eastern Mausoleum Princess's elopement. I heard that the Eastern Mausoleum Empress has offered a reward of 100,000 gold coins for information leading to her whereabouts. Since you're not drinking, I'll send you back..."
"No, no, no, I'll drink it, I'll drink it. Why are you being so stubborn?" Xie Yuan quickly snatched the medicine bowl away, her little face full of resistance. The medicine was warm, and she held it with both hands, bringing it to her lips, but then suddenly looked up and asked, unwilling to give up, "Really, there's no sugar or anything like that?"
"No."
Xie Yuan: "If I drink it, will you not kick me out?"
Song Ling: "Are you going to drink or not?"
Xie Yuan: QAQ, being a master is really hard, I got yelled at by my apprentice again.
"Drink, drink, drink." Xie Yuan gritted her teeth and made up her mind, swallowing the medicine in one gulp with a heroic expression. She did swallow it, but she had to admit that the medicine was really strong. Her taste buds felt like they were being numbed by the bitterness, and she felt nauseous. She almost couldn't help but vomit.
Song Ling was still making sarcastic remarks from the side: "If you throw up, we'll send you back."
Xie Yuan: Aaaaaaah! This little brat! Even after I've done this much, she's still adding fuel to the fire and threatening me!
But this threat did hit the mark.
I'll endure it again!
——
Xie Yuan lay listlessly on the wooden couch, exhausted from the suffering, while Song Ling sat on a small stool in front of the stove, lost in thought.
“By the way, Young Master Song, why do you like wearing red? Look, my clothes are also red. Isn’t that a coincidence?” Xie Yuan thought of her ultimate mission goal and quickly regained her energy, sitting up from the bed. She rested her chin on her hands and placed her face on her knees. Her black hair was tied up with only a white jade plum blossom hairpin, which cascaded down in front of her as she moved.
When the original owner ran away from her marriage, she was actually wearing a wedding dress and had a bunch of gold and silver hairpins on her head. She found it troublesome and pawned them all for silver notes and the like.
“I don’t like her, but that’s the only thing I remember about her.”
"Have you lost your memory?"
"No, she abandoned me back then. I couldn't accept it and got seriously ill, almost dying. When I woke up, I forgot many things: her face, her voice, her name. But I only remember that red dress. That's the only memory I can hold onto related to her."
Xie Yuan was shocked: Holy crap, is this what they call, after you left, I'm left all alone, guarding the only connection between us?! What kind of extreme tragic ending is this? Isn't this something that only happens in love? Now even she, as your master, can have this "honor"?
However, putting myself in her shoes, if I were Song Ling, ugh, damn it, she'd be inhuman! It hurts! It hurts so much!
"Don't you hate her?" Xie Yuan asked tentatively. "She abandoned you."
"How could I not hate it?"
The culprit, Xie Yuan: Well, although I expected this answer, I can't deny that hearing it with my own ears was still a little upsetting...
In fact, she accepted whatever her apprentice hated or resented, and she did not regret her initial choice.
She only wished for his life to be peaceful and joyful, free from illness and disaster, to find a good marriage, and to grow old with the one he loved. If that were the case, then she, as his teacher, would have fulfilled her duty.
But things didn't go as planned in the end.
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