unhappy
Now, everything matched up. If so, were the medicine Shen Yunqiu took in his previous life also prescribed by the old woman? Who was that old woman? Could this life really be Shen Yunqiu's previous life? Was she destined to be unable to seek revenge, solve the old case, or save Shen Yunqiu? Would she return to that past life?
Suxi could barely contain her violent trembling body and immediately rushed out, not caring about Shen Yunqiu calling out to her from behind. She opened the corner gate of the West Garden and ran out until she reached the bustling East Market. Seeing a coachman soliciting passengers, Suxi hurriedly jumped on the carriage and urged, "Master, let's go to Pingchuan County!"
"Oh, okay!"
The driver spat out the foxtail grass in his mouth, whipped his whip and drove away. It was not until dusk, when the sun set and the sky was dyed red by the crimson clouds. The chirping of crickets in the fields came to his ears. The driver finally stopped and patted the door: "Miss, we're here."
Almost impatient, Suxi jumped off the carriage without waiting for the driver to put down the footstool and ran into the dilapidated temple. He searched everywhere but saw no one: no one behind the Buddha statue, no one under the shrine, no one in the small hall, no one in the toilet. Not only was there no one, there was not even a trace of anyone living there. Only a large bag of candies, untouched and covered with insects and ants, lay on the ground.
As if her soul had been sucked away in an instant, Suxi fell to the ground and sat there for a long time. Until it was completely dark, she finally stood up as if accepting her fate, walked out of the temple gate, got on the carriage and left.
-
It was nearly midnight when Suxi returned to the Shen residence. Giving the driver a few pieces of silver, she reluctantly opened the corner gate to the west garden and, using the bright candlelight from the main house, walked to the door. Cautiously pushing it open, she saw Shen Yunqiu sitting at the door, his face gloomy and almost dripping with water.
"Where have you been? Why are you back so late? Do you know that if you come back any later, I will have to ask Yinzhen to search the whole city for you?"
"I went to Pingchuan County."
"Pingchuan County!"
Su Xi was frightened by the angry voice. Looking again, he saw the young man nodding repeatedly with the tip of his tongue against his cheek. He looked like he was smiling, but also like he was so angry that he almost wanted to eat him alive.
"Well, you've really grown in skill!" Shen Yunqiu was so angry that she could barely maintain her composure. "It would have been fine if you'd just run away without saying anything during the day, but you actually dared to go to Pingchuan County alone! Do you know how dangerous it is for a woman as weak as a chicken to be out there alone? And you dared to go to such a remote place! You're lucky to be back today. What if the driver had any bad intentions? You..."
The sudden hug blocked all the unfinished words of Shen Yunqiu into his throat. He was at a loss for a moment and wanted to break free, but his body keenly felt the girl trembling as she hugged him tightly. He raised his hand to touch her shoulder and found it was wet.
"You..." Instantly, the raging anger in her heart seemed to be extinguished by her tears. Shen Yunqiu didn't know what she was talking about, but her tone softened. "Why are you crying? Did someone bully you?"
After a long while, no one responded, but the girl lying on his shoulder cried even harder. Her tears soaked his jacket, outer shirt, and inner clothes, and stuck to his skin with their coldness, as if the tears would never stop flowing.
Shen Yunqiu was inconsolable for a moment, and didn't know why the girl was crying. He could only gently stroke her furry head, just like he did when she first came to comfort him.
Time passed for a breath, two breaths, half a minute, a quarter, half an hour, until one of his shoulders had completely lost all feeling. The girl slowly stopped crying, stood up, walked to the stairs outside the door in a daze, and wiped her tears.
Seeing this, Shen Yunqiu also rowed his wooden wheel to stop beside her, saying nothing and just sitting there.
At night, the dark night is like a calm river, filled with stars and moons, and flowing clouds that keep moving forward like the river.
Suxi sat motionless for a long moment, the quiet night filled with the chirping of insects, the rustling of the wind, and the sound of the boy's heartbeat, which seemed even more rapid than usual. Finally, her inexplicable emotions began to subside. Following Chen Yunqiu's gaze, she also looked up at the bright, flawless moon in the sky.
"Chen Yunqiu, do you believe in fate?" Su Xi asked, "Do you believe in destiny, fate, and reincarnation?"
Upon hearing this, Shen Yunqiu looked at the girl who was leaning her head against the moon with some confusion. He really didn't expect that the first sentence she said to him would be this.
After a while, looking at the girl's eye sockets, which were swollen like two walnuts, he suddenly remembered what the old woman had said yesterday. Although he couldn't understand what this so-called reincarnation was alluding to, he always felt that her heart seemed to hold something unknown to him, just like the misty look she often gave him, as if it was always through a veil.
"Xiaoxi..." After pondering for a while, Shen Yunqiu couldn't help but ask, "Are you...hiding something from me?"
In an instant, he saw the girl opposite him suddenly turn her head, with a hint of surprise in her eyes, and some emotions that he could not understand.
"Can't you tell me? Didn't you say we're friends now?"
friend?
Just friends?
Su Xi was suddenly lost in thought, not knowing what she was thinking about, and not knowing whether she should tell him her identity, the purpose of her coming to the Shen family, and the things in her past life. After all, Shen Yunqiu was still a member of the Shen family. Even if she believed that he would help her keep the secret, there would still be a knot in her heart. No matter how awkward the situation was, they were still blood relatives. She didn't want to use him as a knife in her hand again, and she didn't want to become strangers and enemies from then on, and not even be friends. At least before the crimes of the Shen family were completely exposed to the world, she couldn't let him bear the hatred for her. As for the future, the future where she didn't know whether she could see the light, she didn't dare to hope for it. She simply looked at the moon and the person sitting in the moonlight first.
Thinking of this, Suxi suddenly felt relieved.
After all, the moon is real, people are real, and heartbeats are real. If we let these illusory past and present lives lead us to self-pity and inaction, then there is truly no hope. At least now she is still alive, with hands to verify and eyes to see right from wrong. If she does what she can, maybe she can really overturn this illusory world. Man can conquer nature. Just like the moon, which waxes and wanes every month, but the full moon of this month is different from the full moon of the previous month, in this world, no two moons are exactly the same.
"You really can't tell me, Xiaoxi, or are you afraid I'll tell others?"
Suxi suddenly regained consciousness and looked up at the boy's clear, limpid eyes, as if filled with a vast universe of stars. Only then did she finally realize that she had long since grown deeply in love with him, as far back as a previous life, when the cracked, dry earth of her heart, ravaged by hatred, had inexplicably sprouted new buds, growing taller and taller, until, unbeknownst to her, they had grown into a towering tree, a place she could rest and lean against when she felt sad and bored.
"Okay, I can tell you."
"You said, I will never tell anyone else."
Facing the boy's curious and inquiring eyes, Su Xi stood up and said,
"Actually, I've recognized you for a long time."
"Really?" Shen Yunqiu was a little surprised. "Have you seen me when you were little?"
"No, it's earlier than that."
"When was that? Why don't I remember anything about it?"
"Of course you don't remember. Because when I recognized you, you hadn't come into this world yet."
Facing the girl's extremely serious expression, Shen Yunqiu pondered carefully for a long time before realizing that he seemed to have been fooled. But before he could say anything, the girl next to him had gone into the house to sleep, leaving him alone sitting under the eaves. He couldn't understand why the woman who was crying heartbreakingly just now suddenly started joking with him.
It's really strange.
-
In a blink of an eye, autumn deepened and the weather became colder day by day. Snow had already begun to fall in the northern part of Qingzhou. The snowflakes drifted towards Qingzhou along with the dry and cold air. However, within a few days, there were few pedestrians walking on the streets. Even the peddlers put on fur coats and set up small charcoal stoves on their stalls.
At the turn of autumn and winter, at the end of each season and the end of each ten-day period, officials from all regions would always take a three-day break, and Shen Pingchang, the prefect of Qingzhou, was no exception. That day, the entrance to the Shen Mansion was unusually bustling. A group of maids stood in the front hall corridor, cracking melon seeds, hiding behind the evergreen pine needles as they watched Old Madam Shen being helped into a carriage by a maid. Shen Pingchang, dressed in elegant casual clothes, followed closely behind her. Shen Wenzhao, hugging two scantily clad beauties, boarded a carriage behind them. The driver whipped up his horse and sped away, leaving Lin alone, standing in front of the hall, watching for a long moment before turning back to her room, her back looking exceptionally desolate.
"These past two days have been quite relaxing."
The head maid Bihe sighed deeply, took out a handful of melon seeds from her pocket and distributed them to the other maids. Xihe grabbed a handful and gave half to Suxi next to her.
"During these days in previous years, the master would take the old lady to the south house to avoid the cold. The master would return in a few days. The old lady was old and couldn't stand the cold, so she often stayed until the end of the year before returning. This year, the eldest young master was about to go to Beijing to take up his post in a few days, so the master took him with him."
"What about Madam? Madam, aren't you going?"
A little girl from the Lin family courtyard asked curiously.
"You don't understand this, do you?" Bi He replied. "With such a huge Shen Mansion, if even the mistress of the house is not here, wouldn't it be a mess? So every year at this time, the old lady will temporarily hand over the housekeeping power to Madam."
"Madam, you're truly pitiful." The little maid sighed softly. "On a normal day, I see the master always being cold to Madam. The old lady often makes things difficult for her, not even giving her the power of housekeeper. She spends all day stuck in this small house, being a mistress in name only. I feel so suffocated watching her..."
"Don't talk nonsense and talk about the master casually. Watch out for your life!"
After being yelled at by Bihe, the little maidservant immediately shut up, but Suxi stared blankly at the closed door of the main courtyard, and some doubts arose in his heart.
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