Chapter 36: A Disease "I've got you, Lianlian."...
Zhui Lian fell ill.
She felt like she had a very long dream.
A very long dream.
Sometimes in my dreams I am the Qingjiang of the past. She comes to the country market, and the bustling stalls fall silent as she approaches. Because she is the chosen bride of the river god, everyone can only communicate with her through lip language.
The village chief said that this would help her decipher the oracle from the flowing water ripples and waves as soon as possible.
The real Qingjiang in Qingjiang, that is, beside the long river, she knelt with her hands clasped together.
As the bride of the river god, she was required to kneel here for two full hours each day to listen to the god's will. Whether the god existed or not, Zhui Lian didn't know, but she knew that malice was certainly present.
There were always a lot of inexplicable stones thrown from behind, crashing down on her.
She turned around and tried to chase them, but the group of children who had teased her had already scattered.
When she returned home with her knees swollen, there was no food on the table.
Zhui Lian raised her voice and shouted, "Mom, where's my meal?"
The woman in the flowery blue headscarf had just reached the threshold, holding a bamboo basket of clothes. Upon hearing this, she turned back impatiently and mouthed, "Your brother ate it!"
"Then what should I eat?" Zhui Lian asked with his mouth wide open.
"Hey—" The woman in the blue headscarf waved her hands, her lips moving silently. "As a sister, you should give way to your brother!"
"Besides, you are a girl, haven't you already eaten lunch? Don't eat dinner!" The woman's lips finally spelled out this sentence, and then she hurried out the door with the bamboo basket, without looking back at her.
This day was particularly clear in Zhui Lian's dream.
But it is not clear because of grievance.
She has encountered this kind of thing too many times.
Even though the village chief always said that these were betrothal gifts from the river god to the bride every time he sent her various daily necessities, those foods and supplies never reached her.
Zhui Lian's initial resentment has turned into numbness.
What made that day different from the monotonous days that had been repeated thousands of times before was that Qiao Xunli appeared in her life that day.
The evening river breeze was damp, and Zhui Lian's stomach felt empty.
The red marks on the back of her hand from the stones still hurt slightly, and she walked silently to a seldom-visited riverbank in the lower reaches of Qingjiang River.
There are some edible wild vegetables and berries growing here, and when you are thirsty, you can use the river water nearby to quench your thirst.
She squatted down and began to dig the roots of a bitter herb.
The movements were very skillful, as if they had been done thousands of times, but his hands were inevitably covered with sticky mud that could not be shaken off.
Just as Zhui Lian had dug out the bitter herb and put it to his mouth, intending to take a few bites to satisfy his hunger, a clear and gentle voice suddenly sounded behind him.
"Are you... eating something? Food from the wild isn't clean. Eating it will give you a stomachache."
Zhui Lian was so frightened that she almost fell into the river.
She turned around with a blank look on her face, but a boy with delicate features appeared in her sight.
He looked a little older than her, about ten years old, and was wearing a simple white shirt and khaki trousers.
There was no fear or mockery in those eyes that she usually saw in Zhui Lian's eyes, but rather a kind of... pure worry that she had never seen before.
Is he the child from the family that just returned to the village in the first half of the year?
She had heard people talking about them, saying that they came from a big city far away and would be leaving soon.
Zhui Lian subconsciously took a step back. Because of her identity as the "Bride of the River God", even her parents did not dare to speak to her directly.
Qiao Xunli looked at her alert and embarrassed appearance, and his heart inexplicably tightened.
He will go back to S City with his grandmother tomorrow. His parents have already arranged jobs there and a school for him. Today... he just wanted to come back and see the Qingjiang River that gave him the last peaceful summer of his childhood.
But I didn’t expect to see a girl of the same age trying to survive here like a little savage.
She was obviously so beautiful, but she looked like she had been malnourished for a long time, with a thin layer of skin and flesh hanging on her thin bones.
He took a few steps closer, keeping a distance that wouldn't make her feel oppressed, and spoke softer: "Didn't you have dinner? Are you digging these... for food?"
Zhui Lian pursed her lips and refused to answer.
Long-term isolation made it difficult for her to easily believe sudden kindness.
Qiao Xunli understood the embarrassment and hunger hidden in this silence.
He felt very sad, and a pure and gentle pity came over him.
He thought about it and mustered up the courage to invite her: "My grandmother's house is over there, not far away."
"I...I'll ask my grandma to make you something to eat. Hot food tastes better than this."
A tiny trace of desire flashed across Zhui Lian's eyes.
But it was soon overwhelmed by fear.
She shook her head violently, her voice a little hoarse because she hadn’t talked to anyone for a long time: “No, I can’t go to someone else’s house.
"I am..." This title seemed a little difficult to say, and Zhui Lian took a while to continue, "The Bride of the River God."
"Why not? What is the River God's Bride?" Qiao Xunli's tone was filled with confusion. "But every bride has to eat."
"They'll be afraid... and feel it's bad luck."
Zhui Lian lowered her head and stared at her muddy hands. "The village chief said I can't go to other people's homes because it will make the river god unhappy."
She was too young at that time and didn't really understand the exact meaning of the word "bad luck".
But she had clearly felt the kind of rejection that was seen as ominous.
Qiao Xunli frowned slightly. To this village, he was just another kind of outsider. There were no such taboos in his world.
So he just thought it was ridiculous.
Qiao Xunli: "How can eating a meal be unlucky? Being hungry is a bad thing."
"My grandma is a very nice person. She's not afraid." His tone was gentle, soothing beyond his years. "Let's go. It's just a meal. No one will say anything."
"And tomorrow...tomorrow I'm leaving."
He pleaded earnestly for mercy.
Perhaps it was because the concern in the other person's eyes was too genuine, or perhaps this would be the last chance to have a full meal in this village, Zhui Lian hesitated for a long time, and finally nodded very slightly.
A smile appeared on Qiao Xunli's face, warm and gentle.
He walked in front to lead the way, looking back from time to time to see if Zhui Lian was following.
The simple yet steaming hot meal on the small table in Qiao Xunli’s grandmother’s kitchen was the most delicious meal Zhui Lian had ever had in her memory.
Qiao Xunli looked at her with satisfaction as she ate her meal quietly, and his grandmother was also very kind, looking at her with eyes full of heartache.
She kept picking up food for her, muttering, "Poor thing, she's so thin."
When Zhui Lian finally left, she stuffed a large bag of peach blossom cakes wrapped in oil paper into her hands. The old woman's hands were warm and rough, showing her kindness that she had never understood before.
"Good boy, take it home and eat it slowly."
"From now on, be nicer to yourself... Hey, when you can eat enough, eat more, and when you can run, don't just stand there... Got it?"
What does it mean to not stand there stupidly when you can run?
Why did she run?
"Remember... the river behind the mountain in Qingjiang."
The old man seemed to be really reluctant, raised his hand and touched her head, then lowered his voice and said, "When you need to find a way out, go there and have a look."
At that time, Zhui Lian was holding the bag of peach blossom cakes and could only nod incoherently.
Qiao Xunli sent her home. They passed by the clear and bright Qingjiang River, but Zhui Lian suddenly felt that the river was never as calm as it seemed on the surface.
It was actually a bloody mouth, a bloody mouth that could swallow her at any time.
"S City—" She suddenly grabbed Qiao Xunli's sleeve and asked, "What kind of place is that?"
"There are tall buildings and skyscrapers there, and many things that aren't here. It's a place very different from here." Qiao Xunli thought for a moment and added seriously, "If you come here in the future, I can take you to see it."
Everything that Qiao Xunli's grandmother had not said explicitly was finally revealed to her on the eve of Zhui Lian's sixteenth birthday when she accidentally overheard the news that she would be drowned in the river as a sacrifice and married to the river god.
Zhui Lian, who was in a coma, was deeply trapped in the bizarre fragments of dreams.
Sometimes sobbing, sometimes mumbling.
"Xunli...Qiao Xunli..."
She often curled up in a ball in her sleep, her voice broken and filled with tears, "Where are you? Why don't you come to pick me up... You said... You said you would come to find me... I miss you so much..."
Tears kept falling, and soaked the pillowcase.
The mumbling kept repeating, repeating, as if trying to express all the longing he had felt over the years.
Occasionally, her brows would be tightly furrowed.
His breathing became more and more rapid, and the name that escaped his lips changed to another: "Pei Zhiyu... don't... don't come over... go to hell by yourself..."
The voice was full of fear and disgust, as if it had encountered something it wanted to avoid.
But Pei Zhiyu had no intention of exploring the disgust in Zhui Lian's voice. Her sudden illness really scared him crazy.
Doctors came and went, but they only said that this was due to exhaustion, self-isolation and high fever caused by excessive fear. Medicines could only relieve the symptoms, and the heart knot needed to be treated with heart medicine.
Pei Zhiyu stayed by her bedside day and night, almost never closing his eyes.
The girl on the big bed had cheeks as pale as paper, and even in her sleep she looked in agony.
panic.
It was an unprecedented panic.
He finally realized that he was really going to lose her.
It is a complete loss in the eternal sense.
The obsessive control, the crazy possession, the declaration that he would not let go of Zhui Lian even if he became a ghost, suddenly seemed so illusory in the face of her completely extinguished life.
During this period, Pei Zhiwei came once.
She looked at Pei Zhiyu's distraught expression, then at Zhui Lian, who was breathing weakly on the bed, with a deep gaze.
She asked him, "Pei Zhiyu, what do you really want? Is forcing her to death what you ultimately want?"
Pei Zhiyu was speechless.
He just stared at Zhui Lian with red eyes, afraid that she would disappear in the blink of an eye.
For the sleeping Zhui Lian, dreams are not always painful.
Occasionally, she would dream about the short time she spent in that ordinary high school after leaving Xiting High School.
In her dream, she was wearing a simple blue and white sports school uniform. The uniform of S City No. 9 Middle School was always said to be old-fashioned by students, but she liked it very much.
This kind of clothing is ordinary and natural, and it feels easy to wear it no matter how you wear it.
There, she made some friends with whom she could laugh and joke, and rediscovered her small dream of studying journalism in college. The afternoon sun shone on her textbooks, and everything was shining brightly... Most importantly, in her dream, there was Qiao Xunli's gentle smile and company, which was a ray of light stolen from her dark life.
But unfortunately, the screen suddenly cut to another frame. She was standing at the door of the No. 9 Middle School classroom. Looking inside, the person sitting next to her was no longer her familiar deskmate.
The wind blew in from the window, brushing against Pei Zhiyu's young golden hair.
The young man who turned to look at her had delicate and beautiful features, but his gaze couldn't be more sinister.
He looked at her.
He moved closer to her.
He caught her.
He grinned.
He said—
"I got you, Lianlian."
With cold sweat drenching his body, Zhui Lian finally woke up from this long sleep.
At this time, it was already a week later.
-----------------------
The author has something to say: Speed! Alas, Lianmei is such a pitiful little girl...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
