Facing each other
Lightly knocking on the window, Cha Suxun changed his tone and called out softly, "A-Li, are you asleep?"
The voice that Qi Heng had been thinking about day and night came from inside the house. Ah Li excitedly approached the window, her tone full of expectation, "Not asleep, not asleep!"
"There's a new shop in town selling preserved fruits. Everyone says they're delicious, and they limit purchases to 100 a day. But something delayed me today, so I could only buy a small amount from another buyer. You can try some. I've left it at your door. Go pick it up and try it to see if it tastes good."
"Okay." Yuanli quickly opened the door, took the bag of candied fruits into the house, then quickly closed the door and returned to the window.
"It smells so sweet."
The rustling sound of unwrapping paper came from inside the house. Yuanli, with candied fruit in her mouth, said in a somewhat unclear voice, "Axun, this is delicious. It's sweet, but not greasy or cloying. It's much better than the Chenji one we sneaked down the mountain to buy before."
"Really? As long as you like it, I'll go down the mountain early tomorrow to buy you some more."
"Forget it. You can buy it for me after we get married."
"You can buy it anytime you like. Why do you have to wait until you get married to buy it?"
"Although this candied fruit is delicious, it's still sweet and will make you fat. Lately, my mother has been giving me stewed chicken and pigeon to nourish me, saying it's good for me and our children. I've gained weight from being cooped up at home all day. If I keep eating more, I'm afraid I won't even be able to wear my wedding dress."
Yuanli sighed in dissatisfaction and helplessness, then suddenly asked excitedly, "Axun! Can we get married sooner? This month of waiting is too long. We will get married sooner or later anyway, whether it's early or late. Don't tell Mother that it was my request, otherwise, Mother will accuse me of being unreserved!"
The more Qi Heng listened, the more disappointed he became. It turned out that their relationship had reached such a level that they were even pregnant...
A'li's appearance tonight is rarely shown in front of him, but to Chi Xun, it is a daily occurrence.
Cha Suxun gave Qi Heng a winning smile. The sadder Qi Heng was, the happier he was. "Then what does Ah Li want me to say?"
"Just say that considering I'm pregnant, the sooner we get married, the less likely it will show. I've thought of so many excuses, and this one feels like the most reliable, and it'll give A Niang a better chance of agreeing. Ah Xun, please, it's really boring to be locked up at home."
Listening to Ah Li's coquettish words, Cha Suxun's lips curled up wildly. He was eager to get married soon, but he still patiently comforted her, "Ah Li, be good, just be patient. Mother has already sent out the wedding invitations. Besides, that day is a good day. Father and Mother have had someone calculate that if we get married on that day, we will definitely be together forever, grow old together, and have many children and grandchildren. If Ah Li doesn't mind, I'll talk to Mother later to see if we can get married sooner."
"Forget it, since the fortune teller's predictions are accurate, let's wait a little longer. But you have to come and talk to me every day."
"Okay, I'll do whatever you say."
"You've been obedient. Stand by the window on the left, against the wall." Yuanli instructed Axun with great satisfaction.
Seeing the figure on the window standing obediently to the left, Yuanli carefully and slowly pushed open a crack in the window, picked up a candied fruit of the best quality, stretched her arm out of the window, and raised her arm according to the estimation of Cha Suxun's height.
"This one is the biggest, you eat it."
Cha Suxun wanted to take it with his hands, but Yuanli pushed his hand away with a wave of her hand. "You didn't wash your hands. Be careful not to get an upset stomach. I'll feed you. Ah~ open your mouth."
Feeling the other person's lips accidentally touching her fingertips and the candied fruit being taken away by him, Yuanli withdrew her hand and closed the window.
"How is it? Is it better than Chen Ji's?"
"Indeed. Don't eat too much at night, or you'll have another toothache."
"I know, I know. Remember to help me take care of Ah Hua and the two pigs. Be careful with them. If they die, I will be really angry. I will not talk to you for three years."
"Okay, I'm taking good care of them every day, they won't die. I should go now, otherwise Mom will see them again and we'll both get scolded. Go to bed early and don't stay up late reading storybooks."
"Even if I did, you wouldn't know. Besides, if I don't read it before we get married, after we get married, you'll sleep next to me every day, and I won't be able to read the storybook late at night."
"I'm worried that you'll damage your eyes. It's not that you can't watch, but you can't watch too late at night."
"I know, my Ah Xun treats me the best. Go back quickly. It's cold at night."
Hearing that A-li only cared about him, Cha Suxun was very satisfied. After saying goodbye to her, he heard A-li moving away from the window in the house, so he picked up Qi Heng and took him back to the woodshed.
Seeing his dejected look, Cha Suxun fed him the antidote and said, "I heard she's doing well. You can rest assured and die, right?"
"I don't believe it. Did you force A-Li to marry you? Why is she trapped in the house and can't even be free at home?"
After eavesdropping, Qi Heng actually already had the answer in his mind, but he didn't want to believe it. He frantically searched for clues in an attempt to overturn the facts he heard.
"If I were someone who would force Ah Li to marry me, there wouldn't be you and the dog emperor. As for her being trapped in the house, was it her own will, or was it so-called forced by me? Can't you tell, idiot? Stop deceiving yourself. It was you who forced her into an engagement, not me."
Qi Heng was speechless and could not find an excuse to defend the facts. He just said: "No matter what, she once loved me sincerely, and I loved her sincerely as well. Even if she has changed her heart now, everything that happened between us still exists and you can't erase it. It's hard to say who is more important to her, you or me."
Cha Suxun scoffed and even laughed a little, "If that counts as true love, then she also truly loved Axun in the palace, and even Wangyue, but so what? No matter how many beautiful women like you she has down the mountain, they are only a flash in the pan. After all, I am the one who will grow old with her."
"If you really love her, you won't care if there are other men around her."
"Don't be so selfish. Which man in the capital doesn't have many wives and concubines? And don't I also want her to have only me? But there's nothing I can do. You guys insist on seducing her, and I can't get rid of you. Be patient for a while, and you will enjoy happiness for a lifetime."
Cha Suxun thought of the love insect in his body and said the final words that broke his heart: "Ali is good at making poisons. The last time she fainted, it was not because of the toxins accumulated in her body for many years, but because of the backlash of the love insect in her body."
Hearing this, Qi Heng's face instantly turned ugly. He frowned, widened his eyes, and looked at her in disbelief.
"Judging from your reaction, do you know she's put a love spell on you? That surprises me."
"Well, but I really like her. I'm sure I really, really like her. How could a love poison backfire? Didn't they say that as long as the person who was poisoned by the love poison also deeply loves the other person, it won't backfire? How is that possible... Impossible, I don't believe it... I don't believe it..."
"But what you outsiders don't know is that if the person who cast the love poison changes their heart one day and doesn't remove it, they will also suffer a backlash. And Ah Li couldn't even survive the first backlash. Between the two of you, who has never truly loved the other? You, Qi Heng, know it best."
After saying that, without waiting for Qi Heng to speak again, Cha Suxun tied him up again and walked out of the room.
Seeing Qi Heng's lifeless look after hearing the news just now, Cha Suxun was in a good mood. Everything Qi Heng heard tonight would surely keep him awake for several days and he would not be able to figure it out.
Back at the Netherworld Palace, Cha Suxun teleported to Abang Ayi, ordering them to find the soul of Awan's husband. However, what Abang Ayi summoned was a man who looked nothing like him.
The man's life story on earth was recorded as a simple peddler, living a mediocre and unsuccessful life. He married an orphan named Awan from the same village and had two sons and a daughter. However, he was killed by bandits while transporting goods, and his wife and children were forced to move away.
Cha Suxun took out Li Wan's portrait, placed it before him, and asked, "Do you recognize the woman in this portrait?"
After looking at it, the man replied tremblingly, "My wife, A-Wan, looks almost identical to the woman in the portrait, but she seems timid and self-conscious. She doesn't have the heroic air of the woman in the portrait, and she couldn't afford the attire she wears. So, they're probably just a resemblance, not the same person."
"Similar? How similar do you think they are?"
"If we just look at their facial features, they're so similar that even I'd think they were the same person. She and I have been together since we were little, and her face is incredibly familiar to me."
"When she was young..." Cha Suxun displayed several more portraits, each of which vividly depicted Li Wan's childhood, from the age of one to ten. Cha Suxun asked again, "Look, are there any portraits of Li Wan?"
But this time, the man didn't bother to examine or ponder the details, and said, "It's been so many years, I can't quite remember what Ah Wan looked like as a child. But I do remember that she wasn't particularly pretty, even a bit ugly, with a large red birthmark on her face. Although I can't remember clearly, I can confirm that the girl in this painting absolutely cannot possibly resemble my wife Ah Wan as a child. She was far too beautiful. If Ah Wan were as beautiful as she is, she would have long ago been forcibly abducted by the town's Wang Feng family to be a child bride for his son, who died young of tuberculosis."
Perhaps realizing that the girl in the painting was very important to the ghost in front of him, he quickly changed his words and explained, "I'm not saying that this girl is bad, she is very beautiful. I'm just explaining that I..."
Cha Suxun raised his hand impatiently to signal him to shut up, and then personally looked through his memories of his previous life, trying to find out when Awan suddenly lost her birthmark and turned into Liwan.
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