Chapter 8 The Proudest Thing in My Life
The noise from the Boshan incense burner finally woke Lin Yuan from her nightmare.
Opening my eyes, I saw only a vast curtain, from which glittered the light of gold and silver threads.
She struggled to sit up, her mind heavy, as if weighed down by a thousand pounds. A chill swept over her, and when she looked down, she saw that she was completely naked, her clothes scattered on the bed, and her sash loose on the floor.
Looking around, all was dark and gloomy; I had no idea where I was.
Beyond the misty, light silk curtain, a man stood with his back turned, his clothes wrinkled.
Her heart sank, she gritted her teeth, grabbed her outer garment, and pulled a jade hairpin from her hair.
One end of the jade hairpin was attached to a small black iron knife.
Xiao Xun glanced contemptuously at the small knife, less than three inches long: "Are you going to assassinate me?"
"You, who are you—" Lin Yuan opened her eyes wide from behind the misty veil, panting heavily with fear.
The outer garment hastily draped over her chest only covered half of her body; at first glance, the green hills were faintly visible, stretching and winding.
"Still don't recognize me?" This cold voice was like a crack suddenly appearing in the stubborn ice on the mountain that had never melted for thousands of years, threatening to swallow Lin Yuan into an unfathomable abyss.
Lin Yuan's knife trembled even more violently as she gritted her teeth and held back her tears.
She was tricked and sent to someone else's bed naked. She had probably lost her innocence, but because she was just a lowly palace maid, she was not even allowed to be angry or make the slightest struggle.
She remembered that at midday that day, she was suddenly summoned by the Empress.
The Empress spoke casually, saying that she had only seen Lin Yuan briefly outside the palace that day, but she felt that Lin Yuan looked very familiar and was just like a sister she used to play with.
The Empress smiled gently, invited her to sit down, and told her not to be reserved. She asked her a few questions: name, age, date of birth, how many years she had been in the palace, where her home was, and whether her parents were still alive.
Finally, he asked her why she knelt on the busy passageway that day.
Lin Yuan was filled with trepidation. She bit her lip and hesitated for a long time, unsure of how to respond.
The palace maids serving tea only wanted to see her make a fool of herself. They crowded at the end of the passageway, filling the gap in a window, waiting to watch a good show.
She did not answer, but the Empress took Lin Yuan's hand and took the blame, saying that she had failed to manage her subordinates properly, which allowed some long-serving people in the palace to bully the weak and disregard palace rules.
Changyu stood behind the Empress, his face gradually darkening and becoming extremely ugly.
The Empress spoke with deep emotion, stroking Lin Yuan's hand.
Lin Yuan had just returned from the Imperial Garden after collecting snow from the plum blossoms. Her hands were ice-cold, and even with the warm walls and charcoal fire in the Jiaofang Palace, it would take half a day for them to warm up.
This sudden tenderness brought tears to Lin Yuan's eyes.
This tenderness, coming from the most noble and precious woman in the entire harem, made her want to cry even more.
In particular, she said: "We are destined to meet. You look just like my older sister when I was a child, but you are half a year younger than me. So I will treat you as my younger sister, okay?"
The Empress instructed people to prepare a fragrant soup, saying it would dispel the cold from her body, and also bestowed upon her a bowl of warming soup.
However, after drinking a bowl of warming soup, Lin Yuan became dizzy and disoriented.
Looking again at this secluded palace and the tall bed, it seemed to transform into an exquisite cage.
She was in the cage, a helpless little animal, a monkey who was amused and teased by people.
In the freezing cold, she was teased by older palace maids; later, in the warm, luxurious chambers, she was teased by elegantly dressed noblewomen.
A condescending smile, a few meaningless words, or some insignificant handouts can easily rob her of her innocence, her will, and even her life.
She heard the man say, "Bringing a knife into the palace, don't you want to live?"
The voice was light and airy, carrying a chill.
A tall, dark figure with a pair of jet-black eyes drew closer and magnified.
She could see no fear in that man's eyes, only contempt and frivolity.
Even her knife, in their eyes, became a laughable trick?
She couldn't speak, but in the trembling black iron, she vaguely saw her father and her brother.
The blacksmith father, sweating profusely, forged a small knife from a piece of black iron and solemnly placed it in the palm of seven-year-old Lin Yuan's hand.
This knife became Lin Yuan's treasure. She used it to cut the flatbread and dried meat her mother made, to cut the wild grass in the fields, and to scrape the bark off the silkworm trees that had been harmed by leeches.
When she entered the palace, she had just turned 18, and her mother styled her long hair into a bun.
Her brother gave her a piece of green jade pendant and begged their father to cast the jade, decorated with a phoenix, together with a newly polished knife. Then, he wrapped the three-inch-long knife in a strip of cloth and personally inserted it into her hair, making it a green jade hairpin.
She carried the small knife as if it were her family, holding her hands and telling her to be strong and not to be bullied, reminding her that no matter what, she still had her father and mother.
Her brother even said: "If anyone bullies you, tell me, and no matter who it is, I will definitely avenge you!"
She chuckled then, thinking, "My brother is seventeen years old, yet he still says such childish things."
But those words did give her some courage.
The dark figure approached step by step.
She gripped the knife tightly, her hands trembling, her palms sweaty, but she didn't loosen her grip or pull back an inch.
"Don't come any closer, don't touch me," she said through gritted teeth.
"You don't care about your life, but don't you want to spare your father's and mother's lives either?"
Xiao Xun stood in front of her.
This knife is too small and too short. The blade of the black iron is not sharp and can't hurt anything at all.
Moreover, the woman wielding the knife was young, slender, and had thin arms. Because she had just woken up, or perhaps the effects of the drug had not yet worn off, she looked weak and listless. The knife in her hand was shaky and trembling, like a willow leaf that could be blown away by a slight breeze, along with the woman.
The woman was terrified, but she couldn't even cry anymore.
She murmured "Father, Mother," clearly indicating that she had lost her senses when she grasped the knife, thinking of nothing and disregarding everything else.
She seemed to have just woken up from a dream, repeating Xiao Xun's words, and looked... pitiful.
It was pitiful, yet also somewhat laughable, for its unwavering resolve.
Lin Yuan was completely enveloped in Xiao Xun's shadow, trembling and with tears in her eyes, like a flower about to be broken, begging for mercy in the wind.
Xiao Xun couldn't help but want to sneer. He raised his hand, intending to knock the knife away, or rather, to brush it off.
However, this seems unnecessary.
He watched as those eyes slowly widened and brightened.
She regained consciousness and recognized him.
The knife was still in the woman's hand, but she slowly withdrew it.
Then it turned around.
She turned to her own neck.
"No, don't come any closer."
Xiao Xun was taken aback, his hand hovering in mid-air: "What are you going to do?"
Half an hour ago, he touched this curved neck and smelled the fragrance of ice and snow and plum blossoms on it.
His fingertips seemed to still carry that fragrance—faint, cool, and sweet.
He almost took this body for himself just now.
He originally wanted to say that he had not violated her innocence, which she cared so much about.
But the woman before him was just a palace maid, a lowly and insignificant one. Was she worth him wasting his breath and condescending to explain even the slightest thing?
Her resistance, her fear, and her shame were not only hers but also his.
Xiao Xun sat down on the edge of the couch, clenching his fists. The absurd scenes kept flashing before his eyes, and he couldn't help but ask, "Does giving yourself to me make you so resistant?"
Lin Yuan's tears welled up: "That has to be...it has to be my willingness. You...you people can't bully others and take advantage of their vulnerability."
He looked at her with a bleak expression: "You're unwilling, so you'd rather die?"
"I don't want to die." Lin Yuan shook her head. "I don't... want to die at all."
Her mind was in a daze, and she couldn't explain why she was suddenly inspired by the virtuous and chaste woman. She didn't want to assassinate anyone, nor did she want to implicate her family, so she could only turn the knife on herself.
Her words were also incoherent, “But I… I can’t let people, let others, make me live, make me die, make me wish I were dead.”
She gripped the knife as if she were gripping her innocence.
At least that's what Xiao Xun originally thought.
But now, when he looks at it again, it seems that it's more than just innocence.
Perhaps it has never had anything to do with innocence.
What she desperately clung to was her life, her will, and herself.
The determination he had found laughable just moments before now seemed no longer so funny.
It wasn't funny at all; it made him sad and very upset.
The woman before me was slender, humble, and insignificant, like a flower that would break with a gust of wind.
But she wasn't. She was a winter plum blossom, a resilient grass.
And that black iron sword was like a gleaming mirror.
One side reflects her, the other reflects him.
It dazzled his eyes.
"Let others have their way? I am the emperor."
Xiao Xun stood up angrily and reached out to snatch the knife.
The knife, however, could not be brushed away or knocked off; it remained firmly in her hand.
On the contrary, the more panicked and struggling she became, the closer the knife got to her snow-white neck.
He became fierce, grabbed her wrist, and held it tightly in his hand.
The knife was so tightly gripped that the veins in the hand bulged and began to spasm before it finally fell to the ground.
Black iron and green jade struck the floor tiles one after another.
He uttered a cold sound.
*
Lin Yu picked up the knife from the ground, speechless for a moment, and turned to Lin Yuan, saying, "You've been carrying this knife with you all this time."
Lin Yuan nodded without saying a word.
"All the time?" He Ji clicked his tongue, took the knife from Lin Yu's hand, curiously looked it over, blew away the dust on the blade, and scratched it on the frozen sesame cake.
The knife was too small, and it took three tries to cut a pancake in half.
"What can such a small knife be used for? Self-defense?"
"This is a knife for cutting pig feed," Lin Yuan and Lin Yu said in unison.
They smiled at each other.
He Ji suddenly felt that the sesame cake in his hand didn't smell so good anymore.
In her less than twenty years of life, Lin Yuan's proudest achievement was when she was seven years old, her pig gave birth to twenty piglets in one litter.
She found that pig by chance.
At the end of the sixth year, the sky was ablaze with fire, which lasted for half a month.
She asked her mother, "Is Chang'an on fire?"
Her mother covered her mouth and nose, pulled her along, and like many others, carried a simple bundle, stumbling and running towards the city outskirts.
She said, "Winter is coming, and we need to burn wheat straw. After burning it, the soil will become fertile, and we can grow more wheat the following year."
Lin Yuan asked again, "Mother, where did Father go?"
“Father has also gone to burn wheat straw. He’ll come to find us after he’s done burning it.”
When will it be ready?
"It'll be ready soon, it'll be ready soon. Once Father finds us, it will be ready. Then we won't have to burn it anymore."
Her mother's words were fragmented and incoherent, leaving Lin Yuan quite bewildered, but a hidden worry arose: her father was on the other side of the fire.
She wanted to ask more, but the smoke in the air stung her eyes, causing tears to stream down her face and get into her mouth, making it impossible for her to speak.
On a ruin to the south, they found a piglet whose fur was blackened by smoke, and it looked just like its charred companions, on the verge of death.
Lin Yuan insisted on bringing the pig along.
Mother said it was no good, then she said it was good.
Her gaze wasn't on the pig.
She gazed at the vast ruins, the firelight on the horizon gradually fading.
The sky was a dark gray, as if a dark gray snow had fallen.
When the wind rises, black snowflakes drift up one by one, swirling in the air and landing in people's eyes, causing Mother to shed even more tears.
"Mother, do you recognize this place?"
After a long pause, the mother slowly said, "This is where I used to cook for people."
She hugged Lin Yuan tightly, and Lin Yuan hugged the poor pig tightly as well.
"But why did this place burn down too?"
“They burned the wrong thing.” Mother turned her face away. “There are too many people in Chang’an, and there isn’t enough land to go around. Those people think this place is also fertile land, so they’re burning wheat straw.”
"Then, what about the people living here?"
“They, they have new houses, better, more beautiful houses.” Mother’s tears fell onto Lin Yuan’s hair. “Houses that will never be burned down again.”
Lin Yuan sighed, feeling regretful.
Is there any house that is better or more beautiful than this one before the flood?
She remembered that her mother would sometimes take her to a spacious and bright kitchen.
There, Mother was busy with many other people, cooking sheep and slaughtering pigs, making wine and sweet wine.
She would chew on a piece of dried meat or pluck a dried bamboo shoot, then secretly run outside to watch the smoke rising from the stove transform into clouds filling the sky.
The houses beneath the clouds had red walls, black tiles, golden pillars, and jade bricks.
The dragon coils on the pillar, the phoenix perches on the eaves, and the chiwen (a mythical beast) lies on the roof ridge.
Her mother told her, "Don't run around, and don't offend important people."
She also threatened that those people all had the faces of turtles and snakes!
Lin Yuan was terrified, but she was also filled with curiosity.
She indeed saw the face of the tortoise and snake, a magnificent sight.
There was also a menacing face next to it.
But the next moment, the turtle-snake's face appeared as the heavy vermilion door opened, disappearing from her sight.
The thug standing to the side lowered his head and changed his expression.
The boy who was to enter through that door was dressed in shimmering silk robes and wore a jade crown; he was about two or three years older than her.
He said to the terrified Lin Yuan, "Don't be afraid, I'll take you inside to play."
Lin Yuan was stunned. Inside that door was the realm of immortals.
The boy, who seemed like a god, led Lin Yuan to see the dazzling stone mountain, the vast lake, and through the misty waterfall. They climbed dozens of feet up to a pavilion that seemed to reach the heavens.
From there, one can hear the sounds of elegant music, such as the playing of zithers and the drums.
The boy knew everything and told her a story about a man called "King Qin" who played the drum.
Lin Yuan listened intently, and by the time she climbed down, it was already dusk.
Oh no, I'm going to get a beating from my mother. When I get home, I'll get a scolding from my father. My father, the blacksmith, is a fierce demon when he starts cursing.
She wept with worry.
"Don't cry, don't cry." The boy was a little lost. He thought for a moment, then took out a piece of candy from his sleeve. "Here, take this."
Lin Yuan stopped crying and smiled sweetly, "Let's play together from now on, okay?"
The boy smiled and said okay, his eyes curving into crescent moons.
The tinkling ornaments hanging from his body sounded like a mountain spring singing in this fairyland.
A note from the author:
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Quiz: Who is this boy? [Sparkling eyes]
The answer will be revealed when Chapter Ten is released.
The next update will be at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
Thank you all for following, commenting, and supporting! I'm so happy this isn't a solo story anymore! Love you all!
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