Chapter 048: Picking Mulberries (V)
Only three days had passed since the incident in Wazi on the night of the Lantern Festival, when Cai Chunxu personally came to Nanhuai Street to invite Ni Su to a banquet at the Taiwei Mansion .
Except for General Miao's eldest son Miao Jingzhen, who was the Du Yuhou of the Palace Guard and was still on duty in the palace, the family of the General's Mansion was relatively complete.
General Miao didn't say much at the banquet. He only found an excuse to invite Ni Su to sit in the pavilion after the banquet. He had shaved his beard and looked more energetic than before. "A Cai and my wife didn't know about this, so I didn't toast to you, Miss Ni, at the banquet."
He took a kettle from the stove, poured a bowl of hot tea and handed it to Ni Su.
"Your Excellency, there is no need to be like this. I was able to come out of the Night Watch early thanks to Second Young Master and Sister Cai. Later, I stayed in your house for many days, and I don't know how to repay you." Ni Su brought the tea bowl and said with a smile.
"Your family has done a favor to Ah Cai's family, and Ah Cai married into our family. This is the same for us," Commander Miao sat down, resting his hands on his knees. "Did Miss Ni go to play in the tile house on the Lantern Festival?"
"Yes, I have been in Yunjing for such a long time, but I have never really seen the prosperity of Yunjing. I heard that the tile house is bustling, so I went to take a look."
Ni Su replied.
General Miao nodded, "The prosperity and bustle of Yunjing is not limited to the Wazi. I just wonder how long you will stay in Yunjing, Miss Ni?"
Although it didn't snow tonight, it was still cold at night. Ni Su pressed her palm against the porcelain bowl and said, "Probably, I'll stay longer."
"I thought Miss Ni wouldn't want to stay here any longer."
There was a smile in General Miao's eyes.
"I don't want to, but I can't abandon someone just because I don't want to." Ni Su blew the hot mist from the edge of the bowl and took a sip of hot tea.
"What did Miss Ni say?"
Ni Su knew that General Miao was thinking of the figure he had seen in the tile house that day. She shook her head, "A person who helped me on my way to Beijing."
She lowered her eyes and a pale white shadow floated on the ground.
"Miss Ni, it's fine for you to stay here. If you feel lonely, you can come to the Taiwei Mansion to keep Ah Cai company," said Taiwei Miao. He couldn't help but ask, "But I really want to ask you, who was the young man who kept you company in the tile house that day?"
For three days in a row, whenever General Miao thought of that figure, he always felt it was very familiar.
"Actually, I don't know him."
Ni Su said.
"Don't know me?" Commander Miao frowned slightly.
"When I saw you in the tile house that day, I wanted to go up and say a few words to you, but I didn't take a few steps before he stopped me. He told me that you might be in danger and asked me to take you to hide."
"There are so many people upstairs and downstairs in the tile house. How does he know that you know me and must be coming for me?" General Miao looked puzzled.
"I actually want to ask the commander, is he someone you know? My case of seeking justice has caused a stir in Yunjing, and he is close to your family, could he have known me before?"
Ni Su's question made General Miao a little stunned. He actually followed her words and began to think about them. His brows were twisted into a "川" shape. After a while, he wiped his face in annoyance: "Fuck..."
Before he could finish the rest of his words, he looked up to meet Ni Su's gaze and laughed awkwardly, "Please forgive me, Miss Ni. I am a rough man and I am used to saying these nonsense words..."
Ni Su suppressed his laughter and shook his head.
"Miss, do you know who is waiting for me in that elegant room?"
"When you and Censor Jiang took advantage of the chaos to leave that day, I also left." Ni Su pretended not to know.
"It's the Hu people."
General Miao's expression became much more serious. "If I had really gone there then, I'm afraid my whole family would have been sent to the Night Prison for torture."
"Although I don't know who that young master is, he and you both helped me a lot. I guess, if he didn't know about it in advance, then he must be a general who has been on the battlefield."
General Miao subconsciously wanted to touch his beard, but he only touched his bald chin. "If not, how could he know so much about the Hu people?"
Military general.
Ni Su was a little stunned when she heard this.
She thought of Xu Ziling's hands. She had seen those hands holding a pen, turning pages in a book, and holding a sword. But she often forgot that he also had a sharp background like a blade, which was concealed under that thin and dignified appearance.
Just as General Miao said, he knew the Hu people so well.
He knew about the Hu people's habit of wearing swords, their walking posture, how vast their grasslands were, and how rare their cattle and sheep were...it was as if he had really been there.
"Perhaps."
Finally, she responded softly to General Miao.
If the Hu man was still alive, he would have definitely targeted General Miao. Fortunately, the young master killed all eight of them, so that when the eight bodies were carried into the Night Bureau, the Night Bureau's envoy Han Qing could not investigate anything.
General Miao invited Ni Su here today in the name of Cai Chunxu, just to find out who was the person who helped him escape the disaster that day. However, he became more confused after the conversation.
It was late at night, and General Miao did not want to keep Ni Su any longer. After asking his second daughter-in-law, Cai Chunxu, to send the girl away, he sat alone in the pavilion for a while.
Miao Jingzhen, the chief of the Palace Guards, returned home from the palace with a cold look on his face and his armor still on. He saw his father drinking alone in the pavilion. He walked up to him and realized that what Captain Miao was pouring into his mouth was not wine but tea.
"...Father, what did Miss Ni say?" Miao Jingzhen took off his sword and placed it on the table, then lifted his skirt and sat down opposite General Miao.
"She said she didn't know the man."
General Miao spat out the tea foam, "If you say she lied, why did she lie to me?"
"Danqiu wanted to increase the annual tribute, so you submitted a memorial refusing to pay Danqiu the tribute and advocating war. I didn't expect someone to immediately use the matter of my uncle to lure you into the trap," Miao Jingzhen's face was a little bad, "and they even used a foreigner to accuse you, which was a deliberate insult to you."
"I hope Dad will think twice before doing anything in the future, and don't just ignore everything when you hear my uncle's name."
"It's because the letter mentioned Yongzhou. You also know that your uncle died in Yongzhou, but I was seriously injured and not at the border at the time..."
General Miao changed his usual cheerful demeanor and showed a bit of melancholy. "Jingzhen, when your uncle died, he was only in his twenties and didn't even have a wife. I have two sons and two daughters-in-law now, but his body was chopped to pieces by the Hu people's golden knives. Now, I can only build a tomb for him."
"Just because the letter sent to you said that there was something else behind my uncle's death, you are confused?"
Miao Jingzhen was helpless. "Dad, the military reports from that year are still here, and the officials who returned from Yongzhou are all here. It's said that Censor Jiang was one of the officials who returned from Yongzhou. Everyone knows that the Danqiu general Mengtuo threatened the lives of the entire Xu family in Qingyazhou to make the criminal Xu Hexue lead 30,000 Jing'an troops to surrender to the enemy. But Mengtuo went back on his word and slaughtered Xu Hexue's 30,000 Jing'an troops at Mushen Mountain. If it weren't for my uncle who risked his life to defend Yongzhou City, I'm afraid that before the reinforcements could be received, Yongzhou City, a military stronghold, would have fallen into the hands of the Danqiu Hu people."
When the three words "Xu Hexue" came out of Miao Jingzhen's mouth, Captain Miao's face immediately turned gloomy. He grasped the tea bowl in one hand and actually crushed it into a handful of porcelain pieces.
“I…”
General Miao said hoarsely, "If I had known that he was such a heartless person, I should have asked him to go back to Yunjing. Why not let him... bring harm to Da Qi?"
If he were in Yunjing, he might still be able to become a young Jinshi.
Being in the temple is better than being on the battlefield.
At least you don't have to lose yourself in the wind, sand and blood, from being a favored child of heaven to being a complete failure.
The sky was as dark as ink, dotted with a few sparse stars.
It was not yet dark when Ni Su entered the Taiwei Mansion, so the lamp she was holding was not one she lit herself. She walked through the bustling streets and came to an empty alley, with a faint mist gently tugging at her sleeves.
She squatted down, took out a tinder from her bosom, opened the lantern, blew out the candle , and then relit it. The flame flickered. Ni Su raised her head and saw a child standing at the door not far away, tilting his head to look at her strange behavior.
The child suddenly grinned at her and threw the snowball in his hand at her.
However, the snowball did not hit her but was broken into fine snow particles by the light cold mist and fell at her feet. The child opened his eyes wide, as if he had seen a ghost, turned around, tripped over the threshold, and fell into the courtyard gate, crying loudly.
Ni Su couldn't help laughing.
"Xu Ziling, you are going to scare people."
She said.
The light mist brushed the edge of her sleeves and transformed into a tall figure. He was dependent on her, from beginning to end.
He didn't say anything, just looked at her silently.
Ni Su stood up with the lamp in hand, "Let's go home."
It seemed that the word "go home" could always bring him a warm sense of belonging. Every time Ni Su said this, she could detect some different emotions in his eyes that were as withered as the severe winter. He always appeared very obedient at such times.
So she also liked talking to him like this.
In fact, it is not easy to make such a ghost who has been away from the world for a long time feel happy, but Ni Su always wanted to do so.
The two walked side by side past the house where the crying sound came from, and heard the child inside sobbing and shouting to his mother that there was a female ghost.
Ni Su laughed again.
"Are you still in pain?"
Xu Hexue felt a little uncomfortable.
Ni Su's injuries had not yet healed. She had injured her lower back in the tile shop that day, and she had been feeling a bit uncomfortable these past few days. But she shook her head and said, "It doesn't hurt that much anymore. I take medicine every day. Don't worry, I'm a doctor myself, I know everything."
"Yeah." He responded.
"Did you hear what I said to General Miao?" Ni Su asked him.
"Yes."
"Do you think there's anything wrong with what I said?"
"No, you answered very well."
As soon as Xu Hexue finished speaking, he suddenly remembered what she said to General Miao, "I don't want to abandon someone just because I don't want to." He walked in the shadow of the lamp she was holding, and suddenly said, "Ni Su, although I don't remember many things from the past, I think I must have never met a girl like you before."
Ni Su paused, then looked up at him: "What am I like?"
"You have the courage to set your goals, and you are not afraid of hardships or dangers, nor do you fear what others say because of the secular world." Xu Hexue stopped and met her gaze. "You are a woman worthy of admiration."
Not avoiding him because of his ghostly body, but willing to stay in this place for a while to fulfill his request.
She was the woman he admired so much.
Ni Su was almost stunned. The light from the lantern in her hand illuminated the glowing dust all around him. He looked so beautiful in the bright light and shadow mixed with cold and warm colors, as if in a dream.
Somehow, her cheeks felt a little hot. She avoided his cold eyes and whispered, "I'm not as good as you say..."
"I'm not lying to you."
He said.
Ni Su felt a little embarrassed and said "hmm" twice, urging him to move forward.
There was silence between the two of them, but Ni Su secretly glanced at the young man walking beside her. She reached out and brushed off a handful of snow from the broken branches, then stood still: "Xu Ziling."
Xu Hexue turned around when he heard the voice, and saw her raising her hand, and a handful of snow fell on his sleeve under the shadow of the lamp.
Snow as fine as salt grains stuck to the edges of my sleeves.
He raised his eyes blankly.
"Why don't you hit me?" Ni Su gathered another handful of snow.
She was smiling, her eyebrows slightly raised.
Xu Hexue reached out and grabbed a handful of snow from the branch, then tentatively threw it at her with all his strength.
Ni Su looked at the small snowball that fell not far from her feet and deliberately teased: "Do you have to eat candles to have the strength to hit me?"
“…”
