When Xiao Shi woke up and turned around, he realized that he was in a dark Buddhist hall, wearing an ill-fitting nun robe.
Then she remembered what happened before, and her face changed dramatically.
She staggered out of bed and slammed the doors and windows desperately: "Let me out, let me out!"
"I want to see Grandpa Guo, I want to see Jing'er."
"It was Xing Xiaoya, it was Xing Xiaoya who framed me, they were all deceived by Xing Xiaoya."
…
It's a pity that even if Xiao shi broke her throat, no one answered her.
Except when it was time for dinner, a mute would give her food and clothes for the day through a small hole in the corner.
After the depression and despair, Xiao's determination to expose Xing Xiaoya's ugly face to Zhao Lingwu and Zhao Yijing was strengthened.
For this, she had to live a good life.
After half a year, there was a sudden noise outside the house, which disturbed Mr. Xiao who was doing morning class.
Immediately after the door opened, everyone filed in.
Xiao Shi subconsciously raised his hand to block the dazzling sunlight.
I only heard the person who came to say in the duck's voice: "Are you the Xiao family?"
After finally getting used to the surrounding light, Mrs. Xiao put down his hands, and only then did he see clearly who was coming, but it was the steward and a eunuch of the Duke's Mansion.
Although the housekeeper couldn't bear it, he still took out a letter from his arms and handed it to Mrs. Xiao. He hardly dared to look directly into Mrs. Xiao's eyes: "Husband... Mrs. Xiao, this is the letter of divorce written by the grandfather of the country to you. ?"
As if struck by lightning, Mr. Xiao cried out, "What did you say?"
I just heard the eunuch say in a loud voice: "According to the sage's will, drag the Xiao family to Caishikou, take 30 major responsibilities, and expel the capital, come here—"
"Yes." Two guards with knives came out from behind the eunuch immediately, grabbed Mrs. Xiao and walked out.
"Responsible for the 30 big boards, expelled from the capital?" Xiao's complexion changed, her head was dizzy, she struggled desperately: "Why is this, I want to see the grandfather of the country, I want to see Jing'er."
"It's useless," the butler said with a sigh, "at the palace banquet two days ago, because the eldest son wore a jade pendant presented by the eldest son's wife, it was recognized by his uncle Zheng Guo as belonging to the late Empress Xiaogong Qian. It was found out that the prince's wife was the daughter of Empress Xiaogong Qian, and the sage appointed the prince's wife to be the eldest princess of Ning Guo on the spot... Now the prince is seriously ill in bed, because of your relationship, the prince was also imprisoned, if not for the prince And the eldest princess to intercede for you, the Holy One was going to behead you..."
Hearing this, Xiao Shi's face was pale, her eyes were lost, and she muttered to herself, "How can this happen, how can this happen?"
Seeing that she was no longer struggling, the eunuch waved his hand: "Take it away."
In this way, Xiao Shi was taken to Caishikou by them.
The people who passed by gathered around and pointed at her.
"Is this the lady of the Guogong's mansion who killed Princess Ning's two miscarriages?"
"Not her."
"She can do it, too. Tiger poison doesn't even eat its children."
"I heard that Princess Ning is still her son's savior."
…
Shame, unwillingness, shame and anger... All kinds of emotions disappeared the moment the red sign fell.
"Hit—" Following the eunuch's order, the fire and water stick slammed down on her.
Pain, heart-wrenching pain.
The applause in his ears was incessant.
She fainted and was woken up by someone with water.
She didn't have time to think about anything else, she just wanted to die immediately.
I don't know how long it took, and the thirty big boards were finally finished, and she only had half a breath left.
The next moment, the overwhelming rotten eggs and rotten vegetable leaves smashed at her.
In a daze, a rather familiar voice came from her ear: "Sir, since the 30 big boards have been finished, it is not necessary for the officers to start, and the students will take the Xiao family out of the capital."
"Who are you a criminal?"
"I... I am her son."
son
Jinger—
Xiao Shi gasped and forced her eyes to open. When someone approached, it was a face she didn't expect.
She stared blankly as one rotten egg exploded on his forehead, and the stench of egg liquid fell on his hair and clothes.
He didn't care, only said with red eyes, "Mother... Mother, An'er will take you out of the capital."
After the surprise, there was only a feeling of emotion left. Xiao Shi never expected that when she was almost in a desperate situation, the one who helped her would be the shy son who she had always regarded as nothing.
Just before she could speak, a severe pain hit her heart, her breathing stagnated, and she fainted.
For the next two months, it was like a dream. I could not survive, nor die.
Fortunately, she finally survived.
After sending the doctor away, Zhao Yian brought the fried medicine to the Xiao family.
Already accustomed to the taste of the medicinal juice, Mr. Xiao took the medicinal bowl and drank it. At the end, she said, "Sit down and let's talk."
Zhao Yian responded hesitantly.
Xiao Shi looked at Zhao Yian, who was busy with dust, and was silent for a while, and finally said, "Why are you helping me?"
She doesn't doubt Zhao Yian's intentions. She has been together for more than two months. Zhao Yian has taken care of her meticulously and has never been impatient at all, which is very telling.
Under the dim candlelight, Zhao Yian looked at Mrs. Xiao with a touch of admiration on his face, and he said, "I had a serious illness when I was young, if you hadn't taken the post and invited an imperial doctor for me, I'm afraid I have long since died. Since then, I have sworn that I will repay you in the future."
Xiao Shi still vaguely remembered this incident. She thought of a thousand reasons for Zhao Yian to help her, but she never expected that it would be such a reason that is not a reason.
"Managing the backyard is the responsibility of being the wife of the family." It should be said that Zhao Yian was too sincere or too stupid, Xiao Shi's face was moved: "Confused, just for such a trivial matter, I gave up the Jinyiyu in the imperial mansion. Is it worth it?"
"Is it worth it or not, I just know that if I don't do it, I will regret it for the rest of my life." Zhao Yian said softly.
Xiao Shi's eyes instantly turned red.
When everyone misunderstood and hated her, Zhao Yian appeared, dispelling most of the haze in her heart.
It's impossible not to be moved.
Early the next morning, Zhao Yian went to the street to set up a letter-writing stall, and the daily income was barely enough for the two of them.
Although life was tight, it was better than stability.
Xiao's body is getting better day by day, partly because she is staying at home to have nothing to do, and partly because she wants to earn some money to support her family. She asked Zhao Yian for some needles and threads and embroidered a purse.
She has specialized in Su embroidery, so she naturally didn't say anything about the craftsmanship, and since it's a small place, things were sought after as soon as they came on the market. She reached an agreement with the embroidery shop with the best price, and made an appointment to pick up the goods every five days.
With the addition of Xiao Shi, the burden on Zhao Yian was instantly lighter.
After more than two months, Xiao Shi's injuries healed seven to eight or eight, and the family also saved eight taels of silver.
Eight taels of silver. In the past, she didn't even know the number of people she freely rewarded, but here, it has become her entire family.
In addition to the loss, she was satisfied, and even thought that after another year or two, she would be able to save enough money for Zhao Yian to marry a daughter-in-law.
With this mentality, Xiao Shi temporarily forgot everything that happened in the capital.
Until another five days came, the embroidery shop owner who had agreed to come to pick up the embroidery did not come in the afternoon.
Xiao Shi thought that the other party might have been delayed by something. Anyway, the place where she lives is not very far from the embroidery shop, so she might just go and send the embroidery there.
After making up her mind, she went out with her belongings, but she did not expect that as soon as she went to the street, she would attract the pointing of the neighbors.
"I said, how could she be Su embroidery? It turns out that she is the lady of the government's mansion who caused Princess Ning to have two miscarriages."
"It's true that he knows people and faces, but he doesn't know his heart. He usually looks good, but his heart is so dark."
"It's not..."
Xiao Shi's face stiffened, like falling into an abyss.
She finally knew why the embroidery shop owner hadn't come yet.
She stumbled home.
This is not the most frustrating thing. When it was dark, Zhao Yian was carried back. His face was bruised and swollen, there was no good flesh, and his right hand was also interrupted.
Sending away the passers-by who helped kindly, Xiao Shi looked at Zhao Yian's appearance and burst into tears: "God-killed bastards, how dare they take such a heavy hand."
"Mother, don't cry, no matter how difficult it is, we all survived. This injury is nothing." Zhao Yian comforted her and said, "Mother, let's move."
After a long silence, Xiao Shi said, "Okay."
In any case, they can't live in this place.
But they didn't want them to settle down with difficulty every time they went, and Xiao's scandal would be exposed, followed by someone who went to Zhao Yian's place to make trouble.
The two hid all the way from Guizhou to Yunnan, and gradually, Xiao Shi also noticed something was wrong.
She gritted her teeth: "It must be Xing Xiaoya, it must be she who is playing tricks."
Hearing this, Zhao Yian stopped talking.
"Why, she still refuses to let me go even though I have fallen into such a field!" Xiao Shi's face was ashen.
In this way, the heart disease and the sequelae after the second beating, Xiao fell ill again.
This disease has never been better. Zhao Yian's money has also reached the bottom, and he can afford it. He has no money to pay the rent. Zhao Yian had to take Xiao to find a broken temple to live in. a beggar.
"An'er, it's your mother who is dragging you down..." The thin and skinny Xiao Shi had a wrinkled face, his eyes were sunken, and his breath was dying.
She knew she was going to die, but she didn't feel hopeless.
She was tired of living, tired of running away, and tired of illness. For her, death was not a relief.
The only thing she was ashamed of was Zhao Yian. If it weren't for her, why would Zhao Yian be where he is today.
He was admitted as a scholar at a young age, and who can guarantee that he will not be named in the gold medal list in the future, and he will be honored as a prince. He will marry a virtuous and virtuous wife, and have two or three lovely children. When he is old, the husband and wife are in harmony, and the children and grandchildren are full...
Zhao Yian knelt in front of the bed, clasped Xiao's right hand to his mouth, and cried bitterly: "No, it's the child who is incompetent and failed to cure his mother's disease."
"In the next life... In the next life, we will be mother and son again, then, then..." Xiao Shi gasped with difficulty, opened her mouth, but could no longer speak, she sniffed the musty smell from the bedding on her body, Look at Zhao Yian, who is in rags and sorrow, and look at the tattered roof above his head. A look of hatred burst out from his turbid eyes.
How could she not hate it.
I think of her splendid clothes and jade food, pampering her for decades, shedding porridge, applying medicine, paving roads, repairing shantangs... Every piece of her is sincere and perfect.
She asked herself that she had never done anything that hurt the world on purpose, but in the end, she ended up with her husband abandoned, her son divorced, destitute, and died of illness in a foreign country.
It's all Xing Xiaoya, that poisonous woman, who bewitched her Jing'er, who framed her to this point.
She hates it!
But what's the use of hating again, she is about to die, but Xing Xiaoya is still alive and well.
She wondered in a daze, how nice it would be to see Jing'er again, the child she was pregnant with and almost didn't save, the child she had read and loved for decades...
"mother-"
With Zhao Yian's cry of pain, Xiao Shi vaguely felt that his body was getting lighter and lighter, and finally it almost floated. At this moment, a strange wind blew from out of nowhere, blowing her top-heavy, chaotic and I don't know what year and month.
I don't know how long it took, the strange wind finally subsided.
The world suddenly had a voice.
"Going to deliver something to the Xiao family again?"
"No, our grandfather is filial, and the eldest princess has a bodhisattva heart. Even if the Xiao family has done so many evil things, the grandfather still remembers him. No, we have to send us to her every three months. For three years, I have never stopped giving things."
"Huh, with so many things, I don't know that the Xiao family has accumulated several lifetimes of blessings before meeting such a good son and daughter-in-law as the grandfather and the eldest princess."
"It's not..."
Xiao Shi suddenly opened his eyes, and what he saw was a familiar street.
She was slightly taken aback, isn't this the back door of the Guogong's mansion
Isn't she dead
Only then did she realize that she was floating in the air, and then her eyes lit up, so God heard her prayer and sent her to see her son
Her breathing was quickened for a moment.
"Okay, stop talking, I should go."
"Well, be careful on the road!"
Hearing this, Xiao shi's eyes fell on the two carriages that passed through the crowd and drove into the distance, and was stunned for a moment.
Jing'er often gives her something
She knew that Jing'er had never forgotten her.
It's just why she never received these things.
But it was only for a moment, and the excitement and tension instantly dispelled the doubts in her heart.
She set off and flew to the palace.
The mansion has changed a lot, and it has only been three years since he left, but it gives Xiao Shi a feeling of being in a different world.
Following the general direction, she found the main courtyard of the Imperial Palace.
close, close...
Excited, frightened, nervous... Xiao Shi couldn't tell what kind of mood he was in right now.
She slowed down and walked slowly through the door.
In the study, Zhao Yijing is reviewing the military book.
It was what she remembered, Xiao Shi covered her mouth, but before the tears rolling in her eyes fell, someone knocked on the door.
The man knelt on one knee on the ground and said, "Master Guo, there is news from Yunnan that Mrs. Xiao is dead."
"Dead?" Zhao Yijing put down the book, his tone was flat, as if he was talking about something that had nothing to do with him: "What about Zhao Yi'an?"
"I'm sick, I'm very sick, I don't think there's much time left." The man replied.
"Understood, withdraw everyone who is staring at them!"
"Yes, my subordinates retire."
The tears in Xiao's eyes were forced back by the indifference on Zhao Yijing's face.
She looked dazed, even a little overwhelmed.
She watched Zhao Yijing stand up and go to the cubicle.
She followed up subconsciously, and what caught her eye was a mourning hall, and the table was filled with sacrifices and a tablet.
On the tablet is written 'the spiritual position of the first concubine Zhao Zhou's Su Niang'.
Zhou Su Niang!
The name Xiao Shi was all too familiar. How many times when she dreamed back in the middle of the night, she wanted to peel this person and get cramps.
Zhao Lingwu thought it was perfect, but in fact she knew everything, but she didn't say anything.
Since she was in elementary school, the husband was the guide for the wife, and the husband sang along with the wife; because she knew that Zhao Lingwu did not dare to bring Zhou Su Niang to the stage; because she did not want Zhou Su Niang to appear in front of people, in that case, her original spouse status would not be guaranteed.
Out of sight, she never deliberately inquired about Su Niang's news again, only to hear that she died early, and she didn't know how.
I saw Zhao Yijing took three sticks of incense and lit it on the candle. After kneeling three times and nine kowtows, he inserted the long incense into the incense burner and said, "Mother, Mrs. Xiao died. She killed you in the street back then, but now she If you die in a foreign country, you can rest in peace."
Killed in the street
Xiao's face was expressionless, she remembered that more than 20 years ago, when she took Zhao Yijing to the street to see the lanterns, the servant who was beside her accidentally killed a sneaky, covered head and wanted to be killed. The trafficker who attacked Zhao Yijing.
But it turned out that was Zhou Su Niang
Zhao Yijing stood up and said: "Xiao Shi, you can't blame me for being ruthless, I didn't want to kill you at first. But who made Xiaoya become the eldest princess of Ning Guo, the emperor personally asked her about the miscarriage, but that was deceiving you. What a sin. In order to keep Xiaoya's image of being pure and kind in the emperor's mind, you can only aggrieve you to death. And your cousin's family, who let them know that you were locked up in the Buddhist temple, and secretly sent People went to Xiaoya's shop to make trouble, I just wanted to send them away, because they were unlucky and encountered a riot of refugees, no wonder I..."
Saying that, Xing Xiaoya's voice came from outside the door: "Yijing, come here, the workshop finally got the soda (sodium carbonate) out."
Hearing this, Zhao Yijing immediately opened the curtain of the mourning hall and walked out.
Xing Xiaoya gave Zhao Yijing a small porcelain bottle. Zhao Yijing opened it and saw that there was a pile of white powder in the porcelain bottle. He asked, "How did you make it?"
"It was made with salt and charcoal," Xing Xiaoya said with a wide-eyed smile. "In the future, we will no longer have to go to Wucheng to dig (natural sodium carbonate mine). This way, the cost of soap making can be reduced by at least 80%."
"Not bad." Zhao Yijing raised his hand to straighten the temples for Xing Xiaoya, with a gentle face: "Thank you for your hard work."
You must know that soap making alone can bring more than 200,000 taels of income to the government every year.
"This is what I should do." Xing Xiaoya hugged Zhao Yijing with a sweet face.
Xiao shi's eyes fell on the maid who was following behind Xing Xiaoya, and a sense of familiarity came over her face.
After a while, she finally remembered, isn't this the girl who stood up to accuse her three years ago because she couldn't hold the board
At this point, what else could she not understand
She looked at Zhao Yijing and Xing Xiaoya, who were hugging each other not far away. They were smiling so happily, but she felt a biting cold.
No wonder her child, who had been sentenced to death by the doctor, suddenly recovered.
No wonder the old lady, who has always been mild-mannered, just arrogantly and unreasonably robbed her child who was just a few days old and raised it by her side.
It's no wonder that Zhao Yijing has never looked for her in the past three years, and no matter where they escape, accidents will happen...
Thinking of Zhao Yian's reluctance to speak several times when she talked about Zhao Yijing, Xiao's eyes reddened.
She, Xiao Yiru, is a complete fool. She has raised and petted a bastard like a baby for more than 20 years.
Zhao Lingwu, the old lady, Zhao Yijing, Xing Xiaoya... This family played her round and round.
In the end, Zhao Yijing and Xing Xiaoya stepped on her and gained a lot of good reputation.
Ruthless, ruthless!
How excited she was when she came, how much hatred she was now.
Xiao Shi reached out and touched the corner of his eye, looked down, and saw blood on his hand.
She suddenly raised her head to look at Zhao Yijing and the two, her eyes were splitting.
"Bitch, I'm going to kill you—"
She screamed and flew towards Zhao Yijing and the two, no longer as graceful as before.
The next moment, she went straight through the bodies of Zhao Yijing and the two of them.
She was stunned for a moment, then turned and attacked the two again.
"Yijing, why do I feel so cold?" Xing Xiaoya said.
Zhao Yijing looked up and said, "It's going to change, go back and add some clothes."
"good."
Repeated efforts in vain wiped out Xiao's last fighting spirit.
She slumped on the ground and let Zhao Yijing and Xing Xiaoya leave together.
With a bang, the rain poured down.
She was powerless to complain about God's injustice, she only blamed herself for being so stupid that she was dying, and she still thought about Zhao Yijing in her heart.
She not only harmed herself, but also harmed her cousin's family of eight, Mammy Zheng, and Yi An—
Yes, Ian, and Ian.
Xiao Shi panicked, the man said that Ian was ill, very ill, how is he now
Thinking of this, she hurriedly stood up and flew in the direction she had come from.
She didn't know how long it took before she finally returned to the ruined temple at the foot of the mountain.
The whole temple looked unusually cold and quiet, sniffing the faint rancid smell coming from the tip of her nose, and a sense of unease suddenly rose in her heart.
The further you go, the stronger the rancid smell.
When she reached the corner behind the Buddha statue, Xiao Shi, who was almost breathless with the strong stench, stretched out her hand tremblingly, pulled off the thin quilt on the bed, and a carrion suddenly appeared in front of her.
Xiao shi's eyes fell on the clothes she was all familiar with on the carrion, and she felt the world spinning.
"Ma'am, why are you crying?"