After the cook, Jiang Ai spent a lot of money to hire a doctor with high medical skills. He used half coercion and half inducement to get him into Yuzhou City to treat the child brought by the king.
That day, she and Yan Ke were waiting outside the student gate of the Nine Palaces Labyrinth Prison. They were discussing what would happen if He Simu couldn't come out. When they were making up a story to deal with the other palace masters, they saw He Simu taking the young man with him. After walking out of the living door, He Simu's heart candle was actually burning with two balls of fire.
Jiang Ai was really shocked, thinking that this young man was really tough.
But what if you enter the Nine Palaces Labyrinth? Can you escape unscathed? The young man had been unconscious since he came out, kept talking in his sleep, and broke out in cold sweats. The doctor she quickly called in from outside said that he had a high fever, but there were no wounds on his body. The cause of the disease was unknown.
I don’t know what this young man saw when he was lost in the Nine Palaces.
This is troublesome. It's easy to cure a disease on the body, but it's difficult to treat a disease in the heart. Which evil ghost in this city doesn't have something wrong in his heart? He couldn't cure himself, let alone others. Even doctors with excellent medical skills were helpless. Jiang Ai thought to herself, "This money is really wasted."
What happened to this child? It could be said that he was in trouble just to save her, so Jiang Ai often visited him. During this period, He Simu didn't have any court meetings and moved the place where official business was handled from the main hall to the child's room. Every time Jiang Ai went there, he would see He Simu reading the book indifferently while the boy was lying on the hospital bed. Go up, face pale and frowning tightly
He seemed to be stuck in a nightmare. Occasionally he would clutch the quilt and try to scream, but the sound was choked in his throat and was always out of tune. Jiang Ai looked carefully and felt that he seemed to be asking for help.
What's going on with this good-looking child? He can't even make a sound to cry for help. It's very distressing.
Several times she heard the child finally make a clearly identifiable voice, calling "He Simu". At this time, He Simu would put down the book and walk to him, hold his hand and talk to him. Fingers intertwined. The child relaxed his brows with peace of mind and remained calm for a long time. He Simu would occasionally help him wipe his sweat or help him tidy up his messy clothes.
Once, He Simu looked at their hands holding each other in trance, and then said with a hint of clarity: "Is he actually tempted by this?"
Jiang Ai immediately asked curiously: "Tempted? For what??"
"Finger to heart."
He Simu gave Jiang Ai an answer that she couldn't understand. Jiang Ai understood that this was really not a good time to ask questions, so he just advised her: "I think this child is very good-looking, right? You are also sincere. Before the heart candle was extinguished, you were still telling me that if he could come out alive, You want me to tell him your past. How about you accept him as your lover? I see that many of the people you have met before are not as good as him."
He Simu was silent for a moment and sighed deeply.
After Duan Xu rested for ten days, he finally woke up from the topsy-turvy nightmare. He Simu didn't know it at that time. He just heard him calling "Simu" and walked over to hold his hand. .
Unexpectedly, Duan Xu was stunned for a moment, blinked his eyes that were getting darker due to his serious illness, held her hand tightly and said with a smile: "I am sick, do I get such good treatment?"
Only then did He Simu realize that Duan Xu was conscious. She breathed a sigh of relief and asked the ghost servant to call the doctor Jiang Ai invited. Because he held her hand too tightly, she hesitated but did not let go after all.
In the past, she always saw Duan Xu smiling and was even a little bored, but now she feels that it is good to still see him smiling.
The doctor said it would be good if Duan Xu regained consciousness, and he hurriedly prescribed a few doses of medicine to recuperate his body. The doctor, who was over fifty years old, smiled so hard that the corners of his mouth didn't even come down. He looked happier than anyone else. It's not so much a doctor's parental heart, but it's better to say that he finally doesn't have to worry about being eaten by these evil ghosts if he can't save people.
Duan Xu sat on the bed and leaned against the back of the bed, holding the medicine bowl with a pale face. He looked at the thick black medicine for a long time, turned his head and said to He Simu: "I really don't have the strength, can I?" Can’t you please the king condescend to feed me?”
He Simu, who was sitting in the room reading the booklet, raised his head and signaled to the ghost servant to feed him, but Duan Xu did not give the ghost servant the medicine bowl. He looked at her and said, "If you switch with me in the future, You will know it through the sense of taste. I am particularly afraid of bitterness. The taste of this medicine is extremely bitter when I smell it.”
He blinked innocently, and He Simu stared at him for a while, then rubbed his temples to push away the ghost servant, walked to him and took the medicine bowl from him. She took a spoonful of it expressionlessly and said to him, "Open your mouth."
Duan Xu opened his mouth obediently, and she stuffed a full spoonful into it, and then his brows knitted together tightly.
He seems to be really afraid of hardship. What is the taste of bitterness, and is it so terrible
He Simu wanted to ask Jiang Ai's cook to make some candied fruits next time. With this thought in her mind, she said: "I'm afraid of itchiness and pain. Did you see in the illusion that you were being chased, tickled, and given medicine?"
Duan Xu laughed out loud, his eyebrows curved and clear. He shook his head, with a smile in his eyes, and said slowly: "You want to know what I saw? If you want to know, I'll tell you."
He Simu put down the medicine bowl and looked into his eyes. She thought that at this time, she should say that I am not interested in your past. If you don't want to talk about it, then stop talking about it, so don't pry into my past either.
But, she "really wants to know".
He has been struggling in the nightmare for so long, and what he has experienced should be more than what he told her.
So He Simu kept silent, and Duan Xu took it as her acquiescence. He leaned on the back of the bed and thought for a while, and whispered: "I told you before, God knows, I helped the high priest before I left the army. I did some things with Wang Ting, and because of those things I learned about Wang Ting’s situation and got more blood on my hands.”
"Um."
"At that time, the chief priest received a prophecy, saying that in the six states near Shangjing, there was a person born on the seventh day of August who was connected with the evil god and opposed the Cang God, causing the royal family to decline and endangering the rule of Danzhi. So Tianzhi was ordered to search for people with strange symptoms who were born on the seventh day of August within the prophecy area, and we probably arrested...several hundred people."
Duan Xu lowered his eyes, his pale fingers intertwined, separated, and intertwined again. This was his habit when thinking, but now he was not thinking, but persuading himself to remember.
"There were men and women, adults and children. The high priest believed that a cruel and long death would break their connection with the evil god. So some of them were hung upside down and sawed bit by bit from between their legs. In two halves, some had their intestines extracted alive and rolled up in circles on the wooden frame... These punishments were carried out in front of all of us, God knows, and many of the people who were executed were captured by me. . When those people die, my contemporaries will cheer to celebrate the defeat of the evil god."
After a pause, Duan Xu chuckled: "Because I am one of the best disciples in our period, sometimes they let me carry out executions with my own hands."
His words stopped here, and there was a long silence.
"Han Lingqiu also personally carried out the execution. I gave him the decoction to erase his memory. He probably won't be able to remember his past in this life. It's good. Just forget it and never remember his past. "Duan Xu said lightly.
He Simu scooped up the concoction in the bowl and asked, "What about you? Don't you forget it?"
"If even I forget, who can remember them?" Duan Xu raised his eyes to look at He Simu, and he asked: "Those people died in pain, will they turn into evil ghosts? ?”
"Children who are tortured and killed tend to become evil spirits because they are not deeply involved in the world and have a strong desire to be reborn. If adults are tortured and killed, if they are not deeply attached to the world, they will not become evil ghosts."
Duan Xu breathed a sigh of relief and said, "That's good. It'll be nice if there's someone to avenge you."
"Whether you are here or not, the high priest and God know that if they make such a decision, they will all die. There is no need for you to bear their death."
Duan Xu was silent for a while, his eyelashes trembled a little, and he smiled almost invisiblely.
"Simu, my birthday is the seventh day of August."
Most of the children in God Knows are orphans. Not many of them know their birth date. When God knows, they will not specifically ask about it. Therefore, in God Knows, only he knows. He is also eligible for hunting. Condition candidates. When he took back those people who had the same birthday as him and watched them being executed, he was always anxiously wondering whether the high priest and God knew who he was looking for.
But he doesn't have the ability to communicate with gods, and he doesn't even believe in God.
He accumulated strength in this doubt, and was finally able to escape from God's knowledge, evading various searches and chases all the way back to Daliang. However, five years later, He Simu suddenly realized it when he invited him to make a spell. The "evil god" mentioned by the high priest turned out to be the King of Ghosts.
Years of doubts were finally solved. The person mentioned in the prophecy was really him.
All those who died in front of him, all of them, died for him.
In this case, he thought that no matter whether there was a God in the world or not, what was God's will? He must make this prophecy come true.
He Simu knew what Duan Xu wanted to say. She looked at his expression as he was lost in memories and thought that this scene seemed a bit familiar. So she reached out and patted his face and said, "Wake up, the nightmare is over."
Just like he did to her a long time ago.
Duan Xu's eyes flashed and he asked, "Is it over?"
"It's over. Now you are my curse holder. No one in this world can let you experience such a nightmare. I will not allow it."
He Simu laughed softly. She raised the spoon and said kindly, "Open your mouth and take the medicine."
“…”
Duan Xu frowned, and a smile appeared on his face. He said euphemistically: "This is also part of the nightmare."
"What I'm saying is that no one can make you experience nightmares. I'm a ghost, so I'm not in this category." He Simu smiled.
Duan Xu then grimaced, pinched his nose and drank the bowl of medicine bit by bit.
The next day, when Jiang Ai asked He Simu if he could tell Duan Xu about her past, He Simu finally agreed. Jiang Ai, who always loved watching the excitement, was very happy and immediately ran over to chat with Duan Xu. Jiang Ai talked about the past four hundred years from the time she went to eat He Simu's full moon wine until the death of the former ghost king.
He Simu was not present, but she looked at this time and roughly knew that Jiang Ai had shaken off everything. She couldn't help but feel that the "pain" feeling when being a human being came back to her mind.
A few days later, when Duan Xu was able to get out of bed and move freely, He Simu went to find him.
The weather was a bit gloomy that day. It was late spring and early summer, and it seemed like heavy rain was coming. He Simu led him out of the back door of the palace and came to the back hillside of Xusheng Mountain. Here, facing away from Yuzhou City and facing the human world, we can finally see some black tiles, mortals coming and going, and the curling smoke from cooking stoves.
On the hillside behind Xusheng Mountain, there are twenty-two tombs lined up among the green grass. All the tombs have no tombstones, only grave bags. There is a tree planted next to each tomb, twenty-two trees. There are different types of trees.
He Simu stood among these tombs, and she said to Duan Xu: "I have had twenty-two lovers in the past four hundred years, and these are their tombs. Some have bones, and some have bones. It’s just a tomb. Most of them don’t know my true identity. The longest I’ve been with them is only twenty years.”
She buried the past between them in this ghost town facing the human world.
He Simu pointed to the grave of the first Qingcao Lili and said: "This is the first mortal I liked before my father died. At that time, he followed me wherever we traveled, even though he knew "I have never flinched from my true identity." His name is... "
He Simu's voice paused here. The wind blew her long hair and sleeves flying, and she remained in this state, frowning, thinking seriously for a long time, and then said helplessly: "I don't remember. I used to like him very much, but Now, I can’t even call out his name.”
Duan Xu's eyes flashed and he looked at He Simu intently. The only girl he was attracted to, this long-lived girl, was wearing a rusty red train that he could not tell the color of. Her expression was light and decisive, and he seemed to already know what she was going to say.
"Whether it's heartless or ruthless. Duan Xu, I am such an evil ghost. My life is measured in thousands of years, and time will wear away everything. One day I will not even be able to remember your name. Not to mention the magnificent past behind you and the memories between us. My parents and relatives have been with me day and night for nearly a hundred years. Recently, my imagination of them has become a bit blurry. How long can you stay with me? If you unfortunately become a devil, I won't even like you at all. In the end, you will be just a tiny ripple in my thousands of years of life."
Duan Xu wanted to say something? What? to retort, but before he could say anything, He Simu said, "Are you willing?"
She is very smart and knows that he cannot say the word "willingly".
Duan Xu just looked deeply into her eyes, and He Simu smiled, like some solid and ominous omen in the stormy weather.
"You seem to like me very seriously, so I have to reject you seriously. Duan Xiaohu, you have your dream. Your life in less than twenty years has been too hard. In the future, You should live happily. You will meet the girl you like more, get a wife and have children, have a happy family and relatives you can rely on. God knows it was your nightmare before you were twenty, so don't let me be your twenty. The worst nightmare ever."