Every autumn rain brings a chill.
Mid-Autumn Festival passed in a flash. Autumn was deep and the sky was dry. Most of the sycamore trees in Beijing were blown away overnight. The weather suddenly turned cold.
The imperial prison changed the prisoners' quilted uniforms into new ones.
Deng Ying was temporarily freed from the torture instruments. He sat in a corner, carefully rubbing the bruises on his wrists and ankles.
The day of execution was approaching, and he didn't want to behave inappropriately or be too disrespectful on the execution ground.
A young jailer took advantage of the leader's distraction and quietly poured himself a cup of hot tea and handed it to Deng Ying.
The tea smells nice, although not expensive.
"This is… "
Deng Ying rubbed her wrist and looked up in confusion.
The jailer looked outside the cell and said, "Just drink a sip. No one is coming."
Deng Ying took the hot tea with both hands, took a sip, and nodded to say thank you, "Thank you."
The jailer smiled and said, "You are quite pitiful."
"Thank you for your mercy."
After that, he couldn't help but ask, "How old are you?"
"It's ten."
"Very young."
The jailer nodded and said, "I heard that you are also very young, and you were born in a family of officials, and you were once a Jinshi."
Deng Ying lowered his eyes and replied, "Yes, but I have no fame now."
The jailer said, "I was educated before, but not as well as you. I took the exams for several years but failed to pass the exams, so I took my father's job and worked for the government. I hated people like you. You have knowledge and talent, but you don't do your job. You are thrown into prison and are going to be..."
He seemed to feel that saying the word "Lingchi" in front of him was too cruel, so he held back.
Deng Ying placed the cup on his knees and said softly, "That's a lesson."
"Did you really do those things?"
Deng Ying was slightly startled when he heard this, and raised his head and said, "The court has already made the judgment, why are you still asking this?"
The jailer hesitated, took the teacup from his hand, and handed him the quilted clothes. "Change your clothes. I'll come back later."
After saying that, he kicked the torture device aside and turned to leave, but saw Zhang Luo standing outside the cell. He dropped the teacup in his hand in shock, "Sir... I..."
Zhang Luo glanced at the mess at his feet and said coldly, "He is a condemned prisoner. No matter how much you pity him, you cannot take food and drink from him. If he gets away with it before the execution, you can't save yourself."
"yes… "
The jailer was about to admit his mistake when he heard Zhang Luo say, "Clean it up."
There was no hint of blame in his words. The jailer hurriedly picked up the broken porcelain on the ground and retreated outside.
When Zhang Luo walked into the cell, Deng Ying had already stood up and stepped back to the wall to salute him.
Zhang Luo looked around and said, "You can change to another cell."
Deng Ying stood up and said, "Let's stay here."
Zhang Luo did not insist. "The third day of the third month next year is the end of my sentence. Before that, you can tell me if there is anything wrong with your daily life."
"No."
Deng Ying pinched her injured wrist and said, "You have been kind to me. I will never forget this favor."
Zhang Luo shook his head and said calmly: "I have been in charge of the Zhenfu Prison for many years, and I know everything that happens in the prison. Although the prison warden still has 'sympathy for the prisoners', who would have sympathy for the guilty? They will not punish a death row prisoner for no reason."
Deng Ying didn't say anything, but waited with her hands down for Zhang Luo to continue.
Zhang Luo did not say anything, but raised his hand and handed a book to him.
"What is it?"
Zhang Luo raised his arm.
"See for yourself."
Deng Ying took it and heard Zhang Luo say, "You can't keep it. You must hand it over to me and burn it after you read it."
Deng Ying nodded and looked down at the cover page.
The words "Dongchang Observation Notes" caught my eye, and when I turned the page, I saw the somewhat "funny" portrait.
It was that night that he sat on the bed, and Yang Wan sketched the marks in her notebook.
Deng Ying's hands holding the book trembled uncontrollably, "This is..."
"Written by Yang Wan."
Zhang Luo said as he lowered his head to look at the pages of the book. "In the middle of last month, the blocks used to print this book at Qingbo Pavilion were burned. After that, I and Wucheng Bingmasi repeatedly asked the public to collect this book, but it was repeatedly banned. I shouldn't have given this book to you, but she wrote it for you, and I should let you take a look at it before you die."
Deng Ying lowered her head and gently stroked the pages of the book with her fingers.
The first chapter describes the period before and after his execution.
The last paragraph of the article reads:
From the moment I met him, I knew that I had lived for Deng Ying all my life. But outside the torture chamber, there was still a gap between me and this person. He respected clothes, but had no clothes to cover himself. I was fully clothed, but I didn't dare to look at him. In the ten years of Zhenning, there was only a charcoal brazier left in the torture chamber, and I sat by the fire, while he deliberately kept a distance. Although I had thousands of words in my heart, I had no way to speak, so I could only lie to him: "I feel a little cold too."
Four years had passed since we met Yang Wan. This passage gradually awakened the details of their first meeting. The feeling of budding seemed to have grown from his flesh and blood. Deng Ying remembered what she said: "Then you sleep a little longer. I'm a little cold. I'll go to bed after a while."
In fact, she didn't leave later.
She sat in front of his torture bed, always with her back to him, and even when she heard him "groaning" in pain, she tried her best to cover it up for him and never turned around once.
She protected his heart without leaving a trace.
So, on that chilly night, he carefully opened his heart to this strange girl.
He said he was ashamed to be in the same room with her now that he was in this state.
But she replied: "You don't need to be ashamed in front of anyone, it is the court that is ashamed in front of you."
He said he couldn't figure out why he had to come here to suffer such punishment.
She asked him back, "Would you rather die?"
Now, he gradually figured it out.
It’s this girl who seems unable to figure it out.
Deng Ying looked at the words on the pages of the book. He felt a pain in his back that almost made him curl up. He was forced to put down the book in his hand, bent his knees and slowly sat down.
"You don't want to see it?"
Zhang Luo looked down at him and said, "This book is to vindicate you."
"I know."
Zhang Luo was silent for a while, then asked, "Do you want to see her?"
Deng Ying trembled all over.
Zhang Luo continued, "You will see her today. The cabinet requested an order to arrest her for trial, and His Majesty approved it. The Pacification Office has sent people to take her back. But don't worry, she is different from you. His Majesty will protect her and will not harm her life. After you surrender, the matter will be settled and she can still live."
Deng Ying stood up, knelt down facing Zhang Luo, raised his hands flat, and then pressed them on the straw mat of the cell, bent down and kowtowed to Zhang Luo. "Master Zhang, please treat Yang Wan well."
Zhang Luo lowered his head, "Do you think I treat you well?"
The kneeling man said lightly: "I have done my best."
"That's true. Yang Wan told me that if one day she became a prisoner, she hoped that I would treat her the same way I treat you."
He raised his head after he finished speaking, "Deng Fuling, I didn't understand why she said that at first, but after reading this book, I understand about 70% of it. Although she is a woman, she holds the pen for you. There are tens of millions of literati in this world who are good at writing. I have seen many weak ones in the imperial prison, but I only admire Yang Wan. Don't worry, I will treat all of you well."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a sound of shackles dragging in the corridor. The jailer reported: "Sir, the person has been brought back from Qingbo Pavilion."
"Bring it here."
"yes."
The footsteps in the corridor were getting closer and closer. Deng Ying raised her head and saw that fragile yet bright smile again.
She looked the same as him at this moment, wearing prison clothes, with her long hair scattered on her chest, her face was pale, but her smile was very sincere.
She was being held up, but she didn't look embarrassed at all, and even her voice was as cheerful as before. "Deng Xiaoying, I'm here to see you. We made a promise, so you see I didn't break my promise."
She really came to see Deng Ying.
She really never lost her word.
Outside the torture chamber in Nanhaizi, she had climbed up the window and made a pinky promise with him, saying that she would go find him someday.
Later, she did come, and taught him how to eat nuts to stay healthy in the duty room by the moat, forced him to treat his illness, cooked noodles for him, helped him tie his hair, bought him fruit...
Now she came to find him again, not to take him to hell, not to comfort him, but to face with him the ending that she might have seen through long ago but had been unwilling to tell him.
"Deng Xiaoying, do you miss me?"
She stretched out her hand, held onto the bars of the cell door, and squatted down, "Speak."
"I… "
He did not respond to this tenderness as precious as moonlight.
Fortunately, she did not mind Deng Ying's aphasia, and said with a curved eyebrow: "Master Zhang, you are willing to say it or not."
After saying that, he turned sideways and looked at Zhang Luo, "Can I talk to him alone for a while?"
"Yes."
Zhang Luo turned around and walked out of the cell, "Go in."
Yang Wan stood up and said, "Thank you very much. If there is a chance, I will treat you to oranges."
Zhang Luo smiled, ordered his men to lock the cell, and said to Yang Deng and his men, "I'll give you one hour. When the time is up, I'll take Yang Wan away."
Yang Wan nodded.
"Okay, that's enough."
Zhang Luo immediately turned around and said to the jailer, "Go outside and guard."
**
The solitary lamp in the prison illuminated the faces of the two people. Yang Wan knelt in front of Deng Ying and looked up at the top of his head.
"I think you didn't listen to me carefully."
"I'm sorry, Wanwan."
"Only scumbags always say they are sorry, and they dare not change even after saying it."
Deng Ying lowered her head, "Yes, I am a scumbag, I don't repent, Wanwan..."
He subconsciously held his hand and said, "I'm already like this, there's no need for you to treat me like this anymore."
Yang Wan shook her head.
She stared at Deng Ying's face and body in the light of the lamp. She was once amazed by his perfect sense of brokenness, but her appreciation at that time, now it seems, was completely superficial. She once looked at the person embodied in the pile of paper like looking at a painting, and the suffering and hurt he suffered was more than 600 years away from her.
But now he was in front of her.
He was a little dirty and covered in wounds, and his skin outside the prison uniform looked fragile and pale.
He hasn't changed.
But Yang Wan understood that it was not a feeling of brokenness, but his self-cultivation and his perseverance in remaining silent in front of others and enduring humiliation behind others.
"Then how should I treat you?"
"Take my identity and let me..."
"Deng Ying."
She suddenly interrupted him, "I live for you."