She knew that Deng Ying couldn't understand everything, so she lowered her head and smiled to herself. Although she tried not to laugh out loud to take the people behind her into consideration, she felt relaxed. She threw away the shovel, gently swung her legs and stretched out her hands to continue warming herself by the fire, and casually asked Deng Ying, "Is the towel still cold?"
The person behind me fell silent again.
Yang Wan was helpless. Just as she was about to stand up to change the handkerchief, he suddenly spoke again.
"It's still cold."
"OK."
Deng Ying started talking, so she didn't insist. She hugged her legs and sat back down. "Then you take a nap. I'll warm myself by the fire for a while and then leave."
The room was not big, the charcoal flames lit up the walls in a warm yellow, the two sat next to each other without talking, one was deliberately keeping a physical distance, the other was trying to keep a psychological distance. But neither of them had any ill will towards each other, so the atmosphere was not awkward, Yang Wan even hummed a passage of Jay Chou's "Coral Sea".
Deng Ying tried to move his legs, but the piercing pain made him instantly weak. He couldn't help but gasp.
"What's wrong."
"No, girl, don't look back."
Yang Wan said "Oh", reached out to pick up the shovel again, and casually started to stir the charcoal fire, following his wishes to help him cover up his sudden embarrassment.
"Miss Yang."
"you say"
"Don't tell anyone when you get out. You've seen me like this now."
Yang Wan felt unhappy after hearing this. "You think of me like this?"
"no."
"What is that?"
Deng Ying couldn't explain such a direct question.
He was already in this state and no longer had any reputation to care about, but the person in front of him was Yang Lun's sister. No matter what her reason was for taking care of him, he didn't want her to get hurt because of himself.
But he didn't dare to say it directly, so he fell silent again.
Yang Wan moved her legs to the side, slightly leaning towards Deng Ying, but her eyes were still fixed on the sparks that kept flickering in the charcoal stove. "I feel bad when you always lie."
After saying this, he stopped talking and stopped humming the song like before.
Deng Ying couldn't hear her voice for a long time, and couldn't help but turn her head to look at her.
Yang Wan sat there with her face in her hands, motionless, her cheeks red from the fire.
Deng Ying thought she was angry and felt a little regretful for a moment.
"Deng Ying... I didn't mean to be rude to the girl."
He tried to explain.
"Know."
She simply responded with two words, her emotions were obvious, but Deng Ying still couldn't handle it.
He opened his mouth, but stopped talking.
In the past, he spent too much time on the construction of the imperial city, delaying his marriage and having children. Until now, he didn't quite understand the meaning behind women's words. So on the one hand, he didn't want to see Yang Wan feel bad, but on the other hand, he didn't know how to tell her.
He had just finished the humiliation and was lying almost unconscious, unable to move, let alone offer anything to comfort her. After hesitating for a long time, he finally tried to express his true feelings.
"I'm sorry. Deng Ying didn't talk to the girl because she felt that Deng Ying's current state made it embarrassing for her to be in the same room with the girl."
Yang Wan was stunned.
Behind this sentence is an obvious desire to hurt oneself.
"Don't think like that."
She responded to him without hesitation.
"You don't need to be ashamed in front of anyone. It should be the court that is ashamed in front of you. Killing an entire family for the crime of one person is not a benevolent and just act."
Deng Ying smiled.
"It's not unfair that the father and son are guilty of the same crime. I just can't understand..."
He paused, and Yang Wan heard the sound of his teeth chattering.
"I just can't figure out why I am here, being punished like this."
This statement was more honest than any that had come before.
This was a self-confession from a research subject, but Yang Wan found it difficult to listen to it.
"Would you rather die?"
"No, if I would rather die, I would have really gone on a hunger strike from the beginning. I just feel that the court is too…"
In the end, he didn't allow himself to say anything unethical.
Yang Wan suddenly felt a real sense of suffocation in Deng Ying's gentleness and calmness.
She looked at her own shadow on the ground, "Do you know that the court treats you like this just to use you?"
"Know."
Yang Wan's eyes suddenly turned red. She quickly raised her head and cleared her itchy throat, "So what do you think?"
"The Imperial Palace has been the product of my teacher's life's work, as well as the efforts of several generations of craftsmen for more than 40 years. I am fortunate to be involved in this project, and I also want to complete it from beginning to end."
Yang Wan laughed, "I said that the History of Ming Dynasty is wrong. What the hell is written in it?"
"What did the girl say?"
"nothing."
Yang Wan forced herself to calm down, "I just think that you should be more open-minded. No matter how good you are, they are still the same. They say whatever they want to say and write whatever they want to write."
Deng Ying did not respond to Yang Wan's words, but asked her, "Miss, you are not angry anymore, right?"
"ah?"
Yang Wan was stunned. It turned out that he had said so many words because he thought she was angry.
“I wasn’t angry at all.”
"Deng Ying, can I ask the young lady a question?"
"Ask me whatever you want, and I'll tell you the truth."
"Why do you want to stay here, girl?"
"I warm myself by the fire..."
"The girl said she would tell the truth."
The truth is that he consumed ten years of her youth and was more important than her man.
Of course, she couldn't say it so directly now, but after hesitating for a while, she decided to answer honestly. The routines in the time-travel stories were meaningless. After all, she didn't expect anything to happen between her and Deng Ying, and it was impossible for anything to happen.
"I don't know how to tell you, just think of it as me living for you..."
She raised her head and looked at the condensed water on the beams. "Do you want to sleep for a while? If not, I'll talk to you."
"I don't want to."
His answer made Yang Wan happy from the bottom of her heart.
She cleared her throat. "Okay, then listen carefully. I... used to live for you. My parents always said that I should get married at my age and shouldn't think about you all the time. You can't possibly know who I am and you can't really stay with me forever. They introduced a man to me. He's good-looking and has good character, but I don't want to."
As she said this, she hooked the hair by her ear and gently tucked it behind her ear.
"On the night of my birthday last year, I was still reading the article you wrote when you were seventeen or eighteen, "A Letter to My Son at the End of the Year". You still remember it, right? It was the letter you wrote to Yang Lun. By the way, that letter was written when you were a teenager."
"Written in the fourth year of Zhenning, when I was sixteen."
"Well, I've read that article no less than a hundred times. You wrote a line in it, 'I vow to be faithful to this article for my whole life, and I send it to you to encourage each other.' I like it very much. Every time I read it, I am convinced that my initial thoughts about you were not wrong. If I had to give up on you, then I think my previous ten years would have been meaningless. So I don't care what others say. Anyway, I don't care."
Talking to her research subjects about her original academic aspirations is probably a privilege that no history PhD student can enjoy. Yang Wan became more and more serious as she spoke, immersed in the pure and unpretentious desire to tell the story.
However, what Deng Ying understood was a completely different meaning. It was a kind of love that he could not bear at that moment.
But at the same time, he felt a cruel warmth in these words, like a fire-quenched knife cutting through his skin and tearing apart his flesh. He felt great pain, but other than that, nothing around him had the same temperature.
"So... you don't want to marry Zhang Luo?"
"Zhang Luo?"
Yang Wan was very familiar with this name. "Zhang Luo, the Northern Pacification Envoy? I..."
Before she could finish her words, a blinding light suddenly came through the hole in the paper that Deng Ying had peeled off, and Yang Wan quickly raised her arm to block it.
Li Shan's voice rang out from outside, "Master Yang, have you not searched this place yet?"
Yang Lun stood in the snow, looking at the torture chamber in front of him, and suddenly felt a chill in his heart.
His former best friend was inside. If Yang Wan hadn't been there too, he wouldn't be standing here looking like this now.
He did not agree to Li Shan, but raised his head and shouted into the door: "Yang Wan!"
Yang Wan stood up suddenly when she was called out. She only told Deng Ying her name, so how would this person outside know it
"Yang Wan, listen carefully, you need to come out here on your own. If I take you out, I will definitely break your legs!"
Now Yang Wan was completely confused. You would understand if you knew her name, but why did they break her legs for no reason
She looked at Deng Ying unconsciously, "You... you... do you know who is outside?"
Deng Ying recognized Yang Lun's voice. Although she was puzzled as to why Yang Wan couldn't recognize it, she still responded, "Your brother, Yang Lun."
"Wait a minute, Yang Lun? My brother?"
Yang Wan raised her head and looked toward the window, quickly reviewing the relationship between these historical figures in her mind.
Yang Lun was a cabinet minister during the Jinghe period. In the 12th year of Zhenning, he was still working in the Ministry of Revenue. He had a younger sister whose name was not recorded in historical records. It is only known that Yang Lun betrothed her to Zhang Luo, the envoy of the Northern Pacification Office, but she fell into the water and drowned before they got married.
So Yang Lun’s sister is called Yang Wan, so her current body... shouldn’t be that serious.
Yang Wan held the back of her head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"Yang Wan, I'll say it again, come out by yourself!"
Yang Lun's voice was burning with anger.
Yang Wan took a few steps towards the door, intending to take a sneak peek at the man, but just as she opened the door a crack, she was dragged out by Yang Lun.
Yang Lun was so angry that he didn't know that Yang Wan was injured and dragged her for several steps. Yang Wan's neck hurt so much that she was shaking all over. She wanted to break free but didn't dare to move, so Yang Lun almost dragged her to the ground in the snow.
Seeing this scene, Li Shan quickly dismissed the people around him and personally came up to persuade, "Master Yang, please let the young lady go inside to see if she is injured."
Yang Lun looked at Yang Wan, who was lying on the ground and unable to get up. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were tattered, and her body seemed to be covered with scratches.
He wanted to pick her up, but he had to hold back.
"Do you know who is inside? Huh?"
Yang Wan struggled to sit up and covered her frozen red hands in her arms, while quickly glancing at Yang Lun.
This man was tall and straight, with a sharp jawline, and he usually did not smile, but he was indeed as handsome as recorded in historical records.
"say!"
Yang Wan was so frightened that she trembled all over.
Well, she is pretty, but her temper is really bad.
"I know, I know..."
"Since you know this, why do you want to humiliate yourself?"
Although Yang Wan was well aware that Deng Ying in the 12th year of Zhenning was a taboo, that was merely a statement in the literature. People from other times could only understand the political despair and it was difficult for them to feel the fear in human nature.
But Yang Wan was surprised by Yang Lun's words "bringing shame upon oneself".
That was Deng Ying's best friend. Yang Wan looked at the door of the torture chamber. The sound of wind and snow was still quite loud at this time, torturing the door that Yang Wan had no time to close when she came out. There was a "bang bang bang" sound. No one knew whether the people inside heard the four words "humiliating themselves".
Yang Lun was angry that she dared to be absent-minded at this time, and shouted angrily: "Do you know how many people in Tongjia Academy were arrested because of him? Even my father's teacher Zhou Congshan, who was over 80 years old, was imprisoned and tortured. When Zhang Luo comes back from the south, these people will not be guillotined, but their official careers will be ruined. Do you know why? It's because one of them wrote a fu to express his feelings for him, Deng Ying! Look at yourself again, you sacrificed your reputation as a daughter of the Yang family and disregarded the lives and property of our entire family. I didn't believe that you would do such a thing before, but now I really regret coming to you. I should let you die..."
Yang Lun was so angry that he spoke out of turn. When he came to his senses, the most vicious words had already come out of his mouth. His head was buzzing. He regretted it so much but didn't know how to make amends.