Before Xie Wangzhi could reply, Li Qishen had already started running with her. Unlike the previous trip out of the palace during the Lantern Festival, this time Li Qishen ran very fast, as if there were pursuers behind him, or as if he was walking on a knife edge, with every step drawing blood.
Xie Wangzhi hurriedly followed, breathing rapidly, the cold wind poured into her lungs, and her long hair that was not tucked into her ears fluttered. She looked at Li Qishen, the boy had a calm expression, his lips were tightly pursed, and his profile was so beautiful that she wanted to cry for no reason.
Tonight, the Daming Palace was filled with red lanterns. The light was half yellow and half red, falling on the boy and girl, cutting out two golden and red silhouettes. They stepped between the light and shadow, sticking to the bright red palace wall, and ran forward, as if they were on a grand escape.
There seemed to be an inexplicable tacit understanding between the two sides. It was not until they climbed up the city wall and were swallowed by darkness that Xie Wangzhi spoke his first words: "From here, Chang'an City is so big."
During the Lantern Festival, people were allowed to stay up all night, but during the Qianqiu Festival, there was a strict curfew, and the gates of the streets and the city were closed with heavy iron locks. At this time, most people were sleeping soundly. The sea of lights in the sky during the Shangyue Festival was extinguished, and there were occasionally one or two stars in the streets, as if they could be blown out by the wind at any time. Looking at it this way, the huge city of Chang'an was actually a bit lonely.
"Is it big?" Li Qishen did not express the same emotion as Xie Wangzhi. His tone was light and calm, without any sadness or joy. What was reflected in his pupils was divided into two parts, one half was the indigo sky, and the other half was the house gradually sinking into darkness.
"Isn't it big enough?" Xie Wangzhi thought he was thinking of the grassland, and pursed his lips, "Changsheng, have you ever seen the grassland?"
“No.”
“…Oh, I see.”
Xie Wangzhi asked casually, and it was not a question of whether he was disappointed or not, but Li Qishen heard something else. He put one hand on the parapet, tilted his head slightly, and looked at the girl next to him: "Do you want to ask me about Tuyuhun?"
Xie Wang was startled, staring at him blankly for a while, and suddenly said, "Do you want to tell me?"
Now it was Li Qishen's turn to be stunned, but he was only stunned for a moment, and then he smiled. When he was not smiling, his eyebrows and eyes were cold, like a cold and beautiful jade sculpture, but when he smiled, he was bright and lively, just like a romantic young man.
"I'm asking you, do you want to listen?" He bent his hand that was resting on the parapet, supporting his beautifully curved chin with the back of his hand, and looked at her with a smile. His words were almost coaxing, "Do you want to listen?"
The young man in front of him was covered with stars and moons, his eyebrows were smiling, and there were fine gold fragments flowing in his pupils. Xie Wangzhi almost drowned in it. He shook his head hard to avoid stepping into the trap. She coughed lightly and maintained her opinion: "I haven't read many books, and I haven't learned about Tuyuhun. But this is your business. If you want to tell me, just tell me; if you don't want to, I won't force you. When I go home in the future, I will find books to read by myself."
"... Stupid." Li Qishen stared at Xie Wangzhi for a while, then suddenly retracted his gaze, leaned on the parapet, and looked into the distance, "I have never been to Tuyuhun."
Xie Wangzhi was stunned: "I heard from Mr. Cui that your mother is from Tuyuhun?"
"Yes." Li Qishen responded lightly, "But Tuyuhun no longer exists."
"...Ah? The one from Lingzhou..."
"The Tuyuhun tribe was divided into two parts at that time. The eastern part was destroyed by Tubo, while the western part went to Liangzhou. Later, it rebelled and was suppressed. After that, it changed its surname. The Khan of the Western Tuyuhun was impulsive and killed the entire royal family. Including my mother, all the people with the surname Murong died." This matter was too far away from him. Li Qishen just thought that the Khan was stupid and his face was calm. "After all, my mother was the last princess. Rather than a gift for peace, she was more like a trophy."
Xie Wang choked, and instantly understood why people in and outside the palace dared to secretly insult Li Qishen with words like "Xianbei bastard", and why Li Chengjing disliked him so much.
Because he was not a child born with the expectations of his parents and relatives.
To his mother, he was more like the humiliating proof of the destruction of the country and the extinction of the clan; to others, he was just an accident caused by the emperor on a whim.
“…Eternal life.” Xie Wangzhi swallowed and remained silent for a long time before finally uttering only these two words.
Li Qishen seemed to be unaware and continued, "My mother was trapped in the palace. She was only favored for a few months. Her life after that was not easy. When I was eight years old, my mother passed away."
"...Is that so." Xie Wangzhi guessed, "Is she...sick?"
"No." Li Qishen said, "At that time, there was an epidemic in Chang'an City, and the palace was also infected. Queen Cui has always been in poor health. After she was infected, she was bedridden and could not get up. But my father took this opportunity to favor the two beauties Liang and Liu."
"I didn't catch the epidemic. Later, the Imperial Medical Bureau sent someone to see me and said that I had caught a cold and that I would be fine after taking medicine for a few days. But my mother didn't know. I remember that it rained heavily for a few days and I was so dizzy with a fever that I couldn't even open my eyes. My mother was afraid that I would be burned to death, so she braved the heavy rain and ran to find my father."
Xie Wangzhi was silent for a moment: "Where is His Majesty?"
"In Lady Liu's palace." Li Qishen smiled a little mockingly, then returned to normal, and tapped the parapet with his fingertips nonchalantly, "Lady Liu is a spoiled and arrogant person, and she even said that my mother disturbed her peace."
At this point, he paused subtly. Xie Wangzhi had a bad feeling: "And then?"
"Then my father ordered her to be beaten to death in order to please Lady Liu. Lady Liu still felt that was not enough and ordered people to bring me to the front of the palace." Li Qishen said softly, "I watched my mother being beaten to death in front of me. It rained heavily that day, and the blood flowed all the way to my feet."
He slowly closed his eyes, as if he could hear the sound of heavy rain again. There were few such heavy rains in Chang'an City. The waterways built by the craftsmen in Daming Palace after racking their brains and repeatedly calculating were still not enough. The Taiye Lake was full and about to overflow. The ground was full of water, and the rain crackled and created layers of ripples.
Lady Liu stood in front of the palace, holding Li Chengjing's hand, watching the blood from Murong Feique flowing to the boy. She covered half of her face with a handkerchief, frowned slightly, and complained to Li Chengjing coquettishly. Li Chengjing hugged her tightly, coaxing her with a half-angry and half-smile, as if he didn't realize that the person being beaten with a stick had spent a good night with him, and the boy who watched his mother step by step towards death was his son.
The rain curtain was endless, and Murong Feique's face was blurry through the heavy rain, but she seemed to feel her son's presence. She gritted her teeth and refused to utter a single moan of pain, for fear of scaring this fragile child.
"My mother didn't even have a grave. She was burned to ashes. On the grasslands, people say that after death, they should be burned. The Eagle God will bring a group of eagles to take the soul back to heaven, but Tuyuhun no longer exists, and those eagles have no place to land." Li Qishen said softly, "Empress Cui knew about it, and she barely got up from her sickbed, scolded my father, and sent the imperial physician to treat me. But no one cares about my mother."
He paused, "They said, she was just a Xianbei woman."
Li Qishen suddenly thought of the end of everything. He bit the back of the hand of the palace servant who was holding him, and took advantage of the pain to run towards Murong Feique. At that time, he had a high fever, his steps were weak, and it was raining so hard. He stumbled through the blood and fell in front of Murong Feique.
The woman who was beaten to death may have felt her son coming, and she held on to her last breath, raised her head with difficulty, and tremblingly held his hand, took off the gold bracelet on her wrist, and put it on his wrist.
"Changsheng, Changsheng..." She called her son's nickname in Tuyuhun, her words were unclear, blood flowed from the corner of her mouth, making her face, which should have been cold and beautiful, a mess. But she didn't care, she just reached out and gently wiped the rain splashed on her son's face. She struggled to say, "You have to live well... Mother... I can't accompany you anymore."
Li Qishen was in a daze for the first seven years and didn't have much feelings towards his "mother", but at that moment, he seemed to have suddenly grown up and suddenly grown old.
… He has no mother anymore.
He still had so many things to say to Murong Feique. He wanted to say that he had learned a new song, that the calligraphy he had learned before was praised by Master Xu, and that he had learned the Uighur language from the hostage who came to the palace... He had also thought about leaving Daming Palace with A Niang and going to the vast grassland to see the scenery of cattle and sheep appearing when the wind blew the grass.
But it was too late. The woman closed her eyes in front of him and burned to ashes after her death. Even the Eagle God of Tuyuhun could not come to pick her up because she had already lost her hometown forever.
“… Yes, my mother is just a Xianbei woman, and Tuyuhun is not a good place. But so what? She is my mother.” Li Qishen suddenly opened his eyes. At this point, he could no longer hold back. Years of resentment burst out, and he gritted his teeth in pain. “She is just born in Tuyuhun. Even if she is a whore or a prostitute, she is still a human being, my mother!”
Xie Wangzhi was shocked by the outburst of resentment, and looked at the boy beside her in amazement. She wanted to comfort Li Qishen, but she didn't know what to say. She could only slowly reach out and gently put her hand on the back of his hand, gradually closing her fingers and holding the hand with a white joint.
Li Qishen did not speak again, nor did he withdraw his hand, and he did not even turn around to look at Xie Wangzhi. He gritted his teeth, his head was buzzing, but not a single tear fell.
When this was over, he suddenly relaxed and spoke again in his usual nonchalant tone: "Later I found this place and I quite liked it. Sometimes when I look down, I wonder if I could turn over and jump from here, would I turn into a bird and fly to the grassland."
Xie Wangzhi was even more shocked when he heard this, but Li Qishen didn't care at all. He held Xie Wangzhi's hand, then held it with his other hand. He smiled like a young man in the breeze and bright moon: "Enough of the cold wind, let's go to the music studio."
The author has something to say: Although Changsheng is really miserable, this is indeed the best time of his life. After tonight, he is a machine, a ghost, a wandering ghost of revenge, but not "Changsheng". Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated me with nutrient solution~
Thanks to the little angel who cast [mine]: zoe 1;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:
Wang Jiangchen 20 bottles; Jiumu, My Zhejiang, Wuji., Acetylcholine is a bit salty 10 bottles;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!