Three days later, Xie Mansion.
With a soft creak, the carved wooden door was pushed open from the outside, and the sunset glow poured into the dim mourning hall, and Shan Chao's long figure was reflected on the floor tiles.
At the end of the mourning hall, Xie Yun, with his back facing him, knelt and sat motionless in front of the dark and shiny coffin.
Shan Chao turned his head, and Ma Xin was standing outside the courtyard, desperately gesturing "Don't talk nonsense! Come in!".
Shan Chao sighed silently, walked into the mourning hall, and closed the door behind his back.
The mourning hall is full of white flags, white flowers and fresh fruits are placed on the table, and the coffin is heavy and tightly stitched. Shan Chao looked at it for a long time, but couldn't imagine that the girl who was still alive a few days ago was sleeping in this coffin at this moment, and suddenly felt a little ridiculous in his heart.
He put the ginseng soup beside Xie Yun, went up to hold the incense and worshiped three times.
"... You also came to persuade me to mourn and change?" Xie Yun's slightly hoarse voice suddenly came to mind behind him.
Shan Chao turned around, Xie Yun didn't look at him, it seemed that his eyes were focused on a floating point in the air, his whole person was like a quiet statue in the dark.
"No," Shan Chao said in a low voice: "People cannot come back to life after death, and it's normal to be sad. I'm just here to advise you not to mourn too much."
He stepped forward and half knelt beside Xie Yun, picked up the ginseng soup and signaled him to drink, but Xie Yun gently pushed him away: "I really can't drink it."
For three days in a row, although he wasn't completely impervious to water, he was really just soaked in some water and rice, and his face was haggard to a strange gray. When he raised his hand, the sleeves that were originally spread on the ground were raised. Shan Chao noticed that the evenly scattered paper ash on the ground was cut off somewhere, showing a clear line, and he couldn't help being stunned.
It was the trace of paper dust being blocked by the sleeve.
Xie Yun has maintained the same posture, kneeling here for a long time.
"I'm not mourning." Xie Yun suddenly said softly, "It's just that I can't accept it."
Unacceptable is for sure, no one would have imagined that things would be so unexpected and so irreversible. Shan Chao pondered for a while, then sighed and said quietly: "You'd better... at least take a few sips, you look like this, how can Miss Yang feel better when she sees it in the spirit of the sky?"
When he said this, the feeling in his heart was hard to describe, but Xie Yun shook his head, revealing a sad and helpless smile.
Shan Chao put the bowl on the ground, lifted the hem of his clothes, and sat beside him on the floor.
"Let's talk about Miss Yang." He changed the subject and asked, "Why is Miss Yang a white dragon, shouldn't she be blue?"
"She's still young," Xie Yun said.
"At that time in Liangzhou, when I heard her calling me to get off outside the carriage, I knew she must be very young, and no clansman who knew a little bit about the world would not deliberately provoke the imperial court driver. Later, she asked me to take her to Chang'an , At first I didn't want to agree... It's dangerous for people who have never opened a seal, and I don't know when they will open it, I don't want to bear the responsibility."
"Then why did you agree later?" Shan Chao asked.
Xie Yun lost his mind for a while, shook his head and smiled wryly, and said, "I don't know either."
He raised his hand to support his forehead, and everything from the tip of his nose was hidden in the shadows.
"After returning to Chang'an, I wanted to send her away several times, but I thought, I haven't gone to Luoyang yet, I have to let her see the Eastern Capital and play around before leaving. And what if she gets a seal halfway and can't control it? To do it, you have to be escorted by people from the same clan, right? So I take her with me wherever I go, one belt and two belts, just... "
Shan Chao thought he would say that he brought out his feelings, but what he heard was:
"It feels like a family." Xie Yun murmured, "I think about you in everything, a family who will never betray or hurt each other."
"I will not betray or hurt you!" Shan Chao said in a deep voice.
Xie Yun just smiled: "You don't know how to do it now."
"... Do you think I will in the future?"
There is silence in the mourning hall, the white flags hang down quietly, and a line of cigarettes curls up from the table into the void.
"Who knows what will happen in the future," Xie Yun replied.
The absurd feeling in Shan Chao's heart revived again, thousands of words stuck in his throat, choking him.
"You want to say that it will be the same in the future?" Xie Yun seemed to understand his thoughts, with a hint of sadness and sarcasm in his tone: "At the Ganye Temple, I also thought that the queen would not be able to do so in the future, and the queen probably thought so too. No way. But time has changed, people’s hearts have changed, and when you get to that position, what you see and think will be different, how can you be sure about what will happen in the future?"
If Shan Chao was still the hot-blooded young man eight years ago, he might have quarreled in this mourning hall, insisting on making his heart clear.
But his state of mind has changed now, and after pondering for a moment, he didn't make any excuses, but just shook his head: "Just like your current thoughts, it may change in the future, and it's too early to argue about these words now."
Xie Yun was slightly taken aback.
"That's why you wanted to marry Miss Yang later on? Live with each other supporting each other for the rest of your life?" Shan Chao asked.
Xie Yun didn't speak, and seemed to be immersed in the paradox Shan Chao raised just now. He couldn't tell the subtlest emotion in his eyes from the hazy light and shadow in the depths of the mourning hall, and he couldn't tell whether he was thinking about how to refute or trying to persuade Believe in yourself.
Shan Chao stretched out his hand to straighten his robe sleeves piled on the ground one by one, and said with a smile, "When you first met her in Liangzhou, did you think of me a little bit?"
He didn't have any hope about this question at first, but after a long time, he heard Xie Yun say: "Yes."
Shan Chao's movements stopped.
"It is precisely because of this that I got out of the car to meet her..." Xie Yun's shoulders trembled a little, and he said hoarsely: "...I was wrong..."
Shan Chao spat out two words with difficulty from his throat: "Xie Yun..."
Xie Yun suddenly put his hands on the ground and stood up unsteadily. He had been sitting on his knees for too long, his legs and feet were paralyzed due to lack of blood, and he was very staggering when he walked; Shan Chao wanted to help, but he swung him away.
Xie Yun walked to the altar, and took out the nearly burnt incense with his own hands. His figure was very slumped in the smoke, his shoulders were sticking out from the bottom of his clothes, and the butterfly bones could be vaguely seen.
"In less than a month since she came to Chang'an, she was very dissatisfied with the queen and repeatedly insulted the queen in public. I knew that this would not work. I really wanted to send her back that day, but she was unwilling, so I told I found out that she escaped from marriage."
Shan Chao was stunned: "What did you say?"
"Four Sage Seals generally marry with the same family. After she reached the age of Ji, her family engaged an unmarried young man. But she didn't like him very much. She said that he was not good-looking. When she was about to get married, she ran away from Guanshan Mountain. He happened to be at the foot of the mountain. When I met the cavalry of the Imperial Army of the Northern Yamen, pressing Liangzhou Qin prisoners, they ran into me."
Xie Yun stepped back a few steps, and spoke in a long, sleepy voice, slowly drifting away in the suspended dust: "She said that if she was sent back by me, she would definitely have to marry that young man. Didn’t it kill her for the rest of her life? Why don’t you marry me in Chang’an and return to Liangzhou under the pretense of being married, the family parents can no longer force her to marry and have children, from now on, wouldn’t the world be free?”
The only thought in Shan Chao's heart is that this is okay!
"...is her fiancé really ugly?"
"It's okay," Xie Yun said calmly, "How many people will be left in a clan that can only intermarry for generations? They must be of the right age and unmarried. There are very few choices."
"What about you? Are you also willing to be this cover?"
Xie Yun raised his neck, closed his eyes, his chest heaved deeply, and he let out a long mouthful of trembling and sour hot air almost like a collapse.
There is actually no expression on his face. This is a habit he has developed over the years of ups and downs in the political center. Even when his emotions are extremely strong, he will not show any superfluous expressions to others.
But Shan Chao could suddenly feel the helpless, almost suffocating, severe pain tearing under the heavy shackles of self-blame.
"I was wrong," he repeated the sentence a second time, muttering slowly, "Now... paying the price."
Suddenly the door of the mourning hall was knocked lightly from outside, Shan Chao looked at Xie Yun, he seemed to have lost all response to the outside world. After a while, the knocking on the door stopped, and Ma Xin called out nervously, "Commander? Yes, I have something important to report."
Xie Yun's expression was not so much cold as it was numb. Shan Chao tentatively moved two steps towards the door, seeing that he had no intention of stopping, so he walked over and opened a crack in the door.
Ma Xin squeezed in, first saw a mouthful of untouched ginseng soup on the ground, and immediately glanced at Shan Chao accusingly, "Why are you so useless", and then bowed and said: "Commander, ask the guards who were present that day? The inquiry has been completed."
Xie Yun turned his back to them, and said indifferently: "How?"
"Really... I really can't find out who shot that arrow that... killed Miss Yang." Ma Xin swallowed: "It stands to reason that this matter should be reported to the East Palace to receive a reward, but the strange thing is that there is no movement among the guards. , it seems that arrows were fired randomly at the scene, and the arrows missed her..."
"It seems that the deterrent power of the Beiya is greater than the reward from the Holy Majesty," Xie Yun couldn't tell if he was mocking or sighing.
Ma Xin dared not answer him.
"It's okay if you can't find out." After a while, Xie Yun said in a low voice: "This matter must have been caused by Dai Zhide's impromptu request from the Holy Spirit. Since it was the arrow fired by the guards of the Eastern Palace... then it will be recorded in the Eastern Palace. It's settled."
The tone was obviously very flat, but the last few words had a deep meaning, and Ma Xin couldn't help holding his breath.
"It's okay, you go down."
Ma Xin folded his fists and bowed again, and exited the mourning hall on tiptoe, before leaving, he gave Shan Chao a wink.
Shan Chao hesitated, and asked, "Do you want me to go too?"
Even though this "marriage" was not the same as what he originally thought, but Xie Yun kept his spirit without eating or drinking for so many days, Shan Chao still had some indescribably complicated feelings in his heart.
He only thought that Xie Yun would tell him to go out without hesitation, and continue to be alone here; but unexpectedly, Xie Yun slowly turned his face, his chapped and bleeding lips moved, as if he stopped talking.
"...It's okay." He said softly, "You can go too."
Shan Chao stepped out of the threshold with one foot suspended in the air, and suddenly stopped.
At that moment, suspicion and disbelief surged in his heart, but then, he really realized something—
Xie Yun didn't want him to go.
Although he didn't say the words, but... after so many years of facing each other day and night, he suddenly understood the meaning behind that sigh.
Shan Chao turned around and closed the door, walked to the altar, picked up the ginseng soup again and said with a smile: "You should at least drink some! It won't delay you to keep watching after drinking, don't you still have to watch tonight?"
As expected, Xie Yun moved his finger, then raised it, and finally reached for the bowl of ginseng soup.
But Shan Chao waved, bypassed his hand, scooped up a spoonful and brought it to his mouth. Xie Yun had no intention of resisting. He lowered his head and drank it. Shan Chao scooped up another spoonful, cooked it according to the law, and fed the whole bowl of soup in one gulp.
The hundred-year-old ginseng really had an effect, Xie Yun's ashen face finally turned a little bloody, and when he spoke again, his voice was no longer as rough as it had been ground by gravel just now, and he said, "Thank you..."
Shan Chao asked: "Among you and me, do you still need to say these two words?"
Xie Yun waved his hand wearily.
"... I saw her last night during the wake."
"what?"
"She opened the door and walked over the bluestone slab by the moonlight. There was a white dragon by her side, and there was no shadow under her feet. I thought she would hate me, but she just came and took my hand..."
Xie Yun closed his eyes, and the corners of his eyes flickered in the dark.
"What did Miss Yang say?" Shan Chao couldn't help asking.
"Nothing, just smiled at me. I chased to the courtyard again... She has gone far to the northwest."
Shan Chao suddenly looked at the closed door of the mourning hall, and he couldn't help but see Yang Miaorong coming here wearing the stars and wearing the moon, biding a gentle farewell, and then turned and left in his mind.
"..." There was also a strange soreness in Shan Chao's throat, he swallowed the sour lump reluctantly, and whispered: "Xie Yun..."
Xie Yun tightly covered his eyes, there were faint traces of tears between his fingers.
"I still... love you very much." Panting slightly, Shan Chao continued: "But I know that you may get married in the future, and you may even have children. I just hope that you will think more about yourself when you get married next time. You really feel happy, I can even…”
Xie Yun shook his head.
"There won't be a next time..." he said, "Not anymore."
He slowly leaned against the altar, and with this movement, his temple hair fell from his shoulders, and Shan Chao's pupils suddenly constricted.
—In the black hair, he actually saw a glare of whiteness!
The bitterness that Shanchao felt at that moment was hard to describe in words, as if he had swallowed bloody gall, the taste made him speechless. It took him a long time to reach out and want to pull out the white hair, but he raised his hand and paused in mid-air. An uncontrollable impulse made him unable to resist asking word by word: "Xie Yun, if one day I die, what will happen to me?" Come to say goodbye to you in the middle of the night, will you do the same?"
Xie Yun probably didn't expect him to ask such a question, so he didn't respond for a while.
"...you can still find me to say goodbye?" Suddenly he smiled bitterly in frustration: "What hope do I have, why don't you kill me first, just be quicker!"
Shan Chao was stupefied, only to see Xie Yun's chest heaving violently, and then walked out with a flick of his sleeves.
At this moment, hurried footsteps came from outside the mourning hall, followed by Ma Xin's hasty voice: "His Royal Highness is here—"