Murong Chuyi seemed to be in a very wrong state of mind. He has always been a person who is floating in the dust, and there is always not too much turbulence in his eyes. Even when he left after arguing with Yue Chenqing on Bat Island, his emotions were still suppressed.
But at this moment, he is like a cold lake in early spring, and some things can no longer be hidden under his frozen ice. Even if Mo Xi and the others were separated by some distance, they could clearly sense his anxiety and depression.
"What? You asked about the house by the pier more than 30 years ago?" The shopkeeper, with his fat belly upside down, was cracking the abacus. It’s true that I used to run the pier in the early years, but there are so many households by the Lin’an pier, there are not hundreds of households but 80 households, how can I remember each household.”
"That family's surname is Chu."
The shopkeeper hummed: "There are also many people with the surname Chu. This surname is not uncommon in Lin'an."
Murong Chuyi was inquiring about a family surnamed Chu... Or was it more than thirty years ago
Mo Xi thought about it for a while, and then came to a realization: Yue Chenqing once said during the Duanyang Festival that Murong Chuyi seemed to be interested in finding her true family all these years. In fact, there are not many clues in his hands. He only knows that he was taken back from the temple by Murong Huang for adoption. There is only a scrap of paper in the swaddle, and the word "Chu" is written on it crookedly. There is nothing else.
Murong's lineage, men's single name, women's double name. But Murong Huang was weak when she was young, and the fortune-teller said that she had to give her a male name to support her, so the king made a special exception for this branch of their family. However, Murong Huang always thought that two names would be better. After adopting the abandoned baby, he took the name "Chu" left by his family as an excuse and called him Murong Chuyi.
I thought that Murong Chuyi had more clues recently, so it was only now that I came to this wine incense building and asked the shopkeeper about the old things more than 30 years ago.
Sure enough, Murong Chuyi did not leave, but took out a gold shell coin from the Qiankun bag, pushed it with two fingers, and handed it to the shopkeeper: "Think about it again."
As soon as the shopkeeper saw the golden shell coins, the fat finger who was planning to put them stopped immediately. He put away the shell coins and raised his head with a smile: "Your Excellency, you are polite, in fact..."
His smile suddenly froze when he saw Murong Chuyi's appearance.
Murong Chuyi: "What?"
However, the shopkeeper seemed to have been shaken from the deep layers of his memory, and stared at Murong Chuyi for a long while in fascination, with a bewildered expression, he suddenly made an "ah", and his eyes suddenly widened: "—it's you. ?" But he shook his head again and again, "No no no, is it her?"
Then he rubbed his face again.
"No, you are her..."
The shopkeeper's speech was topsy-turvy, seemingly shocked and confused. But Murong Chuyi seemed to understand what he was saying, grabbed his arm and took a step forward, her phoenix eyes flashing with an indefinite luster.
Murong Chuyi whispered, "More than thirty years ago, at Lin'an Port, you knew something, right?"
The shopkeeper's expression was like a dream. It took him a while to regain his senses. Seeing that the guests and subordinates around him were casting curious glances at the two of them, he shivered and took out a sweat towel to wipe off the fat. After hesitating for a moment, he said to Murong Chuyi, "Xianchang, you...you go upstairs with me first, I'll stroke it...I stroke it, and I'll talk about it when I go upstairs."
The two walked towards the stairs.
Seeing Mo Xijian frowning slightly, Gu Mang followed his gaze and asked, "Do you know this pretty guy in white clothes?"
He had just learned the word "pretty" from Chuan Niang, and seeing that Murong Chuyi was so good-looking, he simply called others pretty.
"..." Mo Xi said, "Yes, you knew him before. You just forgot."
"Oh, so am I going to say hi to him?"
Mo Xi grabbed his wrist, pressed him down, and shook his head.
"He has his own personal affairs to deal with. Besides, you and I are not very familiar with him. It would be embarrassing to meet each other at this time." Mo Xi said softly, "You should eat first."
Footsteps came from the stairs in the dialogue room. The shopkeeper led Murong Chuyi to a private seat. Although Mo Xi and the others couldn't see the two of them, their voices became clearer.
The porcelain cup ding-dong, followed by the sound of brewing tea, and then the shopkeeper's weak voice came from behind the bamboo curtain: "...I take the liberty to ask, in which year was the immortal born?"
Murong Chuyi reported his birth year, and the shopkeeper listened to it and murmured it several times, as if he was calculating something, and then sighed again and again.
"Is it really... Really what she said back then?"
Murong Chuyi's voice was as moist as jade soaked in water, but the emotions contained in it were like molten flow under the rock: "If the shopkeeper knows something, why don't you say it."
"I... ah, I really can't be sure, but the appearance of Xianchang..." The shopkeeper said, and sighed again, "Okay, okay, I'll tell you everything I know first."
"That's really something that happened more than 30 years ago..."
The shopkeeper opened his mouth slowly, his voice so dazed.
"More than 30 years ago, I came to Anshui Road to run the pier. At that time, I was a poor man. I didn't eat the last meal. Steamed bun."
"Once when I was picking steamed buns by the pier, I was seen by the owner of a small rice shop by the water's edge. The owner was a kind man, so he asked me to sit in his shop and fried me a bowl of fried rice, a bowl of Dried seaweed and shrimp soup."
"There are two daughters and a son in the old man's shop. The three of them helped Dad to clean up the rice shop together. I still remember that the rice was fried by his eldest daughter. There was a spoonful of lard and a spoonful of soy sauce. The bowls are fragrant and hot... When I'm short of money, I often go to his restaurant to eat, but I don't eat free food. After I finish eating, I help his family do some heavy work."
After the sound of sipping tea, the shopkeeper took a few more sips of tea, calmed down and continued.
"This family's surname is Chu, the family is good people, the eldest child is still young, the two sisters are quite famous beauties in Lin'an City, and there are many wealthy businessmen in Fangyi and Gai. They dote on them very much. Those wealthy businessmen, because of their family rank, would never marry them, and the old man would not be willing to accept them as concubines. She would rather let the two of them choose by themselves rather than take them hastily. get married."
"Famous flowers have no owners, so naturally people miss them. The fame of the two sisters spread farther and farther at that time, and the people who proposed marriage became more and more difficult to deal with. In the end, some domineering aristocratic masters were also provoked. Just come to be hard, forcibly force other people's fathers to hand over people."
"And then what?"
"Then..." The shopkeeper sighed, "Actually, I didn't witness what happened later. I started shipping and ran business, and I was in Quanzhou for more than a month. When I came back, Chu The family's restaurant has been burned to a scorched earth."
Murong Chuyi: "!"
"I asked the neighbors around me, but they were all hesitant and didn't dare to say anything. I was young at that time, and I couldn't be mad at such a thing, so I rushed to the government office to complain and report to the official, Tai Shi Ye. Tell me, the Chu family couldn't stand the entanglement of the in-laws who stepped on the threshold, so the whole family moved out of Lin'an City."
There was an almost uncontrollable anger in Murong Chuyi's cold voice.
"Why do you have to burn down the old house when your family moves away?"
The shopkeeper said: "I think so too. I knew at the time that the government didn't tell me the truth. Alas, the Chu family is kind to me after all. Lin'an City kept looking for clues, asking others... Later... Later... "
"What happened afterward?"
Even after so long, the shopkeeper was still very distressed when the old story was brought up again, his voice trembled, he drank several sips of tea, and lowered his voice: "Later... I went to find it myself, and finally in the suburbs of Lin'an, I found... The body of the Chu family's father was found, and his head was separated..."
When he said this, he couldn't help shivering, his eyes were red, he didn't dare and didn't want to describe the specific situation, he paused for a while, and then said: "I was scared and sad, I was crying, and suddenly I heard—then, In the depths of the haystack, there was a faint sound of shredding, so I picked it up and saw that the youngest of their family was hiding in the depths of the haystack, looking at me like a kitten, and was covered in blood. "
When Mo Xi heard this, he was very angry, but at this moment, there was a thumping sound of a broken porcelain cup from behind the bamboo curtain.
The shopkeeper said in surprise: "Xianchang, you—"
It seems that Murong Chuyi was too angry and too depressed, so she accidentally crushed the tea cup in her hand.
"You, your hands are scratched... scratched..."
Murong Chuyi said indifferently, "It's okay."
The silk cloth was rustling, and he seemed to have taken a towel to wipe off the blood for himself, and then whispered, "Go on."
The shopkeeper snorted, froze, and his eyes were red. He hadn't recalled this matter for many years, and when he really reviewed it one by one, his emotions gradually came up.
He was silent for a while, and then said: "The child is still very young. I asked him, but he couldn't explain it clearly. When I asked where his sister went, he just cried. I buried Duke Chu and brought the child back. He was raised on the boat I ran on as a businessman, and he has not reached the age of recollection. I hope he will live a peaceful life in the future, and I will never mention this past to him again. I hope he will not remember this hatred when he grows up..."
"Slowly, as the days passed, the child who didn't even know how to say this really no longer remembered this matter. People in the city gradually forgot about the Chu family... Until one day."
He paused for a moment, then said, "The eldest daughter of the Chu family has suddenly returned."
"But she's completely different." The shopkeeper sighed. "She is disheveled, suffering from madness, and keeps saying that she has a child, but she left the child in a moment of confusion. Others When asked what child she was born with, she couldn't answer, and when she asked where her sister went, she kept crying, saying don't blame her, she also has difficulties."
Murong Chuyi: "..."
The shopkeeper took out a handkerchief, twitched his nose, and said sadly, "The people in the government heard the news, took her to a diagnosis and made sure that her spirit was greatly stimulated, and she could no longer return to normal. Take care of her. The villagers saw her pitiful, and gave her a deserted hut to live in. At first, there were many people who visited her, but gradually, after everyone found that she was talking about her words, they found it boring. , and no one wants to pay attention to her."
"I took her brother to see her, but her brother doesn't know her at all and doesn't remember her. And as soon as she saw the child, she started crying, saying that she shouldn't be so cruel and throw away her child. No, he said that no matter how much you hate him, you shouldn't hate the baby, and he said that he saw the baby turned into a ghost, sitting in the blood and watching her. Alas... "
"Although there is no evidence of what happened back then, I also know for the most part that their family was not a family relocation at all, but a certain dignitary in the capital took a fancy to them and forcibly kidnapped the two girls over there. I'm afraid It was the Duke of Chu who was eager to protect his daughter, so he was brutally killed by them, and the youngest child was thrown into the haystack, leaving him to fend for himself."
When the shopkeeper said this, he froze for a while.
"Miss Chu said at the time that she had a child, and kept shouting that her sister should not blame her. She had difficulties. Slowly, everyone wondered if she did something to survive or not. What she shouldn't have done, killed her sister... So she was the only one who came back alive, but Miss Chu disappeared."
Murong Chuyi's expression darkened, and it seemed that he was unwilling to accept the truth: "..."
"Because of this conjecture, people started alienating her, making fun of her, making fun of her insanity."
"I was... I didn't stop it at the time, because I didn't know much about her. In the past, Miss Chu was more gentle and warm, and as an older sister, she was not very talkative. I thought she might be right. What my sister did, I was driven crazy by self-blame. It was always a lump in my heart, and I didn't know until she was dying—"
Murong Chuyi was startled and interrupted him abruptly, saying hoarsely, "What? She's... gone?"
"I haven't been here a few years ago..." The shopkeeper sighed sadly and remorsefully, "... When she leaves, I'll see her off. Maybe it's back to the light, she'll be sober for a while. She told me at that time. …”
The shopkeeper paused for a moment, as if thinking about whether he should tell him this last secret.
In the end, he looked at Murong Chuyi's face that was very similar to his old friend, and finally said: "She said that when she and her sister were kidnapped by nobles, she knew that she could not escape, so she pretended to be obedient, voluntarily undressed and waited, and coaxed the other party. Letting go of her vigilance, she finally found an opportunity to let her sister escape. But her sister thought she had committed herself to others in order to survive, regardless of her father's revenge, and hated her so much that she would rather die than be favored by her."
Murong Chuyi: "..."
"It was only then that I realized that the villagers had misunderstood her. She didn't live for herself and killed her sister at all. The so-called hardship was actually this reason..."
"She urged the second girl to run away, but she was rejected and misunderstood, and she couldn't achieve it. She was anxious, and she thought that they are now in the royal capital, and there are terrifying nobles everywhere, even if the younger sister listened to her. Escape, how far can you escape?"
"Miss Chu thought about it day and night, and finally a thought came to her heart. When she was courting and accompany her nobleman, she had seen many nobles from aristocratic families, so her final plan was to design a plan that would allow her sister to get One of them takes care of you."
"In order for Miss Chu to live well and not be humiliated, she has been watching and choosing. She is thinking who can accept an orphan girl kindly. That nobleman must be kind enough, upright, with a prominent position, and be able to hold the top rank of officials. She targeted two people."
Murong Chuyi: "Who?"
The shopkeeper said, "Jun Fuling, Mo Qingchi, first look to Shu Murong Xuan."
Mo Xi suddenly opened his eyes wide when he heard his father's name in this conversation.