Chapter 618
What Concerns Me, Unraveling the Mystery of My Grandfather
She said to her youngest daughter, "Press gently on this spot for your mother. After about ten minutes, if the bleeding stops, untie the cloth and apply this ointment."
"...ten minutes or so?"
Xu Zhi noticed that the wound on the tiger's mouth was not caused by an ordinary farm tool. Not wanting to meddle, and seeing that the woman was about the same age as her, she simply said, "Just wait a little while." As she spoke, being generous and kind by nature, she glanced at the people taking shelter from the rain and saw that many of them had injuries. So she gave the woman a box of medicine that she had traded for agate.
Sure enough, after a short while, the daughter saw that the blood on her mother's hand had indeed lessened considerably, and sobbed, "Thank you, my wife!"
The daughter looked at the injury on Xu Zhi's arm and asked her how it happened.
Xu Zhi thought for a moment and said, "It's probably similar to yours."
The daughter sighed to herself, "Alas. I wonder when this will end? Is it not enough that the Emperor of Qin has already driven us to Lingcheng?"
Xu Zhi now vaguely guessed their identities—nobles from the six kingdoms.
Could it be that the "Your Highness" Yu Ji spoke of... was she really a princess of Chu? Did she think of Ying Zheng's name before jumping off the building because she, like them, wanted to escape from his clutches?
Mr. Song called her 'Hehua'.
Is it because Hehua is her original name?
She glanced at the woman, who was in her forties and still had a charming appearance, but her complexion was poor and she was still unconscious... She thought of someone named 'Zheng Li', and the word 'mother' made her temples throb, reminding her not to think about it anymore.
She thought that to reach the South safely, she had to stay far away from these people.
The rain was still falling. Xu Zhi carefully considered her options and then quietly left...
The woman woke up, slightly opening her eyes. Her daughter exclaimed with delight, "Mother, you've finally stopped bleeding!"
The woman said weakly, "Aruo, where is your older brother? Has he come back yet?..."
"Mother, Brother Lu has gotten separated from us..."
The woman sighed, "What can we do? Where is Ayan?"
“Brother Yan said he’s going to find our eldest brother. He told us to settle in this thatched hut first, and he’ll go find some food while he’s at it.” As she spoke, the woman named Ruo thought of Yan, and tears streamed down her face. “It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. I’ve dragged Mother into this mess. If it weren’t for me, Mother and my brothers wouldn’t have left Pei County… Father wouldn’t be in such a difficult position, having to face everything alone…”
She looked at the girl's chapped lips and touched her face. "Aruo, listen to how you call me Mother. You came to my house when you were sixteen. In these seven or eight years, I've long treated you like my own daughter. We're all family, so why would I blame you?"
Aruo held her mother's hand.
The mother shielded her from the sharp blade, and in that instant, the official surnamed Chen who had made the move was visibly shaken.
“Mother, I would rather you hand me over. That way, I won’t have to be homeless.”
The woman comforted her, saying, "There's hardly anyone left in your hometown."
The woman thought of a neighbor, a very brave woman.
Cao took Liu Fei back to their hometown, where there was hardly anyone they recognized. The Liu family home was completely empty.
Liu Fei's eyes stung with tears, and she screamed as she tugged at the door, "Dad really ran away! Dad doesn't want me anymore!"
Cao slumped down at the doorway.
The woman who came to comfort her said, “Alas, Cao Yun, you’re too late. Your husband has been summoned by a high-ranking official surnamed Li from Xianyang. Not only him, but his brothers, Old Zhou, Brother Lu, and even Brother Fan have all gone with him.”
The Cao family did not give up.
The woman had no idea where she got so much money from her trip back. With her crying son by her side, she found a coachman within three days and set off again to find her husband.
The woman snapped out of her reverie and noticed the bandaged area on her hand. "...Aruo, who gave you this medicine?"
"Thanks to that lady,"
The daughter looked over, but Xu Zhi was no longer there.
"..."
As she was thinking, two people suddenly appeared in the light: one was her brother Yan, and the other was the woman.
Xu Zhi was exhausted and hungry. She wanted to find a place to rest, but she didn't expect to encounter people from six countries. Her instinct was not to stay with them.
She tore off a large fern to use as an umbrella, held it over her head, and walked along the path until she unknowingly arrived at a peach tree.
Suddenly a peach hit her leaf and rolled quickly to the ground.
"Ah! I'm so sorry! Are you alright, young lady?" The man's clear and pleasant voice floated down from above Xu Zhi's head.
The man in the tree waved to her, "Miss, could you help me pick this up?"
Xu Zhi felt dizzy and lightheaded, probably from hunger.
That's the downside of having a brain injury; sometimes she remembers a lot, and other times she forgets everything as if there's a gap in her memory, making it impossible for her to find anyone to turn to.
The State of Zheng is eight hundred miles away, and perhaps her old friends don't even know she's become like this. She has no identity, no family, no friends, no bodyguards, no Li Xian; to survive, she can only rely on herself.
She thought about it and realized that being alone was definitely an advantage!
Living in a closed-off city, surrounded by people who wanted to capture her, she dared not use her skills anywhere.
Soon, she will know that she is experiencing the same ten days that her grandfather experienced in this era.
The person in the tree hurriedly climbed down, their arms full of tree fruits. "Girl, girl, are you alright? It was my fault for not catching you properly and causing you to fall."
A large expanse of green leaves parted, revealing a very beautiful face. The woman's eyebrows were arched, dark but not painted, and her eyes, especially those beneath them, were particularly striking.
Xiao Yan's heart skipped a beat.
Those features seemed familiar; he felt he had seen them before on his father's book-carving desk… That thing, thin and black and white, clearly showed a portrait. He was amazed by the artist's skill. His father said the person who gave it to him called it a 'photograph'.
Xu Zhi glanced at him, bent down and picked up the half-green, half-pink peach from the ground with one hand. "Your fruit hit me, but I wasn't hurt... If you feel bad that I can't climb the tree, I'll take this one with me."
"If you don't speak, I'll take it as your agreement."
After saying that, she picked up the peach, and without pausing, held up the large green leaf and walked forward.
When she saw herself in the puddle, a thought suddenly popped into her head: "Holding this leaf makes me look just like Totoro."
"Ah?... If you don't mind, I have more here."
She turned around, and the man was already in front of her. He was half a head taller than her, his hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and he looked past the age of coming of age.
"...I, I'll give you a few more."
Xu Zhi didn't stand on ceremony, thanked her with a smile, wiped the raindrops off herself, and took a bite.
Those unripe peaches were quite sour.
The rain started again, a light drizzle, and the sound of the rain gradually grew louder.
He noticed the cloth wrapped around Xu Zhi's arm and said, "You look like you're looking for someone. I've looked ahead, but there's hardly anyone or any inns within ten miles of Lingcheng."
“If you are looking for shelter from the rain, I know where. If you carry this and walk in the rain, you may get sick.”
"We've only just met, what kind of talk is that... Do you know me?"
“…Ah, young lady, don’t worry, I absolutely didn’t mean anything by it. My sister and mother were taking shelter from the rain there…I saw that you also came from Lingcheng, and I thought you might be heading somewhere else like us, so, ah, no…this, I…”
Xu Zhi was amused by the man's flustered appearance.
This guy talks a lot and looks a lot like Chen Ping.
Chen Ping... Chen Ping... Chen Yuanjun.
Who is this?
We walked together for about half an hour.
Xiao Yan was explaining.
Xiao Yan's gaze slid to her, and he couldn't help but ask, "Miss, I actually have a question I'd like to ask you."
Xu Zhi shook her head, looked at him, raised her eyebrows and smiled, "I already said, my lord doesn't seem like a bad person, so I'm not afraid to go with you to the place you suggested to take shelter from the rain."
She could tell from the way he climbed the tree that he didn't know martial arts.
He probably didn't know that she was a very accurate archer, and even with an injured arm, she could defend herself with anything.
After thinking it over and over, Xiao Yan asked, "Have you ever heard of a name called Xu Kai?"
"What?" Xu Zhi paused.
"When you smiled just now, it looked very similar to the expression of this person in the portrait."
"Have you seen him?"
Xu Zhi felt an overwhelming surge of emotions, even though she didn't understand why she was so agitated.
Xu. She shares the same surname as him.
However, it was Li Xian who told her the name Xu Zhi.
The things she remembered after being provoked by Zhang Cang were only fragments.
“I’ve never met him in person. I’ve only seen his portrait,” Xiao continued. “However, my father has been searching for him for twenty years, but still hasn’t found him…”
"Who is your father?" "Why is your father looking for him?"
Xiao Yan was a gentle and kind man, without any guile. "I'm not afraid to tell you, young lady. My father is Xiao He, a prison official in Pei County of the Great Qin Dynasty." (End of Chapter)