Chapter 213 The daughter was in dreams
Chang Nuo came back with two fat rabbits and a pheasant. As soon so he entered the cave, he saw the girl in red lying on the ground. She was covering her chest in pain and struggling, which was obviously the symptom of Heart Crushing. Then he dropped what he was holding immediately and went forward to seal her pulse. He pressed her chest and the middle of her back to relieve her pain. Seeing the girl was in pain, sweating and crying, he could not blame her for not keeping the promise. After he left, she used Zhenqi without permission. It was clear that she wanted to escape.
Chang Nuo hurriedly took out a silk handkerchief to wipe her sweat, and said soothingly, “Hold on. It will be fine after the pain passes. Turn your attention to something else, like something happy… Or how about I tell you a story? Well, when I was a kid, I used to climb a tree for fun, but I accidentally fell out of the tree. Although I was not hurt, I broke my heirloom, a jade pendant into...” Suddenly, he stooped. He stared at two small piles of gravel on the ground. Then he looked at the burning fire, and finally looked at the girl’s bleeding palm.
“Where are the puppets? Where are the puppets carved by Lord Ning!” Chang Nuo straightened the girl’s face and asked sharply, “What are those two piles of gravel? Where are the wood puppets and bamboo puppets?”
He asked fiercely and eagerly. He hoped overturn the speculation in his mind. However, the girl on the ground could not take the pain of Heart Crushing and fell into a semi-conscious state. Only some fragmentary words came out from her mouth. He came closer and put those words together into a sentence, “Revenge, revenge. He killed Tian. I will avenge for her...”
At this time, Chang Nuo was roughly clear that He Danggui did not use internal force and arts of lightness to escape, but used internal force to smash the stone puppets. So, she was suffered Heart Crushing, and those puppets were gone. Those should be burnt! Why? Why! Listening to the words “revenge” she said, he thought that she might not hold her own. Was she saying her last words? Chang Nuo was so anxious. She couldn’t die! It didn’t matter the puppets were gone. But the living girl in front of him must be handed over to Ning Yuan intactly!
So, he righted the girl’s body. With all of his forces, he passed the Zhenqi into her back heart, so that the moderate Zhenqi could cover her cardiac vein and avoid the pain caused by Heart Crushing. Damn, he had resentment against her just now. And he used a real cruel means to her unconsciously, but he forgot that she was not a robber, a bully or a greedy official. She was just a delicate and stubborn girl. Even if she refused Lord Ning’s love and ignored Lord Ning’s sincerity, there was no reason to kill her. No, she couldn’t die, and she couldn’t die in his hands. Otherwise, he killed Lord Ning’s favorite woman! How could he face his best friend?
The transmission of the stormy Zhenqi lasted for more than two hours, and Chang Nuo gradually got weaker. Some time ago, when he was plundering the message in Changye Tower, he was surrounded by Gao Jue and Duan Xiaolou who had set up an ambush here in advance. He tried hard to escape. However, he was seriously injured. He spent half a month recuperating in this cave. Now, He just couldn’t take it anymore since his Zhenqi was overdrawn.
So, he stopped and put the comatose girl by the fire to warm up. Now, what he could do was to wait and leave the rest to fate. He had to attend the Wulin Assembly in Lantern Festival next month. He should preserve his strength. If she died of Heart Crushing, it only meant that the fate determined to stop Lord Ning’s love to her, and to remove this stumbling block in his journey. It would be a pity if such an elegant and beautiful woman was dead. But that was only because she did not know what was good for her.
He Danggui woke up at the end of the transmission. The pain of Heart Crushing did not seem to bring any severe sequela. Her body was warm and comfortable, and her veins were filled with abundant and warm Zhenqi, as if the horrible pain was just a dream without leaving traces. Or, the heartache did not come from Heart Crushing, but from her daughter’s cry when she was half-awake. It was sometimes high and sometimes low. And it resounded through the whole Water Dungeon, with echoes of water and walls.
Although she and the child had been mother and daughter only for a few months, she was unexpected that kind of tie was so deep. Since she got a new life from the Shui Shang Temple and everything was reshuffled, the child also followed.
The baby lived in her dreams and appeared only twice a month. But her dreams never ceased. And the child was growing up slowly, just like He Danggui, accepting the baptism of time. When she changed from a girl to a maiden, the child also broke away from her swaddling clothes and crawled in the white fog with her hands and feet. Later, the child learned to toddle. Sometimes, the child waved and smiled at He Danggui and called He Danggui “Mama” sweetly.
Those extraordinarily real dreams often made He Danggui immerse in sadness all day after she woke up. She wondered maybe it was because the child died very awfully or was poisoned by the Xiaoyao Poison just like her. So far, the child could not reincarnate and could only drift alone in this world, coming into her dream occasionally.
The poem The Autumn Lotus and the pile of puppets like Concubine He, awakened all the hatred in He Danggui’s heart. He Danggui knew that the gap between her and Zhu Quan was quite big. She also understood that it was neither rational nor realistic to ask him for blood debt of his previous life. To kill the powerful Zhu Quan, even if she was lucky enough to make it, she would lose her own life, which was like jumping over a cliff with her enemy.
She cherished everything she had now. And she was grateful that the immortal gave her the opportunity to restart again, so that she could spend time with Xiaoyou, Chan Yi and Qing’er all day with laughter. So, she tried her best to retreat from the edge of the cliff, but there seemed to be an invisible hand pushing her. She took a step back, and the hand pushed her, forcing her to go forward two steps, so that she could get closer to the cliff where Zhu Quan was beside.
The immortal gave her a chance to start over again. Was it to let her die with Zhu Quan and jump off the cliff with him? She didn’t believe it and accept the fate, so she tried to break free of the invisible hand for three years. Just when she thought that the hand had gone from her, Feng Yang, Zhu Quan’s messenger, appeared again. This time, he brought her an unprecedented and terrifying message. It was not the information that Zhu Quan was coming to Yangzhou. Instead, it was that Zhu Quan was not an “ordinary” Zhu Quan. He might have received a “letter” from Zhu Quan of his previous life. He might know that she was his Concubine He in the previous life!
Perhaps such an idea was too ridiculous, but there was no other way could explain his extraordinarily strong interest in her. And according to his temperament, he would get what he wanted directly. Since he was determined to get her, why not taking her in his hand immediately? Maybe the memory of his previous life appeared in his mind, which made him want to know more about her while he was puzzled. He might think of her resentful eyes before she died in the previous life, so he worried that whether she would do harm to him. Or, he had doubts but could not be sure that she was also a person with the memory of the previous life. In short, he must know something, maybe a little bit, a flash, a fragment, or even more, or even all...
Otherwise, how could he leave this poem the Autumn Lotus on the stone wall? Or, how could he vividly depict the crescent-shaped frontlet she often wore in her previous life? Or else why did he draw her into the pavilion of the Lord Ning’s Mansion and wrote a poem on it? The poem said, “Ten years, dead and living dim and draw apart. I don’t try to remember, but forgetting is hard.”
What should she do? The voice of the daughter’s “Mama” was still lingering in her ears. And the enemy in her previous life chased to this life, who was still determined to kill her!
Don’t panic! Just try to imagine. If Zhu Quan knew all about the previous life, he would have killed her, the element of instability for him, a long time ago. Perhaps, his situation might be the same as her dreams of her daughter. He might just dream of his Concubine He once or twice, and thought that it was the immortal’s will to let her be his concubine, so he would chase her all the time.
Don’t panic. He Danggui, you were the one who had lived 2 lifetimes. How could you lose to Zhu Quan, who was only 18 years old now?
Chang Nuo noticed that the girl’s eyelashes moved slightly, so he approached and asked, “Hey, are you awake? How do you feel? Does your chest still hurt?” He was not good at feeling the pulse, but he still tried. Unexpectedly, although he knew little about pulse, he could feel that her pulse was strong and powerful, which was even stronger than him whose Zhenqi was overdrawn. However, her heart beat very fast, as if she was immersing in some intense emotion. Chang Nuo frowned and asked, “Miss He, what’s wrong with you? Do you need to see the doctor?”
After saying that, the girl’s eyelashes trembled like butterfly wings. Then she opened her beautiful eyes and looked at him straight. She asked, “Childe Feng, did you say that Lord Ning likes me? How much? Can you repeat to me all the words he mentioned about me? I’m very curious about it.”
Chang Nuo was glad to hear the words. He helped her sit up first, and then looked at her face. He asked, “How does you feel now? I have a separate courtyard on the outskirts. There are the best doctors. Shall I take you to see the doctor?”
He Danggui shook her head and refused, “I just fainted in pain, but now I wake up as usual. And I still get so many benefits from you. Now I’m full of strength. I suddenly got interested in Lord Ning. Childe Feng, could you tell me all the things I can know? Lord Ning, he stayed in this cave for a few days three years ago, didn’t he? The poem on the wall and the pile of puppets were all left by him at that time, right? But on the night before he left, I met him once. At that time, he didn’t mention how he felt about me. I’m very curious about it. Could you tell me more about it?”
Hearing her mentioning of those puppets, Chang Nuo couldn’t help getting angry. He said in a thick voice, “Why did you destroy those puppets? They were all carved by Lord Ning with deep feelings. And he has asked me two or three times to take these things back to him!”
He Danggui raised her eyebrows and said, “However, you said just now that Lord Ning was obsessed with micro sculpture as early as last year. And he asked you to take his previous sculptures to him. You have been in Yangzhou for a long time. You flied into Luo’s Mansion and has lived in this cave some time ago. Why are those puppets left in this cave till today? Childe Feng, don’t you always answer to Lord Ning’s request and do what he says?”
In a moment of silence, Chang Nuo walked to the pheasant, fat rabbits and two bamboo tubes of water on the ground beside him. While handling the fur of the prey skillfully, he said, “Look at the futon on the ground over there. The dark red color is not the natural color of the cloth, but the color dyed with blood, just like your dress. The blood was dyed on it three years ago. At that time, Lord Ning was seriously injured by one senior. He walked and talked like a normal person because of his strong body. In fact, he should go somewhere quiet and heal his wounds immediately. Ming Yue told me that when he was ready to start his meditation on the night, he found you who was bleeding and unconscious. Since then, he became different from before.”
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