Chapter 273 The Emperor had donkey’s ears
He Danggui didn’t understand what Meng Xuan meant, and she didn’t know why he said in such a positive tone that he and her were destined in this life. However, according to the hints in his words, it seemed that she hadn’t completely died yet, and might survive. So, she hugged Meng Xuan’s arms, who looked very high from her point of view, like a life-saving straw, and asked him, “You can save me, right? Save me please, I don’t want to die!”
Meng Xuan stopped smiling, and asked rhetorically, “Why should I save you? You are so ruthless to me. You never want to look at me. Do you hate me so much?” His voice was no longer as warm as before.
He Danggui was stunned for a moment. Yes, she unreasonably asked Meng Xuan to do everything for her. Why should she ask him to help her? Was there any reason for him to help her? But...
“But,” He Danggui raised her head and pleaded, “I still have a lot of wishes left. Now I only meet you, one of my acquaintances, so please help me. One good turn deserves another. You will definitely have good luck.” Was this reason not good enough? Could she think of a better reason?
“An acquaintance?” Meng Xuan was disappointed immediately, “In your mind, am I just an acquaintance? You have mentioned so many people, including your mother, Qing’er, Zhenzhu, Xiaoyou, Chan Yi, and seven-year-old Zhu, but not including me. May I ask you what you take me for? What do you think of me?”
He Danggui replied, “You are already standing in front of me, so why should I mention your name? In my heart...” Her seven-year-old body was petite and cute. She looked up at the eleven-year-old Meng Xuan, tilted her head and said, “You are like both elder brother and younger brother.”
“Elder brother? Younger brother!” Meng Xuan raised his voice, “Do you never treat me as a man?”
“Ah, rest assured.” She raised her arm and patted Meng Xuan’s chest. Then she laughed, “Although you were more beautiful than a girl when you were a child, you still looked a bit masculine!” Thinking that she might have been killed by Shangguan Ming Ri and be unable to survive, she lowered her head gloomily, “It seems that you and I are destined to be missed. A good man like you will definitely meet a good girl who can match you, and then you can make up a perfect circle.”
Meng Xuan gritted his teeth and said, “Xiaoyi, you are my exclusive circle. Why do you ask me to find the other half circle? As long as you are willing to try to like me, I will agree to your request. I won’t marry with other women.”
“Would you like to marry me?” He Danggui covered her mouth with her small hand, and said with a slight self-abasement, “Since I have died, I will no longer hide it from you. Actually, I am in the same situation as you. We are all people who came to this life with the memories of the previous life. Although I ask you to be monogamous, in fact, I have been married in the previous life. I am afraid I am not worthy of you.” After all, she thought that she was dying.
“Oh?” Meng Xuan was not very surprised. “It turns out that you are also reborn. No wonder you are so different and talented. Your wisdom is greater than your age. Great! What a good match we are! Have you been married? Who is he? Is he in this life?”
As a saying went, “When a man is near death, he speaks from his heart.” He Danggui no longer hid it. She simply spoke out her deepest secrets and her previous life experience. It was bad for health to keep a secret for too long.
When sleeping together, Qing’er told her a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was an emperor who wore a big hat and hid his ugly long donkey’s ears. Every time he had a haircut, his secret would be discovered by a barber. Therefore, every time he finished the haircut, he killed the barber. In this way, the emperor killed a barber every time he cut his hair, until a clever little barber said that he didn’t see anything. Then, the little barber escaped the killing, and received a reward.
But the little barber clearly saw the emperor’s secret. He was uncomfortable to hold the secret in his heart, so he ran into the field in the middle of the night, dug a hole in the ground, and said softly toward the entrance of the hole, “Earth, earth, let me tell you, the emperor has donkey’s ears.” He felt very happy after telling the secret, and went back to sleep well. The earth could not speak, so the secret was left in the cave.
A few days later, a tree grew in the place where the little barber had dug a hole. A child walked by and picked a leaf to make a whistle. Oddly enough, the whistle made a sound, “The emperor has donkey’s ears!” This news spread, and people all over the country knew that the emperor had donkey ears within a few days.
The emperor wanted to kill the little barber. But the little barber said, “I never told anyone. I only told the earth.” He led the emperor to blow the whistle made of leaves, and the emperor was surprised. It really said, “The emperor has donkey’s ears!”
When the emperor saw that the secret had been got abroad, he thought, “Anyway, people all over the country knew that I have donkey’s ears. Why do I need this hat?” So, he took off his hat and showed his true colors.
After Qing’er told the story, she sighed with emotion, “The secrets that we were reborn with memories of the previous life are our donkey’s ears, right? Fortunately, we ancient people don’t need to have a haircut. You are my entrance of the hole, and I am yours. If we confide our secrets to each other, we won’t be suffocated from mental illness.”
He Danggui was silent after hearing it. In fact, she did not fully show her donkey’s ears to Qing’er. It was not that she did not trust her, but that some words were like a gust of wind blowing on the tip of the tongue. Once it passed, she felt happy, but after that, she couldn’t help worrying about it. Would the hole she talked about also sprout and grow a tree? Would the leaves on that tree disturb her peaceful life?
Although Qing’er was clever and sensible, sometimes she seemed a little stupid, and disasters might emanate from her careless talk. Therefore, He Danggui always hid some secrets, including the blood feud between the family of Sun Meiniang and herself, the future of the world, the next emperor, the reign period, and her saddest secret that all her three children were killed by Zhu Quan… She never revealed anything above to Qing’er.
Now, she was going to die, and this time she would not be so lucky to be reborn with memories. Of course, in a sense, recalling too much hurt the mind and was not conducive to keep in good health. Memories were actually a kind of injury, a thing that brought misfortune. Before she died, she couldn’t help showing her donkey’s ears, which no one had seen before, to the third person with donkey’s ears, Meng Xuan.
So, under Meng Xuan’s clear and bright gaze, she spoke hesitantly.
She started from the beginning and talked about her pitiful life experience. She lived in the village since she was a child. She was ignorant and worked hard in the farm, but she was happy all day long. Later, she lived with her mother and had a good life. She took off her burlap skirt and put on clothes made of silk and satin. In fact, she was still ignorant, but she had some desire and self-abasement. She loved the days when she could eat steamed rice without planting rice seedlings in the ground. She liked the taste of fish and meat. She worried that her mother would send her back to the farm again when her mother would recover and give birth to a young brother or sister for her.
The time when she felt inferior most was when she had just come to Luo’s Family. She was amazed and rejoiced all the way from the middle gate of East Yard to Madam Luo’s Fu Shou Yard, just like Granny Liu visited the Grand View Garden in a story called “The Story of the Stone” told by Qing’er. However, when she really stayed in that Grand View Garden, she discovered that there were owners everywhere in this garden, and even the slightly crude West Lateral Court she lived in did not belong to her. She was an outsider. When the family was eating, she was superfluous and looked ridiculous.
The “families” laughed at her just like laughing at a harlequin on a stage. She laughed with everyone at a loss. However, when she recalled the malice and ridicule in everyone’s laughter, she became angry. Over and over again, she accumulated a lot of grievances, and lived all day long like a prematurely senile irritated daughter-in-law. By the lotus pond, she became maudlin and felt that she was the most unfortunate person in the world.
Sometimes, she sat on the edge of the lotus pond in a posture that she would fall into the water as soon as she moved, thinking would there be any “families”, guests or kind maids to admonish her not to sit like that when seeing her sitting in such a dangerous situation. When they saw the tears on her face, they would ask her about her condition and what was on her mind. Then, she could find someone to pour out her troubles.
Anyone was okay, even a stranger. However, even if she sat like that day after day, no one had ever come to care about her and asked her whether she was happy or not. Sometimes she really had the idea of accidentally falling into the water and being drowned. The reason why she not jumped was that she had more hope in life than despair. She knew that the future would be bright, and she also felt hopeful because of her beautiful reflection in the water. She was so pretty, even if she was not dressed up like her second sister. She would look much better than her second sister only with a pink white dress of the same quality as the maids’ clothes.
She often comforted herself with this when she was wearing old clothes and saw her second sister walking towards her from a distance with the colorful clothes and accessories.
Meng Xuan looked at her gently and kindly, which relaxed He Danggui gradually. She analyzed herself from the perspective of a bystander, and sighed that human always had an insatiable appetite for secularity. Originally, she was satisfied with a cotton skirt when she took off the sackcloth. But when she put on silk and satin one day, and saw that others’ clothes were more beautiful, she would dislike her old silk and satin dress.
So, she accidentally “married into the purple” as a concubine. In order to put on more gorgeous and lighter clothes, she began to work hard to please her husband, study the Go, and fight with his wife and other concubines.
Meng Xuan immediately asked, “Girl, who was your husband in the previous life? Do I know him?”
He Danggui twisted the corners of her clothes and thought that Meng Xuan must have not seen what Lord Ning did to Concubine He. Should she keep this secret and leave a more perfect impression on him? Would Zhu Quan haunt her to the end of her life? Would she really tell Meng Xuan all the humiliations of marrying Lord Ning?
Seeing her suddenly stop talking, Meng Xuan couldn’t help but guess and ask, “Since you said you ‘married into the purple’, you must not marry an ordinary family. Was he...Duan Xiaolou?”
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