Novel Bin Chapter 249 - Encounters behind the rockery
Chapter 249 Encounters behind the rockery
He Danggui took a deep breath and then laughed secretly whether she lost her head. She even believed that Bai Yangbai and Qi Xuanyu, Taoist priests who claimed to know the fate. She studied carefully about the I Ching and the Eight Diagrams, but in the end, she didn’t divine her death. Even the divination master Bai Yangbai couldn’t help her make the divination. Whatever previous and present lives, immortals and ghosts, people were born in heaven and earth and couldn’t even grasp the fate of this life. How could they divine the previous life of the previous life? It was still unknown that how many previous lives a person had.
At the very moment, there was a voice showing fright from Qi Lu Yard, and the voice came from Zhu Quan, who always didn’t show his emotion!
He said in confusion, “Xuanyu, do you mean my Tenth Sister? But she...was disfigured in the fire of the palace in the 14th year of Hongwu. How do you know that she looks the same as He Danggui? In the 14th year of Hongwu, my Tenth Sister was only eight years old, and I was only three years old. I had no impression of her original appearance, and the painter in the palace had never painted her portrait. Xuanyu, before she was disfigured, you didn’t enter the palace!”
He Danggui was so frightened. She couldn’t help but tremble twice. Originally, it was a bit weird to mention the “previous life of the previous life”, but now she heard that the girl that might be her was disfigured in the fire. She felt a little scared.
Meng Xuan seized the chance to free up an arm to pass on the energy, and took her wrapped in a quilt into his arms. He comforted her, “Tenth Princess passed away three years after she was disfigured. She didn’t suffer much. This is the matter of previous life. Never mind it.” Just remember it in your head.
In fact, after listening to Qi Xuanyu’s argument, Meng Xuan only believed less than 30%, but he immediately pretended to believe all. It was just because he thought that even if it was related to the previous life, as long as Xiaoyi and Zhu Quan were siblings, she might not marry Zhu Quan. So, he suddenly was in the same group with Qi Xuanyu and tried his best to support every word that Qi Xuanyu said, even though he himself felt that those words were a bit nonsense.
He Danggui straightened her ears and listened to Qi Xuanyu’s words, “My Lord, you don’t need to doubt. I will not lie to you for an unimportant He Danggui. You are right. I entered the palace at the age of thirteen when Tenth Princess died at that year. She was eleven years old at that time and already disfigured. My Lord, you may not know that our Xiaozhu Sect has a kind of ‘natural eye skill’. We can see the original face of the person whose appearance has been destroyed. Moreover, I didn’t have much impression at first, but later I suspected that He Danggui was the reincarnation of Tenth Princess. When I connected with the scene that I first met the Tenth Princess, I was amazed at the similarities between them. They even said the same thing!”
Zhu Quan said in a puzzled way, “Xuanyu, what are you talking about? I don’t understand what you are saying.”
Qi Xuanyu’s voice was tense like a string and strummed tightly, “I just told you that when I met He Danggui, she was bullied. Her clothes were wet and her shoes were lost. I helped her once. My Lord, do you know? It was exactly the same when I first met Tenth Princess. When I was out of the palace, I passed the rockery and heard the sound of weeping from the back of the rockery. Out of curiosity, I went over to look over, and then I saw a girl in the pink suit squatting there and crying, with her face buried on her knees. I saw her clothes soaked, so I went up and cared. But when she raised her head and revealed a burnt face, I was frightened and yelled. She cried more sadly. I was very sorry, so I used the natural eye skill to look at her. Then I marveled at her original appearance, which was pure and refined, and pitied her even more in my heart. I persuaded her to go out of the palace with me and said that I was willing to take care of her and find her a good home. My Lord, do you know what she said?”
“What did she say?” Zhu Quan, Qi Chuan, He Danggui and Meng Xuan were all curious.
Qi Xuanyu sighed and recalled, “At that time, after listening to my words, she not only did not raise her head to thank me, but also hid her face. She stammered that she was not a maid, but Tenth Princess, so she could not casually follow others. Then she told me to stay away from her. She said that she accidentally fell into the water and lost her shoes. She didn’t let me come closer so as not to see her bare feet. As soon as I heard that she was a princess, I said sorry and walked away. I heard her still crying after walking far. Then I turned back and asked her the size of her feet. Her response was 2.9 inches, so I ran to a palace and found her a clean dress and a pair of 2.9-inch embroidered shoes. I gave them to her, and she silently took them. After I left, she started to change clothes. Then ten days later, white banners were hung in several palace rooms in the palace. I inquired and found out that it was because Tenth Princess died.”
He Danggui listened to this story silently. Whether Qi Xuanyu helped her behind the rockery three years ago, or he helped Tenth Princess behind the rockery fourteen years ago, it sounded like they were all old things related to her. However, in fact, she never experienced either of them. The two encounters behind the rockery were surprisingly similar, but what did this show?
Qi Xuanyu seemed to be laughing, “I met the beauty twice behind the rockery, and the situation was surprisingly similar. After I met He Danggui, I didn’t feel anything. But after seeing He Danggui’s portrait, which was exactly the same as the Tenth Princess’s, I recalled the past. I was shocked to remember that Tenth Princess and He Danggui not only have the same voice, but also have extremely similar temperaments. They are both soft and tough like bulrush with weird temperament. At first sight, she could only cry. I wanted to cherish and help her, but she didn’t accept my pity and blame me for being troublesome. She is really a stubborn, proud and stupid girl...”
Qi Xuanyu’s voice was full of aftertaste and even contained a little bit of pain. But He Danggui felt that she would never be “proud” when she was ten years old before rebirth, because at that time she had no proud and her dignity was trampled. Therefore, He Danggui guessed that the person who Qi Xuanyu recalled and hurt him should be the Tenth Princess who died young.
“Humph,” Qi Xuanyu said with slight mockery, “Why did she have to be a princess in the palace? In the end, she lost her life. It’s better to go home with me and be my concubine. Then she can be still alive.”
After He Danggui heard these words, she thought it seemed that Qi Xuanyu and Tenth Princess still had some affair. Even if Tenth Princess was disfigured and bullied, after all, she was still Zhu Yuanzhang’s daughter. How dare Qi Xuanyu wanted to abduct the princess and made her become a concubine, not even the junior wife?
Qi Chuan helped He Danggui to ask her question, “Brother, you are too haughty. You even want the princess to be your concubine? Be careful that her father may cut your head off!”
Qi Xuanyu smiled lightly, “If her father cared for her, how could she die so miserably! After death, she didn’t even have a title!” Probably considering Zhu Quan’s presence, Qi Xuanyu changed topic, “My lord, when I saw the portrait of He Danggui and suspected that she was the reincarnation of the princess, I conducted a thorough investigation about her life experience. At that time, Chuan had entered into Luo Baiqian’s body and knew everything about Luo Baiqian, so I learned from him that Luo Baiqian had an affair with his uncle Luo Chuanwu’s concubine, Qi Sanniang. Then I took this soft spot to blackmail him. I asked him to secretly mediate and let Luo’s Family take He Danggui back to Luo’s mansion.”
He Danggui didn’t expect that there would be such an old story. She didn’t expect that she would still benefit from the Tenth Princess and get the help from Qi Xuanyu and Luo Baiqian.
Zhu Quan’s voice sounded, “Even if there is some truth in what you said, the things in the previous and this life are too mysterious. I am really unconvinced. Besides, I have never seen the appearance of my Tenth Sister, and I can’t find a portrait to compare. Even if they have similar looks and voices, and the time of death and birth can be connected, these cannot be used as evidences. Xuanyu, you may not know that I have a strange disease in the past two years. As long as I don’t see the portrait of He Danggui very often, there will be a pain in my chest. Later, looking at the portrait was no longer useful. I sent people to visit the world to find women who look exactly like her and brought them back to my mansion. Among them, one is the most similar to her, with similarity reaching 60 to 70%. If she dresses up carefully, I can hardly tell her difference from He Danggui when viewing at a distance. I use her very well. Therefore, there are so many people in the world who look the same, but it’s just a coincidence.”
He Danggui heard from Zhoushi about Zhu Quan’s feelings for her, and heard from Bai Yangbai’s description about Zhu Quan’s favorite concubine’s appearance. But at this moment, when Zhu Quan himself spoke it out with a calm and unfeeling tone, she felt like those women were just a group of mice, and they were caught by Zhu Quan to do evil experiments to study the final conclusion. And then Zhu Quan used that conclusion to kill her, a big tabby cat. This feeling made her nauseous. At this time, the heat of the transmission had faded. Her body suddenly felt cold, and she couldn’t help but shiver.
Meng Xuan was also uncomfortable with Zhu Quan’s tone when he talked about Xiaoyi, and when Zhu Quan talked to Qi Xuanyu about her, he called her “He Danggui”, without the tender affection between lovers. It was not as cordial and affectionate as that sojourn soul Qi Chuan’s call.
Meng Xuan was displeased. Did Zhu Quan really love Xiaoyi? Or he just treated her as a plaything? Xiaoyi was only fourteen years old, unmarried, and waited in the boudoir to be betrothed. Zhu Quan did not take the right path and propose marriage to Luo’s Mansion with Sanmei Liupin (also known as Sanshu Liuli, a traditional marriage custom etiquette in China), but ran over the wall and the window to her embroidered bed. He got her without giving her a title. Did Zhu Quan really have the sincerity to marry her? When did Zhu Quan and Xiaoyi begin to maintain this relationship? That bastard Zhu Quan, what did he take Xiaoyi for!
Feeling the trembling of the person in his arms, Meng Xuan tightened his arms again, pressing her into his chest. He suddenly felt that the sense of upset was alleviated.
In the past few years, he also suffered from a strange disease. He often dreamed about things in his previous life. All the parts related to Yangzhou City were repeated in his dreams, capturing any fragments of Xiaoyi’s figure in the previous life. And then, the dream maker filled the episodes of suspected Xiaoyi’s figure and compiled them into long stories. In those stories, he and Xiaoyi married and lived in a bamboo building inlaid with jasper. They made out with their fingers intertwining on a wide and gorgeous bed.
Meng Xuan didn’t understand why he would repeatedly have such absurd transient joy, and he was sorry for sullying Xiaoyi like that in his dreams. But no matter what he felt in his heart, such dreams were repeated every once in a while. When he was awake, he could control himself not to think about her and pretend to forget her posture completely. He could eat, practice martial arts, and handle official duties as usual. But when he fell asleep, he couldn’t control what kind of dreams he had.
Meng Xuan had vaguely seen that jade building. In his previous life, he was dragged by Bai Yangbai into an inexplicable dream. There was a jade building made up of jasper jade. In the building, there was a girl said to be “tortured by philter” in the mouth of Bai Yangbai. He was hurt badly by Bai Yangbai that time, and he still dreamed of the jade building in this life, which showed that it was the retribution of helping the girl detoxify in the dream. As for why the girl’s face changed to Xiaoyi’s appearance, he guessed that it was probably because that collecting Zhenqi of Xiaoyi at that time was all done on the bed, and over time it formed an impression. When he dreamed of the bed, he could dream of Xiaoyi.
Meng Xuan hugged the person in his arms tightly and comforted her, “Don’t be sad. If Zhu Quan is not good to you, I will help you punish him severely. If you don’t want to marry him, you can marry me. In my dream, we are already a couple.”