473 A Different Story (2/2)
Ning Que looked at the snow around him and tried to remember something. He said with a smile, ”There is no surprise story under Haotian and neither was what I did.”
”If the general's son wanted to live, the gatekeeper's son had to die. Since we were both four years old and if we changed our clothes and were badly mutilated, no one would be able to tell the difference between us.
”The old man thought he did not have to be vigilant against a four -year -old boy, thereby, he watched me with his sad, sorry, and sympathetic eyes and then I knew what he was going to do.”
”Wasn't the story in the book like this?”
Then the smile on his face gradually disappeared. He looked at Xia Hou, Zeng Jing, Li Qingshan, and all the people in front of him and asked wryly, ”But why?”
”Why I should follow the book?”
”Why the general's son can live and I have to die?”
”Why I should be killed?”
There was complete silence in front of the palace.
No one was able to answer his question, therefore, only Ning Que' voice could be heard in the snow, becoming colder and higher.
”I'm only a gatekeeper' son.”
”But I want to live.”
”I have to live.”
Ning Que talked about his thought calmly and firmly, like talking about the truth of the sun rising every day and water moving down.
”So when the housekeeper was persuading me to take off my clothes while moving to take a chopper, I grabbed it first and stabbed him in his stomach.”
”I seemed to stab him more than once.”
”Maybe five times.”
”Since I was not strong enough and stabbed him not deeply enough, I had to stab him over and over again until he was dead. He just looked at me alarmedly as if I was a monster and did not make any noises. I kept wondering whether he was too shocked to say anything or he just did not want to be found.”
He paused for a while and said, ”My master, the general's son, had no idea of what had happened. He found the old man lying in the pool of blood and then he rushed toward me. He tried to hit me and bite me like a crazy man.”
He shook his head and said, ”I was panicked and waving the chopper to stop him until I scratched him with the chopper. Then he covered his neck with his hands and fell on the woodpile.
”The blood came from his fingers so quickly even though I had tried to help him cover it. I failed and he died in front of me with his blood coagulating in my hands.”
Ning Que raised his head to look at the people in the snow. He shook his head after a long time and said, ”It was not a manslaughter.”
”Maybe I meant to kill him at that time.”
He looked at Xia Hou and smiled, ”Only if he was dead, I, a son of a gatekeeper would be able to avoid catching your attention.”
The whole world was enveloped by snow and wind as if it were dead.
The snowflakes fell on Ning Que's face which made him look even grimmer.
The smile on his face was seemingly warm but extremely grim.
People saw his smile and were badly shocked. They felt an unprecedented cold.
They seemed to have seen what happened in the woodshed decades ago.
A four years old boy was standing beside two corpses, desperate and terrified, with a chopper in his trembling hands and on the verge of collapsing at any moment.
However, he did not.
Today, the boy was standing in front of the palace, telling people about the story from long ago.
The story in the book was always the same.
However, his was not in the book.