C67 (1/2)
Xiu'er lowered her head, continuously rubbing the wine cup in her hand with her fingers, as if hesitating whether or not she should believe the person in front of him.
From the moment she had followed Yuanhai out of the Fire Phoenix Army Camp, she had been betting in her heart that she would be able to defeat him and use her sacrifice to exchange for the lives of thousands of soldiers. She was constantly on guard against anything that might happen to her, including the vicious gazes from the soldiers and the low curses from their mouths. She was well aware of that, but for the sake of the soldiers' safety, she had to endure it.
But now, facing this old man, she was at a loss. The person in front of her could be said to be the greatest enemy of all of Fire Phoenix Empire. If she were to kill him now, then even if thousands of soldiers died a violent death, no one would say a word wrong about her. After thousands of years of enmity and warfare, more than a million soldiers had died. To use more than a thousand regular soldiers to exchange for the heads of Lord Messenger of God s, no matter how one looked at it or what price it had to pay, it was all worth it.
This was a cold topic, but it was not difficult to calculate. If the ones sitting here were Chen Chu, Qu Feizhi or even strong man, they would have already made their own decisions.
But Xiu'er could not do it, she knew very well what the person in front of her had said. Perhaps, the only person who could solve the mystery in her heart would be this person.
Drinking all the wine in the cup in one gulp, Xiu'er slowly raised her head and said to Chen Tianming who was standing in front of him, ”Lord Messenger of God is right.
”Two years ago?” Chen Tianming repeated the word.
Xiu'er nodded with a hint of awkwardness: ”Yes, about two years ago, or maybe a little more. I should say, I only remember what happened after that. I have no memories of my childhood. ”
Chen Tianming poured wine into Xiu'er's wine cup and smiled at her: ”If Lord Xiu does not abandon me, this old one is willing to hear the details.”
Ever since she could remember, Xiu'er felt that she was already a big child. She lived with her parents on the fishing boat, and every day she would help her father catch fish to patch up the net and help her mother wash and cook. Whenever she saw the children of other families laughing and playing, the Xiu'er would feel that it was very strange. In her memories, there had never been such a scene, as if from the moment she could remember, she was already older than the other children.
After almost a year, the Xiu'er could no longer hold back and finally asked his parents. The two old men looked at each other for a while. Her father lit up the pipe, smoked a few mouthfuls, and then told Xiu'er that she had been suffering from a strange disease since she was young. She was unconscious and slept every day, just like a living corpse. All these years, he had relied on her mother to feed and drink to barely survive. It was also because of this that Xiu'er didn't have any memories from her childhood. Now that she had finally woken up, her parents did not want her to know about her tragic past, which was why they had not told her the truth.
Her father said that while her mother kept wiping away her tears. Xiu'er also cried as she hugged her mother's head. Her father sat by the side, smoking and sighing incessantly.
Xiu'er secretly made up her mind. She wasn't going anywhere, she was going to properly honor her parents and make up for the debt of love she had accumulated over the past ten years. Making this decision actually wasn't easy at all. There was always a throbbing in the depths of her heart as she constantly called out, and that voice made her head north, all the way north.
Another year had passed, and her father had met with an accident in Xiu'er. He followed the village fishermen to a distant place to fish, only to run into a thousand-year-old fishing flood. The huge fish tide broke through the fishing net, dragging the fishing boat with it as it ran. The fishermen behind him all turned around to look at him. They would rather not hand over the money to save their lives. The people in front were unlucky, the fishing net had been destroyed, the fishing boat had been turned over, and they had all fallen into the water and been buried by the fish. Xiu'er's father was one of the fishermen in the first row.
After learning about this grievous news, Xiu'er's mother cried like hell. She said that this was retribution, the punishment for beating a fish for life and getting bitten by a fish in the end. This was retribution.
Xiu'er also cried as she tried to persuade her mother. But as she cried, her mother suddenly turned around, wanting to kowtow to Xiu'er. This frightened the girl, and she hurriedly reached out to help her mother, asking her what was going on.
Xiu'er's mother choked with sobs and told her that their old couple had lied to Xiu'er a year ago. The Xiu'er wasn't born from them, it was something they picked up.
The old couple had been married for many years and had once had a daughter. However, when the daughter was ten years old, she drowned and the old couple never came out again. When her father went out to fish and saw a man floating on the river, he scooped him up. Seeing that it was a young lady who was still breathing weakly, he quickly sent her home for her mother to help him.
At that time, Xiu'er looked like a teenage girl, the more the old couple looked at him, the more they thought of his daughter. Furthermore, his daughter was taken away by the river, and now a girl had rushed over to him, wasn't this a gift from the heavens? Thinking of this, the old couple gritted their teeth and stamped their feet. They decided that if this girl could still remember what happened earlier, they would send it back to her after waking up. If he couldn't remember, then he would lie to her to be her own daughter!
After about ten days, the Xiu'er slowly woke up. When her mother was changing clothes and feeding her, she probed him a few times and found out that this child really couldn't remember what happened before. She told her father about this matter and the two of them were anxious to see her daughter, hence they decided to follow the method they discussed and lie to Xiu'er.
Who would have thought that Xiu'er's father, who had believed that the heavens would accept a girl to send to her daughter, would be taken in by the heavens just like that? Xiu'er's mother felt that this was her retribution. The heavens had given her retribution, so she simply told Xiu'er everything that had happened before and after.
When Xiu'er heard this news, she cried even harder. It wasn't a lie, she said to her mother. Father saved him from the water to give him her second life. If not for Father, he would have long been drowned to death. So his father was his father, and his mother was his mother. There was no deceit, there was only gratitude.
Xiu'er's mother took out a neatly folded handkerchief from a big box and handed it to Xiu'er, saying that this was what she had found on her back then, and was the only thing that she had left behind. When he had picked her up, she had been wearing a plump dress and was covered in blood. The old couple speculated that this might be the house that was being hunted down by a criminal. In order to save their child, they threw the child out. She didn't dare to keep her clothes, and while she was cooking, her mother burned her clothes into a ball. Before she started burning, her mother took out a handkerchief from her clothes. Thinking that the child might find her biological parents in the future, she relented and left the handkerchief behind. Even her father didn't know about this.
Xiu'er gently unfolded his handkerchief. This was a high-quality silk handkerchief, but it was not considered big. It was clear that the person who bought this handkerchief did not have a lot of money on him. The handkerchief was green in color with a large green bamboo leaf embroidered on it. In the lower right corner, there was a red line with the word ”Hole” embroidered on it. Other than that, there was nothing else.
Thinking that this was probably the only clue his parents had left in his life, Xiu'er's tears fell again. Her mother cried along with them, and the two of them cried together again.