The Golden Hairpin

Out of Daningfang, Zhou Ziqin headed southwest, Huang Zixian headed southeast, and the two parted ways and went back separately.

When Huang Zixian walked to Xingningfang, he suddenly saw many people running on the road, and some people shouted: "Go to the Sixteenth King's House! It's not there anymore!"

Huang Zixian was still in amazement when she didn't know it. An old lady who was running in the crowd next to her was squeezed to the ground and yelled again and again. Huang Zixia hurriedly helped her up and asked, "Mother-in-law, where are you going?"

"Oh, I heard that the emperor and Concubine Guo Shu are spreading money all over the place near the princess mansion of the Sixteenth King's House! Aren't we all picking up money!"

Huang Zixia was confused and walked quickly to the other side with the crowd.

When I got there, many people gathered around the gate of the mansion, all bending over to look for something on the ground. She had to find another person with something in her hand and asked: "Big brother, I heard that the emperor and Concubine Guo Shu are giving money, is it true?"

"What to give money? Vulgar!" The uncle looked like a scribe, and showed her his hands. Huang Zixian saw that in his palm was a silver flower tin inlaid with pearls. The style was exquisite, and it should be an ornament in the palace.

"Just now, the emperor and Concubine Guo Shu came to the princess's mansion to watch Li Keji's newly arranged team dance "A Hundred Years". All brocades were laid from the palace to the princess's mansion. Hundreds of people went from the Daming Palace to here, singing and dancing all the way. It was Huatian that dropped, and these people came to pick it up."

Huang Zixian suddenly realized, and listened quietly. Amidst the noise around Rang Rang, the sound of singing and dancing could be vaguely heard from inside.

She avoided the gate and walked to a place where the crowd was sparse, and she heard hundreds of people singing in unison. The tone was sad and sorrowful, making her stand here and listen from a distance, feeling that there were thousands of melancholy in her chest, and she felt sad and sad.

She leaned against the wall and quietly looked up at the sky. In the summer afternoon, there was no wind, and the distant tone was blown by the wind. The miserable tone was inexhaustible, cutting a certain part of her heart, and tears fell unconsciously.

She felt her face full of tears and embarrassed, so she raised her hand to try to take out her handkerchief, but found that it contained the incense ash she had just taken, and it was no longer usable.

Holding the embers of Lingxiangxiang in her hand, she was in a daze, but someone behind her silently handed her a pure white veil.

She turned her head, opened her eyes wide, and looked at him through tears.

Yu Xuan.

He was wearing azure clothes, standing in the blue-gray streets, such a plain color, such a beautiful face.

She slowly raised her hand, took the handkerchief, and pressed it on her face.

All the hot tears were sucked away by the soft linen, leaving no trace.

As if to lose her strength, she involuntarily leaned against the wall, buried her face on the veil he gave in this empty alley, without looking up for a long time.

Above it was his breath, light and illusory, the lotus blooming at the beginning of summer night, the plum pui withered in winter, the flame and snow in her dreams.

"At the gate of Dali Temple, I saw you." His voice sounded softly in her ears, slightly trance, but it really came into her ears. "I saw you hiding behind that tree, avoiding me. I think so, even if we meet, what can we say?"

His voice was so slow, Huang Zixia could clearly feel the hesitation and sadness in his mood.

He must be like her, thinking of the days they were together, thinking of many things that could not be forgotten and could not be passed away.

"I saw that girl, she should have been rescued by you from Dali Temple." He raised his head, looking at the dazzling white clouds in the sky, his tone was slow and distant, "I was on the way back, thinking A lot. I think of the time when you were able to travel thousands of miles just for one sentence worthy of scrutiny in the dossier, rushing day and night to reverse the case of someone you never knew. Even now you are notorious, you are still trying your best to go in your own predicament. Helping others. In contrast, I should be the person closest to you in the world, but stubbornly believe that you are the murderer, it is really...wasted our feelings for many years."

Huang Zixian clenched her lower lip, without making a sound, only her trembling shoulders betrayed her.

Yu Xuan sighed and gently pressed her shoulder.

They had done more intimate things before. But this first contact since the long-lost reunion made Huang Zixia unconsciously lean over his body, leaving his hands hanging in the air.

After a long time, he silently retracted his hand and said softly: "You shouldn't say those things to me, shouldn't do those things, otherwise, I would never believe that you would do something like that, I would never believe it anyway. ."

Huang Zixian took off the handkerchief, her expression became calm, except for the reddish eyes, nothing was unusual.

She asked: "What did I and you...say? What did you do?"

He stared at her for an instant, his voice was very low, but it was very clear: "Just the night before your family's tragic death, when you came back from Longzhou, when I went to look for you... I saw you staring at her with that in your hand. Packed with arsenic, with a strange expression on his face."

Huang Zixian opened her eyes in amazement, staring at him in a daze, and muttered, "What?"

"That day, it was when you came back from Longzhou. I still remember the letter you just wrote to me. The letter said that in the case of Longzhou, the daughter was obstructed by her love affair, so it was convenient to put in the guillotine in her diet. All the furniture is dead. You still said in the letter, if you and I are in this situation, will you abandon your family and embark on the road of no return." Yu Xuan looked at her with pain, "The letter is on. The words made me very worried. Seeing that you came back and took out the arsenic, I immediately asked you to throw it away. However, you threw it into the drawer and locked it again, saying, maybe it is something that can help us together. ."

Huang Zixia looked at him blankly, as if looking at someone he didn't know at all: "I remember Longzhou, I remember the content of that letter, but I don't remember that I once took out arsenic and read it... I don't even remember saying that. Past that sentence!"

Yu Xuan stared at her with sharp eyes, but her face was full of sorrow and loss, so that he could not see any flaws.

His face turned pale, and he held his temples, because he was so excited that even his breath seemed heavy.

He said with difficulty: "Axia, it seems that I really misunderstood your actions at the time... It's just that the moment you held the arsenic, the look was too terrible, and that night, all your family members died of the arsenic. Next... How can I trust you again?"

"Impossible!" Huang Zixian interrupted him with a trembling voice, "After I bought the package of arsenic, I went to Longzhou. After I came back, the arsenic had not moved! How could you see me taking it? With that bag of arsenic?"

Yu Xuan stared at her steadily. This person who had always been so beautiful, his face was full of horror at this time, only murmured a few words: "Impossible? Impossible..."

The whole world is stagnant, only they are standing under the unreachable high altitude, looking at each other, a short distance away, and a world away.

The scorching heat and coldness, blood and death, the unknowable fate and the unpredictable providence, all poured on them.

"Yang Chonggu."

A slightly cold voice came from behind, breaking the almost frozen death silence between them.

Huang Zixia turned his head and saw Li Shubai standing at the entrance of the alley, watching them motionlessly. Backlight shining from behind him, she couldn't see his expression clearly, she only saw his outline, a sense of pressure that could not escape, struck invisibly.

She saw his clear and deep eyes, which made her withdraw from the trance and confusion for a moment, and found herself standing in this unmanned and lonely alley. The singing from far away is still coming, and the sad tune of "Sighing for a Hundred Years" evokes tears in the sky. The flowing clouds in the sky seem to be restrained by music and no longer flow.

On the other side, Yu Xuan seemed to have recovered, there was still a thin cold sweat on his forehead, but his expression had calmed down.

He bowed his head and saluted Li Shubai, and when he turned to leave, he stopped again and looked at Huang Zixia.

Huang Zixia looked at him silently, her pale face, countless complicated thoughts made her hesitate to speak.

He asked in a low voice, "You told me last time that you want to go back to Shu to find out the truth?"

Huang Zixia nodded and said, "I will go back."

"Then, I am waiting for you in Yizhou."

He looked deeply into her eyes, just like she met him for the first time many years ago, who still knew nothing about love, and saw him staring into his own eyes, his reflection deep.

In this world, no one knows that she grew from a little girl to a young girl at that moment.

When Li Shubai and Huang Zixia entered the Tongchang Princess Mansion, they sighed that the Centennial Dance Team had already dispersed.

On the slate floor that was whitened by the sun, the scattered beads looked particularly dazzling. Princess Tongchang’s body has been placed in the coffin, but there are still large and small ice cubes in the room.

There is also a smaller coffin next to it, where the princess milk mother Yunniang is placed. The skeins on her neck are still there, and she accompanies the princess to sleep with a twisted look.

The emperor and Concubine Guo Shu sat in front of the hall, and the court ladies and eunuchs behind them were wiping their tears. The emperor's face was full of fierce and violent anger, that was the accumulation of desperation that could not be vented.

When Li Shubai came in with Huang Zixia, the eunuchs and palace ladies beside the emperor were obviously relieved. Seeing Li Shubai looking at the nurse Yunniang, the emperor said: "The princess alone is too deserted. I will let Yunniang go down and continue to take care of the princess."

Seeing that the person was dead, Li Shubai could only remain silent and sat beside the emperor.

Concubine Guo Shu hid her face and choked sobs: "There are also those maids and eunuchs, no matter the others, those close to the princess, they are also responsible!"

The emperor thought for a long time before slowly saying: "The last time Grandpa Yang had pleaded for them, I think it makes sense, so let's put it on hold."

"The emperor sympathizes with them, and his concubines can read that Ling Hui is lonely underground!" Concubine Guo Shu breathed quickly, and cried even more sadly. "Ling Hui was most afraid of being alone since he was a child. I'm there, there are few people around me to serve, I'm a mother, how can I feel at ease..."

She cried sorrowfully, but Huang Zixia only felt a cold air rising from the soles of her feet, and it was cold all the way along her spine to the top of her head.

Li Shubai's gaze was also turning to her, and both of them saw the intention of Concubine Guo Shu in each other's eyes.

"Shu Fei, don't say anything, I feel uncomfortable." The emperor sighed, but did not object, and only said to Li Shubai, "I just called the princess's favorite during her lifetime, and Xuezheng Yu from the Imperial College had come over. ."

Concubine Guo Shu looked uncertain beside her, gently stretched out her hand to cover the back of the emperor's hand. The emperor didn’t seem to feel it, and only said: “I have also heard the rumors in Beijing that Ling Hui had invited Yu Xuan to give lectures for himself, but he refused it many times. Later, she personally went to the Imperial College to find a Jijiu to speak, and he agreed to it. The princess talked about Zhou rituals in the princess's mansion-I laughed it off at the time, but now I think about it, when the spirit emblem is in such a prosperous age, but I want to lie alone and lonely forever in the ground. She likes to hear Yu Xuan say Zhou rituals, I can't satisfy him. NS?"