The Golden Hairpin

She suddenly remembered that she had never thought of him in the past few days of displacement. It was as if he was in his own life, like the wisp of wind that had just passed his ear, forever left on the other side, and there was no possibility to return to her again.

She herself was surprised as to why, in the deepest part of her consciousness, she didn't feel that he was her trust.

Perhaps, when she was most in distress, he took the love letter written by her hand as evidence of crime to prove to Fan Yingxi. From that moment on, everything between them has become the past.

By now, what scared her was only Li Shubai's injury. That night, she held Li Shubai with him through the hopeless dark night. If he really didn't wake up, maybe she would completely collapse, and she would be lost in the mountains and forests, and would never be able to get out again.

She looked at Yu Xuan who was walking towards her slowly, watching his face gradually become clear in the sun, the face of the person among the gods, the demeanor of the Wuyi child, but at this moment, she suddenly understood that he was not only It's just Yu Xuan.

He is the girl's age that has disappeared forever, those dreamy and gorgeous past. She is always in a trance because of him, and what she sees in her eyes may not be the person she has been deeply attached to, but because she saw her old time-the one who lived forever in the sixteen-year-old years, and laughed arbitrarily. , Huang Zixia, the envy of everyone.

And he is a witness, participant, and even one of the creators of his best time.

So she smiled at him slightly, as if she was smiling at her past self. She wanted to say, 16-year-old Huang Zixia’s dream, don’t come to nothing?

However, no matter how beautiful the dream is, it needs to come out after all.

Yu Xuan was stunned for an instant. He searched all the way and thought about her various reactions, but never expected that she would smile like this the first time she saw him.

Huang Zi Xia wore a large piece of **** uniform with a large piece of hem torn off. He was covered in dust and unkempt, holding a small potato medicine that had just been pulled from the ground in his hand. But she doesn't care anymore, because, to her, the person in front of her is actually not important anymore. That's why she picked up the gourds and potato medicines on the ground casually, and asked casually: "Why are you here?"

Seeing her such a relaxed expression, Yu Xuan couldn't say anything for a while, was silent for a moment, and went to the side to help her pick two big gourds.

"Don't be big, it won't be cooked when you are old," Huang Zixia said.

He was stunned for a moment, then picked two small green gourds and handed them to her, then looked at her and said: "I heard that King Kui had an accident, and all the eunuchs and guards around him were lost. I remembered that we had lost our way here. , You might be able to find this side by chance, so just come and have a look."

She took the gourd and put it in her arms, and said, "Thank you for your concern, I'm fine."

"I... I remember you said that you would come back to clear your charges, so I hope you will return to Chengdu Mansion as soon as possible. At that time, I will watch you reverse the case with my own eyes."

"I will." She said, looked at the hem of his clothes wet with dew, and said, "Thank you for finding it in the middle of the night."

"Xichuan Jiedu has already ordered Fengshan to search. I can only come in in the middle of the night." His gaze fixed on her, for a moment, "I knew you would be fine...Although I was a little embarrassed."

Huang Zixian walked to the small temple holding the gourd and potato medicine, turning her head back and bending her mouth: "Yes, I said that I would come back to wash my grievances, but I can't die early."

He looked at the arc of her mouth and the inattentive look on her face, his steps slowed down, and he felt a bit strange in his heart.

Her unconscious trance and confusion in front of him disappeared.

The figure of herself that had been reflected in her eyes was gone.

His eyes darkened slightly, but then he hurried to catch up with her and walked into the temple with her.

Li Shubai was already able to walk today. He mentioned a pheasant that was still struggling and was watching. He saw Huang Zixia coming in and asked, "Do you know **** chickens?"

"The omnipotent King Kui, don't you know **** a chicken?" she asked.

"I'm too lazy to move." He said, threw the chicken to her, saw Yu Xuan behind her at a glance, paused, and said, "And you are there anyway."

"Well, yes." She replied casually, clutching the chicken wings and going back.

Li Shubai sat down in the shade under the porch, and Yu Xuan stood under the pampas in the courtyard and saluted him: "I have seen Lord Kui."

Li Shubai raised his hand, indicating that he didn't need it.

The two of them had nothing to say. One was sitting and the other standing. They were silent. Suddenly a scream of pheasant screamed from behind, and then a colorful shadow flew out, rushing everywhere with dripping blood.

Yu Xuan's eyes were quick and his hands were quick, he caught up with it and held it firmly. Huang Zixian ran out with a fish-intestine sword behind him, a little embarrassed: "The first time I killed, I have no experience..."

Li Shubai leaned against the gallery wall and said, "I just looked at you, it seems like a bamboo in your chest."

"I just watched it twice with the cook..." she said, sticking out her tongue, and then grabbed the chicken in Yu Xuan's hand. The pheasant with strong vitality was dying, she twisted the chicken's head and added another knife, squatting down the corridor to drain the blood.

Li Shubai looked at the blood stains in the front hall and back hall, and suddenly said: "If Zi Qin comes and sees it now, he might be able to tell the murder of a monk in a monastery."

Huang Zixian imagined Zhou Ziqin Man Temple looking for blood stains, couldn't help but smile, carrying the chicken and turning around: "I'm going to boil the water and pull the hair."

Yu Xuan hesitated, stood up and followed her back: "I will help you."

Huang Zixia didn't refuse, and asked him to help him watch the fire and cook for himself.

The fire was extinguished, and according to Yu Xuan's face, the hustle and bustle of red, orange and gold slowly flowed across his face, dazzling.

Huang Zixian raised her head between cooking meals, and saw his brilliant face illuminated by the firelight, and she couldn't help but feel a touch of warmth in her heart.

She spent her best years with such a person, which is not a waste. It's a pity...

And he looked up at her, their eyes met in an instant. He paused before asking in a low voice, "Where are you going to start?"

Huang Zixia knew that he was asking how she could restart the investigation of the family murder. She didn't hesitate to say: "Everyone in the prefecture."

"Do you suspect it is an insider?"

"It's always easier for insiders to commit crimes than outsiders. It is always necessary to check them first." She said, looking up at him again, and slowly said, "When the time comes, we must re-screen everyone, and you are among them. one."

He nodded, looked at the fire in the furnace, and asked quietly: "What about you?"

Huang Zixia silently lowered his head to mix the soup, and said, "You still don't believe me."

He shook his head and said: "I can't let myself forget everything I saw that day."

Huang Zixian's heart shuddered slightly, knowing that he was talking about what she had said to herself. Before her parents died, she had taken out the package of arsenic and looked at things with strange eyes.

She chopped up the potato medicine, threw it into the earthen jar and covered it, and then said: "In that case, we will carefully check the things we said and did that day."

Yu Xuan nodded, filled the stove with two thick pine branches, patted the dust on his clothes, and stood up.

Huang Zixia raised her hand and touched her head. In the midst of such drifting away, the hairpin that Li Shubai helped her make on her head was not lost, making her feel surprised, and then she pressed the curly pattern and pulled out the hosta inside.

"On the twenty-fifth day of the first lunar month, I ended the case of the daughter who killed the whole family by poisoning. When I came back from Longzhou, it was getting late, so we didn't meet that night, did we?"

Yu Xuan nodded affirmatively.

"On the 26th, when I slept until the end of Mao, I heard the sound of you tapping on the window door."

This is their habit for many years. Every time, after Yu Xuan tapped on her window, she would open a small gap in the window and let him pass in the flowers he prepared for her from the outside.

On this day, Yu Xuan sent her a green plum.

Yu Xuan looked at the Maomo she had drawn on the gray ground, and pointed to the open space above, and said, "At the beginning of Maochu on the 26th, I passed through the Qingyuan, and Feng Huajian cut the green plum for me."

Huang Zixian drew a shallow dot on the front to indicate the beginning of Mao.

"Mao Mo, I knocked on the window, but you did not respond. I waited for a while, and knocked a few more times, but you still did not respond. I wondered if you had already got up and went out. At this time, I found that the window was not closed. Question: "A Xian, are you inside? I opened the window." Then he opened the window to a gap and looked inside—" Yu Xuan said, with suspicion in his eyes, "I found... You have gotten up and are standing motionless in front of the dressing table, holding a bag of things in your hands. And the packaging of that bag, I know, is the bag of arsenic we bought together."

Huang Zixian struck a cross at Mao Moxia and let out a long sigh, saying: "Since the last time we met, I have also thought about that day in my heart thousands of times. My memory and Your memory does not match."

Yu Xuan nodded and asked, "What do you think was that day?"

"Mao Mo, I heard the sound of you tapping the window lattice, so I put on my clothes and told you, wait a moment. When I got dressed, you just tapped the window for the second time. So I opened the window, Take the green calyx plum in your hand."

Yu Xuan frowned slightly and asked, "How many flowers are there on that green calyx plum?"

Huang Zixia was at a loss. After thinking about it, he said, "It's about four or five...Because the flower branches are too long, I cut the bottom one and inserted it in the bun."

"Four flowers, two buds. I remember it very clearly," he said.

Because of his affirmation, Huang Zixian's face involuntarily showed a faint fear.

The castle in the sky that had been preset for a long time suddenly collapsed in an instant. The memory that I thought was absolutely reliable, in an instant, even myself became no longer believable. Everything in this world seems to be distorted and unrecognizable.

She barely calmed her mind, used her hairpin to drew a circle next to the fork, and said, "Then, I am finished washing up. That day, I had a tortoiseshell hairpin in my head, the green plum that you gave me. She wore the double fish jade bracelet that we asked to carve after we designed it together last year. The clothes she wore were a set of rosin-colored Shu brocade embroidered with Begonia flowers, and underneath was a honey color skirt."

He thought about it for a moment, nodded and said, "Yes, with a purple concentric knot."

Huang Zixia affirmed: "Rose purple."

"Then Weiwu sent over earlier, but you said, this time is a bit embarrassing anyway, just get more food, let's use lunch together."

"It's two quarters hour ago after the meal. We went to the garden to pick plum blossoms. By the end of the afternoon, my grandmother and uncle came over."

"Yes, I was an outsider after all, so I avoided it. Then when I passed by the Qingyuan, I just met a few friends who were dragged over to talk about the truth. In the evening, a group of people went to Xinghuazhuang for dinner. It was the second watch when I got home, and the curfew had already been curfew. I was filled with too much alcohol and ran into patrol soldiers. Fortunately, they all knew me and sent me home."

Huang Zi Xia drew one by one in the dust on the ground, combing through everything that happened that day. Yu Xuan sat in front of the stove, staring at her silently, just like so many times before, he sat in front of her, watching her carefully calculate the case. The slender eyelashes cover the crystal bright eyes, but it is difficult to hide the sharp and bright gaze.

The gaze turned abruptly, looking at his face. Yu Xuan suddenly realized that this is not the past, not the past. After that drastic change that changed their life trajectory forever, they sat behind this temple, vaguely as if they were still yesterday, but it was clear that they could not go back.