A pure heart in a jade pot - Chapter 169
Zhao Yu paused for a moment before slowly asking, "What's different?"
"For example, he used to step with his right foot first, but now he steps with his left foot first. And... I can't really put my finger on it, but anyway, I just feel like he's not the same as he was in Yanxie Town." Mo Yan herself couldn't explain it clearly, and she became increasingly frustrated, scratching her head.
Zhao Yu didn't react much to her left or right foot, but upon hearing the latter part of Mo Yan's sentence, she couldn't help but feel a deep sense of agreement. "He is indeed different from before," she sighed softly.
Upon hearing this, Mo Yan jumped up, bumping her head on the carriage roof. She cried out "Ouch!" and rubbed her head, exclaiming to Zhao Yu, "Princess, you also think he's different? Then it's not just my imagination? Don't you think he looks a bit like someone else?"
Who is it?
"Brother Zhan," Mo Yan said in a low voice.
Zhao Yu was startled by her words, then frowned and stared at her: "Nonsense! I know you've always thought about Zhan Zhao, but you can't just think like that. How is he like Zhan Zhao? He's nothing like him at all."
"Doesn't it look like him? But... when he held my hand, I felt it was exactly like my older brother's," Mo Yan said, biting her lip.
"He held your hand? Why would he hold your hand out of the blue?"
"It was last night, I tripped over a chair, and he reached out to help me. At that moment, I... I really felt it was Brother Zhan..." Mo Yan now recalls the scene as if it were a dream, hazy and extremely unreal. Now, even she herself has some doubts about it.
Zhao Yu remained relatively calm and asked, "You drank last night, didn't you?"
"I drank a little, not much, and besides, I'm not drunk."
"The liquor here is very strong," Zhao Yu chuckled. "Although you don't feel drunk, the alcohol is taking effect, and you must be a little confused, but you don't even realize it yourself."
"I think...it shouldn't be." After hearing her words, Mo Yan spoke again with more uncertainty.
"Don't overthink it. People change naturally with experience. It's not surprising that Lord Yelü is different from three years ago." Zhao Yu hesitated for a long time but still didn't tell Mo Yan that Yelü Pusa Nu was originally from the Song Dynasty. After all, the more people who knew about this, the more dangerous it would be. "He's become much more distant from us now. I think you shouldn't mention what happened in Yanxie Town to others, so as not to cause trouble for each other."
Mo Yan nodded: "I know that Lord Yelü didn't want others to know that he saved us. I wonder why? Is it because he is Yelü Chongguang's man, so he doesn't want Yelü Chongguang to know that he saved you, for fear that Yelü Chongguang will misunderstand that he is trying to curry favor with Yelü Hongji?"
"Perhaps," Zhao Yu said calmly.
The curtains on the car window were occasionally blown up by the wind, and Yelü Pusa Nu's figure appeared and disappeared in her sight. She looked at him for a while, then turned her face away.
Volume 3, Chapter 15
When setting up camp at night, Zhan Zhao was afraid that Mo Yan would really come to his tent to find him. After patrolling the camp five times, he still did not dare to return. He walked alone to a place a little further away from the camp and waited until the moon was high in the sky before returning to the camp to rest.
As he passed Mo Yan's tent, he couldn't help but slow his pace and listen intently—it was quiet inside, so she must have fallen asleep. He breathed a sigh of relief, smiled wryly to himself, and then headed towards his own tent.
Passing by Zhao Yu's main tent, he saw that candles were still lit inside, indicating that Zhao Yu was still awake. Over the past three years, seeing Zhao Yu's situation, he asked himself: if he had known she would end up like this, would he still have accepted the order to find her? He couldn't answer the question.
Hai Dongqing had told him that Zhao Yu knew Yelü Pusa Nu's true identity, but he still tried to avoid her. Firstly, Zhao Yu was familiar with Zhan Zhao, and he feared revealing his secret; secondly, given his status, it was inappropriate for him to have close contact with Zhao Yu. More than two years passed like this, until this spring during the spring hunting expedition at the Duck River: By sheer chance, he encountered Zhao Yu by the river at night. She stood alone in the darkness, without any maids or guards by her side. He only saw her when he turned past a tree; although he had heard breathing before, he hadn't expected it to be the princess. He simply gave a slight bow and was about to turn and leave, thinking he would find someone else to summon her maid.
“Lord Yelü,” Zhao Yu called out to him in a low voice, “There are only the two of us here, you don’t need to hide from me like this.”
He had no choice but to stop and stand a few steps away from her.
"What are your orders, Princess?"
"Are you alright?" she asked softly, her voice gentle.
"It's alright, thank you for your concern, Princess."
"This is the third year. I will soon be able to perform the grand ceremony with Yelü Hongji."
Zhan Zhao sensed something amiss in her tone and simply said, "Congratulations, Princess."
Upon hearing his words, Zhao Yu looked up and gazed at him quietly, her eyes filled with sorrow, and two tears slowly streamed down her cheeks. Zhan Zhao was secretly startled, wondering why she was so heartbroken, and unsure how to comfort her.
For a very long time...
She lowered her eyes, wiped away her tears with her sleeve, and choked out, "Go now, take care."
Staying here was pointless and rather awkward, so Zhan Zhao nodded slightly and turned to leave. He had only taken five or six steps when he heard Zhao Yu's footsteps approaching from behind. Before he could turn around to ask her anything, she had already wrapped her arms around his waist from behind…
"Princess, Princess..." Zhan Zhao's first reaction was to break free, but Zhao Yu held him very tightly, and he was afraid of hurting her.
"Don't move or speak, just let me lean on you for a moment, just a moment," Zhao Yu whispered, resting her head on his back.
Zhan Zhao paused, feeling uneasy: "Princess, this... is inappropriate..."
“You and I are both people who have no choice in the matter,” Zhao Yu said softly. “I’m about to perform the grand ceremony with Yelü Hongji, and now, I dare not hope for anything… But I always want you to know, to know that I… I had you in my heart when we were in Yanxie Town…”
Upon hearing this, Zhan Zhao's heart skipped a beat, and he suddenly understood: the princess had fallen in love with the gyrfalcon, but she did not know that Yelü Pusa Nu was no longer the same Yelü Pusa Nu of the past.
"I know it's pointless, there's absolutely no possibility between us, but I just want you to know." Zhao Yu hugged him tightly. "Have you... have you ever had feelings for me?"
Zhan Zhao froze. He wasn't a gyrfalcon and couldn't answer for him.
After waiting for a long time without receiving a reply, Zhao Yu slowly released her hand.
Zhan Zhao took two steps forward before turning back and saying awkwardly and politely, "It's getting late, Princess. You should go back to camp and rest as soon as possible."
"I know."
Zhao Yu smiled bitterly and looked up at him: "Don't worry about what happened just now. Just pretend it never happened. I know your troubles."
Zhan Zhao remained silent, nodded, and left with his hands clasped in respect.
The next day, he heard that Zhao Yu had caught a cold from being caught in the rain, and that he had been ill ever since. Later, when he met Hai Dongqing, he hesitated for a long time about whether to tell him about this, but after thinking it over and over, he finally told him.
He remembered that the gyrfalcon drank a lot of wine that night, but spoke unusually little.
Zhan Zhao then understood his feelings and immediately felt a pang of regret. If he had known this would happen, he should have let the princess know Hai Dongqing's feelings back then, and perhaps she wouldn't have been so heartbroken. But whether doing so was truly the best thing for both of them, he couldn't figure out.
At this moment, looking at the faint candlelight shining from Zhao Yu's tent, Zhan Zhao sighed inwardly and quietly walked past. But he heard the sound of a heavy felt curtain being lifted behind him. He turned around and saw Mo Yan emerging from the princess's tent.