The sky over the rivers and lakes is very clear - Chapter 115
"Huh?" Zhu Huihui touched her nose and looked away. "Um, well, it's not necessary! You're busy, I can find it myself..."
Liu Yue narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled brightly: "It's alright. You said you wanted to work for me, so taking care of your underlings is only right!"
Zhu's face was ashen, like a bitter gourd.
Liu Yue looked at her with a smile: "Actually, finding your mother is not difficult at all!"
Zhu Huihui's eyes widened, but she didn't say anything. In her heart, she thought, "Would you die if you didn't brag?"
Liu Yue smiled: "It seems you don't quite believe me?"
"Well, it's not that I don't quite believe it, it's that I—" I just don't believe it at all!
Having wandered around for years, even if she's not worldly-wise, she knows how vast the world is and how many people there are. There are plenty of middle-aged women like her own mother—no looks, no figure, and with rather short tempers—on the streets. You could pick any one of them and they'd look just like her mother. She hadn't seen her for so long; what if she'd gained or lost weight? She wasn't even sure she'd recognize her at a glance, let alone Brother Liu Yue!
Seeing her mischievous grin, Liu Yue couldn't help but gently pinch her cheek: "Perhaps, instead of us going to find her, we can have her come to you."
"Huh?" Zhu Huihui blinked, still not understanding what she was saying.
Liu Yue smiled and said, "The key to finding your mother lies in the pattern on your arm."
Zhu Huihui paused for a moment, then reached up and pulled up her right sleeve, tilting her head to look at it: "This?"
Liu Yue pretended not to see the small, dark and gray arm, and her gaze fell directly on the pattern.
The fiery red bird, seemingly growing from the depths of her crimson skin, was impaled on a thorn bush, blood dripping from it. Yet, like a burning flame, she spread her wings, weeping and singing, her eyes filled with tragedy and despair...
Same location, same pattern, only different size—no wonder, fifteen years have passed, and as the baby has grown, the pattern must have grown too.
Images flashed through his mind. Although many years had passed, the events of fifteen years ago seemed to be etched deep in his soul, every detail as complete and clear as it was back then.
A deserted island, a hastily built thatched hut, an extremely beautiful and elegant woman, a little baby girl who never cries or makes a fuss and only sleeps with her eyes closed, and a boy abandoned by his parents.
The boy, only seven years old at the time, saw it on the baby girl's delicate arm. He witnessed the beautiful woman using a thick, blood-like liquid to draw the design stroke by stroke on the infant's arm. The liquid seeped into the baby's skin as soon as it touched her skin, as if it were naturally formed there…
The cold voice echoed in my ears again: This bird lives at the ends of the earth, a place so far away that it's hard to tell if it's hell or heaven. From the moment it's born, it's covered in blood-red feathers, relentlessly searching for a tree covered in thorns. When it finally finds that tree, it will plunge its body into the thorns, bleeding as it desperately sings the only song of its life. Blood exhausted, fame lost, song ended—this is its destiny…
The beautiful woman was the baby girl's mother, but she seemed to dislike the little girl completely. Aside from feeding her strange medicinal liquids every day, she ignored her entirely. He, on the other hand, held the baby more often—though he too had been abandoned by his family, his parents had no choice. What had this well-behaved, rosy-cheeked, and adorable little baby done wrong? Why didn't her mother like her…?
"Brother Liu Yue, come back to your senses!" Zhu Huihui waved her hand in front of him.
Liu Yue turned around, gazed at the pink face, smiled gently, patted her little hand, and said slowly and deliberately, "Grey Grey, I saw the pattern on your arm when I was very young."
Zhu Huihui was taken aback: "Really?"
Liu Yue stood up, walked to the porthole, and gazed into the depths of the night, her voice as calm as still water.
"One day fifteen years ago, it was raining heavily..."
Ancient temples, deserted villages, and inns.
Cold night, thick fog, torrential rain.
The passionate stories of the martial arts world seem to always take place in such places and under such weather.
Puyuan Temple is a very small temple, so small that it only has three dilapidated houses, one monk, and five acres of thin land.
Such a temple would naturally have very poor incense offerings.
The clouds in the sky were extremely thick, and the rain poured down like a torrential downpour. The raindrops splashed up water on the steps, and the ground quickly became a river. The water could not be drained and accumulated into a pool in the small courtyard of Puyuan Temple.
Standing under the eaves, the monk Guangren gazed at the large pool of water and sighed repeatedly. The rain had come with considerable force, and he feared the courtyard wall wouldn't hold up. If it collapsed, repairs would cost at least ten taels of silver, but he couldn't even afford porridge, let alone money to repair the wall…
As he was shaking his head incessantly, his vision suddenly blurred, and a man in blue robes wearing a bamboo hat appeared like a ghost under the eaves. What dazzled him was a silver ingot in the man's hand.
Five...fifty taels
Despite Puyuan Temple's poverty, Abbot Guangren was quite discerning. He immediately recognized the weight of the ingot and couldn't take his eyes off it: "Benefactor, may I ask what this is...?"
"To avoid the rain." The man's accent was a little stiff as he stuffed the gold ingot into his hand.
The monk Guangren, being poor and lacking ambition, immediately and readily replied with a single word: "Okay!"
The man nodded and clapped his hands. Before the monk Guangren could react, a carriage had already driven out from the end of the road, driven by a man dressed in the same blue robe and straw hat.
The monk Guangren stared wide-eyed and saw a handsome young man leaning out from behind the curtain; he looked like a rich young master.
The young master took the umbrella, but instead of using it to shield himself from the rain, he used it to shield the woman behind him.
The woman's clothes were very simple, but her makeup was extremely heavy. Since monks abstain from women, the monk Guangren only glanced at her before turning his head away, his gaze falling on the child beside the woman.
The child was only about six or seven years old, with exquisitely beautiful features, and an unusually melancholy expression between his brows. If he weren't dressed as a boy from the capital, anyone would probably mistake him for a little girl.
The woman looked at the muddy, rain-soaked ground, then turned and scooped the child into her arms. The child struggled fiercely, his face contorted with anger. The woman ignored him, tucking him under her arm, and in a flash, she was under the eaves. Despite the heavy rain, not a single drop of water had gotten on her.
The child glared at her, the resentment on his little face finally turning into fear.
The young master didn't mind, smiled, and walked in with his umbrella. Although the courtyard was flooded, he seemed to float on the water, without even getting his shoes and socks wet. The coachman tied the horse to the hitching post in front of the temple, picked up several long bundles, and with a "whoosh," he darted into the temple.
None of the five people—four adults and one child—spoke.
The monk Guangren originally wanted to say a few polite words, but at this moment he dared not say more. Although he was now a poor monk in a poor temple, he had been a镖局 (bodyguard agency) escort in his youth and had traveled the world for a while. Over the decades, he had traveled many roads and crossed many bridges, so he could naturally tell that these five people looked like a young couple traveling with their child, steward, and coachman. However, their excellent skills showed that they were definitely not ordinary rich kids.
Puyuan Temple was too small, so the guests had to go into the Buddha Hall, but fortunately, no one seemed to mind. The four adults bowed to the Buddha in the hall, while the child, though young, was arrogant and looked at the Buddha with resentment.
The four adults ignored him and quietly sat down on one side of the Buddha Hall. Even when the monk Guangren brought tea, they simply nodded in thanks.