Il arrive souvent des choses désagréables

Chapitre 61

Wende glanced at me and nodded slightly. "That's because you want to save them."

I looked at my own hands. "Yes, I want to save them, but how many can I save?"

Wen De pointed into the distance, "There are at least 30,000 troops there, more than enough to take down this Tuoguan City with only 10,000 defenders. The so-called natural defenses and easy defenses are just a delaying tactic. Everyone who stays here knows they might die. But if we let them in, the gates to the Central Plains will be wide open. Have you ever thought about the millions of people behind us?"

These words made me feel incredibly excited. A surge of heat rushed to my head, and my face immediately burned with shame. I was so ashamed that I couldn't even lift my head.

Wen De raised his weapon again, his voice softening, "Ping An, you don't need to be ashamed. You have the right to decide your own path, and you don't owe anyone here anything."

My voice was hoarse: "Master, I'm not afraid of death, I just want to be with him, you know that."

This time, Wende didn't answer me immediately. He remained silent for a moment before speaking, "I understand. I understood when I saw him taking you back to the inn in Jinshui Town that morning."

"You saw him?" I looked up abruptly.

Wende met my gaze, then slowly nodded.

"He's Ji Feng, isn't he? He forgot everything from the past, so he went to the Holy Fire Cult. Oh, no, he left the Holy Fire Cult a year ago, but now he's back." In my panic, I started rambling incoherently. Wen De suddenly reached out and pressed down on my waving hands. His firm and strong hand finally calmed me down.

He looked at me with a strange light in his eyes. "Ping An, there's something I've never told you."

The window was open, and a mountain breeze was blowing. I suddenly felt cold and couldn't help but shiver.

"Three years ago, the Yunshan Tunnel collapsed. I was entrusted by Jifeng to bring you back to Qingcheng Mountain. Afterwards, I also sent people to search for his whereabouts, hoping that there was any chance of finding him. Later, when news came, I went to Yunshan again in person."

My stomach cramped with nervousness, and my voice trembled, "You went to see him? You didn't tell me."

Wende still held my hand and continued in a low voice, "You were also on the verge of death at that time. I saw that you were only able to maintain your will to live by your desire to find him, so you couldn't tell the truth."

"Have you... have you found him?" I managed to say those words with almost all my might.

Wende tightened his fingers and grasped my pulse, as if afraid I would do something abnormal, but his voice continued.

He said, "I have it."

I opened my eyes wide and suddenly forgot to breathe.

He looked into my eyes and continued speaking slowly.

"What I found was his body."

6

"No!" I heard a heart-wrenching scream come from my mouth. "You're lying! He's not dead! How could he be dead! He's right here, in this city. I've found him."

The sudden terror made me forget everything. I began to struggle desperately, trying to break free from Wende's restraints and run out to find the person I was looking for. I needed to see him, I needed to touch him, I needed to hear the beating of his unwavering heart. Only these things could calm me down and bring me back to life.

“Listen carefully, Ji Feng is dead. That person is not Ji Feng.” Wen De’s eyes showed a look of pity, but he still held me tightly with both hands, and his calm inner strength surged into my body, forcing me to stop struggling.

He had already anticipated that I would go crazy.

I was suppressed by Wen De's powerful internal force and had to fall back into the chair behind me, unable to get up. But my eyes were bloodshot, and I stared at him with a deadly glare, my teeth clenched so hard they almost bled.

Wende placed my hands on the armrests of the chair, bent down and spoke to me: "I found Jifeng's body in the Yunshan Valley. He was poisoned by a strange poison, but his body did not rot or decay. I found his body in Shanghai. His face was still clear, but his heart had been pierced and was gone. I don't know what happened, but it was definitely him."

Unable to speak, I could only glare at him with bloodshot eyes, wanting to scream at him to shut up! But he continued speaking without stopping for a moment: "The Ji family is famous throughout the world. Everyone knows that General Ji has ten sons, but the real number should be eleven. Do you know why?"

I don't know, I was heartbroken and had no strength left to struggle. Even his voice was just a blurry, indistinct sound floating in my ears.

He said Ji Feng was dead, that Ji Feng's heart had been pierced, that Ji Feng's heart was gone. In that instant, intense pain surged from a collapsed corner deep within my heart, raging and tearing at every conscious inch of my body, even Wen De's generous and surging inner strength could not suppress it.

"That's because Ji Feng had a twin brother, but he was lost in the war at birth. You didn't know that, did you? General Ji told me about this, so there's no way it could be wrong. What you found isn't Ji Feng, but his twin brother!"

Wende finished speaking in one breath, and perhaps noticing my deathly silence, he finally slowly withdrew his hands, setting me free.

I didn't move. I've lost my soul; how could I possibly move even a fraction of an inch?

He straightened up, and after a long while, he sighed softly, reached out and gently pressed down on the hair on my head.

“I know this is hard to accept right now. You should rest for a while. I’ll have Chengwei come and check on you.”

I didn't wait for anyone to come to see me. After Wende left the house, I jumped out of the open window. The window faced north, and below was a towering cliff, with only a narrow strip of space to walk through. I acted entirely on instinct, walking out like a wandering ghost, leaping over walls whenever I encountered them, and in the blink of an eye, I was in the streets and alleys, and surprisingly, no one stopped me along the way.

The city was filled with fully armed soldiers, but I was dressed as an ordinary soldier, wandering aimlessly through the streets without anyone noticing. I walked alone for a long time, with no one to talk to and nowhere to stop, until I bumped into someone who suddenly appeared in front of me.

"Be careful." The man reached out and pressed me down, not lingering for even a second longer. After saying those two words, he turned and hurried away.

But his voice woke me from my daze. I turned around and saw only a figure from behind, dressed in a blue scholar's robe.

Before I even realized what I was doing, I caught up with him. The man in green was in a hurry, his steps seemingly light as a feather, and I had no idea what he was rushing to do. Luckily, I could keep up.

I don't want to catch up with him, I just want to see someone else.

I want to see him, to hear him tell me in person that what just happened wasn't real, and to have him pull me out of the worst nightmare in the world.

The man in green slipped into an extremely quiet alley. I stood in the corner watching him disappear into the deepest courtyard. An overwhelming longing made my body lean forward involuntarily, but my feet seemed glued to the ground, unable to move an inch.

What should I do? I want to see him, but the bone-chilling fear prevents me from taking another step. I dare not see him; I can't even bear to look at him.

I stood stiffly in the corner for a long time until the door was pushed open again and two people came out. The setting sun cast long, slanted shadows on the ground, one of which almost covered my feet.

I suddenly stopped breathing. Even this tiny shadow made me want to crouch down and gently gather it in my hands.

They were talking, the gray-haired man rambling on and on.

“I don’t agree with you staying here. If it were me, I would take her away immediately and never let her see any of her old friends again.”

A hoarse voice answered him, "I will take her with me."

"Then why did you bring her here? Aren't you afraid that the people around her will become suspicious?"

"She is already with me."

"So what? What if she knew..."

After a moment of silence, He Nan's voice, lowered eight octaves, rang out in a pitiful tone, "Alright, alright, I won't say anymore. You can take that look away now, right? I'll have nightmares."

“I am here because she is coming. Wende is her master, so it is only natural that she wants to see him before she leaves. Moreover, my scouts have reported that Abule has also arrived near Tuoguan City. This man has insulted Ping An, and I will kill him.”

His hoarse voice carried a chilling murderous intent. He Nan sighed, "Don't spend all your time thinking about killing. Be careful with your heart. Although I was the one who traded it for, it still suffered a loss. And you handed the White Worm over to your leader. Aren't you afraid...?"

When I heard this, my mind suddenly went blank, and then my body went blank too. I reached out and grabbed at the empty air, trying in vain to grasp what had vanished from my body in an instant, but all I got was empty space. Then the whole world turned white and became deathly silent.

"Who?" The dark figure appeared in front of me along with the voice, and a gust of cold wind hit me.

I didn't dodge, nor did I know how to dodge. I watched helplessly as the dark light wrapped around my neck and dragged me away. My body scraped across the rough stone floor, and I saw the bloodstains clearly visible on my exposed skin, yet I felt no pain.

How wonderful, it turns out I no longer feel anything.

"Who is it?" He Nan asked urgently.

Mo Li didn't answer, but only looked down at me with cold eyes.

In his eyes I saw a stranger with an empty expression, like a corpse, a sallow face, only his eyes were blood red, as if they were about to drip blood at any moment.

"He's just a lowly soldier, sent by the army to monitor you?" He Nan glanced at him and turned his head away. "He's too ugly."

The door opened again, and the man in green rushed out, "Your Excellency, I heard a strange noise..."

Mo Li glanced at me again, straightened up, and said to He Nan, "You can leave now."

He Nan was annoyed, muttering under his breath about how he had betrayed him. After taking a few steps, he turned back and called out to him, "Don't forget what you promised me. If you die, you'll lose everything." He looked worried.

7

Mo Li led me into the house, without taking back the whip that was tied to my body. He just made me sit on a chair and remain silent for a long time, I don’t know what I was thinking.

For a while, I could only keep my eyes open but not see anything. Slowly, some outlines appeared in front of me, but everything was blurry except for him.

He was actually writing. He was sitting alone, holding a pen in his hand, slowly writing on a piece of white paper.

I remembered seeing him write calligraphy before, right there in the main hall of Feili Village. He picked up his brush to reply to my master's visiting card, his strokes flowing like water, each character sharp and elegant. But this time he slowed down, his eyes slightly lowered as he put down his brush, a thoughtful expression on his face. He paused after writing for a short while, taking a long time to finish several lines.

As the sun sets, pale red light streams in through the window, illuminating his eyebrows and eyelashes. Every inch of his profile is a familiar line that I can trace with my eyes closed.

But he is not him!

I just stared at him blankly, my body and mind empty, unable to look away.

Master was not wrong, Chengping and Chengwei were not wrong, even he was not wrong. The only one wrong in this world was me, and I was wrong in such a ridiculous and terrible way. I wishfully thought that he was the one I was looking for, that he was the one I wanted. But he wasn't, he never was.

But I love him.

I heard the sound of shattering coming from my body, and the feelings I had lost returned one by one. Every beat of my heart brought immense pain. This pain was like a pair of hands tearing me apart, crushing me, and ravaging me, plunging me straight into the deepest hell, never to be reborn.

I actually love him!

The boy I loved gave up everything for me, he helped me survive against all odds, he never let go of my hand, and he remained so gentle until his death. But what did I do? I fell in love with someone else!

This person took his heart, took his life. He was just like him, just like him! But I treated him as him, as my dearest person, embracing him, kissing him, longing for his smile, indulging in his tenderness, fearing separation from him, wanting to be with him forever.

Why should I live? I should go to hell, I should kneel before that boy and beg for his forgiveness, I should have died with him three years ago, that's the life I want, that's the life I deserve!

Mo Li suddenly threw down his pen, stopped writing, and turned to face me. Our eyes met, my heart pounded violently, and I felt a metallic taste in my throat, as if I were about to spit out blood.

He walked over and whispered.

He called me, "Peace."

He recognized me.

He never admitted his mistake; the only one who was wrong was me.

The setting sun was withdrawing its last rays. He had his back to the window, his face blurred in shadow.

No one restrained my pressure points; the long whip was merely loosely draped over my body, more like a deliberately left mark than a restraint.

I didn't speak, nor could I utter a word. I simply slowly pulled the whip off me, then stood up and took a step back.

Just like he always did, he didn't want me to get too close to him.

He moved slightly, and even his shadow on the ground trembled slightly. Just now, I wanted to squat down and gently hold that shadow, but I couldn't.

I can't anymore.

He looked at me and whispered again, "Peace."

Such repetition was almost a plea to him.

He knew it all along; he already knew that I—didn't want him.

I took another step back.

His expression hardened, and when he looked at me again, a ruthless look appeared in his eyes.