Rebirth of a Star General - Chapter 125

Chapter 125 The Moon (Part 1)

The Mid-Autumn Festival in the 62nd year of Qingyuan was the coldest Mid-Autumn Festival in Wei.

It has been raining since the morning, and the dark clouds are heavy. Looking at the momentum, it will be raining all day without stopping.

The chaotic peaks of Lianxue Mountain are full of surprises. Because of the rain and fog, the mountain roads are difficult to navigate.

The carriage drove slowly on the mountain trail.

Even if it is such a difficult mountain road, Lianxue Mountain is always lively, because there is a spiritual temple on the mountain called Yuhua. The incense of Yuhua Temple is extremely prosperous. This is a bit exaggerated, but Yuhua Temple has existed for a hundred years, and it is a real ancient temple. The high-ranking officials and nobles in Shuojing are willing to come here to pray for blessings and chant sutras during the festivals, so as to pray for the well-being and happiness of their families and all things will be successful.

The carriage curtain was lifted, and the young lady of the Xiao family, Bai Rong, glanced at the outside of the car and said softly, “Quickly, we will arrive at Yuhua Temple in less than a stick of incense.”

“Are you hungry?” Xiao Jing asked gently beside her.

Bai Rong shook his head slightly, looked at the carriage behind him, a little worried: “Huaijin…”

Xiao Jing sighed softly, without speaking.

The Xiao family knows that the second son of Xiao doesn’t like Mid-Autumn Festival, or even hates it.

Xiao Zhongwu died in the battle, and it will not be long before the Mid-Autumn Festival. If he was still alive, he should have come back to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival family dinner with his family. It is a pity that before the Mid-Autumn Festival arrived, he died in the Battle of Mingshui. The Mid-Autumn Festival banquet of the Xiao family was halfway through preparations and stopped abruptly.

Never continued.

Since the death of the Xiao family and his wife, Xiao Jue has not been in Shuojing every Mid-Autumn Festival. This year is the first Mid-Autumn Festival in Shuojing since he took over the soldiers from Nanfu. The Xiao family also followed the rules of Mrs. Xiao when she was alive, burning incense and praying for blessings at the Yuhua Temple on the Lianxue Mountain on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

But I didn’t expect the weather to be so bad today. Not only was there no sun, but the rain continued to fall.

As Bai Rongwei said, he had already seen the gate of Yuhua Temple in less than a stick of incense. A monk was wearing a hat and cleaning the fallen leaves on the ground. Seeing that the Xiao family’s carriage had arrived, he put down his broom and welcomed them into the temple.

Because of the rain today, the mountain roads are difficult to walk. At this time in previous years, Yuhua Temple had already become lively. Today, except for the carriage of Xiao’s family, there is only one carriage parked outside the gate of the mountain. I don’t know which lady it is.

Xiao Jue walked in with them.

The sky was dark. Although it was afternoon, it seemed that it was already evening. Several people followed the monks in the temple and used the vegetarian food first, and then went to the temple to burn incense and pray for blessings.

Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing went in first. When it was Xiao Jue’s turn, the monk in Tsing Yi stretched out his hand to stop him and said, “This benefactor, don’t go in.”

Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing in front turned around, and Bai Rongwei asked, “Why? This is my brother. We went up the mountain together to pray for blessings.”

The monk in Tsing Yi put his hands together, bowed to her, turned to Xiao Jue, lowered his head and focused his eyes and said: “The benefactor is too heavy to kill evil, the quiet place of the Buddhist hall, and the person whose heart is stained with blood is not allowed.”

Several people were startled.

Killing is too heavy.

In the battle of Guocheng and Changgu, all 60,000 people drowned. Could it be that the killing was too heavy? The number of Nan Barbarians who died in his hands over the years is countless, and it is indeed bloody.

“Master,” Bai Rong was slightly anxious.

“Although his hands were bloody, he saved many lives.” Xiao Jing frowned, “Master’s words are too one-sided.”

The monk in Tsing Yi looked down and said nothing.

“Master, please be more tolerant,” Bai Rongwei begged: “Our Xiao family is willing to add more incense money, as long as my brother can also enter the Buddhist hall to worship.”

“No need.” Someone’s voice interrupted her.

The young man in Jinpao raised his eyes, his eyes fell on the Buddhist hall. In the Buddhist hall, the golden Buddha statue sits cross-legged. From top to bottom, from far and near, looking down at him compassionately.

The Sanskrit sound is curled up, the sea of suffering is boundless, and the Buddha cannot be crossed.

He should have expected this ending long ago.

“He can’t get through me.” Xiao Jue raised his mouth, “I don’t want to look back either.”

It’s okay to sink like this.

He turned and walked out: “I’m waiting for you outside.”

The shouts of Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing came from behind him, and he frowned impatiently, turning around and leaving everything behind.

He didn’t know that after he left, the monk in Tsing Yi chanted the Buddha’s name and whispered: “It may not be missed.”

…

Because of the rain, the road down the mountain is more slippery than the road up the mountain. I can only stay in Yuhua Temple tonight.

Staying out on Mid-Autumn Festival night is also a helpless thing. The monk arranged a house for Bai Rongwei and the others and then retired. Bai Rong sighed slightly. On the table was the moon group specially made by Yuhua Temple. She said to Xiao Jing: “You go and call Huaijin, it’s here. Just barely pass the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

Xiao Jing went to the next room and knocked on the door, but no one answered for a while, pushed the door in, and the room was empty.

Xiao Jue is not in the house.

He looked at the courtyard of the temple. The rain water washed the stone slabs clean. It was raining. Where did Xiao Jue go?

There is an old tree in the backyard of Yuhua Temple. Yuhua Temple has been here since it was built, and it has lived for hundreds of years. The ancient trees are spiritual and luxuriant, and believers who come to incense call it “the fairy tree”. The fairy tree is covered with red silk ribbons, and some pray for the title of the gold list, and some pray for a good moon. The branches were covered with red thread. When it rained, there was no shelter from the outside. The hanging wish cloth was dampened and stuck to the branches, as if covered with a layer of red gauze.

The young man with an umbrella stopped.

A piece of red cloth fell on the ground, with yellow tassels on it, probably because the rain was too heavy, blowing the red silk down.

Xiao Jue paused, bent over and picked up the red silk.

Each piece of red silk was written with the wish of the person who hangs the silk. He looked down. The one on the left was already wet from the rain, and the ink stains could not see the original appearance. There was still one on the right that could be seen clearly, with crooked handwriting. It’s like a three-year-old kid scribbled with a pen and wrote a “look”.

Look?

What to look at? Gu Li is weird. He is tall, and he re-tied this weird red silk to the tree. He deliberately searched for one of the most luxuriant leaves, so that it would not be easy to get wet by the rain.

After doing all this, he raised the umbrella he put aside again. The sachet on his waist was exposed because of the movement just now, and he was stunned.

The sachet is very old. The dark cyan bag is embroidered with a black python with gold thread. It is agile and exquisite, but it has been too long. The stitches have been worn out and the python pattern is not as good as that. It used to be true. It was deflated inside, as if nothing was pretended.

His fingertips stroked the sachet, something sinking in his eyes.

The youngsters in Xianchang Pavilion know that Xiao Jue has had a sachet in his youth since he was young, and he was a bit naughty like Lin Shuanghe. He was always curious about what kind of treasure it was. A bag full of sweet-scented osmanthus sugar.

At that time, the second son of Xiao was ridiculed a lot, so he likes to eat sweets, and he has to carry it with him even when he enters school.

As everyone knows, this was done by Mrs. Xiao personally when he was alive.

After Madam Xiao died, he still carried this sachet, but there were no more bulging candies in it. There was only one…stale, blackened sweet-scented osmanthus candy.

Xiao Jue went down the mountain at the age of fifteen and entered the Xianchang Pavilion. He had learned everything he should have learned when he was on the mountain in his early years. Therefore, the homework taught by her husband can be remembered even after reading it once. Sleeping in between classes all day long, it is often easy to get the first place. My husband likes it, and my classmates admire it. In the eyes of outsiders, it’s like how much virtue I have accumulated in my previous life to be reborn in this life.

But Xiao Zhongwu treated him extremely harshly.

He was born lazy, and when he was on the mountain, there was no one in charge of him except his husband, and Xiao Zhongwu couldn’t see it either. When he got down the mountain, his classmates often invited him to a cocktail party today. Tomorrow, Liyuan, who are all fourteen or five-year-old young men, have no reason not to go. Although most of the time, he just sat lazily and watched, or simply went to sleep, but in the eyes of Xiao Zhongwu, he felt that this son was willing to fall and idle.

Xiao Zhongwu rebuked him, asked for family law, confiscated his monthly silver, and punished him to copy books and practice martial arts.

He did them one by one, but the young man, unruly and rebellious, was engraved in his bones, where he was really convinced. The more calmly he confessed to punishment, the more angry Xiao Zhongwu became. Later, he had a fight with Xiao Zhongwu.

Xiao Jue raised his eyebrows: “I did everything you want me to do. Since I only look at the results, now the results are there. Father, what are you awkward?”

The smile on the corner of the boy’s mouth sneered. For a moment, Xiao Zhongwu held the hand of the whip and couldn’t pull it anymore. Xiao Jue chuckled and turned to leave.

That was the last time he saw Xiao Zhongwu alive.

Xiao Zhongwu led his troops to Nanban on the second day. Soon, Ming Shui died in a tragic battle.

The coffin was transported back to the capital. When the news came, Mrs. Xiao was making sweet-scented osmanthus candy for Xiao Jue in the kitchen. After receiving the news, a plate of sweet-scented osmanthus candy was knocked over and fell on the ground, covered with dust.

The cronies who were lucky enough to survive knelt in front of Mrs. Xiao, crying and said: “Originally, I planned to pass Mingshui two days in advance, but the general said that Fuguan near Mingshui is rich in ironware, and he wanted to fight a sword for the second young master. The dispute with the second young master hurt the second young master’s heart. I hope this sword will let the second young master understand his painstaking efforts. I didn’t expect… I didn’t expect…”

Mrs. Xiao’s heart-piercing cry was heard in the room.

She rushed up and hit Xiao Jue indiscriminately, crying and cursing: “Why do you breathe with him? Why! If it weren’t for you to breathe with him, he wouldn’t stay in Mingshui more, he wouldn’t ambush in him. , Will not die!”

He endured the terrible accusation and let the woman’s soft fist fall on him without saying a word.

how can that be possible? His father, the resolute and stern one, waved his whip without showing any emotion. How could a man who left his children on an unfamiliar mountain never come back once a year? How could he die?

The terrible accusation continues.

“You killed him! You killed your father!”

He couldn’t bear it, and pushed his mother away: “I don’t! It’s not me!”

The woman was pushed away by him and looked at him blankly. Unable to bear her desperate look, Xiao Jue turned and ran out.

He didn’t know where he should go, and he didn’t know who he was going to talk to. It only took him a year to go down the mountain and return to Shuojing. In a year’s time, he hadn’t even recognized the people in the whole Xiao family, and hadn’t even learned how to get along with his relatives naturally.

That’s it… already.

When a person is in extreme pain, he won’t shed tears. He doesn’t feel the pain right now, just dumbfounded. It’s like hearing a joke that can’t be true, and don’t know how to react. He just felt that his steps were heavy and he didn’t dare to step forward, unable to face his mother’s desperate and stern eyes.

Many years later, Xiao Jue wondered, if he was not so timid at the time, and stepped forward and returned to the house, would everything else happen afterwards.

But no if.

When he returned, it was already night. Xiao Jing and Bai Rongwei have already returned. They have red and swollen eye sockets, as if they have cried. Xiao Jing, who has always been weak and polite, rushed up and punched him, grabbed his collar, and shouted at him with red eyes: “Where have you been? You? Why not stay at the house, why not stay with your mother!”

He suddenly felt disgust and self-deprecating, and twitched the corners of his mouth: “You and I are both sons, you ask me, why don’t you ask yourself?”

“you!”

“Huaijin,” Bai Rongwei sobbed, “Mother is gone.”

His smile froze.

“Mother… no more.” Xiao Jing released his hand, took two steps back, covering his face and choking up.

Mrs. Xiao’s life is as weak as a flower that has never experienced wind and rain. When Xiao Zhongwu was alive, she had a lot of dissatisfaction with Xiao Zhongwu, and quarreled every other time, like a pair of grudges. When Xiao Zhongwu died, the flower quickly withered, without nutrients, and went with it.

She walked so decisively that she didn’t even think about what to do with the two sons she left behind in Shuojing in the future? What should the Xiao family do? Her life was meaningless at the moment when she lost Xiao Zhongwu, so she used a piece of white silk and ended her life.

The last thing she said to Xiao Jue before she died was: You killed him, you killed your father!

This sentence will become an eternal nightmare, and in Xiao Jue’s life a few years later, he will often wake up from the night and sleeplessly.

He can never get rid of it.

Xiao Zhongwu and Mrs. Xiao were buried together. A few days ago, all the lanterns and canvases used to prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival were taken off and replaced with snow-white lanterns.

The wall fell and everyone pushed, Xiao Zhongwu’s death, the shock to the Xiao family was much more than that. How many open guns and dark arrows Xiao Jing received in the court, Xiao Jue would have to bear the same burden behind his back. How about the Nanfu soldiers, how about the Xiao family, how about the unnecessarily guilt of Mingshui Battle.

He still didn’t shed a single tear, doing things dumbly and intensively arranged. The time he can fall asleep is getting shorter and shorter, and the days of returning home are getting later and later.

It was late that night, and Xiao Jue returned to the house. After Xiao Zhongwu’s death, many people in the house were dismissed. Except for his personal guards, he didn’t need a small servant. He felt hungry and found that he hadn’t eaten for the whole day.

It was too late to trouble Bai Rongwei, Xiao Jue walked to the kitchen by himself, to see if he could deal with the rest of the meal.

The stove is cold and there is no food in the kitchen. Everyone is very busy these days, so there is no way to eat. He found two steamed buns and a bowl of pickles.

The light was faint as if it was going out. There were no stools in the kitchen. The young man was so tired that he found a corner against the wall and sat down at will, picked up the bowl, and suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the end of the long table, the corner of the wall, lying down. With a piece of sweet-scented osmanthus candy.

When the terrible news about Xiao Zhongwu’s death in battle came, Mrs. Xiao was making sweet-scented osmanthus candy for Xiao Jue. Upon hearing this letter, a plate of sweet-scented osmanthus candy was overturned, and was later cleaned by the young man, and everything was gone.

There is a fish that slipped through the net here, lying quietly in the corner, covered with dust.

He crawled over, picked up the sweet-scented osmanthus candy carefully, and dusted it off. The scent of sweet-scented osmanthus faintly came from the candy, as always sweet and greasy.

Mrs. Xiao always made sweet-scented osmanthus candies very sweet, so sweet, he didn’t eat sweets originally.

But this was the last candy he got in the world.

There was still sugar paper left in the sachet. He wrapped the candy and put it back in the sachet. Pick up the bowl, pick up the steamed buns.

The Second Young Master Xiao has always been honorable and respectful of jade and love and cleanliness, but now he sits down and eats in spite of his grace. He hasn’t changed his clothes for two days, and his stomach has not been filled with rice, and he no longer sees the beauty of the golden dress and fox.

The young man sat with his head back against the wall, slowly biting the buns, eating, and laughed at himself. In his long autumn eyes, there seemed to be a little bright light, like the embers of stars in the long night.

Disappeared quickly.

…

Time flies, leaving no trace, the past seems to have been a memory of the previous life. Those complex emotions were intertwined, and finally turned into a nonchalant smile on his lips.

It is not a hurdle that cannot be passed.

He stared at the sachet in his hand blankly, not knowing what he was thinking, after a moment, let go and continue walking.

“Young Master.” Feinu came from behind. He took the umbrella, held it for Xiao Jue, and asked, “Do you want to go back to the temple now?”

“Let’s go.” Xiao Jue said: “Be breathable.”

The last gleam of light dissipated, and Lian Xueshan plunged into darkness. The dense fog is permeated, like a mountain illusion. On such a night, almost no one will leave.

The rain fell along the umbrella eaves, not big, but dense, like a layer of ice-cold gauze covering the mountains.

“I don’t know when the rain will stop.” Feinu murmured.

Most of the Mid-Autumn Festival nights are clear, but such a night is really rare. Xiao Jue looked up, the night was heavy and he couldn’t see his head.

He said: “There is no moon tonight.”

There is no moon, and people are not round.

The road in the mountains and forests was muddy, and there was nothing to hear except the sound of rain. The more you go to the side, the more wooded you are, and you can’t see people’s shadows clearly. Suddenly a rustling voice came from the front, Feinu gave a pause and reminded: “Master.”

Xiao Jue shook his head and motioned that he heard it.

It’s so late and it’s still raining, who will be here?

Feinu took a look forward to the lantern in his hand. The rain was deep, and there was a figure standing under the tree. At first, he could only see a vague shadow, probably a woman, who didn’t know what he was doing. After walking two steps forward and looking again, I saw the woman standing on a rock, pulling a long object with both hands, and dragging it down.

The one tied to the tree is a piece of white silk.

This is a woman seeking death.