In the remote mountain and the dense forest, a well-cultivated beautiful woman appeared suddenly.
The group of people felt Yueya Mountain was getting weirder. Leng Changxi told others to be careful and led the way directly towards the trace left by the woman.
“Changxi?” Qin Yunuan grabbed Leng Changxi’s belt. She knew what he was going to do, but she felt worried for no reason.
“Don’t worry,” Leng Changxi stared at the direction in which the woman disappeared, “I’ve got an instinct that the woman will take me to a place.”
It was hard to distinguish between day and night in the forest. The trees they could see finally became fewer after the group of people had walked for a long time. The sun was shining golden light from afar, lighting their eyes. They had been following the woman’s trace until her footprints disappeared beside a cliff. Cha looked down at the high cliff and exclaimed, “My gosh! There is such a high cliff in such a small mountain! It must be at least 50 meters tall.” Then he scratched his head and said, “Did the woman jump off the cliff?”
After observing the terrain of the cliff, Qin Yunuan said, “It may not be the case.” She picked up the vine on the ground which was as thick as her wrist, “Perhaps she used the vine to go down.”
“It’s impossible! She is merely a wild woman. All of us would have fallen off if we used the extremely unstable vine to go down the cliff except Mr. Tuoba,” Cha shook his head. He wouldn’t believe it.
Looking at Qin Yunuan, Leng Changxi smiled, “Maybe it’s true.”
Time was close to noon, indicating that Wanyan Su’s troops had gone for at least three hours. It was hard for them to catch up. What if they were going to spend time on the mysterious cliff?
Glancing at Qin Yunuan, Leng Changxi said, “Are you afraid?”
Qin Yunuan shook her head. In a flash, Leng Changxi had already removed the leaves and thorns carefully from a bundle of vines and tied it around Qin Yunuan’s waist. Then he turned over, keeping one arm around her waist and grabbing the longest and thickest vine with the other hand. Qin Yunuan felt the wind whistling beside her ear. With the blink of an eye, the two had reached the bottom of the cliff steadily. Looking up, Cha and the other four people waiting on the cliff were as large as soybeans to them.
The bottom of the cliff was much darker than the top of it. Besides, a stream was flowing in the middle of it. The water was clear and cold. Leng Changxi made a gesture, asking Cha to wait for his order on the spot. Then he led Qin Yunuan to walk along the stream.
“Changxi?” Qin Yunuan was surprised that Leng Changxi was so sure about the direction as if he had been here ever before.
“I know this is the way,” although Leng Changxi had never been here before, he saw clearly in the fairyland that the way led to the small hut where Jing Donghua and Elder Princess of Qi used to live in seclusion.
The fog at the bottom of the cliff was getting thicker. It was so white that one could not see clearly anything 3 meters away from him. However, Leng Changxi heard vague and rhythmic sound. It was the sound of waterwheels! In the regions south of the River, several local families would share a waterwheel where there was a stream.
“Here we are,” Leng Changxi called softly. As he slowly walked ahead, the fog was gradually disappearing, and the small hut surrounded by the green bamboo forest appeared. The hut, clean and tidy in the past, now looked desolate with half of its roof disappearing and the couch grass on the ground being trampled dirty. A bamboo fence enclosed the hut quietly. In contrast to the unsightly scene of the hut, outside the bamboo fence, there were azaleas around it in perfect order, which seemed to be under good care because they were blooming ten times prettier than those at the foot of the hill. The mysterious woman Qin Yunuan and Leng Changxi used to see in the forest was gardening carefully beside azaleas. She was scarifying the soil and applying fertilizer, looking much happy and proud.
Qin Yunuan got it. In fact, the reason why the woman went to great lengths to go down the mountain to pick up azaleas was not to dress up herself but to plant them. She took such a great risk of climbing up the 50-meter-tall cliff using the vine just to pick up azaleas. What hard work she had done! How deep her love for azaleas must be!
Soon the woman sensed the movement of strange people. She turned her head around vigilantly and felt surprised at the occurrence of Qin Yunuan and Leng Changxi.
“Who… Who are you?”
The jabbering caused Qin Yunuan and Leng Changxi to wince slightly. Qin Yunuan leaned over and whispered to Leng Changxi’s ear, “She is asking ‘Who are you?’. It seemed that she hasn’t communicated with people for a really long time. She can’t even speak fluently.”
Looking at the woman who looked a little flustered, Leng Changxi took a step closer to her. She immediately took out the handle of the hoe full of rust in her hand and held it towards Leng Changxi. Wincing and gritting her teeth, her appearance full of vigilance aroused both fear and pity to her.
Leng Changxi tossed his head. He tried to see clearly what the woman was like. However, she looked utterly miserable with her hair disheveled. Although it could be seen that her hair had been carefully treated, it still looked like a haystack.
Without knowing the reason, Leng Changxi made a bold decision. He took off his mask silently, showing his extremely handsome face which had been covered by the mask. Smiling at the woman, he asked, “Do you recognize me?”
Seeming to be shocked by the sudden action, the woman in black looked at Leng Changxi in concentration at once. Surprisingly, she turned from the guarding gesture to appreciation. With her head tilted to one side, she looked into Leng Changxi’s face as if she were focusing on a piece of art. She even stepped closer and used her rough finger to gently stroke Leng Changxi’s face back and forth.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up, “Donghua, you’re back!”
Hearing that, Leng Changxi was in a short daze. His assumption was right. A well-cultivated woman appeared in the Yueya Mountain and lived a hard life in the small hut with light skills. All of these indicated that there was another person, who was good at martial arts and taught her light skills.
Leng Changxi didn’t speak but gave out a hum from his throat.
However, the simple hum made the woman’s tears come out like a river bursting the dam. She pulled Leng Changxi tightly as if holding a treasure which she hadn’t seen for years, “Donghua, do you know how much I miss you? You left me alone on the Yueya Mountain. At that time, Zhongyi came to rescue me. I wanted to leave with him, but I can’t throw away the memories. I don’t believe that you would send people to kill me or our child. Oh, where is our child?”
The way the woman looked for something in a panic hurt Leng Changxi deeply. There was no need to say anything more. Qin Yunuan knew the true identity of the woman. She was exactly the real Elder Princess of Qi: Princess Qinghe.
It turned out that Elder Princess of Qi didn’t die on the way to the imperial matrimony for peace as the legend. She didn’t live in Weiyang Palace in seclusion and end up dying in a mysterious fire as the secret story in the Royal Palace, either.
But the problem was that if the woman was the real Elder Princess, who was the one burned to death in Weiyang Palace then? Who, after all, was able to pretend to be the Elder Princess so well that even the emperor and Queen Mother couldn’t find out the truth?
The woman tumbled suddenly. Luckily, she was dragged in time by Qin Yunuan. Mumbling came out from her mouth, “My child! Donghua, I’m sorry. I can’t let him stay by my side. I asked Zhongyi to take him away. Zhongyi is a good man. He will treat our child well. When he grows up, maybe he won’t know who his parents are. But still, I love him because he is our child.”
Hearing that, Leng Changxi’s eyes got wet mysteriously. He was seldom moved like that. The one right in front of him was exactly his biological mother who brought him to this world after ten months’ pregnancy. However, she had waited alone at the bottom of the hill for over 20 years, just for an ungrateful and unfaithful lover.
“Hua, come here.” The woman dragged Leng Changxi’s sleeve with her dirty hand. Her address to him turned to “Hua”, which was very intimate. The shy look on her face would only appear on the face of an innocent maiden at the age of 18 or 19.
“These are your favorite flowers, azaleas. In the past, every time you came here, you would pick one for me at the bottom of the hill. Now I have planted so many azaleas for you. Are you happy for that?”
“M… Mum?” Choking, Leng Changxi called. His address to Princess Ning was always “mother”. All his life, he never had a chance to say a real “mum”.
“Donghua, what are you calling me?” Elder Princess stared at him in wide-eyed surprise.
Seeing the embarrassment, Qin Yunuan stepped ahead to relieve the atmosphere at once, “Elder Princess is tired. Luckily, there is clear water in the stream. Changxi, go to get some water. I’ll dress Elder Princess up.”
Qin Yunuan said to Elder Princess in the tone to coax a child, “Your Highness, please go this way.”
Having been in the small hut, Qin Yunuan came to realize the hardness Elder Princess had experienced to survive in such an environment alone. Due to the collapse of half the hut, Elder Princess had moved all the useful furniture and objects to another room.
Although the room was crowded to capacity, Elder Princess put a silver makeup box in the most conspicuous position. Polished as it was, there was nothing inside.
“The makeup box was a present from Donghua,” Elder Princess explained in a smile as she found Qin Yunuan was looking at the makeup box, “I’m afraid that putting things in it will break it, so I took out all the things inside several years ago. You see. How vulnerable things are in this room! But this one should never be broken.”
So many things here! Having been in use for 20 years, it was natural for them to be broken. It had rained just now. There seemed to be a leak in the house. It could be seen that half of the hut left was about to fall. It was hard to imagine where Elder Princess would go if she lost the only shelter.
“Jinzhi, what are you waiting for? Didn’t you say just now that you will help me take a bath? Don’t you know how to serve people?” although Elder Princess had lived 20 years in solitude, she didn’t lose her upbringing as a royal member. However, who was the “Jinzhi” she mentioned just now?
