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Half a month later, there was an empty tomb with no name on Liangshan.

Helian Yue personally repaired the letter of state and sent it to Emperor Mu Yao of Xuancheng, retreated twenty miles on his own, and ceded Yanling Town and Tianchang Town, which were important military towns south of Liangshan. The Dongfang clan of the Yiluo court strongly supported the peace talks, and Yiluo also needed to recuperate, so Emperor Xuancheng had to give up, but doubled the garrison of the border town.

Emperor Xuancheng's evaluation of Helian Yue was: The wolf is fierce and has to be guarded against.

On Liangshan, none of the soldiers who forced Mei Ziyan to the cliff escaped the fate of being shot.

The blackiron mask that was split in half, the torn blood-stained Mu Cheng's robe, the cracked jasper ring tied with red rope, and the white jade porcelain jar containing the ashes were sent to Mu Cheng, who had just recovered from his illness and was guarded and grounded by the Emperor's Praetorian Guard.

Listening to the news obtained by Fenglou, it was revealed that she was indeed hit by an arrow in the center of the eyebrows on the Liangshan Mountain that day and fell into the cliff, and when Helian Yue found her body, the body was already injured by the sharp and craggy rocks at the bottom of the valley. In a fit of rage, he killed all the soldiers who pursued her, and sat at the bottom of the cliff for three hours with her body in his arms. In the end, a person who was not afraid of death reminded the lord of Yuanwu that according to the custom of Yiluo, those who died must be cremated on the same day before their souls can be redeemed and ascended to heaven.

Helian Yue personally piled up the firewood and grass and lit the fire himself.

Bai Xuan went to Liangshan and brought back a severed blood-stained arrow to Mu Cheng.

Under the pomegranate tree, he sat all night in a thin green shirt, his sideburns quietly spreading, telling about his desperate lovesickness.

He took her relics to Qinglin Mountain and knelt in front of the door of the Wind Lotus Courtyard of Fufeng Academy to plead guilty.

She's really giving your life back, she doesn't want her parents anymore...... Xia Qingshen fainted after saying this, Mei Jiyao took his wife into the room with red eyes, the door was locked, and he no longer came out to look at Mu Cheng and scolded him.

Mu Cheng kept kneeling.

Sima Suisheng and Xingnan rushed back to Qinglin Mountain overnight, and Sima Suisheng grabbed his collar and asked with restraint:

"Where's Mabel?"

Mu Cheng's eyes showed a dead gray color, "She's gone." ”

"Then why are you still alive?!" Sima Suisheng shouted loudly, "You can't even protect the woman you love, what face do you have to live in this world?!"

Sima Xingnan was even more straightforward, it was directly a palm, Mu Cheng didn't dodge, the whole person was knocked back two steps, fell to the ground, Xingnan chased after him, his eyes were bloody, and he raised his palm and said hatefully:

"You return my sister!"

"Xingnan," the door of the Wind Lotus Courtyard opened, and Mei Jiyao walked out and took two steps to stop Xingnan, "Come in and accompany your mother, she is so sad, I'm afraid of her...... Can't hold ......"

I have never seen my father with such an expression, more sad and painful than anyone else, but even more forbearing, Xingnan felt a pang in his heart, and glanced at Mu Cheng fiercely, that look was extremely familiar to Mu Cheng, hatred, and pain.

Once upon a time, my heart was also full of such feelings.

Xingnan let go of him, turned around and walked into the Wind Lotus Courtyard, and after a while, he heard a low cry coming from inside.

Mei Jiyao's eyes hurt, walked up to Mu Cheng, and muttered, "You go, don't come back in the future." ”

Mu Cheng knelt up straight, solemnly kowtowed to him three times, and then said:

"I'm not leaving. ”

"Do you think I will really not kill you for my daughter's sake?!" Mei Jiyao finally couldn't hold back his anger, his eyes were blazing, "Mu Cheng, you get out of here! Our Sima family and your Mu family have always been mortal enemies, my daughter loves you is wronged, she is dead now, is there anything I owe you?"

Mu Cheng lowered his head, but he still said stubbornly:

"I'm not leaving, here, there's her ...... She wants me to live, so I'll live well and stay with her...... Or rather, she accompanies me...... Only here can I live, you ...... Got it?"

Mei Jiyao was speechless, and Mu Cheng's lifeless face was like a gray look languishing under the pale moon, like a river that dried up in winter, barren and decadent. Mei Jiyao sighed, said "okay" and left.

Mu Cheng built a mound for her in the back mountain.

A month later, after Mu Cheng received the news from Qingzhao, he went down the mountain and returned to Tiandu without a sound, and half a month later, Dongfang Hengqing was shot in the royal hunting ground, three arrows in unison, one arrow hit the center of the eyebrows, and the other two arrows pierced the heart and lower abdomen respectively. Suddenly the government and the opposition were shocked, suspicions arose, and there were many discussions, Emperor Xuancheng sent Dali Siqing to thoroughly investigate the case, but there was no trace of the biggest mystery case since the founding of this dynasty. The Empress Dowager of the East said that Mu Cheng was a thorn in the flesh, and she also looked for the remnants of Qianjintang to assassinate Mu Cheng, but Mu Cheng did not take any precautions, but Dongfang Xiuwen's people got rid of the killer for him.

If Mu Cheng dies at the hands of the Dongfang family, the battle between the two clans will become even more intense, and if Emperor Xuancheng has murderous intentions, the day of the decline of the Dongfang clan will not be far away.

When Mu Cheng returned to Qinglin Mountain, it was already autumn, and the trail in the back mountain was full of yellow leaves all the way, he dug out the green plum wine, sat in front of her clothed mound, looked at the sky high and the clouds were light, and said:

"Ziyan, look, it's already autumn......" said as she smiled and left tears in her eyes.

For the first time since learning of her death, he no longer hides the grief in his heart.

Dongfang Hengqing died, dying from Mu's cloud-piercing arrow. After the death of the third prince Mu Liang, it has been lost, and no one in the world knows or has seen Mu Cheng's cloud-piercing arrow except for Shouwang Mu Jue.

"Ziyan, if you hadn't met me, how good would it be?"

"The green plum wine is ready, is it the taste in your memory? This year, the pomegranate trees in the palace have finally bloomed, brilliant and wanton...... I'd love for you to take a look, you don't believe it can bloom...... Ziyan, the palace is very empty, my heart is also empty, I can't stay for a few days, it was like this before you came, why can't I stand it after you leave?"

"Zi Yan, you left me so simply, and you didn't allow me to go to you, don't you think it's unfair......"

"Zi Yan, Zi Yan ......"

He drank not a drop of plum wine to the fullest, and he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep with his back against the tomb, his chin was blue stubble, his sideburns were messy with grass clippings, and his thin robe was stained with mud in several places. Sima Suisheng came up the mountain and saw him like this, drunk and depressed, lifeless.

Without saying a word, he carried him on his shoulders and went down the mountain.

……

When Sima Xingnan told me this, I had been awake for a few days.

I only remember what happened before I fell off the cliff, I don't know how he came over these two years...... It was dusk, and seeing that there was going to be another light snowfall, I sat by the window wearing a thick cotton coat and a mink snow hat on my head, and the whole person was tightly wrapped. On the Luohan bed, Xingnan sat next to me, and there was a small table between me and him, the charcoal fire in the small red clay stove was flourishing, and a pot of green plum wine was warm, and the sweet and sour smell touched my nerves and made my eyes sour for no reason.

"And what about later?" I asked.

"Later, then he left. He told his father that he finally understood his impulse to send troops to Ira back then, and he also said......"

"What else?"

He also said that if he had known that a feeling, no matter how good it was at first, would eventually condense into a pain, he would rather not. ”

A thin mist rose in my eyes, "He went to Sijon?"

"I once sent a killer of the Heavenly Machine to assassinate Helian Yue, but he had a snow wolf by his side, and he failed several times, Mu Cheng somehow learned about it, he told me that this should have been done by him, and then he went down the mountain. When my father found out, he scolded me and ordered me to secretly follow him to the border of Yiluo. I didn't expect him to sell a large number of iron weapons to the remnants of the Xuande lord Herrensen and single-handedly provoke a border conflict, which was rekindled a year after the armistice between Xijon and Yiluo. Emperor Xuancheng was happy to see the civil strife in neighboring Xirong, so he turned a blind eye to Mu Cheng's approach, but Mu Cheng provoked a war that made him furious, and ordered Mu Cheng to punish him for the crime of bullying the king if he could not destroy the power of the lord of Yuanwu in this battle......"

"And I, but I used that means to let Helian Yue go......" I laughed bitterly at myself, no wonder he hated, Mei Ziyan, he deserved not to want you!

"Actually, he was in Licheng at that time to govern the army, but I didn't expect to hear someone in the market say that the lord of Yuanwu was the only one who favored the blind Mrs. Xi, so he went to Ancheng alone and threw the entire Licheng defense to me as an outsider. I grabbed him and asked him if he was crazy and wanted to die, and he said that if there was really such a person who made Helian Yue pet to the sky, that person could only be Mei Ziyan. ”

I lowered my head, took down the warm plum wine, poured two glasses, and picked up one myself and sipped it slowly.

"Helian Yue, the person I love the most is actually myself, not me. I said.

"What about Mu Cheng, it was so hard to find you, but he still lost you. When you were still Xiyang, when you deceived him, was it love for him?"

I didn't answer Xingnan's words, I pushed open the door and walked out, grabbed the flower hoe under the plum tree and went straight to the back mountain. Xingnan was stunned, then threw down the wine glass and took the lantern to catch up with me. When he saw me pick up the hoe and try to dig up the mound of clothes, he quickly stopped me by holding my hand and said, "Are you crazy?!"

I pushed him away, and dug open the empty tomb very hard, and inside was a wooden box about two feet long, and when I opened it, in addition to the hairpin and wooden comb that I usually use, there was a cracked dark iron Shura mask and a half-cut arrow that had grown rust. I trembled and put the arrow into the cracks in my mask, and it fit perfectly. I touched the little trace of pink on my forehead, and remembered that when he dipped a fine strip of rouge and carefully traced a plum blossom to me in Licheng, the sadness and pain in his eyes swept by, and I couldn't help but feel a pain in my heart.

At the bottom of the box were two sets of clothes neatly stacked side by side, a blue men's long shirt and a purple and white women's skirt, which was the same dress he gave me that I only wore once.

Xingnan picked up two sets of clothes, and suddenly let out a "huh", and when I looked at it, tears quickly fell.

The sleeves of the green shirt and purple clothes were entangled, tied in a dead knot.

In the steppe of Xirong Ulan, he said to me, "If I do not die, no matter whose daughter you are, I will marry you and be the only wife of my Mucheng......

By the Qiushui River, he said to me, forget the dumb slave, only me in my heart, okay?

I once asked him if I couldn't remember you in my life, and I could only be Xiyang in my life, would you always be so good to me?

He said, as long as you and I can always be...

It was only then that I realized what was omitted from the end of his phrase "always".

Alive, his only hope for Mei Ziyan is only these two words, no matter if she is Xiyang or who, it doesn't matter if she can't remember, as long as she is alive, it is enough......

In the wrestling of love, he loved so humbly and painfully, and I used and deceived him again and again.

If I let go of my hand, will I be liberated?

I stared blankly at the knotted clothes in front of me and burst into tears.

Mu Cheng, is this oath not to be lost and forgotten in heaven and earth, still buried deep in your heart?

Mu Cheng, will you wait for me in the same place?