(a)

When I came to my senses again, Liu Shen was no longer in your mansion, he had urgent matters to deal with, and he had already left first.

But he left the chief chamberlain and the imperial physician to take care of me, and let me rest in the mansion until I was better, and then I returned to the palace, and he would come to see me in the evening.

Fu Tianliang was ordered to stay in the mansion to protect me.

Liu Shen knew that I needed to be alone here for a while.

He graciously gave me this opportunity.

Fu Tianliang and my uncle's housekeeper accompanied me.

The butler said that you have lived here for a few days, and you have been wrestling with sickness and fatigue, and you have met people from all walks of life, and have dealt with many affairs, and you have not had time to walk through the whole mansion, and you have never entered many rooms and courtyards, and you have not even passed by.

You never have the time, nor the ambition, to build your own home in this world.

They brought in a young man dressed in linen and filial piety.

I asked them who this man was.

The chief chamberlain replied, "This is a substitute filial son that I have chosen for you."

However, I have no memory of it, I can't remember anything about it.

The chief chamberlain then carefully helped me fill in the gaps in my memory.

Because you have never been married and have no children, and all the close relatives of your clan have died in the massacres of the Hesse tribe, and you have no filial sons in your funeral hall and funeral. Liu Shen couldn't bear to see such desolation behind you, so he asked the household department to check the genealogy of your clan, and find a few young people of the right generation and who knew etiquette and sensibility among the distant relatives, as candidates for the order to replace the filial son to guard your soul and support the coffin.

Liu Shen must have asked my opinion on this matter. The boy in front of me should be my choice.

But I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember anything because I'm so sad and so empty.

Seeing this handsome and polite young man, my heart shrank into a ball.

Originally, the person who values filial piety should be me. It is I, as your surviving one, who led the people of these tribes, kneeling there to give thanks to the king's worship.

If you don't push me to Liu Shen, if you allow me to be your wife and widow for you for life, it should be me who dresses like this. It should be me who has saved you from such desolation.

I looked at the child for a long time, unable to speak.

I thought of the child Jingyun left in my body.

If I hadn't lost him, at least my father and you, there would still be a bloodline left in this world at this moment. However, because of my hatred and shame, I lost this possibility.

Now I know that such narrow hatred, it is wrong. However, it was already too late. It's already too late for anything.

If we refuse to forgive someone. Sooner or later, the fire of hatred will burn itself.

(b)

"Where did he sleep the days he came back? Take me to see it. I said to the butler.

Left and right pushed open the door to your bedroom.

In an instant, I felt like I had returned to the General Soldier's Mansion at Yantang Pass.

The display of your bedroom is almost exactly the same as the room where you took a nap, extremely simple, without any superfluous or extravagant things.

I looked at the spotless room that had been cleaned.

They are very dedicated to you, although you will never come back to this room, but. The work they should do has been meticulously done.

I walked over to the bed where you slept on. I looked at the bed. Look at the pillows and bedding on top.

In the days of our last meeting. In those days when you came into the palace every day to soothe my grief, did you sleep here at night? My dear, did you just sleep here alone and spend our last days?

I sat down on the bed you slept in. I reach out and stroke the fabrics that have touched your body. I was frozen again by the grief that welled up in my heart.

The extreme grief in my heart at that time must be beyond words, so. All of a sudden, they all fell to their knees in front of me.

Fu Tianliang had tears in his eyes, and he said: "Mrs. Jun, please mourn, the general has knowledge of the spring, and it is sad to see Mrs. Jun like this." I must be unbearable. ”

His words almost made me collapse again.

I closed my eyes, and in the midst of the mourning caused by my pain, I restrained the tremors of my whole body, endured the severe pain in my heart, and tried all my strength to gather my soul and body together in the identity of Mrs. Jun.

(c)

"Tell me about the days he was here." I said to Fu Tianliang and the housekeeper with tears in my eyes.

So, from their own perspectives, they talked about all kinds of things that happened in your last days in Yunjing.

From that day on, I started the hard puzzle.

Over the course of several decades, I have collected descriptions of you from all sorts of people who have come into contact with you, and piece together little by little, the conditions of your life in the days that you have deliberately isolated from me.

My deeper understanding of you happened bit by bit after you died.

So, I learned about the severe pain you experienced at night after you came back from the palace, and how you were knocked down by it before you could call someone, and fell headlong under the bed.

I saw you clutch so the edge of the bed in the pain that you broke off a long strip of wood from the bed frame. I saw the marks of gluing on the edge of the bed that had been repaired again.

So I knew the last conversation between Wu Shun and Fu Tianliang, as well as your last entrustment to him, asking him to replace you with his life and take care of me and the son.

So, I also know that when you were recuperating in the Hot Spring Palace, you had already told Xu Zaitian how to help Liu Shen deal with his younger brother, and how to let Xu Zaitian have a talisman to save his life when Liu Shen was suspicious in the future.

So, I know how you tell all the old tribes that they must be loyal to the King of Han and his new dynasty, and they must protect the peace of the world and make it as long as possible, and not let the Han army become the destroyer of peace. I also know how you can tell them that you will be the last step under the throne of the Han king, and that you will share with us the coming peace and celebrate the establishment of a new dynasty in the way of that step.

(iv)

On that day, the housekeeper of my uncle's house told me that you gave him something before you left Yunjing.

You said that if the King of Han refuses to take back this mansion, he must keep it as a place to remember the friendship of the past, and in the spring of the next year, you will plant the contents of this box in the courtyard where the bedroom is located.

You said, this is what you left to me and to my uncle's family.

I looked at the box he was holding carefully. Your fingers have touched it before. You put your lifelong affection in it, your heart for your family, and your love for me.

My fingers trembled, and I slowly opened the box. Inside the box, there was a box full of peach pits, soaked in clear water, mixed with fine river sand.

What you leave for them, for them to plant in the garden, is the seed of the peach tree.

You want to plant a peach tree here for me and my uncle's family. (To be continued.) )