CHAPTER XXIII
The night at the palace always seems to come earlier, and there is no such flowering and crowded place as the Dragon Avenue, only quiet and lonely. The orange-yellow moon, after climbing the gloomy city walls, rose to the starry canopy, giving off a faint light lazily. Tomorrow is another good day. The weather on Kneeling Day was very good. The gray days of storms and thunder are over.
Only the underworld is eternally grey. After a month, Long Qinglian slipped out of the Seven Fragrance Palace, and every time she did this, she would inform Lan Yi in advance not to disturb her. Maybe Lan Yi knows, but it doesn't matter, they are very good sisters. Lan Yi never disliked her ugliness and deformity, just as she did not dislike Lan Yi's lowly status. Lan Yi just knows that she won't say anything, she is still the queen and princess of the underground world.
Although she didn't want to, she sometimes felt that there should be guards patrolling underground, just like they did in the palace avenue, spears and torches in hand, wearing steel boots, and walking around on the tap, reminding me from afar: I'm coming, I'm on patrol.
Of course, if you want to patrol here, you have to send a short guy, and the tall guy has to bend down underground. Even if they are short, they will not want to come, they will think that it is too dirty and smelly to match the good image of the palace guards.
In fact, not all places are so dirty down here, and although there are no guards patrolling the palace, people will come down regularly to clean it. Probably twice a month, but she suspects they don't even do it once a month. They don't have much work to do, and such a large sewer is not easy to be clogged after about a month or even two months to clean it. The cleaners didn't know about the secret passage arranged by her grandfather, it was a secret, his grandfather had brought his grandfather down before, and then he had brought her down, and even her mother probably hadn't come. Even the noblest Dragon Monarch didn't think it was dirty, so she never felt that it was inappropriate to walk through this dark world.
She walked around the huge sewers, intending to go to the Spirit Temple to take a look. Yesterday, the second uncle made a big move, and she was really tired, so she went back to the Qixiang Hall and slept deeply, and tonight it was time to listen to what her father had to say. How lonely it must have been for my father to lie desolate in that cold coffin. And a lonely person always has a lot to say to others, and if there is no listener, he has to talk to himself. She often told it to herself.
And I will be a listener to my father tonight, and relieve him of his loneliness.
She made her way through the darkness and found her way to the temple. The roads to the north are not dirty, except for the left side of the entrance to the inner palace, where there is a manure tank. The dirtiest was the one on the other side of the kitchen, and there were the most rats there, and she never went there, who knows if there was anything else in that place besides rats. The kingdom is so big, and the queen has corners that she can't manage.
The exit from the underground world to the spiritual hall is in the side hall on the left, which is an open-air courtyard with a huge laurel tree planted in the middle, surrounded by rockeries, she just needs to grab the handrail and climb up to the end of the stone wall, and she will appear in the rockery. She was pleased with the design of the outlet, as most of the palace's sewers were located in secluded places that would otherwise be considered unsightly.
She made a little noise as she opened the stone slab at the entrance, not very loud, but it was probably easy to hear in the quiet of the night. She poked her head out with some trepidation and looked around. There was no one in the courtyard of the side hall, and the guards were all outside the hall. The orange-yellow moonlight shone on the thin cobblestone floor, reflecting the intricate patterns of colors on it, all of which she did not recognize, and they probably did not recognize her. The yellow osmanthus fills the light breath around, the courtyard is a hanging corridor in the middle, the hollow of the red wooden fence is carved into the style of a flying dragon and a tiger, the dragon's eye and the tiger's eye are purple gems, emitting a faint shimmer, staring at them, making Long Qinglian feel like a living thing. This cloister forks off, leading on one side to the main hall and on the other to the inner room of the side hall, where the kneeling rest.
Anyway, it was still early, and there was a whole night to squander, so she wanted to go to the back room first to see if the second uncle was resting there. If so, it would be great, she could safely enter the main hall from behind, hide in the curtain, and knock on the coffin again, and put her ears on it, so that she might be able to talk to her father. As long as his father has not entered the Dragon Hall and turned into ashes, his soul is in the coffin, and he will inevitably respond to his daughter's call.
The cloister leads to a room with three doors, each with a white pearl curtain hanging from the outside, but only the middle one is a real door, and the other two are furnishings. There was no light in sight in the back room, maybe no one, maybe asleep. She wore soft leather boots with thickened soles today, and she walked like a cat and couldn't make a sound. Crawling out of the sewers, cat paw prints are left on the ground, but they disappear after a while. She pressed her ear to the middle door, and there was no movement, and when she stretched out her strange hand with six fingers to push the door open, she suddenly heard a slight sound from inside, as if the clothes were rubbing and someone was sitting on a wicker chair and moving their buttocks.
It seems that the second uncle is inside. She was about to go back lightly, hey, no, the back room was a small room with two doors, this small room was just a table, a few chairs, nothing but some decorations, the two doors led to the bedroom, the other led to the study, there was no light, the second uncle was obviously not reading, that is, resting, but the rest must be going to the bedroom, and the sound in the bedroom she couldn't hear at the door.
What is the second uncle doing sitting in this small dark room with no lights on? Could it be that there are other people in it?
Curiosity was piqued, and she jumped down the cloister and went around to the back of the back room, where there was the bedroom window, where she could peep. She wiggled her little short legs and silently approached the outer wall of the dormitory, which had a small step at the base of the wall for stepping on, just for a small voyeur like her. Her strange hand was strong, and she stepped on the small steps just enough to grasp the windowsill, and she was also careful to stick to the outer wall, which was pitch black inside, but she heard the sound again.
It's a very strange sound. It seemed that something was colliding, "popping" sounded, and there was the sound of water, the strange sound reminded her of the hot summer, when swimming in the breeze lake at the east end of the inner palace, Lan Yi climbed onto the rockery and jumped down, the sound of plopping into the water. The sound sounded repeatedly, as if someone was constantly jumping into the water.
She listened quietly, and someone in the dormitory spoke. It was a woman's voice, low, but she heard it clearly.
"It's really exciting. The woman let out a long sigh, "One dragon is lying next door, and the other is lying below me. Does the one next door hear the music of our soul turnover? Will he sit up because of that?"
"You're crazy. A man's deep voice said, "But I just like your crazy energy, it's fascinating." But what I want to correct you is that there is only one Dragon Monarch here. My brother Wang is lying in a coffin. ”
If someone saw Long Qinglian outside the window at this moment, they would definitely find that her face had turned pale. She couldn't be more familiar with this voice, the woman was her mother, Princess Jinyu, and the male voice was her second uncle, the general Long Chengtian.
No matter how stupid she was, she now understood how the sound of the water in the room came from. Her mother made it clear, she sat on top of him.
Long Qinglian suddenly felt a wave of anger in her heart, she suddenly poked her head out and looked into the room. Yellow moonlight poured in through the openwork screen, specks fell on the woman's back*, and satin black hair fell over her arms, while her hands supported the chest of the man below her, the colorful rose pattern on her nails turned orange in the moonlight, and her buttocks rose and fell rapidly. The man was adapting to her movements, constantly moving upwards.
This blushing and heart-pounding scene was the first time Long Qinglian had seen it, but Lan Yi had whispered to her about this kind of thing, and it was said that the eunuchs in the palace who had been castrated couldn't help but want to find a woman, and some palace maids were secretly doing this kind of thing. Every time Lan Yi talked about this kind of thing, she would gently pat her hand and listen to her. This is a matter between husband and wife, and only husband and wife can do it. But the people in this bed are not real couples, to be precise, they are an adultererous husband and wife.
Her mother was a ......* wife. Her husband's body lay in the coffin next door, where she had a tryst with another man.
The second uncle* appeared strong and powerful, and he rolled over and pressed his mother under him, her legs hooked around his waist, and the two of them shook their bodies rhythmically together, making a shameful gasp.
"The other one, even if not yet...... Soon it will be too. Your brother will never stand in your way again, and there is no one in the world...... can prevent you from becoming the new Dragon King. The whole kingdom is yours, just like me...... The whole is yours. You are the strongest winner. She was surprised to hear her mother say that.
"I have made great contributions to the country's conquest of the north and south, and one crisis after another has been quickly eliminated in my hands. Without me, how could the kingdom have been at peace for so long? How could my brother sit on the throne? He owes me so much, the throne and you, it was mine, and he took it all away. Now he's just going to give it back to me when he's too sick to hold on. No one can take it from me again, and I will never lose anything that is rightfully mine. And what the second uncle said surprised her even more, why did the mother belong to the second uncle? The father took it? This is really ridiculous, the mother is the woman of the father, not his!
The madness subsided, and the music on the bed disappeared again. The mother lay down and lay on the second uncle's body. "I don't care what you do with the rest of his daughters, but you have to remember that you can't touch Qinglian. You have to make sure that she is safe at all times, and when you ascend the throne, you had better find her a husband, she can't be single until she gets old. ”
This shameless woman mentioned her daughter! She did such a thing, and she even had the face to mention her daughter!
"Find her a suitable husband...... Honestly, it's hard. I'll keep her away from the dragon, preferably to marry far away. ”
"No, you can't do that!"
"I'm not going to leave a dangerous person around. ”
"Danger? You take my daughter, a deformed child, for a danger?" the mother's voice trembled.
"As long as she knows how her father died, she will definitely take revenge. Don't think I don't know her. She's just as crazy and as obsessed with you. Do you want to see her raise her knife at me and stab me in the chest, or do you want to see me snatch the knife and stab her in the stomach?" her second uncle's voice began to grow cold, as cold as she had always thought.
The mother fell silent. The hot air became quiet, and all she could hear was their breathing, and her own frantic heartbeat, and she lowered her head to avoid being noticed by them. It was a long, long time before she heard her mother's sigh: "She is my daughter and yours." ”
What the?!
"What?!" her second uncle's voice sounded almost simultaneously with the boom in her head.
"I became a woman who became a dragon after I was pregnant with your child. From now on, you have to know that she has your blood in her veins, you can't keep her away from the dragon, she must stay with us, only her parents, will love her and protect her. Others will only dislike her and hurt her!" The mother said faintly: "Do you know how bleak my life has become after I became the princess, I thought that I could never be with you again, I would stay in this lonely and lonely harem for the rest of my life, and be destroyed into an old, ugly, and annoying woman! Long Xingtian didn't like me at all, he only married me according to his father's will, he only loved his queen." Qinglian is the driving force for me to live. I watched her grow up little by little, watched her suffer all the silent mockery and attacks, watched her become a withdrawn and indifferent child, even her mother didn't care about it, do you know this pain? She is a part of my body, a part of my life, whether she is a monster or not, no matter how unlucky she is, she is my daughter, and you are your daughter, the daughter of the Dragon King!"
The two of them kept talking in low voices, but the last few words of the mother were almost shouted. The second uncle covered her mouth, "You're really crazy!
"What they can't hear, the most they can hear is Xiaoju, she is guarding outside, and no one can enter. It turned out that the voice outside was made by Xiao Ju.
But someone else can hear it. Long Qinglian felt paralyzed, she could no longer hold on to the windowsill, and slipped down from it, she was still as light as a cat, but she was a cat that was almost going crazy and neighing. She couldn't stay here any longer, or she wouldn't be able to help but scream. She didn't want to be found out by them.
The man who murdered her father might have killed her if he knew she was outside. She doesn't believe those fabricated lies, she is Long Xingtian's daughter, not someone else's!
She was almost ready to run, tears streaming down her triangular eyes, and she climbed up the cloister, back to the sewer opening of the rockery, pushed open the stone slabs, and re-entered her world.