Twenty-three years of Xuande, summer.

Luo Tong held an umbrella for me, half a step behind me, and walked on the stone road where the rain jumped in the palace. Empress Xu walked briskly in the rain, her gorgeous phoenix robe dragged in the rain, and the embroidered gold tail hem was muddy. I looked at her anxious back and knew that His Majesty was probably not going to do it.

My name is Chu Chongxi, the daughter of King Zhenbei and Changping Jun, and Princess Jing'an of the Great Zhou.

My mother, Chu Zhixia, is the head of the Chu clan in Yunzhong, the master of the four states in the north of the country, and holds the military and political power of the four states. And my father, Luo Shenzhou, is the heir of the former emperor and the elder brother of His Majesty. In order to marry his mother, his father asked to abolish the throne of King Jin and married his mother as "Luo Shenzhou", and the world called him Changping Jun.

Before coming to the imperial capital, General Cheng Yuan was very worried.

I have royal blood, and I am the rightful heir of the Chu clan in the clouds, and many people regard me as a thorn in their side. General Cheng was afraid that someone in the imperial capital would be unfavorable to me in the name of His Majesty's serious illness. Aunt Shuangyi said that it was okay to go, there was no one she couldn't take away.

I heard that when my mother was a hostage in the imperial capital, she was an old friend of the unfavored Majesty. I had a lot of questions to ask him, so I went with no heart or lungs.

When he was fast entering Weiyang Palace, Sun Yan, the general of Yulin, stopped Luo Tong.

"Princess Jing'an can go alone." General Sun said.

I tugged at the corner of Luo Tong's clothes, and walked into Weiyang Palace with an umbrella by myself. The rain was very heavy, and the dense raindrops hit the umbrella surface, like countless chaotic heartbeats. I had not yet set foot in the dormitory, but through a woven gold screen, I heard a mournful cry coming from the dormitory.

The head of the Pei family in Guanzhong came out from behind the screen and announced with a deep sorrow: "Your Majesty has died. ”

I was stunned, threw down my umbrella and knelt in the rain.

——

Your Majesty is dead, and the questions I have to ask are gone.

I stayed in the middle of Akibayama, and the roses in the garden were blooming. My mother and grandmother had both lived here as hostages, and Luo Tong was very unhappy with this, feeling that it was an ominous sign.

As soon as the mourning period passed, the first visitor to the Akiba Mountain Residence was the head of the Pei family in Guanzhong, Pei Zhang.

Pei Zhang did not have an official position in the court, but many young talents in the Pei family held important positions. Pei Zhang is humble and kind, and he treats me very kindly. I know that the undercurrent surging in the DPRK and China is that Pei Zhang has tried his best to suppress the unfavorable remarks against me.

"Chongxi, I heard the queen mother say that you have a question for Your Majesty. I'm good friends with your parents, and I know a lot about them. What do you want to ask? Pei Zhang asked.

I was silent and pulled a stack of letters from the box.

"What kind of people are my parents?" I raised my eyes and asked Pei Zhang seriously.

——

I was born in the summer of the seventh year of Xuande.

My mother was wounded on the battlefield in her early years and was very weak after giving birth. The father took it upon himself to drink the decoction of sterilization to prevent the mother from suffering from childbirth. Aunt Shuangyi said that her mother was very angry at the time and was about to beat someone at one point.

Yes, I don't have any siblings.

My mother was busy with official duties and often stayed in the study. There was a game of chess in her study, but no one was allowed to remove it. Her father often came to the study late at night to dress her or coax her to sleep.

Rarely, they would come to see me while I was asleep. Sometimes they smell faintly of ink, sometimes they smell of blood diluted by the rain. Every time I opened my eyes, they were busy again.

In order to let my mother pay more attention to me, I deliberately lazily made trouble in my schoolwork, which provoked her to be angry and punish me. Before she could do it, I would be pitifully holding her thighs and petty. Everyone said that I looked like my father, but when my mother saw my face, she could not bear to punish me anymore, so she threw the whip at my father and let him do it himself.

It always hurts when my father hits someone.

The thirteenth year of Xuande, winter.

I was six years old.

His mother died of illness.

A month later, my father died of an old poison.

No one will relent at me for what I look like. When they see my face, they will think of the King of Zhenbei and the King of Changping, the power of the Chu clan in the clouds, and the royal blood in me.

Someone wanted to kill me, someone wanted to save me, but no one cared for me anymore, and stroked my forehead with the cold dew in the middle of the night.

——

"Do you know where your name came from?" Pei Zhang asked me.

I shook my head.

"Xi, it's the sun. In the third year of Xuande, Erdan Guletai, the Khan of the Qingying Department, known as the sun given to the grassland, gathered the forces of the thirteen tribes of Beidi to go south. The king of Zhenbei built fortifications in front of the Yongxue Pass, and gunpowder and oil were buried in the walls and underground, and most of the elite of Beidi were buried. ”

Chongxi, Chongxi.

The sun sets on the grassland, and the dawn of the Great Zhou rises.

"As for your father's old things, he buried them with his own hands. He probably doesn't want you to dig into it, and I don't want to say much. You just have to know that he cherishes your mother and you very, very much. Pei Zhang said.

"Did they live here before?"

I looked at the roses in the rain, wet and bright.

"Six years trapped in the imperial capital, bloody wind and rain, swords and swords, they are here to warm each other." Pei Zhang said, "The deep affection of your parents is unheard of in my life. Chongxi, don't blame your father for cruelly leaving you alone, he just doesn't want your mother to wait too long. ”

I thanked Pei Zhang and sent him away.

——

At the end of the rainy season of the twenty-third year of Xuande, I finally left the imperial capital safely under the fear of the northern part of the country.

The carriage drove through the wide streets of Suzaku Street, and I heard the applause of the people in the restaurant.

Mr. Storyteller's voice is crisp and powerful, playing the piano, and talking about old things. The Nine Shadows who called for wind and rain but disappeared in a breath, the mysterious and murderous Gongzi Zhou, and the pulse interceptor who dissected his heart and lungs with his bare hands.

I listened with relish, but the carriage had already gone away, leaving the restaurant behind.

I asked Luo Tong, "Have you ever heard of the Pulse Interceptor?" ”

Luo Tong didn't raise his eyelids, and said to me casually: "It's too pompous, appalling." ”

I found it very interesting that the storyteller told the story better than my mother's master. The bustling voices behind me died down, and I opened the box I had brought with me, and inside was a thick stack of letters, with no recipients.

"Four years of Xuande, Chinese New Year's Eve. invited Mr. Yuan to give a lecture to Luo Tong, and she still doesn't know the seriousness of the matter. I don't know how thick the sky is. ”

"Xuande five years, Qingming. Follow Moxue to worship and sweep his brother's tomb. Mo Xue didn't cry, but sat silently in front of the grave for a long time. ”

"Xuande five years, winter. We got married. Shen Zhou and Mo Xue will always be together. ”

"Xuande 6th year, August. The Kereh section collapsed, and the snow pass was taken back to Sanquan Fort. Mo Xue renovated the graves of the victims in Sanquan Village and added the name of 'Yu Zhu'. ”

"In the sixth year of Xuande, in winter, I am going to be a father. I was nervous, but there was no one to ask. Deng Mian didn't marry, and Ziche didn't even have a queen. Pei Zhang wrote me a large parenting heart sutra freely, but I didn't understand it. ”

"Seven years of Xuande, summer. Mo Xue has suffered a lot, and I don't want to be a father in the future. ”

"The seventh year of Xuande, autumn. Chongxi cried when I hugged her, didn't she like me? I went to ask Moxue, and she laughed at me for holding the child in a way that was as hard as a chokehold. ”

……

"In the thirteenth year of Xuande, Mo Xue is gone."

Mo Xue and Shen Zhou will always be together.

The letter ends in the winter of the thirteenth year of Xuande.

I think of the night my mother died.

She sat under the eaves in a white robe, looking out at the courtyard as if the snow was about to bury the world. Her father sat beside her, putting his arm around her shoulder. The two snuggled tightly, like two chicks in a nest when a storm came.

At dawn, the mother lost her breath. She lay in her father's arms, as if asleep.

Her father held her hand, as quiet as a stone statue.

The snow fell on his head like a new layer of white hair.

I burned the letter on a lamp, carrying the embers of Mars like a burning butterfly.