Yu Shu tossed and turned all night, unable to fall asleep. When she finally managed to fall asleep, it was already dawn.
Zhao Xiaozhu was the first to wake up. He knocked on every door to wake them up. Even the horses tied outside were fed with fodder by him. This kind of attentiveness was rarely seen.
Yu Shu went to the courtyard to get some water to wash her face. She saw that Mister Yanye's door was closed and he was right in front of her. When the cold water splashed on her face, she shuddered and instantly woke up. She had been hesitating all night, but now she made up her mind.
She took the risk to follow Jing Chen out of the capital for the sake of Yunhua Yi Zi. Seeing that she was only one step away from the truth, if she continued to be overcautious, she might miss this opportunity.
She wiped her face and saw Xue Rui and Zhao Xiaozhu walk to the door with their horses. She turned her head to look at the stone puddle beside the water jar. She took a deep breath and stomped on it. She then cried out in pain and sat on the ground while hugging her numb calf.
"Aiya!"
Xue Rui heard the cry and quickly ran in. Zhao Xiaozhu followed behind him and saw her fall on the slippery stone floor.
"Shu, where did you fall?" Xue Rui crouched down and supported her.
Jing Chen, who was tidying up the incense and candles, also ran out when he heard the noise.
Yu Shu frowned and pretended to be in pain. She covered her ankle and said, "The floor is too slippery. I sprained my ankle. Ouch, it hurts."
Xue Rui saw this and didn't suspect anything. He carried her into the house. Jing Chen put down his hand that was raised and silently followed.
Yu Shu sprained her ankle and couldn't walk. Naturally, she couldn't ride a horse. Although Xue Rui was worried about leaving her behind, he had no other choice. The mountain road was dangerous. A horse carrying two people couldn't go far.
Xue Rui has always been suspicious of Mr. Yanye. In the current situation, he has the intention to persuade Jing Chen to postpone the worship, but before he could open his mouth, he was blocked by Yu Shu's words:
"It's all my fault. I've come all the way here, but I can't accompany you to burn incense for Auntie. Big Brother, please apologize to Auntie's grave for me. Jing Chen, I'm sorry."
Jing Chen shook his head. There was only worry in his eyes, but no complaint.
At this point, Xue Rui didn't know what to say. He thought about the ring on her finger, looked at Yu Shu's face, and smoothed her hair.
"You stay here. We'll be back as soon as possible."
Zhao Xiaozhu interrupted: "Don't worry, there's food at home. Brother Xiao Yu, when my master wakes up, tell him that we won't be back by noon. You can heat up the food and make do with it. I'll cook something delicious for you at night."
Yu Shu watched them leave one by one. She secretly heaved a sigh of relief. She finally followed Mr. Yanye's instructions and stayed behind.
It wasn't that she was so honest that she would sew her mouth shut if he didn't allow her to say it. It was just that based on her understanding of Xue Rui, if he really showed her the message Mr Yanye left for her last night, he wouldn't let her stay alone no matter what.
They traveled together with Jing Chen, but they each had their own goals. She didn't know what was most important to Jing Chen, but she believed that to Xue Rui, her safety was number one.
As for her, the most important thing was to unravel the mystery of the Book of Fantasy Maiden.
After Xue Rui and the others left, Yu Shu sat on the bed alone. She reckoned that they had already gone far away, and the courtyard was very quiet. She waited for about ten minutes, but there was still no movement outside. She could not sit still any longer, so she got off the bed, put on her shoes, and went to look for them.
When she arrived at Mr. Yanye's door, it was actually open. The morning light shone brightly. He was still sitting under the window. His hair was loose and he was wearing a coat. He was holding a clay sculpture in his hand. He was motionless, as if he had been sitting there for the whole night.
The way he sat there made people not want to disturb him, but Yu Shu didn't have the patience to wait any longer.
"Sir." Yu Shu strode up to him and handed him the piece of paper that she had placed on her bed last night. She questioned him.
"This is Sir's handwriting. May I ask why you made me stay here so sneakily?"
His body moved, as if he had woken up from a dream. He put the clay sculpture back in his hand and closed the box. His white hand picked up the ink and walked around the dried inkstone. He picked up the brush and wrote —
"Can you answer a question of mine first?"
"Ask away." Yu Shu sat opposite him. She took a look at the paper and his expression. She was already mentally prepared. It wouldn't be so easy to get an answer. When he moved the brush and a question appeared on the paper, it made Yu Shu, who was prepared to be troubled by him, confused.
"Who are you?"
He didn't ask Jing Chen, didn't ask Xue Rui, didn't ask why they came, but asked who she was.
Yu Shu raised her head and met his gaze. She found that he was using the same gaze to look at her. It was the same yesterday. He looked at her as if he had already guessed her background.
So this question was just to verify it.
Under his bewitching gaze, Yu Shu forced herself to calm down. She put her hands on her knees and answered: "My surname is Yu, and my name is Shu. I am from Yiyang. In the 13th year of Zhaoqing, I came to the capital to take the imperial examination. I am a Dayan Female Diviner and a fourth-class Yi Shi. Now I am working in the Celestial Commissioner."
Her confession didn't contain a single lie. It was very detailed. However, she didn't see the word "satisfied" on Mr. Yanye's face. On the contrary, he sighed silently and picked up the brush again.
"I have never seen a face like yours in my life. It seems right, but it's not. It doesn't matter if it's a blessing or a curse. Let me make a wild guess. You should have no parents, no siblings, no time of birth, and no time of death."
These deductions were very "damaging" and too unreliable. This made Yu Shu, who had been waiting seriously, suddenly laugh. Just as she was about to shake her head to deny it, she suddenly froze. A thought suddenly popped up in her mind:
Her mother was still alive and she also had a younger brother. But strictly speaking, they weren't her real "relatives". They were the blood relatives of the unlucky girl who died in the Ji family's ancestral hall.
If she were to calculate her background, her father, mother, and younger brother were indeed not in this world.
Also, her birth date and eight characters were not used. Wasn't this called "not knowing the time of birth"?
In her previous life, she died an unnatural death. After being reborn as a human, she also fulfilled the saying "not knowing the time of death".
Yu Shu suddenly felt a little out of breath. She had hidden her deepest secret, not even Xue Rui had told her about it, but at this moment, it was as if she was completely naked and exposed in front of Sir Yanye, causing her to have nowhere to hide.
But why, she clearly had the black ring given by Daoist Qing Zheng, but the other party was able to calculate her background!?
Yu Shu was momentarily shocked. It was hard for her face to not show some expression. When Mr. Yanye saw it, he finally let out a long sigh of relief. He didn't care how frightened she was, but he wrote a sentence on the paper and pushed it over.
"I'm done asking. If you have any doubts, just say it."
Yu Shu's mind was in a mess. She couldn't calm herself down after taking a few breaths. She could only pinch her thigh and silently remind herself that she was just imagining things. That was why she didn't say anything stupid.
"To tell you the truth, we came to An Xian to look for a person. May I ask if you know this person? Maybe you know his whereabouts."
"Who are you looking for?"
"… Yun Hua Yi Zi who passed away twenty years ago." Yu Shu said word by word.
Then, she saw the person in front of her calmly write three words on the paper.
"I am him."
At this moment, Yu Shu simply didn't know how to describe her feelings. Even if she intuitively felt that Mr. Yanye was Yun Hua when she saw him, the impact of his own admission still made her lose her composure. She stood up abruptly and almost knocked over the wooden box on the side of the stone table.
Mr. Yanye, no, she should call him Yun Hua now. He reached out his hand and pressed the wooden box. He pushed it further into the table. He raised his head and smiled at her. A few fine wrinkles appeared at the corner of his eyes.
This smile strangely made the incomparably excited Yu Shu relax. Her train of thought returned to her mind.
This person really was Yun Hua. That's great!
Yu Shu had a hundred questions in her heart. Now that things had come to this, she didn't know where to start. She glanced at the wooden box in his left hand and had a flash of inspiration. She blurted out:
"Sir, can I have a look at this box?"
Yun Hua hesitated for a moment, then pushed the box towards her. He nodded and let go of her hand.
Yu Shu hurriedly took it and opened the lid. She saw a few clay figurines inside. They were of different heights and sizes. Each of them was made to look lifelike. She counted them. From left to right, there were a total of four figurines. Looking closely, two of the figurines had the shape of a woman. The other two small figurines had the shape of a child.
She observed for a while before speaking again, "Sir, you told me yesterday that the figurines inside are your family members. Is this the Princess?"
She pointed at one of the two female figurines. The one who wore a long dress and had a pleasant smile.
Yun Hua nodded.
"What about this one? Is she your sister?" She pointed at the other woman with a slender figure. She had a vague guess in her heart.
Yun Hua shook his head and wrote: "They are all my wives."
Then this one must be the pitiful first wife that she heard from the storyteller in the teahouse. Yu Shu silently mourned for these two women who had wrongly given their lives.
"Are these two children Sir's sons?"
Yun Hua nodded.
Jing Chen was the child of him and the princess. The other one was Jing Chen's brother, whom he had no chance to meet.
"Since you are not dead, why did you hide here for twenty years? Why did you not meet your family? Why did you think of them when you saw these things? Since you led us here, you must have recognized that Jing Chen is the son of you and Princess Luyue. You met your father and son, but you did not recognize him. Why? " Yu Shu had a good first impression of Yun Hua, but when she thought that he was a man who would do anything to achieve his goals, even to the point of abandoning his wife and son, she calmed down and interrogated him aggressively.
Yun Hua lowered his head and wrote: "Someone wants my life."
Yu Shu raised her eyebrows and said, "Sir, are you hiding because you are afraid of death?"
Her tone was contemptuous, but Yun Hua was not angered. He still had a straight face and wrote:
"I am a person who deserves to die. My death is not to be regretted, but my last wish has not been fulfilled, and I am not resigned to my fate."
Yu Shu's eyelids twitched. She finally got to the main topic. She did not want to directly ask about the Book of Mystic Fairy, so she waited for Yun Hua to speak. His last wish was most likely because he could not fulfill the old man Qing Zheng's order to destroy the Book of Mystic Fairy.
"What is your last wish?"
Yun Hua did not raise his head and wrote on the paper.
It was a large piece of white paper. Most of it was filled with words, leaving only a few empty lines at the bottom. His words were smaller, and his calligraphy was more sloppy than before. Yu Shu could only see it clearly when she got closer.
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