It has been nearly a month since we left Zhangcheng, and the weather has started to get warmer. Although there is still a cool spring breeze in the morning, the growing new green can be seen among the pale weeds lying low on the roadside. Li Bochen asked the horse to walk slowly on the country road, and he stretched out his hand and broke a branch from the hawthorn tree on the side.
It has just sprouted and the leaves are timidly green. He selected those young leaves, put them into his mouth and chewed them slowly. It was slightly sweet at first, but then became a little bitter. He smiled, remembering that he thought it was delicious when he was a kid.
When he was six or seven years old, he followed the children in the village to crawl around in the mountains and fields, eating the young leaves of hawthorn trees in early spring, freshly grown wild onions, and sour ginger. In summer, there were also Black nightshades, red raspberries, and caterpillars crawling all over the cherry trees—but he wouldn't eat these, not even after they were roasted.
He recalled that his mother had beaten him once for this - that time it was because he ate a kind of fungus. When he got home, he could only giggle and couldn't even speak.
Thinking of this, he smiled again, but then he was stunned.
——It’s as if I have actually experienced it.
Li Boxen sighed and found that the closer he got to the original village where he and his mother had lived together for nine years, the more real the memories in his mind became. Although he remembered everything when he was in Wuliang City, he always felt like a bystander. I knew what the person had gone through before and what he was thinking, but it was just like watching a scene after another.
But these days, from time to time, I feel that these are things I have personally experienced, and I feel the same way. He thought, maybe it was because he was close to his former residence - some consciousness that might have remained in his body, influenced him more deeply due to some kind of family affection that was difficult to let go.
He felt a little ashamed when he thought of this. I remember that before he was transferred to the Infinite Army, this person would return to his hometown every year to worship his mother. But now it's been six years since I've been able to come back. The grave is probably covered with weeds. In fact, I came here initially not to visit the tomb and pay homage, but to trace my life experience.
When he was in Wuliang City, he felt that the innate divine power was just "natural divine power" and his physique was better than that of ordinary people. But after experiencing the battle with Xu Cheng, I realized that things might not be that simple.
Fengxue Sword God wanted to use his body to go to the realm of his true king to "take a look", but he was so frightened that he retreated hastily - he originally thought that his "true king" was himself, but Looking at it now, things don't seem to be like this.
Is there really a powerful secret spirit attached to the original person?
Over the past month, he had tried various methods to get in touch with the possible mysterious spirit, but he had found nothing. So I realized that I had to start from scratch and figure out my own affairs first, so that I wouldn't be scurrying around like a headless fly.
At this time the horse stopped by a creek. The stream was gurgling, and only a small piece of crisp spring ice remained on the bank. Li Boxen remembers this stream - going down along the stream, you will reach the village, and going up, you will go to the hill called "Five Dragons Back" by the locals. His mother's grave is halfway up the mountain.
He thought for a moment, pulled the reins, and walked up.
About half an hour later, he led his horse up the hillside, followed the route in his memory, passed through a bush with dead leaves but sprouted new buds, and saw the grave in the distance.
I thought that the grave should be covered with grass, but now it is only covered with soil, and it looks like it has been taken care of. He was stunned for a moment, thinking that maybe the villagers had done this while visiting the grave. After all, the relationship between his mother and the neighbors was quite harmonious when she was alive.
Then he tied the horse to a tree, took a small jar of wine and some incense candles from the package carried by the horse, and carried them to the grave.
He put these things down and looked at the tombstone first. It is engraved on it: Tomb of loving mother Chang Tingwei.
It felt weird, familiar yet strange at the same time. He sighed lowly, took out the fire sticks, inserted the incense and candles into the soil, dug a shallow hole in front of the tomb, and began to slowly burn the paper money.
After burning for a while, Li Bochen whispered: "Mrs. Chang, I may not be able to see you again in the future. I will go to Li Guo in a few days. I don't know if I can come back."
After thinking for a while, he added: "I can be considered half of your son... If Izumi knows, these incense paper money can be used. Sigh... I don't know if you will blame me, but I didn't expect this kind of thing." Things. I also have a mother, but not here. If I have a chance in the future, I will definitely come again."
My nose felt sore when I said this, so I wiped my eyes. It's been a long time since I felt "homesick", but now that I'm surrounded by incense, I feel a little uncomfortable.
After burning the remaining paper money, he lifted up his hem, knelt down and kowtowed nine times, then stood up and patted open the mud seal on the wine jar, and slowly sprinkled the wine in front of the grave.
In my memory, Chang Tingwei liked drinking, which was really a strange hobby for a woman in this world. But she fled from Li to Sui alone, so she must have many sad and unspeakable things in her heart, and it is not surprising that she drank to drown her sorrows.
After pouring the wine, Li Bochen took the wine jar and sat down by the grave, and began to think about something he had thought about countless times these days - why did Chang Tingwei flee to the Sui Dynasty?
He did make some assumptions about her identity.
Chang Tingwei was born extremely beautiful. As a child, it is difficult to evaluate how the mother looks. The impression of beauty or ugliness will be slowly diluted over many years of getting along, and in the end only a rather subjective and vague evaluation will remain.
But from Li Boxen's current perspective, he can draw a more objective conclusion like a bystander - her beauty is slightly better than Tao Chunxi's and equal to Li Qiuhu's.
And her hands are white and delicate, and she doesn’t know how to do farm work. During the nine years I lived in this village, I did not do anything to make a living, and all I used was my savings.
One of the more profound memories is that during the Chinese New Year when he was seven years old, Li Boxen clamored to eat the lion candies she mentioned. It was just a casual quarrel, but unexpectedly she cried that day. Li Bochen was shocked, but in the afternoon she found a car and took him to the town. As a result, there were no lion candies for sale in the town, so we found another car and went to Fucheng.
He remembered that they lived in Fucheng for nine days that year and tasted all kinds of delicious food. At that time, Li Bochen only felt novel and happy about this matter, but now Li Bochen thinks back and discovers many details.
When she was eating, she was as greedy as a child. Although I was already ill at that time, I was in high spirits. Staying in a luxurious inn in Fucheng cost one mo for one night. During those nine days, it cost about three silver collars - enough for a family of three in this village to live for a year.
But even so, she seemed not satisfied and complained a lot about the inn. When I returned home, I felt sad for a long time. For the next whole year, I was still thinking about that day. Sometimes I can't help but say things like "what was my mother like in the past?"
Judging from these details, she should be of a very good background. She might have been a woman from a wealthy or official family during the Li Kingdom. So when he fled to the Sui Kingdom, was it possible that he had no choice but to do so because of a sudden change in his family?
If this is the case, then he must have suffered a disaster. Otherwise, if his family was in decline, he could have fled to his relatives and friends in Li Guo. Why come to a place where the living habits are completely different from those in his homeland? And he still lives in seclusion in a mountain village, not a town.
But Li Bochen searched his memory and found some things that didn't make sense. Chang Tingwei once accidentally mentioned an incident on the way south, saying that he had eaten something called "leaf cake" in a town on the border of Li State. Red beans are used as the filling, glutinous rice is used as the skin, and the outside is wrapped in perilla and steamed. It is said to be a specialty there. He also said that when he ate that food, he drank a kind of wine called "Polygonium Rice".
If he came to the Sui Kingdom because his family was exterminated and his enemies were chasing him all the way, how could he have the time to drink?
It wasn't because of the destruction of Li State - the time when she came to Sui State was three years before the emperor launched an army to attack Li.
So is it because of his father and her husband?
Although the Li Kingdom has the most liberal ethos between men and women among the Six Kingdoms, it is possible for a young lady from a wealthy official's family to be kicked out of their home due to an affair. But from the time he could remember until he was nine years old, Chang Tingwei never mentioned his father - no words of nostalgia or nostalgia, no complaints, as if the man didn't exist.
In this way, Li Boxen could be sure that it was not as simple as elopement or being kicked out of the house. The key point of the mystery of his life experience should be that man.
But no matter what he thought, he couldn't figure out the logic. The choices Chang Tingwei made and the things he did afterwards were all too abnormal and strange.
In fact, he has thought about these things over and over many times in the past few days, and he knows that it is impossible to get any results based only on the memories in his mind. He had to dig up something new.
So he put down the wine jar, stood up, and planned to go to the village to inquire more. But just after taking two steps, he suddenly stopped, thought for a while, walked to the grave and dug his hands in the soil.
The soil is very soft and there are grass stems in it. Did you shovel the nearby grass and cover it with a layer of soil and grass on the ground?
You shouldn't do this. If you really want to take care of this grave, you should pull out the grass. If you do this, I'm afraid the grass will grow more when spring comes. His heart suddenly jumped, he thought for a while, and whispered: "Mrs. Chang, please forgive me."
Then he rolled up his sleeves and pushed his arms inward until half of his arms were covered. He immediately discovered that the soil inside the grave was also very soft. He scratched in the soil and pulled it out - there were still some grass stems half an arm's length deep in the soil.
There was no rot, some of them were even a little dry.
Li Bochen took a deep breath and realized that this could only mean one thing - the grave had been dug up recently.
He stood in front of the grave for a while, then used his hands to spread the soil he had brought out, and took a few more breaths to try to calm himself down.
It won't be grave robbing. Half a year before Chang Tingwei passed away, he ran out of money. She did have a lot of money when she came to the Sui Kingdom, but she didn't know how to use it sparingly. In addition, she became seriously ill later, and when she was finally buried, it was still money raised by some people in the village. Moreover, if the villagers wanted to rob the tomb, they would have already done so. If it were outsiders, there would be absolutely no reason to rob this inconspicuous earthen tomb.
It seems that someone is also tracing his life experience.
He thought of both—the Sui official and the Kongming Society. On the way here, I saw wanted notices of myself in some prefectures and larger towns, with portraits attached. There are about half a dozen likenesses, but it's very difficult to match them up. However, the official would not do such a thing - it is not that it cannot be done, but it is unlikely that there is a need to delve into his life experience. This doesn't help much in catching yourself.
It is more likely that he is a member of the Kongming Society. As the leader of the Zhangcheng Assembly and the spiritual master, Xu Cheng's identity should be clear to higher-ups. And he killed a spirit master...it should make people feel puzzled. Those people should not only want to catch themselves, but also want to find out why they were able to kill Xu Cheng.
If they were really these people... Li Boxen didn't know what the Sui law's punishment was for those who dug people's graves, but in his case, it should be a death penalty.
He was silent for a while and whispered: "Mrs. Chang, I will definitely give you an explanation for this matter."
Then he turned around, untied his horse, and walked slowly down the mountain.
Still have to go to the village and ask. If it was done by someone from Kong Minghui, they should also ask. He wasn't worried about being recognized - there wouldn't be any wanted notices in a small place like this. I'm not too worried about an ambush there...if there is, that would be the best.
An hour later, he saw an old locust tree from a distance. There seems to be a layer of green smoke hanging on the trees, which should be full of new green. Li Bochen remembered that when the man returned to his hometown to worship seven years ago, the tree was almost dead, but he didn't expect that now the dead tree would be in full bloom.
This should be a joyful thing, but now he was angry and couldn't be happy. There should be a low stone wall behind the old locust tree. Beyond the stone wall is the village. He pinched the horse's belly and told the horse to run faster.
After a while, I arrived under the tree and heard the faint sound of blowing. He was stunned. Did someone in the village die?
However, if you listen carefully, you can tell that there seems to be not one family, but at least three. He felt a chill in his heart and had a bad premonition - it was very common for old people to die during the winter in this world. Even if three families were holding funerals in one winter, it was not unusual.
The problem is, it's too much of a coincidence. Chang Tingwei's grave was dug a few days ago, and three families in the village died at the same time a few days ago?
He dismounted, led the horse forward a few steps, then stood down.
I originally planned to go to the village to ask, just to make sure nothing was overlooked. But now that something like this happens, it’s better not to show up in the daytime. He was not worried about himself, but worried that if the gravedigger still had an informant, he would bring greater disaster to the small village.
He turned around, led the horse down the road, walked a little further, went to two big pear trees, tied the horse up, and found a stone to sit on. He was already murderous, but now he is slowly calming down. It seems that Emperor Beichen really doesn't intend to let himself live a peaceful life, that's fine. In the past month, he had taken the lives of six more people, two were gangsters who committed adultery, and four were bandits who robbed homes and homes, not sparing the young and old.
It can't be regarded as doing justice for heaven, but if there is no bright future in this world, killing to stop killing is not undesirable.
