When Xu Zhuchen woke up, it was already another night.
She rolled out of bed and was about to get dressed and go out when the door creaked and someone came in.
Xu Zhuchen thought it was Li Tian and asked without looking back, "I'm sorry. How long have I been asleep?"
There was no sound in the room, and Xu Zhuchen realized something was wrong, buckled his belt, held the sword and turned around.
Behind her was clearly Jiang Lidi in splendid clothes.
Jiang Lidi was almost the same as the last time she saw him. Xu Zhuchen didn't believe that he would forget his parents' experience in such a short period of time, so he guessed that he was acting.
Thinking in her mind, she said calmly: "Who are you and why are you in front of my door?"
He immediately cleared his throat with a cold face, and a group of people immediately surged outside the door, more than ten people in total.
Seeing him acting like this, Xu Zhuchen knew that he was right. She pretended to take a step back, drew her sword and asked, "What do you mean?"
Jiang immediately saw what Xu Zhuchen meant and followed her: "Let me ask you, why are you wandering around the ruins in the middle of the night, hurting and frightening the citizens for no reason?"
Xu Zhuchen was stunned for a moment.
midnight? ruins? Wandering?
She vaguely remembered that when she went out, Litian was still having lunch. Even if he stayed in the academy for a while, he would not stay until midnight and leave Li Tian alone.
She tried hard to recall her experience in the academy that day, but all the memories in her mind were like icebergs in the sea. She could only catch a little trace, but could not see the whole picture. Memories are flowing everywhere, and Xu Zhuchen can only see a tiny part of them.
The man praying in the wooden building, the fire swallowing up the sky and blocking out the sun, the white snow suppressing the flames, the woman with black hair and white clothes...
what is that?
Who is that?
Did I rescue her?
Xu Zhuchen felt a sharp pain in his mind and couldn't help but ask: "Where...is she?"
Jiang Lidi's expression suddenly became quite ugly. He tried hard to suppress his surprise and said word by word: "Xu Zhuchen, there are only you and me here."
Xu Zhuchen's soul was brought back. She put away her confused emotions and saw that Jiang Lidi thought she was asking about Litian's whereabouts, so she shook her head: "My lord, you have ambushed many people outside the door. How could it be that it's just you and me?" 'Woolen cloth?"
Jiang Lidi relaxed a little. He waved to those people to guard outside the door, walked into the room, and began to interrogate Xu Zhuchen.
While he was asking questions, he hid a slender charcoal pen in his sleeve and wrote something softly on the wooden table.
Xu Zhuchen saw that he was dressed in luxury and had many bodyguards with him. Thinking of Litian's words, Xu Zhuchen couldn't help but said on the table: Have I slept for five days?
Jiang Lili glanced at her and scolded: "Don't think about getting away with it! Get the truth quickly!"
There was a bit of panic on his face, and he wrote with his finger on the table: six days. Sister is in a safe place, don’t think about it.
Xu Zhuchen looked up and looked at his nervous expression, feeling a little funny.
She shouted: "Do you want to give in?"
Jiang Lidi also laughed silently. He paused and wrote: Sister is collecting intelligence, and I am the internal response. The schedule has been obtained, all that is left is elite weapons to start.
"If everyone in Zhiyang is like you, wouldn't it mean that Lord Wang is derelict in his duties?"
Xu Zhuchen raised his eyebrows, smiled briefly, and wrote: I was so derelict in my duty that I made you suffer.
"In my opinion, bullying civilians and subduing them is dereliction of duty!"
Jiang Li nodded and wrote: From now on, the carrier pigeon will contact you.
"If you don't eat the toast, don't blame me for being ruthless!"
Xu Zhuchen thought for a while and wrote: Unstable, let Litian come back.
"Haha, I don't want to see you being arrogant here! You've got a good trip, sir, so I'll send you off so far!"
Jiang Lidi stood up suddenly, but there was hesitation in his eyes. He thought for a long time and then nodded slightly.
"Thank you for your hard work!"
After seeing him off, Xu Zhuchen sat back on the bed, no longer feeling sleepy.
Thinking about it, she exhausted her inner strength and condensed snowflakes all over the sky to extinguish the fire, which was already exhausted. After six consecutive days of rest, I don't know how much the two children, Li Di and Li Tian, suffered.
But in this way, her plan was disrupted, and it would be difficult to fill the six-day gap.
Xu Zhuchen walked to the desk. He had so many thoughts in his mind and had nowhere to vent, so he unfolded a brand new piece of rice paper.
She didn't dare to expend her internal energy like this anymore, so she could only grind ink and polish her pen silently, thinking while doing it.
Li Di’s words mentioned that she “wandered around the ruins and hurt people.” Xu Zhuchen had no impression of this part.
The last thing she remembered was that a hand - very cold, but very soft - touched her forehead, and the man called her name with a smile.
Could it be that at that time, Huayu Academy had become a ruin?
No, not possible. After Xu Zhuchen exhausted his inner strength, it was impossible for him to still be able to hurt people passing by.
If passers-by could see her, it meant that she was already outside the academy, but from beginning to end, Xu Zhuchen was always on the second floor of the academy.
She was puzzled and didn't realize that the ink was already a little dry. Just as she was thinking, a pair of soft and cold hands touched hers.
"Master Xu, let me study the ink."
As soon as Xu Zhuchen came back to his senses, he immediately smiled and said, "Litian, I thought you wouldn't be able to come until tomorrow."
Litian pursed his lips and smiled, then returned to his cold demeanor.
Xu Zhuchen saw that she was angry, but he didn't know where her anger was, so he asked: "Litian, are you unhappy to see me?"
Litian stopped grinding the ink, put the ink block away, and then said after a long while:
"It's not that I'm not happy to see you, it's that I'm not happy to see you breaking the contract."
Xu Zhuchen sat quietly on the edge of the bed, watching Li Tian's words with eyes and nose.
"Since you are going out, you should come back when the agreed time is up. If you can't come back - even if you have confidence in yourself, you should tell me where you are going first, so that I won't be worried all night I look for you everywhere and you hug me."
She realized that she was a little angry, so she drank some water to calm down her mood, and then said:
"Even if you have personal matters to attend to, you shouldn't go to the ruins of Huayu Academy..."
Xu Zhuchen raised a hand to stop her: "The ruins of Huayu Academy?"
Litian nodded: "Yes. We locals all know that you can't go there casually, it's very evil."
Seeing Xu Zhuchen's stunned look, Jiang Litian said helplessly:
"Two years ago, when I took Lidi Liren with me, before I took refuge with Wang He, I once ate the porridge provided by Huayu Academy.
"In Huayu Academy, both the master and the apprentices believed in their high status and refused to fall into the mortal world. Therefore, the porridge-givers were all handymen and small laborers.
"There is a woman here who catches the most attention, we all call her 'Porridge Girl'. Porridge Girl is very beautiful, but she keeps covering half of her face with cloth, but this is not the strangest thing about her.
"The strangest thing about her is that she doesn't seem to understand human speech. If the boss asks her to give out half a bowl of porridge, she will fill it up. If the porridge is not enough, she will scoop it from other porridge buckets. If it is not enough, She would also give away her own rice. Therefore, the queue for the porridge girl to serve was extremely long.
"Everyone who received the porridge thought she was crazy and said she was a fool. The boss probably also felt that she was too good at losing money, so he stopped letting her continue her job of donating porridge within a few days."
Litian looked at his toes with a very sad expression: "But Lidi Liren and I both think she is a good person."
"After that, we took refuge with Mrs. Wang and stopped going to receive relief. Our relationship with Miss Congee was cut off."
Xu Zhuchen felt a chill in his heart for no reason as he listened, but he couldn't express it.
She asked: "What happened next? How did Huayu Academy become a ruin?"
Litian looked at her and said:
"Later, I happened to pass by Huayu Academy, only to find that the door there was closed. When I came back in the afternoon, the place was still deserted, which was very different from the past when it was bustling with people and famous scholars.
"I asked the lady selling fried dumplings, and she said it was because one day, a student came to the academy with a provincial examination paper and wanted to test everyone. But everyone failed to make the crazy porridge. The girl did it.
"In the next few times, no matter how difficult the test paper was, Miss Congee could handle it. The students in the academy felt that their faces were dull when they came, and when they came back, they felt that the master in the academy was not teaching attentively, so they all left.
"Girl Congee didn't get much out of this incident, and soon she changed from a book-copying craftsman to a broom-wielding handyman.
"After hearing this, I just sighed and left. Little did I know that that night, a fire broke out in Huayu Academy.
"The fire was so fierce and blazing that it spit out long tongues of fire as if it were alive and engulfed the building. It was unstoppable. The entire academy was burning in flames, and thick black smoke was rising up one after another. The fire was devastating. , burned down all the beams, and a figure appeared in front of the flames."
"It's the porridge girl."
Xu Zhuchen clenched his fists with both hands and was already sweating.
"Miss Porridge stood in front of the academy, looking crazy and silly. Her eyes were looking at the flames, but she seemed to be full of life. The onlookers didn't know how she appeared there, and they didn't stop her. I saw Miss Congee say something, and then she jumped into the fire."
Litian looked at Xu Zhuchen, whose eyes were so red that they were bleeding. She also felt a little sad for no reason and said:
"They said that what Miss Congee shouted was: 'I'm here to save you'..."
Xu Zhuchen closed his eyes to stop the tears from falling. She unfolded her clenched hands, and the palms of both hands were already covered with half-moon marks. When she spoke, her voice was trembling.
"it's me……"
Litian wiped away his tears and shook his head: "Miss Congee made such a choice because God saw her kindness and allowed her to become a god. Master Xu, it's also the fault of none of us in Zhiyang." Stop her."
Xu Zhuchen smiled bitterly and did not respond.
Many fragments came to her mind, so vivid, so withered, so happy, so sad.
After a while, she said: "At least one thing is that she is not dead. That's enough."
Litian was a little stunned. Before he could comfort Xu Zhuchen, she took her hand.
"Litian, we have other things to do right now. Tell me, what did you and Lidi find out?"
