box of hearts

Chapter 120 Drunken Taiping (10)
As soon as the door closed behind his back, Qingtian immediately understood.But in the inner room with dim night lights, there is an incense table, an incense burner and an incense box on it, a wine pouring cup on the east, a stove and fire chopsticks on the west, a blessing plate, a washbasin, and a towel—it is a sacrificial hall.She regretted rushing in, and saw Qi She sitting on a futon in plain clothes, and glanced at her indifferently, "Sit."

Qingtian reluctantly pulled a futon and punched him and sat down behind him. He turned his head and began to speak word by word with his back to her:
"This is my deceased wife's memorial tablet. The one next to it is my son's. The reason why it is empty is because I, a father, have not had time to name him. I can't even remember his appearance. I only remember In the end, his whole body was covered with smallpox sores, which festered and stuck to the swaddling clothes, and he cried heart-rendingly when touched, and cried like that for days and nights until he could cry no more. My The princess put her face on the rotten little face, crying and saying that it was all her fault for not taking good care of the child. There were thousands of comforting words in my mouth, such as' It's none of your business, it's my cunning emperor's murderous hand', for example, 'it's all your fault for your vicious sister', for example, 'fate is hard to break'—but I can't say a word. You Guess why?"

The flame tongue of the spirit lamp sneered and licked, as if the rain was coming and the wind was bleak, and there was an almost inaudible low voice whispering like a ghost: "Because I know," Qi She laughed, a creepy laugh "I know! From the moment the servant held the patchwork robe and said it was a congratulatory gift from the emperor's eldest son and side concubine, I knew that the clothes were poisoned, and I also knew that it must have been ordered by my father. I know my father too well. If he can't get rid of this child, none of our family of three will live. So I just kept silent and watched the princess with a smile on her face, and personally put on the poisonous clothes for our eldest son. .Since I didn’t say anything at the time, how can I have the face to say anything to her now? I let her cry alone. In the end, I felt that if I heard her cry more, I would cut off my own. ears. I hid. The next day, when I came back and opened the door, I saw her feet hanging from the beam, and there was a puddle of incontinent urine on the ground. How many years have passed, until today, sometimes I still Afraid of pushing open the door, and what lies behind it."

After a deep and long silence, Qi She continued, her tone was extremely cold and calm: "I have never dreamed of her and the child, not once. I have tried trance, psychic, and Fushi, what? I've tried everything, but she just refuses to bring the child to see me. She hates me, and Yongyuan hates me."

It was the first time Qingtian heard Qi She utter the small words of his dead wife in person. She thought that the tone should be like the moonlight falling into the window of Xiaoxuan, containing boundless tenderness and melancholy, but this is not the weight of moonlight. This is the real dead body weight of the deceased, tied tightly to the tip of his tongue and falling on his body.She felt two cold tears cut from her cheeks, it was a pain on the skin and heart.

The shadow of the lamp reflected his shadow all over the place, dark, messy and broken. "Qingtian, I'm sorry, I'm just the same as your number one scholar."

An illusion appeared in front of Qingtian's eyes, as if she saw Qiao Yun sitting in front of her own soul, with skin within reach.After a long time of shock and pursuit, she wiped away the tears on her face, and spoke calmly and honestly: "Third Master, among countless falsehoods and falsehoods, I only touched my true feelings twice, once for him and once for you. There are similarities, but they are completely two kinds of people. One is clearly self-willed and despicable, but says he has no choice but to evade misfortune; It’s different.” She looked around the entire dark mourning hall, “I can feel that the man also has such a room in his heart, but he will never let me know, but you will open the door , let me come in and sit down."

Qingtian fixed her gaze, she knew well that she was not sitting in an inconspicuous pavilion in the garden, but in the most secret room in Qi She's heart.He turned his face, she met his gaze, her eyes didn't blink, "Since you praised me as a lotus flower, you should know that if you come out of the mud without being stained", you must first take root in the mud. I can't On the days when I wasn’t curled up in the mud, it wasn’t my mother’s whip that hurt me the most, but my own conscience. When it pointed at me and scolded me in the middle of the night, I wanted to cut off my ears. I know that conscience is always right, but between conscience and you, I am on your side."

Several cages of white gauze lanterns kept flickering on Qi She's deep-lined face, Qingtian stared at him with clear eyes, and asked: "Can I put incense on the princess?"

He blinked his eyelids twice and nodded his chin as if he couldn't help taking pictures.

She stood up from the cushion and walked to the front of the curtain, holding the incense and closing her eyes, her lips opened and closed silently, "The concubine is here, my concubine Qingtian sincerely wishes, my concubine has a bad life, she will not be able to bear children for life, it is difficult to understand the mother's death The pain of the son, but the life of the poor concubine is pure and pure, but she fell into prostitution. I respect the spirit of the empress, the concubine would rather suffer reincarnation and be a prostitute in the world, and only ask the empress to forgive the prince and bless the prince with a bright head and a bright face, and happiness will continue .” Zhixiang bowed three times and offered it in the sacrificial furnace.

Qi She looked at her, compared to the frightening gloom before, her mood had recovered a little bit of anger, "I muttered for a long time, what are you talking about?"

"If it's between women, don't ask men." She smiled appropriately, and said goodbye, "I'll go out first, so I won't disturb you."

Zhaohua, who was waiting in the corridor, saw Qingtian come out, and hurriedly opened the thick felt car curtain for her.A few gilt silver lamps lead the way in front of the sedan chair, and the lights shrink and shrink, until they finally make a little fragrance.

In the mourning hall, Qi She still stared straight at the stick of incense offered by Qingtian burning in front of the memorial tablet of his ex-wife Yongyuan.In this dream-like encounter, it proves that not only did a real person of flesh and blood walk into his heart and sit with him for a while, but he could also leave a little bit in this darkest corner. Slightly bright.

8.
Time flies, the sun and the moon fly.On November [-]th, the city of Beijing finally ushered in the first snow that was late this year.Snow flakes as big as goose feathers fluttered, and within half a day the world was completely white.

The Forbidden City with red walls and golden ridges is also wrapped in plain silver. In the Palace of Mercy Ning, half of the face of the Empress Dowager Xihe was reflected in the snow light, and she stared out of the window obsessively, until a rush behind her took her out of her delusions. wake.

Xihe turned her head eagerly, "How is it, are you here?"

Zhao Sheng, who was beside her, also brushed the dust in his hands, "Speak, Quanfu, the Queen Mother is asking you."

The next step is a young eunuch wearing a sixth-grade supplementary uniform. He has a thin fox face and a pair of bulging goldfish eyes. See you."

An extremely beautiful light penetrated Xi He's snow-backed face, she walked quickly to the hall, raised her eyes and smiled behind the curtains, "Please."

After a while, she saw a tall figure bowing his head and kneeling outside the curtain, "Chen Qishe kowtowed to the Empress Dowager, wishing the Empress Dowager Jin An."

As if there were countless bubbles of joy welling up in Xi He's throat, she said in an extremely light voice: "The regent is flat, please sit down. Zhao Sheng and Quan Fu are here to wait, and the others go away." .”

Left and right retreated outside the corridor to wait for greetings, Zhao Sheng and Quan Fu also left the inner hall and guarded the door.Na Quanfu smiled obsequiously, and leaned over quietly, "Master, the Empress Dowager is staying alone with the Prince Regent in this way, is it really like the rumored 'The Merry Prince Crouching on the Dragon's Bed'?"

"Hiss!" Zhao Sheng waved his slap high and lightly landed on Quan Fu's cheek, "slap", "I said you have been in the palace for more than a year, how come you can't remember the rules I taught you? You Don’t think that this is still left to you in your hometown. If your mother wasn’t my cousin, based on what you said just now, I would have asked someone to drag you out and stick you to death! Where is this, huh? This is the Forbidden City. Don’t say a word that shouldn’t be said indiscriminately.”

"Hey, uncle, don't get angry, Quan Fu knows he's wrong, so don't talk nonsense anymore."

"Called 'Master'."

"Oh, Master."

"Stand up!"

"Yes, yes, Master."

In the closed hall behind the two, a beaded foil and silver screen was opened.Xihe quietly stepped down to Danchi step by step. She was wearing a carambola-colored multicolored phoenix long sleeved gown, and a yellow and red two-color gold thread long skirt.On the head are gold inlaid butterflies, and a pair of golden dragons cover the temples on both sides, with more than ten pecking needles inserted all over the temples, and a pair of golden flowers are added on the back of the head.The sweet red rouge is light on the cheeks and thick on the lips.In such a cold winter, it took Xihe an entire hour to dress up like a beautiful peach in spring, but at the end, her excited footsteps were interrupted by a disappointed address——

"Queen Mother." He called out like this, and got up restrainedly from his seat.

Xi He was stunned for a moment, and then revealed a sweet smile again, "No one else, brother-in-law still calls me 'Queen Dowager'?"

Qi She avoided the woman's hand brushing towards his chest, stepped back half a step, and said stubbornly: "Queen."

Xihe's body began to turn cold, and her smile also turned cold, "Regent."

"The minister is here."

"look at me."

Qi She had no choice but to look at each other, and Xi He looked at him, her two dark eyes were full of anger and resentment, "After I recovered from my illness, it has been half a year since June, and I have called you in again and again, But you keep evading, why? Why are you avoiding me?"

(End of this chapter)