"When I left the Capital, I really should have poisoned her... If I had poisoned her, if I had ended her life with poison, none of this mess would have happened, and our situation wouldn’t be like it is now..."
"Her?" Dong Huiying looked at Yun Ge with puzzled eyes.
Yun Ge seemed reluctant, but after wrestling with herself, she finally told her. "Her... Lao Ba, the Eighth Princess!"
Dong Huiying involuntarily furrowed her brows, suddenly feeling dizzy. She clutched her forehead as her temples throbbed with pain, and a vision suddenly appeared before her eyes—she seemed to see Ten Miles of Red Makeup, she saw a woman with an indistinct face... and in the vision, she herself was expressionless, her face wooden, standing forlornly on the streets of the Capital, motionless...
Yet the sadness and despair seemed as if they were about to engulf her.
What was this all about?
"Purple chervil, Purple chervil?" Yun Ge put her hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her a little.
Dong Huiying came back to her senses: "I’m okay, it’s just that... I seemed to remember something, but a lot of the images are disjointed. Maybe I’ve lost too much memory."
Yun Ge blamed herself: "I shouldn’t have mentioned her."
She smiled faintly, comforting Yun Ge in return, but Yun Ge looked at her with a gaze she found hard to comprehend, which puzzled her.
"What’s wrong? Is there something dirty on my face?"
"No..." Yun Ge sighed, then gently hugged her, "I just think that forgetting might also be a blessing."
She cast a curious glance at Yun Ge, somewhat at a loss to understand what she meant.
The nights of late fall had begun to turn cold, and the group decided to go to a nearby town to rest and regroup.
When they arrived at the town, Shujun, dressed in clean clothes, was helped down from the carriage by Dong Huiying.
Actually, he was not so frail. He had survived alone in the mountains, grappling with the wilderness, but... let’s just say he was frail, as he enjoyed being looked after by Baobao, liked when Baobao touched him. Only physical contact, skin against skin, could give him a slight sense of reality, allowing him to convince himself... she treated him just as before, she hadn’t despised or rejected him just because he was blind.
But this way, he also felt a sense of guilt.
It was wrong. It should be he who served her, in a society where women were revered over men, yet because of his blindness, everything had reversed.
Was he becoming a burden ?
Yixuan approached the two, noticing that Third Brother was wearing several layers of clothes, as if Baobao, fearing he might be cold, had wrapped him in layers upon layers. But precisely because Baobao was so focused on Third Brother, she had neglected herself...
Yixuan sighed softly, "You should also wear more," he took off his own coat and draped it over Dong Huiying’s shoulders.
Shujun stiffened for a moment. He took her hands, rubbed them back and forth, bringing them close to his mouth and breathed on them, "Are you cold?"
Dong Huiying smiled, "I’m fine, I don’t get sick that easily."
Shujun pursed his lips, then slowly, let go of her hands.
His eyelashes drooped as he suddenly turned and made his way towards the inn. Although he could tell from the sound that the inn was to his left, he couldn’t see the stone steps beneath his feet. He stumbled and nearly fell, but fortunately, a pair of small hands steadied him.
"Is that guy blind? Even on a flat road he trips, hahaha!"
Inside the inn, someone mocked him coarsely.
Shujun wiped his face, then managed to squeeze out a smile, "I’m fine, Baobao, you don’t have to watch over me all the time, take some care of yourself as well."