The Golden Hairpin

The cry of partridge came from my ears. The weather in June is warm and pleasant, and even the wind is gentle and watery, like the thinnest gauze passing by the ears, making your skin itchy, like the lingering song of a lotus-picking girl far away from the water.

In this season of melting, twelve-year-old Huang Zixia heard her father's voice calling her. She turned her head from the water's edge, the sunlight was shining in her eyes, and the blood or agate-like red color enveloped the world in front of her.

In this strange red light, she saw the young man standing next to her father. His old clothes and low expression could not hide his pale skin and dark hair. He looked at her with those lacquered eyes, as dark as the quietest night, deep and gloomy, and from then on, it seemed to be engraved on her heart with a blade, which could not be erased forever.

She stood barefoot in the pond, and all her stalks fell on the water without knowing it.

She saw a faint smile in the boy’s eyes, and walked slowly over to help her pick up the budding lotus in the water. He must have seen the mud splashing on her calf and the sticking under the veil. Grass scraps, but he just smiled slightly and held the flower in his hand to her. When he stared at her, it was not her usual look towards a little girl, but a tender look of a teenager towards a girl that she had never seen before.

Sometimes a girl grows up and only needs a look from the other person.

"Yu Xuan..." Huang Zixia suddenly sat up from the bed, reaching out to grasp the remaining scenes in front of him, but found that it was just a dream in the night of fantasy.

In the dark night, there was a long wind roaring past the window, and the cold spring invaded people's bones. Huang Zixian hugged the brocade in the deep dark night, silently watching the dreams of the past pass by at his fingertips.

She forced herself to suppress her breathing, lay down slowly, and drowned herself in the silk blanket. Because after breaking the four plans, she is already a celebrity in Beijing, so Wang’s Mansion treats her as a young **** very well, and all the daily expenses are very good, even more than when she was an envoy in the middle of Shu. Higher.

However, she was lying in the warm and soft bedding, but she felt more difficult to sleep than when she was trekking through the rain in the wilderness. She opened her eyes wide and listened to the wind outside in the dark. After a long time, she finally lifted the quilt, got up and got dressed, opened the door and walked out.

Surrounded by trees, she followed the memory through the courtyards of the Kui Palace. The guards who patrolled the road turned a blind eye to her, and wanted to come to her, the recent celebrity of the palace of Kui, already known everywhere, so there was no one who controlled her to come and go freely.

When she walked to Jingyutang, she saw the moonlight streaming over the flowers and trees, and there was silence everywhere, but after four more days, Li Shubai was naturally still asleep.

Then she suddenly remembered that no matter how she felt eager because of last night's dream, how could Kui Wang Li Shubai get up because of her and take care of her mood?

So she could only find a stone to sit down under the flower tree outside the hall, leaned her face on her bent knees, and was about to sit quietly for a while, then went back and waited for him to call.

I don't know how long I have been sitting, the moonlight is dim, and a faint dark blue appears on the horizon. The spring dew was heavy and stained her clothes. She stared at the grass buds on the ground in a daze, but saw a pair of Liuhe black leather boots stepping on the new buds.

She looked up along the boots. He was dressed in a purple suit embroidered with a dark blue dragon pattern, tailored to be extraordinarily slim and tall. On the waist is a purple jade pendant of the fairy pavilion, with nine knots and eighteen turns of cyan silk, and the cuff neckline is a simple narrow sleeve square collar, which is exactly the style that Beijing competes to imitate.

Kui Wang Li Shubai has a romantic side hat, and the clothes he wears will become popular in a few days. This person, just by looking at his appearance, really looks like a royal boy who is dressed in good clothes and indulges in sensuality.

Huang Zixia leaned her face on her lap, looked at him, and thought to herself.

Li Shubai stood in front of her and looked down at her. Seeing that she was not talking, he turned to look at the palace lantern on the flower tree and asked: "So the stars are so windy, you little eunuch, what kind of flowers come to enjoy in the early morning?"

Huang Zixia whispered: "I had a dream last night. I... I want to ask, what is the thing you entrusted me, can I finish it quickly and return to Shu as soon as possible."

Li Shubai glanced at her in the light of the palace lantern, did not speak, but went past her and walked to the corridor next to her.

Huang Zixia stood up, followed him to the corridor, and saw no one sitting next to him, but she just stood there waiting for him to speak.

The palace lanterns hanging on the corridor were swaying, the night breeze came slowly, and the silk lanterns depicting Penglai Fairy Island flew obliquely in the wind, Li Shubai's face seemed to melt into the night, and it was difficult to distinguish.

Li Shubai didn't rush to pay attention to her. He only looked up at the palace lantern hanging under the cornices and stared for a long time. Huang Zixian was unsteady, stood by the lamp for a long time, and finally felt something was wrong. She turned her head to look at the lamp, the ordinary octagonal palace lantern, the finely spliced ​​red lacquered wooden poles spelled out auspicious clouds and thunder pattern, and the white gauze lamp surface It is painted with fairy mountains and sea of ​​clouds, and there are nine pavilions in it, and immortals come and go.

She couldn't see what was special about this lamp. When she turned her head, she found that Li Shubai was looking at her. Under the faint light, his eyes were dim as stars in the sky.

She touched her face, and before she had time to ask a question, she heard Li Shubai slowly say: "It's a coincidence. Just now, I also had a dream. I dreamed that I was standing on the Xuzhou city tower and looking down below. Thousands of houses. After waking up, I can no longer fall asleep."

Huang Zixian sat leaning on the railing near the water, looking at him silently. He saw her eyes bright as stars and moons, and trance like waves.

"For many years, there has been one thing about me that is extremely weird and difficult to explain. I am in it, and I am in a daze, so I have been looking for someone to help me solve this mystery." He looked at the light on the lamp. Misty Fairy Mountain asked slowly, "Do you know why I said I should give you ten days?"

Huang Zixian shook his head, looked at him under the swaying light, and asked slightly in his eyes.

"Because that was the day when I chose my concubine. This day, this incident made me feel very unpleasant." He took a breath and leaned his back against the corridor railing, the bright and dark lights flickering. Projected on him on this spring night, he looked particularly dazed.

"Back then, I once got a piece of motto in Xuzhou, and the things written on it made me very concerned."

In Xuzhou, Huang Zixia suddenly remembered a major event that shocked the world back then, and her face couldn't help being moved. And Li Shubai also said: "Yes, Xuzhou is a turning point in my destiny. Everyone says it is my blessed land. But no one knows. I calmed Xuzhou. On the last night before returning to Beijing, I looked down on the whole city tower. During the city, something happened that is still fresh in my memory."

Having said that, he finally looked back at her and took a piece of paper from his sleeve.

The paper is thick and slightly yellow, about two inches wide and eight inches long. The shading is a weird cinnabar script like a snake and insect, and the six words "Widow, Disabled, Lonely, and Diseased" are written in thick ink. Among them, the widow and solitary characters are abruptly printed with two blood-colored circles, as if the fate delimited by blood, looks extremely depressed.

Li Shubai's finger crossed the worm-like snake-like fine lines of cinnabar in the shading, and said: "This shading is a worm-snake seal, written in exactly the eight characters of my birthday."

Huang Zixian looked at the six ominous characters printed on the eight characters of his birthday, and the two **** circles, an ominous feeling faintly floated in his heart.

Li Shubai put the piece of talisman on the railing, gently holding it with his hand, and said: "The night this piece of talisman appeared was when I was standing on the Xuzhou city wall and overlooking the city of Xuzhou. It seemed silent and silent. It appeared on the arrow pile beside me. When I got it, there were only six words on it, and there were no two red circles. Only on this solitary word, a faint red circle appeared. "He pointed his finger on that word, as if he was stroking his past life, "You are lonely when you are young. At that time, the father and the emperor have passed away, but my mother and concubine are still there, so I don’t care. I just thought it was an ordinary curse of my opponent, so I left it, and prepared to search among the people around me to see who would dare to bring this thing to my side. Who knows..."

He cast his gaze on the palace lantern next to him. In the quiet night, the palace lantern cast a slight swaying light. Huang Zixia only felt that at this moment, the whole surroundings seemed to be blurred.

"That night, I had countless nightmares. In the dreams, the six words of widows, loneliness, and sickness were repeated. When I woke up, I wanted to burn the charm, but when I took it out to look at it, I found the word'solitary' on it. The circle that was originally just a faint red trace suddenly aggravated and became what it is now." He pointed his finger on that character, under the stars and the moon, the red vermilion circle was like a weird flower next to his finger. The safflower bloomed, and the traces of blood disappeared again, which was shocking. "It was also on that day, at that moment, that an eight-hundred-mile rush was sent from Beijing. I opened it and found out that it was the news of my mother and concubine's death."

On the day when the red circle delineated the "solitary", he truly became an orphan, without parents.

Huang Zi Xia saw his hand retracted from the talisman and clenched into a fist unconsciously. His beautiful hands were slightly white because they were so tightly held. She couldn't help but said: "Perhaps, it's just a coincidence, the prince doesn't need to think too much."

"After receiving the news of my mother's concubine's death, on the way back from Xuzhou to Beijing, I once encountered an assassination. I was stabbed in my left arm. Although the wound was not deep, the weapon was poisoned. The accompanying military doctors said , My arm can’t be kept, if I want to survive, I have to abandon my left arm." His right hand stroked his left arm lightly, as if the pain was still on his body, "At that time, I will I took out the talisman paper I brought with me, and I saw it, and the bright red circle was faintly appearing, and it was the word'residual' that was circled."

There was no sound in the dark night, and the gust of wind suddenly came, the lantern suddenly turned in the wind, and the light faintly hit them. The talisman paper with the scarlet circle on it was flying in the wind in the lower corner, as if fate was fluctuating.

Li Shubai looked at her with a calm expression almost stiff: "You, know what I did then?"

Holding the piece of talisman paper in his hand, Huang Zixian stood under the flying lanterns, staring at him for an instant, and said: "I guess the prince must arrest the medic and torture the culprit."

Li Shubai's face, which had been strained, slowly relaxed, and even under the red light, a smile seemed to float on the corners of his lips. His face, which had always been cold, suddenly showed a soft and clear spring breeze against the background of his smile. Even if the smile was very weak, it couldn't hide what was showing in his heart. He said: "Huang Zixia, you really are just like me, you are unbelieving people."

"I have been in Shu County for three years and have dealt with 26 murder cases, eight of which were rumored by ghosts and gods. But in the end the truth came to light, and it was just people who tried to pretend to be ghosts. For example, the four plans a few days ago were also Falsely telling ghosts and gods." Huang Zixia put his hand on his piece of rune paper and said, "Just like this rune paper, what the prince said before is enough to reveal the intentions of the people behind the scenes."

Li Shubai looked at her and said happily: "Why don't you talk about it?"