Seven Unfortunate Lifetimes (Love You Seven Times)

Chapter 8

On the fifth day, after crossing the northern border and passing another city, we would enter the territory where the court was in control. Student Qing Shan had changed my facial features to look like an old woman. He and Hei Wu were my sons now. We were role-playing that the sons  were bringing their mother home. Although I objected to the role of an old mother, after thinking of how I was already a few hundred years old, being called mother was nothing big, so I reluctantly agreed.

Passing the last gate, the soldiers were doing a routine inspection. Suddenly another soldier, riding on a horse, came to the leader. He stopped the horse and shouted,  “Urgent mission! Withhold all the young women! They’re not allowed to leave the city!”

While he was shouting, the other soldiers blocked the path of everyone and said, “Young women are not allowed to leave the city.”

The soldier in green, on the horse, stopped at the gate. He took out a portrait and said, “All those who have some resemblance to this portrait, no matter man or women, young or old, bring them all to the protector’s mansion.”

Hei Wu and student Qing Shan tensed up behind me. Student Qing Shan whispered, “Miss, keep your head down. Don’t look up.”

I wondered about a deep question.

“How close is the resemblance?”

I heard the two behind me sigh. I didn’t understand why they’re sighing. I looked up at the portrait and froze instantly. Which artist could paint me so perfectly?

In the north, aside from Lu Hai Kong, who would observe me that closely? My mind was complicated. I bent down to look like an old woman.

The young woman were detained, and the soldiers checked everyone. Student Qing Shan walked on my right side, pretending to support me. Hei Wu was walking a step behind us. Passing the soldiers, Student Qin Shan started acting. He softly called,  “Mother, the officers are just checking; it’s nothing.”

I was too lazy to care about him, so I only bowed my head and kept walking.

We had almost passed the gate when suddenly a soldier called, “Elderly, can you please lift your head a little?”

After I heard those words, I hesitated. If I’m caught here, then I and Lu Hai Kong…..

I was still thinking, when Hei Wu grabbed my hand.

I stared at him blankly when he said, “I apologize.”

While saying that, he lifted me with his powerful hands and threw me over his shoulders. At that moment, student Qing Shan pulled out a sword from his waist. Before the soldier could say anything, student Qing Shan had already stabbed his horse’s eyes.

The horse stomped his hooves and made miserable sounds. Hei Wu shouted, “Run!”

They dodged the footsteps of the horse and stepped on the shoulders of those who had fallen to the ground to run out of the gate.

I was laying on Hei Wu’s shoulder, watching the chaos at the gate. I didn’t know why, but I suddenly thought of the day of reincarnation. Today, however, there wasn’t a young man with eyes full of blame, looking at me. I suddenly felt an emptiness in my heart.

Back in the court’s territory, student Qing Shan and Hei Wu were a lot more at ease. They bought a horse, and we were using the main roads. It was a lot faster. Soon, we arrived in the capital. When we were passing the gate, both student Qing Shan and Hei Wu said that they had something to do, and that I could return to the prime minister's mansion alone. I was surprised that they weren’t afraid that I would escape, but then I thought that I had nowhere to escape to in the capital. I thus obediently went to the prime minister's mansion.

The general’s mansion opposite the prime minister's mansion had been cleared. To historians, the general’s mansion was now only a historical record.

The prime minister’s guards were still the same. When they saw me they were scared.

“Young…Miss, you came back?”

I nodded, “I came back.”

A bodyguard’s legs went soft. He hastened and ran inside. The first person I needed to see, of course, was my father. The only difference I saw was that in the hall, there wasn’t a furious father Song waiting for me. He was in his bedroom, a step from his deathbed. A really thin father Song.

I was a little afraid to call him. I really couldn’t believe that getting old would let someone look like this. Father Song lay on the bed, looking at me dazedly. He closed his eyes for a long time before he sighed and said with a weak voice, “Go away…Go away, you shouldn’t have come back.”

I was originally a cloud, born with nothing and raised with nothing. No father nor mother. I didn’t understand what parents’ love was, but at this moment, I needed to treat this old man well, even if he’d done many bad things. In my eyes, he was just a lonely father.

“Father,” I said. “I was unfilial. The third prince, I’m willing to marry him.”

Father Song’s lips trembled. He was silent for a very long time before gathering all his strength to sit up. Sternly, he said, “Who brought you back?! Even if your father is in a bad situation, I still would not sell my daughter to survive!”

I was surprised. I was still confused when I asked, “Wasn’t it you who let student Qing Shan and Hei Wu bring me back?”

Father Song looked at me casually and then abruptly laughed out loud. “Early this year, those two were killed by the emperor. I’m afraid that the two people who picked you up are imperial guards…”

Father Song shook his head.

“That year, I did everything to bring you and Lu Hai Kong to the north… Now you still have been brought into this conflict. Yun Xiang, father is sorry to you, sorry to your mom, sorry to brother Lu and Lu Hai Kong, and even more sorry to the late emperor.”

Did everything possible to bring me and Lu Hai Kong to the north?

I thought more carefully and realized that everything was strange on the night of the fire. After those two men left, there hadn’t been any news coming from the prime minister's mansion. Such an important thing as the general’s medal missing, the court failed to send people after us. I and Lu Hai Kong walked like a turtle, and still, there was not one soldier who has caught up with us. Lu Lan had announced his revolt, but the court actually waited five years before doing something…

I didn’t know how much father Song suffered in all these years by the hand of the emperor, but seeing how father Song looked today, I knew that this forty year-old had no more blood to bleed.

I patted him on the back and said, “Father, it’s alright. I’m not so fragile.”