One Life, One Incarnation, Beautiful Bones

34

She, too, was taken aback and looked over at him in hesitation. "You know about him, too?"

"Yes." Xiao Ren's appreciation of Shi Yi grew even more. "He is in the Zhousheng family geneaology records. Although the historical records do not have much information, I'm very interested in him. He was suspected many times of conspiring against the state and was also very amorous."

"Amorous?" Shi Yi repeated in astonishment.

"He had relations with the crown princess. How could he not be amorous?" Xiao Ren laughed as he said this. "Who's the crown princess? The future mistress of the Eastern Palace[2], but for him, she gave up everything and leapt to her death. Is that not amorous? That is so much more than others around him."

Xiao Ren's tone was half-joking as he said this.

Shi Yi was even more shocked.

"I heard Mother mention, my big brother was specifically named after this person," Xiao Ren laughed, "so I was even more interested in him. Too bad, though, that not much was recorded on him."

Too little was written in the records of him, and furthermore, what was written was not very complimentary.

This was what grieved her most.

The two of them talked for a while before Xiao Ren carried on with reading his own book. Shi Yi, however, could not settle her heart. Her eyes were fixed on that line again, and after wavering for quite some time, she continued writing:

Upon reading the document, the Nanchen Prince refused to weep and only stated, "The imperial seal upon this document is too small. A rebellion is suspected within the palace."

She suddenly had a thought. She wanted to write down all those remaining memories she still had in her head.

Regardless of how much she still remembered.

This idea caused her sleep to be restless the entire night. When there was something you especially want to do, you subconsciously thought about it over and over again. It was something that was completely beyond your control. She tossed about the whole night in a half-asleep, half-awake state, and filling her mind were all those things she had once heard about: the flooding of Jiangzhou, the fierce battle of Shuozhou, six campaigns to Daizhou......

Eventually, even Mei Lin could not tolerate her any longer and, when the morning light was just starting to show, reached over and gave her a weak shove. "I hate you. Tossing and turning all night so that even I couldn't sleep."

Shi Yi was exhausted herself as she mumbled, "Kept on having dreams, and they were all dreams of war and chaos[3]."

"So then..." Mei Lin said, opening her eyes and looking at her rather pale complexion, "So maybe the night before, there had actually been no sound and it was just you dreaming."

Shi Yi could not tell her that she had talked on the phone with Zhousheng Chen until the morning, so she merely shook her head. "I don't know."

"Shi Yi?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you feel that sometimes, the way you live is not very real?" Mei Lin asked her softly. "You're not really interested in anything. You work only because you require a job. Since I met you, I haven't noticed you being interested in anything. Apart from that husband of yours whom you suddenly met and then got married to."

Shi Yi turned over, also feeling herself that her life was too dull.

Perhaps it was because she thought her previous life had been too exciting, with too many ups and downs - borne of a noble family, had a marriage of the greatest riches and honor prearranged for her, discipled under a man who easily could have the admiration of most women... and also hid in her heart a desire that was held in contempt by all people.