Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 602: Ziyue Wood
It was the first time that Li Yao saw Li Heng and Lian Lin being scolded so terribly.

The men and women were still chatting happily in the hall. He was led in by the girl with bruised cheeks and soaked wet, and he stopped talking immediately.

And then things are like this now. He stood stiffly in the corner, watching those unfamiliar uncles and aunts pour out their anger on their brothers and sisters who were soaked all over, and occasionally cast their eyes in this direction with a fierce and cold look.

"You see, they are just as weak under a stronger authority, and they dare not resist even more than you." The girl glanced at him, chewing candied fruit with her mouth slightly bulging, and the sweetness of the orange wafted out.

But Li Yao did not speak. He had some sense that this would be only a brief peace. They would not stay in the general's mansion forever. This was just a one-day visit. If the rushing water was temporarily blocked by congestion, it would surely be even more turbulent when it broke through.

He silently turned his head to look at his aunt, who was looking at the hall with a pale face.

After such an unpleasant incident, the visit could not last long. The tall people exchanged greetings for a while, and the carriage was gradually ready outside the door.

Then he heard Zhao Baibi say in a crisp voice: "Madam, I want to play with him for two more days."

"..." Li Yao raised his head. The girl, who was slightly taller than him, was looking at him with great interest and swallowed the candied fruit in her mouth.

Li Yao clenched the "Six Strategies" in his hand in a daze.

"No matter how I bully you, won't you get angry?" Lying on a strange bed, the maid applied medicine on his wounds. Zhao Baibi lay on the edge of the bed, staring at his face and asked.

This angle and distance made him blush for some reason, and he subconsciously looked away.

"Follow me from now on. I'll take you to bully others." Zhao Baibi fantasized, "How old are you this year?"

"Twelve years old."

"I'm thirteen."

"When I travel the world, you will be my first little brother, how about that?"

"……Thanks."

"You're welcome! But my subordinates must also have their own strengths." Zhao Baibi looked at him with her chin on her hand, "Otherwise it would be embarrassing for me, Lady Zhao - what are your strengths?"

"Mr. Li's wound has been treated." The maid reminded with a smile, "Miss Zhao, the lesson Mr. Zhu has arranged for you is almost over."

Zhao Baibi narrowed his eyes and stopped shaking his legs.

"I can..." Li Yao hesitated for a while and said carefully, "I can help you with your homework."

Spring flowers, summer swimming, autumn pears, and winter snow, most boys and girls of this age cannot play together, but Zhao Baibi quite likes to listen to Li Yao talk about many things in history books, watching him write those beautifully arranged sentences on paper, and then composing them into tunes.

Li Yao preferred to stand by the window after school, waiting for the girl to take him for a run. Following this figure, the strange world was no longer frightening, but gradually became interesting.

What made him gradually look up was the general's mansion that was originally unfamiliar to him. He was familiar with the tall and upright man, and listened to him explaining the past battles and military strategies in books. Whenever he stood beside him, he always felt a strong sense of security; he was close to the calm and gentle lady, who always wore light clothes and seemed never to be angry; the only thing he was not used to getting close to Mr. Zhu, even though the girl seemed to be most familiar with her.

Days passed, and by the time the boy's head was as big as the girl's, it was almost two years. Li Yao never felt that there was anything wrong, except that the man taught him military tactics less and less frequently in recent months, and his wife was sometimes nowhere to be found.

But the world did not stop changing just because the boy was unaware of it. The dark clouds beyond the child's vision finally brewed into a sudden rainstorm.

On January 12, Li Yao rode back from the Imperial College again, passing the long street in front of the imperial city. His feet were already able to step steadily on the stirrups. The girl had taught him riding skills just last month and ordered him to learn it quickly so that she could take him to the bank of the Feng River to play when the spring flowers bloomed.

Li Yao was still somewhat afraid of the beast under his crotch. He often had this feeling - it was not him who was controlling its pace, but it was controlling his direction. If it suddenly ran towards somewhere, Li Yao could hardly imagine what he could do. In this state of mind, he held the reins very seriously and cautiously, and did not look up when passing the entrance of the imperial city.

Then he heard the sound of a horse galloping past from the side, as fast as the wind and as heavy as thunder.

His saddle seemed to be stained with a fishy red, and he shouted something that Li Yao didn't understand: "The general has been executed! Behead him immediately and display his head to the public!!!"

Li Yao looked up blankly. The setting sun was burning red, with gray clouds covering it, like the desolate battlefield in the poem.

He was stunned for a while, until the horse under his crotch began to kick its hooves anxiously. He subconsciously looked to the south and saw a raging fire rising from the general's house in the distance.

The next three days were a nightmare.

The shouts and noises that came from nowhere filled the entire city, and there were cries and screams everywhere. It took him a day and a half to get back to the old house of the wise king. The door lintel had been completely burned, the entire house had been looted, and the aunt was lying in the yard, her stomach was stabbed and rotten, and several maids and the coachman, Uncle He, were killed in the yard. After a night, the broken bodies and blood had frozen into ice.

Li Yao didn't know how long he had been wandering here with his mind blank. Trembling and afraid, he took off the sword hanging on the wall for the first time, mounted his horse and galloped towards the General's Mansion.

Everything he passed by was no longer the same. The night before, he walked fearfully in the alley, avoiding the lights and sounds of armor. Now, he rode his horse quickly on the road, and many people with blood on their knives just looked at him and went back to their own business. It was not until he approached the mansion that had always symbolized strength and security in his heart that the guards gradually showed martial law. There was almost nothing left in the mansion. The familiar attics had collapsed into charcoal. The soldiers at the door were carrying out corpses one by one and putting them on the street for inspection. The clothes were all familiar to him.

Even so, he still didn't want to give up. He got off the horse tremblingly, recalled the girl's residence, and looked for the direction to climb the wall in the winter bushes.

When he seized the opportunity to rush forward, he was suddenly covered by a hand over his mouth and dragged into the alley.

The girl's dirty face was pressed in front of him, her hair was half disheveled, her clothes were dirty and torn and stained with blood, and there were two bandages on her shoulder and leg.

This face was originally very serious, but when he saw him, he held his mouth for a few times, and actually burst into laughter, and whispered: "Li Yao, your face has become a cat's face."

Li Yao burst into tears.

Perhaps not many people cared about the son of the virtuous king, and Zhao Baibi was not considered a member of the general's mansion. The two lonely teenagers found a dirty and shabby place to live in the war-torn city, which was a cellar in a looted house.

"If I hadn't come to find you, I wouldn't have been injured." Li Yao always said this when she changed Zhao Baibi's bandages.

They hid here for a month, and both of them became dirty. Gradually, the city should have been completely settled down.

"Hey, I heard that the palace has issued a notice to look for the lost bloodline of the Li family." That day, Zhao Baibi came back and said to Li Yao who was cooking noodles in the corner of the yard, "Do you want to go?"

They had moved up from downstairs a few days ago. Li Yao didn't want to go back to any of the houses, so they stayed here temporarily.

Li Yao turned back in surprise: "Is it over?"

"It seems to be over."

"Then why did they fight?"

"The general's former subordinates mutinied and rebelled, and the imperial guards issued an order to kill them all. That's probably it." The girl who always went out to find something to eat was relatively clear about the situation, but she didn't seem to care much. "Li Yao, do you want to go and respond to them?"

Li Yao remained silent and looked at her helplessly.

"What's wrong?" Zhao Baibi handed him a tender yellow jasmine flower that she had just picked on the road. "Look, isn't it beautiful?"

"I'm thinking... I don't know." Li Yao took over, crossed his legs and whispered, "Bai Bi, I don't know where I should go... My home is gone, my aunt is gone, and the general and the others are gone..."

The boy showed weakness again: "I don't know what to do."

"Look at how useless you are," Zhao Baibi jumped onto the swing next to him and swung, "I'm still here with you, so why bother with so much? If you want to live a happy life, I'll take you and hide you anywhere in the world, and no one will be able to find you!"

"..." Li Yao was silent.

Zhao Baibi was also quiet for a while, then tilted his head and said, "Li Yao, what do you really want to do? If you don't even dare to say it out loud, what's the meaning of life?"

Li Yao lowered his head in silence for a moment, then whispered, "I want to go."

"Ok?"

"I don't like them, I hate them...but my aunt often says that I am the descendant of the virtuous king, a member of the Li clan, and that the blood of the former Yu flows in my body. She hopes that I can become a useful person and shine the lintel of the virtuous king again." Li Yao lowered his head and said, "I never thought about these things before...but in the past month, I have seen many people who should not have died die."

"Ah."

"Bai Bi, I think this is a problem of the person with the surname 'Li'." Li Yao raised his head, with a handsome face and clear eyes.

"So, I still want to go. I want... to change some things." He stood up.

"Then put on your shoes first." Zhao Baibi swayed, "Then, you have to do something to build your career. Will you still be my little brother?"

The boy lowered his head and pulled up his boots, then looked up at the girl: "Of course, Bai Bi, I like you the most."

"..." The girl was caught off guard and a little embarrassed, "What are you talking about?"

Li Yao blushed and looked at her: "Really, I will give you everything when I conquer the world!"

(End of this chapter)