Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 673: Dusk and Rain
Pei Ye pushed open the door, as if he had returned home many times. He did not look at the man sitting in front of the steps, but turned around and closed the door before turning his head.

Without waiting for Yue Muzhou to ask, he clasped his fists and said, "Greetings to Inspector Yue He and Inspector Yan Pei Ye, I am here to deliver the message on the orders of Master Li."

He had said this many times, but every time it seemed like the first time for the man opposite him.

Yue Muzhou looked at him, just like the first time he met everyone, the process was very short, then he lowered his head and took the sign handed to him by the boy.

"What's the matter?"

"Someone is trying to assassinate Queen Wei."

"Who?"

Pei Ye did not answer, he stood on the steps. He had fought with the man beside him many times, even if it was just a shadow of him, it was like an insurmountable cliff, causing Pei Ye to break his sword again and again.

There had never been a sword technique that made him devote all his energy to mastering it and still linger outside the threshold for a month. The last one he learned was the Snow Sword, which he took more than two years.

If we were to draw a conclusion from this, it would be that this old man simply does not know how to teach people how to practice swordplay.

Pei Ye raised his eyes to glance at the bedroom, then lowered his eyes to look at Yue Muzhou's cold and strange face: "Can you guard it like this?"

Yue Muzhou narrowed his eyes slightly: "Hmm?"

"Empress Wei is sleeping in the palace. If you sit here, will you be able to stop the assassin in time?"

"I said I can stop it, and I can stop it."

"Queen Wei also believes it?"

"Believe."

"Aren't you afraid of disappointing her?"

Yue Muzhou paused and raised his eyebrows: "Do I know you?"

"I know you." Pei Ye looked at him, "You're scared."

"You are not afraid of any enemy, but you will worry about assassins coming from nowhere. Even if your sword is the fastest in the world, it still can't catch up with what has happened." Pei Ye said, "Do you know what the only way is?"

"What?" Yue Muzhou narrowed his eyes slightly. He smelled a dangerous smell keenly and put his hand on the scabbard.

“Faster.”

Pei Ye unsheathed his sword, and a sword light appeared in the Mingyue Palace, which cut the rain curtain in half. As confidently as countless times before, Pei Ye drew his sword in front of Yue Muzhou.

In the previous few times, he was actually as fast as Yue Muzhou. When Yue Muzhou's attention was temporarily focused on the Yanjian card, he drew his sword, and Pei Ye often died at the same time the sword pierced the bed.

For an assassin, this is probably mission accomplished.

But that is certainly not enough.

He must be faster than Yue Muzhou to catch up with Li Xizhou's fate of death.

The distance from the bed to the bedroom is seven zhang, and there are five main actions: drawing the sword, leaving the steps, knocking on the door, passing the screen, and drawing the sword; among them, four posture changes must be experienced: standing up, leaping, floating, and staying in the air.

Pei Ye drew his sword and stabbed into Wei Qingju's faint shadow, then he tilted his neck back to avoid the sword light from Yue Muzhou that pierced his throat, as lightly and calmly as if he had practiced it countless times.

Yue Muzhou's tense face came into view, shock and rage gushing out from his pair of black and white pupils at the same time.

The next moment Pei Ye died again in the bedroom. After he came to his senses, he was stunned for a long time, then he lowered his head and smiled.

……

Yong Ji was carefully calculating the days until February.

It's been seventeen days.

Unlike Pei Ye, he had a very detailed understanding of every day. At this moment, he stood on Ba Ling and looked back at the Shenjing City. There were many people and horses on the wide and flat post road. The warriors who were going to the spring examination were swallowed up by the city gate one after another with curiosity and expectation.

This is indeed a bright and uplifting season, when people and plants grow at the same time, an atmosphere that is completely different from what he is doing.

"After staying in the mirage for too long, I feel like I'm filled with the smell of corpses," he said.

"Jade is the corpse of stone, silk is the corpse of silkworm, water is the corpse of fish, and soil is the corpse of all things. The cycle of life and death is the small thousand worlds."

Behind Yong Ji stood a tall, thin bald man with sunken eye sockets, light eyebrows and a beard, wearing a Zen robe. In many ways, he looked like a monk, with no ornaments, a long robe of a solid color, straw sandals, and a clear and pure appearance. The iron spear on his back was very ordinary, and the short knife hanging from his waist was also very ordinary.

"Ah."

"Your Highness, you see things the same way I do, so you have this feeling. I feel that the spiritual realm is endless, and because it spreads from a corpse, it is magnificent, strange, cold and graceful." The monk said, "There is no such clear water in the world."

"You are right. I am pessimistic from the retina to the fundus. This is nothing new." Yong Ji skipped his words and said to the other side, "How is it?"

The third person was standing far back and had been quiet the whole time. At this moment, he clasped his fists and said, "Sir, the envoys from the Eight Waters have all reported back. The heroes on the Eight Waters have all started moving."

"That's great... Yes, remember this," Yong Ji pointed at him with his whip, "regardless of whether this succeeds or not, we will no longer be managing Shenjing after this. When the money sold and the power transferred are transferred, we will try to distribute them to the Eight Waters. When the war starts again in the future, the grain transport must be stable."

"Yes."

After saying this, Yong Ji's thoughts flashed through the Taiping Cao Gang again, but his expression did not change. He only withdrew his gaze from the post road at the foot of the mountain and cast it up to the sky: "I hope spring will come sooner, but it would be best if it is as late as possible."

The monk smiled and said, "Your Highness, there is great wisdom in your words, but the New Year has passed, and it should be spring now."

"Really? General, when do you think spring has arrived?"

"The bare branches are reviving, the grass tips are breaking through the ground, and the ice on the river is cracking?"

"Neither. Spring comes after the spring rain." Yong Ji looked at the clear sky. "It rains for two or three days in a row, not too heavy or too light, but the ground is soaked. This is called a thorough rain. After the first thorough rain, everything comes back to life. After a few days, it will be the height of spring."

"Hmm." The monk held his knife and looked up. "Looking at the weather, I'm afraid we won't be able to wait for spring in the next few days. What can you expect, my prince?"

"Either come tonight, or wait another twenty days." Yong Ji sighed and tilted his head, "Do you know when the latest spring in Chang'an will come in the past ten years?"

“I haven’t really noticed anything like this.”

"I didn't care about it before, but I checked it out these days. At the latest, seven years ago, Chang'an didn't receive its first deep rain until March 26th." Yong Ji said, "So we are probably still forty days away from spring."

"incredible."

Yong Ji smiled, holding the whip and turned to the horse: "I don't expect this kind of favor, let's get it done quickly, we still have to find another day to get married."

Several people mounted their horses, went down the mountain, joined the post road, and drove away.

……

Neither of the two extremes that Yong Ji expected occurred. This year was no different from previous years. When people felt a little warmer and began to take off their clothes, the greenness in the city gradually emerged, and the first rain arrived neither early nor late.

At this time, eight days had passed since the conversation in Ba Ling. The date was February 27th. At dusk, when Pei Ye was walking back to Zhujing Palace from Mingyue Palace, he looked up casually and felt that the sky was a little cloudy.

After returning to the bedroom, he met Li Xianfang, who reminded him to put away the gauze and silk that had been hung out to dry yesterday in advance to prevent it from getting damp at night.

Li Xizhou hadn't come back yet, so Pei Ye boiled some water and took a bath. He had been too nervous these days, worrying too much and sleeping too little to an outrageous degree. Even Ba Sheng's body couldn't help feeling a little tired. Since the girl hadn't come back yet, he stretched and rested on the couch for a while.

As soon as I closed my eyes, it was night. When I opened my eyes, I smelled a fragrance and saw Li Xizhou's golden face right above my field of vision.

There was no candle lit in the bedroom. It was pitch black and quiet, and there was no sound in the yard.

Pei Ye wrinkled his nose, then moved his eyes again and saw the mutton soup in her hand, and determined the source of the fragrance.

He moved his throat: "For me?"

Li Xizhou raised the spoon and took a sip, then tilted the bowl to show him - only the bottom of the bowl was left. "..."

"If you want to drink, get up and get yourself some. Qu Xin and Xian Fang have already finished their meals, so you're the only one left."

"Then Your Highness is by my bed, is he just eating in a different place?" Pei Ye sighed and sat up from his supine position, "I thought he was here to call me to eat."

"The food may not taste as good if I go to another place, but at least I'm alive to eat." Li Xizhou lowered his head and took another sip. "Master Pei is sleeping like a corpse. I can only come to Master Pei by myself, hoping that when Master Pei snores, I can hear someone killing me."

"...Your Highness, why don't you think about it? If it weren't for someone trying to kill you, I wouldn't have to work so hard." Pei Ye yawned, "You don't know how to sympathize with your subordinates."

Li Xizhou said calmly: "The guard neglected his duty, yet you dared to blame me. I see that you have become a little arrogant recently."

She lowered her head and took another sip of soup and finished it.

"You sleep every day, and I sit on the steps every day. Where's the pampering?" Pei Ye moved his legs off the bed.

"Being able to sit on the steps in front of this palace is already a great honor for a foreign official, isn't it?" Li Xizhou said calmly, "What else do you want?"

"Give me one hundred taels of silver."

"It's worthless."

"Look."

"I ride in the same carriage with you and sit at the same table with you. Has there ever been such an honor and favor between an emperor and his subjects in ancient times?" Li Xizhou looked down at him.

"I know, Cao Cao." Pei Ye is an expert on the Three Kingdoms. "Later, he thought about how to kill Liu Bei every day."

Li Xizhou smiled and said, "Just think about your one hundred taels of silver."

"He won't even give me ten taels."

Li Xizhou ignored him.

Pei Ye put on his boots and left the hall, picking up his sword: "Hurry up and catch up, or you will be killed if you fall behind by two steps."

Pei Ye left the eaves and looked up: "It's still cloudy, I can't see the moon."

He sat at the stone table, poured himself a bowl of hot soup, took a piece of hot cake from the pot, and began to eat neither fast nor slow.

Li Xizhou sat down on the stool next to him and waited for him.

"Will you take the pill tonight?"

Li Xizhou shook his head: "No more."

"Oh."

"After taking the elixir that night, the blood in my body was almost gone. After that, I often dreamed of that dream at night." Li Xizhou said, "It seemed to be right in front of me, but no matter what, I couldn't touch it."

Li Xizhou looked into the empty space and said, "So five days later I took another pill, and that was the last one."

"Is it effective?"

"Yes, my blood has completely sunk." Li Xizhou raised his hand, "Since then, that dream has become clearer and clearer to me."

Pei Ye listened.

"In the past, I tried my best but couldn't find any trace of it. It took me a lot of effort to refine these pills. I wanted to erase all the unicorn blood in my body, forget everything, and go back to the four-year-old age to see her again." Li Xizhou said, "Now I seem to have done it. The unicorn blood is sealed, and I can see it very clearly, but it seems... the 19 years of growing up can't be erased no matter what."

"I dream about it every night, but every night there is no change. I can only look at it, watch it in my memory, but I can't find any way to return to it."

"Do you think it no longer exists?"

Li Xizhou was silent.

"It doesn't matter. Even if it doesn't exist, we can always find another way." Pei Ye said, "I know Luo Weiyou. If nothing works, we can ask her."

Li Xizhou glanced at him and said nothing.

"what?"

Li Xizhou naturally didn't confide in him. She didn't think that Luo Weiyou was her mother, but she still felt a little depressed, as if after her mother passed away, she left something for everyone and was still connected to so many people... except her.

It’s so annoying. Why don’t you tell me anything?

Why do I have to work so hard to find everything myself, but still can’t find it?

She thought for a while, then turned to look at the boy. The boy was slurping soup and eating cake with his head down.

"Pei Ye."

"Ok?"

"You met Yue Muzhou, what was his attitude towards you?"

"... I chop my head off every day, how can you still have such an attitude?"

"You think about him in your heart, but he is so mean to you. Do you sometimes feel annoyed for no reason?"

Pei Ye paused, feeling that his heart was seen through, but he was too embarrassed to admit it. He took a big sip of soup and said calmly, "As a man, there is nothing to be upset about. The person is dead, just a shadow. Grandpa Yue and I never said anything disgusting before. Does he think that I don't respect him? Do I think that he doesn't love me?"

"He loves you very much."

"……what?"

"He loves you very much and he likes you very much." Li Xizhou looked up and said, "He was also very proud of you - when you were still a poor country boy who had not practiced cultivation. You can see it between the lines."

"What's between the lines?"

"..."

"What's between the lines?"

"Oh, it's so annoying. It's not uncommon for Xu Chuo and Yue Muzhou to mention you occasionally during their conversation." Li Xizhou turned his head away.

Pei Ye Yang Tang did not drink it anymore. He hesitated for a moment and said, "You, you show me."

"Why do you, a man, always want to see other people's private conversations?"

"have a look."

"Go find Xu Chuo."

Pei Ye opened [Zhi Yi]: "Let me see."

"No."

Pei Ye glanced at Li Xizhou sullenly, then lowered his head to continue drinking soup and eating cake.

At the hour of Xu, the sky was overcast and the night was cool, with a light and continuous breeze. It was just dinner time, and Li Xianfang came out to clean up the dishes.

Li Xizhou returned to the bedroom, and Pei Ye was still sitting on the steps holding a sword.

Affected by the shallow sleep he just had, he raised his hand and yawned.

Looking quietly at the courtyard wall, it was an ordinary night like the previous thirty-five days.

(End of this chapter)