Chapter 15

Lately, I keep dreaming of the scene four years ago when Chao Jianan escorted me to the Capital.

At that time, the land was ravaged by war, and nowhere was peaceful.

On the way along Longxi Road, I fell ill with a high fever that wouldn’t subside. He took me to stay in a deserted temple in the wild.

A family of four fleeing disaster happened to pass by and also stayed in the temple.

The aunt looked kind and warm-hearted. She urged Chao Jianan to hurry to the pharmacy for medicine and offered to look after me while I was sick.

Chao Jianan left, but after a short while, unable to rest easy, he returned.

The aunt was outside the temple with her two children, her face filled with fear when she saw him.

Her husband was inside the temple at that moment, trying to molest me and strip off my clothes.

Later, Chao Jianan killed her husband.

His eyes were red with rage, and he was about to kill the aunt as well, but she knelt and kowtowed, begging for mercy over and over.

Chao Jianan pressed his sword to her neck, questioning her again and again: “Don’t you have a daughter? Don’t you!?”

The aunt cried, “It was for my daughter that I obeyed him. I had no choice.”

Their young daughter was only seven years old.

The son was also young, about eleven or twelve, only able to giggle and clap his hands, a simple-minded child who drooled.

Chao Jianan didn’t look at them again. He carried me on his back and left the ruined temple.

Before leaving, he said to the aunt, “Your children are children, but so are other people’s children. That is no excuse for your evil. I should have killed you.”

He didn’t kill her, though he very much wanted to.

I lay groggy on his back as he carried me forward, across the silent, deserted wilderness, and over the abandoned bridge in the fields.

Dusk was falling, a crescent moon hung in the sky, and shadows of trees flickered along the country path.

The wind blew from all directions, chilling my body and splitting my head with pain.

Chao Jianan soothed me in a low voice: “Xiao Chun, don’t sleep yet. When we reach the city, I’ll find you a doctor.”

My forehead was burning, my tears were hot too, soaking his clothes.

I clutched his shoulder tightly, gripping his clothes with all my strength.

It seemed to be the only warmth I could grasp in this life, and all the strength I had left.

I murmured, “I have no home now. My father is dead, my sister is dead. Can I call you Brother-in-law?”

“From now on, I am your Brother-in-law.”

“Good. You’ll avenge them, won’t you?”

“I will. I’ll take the heads of Lai Wengeng and his men to honor Qingshi Town.”

“I will too. I’ll kill those people myself.”

“…Leave vengeance to me. You’re a girl. Stay quietly in the Capital and wait for my news.”