Check out this new novel ? about a wronged hero who breaks all shackles – an intriguing story awaiting exploration. It symbolizes various aspects such as vulnerability, resilience, or even societal outcast status. While facing great injustices, despite his many hardships, this character is poised to rise above all adversity.
Sick Dog
Chapter 19: Trials
Just as Wang Laosi was about to say, “No…”
The servant behind him stuck out his head, looking like a young man, and confidently stated, “I smell Ah Zhen’s scent; they must be here!”
Wang Lao Si thought that this little brat must have a dog’s nose to smell this… Just as he was contemplating, he squeezed through the crack at the door and stood in the courtyard, clearing his throat and shouting, “A Zhen, Ah Yu, are you there?”
Soon, Xie Zhen and Li Yu walked out of the house, both wearing expressions of disbelief.
They had never thought that someone would find their location, and it turned out to be Gao Xun. How did he manage to find them? Xie Zhen, moved to tears, rushed forward to meet him, “How did you know we were here? Is it just you, or where are my father and mother? Where are they?”
Gao Xun took out a prepared silk handkerchief and wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes, “I came with my parents; they are nearby. We searched this hill for the whole morning and finally found you… Don’t cry; Uncle and Auntie are both well, just very worried about you. Now that we’ve found you, come back with me quickly.”
Xie Zhen nodded repeatedly, sniffed to stabilize her emotions quickly, then turned and pulled Li Yu over, saying to Gao Xun, “Little Brother Yu is injured; when we go back, we need to find a doctor for him quickly.”
Gao Xun didn’t delay and promptly sent a servant back to Puning Temple to fetch a doctor, to avoid wasting time.
After everything was settled, he noticed that both of them were dressed in coarse linen clothes, especially Xie Zhen with her hair braided like a rural girl. However, her exceptionally beautiful appearance couldn’t hide her innate noble temperament.
Gao Xun looked them up and down and couldn’t help raising his handsome eyebrows, “Why are you dressed like this?”
Xie Zhen opened her hands helplessly, pouting, “Our clothes were all cut by the grass, and these are borrowed from Aunt Yang…”
Wang Yang’s daughter was a year younger, and the clothes were a bit small on Xie Zhen, revealing a circle of delicate and fair wrists. In the sunlight, they looked as white as sheep fat. However, her fair wrists had several red marks from last night’s ordeal. Pampered all through her life, yet, after wearing them all night yesterday, she didn’t complain at all.
Gao Xun clearly wanted to see her hands, but he resisted the urge, blushing, and said, “The carriage is at the village entrance; I’ll take you there now.”
Just as they were about to leave, Xie Zhen said, “Wait.”
She searched herself from head to toe and only found a piece of jade fish. She didn’t know if it was valuable, so she had to ask Gao Xun, “Do you have money with you?”
Gao Xun, solely focused on finding them, didn’t have any money with him. Not wanting to disappoint Xie Zhen, he reluctantly searched each guard, barely gathering seven or eight taels of silver and several dozen copper coins. He also haphazardly felt around his own body, finding a jade ginseng pendant and a small pearl, handing them all to Xie Zhen, “These are the only valuable things I have. What do you want to do with them?”
Xie Zhen felt that these should be enough, gratefully grinned, “I’ll tell you later!”
She turned and ran to the eaves of the house, where Wang Yang and her two children were standing at the door. Xie Zhen held a handful of gold and silver jewelry in front of Wang Yang, smiling brightly like a little sun, “Aunt Yang, these are all for you. Thank you for treating Little Yu’s illness and letting us eat and sleep!”
Wang Yang had never seen so much jewelry in half of her life and dared not accept it, hesitantly declining, “No, it’s just a small favor…”
Little did she know how noble the person they had saved was. Receiving these rewards was only a matter of course. Refusing to accept, Xie Zhen, a clever girl, immediately stuffed these things into Wang Yang’s daughter’s hands. Before the other party could react, she had already run far away.
The young girl stood in the courtyard, her eyes curved in a smile, completely different from her dispirited appearance yesterday. The warm sunshine of spring shone on her, giving her a fluffy golden glow, making her look incredibly soft.
Wang Yang was about to express her gratitude with her two children when they had already boarded the carriage and left.
“What a stroke of luck… meeting such a noble person,” Wang Yang exclaimed with excitement.
*
Sitting in the returning carriage, Xie Zhen’s heart finally settled down.
The terrifying fear of yesterday seemed still vivid in her mind. She could still recall the wide-open eyes of the black-clothed person in death and the successive howls of wolves… She never expected to escape, and she felt like she had picked up a big bargain.
After the ordeal, the relationship between Xie Zhen and Li Yu seemed to have become much closer.
The two of them were unaware, but the observer Gao Xun could see everything clearly.
As they sat together, although Li Yu wasn’t overly enthusiastic, he didn’t furrow his brows as he used to or completely ignore her. He even responded to her with a few words. Gao Xun watched them in surprise, wondering what they had experienced to suddenly improve their relationship.
Xie Zhen paid no attention to his gaze, focusing on caring for Li Yu’s injury, “Little Yu, does your wound still hurt?”
Li Yu shook his head, “Not anymore.”
Recalling yesterday’s situation, Xie Zhen pouted, “You bled so much yesterday; I thought you were going to die…”
Gao Xun was shocked to hear this and widened his eyes, “Bleeding? Why were you bleeding?”
Only then did he realize that he forgot to ask why they came here, what happened yesterday, and who had abducted them. He only knew that after the fire in the Great Hall of Puning Temple was extinguished, cries of maidservants came from the back courtyard, saying that the two of them had been abducted by robbers.
Upon hearing this, the couples from the Xie and Li families were on the verge of fainting. They immediately mobilized all the servants to search the mountain all night without rest.
Even until this morning, they hadn’t found them. Unexpectedly, he managed to find them. Xie Zhen then recounted yesterday’s ordeal to him, and he listened, feeling both scared and admiring. He couldn’t fathom how they managed to get through it.
Gao Xun, both concerned and impressed, said to her, “You actually carried Yu’er on your back…”
Li Yu glanced at him but remained silent.
Gao Xun then asked, “Who were those people? Why did they want to kill you?”
Xie Zhen was puzzled about how she found out. “I don’t know… but there is a fierce person, and another person helped us. I don’t know what’s going on… they are clearly together!”
Before Gao Xun could ask anything else, the carriage had already reached the village entrance and joined with Master Gao’s carriage. Upon learning that Gao Xun had found the people, Master Gao breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the two children unharmed. He quickly instructed someone to inform everyone in the temple and to stop searching.
*
Returning to the Puning Temple, the Xie and Li families had already heard the news and hurried to the temple gate to welcome them.
Seeing a carriage from afar, before it reached them, Xie Zhen’s smiling face appeared, and she shouted from a distance, “Father, Mother!”
Madam Leng’s tears immediately flowed, overcome with joy.
These were truly two children who had faced many difficulties. Last time, they almost encountered danger when they got lost on the street. Now, even in the temple, they were almost kidnapped. Fortunately, they were found in time; otherwise, she didn’t know how she could continue living.
Before the carriage could fully stop, Xie Zhen couldn’t wait and rushed into Madam Leng’s arms, coquettishly saying, “Mother, I’m scared… someone wanted to kill us, and there were wolves too. Both me and Little Yu are very scared.”
Madam Leng had no idea what they had been through, but she immediately hugged Xie Zhen, comforting her, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, Mother is here to protect you…”
Yesterday, when Shuangyu mentioned that they were kidnapped by people in black, Xie Liqing immediately ordered an investigation into the identity of those people. However, they disappeared without a trace, leaving no clues. Now, a day and a night had passed, and there was still no lead.
Who would have a grudge against the children? Or was it because of the adults’ conflicts that someone sought revenge on the children?
Madam Leng pondered over it but still couldn’t figure it out. They had just arrived in Qingzhou, had not offended anyone, so why would someone want to harm them?
She forgot one thing: Xie Zhen was abducted in Li Yu’s room, and it was evident that those people’s target was Li Yu.
Xie Zhen was just implicated.
The Li couple was well aware of this fact. After taking Li Yu off the carriage and noticing his chest wound, Madam Song was both anxious and distressed. She held him and walked towards the backyard of the temple. “A doctor has been called to the backyard. Mother will take you to see him.”
Li Yu was tired and didn’t refuse, leaning on her shoulder. Looking back, he happened to see Xie Zhen, like a lost lamb, snuggling in Madam Leng’s arms, content and aggrieved.
In the backyard, the doctor unwrapped the bandage on his chest and reexamined the wound. The village’s medical practices were somewhat rudimentary, and the herbs were not finely ground, which was not conducive to healing wounds. The doctor prescribed two sets of medicines for internal and external use, instructing him to take them daily, avoid excessive movement, and reassured him that the not-too-deep wound would heal in about half a month.
Only then did Madam Song feel relieved. After seeing off the doctor, she sat on the bedside, holding Li Yu, lost in thought. The atmosphere in the room was somewhat heavy. Li Xiqing stood with his hands behind his back by the window, seemingly absorbed in his thoughts.
Li Yu moved in Song Shi’s embrace, lifting his head to ask, “Mother, what’s wrong?”
After a long while, Madam Song held him even tighter, her voice trembling. “Yu’er, what do those people who took you look like?”
Li Yu paused, “They had their faces covered; I didn’t see them.”
After a moment, Madam Song asked again, “What did they say?”
Li Yu struggled to recall. The two men in black hardly said anything during the journey, except for a few extra words when they attempted to kill him.
“He said someone wanted me dead…” Li Yu’s voice was dry, slowly recounting, “His accomplice mentioned that someone wanted to exterminate us completely…”
The more Madam Song listened, the more frightened she became, seeking help with her eyes towards Li Xiqing at the bedside.
Li Xiqing was also perplexed, unable to make sense of the situation. He frowned and said, “For now, stay at home and recuperate. Don’t go anywhere. As for these matters, leave them to me and your mother to handle.”
Li Yu couldn’t help but ask, “Father, who are they? Why do they want to kill me?”
Li Xiqing sighed and said, “It’s mostly the sins I committed in the past, unrelated to you. Don’t think too much about it. Rest well.”
Li Yu looked at him and nodded.
During this period, Madam Song and Li Xiqing kept a close watch on him. Coupled with the excuse of recovering from the injury, he was not allowed to step out of the house at all. Even the servants in the courtyard increased. Li Yu’s injury, though healed long ago, was publicly declared by Madam Song and Li Xiqing as still ailing, making him unavailable for public appearances.
Lying in bed during this time, Li Yu almost felt suffocated. Occasionally, he would remember the two dark braids of Xie Zhen in the farmhouse and the scene where she cried, pleading with him not to die.
He asked Madam Song, “Can I go to the Xie family?”
Madam Song replied, “Ah Zhen is also shocked; let’s wait a while before going.”
He didn’t say anything more.
As winter approached, he had only met Xie Zhen once, and it was during Xie Liqing’s birthday celebration. Xie Zhen didn’t have the chance to talk to him; she just smiled at him from a distance and was taken away by Madam Leng.
As the weather grew colder day by day, after a heavy snowfall, the entire Qingzhou city was covered in a silver-white blanket.
On this day, Li Yu was sitting in the corridor, leaning against the fireplace, reading a book. On the other side of the wall, there were the lively laughter and bickering of Xie Zhen and Xie Xian, making it impossible for him to concentrate. Just as he was thinking of protesting from below, a maid came and called him, “Young Master, Madam and Miss have arrived.”
Li Yu instinctively frowned, clearly not pleased.
The maid added, “Madam invites you to the main hall.”
Knowing he couldn’t avoid it, he reluctantly dropped the book and followed the maid at a slow pace.
Just as he arrived at the hall and before entering, a seven or eight-year-old girl rushed out from inside. She was wearing a silver-red embroidered short jacket and a pleated gauze skirt. Her voice was cheerful and loud, “Cousin, you finally came!”
Li Yu stepped back several times, almost being knocked to the ground by her.
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