The following days were as uneventful as water, and I was used to being alone all the time.
It's just that every time late at night, I can't sleep peacefully. I can only fall asleep by sitting in the study and looking at the portrait of Yue'er hanging on the wall.
Later, for many days, I slept on the couch in the study room, opened the window, and there were flowers of different seasons on the windowsill, all of which were Yue'er's favorite.
Yue'er likes flowers very much, and even the maids around her are named after various flowers, but she couldn't touch the flowers in the past and could only look at them from a distance.
When the weather is good, I can still see the bright moon through the window.
When I see the moon, my desolate heart and numb spirit will bloom with a little joy.
Time flows slowly like water. Every day is the same to me. Everyone is moving forward. Tomorrow is a new expectation for them.
Only I am still stuck in the past, stuck in the memory where Yue'er is still there.
Even though I have grown old with time, I accidentally saw myself in the bronze mirror and could still see the stubborn young man from the past.
Apart from my appearance, I don't want to make any changes in my heart, as if I change, Yue'er will not recognize me next time.
I was pushed forward by time, but there were no people on this road, and I could never remember the faces of the people around me. I knew that the end of this road was Yue'er.
Year after year, day after day, what remains unchanged is the heavy snowfall in the capital. When the snow melts, it will be another spring day with flowers in full bloom.
Every year Yue Chao and Xiao Lie would stay with me for some time. Later, Yue Chao and Xiao Lie had more and more children. As the Queen of Salo, she would start to teach the next Lord of Salo. Xiao Lie, as Beiyuan's Piao,
The cavalry general also has to patrol the borders from time to time to train new soldiers and generals.
Although they don't come often, they still send letters from time to time.
Yue Chao inherited Yue'er's consistent style of writing letters, and preferred to draw on them, but no one else had a painting style similar to Yue'er's.
Yuexi was taken by Xu Yunjing to travel around the world. This delicate and shy little girl also wrote a lot of letters to me. She also wrote down and drew what she saw and heard on the road, and compiled a chronicle of the countries.
Clearly drawn maps and interesting customs of various countries.
Yuexi grew up in Baicao Valley, received the true inheritance from the master, and also has good medical skills.
She and Xu Yunjing traveled all the way to treat diseases and save people. Every time they encountered some difficult diseases and special patients, Yuexi would record them.
She would actively look for children with congenital diseases and provide them with free medical treatment. If they were from poor families, she would take them to Baicao Valley for treatment. She spent her life fighting against these congenital diseases.
Even if these congenital diseases could not be cured later, they could prolong the lifespan of these patients. Patients with heart diseases can live up to fifty years old. This made her and Xu Yunjing become the miracle doctors of the world, and they also carried forward Baicao Valley.
, there are peaches and plums all over the world.
Yue'an still often traveled between the capital and Hanzhou in her early years. Later, she also had a child of her own, and Xiang Chong also wanted to return to Hanzhou's ancestral land to succeed the patriarch, so Yue'an and her family settled in Hanzhou.
But every Mid-Autumn Festival and Lantern Festival she must come back to the capital to spend it with me.
When I entered my twilight years, Yue'an often wanted to take me to Hanzhou to retire, but I couldn't beat her, so I stayed with her for two years.
Although Hanzhou is covered in ice and snow, there are many warm springs where Yue'an and the others live. Many out-of-season flowers and plants bloom beside the warm springs, which is quite new.
There are ice rinks everywhere in Hanzhou. The children here are natural skating and hunting experts. Several children in Yue'an have dared to take a group of domesticated wolf dogs out to hunt since they were young, watching them fly freely on the ice.
, I feel happy in my heart.
Whether it is the children who live in Hanzhou during the month of peace, or the children who spend the morning and evening at the border of the desert, they are much freer and happier than our generation.
The children of Yue'er are all living a very good and happy life.
After living in Hanzhou for two years, I was picked up by Yue Xi and Yue Chao and lived with them for two years.
Later, I returned to the capital. I couldn't worry about leaving the Duke's Mansion, nor could I worry about Yue'er.
I promised my three children to follow them for retirement, just because I wanted to see with my own eyes how they were doing. Seeing that everything was fine with them, I felt relieved.
I did what I promised and protected them from growing up well.
Now that they have happy families and children of their own, I can go back with peace of mind.
After returning to the Duke's Mansion, I stood at the gate and said to the empty door as before: "Yue'er, second brother is back."
In these years, Xiao Qilin managed Beiyuan very well and raised the threshold for becoming an official in the court. Those useless sycophants were screened out layer by layer. Beiyuan reached a real prosperous age during his reign.
Many of the previous restrictions on our Xiao family have gradually disappeared, and little Qilin secretly wants me to return to Yunzhou for retirement.
My eldest brother, my third brother, and others often send me letters asking me to go back so that we can reunite as a family.
But how can I let go of this place that holds so many memories of Yue'er? I have been stubborn all my life and I can't let go.
In my old age, my health became worse and worse. After returning from Yuexi, I fell ill within half a year.
Obviously I was still very healthy before. When Yuexi diagnosed me with Ping'an Pulse, she smiled and said that I am a sixty-year-old man who is as healthy as a man in his early forties.
This disease comes at once without any warning.
Yuexi learned the news and ran to the capital, saying that she would take me back to Baicao Valley for treatment and retirement, and that I would not be allowed to stay in the capital anymore.
Yue'er's three children have reached the age of becoming mothers and have seen many things clearly. They have long known why a stubborn old man like me always stays at the Duke's Mansion and refuses to allow anyone to repair it. I'm afraid.
Once repaired, the memory belonging to Yue'er will be gone.
Yue Xi couldn't persuade me, and Yue Chao, who had the most bad temper, came to the capital and wanted to kidnap me even if I was kidnapped.
When I was young, I was a stubborn boy, but now I am a stubborn old man, who is harder to persuade than when I was young.
I lay on the couch and laughed looking at Yue Chao's angry look.
Now Yue Chao is nearly forty years old, but she still looks young and beautiful, which also shows that she has been mostly happy and joyful in this half of her life, without too much sorrow.
Maybe when Yue'er reaches forty, she will look like Yue Chao.
I originally wanted to hold on until my three children are older. Even older, I want to watch them look like middle-aged and old people, so that I can also know what Yue'er will be like at this age.
Looks like it.
But seeing them well, I couldn't wait to leave and see Yue'er as soon as possible.
When the three children couldn't persuade me to go to Baicao Valley, bad news came from Baicao Valley again.
Que Wu was about to die, so he asked the children to go back quickly to see him for the last time.
Que Wu had been ill two years earlier and had been living with Yue Xi in the Baicao Valley, in the small courtyard where he and Yue'er had lived for more than ten years.
During the year that Yuexi and I lived, we lived together with this old guy. He occupied the best room in the yard and refused to let me live at any cost.
Isn't it the house where he and Yue'er live? There's nothing to show off.
When I got old, I was still secretly competing with Que Wu. Even if he died, he wanted to die before me, for fear that I would see Yue'er before him.
Before Yue walked towards them, she looked at me and sighed helplessly: "You guys, you have to fight even to the death, right?"
Yuexi, who was already in her thirties and almost forty, still couldn't help her crying temperament. She wiped away her tears and said: "Obviously my father was fine when I came here. He must have known that you were seriously ill, uncle, so he couldn't."
Already."
I glared at them: "It's up to me, why don't you go back and see that old thing for the last time."
The three children were hesitant on their faces because they were afraid that they would go back to see Que Wu for the last time and that they would not be able to see me for the last time.
Que Wu and I are the two closest and most important elders to them.
I promised them: "Go back quickly, I'll wait for you to come back."
After hearing my promise, the three children went back with peace of mind.
Because they knew that their second uncle would never break his promise.
But this time, I'm afraid I will disappoint them. Que Wu is leaving, and I don't want to stay in this world anymore.
I've been on guard long enough.
As soon as Yue walked towards them, I went to Yunlu Mountain.
There are many people in Yunlu Mountain no matter what time of year, and the guards carefully protected me as I walked to the blessing tree that was hundreds of years old.
I found the dozens of wooden plaques that my aunt used to pray for Yue'er. Next to them were the wooden plaques that I wrote every year. Over the past decades, I had accumulated dozens of wooden plaques.
Now, I wrote the last wooden prayer sign and hung it up with some difficulty.
I knelt in front of the Buddha and prayed to the cold statue.
I don't know what to pray for, but every time I kneel down, I see the moon in my heart.
Gods and Buddhas, please let me be selfish for a moment. Let me see Yue'er again and hug her again...
On the seventh day after Yue Chao returned to them, I looked at the blood I coughed out in my hands, put on the clothes I wore when I was young, and made myself neat and tidy.
Looking at the white-haired old man in the mirror, I felt very strange.
Can Yue'er still recognize my appearance?
As I looked at it, the old man in the mirror turned into what I looked like when I was young, the young man named Xiao Xuanan.
I laughed and dragged my frail body slowly towards the small courtyard where Yue'er and I once lived.
Yue'er has been waiting for me for a long time.
"Second brother, you are here!"
I stood at the door of the small courtyard, and suddenly I saw Yue'er looking at me from the window, and she ran out of the house excitedly.
Seeing her made my numb heart beat again.
"Second brother, I've been waiting for you for a long time, why did you just come?" Yue'er stood at the door and said coquettishly.
Her unique soft voice, I will never forget it even after decades.
Looking at the people appearing and disappearing in front of me, I stepped in.