Chapter 653: Everyone Loves Butterflies, Who Would Love a Fly? (Part 4)

Moonlight sprinkled on the pear blossoms, and the smell of blood permeated the spring night.

The round plate fell into sharp broken porcelain all over the floor. The Qilin children were all sitting quietly at their own tables. It was late at night, and it seemed somewhat quiet and cold. Li Chen wrapped his robe around Li Cannan, and the two leaned against each other. Besides Qu Xin, there was no one else beside them.

Qilin fire was indeed a divine and strange fire of the world. The poison patterns on Li Cannan's neck visibly dissipated, and his breathing gradually stabilized. His pale complexion was mostly covered by makeup, and his whole person looked no different from an ordinary person.

The soup flowed past under the porcelain pieces. After looking at it for a long time, it was like a small white boat, floating on the turbid sewage, but it couldn't move at all.

Meng'er lowered her head with a gray and desolate gaze.

After maintaining a posture for a long time, the body would disappear, but she couldn't feel the consciousness that should have remained either.

She didn't know what she had done in this hour just now, nor did she know what she had done in these four years just now. The body that couldn't stand up, covered in wounds, meaningless despair, silent tinnitus... it seemed as if she had returned to the day she fell and couldn't stand up.

That night in the Qing Si Palace was also this quiet. After Her Highness returned and saw her fallen on the ground, she didn't get angry, just silently helped her back to the bed, lit a lamp, carefully cleaned and applied medicine for her, and finally buried her head in her bosom, sobbing in a low voice.

She forever remembered Her Highness's whispering: "I'm sorry... Sister Meng'er... I didn't protect you well."

—"Meng'er, you are the elder sister, take care of Long'er more in the future; Long'er, you are the princess, protect Meng'er well in the future."

She remembered this sentence deeply, and Her Highness had also always remembered it. Every fire of Her Highness was sent to her.

At that moment, Meng'er very much wanted to tell Her Highness who was in her bosom about the flowers growing in her eyes, but the sharp, painful wound choked her throat. She decided never to say this matter again, and guarded the trace of favor dropped by the Ming Ming Niangniang with great care.

She held this favor in her bosom for four years, and only now did she know how ridiculous she was.

Pei my lord was right, she was truly a fool.

How long had the Ming Ming Niangniang been on the throne herself? Now twenty-three years had passed.

A sword would rust if left for twenty-three years. How could the edicts of the previous dynasty be valid in the current dynasty? Those maids of the Ming Ming Niangniang back then had all disappeared. Who would still foolishly believe in a promise that had long been covered in dust?

That Ming Ming Niangniang had long since passed away, leaving only a withered skeleton. The miracles and glory she spread had all been buried in time. Only she still thought she was holding this remaining flower and calling out to her, and could still get some response.

However, she could be considered to have done a good thing by being like this. It was better than fifty years later, when some other poor person touched this bundle of false hope.

When the foolish thoughts drifted here, tears flowed down from her eyes again... She had committed such a crime, she must be going to die. She was very afraid of death, but dying at this time seemed like a kind of relief... as long as it wasn't too painful.

It was just that what she couldn't think about was... Her Highness could no longer leave this place, so after she died, would the candles in the Qing Si Palace never light up again?

When thinking of this, she seemed to feel her body again. Heat, burning, pain, and fatigue surged up all at once. She suddenly wanted to fall before the Ming Ming Niangniang's seat and beg her to spare her life... any punishment would do, as long as she could keep her life to accompany Her Highness.

But at the same time, she felt very tired. Those emotions and thoughts seemed to be separated in another world. She lowered her head without expression, and didn't want to move either.

Then her arm was gripped, tightly until it hurt. The hard coldness made her tremble. Only then did she hear the sound of armor plates behind her. Her whole person was lifted up, and only her toes could touch the ground.

The cold male voice behind her seemed very close, and seemed very far away: "Obeying the Ming Ming Niangniang's decree, now taking the criminal woman to the forbidden prison for interrogation."

A cold, indifferent, and somewhat tired "Hmm" came from above.

Since the banquet field quieted down, this was the first time Meng'er raised her head. Besides the two smashed tables, the rest of the people were sitting quietly in their seats, saying nothing and looking at nothing.

She suddenly had a strange thought... This was not a real world. This was just a painting. People wouldn't make chain reactions following sudden events. She didn't ignite any fuse, she just dirtied a corner of this painting, so the other places were still clean.

After she and these broken wood and broken plates were cleaned up, this painting would be repaired, new paper added, new colors added, and this family banquet could continue to serve food, warm words and laughter, until returning after the fun in the spring night.

This thought was like a gurgling, endless spring, quickly spreading through her mind, and then she discovered that everything she looked at carried a layer of dry, papery texture—the fresh, moist pear blossoms were just two or three strokes of white powder dried there, the light skirts were smudged pastels, the children's colors were newer, the adults' colors were older, as if faded, and their expressions would never change; they were drawn however they were drawn...

Really interesting, she thought in a daze.

No wonder... it turned out that everything she had always seen was someone else's painting. She was also living in someone else's painting. How could she imagine digging out things that people hadn't painted from the painting?

She raised her head, and the moon in the sky also became a dry ball of white. The night curtain was soaked by black ink and then dried and wrinkled, dark and old, without the slightest color... She couldn't breathe, and lowered her head trembling.

The whole world... was a painting.

It was about this time that she heard a distant and faint voice: "Just send Youlong to marry. I took Father Emperor's handwritten edict."

A vermilion long skirt swayed slightly in the spring night. She stood in the field with her mask removed. Her complexion was as white as paper, but it wasn't paper. Her left half of her body was stained with many pieces of blood, spotted, but those colors were very real, without the feeling of being painted.

She was a... real person, Meng'er thought inexplicably.

The people in the painting all looked at her. This sentence also seemed like it shouldn't have appeared in the painting.

Li Huang's gaze stopped on her. Li Yujin turned his head fiercely. Li Chen, Li Cannan, the remaining princes, concubines, all looked at her in shock. This painting seemed to start to crack. Meng'er heard the sound of paper and silk tearing. Everyone's gaze was cast on that red dress, and there was another kind of dead silence at the table.

This demonic fire in the palace, everyone saw it and avoided it, always wandering on the edge of the Great Ming Palace. She seemed to never care about things in the palace, and things in the palace never asked about her. The only offspring left by the Ming Ming Niangniang, in the eyes of many people, she was even separated outside the so-called "princes and princesses", like an ambiguous identity, a homeless person. For so many years, the Great Ming Palace had indeed avoided highlighting her existence.

At the same time, no one dared to disturb that Sage on matters that the Zichen Hall didn't intervene in. Even if it was a mess of cups and plates and blades wounding people, it was only a matter of the harem. For more than twenty years, it had always been like this.

"Didn't you hear?" Li Xizhou repeated hoarsely. "I said, just send Youlong to marry. I asked Li Yao."

Her voice was very light and cold. Her waist and back were held very straight, so Meng'er felt she was like a ball of fire at this time, and then she saw her turn around and walk toward herself.

Just send Youlong to marry... what did that mean?

Meng'er felt she regained her consciousness, but her brain didn't seem to turn. She stared in a daze at the red color walking toward her. She really seemed to be a ball of fire, so the painting paper where she walked was burned away, curled up in a charred manner, exposing the real world.

"Put her down." She stood before her and said.

The power of control on her arm disappeared, and she was put down and knelt on the ground again.

This red dress didn't squat down, just looked down at her. Meng'er raised her head and saw the white powder moon hanging beside her shoulder, which was also burned away by the red fire, revealing a fresh and real appearance.

Then a dreamlike color appeared in her field of vision. It was the woman bending down and handing it down to her, like willow leaves, like cicada wings, white, light mist-like silk ribbons, a dark blue flower swaying quietly before her eyes... It was not only not a dry painting, but even fresher than reality, simply like it was picked from a fairyland.

... How could there be such a beautiful flower in the human world? Unless it grew from a dream.

In an instant, this color spread. Her body regained sensation. Only then did Meng'er realize what she had just heard.

Tears rolled down from her face: "Jin, Jinyang Highness, is what you said true... I, I am so happy... As long as Your Highness can get married, I, I will die without regrets."

"No one needs to die, and you don't need to either." Li Xizhou said flatly, like reading an edict.

"..."

"This is Luoshen's promise. Because you got the flower, you can leave here." She said proudly. ===== CHAPTER 654 =====