Chapter 275

Liu Su'e shook her head, indicating she didn't know. In her life, except for encountering ghost entanglement when she passed by the old garden in the West Market, she had never encountered other strange things, let alone gods and witches.

Xu Qing asked her to think carefully. Liu Su'e frowned and pondered for a long time, and finally her eyes lit up: "When I was at the Water Gate Bridge inn, several rogues broke into my room, spoke rudely, and intended to be unruly. But at the critical moment, a flying head with long hair covering its face flew in and threw those rogues down the building."

"Now that I think about it, it might have been the opera ghost who helped, maybe it was the Little Four they were talking about..."

"..."

Xu Qing was speechless. The opera ghost Liu Su'e mentioned could indeed be counted as one in a sense, but it was definitely not Little Four. Who else could it be besides the Embroiderer who knew the head-cutting immortality technique?

"Boss Liu, I'd better ask more directly. Have you ever encountered a strange willow tree before, or experienced something related to a willow tree?"

The willow tree is a five-ghost tree. There was a willow forest where the fake Overlord was buried in the West Market opera garden, and this Boss Liu is also surnamed Liu, so Xu Qing couldn't help but think more.

"Willow tree?"

Liu Su'e was stunned for a moment, and memories sealed for many years surged into her heart...

That was an old thing from ten years ago.

Ten years ago, Pear Garden Opera House.

Su'e, this girl, was an orphan picked up by the opera troupe.

She learned opera since she was a child, her voice was clear, and her footwork was agile. There were many orphans in the troupe, and they all lived together, with no proper parents, and were usually looked after by the actors in the opera garden.

The opera troupe had performances from time to time. When there were many guests, the disciples who learned opera and practiced in the Pear Garden would be ordered to stop, so as not to disturb the performance in the garden.

Su'e loved singing opera and liked quietness. When the troupe leader and actors didn't let them practice, the children who lived in the same courtyard played wildly everywhere. Su'e couldn't play with them and wanted to practice. Over time, she developed a strange habit, which was to go to the Tanggu River, find a place where no one was around on the river bank full of willows, and hang her throat to practice opera, for the sake of quietness.

It's strange to say. Su'e hadn't been practicing at the Tanggu River for two days when there was an extra listener under the old willow tree. It was a thin old lady with bright eyes.

Whenever Su'e came, the old lady stood under the willow tree, leaning on a cane, listening with fascination.

After Su'e finished singing a paragraph, the old lady would savor it for a long time, as if she could taste the flavor.

But Su'e knew that she was just an apprentice now. Although she sang quite well, compared to a real big name, she was still far behind!

She felt that the old lady definitely wasn't waiting here to listen to the opera because she sang well...

After this situation lasted for three or four days, Su'e couldn't hold back first. She came to the old lady and started chatting with her.

However, the old lady was confused and didn't know anything.

She didn't know her surname, and she didn't know where she lived.

She did have children and grandchildren, a whole bunch of them, but unfortunately, none of them were promising, and none of them were "capable," and no one listened to her nagging.

The old lady was like a lonely widow, with a belly full of words and nowhere to pour them. She said that in the past few years, this was the most she had talked.

A little girl without parents and an old lady without children met under the old willow tree.

Su'e had a soft heart. Seeing the old lady lonely, she would go to accompany her when she had time. On weekdays, she would take the copper coins she saved in her purse, buy soft pastries suitable for the elderly to chew, and occasionally stuff a few pieces to the old lady.

The wrinkles on the old lady's face unfolded with a smile.

Later, Su'e's singing skills improved, and she began to learn to sing the martial female role. This kind of martial female role sometimes requires a "horse whip" that is handy to do gestures.

Su'e came out to hang her throat and practice opera, where did she get a horse whip?

Once, she was practicing and just used the posture of waving the whip to urge the horse, but there was no handy prop in her hand.

The old lady watched her practice without disturbing her. When Su'e came to practice again the next day, the old lady had an extra emerald green horse whip in her hand. The horse whip was woven from thin and flexible willow branches, which would not dry in the wind and would not soften in the rain. I don't know what method the old lady used to process it.

Su'e took the willow whip and shook it with wind. It was truly a posture of urging a horse! It was much stronger than a fake whip made of silk cloth, and it was enough to urge a real horse!

After Su'e got used to it, this willow whip became her favorite.

Days passed one by one. Over time, the affection between the old and the young became more and more intense.

A lonely old woman, a lonely actor, although they didn't kowtow and offer tea to worship as godmother and daughter, the intimacy was no different from mother and daughter.

Under the old willow tree, it gradually became a piece of intimate soil that they both couldn't bear to leave.

One day, the old lady's expression was different from usual. After listening to a new opera Su'e sang, she said for no reason: "Girl, this old woman, my time is running out, and this fate is about to end. Don't worry. Life and death are an empty dream. Just treat it as if you were tired from practicing and fell asleep under the willow tree, having a dream..."

Su'e felt sour in her nose. She had no father or mother, and it was not easy to meet someone who was not a relative but better than a relative. How could she let go easily?

"Grandma, your children and grandchildren are unreliable. Why don't you go with me in the future? I will support you. I can sing opera and earn silver to support you for your old age."

The old lady looked at the girl crying and couldn't bear it in her heart. Finally, she sighed and said: "Silly child, if I could go, that would be fine. Besides, even if I could go now, I have to have time..."

"Grandma, don't say this in the future. If Grandma doesn't want to, even if it's thunder and rain, as long as it's a sunny day, I will come to visit Grandma."

The old lady was moved, but she couldn't say it. Finally, she reached out and rubbed Su'e's head, smiling: "What if you can't see me one day?"

Seeing Su'e's eyes red again, the old lady hurriedly said: "You are like my goddaughter. I won't see anyone, but I can't not see you."

"But then again, there is no banquet in the world that doesn't end. If you come over one day and don't see me under this tree, you take out that willow whip and return to this place, to this old willow tree. There is something I left for my goddaughter under the tree."

After saying this, the old lady patted Su'e's hand and said no more.

Later, Su'e went to the Tanggu River to accompany the old lady to chat and relieve boredom for half a month, and gradually Su'e forgot what the old lady had told her.

Until one day, the weather that had been sunny for half a month changed suddenly, and seven or eight days of heavy rain fell, the river rose, and the embankment was flooded.

Su'e was worried about the old lady, but she couldn't get over, anxious as anything. After waiting for the sky to clear and the river to recede, she rushed to the old place.

The willow trees on the river embankment were still there, but the place where the old lady often sat was empty. Looking up carefully, that lush old willow tree that shaded the sun was already charred!

The tree trunk, thick enough for three or five people to hug, was split by thunder and fire, and only a small charred stake was left, standing alone in the middle of the willow forest.

Su'e didn't know why, but her heart skipped a beat, as if she had lost something most important.

She asked someone, and some said that the willow tree was struck by a thunderbolt from the sky a few days ago, splitting this old tree that didn't know how many years it had lived.

But what about the old lady? She was neither seen alive nor dead.

Su'e asked all over the city, and no one recognized this person, as if she had evaporated into thin air.

Since then, Su'e seemed to have lost her soul, and she was in no mood to practice. Until a month later, when her spirit was slightly better, she came to the Tanggu River to practice and live again.

After hanging her throat and singing half a fold of opera, when it was her turn to practice the martial female role, she didn't have a handy horse whip in her hand.

Only then did Su'e suddenly remember what the old lady had told her.

The Pear Garden Opera House was on the long street south of the Tanggu River. Su'e was anxious, ran back to the opera garden in one breath, opened the opera box, and took out the willow whip that had always been properly preserved.

Su'e held the willow whip that had always been well preserved and returned to the charred willow tree stake.

Her heart was empty, and she couldn't help but shout: "Godmother, where have you gone!"

Su'e's voice carried a crying tone, miserable and frightened.

However, before she could grieve too much, she saw a green light the size of a fist floating up from under the burnt tree stake, moist and dripping, revealing an indescribable spiritual rhyme.

Su'e didn't understand, but the green light flashed suddenly, "whoosh," and went straight into the willow whip in Su'e's hand.

Immediately after, before Su'e could wake up, the willow whip that had accompanied her for a long time suddenly dissolved, like "fine sand" with emerald green light blowing through the Gobi, scattering from her fingers and disappearing completely.

Su'e looked at her empty hands and looked at the charred tree stake. The wind blew, and not a trace was left.

At this moment, she suddenly understood something, and the gray fog that had been covering her heart dissipated.

From that day on, on the roster of the opera troupe's performances, before "Su'e," she added a word neatly—"Liu."

Liu Su'e.

This name had roots, had her old godmother, and had the feeling of home she had never tasted.

After hearing Liu Su'e's past, Xu Qing roughly understood what the willow tree shadow on her was.