Chapter 39: Liu Cangyun

Huashi Town, Xiqiao Village.

East of the village, Liu Zheng’s home.

Liu Xia hurriedly pushed open the wooden door of the house. Before entering the main hall, he shouted: “Father, Father.”

Liu Shi was feeding chickens in the fence outside the courtyard at this time. Suddenly hearing the shouting, her hand trembled, and the wild vegetables in the winnowing basket all fell to her feet. The hens gathered around her to peck at the food, and her embroidered shoes were trampled back and forth by the hens, leaving several large footprints.

Liu Shi stretched out her foot and kicked over a nearby hen. She put down the winnowing basket and walked fiercely from inside the fence to Liu Xia.

She stretched out her calloused hand and slapped her younger son on the head.

She opened her mouth and scolded: “You money-losing boy, I told you to go to the small river to wash clothes, but you didn’t even bring back the wooden basin. You enter the house recklessly, shouting loudly. Be careful if your mother is not at home, otherwise… it would be another severe beating.”

As she scolded, she stretched out her hand, about to teach him a lesson.

Liu Xia jumped to avoid his father’s big hand. His eyes rolled, and he hugged his father’s waist, coquettishly saying: “Father, please don’t blame me. I have an urgent matter, that’s why I rushed home. I asked Lihua to watch the clothes in the wooden basin!”

Liu Shi turned his head and looked over suspiciously. His younger son’s personality took after him, fond of joining in the excitement and quick-witted since childhood.

Looking carefully, seeing his anxious expression now, it didn’t seem fake.

He patted the weeds off his hands and said softly: “Tell me then.”

Liu Xia’s black eyes rolled. He stood on tiptoe, glanced around, and seeing no one around, he leaned close to Liu Shi’s ear and whispered.

Liu Shi’s eyes grew wider and wider, her voice involuntarily raised: “You say that dissolute man he he he… ran away with someone…”

“Shh! Dad, lower your voice, walls have ears.” Liu Xia vigilantly looked around again and again, closed the wooden door, turned to his father and nodded heavily.

A complex look flashed in Liu Shi’s eyes. He said in a low voice: “Is Liu Changning alone at home now?”

Seeing his younger son nod, his round eyes full of expectation.

Liu Shi slapped him on the head, but this time the force of the blow was not heavy. He said impatiently: “Tell me, what crooked idea do you have this time?”

Liu Xia covered his head, grimacing, one hand holding Liu Shi’s arm and said: “Dad, I don’t have any crooked ideas. I’m just seeking justice for you and mom for being seriously injured last time! Now that the dissolute man in my elder cousin’s family has run away with someone, he must have left a lot of good things for cousin. Cousin has always been weak, no matter what she’s no match for you and mom. That day she insulted you and mom, we should definitely seek an explanation.”

—

On the second day after her cheap husband left, Liu Changning tucked a stack of banknotes in her clothes and left Luoshui Village in the morning dew.

When she left, it was still early, and the whole village was quiet without anyone around.

The household registration management of the Golden Phoenix Dynasty was not strict. To enter and exit the city gates, one only needed to pay the entry fee to smoothly enter various counties.

Because she absorbed the essence of the sun and moon every day, her appearance would become more and more like her features in her first life. Therefore, Liu Changning did not intend to continue using the original body’s household registration.

On one hand, her appearance had changed, and considering that she would enter the imperial court in the future, if someone with ulterior motives investigated carefully, it would be one more worry.

She planned to travel around the Golden Phoenix Dynasty for a year, and when her appearance was fully restored, it would be much easier to find a house in the southern states and counties and handle the household registration.

Liu Changning was very organized in her actions and had already drawn up the travel route earlier.

At this moment, leaving Xiqiao Village was according to plan, but when she stepped out of the village entrance, her footsteps paused.

She remembered the night a few days ago when a man climbed to her bedside and asked: “If you wait for me… when I return, will you marry me?”

As a pair of hopeful peach blossom eyes flashed through her mind, Liu Changning’s heart tightened. Such a pair of eyes made her feel familiar yet strange.

But if she tried to recall carefully, she couldn’t grasp any memory at all.

In recent days, her cheap husband would look at her with loving eyes, and she occasionally had an absurd sense of familiarity.

Sometimes a pair of sad, pleading eyes and desperate cries would pop up in her mind.

Vaguely, it seemed someone was reminding her, had she forgotten some people, or some things?

But she had lived three lives, almost every frame of memory was vivid, how could she forget?

Liu Changning reached out and knocked on her forehead, knocking the momentary hesitation out of her mind, and turned to walk into the country road.

The world is so big, if there is fate, they will meet again. That night he begged her in a near-crying tone not to keep him, and she fulfilled his wish.

But if when they meet again, he can still give her a vague sense of familiarity, perhaps she should investigate carefully.

It was as if there was a grave at the bottom of her heart, howling to break through the earth, but she didn’t understand yet.

She didn’t know why it started, nor when it would end.

—

On the night Liu Changning left, there was a sudden fire in the old house in the west of the village.

Autumn leaves covered the ground, and the fire spread quickly.

The next morning, when the village head and the strong women of the village came, they could only see the ruins burned to ashes.

All the women present rolled up their sleeves to search for people, searched through the ruins, and even searched in the town, but they never found a peasant woman named Liu Changning.

The women in the village knew that the poor female monarch of the Liu family had died in the raging fire that night.

That day, the Liu Zheng family’s wooden door was closed, and no one in the family participated in the search for their elder niece.

Liu Zheng trembled as he held a letter of recommendation. This letter was one of the good things they found when he and his wife sneaked into the old house in the west of the village that day and searched through their elder niece’s entire courtyard.

With such a letter of recommendation, their only daughter, Dong’er, could go to the best academy in Jinling City, Yude Academy.

It was said that students who entered Yude Academy were either rich or noble, and their future prospects were promising.

Liu Shi was thoughtful. After the two stole this letter as precious as gold, she instigated her wife-master to set a fire and burn down the old house.