No pop-up ads, so refreshing! Thanks for your support! Sounds good to me ^_^... Chapter 95

  He used a dagger to slash his own fingers, and the warm liquid dripped slowly onto my left arm, where the phoenix painted with cinnabar was.

  In my hand, I hold a piece of gauze soaked in Dom Pérignon and safflower liquid, slowly and gently wiping it off bit by bit.

  The warmth and icy sensation made my skin tremble uncontrollably, just like my bewildered and helpless heart at this moment.

  As the alchemical cinnabar's mark gradually faded away, I looked at the clear crescent moon imprint on my arm, and the shock I felt when I first heard it was gone, only a daze, an unprecedented daze.

  "When I saved you that year, your face was scratched by thorns and sharp stones, only the crescent-shaped birthmark on your arm remained intact because it was protected by clothing."

  "You saved me just because of this birthmark on my forehead?" I didn't look at him, but opened my mouth in a daze.

  "Yes." After a moment, he spoke quietly: "At the time, you were badly injured, and I didn't have enough life-saving medicine on hand. All I could do was use 'Painting Eyebrows Like Frost' to temporarily stabilize your pulse, then rush to Evil Doctor Valley. You were unconscious the whole way, which shouldn't have been possible judging from your pulse. The longer it took for you to wake up, the smaller the chances of you waking up at all. After exhausting all my medical skills and medicines without effect, I realized that this was your own problem - your heart didn't want to wake up. I should have given up, but I had promised Master, so no matter what, I had to save you."

  I didn't say anything, I just listened as his voice faintly came over.

  "It was actually much easier than I imagined, just one word 'Qīn ér' - at that time I held your hand and kept calling your name. Later you opened your eyes and didn't remember anything, but it was undoubtedly this name that pulled you back from the gates of hell."

  I quietly looked at him and asked: "You call me like this because you know who I am?"

  "It's not a trivial matter to change dynasties, and although your face is ruined, the tattered wedding dress on your body and the new moon-shaped birthmark on your arm are enough for me to know your identity. Moreover, there are also the officials and soldiers who have been searching for you all along." He paused for a moment before continuing: "When I was at Sword Brow Mountain, I heard him call you that."

  My heart suddenly ached and I naturally understood who Su Xiu was referring to with her ambiguous words.

  From just now until now, I deliberately didn't let myself think about it, deliberately ignored it, but it's not that simple, ignoring it can't erase it.

  Su Xiu's words made my thoughts drift away uncontrollably. Mount Li and Mount Mei were adjacent to each other, and on that day, unable to resist her persistence, he secretly took her out of the hot spring palace, riding horses through the snow, all the way to Mount Mei, where they met Su Xiu. He dueled with him, while she watched from the side, her heart and eyes filled with deep emotions.

  It's ridiculous, I've been worried about it for so long, and the person I've been concerned about all along is actually myself. Shouldn't I be relieved and happy?

  But why, why is there such complex emotions deep down, with a sorrow so deep and heavy that it's almost suffocating me.

  And all of this, everything, is so unreal, just like a absurd dream, and Su Xiu's voice continues to echo in the dream.

  "When we arrived at the Evil Doctor Valley, we met the real Murong Qing. In the carriage, there was also Shu Ying who was desperately protecting her. She wasn't seriously injured, but if I hadn't helped her, she wouldn't have survived. I wanted her identity as a diagnostic fee, and if she wanted to live this life, she could only be someone else. She agreed, so I placed her alone in the Sangli Pavilion until she recovered, then used refined gold cinnabar mixed with Guardian Wall Tiger Blood to dot a tear mole under her eye, making it impossible for her to remove her veil for the rest of her life. I sent someone to escort her out of the valley and didn't bother to find out where she went afterwards. It wasn't until several years later that the number one dancer in Southern Dynasty, Sang Muqing, became famous, that I realized she had arrived at the Worry-Free Pavilion in the capital. That was also when I let Lian Xin leave the valley to go to her side."

  "Qingxin?" I muttered to myself, suddenly thinking of the green-clad maid who never left Sang Muqing's side.

  "If she can tell you all this, then Lian Xin must be gone from this world." Su Xiuzhen's gaze turned towards the horizon as she spoke slowly.

  "Why?" I took a deep breath, stood up and stared at him steadily: "Why did you have to do this?"

  He didn't look at me, instead gazing out the window as he spoke in a soft tone: "Since you don't want to recall the past, I'll give you new memories and a new identity. As the second Miss of the Murong family, you'll be set for life without worries. You and Murong Qing already bear some resemblance, especially in your eyes, so I used the Jade Bone Cream to alter your appearance to resemble hers. It's only similar, not identical; otherwise, I wouldn't have added a beauty mark under her eye. Later, when people from the Murong family came looking for you, I told them that you were injured in the fall and changed your appearance. They didn't see you again until three years later, when you were twelve years old. A young girl's face changes naturally over time, so it wasn't suspicious with the addition of a shadowy figure and the jade pendant Murong Qing wore on the day she fell off the cliff. In their eyes, I didn't need to lie."

  His lips curled into a self-mocking arc, still not looking at me, his voice rose faintly: "At that time I was just for the sake of my predecessor's will, and didn't think too much about it. It was like when I saved Murong Qing back then, I wouldn't have gone back on my word. But if it were today, I absolutely wouldn't have spared her life."

  I couldn't sort out my chaotic thoughts, took a deep breath, once, twice, but ultimately just closed my eyes dejectedly: "She was the real Murong Qing, but until her death, she couldn't prove her identity to her parents and family, while I..."

  "What do you think?" Su Xiuzhen turned around, her voice cold and detached as she interrupted me: "If they didn't believe she was the real Murong Qing, she wouldn't have died."

  I was shocked and looked up at him, unable to utter a word, the chill in my heart spreading uncontrollably throughout my limbs.

  And he still looked at me quietly: "Do you think she committed suicide?"

  I shook my head, not that I hadn't thought of it before, but more often than not, what lingered in my mind was the words of Chun Yu.

  "What about Nan Xiangyao?" he asked again.

  I didn't say anything, just looked at him.

  "It won't be him." And he didn't wait for me to respond, but simply said calmly: "It's not that he's not ruthless enough, nor is it that he can't do it. It's just that his pride is too high, and he won't lay a hand on her."

  I closed my eyes, trying to adjust my emotions, and then I heard my own voice softly ask: "Is it because of you that I can't remember things from before?"

  He was silent for a moment before speaking again: "You can say that."

  A faint bitter smile spread across my lips as his voice continued to echo on.

  "After you woke up, you didn't remember anything from before. I used acupuncture to examine the three key points on your head - Zhen Jing, Bai Hui and Tian Zhong - and found that they were all blocked. I figured out that this was the reason for your amnesia. At that time, if I had used 'Hua Bin Ru Shuang', it might have been possible to clear the blockage in your blood vessels. But I didn't. Now, even if I combined my skills with those of my former master, I'm afraid it's still impossible."

  I don't remember how I walked out of the Cangfeng Building, but I only remember that he kept holding my wrist, and the continuous warmth flowed along my Yangchi acupoint, all the way to my whole body.

  But even so, I still can't shake off that desolate and bleak feeling deep down in my heart.

  Passing through the sea of flowers, I was about to head in the direction of the Light Ripples Garden when I suddenly heard the sound of footsteps and rustling outside the valley. Before long, a middle-aged man with a flustered expression rushed into the valley, carrying an unconscious woman in his arms.

  "Mr. Su? Please save my wife!"

  Without waiting for Su Xiu to make any statement, the servant who had been following behind us stepped forward: "You may leave, my young master has not seen anyone else recently."

  The man was still urgent and pleading, but Liao Mo had lost his patience and waved his hand, so the several men in green clothes who came rushing over at the commotion simply blocked his way with indifference, not laying a hand on him, yet step by step, forced him out of the valley.

  Su Xiu didn't intervene too much, he just held my hand and quietly walked towards the Light Ripples Garden, while I was in a daze with mixed emotions, and had no strength to pay attention to the man's desperate pleas behind me.

  Perhaps seeing our figures getting farther and farther away, the man's voice suddenly rose in a state of extreme anxiety, as if he had been revived from a desperate situation. Despite the distance between us, his words still reached my ears intermittently with the wind: "...Please, Mr. Su... I have... I have news about the three princesses... The Murong family... has completely collapsed..."

  Still remember the shocking swan's reflection (harem)