Mianmian slowly rummaged through her pockets.
Princess Huiyun patiently watched her search.
She was a bit curious about what Mianmian was looking for.
After watching her search and search, Mianmian finally pulled out an ant.
She placed it near the roasting dates.
Princess Huiyun's eyebrows twitched.
When she was a young lady, she had kept a small green snake as a pet.
It even started a snake-keeping craze in the capital.
Later, when a young noblewoman was killed by the snake she raised,
people gradually stopped keeping them as pets.
She had released her small green snake back into the wild.
It seems she had released it together with Jingjue. By then, it was no longer a small green snake, but a very thick large snake weighing over 10 pounds.
Looking back, it was quite extraordinary.
That she would keep such a strange pet back then.
Now, seeing this little girl pull out an unusually large ant, as big as an iron ox,
Princess Huiyun strangely received the message that this was a pet, not food.
"What's its name?"
"Jiang Xiaoshu. My dream... well, let's start with the little tree."
The Princess thought: ...truly her own granddaughter, even naming an ant.
Back then, she had named her small green snake Chu Miaomiao.
Just like her.
Princess Huiyun suddenly realized she was recalling many things from the past.
"In that dream, there was no Jiang Xiaoshu. There was a young man who idled away his days, wandering the streets, soliciting customers for the brothel girls, hanging out with other wastrels, scrounging for food, and occasionally bringing some things home."
Outside the window, the snow had stopped, and so had the wind.
The dates were gradually giving off a fragrant aroma.
"The wastrel offended a young master, who disliked him and had his servants beat him. His forehead was split open. He ran home and died from his injuries a few days later."
The roasted dates were starting to smoke.
Mianmian turned them over.
"The young man was the eldest son of the family, not yet of age when he died. His father's hair turned white overnight, and he fell gravely ill."
"The man whose hair turned white overnight discovered that the person who beat his son to death was his elder brother's son. But he had already been expelled from the family and couldn't even enter the gates to seek revenge."
"To help her father recover quickly and pay for his treatment, the dead youth's sister sold herself as a maid to a young master in the Provincial Capital. When her parents went to find her, she had disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead."
"Later, the young man's younger sister was lying at home when she was bitten by a venomous snake that came from who knows where. Their mother suspected it was the family who had beaten her son to death. She went to seek revenge but was also beaten to death."
The dates were completely burnt now.
Emitting black smoke.
"The man first buried his eldest son, then his youngest daughter, then his wife.
But that family had long since left for the capital, rising through the ranks, enjoying boundless wealth and glory.
The man's health was extremely poor, terminally ill, every moment of life was torment.
Yet he dared not die, he had to find his second daughter, who was missing and whose whereabouts were unknown.
He searched all the way, finally reaching the capital.
But he learned that his second daughter had become a concubine in a wealthy household.
That wealthy family was about to marry the sister of the man who had beaten his eldest son to death.
His second daughter hanged herself.
His eldest son was dead, his second daughter was dead, his youngest daughter was dead, his wife was dead.
He was all alone.
Later, he probably died too.
Until his death, he never knew that his mother was not his real mother, his elder brother was not his real brother.
In the end, he wanted to be buried with his wife and children, but he couldn't find anyone to bury him.
His wife and children waited for him underground, waited and waited, from corpses to white bones, to mud, waited a lifetime, an entire era.
Waited for a new life."
The dates caught fire and began to burn.
Princess Huiyun was already crying uncontrollably.
Her whole body trembled.
She dared not imagine how there could be such a vicious story in this world.
She had thought that not being able to be with the one she loved was the saddest thing in the world.
But this story was a hundred, a thousand times more vicious than not being able to love.
More painful than death by a thousand cuts.
She dared not imagine how much pain her son had endured.
"Grandmother, if Father did something wrong, please forgive him. He didn't mean to. For you, this is a story, a dream, but for Father, this might be his experience. For each of us, this is our destiny. We don't seek wealth and glory, we just want to change this terrible fate and survive."
"You asked me where I saw such bones. Underground, of course. I saw corpses, corpses without skin, corpses without flesh, corpses without organs, corpses with only bones. Every time I looked at him, he smiled at me, because he was my elder brother."
The fire on the dates went out, burnt out, leaving only ashes.
Princess Huiyun's whole body shook as she held the child tightly in her arms.
"Don't say anymore, don't say anymore. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Princess Huiyun hugged the child tightly, her body still trembling.
Jiang Mianmian was also shaking.
What she said might have been just a story.
Or perhaps that was the truth, and now was the story.
...
"It's a dream, just a dream, child. It's a dream, don't be afraid. Mother is here, I'm here."
The room was very warm.
But at this moment, Princess Huiyun felt as if she was in the depths of a ten thousand-foot abyss, surrounded by ice and snow and endless darkness.
Only the faint, warm, soft breath of the child in her arms provided any comfort.
She held this child, as if time had stopped.
Until she saw that large ant, because it was too hot, moving its body away from the stove, a little farther from that stove.
Watching the ant slowly move away, then stop, remaining motionless again, like a sculpture.
Princess Huiyun didn't dare to look at the child in her arms, fearing that what she was holding was not real.
Fearing that everything was just another dream.
She held her for a long time, until she heard even breathing, before daring to look down.
Asleep.
The little one had actually fallen asleep.
Mianmian had been pulled out of bed early in the morning.
She usually had a habit of taking afternoon naps anyway.
Accompanying Father to meet relatives, playing with Grandmother Princess, telling stories to Grandmother Princess.
Even an iron child needs an afternoon rest.
Grandmother Princess's embrace was still very warm.
She struggled a few times, found it futile to struggle, and simply lay down to enjoy it.
Slowly, she fell asleep in Grandmother Princess's arms.
A short nap.
With Xiaoshu around, it should be fine.
Jiang Mianmian fell asleep very peacefully.
Princess Huiyun held her, not expecting her to fall asleep.
Asleep in her arms.
Her body was soft, her breathing even, her face familiar yet strange.
She couldn't recall what she looked like as a child.
A moment of familiarity, endless strangeness.
She reluctantly placed the child on the couch.
She covered her with a thin satin quilt, watched her turn over and curl up with the quilt, her face also turned to the side as she slept, her face a bit chubby, slightly flattened.
Incredibly adorable.
Her sleeping form.
Like the world's most precious treasure.
Princess Huiyun sat beside her.
She opened a cabinet under the tea table and took out a notebook.
The servants, appearing out of nowhere, had prepared ink and brush.
She opened the notebook.
Page by page, she recorded her daily life.
"Today I met a strange mother and daughter pair..."
"While floating in the water today, my mind recalled some things, it seemed like I saw him..."
Princess Huiyun had a habit of keeping a diary.
Because sometimes she would fall ill, she would have blackouts, completely losing a segment of memory, even unable to remember what she had experienced.
So she would write in her diary.
She would write down things she considered meaningful and important.
But she never looked back at it, she only recorded, not daring to look, not daring to open it.
Some memories were too painful, she didn't want to remember them herself, she transferred the memories to ink and paper.
She wrote down today's events.
She recorded stroke by stroke, shedding many tears as she wrote, a paper full of absurd words, even struggling to breathe, but she still recorded it stroke by stroke.
As she wrote, she suddenly began to slowly recall the past.
Every past event, every year, every month, every day of the past.
One by one, piece by piece, as if slowly reviving in her memory.
She even remembered the time when she gave birth.
The scene of near-death.
She saw a child with a bluish face, suddenly she remembered, no, the child with the bluish face was not the child she gave birth to, the child she gave birth to had a mole on its chest, that bluish child did not.
She wailed, and just like that, she had forgotten.
She remembered her consort, remembered Jingjue, remembered her Imperial Brother, remembered Mrs. Jiang, remembered how she had spent every day in the past, all the fragmented days strung together like a confused grand dream.
She stopped crying.
She asked her servants to help her wash up. Perhaps because she often lost some memories, she subconsciously felt that she was still young, and so heaven truly gave her a face that still looked youthful.
She put on a half golden mask, a gift from her Imperial Brother when she was injured years ago. She reapplied her makeup and dressed in formal attire, putting on each piece one by one.
In the heavy snow, a woman adorns herself with grand makeup.
A monk taps his wooden fish drum.
Occasionally distracted, he looks up towards the window and suddenly sees a woman, as graceful as a celestial being, walking through the snowy landscape.
The monk quickly returns to tapping his wooden fish drum. Thump, thump, thump. The six senses are impure. How could there be a divine woman in this ancient temple...
Indeed, when he looks up again,
The ancient temple is still just an ancient temple.
The snowy ground is still just snowy ground.
It was all just an illusion.
...
Mianmian felt her body swaying. She half-opened one eye, glanced around to see Princess Grandmother nearby and Xiaoshu at hand, then closed her eyes to continue sleeping.
This must be the journey back home.
It's best to sleep on the bus, and the same goes for horse carriages. The gentle rocking makes for a good sleep.
...
