Rebirth of a Star General

The Mid-Autumn Festival in the 62nd year of Qingyuan was the coldest Mid-Autumn Festival in Dawei.

It has been raining since the morning, the dark clouds are heavy, and looking at the momentum, it will continue to rain for a whole day without stopping.

The chaotic peaks of Lianxue Mountain are full of mountains, and the strangeness rises together. Due to the rain and fog, the mountain road was difficult to travel.

The carriage drove slowly along the trail.

Even though it is such a difficult mountain road, Lianxue Mountain is still lively all year round because there is a spiritual temple on the mountain, named Yuhua. The incense of Yuhua Temple is extremely prosperous. It is said that people who worship Buddha here can achieve everything they want. This is a bit exaggerated, but Yuhua Temple has existed for hundreds of years, and it is a real ancient temple. The dignitaries of Shuojing are willing to come here to pray for blessings and chanting sutras during the New Year and festivals, in order to keep their families healthy and happy, and everything will be successful.

The curtain of the carriage was lifted, and the eldest wife of the Xiao family, Bai Rong, glanced outside the carriage and said softly, "Come on, in less than a stick of incense, we will arrive at Yuhua Temple."

"Are you hungry?" Xiao Jing asked warmly beside her.

Bai Rong shook his head slightly, looked at the carriage behind him, and was a little worried: "Huai Jin..."

Xiao Jing sighed softly and said nothing.

The Xiao family all know that Second Young Master Xiao doesn't like the Mid-Autumn Festival, or even hates it.

When Xiao Zhongwu died in battle, it would not be long before the Mid-Autumn Festival. If he was still alive at that time, he should have come back to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet with his family. Unfortunately, before the Mid-Autumn Festival came, he died in the battle of Mingshui, and the Xiao family's Mid-Autumn Festival banquet was halfway through and came to an abrupt end.

never continued.

Since the death of the Xiao family and his wife, Xiao Jue has not been in Shuojing every Mid-Autumn Festival. This year is the first time that he has spent the Mid-Autumn Festival in Shuojing since he took over the Nanfu soldiers. The Xiao family also followed the rules when Mrs. Xiao was alive, burning incense and praying for blessings at the Yuhua Temple in Lianxue Mountain on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

It's just that I didn't expect the weather to be so bad today. Not only was there no sun, but the rain was still falling.

As Bai Rongwei said, it took less than a stick of incense to see the gate of Yuhua Temple. A monk wearing a bamboo hat was cleaning up the fallen leaves on the ground. Seeing the Xiao family's carriage arrived, he put down his broom and welcomed them into the temple.

Due to the rain today, the mountain road was difficult to walk. At this time in previous years, the Yuhua Temple had already been lively, but today, apart from the carriage of the Xiao family, only one carriage was parked outside the mountain gate.

Xiao Jue followed them inside.

It was dark and dark, and although it was afternoon, it looked as if it was already evening. Several people followed the monks in the temple to eat the fast food first, and then went to the Buddhist hall to burn incense and pray for blessings.

Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing went in first, and when it was Xiao Jue's turn, the monk in Tsing Yi reached out to stop him and said, "This benefactor, don't go in."

Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing in front turned around, and Bai Rongwei asked, "Why? This is my brother. We went up the mountain together to pray for blessings."

The monk in Tsing Yi folded his hands together, bowed to her, turned to Xiao Jue, lowered his head and looked down and said, "The benefactor kills too much evil, the Buddhist hall is a quiet place, and there is no one who has blood in his heart."

Several people were startled.

Murder is too heavy.

In the battle of Guocheng Changgu, 60,000 people were drowned, isn't it because the killing was too heavy? The number of Nanman who died in his hands over the years was innumerable, and his heart was indeed bloody.

"Master," Bai Rong was slightly anxious, "Buddha purifies all sentient beings, how can you distinguish between high and low?"

"Although his hands were covered in blood, he also saved the lives of many people." Xiao Jing frowned: "Master's words are too one-sided."

The monk in Tsing Yi lowered his eyes and said nothing.

"Master, please be tolerant," Bai Rongwei begged, "Our Xiao family is willing to add more incense and money, as long as my brother can also worship in the Buddhist hall."

"No need." Someone's voice interrupted her.

The young man in Jinpao raised his eyes, and his eyes fell on the Buddhist hall. In the Buddhist hall, the golden Buddha statues were sitting cross-legged. From top to bottom, from far to near, looking down at him sympathetically.

The Sanskrit sound curls, the sea of ​​suffering is boundless, and the Buddha cannot cross.

He should have expected this ending.

"He can't get over me." Xiao Jue raised the corner of his mouth, "I don't want to look back either."

It's not impossible to sink like this.

He turned around and walked out: "I'll wait for you outside."

The cry of Bai Rongwei and Xiao Jing came from behind him, he frowned impatiently, turned around and left everything behind.

He didn't know that after he left, the monk in Tsing Yi chanted a Buddha's name and said in a low voice, "It's not necessarily a miss."

...

Because of the rain, the road down the mountain was more slippery than the road up the mountain. I can only stay at Yuhua Temple tonight.

Staying out on the Mid-Autumn Festival night is also a helpless thing. The monk arranged a room for Bai Rongwei and the others and then went out. Bai Rongwei sighed. There was a special moon ball made by Yuhua Temple on the table. She said to Xiao Jing, "Go and call Huaijin, it's here. Barely pass the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet."

Xiao Jing went to the next room and knocked on the door, but no one answered for a long time, pushed the door and went in, the room was empty.

Xiao Jue is not in the house.

He looked at the courtyard of the temple, the rain washed the slate clean, it was raining, where did Xiao Jue go?

In the backyard of Yuhua Temple, there is an ancient tree. Yuhua Temple has been here since it was built, and it has lived for hundreds of years. The ancient trees have spirits and luxuriant branches, and believers who come to incense call them "fairy trees". The fairy tree is covered with red silk ribbons, some are praying for the title of the golden list, and some are praying for the flowers and the full moon. The red thread covered the branches completely. When it rained, there was no cover outside, and the hanging wish cloth strips were wet and stuck to the branches and trees, as if they were covered with a layer of red gauze.

The young man with the umbrella stopped.

A piece of red cloth fell on the ground, with yellow tassels on it. It was probably due to the heavy rain that blew the red silk down.

Xiao Jue paused, then bent down and picked up the red silk.

On each piece of red silk was written the wish of the person hanging the silk. He looked down and saw that the one on the left had been soaked by the rain, and the ink was so dense that the original appearance could not be seen. Like a three-year-old child scribbling with a pen and writing a "see".

Look?

what to see? Guli is weird, he is tall, he re-tied this weird red silk to the tree, and deliberately found the one with the most leafy inside, so that it was not easy to get wet by the rain.

After doing all this, he raised the umbrella that he had put aside. He was stunned when the sachet on his waist was exposed because of the movement just now.

The sachet is very old. It is a dark blue bag with a black giant python embroidered with gold thread on it. It is majestic and flexible, and it is exquisite and gorgeous. True before. It was shriveled inside, as if it had nothing in it.

His fingertips stroked the sachet, and something sank in his eyes.

The teenagers in the Xianchang Pavilion all know that Xiao Jue has always had a sachet since he was a child, such as Lin Shuanghe, who is more naughty. He has always been curious about what kind of treasure is in this place. Later, he had the opportunity to steal it and open it to see that it was full. A bag full of osmanthus candies.

At that time, the second son of Xiao was ridiculed a lot. He liked sweets so much that he had to carry them with him even when he went to school.

As everyone knows, this was made by Mrs. Xiao herself when she was alive.

After Mrs. Xiao died, he still carried this sachet, but there was no bulging candy in it, only one... an old, blackened, and no longer edible sweet-scented osmanthus candy.

Xiao Jue went down the mountain at the age of fifteen and entered the Xianchang Pavilion. He was on the mountain in his early years, and he had already learned everything that he should have learned. Therefore, the homework taught by the master can be remembered only after reading it once. Sleeping in between classes all day long, I often take the first place easily. The husband likes it, the classmates envy it, and in the eyes of outsiders, it’s like I don’t know how much virtue I have accumulated in my previous life to be reincarnated like this in this life.

But Xiao Zhongwu treated him extremely harshly.

He was born to be lazy. When he was on the mountain, there was no one to control him except Mr. Xiao Zhongwu. After going down the mountain, his classmates often invited him to a cocktail party today, and Liyuan tomorrow, all of them were 14 or 15-year-old young men, and there was no reason not to go. Although most of the time, he just sat lazily watching, or simply went to sleep, but in Xiao Zhongwu's eyes, he felt that this child was willing to be depraved and idle.

Xiao Zhongwu reprimanded him, asked for family law, confiscated his monthly silver, and punished him for copying books and practicing martial arts.

He did it one by one, but the rebelliousness of the young man was engraved in his bones, and he was really convinced. The more calmly he admitted the punishment, the more angry Xiao Zhongwu became, and later, he had a fight with Xiao Zhongwu.

Xiao Jue raised her eyebrows: "I did everything you asked me to do. Since I only look at the results, the results are already there. Father, what are you doing?"

The smile on the corner of the boy's mouth was sneering, and for a moment, Xiao Zhongwu held the whip's hand, and he couldn't take it anymore. Xiao Jue chuckled and turned to leave.

That was the last time he saw Xiao Zhongwu alive.

Xiao Zhongwu led his troops to Nanman on the second day, and soon Mingshui died in battle in a tragic manner.

The coffin was transported back to the capital. When the news came, Mrs. Xiao was in the kitchen making sweet-scented osmanthus candy for Xiao Jue. When I got the news, a plate of sweet-scented osmanthus candies were knocked over and fell to the ground, covered with dust.

The confidant, who was lucky enough to survive, knelt in front of Mrs. Xiao and cried: "Originally, I planned to cross Mingshui two days earlier, but the general said that Fuguan near Mingshui is rich in iron, and he wanted to strike a sword for the second young master. The dispute with the second young master broke the second young master's heart. I hope this sword can make the second young master understand his painstaking efforts. I didn't expect... I didn't expect..."

Mrs. Xiao's heart-wrenching cry resounded in the room.

She jumped up and hit Xiao Jue indiscriminately, crying and scolding: "Why do you want to be angry with him? Why! If it wasn't for you to be angry with him, he wouldn't stay in Mingshui for much longer, and he wouldn't be in ambush. , will not die!"

He endured this terrible accusation and let the woman's soft fist fall on him without saying a word.

how can that be possible? His father, the resolute and stern, waved the whip with no mercy. How can a man who leaves his child on a strange mountain and does not come over once a year die? He is indifferent and heartless, how could he die?

The horrific indictments continue.

"You killed him! You killed your father!"

Unable to bear it, he pushed his mother away: "I don't! It's not me!"

The woman was pushed away by him and stared at him blankly, unable to bear her desperate expression, Xiao Jue turned and ran out.

He didn't know where he should go, nor who he was going to talk to. It was only a year before he went down the mountain and returned to Shuojing. In a year, he still hadn't even recognized the people in Quan Xiao's house, and he hadn't even learned how to get along with his relatives naturally.

It's just... that's it.

When people are in extreme pain, they don't shed tears. He doesn't feel the pain right now, he's just dumbfounded. It's like listening to a joke that can't be true and not knowing how to react. He just felt that his footsteps were heavy, and he didn't dare to step forward, unable to face his mother's desperate and sad eyes.

Many years later, Xiao Jue was thinking, if he wasn't so timid at the time, took a step forward and returned to the house, would everything that happened after that would not have happened.

But no if.

When he returned, it was already night. Xiao Jing and Bai Rongwei had already returned, their eyes were red and swollen, as if they had cried, Xiao Jing, who was always weak and polite, rushed up and punched him, grabbed his collar, and yelled at him with red eyes: "Where have you been? Why not at the mansion, why not stay by my mother's side!"

He suddenly gave birth to a burst of disgust and self-deprecation, and pulled the corner of his mouth: "You and I are both sons, you ask me, why don't you ask yourself?"

"you!"

"Huai Jin," Bai Rong sobbed slightly, "Mother is gone."

His laughter froze.

"Mother... gone." Xiao Jing let go of his hand, took two steps back, covered his face and choked up.

Throughout her life, Mrs. Xiao was as weak as a flower that had never experienced wind and rain. When Xiao Zhongwu was alive, she was very dissatisfied with Xiao Zhongwu, and quarreled every now and then, like a pair of grudges. When Xiao Zhongwu died, the flower withered and withered, without nutrients, and went along with it.

She left so decisively that she didn't even think about what to do with the two sons she left behind in Shuojing in the future? What should the Xiao family do? Her life had no meaning at the moment she lost Xiao Zhongwu, so she used a piece of pure white silk to end her life.

The last words she said to Xiao Jue before she died were: You killed him, and you killed your father!

This sentence will become an eternal nightmare. In Xiao Jue's life years later, he will often wake up in the middle of the night, tossing and turning.

He can never get rid of it.

Xiao Zhongwu and Mrs. Xiao were buried together. The lanterns and canvases for the Mid-Autumn Festival banquet were all taken off and replaced with snow-white lanterns.

The wall fell and everyone pushed, Xiao Zhongwu's death, the blow to the Xiao family was far more than that. No matter how many guns and arrows Xiao Jing suffered in the courtroom, Xiao Jue would bear the same burden behind his back. How about the Nanfu soldiers, how about the Xiao family, and how about the unwarranted guilt in the Mingshui battle.

He still didn't shed a single tear, he did things in a dignified manner and made intensive arrangements. The time he can fall asleep is getting shorter and shorter, and the days when he returns to the house are getting later and later.

It was late that night, and Xiao Jue returned to the mansion. After Xiao Zhongwu's death, many people in the house were dismissed. Except for his personal bodyguard, he didn't need a servant. He felt hungry and found that he hadn't eaten for a whole day.

It was too late, so there was no need to trouble Bai Rongwei, Xiao Jue walked to the kitchen by himself to see if there were any leftover meals to deal with during the day.

The stove is cold, and there is no food in the kitchen. Everyone is busy these days, and they have no time to eat. He found two steamed buns and a bowl of pickles.

The lights were dim as if they were about to go out. There were no stools in the kitchen. The young man was very tired. He found a corner against the wall and sat down at random. He picked up the bowl. With a sweet-scented osmanthus.

When the bad news of Xiao Zhongwu's death came, Mrs. Xiao was making sweet-scented osmanthus candies for Xiao Jue. Upon hearing the letter, a plate of sweet-scented sweet-scented osmanthus was knocked over, and was later cleaned by a servant, and all were gone.

There is another fish that slipped through the net, lying quietly in the corner, covered with dust.

He climbed over, carefully picked up the sweet-scented osmanthus, and brushed off the dust. There is a faint scent of sweet-scented osmanthus in the candy, which is sweet and greasy as always.

Mrs. Xiao always made sweet-scented osmanthus candy very sweet.

But this was the last candy he got in the world.

There was still the leftover candy wrapper in the sachet, he wrapped the candy and put it back into the sachet. Pick up the bowl and pick up the buns.

The second son of Xiao has always been noble and precious, and pays attention to love and cleanliness, but now he ignores the gentleness and sits on the ground to eat. His clothes have not been changed for two days, and his stomach has not entered a grain of rice.

The young man sat up against the wall, slowly biting the steamed buns, eating and eating, laughing at himself, and in his long eyes like autumn water, there seemed to be a little bright light, like the embers of the stars in the long night.

disappeared quickly.

...

Time flies, leaving no traces, the past seems to be the memory of a previous life. Those complicated emotions intertwined, and finally turned into a nonchalant smile on his lips.

It is not a hurdle that cannot be overcome.

He stared blankly at the sachet in his hand, not knowing what he was thinking. After a while, he let go and continued to walk forward.

"Master." Fei Nu came from behind. He took the umbrella, supported Xiao Jue, and asked, "Do you want to go back to the temple now?"

"Let's go." Xiao Jue said, "Take a breath."

The last trace of light dissipated, and Lian Xueshan was completely plunged into darkness. The dense fog filled the air, like an illusion in the mountains. On such a night, almost no one would leave.

The rain fell down the eaves of the umbrella. It was not big, but it was dense, like a layer of ice-cold gauze covering the mountains.

"I don't know when the rain will stop." Fei Nu murmured.

Mid-autumn nights are mostly sunny, and such nights are rare. Xiao Jue looked up, the night was dark and he couldn't see his head.

He said, "There is no moon tonight."

There is no moon, no circle.

The mountain road was so muddy that nothing could be heard except the sound of rain. The further you go to the edge, the more lush the trees become, and the shadows of people cannot be seen clearly. Suddenly there was a rustling sound in front, and Fei Nu paused and reminded: "Master."

Xiao Jue shook his head, indicating that he heard it.

It's so late and it's still raining, who would be here?

Fei Nu probed the lantern in his hand forward, the rain was deep, and there was a figure standing under the tree. At first, only a vague shadow could be seen. It was probably a woman, and he didn't know what he was messing with. After taking two steps forward and looking again, I saw the woman standing on a rock, pulling a long thing with both hands, and tugging it down.

A piece of white silk was tied to the tree.

This is a woman seeking death.