After rebirth, she became the favorite of the powerful minister.

That was the winter twelve years ago.

Yuan Ge is four years old.

This was the first time someone came to visit the Murong family.

The Murong ancestral home is in the south. To get from the Murong family to Zhixuan Mountain, one must first take the water route and then the land route. The wedding procession and the bride-picking procession meet halfway and then go their separate ways. Even though the Yuan family's father and son felt that picking up the bride halfway was a bit perfunctory for the bride, the head of the Murong family felt that the journey was long and the mountains were high and the waters were far, so everything should be kept simple.

The wedding procession went back after completing the water route, and not even a maidservant followed them. No one has ever come to visit them over the years. The saying "a daughter who is married off is like water poured out" was strictly implemented, and the two children have never seen their maternal grandparents.

Fortunately, the couple had a good relationship, and Zhixuan Mountain did not have so many strict rules, so no one cared about these trivial matters, and the family of five lived a prosperous life.

"That was the first time someone from the Murong family came to visit, and your parents took it very seriously. I hadn't been to the mountain at that time, so I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I only heard from your grandfather that your mother personally cleaned the guest house, and all the food and clothing expenses were in accordance with the Murong family's customs. The dishes for the welcoming banquet were also arranged by your mother herself, and your father personally selected the ingredients. Even you and your sister had new clothes made specially for you, which was more grand than the Chinese New Year."

Yuan Ge had no memory of such an important matter.

Now that I think about it, it's not that she is too young to remember things. She remembers some daily trivialities clearly, but some days are completely blank. It's as if a person's memory is a long scroll, the pictures are sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, and in her scroll, there are some incoherent blanks... as if they were forcibly cut out by someone.

There seemed to be a bit more gloomy moisture in the air. The carefully prepared brocade bag fell to the ground. Yuan Ge lowered his eyes to look at it, squatted down to pick it up after a while, patted it gently on his palm, lowered his eyebrows and asked softly, "Then what? The visit to relatives was fake, and the murder was real?" Under the appearance of pretending to be calm, there was an obvious trembling in his voice.

The night sky was dim, without stars or moon. The flickering candlelight in the stone lanterns and the light from the newly hung red lanterns in the corridor shone on her almost pale face. Her thick eyelashes trembled slightly, casting an arc-shaped shadow on her face.

She looked peculiarly indifferent.

Xu Chengjin walked to her side in silence and tugged at her sleeve. She didn't raise her eyes, but just blinked again. At such a close distance, he saw the moisture on her eyelashes, a thin layer, like the increasingly thick mist in the mountains in the early morning condensed on it.

She looked like a porcelain doll that had been broken into pieces and glued back together.

"Little Ge'er..." Feng Qingtan just looked at Yuan Ge, his eyes full of compassion but he couldn't say anything. He just hated that time couldn't go back and let everything go back to half an hour ago when nothing happened...

Outside the door, Yuan Junfeng, who had been standing against the wall for a long time, pressed his lips and turned to walk into the medicine garden. "What does your teacher know? He wasn't here at that time. I told him what he knew... Come, sit with grandpa. Grandpa will tell you everything you want to know tonight. You don't have to leave. Just sit and listen." He waved to Jianshu, who had turned around silently, "The little girl is not an outsider. She is calm and composed. Sit down."

Jianshu didn't sit down, nor did he leave. He just stood silently behind Yuan Ge.

The old man saw it and nodded inwardly, thinking that this girl was much more stable than the previous Jin Su. Even though she was trusted by the master, she did not seem to be proud or arrogant at all.

The old man withdrew his gaze and looked at Yuan Ge, shook his head helplessly, and said, "After many years of marriage, that was the first time your mother received a letter from the Murong family. She was very happy. Just like your teacher said, she did everything herself and took care of it with all her heart. In addition, she also wrote a letter to Shengjing City. At that time, I didn't know who she sent it to... As a father-in-law, I can't ask too much about her affairs, but now I think it should be written to her sisters, probably to inform her that the Murong family came to visit and invite her to come together."

It seems to be the case.

Yuan Ge frowned and nodded, still holding the small brocade bag in her palm, holding it tightly, the coins in the brocade bag hurt her palm. Wen Changling once said that her aunt left in a hurry after receiving a letter from home, and she couldn't wait for a few days. If she came to Zhixuan Mountain to see her former family, it would make sense... But what about the stepmother saying that her aunt seemed to have anticipated that she might never come back? Maybe she rushed to Zhixuan Mountain in a hurry not to see her former family, but just to save her own sister?

The old man poured a cup of hot tea to warm his hands before continuing, "But I am indeed your mother's sister who has never met you. I didn't lie to you about this. That day... they arrived. It was almost nightfall when they arrived. They said the mountain road was difficult to travel and they got lost, so lunch was changed to dinner. There were about ten people in the group. I was afraid that my presence as an old man would affect their reunion and reminiscing about the past, so I only drank a glass of wine and took Yuan Qi, who had a cold for the past two days, to rest. Who knew... who knew that something happened not long after the meal."

"When I rushed over, everyone in the Murong family was gone. Only your father, mother, and you were left... The ground was covered in blood. Your parents were lying in a pool of blood, and you were covered in blood, crying loudly beside them. The servants said they rushed over because they heard you crying..." Twelve years have passed, twelve whole years. Thinking about it now, I still feel like there is a heavy stone pressing on my chest, and I can't move it. It's hard to breathe. The old man was silent for a long time, just tightly grasping the teacup in his hand, as if the warmth he drew from it allowed him to continue talking. "I asked the servants to take care of you first, and then I took people to search for a whole night and killed that group of people on Zhixuan Mountain. I was going to go to the Murong family to ask clearly, but... something happened to you."

"You saw your father and mother being murdered...you've gone crazy."

"A four-year-old child, crying when he was awake and crying when he fell asleep, saying over and over again that he wanted to wash his hands, wanted to take a bath, and that there was blood in front of his eyes... and that there was blood all over when he fell asleep." The old man gently put down the teacup and looked up at Yuan Ge, "You have liked red clothes, red leather boots, red hairbands, and everything red since you were a child. But since then, you have cried and howled like crazy when you see red..." No one knows why that group of cruel people only left behind one child, but it is obvious that the child who watched his parents being killed is destined to be trapped there for the rest of his life.