bayedsolid Chapter 319 I Have Also Had Such Thoughts
Chapter 319 I Have Also Had Such Thoughts
Liu Rusi pulled the silent Chu Shiyu and left the tent where Seriguleng was.
She whispered to the Xia army soldiers guarding the door: "Please ask Teacher Zhu Hengzhen to come back. By the way, tell him not to worry, Seriguleng should be able to hold on until tomorrow's return to his ancestral home." The soldier responded and left.
Liu Rusi didn't stop, and continued to pull Chu Shiyu forward until they reached the gate of the military camp. Her steps didn't stop, and she pointed directly at the city that was still under construction...
Chu Shiyu, who had been letting her pull him, finally reacted! He suddenly grabbed her wrist with his backhand and forcibly stopped her!
"Haven't you learned your lesson yet?!" His voice was tense, suppressing the surging fear and terror. "There's a mixed bag of people there, all foreigners! Who knows if there might be another Wuqiri hiding there!"
The terrifying scene from yesterday flashed before his eyes again—the cold scimitar pressed against her neck, the deadly dagger just a hair's breadth away from her heart! …And now, these images overlapped and intertwined with the glaring crimson beneath the earth-moving truck in Ling Yu's memory, nearly tearing his soul apart!
Liu Rusi stopped and turned to look at him. His face wasn't angry, nor was it calm, only a heavy, unwavering weariness... This look was far from the gentleness he was used to seeing, yet it wasn't unfamiliar.
Suddenly, Chu Shiyu seemed to see the girl whom he first met in his previous life’s dream - tired, disgusted, resistant, and indifferent. They were not directed at any particular person, but indiscriminately enveloped the entire external world.
Yes, it was the look that Ke Jinfeng once called "world-weary."
Chu Shiyu's heart suddenly tightened into a ball.
He knew too well how much Liu Rusi struggled and tried to escape from that abyssal state...
But! When it comes to her life, he can no longer and will never compromise!
"You can go if you want," he almost gritted his teeth and took a step back, "Wait until I gather enough people, then I'll go with you!"
The limit of what he could do was to completely eliminate all possible threats, then keep her firmly within his sight, and then... he could tolerate her doing other things.
The little hand gently pulled, stopping him from turning around to give orders.
"Haven't you noticed?" Liu Rusi's voice was filled with a chill that penetrated her fatigue. She struggled to free her hand from his grip. "We've fallen into a vicious cycle."
Feeling that he still refused to relax, she increased her strength until her knuckles made a crisp "crack" sound!
"Rusi! Are you okay?! Does it hurt?!" Chu Shiyu quickly let go and anxiously picked up her hand, which was red from being pulled, to check on it. At the same time, a memory flashed through his mind - this scene seemed familiar...
In the previous dream, Qin Lie hadn't "put his feelings" on him, yet he was unsympathetically forcing her to take her away... And in that dream, Liu Rusi injured her neck, her legs, and finally, she cut her own face with her own hands! All those injuries were caused by her fierce resistance to him!
"...Let's go for a walk outside, just the two of us." Liu Rusi's voice was low and tired. She changed direction and no longer walked towards the city under construction, but towards the endless wilderness.
Chu Shiyu subconsciously wanted to refuse, but looking up at the deserted wilderness, it seemed unlikely that there would be any sudden danger, so he nodded silently and followed her closely. However, his eyes were like the most vigilant hawk, scanning the surroundings nervously, as if every blade of grass and every rock lurked a deadly threat.
The two men walked out of the camp gate in silence and walked freely in the wilderness covered with weeds, gravel and rocks.
The world was vast, and when the noise of the military camp behind them faded away, only the whistling sound of the wind remained, as if they were the only two people left in the world.
When they came across a relatively flat rock, Liu Rusi finally stopped, sat down casually on it, patted the empty seat next to her, and motioned him to sit down.
The two sat down, but did not speak for a while. They just looked at the misty clouds in the sky, felt the spring breeze blowing by, and experienced the rare peace in the world.
After a long time, her voice was a little vague due to the wind, but it clearly entered Chu Shiyu's ears: "Chu Shiyu, let me ask you a question."
"Yeah." In this vast world, Chu Shiyu's heart, which had been noisy since he woke up, finally calmed down a little. No matter what, she was by his side now and was willing to spend time with him.
"I mean, if," she slowly turned around, her fatigue slightly dissipated. Her expression was calm and inquisitive, and seemed to carry an inexplicable pity. She asked Chu Shiyu, "If you were asked to choose between Liu Rusi in my previous life... and me now, who would you choose?"
This question made Chu Shiyu pause...Liu Rusi in the previous life and her now?
"Isn't it all you?" Chu Shiyu subconsciously wanted to avoid the question, but there was no choice! Liu Rusi was Liu Rusi, her essence had never changed! Stubborn, tenacious, and willing to break but not yield...
"Since you have seen Liu Rusi in my previous life, you should know the difference between her and me." Liu Rusi looked straight into those struggling auspicious phoenix eyes. He obviously realized something, but she knew that it was not enough.
Liu Rusi pressed the issue again: "If she and I stood before you at the same time, what would you choose?"
Chu Shiyu couldn't help but think of Liu Rusi in his previous life and wondered how she was different from the one in front of him.
In her previous life, she was like a sea urchin, covered with spikes that resisted the outside world, and with a thick hard shell underneath, locking her own world like a fortress, not letting anyone get close... Even though she continued to redeem and heal herself later, she only reduced some of the spikes, and there was still a clear barrier between her and others.
Looking up at the person in front of her, she was not opposed to forming ties with others... not only with Qin Hao, who was connected by blood, but also with her uncle and aunt in Dongshan Village, her neighbor's sister Huang Caiyun, the Yue family couple she met unexpectedly... and of course, him as well. And the beginning of these ties was...
But how could he choose?! In his previous life, Liu Rusi, who struggled alone under the weight of fate and ultimately died tragically, was a scar deep in his soul that would never heal. It was the obsession he'd sacrificed his life to secure a reunion in this life! And now, the woman before him, the one he'd been fortunate enough to spend nearly two years with, the one he'd truly known and understood, the one he was striving to love! She was the one he'd finally grasped!
He practically shouted, his voice hoarse and filled with frustration: "Why should I make such a difficult choice?! You are one person! The one I love deeply!"
"Tell me, if you have to choose, who would you choose?!" Liu Rusi's voice was calm, but with a determination not to give up until she got an answer, and she pressed on step by step.
They were the same person! A single soul, transcending life and death, time and space! To strip away any part of her was a desecration of her entire being, and a complete denial of his obsession with both lives!
Chu Shiyu couldn't help but get angry at her for forcing him to choose, and he said in frustration: "Then I want them all! You are you at all times! I want them all! You in the previous life! You in this life! Past, present, and future! As long as it's you! I won't let go of any of you!"
"Uh..." Liu Rusi was speechless for a moment, then she patched up the premise of the question: "You should know very well that I can't share my lover with anyone else, even another Liu Rusi."
"Then why don't you assume there's another Chu Shiyu?!" Chu Shiyu angrily accused, trying to expose Liu Rusi's trap. "It's impossible for you both to appear in front of me at the same time and let me choose. You're just deliberately using this assumption to make things difficult for me!"
"Then why do you assume that?" Liu Rusi asked softly, the indelible weariness spreading like mist. "Is there such a fate? I didn't meet Qin Lie, but met you. I can fall in love with you as much as I love Qin Lie?"
"You!" Chu Shiyu's heart felt like it was being pierced by an invisible spike! How could she so bluntly expose the most irreparable regret in his heart! How could she so frankly express her sincere and deep feelings for Qin Lie in front of him!
"You said you exchanged your life for me..." Liu Rusi's voice was calm and almost cold, and she once again laid out the bloody truth in front of him, "So... in your previous life, you ended your own life because I died, right?"
Chu Shiyu painfully acquiesced, and the cold despair and glaring blood in front of her tombstone instantly surged in his mind, and his heart was gripped by great sorrow.
She spoke so coldly, as if everything he had done, that sacrifice at the cost of his life, was nothing more than... insignificant in her eyes. His heart ached so much that he almost suffocated, but he couldn't muster even a hint of anger towards her, only endless sadness.
"Just now I asked, between the Liu Rusi of my previous life and me now, what would you choose..." Liu Rusi paused and turned her gaze towards Chu Shiyu, her eyes filled with a cold mockery. "If it were the Liu Rusi of my previous life, she would just think you were... a big idiot."
"You..." Chu Shiyu was suddenly furious, but speechless.
He knew that Liu Rusi in her previous life had been just that kind of person. Her own pain had already filled all her emotional space, and the only thing that sustained her was her obsession with revenge... There was no room for her to understand the pain of others who would sacrifice their lives for love...
"But now I can understand your choice..." Liu Rusi's gaze drifted towards the distant wilderness, and her voice was like the wind in the wilderness, slowly blowing a hint of sadness, "Because in this life, I also had such thoughts..."
Chu Shiyu's heart suddenly tightened again. He knew... When they left Xingzhou City and heard that Ruan Qing had committed suicide for love, Liu Rusi had understood and sympathized with the heartbreak of losing her beloved... She even felt a little envious... envious of Ruan Qing's decision to end things without hesitation...
Liu Rusi's voice continued to be heard, with a clear understanding of the world: "You also know that the reason I didn't make that choice is because of Qin Hao..."
"You hate the old Taoist priest for changing your fate... but I'm grateful to him. He simply gave me a choice, and I chose it."
Her gaze seemed to penetrate time, returning to the fateful moment: "I was the one who asked Qin Lie if he wanted to marry me... But I wasn't completely set on him. I had a plan in mind at the time. If he turned out to be a bad person, I could pretend to be nice to him first, and then escape from him when he went hunting in the mountains..."
"But Qin Lie is genuine, and very good." Liu Rusi's lips curled up involuntarily, as if the warm sun of that time had traveled through time and space, still shining on her. Her voice softened, "He could have legally and reasonably easily robbed me and hurt me... but he didn't."
"He gave me a home and showed me the sincere, pure, selfless love between family members. That is something I have never experienced in my entire life..." Hot tears silently slid down Liu Rusi's cheeks. She looked at Chu Shiyu and asked softly with an almost cruel honesty: "How can I not love him?"
Chu Shiyu hadn't known when tears had already begun to stream down his face. Salty tears rolled down his jaw and dripped onto the cold gravel. The grievance, loss, and unwillingness burned by this naked love finally broke through his last line of defense. He cried, his voice hoarse, and asked, "Are you trying to tell me that no matter what fate brings, you can never fall in love with me?!"
"Alas... So, we're stuck in a cycle." Liu Rusi sighed deeply, a sigh that mixed with the helplessness of facing a naughty child and the patience she had to continue. "Before coming to Mobei, I told you, different circumstances, different me, how can we love the same way?"
"At that time, I had no ambitions, just lived a life of idleness and waited for death, indulging in the warmth and happiness of home..."
Her gaze was far-reaching, as if she were describing herself in another parallel time and space. She then turned to Chu Shiyu and asked, "Even if there was a Liu Rusi who had regained her past life's memories, and was forced by fate to follow the path of the Golden Wind and Jade Dew Pavilion and enter the Prince Duan's Mansion, knowing the darkness and cruelty of the world, could I live peacefully like I do in a quiet mountain village? Could I enjoy that kind of pure, untainted love with you in the midst of a dangerous vortex of power?"
Without waiting for Chu Shiyu to answer, Liu Rusi made a decisive judgment: "No."
Seeing Chu Shiyu about to speak, his expression seemed to want to say something different, but Liu Rusi took the lead and plugged the loophole with a hint of teasing in her tone: "You are not going to assume again that Chu Shiyu would be different at that time, right?"
She then shook her head gently and sighed weakly, "Perhaps... fate always has its stubborn inertia, and it will always move towards its original trajectory in some way..."
This sigh was like a stone dropped into Chu Shiyu's chaotic heart, stirring up a clear echo... Some overlooked, surprising similarities surfaced in his thoughts...
He recalled that dream, the one where he hadn't been "felt" by Qin Lie, and had faced an extreme fate... In that blood-tinged dream, he had coldly pierced King Kang's heart with a single sword. And in this life... King Kang had also suffered a fatal wound to the heart. If it weren't for Liu Rusi's treatment... wouldn't the outcome have been the same?
Also, Chu Shiyu looked at his right hand wrapped in gauze...
In that dream, upon learning that Liu Rusi had faked her death, he was devastated and grasped a blade, handing it to Qin Hao, asking him to personally avenge his mother... and in the process, he injured his own palm. And in this present life... just yesterday, to block the fatal dagger aimed at Liu Rusi, he also grasped the blade with his bare hands! The wound on his palm, still bleeding, was so deep that the bone was visible!
A chill ran down my spine! Were these corresponding points coincidental? Or... an inescapable mark of fate?
Liu Rusi seemed unaware of the turbulent waves in his heart. She was silent for a long time, her eyes cast towards the distant horizon, as if gazing at the invisible giant net of fate that enveloped the world.
Finally, she slowly spoke, her voice low and solemn, almost like a verdict: "Maybe... it's true. Qin Hao was originally destined to be your child..."
She paused, the weight of her words making the air seem to freeze.
"And your father, perhaps... under the guidance of fate, wanted Qin Hao to change his surname to Chu..."