Chapter 12: Mother’s Death
“Mother!” Jin An threw himself onto Jiang Shi’s increasingly stiff corpse, weeping uncontrollably.
Grandpa Ling pulled him to comfort him, “You mustn’t let your tears fall on your mother, otherwise your mother’s soul will not be able to reach the Yellow Springs and will become a lonely wandering spirit.”
Only Jin Sui calmly handled Jiang Shi’s funeral arrangements. She took out clear water from her space, wiped Jiang Shi’s face and hands, and then wrapped Jiang Shi in a clean blanket.
She said to the two of them, “We must bury Mother as soon as possible, otherwise if the soldiers outside come in, they will drag her to a mass grave and burn her.”
Jin An had seen the burning of corpses in pits, and he was afraid his mother would be dragged in, leaving no remains for burial.
The eight-year-old child was surprisingly strong. He quickly wiped away his tears and helped Jin Sui wipe Jiang Shi’s face.
Grandpa Ling was about to go outside the cave to dig a grave when Jin An stopped him and took down the inconspicuous wooden hairpin from Jiang Shi’s head.
Although called a wooden hairpin, it was just a smoothed-down wooden stick, barely holding her hair up.
Unexpectedly, the wooden stick held a secret. Jin An twisted one end, and a key appeared:
“Grandpa, Mother said that the box in Father’s coffin contains evidence for vindication.”
“This is the key. When we return to Chang’an and retrieve the evidence, we can clear Father’s name.”
Grandpa Ling sighed softly and said nothing, tucking the wooden hairpin into his embrace.
Jin Sui instinctively felt that Grandpa Ling was not particularly keen on the matter of vindicating Father Ling.
Instead, it was Jin An who, likely having heard his mother mention it day and night, inherited her last wish from Jiang Shi.
Vindicating his father had become the most important matter in this child’s heart.
The three of them, taking advantage of the darkening sky and the absence of observers, dug a shallow grave outside the cave, at a location Grandpa Ling had chosen through divination.
Jin An picked many fresh leaves nearby and laid them in the grave. His mother didn’t even have a straw mat to be wrapped in, so she could only be buried so hastily.
Jin Sui and Grandpa Ling carried Jiang Shi’s corpse into the grave, buried it, and then built a circle of stones around it, without a tombstone.
Jin An gazed at his mother’s tomb for a long time, wanting to memorize everything around them so that he could move his mother’s grave and give her a grand burial in the future.
The talismans Grandpa Ling had obtained from the Taoist temple had not been used along the way, but were all burned in front of Jiang Shi’s grave this time.
He said softly, “Rest in peace. I will take good care of the two children.”
Jin Sui didn’t have much affection for the little brat Jin An yet, but at this moment, she couldn’t help but pull the pitiful child into her arms.
She repeatedly stroked his dirty head. The little brat initially pretended to be strong, his body stiff, not leaning into Jin Sui’s embrace.
As a gentle breeze blew, the burned talismans swirled and flew into the air.
Jin An softly called out, “Mother.” He could no longer hold back and sobbed, hugging Jin Sui’s waist.
At this moment, even without the influence of the original owner’s obsession, Jin Sui felt a sense of being an older sister.
She hadn’t expected their difficult journey to find relatives with Grandpa Ling to end in such a manner.
However, even if they had arrived a few days earlier, Jiang Shi would not have recovered.
It was just that after meeting for only a moment, the poor woman hadn’t even had a full meal and had died so miserably in the cave.
Jin Sui felt immense sadness. What kind of era was this? Why was life so difficult for people?
After all the talismans were burned, Grandpa Ling decisively said, “The surveillance outside the mountain is strict. If we want to get out, we can only do so under the cover of darkness.”
“Let’s go. We can’t delay. We must leave Luocheng as soon as possible.”
Jin An’s name was still on the list for exile to Yandi, and Jin Sui was also on the wanted order. If the soldiers in Luocheng detected the slightest anomaly, the three of them would be finished.
Jin Sui took off her Taoist robe and gave it to Jin An to wear, instructing him, “Don’t be afraid, stay close to your sister.”
Fearing he wouldn’t have the strength, she quickly gave him a bag of the remaining grape sugar water and took out three energy bars. The three of them ate as they walked.
Jin An possessed a composure beyond that of a child. He asked nothing, silently held Jin Sui’s hand, and didn’t fall behind.
Following the path they had taken, the three of them saw the corpses of those who had died tragically. In the dim moonlight, they were even more chilling than in the daytime.
For a moment, Jin Sui felt as if she hadn’t transmigrated to a feudal era, but to the apocalypse.
Even Jin An, the brave child, gripped her hand a little tighter.
She whispered, “Don’t look.”
Just then, dozens of sickly-looking people emerged from the trees, behind rocks, and from the bushes nearby.
These people glanced at the three of them but didn’t trouble them. Instead, they began to discuss amongst themselves:
“It’s not that King Yama Luo on duty tonight. We must seize this opportunity to escape. We can’t stay in this hellhole for another moment.”
Grandpa Ling quickly pulled the siblings to hide behind a tree. Jin An asked, “Grandpa, should we follow them?”
Then Jin Sui saw Grandpa Ling squat down and toss his divination copper coins.
He quickly stood up and said, “No, it’s extremely inauspicious. Following them means no survival.”
Jin Sui was about to say that Grandpa’s divinations were sometimes accurate and sometimes not, and it would be better to escape amidst the chaos of so many people.
At that moment, the mouth of the valley not far away suddenly erupted in flames, as if ignited by lamp oil, instantly transforming into a fiery dragon.
Then came the whistling sound of arrows cutting through the sky, followed by the pained cries of those hit by arrows.
The dozens of people who had just tried to escape the valley under the cover of night were mercilessly shot dead by arrows.
One person who ran faster managed to break out of the valley, but the soldiers, as if playing, rode their horses and beheaded him with their sabers.
The bloody scene made Jin Sui feel as if she had stumbled into a living hell.
The three of them, like a grandfather and his grandchildren, crawled backward through the forest. A man’s roar echoed in the night wind:
“Not a single one can be spared! We absolutely cannot let the plague spread to Luocheng!”
Grandpa Ling looked back. The area outside the valley was filled with soldiers, and the fiery dragon illuminated half the sky in an orange glow.
He said with a pounding heart, “Quick, let’s go back to the cave first.”
Jin Sui said sincerely, “Grandpa, I was wrong. Your divination is very accurate!”
The three of them had wanted to rest in the cave for a while longer, but they soon discovered that soldiers were entering the forest with torches.
They gathered the corpses along the way and burned them all in one place.
Grandpa Ling wanted to have the siblings hide in the depths of the cave, but Jin Sui had a different opinion:
“No matter how long we hide here, we can’t escape the valley.”
“Even if we escape, there will be heavy checkpoints in Luocheng, making it impossible to move forward.”
“Grandpa, why don’t we go into the deep mountains! If we cross the Xiaohan Mountain Range, we can head towards Chang’an.”
Jin An also agreed with his sister’s opinion. He was determined to return to Chang’an as soon as possible to fulfill his mother’s last wish.
The child didn’t even consider how difficult it would be to overturn the case involving the Abandoned Crown Prince and achieve vindication.
Grandpa Ling glanced south, the direction of home, and then at the approaching soldiers with their growing fires.
He finally made up his mind, “Alright, we’ll cross the Xiaohan Mountains first.”
Jin An didn’t grasp the implication in his grandfather’s words, but Jin Sui did. They would cross the mountains first, but whether they would go to Chang’an was another matter.
The three of them walked hunched over into the pathless forest. After only a hundred meters, Jin An suddenly tripped over something.
Jin Sui hurried to help him up and, in the dim moonlight, discovered that what had tripped him was a corpse.
It was the corpse of a young boy, about the same height as Jin An.
Her heart stirred, and she quickly asked Jin An, “Do you have a brand on you?”
In this era, criminals were branded. Ordinary young and strong men were branded on the face, while women and children might be branded on the back of their hands or behind their ears.
Jin An pulled open his collar and revealed a blue brand the size of a bowl on his chest.
Jin Sui’s heart ached. For such a young child to have such a large blue brand, how painful it must have been!
