When Yin Du opened his eyes, the first thing he smelled on the tip of his nose was the smell of rust mixed with herbs.
She was lying on a hard wooden bed, covered with a coarse linen quilt, which made her skin itchy. The roof is low, with a few strings of dried chili peppers and herbal medicine packages hanging on the beams. An iron stove squats in the corner, with white gas gurgling from the earthen pot on the stove. The window paper was thickly papered, and the light coming in was dim. It was hard to tell whether it was morning or dusk.
She sat up and looked down at her hands. Thin, white, with distinct knuckles, the nails are cut very short, and there is a thin callus on the tiger's mouth - the kind of callus that one has used to hold a knife. She tried to move her fingers, and her joints clicked.
The door was pushed open.
Shen E walked in with a medicine bowl in his hand. He was dressed in indigo cloth. The cuffs were rolled up to the middle of his forearm, revealing an old red rope around his wrist. He is a little thinner than in his previous life, and his cheekbones are more obvious, but his eyebrows are still the same - gloomy, pale, and the ends of his eyes are slightly drooped when he looks at people, as if he is always enduring something. When he saw Yin Du sitting up, he paused for a moment, then walked two steps faster to the bed, placed the medicine bowl on the bedside table, squatted down, and looked up at her.
"Sister Du is awake." He called her, his voice was very soft, with a hint of probing.
Yin Du didn't respond. She was looking at his wrist - the red rope was old and white, and the edges were hairy, as if it had been tied for many years. In the previous life, he had a red rope tied around his wrist when he was the commander of the secret guards. In the previous life, he had a suet-fat jade hanging on his waist when he was the prince's accompaniment. In the previous life... She couldn't remember clearly. She only remembered that in one life, he tied her to him with a red rope for seven full years.
"How long have I been asleep?" She asked, her voice as hoarse as sandpaper.
Shen E lowered her eyes, took out a wooden comb from her arms, carefully picked up her long hair that was scattered on the pillow, and combed it up from the end one by one. The movements were slow and familiar, as if they had been done thousands of times. "Three days. The poison came out once, and the fever subsided and came back again. It stabilized last night." After combing the left side, he switched to the right side and gently scraped the back of her neck with the comb teeth. "Are you hungry, Sister Du? There is also porridge in the pot, with red dates and longan."
Yin Du turned his head to avoid his hand. Shen E's hand froze in mid-air, paused for a breath, then took it back naturally and put the wooden comb back on the low table. He smiled, the smile was very shallow, and the corners of his mouth only curved in a very small arc: "Sister Du doesn't remember me."
Declarative sentence, no question mark.
Yin Du looked at him. Fragments of the first life were surging in my mind - the cell, the chains, a bowl of hot porridge passed through the cracks in the bars; the eyes looking through the bars were wet, like a cub that had been soaked by the rain. In his second life, he was the commander of the secret guards in fox fur, holding the tip of a knife to his heart and begging her to kill him. The third life... Now is the third life. She has become a woman. He is the owner of a medicine house in the mountains. He has an old red string tied around his wrist and squats beside her bed to comb her hair.
"I remember," she said.
Shen E's eyes suddenly lit up. That kind of light was not ecstasy, but more like a dying lamp that was stirred by the wind, and the flames flickered and burned a little brighter. He stretched out his hand to hold her hand on the quilt, intertwined his fingers, and his palm was hot.
"Sister Du," he lowered his head and rested his forehead on the back of her hand with a muffled voice, "I have been looking for Sister Du for a long time in this life. When I woke up, I was in western Sichuan and climbed three mountains before I found out that Sister Du was here. When I came here, Sister Du was already unconscious from the poison. I took the medicine for twelve hours, and my hands were shaking..."
His voice choked up as he spoke, and he paused for a while before continuing: "Sister Du, please don't leave in this life, okay? I will block the people outside for Sister Du, and I will avenge their hatred for Sister Du, and Sister Du will stay in this medicine house -" He raised his face to look at her, his eyes were red but there were no tears, but the corners of his lips were curved into a smile, "Sister Du is feeling bored, there is a hot spring in the back mountain, so I cut a path to get out."
Yin Du looked at his fingers clasped on his hand, the knuckles turning white from the exertion. She suddenly remembered the bowl of porridge in the cell in her first life - the hand that handed the porridge was also like this, with sharp joints and old wounds on the fingertips. When holding the bowl, it shook like a dead leaf in the wind.
"Shen'e." She called him.
He responded reflexively and leaned forward slightly, like a dog whose name was called.
"In the first life," Yin Du said slowly, "when you handed me porridge, you said something to me. Do you remember?"
Shen E was stunned. He looked at her, his pupils dilated slightly, and his grip on her hand loosened a little, then tightened again. His lips moved twice, and it took him a long time to squeeze out one word: "... Note."
"What are you talking about?"
He lowered his eyes, his eyelashes covering the emotions under his eyes. There was wind hitting the paper window outside the window, and the herbs in the earthen pot were rolling. He was silent for a long time, so long that Yin Du thought he was not going to answer, then he heard his very soft voice, almost pressed in his throat:
"I said... Brother Du, if you want to survive, come pick me up in the prison when you get out."
He raised his eyes to look at her, his eyes curved, but the smile did not reach his eyes: "Then Brother Du didn't come. On the day I was dragged out for interrogation, Brother Du looked at me at the city gate. I saw it." His thumb gently rubbed the back of her hand, "Brother Du held the knife and his knuckles drew blood, but he did not pull it out."
Yin Du's chest shrank suddenly.
In the wind and snow at the gate of the city that day in the first life, the young man who was tied in the prison car and smiled at her through the vast crowd - she saw clearly the shape of his mouth, and what he said was "I don't blame you."
She pulled out her hand and held his wrist, exposing the skin under the old red rope. His pulse was beating fast and chaotically under his wrist, like a trapped animal hitting a cage. She pressed her fingertips on it, feeling the hot pulses inch by inch.
Shen E looked down at her finger pressing on his pulse, and suddenly smiled, so much that the ends of his eyes crinkled. He leaned forward, rested his chin on her shoulder, embedded himself in her arms, and said softly:
"Sister Du is a woman in this life. It's my turn to protect Sister Du."
The charcoal fire in the iron furnace crackled and exploded. The sound of voices outside the window came from far away, from far to near, accompanied by the crisp sound of horse hooves breaking thin ice. Shen E's shoulders suddenly tensed up. He raised his head, listened for a moment, and whispered, "Here he comes."
Yin Du: "Who?"
Shen E stood up, took out a short knife wrapped with an old cloth strip from the end of the bed, and handed it to her with his backhand. The hilt of the knife was facing her, and the tip of the knife was facing himself - exactly the same posture as in the previous life. He looked down at her, candlelight dancing in his eyes.
"The person who killed me was also the person who killed Sister Du. He has been chasing her for three lifetimes."
He smiled and handed the short knife forward again: "Sister Du draws the knife, I will block it for Sister Du. In this life -" He squatted down, looked at her level, reached out to tuck her scattered hair behind her ears, and brushed her ear with his fingertips, "Don't point this knife at me again."
Intention:-