ZuoMeng: To Dream

Parting

The leaf finally stopped outside of an inn.

JinGe stepped into the inn and recognized the guards who were sitting around a table in the inn. They all looked solemn. Some were even tearing up a bit. The food and wine were served on their table, and they ate silently. ZhenYu could not be seen, he was not with them.

"ZhenYu must be up on the second floor," thought the girl as she took towards the stairs but on the first thread a guard suddenly burst out, "You. Do not go up there."

The phrase made JinGe froze, it sounded like it was directed at her.

However, the words were for the man's friend who wanted to go up the stairs. He was standing instead of dining with them.

"Sit down," he scolded his friend as the others silently watched.

"The master is in pain. He needs us to accompany him," argued his friend. The guard approached him and placed his hand on his shoulder and sighed, "You are not the only one who cares for the master. We all do. Look at their faces."

Everyone had a solemn expression hanging on their faces as they ate. "The master is not ready to meet us yet. He will come out when he is ready. For the time being, he needs to be alone. All we can do is to wait. Did you forget about what he did after that?"

When they finally arrived at the scene, they saw the young master panicking as he tried to move the heavy wooden blocks despite his own injury like a madman and when it was removed, the young mistress was beyond saving.

The master kept shouting and talking to her. Everyone knew, in their hearts that she wouldn't survive, seeing how badly she was injured from the fall.

All of them were an audience to a tragic love.

After the mistress died, rain began falling again. It took a while before they could persuade the young master to move from the spot.

They decided to take the mistress with them. However, when they got close to the dead body, the master pushed their hands away and carried the mistress by himself without a word as they travelled to the neighboring city. Her body was in his arms, nobody could approach him nor the body even after they arrived at the town in the morning.

The guards tried to settle down at the local inn which the master gave a lot of money to stay as he wanted to keep the body in the room instead of the wooden shed behind the inn. There was a huge argument but, in the end, the innkeeper was paid sufficiently to allow it.

He ordered us to bring the local undertaker and a coffin over. Later, he dressed himself in his official robe and went out with a guard to the neighboring office to visit their city lord. He came back at night, still sober and serious and had been in his room on the second floor since then.

The guard who accompanied him told us later that when he was with the new city lord, the young master acted like everything never happened but when the city lord asked him about his wife, the master replied with a forced smile and said, "She just passed away." The news shocked the city lord, and he quickly changed the topic.

"It is better to leave him by himself to figure things out," said the head guard as he poured a cup of wine for himself as the others resume eating while the other guard quietly re-joined them at the table.

JinGe went upstairs and was looking around. "How to know which is ZhenYu's room?"

Suddenly a waiter walked up from the stairs and passed through her as she was literally a ghost now.

The man was holding a tray of white sheets and complaining, "Stupid innkeeper. You can just bring up yourself but no, you had to order me around."

There was an uncomfortable feeling when the man passed through her, but it also gave her a great idea. While the man slowly placed the sheets into a cupboard on the second floor just next to the stairs, JinGe was utilizing her ghostly characteristics as she travelled passed through several rooms, trying to find ZhenYu.