One Life, One Incarnation, Beautiful Bones

34

Chapter 11.1 - Your First Adornment was Like You (1)

"'Pai gow that risks a city'?" Du Feng smiled, as if he was thinking of something. "That's a saying you don't hear often."

Zhousheng Ren lowered his head and began again to flip through the book he had brought along. "Mr. Du, you seem very interested in all this." His tone had suddenly turned cool and distant, but Du Feng did not seemed bothered by it.

Perhaps it was the feeling of pridefulness that Xiao Ren radiated, or possibly it was something else, but Shi Yi seemed to sense that the atmosphere between him and Du Feng was very unfriendly.

Everyone was playing excitedly, but Shi Yi felt it was rather pointless.

When she saw Xiao Ren's focused look as he read his book, she suddenly felt guilty. He really loved to read, yet he was keeping her company here and carrying out idle conversation with people. Pulling out a pen from her handbag, she inconspicuously wrote on a facial tissue: Let's go back?

Then, with her pointer finger, she tapped the back of his hand and covered the book he was reading with the tissue.

The boy was taken aback momentarily, but then his lips came together and turned up into a smile.

They quickly departed from that place. Shi Yi returned to her room to grab some books, paper, and a pen, and together they went to a quiet teahouse. Sitting up on the second level next to a window, they each read their own books.

Every once in a while, Shi Yi would raise her head to glance at Xiao Ren. She all of a sudden had a feeling that she was like a parent or guardian.

And this child was certainly one of those who loved studying, the type where you absolutely did not need to worry about him. From the very beginning, once he had fully immersed himself into his reading, he paid no heed to the sounds of water or the songs of the cicadas around him. With pen in hand, he was continuously writing something on his paper, and his eyes never left his paper and book.

Shi Yi lowered her head and carried on reading the book in her hand.

She also had the habit of writing as she read. At times, when she read a word or sentence that she liked, she would copy it down and that would help her remember it. Maybe the atmosphere here was simply too nice or perhaps Zhousheng Ren's stillness had influenced her. The pen in her hand had been writing away and then it stopped.

Somehow, like her hand was being guided by something, she put her pen to paper and wrote a sentence:

Summer, sixth month, year of Ji-hai[1], the emperor died in the Palace of Eternal Happiness.

Her pen was still once again, its tip hovering above the paper, reluctant to continue writing.

She clearly remembered it had been the first day of the sixth month because that was the day she was born. She had come into the world, but on that same day, after the late emperor had breathed his last, fourteen-year-old Xiao Nanchen Prince had refused to accept the sealed imperial decree presented to him, questioning the genuineness of the seal for it appeared too small and suspecting that there was a mutiny in the imperial palace. This had nearly led to a disastrous incident of civil disorder.

He had been fourteen years old when she was born into the world.

Even before the first time she had seen him, the things she had heard about him were enough to fill a book.

Shi Yi had written the words of that one line such that they were very small, and her handwriting was very faint as well. Her heart pounded as she stared at it for a while. Perhaps she seemed overly entranced by what she was looking at for she attracted Zhousheng Ren's attention. The boy set down his book and glanced at what she had written. With some surprise, he asked, "What you wrote, is it about the Zhousheng Chen of ancient times?"