CH 16.2

12. Possession (2)

She sat down inside, curiously lifted the curtain, then pointed to the faint brown paper package in the grass and asked, “Vixen, why is there a bag of pastries here?”

Murong Yan swept a glance lightly, and said in a faint tone, “It’s probably not tasty, so it was thrown away.” Seeing that Yu Qingjia was still looking outside, he reached out and cupped her chin, turning her gaze back to the carriage, “As a daughter of a noble family, you must not look outside the carriage, let alone let the outsiders see your appearance and figure.”

Yu Qingjia was only curious at first, but when she heard his words, she put down the curtain in embarrassment and dared not look outside anymore. She was ashamed but also felt a little strange. Back in Guangling when they were practicing archery, she was even wearing a Hu outfit outside, meeting with foreign men and other things and no one stopped her. Why is she suddenly acting like an old-fashioned pedant?

The carriage started slowly, and with this question in mind, Yu Qingjia accompanied the caravan on the long journey back to Yanzhou.

⚘

Traveling on the road is really not a pleasant job, especially during turbulent and chaotic times. The official road has long been abandoned, and people are not only suffering inside the carriage, but sometimes they can’t even guarantee their safety.

This is really a very strange era, the population of the world plummeted to one tenth of its original size, wives are sold and children are starving everywhere, but in the same period, the nobility would still indulge in unrestrained sex.

Yu Qingjia has come all the way and seen all sorts of things. Sometimes sighing would even make her feel superficial. Murong Yan saw her lift the carriage curtain to look outside again, and he moved his eyes to look, and he found that there were only a few children sleeping in their arms by the side of the road. He frowned and wondered, “It’s just a few children. What are you looking at?”

“Looking at their ages, the youngest is probably just five or six years old, and the oldest is only eleven or twelve. But where are their parents? Why would they let the children out to live alone?” After saying that, Yu Qingjia realized the answer herself. Most likely, they’re dead. Starved to death, killed by rich people, died of disease, it is not easy to survive in this world, but there are too many possibilities for death.

“Not necessarily dead.” Murong Yan spoke plainly, Yu Qingjia turned her head and was looking at him expectantly, but she heard him continue and say, “It could also be that they were sold by their parents. Then their parents took the money and moved to the south.”

“Hey you!”

“What’s wrong?” Murong Yan looked at her in disbelief, “It’s a highly probable outcome. Isn’t it better for the parents to flee across the river south than for the whole family to die?”

Yu Qingjia stared at Murong Yan, she was too angry to say anything. “They are only seven or eight-year-old children, they have no one to rely on, they can only support each other to survive, how can you still say such cold-blooded words?”

“It’s just a statement of a possibility. Besides, so what if they are children?”

Yu Qingjia stared at Murong Yan with round eyes and found that there was an unadulterated confusion in his eyes, as if he really didn’t understand why in the world he should feel sympathy when he saw the children who were lonely, weak and suffering from hunger and poverty.

Yu Qingjia looked at him for a long time, and finally withdrew her gaze helplessly. She once again felt puzzled, what exactly stimulated her father, why did he suddenly turn his taste around, and fell in love with this kind of femme fatale?

Murong Yan looked at the side of Yu Qingjia’s face, his eyebrows immediately twitched and a strong sense of incredulity arose, “It’s just a bunch of unrelated people, you’re actually angry with me because of them?”

“No.” Yu Qingjia’s tone was hard and suddenly became emotional, “If you think about it, if someone can end this chaos, it would be a great achievement. Even if he tyrannizes and kills the innocent indiscriminately, but for more people at the bottom, stability is still greater than suffering.” Yu Qingjia sighed, looking at it this way, she didn’t know how to feel about Prince Langya, even though she wanted to do something about him, she didn’t have the ability to do so. Also, Although he massacred the entire Yu Family, but for the world, he is still the ruler who unified the nation, it was a great achievement after over a thousand years. She cannot disrupt the historical process of him ending the troubled times just because she is worried about her own life and death.

After all, this world belongs to people with ambitions.

“Unify this world?” Murong Yan smiled when he heard it, “Who are you talking about?”

Yu Qingjia blinked, intent on quizzing the other party, “What do you think? What if it’s our Qi Kingdom who ends up being the winner?”

“Qi Kingdom? With that drunkard?” Murong Yan snickered, he did not even bother to hide the disdain in his eyes, “Nowadays, those few people in the Night City are either a bunch of Lunatics or war-mongers, if the world really falls into their hands, it might not be as good as it was in the war-torn era.”

Although Yu Qingjia is full of defensiveness against the future tyrant Prince Langya, but hearing others say this about the Qi Kingdom’s Imperial family, she is still a bit uncomfortable, “What if it’s someone else from the Imperial family? Don’t forget that the Crown Prince still has a son in exile.”

Murong Yan glanced at her, if he didn’t know any better, he would almost suspect that she had discovered something and was now deliberately saying this to him, “Why are you always worried about the general situation of the world lately? Nowadays the north and south are confronting each other and dividing the rivers. Why rely on an imperial grandson who is hidden in the folks, when the previous dynasty could not even do it on its heyday. You still dare to say such words as unification?”

Yu Qingjia shook her head and smiled softly, “He will.”

Murong Yan suddenly gave birth to a subtle sense of displeasure, “You know him?”