The Gilded Cage - CH 105

In the Past, You Only Had a Bad Two Years, and It Will Get Better in the Future (1)

At that time, the Palace of Ganzhou hadn’t been built yet.

The craftsmen sent by Changan had already divided up the money for the construction of the palace, and they all fled, but the money allocated by the local government in Ganzhou had not been released.

Although Xiao Kezhi was a royal prince and Duke of Qin, his life was not as good as that of ordinary citizens. He could only find an ordinary farmhouse on the outskirts of the city with only a dozen guards around him.

This stay was nearly three years. At first, the provincial governor of Ganzhou and other local officials treated him respectfully, but later, when they found out that he was a down-and-out prince who no one cared about, they stopped being nice to him.

In the winter of the third year, Ganzhou was hit by a snowstorm of which the likes had not been seen in twenty years and was also suddenly attacked by the Beirong people.

Xiao Kezhi, who lived outside the city, faced the iron cavalry of the Beirong people and watched them use their iron hooves to flatten the village, shoot cold arrows into the chests of the people, and beat them with long whips. They unscrupulously killed the people of Liang and looted all the property that the people had accumulated after a year of hard work.

In the flying snow, the sky and the earth were vast, and the world that should have been covered in white was covered with shocking crimson blood.

Fifteen-year-old Xiao Kezhi was far away from Changan, which was like a tiger’s den, but he saw a more straightforward and bloody cruel reality on the border.

He was hidden in a water tank in the farmhouse by more than a dozen guards and watched these closest and trusted warriors fall one by one, but he couldn’t make a sound, because he knew that if he were caught, his guards’ lives would be sacrificed in vain.

He stayed in the water tank for an unknown length of time until he felt frozen all over, then he shivered and crawled out in a dead silence.

There was a bloody mess, and he felt numb, so he could only stumble in the wind and snow, trudging step by step towards the direction of the government office.

The borderlands were sparsely populated, the land was vast, and the distances between the villages were extremely far. He walked for an extended amount of time until his legs were soaked by the melted snow, and he lost consciousness from the cold and finally fell into the snow unsupported.

In the deserted wilderness, the snow was still falling.

He was lying on his back, and he could no longer feel the cold. He only felt that the white in front of him was gradually dazzling and suddenly turned pitch black.

He thought this was the end of his life.

In the haze, he thought of the dozen or so bodyguards who died, as well as his mother who died in Changan. The last emotion in his heart was only guilt and helplessness…

An indeterminable amount of time later, he woke up from the coma. Half of his body was covered with snow and the numbness of his right fingertips was being dissolved from a vague warmth and wetness.

It was a small gray wolf cub.

It was probably separated from its mother, or perhaps had lost its mother, and it appeared alone in the wilderness, watching him curiously.

For some reason, he remembered a story he had heard from his neighbors about seeing the Buddha’s manifestation in a desperate situation. He didn’t believe it, but today this little wolf cub was like a light that pulled him back from the darkness.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to let the dozen guards protecting him die in vain, and he didn’t want to let his mother’s efforts go to waste.

He struggled to get up from the snow, and with his last perseverance, he took the little wolf cub and continued to trek in the direction of the administration. When he was tired, he stopped and took a break. When he was thirsty and hungry, he picked up the snow on the ground and ate it.

The little wolf cub was very spiritual. As soon as it felt the signs of a coma coming back again, it would bite his hand with the puppy teeth and pull him back from the trance.

After two days and two nights, he finally collapsed outside the government office, thoroughly exhausted.

…

“In that case, it really saved Your Majesty’s life.” When Chu Ning heard him explain these things, his heart was sour. Although she knew that he might have had a bad life there, she didn’t expect that he had to face a brutal massacre alone.

“Is the name ‘Weimo’ also created by Your Majesty?”

“Yes,” Xiao Kezhi nodded, pulled the reins to turn the horse’s head, and walked onto a snow-covered path, “When it appeared, it reminded me of the story of the Buddha. Weimo is a role model for the lay people—not polluted by the worldly dirt and still obtaining the achievement of the holy fruit. This is my goal, and I hope that no matter what happens in the future, I will not forget everything I experienced in the past, so I named it this.”

“Weimo” was the provincial name of Vimalakirti, a famous Mahayana Buddhist layman, known for his cleanliness.

When he said these words, his tone was normal, as if he was not talking about himself at all, but was telling someone else’s story.

Chu Ning thought for a while and said, “So, it’s already ten years old!”

In the cold wind, Xiao Ke carefully controlled the horse and sighed. “Yeah, ten years later, a wolf cub would be considered a sixty year old man, and now it is time for it to enjoy its happiness with me. ”

The originally slightly heavy atmosphere gradually eased, and Chu Ning laughed and said, “It is indeed enjoying itself. It is well cared for in the Taiji Palace every day, and no one dares to have conflict with it.”

“Next time, I will bring you closer to it. You were frightened by it a few times before.”

Chu Ning remembered what the beast looked like when it approached and shrank into his arms in fright.