Demon King's Repayment - chapter 70

New Year’s Eve was approaching and every household was busy preparing new year goods.

Sitting in the yard, Ru Shi used a knife to remove the red dates and jujube seeds, sandwiched them with walnuts and then covered them with a thin layer of syrup, dipped in sauteed sesame seeds, to make a sweet and delicious dessert.

Wu Yuan squatted at the table and waited. From time to time, Ru Shi threw a freshly made walnut with a jujube to him and saw him grab it without fail and take it to the tree to eat.

Ru Shi laughed. She didn’t understand why a cat would like to eat sweets.

But she didn’t see Li Yu who was also waiting at her feet with his hands outstretched. Li Yu could only stand there, holding out his pair of small hands pitifully.

“Shiniang, I’ll help you,” Yuan Xiang just came out holding the small Nan He and placed him on the table. After washing her hands, she sat down beside him.

She calmly took three or four and put them in Li Yu’s hands, then ate one by herself and fed another one to Nan He.

“Wow, it’s delicious. Xiao Nan, what do you think?”

“Look at you. You haven’t helped yet, but already ate one.” Ru Shi smiled and wiped her mouth with her kerchief, “Your Shifu used to like this the most.”

The corner of the handkerchief was embroidered with a small black fish and a few waves. The fish was small, but it was embroidered vividly. On the azure blue handkerchief, it was like a fish swimming in the sea, free and easy.

Yuan Xiang was stunned for a moment. All the handkerchiefs Shi Niang made over the years seemed to be related to fish.

She couldn’t help but think of Wu Yuan’s words. Was it true that Shifu was not a human being, but just a fish in the sea? What might Shifu know?

Ru Shi saw Yuan Xiang staring at the pattern on her handkerchief in a daze. The smile on her face slowly reduced. She retracted her handkerchief, lowered her eyelashes, stretched out her hand to gently stroke the little fish on it and spoke slowly, “Your Shifu, I, I was born in Dengzhou on the Bohai Sea and my ancestors have left a name, which could barely be regarded as a honor.” 

Ru Shi looked at the azure blue handkerchief, thinking of the sea in her childhood hometown, “For girls who grew up in a family like mine, marriage is never their choice and most of the time it is just a bargaining chip to exchange family benefits.”

Ru Shi was a girl in the family. She was well-loved and grew up well, but when she became an adult, she was betrothed to a man who was older than her father. That person had royal blood, a distinguished identity and the family was rejoicing. Everyone congratulated her for flying high. Even her parents were happy.

Before getting married, she came to the beach with her favorite little fish alone and walked into the sea with bare feet. She stood in the undulating sea for a long time and finally dumped the tub in her arms.

“Go, I’m freeing you.” Ru Shi stepped in the water, crying with tears all over her face, “I have to marry away and go to Jingdu. I can’t take you with me and I can’t raise you again.”

The little fish that had been with her for many years swam around at her feet, rubbing her legs with his smooth head, reluctantly, as if he couldn’t bear to leave.

“Otherwise, will you take me with you, take me to the sea, to the bottom of the sea?” The girl who didn’t want to get married squatted in the sea and wept. The high tide of the sea passed by her knee then her waist, her chest. The little fish next to her was swimming more anxiously, trying to push her back with his small body ashore.

Although she knew Ru Shi must be fine, Yuan Xiang held her breath when she heard it and even Nan He, who was squatting on the table, raised his ears.

Wu Yuan dangled his braid of red cords from the branches of the banyan tree. Li Yu, who was sitting on his roof with his feet in the air while eating jujube, turned his eyes to look at them.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Ru Shi smiled embarrassedly, “Although I was young and frivolous, I still cherished my own life and knew that death was not worth it.”

The girl who came back from the sea reluctantly put on the wedding gown after all and sat on the sedan chair to Jingdu.

On the way, she met a strange man with a handsome face and a gentle manner, but his clothes were very simple and strange. He followed the married team all the way. The accompanying family members told her that he was a wandering Taoist, a person who escaped from the world and practiced, so she obeyed strangely.

It turned out that the cultivator looked so good-looking. Sitting in the sedan chair, Ru Shi was bored for a long time and quietly lifted a corner of the sedan chair to peek at the person outside.

The man was dressed so casually and weirdly that everyone looked back at him, but he didn’t seem to be uncomfortable at all. Whenever he looked at Ru Shi, he would smile at her and those dark eyes gave her a familiar feeling. It was a face she had never seen before, but Ru Shi felt like he was a long-known friend.