Annual Ceremony

Chapter 67 Winter Solstice (Part 3)

Terrified, Luo Ge'er hugged Orange and hid it in a rolled-up mat in the corner of the room.

Orange once hid the little Zhenyi in the same way.

Now that Orange is old and injured, she is held tightly by Luo Ge'er and can barely struggle.

Luo Ge'er trembled with fear and whispered to Ju Zi, "Ju Zi, don't go. They'll bully you again. I'll protect you..."

Unexpectedly, Orange, who was already nearly powerless, suddenly kicked her hind paws with all her might upon hearing these words, and darted out of Luo Ge'er's arms.

Even cats get bullied, what will Zhenyi do?
Luo Ge'er must protect it, and it must protect Zhenyi!

Amidst the drifting ashes, Orange dragged its lame front paw toward the unconscious Zhenyi.

Orange felt she hadn't protected Zhenyi well.

Orange didn't understand why these people would do this. Zhenyi's writings were all good things, so why were they burned?

Those people shouted that Zhenyi was bewitched by the evil spirits in the books and papers, and that if they were not burned, disasters would continue to occur.

The evil spirits hidden in the pages of the book...

Orange suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. Could it be because those things all had its claw marks on them?
Was it because it was an outsider cat that brought Zhenyi these terrible disasters?
No matter how hard you try, the ashes in the yard can't be completely swept away; they drift down into every tiny corner.

When Zhenyi woke up, she slowly reached out her hand, and her slender fingertips gently landed on the head of the cat that had been guarding her.

Zhenyi's body was frail and floating, but Ju Zi could see that her eyes were clear and resolute.

Her voice was hoarse and unclear, and her words were irrefutable: "Orange, I did nothing wrong."

She seemed to understand the cat's unwarranted self-blame, so she added, "The orange didn't do anything wrong either."

Orange has always trusted Zhenyi. If Zhenyi says the cat is not wrong, then the cat must be right!
Only then did Ju Zi dare to snuggle into Zhen Yi's arms with a clear conscience.

Orange tried to comfort Zhenyi, but Orange was also afraid.

It wasn't Zhenyi's fault, it wasn't the stray cat's fault, it was those people's fault. But this world turns right into wrong and wrong into right. This complete inversion made Orange feel dizzy and scared, and even wanted to vomit due to stress.

Only in Zhenyi's arms could Ju Zi find a sense of real security belonging to her "kind".

Orange curled up in Zhenyi's arms like a snail shell.

The fine ashes drifting in the courtyard seemed to seep into people's hearts and lungs with every breath, casting a thick, fine gloom over everyone in the Wang family from the inside out.

Zhenyi thought she had no tears left to shed.

By late autumn, malaria had finally disappeared from this land.

And Jingyi, who was in Zhenyi's arms, also left.

That night, when the books were burned in the courtyard, the weak and delirious Jingyi was no longer able to fend for her sister's manuscripts like a kitten.

But when someone broke into the dormitory to search, Jingyi used her hands and feet to struggle to sit up, grabbed an old book from the bedside, hugged it to her chest, and curled herself up like a snail.

That old book was none other than "The Seventy-Two Seasonal Phenomena," which held great significance for Yu Zhenyi.

Zhenyi held the lifeless Jingyi, pressing her forehead against Jingyi's cold forehead, tears streaming down her face. Her younger sister was so small, yet she was trying to protect her instead.

Her younger sister is still so young, yet she still cannot escape being one of the fish that slipped through the net in this tragic fate.

Despite her best efforts, Zhenyi was unable to keep her sister from leaving. She harbored unspeakable grief, despair, helplessness, and resentment. In reality, even her crying was silent, her tears flowing like a river in the winter night, cold and silent.

Chun'er, who was just over thirty, suddenly had a strand of white hair at her temples. She collapsed by the bed, held Jingyi's pale little hand, and cried her heart out.

Jingyi was frail and sickly from birth, and Yang Jinniang's health had been poor since then. Jingyi grew up in Chun'er's arms, spending more time with her than with Chun'er's own children.

Chun'er cried until she was completely distraught, then cried out in self-reproach, "It's all my fault! It's all my fault for not watching over the Second Miss properly, letting her run into the courtyard on the night of the Fifteenth of March and see that ominous celestial dog!"

Zhenyi closed her eyes and wept, remaining silent.

Jifang Study fell silent from then on, its door tightly shut, locked by Wang Xichen himself.

This gentle, somewhat weak-willed man, who even insisted on a calm and slow approach to administering medication, had, on that dangerous night, rushed to the front when faced with the crowd that broke into his home. He grabbed the leader's stick and fiercely rebuked them:
My daughter is intelligent and bright, she studies the classics of wisdom and sages, and she walks the path of uprightness and integrity. She is not a malevolent spirit that harms people! It is you ignorant and incompetent evildoers who are meant to harm people!

The next instant, a blow landed on Wang Xichen's shoulder, almost causing him to faint.

A person can muster an astonishing spirit in the face of immense anger, possessing the courage to fight to the death without fear of retreat for a moment. But after that moment, the inescapable long life and responsibilities will slowly drain that spirit from a person's spine.

We still have to live, we still have to live in this world, and we still have to live for our families.

Jingyi's departure caused Wang Xichen's spine to bend even more overnight.

After locking up the Jifang Study, he said to Zhenyi, "You should never read those books again."

For the next hundred days, Zhenyi neither read a book nor left her house, spending all her time lying in bed.

Zhenyi's malaria at that time was not very serious; it was this series of physical and mental traumas that damaged her inner foundation.

That night, Zhenyi dreamed that Jingyi was standing barefoot in the snow, crying. Just as her heart was breaking, she was awakened by a gentle cat's paw patting her forehead.

Zhenyi could no longer fall asleep. She got up, put on her clothes, went to the window, and looked out. She saw that the courtyard was covered with snow, just like in her dream.

No matter how carefully she searched the courtyard, she could not find even the slightest trace of the frail little figure from her dream.

Through her teary eyes, Zhenyi vaguely saw Jingyi scratching at the snow, clutching a plum branch in her hand.

She was a woman of broken promises, failing to keep her word and break a branch for Jingyi this winter.

If she had known this would happen, she should have stayed with Jingyi in the snow that night until dawn, until Jingyi wrote a satisfactory poem.

Without lighting a lamp, Zhenyi used the snow light filtering in through the window to lay out paper and grind ink, a long time after her last writing session, and penned a long essay.

The poem "To My Second Sister" from the past has become "A Letter to My Second Sister" now, with the ink from the cold pen tip feeling as if it were soaked with the blood of my heart.

In mid-November, the winter solstice arrives, marking the peak of the body's vital energy.

The winter solstice is the day with the shortest daylight and the longest night of the year.

On this day, Wang Yuan, trudging through the snow, carrying an urgent letter, hurriedly came to find Zhenyi.

(Jingyi was a real person, and it's true that she died young. Zhenyi also wrote about her father suddenly stopping her and Jingyi from studying, but she didn't elaborate on the reasons, which were probably related to the criticism from outsiders.)
This part is too painful, with too many partings, so I chose to finish writing this part and post it all at once. I probably wouldn't have the courage to update it chapter by chapter T_T