Ning Dao Covered with Snow

Chapter 355 War
The scene before us changed once again.

Yan Ciwan found herself once again in the main hall of Hengqing Temple. The shaman was sitting cross-legged on a futon, meditating. On the wall in front of him hung a large portrait. Yan Ciwan had initially thought it was a portrait of the Moon Goddess, but now she knew it was actually a portrait of Yang Ziyuan, the deceased Crown Prince of Heng Dynasty.

Footsteps sounded behind her. Yan Ciwan looked in the direction of the sound and saw the envoy, wearing a red mask, stride in.

"Disciple pays homage to master."

The shaman opened his eyes, looked at the portrait in front of him, and slowly asked, "How did things go?"

The esteemed envoy respectfully said, "My disciple has already spread the news of Yan Ciwan's murder, and now the people in the neighborhood are all talking about it."

The shaman smiled slightly: "Next, we don't need to do anything, we just need to wait quietly."

The master and disciple in front of them disappeared, and the surroundings changed accordingly.

Yan Ciwan found herself in a valley, next to a deep lake. The shaman, dressed in simple clothes and wearing a straw hat, was sitting quietly fishing by the lake.

Danxiazi hurriedly ran over from a distance.

"Master, news has come from Chang'an: Crown Prince Li Cunxing is dead!"

Yan Ciwan was shocked. How could Li Cunxing have suddenly died?
The shaman looked at Danxiazi and asked the question that had been on Yan Ciwan's mind.

"How did he die?"

"It is said that he was poisoned by the Crown Princess. We don't know the specifics, because the Emperor ordered that this matter be kept quiet. The people in the city all thought that the Crown Prince died of illness."

The shaman pondered, "Could it be because Yan Tingyu's identity was exposed that she resorted to poisoning the crown prince out of desperation? Where is she now?"

"She died too. The emperor announced that the Crown Princess, like the Crown Prince, had died suddenly from an illness, but in fact she should have committed suicide by poisoning. She killed the Crown Prince and was bound to die. Rather than be imprisoned and tortured, she chose to end her own life, at least she could die easily and cleanly."

Yan Ciwan was incredulous. Yan Tingyu had gone to great lengths to take her place and finally became the Crown Princess, only to end up like this!

The shaman narrowed his eyes slightly: "Yan Tingyu impersonated Princess Leyou and has now poisoned the Crown Prince. The Emperor will definitely not let this go. Although she is dead, her father, the King of Xizhou, is still alive."

Following his words, Danxiazi analyzed, "The King of Xizhou has guarded the border for many years, wields a large army, and has accumulated great prestige in the military. He certainly won't sit idly by and wait for his death."

"Go and add fuel to the fire, let them start fighting as soon as possible."

"Yes."

The master and apprentice exchanged a smile.

The scene before Yan Ciwan changed once again.

The valleys and lakes vanished, replaced by endless war. Fertile fields along the roadside were abandoned, and people, barely clothed, fled in panic. An old man collapsed from exhaustion. His daughter-in-law tried to help him, but she was too dizzy and weak from hunger to lift him. Young children cried loudly from hunger and fear.

The ground began to tremble, and the sound of horses' hooves could be heard in the distance.

The crowd looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the imperial army was heading this way. The people on the road were afraid of being captured and forced into hard labor, so they hurriedly hid in the woods. Only the old man was still lying in the middle of the road without moving. The daughter-in-law looked at the army getting closer and closer, and finally could only grit her teeth and run away with her thin child.

Yan Ciwan tried to help the old man up, but her hand went straight through his body.

The facts reminded her once again that she could only be a bystander in history.

She raised her head and looked at the rapidly approaching imperial army. The general in the lead was very familiar to her; it was none other than Fu Zheng, the Left General of the Golden Guard.

He was dressed in black armor, riding a tall and mighty steed, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

He saw the gaunt old man lying on the road, but he did not slow down at all, and his horse's hooves went straight over the old man.

The soldiers following closely behind did not stop for a moment. They passed right through Yan Ciwan like a dense flock of black crows. Yan Ciwan stood still and did not move. She saw the old man being trampled by the horses' hooves. He was awakened by pain, his cries drowned out by the sound of hooves. Soon he fainted again from the pain and never woke up again.

History will not change because of a bystander, and war will not stop because of an innocent old woman.

When the hundreds of thousands of troops left, the old man's body was already mangled and bloody.

People emerged from the woods in twos and threes.

When the daughter-in-law saw the old man's tragic death, she knelt on the ground, crying and kowtowing.

The others reacted coldly to this scene, walking away without looking back. People were dying every day on the run; today it was this old man, tomorrow it might be one of them. Everyone had become numb.

As Yan Ciwan looked at the scene before her, the image of the shaman conversing with Danxiazi flashed through her mind.

They sow discord and manipulate power. To them, war is nothing more than snowflakes in winter, but when these snowflakes fall on ordinary people, they become a huge disaster that can crush everything.

The cries of the woman and child gradually faded away, and the familiar sound of a piano drifted into her ears.

It's Xiao Wang playing "The Returning Traveler"!
Yan Ciwan knew she had to go back. She took one last look at the dead old man, as if trying to etch this tragic scene deep into her mind.

She turned her gaze away and walked in the direction from which the music was coming.

……

When Yan Ciwan opened her eyes, she found herself lying in bed.

"Aci!"

She turned her head and saw Nie Xiayun standing by the bed.

Nie Xiayun had changed into a clean dress, and the dirt on her face had been washed away, but her forehead was still wrapped in thick gauze.

When she saw that her granddaughter had finally woken up, she was both surprised and delighted, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"When I saw you stop breathing earlier, I thought you..."

She couldn't continue speaking at this point, and raised her hand to wipe away her tears forcefully.

Yan Ciwan tried to sit up, but as soon as she raised her hand, she found that her right hand was already tightly bandaged, her arm was fixed with a wooden board, and not only that, her waist, abdomen and calves were also wrapped in gauze.

At this moment, she was completely unable to move. She slightly opened her mouth and made a faint sound.

"Grandma, are you hurt?"

Nie Xiayun swallowed her tears and said, feigning anger, "I'm perfectly fine. It's you who's so badly injured. Are you trying to scare me to death?!"

Yan Ciwan twitched the corners of her mouth and smiled at her.

"As long as you're okay."

Upon hearing this, Nie Xiayun almost burst into tears again, the tears she had just swallowed.

She choked back tears and yelled, "Take care of yourself first, and stop worrying about me!"

Xiao Wang reminded him, "Let Aci drink this bowl of medicine first."

Nie Xiayun quickly wiped her eyes, then turned around and took the medicine Xiao Wang handed her. She thought of how her granddaughter had been brought back to life because of the person in front of her, and she sincerely said, "Thank you so much for what you did earlier."

"Madam, there's no need for formalities. Aci saved my life, so it's only natural for me to save her as well."