Let Me Explain, Fairy
Chapter 819 - 512: The Past (Happy New Year)

Chapter 819: Chapter 512: The Past (Happy New Year)

"That was a long time ago, so long ago that I’ve nearly forgotten what happened back then..."

Xu Yuan strolled through Xiangqin Pavilion as if on a leisurely walk, following Lou Ji and quietly listening to her recount the past.

Lou Ji’s voice still carried the frivolity and laughter of the old days. However, today Xu Yuan detected a hint of something else within that laughter.

Tonight, she seemed more sorrowful and melancholic.

The brilliance of that sword still stretched across the sky.

Rock gardens cloaked in frost, jade pools frozen over, footsteps silent in the snow.

They walked very slowly.

Xu Yuan had tried to learn about the stories experienced by the previous generation, but the information he acquired was exceedingly limited.

Most of the information had already become distorted.

Just as historical accounts in books might not reflect the true history – whether due to protecting reputations, secrecy, or other reasons – the written records of the past generation conflicted greatly with the interior references from the Prime Minister’s Mansion that Xu Yuan had read.

The internal references he read from the Prime Minister’s Mansion were not falsified, so those official records must be fake, but although the internal reports could be genuine, their content was limited.

They only recorded some complex fragments of the past, enabling Xu Yuan to barely catch a glimpse of the story from those years. But that was all, not even as comprehensive as the information gathered from casual conversations with the senior members of his family’s mansion.

Tonight could be considered Xu Yuan’s first comprehensive understanding of his elder sister’s past.

Lou Ji’s background wasn’t actually low; even within this feudal empire, she could be said to greatly surpass the common people.

Her father served as the Military Provision Transport Envoy in Wuling City within Pinghuai State.

A true Noble Clan Disciple.

Translated to his previous life, he would at least have been at a middle-management level.

And as far as Xu Yuan understood the official system of Dayan, regardless of which bureau the transport envoy belonged to, it was a lucrative position.

After all, even with modern management and monitoring methods in his previous life, places like storage were hotbeds of corruption, not to mention this informationally-opaque feudal empire.

Furthermore, before His Majesty and the Prime Minister embarked on their reform of the administration, the vast Dayan Empire had actually already decayed to its roots; there were practically no genuinely incorruptible officials.

Lou Ji didn’t hide this fact, laughing as she recounted the corrupt practices her father used when she was a child, recounting her scant remaining impressions of that portly middle-aged man, and recounting how her family was ruined after that catastrophic flood.

In the thirty-ninth year of Yongqing, seven years after Xu Yin He entered Di’an, in the month when Lou Ji was just five years old.

In Pinghuai State, the rains poured for more than seventy days, and the deluge breached the levees along the middle course of Luo River. The massive floodwaters cascaded down, striking Wuling County downstream, instantly turning millions of commoners into refugees without a home.

Whenever a great disaster struck, the Imperial Court would always dispatch troops to the affected areas to provide relief and, more importantly, to prevent the rise of banditry.

In such a circumstance, it was only natural for that portly middle-aged man, due to his official role in the face of emergency, to be commissioned with procuring military provisions and a series of military supplies.

According to Lou Ji, that flood was a crisis for her family, but also an opportunity.

"In those days, I would often not see my father for several days on end. He was a corrupt official, but he was one who actually got things done. At first, when he would return home braving the rain, aside from being stern, his face was full of worry. But later on, I started to sense a relief in him.

"Until one time, he returned home through the rain and immediately, laughing, lifted me into his arms, telling my mother that his contributions to handling the flood had caught the eye of some important figures in the court, and that there was a very high chance of him being promoted in next year’s examination.

"At that time, I didn’t understand what promotion meant, but I did understand that since the beginning of the flood, for the first time there was some liveliness in our previously gloomy mansion."

"..."

Xu Yuan listened quietly, not speaking, not interrupting, but in his heart, he already knew what happened next.

It wasn’t because of what Lou Ji had previously referred to the old lady Dragon as "Miss," it was because he had seen this matter in the internal reports at the Prime Minister’s Mansion.

In the thirty-ninth year of Yongqing, the flood disaster could be said less to be a natural calamity and more a man-made one.

Lou Ji cast a quick glance at Xu Yuan, smilingly said,

"It seems... Changtian, you’ve read that internal report?"

Xu Yuan silently nodded.

"Ha... Exactly, the flood was a natural disaster, but it was also a human one. It involved some important ministers in the Imperial Court, as well as some conflicts among the Sects. My father, foolishly thinking he was targeted for favor, and the result naturally goes without saying."

As she spoke, Lou Ji fell silent for a while, her beautiful eyes half-closed and her long lashes trembling gently:

"At that time, the Imperial Court was really too far away from us, so distant that a single word from there could shatter my family into pieces."

In the fortieth year of Yongqing, eight years since Xu Yin He entered the capital, Lou Ji was six years old.

In Wuling, Military Provision Transport Envoy Lou Qingwu regarded commoners as dirt, filling his own coffers and ending up in a deadly prison. Men of his household were conscripted for military service, sent a thousand miles away, and the women were dispatched to the Music and Dance Bureau.

It was from that moment that,

The world lost a young mistress of the Lou residence in Wuling City, and gained a naive little girl named Lou Ji.

On the long journey of exile, Lou Ji’s mother died along the way, and she, still but a child, had to learn to survive alone in this world.

She learned to disguise herself, to ingratiate herself, to use her slight, frail form and sharp mind to kill.

Hearing this, Xu Yuan subconsciously glanced at the profile of the older sister beside him.

Killing at six years old?

Indeed, ruthless people start their training from a young age.

Lou Ji, however, didn’t see it as anything significant.

The long journey of exile was truly tough, but between the death of others and her own survival, this choice was actually not difficult.

She told her story calmly, recalling what she had thought when she was only six years old:

"All along the way, I persevered because I knew I was different from those people. I am beautiful and smart. As long as I made it to the Music and Dance Bureau, I would quickly receive the best treatment and then climb up step by step, until I met that ’important person’ who decided the fate of my family..."

"Revenge?"

"A clichéd reason?"

"At that time, you probably needed a reason to keep living."

"..."

Upon hearing this, Lou Ji fell silent for a moment, then her red lips curled into a slight smile:

"Yes... a reason to keep living."

That was the thought of Lou Ji at that time, but misfortune often targets the already suffering, and a thin rope is prone to breaking at the weakest point.

She did not get her wish to enter the Music and Dance Bureau in Di’an City because they encountered a Demonic Beast en route.

The escort soldiers could not defeat the Demonic Beast and quickly scattered, leaving behind the twenty-odd open-air prison carts exposed to the Demonic Beast’s sharp teeth.

Lou Ji said that when she saw the Demonic Beast approaching the prison cart she was in, she wasn’t startled or panicked because she felt she could survive.

Using the lives of the other women in the same cart as a trade for her own survival.