This peak is vertical and steep, towering into the clouds, like a sky-supporting stone pillar rising from the ground in Wanfeng Lake, so it is named Qingtian.
The top of Qingtian Peak is the place of punishment for the Shen family, named the Cliff of Repentance. Anyone who violates family rules or makes a big mistake will often be punished on the Cliff of Repentance to repent.
The cold wind blows all year round and the snow does not melt on the Ruigui Cliff. It is a bitterly cold place.
Shen Wenjun has spent sixteen years on the cliff, giving away the best period of his youth to the cold and loneliness.
If nothing happens, she will spend the rest of her life here in vain.
At only thirty-six years old, her hair had turned gray due to the cold wind on the cliff, and her vitality and luster had been taken away by the loneliness. She looked as old as a fifty-year-old woman.
Every day she would stand on the edge of the cliff where the cold wind was whistling, looking at the western sky for a long time.
Occasionally there would be a glimmer of light in her cloudy eyes, as if a pair of eyes had penetrated the sky and landed on the place where her heart was.
Sometimes she could stand motionless on the edge of the cliff for two or three days, like a dead tree stuck in the cold wind.
Day after day, year after year, this has become her best way to spend her lonely time.
"Shen Wenjun, I'm hungry!"
Yesterday, a fifteen or sixteen-year-old woman in pink clothes was escorted from the cliff. I don’t know what mistake she made.
The woman in pink clothes had a bad temper. She refused to eat out of anger and said she would die on a hunger strike. She also threw the meal delivered at noon yesterday off the cliff, along with Shen Wenjun's share.
However, less than a day had passed and she was already so hungry that she couldn't bear it.
It wasn't that she couldn't resist hunger, but that she had been on a hunger strike for two days before coming to regret.
She huddled in a cold cliff cave and endured it all night last night. Now she was cold and hungry. She felt like she was really going to starve to death. Her determination to die on a hunger strike yesterday was gone, but she was unwilling to beg for mercy and admit her mistake. In desperation,
He could only ask Shen Wenjun, who was standing on the edge of the cliff, for help.
However, even if she begs for mercy and admits her mistake, no one will hear her except Shen Wenjun who is also on the cliff of regret.
"Are you deaf?! I said I was hungry!"
When the woman in pink clothes saw Shen Wenjun answering and not responding to her, she suddenly became angry and roared at Shen Wenjun.
It is true that people tend to become irritable and angry when they are hungry, but judging from the way she addressed Shen Wenjun by his first name, it is obvious that even if she is not impatient or angry, she does not have much respect for Shen Wenjun.
According to seniority, she should respectfully call Shen Wenjun aunt.
Shen Wenjun stood on the edge of the cliff, as motionless as a sculpture, without any response to the angry shouts of the woman in pink.
The woman in pink clothes was very angry when she saw this. She walked behind Shen Wenjun with a few big steps, stretched out her hand and pushed her angrily.
Shen Wenjun was pushed forward by the woman in pink. After falling to the ground, he slid forward one step further.
There was a cliff in front of her. She jumped and slid forward, and her arms, head and shoulders suddenly reached the edge of the cliff, and she almost fell off the cliff.
The woman in pink clothes was startled. She didn't expect Shen Wenjun to be so careless and his body was as light as weightless.
Only then did she notice that Shen Wenjun was as skinny as a dead tree.
Shen Wenjun got up, looked at the woman in pink with an expressionless expression, and asked, "Didn't anyone tell you before you came that you would only be given meals once every three days on the cliff?"
Her voice was hoarse and stiff because she hadn't spoken for a long time.
"I know, you don't need to remind me!" the woman in pink shouted, holding her neck.
"You threw away my rice yesterday."
"I……"
The woman in pink clothes thought that yesterday she had indeed thrown the entire rice suitcase down the cliff. She thought that the suitcase contained Shen Wenjun's meals for three days. She couldn't help but feel guilty. However, she was overcome by violent emotions in an instant, stamping her feet and shouting.
Said: "I don't care, I'm hungry now, please bring me something to eat!"
"No." Shen Wenjun shook his head.
"Don't lie to me. Do you think I'm stupid? One meal every three days. How can you live on this cliff for sixteen years?" The woman in pink didn't believe it at all.
Shen Wenjun walked towards the cliff cave not far away.
The woman in pink raised her chin and snorted, as if to say, "There's no way you can lie to me." Then she followed Shen Wenjun into the cliff cave.
The cliff cave is only more than two feet deep, like a half-open clam shell, and it also serves as a shelter from wind and rain.
Shen Wenjun took out a bundle of firewood from a corner, walked to a simple stone stove, and spent a lot of time before lighting the fire.
The woman in pink held her nose, endured the smoke, and moved closer to the fire to warm herself.
Shen Wenjun picked up the iron pot on the stove, went outside to get a solid pot of snow, and then brought it back to the stove to burn it.
"Put more, put more."
Seeing that Shen Wenjun was reluctant to add fire to the stove, the woman in pink clothes took it upon herself to fill the stove with seven or eight pieces of firewood.
The fire soon crackled and ignited.
The woman in pink squatted beside her and stretched out her hands toward the flames coming from the stone stove. After a while, she felt comfortable all over.
"Why didn't you light a fire last night? You let me freeze all night." She looked at Shen Wenjun and complained.
Shen Wenjun ignored her. When he saw the steam coming out of the pot, he got up and walked to a stone room she had dug out on the east side of the cliff cave. He took out two white cloth bags from it.
Then he came to the stove and opened the lid of the pot.
She grabbed two handfuls of rice from one cloth bag and a handful of dried green vegetable leaves from another cloth bag, put them into the pot one after another, and then closed the lid.
"What kind of rice is this?!"
The woman in pink clothes took out a handful of rice from the first cloth bag, took a look at it, frowned with an ugly expression and asked.
"This is air-dried cooked rice, which I save from every meal." Shen Wenjun replied.
"Huh--"
The woman in pink suddenly looked disgusted, threw the dry rice grains back into the bag, and scattered a lot on the ground.
Shen Wenjun didn't say anything, but stepped forward to pick up the scattered rice grains one by one and put them back into the bag.
"What's in this? Isn't it the vegetable leaves you save every meal?" The woman in pink asked, pointing to another bag.
"No, this is the grass I picked on the cliff and dried it in the sun."
"Hanhao grass? Is that something for humans to eat? Feeding it to horses is too bitter!" the woman in pink shouted with her eyes widened.
"This is Regret Cliff, not a restaurant and inn. I have only saved this much food in sixteen years."
"...I won't eat!" the woman in pink said with a decisive tone, tilting her head.
Shen Wenjun shook his head.
Everyone who comes here will say this when they see this pot of vegetable porridge, but in the end they all break their words.
It's not that this pot of vegetable porridge is delicious, but that none of them can bear the cold and hunger on the cliff.
In the end, I ate more deliciously than anyone else.
This is also the reason why it took her sixteen years to save this little rice and vegetables, most of which were eaten by these passers-by.
"I don't believe you only have these things that even pigs won't eat. You must have hidden all the good stuff."
The woman in pink clothes suddenly stood up and ran towards the stone chamber dug by Shen Wenjun, thinking that Shen Wenjun was reluctant to bring out the good things for her to eat.
But when she got into the stone room, she was stunned, because the stone room was empty, with only a thin quilt spread on the floor, and a few shabby clothes neatly stacked in a corner of the stone room, and there was nothing else.
Other things.
Zhang Xiaobing told Zhang Xiaozu that Shen Wenjun was used to regretting the poor life on the cliff, but she did not tell Zhang Xiaozu about Shen Wenjun's poverty in detail because she was afraid that Zhang Xiaozu would not be able to accept it after hearing it.
The woman in pink clothes retreated from the stone room, as if she had received a huge blow.
She walked back to the stone stove with an ugly face, squatted down, hugged her knees with her arms, and stared blankly at the flames dancing in the stove hole.
After being silent for a while, she asked: "Is this how you endured hunger and starvation for the past sixteen years?"
"I'm used to it."
The woman in pink fell silent again.
Gulu gulu——
The porridge in the pot is boiling.
Shen Wenjun opened the lid of the pot and stirred it, then put the lid back on and continued cooking.
The top of the cliff is high and cold, and the water will boil when it is warm, so it takes a while to boil the dried rice grains and vegetable leaves.
It's just soaked, not cooked.
It's impossible to cook anything at such a high altitude without using extraordinary methods.
After cooking for a while, Shen Wenjun brought two porcelain bowls.
She filled herself a bowl and started eating by herself.
"Isn't it bitter?" The woman in pink clothes couldn't help but asked in surprise when she saw that Shen Wenjun was eating so well.
"Bitter." Shen Wenjun replied.
"How painful is it?"
Shen Wenjun thought for a moment, then put down his bowl and chopsticks, opened his arms vigorously, and replied: "It's so painful."
Pfft——
The woman in pink was amused by Shen Wenjun's childish actions.
Then she stood up, served herself a bowl, and tried to take a bite.
vomit--
The bitterness of the cold grass instantly filled her taste buds, causing her gastric juices to surge and she vomited out the vegetable porridge in her mouth.
But she took a deep breath to calm down the surging gastric juices, and took another bite.
This time she swallowed the porridge while holding back the bitterness.
She looked at Shen Wenjun with an ugly face, as if she was poisoned, twitched the corners of her mouth to reveal a crying smile, and said, "It's really as painful as you said."
After saying that, she immersed herself in eating one bite at a time.
She cried while eating, and her tears fell into the bowl, and she ate them into her stomach with the porridge.
Eat a bowl of porridge.
She got up and ran out, then there was a sound of vomiting, and all the porridge she had just eaten was vomited out.
After a long time, she put on her makeup and returned to the cliff cave, saying to Shen Wenjun: "I can't bear such hardship, you can eat the rest."
"Although the cold grass is bitter, eating it can drive away the cold. Otherwise, if you stay on this cliff for a long time, your body will not be able to withstand the severe cold."
"I'll wait until the meal delivery people come up the day after tomorrow and ask them to bring a message to my father, and my father will send someone to pick me up."
Shen Wenjun nodded.
"Originally, I wanted to be like you and stay on the cliff of regret forever, but your bowl of vegetable porridge made me realize the reality. I can't stand this kind of suffering.
I... gave in."
"You are still young and there is no obstacle that you cannot overcome."
"My father found a stupid man for me and ordered me to marry him next month."
"Why?" Shen Wenjun asked in surprise.
"Because that man has a body of heavenly fire."
"Understood."
As a member of the Shen family, Shen Wenjun understood immediately when he heard the words "body of heavenly fire", because the offspring of the Shen family and those who possess the body of heavenly fire have a great chance of awakening more ancient immortal power.
Obviously, the father of the woman in pink clothes wants the woman in pink clothes to have some good grandchildren. Even if the children born are fools, it doesn't matter, because the power of the ancient immortal can be extracted.
As for a woman's lifelong happiness, it is not important compared with the power of the ancient immortal.
"I'm sorry, I was so rude to you before."
A bowl of bitter vegetable porridge made the woman seem to have grown up in an instant, and she actually bowed and apologized respectfully to Shen Wenjun.
Shen Wenjun shook his head.
She was used to it. Almost everyone who was sent to the cliff would humiliate or bully her, as if doing so would make them feel happy.
"Do you have anything you want to eat? When I get down, I'll find a way to have it brought to you."
"No."
Shen Wenjun rejected the kindness of the woman in pink, just like she would refuse the delicious food Zhang Xiaobing brought her every time. She was afraid that eating too much delicious food would make her unbearable.
Two days later, the woman in pink was picked up from the cliff of regret.
Before leaving, she asked Shen Wenjun to cook a bowl of bitter vegetable porridge for her. She held the bowl and ate it clean. This time she did not spit it out.
She told Shen Wenjun that her name was Shen Ying.
The name is nice and the person is beautiful, but it will wither as soon as it blooms.
In the evening, a majestic-looking man in Confucian robes climbed up the cliff on the chain connected to the cliff.
"Brother." When Shen Wenjun saw the person coming, an imperceptible look of surprise flashed in his eyes, and then he stepped forward and saluted.
The visitor is Shen Wenze, the eldest son of the Shen family, the current head of the Shen family.
Shen Wenze glanced at Shen Wenjun expressionlessly, walked to the west cliff with his hands behind his back, and stood exactly where Shen Wenjun always stood. He raised his eyes to the western sky, and then said: "Your second brother is dead."
Shen Wenjun was shocked when he heard this, and then his eyes showed sadness.
Shen Wenze suddenly turned around, stared into Shen Wenjun's eyes and shouted: "He died in Qingzhou!"
