The imperial doctor diagnosed that the prince suffered from night wandering, and all he needed to do was to prescribe some decoction to soothe the nerves.
But in the following days, the boy was in a trance during the day and became violent and hurtful at night.
Important ministers of the imperial court jointly submitted a memorial requesting that the current crown prince be deposed and his nephew be established as the crown prince instead.
In Dali, the powerful ministers headed by Prime Minister Gao controlled the government, and the royal family declined. Under pressure, the old monarch had to depose the prince and establish a heir apparent.
Shen Yanchu finally moved out of the prince's palace.
Most of the palace attendants around him were missing. In addition, he had night wandering attacks from time to time. The palace attendants tried their best to transfer him to other places. In the end, there were only two servants and two guards left in the courtyard.
The deposed prince is a fool, so his servants will not serve him wholeheartedly.
Every night, the doors and windows are closed tightly, and there is not even a night watchman outside the house.
The boy was afraid of the dark, so he lay on the couch tremblingly, holding a dagger in his hand, and a candle burned in the room all night until dawn.
Over the next six months, he remembered many things one after another.
The birthday banquet, the lotus pond, the queen mother, Bai Ling, and the evildoer.
The symptoms of night wandering finally disappeared, but nightmares tortured him all the time.
The pride of heaven and the radiant glory of the past are nowhere to be found in him.
He was as silent as a pool of stagnant water, a dry well.
Until news came from the court - the deposed prince was sent to Bianjing as a hostage.
The boy's dark pupils suddenly glowed.
He is leaving the palace!
The boy continued to act stupid.
He secretly contacted the Cang Ming sect of his matriarchal clan and waited until he was nine years old.
Dali Kingdom escorted Proton along the way, and the group crossed the Dadu River and entered the Central Plains. After several months, they arrived at the foot of Yongshan Mountain in the snowy evening.
Suddenly, the accompanying team was attacked. Cang Ming sent disciples to block the carriage and rescued Shen Yanchu from the Baiman soldiers.
He and his co-ordinates retreated north, but on the way, they encountered a group of private soldiers who came to intercept them - Chu Kun sent an army to capture the proton.
Shen Yanchu and his party fled north. At that time, there were seventy-two masters beside him.
He watched helplessly as those people fell one after another, fighting to the death for a child who had never been masked, while he fled in panic on the corpses of his companions.
It was exactly the same as that night two years ago!
The mountain was covered with heavy snow, covered with ice for thousands of miles, and cold for thousands of miles. The boy walked away in a panic, with only the last subordinate left beside him.
"Lord," the man called Shen Yanchu.
The boy raised his head, his face as white as snow.
"Lord, my subordinates can only send you here, and you can take all the food." The man took off the bag, stuffed it into his hand, and warned, "Lord, follow the path and go north. Walk to the town, then look for the pier, and after crossing the river, someone will come to pick you up."
"There is also this black jade. Lord, be sure not to lose it. It is a token of the leader of the Cang Ming Sect and represents the identity of the Lord." The man put the black jade into his arms.
"What about you?" the boy asked hoarsely.
The man suddenly stood up, pulled out a long sword engraved with a Yaizi pattern, and said without looking back: "Go down and stop those people."
The boy clenched his hands, and at this moment he suddenly regretted it.
He shouldn't let these people die in vain, it was him, it was all his fault!
Seeing that the boy refused to leave, the man put a sword across his neck and threatened to kill him, shouting: "Go - go quickly -"
The boy's eyes turned red. He gritted his teeth and stumbled towards the foot of the mountain to the north.
He didn't know how far he ran, but he seemed to hear the sound of fighting, angry shouts, and the sound of swords, until finally, there was no life left...
No life left...
He suddenly stopped.
Turning back and staring behind, at the end of the field of vision, the blue-grey cedars stood still, lifeless and completely silent.
He pursed his lips, his pale face full of helplessness.
He lowered his body as low as possible and squatted in the snow, silently lowering his eyes. There were a few drops of salty and wet crystals in the snow.
With trembling hands, the boy pulled out a delicate knife from his sleeve, but pointed the blade at himself!
"Shen Yanchu——" Liu Ruyan said in shock. From the beginning to the end, she was in his dream, seeing that he was already hopeless at a young age.
All he wanted to do was seek death.
"Shen Yanchu——" she shouted, her voice trembling even though she was not aware of it.
She ran up to the boy and stretched out her hand to protect his chest.
The moment the blade struck his chest, the boy suddenly raised his eyes.
He vaguely heard a voice.
Shen Yanchu's Gujing Wubo eyes slowly turned, and he stared at a tree. A swift flew from the tree, with a snow-white belly and dark back feathers. It was looking at him with its head tilted.
"Chirp--" The clear chirping of swallows is the only life in the mountains.
"It's winter, why are you still staying in the mountains?"
"Aren't you afraid of the cold?"
"Or have they all abandoned you?"
The boy's childish voice asked cautiously.
The swallow blinked its bright black pupils, tilted its head and glanced at him a few times, then fluttered its wings and flew into the blue sky.
It glides all the way, spreads its wings towards the south, and disappears into the vast sky.
The boy sat on the ground in a daze. He curled up his cold fingers and reflected the sky in his eyes. "Even you know that you have to fly to the south. What about me, where should I go?"
The only answer he received was the roar of the wind.
After a while, the boy's empty eyes gradually regained their luster. He wiped away his tears and said angrily: "The Queen Mother cannot die in silence, and the disciples of the Cang Ming Sect cannot die in peace!"
There is only one belief left in his heart - revenge.
Shen Yanchu picked up the dagger and cut off the branches to help him walk in the snow;
He slaughtered the wild beasts in the forest to satisfy his hunger;
He sheds his thick fur to keep him warm from the cold.
He wants to live until the day he kills his enemy with his own hands!
He must be strong, so strong that no one dares to bully him!
A few steps away from him, Liu Ruyan silently looked at this boy who was pretending to be strong.
At the tender age of nine, when he should have been the age of his beloved, he was killing prey in the snow, disembowelling it, and clumsily setting up a bonfire.
She watched him wrap the stripped fur around his legs, and watched him struggle to walk with the help of branches.
I remembered that when he was in Taiping Village, he climbed over the mountains and ridges with such familiar movements.
At that time, she was still wondering, how could she do such work if she was so dignified and pampered?
Liu Ruyan looked back at the Prime Minister. In the snow, Shen Yanchu's tall figure overlapped with the boy's thin body. Her heart seemed to be tightly strangled.
Grieving for him…
Sigh for him...
The boy trudged alone in the ice and snow. After more than ten days, he finally walked out of the snow-capped mountains and arrived at the town at the foot of the mountains.