The master returned to the castle, and the lights in the room went out. They went out even before the lights in all other rooms of the castle.
But Xia Zuo and Senmu both knew that the master was not asleep.
Xia Zuo stood under the night sky, looking up at the master’s darkened window, unable to tear his gaze away for a long ti.
The events of the afternoon had already been reported by the online dia. Although he sent people to extinguish the fire in ti, the initial news still got out. He saw it, saw Shi Nian leaning in Tang Yanqing’s arms, the two of them facing the gentleman alone.
The gentleman stood alone, isolated in front of those two, under the gaze of the dia, without anyone by his side, without anyone to support him. At that mont, Xia Zuo’s heart was wracked with pain.
It was the sha of being a servant, accompanying the master for so many years, but failing to be by the master’s side at such a critical ti, failing to protect the gentleman.
Xia Zuo recalled how he t the gentleman.
It was at an orphanage in Vietnam. Wherever the gentleman traveled in Asia, besides searching for ancient relics, the second place he visited was always the local orphanage. Those orphanages in impoverished areas struggled to survive, and feeding the children was a challenging task. At the ti, he was the oldest child in the orphanage, the big brother, and he understood the director’s difficulties. So he personally led the children to open up wasteland and farm.
Half of the children in the orphanage had been abandoned due to illness or disability, so although there were many children, very few of them could actually work. He was busy with a group of children, but in fact, most of the farmland work fell mainly on him and Spicy Girl. They were both very young at that ti, not only had to give most of their food to the younger and weaker children to ensure they ate enough, but also had to toil under the burning sun in the fields. Spicy Girl fainted nurous tis in the field rows...
Those days were too bitter, bitter to the point that many tis he worried Spicy Girl wouldn’t survive, hating his own powerlessness, hating that apart from holding Spicy Girl and quietly shedding tears amidst the fields, he had no ans to change their circumstances.
It was in that year that the gentleman appeared.
He was also very young, only a few years older than him. He rembers the first ti the gentleman appeared in his sight, sitting in a sedan chair made by local villagers from bamboo, dressed in white, with the sedan’s sunshade casting over his equally paper-white face.
As for him, after long hours of laboring under the sun, his skin had long tanned to a dark hue, making him seem like soone from a different world compared to the pale youth.
The youth also saw him, and thus the pale youth called the bearers to stop. Under the sedan chair’s sunshade, the pale youth, with blue eyes, looked towards him standing under the sun with a despairing face, locking onto his green eyes.
They, in this vast world, t by chance and found in each other an aspect that was similar to themselves.
— Both had Eastern features, yet both possessed a pair of strikingly colored eyes.
The pale youth asked him in English if he knew how to get to the orphanage. He silently nodded and carried Spicy Girl up.
The pale youth lowered his eyes to glance at Spicy Girl in his arms, then instructed to lower the sedan chair. To his surprise, he supported himself with a cane and disembarked, nodding to him to place Spicy Girl inside.
Naturally, he cared deeply for Spicy Girl, yet he couldn’t help but scrutinize the pale young man before him, looking him up and down several tis.
He was so frail, and from the way he dismounted, along with his youth yet using a cane, it was clear he had leg issues, while his pallor indicated he rarely ventured out, rarely basked in the sun. Such a frail person made him hesitate for a mont, and he couldn’t help but say: "No need, you should sit. I’ll hold her. She’s as tough as I am, just fainted, she won’t die."
The pale youth didn’t speak, rely firmly grasped his wrist. That silent strength sohow made him incapable of defying.
Finally, Spicy Girl lay on the sedan chair, carried by the bearers. He followed cautiously behind the pale youth, fearing he might face mortal danger walking on the uneven field under the blazing sun, yet dared not rashly step forward to assist, as the person ahead had too cool a deanor, making him reluctant to draw near.
But his worry was unnecessary. Although that person always seed on the verge of falling, he actually kept pace tightly with the local bearers, never missing a step as they entered the orphanage through its front gate.
The orphanage lacked dicine and dical care, and the pale youth personally treated Spicy Girl. The children in the orphanage were all captivated by him, seeing such a young newcor who could point to wild grass on the ground and know whether it could be used dicinally, then directing the children to brew it for Spicy Girl, who was better by evening with no more serious issues.
Being the big brother in the orphanage and concerned for Spicy Girl, he stayed by the pale youth’s side the entire ti.
They had little conversation, neither naturally talkative and seemingly not adept at social interaction, but the silent companionship and mutual observation deepened their understanding and impression of each other.
That person stayed in the orphanage for three days.
For three days, he attentively cared for Spicy Girl; for three days, he carefully observed his every action. After three days, Spicy Girl recovered, and that person left a large sum of money behind, ntioning only one condition to the director: to take him away.
At that ti, the children in the orphanage were often bullied, and it was he who led his siblings to fight back, so all the children cried when they heard he was leaving, pleading with him to stay. But the orphanage’s conditions were indeed harsh, and that person left such a large sum of money, enough to rebuild the orphanage’s buildings and walls, enough to feed and clothe the children comfortably for ten years.
So despite his reluctance, it was for that large sum of money that he resolutely packed his belongings.
On the day he left, that person in white stood among the blinding sunshine and the surrounding wasteland, faintly looking back at him: "Even if you don’t co with , that money will still be left behind. I’m not using that money to buy you."
Instead, it made him nod more firmly: "I’ll go with you."
On the day they left, everyone cried. The sun beat down on him, making him dizzy, unable to think.
In the end, it was Spicy Girl who rushed up and knocked him to the ground, accusing him tearfully, saying that people with green eyes indeed are different, unable to keep their heart, unwilling to endure hardship, and ultimately abandoning everyone for their future...
Her punches were heavy, yet he didn’t dodge any. She had been sick for three days, and he watched over her for three days, going without food or drink himself for those three days.
He let her beat him to the ground, half-dead.
In the end, it was that person who stepped forward to stop Spicy Girl, unemotionally saying to her: "If you’re not content, co find him yourself in the future."
He was beaten half to death that day, yet his heart didn’t feel pain but was filled with gratitude. Because being beaten half-dead and unconscious, he didn’t have to face the tears of the orphanage children, didn’t have to face... Spicy Girl’s despairing gaze.
He knew that after he left, Spicy Girl would be the head of the orphanage. All the farming, and protecting siblings, and fighting would fall on her shoulders alone.
The thought of this made his heart ache unbearably, yet at the ti, he couldn’t change anything.
He was carried aboard a plane unconscious by that person, taken to the M Country, and enrolled in school to receive an elite education.
The gentleman knew he was a descendant of the French who had once colonized Vietnam, so he secretly traced his origins, helping him regain the surna of the one who abandoned him and his mother: Xia Zuo.
He didn’t want to use it, but the gentleman grasped his wrist, telling him: "The more that person wants to abandon you, the more unwilling they are to give you this surna, the more you should reclaim it with your abilities. Using this surna is the best retaliation against that person. If you don’t like this surna, then interpret it in Chinese."
"Xia, is sumr, the season when I first saw you. Under such a fierce sun, your eyes holding the girl were intensely bright. It showed your heart, your deep emotions;"
"And Zuo, is to assist, like you now staying by my side, becoming the person I trust the most, helping accomplish what I want to do."
So he had a mont of enlightennt and gladly accepted that na.
At that ti, he also understood that when the gentleman spoke of nas, he wasn’t just referring to him; it was the gentleman himself too.
Though he and the gentleman were two entirely different people, their origins and bloodlines shared surprising similarities. Both are mixed-race children, both dismissed and abandoned by their father’s family as illegitimate, both grew up resiliently in lonely and desperate environnts, with a... discontented heart.
So the gentleman saw him at a glance, so the gentleman kept him by his side as his most trusted subordinate. Because the two of them seed like two sides of a mirror, each saw themselves in the other and used the other’s presence to encourage oneself.
Senmu ca out from inside the door, whispering: "What should we do? The gentleman still refuses to open the door. Would you accompany to knock on it?"
Xia Zuo shook his head: "I know what to do."
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