“Master, I’m sorry.” Zhang Qianjun Wanma took the hoe to his master’s grave. He couldn’t understand how things had turned out like this.
Zhang Haiqi stood in the shade under a tree, watching Zhang Qianjun’s tears falling as he dug up his master’s grave. She really couldn’t remember what she had going on with this old Taoist priest back then.
Maybe it was an unintentional promise under the circumstances that made this ordinary person wait for her for a lifetime?
It was a bit unfortunate. Many people made vows that they truly meant in the heat of the moment. At a certain point, if you wanted a man to die for you, he would really do it. But without exception, there would always come a time when the man came to his senses. At that time, he may not be willing to die for you even if you asked him to.
Was it possible that this was an exception? Was he a man who spent his lifetime thinking about the promise they had made in a single moment?
If so, she really wanted to see what those love-struck bones looked like.
Zhang Haiqi had known the ways of the world very early. The “Archives” was essentially an organization that worked for the truth. The South Sea Archives was actually a department that collected the truth, whether it included the truth of matters or the truth between people.
What was the truth? It was such a general term, but when summed up, it was merely what people were really thinking about.
In this world, human minds and history had a unified characteristic—they were infinitely close to the truth, but they could never reach it.
There were many good historians in the world, but they couldn’t escape the limitations of the old paper they had found. No historian or archaeologist dared tell anyone, “This is exactly what happened back then.”
There were many sensitive people in the world, but even if they could roughly figure out what others were thinking, they would never dare conclude that someone was thinking such and such. But how close you could get to the truth was something that could be trained.
In Zhang Haiqi’s view, the Archives was a system that was infinitely close to human hearts. This kind of closeness also forced her to become the type of person who broke her word.
“Not everyone can bear to know what other people say behind your back.”
When people talked to each other, no matter how ugly the words were on the surface, they could always get through it even if they had to clench their teeth. But the volumes from the Archives often told a totally different story regarding those same people.
She soon discovered that people tended to be full of contempt whenever they talked behind other’s backs. Even if they were a lover who was completely infatuated with you, their words may be so condescending when they talked about you to their friends that it would be too difficult to digest.
This was true for friends and lovers, and it was also true for siblings and parents.
“This is often the case when people talk about you behind your back. Whether it’s a gentleman, a villain, a lady, or a vixen, it’s difficult to criticize them with words. They’re scornful and arrogant when talking behind your back, but once they turn to you, their faces are filled with hatred. If everyone’s like this, why make any promises? Why even keep any promises?”
At this moment, she thought of Hu Biting. He was the son of a wealthy silk factory owner in Quanzhou, who returned from overseas and didn’t want to inherit the family business. He kept telling his family that he wanted to run a school. He read a lot of books, loved freely, married his own female student, and created a lot of gossip. In the end, the female student hanged herself.
Hu Biting went to Japan and did the same thing all over again. He married a Japanese woman who eventually hanged herself in a park in Nagano. When Hu Biting returned to China, he was nearly forty years old. He ran into Zhang Haiqi on the dock. That day, Zhang Haiqi was wearing a cheongsam. With her short hair fluttering in the sea breeze, she looked as beautiful as an elf.
Hu Biting pursued her like crazy. Everything seemed to indicate that he was madly in love with her.
This was the kind of love that made Zhang Haiqi feel a deep chill in her heart. Two of his loved ones had already died, yet he could still love a third person so passionately. It was as if there were no scars left on his heart. This kind of love was very strange. Did such an infatuated man have any trace of fear in his mind when he told her those romantic words?
There was something wrong with him.
That winter, after a long conversation with Zhang Haiqi, Hu Biting hanged himself in his apartment.
Zhang Haiqi didn’t tell anyone what had happened, nor did she attend his funeral.
Little Brother Zhang only knew that the first female student who died was also Zhang Haiqi’s student. When Hu Biting first pursued this female student, Zhang Haiqi looked at them from afar and felt that this man had a daunting persona. She went to see him at the dock because she wanted to listen to what he had to say about her female student.
Based on Hu Biting’s ending, he didn’t say anything good.
As Zhang Haiqi was thinking these things, Zhang Qianjun Wanma finally dug up his master’s body. A centenarian didn’t have much to begin with, and now there weren’t many bones left, either.
They wouldn’t know what it was that made the old man wait for her for so long.
Zhang Haiqi took the old Taoist priest’s skull out of the coffin and said to Little Brother Zhang, “From now on, this is our father and I’m your sister. Let’s set out now to find some clothes before we enter Bone Washing Cave.”
MereBear's Translation 
thank you for the chapter
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