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Yama's Wedding
“It’s so boring.” Yao Guang sat inside the house, feeling as if she and Xue had been forgotten since their arrival. Aside from sharing a meal with the people in the Bandit Hideout, they had done little else. Yao Guang felt like a ghost, wandering around the Bandit Hideout, watching others work. No matter how beautiful the scenery outside was, it couldn’t hold her interest forever.
Xue glanced up at Yao Guang for a moment before returning to his book.
Seeing that Xue was ignoring her, Yao Guang leaned over the table and raised her voice again. “I’m so bored! It’s unbearable!”
Xue closed his book and looked at Yao Guang. With such a loud complaint, it was impossible for him to ignore her. When he turned to face her, he noticed her eyes darting around restlessly. She didn’t seem bored at all; rather, she looked like she was just trying to get his attention. He couldn’t help but chuckle softly; this girl was just upset that he was too engrossed in his reading to keep her company.
Once she saw Xue had closed his book, Yao Guang finally got up from the table and slowly made her way to sit beside him.
“Xue, what does Jun Ruo want? He brought us here, but he hasn’t come to see us even once in the past half month.” If Jun Ruo intended to isolate them, it didn’t seem likely. For over two weeks now, neither they nor anyone else from the Bandit Hideout had left.
“Let’s be patient,” Xue replied.
More waiting? In the past half month, she and Xue had thoroughly explored the Bandit Hideout. Not only had they failed to find the treasure Xue mentioned, but Yao Guang also hadn’t noticed anything particularly special about the place. Perhaps aside from the unique people here, there really wasn’t anything extraordinary about it.
Xue looked at Yao Guang’s glum expression with a mix of sympathy and curiosity. He too felt uneasy; he had sensed something unusual about this place before, but after staying here for over two weeks, he could no longer feel that strange energy. The atmosphere here reminded him somewhat of the void-like illusions they had encountered before. Yet he knew deep down that this place was different from those illusions.
While Yao Guang continued to fret silently, Jun Ruo sat in the main seat, equally troubled these days. Although they were seen as bandits by outsiders, they were not much different from ordinary people. Most of the time, they lived peacefully in this valley like anyone else, only occasionally robbing wealthy merchants or spoiled rich kids who passed through. When they picked up their weapons, they were bandits; when they set them down, they were farmers tending to their fields.
However, ever since that day when they went out to rob and encountered Xue and her husband, Jun Ruo felt an unsettling sense of foreboding as if something significant was about to happen.
Jun Ruo had been having the same dream for half a month. The dream was strange; each night, the scenarios varied, yet when pieced together, they formed a single story.
In this dream, the person at its center was unmistakably Jun Ruo herself.
In the dream, Jun Ruo lived in the same valley as in reality, surrounded by a group of brothers with whom she shared life and death. In fact, within this dream, she even recalled things she had never thought of before. Each time she awoke, Jun Ruo found her dreams to be quite peculiar, as if she were watching herself grow up from someone else's perspective. Yet the person in the dream bore her own likeness, which left her feeling conflicted.
However, since the day before yesterday, the nature of her dreams had changed. No longer did she dream of her familiar life.
In this new dream, she encountered a scholar during a robbery. Yet upon waking, Jun Ruo could not recall the scholar's face at all. In the dream, she fell deeply in love with him, and after he awakened, they harmonized beautifully together, living a blissful life.
These dreams were what Jun Ruo longed for; however, last night's vision was troubling.
The dream continued on, and within it, Jun Ruo retained her awareness. When she met the scholar, she found herself eagerly anticipating nightfall after waking up. No matter how hard she tried to force herself to sleep during the day, she could not enter that dream world. Only at night could she step into that realm. It felt akin to Xi Er's addiction to candied hawthorn; if a day passed without it, she would feel utterly uncomfortable. From being unaccustomed to it at first, Jun Ruo now looked forward each day to reentering that dream.
But last night’s experience left her drenched in cold sweat; she woke up in the middle of the night and could not fall back asleep.
In the dream, Jun Ruo and the scholar were deeply in love, and everyone in the Bandit Hideout rejoiced, urging them to marry quickly. Jun Ruo happily became his wife; however, this bliss was short-lived. Soon enough, she found herself engulfed in flames, with cries for help echoing around her—both adults and children alike. She ran through every corner of the Bandit Hideout but could not find her beloved husband.
Jun Ruo saw herself despondently leading survivors out of the valley when unexpectedly at the forest's edge, she spotted her husband. The once frail man was now standing beside a general who had come to hunt them down.
To her shock, her husband was none other than the Second Prince of the current emperor—sent to quell rebellions across various regions. She realized that she was merely a footnote in his grand achievements.
Watching herself in the dream, Jun Ruo didn’t even have a chance to speak with her husband before he drew his bow and shot an arrow straight through her heart. She had never known that such a gentle and refined man could look so striking while wielding a bow.
The arrowhead pierced half an inch into her chest, and Jun Ruo could hear the sound of her heart shattering. Strangely, she felt no pain. Yes, this was a dream, not real; Jun Ruo felt no pain at all.
A great fire swept over her. Without those skilled in martial arts, the elderly and children she had brought with her were utterly defenseless against the army. In her dream, Jun Ruo watched helplessly as familiar faces twisted and disappeared before the flames.
Jun Ruo woke up in a cold sweat, relieved that it was just a dream. However, she noticed tears had streaked down her face. She reassured herself that it was simply because the dream had been too tragic. Even so, she couldn't fall back asleep for the rest of the night.
Thus, when people saw Jun Ruo in the morning, they were startled by the deep dark circles under her eyes.
The events of that dream had never happened to her; she was alive and well, so she knew it was just a dream. Yet, after having this dream, Jun Ruo found herself particularly disliking the Teacher at the Bandit Hideout. The Teacher had been perplexed these past few days; originally, her Head of the Family respected the Scholar greatly, but for some reason, his gaze towards her had recently held a hint of murderous intent. The innocent Teacher had no idea that it was because in her dream, Jun Ruo had been killed by a scholarly young man. Although this wasn't true, it had already planted a seed of disdain in her heart towards scholars in general. He was merely an innocent victim of a dream.
Jun Ruo thought about how strange this dream was; everything else had happened before except for encountering that scholar. However, she did meet Xue and another person. It seemed that while this dream was somewhat bizarre, it still differed from reality. She decided it would be best not to go out casually for a while. If she truly encountered such a scholar, wouldn't it bring disaster to the Bandit Hideout?
With this thought in mind, Jun Ruo stayed indoors for over half a month, content to remain within the Bandit Hideout.
Xue and Yao Guang were unaware of these matters and speculated whether they had caused Jun Ruo's suspicion, leading her to refrain from taking any action for so long.
They didn't know that the Bandit Hideout didn't rely on robbery for survival. Therefore, Jun Ruo's absence from the outside world for over half a month went unnoticed by everyone else in the hideout as they leisurely went about their daily routines; only Xue and Yao Guang were anxious and restless.
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