The Innocent Heart - Chapter 12

Hey, how did you become a beggar?”

Night was deepening, and the Han Dynasty people did not have the rich nightlife of modern folk. The two boys lay side by side on a “bed” made of straw, able to see the glittering cluster of stars in the dark night sky simply by opening their eyes.

Being away from home for the first time, Huo Qubing still felt a little unsettled. Unable to sleep, he pulled Guan Yueyao next to him into conversation.

“Me?” Hearing Huo Qubing ask this, she suddenly choked up, hesitating in her heart whether to tell this friend, whom she had only known for a few days, her secret.

Yet, her intuition seemed to tell her that she could trust the boy beside her.

She didn’t want to lie to her friend, and being young and lacking life experience, she still held a nearly innocent trust toward those who were kind to her.

“If I tell you my story, can you keep it a secret for me?” Guan Yueyao turned her head, looked at the face of the young man beside her, dropped her usual mischievous expression, and asked seriously.

Huo Qubing fell silent. He also turned his head. In the dark of the night, the two boys were face to face, seemingly able to feel the warmth of the other’s breath on their own face.

Huo Qubing was a little unaccustomed to such intimacy, but looking at the young man before him, perhaps due to his own silence, Guan Yueyao’s face showed a hint of confusion, but her gaze was firm. It was as if she deeply trusted him.

This feeling was truly great. For no apparent reason, Huo Qubing’s heart secretly leaped with joy. Perhaps… she is the child of a deposed court official who escaped before their house was raided and is now adrift?

Such incidents were not uncommon in Huo Qubing’s experience. He calmed his mind. What does it matter? He felt he could protect his friend’s safety.

“Don’t worry. I will certainly keep your secret. Today you helped me; in the future, I will definitely protect you,” Huo Qubing promised Guan Yueyao with utmost solemnity.

Hearing Huo Qubing’s words, Guan Yueyao’s raised guard completely dropped. She grinned at Huo Qubing, reached out, and held the hand that was resting on his chest.

“Good! From now on, we are great friends who can talk about anything!”

Huo Qubing did not expect to hear a story that was somewhat long and quite bizarre, filled with strange phrases he only half-understood.

“My dad fell in love with another woman when I was ten, so my mom divorced my dad, and my mom took me and left my dad…” Guan Yueyao, worried Huo Qubing wouldn’t understand, intentionally changed “Dad and Mom” to the more ancient terms of address, ‘die’(爹) and ‘niang’(娘).

“Wait, why would your mother seek a divorce Heli (和離 – mutually agreed separation) just because your father wanted to take a concubine? And how was she able to take you and leave?” Huo Qubing was thoroughly confused, as this did not seem to align with the national customs of the Great Han Dynasty.

Huo Qubing had subconsciously asked the question, but then, thinking of his own situation with his uncle, he paused. Could Guan Yueyao also be a bastard son born from a private affair?

Guan Yueyao suddenly realized that without telling him about the world she came from, it would be difficult for him to understand the indignation in her tone.

“What if I told you that where I lived, a man could only marry one woman, and if the two didn’t want to live together, they had to divorce before they could start their lives anew separately?”

“The place where you lived? But the whole Great Han Dynasty is like this. A man can only have one main wife, and if he wants more women, he can only take concubines.” Huo Qubing was baffled, not understanding why Guan Yueyao suddenly brought this up.

Guan Yueyao was stunned by Huo Qubing’s words. After a while, she said haltingly, “No, where I lived, taking concubines was not allowed.” With that, she took a deep breath and looked at Huo Qubing. “What if I told you that I came from the future? Would you believe me?”

She began counting on her fingers: “Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing… I was supposed to live a thousand years after you, but I don’t know why, I time-traveled here.”

She recalled that her mother had taught her the sequence of Chinese dynasties back in elementary school. She thought she had long forgotten it, but to her surprise, she could still recall it so easily.

Huo Qubing’s breath hitched, and he was speechless at Guan Yueyao’s sudden confession.

However, Guan Yueyao did not stop her narrative. On the contrary, perhaps she had been suppressing it for too long and desperately needed an outlet. Now that she had someone to confide in, she spoke regardless of whether the other person could immediately absorb such a massive amount of information.

Guan Yueyao poured out everything about the world she had lived in, as if by doing so, she would not forget the world she once inhabited.

“You’ve definitely never ridden on an airplane. People can sit inside an airplane and fly into the sky, and whoosh, you arrive in another country.”

“And cars—they don’t need oxen or horses to pull them. As long as they have gasoline, they can drive on the roads. Oh, now they don’t necessarily need gasoline; electric cars only need to be charged.”

“Alas, coming back here is so inconvenient. At night, there are no electric lights, computers, or cell phones to play with. When I wash my hair and body, without shampoo and body wash, I always feel like I’m not clean.”

“There is too little good food. Ah, I really want to eat fried chicken, and milk tea, and french fries. Even a bowl of instant noodles would be enough.”

The description of modern life gradually turned into complaints about ancient society in Guan Yueyao’s words. Hearing this, Huo Qubing’s incredulity slowly turned into a mixture of doubt and belief.

“I don’t believe it… How could someone come from a thousand years in the future? Are you an Immortal?” Although he thought this, Huo Qubing still insisted on his disbelief. After all, the boy in front of him did not look like an enlightened Immortal living outside the mortal world. Furthermore, didn’t Immortals all live for a long time and know many past events? He had never heard of an Immortal coming from the future.

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. Anyway… anyway, I did come from the future!” Guan Yueyao glared at Huo Qubing. Seeing that he showed no sign of seizing her to report to the authorities, she relaxed.

“In short, where I lived, when a man and a woman got married, they could only live life as two people. No concubines, and no extramarital affairs. My dad had an affair, and my mom was very angry, so she divorced him. She took me to live somewhere else. But it was too hard for a woman to raise a child alone, so my mom found another man. That man didn’t like me. I thought it would probably be a good thing if I just disappeared. As long as he treats my mom well, that’s enough.”

At this point, the expression on Guan Yueyao’s face darkened. Thinking of her mother, the tears in her eyes could no longer be stopped.

“But I miss my mom so much… Wuu wuu wuu, I really regret why I had to quarrel with her before I left. I wasn’t a good kid; I made her worry so much. Do you think she misses me now?”

Finally, Guan Yueyao could not help but burst into tears. She grabbed Huo Qubing’s clothes and her sobbing grew louder and more uncontrollable. Her tears poured out as if a dam had broken, wetting a patch of straw beneath her.

“Hey, hey… don’t cry…” Huo Qubing had never encountered a situation like this. He completely froze, watching his crying friend in utter helplessness. He felt increasingly anxious because he didn’t know how to comfort her.

This was not the first time someone had cried loudly in front of him. In the past, he had often beaten Chen Zhi and his gang until they cried. That was why they now only dared to challenge him in a group. The sound of their crying only brought him a sense of satisfaction, relief, and contempt.

But Guan Yueyao’s crying was different. Though they had been strangers just days ago, his tears now seemed contagious, making Huo Qubing’s nose and eyes sting.

Guan Yueyao’s words made him think of his own mother. He suddenly felt how similar their experiences were.

“Maybe, not having a mother isn’t a bad thing…” he muttered defensively, recalling the scene he had witnessed at home.

Hearing his words, Guan Yueyao suddenly stopped crying and looked at him.

“Your mother is still here with you. You truly don’t know how lucky you are,” Guan Yueyao said disapprovingly, releasing Huo Qubing’s collar.

“I used to think that when my mom kept ordering me around. But now that I might never see her again, I realize how much I miss her. If one day I could go back, I would definitely listen to her, be a good child, study hard, find a job when I grow up, and give her a good life.”

Guan Yueyao spoke with a sense of loss and then looked at Huo Qubing as if something had suddenly occurred to her.

“Did you run away from home because you had a fight with your mother?” Guan Yueyao asked Huo Qubing seriously.

Huo Qubing pursed his lips. He disliked spreading his family’s private matters to others. Moreover, the scandals of the Wei family, or rather, his mother’s affairs, were likely already known throughout the city.

But was Guan Yueyao an “outsider” now? Huo Qubing questioned himself. He had always been a very honest person with himself.

Whether it was because of their similar childhood experiences, Guan Yueyao’s peculiar yet intriguing conversation, or even his clearly superior fighting skills—Huo Qubing couldn’t deny that he felt a sense of closeness to the young man before him. He wanted to associate with him and be his friend.

Since Guan Yueyao had confessed her secret so frankly, regardless of whether it was true or just his imagination, could he also entrust his own thoughts to him?

“I am actually an illegitimate child. I don’t know who my father is,” Huo Qubing began, sounding somewhat awkward and hesitant.

But to his surprise, once he started, the rest of the things he thought were unspeakable to outsiders became easy to say.

“Today, my mother was meeting privately with her lover at home again, and I walked in on them. I got angry and ran out,” Huo Qubing said calmly, looking at the still-dark sky.