If she had only suspected after watching the documentary before, after reading this poetry collection, she was now quite certain that the author of this collection was Zhou Donglin.
It could be a coincidence for one or two things, but it was impossible for every detail - time, age, and events - to match up.
Moreover, in the bottom - right corner of each page of his poetry collection, there was a painted corn poppy, identical in design to the corn - poppy jade hairpin Zhou Donglin had given her back then.
After a cursory read - through, Li Qiyu couldn't calm her excitement. It wasn't until the next evening that she finally summoned the courage to read it again.
Li Qiyu flipped through the poetry collection page by page.
It was like opening a young man's diary of secrets, and those long - buried stories from the past were being turned over page by page.
Li Qiyu's memories also resurfaced one by one along with the poetry collection.
The Li and Zhou families were long - standing family friends. One family was known for literature while the other for martial arts, playfully referred to as the "twin guardians" of the Mu Dynasty.
She and Zhou Donglin were born around the same time, only a few months apart, and had grown up together. Their parents had once joked about arranging a childhood betrothal for them.
At the age of five or six, Li Qiyu had learned excellent martial arts from her father and brother. She looked down on the powerless Zhou Donglin and decided to give him a warning to make him back off.
Zhou Donglin was no match for her. In just a few moves, he was knocked down by Li Qiyu.
Li Qiyu didn't expect that what was supposed to be a mild punishment turned out to be too severe. Zhou Donglin cried and ran back to his mother. Li Qiyu didn't get off lightly either. Her father punished her to stand in a horse - stance for half an hour.
As she was standing in the horse - stance, her father was scolding her.
"That Zhou boy is the beloved son of your Uncle Zhou. He was born weak and in poor health. How could you be so heavy - handed? If anything happened to him, how could I face your Uncle Zhou?"
Li Qiyu was also frightened by the crying Zhou Donglin. She knew she had done wrong and carefully observed her father's expression.
"Then I'll go easier on him next time?"
"Alright." As soon as her father responded, he realized something was wrong. He tapped Li Qiyu on the head: "What do you mean by 'go easier next time'? You're not allowed to fight next time. Do you hear me!"
"Okay." Li Qiyu mumbled discontentedly, thinking to herself, like this, and he wants to be my husband?
This poetry collection truthfully described the process of the young man being beaten by the young girl, even with a somewhat aggrieved tone. Translated, it was:
"For others, it's the boy riding a bamboo horse, playing with the green plum around the bed. How come for me, I'm knocked down by the green plum?"
This wasn't the only matching part.
It also included how Li Qiyu took him to wander the streets, robbing the rich to help the poor. She took care of the outside affairs while he took care of the inside. She charged into battle while he came up with strategies.
Of course, there were also many things she didn't know.
For example, every time Zhou Donglin went out to cause trouble with Li Qiyu, he would be punished by his father with the family rules. As the son of the prime minister, being arrogant and domineering in public would affect the prime minister's image.
The poetry collection also wrote about his thoughts when his father beat him severely.
Father Zhou said: "She's a young girl. If she causes trouble, her future husband's family will take care of her. Can you just mess around with her?"
Zhou Donglin muttered in his heart: "I'll be her husband. I should spoil her and not restrict her."
Actually, the law and order in the capital was very good. Under the emperor's nose, who would dare to commit crimes? But to fulfill Li Qiyu's dream of robbing the rich to help the poor, Zhou Donglin would deliberately hire people to pretend to be heartless and rich merchants, and then give Li Qiyu a bad idea: "Go, let's rob the rich to help the poor."
But actually, those people were all actors hired by Zhou Donglin. After the play and the beating, they would ask Zhou Donglin for money according to the severity of the beating. Zhou Donglin would always feel pain in his heart when paying the bill, but as long as he heard Li Qiyu say: "So cool!"
He would immediately feel that the money was well - spent.
He wrote in the poetry collection like this: "For a smile from the beauty, a thousand gold can be burned."
When Li Qiyu read this, she was both angry and amused. No wonder she always thought it was strange before. Zhou Donglin, as the son of the prime minister, always seemed to be short of money. Sometimes, when he was short on funds, he would even borrow from Li Qiyu. It turned out that he had spent all his money on playing house with her.
Moreover, Zhou Donglin must have beautified himself in the poetry collection. What did he mean by "For a smile from the beauty, a thousand gold can be burned"? He wasn't like that before. He was so stingy that sometimes when Li Qiyu bought a sugar - coated hawthorn on a stick, he would even grab half of it. When Li Qiyu asked him why he didn't buy his own, his answer was always: "My money is for important things."
Was this the "important thing" he was talking about?
Li Qiyu shook her head with a smile and flipped to the next page.
The next page wrote about Li Qiyu going on a military expedition. He stayed at home every day like a "stone longing for his wife". Of course, at that time, he didn't know where his feelings were directed. He just felt that everything was dull. To relieve his loneliness, he even started reading the books he least liked and learning politics and history from his father, which he was most averse to.
However, this also attracted a lot of suitors. In those years, he received countless love letters, but he sighed in the poetry collection.
"Thousands of letters, none from a Li."
If Zhou Donglin were here now, Li Qiyu would definitely punch him hard.
What did he mean by "Thousands of letters, none from a Li"?
When she went on the expedition with her father and brother, she had even sent him a letter to report her safety.
Of course, Li Qiyu didn't have as many complicated thoughts as Zhou Donglin at that time. Her letters were usually very short, only a few words.
Something like: "I've entered Shu. All is well. Best regards."
It wasn't Li Qiyu's fault. The war was intense at that time. It was not easy to have the time and conditions to send a letter home.
If the war was really intense, she might not be able to contact her family for months or even half a year. Even when she could write a letter home, she often didn't have time to write a separate one for Zhou Donglin. At most, she would add a sentence in the letter to her sister - in - law: "Please say hello to Zhou Donglin for me."
But still, she had written letters. What did Zhou Donglin mean by that complaining tone?
Looking for a beating, huh?
In the next chapter, all those boring and somewhat sour literary emotions disappeared, and it became visibly cheerful.
Because Li Qiyu was back.
His words were full of a kind of foolishness. Things like "With a whip, I sweep away all the flowers in the capital" and "The pain is in my body, but the joy is in my heart."
This was like a response across a millennium of time to what Li Qiyu had thought when reading the previous text: "Looking for a beating, huh?"
It was really him.
Li Qiyu shook her head helplessly as she read.
It was really Zhou Donglin, always like a child who never grew up.
Actually, according to their ages, Zhou Donglin was a few months older than Li Qiyu. He was born in March while Li Qiyu was born in July. But Li Qiyu always took care of Zhou Donglin like a younger brother.
Not only because he always seemed like a big boy and a follower.
But also because he was innocent, passionate, disregarding the secular etiquette, and willing to go crazy and play around with her.