On the banks of Bailuzhou, Taicheng is in deep spring.

Another year is the apricot rain and pear clouds in the south of the Yangtze River, and the bees and butterflies love the fragrance.

Gao Luoshen sat quietly in the Taoist temple quiet room where he had lived alone for ten years.

"You go. You can escape as far as you can."

She said to several Taoist nuns who had not left in front of her.

Before she finished speaking, accompanied by a burst of rapid footsteps, a guard rushed in from outside the threshold.

"Madam! The Jie people have broken through the city gate! Rumor has it that His Majesty the Empress Dowager was captured on the way south! Rong Kang led the Jie soldiers to come here, and it is probably not good for the wife! If the wife doesn't leave, it will be too late!"

Everyone knows that the Jie army is tyrannical. Every time they break through a city in the Southern Dynasty, they will burn, kill, rape and loot, and do everything they do. Today's Jie emperor is even more inhumane. It is said that he once cooked female prisoners of the Southern Dynasty with venison in the same pot, and ordered diners to distinguish the taste and enjoy.

The Taoist nuns were already panicked, and when they heard this, they looked disgusted and cried bitterly. A few timid people were almost unable to stand and were trembling.

Gao Luoshen closed his eyes.

A candlelight swayed, casting her lonely and thin figure in Taoist clothes onto the wall, adding to the desolation.

***

The iron hooves of the foreign race took turns trampling on the old land of the two capitals.

Under the anticipation of the elders in the north, the southerners made northern expeditions again and again, but the ending was either back in vain or failed halfway, and the result was a failure.

When the dream of regaining the country and the mountains of our hometown was completely shattered, the southerners could do was to settle down in the Yangtze River. In the last sense of superiority of claiming to be the orthodox Chinese, they only looked at the two capitals, borrowing the ritual system of clothing and savoring the remaining glory of the past.

However, today, even this is impossible.

I once thought that the impregnable natural barrier could not stop the Jie people from invading the south.

Rong Kang was once a local vassal state in Badong. After losing his wife a few years ago, he relied on his strong soldiers and horses because of his strong military power. The court relied on him so much that he proposed to her.

With the noble family of Gao, how could he marry a military general like Fang Bo like Rongkang?

What's more, Gao Luoshen has entered the Taoist sect since ten years ago and vowed not to marry again in this life.

Her cousin, Empress Dowager Gao, knew that she owed her an old thing ten years ago, and she did not dare to force her.

Rong Kang failed to propose, and he felt that he had lost face. From then on, he held grudges. The next year, he started a rebellion and was quelled. After being quelled, he fled to the north to join the Jie people and was valued.

This time, the Jie people launched a large-scale invasion of the south, and Rong Kang was the vanguard, leading the Jie soldiers to the south to break through the city, showing off their power and doing all kinds of evil.

***

"I won't leave. You guys go."

Gao Luoshen slowly opened his eyes and said again.

Her expression was calm.

"Madam, take care of yourself"

The Taoist nuns knelt down to her, stood up, supported each other, and turned around and left in a hurry while crying.

In the huge Ziyun Temple, Gao Luoshen was soon left.

Gao Luoshen stepped out of the back door of the Taoist temple, walked alone to the riverside, stood on a towering rock, and looked at the vast river surface in front of him that divided the north and south of Jiuzhou.

The silver moon hangs in the sky, the river breeze is flying, and her clothes are dancing wildly, as if riding on the wind.

In this late spring night, above the river bank, the spring tides in the distance are like a silver line, the moon comes.

She was very familiar with the tide of the spring river under the moon outside Taicheng.

In countless nights when they woke up from nightmares, when they could no longer fall asleep, the only thing that accompanied her in their ears was the sound of the river tide every night, night after night, year after month.

However, tonight, the sound of the river tide sounded like the sound of a drum that was shaking from the south by the Jie rider.

Gao Luoshen seemed to have heard the terrified crying and screams of Taoist nuns who had no time to escape in the distance and the crazy laughter and roar of Jie soldiers.

Everything is over.

The romanticism of the Southern Dynasty, the glory of the family, and everything related to her will end tonight.

The Jie soldiers behind him were getting closer and closer, and the sound came with the wind, which was clearly visible.

Gao Luoshen did not look back.

The river water gushed with her gradually floating skirt, like a scattered flower, her thin body as thin as bamboo, pushed by the waves and swayed in the river breeze.

She raised her eyes and stared at the tide of the river that was rushing towards her, step by step, walking forward towards the middle of the river.

***

Since Gao Luoshen had memories, his father often brought her to the stone city by the river.

Between the towering green mountains, there are towering city walls. The stone city is located in the west of the imperial city and on the banks of the Yangtze River. It is garrisoned here for many years to protect the capital.

My father always held her little hand, looking at the north separated by a river, and watching for a long time.

The Northern Expedition to recover lost territory and restore the Han family's homeland was my father's greatest long-cherished wish in his life.

It is said that on the eve of her birth, my father dreamed of returning to Luoyang, the eastern capital. In his dream, he took illusion as the truth, wandered on both sides of the Luo River, singing indulged in love, and woke up in ecstasy, but was very melancholy.

The God of Luo River once guessed that her father named her like this, and it was not just a sign of the past and the present, and a deep thought of it.

But my father probably wouldn't have thought that in the last moment of her life, she passed away with the water.

Just like its name. In the dark, this may be a prophecy.

The river tide in the middle of the night was like a giant dragon, under the moonlight, making a soul-sucking roar.

It roared, pressing closer and closer to her, as if it was about to swallow her.

But she was not afraid at all.

In this life, too many people she loved had left before her.

In the fifteenth year of Xingping, when she was sixteen, she learned the feeling of death for the first time. That year, her 15-year-old cousin Gao Huan, who was like her, unfortunately died in the war to quell the rebellion of the Linchuan royal family.

Then, in the second year of Taikang, when she was eighteen years old, she lost her newly married husband Lu Jianzhi.

In the third year of Taikang, when she was still immersed in the sorrow of losing her lover, God ruthlessly took away her father and mother. That year, chaos occurred in the land of the Three Wus, and chaos was besieged by the city, and her mother was trapped. In order to save her mother, both of them died.

And today, more than ten years later, not long ago, her uncle and brother, who finally supported the Dayu Jiangshan and the Gao family, died in the city of Xiangyang, Jiangbei, which faced the Jie army southward.

In front of Gao Luoshen's eyes, many scenes flashed like glimpses.

Finally, another face suddenly appeared in her mind.

It was a man's face, and his heroic face was stained with blood.

Fresh blood continued to drip from his eyes.

Drop by drop, splashing on her face, splashing her beautiful face.

At that moment, she was thrown to the ground by him. The two of them had so close that they could sense each other's breathing.

His eyes dripped with blood, staring at her tightly, his eyes filled with incomparable anger and deep hatred.

He seemed to be a fierce beast that was seriously injured before death, and the next moment he would tear her apart and swallow her down.

However, in the end, she survived and lived to this day.

And he died in her in this way.

Gao Luoshen has always wanted to erase the face of the man with bloody eyes from his memory.

It's best to forget it, it's all done.

However, in the past ten years, in the late night when countless nights woke up by nightmares, when they were tossing and turning in the faint sound of the river tide in the distance that came to their ears, Gao Luoshen could not control himself and recalled the scene back and forth.

That bridal night filled with conspiracy and blood.

Many years later, to this day, she still can't figure it out.

The reason why he didn't break her neck at the last moment before he died was because he was unable to do anything or let her go?

She also asked herself over and over again, if time went by and everything could be repeated, would she still accept such an arrangement?

She even thought, if the man named Li Mu had not died ten years ago and he was still alive now, what would it be like for Jiangzuo today?

These Jie people from the north still have the chance to conquer Jiankang like this and capture the empress dowager and emperor of Dayu?

"Catch her back, and you will be rewarded-"

A harsh sound, accompanied by the sound of footsteps, came from behind.

The Jie soldiers had already chased her by the river, shouting loudly, and someone waded in the water to chase her.

A tide of rivers came towards her head, and she closed her eyes and jumped to meet her.

Her whole body, from head to toe, was instantly swallowed by the river tide and disappeared.

Jiang Chao no longer had the rage that was a moment ago, rolling out layers of white foam, completely surrounding her.

She floated in it, wandering around, as if she had received the gentlest care from the mother and the fetus.

In her breath, the last thing she smelled was the faint fishy smell unique to the spring river tide.

This smell reminded her of the last breath left to her by the man who died on her back then.
To be continued...