bookrandom Chapter 731 Teacher, please accept my student’s greeting!
Chapter 731 Teacher, please accept my student’s greeting!
In the late spring of the 20th year of Qianwu, the steps of the West Market of Chang'an were covered with fallen locust flowers.
The corner of Li Chengqian's clothes brushed against the mottled vermilion lacquer door frame of the Qin Mansion, and the jade belt hook at his waist shone coldly in the sunlight.
Li Zhi looked at his brother's suddenly tightened jawline, and followed his gaze - under the sign of "Shenwu General's Mansion", a porter was carrying a stretcher covered with white cloth. The lion's claws slipped from the corner of the cloth, and a few lingering locust flowers were stained on the golden fur.
"Old man, this is..."
Li Chengqian's voice was so low as if he was afraid of waking something up, and the soles of his boots crushed the petals in front of the steps.
The old man on the steps was tying a broom with straw rope. His knuckles were white from the effort. Patches were piled on top of patches on his cuffs, but the stitches were as fine as the threads of a soldier's armor.
When the old man looked up, a cloudy light leaked from the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes: "Brother, is this the first time you see me? The general's lion has also died of old age."
"This beast ate so much meat, but I don't think it can live long."
Li Chengqian stared at the copper keychain on the old man's waist. The twelve keys swayed slightly with his breathing. One of them was engraved with the words "Lion Cage" and the paint was polished to a shine.
He suddenly remembered that Qin Ruzhao opened the lion cage and fed it with jerky, and said to him with a silly smile.
"Your Highness, look, it's softer than a saddle."
At this moment, the cage was overgrown with weeds, and the scratches on the iron bars were so deep that the bones were visible.
"We all crawled out of the dead back then."
The old man found a piece of hard biscuit, broke it into pieces, and scattered it at the base of the wall. Seven or eight sparrows immediately gathered around, saying, "The general insisted on hiring us to sweep the yard, saying, 'The servants of aristocratic families can't even hold a hoe steadily.' Ten coins a day can buy half a liter of corn... Smell the cracks between the bricks; they still smell the fragrance of the alfalfa the general taught us to grow."
He suddenly lowered his voice and said, "The night the general left, the cage door was open, but the lion didn't run away."
Li Zhi tugged at his brother's sleeve and his eyes fell on the silver spear tip exposed behind the screen.
It was the "Dingbei" bestowed personally by His Majesty in the ninth year of the Qianwu reign. The red silk on the spear's tassel had faded to a pale yellow, but it was still wrapped with half a faded lantern wisp - Qin Ruzhao had snatched it from a night market during the Lantern Festival one year.
Li Chengqian looked in the direction of the spear tip. Under the old locust tree in the martial arts arena, a half-broken stele lay diagonally. The head of the stele with the word "Qin" was buried in the soil, and the stele was covered with moss. The words "loyalty and brave" were faintly visible, but they were entangled by vines into a tangled web.
"Zhi Nu, have you ever seen General Qin wield a spear?"
Li Chengqian suddenly squatted down, his robe sweeping across the newly grown weeds in front of the steps. "When I was seven years old, I was playing with sticks at the entrance of an alley in Xianyang. The patches on the corners of my clothes were frozen solid, and I could even shoot date pits into a tree hole thirty steps away."
He traced the knife marks on the doorframe with his fingertips. The deepest one stopped at six feet and three inches. "Later, he said he wanted to be a civil servant, so I copied the Zhenguan Zhengyao three times. Each time he copied a page, he would write on the ground with a silver spear... Now those words have long been washed away by the rain."
The old man coughed violently and pulled out an oil-paper bag from his bosom. Inside was half a moldy millet cake: "This was given to the refugees by the general. Before my wife died, she said that she wanted to offer a longevity tablet to the general..."
Before he finished speaking, Li Chengqian felt his throat tighten when he heard this, and suddenly he felt that the face of the old man in front of him overlapped with the young man in his memory - during the famine that year, the seven-year-old Qin Ruzhao also held the broken cake in this way, and tears fell into the batter.
He gave me that bread.
As dusk fell over the mansion gate, Li Chengqian took off the jade pendant from his waist and put it into the old man's palm.
The two characters "Ru Zhao" were carved very deeply on the mutton-fat white jade, and the edges were polished to a shine. He had carved them himself.
"Please help me get a new candle for the general's study."
He said, his voice so soft it sounded like a sigh, "He was actually a little afraid of the dark, and when he was on night duty he always left the light half lit."
The old man clenched the jade pendant tightly, and a warm light leaked out from between his fingers.
Hearing Li Chengqian's words, the old man was a little puzzled.
Could this mighty general who is invincible in the world also be afraid of the dark?
When they reached the alley entrance, Li Zhi suddenly pointed at the back wall of the Qin residence and exclaimed, "It was covered with vines, swaying gently in the evening breeze, remarkably resembling the 'Qin' flag of the Three Thousand Battalion."
"The royal road has always been paved with human beings."
Li Chengqian looked at the bustling crowd in the West Market and suddenly laughed, startling the spring swallows under the eaves. "Ru Zhaozong said he wanted to return to his hometown in Xianyang to see the alleys where he used to perform martial arts... But he never understood until his death that from the day he followed me, he could never go back."
Li Zhi looked up and saw the setting sun reflected in his brother's eyes, just like when his brother entered the capital and Qin Ruzhao protected him, hot and scorching, as hot as the tears in his eyes at this moment.
When it was late at night and everyone was asleep, a plate of millet cakes appeared under the paws of the stone lion in the Qin Mansion.
No one has eaten this for a long time.
Everyone eats white rice.
But it was this one piece of cake that made this silly boy follow him for the rest of his life.
The moonlight passed through the empty lion cage, casting the shadow of the iron bars on the blue bricks, which looked very much like the sky where the young general was once trapped.
Somewhere, a window frame suddenly creaked softly, as if there were a sound like a silver spear plucking locust flowers from the ground, accompanied by a very soft sigh: "Your Majesty, Ruzhao's steamed buns... are still warm."
The wind blew the locust flowers across the plaque, dispersing the last bit of worldly fireworks into the long night.
In the Chang'an Inn, Li Chengqian sat on the bed, looking at Li Zhi beside him.
"Zhi Nu, I'm telling you the truth. I don't recommend you go to the world to serve the public. As long as you are a good emperor, I will be satisfied."
"Look at my brother now. He is like a walking corpse. All the important people have left me."
"Tell me, what is this for?"
"My own son nailed me to the pillar of shame, holding the tablets of my father and empress, and banged his head to death on the dragon throne."
"This is how the history books will write about me, but I don't mind, my brother. I'm just putting myself in your shoes."
"But, I don't want you to suffer this kind of pain any more. It's more than just suffering!"
Li Chengqian said with a wry smile
Li Zhi could feel the sadness emanating from his brother.
He nodded.
"Brother, I chose this path myself, you don't have to worry."
"I will try to do what you have not accomplished."
"I am not the Prince of Jin of the Tang Dynasty, nor am I a prince who has lived a life of luxury in the palace since childhood."
"As far back as I can remember, my father has made me do my homework every day, working hard in the morning and evening, without slacking off for a single day."
"I've studied the Four Books and Five Classics, the Confucian teachings, since I was a child. I read intuitively, but it's not very interesting."
"However, it was only after I arrived in Xianyang that I understood the true meaning of studying."
"Thousands of teachings are not as good as those few words at the entrance of the academy."
"Establish a mind for the heaven and earth, establish a destiny for the living people, carry forward the unique teachings of the past saints, and create peace for all generations."
"What the emperor did, this minister will do too."
"If my brother the emperor can endure hardship, can't I, a humble servant, endure it?"
"We in the Li family don't produce cowards. What do you think, brother?"
"Since the right path is right before our eyes, should we not take it just because it's difficult?"
"Your Majesty, you have already made the beginning. I am deeply grateful to you."
"Come to think of it, I am also a student of Qianwu."
"Teacher, please accept my student's greetings!"