029. Old Memories
When he was young, Shang Changheng didn't have the long hair like the ribbons he has now. His black hair just reached his shoulders and was tied up halfway with a headband. His expression was not the sinister and resentful one Qingling had seen before, but a slow smile that was pure and gentle. He asked, "Didn't Master go to the North Camp? Why are you back so soon?"
"Changheng, it's already noon." The girl shook her head and threw the kettle over. "Dad has been back for a long time. You should take a rest and eat something. You still have to go to Mr. Song's place to study in the afternoon."
Shang Changheng reached out and caught the kettle, tilted his head and poured the water down, drank a few mouthfuls, and the rest fell on his face and collar. He wiped the water off, smiled and said, "Oh, I forgot the time."
He turned to look at the shirtless boy and asked, "Brother, are you going? If you don't go, the master will complain to the master again."
"No, no." The young man waved his hands, crossed his shoulders and raised his chin, looking very excited. "I want to go to the shop on the street to learn blacksmithing. The blacksmith finally agreed to teach me, and my master didn't object! I feel sleepy when I hear Mr. Song talking about those things. Isn't it a waste of time? It's better to learn the craft well, and then learn how to forge knives and swords in the future, and make the sharpest weapons in the world for you!"
Shang Changheng laughed out loud, nodded repeatedly and said yes, then asked the girl: "Senior sister, are you going?"
"Go." The girl also showed some resentment of being forced. "He said that if I can answer all the questions asked by the teacher, he will allow me to learn the carpentry trade."
At this point, she couldn't help revealing some of her youthful pride, and she put her hands on her hips and began to speak boldly: "Little Junior Brother, wait, I will definitely not lose to him, and in the future, I will also be able to make a unique and mysterious mechanism for you, which will make those northwest barbarians tremble in fear and never dare to set foot in my Great Zhou territory again!"
"Okay!" The young man shouted and then lowered his voice and said, "But our junior brother is a good student. He will be good at both literature and martial arts in the future, and he will definitely be able to ascend to the top..."
"Senior Brother!" Shang Changheng interrupted him quickly.
The boy realized that he had said something wrong and slapped his mouth, "Hey, look at my mouth."
"It's okay." Shang Changheng said softly, and then he showed a soft and gentle look that Qingling had never seen before. He said slowly: "I just want everyone to be safe. There is nothing better than us all being alive and being able to get together to see the flowers on the mountainside and buy wine at the East Lane Winery."
The yard fell into silence for a moment.
"Of course we can." The shirtless boy suddenly spoke up. He put on the short shirt with narrow sleeves hanging on the side and said, "Our master is the great Sima Wei Shanfu. Which of those northwestern barbarians would not tremble when hearing the name of our master? Sooner or later, we will drive those barbarians back to the Gobi Desert. Let's go, Qingxia, Changheng, let's go eat--"
Wei Qingxia snorted, "Zuo Baichuan, why are you calling me senior sister?"
"You are two years younger than me! Why don't you call me brother? Hey, Qingxia! Qingxia! That's what I call you!"
"You're looking for death—don't run!"
"Senior sister! Senior brother! Stop breaking the door that was just repaired the day before yesterday!"
The sounds of the boys and girls playing gradually became distant, and the scene in front of Qingling gradually collapsed, as if this world was slowly being swallowed up by nothingness. The distant past, whose truth or falsehood was unknown, seemed to blur into a vast ocean, and Qingling's consciousness fell into it in a daze.
"Qingling?"
It was Shang Changheng's voice, not the clear voice of his youth, but the Shang Changheng that Qingling was familiar with, the evil ghost who was always thinking about making him commit suicide for love.
Qing Ling regained consciousness quickly, and Shang Changheng's face appeared in front of him. He was pale and handsome, unlike the soft features of his youth. He was being held in Shang Changheng's arms. Everything that had just happened seemed like a dream, but he still remembered Shang Changheng's words, "I just want everyone to be safe."
But Shang Changheng was still very young when he died, so it should have been around the time of the fall of the Zhou Dynasty. If everything that just happened was true, then the young boys and girls would have experienced the change of dynasties and the chaos that followed for more than two hundred years.
"Donor Qing, what's wrong with you?" Miao Yuan also squatted down with a frown on his face.
Qing Ling supported Shang Changheng's shoulders and stood up. Then he rubbed his brows and whispered, "I just saw something, it seems to be..."
He glanced at Shang Changheng, his eyes showing a rare complexity, "About you."
"What?" Shang Changheng was also stunned, "You just suddenly fell down."
But Qingling didn't feel any pain from the fall. When he woke up, Shang Changheng was holding him again. He guessed something but didn't mention it. He just said, "Like... things from your life. Do you remember a Grand Marshal named Wei Shanfu during the weekend? And the names Zuo Baichuan and Wei Qingxia."
Shang Changheng was stunned once. He whispered: "Wei Shanfu... Da Sima..."
Memory is like a pool of stagnant water, which sometimes surges up with huge waves. At this moment, the stagnant water in the pool suddenly ripples, the silent picture begins to revive, and one scene after another, as dark as dark clouds, quickly passes by.
"A real man fights to the death for his country! What is there to fear? I will die today and become a ghost in this chaotic world. I wish to fight for a peaceful life for the future generations of the Great Zhou!"
The burly figure was wrapped in heavy armor, holding a long spear, standing in front of the yellow sand array, but his helmet was gone and there was a pool of blood under his feet. The wind blew the white hair on his temples, the afterglow of the setting sun fell, and the sound of the wind sounded like a sad whimper.
He was being pulled by someone, and someone shouted at the top of his lungs: "Hurry up, Chang Heng! Chang Heng! We can't hold on any longer!! We have to go to Yaoshan, we still have a chance, we can't all die here! That would be the end! Wherever a man dies, that's his grave! Sooner or later we'll take back Yangcheng, let's go!!!"
In a hurry, he saw a face, a young boy's face, with strong features, but tears were streaming down his face.
The next moment, the face became haggard and sunken, with untidy beard and gray complexion. He was completely unrecognizable. A line of blood slowly appeared on his neck and his cracked lips moved as if he wanted to say something. Then his head fell off and scarlet blood gushed out of his broken neck.
Shang Changheng covered his head in panic and staggered back a step. Despair and unwillingness surged wildly and occupied his mind. Resentment and hatred almost burned into a prairie fire, but he didn't know who to burn with this fire. He could only raise his head blankly and said in a trembling voice: "I seem to... remember something... about them..."
Dead.
Why did you die?
who are they?
Those names correspond to real people, who are they? Who killed them?
"Do you remember?" Qing Ling could already feel Shang Changheng's out-of-control yin energy overwhelming him. He didn't dare to step forward and could only speak quickly: "Wei Shanfu is your master, Wei Qingxia is your senior sister, and Zuo Baichuan is your senior brother. Do you remember?"
Miao Yuan and Qing Ling stood together and whispered, "He seems to be losing control."
Qing Ling knew it very well, but he had his own selfish motives. The deal was just one of them. He found that Shang Changheng had become more and more like a human being. If he remembered some of it, he would recover a little. If he remembered more, he would truly regain his character before he died - just like the gentle and determined young man in the hallucination just now.
Maybe Shang Changheng would let him go at that time.
But when Shang Changheng followed those familiar names and tried to sort out the confused memories, he could only remember some messy fragments, all of which were filled with separation, death and blood. His resentment accumulated more and more, and those painful memories spread out like a scroll, making him suffer in confusion over and over again without knowing the reason.
The surging negative energy gradually subsided and was then restrained by Shang Changheng. The evil ghost straightened his back once again, his expression seemed to be covered with a layer of gloom and was terribly cold.
"They should be dead," Shang Changheng said, "I can't remember the others."
Qing Ling frowned slightly and felt a little breathless. He didn't know whether it was because his plan had failed or for some other reason he couldn't explain.
He had been used to being alone since childhood and had a solitary personality. Although he was polite to others, he always kept a distance from them that no one was allowed to approach. But just now, he had seen Shang Changheng's brief youth, and although he didn't know why, it was obviously not a false illusion.
Those high-spirited young men were so close to each other and could speak freely about the future. This was something Qing Ling had never had a thousand years later. However, he knew clearly that time had already buried those living people into dust.
"Forget it, I'll remember it eventually." Qing Ling sighed, "But why did I see it?"
Miao Yuan, who had been on guard the whole time, breathed a sigh of relief and said, "It should be because the donor Shang... has been sealed here for too long. These spells and runes are extremely harmful to the soul. Moreover, it has been a thousand years, so it is normal for him to lose his memory. But this place has left him with too many obsessions. Donor Qing has a special physique, and he and... ahem, are husband and wife in name and in reality, so he glimpsed some of the old things from this obsession."
Qingling thought it made sense and had no other explanation, so he nodded. It was a pity that the person who should have remembered it didn't.
Just as he was about to ask Shang Changheng what to do next, he saw the man walking towards his corpse. Then he raised his hand and waved it. The remains of the body, with only a yellowed skull left after the hair had rotted away, turned into ashes in an instant.
"You..." Qing Ling was stunned, "Why?"
Is this what Shang Changheng meant by collecting his own remains? Grind yourself into ashes?
"I don't know." Shang Changheng turned his back to him, "I just think that this corpse should not be left here. It should be destroyed."
Qingling felt that Shang Changheng was like a hollow bamboo at this moment. No matter how tall and strong he looked, his inside was already riddled with holes.
Shang Changheng turned around, and his expression was indistinct, as if scattering his ashes was no big deal. He said, "That's good too."
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”
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