Chapter 5: The Young Men and Women Who Survive Through the Years and the Piles That Followed in Their Footsteps...
“We are trapped in the vortex of time, which keeps repeating itself…” This was a thought that Changsun Qingjing often had over the past three or four years. She also often stood among the pines and springs of Zhongnan Mountain and asked the same question as her brother and his friends: “Will the Kaihuang Dynasty last for thousands of years and be prosperous forever?”
The rebellion occurred during the second campaign against Goguryeo by the ambitious second emperor of the dynasty. The sons of nobles began to band together in rebellion, and the situation instantly became tense and delicate.
Daxing City was suddenly under heavy guard. News of battles between the Central Plains rebels and government troops poured in. No one could say how much energy was hidden beneath the calm surface of Guanzhong.
The pain of being abandoned by their family didn't last long. Even Gao Shilian was astonished that the two children, after experiencing intrigue and betrayal, hadn't been haunted by nightmares and become pitiful, eccentric characters, only to spend their lives proving Changsun Anye's most vicious lie: "Look, the descendants of that madwoman from Qi!"
On the contrary, Changsun Wuji and Changsun Qingjing were as wild and persistent as seeds that fell into the crevices of a cliff, breaking through the soil in an unsuitable place, taking root like coiled dragons, seeking sunlight, and growing regardless of everything.
Changsun Chi had specifically discussed with Gao Shilian the matter of taking back his younger brother's two children. However, when Gao Shilian questioned the injustice his sister had suffered, Wuji spoke confidently about the future, and Qingjing casually stated that he would never leave his adoptive father, a ninth-rank official, Changsun Chi knew that all attempts to salvage the situation would be in vain.
However, Changsun Chi comforted himself: they were all from the Daibei region, and the savagery and ruthlessness flowing in their veins would eventually surface to save them. These seeds of the Yinshan grasslands could not be killed.
Gao Shilian genuinely admired Li Shimin, the second son of Duke Li Yuan of Tang, and his third son, Li Xuanba. Li Shimin was currently accompanying his father to Zhuojun. Li Xuanba became a frequent visitor to the Gao residence. He was a shy fifteen-year-old boy whose illness had nearly destroyed any possibility of him practicing horsemanship and archery, or pursuing the glory of his ancestors.
Listening to Changsun Wuji's rambling, she couldn't help but criticize the characters: "Although Li Shimin loves to boast, he is still a sincere gentleman."
She inadvertently recalled the scene when Li Shimin bid farewell to Gao Shilian and Changsun Wuji on his way to Zhuojun. In the hidden corners of her memory, there seemed to have been a trace of worry and reluctance.
"Are you talking about Vidyaraja or the Great Master?" Wuji teased, his lynx-like eyes darting around. Changsun Qingjing was momentarily speechless, but she quickly recovered from the awkwardness: "Do you think those two brothers feel like they're looking in a mirror when they chat in person?" The siblings exchanged knowing, sly smiles.
"However, Shimin is more knowledgeable than Xuanba after all. It would be good if his parents, who are officials traveling around, could always bring him back from Zhuojun." Wuji said expectantly as he sorted through the letters with his friend, "Ah, he must have so much to tell us that can't be contained in all those letters: the war on the Goguryeo front, the hardships of supervising grain transport, the canal construction site, the customs of Yan and Zhao... He's a living map and a chatterbox!"
Some people have been away from Daxing for a long time, but they are still wildly active in the conversations of Daxing teenagers.
"Once the war against Goguryeo is over and Yang Xuangan's rebellion is quelled, Shimin will return safely from Zhuojun. Then the country will return to normal once again." Changsun Wuji longed to return to that orderly era and was unwilling to believe that that era had vanished with his spirited father.
The third son of the Li family possessed an almost obsessive passion for his future plans. He loved the Gao residence, a place where he could pour out his naive, grand, and unrealistic ideals. He earnestly brought his tuition fee to Gao Shilian's home to formally become his student. Gao Shilian taught Li Xuanba classics and history, without deliberately putting on airs or using pretentious language to intimidate the gifted young man. The children had ample time to play chess, compose poetry, and practice horseback riding and archery.
Qingjing didn't deliberately avoid Xuanba, but she usually chose to exchange a few simple pleasantries with him in front of Wuji. Occasionally, she would overhear the young men chatting while playing chess. They secretly sang songs about Zhishilang's treasonous behavior, discussed the tragic state of Liaodong, and expressed a mixture of disgust and envy towards Yang Xuangan and Li Mi's rebellions. They whispered among themselves, "Who exactly caused this chaotic world? How long can the peace and prosperity of Daxing City last?"
One day, Changsun Qingjing was playing with the lynx "Grasshopper" by the pond. Suddenly, she felt a pair of melancholy eyes gazing at her from the waterside pavilion. Feeling uneasy, she took "Grasshopper" and went into the pavilion. The lazy, rose-colored sunlight shone on the floor, and fine, trapped dust swirled in the beams of light. Li Xuanba was leaning against the window, tuning an old pipa, intently burying half his face in his hands.
"Fortunately, Li Sanlang." She wanted to leave, but his violent cough stopped her. The sickly yet handsome young man looked radiant today, as if he had a bellyful of joy to share with his friends.
"I found the score for 'Entering the Battle Music' at Wuji's place." Li Xuanba shook the Nuo dance mask covered in dust in his hand as if he had found a treasure.
Changsun Qingjing sat upright with a smile, and even Cao Shangfei was affected by the serious atmosphere, obediently lying down next to the mistress.
A desolate, heavy melody flowed from the boy's fingertips, echoing the churning dust under the afterglow of the setting sun. Suddenly, strings of pearls shattered in his hands, clanging and clashing, breaking the light and shadow in the room, disrupting the vortex of time—sometimes like the clash of swords, sometimes like a mournful lament… As the piece ended, Xuanba's hand, gripping his ceremonial tablet, trembled slightly, the lingering echoes of the sound reverberating between his fingers. He removed his mask and said with a touch of sorrow:
Then, the boy, whose death was preordained by fate, looked at the beams of light cast by the setting sun in the waterside pavilion and sighed helplessly, "Alas, I will not be able to wait for my parents and brothers to return."
He couldn't wait for that ideal farewell enveloped in love and tears, so he simply chose his own way to say goodbye to the world.
Li Xuanba couldn't remember how old he was when he last went hunting, but this time he was unusually stubborn, wanting to end his life on horseback. Eagles soared, yellow dogs barked, as if that bustling vortex was the destined destination for this quiet boy. He sat quietly on horseback, listening to the wind for a long time.
"Elder brother, third sister, please apologize to our parents for me. I'm afraid I won't be able to fulfill my filial duties." Jiancheng and his third sister, who had been riding alongside him, could only sigh and sob. They were both too young and naive to know how to face a murder that fate had long planned.
"Wuji, tell my brother that I wish him early success. It's a pity that I will no longer be in his sky." Wuji's heart sank little by little. The Li family had told him about Erlang's miraculous recovery from two bouts of plague when he was nine years old, so he had no doubt that the same miracle would happen to Sanlang. He could not accept the sudden departure of a young life of the same age.
Li Xuanba cautiously turned to Qingjing, then avoided Changsun Qingjing's concerned gaze: "The sky over Nanshan is so high and so blue, but I can never reach it."
The sky was a clear, azure blue, with wispy clouds churning and shifting, much like the struggling, yearning heart of the young man. Suddenly, half his eyes blazed with the very essence of the surging sky: "They've come to take me..." Then, all fell silent again. Xuanba drifted off to sleep on horseback, his eternal dream filled with the spirits of the heroes of Wuchuan, and a beautiful future he could never reach in this life...
Changsun Qingjing's hand was still suspended in the air, his fingers clenched tightly, and wisps of white clouds and time slipped away between his fingers.
She thought of the stirring "Prince Lanling Enters the Battle Song," of the dust churning in the sunset, and of the many things in this world that are ultimately unattainable.
However, the surviving young men and women, along with the countless skeletons piled up in Liaodong and formed into mounds of corpses, and the extinguished sparks of resistance, are all trapped in this cyclical vortex of time.
Changsun Qingjing feared that this stagnant pool would eventually drag the eager, rising whirlpools back into the depths. She was like a nautilus lying dormant in the water, unwilling to perish in the stagnant water before even smelling the fragrance of flowers on the shore.
A seemingly fragile but rebellious girl begins to yearn for a hurricane to sweep across the world in her life.
A note from the author:
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