Chapter 57 The torches at the platform for heart-to-heart talks also prevent those who are not single-minded from meeting...
Changsun Qingjing tumbled to the ground in a disheveled state, clutching his head. All that could be heard were the terrified neighing of horses, the barking of something that sounded like a baby crying and a dog barking, and the whooshing sound of arrows whistling past the hazel hairpin in his hair bun.
Immediately afterwards, a creature resembling both a wolf and a wild boar bared its teeth and collapsed beside her.
She took a few steps back in fright, then scrambled towards Li Shimin, throwing herself into his arms and wrapping her arms around the boy's broad back.
Her whole heart was filled with the joy of regaining what she had lost.
Li Shimin put down his bow and arrows, gently lifted Changsun Qingjing's rosy cheeks with both hands, and brushed away the withered grass from her face. He held her dirty face, with slight bloodstains, as if he were holding the whole spring.
Li Shimin drew his sword and ran quickly toward the jackal that had just been shot dead. He kicked it viciously, and after confirming that it was dead, he put his bow back into its bag, carried it on his back, hung his saddlebags at his waist, picked up a wine jug placed on a rock, led Changsun Qingjing's horse, took her arm, and walked peacefully on the moss.
"Have you ever seen a jackal that looks like a pig?" he asked gravely.
Changsun Qingjing glanced at the wild dog, which had grown so strangely unrecognizable, with lingering fear, and shook his head in denial: "Jackals are all gaunt and starving. For it to look like a pig is truly horrifying!"
"Now the entire foothills of Mangshan are their feast, each one plump and greasy, no wonder they couldn't dodge in time and perished under the arrows." Aside from arguing, fighting, rescuing people, and listening to others' complaints, Li Shimin hadn't encountered a single person with whom he could have a normal conversation for two days. Now, finally reunited with Changsun Qingjing, he couldn't help but speak fluently and endlessly.
When Changsun Qingjing thought about how these beasts, now satiated with human flesh, could no longer suppress their thirst for fresh blood, and how he himself had just been mistaken for a lone, defiant starving peasant and almost perished in the jaws of jackals, he felt a pang of fear and began to vomit incessantly.
"...This beast has even learned to be picky now. It no longer bothers to eat human meat, and a dying person is still a good and fresh prey. A tired and unsuspecting young woman like you is the perfect prey..." He continued to speak fluently, completely unaware of his wife's strangeness and discomfort.
Changsun Qingjing's face was pale, and he was sweating profusely, his face streaked with sweat, which quickly soaked through his inner garment.
"Wait!" she called to Li Shimin, who was standing close by, to slow down, but her voice sounded as if it were coming from the horizon, completely unfamiliar.
Li Shimin hurriedly helped his trembling wife up and found that her hands were ice-cold and she was in a daze.
The spasms caused by fear and nausea finally caught his attention.
"Are you feeling unwell? Did I walk too fast? You're dressed too lightly; have you caught a cold?" Li Shimin fumbled for a non-existent chanju (a type of traditional Chinese garment) around his neck. After his fingers missed several times, he suddenly realized that the chanju did not exist and finally gave up.
Li Shimin supported Changsun Qingjing's back, full of apology: "It's my fault. I always inexplicably treated you as one of my friends who accompanied me in cockfighting and horse riding, and spoke without restraint. I forgot that women are always more delicate. I shouldn't have said these bloody, mutilated, and rotting words in front of you."
"I'll be fine after a while." Changsun Qingjing closed his eyes for a long time, and when he opened them again, the weakness and dizziness had lessened a bit. "If you're willing to treat me as another Wuji, that's not impossible!"
Li Shimin's lips curled up: "It's quite interesting that you think that way!"
"Why are you being so distant with me?" Changsun Qingjing subconsciously pulled the shawl from his upper arm, intending to spread it on the ground, but suddenly realized that it had become the coffin of the newly deceased mother and child. He was overcome with grief, and the joy of finding it again was mixed with gloom.
With no one around, the two simply sat cross-legged on the ground. Changsun Qingjing's spasms in his stomach and throat eased slightly.
The two gazed at the white banners made from the clothes of the dead fluttering in the haze, the corpses still crawling towards Luoyang with all their might in their final moments, the children who were lying on their deceased loved ones, panting and wailing, perhaps never to wake up again, and the streams that were reflected in the sunlight like blood and flames, as if someone had forced them to watch Zhan Ziqian's "Hell Transformation".
After a long silence, Changsun Qingjing asked, "What exactly have you been through these past two days? Why are you so calm and joking when you talk about jackals eating people?"
"It's a long story..."
"Where's your robe?" The sharp-eyed girl suddenly realized something. "You didn't use it to save someone too, did you?"
"God is cruel, the people are suffering terribly... many are dying, beyond saving." Facing this real, unbearable scene of "Hellish Transformation" below the slope, the boy buried his head between his knees, choking back sobs as he murmured, "It's hopeless, I can't save them at all..."
"Is this why you disappeared?" Changsun Qingjing gently stroked Li Shimin's back, which was bent over, and waited silently for him to calm down.
"Guanyinbi, do you believe everything I say next?" Li Shimin raised his face from his knees, gazing thoughtfully at the hastily made soul-summoning banners by starving people in the distance. "If what I say contains many bizarre, absurd, and unimaginable situations, will you think I just had a nightmare?"
"I dare not lie." The boy glanced instinctively at the desolate mound at his feet, patted his knees, bowed to a certain emperor below the hill, then straightened up, stared at the sky, and tried his best to hold back the tears welling up in his eyes. Then, he began to tell the story of how he appeared on the mound of a certain Eastern Han Dynasty imperial tomb.
"At first, I didn't take the matter of the household steward stopping me from coming to Beimang seriously, presumptuously assuming he just thought I was too young and meddlesome. But upon closer reflection, he genuinely didn't want me to see the miserable state of those starving people in Hedong. He truly cared for me, treating me... treating me like... his own son?" Li Shimin frowned. "I didn't sleep a wink all night, my mind feels like it's filled with cotton wool, so I'm bound to use inappropriate words. I wanted to praise him as a loyal servant, but that's too formal; praising a subordinate for treating a superior like his own son feels like overstepping the bounds of propriety. Either way, it's inappropriate."
“I understand, and the head maid also advised me. Neither Lady Liu nor the head maid are ordinary servants; the former has the grace of raising her, and the latter has the merit of managing the household. You can compare them however you like, I won’t laugh at you.” Changsun Qingjing encouraged Li Shimin to continue.
"I don't need to say much about the situation on Mangban Road. I'm sure you've seen it all the way and know it better than I have."
“I saw it.” Changsun Qingjing nodded. “There was a mother who wanted a handful of bran in exchange for her son to be my slave. While I was searching everywhere for five coins to exchange for him, my servants dragged her away. I hope they are still alive. There was also a mother who was barely clothed and hung the clothes of her dead infant on the top of a locust tree to summon the spirit. In the end, she died holding her child. As she was dying, she mistook me for Guanyin, who was taking her to heaven. If I haven’t misread the Nirvana Sutra, she and her child should have already reached the other shore…”
Her nose, stinging from the cold wind, had lost all feeling: "And what about you? What happened to you?"
“I feel the same way you do…” Changsun Qingjing rested his chin on his hand, the scenes of famine, exile, and cannibalism recorded in history books overlapping with the reality before his eyes.
The mountains of Beiman are not particularly high or steep, but they stretch endlessly, appearing especially desolate in the vast天地 (heaven and earth). History, reality, and the human heart thus dissolve into nothingness, turning all the pain into numbness.
"The steward advised me to mind my own business, saying that such is the way of the world, and even a young master with compassion is powerless to change anything. We walked and stopped for two hours before finally arriving at the estate. The estate clerk was a distant relative of my grandfather, and although he inevitably took advantage of his age, he managed the estate with utmost care. He kept a complete record of the increase or decrease in acreage, the number of tenants, servants, slaves, tax collectors seeking refuge, and fugitive officials and artisans, as well as the specific skills of each tenant and slave. He answered all questions about the income and expenditure of private and voluntary rents fluently. I asked out of curiosity how the rent was divided, and the estate clerk began to complain, arguing with the steward."
"Could their argument have started because of you?" Changsun Qingjing asked curiously.
“What you say makes sense.” Li Shimin picked up a dry branch, sat back down next to Changsun Qingjing, and began to write and draw on the ground.
“The estate official blamed the head of the household for disregarding the estate’s income and expenditure last year and for recruiting a large number of farmhands from the displaced people. These people are brave and violent and do not engage in production. I don’t know what use they are. Of course, I argued with him and ordered him to settle the people properly for later use.”
“You are recruiting private soldiers under the emperor’s nose, so you should think of some ways to cover it up.” Changsun Qingjing knew that it was common for nobles to keep private soldiers, and as long as the scale was controlled, it would not be a big problem. “You can’t just train them. You have to find something else to do, so that the commotion is too big and treacherous people will speak ill of you to the emperor.”
“Hmm,” Li Shimin nodded. “The steward and the estate official discussed last year’s poor harvest again, and I thought of waiving part of last year’s private and voluntary rent. They stopped arguing about the expenses for repairing the manor and guarding the property. They both advised me to give up. But I wouldn’t give in so easily. I thought I would need these tenants sooner or later. Whether they were good at fighting, construction, farming, or weaving, they could all be of use to me in the end. I couldn’t just drain the pond to catch all the fish or burn the forest to hunt. It would be better to change the rent distribution from 60% to 40% to 30% and use cloth to pay for grain. If the estate’s expenses are insufficient, I can use my private funds first…”
"Is your private savings enough?" Changsun Qingjing was quite interested in this attempt to reduce private rent during a year of disaster. "If not, I'll give you my money for cosmetics."
"Ah, you are the only one who supported me after I devised this new method of rent collection! I am deeply grateful. Just as I was feeling smug about my extraordinary talent, the steward dealt me a heavy blow. He said, 'Young master, although my husband and wife have a gentleman's agreement that when their sons divide the family property after their deaths, the fields and houses in Luoyang will be entrusted to you for management, your current actions will likely lead to financial difficulties and only deplete our resources. If you insist on going your own way, I will have no choice but to speak frankly to my husband.' I was annoyed and knew that what he said made sense. This matter is of great importance, and it would be inappropriate not to report it to the lord, so I can only leave it at that for now." Li Shimin was displeased and threw away the withered branch in his hand.
“When the lord returns home, you should solemnly report this matter to him. Explain the advantages and disadvantages, and it might not be impossible.” Changsun Qingjing was inspired by some ideals that no one had ever tried before, and was eager to see the results of upholding morality.
Li Shimin suddenly became eager to know what kind of image he had in Changsun Qingjing's mind: "Do I look like a foolish scholar or a madman to you?"
"This world always needs a few eccentric and unconventional individuals." Changsun Qingjing disliked the ridicule that worldly people showed to idealists.
Li Shimin heard the sound of a walnut cracking.
Those who are persistent will eventually meet.
The author says: In my text, Beiman is the most desperate and lost place, but it is also the place where the dreams of two people truly begin to become reality.
Hidden households and private rents existed in a gray area at the end of the Sui Dynasty after the collapse of the equal-field system, and large families were basically involved in this issue.
So why not sow the seeds of reform now, and carve out a pure land for the people and for ideals? Qingjing was Erfeng's first supporter.
This is the purpose of my writing this chapter.
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