Chapter 136 Silver Bell Khan
The silver bells in its mane jingled in the gale.
That was the keepsake that Glinazel had personally tied around Lei Yan's neck years ago.
Even more astonishingly, behind Lei Yan, a vast herd of horses came across the desert.
The faded silk ribbons tied around their necks or the rusty copper bells hanging from them are all marks left by Gulinazer back then.
"It's the princess's old herd of horses!" the old groom exclaimed, his voice trembling. "They still remember their master..."
The Turkic soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment, and some of them involuntarily knelt down.
In the legends of the grasslands, only those favored by the Eternal Heaven can make wild horses cross the desolate desert to find them.
Gulina Zere removed her veil, letting the wind and sand brush against her face.
She walked slowly toward Lei Yan, whose once unruly horse now lowered its head docilely and gently touched her palm with its nose.
She stroked the silver bell nestled among Lei Yan's mane, its inscription bearing her name, which shimmered in the wind and sand.
“Look,” Gulinazer said, turning to the kneeling soldiers, her voice clear in the wind, “the horse knows the way home.”
When they camped for the night, the accompanying shaman performed divination by the campfire.
The sheep bones cracked in the flames, revealing peculiar patterns.
The old shaman trembled as he announced, "The Eternal Heaven has revealed that our princess, Gulinazer, is the Silver Bell Saintess, ordained by Heaven."
The news spread among the various Turkic tribes.
Gulinazer finally returned to the royal court, where she was greeted not only by her long-lost relatives, but also by the awe-inspiring gazes of the tribal leaders.
The princess who was once sent to Dasheng as a gift has now returned with the miracle of being a "divinely blessed woman".
In the stillness of the night, Gulinazael stroked Lei Yan's mane and whispered, "The Grand Preceptor is right, that day... is indeed not far off."
The legend of the Silver Bell Saintess spread like wildfire.
Three years later, seven tribal leaders had submitted before Gulinazel's golden tent.
Just as she was about to extend her reach to the eighth tribe, a caravan from the south brought news that shook the grasslands.
"Have you heard?" the caravan leader whispered by the campfire. "That Grand Preceptor of the Great Sheng Dynasty, who could see stars without blinking, has been locked up at the foot of Broken Soul Ridge."
The silver cup in Gulnazel's hand suddenly tilted, spilling mare's milk wine all over the ground.
"The Seventh Prince, Xiao Yuanxiu..." The caravan leader's voice trailed off, "It's said that in his quest for the throne, he even turned against the very person who had relieved the Great Sheng Dynasty's three-year drought. The people of Sheng'an City are all saying that on the day the Imperial Advisor was murdered, blood suddenly rained down in the city..."
Gulinazel slowly rose to her feet, the silver bells on her gilded robe jingling softly.
She stepped outside the tent and looked at the southern night sky, where a star was rapidly dimming.
"Prepare the horses."
The roar of thunder and flames pierced the night sky.
"I'm going to see my old friends."
The old shaman's bone staff was deeply embedded in the soil. "Holy Maiden, the eagle of the grassland should not soar for the foreign strategist."
You're wrong.
Gulinazer gently stroked Lei Yan's forehead. "She is not a foreign national advisor, but the national advisor of all people."
She rode at full speed for three days and finally arrived at the foot of Broken Soul Ridge on the night of the lunar eclipse.
A group of people were standing in front of that eerie forest of steles:
There was Jiang Jinshu, the always dignified and elegant headmaster of Zhaoling Academy; and Ji Nian'an, the imperial physician who once healed Gulina Ze'er's leg after it was broken by Xiao Yuanxiu...
Gulina Zell stood still, the dust of the journey still lingering.
Her eyes met Jiang Jinshu's, and the lingering dark clouds over Broken Soul Ridge were reflected in both of their eyes.
There was no unnecessary small talk.
"Is there a solution?" she asked in a hoarse voice.
Jiang Jinshu pointed to the ridge, where nine eerie, human-shaped stone tablets emerged from the mist.
"Only through nine lifetimes of tribulation can the monument be broken." Jiang Jinshu's eyes were filled with heartache, yet also revealed determination. "The pain is beyond what ordinary people can endure."
"good."
As if guided by some unseen force, Glinazel walked toward one of the pieces and stared at the dark red engravings on it.
"The Broken Bones Stele".
She uttered those three words softly, a defiant smile curving her lips.
Gulinazer lifted her sleeve, revealing several hideous scars that snaked beneath the calluses formed from years of being rubbed by the reins.
"When I was seven years old, I was taming a steed, and my right arm was broken in two." She pressed her palm on the monument. "The bones of the children of the grasslands can be set again if they are broken."
The inscription suddenly turned blood red, as if in response to her vow.
When she returned to the grassland, the old shaman stared intently at the faint golden mark between her eyebrows with his cloudy eyes.
His withered fingers trembled violently as he cried out in anguish, "Holy Maiden, you've been foolish! You actually swore a blood oath for nine lifetimes?! The pain of having your bones shattered for nine lifetimes is not as simple as a broken bone; that pain will accumulate with each reincarnation, until the ninth life..."
Gulina Zell remained silent.
"Perhaps. We can talk about the nine lifetimes later. In this life, I must hold on tightly so as not to let her down. I want the daughters of the grasslands to no longer have to rely on men's whips to decide their fate."
The old shaman gazed at the increasingly prominent golden marks between her brows and suddenly burst into tears.
That is not only the mark of nine lifetimes of reincarnation, but also the countenance of an emperor.
It is also a woman's determination to rewrite her destiny.
At the age of thirty-five, Gulinazer, holding a blood-stained silver bell, trampled down the altar of the eighteen tribes and became the first female Khan in Turkic history.
"From now on, the grassland will only hear one voice."
This ruler, later revered as the Silver Bell Khan, propelled change with astonishing courage.
That autumn, when the book "Essential Techniques for the Common People" that Gulinazer brought back from the Central Plains was finally worn out from being read so many times, the old herdsman Buhe knelt tremblingly before the king's tent, holding a heavy ear of rice.
"Khan..." The old man choked up, raising the stalks of rice above his head, "These are things even my great-great-grandfather never saw..."
Gulinazer bent down to take the rice stalks, her fingertips brushing over the plump grains.
She recalled what Lu Yao had said to her many years ago when she taught her to identify the five grains at Zhaoling Academy: "Food is the most important thing for people. If they are full, who would want to take up a knife?"
"Issue the order. From this day forward, anyone who raids the border and plunders grain will be punished in the same way."
With a flick of the wrist, the golden grains of rice fall, carpeting the ground.
That late autumn, the last tribe that returned from raiding was hanged on the border, and the bloody old era came to an end.
By the time spring plowing began the following year, the bronze that had been used to forge arrowheads had been melted down and cast into hoes and plowshares.
On the day the border trade market opened, Gulina Ze'er unsheathed her sword and personally poured mare's milk wine for the merchants from the Central Plains.
The little girl with her hair in two buns accepted the wool felt offered by the Turkic woman and thanked her in broken Turkic.
From then on, the moonlight over the border was no longer obscured by the smoke of war.
The old soldier gazed at the peaceful pass and sighed, "These lanterns are much more beautiful than those from the battles of yesteryear."
In her later years, Gulina Ze'er witnessed the emergence of the first female doctors and lawyers on the grasslands.
When Silver Bell Khan's white hair had grown so thick that she couldn't comb it all, she always loved to stand outside the academy window in the early morning.
The sound of girls arguing about "the people are the most important" came from inside, making her nostalgic for the three years she spent at Sheng'an Zhaoling Academy.
Lu Yao, I will keep my promise to you in the future.
...
Gulina Zell died at the age of seventy-nine.
In her glass coffin, instead of golden swords and fine horses, were buried a well-worn scroll of policy essays and a faded silver bell.
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