At the start of the fifth month, General Zhenguo and 3rd-rank Duke Guowei Shao Qing returned to his ancestral home in Luoyang, politely declined all entertainments of friends and relatives, and recuperated from his injury alone in the Karmic Study where his father had practiced monasticism back in the day . Summer had come early this year in Luoyang, as the buzz of cicadas can already be heard coming from the big gingko tree – whose trunk is big enough to wrap one’s arms around – in front of the Study’s entrance .

Rising in the wee hours of the morning is a custom Shao Qing’s had since his youth . Starting in his teens, he would light a lamp to read military literature at night, then get up when the rooster crowed to dance with his sword under the tree; through wind and rain and s.h.i.+ne, through the freeze of midwinter and the swelter of midsummer, never once did he break this habit . A lot of the rich idlers around his age were horseback riding or c.o.c.kfighting . While they slept in the flowers and played in the willows, Shao Qing did not dare to waste a single cun of his youth .

The stab wound is closing up slowly, and his internal injuries are still not completely gone . He is to circulate his true qi for twelve weeks . He still feels some emptiness and instability in his qi and blood, but it’s already much better than it had been in the previous days .

Putting on a robe and going out into the moist and scarcely cool early morning air, Shao Qing walks underneath the gingko . Hearing the chirping of several unknown birds within it, he looked up and smiled lightly .

Supporting himself with one hand on the tree’s rough bark, many old memories of events long past suddenly rush to his mind .

……

His Father is a kind and well-learned man, but had never served as an official, was unfamiliar with with the feelings of the people and worldly affairs, and felt management to be beneath him . Someone like this naturally can’t afford to carry all the branches and leaves of his huge family tree . The Shao family’s status as the largest clan in Luoyang gradually declined, their relatives faces growing haughtier by the year .

A seven or eight-year-old Shao Qing saw a young boyservant carrying a box of stuff from his Mother’s room . He asked his Mother what had happened out of curiosity . She looked crestfallen, and after a long time, tears fell from her eyes . She embraced him and said, “My son, the Shao family will rely on you in the future…”

His Mother came from an influential family in Jinling . Her looks are fine and her character proud . She would never have suffered gradual deterioration originally, or the alternating hot-and-cold torture of the world’s affairs .

A piece of paper floated out from his Mother’s pillow, swirling about in the air . Shao Qing was unable to read what was on that slip at the time .

……

The end of every year was the most difficult time for the Shao family . Between the expenditures of the annual banquet, the bonus payments for their several hundred servants, and interactions with relatives, there was never enough income from their plantations… his Father hid in the Karmic Study, and his Mother was inconsolable…

Because the not-yet-10 Shao Qing was roughhousing with his big Brother, that Brother smashed an antique flower vase out of carelessness . The two were caught by his mother, and knelt in front of her .

His Brother, older than him by two years, was trembling, normally fearing his Mother as one would a tiger or a snake . He had been born to a tongfang maid before his father had been married, yet was signed under Mother’s name – he had to call her ‘Mom’, while that tongfangmaid had to salute and call him ‘Young Master’ when she saw him .

For that reason, Shao Qing took the fall and admitted that he was the one who had broken the priceless vase . However, during the New Year’s Eve banquet, his Brother was still the only one who was punished by having to kneel in the hall of their ancestors .

Little Shao Qing snuck into the dark and wet and cold and eerie ancestral hall with a bundle of sweets . The brothers ate them together, then played together… resulting in the most vivid memory of New Year’s Eve night that Shao Qing had ever had at that time .

……

Due to all that, Shao Qing became aware very early on that he had no other good path to walk on than one made from his own exertions .

His avoidant Father, his unjust Mother, his Brother’s awkward status… there are many things he’s unable to change in this world, and the only one he can compel is himself .

Hundreds of people from top to bottom said that his achievements and failures were destined to be tied to his clansmen, relatives, friends, and wife’s family, and the culminated glory pa.s.sed down to him by his ancestors must be upheld; these things are what he must carry upon his back . Later on, this spectrum would gradually broaden to: subordinates, sergeants, the peace and integrity of the country, and the alternating rise and fall of the Court…

Is it not unfair?

From birth, some people can depend on others, and some people have others depend on them .

As luck would have it, he acknowledged a great Master by chance when he was about 10 or 11 years old . This Master is a startlingly enviable person, being versatile in both literature and combat and born of the imperial family, and is also someone with a very eccentric personality . That he could have taken a liking to Shao Qing has naturally taken his family by great, but pleasant, surprise .

Shao Qing was a top-notch talent no matter if it was the literary or martial arts . This, coupled with his unremitting efforts, made his Master very happy . People endlessly praised Shao Qing since his early childhood, saying “carrying on the Shao name, bringing honor to our ancestors, depends on this child”; as such, he has an extraordinary position where his words are much weightier than his Father’s weak authority . And as a result, when his Mother firmly disagreed with his concubine-born older Brother becoming a prince, Shao Qing was able to stand his ground on his own opinion .

He himself could go off and enter officialdom . If his Brother didn’t inherit the ancestral t.i.tle of n.o.bility, then he wouldn’t ever have anything .

……

He entered into the army at the age of sixteen, showcasing his outstanding talent in few very brief years . Outsiders would never know the exhaustion of marching a thousand li in the snow, starving people constantly fighting with vermin over mantou, climbing out in a daze from within a pile of corpses, their blade covered all over in splashes of blood…

Yet with Shao Qing’s acc.u.mulated accomplishments, he became a military officer, then an a.s.sistant general, then just a General .

Years and years go by .

The t.i.tles he gets are grand, and the Emperor’s favor swells .

There are more and more lives on his hands .

……

The first time he saw Yao Jinzi, his youngest Junior Brother, was ten years ago . Shao Qing was of course delighted at his legendarily elusive Master appearing out of nowhere, and set up a feast to entertain them .

His Master introduced a boy at his side of about eight years of age . He was unreasonably good-looking and coldly arrogant in his very young age . “This is your little Junior Brother, Yao Ganjin’s son,” his Master said .

It goes without saying that everyone’s fond of cute kids, but whenever their Master taught him a new set of sword moves, he was always given top priority and never had to learn something twice . Their Master would call for his youngest Junior Brother to demonstrate . Watching his tiny body soaring through the air, flying fast as a startled goose and as mighty as a roaming dragon, truly shocks one into speechlessness .

That ever-indifferent and strange Master had such a fond, fulfilled, and proud look in his eyes for his little Junior Brother . “This is the child I will pa.s.s my mantle onto,” he said .

He’s not far gone enough to be jealous of a child, but… this world really is unfair .

The emergence of talented beings such as he make the wittiness of ordinary people a joke, and the efforts of common folk become a farce…

Some people are born with everything; looks, brains, and a n.o.ble background . People are covered in rays of light wherever they goes; what others cannot achieve even with great effort falls right into their hand .

In the span of four years, his littlest Junior Brother’s name has already become known across the country .

But who would have thought that a child like that would later have such a thing befall him?

Shao Qing can’t help but think of how he obviously could have stopped Zhang Qinglian, but didn’t . Did that have something to do with that moment of discomfort in his heart?

One’s darkness cannot be avoided .

Even though it’s also said that I’m superior to him in many other ways, could I still not keep myself from secretly being happy that such a brilliant star fell from the horizon and got stuck in the mud?

When Shao Qing ridiculed himself, he was suddenly interrupted by a fearful cry . One look deduced that his wife had tripped, the cup of whatever stew she had slipping out of her hands . The soup’s water was spilled on the ground just as water was filling her own eyes .

Half of him is glad that he won’t have to drink that chalice of stuff, and the other half couldn’t refrain from mentally sighing . He steps forward and helps the living fountainhead that’s on the verge of springing a leak .

Taking her as a wife had been the most unruly thing he’d done in his youth, and is also what other people think to be his most unreasonable decision .

He was only 23-24 when he incidentally saw this minor cloth merchant’s daughter after stupidly getting lost on the way to his own headquarters . That was the first time he’d seen someone like that, acting as if he was a little boy who’d seen a puppy for the first time . Seeing her pouting face made him want to hug, and pinch, and pet, and make such a cute thing rightfully his .

So no matter how many people were at his side and what they opposed it for, he still returned to marry her .

However, this changed over time . He always has to coax her, console her, clean up her messes, say a lot of things only to find that she hasn’t heard or comprehended one word, her own behavior leaving everyone laughing at her… no matter how cute she is, this can wear a person out, and make them shake their head helplessly .

Yet even up until now, he can’t help but smile or pity her when he sees her like this, and still feels like a lot of the facial expressions she makes are cute . If what happened in the Palace that day hadn’t been, maybe he could have felt that love last a lifetime…

But after that incident, all of his sights, all his thoughts, and all his attention was involuntarily and gradually taken up by a man he had originally looked down upon . He finally knew that love was not a gentle smile or a faint heartache, but rather something that tears the soul apart and deprives one of their willpower, with Paradise and h.e.l.l separated by a mere thread…

……

Now, for that, he can only throw himself into a perpetual fantasy…

A pigeon flew in from afar and perched atop his shoulder . He took the short letter from its red talons, briefly mumbled to himself, and customarily resumed his rational operations . He returned to the study, penned a reply, and tied it to the pigeon’s leg .

When the pigeon faded away into the dark blue sky, Shao Qing wrote an additional letter, and released another pigeon .

At the start of the fifth month, General Zhenguo and 3rd-rank Duke Guowei Shao Qing returned to his ancestral home in Luoyang, politely declined all entertainments of friends and relatives, and recuperated from his injury alone in the Karmic Study where his father had practiced monasticism back in the day . Summer had come early this year in Luoyang, as the buzz of cicadas can already be heard coming from the big gingko tree – whose trunk is big enough to wrap one’s arms around – in front of the Study’s entrance

Rising in the wee hours of the morning is a custom Shao Qing’s had since his youth . Starting in his teens, he would light a lamp to read military literature at night, then get up when the rooster crowed to dance with his sword under the tree; through wind and rain and s.h.i.+ne, through the freeze of midwinter and the swelter of midsummer, never once did he break this habit . A lot of the rich idlers around his age were horseback riding or c.o.c.kfighting . While they slept in the flowers and played in the willows, Shao Qing did not dare to waste a single cun of his youth

The stab wound is closing up slowly, and his internal injuries are still not completely gone . He is to circulate his true qi for twelve weeks . He still feels some emptiness and instability in his qi and blood, but it’s already much better than it had been in the previous days

Putting on a robe and going out into the moist and scarcely cool early morning air, Shao Qing walks underneath the gingko . Hearing the chirping of several unknown birds within it, he looked up and smiled lightly

Supporting himself with one hand on the tree’s rough bark, many old memories of events long past suddenly rush to his mind

…….

His Father is a kind and well-learned man, but had never served as an official, was unfamiliar with with the feelings of the people and worldly affairs, and felt management to be beneath him . Someone like this naturally can’t afford to carry all the branches and leaves of his huge family tree . The Shao family’s status as the largest clan in Luoyang gradually declined, their relatives faces growing haughtier by the year

A seven or eight-year-old Shao Qing saw a young boyservant carrying a box of stuff from his Mother’s room . He asked his Mother what had happened out of curiosity . She looked crestfallen, and after a long time, tears fell from her eyes . She embraced him and said, “My son, the Shao family will rely on you in the future…”.

His Mother came from an influential family in Jinling . Her looks are fine and her character proud . She would never have suffered gradual deterioration originally, or the alternating hot-and-cold torture of the world’s affairs

A piece of paper floated out from his Mother’s pillow, swirling about in the air . Shao Qing was unable to read what was on that slip at the time

…….

The end of every year was the most difficult time for the Shao family . Between the expenditures of the annual banquet, the bonus payments for their several hundred servants, and interactions with relatives, there was never enough income from their plantations… his Father hid in the Karmic Study, and his Mother was inconsolable….

Because the not-yet-10 Shao Qing was roughhousing with his big Brother, that Brother smashed an antique flower vase out of carelessness . The two were caught by his mother, and knelt in front of her

His Brother, older than him by two years, was trembling, normally fearing his Mother as one would a tiger or a snake . He had been born to a tongfang maid before his father had been married, yet was signed under Mother’s name – he had to call her ‘Mom’, while that tongfangmaid had to salute and call him ‘Young Master’ when she saw him

For that reason, Shao Qing took the fall and admitted that he was the one who had broken the priceless vase . However, during the New Year’s Eve banquet, his Brother was still the only one who was punished by having to kneel in the hall of their ancestors

Little Shao Qing snuck into the dark and wet and cold and eerie ancestral hall with a bundle of sweets . The brothers ate them together, then played together… resulting in the most vivid memory of New Year’s Eve night that Shao Qing had ever had at that time

…….

Due to all that, Shao Qing became aware very early on that he had no other good path to walk on than one made from his own exertions

His avoidant Father, his unjust Mother, his Brother’s awkward status… there are many things he’s unable to change in this world, and the only one he can compel is himself

Hundreds of people from top to bottom said that his achievements and failures were destined to be tied to his clansmen, relatives, friends, and wife’s family, and the culminated glory pa.s.sed down to him by his ancestors must be upheld; these things are what he must carry upon his back . Later on, this spectrum would gradually broaden to: subordinates, sergeants, the peace and integrity of the country, and the alternating rise and fall of the Court….

Is it not unfair?.

From birth, some people can depend on others, and some people have others depend on them

As luck would have it, he acknowledged a great Master by chance when he was about 10 or 11 years old . This Master is a startlingly enviable person, being versatile in both literature and combat and born of the imperial family, and is also someone with a very eccentric personality . That he could have taken a liking to Shao Qing has naturally taken his family by great, but pleasant, surprise

Shao Qing was a top-notch talent no matter if it was the literary or martial arts . This, coupled with his unremitting efforts, made his Master very happy . People endlessly praised Shao Qing since his early childhood, saying “carrying on the Shao name, bringing honor to our ancestors, depends on this child”; as such, he has an extraordinary position where his words are much weightier than his Father’s weak authority . And as a result, when his Mother firmly disagreed with his concubine-born older Brother becoming a prince, Shao Qing was able to stand his ground on his own opinion

He himself could go off and enter officialdom . If his Brother didn’t inherit the ancestral t.i.tle of n.o.bility, then he wouldn’t ever have anything

…….

He entered into the army at the age of sixteen, showcasing his outstanding talent in few very brief years . Outsiders would never know the exhaustion of marching a thousand li in the snow, starving people constantly fighting with vermin over mantou, climbing out in a daze from within a pile of corpses, their blade covered all over in splashes of blood….

Yet with Shao Qing’s acc.u.mulated accomplishments, he became a military officer, then an a.s.sistant general, then just a General

Years and years go by

The t.i.tles he gets are grand, and the Emperor’s favor swells

There are more and more lives on his hands

…….

The first time he saw Yao Jinzi, his youngest Junior Brother, was ten years ago . Shao Qing was of course delighted at his legendarily elusive Master appearing out of nowhere, and set up a feast to entertain them

His Master introduced a boy at his side of about eight years of age . He was unreasonably good-looking and coldly arrogant in his very young age . “This is your little Junior Brother, Yao Ganjin’s son,” his Master said

It goes without saying that everyone’s fond of cute kids, but whenever their Master taught him a new set of sword moves, he was always given top priority and never had to learn something twice . Their Master would call for his youngest Junior Brother to demonstrate . Watching his tiny body soaring through the air, flying fast as a startled goose and as mighty as a roaming dragon, truly shocks one into speechlessness

That ever-indifferent and strange Master had such a fond, fulfilled, and proud look in his eyes for his little Junior Brother . “This is the child I will pa.s.s my mantle onto,” he said

He’s not far gone enough to be jealous of a child, but… this world really is unfair

The emergence of talented beings such as he make the wittiness of ordinary people a joke, and the efforts of common folk become a farce….

Some people are born with everything; looks, brains, and a n.o.ble background . People are covered in rays of light wherever they goes; what others cannot achieve even with great effort falls right into their hand

In the span of four years, his littlest Junior Brother’s name has already become known across the country

But who would have thought that a child like that would later have such a thing befall him?.

Shao Qing can’t help but think of how he obviously could have stopped Zhang Qinglian, but didn’t . Did that have something to do with that moment of discomfort in his heart?.

One’s darkness cannot be avoided

Even though it’s also said that I’m superior to him in many other ways, could I still not keep myself from secretly being happy that such a brilliant star fell from the horizon and got stuck in the mud?.

When Shao Qing ridiculed himself, he was suddenly interrupted by a fearful cry . One look deduced that his wife had tripped, the cup of whatever stew she had slipping out of her hands . The soup’s water was spilled on the ground just as water was filling her own eyes

Half of him is glad that he won’t have to drink that chalice of stuff, and the other half couldn’t refrain from mentally sighing . He steps forward and helps the living fountainhead that’s on the verge of springing a leak

Taking her as a wife had been the most unruly thing he’d done in his youth, and is also what other people think to be his most unreasonable decision

He was only 23-24 when he incidentally saw this minor cloth merchant’s daughter after stupidly getting lost on the way to his own headquarters . That was the first time he’d seen someone like that, acting as if he was a little boy who’d seen a puppy for the first time . Seeing her pouting face made him want to hug, and pinch, and pet, and make such a cute thing rightfully his

So no matter how many people were at his side and what they opposed it for, he still returned to marry her

However, this changed over time . He always has to coax her, console her, clean up her messes, say a lot of things only to find that she hasn’t heard or comprehended one word, her own behavior leaving everyone laughing at her… no matter how cute she is, this can wear a person out, and make them shake their head helplessly

Yet even up until now, he can’t help but smile or pity her when he sees her like this, and still feels like a lot of the facial expressions she makes are cute . If what happened in the Palace that day hadn’t been, maybe he could have felt that love last a lifetime….

But after that incident, all of his sights, all his thoughts, and all his attention was involuntarily and gradually taken up by a man he had originally looked down upon . He finally knew that love was not a gentle smile or a faint heartache, but rather something that tears the soul apart and deprives one of their willpower, with Paradise and h.e.l.l separated by a mere thread….

…….

Now, for that, he can only throw himself into a perpetual fantasy….

A pigeon flew in from afar and perched atop his shoulder . He took the short letter from its red talons, briefly mumbled to himself, and customarily resumed his rational operations . He returned to the study, penned a reply, and tied it to the pigeon’s leg

When the pigeon faded away into the dark blue sky, Shao Qing wrote an additional letter, and released another pigeon