12dz Chapter 241: The remaining two Oath-Worshipping War Gods have all returned to dust.
Chapter 241: The remaining two Oath-Worshipping War Gods have all returned to dust.
Still trapped in Princess Jincheng's ceremonial robes, Xiao Si rubbed her forehead in front of the mirror, her golden hairpin adorned with intertwined branches sweeping across the Tibetan calendar—counting from the page of the marriage alliance, the vermilion bird-patterned bronze water clock would have turned exactly three thousand two hundred times…that is, about nine years, before she could wait for the baby born amidst the fragrance of lychees on the Shu Road to cry out in the dawn of Chang'an…
Sanlang Zian eagerly unfolded yet another secret letter from Jincheng Xiaosi; the ink stains on the thin silk gleamed faintly in the candlelight.
The first letter mentioned the first divine general required for the oath...
The north wind swept across the city walls of Changli Tuhe. The Xianbei nobleman, born in the second year of the Wude era, displayed extraordinary talent from the moment he entered officialdom through hereditary privilege. When Crown Prince Li Zhong's sword hung at his waist, he perhaps already foresaw the turbulent waves of his future official career—from Military Advisor of Suizhou to Chief Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, from the smoke of battle at Baijiangkou to the resounding sounds of reading aloud in the Eastern Palace, this general, who had witnessed the fluttering of the Tang banners on the Korean Peninsula, ultimately passed away at the age of eighty-one. During the Wu Zhou period, Mei Xiaosi greatly admired him, so he was appointed Prime Minister three times. After Emperor Zhongzong's restoration, he held the highest rank of Grand Master of the Palace, remarkably without experiencing any major setbacks…
Sanlang Zian guessed it was Doulu Qinwang, but he had already passed away. The character "Yuan" in his posthumous title concealed countless unfinished power struggles...
The second letter mentioned the second divine general required for the oath…
The Loess Plateau of Shanggui in Qin Prefecture nurtured this powerful minister whose fate was tumultuous. When he welcomed Wu Sansi's sister-in-law into his residence, the silken threads of their marriage were already entangled in a bloody web of karma. Amidst the thunderous upheaval of the Shenlong Coup, he ascended to the high position of Attendant-in-Ordinary, his purple robes and jade belt soaked with the poison of Empress Wei's faction. On that blood-red moonlit night of the fourth year of Jinglong, the shadow cast by the Ming palace swallowed this once powerful minister who had controlled the finances of the Imperial Treasury. History records only the five words: "Executed in 710..."
Gao Lishi, who was holding a lamp nearby, said, "Your Majesty, does Jincheng refer to—Ji Chune?"
Sanlang Zian sighed, "Alas, he's dead too. The fleeting clouds of power and wealth can't conceal the muffled thud of a sword piercing through flesh..."
Gao Lishi's fingertips traced the yellowed silk. "Your Majesty, I have seen it. The stone figures in front of the Doulu family's tomb are covered in moss, and the beams and pillars of the old Ji family residence have turned to scorched earth..."
Sanlang Zian said, "The two divine generals who should have guarded the oath ultimately took the unsolved mystery to their coffins deep in the yellow earth in the vortex of the Shenlong and Jingyun coups. It was like the last death knell in the twilight of the Tang Dynasty."
Sanlang Zian lit the bronze sparrow lamp, and the third secret letter rustled between his fingertips, its surface tinged with a dark blue-green hue stained by the sap of the chinaberry tree:
The third letter from Jin Cheng Xiao Si mentioned the third divine general required for the oath...
The setting sun casts its slanting rays on the blue bricks of the Imperial Academy in Songcheng. Jiang Rong was the teacher of the scholar whose real name was "Zhenzai". He once turned military books under his teacher's tutelage until they were cracked.
When the Tibetan iron hooves shattered the mountains and rivers of Longxi, his "Ten Strategies for Pacifying the Barbarians," written with bold strokes of ink, cleaved through the gloom of Hanyuan Hall like a sharp sword—a fact that was highly appreciated by Emperor Gaozong, a fact that Zi'an, who had once been a child slave, knew best.
From the censor's hat adorned with the mythical beast emblem to the command flag of Xu Jingye's rebel army, this strategist who used fire to burn down the rebel ships on the walls of Yangzhou spent half his life adrift in prison bars, falsely accused of treason...
He was reporting to the emperor in the Golden Palace in the morning, and by the afternoon he had won a "three-day prison tour experience card." Tomorrow he might be packing his bags and heading to Lingnan to become a "travel blogger in exile." He treated demotion as a vacation, exile as an inspection tour, practically turning the map of the Tang Dynasty into his own career trajectory. The peonies of Luoyang, the capital, witnessed him leaving the city three times in shackles; the miasma of Feizhou heard him recite the "Returning Home" poem…
Because he loved to criticize his colleagues, he frequently received a barrage of whistleblower reports. Even so, he still managed to patch up the country's problems while simultaneously providing unsolicited benefits to the people. Every time he was exonerated and returned to power, he would make his entrance with his own background music: "I'm back again!"
Sanlang sighed: "He won't be coming back this time—Wei Yuanzhong, in the end, turned into an exiled corpse wrapped in hemp clothing on the banks of the Fuling River... The blurry rings of his 'seventy-something years' could not conceal the turbid tears in his eyes as he looked towards Chang'an before he breathed his last..."
Gao Lishi continued reading the fourth letter.
"The north wind of Didao in Longxi swirled up the sandalwood dust of the Prince of Pu's mansion. This grandson of the dragon, who had the blood of Emperor Taizong, married a noblewoman of the Wang family in the spring of the early Kaiyuan era."
He was the great-grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang (Li Shimin) and Empress Zhangsun, the grandson of Prince Pu (Li Tai), and the son of Prince Pu (Li Xin)...
"I understand. The fourth divine general is Li Qiao. That's all. Read it now."
"The moment Empress Wang's phoenix crown fell to the ground, the sound of bells and chimes in the Imperial Academy was laced with poison—from the golden seal of the Prince of Sipu to the cold bed at the Dengzhou post station, the poet who once wrote 'Fenyin Xing' in a drunken stupor at the Qujiang Banquet ultimately became a sacrifice for Emperor Xuanzong to purge his maternal relatives."
The seemingly casual phrase "died after inheriting the title" conceals countless royal secrets: the faded marriage certificate he touched before his death still bears the fingerprints of Wang Shouyi when he was strangled; the beams of the Dengzhou government office may still bear the real name "Li Yuqing," erased by imperial power...
When the candle wax piled up into a small mountain, Sanlang Zian, imitating the Imperial Observatory, spread out the four scrolls of secret letters to form a star map.
The epitaph of the Doulu family, the blood-stained steps of the Ji family mansion, the lone boat on the Fuling River, and the flickering candle at the Dengzhou post station—all these elements pieced together on silk to form a fragmented prophecy. The bronze camel on Zhuque Street still groans in the night fog, while the divine generals who should have guarded the four directions have long since vanished into unresolved divination symbols along with the blood-red twilight of the Shenlong era and the Kaiyuan era.
"Read to me that line, 'Have you not seen the former glory of the Western Capital...'"
"As you command. Do you not recall the days when the Western Capital was at its peak, when the Earth God of Fenyin personally offered sacrifices? The fasting palace and sleeping quarters were set up with provisions, bells were rung and drums were sounded, and feathered banners were raised..."
This was the first time Sanlang Zian had listened to this poem carefully. When Gao Lishi read the lines, "Mountains and rivers fill my eyes with tears, how long can wealth and glory last? Now, on the Fen River, only wild geese fly year after year in autumn," he couldn't help but burst into tears...
Zi'an gazed at the last roll of sheepskin letter, soaked in the scent of ghee, the snowmelt from Lhasa meandering through the ink of the little rhinoceros in the golden city:
"The twenty-three stars fell like shooting stars onto the roof ornament of Hanyuan Hall. The incantations on the oath stele seemed to have been eroded by time, fading into cracks and ravines. This seemed to have been preordained long ago. The ministers who had shared the poison of fate with Taiji Palace, their fates were intertwined like spider silk, numbering more than twenty. Now, there is no need to list them all. They have either turned into the branches and leaves of the pine and cypress trees in the capital, or merged into the blurred ink dots in the Clan Records recorded on the Jiannan Plank Road, and quietly departed."
I wear the snow-covered silver fox fur coat bestowed upon me by Tride Tsugten, my fingertips caressing the gilded armlet you gave me years ago, counting the almanacs brought by the Tang-Tibet caravan beneath the prayer flags of the Potala Palace. In the dead of night, drunk on barley wine, I can always hear the watchman's drum piercing through the clouds of Zhuque Avenue... Wait for me, in a few years I will return to rebuild our land with you!
Zi'an held the letter close to the candlelight, and vaguely saw apricot blossoms in Chang'an and snowflakes from the plateau intertwined in the heart of the flame...