Zhu Yu – Side Story: Li Huai’an’s Chapter

In the early months of the 18th year of Yonghe, the Li and Wei factions’ attempted rebellion failed, and all involved were brought to justice. Those sentenced to immediate execution were temporarily held in the Imperial Prison for autumn beheading, while those sentenced to exile were escorted by officials to their designated locations in early March.

The Li family’s crime of treason was severe, implicating nine branches of their clan, including various intertwined marital relationships. This truly encompassed half the court and many retired scholars. The new Emperor, to demonstrate benevolence, granted a general amnesty. Ultimately, only three branches of the treasonous Li and Wei families were executed: direct blood relatives, maternal relatives, and paternal relatives. Those beyond the third branch but within the ninth were all exiled three thousand li.

Li Huai’an, the grandson of Grand Tutor Li, fell within the fifth branch. After being captured by Xie Zheng in Jizhou, he was continuously imprisoned and tortured. Though appearing to be a frail scholar, he remained tight-lipped. Even when Gong Sun Yin personally interrogated him, nothing was revealed.

At that time, he lay wounded on a straw pile in the prison cell. Due to the severe winter cold, his breath formed white mists. Facing Gong Sun Yin, who came to persuade him, he only smiled bitterly: “Sir, your reputation precedes you. Huai’an has long heard of it, but never imagined our first meeting would be under such circumstances.”

“The Li family’s crime is unforgivable. Everyone can curse the Li family, and everyone can push this crumbling wall of the Li family, but Huai’an cannot. Huai’an has received the family’s grace and protection for over twenty years. As the Li family’s great house is about to fall, Huai’an can be crushed under the collapsing nest, but cannot be the force that causes its collapse. Huai’an knows he is a sinner and is willing to descend into the Avici Hell after death. I hope sir… will grant this.”

Gong Sun Yin looked at the man in a blue robe covered with chaotic bloodstains and slowly said, “The Li family has abandoned you. Is it worth it?”

Li Huai’an smiled faintly and replied, “Twenty years of nurturing grace is enough.”

He was determined to die, and his body was not as sturdy as those trained in martial arts. Eventually, they could no longer torture him for information. After the Li family was convicted, he was transferred to the prison of the Court of Judicial Review.

That spring, shortly after the Emperor’s ascension, Li Huai’an, along with other Li family members beyond the third branch, embarked on the path of exile.

A group of people born into silk and jade suddenly found themselves stripped of everything and imprisoned. They thought the sky had fallen when their properties were confiscated and they were thrown into the Imperial Prison. But when they truly set foot on the path of exile, they realized that the world held far greater hardships, and what they had endured before was nothing in comparison.

The officials were strict, with rigorous daily travel plans. Those who lagged were whipped. The whip, made of some unknown leather, gleaned from years of use. One lash could raise a swollen mark across half the back, taking days to heal.

In prison, bribing the jailers with some silver could still get them a decent meal. But on the exile route, conditions were limited. Most of their money had been squeezed dry by the jailers, leaving little to curry favor with the escorting officials. Their daily food consisted of hard, barely chewable black cornbread, and often not enough to satisfy hunger.

After just a few days, the exiled Li clan members had all lost weight, their faces haggard and appearances withered, no longer resembling their former golden and jade-like selves.

Young children couldn’t walk long distances and had to be carried in turns by adults. With shoes worn out and no replacements, days of continuous travel left Li Huai’an with several blisters on his feet, not to mention the female family members.

He watched helplessly as several young nephews fell ill one after another. He couldn’t produce a single copper coin, and when he tried to persuade clan members who might still have some money to gather funds for medicine for the children, he was met with only a chorus of pitiful cries and curses.

Grand Tutor Li’s children had all been sentenced to autumn beheading. Li Huai’an, as the eldest grandson of the Li family, became the only direct descendant. All the implicated collateral branches and relatives beyond the fifth branch, who once depended on the Li family like a great tree, now found that tree uprooted. Faced with the outcome of property confiscation and exile, they all cursed and resented the Li family.

When Li Huai’an knelt and kowtowed, begging his clan relatives to pool money to save his nephews with high fevers, he was spat upon and beaten by those who harbored resentment towards the main Li family branch. If the officials hadn’t intervened in time, Li Huai’an might have been too injured to walk for days.

On that chilly spring night, he wrapped his only warm, tattered coat around his feverish, delirious nephew for warmth. Holding his nephew, he leaned against the dilapidated door of the relay station, gazing absently at the pitch-black night sky through the door cracks.

The young nephew, curled up in his arms, cheeks burning red with fever, kept saying he was cold. Li Huai’an futilely tightened the tattered coat around his nephew. His face and lips had turned blue-white from the cold, and under his thin clothes, one could see his protruding shoulder blades, as gaunt as a dying bamboo. He gently patted his nephew’s back, softly comforting him.

The child weakly opened his eyes and asked, “What are you looking at, Uncle?”

Li Huai’an, his voice hoarse, replied, “I’m looking at the Li family’s sins.”

The child’s voice was as weak as a dying kitten, his eyelids slowly closing: “What’s that?”

Li Huai’an felt a bitter ache in his heart and throat. Looking at the night sky, he said desolately, “The Li family has done many wrong things, causing the deaths of many innocent people. Uncle is wondering if those ordinary people who suffered because of the Li family felt this helpless and desperate when facing separation and death…”

He couldn’t continue. Looking down, he found that the nephew in his arms had already breathed his last. Finally unable to suppress the sorrow in his heart, he buried his face against his nephew’s body and let out a choked sob.

“It should have been me who died… It should have been me who suffered retribution…”

That night, muffled, intermittent sobs could be heard from the firewood shed of the relay station.

After his young nephew’s death, Li Huai’an fell seriously ill. He truly became emaciated, his eyes lifeless, no longer bearing any resemblance to the once elegant and noble young master of the Li family.

The officials escorting this group of exiled criminals all thought he wouldn’t survive, but Li Huai’an stubbornly lived on, even making it to Suzhou.

He became taciturn, rarely speaking to anyone throughout the day. However, he quietly did many things. The exiled criminals barely had enough food for themselves, and to avoid hunger, everyone had to split a single cornbread into two halves, keeping one half in their clothes to eat when they became unbearably hungry.

On the exile route, when he encountered beggars, he often gave away even half of the cornbread he could barely afford to eat. Occasionally, when he met someone brave enough to speak to him, he would teach them a few characters and even help name some beggars.

The escorting officials and other exiled criminals saw him as a joke, thinking he was like a clay Buddha crossing a river – unable to save himself, yet still concerned about others. Li Huai’an never explained himself, just stubbornly continuing these acts.

When clan relatives saw that he always saved half a cornbread to give to beggars they might encounter in the next place, they simply robbed him of it. He was beaten, and while washing the blood from his face by the river, the guard watching him, unable to stand his calm demeanor, taunted him: “Young Master Li, you’ve fallen so low yourself, who are you trying to impress with this false benevolence? Wasn’t it your Li family who caused the great drought in Guanzhong, the flood disaster in Jiangnan, and the bloody incident in Lucheng where you colluded with rebels?”

The sound of flowing water was constant. Li Huai’an looked at his blurred reflection in the water, his dirty hair hanging down, hiding the slightly bitter expression on his face: “The official is right. The Li family’s crimes involve the lives of thousands upon thousands of common people, impossible to atone for. But this criminal feels guilty in his heart. Rather than dying and being done with it, I’d rather do something for the common people betrayed by the Li family, to repay our sins.”

Hearing these words, the guard was first stunned, then let out a scornful laugh.

But Li Huai’an always remained indifferent to such mockery, silently doing his things. At first, the guards and fellow exiles treated him as a source of amusement, but later, perhaps finding his reactions uninteresting, they couldn’t be bothered to provoke him with such words anymore.

The journey of exile was harsh. Li Huai’an’s cloth shoes were completely unwearable less than two months after leaving the capital. He learned to weave straw sandals from an old man who did odd jobs at a relay station. Those feet, once accustomed to brocade boots, after developing blisters and layer upon layer of thick calluses, no longer felt the prick of straw sandals.

Those hands that once held brushes for painting and writing had long since become rough and chapped beyond recognition.

Along the way, he wove straw sandals for many of his fellow clan members.

But when the Li clan members finally arrived in Suzhou in December of that year, out of the hundreds who had set out, only a pitiful few had survived.

This was the meaning of “the death penalty can be avoided, but the living punishment is inescapable” in exile.

Suzhou, located in the northwest border region, was desolate and bitterly cold. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but desert, with cities built of yellow earth only where water sources were available.

The city was mostly populated by border troops and exiled criminals, with very few local people willing to settle in this harsh land.

With the new Emperor’s ascension, the Marquis of Wu’an, who had been guarding the frontier, returned to the capital to assist the young Emperor as regent. The barbarian tribes beyond the border began to stir again.

After several raids by the barbarians, the commander of the Suzhou border town ordered the strengthening of the city’s defenses. Li Huai’an and the newly arrived batch of exiled criminals were sent to repair the city walls.

Li Huai’an, a frail scholar, unable to lift or carry heavy loads, suffered a severe beating on his first day, leaving his back covered in whip marks. The next day, he was still forced to go repair the city defenses.

His thin back couldn’t bear the weight of those heavy bricks and stones. When he accidentally fell and damaged a brick, the supervising military officer was furious. Whips rained down on him, the struck areas feeling as if stung by poisonous scorpions, burning with pain.

Many times, Li Huai’an thought he would be beaten to death there, but he couldn’t summon even a bit of resentment in his heart.

On that cold night when his nephew died of illness, he suddenly understood how helpless those ordinary people must have felt when their families were torn apart and their lives ruined by the Li family’s schemes.

Many of life’s hardships can only be truly understood once personally experienced.

The hardship and exhaustion of repairing city walls was nothing compared to dying under chaotic blades and horse hooves when a city falls.

Yet even in such a hell on earth as war, the Li family had once manipulated.

Years ago, Li Huai’an had gone to the front lines as a supervising official. He had seen those tragic scenes and felt compassion and wavered in his heart. But when he recalled his grandfather saying that overthrowing Wei Yan was for the betterment of more common people’s lives, he again became a cold observer.

Now, as he laid each brick and stone himself, he finally understood the hardships and struggles experienced by those commoners and soldiers who had been coldly sacrificed by the Li family.

He also understood the anger of Fan Changyu and Xie Zheng when they learned that everything had been orchestrated by the Li family.

One came from the lowest level of society, the other had joined the military in his youth. No one understood better than them what kind of life the common people and soldiers at the bottom lived.

The Li family’s schemes so easily destroyed countless families struggling to survive. The more Li Huai’an understood this, the heavier the mountain of sin weighed upon him. He had awakened too late. Dying here would not ease even a fraction of the guilt in his heart, but it seemed his best end. Yet he ultimately did not die.

The young commander of the city, learning that he was Grand Tutor Li’s grandson, though still treating him harshly, assigned him to organize the registers of exiled criminals and lower-ranking soldiers, given that literate persons in the entire border city, could be counted on one hand.

The rough-looking, ill-tempered small leader said, “You better organize these registers properly for me. Anyone under my command, be it soldier or criminal, as long as they die on the city walls when the barbarians come, deserves to have their name remembered!”

After experiencing the hardships of exile, Li Huai’an thought his heart would never be moved again. Yet these words from the small leader sent a surge of bitterness and respect from his chest to his throat. He bowed solemnly to the small leader, his eyes moistening as he lowered his head, “This criminal will not fail the task.”

It was guilt. The battle of Lucheng, the Li family’s scheme, had killed countless such generals and soldiers.

In the early spring of the second year of Yongxing, the border city of Suzhou faced an enemy attack. It was Li Huai’an’s first time directly facing the cold blades and fierce roars of the barbarians. He was truly paralyzed with fear, standing woodenly on the city wall, unable to flee or raise a weapon, despite the small leader’s throat-tearing shouts. The exiled people with him were equally immobile.

Blood splattered everywhere like rain. People alive one moment became corpses under the blade the next. The unfinished city defenses couldn’t withstand the barbarians’ fierce assault. The hot-tempered small leader, seeing the small city of yellow earth on the frontier couldn’t be held, roared for the soldiers below to hold the line while the rest escorted civilians to retreat to Suzhou city proper.

The final assault was repelled because Suzhou reinforcements arrived in time. The barbarians, after taking the small border city, didn’t linger long, retreating after looting some money and food.

But the small leader who defended the city died on the city wall. The soldiers who had whipped Li Huai’an during the wall construction also fell at the city gate. Many soldiers, known and unknown to Li Huai’an, gave their lives to buy time for Suzhou reinforcements to arrive.

Since the night his nephew died of illness on the exile journey, this was the second time Li Huai’an wept uncontrollably. This time not for blood relatives, but for the loyal bones scattered on the ground.

He felt not only guilt but also unprecedented regret for his past actions. How could the peace maintained at the cost of countless soldiers’ lives be jeopardized by internal strife at court?

In this battle, he was crippled in one leg by the barbarians but managed to save an infant for a civilian woman. The woman died under the barbarians’ blades, only telling him before her death that the child’s father was in the army, surnamed Cheng.

Later, when the reinforcements arrived, Li Huai’an, protecting the child, barely survived. When searching for the child’s father in the army, he learned that the father had also died on the city wall. The child became an orphan. Li Huai’an adopted the child, naming him Cheng Lang.

Lang, meaning beautiful jade stone. It is said that a gentleman is like jade, and he hoped the child would grow up to be a true gentleman.

The Northern Xue became increasingly restless. That year, not only Suzhou but also Jinzhou and Yanzhou were frequently disturbed. In autumn, Tang Peiyi took command to suppress the increasingly rampant foreign tribes, while Fan Changyu, now a great general, followed with supplies.

Hearing news of Fan Changyu again, Li Huai’an felt a sense of being in a different world. Learning that she and Xie Zheng had married, Li Huai’an felt a slight bitterness in his heart, followed by acceptance. In this world, besides the Marquis of Wu’an, he indeed couldn’t think of a second person worthy of her great talent. Those two, entangled by fate since birth, were truly a match made in heaven.

In the small border city of Suzhou, he helped the new city commander organize documents and strategize on how to build city defenses. Because his words were substantial and his knowledge broad, despite still being a criminal, the small leader made an exception and promoted him to a minor official. Seeing his leg was not good, he was no longer made to do the hard labor of repairing city walls.

But after thanking for the grace, Li Huai’an still went to the city gate every day without fail to move bricks or assist the craftsmen. Only when both body and mind were exhausted did he feel somewhat at peace, feeling that he was atoning for his sins.

In the years that followed, he stayed in that small border city, seeing off one small commander after another who was transferred there. The commanders benefited greatly from his assistance, and before leaving, they all wanted to take him away from this frontier land, keeping him as a long-term advisor. But Li Huai’an always politely refused. He said he was a criminal, and he came here to atone for his sins.

Later, when the war ended, that female general who had single-handedly supported the northwest for years, repelling countless attacks from the Northern Xue until they dared not invade at the sight of her command flag, was finally granted a marquis title for her military achievements.

With the border city no longer at war and the defenses fully built, Li Huai’an started a private school in his humble farmyard, teaching local children to read and write without charging tuition.

That female Marquis and her husband retreated from the turbulent court, returning to the northwest to jointly guard this great pass of the Great Yin.

Although Suzhou and Huizhou were only a few hundred li apart, Li Huai’an never saw those two again. He felt unworthy to face old acquaintances.

But he heard many stories about those two. The female Marquis gave birth to twins in the sixth year of Yongxing, naming the eldest daughter Xie Congyun, and the son Meng Xingchuan. The bloodlines of the two loyal families wrongly killed in the Jinzhou case would be passed down forever.

Li Huai’an also heard that they adopted many orphans of soldiers. Those who knew their original family names kept them, while others were given the surnames Xie, Fan, or Meng, all raised as if they were their children.

Sixteen years of wind, frost, rain, and snow passed in the blink of an eye.

Li Huai’an had just reached his fortieth year but was already plagued by serious illness, his temples as white as a sixty-year-old man’s.

After days of heavy snow, he caught a cold in winter and had been bedridden for half a month without improvement.

The child he had adopted years ago had now come of age.

As Cheng Lang brought water to wipe his face, he calmly and weakly instructed about his last wishes: “After I’m gone, there’s no need to arrange a funeral for me. Just bury me simply on the back mountain.”

Cheng Lang’s eyes stung, but he pretended to be unaffected: “Sir, what nonsense are you talking? It’s just a cold, you’ll be fine after a few more doses of medicine.”

Li Huai’an wouldn’t let Cheng Lang call him adoptive father. He said he was a criminal, and the reason he was still alive was to atone for his sins. He only let Cheng Lang call him sir.

“I know my own body… cough cough…” Before he could finish speaking, he started coughing violently. His figure was thin and hunched, like a candle about to be extinguished by the cold wind on a winter night.

Cheng Lang patted his back to help him breathe, holding back his reddening eyes: “This spring, many children in the city still want to come here to start their education with you, sir. You’ll be healthy and will get better soon!”

As if afraid Li Huai’an would give more last instructions, he continued: “Today, the city lord’s mansion received two distinguished guests. One of them, though a woman, was addressed as ‘Young Marquis’ by Lord Liu, which is quite unusual. They must be from the Xie family of Huizhou. The young lady heard from Lord Liu about how you’ve been teaching in the neighborhood without charging tuition for over a decade, and she said she’d like to come see you someday…”

As Cheng Lang continued chattering about what he had seen at the city lord’s mansion, Li Huai’an could no longer hear clearly.

Exiled to this harsh land for twenty years, he had never seen old acquaintances again. Now, with his time running short, the children of old friends had come here.

Amidst his guilt and remorse, he suddenly felt a surge of sorrow and tears.

Just then, there was a knock at the courtyard door.

“Is Teacher Li at home?”

Cheng Lang put down the towel in his hand and looked outside: “I’ll go open the door.”

When the courtyard door opened, there were people from the city lord’s mansion and a group of young men and women standing outside. At the forefront were the pair of twins Cheng Lang had met earlier at the city lord’s mansion, the two distinguished guests.

Though they were twins, their appearances and temperaments were quite different.

One wore a crimson riding outfit, with almond eyes and a delicate nose, radiant as the proud sun. The other wore a black outfit, appearing reserved and mature beyond his years.

Although Cheng Lang worked at the city lord’s mansion, he had never seen such noble figures before and didn’t know how to receive them.

The young master from the city lord’s mansion quickly said, “Brother Cheng, after you left early today, the two Young Marquises heard that the teacher was seriously ill, so they came especially to visit him.”

The girl in crimson immediately cupped her hands in salute: “We apologize for not notifying you in advance of our visit.”

Cheng Lang repeatedly said it was no trouble and led them into the courtyard.

Li Huai’an had already heard the commotion outside. When Cheng Lang led the two into the room, he saw the radiant young lady in red and was stunned for a long while.

She truly looked as if she had been cut from the same mold as that female Marquis from many years ago.

The young lady and young man bowed to Li Huai’an: “We apologize for disturbing you, sir.”

But Li Huai’an just looked at them and smiled. As he smiled, tears welled up in his already cloudy eyes, and he said, “I can’t fully atone for the Li family’s sins…”

The young lady seemed to know who he was and said, “The calamity of those years was not caused by your efforts alone, sir. You have stayed in this place for over twenty years, going to the city gate to supervise and strategize whenever there was war, working tirelessly for years to seek trade routes for the city’s people, and teaching countless poor students to read and write. Your achievements, though they cannot erase the Li family’s past mistakes, allow you to be at peace with your conscience.”

Li Huai’an looked at the young man in black standing beside the young lady.

The young man’s features also strongly resembled those of the Martial Marquis who had intimidated the Northern Xue for over twenty years. He nodded slightly to Li Huai’an.

Li Huai’an seemed to see old acquaintances through them. His eyes were still filled with tears, but he smiled again, a smile of relieved liberation.

That night, this old man who had spent half his life atoning for sins left the world with a smile on his face.

His last wishes were followed, and everything was kept simple. The local people, knowing of his lifelong repentance and remorse, did not praise his virtues. Only those students who had been educated by him each planted a peach or plum tree on the back mountain where he was buried.

The following spring, the entire mountain bloomed with peach and plum blossoms.