The seventeenth day of the ninth month, first year of the Wu Dynasty’s Jianshuo era. In the northwestern city of Qingzhou, a vote — one that would have seemed utterly incomprehensible and fantastical to anyone at the time — took place.

However this vote might later be praised or described by later generations as some kind of groundbreaking, era-defining event, at the time, in the northwest, most people genuinely had no idea what was going on. The general process unfolded roughly like this: first, the Huaxia Army met with the Zhong and Zhe families to work out the procedures for voting, tallying, and verification, with each of the three parties appointing several respected local elders as a supervisory panel. Bamboo Notes’ storytellers then spent roughly fifteen days delivering explanations both inside and outside Qingzhou — a process that was, frankly, tedious and dull. The local villagers who managed to grasp what was happening began asking around, consulting the elders of their villages and communities.

On the sixteenth, small detachments of Zhong and Zhe family troops arrived in a hurry, leading villagers from several surrounding areas into the city. Once gathered, each person was given a slip of paper, pressed their thumbprint onto it, and, under everyone’s watchful supervision, deposited it into one of three boxes marked with different symbols. The whole process lasted three days. The final confirmed number of voters came to twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two.

Three more days passed, and the Black Banner Army struck camp and left Qingzhou.

The entire affair unfolded cleanly and efficiently, without the slightest hesitation or delay. By the time it was over, the world seemed strangely quiet and subdued; many people still couldn’t quite make sense of what had actually happened.

Throughout this entire process, both the Zhong and Zhe families had made extensive preparations and contingency plans, having considered in their hearts every conceivable outcome. On the political stage, the words of great men have never been trustworthy — Ning Yi’s speech had been impassioned and lofty, yet also beautiful and hollow, like something spoken in a dream. Neither family had dealt with Ning Yi directly before; drawing conclusions from the rumors relayed back by their scouts wasn’t exactly reliable either. But regardless, in going along with this “farce,” both the Zhong and Zhe families had left themselves considerable room to maneuver in their own minds.

Was the other side secretly repairing the plank roads while covertly crossing through Chencang — using this “vote” as cover for something else? Were they trying to sow discord between the two families? Were they planning to move against them? Might they even be manipulating the vote somehow, so that no matter how people voted, the result would come out the same regardless?

If any of these things had happened, neither family would have been the least bit surprised.

And yet — nothing of the sort occurred.

Once the “farce” concluded, the Zhong family, who had originally governed Qingzhou, received well over half the votes. To facilitate the “farce,” each of the three parties had deployed a thousand troops into Qingzhou; when the Black Banner Army handed over control of the city’s various assets to Zhong Lie’s men and struck camp to leave, Zhong Lie himself was left utterly dazed.

What kind of scheme could this possibly be?

Removing two rivals with a single stroke? Sowing discord between himself and the Zhe family? Using an entire city as bait for such a scheme?

Was it because they worried about winter grain shortages, unwilling to take on such a mess? Or was it for the sake of “trade” convenience? Or perhaps concern that holding Qingzhou would create enmity with him and the Zhe family — though that, too, seemed almost laughable, given that an army which had just defeated over a hundred thousand Western Xia troops would hardly need to fear retaliation from either family for a year or two, even if it wanted to make enemies of them…

With Qingzhou changing hands, Zhe Kequ himself had been left utterly stunned as well — as though every absurd thing a person might witness across an entire lifetime had all been crammed into these past two or three months. And upon leaving, Ning Yi had even invited both families to visit Yanzhou before long, since he hoped a similar vote might soon take place there as well.

Half a month later, an atmosphere of tension gripped Yanzhou. To guard against the possibility that Ning Yi had used Qingzhou merely as bait to lure both the Zhong and Zhe families into a trap before wiping them out together, both families made careful preparations before their representatives arrived. At the Black Banner Army’s invitation, both Western Army contingents marched into Yanzhou’s territory. This time, seated at the negotiating table as well were envoys from Western Xia.

Compared to Qingzhou, the situation in Yanzhou proved considerably more complicated — to ensure that, no matter what happened, the Black Banner Army’s interests in the northwest remained secure, there was a great deal that needed to be discussed. Nearly every participant watched the Black Banner Army, Ning Yi, Qin Shaoqian, and the others with the kind of gaze one might give a prodigal son squandering an enormous fortune: perhaps he genuinely doesn’t want the territory. Perhaps he genuinely wants to give others the power to choose. Perhaps he genuinely just wants to do business… All of this seemed utterly absurd, and yet, here he was, actually doing exactly that.

Throughout this process, the Western Xia envoys present, including Lin Houxuan, watched the whole affair with an expression bordering on groaning despair, their emotions a chaotic tangle of conflicting feelings. Out of concern for Western Xia’s interests, Lin Houxuan had even gone to Ning Yi once, earnestly trying to talk sense into him — to no avail.

From that first encounter at Small Azure River onward, the two sides had had considerable dealings with each other by now — yet it was only at this point that Lin Houxuan truly began to understand: beneath this scholar’s surface, sometimes gentle, sometimes steady, lay a madness that no one could fully comprehend.

This man was genuinely, truly mad — and if that was the case, then there was really no one left who could talk him out of anything…

…

The west wind swept across the land, and the last of the grasses began to wither.

In Yanzhou, Mao Yishan walked out of an empty, deserted courtyard. The sky above was bright with sunlight, but a chill hinting at winter’s approach had already begun to seep through the air.

The old widow he’d been looking after had passed away a few days earlier. During the massive vote held a while back, she’d already been unable to leave her bed — but upon hearing about it, and understanding roughly what it meant, she’d had someone bring her the slip of paper delivered to her household, pressed her thumbprint onto it, and had it dropped into the box belonging to the Huaxia Army.

But by then, whether the Huaxia Army would stay or go had already been decided.

At Dongzhiyuan, a monument commemorating the Huaxia Army’s great victory there had only recently been erected. It stood alone on that open plain, facing the withered grass and autumn wind all around, the scene of decline — as if quietly attesting to the fact that, in the midst of this great northwestern upheaval, peace had, however briefly, once come to pass.

The Huaxia Army was preparing to return to Small Azure River, while Yanzhou would once again fall under Zhong Lie’s governance. Unlike Qingzhou, according to the terms negotiated, another vote would be held in Yanzhou three years hence to determine its ultimate allegiance, and this would repeat every three years thereafter. Both the Zhong and Zhe families viewed this condition, originally proposed by Ning Yi, as a means of maintaining a balance of power over them — but in the end, neither refused it either. In a world like this, who could say what things would look like three years from now? Whoever ended up holding this territory, if they wished to renege or cheat when the next vote came around, there would surely be no shortage of ways to do so.

The army returning to the mountains brought with it over a thousand newly recruited soldiers, while leaving behind only a two-hundred-man contingent in Yanzhou to oversee and safeguard Small Azure River’s interests in the northwest. During this period of relative peace, all manner of supplies, escorted by members of the Overlord Blade Camp from the south, began flowing steadily through the northwest and into the mountains surrounding Small Azure River. It seemed like only a drop in the bucket, but added up bit by bit, it amounted to a considerable supplement all the same.

At the same time, Small Azure River had also begun trading with Western Xia — and the reason things had moved so quickly on that front was that the first to arrive at Small Azure River expressing willingness to cooperate with the Black Banner Army had, unexpectedly, been an envoy from Tiger King Tian Hu of Hebei, offering to serve as an intermediary within the Wu Dynasty’s heartland to help facilitate the sale of Western Xia’s blue salt.

Wu Dynasty rule north of the Yellow River and south of Yanmen Pass had, by this point, already grown considerably unstable. The one who had taken on the heavy responsibility of maneuvering through this region was the well-respected elder statesman Zong Ze, who had persuaded a number of local warlords to fight on behalf of the Wu Dynasty. But once the weight of righteous cause had been invoked, fighting the good fight was one thing on paper — but when it came to trafficking in banned goods for profit, these rising, freshly-emerged warlord forces had already long since abandoned any such scruples.

That Tian Hu’s side had responded so quickly — one hardly needed to guess who exactly was behind the planning and coordination on that end. Lou Shuwan had moved with remarkable speed: the moment the Black Banner Army had defeated the Western Xia forces, she’d immediately drawn up a comprehensive list of goods that could serve as the basis for trade between both sides and had the list delivered directly to Ning Yi. Once Ning Yi gave his affirmative response, grain and supplies from her side were already on their way.

Lou Shuwan’s swift response had its own underlying reasons. Though she held a position of trust within Tian Hu’s forces, being a woman meant she couldn’t afford any missteps. After the Wurui Camp’s regicide and rebellion, Green Wood Stockade had become a target of universal scrutiny, and Tian Hu’s forces, which had previously maintained trade relations with them, had severed all ties. This time, coming to the northwest, her first priority had been to establish a connection with the Western Xia king, and, along the way, to deal Ning Yi a devastating blow. But with the Western Xia king now beyond hope of relying on, and Ning Yi having plainly established himself as the true power in the northwest, if she were to return home empty-handed and humiliated, the whole affair would likely turn out rather awkward for her.

And once Ning Yi had secured his hold over the northwest, his connections with the surrounding regions had already grown beyond what her own side could suppress. Rather than let someone else seize the advantage, she’d had no choice but to make what was, at the time, the “best” available choice — reaching out to Small Azure River first in a gesture of goodwill, if only to secure a head start in future dealings.

What exactly this swift, “correct” decision felt like in her own heart was difficult to say. And upon receiving the news that the Huaxia Army had voluntarily relinquished both Qingzhou and Yanzhou, what emotions stirred within her — whether her expression twisted into something utterly sour — was likewise something no one could readily know.

And so, in this tenth month, the blue salt shipped in from Western Xia, together with the great quantity of goods coming from Tiger King Tian Hu’s side, would undergo their first exchange with the participation of the Huaxia Army — in a certain sense, marking a promising beginning.

After the Black Banner Army departed, Li Pin went to Dongzhiyuan to view the newly erected stone monument there. After standing in silence for half a day, he suddenly burst into laughter, and amid this vast scene of decay and desolation, that laughter sounded, if anything, like weeping.

“I understand now. Ha ha, I understand. Ning Liheng — what a ruthless heart he has…”

Tie Tianying, standing beside him, looked at him in puzzlement. Li Pin laughed for a good while longer before gradually quieting down. He pointed at the stone monument, tapping it a few times.

“What he’s doing here is… cultivating gu poison. He has no mercy in him at all! There were so many people he could have saved…”

“Lord Li.” Tie Tianying began, then hesitated. “Don’t dwell on this any further…”

“He—” Li Pin pointed at the monument. “The grain shortage across the entire northwest was already dire to begin with. Had he distributed it by headcount from the start, far fewer would have died. Returning Qingzhou and Yanzhou to Zhong Lie — Zhong Lie could hardly refuse. But this winter, the number who starve to death will double! Ning Yi is making the Zhong family carry this burden of blame — the Zhong family’s own strength has already been gutted, where would they find enough surplus grain? People will start turning on each other, and once the fighting reaches its extreme, they’ll inevitably remember him and his Huaxia Army. And at that point, those who’ve suffered every torment imaginable will willingly, gladly join his army.”

Tie Tianying hesitated a moment. “Refusing to take even these two territories, seeking a good reputation instead — that seems only natural enough. And besides, might he also be considering that his own troops simply aren’t sufficient to hold them…”

“Natural?” Li Pin laughed. “But do you know — he actually had every means available to him. Even if he’d kept both Qingzhou and Yanzhou for himself, his trade dealings with Western Xia and with Tian Hu’s side were already up and running! The goods coming up from the south had already arrived too — for at least half a year, maybe a full year, no one in the northwest would truly dare provoke him. He could have saved so many more people — that alone wasn’t enough for him. Holding two cities, with food to spare, and he genuinely couldn’t manage to recruit more troops? He wants these people to understand, with absolute clarity, not to simply drift through life in a daze!”

“Chief Constable Tie, do you understand?” Li Pin paused. “In his world, there’s no such thing as a neutral party. Everyone must find somewhere to stand — even these ordinary people who normally never involve themselves in anything, they too must understand, with absolute clarity, exactly where they stand! Do you understand what kind of world that is? He’s deliberately letting go, forcing people toward death! Making sure they die with clear eyes, understanding exactly why—”

Li Pin’s words echoed across the desolate plain. Tie Tianying considered this for a moment. “But when the whole realm is collapsing, who can truly remain untouched by it? Lord Li, forgive my bluntness — if his world isn’t a good one, then what kind of world is yours?”

Li Pin fell silent, standing there in a daze. A very long time passed before his gaze finally stirred, and he lifted his head. “That’s right — what kind of world is mine…”

He closed his eyes. “Some of what Ning Yi says is correct. Confucianism does need to change… I should be going now. Chief Constable Tie…” He turned his head, looking at Tie Tianying. “But… regardless of everything, I still feel that this world ought to leave some path open for ordinary people to survive…” By the end, his voice had faded to something faint as a mosquito’s whine, filled with an unbearable sorrow, like a moan, like a prayer…

Ning Yi returned to Small Azure River at the very end of the tenth month, by which point the temperature had already dropped sharply. Zuo Duanyou, who so often debated with him, had fallen unusually silent as well — Ning Yi’s various actions and decisions in the northwest had left even the old man unable to fully make sense of things. Especially those two vote-like farces — where ordinary people had seen only one man’s madness, the old man could see something more.

By early November, the temperature dropped sharply, and the first signs of chaos outside the valley had already begun to appear. Most people simply attributed all this to the Zhong family’s awkward struggle to suddenly manage two territories at once, while within the valley, people had begun arriving, drawn by reputation, hoping to join the Huaxia Army. Zuo Duanyou would occasionally come by to discuss things with Ning Yi, and in the lectures Ning Yi gave to the young officers, the old man had, in fact, come to understand a good deal of what he was truly trying to accomplish.

“…After winning one or two victories, the greatest danger is starting to feel you’ve survived the worst of it and can now relax and enjoy yourselves. A few thousand men, stationed in Qingzhou and Yanzhou — you’d likely run into trouble very quickly. And no matter how formidable a force of a few thousand might be, there will inevitably be those who start scheming against it. Suppose we’d stayed in Yanzhou — anyone with ill intent would only need to prepare to defeat three thousand men, and they might well take the gamble. But retreat back to Small Azure River, leaving only two hundred men out there, and they wouldn’t dare try anything at all.”

“…And besides, Qingzhou and Yanzhou both lie in ruins, everything needing to be rebuilt from scratch — putting them in proper order would cost us enormous amounts of time and resources, planting seeds we couldn’t hope to harvest for a year or two at least. We can’t afford to wait that long. Right now, whatever we’ve earned, we can bank it safely at once… You need to reassure everyone in the army, and not get caught up worrying over the gain or loss of one territory or another. After the propaganda from Qingzhou and Yanzhou spreads, more and more people will come to join us before long — and at that point, what territory could we possibly lack…”

Yet what truly troubled the old man wasn’t any of these surface-level matters at all.

By late November, after this long period of exhausting travel and deep contemplation, Zuo Duanyou fell ill. Members of the Zuo family gradually began arriving, urging the old man to return home. On this day in the twelfth month, the old man sat in his carriage, slowly leaving Small Azure River, now blanketed in fresh snow. Ning Yi and the others came to see him off; the old man dismissed everyone else nearby and spoke privately with Ning Yi.

“I’ve come to understand some things here.” The old man spoke slowly, his voice hoarse. “Your methods of training troops are excellent — I understand that much now. But it’s no use to me.”

“…Mm.” Ning Yi frowned slightly.

“They… they’re staking their very lives, genuinely fighting for themselves. That part of them that’s awakened — that is what makes them heroes. If real heroes truly walk this earth, how could cowards ever find a place to stand among them? My Zuo family cannot make use of this method at all…”

Ning Yi nodded faintly.

“There’s a great deal I still can’t work out…”

“Don’t dwell on it further. Go home and spend time with your grandchildren.”

“Heh heh…” The old man laughed and waved a hand. “I genuinely want to know — do you have any real confidence in your heart? They’re heroes, yes, but they haven’t truly grasped the underlying principles — I’ve said this to you many times already. Using this as a method of warfare, fine. But using it to govern a nation — what these people know simply isn’t adequate for that, do you understand or not… And that day, you mentioned in passing, almost offhandedly, that you intended to overturn the ordering of ‘sentiment, reason, and law.’ Ning Yi — is that truly what you believe in your heart?”

Snow fell like goose feathers. Ning Yi raised his head, falling silent for a moment. “I’ve thought it all through. Sentiment, reason, and law must be overturned — and the core of statecraft, I’ve considered that too.”

The old man closed his eyes. “To overturn sentiment, reason, and law — you truly are a man this heaven and earth cannot accommodate…”

“Mm, old sir — but I can say with certainty that the future must, without question, place ‘reason’ first.” Ning Yi sat down on the carriage shaft, pulling the thick curtain closed as far as he could. “If you truly wish to know, I’ll say this only once — I won’t repeat it to anyone else.”

“Speak…”

“The core of the matter, in truth, lies exactly in what you mentioned before — the people themselves. I’ve awakened their fighting spirit in them; they meet the requirements needed for war, but that doesn’t mean they meet the requirements needed for governing a nation — that much is correct. So then, what kind of person truly meets the requirements for governing a nation? Confucianism speaks of the gentleman — but in my view, what constitutes a person comes down to three outlooks: their outlook on life, their outlook on the world, their outlook on values. Each of these three, on its own, is quite simple — but the most complex patterns of all lie precisely in how these three interact.”

The old man listened as he spoke, huddled in his blanket, leaning back in the carriage. His health hadn’t recovered, and his mind, in truth, could no longer quite keep pace with Ning Yi’s reasoning — he could only listen. Ning Yi continued speaking slowly.

“What’s called an outlook on life determines the destination a person seeks to reach across their entire lifetime, the kind of person they wish to become — if that’s a good outlook, then, as Confucianism puts it, one establishes the mind of heaven and earth, secures the fate of the people, carries forward the lost teachings of the sages, and brings lasting peace to all future generations — achieving this is what makes for a good outlook on life. As for the outlook on the world — the world exists independently, outside us, but the outlook on it lives within each of our hearts: what we believe this world to look like, how we understand its underlying laws and patterns. When one’s outlook on life and outlook on the world fuse together, they form an outlook on values. For instance, if I believe the world to be a certain way, and I intend to establish the mind of heaven and earth, then I must decide what actions to take — actions that hold value for the pursuit I’m chasing in life, while others acting differently hold no such value. This determination of positive or negative worth — that is what we call an outlook on values.”

“And the greatest problem a person faces in this world is that, very often, their outlook on life and their outlook on the world appear to be in contradiction with one another, working against each other.”

“You and I have spent our entire lives observing this world, trying to understand its underlying patterns — only once we understand those patterns can we know what actions of ours might actually make this world a better place. But many people stop right at this first step. Take scholars, for instance — once they come of age and witness the corruption rampant in officialdom, they conclude, ‘this is simply how the world is, so I too shall fall in line with it.’ Such men have an incorrect outlook on life. And then there are others who cling to naive, idealistic beliefs, refusing to the day they die to accept that this is truly how the world works — their outlook on the world is incorrect. Whichever of these two goes wrong, the outlook on values that follows from it will inevitably be wrong as well — either such a person doesn’t actually want the world to improve, or they do want it to improve but delude themselves into blindness in pursuit of it. Every choice such people make ends up meaningless.”

“Take, for example, the people of Qingzhou and Yanzhou — I told them I was giving them a choice, but in truth, it wasn’t really a choice at all. They understood nothing of what was actually happening; whether fool or scoundrel, if they fell into either category, then every choice they made carried no real meaning. When I deceived Zhong Lie and Zhe Kequ into believing I trusted that giving everyone a choice would make the world better, that was never really possible in the first place. For a person to genuinely become what we might call a true person, the first threshold they must cross is breaking through the confusion between outlook on life and outlook on the world — the outlook on the world must be objective, the outlook on life must be constructive. We must understand how the world actually operates, and at the same time, we must hold a genuine desire to make it better. Only then does a person’s choices actually carry weight.”

“And the world is extraordinarily complex, full of countless things that leave people confused, unable to truly understand what they’re looking at. It’s the same with running a business, or governing a nation — who doesn’t want to make money, who doesn’t want their country to prosper? Make the wrong choices, and ruin is inevitable — the world is cold and merciless; only those who act in accordance with reason prevail.”

Ning Yi paused. “Placing sentiment, reason, and law in that particular order at the core of governance is an extremely important part of Confucian tradition, because this way of thinking developed out of a state of small, sparsely populated nations. In a vast country, with all its scattered small towns and remote mountain hollows, governing by sentiment proves, in practice, more effective than governing by reason or law. But at the level of a true nation, as things have developed over these past thousand years, what the court has always needed, above all, is for reason to take precedence. Recommending kin for promotion regardless of relation, recommending outsiders regardless of prior grievance — what is this, if not reason? Reason is the great principle by which heaven and earth operate. Confucianism speaks of the ruler acting as ruler, the minister as minister, the father as father, the son as son — what does this mean? The emperor must act as an emperor should, the minister as a minister should, the father as a father should, the son as a son should. If the emperor fails in his duty, the nation will inevitably pay the price — there is no room for wishful thinking here.”

“But over these recent years, sentiment has consistently been placed above reason, and the trend has only grown more extreme. When the emperor favors sentiment over reason, the nation weakens. When ministers favor sentiment over reason, the nation weakens too. So why hasn’t real disaster struck from within? Because the demands placed on personal sentiment within the system have also grown increasingly severe, which has weakened the internal structure all the more, all in order to sustain this style of rule — which means it becomes absolutely impossible to resist threats from outside.”

“The way of natural science is set to flourish. Lord Zuo, you have no confidence in it, but one day, it will transform everything you now see before you tenfold, a hundredfold over. Natural science is even more cold and objective, unable to tolerate the slightest trace of sentiment or wishful assumption — natural law is simply natural law. Imagine a workshop that could multiply its output through human labor tenfold, a hundredfold, even a thousandfold — if the person overseeing it spends all day talking about personal sentiment instead, he’ll sooner or later be led astray by exactly that sentiment, and if the person responsible for such work favors sentiment over principle, then the people who could genuinely be useful will never rise to positions where they can contribute. If something is meant to fly into the sky, the slightest flaw will bring it crashing down — if the person responsible for it isn’t rigorously exacting, what do you think the outcome will be?”

“The larger a nation grows, the further it develops, the more urgently it will need to prioritize reason above all else. Sooner or later, a day will come when everyone in this world has access to education, when they no longer spend their lives bent over the fields with their backs to the sky — they will want to have a voice, to become part of the nation, and they ought to understand — objective reason, because — just as with Qingzhou and Yanzhou — one day, someone will grant them the right to be treated as full human beings. But if they cannot approach matters with sufficient objectivity, if they remain mired in provincial parochialism, in wishful thinking, in every manner of simplistic either-or thinking, then they shouldn’t be granted such rights at all.”

“Lord Zuo, you say that scholars don’t necessarily understand true reason — that’s entirely correct. Even now, among Confucian scholars who spend a lifetime studying the sagely texts, precious few genuinely grasp the reasoning within them. I can foresee that, in the future, when everyone in this world has the opportunity to read and study, the number of people able to break through this tension between outlook on life and outlook on the world, to unify the two, still won’t be especially large — limited by native intelligence, by how knowledge is transmitted, by the everyday environment that shapes them. Native intelligence is fixed from birth, but how knowledge is passed on can be changed, and the environment that shapes daily life can be changed too.”

“As this world continues to develop, as the age continues to progress, I predict that one day, the single greatest flaw remaining in Confucian thought will be precisely this ordering of ‘sentiment, reason, and law.’ A person who doesn’t reason, who doesn’t understand reason, who cannot see the objective laws governing how the world truly operates, mired instead in every manner of provincial self-interest — that person’s choices carry no meaning. And if a nation’s operational core rests not on reason but on sentiment, that nation will inevitably face enormous problems of internal attrition. Our roots lie in Confucianism — and our greatest problems lie in Confucianism as well.”

“Whatever kind of people we need, whatever kind of nation we need — yes, I intend to overturn the ordering of sentiment, reason, and law. Not to abandon human sentiment entirely, but reason must be given priority above all else.” Ning Yi tilted his head. “Old sir, what I’m telling you here may seem to hold no immediate meaning, but if you’re asking about what lies ahead, this is what I foresee. I likely won’t accomplish it in my own lifetime — perhaps I can only lay the foundation, plant the seed. What comes after, you and I likely won’t live to see — or perhaps I won’t even survive the coming Jurchen invasion.”

He smiled. “In the past, when Qin Siyuan and the others used to talk with me, they’d always ask what I thought of Confucianism — I never answered. They kept patching and mending the old structure, and I could see no real outcome from it — and sure enough, there wasn’t one. What I’m trying to do, I can’t see the outcome of either, but since I’ve already begun, all I can do is give it everything I have… Let us part here, Lord Zuo. The realm is about to descend into chaos — please take good care of yourself. If, one day, you find you can no longer hold on where you are, have your family head south. If you live to a great age, perhaps one day we’ll meet again — whether to sit and discuss the great questions of the world, or simply to argue with each other, either way, I would welcome it.”

He raised his hand and patted the old man’s. Whatever one might say of Ning Yi’s extreme temperament, his refusal to show favor to anyone — Ning Yi feared no man, but he held genuine reverence for human wisdom, and genuine respect for those who possessed it. The old man’s eyes trembled slightly; his gaze grew complicated, as though he wished to say something more, but in the end, he said nothing. Ning Yi leapt down from the carriage and called the others over.

The specially-made carriage began making its way down the rugged mountain path. Ning Yi waved toward it, knowing he might well never see this old man again. Once the carriage convoy had disappeared into the distance, he lifted his head, let out a long breath, and turned to walk back into the valley.

Small Azure River, amid this vast expanse of white, carried a peculiar sense of vitality and energy. Distant peaks and near ridges alike, wind and snow rising to eyebrow-height all around.

This year was the second year of the Wu Dynasty’s Jingping reign, and the first year of the Jianshuo era. Before long, it too would come to an end.