Chapter 10 Section IX

In the spring, Peng Guo aggressively invaded Xie State, and more than 30 battles were fought on both sides of the long and curved border.The entertainers of the Suowang Juggling Class have become accustomed to frequent wars. They migrated north, talking about the lost juggling skills on the road, and occasionally talking about vulgar affairs of adultery, incest and bed affairs, interspersed with Seeing the half-knowledgeable laughter of the eight-year-old girl Yusuo.Artists are always so happy on the way to perform, unaware of the impending catastrophe of Xie Kingdom.They arrived in Beijing in the early morning of March 7th in the lunar calendar. According to the "Secret History of Xie Palace", this day happened to be the anniversary of the death of Peng Guo's 10,000-strong army marching straight into the gate of Xiejing. Now it seems that this coincidence seems to be a careful arrangement of history.

When the troika passed through the south gate of the capital, the sky was dimly lit, and the familiar sour smell of vegetables, fruits and rotting dead livestock wafted from the ditch under the city wall.The drawbridge was lowered, and the city gate was open. If one looked up at the tall flagpole on the city tower, it was not difficult to find that the black panther flag of Xie State had been torn down and replaced by the double eagle blue flag of Peng State.Several soldiers guarding the city leaned against the city gate and remained motionless, turning a blind eye to the group of jugglers who arrived in the early morning.The man driving the car turned around and said to the entertainers in the car that they were probably drunk to death, and they often drink half to death, which saved us the road tax for entering the city.Eighteen entertainers traveled through the night, everyone was extremely sleepy, and no one paid attention to the abnormal movement near the south gate.When the carriage stopped in front of the porch of the South Gate Inn, a few entertainers went up and knocked on the door of the inn. The door was locked, and a trembling voice came from inside, "It's closed, you should find another place to stay."The knocker said, how can there be no reason for an inn not to keep guests?We've been driving all night, let's come in and have a rest.The door of the inn was opened a crack, revealing half of the innkeeper's swollen and flustered face, he said, you came at a bad time, don't you know that the Peng people have entered the city?Don't you see that the tower is full of Peng Guo's soldiers?The jugglers in the car woke up suddenly from their drowsiness. Looking back, the city wall of the south gate was indeed crowded with dark figures.The little girl Yusuo was terrified by the terrifying atmosphere in front of her, she let out a habitual scream, and Yan Lang immediately covered her mouth.Yan Lang said, don't bark, don't make a sound, no one should make a sound now, the people of Peng Guo are all murderous lunatics.

There was the creaking sound of the suspension bridge being re-suspended from the city gate, and then the city gate was closed by Peng Guo soldiers.I suddenly realized that the gate of this dead city was specially opened just now for me and the rope king's juggling class.I don't know if this means my long journey is coming to an end. did you see it yet?The city gate was closed again.Do you know why the Peng people only let us into the capital?I asked Yan Lang who was sitting in the car. Yan Lang hugged the little girl Yusuo, covering her eyes with his hands to prevent her from screaming again.He said, maybe they found out that we were a group of buskers, maybe they also like to watch sideshows.No, this is an invitation to die.I looked at the double eagle blue flag on the city tower fluttering in the morning wind, and suddenly I saw the melancholy and mad face of Sun Xin, the old palace servant who had passed away for many years, and the disaster of Xie Kingdom had come.I said that since my childhood someone had predicted this catastrophe, I used to be terrified, and now that the day has actually come, my heart is empty.You touch my hand, you listen to my heartbeat, now I am as calm as water, I am a commoner, a juggler who walks the rope.What I am facing is not the sin of the subjugated king, but the choice of life and death, so I have nothing to fear.We are like a group of ignorant lambs breaking into the pack of wolves, and the way to escape has been blocked.After the city gate was closed, the hidden Peng soldiers rushed from the city walls, houses, and woods to the houses on the street. I saw a young military official riding a horse and holding a knife and running wildly in the street, shouting, King Peng ordered, kill, kill, kill, kill it.

I witnessed with my own eyes the tragic scene of the bloodbath of Xiejing by the people of Peng Guo.The frantic killing lasted from early morning to afternoon, and the city was full of Peng Guo cavalry in blue clothes and white helmets. The swords in their hands were soaked into crimson with blood, and the armor was splattered with blood stains and strangely shaped pieces of meat.The screams of the murdered before their death resounded all over the city, and the people of Xiejing who were disheveled and disheveled ran to and fro. I saw a few men climbed up the city wall and were quickly hit by arrows. , Seeing them falling from the air like avalanches, they let out a desperate cry.

Before a group of Peng Guo cavalry rushed to the South Gate Inn, my mind went blank.I remember Yan Lang pushed me into the haystack, hiding here, they won't find out.Yan Lang said that he wanted to hide the little girl Yusuo, but the haystack could only accommodate one person, and when the jade lock came towards me, the hay began to peel off.I heard Yan Lang's last words, don't be afraid of Yusuo, I'll hide you in the vat.Then the hay was quickly gathered tightly by Yan Lang, and my eyes became pitch black.I fell into the darkness, vaguely heard the sound of horses’ hoofs approaching the yard beside the inn, heard the screams of jugglers hiding in the trees, chicken coops and under the carts, and heard a large tank being smashed to pieces with a blunt object.I heard the screams of at least fifteen jugglers who died in a catastrophe. From their voices, I could see that the dead were caught off guard by the catastrophe, and I could find out how happy and simple tramps they had been.I can't distinguish Yanlang's dying screams, maybe he didn't make any cry during the inn massacre, since he entered the palace as a child, he was always so silent and shy.Later I found the big vat in the yard where corpses were strewn all over the place. Yan Lang was sitting in the vat with his head hanging on the broken edge of the vat. The three wounds on his chest were shocking like three red flowers.I straightened his head so that the deceased faced the sky after the catastrophe. The spring sun penetrated the bloody air and reflected the few drops of tears on his cheeks.There is still no beard on his lips and under the temples, retaining all the characteristics of the lovable young eunuch back then.

The stagnant water and human blood in the vat melted together, drowning Yan Lang's knees. After I dragged Yan Lang out, I saw another dead person in the vat, an eight-year-old girl Yusuo, her little purple coat It had already been dyed red, and she was still tightly holding the small and simple log that belonged to her in her arms.I didn't find any sword wounds on Yusuo's body.But her breath was cold and motionless.I think it was Yan Lang's body that shielded the little girl from Peng Guoren's sword, and it was Yan Lang's body that crushed the unfortunate little girl to death.At last I lost the faithful servant whom God had given me.Yan Lang died for me, which made his promise in Qingxiu Hall become a reality.I remember he said to me when he first entered Xie Palace at the age of twelve, Your Majesty, I will die for you.Many years later, he really died, and he took away the only gift I gave him, a jade lock from a little girl in Qingxi bought for fifty taels of silver. I think this is his last true love.This is another piece of profound providence.

The killing had ceased, and Peng's soldiers put away their curly swords and gathered in the square to drink.Another group of black-clothed cavalry began to gather the surviving citizens of the capital and drove them in the direction of Daxie Palace.I squeezed among the group of survivors and walked towards Daxie Palace, occasionally jumping over some dead bodies lying on the road.Some people were weeping softly in the crowd, and some were secretly cursing Peng Wang Shaomian.I walked and looked, and what I looked at were my own hands.Dried blood red was printed on my palm, no matter how I wiped it off, it was useless, I knew that it was the blood of other people who was extremely strong, not only from Yan Lang and Wang Suo, but also from the abandoned concubine Dai Niang, Yang Song who joined the army, and the imperial physician Yang Dong. As well as the blood of all the soldiers who died on the frontier, I know that they have been turned into a special palm print and engraved on my palm.So why did the invitation to die leave me alone?A man with a heinous crime?A sudden sadness seized my heart, and I sobbed together with the group of people in the capital who survived the catastrophe. So far, I shed the first tear in my life as a commoner.

The driven crowd suddenly found that the sky ahead was red.The Peng people set fire to Daxie Palace.When the people in the capital were brought to the gate of the palace, tongues of fire shot up to the sky from the huge wooden beams of Guangxie Gate.Peng Bing ordered the crowd to stand in a formation of geese to watch the fire in Xie Palace.An old military official announced in a loud and passionate voice that they had won the battle of Xiepeng: People of Xie Kingdom, look at the fire that is raging in the sky, and look at how your filthy and obscene palace has been reduced to nothing. Ruins, watch how your weak and pitiful little country is returned to the supreme Peng Kingdom!I faintly heard the desolate and desperate voices of people in Daxie Palace, but as the fire spread wildly, the whole palace turned into a glorious sea of ​​flames, and the loud noise of burning and collapsing halls covered the cries and cries of the palace people .In the sea of ​​fire is the place where I was born and grew up, where the other half of my life, joys and sins are accumulated. I cover my nose with my sleeve to block the choking smoke, trying to recall it once before it disappears, recalling The magnificence of the famous Eight Halls and Sixteen Halls of the Xie Palace, recalling the Fendai and Jinluanlong couch in the Sixth Palace, recalling rare treasures and exotic flowers and plants, recalling every court story when I was a king, but my thoughts suddenly froze, What emerged in front of my eyes was the real Xiegong fire, which was nothing but fire.My ears were filled with the usual whine of the bullfinch.

Dead... Dead... Dead The sixth generation Xie Wang Duanwen died in the fire of Xie Palace.His charred remains were later found under the ruins of Fanxin Hall, and his face was no longer recognizable. The only physical evidence was the black panther dragon crown, which was made of gold and jade treasures. Still clasped tightly on the dead man's head. Duanwen, the sixth King Xie, reigned for only six years. He was the shortest-lived and unluckiest of the previous King Xie.From the analysis of historical phenomena, later generations of historians generally believe that Duanwen was the king of subjugation, and it was his arrogance, arrogance and self-confidence that ruined a beautiful country.

I became an outsider.This spring I dreamed countless times of Duanwen, my half-brother, my natural enemy.In the dream we were calm and drinking together, the long battle for the Black Panther Dragon Crown finally came to an end, and we found that both sides were deceived by history. On the ninth day of the third month in the lunar calendar, Peng Guo's 10,000-strong army swept across all the territory of Xie State like a wind sweeping through the clouds, and all seventeen prefectures and eighty counties were in their pockets.Standing on the ruins of Daxie Palace, Shaomian, the legendary great Peng Wang, shed tears in front of the ocean-like adherents of Xie Kingdom on the square.Shao Mian raised Peng Guo's Double Eagle Blue Flag with his own hands, and then solemnly declared that the corrupt and incompetent Xie Kingdom had perished, and the world belonged to the sacred and invincible Double Eagle Blue Flag.According to the "Secret History of Xie Palace", nearly a hundred members of the royal family and their descendants of Xie Kingdom were almost wiped out during the March Disaster. Has been reduced to a wandering juggler.Dongyang Xiaoxiaosheng recorded in detail the death methods of the last batch of Xie Kingdom figures in the "Secret History of Xie Palace", including:

Xie Wang Duanwen: Died in the fire of Xie Palace. Prince Ping Duanwu: Died in the fire of Xie Palace. Duanxuan, Prince Feng: beheaded, and the head was separated in Prince Feng's mansion and the market.Prince Shou Duanming: After being killed, he was thrown into the well of Shouwang Mansion.Da Jun, King of the Eastern Fan: He died in the Anti-Peng battlefield, and later generations built the tomb of the Eastern King for him.Nanfan Wang Zhaoyou: After surrendering to Peng, he was killed by his personal guards. Northern King Dayu: After the body was divided by five horses, citizens soaked his limbs in wine jars.Southwest Wang Daqing: Died of a stray arrow on the way to flee Yao. Northeast Wang Dacheng: Suicide by swallowing gold. Prime Minister Zou Ling: When he knelt down to worship King Peng, he was stabbed to death by King Peng himself, and he was reviled by future generations.Former Prime Minister Feng Ao: Died by hitting his forehead against a wall, he was a generation of heroic ministers of the Xie Kingdom.Queen Huangfu: Bai Ling died by hanging. Tang Xiu, Shangshu of the Ministry of War: After Xie's death, he became ill and died of hemoptysis.Zhu Cheng, Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites: The whole family died of dove poison to show the humiliation of the subjugation of the country.Haizhong, the Imperial Capital Army: The dead body was found in the vegetable market, the cause of death is unknown. My Xie country, my beautiful and troubled Xie country, now no longer exists. It has been merged into the territory of Peng country so naturally and helplessly, making the prophecies of many philosophers come true.Xiejing had been renamed Changzhou by the ruler of Peng.In the spring of this year, the craftsmen of Peng State made a big construction in Changzhou City, and built many round houses, archways and temples with strange shapes.There is the sound of hammers and the short and difficult slang of the Peng people. They seem to want to wipe out all traces of the Xie Dynasty.The residents of Changzhou are now wearing Peng Guo's cumbersome and bloated clothes. They choose their way among the ruins, looking tired and indifferent.For them, the turbulent life is still going on. Whether it is Xiejing or Changzhou, they have lived here for generations, and they have to live carefully. I wandered like a lonely soul on the ruins of Daxie Palace, which has become a paradise for the people of Changzhou to collect jewels and collect treasures.Many people pick and choose among the broken eaves and broken tiles from morning to night, hoping to find those gold, silver and jewels that were missed by the Peng people.Some people quarreled endlessly over a silver beaked pot, and finally fought, and more and more people were involved. When the strong man escaped from the ruins with the pot in his arms, many women and children picked up broken bricks and threw them at him. past.I saw a boy squatting away from the crowd among the rubble, digging intently.Later I stood behind the boy and watched him work in silence.The boy looked twelve or thirteen years old, his face was filthy smeared with dust, his black eyes looked at me vigilantly, maybe he was afraid that I would steal his treasure, he quickly took off his cloth shirt to cover his feet that pile of stuff. I don't want your stuff, nothing.I reached out and touched the top of the boy's head, and showed him my clean hands to prove my innocence. I said, what did you find after digging for so long?Cricket jar.The boy took out a gold-plated clay pot from under his crotch. When he picked it up, I recognized it as my childhood pet in the palace.What else did you find?birdcage.The boy lifted the shirt again and showed me the two birdcages with flower nets under the shirt. The birdcages had been crushed by heavy objects, but I also recognized that they were a pair of birdcages hanging in the Qingxiu Hall. I even remember that on the day I left Qingxiu Hall, there were a pair of red-billed and green-feathered sparrows in the cage.I smiled at the boy, and put the cage back on for him. I said, this is the childhood plaything of the fifth King Xie, and it may be worth a fortune or nothing.You keep them.who are you?The boy looked at me suspiciously and said, why don't you come to dig treasures?I'm the one hiding the treasure.I gently told the boy.Seventeen jugglers are buried in the unmarked tomb in Changzhou.That is the ruins of the old granary.The grain stored in the Daxie grain depot has been looted after the war, leaving many thatched mats and a huge thatched roof.I buried the corpses of Yanlang, Yusuo and a dozen other artists here.I don't know who first used the grain depot as a cemetery.That day, I imitated the funeral methods of some citizens, and loaded the corpses of seventeen wandering artists onto the cart one by one.I pushed the heavy corpse truck to avoid the sentry posts of the Peng people in the dark, and followed them to the grain depot.The open space around the grain storehouse was already filled with new graves, and I had to dig out graves every now and then so that jugglers who had died unexpectedly had a small and scattered burial plot.The widows who were traveling with me had finished their burial early. They were sitting on the grave mound drinking spirits to dispel the coldness of the spring night. Someone ran over and looked at me curiously and asked, why so many dead people were buried?Is it all your family? No, it was the entertainers of the Suowang juggling class, I pushed them to the knife of Peng Guoren, I must let everyone go to the ground. It's better to bury it shallower.The man was silent for a while and said, anyway, when the rainy season comes, the corpses will rot, anyway, this kind of burial is to deceive the conscience of the living.Burying a dead person requires strength and know-how. If you are willing to give me some wine money, I will help you bury it, and the burial will be finished in less than half an hour. No, let me do it alone.I firmly rejected the widow.I remember that there was no moonlight that night, and the surrounding area of ​​the former grain depot was pitch black. The widows who came to secretly bury the dead in the dark had all left, and I was the only one left.I remember that I didn't feel any fear. I only saw the sky turning blue and shining, the hands holding the shovel were stained with blood, and the pain had turned into numbness.When the rooster crowed three times, I buried Yanlang and Yusuo together in the deepest and largest grave. When the last shovel of wet soil covered Yanlang's blue-gray face and the rolling log in Yusuo's hand, I My body slumped down like a broken wall, and now no one blames me with sad eyes.Now I have really severed the last trace of connection with the old era, Yan Lang is dead, and I am really alone. I lay on the new graves of Yan Lang and Yu Suo, and slept with the thatch mat as the quilt and the head of the grave as a pillow.I said I would never be one of those sleepy porters and beggars, but I was so tired and sleepy that day, and in the twilight of dawn I slept like never before.The sky was so close to me that it tempted me to dream countless birds.All the birds in my dream are as white as snow, and all the skies in my dream are transparent and boundless.I dreamed that all the birds took to the sky. I dreamed of a new world. Now the rucksack is empty again, only a tattered book and a coil of brown rope left.I think these two irrelevant objects are the most appropriate summary of my life.Years passed and I still had no intention of reading quietly, but I kept this book of sages together with the brown rope.I think as long as I don't use brown rope as a collar for my whole life, I will always have the leisure to finish reading.I think of the long-lost monk Juekong, his indifferent and supernatural motto, his wise and forgiving expression, are flashing to me now* I met Concubine Hui at the flea market in Changzhou.I couldn't tell if her disheveled babbling was a sign of insanity, but she looked just right sitting on the bustling thrift street full of people.I saw her selling a stack of carefully cut poems in different colors to passers-by.Take a look, this is a good product, she repeated to passers-by in a hoarse and urgent voice, it is the Fengyue paper of the fifth King Xie, it is an authentic work, it is a good product, you will not lose money if you buy it. I watched Concubine Hui from a distance, and didn't disturb her unique and ingenious business.I wish someone would stop and haggle with Concubine Hui, but the people who come to the flea market seem to be only interested in pots and pans, and no one even asks Concubine Hui Looking at the poetry paper in my hand, maybe in the minds of passers-by, the pile of poem paper is worthless garbage.It was a warm spring afternoon, I watched Concubine Hui on the junk street from a distance, and vaguely smelled a familiar scent of mint, orchid and inkstone, which was faintly present on the junk street in the afternoon. Floating without ground.I know it doesn't come from the stack of poems for sale, or from the body of the prostitute whose fate was lost, it is the last ray of memory of my old life. That was also my last day of detention in my home country.The next day, the people of Pengguo opened the road traffic that had been closed for many days, and I escaped from this sad city among a group of salt-carrying porters.It is the nineteenth day of the third month in the Yihai year of the lunar calendar. I spent the rest of my life in the Kuzhu Temple in Kuzhu Mountain.It was a place far away from the homeland of Peng and Xie, and it had been a high mountain forest area without any jurisdiction for centuries.It is said that Juekong, my teacher and monk in my youth, first discovered this paradise. He arrived here eight years before me and cultivated grain fields and vegetable gardens. The so-called Kuzhu Temple was slowly built by him in three years.When I arrived at Kuzhu Mountain, the monk felt that the sky had passed away.What he left me was an empty temple in the mountains. Outside the empty temple was a vegetable garden with luxuriant weeds. In the center of the vegetable garden stood the wooden sign that was later praised by the world, with the words "Yiqi Wang" written on it. .In the bushes, I picked up the wolf hair that I used to practice calligraphy in Xie Palace when I was young, which means that the monk Juekong has been waiting for me for eight years. Later, when Peng Guo fought against Chen Guo and Di Guo, those who escaped military service dragged their sons and daughters to migrate to Kuzhu Mountain, and Kuzhu Mountain gradually became prosperous.Later people all lived at the foot of the mountain. When the weather was fine in the morning, they could clearly see the temple on the mountainside, and saw a strange monk standing between two pine trees, standing on a high suspension cable, walking swiftly. Fly or be as quiet as a white crane. That person is me.I walk the rope during the day, and I read at night.I have spent countless nights reading quietly. Sometimes I feel that this book of sages contains everything in the world, and sometimes I feel that I have gained nothing.