Chapter 30: This Is the Sign of a Premature Death

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Inside the purse Xin-niang gave Yun-ge'er was a Peace Charm and a full-weight Great Coin, while the purse Li Fu gave him contained a Longevity Lock.

The two maidservants had actually made their purses in the style of scented sachets. As for Aunt Guo and the others, their purse also held a brand-new Great Coin.

The Great Coin had been minted by order of Zhu Yuan, the founding emperor of the Liang Kingdom. It was round on the outside and square within. Since Zhu Yuan was a rather down-to-earth man, two small ingots were engraved on either side of the coin's reverse, while the words “Great Coin” were carved on the front. Thus, people came to call it the Great Coin.

At the time, someone had remarked that the design was far too vulgar.

Zhu Yuan had immediately snapped at him. “Money is vulgar by nature. If you people are so refined, then stop coveting it. You do nothing useful all day and waste your time arguing over whether something is vulgar or not. Have you got too little work to do?”

After that, everyone who had offered an opinion shut up.

That said, the earliest Great Coins were indeed of excellent quality and retained their value well. For a time, they were used alongside silver and could even be exchanged for it at a one-to-one rate.

But as the Liang Kingdom declined, the coins issued by the court—and those secretly minted by private parties—became increasingly debased.

They could no longer be used alongside silver; even spending them on their own had become difficult.

In fact, when taxes were collected a few years ago, the Liang court itself had been unwilling to accept Great Coins at their supposed value, causing the coins to depreciate yet again.

Yun-ge'er examined the Great Coin given by Aunt Guo and the others. Its quality was probably comparable to that of the Great Coins minted during the founding years of the Liang Kingdom.

Carefully, Yun-ge'er gathered all the gifts together and had Xin-niang put them away properly. These were his New Year's gifts, after all.

Having inherited most of the university student's memories, Yun-ge'er thought that if the Liang Kingdom continued on this path, its monetary system would collapse, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately, the university student Yun-ge'er had majored in archaeology. He knew only that the situation was bad, but could not think of any way to resolve it.

Once Xin-niang had put everything away, Yun-ge'er, now brimming with energy, planned to go to Li Fu's study.

He still remembered the matter of the secret sacrifice at the Seven Temples. He was genuinely curious about what had happened to his father's ancestors. At the time, he had been able to recognize only half of the characters on many of the ancestral tablets. It was a classic case of regretting one's lack of learning when knowledge was suddenly needed. Now that Yun-ge'er had taken an interest, he was especially eager to study.

He had already decided that once he found out which emperor had belonged to his father's ancestral line, he would go back to slacking off.

Xin-niang had initially objected to his going to the study. After what had happened, she was still shaken, and had come to understand most earnestly that as long as Yun-ge'er was safe and sound, nothing else mattered.

But Yun-ge'er gazed at her with his dark, limpid eyes, and Xin-niang discovered that she truly could not refuse him.

Li Fu was still on holiday. If not for what had happened to Yun-ge'er the day before, he would certainly have sent the boy to learn his letters that day. He had originally planned to let Yun-ge'er rest for a few more days, but he had not expected Xin-niang to carry him over.

Seeing Yun-ge'er's slightly round and plump cheeks, Li Fu smiled and took him into his arms.

“How is your recovery, Yun-ge'er?”

Yun-ge'er protested, “There was never anything wrong with me.”

Li Fu teased the child for a while and repeatedly promised Xin-niang that he absolutely would not make Yun-ge'er study late that day. The moment Yun-ge'er felt sleepy, he would send him straight back. Only then did Xin-niang slowly leave, though she was still far from reassured.

As soon as Xin-niang was gone, Li Fu told Madam Zhang to call Uncle Li in from outside the residence.

To be honest, Li Fu was still somewhat uneasy about Yun-ge'er. He did not believe the physician's claim that the boy had fainted from sheer fright.

What sort of temperament Yun-ge'er had, Li Fu knew better than anyone.

Yun-ge'er had always been filled with vigorous curiosity toward unfamiliar things and situations. There was no way an unfamiliar environment could frighten him. Besides, during the porridge distribution, the refugees had been in a condition far more dreadful than the ancestral sacrifice. Yun-ge'er had still managed to calmly offer suggestions. That night, he had merely been somewhat upset, and by the next day he had recovered completely.

With such a temperament, the physician's explanation simply could not be right.

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Uncle Li arrived very quickly, and this time he brought Deng Qiang with him as well. However, Deng Qiang did not enter the study. Just as before, he squatted outside the door and waited for Uncle Li to come out.

When Uncle Li saw Yun-ge'er looking as plump and blessed as ever, he immediately reached out and hoisted him over. He always held children tightly, and now that he was old, his body had grown rather thin. With all those bones pressing against him, being held by the old man was not especially comfortable for a child.

“Yun-ge'er looks all right.” As he had when he first met the boy, Uncle Li weighed him in his arms. The child still felt solid and sturdy, so it seemed yesterday's incident had not affected him much.

Yun-ge'er grunted twice. “There really is nothing wrong with me. I came here to study. Put me down, Uncle Li. You and Father can discuss your business while I go read.”

Uncle Li laughed. “How many characters can a little child like you recognize?”

Still, he did not tease Yun-ge'er for long. He knew perfectly well why Li Fu had summoned him.

Holding Yun-ge'er in his arms, Uncle Li secretly examined the boy's fortune.

Reading a person's qi and destiny was no easy matter. Fortunately, Yun-ge'er was a descendant of the Li family, and their shared blood made it comparatively easy to observe him.

Looking again now, Yun-ge'er's aura seemed exactly the same as before.

No—that was not quite true. There had been a change.

Originally, Yun-ge'er's aura had been ordinary. But Li Fu had deliberately built up the boy's reputation, gathering around him a measure of the fortune born from popular regard. Such fortune was difficult to gather and difficult to disperse, yet at that moment, more than half of it had already vanished.

What was going on?

Uncle Li's heart gave a jolt, but he maintained a calm expression. He carried Yun-ge'er to a chair in the corner of the study and casually pulled a book from the shelf for him.

He had already seen how clever Yun-ge'er was, and therefore did not want the boy to hear what came next. He was afraid it would cause him pain.

Uncle Li suspected that Yun-ge'er truly possessed the fate of dying young. That was why, despite being extraordinarily intelligent by nature, the boy's fortune remained so ordinary. Even the popular regard that had gathered around him could easily drift away.

Yun-ge'er had suddenly fainted this time. Although he appeared to have recovered, some illnesses lay beyond human power to prevent—and beyond human perception to detect.

Lowering his voice, Uncle Li spoke with Li Fu. There was an unmistakable sorrow and anguish in his tone.

The Li dynasty had fallen more than five hundred years ago. In those five centuries, including the present Liang Kingdom, the realm had passed through four dynasties. Whenever the world descended into chaos, the descendants of the Li family would attempt to restore their dynasty, taking advantage of the turmoil among the various factions and secretly engaging in small acts of intrigue.

Yet to this day, the descendants of the Li family had only grown more mediocre, showing not the slightest sign of promise.

As a family retainer who had served the Li clan all his life, Uncle Li had truly never seen anyone among them capable of shouldering the burden.

This time, after hearing Li Fu praise Yun-ge'er, how could he have come without some expectation? He had even wondered whether this might be Heaven's own arrangement.

On this journey, he had gained Deng Qiang, a potential supreme general, and had also encountered the Qilin Son of the Li family.

Who could have imagined that Yun-ge'er would bear the signs of an early death?

Could it be that the two hundred and seventy-six years of national fortune belonging to the Li dynasty had exhausted every last bit of the Li family's destiny?

Apart from the Han dynasty, which was restored several times, and the Later Han, which managed to set the world right after Cao Wei's usurpation, no dynasty in history had ever been restored after falling. The Li dynasty was no exception.

Perhaps the Li family's mandate of Heaven had truly been depleted completely.

For a moment, Uncle Li felt utterly dispirited.

Li Fu, too, found himself unable to speak.

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Hearing Uncle Li's words, Li Fu was both incredulous and shaken. How could Yun-ge'er, who had always been so healthy, possibly die young? At the same time, resentment welled in his heart.

Li Fu had always wanted to restore the family's former glory. Since he lacked the ability himself, he had placed his hopes in his descendants.

That was the belief shared by all the legitimate descendants of the Li family. Those clansmen of little talent contributed to the family by having children, then more children, in the hope of producing a more exceptional child.

That was why, when the old Daoist had told him that both children possessed only ordinary fortunes, Li Fu had been so unable to accept it.

“Why... why does Yun-ge'er have to be so young?”

Uncle Li could only shake his head.

After hearing Li Fu speak of Yun-ge'er, he had originally wanted to take the boy back to the clan in Western Capital for a visit. If Yun-ge'er won the support of the clan, then all the Li family members could rally around him and devote themselves to helping him develop.

What a pity. What a pity...

After speaking with Li Fu for a while longer, Uncle Li left. He had been busy lately and could not remain for long.

After Uncle Li departed, Li Fu sat silently for some time. Only after a long while did he calm himself, and then he made a decision.

Since Yun-ge'er had come to his home and called him Father, he had to protect his own son. Whether the boy was destined to die young or not, they would live well in the present and make sure Yun-ge'er was happy every day.

Suppressing his worry, Li Fu made himself appear no different from usual. Then he rose, picked up Yun-ge'er, and called him over to practice writing.

He also summoned Yi-ge'er to join them. Yi-ge'er did not have to study, but he had to take part.

Li Fu had never been willing to neglect the influence of a scholarly atmosphere.

In order to satisfy his curiosity about his Li ancestors, Yun-ge'er studied his letters with exceptional seriousness during this period. His progress in memorizing characters, in particular, astonished Li Fu. Each day, the speed at which he learned new characters was astounding.

The only area in which he was somewhat lacking was the speed of his handwriting practice.

His hands were small, and he could not hold the little wooden stylus steadily. Moreover, he insisted on writing each character as well as he possibly could, determined to prevent anyone from recording an embarrassing trace of his past. As a result, his practice proceeded extremely slowly.

But this minor shortcoming hardly mattered; it could scarcely even be called a flaw. On the contrary, Yun-ge'er's intelligence in recognizing characters delighted Li Fu immensely. Yet whenever he remembered Uncle Li's words, he felt miserable, and so this man who never sighed now let out several sighs whenever he looked at Yun-ge'er. He even seemed somewhat dejected.

For the next few days, Yun-ge'er was completely immersed in the ocean of knowledge.

He did not know that if Uncle Li had not believed he was destined to die young, then given his current speed at learning characters, Li Fu would never have allowed him to follow the happy approach of studying whenever he wished and stopping whenever he wished.

They would have pushed him until he could study no more.

Before long, Li Fu's brief holiday ended, and he had to return to the county office. After working for about two days, he unexpectedly brought Deng Qiang home.

At the time, Yun-ge'er was being held by Xin-niang. He stared curiously at the foul-faced young man following behind Li Fu.

Uncle Li was busy during this period, and there were some matters Deng Qiang could not conveniently be allowed to know. But leaving Deng Qiang alone in a room was risky as well; he was only thirteen or fourteen years old, after all, and Uncle Li feared something might happen to him.

As it happened, Deng Qiang's education was abysmal. He had attended a private school for only two years and could write little more than a few names. His academic foundation was catastrophically poor.

Since that was the case, Uncle Li simply had him study with Li Fu and improve his knowledge. Besides, could a great general really get by while knowing only a handful of written characters?

Yi-ge'er disliked strangers and ignored Deng Qiang completely.

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