The northern frontier was a land of bitter cold.
If there was still any place that could be called a paradise on earth, it was probably Plum Mountain in Yun Prefecture.
Plum Mountain was named for its plum blossoms. Ten thousand plum trees bloomed in eager rivalry, making it a place every scholar of the age had to visit.
Atop Plum Mountain stood Ten Thousand Plum Manor. Everyone called it the Charity Manor. In Feudal Society, "Charity manor" was a specific term for a place where corpses were kept. Refugees who died along the road had no one to collect their bodies, so the charity manor collected them. That was why it was called "charity." But the Charity Manor spoken of by the people had nothing whatsoever to do with that meaning.
The "charity" they spoke of carried admiration.
Their charity referred chiefly to one man: the master of Ten Thousand Plum Manor, the Great Confucian Zhou Yi.
Zhou Yi had once been the dean of Central Plains Academy in Lu Kingdom, a figure at the Half-step Literary Realm, a true Mount Tai and Northern Dipper upon the Literary Dao. Yet his Literary Dao could not turn back Heaven and Earth Momentum. Lu Kingdom had vanished into ash beneath Great Corner's iron cavalry.
When Lu fell, countless court officials who had sat on the fence turned around and became high-ranking officials of Great Corner. Yet many worthy ministers fought to the bitter end and died beneath the Great Yu Iron Cavalry. Zhou Yi had been one of the representative figures of the resistance. But he had not died, nor had he surrendered. He had negotiated a condition with Great Corner's military: this old man could lay down his brush and leave Central Plains Academy, but he wanted a mountain, where