"Have we known each other for so many years, yet never truly understood one another?"
The voice from within the black stone said, "The road is there. Even if our road is broken, others will continue walking it."
"People must always walk on. One day, when we are gone and all our students have died, there will still be others to keep walking this road."
"But if even we, who hold the history knife, betray history, then historians will cease to exist."
"Forebear Song Qiushi carved the Book-Drying Terrace, airing out written words, and bared his belly among them, saying, 'There is nothing on my mind.'"
"Piling earth into steps, he finally reached the summit. From antiquity to the present, Diligent Academy stood first in recording history. Scholars of a hundred generations coughed blood for ink; masters of every age rarely met a good end... and thus it earned this name."
Amid Zuo Qiu Wu's almost uncontrollable emotions, the voice within the black stone remained so cold and severe. It truly carried a near-heartless quality, yet also the resolve never to turn back.
He said, "Zuo Qiu Wu, if my stroke strays from the truth, what it ruins will be the historians' monument. That would be the true severing of this road."
Zuo Qiu Wu said bitterly, "Your stroke is neither crooked nor slanted, but what you leave behind is a boundless field of graves. How many people cannot find their loved ones' bones, and must make tombs from robes and hats—you are carving Diligent Academy's tombstone!"
"History will remember everything," said the voice in the black stone.
Zuo Qiu Wu's voice rose sharply. "Only what remains can become history!"
"How can one remain?" asked the voice within the black stone.
Zuo Qiu Wu calmed as well. "By living."
"A