On the very night Liu Cheng gave Fan Ning that poem, the latter frankly confessed his worries to General Liu of the Vanguard Army.
The former had never imagined that a poem he had hastily copied to intimidate those military men and reassure Fan Ning would have this additional effect... Once he learned of it, he was naturally rather touched. A model pupil and subordinate like this was someone you could only stumble upon-where could you possibly find one if you went looking?
Then he, too, spoke frankly: he truly had no particular way to resolve this problem.
He could only take one step and see what came next.
This was hardly a defeatist attitude. Quite the contrary: to Liu Acheng himself, it was a spirited, upward-striving outlook... He could never repay Huan Wen and Xi Chao's kindness, which was precisely why he had to handle every project before him well and accumulate more political capital for himself, precisely why he had to struggle upward and fight for a higher position. Only then could he better repay their kindness.
Take Liu Rengong, for example. Hadn't he once owed a debt of kindness he could never repay? But who owed whom now?
Once he climbed high enough, naturally he could repay it.
Wasn't he repaying Xie An's kindness now? Did what he was doing in Shouchun count as prolonging Xie Shang's life? As helping the Xie Family keep the Western Command stable?
If one insisted that Huan Wen, that monster of power, was an exception whom he could never surpass, there was an answer to that as well.
He could always outlast the old man.
Set his mind at ease and exercise more. If he could not repay it in this lifetime, there was always the next. If you died, I