The Beginning of the Story

"You've met one?"

"Mm."

"A Transmigrator?"

"Mm."

Gu Baishui glanced at the Linen-Clad Girl, his face full of polite hesitation.

"What?"

Luo Ziwei's eyes curved as she smiled softly. "Can't a little cultivator like me have met a Transmigrator?"

"It's not that you couldn't. I just didn't expect it."

Gu Baishui and Luo Ziwei reached the fork in the road at the foot of the mountain. Ahead lay the official road to Luoyang.

But a fine drizzle still hung in the sky, so there were hardly any pedestrians or merchant caravans on the road.

The young man and young woman stood beneath the same old tree, waiting for the rain to stop under its thick canopy.

Neither said a word. They watched the pattering rain, neither of them knowing what the other was thinking.

"What kind of person was he?" the Green-Robed Youth suddenly asked.

"Who?"

"The Transmigrator you mentioned."

The Linen-Clad Girl fell silent. As she listened to the rain and cicadas by her ear, her thoughts seemed to drift back to a long time ago.

After a long while, she stood beneath the tree's shade and smiled softly, her smile bright and sweet, pure and fresh.

"He was a very, very good person."

"Li Shiyi was a very good person."

"His name was Li Shiyi?"

Luo Ziwei nodded and said softly, "His real name was Li Nianyu. He was born into a very, very large family, a prosperous lineage with branches and leaves flourishing everywhere. His great-grandfather gave him that name on the day he was born. It meant having a surplus year after year, and living in peace."

"But he always thought the name Nianyu sounded a little strange. It reminded him of a kind of fish you could eat, so he didn't like people calling him by his real name. He preferred being called Li Shiyi. That was also because he was the eleventh child born in his generation of the family."

Gu Baishui asked, "So if he'd had a younger brother, would he have been called Li Shier?"

The Linen-Clad Girl froze, then shook her head.

"He didn't have a younger brother, because not long after he was born, he moved from Chang'an to Luoyang with his parents. But he did have a younger sister. She was clever and beautiful, and her name was Li Xu."

"Li Xu."

Gu Baishui repeated the name, finding it strangely familiar for some reason.

"Mm. Actually, Li Shiyi's family was very prominent. It was the most famous lineage in all of Luoyang City."

"But he was lazy and unambitious. His greatest pleasure was lying beneath a tree to sun himself, then turning over to sun the other side. So from childhood, he had no ambition or dreams of becoming a spoiled young master."

The Linen-Clad Girl blinked as she recalled the story from a very, very long time ago, chattering on as she did.

(ps: The following is the story of Li Shiyi, a side story in this novel. It may take a little brainpower to follow.)

The story began in an old city called Chang'an.

Chang'an was the capital of the Tang Kingdom, and the most prosperous old city in all of Tang territory.

At that time, Li Shiyi had not yet been born. The most famous person in Chang'an City was another young man surnamed Li.

He was Li Shiyi's father, and the youngest general ever to guard the kingdom.

When he was young, his father had led the Tang Kingdom's Black Armor Iron Cavalry across every inch of land in sight, driving out the barbarians and reclaiming the Northern Desert. He had made a name for himself in his youth, and never suffered a single defeat in his entire life.

Moreover, this young Tang general was no brute who relied on strength without brains. He had been born into the Imperial Court, but he preferred the scenery beyond the palace walls.

Grassland stars and wild horses; herders and ranchers; rainy little towns and men of letters. He wanted to see every interesting thing in this world with his own eyes.

Even though wherever he went, he left behind shattered remains and severed limbs, mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

He had committed too many killings in his life, but he hadn't had a choice, either. A person's life could take a strange turn without warning. There was no way back, so all he could do was drift with the current.

Li Shiyi later told me that his father wanted him to be an ordinary person.

Ordinary, not average.

Later, the Tang general chose to leave Chang'an City.

He laid down his armor, returned to the fields, and went to Luoyang.

In the memories of Luoyang's residents, the head of the Luoyang Li Lineage had always seemed like a kindly, steady old farmer, stooped over as he worked.

He always wore plain hemp clothes with short sleeves. He rose early to watch the morning sun and dawn light spill across the earth. He also loved tending to his neat, square plot of farmland and soil, and was always bent over in the rice paddies on his land.

Li Shiyi once told me that his father had divided his life into two parts.

The first half had been spent on battlefields and horseback, grand and tumultuous, noisy and chaotic, but with not much worth remembering.

Before moving to Luoyang, he had met a girl in Chang'an City.

Li Shiyi had told me that story.

"When Father and Mother first met, it was actually a little earlier than anyone in Chang'an City knew, and the story was more interesting, too."

It was the night before Taizu of Tang's birthday. Chang'an City was decorated with lanterns and streamers, brightly lit.

The people of Chang'an City all looked forward to the birthday banquet, and every household hung bright-red lanterns.

Along the riverbank, rows of paper lotuses swayed gently in the clear water.

On the little bridges, one sky lantern after another floated into the night sky, lighting up all of Chang'an.

It was then that the young general returning in triumph from the Northern Expedition met the merchant girl cheerfully selling lanterns beside a bridge pier.

Mother was an ordinary girl from a merchant family at the time, born to a collateral branch. She had never received much attention from the day she was born.

She loved the way Chang'an City was decorated with lanterns during festivals, because that meant she could sell lanterns and save up quite a bit of loose silver.

As for Father, he was the second main character at the banquet the next day. It was both a birthday banquet and a celebration of his triumphant return.

Father didn't like the noisy commotion and drinking at the banquet, so he slipped out of the imperial palace and wandered through Chang'an's night market, pretending to be a city patrol soldier.

Amid the surging crowd, the young man and woman caught each other's eye.

As a street vendor and a city patrolman.

Mother had always been good at business. She had prepared many lantern riddles at her stall.

For three copper coins, a customer could guess once. If they got the answer right, they could choose a sky lantern.

Some people guessed correctly and made a wish for good luck, happy with themselves.

Some people guessed wrong and didn't mind. They were just curious about the answer.

But one stubborn young city patrolman sat in front of the stall with a stiff expression, staring at the biggest sky lantern and trying to solve its riddle for half the night without figuring it out.

I thought Father was clumsy, but actually, he was smarter than anyone.

The next night, the young city patrolman was still trying to solve the riddles.

He exchanged all the gold in his pockets for copper coins and loose silver, then squatted beside the merchant girl all night. His legs went numb, and he still didn't get a single riddle right.

The young man scratched his head with a troubled frown, while the young woman held the loose silver in her hands and smiled until her eyes curved.

The imperial palace's great hall blazed with light. The civil and military officials had yet to see the banquet's guest of honor, and were growing listless. Great Ancestor and Grand Secretary Du were locked in a fierce game of chess, neither of them noticing where the little rascal from their family had run off to.

Chang'an City was lively that night. Some rejoiced, while others fretted.

The moon disappeared behind dark clouds, and a fine drizzle began to fall from the sky.

The night wind was bitterly cold. Beside the bridge pier, the merchant girl coughed without stopping, coughing up streaks of blood.

At that moment, the young city patrolman, who had ridden into battle to kill enemies, panicked for the first time.