The Past

"That was a very long time ago. So long ago that your elder sister had nearly forgotten the things that happened back then." Strolling through Xiangqin Pavilion as though merely out on a casual walk, Xu Yuan followed Lou Ji, quietly listening as she spoke of the past. Her voice still carried its usual light, playful amusement, yet tonight Xu Yuan could detect a faint trace of something different underlying that smile. Tonight, she seemed somewhat melancholic. The brilliant sword-light still spanned the sky. Frost blanketed the rockeries, ice congealed over the emerald pools, and their footsteps fell silently upon the snow. The two walked very slowly. Xu Yuan had previously tried to learn about the stories of the older generation, but the information he had managed to obtain was extremely limited. Most of it was distorted. Just as the records in history books might not reflect actual history—whether to preserve reputations, maintain secrecy, or for various other reasons—the written accounts regarding the older generation had many contradictions with the Prime Minister's Manor internal reports he had read. The Prime Minister's Manor internal reports he read would not be falsified, so those official records were certainly fabricated. Yet although the Prime Minister's internal reports were authentic, their contents were limited. They merely recorded some cluttered chronological fragments of the past. Although Xu Yuan could vaguely glimpse a corner of the events from those days, it was nothing more than that—scarcely as comprehensive as the information gleaned from casually chatting with the high-ranking figures of the manor. Tonight was the first time Xu Yuan had gained a comprehensive understanding of this older sister's past. Lou Ji's origins were not actually humble. In fact, in this feudal empire, she could be considered far above the common populace—one of the privileged elite. Her father had served as the Transport Commissioner of the Military Storage Bureau in Wuling City, Pinghuai Province. A bona fide scion of an established lineage. Translated to his previous life, that would at least be the equivalent of a division-level official. And according to Xu Yuan's understanding of Great Yan's bureaucratic system, regardless of which bureau or prefecture they answered to, a transport commissioner was always a lucrative post. After all, even in his previous life with modern management and surveillance systems, warehouses and storage facilities were disaster zones for corruption, to say nothing of this feudal dynasty where information was blocked at the grassroots level. Moreover, before the current Emperor and Prime Minister overhauled the civil service, the vast Great Yan Dynasty was thoroughly rotten to its core. There were virtually no truly clean officials. Lou Ji did not conceal this either. Smiling, she recounted the corrupt methods she had witnessed her father employ in her childhood, speaking of her fading memories of that pot-bellied, middle-aged fat man, and describing how her family had met its ruin after that massive flood arrived. In the thirty-ninth year of the Yongqing era—the seventh year after Xu Yinhe entered the capital—in the very month Lou Ji had just turned five. Rain pelted Pinghuai Province for over seventy consecutive days. The waterlogging breached the dikes along the middle reaches of the Luo River, and the torrential deluge cascaded down upon Wuling Commandery in the river's lower reaches, instantly leaving millions of commoners displaced as refugees overnight. Whenever a major disaster struck, the imperial court would mobilize the military to rush to the disaster zone, both to provide relief and, more importantly, to nip any rebellions or roving banditry in the bud. Under such circumstances, that pot-bellied, middle-aged fat man was naturally tasked with a grave responsibility due to his official post: requisitioning military provisions and a whole host of military equipment and supplies. In Lou Ji's words, that flood was a crisis for her family, but it was also an opportunity. "During that period, Father would often vanish from the manor for days on end. He was a corrupt official, but he was a corrupt official who actually got things done. In the beginning, whenever he returned through the rain, his face bore nothing but grim worry besides solemnity. But later, I gradually began to sense a weight lifting from his shoulders. "Until one day, after returning home in the pouring rain, he immediately picked me up with a beaming smile and told Mother that his achievements in handling the flood disaster had caught the eye of an important figure in the imperial court, and that there was a strong chance he would be promoted during next year's grand triennial evaluation. "Back then, I didn't understand what a promotion meant, but I knew that for the first time since the flood began, the lifeless, gloomy manor finally regained a spark of vitality." "..." Xu Yuan listened quietly without speaking or interrupting, yet in his heart, he already knew what followed. Not because of Lou Ji's earlier remark addressing Granny Long as "Miss," but because he had read about this affair in the internal reports of the Prime Minister's Manor. The flood in the thirty-ninth year of the Yongqing era had been less a natural disaster than a man-made catastrophe. Lou Ji glanced at Xu Yuan, a faint smile gracing her face as she said: "It seems... you've read that internal report, Changtian?" Xu Yuan nodded silently. "Heh, that's right. That flood was a natural disaster, but it was also a man-made catastrophe. It involved several prominent ministers in the court, as well as factional struggles between various sects. Yet my father foolishly believed someone had taken a shine to him. The outcome, of course, goes without saying." Saying this, Lou Ji paused for a moment. Her beautiful almond eyes narrowed slightly, her long, slender eyelashes trembling faintly. "At that time, the imperial court was truly too far from us—so far that someone there needed only a single word to shatter my family to pieces." In the fortieth year of the Yongqing era, the eighth year after Xu Yinhe entered the capital, Lou Ji was six years old. Lou Qingwu, Transport Commissioner of the Military Storage Bureau in Wuling City, treated the common people like grass and lined his own pockets. He was cast into death row, the adult males of his household were conscripted into the frontier army and banished a thousand li away, and the female relatives were remanded to the Music Bureau. It was from that very moment, The world lost the eldest young lady of the Lou manor in Wuling City, and gained an ignorant little girl named Lou Ji. During the grueling journey of banishment, Lou Ji's mother died along the way. Little more than a young child, she was forced to learn how to survive in this world alone. She learned how to disguise herself, how to fawn and curry favor, and how to use her frail, scrawny body and quick wits to kill. Hearing this, Xu Yuan subconsciously glanced at the profile of the older sister beside him. Killing someone at age six? Ruthless people truly were forged from childhood. Lou Ji, however, did not mind in the slightest. The road of banishment was exceedingly long, and when it came down to someone else's death or her own survival, the choice was not actually difficult. She calmly described what had been on her mind when she was barely six years old: "I endured all the way through because I knew I was different from them. I was pretty, and I was clever. As long as I endured until I reached the Music Bureau, I would quickly receive the best treatment, and then climb up step by step until I saw that 'important figure' who had determined the life and death of my family with a single word..." "Vengeance?" "A cliché reason, isn't it?" "Back then, you probably needed a reason to live." "..." Hearing his words, Lou Ji fell silent for a moment, then curved her crimson lips slightly. "Yes... a reason to live." That had been Lou Ji's thoughts at the time. Yet misfortune always seeks the unfortunate, and the hemp rope always snaps at its thinnest thread. She did not end up entering the Music Bureau in Di'an City as she had hoped, because along the way, they encountered a demonic beast infestation. The escorting soldiers were no match for the demonic beasts and quickly broke in rout, leaving more than twenty open-air prison carts along the road exposed to the beasts' razor-sharp fangs. Lou Ji said that as she watched the demonic beast stride toward the prison cart she was in, she had not felt panic or terror in her heart, because she felt she could survive. By trading the lives of the other women in the cart for her own survival.