SEHE Chapter 158.3

Main Story Conclusion (3)

The following morning, Pei Yanci said his farewells to Qi Lan and Wushu and told them he was leaving the city.

“The checkpoints in Anjing City have been this strict lately — how do you plan to get out?” Wushu said worriedly.

“I naturally have my ways.” Pei Yanci said. “Stay here for now, the both of you. Once the storm in Anjing City has passed, we’ll plan the next step.”

“Big Brother — what are you going out there to do exactly?” Wushu asked.

“Find Jiang Yi first. If he won’t support me, I’ll head south to recruit soldiers.”

“Recruit soldiers?” Qi Lan was taken aback. “You have no money, no grain — what are you going to recruit with?”

“On the strength of my outstanding character and virtue, surely?”

Qi Lan laughed loudest of all.

Then took a thorough beating from Pei Yanci.

“I knew you should have left when things were still more loosely watched — now it’s chaos out there, and getting out seems like it’ll be hard.”

“No choice.” Pei Yanci set down his chopsticks, dabbed his mouth with a cloth, and said, “I’ve been waiting for someone to go with me.”

At the entrance to the dining hall, a tall figure stood with the light behind him, facing them.

****

With Tangxi Zhui’s help, leaving the city was effortless for Pei Yanci.

The two of them rode into Jiang Yi’s camp alone. The moment Jiang Yi saw the two of them arrive together, there was nothing more to be said — he threw them out on the spot, his temper in full blaze.

Not long after, urgent reports came from the border, and he led his troops back to repel the enemy.

Pei Yanci took his people south, persuaded a considerable number of wealthy merchants and traders to invest their money, combined with the profits from his chain of theaters across the country, bought grain and arms, and began recruiting soldiers.

The thing Tangxi Zhui had foreseen came to pass.

Word from Anjing City spread outward — Pei Yanci was a man who ran around with a eunuch. The people had suffered long under the Elu Bureau, and at the mere mention of that name, not a soul came near the recruitment post.

For a full day, only a handful of people signed up.

Pei Yanci went himself and stood at the recruitment post, giving his name.

“Isn’t he just a great treacherous villain?”

“Such a young lad — anything would be better than becoming a eunuch’s lackey.”

Pei Yanci showed neither humility nor arrogance and replied, “Besides being a eunuch’s lackey, I have done a great many other things as well.”

“Oh? What things?”

“I opened theaters — now ordinary folk can watch opera at affordable prices.”

“That’s not bad — so that was you.”

“I also toppled the local tyrants making your lives a misery — salt prices have dropped.”

This drew a small burst of cheers, laughter, and spirited jeering from the crowd.

“I also opened schools, reformed the education system, and lowered the price of books. Ordinary families can now actually afford to educate their children, and the path to officialdom has opened wider for common people.”

“That can’t be right — you did all of that?”

“Why would an official bother with such small things?”

“It’s got to be exaggerated.”

“But the operas say exactly this — that Pei Yanci, Pei Daren, has done so much for us. It can’t be wrong if it’s in the opera.”

“Right — he’s saying what the operas sing, so it has to be true.”

“That puppet in the theater looks exactly like this Pei Daren — no wonder he seemed familiar!”

Pei Yanci didn’t bother refuting the doubts mixed in among the voices. He spoke to them as casually as he would chat with a neighbor. “We were also working on improving barren land — trying to shorten the time it takes for soil to become fertile — and on increasing grain yields, hoping that ordinary people might one day have enough to eat. But the landlords and the lords above us put a stop to it. They said it was useless work. They said if your bellies were full and your learning increased, you’d grow wise and stop listening to them.”

“That’s complete nonsense!”

Someone in the crowd cried out.

“Yes — complete nonsense.” Pei Yanci said. “And so, I wanted to stand up for those without power or influence. And so I made enemies of them. And so they put the label of treacherous villain on my head. I want to go back. I want to finish what I left unfinished.”

The crowd went quiet.

The affairs of the court — they were so far removed.

Tangxi Zhui tugged at his sleeve from behind. “It’s no use.”

To ask a person to lay down their life for a stranger — it was simply asking for the impossible.

“Where does one go to sign up?”

One young man raised his hand.

A little while later, another person stepped forward.

“We don’t understand the twists and turns of people like you up there — but you really are a good official.”

By ones and twos and threes, people walked up to the post, clasping their hands in salute to Pei Yanci, saying they wanted to enlist.

“Daren, I won’t say anything else — just on account of that theater you opened, I’ve been there for every single performance and come to understand many principles of how a person ought to live. A person cannot be ungrateful. You gave thought to our livelihoods — so I’ll give you a little blood and sweat in return. That’s what it means to repay a debt of gratitude.”

More and more people walked forward. The line before the recruitment post slowly grew — longer and longer.

The torches lit up that small, modest post, and kindled the light in Pei Yanci’s eyes.

Three months later, the two remaining vassal princes still locked in battle in Anjing City suddenly received news that struck fear into every heart.

Pei Yanci was marching on Anjing City at the head of an army of three hundred thousand.

By the time the vassal princes had negotiated an alliance and readied themselves to meet the enemy together, Pei Yanci’s forces had already swept into Anjing City — and taken both princes’ heads.

One day later, Gu Yuejian was forced to abdicate.

Gu Yisui reappeared, but the assembled ministers began calling aloud for Pei Yanci to ascend to the throne.

Pei Yanci declined with thanks and would not accept. Gu Yisui enfeoffed him as Prime Minister, and rewards and gifts poured into the Pei Manor in a constant stream.

One month later, Zhang Dongqin once again proposed abdication and yielding the throne to Pei Yanci.

Pei Yanci declined again. Gu Yisui had no choice but to enfeoff him as a Marquis, and bestowed riches on him like flowing water.

Half a month after that, the court ministers submitted a collective memorial urging Pei Yanci to ascend the throne. Pei Yanci refused again.

Finally, after Gu Yisui wept and pleaded at length, on the fourth occasion, Pei Yanci accepted the counsel of the ministers and the Emperor alike, and received Gu Yisui’s Imperial Edict of Abdication and the Imperial Jade Seal.

In the first year of Wucheng, the last emperor of Great Yu, Gu Yisui, abdicated after a reign of only a few months and yielded the throne to Pei Yanci.

Pei Yanci, in whom all hearts were united, became the new Emperor. He established the dynastic name as Tao and the reign title as Ruxi.

“Big Brother — are you certain we don’t need to move any of these things from our house to the palace?” Wushu chattered.

“The palace has everything — don’t tell me you’re short of those two odds and ends of yours,” Pei Yanci said, half laughing and half helpless. “My enthronement ceremony is tomorrow — don’t delay my auspicious hour.”

“I know, I know. But — no, my mother embroidered me that pillow herself, there’s not another one like it anywhere. I’m taking it with me.” Wushu said, and bolted away without a trace.

Pei Yanci glanced around and muttered, “Tangxi Zhui — where the devil have you gone off to?”

Truly — did this man have any regard for him as Emperor at all?

In the bedchamber, Tangxi Zhui was sneaking and skulking, pulling one secret hiding spot after another open, extracting treasures he’d kept there: an incense pouch Pei Yanci had worn against his skin, a handkerchief Pei Yanci had used, Pei Yanci’s clipped fingernails…

He was like a little packrat, furtively hoarding every single thing that had ever touched Pei Yanci.

All of them things Pei Yanci had never once laid eyes on — beautiful memories of the times he had once felt, in those private moments, that Pei Yanci was his.

His fingers touched a scroll, and he paused.

One afternoon, Pei Yanci had asked him earnestly to paint a portrait.

After the man had left, he dashed off this painting in a single unbroken stroke.

The way it had been rolled up was wrong.

Tangxi Zhui stared at it for a moment, then gave a rueful, chagrined smile.

Truly — Xiao Pei’er had always claimed he could never find these little things he had hidden away. And yet he had clearly always known exactly where each one was kept.

He unrolled the painting. The afternoon light from that day had been bright and clear, yet still it could not match the brilliance of the figure in the painting.

In the lower right corner of the painting, two lines of script had been added — conspicuously, yet unmistakably.

Elegant and unrestrained, spare strokes brimming with life.

“In this world a way is found to have both whole and full — Neither forsaking Buddha, nor forsaking you.”