Heaven is fearless

Everyone knows that the founding monarch of the Chu and Wei Dynasties was an out-and-out tyrant.

No, of course it does not refer to the His Majesty who is recorded at the top of the Jade Plate Gold Book. The one who died long before the establishment of the Chu and Wei Dynasties is of course referring to the replacement of the Shao Wei Dynasty. The founding emperor in my dream.

It was a lunatic who killed his own mother with his own hands, slaughtered all his former classmates, would wear blood-stained clothes to go to court, dance at court gatherings, and made all court civil and military tremble with bloodthirsty violence.

Outright lunatic.

That His Majesty likes red clothes, is crazy all day long, wears a snow-white mask, on which the narrow eyes and smiling lips are simply outlined with ink, except for the palace people who serve in Yaoyi Palace, most of the palace people don't even know His Majesty What does it look like.

——He also has a weird thing, that is, he can't live in the main palace, but insists on living in the East Palace in the corner of the palace city.

It's past noon, but the huge palace city is still dead and silent. The crazy tyrant is moody, but he has no interest in building palaces at all. Not only that, he seems to hate this kind of thing. Since he took the throne, he has never He has built a palace and a garden. Compared with other emperors, he can be said to be extremely simple in this regard.

The Zhaoxian Hall that was burned down in the hands of the last emperor in the previous dynasty is still a piece of white land. The new emperor did not let people rebuild the palace on it. After more than ten years, the grand and magnificent Chaohui Hall, the center of the former Great Wei Palace City, has been covered with luxuriant grass. , Among the broken walls and ruins, there are sporadic wild civet cats living here.

Not only that, in the past ten years, His Majesty has rarely set foot in other places outside the East Palace. Most of the magnificent and beautiful palaces have been abandoned and no one has taken care of them. It has become a place where wild animals roam and play.

The gate of Yaoyi Hall was closed tightly, and two servants stood around the gate like sculptures. Suddenly, there was a chaotic sound of tinkling bells in the room, and after a pause, a hoarse voice inside asked in a low voice: "... gone?"

The servant who guarded the door seemed to come alive. He did not open the door, but bent down through the door and replied: "Return to Your Majesty, it is already three quarters in the afternoon."

Inside it was back to its previous state of silence.

In the dimly lit room, a man in a loose scarlet robe was lying crookedly on the steps, with a few wine jars in his hand, his long hair was disheveled, and he was staring blankly at the top of the palace. The paintings of famille roses and pearls are in a daze, humming lazily.

"The appearance is independent on the top of the mountain, and the appearance of the cloud is below..."

He stood up crazily, spun around the main hall without any rules, his big sleeves brushed against the heavy curtains, creating an ethereal feeling of wind and clouds.

"It's dark, it's dark, it's dark..."

With the hangover and the wind blowing overnight, his head began to ache again. The pain made his eyes shine brightly, his feet staggered chaotically, and the tone of his mouth fluctuated, as if a grieving ghost was mourning chant.

"The east wind is blowing, the gods are raining..."

When he sang here, he started to laugh, opened his arms, and kicked away the obstructing wine jars and all kinds of utensils that he threw to the ground at some point. The laughter was insane and insane, filling the entire empty hall.

Tired of laughing, he sat down and stared straight ahead.

He shouldn't have raised troops, so that His Highness the Crown Prince wouldn't go to death just to pave the way for him to survive, but if he didn't send troops, wouldn't he not even be able to see His Highness for the last time?

Chu Zhang’s soul wailed day and night in the torment of the dilemma. He cut his arm with the blade, cut open the flesh of his chest, and watched the blood flow down. In such pain, he could comfort himself and cry. More than heart.

He mercilessly pressed the wound he opened last night, and it burst open again. The dark red blood flowed down his arm, and instantly wet half of his sleeve. Chu Zhang didn't seem to feel it, and he still sat on the ground motionless. After a while, he suddenly woke up and looked around: "Where is your highness? It's three quarters in the afternoon, your highness should take a lunch break..."

"Ah... that's right," he sat still in a daze again, muttering to himself, "His Highness is taking a lunch break, please wait a little longer... Zhaocuo, where is my Zhaocuo?"

Sometimes he was sober and sometimes confused, he fell asleep and woke up back and forth in the lonely dream, he was in a daze for half a quarter of an hour, he stood up again, touched his forehead: "Today is the court meeting, you can't be late, Your Highness doesn't like to procrastinate ..."

The gate of Yaoyi Hall opened, and the emperor, whose clothes were messy and whose cuffs were still bleeding, came out. He was really in a mess, but the servants on both sides lowered their eyes and their faces remained unchanged, as if they had long been used to the other party's appearance. .

"Go to Wenyuan Terrace." Chu Zhang said in a low voice.

After he finished speaking, he didn't intend to ask the servants to bring the sedan chair, and walked staggeringly in the East Palace by himself, with a group of palace people hanging not too far behind him.

All the officials in Wenyuan Terrace have arrived, and they didn't respond to His Majesty's late arrival. After standing for a long time, the inner prisoner sang loudly from outside the door: "Your Majesty has arrived—"

All the ministers knelt down in unison: "Respectfully, Your Majesty is blessed."

A smear of vermilion clothes dragged past them, and the visitor staggered, as if he hadn't woken up from a hangover. A group of people knelt and waved their hands: "Get up."

The ministers stood up unevenly, as if they hadn't seen the demeanor of the person above, without raising their eyelids, they played in order.

Chu Zhang listened lazily with his head propped up, humming fragmentary songs in his throat. When he spoke, he would think for a long time, review what the man taught him in his memory, and give orders to the ministers below. .

When the round of discussion was over, Chu Zhang's half-closed eyes suddenly fixed on a person in the front row who had been silent all along: "Yan Shoufu, why didn't you say a word today?"

The man in the dark purple official uniform lowered his eyes, and when he saw him asking, he looked back expressionlessly. The two eyes met in the air, and Chu Zhang suddenly withdrew his smile: "This expression... you'd better stop talking." , or I want to chop off your head again, this time it might be true."

Yan leaned on the railing and pursed his lips tightly, and the hand holding the wat board was so stiff that it turned blue. Chu Zhang said jokingly: "You are the only one in the Yan family, don't think about it."

Yan leaned on the railing and took a deep breath, knelt down suddenly, and said loudly: "Chen, Yan leans on the railing, his intelligence is weak, and his virtue is not worthy. I implore your majesty to allow me to resign from the position of chief assistant and return home when I am old."

Chu Zhang's smile disappeared.

He stared straight at Yan leaning on the railing for a while, and asked in a very soft voice: "Are you leaving?"

Yan leaned on the railing and said nothing.

Chu Zhang laughed again, with a nervous smile: "No, no, no, you can't go. Your Highness values ​​you. You want to be a high official, help the world, and help the people... Your Highness told me so, you can't Walk."

He repeated: "I won't allow it."

Yan Pinglan's expression twisted for a moment, as if he couldn't hold it anymore: "Your Majesty! The former prince has passed away for more than ten years, and your words and deeds after you ascended the throne have really failed his teaching—"

During the Shaowei Dynasty, the Yan family was a big and prosperous family. However, during the last emperor period, the people in charge of the Yan family were on the wrong side. Later, they were found to have had a hand in the death of the first prince because they supported the second prince. , after the new emperor ascended the throne, the Yan family was subjugated by the Yi clan, and the descendants were already sparsely populated. Now there are not many people left, and they can only rely on Yan to lean on the railing for support.

Xinjun has a fickle temperament, he kills when he says to kill, Yan Zhuo, the eldest son of the Yan family, is his classmate and friend, but he kills as soon as he says, without blinking his eyes, this behavior really scared everyone minister.

Ruthless and ungrateful, mad and arbitrary.

This is Chu Zhang's reputation left in the history books, and it is not smelly.

Although he was kind to the common people, his reputation among the scholar-bureaucrats was not even as good as that of the self-willed last emperor of the previous dynasty.

Yan leaned on the railing to say something, but Chu Zhang was too lazy to listen. He walked down step by step, his sleeves were still dripping blood, and squinted his eyes to look at the vast sky outside the door: "Yes, I have to teach His Highness..."

He looked blank, watched Yan leaning on the railing for a while, then grinned and started giggling again: "But I feel so uncomfortable..."

He laughed louder and louder, and walked out of the hall while laughing.

"I'm so uncomfortable! You let him reprimand me!" The mad emperor roared loudly, his shrill voice almost piercing the sky of the Eastern Palace.

******

The Chu and Wei Dynasties only existed for a short period of twenty years. On an ordinary winter day, an army holding the banner of crusade against the innocent and stupid king rushed into this magnificent capital. Crying and fleeing palace servants, he carried a wine jar and dragged his weary pace towards the deserted Tingfangyuan. The plum blossoms in Tingfangyuan hadn’t bloomed yet, so he fell under a plum tree. It seems to have returned to the blurred years.

The person who brought him here broke off a plum blossom for him that day, and now that I think about it, I don't know where he put that plum blossom in the end.

The "Swallow" flag covering the sky and the sun in the distance fluttered like a cloud, and those who came to revenge with blood and deep hatred raised their long swords, with a compassionate expression like a Buddha in their eyebrows, but their gestures were extremely fierce and blood-piercing. .

Chu Zhang lay under the tree, the plum tree was covered with flower buds the size of fingertips, he held the wine jar with one hand, and poured wine into the mouth of the jar, the dripping wine spilled on him, his gray hair and red Clothes were wet and tangled together.

He didn't even dance today. He danced for more than 20 years for the unfinished mountain ghost, and finally reached the end.

After his god died, wherever he went, the bleak and empty tune of "Mountain Ghost" echoed day and night, echoing in the empty lungs, echoing in every silent night and dead day.

"Crack-"

The empty wine jar was slammed to the ground by him, and the shattered porcelain shards splashed and scratched his face. He bent down, approached the pile of shards, and touched it with his hands.

It was really pitiful, like a beggar looking for edible leftovers in the slop bucket, not at all like a monarch in charge of the world.

He found a piece that was sharp enough, lifted it up and looked at the sky, the moonlight was bright, reflecting the snow into a day-like halo.

Chu Zhang stretched out his bruised arm, held the porcelain piece tightly, and scratched one after another deep scars on it.

The warm blood spurted out impatiently, Chu Zhang let go and threw the tile aside, feeling relieved, and lay down peacefully.

In the vast snow, his eyes began to blur, as if it was an illusion, someone was standing beside him, bending down to look at his face.

Chu Zhang didn't move, and murmured, "Your Highness, have you come to pick me up?"

"I... I'm sorry, I failed your will, I didn't be a good emperor..." He wriggled his lips, "But I'm too uncomfortable... You saved my life, I dare not die, but I can't help it Hold on, I..."

Tears welled up from the eye sockets that had been dry for decades, and the voice of the old king, who had been tormented by the years, was choked up, as light as a raving: "I..."

He wanted to say too much, he wanted to ask the man why he left him like this, he wanted to ask why he didn't want to be protected like this, and he wanted to ask the man if he was disappointed in him... But it's here In the end, he was unable to utter a complete sentence.

"...I'm not doing well at all."

The tyrant that everyone feared was like a child, choking and complaining at the end of his life. His voice was softer than flowers falling on the snow, and he quickly disappeared into the world.