The Young Emperor and the Fearless

In the slightly crude room of the post station, a black crow flew in from the half-hidden door, and landed on the high beam without a sound.The crow turned around, facing the wooden bed in the lower part, and flapped its wings lazily.

There was a person lying on the wooden bed, covered with a white quilt, his eyes were closed tightly, but his eyes kept turning, frowning, as if he was asleep and having a nightmare.

There are also black birds in the dream, but they are not crows, but vultures standing on dead wood branches coveting the corpse.Not only are there several on the ground, but more are hovering in the sky.

Here is a desert. Looking up from a distance, it is all sandy soil, no vegetation can be seen, and there are no living people.

On the wasteland, where the vultures were watching, there were dozens of corpses lying here and there, wearing tattered armor, countless wounds on their bodies, and a strong smell of blood. It looked like they had gone through a fierce battle, and they were scattered everywhere. The weapons and fragments of residual limbs are shocking.

Maybe he had been dead for a long time, half of the body was covered by the sand blown by the wind, and the place stained with blood was also covered by the new sand that floated in, so it couldn't be seen clearly.

The vulture waited for a long time, but saw no movement, and flew over with confidence. Just as he was about to bite, the corpses piled up under his claws suddenly arched.The vulture was frightened and flew back again.

There are still people alive.

When the uppermost corpse was lifted, a person crawled out cowering.

It was a six or seven-year-old boy who was well protected during the war. He had no scars on his body. Although his face was covered with sand, he could still see his white background. He had big eyes and was a very beautiful child. .

"General..."

The child's voice was milky and childish, screaming in a hoarse voice, it was extremely pitiful.

"General... General..."

No one responded after calling out, the child's eyes were red, and big tears rolled down.He continued to cry while weeping, weaving through the row of corpses, brushing off the sand and brushing their hair to find the familiar person.

But I searched almost everywhere, but couldn't find it.

The child sat down on the sand, wiping his tears, and looked at the pile of corpses helplessly. He was not afraid, and even refused to look away for a long time, as if he was expecting that the person who called him could fly away as usual. Come and hold him in your arms.

As if his expectation had been fulfilled, a weak voice came from the pile of corpses.

"two……"

Difficult to say a word, it broke.

But the child's eyes lit up, and he ran over following the sound, pushed away a corpse with his little hands, and dug out a person from the sand.

"General..."

A bayonet was buried in the general's chest, only the handle was left, and the blood flowed out, leaving his last breath.

He couldn't open his eyes anymore, but as if his mind was still on, he opened them anyway. Seeing that the child was safe and sound, he smiled slightly and said, "Are you afraid?"

The sound of spitting out was already inaudible, and the child leaned forward to hear it clearly.He was already tired from crying, but he began to cry uncontrollably, choked up and asked intermittently: "General, are you... are you going to... die?"

The general said: "Yeah, I can't do it anymore, I can't take you back in person."

The child pursed his lips and cried, "No..."

The general's eyes were blurred and he couldn't see clearly. He said afterward: "The winner is the king and the loser is the bandit. If we lose, we will naturally have to sacrifice our lives. This is war. You don't have to be too sad. Keeping you is the blessing of God. You will have to go the rest of the way alone. This is the land of the barren north. If you go west, it will be our camp. Unless it is captured, there will be people guarding it. Remember, Go west and never stop."

The child held the general's hand tightly, tears in his eyes.

The general closed his eyes, as if he was still worried, and said: "Anyone can die, but you can't die, you know?"

The child saw that the general tilted his head slightly, his hands lost strength, and he was out of breath.

He wiped away his tears, stood up, and repeated: "Anyone can die, but I can't die."

When he looked up at the vulture not far away, his eyes were full of determination.

The rest of the journey was very hard, with dry mouth and hungry stomach, and had to compete with birds and beasts for food.I was sweating profusely in the desert during the day, and shivering at night. I don’t know how many days and months I spent like this. Finally, I saw greenery in the lifeless desert.

It was an unnamed tree, with intertwined and horizontal branches, not many green leaves, but enough to give people hope.After bypassing the tree, there are several families full of life.

The child almost jumped up happily, thinking he was saved, and was about to run over, but suddenly stopped.

A man came out of the mud house with a machete, rummaging through the random piles of things in the courtyard, as if looking for a whetstone.

The man is dressed in a typical desert man's dress, wearing a robe, a woolen waistcoat, and soft-tube cowhide shoes on his feet.He also looks different from a child, with sunken eyes, a high nose, protruding bones on his face, and a large muscle bulge on his bare arms, making him look very fierce.

The child was very scared and hid under the big tree. When he got nervous, he accidentally kicked the extended and arched trunk.

With a bang, the man heard the reputation and came over.

"Hey, kids from the Central Plains..."

The man licked his lips and approached ferociously step by step. The machete he raised glared coldly under the scorching sun.

thump...

As if feeling empathy, great fear swept through his body, and He Li was covered in cold sweat, shaking his hands to struggle, but bumped against the edge of the bed, waking himself up in pain.

He Li sat up, gasping for breath.

The scene in the dream is still vivid in my mind, the general's dying order, the ferocious appearance of the man in the desert, and the child crying hoarsely...

It seemed that he had also experienced such a thing, full of despair and pain.

It was not the first time that He Li had such a dream. Before the first emperor passed away, he often dreamed of the desert.

For five or six years, he never dreamed of it again.He Li touched his neck, trying to calm down with the cold touch, but after touching it completely, he remembered that the jade had fallen.

He got out of bed, opened the window lattice, blowing the sporadic breeze, stood for a while, and gradually calmed down.

The dream about the desert is also a knot in his heart.He has never been to the desert, but for some reason he keeps dreaming about it, and the people, battles, wasteland in his dreams...everything is extremely real.

I checked the relevant literature and books with Li, and compared a similar time period, which really allowed him to find out what happened in the barren north that year——

In the 27th year of Fengyu in the Yuanzhi Kingdom, the barbarian army in the northern part of the country harassed the border, and the former general Chen's guard was not good enough, resulting in the death of more than a thousand people. The DPRK and China urgently negotiated and sent two generals, Li and Su, to help.

In the 29th year of Yuanzhi State's prosperity, Li Suer led more than [-] soldiers to drive more than [-] barbarians out of our territory, and guarded the border to prevent them from committing crimes again.

In the 30th year of prosperity in the Yuanzhi Kingdom, the barbarians in the wilderness rioted and raided our army's reconnaissance soldiers. The Soviet general and his entourage of 84 people died.

In the 34th year of the Yuanzhi Kingdom's abundance, General Li devised a careful plan to encircle the barbarians and behead the leader of the barbarian rebel army in the northern part of the country.

In the 35th year of Fengyu in the Yuanzhi Kingdom, General Li wiped out the remnants of the barbarian riots, and the frontier was temporarily peaceful.

During that period of time, many major events happened in the barren north.

To quell the riots, our soldiers sacrificed more than [-] people, and none of them were injured.The enemy killed and wounded more than [-] people and retreated from the border for [-] miles.

Among them, General Su who died was Su Yu's own father, the former Yujun commander, and the northern branch who was appointed by the former emperor to drive the barbarians, General Su Pei.

But who is that child?