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In a secluded mountain area west of Chang'an, a party of men and horses waited in silence. The guards standing watch beside the carriage, though clad in ordinary coarse hemp fabric, nevertheless faintly exuded a fierce and battle-hardened air.
The carriage was not the canopied, ornate vehicle favored by scholars and officials, but an ordinary box-shaped cart. Its body bore no decorative patterns, nothing special or distinctive about it at all. No matter what angle one viewed it from, it was a vehicle of the most extreme ordinariness.
The only feature that might possibly draw someone's attention was the door curtain, which seemed heavy and thick—so heavy that even the wind appeared barely able to stir it...
From behind that curtain, a violent fit of coughing suddenly erupted.
"Hey, Elder Brother, you're sick. You need treatment!" Jia Xu leaned lazily against one side of the carriage wall. "...Ah, I told you long ago to take better care of your health... Though I suppose it's a bit late to be saying that now..."
Although it was daytime, the light inside the carriage was rather dim, but one could still see well enough.
Li Ru was wrapped from head to toe in a brocade quilt, leaving only his head exposed—a head so gaunt and emaciated it scarcely seemed human anymore. His graying hair was disheveled and loose, not even bound up, left to scatter in every direction. Hearing Jia Xu's words, Li Ru raised an eyebrow but did not reply. He merely extended a hand, thin and withered as a piece of dried firewood, from within the quilt. He picked up a brocade handkerchief nearby and wiped away the specks of spittle that the violent coughing had sprayed.
"...Elder Brother, this is a dual deficiency of both yin and yang..." Jia Xu rattled on, muttering. "...Look how thin you are now. If I were to speak just a little louder, I bet I could blow you clean away with my breath..."
"...You're welcome to try blowing and see..." Li Ru replied in a flat, disinterested tone. His voice, however, was low and hoarse, as though the frequent, violent coughing had caused permanent damage to his vocal cords.
"Uh, well..." Jia Xu swiftly changed the subject. "...Regarding the matter of Dong Zhongying, I did try to help, you know. It's just that he still insisted on seeking his own death. There was nothing I could do about it..."
Li Ru was silent for a moment, then asked, "That ditty, and that Daoist priest—were they both your arrangements? How did you know that scoundrel Lü Bu was problematic?"
Jia Xu gave a sly chuckle and, bobbing his head with self-satisfaction, said, "I understand the workings of the heavens above and the patterns of the earth below. I know five hundred years of the past and five hundred years of the future... Ah, alright, I'll stop jesting. At the time, while I did suspect Lü Bu might be an issue, I was not yet completely certain..."
Li Ru raised an eyebrow, thought for a moment, and then said, "So, those two 'mouths' you wrote were purely a probe?"
"Not entirely... Besides representing the two mouths in the character 'Lü,' it could also be read as 'entering the palace without a cap'..." Jia Xu shook his head and sighed. "...It's just that Dong Zhongying seemed to have turned stupid... He could not even understand such an obvious hint..."
Li Ru broke into another fit of coughing.
Jia Xu pushed aside a corner of the door curtain and stuck his head out, yelling at the guards outside the carriage: "Where's the water?! Does it take this long to boil some water?!"
"...It's nothing, I'm not dying yet..." Li Ru patted his own chest and then said in a low voice, "...The Chancellor had indeed... become foolish, or rather, he... I kept this matter hidden all along, and I procured some medicines for the Chancellor to take, but his condition kept fluctuating, sometimes better, sometimes worse..."
Jia Xu whipped his head back inside and said, "...Elder Brother's meaning... someone was poisoning him?"
Li Ru frowned and said, "As early as our time in Luoyang, the Chancellor was already showing some slight signs. Later, he spent most of his time at Mei Fortress, and on top of that, prices in Chang'an were skyrocketing and official business was chaotic and disorderly... I was too busy to pay it proper attention for a time... I had originally thought that with the Chancellor residing at Mei Fortress, surrounded by layers upon layers of guards, there should have been no major mishap. I never imagined..."
A sudden anger flickered across Jia Xu's face. His eyes narrowed into thin slits, and a hint of cold, dangerous light gleamed within them. "In that case... Elder Brother, this condition of your body... could it also be..."
Li Ru was momentarily stunned. "But my symptoms are different from the Chancellor's..."
Jia Xu waved his hand dismissively. "Leave this matter to me, Elder Brother. You need not trouble yourself. I will investigate and handle it. In any case... heh heh... heh heh heh..."
Li Ru fell silent for a while, then let out a long sigh. Looking utterly exhausted, he leaned back against the carriage wall. In a slow voice, he said, "Fine. I'll leave it to you... In any event, I no longer wish to concern myself with any of it... But, do not let yourself sink in too deep..."
Jia Xu chuckled darkly and said, "Rest assured, Elder Brother. You know better than anyone that I am the man most afraid of death in this world. Should anything happen, I guarantee I'll be the one hiding farthest away..."
"Hm." That much, at least, was true. Li Ru allowed himself a faint smile, then closed his eyes in weariness.
Sickness strikes like a mountain collapsing—there was not an ounce of falsehood in that saying.
Before, there had been the driving force of working for Dong Zhuo's grand enterprise, a single breath of will sustaining him. Li Ru had been continuously burning himself up. But now, with Dong Zhuo fallen, that bone-deep exhaustion and toil, which seemed to soak out from the very seams between every bone in his body, had erupted in full force.
Even at this point, the Xiliang forces were not utterly defeated. There were still methods to salvage the situation; it would just be far more difficult. But Li Ru was too tired, too utterly spent. He no longer had any desire to be like a skeletal, worn-out old ox, straining to pull that Xiliang war chariot.
To Dong Zhuo, Li Ru owed a debt of gratitude. Having done what he had done until now, he considered that debt repaid. As for the other Xiliang officers, the vast majority of them, on the contrary, owed debts of gratitude to Li Ru...
Jia Xu looked at Li Ru, a flicker of emotion passing through his eyes. Suddenly, he said, "Elder Brother, do you still remember what we spoke of on that small hill outside Mianchi, before we entered the capital?"
Li Ru still kept his eyes closed. He was silent for a very, very long time before he finally spoke. "...Forget those words... After having lived through all this, some things... ah... Right now, all I wish for is to find a successor, so that the mantle of the Legalist school can be passed on... Younger Brother, where did you store away those classical texts and documents?"
Jia Xu replied, "Some are in Yuzhong, some in Xiangwu, and there are still more in Ji County."
Li Ru swept a glance over Jia Xu but said nothing more.
Jia Xu chuckled lightly and said, "Isn't this just perfect? This way, Elder Brother, you can spend some time in each of those three places. Who knows, you might just find a promising sprout worth nurturing."
Outside the carriage, a guard gently rapped on the wall, reporting that the water had finally boiled...
Jia Xu hurriedly took the vessel inside, poured a bowl, and handed it to Li Ru.
Li Ru took the bowl and blew on it lightly. To another person, the water might still have felt scalding hot, but Li Ru seemed not to feel it at all. He drank it down in large gulps. Only then did the faintest trace of color return to his face.
Jia Xu averted his gaze, unable to bear the sight.
Li Ru set down the bowl and smiled. "Alright, you and I must eventually part. Let this be where we say goodbye... Whenever you've had your fill of playing these dangerous games, come home... I'll have someone cook beef for you again, as much as you can eat..."
Jia Xu burst into a laugh. "Good! It is a promise then!" After speaking, he and Li Ru exchanged a long, steady look. Then, with a turn of his head, Jia Xu descended from the carriage.
The party of men and horses slowly started moving westward. Suddenly, from within the carriage, a ballad drifted out:
"How lush and thick the sweet pear tree,
Do not clip it, do not hew it,
For under it Lord Zhao once lodged.
How lush and thick the sweet pear tree,
Do not clip it, do not break it,
For under it Lord Zhao once rested..."
But halfway through the song, it was interrupted by a fit of coughing...
Jia Xu let out a sigh and continued the verse:
"How lush and thick the sweet pear tree,
Do not clip it, do not bend it,
For under it Lord Zhao once sojourned..."
Amidst the sound of the song, the men and horses gradually drew further and further away, until they finally vanished from sight.
Jia Xu remained standing by the roadside, his eyes narrowed into slits. After a long, long while, he spoke to himself in a voice so low it was barely a whisper: "I do not give a damn whether it was Lord Zhao or Jiang Wang who planted the tree. In any case, if it offends my sight, I will still chop it down... Elder Brother, you may be able to forget... but I have no intention of doing so... Heh heh heh. In any event, Elder Brother, you have inherited the mantle of the Legalist school, while I, on the other hand... heh heh heh. It is true, when it comes to building a state and a family, I am no match for you. But... heh heh heh, you may not necessarily be my match..."