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VOLUME 9 – Chapter 13

  "If you′re willing to hand over the Three Lives Awakening Dream Book, I may spare you and not destroy your original form." San Jie′s expression changed as he drew a sharp dagger from beneath his robes. "But if you remain stubborn..."

  "Don′t even think about it." Jiu Jue didn′t even deign to look at him.

  The world began to wobble, and the sky and earth seemed to have swapped pces.

  Jiu Jue finally couldn′t hold on any longer, colpsing to the ground. His body became increasingly insubstantial, with countless multicolored light particles scattering from within him. The st image he saw was of the sunset, beside the osmanthus tree, with the fragrance of wine in the air. Someone was pying the guqin, others were dancing... A bronze wine vessel y gently on the ground, surrounded by a soft, ke-blue glow, ancient and elegant, quietly resting on the earth.

  "Damned!" San Jie roared in fury, raising the short dagger to strike at the bronze wine vessel.

  "Stop!" A youthful voice suddenly rang out from behind him...

  In the most secret underground pace of the Daming Pace, Lan Ting made a deal with Empress Wu.

  He would give her the answer she most desired, on the condition that the ceremonial wine vessel be perfectly intact and submerged beneath the lotus pond in Cuiwei Mountain, not to be touched for thirty years. Above all, the monk of the Three Precepts must not set foot on Cuiwei Mountain.

  Empress Wu agreed. The condition was as easy as lifting a finger.

  "In truth, Your Majesty, you already have the answer to your question." These were Lan Ting′s final words to her.

  The st burning of the "Awakened Dreams of Three Lives" book" cast a particurly meditative glow, as though it were a solemn farewell.

  Amidst the ashes on the ground, a few lines appeared:

  "The bright moon hangs in the sky, ruling over all beneath it.From emptiness it came, and to emptiness it shall return."

  A sudden dark wind swept in from nowhere, scattering the ashes into oblivion. On the ground, only a scroll of The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection remained.

  Empress Wu let out a long sigh, as if she had held her breath for a lifetime.

  The next day, two pinclothes guards, carrying an ornate brocade box, made their way to the lotus pond atop Cuiwei Mountain...

  In the first year of the Tiaolu era, Pei Xingjian led a mighty Tang army to suppress the rebellion of the twenty-four chieftains of the Eastern Turks, achieving a swift victory.

  However, the Tang soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and many officers and soldiers who fell in battle were wrapped in horsehide for burial, their souls lingering beyond the frontier. Among the personal belongings and letters of the deceased transported back to Chang′an, one item stood out—a silver jug engraved with a dancing horse holding a cup.

  Inside the jug, however, was not wine but a painting.

  Surviving soldiers recounted that the owner of the jug was reportedly from a prominent family. He had volunteered to go beyond the frontier to fight the enemy and often fought shoulder to shoulder with a young general cd in white armor, dispying unparalleled bravery. Yet, during a Turkic ambush, their unit fell into a trap. The two warriors fought valiantly, sying dozens of enemy commanders, but they were ultimately outnumbered and the entire unit was annihited.

  In an act of barbaric cruelty, the enemy set fire to the fallen Tang soldiers' corpses.

  The inferno reportedly burned for three days and nights, leaving behind a scene of utter devastation. This atrocity, however, ignited the Tang army's resolve, transforming grief and rage into extraordinary courage. Within the shortest time, they crushed the rebellious Turkic forces.

  In the first year of the Zai Chu era, Empress Wu ascended the throne, prociming herself the Sacred and Divine Emperor, and changed the dynasty's name to Zhou.

  The world of the Li Tang dynasty ultimately fell into the hands of the Wu cn.

  In the first year of the Shenlong era, in the Eastern Capital of Luoyang, within the Shangyang Pace.

  She truly felt old. The white strands in the bronze mirror seemed ready to spill out endlessly. Despite the bzing warmth of the brazier, it could not chase away the persistent chill that clung to her.

  She dismissed all the pace maids and eunuchs, leaving herself alone in the vast hall with the man in blue who stood before her.

  "So, you are that ceremonial wine vessel." She was not at all surprised by the identity of her visitor; instead, memories long buried resurfaced. The old tend to dwell on the past.

  "Your hair is beautiful. Heaven gave it the most exquisite color," she said with a faint smile, the wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes etched deep, as if carved there.

  "I have come to thank you," the man said slowly. "Regardless of what you did back then, you kept your word. Because of you, I had decades of peace, absorbing the essence of heaven and earth beneath the lotus pond, and was able to regain my human form." He paused, then asked, "And where is the monk of the Three Precepts?"

  She thought for a long time before finally saying, "Him? Not long after, he seemed to go mad. Finding him troublesome, I had his head cut off."

  That made sense. The Corruption Spirit Grass had harmed him deeply, but the yaokainic herb had a peculiar nature: it would backfire on the poisoner as well. While it might not completely strip the caster of their power, madness was inevitable. To harm others is to harm oneself—this cliché truth remains valid in all times.

  "If you hadn't come, I would have forgotten many things," she said, her body slightly hunched. Leaning on a dragon-headed cane, she walked to the corridor outside the hall and gazed at the city beneath, shrouded in the depths of night. Her eyes were clouded and vacant.

  He stood behind her and asked, “Even now, you remain at the highest pce. But I wonder, looking down from here, What do you see?”

  She was silent for a long time before finally saying, "Emptiness."

  He smiled faintly and said, "I should take my leave. Farewell, forever."

  The next day, Emperor Wu of Zhou, Wu Zetian, passed away in the Shangyang Pace at the age of 82.

  It was rumored that before her death, the Empress issued a secret decree. Its contents were never disclosed. However, the stone stele that was supposed to stand outside the Qianling Mausoleum, inscribed with Wu Zetian's lifetime achievements, was repced with a bnk, wordless stele.

  Some say that when the Empress was buried, beneath her head was pced a genuine copy of The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection.

  He went to the Su residence, though now it was nothing more than a ruined mansion.

  In the backyard of the estate stood a small tomb, a cenotaph. Time had weathered it so severely that the characters on the stone tablet before it were dirty and illegible.

  From his sleeve, he produced three jugs of wine and pced them one by one in front of the tomb.

  The first jug was offered to a book. It was a yaokai, but it had a name—Lan Ting.

  The second jug was offered to a woman named Li Zhun. She was of noble birth, a heroine who rivaled any man.

  The third jug was offered to a man named Su Qiuchi. "Little Overlord of Chang′an," true to his reputation.

  Their names appeared in no historical records. Yet they were more deserving of remembrance than anyone. For they were a group of people who followed the truest desires of their hearts and poured out their lives with sincerity.

  He lightly swept his sleeve across the tomb′s stone tablet, and two clean, elegant lines repced the prior chaos and grime:

  “A thousand miles following the fragrance, smiling at the shadow in the wine.”

  “This jug of wine, I still must drink with you all,” he said.

  The man raised the wine jug in his hand and drained it in one go.

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