Spring had not yet fully greened the vast lands of Yongzhou and Liangzhou, but its gentle breeze was already brushing against Jian Yong's face.
He rode his horse easy, his waist swaying loose and steady with every stride, totally unbothered as he scribbled notes and sketched diagrams in the small notebook balanced in his hands.
If nothing else came out of being stationed in this sprawling stretch of land, at least his horsemanship had been improving by leaps and bounds ever since he arrived.
Just as he had predicted, the news of Chang'an's recapture had traveled fast from the frontlines. It had swept across the whole Yongzhou-Liangzhou region, passing straight through Shanggui, the key city where he was currently garrisoned, and spreading far beyond.
Naturally, countless refugees who had originally come from the Three Qin region could not wait to set out on the road home.
These people had been forced to abandon their hometowns just to stay alive when war tore everything apart. They did not need any grand speeches or official orders to move. The moment word spread that another member of the Liu clan had brought peace back to Three Qin, going home felt like the most obvious choice in the world.
To these common folk who spent their days working the yellow earth, the grand political struggles between warlords mattered far less than whether they could return home and work their own fields again.
Since Liu Huangsu has brought peace to Three Qin, surely this chaotic era is coming to an end, is it not?
Since it was still early spring, the timing could not have been better for heading back. If they moved fast enough, they might even make it in time to till their old fields and plant a crop of wheat for the season.
More than a year had passed since they left, so their homes would surely need repairs and the village irrigation ditches would be choked with weeds and silt.
There was no shortage of things to do once they arrived.
That was why every commoner passing through Shanggui walked with quick, purposeful steps, eager to get home and start rebuilding.
Under these circumstances, Jian Yong did not hesitate. He temporarily handed the defense of Shanggui over to Pang De, then swung himself onto his horse and set out for Chang'an without delay.
---
The early spring scenery was absolutely magnificent.
As he rode out through the Longyou region, he carefully recorded everything he saw in his notebook.
Whenever he thought of the bleak, desolate descriptions of Yongzhou and Liangzhou written in the Lightscreen, he felt every blade of grass and every tree here deserved to be set down in writing.
He wanted future generations to know this land was never some barren wasteland. It was a place of lush grass and abundant water.
Still, the sights stirred a quiet ache in his chest.
A year ago, through wind and snow I came to Yongzhou and Liangzhou,
Sworn to help my Lord bring peace to Guanzhong.
Now in early spring I ride forth from Longyou,
And Three Qin stands restored, just as it once was.
Lost in those lines, a sudden question popped into his head. Where exactly was Ma Mengqi?
Battle reports from the frontlines had been flowing steadily into Shanggui, so he knew exactly how his Lord had taken Three Qin.
Ma Chao had crushed Zhang He at Jieting, coordinated with Zhao Yun to seize Chencang, and then chased down Zhang He's retreating troops to block any chance of them reinforcing Guanzhong.
Every step of that campaign was written clearly in the dispatches. Yet one thing stood out. Why was there no mention of Ma Chao when Chang'an finally fell?
The question nagged at him, but he pushed it aside for the moment. He was in no great rush to reach the city. This journey might as well double as a leisurely spring ride. Once he arrived at the capital, he would surely find out where Ma Chao had gotten to.
---
Heading west from Shanggui brought him to Linwei. As he rode past, he spotted a brand new graveyard just north of the county seat. These were surely the final resting places of the brave men who had given their lives in the recent fighting. But what really caught his eye was a small shrine standing right by the road at the front of the graves.
The plaque above the entrance read Jing'an, which meant Tranquil Peace.
A couplet was carved into the doorframes and one look at the flowing brush strokes told him this was Zhuge Liang's own handiwork. The left line honored the undying courage of those who had fallen. The right line prayed their souls would know eternal peace and never lack for offerings.
Inside the shrine everything was kept simple and clean.
A neat altar, a few incense sticks sending up thin wispy trails of smoke, and a single plain spirit tablet with no name carved upon it.
The Jing'an Shrine stood right beside the road, so all kinds of travelers stopped here to rest. He even saw ordinary people leaving whatever small offerings they could spare. A fresh flatbread, a handful of grain, or a bundle of clean wild roots good for eating.
Nothing fancy, just the very best they could afford to give.
He understood perfectly what this place really stood for in the larger picture.
In this era, shrines and temples followed strict rites according to one's station. The Son of Heaven had the Imperial Ancestral Temple. Feudal lords had their state altars. Great clans had their ancestral halls. But the common people, the black-headed masses who worked the fields and walked the roads, had no right to raise shrines of their own.
All they could do was pour a humble libation by the roadside and let the wind carry their words to the spirits.
Right now, the spirit tablet inside the Jing'an Shrine carried no name, most likely left blank because the whole structure had gone up in a hurry.
But he knew that would change soon enough.
Once Chang'an stood fully secure and settled, proper officials would come to finish the work. They would cross-check every name against the service records, carve each fallen soldier's title into the stone, and set up regular sacrifices every spring and autumn.
These men would be honored forever as heroes of the Han dynasty.
He could already picture how this decision would set the high ministers and powerful nobles roaring with anger.
But who cared...? He chuckled softly.
He had seen the Lightscreen. He knew how the incense would burn day and night at the future Zhuge Wuhou Temple, and he remembered the strange buildings called museums that would one day preserve every detail of their history. Through every era, one thing stayed true.
Their faction always put the common people first.
No people means no state. No soldiers means no army. This was a truth Liu Bei and his advisors understood better than anyone.
So what if the noble families threw fits over this shrine breaking old rites?
Liu Bei had never relied on their help to conquer Three Qin in the first place.
Feeling much lighter in spirit, he bowed in respect before the shrine, offered his own prayers, and carefully sketched the structure's design into his notebook.
As he turned to ride away, he caught the words of two old men talking nearby.
"Old Zhang. You going in, or are you just going to stand here until moss grows on your boots?"
Old Zhang did not move. His walking stick was planted firm in the dirt, both hands stacked on the pommel, chin resting on his knuckles. He stared at the shrine gate like it owed him something.
"My boy is in there somewhere," he said. "Died last year. At the river crossing. You remember that, right?"
"I remember."
"Drafted. Third levy. They hauled him off in the autumn, and I never laid eyes on him again." Old Zhang's jaw tightened. A muscle jumped under his skin. "Served in Cao Cao's army. Wore his colors. Fought under his banner." He said it like pressing a wound that never seemed to stop hurting. "So tell me straight, Old Feng. Am I supposed to walk into a shrine Liu Huangshu built, on Liu Huangshu's land, under Liu Huangshu's flag, and burn incense for a boy who died fighting for the other side?"
He looked into the horizon, empty, not knowing what he saw. Maybe just the sky.
"I am afraid. People will say I am paying respect to the enemy. They will say my heart still leans north. Then what happens? They seize the little plot I have got. They take the roof over my head. I am seventy-three years old, Old Feng. I cannot start all over again at my age."
Old Feng did not answer right away. He fumbled with the twine on his bundle of aromatic wood chips, undoing it and retying it again, just doing useless things hands do when the mind is busy searching for words.
After a moment, he said, "I walked the back fields about an hour ago. The ground right behind this shrine. That is where they laid all the fallen."
Old Zhang turned his head slow and careful, like he was afraid of what he might see.
Old Feng kept his tone steady and plain, just like talking about the weather or the price of grain. "Row after row of them. Stone markers set for every man. Some have names carved in, some do not. And yes, plenty of these men once fought for Cao Cao. I saw the unit marks on the stones. I saw the tally numbers chipped into the rock. They are all resting there, Old Zhang. Every last one. Liu Huangshu did not sort the dead by whose banner they followed. He just gave them all a proper grave. Gave every man a stone to mark his name. And they say he lit the first offering of incense powder himself."
He jabbed the bundle toward the shrine entrance. "You think Liu Huangshu cares if your boy once held a Cao spear? Look around. He has got a whole field full of Cao's soldiers, and he still went and built this shrine to honor them all. He is not keeping score, Old Zhang. He is not holding a grudge against a twenty-year-old boy who got dragged from his home, handed a weapon, and ordered to march."
Old Zhang's grip on his walking stick tightened.
"You really saw those markers," he said. Not quite a question. Just testing the truth of it, making sure it was not some trick.
"I saw them. Read a few too. One said, Infantry, Northern Levy, Second Cohort. That is the unit your boy was assigned to. I cannot tell you exactly which stone covers him. But he is back there all the same. Resting in the ground. With a name to remember him by."
A long breath left Old Zhang's chest. Something deeper. Something that had been lodged behind his heart for three hundred and sixty-five days, and now finally had a way out.
"He was nineteen," Old Zhang said. His voice had changed. The flatness was gone, replaced by something raw and thin, stretched tight like a thread about to snap. "They took him when the leaves were turning. He did not want to go. Begged to stay until the harvest was done. I told him to go, said he would be back before the first frost to help me bring in the crops." He let out a laugh that sounded like dry straw snapping. "I always remember. Before the first frost."
Old Feng did not speak. He stepped closer until their shoulders brushed. Two old men standing side by side, staring at the wooden gate of the shrine.
"Go burn your offering, Old Zhang."
"I do not have anything with me."
Old Feng held out his bundle of wood chips. "Take a handful. I have got plenty. My wife packed enough for the whole damn village."
Old Zhang reached out and took a small handful of the fragrant chips. He held them like they were made of fragile glass.
"And Old Zhang."
"What is it."
"His spirit has gone without proper offerings for a whole year. A son deserves his father's prayers. Go in. Say what you need to say. Light the offering. Bow your head. Let him know you came." Old Feng's throat tightened.
He coughed roughly and turned his face away, staring at the elm tree, then at his foot, anywhere but at the other man's face. "He was your boy. Cao Cao's army, Liu Huangshu's army, does not matter. He was your boy. The rites belong to you, not to any lord. Not Cao Cao. Not Liu Bei. Not any damn lord sitting on any damn throne."
Old Zhang nodded once, short and sharp. He shuffled forward. Two steps. Three steps. Then he stopped and looked back.
"Old Feng."
"What now."
"Thank you for walking the fields to check."
Old Feng swatted the air like brushing away a fly. "I needed the exercise anyway. My knees get stiff if I stand around too long. Go on now. Get moving."
Old Zhang turned and made his way toward the shrine gate. His steps were slow and unsteady, the tip of his stick tapping a crooked rhythm on the stone path. Tap. Tap. Tap. He did not look back even once.
He had only gone a few paces past the entrance when the sound came. It was not loud. Just a small broken sound, the kind a man makes when he has held his breath and held his tears for so long that his body finally gives way. A choked sob tore loose and seemed to crush him where he stood. He sank to his knees right there on the path, the handful of wood chips clutched tight in his fist, and his whole frame shook with the force of everything he had held inside for a year.
No words. No prayers. Just the weeping. Just an old man in a patched robe kneeling in the dirt, making up for three hundred and sixty-five days of grief he had never been allowed to show.
Old Feng stayed by the elm tree. He watched the bowed back for a long time. Then he turned and walked away slow and deliberate, giving the man all the room he needed.
"Stupid old fool," he muttered to himself, his own voice thick and heavy.
Jian Yong let out a deep, heavy breath that seemed to carry the weight of everything he had just seen and heard.
---
Leaving the river valley behind, he arrived at Chencang. One look at its modest walls and he understood perfectly why Zhao Yun and Ma Chao had taken the city so easily. Once the dry season ended, moving large armies through this route became nearly impossible, so the defenders had never bothered to build towering fortifications here.
Out of care for weary travelers on the road, the local garrison commander had ordered his men to set up a row of simple tea stalls where anyone could stop and rest. Jian Yong made sure to write this detail down in his notebook as well.
He chose not to disturb the garrison and rode straight past Chencang, continuing eastward. Before long, the vast fertile stretch of the eight-hundred-li Qinchuan plains rolled wide before him. After years spent navigating the steep mountains of Ba-Shu and the rugged hills of Yongzhou and Liangzhou, this open flat scenery felt incredibly gentle on the heart.
What surprised him most was running into a familiar face the moment he reached Mei County.
"Young Master?"
Jian Yong pulled on his reins. Turned in the saddle. Looked around. The road was dusty. The afternoon sun was hot. A few farmers were working the fields on either side, bent over their rows, not looking up. Nobody seemed to be talking to him.
"Young Master!"
Louder this time. Closer. Coming from the left. He turned his horse and found an old farmer standing at the edge of a millet field with a hoe still in his hand, sun-darkened and broad-shouldered, grinning from ear to ear like he had just spotted a long-lost nephew.
Jian Yong stared. He had spent years traveling far and wide. His memory for faces was sharp. But this man, in this field, in this particular quality of afternoon light, was not immediately registering.
"Do I know you, old brother?" Jian Yong asked.
The farmer's grin faltered. Just slightly. Then he leaned on his hoe and squinted up at him with an expression of theatrical offense.
"You do not remember me? The Baoxie plank road? The rain? The baby screaming for three hours straight? You gave my wife your last dried meat ration and told my crying son that if he stopped, you would show him a horse?"
Jian Yong blinked.
The Baoxie plank road came rushing back to him. A year ago, after the chaos at Tong Pass, when Cao Cao, Han Sui, and Ma Chao were tearing the region apart like dogs fighting over a bone, he had passed a family fleeing south toward Hanzhong. A thin, frightened old man, a wife clutching a wailing infant, two daughters with hollow eyes. He had only stopped because the baby's screaming was giving him a headache, and he had handed over a strip of dried meat because it was the fastest way to make the noise stop.
"Old brother?" Jian Yong said slowly.
The farmer's grin came back. "You remember, right!"
"I remember the screaming baby," Jian Yong admitted. "I remember thinking if he kept it up for another hour, I would throw myself off the plank road."
The farmer laughed, a big, belly-deep sound. "He has not stopped screaming since. But now he screams at frogs instead of strangers. Good progress."
Jian Yong laughed too as he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground, his knees protesting the way they always did now after a year of riding.
He walked closer and looked the farmer over properly. A year ago, the man had been thin and ragged, with the eyes of someone who expected the worst from every stranger and every tomorrow. Now he was broad and solid, his arms thick from work, his robe clean and neatly patched in two places. His eyes were bright, the eyes of a man who had decided at some point that tomorrow was probably going to be fine.
Behind him, the family was gathering. The baby, the screaming baby, was now a sturdy toddler with dirt on his cheeks and a wooden stick in his hand. He stared up at Jian Yong with wide, curious eyes.
"Are you a general?" the boy asked.
"No," Jian Yong said.
"Then why do so many people follow you?"
Jian Yong glanced back at his attendants. Six men on horses, carrying bags, looking tired and dusty.
"That is a very good question," Jian Yong said. "I have been wondering the same thing all year."
The boy considered this. Seemed satisfied. Went back to hitting a rock with his stick.
The two daughters stood behind their mother. A year ago, they had been thin and silent, their faces carrying the kind of exhaustion that came from learning war was something that happened to them, not around them. Now the elder daughter was taller and fuller in the face, her hands rough with calluses from the loom. She was saying something to the younger daughter, who was laughing, actually laughing, a small surprised sound like she had forgotten how and was only now remembering.
Beside the younger daughter stood a sturdy, honest-looking young man. He was speaking to her, not at her, listening and nodding while she talked, his hand resting near her elbow, close enough to be protective but far enough to be respectful.
Jian Yong took it all in at a glance. The healthy children. The rough hands. The laughter. The field behind them, neat and green, with proper drainage channels cut into the earth.
He turned back to the farmer. Smiled.
"Have you come back to spread the teachings of the Five Pecks of Rice?"
The farmer put on a show of being deeply offended. Clutched his hoe to his chest like a shield. "You mistake me entirely, Young Master! I am a simple man who tills the earth with his own hands. Why would I ever need to join such a sect?"
"You sound very different from the man I met last year. That man said he would join any cult that promised a full bowl of rice."
The farmer had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. Then he recovered. "A man with an empty stomach says foolish things. A man with a full stomach is naturally more respectable."
"And your stomach is full?"
"Full enough to complain about the taste."
Jian Yong laughed. "Then I suppose I must stay the night and hear all your complaints."
The farmer beamed. "You are welcome at my table, Young Master. Such as it is."
The farmer's home was small, just four rooms around a courtyard with a well, a lean-to for the tools, and a pen holding two goats that looked better fed than most soldiers Jian Yong had met that year.
They sat in the courtyard as the sun went down. The farmer's wife brought out millet porridge, roasted vegetables, and a small jar of local wine. Nothing fancy, but it was hot and enough, and the farmer poured Jian Yong's cup with the careful pride of a man serving the best he had.
The children ate quickly and ran off to chase fireflies. The elder daughter stayed to refill cups. The younger daughter and her young man sat at the edge of the courtyard, speaking in low voices as he told her something about a water channel and she corrected him without argument.
Jian Yong watched this and filed it away.
"So," he said, turning back to the farmer. "You reached Hanzhong. And what happened then?"
The farmer sipped his wine, set the cup down, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I had barely set foot in the city when the Celestial Master was routed by Liu Huangshu's troops. Fled north. Gone. Just like that." He snapped his fingers. "I thought, there it is. Another war. Another army swallowing the place whole."
"And?"
"And nothing happened." The farmer blinked, looking confused by the memory. "The soldiers came. They did not burn anything. They did not take anything. They posted notices, handed out land plots, showed us where the water channels were. Then they left."
Jian Yong raised an eyebrow. "Just like that."
"Just like that. Within a week, officials were walking the fields. Not collecting taxes. Walking the fields, looking at the soil, telling us the drainage was wrong, telling us we were planting too close together, telling us to rotate the millet with beans every other season."
"And you listened, old brother?"
The farmer snorted. "Young Master, the old method was to throw everything into the field and pray. The officials said, throw the right things into the field and pray more intelligently. I figured praying intelligently could not possibly be worse."
Jian Yong smiled into his cup.
"The composting," the farmer continued, warming to the subject as he pointed at a heap near the back wall. "They showed us how to layer it. Manure, ash, rotting stalks. Let it cook for a month. Spread it before planting. The yield doubled. Doubled, Young Master. I have been farming for forty years and I never saw a yield like that."
"And the weaving?"
The farmer's face softened as he glanced at his elder daughter, who was listening from the doorway. "The officials set up a workshop and taught the women the loom. My eldest girl can weave a bolt of plain cloth in three days now. Three days. And the merchants from Chengdu come to buy it. She earns her own coin." He said this with a pride so naked it was almost embarrassing. "Her own coin. She keeps it in a box under her bed and counts it every night."
"And the younger one?"
The farmer glanced at the young man at the edge of the courtyard. His expression shifted from protective to assessing, then slowly to accepting. "He works the eastern field. Good hands. Steady. Does not drink. Does not gamble. Listens when she talks." He paused. "I suppose he will do."
Jian Yong nodded. "You have been busy, old brother."
The farmer waved his hand. "A man does what needs doing when the war stops eating his time."
They sat in the growing dark as the fireflies came out and the children's laughter echoed from somewhere beyond the wall. The goats bleated once, lazily. The wine was cheap and slightly sour and absolutely perfect.
Then Jian Yong asked the question that had been sitting in his chest since he saw the farmer in the field.
"Then why leave such a good place to come back here?"
The farmer looked at him the way you look at someone who has asked a question with an obvious answer.
"Liu Huangshu has brought peace to Three Qin," the farmer said. Simply. Like he was stating the weather. "The days of war are done. Why would we not come home?"
Jian Yong had no answer. The old man was right. Last year they had fled from war. Now the war was over. So they came home. It was that simple.
"I see," he finally managed, his voice soft.
The farmer poured him more wine. Jian Yong drank.
After that, they did not talk about politics. They talked about goats, about rain, about whether the millet would be ready before the autumn frost, and about the baby's new habit of putting frogs in his mother's cooking pot.
The oil lamp burned low. The fireflies thinned out. The children were asleep. The daughters had gone inside. The young man had walked home with a promise to come back tomorrow.
Jian Yong sat in the dark of a stranger's courtyard, drinking sour wine and listening to the goats breathe. And he felt something he had not felt in a very long time.
Peace.
The next morning, the sun was barely up. The farmer's wife had packed Jian Yong a bundle of dried meat and two flatbreads for the road. The boy waved a stick at him. The elder daughter bowed. The younger daughter smiled.
The farmer walked him to his horse and held the reins while he mounted. Then, just before Jian Yong could turn the horse east, the old man pulled him aside and leaned in close.
"Young Master," the farmer whispered. His eyes were sharp. Knowing. "You seem to have some learning. And yet here you are, wandering the roads like a merchant with no shop."
Jian Yong blinked. "I am on official business."
"Then go be official somewhere useful. Stop riding around looking at fields. Liu Huangshu needs men who can read. Go serve him properly. Sit at a desk. Sign papers. Do something with that soft face of yours before it gets any more weathered."
Jian Yong stared at him.
The farmer grinned. Patted the horse's neck. Stepped back.
"Go on, Young Master. The road is long and your face is getting dark."
---
Past Mei County, Chang'an was very close.
Seeing the great city again, the biggest change Jian Yong noticed was that it seemed remarkably full of life. As he led his horse through the city gates, he instinctively checked the sides of the streets. There were no frozen corpses to be found.
Because he was distracted looking around, he was bumped by a pair of playful teenagers.
"Hu Du, wait for me! The notice says registration lasts until May. We can definitely make it!" the girl cried.
"It is better to register early so we can rest easy," the boy replied. "Old Li went to buy a courtyard house, and who knows if that is going smoothly. After we register, we can go ask your father if they need help."
Realizing they had bumped into someone, the teenagers hurriedly apologized. Jian Yong waved his hand to show it was fine.
Watching the youthful pair jog away, Jian Yong stroked his beard, suddenly feeling a bit melancholic about his advancing age. He recalled a lament from scholars in the Lightscreen:
"Better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos."
Shaking his head with an amused smile, he continued forward. Whether it was Hanzhong or Chengdu, neither could truly compare to the grandeur of Chang'an.
Though he did not immediately know where to find Liu Bei, Jian Yong casually strolled through the streets with his horse in tow. Following the flow of the bustling crowd, he was eventually led to the most heavily populated area in the city.
The grand architecture before him had clearly undergone recent, simple renovations, making it easy for him to recognize.
"The Imperial Academy?"
Jian Yong then looked toward the two directions where the crowds were thickest. Using his height advantage, he easily spotted two wooden placards hanging at the front:
"Agricultural Studies Registration Point."
"Craftsmanship and Engineering Registration Point."