Chapter 303: Destruction And Rebirth
Yun Ce originally took over a year to understand the Ode to the Luo River Goddess. Later, every additional reading brought new sensations.
Wu Tong is also considered a hero among people. After listening to Yun Ce recite the Ode to the Luo River Goddess once, he could stammer it out. After the horse carriage traveled ten li, he could already recite the Ode to the Luo River Goddess backwards fluently.
However, he was still a great distance from truly understanding the Ode to the Luo River Goddess.
Who knows if Cao Zhi was having a spring dream when he wrote the Ode to the Luo River Goddess back then. Anyway, after he wrote it, a hundred people could derive a hundred cognitions from reading it.
On the rest of the road, Wu Tong did not mention the Han Fu from Great Han, nor did he continue saying in front of Yun Ce that Liang Zhizi’s Han Fu was the best in the world.
Instead, he kept savoring the aesthetic charm in the Ode to the Luo River Goddess.
Originally, Yun Ce had also prepared the Tengwang Ge Xu as parallel prose, in case Wu Tong was unconvinced. Now it seemed there was no need. Since he could not even pass the Ode to the Luo River Goddess, there was no need to invoke the Tang Dynasty sage.
To be honest, for a Great Han that relies on gathering and animal husbandry for survival, if they produced a folk tune like “The sky is vast, the wilderness is boundless, the wind blows the grass low and reveals cattle and sheep,” Yun Ce would believe it. As for grand articles like a grand bell and chime, honestly, they do not belong to the Great Han people of this world.
Therefore, for a long time, Yun Ce had little interest in Great Han culture except for history.
With little recognition for Great Han culture, he had little sense of integration with Great Han, and thus little closeness to the people of Great Han.
1 Such sentiments very much align with the thoughts of Great Han nobles. They feel they are not the same species as the poor people, unable to empathize with them, and naturally do not care much about the life and death of the poor.
1 Lei Ming ultimately established a tribe of less than five thousand people.
1 With a tribe, there naturally came power and class. Although Yun Ce felt he did not need others to serve him, at some point, eight maids always stood around the horse carriage. They did not ride in the carriage but walked alongside it.
1 “If you refuse, these five thousand people will feel very uneasy.”
1 Wu Tong copied the Ode to the Luo River Goddess onto a long scroll, holding it constantly. Only occasionally would he withdraw his mind from the Ode to the Luo River Goddess to casually give Yun Ce some advice.
1 “Do you mean I can sleep with them?”
1 Hearing Yun Ce speak coarsely, Wu Tong, worried about polluting the Ode to the Luo River Goddess, rolled up the scroll and said, “If you do that, they will be even more loyal to you.”
1 “There is no such necessity.”
1 After Yun Ce spoke, he instructed Lei Ming to find two horse carriages for these eight women to follow his own horse carriage.
1 Once the team passed Qingshui River, they had entered the territory of the Eastern Vassals. Because of the five-thousand-person tribe, Cao Kun naturally knew Yun Ce had arrived.
2 It had only been three months, but Cao Kun had clearly aged a lot. Yun Ce calculated in his heart and felt this guy had aged ten years in these three months.
2 Actually, his facial features were still the same, with little change. What had aged mainly were his eyes and the mature aura emanating from this young body.
2 Cao Kun did not want to ride a horse or sit in a carriage, so Yun Ce had no choice but to walk with him. Under the isolation of Cao Kun’s personal guards, there was no one within one hundred meters in front or behind, and not even a flying bird could be seen on either side.
2 “My father is dead. I killed him.”
2 Cao Kun opened his mouth with earth-shattering news.
2 Yun Ce sighed and said, “My cheap father wanted to kill my cheap grandfather but failed. Did you know about this?”
2 Cao Kun was stunned for a moment and said, “I have heard a little.”
2 “So, you are better than my cheap father. What more could you be dissatisfied with?”
2 Cao Kun frowned and said, “Can this be compared like that?”
2 Yun Ce said, “If not like this, how else? If my cheap father dies, I become the Heir of the King of Changsha. Your father died; have you become the Inspector of Qiu He Prefecture?”
3 Cao Kun nodded and said, “Who else but me?”
3 Yun Ce then laughed loudly: “Does it feel much better now? Now you can tell the reason why you had to kill your father.”
3 Cao Kun was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed heartily and patted Yun Ce’s shoulder: “Suddenly I feel there is no need at all. A great man acts; why explain to others.”
3 Yun Ce sighed and said, “I am glad to see it happen. Quickly organize the troops from your five prefectures. This time in Chang’an, we severely wounded the Gui Fang First Priest Da Xuebeng. I also sneak-attacked him with a radioactive source. Now, we do not know if this old guy is dead. When he escaped, he said he would lead the Gui Fang army south.”
3 Cao Kun carefully looked around, then lowered his voice: “I also killed over six hundred Cao Clan relatives.”
3 Yun Ce drew in a sharp breath: “Why are you still dwelling on such a small matter? Did you not hear me say the Gui Fang people are coming south?”
3 Cao Kun said puzzledly, “You think killing over six hundred Cao Clan relatives is a small matter?”
3 Yun Ce said equally puzzledly, “To eliminate external threats, one must first stabilize the interior. What is inappropriate about that? You killed a group of people; are the remaining ones completely loyal to you now?”
3 Cao Kun said, “Even those who wavered were killed by me.”
3 Yun Ce gave a thumbs up: “Indeed a man who does great things.”
4 Cao Kun said somewhat awkwardly, “You really do not mind what I did?”
4 “Rest assured, if my father obstructed my path, I would kill him too. Do not dwell on such small matters. Quickly put all your strength into the coming Gui Fang army.”
4 “Would you really kill your father?”
4 “How could that be? That is my real father!”
4 Cao Kun stared at Yun Ce for a long time before saying, “True, only I could do something like killing my own father. Tell me, what did you do to Da Xuebeng?”
4 Yun Ce sighed and said, “The old divine official, me, plus half of Panxing Tower’s strongest combat power, left Da Xuebeng with only one leg, one arm, and one eye. Oh, and unknown damage from the radioactive source.”
4 Cao Kun thought for a moment and said, “Three months. Even if three months, we still have three months.”
4 Yun Ce said, “It should be more than three months. We have had time to prepare, but Da Xuebeng’s Tiger Guards plan has become even more perfect. The longer it takes, the more their high-level combat power will multiply.”
4 Cao Kun said, “I heard you have something that even commoners can use to fight warriors.”
4 Yun Ce sighed, knowing this thing could not be hidden. Cao Kun had just killed his father and over six hundred clan brothers, and now suddenly mentioned the bomb, which was equivalent to clearly telling Yun Ce that when he went mad, he was not human. Any good things should be shared, or else he was a ruthless man who spared not even his own father…
5 This was the reason Cao Kun told Yun Ce right upon meeting that he had killed his father and six hundred clan brothers.
5 Yun Ce took out two sheets of paper from his bosom and handed them to Cao Kun: one was the gunpowder formula, the other the bomb manufacturing blueprint.
5 After Cao Kun took them and examined them carefully, he said to Yun Ce, “Zheng Tianshou has not returned to this day.”
5 Yun Ce said, “He may have already fallen.”
5 Cao Kun shook his head: “No, Zheng Tianshou’s name has not disappeared from the Dragon God Hall in Qiu He Prefecture.”
5 Yun Ce shook his head: “The last time I saw Zheng Tianshou was before killing Da Xuebeng. After that, I never saw him again.”
5 Cao Kun nodded: “I am leaving.”
5 Cao Kun came suddenly and left even more decisively. This man was increasingly showing the demeanor of a hegemon, disdainful of probing. He came to find Yun Ce for the gunpowder formula and bomb manufacturing process. Once obtained, he left immediately. Even though Yun Ce was one of the few people he could talk to, he did not want to waste more time on him.
5 Watching Cao Kun leave on the Albatross, Wu Tong came over and said, “The new Hegemon of the East?”
5 Yun Ce nodded: “How is it? Impressive, right?”
6 Wu Tong nodded vigorously: “It is impossible not to be convinced by someone who can behead his own father with one stroke at a clan assembly. This one stroke heralds the collapse of Great Han’s ethical order.”
6 “Great Han has many things collapsing. Han Confucians emphasize ruler to ruler, subject to subject, father to father, son to son. The fierce battle between Grand Marshal and Emperor in Chang’an destroyed the ruler-subject relationship. Now Cao Kun has destroyed the father-son relationship. This is not just the collapse of empty ethical principles, but from now on, Great Han will enter an era of chaotic relationships.”
6 “With people like them leading, all relationships you encounter in life will face collapse.”
6 Wu Tong sighed deeply: “In the future, what will relations between people be based on?”
6 Yun Ce sneered: “Profit placed in the center.”
6 “You gave Cao Kun the gunpowder formula and bomb manufacturing process also for profit?”
6 “Exactly. The Gui Fang people want to come south; they must first break through Iron Enclosure Pass. After taking Iron Enclosure Pass, they will advance south along the Sea coast. The first to suffer will be Hai Prefecture. Now Hai Prefecture is Cao Kun’s territory. I want him to hold out a bit longer.”
6 Wu Tong shook his head vigorously: “That is good too. In the future, without considering human relationships and social graces, only profit, many things become much easier to handle.”
6 When chaotic times arrive, the environment undergoes many changes, people’s survival environment becomes harsh, and many things unseen in prosperous or peaceful times will appear one by one.
6 Sometimes, chaotic times are like a massive meat grinder, grinding people to pieces and then reshaping them. Those reshaped by chaotic times are no longer the original people.
7 This point became even more evident after Yun Ce returned to Yun Clan Villa.
7 While rites and music collapsed elsewhere, relations between people at Yun Clan Villa were developing positively.
7 Although they had endured a harsh winter, as tender grass sprouted, this new society at Yun Clan Villa was also constantly budding new shoots. People were slowly accepting the reality that a fair society without oppression actually exists.
7 E Ji, who had returned home long ago, had been waiting at the gate these days for Yun Ce’s return. She only knew her husband was injured, severely injured. She wanted to know first thing. No matter what state Yun Ce was in, she wanted to tell him first thing: as long as he returns, it is the greatest good news.
