CALID Chapter 7

Wish

The city walls of Liangzhou Prefecture were tall and solid, standing like silent giants. Yet even such giants could not withstand the first attack of the Huqi people, nor could they protect the city’s inhabitants.

From atop the city walls, one could see the wide Guan River not far away. On clear days, one could even catch a glimpse of Danshi Shuozhou on the opposite bank.

The soldiers guarding the city walls saluted General Duan Xu as he arrived. Han Lingqiu, the officer in charge of the city’s defence, also rushed over. He was a tall and sturdy young man with a terrifying scar running from his jaw to his forehead, making him look somewhat fearsome. With a solemn expression, he clasped his fists and said, “General Duan.”

Duan Xu nodded and instructed Meng Wan to accompany Han Lingqiu to inspect the city’s defenses, then turned to look at the girl holding a sugar figurine.

She naturally walked to the edge of the battlements, gazing at the distant Guan River while licking her sugar figurine.

Unlike within the city, the winter wind atop the walls was swift and fierce. Her long hair was pulled by the wind, and her cloak was filled with it, fluttering like a pale pink peach blossom.

She placed one hand on the bricks of the city wall, which in winter should have felt as sharp as a knife. Her fingertips were pale, and her knuckles were as red as her cheeks and nose. Yet she did not re-adjust her cloak or show any signs of discomfort.

Anyone who could feel the cold would not remain so composed.

Suddenly, He Simu turned her head and said, “Indeed, all the winds on the city walls are fully exposed. Like white spider silk, scattered densely across the earth and sky, one cannot see where it comes from or where it goes.”

Winds like spider silk, a marvellous metaphor.

Duan Xu followed her gaze and said in the biting cold wind, “The white wind, is it the same colour as the cuff of my sleeve?”

“Yes,” He Simu smiled. As she smiled, she suddenly asked, “General, do you have any wishes?”

“Wishes?”

“Yes, wishes.”

Duan Xu smiled faintly and replied candidly, “In my life, I wish for the seventeen states north of the Guan River to return to the control of the Great Liang.”

He Simu’s expression remained unchanged. She thought to herself, what a lofty and official-sounding statement, even more insincere than Guan Huai’s flattery.

Seeing her silence, Duan Xu asked, “What’s wrong?”

He Simu feigned a mournful expression, claiming she was afraid of blood. Just the thought of reclaiming the seventeen states and the rivers of blood flowing made her fearful. After a pause, she suddenly approached Duan Xu. Duan Xu smiled and calmly took a step back, waiting for her next words.

“I wander the rivers and lakes and have quite a bit of knowledge about skulls,” He Simu said, pointing at Duan Xu’s head and speaking irrelevantly, “General, you have a good skull. The back is rounded, the top is high, the forehead is full, the brow ridge is high, the eye sockets are deep, and you even have double eyelids.”

Duan Xu raised an eyebrow. This sounded more like an experience of selecting livestock in a slaughterhouse than a compliment.

“The typical Han Chinese skull doesn’t look like this. I heard from my father that several hundred years ago, further north than Danshi, there was a tribe called the Di tribe, and their people’s skulls were like this. Back then, the Di tribe and the Han Chinese fought for many years, with blood feuds leading to countless deaths. But now, there are no more Di people in the world. They’ve merged into the Han Chinese bloodline, into the bloodline of your ancestors.”

Today, the Huqi and the Han Chinese are enemies, but eventually, their blood will merge, and a hundred years later, they will become fathers and sons, brothers, and close kin.

This is the way of the world. Extreme hatred turns into familial ties, deep love becomes estrangement, and closeness fluctuates without permanence.

The struggles of life and grand ambitions will all turn to smoke. Most things in the world are uninteresting. Why take them so seriously?

Duan Xu stared at He Simu for a moment, then burst into laughter suddenly. He leaned on the city wall, laughing so hard that his shoulders trembled.

He Simu looked at him puzzled. She couldn’t see anything humorous about the topic. Why was this young man laughing like a fool?

In truth, her assessment was biased. Duan Xu’s smile was quite charming. His eyes were bright and slightly curved, filled with overflowing happiness, revealing his white teeth.

“Sorry, sorry Miss He, I just naturally love to laugh, it’s not that I have any opinion on what you said.” Duan Xu suppressed his laughter, straightened up, and said to He Simu, “I just remembered when I was young, I loved to build sandcastles by the seaside. No matter how well-built they were, they were all washed away by the tide. If I had had your insight back then, I wouldn’t have been so sad. After all, the sandcastle didn’t truly disappear, it just returned to grains of sand.”

“You, or someone like you, are like my sandcastle.”

He turned his head, looked at He Simu with a smile, and said, “In life, I am the sand, and in death, I am the sand. Only for a moment am I a fortress, and I only need to live for that moment.”

How things were a hundred years ago, how they will be a hundred years later, even if there is reincarnation in the world, it won’t be him.

He Simu glanced at Duan Xu for a moment. He stood in the brilliant sunlight, surrounded by winds as dense as spider silk, like a butterfly in a cocoon.

She sighed inwardly. Humans, with their lifespans of only a hundred years, are still bound by love, hatred, affection, and enmity. But she showed an admiring expression on her face, applauding.

Duan Xu’s gaze fell on the sugar figurine in her hand, and he said, “I was just wondering, is the sugar figurine you’re holding…”

“Shen Shu, Chenying, and there’s also a Yulei, two door gods,” He Simu swung the sugar figurine in her hand, which she had licked down to half a shoulder, and said, “A few nights ago, we encountered a ghost, and Chenying has been terrified ever since. So today, I got some extra rock candy from Officer Meng, and I made two door gods. It’s said that evil spirits are afraid of them, so I’m using them to ward off evil.”

**Nomad: In Chinese mythology and folklore, the door gods are typically referred to as Shen Shu (神獸) and Yu Lei (羽儿). They are often depicted as fierce-looking warriors who are placed on doors to protect households from evil spirits and bring blessings to the inhabitants. The names may vary slightly depending on regional dialects and interpretations. Additionally, there are different versions and names for door gods in different Chinese cultures and traditions**

As she spoke, she took a bite out of the head of the Shen Tu sugar figurine.

Duan Xu couldn’t help but chuckle. He shook his head, crossing his arms, but then he saw He Simu holding out the sugar figurine to him. “Would you like to try?”

The amber-coloured sugar figurine sparkled in the sunlight like a gem. Through the gaps in the sugar figurine, her smiling face could be seen, open and warm.

Duan Xu reached out and took the untouched left foot of the sugar figurine and put it in his mouth. He frowned slightly, then smiled, “Miss He, it’s too sweet.”

He Simu leaned closer to Duan Xu, teasing him, “General, what do you mean by sweet?”

The girl before him had cheeks flushed from the cold, yet her smile was sweet.

The young man’s eyes flickered, but he remained calm and replied, “The sugar figurine.”

“Is it sweet?”

“Too sweet.”

“Everyone has different tastes. It’s because I have a sweet tooth.” He Simu took another bite of the sugar figurine and looked towards the frozen Guan River in the distance. Suddenly, she said, “In four days, on the eighth day of the eleventh month, at the hour of the pig, the east wind will bring snow.”

Duan Xu understood. He bowed in thanks and then heard her voice in his ear.

“Are you sure you have to go?”

Duan Xu looked up and saw the girl staring directly into his eyes, with a hint of pity in them.

“I heard Officer Meng say that General, you weren’t originally a frontline commander, just appointed in times of crisis. With your distinguished background, if you mediate more, you should be able to return to the capital safely.”

Duan Xu sighed and said, ” Why are you all like this, making me feel as if I’m trying to stop a speeding chariot with a mantis’s arm, so desolate? Don’t worry, when I was young, a fortune-teller said that I would encounter bad luck and turn it into good fortune.”

He Simu thought, from being a candidate in the bureaucracy, to being a courtier, to being a border commander on the front lines of life and death, hasn’t he encountered only bad luck? Where’s the good fortune?

“If this isn’t trying to stop a speeding chariot with a mantis’s arm, then what is it?”

Duan Xu paused slightly, then smiled lightly and said, “It’s going, even if a thousand men stand in my way.”

He Simu could only nod and finish off the last bite of the sugar figurine.

That’s true, how could one wield the Illusion-Breaking Sword without a robust fate?

Young General, please don’t die. The owner of the Illusion-Breaking Sword should be more than just this, right?

Duan Xu escorted He Simu all the way back to her courtyard. From afar, he saw Chenying sitting at the door, hugging his knees, looking around eagerly. When he spotted He Simu, his eyes lit up, and he ran over excitedly.

This child has become clingier since the last encounter with the ghost.

He Simu bid farewell to Duan Xu and walked into the courtyard with Chenying, casually saying, “Is the sugar figurine finished? What would you like to eat next?”

“I want to eat sugar figurines again! Miss, you drew the sugar figurines so well this time, but they’re too bland, they don’t taste sweet at all.” Chenying, who had rounded out a bit lately, held He Simu’s hand and acted coquettishly.

He Simu’s steps faltered for a moment. She looked down at Chenying and asked, “Not sweet?”

Chenying, being from a poor family, hadn’t eaten much sugar since childhood, and he was very sincere. If he said it wasn’t sweet, then it really wasn’t sweet.

Was Duan Xu’s comment about the sugar figurine being too sweet just a joke?

She felt a stir in her heart and squatted down to ask Chenying, “What colour were the cuffs of the young general who escorted me back today?”

Chenying thought for a moment and raised his finger to the sky, saying, “Blue! The colour of the sky.”

— “The white wind, is it the same colour as the cuff of my sleeve?”

He Simu remained silent for a moment, then smiled ambiguously as she toyed with the jade pendant around her waist.

Ah, the young general was testing her, and she had underestimated him.

His intuition was obviously much better than Meng Wan’s. He actually pinpointed it. What a clever little fox.

She sent Chenying off to play and watched as the child gradually disappeared from her sight. Then, she took out the pearl from her bosom and called out, “Feng Yi.”

After a while, a voice came from the pearl, “What’s the matter again, my dear?”

“I remember, you said that Duan Xu was sent back to his grandmother’s house in Daizhou to serve at the age of seven and only returned to the southern capital at the age of fourteen.”

“That’s right.”

“The southern capital has no sea, and Daizhou is even farther from the sea, tens of thousands of miles away. Where did he build sandcastles by the sea when he was young?” He Simu flipped the pearl and said slowly, “This guy doesn’t seem right. Help me investigate him properly.”

Duan Xu left He Xiao’s small courtyard gate, smiling as he walked leisurely back. As he neared the prefectural mansion’s gate, a few children were playing cuju on the street. One kick missed its mark, and the rattan ball flew quickly towards Duan Xu. Just as the children exclaimed in surprise, he swiftly sidestepped, raised his hand, and caught the rattan ball with five fingers firmly.

**Nomad: Cuju is an ancient Chinese ball game similar to modern football, played during the Han Dynasty**

One little boy ran over, and Duan Xu handed him the rattan ball. The boy looked up at Duan Xu, his face full of curiosity. “Big brother, why are you smiling so happily?”

Duan Xu squatted down, smiling and patting his head. “I met a very interesting friend today.”

“A person who can see the wind, but very likely can’t distinguish colours, doesn’t know warmth or cold, and can’t recognize flavours.”

The little boy looked puzzled and asked, “What a strange person! Isn’t that scary?”

“Scary? Where’s the scare?” Duan Xu turned his head, his smile even brighter. “It’s so interesting.”

The little boy shivered, now finding this big brother somewhat scary too.

“General!”

Duan Xu looked up and saw Xia Qingsheng leading a group of soldiers towards him. He stood up, and Xia Qingsheng bowed with his fists, his face showing concern. “General, this isn’t like the southern capital. You can’t always act alone…”

Duan Xu patted Xia Qingsheng’s shoulder, neither refuting nor agreeing, just saying, “Has Wulang arrived?”

“He’s waiting inside.”

“Good, let’s go in.”