Many years later, Li Shishi often thinks of Bianliang during the thirteenth year of Jinghan in the Wu Dynasty.

It was the eve of the Jurchens coming south. The Bianliang in my memory was warm and prosperous. The buildings and eaves in my eyes were filled with the atmosphere of peace and prosperity. The alum building was at the east end of the street, and the sunset was sprinkling from the other end of the street. Time was always autumn, the warm golden color, and the pedestrians on the street market and the poetry and music in the buildings were reflected by each other.

Such prosperity always appears deeper in memory after the rain and wind blows away.

Ning Yi has other fallacies and evil sayings about such memories.

"It's all the credit for the pigment."

Men who seem to have little interest always swear to this: "From ancient times to the present, there are actually not many colors that we can use. For example, building a house, the pigments of big red and purple are very expensive, and it is difficult to stay in towns and rural areas. Bianliang seemed prosperous back then because the houses were at least some colors and maintained, unlike rural areas with abundance bricks and cow dung... After the industry develops, you will find that the prosperity of Bianliang is actually not worth mentioning."

Ning Yi, who said this, was actually a bit unimpressive in aesthetics. Later, he often asked people to paint the walls in a whole white, which made people look like they were in another place that was incompatible with the mountains and rivers. He knew poetry, but obviously he did not know how to paint.

In my memory, Bianliang is always in autumn and evening. The sunset is very warm and beautiful. It was the prosperous sunset of the Wu Dynasty for two hundred years. From another perspective, perhaps because Li Shishi's life at that time also came to an end. As a courtesan, she leaned against the window and took a nap, the day she was about to pass, and she was hesitating about her future choices in her heart.

Failed to make a decision.

The romantic flow was always blown away by the rain and wind. A huge, ever-changing era suddenly pushed to her eyes and to the people of the Wu Dynasty who had been peaceful for two hundred years.

She thought of herself back then, and also of the people coming and going in the alum building, and of He Leier, people were bumping in the darkness, and fate's big hand grabbed everyone's line and ripped it roughly. Since then, some people's line has gone to places that are completely unpredictable, and some people's line has been broken in the air.

The moment when the sight can stop slightly, the world has become a different person.

******************

If you look at it from another perspective, she occasionally remembered the moment she met Ning Yi in Jiangning.

Whether in this world or in her personal life, that name is an existence that cannot be ignored for decades. She was once in love with it, but later she was confused, even angry and puzzled... As time goes by and around the world, people's children's love affairs sometimes appear small, and she can always see the outlines of something even bigger.

Looking back on the last time she was in the alum building, she was facing the most important choice in her life, which is true for many people. Women chose a husband, married him, and supported each other for decades afterwards, taking care of her husband and children... If all this develops smoothly, women will have a happy life.

A pure prostitute like Li Shishi always has more autonomy than others. It is not up to them to choose what kind of man a innocent girl wants to marry. Li Shishi can have some autonomy in this regard, but correspondingly, she cannot become someone else's big house. She may be able to find a gentle and talented man to support her life. This man may still have a certain status. She can give birth to a child before her beauty grows older to maintain her status and enjoy a decent life or a lifetime.

There are too many uncertainties in this choice, but everyone lives their whole life like this. In those warm days like the setting sun, Li Shishi once envied the atmosphere around Ning Yi. She approached the past and was then taken away by the huge thing, and she couldn't help but feel at the same time.

It is hard to say whether it is luck or misfortune. In the past ten years, she saw something deeper in this world. If you talk about choice, there are certain points in this, for example, during her time in Dali, and every time someone expressed her admiration to her for more than ten years, if she wanted to turn around and hand over the matter to the men around her to deal with it, she would always have this opportunity.

When she was in Xiao Canghe, she once quarreled with Ning Yi over the incident of Jingping. Ning Yi could not convince her what she said. She went to Dali in anger. In the three-year battle in Xiao Canghe, he faced the attack of millions of troops in the Central Plains and was always fighting fiercely against the Jurchens. Li Shishi felt that he was such a person, but when the news of his death came, she couldn't help but go out and wanted to find a sentence "why".

Ning Yi did not answer her. During the days when she thought Ning Yi had passed away, members of the Chinese army accompanied her from south to north, and from north to south. For nearly two years, she saw a tragedy on earth that was completely different from the years of peace. People cried in desolately and fed, which made people feel compassionate.

But between this unkind world, if people really lose the will to resist in their hearts, their bloodthirsty beastly nature will not survive by being pity alone. The singing and dancing of the Alum Tower is just an embellishment of the ordinary seasons, and the compassionate little girl will eventually become a dead bone that dies of freezing and starving.

How many people need to awaken and resist this world? Ning Yi's answer once made people feel very naive: "It's better for everyone."

Li Shishi at that time understood: "This is impossible." Ning Yi said: "If this is not the case, what else does this world mean?" Will everyone die in an interesting world? Should people die in an interesting world? Ning Yi's slightly frivolous answer anger Li Shishi for a while. But later, she gradually realized how deep anger and helpless the words were.

If a person put down his burden, the burden must be carried by the awakened person. The rebels die in front of him. After they die, the unresisting person kneels behind him. In two years, the scenes she saw with Lu Junyi, Yan Qing and others were all like this.

She still did not fully understand Ning Yi. After the Battle of Daming Mansion, she returned to the southwest with Qin Shaohe's widow. The two had not seen each other for many years. When they first met, they were actually a little stranger, but fortunately, both of them were open-minded. Soon after, the stranger was solved. Ning Yi arranged some things for her and told her some bigger things in detail.

"The alum building is nothing great." Ning Yi, who sometimes seems clever and sometimes he is particularly hard to speak, was so arrogant at the time. "There are not many women in this world who read and have seen few worlds. Generally speaking, it is actually boring. For the sake of their own enjoyment, men created brothels, allowing some women who read, read, speak and speak to sell... the feeling of love. But I think that between the two people in Duli, these things can be done by themselves."

Ning Yi was not talking about this. At least in Li Shishi's opinion, the relationship between Ning Yi and Su Tan'er, Nie Yunzhu and other families was extremely enviable, so she did not refute this.

"In the future, no matter boys and girls, they can read and read. When girls see more things, they know that the world outside can communicate and communicate. Naturally, they will no longer need alum building. The so-called equality of everyone, and of course men and women can be equal."

"Of course, don't be too happy too early. The basis of equality between people is actually dependent on taking responsibility. Those who cannot bear responsibility actually cannot get any power. Women should be equal to men. The prerequisite is that they have their own abilities. After the conditions are met, there will be a process of proving their abilities and fighting for power."

"This process is now being done. There are already some female officials in the army. I think you can also make preparations for women's power with a conscious position. You see, you have seen a lot of knowledge, have seen this world, have done a lot of things, and now you are responsible for diplomatic affairs. You are a good example of women being no worse than men, or even better."

This is what Ning Yi said when he talked to her in detail after Shishi was about to do some external affairs at Ning Yi's hands.

Shishi took on many things to exchange and negotiate with the gentry and prominent families in Sichuan and Shu.

In this world, people sometimes get closer and closer, and sometimes get farther and farther away. Of course, the standards of far and near are not as clear as people imagine.

If you want to convince the gentry and prominent families from all over the country to try your best to stand with the Chinese army, many times it depends on the involvement of interests, the combination of coercion and inducement, and sometimes it is necessary to argue with others and explain the great principles in this world. Since then, Shishi and Ning Yi have had many conversations, including the governance of the Chinese army and the direction of its future.

In the face of these specific questions, Ning Yi spoke more carefully with her, and Shishi finally understood everything about the Chinese army more clearly. This was a communication she had never had when she left Xiaocanghe several years ago.

"... People are born equal, or we believe that people should ultimately be equal. But idealized equality requires support from actual conditions. Will a smart person and a fool be equal? ​​Will a hardworking person and a lazy person be equal? ​​Will a scholar and an illiterate person be equal? ​​We must bring as close as possible to the prerequisites..."

"...The technology of investigating things has already given us the possibility of popularizing books. People gain wisdom from books, popularizing books, and popularizing the most basic literacy education. Everyone has the possibility of improving themselves. We also need to improve the way of education, not only to make people shaking their heads, but to study education and enlightenment methods suitable for the public as much as possible, and to use the great principles to make more people understand them in more popular ways..."

"...The way to investigate things may have a limit, but it is still far away for the time being. The guy who brought food and produced food was very smart and right. He pulled too many people into the workshop and there were not enough people to farm... We have calculated this a few years ago that those who studied agriculture already had a certain advantage, such as the chicken farms he built there, and the breeding that he mentioned before..."

"...But the most important thing is that Mr. Gongsun's laboratory where he studied explosives has recently achieved some interesting results. We have made some fertilizers, which may be able to improve the grain production of rice several times... At present, we have not found the possibility of mass production, but at least the agriculture side has a certain direction... In fact, it takes time and a peaceful environment to do these things safely. We are short of manpower now..."

"...The problem of the county without imperial power must be changed, but for the time being, I don't want to seize all the big families like Lao Niutao, killing the matter... I don't care whether they are happy or not. The highest in the future I hope is the law. They can have fields and houses in the local area, but as long as there are acts of oppressing others, let the law teach them to be a human being and let education take away their roots. Of course there will be a transition in the middle, maybe a long transition or even repetition, but since there is an equal declaration, I hope that the people themselves can seize this opportunity. The important thing is that what everyone grasps can take root and sprout..."

Some of Ning Yi's words can be understood, while some of them cannot be understood.

The changes of the times flowed through people. In the more than ten years after the sunset in Bianliang, it once seemed extremely mixed and even desperate. The power of the enemy was so powerful and unstoppable. It was like a giant wheel that upholds the will of heaven, crushing all the profiteers in the past.

The teachings of the Great Light Church say that people live too comfortably in peaceful days and are arrogant and luxurious, so God will bring thirty-three disasters to regain light, which makes such a reasonable statement. Even some of the rebels are full of despair, they will eventually appear slim and powerless.

In Li Shishi's memories, those two moods were finally able to be together until the first spring after the Wu Jianshuo Dynasty was completely over.

The Southwest War was also a busy and busy period for Li Shishi. In the past year, she has been lobbying for the Chinese army. Sometimes she would face ridicule and ridicule, and sometimes people would express disdain for her identity as a girl back then. However, with the support of the Chinese army's forces, she naturally summarized a set of methods of dealing with others and negotiating.

Ning Yi's wife named Liu Xigua gave her great help. Most of the troops and bandit suppression in Sichuan and Shu were presided over by Ning Yi's wife. This wife was also the most powerful caller of "equal" thinking in the Chinese army. Of course, sometimes she would be troubled by being Mrs. Ning Yi because everyone would give her some face. Then she would make the other party give in to various things, which was more like a beacon of the princes from Ning Yi, rather than her own ability.

Because of this reason, Xigua is very envious of Li Shishi. On the one hand, Li Shishi has a very literary temperament, and on the other hand, she has no trouble with her identity. During this year, the two got along well, and Xigua once treated Shishi as her "military advisor".

After the late autumn, the two had more opportunities to cooperate. Due to the arrival of the Jurchens, some gentry forces on the Chengdu Plain who had originally shrunk their heads and waited for changes began to show their positions. Xigua and his men chased and attacked them from time to time, and from time to time, they also asked Shishi to come forward to threaten and lobby some gentry and Confucian scholars who could be convinced, based on the righteousness of China, they would abandon the darkness and turn to the light, or at least not to make trouble.

Xigua's work is more forceful and runs more often outside. Shishi has even seen the cold eyes of the round-faced lady who is covered in blood more than once.

Shishi's work requires a lot of information and cultural cooperation. Sometimes she goes to Zizhou to contact Ning Yi. Most of the time, Ning Yi is also busy. If she has time, the two will sit down and have a cup of tea, and most of the talks are about work.

The battle on the front line was extremely fierce. Many times, Shishi could detect what he had hidden in Ning Yi's words. She used to do this. The tragic front line caused Ning Yi, which was actually a huge pressure. Ning Yi seemed calm.

During this time, Shishi wanted to play him a pipa or guzheng, but in fact, he did not find such an opportunity in the end. A man who focuses on work and shoulders great responsibilities is always fascinating. Sometimes this reminds Shishi of emotional issues again. Her mind will think of stories she has heard in the past in such a gap, the woman's dedication when the general goes to war, or reveals her good feelings... in this way.

But she didn't say it, not because she no longer expected these things. In the very small gap of time about herself, she was still looking forward to stories about feelings. But at the moment of contact with Ning Yi, she suddenly realized that the woman's dedication when the general went to war was because for women, this was the greatest motivation and help to the other party.

Now she has more practical things to do.

The number of troops in the Chinese army has been very tight. By the end of December, the largest wave of rebellion appeared, and it was not just spontaneous rebellion. In fact, there were already premeditations from the Jurchens. Wanyan Xiyin's āo sect and provocation in Neixigua led troops to chase and suppress, and some of the troops in Zizhou were also divided. The troops in the army cooperated with the intelligence department to analyze several forces that might lobby and instigate the rebellion, and were ready to come forward to persuade them and give up resistance.

Shishi participated in the analysis of these forces from beginning to end. Due to the high possibility of danger, the Intelligence Department did not intend to let Shishi come forward in person, but Shishi chose two forces with Confucian scholars to take charge. Her persuasion could be effective and put them on her shoulders.

On the third day of the first lunar month, she persuaded a clan to rebel and enter the mountains to temporarily put down her weapons and no longer fight against the Chinese army. For the sake of the success of this matter, she even made a promise to Ning Yi on behalf of Ning Yi that once the Jurchen soldiers retreated, Ning Yi would have a fair debate with the Confucian scholars in this family in public.

After the matter was settled, Shishi went to Zizhou and reported the news with Ning Yi. It was already evening when she arrived in Zizhou. The command center was crowded with people, and the war horses reported the news came and went on. This was a sign of the emergency situation on the front line. Shishi saw Ning Yi who was busy from afar. She left a piece of Chen Jie and turned around and left here.

She hopes to save time and solve the problem of the second house as quickly as possible. The carriage leaves the city at night and leaves Zizhou for half an hour, an accident happened.

The attack on the carriage was suddenly happening, and someone seemed to shout outside: "Tie Ning Yi's mistress". Following Shishi's guards fought with the other party, but a good man on the other party got on the carriage and rushed forward in the carriage. The carriage was bumpy, Shishi lifted the curtain on the window and took a look. After a moment, she made a decision and rushed out in front of the carriage.

This was a collision with all his strength. Shishi and the murderer who had robbed the carriage rolled into the snow on the side of the road. The murderer rolled up and climbed up. Shishi also struggled to get up and jumped into the stream on the side of the road where the river was narrow and the water flowed rapidly.

The river water in winter was biting cold and as if it was like water, Shishi felt her heart suddenly retracted and her mind was dizzy. The river water was rushing down to a corner. Shishi's body hit the stone. She woke up for a moment and struggled hard. She moved ashore on a pebbly beach. Her body felt that it was not her own anymore, and her thinking wanted to stop.

But she didn't stop. For some time, it was like something that was not her own that was dominating her. She had seen disabled soldiers in the Chinese army's camp and extremely bloody scenes in the wounded camp. Sometimes Liu Xigua walked up to her with a big knife on her back, and the poor child starved to death and scented on the roadside. These things were just mechanically flashing through her mind, and her body was also mechanically searching for firewood branches and fire-induced objects by the riverbed.

A sunken stone wall on the edge of the riverbed saved her life. She found some dead branches, broke some firewood, took out the flint and used her trembling hands to ignite the fire... She took off her clothes and put them on the fire to dry. The mountain wind at night was whimpering. It was not until dawn that the Chinese soldiers who had searched twice found her in this blind spot of vision.

She was carried to the wounded barracks for inspection and resting, and the cold had already come to her and had to rest. Xigua sent her a letter to her, asking her to be well-off. Among other people's stories, she also knew that Ning Yi later heard about her attack, and in a very urgent situation, a small team of soldiers were sent to find her.

This should have been the closest experience she had to die in her life and was worth telling, but when she remembered it a little, she didn't feel anything. In the past year, a few years of running around and dealing with Xigua and others, Shishi's physique became very good. In mid-January, she recovered from the injury and went to Zizhou again. Ning Yi saw her and asked about the matter that night, but Shishi just shook her head and said, "It's nothing."

She contacted Xigua and the Intelligence Department again and returned to the work she could be responsible for.

When participating in the entire huge and complex Chinese military work, Shishi can sometimes feel that a plan that seems to be advancing invisibly. Every fewer problems on the Chengdu Plain can lead to more vitality into the Zizhou frontline.

In late February, the work in the rear was no longer as difficult as before. Shishi came to Zizhou with a team of soldiers. It was the morning of February 23. Zizhou City was as martial law as usual and murderous as usual. Since Ning Yi was not free for a moment, she went to the wounded barracks to visit a medical officer who had been in love with earlier. The other party suddenly realized: "You have come here too, and you said you have made a big move..."

"What?"

"...You don't know?" The other party was stunned, "Then forget it, you can watch it slowly."

If you have been in the army for a long time, you will encounter some secrets, but there are some things that you can notice by looking carefully. After leaving the wounded barracks, the Shishi will notice signs of the gathering of troops in the city, and then know some other things.

In the afternoon, she had contacted the Intelligence Department and the General Staff. She met Ning Yi in military uniforms, and the leading army was passing through the street outside.

"They said you are here and come and see. Haven't encountered any danger recently?"

"...You want to go to the battlefield?"

"Zonghan is very close, it's time to go and meet him for a while."

"Are there...the decisive battle outside? They said...it's not good, we have few people."

The army racked its brains and recalled the military news I heard during the past period. Before this, no one had thought that this war would be fought in front of Zizhou City. Ning Yi wanted to throw all his troops into it...

"When fighting, it's just an unexpected plan that can be used. Don't worry, Xiao Canghe has been on the front line for a long time." Ning Yi smiled, "I'll kill myself if I don't lose my words."

"I always think you are the best writing poetry..." She said this, feeling that the words were not fulfilling and tears were about to come out. At this moment, she felt that the general's dedication of his lover before going to war was much more distressing than speaking.

"Haha, poetry..." Ning Yi smiled, but the meaning in this smile was a little unrecognizable. The silence between the two continued for a moment, and Ning Yi nodded: "Then... let's go first, it's time to teach them a lesson."

"Ning Liheng... Liheng." Shishi called him. She had always had a big forehead, but she looked very elegant. At this time, she was open with big eyes, and many of her thinking seemed to turn into substance in her eyes, fear, anxiety, and complexity, and was anxious because her words were not fulfilled... Her lips trembled a few times.

"That...I...if you... die on the battlefield, you...hello, do you have nothing to say to me? You...I know you have to write suicide notes when you go to the battlefield. You have written suicide notes for all your family members...I didn't say that...I mean...your suicide notes are for all your family members. We have known each other for so many years. If you die...Do you have nothing to say to me? I, we have known each other for so many years..."

She couldn't find a better way to express it. When she said this, tears flowed down. She could only turn her head, grab the skirt on her thigh with one hand, and support the other on the table next to her, so that she could just bend her knees slightly without squatting down. The tears fell down.

Ning Yi looked at her with complicated eyes and his fingers were pounding unconsciously on his legs. After a long time, he said, "If I can come back... let's discuss this matter again, okay?"

After a while, I wanted to turn around, but I felt that this sentence was a bit unlucky, so I reached out and knocked on the table: "Don't worry... what a big deal... I will definitely come back."

In this way, he turned around and left.
To be continued...