The night wind blew through the silk and blew the handsome flag on the roof of the tent.
In the tent, a red candle, the candle oil dripping down, was filled with relief plates of bronze high-handled candlesticks. In the pale blue flames, a milky white smoke with a thin choking odor rose.
Xiang Yu, the world-famous leader of the Jiangdong rebels, stomped majestically on the tiger skin blanket, leaning forward slightly, supporting his knee with his left elbow, holding a piece of wood dipped in lacquer in his right hand, and rustling on a plain veil.
He had a thick-lined face, dark skin, a broad, gritty square chin. The proud thin lips pressed tightly, rising slightly from the corners of the mouth, two tired wrinkles cut deeply through the cheeks and extended all the way to the chin.
His dark eyes, though lightly covered with a veil of melancholy, when he lifted his face, the big dark eyes jumped out of the spark of flames that only existed in the innocent eyes of a child.
"Nine stones of rice, eight bags of maize, ten bags of miscellaneous grains." Yu Ji! He turned his face to Yu Ji, who was standing quietly in front of the tent wiping the blood stains on her sword, and the sparks that burst in his eyes illuminated her face in the shadow of the tent curtain.
"Yes, we were able to support it for two more days. Those of us jiangdong disciples are the most intelligent. Although there is no abundant food to be found in this small pile of barren mounds, they will net sparrows and dig up earthworms underground.
Let me see - it takes about a day from Weizhou to Weizhou, from Weizhou to Yingcheng, if you change a new horse, you may be able to arrive in a day and a half. Two and a half days... Yu Ji, in three days, our Tun soldiers from Jiangdong will come to relieve the siege. ”
"Definitely, I will definitely come to break the siege." Yu Ji used a tuan fan to gently disperse the green smoke on the candle. "Great King, we have only a thousand, but they have a hundred thousand..."
"Ah, they claim to be 100,000, but today after a great slaughter of ourselves, according to my estimation, it will never exceed the number of 75,000." He stretched out. "Today's fight, no matter what, always frustrated them a little bit.
I guess they didn't dare to rush up to challenge them these two days. - Oh, come to think of it, did you tell the cobia to prepare rolling wood and rolling stones? ”
"The king is tired, let's rest for a while, everything has been done as you have instructed."
She followed the fixed work of the night. After waiting for him to sleep, he put on a cloak, took the candlestick in one hand, and protected the candlelight with the other hand, and quietly left the tent.
The night was quiet, and in the mist of the □, the small pale white tents covered the slopes of the earth, leaking a little bit of fire in the cracks of the tents, just like the wild bean blossoms with red hearts and white petals blooming all over the mountains on a summer night.
The sound of the warhorses whining and whining swept in the wind, and the night watchman knocked on the ground and walked around the camp with monotonous steps. Yu Ji wrapped the cloak tightly and covered the wide cuffs from the candlelight to prevent it from being blown out by the wind.
In the darkness, the spears of the guards shimmered. The smell of horse dung, blood, the smell of hay, drifted silently in the clear night air.
She stopped in front of a tent and listened to the sounds inside.
Two soldiers bet on dice, betting on their military food for tomorrow, and a dreaming veteran murmured the taste of fragrant rice in his hometown.
Yu Ji gently left them.
The second time she stopped was in front of the wooden fence on the front line. Cluttered, the slopes were piled high with cut-down tree roots, trees, sandbags, stones, clay.
The sentry paced back and forth with snake spears, and the red lanterns swayed in the cracked pheasant gaps, staining half the sky with a faint red light.
She carefully blew out the candle, bent her hand on the wooden fence, and looked down the hill; little by little, the dense and fierce fire shone brightly, as many as the fireflies in the summer grass nest—that is, the great camp of the king of Han and the hundred thousand male soldiers of the four princes he had gathered.
Yu Ji held her cheeks and thought. The cold wind blew in front of her, blowing the streamers on her shoulders. She suddenly felt cold and empty, just like every time she left Xiang Wang.
If he is the hot, full of brilliant brilliance, spewing out a dazzling sun, she is the moon that bears, reflects his light and power.
She followed him like a shadow, through the dark stormy night, through the inhuman horrors of the battlefield, and through hunger, fatigue, turbulence, forever.
When the leader of the rebel army rode through the world-famous black horse like a storm, the eight thousand sons of Jiangdong could always see Yu Ji following behind, the pale, smiling woman, tightly controlling the reins of the horse, and the pale crimson brocade cloak beating in the wind.
For more than ten years, she has made his ambition hers hers, she has taken his victory as her victory, and his pain has been her pain. However, whenever he slept and she came out alone with a candle to visit the camp, she began to think of her personal matter.
She wondered what her goal of living in the world like that was. He lived, for his ambitions.
He knew how to use his sword, his spear, and his Sons of Jiangdong to obtain his crown. But what about her? She was merely a faint echo of the roar of his high-pitched hero, gradually lightening down, lightening down, and finally dying.
If his ambitions succeed —
In the distance, in the camp of the Han army at the bottom of the mountain, a sentry whistled low to draw a corner, and the faint, poignant horn sound, monotonous and clumsy, but full of sad horns on the battlefield, echoed under the clear night sky.
A large star in the sky gradually dimmed. She felt a hot tear fall on the back of her own hand.
Ah, if he succeeds, what will she get? She will receive a title of "nobleman" and she will receive a sentence of life imprisonment. She will put on palace makeup and spend the whole day in the gloomy and dark house of the Zhaohua Hall, enjoying the moonlight outside the window, the fragrance of flowers, and the loneliness inside the window.
She was getting old, so he got tired of her, so countless other brilliant meteors flew into the heavens he and she enjoyed, cut off from the sunlight she had been bathing for more than a decade. She no longer reflected the radiance of his illumination on her, and she became a eclipsed bright moon, dark, melancholy, depressed, mad.
When she ended her life as she lived for him, they would give her the nickname of "Duan Shu GuiFei" or "Xian Mu Gui Concubine", a splendidly encased agarwood coffin, and three or four martyred slaves. This is the crown of her life. She was disgusted and afraid of her own thoughts.
"No, no, I'm thinking too much tonight! Hold it, hold on to my thoughts! ”
She lowered her head and clenched her fists, her nails digging deep into her flesh, her tiny, pointed chin face blue and trembling like apricot leaves in the wind. "Go back! Just look at his sleeping face and maybe I won't think about it anymore. ”
She picked up the candlestick and beckoned the nearby sentry to come and light her candle with his lantern. Just as she tightened her grip on the wind curtain and cloak and prepared to turn around, she suddenly stopped. From the enemy's camp at the foot of the hill came a low, idyllic, lazy singing of a minor tune. It's far, far away, and the biting words are not very clear, however, the wind is blowing towards the mountain, and the popular folk song "Luo ShiJie" in the countryside of Chu country can be clearly heard.
At first there was only a trembling, lonely throat singing, but perhaps the soldier's nostalgia was ticked by the faint moonlight, and the camp on all sides sang together. "Sister Luo Shi" was finished singing, a low laugh, and then "Crying the Great Wall" was sung. Yu Ji Muran stood, and she was slightly confused at first.
"Do they sing this a lot?" She asked the sentry who had lit the candle for her.
"Yes," the veteran soldier blinked under the lantern and smiled slightly. "We all don't believe that the northerners have such a good throat."
Yu Ji did not speak, and the candlestick in her hand trembled wildly. With a thud, the lanterns and candles were blown out by the wind. In the darkness, her black eyes stared straight ahead, glowing like opals, and she saw this terrible fact.
When the sentry lit her candle again, she hurried back to the tent with the flag. She stood in front of King Xiang's bed with a candle held high. He slept soundly, his body slightly curled up, his hands tucked under his pillow, clutching a golden knife. He was one of those who were eternally young; though his messy hair draped over his forehead had already had a few stalks of grayish-white, and the blade of time had drawn a few deep wrinkles on his firm forehead, his sleepy face still contained the confession and stubbornness of a baby. His thick eyebrows were slightly wrinkled, his nose was stubborn, and his noble lips were slightly drooping, as if they had been born for command.
Yu Ji looked at him—no, no, she couldn't wake him up and tell him everything miserable. He was at least happy now; he was dreaming of the arrival of reinforcements, perhaps he was also dreaming of killing Liu Bang's brigade from inside and outside, perhaps he was dreaming of himself being the leader of the princes again, dreaming of crossing the entire team of Wuxiao into Xianyang, was it not too cruel, if he suddenly understood that reinforcements would never come?
Yu Ji's face condensed one large bead after another. She caught a glimpse of the sword hanging from the cloth canopy—if—if—if he suddenly stopped breathing while dreaming of the glory of the future—for example, the sword suddenly fell from the top of the canopy and stabbed into his chest—and she was horrified by her own thoughts. Beads of sweat flowed down her beautiful blue-white cheeks. The flame of the red candle shrank only to the size of a broad bean. King Xiang rolled over on the bed. "Great King, Great King..." She heard her own hoarse voice calling.
Xiang Wang sat up with a loud cry, and Huo Di pulled the knife out of its sheath at once.
"What's wrong, Yu Ji?" Did someone come and rob the camp? ”
"No, no. But there is something more terrible than this. King, you listen.
They stood by the door of the tent. "Sister Luo Shi" has become the end, but the chorus is more soldiers, and the sad, simple beat comes melodiously from the foot of the mountain on all sides. "Is it the captives of Jiangdong who are nostalgic for their hometown?" After a moment of silence, Xiang Wang said. "Great King, this song comes from all sides."
"Ah, the Chu people in the Han army are like this—how much is this?"
In a death-like silence, there were only a few horses in the distance.
"Is it—is it true that Liu Bang has already done his best?"
Yu Ji's heart was colicing, and when she saw Xiang Wang's stubborn lips turn white, his eyes glowing like cold glass, and the look of those eyes staring forward was so terrible that she couldn't help but cover it with her wide sleeves. She could feel his eyelashes flapping rapidly in her palms, and she felt a string of cold tears roll from her hand all the way into the crook of her arm, the first time she knew that the hero's traitor was also a weeping animal.
"Poor ... Poor ..." The words at the bottom could not be heard, and her pale lips fluttered slightly. He threw off her hand, dragged his heavy steps, and staggered back into the tent. She followed and saw him sitting hunched over the bed, his head in his hands. The candle was lit with only a thumb-length cut. The clear light of the remnants of dawn had penetrated into the drapery. "Give me some wine." He raised his eyes and said. As he held the amber-covered streamer in his hand, he put his hand on his knee and looked at her with a smile.
"Yu Ji, we're done. I had long wondered why Jiangdong hadn't transported grain to Yaxia. It is not helpful to talk about the past. We have only one thing to do now – rush out. Looking at this situation, we are destined to be trapped beasts that are surrounded, but we do not want to be hunted, we are to be hunters.
Tomorrow—ah, no, today—today is my last hunt. I'm going to rush out of a bloody road and step over the Helmets of the Han Army! Hmm, that Liu Bang, did he think I had been put in a cage by him? I had at least one more chance to hunt freely, and perhaps my shotgun would pierce his heart, just as I pierced a valuable sable. Yu Ji, put on your Persian soft armor, you have to follow me until the last minute. We're all going to die on horseback. "Great King, I think you understand me," Yu Ji bowed her head and used her hand to touch the tassel of the knife next to King Xiang's pillow. This is your last time on the battlefield, and I want you to give full play to your might and fully enjoy the joy of slaughter. I will not follow behind you, distract you, worry about me, protect me, and make jiangdong's disciples laugh at you for losing the ability to fight for a woman. ”
"Oh, then stay in the rear, let the soldiers of the Han army find you, and go and sacrifice you to Liu Bang!" Yu Ji smiled. She quickly unsheathed the knife, and with just one stab, it plunged deep into her chest.
Xiang Yu rushed over to support her waist, her hand still clutching the gold-encrusted hilt, and Xiang Yu leaned down and stared at her with his tearful fire-like bright eyes. She opened her eyes, and then, as if she couldn't stand such a strong sunlight, she closed them again. Xiang Yu pressed his ear to her trembling lips, and he heard her saying something he didn't understand: "I prefer that kind of closure." ”
When her body was getting colder, King Xiang pulled out the knife from her chest and wiped the blood stains off his military uniform. Then, gritting his teeth, in a voice like the roar of a sand-huckle wild boar, he shouted:
"Cobia, blow up the painted horn!" Tell the horses to rush down the hill!" ”
Zhang ailing
1937