Su Bei swiped his fingers across his phone screen, which then stopped on a video:
"Drifting in drunkenness, I trim the lamp and look at the sword;
Dreaming back, I hear the horn blowing across connected camps."
Across the vast and prosperous Great Tang Plane,
Li Shimin stood tall and straight atop a majestic palace, clad in a magnificent dragon robe.
He raised his head slightly, his gaze piercing through layer upon layer of pavilions and bustling crowds to fix upon the glowing video in the distance.
As his focus locked on it, his brow furrowed tightly of its own accord, as if the scene within the video had touched a deep, hidden chord within his heart.
His eyes, as deep as an abyss, were filled at that moment with contemplation and doubt.
He muttered to himself:
"Drifting in drunkenness, I trim the lamp and look at the sword, dreaming back, I hear the horn blowing across connected camps... This sounds like it comes from the pen of a general and poet harboring great ambitions yet denied any path to serve his country!
What kind of experiences could this man possibly have had? What sort of hardships did he encounter to express such profound and sorrowful grief?"
A gentle breeze swept by, rustling the fabric of Li Shimin's robes, but he remained utterly oblivious, entirely consumed by thoughts of this poem and the story likely hidden behind it.
[Xin Qiji was born thirteen years after the Humiliation of Jingkang, while the Southern Song lingered in a corner of the realm.
The Xin…
Chapter 207