HLnovel Chapter 368 A Shi's First Life in the Tang Dynasty
Chapter 368 A Shi's First Life in the Tang Dynasty
Ah Shi looked around blankly and found himself squatting in front of a refrigerated display case in a convenience store.
The moon-white robe that symbolized the refined elegance of scholars had somehow been replaced by a rough short jacket with the words "Chang'an West Market" printed in a blurry pattern on the chest. He was also clutching a sesame seed cake that had long since dried out and hardened.
His dazed face was reflected in the freezer glass, inside which were displayed a dazzling array of "nectars and elixirs." He seemed to see his entire life reflected in it—
Li Shizhi—nicknamed Ashi!—is the great-grandson of Jin Shanshan, a member of the Tang Dynasty imperial family, and has an incredibly impressive background.
He was once a prime minister! He oversaw the Ministry of War! And like a little whale—"glug glug glug glug glug~" (hands on hips, reciting a poem by Du Fu)
"The Left Prime Minister drinks like he's sucking up the sea! He raises his cup and says, 'The wine of the sages is the best!'" (From "The Song of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup": "The Left Prime Minister spends ten thousand coins a day, drinking like a whale sucking up a hundred rivers, holding his cup, he calls himself a sage and avoids the virtuous.")
He has a great personality, loves making friends, and is recognized by his friends as a generous spender or an indispensable little ray of sunshine at drinking parties!
"Let's have a feast! Let's throw money around! Friends, friends, cheers!"
However, even spending money couldn't stop the calamity, and there were some heartbreaking incidents:
For example, he was bullied by the notoriously wicked prime minister Li Linfu: "Ah Shi won't play with you anymore!" When he was demoted to Jiangxi: "Ugh... the carriage is so bumpy... the palace is so much better." But then he heard his good friend had been murdered: "Scared! I'll drink my bitter medicine and go to sleep peacefully." At fifty-four, he became a star in the sky. Two of his poems are hidden in the *Complete Tang Poems*!
He himself had never seen his life so clearly before—"The Tang Dynasty's Prime Minister who only knew how to eat rice, a master at throwing money around to make friends, and a pitiful royal baby bullied by villains!"
At this moment, all he wants to tell the children is to remember: Don't drink like him, be careful when making friends, and always remember that staying alive is the most important thing!
He stared blankly, the wild ginseng soup that Zi'an had personally served him last night, supposedly to relieve his pain, suddenly came to mind—what kind of life-saving medicine was that? If he wasn't mistaken, it couldn't be the sinister, soul-changing soup that Li Linfu had prepared!
"Uncle, you've been looking at this iced tea for almost half an hour now, are you going to buy it or not?" A little girl wearing a blue apron impatiently knocked on the cold glass.
The crisp sound startled Ah Shi.
Only then did he truly see his surroundings: the houses were like giant blocks rising from the ground, piercing the clouds;
The "iron box" with its wheels whistling past was far faster than the Akhal-Teke steeds that were presented as tribute from the Western Regions.
He instinctively reached for his waist, only to find it empty and cold. The jade belt that symbolized his status and position had vanished without a trace, leaving only a square, cold iron plaque.
The sign was inscribed with a few lines of small characters: "My grandfather is Li Chengqian"—however, he was now facing an identity and era that were completely unfamiliar to him.
When that mysterious voice rang out again, he was squatting listlessly on the cold stone railing of the moat, like a puppet.
"Little Sizi's tea seeds sprouted in this strange world, only to be mercilessly buried by the iron claws of the mortal world. If you wish to atone for your past mistakes due to drunkenness, you must let that tea garden see the light of day again."
The sound pierced my mind like an ice pick.
Ah Shi suddenly stood up, startling several sparrows that were pecking at food on the stone railing. Tea seeds?
A distant and blurry image suddenly became clear—in the tea-growing region of Sichuan, amidst the swirling clouds and mist, the little girl Sizi, with her hair in two buns and eyes as bright as morning stars, secretly tiptoed and quickly stuffed a package wrapped tightly in plain silk into the depths of his accompanying book trunk…
It was her! That bag of tea seeds she treasured!
Following the "Naxi Tea Ridge" marked on the map, we could hear the sounds of arguing from afar.
A little girl dressed in an otherworldly school uniform, with stubborn pigtails, stood with her arms outstretched like a little sparrow protecting its chicks, blocking several tea trees and confronting the construction team wielding shovels.
"Don't dig them up! These few trees are treasures passed down from my great-grandfather!" Her wisps of hair were damp with sweat and stuck to her slightly red cheeks. Her wide, unyielding eyes, burning with a stubborn flame, instantly overlapped with the eyes deep in her memory of a pair of eyes holding warm tea and smiling gently—it was Xiao Sizi's unique charm!
A-Shi's heart felt as if it had been struck hard. Suddenly, he heard the words that the old tea farmer Zhang Tou had said in the dim light of his pipe at the post station: "Tea seeds, once they fall to the ground, must endure three years of wind, frost, rain, and snow before they can sprout. People are the same; their character must be tempered before the true gold hidden within can be revealed."
A long-lost surge of passion rushed to the top of his head, just like when he stood up for his unjustly accused colleagues in the Taiji Hall back then.
He strode forward and grabbed the handle of the shovel that was about to fall; the rough wooden handle was uncomfortable to the touch.
"This tea-growing region is the remnant of our Great Tang Dynasty!" The words slipped out, and he realized with a start that he was no longer the powerful and authoritative Left Prime Minister. However, the little girl turned sharply at the sound of his voice, her bright eyes instantly gleaming with delight: "Grandpa said! Our ancestors guarded the Ancient Tea Horse Road! And we even have a very, very, very old... a tea cake from the Tang Dynasty hidden away in our home!"
That night, the little girl's grandfather, an old man with white hair and beard and a faltering gait, brought out a heavy camphor wood box with trembling hands.
The moment the box lid was opened, time seemed to flow backward a thousand years.
The intricate and lively vine pattern on that tea cake was exactly the same as the embroidery on the pale yellow dress that Xiao Sizi wore back then!
What shocked him even more was that at the bottom of the box lay a yellowed and fragile old piece of paper, with the young man's slightly naive but extremely earnest handwriting on it. It was a copy of a passage from Lu Yu's "The Classic of Tea"—clearly, it was something he had painstakingly copied under the dim yellow oil lamp at some post station years ago, to please the little girl who was clamoring to learn to read!
Those ink marks, dried up a thousand years ago, and the cold paper still carry a scorching heat.
A sudden, profound realization swept through Ashi's soul: the so-called "unfinished business" was never about preserving oneself in the power struggles of the court, but about protecting those things that are more eternal than power and more enduring than strife—the immortal roots that originate from the land, from the hearts of the people, and from the pure intentions of a little girl.
Three months later, the newly sprouted green leaves of Naxi Tea Ridge were officially designated as a cultural heritage protection area.
Ah-Shi stood in front of the newly planted tea seedlings, their tender leaves still covered in downy hairs, watching the little girl with pigtails, dressed in a school uniform and looking every bit like a little teacher, earnestly teaching a group of even younger children how to identify the freshest tea buds.
A gentle breeze swept across the hillside, causing the tea seedlings to sway and offer their tender response.
Just then, an aged yet gentle voice came from behind: "Brother Shizhi, how have you been?"
He suddenly turned around and saw an elderly man dressed in Tang suits, with a refined and scholarly demeanor, standing with a smile. His brows even faintly carried a hint of the elegant and slender spirit of the poet Du Fu.
"I am a descendant of Zi'an," the old man said, handing over a cup of steaming tea, the aroma of which instantly filled the air. "My ancestor was forced by a treacherous minister to serve him that bowl of medicine, a regret he carried for the rest of his life. On his deathbed, he often murmured to himself that if there were an afterlife, he would surely serve Prime Minister Li a bowl of the freshest tea before Qingming Festival to atone for his sins."
As the warm tea slid down my throat, an indescribable, refreshing sweetness instantly spread, opening the floodgates that had been sealed for thousands of years.
The scene before my eyes suddenly blurred and spun, as fragments of time rushed in:
In the courtyard of the Prime Minister's residence, the moonlight was like water. Little Sizi was holding a wine jar, her eyes crinkling like a new moon as she smiled, with a trace of wine still glistening on her cheeks from secretly tasting it.
The gold tortoise that He Jian (He Zhizhang) took off gleamed with a warm luster under the moonlight;
Li Bai, emboldened by wine, wielded his brush with unrestrained fervor, his strokes flowing like dragons and snakes, perfectly capturing the wild and unconventional spirit of "I must drink three hundred cups in one go!"
Ashe closed her eyes, and a warm drop of liquid quietly slid down her cheek...
He finally realized: those lost times and missed opportunities had not truly disappeared. They had simply transformed into the purest morning dew, quietly gathering on the tip of time, waiting for the perfect spring to fall again, nourishing another heart waiting to sprout.
Later, the Tang Dynasty tea cake, which carried a thousand years of friendship, was solemnly placed in a glass display case in a museum.
Under carefully designed soft lighting, the remaining tea dust deep within the ancient cracks of the tea cake, weathered by time, presents a unique, shimmering light brown hue.
As he stared at the tiny mark, his heart skipped a beat—the shape and the location were exactly like that mischievous tea stain on Xiao Sizi's lips that he could never wipe clean back then.
In the modern world, the cold iron plaque bearing the inscription "Intern of the Capital Prefecture" left by Ah Shi has, at some unknown time, been inscribed with a line of delicate small characters on its back using an extremely fine engraving knife:
"Tea has true fragrance, and people have true character; though separated by a thousand years, we will never betray each other."