"I was born at the wrong time, and met Heaven's furious wrath."
Liu Bei spoke from the heart as he sighed for Liu Hong.
But the man was already gone. No amount of regret could change that. Liu Bei could only steady himself and force a smile.
"When the Imperial Academy is revived and returned to the old capital, a stone stele shall be erected within it bearing Liu Hong's name, so that later generations may know of him."
This was only right. The others nodded repeatedly, all in agreement.
After gathering himself, Liu Bei finally noticed that beside the Qianxiang Calendar there was another object. When he picked it up, he found its shape quite peculiar.
The small wooden frame resembled a window frame, but unlike a window with evenly spaced horizontal and vertical bars, it had only a single horizontal beam.
Each vertical rod was extremely slender, and each one was threaded with five wooden beads. The horizontal beam divided the beads neatly, four beads on one side and a single bead on the other. The side with the single bead was painted vermilion, giving it an exquisitely refined appearance.
"What is this?" Liu Bei asked, intrigued.
He held it up and fumbled with it a few times, unable to grasp its purpose. He even looked at it against the light, then felt that this was probably not how it was meant to be used. When he shook it lightly, the beads slid together with a crisp clattering sound.
Liu Bei immediately had a guess.
"This instrument sounds rather pleasant."
At once, he saw Kongming, who had been somewhat downcast, break into an amused smile, while Jian Yong was far less polite and burst into loud laughter.
Realizing he had guessed wrong, Liu Bei did not feel embarrassed. He even shook it twice more, listening to the clear collision of beads, before setting it down and waiting calmly for Kongming to explain.
"This was created by Liu Yuanzhuo to facilitate calculation."
As he spoke, Kongming took it and demonstrated briefly.
His long, nimble fingers moved the beads in sequence as he recited the calculation aloud. As the beads shifted back and forth, a fairly complex calculation was completed, making its function immediately clear to Liu Bei.
Jian Yong added an explanation from the side.
"According to Zhong Shili, Liu Yuanzhuo exhausted himself creating the Qianxiang Calendar. The calculations required were beyond what ordinary men could imagine, so he devised many tools to aid his work."
"Only this one he carried with him for years without ever abandoning it. What the lord sees now was reconstructed based on Zhong Shili's description."
Liu Bei sighed again.
"Since this object was made by Liu Yuanzhuo, then perhaps it should be called…"
Before Liu Bei could blurt it out, Kongming hurriedly interjected.
"My lord, according to Zhong Shili, Liu Yuanzhuo called this object the Threaded Bead Calculator."
Liu Bei immediately rubbed his beard awkwardly.
"Threaded Bead Calculator. A good name."
As the awkwardness faded, the man from Yan, Zhang Fei, stuck his head in.
"I think the name Big Brother came up with, Yuanzhuo Calculator, sounds better."
Liu Bei instantly flushed and shouted loudly.
"When did I ever say that? Third Brother, do not slander my innocence."
As for what he truly thought in his heart, he would rather die than admit it.
Seeing the lord and General Zhang Yide roughhousing together, Ma Chao said with genuine admiration,
"The bond between my lord and his sworn brothers is no less than that of blood kin."
Kongming cast him a sideways glance and shook his head. No wonder in later history this man went out alongside Yide and the two so called unmatched warriors were routed by the Three Caos.
When Yide repeated his old tricks, Ma Mengqi was probably still cheering and waving flags.
If they marched east of Tong Pass in the future, Zhang and Ma must never be allowed to go out together.
Kongming quietly noted this in his heart.
Casting a helpless glance at the fleeing Zhang Fei, Kongming sighed and leaned forward to look outside the door.
The light screen appeared at the end of each month, once every three months. The last appearance in Chengdu had been at the end of the first month. Now in Chang'an, it was already the end of the fourth month.
Yet the climate of Chang'an at the end of the fourth month felt much like Chengdu at the end of the first. Lowering his gaze to the climate chart he had copied from the light screen, Kongming felt a bit troubled.
This cooling trend would continue for over a hundred years before gradually warming again. How was one to make sense of such a century spanning change?
Fortunately, what gave Kongming a little comfort was that once time moved from late April into early May, Chang'an's weather could finally be called warm.
As the cold receded, the first thing to arrive was an increasingly busy Chang'an.
Ruins needed rebuilding, old houses needed repair, broken walls had to be cleared one by one. Even some aging streets required resurfacing. The clanging of tools and materials echoed across the city, drifting through the air before finally settling into a relatively quiet courtyard and entering Xiahou Yuan's ears.
"I am not playing anymore."
Holding a black stone and pondering for a long time, Xiahou Yuan abruptly tossed it onto the board. He even swept his hand across it twice, thoroughly ruining the position, and shouted,
"With such noise, how can one focus on a game? I am done."
Du Xi, who sat across from him, felt little regret. To be honest, he had grown numb to winning. Xiahou Miaocai's chess skill was, to put it kindly, unbearably bad. To put it bluntly, it barely existed. Winning another game brought no sense of achievement.
So Du Xi turned his gaze to Zhang He, who was standing nearby watching.
"Junyi, your turn?"
Zhang He had no objection. After Xiahou Yuan stood up, he quietly sat down and patiently returned the stones to the containers one by one, sorting them by color.
He even had the leisure to chat with Du Xi.
"Zhixu, what do you think Liu Bei is doing now?"
"What is he doing?"
Du Xi snorted coldly.
"What else could it be? The old Liu clan has once again settled the Three Qins. Naturally, he must give the people of Guanzhong an explanation. Build houses, repair roads, dig canals. Then these Guanzhong folk will kneel before Liu Xuande shouting long live the Han, and send their sons to die for the Han."
"Liu Xuande must be extremely pleased with himself right now."
Nearby, Xiahou Yuan stretched his body, finally relaxing. Confined here without troops, the only way to keep active was on his own.
Twisting his waist and hips, Xiahou Yuan chimed in,
"I heard that Liu Bei has made the Imperial Academy lively again. Anyone can enter just by registering their name, and listen to lectures on how to farm."
Du Xi still snorted.
"Just trickery. A means to register the population."
Zhang He sighed helplessly.
After having their military authority stripped and being sent to this estate, he had more or less pieced together what happened.
As a result, the attitudes of the two men who had once faced each other in the Wei River valley had completely reversed.
Xiahou Yuan, who had once been determined to die repaying Chancellor Cao, now ate and drank as usual. When bored, he would shout insults at Liu Bei, provoke curses from the commoners outside, then happily trade insults with them for an hour, smiling all the while.
Du Xi, who had advocated surrender and even launched a surprise attack on Xiahou Yuan, was instead gloomy day after day. At the slightest provocation he would curse loudly, and whenever Liu Bei was mentioned, his mouth filled with scorn, just as now.
Zhang He shook his head.
"These methods are all easy. Why did Chancellor Cao not use them to win the people's hearts?"
Du Xi fell silent.
Xiahou Yuan, on the other hand, spoke lightly.
"If we had Liu Bei's army discipline, this would be easy enough."
Zhang He did not quite understand. He had only heard of Liu Bei's troops being imposing, but had never seen them himself. Instead, all he had faced were Ma Chao's Qiang cavalry.
Seeing Du Xi's sour expression, Zhang He continued chatting with Xiahou Yuan while tidying the board.
"I heard that some days ago Liu Bei led many laborers out of the city, planning to expand and redraw the city."
"He probably finds the imperial palace an eyesore. Built but uninhabitable. If you ask me, why not live in it."
"The people say it is because there is too much filth in Chang'an."
"That… is not entirely wrong."
"They also say he wants to dig new canals."
Du Xi quickly cut in.
"Hah, so it is laboring the people and draining wealth again."
Zhang He did not even lift his eyelids.
"They distribute grain for canal work."
Du Xi was left speechless.