In brief—
Unification, unification!
Those who do not strive for unification are but rats!
"I just don’t know, after casting one of the Nine Cauldrons, what transformation will occur." Li Guanyi extended his hand, faintly sensing that the cauldron forged from a part of the Nine Cauldrons’ Divine Charm would integrate with the two thousand li of Jiangnan’s territory.
A tamorphosis would occur.
Yet he did not know the exact nature of this transformation.
"Emperor’s Divine Skill?"
"Nine Provinces Tripod."
"Yet, which is superior, which is inferior?"
......
The command from the Marquis Qin Wu was passed down. Although the populace across various regions was unaware of the significance of this command, the young Lord’s reputation in Jiangnan was overwhelmingly strong, to the extent that it surpassed even the knowledge of the monarch.
The Lord seeks this used but now useless iron and tal.
What is there to say?
They naturally brought it out.
Old Wen was a seasoned farr, having endured decades of worldly experiences. He possessed the habit of thrift, not the thrift of saving money, but thrift regarding objects, picking up anything he thought might be of use.
"This thing might be useful, you never know when it might co in handy."
Saying this, he would collect objects bit by bit and bring them ho.
Walking along thus, his family mbers passed away one by one in the chaos of war.
He had a room just to store these things.
Pieces of wood he ca across, broken furniture from ho, all stored with the thought they might be useful one day, unknowingly accumulating a lot. Upon hearing the decree today, he unusually began to sort through them.
Rustle—
Old Wen barely touched them, and like an avalanche collapsing, decades of collected items fell apart. If not for the young man passing by who lent a hand, Old Wen might have been buried.
Old Wen promptly invited the young man to sit down, expressing his thanks, fetched a teapot, poured tea, brought out so fruits, and a stack of peanuts.
Settling the young man, he busied himself again.
The young man seed around seventeen or eighteen, clad in a washed-out garnt barely recognizable as blue, presumably from a less affluent background, not wealthy at all.
Old Wen chatted idly while searching for things, finally pulling out the items, breathed out, and laughed: "I told you, these things kept, will certainly be useful soday!"
Then he realized, his wife had long passed, and he couldn’t quarrel incessantly with her.
Old Wen seed accustod to it, like other old people his age, lacking soone to answer their questions, habitually mumbled to himself: "I said it would be useful, isn’t it now being used?"
"Still they say , say ."
"Look, isn’t this grand, isn’t it useful!"
The young man glanced, seeing the item in Old Wen’s hand, a hoe, though only the iron part remained, the wooden handle had rotted so, the iron hoe half-covered with rust.
Old Wen brought a basin of water, sat by the well to rub off the rust, muttering:
"Young man, sorry for the spectacle, but this is sothing I must handle myself."
The impoverished young fellow, yet wearing a jade hairpin, said:
"The hoe is..."
Old Wen replied forthrightly:
"A hoe, what more is there to say?"
"I still rember, I forged it when I was fifteen. Though I say forged, it was actually made by lting my father’s broken pot and having the village smith forge it. That ti, as I recall, was several years before the Ying Country’s Empress fell ill and passed."
"The heavens high, and the emperor afar, it’s hard to recall."
"After I crafted the hoe, I married the girl from the sa village."
"Don’t let my current frailness fool you, back then, I was strong, with this hoe, I helped her family open fields and till the land. Those who saw praised what a good young man I was. My wife married seeing my strength."
"Hey, within a few years, a big plump boy was born."
Old Wen gazed at the hoe in his hand: "I relied on this hoe to feed my family and keep our life going. Later, when my son grew up, I gave him this hoe, and also forged a new iron pot for him, and he found himself a wife."
The young man asked: "And then?"
Old Wen laughed softly, saying: "Then? Wars broke out, initially heavy taxes, later conscription to battle, every one or two years sothing like this occurred without pause. When I was in my forties, I was separated from my son’s village."
"Seems the Royal Army went through, few days later I went to take a look, hey, the village was gone, my son’s ho burned, I searched but found nothing of them, everything charred, even the house had collapsed, only this hoe remained."
"I took back the hoe, and two sun-dried old cabbages."
"Isn’t this a good hoe."
"My son is gone, but the hoe remains, those two pickled cabbages lasted days, pickled so well, couldn’t throw them away..."
Old Wen whispered:
"The old man ended up taken to transport military supplies."
"Encountered bandits blocking the road, then spotted my son missing an arm, in the bandit hideout, even holding a blade, seeing seed he wanted to say sothing, later couldn’t say anything, official forces broke out and attacked, my son got stabbed to death."
"I clutched this hoe."
"Covered in blood."
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