Quick Travel to the Clouds

Chapter 706 Talent for Governing the Country 5

Yun Chu looked at the child, her heart aching with unspeakable sorrow. The child was emaciated, and although the wounds on his shoulders and back had been cleaned and bandaged, the edges were purple, clearly indicating that he had been suffering from frostbite for a long time.

She asked in a low voice, "Can you still hear me?"

The boy slowly opened his eyes, his gaze shifting from unfocused to clear.

He didn't answer immediately, but instead looked around with his unfathomable eyes—the low mud walls, the drafty window frames, the bamboo slips and dried mugwort hanging on the walls, and the woman in front of him: dressed in coarse linen, with a thin face, but her eyes were as gentle and firm as autumn water.

After a long silence, he nodded gently.

"What's your name?" Yun Chu asked softly.

His lips moved, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible: "...Nameless."

Yun Chu shook her head: "Don't you remember, or are you unwilling to say?"

The boy closed his eyes, his eyelashes trembling slightly, as if a thousand pounds were pressing down on his heart. After a moment, he opened his eyes and said, word by word, "My...surname is Zhao."

Yun Chu's heart skipped a beat. She had suspected it before, but hearing it with her own ears still shocked her.

But she remained expressionless and said softly, "Okay. Then you should stay here and recover until you're better."

From then on, Young Master Zhao Dan stayed in the thatched hut next to the schoolhouse.

Yun Chu changed his dressings, brewed medicine, and stewed wild vegetable soup every day. She even took apart her only thick coat and took out the cotton wadding to sew an inner lining for him.

When the children learned that the man had rescued a homeless child, they all rushed to visit him, some bringing homemade pickled radishes, others bringing half a coarse bread.

Shi Dan even secretly brought over half a bottle of rice wine that his father had hidden, saying it was for "warming up."

Ah He, the oldest at thirteen, took the initiative to chop wood and carry water, and led several younger children to take turns keeping watch at night, fearing that something might happen to the patient.

Zhao Dan remained silent throughout.

He didn't cry or make a fuss, nor did he ask many questions. He just lay quietly, occasionally staring at the ceiling in a daze.

But whenever Yun Chu approached, his eyes would flicker slightly, as if confirming her presence.

Seven days later, the wound began to scab over, and he was able to sit up with difficulty. Yun Chu helped him sit up on the mat, handed him a bowl of hot porridge, and took out a bamboo slip with the character "生" (life) written on it.

“If you want to go home, you need the strength to walk,” she said. “Starting today, I will teach you to read. Once you know how to read, you can write letters, ask for directions, and find your way.”

The boy stared at the character for a long time, then suddenly reached for the charcoal pencil and began to trace it stroke by stroke on another piece of bamboo. His movements were clumsy, but extremely earnest. When he finished, he looked up at her: "Next one?"

Yun Chu smiled. It was the first time in days that she had truly smiled.

From then on, every morning, as the first rays of sunlight pierced through the frost and mist and shone into the thatched hut, one could always hear the tender yet persistent voice of recitation:

"At the beginning of man's life, his nature is good..."

"Heaven and earth are divided into yin and yang, and the four seasons follow their order..."

Young Master Zhao Dan learned extremely quickly. He mastered fifty characters in three days, could read short sentences in five days, and could even recite the opening lines of the Thousand Character Classic from memory after ten days.

Yun Chu was amazed by his talent, but even more shocked by the almost obsessive thirst for knowledge in his eyes—as if every word was a stepping stone to his homeland, and every sentence could dispel the darkness he had experienced.

He gradually began to speak. Not much, but every word was clear.

He said he escaped from Handan. When the war broke out, the palace was burned down and his clansmen were scattered. He was taken out of the city and traveled south in hardship. All his guards died along the way, and he was the only one left to escape.

He said he remembered his mother holding his hand before she died and saying, "If you ever come to power, do not forget the hunger and cold of the people."

He said he didn't know if he was really the young master, or if he could ever go back. But he was determined to try.

Yun Chu listened, her fingertips trembling slightly. She knew this history—the Zhao state had experienced the Sand Dune Incident, the young master was separated from his family, powerful ministers held sway, and it was not until several years later that the rightful ruler was restored.

And the child before them was the only surviving member of that chaotic era.

She didn't reveal his identity, nor did she mention the future. She only taught him to read, write, and do arithmetic, and also taught him to identify herbs, recognize the solar terms, and observe the stars.

She took him to the fields to watch the farmers turn the soil, to the stream to listen to the water crashing against the rocks, and pointed to the distant mountains, saying, "Look, the earth is silent, yet it nourishes thousands; the rivers surge, yet they do not vie for supremacy. A ruler should be like this."

Zhao Dan listened silently, her eyes growing brighter.

The twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month is Little New Year.

The village held a ceremony to worship the Kitchen God, with smoke rising from the fire.

Yun Chu made an exception and steamed a basket of millet cakes, distributing them to all the children. When it was Zhao Dan's turn, she gave her two extra pieces.

Night fell, and the wind and snow began again. The boy sat by the fire pit, holding a newly written bamboo slip in his hand, on which was the sentence he had learned that day: "The people are the foundation of the state; when the foundation is firm, the state is at peace."

He suddenly looked up and asked, "Sir, if one person's strength is insufficient to save the people, what should be done?"

Yun Chu poked at the charcoal fire and said softly, "Then let's save one person first, then ten, then a hundred. A small spark can start a prairie fire."

The boy lowered his head and remained silent for a long time. When he looked up again, his eyes were already filled with tears, but he stubbornly refused to let them fall.

“I’ve got it,” he said.

Even in the chilly early spring, Zhao Dan was already able to walk with a cane. His foot injury had not yet fully healed, but his eyes were no longer confused.

He started helping Yun Chu organize books, repair fences, and even took the initiative to teach other children to read. When Shi Dan couldn't write the character "spring," he squatted down and demonstrated it stroke by stroke with a twig.

Yun Chu watched with a sense of relief. She knew that this young man, who had once been on the verge of death, was gradually regaining his soul and his sense of purpose.

One evening, she was drying medicinal herbs in the courtyard when she suddenly heard footsteps behind her.

Turning around, he saw Zhao Gongzi Dan standing in the sunset, holding something in his hands—a small terracotta figurine, about three inches tall, sculpted as a kneeling woman lecturing, with features vaguely resembling her.

“I sculpted it from red clay from the riverbank,” he said softly. “I don’t know how to carve it, so this is all I can do… but I wanted to leave something behind, to remember this place.”

Yun Chu froze, her eyes suddenly burning.

She took the terracotta figurine, her fingertips gently tracing its rough yet vivid outline, as if touching the softest corner of time.

"You will go back," she whispered, "taking with you the wind and snow, the lights, and the hearts of the people here."

The young man nodded: "If I ever hold power in the government, I will establish schools in the countryside so that the poor can learn and the lowly can aspire to great things."

Yun Chu looked at him and nodded solemnly: "That would be a blessing for the world."

A spring breeze swept across the hillside, rustling the mugwort under the thatched eaves. In the distance, the sound of children reading aloud drifted on the wind.

"The Great Learning teaches us to manifest our bright virtue, to love the people, and to abide in perfect goodness..."

Before the thatched-roof schoolhouse, the fire still burns, and people's hearts remain warm.

In this desolate land, the heart of a king is quietly sprouting, rooted in hardship and nourished by benevolence, and will eventually break through the soil to illuminate the nations.

After spring arrived, the ice and snow melted, and mountain streams gurgled. Zhao Dan's foot injury had healed. He stood in front of the thatched schoolhouse, his back to the rising sun, tightly clutching the small red clay figurine in his hand.

“Sir, I must go now.” His voice was much calmer than when he first arrived. “A messenger has come from Handan; my father has found me.”