I summon all the famous generals in history in another world

Chapter 1019: The Dragon and the Phoenix in the Palace (Happy May Day holiday everyone!)
"Princess Sanhuang, watch your step."

Gongsun Ba's Yanyu Corpse Fangs knocked out sparks among the ruins, and Yan Tengji's mane brushed across the back of Si Luoying's hand, burning her fingertips and making them tremble.

She looked down and saw half a gilded saddle inserted diagonally in the cracks of the blue bricks. It was the one she had fallen off during the autumn hunt a few years ago.

Suddenly, there was a sound of metal clashing from the Xuanhuang Army. Si Luoying turned around suddenly and saw two red phoenix mechanical birds flying up from the grain cart.
Gongsun Ba followed her gaze and saw that in the Qianyuan Hall Square, hundreds of Yulin soldiers were using meteorite swords to pry open the floor tiles, revealing the densely covered dragon-patterned tiles underneath - that was the "Nine Dragons Gathering Qi Formation" designed by the founding emperor of Daqian himself.

Si Luoying remained silent and just rode his horse through the Qiantian Gate.

When the black cloak swept across the doorway, she suddenly looked up - of the four large gilded characters "承天之运" on the door lintel, only the three characters "天之运" were left swaying in the wind, which looked very much like the shaky national destiny of Daqian at this moment.

"Your Highness, the Lord is waiting for you."

Shi Jingsi appeared on the street corner at some point, and the dew on his silver armor had not yet dried.

"General Xuanwu is leading the Chongyan Guards to repair the palace gates. He said... he said he wanted to make room for the Xuanhuang Army to park the Yanjia beasts."

Si Luoying chuckled when he heard this, and his fingertips stroked the sword at his waist.

This "Jinghong" sword was a token of love that Su Ye gave her when he was in Hengzhou. The jadeite dragon-patterned buckle on the sword tassel is a perfect match for the one on Su Ye's waist.

The hilt of the sword was slightly cool at this moment, as if matching her suddenly accelerated heartbeat.

When crossing the cross street and heading straight for the palace, Si Luoying suddenly stopped and saw a half-burnt door plaque floating on the surface of the moat, with the words "Minister of Rites' Mansion" faintly visible.

She suddenly remembered that ten years ago, she was standing here, watching her father put on silver armor for Gu Changqing.

"The Grand Master said back then that he would carve out a way out for Daqian, but now that way has been completely cut off."

She bent down to pick up a broken tile and rubbed her fingertips over the raised dragon pattern.

Gongsun Ba was about to answer when he suddenly saw a wisp of green smoke rising from the palace wall in the distance. However, Si Luoying seemed to have expected this and instead quickened his pace.

She was very familiar with this smell - it was Su Ye's favorite agarwood incense mixed with the burnt smell of cinnabar.

Sure enough, as soon as I stepped into the square in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I saw Su Ye squatting in front of the steps, with the hem of his white robe covered with incense ash.

There were twelve bronze lamps placed beside him, with the wicks burning with strange blue flames. He actually used the many jade seals in the hall as candlesticks.

"Luo Ying came just in time."

"Please wipe my hands. This cinnabar is mixed with realgar. It is very itchy when it touches the skin."

Su Ye threw a handkerchief over without even looking back.

Si Luoying took the handkerchief, but saw that there was half a lotus embroidered on the corner. It was the one she had left in Su Ye's tent the day before.

"The Duke of Zhenguo is in such a good mood that he dares to light a lamp with the imperial seal!"

The tips of her ears turned slightly red, and she deliberately threw the handkerchief at Su Ye's face.

"Imperial jade seal?"

"If I hadn't ordered people to grab these jade seals, they would have been burned to pieces by Meng Zhang by now."

Su Ye chuckled and brushed his fingertips across the lamp closest to him. The four golden characters "Mandate by Heaven" on the lamp base were licked black by the flames.

As he spoke, he suddenly turned around, and the scent of agarwood hit his face.

Only then did Si Luoying realize that he was not wearing armor today. He was only wearing a plain gauze robe over his moon-white robe. The oriental pearls adorning the jade belt around his waist set off the emerald on her sword tassel.

"Luo Ying, do you know what Meng Zhang left in the cellar of the imperial palace before he left?"

He suddenly put his fingers together to form a sword and carved the word "Luo" on the bluestone slab.

"In addition to the imperial seal, there is also this."

Si Luoying looked in the direction of his finger, and saw a piece of broken dragon scale armor embedded in the crevice of the bluestone - it was the same piece that her father had tied on her battle robe with his own hands when she came of age.

"Meng Zhang said that if the Third Princess saw this, she would know that Daqian's fate was over."

"He is very considerate. He even moved the bronze tripod from the Imperial Ancestral Temple to the palace gate for me."

Su Ye suddenly leaned over, and the scent of agarwood and the smell of blood intertwined into a web.

Si Luoying was shocked. How could she not know Meng Zhang’s deep meaning?

The bronze tripod weighed thousands of pounds and was originally used by Daqian to cook sacrifices during her sacrifices. Now it was casually thrown in front of the palace gate by the Yellow Turban Army, which was clearly a mockery of Daqian who had become a fish on the chopping board.

She raised her hand to brush away the dust on the Panlong Pillar, and her fingertips were stained with half a piece of faded vermilion lacquer. In a trance, it was as if she was touching the cinnabar that her father had personally applied to her forehead during her coming-of-age ceremony ten years ago.

"The colorful paintings on the caisson were drawn by the painter when I was twelve years old."

She looked up at the mottled flying fairy pattern on the dome, her black cloak slipped off her shoulders, revealing the moon-white undershirt embroidered with a pattern of hundreds of butterflies - that was the material for her wedding dress that the embroiderer had spent three months making before she got married. Now that she was wearing it, it seemed like a mockery of the devastated world.

Su Ye leaned against the golden-lacquered red steps with coiled dragons, with the Chunjun sword casually inserted in the crack of the white marble steps. The pearl on the sword tassel tapped lightly on the jade steps in the morning breeze, and the tinkling sound was mixed with the sound of rammed earth from the Chongyanwei repairing the palace wall in the distance.

He looked at Si Luoying's back as she wandered among the ruins, and suddenly remembered that she was looking at the clouds in the sky like this on the Hengzhou city wall during the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, except that the sword tassel on her waist was decorated with jadeite dragon patterns at that time, instead of the oriental pearl necklace that was the same as the jade he was wearing.

"The glazed tiles of the Qiankun Hall were made under the supervision of those old stubborn people in the Ministry of Works."

Si Luoying suddenly stopped and kicked away half of the charred rafter with his toes, revealing the faintly visible mark of "Made in the 13th year of Yonghui" underneath.

"Back then, my father and the Censorate argued for three months over whether to use peacock blue or ochre for the roof tiles. In the end, Grand Tutor Gu brought out the Construction Code and said ochre is more durable..." Her voice stopped abruptly. The morning breeze brought a burnt smell past her ears, and Si Luoying suddenly felt her throat tighten.

Those arguments in the court, those quarrels in the Supervisor of Craftsmen, those candlelights when her father reviewed memorials until three o'clock in the morning, have now become termites in the rubble, gnawing at the Great Qian Empire in her memory.

Su Ye walked behind her without her knowing, and the scent of agarwood mixed with morning dew wafted over, startling her fingertips and making them tremble.

When he reached out to hold her arm, the warmth of his palm seeped in through the cold black armor, just like holding a piece of warm jade in the cold winter.

Si Luoying's throat tightened and he looked over Su Ye's shoulder towards the altar. Twelve bronze lamps glowed faintly blue in the morning light. The jade seal was casually turned upside down to serve as a candlestick, and the candle wax condensed into a dark red blood scab on the four golden characters "Mandate by Heaven".

"You've already figured it out, haven't you?"

"Since the day we started our rebellion in Hengzhou, when you sent the twin lotus flowers to my tent, have you been waiting for this day?"

She suddenly turned around, and her black cloak swept across the incense ashes on the ground.

Su Ye did not retreat but moved forward, the scent of agarwood mixed with the scent of morning dew enveloped her.

"Luo Ying, do you know why I love agarwood so much?"

He reached out to pick away the broken tiles stuck in her hair, and when his fingertips stroked the wrinkles between her brows, he felt a slight tingling sensation.

"This fragrance needs to be preserved with honey water in a clay pot for 9981 days. If it rains on the day you open the pot, the fragrance will be three points worse."

Without waiting for her to answer, he continued.

"It's like a peony plant kept in a deep palace. It has to go through a rainstorm to know whether it can survive."

He suddenly lowered his eyes, and his eyelashes cast fan-shaped shadows under his eyes.

Si Luoying's heart was shocked. She knew what Su Ye was talking about. Daqian, the peony that was kept in the greenhouse, should have been moved out into the world to experience the wind and rain.

But when she saw with her own eyes that her father's favorite of the Eighteen Scholars, Mudan, was trampled into mud by war horses, and that the bronze tripod in the Imperial Ancestral Temple was imprisoned, all those great principles suddenly became a joke.

"Look at the weeds in the cracks between the bricks. A few years ago they were only an inch tall, but now they are almost knee-high."

Su Ye suddenly squatted down, not caring at all that his white robe was soaked in incense ash.

"Don't you think it's weird? This grass grows out of the dragon pattern."

He pulled up a plant at random, and found a piece of dragon-patterned floor tile debris on the root of the grass.

Si Luoying looked at the fresh green on his palm, and his eyes suddenly felt hot.

She recalled when she was a child by the Taiye Lake, Gu Changqing taught her to identify reeds and water chestnuts, saying, "Governing a country is like raising seedlings, one cannot be impatient or anxious."

Now there is only scorched earth where the reeds once were, and the people who were raising seedlings have turned into a handful of yellow earth, giving the weeds the upper hand.

"Luo Ying, I know you actually blame me in your heart."

Su Ye suddenly raised his eyes, and the agarwood fragrance spread out ripples with his movement.

"But ask yourself, if you had to do it again, would you really want to see Grand Tutor Gu lead the remaining soldiers to defend the city until it was captured? Or see those people tied to the prison cart like lambs?"

His fingertips unconsciously stroked the Chunjun sword tassel, and the emerald dragon-patterned buckle shone in the morning light.

Si Luoying dug her fingernails into her palms. Three days ago, when she received the news that Gu Changqing had died in battle, she was studying the defenses of the eight passes of Qianzhou on the map. Her wolf-hair brush was bent on the last stroke of the character "Gu". When the ink spread, it looked like the hideous wound on the Grand Tutor's chest.

She looked up at the flickering fire in Su Ye's eyes, and suddenly remembered the strange vision she saw on the top of the city last night.

In the east, where the flames were spitting out, there were carved beams and painted buildings everywhere, but in the West Market where the people lived, even the thatched houses were intact. The scene of the Yulin Army and the people fighting the fire side by side was very much like the "destiny" mentioned in the storybooks.

"Will you... treat them well?"

"Those old ministers, those...old members of Daqian..."

She heard her own voice trembling, like the last fluttering sycamore leaf in late autumn.

Su Ye's fingertips stroked the wrinkles between her brows, and the agarwood fragrance became stronger with his movements. Si Luoying stared at him in a daze, the morning light gilded his features, and his peach blossom eyes, which always carried a hint of playfulness, were now filled with morning light, reflecting a tenderness she had never seen before.

"I'll keep them safe."

"As long as they don't cling to the dream of restoring the old order, I will allow them to write books, open schools and teach students, and... call me a wolf with evil ambitions!"

He suddenly took her hand and pressed it against his heart, the emerald dragon pattern on the Chunjun sword tassel touching her wrist.

Si Luoying's fingertips touched his heartbeat and she suddenly burst into laughter. The laughter came so unexpectedly, like a forsythia flower blooming in the cold winter, and even she was stunned.

Su Ye seemed to have expected this. He reached out to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes. The water droplets on his fingertips shattered into rainbows in the morning light.

"Smile more and watch me. I was thinking of letting you be the leader of those old Daqian people in the future!"

He suddenly leaned over, and the scent of agarwood mixed with the smell of blood enveloped her.

"There's just one thing - you have to keep an eye on those old stubborn people for me and don't let them do any more meaningless things... Okay?"

He suddenly lowered his voice, and his hot breath brushed her earlobe.

Si Luoying finally laughed out loud. She suddenly put her arms around his neck. Her black cloak and moon-white gown fluttered like butterflies in the morning breeze. The bronze lamps in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony swayed, casting their intertwined figures on the mottled palace walls, like a phoenix and a real dragon dancing together.

(End of this chapter)