Killing Monks

He felt that of course he was a human being, with hands and feet, able to cry and laugh, what else could he be but a human being?

But now that Guangyuan has said this, he suddenly feels uncertain.

What exactly is a human being? Is it simply having hands and feet that makes someone a human being?

Monkeys have hands and feet, so are they human? No, monkeys aren't human. What's the difference between a human and a monkey? He couldn't figure it out.

The third person to stand up was Zhao Da.

Zhao Da, with his round face, always spoke slowly, like a cow chewing its cud, taking a long time to swallow.

But what he said always had something more than others. Not just a few more words, but something else entirely.

"Qin Shi Huang," Zhao Da said, "He destroyed all six states. After that, he built the Great Wall, constructed highways, standardized the written language, and standardized weights and measures."

"He did many things, some good, some bad. But he only reigned as emperor for fifteen years. After he died, the Qin Dynasty ended."

"What he did still exists. The Great Wall still stands, the imperial roads still stand, the written language still stands, the system of weights and measures still stands. He's gone, but his deeds remain. So, did he succeed or fail?"

Guangyuan looked at him for a few moments.

What do you think?

Zhao Da thought for a while. "It's a success. The matter is still there. If the person is gone but the matter remains, that's a success. If the person is gone and the matter is gone, that's a failure."

Guangyuan neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply said, "You can think about this more often in the future. The more you think about it, the more you'll realize that success and failure are not as simple as you think."

Zhao Da sat down. His expression remained unchanged as he sat down. But something moved in his eyes. Like a fish swimming past the surface of the water, out of sight, yet you know it's still there.

Guangyuan then asked, "What do you want to do in the future?"

This caused an uproar in the classroom.

"I want to be the emperor!" the skinny boy shouted first. After he shouted, he was startled and covered his mouth, his eyes darting around to see how others would react.

No one laughed at him. It wasn't that he didn't want to laugh, but that he didn't have time to laugh because everyone was shouting.

"I want to be a great general!"

"I want to be the prime minister!"

"I want to be a prince!"

"I want to be a marquis!"

The sounds rose and fell, like cicadas in summer; one chirped, then they all chirped, their voices deafening, making the dust on the roof fall down in a flurry.

Guangyuan sat in the front, listening to the shouts, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Are kings and nobles born with a special destiny?" These were the words of Chen Sheng.

Chen Sheng was a farmer who was hired to plow the fields. On the ridge of the field, he said to others, "If I become rich and powerful, I will not forget you." Others laughed at him, saying, "What wealth and power do you, a farmer, have to offer?"

Chen Sheng sighed and said, "How can a sparrow know the ambition of a swan?" Later, he indeed became rich and powerful. Not as an official, but as a king.

King of Zhang Chu.

Although he didn't reign for long, he did. A farmer became king.

This was something no one had ever thought of before. He thought of it, and he did it. He reigned for six months, and then he died.

But during those six months, as he sat on his throne, looking at the people kneeling below, did he ever recall the words he had uttered on the edge of the field years ago: "If I become rich and powerful, I will not forget you"?

Has he forgotten? Who knows? Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't. Maybe he hasn't forgotten, but he can't do it. Things you can't do are more painful to think about than to forget.

The little girl with pigtails didn't call out. She sat there and waited until everyone else had finished calling before raising her hand.

Guangyuan called her name.

"I," she said, her voice soft but steady. "Welcome to Cola Novels, where a vast collection of novels awaits your exploration! I want to be someone like you."

The classroom fell silent for a moment. It wasn't the kind of silence born of shock, but rather the kind of silence born of surprise. They all thought she would say, "I want to be a queen" or "I want to be a princess."

Among kings, nobles, generals, and ministers, there is no such thing as a "schoolteacher." A schoolteacher is neither a king, nor a noble, nor a general, nor a minister.

A schoolteacher is a schoolteacher. Sitting in a dilapidated school, he teaches a group of children from humble backgrounds things they may never use in their lives.

After finishing his lecture, he asked for feedback and then sat on the doorstep basking in the sun. What's so great about being a person like that?

But she said she wanted to be that kind of person.

Guangyuan stared at her for a long time. The corners of his mouth were still turned up, but the light in his eyes had changed. Not brighter, but deeper. As deep as a well; if you lean over the edge and look down, you can't see the bottom, only your own face reflected on the surface.

"Okay," he said. Just one word.

Then he stood up and dusted off his robes.

Write a reflection after listening and hand it in tomorrow.

Another chorus of wails filled the school.

But this time, the lamentation is different from before. Before, it was "Here we go again," but this time it's "I knew it would happen." When you know something is going to happen, and it actually happens, you don't feel annoyed; you just feel "I knew it."

it is as expected.

Mr. Guang is still Mr. Guang. Whether you say you want to be an emperor or a schoolteacher, he will neither praise you nor scold you.

He would simply say "okay," and then ask you to write your thoughts afterward. That was Mr. Hiro. It had been like this from the very first day the school opened.

It's still the same today. And maybe it will still be the same tomorrow.

Perhaps it will still be like this until the day he dies.

Meanwhile, the Tang state was already sharpening its knives, preparing to take action against the Northern Zhou.

The Northern Zhou and the Tang Dynasty had been at peace for many years.

It's not that they don't want to fight, it's that they can't fight. The two countries are evenly matched; neither can defeat the other. If they insist on fighting, it will only result in mutual destruction and benefit others.

So both sides endured it, suppressing their own feelings, licking their own wounds while watching the other make a fool of themselves.

In those years, both countries were competing to see who was worse—if you were worse, I would be worse; if you were absurd, I would be more absurd.

In the end, neither side could win, but neither side lost either. Things get so bad that they can't get any worse.

The Tang Kingdom couldn't rot any further. It wasn't because it didn't want to rot, but because the system of the Twelve Earthly Fiends acted like a rope, pulling the Tang Kingdom out of the mire bit by bit.

It was pulled very slowly, so slowly that you couldn't feel it, but it was definitely going up.

The Northern Zhou Dynasty didn't have this rope. It was still mired in the mud, sinking deeper and deeper, sinking to its waist, then its chest, then its neck, almost drowning.

It was at this time that the Tang Dynasty launched its Northern Expedition.

When the order to launch the Northern Expedition was issued, the Tang army surged toward the northern border like a tidal wave.

Generals rode on horseback, soldiers carried swords and spears, and supply wagons rolled one after another, their wheels grinding across the official road, raising clouds of dust.

The dust settled on the crops by the roadside, on the river, on the rooftops of the villages, and on the faces of the people who looked up and gazed upwards.

The people didn't know how long the war would last, whether their sons, husbands, and fathers would be able to return, or whether their lives would be any better after the victory.

All they knew was that the imperial court could attack at will. If they didn't attack, the court would punish them; if they attacked, they might get some benefits. Or they might not. They might even have to pay out of their own pockets.

But they dared not ask. And even if they did, no one would answer.