Murim's Weakest Princess

Chapter 316: When Crossing The Bridge Over The Yellow River

The journey to the Tong Pass was rather uneventful. However, Anji took this moment to secretly loosen the seals on her artificial cores. She fiddled with the white veiled hat in moments of idleness and thought about many things.A thousand years sounded like an eternity. However, now that it was coming to an end, Anji suddenly found that the time passed almost too quickly.

In the past, Zhong Kui and Song Min both wrote answers to the couplet poem. The first half still remained vivid in her mind.

"When crossing the bridge over the Yellow River..." Anji recalled the first half and mulled over a good second answer.

Many scholars and great poets have given amazing second answers with different interpretations. As Zhong Kui, Anji once wrote her answer with valour and vigour.

The Yellow River was known to be the longest and most ancient river, carrying many generations of life and being very volatile. You must be able to endure the hardships the Yellow River brings in order to enjoy its prosperity. It was a love that was profound and a bridge that oversees that river in turbulent times and dry season represents an eternal watch.

Scholars and poets often refer to the one crossing the bridge as a sovereign. The second part of that couplet referred to the Emperor’s vision or a leader’s mind governing their people. It tested character and not mere intelligence. From these answers, the passionate exchange of different personalities fostered rich minds like the Yellow River in Spring.

Anji remembered Song Min’s answer. When crossing the bridge over the Yellow River, one should bow three times to heaven, to ancestors and peers. Likening the practice of marriage to governing, Song Min’s answer received high praise in his time. His loyalty was held in high favour, but his reality was bleak. Corruption forced his bow and kept it there until he drowned under the waters on his bridge. It was an unfortunate era, but like the Yellow River, a new season brought about new changes. Changes Song Min was blind to.

Anji remembered giving her answer to the couplet long before Song Min wrote his. She remembered that Zhong Kui was one of the first few scholars who started the trend. Back then, unlike future scholars who treated it as a competitive sport, she did not put much thought into her answer. It simply became famous later on when someone commented on Zhong Kui’s unique calligraphy that matched his bold answer.

When crossing the bridge over the Yellow River, roll up your pants and remove your shoes first. That was her answer as Zhong Kui, who became framed and famed for centuries to come. Although Zhong Kui did not become a high-ranking scholar, his character was renowned, and his spirit after his death made him a guardian of evil who slew vengeful ghosts.

If asked today what her thoughts were for the same incomplete couplet, Anji would rewrite it. Even if the Yellow River flowed the same for a thousand years, the forest and mountains around it would have changed. Not even Zhong Kui’s answer would remain the same.

Thinking about it, Anji reflected on what the Yellow River meant to the current her. As the youngest daughter of a war hero in the murim world and the ninth successor of the most mysterious sects, Anji viewed the Yellow River not as a fellow scholar or governor.

She was a doctor, and a river represented life. Sometimes it was calm and uninteresting, sometimes it was raging and violent. On summer days without rain, it was dry, and during rainy seasons, it would flood the banks.

There was only one consistency in life, and Anji knew from experience that pain was universal. Yet, the living continued to hope almost foolishly. And like the Yellow River, it never ends.

When crossing the bridge over the Yellow River, never look back. If Anji wrote her answer, this would be her poem.

It took them a thousand years to meet again, and it was a thousand years too long. They had met as bosom buddies, as enemies, as friends, as rivals, as scholars and as warriors.

This time, Anji would meet Song Min, but not as any of the above. If there was one thing she had done differently in this reincarnation, it was learning medicine under a death star. Thanks to Doctor He, Anji understood the festering of a wound. Doctors do not merely save lives. They sometimes perform the final act of mercy killing. They are not Gods but they must sometimes play God.

And play God, they did. Anji, both the patient and the doctor, learned to suture her old wounds. It was painful and difficult, but at least now, she was no longer bleeding out.

But Song Min? Who was there to suture his open wounds? To clean the festering hate? To take away the pain and soothe his heart?

Anji had her family. She had her sect. Her godmother, her friends and doctors. But Song Min had nobody.

Correction, he had someone. The only person who kept him moving for a thousand years.

...

It was too idealistic of her to preach to someone who had to suffer alone. Anji threw out the drafted couplet and rewrote another. This time, she wrote it with Song Min in mind.

"When crossing the bridge over the Yellow River, leave nobody behind at the banks."

This time, Anji meant it. If they had to go, she would accompany Song Min until the end.

Unlike her, Song Min had no family. He had nobody but himself, and his only connection to the world was Zhong Kui. To abandon his soul was to abandon what Zhong Kui and Anji believed in. It was not pity, it was paying kindness forward. She had received this much so that she could give it to someone who needed it more than her.

And Song Min needed it more than anyone else. She would not meet him at the centre from opposite sides. This time, she would walk with him to cross it entirely for better or for worse.

And if it fails, then let the bridge collapse. They would become part of the Yellow River, names forgotten with time but remembered eternally by exactly one other person in this vast world.