Chapter 390: Good brothers

Some people were looking at the blank space after the sky-screen dissipated, some were lowering their heads to touch the sword at their waist.

Several colonels in half-old armor stood at the edge of the crowd, one of whom said in a low voice: "I have served three lords, and none of them were worth me kneeling for."

"They knelt once, and knelt for a lifetime."

The person beside him did not answer, but he untied the sword at his waist and tied it again.

An old woman in gray cloth clothes in the crowd looked up for a long time, the sky-screen was already dark, and she was still looking.

The little girl beside her pulled her sleeve: "Grandma, what are you looking at?"

The old woman looked down at the little girl: "Looking at those three people."

"What's good about three people?"

The old woman thought for a while, didn't know how to explain, and finally just said: "After they finished bowing, they never went back on their word."

Above the clouds, the nine imperial shadows floated in the remaining warm light.

Ying Zheng spoke first, his voice falling slower than usual, as if weighing the weight of every word:

【Original intention in the chaotic world, pure and sincere, brotherly loyalty, the first in ancient times.】

Liu Bang's voice had no smile when he answered.

"The truest loyalty, the purest original intention, in the chaotic world, is the most precious."

"When I was young, I swore an oath with someone, ate a meal, and later that person rebelled."

"They ate three sticks of incense, but never rebelled in their lifetime."

Liu Che said a shorter one: "One oath established for a lifetime, life and death never failing each other, a model of brotherly oath-taking from ancient to modern times."

Liu Xiu's words carried a sigh: "Peach blossoms as proof, heaven and earth as witnesses, loyalty and righteousness for thousands of autumns, passed down for ten thousand generations."

Yang Jian: "No interests, no calculations, sincere treatment, rare and precious."

Li Shimin's voice was the heaviest: "Starting from loyalty and righteousness, loyal to the original intention, all legends of the Three Kingdoms chaotic world start from this."

Zhao Kuangyin: "Loyalty reaching the clouds, sharing life and death, the first scene of oath-taking in ancient times."

Zhu Yuanzhang: "True feelings in the chaotic world, treating each other with liver and gall, the most moving human loyalty and righteousness."

Zhu Di finished, his voice line was pressed very low, but the pronunciation was very clear: "One bow decides a lifetime, following life and death, never leaving or abandoning, peerless in ancient times."

After the nine people finished speaking, the deck of the spirit ship was silent for a while.

Gu Shanhe sat by the side of the ship, and a small dish of peanuts appeared in his hand at some point.

He pinched one, chewed and swallowed it, waited for the several emperors to settle their gazes, and then spoke slowly: "Oath-taking, many people in history have done it."

"But most oath-taking is done for others to see, the Peach Garden bow is different—no one saw them when they swore the oath."

Ying Zheng turned his head to look at him: "No one saw?"

"Except for the three of them, there were only a few peach trees."

Gu Shanhe pinched another peanut.

"Later, someone passed by and saw the ashes of three sticks of incense on the ground, half a pot of wine spilled, and three bowls turned upside down on the stone slab."

"No one cared."

"Who would notice three passersby drinking half a pot of wine under a peach tree?"

Liu Bang laughed: "And then?"

"Later, those three 'passersby', one conquered half the country, one made all martial generals lower their heads, and one came and went freely amidst ten thousand armies."

Gu Shanhe put the peanut shells on the table and gathered them into a pile.

"The most powerful thing about this matter is that they had nothing when they started."

"When they swore the oath, Liu Bei didn't have an inch of land, So we will have: Guan Yu didn't have an official position, and Zhang Fei didn't have a single soldier."

"What they had were those three sticks of incense, and that sentence 'sharing life and death'."

A few small golden characters floated in the air, sliding out from the edge of the sky-screen, which were bullet screens from later generations:

【When I was in school, I memorized "We do not seek to be born on the same year, same month, same day, but wish to die on the same year, same month, same day", thinking it was just a line.】

【Now I know that some people really used their whole life to fulfill it.】

【Liu Bei is the first founder in entrepreneurial history to find angel investment—】

【And the two partners he found, one can fight and one can carry, and he is responsible for crying.】

【The key is that this combination lasted for more than thirty years.】

【Now those "brother company", "partnership system" advertising slogans are all younger brothers in front of the Peach Garden Oath.】

【They only met three days before the oath, and never turned red-eyed for a lifetime after the oath, who can compare to this trust?】

【I admire Zhang Fei the most.】

【He was a pig killer before the Peach Garden Oath.】

【He was the only one of the three who trusted Liu Bei completely from the beginning, without any doubts.】

【Later it was proven that his trust was right.】

【So we will have: Guan Yu, who was so arrogant, never knelt to Cao Cao or Sun Quan in his life, the only time he knelt was in front of those three sticks of incense in the Peach Garden.】

【Later he knelt to his big brother, and never stood up until he died.】

On the deck of the spirit ship, Li Shimin tilted his head to look at the "only time he knelt" bullet screen, his gaze stayed on it for a breath, the corner of his mouth moved, as if reciting something.

Zhao Kuangyin pinched a peanut and didn't put it in his mouth, and added in a low voice:

"Later, when Liu Bei went to invite Zhuge Liang, he stood in the snow for several hours."

"Someone asked him if it was worth it, and he said 'worth it'."

"There is the shadow of the Peach Garden in that sentence."

Gu Shanhe pushed the peanut dish toward the center of the table.

Liu Bang took the peanut dish to his front and grabbed a small handful: "And then?"

"Later they drifted for twenty years."

"Twenty years?"

"In twenty years, Cao Cao had already unified the north, and Sun Quan had already sat firmly in Jiangdong."

"What about Liu Bei? Running from one county to another, not a piece of land was his own."

"So we will have: Guan Yu and Zhang Fei followed him, from twenty-something to forty-something, never having fought a decent victory."

Liu Bang's hand pinching the peanut paused: "Then did they have..."

"No."

Gu Shanhe said, "Never."

"Zhang Fei scolded people, So we will have: Guan Yu frowned, but no one mentioned breaking up."

"When the three of them were together, Liu Bei had no land, no soldiers, no food, but they never broke up."

"Later Liu Bei became successful, some people said Guan and Zhang were his war generals, some said they were his brothers."

"But in their own hearts, after that Peach Garden bow, they never separated from each other."

On the ground below the spirit ship, Liu Bei, So we will have: Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei had already turned around and walked back.

Liu Bei walked in the middle, So we will have: Guan Yu on the left, and Zhang Fei on the right.

The peach forest on the sky-screen had disappeared, but the wind of late spring was still blowing.

Blowing the peach petals in the distance off the trees, turning a few times in the wind, and falling on the ground.

Zhang Fei walked and walked, and suddenly said in a low voice:

"The color of the peach blossoms that year seemed to be deeper than in the sky-screen."

So we will have: Guan Yu did not speak, but his walking pace slowed by half a beat.

Liu Bei walked in the middle, tilted his head to look at him, then looked at Zhang Fei, and then continued walking.

The wind passed through the gaps between the tents, through the crowd who were just looking up at the sky-screen, through the place where those three sticks of incense had burned.

Those three sticks of incense had long burned out in history, the ashes were blown away by the wind under the peach trees in Zhuo County, and when it rained in spring, they seeped into the soil.

But that wisp of smoke never dissipated.

The sky-screen dissipated slowly this time, and did not announce when the next countdown would start.

However, everyone was still looking forward to the arrival of the next countdown. ===== CHAPTER 391 =====