Chapter 78: Uncle, I've Come to Cling to Your Thigh!

The Golden Register Hall — this was the great palace where the Golden Kingdom of Khotan handled major affairs of state, received envoys from foreign lands, and held grand court assemblies.

That Li Shengtian first waited at the Five Phoenix Tower and then received them here was enough to show the importance he attached to this Guiyi Army envoy mission.

Fan Running, perfectly composed, walked forward holding the Military Governor's banner of office of the Guiyi Army. The pent-up frustration of having been forced to serve as Zhang Zhao's clerk along the way was swept clean at last — he was, after all, the chief envoy. Once they reached the city of Khotan, even Zhang Erlang would have to defer to him.

But just as this Commissioner Fan, still looking thoroughly pleased with himself, was following the palace eunuchs of the Khotan royal palace step by step in full accordance with protocol, a figure suddenly shot past him without warning.

Zhang Zhao, already changed into a blue scholar's robe, dashed past Fan Running at full speed. He was about to meet Li Shengtian — this was no time to stand on ceremony about who was chief envoy!

Li Shengtian was the golden thigh he would be leaning on for the next several years — shouldn't he hurry up and cling to it?

"Uncle! Uncle! Your nephew has finally laid eyes on you! Uncle!" The feeling Zhang Zhao had been working up for two quarters of an hour erupted all at once in that moment.

To think that he, a model young man of a later age, had been thrown into this man-eating chaos of an era — sleeping on a hard plank bed, with no soda to drink, unable even to get the Korean fried chicken he had once despised most.

Games and movies were even more out of the question. Apart from being able to watch real-life death matches every day and not exactly lacking for women, there was nothing else. Being some petty noble here gave him a quality of life that didn't even match his university days.

Bitter! Truly bitter! Zhang Zhao's tears poured down.

At the entrance of the Golden Register Hall, two Khotan warriors in magnificent golden armor were just about to seize Zhang Zhao, but with a few twists and turns he dodged past them.

The moment he entered the great hall, Zhang Zhao charged straight at the large, heavyset Khotan man on the throne!

Just as Li Shengtian panicked and was about to cry out for his guards, Zhang Zhao dropped to both knees with a thud, raising a letter in one hand and a worn, broken piece of goldwork above his head.

Li Shengtian waved the pursuing warriors back, his eyes fixed dead on that broken piece of goldwork in Zhang Zhao's hands. The ruler of a nation all but ran down from the throne in two or three strides.

In that instant, Li Shengtian, who had been the Son of Heaven of Khotan for nearly twenty years, seemed to return to many years ago.

'Little brother! How is it that your Thousand Character Classic has only reached "Abdicating the throne and yielding the realm, there were Yu of Youyu and Tang of Tao. Comforting the people and punishing the guilty, there were Fa of Zhou and Tang of Yin"? Hurry up and write! Never mind! Your elder sister will write a few sections for you. Father will be here to check soon.'

A woman in a ruqun dress hurriedly pushed open the door and came in. Seeing that only a few lines had been written on the desk, she quickly sat down and began imitating his handwriting with careful strokes.

'Father, please do not punish little brother. He is frail and cannot bear it. If Father is still angry, then beat me!'

'You think I won't beat you! You are the eldest sister — when your younger brother errs, you share the blame!'

Li Shengtian could still almost feel the crack of his father's rattan switch.

'Little brother! I am leaving now! Give your elder sister half of your Rat King pendant! In the future, if I miss you in Dunhuang, I can look at this pendant.'

'Little brother! I hear you have been granted a princess — how wonderful! When Xuan'er grows up, let them deepen the family bond through marriage!'

Li Shengtian drew from his own bosom a piece of goldwork just as worn and broken. With a click, the two pieces joined together, forming a rat-faced, human-bodied deity wearing a crown.

"This golden Rat King statue — when I was young, my elder sister gave it to me. Later, when she went to Dunhuang, I kept the body of the Rat King statue and gave the Rat King's head to my elder sister!"

Li Shengtian said slowly, looking at Zhang Zhao kneeling on the ground. Zhang Zhao suddenly understood — he remembered now that Khotan did seem to have a custom of Rat King worship.

All at once, several drops of tears burst from Li Shengtian's eyes — truly burst, not merely flowed.

Zhang Zhao had only ever seen blood spray from a wound before; he had never imagined tears could spray out too.

Yet this King of Khotan seemed not to care in the slightest. He clutched the Rat King statue, did not wipe the tears from his face, and murmured to himself.

"I am honored as Son of Heaven, yet I have not even the chance to see my closest kin! My elder sister has been trapped in Dunhuang for twenty-three years now — I wonder if she is still happy and well?"

"Mother is in good health. Three years ago, when your nephew went to see her, Mother was brewing rice wine, using fine glutinous rice from the Jiangnan East Circuit.

She also said that after it had been cellared for five years, she would have someone bring it to Uncle to satisfy his craving. Mother said that when Uncle was young, he liked this kind of rice wine warmed with sugar frost and dried tangerine peel best!"

Zhang Zhao had weighed his words and still used the phrase "satisfy his craving" — it should best suit Li Shengtian's state of mind at this moment.

Sure enough, upon hearing the words "satisfy his craving," a look of childlike longing appeared in Li Shengtian's eyes.

"I was still in swaddling clothes when my mother passed away. Only my elder sister, seven years older than I, looked after me the whole way, and she cherished me most of all!

Did your mother ever carry you on her back?"

Li Shengtian suddenly asked Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao was briefly stunned, then slowly nodded.

To be honest, his impression of his legal mother, Princess Fengtian, was already very blurred. In his memory, she always seemed somewhat similar to the bodhisattva in the temple.

The only deep impression was that after the Cao clan replaced the Zhang, Princess Fengtian held him day and night — even in sleep, she held him.

It was only after the Cao clan had smoothly taken over power, their position already secure and there being no further need to root out Zhang Zhao entirely, that his birth mother, Lady Song, was allowed to choose Zhang Zhong and others to take him to Shouchang to avoid disaster.

Zhang Zhao slowly nodded. The original Zhang Zhao could not understand how terrifying that period had been, but the present Zhang Zhao could.

A little child of two or three, in that kind of chaos, would have died and that would have been that. Given the extremely high infant mortality rate of the time, it would not have been unusual.

Only now did he understand how perilous those days had been, when his legal mother Princess Fengtian had to hold him even in sleep. Without that warm embrace, Zhang Zhao would likely have been gone long ago!

Li Shengtian took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, then gave Zhang Zhao a kindly smile.

"Until I was seven, I loved being carried on my elder sister's back most of all. You could say I grew up on my elder sister's back."

No wonder Li Shengtian had lost his composure like this. He had lost his mother at just a few months old, still in swaddling clothes. His father, presumably, was the ruler of a nation with no shortage of consorts and children, and even busier with affairs of state — likely he had little fatherly love to spare for him.

Then this elder sister, who had taken the place of a mother, was very likely the only source of love he had felt in his early childhood.

"Uncle! If you miss Mother, then bring her from Dunhuang to Khotan! Your nephew has not seen Mother in three years!"

Seeing that the mood had ripened, Zhang Zhao threw his arms around Li Shengtian's thick leg and at once burst into loud wailing.

Fan Running, left standing far away, turned pale, and the several Guiyi Army envoys behind him felt as though they stood at the edge of an abyss.

None of them had imagined that the Son of Heaven of Khotan held such deep longing for his elder sister — and now this young lord Zhang was stirring things up on top of it. What was to be done?

A deeply moved look appeared on Li Shengtian's face, but he forcibly restrained himself. He closed his eyes and reached out to pat Zhang Zhao gently on the head.

"Though your uncle is the Son of Heaven, there are some things even I cannot do! But as for you — whether you can revive your Zhang family, whether you can free your mother from her cage, that all rests on you!"

Excellent! Zhang Zhao could not help trembling. The Guiyi Army and Khotan shared loss and gain alike. As an emperor, no matter how much Li Shengtian ached for his sister, he would absolutely never fall out with the Cao family.

But he could support Zhang Zhao — support Zhang Zhao in building up strength in Khotan. That was enough!

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Regarding the paid release, it may have to be postponed. Thanks to everyone's support, this book continues to receive recommendations, and the author also wants to wait and see if the results can improve a bit more, so the paid release will be delayed for a while. Many thanks for everyone's support!

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