Chapter 220: New and Old 2

His words silenced the dining table for a few seconds. These people had all been high‑ranking Brickstones in the Old Regime's building and knew the operating rules. Du and Ming nodded slowly, and he saw more clearly: "This is the difference between the Republic and the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang does know the problem, but the tangled web of interests, insiders pulling insiders, leaves everyone afraid to act and powerless to shake it. The Republic is different; they came out of the mountain ravines, have fewer entanglements with the old system, and act without much hesitation. Their Foundation is the Workers and Peasants, those who were once trampled at the bottom, so eliminating this filth actually consolidates their foundation."

"Not afraid of pain, because the pain was never theirs," Huang Wei interjected coldly, his tone carrying a barely perceptible sarcasm, yet also highlighting a certain cruel truth.

Li Yuxuan did not rebut; he recalled Wang Mama's trembling, bony hands when she took the cash and the words "Your money is clean." The Old Society's "unclean" was not just a livelihood, not just money, but a rule and way of living that seeped into the marrow. The New Era wielded a sharp knife, cutting out this rotting flesh. The excised flesh hurts, and the cutting process is bloody; onlookers may feel compassion, but if the blade is not applied, the whole body will rot. He understood this principle, yet understanding and confronting the very people who feel that "pain" are two different matters.

He recalled Tiananmen Square. In the afternoon, standing there, the cold wind cut his cheeks like a knife, yet the workers laboring on the square seemed oblivious. Their chant was coarse yet powerful, pounding repeatedly on the ancient Brickstone ground. The red flags were so thoroughly, so dazzlingly red that under the gray sky they fluttered with a rustling sound, as if tearing open a curtain of the Old Era. The square was still the same square; he had once attended a celebration of the Republican government there, with military music blaring and dignitaries gathering, but he always felt a layer separating him from the land beneath his feet and from the emaciated masses that made up most of the populace. Today, though merely an observer, he strangely felt that the chanting workers and the soaring red flags were blood‑connected to the square and to the city. The world truly had changed.

The dinner lasted longer than usual. The conversation moved from the brothel's closure to currency reform, to the gradual restoration of market supply, and then to the reports they each heard about the Southward Anti-bandit Campaign and economic recovery. In their characteristic manner, infused with past experience and perspective, they dissected every action of the New Regime. There was criticism, there was incomprehension, but gradually a complex, unavoidable feeling emerged: this newly born, seemingly rough regime's formidable dynamism, unified will, and thorough eradication of old matters were things the regime that boasted inheritance of the legal tradition had never possessed.

Back in his own room, Li Yuxuan lit the desk lamp and opened his diary. The ink bottle had been supplied by Liu Guangzhi, and the fountain pen was his own old one; its nib was a bit blunt, making the writing slightly sluggish, which instead slowed the process and deepened his contemplation.

He wrote the date: "December 3, 1949, clear and cold."

The pen paused, and the afternoon scenes replayed before his eyes: the students' effortless bearing when they visited, the trust and test in their gazes when they granted him permission to go out, the burgeoning new forces amid the noisy chaos of Qianmen Street, Wang Mama's face, written with panic and numbness, abandoned by the times, and the red flags standing tall in the cold wind on Tiananmen Square alongside the sweating workers…

He continued: "Students visited, granting me permission to go out. Seeing Qianmen Street, the market's clamor, new phenomena intermix with the old alleys like fresh shoots on ancient trees—abrupt yet full of life. By chance I met an old acquaintance, Wang Mama, the Former Eight Great Alley Bǎomǔ, now destitute and unanchored, looking like a wandering soul. I gave her resources; she said 'the money is clean,' which made me feel sorrowful. The ghost of the Old Society still roams the streets, yet the rotten timber it inhabits has been destroyed. Driving out ghosts is easy; pacifying souls is hard—this is a new problem of the New Era."

Writing this, he felt a surge of turmoil in his chest. He recalled even earlier times, when in his youth he had been hot‑blooded and ambitious, believing that joining the army and assisting the 'legitimate' would renew politics and save the nation and its people. Decades had passed; the mountains and rivers remained shattered, livelihoods grew even more desolate, the accumulated ills lingered untouched, even worsening. Yet the Republic, the opponent they had once dismissed, in just two or three decades rose from the hills, uprooted decay, not only won the war but also began cutting away the tumors they had once dared not touch.

"Later, I went to Tiananmen Square," his handwriting grew weighty, "I saw workers building platforms, red flags billowing, the chant echoing in the biting wind. This place was once a royal road, then a viewing ground, now belongs to the people. The square itself has not changed, but its spirit has. The Republic dares with an iron fist, banning brothels overnight, liberating women; this is a true revolution, not merely slogans. We have spent decades shouting 'reform' and 'revival,' wavering over interests, bound by appearances, ending up as empty words on paper. Now I see them cut it off in one stroke; though blood and tears accompany it, it is indeed the inevitable course of history. The Heaven Restorer, could he not employ the Thunderbolt Method?"

He set the pen down and let out a long breath, as if expelling some of the pent‑up pressure in his chest. Now, heaven is collapsing, the old 'Heaven' has toppled, and the new 'Heaven' is being painstakingly repaired and reforged by the group of his former student opponents. He, meanwhile, has become a quiet, complex onlooker and thinker.

He rose and walked to the window. In Gongde Lin at night, all was silent; the high walls carved a perfectly square piece of deep night sky, a few cold stars sparsely stitched upon it. Time seemed to flow more slowly here than outside, lingering, suitable for chewing over the past. Yet through the window's cracks, a faint sound from distant Yanjing City could still be heard—perhaps a train's whistle, perhaps the muffled hammering of night‑time construction—a dull yet powerful pulse belonging to the newborn, busy, forward‑moving era.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise as usual. Li Yuxuan switched off the desk lamp, letting the room fall into darkness. He kept his eyes open in the dark, for a long, long while. That darkness was not pure; the starlight outside and the distant city's faint glow, mingling with fragments of old memories and today's observations, rose and fell in his mind, outlining a vague, unfinished silhouette.