usatvline Chapter 88 I'm Waiting for Chaos to Fall From Grace
Chapter 88 I'm Waiting for Chaos to Fall From Grace
Cheng Yu then recounted the situation in Dongjun.
From taxes to water conservancy, from powerful families to displaced people, the discussion was thorough and unhurried.
He suddenly realized halfway through his speech that he had been talking for almost fifteen minutes, and Liu Bei had not interrupted him at all.
Not only did they not interrupt, they didn't even change their posture.
He sat there, leaning slightly forward, his gaze fixed on Cheng Yu's face, so focused it was almost impolite.
But there was no pressure in that focus; instead, it was like an invitation. You can speak freely; I'm listening, I'm listening to every single word.
Cheng Yu's heart stirred slightly.
He had seen many superiors listening to others.
Some pretended to be focused, but their eyes were unfocused.
Some nodded in agreement from time to time, but in reality, the agreement went in one ear and out the other.
Some people will just wait for you to finish speaking before offering their own opinions, without caring at all what you said.
But Liu Bei was different; when he listened to people, he was truly listening.
"Mr. Cheng!" Liu Bei waited for him to finish speaking, then pondered for a moment, "You said that the powerful clans in Dongjun are annexing properties, and the number of displaced people is increasing daily."
"I want to ask—where did those refugees go?"
Cheng Yu's gaze sharpened.
This question gets to the heart of the matter.
"Some of them went into the mountains and became outlaws."
He replied, "Some of them have become dependent on powerful figures and have been reduced to slaves."
"And some," he paused, "threw to the Taiping Dao."
The three characters "Taipingdao" (the Way of Peace) fell in the lamplight like a pebble dropped into still water.
Jian Yong, who was leaning against the corner of the wall, flipping through a bamboo scroll that he had somehow found, paused upon hearing this.
He raised his eyes, glanced at Cheng Yu, then lowered his head again to continue flipping through his bamboo slips.
Liu Bei did not respond; he simply nodded slightly, signaling Cheng Yu to continue.
Cheng Yu continued, starting with the rise of the Way of Peace, then talking about Zhang Jiao of Julu, then about the distribution of the Thirty-Six Directions, and finally about the turbulent counties and states.
His words became more frequent, but his voice grew softer, as if he was unconsciously on guard against something, even though there were only three people in the room.
He suddenly stopped speaking at the end.
"Captain!"
He looked directly into Liu Bei's eyes and said, "If I said these words to others, they would probably think I was exaggerating."
"What does the Commandant think?"
Liu Bei remained silent for a moment.
Then he said something that Cheng Yu hadn't expected.
"This is not an exaggeration!" Liu Bei's voice was not loud, nor did he speak quickly. "The Way of Peace will surely undergo a great change within ten years."
Within ten years.
It's not "perhaps" or "maybes", it's "must".
Cheng Yu's back straightened slightly.
He looked at Liu Bei, trying to find the origin of the words in that young face, whether they were derived from the court gazette.
Did you glean it from local reports?
Or is it just based on intuition?
But he couldn't find it. Liu Bei's expression was too calm, as if he were talking about something that had already happened.
"Why are you so sure, Commandant?" he asked.
Liu Bei did not answer directly. He stood up, walked to the window, and opened it.
A night breeze swept in, causing the lamplight to flicker violently, and all the shadows in the room to sway.
"Zhongde!" His voice drifted back from the window, carried by the night wind, as he turned his back to Cheng Yu.
"Do you believe that some people can dream about things that haven't happened yet?"
Cheng Yu's pupils contracted slightly.
Dream.
It was just a dream.
He couldn't help but look at Jian Yong.
Jian Yong was still leaning against the corner of the wall, with bamboo slips covering his face, seemingly asleep.
But Cheng Yu noticed that his fingers, which were gripping the bamboo slip, tightened slightly for a moment.
"What does the Commandant mean?" Cheng Yu asked tentatively.
Liu Bei turned around.
The light behind him shrouded his face in shadow, outlining only a silhouette.
But his eyes were bright, like two quietly burning flames in the dark night.
"I dreamt about it!" he said.
Cheng Yu remained silent.
"I've dreamt about so many things!"
Liu Bei's voice was very low, so low that it was almost drowned out by the chirping of insects outside the window.
"I dreamt of the Yellow Turban Rebellion sweeping across the land, I dreamt of Dong Zhuo entering the capital, I dreamt of heroes rising up and the Han Dynasty collapsing."
"I dreamt that I had been to many places, met many people, done many things, and lost many people."
He paused for a moment: "I dreamt about how I died!"
The room was eerily quiet.
The lamp wick popped softly, its sound particularly clear in the silence.
Cheng Yu felt his heart skip a beat.
He had seen countless people and believed he could distinguish between truth and falsehood.
When Liu Bei spoke these words, his tone was flat, without any embellishment or deliberately mysterious pauses, as if he were narrating a true experience.
That wasn't fabricated composure; it was the tranquility of recollection.
But if it really was just a dream, how could Liu Bei, a seventeen-year-old captain in Liaoxi Commandery, have such eyes?
"After I woke up, I thought about it for a long time." Liu Bei walked back to the table and sat down. He picked up the teacup and found that the tea had gone cold, but he didn't care. He tilted his head back and took a sip.
"Think about the things in your dreams, which ones will actually happen, and which ones are just dreams."
"Later, I gradually figured it out."
He put down his teacup and looked at Cheng Yu.
Whether the dream is real or not is not important.
"The important thing is what I learned from that dream."
"You found out what?" Cheng Yu's voice lowered unconsciously.
Liu Bei did not answer immediately.
He reached out and pushed the map on the table toward Cheng Yu.
The map was very large, marking the territories of the thirteen provinces of the Han Dynasty.
His finger landed on Luoyang, then slowly moved eastward, passing through Yanzhou, Yuzhou, and Xuzhou, finally stopping in the heart of the Central Plains.
"The world is about to descend into chaos!" he said softly, as if afraid of disturbing something.
"Once chaos erupts, the Central Plains will become a battleground on all sides."
"Whoever occupies the Central Plains will face enemies from all sides."
"Cao Cao was able to conquer it because he was strong enough."
"Even so, he fought his whole life."
Cao Cao.
When Liu Bei uttered this name, it sounded as if he were referring to someone he had known for a long time.
But Cheng Yu was certain that there was no one in the world named Cao Cao who deserved to be mentioned by Liu Bei in such a tone.
If he did, he couldn't possibly not know.
unless……
The vague idea in Cheng Yu's mind became clearer and clearer.
"So, Commandant, you came to Liaoxi, not to escape the chaos, but because..." he began slowly.
"To find a place where I can stand firm."
Liu Bei took over the conversation, drawing a circle on the map with his finger, encompassing the counties of Liaodong, Liaoxi, Youbeiping, and Xuantu.
"This place is far from the Central Plains, not at the center of the vortex."
"When the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, this place was least affected; when the warlords vied for power, this place could be managed with ease."
"We can advance south to You and Ji, or retreat to protect our own territory."
He looked up at Cheng Yu.
"Zhongde, I am not waiting for the world to be at peace."
"I'm waiting for the world to descend into chaos."