Wei Dansheng Wakes Up

His head was heavy, and his limbs were limp and exhausted.

A violent wave of nausea surged in his stomach, and his entire body burned like a piece of molten iron.

So thirsty.

He struggled to open his eyes.

What met his eyes was not the dark, foul-smelling thatched hut, but bright sunlight and mottled tree shadows. This scene was incredibly similar to the times when he was tired from reading at home, leaned against the windowsill for a nap, and just happened to wake up.

Wei Dansheng thought dazedly.

It felt as if he had just experienced a very long dream.

Before the age of ten, his life seemed to drift in a distant, illusory dream that could never be touched.

He was very intelligent.

Ever since he began to understand things, everyone around him said so.

"The young master is extremely clever."

Being praised once or twice was fine, but hearing it too much made him feel annoyed.

He could clearly memorize the text on a page with just a single glance.

While his brothers and sisters were still struggling to memorize, he had already learned the contents by heart.

The entire estate praised his intelligence.

But he often felt bored.

He was born into the Wei Clan of the capital, whose ancestors had served as Grand Tutors across two dynasties.

Although the Wei Clan was not royalty, they were a prestigious scholarly and noble family of letters and etiquette. The descendants of the Wei Clan had always been sparse, and by the time it reached his father, Wei Zonglin, the family had already begun to show signs of decline. In court, Wei Zonglin and his brothers were neither high nor low, so the entire Wei Clan pinned their hopes on the younger generation who might have a bright future.

From a young age, Wei Dansheng had shown extraordinary talent, always staying one step ahead of his siblings no matter what he did.

Wei Zonglin pinned his hopes of reviving the Wei Clan on him.

His life was bound to books and rules.

While his siblings gathered to play and play music, he sat behind green silk curtains reading.

As for the so-called revival of the Wei Clan, Wei Dansheng did not really understand it.

Ever since he was born, he had always obediently followed the family's arrangements without any objection. Whatever his father wanted him to do, he would do.

His constitution had never been very good. His family, worried that he would die young, kept him under strict control, so there were many things he could not do.

Old Madam Wei believed in Buddhism, so she simply registered him under the Bodhisattva's name, gave him the childhood name Dannu, lit a longevity lamp for him at Kongshan Temple, and often took him to listen to Zen Master Shan preach the Buddhist Dharma.

Wei Zonglin also hired a master to teach him martial arts, horse riding, and archery, hoping to make his body healthier.

Every morning in the capital, a Dhuta monk would strike an iron board, walking through the alleys and along the houses, chanting the Buddha's name to announce the hour.

He would wake up a bit earlier than them, needing to rise early to read and do his lessons.

Everyone in the estate doted on him, treating him well in their own ways, but Wei Dansheng felt utterly sick of it.

Because of the elders' favoritism, the other children did not like to play with him, intentionally or unintentionally cold-shouldering him.

In truth, Wei Dansheng did not care in the slightest.

It was as if he was born without any emotion for others. Flowers, grass, humans, and beasts were all the same in his eyes, with no difference at all.

The only reason he obeyed the elders was because they were "elders," and books taught one to respect and be filial to elders.

Actually, Wei Dansheng strongly disliked Wei Zonglin. All of his father's affection for him stemmed from his intelligence and obedience. When in high spirits, his father would tease him. But when he deviated even slightly, his father's face would turn dark, and he would harshly lecture him, using grand words to suppress him.

He did not like his mother either, because she favored his eldest brother more, and spent every day either putting on makeup and powder or bickering with the people of the second and third branches.

When he was five, the Fifth Sister of the third branch kept a cat. She loved it dearly, holding it in her arms every day. Later, for some reason, the cat ran out and happened to enter the courtyard where he was practicing archery, and was shot dead by him.

She wailed loudly, wiping her tears and demanding compensation.

Wei Dansheng watched indifferently, somewhat bewildered.

He did not understand why she cried so hard; she had not cried this hard when a potted flower she raised died.

To him, cats, flowers, and humans did not seem very different.

Old Madam Wei, fearing he would feel bad, specially called him to her side to comfort him.

"This cat had too much sin in its past life, which is why it was reborn as a beast in this life. Its death by your arrow today is a destiny in the dark; today can be considered as you helping it escape the beast realm."

This was the first time Wei Dansheng came into contact with the concept of death.

He still held some reverence for his grandmother—not out of fear of her status in the Wei Clan, but because of an aura on her that was completely different from his.

It was "old age," "sickness," and "death."

Just as the Buddha saw when he visited the city of Kapilavastu.

To coax him, the Wei family bought a clay doll that was popular at the time.

A small male figure dressed in gold and green gauze, smiling.

Actually, he had once hoped to have these small toys to play with like his siblings.

But not long after he actually got it, he threw it away in disgust; the expensive clay doll was casually discarded in a corner.

Old Madam Wei, seeing him like this, told him to copy scriptures, saying that copying scriptures could calm the mind.

So he copied from the Diamond Sutra to the Heart Sutra, and from the Lotus Sutra to the Hundred Parables Sutra.

But how much of it he actually took in, Wei Dansheng himself did not know.

When he was ten, because Wei Zonglin spoke up for a disgraced official, he was implicated by the emperor and demoted to Qingyang County. Wei Dansheng followed him, but before they even entered the borders of Qingyang County, he was captured by bandits from Biao'er Mountain. His dull and tasteless life finally underwent an earth-shattering change.

After all, he was still young. Even though he was clever, encountering such a thing naturally made him panic.

He knew he wanted to run.

He planned his first escape.

Unfortunately, he was too blind and overconfident, truly believing he was the smartest person under heaven. Not only did he fail to escape, but he also paid a terrible price.

His left leg was broken.

He did not remember the subsequent events very well.

After his leg injury, he remained in a daze, half-awake and half-asleep, sometimes even feeling like he was going to die.

No one cared about him.

They just locked him in this hut, where he ate and relieved himself in the same place. Like a dog, when they remembered, he would get a meal; when they forgot, he was starved.

And the food occasionally thrown in out of mercy was not much better than pig or dog food.

Wei Dansheng was extremely proud. Perhaps influenced by Wei Zonglin, rather than crawling on the ground like a wild dog to eat dog food from a bowl, he would rather not eat.

His body grew weaker and weaker, nearly stepping into the Ghost Gate Pass.

But he did not die.

In his daze, he felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over his head.

He opened his eyes and saw a bandit with bull-like eyes staring at him, looking happy for some unknown reason.

His appearance was like an Asura from the Buddhist scriptures, extremely hideous.

He also smelled very bad.

The stench assailed his nose, and Wei Dansheng turned his head away in disgust.