Yuan was so shocked by the word "general" that his mind reeled.

He mistakenly thought his identity as one of the thirty-six leaders of the Yellow Turban Army had been exposed. However, having experienced much, he managed to steady himself, refraining from crying out. Still, the ten-odd-year-old Daoist's pursed lips and taut face betrayed him to the elegant woman.

She merely looked at him with a smile.

The thought of teasing the still-growing little fellow arose in her mind.

Yuan said in a muffled voice, "You've mistaken me for someone else."

The woman chuckled, extending a finger to point at Yuan's heart. "I'm not mistaken."

She asked again, "So, do you regret it?"

The young Daoist asked, "Regret what?"

The woman smiled slightly and said, "Many things. For example, you could resent Heaven for being so harsh, giving you such a body; or hate that you came to this era instead of when the Han Dynasty was at its strongest. You could also regret your past."

She paused, making Yuan almost think the elegant woman was referring to his displaced Yellow Turban experience, before slowly continuing, "Perhaps, your past involved doing certain things."

"That's why your life is so difficult now."

"If that's the case, isn't it worth regretting?"

The sickly young Daoist said calmly:

"Past lives and present lives are but illusions, which I do not believe."

"As for why this era..."

He thought of the past, of the smiling young Daoist, the old man who taught him how to plant wheat, of Liu Niu carrying him on his shoulders. His expression softened, and the young Daoist's eyes were clear as he replied in a gentle voice, "Heaven has never favored me, but neither has it been harsh."

"I think, even if you told me that I had made certain choices in the past."

"Then, I still wouldn't regret them, would I?"

The elegant woman looked at him in surprise, then nodded with a smile.

The young Daoist felt warmth in his heart.

No longer worried or afraid, he nodded to the woman and picked up his medicine basket.

Then, he turned to leave and go down the mountain.

As he descended, the woman behind him, seeming both admiring and slightly unconvinced, suddenly laughed and said, "You may not regret it now, but you may regret it in the future."

"Little Daoist, we will meet again in a few years."

"When that time comes, I will ask you this question again."

...

After Yuan went straight down the mountain, he couldn't see the mountain or the woman when he looked back, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. He didn't know why, but her scrutiny always brought him a huge pressure, as if he had seen her before.

And it was very likely that they had some past issues.

Yuan didn't pay attention to it and returned to his home.

For the next few years, he lived in Langya. The woman never appeared again. Yuan didn't teach the child magic, but only taught him basic Taiping Dao cultivation methods such as body conditioning and qi nurturing, which was also called *jiuxi fuqi* (nine breaths of qi). Yuan's heart felt like it had a hole in it, and he couldn't store qi.

But the child seemed to be a natural Daoist.

Not only did his cultivation progress by leaps and bounds,

but coming from the Zhuge family, he had to study zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, and various classics.

If it were someone else, they would only choose one to specialize in, and only have a superficial understanding of the others.

However, Zhuge Liang showed unimaginable talent in all these aspects.

The peaceful life in Langya ended when Zhuge Liang was eight years old. That year, his father passed away, and his elder brother, Zhuge Jin, was fifteen years old and needed to support his stepmother. Zhuge Liang had no choice but to take his younger brother and two older sisters with him to Yuzhang with his uncle, Zhuge Xuan.

Originally, Yuan was accompanying Zhuge's distant relatives.

But the usually quiet and sensible child cried and made a scene that day.

His arms clung to Yuan like a koala, refusing to leave.

Helplessly, the caravan from Langya to Yuzhang included another young Daoist.

That year, Yuan was eighteen years old.

He looked increasingly sickly.

In Yuzhang, Yuan was able to teach the child up close. On the first day he learned to play the zither, the eleven-year-old boy hugged the guqin, which was bigger than himself, sat earnestly next to the Daoist's medicine-grinding table, and sang as he played:

"The deer cry 'youyou,' eating the wild herbs. I have esteemed guests, playing the zither and pipes."

He opened his eyes and saw that the Daoist's expression was still indifferent.

The little boy's eyes darted around, and he played the zither and sang:

"The kite flies to the sky, the fish leaps in the deep; how is it that a kind gentleman does not cultivate the next generation." However, this sentence used the impudent "Qidi Junzi," which made even the Daoist, who was always indifferent due to illness, frown.

The medicine spoon in his hand tapped the smug boy's head.

Eleven-year-old Zhuge Liang smiled and said:

"I thought you were bored here looking outside, so I'm playing the zither for you to listen to."

This year, Yuan was twenty-one years old, and the child had grown into a teenager whose eyes seemed to have light in them. At this age, the world belonged to teenagers, always bright and always confident, especially for someone like Zhuge Liang. He naturally had enough confidence, whether in family background, appearance, or talent, to be impeccable.

He would surely be a great celebrity that would be hard to come by for many years to come.

Everyone thought so.

In the young voice and zither music, the Daoist, leaning against the chair, gently turned the pages of a book. There was no incense burning like in those famous scholars' places, but the simple fragrance of herbs and ink was even more light and distant, and sometimes it almost felt like time would slowly pass like this.

Clear breeze and bright moon, zither music and essays, this was the romance of young people.

But the era would always turn in directions that no one could imagine.

Only one year passed. In the fourth year of the Chuping era, Zhuge Xuan's position was replaced by Zhu Hao.

With the Zhuge family's wealth, they naturally had to return north to Langya.

But in this year, another thing happened.

Cao Mengde's father, Cao Song, went to Langya to avoid disaster.

Then he went to Xuzhou, where he was killed by the soldiers under Tao Qian, the governor of Xuzhou at the time. When this news reached Cao Cao's ears, Cao Cao had already become famous throughout the world. In grief and anger, he led his troops straight to Xuzhou. However, the route from Yuzhang back to Langya was intercepted by Cao Cao's advancing route.

Zhuge Xuan had not anticipated this at all.

He ran straight into this war. And no one had expected that Cao Mengde, who had initially gained fame for his righteous crusade against Dong Zhuo, would be so ruthless this time. Because Tao Qian closed the city and refused to come out, and because his father had clearly abandoned his official position but was still killed, Cao Mengde, in extreme anger, finally chose to massacre the city.

Qu'lu, Ju'ling, and Xiaqiu were all massacred.

He angrily allowed his soldiers to plunder ordinary people.

The final historical records stated that hundreds of thousands of men and women were killed, not even chickens and dogs were spared, and the Si River stopped flowing. Wherever he went, there was slaughter and destruction. No one dared to support Tao Qian at this time, and no one was willing to use their family wealth and lives to fight against Cao Mengde at this time.

Moreover, if they really wanted to earn Tao Qian's favor,

wouldn't it be better to wait until Xuzhou was almost completely defeated?

They could even directly occupy the area and control Xuzhou.

The calculations in the minds of strategists and rulers were too far away, even farther than the wall that the young Daoist had vaguely thought about. Cao Mengde's army even directly threw corpses everywhere, completely ignoring that this would bring about an outbreak of plague.

The tragic scenes that had already been seen, as well as the fear of the plague, caused the people of this era to flee in all directions. Too many refugees gave rise to rebel armies and bandits. Zhuge Xuan decisively realized that there was no way to return to Langya, so he immediately went south to Jingzhou to avoid disaster.

They concealed their wealth and mingled with the refugees, but how fast could they walk on their own two feet?

In the end, they still encountered bandits.

It was even unknown whether these were bandits, or Cao Mengde's army wantonly plundering.

Zhuge Liang was at a loss.

The peerless genius, the youth who was proficient in everything, the child who only had the clear breeze and bright moon on his shoulders, finally faced this tragic scene directly, and only then did he realize that when the world was not peaceful, the clear breeze was stained with blood, and the bright moon reflected the bones piled up on the roadside, and the naked women and children.

The original world shattered in an instant.

Some bandits saw that the Zhuge family's demeanor was not right.

They surrounded them to rob them of their wealth.

Zhuge Xuan was from Langya and still had the temperament of a Han Confucian, but behind him were women and children.

He took out the wealth, but at this time, the bandits saw the two deliberately dirtied girls, Zhuge Liang's two older sisters. Even if they deliberately disguised themselves to look ugly, their scholarly temperament was still difficult to hide. Those two were about to touch them.

Too many soldiers surrounded them, and Zhuge Xuan was furious but unable to resist.

Suddenly,

the bodies of those who were about to touch the two girls and take them away stiffened.

A bamboo pole directly pierced their necks.

The smell of blood was tragic and strong.

Zhuge Liang saw the Daoist, who was silent because of his weakness, retract the bamboo pole in his hand. The Daoist, who originally had a light expression, pursed his lips, and for some reason, he actually had a tragic aura, as if he had walked out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Uncle Niu, I still remember...

Pierce with all my strength.

The Daoist whispered in his heart.

He clenched the bamboo pole in his hand. What happened here led to a conflict between the people and the rebel army. Yuan grabbed the little boy next to him with one hand and ran forward while taking advantage of the chaos. The bamboo pole in his hand was like a long spear. The joints of his pale fingers protruded, but he tightly grasped the long spear, pushed aside the enemies in front, and ran forward.

At this time, it happened to be raining heavily.

The sound of horses' hooves, the sound of roars, the sound of knives chopping.

The sound of screams, the sound of laughter.

The dust raised almost dyed the entire world into a dim appearance. Zhuge Liang staggered forward. A general rushed towards Yuan and slashed down heavily with the knife in his hand. Yuan used the bamboo pole to block it, but it was directly broken. His body could no longer support him, and he spat out blood. He gritted his teeth and spread his arms, put the boy in his arms, and used his back to block the knife.

Zhuge Liang's eyes widened, and his heart was filled with unwillingness.

At this moment, it seemed that time had stopped.

The brilliant light of the sword, like a long dragon rising into the sky, directly slashed the general of Cao Mengde's rebel army, who fell backward without any feedback. Accompanied by the sound of swords, a tall man with a long sword in his hand stepped towards the rebel army.

The rain was getting heavier and heavier.

An army passed through the rain and then defeated the larger rebel army in a destructive manner.

Everyone was stunned. In front of them, they saw again the flame-like red robes of the Great Han, saw the heroic man wearing armor and holding twin swords, saw the man with a long beard and an extraordinary bearing, saw the brave man carrying a long spear on his shoulder, and saw the silent and resolute army behind them.

Only a little over a thousand, standing still like Mount Tai in the wind and rain.

Yuan's pupils shrank.

He recognized the familiar man.

But the latter failed to recognize the little Daoist of that year, but only opened the road.

The people passed.

The rebel army was defeated.

Then, the man holding twin swords would step forward again and head towards Xuzhou.

There were many heroes in the world, and the heroes rose together.

And there was a man with the courage to travel thousands of miles, willing to use thousands of soldiers to block Cao Mengde's slaughter.

Only one person.

Great Han, Liu Xuande.

This year was the fourth year of the Chuping era.

Zhuge Liang was twelve years old, still a small boy with some baby fat on his face.

On his shoulders were the clear breeze and bright moon, the orioles and willows.

Liu Xuande was thirty-two years old.

He was no longer the boy he used to be.

But he still had the ambition of a boy.

And Cao Mengde had unparalleled momentum in the world, attacking Tao Qian, breaking Pengcheng Fuyang, taking Qu'lu, Ju'ling, and Xiaqiu, all of which were massacred. Hundreds of thousands of men and women were killed, not even chickens and dogs were spared, and the Si River stopped flowing. From then on, the five counties and cities were safe, and there were no more traces of him. Liu Xuande led thousands of troops to aid Tao Qian.

What flashed before the boy's eyes were the last heroes of this era, or the heroes.

They didn't meet this year, and they didn't talk to each other.

Liu Xuande didn't know who he had saved.

And in this chaotic world, the heroes who flew by each other intersected, chasing their dreams and lives, and would eventually reunite in the future, briefly illuminating a piece of dimness.

And the ending of the story was perhaps already destined from the beginning.

The surrounding sounds were noisy.

Some angry people volunteered to join this army.

The sickly Daoist pulled the distracted boy.

They crossed paths with the heroic general and left.

"A-Liang, don't look, let's go!"

ps: Today's second update... In terms of historical details, the general direction is correct, but Liu Bei should not have been able to meet Zhuge. Slightly second creation. At that time, Liu Bei and Tian Kai were together, but the experience will still have an impact on the child at the time.

"Biography of the First Lord of the Three Kingdoms": At that time, the First Lord had more than a thousand soldiers of his own and miscellaneous Hu cavalry from Wuhuan in Youzhou, and he also obtained thousands of hungry people.

"Biography of Liu Yu, Gongsun Zan, and Tao Qian of the Later Han Dynasty": In the fourth year of Chuping, Cao Cao attacked Qian and broke Pengcheng Fuyang. Qian retreated to Tan, but Cao attacked him and could not conquer him, so he returned. He took Qu'lu, Ju'ling, and Xiaqiu by force, all of which were massacred. Hundreds of thousands of men and women were killed, not even chickens and dogs were spared, and the Si River stopped flowing. From then on, the five counties and cities were safe, and there were no more traces of him.

"Records of the Three Kingdoms": At this time, Cao Gong said to the First Lord leisurely: "The heroes of the world today are only you and Cao." The disciples of Benchu are not worth mentioning. This sentence was not created by Romance of the Three Kingdoms.