In the second year of Linde's reign, there was a heavy snowfall in Chang'an. Cheng Yaojin was ill for seven days and was almost dying. The eldest son Chu stayed silently in front of the bed, looking at his father's skinny hands and recalling his past glory. Cheng Yaojin, a clinker, survived the difficulties and after waking up, he was determined to get the medicine he had put aside for nine years. There are cracks in the blade of the spear, but he wrapped the pole with his own hands on his seventieth birthday, so he doesn't complain if it is worn out on his palm.
While holding the cup in front of the couch in silence, Cheng Yaojin stared at the skylight on the edge of the cup, and suddenly recalled Beimang Mountain in the second year of Wude, and thought of his old friend Pei Xingyan. He murmured that in his dream, Xingyan's blood-stained armor urged him to leave. He recalled that when Xingyan died, the enemy's spear penetrated his body, and blood splashed on the blade. When he broke the spear to kill the enemy, the sound of iron cracking was like the crunching sound of frozen tiles. This was unforgettable in his life.
After saying this, Cheng Yaojin raised his trembling hand to hold the spear pole. The hand that once drew the bow to kill the enemy and could tear the hide of cows was only trembling with old age, not the weight of the spear. He held the palm in his hand, and his thoughts surged. Sixty years passed by in a blink of an eye, from a boy from the Jishui family, to a hussar in Wagang, to a dead soldier in the Prince of Qin's Palace, to a hero in the Lingyan Pavilion. He held the palm in his hands all his life, and suddenly he asked: Did the emperor fulfill him, or did he fulfill the emperor?
Snow fell again outside the window, Cheng Yaojin closed his eyes, held his hand, and fell into a long dream. In the dream, it was the winter of the ninth year of Emperor Kaihuang's reign, when the Sui Dynasty was first established. He heard his name for the first time, and he still didn't know what the world was like. He could only hear the wind and snow in the twelfth lunar month, and the sound of grinding under his mother's lamp.
