[April 7] [Shendiao Xialu] The Clear-Sighted Present

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

Title: The Clear-Sighted Present
Day/Theme: April 7 - To bloom
Series: Shendiao Xialu
Character: Guo Jing, Yang Guo mentioned
Rating: G
Shendiao Xialu © Jin Yong, et al.


To call Guo-er as the son he would have wished for was to do his own children disservice, for they, too, were not without their own merit as persons. (Had he been built in the line of Rong-er, he would have no such compunctions, of course) Too many things had conspired to compound his fear for the boy years ago: his wild, unpredictable nature, the rudderless life he thrived in after his mother's death, the dismaying memory of Yang Kang, the boy's adamant refusal to take any advice not suitable to his liking or principles. And yet there were people who grew outside the perimeter decreed by their society, and grew magnificently. Guo Jing, too beset by the anxiety that the boy was following the footsteps of his late unlamented father, had not contemplated this one fact.

Before him, the Mongolian troops were beating a prudent retreat, while the burning stake on which his daughter had been fated to die melted into scattered, ashy splinters. The cheers rolled thunderously on and on, endless under the fading sky, and he thought: Not a son - a worthy Han, a fellow man.