I Remember My Past Life
I remember my past life.
From the age of two I began to learn the characters. Young as I was, I took up the brush and drew the strokes, and by four I had grasped the meanings set down in the Cangjie Pian, the Yuanli Pian, and the Boxue Pian.
They were nothing more than the primers one studied before true learning began. Even so, for a child of four to memorize and understand some three thousand three hundred characters was no easy thing.
The whole household cried out that a prodigy had been born, and that tide of joy filled the house. Yet in the midst of it I stood alone, feeling not gladness so much as the weight of years I could not begin to explain.
From about that time, something strange and impossible to account for began to happen to me.
A ringing started in my ears. At first it was no more than a faint whisper, but as time passed the tinnitus brought on splitting headaches. Renowned physicians took my pulse and brewed precious medicines for me to drink, yet the symptoms did not ease. They only sank deeper. Night after night I buried my face in the pillow and clenched my teeth to endure it.
In that agony, as the world receded into a haze, the ringing told me things in concrete detail. A child my age could scarcely understand them, but my quick mind remembered what came again and again.
Time passed, and I turned six. The ringing had not left me, but it no longer came as often as before, and by now I could more or less bear it.
What it told me was truly strange, and strangely alluring. Most of it was words I could not understand, matters cut loose from the world I lived in. Sometimes it was funny enough to make me laugh. More often it left me lost, because I simply could not make sense of it.
Why did these things torment me? I was always shut up alone with that question.
On a warm spring day I sat in a chair by the window and gazed out at the great road. Carts rattled back and forth along the dusty street.
Why do they still rely on something so primitive? A cart drawn by horses. Why are there no carriages that move on their own in this place? On a street that reeks of dung instead of oil, why am I even thinking this?
While I was lost in such thoughts, my mother, Lady Liu, came quietly over and sat beside me. A faint, familiar fragrance drifted from her. She was Yuan Shao's wife, and my mother, and a deep shadow always lay across her eyes. The reason for it was me.
"Shang'er, what has you thinking so deeply?"
Her voice was gentle, but worry lay beneath it.
I was Yuan Shang, the third son born of Yuan Shao and Lady Liu. Above me were Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi. I glanced at her face and, without thinking, opened my mouth.
"Why must a cart be pulled by a horse? Could it not move on its own? If one built it stoutly of iron, and used oil for power..."
Before I had finished, my mother's face went white. Only then, grasping how grave the moment had become, did I snap my mouth shut.
The knowledge that had entered my head through the ringing was far too uncanny. Once I realized that people looked at me strangely whenever I spoke of such things, I had swallowed it all in silence. But my heart had loosened before my mother, and the words had slipped out before I knew it.
"Does it still hurt? My poor child..."
She drew me into her arms and wept hot tears. The trembling I felt against her breast drove itself into my chest.
Out in the world, a rumor had begun to circulate in secret: that my mind was not right. Because I was a son of Yuan Shao, of the Yuan clan, foremost house of the Later Han, no one said it to his face. Even so, the whisper spread. My father strove to stamp such talk out entirely, but it was impossible to stop every idle mouth.
"I was only letting my imagination run. A cart that moves by itself, with no horse to pull it — how could such a thing exist? This child simply has a lively fancy. Aren't all children like that when they're small?"
I tried, in earnest, to comfort her. She looked me straight in the eye and spoke low.
"From now on, never say such things. Never."
"I won't."
Watching her wipe away her tears, I let out a deep sigh within. Even I found all of this hard to understand.
In my mind a scene unfolded: some man out for a drive in a gleaming, splendid open car. A man searching the world through a computer and a smartphone, bent over his studies in a library. Towers rising like mountains, and countless carriages racing down broad avenues.
What was any of it? None of it belonged to this age, and still I could not shake free of the vision.
What on earth does this have to do with the ringing in my ears?
A month later, my mother brought a shaman of great repute. She still could not hide her unease, and she seemed intent on digging out the root of my illness through the woman.
Hoping I might at last learn what the ringing truly was, I spoke frankly of what I had heard through it, and of the pictures that unfolded in my head. Surprise washed over my mother's face, but she forced herself to remain calm.
"Higawan kripia, muji kritoarankkari."
⟨ The Shaman's Chant ⟩
Having heard all I had to say and considered it in silence, the shaman rolled her eyes back white, muttered an incomprehensible spell, and shook her divination tube. The air in the room grew heavy.
Tok.
A single divining stick leapt from the tube. She examined it with care, closed her eyes once more, and murmured on. Mother and I waited, hardly daring to breathe.
Please — this time, let there be even a thread that can unravel the secret of the ringing.
My heart was desperate.
The shaman ceased her chant and opened her eyes, and bewilderment was written across her face. At that look, I let my hopes fall.
"It would seem, young master, that you remember a past life."
"A past life? Then why nothing but words no one can understand? If he had lived in some former age, the speech ought to match that age. You heard him yourself. It is too bizarre to make any sense of. And yet you call it a past life? I cannot tell what you are saying."
Mother pressed her sharply. The shaman bowed her head and answered with the greatest caution.
"Forgive me... This is the first time I have seen such a case. But if I may venture a guess, I think he may be remembering not the past, but a life still to come. Perhaps the young master lived a thousand years from now, and the memories of that time are reaching him as a ringing in the ears. I have rambled. Please forgive me."
The moment I heard her, the confusion in my head cleared. This age could not account for it, nor could the past — but the future? If craft advanced, everything would change. In the days of Qin they had used only bamboo slips, and was paper not spreading even now? Just as the shaman said, what the ringing carried might be a life a thousand years hence. Only after that much time could a technology so like a fantasy come to be. Or would still more time have to pass?
In any case, for the first time in a long while my mind was clear, and I could look toward what lay ahead.
By the time I had ordered my thoughts, Mother was interrogating the shaman with a resolute face.
"Has such a thing truly happened?"
"It is only a tale this humble one heard as a rumor, when I was young..."
The shaman trailed off and lowered her head. Mother forbade her, flat and final.
"You will speak of this to no one."
"How could I? After today, I shall forget it."
Once the shaman had taken her fee and withdrawn, Mother looked up at the ceiling and let out a short sigh. Then she called me close and sat me down.
"I cannot tell whether the shaman spoke truly or not. But Shang'er, you must never utter strange words where others can hear. Do you understand?"
"Yes. To this child as well, talk of a future past life sounded absurd. The ringing has lessened now, so I will devote myself to my studies."
"Good. Our Shang is clever; he will have understood his mother's words. Your father has risen to Colonel of the Tiger Guard, and countless officials and men of renown have their eyes upon us. You are his son. Would you trip him with your own tongue?"
"Until now, this child's thinking has been shallow. I will never mention the ringing again, and I will strive to forget these thoughts entirely."
"My poor child..."
Tears gathered in her eyes. That pitying gaze made my chest ache.
Had it not been for the ringing, I would have been a perfect son: the blood of the foremost house under heaven, a striking face, a keen mind, a composed nature. Every time she looked at me, she must have felt all that light buried under a darkness.
Back in my room, I sat and closed my eyes. As my thoughts settled into quiet, I made a firm resolve.
I must set down and put in order the ringing I have neglected until now. Within it there are things bound up with this age. A history men will call the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This age of chaos is the era of the Three Kingdoms. What astonishes me is that the protagonists are not my father, but Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan — and that it is Sima Yi who achieves unification.
My brow knit of its own accord.
Cao Cao was the grandson of Cao Teng, a man already famed for his upright integrity and his clear mind. He kept frequent company with my father and held an important post in Luoyang. I had seen him several times myself, and I remembered his face. Sima Yi, I surmised, came of the illustrious Sima clan of Wen County in Henei Commandery. But Liu Bei and Sun Quan — rack my brains as I might, nothing of them came.
More important than any of that is the fact that I die. Broken by Cao Cao's attack, I flee to Liaodong, beg Gongsun Kang for aid, and die there. And with me, the house of Yuan falls. I must change this fate. In the large, for the prosperity of the Yuan; in the small, so that this body may live. When the age of chaos begins, the one who unifies the realm must be the Yuan.
Without realizing it, I clenched my fist. There was far too much to do, and the trouble was that I was far too young.
I need a guardian. Someone who will move in my stead until I come of age.
I frowned and cast about for a way. Clever as my mind was, by any ordinary measure I was six, and the limits of that were plain. But the immense knowledge and experience that had come in through the ringing had given me the mind of a man in his forties. In particular, the self of that former life knew the orthodox history of the Three Kingdoms in considerable detail, and that was an enormous help in laying plans.
A brilliant mind, knowledge of what is to come, and a store of experience. I will show the world what power these become when they are one. All under heaven — wait for me. I, Yuan Shang, will bring every one of you to your knees at my feet.
I smiled, mild and gentle. Whenever I was tense, or brimming with confidence, I always smiled that way. It was possible only because, in mind, I was a man of forty.