Short story: Life is but a Dream (梦中身) by 如似我闻 Ru Si Wo Wen
"I hereby swear to give you my full loyalty; to never betray you for as long as I live."
Tags: loyal love, dystopia, modern fantasy, drama, angst, BE
Trigger warnings: war, mentions of torture, major character death
First person MC (female); the pairing is her brother (Li Xi) and an unnamed 'he'. The relationship is between Li Xi and the unnamed man.
The title, 'Life Is But A Dream', is a liberal translation. A more direct alternative would have been 'body in a dream'. Notes for this translation choice may be found at the end of the story's translation.
The tenses might seem odd / contradictory in this story. This is not the translator's mistake, but due to a mismatch in the characters' perceptions. Please see the endnotes for an explanation.
There are also multiple layers of flashbacks, which will be separated by "..." in between chunks.
----- Story text -----
-01
"I hereby swear to give you my full loyalty; to never betray you for as long as I live."
That was the man's first interaction with Li Xi, quoted verbatim from the description the man gave to me himself.
The flags alternated black and red, fluttering in the wind as patriotic songs were passionately sung aloud. Tens of thousands of young men lined up in the square, clad in their new uniforms as they placed their hands on their chests, making their solemn vows.
In that moment, their empire had just attained five consecutive victories on the battlefield. The entire nation was elated, and there was an unprecedented increase in the number of people who voluntarily enlisted in the army. They'd undergone a stringent process of screening and training, before their prime minister announced with pride that they were to be the honour and pride of the country at the military enlistment ceremony.
That year was thus bestowed the nickname, The Empire's Spring.
During the prime minister's speech, the man's glanced around furtively, before meeting gazes with a pair of dark eyes next to him. The other party curved his lips into a gentle arc, before facing the front again and raising his chin, beckoning the man to face forward himself.
He quickly faced forward again, thus managing to avoid the officers' detection.
...
"Li Xi."
The man fumbled for a while for the right words. I handed him a pen and paper. He then slowly wrote down the two words and asked, "Do you understand these two squarish characters? Very complicated, don't you think? Each one of the regions in this empire has retained its original mother tongue, and this is his mother tongue."
"You've written it down wonderfully," were my sincere words of praise for him.
He smiled in response. "These two words are all I can write. This language is excruciatingly difficult to learn."
He then continued describing him. "Major Li Xi—you should have heard of him. He's of Asian descent. While I’m unaware of the standards for judging one’s appearances back in his hometown, he is exceedingly handsome in my opinion. He has eyes the colour of the night sky, and hair the colour of ink."
He spared nothing in praising him, but his voice quietened with every word.
"I...miss him so very much."
"How long has it been since you’d last seen him?"
Looking confused, he gave me a shake of his head in response. "No, nothing of that sort. I’d clearly last seen him just three days ago.......I’d said goodbye to him, reassuring him I would not fail..."
The sound of his words blended into the air, and the room soon fell into silence. I then caught sight of him leaning back onto the sofa, sinking into the shadows. For a long time, his blond hair looked dim; it was due to not having been exposed to any sunlight in a while.
He was not asleep, but his eyelashes cascaded upon his blue, half-lidded eyes. Silent as a doll, he was akin to a puppet.
Knowing that this conversation could carry on no further, I quietly stood up and made my leave, turning around and closing the door behind me.
"Done at last. You've worked hard again today," said the prison guard, who’d come up to lock the door. "Despite being such a pretty lady, you come over here to spend time with a mentally ill patient every day instead of attending dinner parties and dates. Even I would pity you for wasting your time like this!"
"I have no choice. This is but my job." I responded with a light shrug of the shoulders.
People inside the room—a normal-looking premise akin to that of an officer's room—would not know how greyed and frigid it appeared from the outside. A solemn atmosphere permeated the prison, which seemed as if a concealed tomb.
"Truth be told, it wouldn’t even matter if you hadn't locked him up. He’s not going to break free," I said.
"That cannot do. He is a Class A war criminal, after all," responded the prison guard, who gave the metal chain a shake, ensuring that it was well-secured. "How was his performance today?"
"He's made amazing progress, and is finally managing to connect the dots between his memories."
"Ooh. That mustn’t have been easy."
I then lowered the volume of my voice, before asking, "I have the sudden urge to ask you something. Before I came, were the torture methods used on him really reflected accurately in the records?"
"...what are you asking me this for?"
"The records state that the frequency and the intensity of the electric shocks used during his torture were within the allowed limits. If that had truly been the case, his mental ability should not be so irrecoverable."
"This is a criminal who has committed a crime as huge as treason. He'd colluded with enemy forces to betray our country!" The prison guard exclaimed, throwing me a look laden ith meaning. "What was recorded must be in accordance with the regulations, but in reality...the regulations hadn’t been followed so closely. Do you understand this?"
I nodded.
"This should have been obvious seeing as to how they asked you to help him regain his memories, no? Young people shouldn’t be too fussy. It's a good thing for you, too—after all, it's where you get your bread and butter.
I looked down, and my lips broke into a smile.
"Yeah, it's a good thing."
-02
When I'd entered the room, he was, as usual, seated on the sofa. Hearing my footsteps, he looked up vigilantly.
I didn't rush forward towards him. I politely said, "Sir, I am a reporter from the local press. I have come here to interview you, in order to jot down your war memoirs. Do you recall anything about the war?"
He remained silent.
I continued asking, "Will it convenient for you to commence with the interview right now?"
It was only then that he responded quietly. I took my seat opposite him, glancing at the monitor in the corner of the room.
"Yanping," I articulated slowly. "Do you know that place?"
He pursed his lips into a line, and his silence was his answer.
I then changed the topic. "August 732—I reckon this must be a special time for you, yes?"
It took him a long while before he replied, "...Yes.
That was the time when my hometown had fallen. ”
...
Nothing could be predicted when it came to matters of war.
In August 732, the enemy had launched a blitzkrieg on the man's homeland. It took the enemy a mere week to plant their flags on the land.
It had been summer then. When the news reached him, it was like a shard of cold amidst the warmth. His comrades went over to comfort him, and it was not until midnight that he was left alone in his room.
A sudden rap on the door.
Outside, Li Xi looked into his eyes, before looking at the door, opened just a crack. The man's lack of intention to invite Li Xi into the room was as clear as day.
"Have you contacted your family?" asked Li Xi.
"There’s no need to do so."
Li Xi didn't know how to answer for a while. The other then forced a smile and said, "Just how much do you guys worry about me? Isn't it enough, having comforted me from day to night? In war, such things are but common occurrences. I'm alright." He was about to close the door, and told Li Xi, "Please go back quickly. I wish to sleep..."
Li Xi stuck his foot in the door to prevent it from closing. "Shall we go stargazing?"
...
I stopped writing, and couldn't help but ask the man, "Had he been so romantic?"
On his countenance, an expression emerged—he didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or to cry.
"Of course not. He almost fell asleep stargazing."
In the dormitory, the door to the roof was always locked. Prying the lock open, the two of them entered the rooftop, before lying down.
Entering their lines of sight was a shimmering river of stars. The night felt cooling, thanks to the breeze.
Both of them shared a tacit understanding not to bring up the previous topic, keeping instead to small and casual talk. Gradually, his heart lightened, and his mood improved enough to start pointing out the stars, one by one.
"Truth be told, I'd never studied astrology properly at all," said Li Xi, letting out a sigh, half-awake and half-asleep.
"Don’t you even know the twelve constellations?" the man asked.
"I do know the twelve animal signs of the Chinese1 zodiac," answered Li Xi.
"Then why did you want to see the stars? "
It seemed that Li Xi had fallen asleep, because he did not answer.
Back then, the two of them had only just enlisted into the army. They were inexperienced and low-ranking, and were neither deployed anywhere nor assigned any tasks. That was a time when he and Li Xi had spent the most time together.
It was clear just how much the man cherished that memory. Yet he concealed many things in his narrations, seeming to fear others prying into his deepest secrets. He also seemed uncertain if each memory had merely been a fantasy constructed by his brain, during the endless days he'd spent immersed in loneliness.
In truth, none of his memories may be considered reliable any longer, given that he'd been tortured with countless electric shocks.
Using my left hand, I opened up the records detailing the Battle of Yanping. This was in order to facilitate my one-to-one comparison between the truths and the falsehoods in his narration.
But matter how I guided him or tried to prompt his narrations, he never mentioned Yanping.
-03
As time went by, I grew increasingly suspicious that he had never forgoitten the Battle of Yanping—here was merely hiding it from me. It was possible that he was hiding a keen eye under his seeming folly. Every time I attempted to test him out, he would simply dodge my probing.
I could not find a way to prompt the information out of him, even after a long time.
And his patience seemed to be running out, as if sand dripping from an hourglass. It was uncertain when changes would take place. But he was surging towards the limit of what he could endure, without warning.
He mentioned Li Xi frequently, either by accident or intentionally.
He had already managed to recall many things, including the fact that he and Li Xi had both been promoted to majors, by virtue of their achievements, sacrifices and excellence.
They could barely free up any time during the war, so they had little time to meet. They would mostly meet up only during combat meetings, and had no choice but to give one another their private words via brief exchanges.
After one of the wars, they ran into each other in the field hospital. It was only then that they realised, in shock, that it was a rare time in which they'd reunited after so many years.
The wounded soldiers who had been on the front line were still being transported into the hospital in continuous streams. They were running low on spare empty beds and medical supplies.
This was why he and Li Xi had refused help from the other people outside the ward, supporting each other as they limped forward beforing securing a long bench on which they could sit outside.
It had also been nightfall that day. The difference, though, was that the stars weren't shining anywhere as brightly. Even the moonlight was barely visible.
The man was the one to burst into laughter first. Li Xi asked why, to which he responded, "I had been awake for some time before being pushed in. When I opened my eyes, I saw you, also being pushed into the hospital, and also decked in blood and wounds."
"Did I look very funny?" Li Xi raised his hand to prod gently at the gauze on his forehead.
"No," he responded with a shake of his head. "I just didn't expect to be able to make it out alive. I also never expected to see you again."
"It’s been a long time."
The insects let out soft cries from where they hid in the grass. It was only after a long time that he caught sight of Li Xi speaking. However, he could not hear what he said.
"I forgot to tell you something—please speak louder when you talk to me. A bomb had gone off next to me, and I'm still experiencing tinnitus at the moment." As he caressed his ears, he was suddenly pulled downwards by Li Xi, who had turned his head and looked at him. He was saying, "I hereby swear to give you my full loyalty..."
"What?"
"Don't you remember?" His eyes met Li Xi's surprised gaze, before he continued reciting the oath in a daze.
"…never betraying you for as long as I live."
Li Xi grabbed onto his hand and smiled. All of a sudden, the man could see starlight falling into his dark eyes, just it had during like that night, that year.
My pen went click as I placed it down on the table. I turned off the recording and looked straight at him.
He hadn’t detected anything. He was still entrapped in his memories.
And I was awash with surprise—my intuition pointed me towards certain inexplicable types of feelings.
But had he really been as unaware as he seemed to be at the moment?
"What happened afterwards?" I asked, trying to keep my own emotions in control.
That was the oath one had to swear upon joining the military. No one in the army wouldn't know it.
...
"Are you reminiscing the past?" the man asked Li Xi. "I often think about back then, you know."
"Do you think about me, too?"
"I thought about the time you’d forced me to search for your name amidst a pile of black squares."
Before he could even finish speaking, they shared a laugh. He then continued to complain jestingly, "Of all letters you forbade me to read, it had to be your sister’s. As if I would understand it anyway."
"Right, right, right," said Li Xi with a shake of his head. "I lose to you when it comes to astrology, but you are simply abysmal at learning languages."
His smile faded a little in that instant. He then gazed at the bright lights of the operating room in the distance; at the people hurrying in and out. "I’m not that terrible. I even spent some time on learning a song from your hometown, just so that I could gift you something."
There was chaos in the distance. The smells of blood and disinfectant were wafting to where they were seated. His singing slowly reverberated across the quiet premises.
Li Xi’s smile had also faded from his face. When he finished singing, Li Xi stayed silent for a while, before saying, "You learned it well. But this is a farewell song—it doesn’t have a positive meaning."
"But it's very appropriate for the situation," the man said. "War has ravaged the world today. On this day, we might still be able to sit and have a chat together. Tomorrow, we might be transferred elsewhere, and we don't know whether we will live or die. Now that I’ve sung this song to you, I can consider myself as having bade my good farewell to you. "
"Union and reunion are rare in life. All that is abundant is separation."
...
I jolted onto my feet. He pried open his eyelids and looked over towards me in silence.
In that instant, my heart was suddenly hit by a wave of grief and anger; these emotions were practically surging upwards to choke me at the throat, and to sink me under.
"According to what you’ve described, you and Major Li Xi had been extremely close friends, right?"
He nodded slowly.
"From what you recall, you must have regarded him highly, is that right?"
He nodded again.
"Then why had you betray him?! " I could hear the sharp increase in the pitch of my own voice—it had already grown ear-piercing, and the sound was even starting to shake. Yet I was unable to control myself.
He raised his head to look up at me with an exceedingly confused expression, as if he couldn't understand what I said.
I couldn't control myself any longer. Rolling up the documents, I turned to leave, slamming the door behind me.
A loud noise could be heard.
The prison guard, who was taking a nap, jolted awake, running behind me to question me; I did not turn back at all, and simply continued running. The palms holding my eyes shut were already moistened with my warm tears.
Enough.
I'd had enough.
I no longer wished to hear him utter the name Li Xi, over and over again; I no longer wished to listen to him recall the past, and I no longer wanted to watch him pretend to be sincere and heartfelt. What a blasphemy to the deceased!
Major Li Xi, who had been the pride and joy of the empire, was pushed to the guillotine after the empire was defeated during the Yanping Campaign.
Two years had already elapsed since then.
-04
The next day, I showed up at the prison at the usual time.
The prison guard was still asking me questions me, concerned. “What happened yesterday? You'd really scared me yesterday, acting like that! "
I showed him my usual smile. "I’d gotten shocked by him myself, so my emotions spiraled a little. Sorry about that."
"No worries," the prison guard reassured me magnanimously, waving his hand. He retrieved the key and unlocked the door. "We can’t blame you either—after all, who would be able to withstand being face to face with that person every day? Sigh, goodness knows when these days would ever come to an end."
The prison guards no longer searched my body before letting me enter the room, because they had gotten familiar with me. Holding onto the gun in my windbreaker pocket, I replied:
"It won't be long."
Once I walked into the room, he looked over, as if he’d been waiting for me for a long while.
He looked me over in all seriousness, as if meeting me for the first time. After many moments elapsed, he finally asked, "Are you also Asian?"
"Yes, sir."
"Your last name is Li?"
"It used to be, before I found a way to sneak intp here."
"...Do you know Major Li Xi?"
"Yes. He is seven years older than me."
He nodded, before his gaze moved towards the monitor in the corner.
"You can speak freely, sir," I told him. "I'd hacked the surveillance camera before entering here today."
"Please take a seat," he told me in a gentle, careful voice. "I don't understand what you said yesterday. Li Xi...did your brother ask you about anything before you snuck into here? For instance, what the battle situation in Yanping was like, especially for the reinforcement soldiers."
I was taken aback to hear his words. However, his expression was serious and solemn. It didn’t seem like an artifice at all.
All of a sudden, the unbelievable realization dawned on me that he was still trapped in that war. The battle of Yanping had not ended for him. This was why he’d always kept silent about the questions regarding it—he’d feared that he would leak even the slightest news to the enemy.
"...It's over," I painstakingly choked out.
He closed his eyes slowly.
"I see. So it’s over."
"Then Yanping...was it our victory?"
It was a major loss.
The battle plan was leaked out completely to the enemy. Tens of thousands of soldiers died. The entire empire collapsed.
"...Has he returned? ”
He would never be able to return.
Major Li Xi was pushed to the guillotine because you betrayed him.
He couldn’t understand why I didn’t respond at all. After thinking for a few moments, I asked, “Please tell me—what happened to the two of you in Yanping?”
He hesitated for a long time and nodded slowly, before saying, "Li Xi served as the commander-in-chief on the battlefield of Yanping. But not long after, I received a secret order from the parliament,” he said, seeming rather sad. “The parliament suspected that Li Xi had committed severe treason, and so they asked me to monitor and report all his action plans.”
My brows furrowed. “Are you sure it was the parliament who sent the order?”
“I’d confirmed it repeatedly. There was the parliament’s seal on the order, and there was also no mistake about the person who'd sent the letter.”
He could never believe that Li Xi would commit treason. Yet, he was did not possess the authority to refuse the orders of the empire, whose power was supreme.
Everyone in the empire had to treat the orders of the parliament as the absolute supreme. And in the first place, all soldiers were required to swear absolute allegiance before enlisting.
And it wasn’t necessarily the case that he hadn’t thought about telling all of this to Li Xi.
...
“What are you thinking about? "
Patting his shoulder with one hand, Li Xi used the other hand to turn off the projector used for the conference.
The combat meeting had ended, so everyone else had already rushed back to make their preparations, leaving the two of them alone in the conference room, sans a few technicians.
"Don’t you forget what I’d told you earlier. Also, rest up well. We have to launch our surprise attack before dawn breaks."
Hearing Li Xi say this, he returned to his senses. But he didn't say anything.
Where should he start speaking?
Tell Li Xi that the people behind him were not supporting him as he fought battles, bloodied and bruised, but instead, eyed him with knife-cold gazes of suspicion?
Where should he start speaking?
How should he start speaking, in order to prevent this fearless warrior from being shaken by the news? Moreover, things were urgent in times of war.
Where should he start?
"Li Xi," he eventually opened his mouth. "I believe you."
Li Xi was stunned for a while. He then let out a laugh. "Why are you saying silly things all of a sudden?"
He’d been ordered to monitor Li Xi. As the war intensified, he was then assigned to take charge of the defenses on the western battlefield, and had to temporarily leave the headquarters.
Before leaving, he sent his report to the parliament for the last time. At the end of his report, it was written:
Please believe me—I am willing to guarantee with my life that Major Li Xi has not defected to the enemy!
As he said this, he also told me earnestly, "Please believe, me, too—your brother is absolutely loyal, and that he would never commit treason!"
"...I do believe you."
I knew the contents of his report—or rather, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t.
It could be said that the tragic loss in the main battlefield of Yanping caused pain to the whole country.
...
Everyone had noticed how strange the battle was. Major Li Xi, the commander-in-chief, was brought to the military court. And the person who accused of treason in the court was none other than the man in front of me.
The key evidence presented to the court was a series of leaked reports.
He was the only one who hadn't been aware of the accusations made towards against himself. And it was because he was trapped in the western battlefield at that time.
They'd failed to protect all of their positions, and in the end, he had no choice but to lead thousands of remnant troops to defend one last city. The enemy had been quite patient—they’d opened their mouths and bared their fangs as they waited for them to run out of supplies, before falling into their stomachs.
"The communication equipment is intact, and there are no abnormalities with the signals sent. However, but it seems that the connection with the headquarters had been cut off, including the messages I sent asking for reinforcements, to which there was no response at all.
The reinforcements never arrived."
It wasn't surprising that he'd received no response.
At the time, the military court was putting him on trial. He had already been branded as a traitor, and the continuous requests he made asking for support were suspected to be traps. Out of all reasons they gave for holding him under suspicion, their most convincing reason was:
Stranded in an isolated city, facing a shortage of supplies, it was simply impossible that he could have held on for so long so far.2
Despite this evidence, Li Xi insisted on believing the man. He opposed the court’s decision to refuse sending him the reinforcements, despite being held under the muzzles of countless guns, and even reprimanded everyone present. His attitude was so strong as to be contemptuous.
The parliament and the jury had all been enraged by Li Xi's attitude. The radicals shouted for him to be given the death penalty as a punishment for having lost the war, sheltering traitors, and even being a traitor himself. He was to be used as a warning to others3.
Eventually, Li Xi was stripped of his military uniform, and pushed to the guillotine. He left a few last words, which sounded just like a sigh:
The enemy is sitting among us.
...
"As you can tell, I was eventually captured and locked up here in prison until now, as you can tell. Before you came, they even electrocuted me in order to pry my mouth open," he said, laughing softly. "Don’t underestimate the soldiers of our empire."
The war pulled to a halt in 739. They had undergone such a long stretch of darkness and pain, that it no longer mattered whether they’d won or lost.
The two sides exchanged their prisoners-of-war, and he was brought back to the country for interrogation.
It was at this moment that I finally understood why this man was not executed, despite the shocking amounts of solid evidence against him.
It was just as Li Xi had said—the higher-ups began to realize that the real traitors were sitting amongst the seats of the parliament, their faces righteous; they'd realised that the top leaders of the empire were in an urgent need of a purge.
The cruel torture he'd experienced previously, and the psychological treatment I was giving him—this could not even begin to demonstrate the full extent of the game played between the two sides.
"Can you tell me what you know, now?" I asked, not even daring to look him in the eye.
This made him feel all the more puzzled. Many moments later, he extended a hand to pick up the battle record document sitting before me. My fingers twitched, but I didn't stop him nonetheless.
Silence surged like a rising tidal wave, flooding the room.
"...Is this true4?"
His voice was calmer than expected. Gazing upwards, I saw his blue eyes ripple like a lake. He looked as if he’d suddenly been roused from a long dream.
What day was it?
In that moment, I'd thought that tears were about to fall from his eyes. But he opened his mouth, and not a single sound emerged. The document fell onto the floor as he tightly clutched his chest, gasping as if something had just imploded within. He looked to be in extreme pain, but even till the end, he could not do anything except to look sadly at me.
"...I can't even manage to cry? Why..."
The damages dealt onto him by the constant high-intensity electric shocks had been far greater than anticipated.
-05
When I walked out of the prison, the sky was the colour of a gentle dusk in autumn.
Before I walked away, he took a look at the pocket of my windbreaker and asked, "Could you do me a favour?"
Inhaling deeply, I grasped the recorder in my hand.
A gunshot could suddenly be heard coming from behind me.
The alarm sounded, so sharp as to be piercing; in that instant, the whole prison was suddenly thrown into chaos.
I didn't look back. The red maple trees on both sides of the road were the colour of blood. The white doves in the park opposite me had fluttered away in shock, heading towards the setting sun in the sky.
I was at home when Li Xi was brought to the guillotine; at the time, I'd just happened to receive a letter.
He’d reported, as usual, that all was well. But at the end of the letter, there were a few more sentences than usual. Li Xi was talking about someone who had sung a song to bid him farewell.
Union and reunion are rare in life. All that is abundant is separation.
Even if it’s wishful thinking to want to reunite, I really want to bring that person back for you to meet."
I carefully kept the letter. Just then, I witnessed the scene of his execution, projected on screens all over the empire’s streets.
Li Xi, who was thousands of miles away, stood upright. He was young and dashing.
It had been a day in summer, when sunlight poured down as if torrents of rain in a storm.
---End---
The author has something to say:
Thank you for reading.
I'm back! Love you all.
----- Translation notes -----
Regarding the novel title and its translation:
The raw title is 梦中身 (meng4 zhong1 shen1) - literally meaning 'body in a dream'. This quote might date back to the Song Dynasty, from a poem by Su Shi entitled Reflections: Song of Pilgrimage 《行香子·述怀》. The relevant line is:
叹隙中驹，石中火，梦中身。 I lament (that life is like) the foal within a crack, a spark within two stones, a body within a dream.
The quote is an expression that life is as short as the horse speeding through a gap, the little spark caused by striking two stones together, and one's body in a dreamscape. I didn't translate the novel title as 'a body within a dream' because the connotations are different in English. Instead, I chose to extrapolate the direct meaning by linking it to the author's possible intention to quote the poem, because of the conversation between Li Xi and 'him' --
"But it's very appropriate for the situation," he said. "War has ravaged the world today. On this day, we are still able to sit together and have a chat. Tomorrow, we might be transferred somewhere else, and we don't know whether we will live or die. Now that I’ve sung this song to you, I can consider myself as having bade a good farewell to you. "
"Union and reunion are rare in life. All that is abundant is separation."
Moreover, 'he' sang a song to Li Xi. This is why I chose to use a quote from a song (Row Row Row Your Boat), life is but a dream, as the story title. As the poem and the story seems to be centred upon the theme of the short-lived nature of spending time with one's love, which is similarly reflected in the line life is but a dream, I'd personally found it a little more meaningful to localise the translation of the title rather than to use the literal translation.
----- Thank you for reading! -----
Other footnotes:
- It is implied that Li Xi is Chinese (also obvious from his name, and the squarish, logographic nature of his language.) ↩︎
- This probably means that they'd suspected 'he' only got that far because he had colluded with the enemy and received the enemy’s help in terms of supplies. The implication in 'their most convincing reason' is that from the first-person MC's point of view, their reasons were not at all convincing. ↩︎
- If I am not reading this wrongly, they were both suspected of treason. I'm guessing that it was essentially because of Li Xi's attitude that he was executed instead of jailed. ↩︎
- Just an explanation about the timeline, because the author is being purposefully vague here.
(1) The unnamed man gets told to monitor Li Xi. He then declares Li Xi free of suspicion.
(2) Clearly, they don't believe the man. Li Xi gets brought into court, where they are both accused of treason, although the man is still at war so he does not know this.
(3) Li Xi is enraged -- the man is out there, fighting for his life, yet they not only accuse him wrongly, but even deny him the crucial reinforcements he so needed.
(4) Due to Li Xi's attitude, he was executed at once, rather than jailed for his 'offenses'.
(5) The man gets locked up into jail without getting told that Li Xi had lost the war, and was subsequently executed.
(6) Up till the present day, the man still believes the war is ongoing, until this moment when Li Xi's younger sister, the first-person MC, is giving him the revelation.
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