(a)

A life seems to be very long, but in fact it is very short, standing on the edge of the grave, looking back on the past of this life, it is like a trance dream.

In the hustle and bustle of the day, we grow old. The first strands of gray hair were followed by the loosening and loss of the first teeth. Then, there is the pain of various parts of the body, the pain that cannot be relieved, like a worn out waterwheel, which always squeaks and squeaks.

When Liu Shen's fifth tooth fell out, he looked at himself in the bronze mirror for a while. Looking at the deflated cheeks and the hollow in his mouth, Liu Shen decided to start building his own mausoleum near the mausoleums of the old Han King, Liu Yan's mother and the Empress Dowager Wang.

He put our second son, the third son, in charge of supervising the project.

Before designing the style of his mausoleum, he personally took the third son of the emperor to the vicinity of Gyeonggi to see the tombs of some ancient emperors.

The third son of the emperor was surprised to find that in the vicinity of Yunjing, there had been so many emperors and their exploits in the dust throughout the ages, and they were obliterated in the loess mound.

Liu Shen stood in front of a broken tombstone built more than 500 years ago and said to the third son: "Son, do you know why these great ancient emperors built such a magnificent tomb for themselves during their lifetimes? ”

The third prince replied: "That's because they want to show the greatness of the dynasty, so that the people of the world and the later generations can see the prosperity and common prosperity of that era, and admire and admire it." ”

Liu Shen shook his head.

The third prince said, "Isn't it? So for what? ”

Liu Shen said: "That's because they feel lonely all their lives. They have experienced such profound loneliness in life that they are afraid to experience even longer loneliness after death. “”

He said: "The more promising the king, the greater the king, the more profound the loneliness he experiences, the more ordinary people and ordinary comforts cannot be explained." ”

The third son of the emperor looked at his father, who was getting older. Liu Shen's once smooth forehead was now covered with wrinkles as deep as a knife carving. He experienced the desolation and emotion in Liu Shen's context. He said, "Father."

The father and son walked together on the ruins of the past dynasties, feeling the cycle and vicissitudes of history. The sunlight shone through the branches and leaves of the pines and cypresses, jumping in spots and shining on them.

Liu Shen said to the third son: "So, you don't have to envy your brother, you don't have to envy him for being made the crown prince, and you don't have to envy him for being the ninth five-year prince and the power of the world in the future." You don't have to look at these things. You have to understand that any success comes at a price. The more brilliant one's success, the heavier the cost. If you are not willing to pay that price, don't envy and envy that success. God is fair, he will not favor anyone, and he will not let anyone's gains be unbalanced with his efforts. ”

Liu Shen said to his son: "Your brother is the prince of the country, which means that he must spend his life to bear such a vast scale of loneliness." ”

Liu Shen said: "My father has used his life's experience to prove to you that this kind of loneliness is unstoppable and difficult to bear. ”

The third son of the emperor looked at his father and nodded silently.

Liu Shen said: "In this country, in addition to the crown prince, you are the second most qualified person to inherit the throne. Brothers are looking at your example. How you act and how you choose has a significant impact on the future of your country. Although you are not the crown prince, your influence on the fate of the world is the same as his. ”

The third son of the emperor said in fear: "Father, the son does not dare to think about it. ”

Liu Shen shook his head and said: "People are very complicated and unpredictable, what you don't want today, how do you know that you will never want to do it in the future?" ”

He glanced at his son's nervous expression and said, "Don't be so nervous either. I'm not saying you think anything wrong. Father believes that after what happened to your brother, you all learned from it. ”

Hearing his father say this, the third son of the emperor relaxed slightly.

Liu Shen said: "Son, do you know why your father sent you the errand to build the mausoleum? ”

The third son of the emperor said, "Please give instructions to my father." ”

Liu Shen said: "Father hopes that when you build my mausoleum, you will take a good look at the end of my death, look at the final fate of many emperors throughout the ages, think carefully about the people who lie in it and their lives, think about what your father usually says to you, and what he says to you alone today." ”

Liu Shen said: "As the son of his father, your elder brother, his destiny is to take over from his father, continue to take responsibility for the people of the world, and the extreme loneliness of such a high place, and you, child, your destiny is to help your father and do what his father did not do in his life: to help your brother to take on such a difficult mission and such unbearable loneliness." ”

Liu Shen said: "You are biological brothers of the same father and mother, you are siblings, flesh and blood. If his own brothers don't help him, how difficult it will be for him to take on the responsibility of making hundreds of millions of subjects in the world happy and healthy. ”

He said: "If it were not for your uncle, who was brave and loyal to help you back then, my father would not have the inheritance he has to pass on to you today. My father will not have the opportunity to sleep peacefully in this magnificent mausoleum, and he will not have the opportunity to return to the earth again in this life. ”

Liu Shen said to his son: "You have to remember, brothers work together, and their profits are gold." Your younger brother has set a bad example for your brothers and sisters, and my father deeply hopes that you will set a good example for your brothers and sisters, so that the people of the world can see that the descendants of our Liu family do not only know how to chase fame and fortune for themselves, but can continue to bear the expectations and aspirations of the people of the world. ”

Liu Shen said, "Son, can you let your father sleep peacefully under the land where we stand?" ”

With tears in his eyes, the third son knelt down in front of Liu Shen, and said: "Father and emperor are still in their prime, don't say these words that make your son feel sad." My father will definitely live forever. The son understood his father's meaning and understood his father's thoughts. Son, he must be the right hand of the crown prince, do his son's life, support him, help him, relieve him, be his backing, enhance his strength, and let the world see Liu's demeanor. ”

The third son of the emperor said: "Please rest assured that my father, son, will definitely not live up to my father's ardent expectations!" ”

Liu Shen nodded with satisfaction and said, "Good boy." Father believes in you. After your father leaves this world, you will definitely be able to do better than your father, and you will not let the subjects of the world be disappointed with the children of our Liu family. ”

(b)

Liu Shen and my sons, on the whole, are friendly and united with each other. Since the Changping Hou incident, they have supported each other all their lives, and have not become each other's enemies and opponents.

Our grandchildren, though numerous, have maintained such a relationship.

This is inseparable from Liu Shen's education.

The brotherly wall that happened to Liu Shen and you has not been repeated in the end among our descendants, and until the dynasty was destroyed by the usurper, such harmony and friendship were still maintained between the main clans.

This is one of the things that I was deeply grateful about when I was dying.

Our second son, the third son of the emperor, later became not only a virtuous minister on whom the state depended, but also a famous poet. While assisting his eldest brother in ruling the country, he wrote many beautiful poems. In his early poems, there are many well-known famous sentences that describe people's feelings of loneliness in the course of life. In his later poems, this in-depth insight and deep compassion for the general loneliness of the human heart gradually sublimated into a kind of peace and calmness in solitude.

I enjoyed reading his verses. It's not that he likes to read because he's my son. It's because those sentences do touch my heart in a deep place.

He wrote about a lifetime of loneliness and realized a lifetime of loneliness, I don't know if this has anything to do with the incident when Liu Shen asked him to supervise the construction of the mausoleum. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows.

This son of mine died before me.

When he was 60 years old, he died of illness in Yunjing.

I was over 80 years old and went to his funeral. Facing his calm face sleeping in the coffin, I burst into tears. Now, he could no longer write about the loneliness of his mother's heart at this moment—no one could write about the loneliness that his mother had experienced in this life. The loneliness of saying goodbye to your dear son to the grave at the age of 80.

So, children, just like the emperor wants to tell you, don't admire power, behind extreme power, there is extreme loneliness, I also want to tell you, don't yearn for longevity. Behind the longevity, there is also the same profound loneliness, unstoppable, unexplainable, and unspeakable loneliness.

Behind all these things that the world desires and strives for, in fact, there is an abyssal shadow, and there is nothing to envy, nothing to be greedy for.

No matter how glamorous they may be, they are nothing more than the same thing in different costumes: loneliness.

The kind of loneliness that sends off a beloved lover to death when he is young, and the loneliness that sends his children and grandchildren into death when he is gray. The kind of loneliness that is alive but dying countless times.

If you dream for a hundred years, what can you get?

Perhaps, you will think that this old woman of mine is too pessimistic. But I tell you, this is not called pessimism, this is called truthfulness. It is a cognition that conforms to the real state of things.

I didn't become pessimistic because of the death of my sweetheart. I was awakened by the death of my sweetheart, and from then on I began to learn to observe things truthfully.

A person has to go through the deepest pain of life in order to gain such a realization, and from then on, he will be determined to be in the right view and will not be shaken. (To be continued.) )