"You guys keep searching," Bai Qingcheng said, then hung up the phone.
"We should still investigate in person," I said to the few of them. They had all heard the conversation since the phone was on speaker.
"Yuwen Chengdu?" Bingbing frowned. "Isn't that a fictional character from a TV show?"
"How do you know?" I asked with a smile. The name Yuwen Chengdu indeed does not exist in official history, but he appears in various tales of the late Sui and early Tang dynasties.
"I watched the TV show. He looked so cool when he appeared, but it said on the screen that the character was fictional," Bingbing said earnestly.
I thought she had learned this from a history book and overestimated her.
But this fellow, he really did exist. A while ago, when I was more free, I heard Yao Yao tell me about him during a late-night chat. The reason he wasn't written into the historical records was that he wasn't human, but a demon from the Shanhai (Mountain Sea) demon tribe, so the historiographers couldn't write about him.
Back then, during the chaotic period of warring factions at the end of the Sui dynasty, the Bai Ze and Shanhai demon tribes also emerged to fight. Or rather, it was the conflict between the Bai Ze and Shanhai demon tribes that led to the chaotic situation of warring factions at the end of the Sui dynasty. Both demon tribes even experienced internal divisions, splitting into different factions to assist various powers. Ultimately, the main branch of the Bai Ze demon tribe assisted the Li family of Taiyuan in conquering the realm.
At that time, there were a great many demon soldiers and generals on both sides, and they mostly acted openly, which is why legends of the many so-called "heroes" of the Sui and Tang eras were passed down.
The most famous among them was the demon who went by the alias "Li Yuanba" on the Li Tang side, and the Shanhai demon tribe member who went by the alias "Yuwen Chengdu" on the Great Sui court side.
According to the customs of the time, when demon tribes joined human factions, they had to have a nominal relationship, so they would find adoptive fathers. Thus, Li Yuanba was portrayed as the son of Li Yuan, and Yuwen Chengdu naturally became the son of Yuwen Huaji.
However, both these demons eventually died in battle, and their endings were not good, hence the "soul summoning" by King Miao.
I turned to Daji, "Do you know him? This Yuwen Chengdu."
She had experienced that era. Given her personality, she wouldn't have remained aloof like Diana. Perhaps Daji had also left her mark in that era, though certainly not under the name Daji, but another one.
As expected, Daji readily admitted, "I know him. I even sparred with him."
"Sparred, or fought?" Yao Yao asked.
"Sparred. We were allies, why would we fight?" Daji laughed, indicating that she was not a member of the main branch of the Bai Ze demon tribe at the time, but a splinter group.
"What role did you play back then?" I asked.
"I fell for a spirited young man and got together with him. Later, I defected to the Li Tang faction and contributed some merit to pacifying the realm," Daji said with a smile.
"Which spirited young man?" I asked. Daji was a demon, and the one she was "together with" was, after all, human.
"Li Jing. Do you know him?"
My goodness, it was him. How could I not know him? Whether in official history or in tales, Li Jing was the foremost general under Li Shimin, and even ranked within the top ten throughout the long history of Yanxia.
Li Jing's wife was none other than Hong Funü, also a significant character in the tales, whom even Li Shimin respected greatly. No wonder he respected her, for even to the Tang dynasty, Daji was an ancient deity-demon.
"Li Jing? Isn't he Nezha's father?" Bingbing at this moment revealed her lack of historical knowledge. Although there was a "Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King" Li Jing in the Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West, that Li Jing was purely fictional. There was no such person in the late Shang dynasty. As for "Commander of Chen Tang Pass," it was entirely fabricated, as the position of Commander was only established in the Ming dynasty. Moreover, given the world environment of the Shang dynasty, it was unlikely they would establish a Chen Tang Pass on the coast of the East Sea to defend against enemies. Who would they be defending against? httpδ:/m.kuAisugg.nět
Because from the late Tang dynasty onwards, Li Jing gradually became mythologized. This intensified over time, to the point where, by the Ming dynasty, Li Jing was even enshrined in the imperial ancestral temple. The classical novels like Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West were Ming dynasty works, which then transplanted this "god" into the Shang dynasty, making him the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King Li.