Chen Dasheng couldn’t remember how he’d rushed out of the small courtyard — he ran toward the palace gate like a man possessed, stumbling and falling several times along the way without feeling any pain, scrambling back up each time to keep running, so that the palace guards he passed, startled, ended up trailing after him in a long line.

He crossed the long stretch of the palace road and watched, helpless, as the palace gates slowly swung shut before his eyes — his token to leave the palace for the day hadn’t even been exchanged yet.

Patting his empty pockets, he sucked in a breath, hands on his hips, gasping with difficulty, then turned and ran back toward his godfather’s small courtyard. By the time he reached the courtyard, they’d already prepared inner robes for him and filled a bathtub, while his godfather stood quietly on the steps watching him and said, “There’s nothing you can do today. The hour has come, the palace gates are shut, and before long the whole city will be under curfew — from the inner palace to the outer palace, the inner city to the outer city, and then three hundred li of road beyond Yandu’s gates. Were you planning to go like this?”

Chen Dasheng stood there numbly, and in his daze heard Wan Chunyang say, “Aiyo~ little young master, there’s no use going out at this hour. Look at your knees, all scraped up like this — do you want to worry our old madam sick?”

Chen Dasheng started, and only then looked down to see that the fabric over both his knees had been completely torn away in his fall, the exposed knees a bloody, mangled mess.

She Qingling looked at his son and shook his head slightly. “Go clean yourself up.”

Chen Dasheng nodded and let several young eunuchs attend to him and lead him away. Once he’d gone to the bathing chamber, She Qingling finally sighed, looking at the darkening moonlit sky, and murmured with feeling, “Family~ ah!”

With that, he tucked his sleeves together and watched the sun set and the moon rise, the sky slowly darkening.

After bathing, Chen Dasheng lay disheveled in a folding chair, his legs propped up on a footrest, letting others attend to him.

Wan Chunyang knelt applying medicine to Chen Dasheng’s knees. After a long silence, Chen Dasheng finally said, “Father, it was wrong of me…”

She Qingling didn’t look up, only watching his son’s knees with concern. “You were rather rash about it. We’re father and son under one roof — it’s nothing. His Majesty already sent someone to ask after you, and I smoothed it over. But you — how could you be so careless?”

His knees finally began to sting sharply. Chen Dasheng sucked in a breath, sat up, and looked at the several layers of broken skin. “Father, did my third elder cousin say anything else?”

She Qingling took a strip of white cloth from the table and handed it to Wan Chunyang, glancing at Chen Dasheng’s expression, and seeing him struggling to stay calm, finally said, “He said that after the great flood at the end of the Hongshun era, your whole clan fled together as refugees. Within three months, bandit unrest scattered you into two groups — your family in one, and the rest of the clan in another. Your family’s story we already know, but as for the kinsmen you were separated from — they fled in a panic for half a month, and seeing how truly chaotic the world had become, unable to find any way to survive, they decided together that going out meant death all the same, so they might as well go home and wait to die together…”

Chen Dasheng froze on the spot, staring at his godfather in utter disbelief. “They — they went back? But — but our old home…”

Was still underwater.

She Qingling felt this news was too cruel as well, but had no choice but to tell him the truth. “Yes, your old home was still submerged. And on top of that, they ran into military conflict too, with conscription happening everywhere. Your kinsmen had no choice but to flee together into the nearby mountains to escape the chaos of war.”

She Qingling stood, walked over to Chen Dasheng, and said, “And so, apart from the elderly and frail who didn’t survive the famine, most of your kinsmen were preserved. They’re currently split into two groups — one still living in the mountains near your hometown, and the other, distant blood relations of your family, are on the fief of the Fuhe County Mistress. They currently have no shortage of land there, but lack farmhands to work it — which is why the estate steward has been recruiting tenant farmers from all around. Exactly how this branch of your family ended up there, your third cousin didn’t explain clearly — he still needed to go find your eldest brother, so he went ahead. He’s asked you to meet him at the Ten-Li Pavilion tomorrow.”

This sudden news left Chen Dasheng’s mind shattered. He opened his mouth, and after a long while, finally said with a bitter laugh, “So you’re saying, if we hadn’t been swept apart, we would have gone back with the rest of the clan, and ended up hiding in the mountains, weathering this war along with them?”

She Qingling took a long breath, waved for the others in the room to withdraw, and once everyone had gone, patted his adopted son’s shoulder helplessly and said, “Son, ah, sometimes a person simply has to accept fate. One road forks — left leads to life, right leads to death, and the slightest difference leads to entirely different outcomes. You have to accept it! Even if it aches your heart to death, you still have to accept it. Your brother also said… because your hometown is surrounded by marshland on all sides, no army has ever fought over it. Through several wars, your kinsmen knew how to hide, and so were never touched by the fighting… It’s also, it’s also that your ancestors had virtue, and in the end sheltered some of the bloodline.”

Chen Dasheng tilted his head, sucked in a breath, gave a few hollow laughs, and ground his teeth until they creaked, the veins on his neck flickering in and out of view. After holding it in for a long while, he finally forced out the words, “This — this is… a good thing, right? Isn’t it, Father? It’s a good thing, right!”

His eyes filled entirely with that ruined temple, that unbearable riverbank, that new recruits’ camp, the endless separation of flesh and blood, the endless carnage, the endless wind and frost and snow, and the endless sound of horns ringing in his ears…

Gone, departed, left behind — always loss, further and further away… everyone smiling as they said goodbye to him, and finally plunging headlong into the mist beneath the old tree at the edge of his home village… no people to be seen, only the occasional faint, fleeting jingle of a cattle bell… Ding-ling~! Ding-ling~ echoing through his dreams.

She Qingling knew just how great a blow this was to his adopted son. In his whole life, he’d rarely shown a soft side, and he had no wish for his adopted son to be soft either — but in the end… he reached out and wrapped his arms around his son, stroking his head, saying, “My poor son. Father’s heart aches for you. My son, go ahead and cry. It’s alright. No one’s watching…”

The shoulders in his arms shook a few times, and finally, a sound close to a wounded animal’s cry broke out, low and muffled…

Early the next morning, Chen Dasheng, his eyes swollen, rode out of the palace in She Qingling’s official carriage. The carriage drove straight out to the Ten-Li Pavilion outside Yandu’s city walls, where the Chen brothers finally gathered together.

Supported by Tong Jintai’s hand, Chen Dasheng climbed down from the carriage, his knees stiff.

Chen Dazhong, coming out from the pavilion, tensed at once. Seeing his brother’s nervousness, Chen Dasheng forced a casual smile and said, “Brother, I’m fine. I was traveling by night and took a fall, that’s all.”

Chen Dazhong looked down at his knees, then reached out to feel them, and finally nodded, saying gruffly, “Be more careful from now on. Does it hurt?”

Chen Dasheng shook his head. “No pain — they used good palace medicine. I can ride alongside you the rest of the way.”

He looked around and spotted Chen Dayong leaning against a tree, his eyes unfocused, and called out, “Third Brother, the kinsmen you found — which family were they from?”

Chen Dayong startled, then turned to look at him. “Several families. The one leading them is Ninth Grandfather’s household’s Uncle Gaoliang — do you remember Ninth Grandfather? The one who always loved sunning himself and picking lice with our grandfather.”

An old man’s face flashed through Chen Dasheng’s mind, and he nodded. “So — so is Ninth Grandfather doing well?”

Chen Dayong shook his head blankly, reaching back to untie his horse’s reins. “Besides our grandmother, and Ninth Grandfather’s two sons, there’s no one left in our clan over fifty.”

Chen Dasheng let out a small cry, and after a long pause, said hesitantly, “Then — then are there aunts, elder sisters-in-law?”

Chen Dayong swallowed, his jaw clenched so tight it seemed his teeth might crack, and after a long while finally said, “There are. Good — good, quite a few, actually.”

Hearing this, Chen Dasheng held back his emotion and forced a smile. “Then — then that’s pretty good, isn’t it, Brother?”

Chen Dayong’s lips trembled, and he finally nodded, laughing through what sounded like tears. “Mm~!”

Having said that, he looked at his knees and asked, “Does it hurt?”

Chen Dasheng shook his head.

Chen Dayong walked over, wrapped an arm around his younger brother, and patted his back. “Brother, let’s accept our fate, alright? Not everyone can survive whole — right? Heaven’s already arranged things this way. There had to be some part missing for you, right?”

A choked sob sounded from within the pavilion. Everyone looked over to see Chen Dayi, his back turned to the group.

The fact that their kinsmen had survived was a tremendous shock to all four brothers — and having survived in such a manner, it was inevitable that all sorts of imagined possibilities crowded their minds: what if there hadn’t been that flood, what if they hadn’t been swept apart, what if they’d fought back, what if they’d been braver… but there were no more “what ifs” now — they simply had to accept it.

As the eldest brother, Chen Dazhong sniffed, tapped his official boot with his riding crop, and said with something between a sigh and a laugh, “Alright, everyone pull yourselves together, let’s get moving. It’s getting late, and we’ve got two or three hundred li ahead of us.”

As the eldest, he couldn’t afford to show his grief first, so he endured it all the more.

And so the four brothers, each leading their own guards, set out on the road once more.

Insects Awakening had just passed, and all things were coming back to life.

At the border between Shidong and Shixi counties, within the fief of Fuhe County Mistress on Jiangzhu Mountain — a small hill three hundred and twenty li out from Yandu’s western gate — a large crowd of ragged, threadbare farmers, shoeless, gaunt as skeletons, faces weathered by hardship, sat waiting at the mouth of Jiangzhu Mountain.

It had been only three days since they’d gone from tenant farmers scraping by for food to being relatives of an official household — yet after just three days without farm work, this pitiful group of farmhands was already consumed with guilt. Their employer no longer needed them, said he no longer dared employ them — only then did they realize that the noble relative of the Emperor’s household the stewards had always talked up was, in truth, no more than something used to frighten common folk like themselves.

They weren’t allowed to do any work at all now. Spring plowing was approaching, and the landlord could hire others at high wages, but they weren’t permitted to earn even those few coins, and had nowhere else to go — so they could only sit here and wait.

Chen Quanyin, of the same generation as Chen Dazhong and his brothers, asked his father Chen Erliang cautiously, “Father, do you think they’ll really come?”

Chen Erliang had no idea whether they would come. He felt ashamed, in fact, that he’d never done anything to help this family in the past, and now that his own family was in such dire straits, they’d already risen to such great heights — wouldn’t it be shameless to go crawling up to them now? Wouldn’t that just be causing them trouble?

Being in such a wretched state themselves — wouldn’t that shame the children? He’d already begun regretting going to fetch water at the river that day. He’d carried his jar down to the riverbank, and before long, saw a cloud of dust rising on the main road as a group of officials approached — they too needed to water their horses, and dismounted nearby.

Chen Erliang didn’t dare look, hiding as quickly as he could and kneeling far off to the side.

The officials paid him no attention, chatting among themselves in the sort of refined speech only nobles used, which he couldn’t understand at all.

He just knelt there, kneeling and kneeling, until he stole a glance — meaning only to get a look he could brag about that evening in the shed — only to find one of the officials looking right at him. Finally, the official walked over, slowly approaching until he stood right in front of him. Chen Erliang, terrified, collapsed on the spot.

The official bent down and asked him, “Are you — Second Uncle from Ninth Grandfather’s household?”

Chen Dayong didn’t actually know the given names of his elders — in the village, even the children were called only by their childhood nicknames until death. With so many people, everyone was simply addressed by generational rank — you knew the face, knew the person, and perhaps only upon their death, if the family could afford a proper gravestone, would people learn, ah, so they did have a proper name after all.

Chen Erliang, not understanding refined speech, kowtowed frantically in apology. “Mercy, great lord, mercy… this humble one — this humble one didn’t mean to stare at you…”

But the official reached out and pulled him up, looked him over carefully from head to toe, and finally, his voice trembling, said in the local dialect, “Even as ashes — even turned to ashes I’d remember. It’s only been a few years, how could I not recognize you? No, I’m not mistaken — I know you, you’re Second Uncle from Ninth Grandfather’s household. I remember you — your name’s Liang, isn’t it?”

Even among kinsmen, when everyone shares the same surname and lives crowded into one village, proximity breeds a certain distance too.

Chen Erliang’s family had three brothers: Gaoliang, Erliang, and Sanliang. Oh — but Sanliang’s whole family had starved to death, some years back now.

Hearing the familiar hometown dialect, Chen Erliang finally steadied his nerves, worked up his courage, and looked the official over carefully. This official had such a smooth, youthful face — softer skin than a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl — dressed in fine silks, with a fragrant scent about him, and behind him stood a tall, magnificent horse.

This honest countryman had no idea how to respond, and could only keep repeating, “Ah? Ah? Ah…”

Seeing his father lost in thought and silent, Chen Quanyin asked again, “Father, do you think they’ll really come?”

Chen Erliang’s son Quanyin was already twenty-seven this year. Even without disaster or hardship, his family had always been poor, unable to afford a bride for him — they could only wait and see. Who could have imagined the world would erupt into warfare, and on top of that, a great flood?

Now things were even poorer. If not for fear that the next generation would fill the house with bachelors, Erliang’s elder brother Gaoliang would never have gritted his teeth and led the whole clan’s menfolk out to search for a mouthful of food to survive on.

In the past, Choushuanzi’s family had actually been reasonably well-off in the village — farming their own land, only renting a little extra, well enough to afford a bride.

His heart held nothing but fear, not a shred of joy at encountering family. Thinking back on the past, Chen Erliang sighed and said, “I — how would I know.”

That day, once kinship was confirmed and everyone had cried their fill, Choushuanzi went with them to the estate and met the whole extended family. The very stewards who used to kick and whip them came rushing over in a panic, bowing their heads before the newly-arrived family like stray dogs caught eating filth, begging pitifully not to be reported.

As if he’d dare report them anyway — he had no certainty, no leverage in anything.

Now that this kinsman held official position, with real duties to attend to, that night they could only leave… after all, even if they’d stayed, there was no way to properly host them — over a hundred grimy, wretched people, how could they possibly put up relatives in earthen huts?

Afterward, no one knew quite what Choushuanzi said to the steward, but from then on they were forbidden from doing any work at all, and could even eat two full meals a day.

A family of suffering men, who hadn’t had a full meal since birth…

Having eaten free meals for three days now, Chen Erliang grew more and more uncertain. He kept thinking over and over — what if they didn’t acknowledge them as kin after all? What if that day had all been some shared dream, some delusion? Would the steward force them to sign themselves into indentured servitude?

But Chen Erliang had no idea that the very people they were anxiously waiting for had already stopped their carriages and horses not far away, along the main road, and were sitting together in the open field discussing their future.

Chen Dazhong let his horse graze on spring grass, sat down on the folding stool his guard brought him, and said, “Let’s brothers discuss this first — how we’re going to arrange things for these kinsmen going forward. It’s not simply a matter of bringing back a huge crowd of people without a plan. These are people — real, legitimate relatives. Feeding them is simple enough, but caring for them properly is genuinely difficult.”

Chen Dasheng, the youngest, was too lazy to speak up, and simply got down from his carriage, took the gourd offered to him, and listened to his brothers deliberate while drinking.

Chen Dayi thought it over and said, “Why not just set up an estate for them? From now on, whether they’re out working as tenant farmers, or the elders are hiding in the mountains as mountain folk to avoid taxes — neither will do. I’ll contribute five hundred strings of cash.”

Chen Dayong looked at his silent fourth brother and shook his head helplessly. “It’s not just a matter of money to buy an estate. You just say buy an estate — but is it an estate here, or back home? If it’s here, we can look after it. But if it’s back home, I worry they won’t be able to protect the property. You all remember what our family was like when we were being sold off — that’s what they’re like now.

“With the emperor far away and the mountains high, one wrong turn and it’s a whole mess of trouble. You all know what shape our family was in back then — who could we have provoked and survived? Besides, how much weight do a few sesame-seed-sized officials like us really carry? What if the local magistrates don’t give us any face…” He looked up at Chen Dasheng. “Fourth Brother, what about the Fuhe County Mistress’s side? Do you have any standing there?”

Chen Dasheng nodded. “It’s fine. The old County Mistress is over sixty this year — her family’s fief only lasts this one generation anyway, just a distant side branch of the imperial clan, an aunt married out long ago. It’s just a matter of a few tenant farmers — they won’t make trouble for us over it. No need to even say anything to her family directly — I’ve already sent word home, and I’ll have my wife prepare a generous gift to send over as well.”

Chen Dayong nodded, patted his knees with both hands, stood up and sighed. “Well — combining those back home with those here, our family still has roots after all. The whole clan has survived as five branches. Whether we help each other out or not, we should at least gather the clan together first, and get our old Chen family ancestral hall built — that’s the real priority! I don’t even know our ancestors’ names anymore — come festival time, all I can do is start burning incense from our grandfather’s generation onward. Ah, how unfilial!”

Hearing his brother out, Chen Dazhong lowered his head to think for a moment, then said, “Fine! I’ll have them ask around the area — let’s do it here. Land shouldn’t be too expensive around here, at most two or three hundred coppers an acre. We’ll each set aside a hundred-odd acres per branch, and build them houses too. Once we’ve brought the relatives back from home, built the ancestral hall, and honored our ancestors, established our roots — we won’t be rootless wanderers anymore. We can discuss everything else after that.”

Chen Dasheng handed the gourd to his second brother, sat down to think as well, and finally said, “Money’s a small matter. The few of us spent years being forced to remake ourselves entirely — we’ve learned to handle that much. But whatever our grandfather and the others were like, that’s what these kinsmen of ours will be like too. I’m not worried about them causing trouble — I’m worried they’re the sort who couldn’t learn to cause trouble if they tried, an entire clan of honest simpletons. Right now, besides the ancestral hall, the urgent thing is that no matter how old we are in this generation, we need to build a school at the estate, and hire a proper tutor to teach them. Otherwise, even with us nearby, they won’t be able to protect the family’s property.”

Chen Dazhong nodded, then looked to his second brother.

Chen Dayi thought it over and finally laughed. “Sounds good. Might as well spend the money where it’s needed! This is good news — when my son is born, he’ll have real relatives to visit too. Good thing. Our generation may not benefit much from it, but the next generation certainly will.”

Chen Dazhong nodded with a smile, stood up, folded up his stool and tucked it into his saddlebag, then pulled the reins and swung himself smoothly up onto his horse. “Then it’s settled. Let’s go. Things will get better from here — no more being lost, homeless ghosts. At least we have kinsmen now. This bad luck of ours these past years is finally turning around, our family’s fortunes are bound to rise…”

At the gate of the Fuhe County Mistress’s estate, several stewards sat sheltered from the wind, watching from a distance at the group whose fortunes were about to change. Honestly, every one of them was consumed with envy.

Not far from them, a felt mat had been spread out, laid with brand-new clothes, shoes, and socks — yet the former tenant farmers only dared fill their stomachs with food, not daring to touch a single one of these new items. They couldn’t be intimidated anymore, and certainly couldn’t be whipped anymore either — what could they do if these people simply didn’t want them? All they could do was smile along and wait, making sure everything was properly displayed so that when the noble guests arrived, they’d see how attentively everything had been prepared.

Never mind that these were mere stewards — they belonged to the Fuhe County Mistress’s household, born-and-raised family servants. And who was she? From now on, these people would be relatives of a noble official household.

The Fuhe County Mistress was indeed of imperial blood, but His Majesty’s family had no shortage of distant relations. Within the imperial clan, what standing did this old County Mistress really hold? A distant aunt married out long ago, whose name His Majesty himself probably didn’t even know.

Even her fief had only come from a general distribution among the imperial clan — this area on Jiangzhu Mountain was hardly prime land, a full three hundred li from Yandu, tucked away in a remote mountain hollow, with uneven land and no natural water source, requiring dug irrigation channels.

And who were the relatives of this particular family? Someone from the ancestral household who, given the difference in status, couldn’t come forward to visit personally, yet was someone the family was eager to curry favor with all the same. The head of the household had given orders — serve them well, please them well, not even asking to establish a real connection, just hoping to avoid any mistakes.

The most illustrious member of this family was the little darling of the palace eunuchs and female officials, the pillar grandson carrying on the She family bloodline, a lineage admired by scholars across the realm, someone His Majesty treated as half a son of his own… The circle of nobility wasn’t large, and within just a few days, Chen Dasheng and his brothers’ background had already been thoroughly dug up.

As the stewards stood there envying them, murmuring quietly among themselves, they suddenly saw the listless former tenant farmers all leap to their feet at once.

The stewards scrambled up hastily, stepped out from their sheltered spot, and saw a magnificent procession of carriages and horses approaching in the distance.

Leading the way were a dozen or so tall, powerful horses, their riders all wearing black cloaks, riding hard, cloaks billowing — an unmistakably impressive sight.

Following the fast horses was a carriage with two horses and a tall canopy, its fittings inlaid with gold, an official’s carriage — and trailing behind this official carriage was a whole line of over a dozen more dignified carriages, with tung-oil canopies and blue cloth awnings.

Besides all this, the procession was flanked by a full forty or fifty mounted guards riding alongside, their black cloaks gathered together, sweeping toward them from a distance in a sight that was thoroughly intimidating.

Chen Gaoliang, who had been silent all this while, slowly stood up, his lips trembling, walking down from higher ground, still muttering to his brother in disbelief as he went, “They — they really came to get us? It’s — it’s really Daniu’s family’s boy?”

That day, he’d taken the children to dig irrigation ditches, so he hadn’t even been at the estate — he was to return only once the ditch work was finished. Who could have imagined that after a full day’s exhausting labor, just as he’d fallen asleep in the shed, he’d be respectfully invited back, and from then on, been fed full meals.

For the first time in over a decade, Chen Gaoliang had tasted meat again. Greedy for it, he’d eaten a bit too much, and had been suffering diarrhea ever since, right up to today.

And over these past few days, his brother Erliang had told him over and over — yes, it really is Sixth Grandfather’s descendants — yet how could he possibly believe it? What kind of good fortune was this?

The group of people from the heavens stopped not far off, each dismounting from their horses. Chen Gaoliang, with his sharp eyes, looked them over one by one, carefully.

He looked at their fine silks, at the official’s caps neatly worn atop their tidy topknots, at the gold belts they wore — even the tall horses they rode were adorned in gold and silver. He — he didn’t recognize a single one of them.

And so the man grew flustered, thoroughly flustered.

Unable to bear the weight of three days of full meals, he wept as he begged the stewards for forgiveness. “No, no, we don’t — we don’t know them, what, what should we do? We’ve made a mistake!”

The four Chen brothers dismounted, got down from their carriages, and together walked slowly toward the large crowd before them.

These people didn’t recognize them — but they recognized these people. Such familiar attire, such achingly familiar faces — though strangers, they surfaced again and again in memory: unkempt, weathered dark, careworn, bitter, brows that never once relaxed, always creasing inward. Not even twenty years old, yet already lined with the deep furrows of worry.

Just like Grandfather, like Father, like their deceased brothers.

Chen Dasheng felt himself grow dazed once more, searching earnestly, trying to find, among these near-identical faces, some trace of his own family — perhaps they’d gotten lost, perhaps he’d followed the wrong group.

Perhaps, seeing him, someone would leap up in joy, pointing at him and shouting, “Hey! You silly stinky-head! Still remember your big brother?”

But there was no one.

A hundred-odd faces passed before him, and not one belonged to the people who had once lived beneath his family’s own roof.

The two crowds advanced toward each other, step by step — one group barefoot, the other shod; one steady and strong, the other hesitant and faltering…

When they finally, slowly came together, Chen Dazhong reached up and untied the cord of the cloak at his neck, flung it off with one hand, straightened his robes as he led the way, and slowly knelt before the eldest among them, Chen Gaoliang, saying, “Uncle-grandfather, we’ve come to bring you home.”

Still no recognition?

Chen Gaoliang rubbed his eyes four times over, again and again, searching earnestly across their faces, over and over, until finally he said, weeping, “Who — who are you all? Surely you’ve made a mistake, my lords… this humble old man couldn’t bear such an honor.”

Having said this through tears, he too collapsed to his knees.