On the night of the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth month, a small gang in Jizhou City was robbed. The two perpetrators wore masks — one of them talked so much he seemed to have been reincarnated from a chattering ghost; the other never said a word and simply started hitting people.
The chatty one kept urging the other to hold back, and that was the only reason the silent one didn’t kill anyone. They swept the small gang’s stashed silver clean — silver the gang had only just stolen from another small gang. Classic predator-eating-predator.
The gang had dozens of members, and one man had laid them all flat on the ground. A few who refused to accept their defeat had been tied up and strung from the rafters. Most humiliating of all was the gang’s esteemed leader, whose hair had been braided into several dozen pigtails by the chatty one.
The disgrace of it was beyond bearing.
What neither of the two perpetrators had anticipated was that this would set off a full-blown underworld brawl. The robbed gang assumed it was a move by their rivals, and the moment the two departed, they immediately rallied their allies to storm the rivals’ base. The rivals, seeing them come, thought: you just robbed us and now you dare come back for more? This is outright bullying — and united in their fury, they fought back with full force.
Meanwhile, the two perpetrators had already run back with half a sack of silver. The silent one handled the fighting; the chatty one handled carrying the loot.
Back at Li Diudiu’s house, while the three of them inside were still deliberating about the future, the two men of action had already returned with the money.
“My goodness.”
Li Diudiu stared at the half-sack of silver and felt stunned — happiness had arrived so suddenly he wasn’t sure he could handle it.
They hadn’t even really started yet, and things were already looking up.
“We just poked around a little,” Yu Jiuling said. “Asked around, heard there was a small gang called the Black Tiger Sect not far from where we were. We said we’d go take a look, and right as we got there, we saw a bunch of people ambushing a carriage with Black Tiger Sect’s silver — nearly home already. I said to myself, it’s late at night, how dare these bandits act so brazenly! The Black Tiger Sect has suffered such humiliation — we absolutely could not stand by and watch.”
Mr. Yan said: “Not a bad approach.”
Yu Jiuling grinned: “Teacher, when I first met you, I thought you had such an air of righteousness about you…”
Mr. Yan shot him a look.
Yu Jiuling said: “Want me to go back out tonight for another round? The Black Tiger Sect is clearly not going to take this sitting down — they’ll definitely be going after that other gang for revenge. We might as well see it through to the end…”
Li Diudiu said: “Pick a different one. Have you no conscience, targeting the Black Tiger Sect over and over?”
Yu Jiuling: “Aren’t we helping them?”
Li Diudiu: “Help them once and their silver is gone. Help them twice and the Black Tiger Sect might be gone.”
“How about we two go back out for another look?” Yu Jiuling offered. “If something really does kick off, we could genuinely lend a hand.”
Li Diudiu: “From the way you’re talking, I’m very certain you’re not planning to help the Black Tiger Sect…”
All five of them crouched in the courtyard, counting that half-sack of silver with gleeful small-gang energy, grinning ear to ear — and just like that, their fellowship was established with minimal ceremony.
The gang was founded with an unexpected windfall. Yu Jiuling declared this a most auspicious omen.
As for the name — Hand — the five members each had their own thoughts. Zhuang Wudi felt whatever it was called made no difference; Mr. Yan found it full of deeper meaning; Changmei thought as long as Diudiu liked it, that was fine; and only Yu Jiuling felt the name had a slightly vulgar edge to it.
New Year’s Eve morning. Li Diudiu realized he probably wouldn’t be able to fulfill the promise he’d made to Xiahou Zuo this year — with Prince Yu staying at Xiahou Zuo’s house, there was no way for them to go spend the holiday there.
Then, surprisingly, Xiahou Zuo showed up at Li Diudiu’s place first thing in the morning, bringing his mother with him. This caught everyone off guard — and the parting that followed came even faster, so fast that no one had a chance to prepare. Even those who had prepared couldn’t quite accept it when the moment arrived.
As it turned out, Prince Yu was heading back to the Wang Manor on the morning of the first day of the new year. It was somewhat unfortunate — he couldn’t spend New Year’s Eve and the first day with Xiahou Zuo and his mother, because the Wang Consort mattered more right now.
Without the Yuwen family’s support, Prince Yu felt his position somewhat shakier.
—
Meanwhile, the northern frontier.
Even on the grasslands it was a bitter cold time of year. A herd of yellow deer raced ahead while behind them charged a group of mounted herdsmen with a pack of hunting dogs. The deer stampeded in panic as the grassland riders loosed arrow after arrow. The young man at the very front was especially impressive — every shot was deadly accurate.
“Enough!”
Someone called out, and the young man reined in his horse.
Bamutan, leader of this group of herdsmen, was a rugged man. Though already past fifty, he still looked as powerfully built as a bull.
“Tangpi,” Bamutan said with a great laugh. “If you were truly one of our tribe’s warriors, how wonderful that would be.”
Tang Pidi had been on the grasslands for several months now. They called him Tangpi — probably because “Tang Pidi” felt too much of a mouthful.
Bamutan looked around him and said: “The haul is already good enough — enough to feed us for half a month. Any farther and we’d be in Bayan territory, and those fellows would riddle us with arrows. Those people are no longer friends.”
Tang Pidi looked toward the distance, where a line of riders was already waiting to cut them off. The boundaries of the pastureland were sharply defined — cross even a step and you would be surrounded and slaughtered, and the same applied in reverse.
“Let’s head back.”
Bamutan also looked toward the Bayan side, a faint sadness crossing his eyes.
The two tribes had once been close. But the Bayan tribe had eventually pledged themselves to a larger tribe, and from that point on had grown steadily more distant from Bamutan’s people.
“Son,” said Bamutan, riding alongside Tang Pidi. The more he looked at the young man, the more he liked what he saw.
“About the matter I mentioned — have you thought it over? If you refuse me again, that would truly break my heart.”
Bamutan wanted to betroth his granddaughter to Tang Pidi. Tang Pidi had already refused three times.
Not because he thought poorly of the girl — but because she was only eleven years old.
From Tang Pidi’s perspective, this would be practically criminal. From Bamutan’s, it was perfectly normal.
“I… I need to discuss it with my father,” Tang Pidi said with an awkward smile. “Father is away on a long journey and hasn’t returned yet. Once he’s back, I’ll definitely speak with him about it properly.”
Tang Pidi’s father was away on business for the tribe, trading with people from the central plains over in Xinzhou, and wouldn’t be back for another month.
Tang Pidi thought: I can stall a month. And if it still came to a head after that, he wasn’t without options — he could take the initiative and propose that they become sworn siblings instead.
Bamutan’s real goal was simply to keep Tang Pidi with them. Whether he became a grandson-in-law or a surrogate grandson, the difference wasn’t that large.
“Alright,” said Bamutan. “On to another matter. I’m thinking of entrusting you with a unit — two hundred men to start, two companies under your command.”
Tang Pidi was startled and immediately demurred: “I’m not up to that. I’m too young, and I’m not even one of the tribe.”
Bamutan’s expression darkened at once: “How can you say that? Do you still not consider yourself one of us? Your martial skill is the finest in the tribe, and everyone respects you for it. The Bayan faction has been provoking us constantly of late — giving you two companies is for the good of our people.”
“Then I accept,” said Tang Pidi.
He wanted to find out whether he was capable of it.
What Tang Pidi could not have imagined was that within a year, he would carve out a fearsome name for himself across the grasslands.
—
Back in Jizhou City, things went on much as before — no great upheavals. The organization called Hand gradually built a reputation in the city’s underworld, relentlessly swallowing smaller groups one by one, until even the Azure Formation began to take notice of them.
A year passed quickly. Tang Pidi had become known on the grasslands as the Ghost General — for the cavalry under his command came and went like shadows. In just one year, he had pushed the territory of his adopted tribe to more than double its former size.
Li Diudiu, now fourteen, already looked indistinguishable from a grown man in height, with the bearing of a young man of seventeen or eighteen.
At the Academy he sat through lessons in quiet composure — the image of a bookish, unworldly scholar.
Outside the Academy, in the dark of night, wearing his demon mask, he was the demon that made the night itself tremble.
“Xiahou has been gone a year now,” said Li Diudiu, sitting on a rooftop looking out over the night streets of Jizhou City, and let out a slow breath.
Yu Jiuling made a sound of agreement.
“The letter should be coming soon, probably. Last month it arrived around this time.”
He crouched beside Li Diudiu and rubbed his nose. “It’s so boring at night in Jizhou City now… only one year, and the people who used to dare do wrong under cover of darkness have been completely cleaned out by us.”
Zhuang Wudi sat there in silence.
Li Diudiu let out another long breath. It was true — there was little excitement left.
This past year, if it hadn’t been for having something to do every day, Xiahou Zuo’s departure would have been genuinely hard to endure.
That fellow had left Jizhou City on the fifth day of the new year, leaving his mother behind at Li Diudiu’s small courtyard — because he felt she wouldn’t be safe if she stayed at their home.
When he left, he’d asked Li Diudiu: my mother is your mother — can you do that?
Li Diudiu had answered: your mother is my mother.
From that day on, Li Diudiu felt as though his elder brother had gone wandering the world, and he had gained a mother who looked after him in every conceivable way. Everything, down to the smallest detail, was tended to with care. Of course, every scolding that should have gone to Xiahou Zuo, Li Diudiu absorbed on his behalf as well.
“Li Chi.”
Zhuang Wudi, who had been silent all this time, suddenly looked at him and said his name — then fell silent again. A long pause, and then he continued: “I’m leaving.”
Li Diudiu went still.
He had known all along that Zhuang Wudi would eventually leave. He just hadn’t expected this year to pass so fast — fast enough that he hadn’t fully absorbed Xiahou Zuo’s departure to the northern frontier before Zhuang Wudi was already going too.
“When I came, I made a promise to my elder brother to protect you for one year. I’ve already stayed a month longer than that. If I don’t go back soon, the men at the stronghold will barely recognize me.”
It was rare for Zhuang Wudi to say so much at once. He smiled at Li Chi: “You’re already a true man, and your martial skill has already surpassed mine. My elder brother was right — when I left, he said that within a year I might not be your equal. Looking at it now, my elder brother saw far indeed.”
Zhuang Wudi breathed in deeply, then exhaled slowly.
Then he reached out and pulled Li Chi into an embrace.
“We are brothers.”
Li Chi nodded firmly: “We are brothers.”
Zhuang Wudi let go, smiled, and said: “My elder brother made me go a whole year without drinking. I did it. Tomorrow morning I leave Jizhou — tonight, will you keep me company until we’re thoroughly drunk?”
Li Diudiu stood, leapt off the rooftop to the street below.
“Home to drink!”
“Wahoo!”
Yu Jiuling let out a whoop and jumped down after him.
“Home to drink!”
The three of them landed on the street — three demon masks — and sent the patrol soldiers who had just turned the corner into an immediate about-face.
Such is life: there will always be partings.
Such is life: there will always be new beginnings.
—