The three of them had originally intended to actually get a bit of sleep — at the very least, it would help keep up appearances.

But these three men who seemed so thick-skinned and carefree ultimately could not manage to be truly carefree.

No one could say how long they chatted, but the wine and the drowsiness had both long since worn off, leaving them more wide awake than before.

Ekema did not return until after dark. No one knew what he had been doing, but when he came back his demeanor had greatly improved.

He again ordered food and drink to be prepared, and had even changed out of his fine brocade garments into something plainer.

The man who returned seemed to have reverted to the Ekema they knew — their familiar, close brother.

The four of them sat down to drink. Ekema no longer brought up anything else; he simply sat with Cheng Wujie and the others recalling shared memories from their childhood.

This session was noticeably more relaxed than the midday meeting. The four of them laughed and talked, the wine flowed more freely, and as the laughter continued, tears began to fall.

Xiao Liu wiped his eyes and looked at Ekema. “When we were small, Xiao Jiu and I were short and always getting picked on. It was always you and Old Boss Cheng who stood up for us.”

Xiao Jiu sniffled, his mind going back to the image of Ekema with his face beaten black and blue — and felt the old sadness well up.

“The two of us were thrown into a mud pit.”

Xiao Jiu raised a hand to wipe his nose. His eyes were full of tears, but his lips held a smile.

“Six or seven people beating the two of us — we really were too weak to fight back. And then Ekema showed up.”

He glanced at Ekema, a glance full of years of feeling.

“Even now, if I close my eyes and try to recall it, I can still picture exactly how he looked in that moment.”

“Only one year older than us — that year Xiao Liu and I must have been eight, and he was nine. He stood in front of us with half a brick in his hand, his back to us, facing those thugs.”

Xiao Jiu let out a slow breath. “He said: you two don’t be afraid. I’m here. Anyone who bullies you two, I’ll kill.”

Xiao Liu drained his cup in one go and said, “That fight — the two of us cowered behind him shaking with fear, and didn’t dare go help. It was Ekema who fought them all by himself. He knocked a bunch of them down, and got knocked down himself. His face was completely wrecked — he was spitting blood.”

Ekema laughed and shook his head. “And now you dare bring that up — I was the one fighting for you two, and all you did was hide behind me yelling, ‘Get them, Ekema! Hit them, Ekema!'”

Cheng Wujie snorted with sudden laughter.

Then, laughing, he let tears slide down his face. “That day — you all came to rescue me.”

Xiao Jiu wiped his tears and laughed. “That day, the two of us were being chased and beaten, and you were being strung up and beaten.”

Ekema said, “I was practicing behind the village on my own. I heard someone shouting and ran over, and only found out the whole story afterward.”

That day, Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu had been so hungry they could no longer bear it, and sat there weeping.

Cheng Wujie watched them and his heart ached.

He was hungry too. But he thought: he had to find something for the two of them to eat.

There was a wealthy family in the village holding a birthday banquet. Cheng Wujie crept in, hoping to slip away with some food.

But he was caught in the act.

That year he was ten years old — the oldest of the four, which was why the other three had always called him Old Boss Cheng.

The ten-year-old Old Boss Cheng knew only one thing: I am the eldest; I can go hungry, but they cannot.

He would never steal for himself. But seeing Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu weeping from hunger was more than he could endure.

He was caught by the rich household’s servants, strung up in the backyard, and beaten savagely — his skin split open, his flesh lacerated.

Because it was a birthday celebration, the wealthy family had many guests and relatives in attendance. These guests had brought their own children along, and those children gathered around Cheng Wujie, laughing and jeering, and started picking up stones and clods of dirt to throw at him.

Then one teenager suggested pelting him with eggs — said it would be more amusing.

The wealthy household had crates of eggs brought out, and those children began hurling eggs at Cheng Wujie.

Cheng Wujie stared at the smashed eggs on the ground and wept with heartbreak.

He hadn’t cried from the beating. Not even through all that pain.

Others assumed he was crying from being beaten, but only he knew the truth — he was thinking how wonderful it would be if he could take all this food back to Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu.

Such waste. All going to waste.

He was hungry too. One egg struck him on the head and broke, its yolk running down his face — and he began licking at it with his mouth.

When the children from the wealthy household saw this, they laughed even harder.

So they crowded in closer and started aiming directly at Cheng Wujie’s head.

Cheng Wujie was ten years old, so at the time it didn’t occur to him… that the fullest meal he ever ate that year came to him in this way.

So much so that when he later thought back on it, Cheng Wujie — utterly carefree — would say that yes, it had hurt, but raw eggs were actually quite good.

Then one of the wealthy family’s children proposed tying Cheng Wujie up and parading him through the village streets.

Let everyone see who this little thief was who had come to steal.

A chorus of voices agreed, and Cheng Wujie was shoved out of the backyard.

Bound hand and foot, a rope looped around his neck that they led him by like a leash.

The crowd surged along laughing and jeering, still flinging eggs the whole way. The servants carried crates of eggs; the wealthy family’s children reached in and pelted them.

Villagers who saw stood watching — some laughed, some shook their heads and sighed.

When Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu found out, they charged straight in to rescue Old Boss Cheng.

But the two of them, who had so often gone without food, were thin and small, and had gone without eating for a long while. Where would they find the strength?

Besides, there were so many people. How could the two of them possibly fight back?

It wasn’t even really a fight — the moment they rushed in they were seized, beaten soundly, lifted up, and thrown into a mud pit.

At this point, Ekema, who had been practicing behind the village, heard the news and came charging straight in.

That day, he held half a brick in his hand, was knocked down again and again, and stood up again and again.

His face covered in blood, he looked at those wealthy children and said: if you don’t beat me to death, I will stand here and block you.

If you don’t beat me to death, I will kill every one of you later.

Whether those children were frightened by his blood-drenched face, or by his words — or perhaps simply because this bleeding wreck standing there had made the whole thing lose its amusement — they eventually all drifted away.

Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu ran over, one supporting Ekema, the other supporting Cheng Wujie.

Cheng Wujie said it was nothing, told them not to cry, and look — we didn’t come away empty-handed.

There were still eggs on the ground — some smashed, some intact.

Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu gathered up the eggs from the ground and offered them to Ekema, but Ekema made a dismissive sound.

“I don’t eat things like that. I’d rather starve to death than eat that.”

He raised a hand to wipe the blood from his face and told the three of them: in the future, when I become someone important, I will make sure you always have enough to eat — and meat too.

Xiao Liu asked through tears of concern: does it hurt?

Ekema said it hurts, but that was fine. If you don’t have the strength, you have to endure the beatings; once you do have the strength, you make sure to hit back.

In those days, everything in the village belonged to the wealthy families — including Xiaoxian Lake just outside the county seat.

The fertile fields, the lake, even the trees on the hillside — every last blade of grass belonged to them.

When Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu went to fish, getting caught meant a beating too.

It seemed as though, back then, even surviving held such slim odds for them.

But then roving soldiers and refugees arrived. They killed the entire wealthy household, looted everything from the estate.

Those wealthy children — some were killed, some were violated, some were taken away.

The household was destroyed and every soul in it lost. Yet because of this, Cheng Wujie and the others finally had a chance to survive.

They fished freely in Xiaoxian Lake, with no one to stop them. They gathered fruit from the hillside, with no one to beat them.

“None of that will ever happen again.”

Ekema drained his cup in one long swallow.

He looked at Cheng Wujie. “All of you should stay. I can’t claim to be wealthy yet, but if the four of us are together, at least none of us needs to fear going hungry, needs to fear not surviving.”

Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu looked at Cheng Wujie.

In that instant, even the two of them were genuinely moved.

People are creatures of complicated feeling, and in certain emotional states, choices are made without much reason.

They had come intending to persuade Ekema. But after this long round of drinking, Ekema’s words had broken through their defenses.

They looked at Cheng Wujie because they truly, sincerely, had always regarded Cheng Wujie as their leader.

He was their eldest brother. The eldest brother could make the decision.

Yet the one who should have been the most thick-skinned, the most lacking in reason — Cheng Wujie — sat there frozen.

He looked at Xiao Liu, then at Xiao Jiu, and the expression in his eyes said: have the two of you forgotten why we came here in the first place?

Ekema saw Cheng Wujie’s eyes, and he let out a deep, weary sigh.

“In truth, I already know why you’ve come.”

Ekema turned his empty wine cup slowly in his hands, and let out a long breath.

“You came from the Ning Army’s side, didn’t you?”

He looked at Cheng Wujie. “Old Boss Cheng — you may be unreliable about many things, but you have never lied to a brother. Tell me: am I right?”

Cheng Wujie was silent for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

Ekema said, “So you came to kill me?”

Cheng Wujie shook his head. “No.”

Ekema said, “You came to persuade me to surrender?”

Cheng Wujie said, “Old Ekema — you know what is right and wrong. People who do the bidding of a heretical cult come to no good end.”

“Right and wrong?!”

Ekema burst out laughing — a laugh that was raw and shattering.

“Ha ha ha ha ha… right and wrong?”

Ekema stood up, his eyes reddening.

“In a world like this, you talk to me about right and wrong?!”

“Then tell me — when we were being oppressed by that wealthy family back then, nearly beaten to death, who was right and who was wrong?!”

“You could say the wealthy family was cruel and vicious — but why did you get beaten in the first place? Because you went to steal.”

Hearing those words, all three of them stared at Ekema in stunned disbelief.

Ekema raised a finger and pointed at Cheng Wujie. “If you had not gone to steal, you would not have been strung up and beaten, would not have been paraded through the streets, would not have implicated Xiao Liu and Xiao Jiu, and would not have implicated me. So tell me — who was right and who was wrong?”

Before Cheng Wujie could respond, Ekema continued, “And then later the rebel soldiers came. They slaughtered the entire wealthy household without an ounce of human feeling — even the children were killed, the girls were violated, every last person was butchered.”

He looked squarely at Cheng Wujie. “And yet afterward, precisely because that entire household was wiped out, we had the chance to survive. Tell me — who was right and who was wrong?!”

Ekema left the table and paced as he spoke. “That is why I eventually came to understand: in this world, right and wrong are decided by the strong.”

“You call this a heretical cult — but here I am, second only to one man, with ten thousand beneath me. If I go over to the Ning Army, I would be nothing more than a minor company commander at best. And what would being a deputy commander even amount to?”

“Old Boss Cheng, Xiao Liu, Xiao Jiu… I don’t know what you think. But I have always been grateful to those rebel soldiers.”

Those words hit all three of them like ice water, sending chills crawling across their skin.

Ekema turned to face the three men. The light in his eyes in that moment made them all the more afraid.

“Those rebel soldiers slaughtering the wealthy household had nothing to do with us. But because the wealthy household died, we got to live — so that was our business too. That is why I thank them.”

Ekema spoke each word with deliberate care. “So if I were made to choose — go on being what we were, or become that wealthy household?”

“Neither. If I am going to be anything, I will be those rebel soldiers.”

—