Deep in the darkness of the night, a few small sails had only just sailed out when a thunderous blast shook the sky — those three ships, slipping away in desertion, erupted and sank.
And at that very moment, a horn call resounded from the island — low and resonant, drawn out long and slow. Though it was blown from the island below, the sound seemed to come from the heavens above, rising above every wave and surge in the sea.
Those explosions must have alerted Xundao Island. Wang Chu had no choice but to move out ahead of schedule.
He had no time to dwell on the past. He turned to his men assembling with torches in hand and cried out: “Brothers! Brothers!” His eyes were already brimming with hot tears, the firelight blurring before him.
Six words only: “On the boats — win — go home!” He shouted until his voice gave out to hoarseness.
A dozen or so somewhat weathered mid-sized vessels, carrying over a thousand men, moved in silence toward Xundao Island. Every ship extinguished its fires and went dark. All that could be heard was the wind filling the stiff sails in long, whistling gusts. The sailors navigated by the direction of the wind in the blackness of night, steering their vessels with practiced ease, not drifting a fraction off course.
Xundao Island held the defensive position; Wang Chu was on the offensive. Xundao Island had the greater numbers; Wang Chu had the fewer ships.
Yet when hearts are not united, the greatest fear in battle is for the brave and loyal to die charging at the front while their bones sink unseen into the sea — every man hoping someone else will step forward first, yet no man willing to be that someone.
The bandits of Xundao Island had only just been pulled back together — their hearts were still scattered. Wang Chu’s men, by contrast, each carried a surging resolve to cut down their enemies and return home. Measured against each other in such terms, how could it be reduced to a simple question of who attacked and who defended, who had the greater numbers and who the fewer?
When a person has something to live for, even the force behind a blade grows several times stronger.
Wang Chu knew that the new island chieftain of Xundao Island was straining to make a comeback and was unwilling to lose a single soldier — he would certainly avoid close-quarters combat and short-blade fighting. If the chieftain was like this, those under him would be all the more so.
This gave Wang Chu his opening.
He led his brothers in what seemed like madness — expending every last round of ammunition to bombard Xundao Island’s weapons cache, and then led his men ashore. Moving as one, they broke through the earthen wall defenses of Xundao Island one by one.
The new island chieftain wavered and hesitated, too slow to muster his full force to meet the attack head-on. His followers had only recently come under his command, each harboring private schemes, each calculating for themselves.
The outcome of this battle was sealed from the start.
Even though the outcome was favorable, that did not mean the process was anything less than brutal.
The fighting began in darkness and stretched through to morning, and after landing on the island, the close combat raged on until the sun hung bright and high.
When the news reached Jiahe Island and the city of Tong’an, Pei Shaohuai was momentarily stunned. He had known that Wang Chu was good at heart and intended to come over to the right side — but he had not anticipated that Wang Chu could be so resolute.
When Pei Shaohuai saw the yamen runners repeatedly lost in their own thoughts, unable to stop their gazes from drifting toward the yamen gate, he understood a little more. This stretch of southeastern coastline, long suffering under the maritime ban, held in the hearts of those born and raised here — even those who had harbored grievance and resentment — a deep and undiminishing love for their homeland.
Brothers once separated by circumstance: one with his feet buried in the fields scratching for food, the other hoisting his pack and heading out to sea to live with a blade. It would not be like that anymore.
By the time the reinforcement warships from Jiahe Island arrived at Xundao Island, the sun was already slanting westward toward dusk. The battle was winding down. The Jiahe Guard’s battalion commander led his elite soldiers to mop up the remaining bandits, completely demolishing Xundao Island’s nest of thieves once and for all.
On the other side, in the city of Tong’an, Pei Shaohuai did something unusual — he finished tidying his documents early and left the yamen to return home while it was still light. The yamen gates were shut.
And it was not only him: the several county yamen offices in the surrounding area were, as if by some quiet understanding, also closed early that day.
The torches at the city gates burned on as usual, and when a great ladle of lamp oil was added, they sizzled and spat, and the flames blazed higher and brighter. Tonight, the torches at the city gates looked less like sentinels and more like soft lights to illuminate the way home.
Though everyone already knew what was happening, the village elders of each family and clan still delivered the instruction with grave seriousness: “Any household that keeps a dog — send a few catties of rice and a couple of liang of meat to the neighbors, and ask them to tie the dogs’ mouths shut for now.”
Those coming home do not need to hear dogs barking — they are not strangers.
When deep night came, they came ashore and entered the city. Ignoring the pain of their wounds, they hurried through the alleyways they had dreamed of night after night.
In Bao Family Village, old Bao Jiu made it back alive. After the family wept and held one another, his wife set out a bowl of noodles, then tended to his wounds and told him through her tears to rest soon.
Whatever there was to say could wait until he had rested.
“I want to wait and watch the dawn come,” Bao Jiu said. “Big Brother said tomorrow’s dawn is different from any other.”
“Different how?”
“What would rough folk like us know about that? Big Brother said it’s different, so it’s different.” Bao Jiu’s expression turned wistful. “If only I had listened to Big Brother more and learned a few more characters while I had the chance…”
His wife pressed her hand over his mouth and said, “You went out on a trading voyage — there was no island.” Then she asked, “What do you plan to do from here on? I’ve rented a stall outside the Shuang’an port wharf.”
“That’ll do. You keep managing it — I’ll go work as a porter, put my back into it and earn you some starting funds.” Bao Jiu laughed simply.
The moon grew heavy, the stars dimmed, and the white of day came rising.
The couple talked here and there, rambling from one thing to another, until somehow they had talked their way to morning. They watched the pitch black soften to grey, and grey open into bright white — nothing remarkable about it, as ordinary as any other dawn. But when the morning sun crested the low tiles of the little courtyard wall and fell upon the tips of their feet, their hearts felt strangely, deeply settled.
The same moon over all nine provinces, yet the scenes on either side of a wall could be entirely different. Some had stepped off the boat and come ashore; others had gone without a word and would never return.
In the households where loud sobbing could be heard — those were not true grief, but the overwhelmed joy of a reunion long delayed. The households where grief was truly unbearable were the quiet ones: so quiet that even the faintest sound in the small courtyard was mistaken for returning footsteps.
Leaning against the doorframe waiting. Sitting in the main hall waiting. Running out to the alleyway when the sound of reunion next door became too much to bear, waiting there instead. Waiting left and right, waiting until dawn — footsteps growing lighter, hearts growing heavier — and still no familiar face came home.
A woman, eyes red, steamed glutinous rice into smooth round mounds, filled three bowls, set out a jug of wine and several sticks of incense, hung a basket on her arm and took her eldest child’s hand, kept her distance from the joyful households, and walked to the shore with her head lowered and silent.
The eldest already understood the world enough to ask: “Mama, are we going to pay respects to Papa? Is he never coming back?”
“No — we are just going to make an offering to the sea. That is all.”
All the young men who had gone without a word — they had not died. They had gone out to sea. That was all.
At the shore, flocks of seagulls crowded and squabbled over the cold, hardened glutinous rice balls left at the water’s edge. Women came and went in waves, one group after another — more of them than the seagulls.
It was said that of those who had followed Wang Chu and gone into battle, fewer than half came back alive.
Those who did come back said nothing of the three ships that had tried to slip away in the night. They spoke of those men as having fallen in the charge — this was the last small act of kindness one brother could offer another after so many years.
Among those who also found no old friend returning was Pei Shaohuai.
For several days in a row, he brought carved flower wine and fragrant roasted goose and went to Ceng Island — and did not find that scholar-turned-bandit who had once mocked his letters for being too plain.
Pei Shaohuai sent Chang Zhou to Bao Jiu’s home to ask.
When Bao Jiu heard Chang Zhou say, “The Master sent me to ask — do you know where Mr. Wang has gone?” he stared blankly, his mind slow to follow, and reflexively asked: “Mr. Wang? Who is Mr. Wang? I don’t know any Wang…”
Then he suddenly slapped his thigh as it dawned on him: “Oh, you mean Big Brother! He didn’t get on the big boats with the rest of us — he rowed off in a small flat-bottomed skiff heading north on his own.”
Wang Chu appeared to be from northern Fujian — he had gone home, it seemed.
Chang Zhou relayed this to Pei Shaohuai, and Pei Shaohuai let out a slow breath of relief. As long as the man was all right — though it was still a pity they would not have the chance to sit and talk once more.
In the deep of winter the lotus pond withered, and when the wind came, the sails swelled full.
The north wind of the twelfth month arrived.
Fleet after fleet made ready, fully loaded with the goods of Da Qing, preparing to set sail for maritime trade.
The common people had never seen a wharf so bustling and magnificent in all its glory. Had they not been living here themselves and helped to build the port with their own hands, they might not have believed it — Shuang’an’s wharf had only just been completed not long before.
Sailors could now board their ships and head out to sea openly, with the blessings of their families ringing in their ears.
Once at sea, there would be no more paying passage money to Xundao Island, no more fear of Japanese pirate ships suddenly surging out from some nameless island.
Whether a great fleet of several dozen vessels, a small clan operation of only three or five boats, or a bold household striking out alone — every one of them found their footing and their future on this still-somewhat-rough-hewn wharf.
The whole city was busy. It was precisely at this moment that Pei Shaohuai was able to catch his breath, and could often stay home to keep his wife and children company.
He took two consecutive days of rest and had begun to feel a twinge of guilt about it — until he heard that Yan the Commander next door had not set foot on Jiahe Island for five or six days, and was “hiding” in his own courtyard day after day tending to his son and daughter. That left Pei Shaohuai feeling he had been rather too conscientious by comparison.
With everything running in good order at last, there was no harm in resting a while.
Once the twelfth month passed, the New Year was here. The people of this land had all manner of customs for celebrating the festival. The one with the grandest spectacle of all was the contest for “the first bucket of water drawn at the new year” — also called “competing for the first water” — which carried the auspicious meaning of being first in everything throughout the year.
There was no shortage of ancient wells within the city, more than sufficient on ordinary days. But on this New Year’s Eve, not even twice the number of wells would have been enough. The common people, having barely finished their New Year’s banquet, were already picking up their carrying poles and hurrying toward the wells, waiting for the appointed hour to draw “the first bucket of water.”
Contest though it was, before the hour arrived, everyone gathered in the moonlight around the wells, sitting on their poles, chatting about the passing year — a warmth and laughter entirely their own.
This year’s New Year’s Eve, the Pei and Yan families celebrated together as they always had — last year at the Pei residence, this year at the Yan residence.
Pei Shaohuai was a man of letters; his manner of celebration was guided by “let all affairs be set aside — only wine and verse remain.” Yan Chengzhao was a military man; his was “laugh not at the general drunk on the battlefield.” Two men with rarely such freedom from obligation, coming together — inevitably they drank their fill with great abandon.
The heavy weight of that drunkenness carried Pei Shaohuai into a deep sleep through New Year’s Eve.
He slept until the pale early light of the first day of the new year, when Xiao Nan and Xiao Feng came clambering onto him, demanding red envelopes from their father and jolting him awake. Pei Shaohuai had only just changed into his robe and crowned his hair when he heard a growing commotion outside the front gate — it sounded as though the townspeople had gathered at his door.
He stepped quickly toward the entrance to see what was happening, and the moment his foot crossed the threshold, the people of Tong’an surrounded him on all sides.
He saw wooden buckets lined up on the front steps, their clear well water still faintly swaying, sending wisps of steam curling up in the cold winter morning air.
“This is the first water drawn from the ten oldest and purest wells in Tong’an — please accept it, official.” Several clan elders stepped forward to present it.
The first water drawn at the new year was “clear” yet far from “light” in significance. It carried the finest of auspicious wishes — what better offering to bring a new year’s greeting to the Prefect?
There were also several Eight Immortals tables set out along the street in front of the gate. Women with light, nimble steps kept arriving from the alleyways in all directions, carrying bamboo-woven food boxes. Bowl after bowl of sweet treats and sugar waters were placed on the tables, still steaming — ginger and brown sugar tea, sesame rice balls, stone flower jelly, and alongside them yellow rice cakes, thousand-layer cakes, and many more that Pei Shaohuai had never seen and could not name.
Pei Shaohuai heard the townspeople eagerly calling out over one another: “Please, official, taste some of our family’s sweetness!”
The people of southern Fujian were fond of sweets, and the very first bite on the first day of spring had to be something sweet — no exceptions.
This was what they called “tian tou” — the first sweet taste. Start the new year with sweetness, and sweetness would follow all year through.
In years past, the first sweet taste had been something to hope and long for. The “first sweetness” brought today, however, was made with altogether too much generosity — Pei Shaohuai, seeing the warmth of the people’s hearts, naturally could not decline. With the crowd gathered around him, he raised his chopsticks and selected a few things to try, and found his mouth flooded with brown sugar, its sweetness lingering long after.
His heart was full of joy. Meeting the expectant gazes of the townspeople around him, he smiled and called out: “Sweet — truly sweet!”
Those words were the finest blessing he could offer to all the people of Shuang’an.
After that came the ceremonial dragon dance. The whole gathering carried on in lively celebration at the Prefect’s doorstep for nearly an hour before slowly dispersing.
Half a month later, the Lantern Festival arrived, and Tong’an City celebrated the festival of lights all over again with great merriment. In just half a year, the place had turned from food shortages to constant transformation — day by day growing more prosperous — at a pace that left the people of surrounding counties and prefectures both astonished and envious.
Spring rain was plentiful in southern Fujian — through all of spring, there were scarcely ten clear days.
On such rainy days when it was inconvenient to go out, Pei Shaohuai simply stayed in his study and took the leisure to browse through a few volumes of the Four Books and Five Classics.
Books he had recited over and over in his youth — every word and sentence had been carved so deep into his bones that leafing through them again made them rise effortlessly back to the surface of his mind.
Reading them again not for the purpose of composing examination essays, he found a different kind of understanding.
Pei Shaohuai’s reason for browsing the Four Books and Five Classics was not purely for leisure — he was also contemplating what style of questions to set for the county examination. In the second month of spring, the time had come to announce the county examination.
This region had been formed from the merger of Tong’an County and Nan’an County. As Pei Shaohuai was the Prefect of Shuang’an, he served as the chief examiner for the county examination.
The county examination was the simplest level of the imperial examination system. As long as a candidate could recite passages from the canonical texts and produce writing that formed complete sentences, they could be accepted. In remote and outlying counties, the standard was even more relaxed.
That said, among the examination candidates of both counties, there would always be a few who stood out. If he did not set one or two genuinely good questions, he would have no way of selecting those exceptional students. So Pei Shaohuai put his mind to it with care.
With a solid reservoir of poetry and learning at his command, it was not long before a considerable number of questions had taken shape on the page — classical passages, composition topics, regulated verse — the county examination consisting of five sessions in all, so the questions filled a long scroll.
All that remained was the main topic for the first day’s sitting. Pei Shaohuai picked up the Analects.
Before he had even opened it, Xiao Nan knocked on the door, peeked inside, and asked: “Father, may I come in?”
He walked in properly and, seeing the desk covered in scrolls and books, asked again: “Father, what are you doing? Are you writing an essay?”
Pei Shaohuai lifted his son and sat him on his knee. “Father is composing examination questions,” he explained.
“Like the questions you set for me and little sister?”
“Considerably harder.”
This stirred Xiao Nan’s curiosity. He flipped open the scroll his father was holding and read aloud from the page: “…The Master said — it is not so — whoever offends against Heaven…”
The voice was childishly earnest, the phrasing not yet quite accurate in its breaks.
Xiao Nan looked up at his father with an expression that said he did not understand, and declared: “Truly a great deal harder.”
Pei Shaohuai ruffled Xiao Nan’s hair affectionately. “No rush — you will understand in time.” At that very same moment, his fingertip happened to fall on the very line Xiao Nan had just read aloud.
The passage came from the Chuan Cheng – Chapter “Eight Rows of Eight” in the Analects. The original text read:
Wang Sun Jia asked: “What is meant by the saying, ‘Better to pay court to the stove than to the southwest corner of the room’?” The Master said: “It is not so. Whoever offends against Heaven has no one to pray to.”
Something gave a quiet jolt in Pei Shaohuai’s heart. His son’s casual, unthinking flip of the page had landed, by some fortunate accident, on a truly excellent examination topic.
The “southwest corner of the room” referred to the innermost corner of a house, to its southwest.
The “stove” referred to the kitchen and its cooking fire.
The ancients, bound by superstition, believed that because the southwest corner of a room was perpetually away from the light and most deeply hidden, a divine spirit must reside there — the most revered presence in the entire household, called the “spirit of the southwest corner.”
Similarly, the kitchen, being the place where food was prepared and hunger was kept at bay, was believed to be the seat of the Kitchen God. People made offerings to him on the first and fifteenth of each month. Yet because the kitchen was thick with smoke and fire, the Kitchen God ranked considerably lower than the spirit of the southwest corner.
These customs of veneration from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods persisted unchanged to the present day; many homes still kept an incense burner tucked into the corner of a room.
And so the scholar-official Wang Sun Jia had asked Confucius: why do people say it is better to propitiate the Kitchen God of the stove than the divine spirit of the southwest corner?
“The Master said: it is not so.” Confucius flatly rejected Wang Sun Jia’s suggestion and way of framing the question.
The difficulty of this passage lay precisely in how to interpret the single word “so.”
And a passage centered on the veneration of divine spirits carried a deeper layer of meaning beneath it — was it not exactly right for testing the views of local scholars in this land?
A county examination did not demand essays of profound depth. If even a few could write something with genuine substance — saying “do not yield to worldly convention,” or “cast aside the notion of gods and demons and stand upright before Heaven,” or “trust in the order of Heaven rather than in the hierarchy of high and low” — would that not be its own kind of pleasant surprise?
Pei Shaohuai took up his brush and, in the space beneath the first topic heading, wrote four characters: “The Master said: it is not so.”