Prologue

“Uncle, you come here every day and just stare — what are you looking at?”

A child with a topknot braid wiped her sweaty face and stepped curiously to his side, following his gaze. Layer upon layer of tea gardens spread out before them, a lush and heart-cleansing green, stretching defiantly beneath a merciless sun with not a breath of cool wind.

Today was even hotter than yesterday. The scorching, poisonous sun had wilted even the cicadas hiding in the tree shade. When they were noisy, you resented them; when they fell silent, everything in the mountains and fields suddenly felt lonely — including the man sitting on the earthen ridge.

“I’m watching over my tea gardens.” From beneath a wide-brimmed bamboo hat, the man exhaled a wisp of white smoke from a pipe that had been seasoned by far too many years.

“But why do you watch them?” the child asked, puzzled.

“Because when I’m watching over them, they grow a little better.” He smiled.

“Ah, my father watches over our vegetable patch all the time too, but those vegetables still come out small and yellow.” The child pursed her lips. “Uncle, does growing tea make more money than growing vegetables?”

“Some people say so, though I honestly don’t know.”

“Then why do you grow so much? Last time my father planted flowers to sell, he lost money, and my mother scolded him for an entire spring. She said he’d be better off just growing vegetables honestly.”

“Ha ha — what else did your mother say?”

“Mmm, she also said, ‘How does a poor man get rich? Have fewer children and plant more trees.'”

“Your mother is an exceptionally wise woman. How about this — once my tea is ready, I’ll send a jar over to her.”

“Really? My parents usually only drink well water. They say buying tea leaves costs money, so they save wherever they can.” The child looked almost overwhelmed with gratitude. “Last time I went to the market with my parents, I saw vendors hawking all kinds of tea — Biluochun, Longjing, Pu’er — each with their own fancy names and claims of coming from some famous garden or another, making quite a show of it. Does your tea garden and your tea have names too, Uncle?”

“They do.” He drew the last breath from his pipe, tapped the bowl against the sole of his shoe, tucked it into his belt, and smiled. “My tea garden is called the Garden of Eight Sufferings. And the tea I’m cultivating right now — I call it Fleeting Life.”

“The Garden of Eight Sufferings.” The child scrunched her brows with innocent puzzlement. “Then your tea must be extremely bitter.”

“It is. Very, very bitter.” He reached out his right hand and gave the child’s round cheek a gentle pinch. “You haven’t yet reached the age for drinking this kind of tea.”

“There’s an age for drinking tea?”

“Naturally. If you haven’t lived long enough, if you haven’t walked far enough roads, you won’t be able to taste what’s in the cup.”

“Oh — oh no, my cow ran off! Uncle, I’ll come see you again tomorrow!”

“Run carefully now — don’t fall.”

He watched with a smile as the little one dashed away. A rare breeze drifted past, and his empty left sleeve swayed gently in the air.

The great fire-basin in the sky slowly made its way westward. The cicadas, having recovered their strength, struck up their grand chorus once more. The countless leaves of the tea gardens rustled softly in the occasional passing wind, composing their own melody — cool and pleasant to the ear.

1 — The Little Shop

The neon signs of Chinatown carved the night into countless strange and vivid little worlds. Different people stood at different entrances, raising their voices, cranking up speakers, and blaring megaphones, pushing the already sweltering temperature even higher. Chinese restaurants, Western pharmacies, clothing shops — a dazzling array of stores all reluctant to close for the night. Beneath every crimson doorway arch, the same promotional posters were plastered: The Annual Summer Fire Dragon Festival Begins Tomorrow. By the look of things, tomorrow this place would be even more lively. After all, as long as there’s a festival to celebrate — no matter which corner of the world it comes from — everyone just wants to have a good time.

By the time I’d walked half a block, my hands had already been stuffed with a thick pile of flyers. A certain bakery offering buy-two-get-one-free; a clothing store selling everything at half price on Fire Dragon Festival day if you bought anything with a dragon motif; a dried goods stall running a gimmick where you’d receive an original painting by a renowned ink master if you spent over a certain amount. I’m not particularly fond of crowds, and the earthy warmth and enthusiasm of this street had me utterly dazzled.

I looked into each shop as I went, searching, walking all the way to the turning at the very end of the street before I exhaled with relief and stopped.

Before me stood a plain little shop. Its threshold, worn to a deep brownish-black, glimmered with a faint light. A set of old-fashioned wooden doors in the same dark tone stood half-open; the brass lion-head rings on the door panels had grown faintly green with age. The spot above the entrance, where a plaque or sign ought to hang, was conspicuously bare. A shop open for business — without even a name.

I smiled. This was right. This was his style.

I was about to step inside when a gaunt, blond, blue-eyed man with a goatee suddenly tumbled out the door and faceplanted in front of me. A clear large footprint was stamped on his backside, and right behind him a sheaf of papers came flying out, scattering messily all over the ground.

The man had barely scrambled to his feet when a ceramic teacup flew out the door, accompanied by a single, calm word: “Get out.”

The teacup shattered against the man’s back. The remaining tea leaves and liquid splattered all over him. He looked like he wanted to shout something back at the door, but when a short stool came flying out next, he turned and fled.

I had nimbly stepped aside in time. Once I was certain no more unidentified flying objects were coming through the door, I carefully stepped over the threshold and walked into this nameless shop.

The square, tidy shop interior held three simple solid-wood shelves along three walls, lined neatly with small containers of varying materials and styles — bamboo, wood, and porcelain, each one understated yet exquisite, their casual arrangement hinting at a refinement that had been carefully and lovingly achieved. Even the small wooden tags tied to the container openings had been sanded smooth and pleasantly shaped, bearing beautifully written small-script characters: Summer Cool, Winter Warmth, Spring Fragrance, Autumn Abundance, and so on.

A clean fragrance, not belonging to any single spice, drifted softly through every inch of air in this old, worn room. Yet not everyone could smell it. The unlucky man from just now, at the very least, certainly could not.

Suddenly, something small sliced through the quiet space and came hurtling toward my head with considerable force. I extended two fingers and caught it cleanly — a gleaming black Go stone, the little treacherous projectile. I clicked my tongue and said: “With hospitality like this, you’ll never make any money.”

Clack. From the corner to my left, someone sitting at a pear-wood table played a black stone in response, letting it fall. On the black-and-white Go board before him, he was fighting a battle alone, attacking from both sides at once.

“You’ve come at a rather inopportune time.” The man dressed in a black Chinese-style cross-collar jacket raised his head. His glossy dark hair was neatly bound and fell in a smooth, effortless line down his back. His expression was lazy and unhurried. He looked me over from head to toe, then lowered his gaze back to the board. “You’ve gotten fatter.”

“Oh, come on — I’m pregnant, alright? Is it really so remarkable that my waistline’s grown half an inch? Was it absolutely necessary to point that out?” I walked to the table with extreme displeasure and sat down, tossing the Go stone back to him. “Get your hair cut already. It’s longer than a woman’s.”

“Not cutting it,” he replied without hesitation.

We hadn’t seen each other for ten years, had we? He was still unchanged — still as solid and still as bedrock, cold as frost, as handsome as ever, still fond of dark-colored clothes, the kind that would vanish the moment a light went out. Still preferring to sit in dimly lit corners where people would be least likely to notice him, observing others, refusing to be observed himself.

“What brings you here out of nowhere?” He frowned slightly, contemplating his next move.

“I had some business to take care of in New York. Now that it’s done, I have a few days free, so I stopped by to see whether you were dead or not.” I stared at the teacup in front of him — the pale brown liquid carried a fresh, cool scent of mint. Parched and impatient as I was, I didn’t stand on ceremony and simply picked it up and poured it down my throat.

A satisfying coolness drifted from the tip of my tongue through my entire body. A faint fragrance mingled with a thread of gentle sweetness spread all the way up to my brow. Every bit of fatigue and irritability I’d been carrying was swept clean away.

One cup of tea — enough to dispel the worries of an entire summer.

“Drinking my tea so casually — aren’t you afraid of being poisoned?” He set down a stone as though he had made a clever move, a faint smile touching the corners of his lips.

I gave him a withering look. “An old friend travels a thousand miles to visit you, and not only do you not brew a fresh pot to welcome them, you curse them instead. With a personality like yours, how on earth have you survived peacefully to this day?”

“The pot calling the kettle black.” He gave a cold snort. “You crept over here alone — you must have had a fight with your husband. No, wait — a brawl, and you lost, didn’t you?”

“Nonsense!” I glared at him. “People with dark minds see darkness in everything. My husband and I are perfectly happy together.”

“Then why are you alone?”

“Who told you that once you’re married, you have to be glued together every second of every day?”

“An excuse.”

“A pregnant woman has a very short fuse. Shall I destroy your shop? What would you do then?”

I was absolutely seething — how could I possibly tell anyone that Ao Chi and Jiu Jue, along with the A and B groups, had formed a sightseeing party and run off to some “New York Bikini Beauty Pageant” venue? Faced with those lovely contestants in bikinis, that wretched Jiu Jue had long since forgotten that his portrait was probably still on a wanted notice somewhere. Well, his behavior and Ao Chi’s I could at least comprehend — but even the usually aloof A and B, who normally didn’t give Ao Chi the time of day, had fallen in with them. I was completely at a loss for words.

As for the man sitting across from me, who had shown me absolutely no courtesy — I know none of you recognize him, because from beginning to end, this shadowy figure has never once appeared on stage. Yet though he himself has never made an appearance, his shadow has touched every corner of this world. You may not know him, but you certainly know the tea he grew — that cup of clear, spirit-bright green tea I once carried into the world: Fleeting Life, bitter at first, then sweet.

Look at all of you. From start to finish, all you’ve paid attention to is how I torment Ao Chi and Bu Ting’s helpers, which demon is the most handsome, which demon gives the most gold, and you’ve even gossiped about what kind of creature Ao Chi and I might produce — but not a single one of you has ever asked me about the origins of this cup of Fleeting Life tea. Simply lacking in depth, the lot of you. Go stand facing the Great Wall in penance, every last one of you.

Since today I’ve walked into this nameless little shop and sat down with this man, and since we’re waiting for him to finish this interminably long and torturous game of Go — I’d like to tell you his story.

If you’re willing to listen, then quickly get your peanuts, sunflower seeds, ice-cold soda, and little stools ready. On a sweltering summer day, nothing is more fitting than fanning yourself with a palm-leaf fan while listening to a story — or telling one.

2 — The Manor

The greatest wish of Gu Chen’s early childhood was to have a butterfly or a bee come to rest in the flower garden of his home — just like the effortless scenes you could see anywhere outside: a gentle breeze, a warm spring day, butterflies drifting among the flowers.

Unfortunately, not one ever came.

In the flower garden at home, there were no butterflies, no bees, not even a single ant. The sensitive, clever little creatures had no courage to approach a poisonous sea — one that could send any of them to their death with the slightest touch.

Peonies and jasmine, cloves and osmanthus, pines and cedars and camphor trees — every plant the world commonly knew had no place in this garden.

Gu Chen’s family garden was another world entirely. Its evenly divided plots held dark black and deep blue on one side, shadowy purple and bewitching red on another, each domain governing itself, while also vying for supremacy over the others. Every flower, every leaf, was encroaching upon its neighbors in ways invisible to others. Every member of that garden had cultivated itself to perfection through a path of thorns and hardship, all for the chance of being chosen by its master — to be plucked, torn to pieces, ground to a paste, or perhaps subjected to even crueler methods — and in the end, transformed into a tool, its own ruination completing another person’s death. That was their way of surviving.

Father had said: the plants here are all called plants, but they are also called knives. Knives that kill without drawing blood.

When Gu Chen reached the age when he could recite “Before my bed the moonlight glows” from memory, his father grasped his small hand and taught him to write. The very first character he taught him was the word for “knife” — 刀. Two short strokes. Yet no matter how he tried, he couldn’t write it well; it came out crooked and wriggling like an earthworm. Father said: if you can’t write this character properly, there will be no sweet malt candy for you.

His twin elder brother Ming Hao wrote it beautifully. So every single day, Gu Chen could only watch as his brother received his reward, and drool until there was nothing left to drool.

One day, one month, one year, several years — large and small, well-formed and ugly, the character “knife” filled every inch of the small room.

Several times, little Gu Chen sat there with ink smudged all over his face, listlessly gripping his calligraphy brush, and asked Ming Hao: “Brother, why does Father always make us write this character? It’s so tedious. Let’s go fly kites instead.”

Ming Hao wiped the fine beads of sweat from his forehead, maintaining his proper posture. “Father said to write, so we write.”

“Then I’m going out to play on my own — don’t tell Father, alright?” Gu Chen flung down his brush and darted out of the study room like a puppy bolting free.

Their home sat in a stretch of wilderness at the edge of Tongzhou, with a river in front and a mountain at its back. The narrow winding paths were thick with tall grass, their many forks confounding one’s sense of direction — a veritable natural labyrinth. Reportedly, this land had not always been so desolate. It had once been the summer villa of a powerful official family from a previous dynasty — pavilions and towers, singing and music every night. Then, many years later, an imperial decree ordering the extermination of nine generations of kin came down, and in a single night cut off the lives of everyone within the villa’s walls, rapidly draining away all human presence. The pampered privilege of those who had once basked in imperial favor snapped and died within those pale gray walls; the footprints of the young masters and their ladies were scattered by wind and sand; wild grass and rust slowly reclaimed the land. The manor itself still stood — only now it had become a battleground between wild cats and rats, with sprawling vines acting as referee.

Some people claimed to have heard crying sounds coming from the manor deep in the night, describing it so vividly and graphically that it frightened the timid half to death. The bold dismissed it, saying it was nothing but spring cats yowling. Whatever the rumors, the manor — once soaked in blood — carried an ill omen, and people stopped coming here. The mischievous children of every household were sternly warned: inside that ruined manor lived a man-eating demon; on no account should anyone go near it.

When Father brought the two brothers to live here, that man of few words said only one word: good.

Before that, Gu Chen vaguely remembered that they had moved several times already. Father was like a rootless duckweed, unaccustomed to staying in one place. And before leaving every “old home,” he would burn it completely to ash, unwilling to leave behind even the slightest trace connecting him and his sons to that place.

This was the “home” they had lived in the longest. Father spent several months clearing and repairing the most secluded few rooms in the manor, then dug up the weeds and long-since-withered peonies in the flower garden and, following his usual meticulous series of steps, began planting his own plants one by one.

The water he poured and the fertilizer he mixed all had to be prepared by his own hand first. This was apparently an extremely troublesome task; every time Gu Chen saw his father carrying a wooden bucket toward the flower garden, his left hand was tightly wrapped in strips of cloth, from which the mottled stains of blood seeped faintly through.

By the first spring, the flower garden had already grown rich with color. Gu Chen had seen the flowers and plants outside, and always felt that the ones grown at home were somehow different. Even when their flowers bloomed in profusion, there was never the joy or vitality of a true riot of spring blossoms. They were too sharp — every petal brilliant to the point of having a razor’s edge, beginning to cut from the moment your eyes touched them.

Father issued an absolute command: before their twelfth birthday, neither of the two brothers was permitted to set foot inside the flower garden. Once, a vine ball he’d been playing with rolled into the garden, and he went to retrieve it — only to be caught by Father in the act. He was beaten half to death with a bamboo switch, locked in the woodshed for a day and a night, without food or water.

He had been only five years old then.

Ming Hao was far more obedient — whatever Father said, he did. They were brothers of the same womb, and beyond their appearance, you could hardly find many resemblances between them.

Gu Chen would never forget that night in the woodshed for as long as he lived. No lantern, no food. Hungry to the point of near-fainting, he lay on the cold ground and gazed up at the stars through a broken hole in the roof. He dimly recalled that before they had come here, the two of them had stayed for a time in a small inn doing very poor business. The woman there who washed the dishes, with a floral kerchief around her head, was very fond of him — and he of her, because every time she saw him, she would reach into the pocket of her apron with those rough, calloused hands and produce a piece of candy for him. He had basked contentedly in the sweetness in his mouth and the warmth of being kindly treated.

After learning his name, the woman had paused, then smiled and told him: there is a star in the sky with that very same name. Your parents must love you very much, to have named you after a star.

He didn’t quite understand what love was, but hearing it had made him very happy all the same. Though Father rarely smiled at him, and even when he fell and split his head open, Father wouldn’t come to help him up — he would simply watch with an impassive expression until Gu Chen, suppressing the pain and swallowing his tears, stood up on his own.

That day, he had fallen asleep with candy in his mouth, resting on the woman’s knee. When he woke, he was lying in the bed in their room. Father was not there. Ming Hao sat at the table, propping up his chin, watching him.

By the time they left the inn, he had not seen the woman again.

When the inn was engulfed in a sea of flames, he was nearly dragged away by Father, turning to look back the entire time.

Your parents must love you very much, to have named you after a star. The woman’s words, even now, he had not forgotten.

The stars twinkling through the broken hole somehow blunted the gnawing urgency of the hunger in his stomach.

Just then, a black rat that had been chased by the house cat and lost its footing came falling through the hole and dropped squarely onto Gu Chen’s chest, giving him such a fright that he leapt up with a cry, banging on the door and screaming for help.

Through the crack in the wooden door, he could faintly make out Ming Hao’s silhouette outside. He shouted even louder — but Ming Hao turned and disappeared.

Ming Hao would absolutely not let him out. He was far too obedient to Father for that. Dispirited, Gu Chen slumped against the door and sat down, picking up a stick from the ground at his feet and gripping it in his hand — just in case the rat came back to cause more trouble.

He thought that this was the darkest, most frightening night of his life. A five-year-old child, confined in a small, freezing woodshed, spending a night in the company of a rat.

Much later, he would come to understand that this night had not even grazed the edges of true darkness.

3 — Friends

The Emperor was dead. They said he had only occupied the dragon throne for one month.

Inside and outside the palace, the clouds of intrigue roiled, and rumors ran rife — people claimed that a single red pill had taken the Emperor’s life. Far too strange.

The old emperor passed; the new emperor ascended the throne. The entire nation was being dragged by this most momentous of transitions into a vortex not yet fully formed. Famines grew more frequent. The Jurchen watched with hungry eyes. Internal troubles and external threats spread like a disease, quietly, but with growing severity.

Yet when an illness has not fully erupted, people tend not to see it. The vast majority of people in this country still trained their attention on the new emperor, wondering whether he might collect a little less in taxes, whether he might let everyone eat their fill. What else could matter, to a grass-roots commoner?

For Gu Chen, however, this period of “national mourning” was the happiest stretch of his eleven years of life. Father had gone away on a long journey and still had not returned. Wonderful — no more books to study that could never be finished, no more trading blows with a wooden dummy, and no more stuffing a pillow into his bedding to impersonate a sleeping figure, then slipping out of the house like a thief to steal a few moments with the outside world — carefully calculating the time, then rushing frantically back, braced at any moment to be discovered by Father and beaten half to death.

All these years, he had always been sneaking around. Even the rats on the roof rafters lived more openly than he did.

Ming Hao’s life was far more settled. To every task Father assigned, he seemed to bring a genuine and wholehearted enthusiasm. Yet their father never weighed which son was steadier and which was not in deciding who deserved more attention. This man — who spent most of his time at home tending his plants, drinking wine, and practicing calligraphy — carried little of a father’s warmth. He was more like a dry well drained over many years: affection, longing, tenderness, protection — none of the kind and beautiful feelings the world held could be found in him. Occasionally Father would go out — sometimes for a day, sometimes two — and each time he returned, he would lock himself in his room and not emerge for a long while.

Gu Chen, worried Father might be going hungry, had carried food and drink to knock on his door, only to be cursed and driven away every time. Through the crack in the door, he could smell the pungent scent of strong liquor drifting out. Each period of self-confinement ended in the choking smell of something burning; Father would fling open the door with a bang and shove a fire basin full of paper ash outside in an outburst of something — he permitted no one to touch it, and after a while would clean it up himself.

A few times, the paper in the basin hadn’t burned quite completely, and Gu Chen caught glimpses of the characters on it: resentment and grievance… separation from the beloved… desires never fulfilled… He silently mouthed the words. Though by now he knew a great many characters, he didn’t fully understand the meaning of these phrases, nor could he fathom why Father always wrote the same things, only to burn them.

Well, never mind. Puzzling over Father’s writing was far less interesting than chasing crickets outside.

If only Father could be away from home for a few months every year — how wonderful that would be. Cradling this thoroughly impractical wish, Gu Chen bounded out of the manor in high spirits.

Every autumn, the outside world grew ablaze with color, rich and saturated. Unknown short-branched trees hung heavy with golden-orange fruits no bigger than a thumb; shake a branch and they showered to the ground. Grab a handful, wipe them on your clothes, and pop them in your mouth — sweeter than the eight-treasure osmanthus candy from Xingxiang Zhai. Gu Chen’s cheeks puffed out greedily like a little monkey gorging himself, picking up fruit as he ate, carefully placing any with an especially nice shape into his cloth pouch to save for someone else.

The moment he stepped onto the stretch of riverbank covered in pale round pebbles, someone suddenly surging up from the Tianxing River gave him a tremendous fright.

Little Yuan, clad in nothing but a pair of small shorts, gripped a large, wildly thrashing fish with both hands. His face split into a grin of triumph as he shouted over: “Little lord’s iron-finger technique has finally been mastered!”

Gu Chen shuddered. It was deep autumn, cold enough to need two layers of clothing. Did this reckless Little Yuan really think he was made of bronze and iron? He snatched up the clothes and trousers from the ground and threw them at Little Yuan, who was scrambling up onto the bank shaking the water from his head. “So you’ve mastered the iron-finger technique — have you also mastered the not-getting-sick technique?”

“Please, when have you ever seen me get sick? Not once since I was born, not even a cold.” Little Yuan grabbed a piece of clothing at random and wiped himself down carelessly — then promptly let out an uncooperative sneeze.

“I can pretend I didn’t hear that.” Gu Chen gave him a withering look. “Hurry up and put your clothes on. Little Bao will be here soon — do you want to die of embarrassment?”

“She’ll embarrass me? She should consider herself lucky I don’t smack her backside.” Little Yuan grumbled as he pulled on his trousers. “Look what time it is. This wretched girl is the one who picked the time — says she wants us to celebrate her birthday — and now she’s nowhere to be found.”

Gu Chen looked around. On the riverbank, other than himself and Little Yuan — and the fish still flopping on the ground — there wasn’t another living thing in sight.

On the winding Tianxing River, apart from rippling reflections of light and passing birds, not even a single small boat was visible. This had always been a great longing of Gu Chen’s. He had heard that large ships sailed this river — ships so enormous they could carry multi-tiered towers on their decks, adorned with lanterns wrapped in seven-colored glazed tiles, drifting along like the fairy palaces of heaven. Foreign traders with strange and exotic appearances filled the holds of their ships with curious wares, calling out their goods as they sailed. And there were smaller local boats moored quietly out of the way, with charcoal stoves set up inside, fish freshly caught from the water coated in a special sauce and grilled until they sizzled and smoked, the fragrance drifting for miles — compelling everyone along the bank to stop, reach for their coins, and give in to the temptation. In the gentle chill of autumn, to bite into a piece of fragrant, succulent fish, wash it down with a mouthful of warm rice wine, gaze at the dancing reflections of lanterns on the water, sky and river blending into one, and listen to a singing girl’s melodious voice, her fingers lightly coaxing a pipa — there was no greater ease or contentment in all of life.

Of course, all of this “heard-from-others” knowledge came from Little Bao and Little Yuan. Little Yuan loved to tell Gu Chen about how some hero had single-handedly dispatched a nest of bandits with one blade. Little Bao preferred to describe every marvelous delicacy she had ever eaten, painting each dish so vividly and in such mouthwatering detail that it had the two boys drooling, as though following her every word, they could actually reach out and grab a fragrant leg of roast goose.

When Gu Chen was nine years old, he had encountered two unfortunate souls flailing in this river — a boy and a girl. The little girl had already been choked unconscious. The boy holding her up and struggling toward the bank didn’t look like someone who could swim. A small boat sat alone by the bank. This desolate stretch of riverbank — aside from Gu Chen — was almost never visited by anyone. The boy was right not to call for help; at least it saved him a breath of air to keep himself afloat a little longer.

Father had once very solemnly told Gu Chen and Ming Hao that the first lesson they needed to learn in life was this: be without pity, and do not save the dying. That day, he ordered the two brothers to copy those eight characters one thousand times.

Gu Chen, mind wandering, had copied them a thousand times — but the characters remained on the paper and never made it into his heart.

He hesitated for a short moment, then jumped into the river.

“You don’t look very big, but you’ve got quite a bit of strength.” Little Yuan, still pale-faced, coughed up a few mouthfuls of water and gave him a grateful punch on the arm. “What’s your name? How’d you end up out here alone? Everyone calls me Little Yuan — I live right over at Date Lane by the East Gate.”

Gu Chen gave his name, but didn’t dare say where he actually lived, and made up a vague location instead.

The little girl who had nearly walked through the gates of hell came around slowly, but the first thing she did wasn’t to thank her rescuers — it was to give herself a hard slap across the face and curse under her breath: “Useless.” She actually hit herself, a red palm print blooming across her fair cheek.

This gesture perfectly suited her name. Here was a delicate-featured girl who was as rough and wild as a little leopard cub.

Fortunately it was summer. Three soaking-wet children sat along the riverbank, none of them daring to go home looking like this, so they had no choice but to sit patiently in the sunlight. With nothing to do while their clothes dried but chat, they talked.

Little Yuan said he had come chasing after a lark that had escaped its cage — the ungrateful little thing he’d been feeding so well every day, still wanting to fly off somewhere higher and farther. He’d failed to catch the lark and instead found Little Bao in the river.

When Little Bao calmly announced that she was the daughter of Old Pockmarked Gu the Third, Little Yuan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Of course Gu Chen had no idea who Old Pockmarked Gu was. The shadowy bandit who had roamed every waterway like a ghost, playing cat-and-mouse with the authorities for years and remaining at large — how would a sheltered child like him have known about any of that?

Gu Chen still didn’t quite understand, and asked Little Bao: “So what exactly does your father do?”

“Robs people of money and grain.” Little Bao blinked her large, dark, bright eyes. “The rivers and lakes are our home. Wherever our boat sails, that’s where we rob.”

“Then aren’t you bad people?” Gu Chen scratched his head.

“How would I know whether we are or not.” Little Bao pursed her lips. “All I know is that my father says: we don’t rob in wind or rain, we don’t rob the old, weak, sick, or disabled, we don’t rob the good-natured and the loyal. People call us thieves, so thieves we are. Whether we’re good or bad doesn’t matter much.”

“Then why did you sneak off here on your own?” Little Yuan asked curiously, then grew a little nervous. “Or is your father somewhere nearby?”

“My father’s far from here. I slipped off the boat on my own. I was originally looking for a place with no one around so I could practice—” Little Bao’s face suddenly flushed red, and she didn’t finish the sentence.

“Practice what?”

“Are you trying to drive me mad, young lady? You can’t just leave a sentence half-finished!”

Little Bao struggled silently for a long time before finally summoning the courage: “Practice… swimming.”

Little Yuan’s laughter scattered every waterbird from the bank. He collapsed onto the ground, one hand clutching his stomach, the other pointing at Little Bao. “The daughter of a river bandit chief can’t even swim — I’ll laugh myself to death! Won’t your father be furious?!”

Little Bao, incensed at being laughed at, sprang up like a real little leopard cub, threw herself on top of Little Yuan, grabbed him by the collar with one hand, and raised a pink fist with the other. “Laugh at me again and I’ll knock your teeth out!” she snarled.

She was just a little girl — even furious, her eyes brimmed with aggrieved tears.

“You can’t swim either,” Gu Chen pointed out to Little Yuan, earning a resentful and humiliated glare in return.

Little Bao’s fist stayed raised for a long moment, then slowly came down. Beating one’s rescuer didn’t seem right — even at nine years old, she understood that much.

She climbed off Little Yuan and lowered her head, like a small chick that had its food snatched away and couldn’t get it back, looking thoroughly dejected. “My father doesn’t like me.”

“And learning to swim will make him like you?” Gu Chen thought the logic was very strange.

“If I could swim as fast as a fish, and also learn my father’s unique breath-holding technique — staying underwater for half an hour — maybe he’d like me then.” Little Bao hugged her knees to her chest and pressed her small face against them, the flush on her cheeks burning like a different kind of sunset. “Everyone on our boat is skilled at swimming and fighting. My father always says that a great general has no weak soldiers beneath him. I’ve been the one exception who hasn’t done him credit — I go dizzy the moment I’m near water.”

“So you snuck off here secretly to practice?” Gu Chen felt a twinge of sympathy for her. “If you hadn’t run into us, you could have drowned.”

“Exactly, exactly — you really didn’t think this through at all!” Little Yuan nodded vigorously.

“You can’t swim either and you went rushing in to save someone — your head isn’t any fuller.” Gu Chen didn’t spare him the slightest face.

“I didn’t stop to think—”

The sentence came from Little Bao and Little Yuan simultaneously.

Little Bao rubbed the tip of her small nose and said: “I often hear my father say to the people on the boat: a person, to be worth anything, has to have a spirit, a vitality. Small-minded, spineless, cramped — it’s uncomfortable and undignified. Though I don’t fully understand it, I think what he means is that my father really dislikes having a daughter who’s afraid to get in the water.”

“Huh, my father also always tells me that a person only gets to live this life once, so you’ve got to live it with backbone.” Little Yuan slapped his chest. “So little lord here trains every day and practices his weapons — these bones are good and hard.”

How was it that the things their fathers said to them were so completely different from what his father said? Father rarely spoke to him and Ming Hao, and when he did, it was only to tell them to study and train in martial arts — and to repeatedly emphasize his “life lessons.” At some point Gu Chen had started unconsciously linking the sound of his father’s voice to a thing called arsenic. In truth, he didn’t even fully know what arsenic was — only that it was something that caused people suffering, and then death.

Gu Chen was a little puzzled. On this point, he couldn’t join Little Bao and Little Yuan in their kindred conversation.

But — a friendship was made just like that.

When that day’s sunset moved from Little Bao’s face to the edge of the sky, on the white pebble bank of the Tianxing River, three children of similar age imitated the manner of adults — solemnly and reverently, they kowtowed three times to the flowing water and the golden-red sky ablaze with light.

That year, Gu Chen was ten; Little Bao was a year younger than Gu Chen; Little Yuan was the eldest of the three, at twelve.

Little Yuan had originally wanted to do something like the Peach Garden Oath from his beloved Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but was rejected by Gu Chen and Little Bao, who hadn’t read the book.

Gu Chen said earnestly that he already had an elder brother, so Little Yuan couldn’t be his elder brother.

Little Bao first asked what the advantages of having an extra elder brother would be. Little Yuan thought about it for a good while and couldn’t think of any, so Little Bao decided she didn’t want this “elder brother” either. This sent the straightforward Little Yuan into a hopping fury; he insisted that the daughter of a river bandit was simply incorrigible — everything had to come down to benefits and advantages.

But they needed some kind of ceremony to mark the occasion — to show that all three of them were willing to be friends. So they ended up simply kowtowing three times to the heavens, the earth, and the water.

“Should we say something?” Little Yuan scratched his ear after the kowtowing was done. “I’ve seen grown-ups say something when they kowtow.”

“What is there to say?” Gu Chen looked at him blankly. “At most — if either of you ever falls in the water again, I’ll definitely fish you out.”

“That’s not enough. I’ll treat you both to good food in the future.” Little Bao thought about it for a long time. “My father’s room has lots of things to eat.”

“Right, from now on let’s have a good time together — no one’s allowed to bully anyone.” Little Yuan thought that was a fine idea, and added: “And I won’t let anyone else bully you either.”

A vow that was not quite a vow, was branded by the lingering warmth of summer into the golden, shimmering edge of the sky and the river water.

After that, they met on the fifteenth of every month at the Tianxing riverbank. This date was chosen by Little Bao, who said her father didn’t work on the fifteenth, and that in the next year or two their boats would be moving through the nearby waterways anyway, so meeting once a month was no problem.

Little Yuan was always the first to arrive — his father apparently put very few restrictions on him, which Gu Chen envied greatly. Gu Chen’s outings were like prison breaks; he had to rely on luck, and needed the kind of heart that didn’t flinch at the prospect of being beaten badly and locked in the woodshed afterward. Fortunately, every one of his temporary escapes went smoothly.

Little Bao was a habitual latecomer, but she always found some new and surprising way to bring fresh and delightful things, so they could never quite stay angry at her. Sometimes it was a lantern that rotated to cast different patterns; sometimes it was butterflies and birds and animals woven from split bamboo strips — but more often it was food. Goose legs wrapped in layer after layer of oil paper, or pastries they had never laid eyes on before: even if by the time the paper was unwrapped everything had crumbled to bits, it would still be snatched up and gone in an instant.

Gu Chen never dared bring the things Little Bao gave him back home, which meant Little Yuan always ended up the beneficiary. Every time he watched Little Yuan head home carrying a whole armload of interesting things with a wide, contented grin, Gu Chen would have one fleeting thought: how wonderful it would be if he were my brother — and if there were a little sister like Little Bao too.

These gatherings, continuing to this very day, had now stretched on for one year.

At their last meeting, Little Bao had mentioned that the next gathering would fall on her birthday, and said plainly that they had better come prepared with gifts — or they’d be in for a beating. Her bandit spirit grew faster than her years, but they didn’t mind: this was exactly how Little Bao should be. Embroidering insoles and doing the cooking and washing — none of that suited this girl who made her living riding the wind and the waves, with a father who earned his keep dancing at the edge of a blade.

The sun set slowly in the west, but Little Bao had yet to appear, paddling her small boat into view.

Little Yuan lit a fire and skewered the large fish on a stick.

“What gift did you bring her?” Little Yuan asked curiously.

Gu Chen opened his cloth pouch honestly — a pile of golden-yellow fruits inside.

“Just that?” Little Yuan’s mouth fell open.

“They’re delicious.” Gu Chen closed the pouch back up and helped add dry branches to the fire. “What about you?”

Little Yuan instantly puffed up with pride. He shoved the big fish into Gu Chen’s hands, stood up, let his outer garment slip off one shoulder to expose a sturdy arm, and declared: “I plan to give her a demonstration of the iron-finger technique.”

The red firelight played across the already well-defined bronze muscle, gleaming and indestructible-looking as it flexed.

Gu Chen suddenly felt that Little Yuan had grown into an adult. At thirteen, he was already a head taller than Gu Chen, a young man whose raised fist was as hard and solid as a block of iron. Looking back at himself — he seemed to have barely changed: still slender, still pale, no matter how much he ate he couldn’t put on any height.

He sighed inwardly, and in the last faint glimmer of dusk, gazed out at the still surface of the Tianxing River.

Far, far away, a black dot appeared on the water, moving quickly toward them — closer, closer, larger, larger—

4 — The Tianxing River

Gu Chen and Little Yuan stared at each other, at a complete loss for how to handle the young man Little Bao had come with, trussed up hand and foot.

No wonder she had been rowing her boat in such a frenzy — she’d gone and done what her father was always doing.

“Old Li Fifth’s grilled fish — there was only one left, and he tried to take it from me.” Little Bao wiped the oil from the corner of her mouth and kicked the young man in the leg.

Someone tried to take her fish, so she took the fish and the person — this was the sort of thing that wouldn’t surprise anyone coming from Little Bao. Though you had to feel sorry for this poor soul who had stumbled into a little night fury. One glance told you he was soft-skinned and well-shod, dressed in fine silks and expensive boots — clearly someone who had never known hardship, a pampered young master from a wealthy family.

“Look at this.” Little Bao produced a finely crafted, gleaming golden longevity lock chain, dangling it between her fingers with a thoroughly self-satisfied air. “This is the most valuable piece of war-spoils I’ve gotten my hands on yet!” The young master frowned at her from the ground, making muffled sounds through the gag in his mouth.

“There’ll be people coming after you, won’t there?” Gu Chen looked out over the river in the darkness. What set him apart from Little Bao and Little Yuan was that his worries always ran a little further and a little deeper than theirs.

“No way,” Little Bao said with complete confidence. “He was alone the entire time I spotted him by the canal. Dressed in gold and silver, no attendant in sight, spending a whole silver ingot on one grilled fish — the kind of person who clearly doesn’t know what the world is made of, a silly little rich kid who’s snuck out to have fun. If not him, who?”

“That’s just your luck.” Little Yuan tugged one of Little Bao’s braids. “A young master like this, going out for an outing? He’d have ten, twenty attendants trailing along, if not more. If they’d happened to be concealed nearby, do you think your flashy moves would have gotten you here alive?”

“You shouldn’t keep doing things like this — it’s not right.” Gu Chen frowned.

“My father does exactly this sort of thing, and I’m his daughter — if not this, what else am I supposed to do?” Their attitudes had set Little Bao’s temper alight. “My father is a river bandit chief, and I’m going to be one too. So what? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to be my friend. If you’re so capable, go report me to the authorities.”

“Does that mean you have to do whatever your father does?” Gu Chen didn’t know why he let slip such a blunt, out-of-nowhere thing to say.

Little Bao grew even angrier, jabbing her finger at Gu Chen’s nose. “So what if I do what my father does?! At least I know what my father does — that’s better than you, who doesn’t even know what your own father gets up to!”

Whenever their conversation strayed toward the subject of “home” and “parents,” Gu Chen always found himself at a loss for words. He truly didn’t know how to describe his father; he truly didn’t know anything — eleven years of life spent in a fog.

The careless cruelty of children’s tempers had spoiled the mood. With nothing to say in reply, Gu Chen turned away from Little Bao, expressing his helpless irritation and his greater-than-a-girl’s dignity through the simple act of not looking at her.

His discontent didn’t seem to come entirely from Little Bao’s temper. The fact that the young man Little Bao had dragged here had appeared without warning in what was supposed to be a space belonging only to the three of them — it felt like a small hole had been punched through a solid fortress wall, letting all the secrets, the joy, the wholeness, seep out. Yet with his years and his experience, he couldn’t yet understand that what people call fate is simply the accumulation of countless such sudden “holes,” gnawing a person into something altogether different.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on — have we all forgotten the oath we swore on the riverbank last year?” Little Yuan bellowed, playing peacemaker, grabbing them both by the arm. “Apologize, both of you, quickly.”

“If you’d been beaten, fallen in the water, and had no one to pull you out, you could have drowned.” Gu Chen spoke first. “If you died, where would I find another Little Bao to tell me all those strange and wonderful stories?”

Little Bao was no fool. That roundabout apology and hidden expression of care instantly extinguished every last spark of her anger.

“If I died, don’t even think about tasting the sauce-fragrant goose legs from Hundred Li Lane.” Little Bao gave a small snort.

Whatever the argument, they were still just children — falling out was quick, and making up was quick too.

The superfluous young master was still moaning and wriggling on the ground, folding and curling like a shrimp.

Little Yuan walked over and pulled the cloth from his mouth, deliberately putting on a stern, dark face. “You give us your word that you’ll go back and never say a thing about tonight to anyone — then we’ll let you go. Otherwise, we really will throw you in the river.”

The young master coughed and shook his head.

Little Bao, seeing this, fired up at once. “This ungrateful wretch — doesn’t he know when he’s well-treated?! Is he planning to get us all arrested and dragged in at once?!”

The young master’s face flushed crimson as he struggled to speak. “No— no—”

“‘No no’ what? Stop wasting our time, Little Yuan — forget talking to him. Throw him in the river to cool off.” Little Bao shouted.

“That’s not it — you’ve misunderstood.” The young master finally managed to draw a proper breath. “If any of you fancy the gold lock, please, take it. The qilin jade tablet at my belt is also quite valuable. There are some silver notes in my purse as well — all of it is yours.”

Everyone froze for a moment. The turn of events was too abrupt.

“Are there people like this in the world?” Little Yuan blinked at Little Bao. “Is this what the people your father abducts are usually like?”

“None of them have ever been this… cooperative,” Little Bao replied honestly.

“You’re not going to report us to the authorities?” Gu Chen looked at the boy — who appeared to be about his same age — with suspicion.

“I won’t report you.” The young master shook his head and said earnestly: “I only ask that you don’t send me home too soon. Let me stay and play for a while longer.”

What an extraordinary hostage.

Little Yuan untied the ropes as he said: “Untying you first — it looks uncomfortable being trussed up like that. But don’t think about playing any tricks. Everyone you’re looking at right now is not to be trifled with.”

“I don’t enjoy bullying people, and I don’t want people bullying me.” The young master rubbed his wrist, red from the rope, and glanced at Little Bao with a smack of his lips. “It’s just a little disappointing to have missed eating that fish.”

For someone so young, he had quite a composure about him — unhurried and unruffled in the face of unexpected circumstances, not at all the brainless pampered type who lives only on luxury.

“Listen here — Old Li Fifth’s fish is the best in all of Tongzhou. Of course I got the last one.” Little Bao waved her fist at him.

“I had no intention of competing with you,” the young master said with a resigned air. “You were simply too hasty and wouldn’t let me explain before you tied me up. Fortunately it was just me walking alone today, with no attendants, or it would have been very difficult for you to get away unscathed.”

“Look at him speaking in that fancy, bookish way — you’ve read a lot, haven’t you?” Little Bao said scornfully. “Think money and people make you something? My family’s people are plenty too.”

Gu Chen let out several forceful coughs, reminding her not to say another word. One more sentence and her father’s entire operation would be out in the open — and what then?

The young master stood up, elegantly adjusting his clothing and headband, wiping the smudges from his face, smoothing his slightly disheveled hair — and then in the moonlight, a figure carved from pink jade was revealed. Though still slight in build, and not yet bearing the perfected features of full maturity, there was no one who could look at him and deny the promise of exceptional potential: at most three to five more years, and he would put most men in the world to shame.

The three muddy little urchins glanced at each other — then back at him. Once this hostage tidied himself up a little, he became someone who could only exist in a painting — a celestial boy from a heavenly palace.

His amiable gaze shifted from their faces to the large unroasted fish lying by the campfire, and brightened. He pointed at it and asked: “You know how to grill fish too?”

“Of course we do,” said Little Yuan.