Guan Si’er and Hu Yougui had spent the whole day busy at the imperial guard training ground. Being young with good memories, they’d been assigned by their elder brothers to learn old scouting knowledge passed down orally from veteran scouts, material meant eventually to be compiled into a manual for scout training.
Having studied for two years now, the two of them handled documentation matters with more than enough ease these days—at the very least, they could record things thoroughly and clearly.
After a full day of this work, the two sixth-rank officials of the Ministry of War returned to Changdao Suo, changed clothes, and headed straight to the bathhouse by the street gate, washing away a whole day’s worth of frustration with a good soak.
Hu Yougui had just finished having his calluses trimmed and stepped outside when he heard Guan Si’er, leaning against the hitching post by the bathhouse door, muttering to himself: “…when scouts are close, the enemy arrives easily, so it’s valued to keep them far; watch-posts too few… too few? Watch-posts… what the hell was it again?”
“Too few watch-posts means too many possible routes, so what’s valued is thoroughness. You dozed off in class again yesterday, didn’t you? What do you even think about all day? I’m already on ‘using spies’ with the others, and you’re still stuck on ‘scouting and patrolling’? You’re so distracted these days—your wife, your wife! Oh, so you’re the only one with a wife now?”
Hu Yougui teased his junior, then glanced around looking for his own young orderly.
That orderly of his wasn’t very old, a distant relative of Liu Daya’s, only fourteen this year, and quite mischievous.
This child hadn’t come to Changdao Suo through connections or to build up seniority—he simply hadn’t wanted to study, dreaming instead of scaling walls and riding into battle with a spear, so he’d thrown tantrums at home and refused his lessons until his exasperated parents had gone to Liu Daya, and he’d been temporarily placed in the Imperial Guard unit.
Liu Daya had been swamped with work this year, so he’d handed the boy off to Hu Yougui, the most even-tempered of them, to look after for a few days, saying he’d come collect him in a couple months—just let him suffer a bit, and he’d come to his senses.
Hu Yougui, for his part—here he’d been minding his own business at home, and this mischievous little rascal had dropped out of nowhere for him to discipline? Hmph! He’d decided to spoil the boy rotten instead, to let the little brat learn that the most comfortable, happiest place in the world was the army camp.
Guan Si’er knew he’d fallen behind on his studies too, but felt no shame about it, saying with a face full of sweetness, “Sixth Brother, don’t tell me you don’t miss your wife?”
His wife might be dark-skinned, but she was fragrant—fragrant and soft.
Of the seven brothers at Changdao Suo, only Hu Yougui remained unattached these days. He was fifth in line, twenty-four this year, yet the least anxious about marriage of them all. When Lady Chai had tried to arrange a match for him, he’d declined without hesitation, saying there was no rush—which was how Erdian had ended up with the bride instead.
The household now had six wives managing their own quarters, so naturally there were plenty of young women he’d met through them, and many good prospects had been suggested to him. Yet he was never satisfied, always saying he just wanted someone who suited his eye.
What did “suited his eye” even mean? Once you said that, the field became impossibly broad.
Hearing his junior ask about wives, Hu Yougui answered with remarkable speed: “No, I don’t. Mind your own business and go find your little black monkey.”
That Ge Sansu was dark as could be, yet somehow Xiao Qi found her more pleasing to look at by the day, chattering on endlessly—my wife’s so capable at this, so capable at that… So what if she was capable? He still had three years to wait; she was a woman observing mourning.
Guan Si’er pouted: “Now that’s an interesting thing to say, Fifth Brother. What’s wrong with dark skin? Sister-in-law said it herself—cover it up enough and it’ll turn fair.” He glanced around, then suddenly reached out and flipped up his sleeve, whispering with great mystery: “Brother, under that sleeve, she’s actually fair—I’ve seen it, really, especially fair… like tofu? Brother? What are you looking at?”
Hu Yougui had finally spotted his young orderly and pointed with resignation toward a flatbread stall, laughing, “Who else would I be looking for—that little monkey. Take your eyes off him for one second and he’s gone.”
He walked slowly over to the flatbread stall and reached out to pat the boy’s shoulder. “Little Ding, what are you up to?”
The orderly, called Little Ding, jumped in surprise, but upon seeing it was his commanding officer, wasn’t afraid—only embarrassed at being caught being greedy. “Ge-, General, I, I didn’t see you come out.”
Hu Yougui didn’t hold it against him, teasing instead: “When do you ever see me come out? What, hungry? Want some?”
The boy nodded vigorously. Hu Yougui reached for the leather pouch at his waist, pulled out a handful of copper coins, counted out fifteen, and handed them to the stall owner: “If you would, wrap up three.”
Then he said gently to the boy, “Will one be enough? Or should we get two?”
The boy shook his head: “One’s enough.”
The flatbread vendor smiled and agreed, deftly wrapping up three, and—recognizing this esteemed customer, since he lived right on this street—stuffed in extra meat, presenting them to Hu Yougui with both hands.
Hu Yougui thanked him, took the flatbreads with a smile, handed one to Little Ding, and headed back toward the bathhouse entrance eating one himself, passing another to Guan Si’er along the way.
Guan Si’er, seeing him spoiling the boy again, took the flatbread and laughingly scolded him: “You just keep spoiling him like this? Is this how you lead troops?”
Hu Yougui’s temper remained as easygoing as ever. He ruffled Little Ding’s hair and laughed: “Lead what troops? He’s still just a kitten. Haven’t you heard Commander Liu going on about it? This is the only heir in the family—how many days will he even be here? Wouldn’t want to send him back thinner than he came.”
Little Ding, mouth stuffed with bread, mumbled through his food: “I’m not going anywhere with him. I’m staying right here at Changdao Suo! Ge-, General, don’t listen to my granduncle’s nonsense. I came here to learn real skills, and I’m not leaving!”
Hu Yougui laughed in exasperation: “Not leaving? Keep eating off me like this for a few more days and I’ll have to melt myself into a blade just to feed you! And what’s this about calling your elders’ words nonsense—no manners at all. Fine, eat your bread then. Little piglet, all you know is eating…”
And so the three of them wandered through the crowded streets of Yandu munching on their flatbreads, thoroughly at ease.
They’d been born handsome to begin with, and after two years of moving among nobility in the palace, even dressed in plain cloth their bearing carried an unmistakable air of refinement—exactly like young pines meeting spring—drawing quiet, admiring glances from the whole street.
Used to being looked at this way, Hu Yougui didn’t mind. Swallowing the last bite of his bread, he remarked idly to Guan Si’er, “You know, Fourth Brother, kids these days really have it good. We never had this kind of fortune back then.”
Guan Si’er thought back to his own fourteenth year and shook his head with a laugh: “True enough. Back then, if anyone had given me bread like this, I’d have given my life for it! Hey—Fifth Brother? I’ve rarely heard you talk about the past. What were you doing at fourteen?”
Among Lao Dao’s group, Hu Yougui was the type who acted quickly but spoke little. Gentle and meticulous by nature, he was the one who handled the finishing touches on things, rarely stepping into the spotlight.
Even in casual conversation among the brothers about their pasts, he never brought up his own—everyone assumed he had some hidden hardship and didn’t press him.
Rarely asked what he’d been doing at fourteen, Hu Yougui paused in surprise, stopping in his tracks to gaze into the distance, recalling things from long ago.
As it happened, he’d lost his mother right at fourteen. His father had been a locally famous troublemaker—brave and reckless, someone who fancied himself deeply loyal and righteous, always ready to risk everything for a friend. But others simply saw him as a fool, and he’d repeatedly dragged the family into ruinous disasters because of it.
His mother, it could be said, died of sheer frustration and anger. From then on, he alone was left to hold the family together—except his father remained the same father, foolish and blindly loyal, still courting disaster. With his mother gone from managing the household, they began selling off the house and land piece by piece, until there was nothing left to sell, and then his father, having caused yet another disaster, was arrested and hauled off by the county yamen.
His grandparents were beside themselves with grief, and his younger brother, three years his junior, fell ill with a cold fever they had no money to treat. Gritting his teeth, he sold himself into an escort agency, signing a life-and-death contract.
By then the world had already begun descending into chaos, unrest spreading across the land—running escort routes meant carrying your life in your hands.
He endured great hardship and suffered greatly, and the very first blood money he earned was taken by his father to bail out a friend in trouble. After that, the vexations only multiplied—he earned money, he supported the family, while his father continued his reckless loyalty, bleeding the family dry and landing himself in jail again and again.
Eventually he lost all respect for his father. Unable to bear it any longer, he even came to blows with him once, and was beaten bloody and bruised for it by his father’s fists, before turning right around and heading out on another life-risking escort job—one from which he never returned.
The escort caravan was attacked by bandits on the road. Being thin and small, and quick-witted enough to beg for his life, it happened that the bandit chief’s son needed a companion, so he was taken up the mountain and became the little bandit boy’s attendant, beaten daily with whips and fists.
He’d been full of resentment back then, thinking of all the suffering he’d endured—yet every time, his grandparents would say through tears, that’s your father, you should honor him, surely all parents in this world love their children, he’ll come to understand eventually… What angered him most was that his younger brother sided with their grandparents too, always saying he himself was in the wrong, because he and their father argued so often.
Thinking back on it now, whatever suffering he went through in life, none of it seemed to matter much anymore.
He was fifteen when he became a bandit, enduring hardships even worse than at Changdao camp. There were no women on that mountain, and being fine-featured himself, he attracted unwanted attention and suffered greatly for it. To escape this persecution, he gritted his teeth and killed a man for the first time in his life, and from then on carved out a place for himself within the bandit den.
He had a sharp mind and no shortage of cunning schemes, and through careful maneuvering eventually claimed the ninth seat of authority, becoming a thoroughly wicked man. Looking back, he too had done his share of harm, bullying those weaker than himself. Sometimes he thought that ending up at Changdao camp might simply be his karma catching up with him.
Later still, when His Majesty rose in rebellion, that bandit den was wiped out and absorbed by the passing Tan family forces. He became a rebel bandit again, and somehow, muddling through, ended up where he was now.
From fourteen to twenty-four—in the blink of an eye, ten years had passed. He’d grown thoroughly seasoned, having made peace with most things in this world—so many different kinds of people in this rice bowl of a world; you don’t choose your parents, and if you’re unlucky enough to end up with bad ones, that’s simply your misfortune.
His grandson could always be born again; naturally his grandparents felt closer to their own son, and his younger brother, having stayed home under their influence all those years, had been shaped the same way. As for his father—he simply thought of him now as a disabled man requiring lifelong medication, and left it at that.
What else was there to do? His little brother hadn’t even been as tall as Little Ding back then—just a country child who’d never even left the village. What could he possibly have understood, what could he have been expected to comprehend?
Of course, Hu Yougui did harbor some genuine resentment still. He’d never married, never had any intention of returning to his hometown. He’d thought his life through thoroughly and simply wanted to live freely and at ease—only, being as filthy a person as he felt himself to be, he didn’t feel he deserved to marry some good girl.
As Little Ding finished off his meat-filled flatbread, his mouth smeared with sauce, Hu Yougui patiently took out a handkerchief to wipe his face. Looking at this child, he always found himself thinking of his own younger brother, twenty-one years old now, who’d never been close to him in the past—mischievous and infuriating.
His kindness toward Little Ding wasn’t entirely genuine, if he was honest—a man like him, who’d survived death-defying escort routes, been a bandit, schemed against countless people, and killed more than a few—he knew himself to be complicated, even dark inside, and he’d grown accustomed to covering up those unclean parts of himself with gentleness.
Little Ding, of course, had no idea that the general he admired so deeply carried darkness within. He simply gazed up at him with worshipful eyes—until his attention was suddenly caught by a vendor carrying a pot selling candy, and he tugged at his general’s sleeve, refusing to move on.
Guan Si’er let out a cold chuckle at this. Hu Yougui, ever good-natured, reached for his coin pouch again, had just pulled out two coins, when someone by the roadside called out hesitantly, tentatively, calling his name: “B-b-big, Big Gui? Is that you, Big Gui-er?”
No one had called him “Big Gui” in years. Hu Yougui startled slightly, but quickly composed his expression as he sized up the newcomer.
The man calling out to Hu Yougui was around fifty, tall with bright eyes, half his face covered in beard, dressed in a respectable bamboo-green satin robe, wooden clogs on his feet, toenails filthy and black, carrying a birdcage in one hand with a lively thrush hopping about inside.
The man walked over in just a few steps, looking Hu Yougui up and down intently. Behind him, a clerk from the bird shop followed close at his heels, worried he might make off with the caged bird, hurrying to grab hold of the cage.
This bushy-bearded man had originally been there to buy a bird, but had stumbled instead upon a familiar face.
There was no helping it—Hu Yougui had been good-looking since childhood, with fine features and a high nose bridge, a face fit for a scholar despite having been born into a family of rough laborers.
The bushy-bearded man was thoroughly worked up, staring fixedly at Hu Yougui and asking again and again: “B-Big, Big Gui, is it really Big Gui? Do you recognize me? I’m your Uncle Wang Hua!” He pointed emphatically at himself: “Wang Hua! I ran the place by the county’s cart inn—you used to come with your father to my shop, and I’d butcher chickens for you to eat, remember me? Big Gui?”
Ah! Now it came back to him—his father’s sworn brother in loyalty and righteousness, the second-biggest fool in the county: this very Wang Hua.
Seeing him getting so worked up and drawing curious onlookers, Hu Yougui pulled him over to the tea stall beside the bird shop. Once out of sight of prying eyes, he smiled and said, “Uncle Wang, it really is you.”
He waved Guan Si’er off, who bought Little Ding some maltose candy, and the two of them walked away each holding a candy-coated grass stick—just a few dozen steps further was the gate of Changdao Suo.
Only once they were out of sight did Hu Yougui turn back to Wang Hua with a smile: “It’s been so many years, I could hardly place you at first. What are you doing here in Yandu?”
His hometown was thousands of miles from here.
This Wang Hua was thoroughly excited, looking Hu Yougui up and down—despite the plain cloth robe, there was something unmistakable about his bearing. And the little leather pouch at his waist, its clasp inlaid with gold and coral, clearly marked him as someone with real money behind him.
Without answering Hu Yougui’s question, Wang Hua said instead, smiling as though they’d only parted yesterday: “How could I ever mistake you for anyone else! You look just like your mother. Your brother’s grown burly now, the spitting image of your father. Say, why haven’t you gone home?” He slapped his own head and laughed foolishly. “Heh! Listen to me, what home is there to go back to? Your whole village is gone, kid, you wouldn’t even find your way home anymore!”
The words tumbled out in no particular order—truly, ten years apart and he was still exactly the same.
Hu Yougui, even-tempered these days, didn’t argue with this scattered rambling. Seeing how worked up Wang Hua was, he pulled him down to sit, called for a pot of cooling rough tea, poured him a bowl, and then asked, “Uncle Wang, chaos like this happening across the realm is common enough, but I don’t know—after I disappeared, how did things go for the family back home? From what you’re saying, was the old hometown caught up in it too?”
Wang Hua, thoroughly thirsty, lifted the tea bowl and drank half of it, setting it down with a thud before saying, “Of course it was! You have no idea—the third year after you left, our whole county was finished. That rebel… ah, pardon me! That Great Liang army was practically at the gates, and the county magistrate got so anxious he started grabbing anyone he saw, forcing them up onto the city walls to defend it… Your father, your brother, heh, even your grandfather, sixty-odd years old, couldn’t escape it—he went up too, scared out of his wits!”
The man’s account was jumbled and out of order, so Hu Yougui had to press for details: “Wasn’t my family living in the village?”
Wang Hua finally seemed to recall something. He looked at Hu Yougui’s calm, smiling face, then suddenly slapped his thigh: “The whole county was wiped out—how could there still be a village? Listen, Big Gui, you mustn’t hate your father. Your father and I were both fools—we only found out later we’d truly been deceived… really, your father regretted it terribly. One night he got drunk and wailed like a wounded wolf all night, slapping himself over and over until he knocked out two of his own back teeth. He truly came to understand his own wrongdoing—you mustn’t blame him.”
Hu Yougui laughed indifferently: “Sounds like he’s doing just fine—even after I was gone, he still had money for drinking.”
“What are you talking about! Where would he get money for that? From me!” Wang Hua waved his hand, his face full of indignation. “You went out that one time and never came back. Everyone said you were dead. Your father went to the escort agency looking for answers, but they said you’d signed a life-and-death contract, your fate was your own to bear. How could a child like you have been so bold as to sign such a thing…”
Hu Yougui had been fourteen at the time—with his slight build, no one would have taken him on without that contract.
Wang Hua trailed off midway through his sentence, then suddenly seemed to realize something. Looking rather embarrassed, he tugged at his beard and apologized: “Ah! This isn’t your fault, not your fault at all, you were a good child. This is all on your foolish father—he believed whatever people told him. Since you were gone and your father couldn’t get any justice for you, your family… well, with your father being the fool he was, they couldn’t even keep the old house. In the end he had no choice but to come into the county and rely on me…”
Hu Yougui burst out laughing at this, pouring tea for this foolish Wang Hua and raising his own cup in a toast: “That really was a burden on you, taking care of his whole family.”
Wang Hua wasn’t having it: “What are you saying, me taking care of him? If he was short ten or eight coins it was nothing, but more than that and would your aunt have allowed it? He and your grandfather were living in the county’s Chenghuang Temple. I had a bit extra now and then so I’d help out—what else could we do, we had no other choice!
Hah! Your father got his comeuppance too—of all the people he’d been generous with in the past, not a single one lifted a finger to help him. He had to work as a day laborer to support the family, and in his spare time he kept asking around after you—any time someone from our county was traveling far, he’d beg them to keep an eye out for you. Your father had a hard time of it too back then! Whatever little he earned, half of it went toward that search… You really are something, kid… ah, well, even if you did go home… you wouldn’t find your family anyway, whose family hasn’t been scattered…”
The man rambled on incoherently, but Hu Yougui had gotten the gist of it well enough.
He felt nothing much about it, really—having understood, that was that. So he stood and took his leave: “I see. Uncle Wang, I have matters to attend to today, so… why don’t we arrange another time to talk properly? Once I’m free, I’ll treat you to a drink.”
Wang Hua froze, then his eyes went wide and he grabbed hold of him: “You think your Uncle Wang is still the same pushover as before? Hah, if I let you walk off today and your father comes asking me for you later and I can’t produce you, you think he won’t beat me to death over it? Hah! Dream on, not a chance!”
Thoroughly amused and exasperated by this simple man, unable to break free in such a public place, Hu Yougui could only say helplessly, “Uncle, couldn’t you have just pretended not to see me?”
“But I did see you! You’re my nephew Big Gui!” Wang Hua said, practically gasping with indignation. “You—I think you’re the fool here! Let me tell you something, it’s not that your uncle doesn’t want to look after you—your family’s completely different now from what it used to be. Remember how your father got cheated by the county magistrate that year? Well, he turned out to have some backbone after all—he rallied a group of people and opened the city gates in the dead of night, welcoming in the Great Liang army and saving the entire town. After that your father’s fortunes turned around—he attached himself to the commanding general at the time, the vanguard general, General Sun—Sun Su! Do you know of him?”
Naturally he did. Hu Yougui thought for a moment and said, “Sun Su? Isn’t he the one who transferred from the left flank to become prefect of Nanfeng?”
Wang Hua’s eyes went wide again: “What kind of talk is that, addressing the prefect by his given name so casually? Grown so tall and still no manners at all, what a waste of all those years!”
He was still the same fool—hadn’t he just called the man by name himself?
Nanfeng Prefecture was right next to Qingfeng, close enough to Yandu to count as a nearby, bustling area—just past Baiquan Mountain lay Nanfeng.
Hu Yougui found the whole situation rather amusing—swept up into the Great Liang army himself, and it turned out his father hadn’t escaped that fate either.
Unaware of what Hu Yougui was thinking, Wang Hua kept muttering on, still holding onto his hand: “Your father’s fortunes have risen right along with the prefect’s now. Your family’s got such a big estate these days, several of them over in Nanfeng! He served the prefect well, and since the prefect came up through military affairs himself, they got along, and he brought your father up with him too… Big Gui, your father’s become an official!”
He turned to face Hu Yougui, announcing this proudly, expecting to see him astonished. But Hu Yougui, who spent his days around the Emperor himself, had never once encountered that fool of a man at court—he could only imagine the man held some minor, insignificant post out in the provinces somewhere.
It wasn’t that he looked down on a small official’s rank—even a high minister of the first or second rank, what difference would it make?
Sure enough, Wang Hua continued: “Your father’s become an official! He’s a judicial commissioner over in Nanfeng now, a proper sixth-rank official! Your uncle here, being the righteous sort back then, I put up with your aunt’s scolding every day just to help him out, and your father, being a man of conscience, remembered my kindness and brought me up along with him once he made it—heh heh, your uncle’s a landed gentleman now, with two big estates to his name…”
He tugged Hu Yougui along, walking a few more steps before turning back again: “Big Gui, your uncle’s not a fool—your father and I were both foolish back then, but a man who suffers enough eventually comes to understand things. Your father’s no fool anymore, truly. We both know now who was good and who was bad, but it’s too late for that, isn’t it?
Let me tell you, a person shouldn’t hold grudges against himself—don’t you go bearing resentment, it’ll only hurt you! Your father’s different now, he’s made it, and he’s remarried too, taken a couple of concubines even, and your family’s got three more little brothers now, and two little sisters. With the whole household full of children on top of your own brother, after everything you suffered for your father, for the whole family—he’s got such a big estate now, why shouldn’t you have your share of it?”
Hu Yougui was completely at a loss. Reaching the intersection with no way out, he simply pulled out his waist token and held it up toward Wang Hua: “Uncle, whatever Hu Chunhou has is his own business. Now that he’s made something of himself, I wish him wealth and prosperity and a long life filled with good fortune. People need to respect the bonds of fate between them—my father-son bond with him was severed ten years ago. I too have a household and career of my own now, with duties to attend to. There, I’m not running off… you can tell him what you like, it makes no difference to me. Just let go of me first—I’ll point you toward my office gate. Tomorrow, whatever you tell him when you go back is entirely up to you. It’s just not a good look, causing a scene in public like this, don’t you agree?”
Wang Hua was simple-minded, but not so simple as to miss the weight behind that token. Thoroughly startled at the sight of it, his mouth working soundlessly, he watched Hu Yougui walk off toward that grand government office in the distance.