Chapter 14

My family’s rice shop is gone, and everyone is dead.

Corpses lay everywhere in the city, cries of grief filled the air.

Guizi Lane was thick with the scent of blood, everything I saw was crimson.

That year, my father, my elder sister, and all the shop assistants had their throats slit. On the drum of grievances at the county yamen, a line of blood was splattered. The official Zhao Bazhi collapsed in the main hall, eyes wide open in death.

That year, Wei Donghe disappeared without a trace. His honest, simple butcher father gripped a pig-killing knife, eyes blazing with fury, and died at the end of Guizi Lane, an arrow through his heart.

That year, my Teacher Li, who always spoke in Confucian phrases, picked up a kitchen knife and charged at the Guodao Army. Cao Dapang, who had a grudge with me, and his skinny bookboy also died. No one in Squire Cao’s family was spared, and Cao Qionghua was taken away by bandits.

That year, I asked Chao Jianan, “Why didn’t you defend Qingshi Town?”

In March, the peach blossoms bloomed, and the camellias on the mountain bloomed too.

I packed my bundle, preparing to head for the Capital.

I asked Chao Jianan, “My father said you lost your parents when you were young and grew up eating meals from a hundred families. Since you ate a hundred families’ meals, do the people of Qingshi Town owe you a debt of gratitude?”

Chao Jianan was silent for a moment, then nodded.

I continued, “You won’t let Lai Wengeng and those bandits go, will you?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Good. Then, on behalf of the people of Qingshi Town, let me kneel to you.”

I knelt and kowtowed to him three times, then looked up at him. “Third Master Chao, Xiao Chun will be in your care.”

Chao Jianan was already wounded, his face pale as paper, only his eyes rimmed with red.

After that, he followed me all the way, escorting me to the Capital.