Liu Cheng stood on the bank and, craning past the tattered kudzu-cloth garment, took a good look — and just as he had expected, there was no Weaver Girl bathing to be seen. Only a big fellow with a slight stoop stood in the stream, stripped bare, crude screens of cobblestones and waterweed piled up before and behind him, while his hands dragged a worn fishing net, earnestly sweeping it through the pool.
The sight struck the youth as comical, and he came over to ask: “Brother Jili... Brother Liu... I was curious only yesterday — how is it you've given up selling mats and gone into fishing instead?”
The big fellow he had seen once at the market turned back in surprise, narrowing his eyes slightly as he looked the newcomer over — plainly wary. It took him a good while to recognize who it was, and even then he did not relax; he only dragged the net up before him with both hands as he answered: “Liu A-cheng. So you couldn't keep scraping by under Liu Ren Gong, and you've come to throw in with me?”
“Our Ren Gong's camp is stationed in the émigré Langya Commandery, just south of here. I was only passing by when I saw a kudzu-cloth garment hanging on the bank, and I feared some rogue would steal it, so I came specially to warn you.” Liu Cheng found it funnier still, and only shook his head.
Liu Jili froze — then, heedless of his bare body, dropped the net and sprinted up the bank to put on the long kudzu-cloth garment and the trousers beneath it.
From a distance, Liu Huzi saw that something was wrong. Bow in hand, he urged his horse gently forward — and, seeing a naked man in the middle of dressing, inwardly cursed the ill omen. Before he could open his mouth, that rascal Liu A-cheng poked his head out from behind a tree yonder, smiling and beckoning: “Brother Hu, isn't it a coincidence? Here we were, worried the fellow's clothes had been stolen — and it turns out he's one of those clansmen we've seen a few times at the market...”
Liu A Hu's face went stiff. He lowered the bow, came up close, swung down bare-handed from his horse, and raised clasped hands in salute: “You are a clansman of the Pengcheng Liu clan as well? Why do you fish here alone? I am Liu Jian, also born of the Pengcheng Liu.”
Liu Jili, his clothes only half on, instinctively made to return the salute — but the clothes were old to begin with, and he was in such a hurry that one yank snapped the waist cord sewn onto the kudzu garment. With what remained there was no tying anything at all, and he grew only more mortified. Liu A-cheng, though, seemed practiced at such straits: he turned straight to a tree nearby, found a kudzu vine, cut it with the small knife at his waist — the one he normally used for cutting straw-sandal materials — and had the man knot it about his waist to hold the clothes together for the time being.
Only now, red to the ears, did Liu Jili return the salute with clasped hands: “Liu Lang of Pengcheng, at your service. I have heard it said that you are the one in Ren Gong's household who can grapple a tiger down?”
Liu A Hu's expression at last eased a good deal.
After all, the old saying — a man of the same surname who comes from a thousand li away to join you is to be treated no differently from blood kin — was no empty phrase in these years.
Think it through and you would see: with the Five Barbarians' upheaval and the gentry's southward crossing, families had been scattered and broken. In such circumstances people needed to help one another merely to survive; yet with the world in such chaos, no one knew whom to trust — so mutual aid among men of the same surname had become a kind of necessary floor.
Let alone for true clansmen.
Just like Liu Cheng the transmigrator: had he not been surnamed Liu, would Liu Huzi ever have marked him out that day and taken him in? And once he learned there was such a thing as a clan's ancestral commandery, he had covered himself at once, insisting to the last that it was on his forebears' instruction, while in fact hinting without cease that he was precisely a Pengcheng Liu — and sure enough he received rather better treatment in Liu Zhi's household... At the very least, he was treated as a person.
The same principle applied.
“Since you are a clansman, Brother Jili, and our senior in years — have you a courtesy name? And where is your family from?” Liu Huzi went on, making conversation.
“My father and grandfather died early; I've simply made my childhood name, Jili, serve as a courtesy name,” Liu Jili answered, downcast. “As for our family — Pengcheng proper, of course; but I was born in Hebei, and there's no branch of the clan to fall back on...”
At this Liu Huzi instinctively glanced at Liu A-cheng. How was it that clansmen who went to Hebei all ended up like this? Those Jie barbarians truly were the northern barbarian breed — they would not last. Seen in that light, coming south was probably for the better.
“Where do you make your place now, Brother Jili? You must have something to attach yourself to?” That thought once formed, Liu Jian found the man a little pitiable instead, and his tone turned kinder.
“I used to attach myself to Ying Gong's household...” Liu Jili still seemed rather awkward.
“Ying Gong I know — his father once served as Chancellor of Guangling, and his son Liu A-gan I laid eyes on only days ago.” Understanding dawned on Liu Jian. “Then you're the one who was selling mats at the market?”
“What do you mean, 'used to'? I was just about to ask — Brother Jili, how is it you fish all alone?” Liu Cheng paid no heed whatsoever to the refugee class distinctions inside the Pengcheng Liu clan; he had instead keenly caught a single word in the man's speech. “Without even a helper to watch your clothes.”
Liu Huzi caught on too, and looked over the young, tall hunchback.
“Ying Gong's household had no room for people. I left on my own.” Liu Jili's face burned red — more mortified, it seemed, than when he'd had no waist cord.
Yet after barely a beat, he went on in a low voice: “Let me tell you the honest truth! I used to help them sell mats, sandals, and baskets there, and someone slandered me for hiding money — and Liu A-gan, father and son, simply let those petty men sling their slander without one word... In my pique I never even went back to my lodgings. I begged a fishing net and an axe, and left on my own... That's why I fish here alone.”
Liu A Hu snorted: “That was Liu A-gan's fault, plain and simple. Set aside that Brother Jili walked out empty-handed and so proved his own innocence — they should have begged him to come back even then. And even if money truly had gone missing, how much could a few mats amount to? His family is not short of money. Yet they let the petty men beneath them shame a clansman — a real disgrace to the clan name... Our lot only just arrived, too poor to buy salt, and even we would never have doings like that.”
With that, Liu Huzi looked to Liu A-cheng as well: “Isn't that so, A Cheng?”
What could Liu Cheng say? He could only nod — and then shake his head. “However it may be, Brother Jili, going on like this won't do. In today's world, with nothing to lean on, alone by yourself — how are you to live?”
And with that he looked to Liu A Hu.
Who would have thought it — this Liu Huzi was one for striking a pose too. Though he had long known exactly how matters stood, he actually played the ignoramus, folding his hands behind his back and pretending to admire the scenery.
At the sight, Liu Jili felt a nameless indignation rise in him — and struck a pose of his own, saying not a word.
Liu Cheng's heart was worn out. But he genuinely wanted to pull Liu Jili — a man of like standing — over to serve as his cover, so he could only cajole these two “youngsters”: “Brother Jili, you don't know it: our Ren Gong may be sorely pinched, but he has ever been benevolent and honorable, and his connections reach wide. Only today we paid our respects to his old friend Garrison Commander Gao, and it is settled that within ten days we shall have an audience with the Grand Commander. Once that is done, the winter will be no trouble. If you have nowhere to turn, why not come to us?”
Then, without waiting for Liu Jili to open his mouth, he turned to Liu Huzi: “Brother Hu — leave aside that a man of the same surname come from a thousand li away is to be taken as blood kin: even against one's nearest kin, Liu A-gan and his father simply cannot match the spirit in you and Ren Gong. And speak only of your tiger hunt: Brother Jili came two years ahead of us — where big tigers prowl in these parts, where traps are best laid, where to find good gear to buy — he knows every last particular... The way I see it, we ought to invite Brother Jili to our camp to help. That's the right of it.”
At this, Liu Huzi's brows went up, and he stopped posturing at last: “Well said.”
Liu Cheng hastily nudged the trailing length of vine rope at the small of Liu Jili's back. The latter knew perfectly well how utterly destitute he was; helpless, he put away his needless pride and answered with clasped hands: “I beg Ren Gong and Brother Hu to take me in.”
“Gladly, gladly.” Hearing this man plainly his senior call him “Brother,” Liu Huzi finally broke into a smile. “We're just in want of Brother Jili's help with the tiger.”
Only then did Liu Jili ask about the tiger hunt. Learning that Gao Jian, garrison commander at Jiangsheng, was Liu Zhi's fast friend and had already promised to introduce them to the Grand Commander, and that the tiger was meant as a gift for the Grand Commander Chu Pou, he cheered at last and launched into a long account of the tiger sign nearby.
Liu Cheng listened at the side with relish. Only now did he learn that this land of Jingkou was the old country where Sun the Lad had shot a tiger in person — and Sun Quan had been dead less than a hundred years, and the region had been opened late besides, so big tigers truly did roam these mountains and forests... The tiger roars he had heard before were nothing imaginary.
Liu Huzi was roused by the talk as well, and invited the man to come back to camp with them.
But it dawned on him at once that he had only one horse.
Only at this point did Liu Jili seem likewise to remember that he still had fish to catch, and he waved his hands at once: “You two go on ahead — I know the way, and I'll be there come evening. There's a big fish in this weir; I'll do my best to land it. Just as Brother Hu means to hunt a tiger as a gift for the Grand Commander, I too must find a fish to present to Ren Gong tonight.”
Liu Huzi, being the temper he was, stood on no ceremony either: he simply made to head back first with Liu Cheng.
Liu Cheng followed him out around the turn, and only then offered a reminder: “If we mean to make use of this man, we must bear with him a little. Brother Hu, you ride on ahead; I'll keep an eye on him and bring him back... In broad daylight, these few li of road should hold no trouble.”
Liu Jian stood on no ceremony: he swung up onto his horse and went straight off.
Yet within a blink he doubled back and dropped a set of bow and arrows into the other's arms: “Since the tigers are many — take care, A Cheng.”
Liu Cheng had meant to say that he couldn't shoot a bow, but the other was riding off far too fast; there was nothing for it but to hug the bow and arrows and go back in search of Liu Jili.
The man had actually stripped his clothes off again and gone back to fishing.
“There really is a big fish?” Liu A-cheng asked, mildly taken aback.
“There really is.” Liu Jili did not lift his head — and then asked in turn: “Just now, were you two set on stealing my clothes? And it was only seeing that it was me — remembering I was a clansman who'd once given you a warning at the market — that stayed your hands?”
“That's right.” Liu Cheng made no attempt to veil it, and squatted on the rocks at the bank to give a full account of the noon business at Gao Jian's. “Liu Huzi has thrown his weight about north of the Huai since he was small, and becoming a refugee hasn't changed him — he felt my one outfit cost them face... But if it had been anyone else in that water, I would still have made a show of raising the alarm, and had people stand guard over the clothes.”
“Destitute and down at heel, without one kudzu garment to your name — and yet such lofty principle?” Liu Jili's face held a look that was half a smile; the mockery was plain.
“It isn't principle. When a man is poor to the utmost — no clothes, no food — that is the fault of the times; if he truly turns to theft, one can hardly say much against him. But if you steal, steal from the rich. A man fishing alone by the roadside — even were he not you, he would be poor down to his last kudzu garment. If I stole it, how would the man live?” The answer was out of Liu Cheng's mouth almost before he knew it.
Liu Jili eyed the man, said nothing, and kept his head down at his fishing. Only after a stretch did he speak again: “In any case, Ren Gong has owned you as a clansman — and Garrison Commander Gao owned you only because Ren Gong did. Otherwise, at your age, alone as you are, knowing the flute into the bargain, to be seized and made a bondservant would be nothing out of the way.”
“Isn't that the truth? I could never repay Ren Gong's kindness in a lifetime.” Liu A-cheng, squatting on the bank with the bow and arrows hugged to his chest, spoke with real feeling... This was honest speech.
Liu Jili churned about in the water for a spell before continuing: “But then, you have only just arrived. Stay long enough, and such people may not remain so kind... With Liu A-gan and Liu Ying Gong, father and son, we got along well enough at the first; in no more than two or three years it came to this.”
Liu Cheng nodded, persuaded. “You speak reason, Brother Jili.”
“The crux is standing.” Liu Jili went on as before. “For the likes of us, with our standing awkward — once time drags on, unclear and undefined, doing nothing but eating free meals — people naturally come to be sick of you...”
“You speak reason, Brother Jili.” Liu Cheng stayed persuaded — he was no true lad of fifteen or sixteen; how could he not know the ways of men's hearts?
“And don't imagine that because you've handled the sandal-weaving well, folk will look on you with different eyes.” Liu Jili could contain himself no longer, and laughed coldly. “Think: if Ren Gong and his sons truly had a care for you, how is it they never gave you so much as one kudzu garment?”
“Now that is unreasonable, Brother Jili... Where does this talk come from — a little rice breeds gratitude, a great deal breeds resentment?” At last Liu Cheng too was left exasperated in his turn. “As it's said: a man of the same surname come from a thousand li away to join you is 'no different' from blood kin — and the very reason one says 'no different' is that to begin with there WAS a difference... When people do such things for us, we are naturally grateful; when they don't, how can we go and hold it against them?”
Liu Jili shook his head — whether won over or unconvinced, there was no saying — and went back to watching the water, spreading the net and hauling it... But whether that big fish truly existed, or the big fish was simply too cunning, the man kept at it until the sun slanted west without a glimpse of it.
Meanwhile Liu A-cheng on the bank, bathed in the afternoon sun of autumn, had all but dropped off to sleep.
Perhaps fearing that Liu A-cheng on the bank would fall asleep, or fearing the man would grow impatient and even begin to doubt the big fish's existence, Liu Jili suddenly spoke up of his own accord: “This Liu Huzi, hunting a tiger for a gift — plainly he means to display his martial valor before the Grand Commander, win himself a name for grappling tigers, and then follow Gao Jian's example and land a military post... And he is not the only one. In my two, three years here, every northerner with solid footing whom I met has been fighting tooth and nail for an official post. And you? We have known each other several days now, and all you ever do is probe and pry — I have yet to hear what you mean to do. You don't intend to sell for the Straw Section all your life?”
Liu Cheng's eyelids were already at war with each other.
Now, the reason he had stayed here today was, of course, partly fear that things might go wrong and the man bolt again. But he also reckoned that this man had come several years earlier and had struck him from the first as clear-minded; and here was a stolen half-day's leisure, in which he might sound out the great currents of the world, the situation at court, the letter of the law — including how a man went about becoming a carefree, easygoing manor lord.
But he had not reckoned on the man's being freshly driven out, so laden with grievance and bitterness, forever needling him over his standing with barbed reminders — and so it was better not to probe overmuch.
Only now, with the other lighting by chance on the very thing in his heart, did his spirits stir a little.
And just as the transmigrator was rallying himself, ready to declare with head high his grand ideal of becoming a manor lord, a sudden jolt went through him, and he grew wary once more.
Understand: he was a transmigrator — for him to dream of ease and a manor lordship was no harm at all.
But here he was, passing himself off under the Pengcheng Liu clan's surname and playing the gentleman; such an ideal was not for him — least of all at his age. Was it not plain to see? Liu Zhi, Liu Ren Gong, was old; yet of Liu Zhi's three sons, the younger they were, the more they hungered for office.
And this Liu Jili, so given to railing at the world, plainly had his heart set on office as well!
So then — he, this fallen son of a great clan, ought to be dreaming of office too?
No — first he must think his persona through properly, or he could not answer this question well.
Now — who was he again?
He was called Liu Cheng, of the Pengcheng Liu clan. His forebears had removed to Qiao Commandery even before the gentry's southward crossing; by his generation, three generations had passed. Then his grandfather — a commissioned official of the Great Jin court — had taken his father and, for reasons never known, drifted in Hebei in the early years, bowing low to serve the Hu. His father — “Aye,” as fathers were called in those years — had charged him expressly to remember the old home in Qiao Commandery; yet in the southward flight that followed the Shi Zhao upheaval, he had been “lost” to him. He alone had gone south, unable to gain any footing in Qiao Commandery; so he had gone on toward Pengcheng, to seek out the Grand Commander who was taking in the people of the Central Plains — and on the way had fallen in with that branch of clansman refugees under Liu Zhi, following them south to this place.
With this identity, he could hardly tell the man outright: I mean to be a manor lord and idle away my days in comfort!
The persona would come crashing down!
So then...
“Of course I too want office. But I don't want it for any standing, or for any family — I want it for the Northern Expedition!” Squatting on the bank, hugging that set of bow and arrows, Liu Cheng narrowed his eyes and thought slowly, even as he answered with an air of earnestness. “I told Ren Gong and the others that my family was scattered in the north. But I understood in my own heart long ago that this was a phrase to fob them off: my kin have truly perished in the north, every last one...
“Yet the times are chaos upon chaos, and to this day I don't know which band of mutinous soldiers it was — cut down by Han men, or by Hu? Or did they simply starve? And against whom am I to seek vengeance? Even if I step back ten thousand paces and suppose the Jie barbarians did it — by the time I have grown strong, will Jie Zhao even still exist?
“On the road I could still pretend not to think of such things; here in Jingkou there is not the least deceiving of myself left. And turning it over and over: the feud for my father and grandfather cannot be borne beneath the same sky — how could I give it up of my own accord merely because no particular enemy can be named? If enemies must truly be named, then name the savage violence of the northern barbarians and the rot of the great clans — that is what sank the divine land, scattered the people as refugees, and sent my father and grandfather to their graves together.
“So, Brother Jili, this is my belief: in this life, to fulfill my filial duty, only the Northern Expedition can serve as consolation and ease this unrest in my breast! Let me not reckon which line of northern barbarians lords it in the north, or which house holds power in the south — only drive the Northern Expedition with all one's strength, and that suffices.
“As for whether the Northern Expedition succeeds or fails — in that day Zu Ti struck the oar in midstream and declared before all: should I fail to cleanse the Central Plains and cross back again, then let me be as this great river! Today, with no one before me but you, I do not fear to lose face with big, shameless words; I can say it too: if I ever win the chance to follow Venerable Zu — to die in the Central Plains gazing toward Hebei — then let me be as this stream, flowing one way, never to return!
“That, I suppose, is my ambition.”
Under the setting sun, the westward-running stream glittered and trembled with light. Naked Liu Jili, back bowed, stood in the water, head raised to listen — long since struck dumb.
After a long moment, from the woods behind came a familiar voice: “Well said! Had my father not chased me back to fetch you, I'd never have heard such spirit... Clearly it is I who have been underrating you, A Cheng! But Brother Jili — you have underrated me too. It is true enough that I want high office, so that no one will dare look down on me; but seizing the chance to bend the bow with the left hand and drive the lance with the right, to sweep the field of battle, recover the Central Plains for the state and restore our clan's old lands — surely that gets in the way of nothing?!”
Squinting against the sunset, Liu A-cheng turned to look back and saw Liu Huzi slip out from behind a tree — and inwardly counted himself lucky.
In the stream, Liu Jili gazed at the two men on the bank, opened his mouth as if to say something of his own — when, at his side in the muddy pool, a mandarin fish a full arm's length long leapt high in a bid to bolt. In his flurry he flung himself over and down upon it, and in the mud and water clutched it fast with all his might.
Chapter 11