At that time, I had a distinguished family and wealth, and all the girls in Xianyang were my fans, all the heroes in Wudu were my friends, and all the commoners in Guizhou looked up to me.
As they say, “I don’t want a thousand pieces of gold, but a promise from Jibu.” I was happy then. I was happy only because I had two people: a man and a woman. They were the two most important people in my life.
Song of the Great Wind (1)
I met Xiang Yu when I was six years old. He lived with his uncle, who killed someone once, and my father bailed him out, and then my father let me worship him and become brothers with Xiang Yu.
Master was a mysterious man, he never mentioned his past in front of us, but I knew that he was not an unusual person. Occasionally some strange people would come to him, and they would leave in a hurry after a few moments of secret talk in the inner room. Other than that, there were few neighbors who interacted with the Master, except for one woman.
That woman is very beautiful, before I met Xiaodie I always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was as beautiful as a sword, a sword, a sword with a bone-chilling aura. I never had the courage to look at her head on. We called her Auntie Xiong.
Every time she comes, she spends the night here, and every time she does that, Master will ask Xiang Yu to go to my house and sleep with me. We were also happy to sneak out for a night of madness–usually Master was very strict.
The master taught us boxing, and later passed on the art of sword fighting. Funny enough, at that time, all the iron and copper weapons of the people were taken away by the Qin Emperor, and built into twelve golden men, which were placed in Xianyang, and we practiced with wooden swords. The master also strictly prohibited us from showing our sword skills in private fights with others, and then we were not willing to learn, but the master did not care much, he said that sword skills in the thousands of soldiers and horses on the sands is really not much use. He told us how people fought in the past, and we were mesmerized. Later, the master taught us Sun Tzu’s Art of War, we were very interested, but after a few months of study, Xiang Yu said that the battlefield is ever-changing, what is the use of just reading some bamboo slips, the things above can be understood, do not have to take it too seriously.
One day Aunt Xiong and a man named Zhang Liang came and talked with the master for a while, I peeped from the wall and talked about the last Zhang Liang and the master a high-five, which means that they agreed on a very important thing, life and death. After Zhang Liang left, the master pulled me down from the wall and asked me to go get Xiang Yu.
Master asked Auntie Xiong to take care of Xiang Yu, but Auntie Xiong refused, saying that she wanted to “live and die by it”. Master was silent for a while and smiled.
Then Master told me to go home, he wanted me to come back here once more in six months, and if they weren’t there, there was no need to look for them, and then they began to simply pack up a few things. I saw Master pull a whip out of nowhere, a nice thick one! Auntie Bear seemed to blush a little.
After parting ways with Xiang Yu, my heart became more and more uneasy on the way home, I knew they must be going to do something big and dangerous. I remembered that Xiang Yu and I are brothers, and remembered Auntie Xiong’s phrase “life and death”, I turned my horse around, I want to live and die with my brothers.
It was nightfall when I found their horses in an abandoned village.
Song of the Great Wind (2)
I was alerted when I vaguely heard strange noises in the house. The world is full of thieves and robbers, and the roads are very rough. I dismounted my horse and peeled up the wall to look in, but I saw a sight I had never expected.
Auntie Bear lay completely naked, her breasts were high, her belly flat, her legs long and plump, and her eyes could be willingly drowned by the waves of her eyes.
Master was whipping her, with that whip. Black whip with whistling hit the snow-white carcass is now a line of blood marks, crisp whip sound mixed with hungry moans can make all the men in the world melt.
The righteous brother slumbered on the sidelines.
Auntie Bear rolled over on the ground, her snow-white body covered with a bright red whip mark, the dim glow of the campfire reflecting a breathtakingly sultry color.
The lone wolf in the distance let out a mournful cry.
Soft calves struggled to reach behind her as she raised her soft, slippery belly as high as she could, her arms stretching over her head, her head lifting the back of her head to the ground, her dark hair flowing in all directions.
Master swung the whip again, and I saw his eyes fill with pain.
The moonlight was extraordinarily gentle.
She looked at Master, with tender, desperate eyes, and for the first time I saw him in tears.
The June evening breeze rustled the leaves of the old acacia tree low in the air.
They stared at each other, speechless.
The master let out a long breath, as if he had regained his normal state, calmly said to Auntie Xiong, who was still on the ground, “I’ll fetch some water for you to wash up!” And then to the courtyard of the reel over, he walked very slowly, like the first recovery from a serious illness in general.
I stepped in the wall some daze, suddenly a chaos in front of my eyes, my throat was stuck, I was lifted down and thrown in the courtyard. Master see clearly it is me, as if some embarrassed look for a moment, and then his face returned to calm: “Go and bolt your horse.”
When I came in again, there was no sign of chaos in the house. Auntie Xiong had resumed her usual cold and proud look and was adding wood to the fire, the master was silently looking at the book of war in front of the bonfire, and my righteous brother was still asleep.
Then we all went to sleep, and in a haze I thought the dream I just had was so strange.
Jiangdong, Huiji.
Yu went to the vassal Jiangnan, counted his achievements and collapsed, and was sealed in Huiji. Huiji is also known as the Accountant.
A thousand years later, Wu and Yue fought for supremacy, and Goujian was defeated, and Fu Chai besieged Mount Huiji. Goujian asked Wenshou to take his concubine, and he was granted. He was then able to destroy Wu. At that time, the Yue soldiers marched across the Jianghuai River. After that, Chu merged with Yue for six generations.
A thousand rivers and mountains.
Where are the slender willows of the Zhangtai?
Spreading wine over the fence.
Hang the heroes numerous.
We’re not here to reminisce, we’re here to kill.
A man who governs the world and whips the world. The King of Qin, Winning Zheng.
I was thirteen that year.
The procession of the King of Qin drove through the stage road in great numbers. I estimated that there were about 6,000 people, and in the middle of the procession, on a yellow car, sat a man in imperial garb, who should be the King of Qin. His temperament was slightly trivial, not quite the same as what I had in mind, and I was actually slightly disappointed. Beside me, my brother suddenly whispered: “He can take his place.” Master covered his mouth – in order to facilitate the observation, we are hiding place is not too far from the road.
Near the end of the line there were a couple more cars.
We met Zhang Liang in a ramshackle hut in the east of the city, where he had been waiting for a long time.
The ruts are sunk deep, the body when made of fine iron, the master said that the unusual bow is not useful.
“As expected, I have prepared a hundred and twenty kilograms of iron cones,” Zhang Liang laughed, and his laugh gave him a sense of assurance, “There are not many people in the world who can wield it, but…” he smiled as he and his master looked at each other:” When the King of Qin traveled to the Garden Pond, a jade pendant fell into the water and was crushed into my hands. I stopped a postman on the Huayin Road, gave him the jade pendant, and told him, ‘This year, the Ancestral Dragon will die’. The king of Qin was suspicious, so he would guess and fear. The next time he traveled east, he would go to Huayin Road, and to Huayin Road, he would have to pass through Wulangsha. The terrain here is treacherous.”
‘This man is resourceful and a man of the world.’ I thought secretly.
“Okay, we’ll do it here.”
Song of the Great Wind (3)
Wrestling sand beach in the East China Sea, west of the rolling hills for hundreds of miles. It was the height of summer, the grass and trees were lush, and people could not hide in them, so it was really a perfect place for an assassination. Of course, the Qin knew this too.
Master and Zhang Liang have already ambushed in Wulangsha, I, my brother and Auntie Xiong according to Zhang Liang’s plan in 20 miles away from a forest path to set up hidden weapons, ready to receive. The Qin’s pursuers have been chasing us all the way here, so they are bound to be tired and exhausted, and they will be attacked from the shadows, so that they will be at a loss for what to do. If we can replace the horses that have been storing up their strength for a long time, we will be able to get away from them with ease.
This road was originally a stagecoach route, which was gradually deserted because few people visited it. We’ve been watching this place for three days and no one has passed by, but now someone has come, and there are three of them. A middle-aged couple, the man elegant, the woman graceful, followed by a young girl…
Sometimes I wondered: if that girl hadn’t been a little butterfly, if my sword had gone down an inch, if we hadn’t killed her parents, if…
I don’t regret it, I’d rather be hated by her than not see her, she’s the woman I love most in this life. She understands that she would rather hate me.
Deep in the woods I caught up with her. I didn’t want to catch up with her, but I did.
She was pressed underneath me with a face full of terror, the party’s running had caused her bosoms to rise and fall violently, waves of soft pressure gave me a strange sensation, and the scent of her body was intoxicating. She froze for a moment and began to struggle violently, I held the bamboo sword to her throat and stopped the resistance, she closed her eyes and resigned herself to her fate.
Her eyelashes were long and I looked at her lips, out of fear she had bitten her bottom lip and a hint of blood oozed out. She was shaking and her nervous breathing made my face feel a little itchy. I stuck out my tongue and licked the blood from her lips for her. I caressed her face and she opened her eyes to look at me, she was crying.
“What’s your name?”
“Chen Xiaodie.”
“You go!”
Song of the Great Wind (4)
I stood in despair in the wilderness. I had been wandering for six months since I was separated from Master and the others, and I had traveled through dark forests that saw no daylight, peaks that rose up to the sky, and quagmires that would engulf a person… But this time, I could not walk any further, and I wanted to lie down, but I had to stand.
I hadn’t eaten a morsel in four days, and in six months I had eaten snakes, bark, and even rats. If a person is really hungry, they can eat anything they can swallow, but now, I was about to be eaten, a pair of green eyes were staring at me, and in front of me stood a wolf.
It was skinny and bony and had obviously been hungry for a long time too. I wanted to run, but I didn’t dare and I couldn’t. I only have enough strength to barely stand now, and it seems it does too.
And so we faced each other in the wilderness.
I saw Xiang Yu in front of me, he was smiling, no, not Xiang Yu, it was Master, Master who rarely smiles, now he was smiling at me. At his feet lay Auntie Xiong, she was naked and smiling at me, I picked up the whip and lashed at her, she was still smiling, I lashed at her like crazy, but she kept smiling at me.
Smile appeared in the face of small butterfly, she smiled faintly and said to me: “I am called small butterfly.” Stretching out her snow-white arm around my shoulder, Xiaodie’s hand is furry, I can’t help but caress her swan-like elegant neck, she smiled sweetly, revealing a row of white sharp teeth, like a wolf.
It was the wolf! I choked it with all the strength I had left. Gradually I couldn’t, my sanity began to blur.
“… Little Butterfly… Little Butterfly…” Her image recurred clearly in my mind, her bright lips, her long eyelashes, her undulating peaks… the trace of blood under the corner of her mouth…
I stuck out my tongue and added her blood, it was a little fishy. I came to my senses and her head drooped, her neck broken.
I saw smoke rising from a caravan, like a large family moving. I told them that I had escaped the corvée and had come to this place, and they took me in.
The master’s name was Lu, and he went to Peizhong to avoid revenge.
Song of the Great Wind (5)
The Lu family had been a big family for generations and had quite a lot of wealth and goods. After their car slowly drove by, two clear ditches were left on the road, and such a caravan was certainly very coveted.
My second night in the fleet was dark and windy.
Everyone went to rest, leaving only a few sentry guards on duty. Hundreds of meters to the left of the caravan there was something vaguely moving, it was forty-two mountain bandits, they were obviously well versed in killing and looting and were well hidden. I watched their every move very clearly, if a person stays in the wilderness for a long time, the ubiquitous danger will always teach you a lot of things.
Both of my eyes seem to glow when I think of those green eyes.
Money, women, men’s ultimate desires. Mountain thieves are men too, but sometimes the more they want, the less they can get such as Xiaodie.
This time they didn’t get it, and the closest they came was just lifting the roll-up curtains of the vehicle with the women sitting in it. I killed him, the seventeenth. I smiled, and as I faintly wiped the blood from my bamboo sword, I felt a cluster of eyes, the eyes of a woman. Without looking up, I turned and walked away. That gaze gave me a feeling like… those green eyes.
That was my first kill, seventeen.
I was fourteen that year.
Time flies, I have been in the Lu family for four years, and the assassination of the King of Qin has been faded into oblivion. On that day, the flying awl thrown by the master hit the iron carriage squarely, but unfortunately, it was one of the King of Qin’s understudies who died in the carriage.
I’ve been doing well here. Since I became famous that night, I’ve been Lord Lu’s personal bodyguard, and the Lu family has been very courteous to me, but I know they’re actually a bit afraid of me. I made a few “friends”: Fan Kuai, Xiao He, and Liu Ji, who was the head of the pavilion in Surabaya.
The first time I saw him I knew he was a wolf too. We are both wolves, though I am always lazy and he is always smiling. But a wolf is a wolf, and when it’s time to eat, it’s always time to eat, and we can’t hide it from each other.
Sometimes we drank late into the night in the old woman’s store at the head of the village, or in the small store of the wu-neg, our eyes staring at each other, glowing with a greenish light that danced against the dark walls, and we had nothing to hide from each other. They never dared to ask us for money for the drinks, but I always paid my share as I should.
Those eyes had been staring at me, she had been watching me since that night, I could feel it. She was the youngest daughter of Lord Lu, Lu Zhi, seventeen years old, very beautiful, as beautiful as a small butterfly.
I needed a woman, and there were nearly a hundred servants in the house of Lu, among whom there were a few of great beauty, which I could have chewed on. But I never touch them, they are not my kind of people, Lu Zhi is.
I stroked her fur, which was golden and lush. Gradually I pushed harder, pulling outward, and she forced herself to hold back the pain without screaming, her sharp nails sinking into my back. I kissed her tenderly, and with a sudden hard tug, a strand of golden silk fell out of my hand. She shuddered, leaving ten deep red furrows on my back. I lick my bitten lips, a little fishy.
She gasped, contentedly whispering into my ear, “You’re so good, like a wolf.”
“I’m not a wolf.”
“You are.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
I smacked away hard, five bright red fingerprints surfacing on my pink face as I smiled calmly.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not.”
Then she had it. She wouldn’t say whose it was. I don’t know whose it is either. I think of Xiao Die.
Lv Gong’s 50th birthday.
The magistrate was a close friend of Lord Lu, so many people came. Liu Ji also came, empty-handed, to mingle.
Into the congratulations of more than a thousand coins to be eligible to enter the hall, otherwise you have to sit in the hall, naturally, sitting in the hall is more comfortable. I secretly laugh, make a wink, sing the ritual of the servant will understand: “congratulations – ten thousand money -” Liu Ji flabbergasted, then entered the hall in a generous manner.
The hall is full of county magistrate, Lu Gong’s close friends, all are elegant people, talk about poetry and rhetoric. Liu Ji sat down calmly, and then he was nonchalant about the dishes on the seat, as if no one else was there.
After the banquet, Duke Lu promised Lu Zhi to Liu Ji.
Simply packed up, I’m going to move, I’m going to find Xiaodie, I’ll find her at the end of the world.
I know the baby is mine.
(to be continued)