Volume One: Slanting Light Pierces the Cold Door at Dawn

Chapter 0001: Autumn Wind and Autumn Rain

　　A quietly arriving autumn rain had fallen for ten whole days. The rain was not heavy, but carried a hint of late autumn’s chill, falling in fine, dense drops across the boundless fields.

　　Heaps of dark gray misty clouds pressed low over the earth. It was already late autumn; the groves of trees were all bare. The autumn rain had washed the old trees clean, but the merciless season had stripped away their beautiful garments, leaving them standing gloomily, their bark’s deep wrinkles covered by brown moss.

　　This ten-day stretch of autumn rain had also made the ground especially muddy. Even the official road was full of murky puddles and mud, making it nearly impossible for travelers to move forward. Only with the help of animals could one barely make slow progress along the muddy road.

　　This was Tangyin County, under the jurisdiction of Xiangzhou in Hebei West Circuit of the Great Song Dynasty. A wide, flat official road ran through the county. Normally, the road was bustling with travelers coming and going from north to south, but now, thanks to the weather’s mischief, it was hard to see a single soul.

　　To the east of the road stretched vast wheat fields as far as the eye could see. The autumn wheat had long been harvested, leaving the fields bare, with human-shaped stacks of wheat stalks standing everywhere. Further off, one could see huge waterwheels. Where there were waterwheels, there were rivers—the Tang River flowed quietly beneath the wheels, heading east, eventually merging into the broader, shimmering Yongji Canal.

　　A few miles to the west of the road, a modest-sized village was shrouded in misty rain.

　　At last, a man appeared on the empty official road. He looked to be about thirty, with delicate features, a thin, sallow face. But it seemed that if he could have a few good meals, his complexion would be even fairer than a young maiden’s. Clearly, he was not a rough farmer, but had the look of a scholar.

　　He carried no umbrella. His thin, frail body shivered in the cold wind and rain. He could only hug his arms to his chest, wrapping his white, cool shirt tightly around his reed-like frame, stumbling step by step toward the village across the road.

　　……

　　The village was called Liwen Village, home to thirty or forty families. Half the villagers bore the surname Li, most of them related by blood, whether closely or distantly.

　　Just as the man reached the village entrance, he suddenly cried out in delight. He had spotted something under a tree. His legs, as if freed from heavy lead weights, ran lightly over. He picked up a half-dead yellow weasel from under the tree. The weasel was nearly two feet long, its fur shiny and intact.

　　“Ha! Twenty coins in the bag!”

　　The man was overjoyed, spinning around in excitement.

　　“Jack Thompson, we saw that first! Put it down!” A cold voice suddenly sounded behind him.

　　Of course, the man’s name was not Jack Thompson. He was Brian Thompson, courtesy name Chengcai. Jack Thompson was his nickname, a poisonous thorn stuck in his heart, called behind his back for five whole years.

　　Naturally, no one would call him Jack to his face. They usually called him Brian, but children, with their innocent tongues, would often blurt out what adults said behind his back.

　　Brian Thompson’s face fell, and he turned around angrily. Standing before him were three children, about seven or eight years old. The leader was a chubby boy with a face full of baby fat, dressed in a fine black satin jacket and deerskin boots, strutting about like a plump little fighting cock. Though water dripped from his clothes, his forehead was sweaty and steaming.

　　“So it’s Frank. Not going to school today?”

　　The anger on Brian Thompson’s face instantly turned into a smile, and he instinctively bent his waist a little. Little Sam was the son of the chief steward Henry Brooks—someone he could not afford to offend.

　　The other two mischievous boys were also Lis, his clan nephews by generation, but their contemptuous eyes showed not a trace of the respect due to an elder.

　　“Whether I go to school or not is none of your damn business. Put down what’s in your hand and get lost!” Little Sam perfectly imitated his father’s manner.

　　Brian Thompson was used to such scolding. He looked longingly at the weasel in his hand. His instincts told him it was probably the spoils of his family’s big black dog—worth twenty coins! These brats would surely ruin it.

　　“Frank, please be kind, let me have this weasel!”

　　“Bullshit!”

　　Little Sam shouted, “Hit him!”

　　The three bullies hurled mud balls they had prepared at him. Brian Thompson was caught off guard, splattered all over with mud. One of the mud balls even had a sharp stone inside, striking his forehead and causing blood to gush out.

　　Brian Thompson’s forehead throbbed with pain, his vision spinning. Flustered, but unwilling to let go of the weasel, he clutched his bleeding forehead and fled into the village.

　　“Bastard, put down the yellow weasel!”

　　The three bullies chased after Brian Thompson relentlessly, grabbing mud and stones from the ground and hurling them at his back.

　　Brian Thompson’s home was in the southwest corner of the village, surrounded by a half-man-high fence of branches and mud. Inside the yard stood only three crooked thatched huts.