Turmoil

Turmoil.

That year, a severe drought struck Zhuqi County in Ping Province, and bandits rose up everywhere.

Ye Qin knelt on the ground, gripping a broken piece of roof tile he had found somewhere. At the base of a lone, withered old tree, he dug with all his might, trying to unearth its roots to eat. The tile wasn't sharp, but the long hours of digging had worn the skin from his palms.

The sun in the sky blazed mercilessly, its light painfully bright. The old tree's sparse, withered branches offered a meager shield from the scorching rays.

After digging for a while, Ye Qin began to tire. He hadn't eaten a thing all morning, and hunger gnawed at his belly while thirst parched his throat, leaving his thin little hands with hardly enough strength to keep digging.

On the muddy ground on the other side of the tree lay a farm boy who had fainted from hunger. He was Cheng Daniu, a child from the same village, with hair as wild as a bird's nest and a scrap of rotten hemp cloth covering his body. Half unconscious, he mumbled incoherently.

Ye Qin glanced at Cheng Daniu, licked his cracked lips, and gritted his teeth as he kept digging.

He had been a hunter's son in a small village in Lao Gully, deep in the mountains hundreds of miles away. Years of warfare, banditry, and heavy taxes had already left the country folk struggling to breathe. Then the severe drought that began early that year had left the fields with almost no harvest, while game in the mountains had dwindled. Countless people were dying.

Even adults struggled to survive, let alone children. As the eldest in his family, eleven-year-old Ye Qin had said farewell to his parents and left home to find food, easing the strain on his parents' supplies so his younger siblings could have enough to live. According to the custom in their village, once a child took leave of their parents and left home, it meant they would make their own way in the world and no longer depend on their parents or clan.

Ye Qin couldn't exactly say he had established himself, but he was at least out on his own, braving the world.

Fortunately, four or five other children aged eight to ten from his village had set out with him to find food. Ye Qin was the oldest and most experienced, so he led them.

For the past six months, they had wandered through the villages and towns around Zhuqi County. With too little food and attacks from wild dogs and jackals out in the open, three or four had already died along the way. Only Ye Qin and Cheng Daniu were left alive.

Daniu was a year younger than him.

At dawn the previous day, they had slept in a roadside shelter in the wilderness. While they were fast asleep, an old, starving wild dog had crawled into the shelter and bitten Daniu's lower leg. If Ye Qin hadn't woken in time and driven the dog away with a stone and a wooden stick, Daniu might have lost his life. No matter what, neither he nor Daniu could afford to die. Alone, it would be hard to survive in this world.

Ignoring the pain in his hands, Ye Qin dug and dug. He had gone more than a foot down, yet still hadn't found any tree root he could eat.

The old tree was withered. No one knew whether its roots were edible, but they had to try. There were almost no other edible roots or bark nearby. Half a year of drought had baked nearly every plant and tree to death.

At last, a section of the old root came free. It was still fresh, with moisture in it.

Ye Qin cried out in delight and jabbed at the root with the blunt tile. After a long while, he managed to dig out a small piece. He bit off a mouthful of damp bark, crawled over to Cheng Daniu, shook him awake, and fed it to him.

Smelling the damp bark, Cheng Daniu opened his eyes in a daze and came around from the brink of unconsciousness. He managed to chew a little, but had no strength to swallow it.

Ye Qin hurriedly chewed the bark into pulp and stuffed it into his mouth.

If they didn't eat, they would die.

After eating some bark, Cheng Daniu finally caught his breath and recovered a little. He was more awake now.

That piece of root kept Ye Qin and Cheng Daniu alive for another half day.

The bark made their stomachs ache, but that was better than starving to death. The two rested in the shade of the old tree's roots for half the day. When the sun began to sink in the west and its rays grew less fierce, Ye Qin helped the limping Daniu head east.

Night was coming. Hungry wild dogs and jackals prowled the deserted outskirts, making it unsafe. They had to find somewhere people lived.

Ye Qin took Daniu to the roadside shelter where they had stayed the day before, a few miles east beside a post road on a barren slope.

Merchants and horses often passed along the post road and needed water when they grew thirsty. During the day, a tavern owner from a nearby town set up there, selling tea, wine, and meat to travelers.

To avoid bandits, the tavern owner left every night, leaving the shelter empty. The boys could sleep inside and keep safe from wild dogs and jackals. They could also pick up scraps of leftover food travelers had dropped on the ground to eat for supper.

For the past half month, Ye Qin and Daniu had spent their nights there.

By evening, the sky was lit with sunset clouds.

Ye Qin helped Daniu to one side of the shelter, where they crouched in a patch of weeds and rested. The shelter was a crude bamboo hut built from bamboo poles. Outside the door was an open-sided awning, beneath which stood more than ten tea tables with benches.

The tavern owner had not left yet. The old man and a young waiter were busy serving more than ten men dressed alike in blue-green robes, each with a saber at his side. The men shouted and roared inside the shelter, clinking cups and bowls as they drank and ate their fill of wine and meat. It was a lively scene.

The smell of wine and meat drifting from the shelter made Ye Qin ravenous. But he only dared steal a glance before hastily ducking out of sight, afraid to look again. Those lean, wiry men were dressed as government runners from Zhuqi County.

When he had first left the countryside to look for food, he had nearly mistaken those men in runner uniforms for good people. But after spending the past six months begging in the county town and several villages and seeing so many wicked deeds, he had become terrified of them.

Bandits were almost preferable. If you had no money, they wouldn't kill you for no reason. These government runners were far more vicious than bandits. If they took a dislike to someone, they would beat him half to death. If he died, they would cut off his head and claim it was a bandit's, then take it to the county town to collect a reward.

Ye Qin was so poor he had only a rag of hemp cloth to cover himself. He would rather encounter bandits than government runners.

Daniu was so famished he had grown muddleheaded. Not realizing the men were government runners, he tried to crawl over and beg for food.

Ye Qin jumped in alarm, yanked him back, and pinned his arm down. Daniu struggled with all his might, trying to say something. Ye Qin hurriedly clapped a hand over his mouth and frantically signaled for him not to go over and get himself killed.

Daniu was younger than him to begin with, and he was injured too. After struggling once without breaking free, he ran out of strength and could only lie down in a daze to rest.

The two huddled together in a concealed spot beside the shelter, doing their best not to attract the government runners' attention.

Ye Qin looked at the sky. The sun had set, and the runners would surely leave once they had eaten and drunk their fill. They wouldn't stay long in this desolate place. After they left, he might be able to find some scraps they had left behind.

He sighed inwardly. He had no idea when this life of surviving on tree roots would ever end.

Loud laughter and cheerful chatter came from the men beneath the awning.

At the center of the crowd sat a middle-aged government runner, gaunt and sallow-faced, with an air of authority. He was clearly the leader.

The middle-aged runner gulped down some wine, wiped the drink from his mustache, and said loudly, "Damn it, what rotten luck. That gang of bandits can really run. They fled dozens of miles from Zhuqi County and escaped to this godforsaken place, nearly wearing us brothers to the bone. Eat and drink your fill, brothers. We still have to travel in the dark tonight and catch those bandits as soon as possible."

Hidden in a clump of weeds beside the shelter, more than ten paces from the government runners seated inside, Ye Qin heard every word they said.

The runners hurried to curry favor with the middle-aged man.

"This time, we owe it to Master Li for taking action himself. Otherwise, that gang of bandits would've vanished without a trace by now. A little hardship for us is nothing, but we can't let them escape and make all Master Li's hard work go to waste."

"Exactly. Once we catch those bandits, cut off their heads, and take them back to claim the reward, Master Li is sure to receive a hefty bonus. We brothers will get to share in the spoils too!"

"Master Li really is the top constable in our county town. Every time he takes action, he never comes back empty-handed. We're lucky to have Master Li on our side this time!"