Huading Peak, Black Wind Stronghold.
Outside, the night wind howled; inside, a lamp burned like a tiny bean.
Yang Ge lay on the bed, wrapped in a bearskin, sleeping amid the howling mountain winds. Time flowed gently as water, quiet and peaceful.
Through the haze, Yang Ge seemed to see the earthen-walled courtyard back home again. An old man in a gray jacket with a front opening and knotted buttons sat on the threshold, puffing on his tobacco pipe and beckoning to him. "Second boy..."
He drifted up to the old man like a gust of wind, took his thin, rough hand, and said blankly, "You're home."
The old man smoked his pipe, the smoke shrouding his gaunt face. Only his sorrowful eyes watched Yang Ge through it, seemingly worried, seemingly tender. After a long while, he raised a hand and gently stroked Yang Ge's forehead, giving a soft, comforting chuckle. "Let's be generous and broad-minded. Don't stoop to their level, all right..."
Yang Ge's sluggish thoughts could not make sense of what the old man was saying. Just as he was about to ask, his vision blurred, and the old man vanished.
He anxiously stood and searched everywhere, only to see the earthen house that had been perfectly intact moments before suddenly collapse. Countless huge black rats scurried through the wreckage, swarming over the beams, doors, and windows and gnawing at them...
He stood stunned for a long time, then abruptly came to his senses and jolted upright, looking urgently around him.
The lamplight remained. He was alone in the room, with only his shadow for company.
The urgency rapidly faded from his eyes. He stared blankly toward the northwest, his gaze seeming to pierce a thousand miles of mountains, rivers, clouds, and moonlight, reaching the lonely grave behind