The bustling market town seethed with voices, the cries of vendors ringing without end. He An led two children who had just lost their mother through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds.
The older child was Jiang Ye, and the younger was Jiang Chong. First, he bought each of them a clean, thick set of new clothes to replace their old garments, laden with dust and grief. When he finally saw a glimmer of light in their eyes, he stopped at a sweets stall on a street corner and bought two skewers of candied hawthorn, gleaming beneath their clear sugar shells.
He handed the candied hawthorns to the eagerly watching Jiang Ye and Jiang Chong, then felt the few scraps of silver left inside his robe. With a sigh, He An headed toward a roadside carriage yard. After bargaining until his mouth was dry, he finally hired a crude but sturdy flatbed carriage.
Its wheels creaked as they rolled over the yellow-earth road, slowly carrying them away from the noisy town.
The distant mountains, dark as painted brows, traced rolling curves along the horizon. Holding the rough whip, He An sat on the swaying carriage shaft and gazed at the familiar scenery before him, momentarily lost in memory.
Many years ago, his teacher Fang Yizhi had taken him and Fan Dazhi away from Watermill Head Village in just this way. With hopes and fears for the future in their hearts, they had set out for the prosperous, unfamiliar imperial capital, Luoyang City.
The carriage rocked and swayed, as though time and space had overlapped. Only now, the innocent boy who had ridden in it all those years ago had become someone others depended on.
He An gathered his thoughts and looked at the two children on the carriage. The elder sister, Jiang Ye,