The rain had fallen for three whole days without letting up in the slightest.
The strains of an erhu drifted slowly through the rain.
By turns lilting, soaring, and low.
The Northern Road in the rain set the imagination wandering.
This was a Horse Gang.
They made their living on the road.
They carried goods from the south to the north, from one country to another.
Some even carried goods from one province to another.
Li Ping'an was with this Horse Gang.
He wore black clothes and a bamboo hat.
He sat beneath a canopy, playing his erhu.
He had encountered this Horse Gang at a market.
At the time, he had been so poor his pockets jingled with emptiness.
He had been discussing with Old Ox whether they should chop off one of the ox's legs.
They could roast it and eat it. There would still be three left, after all.
Old Ox had been so furious that he knocked him flat.
Then, by chance, he had spotted this Horse Gang.
They were recruiting people to help watch the goods, unload cargo, and such.
The pay wasn't much, but meals were included.
So Li Ping'an had joined them.
Scarface clenched his pipe between his teeth, cursing the goddamned weather.
He spoke in his native dialect, so few in the Horse Gang knew what he was cursing about.
Scarface was the leader of the Horse Gang. He had been traveling this route for more than ten years.
If the rain kept falling like this, they would have to rest here for a few more days.
Running a Horse Gang was never easy.
There were sheer cliffs and deep ravines along the road, hungry tigers and savage beasts in the mountains, venomous snakes and scorpions in the rivers, and bandits