That night.
Candles burned through the night along the streets of Chuan Prefecture.
Every household lit eternal lights outside its door.
Outside the Pao Ge Courtyard.
Thousands of Pao Ge members stood in orderly ranks, broadswords on their backs and cloth shoes on their feet.
Led by the Chief Boss, they slowly marched out of the city.
Hundreds of years earlier, their ancestors had left their hometowns wearing straw sandals and carrying the simplest weapons.
Across the Dragon Kingdom, they had fought their way to resounding fame.
Who on Kou Island did not fear the fiery courage of Sichuan people?
On either side of the street.
The crowd stood in two rows.
Everyone held a candle.
As the Pao Ge Society passed.
An old man called out, his voice choked with tears, "Children, remember these eternal lights. They'll guide you after you die."
"Don't forget the way home."
"Don't become wandering souls with no one to claim you."
"When the body dies, the soul returns home. When the body dies, the soul returns home."
"Drink some wine from home. Remember the taste of home."
"The people of Chuan Prefecture will be waiting for you to return."
Trembling, the old man raised his cup of wine and sank to his knees.
Whoosh.
People dropped to their knees all along the street.
Everyone seeing them off raised their wine above their heads.
They were sobbing.
The men they were sending away were their sons.
Their husbands.
Their fathers.
After this farewell, they might never meet again.
"Take the wine!"
The Boss gave the order.
He took the cloudy wine from the old man's hands and raised it above his head.
"I am ashamed. I'm taking your families out of Chuan Prefecture, taking them to their deaths."
"I... have failed you, my fellow