Fishing for a living

Liu Cheng stood on the bank and craned his neck past the ragged hemp shirt. Sure enough, there was no heavenly weaving maiden bathing there, only a burly, slightly hunchbacked man, stark naked in the stream. Pebbles and water weeds had been piled into crude barriers in front of and behind him, and he held a tattered fishing net, earnestly fishing in the pool.

Amused, the boy called out, "Brother Jili, Brother Liu... I was wondering yesterday why you weren't selling mats anymore. Have you taken up fishing instead?"

The burly man he had met once at the market turned in surprise, narrowing his eyes slightly at the newcomer, plainly wary. Even after quite some time had passed and he realized who it was, he did not relax, merely holding the net in front of himself with both hands as he answered, "Liu Acheng, couldn't get by with Liu Rengong anymore, so you've come to seek shelter with me?"

"Our Lord Ren's camp is in Langya Commandery, just south of here. I was only passing through when I saw a hemp shirt hanging on the bank. I was afraid some scoundrel might steal it, so I came over to warn you." Liu Cheng found this increasingly funny and merely shook his head.

Liu Jili froze. Disregarding his nakedness, he hastily dropped the net and dashed ashore to put on the long hemp shirt and the trousers beneath it.

In the distance, Liu Huzi sensed something was amiss. Bow in hand, he urged his horse a little closer. Seeing a naked man putting on his clothes, he silently cursed his luck. Before he could speak, that fellow Liu Acheng poked his head out from behind a tree and waved at him with a smile. "Brother Ahu, what a coincidence! We were worried someone might steal this man's clothes, but it turns out he's a clansman I've met several times at the market..."

Liu Ahu's face stiffened. Lowering his bow, he approached, dismounted empty-handed, and cupped his hands toward the man. "You're also a member of the Liu Clan of Pengcheng? Why are you fishing here alone? I'm Liu Jian, also of the Liu Clan of Pengcheng."

Halfway through dressing, Liu Jili instinctively tried to return the greeting. But his clothes were old, and in his haste, one tug snapped the tie sewn onto his hemp shirt. What remained could no longer be fastened, leaving him even more embarrassed. Liu Acheng, however, seemed well versed in such matters. He turned, found a kudzu vine beneath a nearby tree, cut it with the small knife at his waist that he normally used to gather grass for sandals, and let the man use it as a makeshift belt.

Only then did Liu Jili, red to the ears, cup his hands in return. "Liu Lang of Pengcheng greets you, brother. I've heard of you. You're the man in Lord Ren's household who can fight tigers?"

Liu Ahu's expression finally softened considerably.

After all, in these times, the saying that a man of the same surname could seek refuge from a thousand miles away and be treated no differently from blood kin was no empty phrase.

A little thought made it clear. The Five Barbarians had thrown the realm into chaos, the gentry had crossed south, and families had been scattered. In such circumstances, people needed mutual assistance to survive. Yet in a world so troubled, no one knew whom they could trust, so helping those who shared one's surname became a necessary minimum.

All the more so for members of the same clan.

Take Liu Cheng, a transmigrator: had he not been surnamed Liu, would Liu Huzi have thought well enough of him that day to take him in? Moreover, as soon as he learned of ancestral commandery affiliations, he had begun covering his tracks, insisting that his forebears had instructed him while continually hinting that he belonged to the Liu Clan of Pengcheng. Sure enough, Liu Zhi's family had treated him fairly well... at the very least, he had a few human rights.

The principle was the same.

"Since you're a clansman and older than us, Brother Jili, do you have a courtesy name? Where is your family from?" Liu Huzi continued the conversation.

"My father and grandfather both died early, so I've used my childhood name, Jili, as my courtesy name," Liu Jili answered gloomily. "As for my family, naturally we're from Pengcheng itself, but I was born north of the Yellow River and have no clan to fall back on..."

Hearing this, Liu Huzi instinctively glanced at Liu Acheng. Why did all their clansmen who went north of the Yellow River end up like this? Those Jie barbarians truly were barbarian curs; they could not endure for long. From the look of things, coming south was probably better after all.

"Where are you living now, Brother Jili? Surely you must have someone to depend on?" With that thought, Liu Jian instead began to pity him, and his tone grew kinder.

"I used to stay with Lord Ying..." Liu Jili still seemed somewhat embarrassed.

"I know Lord Ying. His father once served as Chancellor of Guangling. I saw his son Liu Agan just a few days ago." Liu Jian understood. "So you were the one selling mats at the market?"

"What do you mean, 'used to'? I was just about to ask why you were fishing alone, Brother Jili," Liu Cheng said, paying no attention to the tangled class distinctions among the refugees of the Liu Clan of Pengcheng, but keenly noticing a word in the man's answer. "Without even someone to watch your clothes."

Liu Huzi caught on as well and looked at the tall young hunchback.

"Lord Ying had no room for me, so I left on my own." Liu Jili's face flushed, as though he was even more embarrassed than he had been without a belt.

Yet after barely a pause, he spoke again in a low voice. "I might as well tell you the truth! I used to help him sell mats and make baskets, but someone accused me of pocketing money. Liu Agan and his father actually let those petty villains slander me without saying a word... I left in anger, without even going back to where I lived. I begged a fishing net and an axe, then went off on my own... That's why I'm fishing here alone."

Liu Ahu scoffed. "Then Liu Aqian was in the wrong. Never mind that you came away empty-handed and proved your innocence, Brother Jili, which should have been reason enough to invite you back. Even if money really was missing, how much could a few mats bring? His family isn't short of money, yet he still let the petty villains under him humiliate a clansman. He truly disgraces the clan's name... We've only just arrived and are too poor even to buy salt, but nothing like that happens among us."

As he spoke, Liu Huzi turned to Liu Acheng. "Right, Acheng?"

What could Liu Cheng say? He could only nod, then shake his head. "Whatever the case, Brother Jili, you can't go on like this. In times like these, how can a man survive all alone, with no one to depend on?"

As he spoke, he looked at Liu Ahu.

Who would have thought Liu Huzi was one to stand on ceremony too? Though he had long since understood what was going on, he pretended not to know and merely put his hands behind his back, feigning interest in the scenery.

At this sight, Liu Jili felt an inexplicable surge of indignation and likewise held his head high without speaking.

Liu Cheng was thoroughly weary of it, but he did want to bring in Liu Jili, whose background resembled his own, as cover. He could only coax these two "young men." "Brother Jili, you don't know this, but though our Lord Ren is poor, he has always been benevolent and honorable, and he has friends far and wide. Today he even made a special visit to his old friend, Garrison Commander Gao, and arranged to meet the Grand Commander within ten days. Then getting through winter won't be a problem. If you have nowhere to go, why not come to us?"

Then, without waiting for Liu Jili to speak, he turned back to Liu Huzi. "Brother Ahu, never mind that someone of the same surname seeking refuge from a thousand miles away should be treated as close kin, or that Liu Agan and his father truly can't compare to you and Lord Ren in generosity. Just consider your plans to hunt tigers... Brother Jili arrived two years before we did. Where Great Tigers roam nearby, where traps should be set, where good equipment can be bought-he knows about all these things... If you ask me, we ought to invite him to our camp to lend us a hand."

At this, Liu Huzi raised his eyebrows and finally stopped putting on airs. "Well said."

Liu Cheng quickly nudged the loose end of the vine belt behind Liu Jili's waist. Knowing, after all, that he was utterly destitute, the latter had no choice but to put aside his excess pride and cup his hands. "I was just about to ask Lord Ren and Brother Ahu to take me in."

"Of course, of course." Hearing a man plainly older than himself call him brother, Liu Huzi finally broke into a smile. "We're just in need of your help hunting tigers, Brother Jili."

Only now did Liu Jili ask about the tiger hunt. Learning that Jiangcheng Garrison Commander Gao Jian was a close friend of Liu Zhi and had already promised an introduction to the Grand Commander, and that they were hunting tigers to provide a gift for Grand Commander Chu Pou, he finally brightened and told them a great deal about the tigers nearby.

Liu Cheng listened with keen interest. Only now did he learn that Jingkou was the very place celebrated in the verse, "To shoot a tiger in person, look to young Lord Sun." Sun Quan had been dead for less than a hundred years, and this area had been developed late, so Great Tigers indeed often prowled the wooded hills... The tiger roars he had heard before and such were no figments of the imagination.

Liu Huzi was equally excited by what he heard and invited the man to return to camp with them.

But he immediately realized that he had only one horse.

Only then did Liu Jili seem to remember that he still had fish to catch, and he quickly waved them on. "You two go ahead. I know the roads and will certainly arrive this evening. There's a big fish inside this dam, and I'll do my best to catch it. Just as Brother Ahu is hunting a tiger for the Grand Commander, I ought to find a fish to present to Lord Ren tonight."

Given his temperament, Liu Huzi stood on no ceremony and was ready to leave first with Liu Cheng.

Liu Cheng followed Liu Huzi away before reminding him, "Since we intend to make use of him, we should show him some consideration. Go on ahead, Brother Ahu. I'll stay with him and bring him back... In broad daylight, these few miles shouldn't pose any problem."

Still standing on no ceremony, Liu Jian swung onto his horse and rode straight off.

Yet a moment later, he turned back and tossed a bow and arrows into Liu Cheng's arms. "Since there are so many tigers, be careful, Acheng."

Liu Cheng wanted to say that he did not know how to use a bow, but the other man rode away too quickly. He could only carry the bow and arrows back to find Liu Jili.

The latter had actually stripped again and resumed fishing.

"There really is a big fish?" Liu Acheng sounded somewhat surprised.

"There really is a big fish." Liu Jili did not even raise his head, but asked in turn, "Were you two about to steal my clothes just now, and only stopped because you saw it was me, remembered I was a clansman, and recalled that I'd warned you at the market?"

"That's right." Liu Cheng made no attempt to conceal it. Squatting on a stone by the bank, he recounted everything that had happened at Gao Jian's that noon. "Liu Huzi grew up throwing his weight around in Huaibei, and becoming a refugee hasn't changed him. He simply thought my clothes disgraced them... Still, even if it had been someone else in the water, I would have pretended to make a commotion and alerted him to protect his clothes."

"Down and out, without even a hemp shirt to your name, yet you have such lofty principles?" Liu Jili wore a half-smile, plainly mocking him.

"It's not lofty principles. When someone is so poor that he has neither clothes nor food, that's the fault of the times. Even if he really steals, there isn't much to say against him. But if you must steal, steal from a rich household. A man fishing alone by the roadside, even if he wasn't you, would be so poor that this one hemp shirt was all he had left. If I stole it, how would he live?" Liu Cheng answered almost without thinking.

Liu Jili looked at him and said nothing, lowering his head to continue fishing. Only after a while did he speak again. "Whatever the case, Lord Ren has acknowledged you as a clansman. Garrison Commander Gao only acknowledged you because Lord Ren did first. Otherwise, at your age, alone and able to play the flute, it would be nothing unusual for someone to seize you and make you a bondsman."

"Exactly. I could never repay Lord Ren's kindness in a lifetime." Squatting on the bank with the bow and arrows in his arms, Liu Acheng spoke earnestly... These were honest words.

Liu Jili splashed about in the water for a while before continuing. "But that's also because you've just arrived. After enough time has passed, these people may not be so kind... Liu Agan, Lord Liu Ying, and I got along at first too. Yet in only two or three years, things came to this."

Liu Cheng nodded in agreement. "You have a point, Brother Jili."

"The key is status," Liu Jili continued. "For people like us, whose position is awkward, once enough time passes without anything being clearly settled, we're just eating their food for nothing. Naturally, they'll come to resent us..."

"You have a point, Brother Jili." Liu Cheng still agreed. He was not truly a boy of fifteen or sixteen; how could he fail to understand human nature?

"Don't think that because you've done well making sandals, they'll look at you differently." Liu Jili finally could not resist a sneer. "Think about it. If Lord Ren and his son really cared for you, why wouldn't they even give you a hemp shirt?"

"Now that doesn't make sense, Brother Jili... How does gratitude for a cup of rice turn into hatred over a bushel?" Liu Cheng was finally speechless too. "As we said, someone of the same surname who seeks refuge from a thousand miles away is treated no differently from blood kin. The reason we say 'no differently' is precisely that we are different to begin with... There are things we should naturally be grateful for if they do them. But if they don't, why should we resent them?"

Liu Jili shook his head. Whether persuaded or unconvinced, he merely continued watching the water, spreading his net and dragging it through... But whether the big fish really existed or was simply too cunning, he kept at it until the sun slanted west without any sign of it.

By this point, Liu Acheng, sitting on the bank under the autumn afternoon sun, was almost dozing off.

Perhaps worried that Liu Acheng would fall asleep on the bank, or that he might grow impatient and even doubt the big fish existed, Liu Jili suddenly spoke of his own accord. "Liu Huzi is hunting a tiger as a gift because he clearly wants to display his martial prowess before the Grand Commander, win a name as a tiger fighter, and then follow Gao Jian's example and become an officer... Actually, it isn't just him. In my two or three years here, every northern boor with some family backing that I've met has wanted to shove his way into office, even if it splits his head. What about you? We've known each other for a few days now, and you're always asking questions, but I've never heard you say what you want to do. Surely you don't mean to sell straw sandals all your life?"

Liu Cheng's eyelids were already fighting to stay open.

As it happened, he had stayed here today partly out of concern that something might go wrong and the man might leave again. But he had also thought that, having arrived several years earlier, and having already struck him as perceptive, the man might provide a chance to steal half a day's leisure from this restless life and ask about the state of the realm, affairs at court, the laws, and even how to become a carefree, happy Wubao Lord.

He had not expected the man, freshly driven out, to be so steeped in bitterness, repeatedly mocking him and reminding him of his status, making it awkward to say much.

Only now, when the man happened to ask about what was on his mind, did his spirits lift a little.

Yet just as this transmigrator rallied himself and prepared to proudly proclaim his grand ambition of becoming a Wubao Lord, a sudden jolt ran through him, and he grew wary again.

As a transmigrator, there was nothing wrong with wanting to become a Wubao Lord and enjoy life.

But he was claiming membership in the Liu Clan of Pengcheng and posing as a gentleman of the scholar class. He should not harbor such an ambition, or at least not at his age-had he not seen that although Liu Zhi, Liu Rengong, was old, the younger Liu Zhi's three sons were, the more eager they were to enter office?

Moreover, Liu Jili's bitter contempt for the world clearly suggested that he wanted office too!

So a member of a fallen gentry family like himself ought to want office as well?

No. I need to think through my persona carefully before I can answer this properly.

Who am I again?

His name was Liu Cheng, and he belonged to the Liu Clan of Pengcheng. His ancestors had moved to Qiao Commandery before the gentry's migration south, and by his generation, three generations had passed. Then his grandfather, an appointed official of the Great Jin court, had taken his father north of the Yellow River early on for some unknown reason, where they had humbled themselves in service to the barbarians. His father, whom people in this age called "Aye," had specially instructed him to remember their ancestral home in Qiao Commandery, but they had become "separated" during their flight south amid the current unrest in Later Zhao. He alone had come south, found no foothold in Qiao Commandery, and headed toward Pengcheng to seek the Grand Commander, who was taking in people from the Central Plains. On the way, he had encountered Liu Zhi's branch of clansmen among the refugees and followed them south to this place.

With that identity, he could hardly tell the man outright that he wanted to become a Wubao Lord and live carefree and happy for the rest of his life!

His persona would collapse!

Then...

"Of course I want to enter office too. But not for status or family-I want to march north!" Squatting on the bank with the bow and arrows in his arms, Liu Cheng narrowed his eyes and slowly thought things through while answering with apparent earnestness. "I told Lord Ren and the others that my family was scattered in the north, but in my heart I've long known that was merely an evasive phrase. In truth, my family all perished in the north...

"But the times are so chaotic that even now I don't know which band of marauding soldiers did it. Were they killed by Han people or barbarians? Or did they simply starve to death? Whom should I seek revenge against? Even taking ten thousand steps back and assuming the Jie Hu did it, will Later Zhao still exist by the time I've grown strong enough?"

"On the road, I could still pretend not to think about these things. But once I reached Jingkou, I could no longer deceive myself in the slightest. And after turning it over and over in my mind, I came to this: the murderers of my father and grandfather cannot share the same sky with me. How could I abandon vengeance merely because I cannot find a particular enemy? If I truly must name one or two enemies, they would be the brutality of the Hu Invaders and the degeneration of the gentry, which caused the sacred land to sink, the people to be scattered, and my father and grandfather both to perish."

"So, Brother Jili, I believe that if I am to fulfill my filial duty in this life, only a northern expedition can offer comfort and ease some of the injustice in my heart! It matters not which Hu Invaders hold sway in the north or who governs in the south. I need only devote myself to marching north."

"As for whether that expedition succeeds or fails, Zu Ti once struck his oar in midstream and swore that if he crossed back without having cleansed the Central Plains, let the great river bear witness! Today, with only you here to hear me, I'm not afraid to lose face with shamelessly grand words. I too can say this: if I have a chance to follow Lord Zu's example, dying in the Central Plains with my gaze toward the lands north of the Yellow River, let me be like this stream, departing never to return!

"That, I suppose, is my ambition."

Beneath the setting sun, the westward-flowing stream glittered. Stark naked, Liu Jili stood hunched in the water, his head lifted as he listened, already struck dumb.

After a long while, a familiar voice came from the woods behind them. "Well said! If my father hadn't sent me back to fetch you, I would never have heard such ambition... Clearly I've underestimated Acheng all this time! But Brother Jili, you've underestimated me too. It's true that I want to become a high official so no one will dare look down on me, but surely that needn't keep me from seizing the chance to draw a bow with my left hand and charge with a spear in my right, sweeping across the battlefield, reclaiming the Central Plains for the state, and restoring our clan's ancestral lands!"

Liu Acheng narrowed his eyes against the setting sun and turned to look. Seeing Liu Huzi step out from behind a tree, he silently thanked his luck.

In the stream, Liu Jili looked at the two men on the bank and opened his mouth, apparently wanting to say something too. Unexpectedly, a mandarin fish fully an arm's length long leaped high out of the muddy pool beside him, trying to escape. In a panic, he quickly twisted and plunged down, clutching it tight in the muddy water.

-------I am the dividing line that caught a big fish-------

In former days, Emperor Taizu dwelt in Jingkou and shared the fortunes of the Liu Clan. Morning and night they fished, hunted, and gathered firewood. He would often give a long cry beside the stream and tell the Liu Clan, "You several men may attain the rank of provincial inspector or general through your official careers." The Liu Clan asked what rank he himself would attain, but Emperor Taizu smiled and said nothing.

-Chronicle of Jiangzuo, Pei Songzhi of Qi.