Back then, Liu Jingtang's eyes had shone with light. He yearned endlessly for the jianghu Zhao Da described, even practicing martial arts in his dreams at night.
Later, when he escaped from the Children's Welfare Hall, he had originally intended to seek refuge with Zhao Da.
He asked around along the way and found the escort agency, only to be stopped outside by the gatekeeper.
With a tobacco pipe between his lips, the gatekeeper waved impatiently. "Zhao Da? He's long dead!"
Liu Jingtang froze and pressed him about how he had died.
The gatekeeper blew a smoke ring and said unhurriedly, "Last month, after returning from an escort job, he was drinking at a little roadside eatery and got into a dispute. They beat him to death."
Liu Jingtang did not believe it. How could an escort agency's guard be beaten to death so easily?
The gatekeeper sneered. "The other fellow was the steward of the local Zhang Dahu household. He brought seven or eight men carrying iron rods and machetes. How do you think he died?"
The escort agency went to demand an explanation, but in the end, they received only a few taels of silver in compensation. And that silver... after they bought Zhao Da a thin-planked willow coffin, his master took what remained and bought a girl.
"The jianghu? What is the jianghu?" Liu Jingtang abruptly came back to himself. The light in his eyes faded bit by bit, and he stopped looking toward Liu Longtong. "Times have changed. The jianghu may still be the jianghu, but great heroes... are no longer great heroes."
Then his gaze fell on the angelic birdman.
The rapture he had felt beneath the holy light faded. Now, hearing the words "save the world" again, he felt as though they were veiled