Chapter 134: Liu Ji

In the end, Liu Ji still refused Zhang Er's invitation and chose to head east.

East from Shanfu County, there was a smooth post road. Travel a few dozen li along it, and you would reach the Wei–Chu border. Once past the border watchtowers and barriers of the two states, you were in Pei County.

But Liu Ji did not take the main road, because it was choked with Wei refugees fleeing the Qin army's blade. Some came from Meng County, others from Taoqiu — all dragging their families along, faces full of terror. With so many people, oxcarts constantly rammed into one another, breaking down along the way, blocking the road and causing even greater chaos…

A gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall. Though Liu Ji had never heard that saying, and he was no sanctimonious gentleman, he did know enough to avoid a post road teeming with bandits and take the mountain paths he was familiar with instead.

A few months earlier, when he had bid farewell to his village companions and gone west to Wei carrying only a two-chi sword, this was the very road he had walked.

Liu Bang's family lived in Fengyi of Pei County, in the state of Chu. Fengyi was a border town between Chu and Wei. In that modest township, there were many immigrants from Wei, and the local accent was a mix of Chu and Wei speech.

Even Liu Ji's old father, Liu Taigong, leaning on his staff as he reminisced about family history, would say that Liu Ji's great-grandfather had once been a grandee of Wei, and that it was only in their grandfather's generation that the family had moved to Fengyi — a mere few decades ago.

So Liu Ji, too, carried some Wei blood in his veins. Perhaps that was why, after he grew up, his heart always yearned for the world of the Central Plains to the west.

Liu Ji was especially captivated by Lord Xinling of Wei — the man who stole the tally to save Zhao, who humbled himself before worthy men.

By the time Liu Ji was old enough to understand things, Lord Xinling had already passed away, but his posthumous fame endured. It even spread beyond the courts of the various states, circulating widely among the common people. From Wei it reached Fengyi, and reached the ears of the young Liu Ji.

In the official opinion of government and court, Wei Wuji was a remonstrating minister who defied his lord's command to secure the state from peril, following the Dao rather than his ruler. In the popular judgment of the common folk and the jianghu, Lord Xinling was a hero who broke through social strata, befriended the realm's finest talents by his own worth, and pushed the knight-errant spirit to its zenith.

Whichever identity it was, the young Liu Ji yearned for it. In his eyes, the highest ideal in life was to follow Lord Xinling and roam the world.

Liu Ji's character, from childhood, had been vastly different from his law-abiding father and elder brothers. He was rebellious and restless, wild and untamable. Even as an adult, he did not emulate his second brother Liu Zhong by devoting himself to the fields, nor was he willing to heed his parents' advice to settle down, build up the family estate, and marry some plain-looking local girl early. Instead, he idled and roamed about Zhongyang Village, setting out on the path of the knight-errant…

Though such a life was carefree, it was bound to displease his family and earn him scornful looks from his neighbors in the village.

So in his twenties, weary of the cramped little world of Zhongyang Village and Fengyi, Liu Ji went to the county seat of Pei. There he worked under a local magnate who was also the boss of the Pei knights-errant, Wang Ling. Liu Ji served him as an elder brother, calling Wang Ling his "big brother."

Wang Ling was also a county-level knight-errant, but his fame was confined to Pei, and his influence was not as great as that of Zhang Er of Waihuang.

A few years later, Liu Ji swaggered back to Fengyi, carrying a bit of the disdain for book learning and the free-spiritedness he had picked up from Wang Ling. With this experience, he was no longer just a village knight-errant who tagged along shouting with the local youths. He had gathered a gang of village youngsters, like Lu Wan from next door, and in groups of three or five, he began to play the role of Fengyi's foremost village knight-errant. Every other word out of his mouth was "your old man" or "you brat."

In his family's eyes, however, he was still a good-for-nothing wastrel — an old bachelor past thirty who had never taken a wife! All day long, he just led a bunch of jobless, idle youths around doing nothing!

This situation reached its peak when he brought his gang of little brothers to his eldest brother's wife's house for a free meal and was deliberately driven away by the sound of her scraping the pot.

Having lost face in front of his little brothers, Liu Ji felt deeply aggrieved and swore he would accomplish some great enterprise, to make his family and village fellows look at him with new eyes.

And this so-called great enterprise was to go to Wei, the state he had long yearned for, and attach himself to Zhang Er, who was said to have inherited the "spirit of Lord Xinling." From the rumors, Zhang Er was a hero second only to Lord Xinling. If he went and became a retainer, perhaps he might encounter some opportunity.

From Fengyi to Waihuang County was a journey of several hundred li. After leaving Chu, it passed through Wei's Dan County, Meng County, Zi County, and other places. For Liu Ji, already thirty years old, this was his first long journey abroad. With only a two-chi sword on his person, sleeping in the open and eating in the wind, relying on nothing at all, he had walked all the way into Zhang Er's presence and become his follower.

Zhang Er, however, left him slightly disappointed.

"It's true that Zhang Er humbles himself before worthy men, but he is merely imitating Lord Xinling in every way. In the end, he can never become Lord Xinling."

In Liu Ji's eyes, if Lord Xinling was a tiger, then Zhang Er, though he had painted stripes all over his body, bared his fangs and claws, and flaunted his might, still could not change the truth that he was nothing more than a dog of Waihuang.

Liu Ji's heart cooled. Aside from eating and drinking his fill every day, he no longer sought any opportunity. He merely planned to stay there for half a year or so, eat and drink well, then take his leave of Zhang Er and return home. By then, with this travel experience to his name, he would surely make a big splash in Pei County — hadn't Zhang Er himself made his name precisely by being a former retainer of Lord Xinling? If Zhang Er could do it, why couldn't Liu Ji?

In Liu Ji's view at the time, becoming a county-level knight-errant like Zhang Er or Wang Ling, and standing as their equal, was his life's ambition.

Until the war broke out, and Daliang was besieged by the Qin army.

The vast state of Wei suddenly became incredibly fragile, kneaded at will by Qin. Those Wei heavy infantrymen who passed through Waihuang also became utterly worthless, crumbling before the Qin army's assault.

The Qin army pressing closer by the day, Waihuang in imminent danger, Zhang Er restless and uneasy — none of this was something Liu Ji had anticipated.

Fortunately, he was shrewd enough, with an innate sensitivity to danger. Before the battle of Waihuang, he had stepped forward on his own initiative, loudly proclaiming that he would defend the city to the death to repay Zhang Er's generous treatment. In reality, after holding out for a brief moment and killing one Qin soldier, Liu Ji felt he had already repaid that bit of kindness from Zhang Er.

"Holding the city for a moment, killing one foe — that is to be worthy of Zhang Er's hospitality these past months. I am no ungrateful man."

"When the situation turns dire, slipping away at once — that is to be worthy of myself. Neither am I a foolish man. A real man should be magnanimous and do great things. How can he bury his fine life here?"

So when that dark-faced Qin clerk with the grey right-tied topknot leaped onto the battlements and was about to fight Liu Ji, Liu Ji simply turned tail and ran, without a moment's hesitation!

The reason he left Waihuang afterward and fled east with Zhang Er was that, after spending several months with him, Liu Ji had figured Zhang Er out completely. He knew Zhang Er also had no resolve to die defending the King of Wei's territory and must have long since planned an escape route.

Rather than scurrying around like a headless fly like the other knights-errant, only to be caught by those wolf-like Qin soldiers and have their heads chopped off, it was better to keep his eyes fixed on Zhang Er. Wherever Zhang Er went, he would go.

In the worst-case scenario, even if they were unlucky enough to be surrounded by the Qin troops, Liu Ji could throw caution to the wind, forget his reputation, cut off Zhang Er's head, and offer it up — he could still save his own life! Liu Ji was a flexible man. Compared to his own life, principles and honor could all be temporarily discarded.

Fortunately, the journey was full of scares but no real danger. Liu Ji was, after all, a man of Chu and not very familiar with the mountains and rivers of Wei. He had thus "protected" Zhang Er all the way until they reached the familiar border of Chu and Wei, and only then did he cup his hands and take his leave.

Unexpectedly, at the fork in the road, Zhang Er — moved by Liu Ji's "heroism and honor" — actually spoke up and invited Liu Ji to go with him to Qi, looking as if he intended to make Liu Ji his right-hand man.

In the past, Liu Ji, whose whole heart was set on being a gallant knight-errant, would certainly have gone along. He knew that although his family was fairly well-off, with fields and a house, and his old father could even afford a concubine, they were not wealthy enough for him to become a great knight-errant of a county. Staying by Zhang Er's side and using his connections and fame to rise up was clearly a shortcut.

However, after experiencing the battle of Waihuang, Liu Ji's state of mind had changed somewhat…

Over the past month or so, he had witnessed the unstoppable force of the Qin army sweeping across Wei, and experienced the Qin soldiers' fearless assault on Waihuang city.

The frivolous knights-errant he had once thought so impressive were, under the Qin army's storm-like onslaught, actually this pathetically fragile.

The county knights-errant and powerful magnates who once swaggered with such arrogance could only flee in panic and become fugitives when the Qin clerks came knocking.

The state that Lord Xinling had once devoted his heart to protecting was also in imminent peril and would soon be wiped off the map.

And the honor that he and his knight-errant companions spoke of so eloquently, when disaster loomed, shattered in an instant.

The world of the knight-errant that Liu Ji had firmly believed in for twenty years began to show a crack. The crack slowly widened, and after it was completely smashed apart, what appeared before him was a broken old era, and an even vaster world…

He saw a black fission from the west, howling eastward, intent on sweeping across all under heaven, encompassing the entire realm. Within the four seas and nine provinces, no one could escape it!

Liu Ji's education was limited, and so was his understanding of the current situation, so he did not know how to express it in written language. He only vaguely sensed that within two or three years, this world was bound to undergo an enormous change! In the face of this change, was clinging to Lord Xinling's chivalry and merely being a knight-errant perhaps a bit outdated?

So, after a moment's hesitation, Liu Ji refused Zhang Er's invitation. With the world situation shifting, going home first to lie low and wait to see how things developed was the wise choice.

Pondering all the way, before he knew it, after crossing many gullies and hillocks and passing through desolate grave mounds and wild grass, the small path came to an end.

Liu Ji had bypassed the border watchtowers between Wei and Chu that were packed with refugees, crossed the hills and mountains, and returned to Chu. His hometown, Fengyi, was right before his eyes…

Compared to the chaos in Wei, this place was far from the war and still maintained its usual peace. Farmers were busy in the paddies, and merchants in Chu-style clothing came and went.

Looking at that familiar earthen wall, the big-bearded knight-errant smiled: "A wanderer longs for his hometown. Even when I was in Liang and Wei, I often missed Feng and Pei!"

Before entering the town, Liu Ji crouched by a stream to wash his face. He also scooped up some water and drank it, as if he could taste the flavor of Chu within it.

But after washing his big beard clean, Liu Ji grew somewhat troubled again.

Going home was good, but…

Liu Ji slung his sword over his shoulder, tilted his head, and looked up at the sky somewhat helplessly: "When I left, I boasted that I would return in brocade robes, riding a horse. Now I've still only brought back a single sword, and I've even lost the scabbard. Ah, once I'm home, Father will scold me again for being a good-for-nothing, unable to manage the estate, not as good as Liu Zhong!"

…

Just as the wanderer Liu Ji steeled himself and returned home, only to be chased and beaten, cursed and spat at by his old father — elsewhere, Hei Fu and his party had also left Waihuang, entered the borders of Yangwu County, and arrived at a place called Huyou Township…

"Tenth-Leader Heifu, you will remain here on garrison duty."

Pointing at the Hu You township hamlet not far away, Five-Hundred-Leader Zhang Yi gave Heifu the order, and also handed him a wooden tablet stamped with a red seal.

Heifu looked at it — it was actually a letter of appointment issued by the Qin State's Yingchuan Commandery, and it even bore the signature and general's seal of the frontline commander, Junior Master of Works Wang Ben…

Then he heard Zhang Yi say: "Tenth-Leader Heifu, from this day forward, until the destruction of Wei is complete and before the King dispatches an official magistrate to take office, I shall serve as the County Commandant of Yangwu County, and you — you shall be the Patrol Constable of this Hu You Township!"

(End of Chapter)