Chapter 170: A Letter Home Is Worth Ten Thousand Gold

"Stop! Stop! The wooden tablet can't hold any more!"

One day in mid-September, when the autumn air was high and crisp, Hei Fu sat on the open ground of the military camp, a low-legged mulberry-wood desk set before him. He held a writing brush in his left hand; beside him were a crude inkstone and some poor-quality charcoal ink. Two rough-hewn wooden tablets lay in front of him, already densely packed with characters...

Ji Ying, kneeling across from him, protested with a grumble: "I haven't finished what I wanted to say. How did it fill up so fast?"

Hei Fu had a terrible headache from this chatterbox, but there was nothing he could do — he'd brought this chore on himself.

As it turned out, after Hei Fu's proposal was adopted by Commandant Li You, an order was issued: any soldier in the battalions who wished to send a letter home could prepare their own wooden tablet and hand it to their Centurion or Squad Leader, and a literate military clerk would write it for them. The letter tablets would then be collected by unit and special personnel dispatched to deliver them back to Nan Commandery...

Hei Fu said impatiently: "What you want to say is nothing more than that you've now earned the rank of Gongshi, and once the fighting's over you'll go back and marry her, and you want her not to find another man. Everything else is just drivel. Better not to say too much — otherwise, when that new bride of yours discovers you can out-talk even her, she'll probably be scared off."

This kind of "love letter" was the most troublesome: the soldiers had been away from home too long, and what they wanted to say was copious, deeply private, and sometimes even a little lewd. So they fell into an awkward state of wanting to speak but not daring to, and each one had to sit in front of Hei Fu, face flushed red, holding it in for ages before they could squeeze out a few sentences.

Only Ji Ying was an exception. Hei Fu discovered that Ji Ying's letter, apart from the opening two lines of greetings, consisted entirely of boasting and flirtation. The further he wrote, the more unbearable and indecent it became, until Hei Fu could no longer bring himself to set brush to tablet.

He handed the two completely filled wooden tablets to Ji Ying and told him to bind them himself once the ink had dried in the sun. Ji Ying was a postal courier, after all, so sealing letters was second nature to him. He actually knew a few characters, but he'd hemmed and hawed, saying that since this letter was for his future wife, he was afraid his own handwriting was too ugly, so he'd asked Hei Fu to help.

And as a result, the writing had taken a full quarter-hour.

It was only then that Ji Ying remembered something.

"Oh no — she can't read either."

"You needn't worry about her being unable to read it. She can find a village clerk to help and have the contents of the letter read aloud."

The moment Hei Fu said this, Ji Ying turned thoroughly awkward. Letting Hei Fu in on some private matters was one thing, but if the people of his village also found out, wouldn't he be laughed to death when he returned?

He immediately backtracked: "Rewrite it, rewrite it! I'm taking back all those things I said!"

"Too late." Hei Fu waved him off. "If you don't want it, write it yourself. I won't help you again."

Ji Ying had no choice but to slink away resentfully. Hei Fu told him to come lend a hand once he was done; among these hundred-odd men, those whose literacy was good enough to help others write letters numbered only a scant few — Hei Fu, Li Xian, and Gong Ao. Ji Ying and Bu Cheng could just about manage, but the rest were completely incapable.

"Next!"

After sending Ji Ying off, Hei Fu raised a hand and had the men queued behind him come forward one by one. The entire open ground of the camp was filled with excited soldiers, some standing, some sitting, discussing among themselves what they ought to write in their letters.

Not everyone was as talkative as Ji Ying. Take Huai Mu from Jingling County, for example — though he was a Squad Leader, he couldn't read.

Hei Fu set out the wooden tablet, ground the ink, moistened the brush tip, and waited for a long while. Huai Mu still stammered, his expression somewhat bashful, as if the person he wanted to speak to were sitting right across from him.

The thousands of words he usually had — once they had to actually become sentences on a letter tablet, and written in someone else's hand at that — he didn't know where to begin. Perhaps, to the inarticulate Huai Mu, writing a letter home seemed even harder than being first to scale the walls and seize a city.

It took all of Hei Fu's patient coaxing before he finally began to speak.

But once he started, he couldn't stop. He had to inquire not only about his two younger brothers, bondservant convicts who were supposed to be released, but also about his newlywed wife.

It was plain to see that Huai Mu was a man deeply devoted to his family. You would hardly imagine that from the mouth of this warrior, as unyielding as fine steel, could come such tender, affectionate words. But there was too much to say, and it was all jumbled and disordered. Hei Fu could only pick out the most important parts to write, and from time to time he reminded his subordinate, who was lost in his own narrative, that the wooden tablet was nearly full.

Only then did Huai Mu rise reluctantly. He took the wooden tablet Hei Fu handed him, cradled it carefully in his hands, and looked at it upside down and right side up, a smile breaking out on his face. Then he tucked it against his chest like a treasure, as if afraid that the slightest carelessness might cause those seal-script characters to flee.

And the look he directed at Hei Fu had shifted from expectation and awkwardness to gratitude and reverence.

Hei Fu had risen from humble origins, and he understood: to a person who had never learned to write, that dense mass of strokes was something deeply awe-inspiring.

It wasn't just Huai Mu — there was also Dongmen Bao. Normally, Ah Bao could always overpower others with his sheer force of presence, but when it came to writing, Dongmen Bao's overbearing arrogance vanished. He became a man who wrung his hands, cautious and timid...

Dongmen Bao worried about his mother, who was in poor health, and then spent a great deal of space talking about how he longed to see his newborn son. He said that once this war was over and he returned home, he would lift his son high above his head, teach him martial arts from a young age, and ensure he never lacked for food or clothing.

At the thought of this, Dongmen Bao couldn't help but burst into delighted laughter. This new father, whose head was full of nothing but his son, only obliquely mentioned that he missed his wife too — right at the very end of the letter.

Next was Xiao Tao. He had a stutter and couldn't speak smoothly; after struggling for ages, all he managed to squeeze out was the word "Father." Xiao Tao was also someone who cared deeply about others' feelings, and, afraid of holding up the people behind him, he said he wouldn't write one after all. Hei Fu simply set down his brush and suggested: how about he write the whole thing for him instead?

Xiao Tao always followed Hei Fu's word without question and immediately agreed. Hei Fu had a rough understanding of Xiao Tao's family background, so, imitating his tone, he asked with concern whether Xiao Tao's father, who had lost the use of one hand, "was in good health?" Then he lavished praise on Xiao Tao, saying he had fought bravely, was now a Shangzao rank-holder, and commanded ten men in the army.

He also told Xiao Tao's father that from now on, in the village hamlet, he could hold his head high and need never fear being bullied by anyone again!

When he finished writing, Hei Fu read it aloud to Xiao Tao once. After the reading, this simple, honest young man pressed his lips together, his eyes already red, and bowed deeply to Hei Fu with clasped hands.

"Wh-what the Centurion wrote... is, is exactly what I wanted to say!"

Someone once said: happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Hei Fu felt this saying was wrong. Happiness and unhappiness are often intertwined and tangled together, and it's hard to draw a clear line between them.

The lives reflected in each man's words were all different. In just a single afternoon, Hei Fu had swiftly taken in the happiness and unhappiness of each of his subordinates, as if he had lived through dozens of different lives.

Even after he set down his brush, the stories of these men still circled in Hei Fu's mind like a revolving lantern.

By this time, the sky was nearly dark. Li Xian and Gong Ao both came over to report that they had each written about thirty letters, and that every soldier in the camp had now received his own letter home.

Though his arm ached and he was somewhat tired, seeing the soldiers — who, in days past, had furrowed their brows and worn bitter faces from homesickness — now each clutching his own letter home, showing it off to one another and laughing heartily, Hei Fu felt this bit of hard work was nothing.

Once the words in their hearts had been written down in their letters home, everyone's anxious unease seemed to have been sent away along with them. This could be seen as a way of channeling and releasing their emotions.

"Next, I can only hope that, through Li You's connections, we can persuade the Governor of Nan Commandery to hand these letters over to the postal and courier stations, and have them delivered to the eighteen counties, the hundred-odd townships, the thousands of village hamlets, and into the hands of all those different people across Nan Commandery."

In this world, there is no letter that does not need to reach its destination.

Every letter home is a longing that must be conveyed.

"It's not just the letters home that need to reach their destination."

Hei Fu looked at his subordinates and thought to himself: "When this war ends, I must bring all of you back as well!"

Every one of them, just like Hei Fu, had been swept along by the great currents of the age, with no control over their own fate. They were forced to fight in war after war, their lives at risk on the battlefield at any moment, this destiny seemingly stretching on with no end in sight.

In the brutality of war, they clung to their identity as warriors, becoming fierce and irascible, even erasing their own individuality, striving to become part of a single whole.

But from the endless exhortations, the repetitive, the never-ending inquiries and narrations in their letters home, one could see it clearly. All of them, in the end, were creatures of flesh and blood. Beneath the rugged boldness, there still lay soft humanity and deep familial love. Every single one of them was unique.

Without his noticing it, Hei Fu suddenly realized that, since arriving in this era, the time he had spent together with his comrades-in-arms had long since surpassed the time spent with his family...

"A squad of five or ten is like kin; a company of a hundred is like friends." This saying had now become reality.

In this war that was historically doomed to defeat, Hei Fu had to not only preserve his own life, but also do his utmost to preserve the lives of his hundred-odd subordinates.

While Hei Fu's group was making relatively quick progress, the soldiers in the nearby camps were still queuing up, noisily writing their letters home, and would likely be busy until the next day.

Hei Fu also heard people say that Li You, too, had heeded his suggestion. He personally inspected the camp, and in several tents, he condescended to set brush to tablet and wrote letters home for a few ordinary soldiers.

Those men were so moved that they trembled from head to toe and prostrated themselves on the ground in kowtow before Li You.

In the eyes of ordinary soldiers, a Commandant was a high official, lofty and far above them. Yet now he had lowered himself to inquire after them, and had even amiably written their letters home for them. And that beautiful seal-script handwriting — they felt that once the letter home was sent back, it would bring glory to their entire family!

It was easy to imagine: Li You had not only won the unto-death loyalty of these few men, but had also captured the hearts of the Nan Commandery troops.

Of course, by now quite a few people knew that it was Heifu who had persuaded the Commandant to let everyone write letters home. When Heifu went out to the latrine, he noticed that in the neighboring camp, someone was cupping their hands toward him from a distance.

His new nickname, "Letters Home Centurion," would spread through the Southern Commandery troops — but this time, it was filled with gratitude, without the slightest mockery.

Heifu smiled and returned the salute, then walked back to the now-empty military drill ground, sat down in his familiar spot, and by the last light of the setting sun, lifted his brush, dipped it full of ink, and began to write the final letter.

This was his own letter home.

"Ninth month, dingsi day. Heifu dares to bow again and ask after Zhong: Is Mother in good health? Are Zhong and Jing in good health? Heifu is also in good health. I am now in Yangcheng, serving as a short-weapon centurion under the Commandant. The Commandant treats me with great kindness..."

(End of chapter)