Chapter 48: The Old Soldier

There were many beggars in the prefectural city, and Liu Chengzong had seen plenty of beggars — so many that in Fushi he looked at beggars as if he didn't see them at all.

But this beggar was different. He wore a mandarin-duck battle jacket with a center-front opening. Even with the black side facing out, covered in grime, mixed among a crowd of beggars being shooed away by a waiter, Liu Chengzong could still recognize it — that was cavalry clothing.

The jacket was red on the outside and black on the inside, with narrow sleeves above and reaching below the knees — the most basic military garment of the Ming dynasty.

Military collars came in four types: cross-collar, coiled-collar, round-collar, and square-collar; the front closure came in two types: side-fastening and center-front opening.

Infantry jackets were side-fastening; cavalry jackets, designed for ease in mounting horses, were center-front opening.

This outfit made Liu Chengzong, who had just taken a cup of thick wine handed over by Cao Yao from the wine shop, take notice of this man. As it happened, their four horses were tethered outside the wine shop and he was worried about them being stolen, so he took the wine pot and a wooden wine cup, came out, and sat on the stable railing, drinking as he watched.

The man was mixed in with the beggar crowd, looking as if he were being pushed out — or perhaps he himself was unwilling to keep company with beggars — standing at the outermost edge, hovering at a distance.

His face was gaunt, his long hair disheveled, and he had a pair of drowsy, white-sclera-showing eyes that carried a ruthless edge. It was impossible to tell his exact age; he seemed to be past forty.

When the waiter from the wine shop chased and struck him a few times, he did not get angry or hit back; he simply dodged away and crouched by the wall base where the sun could reach him, staring fixedly at the waiter. After a long while, he rose again.

Liu Chengzong followed the direction of his movement and looked over. It turned out a group of people who looked like merchants were walking out of the inn across the way, and the man had followed the other beggars to go beg for food again.

The scarcer the resources for survival, the higher the cost of being a great benefactor. Especially in famine years when the poor were many, you could save one person but not a crowd — not to mention that in times like these, everyone had their own hardships, and very few people felt in their hearts that they ought to help others.

The two merchants and their attendants walked out of the inn while conversing. They had not taken more than a couple of steps before they were surrounded by a crowd of beggars. Each covered his nose, sighed, and shrank away as if they could not avoid them fast enough. The attendants surged forward to separate the beggars, and only then, with faces full of disgust, did they scatter a handful of copper coins.

This sent the beggars scrambling over one another to snatch them up from the ground. The man also tried to squeeze forward, but he was no match for the beggars' numbers and unity of purpose; he was even knocked to the ground in the scramble. In the end, dusty and disheveled, he got up and ran to a corner, having managed to keep only two copper coins. He held them in his hands, carefully blew them clean, and placed them inside his shirt.

"Brother, what are you looking at? Why don't you come inside?"

Seeing Chengyun come out, Liu Chengzong came back to his senses. He looked at his cousin and grinned, patting him and sending him off: "Go to the shop and buy some dry provisions. I need them."

Chengyun did not know what his second brother wanted, but he nodded and agreed anyway, briskly walking into the Watchtower across the way. Before long, he came out carrying a bundle of steamed cakes and said, "Brother, the shop only has cakes left for dry provisions. They're a bit cold — want me to have the shopkeeper heat them over the fire?"

Liu Chengzong waved his hand. "No need. Also, get me some loose silver."

Having said that, he took the paper bundle and held it in his hand, then asked for five mace of loose silver. He divided it into two portions in his waist pouch and walked toward the man.

"Are you a soldier?"

The man did not know Liu Chengzong's purpose. He drew back slightly, lowered his body, hunched his neck, nodded, and said with an ingratiating smile, "Commander, this old fellow has been a soldier."

The motion of his lowering his head let Liu Chengzong see a hole in his right ear, revealed through his disheveled hair, which further confirmed his identity as a soldier.

This was a mark of having undergone punishment in the army — an arrow pierced through the ear, usually used to punish soldiers who got drunk and brawled or damaged the farmhouses of commoners. But only commanders with extremely strict military discipline would use it; it was called Ear-Piercing Camp Parade.

"Where did you serve? How did you become a beggar?"

"Beggar? I'm not a beggar."

The man said this with extreme seriousness, but then seemed a little embarrassed after speaking and added quietly, "I just picked up a couple of coins, that's all. I work as a porter at Shunyang Gate. There's been no work for days — all that comes are pushcarts, and they won't let me do it. I can only come into the city to pick up a few things."

Hearing these words, and connecting them with what the man had just done, Liu Chengzong understood.

No wonder the beggars pushed him out. It wasn't that the beggars were pushing him out — it was entirely that he was stealing the fruits of the beggars' labor.

He hadn't bowed to anyone; he hadn't kowtowed to anyone; he just waited for people to throw money on the ground, then went over and picked the money up.

"Why won't they let you push carts?"

The man extended his left hand and smiled, a somewhat complicated smile. That hand, covered in filth, was missing its thumb, making even the most ordinary gesture seem shocking. "I actually can do it, it's just that they think I can't push."

"Fought the northern caitiffs?"

The man lowered his head and smiled, saying nothing more. Seeing he was unwilling to speak, Liu Chengzong did not press him. He raised his hand and handed over the paper bundle of cakes, adding the five mace of loose silver, and said, "Strangers brought together by chance, both having been soldiers — take this and live a good life."

This gesture stunned the man. It took him a moment to react, and then he hurriedly gave thanks, even asking, "Commander, which battalion are you an officer of?"

"I'm no commander — this is old armor."

Having said that, he saw Cao Yao and Lu Bin come out of the wine shop after drinking, and together with Chengyun they were waiting for him at the inn entrance. So he clasped his fists and said, "I'm Liu Chengzong, a militiaman of Black Dragon Mountain in the northern district. Farewell."

When he reached the front of the inn, Cao Yao said with a mocking laugh, "Little Lion, you're quite kind-hearted. I can see that man's a soldier. Giving him cakes saves him for a moment but not a lifetime. If you really wanted to help him, you should have given him a blade."

Cao Yao's mind worked a little differently from normal people, which made Liu Chengzong laugh. "You just can't stand the thought of peace under heaven. Why would I give him a blade? He wants to live a stable life.

He works as a porter at the south of the city and only came begging because he couldn't get any work. Give him a blade so he can be like Guo Zhashi, using a knife to kowtow to people?"

In Liu Chengzong's view, his helping that old soldier had nothing to do with the old soldier himself — it only had to do with himself. He saw his own reflection in that man, and that was why he wanted to lend a hand.

As for Cao Yao's intermittent bandit mentality, he simply pretended he hadn't heard it.

The group entered the inn, and a waiter led them to the shared room in the rear courtyard that Chengyun had booked early.

Fushi County was a mountain city. The Watchtower's shared room was not upstairs or in the shop front, but required passing through the inn's rear courtyard, which held a millstone and was adjacent to the storehouse. It was a cave dwelling, and on the hillside beside the cave dwelling was a stockpile of firewood enough for half a year's use.

The cave dwelling's entrance was tall and spacious, and the inside was also very deep. The ceiling was reinforced with thick raw-log beams. Half of the cave interior was a wide earthen kang, laid with bed planks and padded with several thin mattresses.

Apart from this, the only thing there was a wooden water bucket sitting on a square stool behind the door.

"This room really is, damn it, made purely for sleeping."

Cao Yao chuckled, tapping here and fiddling with things there, and finally sat cross-legged on the kang. "There's nothing here but the bed!"

"Having a room to sleep in is good enough. You're strange — after all these years of struggling in mountain forests and old temples, you're still particular about where you sleep?"

Liu Chengzong's words made Cao Yao purse his lips. "What, just because I've dug pits in the dirt and rolled in the mud, I'm not allowed to want a good life?"

"Fine, fine, live a good life. When we get back, go to that cave dwelling behind my house and live a few good days with your wife.

I'll go roll in the dirt at Old Temple Village myself..." Liu Chengzong sat down on the edge of the kang with a mischievous grin, then furrowed his brow and waved his hand. "Where's Chengyun? I'm still waiting for him to calculate the grain consumption for the twenty-four households of refugees. Where did he go?"

He hadn't noticed.

Cao Yao, however, had some guess. He leaned in and said, "I really need to watch my mouth from now on. Most likely your brother heard me talking and went to chat with the innkeeper to avoid any suspicion."