neighbours for this. Or am I wrong?" Nodding his head to some of his own thoughts, he walked towards the road. Li Zicheng gazed after him for a while, silent, then got up, grabbing a handful of earth mixed with ash in his glove, pulled out a piece of canvas from his bosom and wrapped the earth in it. He put the bag behind the lapel of his robe and looked once again around the burned village with a cold glance. His distracted attention was suddenly riveted by a hawk flying over the road. The bird of prey gave a shrill, sharp cry and rushed into the sky with lightning speed. Li Zicheng watched the predator carefully. What he saw instilled a vague premonition in the young man's heart: now his life will be somewhat similar to the life of a hawk, filled with the same tiresome stalking of prey.
第二章
Chapter 2
The messenger arrived early in the morning, and by lunchtime, the camp of the rebellion fleet looked like a disturbed hive.
A diverse rebel army was preparing for its first battle. Ragged, starved and exhausted by long walks and anxious, sleepless nights, they were still preparing to fight.
Li came out of the tent of Liu Hei, the Chief of this army, with an ambiguous feeling. Li was torn between anger and empathy. He couldn't bear the thought of the savageness of his enemy, but he felt a warriors sadness, knowing that most of his troops wouldn't survive the next battle. Only a person who was ignorant of military affairs could be intimidated by this horde. And how can several dozen hastily armed and barely trained common man and herders could even be called an army? Li shook his head and went to his fire to convey the words of the rebel leader to his companion and teacher Luo Yang. Old Luo was dozing, sitting in a meditative pose in front of almost extinguished fire embers. It seemed that the general turmoil was passing unnoticed by his consciousness.
As soon as Zicheng approached the fire, the old man opened his eyes and waved a welcoming gesture to Li. Li placed himself on the mat that was replacing both a tent and a bed for him in recent days.
They came to Liu Hei's detachment ten days ago, after almost a month of wandering through the nearby deserted villages in search of someone who could bring light on what happened in Mizhi. However, all the villages they visited along the way were either empty or turned into the same ashes. At the same time, Luo noted that not only citizens have been missing. Livestock, food, personal belongings were scattered around the area. It was a ghost town after a ghost town.
Old Luo stood on the outskirts of one of these villages, indulged in some kind of meditation known only to him. Zicheng, accustomed to such moments with their mentor, waited patiently for the old man to get back to him. Finally, Luo opened his eyes and said:
"It was bad timing on our behalf. I wouldn't mind being somewhere on the opposite borders of the Celestial Empire."
"Why is that?" Li asked. The old man chuckled.
"Can't you see for yourself?"
"I can only see deserted village."
Luo sighed.
"We need to harry up."
Zicheng was filled with anger. An empty village was no better than a village that had just been burned down: the smell of fear hung over everything, an elusive veil of hopelessness and imminent death. He grabbed his sword, but the old man held his hand.
"There's no one nearby," he grunted soothingly. "Only death and emptiness. We must search for survivors," the old man suddenly uttered. Li shook himself, throwing off the obsession with his last words and looked up at Luo Yang.
He continued to stroke his long moustache, thinking and finally, he said:
"Let's follow the footsteps of those who left the village. I think it will not be difficult for you: your army is chasing after cattle; they should be chasing after their people."
Li nodded. Indeed, he noticed the footsteps of the villagers immediately, as soon as he saw that the village was empty, and proceeded to inspect the area. Those tracks led to the spurs of the nearest mountains.
"What else do you think all this smells like, except death and desolation?" He muttered gloomily.
They came across the front pickets of the rebels the very next day. The sun was going down, and Li was already looking for a place to sleep when two men armed with pikes came out onto the trail. It took less than a second for Li to realise that he was not a trained man.
"Who are you?" One of the armed men cried out with a guttural voice. It was a tall, middle-aged man in shabby, patched-up clothes. He pointed his spike right at the old man. However, he hasn't received any reaction from Luo.
"We are peaceful travellers, good man," Luo's voice was filled with humility and obedience. Zicheng followed the example of his mentor and bowed to the second stranger, a young man of no more than seventeen, from whose eys you sense fear.
The older man broke the silence and said:
"Follow me."
Li shrugged his shoulders, exchanged glances with the old man, and stepped off the path. The young man followed, nearly touching Luo Yang's back with his long spear.
After a while, tired of the painful silence, the old man asked:
"And who would you be? What do you want from peaceful travellers?"
"How will you prove, strangers, that you are exactly what you seem to be?"
"Why do we need to prove you anything?" Zicheng chuckled. The man walking in front stopped abruptly and directed his pike exactly towards Li's heart.
In less than a second, Li grabbed the spike with his left hand and pulled men towards himself, landing a punch right to his jaw with his right hand.
Before the man had time to fall to the ground, his pike was in the hands of Zicheng, and its sting was looking in his direction. He froze, having fallen to the ground, staring at the tip of his weapon pointing right at his eye. Meanwhile, Luo turned to face the young man at the rear and calmly took the peak from his fear-bound hands.
"That's better," the wise man smiled as if apologising and patted the numb guy on the shoulder. Li put his pike aside and reached out his right hand to help him stand up. The man glared at him:
"I don't need pity from you! If you have taken me down, finish me!'
"I don't like to kill for no reason," Zicheng snapped,
"We are not here to fight you. We are all on the same side. Take me to your commander warrior," The peasant kneeled and shook his head in disbelief.
"This is not the time and place to drop down on your knees," he muttered, somewhat embarrassed by an unexpected situation, as he turned from a prisoner into a celestial with a blink of an eye. "You'd better get us to your leader as soon as possible. We want to talk to him.
"Yes, of course," the men rushed up and, nodding to his young partner and picking up the spear, headed into the forest, constantly looking back at the unusual companions. The young guard had already forgotten about his duties and walked alongside the famous wise man, bombarding him with a heap of questions like "how long have you been travelling?", or "which province did you like the most?'.
The older warrior, whose name was Tang, led them to the tent of the rebel leader Liu Hei, former tax collector-turned-Chief, who enjoyed the undoubted popularity among his associates. This could be seen even by the extremely respectful tone in which young Liang, the second guard from the lane, spoke
