Chapter 8

The county troops arrived three days later—had the Goguryeo people not retreated, the county town would have been ravaged several times over by now—and then Young Master Shi planned to return to the county seat of Xian with the county troops. Before leaving, he called over Ah Fei and said, "You saved my life, and I will never forget it—however, your archery skills still need to be honed."

Ah Fei blushed and tried to find an excuse, "This... the bow is too weak, and the arrows lack maintenance..."

Actually, the day after the Goguryeo people retreated, Old Wang from next door had dragged him, intending to return to Qiongao. But Ah Fei was afraid that there might still be enemy cavalry outside the city, making it too dangerous to leave now. Additionally, he harbored a glimmer of hope that Young Master Shi would keep his promise of "a generous reward."

At that moment, Young Master Shi smiled faintly—now he had returned to his initial calm and composed demeanor, no longer the disheveled figure who had planned to flee through the south gate on that dark night—and pointed to the old bow that Ah Fei never let go of: "Unfortunately, there are no good bows in the county, so I will temporarily give you this one. I will inform the county magistrate."

No! Ah Fei screamed inwardly, do you think you can get rid of me with a broken bow? And it's not even your own property. How stingy and despicable must you be to come up with such a cunning plan!

Fortunately, Young Master Shi continued, "I don't have much wealth, but since I have made a promise, I will not break it. I will leave a note for you. If you have the time, come to Xian to claim your reward."

He then asked for ink and a bamboo strip, and wrote in neat Han script: "Nanhai Clan rewards the barbarian Ah Fei..."

Ah Fei watched him write, and suddenly realized that Young Master Shi's surname was not Shi at all. In fact, he should be called Young Master Clan. This surname was quite rare, and he even prefixed it with his hometown, Qingzhou's Beihai County, indicating that the Clan family had a significant background. Logically, the next part should be the amount of the reward. Ah Fei kept shouting in his heart, "Ten thousand gold! Ten thousand gold! No... in such a remote place, even the local tyrants wouldn't have that much money. One hundred gold, then. I'll accept the loss if I get one hundred gold."

Who would have thought that Young Master Clan would write, "... rewards the barbarian Ah Fei one hundred and fifty coins, hereby recorded."

What the hell! Only one hundred and fifty coins, and even with change! So your life is only worth a hundred and some coins? How stingy and despicable must you be! Ah Fei almost pounced on him, snatched the bamboo strip, and gave Young Master Clan a good beating.

Of course, he didn't have the courage. Honestly, for someone like him, who might not see a single coin all year, one hundred and fifty coins was already a huge fortune. Although Ah Fei didn't know the current prices, he estimated that it could at least feed his family of three for a whole year.

Later, he left the county with the bamboo strip, and Old Wang followed, incessantly asking how much Young Master Clan had rewarded him. When "one hundred and fifty coins" came out of his mouth, Old Wang's eyes changed, and he bent his waist, his hand instinctively reaching for a stone by the roadside. If Ah Fei hadn't shouted in time and shown the old bow, Old Wang might have "murdered his teacher" on the spot.

Ah Fei originally planned to go home, say goodbye, and head to Xian. No matter how insignificant one hundred and fifty coins seemed, for him at this time, he would do anything to get them. He started to consider that staying in that poor mountain village would mean either starving to death or dying of boredom, and as his new body grew, he would need to address his physiological needs...

He should go back and ask his father how he, with such a lowly status, managed to trick a woman with relatively intact limbs into marrying him.

So, he considered whether to take this opportunity to get closer to Young Master Clan and become a servant in his household. Although theoretically, farmers were free people, and servants had no personal freedom, when one couldn't even afford to eat, who would care about freedom?

However, when he returned home, he was greeted by a chilling scene—his so-called home had only three mud walls, with the fourth side covered by bundles of wood. Now, the wood was scattered on the ground, and two of the three mud walls had been smashed by some unknown force...

Ah Fei widened his eyes and rushed into the house, only to see his adoptive parents lying in a pool of congealed blood, each with a long, deep wound on their backs, the flesh torn and twisted, looking like the gaping maw of a demon ready to devour a person!

Ah Fei stood there, stunned, feeling his blood turn cold, almost freezing. In fact, he had only lived with this couple for one winter, and many of the memories of this body's past still lingered in his consciousness, but the emotions had not. He had no familial bond with them. Neither his father nor his mother ever spoke much, and they never had any emotional interaction with their theoretical son. For Ah Fei, this couple was more like landlords for the winter.

However, after a whole winter, a winter that seemed so short in the grand scheme of life but felt so long when experienced, this was the first time Ah Fei faced death so closely, and such a tragic death...

In his previous life, his parents had died early, and as a child, he couldn't fully comprehend death. Then came the deaths of friends and girlfriends—what he experienced in another era was more like a separation. He spent an entire winter preparing himself mentally, and just as the sorrow began to fade, he faced another death in this life.

He stared at the two stiffened bodies, his limbs, neck, eyelids, and pupils all seeming to freeze. He couldn't look away. At that moment, it seemed as if everything in the world had ceased to exist, and all the hunger, cold, and pain seemed to have never existed. His mind was blank...

After an unknown amount of time, he heard Old Wang's mournful cries from next door. He was crying over his old dog.

This was likely the work of the Goguryeo soldiers who had invaded the Lelang commandery. They not only killed people but also looted the little seed grain the two families had, and even roasted and ate Old Wang's old dog, taking the skin and leaving only some bones with tooth marks.

Later, Ah Fei comforted Old Wang, saying that the old dog might not have been eaten. The scattered bones on the ground could be from a badger the Goguryeo people had hunted, and they might have taken the dog because it was good at hunting. Of course, he didn't believe this himself, but Old Wang didn't contradict him, only asking, "What is a badger?"

In the end, Ah Fei dug a shallow grave and buried the couple who were theoretically his parents. After the initial shock, he recovered faster than Old Wang, who was devastated by the loss of his dog. If he were the original owner of this body, he would have been a completely cold-blooded and cruel person, even despising himself.

When he moved the stiff bodies, he felt as if he was carrying his own corpse. When he placed the bodies in the grave, he felt as if he was lying in the crude tomb himself. When he filled the grave with soil, he felt as if he was covering his own face with dirt...

War, chaos, and death—this was the era he had crossed into, the almost inevitable fate he would face. Could this not be changed? Would he also meet the same fate? If so, who would bury him? Would he become food for wolves, crows, or even ants, born and decaying silently...

After filling the grave, Ah Fei removed the blade from a wooden hoe and placed it on the grave. He then picked up a stone knife to carve some words but didn't know what to write. He didn't know his parents' names; they usually just called each other "you." In the end, he struggled to carve the characters "Kao" and "Bi" in Song style.

Old Wang watched in surprise, "You, how do you know how to write?"

"Do you recognize them?"

"No, no... I can't read."

"So these aren't words," Ah Fei sighed, "just symbols."

"What are symbols?"

The next day, Ah Fei packed a bag of wild vegetables and fruits and set out on the uncertain journey to Xian. The journey was undoubtedly dangerous, but he had an old bow, which would deter ordinary bandits. Of course, they didn't see the quail feathers in his bag, or they wouldn't have been so polite to this half-grown boy.

He first returned to the county and went to the Clan family's warehouse to gather information. There were a few familiar faces from the night they had planned to escape through the south gate with Young Master Clan. They knew he had saved the young master's life and treated him politely. Indeed, Clan had already returned to Xian, but he might not have entered the city, staying instead at the family estate north of the Lie River.

The Lie River was a large river that flowed north of Xian, and according to Ah Fei's memory from another life, it must be the Taedong River next to Pyongyang.

The distance from the county to the Clan family estate was not far, less than a hundred miles. Ah Fei spent the entire day traveling and finally reached the estate in the evening. It was a large complex of buildings, surrounded by a wooden fence and with crude arrow towers at the corners. Before he could find the entrance, a pack of fierce dogs suddenly appeared, barking madly and lunging at his throat!