PFC Chapter 6 Cold Cicada
Chapter 6 Cold Cicada
Night descended swiftly, like a rusty iron plate, pressed firmly against this cursed land of Zhili.
The parched, cracked earth, still carrying a lingering warmth from the daytime heat, turned bitterly cold at night. The north wind swept past the base of the walls, swirling dust and an indescribable, pungent stench of decay that seeped into one's nostrils. It was the rustling of years of withered grass mixed with freshly dead corpses rotting beneath the soil.
Several people huddled together in the sheltered part of the earthen slope, and no one suggested starting a fire.
In this region during the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, firelight brought more disaster than grain. As long as a glimmer of light appeared on the dark horizon, stray dogs, rioters, or scattered soldiers from within a ten-mile radius could follow that light.
So they simply huddled closer together, each huddled in their tattered coats, trying to shield themselves from the wind with their bare bones. The clothes were already so ragged that when the wind got in, it felt like a dull knife scraping their flesh.
No one spoke at first.
After walking all day and witnessing the carnage of corpses during the day, one's mind is completely drained, leaving no strength even to speak. Yet, the silence only intensifies the anxiety. In this pitch-black plain, no one knows whether the person sitting beside them is fast asleep or staring intently at the tiny living creature in their arms with gleaming green eyes.
Li Qian leaned against the cold, hard earthen ridge, his body turned to the side, his breathing even and deep, as if he were extremely tired. But he hadn't slept a wink. His hand remained pressed against the grain sack, and the sharp knife, freshly drained of horse blood, lay across his leg.
He distributed his body weight very steadily, his spine pressed firmly against the loess soil. If there was even the slightest abnormal tremor around him, he could instantly stand up and lock his throat.
The sounds at night were very faint. Someone rolled over and pressed down on the dry soil, making a soft crunching sound; someone else's throat was so dry that they couldn't help but swallow hard.
Half the night had passed when a series of very light footsteps circled around a bend and slowly approached Li Qian.
Stop three steps in front of him.
Li Qian didn't open his eyes, nor did his breathing change. But he could smell the rancid sweat and the chilling greed. The man stared at him, at the grain sack, for a good dozen breaths, before finally shrinking back in the face of the cold, menacing aura of the blade.
Li Qian didn't move, but he had already memorized the depth of those footsteps. In this desolate wasteland of the tenth year of the Xianfeng reign, no one was clean, and he was no exception. Everyone lived like cicadas in the cracks of the earth, struggling to survive as long as they had a breath left.
The night continued to deepen.
In the latter half of the night, the boy huddled in the corner became restless, tossing and turning until he finally curled up into a ball, burying his face in his arms and making gasping sounds like a small animal. He wasn't crying; he was starving, his internal organs churning inside him.
The disheveled woman beside him clung tightly to a tattered swaddled baby. Though the baby was silent, it was her only hope, the last vestige of humanity in this apocalyptic world. Li Qian closed his eyes, listening to the woman's soft swaying, but his heart was as cold as ice.
When the sky turned a little gray, the wind picked up a sticky dampness, and the outline of the horizon slowly appeared like a row of crooked ghostly shadows, the night finally receded.
Li Qian then opened his eyes; they were bloodshot eyes, sharp as a hawk's, from staying up all night.
Others also got up one after another. Some people's first reaction was to touch the tattered cloth bag at their waist to make sure that the loose silver or rotten charcoal inside was still there before they breathed a sigh of relief.
No one mentioned what happened last night. Talking about it would only make things awkward, and if it's not said, everyone understands what the other person is thinking.
Old Zhao coughed, his voice hoarse as if it had been ground on gravel: "Since we're going to travel together, we should at least recognize each other. If I die on the road one day, everyone will know who died."
Old Zhao spoke first. His face, in the morning light, resembled a withered pumpkin, its wrinkles etched with bitterness: "My surname is Zhao. My ancestors were farmers in Shuntian Prefecture. Originally, there were three people in my family. Last year, one starved to death, and this year, another was separated from us due to famine. Now, only this old man is left. This gentleman is Brother Sun Deshan from Baoding Prefecture. He's a former镖师 (bodyguard/escort). That's Awang, my poor nephew. And this is the wife of the Wang family from our village."
Li Qian looked at Sun Deshan, who was protecting the woman. The man had broad shoulders, and although his eyes held a fierce look born of hunger, he was fundamentally tough.
When it was Li Qian's turn, several pairs of eyes, burning with hunger, stared at him.
Li Qian didn't look at them, only uttering five words: "Li Qian, from the north."
"The north is all the same, utterly rotten." Old Zhao nodded, his tone filled with despair.
Li Qian stood there, listening to their voices fade away, but a heavy feeling welled up inside him. He recalled the old books he had read before, which read: "When the emperor is tyrannical, the people are treated like fish and meat."
I used to think it was just the grumbling of a pedantic scholar.
But now, he stood on this loess soil of Zhili, looking at these few "Qing dynasty weeds" with broken spines. It was the tenth year of Xianfeng's reign, and the cannons of the Anglo-French allied forces had already blasted open the Dagu Fortress. The Xianfeng Emperor, who called himself the ruler of all people, was leading his court officials to flee for their lives in Rehe.
The country has collapsed, and its roots are rotten.
He sneered inwardly. What prosperous age? What rule of law? In this damned world, the law is no match for a bag of rice, and the emperor is no match for a knife.
"Old Zhao," Li Qian suddenly spoke, his voice low but steady enough to drown out the whispers around him, "You're not still thinking of going to the capital to beg for a meager living, are you?"
Old Zhao paused for a moment, then instinctively replied, "The capital is the center, so there has to be an official in charge..."
"What do you care?" Li Qian interrupted him, his eyes sharp as knives. "The foreigners' cannons are already at the city gates, and even the Emperor has fled. If you head north now, you won't be going to drink porridge; you'll be filling mass graves for the mutinous soldiers. The Qing Dynasty is already at rock bottom."
Upon hearing this, Sun Deshan's hand trembled violently. To them, such treasonous words were more startling than thunder.
"Then...then what you said last night about going south?" Awang asked in a trembling voice.
"South. To southern Yunnan." Li Qian stared into the darkness of the south, repeating his words from the previous night, "There the mountains are high and the forests are dense, and the emperor is far away. If you want to live, come with me. If you don't want to live, go to the capital to thank the emperor."
Old Zhao stared at Li Qian. He had never seen such a daring young man before, but in those days when people were preying on each other, such ruthless people were often the only way to survive.
Before they could respond, Li Qian untied the grain bag at his waist.
In that instant, the air changed.
Everyone's breathing suddenly became heavy, and Sun Deshan's hand unconsciously tightened its grip on the stone slab.
Li Qian didn't look at them, reached in, grabbed a handful, then another handful.
Separately. One serving for each person.
Each portion was given out very steadily and in very small quantities—just enough to keep you alive, but never giving you the strength to even think of snatching it. This was not merely the distribution of grain; it was the first nail called "order" that Li Qian drove into the ground in the final days of the Xianfeng era.
"Eat, finish eating, then continue on your way."
When Li Qian handed the grain to Awang, the boy's hands trembled like leaves. Old Zhao took the grain, his lips moved, and finally he nodded heavily to Li Qian: "I've got it."
That single "I've got it" carries more weight than a thousand promises.
The group quickly began to eat, no one spoke, only the sounds of swallowing rose and fell. They ate quickly and urgently, as if racing against death. Some choked, coughing until tears streamed down their faces, but they tightly covered their mouths, afraid of spitting out a single grain of rice.
Li Qian didn't eat immediately. He stood at the highest point of the earthen slope and watched as Wang's wife also began to numbly put millet into her mouth.
He recalled the saying: "When a dynasty prospers, the people suffer; when a dynasty falls, the people suffer."
In truth, the common people were not suffering. In the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, the common people did not even have the right to suffer; they were merely the leaves rotting under this decaying tree.
He will pick up these rotten leaves and, in the far south, knead them into a piece of steel.
Li Qian finally lowered his head, slowly chewed his portion, and swallowed it. Each swallow felt like devouring the bloodshed of this chaotic world, transforming it into the strength to carve a path through the mountains to the south.
After finishing his meal, he tied the bag tightly around his waist. His hand remained on the bag, and the knife was still at his side.
"Old Zhao, gather your things. Brother Sun, go ahead and clear the way. We're not taking the main road; we're going straight into the woods."
The faint dawn cast long, thin shadows. They looked like a group of ghosts who had broken free of their chains, heading towards the distant Yunnan in the shadow of the gradually collapsing Qing Dynasty.
"Go, don't look back."
Li Qian's voice carried far on the wind, like the last, unwilling chirping of a cicada on this land repeatedly plagued by famine.