WHAT NOW GROWS WEAK, ONCE GREW STRONG...
Lao Tzu (Laozi)
Look upon the emerald vale, the sacred Song Mountain in the Yellow River's trail,
the road that winds to the imperial throne, to Luoyang, where a thousand years have flown.
Look upon the Land in the Cypress Hollow, where warrior monks of Shaolin follow.
See the footsteps of those who came before,the whispering peaks, the waterfalls' roar.
Where Songshan's dark mass climbs into the skies —there they remain,Forgotten allies.
What lingers still is legend, fire, and sacred ground.
Luoyang had been holding out for nearly eight months. The siege of the city by Li Shimin's forces was tightening its grip, drawing an ever-narrower ring around the former royal capital. Inside the walls, the encircled troops of Wang Shichong, his hostages, and the trapped civilians were beginning to feel the full weight of the blockade.
Standing atop the fortress, the rebellious general Wang clenched his teeth so hard in fury he nearly broke them, staring down at the surging army of Li Shimin below — a tide of soldiers storming the city's northern gate beneath the stronghold. Moments later, one of his officers rushed up to him.
"General Wang! They've begun attacking the two southern gates as well!"
"Do not retreat!" Wang hissed through clenched teeth. "I said no retreat! Not a single step back!"
"We sent out the last sacks of grain yesterday! Hunger is spreading through the city! The soldiers are weakening! They'll break through any day now!"
"Silence!" Wang roared, turning to strike the officer harshly across the face. "That bastard Li Shimin wants to ride into Chang'an as the new Emperor — preferably with my head on a pike!"
"This won't be another Yanshi, where Li Mi failed to break us!" the officer protested, rubbing his stinging cheek.
Wang furrowed his brows but held his tongue. His face brightened slightly as another soldier came sprinting along the battlements toward them.
"General! They've returned!" the man panted.
"And?"
"Hebei is sending reinforcements!"
"Dou Jiande?" Wang asked.
"Yes, sir," the soldier confirmed.
"How many?"
"One hundred and twenty thousand, General!"
"And only now!?" Wang raged, pounding his fists against the wall above the fortress.
"But that's a good thing, General," mumbled the officer who had previously been slapped. "We'll catch Li Shimin in a pincer."
"A pincer? How exactly? The army is already severely weakened! I sent him an appeal at the end of the year! The first messengers went to Hebei in December! And only now does he see fit to respond to my pleas? This is his idea of help?! When you're asked for bread, don't give a stone! You'll get your stone, Jiande! You'll see!" Wang cursed the Prince of Xia with vengeance.
"But General..."
"What now?" Wang shouted, not turning around, his furious gaze locked on the battle at the walls.
"Only two returned..." stammered the young soldier who had arrived second.
"Two?!" Wang's face fell instantly, and he turned around at once. "And where are the rest?"
"Captured... by Li Shimin's night watch… He definitely already knows that Jiande left Mingzhou."Wang was struck dumb. The blood seemed to drain from his face entirely. He went pale, and his eyes became clouded. He paced from one end of the fortress to the other, speaking his thoughts aloud.
"No surprise attack... hmm... But surprise or not, we still have the numerical advantage… Li Shimin can delay Jiande by a few days at most… But we can hold out that long… Set up two lines of crossbowmen above the Wangjing gate!" Wang shouted at last.The two men saluted him, straight as strings, and ran to deliver the order to the city's southern fortifications.
Meanwhile, in Li Shimin's camp, the captured envoys of Wang were being interrogated. They held their tongues for a long time—until they saw two of their comrades tied to the cangue, threatened with lingchi, the "death by a thousand cuts." The mere thought of its cruelty turned one's stomach to ice. Upon seeing that, the captives quickly confessed where they were returning from and what news they carried.
The report was immediately delivered to the prince. It was true that the prince was laying siege to the city, waiting for it to succumb to shortages. The city was heavily fortified. Throwing entire garrisons against its enormous bastions was like smashing one's head against a thick wall. Wang's rebels were to be battered by heat, lack of water, hunger, and disease. And up to that point, everything had gone according to Li Shimin's plan.
Li Shimin began his assault on Luoyang with fifty thousand men. The strategic goal of the prince was to secure the Yellow River valley all the way to the sea, in order to cut off the territories held by Dou Jiande from any southern allies. His rapid campaign instilled fear in Wang, deterring him from engaging in open confrontation. As a result, Wang decided to remain behind the walls of Luoyang.
From September 620, Li Shimin's troops began surrounding the city with a ring of fortified camps. The fiercest clashes around Luoyang revolved around supply convoys. Wang tried to defend them, while Li Shimin aimed to prevent them from reaching the city. His forces pushed further to the south, east, and north into the province, liberating most of central Henan from Wang's regime. Only two remote cities remained under Wang's control, incapable of offering him support.
Isolated in his capital, Wang Shichong became increasingly desperate, distraught, and aggressive, making futile attempts to break the siege. He sent out two cavalry raids, both of which engaged in heavy and bloody battles with Li Shimin's army. In each case, the prince's personal guard — a thousand heavily armored cavalrymen — crushed the enemy outside the ancient city walls of the thousand-year-old capital.
These defeats brought the siege ever closer to the city gates, and attacks from all directions began on a daily basis. By March — the seventh month of the siege — Luoyang's supply situation had drastically deteriorated. People dug into the earth in desperation, searching for traces of food, or ate cakes made from rice and mud. No one was spared the suffering of war, not even the highest officials. Of the thirty thousand prisoners held in Wang's palace, barely a tenth survived.
Still, Wang ignored all pleas to surrender, placing his final hopes in an intervention by Dou Jiande, to whom he had already sent emissaries in late 620. The threat lurking to the east had begun to stir. Marching to Wang's rescue was the Prince of Xia — Dou Jiande — leading a force of 120,000 men.
Li Shimin called a war council immediately after receiving the reports. The council took place in a circle among his officers and the most distinguished soldiers from the battles. A special place was held by a small group of warriors, known by the rest of the army as the "Thirteen from Henan." This group consisted of thirteen warrior monks from the Shaolin Buddhist temple, located forty-eight li from Luoyang, at the foot of the holy Song Mountain (Songshan). They had joined Li Shimin's campaign the previous year in the autumn, right at the beginning of the siege of Luoyang. They volunteered for the prince's army, and their fame had preceded them when, two years earlier in 616, the story spread across Henan about how these peaceful and serene Buddhist monks, followers of Bodhidharma's teachings, who were forbidden any violence, had crushed a gang of bandits trying to rob their temple.
These bandits had been plundering both the clergy and the common folk with impunity, taking advantage of the chaos in the state caused by the waning Sui dynasty and the succession battles among all the provinces. Only a close encounter with the Buddhist followers had stopped their raiding in the region around the Lao River, where they had terrorized the poor and smaller temples. The monks quickly gained fame among the local leaders and as defenders of the local population, so their fearless hearts and lion-like courage were highly welcomed in Li Shimin's army, which was increasingly emerging as a brilliant general and military strategist.
Everyone fell silent when the flaps of the tent flew aside with a loud rustling, and the prince stepped out to face the assembled soldiers. Li Shimin sat in the honored place, on a specially arranged platform, so he could see everyone who would speak. The prince appeared to be very energized and focused. His sharp eyes scanned the entire company, and it seemed as though he was listening intently to every whisper. Anyone who intended to speak furtively immediately fell silent under his piercing gaze.
"Either speak openly with courage, or remain silent!" said the prince, adjusting his long black ponytail that reached his shoulders and inspecting his officers.
Seeing that perfect silence had fallen, he spoke again:
"So, Jiande wants to cripple our rear, does he?"
"We don't know how fast they're marching, but judging by how hurried Wang's messengers were, he's no more than two, at most three days away from Luoyang." said the oldest of the generals.
"Hm..." Li Shimin sighed warily. "They never even had proper relations. The more conflict and fighting there was. Wang defeated Jiande's ally at Yanshi, and now he asks for his favor. What made him suddenly go to the enemy's aid?"
"Remember, my lord, that Jiande is a chivalrous man, one who is not unfamiliar with courage. And Shichong is a common bandit, who even alienated his own allies. Two of his most outstanding generals have crossed over to our side." said the oldest of the generals, looking at the two recent deserters from Shichong's army, Qin Shubao and Lou Shixin.
"Jiande has been known since his youth for his righteousness, honesty, and helpful hand to anyone he meets." another officer spoke up. "I once heard that he encountered a man whose parents had died. The man didn't have the money to arrange a funeral, so Dou immediately helped him dig graves and brought a priest whom he paid well. When his own father died, he refused all gifts offered by mourners. The entire region knows him for this kindness, and he is highly praised. He is a righteous and enlightened young man. Not greedy or vain. He built his state through wise reforms, while Shichong just plundered and idled away."
"But this time, he is not helping Shichong out of a good heart and righteousness." said the oldest of the generals, almost irritated by the officer's enumeration of the prince of Xia's virtues. "He must know that Wang wanted a treaty with us back in November and to share power in the empire. To which, the prince rightly refused. He knows that negotiating with us will give him nothing, but he has a sharp advisor at his court who, I am certain, has explained to him everything that needs to be done."
"Liu Bin..." said Li Shimin, stroking his chin and staring blankly into the empty space of the circle.
"Wang tried to break the encirclement, but he cannot break through. His men are weakening." the oldest general said. "We have already taken almost all of Henan, my lord. Luoyang is the last stronghold. If it falls, Jiande will be left alone on the battlefield. He is afraid that he will share Shichong's fate if you win."
"He is afraid that the Tang will annihilate Wang's state and then Xia's." added a younger officer. "He must have had a heavy heart until now. He couldn't ignore the threat posed by the Tang, but remember, my lord, that he wasn't entirely inclined to sever relations. He freed those of ours whom he had captured in 619. I'm sure that when Wang's appeal reached his court, he wasn't immediately eager to help him."
"Liu Bin is a sharp politician," said the oldest general, stepping to the center of the circle in front of Li Shimin. "He has carefully observed the situation and sees both, the danger and the opportunity. He was the one who ordered Dou to wait until spring before launching a rescue. I'm sure of it. If Luoyang falls, the next target for the Tang will be Dou. That's the danger. On the other hand, if Dou intervenes and saves Luoyang, it will be easy for him to remove the weakened Shichong from power and annex Henan to his kingdom. That's the opportunity. That's why Dou has been waiting until now. Until Wang's situation becomes irreversibly critical."
"So, relieve the besieged Luoyang to get rid of Shichong," Li Shimin muttered, looking around at the men sitting in the circle.
"What does Jiande think? The approach of the Xia army presents our army with a dilemma," said a younger officer, stepping up beside the general. "Without any prospect of reinforcements and the loyalty of the recently liberated cities in Henan, staying here, caught between Shichong's forces and Jiande's army, is a recipe for disaster!"
A murmur ran through the circle. Some held their breath at how the younger officer dared to speak to the prince, others at the real fear his warning evoked. The army could indeed soon be trapped, just like Luoyang, and the besieging forces might themselves become a besieged citadel. Only the oldest general watched the younger officer calmly, and it seemed he shared his concerns. The younger officer sighed with relief, knowing that the most experienced and cautious commander in their army was backing him.
"Your Highness..." the general began, bowing low to Li Shimin. "... it would be most prudent at this moment to break the siege and retreat west to Guanzhong."
The prince immediately rose to his feet, his eyes flashing with anger as he fixed his gaze on the general, despite always respecting his counsel and military talents.
"What?! What are you saying?!" the prince exclaimed, pacing back and forth on his platform.
After a moment, he calmed down a bit, standing in the center and saying:
"Do you have any idea what that would mean? Abandoning all of eastern China in favor of Dou Jiande and giving him such a huge gift without a fight! We would retreat like cowards!"
The prince shouted the last sentence loudly and with anger. It was clear the words were meant for everyone present—each man individually and all together. Instantly, all lowered their gaze like ashamed maidens. Li Shimin searched for even a single pair of eyes that, instead of showing doubt and resignation, sparked with strength and the will to act. And he found twenty-six. Only the "Thirteen from Henan" looked at him with bright, sharp eyes.
"What would you do, Tazong?" he asked the leader of the Shaolin monks.
"Retreating from Luoyang would mean two disasters, my lord," the monk replied, bowing to the prince with a Buddhist salutation. "Abandoning the plan to unify the realm, and endangering the very existence of the Tang dynasty. By ordering a retreat, you gain only what Wang holds now—uncertainty and waiting, whether for the end or the mercy of Heaven. I would not retreat a single step," the monk concluded, bowing once again.
"Do you agree with that, Shanhu?" the prince asked the second monk, their most gifted scribe and a man of exceptional discipline—someone not easily rattled.
"In the year 597, before a battle, the commander of the state of Jin considered retreating in the face of the superior forces of Chu. One of his officers told him this: 'Jin owes its status as hegemon to the courage of its soldiers and the strength of its generals. If we now lose the respect of the feudal lords, this can no longer be called strength. And if the enemy appears and we do not pursue him to the end, that is no longer courage. Rather than lose our hegemony through such cowardice, it is better to die. If an army has already been formed and set out on campaign, and then retreats because the enemy is too strong—this is not the conduct of a man.'" Shanhu said, staring intently at the two officers before the prince.
Both flushed red with shame, and a powerful murmur spread through the circle. The prince shifted his gaze from them to Shanhu, studying him carefully. He liked listening to Shanhu and often sought his counsel. Of all the thirteen, Shanhu was the most astute—one had the impression that all the knowledge of the world, the entire Scribes' Empire of the Han dynasty, was alive in that remarkably learned man.
The monk felt the prince's expectant gaze upon him, so he looked straight into his eyes and said:
"The chivalric tradition clearly states: a man entrusted by the ruler to lead an army must wish to see the matter through like a man." And seeing that he had made the desired impression on everyone present, he added, "As for retreat—leaving Jiande in control of the densely populated northeastern regions without a fight will quickly strengthen his regime and compel the rest of the Tang allies to acknowledge his authority. We must stop him, Your Highness!"
Li Shimin breathed a deep sigh of relief. The monks had shamed the entire army and once again proved their unwavering loyalty to the future emperor. No matter the battle or the debate, Li Shimin could always count on the supporting arm of Shaolin. Yet now, the prince stood before the most tragic and difficult decision of his life—as a man, a soldier, and a commander.
As a man, he could not turn away from the path he had once chosen. Whoever begins something and does not finish it cannot be respected. As a soldier, Shanhu's words rang in his mind—it was better to die than to tuck one's tail and flee. And as a commander, he had to prove through his own example the unbreakable spirit of leadership. Nine months of siege. Wounds. Blood. Pain. Death. Harsh weather. Effort and sacrifice from his soldiers and himself. How could he turn away from it all, leaving as if it were just a poor performance in a bad theater? This hard-fought struggle deserved its laurel crown. There could be no other way.
So the prince made his choice and declared: "We will face Dou's army! Xia shall not pass!"
"And we have the perfect place to do it," said Tazong—and Li Shimin instantly knew what place he meant.
"Shichong has no way of warning him that we're expecting him. We must catch him in an ambush. But not just any ambush—one he can't smell out. A passage…" the monk smiled slyly and raised his brows, "…where he'll choke."
"The Tiger Cage Pass," said Li Shimin.
"Yes, Your Highness," Tazong bowed.
The prince opened his eyes wide and froze, his hand tangled in his thin, mouse-tail ponytail. The Hulao Pass—known as the Tiger Cage Pass—was a gorge with a narrow floor and steep slopes carved by the Sishui River. Flanked on both sides by cliffs and mountain steps, shielded from the south by the immense Songshan massif, and girdled from the north by the mighty channel of the Yellow River, it was a strategically defensive location equal to the Greek Thermopylae.
"Prepare the garrison! We move out at night!" ordered Li Shimin."But, my prince! This is a suicide mission!" the younger officer still tried to reason. "Even if Hulao is as narrow as a bottleneck, you can't funnel one hundred and twenty thousand Jiande troops into it at once and march them row by row like sheep to slaughter! Only a handful will get through! The rest will trap us!""That's exactly what we want!" replied Li Shimin, and repeated the order.
The siege of the southern gates ended long after nightfall. The uproar of retreating troops echoed loudly through the darkness for a long time. During this commotion, under the cover of night and the noise from his own garrisons, Li Shimin left the main camp with three and a half thousand men, leaving the siege of Luoyang in the hands of his younger brother, Li Yuanji, and General Qutu Tong.The vast majority of the army remained at Luoyang, while the prince's small force headed east along the Luo River toward the Hulao Pass.
The prince was taking a precarious risk. The younger officer's words were true: it was almost a suicide mission. If this small band of warriors failed to stop Dou at the narrow throat of Hulao, the main Tang army could be crushed by the allied forces of Shichong and Jiande. This would open the way for Dou not only to seize Luoyang, but also Shanxi, and even Chang'an itself.
They pressed on at a fast pace, making few stops. They traveled without pack horses, moving only with cavalry, following the tracks left by their Shaolin comrades, who knew every massif of the Song Mountains by heart — especially the surroundings of Mount Shao, where the Shaolin Monastery stood.They moved through the area as if it were their own backyard, familiar with every stone. It was no secret that their meditations were often conducted in the wilderness. At dawn, they would leave the monastery in search of peaceful places to spend the first hours of each day.The dark forests of the Song and Shao mountains held no secrets for them. Years spent exploring them since they were five-year-old boys — bound forever by the fate shared within the Shaolin temple — were now about to serve the future emperor of China.
They reached the Hulao Pass the following night after dark.If the calculations of the senior officers were correct, by midday the next day, the banners of Jiande were expected to appear on the horizon.The exhausting raid they had undertaken had put most of the troops to sleep early. Only the sentries and Li Shimin's personal guard, standing in tight formation around his tent, remained on watch.The monks were assigned the easternmost outpost, right at the entrance to the narrow pass, tasked with observing every movement on the horizon.Their resilience to the hardships of travel, sleeping outdoors, standing watch, rough provisions, and the demands of warfare often inspired both awe and astonishment.They were almost always the most alert and ready for battle among all the troops.It was said that the iron discipline of Shaolin, along with the secret techniques of Qigong and Taiji Quan, which they had been developing for decades, were the greatest strength of its warriors — and not without reason were they considered invincible.
Many times, they amazed their comrades with their physical strength during military exercises or friendly skirmishes, where the soldiers' laughter at their small stature and slight build quickly died out when the monks revealed their athletic forms and could, with a single move, crush someone's fingers to pieces.Tales abounded of their secret fighting techniques and hidden strikes capable of killing with a single, almost imperceptible blow.People speculated whether such techniques were real, but all thirteen monks kept silent whenever anyone tried to coax information out of them.The monastic rule forbade meat and alcohol, making it impossible for soldiers to try to loosen their tongues by getting them drunk.
The most common bets among the soldiers revolved around who could manage to provoke the always calm monks into a fight or an argument.Even Li Shimin watched these attempts with admiration and from time to time tossed a coin in for the "noble cause."But the monks never allowed themselves to be tricked, and each time the prince would lose his wager.
The Hulao Pass was a strategically crucial point between the recent imperial capital, Luoyang, and the ancient city of Zhengzhou, which had been the capital during the Shang dynasty of the Bronze Age.For several dynasties, Hulao had served as Luoyang's eastern guardian.
Now, the thirteen monks sat near the exit of this narrow bottleneck, watching over the sleeping army and their prince in the valley below.Far from "foreign" eyes and ears — for the rest of the army were still strangers to them after only a few months of fighting together — they could now speak freely.Among themselves, they shared eighteen years of unbreakable friendship, having been together since childhood.
Sitting at their checkpoint on the ridge above the pass, they gathered around a small fire, holding out tiny cups as Tazong ladled tea for them from a kettle.
"So? What do you think? Was the Grand Master of the Monastery right?" asked Tazong, the most energetic among them, with sharp eyes and the bearing of a leader.
"What do you mean?" asked Shanhu, the most brooding of the group.
"Well, whether we're really on the right side. Dynasties have always been tricky," Tazong replied.
"And a rebel would be better, you think?" said Feng, flashing a charming smile with not a trace of malice — the most cheerful and good-hearted soul one could imagine. "Many a commoner has suffered worse under so-called liberators than under those born to rule."
"Exactly!" cried Tazong eagerly. "How many liars have there been, claiming to fight for the downtrodden only to become tyrants themselves!Li Shimin is a wise man. Like Wang, he seeks power. But his motives are better than that savage's."
"And how would you know? Did he confide in you?" Shanhu jabbed at him.
"He didn't have to," Tazong shrugged. "Both he and his father, Li Yuan, ruled their lands in harmony with the Mandate of Heaven.They were not deaf to the needs of their people. The favor of Heaven upon them was clear! Year after year, abundant harvests! And what?Their army only took a small tithe, leaving the rest to the farmers. And what did Shichong do?"
"A tyrant and a pig. And a lame one at that," piped up Yun Wuzhou — the joker of the group, currently munching on some nashi pears they had gathered along the way.
"Exactly! A tyrant and a pig!" Tazong agreed fervently. "The moment he seized Luoyang, he crowned himself emperor and named his petty domain the Kingdom of Zheng! And then he brought in a helper! His nephew! A scoundrel, a nit!"
"The second pig. Also lame," Yun added again, grinning.
"That Wang Renze. I think he might even be worse than his uncle Shichong," Tazong snorted.
"To me, they're both beasts," said Yun, biting into another nashi pear.
"Remember how many people sought refuge in our monastery when those bastards started their rampages?" Tazong asked, his gaze turning somber at the memory of the devastation that Shichong and Renze had wrought upon the conquered province of Henan.
"And there's your answer to your first question," Shanhu said sharply, glancing back to the start of their conversation.
"Everywhere they showed up, someone suffered," said Feng, his eyes fixed on the fire around which they sat."They plundered everything their greedy eyes could see. How many of the local folk they crushed...Do you remember all those mothers weeping on the temple steps because their sons had been forced into their army?How many times did they kill people they just happened to come across, for no reason at all?Those poor souls couldn't even work their own fields in peace.And then came the drought," Feng said, in a voice sadder than any they had ever heard from him before.
"I'll never forget the days of 618," Yun said, pausing his eating and staring into the distance."There wasn't a day that hundreds of poor, starving people didn't drift like mist across Cypress Valley, fleeing westward from Shichong's butchers, from fire and sword."
"And Renze? He has no more mercy than that swine Shichong!" cried Shiji Huayang, the most impulsive of the thirteen."I remember when I was returning from Chengdu after my father's funeral.Even near Luoyang, the air was tense.The next day, Renze was supposed to visit — an inspection of the Shichong troops stationed there.They had a checkpoint. They searched everyone passing through.Strong and young men were seized like cattle with lassos and forced into the army.The old and the weak were sent off to harvest or transport grain.Or to build barricades.And how many women and girls were taken... brutally violated...I can still see them, those people — fleeing from those wild raids, running wherever their eyes could see, into forests, into the dry beds of streams, swimming across rivers — just to get away from those beasts.I myself curled up at the bottom of a muddy ditch in one of those dry streams and stayed there until midnight, until they stopped searching.Then I crawled to a clump of plants and watched those bastards.They sat by the fire, roasting something, drinking and laughing as if they'd spent the day working honestly and were now feasting as a reward.Well, I gave them a little entertainment."
Across their faces, almost as if they had shared the same mother, faint, knowing smiles spread.For Huayang was the only one among them who could imitate animal sounds so perfectly that he could wander through the forests of Henan or Sichuan and come back without a scratch.Some said it was not just comedic talent — that Shiji Huayang truly understood the language of animals.After all, he had navigated the tiger-infested forests of Dujiangyan while searching for meditation spots at the foot of Qingcheng Shan without ever coming to harm.No untrained ear could distinguish his roar from that of a real Indochinese tiger.All twelve of his brothers-in-arms knew by heart the story from near Luoyang in early 618, before they had joined the prince's army.It was as sacred to them as the Buddha's sutras.Whenever evenings were heavy with uncertainty about the future, Huayang's retreat and his trickery never failed to bring smiles back to their faces — and to rekindle the hope that even a lone pilgrim, if clever enough or skilled enough, could overcome any danger.Though over eighteen years of unwavering friendship and unity had given them many such stories, this one had... something special.
"Got anything to write with, Shanhu?" Huayang asked, flashing a sideways look at his almost always brooding companion.
"I do," Shanhu muttered.
Even though Shanhu had been keeping the Chronicle of the Thirteen almost from their first year at Shaolin, every time a story was told — even if he had heard it a hundred times before — he always wrote it down, just in case there was some new detail to add for posterity, even a small one. No one who knew his background was surprised by this. He came from the elite class of scribes who were highly privileged and favored by the rulers of the Han dynasty. His style was distinguished by an extraordinary sensitivity to description and a phenomenal memory for detail. There was no one who could lie to him without consequence, for he could strike with details lodged deeply in his mind as keenly as he could with his kung fu.
"Alright, listen up, all of you. Those pigs were sitting by the city wall, turning a spit. Good and drunk already. One barely puffing into a harmonica, another weakly strumming a lute. The sounds were so crippled, I tell you! Yun sounds better when he's smacking his lips over a nashi pear. But wait till you hear! One of them started singing! Even Confucius himself in all his travels never heard such a racket! I swear by our Master Shi Shao, you've never heard such gibberish! So I thought, this is pitiful. Maybe he needs a proper wake-up call. So I gave them the king of the jungle! You should have seen that marathon! They all jumped up as one, like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over their heads! They stood there staring at each other, trying to figure out if it was just drunken visions or if there really was a big cat nearby. They froze. So I gave another lazy roar, like a tiger yawning. The one with the lute suddenly sprang up and waved it around like he thought he could kill the tiger with it. Then I shook the bushes. They all plastered themselves against the wall at once. Their commander, I guess — judging by his insignia — grabbed the spit stick and pointed it right at me. Aiming straight between the eyes. So I let out a full-chested roar! They were gone in an instant! Falling over each other, some landing right in the fire! One even slammed into the gate — must have forgotten it was half-closed at that hour — and stood there dazed, nose bleeding. I would've kept spooking them, but then the crossbowmen came up to the tower and I had to hide deeper."
"You were lucky some real tiger wasn't lurking around there. He might have roared back even better," said Shanhu.
Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes behind him, like a small animal struggling. Shanhu narrowed his eyes and listened intently.
"Don't mock the king of the jungle, or if he hears you..." Feng said in an unsettling voice.
"And what's he gonna do? Roar at me?" Yun Wuzhou scoffed.
"I saw one when I went to meditate by Song Shan. It was huge. Bigger than anything around here," Feng warned.
"Then go sit somewhere in the open. Maybe he'll recognize you and we'll get to see him too," Yun joked.
"That thing's a monster!" Feng insisted.
"Yeah, right," Yun snorted, picking through the pears again.
"I'm telling the truth!" Feng shouted.
"Oh, I'm so scared!" Yun taunted him.
"He'll show you!" Feng threatened, wagging his finger.
"Yun will show us, more like," said Shanhu in disgust. "Aren't you eating too many of those pears? You are sleeping next to me, you brock."
"What did you say?" Yun frowned.
"You brock," Shanhu repeated.
"You're not exactly smelling like jasmine yourself!" Yun snapped back.
"Stop dreaming, Feng," Tazong waved his hand dismissively at the story about the tiger. "You weren't meditating, you lazy stinker—you fell asleep. Just like you always do. That tiger appeared to you in a dream."
"Exactly! If the Grand Master of the Monastery knew what kind of monk you are, he'd have thrown you out of the temple ages ago," Yun added. "A liar! Meditating? You were dozing off by the river!" Yun laughed with his slightly dopey laugh, which was honestly more amusing than he was himself.
"And what about you lot?" Feng threw up his hands and stood, pointing his finger at each of them. "Immaculate, are you? Never fallen asleep anywhere, huh?"
"I have never neglected anything," said Shanhu gravely.
No one dared argue with that. Shanhu was obsessively precise in everything he did, and disciplined both with himself and his masters at Shaolin. So Feng pointed again, this time skipping Shanhu, and repeated his accusation.
"Me neither. I've always meditated," said Kwan Pusheng, a youth with a suspiciously charming smile—one you'd do well not to trust, even when he swore something with burning conviction.
"You blockhead!" Feng yelled, planting his fists on his hips in anger. "How dare you bask in someone else's glory!"
"And who was it that spent two whole days up a tree, waiting for someone to pass by because he was scared of a bear? Was that your meditation?" Pusheng shot back, not missing a beat.
"I was thirteen years old!" Feng shouted.
"Maybe he thought it was the tiger," Yun snickered and let out a loud belch, clearly stuffed with pears. Shanhu immediately snatched the last one from his hand and hurled it down into the gorge.
"Oh, Shanhu, you described it perfectly! I laughed half the night! A rhyming fairy tale about Feng the Liar!"
"Say what you want! That bear was real!" Feng insisted stubbornly.
"Yeah, he must've teamed up with the tiger," Yun quipped, and they all burst out laughing.
Even Feng, seeing how everyone was struggling not to make noise and wake the prince, couldn't help but laugh at himself.
"But I really did see that tiger!" he insisted after a moment, which only made them laugh harder, especially as he was reopening the topic with the same hopeful tone, wishing they'd believe him this time.
"Hey, Feng, what was the tiger doing that he didn't notice you?" Yun asked once his laughing—and his pear-induced gas—subsided. "Tigers are always alert. He must have been pretty busy not to see you. What was he doing? Reading a book?" Yun teased, throwing an arm around Feng's shoulders.
"No, he was weaving a fishing net," Feng replied, jabbing Yun lightly in the ribs.
"Well, that makes sense. Your whole village are fishermen. You too!"
"So what?" Feng shrugged.
"Fishermen sleep wherever they please," Yun philosophized. "And then they dream up nonsense."He said this with a wise nod, looking at Feng as though feeling quite pleased with himself for solving the mystery of the giant tiger. Feng just nodded back at him, not brushing off his arm.
"I hope you paid attention when the master taught us about Tao Bao," Feng said suddenly, seriously.
"You bet I did," Yun replied, rolling up his sleeves to his elbows. "How to grab a tiger to block its head?"
"You'd better remember it when you meet him," Feng said with a glint in his eye.
This time, no one laughed. For the first time since hearing the story of the giant tiger—ten years ago—they looked at him with a rare seriousness. No matter how many times they had mocked him, Feng had always stuck to his story. There had to be something deeper behind it, something he couldn't fully explain even to himself, but deeply believed in.He had seen something that day, and he never renounced it.He had often returned to that place, searching, but had never seen the giant again.
Suddenly, a cold gust of wind brushed the napes of their necks like a sinister omen.They all looked around sharply. What? How? From where?It was a windless night.Where had this stray, unwelcome gust come from?
"The spirit of the land is angry," Shanhu said quietly, picking up every little sound that came with the strange breeze. "The Sacred Mountain doesn't like travelers lingering too long by its streams. It's really curious, Feng, that the giant didn't eat you. What did he sense in you?"
"A friend," Feng said, dropping his gaze into the gorge below, as if trying to catch the trail of the strange wind that had vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
But no mist ribboned through the chasm below to mark its path.Still, for some reason, the cold shudder it left behind felt like a warning.They quickly put out the fire and stared into the darkness.
Thirteen pairs of dark, glassy eyes stared toward Hebei.