From the moment the liquor bottle shattered, his life changed forever.
Fate is often like this—those pivotal moments that alter the course of a lifetime are hidden within seemingly trivial, ordinary days, leaving no room for defense.
At first, it was just a fleeting impulse, a momentary act of bravado, a blink of stubborn pride.
Yet, from a thousand branches and ten thousand leaves, it ultimately led to an irreparable catastrophe. Only in hindsight did he realize the depth of his regret.
But once on a downward slope, there’s no stopping the fall.
His birth was marked by his mother’s death.
The poor woman, barely twenty, had only just become a newly-wed bride the year before. Now, she lay dead on the birthing bed, lost to the agony of childbirth.
A day and night of torment, her cries echoing through the mountain hollow.
All the women of the village gathered outside their home, yet none could do a thing. The man who was to become his father had lost all composure, crouching on the threshold, legs drawn up, smoking pipe after pipe.
He was a breech birth. The elderly midwife from the neighboring village, drenched in blood and sweat, could only watch helplessly as the exhausted mother weakened, inch by inch.
In her final surge of strength, the woman let out a furious cry, pushing with all her might—and at last, he entered the world.
The crowd rejoiced—a healthy baby boy. They hurriedly wrapped him up, passing him around in their laughter. Behind them, the young mother gazed at their backs, as if her wish had been fulfilled. With a lonely twitch of her lips, she closed her eyes and died.
His father hated him—not just for his endless crying, but because he had taken the family’s only woman.
The irony was bitter. The debts from the wedding had yet to be repaid, and now there was the added cost of a funeral.
His father’s name was Cai Zeng, but for five generations, the family had remained destitute. The only inheritance passed down from their ancestors was the skill of enduring hardship.
In the decades that followed, his father never remarried—not out of loyalty, but because life had become too wretched.
Back then, he had sold part of the land he inherited to pay for the wedding. Now, his elder brother refused to help him again, and the few meager fields left could barely feed them—there was no room for extravagance.
At least, the family line had been carried on.
Even if there was nothing left to inherit.
His hometown lay in the northern part of Nanyang Province, a remote and ancient village nestled among towering mountains that blocked both sight and escape.
The village was small, with barely a dozen households. Counting every chicken and dog, the living creatures there numbered no more than a hundred and thirty.
For generations, the people survived on rubber and sugarcane, toiling year-round yet never making ends meet. After layers of middlemen took their cuts, what remained was barely enough to keep them fed.
He grew up day by day—though his father despised him, he couldn’t bring himself to let the boy die. After all, he had cost his wife’s life. The school was in the neighboring village, over a mountain pass.
Every morning before five, he would rise swiftly, rub his eyes, yawn, and boil water to cook, hoping his diligence would earn his father’s rare goodwill for the day.
Of course, it wasn’t always successful.
He knew his father had a temper and had learned to avoid him since childhood—but sometimes, there was no avoiding it.
Truthfully, his father didn’t despise him entirely. Years of solitude had left him with a simmering rage, and when it flared up, nothing in sight pleased him. Smashing household items only meant more expenses, so after some thought, beating his son was the cheaper option.Fortunately, his son didn’t hold grudges. Even after being beaten, he would still cook for him and willingly share the table. His little face streaked with tears would offer a timid, ingratiating smile, holding a chipped bowl with both hands as if to please him—a sight that twisted his father’s heart with guilt.
Yet the cycle repeated every few days, as regular as morning exercises, his temper flaring uncontrollably.
The boy feared his father’s beatings, but even more, he feared being denied schooling.
Though the so-called school had only one teacher and its building was laughably crude, it was at least an escape from his misery. The moment the bell rang, his thoughts would drift away with the teacher’s chalk on the blackboard, temporarily numbing the dull ache in his backside.
He loved to study, often curling up in a corner of the classroom, carefully turning the pages of old books donated by kind-hearted city folk. His grubby hands, afraid of staining the paper, would first wipe themselves on his sweat-stained shirt before tracing each line, his lips puckered like a little bird’s.
But even at school, he couldn’t escape bullying. Strangely, troublemakers always seemed to pick out the softest target in a crowd.
Yet he never fought back. He endured.
He was exceptionally good at enduring.
He knew that if he endured long enough, he would eventually get what he wanted—just like how he had coaxed his father into letting him attend junior high, while the boys who once bullied him had long dropped out to till the fields.
Endurance turned him into a young man.
With sharp cheekbones and single-lidded eyes, he looked fierce when unsmiling, but his grin revealed an almost childlike innocence.
Tall and lanky, he had grown slightly taller than the other village boys despite poor nutrition, and gradually, no one dared bully him anymore.
Having completed junior high, he was now considered an educated man in the village. When the aging principal retired, he entrusted the school to him, and even those who once tormented him now treated him with respect.
Even his father, carrying a bamboo basket along the field paths, walked with a hint of pride, his withered head held high like a victorious rooster.
Come to think of it, his father hadn’t raised a hand against him in a long time—not just out of affection, but because he had finally realized that this only son was his sole hope for old-age support.
Life had smoothed out for him, like sunshine after rain.
Every day, he carried textbooks under his arm, dressed in a neat short-sleeved shirt, humming folk tunes and chewing betel nut as he strolled between the school and home, living a simple, contented life.
Only one person could stir his heart.
The youngest daughter of the Tian family, named Baozhen, was plump and adorable, with two little dimples when she smiled—a sight that made him grin foolishly in return.
Petite yet strong-willed, Tian Baozhen always wore a sweet smile, but her docility was merely a facade.
She was untamable; every bit of softness she displayed was just a means to tame others.
But he didn’t know that. He only thought his charm had won her over.
Back and forth, the two grew fond of each other, often meeting in the coconut grove after dusk.
That evening, he lingered nearby for a long time before she finally arrived, late as usual.
Beaming as always, he offered freshly picked wildflowers, but this time, Baozhen didn’t take them. Instead, she kicked listlessly at the grass, her face downcast.
“What’s wrong? Who upset you?”
She turned away without answering.
“Tell me, and I’ll beat them up for you.”
It was just an empty boast—he had never raised a hand against anyone.
“My family arranged a marriage for me. They say the groom is hideous.”He wilted instantly, the flowers in his hand drooping along with him.
"I didn't agree."
He perked up again, lifting the flowers once more, eagerly offering them with a hopeful bounce.
"Baozhen, then will you—"
She tilted her face up, her dark eyes reflecting the moonlight, shimmering with an unfathomable softness.
He had never seen her like this before, and the sight sent his heart racing.
"Brother, I’m planning to try my luck in the county town. Do you dare to come with me?"
Not asking if he was willing—only if he dared.
Years of pent-up frustration surged within him, his blood boiling as he forced himself to put on a brave front.
And beneath it all, an irrepressible excitement stirred. He had never even considered venturing beyond the village before—that dazzling world he’d only read about in books now seemed within reach.
After a sleepless night, he made up his mind.
Go!
With his skills, how could he fear not making a name for himself?
He didn’t discuss it with his father, leaving only a note—in his fervor, he forgot his father couldn’t read.
The next day, before dawn had even broken, he set off with Tian Baozhen on the road to Ding’an County.
Gazing at the crescent moon still hanging in the sky, his heart swelled with dreams of returning home in glory.
Little did he know, fate lurked at the end of that long road—what awaited him was a journey of no return.
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