The Beggar Gang's Young Beggar in the Commander's Tent

I am Xiao Ce, Grand Commander of the Northern Frontier. I guard Yanmen Pass, the gateway to our realm, keeping the northern nomad cavalry from riding south while hunting for traitors in my own camp.

One day, while inspecting the barracks, I found a little beggar girl with a scarred face and brought her back. I was about to send her away when she clung to the camp gate and cried, “I can help you catch the traitor!” She even knew the details of my secret meeting with a scout the night before.

A Chou’s golden finger is “ears everywhere”: there’s no street gossip or whispered talk in the barracks she can’t uncover. Mine is “battlefield foresight”: one glance at the terrain tells me where the nomad cavalry will strike and where the ambush lies.

From then on, a little beggar girl poured tea and ran errands in my command tent, and a traitor disappeared from outside it. But those eyes and brows beneath A Chou’s scar, why do they look more and more like the daughter of a loyal official whose entire family was slaughtered three years ago?