The Fated Crossing of the Black Tortoise

The wind over Canglan Province always carried the musty smell of the dilapidated Earth God shrine south of Qingyun City as it swept along the city’s blue-stone streets.

That year, A Wen had just turned one. Wrapped in a faded piece of old hemp cloth, he was abandoned on the threshold of the City God Temple. His cries were so faint he sounded like a kitten on the verge of death. It was the lame beggar Old Ma who found him and carried him back to the leaky, drafty temple. Old Ma had no name of his own. People called him Ma the Lame. In his youth, he had broken his right leg while hauling loads for others, and the injury had left him with chronic back pain. Whenever rainy weather came, he would suck in sharp breaths from the pain. But when it came to A Wen, he gave the boy everything he had.