Down on My Luck, I’ll Take My Kid Brother to the Top

Everyone says it’s hard for beggars to turn their lives around, but my younger brother and I refuse to believe it. One of us begs by playing on people’s sympathy, while the other earns money writing legal petitions. When he gets into a fight, I clean up the mess; when I’m bullied, he protects me. Together, we fought our way from the City God Temple all the way into the imperial palace. Who says a man from humble beginnings can’t become an official? Now I wield my brush to bring peace to the court, while he commands the battlefield and strikes fear into all four corners of the land. The bond between brothers forged through hardship is harder than the stones beneath the throne room. The world sees only one of us wielding power over the court and the other making a name for himself across the land. They don’t see that we’ve supported each other every step of the way up this road to success. We laughed our way through the hard times together, and now we share the good times. My parents didn’t give me a biological younger brother, but I found one for myself. His parents didn’t give him an older brother, but I became the brother he found for himself. We don’t need an altar or an offering table, nor do we swear before heaven and the gods. We need only each other!