In Jinzhou, Liaodong, the sky and the earth turned white as the snow rolled in the wind.
In the turbulent times of the Spring and Autumn Period, the nine kingdoms were divided and wars raged all over the world. The Beimang Rangers often crossed the border and went south to plunder villages. Human lives were as cheap as grass.
Ten-year-old Xu Xiao stood among the scorched ruins of his village, with frozen soil beneath his feet, and his parents lying in a pool of blood. The Beimang cavalry roared away, and the ground was filled with displaced refugees. The young man was thin, with a sallow face and skin. He picked up a rusty short knife, the blade of which was stained with broken snow.
No wailing. In troubled times, tears cannot buy half a cent of food.
He mingled with the refugees, stumbled along the way, and defected to the Liyang border army. He falsely reported his age and entered the barracks. In the next few decades, this Liaodong wind and snow will make me dream from time to time.
In later generations, Xu Xiao, the king of Northern Liang, was known to the whole world, and his reputation for mass murder shocked the world, but few people remembered that he started out as a poor boy who survived next to a mass grave in Jinzhou.
