You there, yeah, you. You've been sitting there ever since I got here. Lord Sun sent you to say something? No? Well what about Lu Meng, since he's always on my case?

Oh. I see. Hmm, if I need anything?

Well look, you got the boring job. I don't think I'll be needing much anymore. Go do something productive instead of sitting here staring at me. No offense, but it is kind of starting to creep me out.

Actually- hey, wait. Wait. Actually there is something you can do for me. No, come here. Grab a pillow- here, take mine. I won't be using it for much longer.

Now, what I want you to do is listen to me, and listen very carefully. You comfortable? Good. Now listen.

There's a story along the river, in every fishing village and every weed-run shack. It's about a fisherman's treasure and it goes something like this.

Once upon a time there was a dirt-poor, honest fisherman who never cheated a sod, never begged or stole, and never did a bad-handed thing in his life. If you ask me, this was probably the reason he was in such a pinch in the first place. But anyways, one day Heaven or something out there took mercy on him and he drew up a cache of ancient treasure, so much stuff that even when he filled his boat, he had to make ten trips to bring it all to shore. From there he became a rich man for the rest of his days.

It's just an old tale made to reassure people that despite netting up nothing but minnows and eating nothing but old rice in half a patchy hut, they might actually get something one day if they were nice. (But if that were true they probably won't be sitting there munching on rat shit telling the story in the first place.) Now, I know there are a bunch of holes in the story. First, you know this story was made up by peasants who've never held more than a copper in their lives, because if there's something about gold and treasure, it's heavy. I mean, take a big bronze casting and try holding it above your head and you'll see what I mean. Now imagine it three times heavier and that's gold for you. Nice stuff, gold, but a blasted pain to haul around. (One of the reasons saving for a rainy day is a stupid idea.) If he fills his rickety little boat halfway even, it'd sink faster than you can shout it. And ten boatfuls? What, is he living on a goddamn dam or something?

But the biggest logic jump in this story is, who the hell hits a mother load like that? It's impossible. Physically, statistically impossible. No one is that lucky, and no one, not the prissiest, cleanest saint to a scummy dirty bandit like, well, me, even deserves it.

No one lands a bonanza like that!

Or so I thought.

The name's Gan Ning, and once upon a time, I did find the fisherman's treasure.

The first time I met Ling Tong I thought that he was the meanest, nastiest, most spite-assed scum-tossing man-eating little piece of shit ever to pop out from a demon's bumhole. I think it went something along the lines of me looking up and all of a sudden some guy's screaming bloody murder and trying to run me down with a horse.

I can't say I was too shocked by that. I mean, going from a bandit leader to a fighter and all, stuff like that happens to me everyday. So I'm pretty okay with that kind of stuff in general.

Thing is, this was different. It was in the middle of a party. Indoors, mind you, as in inside someone's house?

Yeah, you heard that right. That little fucker charged a warhorse right through Lu Meng's living room. And don't ask me how he got it through the door, because to this day no one, not even that son of a cow himself, has a clue. (He tells me, "Hmm, I rode in, heard you were in there, and was too angry to notice. But yeah, now that you mention it, how did I pull that off?")

By the way, it was a party for me, just so you know. I told you, he's kind of a diva, but what can I do?

So I'm sitting there one moment, giving a toast to my new friend and kind-of-boss Lu Meng and the next thing I know there's a fucking horse in the room.

After that, the next thing I found out was a spear flying straight at me. Naturally, I ducked and rolled out the way. Shame about Lu Meng's mother's curtains though. Right when I'm about to shout "Who the hell are you, why are you trying to kill me, and what's that goddamn horse doing here," the guy on the horse leaps off and calls me something like "A father-murdering brutish criminal killer."

So yeah. I'm kind of confused at that point. For one thing, I've done a lot of nasty dirty things, but patricide's not one of them, probably because my old man snuffed it before I was five and so I never got the chance. It's kind of a shame when I think about it- one more thing I'll never get the chance to do.

It takes Lu Meng and everyone else about ten minutes to sort things (and the newcomer) out and guess what, it turns out that I killed his father. Well what a coincidence man, nice to meet you. And so he's pretty pissed about that.

"Ling Tong," Lu Meng says in that stern don't-you-piss-my-socks voice he's always using with me. That's the first time I heard the fucker's name- Ling Tong. Pretty name, isn't it? Sounds like someone whining his fancy little knickers off. Suits him. "It's all in the past now. He's going to be your new comrade."

And Ling Tong does the natural, logical thing- he apologizes, saying that he thought I was still the enemy, and we shake hands and get off to a good start.

Uh-uh. No, no, no, hell no. He reaches into his pants (not the last time I'll see him do that, by far) and lobs a knife at me.

The first thing that I noticed about him- wait, no, let me rephrase myself. The first thing, after the horse and the spear and the bloody screaming and the knife and the trying to kill me dead in my boots and everyone yelling and that kid Lu Xun wetting his pants, call me superficial but even with his hair messed up and a bloody nose, beyond that horrible scowl he was the prettiest little thing I had ever set eyes on. I mean like, he was fucking gorgeous, as in if I had a fantasy dream man or woman, they'd look like him. Of course he was trying to kill me so that kind of took away some of the impact.

So I go up to him, to where he's tied up with Lu Meng's scarf. "Calm down, man, calm down," I say. "We're on the same side now. Who are you again?"

Yeah, I was waiting for him to apologize. Too bad for me, because he snarls at me and shouted, "I'm Ling Tong, son of Ling Cao, the man you killed, and no, last time we checked we don't work with murdering criminals!"

One thing that gets me. Ling Tong's one of those people who thinks there's a difference between killing someone and following orders to kill someone. If you ask me, there's really not much a difference to the poor sod whether you had a fancy piece of paper with his name on it or now. "Murder? Come on, what's it that you go out and do everyday? Oh yeah, I think it's called war!"

I probably would have said more if something hadn't came out of nowhere and kicked my knees out from under me.

Lu Meng starts shouting, and when I get up, rubbing my shins, I see Ling Tong with his legs free and stretched in the most inhumanly flexible way, just glaring at me like he wanted me dead, dead, dead, which we had already established. It was kind of scary really.

So basically a recap, the first time we met he charged in, tried to kill me, and then flashed his crotch at me.

If I were the superstitious type, I'd say that it was a prophecy.

Reuploaded after someone deleted the wrong story...