“Uncle Bingrong! Uncle Bingrong!” shouted Ahan, his voice trembling.

  Silence reigned as if it were the land of the dead. Not a chicken or a dog was heard, not even a rat scurried.

  “Is anyone here?” Ahan thought for a while, then shouted, “It’s me, Ahan. I’m back.”

  There was a loud thud as a smoldering timber fell, sending embers shooting through the air. The flames flared up a ghastly red the color of blood. The thick fog seemed to hamper the flames as they struggled upward in the wet air, only to trail off in faint blood-red licks and then vanish in the empty darkness.

  Ahan stepped back, his hair standing on end. “Hey, come out!”

  No one replied. Ahan shuddered with fear, then turned and ran. He was confused. He wanted to have a look at the front of the Matsu temple, but in the dark he ended up at the temple of the Earth God. The ten-square-foot temple looked undamaged. The mud walls and bamboo roof were intact. But upon entering the shrine, he tripped over something. He had fallen over a huge stone slab; it was the stone altar of the god that had been pulled down.

  “Who’s there?” someone yelled.

  In the dark, he could not see who had spoken. “It’s me, Liu Ahan,” he said, steadying himself.

  “You’re not from this village, are you?”

  “I was. Now I live at Fanzai Wood near Great Lake.”

  “What are you doing in this bloody hell?”

  “I came back to see …”

  “Get out of here. The Japs will be back when the sun comes up for the young who have not escaped.”

  “I wanted to find out something.” He was afraid to ask for fear that his worst fears would be confirmed.

  “Did you say you were from Fanzai Wood?” asked the aged voice. “Then you must be Liu Alai’s son.”

  The name held in his memory was Liu Tianlai. Aside from his grandmother, no one had ever mentioned that name buried deep in his heart. “His real name was Liu Tianlai.”

  “That’s right, it was Liu Tianlai. He’s been dead a long time. So what brings you back?”

  “I’ve come back to … What is your name, sir?”

  “I’m Liu Goushun, your uncle.”

  “You’ve come back too late, young man,” said a woman’s voice.

  “She’s your aunt,” said Liu Goushun.

  “Auntie, what do you mean by too late?”

  “Your mother, Ameng’s wife, is gone. She left us before Ameng.”

  “How did she die?”

  What Ahan had heard was true. She had been shot while trying to put out the fire after the Japanese had torched the village. She had already been buried in the mass grave along with the villagers who had been beheaded. “I lost my third and fourth sons. They both had their heads cut off.”

  “Uncle Rongbing’s case was the saddest of all—every last one of his boys was killed.”

  Ahan sat on the fallen altar of the Earth God. At some point, a vague shadow appeared in the damp, inky darkness. It was not a shadow but a woman—a thin, careworn old woman with a wrinkled, weather-beaten face.

  “Look at him, he’s still a child.” Those were the very words that his mother had spoken to Auntie Agui some years ago.

  At that moment Ahan was filled with anger.

  “Come back, Ahan!” his mother had shouted to him.

  “Why should I listen to you?” he had said.

  “Do I have to kneel before you to make you listen?”

  “You …”

  “Your mother is truly sorry. I know you hate me. I don’t blame you.”

  How could his mother have been made to speak like that? He no longer hated her. He couldn’t bear her silence, the look in her eyes, her tears. He hadn’t forgotten his promise that she would live with him and his family after Xu Ameng passed away. She could help Dengmei look after the grandchildren. They would live together and he would put the ancestral tablets on the family altar. I know you had no choice but to remarry. I bear no grudge. If you have time, you can stay with us so that your son and grandsons will be able to look after you. But now you have left without knowing….

  In the depths of his numbed mind he knew his mother was dead. He didn’t know where the night had gone. Goushun and his wife seemed to have said a great deal about his father’s youth and his mother’s remarriage. He didn’t manage to take any of it in. His mind remained fixed on one thing: he would kneel at the mass grave where his mother was buried and keep a vigil there for her. He hoped that after her sad life of suffering she could at last find peace. She had had no choices in life. She was a bodhisattva who gave life to others; that was how Ahan saw her. Always he would carry with him the anger and regret he felt then. His heart would be her soul’s resting place. He was determined to avenge her. But how?

  Not once did he utter a cry, but his tears flowed without stopping. His cheeks were cold and numb as the sky grew light.

  “Go to the front of the Matsu temple and have a look. You can help me find the heads of all the victims.”

  “You ought to go to the big grave pit.”

  He did not follow any of their suggestions. By the time the sun had penetrated the morning mist and reached the tops of the longan trees, he was on his way out of Tongluo Bay. His heart full of sadness and anger, he returned along the route he had come. Hunger slowed his steps. He had grown accustomed to it and had learned to eat whatever was at hand to quell his empty stomach. In the forests and at the springs, he met groups of refugees. In addition to the women and children, he saw soldiers, straggling volunteers, and remnants of government troops. His sole response to their questions was to ask them where they were going. He followed the refugees north.

  Near noon he found himself in the hills west of Miaoli. He was hungry again. He saw two recently deserted farmhouses and went to look for something to eat. He noticed five or six other men standing around silently eyeing the scene; apparently all of them had the same idea.

  “The Japs are coming!” someone shouted.

  About twenty Japanese soldiers in yellowish uniforms with bayonets affixed to their rifles could be seen in the camphor wood behind the farmhouses.

  Shots rang out. The Japanese soldiers pursued them. There were really more than twenty, and they seemed to be coming from all sides. The refugees were surrounded. They had been ambushed.

  Ahan and a number of others took off as fast as they could run for a plateau to the southeast. The Japanese soldiers stayed right behind them and seemed to be making a flanking movement to hem them in. Bullets whizzed by as they ran, and occasionally one of them would fall to the ground, struck by one.

  The Japanese kept shouting for them to surrender. But they couldn’t give up; they ran without looking back. If they could make it to the next hill, they could hide in the undergrowth near the temple. But as they got to the hill, there suddenly appeared Japanese gendarmes clad in black.

  Seeing the gendarmes, the refugees headed for Tortoise Mountain. They would be safe if they could make it through the pass to Great Lake. There were several dozen of them now running for the pass. If the Japanese had posted soldiers there, they would be finished. Rather than risk it, they took off through the brush to the bridge. Nearing the bridge, they dared not move any farther. Gunfire could be heard from the direction of Miaoli. But soon they heard the Japanese gendarmes closing in on them.

  Ahan decided to take the risk. He crawled out of the brush, followed by the others. He looked at the bridge and up and down the river. Emboldened, he leaped onto the bridge. All he had to do was cross the forty-foot span to the safety of the opposite bank, but he would be completely exposed to enemy fire. He could see a number of volunteers on the other bank. Ahan hesitated.

  “Look out!” someone shouted. Suddenly a black shadow hurtled through the air and fell on him. Ahan was unable to dodge, and they fell together on the bridge and rolled off onto the ground and down the bank into the water. At that moment, shots rang out and some of the men cried out and fell. Upon hitting the water, the man in black let go of Ahan and the two of them swam for the opposite bank, bullets whizzing around them. Reaching the riverbank, they crawled out of the water and took cover under the bridge.

  Only then did Ahan have a chance to look at the man. He seemed even bigger than he had in the water; he looked half again as big as Ahan. He had a large head and a red face with pronounced features. He was a forceful presence. He laughed aloud and his shoulders shook; apparently he was amused by something.

  “You saved me,” said Ahan.

  “I had to act fast; sorry I surprised you.”

  “No problem,” said Ahan. Suddenly his face froze. “The Japs are crossing the bridge.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” said the big man. The dense reeds and grasses provided plenty of cover, allowing the two of them to escape.

  The man who saved Ahan was named Qiu Mei, and he was from Changshan, Henan. He had been a bodyguard for Tang Jingsong, the President of the Republic of Formosa. When the Japanese took Keelung, the defeated Chinese soldiers fell back to Taipei. The deserting troops ended up fighting with the local volunteers. They set the presidential residence afire and looted the treasury. The presidential bodyguard scattered and fled. The president, disguised as an ordinary citizen, fled Taipei with his son and a favorite concubine who had dressed like a boy. When the looters and other soldiers met, they fought, and the casualties from those exchanges were greater than those on the battlefield.

  Qiu Mei had relieved one looter who had had his hands cut off of a bag of silver. With the silver, he slipped home to his wife and sons. They had just arrived from Changshan six months earlier and had been renting a house in a small alley. When he arrived, his wife and sons were gone. He found his wife—dead—in the empty house of a neighbor. He searched all of Taipei for his two sons, one of whom was three, the other four. He buried his wife but never found his sons.

  “How did your wife die?” asked Ahan.

  Qiu Mei ignored his question and continued with his story. News of the looting had spread and local residents were raising the alarm as soon as they caught sight of a deserter. By then the Japanese had entered the city. He joined a group of former bodyguards and left for the south, stealing food as they went. Eventually they arrived in Miaoli, but because they did not speak the local dialect they were thought to be spies for the Japanese. The people of Miaoli tried to track them down and kill them and did beat several of them to death. He even heard that some women had cut the flesh from their bodies and had cooked it and eaten it.

  “You say you can’t speak the local dialect?”

  “We were all from Henan. That’s why we were also known as the Henan guard.”

  “The Henan guard was composed of big, strong guys with great martial arts skills, right? How is it you can speak Hakka?”

  “There have always been Hakka in Henan. My wife was from Haifeng.”

  “Well, Brother Qiu, what are you going to do?”

  Qiu Mei said he was going to stay in Taiwan and look for his two sons. He would go back to the mainland only if he found them or proof that they had died. Ahan then told him his own tragic story. Sharing a similar pain, they soon formed a strong, fast friendship.

  They passed the night in weariness and fear. When the day dawned, they found that there were about sixty young men gathered in the area. Some were still in uniform and carried guns and swords.

  “Where are you going?” asked Ahan.

  “We’re trying to save ourselves. We’re going anywhere there are no Japs.”

  “I heard that they are recruiting over at Great Lake,” said one of the men.

  “Recruiting for what?”

  “To fight the Japs and recover Miaoli and Xinzhu.”

  At a loss, Ahan and Qiu Mei looked at each other. The group started off. They lived off the land, eating whatever they could. One of the men suggested that they leave the riverbank and take the main road to Great Lake. At that moment, Japanese soldiers appeared at a bend in the river. There was a burst of heavy gunfire. It happened so fast that they were left numb with fear. The panic was greater than on the previous day. Many of the men’s knees gave way and they fell to the ground, unable to move.

  The enemy soldiers’ shouts were followed by more gunfire. Men were screaming all around. Ahan gathered his wits and ran back along the riverbank, but that would expose him to more fire.

  Qiu Mei was already standing on the other side of the river at the margin between the brush-covered hill and the sandy shore. “This way, across the river. We’ve got to hide in the hills.”

  Ahan half crawled and half rolled in Qiu Mei’s direction. Bullets whistled above his head. He rushed ashore. As he hit the soft sand by the river he stumbled and fell.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” Qiu Mei was shouting.

  Everything became a blur and began to shake. He thought it was all over. He struggled but couldn’t move his hands or feet. He wanted to cry, but he seemed to choke on something. He whined like an animal. Suddenly something flashed in front of his eyes; then all was dark. Then something lunged toward him. The next thing he knew he had been seized by the collar and heaved into the high grass beyond the sandy shore.

  Shots continued to be fired.

  Ahan heard a sharp cry and a heavy object land beside him. It was Qiu Mei.

  “I’ve been hit!” Qiu Mei’s voice, like his body, trembled. Qiu Mei’s leg was already a patch of bright red.

  “Where are you hit?”

  “In my right leg. It’s my thigh, but the bullet seems to have passed through. It’s a huge wound!”

  Qiu Mei pulled a long metal box from his waistband. In the box were about twenty long, thin needles. With a trembling hand he proceeded to insert eight of them into his leg above the wound and where his leg joined his torso and along his back.

  “Don’t move me. You go on. I have to rest.” Having spoken, Qiu Mei passed out. The sound of gunfire was moving away down the road and river. This meant that the Japanese were pressing on toward Great Lake. Ahan calmed down; they would be safe there.

  Qiu Mei’s face was as white as wax, but his breathing was steady. His wound was not bleeding so profusely and merely oozed just a little; the wound was scabbing over. They were about twenty feet from the sandy shore, sitting under a tree that had been strangled by the lush creepers covering it. It was a good hiding place. Ahan sat there in silence staring at Qiu Mei, who still appeared unconscious.

  “Oh, are you still here?” said Qiu Mei as he came to.

  Ahan heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Brother Liu, you will have to help me find some herbs, then you can get away.”

  Qiu Mei instructed him about the half dozen herbs he needed. They were the sort of herbs that all the people living in the mountains used. Ahan was familiar with them all but was unable to find two.

  “That’s okay,” said Qiu Mei, pulling some herbs from his pocket.

  “Why do you carry herbs on you?”

  “I’m the kind of soldier who knows more than just guns,” he said with a smile on his face as he pointed at his bag. “In addition to a change of clothes, I have some books, including the Analects, Mencius, a book of Tang and Song poems, and some elementary textbooks. You get me?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “One day I’ll teach you and you’ll understand.” Then his face darkened. “We’re talking too much. When I’m done here you can go. There are so many people in this big world, who knows if we’ll ever meet again? Ha ha, I must be talking in my sleep.”

  “No, I’ll wait for you,” said Ahan, throwing a glance at Qiu Mei’s brightly colored wound. “We’ll talk about it when you get better.”

  “There’s no need to. Leave the herbs and be on your way.”

  “I owe you my life,” said Ahan. “Now what do you want me to do?”

  “Get something to eat, Brother Liu,” said Qiu Mei, also becoming serious. “You think you owe me something just for pulling you off the riverbank? Forget it.”

  “That’s my business. Besides, I don’t have anyplace to go. The Japs are everywhere.”

  Even as Ahan spoke, Qiu Mei dozed off. Ahan made up his mind that they would just live off the land. Having decided, he felt happier and in higher spirits.

  After taking Miaoli, the Japanese army remained there just a few days. The army proceeded to divide and spread out in different directions to sweep the countryside. The main force advanced south. In the middle of the tenth lunar month, Japanese warships bombarded Kaohsiung as Japanese troops stormed ashore to attack Tainan city in a pincer movement with the troops coming from the north. There were no Chinese or local forces capable of continuing the fight. On the nineteenth day of the tenth lunar month, General Liu Yungfu and his son bid a tearful farewell to Taiwan. Within two days, the Japanese forces entered Tainan. Anti-Japanese resistance in Taiwan entered a new phase.

  The might of the Japanese army began to be felt in the small villages and settlements in the remote mountainous areas. The Japanese were determined to wipe out all resistance. At this time, their colonial government divided Taiwan into administrative districts; Miaoli was part of the central district of Taichu, with Taizhong as its capital. All villages of a certain size within the district were in turn to have an administrative official.

  Great Lake was one such village, but the official dared not take up his duties because all resistance in the Miaoli area was centered there. The remnants of several armies had taken refuge to escape the onslaught of Japanese forces.

  Liu Ahan remained by Qiu Mei’s side as he recuperated. They passed a whole month in their hiding place below the vine-canopied tree, and they survived by living off the land. Qiu Mei’s medical skills and his ability to use herbs were impressive; his severe wound healed rapidly. The two of them, united by their common plight, then slipped away to Great Lake and very quickly joined up with the volunteers because they ran into Three Chops there.

  “Ahan, this time I demand that you and your comrade stay.”

  Qiu Mei fixed his wide-open eyes on Three Chops.