Flashback: The Fourth Night After the Massacre
(Three nights before Venerable Mo finds him)
The blue rice bowl was now in two pieces—rim cracked clean through. Chen Wuya held the larger half against his chest like a breastplate. The smaller shard was wrapped in Lan's burnt ribbon, tied to his wrist with sinew from a dead rat. His fingers bled from carving names. The grave mound behind the smithy had sunk; rain turned the dirt to mud.
He had not finished burying them.
On the first night, he'd dug until his hands blistered. On the second, he'd dragged the bodies—Father, Mother, Lan, Hua—into the pit. But the earth was shallow. A looter came on the third night.
The Looter
A one-eyed scavenger named Ma Gou (Dog Ma), exiled from Blood Sand City for stealing corpses. He carried a rusty cleaver and a sack smelling of rot. Moonlight glinted off his gold tooth as he knelt by the grave.
"Chen blacksmith had silver teeth," he muttered, prying open Tiequan's jaw with the cleaver. "Worth a fortune…"
Wuya watched from the shadows of the forge, hidden behind the melted anvil. His ribs ached—three cracked from the wolf fight. The forging hammer was too heavy now; he'd traded it for a broken sickle found in the rice field.
Ma Gou dug. Mud flew. He reached Liu Mei's corpse.
"Pretty even in death," he grinned, fingers brushing her cheek. "Maybe keep the face…"
Wuya moved.
Silent. Barefoot. The sickle flashed.
Ma Gou's hand severed at the wrist. The cleaver clattered. Blood jetted in a black arc. He screamed—high, animal.
Wuya was on him.
Sickle to the throat—slash. Larynx opened. Air whistled through the wound.
Knee to the spine—crack. Ma Gou collapsed face-first into the grave, atop Liu Mei.
Wuya straddled him.
"You touch my mother?" His voice was a child's, but the words were stone.
He grabbed the severed hand—still twitching—shoved it into Ma Gou's mouth.
"Eat your greed."
Ma Gou choked. Blood bubbled. Wuya twisted the sickle deeper. Vertebrae grated. The looter went limp.
Wuya dragged the body into the pit. Used Ma Gou's own cleaver to hack off the head. The gold tooth gleamed. He pried it free with the sickle, tucked it into the bowl shard.
Then he pissed on the corpse.
"For Lan. For Hua."
Finishing the Grave
Dawn bled gray. Wuya's hands were raw meat. He used the cleaver now—better than the hoe. Each strike into the earth was a vow.
Thud. For Father's hammer.
Thud. For Mother's lullaby.
Thud. For the twins' laughter.
He piled stones atop the mound. The blue rice bowl shard went in the center, gold tooth glinting beside the names. The smaller shard—tied to his wrist—became a makeshift blade, edges honed on the anvil.
He found Hua's doll in the ashes—wooden, one eye missing. He placed it on the grave.
"Guard them," he told it. "I'll be back."
The First Taste of Enemy Blood
Wuya knelt. Dipped the bowl shard into Ma Gou's neck stump. The blood was thick, cooling. He drank.
The taste was bitter victory. His stomach heaved, but he forced it down.
"Chen Tiequan. Liu Mei. Lan. Hua. Zhao Heng."
The names were his prayer.
The blood was his communion.
He carved a new mark into the bowl shard with the gold tooth:
一 – One.
The first wolf.
The Wanderer Arrives
By noon, Wuya was delirious. Fever from infected cuts. He lay beside the grave, sickle in one hand, bowl shard in the other. Flies feasted on his wounds.
Footsteps.
Venerable Mo appeared, staff tapping bone bridge rhythm. He studied the grave, the headless looter, the blood-smeared boy.
"You buried your hate," Mo said, "but you watered it with blood."
Wuya tried to rise. Collapsed.
"Take me… to Zhao Heng…"
Mo lifted the bowl shard. The names. The gold tooth. The Roman numeral 一.
"Black Cliff does not take. It claims. You will learn to kill gods."
He slung Wuya over his shoulder. The boy's vision faded. The last image: the grave mound, doll standing guard, flies circling like a crown.
Epilogue: The Bowl's Evolution
In Mo's pack, the blue rice bowl shard rested beside a wolf fang and a prayer bead stolen from a dead monk.
It was no longer a relic.
It was a weapon.
A ledger.
A heart.
And it thirsted.
End of Chapter 3