“Are you okay?”

Zitao felt a warm hand on his cheek and someone opening his mouth slightly to pour in a warm broth, rich with beef and carrots. The food was a surprise to his empty stomach and after he had recovered from the shock he worried that he would throw it all up. However the hand left his face after only a few seconds, and Zitao sank back into sleep. He didn’t remember how long he slept, but after a while he felt strong enough to stand up and explore. Though he had eaten only a few mouthfuls of the rich stew, the warmth had spread through his body and he felt the strength to open his eyes.

Judging from the sky beginning to pink in the west, he had lain there for most of the day. The humidity of the morning had left and was replaced by the quiet crispness of evening, rounding everything into soft edges and gentle light that was fresh to inhale. The vapor from his breath had frozen onto the scarf around his mouth and sharp shards of ice pricked his face and fingers when he tried to sit up.

“You shouldn’t get up,” a small voice came from his left. “Brother says you’re still very weak.” Then the voice paused. “You’ve been sleeping for five hours. And I had to feed you while Brother was gone.”

Zitao looked to his left and saw a boy about the age of Fahong, who was patting the neck of a horse that was tethered nearby. It was large and black and reminded Zitao too much of the horses that had ridden into the marketplace so many months ago, so he was too distracted by wondering if he could ride it to answer immediately.

“Who are you?” Zitao asked. “Where’s my father?”

The boy sniffed and busied himself by combing the horse’s mane while he answered. “My name is Luhan. Brother took your father to the town to get him warmed up. He said that you were too weak to follow so he told me to wait until you woke up so you could ride Hei to town.”

“Who’s Hei?” Zitao asked.

“Who else? The horse.”

Zitao’s eyes grew round as saucers and he asked, dumbstruck, “I get to ride it?”

Luhan looked at him like he was crazy. “Hei is a she, and besides, what else is a horse for? Of course you get to ride her.”

…

Riding a horse turned out not to be as glamorous as Zitao had imagined it, the sideways motion and the height from the frozen ground sending his head spinning. The stirrups were too long for him to place his feet in and the pommel was too far away from the seat to reach, so he was in constant fear of falling. He wasn’t even sure if Luhan would help him up if he fell, because the older boy seemed more than a bit resentful at walking in the thigh-deep snow while Zitao rode his horse.

Night was falling quickly, but the moon was full that night, so they were just able to make out the blurred line where the road turned into the surrounding fields. It was strangely quiet, as though the snow had muffled all the sounds that usually abounded in the countryside, and there was a scent on the air that was vaguely familiar.

“Where are we going?” Zitao asked, his voice lurching with every plodding step of the horse.

“The town,” Luhan replied, poking at a nearby lump of snow with a stick he had picked up earlier. “Brother is waiting there with your father.”

“Who is Brother?”

The lump of snow turned out to be a mound of earth marking a rude grave by the roadside, and Luhan bowed respectfully at the marker, a large stone with some words etched onto it, before catching up to Zitao and Hei.

“He’s not my brother,” Luhan explained. “He is a master at the temple where I live. I’m an orphan, so the monks took me in, and Brother takes care of me.”

Zitao was silent for a moment as he sorted through Luhan’s words in his head.

“Then...” he began slowly. “You don’t have any parents?”

“No. And I don’t need any, either. I like having Brother take care of me,” Luhan answered defensively.

Zitao wondered about that, but he didn’t say anything about it. “Are we there yet?”

“Have patience,” Luhan said. “The town is just over that next hill.”

…

When they arrived at the town center night had completely fallen, and a single, precious torch cast a flickering light outside one of the buildings, which Zitao found out was the home of the town’s only doctor. Luhan helped Zitao slide off of Hei and tied her at a post in front of the house where another horse was also standing.

The house was modest by the town’s standards, but to Zitao it was a completely different world. The main room had a door on the opposite wall that seemed to lead to a hallway and another room, but it was large in itself and the corners were still draped in shadow, not reached by the light coming from the table at the room’s center. The floor was overlapping wooden planks instead of dirt, and the walls were made of stone instead of mud, but the greatest distinguishing factor was the candles that burned steadily on the tables, surrounded by and surrounding stacks upon stacks of books. Wax was precious everywhere, and paper even more so, so for the house to have both in such abundance was a testament to its owner’s wealth.

Among those candles and those books Zitao’s father looked strangely out of place, reclining on a pile of blankets against the wall. Zitao was more used to seeing him, brown-faced and sweating, working in the fields, or, relaxed and with pieces of sunflower seeds still stuck on his lower lip, talking with Zitao’s mother conversationally. The expression of pain on his face now, combined with the helplessness of his situation, was disconcerting.

“Father!” Zitao called out when he had stopped blinking in surprise.

“Zitao.” His father smiled and allowed Zitao to crawl into the space at his side, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

“What’s going on?” Zitao asked.

“Your father is weak,” came a voice from one of the corners of the room. “You should let him rest and have some more food. You have been running on adrenaline since you woke up and your body needs nutrition.”

Zitao frowned at the many unfamiliar words, but at a nod from his father he got up and stumbled to the source of the voice, only then realizing how unsteady on his feet he was. The voice belonged to a man wearing dark robes. His head was shaved and Zitao wondered how he wasn’t freezing, even inside the house with a fire smoldering in the firepit.

“I have many names,” the man said. “But you can call me Brother.”

“Why?” Zitao asked. “You’re not my brother.”

The man smiled, as if he had been anticipating the question.

“In this world, we are all brothers. After all, we are all people, aren’t we?”

Zitao thought for a moment, then agreed, nodding slowly. “That’s true....Brother.”

“Very good. Sit down and have some water.”

While he watched Zitao eat Brother explained that the owner of the house was away helping to deliver a baby, and that he had granted them use of his house because he was well acquainted with Brother. That explained the disorganized state of the house, as well as the ease with which Brother navigated the surroundings.

Then, after ensuring that Zitao had eaten his share of rice and vegetables mushy from being cooked multiple times, Brother took Zitao’s hand and sat down with his father. Zitao continued to slurp the puddle of grease that collected at the bottom of the vegetables’ dish, watching one of the candles perched nearby flicker as it reached the end of its wick. Its wax dripped onto the book’s cover to pool there and then fall onto a pile of assorted rubbish on the tabletop.

“Son,” Zitao’s father began. “I have talked with Brother and he has offered to take you with him to the temple where he lives.”

Zitao’s stomach was full from food and his eyes were drooping with drowsiness, so it took him a moment to digest what his father was saying.

“What do you mean?” he asked slowly. “Have I done something wrong?”

“It’s not anything you have done,” Brother interjected. “But this winter is very bad, and your family could use some help. The temple receives many donations from wealthy men in the city, and we are able to take care of you so your family doesn’t have to worry about you. You can even stay after this winter, if you like. The other brothers at the temple will teach you the art of kung fu. Of course you have to work for your keep, but Luhan will help you if you ask nicely.”

Zitao was stunned. He looked at his father. “Really?”

“Really,” Brother said.

Zitao’s father smiled encouragingly, and Zitao turned back towards Brother, who was extending to him a hand.

“What do you say, Zitao? Do we have a deal?”

Zitao reached for Brother’s hand and shook it vigorously, grinning all the while.

…

The ride to the temple was long, especially because Luhan had to ride close by Zitao so he wouldn’t fall off his horse, but the prospect of learning kung fu and starting to achieve his dream made the ride seem shorter than it actually was for Zitao.

The sun had risen bright and strong that morning, reflecting off the whiteness of the snow so that every surface seemed to glow. The strength of its rays had melted the snow somewhat too, so the icicles hanging from rooftops dripped with a steady plop plop, and the snow was slightly slushy as their horses plodded through it. The air felt so warm that Zitao suspected spring was on its way, but from the way Brother and Luhan huddled in their furs he thought it was probably just the food working on him.

They said good-bye to Zitao’s father outside of town, where he started the long walk back home with plenty of provisions so he could rest often. Zitao had no doubt, judging from the invigorated look on his face to the slight spring in his step, that he would have no trouble returning home and bringing the food to his family.

Zitao had never been as far from home as he had in that moment, but the space in between himself and home meant nothing at that moment, when he was so hopeful for the future. Outside the town they passed a few farmhouses with their surrounding fields, trapped under a blanket of snow for the winter, and then the road began to climb into foothills and mountains. The farthest reaches of the road were blocked by snow, but the temple they were traveling to was not far from the flatlands, and still accessible.

Around noon they stopped at the side of the road. Brother boiled some snow in a pot and they chewed strips of dried beef while they waited for him to cook some rice. The horses had to eat some hay they had carried from the town, and the cold finally caught up with Zitao as he stooped shivering on the frozen ground. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a grin coming from Luhan at his apparent misery, but Zitao stuck his tongue out and Luhan turned away, scowling.

They reached the temple at nightfall, with a spread of stars overhead to light their way through a grove of trees that hid the main building from view of the road, which had at that point turned into two wheel ruts in the ground. Several brothers robed like Brother greeted them and took their things, smiling and bowing at Zitao as if they had expected him.

That night he went to sleep on a mat near the fire, wedged in between several other bodies for warmth. He dreamt of war trumpets and hooves sending up clouds of dust from a ground stained red with the blood of his enemies.

…

His training started a week after he had arrived at the temple, which was the amount of time it took for Brother to deem him healthy enough to work, and, coincidentally, the amount of time it took for him to finally befriend Luhan, while fighting over a steamed bun at dinnertime.

It was nothing like he imagined. He was the youngest of four other boys who Brother Bu, their teacher, said were also orphans. The four other boys already knew many of the forms that Brother Bu taught them, but Zitao struggled along with trying to replicate the sharp wrist movements and fluid steps of the others. When the other boys concluded their lesson and wandered off to do their chores, Brother Bu kept Zitao behind and took him through the steps again, forcing him to stay in painful crouches and contortions of his body so that his muscles would remember the correct positions. He was kind to Zitao, but Zitao was so frustrated when he kept forgetting the order of the forms that Brother Bu’s kindness went over his head. When he sulked out of the practice room and went to find Luhan the corners of his eyes prickled with tears, sweat itched at his scratchy shirt, and his muscles screamed their displeasure at the ill treatment.

Luhan laughed at Zitao’s predicament, which, sourly, Zitao realized he did a lot--that is, laughed at Zitao.

“Why don’t you learn kung fu?” Zitao asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Luhan finish his lunch of bread and salted turnip.

“Me?” Luhan laughed again. “What could someone like me ever use kung fu for? All I want to do is grow up and find a nice girl so I can live on a farm with our children for the rest of my life.”

Zitao thought of Fahong and Zhuang.

“That’s boring,” he decided. “I’d rather fight evildoers and hunt glory.”

Luhan shrugged. “That’s your opinion. Why don’t you go practice your kung fu, huh?”

Zitao stuck his tongue out at him and snatched the last bite of bread from Luhan’s fingers.

…

Zitao’s progress in the martial arts area was slow. Too slow, as far as he was concerned. While the other boys learned new forms and faced each other in the courtyard, red-faced in the cold, Zitao stayed inside and went over the same basic forms with Brother Bu, each time feeling his muscles stretch unwillingly into the unfamiliar shapes. He knew that at his current rate he would never achieve anything, much less everything, like he wanted. So he began to blame Brother Bu for being a bad teacher, the other boys for not helping him enough during training, Luhan for being a bad friend when he went to him for advice. Anything was better than admitting that he himself was not improving the way he wanted to.

Sometimes he saw Brother walking through the maze of passageways inside the temple, or sipping tea in the dining hall with a book spread out before him, but he always ran away before the monk could approach him, because he was afraid that he wasn’t living up to his expectations.

He spent a lot of time brooding over a possible return home--at least there it was familiar and safe, even if his belly wasn’t always full. He had learned to ride better in his time at the temple, so he could easily take a horse and ride back home if the brothers didn’t want to let him go. But each time he thought of that fateful day at the marketplace, and he thought of his father’s tears in snow, and of the proud expression on his face when Zitao had accepted Brother’s invitation to the temple. And then he decided that the temple wasn’t so bad. He decided that he could keep trying, and eventually he would become a great kung fu master, if he tried hard and long enough.

The thaw of spring came and the flowers on the trees outside the temple began to blossom. Zitao would occasionally step over a river of melting snow as he walked outside, or dodge a waterfall of melted ice while going about his chores inside the temple. More visitors began to trickle into the temple, as if they were part of the constant runoff of water, seeking religious guidance as the roads opened up and the war intensified. Brother Bu deemed Zitao proficient in his first form and began to teach him two new ones in addition to the one he had yet to master. Zitao began to take hope in his improving skill, though every so often his mood darkened and he only practiced half-heartedly, like there was no use in it.

He turned seven as the monks began the long process of cleaning the fields for new crops, and one of the brothers presented him with a small portion of eight treasure rice, leftover from a wealthy visitor a few days past. Zitao savored every bite of the sticky treat, the red bean paste from the crevasses of his teeth for hours afterward, and he decided that life was good.

One evening after helping plant the fields he showed his second form to Brother Bu and was declared proficient in that one as well. He gained another new form to learn and Brother Bu began to send him to Brother Yang to learn about the more spiritual side of martial arts. Zitao resented the long hours spent sitting on the hard stone ground at first, but in time he came to appreciate its value as well. Luhan began to joke about the decreasing frequency of Zitao’s angry outbursts, and the other brothers rewarded him when he could recite from Laozi or Confucius.

Then the same day he successfully completed two forms his mother came to visit him. Her belly was big with another baby and she seemed happy to see him, worrying about the state of his clothing and imploring him to eat more to put more meat on his now lean frame. She spent the night at the temple, and she told Zitao all about life back at the farm, how Zhuang had become an apprentice to a blacksmith in the town and how they all missed him very much. Zitao cried when she left, and forgot to practice his forms that night.

The same night Brother found him and sat down to talk to him for one of the first times since Zitao had first come to the temple. They sat near the well the monks used when their usual source of water, a nearby stream, ran dry during the heat of summer.

“Do you miss your family?” Brother asked.

Zitao nodded, rubbing his fingers together absently.

“Do you want to go back to them?”

Zitao shook his head. “I’d rather be here, learning how to fight.”

Brother nodded. “That’s good. But, Zitao, you’ve never actually told me why you want to fight.”

Zitao blinked as if it were obvious, shifting around in the long grass around them. “I want to become like Cao Cao, and protect the weak while punishing the evil. That way I can make my family proud and go to live in the city one day.”

“That’s interesting,” Brother said. “And a good reason. If you ever have any problems, Zitao, you can talk to me about them.”

Zitao nodded, and they spent the rest of the evening until Zitao’s bedtime discussing anything, each other, themselves, and everything Zitao had ever dreamed or wanted. Afterwards they became much closer, and spent many hours talking to each other. Zitao knew that whatever problem he had, Brother would have a solution to it. Brother Bu commented on his rapid improvement and Zitao’s progress accelerated even more. On his eighth birthday he caught up to one of the older boys--Xianhua who had come to the temple not long before Zitao. A week of his bragging caused the others to complain to Brother Bu, and Zitao’s lessons with Brother Yang lengthened. The big words and stern don’ts made his head hurt, but slowly he began to visit the temple’s shrine to light a candle to his ancestors, began to punctuate his sentences with honorifics instead of a face tilted in question, began to learn why humans had been put on the earth in the first place. And through it all he kept that day at the marketplace close to his heart, the feeling helping through the burn of his muscles and the ache of his head, the occasional taunts of the older boys and Brother’s disappointment when Zitao couldn’t figure out something that should have been obvious.

In the autumn of his ninth year the older boys began to talk of joining the war, and their enthusiasm smoldered slowly throughout winter until the first rays of spring sunlight set their hearts ablaze with dreams of glory and justice. That spring Zitao became Brother Bu’s only student while Xianhua and Zhoumi and the others went to enlist in the war, which was creeping closer and closer to the temple’s protected isolation at the outskirts of civilization.

The most senior monks required everyone at the temple to receive minor martial arts training in case soldiers should pass through and attempt to steal the precious statues and incense from their shrines. Zitao laughed with Brother Bu at their attempts to perform the simplest of maneuvers, and he counted the days until he too could go to war and stop all the nonsense.

Throughout his tenth year Brother Yang picked up the time left free by Brother Bu, who was too busy teaching the others to train with Zitao. In the mornings Zitao learned about Qin Shihuangdi and Sun Tzu while in the afternoons he completed chores like sweeping the floors with Luhan or kneading dough for vegetable buns in the kitchen. In the evenings Brother always set aside some time for him, whether it was for a walk through the trees, a cup of tea while watching the sunset, or a few words exchanged as they prepared for bed. It was almost like having a family, in a way. Though Zitao treasured the infrequent visits of his parents and sometimes his siblings, he could never leave the temple after training so long and so hard there.

On the morning of his twelfth birthday Brother Bu presented him with a longsword, a thin instance of rippling metal that disappeared into a barely discernible line of metal when Zitao turned it sideways. Brother Bu said that it was his year, the year of the rooster, and that year Zitao left with a band of traveling brothers to practice his swordsmanship against the best students of the neighboring temples. At first he was gravely disappointed at how often the others managed to defeat him, but by his fourteenth year he was one of the best swordsmen for miles around. That year and the next, his fifteenth, he traveled farther and farther from his birthplace. He went away from the war and sometimes into its heart, though his desire to win distracted him from the smoking homesteads and trampled fields left behind by conquering armies.

Not long after his seventeenth birthday he returned to the temple a champion. He had traveled to a great metropolis in the southwest, yet untouched by fighting, and won great honors at a tournament held there. Upon his return, having not seen the temple or his home for two years, he discovered that much had changed. Armies on the move had cut off supplies coming from the south, and food was short all around. Brother Bu had died in his sleep a half year past, and Brother Yang was on the verge of death from old age. New orphans had taken the place of the ones that had left in the war, and a new teacher taught them forms unfamiliar to Zitao. The cook that he had helped knead dough so long ago had an injured hip and could no longer do strenuous work, instead cracking string beans and wrapping dumplings leaned against one of the warm stone walls of the kitchen. A more inexperienced monk had taken his place at the fire, so all the food was slightly singed. Luhan had, reluctantly, joined the war too, and his place in the sleeping hall had been given to someone else. The only constant that remained was Brother, ever mysterious and ever caring.

“You should join the war too, you know,” he told Zitao one evening as the embers from the cooking fire smoldered in the dim moonlight coming through the windows. “You would be a great warrior.”

Zitao shook his head. “I will not fight for a cause I do not know. When I was young I wanted to fight for justice, and that is the only thing that I will fight for now.”

“But you will not fight for the people you love, who are dying?”

“A just ruler would protect the people.”

“And there are no just rulers.”

“So no one I can fight for.”

“Then will you fight against the unjust?”

“Perhaps. But I am only one amongst many.”

Brother sighed and took a sip of his tea, grown cold during the length of their conversation. Zitao followed suit and drained the rest of his cup. Silence fell for a moment as Brother seemed to ponder his next words, and the sounds of night began to come from outside.

“Has Brother Yang taught you about Sun Tzu?”

“Of course.”

“He once said that a wise man looks at space, and knows that there are no true boundaries.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that even if you are only one, you can still change much. Do not follow the rules of just and unjust when you know you can do more. There are no true boundaries, Zitao.”