He gave himself the name Qian Duoduo, literally "plenty of money," saying that money is the one thing a person…
He gave himself the name Qian Duoduo, literally "plenty of money," saying that money is the one thing a person must have plenty of in life.
So he is mocked in the army as the number-one coward and miser, but he only laughs it off and returns to his ledgers.
He has spent his whole life recording profit and loss, yet the heaviest debt is the one between himself and General Wang Qing.
That year, invaders slaughtered his village. To survive, he hid in an abandoned well for five days, living on grass roots, muddy water, and worms.
Through a gap in the well's lid, he saw the glow of flames, heard desperate cries, and smelled blood and charred flesh. He learned to gauge the distance of horses by hoofbeats in the wind, and to sense approaching presence through vibrations in the air.
Drip, drop... Drip, drop... Five days passed as he cowered in the rot, stench, and despair.
Until light pierced down through the mouth of the well, and the general arrived.
Qian Duoduo did not cry. Quietly, he opened a ledger in his heart and wrote down solemnly: Wang Qing, life owed.
Now, as he smelled that familiar stench of danger beside the general, the army's "number-one coward" did not falter for the first time in his life.
After writing a letter carrying all his secrets and love, he walked quietly toward the deadly trap laid for the general. Quietly, as he once crawled out of that abandoned well.
He will save the general's life with his own, a life pulled from the darkness below.
This is a debt he has carried for half a lifetime, and today, it will be settled in full.