This spear came down from my father. The head's been replaced three times. The shaft, never.
Aolai Town has three gates: east to the sea, west to the hills, north to the high road. Before the yao plague, gate duty meant inspecting goods, collecting tolls, and moving drunks along. Not anymore. Now the night watch burns double torches and walks double rounds. When something stirs in the direction of the peach woods, your hand goes to the spear shaft first, and only then do you look up.
I have thirty men. Thirty is what I tell myself — maybe ten can fight; the rest are farmhands, a butcher, and two soldiers home on leave. But in a year of plague, not one of them ran. Why? Because I made one thing plain: we don't guard the gate. We guard the people behind it. A gate can be rebuilt. A person, once gone, takes a whole family with them.
Last month, seventh night, west gate. A xiao came over the wall, straight for the schoolhouse lane. I took four men to stop it. Faster than a dog, smarter than a monkey, and it kept to the dark. In the alley behind the paper-crafter's it turned and looked at me. I still remember that look — not a beast watching a man. A man watching a man. It was weighing me.
It got nothing that night. Went back over the wall. Two of my lads were blooded.
Next day, Mengzheng the tutor brought his students with a banner for me: ONE PILLAR HOLDS THE SKY. I put it away. Didn't hang it. Hang it up, and the yao learns your face. The old Tang books say it plain — real knights-errant finish the job and leave without a name. I'm no knight-errant, but the principle holds.
Anyone who takes a bounty notice, I check their hands first. No calluses — no. Wandering eyes — no. Says "easy job" — absolutely not. The plague is not an easy job.
Not long ago a young man with a medicine basket took a notice. Callused hands. Steady eyes. Kept his word. I let him go. And he actually got it done.
Send me a few more like that, and this old spear can hold a few more years.