Chapter One

The sun rose and roosters began to crow in the small village of Nianzu

Beneath his blankets, curled up in a cocoon of warmth morning sounds filtered through to the boy Changpu's ear at which his conciousness was stirred, his eyes slowly flickering open.

Changpu swore to himself as he heard the roosters crowing. Realizing that it was time to rise and attend to his chores. To fetch fresh pails of water from the village well and to sweep the Ancestral Shrine.

Once the Changpu had finished carting pails for the daily household needs he took a short break by the entrance to Shrine before he began his last chore of the morning.

The shrine was a red with huge wooden doors and was guarded by two stone lions. Changpu began his cleaning chore by wiping down the lions, he then worked his way through the shrine dusting and sweeping before he arrived at his mothers portrait knelt lit incense and prayed for her. His mother had passed away giving birth to him.

Once he had prayed and was ready to leave, for a second he felt compelled to look towards a quiet corner of the Ancestral Shrine, there sat a small tablet, one amongst many. He walked over bowed picked up the tablet and wiped it gently. When he had cleaned one side, he turned it over and began wiping its back. The surface flaked and revealed a glimmer of a metal object.

Examining the rear surface of the tablet, Changpu carefully began to reveal the metal object hidden within the back surface.

It was a metal disk almost the size of his hand and upon it was written, "Token of Commander Wu"

it had a hole through which it could be worm about ones neck.

Changpu, had never heard of a Commander Wu amongst his family, and had always thought of the as farmers, there was tablets of two scholars but nothing higher in the family shrine. But as the family name was Wu and he was its last surviving descendant he held it proudly. Took iit back into his room to find a chain, after which he wore it around his neck.