On the afternoon after the river-crossing, the column of twenty-four thousand moved slowly down the southern road.

The column's pace was slow. The old and frail walked in front, the middle in the middle, and the able-bodied at the rear. The whole speed was set by the slowest pace of the old and frail. One li (里) of movement this afternoon equaled one to two days' movement in ordinary times. And yet no one spoke to hurry the pace.

At a corner of the road, an old man's bundle was nudged forward, lightly, by the steps of those behind him.

The old man looked to be over seventy. The bundle was half his height. Inside were a bag of rice, a single bedroll, and a small wooden ancestral tablet. The tablet was his late wife's. She had lived with him at Xinye for twenty years.

Several times already that afternoon the old man had struggled to bear the bundle alone. Whenever his pace grew slow, the steps of those behind him brushed lightly against the small of his back. They did not hurry him. Only the inertia (慣性) of their own walking nudged his bundle a little further on.

The afternoon sun had already tilted west. From the side of the road, Liu Bei (劉備) saw the old man's bundle. He dismounted and stepped toward him.

"Elder. Let me carry the bundle."

The old man's face flushed. A general walking at the head of twenty-four thousand, coming up to a man of seventy to take his bundle, was not a scene he could find anywhere in his seventy years' memory.

"Your Lordship. My bundle I shall carry myself. It is already being nudged forward by the young behind me. It is not a bundle borne by one man; it is a bundle borne together by twenty-four thousand."

Liu Bei smiled. The old man's words unfolded, in a single stroke, the true face of this afternoon's column. Every bundle among the twenty-four thousand, though it seemed to belong to one person, was in truth a common bundle of twenty-four thousand, each pushed forward by the inertia of those behind.

"Elder. That tablet — whose is it?"

"It is my wife's. She passed five years ago. I buried her on a hill west of Xinye."

Liu Bei bowed his head.

"Elder. One day, at the end of this road, so that you may return to that hill, I shall prepare the return myself. The Xinye you have left today is a seat you will return to. In that return, may your wife's tablet also be brought home with you."

The old man's eyes reddened. Eyes of seventy do not redden easily. Yet this afternoon his eyes reddened. Within that reddened gaze, the face of his wife of five years ago rose again, briefly, because of Liu Bei's words this afternoon.

At the rear of the column, Guan Yu (關羽) reined his horse and watched. He did not come closer. He only bowed his head. That single bow carried the same meaning as offering a further bow to the seventy-year-old.

Zhang Fei (張飛) was further back, looking at the distant northern road. A line of dust from Cao Cao's (曹操) advance cavalry had risen on the far horizon. Zhang Fei signaled the dust to Guan Yu with a hand-gesture. Guan Yu nodded. The two younger brothers began quietly, each at his place, to prepare.

Liu Bei received the old man's bundle with his right hand. The old man handed it over reluctantly. The bundle was lighter than he had expected — a bag of rice, a bedroll, and one tablet, light enough to hang from a short leather strap beside the saddle.

Yet though the bundle's weight was light, its meaning was not. Inside were five years of a seventy-year-old's memory and the name of his wife. As Liu Bei fastened the bundle beside his saddle, he knew that from this afternoon his own name was tied, knot by knot, beside the twenty-four thousand bundles of twenty-four thousand people.

The afternoon sun had fully tilted west. The column completed one li of road that afternoon. One li was short, yet within it a seventy-year-old's bundle had been nudged forward, Liu Bei's name had been tied once more to twenty-four thousand bundles, and Cao Cao's advance dust had risen on the far northern horizon.

Three things in one li. The bundle pushed forward, the name tied forward, and the dust coming forward. These three rhythms were the true rhythm of this afternoon's column. To carry a people along a single road is not, as it first appears, to walk a hundred small bundles forward; it is, in practice, to walk one larger bundle forward, one li at a time, together. The bundle holds the name of every person within it, and the name of the column at its head, in the same single knot. That knot was drawn tighter, one more turn, with every li walked.

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