The morning fog still clung to the muddy lanes of Green-Willow Village when Granny Liu pushed open her wooden front gate.
Granny Liu was seventy-two years old. Her back was bent from fifty years of weeding rice paddies, and her knees ached whenever rain was due. In her gnarled, liver-spotted hands, she carried a heavy wooden washtub filled with wet hemp shirts and bedsheets.
She took two hobbling steps toward the clothesline.
RUSTLE! SNAP!
The tall hibiscus bushes along the garden wall suddenly shook with violent force.
Leaves flew in all directions. Branches snapped like dry twigs. Out from the greenery leaped twenty massive, seven-foot figures, landing in the dirt with a ground-shaking thud.
THUMP!
Every single one of them had arms thicker than tree trunks, shoulders broader than barn doors, and swirling dragon tattoos running across their throats. Yet over their massive chests, they wore blinding lemon-yellow canvas vests with silver reflective stripes.
