Faraway Wanderers
Written by priest
Original Chinese work (c) 2010-2011
Unofficial translation (c) 03/02/2021 - 09/07/2022 by Huang “Chichi” Zhifeng
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The original work was published on jjwxc.
This translation was published originally on Wordpress.
Translator Contact Information
chichilations.home.blog ~ ko-fi.com/chichilations ~ huangzhifengtheosprey@gmail.com
The blog is the source site, and the ko-fi has plans for further translations, though it’s a space solely for my original works, otherwise.
Please send any inquiries, bug reports, typos, etc. regarding the translation to my email. Also let me know if anyone has reuploaded this translation elsewhere, especially if they’re redistributing it in epub/pdf format; I can and have dealt with them before, I’ll do it again.
Ancient Chinese Units of Measurements, for your reading convenience
shichen: one of the 12 two-hour time periods ancient Chinese folks used instead of hours
cun: equivalent to 3⅓ cm
li: equivalent to ½ a km
chi: equivalent to ⅓ m
zhang: equivalent to 3⅓ m
catty: equivalent to 604.79g
tael: equivalent to 37.8g
Translator’s Foreword
Welcome to the fanmade translation of Faraway Wanderers! It’s not done.
Feel free to read it in-progress. Y’all going to see me work on translations live, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. (ND = Not Done)
WordPress posts contain only excerpts, and are still available for making comments on and such.
(Don’t request edit access. Those emails go straight to the trash.)
Here is a prior warning for this book: This is a spiritual sequel to Lord Seventh. Reading it isn’t a requirement, technically, but it is recommended for some backstory, especially because this story contains spoilers for that one. Other people have read Lord Seventh second and regretted it, so… choose your destiny.
As it happens, I translated Lord Seventh in full. It’s available on my blog, linked above. So is the character guide for it.
Any notes/concepts/characters from Lord Seventh will not be included in the Faraway Wanderers character guide, as this translation assumes that the reader has read the previous entry.
Here is a content warning for the whole book: Death, gore, mentions of rape and adultery (will further be added to)
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(As of this writing, the book is completely locked on jjwxc… buy a different priest book for now, I suppose.)
The courtyard’s plum blossoms bloomed the branches full, falling to coat the ground, spread all over the remnant snow yet to be cleaned away. At first glance, one couldn’t directly tell where the snow ended and the flowers began, that subdued fragrance wafting when the wind rose, circulating through the entire yard.
Beneath dusk’s curtain, the moon above the eaves shone as coldly as water.
At the extreme end of a tiny courtyard, there was a corner gate half-shaded by the plum blossoms, having a vague silhouette of the year’s end. Were one to push said door open and go inside, the interior would be seen to be massively different.
At the entryway stood two robust men, each armed with a sabre. The hallway was narrow, cramped, and laid underfoot were large bluestone bricks that led to a dark prison, its dense aura of harsh death attacking the face.
The scent of flowers seemed to be confined to that courtyard gate, not a bit of it getting through.
There were a few guards stationed here, as well, all adorned with blades and standing there like wooden mannequins. At the entrance was a large iron gate as thick as an adult man’s arm.
Passing through the prison’s narrow, pitch-black walkway to head inside, one would come upon three stone doors controlled by mechanisms. Each one was guarded by people. Going through these three gates to head even further in, not even a bit of the life of the human world was visible, resembling the long, slim road of the path that wronged souls used in the Yellow Springs. Several lanterns flickered endlessly, the spitting image of will-o’-the-wisps.
Inside the innermost cell, there was a man’s voice quietly saying something. Following that, there was a short moment of quiet. Another person seemed to sigh, without strength, to the point that it was airy.
All of a sudden, a scream sliced through the prison’s darkness, the flames even extinguishing. The scream was extraordinarily shrill, like an animal on the verge of death’s, and caused an indescribable chill to arise in one’s heart.
One of the two guards that had his back towards the cell looked to be a newcomer, the puerileness of youth still on his face. Hearing this commotion, he couldn’t help but shudder, sneaking a glance at his companion. He discovered that the other party was acting like he was deaf, standing ramrod-straight and as unmoved as a mountain, and immediately curbed his emotions himself, lowering his eyes.
Yet, the scream resounded persistently for far too long. The man’s voice broke, hoarse as it went on unceasingly as ever. In the end, that breath couldn’t be sustained, the sharp screaming turning into sobbing moans, though ever the more miserable-sounding.
The new guard felt goosebumps fighting to be first to jump up all over him.
About an incense stick’s worth of time passed before the man’s voice died down. Then, not long after, two men hauled out a middle-aged man, whether he was alive or dead unknown. He was bare-chested, head cocked to one side, hair already damp with sweat, lips and tongue bitten open, bloodied foam coming from the corners of his mouth. No injuries were on his body, aside from dark red nails piercing each of the seven major acupoints in his chest and abdomen.
As if hooked onto a bizarre and terrifying totem, the young guard’s gaze automatically followed after the middle-aged man, all the way until the three vanished into the stone gate.
At that moment, someone said quietly from behind him, “Seeing this, do you not have regrets?”
The young guard shivered in fright, quickly turning his head around, and saw that a man in sapphire-blue robes had silently come to stand behind him at some unknown point in time. His companion beside him had already knelt down on one knee on the floor, so the youth reacted by hurriedly kneeling, too. “Manor Lord.”
The man in the long robes looked to be around his late twenties. His bearing was elegant, like a scholar’s, but his face was encased in a layer of sickliness. The silhouette of his features was cut quite defined, and his eyes were extraordinarily bright, always somewhat hooded, practically half-hidden by his rather long, rather dense lashes. On occasion, they would look up, carrying with them a current of indescribable coldness that caused the hearts of all who looked at them to freeze. His nose was a handsome attribute, but his lips were very thin, causing that handsome face to be senselessly appended with a ruthless tinge.
Hearing the youth’s call, the man had to look further at him. With a light laugh, he said, “You’re new, right?”
The youth bowed his head. “Yes.”
The man raised his hand to give his shoulder a few gentle pats. “Remember, then, to not call me Manor Lord from here on out. I haven’t been any sort of Lord for a long time. You should call me Sir Zhou next time.”
The youth looked up to speedily glance at him, and very respectfully bowed. “Yes, Sir Zhou.”
Nodding, the man waved him off. “You two can go. I’ll clean up by myself for a minute.”
Both guards affirmed, then left abreast. The young guard couldn’t resist turning back for a look, witnessing the blue-robed man calmly leaning against the doorframe, eyes appearing to stare at something in the empty air, yet also appearing to see nothing at all. Inexplicably, the young man felt that the other seemed to want to go somewhere very far away.
Once the first iron gate fell shut, the silent old guard suddenly said in a low voice, “You saw how he looks? Like a refined and warm intellectual? Are you able to imagine that those hands of his hammer in every single one of the Septeye Nails of Three Autumns?”[1]
The youth was startled, inclining his head to look at his aged compatriot. The old guard had white on both of his temples.
“You still have a lot of things you don’t yet understand,” the other said with a sigh. “We’re Heaven’s Pane. Simply put, we can come in, but never leave; if you want to leave, you would have to either die or be crippled before you could.”
In the Great Qing’s fourth year of Rongjia, the name Heaven’s Pane could terrify society as a whole.
Heaven’s Pane was an organization consisting of spies and assassins that were directly loyal to the Emperor. No one knew how many of them there were, no one knew where they hid — and no one doubted that their feelers could infiltrate to the far corners of the world.
Heaven’s Pane’s very first leader — that man in the long, sapphire-blue robes — was the former Lord of the Four Seasons Manor, the current Sir Zhou, Zhou Zishu.
From the palace confidentials above to the common poor below, it seemed like nothing was a secret to Heaven’s Pane. For that very reason, there was a rule where every living person that had a mouth and could use it to speak with was not allowed to leave Heaven’s Pane. Anyone that entered it and then left would either have died, or have personally requested that the Septeye Nails be used on them.
The Nails, as described, were seven poisoned nails meant to seal the seven most vital major acupoints in a human’s chest and abdomen, stagnating their meridians. From that point on, their martial arts would be ruined, their mouths would not be able to speak, and their limbs would not be able to move the slightest bit, making them resemble an invalid. Over three years, the poison would enter their internal organs, and then they would take their dying breath.
Even though they could stay alive for three years, life would be worse than death.
But, even with that, there were yet some that preferred to be the living dead, wanting to leave Heaven’s Pane.
Three years of vagrant life was the greatest boon that could be imperially bestowed upon them.
Nevertheless, Zhou Zishu dismissed those attending, went back to a tiny cell by himself, shut the door, placed his hands behind his back, slowly and mindlessly paced around the room once, then stopped in his tracks, took out small case of Septeye Nails that had been place in the corner, and opened it. The frightening-looking little objects surprisingly emitted a smell similar to the cold fragrance of fallen plum petals. Zhou Zishu inhaled deeply, after which he went to open up his robes.
His surface appearance was tall and well-proportioned, but this removal of clothes only revealed a body so shriveled-up, it looked like something had siphoned him dry. Upon his desiccated chest and abdomen were clearly six out of seven Nails already inserted — who knew what month or year they had been stuck into him, as they were nearly grown into his flesh.
He lowered his head to look at his own body, laughing in seeming self-mockery, picked up a small knife from nearby after that, grit his teeth, then cut the skin that had nearly closed over the Nails back open. The blade moved swiftly and steadily, as if it wasn’t his own flesh he was slicing off. In not too much a time, the entire front of his torso was stained through with blood. On a second observation, the Nails that had been inserted long ago now looked like they had only just been stuck in.
Consequently, as if he had activated some sort of barrier, he grunted, then leaned bonelessly against the corner. Slowly sliding downwards, his body shook beyond control, the scant amount of color to his lips faded completely, and his teeth clenched with a rattling sound. With one sudden, violent twitch, his eyes widened some, then gradually shut, his head listing to one side.
Complexion ashen, body coated in blood trails — he seemed to have turned into a corpse.
Only when tomorrow’s first light of dawn came did the one curled up in the cell’s corner jerk slightly, slowly opening his eyes afterwards. The first time he attempted to stand, his legs went weak, nearly causing him to fall to the ground; it was only on the second attempt that he managed to stand. Taking out a kerchief, he dampened it in water, carefully wiped off the majority of the blood on his torso, closed his robes back up, picked up a single Nail, and put it in a pocket.
Taking in a deep breath, he pushed open the door and walked out.
Striding out of the cell, he came to that little courtyard with the cold flowers and white snow. All he sensed was an aroma that seeped down to the heart hitting him in the face, seeming to easily wash away the bloody stink coming off of him. He stood beneath a plum tree for a long time. When he came in close for a faint sniff, a light smile unconsciously appeared on his face.
And yet, he sighed breezily. “Come here,” he said, hushed.
A black-clothed person charged out like a shadow, bowing in wait for him to speak. Zhou Zishu took out a dark-colored token of command, and threw it to him. “Go request for Steward Duan to come accompany me for an imperial audience today.”
The one in black accepted the token, then mysteriously vanished, as if he had never been there to begin with.
After Zhou Zishu had come to command Heaven’s Pane, he had single-handedly promoted Grand Steward Duan Pengju, and he obeyed his commands alone. The man had the skills and the ambition, never hesitating to show what ambition it was.
At times, when Zhou Zishu looked at him, it was like looking at himself from a few years ago.
In not too long a time, Duan Pengju returned with the token, somewhat confused. They were a group unfit to be seen in the light, after all; aside from Zhou Zishu, the others normally didn’t have too many opportunities to have an imperial audience.
Zhou Zishu didn’t say much, merely having him stay for breakfast. Once he guessed that the Emperor was going to leave morning Court soon, he ordered, “Let’s go.”
Thus, they went to the palace. Duan Pengju was unsure of his intentions, he didn’t ask much, only following him quietly.
One after the other, the two went to the imperial study. The Rongjia Emperor, Helian Yi, was already there. As soon as he heard them arrive, he called out for them to come in at once. After Zhou Zishu and Duan Pengju gave a generous gesture of courtesy, the former took a bamboo scroll out of his sleeve and presented it to Helian Yi. “This is what you ordered for, Your Majesty.”
The other accepted it, yet wasn’t in a rush to read it, instead taking a measure of him. “Your complexion is getting worse,” he said, unable to keep from creasing his brow. “Call for an imperial physician to look at you later; there must be some unknown injury on you. You must never downplay those, nor rely on your youth to not take them seriously.”
Zhou Zishu laughed a bit. He didn’t nod, only saying, “I’ve troubled you with worry, Your Majesty.”
Helian Yi then glimpsed Duan Pengju. Taken aback at first, he asked thereafter, “Why did you come today, Pengju? We haven’t seen you for some time. You look to be in high spirits.”
Curving his beady little eyes, Duan Pengju quickly smiled in obeisance. “It is difficult work for Your Majesty to do countless things each day, yet you can still keep this old gent in mind.”
Helian Yi smiled. Vaguely detecting that Zhou Zishu appeared to have something to say, he first opened up the bamboo tube, took a small scroll out from within, and skimmed it quickly. A smile showing on his face, he lifted his head to say to Zhou Zishu, “This was carried out beautifully. How can we reward you, Zishu?”
…It was here.
Zhou Zishu suddenly lifted up his robes to kneel. Duan Pengju, understanding nothing, was obliged to kneel along with him.
Helian Yi frowned. “What are you doing?”
“This subject must beg you for a favor,” Zhou Zishu answered quietly, as if he had little strength.
“Stand up and say it. You’ve been through life and death for our Great Qing all these years; aside from the country itself, what could we not get you?” Helian Yi said, smiling. “Come, speak.”
Zhou Zishu straightened out his back, yet was still kneeling. Then, he silently opened the front of his robes. The instant that robe — wrapped to the point of thickness and practically air-tight — came undone, the stench of blood immediately rushed towards the nose. His body that had only just scabbed over was bleeding once again due to the bumpy carriage ride.
Helian Yi stood with a bang. “Zishu!”
Duan Pengju had been frightened into silence.
Zhou Zishu then opened his hand up. Upon his slender palm rested the final Nail. “Your Majesty, this subject has nailed in six myself. If the seventh is nailed in as well, I fear that I won’t be strong enough to say my goodbyes to you and the palace. I request that you grant me a favor in having Pengju help me finish.”
Helian Yi was dumbstruck, unable to utter a single word. Only after a long time did he dejectedly sit back down, tilting his head back to look at the study’s rafters, and whispering in fake soliloquy, “Yunxing is stationed in the Northwest. Beiyuan… Beiyuan is gone. Even you are now going to cast us away, too?”
Zhou Zishu said nothing.
After being quiet for a minute, Helian Yi spoke with lament. “We are all alone.”
“Your Majesty, you don’t need to worry much about Heaven’s Pane,” Zhou Zishu picked up. “Pengju has been following me for all these years. I trust him a lot, and he has the skill—“
“My Lord!” Duan Pengju interrupted. “My Lord, you can’t say such a thing! This Old Duan has never had such an idea! You… you can’t…”
“The Septeye Nails of Three Autumns,” Zhou Zishu quietly recited. “In three autumns, one’s insides will rend apart. Once the string is released, the arrow’s head cannot turn back…”
He stooped low to kowtow once to Helian Yi, but he did not look up afterwards. “In regards to this subject’s many years of service, help me finish this.”
Helian Yi stared dead at this man, who resembled a gourd spilling blood. In that moment, no one knew what this Emperor in the prime of his life was thinking: that these years had been spent being meticulous and cautious, these years had been spent exhausting all schemes, these years had been overflowing with the flares of war, these years had been bitterly cold, these years… and at the end of it all, he was the monarch overlooking the world, yet everyone was gone. He alone remained.
No one could escape the variable affairs of the world, and years abandoned.
A while later, he shut his eyes, then waved his hand.
Zhou Zishu’s lips hooked into a smile. “Thank you for your immense grace.”
Just as if he had encountered something joyful, a faint flush suffused his sickly, pale face. Ecstatic, he turned to Duan Pengju, and placed the Nail into his hand.
After the other hesitated for a good time, he grit his teeth, lifted the dark-red, ominous Nail up, and hammered it firmly into the flesh-and-blood body of his Lord. He knew that it was extremely painful — he had grown used to witnessing it over these years, where even the most iron-blooded man couldn’t stand it and would end up screaming bloody murder — but Zhou Zishu only shrank back a bit, his posture still upright. There was no scream, just a nearly inaudible grunt.
He even thought that Zhou Zishu had held mirth within that grunt.
He felt that the Manor Lord had gone mad.
Zhou Zishu remained where he was for a time, then bowed to Helian Yi, face as white as papier-mâché.
The strength of his body was quickly ebbing. A numb feeling began to slowly rise up. He spoke his final four words: “Take care, Your Majesty.”
Thus, without waiting for Helian Yi’s answer, he strode out of the imperial study, brisk, as if he had been relieved of some burden, and then his figure darted, vanishing without a trace.
–
The translator says: It was asked, so here’s a tidbit; Helian Yi uses both ‘we’ and ‘I’. The we is 朕, an Emperor-only self-pronoun, while the I is the informal 我, which he slips into in order to be more close to the one he’s speaking to. Past this chapter, it isn’t really relevant, so don’t worry about memorizing that.
The Septeye Nails had a secret. No one, aside from Zhou Zishu, knew of it at present, and likely few would come to know of it in the future.
If one inserted seven Nails at once, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. Those as powerful as Zhou Zishu would likely be able to get out that he was leaving the palace in one breath, but likely not be able to leave, turning into a pile of rotten meat that couldn’t speak, nor move.
However, if the Nails were inserted one at a time in three month intervals, allowing them to gradually grow into one’s body and become one with it, one would slowly adapt to them. Even though their wick would run out after three years, they would still have around half of their internal strength, as well as the ability to speak and move like a regularly person. It was simply that they would need to endure a pain like their heart was being bored into and bones were eroding, for a full eighteen months.
Supposedly, that type of pain alone could drive one insane. yet that rumor was apparently false, Zhou Zishu thought happily. He wasn’t insane right now, at the bare minimum. Not only was he not insane, but he felt like there had never been a happier, more carefree time in his life.
Heaven’s Pane would keep tabs on those who had left of their own volition, of course. Who they were, when they left, where they settled down, where their corpse was buried; those would all be recorded in detail, resembling an immense net. Once one was in, they would never be able to get out of it all of their life.
How pitiful it was that he had spent half of his life working tirelessly, only to end up with few confidantes.
Zhou Zishu, the former leader of Heaven’s Pane as single-handedly fostered by the Rongjia Emperor, had potent martial arts and was extremely proficient in the art of face-changing. The second he entered a crowd and turned, no one would be able to recognize him anymore.
And so, the most terrifying shadow to have wandered the palace disappeared from the world, leaving behind but one skinny-horse-riding, down-and-out vagrant man that was humming a little rural ditty completely off-key, a satintail reed held between his teeth.
He had become the first person to escape that fearsome net.
He wore a none-too-elegant human-skin mask on his face, which he had casually smeared to make yellowish, looking like an ill man that could keel over at any time. When he drank water at the river’s edge, he took a look at its surface, feeling that he looked entirely appropriate for his very real circumstances right now. The more he looked, the more satisfied he became, and then he pilfered a set of coarse clothes from a peasant’s home by the road, shed and burned the embroidered robes he had been wearing, tied a half-rusted flask to his waist, the inside of which was filled halfway with crudely-made, unfiltered wine.
He recalled, then, that he had been hidden away inside the imperial palace for all these years. Having never toured jianghu using his original name, he didn’t even need to think of a pseudonym, thus able to merrily hit the road like so.
There wasn’t anywhere for him to go. Everyone said that Jiangnan was no, so he thought to go there and take a look. All along the journey, he stopped and started, performing some steal-from-the-rich, give-to-the-poor deeds to fill his stomach with. After passing through Kaifeng and traversing Penglai, ever so slowly, it was over three months before he arrived at Jiangnan, where the grass was green and the lotuses were red.
The second he arrived, he slipped into World Best’s wine cellar. Once he sampled sweet osmanthus jiuniang, he instantly fell into a dream-like drunkenness, so pleased that he was floating. All he thought was that this day could not get better.
After ten or so days, his time of over-drinking had nearly led to his whereabouts being discovered. Then, he felt that even though the jiuniang was good, it was ultimately weak. Interest abating slightly, he therefore cast enough taels of silver down and left the cellar.
The passage of those ten-and-whatever days had made his visage even more terrible. He bore the face of a sickly ghoul garnished with wretched features all bunched up together, giving him an incomparably authentic look of malnutrition. On top of that, his outfit had been steeped in alcohol for over ten days, near about turning into leftovers from wine-making itself, and his disheveled hair hung down in strands, making him the spiting image of a beggar asking for food.
For that reason, when he was sitting beside the road, basking in the sun with his eyes closed, a chubby-faced toddler that hobbled past him then hobbled back, peered at him, then took a copper coin out, only to not know where to put it. After a long while of searching, he asked, “Uncle, where’s your bowl?”
An adult from his family immediately carried him away, which made him unsure of how to react.
Many years had passed. The friends and people he had once cared about had all left for faraway lands, if not died. He leaned against the wall’s corner, stretched his limbs, and contentedly bathed in the warm sunlight, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He also began to wonder: What had he been working towards, all those years?
In his youth, he had always believed himself to be a staggering talent, monopolizing all the adulation for himself. Top-tier intelligence? A clear mind? Expertise in martial arts? Far-reaching knowledge? It had seemed like if he didn’t do something great, he would have been born into this world in vain. Now that he was thinking back on it, what had he been working towards?
And what did he have left?
He had given up his own freedom, becoming a slave to the imperial family that needed to be hidden from view. After going in a circle, everything he had once owned was completely gone, and now he was all alone with nothing left, actively staking his life in order to redeem himself, feeling like he was being extremely smart about it.
He suddenly turned despondent. All he thought was how, out of all the stupid people in the world, none of them were more stupid than him.
For how long had he not been like this, sunbathing on the roadside, head empty? Laughable were the people traveling on the road, each one looking to be in a rush, going to and fro like they were being forced on pain of death. They were even more hurried than him, who was quickly farting his days away.
However, up in the restaurant nearby, he heard a woman’s high voice say, “Don, look at that man. If you say that he’s begging for food, he doesn’t even have a chipped bowl beside him. If you say that he isn’t, then he’s just been sitting there the whole morning, not doing anything but chuckle like an idiot. Maybe he is an idiot?”
Despite only have half of his martial arts power left, Zhou Zishu’s hearing was still as good as ever. The woman was partitioned from him by a busy street and her voice hadn’t been loud, yet he had still been able to hear her every word.
Before he had the time to inwardly mock himself, the very next moment, a man’s voice said, “He’s sunbathing.”
The man’s voice was very nice to hear, deep and low. The way he spoke was extremely languid, yet not slow to the point that it stuck to everything.
Zhou Zishu couldn’t resist raising his head to look over. He saw that on the second floor balcony of a restaurant across the street, leaning against the railing, was a fine-featured girl in purple clothes and a man in gray clothes seated across from each other. The man’s complexion was a bit white, yet his eyes were very black, as if they were absorbing all light, that clear contrast of white and black made him look somewhat unlike a living being. As soon as Zhou Zishu looked up like he had, his eyes happened to meet his.
The gray-clothed man expressionlessly let his gaze slip away, then expressionlessly turned his head to focus on eating the food on the table.
Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but laugh, thinking to himself that in this vast sea of people, he had still come across someone that understood him well.
The big, limpid spectacles of that maiden in purple still lingered all about him, though. After a long while, she finally couldn’t take it anymore, and after hearing the man’s order, she hopped to the floor below, ran over to be in front of Zhou Zishu, and said, “Beggar man, how about I invite you for a meal?”
Zhou Zishu gave her a lazy look, and shook his head. “Young benefactor, wouldn’t it better for you to invite me for a drink?”
The girl laughed cutely, turning her head to yell at the upper floor, “Don, this idiot called me a benefactor!”
Unfortunately, the gray-clothed Don appeared to not hear her, not even giving her a glance, only eating his meal with immense concentration. It was like his pining for food could not be obliterated by the sky collapsing right before his eyes.
“Everyone else begs for food, so why are you only one that begs for wine? What’s so great about that wine? Can it fill you up?” the girl asked.
Due to her beauty, Zhou Zishu couldn’t resist wanting to talk to her a bit more, so he said half-jokingly, “Relying on wine, I view countenances of red.”
The purpled-clothed maiden was taken aback for a moment, after which she couldn’t help but laugh without cease, her laughter similar to shaking branches. Zhou Zishu felt that his luck was pretty good, and that Jiangnan really did have a lot of pretty people in it. While he admired her, he waggled his head and lamented, “A word for rosy-cheeked youths in their prime; have pity on half-dead, white-haired elders. Having this sort of schadenfreude is not very generous of you, Miss.”
“Oh, that erudite, are you?” the girl said with surprise, then kneeled down, quickly reached out and untied the flask from his waist, and ran into the restaurant. She came back after not too long.
Zhou Zishu went to reach out and take it, only for the girl to unexpectedly move her hand backwards like a flash, grinning. “I’ll ask you something. If you answer correctly, I’ll give you the flask and treat you to food and drink. If you answer incorrectly, I’ll poison it and make you drink it until your insides are shot.”
He smiled bitterly. This girl was pretty and whatnot, but she was apparently also a troublemaker that didn’t make things easy. “I won that flask off of an old beggar. Who knows how many dead louses are in it? If you like it, keep it. I won’t stop you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You make a young lady run all around for nothing, and I’ll get angry. If I do, I’ll have to kill you,” she answered cheerfully.
Where did this little demonic star come from? Zhou Zishu thought to himself. Those divine looks were used in vain. “Ask,” he was forced to respond.
“I will. You’re begging here, so why do you not even have some busted bowl to take money in?”
He raised his eyes to look at her. “When did I ever say I was begging? I’m merely taking up a corner to sunbathe in.”
The purple maiden suffered a start, subconsciously turning her head to peer at the man up in the restaurant. The one in gray clearly also had excellent hearing; at their conversation, his hand paused, but he had no other sign. Like a clean breeze with no worries, his chopsticks appeared to fly as he focused on eating things.
The girl looked up towards the bright and beautiful sky, somewhat puzzled. “Why don’t I see what’s so good about basking in the sun?”
Zhou Zishu smiled as he shook his head, stood up, then reached out to gently and skillfully retrieve his shoddy flask. The girl yelped; in one second of inattentiveness, he had gotten one over her. While she watched him with some confusion, she heard the beggarly man say, “You’re young, Miss. It’s natural that you have a lot things to do, needing to hurry to eat and drink your fill, as only that would keep your spirits up enough. I am someone buried up to my neck in loess; aside from eating and drinking, all that’s left is for me to idle around in wait for death. What could I do, if not sunbathe?”
He threw back his head to take gulps of wine. A few glugs later, he loudly praised, “Great wine. Many thanks, Miss!”
Saying so, he turned and left. The maiden in purple subconsciously reached out to grab him. She believed her own martial arts to be pretty good, yet the one she had thought she would catch in one go shifted right before her eyes, making her miss him by a cun, somehow. Upon a second look, the beggar had already dashed into the crowd, no longer able to be found.
She thought to pursue him, only for the man in the restaurant above to say lightly, “Ah-Xiang, your talents are lacking, but is your eyesight lacking, too? You already lost that face.”
His speaking voice seemed to be right in the ear. He hadn’t raised his volume deliberately in the slightest, yet the sound had still come from high above, passed through the bustling crowd, and accurately reached the maiden’s ears. She hung her head in dejection. Too afraid to continue being rash in her Lord’s presence, she looked at the crowd one last time, then turned and went back upstairs.
Zhou Zishu teetered as he held his flask, drinking and walking interchangeably on his travels. Jiangnan had a lot of water; he passed various small bridges and creeks, and upon glimpsing himself in the water’s surface, he felt that his ‘glorious presence’ was kind of letting this place down. Assuming that likely no inn would be willing to lodge him, he walked all the way down along the riverside out of the city, the steam filled with fishing skiffs that ferried passersby.
It happened to be a spring day with a lot of sightseers. He made a full circle, yet found no one unoccupied, until he managed to spot an old fisherman-slash-woodsman lying on the short with a boat, thus walking over.
The old woodsman’s black-awning boat was anchored nearby. Everyone else was beyond busy, so it was unclear why he was so not-busy upon his arrival. Sprawled out on his back atop the bank, a straw hat was placed upon his face, leaving only his full head of withered white hair exposed. When Zhou Zishu walked over, he was in no rush, nor did he call out for the old fisher/woodsman, merely planting his butt beside him in wait for him to wake up.
Unexpectedly, after a minute, the old man himself stopped laying there, angrily pulled the straw hat off of his face, glared at him with extreme hatred, and swore at him. “Can’t you see I’m sleeping, fuckface?!”
Zhou Zishu didn’t get mad. “Business has come, Mister.”
“Fucker! Did you grow that mouth to let out air, or farts? You want to take the boat but won’t say that?!” the man kept swearing.
Saying so, he stood up, cracked his lower back a few times, and patted off his rear. Once he looked back to see Zhou Zishu still sitting there, three zhang of flames immediately shot off of him. “Did your ass grow into the ground?”
Zhou Zishu blinked, coming to understand why everyone else was busy ferrying, while he alone was idle.
Standing up, demoralized, he followed after the old man. While he listened to the foul words coming out of his mouth, he thickened his face to ask, “Do you have anything to eat, Mister? Leftovers would be fine, just give me a bowl of it.”
“You’re a reincarnated starving ghost, huh?” the old man said, voice gruff, whereupon he took a half-eaten bing with tooth marks on it out of a pocket and tossed it over. Not disgusted, Zhou Zishu followed him onto the boat, blithely accepted the thing, and opened his mouth to bite it.
The elder rowed the boat out. Upon glancing at Zhou Zishu, he yet viciously cursed at him. “Motherfucker.”
–
The translator says: If you’re new to how I translate, Don is used in place of the typical ‘Young Master’ for gongzi/公子. There’s about ten different reasons I do this, but the long and short of it is that ‘Young Master’ is too many syllables, the subject in question might not be the speaker’s Master or even all that young, and it’s too similar to the actual Young Master term of shaoye/少爷.
Zhou Zishu had not a care. He had done all sorts of death-seeking deeds in his worldly time, and there was simply nothing at all to care about, now. Even though the elder’s mouth was foul, he still ate it all down.
The black-awning boat quietly parted the river water. A young lady on the shore was sweetly calling out “Water caltrops, water caltrops here!”, while lively light had the same slow flow as the water itself. Zhou Zishu thought, It would be worth it to die here for real.
Back when he had gone through Penglai, he had paid a visit to the legendary Mountain of Immortals. At the time, he had thought the same thing halfway up the mountainside, but at a later date, he had felt that in comparison to a fine tour of the legendary misty Jiangnan and its apricot flowers, it was a little inferior. Now that he was going down south in Jiangnan, he had that feeling crop up again all of a sudden. He took a bite of the dry, hard bing he held, cheeks bulging out as he expended all his strength in chewing for half the day, after which he barely managed to swallow it down. Bobbing his head, he pondered; seeing Jiangnan, even though he hadn’t gone to the all of the Three Mountains and Five Peaks[2] yet, there would still be inferiority.
Then, he set down his sentiment of riding out his life here.
All of a sudden, the old man seemed to choke on his own spit, his curses stopping. Back hunched, he turned his head slightly, his eyes staring in one direction without blinking.
Somewhat confused, Zhou Zishu poked his head out of the boat a bit to follow his line of sight.
What he saw was that the old man was staring dead at two people traveling by the bank, who happened to be the gray-clothed man and pretty maiden from that restaurant. The old man might have white hair, but his gaze was electric, giving them a careful look. His temples, while hidden beneath his wild hair, faintly protruded, his hands were bulky, and his physique resembled a coiled-up dragon’s. As long as one wasn’t blind, they would be able to tell that the old man was remarkable in talent, to say nothing of Zhou Zishu.
To have caused him to watch him so alertly, the confidante he had met by chance, had shared a distant look with, was not an ordinary man.
The pretty girl looked to be lively, yet she always prudently walked about one zhang behind the man at all times, too afraid to step beyond her station.
With one look over, Zhou Zishu knew that the young lady was the gray-clothed one’s subordinate or concubine or some such. While she was a bit of a brute, her looks were quite to his liking, and yet she belonged to someone else; he thus didn’t take her in too much, retracting his gaze and choosing to handle the dry bing he held.
Jianghu? It had right and wrong wherever one went. Court was a scene of fame and glory, jianghu was a scene of right and wrong. Some people never grasped that reality, as if wielding a sword and riding a horse to a faraway land was a rare thing to be reminisced about when on death’s door.
Still, what did right and wrong have to do with him, a man who fed his whole family when he ate by his lonesome?
The elder quit running his mouth, only for Zhou Zishu to feel it a little quiet, letting out an affronted noise. “Mister, this bing of yours needs some salt. Don’t worry about whether it’s coarse or fine, you should just put more in.”
“Shithead! A big bing like that couldn’t plug up your mouth?!” the old man cursed, fire coming off of him. “You had something to eat, yet you’re still fucking griping! Starve for three days, you bastard, and we’ll see if you can still eat shit and say it’s not delicious—“
The second he opened his mouth, it seemed like he wound go down a path he couldn’t stop. Zhou Zishu laughed, biting the dry bing with vigor, feeling himself to be somewhat lousy.
Ferrying someone across the river was no more than a few copper coins, yet Zhou Zishu extravagantly handed the old man a chunk of silver. The latter didn’t feel any humility in the slightest, taking it and leaving, the creditor-esque expression on his face meaning that he probably hated that he had been given so little. Once they reached the opposite shore, the old man urgently shooed him away. “Get out, now! Don’t hold up this guy’s proper business!”
Zhou Zishu very slowly tossed the final piece of bing into his mouth, stretched his back, and squeezed out of the cabin. “In a hurry to reincarnate?” he asked obscurely.
The old worker’s copper-bell eyes glared wide as he adopted the posture of wishing to verbally abuse him and send his regards to eighteen generations of the guy’s ancestors, but he seemed to think of something, ultimately swallowing his words back down, then rowing the boat away in rage.
Thankfully, this guy didn’t know what he was actually doing here, thanks to his fake identity. If he actually was making a living via the ferry, wouldn’t he have been too poor to afford pants?
Watching the little boat rock far away, Zhou Zishu said, completely unbothered, “Fucker.”
He had spent half of his life hanging around a bunch of refined deviants, who would open their mouths and go around in circles with Confucius said this and Mencius said that. Never before had he spoken so crassly in the full light of day. Blurting out that word right then had actually made him extraordinarily happy, like all the melancholy junk in his chest had poured out in full.
He was surprised to find that hurling swears in the streets was so freeing, so he murmured out with a smile, “You’re an old sonuvabitch that takes money without doing actual work, and eats without ever taking a shit.”
He savored the taste of that sentence after he finished it; all he could feel was a relaxed state of mind and a remnant appetizing flavor in his mouth. Thus, he walked leisurely along the riverbank, fully satisfied.
Zhou Zishu wandered here and there for a full day, through to the night. Upon strolling to the outside of the city, he found a small pond that he then used to wash that sour rot that was quickly becoming unbearable clean off, more or less scrubbing himself into resembling a human. After that, he pondered finding an area to hole up for the night, and after walking for about a li, he spotted a run-down abandoned temple. He entered it, spread straw out on the ground, curled up at the Buddha’s feet, yawned, and fell asleep.
Even though he had no worries now, able to sleep until tomorrow’s dawn the second his head hit the hay, he still required the circumstances of no one disturbing him. At midnight, he was still woken up by a burst of footsteps and voices coming from nearby.
Three people showed up in the temple’s doorway. The stink of blood attacking his senses, Zhou Zishu opened his eyes with a frown.
The injured man wore a conical hat on his head. It was unknown whether he was conscious, his entire body being supported by a half-grown, fifteen-ish-year-old teenager. The youth appeared to have some sort of martial foundation, but his strength was low, causing him to wheeze like an ill cow while he struggled to hold the injured man up. Beside him was an older woman dressed up as a servant who held a cloth bundle in her arms, jogging with a stagger.
The very moment the youth entered the temple gate, he looked like a startled little animal, carefully surveying the whole area. Zhou Zishu was laying in the shadow of the Buddha statue, his breathing so light, the young man was unable to detect him from the start. “Uncle Li, let’s hide away here for a minute,” he whispered to the man in the conical hat. “I see that your injury…”
Before he could finish speaking, the half-alive man shook the teen off, strove to stand up straight, and then clasped his fist in Zhou Zishu’s direction. “Cough… my friend…”
With that raise of his head, the voice immediately stopped. Zhou Zishu clearly saw that the man was the old laborer that had ferried him; the other’s torso and back had been stabbed through, his entire person like a bloody gourd. He immediately straightened up. “You?”
The old man gave a bitter laugh. “Shit. You’re that beggar…”
Before he could finish, his body pitched forward. The teenager hurriedly reached out to help him up, but his own strength was depleted, causing him to collapse to the ground along with him. There was a sobbing trill to his voice. “Uncle Li…”
The elder spasmed all over. Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but lean forward, and saw the other’s blood have a strange purple tinge to it as it flowed out, even his lips ashen — he had to furrow his brow.
The man forced a smile, saying quietly, “You’re not a bloody man yet? Where’s all that horse piss coming from? This… this guy ain’t all the way dead yet…”
The woman nearby also wiped her tears off. “Lord Li, if something happens to you as well, who can our Young Lord rely upon?”
The man glared at her, forcefully sucked in a breath, and said to the teen, shaking, “I… am useless… it was only from receiving your father’s grace back in the day that I even have my life to recompense with, I have nothing else…”
He started to cough, his body twitching once when the fit ended. “Kid, remember…”
Remember what, he didn’t get to say, as another burst of hurried footsteps came to the temple’s doorway. A black-clothed man strode in; wearing no mask, his face held a slash scar. Sighting the three that were at the end of their road, he smirked happily like a cat that had caught mice. “Very good. You lot sure ran far.”
The teen clenched his jaw, drew his sword at his waist, and appeared to pounce on the black-clothed one. “I’ll kill you!”
However, while his imposing aura was shocking, the reality was that he had the martial arts of a three-legged cat. Looking at his thick brows and big eyes, he had a high amount of spiritual energy, yet he himself was clumsy. Before he could issue one move, his opponent casually disarmed him, then shot his palm at him with a turn of the hand, which happened to hit him on his lower abdomen, ejecting him over a zhang away, like a cat playing with its toy.
The teen consequently got up, roared with a face covered in dirt, and still showed absolutely no fear as he as he pounced again, bare-handed.
Anxious, the old man seemed to want to get up, but his injuries were too heavy. With one move, he fell heavily to the floor.
The black-clothed man sneered. “Still trying to bite me, little bunny lord?” Then, he darted to the side, crooked his fingers into claws, and snatched at the center of the teen’s back. Under the moonlight, his hand seal didn’t look like it was made of flesh and blood, suffused with a cold, pale green light, about to strike and kill.
Zhou Zishu had no desire to meddle, thinking that in the end, he and the old man had the fate string of ‘sharing the same ferry’, but that kid was too immature. He refused to watch him pass on at such a young age. A tiny stone was already in his hand, and he turned it, ready to shoot it outwards — and he suddenly heard a whistle. The black-clothed man’s eyes went harsh, and he levelly flipped backwards, leaving the teen to pounce at air.
The spot the man in black had just stood on was now pierced with a one-cun long weapon in the shape of a lotus flower.
“What a great guy,” a girl’s sprightly voice was heard to say. “So deep into the night, but shameless people are bullying old women and weak kids in the countryside.”
Zhou Zishu’s heart jumped. That voice was familiar. He thus put away his rock that had yet to be issued, then slowly laid back down, quietly observing the situation.
The man in black’s face twitched, eyes palpitating in beats. Zhou Zishu thought the scar on the other’s face to be terrible, his face a little stiff, as if he had suffered a stroke. It was both vicious and somewhat ridiculous. “Where did you come from, little bitch?” he heard him angrily ask.
The maiden laughed. Zhou Zishu kept a careful watch, and saw a purple figure dash through the doorway; the newcomer was definitely that young lady who had threatened to poison him today. He felt like he was certainly having a curious adventure today, having come across the lesser half of all the people in this temple scene of grace and grudges.
The purple girl’s Lord had gone somewhere unknown. She cocked her head, leaning against the doorframe with an innocent expression, her fingertip coiling around her locks while she gently swiped her face with a forefinger, grinning. “Have you no shame, you big bitch? Bullying elders and children? One’s even about to die.”
The old worker might be angry, or he might not be. In the daytime, he vivaciously swore at other people, but upon hearing another say that he was someone ‘about to die’, he genuinely did fall to the ground like he was going to die, not even letting out one fart.
The man in black and girl in purple soon got into a fight. Zhou Zishu watched with the clarity of a bystander; the two’s martial arts’ techniques were not really similar, yet their degrees of ruthlessness were about equal, unlike those alleged honorable sects.
After no more than around fourteen moves, the man abruptly made a feint after the girl struck a palm out, following it up with a kick at her shanzhong acupoint.[3] She turned to the side to avoid it, letting out a soft tch, and her fingers turned into a raised hand, which hacked downwards, clearly wanting to crack his kneecap on the spot. Against expectations, a sudden clack came from the man’s pants, whereupon a springlock shot from his calf, spurting out an arrow piece that went straight for her jaw.
Her techniques were good, seemingly superior in rank to the man’s, yet she hadn’t expected him to have such a cheap move. Jumping in fright, she tried to dodge again, but it was too late.
The stone Zhou Zishu had kept in his palm was used at last, hitting right on the arrow’s tip so that it swiped perilously across the hair on her temples.
Despite having endured such a danger, she didn’t appear to have a typical person’s post-fear, instead flying into a rage out of humiliation. Without a moment’s hesitation, her hacking hand transformed into a claw, nabbed the man’s leg, and snapped it in two. He screamed as the bone being thoroughly broken, yet she didn’t rest, reaching out her tiny, scallion-like hand to gather blue light in her palm and ruthlessly smack the man in black in his chest. He flew backwards, that broken leg curling upwards, and his complexion speedily turned a purplish-gray. Eyes bulging to the point that they threatened to split his eyelids, he pointed at her and said, “You’re the Vio… let…”
Violet what, he didn’t get to say, as his eyes rolled back to go see King Yan.
The old woman nearby, seeing how vicious this pretty young woman fought, was too scared to move. On the flipside, the teenager had been watching obediently, yet had been the first to react, rushing to the old worker’s side. “Uncle Li, how are you?” he asked urgently. “You…”
The man appeared to still be breathing. Expending his strength, he reached out to grab the teen’s sleeve, who quickly and carefully hauled him upwards, holding him in his arms. Seeing this, the purple-clothed girl came in close, went to check the man’s eyelids, and creased her brow. “It’s Midnight Gutsplitter,” she said frankly. “Added on with how much blood is coming out, he can’t be saved, if you ask me. Don’t mourn too much.”
The teen slapped her hand away, glaring at her. “What are you saying?!” he shouted.
She frowned, a will to kill emerging on her charming, smiling face once more. As if remembering something, she endured, forcibly tamping that will down, and stood, arms folded across her chest. “You’re a bitch’s pup that doesn’t know when someone’s being kind to you,” she answered with a sneer, like this all had nothing to do with her.
The turbid gaze of the old man remained on her for a short time, then flitted past, revolved around, landed right on Zhou Zishu (who looked ridiculous, straw sticking randomly out of his hair as he remained at the Buddha’s feet), and opened his mouth is his direction.
Everyone followed his line of sight to see him, too. The maiden let out a hey. “I was about to ask what expert helped me out then, but I didn’t expect it to be you,” she said with a smile. “I treated you to wine, you fought for me. We happen to not owe each other anymore.”
All that she said was quite ignoble and ingratiating, but since she was a pretty woman, Zhou Zishu decided not to bicker with her. Laughing, he came in close to the old worker, then squatted next to him. “You called for me, old brother?”
The man took extreme effort to reach into his lapels. The eight eyes of the four people present were all waiting to see what he would bring out. A long while later, he stretched out his fist, passing it to Zhou Zishu, struggling to look at him. The latter hesitated, then reached to accept whatever it was, only to see a glint of light as a piece of silver laid in his palm.
“I’ll… give you the silver back. I let you take a boat ride for free, so in my… stead…”
Before he heard whatever he wanted him to do for him, Zhou Zishu, unsure of how to react, shook his head and went to stand. Unexpectedly, the old man reach out and firmly grasped his wrist. “In my stead… bring this boy to Zhao Manor at Lake Tai…”
He was no pretty woman, so Zhou Zishu sighed. “I’ll tell you this, old broth—“
“A drop… of grace…th-the… flowing spring will repay…” the other cut him off with.
Zhou Zishu looked up, sullenly looking past the doorway of this run-down temple in the wild, at the all-encompassing night. In his mind, he pondered whether he should swap faces; was the one he had on right now not emaciated enough, thus making him look like a gullible wastrel?
Perhaps the old man’s life was flashing before his eyes, as his hand that was grabbing him was getting stronger and stronger. His breath shallowly seemed to be dithering in his throat. When he spoke, his voice had a panic to it, faltering. “You should build up— build up virtue! You have your descendants… and even if your family line is… cut off, there’s still the next… the next life.”
Those words were similar to a bolt of lightning, striking Zhou Zishu’s heart viciously. The Septeye Nails in his torso seemed to ache again, like they were going to dig into his flesh. The next life, right… he had done so much evil in this life, and after three years, he would be dead. Even if death ended everything, there… would still be his next life.
A long while later, he sighed, gently cast away the silver, then caught it again, slowly putting it into his pocket.
The old man’s already-murky eyes lit up. His lips quivered a few times, no sound coming out of them, following which the tiny speck of light in his gaze slowly dimmed. The hand that was holding onto Zhou Zishu no longer had the strength to continue, dropping limply, mouth still chattering like he was saying something.
Zhou Zishu slowly put his ear in close to his mouth, only to hear him stop and start as he said, “If you… if you don’t… if you… I’ll… go down… and f-fuck… eighteen generations… of your ancestors…”
Zhou Zishu straightened up, having nothing at all to say. After that, the old man’s head listed to the side, and he stopped breathing, causing the youth to let out an earth-shaking wail.
The old woman appeared to be some sort of nanny; she was out of her mind, beside herself as she wiped her tears off along with him. Zhou Zishu automatically stood to one side with the purple maiden. Her big eyes rolled around him. “My Master said that you were powerful, but I haven’t seen that yet. Which sect do you come from? What’s your name?” she asked quietly.
Biting the inside of his cheek, he said bookishly, “This talentless one is Zhou… Zhou Xu. I have no sect, being nothing more than a lonely soul, a ghost of the plains that wanders jianghu. I haven’t yet asked what your name is, Miss?”
She sized him up for a spell, then shook his head. “If I wasn’t looking at that sickly-ghoul face of yours, I would have actually been able to take your manner of speech seriously. My name’s Gu Xiang.”
Never before had she heard of anyone named Zhou Xu in jianghu. Moreover, they were strangers that had met by coincidence; she knew there wasn’t much truth to be had, so she didn’t take it seriously, nor care. Taking a few steps forward, she patted the teen on his shoulder and said, “Listen to me; he’s already dead, so you might as well put him to rest. Are people still chasing you two?”
Unhappily recalling how she had just flippantly said something irreverent, he lightly huffed and glared at her. At this moment, he had no way to vent the feelings of grief and anger he was full of. Having such a tone-deaf, terrible girl in front of him made him inwardly cast his anger onto her, as if she had killed the man herself.
Gu Xiang’s good-looking brows scrunched up. Even though her martial arts were high, she wasn’t that old, and had something of an evil streak. Why would she ever tolerate this kid’s repeated guileless anger-venting? She raised her palm to hit him, but, unexpectedly, her wrist was caught by Zhou Zishu.
All she felt was an ice-cold hang lightly sticking to her wrist, but just because she felt no pain didn’t mean that she couldn’t feel all the strength the man was using. Both unable to set her raised hand into motion and unable to shake him off, she couldn’t help but give this malnourished-looking, sickly-ghost-esque man an astonished look. The Lord regarded a guy like this highly, and he does have some skills that I can’t tell the depth of, she thought. If I really do fight him, I likely won’t be getting off lightly.
Her thoughts whirled about. Very quickly calculating the situation, she realized her own weight, obediently took back her hand, and smiled as she looked at him. “I’ll give you this face.”
Then, she turned back to the teen. “Don’t your eyes work, you little bastard?” she scolded. “I, your damn aunt, was only passing by! I saw how pitiful you all were and helped you in passing, don’t act like I killed your entire family! If you have the slightest bit of chutzpah, you should be finding your enemies to seek revenge on them. Look at how much of an idiot you are! Not only are you holding a dead man while leaking like a horse pees, you’re testing my good naturedness. It’s terrific that I can even put up with you!”
This girl was quite witty, yet the way she spoke was really hard on the ears.
Exasperated, Zhou Zishu went to console the kid some, only for the teen to be stunned for a long time after hearing this, then suddenly turn around, roughly wipe his tears off, kneel on the ground, and kowtow twice to Gu Xiang with a bang-bang. “I understand your tutelage, Miss. I’ve offended you,” he whispered.
His teeth were gritted so tightly, his youthful face was stretched into a somewhat sharp line. Gu Xiang was now the one to be stunned, taking a tiny half-step backwards, blinking her big, apricot kernel-like eyes. “I… I didn’t tell you to kowtow to me. G-get up, now.”
Zhou Zishu then stooped over slightly to gently help him up; the youth, for some reason, allowed it. “First, put… Brother Li to rest,” the former said. “No matter what, he entrusted me with sending you on your way. If you’re not in a hurry to get on the road for later, you can spend the night here and explain to me what happened.”
The teen quietly agreed. Zhou Zishu helped him find a spot behind the abandoned temple to bury the old man in. Gu Xiang, watching from the side the whole time, likely ended up feeling a bit touched, too, since she ran off to pare off a piece of wood and bring it over. Taking out a dagger from her waist, she carved a rudimentary grave marker. “What’s his name?” she asked.
The teen thought for a bit, only to shake his head. “He only told me his surname was Li. He had received my father’s kindness, so he risked his life to save us. I called him Uncle Li… but I can’t even say what his full name is.”
Zhou Zishu sighed inwardly. Were jianghu folk not the type to repay kindness with kindness, and hatred with hatred? Did it matter whether his name was left behind or not?
Gu Xiang bowed her head, then engraved the words ‘Uncle Li, A Righteous Man’ stroke by stroke into the little wooden monument. Once done, she scrutinized it, likely feeling pretty satisfied, and handed it to Zhou Zishu. “Take a look. Is it good, or no?”
He took it and read it. The character for ‘Uncle’ was missing a stroke. Feeling somewhat dismayed, and somewhat unsure of whether to laugh or cry, he used his finger to fill the stroke in for her, then stuck it on top of the inimitably simple, desolate grave.
The teen knelt and kowtowed thrice, doing all he could to hold back his tears. He then straightened his back, and stood up.
“My surname is Zhang. I’m called Zhang Chengling.”
The teen was seated. His round face had some sort of pitch-black stuff on it. However, even though his clothes had been torn to shreds, one could still see their embroidered foundation, which no commoner family would have been able to afford. “Zhou...”
He paused, unsure of how he should address this beggarly, down-and-out man.
“Uncle is fine,” Zhou Zishu answered, thick-faced and shameless.
Zhang Chengling squeezed out a smile, though he wasn’t very successful, lowering his head. With that bow, his entire scope of view was the temple grounds that were coated in dust and straw, his mind blank. For a split second, he wasn’t sure what night it was — tonight’s incident had been so great, causing his mind to not be able to process in step with the situation.
“Zhang Chengling?” Gu Xiang mumbled. “That sounds a little familiar.”
“Is your father Great Hero Zhang, Lord of South River Manor?” Zhou Zishu asked.
Taken aback, Gu Xiang blurted out, “You’re Zhang Yusen’s son?”
She didn’t conceal the disbelieving expression on her face at all, nakedly displaying her doubt: How did Zhang Yusen have a son as trash as you?
Clearly catching a glimpse of that, Zhang Chengling bowed his head even further, hands clenching into fists, drawing back on either side of his body.
Zhou Zishu quickly interrupted Gu Xiang’s enormously lethal mental attack — he had already discovered this young lady’s talent for saying things no one loved to hear — so he coughed dryly. “I couldn’t tell. Sorry for the disrespect.”
“Your dad seems to have some fame… I heard about him when we arrived yesterday. Supposedly, when he was young, he had quite a bit of talent, and his family capital grew large in recent years, so he settled down here in semi-retirement. He never meddled in much, many clean guests of good martial arts were in his Manor, and no one wanted to go make trouble for them. Who would hunt down an old man like that’s son in the middle of the night?” Gu Xiang asked, words clattering out of her mouth like pouring beans.
There was an irreverence in her tone, like this didn’t concern her. The old woman nearby became unhappy, saying, “Our Lord was a top-grade altruist and hero, had kindness in his heart, and was extraordinarily righteous. Some that ran into trouble would come to look for him, and no matter whether he knew them or not, he would set to task in aiding the needy—“
Gu Xiang laughed in mockery. “Alright, old lady, we all know that this punk has a very capable old man,” she said in a very eerie tone. “What could that great, courageous hero do? Didn’t he get cut down in the middle of the night all the same…?”
Zhang Yusen had been fifty years old, and saying that he was someone of high virtue and regard would be a reputation true to its source. After he had taken a wife and had a child, he rarely moved in jianghu, but if there was a conference in the martial circle or something, he would generally be invited over as a show of respect. Zhou Zishu believed that the deceased had great eminence, in the end, and while this young woman might not have had the mind to be, she was being way too disrespectful. He therefore interrupted her with a question, “Who was the one that was just hunting you down?”
Zhang Chengling went quiet for a moment, then whispered, “The Hanged Wraith, Xue Fang.”
“You said who?”
“You said who?”
Zhou Zishu and Gu Xiang nearly spoke in total unison. His brow creased up, while her face was bizarrely shocked.
“It was the Hanged Wraith, Xue Fang,” Zhang Chengling enunciated. “I heard others call him that, myself…”
He suddenly sucked in a breath, as if he had remembered something, or come to comprehend something. The entire night of blood, fire, screams surfaced before his eyes; he started shaking, his face ashen, entire body twitching, and words even unable to be said.
Gu Xiang jumped in shock, pointing at him. “Is he having a seizure?”
Zhou Zishu helped Zhang Chengling with a grave expression, reaching out to brush his sleep-inducing acupoint. The youth went limp in his arms, who he carefully set to the side, after which he sighed. “That was him just now reacting to what happened, caused by his mind suffering too heavy of a hit. Let him have a rest, first.”
He turned his head to question the bewildered old woman. “Aunt, did someone plot against the Zhang family?”
Seeing Zhang Chengling like this, the old women went blank-minded again, her snot and tears running down in disarray for a long time before she could manage to explain the circumstances: In the middle of the night, the Zhang family’s rear courtyard had suddenly caught fire, after which a group of group of people in black came out of nowhere, like evil ghosts descending from the sky.
The most terrifying this was that of those ‘martial experts’, who typically would have been startled awake by the slightest bit of wind blowing anyday else, not one had been able to rise, coming to the end of their road before they could even realize it.
There had only been Old Li. An odd man, who had come to Suzhou’s riverside five years ago, done some minor work as a ferryman, yet had always secretly been guarding the Zhang family while simultaneously refusing to come into the Manor. According to what he had said, he had eaten the Zhang’s food, so he was a guest thug that another had cared for — he had refused to do that much, having come to repay that kindness.
Thanks to that freak of nature, the ol’ Zhangs had managed to have their bloodline left behind.
A long while later, Zhou Zishu sighed. “Brother Li was truly an eccentric within this wind and dust.”
He then turned to the old woman. She was merely a nanny that did hard labor and understood nothing, her mind a clump of paste accompanied only by falling tears. “Do you have any relatives, Aunt?”
She nodded. “A nephew in the city’s South.”
Zhou Zishu took out a golden yuanbao out and gave it to her. “Take this and plan yourself an escape. As I see it, you following the Zhang’s Young Lord to this place is the utmost of loyalty. In your old age, you shouldn’t be accompanying him in sleeping outside and eating the wind.”
The woman took the ingot, subconsciously bit it, then realized what she had done, smiling somewhat apologetically. No longer crying, her tone lightened up. “Okay. This servant is so aged, I would drag the Young Lord down.”
She accepted the coinage, simply not wishing to remain in this place filled with straw and dead people, and thus said she was going to leave, thinking that no one would do anything to her as a common laborer. Zhou Zishu expressed nothing, watching her gratefully leave.
When full midnight came, he felt like his chest was being stabbed with a tiny needle. He knew that the Seven-Eye Nails were acting up again. This type of pain was not the ache of flesh being torn, nor was it the dull ache of internal injury, but rather like someone was taking a little knife and casually cutting apart all the meridians in his body, cun by cun.
It was good that he had already grown used to it for over a year, never revealing that anything was amiss. Since he was wearing a human-skin mask, Gu Xiang couldn’t see his complexion.
Recalling her lack of tact when bringing up Zhang Yusen and her as-of-yet-unseen Lord, Zhou Zishu forced his own scattered attention together to ask, “That good brother from the restaurant today isn’t with you?”
Gu Xiang was caught off guard. “How did you know he was with me?” she first asked, after which she nodded. “Right, you heard us talking… I noticed that when I asked you that question, you somehow said the same thing he said.”
She pouted, very disdainful towards that fraudulent behavior.
He smiled. “Yep. Is your Lord here, too?”
She was sitting upon the incense table, head tilted, neither of her legs touching the ground as they kicked back and forth; it made her look very cute and innocent. At his question, her eyelids dropped a bit, and she shrugged. “He went to go see his paramour.”
That gray-clothed man having such a pretty girl by his said had made Zhou Zishu believe that she was a concubine or something, so he looked at her doubtfully.
Gu Xiang wrinkled her nose, glaring at him. “What do you think I should do? He went to bed with a man! Am I supposed to listen to them as I stand guard outside the window?”
He coughed dryly, somewhat awkward, and rubbed his nose. “That’s not how a young lady should act…”
She bared her teeth at him like a little beast. Upon turning her head, she appeared to remember something, and used her fingertip to prod young Zhang Chengling, who was unconscious and dead to the world. “Do you believe what he said? That man in black was the Hanged Wraith?”
Zhou Zishu hesitated. “If… he meant the Hanged Wraith of Green Bamboo Ridge, and the Vile Wraiths…”
She gave him a slightly mocking look. “You know of more? How many Hanged Wraiths are there in the world?”
Zhou Zishu shook his head, then thought to speak, only for the dull pain in his chest to make his voice pause. All he could do was adopt a thoughtful look, then continue on a while later, “Rumor has it that there’s a valley between the Wind Cliffs and Green Bamboo Ridge. People call it the Vale of Wraiths. In recent years, the most heinous people in jianghu have sought shelter there; once one has nowhere else to go, they go to the Vale, and as soon as they enter it, they’re no longer human, all the grudges of the mortal world gone. If they can survive in it, that would be seen as death-defying. Furthermore, because legends pertaining to the Vale are too terrifying, any enemies will no longer bother with them. I heard that Xue Fang was a notorious rapist back in the day, taking the lives of twenty-six young men and women, one of whom had been the youngest disciple of the Emei Sect Leader. He was hunted down by the six major sects, and forced to hide out in the Vale of Wraiths at Green Bamboo Ridge.”
Gu Xiang blinked. “Tell me, then; was that or was that not Xue Fang?”
He smiled. “Xue Fang has been famed for thirty years as an extremely vicious degenerate. How could he be quickly done in by a young lady like you?”
She near about exploded, at first, but after thinking about it, she nodded, feeling that he had made sense. “Right. If I actually did slaughter the Hanged Wraith just like that, then my ancestors’ graves must be giving off smoke…[4] I don’t have any parents, though, and I don’t know where my ancestral tombs are. Maybe there aren’t any, so there wouldn’t be any smoke at all… he definitely wasn’t the Hanged Wraith.”
Zhou Zishu didn’t understand how she had managed to link together tomb smoke and the Hanged Wraith. Seeing her all proud, as if she had comprehended something, he didn’t feel it good to cut her down. His pain was so terrible, he made not a sound, leaning to one side in rest, enduring in wait for daybreak.
The Septeye Nails would inevitably act up after midnight every day, which was why he would always go to sleep earlier; he would be well-rested when the time of the Rat(11p-1a) came, he would bear with it for half of the night. Unexpectedly, his day had been disturbed and he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep the second half of the night, so he was forced to grit his teeth and quietly deal. It wasn’t until the East was faintly washed with white that it all slowly eased off, and he felt like his entire body was already a little numb.
He regulated his breathing for a time. All of a sudden, Gu Xiang — who was leaning in a niche with a drooping head, dozing — woke with a start, her apricot kernel eyes whirling about. “Someone’s here,” she said briefly.
Zhou Zishu creased his brow; he’d heard it too, of course. He wanted to stand at once, but stumbled and couldn’t. Turning his head, he saw Gu Xiang staring at him oddly, forcing him to whisper while he slowly eased himself into a stand with the incense table, “My legs fell asleep.”
That was some pretty terrible excuse, causing her expression to get even more odd.
Dawn was right about the time of day where he was at his weakest. That brief breathing exercise couldn’t put him at ease, so he wasn’t really happy to fight with someone. “Conceal him, and hide away,” he said quietly.
“Hide? Hide where?” She stared at him with her big, know-nothing eyes.
He felt a bout of powerlessness.
There was no longer any time for action. A group of masked people broke in in a well-organized manner. The second they sighted the unconscious Zhang Chengling, they aggressively shot forth without saying a word. Zhou Zishu was still supported on the incense table; seeing one of them slash down towards the teen in a straight-to-the-point manner, his figure flashed, movements unable to be seen clearly, and then those fingers that were as thin and shriveled as the human-skin mask on his face clutched the man’s neck.
The masked person didn’t even have time to let out a scream. Their entire body twitched, their breathing no more.
That beyond vicious move had a real deterring effect. All of the masked people couldn’t help but stop in their tracks, vigilantly sizing up this invalid that looked like he couldn’t stand steady.
Gu Xiang inwardly blew a raspberry, jumped off of the incense table, and stood behind him.
With one sweep around, Zhou Zishu knew that these people were merely dressed to intimidate. Looking at how cautious they were being alone, they must not be deathpawn assassins — if these were Heaven’s Pane assassins, even if one’s own neck was getting wrung, they would still rush the target without hesitation, to say nothing of a companion’s death. These were definitely not the legendary Vile Wraiths, as all of those acted independently, never as in-sync as these ones. It looked like they were deliberately targeting the Zhang family.
He methodically straightened out his sleeves, as if these raggedy clothes were those long robes roiling with silver edges from way back when. Halfway through the action, he felt it to not be too appropriate, so he stopped, smiled for no reason, and said, “It’s so early in the morning, everyone. Without even introducing yourselves, you pounce on an unarmed child like this — rather shameful, isn’t it?”
–
No one around made a peep, nonetheless. After a scene of exchanging lightning-quick glances with each other, they stopped caring about Zhang Chengling, and slowly formed a circle to hem Gu Xiang and Zhou Zishu in.
Gu Xiang sighed quietly. “What an unlucky horoscope… if one doesn’t do three hundred years’ worth of good deeds, one move will stir up full trouble. Brother Zhou, I’m a frail woman that’s never seen such a large spectacle before, and it makes my heart quiver in fear — I need you to protect me.”
That final part was simply a marvel of wordsmithing, crafted by someone who would not rest in death if her prose didn’t wow. Zhou Zishu nearly choked on his own breath, giving a very nasty look to Gu Xiang, who was unflustered, her face not red and heart not hammering.
She looked back at him with tiny, very resentful eyes.
The masked people clearly felt that the two’s affectionate, ulterior-motive-laden heart-to-heart had come at kind of an inopportune moment. It was unknown who blew the whistle; headed by one individual taking the lead in attacking, the people behind them followed up to vaguely constitute a net-like formation, pressuring the two human lives within it.
Only then did Gu Xiang become serious, an exclamation of wonder on her lips. Getting curious, she quit feigning weakness, ignored Zhou Zishu, then drew out that tiny dagger of hers to greet the others with.
The second she began fighting, she realized that their formation was formidable. She’d had some confidence in her own martial arts — if a single person was extracted from her fourteen opponents, they might not be her match — but she was getting seamlessly pushed back, like countless hands and countless feet were sticking out of every direction, resembling a storming sea. The pressure got to the point where she had to step back as she fought, the formation contracting along with her, until she was forced into a dead-end.
Inwardly, she was alarmed, already retreating to Zhou Zishu’s side. They stood back-to-back, Zhou Zishu’s gaze darkening as he stared at their counterparts without blinking. “I’ve got a general idea,” he whispered to Gu Xiang.
A little too overwhelmed to react, some sweat beaded on her forehead. “What… formation is this?”
“I’ve never seen one before, but I’ve heard about a type of formation made up of fourteen people known as Omnidirectional Devastation. It goes without rest, never exhausting. With suitable coordination, each individual’s slight faults can be made up for by another, making them without fault…”
Gu Xiang exclaimed in surprise. Zhou Zishu raised his flat hand, the bare flesh-and-blood actually used to bump against a descending blade’s edge, thus firmly deflecting the hacking sabre.
“What do we do, then?” Gu Xiang asked hurriedly.
He didn’t answer. Vision concentrating, he suddenly leapt upwards; the second he stepped on the incense table, the worn thing, with its layer of accumulated dust, appeared to have no strength, swaying non-stop. He had since used that momentum to bodily soar higher once more, with three people promptly leaping up together with him, swordlight sealing off all of his escape routes. Unexpectedly, though, he drew back rather than advanced, body moving like a fish in water, winding through petals and around trees — in the blink of an eye, he had spun over to the side of the Buddha statue.
Right after that, it was unclear how much strength he exerted, but with a light huff of effort, he reached out and pushed, shoving the stone statue forth with his palm. On the inside, he said, Our Buddha, have mercy; aid your follower, just this once.
It was unknown how heavy the stone Buddha was, mingled with the strength of the wind pushing forth. Gu Xiang jumped in fright, speedily twisted to dodge, and felt that wind brush past her scalp. Zhou Zishu’s three attackers were still up in the air; having not anticipated a locomotion technique that quick, they had no way to play off this power, and even less to escape. All they could do was stake all of their power in a unified block, but how would they be able to stop it? The statue tossed them aside, a hole unproductively torn open in their airtight formation.
Gu Xiang snickered. “That’s fun.”
Her movements did not slow, though. With the raise of her hand, a dart shot out from her sleeve, quick as a spark. The person opposing her took it head-on, right in the face, and the masked one fell backwards before they could make a single sound.
The remaining people no longer held the situation. Gu Xiang turned bloodthirsty, disregarding everything to brawl.
Zhou Zishu had just exhausted all of his internal qi — which he’d had yet to fully recover — on that one move. His limbs went somewhat numb for the time being, so he no longer put on a brave front, sitting calmly on the incense table.
It was a good bit of time before Gu Xiang could react to that, turning her head to yell at him between the million things she was doing. “What are you doing, Zhou Xu?”
“Sister Gu, I’m a frail beggar that’s never seen such a spectacle before, and it makes my heart quiver in fear — I need you to protect me,” he answered calmly.
She was so pissed off, her hand jolted. A masked man was pierced through the chest, the dagger getting jammed into his ribs, unable to be drawn back out.
Gu Xiang was nimble, yet she couldn’t fight for too long. This loss of her weapon made her a bit flustered, and she retreated three steps back, striving to hold her own. Zhou Zishu slowly exhaled, yet was in no rush to act, beaming as he watched them fight. He picked up a pile of tiny stones, toyed with them as he held them, then abruptly shot one out, hitting a masked man that had been about to sneak-attack right in the forehead.
At the same time, he opened his mouth and pointed, “Oy vey. You have no rhyme, girl.”
In a lightning-fast action, another stone shot out, striking someone’s huantiao acupoint. He became unsteady below the waist, then immediately pitched forward, happening to throw himself at Gu Xiang’s feet. She subconsciously raised her foot; a glint of light was on her embroidered shoes, as did a short knife shoot out, jabbing into the man’s throat.
“Below the waist is the foundation,” she heard Zhou Zishu calmly say. “To act without roots is to act without reliance — how could there not be a slip-up?”
Gu Xiang was an extremely bright one. As soon as she bent to avoid a blade, she swiped her leg across to kick her opponent in the bend of his leg. The man staggered forward, whereupon she chopped her hand out to interrupt his pulse center,[5] seized his longsabre, and shot her palm out at his baihui acupoint,[6] sending him off to see King Yan.
Zhou Zishu flicked out another stone to hit the side of another person’s major jiangjing acupoint. The man had been in the middle of throwing himself forward when he suddenly got hit, only feeling half of his body freeze up, no longer able to move. He thus collapsed onto the ground according to his own inertia. Gu Xiang heard the ailing beggar give a half-truthful lament of: “Oy vey. The formation’s since fallen apart, yet there’s still a rush to get ahead of yourselves. Talk about minding your head only to ignore your butt.”
At that, Gu Xiang immediately performed a very agile lotus step. The masked man that had pounced over with a blade full of zeal was avoided, subconsciously swerving his blade around, but he merely sent an exposed weakness straight into her hands, easily disposing of two others, as well.
Corpses were haphazardly arranged into a pile on the ground. Seeing that things were not going great, the remaining few exchanged looks, then retreated. Zhou Zishu creased his brow, thinking to himself that these people were pretty annoying. Even though he had promised to escort this teenager to the Zhao family at Lake Tai and whatever, he didn’t want to deal with all of this hunting-down all along the way. Were they to be allowed to run, they would likely have to contend with them again on the road.
Thinking back to how these people had plotted against someone else, extinguished a whole family down to the last, and were now going to turn tail, nothing good was afoot.
All Gu Xiang saw was a blurry display before her eyes as a figure flashed past. The man who had just been sitting on the incense table now resembled featherlight willow down, suddenly landing at the temple’s doorway. The black-clothed man in front was caught off guard. He was about to use his shoulder to bump him away, only for a clack sound to herald that his entire shoulder had been popped out of its socket. Zhou Zishu grabbed the man’s neck and twisted it hard, using only the strength in his fingers, then used the tip of his toes to pick up a sabre that had fallen by the wayside.
A ghastly, eerie grin appeared on that chartreuse face.
Gu Xiang felt that she had no time to react at all before those masked people that charged for the door all turned into carcasses. She couldn’t help but blink, surprised at heart; she had believed from the guy’s manner of speech that he was like those loquacious, big-sect-born folk, yet he had silenced everyone in such an efficient and vicious manner, that she was sort of unsure who exactly he was.
Zhou Zishu was not at all as majestic as she was imagining, though. His legs were still a bit weak, as after landing on the ground, he hadn’t stopped for a rest. This pause after killing everyone made him somewhat unable to stand still. He refused to let Gu Xiang see, so he used his momentum to retreat a few steps back — his figure looked graceful, but it reality, he was doggedly searching for a way to hold himself up while he did so.
All of a sudden, a pair of hands reached out from behind him to steadily support him. He jumped, having no idea when this person had drawn near, his hair immediately standing on end. Thankfully, the other merely held him up, not doing anything else.
Gu Xiang’s eyes lit up. “Master!” she called out.
Only then did Zhou Zishu exhale slightly, standing tall to turn around. The one that had supported him was indeed the gray-clothed man from the restaurant — with a closer look, he was no more than around twenty-eight. His features could be described as handsome, but whenever those eyes stared dead at someone, they would inevitably make them pretty uncomfortable.
At right this second, he was staring at Zhou Zishu, gaze appearing to want to dig underneath Zhou Zishu’s face. It was pretty rude.
Zhou Zishu coughed dryly. “Many thanks to…”
“Wen. Wen Kexing,” the man replied. After that, something of a suspicious look appeared on his face. His eyes landed upon Zhou Zishu’s neck and hands, whereupon the look seemed to get even more pronounced.
Despite having no idea what this guy was looking at, Zhou Zishu was unperturbed. He knew his own craftsmanship well; if it was easy to make out, his body and his head would have ended up in separate spaces ten years ago. “Ah. Many thanks to you, Brother Wen,” he said calmly.
The man observed for a long time, though it was unclear what he was observing. After a good while, he shifted his eyes away and nodded. “No need for that.”
Saying so, he strode languidly into the worn-down temple. Gu Xiang had already speedily kicked aside a few corpses and laid out straw for him to have a clean sitting area. Then, this ‘Wen Kexing’ looked at Zhou Zishu again, and — as if thinking that he hadn’t done enough — specifically explained, “I’m not interested in you.”
Zhou Zishu now understood where Gu Xiang’s charmless energy had come from. He sat to one side and adjusted his internal flow.
Over a shichen passed before he opened his eyes again, only to see Wen Kexing leaning against the wall with one leg curled up, head tilted as he sized him up. “Is there something on my face that’s causing you to scrutinize it for this long, Brother Wen?” he had to ask.
“Did you face-change?” Wen Kexing asked, expressionless.
Zhou Zishu’s heart constricted, yet he was still completely uncaring on the surface. “What?”
The other just ignored him, talking to himself. “Strange… very strange. I actually can’t tell that you have. Were it not for you not altering your limbs… hm…”
He reached up to rub his own chin, and said in a rather puzzled way, “In all my years, I’ve never judged someone wrongly. One glance at those shoulderblades of yours, and you clearly ought to be a beauty.”
Zhou Zishu immediately had no words to answer him with.
Wen Kexing nodded, continuing to soliloquize. “I’ve never judged anyone wrongly before. You must have face-changed.”
The other continued to have no words.
Wen Kexing persevered in staring hard at his face. A long period of staring later, he tilted his head back, as if giving up. “But I really can’t see any flaws in it. How much skill would be needed, for me to not be able to see any flaws in a little jianghu trick like this? It likely doesn’t exist, right? There’s no way, no way at all…”
“Lord, you pointed at the back of a pig butcher last time, and were convinced that he was a beauty,” Gu Xiang said coldly.
“A butcher he may have been, but he could be called a beauty based on his glimmering eyes alone, which were lovely as they looked all about,” Wen Kexing said quietly. “Heroes are still heroes regardless of their origins, so what of the butcher? What do you understand? Children know nothing of beauty and ugliness.”
“Glimmering? Lovely?” She sighed. “Wasn’t he just yawning, then wiping off his tears? That’s not even mentioning that he had a broad nose, wide mouth, fat head, big ears…”
“Ah-Xiang, your eyesight is terrible,” he said, without hesitation.
Zhou Zishu had since slowly gotten to his feet, then gone to check on how the young Zhang Chengling was doing.
Zhou Zishu rapped the teen’s sleeping acupoint, only fearing that he wouldn’t be able to wrap his head around all of this. To have him calm some, he didn’t use much force, so that after that weirdo Wen Kenxing walked in, he came to after not too long.
Upon opening his eyes, he stared mutely at the roof of the temple for a time, as if his soul had vacated his body. Prior to yesterday, he had still been the Zhang’s Young Lord, loved and lauded by all — even if his studies teacher would shake his head and say that he was a misbehaving brat, a wall of dirt that couldn’t be painted, even if his martial teacher would unfaithfully nod in his presence, while thinking that he was hopeless mud that couldn’t stick to any wall — and his life had been plenty happy.
Clothes had come whenever he opened his hands, food had come whenever he opened his mouth. Old maids and nannies had followed behind him in attendance as soon as he was in his room; they couldn’t read very well, but they had never neglected to keep him company in the night while he did. All day long, boyservants had followed him, singing praises; Zhang Chengling was self-aware, but that hadn’t kept him from occasionally enjoying the light feeling that came from within those compliments. Such was how he had grown to the age of fourteen, within a honey jar.
Yet in the span of a night, that was all gone.
His home was gone, his parents were gone, his relatives and friends were all gone. His world had suddenly been turned wholly on its head, exceedingly alarming and overwhelming him.
Zhou Zishu could blather on and still possessed two hands, yet he wasn’t too good at consoling other people, sitting quietly to one side. Zhang Chengling was out of it, two tear tracks silently trickling down from his eyes.
“Who’s that little thing?” Wen Kexing was heard to ask Gu Xiang.
“Zhang Yusen’s son, I heard,” she answered.
He nodded, looking quite calm, as if the name Zhang Yusen was a transient cloud in his heart. A time later, he asked, “Were the Zhangs also rumored to be so poor, they have no money left? Why has his son turned out like this? Did he run away from home without bringing enough money, or did he get lost and not find his way home?”
“I heard that someone plotted against the Zhangs and wiped them out the night before,” she whispered. “It’s probably an uproar by now. You went and got too engrossed in muck around last night, Master, so you definitely didn’t hear of it.”
Wen Kexing thought for a bit, felt that to be logical, and thusly nodded. “No wonder there’s dead people everywhere.”
He sized Zhou Zishu up again. “What’s he doing, then?”
She sneered in mockery. “That beggar calls himself Zhou Xu. Someone gave him a few coins yesterday, so he sold himself off in bringing that brat to Lake Tai.”
His eyes widened slightly, looking serious as he pondered for a minute. “Then he’s most certainly a beauty,” he said to her. “There’s no mistake. Only a beauty could possibly be so stupid.”
Used to this, Gu Xiang acted like she hadn’t heard that. Meanwhile, Zhou Zishu couldn’t fathom the man’s depths, so he followed her example.
He lowered his head to look at Zheng Chengling, who was still noiselessly leaking tears. Kind of annoyed, he wondered to himself why this shitling hadn’t stopped yet, then lightly kicked him with his toes, coughing dryly. “Young Lord Zhang, if you’re done resting, get up and tidy yourself. Staying here for too long wouldn’t be good, as a lot of pursuers might be waiting to eliminate the root that you are later. This Zhou was entrusted to it, so I’ll at least get you to Lake Tai with all of your limbs intact.”
Zhang Chengling’s pupils slowly revolved around, then contracted. Both of his hands covered his face, he curled himself up into a big shrimp, and then he began to howl. His cries gave Zhou Zishu a pain in his skull; he thought about scolding him some, but couldn’t really steel himself to. Coaxing a kid was also something he wouldn’t do. So, he sat quietly for a minute, then suddenly stood up to head for the door.
His original intent was to check out the Buddha statue he had smacked over; with how he wanted to accumulate virtues, his blasphemy of the Buddha was not a great thing, so he was thinking of a way to put the statue back in its place. However, Zhang Chengling thought he was going to leave — he performed a roll, got up and threw himself forward at flying speed, then hugged Zhou Zishu’s leg, saying anxiously, “Uncle, Uncle Zhou, don’t… don’t leave, I… I…”
The way he looked, all choked-up, was extremely pitiful. Although he had met Zhou Zishu by mere chance, he had no one else to rely on right now. He practically viewed him as the life-saving Buddha himself.
Zhou Zishu gave him an expressionless look. “Men have gold beneath their knees. Did your dad never tell you that?” he flatly asked.
After being taken aback for a moment, Zhang Chengling suddenly felt blessed at heart. He wiped off his face hard, snot and tears getting on his sleeve. “Venerating the Heavens, the Earth, the monarch, the family, and the teacher is the proper thing to do. As you are my great benefactor, Uncle Zhou, allow this Chengling to venerate you as a teacher!”
Nearby, Wen Kexing and Gu Xiang were watching with great interest. “Oi, that brat that was a good-for-nothing moron yesterday. How did he suddenly get to be so smart?” Gu Xiang quietly commented.
“Get up,” Zhou Zishu had to say.
“Master, I’m not getting up if you don’t agree!” Zhang Chengling stubbornly said. “Wiping out my family is a great enmity! If I don’t get revenge, what kind of person would I, Zhang Chengling, be?! Master—“
Disinclined to keep listening to his grand rhetoric, Zhou Zishu grabbed him by the shoulders, and hefted him off the ground like he was a little chicken. “I’m an invalid that’s going to go into the ground soon, living day by day. What can I even teach you? I’ve heard that Hero Zhao Jing of Lake Tai is an old friend of your father’s. I’ll bring you there, and there won’t be any need to ask; people will be lining up in droves to teach you martial arts that will help you take revenge.”
After that, he turned, circulated power in his hands to pick up the large statue by its waist, walked over to the incense table, then used force to shove it back into its original spot. Repeatedly chanting “I’ve sinned,” he put his hands together in prayed, then bowed twice in improper form. When he looked back at the stupefied Zhang Chengling, he said, “Get up and over here so we can go. Don’t you want revenge? You need to find Hero Zhao soon before you can. I’ll take you to find something to eat.”
Saying so, he stretched his back like no one else was around, smiled at Gu Xiang, ignored Wen Kexing, and turned to head out, not caring whether Zhang Chengling was keeping up or not.
The latter stood there, wronged, for a minute. Upon noticing that the man had actually left, he was subsequently forced to hurriedly chase after him.
Wen Kexing rubbed his chin with his fingers, pondering as he watched their backs with great amusement. With a slap on his thigh, he stood. “Come on,” he said to Gu Xiang, “we’re following them to Lake Tai.”
Gu Xiang put away the mischievous grin on her face, mumbling to herself. “My Lord,” she said quietly afterwards, “that Zhang Chengling said that it was the Wraiths of Green Bamboo Ridge that wiped out his family, and that Hanging Wraith Xue Fang was there, too.”
Wen Kexing gave her an unaffected look. “Yes? And?”
She was startled. Seeing that he had since left for the outside, she quickly caught up, serious-faced. “That Hanging Wraith was clearly fake goods, to get beaten to death by me yesterday. My Lord… did you know something ahead of time?”
“Ah-Xiang.”
Wen Kexing glanced at her. Those eyes seemed like they were about to suck her into them.
She immediately bowed her head. “Okay. This maid spoke too much,” she said quietly.
In that moment, the girl that feared nothing turned white, expression holding evident dread. Wen Kexing stared deeply at her, only after which he turned his gaze away in satisfaction, proceeding to walk forth. Gu Xiang still quietly followed not too far behind him.
“We’ll follow the one surnamed Zhou,” she heard Wen Kexing say on his own. “I’m sure I didn’t see wrong, he must be a beauty. His fox tail will inevitably be pulled out on this trip — and if you don’t believe that, Ah-Xiang, we can bet on it.”
And so, Zhou Zishu’s journey was foreordained to not be a peaceful one.
Bringing Zhang Chengling along was basically like bringing along a fart of unrivaled stink, where an unknown amount of flies were attracted into buzzing after them on the road. On this night, Zhou Zishu dispatched yet another gang of pursuers; he fiddled with the two pieces of silver in his hand, his regret coming too late.
Half of his martial strength remained, as were all of his skills. These people were nothing he couldn’t handle, it was just that with the Septeye Nails in him, his energy was never quite up to it. He had no patience for these jerks that switched ‘being an annoyance’ shifts regardless of whether it was day or night. While contending with bugs in pursuit, he was also being wary of the Lord-maid pair that had inexplicably, unhurriedly been following him since that one day.
If he was alone, it would have been easy to throw them off, but he was hauling a small burden with him. Moreover, it was unclear what hallowed ground that Wen Kexing had come from, as he did have some actual talent — despite having thrown them off several times, less than half a day later, he would see the man’s extremely punchable face again.
Zhou Zishu silently hauled away the corpse of a black-clothed man that had attempted an ambush, after which he returned to his room and sat down in a dark place to meditate again. Zhang Chengling sensed nothing, still snoring in his sleep, dreaming something fierce. In these days of leading him, he felt that the teen did not have any of a Young Lord’s nasty habits; that child that had wailed loudly, practically producing his own water, seemed to have suddenly been forced to grow up after experiencing this event.
No matter how slow the journey was going, he never said a word of it. Zhou Zishu would say something and then do that something, being very honest, but he couldn’t get that mouthful of Masters to change.
If it can’t be changed, then it can’t be changed, he thought to himself. In any case, as soon as he tossed him to the Zhao’s of Lake Tai, he was leaving. He had carefully plotted out where he ought to tour, how he would tour it, and where to go; he still had the Three Mountains, Five Peaks, and a few great lakes to see, so he wouldn’t be heading North. There was an old friend of his in Nanjiang that he hadn’t yet time to visit. There was no way he could descend to the Yellow Springs without going and saying hello to him, requesting a cup of wine to drink…
All of a sudden, the young man on the bed began to writhe, dripping with sweat. This would happen to him almost every night. On the surface, he would be fine, wholeheartedly focusing on getting proper revenge and lifting his own spirits, but the memory of that night was forever a nightmare that followed him like a shadow.
Sighing, Zhou Zishu nudged him awake.
Zheng Chengling sat up with a shout, eyes staring blankly ahead. He only reacted after a good long time had passed, turning to Zhou Zishu to say, “Uncle Zhou… I didn’t mean to do that.”
He was not too old to begin with. That fully bloodshot, yet still pure look in his eyes was so much so, it was inexplicably familiar, causing Zhou Zishu to abruptly recall someone from deep in his memory.
Once upon a time, that someone… had wanted nothing more than to roam jianghu with him.
Thus, he couldn’t help but fall into a daze.
“Uncle Zhou, I didn’t mean to wake you up with my noise. I was just dreaming about my dad…” Zhang Chengling said carefully, his lips trembling, turning blue and white. “How about… how about I stay up?”
Zhou Zishu patted him on the shoulder, subconsciously softening his voice. “It’s no problem, go to sleep. If you have another nightmare, I’ll get you.”
Responding quietly, Zhang Chengling buried himself back into the covers, fingers yet unwittingly clutching Zhou Zishu’s sleeve.
The other gave a meaningful, profound look at his grabbed sleeve. Zhang Chengling smiled awkwardly, then curled his fingers as he took them back.
At right that moment, someone seemed to pluck qin strings not too far away. One twang, and Zhang Chengling felt like the sound was exploding in his ears like thunder — his insides consequently shuddered, followed by excruciating pain, and he groaned, desperately covering his chest…
The qin’s sound was extraordinarily fine, like spider silk binding one up. It seemed like it was coming from every direction, carrying an indescribably harsh, wily tone.
The very second Gu Xiang heard it, she felt her internal qi roiling. However, since she had noticed quickly, she promptly forced herself to calm down.
As for Wen Kexing, who had been napping in his bed, he had risen at some unknown point in time and come to quietly stand by the window. Moonlight passing through the window lattice shone upon his face, that mien seeming to soften up some, yet his gaze was unblinkingly fixated upon one area in the darkness.
His long shadow trailed behind him, unmoving. Even though he was expressionless at first glance, a smile was secretly contained within him, making him resemble an unaffected and bizarre stone statue. Beneath the dark of night, the dangerous aura about him was given off without disguise.
He looked like a demon, emotionless, and without joys or sorrows.
Being rather quick-witted, as soon as she had noticed something off, Gu Xiang sealed off her ears, tried hard to not listen to the sounds outside, and focused on her breathing, shrouding her qi. It was a while before she could tamp down that wave of nausea.
Wen Kexing’s slender fingers slid across the lattice, and he gave a low chuckle. “They actually got the Enchanting Melody, Qin Song to come… that’s flashy. Yet they don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
Suddenly, he heard the sound of something whistling through the wind. As if the qin’s strings were too hoarse, their music no longer sounded out, only able to make muted plucking sounds. Meanwhile, it seemed like someone had shot out several teeny-tiny stones to strike into the endless void.
They were nearly inaudible, yet subtly interrupting that lingering, restless qin music, like how throwing a tiny stone into water would instantly stir up fine ripples, spreading outwards to where one could neither see nor catch them.
The qin’s sound did indeed falter.
Wen Kexing leaned against the window’s edge, shut his eyes, and listened carefully. A ruminating smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Right then, the qin abruptly started up again, its sound stampeding forth like a flood of beasts, its musician issuing a sudden killing move. At nearly the exact same time, a sharp call came from the neighboring room, a careful listen making it out to be a flute. However, a typical flute would not produce a sound like that — extraordinarily sharp, to the point that it seemed like it was going to tear something apart.
The timing had been calculated with precision. The flute’s shrill cry and the noxious qin’s song dueled at short range.
The musician’s qin strings instantly snapped.
After that, everything fell silent.
Wen Kexing kept standing there for a time, shaking his head as he said to himself, “Those that grow up with the sword will inevitably die by the sword. The ancients did not lie to me, truly.”
Only now did Gu Xiang sigh in relief, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead. “Master, you’re saying that Qin… Qin Something is dead?”
“Even if he isn’t, his meridians are completely severed, and he’ll be a convalescent from now on,” he replied quietly. “I feel that him being dead would be much easier for him.”
He suddenly reached out to push the window open, then lowered his voice to be even quieter, as if he feared startling something. “Ah, Ah-Xiang. What goes on in this world is always so interesting; if you want to do something, there is never a justification to not invest. Using a seven-stringed qin to kill people incorporeally is indeed a delightful and amusing pastime, yet one should be guarded against the backlash of another.”
Gu Xiang tilted her head. “When would there be any backlash?”
“When the other is stronger than you,” he patiently explained.
She nodded, then thought. “So, what you should do is compete with people stronger than you, and bully people weaker than you, right?”
He turned to look at her. Contrasted against the moon’s rays, his entire body was lined in silver edging, the expression on his face getting all the more indistinct. After a long while, he said, “You could bully nobody, and be like me: a good person.”
Following that, he went to push open the door. Gu Xiang fearfully watched this ‘good person’ leave.
Zhou Zishu’s own situation was not that great. His flute was one he had casually whittled out of boredom while on the road. Likely due to his skills not being up to scratch, its sound when played was fairly inaccurate, off-key, and ear-grating, hence why he didn’t play it anymore. Who could have guessed that it would have a genuine use tonight? With only one blow on it, it had torn open a huge hole. It was with luck that he had lured out the other’s full strength, as only that gave him that fortunate dead-on hit; he wouldn’t have been sure on how to end it, otherwise.
Zhang Chengling fully looked like he had been fished out of water. His martial power was too low, so despite Zhou Zishu having stuffed up his ears in time, he had still suffered internal injuries and spat up once, his complexion like joss paper.
Worried that he would take ill at his young age, Zhou Zishu put no care towards his own breath regulation in order to place his palm against the other’s back. “Focus,” he commanded, voice cool.
Then, he used his internal force to help him circulate once through. Upon seeing his complexion ease up some, he took his palm back, already sweating hard, himself.
He thought to himself that it was good that the Zhao Manor was not too far away right now, else he likely would have bungled his mission for real. He’d never done anything good before in this half-life of his; if he was thinking of accumulating virtues for the first time only to give up halfway, that would probably be inauspicious.
When speaking of events big and smalls and people from the North and South within jianghu, likely no one knew them better than the former Heaven’s Pane leader. That single note of the qin from just now had immediately told him who was outside.
According to rumor, that “Enchanting Melody” Qin Song was a eunuch who was must fond of dressing up as a woman, decking himself out in gaudy colors to make it known to all that he was a toxin. On account of his martial arts that could kill without showing blood, he had started up an assassination business in truth, consistently pursuing the doctrine of ‘whoever gives me milk is who my mother is’; whoever gave him coin was whoever he would play the dog for.
There was no sound at this time. Zhou Zishu knew that the other wasn’t dead, probably. Had he been in the prime of his life, there would have been no need to be so ruthless towards someone like that, but with half of his martial strength gone and only half of a life yet, he was much less sure of himself, so he turned a lot more vicious.
Then, he heard someone clap and praise him, from outside the window.
“Heard within this night’s melody is the snap of branches; in who are the nostalgic feelings of home not aroused?… What a starry sky, what a moon. The way you played your flute against the qin was such an elegant thing, an ugly wouldn’t have been able to do it, Brother Zhou.”
The level that drivel was on a level that could make one gasp in admiration.
Zhou Zishu thought as much, yet hadn’t detected this man presence before he came to stand outside the window. Someone that supernaturally came and went like this would have required extra vigilance even when he had been in his prime. As far as his knowledge went, there were altogether three-and-a-half people in jianghu that he could not afford to offend.
So, he took in a deep breath, pushed open the window, pointed at his own sallow, emaciated face, and used an utterly blank look to stare at Wen Kexing with. “So, I’m pretty?”
Wen Kexing choked. His eyes roamed that face that could not be described as consummately too appalling to see, yet also wouldn’t lend people to giving it a second look. Afterwards, he turned away to gaze at the moon.
Zhou Zishu swung his legs over to sit on the window ledge, following his gaze. There was a full moon tonight, its rays akin to water, the ground akin to frost; all of it was exceptionally lucent.
He was mulling over whom of those three-and-a-half people called themselves ‘Wen Kexing’, and also couldn’t help but ponder the other’s motive for following him. The more he thought, the more he felt like he was unable to comprehend a thing.
From how this guy was, he detected a very subtle hint of similarity, so he knew that he was definitely someone that wouldn’t rise early without incentive to. In following him… or, in following Zhang Chengling to Lake Tai, he definitely had to have some plan. After thinking about it for a time, he still had no real ideas, and inwardly mocked himself; Wanting to dig up roots to question their foundation is an old chronic habit.
Once he lowered his head, he saw that Wen Kexing was currently taking a measure of him with great interest. “Brother Wen, if you truly are curious, why don’t you peel my skin back and take a look at all the meat and bone inside?”
Wen Kexing raised his brows. Then, all of a sudden, he said, “Okay.”
Before the y finished trailing, his hand shot out like lightning to grab Zhou Zishu’s face. The latter had long been on alert, leaning backwards, bending at the waist, and lifting a leg to kick at Wen Kexing’s wrist.
In the span of a spark’s life, the two exchanged a back-and-forth of ten consecutive blows, dazzling and overwhelming with the sight.
Since he was clinging to a window, Zhou Zishu felt that his movements were rather limited, putting him at more of a disadvantage. When he bowed his head to avoid a palm strike, he twisted his body to jump down, but, in his opinion, nighttime was not a good time — that was saying nothing about how he had already been screwing around for most of the night. One of the nails in his torso began to pang acutely, which caused his motions to falter.
In a mere instant, Wen Kexing’s palm was already advancing on his chest. A strong gale came ambushing, yet the attack stopped for no real reason.
Zhou Zishu looked down at the hand that had nearly plastered to his chest, but his expression remained calm. “Many thanks for staying your hand, Brother Wen…?”
When he hadn’t quite finished speaking, that hand suddenly felt about his face. Feeling it wasn’t enough, though, as he used his fingers to slowly rub, as if trying to distinguish whether this crap was made of human skin or pig skin.
Before Zhou Zishu had time to move away, he saw Gu Xiang — who had likely heard the commotion — stick her head out of the window. She took one look, covered her eyes, and shrank her head back, yelling, “Augh! Lewd!”
…Yeah. She’d said what he was thinking.
Wen Kexing was pretty close, expression extraordinarily serious… his expression always looked serious, actually, but with the moonlight vaguing things up, he genuinely looked lewd.
Gu Xiang had no idea how to lower her voice on her end, mumbling to herself, “A sty, I’m growing a sty…”
Zhou Zishu quickly dry-coughed, took a huge step backwards, and collected himself. “Did you see what this humble one’s face is made of, Great Hero?” he asked, unsure of how to react.
Wen Kexing pondered to himself for a long while, then came to one conclusion: “It’s made of flesh.”
Zhou Zishu expressed unconditional approval.
The other stared at his own fingers. “How strange… how strange. It actually felt like you were actually born with it.”
“No talent here; this humble one really was born with it,” Zhou Zishu answered, collected.
If a third person was on set, they would certainly think one of the two men here to be a madman. (Gu Xiang didn’t count, of course.)
Seeming like he had suffered something of a blow, Wen Kexing stared at Zhou Zishu, then got up and left — he didn’t return to his room, but instead went elsewhere. Only then did Gu Xiang stick her head out again, peer about, then grin. “That’s nice. My Lord probably couldn’t accept reality, so he’s left to the brothel to find his beauty. With him gone, everyone can go wash up and rest sooner.”
Wen Kexing didn’t turn his head. Despite his body being quite far away, his voice was airy and light, like a thread drifting along with the wind, accurately floating into Gu Xiang’s ear.
“Ah-Xiang, are you speaking in human tongue?”
“I’m letting out gas,” she answered, following his advice. After that, she swiftly shrank back inside, pulling the window closed, like she was quickly trying to hold it more gas.
Now, Zhou Zishu lightly exhaled, slowly relaxing his body to lean against the wall. He firmly clenched his teeth, not making a single sound.
Thankfully, the pain only came in bursts, getting a little better after a minute. It was after this that he fixed himself up, then returned to the room.
This night seemed to be particularly long.
Three days later, bearing Young Lord Zhang Chengling — who had lost quite a bit over a brief few days — arrived at Lake Tai.
Upon knocking on Zhao Jing’s door, and prior to any clear explanation, the old steward looked straight at Zhang Chengling, and then lost his voice. “You’re… you’re Chengling? Are you Chengling?!”
Following that, the other turned to shout at the boyservant inside, “Go call for the Master! Young Lord Chengling is here! He’s still alive!”
Not longer after, Great Hero Zhao of Lake Tai came out to greet him. Zhang Chengling knelt onto the ground with an audible thump. It appeared that the Zhang tragedy had already disseminated across the land. A group of people cried themselves into a huddle, then welcomed the two inside with great aplomb.
Zhou Zishu thought, Finally, I don’t have to worry about someone going to bother my ancestors underground… accumulating virtue by doing good deeds is just way too taxing, really.
Zhao Jing of Lake Tai, known as the Swordsman of Mount Autumn, was a famed hero of a generation.
Prior to having ever arrived at Lake Tai, Zhou Zishu had kind of been looking forward to seeing this legendary martial-circle senior in person, who he had only heard about, yet had never once had time to see the true face of. This was especially so when he heard that the only son of Mount Hua’s Sect Leader, Yu Tianjie, the Lord of Cleftsword Manor, Mu Yunge, the One-Eyed Hero, Jiang Che, and other such people were also in the Zhao home.
The identities and circumstances of these people were things Zhou Zishu could list like they were family treasures. In order to guard against those who would cause disturbances martially, Heaven’s Pane held a separate repository; given that one had been considered famous in jianghu sometime in the last fifty years, all of their personal events of every size would be recorded within.
As an example, he knew that the chivalrous Zhao Jing had been ousted from his family home in his youth. Due to being down-and-out, he sought after money, doing basically the same as what that Enchanting Melody Qin Song had done. After he turned twenty-seven, he changed his name back to Zhao Jing, snatched the Fengs of Lake Tai’s only daughter, relied on her skirts to move up in life, and secretly hunted down those that knew of what he had done in the past. Only then had the Zhao family recognized him again.
As another example, Young Hero Yu Tianjie — one of the most abundantly famous at the moment — purportedly had an affair with an Emei girl, after which he abandoned her. That caused her end herself, and her three-month-old fetus, in her room; of course, since she hadbeen deep in look, she had never revealed who the adulterer was.
Zhou Zishu knew far too much about what mugs these men had, so he was interested all the more. Also, he couldn’t withstand Zhang Chengling’s begging. This was why he stayed the night in the Zhao home.
Regardless of what Zhao Jing had done in the past, he now truly did have something of heroic aura. He didn’t look down upon Zhou Zishu due to his ragged-all-over, swayed-step dignity in the slightest, because he was, in the end, someone a bit learned. After hearing some of Zhang Chengling’s weepy testimony, he knew that his journey had been quite arduous, and thus grew skeptical of Zhou Zishu.
The two were arranged for a stay on this day. After washing, clothing, watering, and feeding them, Zhao Jing called Zhang Chengling to his study, and listened to him explain in detail what had actually happened.
Being a child that had barely managed to get to see a relative of his, Zhang Chengling naturally had a lot to say. He knew very little about a lot, yet Zhao Jing was still startled to hear of it. After thinking for a minute, he couldn’t help but ask, “That… that Hero Zhou, what sort of character is he? Do you know anything specific?”
Zhang Chengling obediently recounted what had happened in the abandoned temple that day.
Narrowing his eyes, Zhao Jing stroked his beard, then gave him some words of consolation before telling him to go rest.
Still, after interacting for all these days, Zhou Zishu had come to understand this boy, Zhang Chengling. He knew that despite him having been raised rich and being a bit incompetent personally, he was still a good kid with a good heart; able to withstand hardships, yet still a bit of a fool. In all likelihood, when that old fox Zhao Jing had called him to talk, the kid would sell him out clean in only so many words… and likely not even realize that he had done it.
Inwardly, he laughed. Whether Zhou Xu or Zhou Zishu, they were identities that had been invisible for all these years. Perhaps those more learned and more connected would vaguely know something about a group like ‘Heaven’s Pane’, but absolutely no one would know who the leader was.
For that matter, ‘Sir Zhou’ was decorated with nothing more than the title of a minor general responsible for dispatching imperial bodyguards in the palace. In the eyes of those gentlemen, it was a role worthy of flattery, yet not of any importance.
As expected, at the next day’s crack of dawn, Zhou Zishu precipitously became the most delicious-smelling baked good fresh out of the Zhao’s oven. If he didn’t leave the little courtyard he was staying in, guests would drop by in an unending stream.
Without a choice, he was forced to start peddling, welcoming and then seeing off whoever came to his door:
Ah, Hero Zhao, I’ve met you at last. It is three lifetimes’ worth of fortune for me to be able to see your true face, as I’ve always heard of you, yet never once met you… where did this humble one learn martial arts? Ahem, I’m naught but a nameless pawn. How is that worthy enough for a mention?
Ah, Hero Qian, I’ve met you at last. It is three lifetimes’ worth of fortune for me to be able to see your true face, as I’ve always heard of you, yet never once met you… where did this humble one come from? I am a beggar, I have no sort of origins at all. No, no, no, not the Beggars’ Sect. How could I ever claim connections to that? I am but a nameless pawn…
Ah, Hero Sun, I’ve met you at last. It is three lifetimes’ worth of fortune for me to be able to see your true face, as I’ve always heard of you, yet never once met you… you never hearing of this humble one before is as it should be. I am but a nameless pawn, not worthy of mention.
Ah, Hero Li, I’ve met you at last. It is three lifetimes’ worth of fortune for me to be able to see your true face, as I’ve always heard of you, yet never once met you… no, no, this humble one has no friendship with Hero Zhang, I merely saw an injustice on the road and drew my sword to go help. Sect? Never had one. I am no more than a trifling, nameless pawn, unworthy of any mention, any mention at all.
By the time evening came, his face had smiled so much, it had gone somewhat stiff — it took a lot of massaging for it to go back into place. He had a profound feeling that if this continued, he would probably be at risk for a stroke. For that reason, he planned to leave.
When it came to the degree of persistence in asking about other’s personal matters, the Great Heroes of jianghu were actually pretty similar to old biddies at the market. They itched to pare down their own skulls so that they could fit them into the cracks of people’s doors, blinking their glowing eyes, wanting to see through one as some kind of demon wrapped in human skin.
The one in question would say, I came from one of the Great Eight sects, so-and-so is my teacher, and then they could say, Ah, I’ve met you at last, this humble one’s sect-uncle and Master had a decent friendship with you in their early days. That would count as climbing up on one’s connections.
If not, then it’s ‘You’re not my kind, what sort of person are you?’, which could take a particularly long time to investigate.
It was evening. The moon was in wane, midnight in full swing. Zhou Zishu quickly opened his eyes. He had already laid down before the day had gotten dark, and in this moment, when the Nails were just now starting to act up, it wasn’t serious at all, his energy having since been replenished. He thus didn’t mind the pain too much.
Getting up, he hesitated for a bit, then felt that leaving without farewell was rather indecorous. Therefore, he left two notes behind.
One was for Zhang Chengling, which read: The lush mountains never change, the green waters flow forever.[7] After he wrote it, he felt extremely proud, discovering himself to be ever the more like a jianghu-goer.
Then, he laid out another sheet to give Zhao Jing a single sentence: I’m indebted to your hospitality. Many thanks.
After pinning them down with a teapot, he practically floated up to the roof.
A tiny civet on the roof was silently walking along its tiles. All it saw was a shadow flash past his eyes. It stopped in its tracks, alert, and looked in every direction with wide eyes. When it saw everything there was to see, it cocked its head in quite a bit of confusion, then proceeded to run in the direction of the kitchen.
Zhou Zishu quietly departed the Zhao Manor, believing that no one had been alerted. However, in a small forest no further than a li away from the Manor, there was someone that appeared to have predicted this in advance, as he was already waiting there for him.
The second Zhou Zishu saw him, his head swelled up to twice its size. He witnessed Wen Kexing beam, clasp his fist, and say to him, “Oh, Brother Zhou, what a real coincidence! Looks like you and I have prominent karmic ties, since we’ve met repeatedly beneath a moon. It could even be said that our hearts are tacitly in-sync.”
Zhou Zishu beamed back. “What a coincidence, Brother Wen.”
In his head, he said, Coincidence my ass, you pestilence god.[8]
He tilted his head, yet didn’t see Gu Xiang. “Why do I not see Miss Gu?” he asked with a smile.
“That girl gets in the way and walks too slow,” Wen Kexing answered, beyond direct. “With her along to obstruct things, I feared I wouldn’t be able to meet with your esteemed self, a… significant figure that appears and disappears at will.”
The smile on Zhou Zishu’s face froze. He stared at Wen Kexing. A long while later, he asked, “If this unimportant, talentless, humble one is a significant figure, then what of the Ancient Monk of Everbright Peak, the Poison King of the Southern Sea’s Guanyin Hall, and the Wraith Lord of Green Bamboo Ridge?”
Wen Kexing gave him a look of profound implication. “The Ancient Monk doesn’t ask after mortal affairs, he only pursues immortal cultivation. The Poison King has supposedly since entered jianghu, his track difficult to follow. The Wraith Lord has never been seen before, and all I know is that he’s a clod that hides his head, yet exposes his tail… whether he can even be regarded as a human figure is debatable.”
They subsequently stared at each other with smiles, harboring ulterior motives.
Then, Zhou Zishu shifted his eyes away on his own initiative. “This Zhou is nothing but a passerby. Out of everyone, why are you focused on me?”
For whatever reason, Wen Kexing appeared as though he had chanced upon an old friend in broad daylight. “In that case, Lake Tai has scenery that is known far and wide. Why not stay at the Zhao’s for a few more days, Brother Zhou? Why the need to hit the road in such a rush?” he very, very laxly asked.
“This humble one has already appreciated a little something of Lake Tai’s scenery, so I won’t bother them further. I’m afraid that Hero Zhao currently has a lot of worries. This Zhou is a minor figure of no significance, no great skills, and no relationship with Hero Zhao. A favor of only two coins of silver is not worth enough for me to live and die with them.”
He paused, then added, “Escorting Young Lord Zhang was merely an accumulation of virtues, nothing more. After my life ends and I see King Yan, I’ll be content with suffering a bit less of my skin getting peeled off.”
“An accumulation of virtues…” Wen Kexing repeated, nodding in much agreement. “Yes, you really are a kindred spirit with me, Brother Zhou. Everyone that has been a kindred spirit with this Wen has been a beauty, which is why, clearly…”
The instant he heard that ‘clearly’, Zhou Zishu felt a vein bulge out of his temple. Right when he went to say something to cut him off, a scream suddenly came from somewhere far behind Wen Kexing, within the forest.
The two paused simultaneously.
Then, he saw Wen Kexing point behind him and ask, “You see? Kindred spirits. Another opportunity to accumulate virtues has come.”
Zhou Zishu hesitated a bit, yet still ended up speeding towards the direction of the voice. “Brother Wen, that eye disease of yours is pretty serious. You should go see a doctor as soon as possible,” he said all the while, exasperated.
Wen Kexing followed close behind. Zhou Zishu’s agility arts had nearly reached the extent where he could tread on snow without leaving tracks, yet this man appeared to be effortlessly maintaining a distance of about three chi from him. Normal people would typically not speak at times like this in order to prevent their true qi from leaking out, yet the other spoke without any hesitation. “True, you speak sense. If I have the chance, I must pay visits to a few famed doctors so that I can be treated well. I’m not yet up in age, but my eyesight is getting increasingly worse — I still haven’t been able to make out any flaws in your face. Ah, so shameful.”
Zhou Zishu had an exceptional desire to make him never use that ‘increasingly worse eyesight’ ever again.
It was only a thought, though. Knowing oneself did not mean one knew another; from the wisdom and self-discipline of the former Heaven’s Pane leader, he would absolutely never do such a stupid thing.
They went at a very quick pace. In the blink of an eye, they entered the forest’s depths, whereupon they spotted a corpse.
The man was dressed in night-walking clothes, yet the mask hiding his face had fallen to the side, his two wide eyes and deathly visage decidedly ghastly. Sighting him from far away, Zhou Zishu thought him to be fairly familiar, so he bent down to take a careful look. He couldn’t help but furrow his brow. “Isn’t this… the Lord of Cleftsword Manor, Hero Mu?”
During the day, he had been in his room, tirelessly talking about nonsense for no less than the smaller half of a shichen. Unexpectedly, he had done as he had at night, being a nocturnal cat… unfortunately, he had become a dead cat.
Wen Kexing gathered in close, as well, rubbing his chin with high interest. “A moonlit night, night-walking clothes. Could it be…”
Zhou Zishu turned his head, prepared to hear his almighty opinion out.
“…that Lord Mu came out to forcibly pick some flowers?” was what he heard Wen Kexing’s almighty opinion to be.
He expressionlessly turned back around, conscious of how good his own deducing power was.
There were no bloodstains around Mu Yunge’s body, but his lips were a bit blue. After some thought, Zhou Zishu carefully opened up his lapels, only to see a crow-black palmprint impressively branded onto the man’s chest.
—
The translator says: By ‘flowers’, it means women. You can deduce the rest from there, I’m sure.
Zhou Zishu observed the palmprint for a short time, then abruptly turned the corpse over and peeled off its shirt… where he saw a palmprint at the exact same spot on its back.
Wen Kexing let out a sigh. “Someone took him for a bing and baked him. Or was he struck through?”
“No one puts this much effort into beating up a dead man,” Zhou Zishu flatly replied. “Someone’s palm strike went straight through him. I only know of one person from the past fifty years that has a palm technique like this…”
“The Rakshasa Strike of the Merry Death Wraith, Sun Ding,” Wen Kexing picked up.
Zhou Zishu gave him a look, said nothing, and bent down. After carefully searching Mu Yunge’s body, he produced several silver banknotes and a heap of silver pieces or taels. “Huh. Secretly slipping out of Zhao Manor in the middle of the night, bringing travel coin…”
He slipped them into his own pockets, to… bring with. “Brother Wen, this night prowler definitely come out to rape women. Rapists generally wouldn’t carry this much money on them.”
“Rapists seem to not bring a change of clothes with them, either.”
Wen Kexing used his foot to drag out a small bundle and a black cloth bag that were in nearby underbrush. Within them were some items for traveling abroad, such as clothes to change into.
The forest’s soil was damp and soft, messy footprints dented into it, yet there were no signs of a tussle. Aside from the lethal palm strike, Mu Yunge had no other wounds, and his famous cleft sword was still on him. That sharp weapon hadn’t even had time to leave its sheath.
Mu Yunge’s martial arts hadn’t been low; never would he have been as powerless to fight back as an unweaned baby. Zhou Zishu was quiet for a minute, thinking, Then, did the self-righteous Lord of Cleftsword Manor and the Merry Death Wraith of the Vale speak furtively after nightfall, the moon risen above willow boughs asway?
A bloodied tale that had ended with a twist, after one had believed emotions ran deep, only for another to be humiliated into a rage.
It looked like three people had popped up here. Mu Yunge’s footprints stopped at this location, while the other two sets appeared to not be one and the same, going off into different directions. One of them seemed to have followed Mu Yunge’s tail, after which — much like Zhou Zishu — they had crouched before the corpse to search it.
Zhou Zishu was hunkered down on the ground, his deep-rooted, reoccurring problem flaring up. It felt like a kitten was scratching the inside of his head. As much as he wanted to follow the footprints to go check things out, his intellect told him that doing so would inevitably be a headache. He was no longer that all-knowing, all-doing Heaven’s Pane leader; there was no need to go make problems for himself.
Seeing his squat on the ground very inelegantly, most likely pondering his life in his unrising stance, Wen Kexing observed him from the side for a time. Eventually, he had to say, “You’re not giving chase?”
Zhou Zishu gave him a look, continuing his battle between fate and nature.
With some thought, Wen Kexing suddenly strode after the second person’s footprints. “Then I will.”
Subconsciously, Zhou Zishu followed him. “You want to meddle?” he wondered.
“Someone killed the Lord of Cleftsword Manor. I am a good person that likes to accumulate virtues, so I’ve decided to see if I can do anything,” Wen Kexing answered, serious-faced. “Besides, I’m bored.”
Zhou Zishu felt that last part to be completely reasonable. After nodding, he ruminated, then asked, “Why on earth aren’t you following the first person’s prints, then? They’re extremely light, so their martial power was probably the highest between the three of them. If the one that secretly tailed Mu Yunge came from Zhao Manor, this one up ahead must be the Merry Death Wraith.”
“If you want to pursue the Merry Death Wraith, you can go by yourself. I won’t,” the other answered, unflustered. “Even though I am a good person that loves to meddle, I still fear death.”
Zhou Zishu was quietly given pause by his bluntness. While following Wen Kexing in his pursuit, there came a time where he involuntarily noticed that beneath the man’s feet, there were no prints at all.
Someone that could leave no trace when walking on snow claimed that he feared the Merry Death Wraith, feared death.
Zhou Zishu, formerly in command of palace gossip, immediately resolved to bow to the desires within him, resolved to go with him to see what had gone on. No matter what, he was going to die, and what did dying people fear? He could do whatever it was that he thought up.
The two skilled experts boldly shuttled through the woods, thereafter locating the one they were tracking on a river’s shore — Mount Hua’s Yu Tianjie.
He was hanging from a tree by a silver thread, which resembled silk. His head had half come off, a tiny portion of connection still at the neck; it fluttered in the breeze, threatening to fall off.
A drop of blood descended. Wen Kexing dodged a step back to prevent the dead man’s blood from splashing onto him, after which he slightly raised his hand to give Yu Tianjie’s body a push. The other’s neck and head completely separated from each other — the latter remained stuck to the silver thread, while the body abruptly fell down. Wen Kexing touched him, the pouted. “Still warm. He just died.”
“Spider Silk,” Zhou Zishu said, paused, face raised to meet Yu Tianjie’s eyes. “The Hanging Wraith’s Spider Silk.”
Lake Tai was fated to be exciting.
All of a sudden, Zhou Zishu’s ear picked something up. “Who’s there?!” he shouted.
A black figure then burst out from behind a tree, flew up like a giant bat, and vanished after several leaps away. Zhou Zishu didn’t have to think before bounding after them.
Wen Kexing was still stopped in place. “I’m afraid of death, very afraid… hm… so afraid, I just can’t stay here by myself.”
Thus, he followed, too.
Zhou Zishu took a pinecone into his hand, then shot it out with a flick of his fingers, sending it right into the center of the black-clothed person’s back. However, his qi wasn’t enough in the latter half of this night, and after such a long time giving chase, he seemed to lack some strength. Despite getting the hit, the other was merely thrown forward, not at all falling downwards like how he had expected. They didn’t even turn their head, scrambling all the more wildly.
He was somewhat perplexed, thinking, Is this actually the Hanging Wraith, Xue Fang? He would never feel himself to not be Xue Fang’s match, of course, but if the other actually was one of the top ten worst Vile Wraiths in the Ridge, would he flee for his life like this after seeing him, a nameless nobody?
I’m not exactly a demon-revealing mirror, he wondered, dumbfounded.
A few bounds, and they were out of the forest. Behind the trees happened to be a large gravesite, with faint, ghostly fire floating about all over. That Hanging Wraith appeared to have finally reached his own turf, his figure become even more ghost-like. It was unclear whether it was Zhou Zishu’s misperception or not, but he seemed to hear someone giggling inside this midnight burial site. The laughter was both nearby and far away, causing one’s hairs to stand on end.
After that, the Hanging Wraith’s figure darted into the ghostfire, and practically vanished into thin air.
Zhou Zishu suddenly came to a stop.
We Kexing stopped beside him, too. The blue light of the ghostfire shone upon his handsome face — it looked like his negligibly indecent expression had turned bizarre. In the distance came the call of an unknown creature, and a mouse suddenly appeared from out of the ground, having no fear of humans as it stared dead at them both. Perhaps it had eaten the dead before, as its little eyes were red.
The Hanging Wraith had disappeared beneath a large scholar tree. An owl was perched on a branch, tilting its head as it watched the two uninvited guests.
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing investigated around the tree several times, only to not glean any hints. The former furrowed his brow. “Like we saw a damn ghost…”
He subsequently heard a burst of bizarre laughter, and raised his head to look at Wen Kexing, creeped out. The other point at the owl in the tree, as the laughter had come out of the damned bird’s beak.
The owl stared off with Zhou Zishu for a long time, then abruptly spread his wings and flew off.
“I heard when I was little that the owl’s cry is not to be feared, but its laugh,” Wen Kexing said. “When you hear that thing laugh, someone is going to die. Are you afraid?”
Zhou Zishu began to survey the gravestone beneath the scholar tree, which had not a single character written upon it. “Two people died already,” he nonchalantly responded.
Likely too engaged right now, Wen Kexing ignored him, continuing on with relish. “I heard that there was once a village. One year, a villager was carrying a bowl of red water, which was overturned by an owl. As a result, twenty people of the village died in succession that year.
Zhou Zishu looked up at him.
“It’s a true story,” Wen Kexing said, deliberately lowering his voice to make his dramatic delivery better.
“Why would a villager be carrying a bowl of red water?” the other asked in a lack of understanding.
Wen Kexing choked, turned his head, and coughed dryly.
Zhou Zishu laughed lightly. He suddenly reached out to grab the gravestone; with minute force used, the tablet moved, following which he forcibly split open on one side. A creak was heard — a hole spontaneously opened in the earth, its inside black and cavernous, its depth unknown.
Wen Kexing quickly came in close for a look. He circled the mouth of the cave for several revolutions, clucking in wonder. “I’ve heard that the spot where the two realms of yin and yang collide is the very spot where yin qi gathers in the human world, which has to have a half-dead old scholar tree next to it. Scholar trees are the most yin objects ever, the ghost of trees[9] — have you heard of that before?”
Zhou Zishu crossed his arms in front of his chest, expressionlessly watching him proceed to tell ghost stories.
“Beneath the old scholar tree’s foundation is an unnamed burial mound, and down below that is the legendary Yellow Spring Road. Every night, in the middle of the seventh month, wandering ghosts from the netherworld will crawl out of here to visit the yang world once more,” Wen Kexing narrated vividly. “Yellow Spring Road is beyond cold. Once its end is reached, you will come upon the Underworld Gateway. Pass that, and you will no longer be a living being. All along the journey, there’ll be red spider lilies, and then you’ll be at the Bridge of Helplessness… hey!”
Zhou Zishu had already jumped down.
Wen Kexing watched, dumbstruck, as his silhouette vanished into the eerie lair, then quickly jumped down after him, too. He landed steadily on the ground, which felt pretty soft, and looked up to instantly see Zhou Zishu watching him with a not-quite-real smile. “Why, are you also interested in seeing what the Yellow Spring Road looks like, Brother Wen?” the other asked.
Wen Kexing nodded in sincerity. “Like so, the next time I tell people of it, I’ll be able to tack on the words ‘It’s a true story’ in earnest.”
Zhou Zishu shook his head with a light smile. All of a sudden, Wen Kexing made a shushing sound, creasing his brow to listen for a time. “Do you… hear that?” he asked quietly. “What’s that noise?”
After a careful identification, Zhou Zishu hesitantly answered, “…Water?”
Wen Kexing’s eyes instantly lit up. He seized the lead from him, not neglected to keep his voice down. “It truly is a true story!”
Before them was an extremely long and narrow path. It was fairly cramped, disallowing the two men from walking abreast, even making them have to hunch their shoulders and shrink their necks in. Only by one taking the lead and one taking the back could they manage to pass through. Zhou Zishu was very uncomfortably forced to bow his head slightly the whole time, so he furrowed his brow. Was it that this Yellow Spring Road he had taken was not the right one, having been specially made for women and children?
Who knew how long they walked for. By the time they made their way out of the narrow tunnel, they were covered in grime, and the area before them opened up. They had been connected through to an immense underground cave with a very fine river trickling up ahead — it was unknown where it began or where it would end, and what direction it was coming and going from.
The cave seemed to have wind in it, and it was unclear where it was coming from. Every direction was the same, yet it was getting chillier and chillier.
Now, Wen Kexing shut his gob, no longer bring up any garbage talk of the Yellow Spring Road being extremely cold.
Zhou Zishu stood before this ‘Yellow Spring’ for a time, then turned in a desire to head back out. He felt like he must have gorged himself too full on praise in the Zhao Manor, to have actually jumped down here without careful thought — the Sect Leader of Mount Hua was nothing good, and his son’s green outshone his own blue by being even less of anything good, having a look like he was lusting for skin at such a young age.
Besides, people that floated through jianghu could not avoid suffering the blade. Whether it was Yu Tianjie’s head or his other head that got cut off by spider silk, what did that have to do with him?
Maybe he had suffered some influenced from Wen Kexing’s foreboding tale, because he suddenly had an especially bad feeling. An indescribably aberrant aura was permeating the cave. He calculated things; even though he had two-and-a-half years of life left, he still had a lot of good people to save. It would be more profitable for him to snatch his time remaining to do good, accumulate virtues, and enjoy life.
Really, there was no need to follow a man, who broke into convulsions at random times, in intruding upon someone else’s gravesite.
However, right when he went to intrude back down the path he had come from, there came a sudden clunk, as if some spring mechanism had been triggered. Countless steel knives shot out of that tiny cave mouth in all four direction, stuffing the tiny area so full, it was blocked off.
Fortunately, Zhou Zishu drew back quick enough, else the steel jutting out to block the sky would have skewered him like a kebab.
He furrowed his brow as he scrutinized those steel knives, then turned to Wen Kexing. “Who did you offend?”
That very out-of-the-blue sentence made the other widen his eyes, his expression incomparably wounded. “Why am I the one that offended someone?”
Zhou Zishu laughed mockingly while shaking his head. He found that he had no other option, he was forced to follow this ‘Yellow Spring’ up ahead, looking to see whether or not he could located the other end’s exit. “If it’s not you, would it be me? I’m a nobody that only just entered jianghu, and I’ve never stolen or attacked anyone before, minding my own business as I wander mountains and play around in water. Who would make things hard for me?”
Wen Kexing pondered for a moment, awed at the other’s talent of speaking blind nonsense with his eyes wide open. “You escorted Zhang Chengling the whole way. Starting from that abandoned temple, you killed thirty-two people altogether, including four characters of Qin Song’s category…”
“Bullshit. It’s only eleven when fully tallied up. The majority of those people from the temple were done in by that pretty little lady of yours.”
“So it must be you, then,” Wen Kexing said, holding up his own slender palms. “These two hands of mine have not killed even one chicken since I left home to travel jianghu, let alone any humans. How could I have offended anyone?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t feel like granting him an equal look in return.
Wen Kexing therefore quickened his steps to catch up to him, then stand in front of him. “I may not look like it, but I really am a good person,” he said emphatically, solemn.
Zhou Zishu nodded. “Right, Good Person Wen. I’ll trouble you with leaving me alone, I’m a people-killing demon.”
Appearing to not notice how cursory that statement was to him, Wen Kexing beamed. “Tell me that your face is a disguise, and I’ll let you off.”
“You truly are too generous.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
Then, Zhou Zishu wound past him by himself, proceeding forth.
Wen Kexing smiled, and followed after him around two paces behind.
The Yellow Spring’s water seemed like it shouldn’t be stagnant, the flow going especially quick. Zhou Zishu kicked a small stone into it, only to not be able to tell how deep it went. Twisting and winding, the water appeared to have fish in it, yet they passed by too quickly. He wasn’t great at swimming; he was basically at the level where he could rely on his deep internal power to hold his breath if he fell into the water, and he wouldn’t drown for half a moment. Owing to that, after he observed from the water’s edge, he decided to keep his distance from this ‘Yellow Spring’.
The cave system appeared to go off into every direction. The sound of the two’s footsteps and intermittent speech seemed to reverberate very far out. All of a sudden, Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks. “Look there, Brother Wen.”
Wen Kexing followed his gaze to a pile of white bones not too far away.
“Shouldn’t there be flowers on the opposite shore of the Springs?” he mumbled. “People leave only their souls when they die; why are there bones?”
Zhou Zishu reached out to nudge the bones. One hand picked up the larger half of someone’s fractured skull while the other raised up his flamestick so that he could examine it carefully. “This skull is broken. The connecting spinal column below it looks like someone severed it… huh? That’s not right, the wound is uneven. There are teeth marks, too. Maybe an animal bite?”
“Oh my, it bit a human’s head off in one bite.”
Zhou Zishu picked up a femur. “Bite marks… and more bite marks. The marks on this one are a little smaller, and the shape doesn’t seem to be identical…”
All he could think of was how these tooth marks were somewhat familiar, like he had seen them somewhere before. Still, he had never been a coroner, so he couldn’t bring it to mind right now.
Looking a bit nauseated, Wen Kexing reached both hands out to take the femur out of Zhou Zishu’s hand, look at it while he held it, and come to one conclusion. “Hm… it was eaten pretty clean, cleaner than I would be eating chicken legs.”
Zhou Zishu decided that he was never eating chicken legs again after this.
“What’s doing the eating? Are there beasts about?” Wen Kexing asked, thinking. “I heard that there’s a huge beast of the underworld named Diting, a big boy. Would it be fond of eating meat, do you think?”
…He was still refusing to relinquish his ghost-story theories.
Zhou Zishu henceforth smiled fakely at him. “After your time is up, you can go down and ask…”
Right before the word ‘ask’ ebbed, there suddenly came to be a swishing sound behind him. Inside this black cave, beside this ‘Yellow Spring’, it practically caused the hairs on one’s body to stand. The two of them turned and took a step back at the same exact time, vigilantly facing the river water.
“I heard… that Diting isn’t in the Yellow Springs, and there aren’t this many of him,” Wen Kexing uttered slowly.
Crawling out of the river were many… things that resembled humans, and also didn’t at all. Their limbs were unusually long, their height was unusually slight, their bodies were completely naked, their flesh had been steeped a pale white due to the water, their hair was long, and their figures were extremely wide — wide enough to be slightly distorted, appearing to be twice or thrice as much as a normal human. However, their eyes were particularly shiny, the faint light flashing in the dark as they slowly hemmed in on the two humans.
Zhou Zishu suddenly bowed his head, lightly bit himself on the wrist, then observed the shallow teeth marks he had made. “I just remembered,” he said quietly to Wen Kexing, “those smaller bite marks… are…”
While drawing back, Wen Kexing asked, “Are what?”
“Human.”
The other paused at that, abruptly standing still with a dry cough. He straightened out his sleeves and hair, then clasped his fist towards the steadily encroaching monsters. “Everyone… my good fellows. We had no intention to barge into this space, and hold no intent to offend, either, so please—”
Zhou Zishu immediately puffed out an unkind laugh. The leading human-looking thing opened its mouth, howled wretchedly, then suddenly threw itself at Wen Kexing.
The latter made a weird huff. “I wasn’t finished yet.”
However, his body was like a powerless leaf, floating three chi away to one side so that the monster could pass him by. The thing’s movements and reactions were remarkably swift, however, and it changed direction to chase after him. Its claws reached out, appeared to glint with chilling light as they scratched across the ground, leaving marks over two cun deep behind.
“Why, Brother Wen, could there be a language barrier?” Zhou Zishu happily questioned.
The monsters’ siege began. Zhou Zishu couldn’t regard the things as human, and indeed, they were not — those bodies were unfathomably sturdy, with extraordinarily destructive power, extraordinarily quick movements, extraordinarily great strength, and a seemingly lack of knowing what pain was.
He firmly shot a palm into the center of one monster’s chest. Even without much strength remaining, he could turn a large boulder into tiny fragments, yet the monster only flew diagonally away, slammed harshly into a wall, then whined for a good time before getting back up.
Inwardly alarmed, he couldn’t recalled what exactly these things were for a minute.
He heard a crack beside him. A monster that had crept up behind him in a planned ambush had been caught by Wen Kexing, its neck snapped.
“I saved you,” the other said, all smiles.
Only now did Zhou Zishu realize that all of these creatures’ bodies were very sturdy, yet their necks alone were markedly weak, slightly failing to prop up their immense heads.
This surprised him a bit. How had Wen Kexing figured that out so quickly?
“Thanks,” he answered, keeping up his politeness.
Another monster launched itself over. Zhou Zishu turned the side to let it by, bent his elbow, and slammed it viciously into the monster’s back, then he crooked his fingers into claws and twisted the creature’s head right off.
As if wringing chickens, the two cleaned up around five creatures. The things seemed to have some sort of brain, as upon seeing that they couldn’t defeat them, they grew scared. The leaderly one opened its mouth to howl again, following with all of them slowly retreated back into the water. On occasion, a head would pop up to predatorily eye the two abnormally strong intruders.
“Something of that size probably couldn’t take of someone’s head in one bite, right?” Zhou Zishu whispered. “Looks like we shouldn’t stay here for long. Let’s go, now.”
Wen Kexing was quiet for a good minute, and then he said, “I thought of something.”
Under the impression that he had through of what could bite someone’s head off, Zhou Zishu languidly asked, “What did you?”
“A real person’s skin will definitely turned red if you give it a pinch, which can’t be seen on face-changing. Let me pinch your face, so I can know whether you did some trick.”
Without another word, Zhou Zishu turned and left, thinking that he must have had a brain aneurysm to have actually asked this joker a serious question.
Wen Kexing followed close behind. “You not letting me pinch you must mean that your conscience is at work — I know you’ve done something! Do you look far too good, leading you to fear a lecher’s harassment? Worry not, worry not, Brother Zhou. This humble one is an honest gentlemen what will do nothing of the sort. You should just let me take a look at the true appearance of Mount Lu…”
Zhou Zishu turned a deaf ear, his power of concentration without peer.
At that moment, he heard Wen Kexing’s voice take a turn. “Still, your face-changing abilities is far too good. I can’t think of anyone in the martial circle of today that’s this excellent. Could it be… that you’re part of the legendary Heaven’s Pane?”
Zhou Zishu suddenly stopped walking; Wen Kexing’s grin seemed to have some deeper meaning, within these dark caves. However, the former only raised up his index finger, and extended his other arm to stop him in his tracks. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.
They both quieted down. Deep within the darkness, there came the vague growl of some beast.
“The thing that bites off human heads,” Zhou Zishu whispered again.
Wen Kexing obviously held not the slightest bit of interest in things that could bite off heads. Both of his eyes kept staring at Zhou Zishu, as if in thought, yet the man didn’t react at all to what he had just said. All he did was intently focus on listening. From his eyes to his expression, there was not even a hint of fluctuation.
Again came a roar, prominently louder this time. The creature seemed to be on its way over. Zhou Zishu noticed that the monsters that kept bobbing their heads out of the water appeared to fear something, all shrinking back down. He reached out to grab Wen Kexing, and the two turned into a small outlet — but he was seen taking a small bottle out of his pocket, sprinkling it as he walked.
After that, they turned and drew back into a corner, holding their breaths.
Wen Kexing had no idea what powder Zhou Zishu had sprinkled around, but he didn’t ask, as if he knew on the inside that the man was trustworthy. Very quietly, he stood there at Zhou Zishu’s side. A short moment later, he heard a burst of rough, animalistic breathing slowly approach — the beast seemed to be being cautious about something, as it didn’t walk very quickly, three zhang away as it bypassed them both.
It was a big one; dog-like, yet about as big as a pony, covered in black fur. Its nose made inhaling sounds, a stink apparently in the air, and it slowed its pace to sniff all around, seemingly a bit confused.
Zhou Zishu folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the wall, and carefully watched with narrowed eyes.
There a near-imperceptible smile nevertheless slashed across Wen Kexing’s face. It was somewhat frosty, and ephemeral, like it had never existed.
The monster was not that far away, yet it didn’t notice their presence at all. After stopping for a time, it resumed its forward path. They unblinkingly watched the big guy’s back as it went. It was following the stench of blood, going all the way over to the side of those monster corpses, which it sniffed at. Afterwards, it lowly growled, then bowed its head to merrily start chewing, whereupon it actually did bit an entire humanoid monster’s head off.
Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu exchanged a look. The latter was inwardly alarmed. Although he was no coroner, he had lived for this long and had seen many things, in the end. He would never have misidentified a human skull. He thought, Are those monsters actually human?
Then again, how could humans end up turning into things that looked like this?
Wen Kexing poked him, then pointed to the small path behind them. Zhou Zishu nodded once, carefully following after him to leave.
The path was wide at times and narrow at other times. It was unknown how many turns they took in road bends. After walking a good distance off, only then did Wen Kexing whisper, “There were other teeth marks on the bones that beast left after eating. Do you think those things in the water ate their own kind?”
Whenever he wasn’t speaking drivel, his voice was extremely low, like a sigh, yet also not appearing to be weak. It was like he was unwilling to use a tiny bit more strength, faintly carrying the indifference of being a bystander. He paused, then asked again, “Those creatures were human, right?”
Zhou Zishu glanced at him. “Forgive this humble one for his scant knowledge,” he said quietly back.
Wen Kexing lightly laughed. “Scant knowledge? You? Heh.”
He said nothing more, only taking big strides forward.
How many winds and bends they took was unknown. After one such turn, the speedily-flowing ‘Yellow Spring’ was laid out before their eyes again.
“Hold on,” Zhou Zishu suddenly called out.
Wen Kexing turned to see him, that look where he was searching for a beating (and would deserve it) back in place. “What is it, beautiful Brother Zhou?”
Knowing that he couldn’t react to someone when they were acting up, else he would get taken advantage of all the more, Zhou Zishu thus ignored that, allowing him to say whatever he wanted. “Those water-things are extraordinarily powerful, move at a quick speed, and can come or go freely from the water. That creature from just now walked on dry land and knew to stay further away from the water; when it ate, it was only on the shore, never going into the water to hunt. How could it have ever caught them?”
Wen Kexing paused, gaze moving outward to size up the eerie underground. “How big is this area?” he asked, though it wasn’t clear whether he was questioning Zhou Zishu, or talking to himself.
Why did it seem like there was no end to their walking? Why was no boundary being found?
Zhou Zishu mumbled to himself for a time. “This river goes east to west. I was thinking back to our direction this whole time, and even though we’ve turned some, we should have been walking south to north…”
“You’re saying that we’re going in circles?” Wen Kexing abruptly became excited, blinking. “I heard of another thing, another true story, supposedly. There’s this one person…”
Zhou Zishu turned around, his back to him, and used his fingertip to carve a mark on the wall behind him. Then, he walked along the strange river without a word.
Wen Kexing’s ghost story had been met with a cool reception, yet he wasn’t angry, following as he rubbed his nose and grinned.
Suddenly, the roar of a beast was heard, the entire cave system appeared to shake along with it. Accompanying the roar was shriek, the sound so tiny, it sounded like a child’s.
Zhou Zishu paused.
Then, the child started yelled and screeching and wailing more, increasingly mournful.
He immediately dashed off in that direction, his moves quick, sending him over a zhang out in a wink. Wen Kexing had been about to say something, yet hadn’t had time, his outstretched hand left suspended in the air. All he could do was swallow down his words, shake his head, and give chase.
That dog-like, horse-like monster had a little girl pressed beneath its claws. Its enormous fangs were pressing upon her snow-white neck, about to bite down.
Zhou Zishu, high in the air, sent a palm at it. He had skill enough to smack a cow across a void — his strike on the beast’s head knocking it askew, and its huge body rolled onto its side.
He then picked the weakly-breathing girl up off the ground.
The big guy forcefully shook its head, as if somewhat dazed from the hit. A moment later, it realized that he had snatched its meal straight from its mouth, and it promptly roared, throwing itself at him.
Zhou Zishu subconsciously thought to throw the little girl to Wen Kexing, at first, but he subtly paused, after which the cadence of his steps went off-kilter. His figure ghost-like, he drew back around three zhang, gently set her down to one side, then dodged away to the other side.
The beast pursued him, that fumigating stink coming from its gaping bloody basin of a maw enough to cause headaches. Zhou Zishu evenly leapt up a great height, and in the span of a spark, he flipped to straddle the beast’s neck.
Wen Kexing stood to one side. Unemotionally, he glanced at the sniffling little girl, then observed from the sidelines.
Zhou Zishu made use of a Thousand-Catty Weight[10] move to firmly press the beast down, but it was a quick-witted one. As soon as its form teetered and collapsed, it made to roll about eighteen times; even someone with copper skin and iron bones would be crushed to pieces by this hundred-or-so catty porker in the groove of its rolling.
Employing the fact that it had fallen on its side, Zhou Zishu immediately huffed, got off with a twist, and kicked the beast in the stomach.
Its back was a gnarl of muscles, but its belly was soft. His kick nearly inverted all of its viscera, making it yowl in pain, but it was still thick-fleshed, allowing it to get up and bite at him with his massive jaw. Its hind legs were powerful, the harsh pain making it extremely angry — its pounce was fleet without equal. Zhou Zishu prepared to dodge to one side, but his internal qi suddenly stagnated, his energy failing to rise.
The beast’s sharp teeth were already close at hand. He pressed one hand against his chest while his other arm bent at the elbow, risking its claws to flip over and elbow the thing in the nose. The bridge of its nose was heard to snap, while its claws caught on his left shoulder, blood seen at once.
He found that the beast’s nose was a weakpoint. Paying no mind to his own injuries, he turned his hand to send a palm into its nose again, his internal power following along its broken nose-bridge to break the bones in its forehead right apart. With a crisp snap, the beast staggered a few steps back, then collapsed all at once.
Furrowing his brow, Zhou Zishu reached out to seal the acupoints on his left shoulder, staunching the bleeding. He had thought to use the ‘Yellow Spring’’s water to wash the wound off, but then he recalled those not-human-yet-not-monster things in the water and gave up. He heard Wen Kexing gasp, then ask, “You have internal injuries?”
Zhou Zishu looked back at him. “I probably didn’t eat enough at night, which made my limbs weak,” he answered calmly. He then stooped over to pick up the little girl, pat her on the back, and questioned softly, “Where’s your family, little girl? Why are you alone in such a hellish place?”
Hearing what he said, Wen Kexing immediately sneered. “Little girl? Why would a little girl be here? How about you ask her what abyss she came out of? What were you doing, saving her for no reason?”
The girl said nothing, huddling right into Zhou Zishu’s arms.
“I’m accumulating virtues,” Zhou Zishu said to him, asking nothing further.
Wen Kexing’s gaze drifted down, and he surveyed his bloodied mess of a shoulder, as if in thought. All of a sudden, he smiled. “You didn’t do up your shoulder, Brother Zhou. It’s too different from your hands, face, and neck — I can see through it.”
Zhou Zishu paused slightly. “It’s a tan,” he answered bluntly.
“Is it? This is the first time this humble one has heard of a beauty’s snowy skin tanning into a chaff-like sickliness.”
The words ‘snowy skin’ successfully made Zhou Zishu shudder. He hefted the girl up and thought to speak, only for his eyes to sweep across the ground. He witnessed a very bizarre scene: a small tree grew out of that carcass similar to a vicious dog’s, and it was resplendent with… peach blossoms in full bloom!
Wen Kexing follow his gaze, and his complexion changed straight away.
Zhou Zishu had no energy to care about another’s change in expression, though. He stood there, struck dumb as a wooden chicken, staring blankly at the ever-growing peach tree. The aroma of unidentifiable flowers seemed to float through the air. The dog corpse had long since disappeared. The peach flowers looked like they were absorbing some sort of essence in order to bloom, being abnormally flourishing, coating a huge area in an instant — it was like he could touch it the second he reach out his hand.
Standing under the tree was a person.
A young-looking man, with thick brows and big eyes. His plump lips always appeared to have a smile’s hint on them, his shoulders coated in fallen peach blossom petals. He carelessly reached out to help him, lips moving, which Zhou Zishu distinctly saw to say: Brother.
Jiuxiao…
In that instant, Zhou Zishu’s heartbeat seemed to stop.
Suddenly, a wave of heart-piercing pain came from his wounded shoulder. He grunted from being caught off-guard, bowing his head to look — that little girl he was holding in his arms had viciously bitten the wound on his shoulder.
He used his internal force to launch her away on near instinct. After coming back to his senses, that peach tree and the one under it were both gone. Before his eyes were still the creepy caves, as well as the corpse of the massive, black-haired beast laid out across the ground, beside the bone pile they had examined earlier on.
The girl he had flung away let out an inhuman yowl. He watched her unwaveringly — what sort of little girl was that? She was a clearly a tiny water monster!
The little monster opened her mouth to snarl at him, staring covetously at his bleeding wound, eagerly wanted to try pouncing on him again. A slender hand suddenly came from nearby and grabbed her neck, leaving her no time left to even struggle before her neck was snapped, her legs kicking out in death.
A smile at his lips, Wen Kexing casually tossed the monster’s body to the side. “I know why those water creatures likely ended up looking like that, if they get eaten by beasts when ashore,” he said, uncaring. “It seems like it’s not only us that are going down this road.”
Zhou Zishu felt like his entire body was lacking in strength. Hearing that, he smiled bitterly. “So, we just would around in one big circle to end up where we first were?”
The other took a measure of him. “Can you still walk? I can carry you on my back… hm. Holding you in arms would be fine, too, as long as you let me see your face.”
Zhou Zishu laughed dryly. “Thanks. I don’t need that.”
He covered his wound, roused up some energy, and proceeded to walk alongside the ‘Yellow Spring’. Apparently remembering something, he asked, “I saw plants and flowers growing out of that beast’s body just now. A bunch of nodding dogtails were jumping and bouncing while they sang. Did you see it, too?”
“I saw an owl — let me tell you, hearing an owl’s laugh is not a good omen, indeed — and I also saw someone carrying a bowl of red water in hand, which the owl overturned…”
Zhou Zishu shut up. He had spoken of supernatural crap, so the other had returned that with supernatural crap. That was very fair.
He was walking in front and didn’t turn his head, so he didn’t see Wen Kexing’s split-second expression. That smile on his lips seemed to stagnate there for a long, long time. His eyes grew vacant as they stared at the ground, yet also seemed to looking somewhere far away. Seeing how Zhou Zishu had no patience to listened to his ghost story pertaining to the owl again, he swallowed his words down to silently follow after him.
Zhou Zishu suddenly stopped walking, creasing his brows as he examined the exit and entry points in every direction of the cave. “There’s running water in this cave, and wind. It would be impossible for anyone to spread a drug in the air,” he explained.
He would never say that he was an expert in medicine, but the current Emperor-slash-former Crown Prince and the Nanjiang Shamanet, once a Capital hostage, had something of a friendship. In earlier years, the Shamanet had operated under the name ‘Shaman Valley’ to test the waters in the Central Plains martial circle, with many unheard-of and obscure Nanjiang substances having been passed through Zhou Zishu’s hands.
For years, he had never eaten the metaphorical pork, yet he had witnessed the pigs flee. Never had he really heard of anything like this, which was able to cause someone to have such a prolonged, lifelike illusion.
At that, Wen Kexing nodded. “Then someone’s used a Wonders, Doors, Hidden Whorls technique to trap us here… do you understand that junk?”
“You’re talking about the Three Wonders, Eight Gates, and Six Whorls?”[11] Zhou Zishu answered calmly.
“You’re so learned on something so random?” Wen Kexing asked, surprised. “You’ve studied it before…?”
“I don’t understand it, of course,” he heard Zhou Zishu proceed to say. “You said ‘Wonders, Gates, Hidden Whorls’, and I’ve merely heard those three terms before.”
Since he couldn’t move anywhere, he simply sat on the ground, leaning his back against the wall. His wound was accidentally pulled, causing his expression to twist a bit and a cold breath to be drawn in. He hadn’t expected to have such a miserable day where a beast would toss him around — it really seemed like even cats and dogs could tolerate him less and less.
Thinking of how he himself at least knew what the ‘Three Wonders and Eight Doors’ referred to, Wen Kexing felt a superior sense of higher intellect. Then recalling the baffling person plus odd event of Zhou Zishu selling himself for two silver coins, he felt that superior sense was a bit too pointless. Thus, he sat beside him, cocked his head to look at the other’s shoulder wound, and said with a bit of a bystander’s schadenfreude, “You’re sure a busybody, to have hugged a water monster like it was a little girl.”
Zhou Zishu shut his eyes in rest, ignoring him.
Wen Kexing rose silently, walked away, then returned a minute later. Zhou Zishu felt something cold on his shoulder — he opened his eyes to see Wen Kexing with a water-soaked kerchief in hand, slowly wiping off his mangled wound.
Subconsciously, he quickly dodged to one side, but Wen Kexing held him by the shoulder. “Don’t move.”
“Where did you get that water from?” Zhou Zishu asked with a pained expression.
“The river,” the other answered. After thinking about it, he added on, “It’s running water, so it’s clean.”
The hairs on Zhou Zishu’s entire body stood on end. Despite knowing that it was running water and drinking it — let alone washing a wound with it — would have been fine, the second he thought of those unusual creatures that mated in public waters, wave after wave of goosebumps rose up on his skin.
Sharp-eyed, Wen Kexing noticed those goosebumps, becoming amused. “You yourself look like a beggar, yet you disdain other things for being dirty? Come now, what are you pretending to be delicate for? Behave,” he teased.
Zhou Zishu knew that he was speaking reason, yet he still looked at that kerchief in disgust. However, he detected a faint fragrance coming off of it, and that a bunch of orchids were embroidered on the corners; tiny, but pretty exquisite, carrying an indescribably cosmetic-y, feminine air to it. Were it to be said that it was for a maiden’s use, the kerchief’s size looked to be a big large, and its patterning far too plain. Were it to be said that it was for a man… what burly gentleman would carry that thing around?
He couldn’t resist shooting a glance at Wen Kexing, the look in his eyes rather queer. Since no one els was around, he teased right back. “I say, old chap, why are you carrying something that belongs to a young lady? Is there some sort of secret that you can’t speak of afoot?”
Wen Kexing was slowly peeling the blood-drenched clothes on his skin away from his wound. Hearing that, he blankly exerted some force to rip off one of the cloth chunks stuck to the gash, causing Zhou Zishu to hiss and his features to scrunch up. “This is a gift personally bestowed by the high courtesan Don Suyue, in Yangzhou City,” Wen Kexing then said, carefree with his now-gratified mood. “You don’t recognize the goods, so speak less about them. Save yourself the show of ignorance.”
With that, he straight-up tore the personally-bestowed kerchief into strips, bandaging Zhou Zishu’s wound.
The latter had no idea that the things in Jiangnan were so lax. Even beside the capital’s thirty-li-long Fullmoon River, when that lousy old Late Emperor had been in power and indulged in the utmost of decadence, he had never heard of somewhere that a male courtesan could be picked from. Hence why he had asked without a second thought.
Wen Kexing used a very sympathetic gaze to look at him with. “Did you grow up in the paradisal Peach Blossom Spring out there? Are all the people of Heaven’s Pane unlearned boors? Or have I guessed wrong?”
Zhou Zishu sneered. “When did I ever acknowledge that I—“
Before he could finish, Wen Kexing’s hand moved like lightning to very gently prod a major acupoint on his chest. If it had been any other spot, Zhou Zishu might not have been able to feel it through his clothes, but considering that this coincided with his extreme lack of strength paired with the Septeye Nails acting up — which he had been trying to suppress this whole time — that light bump was the final straw that crushed the camel to death. The pain immediately made him grunt and double over. “You…”
He watched as Wen Kexing rubbed his own chin. “You have very serious internal injuries, yet you still have such formidable skills. Heaven’s Pane would never let you go,” he said, full of implication. “However, it’s been said that the Septeye Nails of Three Autumns are just the most fatal things, a famous reputation that’s truly impossible to match. I’ve seen that you have energy enough to eat, drink, run, and jump. Even though you’re a bit dumb, you wouldn’t have been dumb enough as to stick those ghastly nails in. Or have I actually made a wrong guess?”
Zhou Zishu was sweating profusely, not neglecting to squeeze out from his clenched teeth: “Wen… Kexing… I’m… gonna fuck your ancestors…”
Seeing that he was no longer affecting a mouthful of gibberish with Brother Wen’ this and ‘this humble one’ that, Wen Kexing inexplicably felt a sense of accomplishment spring up within him, in spite of the cussing. “I don’t know the names of my ancestors, and they became history long ago. I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he answered, as unmoved as a mountain. “If you wash that disguise off to let this humble one see your real visage, and if you’re a beauty, I could devote myself to you.”
Gritting his teeth hard, Zhou Zishu bent at the waist until he resembled a huge prawn. He bore with the pain as he tried hard to get in internal qi circulating, to suppress the backlash from the nails that was inbound. Upon hearing this guy still babbling on without pause, he finally couldn’t resist explosively cutting him off. “Fucking shut up!”
Wen Kexing shut up, watching with his hands in his sleeves, lacking all feelings of guilt.
It was unclear how much time passed before Zhou Zishu opened his eyes, which were bloodshot. The one onlooker couldn’t see what his true face was, yet he knew it wasn’t anything nice to look at. “It’s daybreak.”
The Nails had quelled, which meant that dawn had come outside. They had been trapped inside these weird caves for a whole night.
Looking unharried compared to him, Wen Kexing nodded. “It looks most likely that someone deliberately lured you in here, intent on trapping you until your death.”
“Your death.”
“It’s clearly yours. I’m a good person,” Wen Kexing quibbled.
Zhou Zishu didn’t feel like paying him mind. He used the cave’s earthen wall to help himself stand up, then leaned against it right there. While he was pondering how to get out of here, he heard Wen Kexing ask again, “Zhou Xu, do you fear death?”
“Yes.”
The other looked at him with some surprise.
“I haven’t finished accumulating virtues yet. If I go below now, who knows what King Yan will make me reincarnate into,” Zhou Zishu said solemnly.
Wen Kexing had a think about that. “Then you must have been pretty bad before this,” he theorized.
However, not waiting for Zhou Zishu to answer, the other asked another question of abnormal sincerity. “If you were bad to begin with, then do you think accumulating virtues at this point will do any good?”
Zhou Zishu straightened out his back to walk off in one direction. “Why wouldn’t it? Haven’t you heard of the phrase, ‘Lay down ye butcher’s blade, and become a Buddha where ye stand’?” he asked back casually.
Wen Kexing quickly rose to follow. “Where are you going?”
“To eat some dog meat. Since they’ve only trapped us in here—“
“Trapped you.”
Zhou Zishu rolled his eyes. “That beast isn’t small, so it’ll be enough to eat for a few days. If that runs out, there’s those things in the river, too. We won’t be dying of hunger. Regardless of whatever that thing in the black clothes was, it’ll definitely come out to see us at some point.”
Wen Kexing turned pale from fright. “Yesterday, you disdain the river water for being dirty, but today, you want to eat those no-shell turtles?!”
“You plan to let yourself starve to death so those turtles can eat you afterwards, then?” Zhou Zishu side-eyed him, concluding, “You really are a saint, Brother Wen.”
The caves held no light. Luckily, Zhou Zishu had been planning to run off in the night to begin with, so he had a few flamesticks on him, as well as one tiny night pearl that he had obtained from stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In spite of its tiny size that could only give off a crumb of light, it was enough for the two of them to barely be able to see stuff. Half of his profile was illuminated by its faint glow, which happened to make it so that Wen Kexing couldn’t clearly make out his features and complexion that made one lose their appetite. Only one pair of extremely bright eyes was eyeing him askance, bringing an undefinable playfulness with it.
It was a rather familiar look.
Wen Kexing thought back for a long time, yet couldn’t recall where he had seen such a look on any beauty’s face before. For a moment, he had nothing to follow up with.
The two went quiet. In that brief moment, Zhou Zishu’s ears caught a shallow breathing dissimilar to either his or Wen Kexing’s. He silently smiled — sure enough, someone had heard them talking and gotten impatient.
Following that, he stood beside the river and hunched down. First, he used the water to wash his hands, and then, he offhandedly grabbed the neck of a monster that wanted to sneak-attack him, picked the whole thing up, and viciously habituated it with the ground. The thing made not a sound as its neck broke and it died. He cupped some water in his hands, beginning to methodically drink.
Wen Kexing had always been a devil-may-care rake. Watching him ponderously, he picked up the monster’s corpse with his toes to kick it to the side, then imitated him in having a few gulps of river water to lubricate his throat.
At that very moment, a vigorous wind assailed his back. As if he had long anticipated this, he unhurriedly dodged away, whereupon a steel knife swiped past the corner of his robes, then landed into the water with a plop.
Zhou Zishu just laughed aloud, watching the treat with his palms raised up. “See, Brother Wen? I said this was targeted towards you, eh? The one you provoked really dug into their brains to try and eliminate you; you must be pretty bad.”
Knives shot out from all four corners of the cave. They ignored Zhou Zishu for the time being, selecting Wen Kexing directly, nearly tangling up into a blade maelstrom — and yet, Wen Kexing didn’t appear to be beset, his agility arts even more outstanding than Zhou Zishu had envisioned.
All he had in mind were great insults: This man surnamed Zhou is petty to the extreme, taking revenge against one little word! He’s not just ‘pretty bad’, he’s pretty much nothing at all.
Wen Kexing raised a hand to deflect one knife, the edge of which scraped across Zhou Zishu’s pant leg to nail it to the ground. “You’re watching me die without helping me, Beauty Zhou? Is that how you accumulate virtues?”
Zhou Zishu’s gaze swept over him. “As I see it, you don’t look like you’re about to die at all,” he leisurely answered.
Before he finished speaking, as if to endorse him, Wen Kexing suddenly grunted and doubled over. A knife had firmly sunk into his body, leaving only its hilt outside. His face was deathly pale, with only one word forced out of his mouth: “You…”
Zhou Zishu was taken aback, at first, but in the next moment, he suddenly darted away in the opposite direction. A black figure flashed past within that corner. The interior of the tunnel was extremely narrow; the very second the other had revealed themselves, Zhou Zishu had noticed him, hacking a palm over that the figure didn’t have time to dodge. The other recoiled four steps back, immediately after which he puked up blood, with even the mask covering his face getting dyed red. Even so, he was able to recover and continue to run.
Zhou Zishu made wondering noise, realizing that the pinecone he had hit him with before might have been strong enough, it was just that this guy could take a special beating.
All of a sudden, a shadow showed up like a spectre, grabbed the black-clothed man by the neck, and lifted his whole body up to press him against the wall.
The black-clothed man was terrified. “You…”
Wen Kexing tiled his head with a grin, raising his other arm. The knife he had clamped under his armpit fell to the ground in response — it hadn’t even cut his clothes.
“You believed him?” Zhou Zishu said languidly from nearby. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen such a brainless assassin.”
Hearing that, Wen Kexing looked at him musingly. “It’s not that he’s incapable, it’s that you you have excellent eyesight, my friend. Were it not for your injuries, I would only fear that…”
He shook his head, not saying what he would fear. With some pressure put into his fingers, the black-clothed person made choking sounds in his throat, whilst his exposed eyes were suffused with a fear hard to name. Wen Kexing reached out to feel around on the man, humming softly. “The Goldsilk Armor… what a good item. Putting it on you was a waste.”
The black-clothed man forced out a few piecemeal words. “Lord… are… agh…”
Wen Kexing laughed. A crack was heard. The one in black jerked violently, then stopped moving.
Zhou Zishu wordlessly watched him ask no questions, then kill the man in a wink. The look in his eyes deepened as he thought of something. Folding his arms across his chest, he drew a step back to lean against the cave wall.
Wen Kexing went and unmasked the man in black, revealing his full features. He looked to be about forty. His stature was thin, yet the flesh on his cheeks bulged out. A large, blood-red birthmark was on his right cheek, he had a pair of rat eyes, his nose looked like a garlic bulb, and his parted lips revealed two buckteeth.
Wen Kexing observed him for a long time. “This man is such a supernatural work of art, he deserved to be killed,” he abruptly commented, after which he raised his head to grin at Zhou Zishu. “Wouldn’t you say so, Brother Zhou?”
“You’re pretty inhuman.”
Wen Kexing waved this off and clasped his fist. “I’m humbled, I’m humbled. He let me win.”
Zhou Zishu laughed coldly, coming over on his own initiative to search the black-clothed corpse. He actually had a lot of question in his head, like how the Goldsilk Armor that had vanished from jianghu for years came to be in this man’s possession, or whether the deceased really was Hanging Wraith Xue Fang, or how those things in the river came about and if they really were human, or…
He thereafter stripped the carcass bare of its clothes in quick order. On its back, he found a green, fanged ghost-face tattoo, causing his movements to pause. It was here he learned that this man was a bona fide member of the Vile Wraiths.
The Hanging Wraith? Hanging Wraith Xue Fang actually had buckteeth?
Ugh… no. He speedily tossed that very Wen Kexing-like thought to the back of his head, thinking: Had the ones relentlessly pursuing Zhang Chengling and him actually been Wraiths? No way — if the Wraiths of the Ridge only had that smattering of capability, why would the place have been a forbidden land of the martial world for so many years?
Why had the Hanging Wraith needed to kill Yu Tianjie? As for the one that had fled in the opposite direction — had that really been the vaulted Merry Death Wraith?
The Vale of Wraiths slaying a known righteous name outside of Zhao Manor was tantamount to acknowledging the case of the Zhang’s extermination. And what for?
Also… he raised his head to look at the genial Wen Kexing. “You said yourself that ever since you left home to enter jianghu, you’ve never killed a single person. Why did you break that precept so giddily today, Brother Wen?”
Wen Kexing glared. “He plainly wanted to kill me first. Had it not been for me being vastly intelligent and calm in the face of peril, I would have been chopped up into a meaty paste by his knives.”
Zhou Zishu smiled. “‘Good Person’ Wen, did you not readily assert earlier that it wasn’t you that stirred up this catastrophe?”
“Look at the ghost-faced darling on his back, then look at that young man outside, who lost his head before he had time to even marry. What do those signify? They signify that he’s a terrible person, a very particularly terrible sort. Terrible people try to kill good people. Is that not reasonable?” Wen Kexing answered, full of confidence.
Having no response, Zhou Zishu stared at him.
Wen Kexing shook his head, then said in earnest, “I can tell that you aren’t that young, and yet you can’t comprehend this drop of logic. How did you manage to survive to such an age? That’s so worrying.”
The other was quiet for a long time, then bounced four words out of his mouth. “Thanks for the guidance.”
“No need for that, no need. You’re too polite.”
Bowing his head, Zhou Zishu proceeded to manouvre the carcass. He stripped the renowned Goldsilk Armor off of him, only to see a small embroidered pouch fall out from somewhere around the body’s chest. He carefully loosened its tie; illuminated by the glow of the night pearl, within it was a piece of brilliantly vibrant beryl. It was palm-sized, and appeared to have lines upon it, its craftsmanship extremely detailed.
He lifted the tiny piece up to put it into the light. “Beryl?” he asked, cavalier.
Wen Kexing gasped, drew in close, and looked the thing over carefully before gingerly taking it. He carried it in both hands, fearing that a bump would break it. “No wonder he wore the Goldsilk Armor. If I had a piece of something like this, I would insisted that master ironworker make me a set of armor, then protect it close against me.”
Seeing his sober look, Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but wonder, “What is that thing?”
“This is possibly one of the five pieces of the legendary Whorl Beryl[12]… I had believed it to be a jianghu rumor, not that it was actually real. Supposedly, the five pieces together would be enough to let any nobody hegemonize all of the Central Plains martial circle from here on out. Some claim that it contains peerless martial techniques within it, and some claim that there’s a map inside. Follow it, and one can find what they long for most in their heart.”
He seemed resistant to placing the Whorl piece on Zhou Zishu’s palm, gently curling the other’s fingers over it upon doing so. “It’s a good thing to have,” he said lightly.
Zhou Zishu nodded, showing that he had heard him, after which he patted Wen Kexing’s hand that was dubiously placed on his fingers. Upon stuffing the piece back into the pouch, he carelessly tossed it to the side to carry on with groping about the Hanging Wraith’s corpse. After going through everything and finding nothing else, he stood with a furrow brow. “That’s pretty annoying. How do we get out?”
Once he lowered his head, he saw Wen Kexing, still crouched on the ground, giving him an ineffably odd look, which made him unhappy. “What say you, Great Benefactor Wen? You were quick to slaughter this trashbag, so are we supposed to be like the mice and burrow our way out?”
Wen Kexing pointed at the Whorl he had cast aside. “Do… you not want that?”
“If it was the entire Whorl Beryl, something as well-crafted as that would be worth some coin. As of right now, that’s only a fragment. What use could it have? No pawn shop would take it,” Zhou Zishu answered, serious-faced.
The other chuckled at that, patting off his hands as he stood. While following Zhou Zishu forth, he asked, “Very hypervigilant, Brother Zhou. You refuse to have faith in jianghu rumors? Isn’t there anything you long for?”
“If no one picks the plums growing by the roadside, then they must be bitter. You don’t even want it, so what would I carry the troublemaker around for? Do you not have anything you long for, Great Benefactor?” Zhou Zishu countered, not looking back.
At that remark, Wen Kexing promptly turned back around, went back to the pouch, carefully picked it up, then put it in his lapels, close to his chest. “And what if I do want it?”
Zhou Zishu glanced at him. “Huh.”
He gave no other signals.
The two turned this way and that, until they turned into the spot they had entered with. That tiny entrance was still barbed with knives. “Only when I thought to leave did the cave close up,” Zhou Zishu said, feeling all around. “The Hanging Wraith must have been nearby, then, which means that the mechanism to control this should also be nearby.”
However, in the face of this Wonders and Doors technique, they had it about ninety percent figured out, yet the remaining ten eluded them. After searching around for a very long time, they found nothing, whereupon those seven life-threatening Nails threatened to stir again. Zhou Zishu then knew that midnight was approaching once more; they had been trapped in here for one full day and night. His physical strength was poorer than it had been before, somewhat unable to hold up. Am I really going to have to eat that dog meat? he thought.
While he was thinking, someone’s voice distantly came from the other side of the cave mouth, vaguely heard to say, “Hurry, hurry! I found this one spot, wait for my signal before you try— Milord! Milord! Can you hear me?… My Lord, can you still breathe? If you can, I’ll dig up this grave of yours! If you’ve already seen King Yan, I won’t disturb your eternal rest!”
It was Gu Xiang!
He had no idea why, but after getting chased by an evil dog, bitten by a monster, and taken for a ride in the Hanging Wraith’s style, hearing her voice made him feel unusually close to her.
Then, he heard her grumbling. “Can you not hear me, or did you already come to a sticky end? My Lord, if you don’t make a peep, I’m going to leave! I’ll do it!”
“Ah-Xiang, do you know what ends up happening to maidens that talk more than they act?” Wen Kexing answered then, composed.
He appeared to use a specific type of vocal projection arts. Zhou Zishu had witnessed it several times before; like no matter where he was or how loud he was speaking, he would always be heard by the one that ought to be listening.
Gu Xiang made an ack sound. “Hurry! The Lord said that I should talk more than I act, so hurry up and dig him out,” she urged.
Quickly after that, the clanking noises of a grave being dug up began outside.
Zhou Zishu understood this. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been doing much to start, but that she wasn’t doing anything at all.
By the time a group of people had dug them out of the ground like big daikons, two shichen had passed.
Gu Xiang was seen standing beside a flock of men that resembled average laborers. “Get out of there! Get out!” she hollered.
That promptly made Zhou Zishu not want to come out.
Wen Kexing remained calm, though. Coated in dust, he made his way out through the small hole, and swept a look at Gu Xiang. “You may shut up,” he ordered.
She stuck out her tongue, then shot Zhou Zishu a ghoulish face.
One ‘laborer’ stepped forth to bow respectfully at Wen Kexing. “My Lord, we subordinates apologize for being late.”
“Actually, we saw that mark you made long ago, My Lord,” Gu Xiang butted in with. “I don’t know why there’re two lumps for cadavers over there, but Zhao Manor made a world-shaking fuss up and down the streets all of today. Grunts from all walks of life showed up at once, making it hard to come looking for you… how did you two end up like this?”
“We heard an owl laugh,” Wen Kexing replied.
Zhou Zishu observed everything around them, indicating that he had nothing to do with this.
“Oh…?” Gu Xiang uttered in confusion.
“When an owl is heard to laugh, that means foul luck is coming, and it’s very likely that people are going to die. You therefore have to hide underground to make that life-demanding little demon believe you to already be dead, as only then will disaster be escaped.”
“Oh!” she uttered again, seeing the light.
He patted her on the head. “Mn. Remember that, it might save your life in the future,” he said without shame. Then, he looked at the laborer-looking man. “Old Meng, you’re unsuited to that get-up. You should wear a pig butcher’s outfit next time.”
“I will do as you command,” Old Meng answered, beyond respectful.
Wen Kexing then waved them all off. “Go on. Don’t gather up so many people here, else others will think that we’re congregated to commit heinous crimes.”
Old Meng whistled. The group that had come out of nowhere vanished instantaneously, having both come and gone without a trace. They were trained exceptionally well.
Right when Zhou Zishu thought to bid farewell, Wen Kexing said to him, “How about I go where you go, Brother Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu used silence to convey his objection.
“I am a Great Benefactor. I can guide you in how to accumulate virtues,” the other added on.
Zhou Zishu kept up his silence.
They stared at each other for half the day. The close-by Gu Xiang looked this way and that, only thinking of how the atmosphere was supremely weird.
At long last, Wen Kexing made his final move. “Your opposition is useless. I’m going where you’re going.”
Forcing a mechanically-imitated smile onto his face, Zhou Zishu nodded. “Right this way, then, Brother Wen.”
Looking at Zhou Zishu, Gu Xiang suddenly understood what it was to lead a donkey that wouldn’t move, where a beating would just make it go backwards. Looking then at Wen Kexing, she came to deeply grasp how someone with no shame would be undefeated in the realm. Sensing herself to have grasped a lot of knowledge on this night, she walked behind them in total satisfaction.
“My Lord, how can you be sure that if someone face-changes, they would change themselves into something unsightly?”
That was Gu Xiang, always asking after what she didn’t understand.
“Regardless of whether one is pretty or ugly, their features, as crafted by heaven, will have a harmony to them. One that’s in disguise will not be without tells, no matter what. If they make themselves beautiful, others would not be able to resist giving them a second look, and wouldn’t their flaws be seen, then?” Wen Kexing steadily explained.
The three of them were walking down the main street together. It was exactly noon, the streets thriving with droves of people. Zhou Zishu had perfected the art of self-restraint, listening in without saying a word, allowing them to talk while he pretended to be deaf, and permitting Wen Kexing to occasionally shoot him a sneaky-eyed look. Hearing this now, however, he couldn’t help but be startled, shooting Wen Kexing a look as he thought, This guy gets it. Too much of it.
Noticing that he had grabbed his attention, Wen Kexing got even more riled up. “This face-changing technique is all-encompassing, and no one method is identical. An exacting skill is needed when using paints to draw on, as any slight area of unevenness or oddity will let others easily see the face-change. There are also those that paste human-skin masks on, which creates a better result. If the face-changer’s skill is superb, it can achieve the effect of passing the false off as the real,” he said in an unceasing deluge, after which he gave Zhou Zishu a ponderous look.
Gu Xiang quickly reached out her paw to feel Zhou Zishu’s face, being unusually of the mind to gets a hands-on lesson. Her fingers were soft, and the clean, tranquil fragrance coming off of her sleeve was characteristic to young women. Zhou Zishu didn’t move away, smiling as he allowed her to touch him; it was unclear who was imposing on who.
At the end of it, he patiently asked in a soft voice, “Did you find anything out?”
She shook her head very skeptically, looking back at Wen Kexing with doubts. “My Lord, I still think this is his real appearance…”
“Of course he’s not wearing a human-skin mask. Those things are watertight, and if worn for long, they would need to be taken off at times to allow the skin to breathe. I’ve been tailing him this long precisely to see if he would need to remove his mask.”
“For the sake of seeking an understanding, you’ve wasted a lot of time messing around with beauties, My Lord,” Gu Xiang said, her face filled with admiration.
He pointed at Zhou Zishu. “If he’s a beauty, I will not have squandered one second.”
Zhou Zishu had a good think, and ultimately felt like he couldn’t keep so quiet anymore. “When did I ever ‘mess around’ with you?”
“I hasn’t happened yet, but it certainly will someday,” Wen Kexing calmly answered.
While he spoke, he reached out to touch Zhou Zishu’s face. “I touched your shoulder that one day. It didn’t feel like the same texture as what’s on your face, hmm…”
Zhou Zishu dodged backwards, leaving Wen Kexing’s hand hanging and his brows raised. Slightly upset, he pointed at Gu Xiang. “How come it was fine when she touched you?”
Zhou Zishu took his time straightening out his threadbare sleeves that had holes all in them. “If you looked like her, not only would I let you, but I would strip bare to let you touch to your heart’s content.”
Gu Xiang had thought that this guy was a decent and upright beggar who must have had eight lifetimes’ worth of bloody bad luck in coming across this outrageous Lord of hers, so she had quietly been sympathizing with her at heart. The very second she heard this, she immediately thought that these two saw eye-to-eye, as fellow sleazeballs on the same trajectory. They were way too goddamn complimentary to each other.
If they could start messing around together in some future, thus quibbling their energy away internally, that would save the world at large from disaster.
Wen Kexing turned his head to look Gu Xiang over with an inscrutable expression. Then, he said in a deep voice, “Ah-Xiang, you can go on and shoo.”
She let out an ah, blinking very innocently. “Where do you want me to shoo to, my Lord?”
Hands behind his back as he stood, he simply refused to look at her one more time. “The world is vast. Dongting notwithstanding, you can shoo off to wherever you want to.”
Gu Xiang stood there, dumbfounded, for a good while, before she suddenly forced a question out of her mouth. “Is this you being jealous of me?”
He shot her a look. Readily following his advice, she slapped herself on the cheek. “Bah, bah! Because of your flapping trap, you talk too much, you’re always being blunt, you always have to—“
“Ah-Xiang.”
She ai’d in affirmation, turned, and left, talking while she walked. “This is me shooing, I’m shooing. Don’t you worry, my Lord, this one will definitely shoo far, far away. In the world of today, three-legged toads are nowhere to be found, but is there any lack of two-legged men? Even if I ate two portions of bear hearts and leopard guts, I wouldn’t have the courage to fight over a man with you, my Lord. The two of you are free to act on your own, by all means, don’t be so polite…”
While she yabbered on and on, she genuinely did shoo in a whirr.
Zhou Zishu mulled over the far-reaching implication of ‘Dongting notwithstanding’, observing the noisy Lord-servant pair with high interest.
Right when Gu Xiang walked off, Wen Kexing seemed to abruptly change face, and with an affected dry cough, he made a gesture of invitation. “Might you honor this humble one with your company for a meal, Brother Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu thought it over. Were he to say he mightn’t, this guy would keep sticking to him like a dogskin plaster, so it would be better to accept; he would be saving himself a meal, anyways. He happily agreed.
Wen Kexing led the way, all smiles, while Zhou Zishu mutely reflected upon himself. Those days where he had slunk around the palace, neither human nor ghost, already seemed like events from a past life. Back then, he had worn brocade, lived in a secret space blooming with plum blossoms, and dealt in the business of assassination and arson — a beast, but one wearing human clothes, in the end.
When had he changed to become so openly shameless?
He glanced at Wen Kexing’s back. Those that near ink must turn black.
When they got to the restaurant, they had already been starving for quite a while. Once the food was served, neither spoke gibberish, both of their chopsticks going at flying speed out of fear that they would take a bite less. Every once in a while, they would collide and break out into a small-scale clash on a narrow road where a few moves were exchanged, in a ‘You’ll win a piece of chicken from me, I’ll win a half-piece of braised pork from you’ style.
One of the two had always owned an enormous passion for food. One was going to eat and fight over the free food. They turned a nice meal into scene of battle, with weapons drawn, blades’ glints everywhere, and a harsh murderous aura pervading throughout.
Once this course was snatched clean, the next had surprisingly not been served yet. Only now did Wen Kexing free up time to smile at Zhou Zishu. “Meeting an even match really does make food taste delicious.”
Zhou Zishu looked at him with disdain. Are you a chicken? You’d even be ready to fight over food in a trough.
Right then, a commotion was suddenly heard coming from downstairs, as well as a waiter’s mocking shouts. “My good Don, I can tell by your speech and clothes that you’re above commoners, so why are you trying to leave without paying? Are you going to write out an IOU using a brush and ink? You’re probably someone that’s listened to too many folk stories, aren’t you? Dare I ask what Court and Dynasty your exalted name is from, and which current branch of Prime Scorer you are? Where’s your divinely-crafted calligraphy?…”
The surrounding crowd started to laugh. Wen Kexing leaned to look downstairs, then suddenly rubbed his chin. “That’s a delicate beauty…” he mumbled.
Zhou Zishu followed his gaze down to see a young man standing there, his face and ears crimson red. He wore dark blue robes, and had a xiao strung at his waist; his clothes weren’t remarkable, at first, but a closer look told that the fabric used was special, at the jade xiao’s quality was exceptional. Even if they weren’t at the zenith, one could tell that they hadn’t been cheap. Further getting the feeling that the man’s outfit was somewhat familiar, Zhou Zishu chuckled.
“What are you laughing at?” Wen Kexing asked.
“I can tell from his appearance that he doesn’t want to draw attention, but the reality is that he’s dressed up pretty flashy. It reminds me of an old friend.”
While he talked, the young man who was circled by countless watchers looked around in every direction, at a loss. Raising his head up, his gaze happened to sweep over them. Zhou Zishu shook his head, thinking of how that certain someone had been the capital’s premier dandy, whom no one could ever surpass. All his life, he had eaten, drunk, and played around with expert ease — when would he ever have looked so helpless?
He kicked Wen Kexing with his toes. “Benefactor Wen, an opportunity for you to accumulate virtue has come.”
The other had been studying his expression, and was startled at his words, whereupon his slipped his hand into his own lapels. “Ah, yes. A beauty is in trouble, so I should lend my hand to help… hah?”
He felt around in his pockets, expression turning very weird. “Brother Zhou.”
“Hm?”
“I think… it would be better to let you have this opportunity?” Wen Kexing laughed awkwardly. “This humble one has accumulated enough virtue for my next life. There’s really no need for me to snatch this chance from you, my good fellow…”
Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes as he smiled, watching him.
A short moment later, Wen Kexing sighed, slumping his shoulders. “Just now, on the street, a handsome man tripped and stumbled. This humble one helped him up, and he smiled at man… tch. Beautiful man, why did you go and rob me?”
Zhou Zishu raised his brows, deciding that he could be a bit more shameless; he couldn’t lose to the one before him, at the bare minimum. With that thought, he casually grabbed Wen Kexing’s sleeve to wipe his hands off on it, then took one piece of silver out of a pocket, flung it out it gently, and happened to toss it at the increasingly overboard waiter’s head. The latter was caught off guard, getting hit, and went to scold him; but the second the he lowered his head, he found that what had gotten up close and personal with his scalp was a brightly shining yuanbao. His anger immediately abated.
“I’m paying for that young man’s debt,” he heard Zhou Zishu languidly say.
The waiter put the silver away, had nothing else to say, and walked off while nodding and bowing. The young man in the blue robes promptly gave Zhou Zishu a grateful look, heading upstairs to thank him himself.
Pointing at the table and empty plates, Zhou Zishu said to Wen Kexing, “Rescuing him was mine. This meal is yours. Remember from here on out that you owe me three taels of silver.”
“How about I just give my humble self to you?” Wen Kexing asked, voice small.
Zhou Zishu smiled judiciously. “Sorry, this one’s tastes don’t include that.”
The young man had since ascended the stairs, whereupon these two animals stored away their mischievous grins at the same time, putting on the exact faces of heroic nobles that had given aid upon witnessing an injustice. The blue-robed youth was seen to bow deeply. “This humble one is Cao Weining, and I thank you for you gents’ righteous help. Please accept my courtesies.”
“No need. You’re too polite, Don Cao,” Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu both said in near unison.
After that, they immediately stared at each other with a deep implication, each feeling very curious.
Zhou Zishu coughed dryly, shifting his gaze away. “Please sit, Don Cao. This humble one is Zhou Xu, and this is…”
“Wen Kexing.”
The speaker smiled faintly and nodded lightly. He silently sat a bit further away, clearly a gentle, high-class man. That smiling and soft-spoken visage practically made him look like an earnest person.
Cao Weining thanked them again, then went ahead and sat down. He was the youngest disciple of the Purewind Sword Sect, and this was his first time experiencing jianghu, but he had unluckily become separated from his sect-uncle, then been stolen from at some unknown point in time. Right when he had been hard-pressed with no idea of what to do, Zhou Zishu had gotten him out of a bind; he felt the man to be very righteous, where even his yellowed, lean, and very wretched appearance was pleasing to the eye.
Zhou Zishu was accustomed to dancing based off of the words of others, and was very much in his element and talkative with normal people that weren’t Wen Kexing. This caused Cao Weining to feel like they were close friends at first meet, his wordbox getting pried open with a crackle. “My sect-uncle and I are going to the Dongting Conference, only for us to heard that something had happened at the Zhao Manor after we passed it a few days ago. My elder has long had a decent relationship with Hero Zhao, so he had go over and take a look, telling me to go ahead to Dongting and apologize to Hero Gao Chong that he was going to be late…”
Zhou Zishu was startled. “Dongting Conference?”
“Yes. I don’t know if you’ve heard of how the Zhang family was annihilated, Brother Zhou, but it wasn’t the only thing — I myself heard that a few days ago, the Mount Tai Sect Leader died in his own room, without apparent cause. The three highest masters ranked below him all were killed in the night, too, with the manner being very similar to the Zhangs’ demise. The Zhang son survived by a fluke, and is now at the Zhao Manor, under Hero Zhao’s protection, but he personally identified the murderers as the Vile Wraiths of Green Bamboo Ridge. The Dongting Conference is due to Hero Gao taking out the Land Writ, in a want to gather the realm’s heroic forces and eradicate Wraith Vale.”
Zhou Zishu subconsciously looked at Wen Kexing, only to see the other in very high spirits. “Is that true?”
“It’s one-hundred percent true. We were ordered by my Master to go down the mountain and participate in the Conference.”
This really was the kid’s first time off the mountain. As soon as he was asked something, he would talk about it, and even if he wasn’t asked about something, he would still talk about it.
“Didn’t you say you want to accumulate virtues, Brother Zhou? Why not accompany this young man? Destroying evil and promoting benevolence is a highly virtuous thing,” said Wen Kexing.
Zhou Zishu bowed his head to take a sip of wine, looking downwards. He kind of couldn’t figure out what Wen Kexing was trying to do, here.
Then, he heard Cao Weining clap. “Destroying evil and promoting benevolence is a highly virtuous thing — well said, Brother Wen! I can tell that you gents are just and open, and this lowly brother has hit it off well with you. Why not accompany me to Dongting?”
Tch. Stupid boy.
Wen Kexing grinned. “A greater chance than this really couldn’t have been found if I’d gone looking, myself.”
Thus, the two-person troupe became a three-person troupe. Dongting was one of Zhou Zishu’s targets, anyways, so he really had no dissent.
Some people’s normal state of life was eat themselves full, then screw around until dark. Tell them to think harder, and they wouldn’t be able to react, further pressure making their head hurt — like Cao Weining.
Some people were accustomed to coming across incidents, however, always looking and thinking more than others, which thereupon became habit. It was hard to say whether they themselves realized as much, their minds taking very many bends as it whirred in circles — like Zhou Zishu.
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing jibber-jabbered as per their usual conduct, poking fun at each other when bored. There were many hints of, ‘If we don’t die, then our probing will never end.’
Only Wen Kexing could glibly listen to this ‘harmony’ going on, and conclude: “You two really have a great relationship.”
Shutting his mouth, Zhou Zishu shot a glance at Cao Weining, utterly speechless. He thought of how well he knew Sect Leader Mo Huaiyang of the Purewind Sword Sect to be a through-and-through old fox — how had a big bunny been raised in a fox’s den?
Wen Kexing took the out, going above and beyond in seizing Zhou Zishu’s shoulder. “Many thanks, Don Cao. To tell the honest truth, this Wen is determined to take Zhou Xu as a wife sometime in my lifetime,”
Cao Weining’s mouth went as round as his eyes.
“I fear that I’ll have to let your generous favor down, Brother Wen,” Zhou Zishu speedily answered, as if accustomed to this. “This humble one was born under poor stars, suffers from a terminal illness, and has no more than a few years left to live. The neck-breaking tree that I am is currently on the verge of collapse, so you likely won’t be able to hang your noble neck from me; please go find a different one. Does any edge of the world lack vegetation?”
“If you aren’t around, then I will spend my last years alone,” Wen Kexing said in earnest.
There were knives hidden within Zhou Zishu’s smile. “My honorable King, you are a unique talent bestowed by the heavens, and high places are unsurpassably cold. Spending your last years alone is an allowance from Heaven’s will. This humble one is an insignificant mortal; what virtues and abilities do I have to tamper with divine destiny?”
“Ah, such flattery. Ah-Xu, you’re so modest, and really too polite,” Wen Kexing unabashedly answered.
Zhou Zishu quickly waved him off. “No need for that. I’m actually not a single bit polite.”
Cao Weining’s eyes wandered between the two of them for a long time. His three hun and seven po souls eventually returned to him. “…Is it because Brother Zhou is ailing that you two lovers cannot become family?” he blurted out.
Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu were simultaneously struck mute for a moment. The former pffted out a laugh, thinking Cao Weining to be a perfect creature.
Half the day later, Zhou Zishu finally dry-coughed. Pulling Wen Kexing’s arm away from his neck, he said seriously, “No need to worry so much, Brother Cao. Why would he and I ever become family? We’d be a couple that hated each other.”
Cao Weining believed that he was forcing a happy face on, so he creased his brow in thought for a spell. “With your character, Brother Zhou, you shouldn’t suffer so much,” he said, anguished.
Zhou Zishu smiled bitterly. “Thanks, Brother, but I don’t really think so…”
“My sect has always been in contact with some foreign races in jianghu, and I’ve had the fortune to acquaint with some seniors at Shaman Valley. If you don’t hate the idea, after we go to Dongting’s meeting and vanquish those evil fiends on the wrong path, you can go on a trip back home with me. My Master will definitely have a solution.”
Zhou Zishu was practically moved to the point of tears, subsequently saying nothing.
Unexpectedly, Cao Weining was a proactive sort, immediately cupping his fists towards them. “Please wait for me in the inn ahead, gents. I’m going to leave a note to pass a message on to my sect-uncle.”
Saying so, he turned and left. Wen Kexing clucked his tongue in wonder at his back. “One walking the path of the ancients has a warm heart… he’s a real mediator for us.”
With a turn of the head, he saw Zhou Zishu staring at him, ponderous. It made him pause for a moment. “Why, did this humble one’s words from the depth of my being touch your ironclad heart, Ah-Xu? Are you planning to devote yourself to me?”
Zhou Zishu smiled coldly. “Forgive my slowness, but I was actually thinking… that your motive for going to Dongting is a perplexing mystery.”
“In saving people from peril, justice shuns wealth,” Wen Kxing replied, serious-faced. “Everything so far has been tiny acts of goodness — do you know what big acts of goodness are?”
Narrowing his eyes, Zhou Zishu watched him wordlessly.
“Never will there be a day where the underworld is empty, never will there be a day that I become the Buddha. Since time immemorial, the orthodox and not have been incompatible, wouldn’t you say?” Wen Kexing slowly went on, seeming to talk to himself.
While he was speaking, his gaze placidly went someplace far away. The typical playful air around his handsome profile abruptly vanished, making him genuinely resemble a stone Buddha statue, lacking sorrows and joy.
“This is the human world,” he continued, “and the human world should not have ghosts and demons. The… prestigious Hero Gao Chong is ridding the world of calamities for the common folk. If we don’t lend a hand, would our many years of reading sagely texts not be in vain? I heard that only many years of cultivation can then give you a fulfilled life, but if you don’t do anything notable, wouldn’t those decades have been for nothing?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t answer, but Wen Kexing still turned to ask after him. “Wouldn’t you agree, Ah-Xu?”
Only after a long time did the other chuckle. “Hearing all that, it seems like you’re an upright nobleman, Brother Wen.”
However, Wen Kexing said, apropos of nothing, “There are three types of people in this world. Those who love to eat meat, those who can take it or leave it, and those that hate it. They are all born that way, but sometimes, people who love to eat meat are contrarily born into impoverished families, while those that hate it contrarily grow up within delicacies from both the land and the sea. Is that not ridiculous?”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for a time, after which he answered with extreme caution, and extreme discretion. “I don’t understand whatever riddle that is, but I’ve heard one truth before.”
“What is it?”
“Mandarines grown in Huai’s south are mandarines, and those grown in Huai’s north are oranges.”
At those words, Wen Kexing was stunned. Then, he suddenly exploded into a belly laugh, practically rocking back and forth, laughing so hard that he cried. Zhou Zishu watched him expressionlessly; his pasty face and contorted features showed no emotions, but his eyelids were slightly hooded, as if he was looking into Wen Kexing’s heart.
An unknown amount of time later, Wen Kexing straightened up, breathless. He reached up to wipe a laugh-teardrop off of his eye, looking at Zhou Zishu as he said, “I find you to be the one most suited to my tastes, out of everyone I’ve met in this life, Ah-Xu… truthfully, I know something about the art of face-changing.”
He stared at Zhou Zishu unblinking, until the latter’s second face was a little uncomfortable. “Is that so?” he casually asked.
“It’s why I could possibly manage to make myself look like Ah-Xiang,” the other very soberly stated.
Zhou Zishu was dumbstruck. Seeing Wen Kexing looking him up and down with a vulgar expression, he reacted immediately by turning heading in the inn’s direction without a single word.
Wen Kexing watched his tall and skinny retreating figure, eyes focused upon the pair of shoulder blades that were faintly seen beneath his clothes. He felt that even though the man was pauperized and raggedy, there was something about him that was difficult to put into words, just like that afternoon where sunlight had fallen everywhere — he had hooded his eyes as he leaned into a corner, sloppily sitting on the main street, clearly resembling a beggar, yet being more leisurely and collected than anyone else.
Wen Kexing had known that he was really just sunbathing.
How could someone with a back like that not be a beauty? he smugly thought. These eyes of his had never once been mistaken in his nearly thirty years of life.
Noticing that Zhou Zishu had already walked pretty far away, he then raised his feet to stroll after him. “That mandarine tree doesn’t have legs, so how could it know wether it was going to bear mandarines or oranges?” he said quietly to himself. “In any case, regardless of whether one loves or hates to eat meat, if they ever accidentally fell into a deserted area one day, where they’d need to eat raw meat and drink blood all the time to survive, would they not suffer?”
In the evening, Cao Weining caught up with them, and sensed that the atmosphere between them was pretty off-kilter. Therefore, he cautiously asked, “Brother Zhou, Brother Wen… did you have a quarrel?”
“You think too much, Brother Cao,” they said in unison once again.
Wen Kexing narrowed his eyes as he swept a look at Zhou Zishu; the look seemed to have a hook in it, completely tinted with flirtation. Zhou Zishu pretended not to see anything, as unmoved as a mountain.
Cao Weining scratched his head. “Honestly… I don’t know how to approach this. Honestly-speaking, I’ve heard of it before, but this is the first time in my life that I’ve come across men that…”
Wen Kexing looked up to silently peer at him.
“You mustn’t misunderstand, Brother Wen. I have no other intent,” Cao Weining quickly said. “Despite my feeling this to be a little hard to accept, you gents are both men of chivalry… it’s a little odd, but… ahem, it shouldn’t be taken to heart. We all act righteously and stand up straight…”
Zhou Zishu unhurriedly poured himself a cup of wine and glugged it down. This dumb kid has gone incoherent.
Cao Weining thus lowered his head. A time later, he looked back up, red-faced as he whispered, “Um… when you stay at the inn tonight, will you want two rooms, or one?”
Zhou Zishu choked on a mouthful of wine.
Even Wen Kexing was staring straight at Cao Weining, thinking, We sure picked a weird flower.
The air between the three of them was unnaturally still. While no one had time to yet speak and Zhou Zishu’s breathless hacking was the only thing they heard, an extremely blood-curdling scream was heard from upstairs. The few guests below all raised their heads, watching as an inn worker scrambled down the stairs, looking like he had seen a ghost. “M… m… murder!” he shook out.
Cao Weining’s expression turned grave. He grabbed his holstered sword and leapt up, taking the lead. At nearly the same exact time, a man and a woman in tight-fitting clothes, who appeared to be siblings, also drew their respective weapons and charged upstairs — there were always people who would fight for the chance to meddle.
Wen Kexing kicked Zhou Zishu with his toes. “Ah-Xu, aren’t you going to go look?”
The other stood in a half-rise. “After you. I insist.”
Wen Kexing also stood, heading for the stairs. When he passed by Zhou Zishu, his steps abruptly stopped, he drew in close, and then lowered his voice to say, “If you’re willing to share a room with me tonight, I can face-change into Ah-Xiang for you.”
“This humble one is grateful for your generous favor, and would prefer to go nap in the stables.”
With a tch, Wen Kexing looked askance at him. “How unromantic.”
Then, he went upstairs, Zhou Zishu following close behind.
Once they ascended, the stench of blood swiftly assailed the senses. The door of a room marked with the ‘Heaven’ character was wide open. Cao Weining stood in the doorway with a somber expression, and upon turning his head to see them, he beckoned them over. “Come quick to see this man, gents.”
Zhou Zishu walked over, an attentive look catching a man propped up against a bed pillar, his clothes out of sorts so that an expanse of chest was exposed, which had a crow-black palmprint upon it. Both of his hands had been chopped off, now fallen into one corner with blood sprinkled on the ground. The man’s head listed to one side, his eyes were unfocused, and his complexion was ashen — he had been dead for a long time.
Wen Kexing let out a noise of wonder. “Why does this man look like… the gentleman thief that went into my pockets when I bumped into him on the street that day?”
Cao Weining also let out an ah, coming in close to scrutinize the dead man’s face, expression strange. “He… he seems to have bumped into me, too!”
The two brothers of unclear respective seniority, who had both needed to rely upon Zhou Zishu’s rescue, looked at each other, suddenly gaining the feeling that they were two similar bums in a faraway land.
Then, the woman nearby was heard to speak. “I know this man. He’s the Nine-Clawed Spirit Fox, Fang Buzhi!”
Cao Weining was astounded. “He… he’s the Grandmaster Thief, Fang Buzhi?”
The young woman nodded, pointing at the corpse’s left hand. “Take a look. According to rumors, Fang Buzhi is a thirty-something man with a deformed left hand. If you still aren’t sure, he’s also actually a…”
Her face turned red. She couldn’t say more.
Zhou Zishu studied the corpse’s hair-free face and chin. “Right. Rumors say that he has a certain impairment,” he picked up. “Miss, if you feel this to be inappropriate, you can head out or turn your back. Remove his trousers, you lot, and you’ll know whether he’s the God-Thief or not.”
The woman awkwardly looked at the young man accompanying her, who lightly coughed. “You can go, Xiaolian.”
She turned and went, waiting at the doorway with her back turned.
The second she did, Wen Kexing effectively stripped off the dead man’s trousers, looked at the ‘special area’ of the corpse that had been cut off, and stroked his chin in thought. “It’s true. No wonder I didn’t feel anything when he took something from me,” he ruefully said.
After that, he busily continued to strip Fang Buzhi’s entire body bare, then very rudely rummaged all about him. Within a huge heap of bits and bobs, he found his coin pouch, opening it to poke about. To his pleasant surprise, not much money was missing, so he very happily stuffed it into his pocket, and didn’t neglect to casually n’ politely ask, “Brother Cao, come see. Is your own pouch here?”
Cao Weining and the other young man stared in stupefaction at this guy.
“Benefactor Wen, the dead are to be respected,” Zhou Zishu coolly reminded him. Disregarding the rather appreciative look the unfamiliar young man cast his way, he paused, then added, “Can you repay the three taels of silver that I’m owed, or no?”
Wen Kexing looked heartbroken. “I’m already yours entirely, yet you still care to bicker over three taels with me?”
The unfamiliar youth’s complexion henceforth became even better-looking. Zhou Zishu reached out to snatch Wen Kexing’s collar and pull the impediment that he was away, then crouch down to feel the corpse over from head to toe. Once he came to his conclusion, he frowned. “Dead in one move. The palmprint goes from the front of his chest through to the back — this ought to be the Rakshasa Strike.”
The unknown youth let out a sound of astonishment. “You’re saying that’s… the Rakshasa Strike of the Merry Death Wraith?” he almost shouted.
“I’m afraid so,” Zhou Zishu answered with a nod. With that over, he covered the corpse, then said to the young woman outside, “You can come in, Miss.”
The man looked at the three of them, then cupped his hands. “This humble on is Deng Kuan. My Master is Gao Chong, and this is my sect-sister, Gao Xiaolian. The two of us had left the sect to gain experience, only to receive a message from our Master a few days ago so that we would hurry back before the Dongting Conference. What do you gents go by?”
“Oh, forgive my disrespect!” Cao Weining quickly said. “I have long heard of your name, Young Hero Deng. This young lady is Hero Gao’s daughter, yes? This humble one is Cao Weining of the Purewind Sword Sect, and I’m participating in the conference on order of our Sect Leader. My sect-uncle should be here in a few days. On my road, this… this God-Thief stole my travel expenses, and I’m very fortunate that Brother Zhou and Brother Wen helped me out.”
“And who are these two heroes…?”
Zhou Zishu remained doing stuff, crouched on the ground. Hearing that, he turned and smiled. “What hero could I be? My name is Zhou Xu, but I’m a lazy, wayward, unambitioned profligate of no sect. And this…”
He pointed at Wen Kexing, voice subtly pausing. “This is Brother Wen Kexing. Even though he pretends to be an upright gentleman, but he’s actually an old hat at being a cad that does nothing—“
“Ah-Xu, I’m only a cad for you,” Wen Kexing said calmly.
“You really praise this humble one too much,” Zhou Zishu answered, voice soft.
Clearly, Gao Xiaolian’s attention was no longer on the corpse. Collected, Deng Kuan smiled civilly at those words, his posturing neither too humble nor too arrogant — he truly had some panache of a Dongting lord of a famed sect. “You two are quite wry,” he said, cupping his fist at them. “Since you are going with Brother Cao to our Dongting, I assume that we are on the same path. Brother Zhou, you said that this is the God-Thief, and he died by the Merry Death Wraith’s Rakshasa Strike?”
Gao Xiaolian and he exchanged a look. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing feigned ignorance, faces blank.
“Also…? I heard that people from Wraith Vale seemed to have caused chaos outside of Zhao Manor. Could it be…?” Cao Weining uttered.
“You may not know, Young Hero, but news came from the Zhao Manor of Lake Tai a bit ago. Mu Yunge of Cleftsword Manor, a guest at the Zhao’s, was also killed by the Rakshasa Strike,” Gao Xiaolian said. “These Vile Wraiths of the Vale are indeed doing an untold amount of evil, and being very aggressive about it.”
This area was not too far from Dongting, being no more than a day’s journey off, if one had to say. It was pretty much already in Hero Gao’s domain. It was unclear whether this young lady was incensed for the sake of justice, or unhappy because someone had barged into her father’s lands.
In any case, Deng Kuan and Cao Weining subconsciously nodded in agreement. “Right.” “Precisely.”
When the martial circle alliance had been formed, there came to be three pieces of the ‘Land Writ’, to be held by those with high virtues and reputations. Given that a huge disaster was afoot, the Writ could be set into motion, and once its three pieces were put together, a conference of heroes could be summoned, all the lofty figures from the world wide then jointly forming plans. Of the three pieces, one was in ‘Iron Judge’ Gao Chong’s hands, one was at the Shaolin Monastery, and the last was supposedly in the possession of Everbright Peak’s Ancient Monk, who had not come to ask after worldly affairs in years.
Unexpectedly, all the targets of this unrest pointed to Wraith Vale, causing even the legendary Ancient Monk, who cultivated to immortality and ignored the mortal realm, alarm.
Deng Kuan and Cao Weining talked this over, consulted several others for their opinions, then decided to rent a carriage to send Fang Buzhi’s body over to Gao Chong. This would prevent further incidents.
The two had quite some natural affinity, like old friends as first glance. Zhou Zishu watched indifferently nearby, thinking of how, Gao Chong’s character aside, his knack for educating his disciple and daughter was decent. Gao Xiaolian was nearby, putting her own words in on occasion, and her speech and mannerisms were completely pertinent, even for such a young girl. Even though she was about the same age as Gu Xiang, she was not noisy or spoiled at all, having courtesy and self-restraint.
Wen Kexing suddenly sighed in lament. “If my Ah-Xiang had your character, Dona Gao, I could die with no regrets.”
Gao Xiaolian turned to smile gently at him. “You’ve overpraised me, Brother Wen.”
Zhou Zishu laughed in mockery. “Dona Gao is Hero Gao’s daughter, isn’t she? Gu Xiang… really is a good child, but her rafters are on crooked.”
“Ah-Xu. Dona Gao is nice, and I was just telling the truth. You don’t need to get so jealous…”
Gao Xiaolian immediately looked between the two of them, awkward, and quickly took a few steps forward to catch up with Deng Kuan and Cao Weining. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing thus lagged behind.
Zhou Zishu chuckled. “Brother Wen, this humble one has something I don’t understand — tell me, when we went in, why were the clothes on Fang Buzhi’s corpse in disarray? As far as I know, Brother Fang is someone that only works at sunrise and rests at sundown,” he said, voice hushed.
Wen Kexing reached up to cup his own chin, pondering for a short moment. “You mean to say that the Merry Death Wraith took a fancy to Fang Buzhi, desiring to do something errant to him, whereupon he was met with desperate resistance, didn’t get what he wanted, and killed him out of anger?”
He shook his head and sighed, then. “Really, since ancient times, beauties have always met cruel fates.”
“Very insightful, Brother Wen,” Zhou Zishu said, blank-faced. “This humble one had believed that the murderer killed Fang Buzhi and searched his body for something he had on him.”
Wen Kexing choked for a moment, then nodded with fake airs put on. “That’s a bit logical, too.”
Inclining his head, he saw Zhou Zishu giving him a meaningful look, then heard him ask, “Apart from your missing pouch from that day, is anything else missing from you, Brother Wen?”
Wen Kexing looked him dead in the eyes. “Yes. The coins in the pouch are all there, but the Whorl Beryl is gone.”
The smile gradually vanished from Zhou Zishu’s face, those eyes seeming to wash over with ice water, darkly cold. Wen Kexing yet appeared to be completely unaware, still grinning giddily.
A long while later, Zhou Zishu said quietly, “Benefactor Wen, you didn’t kill him, but he died because of you. What can be said of that?”
Wen Kexing was quiet. Right that moment, up ahead, Cao Weining and Deng Kuan brought up how Zhou Zishu seemed to have a health issue, after which Deng Kuan turned to ask him whether he would be able to endure quick travel in the late night, and whether they should rent a carriage. One look over, and he saw that the atmosphere between the two was a little odd, however.
Wen Kexing’s face held no smile. Zhou Zishu’s eyes seemed to gleam with some indescribable light. Feeling weird, Deng Kuan went to inquire, only for Wen Kexing to suddenly appear to smile, grab Zhou Zishu’s hand with a lightning-quick hand, lower his head, and kiss him.
Deng Kuan stood there in astonishment for a minute, as did everyone else. A very long time later, with the covered lanterns revolving messily around overhead, he faked calmness to say to the equally-shocked Gao Xiaolian and Cao Weining, “In… in that case, us four should go on… go on a step ahead…”
Pitifully, he wasn’t paying attention, even getting the number of people wrong.
It wasn’t until the other three went far away, too scared to turn around, that Zhou Zishu broke free of Wen Kexing’s restraints to viciously punch him in the stomach, expression cooled down. “Brother Wen, that joke wasn’t funny at all.”
Wen Kexing hunched over, holding his abdomen, wearing that smile that made one a smidgen uncomfortable to look at. “I didn’t kill him, but he died because of me? Haven’t you made a mistake, Ah-Xu?” he said quietly.
Zhou Zishu stared icily at him.
Wen Kexing slowly straightened out. Upon this secluded road in the middle of the night, he spoke like a spell of sighs. “Within the Whorl Beryl may be unmatched martial techniques, or the treasures of an enemy country. Who wouldn’t want it?”
Soundlessly, the corner of his mouth curved up, but the corners of his eyes held no laugh lines. “Fang Buzhi was a scoundrel, crowing like a cockerel and thieving like a mutt. Everything he did stemmed from his own selfish whims. As long as he took a fancy to something, even if it was someone’s emergency funds, he would take it without a care. Would he not want it? The Merry Death Wraith has committed many sins, was forced to enter Wraith Vale against his will, and live as something neither human nor ghost for years. Would he not want it? Would you not want it? You speak of accumulating virtues, fearing only that when you go to the Yellow Springs below, those eighteen layers of Hell will be waiting to judge you upon the unfortunate things that you did in your past and present life. I ask you this: if there could be something that would leave you with no rivals in the world, where you wouldn’t need to fear ghosts knocking at your door in the dead of night, would you not want it?”
Zhou Zishu shook his head extremely slow, sneering. “I’m not afraid of any ghosts knocking on my door.”
With that, he looked at him no longer, turning to stride forth.
Wen Kexing watched his back for a time, expression inscrutable. Then, he started laughing all of a sudden. “O Saint Zhou, the taste of osmanthus ale really isn’t bad.”
Zhou Zishu wanted to act like he hadn’t heard, but he couldn’t resist lifting his sleeve to roughly wipe his mouth of, mentally cursing at him. Wen Kexing, you fucker!
Dongting bustled high with excitement. Innumerable jianghu folks had amassed here overnight, of every age, gender, school, and walk of life. All of them had come in the same name, then harbored their own motives, each keeping to their own paths.
In not even the span of a day, Zhou Zishu’s group had eaten together in two restaurants, and already been witness to four armed skirmishes.
Zhou Zishu viewed this place to basically be akin to a dog market, every single one of them barking up a flurry, posturing for dominance, biting mouthfuls of fur off of each other over mostly trifling matters every few days. Who knew what ends would ultimately befall these ‘heroes’.
Deng Kuan and Gao Xiaolian first brought them to see Gao Chong. There were only three holders of the Land Writ in the world. Shaolin was the mogul of the martial world, superior in authority. The ever-elusive Everbright Peak’s Ancient Monk was superior in martial prowess. It seemed that Hero Gao alone was the one to truly be embroiled in the world, truly have far-reaching relationships with every single great sect — the one with the biggest influence, and the widest path to walk.
He was no hero of outstanding, jade-tree-in-the-wind elegance and grace. He neither handsome nor formidable. Instead, he was just an old, chubby man up there in age, with gray hairs at his temples. Whenever he spoke, he was full of vigor and very energetic, his laughter especially vivid.
As soon at Zhou Zishu glimpsed him, he understood how Gao Chong could occupy the spot he did today.
Every individual had their own unique personality. Later on, they would automatically gather up together based upon these invisible, intangible personalities, dividing up into groups of similar beings.
Take people like Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu, for example. An onlooker might only see one as sickly, emaciated-looking, staggering ghoul of a beggar, and the other as a slick-tongued, man-loving, indiscriminate hoodlum, not a single thing special to be seen about them. However, once a deep friendship arose, those keen could sense the subtle differences therein.
Regardless of whether it was Zhou Zishu or Wen Kexing, they might be able to mix in with the crowd and not draw attention, but they wouldn’t belong to that crowd, and thus automatically didn’t blend in. Their mix within could only make them an unremarkable backdrop.
And yet, Zhou Zishu would always subconsciously be on alert every time Wen Kexing drew near. Wen Kexing had also warned Gu Xiang not to provoke him the first time they had met. That was an instinct, the recognition of someone like oneself.
But Gao Chong had no such quality. He could call anyone his brother, and whenever he stood before another, they would automatically overlook his status, background, and seniority. No matter whether one was old or young, from a famed sect or a wandering hero, he could incite a certain type of closeness, like he was someone of similar age and experience to them.
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing could do nothing to stop the completely meaningless jabber, silently observing the celebrated Hero Gao. On occasion, they would utter pleasantries, or politely answer some necessary questions.
Zhou Zishu had to think, If Heaven’s Pane had a talent like this…
Still, when observing all of the realm, there was only one Gao Chong.
They had made calculations ahead of time. In no more than a few days, representatives from every major sect would be coming in quick succession, Dongting’s lakeside turning into a connection-forming convention. Everyday meeting would have to go like, “Oh! You must be so-and-so, I’ve long heard of your esteemed name… you flatter me, you flatter me. Right, those from Wraith Vale have sinned much, causing disaster in the martial circle for a long time. Everyone needs to terminate them. We must all do our duty and unite forces, so that the martial world’s righteous path can be saved…”
Following a few days of being stopped here, Zhou Zishu was nearly about to gain calluses inside his ears. However, whenever he was fairly bored and Wen Kexing had vanished like a ghost, not making any noise next to him, he would actually feel a little lonely.
Wearing a new set of robes that had been provided by the Gao family, he strolled the streets in a meandering fashion. It was clearly due to being shone upon by Cao Weining and them’s light his days spent in the Gao Estate were notably comfortably. He ate and drank well every single day, and had finally shed those shabby rags to drape good clothing upon himself, yet he felt a bit unused to this all. After wearing rough hemp clothes for so long, this embroidered silk felt slippery and cool, like he was wrapped up in snot.
Once again looking at his own two palms, which were yellow and shriveled to everyone else, and his similarly yellow and shriveled face, he had to shake his head in self mockery. This body of his, soon about to be sucked dry by the Septeye Nails, kind of couldn’t fill out these clothes. It was as if a skeletal frame had shakily managed to pull a hunk of cloth over itself. He viewed his own ‘venerated countenance’ as miserable, disdaining his occasional glance into the mirror so much, he never felt like giving it another look — he was quite self-aware that wearing the dragon robes did not make one resemble a Crown Prince.
In his own mind, he thought of how it was likely that since Wen Kexing had been preoccupied with walking alongside him like he was going to chase him all the way until death, he’d never had the time to seek out those male courtesans that embroidered orchids upon handkerchiefs. It was only because he was too starved to know what to eat that he droned out nonsense next to him the day long.
Was that not a saying? ‘Be in the army for three years, and in your eyes, and old sow can compete with a goddess’? He felt like Wen Kexing was in more or less that state, except that honorable brother would probably be interested in an old boar.
This day, he went to a restaurant alone, selected a seat by the window, and ordered a few small dishes plus a pot of yellow wine. He enjoyed the sun while he slowly drank that away.
The instant Wen Kexing walked in, he saw a view of the other’s back. He was unsure why, but he felt that How Zhou Zishu looked from behind was very specific. Amongst all these people, he could always identify him in one glance.
The other’s back was not constantly straightened. Most of the time, he only had it lazily curved into an arch that was not generally injurious to his grace, the posture looking especially comfortable. Wen Kexing always thought that he seemed to have nothing bothering his mind at all; merely watching it could make him feel especially tranquil and relaxed.
His steps stopped without his permission, expression vacant, eyes trained blankly upon Zhou Zishu’s relaxed figure for a time. A certain distinct, yet also indistinct feeling arose in his heart.
He then felt like this man was using that silent posture to taunt him, the one plainly running all about for all sorts of things, suppressing all sorts of things in his heart, all while stubbornly putting on an air of careless indifference.
Zhou Xu… he thought, A mind of duckweed, a body of willow’s down.[13]
In this vast world of mountains and rivers, what sort of person could decided to be all alone, roaming the world by himself without a care, placing no importance upon anything, worrying about nothing?
It wasn’t an indifference, though. He had all of his emotions, but they came and went rapidly, passing by in a flash. After one blink, it would like he didn’t remember anything at all.
Wen Kexing took in a deep breath, lowering his gaze. That smile that made people want to slap him whenever they saw it shortly reappeared on his face. He strolled over, sat opposite of Zhou Zishu, and grabbed a cup without a single iota of politeness. Then, he snatched the wine pot from Zhou Zishu’s had, filled his cup, took a sip, and commented, “This wine… is just barely passable.”
Zhou Zishu shot him a languid look. “Waiter,” he called, “refill this pot with fine wine, and bring two more of the special. The tab will be on him.”
Wen Kexing looked at him wordlessly.
He chuckled lightly. To show that he was no cheapskate unwilling to treat him to even one sip of wine, he explained with purpose. “You still owe me three taels of silver. Pay it back earlier, and there’ll be no interest. It’s a good deal.”
Wen Kexing went quiet for a time. “…Many thanks,” he was obliged to say.
“No need to be polite, Brother Wen,” Zhou Zishu answered, eyes half-narrowed as he smiled.
Seeing him like that, Wen Kexing suddenly really wanted to nitpick and bother him. Right then, at the door of the restaurant behind Zhou Zishu, someone suddenly said, “We’ll rest our feet here first, have a bit of food, and then go pay a visit to Brother Gao in the afternoon.”
After that, another, very familiar voice answered, “Yes. Everything will go as you’ve set up, Uncle.”
Wen Kexing thereupon witnessed a rather dramatic scene. His creditor, who had just been sober enough beyond compare that he had reminded him about interest, suddenly teetered, then fell down ‘drunk’ onto the table with a thud. Fingers still relentlessly holding the wine cup, face plastered to the table and turned towards the window, it seemed like he was struggling to remember, and also that he couldn’t really get up. “‘M not drunk…” he said, very muffled. “I can have another pot…”
While Zhou Zishu and Zhang Chengling had walked all that way, Wen Kexing and Gu Xiang had been following behind. For that reason, despite Zhou Zishu having detected them, Zhang Chengling had remained in ignorance, his mind too tormented at the time to have cared about it. He had met Wen Kexing once in the run-down temple before, but he held not much of an impression of him.”
Also, with Zhou Zishu lying facedown like this, when Zhang Chengling, Zhao Jing, and their group passed by them, they didn’t see his appearance, nor did they pay too much attention, going right past them to ascend to the second floor’s private rooms.
Once they were up, the restaurant worker just so happened to come bearing food and wine. As soon as he saw this, he asked it quite some amazement, “Wasn’t this customer very much sober earlier? He got drunk so quickly…”
Before he could finish being surprised, he watched as Zhou Zishu sat back up like nothing had happened. Without a single glance at the wine-paired food, nor any sway of the body, he took the wine pot.
The waiter was dumbstruck. Zhou Zishu waved him off. “Didn’t I just say that I wasn’t drunk, and could have another pot? I never say anything beyond reason.”
Luckily for the waiter, he had witnessed much before. He thus woodenly turned around and left, going so quick that his feet didn’t touch the ground.
Only then did Wen Kexing smile, asking in a hushed voice, “You fear that little thing?”
“I fear him doing what?” Zhou Zishu replied, not looking up.
The other watched him. “What are you hiding for, then?”
Zhou Zishu unhurriedly ate peanuts while he drank. “The headache. As soon as that little brat sees me, he’ll chase me down and call me Master in all sorts of ways. He’s clingy, like a little girl,” he gave, vague.
Wen Kexing raised his brows. “In that case, what were you doing saving him way back when, and selling yourself off for two pieces of silver?”
Zhou Zishu crunched on the shelled peanuts. A long while later, he said with particular slowness, “I saw him as pitiful.”
Hearing that, Wen Kexing stayed silent for a good time. All of a sudden, he took his coin pouch of his lapels, reached in to grab a piece of silver. After spending a while carefully counting them out, he pushed the result forward. “Three taels and two coins. The three taels are a repayment to you. I’m giving you two coins more so that you sell yourself to me, too. I promise to keep you well with fine food and drink from now on, and no one will hunt you down.”
Zhou Zishu looked down at the glinting silver fragments. One hand holding his cup, he rather contentedly took a sip, and pushed the three taels back. “The wine fare is on me today.”
After some thought, he pushed the two coins back, too. “No sale.”
No emotion could be gleaned off of Wen Kexing’s beaming smile. “Why not?”
“I see you as gross,” said Zhou Zishu, completely blunt.
As if he had received some sort of compliment, Wen Kexing started laughing.
Half a month later, the realm’s heroes were congregated in Dongting; Gao Chong borrowed a large monastery in the vicinity, setting their conference for this location. Half a day later, a Shaolin Abbot, Grandmaster Cimu, arrived with several disciples, bearing the second piece of the Land Writ.
Living up to everyone’s expectations, the Ancient Monk of Everbright Peak did not show his face before everyone, only sending a disciple that was around twenty years old, and who looked like a Daoist immortal. He brought the final piece of the Land Writ.
On the very night that the three pieces of the Writ came together, Gao Manor caught fire.
—
The translator says: zzs sees a child and pretends to pass out drunk so that he doesn’t have to babysit. #relatable
Once it was past midnight, it became impossible for Zhou Zishu to sleep. While he was regulating his breaths in his room, he suddenly heard world-shaking, hoarse shouts springing up all over the place. He frowned, sat up straight, and pushed the window open; a lot of disheveled folk were running past below, after which a burst of smoke hit him in the face.
“Bring water! Water!”
Thick smoke began to pervade the ice-cold night. The area of the fire appeared to be not too far from him. He thought to himself that a lot of people sure were in Gao Manor, and seeing this smoke, he knew that despite the fire’s large size, it wasn’t out-of-control. Refusing to do too much, he felt like it was a bit hard to breath, so he went to shut the window.
All of a sudden, a hand reached out, automatically hindered his wrist that was going to act, and ambiguously stroked the back of his hand. This was followed by someone lithely jumping in through the window, beaming at him, then turning to shut the window.
Zhou Zishu sized Wen Kexing up, the uninvited guest. Right when he wanted to speak, his nose itched, and he twisted his head away to sneeze hard. Scrunching his brows in a very undignified way, he took a few steps back, maintaining a set distance from this ‘high-demand cake’ that had just rolled out of some unknown cosmetics heap.
He skewed a look at Great Benefactor Wen. The other’s hair was unbound, drawn back crudely with a ribbon. Although he couldn’t be described as messily-dressed, with that opened neckline, the spot of red wiped on his snow-white lapels, the cloying scent of cosmetics wafting off of his sleeves, the sensual marks scratched from fingernails on his wrist… and the dissolute look on his face, it was practically like he was afraid that others would be unaware that he had laid amongst the flowers.
Zhou Zishu subconsciously straightened out his sleeves, sitting straight upright. Some kind of feeling of moral superiority spontaneously sprouted within him. In a split-second like this one, he almost felt that, compared to Wen Kexing, he was pretty much a humorless gentlemen.
Wen Kexing sat his rump down on his bed, then felt that the blanket was freezing; the owner of this room had clearly risen long ago. “Don’t be high and mighty, hm?” he thus said. “I say, are you not sleeping in the middle of the night because you’re lonely? Didn’t I say earlier, too, that I’d bring you with?… Dongting, ah, Dongting. It’s really a good place, gathering talent and glowing from the glory of its heroes.”
Zhou Zishu chuckled, no longer putting on airs. He, too, was rather self-aware. When others were being serious, the would be serious. When he got serious, it was like explaining to other people what it was to be ‘different on the inside from the outside’, ‘high-and-mighty’, and ‘having a mouth spouting traditional virtues, while having a belly filled with sin’.
He gave Wen Kexing a pointed look, his voice languid. “The timing of your exit was chosen at quite the coincidence, Brother Wen. You leave on your toes, and a fire catches at your heels—“
Before he could finish, Wen Kexing suddenly went ashen. “Bullshit! I’ve been gone for several shichen!” he raged.
Zhou Zishu was taken aback, not grasping what he was angry over. Then, he saw Wen Kexing look him up and down with bad intentions, the anger on his face going away and that vulgar grin showing up again. “Ah-Xu, that’s an unconventional way to say that you’re mad, hm? Wash the face-changing stuff off, so that I can take a look at you… will that take long?”
Saying so, he reached up to rub his own lips with some deliberate implications, then stuck out his tongue to lick the corner of them, as if he was recalling the taste of something.
Zhou Zishu stared blankly at him for a time, and blankly put his empty cup to his lips in a drinking gesture. After pouring it back with no result for a long time, only then did he realize that there was not a single drop in it.
Wen Kexing was watching him with much amusement, thinking of how he couldn’t see this man’s true face, but he definitely had to be blushing. The more he thought about it, the happier he felt, following which he couldn’t help but pfft out a laugh.
Gritting his teeth, Zhou Zishu squeezed a few words out from his throat. “This humble one must decline.”
Wen Kexing threw his head back and guffawed.
It was good that everyone’s eyes were currently attracted to the burning area, else this bloke would definitely suffer criticism. What kind of onlooker could laugh like this while a fire burned? Zhou Zishu believed that the word ‘virtueless’ was basically tailored to Wen Kexing’s measurements.
He thus stood up, gathered his loose hair back, and turned to go. He’d rather be outside in the flames and smoke than be in the same room with a certain someone.
The fire’s intensity had basically been suppressed already. It was a guest room of Gao’s that had burned, which had alarmed pretty much every single living thing in Gao Manor this night. Gao Chong’s brow was creased, his complexion ashen and his head cocked as he spoke with Deng Kuan about something.
Gao Xiaolian was nearby, too. Seeing him come out, she nodded at him with a distressed look. “I’m truly sorry, Brother Zhou. We didn’t expect that such a thing would happen to disturb your rest,” she apologetically said.
Zhou Zishu had a very good impression of her. Smiling, he asked in a purposefully softer voice, “Do you know whose room was extinguished?”
Right before he finished, Wen Kexing was seen carrying an outer robe. Casually, he walked out of the room, wrapped the robe around Zhou Zishu, then set his chin upon the crook of the other’s shoulder, giving a lazy yawn. He greeted Gao Xiaolian with a sleepy, drowsy-eyed smile.
Her face immediately turned red. Quickly averting her eyes out of courtesy, she said at a rapid rate, “I heard that it was the Zhang’s Young Lord, though he’s fine. He was speaking to dad and Uncle Zhao tonight, and they talked so late, he rested in the side room…”
The poor young lady’s eyes were glancing everywhere, with nowhere to go, and she glimpsed Wen Kexing’s arm looped around Zhou Zishu’s waist, as well as the scratch marks on his wrist. Her face turned redder. “I’ll go to my dad’s place and look for Zhang Chengling,” she said vaguely, then bowed her head and left quickly.
Now, Zhou Zishu reached out to nab Wen Kexing’s wrist and firmly remove his arm from his person, those bones issuing a cracking sound. It really matched the gnashed-teeth expression he had on right now/
Wen Kexing smiled like he hadn’t noticed a thing. “Ah-Xu, that little disciple of yours is fine, right? What are you putting on a straight face with me for?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t release his wrist, though. He lifted it higher, putting it close up to his face to scrutinize it, then laughed. He narrowed his eyes coolly as he looked at Wen Kexing. “What beauty had sharp enough nails to leave such… good-looking marks on you, Brother Wen?”
The other’s eyes lit up with a shing. “Ah-Xu, is this you consuming vinegar, hm?”
“This is me consuming you.”
Wen Kexing stared in a stupor at him for a very long time. Practically overjoyed, he said with a quiet laugh, “Okay. Let’s go in the room. I’ll give you whatever you want to consume — a few rounds will do.”
How could anyone be this shameless, all the time? Zhou Zishu huffed coldly with a skin-deep smile, tossed Wen Kexing’s wrist back to him, and turned back to see Zhang Chengling, who was surrounded by a crowd. With a faint ponderous look on his face, he went back into his room.
There was no way Zhang Chengling’s room had caught fire for no good reason. Where had Wen Kexing gone off, in the middle of the night? And why had he conspicuously used him to put on an act in front of Gao Xiaolian?
Right then, Wen Kexing spoke up from behind him, tone very, very light. “Ah-Xu, in all this time, I’ve never once seen you sleep through the second half of the night. Could it be that you…”
Zhou Zishu’s pupils slightly contracted. He was expressionless, yet he couldn’t help but stop in his tracks.
However, he heard the man proceed to say, “…are far too lonely, standing on guard alone in your vacant boudoir, tossing and turning in bed, going the whole night without sound rest…”
Zhou Zishu strode into his room, as if what Wen Kexing was uttering from his mouth were not words, but farts, the stink of which he had to escape from before it was too late.
Grinning, Wen Kexing said no more. He stood in place, watching Zhang Chengling from afar, whom had lost weight in but a few months. The teen appeared to be a little taller, his face was as pale as the dead, and his mouth was shut tight, but his eyes were black and shiny, making him appear somewhat unyielding, someone restrained. His whole being seemed to be set ablaze. That little bunny that had known how to weep had suddenly cooked into a little wolf cub.
Wen Kexing had some belief that the brat really was a child of the Zhangs. Here, he started laughing gently, opened his mouth, and said quietly in Zhang Chengling’s direction, “You need to be careful, kid.”
The next day, Benefactor Wen suddenly discovered that ‘Sage Zhou’, who had not left his room very much after Zhang Chengling’s arrival, had vanished early in the morning. His room was neat and tidy, as if no one had ever been staying in it.
Zhou Zishu had no idea why he had secretly followed Zhang Chengling, the wee bastard. In case of emergency, he intentionally located a human-skin mask to give a layer of cover over his already once-processed facial skin. He skulked within crowds like a spirit that came and went without a trace; no one noticed the stranger in light-colored garments, forgetting him the moment their eyes passed over him, and he walked right below their sights with never more than a gust of wind drawing anyone’s attention.
He maintained a distance from Zhang Chengling that was neither too far nor close. He watched how every person at this alleged martial world jamboree expressed their own righteously furious standpoint, yet the child most qualified to express his standpoint was only standing to one side, silently watching all of this.
His eyes were opened wide, truthfully reflecting everyone’s mugs. Zhou Zishu suddenly recalled someone — in the unlit, terrifying caves that one day, he had seen a young man with thick brows and big eyes standing beneath a peach tree.
Liang Jiuxiao.
In a daze, he thought back to events of his younger years. Liang Jiuxiao, that little brat, had called him his older sect-brother, been fond of getting underfoot both up ahead and behind him, and chattered non-stop. Never had there been a time where he would calm down. He’d been an idiot, too, and needed to be taught everything at half-speed.
At the time, Zhou Zishu had been young, not very patient, and very unhappy with his Master for throwing the little thing to him. His face when impatient had not been too great, either.
As the senior, it wouldn’t have been good for him to lash out. Whenever he’d gained the opportunity to, he would jab a few roundabout and confusing sentences at him, but the boy had apparently been brainless; no matter how he’d tried to scare him away, the other still acknowledged him.
Where others would have learned the first time, Liang Jiuxiao had needed two or three times to learn. If he hadn’t understood something, he would ask and ask until his eldest senior got agitated, saying some things unpleasant to hear. Liang Jiuxiao would listen to them, wait for his sect-brother to calm down, then just keep on asking questions.
He’d been like the little Zhang guy; a dogskin plaster that could not be flung off after sticking to him.
But… who could have known that that very plaster would fall off one day? And who could have known that the Lord of Four Seasons Manor and leader of Heaven’s Pane, whose impressive light had one been without end, would one day stand without a crowd without any presence, stare at a half-grown teenager, and be crestfallen as he remembered days of old?
The Heavens were not going to give anyone glory just because the realm’s heroes had congregated at Dongting. The weather was overcast today, as if rain was being repressed in half of the sky, ready to fall at any moment. Evaporated moisture hit one in the face, very cold, and dead leaves were already sparse.
There were always those downhearted folks at the most opportune of times, who would sigh about not knowing where their hometowns were, their past thirty years having been one big dream.
Gao Chong allowed Grandmaster Cimu to take the head seat, while he himself took second place. Zhou Zishu shrank back into the crowd, only to hear a youth suddenly sigh and say, “If only there could be a day that I’d be like him.”
When Xiang Yu, despot of Western Chu, had said upon seeing the First Emperor’s procession, “I can supersede him.” In the Guangwu Emperor, Liu Xu’s youth, he had also once lamented foolishly, “Appointed officials should be like lieutenants, wives should be like Yin Lihua.” This world held a sea of people; who didn’t want to stand out from the crowd, boldly acting as the hero of a generation?
What teen in their best times had never looked up at some figure, then said with grit teeth and clenched fists, ‘If only there could be a day that I’d be like him’?
The realm is mine to have. Life and death are mine to seize.
Zhou Zishu’s Master had passed long ago, leaving the Four Seasons Manor as a group of dragons with no leader. The burden had been placed so heavily upon him, the eldest disciple — but how tremendous could one of those have been? Thinking back to that year, he had been no more than fifteen.
At fifteen, the current Emperor had still been hiding his light, patiently bearing with things in every way he could have. At fifteen, Prince Nan’ning had still been putting on a clear act of brainlessness as he drank his days away. At fifteen, the one now known in the Central Plains’ martial circle as the mystical Nanjiang Great Shaman had been nothing more than a captive in a foreign land, a child filled with resentment yet unable to do anything.
For that reason, Liang Jiuxiao had seemed to become his sole companion, where they would rely on each other for life.
But when had the cracks started to form?
Perhaps it had been the first time Liang Jiuxiao came to the capital, where he’d witnessed the rotten infighting, witnessed intensifying struggles to usurp eldest wife-born sons, witnessed family destroying each other, witnessed the many, many sins the brother he worshipped with all of his heart had committed: planting false evidence, shifting blame, even harming honest people…
Gao Chong had since come to stand, filled with anger as he condemned Wraith Vale to every walk of hero here.
Zhou Zishu hooded his eyes slightly, as if he was falling asleep, unmoving. Liang Jiuxiao had questioned what he said, each and every word, for many years. He had never forgotten that.
“What are you all doing this for, anyways? Power? The throne? Glory and wealth?”
“If you keep going on like this, you won’t have a good ending! Wake up!”
“Brother, murdering someone is to be paid with one’s life–”
Murdering someone should be paid with one’s life? Why should it be? In this world, there was a way to make living worse than dying.
Zhou Zishu smiled in seeming self-mockery, thinking, Ah, Jiuxiao. We were actually both wrong.
Right then, a light huff came from not too far away, a shrill voice abruptly cutting off Gao Chong, as well as Zhou Zishu’s thought processes. It seemed like a child’s voice, as first, but its lilt was weird and somewhat hoarse. Gao Chong’s own voice contained internal power; if he could cut off even him, the other’s own strength was not light.
Then, he was heard to say, “Hero Gao, you concluded that all these murders cases were done by Wraith Vale based on only a few words. Isn’t that too much of a stretch?”
Everyone’s gazes were drawn to one spot. Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes as he looked over; the speaker was no more than three chi tall. He was a dwarf, actually, riding on the shoulders of a big man who resembled a small mountain. Amongst the men here, Zhou Zishu was tall enough in stature, yet even he had to tilt his head back to see the man’s face. The man’s hair and facial hair were a messy tangle, leaving only a pair of copper bell-esque eyes exposed, yet he balanced the dwarf atop himself very carefully. As if afraid that his seating would be unsteady, he also used one big, palm fan-like hand to gently grip the other’s ankle.
‘Lord of the Soil’ Feng Xiaofeng, and his Gaoshannu that would never let out a single fart, even when kicked to shit?
In light of how the two’s physical attributes were way too prominent, the second the one had spoken, many already knew who they were. Zhou Zishu’s eyes glinted. He held no loathing towards Feng Xiaofeng; rumors said that he was a man of both righteousness and not, acting without principles and going solely off of his own feelings. It was unclear whether this stemmed from his stature or not, but he was very paranoid, heavy-handed, and temperamental as a person.
For all of his life, only Gaoshannu was inseparable from him, no one else ever to be tolerated. In brief, he was a thorn.
“You speak so very unreasonably, Hero Gao,” Feng Xiaofeng’s shrill voice said. “What’s that about Wraith Vale doing ‘all sorts of atrocities’? The Vile Wraiths do indeed achieve a lot of atrocities, but even so, don’t they have to give up being proper humans and go be wraiths out of desperation? Forgive me for talking too much, but the Vale has existed in secrecy for many years, and has always had the rule that once one enters, they can never go out. The Wraiths have never come out into the human realm to do crimes before; why would they decide to show up and incite disaster now?”
Gao Chong’s lips curled. When not smiling, this great hero that typically looked as approachable as Maitreya had eyes that were abnormally sharp. Possessing an unspeakable power of oppression, he stared at Feng Xiaofeng for a while, after which he drew out his words to ask, “So it is you, Brother Feng. According to what you’re insinuating, what should be done?”
Feng Xiaofeng smiled coldly. “This Feng doesn’t need you oh-so-politely calling me Brother. You call me that with your mouth, yet you’re definitely calling me a midget in your head. Why must you be so fake? I, Midget Feng, heard a few rumors going around, so I came here to specially warn all of you heroes, in the event that you all stuff yourselves to bursting, have your heart clouded by pig fat, and do something… that gives you no face, nor out.”
Upon hearing just a few of those statements, Zhou Zishu came to know that the rumors hadn’t lied. Feng Xiaofeng could not be described as immensely evil, nor was it accurate to say that he was ruled by his emotions, but he was not likeable. Not just unlikeable, even — he was practically a rabid dog.
Purportedly, someone had called him ‘midget’, then had their tongue cut off by him. To anyone that labeled him rudely, he would turn hostile and cut off their tongue; to anyone that labeled him politely, he would think they were being fake. He was too hard to please.
Gao Chong creased his brow lightly, but he was a generational hero that self-maintained his position, after all. It wasn’t too probable that he would squabble with Feng Xiaofeng, the rabid dog. “I would still like you to inform what rumors you have heard, Hero Feng?” he proceeded to ask politely.
The other gave a weird, bird-like cackle. “Gao Chong, why are you playing dumb?” he asked back coldly. What happened to Mu Yunge and Yu Tianjie, I have no idea, but are you really going to say that what happened to Zhang Yusen and the Sect Leader of Mount Tai has nothing to do with the Whorl Beryl?”
When that was said, some people in the crowd that had inside information immediately changed face. Whispered discussions arose from all over. Zhou Zishu noticed that Gao Chong appeared to turn his head and share a look with Grandmaster Cimu, their expressions rather solemn. Meanwhile, the young man that was the legendary Ancient Monk’s disciple was aloof, seated next to Gao Chong with his head remaining lowered in unknown thought, like a great immortal whose ears didn’t catch the drama of the mortal world.
Zhang Chengling was seated on the other side. He was at Zhao Jing’s side, and secretly looked at him upon hearing this, only to see that after the words ‘Whorl Beryl’ were said, his Elder had an indescribable expression encasing his face all of a sudden — it was a mix of resentment and consideration, causing his features to become somewhat malevolent.
When words reached the youth’s mouth, they stayed lodged in his throat.
In such short days, he had come to understand a lot. From the looks and comments of others, he had gotten more than one read on that contemptuous pity — indeed, his father was Hero Zhang Yusen, famed throughout jianghu, so how could he have had such a good-for-nothing, powerless son? He had even heard the Zhao Estate’s servants speaking in secret: what was the point of so many people staking their lives to protect a child like this?
He wasn’t good at literature, nor martial arts. Could he be expected to avenge Hero Zhang, or reinvigorate the Zhang family?
All they took him for was a placard. No matter who was speaking, when Wraith Vale was brought up, they would verbally refer to him after their chests filled with indignation: This is the Zhang orphan. Child, fret not, for we will definitely seek justice for your father and kin.
A useless, pitiful placard.
He couldn’t help but think back to that one yellow-faced, scrawny, reticent man he had met by chance in that ruined temple. Ever since that one terrifying night, there hadn’t been a single night where he hadn’t had nightmares, but he couldn’t tell anyone that. Who would care? Even Uncle Zhao had said to him, Child, you need to straighten your back out. You can’t be afraid of those demonic things. Everyone is standing on your side, and there will come a day that you will avenge the Zhangs.
However, there was no other person that had put their arm around his shoulders, then said to him in a soft voice, It’s no problem, go to sleep. If you have another nightmare, I’ll get you.
The occasion was already getting chaotic. Feng Xiaofeng held a cold grin at the corner of his lips, wanting to ask Gao Chong for an explanation about jianghu’s Whorl Beryl rumor. Zhang Chengling lowered his head to press upon his temple.
All of a sudden, a gust of wind ambushed him, and a tiny ball of paper unerringly hit the back of his hand, startling him. Since no one was paying him mind, he stooped over to pick the paper ball up.
A column of tiny characters was written on it: If you want the truth, come follow me.
He looked up to see a man in dark-colored clothes amongst the crowd that was staring at him unblinkingly, an undefinably evil smirk upon his mouth. As if certain he wouldn’t dare to come over there, the other watched him with disdain and malice.
In that split second, Zhang Chengling was unsure of whether it was due to impulsiveness or a vent to his anger, but he scrunched up the note. When no one was paying attention, he quietly left Zhao Jing’s side to follow the man through the crowd.
No one was paying attention to him, aside from Zhou Zishu.
The later had been half-heartedly watching him this whole time. His eyesight was very sharp; when he had seen someone launch a note at Zheng Chengling’s hand, he had gone on alert. Now that the little brat had gone off on his own without considering his own weight, he felt disinclined to keep listening to these ‘Great Heroes’ dogfight, furrowing his brow and following in secret.
The man appeared to be keeping Zhang Chengling in suspense. He would chase and chase until there was no trace, but a short time after that, a small stone would always hit him from various tricky angles, and then the dark-clothed man would show up again. It was like he was intentionally mocking his much too poor martial arts, stopping and starting like a cat playing with a rat.
Zhang Chengling gritted his teeth, not realizing that he had pursued him a long way away. His talents were poor, and he had never used arts before this; after his arrival at Zhao Manor, everyone had plotted how to act with righteousness for jianghu, yet no one had thought to instruct him in some martial arts. He had long become out-of-breath from chasing the other for so long, bursts of darkness appearing before him, the churn of his pulse near his temples nearly audible.
This youth, having been pampered since his youth, had never been so mad at himself before. He heard someone coldly huff at himself. “This is Zhang Yusen’s son? What a waste.”
The boy thought, Right. You’re a waste, Zhang Chengling. Why did Uncle Li risk his life saving you, back then?
Why was it you?
After that, the man who had drawn him away stopped before him. His hand, like an iron pair of tongs, lifted his chin, his venomous gaze landing upon Zhang Chengling’s face. All the warm blood started draining from the boy’s body, as he only now realized that he was in a place where no one else was around.
Several figures landed behind the man out of nowhere, surrounding Zhang Chengling. All of them had the same unremarkable dark clothing.
He heard the one that had led him over chuckle, then release him. “My dear chap that always hides himself, you mustered up this whole army over such a tiny little thing?”
Once he said that, a man in dark red walked out. On his face was a blood-red, slap-shaped birthmark, which made his features look unspeakable fierce and horrifying.
Zhang Chengling’s legs began to minutely tremble. He raised his chin up as much as he could, putting on a fearless front as he looked back and the man in red clothes.
The man suddenly let out a quiet laugh. His voice was rough and raspy, like rusted iron pieces scraping against each other — it gave one goosebumps to hear. He instantly came up before Zhang Chengling and grabbed his throat, his fingers as freezing cold as a dead man’s.
In that moment, Zhang Chengling even believed that this man was a corpse come alive.
“I’ll ask you this,” the man stated softly. “That night, at Zhang Manor, did you ever see a man with a missing finger?”
Wide-eyed as he stared at him, Zhang Chengling shook his head hard.
The man narrowed his eyes, making his voice even softer. “No? My good child, think about it some more. Did you, or didn’t you?”
The softer his voice became, the more strength he put into his hand, cutting Zhang Chengling’s breath off slightly. He struggled to move, face going red from being strangled. He expended all of his strength in wildly smacking the man up with all of his limbs, following no sort of regulated technique. “You lowlife!”
The man seemed to not feel a thing, an eerie grin upon his face. “Did you… or didn’t you?”
Zhang Chengling felt a pain like his chest was about to burst. While he understood that the man wanted to make him say yes, at this crucial moment, the Young Lord’s donkey-like temper flared up, and he spat upon the man’s face. Right then, the hand looping around his neck suddenly turned into a clamp — Zhang Chengling had no strength to even struggle.
“I’ll ask you once more,” the man said gently. “Did you, or didn’t you?”
Zhang Chengling’s consciousness gradually began to blur. He thought that he was going to die…
All of a sudden, the man grunted, and the hand clamping around his neck loosened. Air poured into Zhang Chengling’s chest. He staggered a few steps back, fell into a sit on the ground with a plop, and coughed like his lungs were coming apart.
The man in red also drew a few steps back, gaze unpleasant as he glared at the pebble that had nearly broken his wrist. “Who did that?”
—
The translator says: Gaoshannu (高山奴) is not a name anyone would give to their child, translated literally as ‘serf (that is like a) tall mountain’. If I wanted 100% localization, his name would be… Mountain Man, or something dumb.
An underweight man turned the corner with languid steps. His face was more or less forgettable, his age unable to be determined. It was unknown how long he had been hiding there, as no one had detected him.
The red-clothed man creased his brow. For some reason, the very instant he caught sight of this man who would be very uninteresting when thrown into a crowd, his hairs suddenly stood on end, a shudder climbing up along his spine. He couldn’t help but square up his posture towards the man’s gait, eyes fixed upon him.
“Who are you?” he asked once more, very cautiously.
Zhou Zishu subconsciously thought back to the answer he had given Gu Xiang, a downplaying ‘nameless pawn’ statement, but then he looked down to see the bruise on Zhang Chengling’s neck. All of a sudden, he thought of how he had acted half of his life away in Court, pretending to be a submissive little grandson. Why the need to socialize so nicely with these thugs that hid in the shadows?
All of the impudence akin to a wandering hero’s that lurked inside his bones had been repressed for far too long. His eyes scanned the group of visibly nervous men and red-clothed people, and chuckled. “What are the lot of you, even, to care about who this one is?”
The man in red’s eye twitched at the corner, his hands slowly drawing back into his sleeves. If anyone could see his palms right now, they would discover a layer of black qi spreading over his skin — that blood-red birthmark on his face appeared to grow a little darker in color, too.
The few people that had been standing by his side automatically spread out a little, then exchanged looks, coming to surround Zhou Zishu and Zhang Chengling.
Zhou Zishu didn’t care at all. Like no one else was around, he leaned over to nab Zhang Chengling by the collar and lift him up off the ground. “Stand up, brat. It’s undignified to lay splayed out on the ground.”
Slightly caught off guard, Zhang Chengling looked Zhou Zishu up and down in bewilderment, as the man was wearing yet another layer of mask. He looked to be a little puzzled.
“Good chap, we merely have some business we needed to find this child to ask after,” the man in red said patiently. “How about you—“
He had yet to say ‘mind your own’ before he saw Zhou Zishu’s hand move lightning-quick. The other used the exact same motion he himself just had — the one that had lured Zhang Chengling here now had his neck grabbed.
The other was shocked. His martial arts were relatively strong, in all honestly, yet he hadn’t expected that the rail-thin, skeletal man before him would move like a monster, taking his most vulnerable area in hand before he had time to dodge.
Anyone that had practiced a tiny amount of martial arts would know that the neck, chest, and so on were the most stringently-defended vital areas. One didn’t even need to think of doing it, as it would be subconsciously guarded. One that dared to go for another’s neck would generally be either too weak, or too confident in their own genuine power.
Zhou Zishu grinned in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “Who’s your grandpa?”
The man he was strangling looked taken aback for a second, then became exceedingly angry. He planned to cuss him out, regardless of the consequences. “You—“
However, he only got one word out, as Zhou Zishu’s hand suddenly gripped harder, turning the man’s foul words into a hoarse shriek. In a panic, he swatted at Zhou Zishu’s chest. The space between the two was not much. All that was heard was a miserable shout; he had never seen his counterpart make a move, yet both of his arms had been dislocated, dangling downwards.
“Tell me: Who’s… your… grandpa?” he heard Zhou Zishu say softly, his words drawn out.
“What is the meaning of this?” the man in red raged.
Zhou Zishu slowly turned to him, smiling coldly. “I merely have some business I needed to find this bastard to ask after. How about you mind your own?”
The tendons on the back of his hand suddenly bulged outwards. The one he held didn’t even let out a grunt, his eyes rolling back into his head as he convulsed, then stopped moving. It was unclear whether he was dead or alive.
As soon as Zhou Zishu let him go, he bonelessly flopped to the ground.
Then, two people charged out at the exact same time, one going for Zhang Chengling, who had just stood up stably, and one wielding a long hook, greeting Zhou Zishu with a bloodied gust coming at him.
Zhou Zishu didn’t even dodge, sending out a kick from an outrageous angle that landed squarely in the middle of the hook-wielder’s chest. The man spurted out a mouthful of blood on the spot, flew backwards, and happened to collide with the one sneak-attacking Zhang Chengling. The two rolled away together, resembling gourd ladles.
Frowning, Zhou Zishu hatefully grabbed the back of Zhang Chengling’s neck, and then, as if he had caught a kitten, tossed him to the side. “You’ll get in the way, kid. Be food, stay over there, and don’t move,” he said impatiently.
Zhang Chengling felt his body lighten, then get thrown to stand in a corner like it weighed nothing at all. In that moment, he widened his eyes slightly, parted his lips, and silently mouthed the word, “Master.”
The man in red didn’t move. The others charged towards Zhou Zishu in full.
As he watched, Zhang Chengling didn’t even want to blink. He remembered that, in his childhood, his father had said, Every path in the way of the martial artist is different. There are those as stable as a boulder, as steady as Mount Tai. There are those harsher than is typical, no stronghold unable to be toppled by them. There are those that are a violent storm, as quick as lightning. However, those are all tangible arts. The most powerful person must be silent, intangible, and beyond description. At first glance, they resemble a spring rain dewing all things quietly, yet only one phrase embodies them: They fly as easily as a startled bird, and lift what is heavy as if it were light.
Now, he understood at last what it was to lift the heavy as if it were light.
All of these people held the exact same type of hook. Looking closely at them, their shapes resembled a scorpion’s sting, and were faintly suffused with a blue light, giving it a mysterious chill. Zhang Chengling didn’t know this right now, but they were the infamous Venoms, a gang of pariahs that killed for wealth, and could do anything so long as here was coin to be had. They were despicable and lowly, inciting disgust in others.
Though, they didn’t look like much of anything right now. Zhou Zishu’s taken steps weren’t too big, as if he was tired; he would only take a step or half-step in advance or retreat every once in a while. He used only his bare hands. His body was extremely flexible, as if he had no bones, swaying to and fro while none of the hook-wielders were able to get anywhere near him. Even so, getting the slightest bump from those bendy limbs would inform his opponents of how tremendous he was.
Zhang Chengling stared for a long while. In his astonishment, and slight dizziness, patterns danced before his eyes.
In no more than an incense stick’s lifespan, all of the thirty Venoms were laid out on the ground.
Zhang Chengling’s blood started pumping in that instant. He couldn’t help but clench a fist tight, squeezing with force.
Zhou Zishu breezily brushed his robes off, wordlessly standing opposite of the man in red. After sizing him up for a while, he suddenly tilted his head slightly to the side, narrowed his eyes, and asked, “That birthmark on your face… the commonfolk say it was caused by a minor ghost’s slap. Are you the one comparable to a star of impending death? Sun Ding, the Merry Death Wraith?”
The man’s expression twisted up.
Zhou Zishu laughed coldly. “Wraith Vale has its rules. Become a Vile Wraith, and no longer be a human, never to be seen in the light again. Apart from the Ghost Festival, there is no justification for you to come out… you’re pretty bold, aren’t you? Under the bright light of day, you’ve dared to act in Dongting’s domain.”
“You talk too much,” the man in red said with gritted teeth. Right before he finished speaker, he had turned into a blood-red afterimage, his illusory form coming in close. An unutterably unpleasant stink came off of him, like a mix of blood and dead flesh — a gust of wind came besieging, so fast, it was difficult to perceive.
Zhou Zishu suddenly soared upwards and back, going three zhang away through the air.
The man in red’s palm went out, yet hit no one. Zhang Chengling could clearly see that, right where Zhou Zishu had stepped, there was a new palm-shaped dent in the ground. A few blades of grass that had been trembling in the autumn wind now withered at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The boy looked up in total shock. He hadn’t anticipated that this scary-looking man in red would actually be the legendary Sun Ding!
The murderer, that had killed Mu Yunge and Fang Buzhi.
Zhou Zishu nonchalantly snapped off a branch. With a soft huff, he stuck it straight between the Merry Death Wraith’s hands. Its leaves died quickly, but his expression remained unchanged, nor did he let it go — with a lift and a push, the branch was irrigated with internal power, appearing to become abnormally flexible. The Merry Death Wraith momentarily believed it to be alive, faintly contained a trace of some adhering force.
Immensely shocked, he was about to draw back in retreat when Zhou Zishu’s palm was already nearing his lower stomach. The Wraith, badgered, used that force to go into a somersault and retreat about four steps back. Complexion wan, he then managed to stabilize himself.
Zhou Zishu flippantly tossed the branch away before its death qi spread to his hand. He lightly straightened out his sleeves, standing there solemnly.
The Wraith was one to be very aware of his current situation. When he landed upon the ground, he didn’t hesitate for a moment to use the backlash’s power, leap away, and vanish after a few bounds.
“He ran away!” Zhang Chengling anxiously said.
Zhou Zishu glanced at him, then ignored him, turning to leave in the opposite direction. Zhang Chengling hurriedly caught up to him, calling out, “Master!”
Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks, furrowing his brows. “Who’s your Master?”
Having caught up to him without regard for anything else, Zhang Chengling clung to his arm, tilted his head to look up at him, and said with determination, “I know that you’re Uncle Zhou, a great benefactor, and my Master.”
If not him, who else would have such an oh-so-impatient tone of voice, such shrunken yet warm hands, such ghost-like agility arts? If not him, who else would have stepped out alone out of that sea of people, then saved him now?
Zhang Chengling firmly believed that it was him, and he wasn’t a tiny bit wrong. Zhou Zishu had carelessly squandered time, then — he hadn’t expected to be able to hide from some people, yet he also hadn’t expected that this little turd would see through him. Foiled in some sort of sense, he flung him off with focused effort. “You…”
He didn’t get to finished, eyes suddenly turning frosty. Dragging Zhang Chengling into his arms, he stumbled to side-step.
Before Zhang Chengling could react, he felt a faint wind brush past him in that very moment. The arms surrounding him seemed to stiffen, after which he heard Zhou Zishu say, “Death seeker!”
A palm chopped outwards. The ambushed had no time to leap away fully, his neck slanting to one side, broken.
Zhang Chengling focused his sights. He saw that the ambusher was the unlucky ghoul that had first been strangled by Zhou Zishu; the man had actually mastered the art of tortoise-breathing, and had only been playing dead.
The next moment, he was picked up and thrown aside again. Zhou Zishu walked off without another word.
Would Zhang Chengling have ever let him off, though? He shamelessly gave chase.
However, he saw a pattern bloom before him as the other’s figure flashed, then was no longer in front of him. Zhang Chengling knew him to have unmatched agility arts, ones that he himself would never be able to match up to even if he practiced for forty years. Extremely upset, he indistinctly called out, “Master…”
He was so anxious, he nearly burst into tears.
Right then, he heard a chuckle. A man in gray popped up out of nowhere, happening to block Zhou Zishu’s escape route, and reached out to loop around his waist. It was almost like he had calculated the exact moment he ought to come out and disrupt things.
Zhou Zishu whirled in midair, but for some unknown reason, his movements faltered, and he ended up getting embraced by the man in gray.
That familiar voice, able to make one’s teeth itch in hate, was heard to speak. “O Master Saint Zhou, for what cause are you in such a rush over?”
When the two landed upon the ground, Zhou Zishu suddenly grunted, clasping his right arm. The gray-clothed Wen Kexing ungraciously tore his sleeve open in a deliberately horizontal way, as if he wanted to drag him into his own cut-sleeve waters. The second thereafter, though, he frowned — upon Zhou Zishu’s arm were two tiny wounds pricked into it, oozing purple and resembling the sting of an insect.
“I was wondering why you were running so fast. You were stung by a venomous scorpion,” he said.
Zhang Chengling hadn’t expected such a development. Seeming to understand something, he turned his head to look at the deceased that had ambushed them, face white.
Before Zhou Zishu could say anything, Wen Kexing sealed several of his major acupoints with lightning speed, and commanded him with a “Shut up.”
After this, he took out a magnet, carefully drew out the two hair-thin needles that had been stuck into the other’s skin, bent over to lean in close, then used his mouth to suck out the poisoned blood without any discretion in the least.
Zhou Zishu instantly solidified into a rock.
—
The translator says: i don’t think this is his kink, man
(i was in physical pain trying to come up with a translation of 我是你爷爷么? that isn’t “Who’s your daddy?”, and i can’t use that phrase because the internet ruined it. what if zzs said “Who’s your pappy?” that’s worse, right? that’s worse.)
Wen Kexing quickly and efficiently sucked all of the poison out of his arm, treating it skillfully on his behalf. Upon unsealing Zhou Zishu’s acupoints, he then took out a small medicine bottle out from his pockets, dumped out two pills into his hand, placed one into his own mouth, and placed the other into his hand, bringing it up to Zhou Zishu’s lips with a grin. “Come on, Ah-Xu. Open your mouth,” he said, drawing out his voice provocatively.
Zhou Zishu stared at him, expression dark.
Determined, Wen Kexing still smiled splendidly, as if the other’s gaze couldn’t poke through his wall-like face, even if it turned into an awl. He gave a meaningful look towards Zhang Chengling, then purposefully suppressed his volume. “I’ve cared for and kissed you before. What are you still being so shy for?”
Zhou Zishu reached up, took the pill, and walked away without looking back.
At that point, Wen Kexing beckoned the dumbstruck Zhang Chengling over, and said cheerily, “I managed to get your Master to stop running. Why aren’t you following him?”
It was already getting dark. It was unclear how far Zhang Chengling had run while being lured away from the Dongting hero meet-up by that Venom, but it had been to a place where no buildings were around to see proper. It was quite the dilemma.
Zhou Zishu went off for a short while, and returned with a few big hares. Despite saying nothing of it, he still made portions for the other two.
“Do you know what the second-most adorable sort of person ever is?” he heard Wen Kexing say to Zhang Chengling, all smiles.
The boy looked up at him. Thinking of how this man had been able to effortlessly restrain his Master, the prior injury aside, it was clear that his martial arts were high. The guy himself was a bit wacko, too. For that reason, he was further awed by him, and shook his head in obedient silence.
“It’s those that have harsh tongues, yet soft hearts. Do you know what the absolute most adorable sort of person is, then?”
Zhou Zishu methodically cut open the hares’ stomachs. Hearing this, he swept Wen Kexing an icy look. “Knock it off with the nonsense. Go fetch some firewood,” he commanded.
Wen Kexing gleefully agreed, then turned to leave. Upon glimpsing the very strange and complicated look Zhang Chengling was giving him, he believed that the child had an abundant inquisitiveness and desire for knowledge, so he explained, ever fond of giving lessons. “It’s those that have harsh tongues, soft hearts, and thin waists paired with long legs.”
“Don’t listen to him praise himself, brat,” Zhou Zishu continued indifferently.
Zhang Chengling hesitantly hit Zhou Zishu with a glance again. On the inside, he wondered if he had understood wrong, but this man had clearly said…
“Stay away from him,” the other went on. “He’s an old bull that likes to eat young grass.”
Wen Kexing tripped on some dead branches. He turned his head back, upset. “Ah-Xu, you’re doing my heart so much wrong.”
Zhou Zishu pointed at the hare carcasses. “If you don’t go get some firewood, I’ll disembowel you like your brothers here.”
Alarmed, Wen Kexing immediately covered his stomach, then ran away hyper-vigilantly, like an actual hare would.
Zhou Zishu found a small stream to wash his hands in. He wrapped his mostly-torn sleeve around himself with some unease — the tactile sensation of Wen Kexing’s lips on his arm seemed like it was still there. Also, he had clearly felt that after the man had finished sucking out the poison, he had licked his wound, which had sent prickles across his scalp in an instant… that had definitely been on purpose.
He thus furiously tore the human-skin mask off of his face, then uncaringly tossed it into the water, thinking of how someone could be gay enough to be so indiscriminately ravenous, so undisguised, so eternally in rut. After so many years of being alive, he had actually come to recognize a rare bloom that much resembled a dogtail flower.
He turned away, whereupon Zhang Chengling spotted his familiar visage again, calling out a pleasantly surprised “Master!”
…As if he had only just now recognized him, he followed him here and there like a little puppy, yet was also carefully maintaining a set distance from him, as if afraid that he would aggravate him.
Sighting him out of his peripheral vision, Zhou Zishu’s heart softened up, and he beckoned him over. “Come here.”
Zhang Chengling eagerly sidled up before him. “Master,” he said, trying to flatter him.
Zhou Zishu thought for a bit. “With the distance you went, you likely won’t be able to return today, and will have to sleep in the wild tonight. I’ll see you back to Hero Zhao tomorrow morning.”
The boy’s eyes instantly dimmed. He didn’t say anything, merely bowing his head to look at the tips of his shoes, dejected and sullenly silent. By nature, Zhou Zishu did not react to force, but did to persuasion, and he was least able to withstand displays like this — he was forced to cough dryly, then say with a frown, “What are you doing, now?”
Zhang Chengling kept his head lowered. “I understand,” he said quietly.
After that, he didn’t make another chirp, only sneaking glances at Zhou Zishu with his little eyes. Once discovered, he speedily swiveled away, worrying his lower lip as he blinked his eyes; there was actually a teardrop on his lashes.
Zhou Zishu leaned against a tree, then plopped into a seat. He really wasn’t sure what he should do with this little thing. Maybe it hadn’t been Hero Zhang Yusen’s destiny to have a daughter, so he had raised this son of his as a girl, which had created this brat. Feigning impatience, he furrowed his brow and shouted, “Stand up straight! Lift up your head!”
Zhang Chengling jolted, stood up straight, and lifted up his head. The second he did, he couldn’t keep it together, the held-up tears at the corners of his eyes trickling down.
Not liking to see this very much, Zhou Zishu unconsciously softened his tone up a little. “Wipe your face off. Are you not a man, still? What’s such a big deal for you to be crying over?”
The boy wiped his face hard, but instead of getting it clean, he felt all the more aggrieved, his tears flowing out further. Eventually unable to hold it back, he choked out with intermittent tears, “Mas… Master… I d-don’t usually cry, I-I… I just saw you, and felt… felt upset… I-I… I…”
Zhou Zishu’s head swelled up in size. He didn’t want to look him in the eye anymore, barely managing to school his expression into indifference as he shifted his gaze away.
Right then, Wen Kexing returned bearing a pile of stuff for fire-making. As soon as he saw this stand-off, he was momentarily stunned.
The sky had gone totally dark, the light on the horizon slowly dissipating, and the west was a stretch of miserable grayish-white. Twilit stars hung above treetops as the night wind picked up, a coldness gradually seeping outwards.
Saying nothing, Wen Kexing chopped a few pieces of wood, kindled a fire, and put the hares Zhou Zishu had prepared over it on a rack. While patiently roasting them, he hummed a tuneless little ditty that sounded a little like Eighteen Touches, which was very in-line with his personal style. Zhou Zishu sat silently to one side, one leg curled up with his arm propped against its knee, while Zhang Chengling desperately repressed his sobbing.
A long while later, a meaty aroma wafted outwards. Zhang Chengling’s stomach rumbled, the youth’s face turning rosy red, after which Wen Kexing glanced at him with a grin. “You have to wait, still. It’s not cooked through yet.”
The kid nodded obediently. Wen Kexing felt like he was even more docile than a bunny, so he turned to Zhou Zishu and said, “Hey, if he wants to follow you, you should let him follow you, I say. Why would you save him repeatedly, if you didn’t like him?”
Zhou Zishu stood up with extreme slowness, came in close, and warmed his hands over the fire. Several acupoints on his chest were aching slightly, which caused him to feel somewhat cold.
Wen Kexing kicked him with his toes. “I asked you something.”
“I’m just dandy,” the other answered, still excruciatingly slow.
Zhang Chengling suddenly began to speak, however, his voice still slightly hoarse and trembly. “Master, you shouldn’t take me with you. I’m trouble, so many people want to kill me, and my… my martial arts aren’t good. I even got you hurt…”
Wen Kexing went to comfort him. “It’s okay, he’s got thick skin… what are you glaring at me for? Everyone’s just a hunk of skin. You wrap yourself up like a zongzi all day long, pasting on another layer when the first one isn’t enough.”
Seeing the boy be dumbfounded, he continued to patiently explain. “Take a look at his arm; above the wrist and below the wrist are two different pigments. Your Master is hiding his head, yet accidentally showing his tail. Even now, he refuses to be frank with me.”
Zhou Zishu didn’t feel like paying him any mind, tearing off a chunk of meat from a roasting hare’s leg, put it in his mouth, and chewed on it slowly.
When he went to tear off more, Wen Kexing took it away from him. “Are you a starved ghost reincarnated?” the latter asked with disgust. “The grease hasn’t been fully cooked out of them yet.”
After languidly swallowing the hare meat, Zhou zishu looked at him. “Are you a woman reincarnated? You stink of cosmetics and carry hankies on you. Isn’t your mouth worn-out? Where’s all that nonsense coming out of?”
Wen Kexing shut up.
A short while later, the hares were roasted through. The meat was shiny-gold and crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Zhou Zishu called Zhang Chengling over, as well. Since they were two men and a child that had gone hungry for a full day, none of them had manners as they horfed down their food in relative silence. It didn’t take long for those fat hares to become a heap of cleaned bones.
Once done with the meal, the three basked in the heat of the fire for a time. Zhou Zishu went off on his own to lean against something and shut his eyes in rest.
“Why are your martial arts poor?” Wen Kexing now questioned Zhang Chengling. “Didn’t your father teach you any?”
“He did, but because my aptitude is low and I refused to put in effort, I don’t recall most of it,” the boy whispered back.
Wen Kexing pondered, then shook his head. “When my dad taught me martial arts as a young one, I refused to put in effort, too, similar to you. But my aptitude wasn’t that low…”
Eyes still not opening, Zhou Zishu nevertheless laughed in mockery at that.
Wen Kexing ignored him to size Zhang Chengling up. “Would you like to learn martial arts?” he casually asked.
All of a sudden, Zhang Chengling raised his head, eyes cauterizing as they looked at him.
That gaze was so intense, it practically caught Wen Kexing off guard. It was like he hadn’t seen a hopeful look as unrelenting, candid, and full-stakes as this in a very, very long time. “You… you little rascal, why did you turn into a hungry wolf the instant you heard that?” he had to question.
Zhang Chengling knelt down all of a sudden. “Senior! I beg you, teach me! Have me do whatever you want!”
The man rubbed his nose, coughing dryly. “Watch how you word things. Someone as young as you is of no interest to me… ahem!”
Firelight illuminated the youth’s countenance red. There was an unspeakable resoluteness covering his still somewhat juvenile face, yet a childish frailty and pleading accompanied it.
Getting stared at for a short moment made Wen Kexing react identically to how Zhou Zishu would — he uncomfortably moved his gaze away. Following some hesitation, he sighed, stood up, pat off the dirt marring his clothes, and picked up a one-chi-long wooden stick. “Alright, I’ll teach you some moves. Watch carefully, because I won’t do them twice.”
With that said, he began to slowly demonstrate moves and forms rhythmically. Zhang Chengling was unwilling to even blink, and once he had seen it through to the end, he got up to practice it all himself.
This truly was not a bright child. Despite having said he would only show him once, Wen Kexing couldn’t resist correcting him while also explaining things in detail. Zhang Chengling looked at him with sparkling eyes, voice trembling in excitement as he said a string of “Thank you, Senior!”s.
Wen Kexing had clearly never received such enthusiastic gratitude from anyone before, expressing some uncommon reservation.
Nearly half of the night passed like so. Zhang Chengling seemed to never tired a little, still gesticulating nearby. Wen Kexing sat silently to one side, no smile upon his face; it looked like he was thinking about something.
Suddenly, he heard Zhou Zishu, who had already rested earlier, softly questioned him with, “Your surname is Wen… who is the former Sacred Hand, Wen Ruyu, to you?”
Wen Kexing’s entire body appeared to jolt. Only a long time later did he whisper, “My father.”
Zhou Zishu opened his eyes to stare at the other’s profile for a minute. When he spoke once more, his tone of voice was much more serious. “I’ve long heard that Senior Wen of the Sacred Hand had a benevolent heart. Years ago, when he wandered jianghu with Qiuming, the sword of ‘Autumn Light’, and his wife, Divine Doctor Gu Miaomiao, he helped countless people. Later on, they both went into seclusion, and no one knew where they went off to. Your father is venerable, and I failed to pay my respects to that.”
Wen Kexing appeared to smile, yet also appeared to carry an indescribable sorrow about himself. “Someone still knows of his sword forms, even now?”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for a short time. Even Heaven’s Pane was not completely without holes, else he would never have been able to escape it. The Qiuming Sword had probably retired over twenty years ago, and to this day, no one knew where the married couple had gone to, nor what had happened to them.
He wordlessly took a measure of Wen Kexing. The other sat next to the campfire, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes calm and distant as they watched Zhang Chengling clumsily practice the sword forms his father had once taught him. He showed some aloof peace that was beyond speech, truly matching what Zhou Zishu imagined Wen Ruyu ought to look like.
Then, Wen Kexing was heard to suddenly recite a poem. “This grain, in far rows. This millet, it grows. My gait, now, it slows. My heart shakes; it knows. Those that know me? They say I fret within. Those that do not? They say I seek wherein. Distant Heavens! Who was this for? This grain, far it peers. This millet, it ears…”
His voice was let off extremely quietly, being somewhat hoarse. It was muffled-sounding, with the primordial chaos of unclear enunciation — each and every word seemed to emit from his chest, swirl within his throat, and refuse to come out, lingering.
Fierce fire burned through the wood. Crackling echoed around. There was a move Zhang Chengling didn’t understand, and he was thinking of coming over to ask, but hearing that singing voice not too far away made him stop in his tracks, for some reason.
When the Prince of Ping had moved, his family wandering about, the Big Man of Zhou had supposedly passed ancestral Zhou’s Haojing during his service. Upon seeing how the ancestral temple and palace had since fallen into disrepair, his imperial visage had taken an isolated tinge; in the unending wild grass and sullen millet about, this elegy had been born of circumstance.
Grieved by a flourishing land since dead, grieved by a past life of yesterday that might not be, nor remain.
And what was Zhang Chengling thinking of as he listened to the song, his mind in motion? He was still but a child — in this life of his, he would likely never muster the courage to return and look at the Zhang home of Jiangnan. The place that had once borne many blessed childhood memories was now an untold amount of remnant roof tile fragments and messy red mud, which would take him a lifetime to bear upon his back.
Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes. Grabbing the flask by his waist, he knocked his head back to pour it down, the stinging taste rushing to his head and almost making him choke until tears came out of him.
Those that know me? They say I fret within. Those that do not? They say I seek wherein…
Wen Kexing seemed to have a subtle air of self-derision as he recited those four sentences on repeat. His eyes curved up, like he was showing a hint of a smile.
What was he seeking?
It was unclear how much time passed. No one said a word. Wen Kexing’s humming gradually ceased. Zhang Chengling was hugging a casually broken-off branch much with as much care as one would hug a sword of peerless quality, while he himself was listed to one side, fast asleep. Who knew what he was dreaming of, as the corners of his mouth were raised slightly, yet his brows were in a dogged knot that refused to untie.
After getting up, Zhou Zishu shed his outer robe to lightly cover him with, then sighed quietly. “Your good father’s Eighteen Forms of Qiuming once ran amok in the martial world, I’ve heard. You only taught him three moves, and I noticed that not a one of those are included in the Eighteen Forms. But then, when I thought carefully about it, while the Forms do constantly morph, all of them originate within those three moves… you’ve really surpassed your predecessor, Brother Wen.”
“His sword styles were definitely inferior to mine, but his medical skills are something I can’t comprehend,” Wen Kexing answered calmly, similarly hushing his voice. “All I do know is how to bandage a wound, and that if you catch a fever, you’ll sweat all over, then be done with it.”
Then, he turned to look at him. “You know my old man’s sword forms quite well. What else do you know?”
Zhou Zishu and he were seated around the fire together. Gathering up his collar, he half of his hand was shrunken back into his sleeves, his fingertips warmed up. “In jianghu, there’s the enigmatic Shaman Valley that makes no distinction between medicine and poison,” he started slowly. “There’s also Healer Valley, which aids the dying and the wounded all for the public good; I’ve heard that it doesn’t have martial arts as its main forte, yet no one provokes them rashly. Your venerable mother, Heroine Gu, was the final disciple of Healer Valley’s Lord, and slated to be the most beautiful woman in Shuzhong during her youth. When news saying she married later spread around, a lots of hearts were broken.”
Wen Kexing started chuckling softly. “You’re a grown man. Why do you know all of this lousy trivia?” he teased. “Do you ask around for stuff like this because you’re bored through the day?”
Zhou Zishu laughed as well. “Why not? It’s what I’m good at.”
The two went silent again momentarily, before Wen Kexing quietly said, “This was all from so many years ago…”
Perhaps it was due to some sort of ineffable similarity between them, but as soon as Zhou Zishu heard his sighs and songs, he seemed to understand a little something, and was something of the mind to comfort him. “Your mother and father were both seldom-seen good people, Daoist companions that roamed jianghu, then went into seclusion while embracing each other. If I could have a day like that, I would be willing to die tomorrow, really.”
The other smiled very, very lightly. “Good people?”
Who knew if it was due to the night being too still or what, but his expression was a little lost. “I never thought that after so many years, someone would still remember them and say that they were good. Tell me… what counts as a ‘good’ person? Why does one want to make themselves into a good person?”
Right when Zhou Zishu went to speak, some noise came from Zhang Chengling’s side; the youth’s breath caught, then changed in frequency. Zhou Zishu didn’t turn his head, knowing that the other had a nightmare, and awoken with a fright.
Zhang Chengling said nothing, as well. He merely nested there in silence, hugging both the broken branch and Zhou Zishu’s outer robe, listening.
With this development, Zhou Zishu swallowed the words that had come to his lips back down, then spoke blandly after a good minute of consideration. “Not every person in the world is good, but the majority want to be good. Even if one isn’t actually good, they’ll do all that they can put on a feint of being so.”
He paused for a short time, then continued. “As for why that is… I think it might rise from the fact that only when you’re good to other people, sincerely refuse to harm them, and do good deeds, others will then be good to you. Only when you’re a good person will you have friends, family, lovers, have so many people willing to be with you, willing to be good to you. Think about it; if someone only has themself all their life, on guard against everyone but themselves any time and any place, they’re close to no one, have no feelings for anyone, and cherish them and themself alone. Wouldn’t that be a bit too piteous? Being a bad person is too difficult.”
Wen Kexing was nearly dumbstruck listening to this. A long while later, he laughed, shaking his head.
Silent, Zhou Zishu merely added wood to the campfire. Wen Kexing looked down, his line of sight going to the bouncing sparks, then shook his head again, though the action grew slower and slower.
At the end of it, he laced his fingers, put them behind his head, and laid down on his back to that he faced the night sky of resplendent stars. Upon letting out a long exhale, he said, almost inaudibly, “That makes sense… that really does make sense, Ah-Xu.”
Zhou Zishu smiled.
“A hateable person… must have a portion of themself that is pitiable?” Wen Kexing asked again, as if to himself.
“Yep.”
Wen Kexing nodded on his own, uncaring of whether the other could see him or not, and followed it up with an earnest comment. “Ah-Xu, I’ve had the discovery that even if you aren’t a beauty, you’re becoming more and more to my tastes.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, grinning as he looked up at Zhou Zishu. “As I see it, you don’t need to envy my old parents. All you have to do is follow me from here on out. We could roam jianghu, then go into seclusion while embracing each other — you wouldn’t even need to die tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind just passing the days by with you, so… what do you say?”
“So sorry, but I mind,” Zhou Zishu answered expressionlessly. “You regard me too highly, Brother Wen.”
Wen Kexing started laughing. Using a vulgar tonality that stated, ’Beautiful one, why go through the trouble of hiding your face, when this gege’s burning heart is difficult to hide?’, he appreciated how Zhou Zishu was angry enough to snap the stick he was using to prod the fire, yet couldn’t blow up at him, forced to feign being deaf and mute.
The wicked self-amusement of being pressured by another’s anger, yet not feeling to slightest bit guilty about it, made him exceedingly jolly.
Early the following morning, Zhou Zishu came over with Zhou Zishu’s robe in his arms, handed it to him, and whispered, “Thank you, Master.”
Zhou Zishu took it, put it on, and shot him a look. “Come on. We’re going back to Gao Manor.”
The boy’s steps paused once, but he still followed silently, the spitting image of a mistreated child bride.
Watching all this with an indifferent eye, Wen Kexing consoled him. “Your Master has decided he’s going to mix in with the realm’s heroes. Smoke and mist form one fog, snakes and rats share a nest, as it goes. You’re staying in Gao Manor now, so you might as well be at Hero Zhao’s side, where you’ll be able to look for him at any time.”
After that, he speedily added on, “Of course, you can look for me at any time, too.”
Zhou Zishu, who was walking ahead, turned his head at this. “When did I ever say that I was going to stay here and mingle with that bunch?”
Grinning, Wen Kexing rubbed his own chin. “You’re not staying?”
“No,” the other said with a scowl.
Wen Kexing looked at Zheng Chengling. “Really?”
“N—“
Zhou Zishu subconsciously threw a glance at Zhang Chengling. The boy was staring at him unblinkingly, the look in his eyes identical to that of a cowed bunny; hopeful, but too afraid to make that obvious. As soon as he saw Zhou Zishu looking over, he quickly pursed his lips to put on a stalwart look.
Zhou Zishu’s following words turned to silence on their own. With a huff, he turned and strode forth.
Wen Kexing, ever fearing a world not in chaos, patted Zhang Chengling’s head, then said affectedly, “Ah-Xu, don’t you think that we look like a family of three?”
Zhou Zishu strode even faster.
Appearing to truthfully regard himself as a father, Wen Kexing said to Zhang Chengling with a kind look, “Nevermind that. The road ahead is yet long; shall I tell you a tale?”
The boy nodded obediently, then listened to the man confidently spout off balderdash.
“Rumor has it that at the foot of the Five Elements Range, there’s a yao child called the Red Boy that coexists with a bunch of monsters and demons. Of course, he doesn’t really look too fondly upon the jerks. In fact, he thinks them to be completely unpleasant, making things out of nothing all day long…”
He looked to be rather skilled at this line of work. Walking ahead of them, Zhou Zishu heard Wen Kexing’s elocution and bouncing cadence, which cajoled the stupid child that was Zhang Chengling into a fright. To his discovery, this Wen scoundrel had some air of a storyteller, who could let one travel the world as soon as he opened his mouth.
“…Then, the Red Boy learned that he had been born of unordinary circumstances. His mother was a great white snake spirit that humans called the White Maiden, but because she had secretly gone down to the mortal realm and had a tryst with a mortal, she was discovered by an old Buddhist named Fahai, then sealed beneath Mount Hua…”
Zhou Zishu suddenly tripped on a rock and almost faceplanted.
“…The Red Boy wanted to split the mountain apart to rescue his mother, but Fahai got in touch with a bunch of immortals to obstruct him. He defeated them one by one, but in a turn of events, the yaojing from his cave of origin changed currents, wanting him to die.”
Zhou Zishu had no idea what to say to that, but the now-nervous Zhang Chengling asked, “But why?”
“There was a secret, actually,” Wen Kexing answered. “The White Maiden was never a white snake, just a mortal that had gone somewhat down the Dao, and for whatever reason, rumors had spread that turned her into a yaojing sealed beneath Mount Hua. Think about it. If she were to be released, wouldn’t the Red Boy’s parents both be nothing more than mortals? And wouldn’t he be just a mortal, himself?”
Zhang Chengling listened, dumbstruck. “Oh, mortals… I still don’t get it.”
Wen Kexing grinned. “You dunce. Those not of our same race will not be of our same mind.”
Zhou Zishu’s heart jumped at that. He seemed to have some vague notion, but had no time to catch hold of it before it flashed away at flying speed.
“Then, is the Red Boy dead? Was the mountain not split open?” Zhang Chengling asked.
Wen Kexing thought for a time. “I haven’t made that part up yet. What do you think?” he countered.
“He should be victorious over the yaojing, rescue his mother, and then finally become a great, all-powerful hero!” said the boy, resolute.
“Hm… that’s fine, but it seems a bit too boring. Nine out of every ten stories end like that, so… how about the Red Boy becomes a mortal from there on out, no longer able to fly amidst the clouds?”
Zhang Chengling let out an ah. He felt that ending to be a little regrettable, yet also couldn’t say how it was.
He raised his head to look at Wen Kexing. Feeling that this Senior was pretty nice and easy to talk to, he felt closer to him. “Can you tell me another tale, Senior?” he attempted.
At long last, Wen Kexing had found an interested audience. Since the kid was a face-giver and on the proper path in life, he opened up his box of chatter; the novel and interesting tales of ‘The Owl and the Bowl of Red Water’, ‘Jiang Ziyu Wars with the Skeletal Spirit’, and ‘Cui Yingying Angrily Throws Her Jewelry Box into Water’ came in quick succession as he babbled them all back to Dongting’s Gao Manor.
Upon the three’s arrival, they ran into Cao Weining. The gent was stunned upon seeing Zhang Chengling, and proceeded to make a big hullabaloo. “Hey, Young Lord, where did you go off to with these two gentlemen?! Hero Zhao has been going mad looking for you!”
“We happened to see the boy wander off on his own,” Zhou Zishu said, “so we gave chase without taking our leave first, and—“
He didn’t get to finish, as Cao Weining suddenly pulled him away. “You just missed some big news! Come quick, some people over there are going to get their heads beaten until they look like dogs!”
—
The translator says: WKX has essentially made his own crossover fanfiction of a bunch of famous tales, lmao.
First, he mixes the Red Boy of Journey to the West into the Legend of the White Snake. She has a son, but it ain’t him.
Second, Jiang Ziyu is a real person blended into legends, most prominently Romance of the Investiture of the Gods. The Skeletal Spirit is from Journey to the West. They never meet, as you can imagine.
Third, Cui Yingying is from Yingying’s Biography, yet has somehow supplanted Du Shiniang in her own story.
Zhou Zishu’s interest in this was lacking. Whether they were getting their heads beaten into dog shapes or pig shapes, it had nothing to do with him. The only thing he wanted to do right now was find a restaurant, fill his emptied flask up, then find a dimly-lit spot to sleep in, because that was what he needed to shake the story of the Red Boy splitting a mountain to save the White Snake out of his mind that was filled with it.
Using a dextrous trick, he gently broke free from Cao Weining. “We’d better see this boy back to Hero Zhao, first,” he explained.
Cao Weining smacked himself on the head. “Right, right! That slipped my mind.”
He turned to look at Zhang Chengling, an oddly pitying look appearing on his face (it could never hide his emotions that well). Then, he sighed, patting the boy on his shoulder. “You’re so young, yet things are so hard for you. You’ll have to have some more caution from now on.”
Being unfamiliar with him, Zhang Chengling was confused, but Wen Kexing reacted first to interject. “Why, are they still bickering over something related to the Whorl Beryl? Do they suspect that the Zhang family…”
He glanced at Zhang Chengling, voice stopping there.
Cao Weining didn’t regard them as outsiders, moving to explain with no stutter. “You all were still running about at the time, but yesterday was a furor. The second Feng Xiaofeng brought up the Whorl, the pot boiled over practically on the spot, with the two talents Hero Gao and Grandmaster Cimu barely able to contain the scene. Many came to have other motives; the Sect Leader of Mount Hua, Yu Qiufeng, stood up first to demand whether Hero Zhao had embezzled the Zhang’s Whorl piece for himself, and whether that had led to his son’s violent death.”
He thought back for a bit, then narrated in a flat tone, as if he was reciting from memory. “How Yu Qiufeng looked, all dripping with snot and tears, made him look like he had specially come to Dongting to howl in mourning and was about to lose his mind. Emei, Kongtong, Mount Cang, and some other sects typically have good relations with Mount Hua, so they all stood on his side and demanded a statement for what had happened outside of Zhao Manor. There was Feng Xiaofeng’s group fanning the flames, too. The fight never ended, and ended up with a brawl of punches and kicks. Others still asked Hero Gao why Wraith Vale residents were suddenly reappearing in jianghu, as well as for an explanation as to what the Whorl is.”
Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu jointly looked at Cao Weining with interest, wondering how, during the day they hadn’t seen him, this foolish punk’s mouth had turned sharp.
The other coughed dryly. “That’s all what my sect-uncle said. As for the details of what actually happened… I didn’t understand any of the clamor I heard yesterday, really.”
No wonder it had sounded like he was reciting something…
Zhou Zishu abruptly turned to ask Zhang Chengling, “Little imp, do you or do you not know something? Why else would your room get burned down, and someone hire the Venoms to kill you?”
Zhang Chengling stared at him blankly, and shook his head brainlessly.
The man rolled his eyes back towards the sky. Since he genuinely couldn’t glean anything from the other’s unintelligent look, he paid him no more mind in order to speak to Cao Weining. “I’ll have to trouble you with bringing him back to where Hero Zhao is, Brother Cao. Thanks a bunch.”
With that, he turned and started walking, evidently disinterested in touching this racket that was all the realm’s heroes making a damn mess.
Quietly watching his back, Zhang Chengling pursed his lips.
All of a sudden, he felt a hand on top of his head. Once he raised it, he happened to see Wen Kexing smiling at him.
“Senior,” he mumbled out.
“Do you know why he puts on airs with everyone, yet is so impatient with you?” Wen Kexing asked.
Zhang Chengling lowered his head, whispering, “It’s probably because I’m too stupid…”
“You’re only a generic kind of stupid, not ‘too’ stupid. He doesn’t give any of that gentlemanly, fake-pretentious drivel to you, which means that he’s willing to get close to you, he’s just too embarrassed to say so. As I see it, he’s shy.”
Zhang Chengling was caught off guard. “Really?”
Beaming as he watched Zhou Zishu leave, Wen Kexing casually answered, “Those that beget him were parents, and the one that knows him is this one here. It’s very likely that I’m the only one in the world qualified to be his confidant, so I wouldn’t lie to you, naturally.”
His internal injuries, his face-changing, his daily habit of maybe-consciously concealing his own tracks, those martial arts, and that way he listed off old jianghu affairs as if he was listing off his familial assets… Wen Kexing could think of no other explanation for that all, aside from Heaven’s Pane.
But if the other really was from there, how had he escaped the penalty of the Septeye Nails, which even ghouls would shy away from?
After being unable to grasp the full picture for very many days, Wen Kexing had come to realize a certain truth. The key point was not how the man had eluded the Nails, but that he knew how to elude the Nails…
He had thought, I might have actually caught up to a big one.
Before Zhang Chengling had time to process what he meant, he heard the know-nothing Cao Weining pipe up, and with emotion. “Even though I’ve been thinking this whole time that the two of you being men is a little bit weird, it now seems like if one can have a close confidant by their side for all their life, someone that understands them deeply in just a few words, would they not be even happier than Daoist companions? And what would it matter if they were male or female?”
Saying so, he began to complacently expatiate all on his own. “There’s a saying that goes, ‘I catechize this world of the living; what sort of thing is love? The Peach Flower Pond deeps a thousand chi, yet it pales…”
Pales to what, he didn’t say, because when he felt the words on his lips, he couldn’t remember them for the life of him. Quite embarrassed, he hemmed and hawed, then ended it with a comment. “This poem written by Mr. Du Fu is abstruse and somewhat hard to understand, but a careful analysis of it gives much meaning.”[14]
Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing both looked at him funny.
A long while later, the latter said, “Purewind Sword Sect’s higher disciples are indeed talented both artistically and martially. Very admirable.”
The thin-skinned Cao Weining felt a bit embarrassed receiving such praise, smiling awkwardly. “How so? My Master says that we, as people of the martial world, have no use for studying books, and no one expects any of us to go qualify for Prime Scorer. Coming to know some characters to not be completely blind is fine, but practicing martial arts into expertise is only proper. I’ve only read a few days’ worth of texts, which I didn’t seek any answers for.”
Wen Kexing felt the phrase ‘I didn’t seek any answers’ to be far too exquisite.
The two brought Zhang Chengling back. Zhao Jing had narrowly gone insane, grabbing him and asking this and that. Wen Kexing looked on coolly, thinking of how this old geezer, in spite of his slyness, was not indifferent to this son of an old friend. When he silently turned to leave, he felt eyes staring at him the second he did.
He stopped in his tracks to turn and look. The moment his gaze met with the other’s, there came a vicious glint from them, the man resembling a rabid dog ready to charge. Seeing how Cao Weining was speaking deferentially to him, Wen Kexing surmised that this was his sect-uncle, an old prick known in Purewind Sword Sect for being a nobody — Mo Huaikong.
While listening to Cao Weining wear his mouth out rambling on about nothing, Mo Huaikong followed his pointers to look in Wen Kexing’s direction. He first felt the man to be somewhat familiar, and secondly felt somewhat alarmed by the remote depths of his eyes, yet he couldn’t recall anything about him.
Following a moment of surprise, he happened to see Wen Kexing curve his lips in a smile towards him. Upon hearing Cao Weining emotionally sigh about how he had a deeply affectionate relationship with another man, he couldn’t help but huff, thinking at heart that — from his head to his toes — there was nothing good about this Wen guy.
Thus, he turned his head to chastise Cao Weining. “Are you still not done?”
The other immediately swallowed down the rest of his words, shutting his mouth in compliance and practically itching to sew his own lips shut.
On this evening, Zhou Zishu had just eaten his full, and was now leaning against the banister of a restaurant, sipping his newly-refreshed wine. All of a sudden, he heard someone come in, say something to the people at the adjacent table, and then all of them quickly pay their check and leave. Lifting his eyelids, he discovered that restaurant’s population had instantly halved, so he grabbed a young man to ask, “What happened?”
“News came in just now. Gao Manor caught a Wraith, and wants to show them off to everyone!”
Zhou Zishu’s brows lightly furrowed. Gao Chong caught a Wraith of Green Bamboo Ridge? He’d already held suspicions that the Wraiths were re-entering jianghu, considering he had seen two of them himself, but what was the Vale of Wraith’s intent?
Vile Wraiths were extremely treacherous and vile humans that had no easy footing in the human world, entering the Vale for shelter after such. Were they not fearful, running back into the bright universe?
Was there really some sort of dire secret within the Whorl Beryl, dire enough to bring out the Vale in full force? To have Hero Gao place three seals upon his mouth to keep the secret deep inside, to the point that he would utilize such an inelegant antic to divert everyone’s lines of sight away?
Zhou Zishu thought while he walked. When he went downstairs, he wasn’t paying attention and ran into someone head-on; while his mouth was saying “Sorry,” he raised his head to see that the other was the Ancient Monk’s disciple, the one that would not eat the mortal world’s fare, and was taken aback.
All of a sudden, a thought appeared and the edges of his mind: So, he actually does want to eat that fare?
The Monk disciple said “It’s fine,” then straightened out his clothes, looked at him, and said on his own initiative, “I heard that young brother from Purewind say that your esteemed self escorted the Zhang descendant to Lake Tai? You’ve seen me before. My name’s Ye Baiyi.”
He was not too fond of spouting fancy words at people, unlike Gao Chong. Basically put, he was situated within a state of never doing anything himself or opening his mouth, possessing no sense of existence — and yet, for some reason, his entire being was permeated with a strange aura of disturbing the peace.
Zhou Zishu was startled, unsure of why the man would suddenly seek him out for a chat, presenting him with some play lines with the ease of familiarity.
Ye Baiyi ignored that, though, merely staring at him with an indifferent expression, after which a follow-up set of words came out. “I can tell that your qi is stagnating and posture is labored, as if you’re already of the brink of incurable illness. But why would someone about to die have mettle like yours? It’s strange, really.”
Zhou Zishu was silent. This good brother had most likely been on Everbright Peak for too long a time, cultivating an immortal air just like his Master, which had resulted in him not knowing how humans spoke.
After a thought, Ye Baiyi asked again, “How long do you have to live? Three years? Two?”
In regards to this topic, Zhou Zishu felt that nodding to it wouldn’t be right, and shaking his head to it would be even less right. He had to give a stiff laugh. “You have good eyesight, Brother Ye. You’re worthy of—“
Ye Baiyi seemed to have a filter grown into his ear that strained out bullshit he straight-up didn’t feel like listening to, as he started speaking without waiting for Zhou Zishu to finish. “Divines on the verge of death always have Five Declines, words defying their suffering. You, on the other hand, can still jump all around, eat, drink, and make merry. New waves usurping the old waves before them is a truth… when did the Central Plains’ martial circle get so many odd characters…”
During his speech, he turned to leave, ignoring Zhou Zishu. But upon reaching a distance away, he seemed to remember something, turning his head to say to him, “If you have the time, you might as well treat me to a meal.”
…It was like treating him to one would give his counterpart an enormous amount of face.
Zhou Zishu remained speechless.
He followed the massive amount of people going to Gao Manor to spectate a ‘Vile Wraith’ of legend. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to look at, just a middle-aged man of fiendish looks who was in a five-flower tie, arranged in front of the crowd. There was some overtone of parading him through the streets for all to see. The Wraith’s upper body was bare, the malevolent ghost face on his middle deliberately exposed, thus demonstrating that he was top-notch, authentic goods.
While he was entranced by the man, a hand silently placed itself on Zhou Zishu’s shoulder all of a sudden. Wen Kexing had popped up out of nowhere, baring his pearly whites to grin fawningly at him. “I was looking for you all day. Where did you go?”
Zhou Zishu ignored him, pointing at the tied-up man. “Do you think he’s a real one, or a fake?”
“Hm?” Wen Kexing looked it the direction his finger referred to, then said rather disapprovingly, “The Wraith tattoo getting inked on the middle means that one cannot appear in the light of day from there on out. Who’d be bored enough to make a fake one? Still, there’s a possibility that this unlucky wretch offended someone, got framed, and was tossed out here to show the world.”
He said so breezily, but Zhou Zishu happened to know something of this. For one, the specific pigment used for the ghost-faced tattoos was ground from the leaves of a plant called ‘netherweed’, which was found only in Wraith Vale.
For two, not everyone that entered the Vale could survive to become a Wraith — just like how not every keeled-over soul could re-enter the six realms of reincarnation or incarnate as a demon, their soul scattering was hard to say for certain. It was a wicked place of man-eat-man, ghost-bite-ghost, the only law being that the weak were meat for the strong to eat. Upon entry, one needed to be on guard against everyone, and be stronger than everyone, as only then would they be entitled to survive, earning a tattoo like that.
Zhou Zishu stared thoughtfully at the tattooed man. At this moment of fervor, someone from the Mount Hua Sect stood up to say that the man should be burned alive.
He abruptly turned around, broke out of the crowd’s lineup, and strode away.
Wen Kexing’s interest in him was clearly greater than the to-be-lynched Wraith. As soon as he turned his head to see that he was gone, he immediately went in pursuit, but the one that had just plainly been in front of him seemed to have vanished into thin air, gone. He stopped in his tracks, eyes scanning the expansive sea of people.
Zhou Zishu was akin to a droplet gone into the ocean, nowhere to be seen at a sudden touch. Somewhat baffled, Wen Kexing narrowed his eyes and stubbornly focused on sweeping the direction the other had vanished into. He discovered that the man himself, while very real, had gone from sight in such an imperceptible way.
In that split second, he suddenly had the feeling of being left out of the loop, as if something had slipped free from his grip. And a sprig of ire, its origin unknown, sprouted.
As it was, this man could vanish at any point — even though Wen Kexing had hypothesized his identity, his thoughts, he could still do so — as long as he thought to.
He had fallen out of the net that was Heaven’s Pane, the most cunning fish in this world.
Zhou Zishu had cast off Wen Kexing, but he just went to a silver exchange.
In the region of Dongting to Jiangnan, the most famed silver exchange had a very plain name: The Ping An Exchange. Business was rather red-hot for it, yet it wasn’t overly attention-grabbing, nor had it ever thought to stick its hands into other businesses. The owner appeared to not have that much ambition, instead being content with his corner where grass grew and birds flew.
Zhou Zishu looked up at the exchange’s sign, then pushed the door open and went in. Someone inside immediately shouted to him, “Please come in, good customer — are you cashing in a banknote, or…”
He bypassed the clerk to go straight for the shopkeeper, laughing quietly. “I want to ask Manager Song for help with something,” he said softly, “so I’ll have to trouble you with contacting a supervisor for me.”
The shopkeeper was startled, raising his head to size him up for a long time. “You are…?” he asked cautiously.
Zhou Zishu suppressed his voice even lower. “I’m an old friend of your Lord Seventh. The surname is Zhou.”
As soon as he said ‘Lord Seventh’, the shopkeeper immediately looked surprised. With reverence, he quickly took a few steps out, personally invited him for a seat, then called for a worker to bring tea while he stood to one side. “As you wish,” he said respectfully. “This lowly one will pass word on to Manager Song at once, but I’m afraid he’s not in Dongting at the moment, you see… could you wait a few days?”
Zhou Zishu nodded. “I’m not occupied. You sit, too.”
Then, he politely requested the shopkeeper do so again, only for the other to wave his hands, too afraid to do so. “Lord Zhou,” the other proceeded to ask, “do you wish to discuss your business with the Manager in person, or should this lowly one handle it ahead of time?”
Zhou Zishu thought about this. “I don’t have anything that’s urgent, I’m just wondering if you heard of something called the Whorl Beryl before?”
The shopkeeper was taken again. “Ah… I’ve heard a little something. Are you speaking of the one made of five pieces of beryl?”
“That’s the one,” Zhou Zishu said with a nod.
The shopkeeper pondered for a short moment. Spreading out one leaf of paper, he wrote ‘Whorl Beryl’ down on it. “This lowly one knows something, but not many details, I’m afraid. If you don’t mind waiting a few days, I can investigate a few channels for you.”
Looking at him, Zhou Zishu could tell that the shopkeeper was only in his thirties or forties. He looked shrewd, his words were without loopholes, his rate of speech was not too quick, and he thought thrice about everything before it came out of his mouth; as expected, there were foxes of all ages in the command of a certain professional. He wasn’t sure how great this old friend of his’s power had grown on this end, after so many years since he had left the capital, but it now looked like this was not just an ordinary exchange bank.
He drank one cup of tea, then left. Never had he imagined that the former head of Heaven’s Pane would have to rely on another to gather information, and even less so that there would be a day he would seek the one above in order to safeguard Zhang Chengling’s little life, the wee bastard… speaking of which, actually, Zhou Zishu didn’t get it, himself. The boy and he had met by here chance, so what did his life have to do with him?
He was bored and doing too much, basically.
In one’s life, however, there would always be these few instances, always be these few people and things that one would be fully aware held no advantages for them, yet they wouldn’t be able to resist being nosy anyways. Zhou Zishu thought, This is probably fate, right? Why else would the land of Jiangnan be such a vast stretch, yet cause him to run into the little jerk?
He strolled down the main street, walking so idly, he was pretty much sunbathing. His eyes feasted on Dongting’s scenery until the sun slanted to the West, after which he went to a restaurant in full content, ordering a pot of wine and a few snacks. He reflected on how this had been a really good day. It seemed like he had never experienced such a good one before in his life, either — he would either wear himself out working, or plot out how to make someone else wear themself out working.
Nearby was a young lady plucking at her qin and singing a song. She was vivacious, her voice was vivacious, and it was a beautiful sight, no matter what. With one melody done, everyone on every level of the restaurant broke out into cheers.
Seeing that she was quite pleasing to the eye, Zhou Zishu generously took out a silver ingot and placed it in her dish. The young lady was first startled, then bowed her head to smile at him, giving him a blessing-bow and a gentle thank-you, her hands overlapped at one hip. It put him in a better mood.
All of a sudden, someone sat in the seat opposite him. The newcomer, very plain-spokenly and matter-of-factly, said, “I’m here so that you can treat me to a meal.”
Zhou Zishu’s heart tightened. The creditor had come to collect.
Ye Baiyi had no politeness to him in the least. As he saw it, the conventional customs of eating and drinking were an honor for him to do, and since it was he that bestowed the honor, others ought to be in awe of him — of course there was no need for him to be polite. Not minding Zhou Zishu at all, he called the waiter over on his own, twittered out a heap of dish names, then calmly said to his companion, “Whatever you want to eat is at your own liberty. Don’t be reserved.”
Zhou Zishu looked at him strangely, thinking, Out of which eye did you see me be ‘reserved’?
He had some suspicions that this disciple of the Ancient Monk was deliberately extorting him. In regards to what he had just ordered, the amount was enough to feed two pigs, let alone two people.
Seeing that he had no desire to add on further dishes, Ye Baiyi had a sudden epiphany. “Oh, right. You’re injured, so your appetite must not be that great. I still advise you to eat more whenever you can. You don’t have much time left.”
Zhou Zishu looked at him all the more strangely, thinking that if this dolt wasn’t the Ancient Monk’s disciple, saying that he could have made people beat him like a sandbag all day long would not be a lie.
At right that time, yet another person jaunted up to them, pulled up a chair, and sat down without being invited to, smiling fakely as he looked Ye Baiyi up and down. “I say, Ah-Xu, why did you not come say hello today, then vanish for an afternoon? Is it that… there’s someone else?”
Not even dregs remained of the good mood that young lady’s illuminating smile had given Zhou Zishu. On the inside, he pondered whether or not he should just get up, throw out the phrase “I’ll leave you two to your own devices,” and get out.
Wen Kexing turned his head, teeth somewhat gritted for whatever reason. “Who’s he?”
“He’s…”
Zhou Zishu was about to say that he was just a chanced-upon friend, but when the words reached his lips, he suddenly felt his own reasoning to be completely unclear. Unable to comprehend what he was even doing explaining this to him, he stopped, a weird expression on his face.
Ye Baiyi just nodded magnanimously at Wen Kexing. “My name’s Ye Baiyi.”
Wen Kexing turned back with his fake smile. When he thought to speak, he heard Ye Baiyi state placidly, “I know you. You’re the one that set that Zhang kid’s room on fire the other day.”
Zhou Zishu’s hand that held the wine cup suddenly froze in midair.
Wen Kexing’s smile disappeared in an instant. He stared hard at Ye Baiyi, as if he was looking at something dead. About him was some sort of slowly-gathering, indescribably… dark and chilling murderousness.
Going cold, Zhou Zishu began to frown.
The waiter happened to come bearing food. Shaken by his murderous aura, his hand jerked in fright, the plate about to fall. In the span of a spark, the waiter saw a white blur seem to flash before him — the dish that had nearly gone down had somehow landed steadily in the hands of the white-clothed young man, without even a drop of vegetable soup spilling out of it.
Even with Zhou Zishu’s strong eyesight, he hadn’t been able to see the other’s movements with complete clarity.
Ye Baiyi was an expert of this caliber? If he was the Ancient Monk’s disciple, then the legendary Monk of Everbright Peak himself…
Some cold sweat seeped on Zhou Zishu’s back, as he had discovered that the guess Heaven’s Pane had pertaining to the very mysterious Ancient Monk… was not accurate at all.
Wen Kexing’s pupils contracted in an instant. Despite the lack of ripples on his surface, he reigned in his wrath without batting an eye, scrutinizing the young man in white clothes. He was… twenty-five? Twenty-six? No, he was probably just youthful-looking. His real age definitely had to be over that. Or… somewhere around thirty? It didn’t seem like it…
The man gave him a feeling that was much like his name, Baiyi for ‘White Clothes’: a blank expanse. When he sat there, not speaking or moving, he resembled a mannequin, which caused others to not sense his emotional fluctuations, and made it very difficult for their own emotions to influence him. Even though they might sit together, it was like they were living in two different worlds.
Ye Baiyi appeared to not have noticed the two’s intense reactions caused by his statement, bowing his head to eat all by himself. Subsequent to the dishes being served in courses, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing’s expressions both twisted up to a certain degree yet again.
This disciple of the Ancient Monk… was an unmatched wastrel!
He stuffed things into his mouth at a very rapid pace. Although he was not being crude about it, the way he was wind sweeping away the clouds that were all this food was entirely akin to what someone that hadn’t eaten anything for eight lifetimes would do. His chopsticks went flying, resembling locusts in motion wherever they wound around to, leaving not a single grain of rice for his foes.
Zhou Zishu, who hadn’t been hungry to begin with, and Wen Kexing, who clearly wasn’t in the mood to eat, couldn’t resist picking up their own chopsticks under his leadership, wishing to sample the delicacies this restaurant had prepared.
Once the table was a mess of plates, all empty, as a result of a horrifically appalling war, Ye Baiyi set down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth off in delight. The corners of his lips curved into a none-too-obvious arc that might count as a smile. “Thanks for your hospitality,” he said to Zhou Zishu.
After that, he expressed nothing else, standing up and leaving.
Zhou Zishu suddenly got the feeling that the Ancient Monk had to be quite the character, to have supported an epicurean like this all by lonesome.
“What he said just now…” Wen Kexing suddenly said, “I wasn’t really going to…”
His words stopped, as if he was a tiny bit perplexed. He had no idea why he had suddenly gone to say such a thing. It seemed like his chest was somewhat stuffed up. He speedily looked up at Zhou Zishu, then lowered his gaze, smiling at himself in mockery. With a shake of his head, he resumed his typical airs. “That’s the Monk’s disciple? As I see it, he just looks like a white-skinned locust.”
Zhou Zishu picked up the wine pot to pour himself the small bit of wine left at its bottom. He didn’t bother with the fire-setting topic.
He knew, of course, that if Wen Kexing was of the mind to kill Zhang Chengling, it would be no different than crushing an ant to death, and he wouldn’t have needed to so bombastically commit arson. He had specially chosen a time when the boy wasn’t there, which was why, instead of saying that he’d had malicious intent, it would be better to say that he knew a little something, and had set off a warning signal in advance.
The question was, how did Ye Baiyi know that?
He suddenly thought of another issue, though… after feeling around in his pockets, his expression turned quite splendid, and he raised his head to ask, “Um… did you bring enough money?”
Wen Kexing shared his exchanged look of distress.
The dense shade of green trees did not wither through the four seasons, searing in its flourish, birds piercing through it. Unbroken mountains resembled a beauty’s back, rolling continuously, without exhaustion or end.
This was Nanjiang.
Beneath an ancient tree that was a little under a few hundred years old, there was a small table set up. A ten-ish Nanjiang boy was seated there upright, doing his lessons. In spite of his low age, he was extremely determined, and didn’t raise his head for over a full shichen, as if nothing could ever disturb him from it.
Beside the small table was a lounge chair. A man was resting upon it with his eyes closed, but his attire was that of a Central Plainsman, all wide sleeves and long robes. An old book was left open in his lap.
At his feet was a little marten. No one was paying attention to it, so it was chasing its own tail out of boredom.
Then, a Nanjiang warrior bearing a letter walked quickly in. Upon seeing this scene, he automatically softened his steps, then quietly waited at one side.
The man on the chair opened his eyes at the sound. He was around twenty-five, and had a pair of peach blossom eyes that contained a hint of a smile, making him out to be a peerlessly good-looking figure when they looked all about. The marten nimbly leapt into his arms, climbed upon his shoulder, and swept his chin over with his tail.
The warrior deferentially passed him the letter. “Lord Seventh, this is a letter from Manager Song.”
Lord Seventh affirmed, languidly accepted it, and opened it while lacking interest. However, when he had read half of it, his entire body straightened up, eyes clearing up from sleep. “It’s him?”
Seeing the letter dangling about before its eyes, the marten mischievously reached out its paws to grab it. Lord Seventh took it by the scruff, then gently tossed it over to the boy’s nearby desk.
Only now did the boy raise his head. “Who is it, dad?”
Lord Seventh didn’t give a straight answer. He stood, paced in place a few time, then slowly folded the letter up while saying irrelevantly, “Lu Ta, I told you once before that in this world’s general trend, there’s a basis of that which is separated for long must unite, and that which is united for long must separate. Do you still remember it?”
The young Lu Ta appeared to be quite used to his dad’s chronic ailment of needed to ramble on about previous points he’d made, so he answered properly. “You said that it’s a lot like how someone that stands for a long time needs to sit down, but their butt gets needles in it after they sit for a long time. There’s no reason to it, it’s just that while people live, they need to screw around.”
A satisfied smile appeared on Lord Seventh’s face. “Ashinlae, go find your Great Shaman for me,” he said to the mystified Nanjiang warrior. “Ask him whether he thinks that statement has much reason to it.”
Ashinlae the warrior looked at him with a slack-jawed face. “Huh?”
When Lord Seventh thought to speak, someone was heard to chuckle. “Did you get bored in your laziness again? Are you going to make some trouble?” he casually asked.
The new arrival was all in black, a sceptre in his hands that was similarly of black and unremarkable shape. Seeing him, Ashinlae quickly bowed his head. “Great Shaman.”
The other hummed, waving him off. “Go on to your own business. Beiyuan, stop bullying kind people.”
Lord Seventh passed him the folded-up letter with a smile. “Guess who graced our shop with his light? This is a rare customer, indeed.”
The Great Shaman wasn’t too interested, but he did take it with a huff. “As long as it’s not the Great Qing’s Emperor, it’s fine… hm? Manor Lord Zhou?”
A grin of ill intent appeared upon Lord Seventh. “Shall we take a trip to the Central Plains, little toxin? An old friend has business, so it’s natural that we should take a knife to the side for him, right?”
Noticing how he looked like he only feared a world at peace, the Great Shaman said nothing, but quietly felt in his heart that this man clearly wanted to go watch all the excitement, and stick his friend with two knives while he was at it.
At this moment, Zhou Zishu had no clue as to what the end result of his indiscriminate choice of friends was. He worried about a relatively more practical issue — that was, that the sudden royal presence of a gourmet named Ye Baiyi had caused him to not bring enough food expenses.
After exchanging stares with Wen Kexing for a short time, he came to understand one truth: if Wen Kexing was reliable at all, then sows could climb trees.
He felt like he’d made acquaintances of poor quality, having encountered these two bastards. One was an unmatched wastrel, one was an unmatched wastrel that was also a freeloader. They were practically a pair of anomalies.
Noticing that Zhou Zishu wasn’t giving him a benevolent look, Wen Kexing couldn’t help but tighten his lapels against himself. “I’ll sell my smile, but not my body. You mustn’t pawn me off here.”
“Tell me, then. What are we going to do?”
“Since it was you that was treating a guest, I suggest that you sell yourself to pay off your debts.”
“I’m not a fucking madam,” Zhou Zishu squeezed out from between the gaps in his teeth, “If I sold myself, you’d just buy me, huh?”
Wen Kexing’s eyes immediately lit up. “Yes! I would smash my ware to sell its metal, sweep my family assets clean, and go pawn my trousers to buy you!”
Zhou Zishu lowered his voice “You can do all of that? Right now? Wouldn’t you have to pay the dinner fare, first?”
Wen Kexing went quiet for a very long time. At the end, he said, “Ah-Xu… I think we should just run?”
Zhou Zishu quietly turned his face to one side. Even though he had been getting his nefarious riches from robbing the rich this whole time, he still had something of an existing conscience, and honestly felt that dine-and-dashing was detrimental to his virtues. Also…
He looked at Wen Kexing’s shameless mug. He absolutely could not lose out to this guy, even a little.
As soon as he looked around, he saw someone enter the restaurant’s main entrance. Immediately regaining his spirits, he called, “Miss Gu! What a coincidence this is!”
In the middle of walking inside, Gu Xiang saw them only after hearing this. She swiftly went pale from fright, then went to leave, but she didn’t have Wen Kexing’s speed of action — as soon as she turned, he was already in front of her. “Why are you running, Ah-Xiang?” he said warmly.
Ashen-faced, she was choked up for a while, before she spat out, “L…Lord, this one… simply went through the wrong door.”
He patted her on the shoulder and pulled her over. “It’s fine, come here,” he comforted.
Goosebumps rose all over her, as she felt that if her Lord wasn’t being a treacher, he was being a bandit. Unable to shake him off, she was obliged to follow him step-by-step, shaking like she was about to be publicly beheaded. He brought her to the two’s dining table, then asked, “Did you bring money?”
Gu Xiang quickly took out all of her copper coins, pieces of silver, yuanbao, gold leaf, and silver banknotes. Only after this did Wen Kexing nod in satisfaction. “Waiter, bring the bill!” he shouted, as if he were a rich brute.
Heart in distress, Gu Xiang though of how it was no wonder that the fortune-teller had informed her that she would need to break the bank to avoid catastrophe. Amitabha.
Likely out of leniency towards someone he had exploited, Wen Kexing brought Gu Xiang along as his little tagalong bug, not shooing her away again. Zhou Zishu walked in front, mulled things over briefly, then suddenly turned his head to ask directly, “Brother Wen, what was your purpose in setting the Zhang brat’s room on fire that night?”
Gu Xiang went white in fear. “My Lord, you actually killed someone with fire?!”
“I was watching the Heavens’ phenomena at night, and found that the brat would have a catastrophe of bloodied light, which he would only be able to survive by means of a fiery attack. I did my good deed for the day,” Wen Kexing answered, deadpan.
After he finished, he saw the other two looking at him disdainfully.
“I never leave my name when I do good deeds. There’s no need for you two to venerate me like this,” he added.
“My Lord, can you give me a read on Heavens’ phenomena?”
“You’ll have a catastrophe of bloodied light unless you shut up for a whole day.”
Gu Xiang was too afraid to say more, indeed.
They returned to the spot where the Wraith had been punished during the daytime. The crowd had already mostly scattered, and the Wraith had gone to parts unknown. Supposedly, his martial arts capability had been wrecked, his scapula had been pierced through, and he himself had been locked up. As it happened, Cao Weining was searching for them, Zhang Chengling tagging along, and he welcomed them. “Brother Zhou, this little friend said that you are his Ma…”
He stopped talking all of a sudden, staring at Gu Xiang behind Wen Kexing, his mouth agape. No words came to him.
She blinked in a lack of understanding, but he just kept staring blankly at her.
Zhou Zishu was forced to cough dryly, after which Cao Weining woke up as if from a dream. His face flushed red, he said awkwardly. “M-Miss… sorry, this humble one had no intent to be rude. R-really, it’s…”
Gu Xiang was perplexed, getting the feeling that this punk was probably off in the head. She saw him take a step back, then speak in a mosquito-like voice, “My humble f-family name is Cao, humble courtesy name Weining. I hail from T-Taihang. I am in the ‘Wei’ generation of Purewind Sword Sect, the Sect Leader of which, Mo Huaiyang, is my M-Master…”
She looked him up and down once over. “My Lord, what’s wrong with him?” she asked Wen Kexing.
Before Cao Weining could finish stammering out a report of his lineage, the peerlessly pure feelings of a youth he was having were shattered upon the ground.
Zhou Zishu looked at Zheng Chengling. Seeming to recall something, he said, “Little imp, get over here.”
The boy was over the moon from not being shooed away as soon as his face was seen, eagerly running up. Wen Kexing clapped Cao Weining’s shoulder, then led Gu Xiang back to his room.
When Gu Xiang passed by him, Cao Weining smelled a lightly fragrant breeze swoosh past, and his brain turned right into a lump of mush, unaware of the world. It wasn’t until they had gone a ways away that he snapped out of it, mumbling to himself in a trance, “Crying are the ospreys, on one side of the water… the North has fine women… a noble would care to seek them… that there could be such a beautiful girl in the world, such a…”
He walked away like an imbecile, sighing thrice for every step, and focusing his attention on returning home whilst lovesick.
After walking a good while, Gu Xiang quietly said to Wen Kexing, “My Lord, Old Meng is here, too, and told me to inform you of what follows next…”
Wen Kexing didn’t stop nor turn his head. His mouth curved upwards, yet no smile reached his eyes. “Old Meng is still using me to inform him of what he should be doing?”
“…Yes.”
Zhou Zishu took Zhang Chengling back to his own room in silence, then nodded his head once curtly. “Sit down. I have a few things to ask you.”
The other obediently sat nearby. “What do you wish to ask, Master?”
Zhou Zishu thought for a bit. “That man from the other day, with the demon’s slap on his face. Did he ask you whether you’ve seen a man with a missing finger before?”
Zhang Chengling nodded, so he gave another question. “Have you?”
The boy shook his head. “Who was he talking about, Master?”
Zhou Zishu crossed one leg over the other, tapping his finger lightly against his knee. He didn’t answer his question.
Missing a finger… rumor told that the Hanging Wraith was a man missing a finger. It was because of this that he had been sure that the black-clothed man Gu Xiang had beaten to death in the ruined temple was not the Hanged Wraith.
But what was the intent of the red-clothed Merry Death Wraith?
A short time after, he drew out his words to question him in an abnormally serious tone, “Think about it, brat. Did you or did you not see anything unusual that night?”
The ‘night’ he was speaking of was the night the Zhang family was exterminated, of course. Zhang Chengling’s breath quickened.
Zhou Zishu made his voice even gentler. “Don’t panic. Think back carefully; this is very important, I’m afraid.”
The boy’s face was deathly white. A long time later, he shook his head. “Master, you’re asking me what was unusual about that night, but is there anything about it that was usual?” he asked, a sob within his chest.
Zhou Zishu furrowed his brow. He no longer pressed him, staying quiet for a short time. “I’ll teach you a mantra. You can go back to comprehend it on your own, and practice cultivation on your own. If you don’t understand something, you can come ask me.”
Zhang Chengling was stunned.
“As of now, it’d be best for you to not stray from Hero Zhao’s side, not act alone, and not leave Gao Manor. You hear me?”
Zhang Chengling’s eyes widened. “Master… thank you, Master!”
Zhou Zishu coughed out of discomfort. “Quit the crap,” he rebuked. “Remember this clearly, because I’m only going to say it once, and not a second time if you can’t remember it.”
He knew that he was dreaming, but it was too real of a dream. Northern wind blew past his mask, the cold unfelt. He had been waiting in that spot for a very, very long time. Very calm, he was, his pulse even slower than it was normally. The sun was slowly passing the human world by, night encroaching.
He watched all of this. Long had he grown accustomed to removing himself from the situation, as he knew how to not regard himself by a person — one with a conscience, one with feelings. It was instinctive sort of self-protection, as he had to commit acts without thinking to prevent himself from going mad.
He merely raised up that blood-stained hand, for the revitalization of the Great Qing’s country. This prosperous word was akin to a wide, beautiful sleeve, which this hand of his was hidden within at all times, never rashly shown to others. Once the war, chaos, and degeneracy of this period had all passed, everyone would work and live in peace, the history books turning to a new page…
Zhou Zishu bowed his head. The face of this dream-person was blurry, but he seemed to see a little girl’s face; she was being carried by a wet nurse, the woman resembling a weak and helpless lamb, still loyally defending the child with a face of full hopelessness.
The girl raised her head. “My papa is a good person, my big brother is a good person, and I’m a good person,” she whispered. “We’re all good people. Don’t kill us.”
He remembered. This was when the Late Emperor had still lived. In order to land a final blow to the Second Scion’s party, Heaven’s Pane had been ordered to assassinate the entire family of a dismissed and exiled official, Jiang Zheng. Sir Jiang’s youngest daughter, Jiang Xue, was four years old, and unusually bright. Had she been allowed to grow up, what would she have been like?
He felt his own hand move out. The woman’s sharp scream pierced the night sky open, a long sword having pierced through her chest, then through the little girl’s body. Neither nausea nor sadness was in him, because in the position he was in, he had come to see this as normal long ago.
You’re good people, loyal and honest. What about it? Who made the rule that the bodies of good people can’t be laid out in the street, their future generations cut off?
And yet, a sigh went through the empty air, long and drawn-out. Someone said, Murdering someone should be paid for with one’s life…
Chest acutely hurting, Zhou Zishu abruptly opened his eyes and sat up.
The very next moment, he slowly doubled over, covering his chest and gritting his teeth hard. He didn’t let himself make any noise of pain. His white fingers gripped the hem of the blankets, cutting a sorry figure with his hair all in disarray. While wave after wave of inside-tearing pain came in succession, he thought blankly, Zhou Zishu, you stupid bastard, you’re going to die.
On this night, Zhou Zishu didn’t sleep well, Wen Kexing didn’t sleep well, and even Ye Baiyi didn’t sleep well.
Wen Kexing didn’t leave his room, just sitting quietly while facing the window. Gu Xiang was standing to one size; the girl who didn’t know a huge amount of complex characters and once wrote a joke of a tomb marker had a fully solemn face. She gazed out the window at the dim night sky which was no different than days of the past, so silent, she resembled an eerie lantern in the shape of a beautiful woman.
The window wasn’t shut, cool wind wafting in. It raised up Gu Xiang’s hems and hair, the pages of a spring palace book on the table flipping audibly.
Wen Kexing suddenly began to smile, extremely slowly. “I’ve been waiting for twenty years,” he uttered softly.
She silently looked at him, only to see that the man had an indescribably easy, even somewhat crazed grin on his face, a little inhuman-looking in the spots without light. Then, reverence grew.
He reached out to grab a handful of air, as if attempting to catch the wind blowing through the window lattice.
“In this world, I want for nothing else to be able to hinder me, regardless of whether they’re human or ghost, immortal or monster… I want all of these demons, these things that shouldn’t be in the human world, to all get back down to their eighteenth layer of Hell.”
He held a paper in his other hand. Gu Xiang’s sights fell upon the yellowed leaf — a ghost face was sketched upon it, the artistry juvenile, much like a child’s scrawl. He rose, let a candle, then held the paper over it, burning it to ash bit by bit.
His expression was devout, like he was offering sacrifice to a god.
Ye Baiyi slept until midnight, but for some reason, he awoke from his dreams with a start. Within his thin eyes under thin brows, there was none of the fogginess of someone that had just woken up. Still laid back on the bed, he slowly raised his hand to bring out a small pendant that hung at his neck, playing with it. If one looked closely, they would see that the pendant was quite well-crafted, being a miniature version of the Land Writ.
Shutting his eyes, he said to himself, “Ah, Changqing, I’m getting an ominous premonition. Tell me, why aren’t you here anymore…?”
He thought, If there was no Land Writ, no Wraith Vale, no Whorl Beryl, no Heaven’s Pane, wouldn’t things be much more peaceful?
Come morn of the day after, what welcomed everyone was the breaking down, as well corpses.
Nine bodies had been tossed into an area not far from Gao Manor, arranged into a circle. In the middle of them was the character for ‘ghost’ written in blood. It was around three zhang wide, blocking off the whole street; rumors stated that it was where the Wraith had been executed in the daytime.
By the time Zhou Zishu got there, the bodies’ identities had been most confirmed. The Vile Wraiths were quite impartial, having tried all they could to share the weather between all the major sects — eight were major sects plus one Gao member, for a total of nine bodies that constituted Buddhists, Daoists, nuns, men, women, elderly, and young in full stock.
One of Gao Chong’s disciples was amongst them. Zhou Zishu didn’t have a deep impression of him; all he remembered was that the guy hadn’t been as eye-catchingly handsome as Deng Kuan, instead being rather taciturn, merely helping to entertain some arriving guests without speaking much to anyone. Gao Xiaolian had since passed out from crying, but Gao Chong couldn’t attend to his precious daughter right now, forced to have Deng Kuan take her aside while he went with Grandmaster Cimu to investigate the corpses individually.
One had been hung to death by a single thread. One had been beaten to death by a Bloodfiend Strike. One had been drained of all their blood. One’s head was separated from them… each one had a different manner of death.
Zhou Zishu heard someone lightly sigh next to him. “Wraith Vale has come out in full.”
He turned his head to see that the speaker was Ye Baiyi. It was surprising for him to discover that the glutton had an indecipherable layer of passion vaguely covering his face, which made him look like a porcelain Guanyin idol. “What?” he questioned subconsciously.
Ye Baiyi shot him an expressionless look. “Are you deaf?”
Zhou Zishu turned his head away out of a lack of amusement, but Ye Baiyi patted him on the shoulder. “Go for a walk with me tonight and follow me to a place,” he said, not regarding him as a stranger at all. That tone of voice was pretty amazingly similar in effect to the one Zhou Zishu himself had used to call out to Zhang Chengling the day prior.
Even though he decided that he was not going to pay attention to this Ye joker until he learned how to speak human words, Zhou Zishu still automatically nodded. Once done nodding, he felt drastic regret, practically eager to twist this trouble-seeking head of his off and calculating whether he would feel a bit better if he silenced this supposed Ancient Monk disciple permanently.
All of a sudden, someone unknown in the crowd said something. “Why were only these people met with misfortune? It stands to reason that all of those gathered here are a condemnation from the Vale. Those Wraiths snuck in unawares yesterday while everyone was off guard, but why did they only choose these few sect members to kill? Someone in the know, please explain — is the Vale wanting to make an enemy of all jianghu? They can’t be this stupid. What are they planning? Or are all of you gents hiding something?”
Hearing this, Gao Chong stood. He looked haggard all over, and not very spirited, his steps faltering slightly. Deng Kuan quickly came to help him, but he pushed him away and waved him off, slowly letting his gaze scan from the grieved and wrathful faces of the major sects, to gaze at those whispering amongst themselves from the doubts they held.
Those eyes seemed to hold heavy weight, suppressing the voices of others.
They looked towards this man, who was basically a legend of nearly twenty years in the martial circle, and his gray hair with a grave expression. Upon slowly opening his mouth, he mumbled, “This is a debt of blood.”
After that, he bowed his head, staring at the nine corpses for a long time, and suddenly raised his volume. “A debt of blood… a debt of blood for our Gao Manor, a debt of blood for all the righteous sects, a debt of blood for all… all the people that have a conscience in this land!”
His breathing was a little uneven. Holding prayer beads in hand, Grandmaster Cimu gave an “Amitabha,” shut his eyes, and repeatedly recited some chant, very likely for those that died needlessly to be at peace. Deng Kuan worriedly looked at his aged Master; it seemed like he wanted to go support him again, but held back, as he felt it disrespectful.
Gao Chong looked down. A good minute later, when he looked up again, old tears were streaking down his face. He pointed at the dead young man from Gao Manor. “This disciple of mine had no parents since his youth, taking my f-family name of Gao when he cast himself to my sect. His name is Gao Hui. He didn’t like to talk, so these kids ragged him by giving him the nickname Old Stodge…”
He seemed to want to smile, but couldn’t. Some female disciples of Gao Manor wept, and could not stop.
“My little Old Stodge was good child,” he continued after a pause. “Many amongst you met him in these past days. He was slow, and never made a peeper… but he really was a good child, undertaking any task without getting red in the face at anyone. He has a nanny at home — unrelated to him, she just picked him up and raised him from childhood — that is now over eighty years old. She is blind and mute, unable to recognize others well. Only when seeing Gao Hui does she have some form of reaction… everyone, can you tell me how I should explain this to her? All of you good heroes that are so very, very philanthropic, teach me the words I can use to justify this to her!”
Dongting’s autumn winds were somber. Waves surged. The surroundings were silent, as if not a single living person was around. Such a strong old man standing in the middle, bowing with his hands before them as he asked everyone: How should I explain this to the old woman?
Even shitheads like Feng Xiaofeng had shut their mouths, not saying anything. At a time like this, were anyone to say one useless word extra, not only would they be inhuman, but they would practically be worse than an animal.
Hua Qingsong, the new Sect Leader of Mount Tai, was the first to shout out. “Every day that these ghouls aren’t dead is a day is a day that the martial world cannot be at peace! Our Mount Tai Sect will allow Hero Gao to dispatch us from here on out, with not another word about it! Even if a hundred of us die, we must avenge the Sect Leader, avenge these comrades that died in vain!”
The previous Mount Tai Sect Leader had died violently, leaving them as dragons with no leader. Hua Qingsong was only a young man in his twenties, youthful and impulse, but he had no awareness that as soon as he opened his mouth, it would not longer be good for the others to remain silent. Several major sects stood up in succession to express their standpoints.
At noon of that very day, under Gao Chong’s charge, an unbelievably ceremonious funeral was conducted for the deceased. A cheerless aura of death flowed in the air over all of Dongting. The prosperous foot traffic of the past had been suppressed as suddenly as it had come, as if a great foe was near.
Gao Chong was a capable man. All of the people that had originally kept to themselves seemed to now be involved all at once.
At evening of that very day, Zhou Zishu sent away Zhang Chengling, who had snuck out again, and was then welcomed by another uninvited guest: Ye Baiyi. The man cared so little, he didn’t even wear night-walking clothes, knocking outside the window with all the brazenness of someone skilled. “You. Come with me,” he said.
Zhou Zishu hadn’t had time to actualize his idea of silencing this man in broad daylight. It was too late for regrets, now. He was forced to follow him out.
Wen Kexing’s room was right next to his. Having long heard the commotion over there, he frowned, crossing his arms with a very unsightly expression upon him.
Gu Xiang was hanging upside down from a roof beam. Her eyes had been shut, but she was now alerted by his noise, yawning. “My Lord,” she said, groggy, “you’ve said from the start that Zhou Xu has a mysterious past and is hard to fathom, so you were afraid of him ruining your plans. After only a few days, why are you not worried about him ruining anything now, and just keep watching him?”
—
The translator says: ???? is she a bat
He shot her a frosty look. “When has it ever been your place to mind my plans?” he spat nefariously.
His tone was a rarely-seen sort of nasty. It took her slightly aback, eyes wide. She flipped off of the beam in one move.
She had been following him since her youth, so she knew him to say one thing and mean it when it came to important things, as well as not be intolerant towards the jokes of others. It was a regular thing for her to joke with him on matters big and small. Never before had she seen him turn hostile — she didn’t know what had gone wrong.
Cautiously scrutinizing him, she said softly, “My Lord, um…”
Wen Kexing closed his mouth. Only after a good minute did he breathe in deeply, though he still felt pretty annoyed. Coming to lean against the window frame, he let the cold breeze blow against him. “According to your implication, women of this world are of no interest to me, so in my eyes, all men should be good-looking so that I can bed them, and if they’re bad-looking, I should kill them? I can’t have a friend or two that I can talk with?” he asked nonchalantly, not looking at Gu Xiang.
His intent hadn’t been to menace her, but she didn’t know what he was thinking, instead growing terrified. “Understood. This one spoke in error,” she had to murmur.
He wanted to speak, but seeing her nescient look, he swallowed the words back down. Talking with her was akin to a chicken trying to talk to a duck: not very engaging.
In that moment, he felt some belated offense. Every single person he had met in these years either feared him, or thought him to be an unreasonable madman. How many of them could listen to him hum off-key and tell a few stories only he would understand, while sitting by a fire at night?
“Ah-Xiang, do you think I’m crazy?” he abruptly asked.
She was startled, looking at him hesitantly. As he looked placid, not indignant, she nodded cautiously.
He turned his head away, laughing sardonically.
After a thought, though, she added on, “Even if you’re crazy, I’ll still follow you.”
“What would you follow a madman around for?”
She racked her brains for a very long time. Ever since her youth, she had refused to study, and no one had ever forced her to learn all this bothersome stuff, either, leaving her happy with her freedom. Now, she barely knew any characters. Only now was she realizing that she had precious little literary know-how in her gut, because it was like she had infinite words she wanted to say, yet had no clue at all where to start from.
She ended up blurting something out. “If you’re crazy, then you’re crazy. I just feel like… following you is better than following anyone else.”
He observed her for a long time, then gently smiled.
She grew excited from his slightly lonely smile, and blurted more stuff out without it passing through her mind. “My Lord, I think that you really… really are a good person.”
Wen Kexing laughed, nodding. “Good. You’ve been letting off flatulence all night, and have finally said something a human would.”
With that said, he pushed the window open, then leapt out.
“Where are you going?” she quickly asked.
He waved his hand. “I noticed that Ye Baiyi is a prettyboy, and prettyboys usually don’t have good intentions. I fear that that dumb Zhou boy will get taken advantage of, so I’m going to go take a look.”
Before she could answer that, he had already gone without a trace.
A long time later, Gu Xiang came to realize who ‘that dumb Zhou boy’ was referring to. Her complexion immediately went garish to see. “Only on this day have I learned how to speak indiscriminate lies,” she monologued. “Dumb boy… dumb boy… heh. I must be the dumbest girl ever, in sky-sized font.”
What a shame that no one heard that, else someone would inevitably remind her that despite her believing that to be simple self-mockery, it was actually not too far from the truth.
Ye Beiyi had not said what he called Zhou Zishu out at third watch for, simply walking speedily through the night’s dark. His agility arts were almost at the pace of lightning itself, terrifying Zhou Zishu with the discovery that if the man wasn’t intentionally waiting for him, he would likely have already been thrown off.
It was unclear how far away the two of them ran, one in front and one behind. Then, Ye Baiyi stopped in his tracks, put his hands behind his back, and turned partially towards Zhou Zishu.
The latter didn’t know why he had brought him away to such an uninhabited crossing, but at this moment, a conjecture appeared in his mind. He stood two steps away from him, neither far nor near, sizing him up with unending suspicion.
Ye Baiyi, tall in stature, didn’t explain his intentions, allowing him his examination.
It was always said that people in white either looked not of this world, handsome, and solitary, or they looked frivolous, salacious, and pretentious. It was a pigment that looked light and airy, always giving one a more weightless look when worn — but Ye Baiyi seemed to put ‘pressure’ on it.
In the night, he resembled an ancient Buddha.
For no real reason, Zhou Zishu felt like this man’s weapon ought to be a heavy sword, and even if Mount Tai collapsed before his eyes, he would be able to stand majestically unmoving.
After a fair time, Ye Baiyi asked, “Has your staring yielded anything?”
Zhou Zishu startled, now understanding where the feeling of taboo he was getting had come from. He couldn’t resist bowing his head slightly. “Forgive this junior’s impolite gaze. These days have held many instances of disrespect, so please excuse me, Senior.”
Ye Baiyi went quiet for time. All of a sudden, without another word, his hand shot out like a bolt, palm shooting straight for Zhou Zishu’s left shoulder. The wind it picked up was abnormally harsh — if he said he would move, then he would, without any shred of mercy.
Alarmed, Zhou Zishu shot over two zhang straight upwards to dodge. The other pursued in suit, his long sleeves furling out as he went to seal off the major acupoints all over his body.
Zhou Zishu had believed that his martial arts techniques ought to be of the same strength grade. His internal arts were half-damaged, making it poor for him to meet force with force, so he had thought to rely upon his unrivaled agility arts in going around in circles with him — and it was only now that he realized he had erred. His counterparts’ palms were omnipresent, like there was no area they weren’t already. With nothing to leverage against in midair, he was forced to kick towards Ye Baiyi’s wrist out of panic.
The other didn’t care in the slightest, changing trajectory to go grab his calf. Zhou Zishu whirled around, then used only the bit of wind kicked up from the palm strikes to send himself flying out like a leaf, doggedly sliding two chi off to a side. Upon landing, his expression twisted up. “What is the meaning of this, Senior?” he sullenly questioned, drawing it out.
Ye Baiyi took back his hand, then looked him up and down like nothing had happened. “The Enchanting Melody, Qin Song, was once the disciple of a worthless old man. Because that namby-pamby boy was even more worthless and useless, he was thus ousted from the sect. I heard that he couldn’t do anything other than play music, of which he actually held some authentic skill in. But even with that, you broke over a decade’s worth of cultivation with one note. I figured there was yet another outstanding acolyte showing up out of nowhere in jianghu, and it turns out… boy, let me ask you something. Is your weapon a flexible sword?”
Zhou Zishu’s eyes swiftly widened. He took a light half-step sideways, hands already tucked back into his sleeves subconsciously, long-unfelt murderousness arising in his heart. This was the first time he had ever encountered such a situation, where he didn’t know another’s depths, yet they seemed to know him like the back of their hand.
Seeing this, Ye Baiyi’s lips upticked, revealing a stiff and mocking smile. “If I wanted to hit someone like you, would you still be able to stand and speak right now?” he jeered. “There’s only one family of agility arts for that move you just revealed, called Infinite Invisibility. Qin Huaizhang of Four Seasons Manor was your Master, right? Hmph. You two are exactly the same, in this aspect; no matter who you meet, you first measure them against a villain’s heart.”
“You are indeed a known name in the martial circle, Ancient Monk, but my Master passed on long ago,” Zhou Zishu said coldly. “Even though this junior is unfilial, I cannot tolerate anyone insulting him like this.”
Ye Baiyi startled. “What? Qin Huaizhang is dead?” he lost his voice saying.
Not waiting for Zhou Zishu to answer, Ye Baiyi’s eyes suddenly dimmed, a somewhat dazed look on him as he spoke quietly. “Right. Who knows how many years it’s… know nothing of the Han Kingdom, know even less of Wei and Jin… know even less… there are no days and nights in the mountains. So, a thousand years have passed in the world, and even Qin Huaizhang is no longer in it.”
Zhou Zishu frowned, observing him. Upon finding that he wasn’t being malevolent, just bad with human speech, he relaxed a little.
He determined that this man was the legendary Ancient Monk of Everbright Peak. Although… it wasn’t clear how he had maintained his youthful looks for so many years, as if he had never aged in his long life. Was it really as people said? Had he ascended to immortality?
Ye Baiyi reached out. “Let me look at your sword.”
Seeing that Zhou Zishu wasn’t moving, he grew impatient. “You act like I haven’t seen it before. It’s what I gave to your Master back in the day, and no one’s robbing you of your toys. I can’t even look at it? Why is Qin Huaizhang’s disciple such a good-for-nothing!”
It was then that Zhou Zishu recalled that the words ‘Baiyi’ were engraved upon his sword. He had once believed it to be some kind of weird sword inscription — how could he have known that it was this jerk’s name?
All at once, his complexion grew ‘nice’, horrible nausea inside of him. He reluctantly put a hand to his middle, messed with his belt for a spell, then came to have a very clean, very bright flexible sword in his hand, handing it to Ye Baiyi.
The other swept a look at his sallow, withered hand. Furrowing his brow as he accepted it, he aimed a jab at him. “Good people don’t put another layer of skin on, to be something neither human nor ghoul. You and your Master are the types I dislike the most, ones that hide their heads yet show their tails.”
Zhou Zishu, wisely knowing that he shouldn’t try to eat when filth was before him, remained silent, all while thinking, This is one old coot.
Ye Baiyi placed the flexible sword into his hand. The blade was inundated with his internal force, straightening out and vibrating faintly, seeming to resonate, giving off a humming sound.
A trace of crestfallen nostalgia suddenly flashed past his brows. He looked at the sword named Baiyi, thinking, My old friend is no longer around, yet these objects live long, having reached the hands of those younger.
A minute later, he handed it back to Zhou Zishu.
The latter gave him a fake smile. “I’m not sure if you called me out here so late at night for anything other than testing this junior’s skills and sect, Senior. Is there anything...”
He didn’t get to finish that statement, as Ye Baiyi suddenly went and placed his hand upon his chest. The motion was so quick, he had no time to react, and if the man had wanted to hurt him, he would pretty much have had no leeway to evade into. Zhou Zishu froze, immediately stopping.
Ye Baiyi made no other act, however, merely frowning somewhat. Zhou Zishu felt gentle internal force flowing down from his palm, as if he was examining something within him. The Septeye Nails were summarily irritated by him, beginning to act up; Zhou Zishu faintly seeped cold sweat, but he bore with it, betraying nothing.
Unexpectedly, at that very moment, Ye Baiyi suddenly exerted power. The internal force plastered to Zhou Zishu’s chest was like a rivulet turning into a river, crashing into his partially dried-up tendons. All he felt was the Nails stuck in his chest apparently twisting from the other’s internal force. Darkness immediately came up before his eyes, and his whole body swayed, then fell backwards.
But, a figure suddenly darted up behind him, giving a quiet shout of “What are you doing?!”, and simultaneously caught him, after which he flung Ye Baiyi’s hand away with a flick of his sleeve.
Ye Baiyi let out a hum, not evading as the two’s forces collided. He felt a strike of strange and resounding internal force, which shocked him slightly on the inside, along with the rising sensation of his chest somewhat tightening.
And yet, Wen Kexing was even more surprised. That strike he had flung out used nearly eighty percent of his internal force, but it was like he had hit an invisible wall that thoroughly rebuffed him. Holding Zhou Zishu’s middle in a vice, he drew a half-step back, turned himself so that Zhou Zishu was blocked, and used that momentum to steady his steps.
Only now did he inspect Ye Baiyi, eyes narrowing a bit as the smile left them. The way he looked at him right now caused Ye Baiyi to think of snakes; extraordinarily sinister, and adhering to one’s body like a maggot would invade bone.
Ye Baiyi frowned faintly. His face was even more artificial than Zhou Zishu’s, as if it had been frozen stiff for too long, and no matter what slight expression he tried to issue, it looked strained and grotesque. “You? Who are you, then?”
Wen Kexing smiled coldly. “You’re not announcing your own clan, but asking me who I am? Is this what the Ancient Monk guides his disciples to be?” he countered.
Capitalizing on Wen Kexing’s strength, Zhou Zishu managed to stand steady, coughing a few muffled coughs. When he felt his throat burning, he turned his face away, and a mouthful of blood came out, instead.
Wen Kexing saw this out of the corner of his eyes, complexion darkening. “Are you an idiot, Zhou Xu?” he scolded. “You have no idea who he is, so you stand there like a door and let him touch you how he wants?”
I haven’t even gotten to touch you!
He swept a look at Ye Baiyi, who was standing nearby, and swallowed that part down.
Zhou Zishu’s internal qi had been whisked into disorder by Ye Baiyi. He was busy repressing his own true qi, so what spare time did he have to listen to Wen Kexing’s crap amongst the hundred things he needed to do? He rolled his eyes at him, half-dead.
“Your martial arts aren’t that weak. Whose disciple are you? What relationship do you have with this boy?” Ye Baiyi questioned again.
It was only now that Wen Kexing detected the oddity in the other’s tone. Ye Baiyi spoke slowly, each word of his bouncing out individually. He was like an old man, but when matched with that face and expression, it made one both fester with anger and feel him to be a bit off.
He had never been one to stay ignorant of others’ depths. His previous act had been nothing more than a moment of impulse, and now, he started harboring a suspicion.
Before he could answer, Zhou Zishu lifted his sleeve to wipe blood off the corner of his mouth, then said quietly, “What’s the meaning of this, Ancient Monk?”
“I was seeing if your injury can be treated,” Ye Baiyi answered calmly. He paused, then asked, “When did I ever say that I’m the Ancient Monk? Don’t be a smartass.”
Wen Kexing had long been aware that Zhou Zishu had internal injuries, so that didn’t surprise him, but when he heard the latter half, he was shocked. Zhou Zishu had guessed that he was the Ancient Monk, and even though the other denied it, he had brought the title up with not a shred of respect. Instead, it was like the Ancient Monk was just a man.
Wen Kexing couldn’t help but look Ye Baiyi’s completely unwrinkled face up and down again. What kind of freak is this old jerk? he thought.
“The upper beams are not on straight, so the lower beams are crooked, too — I know that Qin guy could never make a good person out of his disciples, but if you don’t know this man’s background, I advise you to interact with him less. He’s a worse scoundrel than you,” Ye Baiyi told Zhou Zishu.
Wen Kexing got the feeling that this food-lover had pretty much been born to defy him, his heart feeling awfully happy to see him. “Not know my background?” he blurted out, “You old devil, have you never heard of the phrase, ‘White-haired people like new friends, just-met people like old friends’? Flaunting your age is fine. You’re nosy about the Heavens and the Earth, but do you still have to be nosy about others’ bowel movements?”
Ye Baiyi was not a man of high patience. “You have a death wish, boy,” he rebuked, then sent a palm towards him.
Self-aware that with his qi now in disarray, it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be involved in their street brawl, where the old were not respected and young were not cherished, Zhou Zishu therefore conscientiously took a few steps back. He flew to the top of a nearby wall, sat down with crossed legs, and regulated his breathing while he spectated the two’s exchange.
While everyone else was too nervous about Wraith Vale and the Whorl Beryl to sleep at night, none of them knew that in this unfrequented alley, a once-in-a-century scuffle between two major experts was being staged. Ye Beiyi denied that he was the Ancient Monk, yet Zhou Zishu couldn’t tell who exactly he was. What he did know was that the man’s strong martial arts were a type he had rarely seen in all his life, not too dissimilar to the Ancient Monk’s himself.
As for Wen Kexing, he wasn’t displaying an image of defeat. Zhou Zishu examined closely to find that his martial arts style was not the same as Sacred Hand Wen Ruyu’s… no. What should be said was that even though Wen Ruyu had once been a famed name of jianghu, he had not been of comparable quality to his son at all.
The three moves Wen Kexing had taught the young Zhang Chengling that other day had all been derivatives of Wen Ruyu’s sword styles. They gave off the feeling of peace and justice, permeated with an air of magnanimity.
In this moment, Zhou Zishu only got the feeling that this man was abnormally ruthless in every move he made, however. He couldn’t tell which sect his arts had come from, truly both unseen and unheard of. Its cunningness was a bit similar to Gu Xiang’s, but far superior in brilliance to hers. No matter what, it had definitely not been passed down from either one of his heroic parents…
Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes slightly, beginning to have a vague theory.
At the same exact time, he was kind of unsure how to react. There were altogether very few people in jianghu that he couldn’t tell the origins of, and they had all grouped up this evening.
Then, he suddenly felt water droplets fall down from the sky. The wind seemed to get even colder. After some drizzle, the rain abruptly grew more dense.
A bout of night rain had come so soundlessly.
He bundled his robe tighter around himself, stretched out his two long, bent legs out straight, and hung them over the edge of the wall. “I say, Senior Ye, Brother Wen. It’s both raining and awfully cold, so we’re pretty much done here, right?” he said, projecting his voice to the two wrangling together.
…That tone was less like he was spectating a row between two top-tier experts, and more like he was watching monkeys put on a play.
With a huff, Ye Baiyi leapt back three zhang. Once he landed, he straightened out his slightly askew lapels, that corner of his dustless sleeve having been ripped off by Wen Kexing…
Zhou Zishu felt that because Wen Kexing’s interests were not fit to be spoken of to outsiders, he had developed this quirk of being particularly fond of tearing the sleeves of others, practically itching to have the whole realm be cut-sleeves.
Wen Kexing was in a sorrier state. He had a hand on his chest as he took a step back, feeling that his organs had been shaken up, spitting out a mouthful of bloody foam from the palm strike wind his opponent had just sent sweeping. There was a faint pain coming from under his ribs — Brother Rib there might not be doing so well.
Ye Baiyi quietly gave him a look. “You’re an arrow at the end of its trajectory. If we didn’t stop just then, I would have taken your life within ten moves.”
Slightly hunching his shoulders, Wen Kexing stood there, staring at him coldly.
Zhou Zishu had to sigh. “Senior Ye, as a much older person, why must you be so ruthless to your juniors?” How about you hurry up and go back to planting flowers or birdkeeping or whatever in your old forest deep in the mountains? Why trouble yourself with senselessly coming over from so far away to Dongting? To start shit?
That sentence unexpectedly seemed to remind Wen Kexing of something, as the man proceeded to spout off, forgetting his own loss. “You’re a relic of the past, you old coot. If you can survive until then, I’ll be able to take your life within ten years.”
It was like Ye Baiyi had heard some sort of massive joke. Hearing this, he was taken aback, then subsequently started laughing. That stone Bodhisattva-esque face of his was terrifying with just a slight smile; this chortling made Zhou Zishu fear that those stiff features of his would be cracked apart due to his excessively intense expression.
“Take my life?” he heard Ye Baiyi say. “Alright, alright… no one has dared to say such a thing to me in fifty years. I’ll be waiting for you to take my life.”
Saying so, he went to leave. However, he seemed to remember something, turning to look thoughtfully at Zhou Zishu. After staying quiet for a long time, he said, “Your injuries… I can’t treat them.”
Zhou Zishu looked unmoved, but on the inside, he was a bit amused, thinking that Ye Baiyi’s tone of voice really made him out to be much too important. “You’re not exactly omnipotent, Senior. No one expected you to be able to.”
Ye Baiyi shook his head. “Those meridians of yours are already dried up, like how the roots of an old tree are rotten. Even if the toxin you carry is eliminated, that won’t do you any good. On the contrary, because there will be no resisting force, your internal force will break off your already-withered meridians, and then you really will go to see King Yan.”
Wen Kexing suffered a full-body shock, turning his head to look at Zhou Zishu in disbelief. The other man was still seated upon the wall, legs dangling, extremely relaxed and content. The sprinkling rain landed upon him, dampening his crow-black hair, making him resemble a far-off light shrouded in darkness. Had he not seen him fight in the caverns that day, it would have practically been impossible for him to tell that this was an injured man.
Zhou Zishu laughed crisply. “Then am I bound to die, without a doubt?”
Ye Baiyi nodded bluntly.
The other watched him, suddenly thinking that Ye Baiyi had probably lived up in the mountains for far too long; not only was he a wastrel, but he was a bit of a dimwit, too. “Senior, why trouble yourself with scolding a bald donkey in a bald monk’s presence?” he asked with a sigh. “I never offended you, so stop telling me something I already know over and over again. It’s not even good news.”
Ye Baiyi looked at him quietly for a time. Then, without another word, he turned and left.
Zhou Zishu had suspected from the start that the other once had a different idea in calling him out here, but upon seeing this implication, the old fool had most likely forgotten all of his proper business after the scuffle. Without giving him a reminder, he jumped off the wall.
Nevertheless, he saw that Wen Kexing was looking at him with indescribable eyes. “Why are you standing there like an idiot?” he called out in greeting. “Are you hurt, or…”
The rest of his words went unvoiced, because Wen Kexing stepped up all of a sudden, came in close to him, and stroked his face with an ice-cold hand.
Rain slipped down from the other’s face. Their environs were so silent, there was only the pattering sound of drops. Wen Kexing’s wan face was blank, disheveled hair hanging across it. Those jet-black irises made Zhou Zishu think back to when they had first met, and the way he had carelessly looked over at him from the restaurant.
“When I was young, my mother forced me to study books, and my father forced me to practice martial arts,” he heard Wen Kexing say. “In the village where we lived, all of the children would cause mischief outside, climbing trees to get on rooftops, while I alone was inside my house, reading and practicing the blade. Only when the sky grew dark could I get a moment’s break, but every time I had just excitedly joined in on the fun, the other children’s parents would call them all back in for dinner.”
Feeling this action to be uncomfortable, Zhou Zishu thought to tilt his head and avoid it, but then he saw the slightly out-of-it look in Wen Kexing’s eye. Rain pressed down upon his lashes, his rapid blinking causing that water to slide down from his cheeks to drip off his chin, giving one the illusion that he was crying.
“I hated my parents so much, then, and acted huffy with them. My father told me, ‘If the young and strong don’t work hard, they will regret it when they’re old. If you wait until you’re older to train in martial arts, it will be too late.’ I thought, if I wait until I’m older to steal bird eggs and play with marbles, it, too, will be too late.”
He paused there, keeping the words ‘too late’ in his mouth, repeating them once more as if deliberately chewing on such bitterness. Then, he looped around Zhou Zishu’s neck to hug him, like a big kid whose body had matured beyond the juvenile nature of his mind. The way he embraced him was filled with grievances.
Zhou Zishu sighed. The bitterness of the words ‘too late’ — hadn’t he tasted it far too many times in his life?
After that, Wen Kexing released him. “You injuries can’t be treated?”
Smiling in self-mockery, Zhou Zishu shook his head.
The other was quiet for a bit. “How… how many years do you have?”
Zhou Zishu counted them out. “Just two or three.”
Wen Kexing just started grinning. Zhou Zishu felt there to be something slightly off with the way he was smiling, forced to ask, “What’s wrong with you?”
Shaking his head, Wen Kexing took a step back, then another. “For all my life, whenever I want to happily play around, I can’t be happy. When I grew up a little, I wanted to learn arts both martial and literary with my parents, but no one was around to teach me. Tell me… isn’t that some very poor timing? It’s good that…”
He put away his grin, then left, leaving a confused Zhou Zishu behind.
It’s good that I haven’t come to be deeply fond of you, yet.
Cold rain forecasted autumn, green parasols aged and died. A night of bitter cold harried thin blankets. Several times on the path of life, wrong steps were taken… but this was nothing more than the phrase, ‘I regret meeting you too late.’
Gu Xiang held one umbrella up and another in her arms as she ran through the night’s rain. Her embroidered little shoes trod upon bluestone slabs, splashing up water spray that got on her pants. A burst of chilly wind blew, causing her to shudder and think that she was way too devoted to her duties.
Upon raising her head, she saw a man walking alone in the rain, his head bowed.
Wen Kexing was soaked through all over, his clothes clinging to him and collar uneven. Even though he had a slightly wretched appearance, he didn’t seem to care in the least.
She caught up to him. “My Lord!”
He didn’t turn to look at her, but he clearly heart that, briefly stopping to wait for her. Gu Xiang quickly trotted up before him and passed over an umbrella, feeling that her coming out in such gloomy weather hadn’t been worth it at all. In line with her Lord’s typical conduct, this guise of his made her believe that he had gone to a certain not-too-presentable area for some fun.
This was why she pouted, then asked with some disapproval, “Which spot did you run off to be dissolute in, my Lord?”
Wen Kexing opened the umbrella, walking a few steps out. “I got in a fight with someone,” he said quietly.
“A fight on the bed?” she nonchalantly asked again.
He turned his head to look at her. She immediately followed this advice my lightly slapping herself on the face. “Bah, look at your stupid beak! What are you even saying?” she told herself, deadly serious. “Can the truth be spoken of so casually? The fact that the sun rises from the East can be harped on about, sure…”
“Ah-Xiang,” he interrupted, not continuing off of her joke.
She blinked. The rain was coming down harder, its vapor roiling into a sheen of fuzzy white fog. It didn’t allow her to see the look on Wen Kexing’s face that well. She saw him say nothing for a time, then lower his eyes to say quietly, “He said… that he’s going to die.”
She gave an ah, but didn’t react. “Who’s going to die?”
“Zhou Xu.”
He paused in his speech, either to change his state of mind or allow Gu Xiang understand. He proceeded to walk forward, explaining in a pressed-flat tone as he did so. “He has internal injuries. Seeing him spiritedly bound all around had made me believe they were nothing, but I learned just today that there’s no treating them. All he has is two or three years of life left. The second I heard that, I knew who he was… hah. I knew it long ago. What was I following him for?”
Gu Xiang’s eyes widened. She appeared to have some difficulty digesting that fact. “Zhou Xu?” she mumbled a while later.
“Mn,” Wen Kexing confirmed quietly. “I had thought that there was no way he was someone from Heaven’s Pane. Anyone that attempts to leave it must suffer all seven Septeye Nails of Three Autumns, after which they’ll squander all of their martial arts, lose their six senses, and become an invalid idiot that can keep a secret better than the dead could. I had believed, at first, that someone that had endured the Nails couldn’t possibly be like him… only after hearing another’s opinion today did I realize that he most likely used some special method to diminish the harm those Nails that could worry a ghost do. But even then, he won’t live past three years.”
Gu Xiang had never heard of such a thing before, too afraid to breathe too heavy as she listened. At this point, she asked, “My Lord… how did you know about it?”
“Me?” Wen Kexing laughed oddly at that. “If I didn’t know a little more than others, would I have been able to survive until today?”
She was dumbfounded for a moment, then asked a follow-up question. “Th… that Zhou Xu, he’s…”
“I’ve seen someone that escaped from Heaven’s Pane before this.” Here, Wen Kexing paused a bit before continuing. “No one has ever been able to escape the penalty of being the living dead, but he did. I’m guessing that he’s at least above the level of Grand Steward, or even… possibly its former Head.”
“If he was the leader, why would he want to escape…” Gu Xiang wondered, then suddenly stopped, as if she had become aware of something. Her lips sealed up.
Wen Kexing’s pace was quite fast, as if he wanted to cast something far, far behind him. Gu Xiang had to jog on her short legs to keep up. One following and one leading, they were silent for a long time.
Noticing that Wen Kexing was just walking faster and faster, Gu Xiang asked, “My Lord, are you upset?”
“Why would I be?” he breezily asked back, not turning his head.
After thinking about it, she figured that to be correct. There was nothing she could grasp him being upset about. She heard him chuckle, his feet gliding across the ground like they were floating as he said, “He’s changed his face, so I don’t know if he really is a beauty… besides, I prefer those that are soft, smell good, and smooth-skinned. Even if he has a pretty face, it wouldn’t be to my tastes.”
Gu Xiang used her agility arts, failing to keep up a bit. “My Lord, didn’t you say pretty clearly that you prefer tall, narrow-waisted ones with a pair of pretty shoulderblades—“
“You remembered wrong,” he cut her off with. For a moment, he wasn’t sure who he was trying to explain himself to. “I just… felt like he was someone that could empathize with me, because we share the same affliction… Ah-Xiang, stop following me.”
She gasped while Wen Kexing’s figure darted, and in the blink of an eye, he was a good several zhang away from her. Beyond wronged, she shouted, “Why, my Lord? Did I annoy you again?”
He had already vanished into the curtain of rain. A single sentence floated into her ears from a distance: “You talk too much.”
Gu Xiang was left standing there, alone and pitiful. She stomped her foot angrily. “Good hearts never get good compensation!” she complained.
Raising her head, she looked in the direction Wen Kexing had disappeared to. She abruptly recalled his rain-soaked back, his shoulders broad and straight while he walked swiftly in the rain without sway, refusing to wait a step for her. Nothing had been around him, and he’d walked by without looking askance, as if he had spent an unknown amount of time walking the road alone already.
And she felt some pity for him.
Merely feeling like someone could empathize with him was fine, whatever was fine… but that man was only going to be a short-lived passing wanderer. Wouldn’t two or three years go by in a flash?
Below that Western Tomb, cold wind blew in rain. The fireworks in the room flickered to their end, already extinguished beyond extinguishing. Who in this world could sing when they get the chance to, rest when they lose it, and get drunk because they had wine today?
Could you?
No one knew where Wen Kexing went this night.
At the morrow’s daybreak, when the sky was just turning fish-belly white, Zhou Zishu door was boomingly knocked up. He pulled it open for Cao Weining to practically charge inside, grab him, then run out in a flurry. “You’re sure staying nice and calmly in your room! The life of your disciple was nearly lost!”
“Who?”
Following one rather tumultuous night, Zhou Zishu felt like the gunk in his brain had not yet dissolved. It took a minute for him to react with a from. “You’re talking about Zhang Chengling? Some crap happened again? Why is it always him?”
Cao Weining sighed. “I think he’s been having a lot of encounters with destiny this year, one after the other. I have no idea why so many people refuse to let him be. Last night, some people suddenly ambushed and tried to kill the boy, but thankfully, Hero Zhao was alerted from next door. They managed to catch the criminals, only for them to be suicide warriors that killed themselves with poison upon capture. Tell me…”
He temporarily paused, seeming to have some suspicions. He thought back to what Mo Huaikong had said; so many major figures were gathered in Dongting, so who was actually trying to make things difficult for such a futureless kid? Looking at things like that, rather than say that they were trying to eliminate his family by the roots, it would be better to say that they were trying to silence him.
Despite Cao Weining’s thought processes being relatively simple, he, too, had a vague sense that something was off. There was a strangeness in the atmosphere. Even though Gao Chong and his group were currently suppressing them, suspicions and all sorts of speculations amongst the people were still spreading, as silently and invisibly as a plague.
What actually was the Whorl Beryl?
When Zhou Zishu and them caught up, Zhang Chengling and Zhao Jing’s room was crowded around three layers deep. Zhao Jing’s upper body was bare, blood seen on his shoulders, as he sat on a long bench nearby with someone in the middle of bandaging him up. The old man’s expression was ugly, and the edge of the sabre at his waist had not been fully cleaned of blood.
There were two dead people on the ground, face entirely greenish-purple, an appearance that meant they had probably taken poison and died. A hook had been dropped beside one corpses, and Zhou Zishu knew what it was at a glance — the hook of a Venom.
Venoms were actually divided into ranks of three, six, and nine, depending on how much the hirer paid. The cheaper ones, like the gang that had helped the Merry Death Wraith lure Zhang Chengling out, only did business, and didn’t wager their own lives. If the hirer paid a large enough amount, they could buy suicide warriors amongst the Venoms.
The second one caught the eyes of these gung ho Venoms, it would be a real headache. There would also be no way to know how many of them there were, another wave of them coming up as soon as the previous fell, pestering them without cease. All of them were outcasts that didn’t fear death. If they completed their tasks, they would go home to eat delicious food and drink warm wine. If they didn’t, they would love their life.
In result, the corresponding price was not cheap at all.
Who had spent so much money to kill Zhang Chengling? Did they think that this little bastard — who cried as much as horses pissed — was supernaturally talented, or would grow all-powerful, with three heads and six arms?
A bizarre idea suddenly emerged in Zhou Zishu’s head. I’ve muddled through so many years of life, that I can’t count how many people wanted me to die, he thought, but even then, I’ve never once been treated to such top-class hunting.
The eyes he looked at Zheng Chengling with momentarily held a somewhat strange emotion.
However, the boy surpassed Zhou Zishu’s expectations as he stood in a corner. He didn’t look to be very surprised, nor could any dread be seen coming; all he did was have his head bowed as if observing the two bodies, and also thinking of other things. The whorl on top of his head was visible. He was extremely quiet, and whenever anyone asked him something, he would just nod or shake his head, not saying much.
Gao Chong leaned over a little bit, amiable-looking as he asked, “Do you recognize these two, Chengling?”
Zhang Chengling glanced at him, then lowered his head again, shaking it.
For this reason, Gao Chong softened his tone a little, reaching out to touch his head. “Don’t be scared, child. There are many uncles here that will get justice for you. Tell me, did these two evildoers say anything to you last night?”
Zhang Chengling didn’t meet hi gaze, shaking head head again at that question. Gao Chong appeared to be a little perplexed. Right then, someone interjected nearby him in a mystifying tone. “What’s the point of you asking this, Hero Gao? All of us old enough know that these two were suicide warriors of the Venoms. The warriors are just the killing blades; would a murder weapon ever talk? What a joke! You might as well ask the kid if he knows something that others wouldn’t.”
The speaker was Feng Xiaofeng. He was not sitting on Gaoshannu’s shoulders this time, but standing on the ground. Owing to the issue of his height, he had to raise his head, set in a posture where his nostrils could catch rainwater. It complemented the bratty way he spoke very well. His arms were crossed across his chest, causing those that saw him to want to smack him up a bit.
Gaoshannu stood silently, head bowed, behind him. His face was coarse and malicious, practically a Rakshasa from the storybooks.
Even Gao Chong frowned at those words. Zhao Jing had already had enough, standing up to point at Feng Xiaofeng’s nose and scold him. “Stupid dwarf! You’re still talking like that? Was your conscience eaten by a dog?!”
The other sneered. “Hero Zhao, after you took in the Zhang orphan, you haven’t strayed a cun away from him, acting like he’s a sensitive subject whenever he’s at your side. Why for? You know something! Don’t take the rest of us for fools!”
Feng Xiaofeng then turned his burning gaze to Zhang Chengling, whose head had not rising, and pulled a shout from his throat. “Boy, tell the truth! Do you know where the Zhang’s Whorl Beryl is? Do you have it? Was it later stolen by this… heh, Hero?”
“I’ll fuck your ancestors eight generations back, dwarf!” Zhao Jing raged.
Gaoshannu abruptly raised his head to stare angrily at Zhao Jing. As soon as Feng Xiaofeng waved his head, Gaoshannu stood peacefully behind him once again.
“You’re flying into a rage out of shame, Hero Zhao. Isn’t that below your station?” Feng Xiaofeng continued.
Zhao Jing wanted to pounce on and teach him a lesson. Gao Chong quickly stopped him, saying darkly, “Brother Feng it would be best for us to speak less words of no foundations, as it injures feelings. Before anything else, some people need to come deal with these corpses, and the rest can be planned for in the long term…”
However, yet another person was heard to speak. “Hero Gao, do you always speak behind closed doors like this, selective about who gets to listen in on what? Isn’t using the time where all the big guys are together to question this child not for his own benefit? Wouldn’t it prevent people from thinking about taking his life every couple of days?”
Now, Zhang Chengling raised his head, face very pale, eyes without spirit. He felt like everyone was looking at him, everyone was pointing at him, everyone was pressuring him to give them an explanation, but he genuinely didn’t know anything.
Zhou Zishu had always been used to hiding within the crowd. Few had ever taken notice of him. At this time, he was squished as such within a group of people, and seeing Zhang Chengling’s blank and helpless look made a burst of rage rush forth in his heart.
He wanted to pushed everyone away, pull the lad out, and bring him away from this filth-hiding place — but if he did that, would he still be Zhou Zishu?
Think, then move. Think thrice, then act. Those were things carved into his bones. No matter how big the trouble was, he would always carry full prudence, stay deep behind the curtains, and never stick his head out to make a public appearance.
All those years, even the Emperor had stated that he was getting increasingly calmer in the way he handled things, never once revealing an iota of flaw… but that old bastard, Ye Baiyi, had said that he hid his head, yet showed his tail.
He suddenly felt a gaze shooting at him, like someone was staring at him specifically. Upon turning his head, he happened to meet Ye Baiyi’s line of sight.
The other was also standing in the crowd, and not too far away from him. He was expressionless, not even nodding in greeting to him, still watching him unblinkingly. The look in his eyes was calm, just like that time he had told him, ‘You’re going to die soon.’
You’re going to die soon, and you’ve been a tortoise shrinking your head into shell all your life, Zhou Zishu mentally mused. He thought, What’s the worst that could happen? Everything’s reached this plight already. What road are you still overcautiously paving, and what schemes are you plotting? If someone goes their whole life without ever once acting on impulse, wouldn’t they be too repressed, too miserable?
He suddenly discovered that his own wish had, in fact, been nothing more than to be a shell-less tortoise that never shrunk his head back.
Everyone that was in the middle of making unending noise suddenly heard a chuckle. The sound shouldn’t have stuck out inside the cacophonous crowd, but the one in question used some unknown technique to firmly repress all other voices. Following that, an unassuming, malnourished-looking man walked out to address them casually. “What’s the reason behind all of you gents making things hard for a child, right out in the open?”
Zhang Chengling’s eyes brightened. He parted his lips to silently mouth, “Master.”
Cao Weining had recommended Zhou Zishu to Gao Chong, which was why the latter paused, then spoke his identity. “Brother Zhou.”
He felt very strange, though. The other man now had an imposing aura unique to that of a martial master, so, reasonably speaking, his eyes should have never passed over, then forgot him. And yet, when Cao Weining had brought them people to Gao Manor that day, he hadn’t never taken notice of this guy. Even now, he had only barely remembered that his surname was Zhou, and couldn’t recall his given name…
Gao Chong’s heart went slightly cold.
Zhou Zishu was seen to beckon to Zhang Chengling. “Come here, you little devil.”
Zhang Chengling immediately threw himself into his arms without a second word, practically more affection than if he had seen his own father.
“And who are you?” Feng Xiaofeng questioned sharply.
Putting his arms across Zhang Chengling’s shoulders, Zhou Zishu turned his head to look at Feng Xiaofeng. Seeing his face made him pretty upset, so he ver calmly provoked him. “You don’t recognize your own father, dwarf?”
Feng Xiaofeng grew furious. Before he could speak this time around, Gaoshannu let out a low roar, then threw himself at Zhou Zishu.
With his massive stature, every step he took upon seemed to shake the affected ground three times full, much like how a tsunami or landslide would come bounding over. A meteor hammer as big a human head was being whirled in his hand, about to hammer Zhou Zishu into a meaty paste.
He treated everyone that had the gall to insult Feng Xiaofeng like a great enemy that had killed his father. The relationship between the two of them was really quite bizarre.
However, Zhou Zishu’s figure darted, and he was already no longer in the same place, bringing Zhang Chengling along with him. The meteor hammer smashed into the ground, pounding a giant hole into the bluestone slabs.
Gao Chong stood by and watched, thinking of how the man’s agility arts had apparently reached the level of perfection, for him to be so fast whilst carrying someone.
That one hit not landing, Gaoshannu raised his hand again to send the hammer sweeping out with a whirr. Glimpsing an opportunity, Zhou Zishu lightly tapped his toes against the weapon’s chain to raise it two chi higher, then gave a supplemental kick to the hammer’s head in the direction it was already headed. It was unclear how strong the kick had been, as by the time anyone reacted, the meteor hammer had already turned around to rush towards its owner.
Gaoshannu was not too nimble, making evading it an impossibility. In a rush, he tightened all of his muscles, shrank his head back, and barely managed to turn to the side before letting out a shout as his shoulder suffered a hard blow. His entire person was sent flying from the hit, landing in a heap on the ground.
Feng Xiaofeng screamed like he had been the one the hammer hit. Giving no care for anyone else, he threw himself forth to look his Gaoshannu over.
The other’s shoulder was shattered on one side, but he was ultimately thicker-skinned than most, both still living and still wide awake. He was curled into one enormous lump on the ground, not making a peep, the eyes he looked at Feng Xiaofeng with having much pain.
Only then did Feng Xiaofeng look up, casting his gaze viciously at Zhou Zishu.
The latter’s face was as still as water. “He wanted my life, but I don’t want his,” he said, then pulled Zhang Chengling over. “We’re leaving.”
“Stop right there!”
It was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua, Yu Qiufeng. He stood up, the several sects backing Mount Hua also standing in suit, and wore a very nasty expression as he looked at Zhou Zishu, after which he perfunctorily clasped his fist towards him. “Heroic one, you’re taking this boy away from the presence the realm’s heroes like so, but you’re not giving enough face to the major figures here, are you?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Zhou Zishu swept him a look. “Then what should be done, Sect Leader Yu?” he asked mildly.
“Leave if you want do, but first, tell him to say why people have been hunting him down over and over again, whether the Zhangs had some relation to the Whorl, and whose hands the Whorl is in now!”
Zhou Zishu smiled fakely as he observed the greatly bitter Sect Leader. Lowing his head, he asked Zhang Chengling, “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
The boy pursed his lips tight, shaking his head.
“If he’s the one asking you, would you want to answer?”
Zhang Chengling reached out to carefully grab onto his clothes, silent. Zhou Zishu nodded, then turned to Yu Qiufeng. “Sect Leader Yu, you have questions that he might not be able to answer. We’ll part ways here, and meet up at a later, unspecified date.”
Saying so, he pulled Zhang Chengling along, spun on his heart, and left.
The Sect Leader of Mount Cang, Huang Daoren, laughed coldly behind Yu Qiufeng. “This punk thinks he’s all that!”
And then, he took the lead in the attack.
This Huang Daoren was really not much to look at. He had a face like a dark egg, able to crack melons apart through sheer ugliness, and favored keeping a folding fan with him all year round. It wasn’t clear what he’d been thinking, staying behind the elderly and graceful Yu Qiufeng.
At this moment, he attacked out of surprisingly discontent, shooting over like a giant potato.
Zhou Zishu mentally laughed; saying that he thought himself all that was pretty accurate, since all these trashbags here could only cluck like mother hens. He hadn’t respect for any one of them.
Seeing that Huang Daoren was send a move over, Zhou Zishu never once let go of Zhang Chengling’s hand while everyone watched blurry patterns bloom before their eyes. The two made an uncountable amount of moves in the blink of an eye, after which Huang Daoren grunted, took three steps back, spat out a mouthful of blood, and sat hard upon the ground.
He transformed into a withered potato.
The scene quickly became alarmed cries of “Master!” and “Sect Leader!”
Anxious, Yu Qiufeng pointed at Zhou Zishu. “Which errant and demonic path are you from? Are you one of those Vile Wraiths? Don’t let him get away!”
They couldn’t beat him, so they were going to put a big label on his head. The corners of Zhou Zishu’s mouth twitched. Hugging Zhang Chengling, he had no intent to wrangle with them, already gone several zhang away in a blink.
The scene was chaos. There was Cao Weining stammering to defend him, Gao Chong and Zhao Jing that calm due to not-evident implications, and a bunch of riled-up good-for-nothings as headed by Yu Qiufeng, who followed to cause trouble for no clear reason.
All that barking made this more or less resemble a dog market.
Zhou Zishu shuttled through the crowd like his body was a ghost’s, occasionally smacking away the few that bumped into him. Held in his arms, Zhang Chengling had practically become a meaty chunk of bone that everyone wanted to gnaw a bite off of, all because of his connection to the Whorl Beryl. Yu Qiufeng seemed to have suddenly turned into a rabid mutt, pursuing him without rest, and causing Zhou Zishu to think that Mount Hua’s Sect Leader pursued as doggedly as an old grandmother did, never resting!
He was getting irate, too. Stopping in his tracks, he whirled around, planning to strike him.
But, at that moment, a whip’s image suddenly broke through the air to here, just in time to cut off Yu Qiufeng’s path. This was followed by the stink of alcohol assaulting the senses.
Zhou Zishu focused his eyes to look. The man that emanated an alcoholic aura and had mussed clothes was actually Wen Kexing, the one that had left without sending word last night.
Wen Kexing’s eyes were shot red, and his footwork was a messiness signature of drunken men. To Zhou Zishu, he gave a very flirty grin, and tried to place himself into very alluring posture of glancing backwards with a smile, only for a drunk hiccup to ruin it. “Ah-Xu, go… go on ahead. I’ll block ‘em for… for you.”
Before he quite finished, he did a full body stagger, looking like a tumbler doll in the wind with his head bobbing and rump swaying. It was harrowing to witness — yet he still dodged the few moves Yu Qiufeng greeted him with.
In the midst of his swaying, the whip he held was flung about with no rhyme nor reason, and somehow came to hit just ‘perfectly’ enough to wrap around Yu Qiufeng’s calm, then force the Sect Leader of Mount Hua to trip and faceplant in front of everyone’s watching eyes.
Wen Kexing rubbed his eyes vigorously, simultaneously stepping out a yangge dance on noodley legs and tilting his head to look at inconsolably indignant Yu Qiufeng. Hand waving in front of the other’s eyes, he asked with a clumsy tongue, “Hey, those are… t-two heads… did… didja drink too much, too? Why ya crawling on the ground?”
Glancing at this, Zhou Zishu inwardly shook his head. The Mount Hua Sect was going to be irreconcilable enemies with Wen Kexing, now.
He accepted Wen Kexing’s favor without delay. Picking Zhang Chengling up, he took this opportunity to flee, lead two horses over from parts unknown, throw the boy onto the back of one, then bring him away in a cloud of dust.
Zhang Chengling wasn’t great at horse riding. He was great at pretty much nothing, really. After not going too far, he kind of couldn’t keep up with Zhou Zishu, wavering on the horse’s back.
Zhou Zishu inwardly sighed, aware that he shouldn’t request that a hunk of rotting wood try to be a straight beam. After a spell of running, the horses were abandoned, and he brought Zhang Chengling over the walls of an abandoned courtyard that hadn’t seen people in a long time. He told the teen that had suffered frights for most the day to rest well.
Not too long later, the main door of the abandoned courtyard was abruptly shoved open by someone. Zhang Chengling immediately jumped up like the grass itself was an army, only to see that it was Wen Kexing, to teetered thrice for every step as he walked in.
Zhang Chengling had believed him to be faking drunkenness, but seeing him now, he realized that the other couldn’t tell East from West, North from South. After taking a few steps like a headless fly, he plopped down onto one knee before Zhou Zishu, then pitched forwards, collpasing.
Zhou Zishu quickly lifted his face to see that Wen Kexing’s complexion was ruddy, showing no trace of having suffered injury, and learn that the other was giving him a stupid grin. He firmly hugged Zhou Zishu’s legs with his arms, rolled to one side, and laid on the ground, using those legs as either a pillow or a blanket. It was hard to say.
“Did you fall into a wine vat?” Zhou Zishu had to ask.
“Yesterday, I… found a w… wine cellar…” Wen Kexing answered thickly. “Mm, I soaked in it all night, drank more ’n ten jars… merry, merry!”
He really had drunk too much. Once he started laughing, he couldn’t stop, tightly hugging Zhou Zishu’s lap and burying his face in it, repeatedly mumbling ‘merry’.
Head cocked to one side, Zhou Zishu looked at him with no words to say. Since the man had fallen asleep snoring in the middle of a blue sky’s daylight, he concluded that he had drunk himself to bursting.
Thus, those three uncaringly patted their butts off and left, while Gao Manor was currently a mess. Cao Weining was still indignantly saying to those beside him that Mount Hua had clearly been unkind, so Mo Huaikong tugged him aside and gave him a curt command of, “Shut up.”
Cao Weining turned his head to look at his sect-uncle, wanting to say, ‘How can you bow your head towards malevolent forces, Uncle?’, but he saw Mo Huaikong point at Yu Qiufeng. “Are you not seeing how he’s courting death? Shut up, quit running your mouth, and watch carefully!”
Cao Weining obediently shut up.
He looked around at everything for a time, then suppressed his voice. “Uncle, why do you think Heroes Zhao and Gao let Brother Zhou take the Zhang child away so easily?”
Mo Huaikong stared ahead with his eagle-like eyes. Hearing that, he coldly swept a look at Cao Weining. “Did your brain get eaten by a dog?” he squeezed out from between his teeth.
Cao Weining had grown thick-skinned from getting scolded by him so much, and he didn’t turn red at all, just waiting for his explanation with total sincerity. Mo Huaikong turned his face away and ignored him, however.
It took a little while before Cao Weining could understand. He realized that his brain really had been eaten by a dog, for him to not have been able to notice — his sect-uncle clearly didn’t know, either!
Grandmaster Cimu came over in a rush. Following behind him was a middle-aged man who was thin and dressed in black clothes. The corners of his mouth sloped downwards, the lines trailing down from his nose were deep, his sword-like brows encroached upon his temples, and his eyes were extremely bright, one look telling that their owner was not to be trifled with.
Seeing this troubled scenario, Grandmaster Cimu had to use Shaolin’s Lion Roar Arts to shout out. Many martial artists had black appear right before their eyes due to his low roar, and the crowd thereafter calmed down.
Once Gao Chong and Zhao Jing noticed the man behind Grandmaster Cimu, they both stood up. Zhao Jing took the lead in exposing his identity with a call. “Brother Shen!”
Cao Weining herd Mo Huaikong gasp. “Who is this, Uncle?” he asked quickly, seizing the chance.
The other furrowed his brow. “That’s Shen Zhen, of Shuzhong’s Shen family. He’s normally a total madam, never strolling beyond the gates of his home and shut up inside so that he can keep his face white, lest the sun tans him. Why would he be willing to risk his delicate skin today, and come running all the way to Dongting to see the sun? This is really weird.”
Cao Wening had never heard of the man before, so he let out an ignorant grunt. Mo Huaikong hated seeing this stupid look of his the most, giving him a glare. “Most your age don’t know that in the very beginning, there were five families that bore the most prestigious reputation in jianghu,” he still proceeded to explain. “They were the Zhangs of Jiangnan, Zhaos of Lake Tai, Gaos of Dongting, Shens of Shuzhong, and Lus of Taihang. Now, though, Gao Chong and Zhao Jing aside, the Zhangs have only one member left, the Shens washed their hands in a golden basin and quit caring about jianghu matters long ago, and the Lus are gone. The ‘five great families’ label hasn’t matched reality for a while. Lots of youngsters don’t remember them anymore.”
Cao Weining counted on his fingers. “That’s not right, Uncle. The Zhang descendant included, that’s only four surnames. Where did the fifth one come from?”
Mo Huaikong grew impatient. “The Lu family’s head died of a decades-long illness. He didn’t accumulate virtues in his last life, so in his last one, his family line was cut off, and he left no children. Because he had something of a friendship with that now-stiff Sect Leader of Mount Tai, Hua Fangling, he entrusted his assets and few disciples to the Mount Tai Sect. Hua Qingsong is here, so doesn’t he count as the Lu family? Why don’t you understand anything? Where are all these questions coming from? Don’t tell anyone that I’m your elder, you public disgrace!”
Shen Zhen said something quietly to Grandmaster Cimu, who sighed, recited a name of the Buddha, and nodded. Then, the former stood up, turned his head to take a box that was carried by a Shen disciple, and opened it.
A small bundle wrapped in silk was inside. He unwrapped it, after which someone was heard to suck in a breath and shout, “It’s a Whorl!”
Cao Weining craned his neck to look, too. The box’s contents were completely exposed; it was an extremely delicate piece of beryl no bigger than a palm, faintly glimmering beneath the sunlight. Had it not been said, who could have know that this little thing had stirred such a huge storm of blood?
Yu Qiufeng’s throat slightly bobbed. He cleared his throat to mumble, “Is this really one of the five Whorl Beryl pieces?”
“It’s authentic,” Shen Zhen said, though he turned his gaze to Gao Chong afterwards.
The other man’s expression was indecipherable. After a long silence, he said to the nearby Deng Kuan, “On the bookcase to the left of my study’s doorway, third shelf behind the Book of Rites, is a hidden compartment. Open it up and bring what’s inside to me.”
Understanding nothing, Deng Kuan left with his orders. A short time later, he returned with a small box grasped in his arms. Gao Chong took it, sighed, then opened it for all to see.
Placed side-by-side with Shen Zhen’s box, two pieces of the legendary Whorl Beryl made their appearance before all.
“As things have gotten to this point, this old decrepit must give all of you good folk an explanation,” Gao Chong said. “There are indeed five pieces of the Whorl Beryl. Over the years, we five have held a piece each of it. Brother Lu passed on a few years prior, so he had entrusted his piece to the Sect Leader of Mount Tai, but that… invited fatal calamity unto him.”
“Amitabha. This old monk knows a little bit of this incident’s finer details,” Grandmaster Cimu picked up.
Everyone turned their gazes to the benevolent-looking High Shaolin Monk, his hairs all white, and listened to him speak. “I am unsure if anyone present still recalls the calamity that happened to the martial circle thirty years back.”
Once that was said, the faces of the slightly older folk immediately twisted up. Even Ye Baiyi, who was watching the scene nearby, slightly raised his head.
At this very same moment, Zhou Zishu was relying upon his memory to tell the completely in the dark Zhang Chengling about the Zhang family’s history. Wen Kexing was sleeping close, ignorant of all human affairs; after having been kicked away by Zhou Zishu, he still gripped the other’s sleeve tightly, quite unsightly as he laid there splayed out on his back.
While getting dragged away by Cao Weining in the morning, Zhou Zishu had been getting ready to eat something, yet hadn’t the time to do anything other than pack it up. He now brought it out to give to Zhang Chengling, watching the teen wolf it down.
“I only have a general idea of what happened thirty years ago. It was probably when your own father was young. In jianghu, there was a martial prodigy by the name of Rong Xuan. His sword in hand, he seldom found a rival in all the four seas, and he loved to wander plus make friends with heroes from all over. It was aid that he had very close friendships with the younger generations of all five major families. The five families go unmentioned anymore, but as a Zhang descendant, you should know that, right?”
Zhang Chengling nodded. “But my dad never once spoke of him,” he said, food crumbs still around his mouth.
“It’s not only your father that never mentioned it. For the last thirty years, his name has been taboo.” Zhou Zishu sighed here. “Later on, Rong Xuan married. His wife was reportedly a lady beyond the common foil, very pretty, and from Healer Valley…”
He paused all of a sudden, bowing his head to look at Wen Kexing. He’s from Healer Valley, too, he thought. Is that a coincidence?
When he raised his head, Zhang Chengling was staring at him without blinking, ready for more story. Zhou Zishu held a slight suspicion, but didn’t express so in front of him, proceeding onwards. “The two were in deep conjugal love, companions in excellence. No one expected that one day, his wife would be murdered.”
Zhang Chengling startled, then asked a stupid question. “Why, though?”
Zhou Zishu smiled. Were justifications needed to kill someone?
Still, he gave it a thought before proceeding. “It’s mostly… ‘A common man has committed no crime, but his zealous guarding of a jade gets him condemned.’ Rong Xuan’s sword arts were never witnessed by me, I only heard that he really deserved to be labeled as unique, to the point that no one came before him and no will come after him. Before he hit age thirty, he formed his own sect, and forged the legendary Fengshan Sword, ‘Mountain-Sealer’. To have never seen the mountain-splitting, sea-parting Fengshan Sword techniques of old is a huge regret of my lifetime.
“The Fengshan Sword was divided into two volumes. The first volume is a mental technique for martial arts, and the second is sword moves. The second was his own innovation, but the first is rumored to be a secret tome passed down since antiquity, which he’d come upon by accident, then weaved into his heart. You should know… that the words ‘unrivaled master’ can make people lose their minds.”
“What happened after that?”
“After that, Rong Xuans grief was immense, and he actually qi deviated. It greatly changed his personality. He began to wantonly slaughter the innocent. Without a choice, the five major families from back then took the lead, even setting the Land Writ into motion to get forces joined in hunting him down… come to think of it, from the last time the Land Writ showed up in the world to now, it’s been over thirty years.
“Rong Xuan later fled to the Wind Cliffs, of Green Bamboo Ridge. It was there that he had a vicious battle with the people hunting him, as headed by the five families — it’s unknown how many died there, and people say that the dead can still be heard wailing in the night. Who could have anticipated that the one they had once been through thick and thin with would come to oppose them in death, unrelenting until his death?”
Was what the world called ‘affection’ so fickle?
He paused momentarily, then nodded. “Right. The Wind Cliffs of Green Bamboo Ridge is Wraith Vale itself. To this day, no one knows why the Vile Wraiths of then stood on Rong Xuan’s side. The battle was fought for some amount of days, and only ended with Rong Xuan’s suicide. Over half of the realm’s heroes had been lost, the five families falling into a downwind they could never recover from. And it was due to this incident that both sides were genuinely injured in spirit enough that a rule was made: the Vale could not enter the human world from that point on. This bought thirty years of peace.”
At that point in his speech, Zhou Zishu furrowed his brow. This tale was nothing more than what he had heard, none of his own guesses added onto it, yet there were many areas unclear to him now that he was speaking of them. For instance, what had actually happened at Wind Cliffs? How had Rong Xuan’s wife died? How could a prodigy that was supposed to be the expert of a generation fall from grace into the Vale, and keep those sorts company?
Thankfully, Zhang Chengling was not a clever boy. All he did was listen in ignorance, not coming to any grand understanding.
All of these events had been buried for so many years. How many of them could come to see the light of day?
Those that had participated were either dead, or keeping their lips shut. Even Heaven’s Pane had failed to gather the facts of that past. Zhou Zishu had a suspicion… that the Whorl Beryl was a remnant left behind from the Wind Cliffs battle.
That evening, he finally wrested free of Wen Kexing’s hand that was gripping his clothes unto death, hunted some wild game, and brought them back to roast and eat. He pondered over his destinations not mattering, as bringing this little brat along would always be a burden.
Still, he didn’t want to pressure Zhang Chengling. He had to let him think of what path to take for himself.
Wen Kexing was so very drunk, that even as the sky darkened, he was still paralyzed there like a pile of mud. Zhou Zishu taught Zhang Chengling a few more chants so that he could come to comprehend them on his own, then leaned on a wall and closed his eyes in rest. After an unknown amount of time had passed, right when he was slightly groggily about to fall asleep, he felt a hand grope about him, then very dishonestly go to open the buttons on his upper garments.
He grabbed the other over his wrist’s pulse, opening his eyes.
Wen Kexing was still half-drunk right now. He didn’t panic upon seeing himself get grabbed, merely shooting him a grin in the darkness. “I just wanted to see what the legendary Septeye Nails of Three Autumns looked like. I wasn’t thinking of doing anything to you. I’m not deliberately trying to be a hoodlum,” he said, very reasonably.
The phrase ‘explanations are a cover-up, and a cover-up is a mistake’s beginning’ had a definition expressed by a wretched man with the family name Wen.
One hand was held by Zhou Zishu, the other propping him up against the ground. He was practically half-laid on top of Zhou Zishu. Zhang Chengling had already fallen dead asleep. The two men breathed and spoke extremely lightly, having an ambiguity that could not be named within the blackness.
Wen Kexing suddenly came in close. Removing his own outer robe, he wrapped it around him, brushing away a stray hair from the side of his face. “Ah-Xu, is ‘Zhou Xu’ your real name?” he asked quietly.
Zhou Zishu flicked his hand away, then pushed him away. “What kind of joke is that, Brother Wen? It seems like ‘Wen Kexing’ is about as real,” he answered, boldly confident.
Wen Kexing raised his brows at that, then countered in an even softer voice, “Then, in your mind, what should my name be?”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for a short moment before he whispered back. “Brother Wen, is your family name really Wen? I feel like it ought to be Rong.”
Wen Kexing slowly sat up straight, watching him silently. He crossed his long legs, finger tapping against his knee. “My family name isn’t Rong,” he said softly, after a long time. “I do hate that in my lifetime, I’ve never seen the man that is, else the first time I met him would be the time I killed him.”
Zhou Zishu couldn’t see any sort of surprise in his eyes. At this, he paused, then dragged his words out to say, “Oh? Looks like I guessed wrong. I thought… I thought that the current Wraith Lord was a descendant of the Rong family.”
Only Zhang Chengling’s gentle snores could be heard in the dark. The two men were not too far apart, yet both were as silent as death.
Not too long later, Wen Kexing slowly revealed a smile. The smile was different from his typical all-teeth, no-eyes, foolish-looking one; it didn’t reach his eyes, which were pitch-black and still cold as ice, looking on sharply as they reflected the faint light. With his brows slightly raised, he gave an air of fake geniality. “Oh?”
Zhou Zishu’s voice was so light, he seemed to not be moving his lips at all, but he spoke rapidly. “The Merry Death Wraith hired on Venoms and weaved them into that brat’s entire journey. The truth of it was that he didn’t want to kill him, but instead really wanted to know whether he had ever seen a man missing a finger during the Zhang Manor’s massacre. As far as I’m aware, Hanging Wraith Xue Fang has a missing finger. However, from the very day I encountered that group in the run-down temple, I knew that the Zhang’s annihilation was not the doing of anyone from Wraith Vale.”
“And how do you know that?” the other asked, appearing to be quite interested.
Zhou Zishu smiled faintly. “I went completely unscathed, all of my limbs intact, escorting the brat from the clutches of a million Vile Wraiths to Lake Tai. If my talents really were that great, I would have dominated the martial world long ago. What would I be screwing around here for?”
Wen Kexing looked at him with a very burning gaze. “…You don’t need to be so self-deprecating.”
“Why would the Merry Death Wraith keep chasing this brat without cease? I thought that there might be only one explanation, that no matter who enacted the Zhang Manor crime, there had to be Vile Wraiths of Green Bamboo Ridge that had secretly left the Vale to partake in it, making the Merry Death Wraith suspicious… or maybe in want to make other people suspicious. That one would be the Hanging Wraith. On top of that, while the black-clothed man Gu Xiang killed was dying, he uttered the word ‘Violet’. Violet what? I thought… she couldn’t be the Violet Fiend, right?”
The other nodded. “You’re not wrong. The two of us went from Jiangnan to Lake Tai, then all the way to Dongting, emerging coincidentally and showing up suspiciously. I also killed that minor Wraith in the caves because I feared that he would out me, yes?”
“That wasn’t hard to guess. Brother Wen, in all of jianghu, there really aren’t too many that I can’t guess my way about — the southern border and the northern desert notwithstanding, those in the Central Plains’ martial circle that apply can be counted on one hand. After spending so many days with you, wouldn’t I be a terrible idiot if I still didn’t know?”
Wen Kexing was quiet for a minute, neither confirming nor denying it. He then huffed out a laugh, nodding. “The things you know about are way too great… Manor Lord Zhou? Sir Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu smiled. “I’m nothing more than a commoner, now. You’re much too polite, Wraith Lord.”
When Wen Kexing had directly spoken of the Septeye Nails, Zhou Zishu knew that the other had already guessed his origins.
The two said nothing else. In that moment, Wen Kexing was no longer a smooth-talking lout that was particular to men, and Zhou Zishu was no longer a poverty-stricken vagabond that sang off-key. The mysterious Lord of the Wind Cliffs and former leader of Heaven’s Pane faced each other quietly in an abandoned residence, seeming all the more to be having a silent competition.
The only witness to this was still sleeping nearby, surprisingly dead to the world.
Zhou Zishu looked in Zhang Chengling’s direction, lowering his voice even further. “You’ve been following this boy all this time, Wraith Lord. Is it because you think that he knows something? Something like… who the one that broke taboo by leaving the Vale, then hunted him down afterwards is?”
“How do you know that I’m following him?” Wen Kexing countered, beaming at him.
Zhou Zishu let out a laugh. “Aren’t you? It can’t be that you’re following me, right?”
The other man just grinned. The way he looked could be very easy to misconceive as him gazing affectionately at a lover; Zhou Zishu was smiled at until he felt a bit prickly. A good while later, Wen Kexing asked breezily, “Ah-Xu, don’t you feel like we’re getting more and more compatible?”
“Not at all,” Zhou Zishu answered decisively.
Wen Kexing looked at him, still hair-raisingly warm. Zhou Zishu looked back at him for a long time. “Did you take the wrong medication, or are these the after-effects of qi deviating during training?” he asked.
Wen Kexing suddenly grabbed his fingers, brushed along them to hold his palm, lifted it upwards, then bowed his head to lightly kiss the back of his hand. “Why don’t you tell me?” he shot back.
Zhou Zishu immediately got goosebumps all over. He forceful wrested his hand free, only to sense the warm feeling of those lips and the ensnaring gaze of this man seeming to tangle together in one spot, and how he was seriously mentally deranged. “Your appetite is way too big, Brother Wen,” he answered with a dry laugh.
“Well said, though it only got so big after I saw you,” Wen Kexing said, unashamed. “Tell me; what can I do about it?”
He didn’t wait for Zhou Zishu to respond, though, immediately continuing to talk about irrelevant stuff. “Many years ago, I saw a corpse on the roadside. Its hair was already dried-up, scattered then wadded into a ball. The original pigments of its clothes couldn’t be seen. It bore a mangled face, its nose cut off, where even the silhouette of its features remained undefined. A spear had pierced it through from front to back, passing through its shoulder blades. I gave it a few more looks, and the second I saw that pair of bones, I knew that this must have been a peerless beauty just before death. Can you guess what went on after?”
Zhou Zishu took a deep breath, only for Wen Kexing to keep going before he could speak. “In all my life of seeing human bones, I have never misseen. That’s why, Ah-Xu, you simply washing your changed face off would have me kissing and holding you until I’m satisfied. Beauties are uncommon in this world, yet not particularly rare. My grand aspiration is to peruse every beauty in the land. Never have I ever been caught up in them. Maybe I could see your original appearance, the lightning of heaven would attract the fire of earth, I would spend a night with you, and then forget about you. But when you look like this… I want to stay by you for life.”
Zhou Zishu had wanted to say something, but all of the words that came to his mouth were immediately lost once he heard this. He stared at him, tongue tied and eyes wide.
Wen Kexing rocked from side to side as he smiled, pointing at him. “Spooked you.”
“Fucker,” Zhou Zishu commented concisely, though he paused afterwards. Upon thinking of something, he clapped the other on the shoulder. “Forget it. You should curb your grief and go with what may come.”
Wen Kexing was taken aback. “What?” he asked dumbly.
Zhou Zishu didn’t say anything else to him, merely reclining to one side and shutting his eyes in rest.
Why would he, after so many years, still so vividly remember the physical attributes of a corpse, to the point where he could retell the state of its hair and what it had been wearing with clarity? He must have thought back to it countless times. Now it was carved into his mind, and he had spoken of it under the guise of nonchalantly spouting drivel time and time again, fearing that he might forget their appearance.
Ineffably, Zhou Zishu understood that feeling. They might have met by random chance in this vast sea of people, unaware of each other’s depths, yet that didn’t prevent them from being natural-born confidantes.
The day after, Zhou Zishu and Zhang Chengling left the abandoned home… with an uninvited tagalong roach by the name of Wen, of course. Zhou Zishu planned to go to the Ping An Exchange again and see what they had found out about his request; understanding it a little better was needed to stuff something into Zhang Chengling’s vacuous head, and also avoid him turning into a braindead musclehead out of ignorance.
The boy quickly discovered that learning anything from this conveniently-earned Master of his was true suffering. All he cared about was getting him to recite a long string of mantras that were both hard to pronounce and cryptic, not whether anyone could understand what they were listening to or not, nor whether it was memorized at all. He considered this ‘teaching’, under the beautified concept of ‘The Master leads one through a door, but cultivation exists in the individual.’
Zhang Chengling believed that the threshold of the door Master Zhou was leading him through was far too tall, practically taller than some other place’s mid-mountain. In cloud and in fog, his mind was all the more a lump of paste, eyes rolling back into his head as he struggled to recite. This dumb look made Zhou Zishu impatient to see, and he smacked him on the back of his head. “Are you reciting the mantras, or hanging yourself?”
Aware of his own slowness, Zhang Chengling was too ashamed to answer, looking at him in grievance.
“What are you doing?” Zhou Zishu asked.
“Master, I don’t get it.”
Zhou Zishu inhaled deeply. Feeling that he should have some patience since he accepted the label of Master, he managed to tamp down his temper, slow down his rate of speech, and asked with self-aware restraint, “Which part don’t you understand?”
Zhang Chengling looked at him, silently lowering his head. “All of them…” he whispered.
The man quietly shifted his gaze away to look elsewhere. After a long period of resistance, he finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “Brat, is that thing on top of your neck a head, or a chamberpot?!”
Wen Kexing was happily following beside them. Seeing this, he stepped up to wrap his arms around the both of them, automatically imagining himself as the compassionate father accompanying the strict mother, both smug and shamelessly boastful. “You shouldn’t go that far,” he cheerily told Zhou Zishu. “Will you instruct your disciple, or no? You could scold anyone stupid, no matter how bright they are.”
“Why wouldn’t I? My junior used to be taught by my hand.”
Wen Kexing’s eyes slightly widened. “Then what did you do if your junior couldn’t recite the mantras, or couldn’t practice some move?” he wondered.
That time period had kind of been long ago. After furrowing his brows in thought for a spell, Zhou Zishu answered, “I made him copy the introductory breath-regulation mantra three hundred times. If he couldn’t even practice slowly, then he wouldn’t need to eat, nor… need to sleep. In the middle of the night, I would get someone to lock his bedroom up so that he would go into the snowdrifts and come to a comprehension on his own.”
Zhang Chengling inwardly shuddered at that. Wen Kexing was stunned for a good while, after which he sighed. “That good junior… sure had some great luck.”
Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks. “It wasn’t that great. He’s dead.”
Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing both looked at him. Not a single clue could be gleaned from his sallow face.
He patted Zhang Chengling’s head none too gently. “Learn well. If you want to keep living a few more days, you need to have the skills to,” he said frankly.
Then, he tossed the boy over to Wen Kexing, gave a “I’m going to go see a friend. Watch him for me,” and utilized his agility arts in departing without looking back, leaving the other two to look at each other.
A long time passed.
“Your Master was being very reasonable,” Wen Kexing said, deeply emotive. “You do need to have the skills to… nevermind, he isn’t even here. Let’s switch our brains out. I’ll continue on from the second half of the Red Boy’s tale from last time.”
Being someone without any promise, Zhang Chengling immediately perked up. While they walked to the nearest restaurant, he heard Wen Kexing say, “What to do about all of those monsters? The Red Boy thought for a long time, tried out innumerable tactics, then came up with one idea at last: all he needed was a mystical weapon…”
One was talking about whatever, one was rooting for him, and both were ecstatic. Right as they were about to walk into a restaurant, they suddenly heard a girl start calling out behind them. “My Lord! My Lord, I finally found you!”
They turned around to see Gu Xiang bouncing over to them. Curiously, Cao Weining was following after her. Wen Kexing couldn’t wrap his head around how these two twits came to know each other, and before he could ask, Gu Xiang spilled out words like pattering beans. “I didn’t see you yesterday, so I went to look for you, only to hear this Brother Cao say that Zhou Xu and you brought that Zhang boy away. He offered to come with in looking for you!”
Cao Weining grinned like an idiot. “It was my pleasure to accompany you.”
“My Lord, Brother Cao is not only a just man, but very well-learned,” Gu Xiang continued. “Let me tell you about—“
Out of a want to act like he didn’t know either of them, Wen Kexing dragged Zhang Chengling into the restaurant.
When Zhou Zishu walked into the Exchange once more, the shopkeeper that welcomed him was not alone.
A somewhat portly, jolly-looking man, upon hearing him arrive, strode up to greet him. He had slender brows and eyes with a fleshy nose, his face the spitting image of a big, shiny-white mantou fresh out of the steamer, which made him quite endearing. The Exchange’s shopkeeper was bowed slightly at the waist, tailing two steps behind the man in a very deferential posture.
As soon as he saw Zhou Zishu, he was first startled, then tentatively asked, “Are you… Don Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu smiled. “What? Do you not recognize me, Ping An?”
The greeting man was Manager ‘Song’, Ping An. Legends told that this man used to be the steward of Prince Nan’ning’s Estate, and after his Master passed on, he had struck out on his own, relying upon his bit of savings to conduct sales. He had established a major enterprise in just a few years.
His properties were all over the country, so he ran all over the place year-round, no one the wiser on where he was. Many merchants knew that Manager Song was pretty astute when it came to matters of business, yet he was also not a wicked man, instead being generous and benevolent. One thing happened after another, his reputation was great, and even his road for the future was broad, the Song Estate becoming all the more flourishing.
Excited, Ping An ordered the shopkeeper to close up, told the workers to withdraw, cleared the scene, and invited Zhou Zishu to sit down. “This was over by Yangzhou, and I rushed over immediately once I received word. Have my subordinates ever neglected you in any way, Don? My Master has been harping on about you for years!”
Then, he lowered his voice. “Many thanks for what you did back then, and keeping the information of my Master leaving the capital a secret. That was the only reason we’ve had a few years of peace.”
Zhou Zishu took a sip of tea. “It was no more effort than a raise of a hand. How has Lord Seventh been this whole time?”
Even so, he thought to himself, It was only because your Master scrammed so early on that things could calm down, and everyone was able to live life peacefully.
“Very good, very good! Thank you for your trouble in thinking of him, Don,” Ping An said happily. “This lowly one sent word back when I received the news, and only received an answer yesterday stating that he’s coming here with the Great Shaman. It will probably take them about ten days to half a month to arrive…”
Hearing that, Zhou Zishu’s placid face immediately spasmed.
The martial circle of the Central Plains is already in upheaval, so does that walking disaster really need to step foot in it? This truly is an inauspicious year, with disasters both natural and man-made coming to roost, he thought, though his tone was still polite. “Why trouble those two with moving?”
“Why not? My Master has lived in Nanjiang for a long time, and really doesn’t have anything to do. He’s coming out to move his bones around, as it happens. He also said that he made a promise to you before, where he was definitely going to get you a thin-waisted, beautiful Nanjiang girl to be your wife.”
Zhou Zishu broke out into a sweat. “That was a joke,” he said quickly, “it was just a joke…”
He inexplicably thought back to the day before, in that abandoned home, where Wen Kexing had said “I want to stay by you for life” with deadly seriousness. He felt like a nail was growing out of the chair his butt was seated on. For some reason, he was uncomfortable and felt wrong all over.
Ping An exchanged some pleasantries with him, then got to the main point. “You came here before about the Whorl Beryl, so this servant told my subordinates to keep a look out. We’ve learned something these past days — did you know that a man named Shen Zhen appeared in Dongting alongside a Shaolin abbot yesterday, and came bearing a piece of the Whorl?”
Zhou Zishu was caught off guard. “The patriarch of Shuzhong’s Shen family, Shen Zhen?”
Ping an nodded. “Yes. He hasn’t asked after the affairs of the world for so long, yet he suddenly showed up now. Clearly, he heard the news of the Zhang incident, and couldn’t keep waiting.”
Mind taking a quick turn, Zhou Zishu’s response to this was instant. “Right. Taihang’s Lu family left no descendants but a few undisciplined disciples, all of which were handed over to Sect Leader Hua Fangling of Mount Tai. As for the Zhang family… were the legendary five Whorl pieces actually in the hands of the five major families?”
“You really can deduce the full story from hearing one detail, Don Zhou. As soon as Shen Zhen appeared, Gao Chong also acknowledged the Whorl Beryl, and that Gao Manor has a piece. The story of the object was finally explained. Have you ever heard of the Yin-Yang Tome, Fengshan Sword, and the Mental Arts of Six Harmonies?”
Zhou Zishu creased his brow slightly, nodding. “I’ve only heard a little of the Yin-Yang Tome, but I don’t know if it’s true or not. It’s supposedly a divine treasure of Healer Valley, capable of bringing the dead back to life, and known for being able to cure all diseases. The Fengshan Sword was created by Rong Xuan, an unmatched martial master that fell to the demonic path thirty years ago; the second half is sword forms, and the first half is a mental cultivation method that was what he came to understand out of the Mental Arts of Six Harmonies. Those Arts have been passed down since antiquity, their faults are many, they’re very obtuse, and it’s extremely easy to qi deviate from them, but they’re still super powerful. There’s no one in this land able to contend with it… was Gao Chong’s implication that the secret within the Whorl is the two-part martial scripture Rong Xuan left behind?”
Ping An nodded. “Precisely. By what Hero Gao said, Rong Xuan’s qi deviation had been in part the pain of grieving his wife, yet his demonic nature growing afterwards was because of improper arts practice. Following his death, a few of them found the Whorl Beryl — they knew that two great, mystical arts and the Yin-Yang Tome were contained within it, yet anyone who practiced the arts would never fail to be toppled by them. They then believed the object to be too dangerous, so they broke the Whorl apart and agreed upon each of the five families safeguarding one piece, never to allow demonic arts to reappear in jianghu again.”
Zhou Zishu frowned after hearing that. A good while later, he nodded back slowly. “So, that’s Gao Chong’s explanation…”
“This servant’s capabilities are truly limited,” Ping An said, shame-faced.
Zhou Zishu shook his head with a smile. “ To this day, neither Heaven’s Pane nor the Four Seasons Manor know many details pertaining to the inside story of that tragedy from thirty years back. Isn’t that more so for you, a businessman? You’ve already been a great help… though, on that subject, if the five major families each hold one piece of the Whorl, what about the Zhaos? Zhao Jing didn’t give a confirmation?”
Ping An nodded again. “The Zhao patriarch declared that the Zhao’s piece had been stolen, its whereabouts unknown. As soon as he said that, everyone present nearly went into an uproar. The Sect Leader of Mount Hua seemed to have decisive evidence that Zhao Jing pilfered the Zhang’s Whorl piece. Those I sent yesterday said that the Sect Leader of Mount Hua almost started brawling with Hero Zhao.”
Now that Zhou Zishu was recalling the Whorl Beryl piece he had seen in the caves that one day, that had most likely been the lost Zhao one, the thief being one amongst either Yu Tianjie or Mu Yunge, whom had died that night. What a shame that the mantis hunting the cicada had an oriole yet behind it, as they had been taken advantage of by a minor Wraith. After that, the Whorl piece had inexplicably come to land into Wen Kexing’s hands, then stolen by Fang Buzhi, but Fang Buzhi was dead now, too, and was suspected to have died by the hand of the Merry Death Wraith…
Zhou Zishu felt discomfort, as if a huge boulder was causing a blockage in his heart, stubbornly going against bitter waters. Could this get any more complicated? he thought.
A heavy load on his mind, he said farewell to Ping An, heading back to find Zhang Chengling. He didn’t fully believe what Gao Chong had said — in the past, he had once dealt with a large volume of information that was questionably valid, and needed to weed out the false from the true for reporting it to the Emperor. There would be a thorough investigation into the matter, oftentimes with a lot of authentication put into the entire sequence of events so that no holes could be seen, before he dared to send it upwards. For this reason, no matter what he heard or saw, he was used to being skeptical about it, prepared to overturn what he had previously known at any point.
Upon entering the restaurant, he spotted Wen Kexing, Zhang Chengling, Cao Weining, and Gu Xiang as soon as he looked up, and thought, Why are these four all together?
Then, he noticed that Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing were taking up one corner of the table each, their expressions both very grave, which confused him somewhat. Once he lifted his legs to go upstairs, he thought to call out to them, only to hear Cao Weining give a great big emotional sigh over there.
“…Truthfully, what I’m most concerned with is fires going off in the backyards of those in righteous sects, and interpersonal harmony being ruined over this Whorl Beryl. Have they not heard the tale of the two plums[15] killing three generals? I fear that a catastrophe in the martial world will arise out of this, and when that time comes, there will be a scene of ‘that which passes is like this all’…”
“What’s passing?” Gu Xiang asked, stupidly and naively.
“‘The Lord said at the riverbank, ‘That which passes is like this all,’’ as stated by the elder Laozi.[16] One day, he was wandering in his dreams, and it was like he had reached a river’s edge,” he patiently explained. “Once he looked down, he saw dead folk seeming to flow past like water.[17] It was very upsetting, and made him sad…”
Her eyes widened. “My Lord, Brother Cao really knows a lot! He can drop quotes like a bag of books!”
Zhou Zishu now knew why Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing looked so grave. Immediately acting like nothing had happened, he spun on his heels and went to walk out.
However, he was seen by the sharp-eyed, ill-tongued Wen Kexing, a man that was a paragon of dragging another down with him in death. “Ah-Xu, why are you leaving? I was waiting for you for half the day! Get over here!” he immediately called out, elated.
…This plague-bearing Lord of Wraith Vale is pretty fucking lacking in about eight lifetimes’ worth of virtues, Zhou Zishu decided.
Wen Kexing happily pulled a chair out for him to sit in, then poured him some wine. “Come now, sample this place’s fine wine. The taste fairly good,” said he, attentive beyond compare.
Zhou Zishu expressionlessly attempted to use his eyes to convey his contempt of him.
The other matched gazes with him for a while, then coyly whispered, “We’re still in broad daylight, here…”
Seeing this, Gu Xiang covered Zhang Chengling’s eyes and adopted a look of pain. “The eyes of dogs all go blind.”
Cao Weining went fully red, gaining a stammer. “M-M-Miss Gu, t-to be honest, you don’t need to be so envious of Brothers Zhou and Wen’s deep affection. You are as beautiful as a flower, so there’s certainly… certainly a good man that admires you in secret…”
She blinked at him with her big, ignorant eyes. “Huh? Really? Where?”
He stared at her blankly for a long time. “Miss Gu, c-c-can I call you Ah-Xiang?” he then asked, quite irrelevantly.
Zhou Zishu devoted himself to bowing his head and drinking wine, warning himself that seeing or hearing this was rude. It was practically akin to sitting on pins and needles, making him feel like they were vomiting stuff up until his own tongue was numb. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t take what he was drinking out of this cup.
At that very moment, though, someone suddenly came through the door. As soon as he saw this, the clamorous restaurant suddenly quieted down for a moment — this was a woman, whose eyes did not glance around while she walked. Once she saw a dish-carrying waiter staring at her dumbstruck, she smiled gently at him, and the dish promptly fell out of the rigid waiter’s hands, shattering on the ground.
She was far too gorgeous. Most everyone that saw her simultaneously thought that this was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen in their lives. Even Gu Xiang was startled for a moment, tugging on Cao Weining’s sleeve. “Look at her! Isn’t she basically an immortal?” she whispered.
Unexpectedly, he only took a look at Gu Xiang’s eyes, then took his focus back to himself. “Her gaze drifts about. Old texts call those peach blossom eyes, and her intentions are definitely unrighteous. She’s inferior to… to…”
The latter half of his statement was so quiet, Gu Xiang didn’t even notice them as she watched the beauty.
Wen Kexing huffed out a laugh, thinking that Cao Weining wasn’t as slick as him, to not look favorably upon another’s nimble gaze, yet take a liking to Gu Xiang’s slow eyes.
The beauty looked a full loop around, after which she headed upstairs towards them. She looked at no one else, solely locked onto Zhou Zishu, her dewy and passionate eyes practically seeming to be fixed upon him alone. Coming over with a leisure, she stood by his side, then leaned over to ask him something, her breath smelling of orchids. “If I asked you to treat me to a drink, could you?”
A big peach blossom had practically fallen out of the sky; anyone would be dazed getting crushed by her.
However, without waiting for Zhou Zishu to speak, a fun-ruining hand was seen to reach out from nearby and get between the two of them. Without any politeness at all, Wen Kexing fished around in Zhou Zishu’s lapel pockets, hooked his coin pouch out in a flash, brazenly stuffed it into his own lapels, then said with a collected tone, “As I see it, he can’t, Miss.”
–
The translator says: Technically, the new full name is Song Ping’an, but due to how the name is rendered in English/was rendered for the entirety of Lord Seventh, and also that he isn’t referred to as ‘Song Ping’an’ aside from all of twice in the full text, I had to tweak it a little for consistency’s sake.
Zhou Zishu looked up to scrutinize her, his expression fairly soft. “Does this humble one know you, Miss?” he asked gently.
She smiled. “If you don’t know me, will you refuse to treat me?”
He smiled back. “Why would I refuse? For a young lady of your character, let alone a pot of wine, if you wanted to eat my flesh and drink my blood, I wouldn’t bat an eye. — Waiter, bring a pot of fine wine.”
He then paused, swept a look at the unhappy-looking Wen Kexing, and pointed him out to the waiter. “Put it on his tab.”
This was the first time Gu Xiang had ever seen such a vibrantly-colored look on her Lord’s face. She immediately felt like this meal was worth dying for.
The beauty began laughing, resembling a shaking branch of flowers, her voice like silver beads clinking as they fell upon a plate of jade. The tunes of Enchanting Melody Qin Song had been nothing compared to hers.
The wine was brought over swiftly. “Have a seat, Miss.”
She placed a soft hand upon his shoulder. “I will not,” she said softly, “for I will leave after the drink.
He gave an ah, showing some slight disappointment.
Wen Kexing just snorted. “Right. This table is a little crowded.”
The beauty glanced at Wen Kexing, raised her wine cup, and downed it all at once. She even looked better than everyone else while drinking, a grace within her every gesture. Zhou Zishu’s gaze was reluctant to leave her face for a moment. She set down her empty cup, then reached out and gently stroked her fingers across his cheek. “I’m about to go. Will you follow me?” she asked.
Not saying another word more, he stood up and followed her out, not turning his head back once.
A crack was heard. The chopsticks in Wen Kexing’s hand were snapped in half.
Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling quickly bowed their heads and acted like they hadn’t seen anything. Cao Weining, on the other hand, was indignant, pointing in the direction the cheating couple had left in. “Your devotion towards him is in vain, Brother Wen! How could he be so entranced by… by…”
Entranced by lust, to the point that he forgot propriety? That didn’t seem right. He bit his tongue.
Wen Kexing turned to look at him. For the first time ever, he believed that this foolish punk with the name Cao was quite nice, so he put on a teary, about-to-cry look to seek comfort — thereby causing Gu Xiang to bite her tongue this time around.
However, after a moment of consideration, Cao Weining said to Wen Kexing in earnest, “I… have always gotten the feeling that this isn’t so simply. Alas, Brother Wen, I was too hasty in speaking just now. You mustn’t take it to heart. Brother Zhou isn’t the type of man at all. He must have some unknown hardship that forced him to enact such a plan; don’t misunderstand him.”
“That’s right, my Lord! You shouldn’t misunderstand him,” Gu Xiang echoed. “You can see that Zhou Xu’s heels are pointed towards you, so he’s clearly walking with a lot of reluctance.”
Even Cao Weining felt her theory to be too preposterous, this time. He could only look at her with helplessness and awkwardness.
“Big sister Gu Xiang, you should stop talking,” Zhang Chengling said.
Wen Kexing abruptly stood up, turned, and left without another word, chasing after Zhou Zishu.
The three left behind exchanged looks. Gu Xiang gulped. “My Lord is in a rush,” she whispered.
Cao Weining shook his head, sighing. “Truly, evening brings sounds of a storm, tears flow in a fathomless swarm…[18] since ancient times, the word ‘love’ has caused the deepest wounds, but what can be done about it?”
Is there anything I can add to that? Zhang Chengling thought, therefore remaining silent as he lowered his head and ate.
The beauty led Zhou Zishu all the way to a small alley, took a few turns, then entered a small courtyard. A few plum trees were planted within, not yet in their blooming season. She pushed open the building’s door, whereupon a faint fragrance hit the nostrils, and swept the beaded curtain to one side. Half-leaned against the doorframe, she asked with a coquettish smile, “What? Are you not coming in?”
Zhou Zishu followed her gaze to take a sweep of the interior from the opened door. He could see a vaguely-defined screen and incensed bed. A vanity was angled in one corner. A woman’s long robes were hung beside the bronze mirror, and the cosmetics box had not yet been shut, its makeup all over the place — this was the ‘land of tenderness’ legends told of.
He shook his head with a smile. “This humble one is a lowly man. How could I enter the room of a young woman so casually?”
“You’re trying to be a gentleman now? I invited you in, and you won’t come?”
He laughed, looking down at the toe of his shoes. “Forgive me, Miss. This humble one needs a bit more courage for that, so I dare not stuff myself into a room where a grave of cosmetics lay burning. It’s a place where if I do go in, I will leave horizontally.”
The smile at the corner of her mouth slightly stagnated. Immediately afterwards, she gained it back. “Don’t all of you men say that dying beneath peonies will make you romantic as a ghost? Why did you follow me here? What’s the use in doing this?”
“Maybe so, but if one can live, they should live well, and for a little longer, where they can be beneath peonies a few more times. Wouldn’t you agree? Besides, I don’t have the one-in-a-million charms that could make you refuse to marry anyone but me as soon as you saw me; I still have that much self-awareness. It’s much to flattering to me, Miss. How about we be a bit more straightforward? You can say whatever you want to say directly. If you do, maybe… we can talk it over.”
The beautiful woman stared at him, then faintly sighed. “Who could I have aimed at, if not you? In your group, if one wasn’t a woman, they were an ignorant child, or a foolish boy that was wholeheartedly throwing himself at that foolish girl. That other one…”
She paused for a bit. “That other was even stranger. After I entered, he didn’t give me even one look — there was only you, a ‘lowly man’, in his eyes. Don’t you think that’s odd? Ah, looking about all of you, only you were a normal enough man. If I didn’t go for you, who could I have?”
Zhou Zishu coughed dryly. Immediately having regrets about asking that question, he got to the point. “If you hurried here over the Whorl Beryl, you can go back out. I don’t have the Zhang’s piece on me, but I heard that Heroes Gao and Shen each brought one out. If you’re interested, you might as well go ask them about it.”
She narrowed her eyes a bit, releasing her hand that was holding the beaded curtain. “I will come to possess all of the Whorl, no matter whose hands it’s in,” she said softly. “You say you don’t have it, but why should I believe your claim? Isn’t it you men that love to lie the most?”
He merely leaned against a plum tree, neither nodding nor shaking his head. With a calm expression, he stared at her face for a time, then suddenly said with lament, “Your looks and grace, amongst the many women I’ve seen before, can be called a class above the rest.”
That sentence should have been nice, but for some reason, the smile on her face quickly fell when she heard it. “What did you say?” she sharply questioned, somewhat losing composure.
Zhou Zishu shook his head. “I only said that you’re already pretty, Miss. Even when features are average, there will be a certain category of beautiful qualities that is difficult to conceal. Why the need to obsess over the skin’s look, only to end up at an inferior point? A friend of mine once said that a Heavens-made face looks like how it ought to look like, and the slightest change to it will leave traces that others can see. As I see it, your artistry is elite. Why don’t you understand that principle?”
Her face cooled down. “So, you followed me here to humiliate me?”
He only shook his head again. “I didn’t have that intent at all,” he said softly.
The art of face-changing. Those outside the path couldn’t tell anything was off, but those walking the path could tell a lot. He was accustomed to observing people — in one glance, he had known that while this woman was graceful, she definitely wasn’t that young. However, the skin pigment on her face, neck, and even hands was very natural, so natural that it was practically the real thing, having no flaw in the slightest. Achieving this level, in this land… was the specialty skill of the Four Seasons Manor, once passed down from it. He had no idea where she had learned it from, however.
He heard her laugh coldly all of a sudden. “Okay. I’ll let you know something, then.”
She took out a kerchief and a small medicine bottle from her lapels. Pouring the medicine on the rag, she then began to wipe her face with it. That gorgeous, painting-like visage peeled off, bit by bit, in the wake of her motions, her skin’s pigment fading, her features changing shape. Following this, she peeled off a chunk of human-skin mask that was as thin as a cicada’s wing off of the left half of her face, practically the painted skin of legend.
Zhou Zishu held his breath. The woman herself was not ugly at all. Even though she wasn’t as world-shockingly beautiful as the face she had painted on, she would definitely be a pretty woman — had it not been for strange, shocking, and uneven born scar on the left half of her face.
In that moment, he knew who she was, so he blurted out a question. “Are you… the Green Monster, Liu Qianqiao?”
The Green Monster was nothing good, certainly. She was said to carry a thousand different faces, be proficient in the arts of seduction, and was most fond of luring in young men after disguising herself as a beauty, then sucking their vital essence out of them until their deaths. The amount of crimes she had committed were unknown, yet due to her immense variability, no one could catch her.
Liu Qianqiao sneered. “Now do you understand why I must get the Whorl Beryl?”
He was silent for a short time. “You aren’t after the Fengshan Sword, you’re after the Yin-Yang Tome.”
Her appearance varied much, but she would go her whole life with her face being unable to bask in broad daylight. Women loving to be beautiful was a natural thing. An ordinary woman could do a long of shocking things for the sake of looking good, to say nothing of her.
Were someone skilling in the face-changing arts to never safeguard their mind, instead becoming obsessed with physical appearances, switching out infinite masks, and often being unable to clearly recall one’s own name… pretty or ugly aside, that was near insanity, wasn’t it?
Zhou Zishu shook his head. “The Zhang’s Whorl really isn’t on any one of us.”
She laughed coldly. A short sword flashed into her hand, and without a word of warning, she stabbed at him.
He turned his body to the side, dodging it, and crooked his fingers to buckle them against her wrist. Unexpectedly, a circle of hedgehog-like pins shot out from said wrist, all effused with blue light, after which a burst of mist came out of her sleeve. He quickly drew his hand back, held his breath, and took three steps backwards.
Liu Qianqiao’s figure darted away, already gone. Only one statement was left behind: “Just you wait!”
Zhou Zishu sighed, abruptly worried about his road ahead. Today was the Green Monster; who would tomorrow bring?
Simply put, Zhang Chengling was the biggest headache in the world. No wonder Gao Chong and Zhao Jing, those two old foxes, had let him bring this scourge away that other day.
He turned and went to leave. Right when he went to open the courtyard gate, a hand came out quick as lightning from his side to clutch his shoulder, causing him to reflexively draw his shoulders in, tuck in his elbows, strike into the air, then quickly switch moves to chop his hand over.
The other suffered the hit, grunting, and unmercifully threw himself over him. “You’re murdering your own husband…”
Zhou Zishu kicked him away, crossing his arms with a scowl. “Vale Lord Wen, did you forget to take your medicine today?”
Wen Kexing grimaced, a hand covering his ribs. Despite looking like he was going to keel over, he didn’t neglect to say, “You really left with a woman! Right in front of my face! You really followed her to a place like this for a tryst, a single man and single woman together in broad daylight—”
“Isn’t it about time for you to go hang around a brothel?” Zhou Zishu blurted out, immediately regretting those words so hard, he near about swallowed his own tongue. He thought that he must have gotten confused out of anger, to actually said such a thing.
Wen Kexing was caught off guard, at first, then giddily and shamelessly plastered up to him. “Ever since I decided to tangle up with you, I’ve never touched anyone else.”
Zhou Zishu gave a skin-deep smile. “Thanks for your deep favor. Very sorry to let you down, but I never decided to tangle up with you, ‘Vale Lord’.”
The other had a think, appeared to believe that sensible, and nodded. “That is true… nevertheless, you can have your casual rendezvouses, and I can listen in from the corner at any time.”
“Lord Wen, do you know how to write the word ‘shameless’?”
“When one should be shameless, then they must be shameless,” Wen Kexing boldly answered.
Zhou Zishu bowed his head, expending all of his tremendous strength to straighten out his fingers that had clenched into a fist. However, the five digits appeared to be suffering from lovesickness, as they were doing their damnedest to stay together, voraciously wishing to punch the man before him in the face.
He thus forced himself to not look at Wen Kexing’s mug, turning and leaving while steam spouted out of his every orifice… and he actually forgot to get his coin pouch back.
An old man was at the corner. The kind-hearted waiter didn’t drive him away. That old body looked shrunken from dehydration, his face wrinkled, sparse hair in disarray, and worn cotton clothes on him. His hands were put together in prayer as he knelt on the ground, bowing to passersby nonstop, a cracked bowl placed beside him.
Zhang Chengling looked at him, his ears filled with Cao Weining’s pompous talk of, “…There is a saying that the aroma of chrysanthemums[19] arises from bitter cold…”
“That can’t be right, Brother Cao. Chrysanthemums bloom in autumn. Why would autumn be so cold?”
“Ahem… poets mostly prattle on about nonsense and never participate in agriculture. They’re just a bunch of idlers that harp on about sentimental sop in their studies. It’s completely normal for them to not distinguish the seasons of when chrysanthemums bloom or not!”
“Ohhh, they really are a lazy bunch of eggheads that don’t understand anything, ahahaha…”
Cao Weining and Gu Xiang were discussing vapid terms and every type of poetry, which could drive one mad. Zhang Chengling kept bearing with it until he finally couldn’t keep listening to it, thus fishing out a few copper coins, heading downstairs, and placing them into the bowl of the old man who was begging for alms.
“Benefactor, thank you, benefactor… may the greatly merciful, greatly sorrowful Bodhisattva Guanyin bless you…” the old man rambled on.
Zhang Chengling pursed his lips, smiling quite forcefully. He thought of how his father had been a real benefactor that the Heavens should have protected all of his life, only for the gods to get drunk that one night, not pay attention, and let his father die.
Good people had to rely upon Heaven’s protection, but bad people could continue to live so cruelly. Was that not ridiculous?
He sat down on the steps. Of course, he was reciting what Zhou Zishu had taught him, but he still couldn’t make sense of it no matter how much he thought it over. He recited and recited like a little Buddhist reciting scriptures, until his mind wandered, gaze drifting far away. Why is Master still not back yet? he thought. The first thing he’ll do when he returns is scold me. Definitely. Who made me to be this stupid?
As a half-grown child, his body was currently growing like mad. He had only just arrived at the Zhao Manor a few months ago, yet the clothes Zhao Jing had ordered made for him were already getting too small. His pants were too short by a good chunk, dangling laughably above his ankles.
He lowered his head, using his fingers to grab at his pants legs, folding them up, then letting them go again. I don’t mean to be so dumb. Who doesn’t want to be smart, fully learning skills quicker so they can avenge their family sooner?
He recalled that in his youth, his martial arts instructor had complained to his father. The latter had only petted his head, then said to the instructor with an apologetic smile, “Please pardon him. One’s five fingers are not all the same length when extended, you know. This child of mine had a fever when he was little that made him a little slower than others, but he’s a good boy. I don’t expect him to have any great promise for the future, just that he’s able to take care of himself.”
This world had rulers, generals, and ministers, but also needed to have menial laborers and pawns. It wouldn’t still exist otherwise, would it?
I was probably born to be ‘menial laborer and pawn’ material, but the Heavens won’t let me live in peace, he thought. It insists upon forcing me to grow up to be Master’s sort, or Uncle Zhao’s sort. Won’t that just cut off my path ahead?
There were all sorts of things his tiny young mind couldn’t figure out. He couldn’t figure out the mental techniques his Master had taught him, he couldn’t figure out the sword arts Senior Wen had taught him, he couldn’t figure out what his destiny was, and he couldn’t figure out where he should be going now. A thought suddenly streaked across his mind — if he couldn’t continue to live like this, he’d end up dead.
That death-seeking notion was too painful. His eyes ached, almost unable to hold in their years. He automatically thought back to his Master’s stern face, back to his words of ‘Are you even a man, leaking like a horse pisses at every moment?’, and forcibly held them back.
While he had an internal war between the Heavens and the Earth, he didn’t notice that the black-veil-shrouded musician playing and singing within the restaurant was slowly coming towards him, still plucking qin strings…
As for Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing, right when they were about to leave the small alley, a strange atmosphere between them, they suddenly heard a woman’s cry of alarm not too far away from them. Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks.
They then watched a white figure dart before their eyes, followed by a whump sound. The Green Monster was thrown onto the ground like a giant sack by the newcomer, and she rolled a half-circle away. She wanted to get up, but due to certain acupoints likely being sealed, she splayed out once again.
The one that didn’t know how to cherish a beauty, casually tossing her to the ground, was none other than the epicurean Ye Baiyi.
The man in question pointed at Liu Qianqiao, then asked Zhou Zishu. “What’s this hideous, mad-dog beast doing?”
That sentence jabbed Liu Qianqiao right in her death acupoint. The gaze she looked at him with was like she was going to kill him with a thousand cuts.
Zhou Zishu understood immediately — this Ye guy was probably such a freak because he had been hit with the single stick all his life. For trash like him, a woman being willing to spend time with him wouldn’t be as likely as a sow climbing a tree, but as likely as one ascending to the Heavens!
Catching up, Wen Kexing caught Zhou Zishu’s wrist, took a step forward, and glared at Ye Baiyi. (For reasons unknown, Vale Lord Wen had some heavy hostility towards Senior Ye, but the origin of it might naturally be similar to the instinct a canine had in protecting its food.)
“Why are you skulking about without dissipating, you ghost?” Wen Kexing was heard to unhappily ask.
Ye Baiyi swept him a look, then ignored him. It seemed like ever since the other had made the bold claim of ‘I’ll be able to take your life within ten years,’ Ye Baiyi’s tolerance of him had increased by a lot. Still, he pointed at Liu Qianqiao and said indifferently, “I was chasing a thief. When I was about to catch him, this woman suddenly jumped out and blocked me without saying a word, allowing the thief to escape.”
Zhou Zishu creased his brow as he looked at Liu Qianqiao, then asked Ye Baiyi, “A thief? You’re so above the smoke of the mortal world, yet you played the part of a thief apprehender, Senior? What kind of thief has such far-reaching power? What did they steal?”
“The night after you left, Gao Manor was broken into. Tell me, what could have possibly been stolen?”
Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu exchanged a look, shocked on the inside. Who could have been able to steal from the currently heavily-guarded Gao Manor?
Ye Baiyi shot a glance at Zhou Zishu. “You better be a bit more careful, boy. Shen Zhen is dead.”
Someone as quick to react as Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but be startled. What did Shen Zhen’s death have to do with him? What did he need to be more careful about?
Before he had time to ask, Wen Kexing had already asked for him. “So what?”
Saying nothing, Ye Baiyi raised his head to look behind the two of them, after which a very fine line appeared between his brows — the stone Buddha had actually frowned.
A cold huff came from behind them. Somebody said, “It’s related to you, of course. Hero Gao received a note yesterday that read, ‘If you want Zhang Chengling’s life, exchange it for the Whorl Beryl.’ Hero Shen was probably worried about his old friend’s son, so he immediately gave chase. By the time we found him, he was already a corpse, the note in his hand identical to that of Hero Gao’s. And then Gao Manor was broken into and robbed. Tell us, what relation do you have to that?”
Hearing a chaotic rhythm of footsteps, Zhou Zishu knew that a big crowd was coming over. Suspicion grew promptly in his heart. Once he turned, he saw that the speaker was the Sect Leader of Mount Cang, Huang Daoren, who he had struck away that other day. The other was very smug while he spoke; in conjunction with his musk deer-headed, mousy-eyed mug, he resembled a big rat with his tail raised to the sky.
It was unclear to him as to why, but Zhou Zishu’s limbs started itching with the want to send him flying again.
Yu Qiufeng stood calmly not too far behind Huang Daoren. “Don Zhou, can you explain where the Zhang child, who you brought away under everyone’s watching eyes, is now?” he asked, face as sunken as water.
It was said that a burst of autumnal rain brought a burst of frigid cold. After the autumnal rain during Dongting’s night, the weather was near-desolate. Even at a time like this, the Sect Leader of Mount Cang was still wielding and swaying a folding fan, clearly enunciating his words as he stood on the street interrogating Zhou Zishu, putting on quite a bit of the air that he stood apart from the world… everyone around him likely couldn’t stand all that cool wind, because they told him to put his iron fan away.
Zhou Zishu paused, bowed his head, and suddenly laughed. “Why, do all of you believe… that I brought Zhang Chengling away, felt that having the Zhang’s Whorl Beryl wasn’t enough, and used him as a hostage to blackmail another two pieces out of Gao Manor?”
“Who isn’t?” Huang Daoren asked.
Lifting his head to look up at the sky, Zhou Zishu sighed airily, and shook his head. “How wrong was I. Why did I think that a swine’s brain would be able to think of human ideas…?”
“There is no greater virtue than knowing of your mistakes and learning from them,” Wen Kexing supplemented, clearly afraid of a world not in chaos.
“You…!”
Huang Daoren was about to step up, only for Yu Qiufeng shut his folding fan with a click, one hand blocking him in front. “Don Zhou, if you’ll pardon my question, we and Hero Ye were chasing down a thief that had snuck into Gao Manor and come here,” he said to Zhou Zishu. “Why did the thief vanish, and we instead see you two, as well as…”
His gaze swept downwards, just in time to meet with Liu Qianqiao’s; as if doused by ice water, she lightly shuddered. He just smiled, however, and drew out his words. “Oh? Is this Madam not the legendary Green Monster, Liu Qianqiao, ever-changing and mysterious? This Yu had the virtue and capability to glimpse her… true face today, which is truly three lifetimes’ worth of blessings.”
As soon as the name ‘Green Monster’ came out, the large group behind Yu Qiufeng flashed looks of shock, disgust, or contempt. The woman’s reputation had clearly rotted to a certain extent before this.
Her acupoints had been sealed by Ye Baiyi. She was using all of her strength to break through the blockage. Being prostrated on the ground like this, her face was shot through with red, the scar on her cheek seeming to flare up once more, making it even more nauseating and frightening.
Beyond his comprehension, Zhou Zishu recalled the moment she had walked into the restaurant. Her gestures had been practiced and easy, graceful to the point that she resembled an immortal, attracting everyone’s admiring gazes in an instant, after which she had walked with clear purpose. Even though he knew she deserved no sympathy, he felt some vague pity for her.
Was a face truly so important?
Liu Qianqiao looked at Yu Qiufeng. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, lips faintly trembling, yet she swallowed it all back down.
“It wasn’t him,” Ye Baiyi suddenly spoke out.
Yu Qiufeng smiled. “Young Hero, you’re still young, and have also lived on Everbright Peak for a long time, so you don’t understand the malice of human minds. Don Zhou, since you claim that you have no relation to this matter, do you not fear taking your upper garments off so that we can see whether you have a ghost face on your lower back?”
“What?!” Wen Kexing immediately exclaimed. “I can’t even get him to take those off. Who are you, even?”
Yu Qiufeng ignored him completely, focusing on Zhou Zishu alone. “If you refuse, might there be something on you that is unfit to be seen?”
Unfit to be seen? A feeling of not knowing how to react arose within Zhou Zishu, making him feel that all of this was far too absurd. Nothing was on his back, but there were seven nails on his chest; while they weren’t the same things as those ghost faces, weren’t they also unfit to be seen?
He suddenly laughed, thinking, What about me is unfit to be seen? Back when the Late Emperor was around, the one that drew up consecutive schemes to sweep the Second Scion’s flunkies away, then suss out a series of Court vermin was me. Back when the Northern barbarians invaded the Central Plains and stormed towards the capital, the one that stood guard at Martial Order Guard without drawing a step back was me.
The country of the Great Qing is now slowly recovering from being filled with holes after a violent storm, now showing a bit of vigor, now allowing you lot to live in peace to the point that you’ve eaten your fill and are now biting each other out of boredom. Everything unfit to be in the light behind this whole flourishing world was dealt with by my own hands. I once had vicious methods and hurt people, yet I’m able to grab hold of my ruined body and short life to accumulate virtues. From beginning to end, I’ve had a clear conscience — is there anything unfit to be seen about me?!
He looked over at Yu Qiufeng. After a short moment, he said softly, “Right. Who are you, even?”
In that over-decade where he was half-human, half-ghost, his heart had been a piece of metal, never indecisive, never lost. At age fifteen, he’d had to prop up the Four Seasons Manor with his immature body. At age eighteen, he had chanced upon the Crown Prince, Helian Yi, and was moved by his teenage temerity. At age twenty-three, he had single-handedly built Heaven’s Pane, then done all of what had needed to be done.
Even if his name couldn’t be left in the annals of history, this infinite land would engrave his work into its memory.
When he spoke, the corners of his mouth were raised slightly, but it was more like a bitter grin. When his gaze came over, it was like an indescribably cold light streaking past.
In that instant, Huang Daoren cowered in his gait a bit as he suddenly gained the desire to retreat. A look at Yu Qiufeng out of his peripheral made him brace himself, though.
He always felt like Yu Qiufeng and that dead son of his were both nothing more than pretty faces of no substance that couldn’t do a thing, relying solely on the progressively fading sect behind them to support their egos — they barely ranked amongst the several major sects. The Mount Cang Sect had a good relationship with Mount Hua, so Huang Daoren felt like he was regarding the reputation of a generational friendship in aiding this prettyboy everywhere he went. In one aspect, he was flaunting himself as a loyal sort, and in another aspect, he looked upon Yu Qiufeng with pity.
In the face of such a pitiful and useless man, how could Huang Daoren draw back?
He estimated the large crowd behind him, suddenly becoming mentally solid. With so many of us, if even one person stomps on you, that’ll be enough to stomp you into noodles, he thought, thus drumming up his energy. “If you have anything to talk to him about, it’ll come to be known once we arrest you for interrogation!”
That vocal explosion happened to resound right under Yu Qiufeng’s ear, causing him to lightly furrow his brow, then unconsciously fanned himself with his landscape-painted fan a couple of times, head tilting somewhat to the side. On the inside, he was fed up with keeping the company of riffraff like Huang Daoren, thinking the man to be pedestrian in looks an a village bumpkin in behavior — a butcher that slaughtered pigs and cut up meat in the market would be more elegant than he. Simple-minded yet loving to bounce all around, one utterance out of him would be heard eight towns over, as if he feared that someone wouldn’t be aware of his existence.
Yu Qiufeng sneered as he looked at Zhou Zishu. Not picking up off of Huang Daoren’s foundational words, he thought, Were it not for the fact that the Mount Hua Sect has been low in power these years and we fear being powerless alone, who would want to call themselves a brother of this roly-poly jerk? If this idiot wants to run headfirst into it, he can go ahead. As it happens, these two are of unknown origins and depths, nor do we know the attitude the Ancient Monk’s disciple has. He can go test the waters.
Thus, something awkward occurred. Huang Daoren’s original intent was for Yu Qiufeng to continue the roll after he was done hollering, then for the huge group behind them to charge. He wouldn’t need to expend much effort at all, and could just wait there all smug. Unexpectedly, Yu Qiufeng didn’t make a peep, merely waiting for him to break through enemy lines, and the crowd just stared at him uncomprehendingly. No one moved a single step.
Dozens of people were crammed inside this little alleyway. Not even half of a person spoke at this moment. The sound of a pin dropping could have been heard.
In this half-life he led, Wen Kexing had never seen a spectacle like this before. From his very beginning, he was someone who laughed when he wanted to, cried when he wanted to, and acted like a lout when he wanted to, so he wasn’t going to leave these ‘Great Heroes’ any face right now. He began to rock back and forth with laughter of his own accord, pointing at Huang Daoren and jeering, “I say, everyone, did you forget your lines because you didn’t rehearse them enough? Keep going! Did you all get cold feet, so you don’t want to go on with the opera? There won’t be any tips if you don’t, though!”
Ye Baiyi watched from the side for a minute, said “What a mess this is,” then walked off, disregarding Liu Qianqiao. His white figure darted off and vanished.
Knowing this to pretty much be a farce, Zhou Zishu didn’t want to pay this mob further mind. When he went to leave, Huang Daoren called out, “Don’t move, punk!”
The other immediately leapt at him. Zhou Zishu’s figure abruptly jumped upwards, and without turning his head, he shouted, “Get lost!”, followed by his long sleeve whirling out. Two waves of force came to be at work, actually, accurately striking Huang Daoren once on the shoulder, and once on the knee.
As genuinely obedient as a filial son, Huang Daoren followed his advice and got lost.
Wen Kexing was practically so tickled, he couldn’t straighten his back out as he braced against a wall. For the first time, he found Zhou Xu to not only be likable, but also in possession of a joking spirit that he himself was not aware of. Far too comical, that was.
Before he could finish chortling, his extreme joy turned to sorrow. Availing himself of everyone’s eyes congregating upon Zhou Zishu, he suddenly attacked, his long sword singing out of its sheath and stabbing directly at Wen Kexing’s neck, without any warning at all.
Even though he had just targeted Zhou Zishu, acting like he hadn’t noticed Wen Kexing at all, he had actually been secretly eyeing the man this whole time. Even if Wen Kexing turned to ash, the poised Sect Leader of Mount Hua would remember that he’d made him a dirt-eater in front of a lot of people — if he didn’t avenge that enmity, Yu Qiufeng would feel that him being a manly man was in vain.
Of course, Sect Leader Yu was purely overthinking things, because even if he did avenge himself, there were likely not too many idiots in the world that would view him as a ‘manly man’.
With a slap against the wall, Wen Kexing’s body pitched backwards to dodge. Yu Qiufeng didn’t relent, the swish-swish-swish of a few slashes coming again, each move more vicious than the last.
This bewildered Wen Kexing. He had truly drunk a lot of wine that other day, intoxicated to the point where he hadn’t known what day it was, so he had long forgotten ‘little celebrations’ that were as trifling as Sect Leader Yu. Even if he could remember them, he probably wouldn’t take them seriously; this guy wasn’t a delicate young lady that needed to be graceful and beautiful, and taking a tumble was just taking a tumble. What could the big deal be?”
Thus, he now could not comprehend how he, an ‘innocent’ bystander, had offended Sect Leader Yu. Looking at the other’s posturing, it was almost like he had stolen the man’s wife… which was very aggrieving to Wen Kexing, because most people in this world didn’t have a man-wife.
He didn’t attack, continuously taking steps back. “I say, what is the meaning of this?”
Yu Qiufeng sneered. “People of this realm must punish demons on the wayward path, as they’re degenerates hated by all for their malice to begin with. More talk is useless! Die!”
Wen Kexing turned his face away, a blow flitting past it. He reached up two fingers and caught the blade between his fingers with precision, sneering himself. “Hated by all? Sorry to let you down, but I’m no rat, and I demand that you play nice. Don’t be so horribly bitter, as if you’re rat poison yourself!”
With a snap, Yu Qiufeng’s sword was broken by his hand.
There was no greater insult than breaking someone’s weapon within the martial world, likely ranked just behind killing their father or stealing their wife.
Yu Qiufeng’s eyes were shot through with red. He sent a slap towards Wen Kexing’s chest, gliding a kick towards his lower body at the exact same time. Their quick velocity practically resembled gestures that had been tempered with a thousand instances of practice.
Thankfully, after Huang Daoren ‘got lost’, the probably-spectating group behind him finally realized that she should be destroying demons right about now, and all went to gang up on Zhou Zishu. No one noticed that in this tiny corner, the Sect Leader of Mount Hua was publicly staging a kick to the crotch.
Ah, strange things happened every year, especially this one!
Wen Kexing turned to the side, lifting one knee so that it hit right against Yu Qiufeng’s femur. A crack of bone was immediately heard as it broke.
As for the strike also aimed at him, Yu Qiufeng just felt internal power that surged like the sea attacking down along his palm. Greatly alarmed, he wanted to retract his hand, but it was already too late. His palm seemed to get sucked towards his opponent, that internal power blasting through his meridians like a tsunami, nearly bursting them apart.
In that instant, he looked up in a panic to see the expression of this giggling and indecent man — it was indifferent, eerie, and unconcerned, resembling a true demon that was numb to murder, completely unmoved.
Immediately after this, a woman’s shriek was heard, and a harsh gale swept across as a few needles, thin as ox-hairs, rushed towards Wen Kexing. He almost subconsciously released Yu Qiufeng to swipe a palm at them through the air. The thin needles scattered off elsewhere, but his palm’s force didn’t dissipate; the woman that had come up to them had no time to dodge at all, struck right in the chest by it and sent flying off, viciously slamming into a wall.
Only now did Wen Kexing see that his ambusher was Liu Qianqiao, who had re-opened her acupoints at some unknown point in time. He was taken aback, at first, then seemed to understand what this implied, shouting, “Ah-Xu, come quick! I’ve discovered an affair!”
Zhou Zishu had no idea what to say to him, swirling around to kick someone that had thoughtless come to seek death. After bending down to pick up Liu Qianqiao, he said shortly, “Quit talking! Let’s go!”
Agreeing immediately, Wen Kexing ran after him in a rush.
The two used their agility arts to speed away. It was unknown how far they had run, but they had long cast off those dancing clowns. At this point, Zhou Zishu stopped, tossed the dying Liu Qianqiao under a tree, and shot his hand out to seal off a few of her major acupoints.
Wen Kexing smiled, arms crossed. “Mmkay. You brought her away with you, so your reputation as a demon on the wrong path is even more solidified,” he said. After thinking for a bit, he then lamented with a lot of smugness, “That’s fine. I don’t really have a good reputation either, anyways. You’re mine, so this is basically us sharing in both joys and sorrows.”
Zhou Zishu didn’t look at him, leaning over to check over Liu Qianqiao’s injuries. He took a small medicine bottle out of his pocket and stuffed a pill into her mouth, hopelessly optimistic and possibly treating a dead horse. “Old Wen, the mouth is used for speaking and eating, not letting out gas… If you put in a smidgen more force, you would have struck her to death on the spot.”
Hearing that somewhat impatient, yet indescribably familiar-sounding ‘Old Wen’, Wen Kexing quickly grew elated. As for the latter half of all that, he automatically acknowledged the fact that beatings were kisses, and scoldings were love.
Liu Qianqiao coughed, the light motion nearly causing her body to fall apart. She glared angrily at Zhou Zishu. “What… are you faking goodwill for?” she forced out.
He just ignored that, crouching down. “Let me ask you something. Where did you learn your face-changing methods from?”
She never would have expected him to ask that once his mouth was open, which stunned her for a time. With a pah, she very intrepidly said on her dying breaths, “What’s it to you?”
Hearing that, Wen Kexing interjected. “Miss Liu, you switching up your appearances or stealing the Whorl Beryl is fine, but what does either thing have to do with Yu Qiufeng? I’ll give you a bit of advice; women don’t fear ugliness or stupidity in themselves, but do fear having non-functioning eyes the most. You’ve unfortunately taken a fancy to trash like him. Tell me, how did Yu Qiufeng find us? And how did Ye Baiyi chase someone in black into that tiny alleyway? Who deliberately misled you into believing that the black-clothed person running was Yu Qiufeng, to the point that you attacked Ye Baiyi? Who outed your identity in front of everyone? He’s using you as a shield, you fool.”
With one statement, he pierced through the ‘maidenly’ thought processes of this woman that was no longer young, something even more fatal than Ye Baiyi’s label of ‘hideous beast’ said to her face. Had she any strength to move, she would have gotten up and bitten him to death.
“Shut up,” Zhou Zishu said.
On command, Wen Kexing immediately pressed his lips together tightly, as if itching to make himself have one lip only.
After mentally estimating Liu Qianqiao’s age, then staring at her face, Zhou Zishu suddenly asked, “When… you were young, did you ever meet a browless, injured, and half-dead with hunger freak? Did you ever give him food?”
In his Master, Qin Huaizhang’s youth, he had once been hunted down by enemies and suffered heavy injuries, ending up at some family’s farmstead without a half-coin to his name. Apparently, it had been thanks to a little girl with a scar on her face secretly bringing him food that he had been aided through this most difficult time in his life. He’d had nothing to return the favor with, but seeing her ruined looks, he had taken pity on her, and taught her a few face-changing tricks. Never would he have known that this would end up hurting her at a later date.
Liu Qianqiao said nothing, but a hint of surprise speedily flashed past her face at those words.
Zhou Zishu understood. Lowering his head in thought, he brought out that same bottle of medicine, then set it before her. “Try to shape up from now on.”
He thus got up and left.
Wen Kexing animatedly followed after him. “She plotted against you, yet you still treated her so kindly,” he chattered. “That’s really…”
His voice abruptly paused, however, because he saw that while Zhou Zishu walked, he was pulling another bottle out of his pocket, and then rubbing the substance inside it on his face. It wasn’t obvious, at first, but after a few more rubs, a different skin color was gradually being revealed.
Wen Kexing didn’t blink, eyes getting wider and wider…
That greenish-yellow complexion was slowly washed away, looking like a layer of flesh was being pared off his chin. Upon removing something that Wen Kexing had never seen before, the outline of knife-carved bone was unveiled.
Wen Kexing unconsciously held his breath, watching his very nimble fingers strip the disguise off his face…
It unlike that young man in Luoyang City whose smile resembled a flower, nor like that popular courtesan with dark brows and blush up the stairs in Dongting. This was a man’s visage, with no pigmentation to speak of, just black and white — pale and thin cheeks, lips as thin as a line and seemingly bloodless, prominently-outlined looks, and thick lashes that half-covered his vividly ink-dark eyes.
Yes, in that instant, Wen Kexing could only think of one such term: vividly ink-dark. Within those eyes was a settled blackness that could not be dispersed, and one when the angle changed would a layer of understated, maybe-there splendor shine through.
He suddenly realized that if the other had never removed his disguise in all of his life, in his mind, he should have looked like this from the beginning. Now that he was seeing him look identical to how he had imagined him, it was like… he had known him for a long, long time already.
Wen Kexing’s throat unconsciously bobbed. “Ah-Xu…”
Zhou Zishu made a noncommittal hum, wiping the final bit of remaining disguise clean off. He had been wearing the thing for so long, he had nearly believed it to be his own face; suddenly cleaning it all off made him a little discomfited.
He had originally planned to wear this face to the end, yet stupid trouble was following after him like a shadow. Was he going to have to switch out human-skin masks every couple of days from now on?
His mood worsened again instantaneously.
Wen Kexing wetted his lips. “Have I… said before, that I actually like men?” he said quietly.
Zhou Zishu gave him a look that said, ’No shit. How could I not know that?’ Then, as if thinking of something, he took a human-skin mask out of his pocket, and threw it into Wen Kexing’s hands. “Wear that, if you don’t want the headaches to continue.”
The mask was well-crafted, and were these normal times, Wen Kexing would have studied it with immense interest. At a time like this, however, he didn’t give the thing even one left, just staring dead at Zhou Zishu. “So, is this you trying to seduce me?” he asked, sounding completely serious.
After having lived for this long, Zhou Zishu knew himself to be a tried-and-true man from head to toe. Never before had he been flirted with by a man, who used such a vulgar gaze and such a serious tone.
This whole time, he had been getting the feeling that if Wen Kexing didn’t have an issue with his eyesight, then he had a little problem with his head — he was either missing a few pathways in it, or it was split open. Why else would he not bother with the pretty lads and lasses filling the streets, instead specifically winding around a nauseating guy like him?
He therefore ignored him. While he walked, he brought out yet another human-skin mask and put it on.
A universe-upending stageplay where a beautiful man transformed into a wretched, wall-eyed, middle-aged man unfolded before Wen Kexing’s eyes, making him feel like his own internal organs were also flipping upside-down. He itched to go wash his eyes off with water, the sight in front of him absolutely appalling. “That hurts the eyes too much! Use a different one!” he shouted, thereby reaching out do so for him, helping him unmask.
Zhou Zishu felt like he was making unreasonable trouble, inclining his face away to avoid him, but the other was unprecedentedly persistent, pursuing him without rest. This resulted in two men, whom had just been united against the world, resuming their internal squabbles now that the external aggressors were temporarily gone, exchanging moves in an inextricable knot right where they were.
Zhou Zishu aimed a punch at Wen Kexing’s collarbone, yet the other didn’t avoid it. Since he wasn’t intending to genuinely maim him, he shifted his fist two cun upwards in a flash, causing it to brush past his shoulder. Wen Kexing just used that opportunity to grab his arm, beaming at him. “Hey, let’s talk this over. I can tell that you’re single, too, so how about we hook up?”
Whenever he spoke, he always had that grinning look with his eyes curving up, as if he was intentionally preventing anyone from seeing the look within them, intentionally preventing anyone from knowing whether he was being sincere or fake.
“And what use would I have for you?” Zhou Zishu asked impatiently.
Wen Kexing drew in closer, raising his hand up to chin-level, and lightly brushed his fingertips across his chin. Using the spot of time where Zhou Zishu was forcefully wresting himself away while goosebumps crawled all over him, he suddenly lifted the mask off of his face, tossed it to the side, and whispered, “Why don’t you tell me?”
After rolling his eyes, Zhou Zishu looked at Wen Kexing expressionlessly for a short moment. Then, he began to laugh.
The paler parts of his face were much too pale, the denser parts too deep, making him look a skosh cold-blooded to others. It was only when he smiled that his features would unfurl. The corners of his mouth resembled notches left behind, and his pallid lips held a nearly undetectable color to them, but for some reason, he looked a little bit cute.
Said cute man also lowered his voice, then countered, “Will I keep you around, saving you for a time when famine hits to slaughter you for your meat?”
When his quiet voice sounded out, like a low whisper in the ear, Wen Kexing’s scalp almost prickled. Before he had time to thoroughly savor what he had said, he suffered a hard kick, knees going weak, and almost splayed straight out on the ground.
Zhou Zishu flung him off, strode away, and fished out another human-skin mask to wear. It was even more enragingly ugly than the one he had on before.
His strut away was abundantly smug.
While these two gents leisurely departed, bantering flirtatiously all the while, Zhang Chengling was sitting on steps and pondering life. He had no idea what was going on, but by the time he reacted, he had already been picked up by the collar and tossed to the side by Gu Xiang, after which warm blood splattered onto his face.
Screams erupted from all around. Gu Xiang’s beautiful face was steely, the dagger she held now dripping with blood. Beneath her foot was the hand of the black-clothed qin master that had just been walking around playing… as well as a little patterned snake that had been cut into two.
The qin player, pale-faced, jumped out of a window and fled. Aware that they shouldn’t remain here for long, Gu Xiang pulled Zhang Chengling up, then shouted to Cao Weining, “Come on, we’re leaving!”
Right as she finished saying that, ten people in black were seen to pop up out of nowhere, each holding a hook in hand — the second batch of Venom suicide warriors had arrived!
Inside the restaurant, everyone — including the waiters — was drawing back before this situation became even worse, having no time to take their food.
“What’s going on?” Cao Weining asked in a loud voice. “Why did these people suddenly show up? What are they trying to do?”
Dagger in hand, Gu Xiang slowly scanned the Venoms. Feeling some sweat on her palms, she lightly turned the dagger around in an arc as she cried bitterly on the inside. Them encountering suicide Venoms right now would be easy to kill their way out of, but when she really looked at it… were some mishap to happen to this little devil, wouldn’t her Lord tear her apart alive, in his usual style?
The Venoms appeared to be quite apprehensive of her, too, slowly approaching from all directions.
Out of her peripheral vision, she saw (the blank-looking) Cao Weining and (the clearly lacking in fighting prowess) Zhang Chengling, whereupon she truly felt that the wind was desolate, and Ershui’s[20] waters were cold. This was the most unlucky moment of her life.
“Did you forget? These suicide Venoms want the little brat dead,” she said shortly to Cao Weining.
The other gasped, remembering that. Those few dead at Gao Manor been of the same model. He thus immediately went on guard, drew his sword, and told the nearby Zhang Chengling, “Don’t stray from my side.”
Her fine brows knitting together, Gu Xiang decided to gain initiative with the first strike. Holding hidden weapons in hand, she sprayed them outwards at no charge, and the fracas began.
Zhou Zishu had a suspicion that she was the Violet Fiend of Wraith Vale. The little missy was young, yet quite skilled, and her martial arts were certainly not weak. Even though Cao Weining’s capabilities at verses and poems were ball-breakingly bad, he was still the most talented disciple of his generation in the Purewind Sword Sect, and had never neglected his proper martial practice over studying. The raw power of their joined forces really wasn’t too bad; despite their foes being suicide Venoms, they could fight with their all.
But what could ruin it was needing to protect Zhang Chengling, the little burden.
Gu Xiang had never been this restrained committing murder and arson in her life. She saw Cao Weining fighting with a suicide warrior, and without warning, another one wound around him to pounce at Zhang Chengling. Out of panic, Cao Weining picked Zhang Chengling up, then tossed him to Gu Xiang.
She yelped, forced to catch him, but because she only weighed about a hundred catties herself, she was knocked a few steps to the side from the impact, barely managing to stabilize herself. During this juncture, she punted one Venom that had almost hooked onto her hair to death, and a hidden weapon shot out of her shoe’s toe to hit another Venom in the abdomen.
The latter was not completely dead and refused to lay off, so she made up for it, sending him off to meet King Yan thereafter.
The afterimages of blades brushed past Zhang Chengling’s head and ears. After a spell, he keenly suspected that he might have been cut somewhere, needing to reach up to feel around — but he then endured Gu Xiang and Cao Weining both tossing him to and fro like a sack, nearly dizzying him as he fluttered gracefully through the air.
When the brawl came to a provisional end, Gu Xiang’s pants were dyed through with red from her opponents’ blood. There was a hook wound on her waist — it was good that he had dodged that quickly enough, else the little beauty that she was would be a little beauty in two halves — and her charming face had lost its color. Cao Weining was no better than her, cutting an extremely sorry figure.
In this area, they were practically the only three beings left alive.
“Let’s go right now, or even more trouble will come! Quick!” Gu Xiang promptly ordered.
Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling exchanged a look, both having some lingering trepidation. Right when they went to follow her away, they heard someone groan from the corner.
Zhang Chengling turned his head to see the old beggar that had requested alms now climbing out of the corpse pile, so frightened that he was about to wet himself. The broken bowl containing money fell down, scattering its copper coins everywhere, causing blood blisters.
The old beggar couldn’t stand up, voice changing in intonation to tremble out, “M-murder!”
Cao Weining was from a famed righteous sect, in the end, so he had been educated in the four virtues since his youth. At this moment, he frowned, thinking of how this wasn’t good, as a moment of inattention had dragged this elder into it. “Were you injured, elder?” he asked, stepping forward.
The beggar looked up at him with dazed eyes, and was only able to utter an ‘ah’ a while later. He was apparently too frightened to speak.
Zhang Chengling also came forward. “Uncle, you need to run. Bad people are coming,” he said softly.
Since he had just given the old man a copper, the other still recognized him. “Oh no, no, the dead!” he uttered, while going to grab Zhang Chengling’s arm.
Gu Xiang was watching coolly from the side. Her pupils suddenly contracted. Quick as lightning, she leapt over from nearby, dagger in hand, and hacked down upon the beggar’s arm.
“Ah-Xiang, don’t!” Cao Weining shouted, alarmed.
But it was too late, now. Her blade was aggressively coming down upon the old man. The latter looked to jump in fright, taking his hand back with enough speed, but she gave him no quarter, suddenly twisting her dagger around on the backhand so that it went higher up. It was sent into his neck, piercing a major vein and sending blood spurting out two chi high.
Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling were dumbfounded, struck silly looking at this blood-drenched girl that looked like an Asura walking the human world.
Face blank, Gu Xiang pulled her dagger out of the man’s corpse, casually lifted her sleep, and wiped the blood off of her face. Upon glancing upwards to see the twos’ somewhat fearful — scared to the point of unspeakable implication, even — expressions, she asked, “What?”
Cao Weining pointed at the old man’s body, tongue tied in a knot. “He… he was just… just an old man begging for food, and you… you killed him…”
Hmph. Righteous sects.
The look in her eyes turning cold, Gu Xiang explained nothing. She put her dagger back in its sheath as she turned, picked Zhang Chengling up without any warning, and started walking.
However, Cao Weining cautiously gave chase. A long while afterwards, he started rambling incoherently. “That wasn’t what I meant… Ah-Xiang, I wasn’t saying that you did something wrong, and I don’t… don’t think you would kill someone at random, but just in case you were wrong, just in case he was an ordinary old beggar… if… you found that out in the future, I fear that you’d feel upset at heart.”
Gu Xiang imperceptibly paused. She went quiet for a minute, then said gruffly, “Bullshit. What would I be upset about?”
He softly sighed. “You would be upset, you just don’t know it… ah, let’s leave as quick as we can. I don’t know where Brothers Zhou and Wen ran off to, and if another group of scorpion-snakes come, I fear that they’ll make life difficult for us!”
Gu Xiang’s lips pursed flat. She said nothing, but thought the herself, This Cao Weining… might be a little lacking in brain, but he’s a decent person.
By the time Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing returned, Gu Xiang and the others weren’t there anymore. All that was left was a messy pile of corpses that Gao Manor’s members were dealing with, a large circle watching the excitement around.
Wen Kexing was unused to the sensation of something covering his face, forever having the feeling that the cicada wing-thin mask was about to fall off. Then he noticed Zhou Zishu, who had just been hunted down, act like nothing was wrong while he sauntered onwards… as if he wasn’t himself at all.
The was Wen Kexing’s first time knowing of someone that harbored bad intentions acting so in-the-right. He had gained a second face after plastering a new layer on, indeed.
For this reason, he clucked his tongue in wonder as he followed after him.
Several people were investigating the bodies on the ground, Mo Huaikong from the Purewind Sword Sect amongst them. His expression was grave — clearly, he recognized Cao Weining’s penmanship.
Wen Kexing sized him up for a minute, then leaned in close to Zhou Zishu’s ear. “Look at the face of that old Mo guy. That joker didn’t go off and elope with Gu Xiang, right?”
“You’re so petty,” Zhou Zishu answered, after which he looked towards the bodies on the ground. Knitting his brows up, he felt that something was amiss.
What sort of people were the Venom suicide warriors? Would nothing more than two unreliable fools plus one half-grown boy be able to handle them? Were those three dead or alive now? And where had they run off to?
Wen Kexing thought for a minute. “That mess with the Whorl Beryl and Venoms has caused a full-blown storm in the city. Were I Gu Xiang, that stupid girl, I would have fled to somewhere uninhabited.”
Zhou Zishu glanced at him, then quickly drew back from the crowd. “What are you waiting for, then? Give chase.”
They ran off as fast as they had left. Almost no one noticed.
“It’ll be fine,” Wen Kexing consoled. “Gu Xiang isn’t as useless of a girl as you might imagine. Besides, Cao Weining is there, too.”
Furrowing his brow, Zhou Zishu looked at him, then suddenly asked, “Why are you so concerned about the life and death of that little devil, Vale Lord Wen?”
The other laughed. Grinning like that made him feel like the mask on his face was wrinkling up a little, about to fall off, so he quickly reached up to press on it. This made him look like a freak. “Why are you so concerned about the life and death of that little devil, too, Sir Zhou?” he countered.
“That’s my disciple.”
“Your disciple is my disciple. Who’s following who, here?”
“…You’re following me. Cut the crap — do you want the brat to tell you something?”
“Give me a kiss, and then I’ll tell you.”
Wen Kexing tossed him a flirty look. Unfortunately, the human-skin mask he wore was too human-like, so a self-aggrandizing, casual gaze like that had a simply horrifying effect.
Zhou Zishu quietly turned his head away at once, so unbearably nauseous, he felt like he couldn’t live with the sins he’d committed. “Not afraid of catching sores, are you?” he asked.
“I’d be just delighted, even if I rotted to death,” Wen Kexing answered without shame.
Thus, Zhou Zishu ignored him again, sunk into thought, then started monologuing. “Considering the former relationship between Rong Xuan and Wraith Vale, the spot where the five major families got the Whorl Beryl should be Wraith Vale itself. With news of the Beryl leaking out and every single person in jianghu scrambling about like ducks, could some Wraith have started longing for the human world, and left the Vale in secret? Could he have just-so-happened to have something to do with the Zhang’s annihilation…? Could you, and the Merry Death Wraith’s sort, be thinking that Zhang Chengling ‘coincidentally’ witnessed who that daring Wraith was that one night?”
Wen Kexing paused, then asked. “If not, then tell me; if even he doesn’t know, who else could I ask?”
Zhou Zishu suddenly turned his head to look at him. “Could there be some other matter concerning extremely important information, for even the reclusive Vale Lord to be alarmed into action?”
The other didn’t respond, merely beaming as he extended one finger, pointed at his own lips, and looked at him expectantly.
Acting like he didn’t see anything, Zhou Zishu thought for a moment. “If you found this individual, then what?”
Gently, and even with a hint of a smile, Wen Kexing replied, “Skin him, then cut him into a million pieces.”
Upon seeing Zhou Zishu give him a complicated look, he started laughing again. “Just trying to scare you,” he said, in desperate need of a slap.
Zhou Zishu laughed tonelessly. “Oh, no. I’m so scared.”
What a slippery old fox, Wen Kexing thought to himself.
What a histrionic asshole, Zhou Zishu thought to himself.
The two smiled at each other very twistedly, each of their words not matching their hearts, then continued to hurry down their path. They would pick this back up once they had caught up to those three hopeless fools.
In reality, Gu Xiang’s group hadn’t gone to somewhere uninhabited like how Wen Kexing had anticipated; it was easier to set fires and kill people in unfrequented areas, after all. They had hastily wiped the blood off of themselves before running in the direction of the city center, but the goal they pursued together was far too obvious, because not even an incense stick’s worth of time later, Gu Xiang was regretting that decision.
The three had now been intercepted by a few people led by Feng Xiaofeng and Gaoshannu. Behind those two were an old man and woman, one leaning on a left-side cane, the other leaning on a right-side cane. He wore all scallion-green, and her, peach-pink; he was bedecked in precious metals all over alongside no less than ten jin of gold hair ornaments, and she was overloaded with makeup, her face having similar shining splendor to a monkey’s butt.
Cao Weining’s palms started sweating immediately.
This pair of old coots was even more intractable than Feng Xiaofeng. They were the ‘Peach-Pink Dame’ and ‘Willow-Green Gent’ of legend, who were a pair of old and dishonorable folk that could do anything despicable, in spite of their age.
Feng Xiaofeng was heard to laugh shrilly. “Zhang Chengling, you came from a famed sect and all the realm’s heroes are plotting how to get justice for your family, yet you ran off with two fiends of unknown origins. Are you trying to bring your dead father back from the grave?”
Zhang Chengling’s face immediately twisted up. He wasn’t great at bickering with others, ever clumsy with his words, so he could only shout at him, “You… you’re lying! Senior Wen and my Master are good people!”
Gu Xiang’s middle had been slashed open by a Venom’s hook, and still bled. Even though she had taken an antidote, the pain caused her to seep with cold sweat, her patience long gone. “What crap is this?” she blurted out. “Feng Xiaofeng, get out of my way. Don’t think I can’t cut you down, you dwarf!”
“You don’t know what’s good for you, stupid vagrant girl!” Feng Xiaofeng shrieked, then pulled out a huge chopper off his back, throwing himself at her.
Cao Weining quickly unsheathed his sword to intercept his chopper’s edge. “Senior Feng, Ah-Xiang is your junior. If you lower yourself to your level, wouldn’t that spoil your reputation once words gets out?” he attempted to reason.
Feng Xiaofeng’s focus had originally been on Zhang Chengling, but when he saw him, he was taken aback. “Why did a kid from Purewind Sword Sect join up with these two?” he wondered.
Cao Weining smiled apologetically. “Senior, I believe that there’s been some sort of misunderstanding, here…”
Huffing, Feng Xiaofeng raised his blade up, only for Peach-Pink Dame to butt in. “In that case, don’t be so hasty, Old Feng. Purewind boy, you bringing this brat back here is very good, and can be counted as a good act. This old woman believes that you have a promising future ahead.”
Both internally on alert and having to drag Gu Xiang away from fueling the fire, cold sweat was about to drip down Cao Weining’s brow. He was obliged to give a, “Okay, many thanks to you, Senior…”
The Dame thus waved her hand casually. “Zhang Chengling, follow us,” she said bossily.
Zhang Chengling obediently and immediately drew two steps back, vigilantly staring at her with two big glassy lenses. Cao Weining moved a half-step to the side to block sight of him off, questioning cautiously, “Did you come to find Chengling on Hero Zhao or Hero Gao’s behalf, Senior? That would be best stated clearly.”
Peach-Pink Dame laughed coldly. “For what reason are you asking, boy?” she countered, eyebrow raised.
Still shielding Zhang Chengling, Cao Weining took some steps back. “Forgive me, Seniors, but this junior is only looking after him on another’s behalf. I dare not hand this little brother over to another so casually. Even if I do, it’s Heroes Gao or Zhao that must step forward…”
Willow-Green Gent smashed his cane into the ground hard, huffing coldly. “Who do you think you are? On this day, you’ll have to let him go, even if you refuse to!”
As soon as he finished, he and the Dame were already in a joint pincer attack, striking downwards with their massive canes.
Too afraid of the burden. Cao Weining misstepped, braced himself hard, then turned to call to Gu Xiang, “Take him away, now!”
Gu Xiang’s mind ran extremely fast. She knew that since Cao Weining was a member of Purewind Sword Sect, these old freaks would fear offending Mo Huaikong and Mo Huaiyang regardless, and would have no choice but to go easy on him, not ever threaten his life. Hence, she didn’t hesitate, answering, “Take care.”
With that, she hauled Zhang Chengling off into the other direction.
How could Feng Xiaofeng allow that? He began to give chase.
Gu Xiang’s eye gleamed, hands suddenly withdrawing into her sleeves. She forcefully shoved Zhang Chengling away to dodge Feng Xiaofeng, using the force of the push to pounce at Gaoshannu. The other’s meteor hammer immediately came flying over, which she nimbly avoided, scattering a white powder out with a single lift of her hand.
Gaoshanne had no time to dodge, taking it right to the face. He howled in anguish, eyes getting red and swollen until he couldn’t open them. Upon rubbing them with his hands, blood even spurted out of them.
Her methods were vicious — she had used a maneuver of poison to ruin his eyes.
Feng Xiaofeng quickly turned to Gaoshannu, saying in terror, “Ah-Shan, what’s… what’s wrong with you?”
Gaoshannu just kept yowling like a wild beast, gripping his eyes hard. Feng Xiaofeng ran forth and held back his arms; they rolled into a ball, and only after the strength of an ox was expended were Gaoshannu’s acupoints sealed.
As soon as he saw his eyes, Feng Xiaofeng’s heart practically split open. “Stop right there, you little bitch!” he roared out at Gu Xiang.
But where even were her and Zhang Chengling’s shadows?
She had now determined that this area with many people in it was a no-go, bringing Zhang Chengling with her to the wild countryside.
Her heart burned with anxiety. One minute, she was thinking about her Lord and Zhou Xu, those two off-key men — could she find at least one of them? The next minute, she was worried, because she had just been forced to do the thing that she had — would Feng Xiaofeng vent his humiliated anger on Cao Weining? He wouldn’t kill that stupid guy, right?
However, there was not much time allowed for her to worry about Cao Weining, because the third group of suicide Venoms had been waiting in the only stretch of forest outside the city, guarding their stumps in wait for rabbits to come along.
Gu Xiang inwardly grumbled. She was injured, had no idea how long she would be able to hold up, and had no one around that she could even ask for help. Stuffing a short sword into Zhang Chengling’s hands, she desperately pushed him away, shouting, “Run!”
After that, she soared upwards like a flying swallow, bracing herself to meet the Venoms.
Panicking to the point that he couldn’t pick a path, Zhang Chengling frantically fled into the woods, his tears falling as he ran. He thought to himself, Why am I so useless? Why do I always implicate other people? First, it was Master, then it was Brother Cao and Sister Gu Xiang…
Reality didn’t give him time to go woe-is-me. Several sharp whistling sound rung near his ears, and four people in black popped out of different directions, blocking off his every path.
He stood there, holding only the short sword Gu Xiang had given to him, wielding it like it was a child’s toy.
The hooks the black-clothed assassins held glinted with chilling light, coming closer. In that moment, his bravery suddenly came surging forth, and he thought, Why do all of you want me to die? What did I do wrong? Why can others keep on living, but I can’t?!
One of them picked up the pace, that hook acting as a stinger swung towards him, making them resemble a huge scorpion.
Zhang Chengling’s left foot stepped forth. For some reason, in his head, he recalled what Wen Kexing had said to him that other night: Like a fierce hawk catching the hare, like a bow released without regrets, wane influence from the peak, to descend with the force of three-hundred-thousand catties.
All of a sudden, he turned and jumped, stepping on a tree trunk and using the force to leap high up. He threw himself entirely towards that cold light.
In that instant, his heart was empty as anything, containing only three words: Risk it all.
The short sword and scorpion’s hook clashed, the sound of metal colliding chaos to the ears. Wen Kexing’s voice reminded once more: If not yet exhausted and transformed, then your sword’s momentum will be akin to a floating flower. Unstable, it will drift. Exhausted to the extreme, it will then transform, millions of variations all contained within it.
His blade pinned by the hook, he risked removing one hand, twisting his body around, then pushing the hand back out, desperately shoving his sword into the opponent’s chest.
The Venom died without even one grunt.
Zhang Chengling was still in some disbelief. Joy, fear, confusion, and many emotions bubbled up in quick succession within him. Before he could savor it, though, another Venom was already before him.
He raised a hand to block, only to find, to his horror, that the spot on his palm the hook had cut open was starting to ooze a cloud of black qi. After this, his body became powerless — he swayed, no longer able to stand, and went to one knee.
He shut his eyes in despair, thinking, Am I going to die?
And yet, the fatal blow never landed. He waited for a long time before looking up, only to see an arrow sticking out of the Venom’s chest, their eyes bulging to the point of cracking. This was followed by them collapsing, as well as a man’s voice speaking out behind him.
“You lot are committing felons in broad daylight. Why can’t I recall Dongting’s customs ever being so deteriorated?”
Zhang Chengling felt dizzy, likely due to the scorpion venom beginning to attack him. It was like rumbling thunder was in his ears. The surrounding noises were separated by a veil — audible, yet slightly surreal.
He followed the arrow’s origin, turning his head, and saw two men.
The one wielding the crossbow was dressed in navy blue robes with long sleeves that fluttered in the breeze, and a palm-width belt was tied around his waist, from which a white jade xiao was hung. He didn’t look like a jianghu-goer, nor did he look like a scholar, but rather like a high-living nobleman. At a glance, his peach-blossom-esque eyes appeared to hold a faint, fake smile within them, but with a closer look, the gaze cast towards the final Venom was suffused with some cold light.
In his daze, Zhang Chengling thought of how this man… was the best-looking man he had ever seen.
Besides him was another man dressed completely in black, a tiny sable crouched upon his shoulder and his face ice-cold to behold.
The suicide Venom appeared to hesitate a little, then shot at the one holding the crossbow like an arrow from a bow.
Zhang Chengling felt an indescribably harsh wind sweep itself past his ear. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but the Venom had turned into a dead Venom.
When he had just looked, the man in black had still been a good distance away, yet he had now come up beside him in the blink of an eye. The other leaned down, picked up his bleeding hand to take a look at it, then sealed a few acupoints, stuffing a pill into his mouth thereafter. “Swallow that. You have scorpion venom.”
Caring for nothing else, Zhang Chengling struggled to grab the man’s hem. “Sis… ter… Gu… please help…”
The splendid words he was spending all of his effort to say turned into a slurred paste when they reached his lips, troubling the man in the long robes to be dumbstruck for a time. He still understood, though, softly asking, “You’re asking us to help someone? Where is she?”
Zhang Chengling pointed in the direction he had come from. “Sister… Gu… help… her, help… help…”
The black-clothed man raised his head to look at his companion.
“Are you not hurrying off?” the long-robed man asked.
The other picked the sable off of his shoulder, then tossed it into his arms. “Be careful. I’ll be back soon.”
With that, he seemed to disappear in the time it took him to turn around.
Zhang Chengling stared wide-eyed in the direction his figure had vanished in, almost eagerly watching. The long-robed man helped him sit upright, instructing, “Close your eyes and focus. Don’t have wild thoughts. Ensure your own little life first, before you mull over other things.”
Well aware that his worrying would serve no purpose, Zhang Chengling obediently closed his eyes.That sable wriggled out of the man’s arms, curled into a ball, then went sniffing this and that around him.
There was the faint stink of blood floating through the air, along with a minute trace of incense upon clothes. Within scents like these, Zhang Chengling gradually lost consciousness.
By the time he woke up, it was already dark, and that numb sensation had gone along with the scorpion venom. He slowly sat up, feeling a bit dazed for a moment while he failed to remember what had happened to him.
“Oh, you’re awake!” he heard a girl’s voice say nearby.
Delighted, he turned his head around to see. Gu Xiang was a little worse for wear, but she still had all her pieces, her wounds had been treated, and she was sitting by a campfire to keep warm.
Right then, a very callused hand reached over to take his pulse, only releasing him after a minute. “Poison’s gone,” the other said.
The actor was the black-clothed man. Upon seeing Zhang Chengling’s curious gave, he ignored it, merely nodding before he leaned ramrod-straight against a tree. From this side, those deeply-cut facial features seemed to have been carved from stone.
Zhang Chengling noticed that Gu Xiang’s gaze towards this man was full of reverence, where even her inherent speaking style of ‘shouting randomly’ was slightly subdued. Thus, he awkwardly said, “Thank… thank you, heroes, for your life-saving grace.”
The man in black just nodded to an extremely finite degree in answer. “No need for that.”
Then, he stopped looking at him to turn and watch the other direction.
Following his gaze, Zhang Chengling saw the long-robed man with the crossbow carrying a stack of firewood over. The black-clothed man then went to stand, only for Gu Xiang to clamber over and beat him to taking the firewood from him. “Please sit, Lord Seventh,” she said. “I can do all of this, so why trouble yourself? I used to be a household maid…”
The ‘Lord Seventh’ she spoke of curved his peach-blossom eyes at this, allowing her to take the firewood. He sat beside the man in black, who procured a very delicate hand-warming stove out of nowhere, then pushed it into his hands with the ease of practice, deftly removing a dead leaf from his sleeve at the same time.
It might have been Zhang Chengling seeing things, but he felt like the man in black went from lifeless stone to a flesh-and-blood person instantly. Even his eyes had warmed up.
The two didn’t say much, yet there was a faint, intimate rapport that defied description between their every move.
Lord Seventh looked at Zhang Chengling. “Are you feeling better?”
His speaking voice wasn’t too loud, being rather nice to hear. For reasons unknown to him, Zhang Chengling suddenly blushed, bowing his head to silently nod. Still, he couldn’t resist taking a furtive glance, wanting to look at him one more time.
The woman he had seen in the restaurant had also been extremely pretty, yet he suddenly believed that, compared to this man, her face had practically been painted skin upon paper, flimsy and artificial.
“What is your family name?” Lord Seventh asked again. “Those people…”
Before Zhang Chengling could respond, Gu Xiang, who was adding wood to the fire, started spouting stuff off. “He’s my brother, so his family name is Gu, of course. The two of us once did odd jobs in our Lord’s home, him as a boyservant, me as a maid. Unexpectedly, our Lord’s home was attacked, and people that came out of nowhere insisted on exterminating us servants down to the last. They’re so lacking in virtues, any kids they have in the future will be born with buttholes. It’s thanks to you two that…”
The man in black raised his head to look at her. She didn’t continue speaking, just glancing here and there with her big swiveling eyes.
While she had been speaking nonsense, Lord Seventh wasn’t going to lower himself to her level, continuing on amicably. “You both have injuries,. We ought to have brought you to an inn, but this young lady said that it isn’t safe in the city, that people are hunting you, so we must wrong you with staying here a night and making plans tomorrow. Do you have somewhere else to go?”
That voice of his was soft and unhurried; it was like he was coaxing two very little children. As he listened, Zhang Chengling suddenly felt wronged, because where could he go? His dad was long dead, and his entire family had been eliminated. Right now, regardless of whether they were good or bad, everyone wanted to capture him. He was like a bird that had been frightened by a string’s twang flying until his wings were nearly broken, but he still couldn’t find a place to land in this big world.
His eyes going red, he kept silent.
Gu Xiang went thinking, though. “My Lord and this boy’s Master were going to join us, but a group of people hunting us popped up all of a sudden. We ended up fleeing in a panic, so I don’t know if they’ll be able to find us…”
Recalling Cao Weining, Zhang Chengling sagely added, “Brother Cao, too. A few weirdos caught him.”
Gu Xiang immediately flung eye daggers at him, warning the little idiot not to speak carelessly. Sadly, he was absent-mindedly dazed and mentally wounded, so he didn’t get it.
“What sort of weirdos?” Lord Seventh was heard to ask.
“A dwarf and a giant, and an old man and woman wearing colorful clothes,” Zhang Chengling answered honestly.
Rolling her eyes to tilt her gaze up at the starry sky, Gu Xiang wished that she could knock him back out.
Nevertheless, Lord Seventh appeared to be unfamiliar with martial world people, staring blankly. “Who are they?”
“Earth Lord Feng Xiaofeng, and Gaoshannu,” the black-clothed man was heard to say. “People in colorful clothes… they probably met Peach-Pink Dame and Willow-Green Gent.”
His eyes shot at Zhang Chengling like lightning. “None of them are anything good, but they’re too conceited to ever associate with Venoms,” he said coldly. “Why would they hunt you both down all this way?”
Getting looked at by him made Zhang Chengling feel like an ice-cold rock was blocking his airway, causing him to choke immediately.
Lord Seventh just laughed. “Don’t menace the child, little toxin.”
Hearing that, the man in black obediently looked downwards, resembling a monk entering meditation. He no longer paid the other two any mind.
Lord Seventh’s gaze paused for a second on the antsy Gu Xiang, after which it turned to Zhang Chengling. “Let me ask you something, child. Is your Master’s family name Zhou?”
Afraid that Zhang Chengling would say something again, Gu Xiang quickly flapped her trap. “Nope! His Master’s name isn’t the Zhou for congee, but Tang, like for soup! And he’s vulgar, lecherous old man!”
However, he swine-like war buddy frowned as he looked at her, saying ever so righteously, “My Master isn’t a vulgar and lecherous old man! You lie!”
All ten of her fingers grew restless to strangle him so that she could be at peace.
Lord Seventh shook his head with a laugh. “Where did a bizarre girl like you come from? Come, now, we aren’t villains. All things considered, your Master Zhou was once a good friend of mine.”
Gu Xiang’s eyes turned all about. “Tell me, then. What’s his Master’s name? What does he look like?”
“His Master’s family name is Zhou. His given is…”
Lord Seventh abruptly paused, his peach-blossom eyes narrowing. After a time of consideration, he thought to himself, Zhou Zishu is accustomed to hiding his head and showing his tail. He definitely wouldn’t have used his original name. What did he change it to, then?
As soon as he looked up, he saw Gu Xiang staring unblinkingly at him with her big eyes, which amused him on the inside. He hadn’t expected to have actually been stumped by this little lady. However, a flash of light went off in his mind, so he blurted out, “He’s Zhou Xu, isn’t he? The Xu from ‘the self like a floating cloud, the mind like a flying puff.’ He also has a brother named Zhou Yun. As for what he looks like… I’m not sure of what he looks like right now. He’s used to face-changing, but from beginning to end, he’s made no progress. No matter how he changes himself, he’s just a man with a wan complexion and vulgar looks, right?”
He couldn’t figure out whether Zhou Zishu would have used the pseudonym of Zhou Yun or Zhou Xu. Thinking of how the guy’s personality was, it had to be one or the other, so cooked up some half-true,-not-really-false nonsense.
He actually scared Gu Xiang. “What? Zhou Xu has a brother?” she asked skeptically.
She had known Zhou Zishu for this long; despite having heard Wen Kexing say that he might be a high-ranking figure in Heaven’s Pane, she still felt him to be a mystery. From where he came from, to where he was going, to what sect he originated from, she hadn’t a clue, nor had she ever heard that he had a brother.
Her thoughts revolved again. Of the two in front of her, the blue-clothed one was nothing great, but the black-clothed man was truly a type of martial expert she rarely saw in her life. If her Lord had been her, he would be on par with him, at most. If he’d wanted to kill her and Zhang Chengling, it would have been as easy as squishing two bugs to death, so he really didn’t have a need to deceive. She genuinely trusted him.
Seeing that the two brats were shocked, Lord Seventh looked down to view the undulating flames, laughing silently.
Thus, on the morrow, Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling went on their way alongside the two men, carefully avoiding the senses of others. Lord Seventh brought them to a money exchange, its shopkeeper and the manager behind him — who looked like a dough ball — immediately greeting them, respectfully calling them ‘Master’ and ‘Great Shaman’.
Lord Seventh settled the two in, brought some snacks for them to eat, then sat to one side, quite enthusiastically playing go with the man in black. Time was whittled away like so.
At noon, the exchange’s manager suddenly entered, then said to Lord Seventh, “Don Zhou has been found, and is here now.”
Tossing his game piece away, Lord Seventh stood up, beaming as his silk-white hand was gathered into his sleeve. “One of the four greatest blessings in a human’s life is meeting an old friend in a foreign land safe and sound. Invite him in, now.”
—
The translator says: Yes, there’s two chapters with the same name. (Take a shot for every time peach-blossom eyes are brought up btw)
When Zhou Zishu had come to the Ping An Exchange before, he would always lift up his feet and walk right in. However, after the shopkeeper allowed him into the main hall today, he first poured him and Wen Kexing — who was looking all about, the spitting image of a country bumpkin entering a city — cups of tea, then stood to one side with a heap of smiles on his face. “It’ll be just a moment, Lord Zhou. Lord Seventh has come today, and the Manager has gone in to make a report,” he said.
Zhou Zishu’s heart jumped, immediately getting the anticipatory feeling one would get when nearing ‘home’ after a long time away.
“Hey, didn’t you say Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling are here?” Wen Kexing asked thoughtlessly. “Bringing those two lousy kids right out would be just fine. What’s the need for a report? It’s like we’ve been led into a Prince’s Estate.”
Saying nothing, Zhou Zishu thought of how Wen Kexing had to be a genius, to have hit that nail on the head.
A short while later, Ping An quickly walked out from within. “Don Zhou, my Lord and the Great Shaman are awaiting you inside.”
When Wen Kexing heard the title ‘Great Shaman’, he jolted. What ‘Great Shaman’? he thought. Is that beyond-mysterious Great Shaman from Nanjiang really here?
…The martial world of the Central Plains was getting more and more disordered.
Before he could think deeply about this, he followed Zhou Zishu into the inside hall.
Once a somewhat aged wooden door was pushed open, there was a small courtyard inside, with a row of osmanthus. A delicate fragrance was scented the moment of entry.
Ping An brought the two of them to one room. Upon the curtain’s lifting, the interior heat immediately hit the face, and Wen Kexing looked up to see that, Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling aside, there were also two men in the room.
His gaze automatically met with the man in black’s, but just for a moment. The next, both of them nodded to each other at the exact same time, then shifted their eyes elsewhere, portraying their concessions.
Immediately afterwards, Wen Kexing sized up the second man, supposing that this was likely that ‘Lord Seventh’ the shopkeeper had spoken of. With this survey, he couldn’t help but mentally gasp in awe, because while he had seen quite a few good-looking people in this world, not a one of them could compare to this one. Those eyes were beautiful to the point of slight coquettishness, yet a noble air enguled him, revealing only a distinguished aura that defied description — the phrase ‘handsome as an orchid, fine as a tree of jade’ had simply been crafted for him.
Then, he heard Zhou Zishu respectfully call out next to him, “Lord Seventh. Great Shaman.”
Lord Seventh beamed, falsely waving for him to stop being courteous, then studied his face. “It’s been many years since I’ve seen you, Zishu, and your preferences… have really gotten harder and harder to agree with.”
Zhou Zishu smiled, reaching up to lightly rub the human-skin mask until it came off, whereupon he put it into his lapel pocket. “In all these years, who would dare to hide their tracks while wearing a pretty face? Apart from a young woman, all I can think of is that fool boy, Jiuxiao,” he said, smiling bitterly.
His junior that had died in the capital’s war, Liang Jiuxiao, was his lifelong regret. Zhou Zishu had never dared to bring him up the whole time before. While it seemed like the scene should be akin to a dream after so long, now that he was meeting this old friend, it was like he had returned to Fullmoon River’s shore in the capital, thirty li away. All of those old friends and events had flashed before his eyes in rising waves, making him blurt out that one name.
Speaking it out was nothing much, really, but it did feel like something had been breathed out of his chest — vacuous, like a piece was missing.
Lord Seventh’s smile faded. He sighed, looked Zhou Zishu over, then furrowed his brow. “Why are you so gaunt?”
Zhou Zishu shook his head, looking down with a smile. “It’s a long story. I’m probably just… getting old.”
Being a proper gay man, Wen Kexing had first been full of admiration and belief that this ‘Lord Seventh’ was truly outstanding. At this very moment, however, he inexplicably became unhappy.
In his mind, he had been bugging and pleading Zhou Zishu for so long, yet if it hadn’t been for Yu Qiufeng and the others causing a massive fuss, he probably would never gotten a chance to see the man’s true features, even to this day. But as soon as this guy showed up, he got him to take that human-skin mask off in so many words, and even knew his real name…
Incensed, Wen Kexing became.
Ping An invited the two of them to sit, serving tea once more.
“Is… everything good in the capital?” Lord Seventh asked.
Zhou Zishu leaned against the back of his chair, his entire body appearing to relax in an instant. “There’s generals going out and ministers coming in,” he answered leisurely. “Princess Jing’an married Marquis He Yunxing, and the married couple went far off to the northwest, setting their roots down there. The Emperor… is pretty good, too. He just had a little Scion this year, though I left a step before I could attend the Third Scion’s first-month banquet.”
They went back and forth, both unhurried. The Shaman didn’t interject, simply listening quiet from the side. Smoke rose from the censer in spirals; it was like the passage of time itself was slowing down.
Wen Kexing felt like there was a weird atmosphere between the two. Never before had he seen Zhou Zishu so calmly sitting there, drinking tea, and chatting with someone without batting an eye. It was like they were confidants, old friends that hadn’t met for many years, where there was no visible joy from meeting by chance, the words on their lips as dull as water, yet their good regards were intertwined.
Now, he found Lord Seventh displeasing to the eye, thinking, Where did this prettyboy crawl out of? Someone that goes around calling themselves ‘Lord Seventh’, too afraid to give their full name, is definitely not anything good.
Extremely disgruntled, he therefore ripped off the human-skin mask he wore, then beckoned to the since-struck-dumb Gu Xiang and Zhang Chengling. “Come here, you two brats.”
The other three quickly turned their gazes over to him. The faintly nostalgic emotion had not receded from Lord Seventh’s face. “Who’s this?” he asked casually.
Zhou Zishu hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “A… friend from jianghu…”
Not waiting for him to finish, Wen Kexing swiftly grabbed Zhou Zishu’s hand that was rested upon the table, placed it on the center of his own chest, and looked down upon him. “Friend from jianghu? That’s not what you said to me before. What is it, Ah-Xu? Are you getting bored after such an intense start?”
Right then, the expression on Lord Seventh’s face could practically be described as ’shock and awe’. Even the ever-quiet Great Shaman paused, his crow-black eyes darting back and forth between the two, until they ended up fixing oddly onto the hand Wen Kexing was holding.
Zhou Zishu’s other hand flew out to nimbly strike the numbing nerve on Wen Kexing’s elbow, forcing him to let him go. He proceeded to collectedly raise his lidded tea cup, speaking as if nothing had happened. “He’s Wen Kexing, an insane man that frequently tells lies. Don’t mind him, Lord Seventh.”
The Lord was mute for a time, but couldn’t keep it up in the end. “Ping An, what was the point of you being born with eyes? Why haven’t you replenished Don Zhou’s drink?”
Zhou Zishu set down his empty cup as if he had just awoken from a reverie, obliged to glare viciously at Wen Kexing. A glutton for punishment, the other accepted this, giving a stupid grin that could make one’s teeth itch in hatred.
Lord Seventh proceeded to lament, clearly afraid of a world not in chaos. “I think back to when cups were gold and feathers were jade, and now, all the objects have remained, yet the people are not the same. The cosmetics-caked Fullmoon River, and those carved railings plus jade bricks — who knows what’s became of them? That year of the capital’s emergency, you and I once made an appointment atop a tall building, where we would have a future day of not stopping the drink until we were drunk. However, I’ve been waiting in Nanjiang until the wine got cold, and my old friend has never had the tiniest intention of visiting.”
Quickly after this, his words took a turn, those peach-blossom eyes flashing with an intent to tease. “You missed our appointment, Zishu, but I didn’t. I remember to this day that you told me to pick out a slim-waisted Nanjiang girl for you,” he quite deliberately brought up. “I’ve noticed a lot of them, but I don’t know…”
The Shaman coughed lightly, a trace of a smile on his ice-cold face.
Feeling like he couldn’t stay here any longer, Zhou Zishu stood up, quickly clasped his fist towards them, and hastily said, “Uh… that’s that. You’ve just arrived in Dongting, Lord Seventh, and must be fatigued from the quick travel, so we won’t disturb you…”
“We aren’t tired at all, actually,” Lord Seventh answered.
“What? Ah-Xu, you said something like that?” Wen Kexing cried out at almost the exact same time.
Instantly, the room went quiet, all of them staring at each other. That was, until the crude-minded Gu Xiang suddenly pat the totally out-of-it Zhang Chengling’s head, bemoaning, “This is what they call, ‘How many known nights have been spent yearning, spring’s dawn catches unaware when dead asleep.’[21] Xiao Chengling, I think us two should go rescue Brother Cao, since these guys are all preoccupied with vying for affections. They’re completely unreliable.”
Lord Seventh smiled. “No need to be anxious, young lady. You said that your Brother Cao is from Purewind? Those weirdos will be too afraid to do anything to him. However, if you all go to him in a rush without preparing fully, that will only fix him with a crime, adding to his troubles… Zishu, it’s only been a good minute, yet you’re leaving? Why not sit back down for a while? The ancients often sighed over how youthful times pass everyone by; you and I have finally met again, so why are you in a rush to leave before your cup has grown full of memories?”
Wen Kexing felt this man’s words to be incoherent crap that tried to be refined, all rhythmless, and the more he looked at him, the more of an eyesore he was. Indeed, ostentation amassed was a big sham, and simplicity amassed was a great virtue — those that spoke a lot of nonsense were truly loathsome, being beautiful, or even peerlessly beautiful, aside.
“Right, right, right,” he said, tugging at Zhou Zishu. “We’ll stop disturbing your rest, because we still have something to do…”
The Great Shaman just smiled as he shook his head, setting down the qi piece he held while he stood. “I see that your complexion is poor and overall lifeless, Manor Lord Zhou. Can I examine your pulse?”
Zhou Zishu paused. Wen Kexing caught his hand and held tight, for some reason.
All the jocularity and mischievousness vanished from Lord Seventh’s face, and he frowned. “Why?”
“I have to see before I can say for sure,” the Shaman said, “Pardon my blunt words, Lord Zhou, but from the way you look, I can tell that you’re already a lamp low on oil. What in the world happened?”
Hearing this, Wen Kexing slowly released Zhou Zishu, his wily expression turning serious.
“What? Did Helian Yi refuse to let even you go?” Lord Seventh questioned.
‘Helian Yi’ was the taboo name of the current Emperor, yet he had blurted it out without a care. No one really paid attention to that tidbit right now, thought, because all of them — both those in the know and those not — were looking at Zhou Zishu.
The latter had to chuckle a little, extending his wrist to place it into the Shaman’s hand. “Lord Seventh, don’t you know even better than I what kind of place that is, and… what kind of person he is?”
Three of the Shaman’s finger rested upon his pulse line. His brows knitted tighter and tighter. A good long time afterwards, he released him, and lightly sighed. “I heard that Heaven’s Pane has the Septeye Nails of Three Autumns…”
“That’s right.”
“You nailed one in once every three months, allowing it to grow into your body. It withered your meridians bit by bit, but not to the extent that you would lose your mind, which let you preserve some internal power, right?”
Lord Seventh’s eyelids jumped up.
Zhou Zishu kept smiling. “You have good eyesight, Great Shaman.”
Ignoring him, the Shaman just began to slowly pace the room, hands behind his back.
Wen Kexing was suddenly a bit panicked. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t make a sound. It was instead Lord Seventh that asked for him, “Do you have a way to cure it, Wu Xi?”
The shaman didn’t say anything for a long time. Hearing that, he pondered for another good spell, after which he slowly shook his head. “If you drove in the seven nails in one go, even though you’d be unconscious, I might have been able to attempt extracting them, following which you might be able to recover a bit if you pour your heart into recuperating. However, once I draw out your nails, your internal power would definitely shred all of your nearly dried-up meridians. Even gods would be helpless, then…”
That was stuff Ye Baiyi had already said. Zhou Zishu waved him off, expressing that he didn’t want to hear it a second time. He hadn’t said anything when the Shaman had just opened his mouth, because he had still held some hope at heart, in the end. He wouldn’t have given him his wrist, otherwise.
He had no idea when it had begun — maybe it was from all these noisy people around him, maybe it was from getting tied up in all these turbulent affairs — but he had grown to long for the mortal world.
Hearing the Great Shaman’s claim just raised some dejection within him. He forced out a smile. “You should’ve told me that earlier. If I knew before that the Great Shaman could miraculously extract the Nails, I definitely would have ordered Heaven’s Pane to switch to an even more secure method so that not a single fish could slip the net.”
The Shaman’s eyes stared at him. He was still carefully going over countermeasures, giving no answer.
“We’ll be taking our leave,” Zhou Zishu said with a nod to Lord Seventh. “I’ll visit you another day.”
Right when they all reached a door, the Shaman suddenly said, “Wait. Maybe…”
Without doing anything himself, Zhou Zishu was already grabbed by Wen Kexing, his iron grip like a manacle on his wrist, nailing him to the spot. The latter turned his head to ask with rare politeness, “What have you thought of, Great Shaman?”
The other hesitated before speaking. “Lord Zhou, if… if you erase all of your martial power, I might have twenty-percent certainty that I can save your—“
Upon hearing the ‘destroy all of your martial power’ part, a small smile of inscrutable meaning appeared on Zhou Zishu’s pale face, and he raised his hand to stop him. “If I erase my martial arts, what else do I have?” he gently countered. “Would I still be me? If not, then why would I keep on living?”
After that, he broke free from Wen Kexing, and went to leave.
The words on the Shaman’s lips went unsaid, just turned into a nearly inaudible sigh.
–
The translator says: chapter title is misleading, should be ‘no hope, only tears’
Stumped, Zhang Chengling followed behind the two men. He felt that after his Master had changed appearance, his entire being had become slightly different.
The atmosphere around them was extremely dense. Even Gu Xiang dared not make a peep, following without making any loud noises.
Whenever they were typically together, they would never stop quipping at each other, yet neither of these two men with too much energy to spend made a sound, merely minding their own business as they walked their own paths. Zhou Zishu hadn’t even put the human-skin mask back on — nobody around would recognize him, anyways.
There was a discomfort in his chest, like his breath was caught in it. The Great Shaman’s words seemed to have given him a hard strike on his chest. Having to give up all of his martial arts for a twenty-percent hope/. He would rather not have that hope at all, and die slowly with a tranquil state of mind.
From ancient times until now, an uncountable amount of people in the martial circle had busted their heads open fighting over valued tomes. Those martial arts had been practiced in the coldest parts of winter and hottest parts of summer, had been realized only after hard beginnings and strenuous searching, all through identical decades of days.
It wasn’t just something pertaining to the body. It wasn’t just growing one skill branch. It was where one’s essence and soul resided.
What did erasing one’s martial arts mean? It was like being someone with no soul, inferior to just having been turned into an invalid to begin with, where being braindead would have been easier.
The shaman understood that point, naturally, so he all he had ended up doing was sighing, not persuading him in the least.
If the soul left the body, if that final bit of dignity was lost, wouldn’t that be similar to floating through life, death being the only missing piece? While he did genuinely want to keep living, he didn’t want to linger on the brink of death.
All of a sudden, he couldn’t resist letting out a recitation. “Rushing water, like I’ve run out of time; The years, I fear, will leave me well behind. Come dawn, I pick woody orchids from cliffs; Come night, I pick everweed on an isle. The sun and moon do not stay, switching quick; The spring and fall trade off in sequence fast. I think back to how plants grow, then wither; I fear my beauty will wane due to age…”[22]
His voice was a little hoarse, his every word hiding away his sorrow, fear, and anger, leaving only unspeakable viciousness and arrogance — an inherent arrogance that was reaching its end, wandering amongst the infinite li of landscape, between mountains and bodies of water. It had been coiled and pacing in his chest for far, far too long, coming up his throat at last.
The day was overcast, pressing down heavily. Peering out into the distance of the vast wilderness, there was only this tiny road covered with dead leaves and branches. Who knew when the irregular wind would stop, bleak as it came, passing through trees and the cracks in rocks, sounding like mountain ghosts wailing. A thousand years passed like one day; ten thousand passed like so, too.
Wind swelled up Zhou Zishu’s wide lapels and sleeves, as if instructing him to follow it home.
Wen Kexing raised his head to focus his gaze on Zhou Zishu’s rawboned back. The long hair framing his face was swept out by the wind like a whip, thrashing his side-profile, and he shut his eyes, images swirling on his lids. He focused on feeling the scorching pain.
Cold wind poured into Zhou Zishu’s throat. His melody that was skittering off to parts unknown abruptly stopped, and he bent over lightly to start coughing. Between his nearly transparent lips was a speck, a very, very thin line that was visibly blood-colored, yet it seemed to curve a bit in a smile, dark red.
Wen Kexing suddenly looked up at the blue sky that was about to fall, after which some fragments of cold stuff landed upon his face — this was the first snowfall of Dongting.
Why did heroes always reach the ends of their roads? Why did youthful faces always end up aged?
An inexpressible resentment suddenly arose in his heart, seemingly both for himself as much as others. It nearly overflowed. He refused to accept all of this, fingers trembling, and felt a desire to rend the Heavens, Earth, human realm, every point of orientation, and every direction apart. He wanted to demand of the Heavens: What was fate? Why be born human, only suffer the manipulations of fate?
With trepidation, Gu Xiang watched her Lord turn his head back with a grin. “Ah-Xiang, do you like that dumb brat, Cao Weining?” he asked.
She was momentarily stunned, staring at him blankly. “My Lord…”
“Do you think he’s a good one?” he asked again.
She felt like those eyes of his were looking right into her heart. A weird sort of emotion arose within her, and she thought, Is Cao Weining good?
She thought of how he had said to her with a serious face, “In the event you were wrong, if you found that out in the future, I fear that you’d feel upset at heart,” thought of how he had strived to struggle with his sword, stubbornly holding up against those two old bogeys while he’d quickly turned his head to say, “Take him away, now!”
All of a sudden, she also thought of how no one had ever told her to go on ahead like that.
For some reason, her eyes went red around the rims, and she nodded sullenly. However, all her lips said was, “He’s a very good one. He can speak, and knows stuff…”
Wen Kexing started silently laughing. “Right. He can say things like ‘Spring’s dawn catches unaware when dead asleep.’”
Hearing that his words were of contrary meaning, she consciously rebuked, “Sleepy in spring, tired in autumn, and dozing in summer — people love to be sleepy in the springtime, and doesn’t being dead asleep mean that they can’t wake up? As I see it, Brother Cao made sense, and those bookworms that flap their maw about chrysanthemums[23] getting their fragrance from the bitter cold aren’t even a speck better.”
Wen Kexing looked mischievously at this girl with slightly reddened cheeks, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go and rescue him.”
She was stunned. “Um, didn’t that Lord Seventh just—“
“Save who you want to save, kill who you want to kill, do whatever it is you want to do,” he cut her off, voice crisp. “Do you see anyone that dared to stand in my way? What are you tittering so much for? That guy’s a pedantic intellectual prettyboy, what the hell does he know! Ah-Xu, are you coming with?”
Zhou Zishu smiled. “I dare not.”
The corners of Wen Kexing’s mouth slightly raised, but his brows clumped together to reveal an unspeakably harsh aura, which made his mask-plastered face look a little terrifying. “Okay, Ah-Xiang. Whoever you want to save, go save them. I’ll go with you to make a giant mess.”
Cao Weining was currently in a very sorry state. He had been trussed all over into a dirt monkey, his clothes were worn in a ragged mess all over him, one of his eyes was swollen to the point that he couldn’t open it much, his hands were tied behind his back, his sword had left his side, he was being pushed into a stagger the whole time he walked, and every once in a while, he could heard Feng Xiaofeng’s shrill snarls and curses.
For some reason, though, his heart was quite calm.
He thought of how he was truly without promise. The ancestral adage of Purewind Sword Sect was, ‘When the sword is fine, so does the owner live. When the sword is broken, so does the owner die. Uphold all righteousness, eliminate all demons.’ Now that he’d lost his sword, he feared that he would be regarded as having stepped onto the path of demons.
And yet, that didn’t matter. He had never considered himself to be any sort of major figure, being not a governing talent, nor able to make the martial world shake with every step he took. Everything he had done had satisfied his conscience, his mind clear.
It was because he had seen Brother Zhou accumulating virtues, then Gu Xiang, the thin and frail woman, still trying her best to protect the Zhang child, while all these ‘righteous’ folk astringently coerced each other.
What was righteous, and what was unorthodox? The biggest merit he’d always had was an open mind.
Purewind had taught him the school of good and evil, not the school of fame and profits. What could he do, then, if others said that he was bad, or that he had taken the wrong fork in the road, falling from grace out of selfish desire?
He gave this some thought, feeling extreme discomfort. Despite the discomfort, though, he felt himself to not have done wrong. All he could do was consider in a daze, If I’m no good, that’s fine. Everyone lives their own lives, in the end, and that’s no one’s to obstruct. I just… feel a bit sorry for my Master and sect-uncle, I think.
One of his ribs seemed to have been broken by Willow-Green Gent. A hot pain was in his chest between breaths, making him a little delirious.
They tossed him into a dark place that he didn’t even look at, as he first shut his eyes to regulate his qi. He was intending to recover his energy, then make his escape, and of course he was.
What anyone else was doing was unrelated. Gu Xiang was escorting Zhang Chengling alone — if she couldn’t find Brother Zhou and Brother Wen, then was met with Venoms, wouldn’t that be pure trouble?
An unknown amount of time later, a sudden burst of commotion came from outside. A voice that was very familiar to him roared, “You bullshitter! When has our Purewind Sword Sect ever walked the path of demons?! I can tell that you peach-pink and willow-green freaks are up to no good!”
Cao Weining’s eyes shone, then.
The door of his tiny room was opened, whereupon a crowd of people entered. He squinted, hunched over like a bear would be, and scrutinized them, only to find that his sect-uncle, Mo Huaikong, was currently burning with rage inside the group.
Crap, he thought. My Uncle’s going to explode from anger.
Mo Huaikong was already exploding, though, and the second he saw Cao Weining, he growled, three zhang of flames coming off of him. A flick of his sleeve sent Willow-Green gent down on his fat ass, no respect given to elders at all.
Peach-Pink Dame became furious. “Mo Huaikong!” she shouted, voice sharp. “What are you doing, you lunatic?!”
Mo Huaikong held no caution, returning the shout in front of everyone’s witness. “That’s my sect-nephew! Whatever misdeeds he does will be cleaned up by the Sect Leader! Do we need you freakish old mutts making wild gestures, lapping our sect’s curtain so you can poke your snouts through it?!”
Cao Weining couldn’t help but mentally cheer for him, saying to himself that even though his sect-uncle had an awful temper, he was still on his side.
However, Mo Huaikong’s next set of words was, “Beating a dog needs its owner’s supervision!”
Cao Weining immediately, and quietly, cried on the inside.
Feng Xiaofeng suddenly started shrieking, pulling over Gaoshannu — whose eyes had since been covered in gauze — and pointing at Mo Huaikong. “You of Purewind, I ask you, what good deeds has this good nephew of yours done? That little demoness that accompanied him was the one to blind Ah-Shan’s with poison! If that demoness isn’t caught, I’m going to gouge this Cao brat’s eyes out!”
Right when Mo Huaikong thought to speak, he heard a cold huff come from nearby. “A girl that young being so vicious at first move? Evidently, she’s a little witch, too. Why did Hero Cao get mixed up with such a shady woman? Please enlighten us.”
That cut off Mo Huaikong’s words. His gaze went maliciously for Cao Weining, who opened his mouth and said aggrievedly, “Uncle.”
“Who’s your Uncle?” Mo Huaikong raged, stepping forward to snatch Cao Weining’s collar and say coldly, “Who are they saying was with you? Speak!”
Parting his lips, Cao Weining whispered, “That’s… Ah-… Xiang. Ah-Xiang isn’t a bad person, Uncle… Ah-Xiang… Ah-Xiang…”
Peach-Pink Dame laughed coldly. “Ah-Xiang? How very affectionate of you.”
Yu Qiufeng, who had meanwhile rushed over from a different direction, also cut in sanctimoniously. “The young being confused by beauty is not altogether inexcusable, given that one reforms and starts anew. No one here is an unreasonable or narrow-minded person—”
“I’m going to dig her eyes out!” Feng Xiaofeng shouted angrily, before he could finish.
Whether he had done it on purpose or not was unclear, but he had successfully bungled Sect Leader Yu’s scene.
Gritting his teeth, Yu Qiufeng longed to stomp the midget to death.
Gao Chong, Zhao Jin, Grandmaster Cimu, and some other were currently busy arranging Shen Zhen’s funeral, so none of them were here. This bunch was a mob without a leader, getting further unbridled with the back-and-forth.
Mo Huaikong felt his eyelids twitch. He hauled Cao Weining off from the ground. “Unfilial hellion,” he said through gritted teeth, “be honest with me — where did the demoness thieve the Zhang child off to?”
Cao Weining strained hard to open his mouth. “Ah-Xiang didn’t—“
Pissed, Mo Huaikong slapped his already swollen and pig-head-resembling face.
At that exact moment, a clear voice said, “The little demoness is here! Look at all you old, shameless jerks! Catch me if you can!”
Cao Weining’s mind suddenly imploded. Ah-Xiang!
Gu Xiang appeared at the doorway quite bombastically, looking unafraid with the knowledge that she had backup.
After seeing Cao Weining’s tragic condition, a nameless fire immediately sprouted within her, and she sneered. “I can tell that you so-called ‘righteous’ sects gang up on people when you can’t beat them solo. What a tradition that is! Zhang Chengling, come on out and tell them. Where did I kidnap you off to?”
Only then did the crowd notice that a timid young teen was following after her. It seemed that making him speak in such a crowded space was causing him some embarrassment, and with that added onto the vicious appearance of Feng Xiaofeng’s group, he couldn’t resist shuddering a little.
He dawdled step-by-step at Gu Xiang’s side, like a madam and a young wife. “Sister Gu Xiang never kidnapped me. I followed them on my own,” he quietly explained.
“What a load of nonsense,” Willow-Green Gent fumed. “Zhang child, you’re only yea old, yet you’ve learned from another to indulge in beauties? Were you hoodwinked by these devils?”
Upon sighting Gu Xiang, Feng Xiaofeng’s eyes turned red, and he drew out his chopper to hack at her with. “Damned girl! You’re not keeping your eyes!”
She took three consecutive steps back, dodging his increasingly-intense blade’s edge until she flew up to the roofbeams, then spoke down to him from up on high. “Dwarf Feng, that big lug with you just has eight lifetimes’ worth of bad luck. I’m a kind-hearted woman to only blind him in one move, because if he met anyone else, they would have taken his life. That’s not even mentioning the fact that you were the one that went stirring up trouble, thus implicating your Gaoshannu, hff…”
Her final huff was a little out of breath, as her body soared like a startled bird between the rafters. She was dodging the clamorous siege of people whilst inwardly panicking, closing in on where Cao Weining was.
Huang Daoren flew up to the rafters, too, cutting her off and attacking her without even a hello. Wise enough to know not to suffer the defeat before her eyes, Gu Xiang crouched, then jumped to another beam, her hand reaching out and grabbing the horizontal girder like a monkey. Her body made a beautiful twirl in mid-air while she appeared to fling something out of her hand, shouting, “Catch!”
He jumped in fright — who knew what vile throwing weapons this little demoness of unknown origin had? — and took one big leap back the second she shouted.
However, nothing came.
With another look, Gu Xiang had since thrown him off, laughing brattily without turning her head. “Spooked ya, you ugly bastard!”
Mo Huaikong had long set the scared-witless Cao Weining down, looking on with a cool eye and thinking about how much of a disaster-bringer this idiot sect-nephew of his was. This young woman had clearly already gotten free, yet was returning to rescue him, which meant that she evidently was someone sentimental and righteous. She was just a bit more on the troublesome side.
Seeing how dumb Cao Weining looked, wobbling with the want to go get Gu Xiang, he pursed his lips. Being troublesome is just that, he thought, someone will always be happy with taking a Hedong lioness as a wife, one willing to fight and one willing to take it.
At that precise moment, Peach-Pink and Willow-Green launched in from the left and right, pinching Gu Xiang in the middle. Pulling no punches, Gu Xiang kicked her leg up, which shot out a small dagger aimed right for Willow-Green gent’s forehead.
The Gent had some talent; he didn’t dodge, but instead raised his cane straight up. Gu Xiang felt a strong gust of wind attack that she knew she couldn’t overcome, so she shrank back speedily, yet not quick enough to prevent the dagger at the tip of her toe from getting cut.
She immediately turned around, thinking to repeat the same move, but Peach-Pink Dame was already at her back.
“I’m about to get killed, but you guys are still watching the show?!” Gu Xiang anxiously asked.
A chuckle was heard, followed by the Dame sensing a strong gust crashing over, accurately coming for the center of her back. It was too late for her to avoid it, so she was forced to strenuously move so that she could fall forwards, her entire body spreading out atop the rafter like a big gecko.
Gu Xiang used that opportunity to leap off of the beams.
Only at this time did everyone notice that this opportune object, which had nearly scared the Dame off, was actually just a walnut shell… or half of one.
Then came the sound of walnuts being ground up from the doorway. A man of unremarkable features was seen holding a small bag of walnuts; he crushed one between two fingers, the shell bursting open, and tossed the kernel into his mouth that he started eating with gusto. Beside him was someone that looked even more unfortunate. The pair pretty much looked like they had come from the same mother, a sea of sallow skin and puffy eyes.
The man with the walnuts was politely offering them up. “You don’t want any?” he asked the other man.
Appearing to lean back and away from him like he was avoiding some deranged beast, the other man looked disgusted. “Get that away from me.”
“Oi, so priggish… you’re afraid of eating walnuts? Idiot, these are good for you. Eat a lot of them, and you get smarter. They’re a brain supplement.”
The other took two steps forward, then reached out to take Zhang Chengling’s shoulder. “They might as well be supplementing a pig’s brain.”
Yu Qiufeng’s brow furrowed. “Who are you two?” he called out.
Only, he saw the man holding Zhang Chengling push the youth forward while whispering in his ear, “That guy’s an eyesore, as I see it. Beat him up for me.”
Eyes wide, the boy looked at him dumbly. “Mas—… I…”
“You what? They’re bullying your big sister, yet you’re watching at the side? Are you a man, or no?”
Zhang Chengling pointed at Yu Qiufeng, then pointed at himself, confused. “But… um…”
The stranger couldn’t stand how faint of heart he was being, so he kicked him on the butt, which sent him staggering a few steps forwards, as well as nearly pitching him into Yu Qiufeng’s arms.
The latter was ecstatic, quickly softening his voice towards him. “Come over to me, Zhang child.”
Zhang Chengling’s pair of lost eyes were still wide open, making him resemble a little bunny that couldn’t find its home.
The man with the walnuts chuckled. “You’re too cruel.”
“When hawk chicks grow up, they get ousted from the nest by hawk adults. I’m doing this for his own good,” the other said calmly.
The ‘hawk chick’ in question timidly took a step back, seeming to view Yu Qiufeng as an old pervert that specifically abducted children.
Feng Xiaofeng was not as polite as Mount Hua’s Sect Leader. Mulling things over, it looked like the Zhang brat was on those guys’ side, so it would be best to capture him. He wasn’t afraid of not being able to keep these few people here; no matter who they were, they just had to not be killed while being caught.
He thus jumped out, reaching his hand out to grab Zhang Chengling.
The latter ineptly turned and ran, crying out, “Mom! He tried to get me, Master!”
Walnut-man huffed out a laugh, bumping the one beside him with his toes. “I say, your chick has fluffed up.”
“He’s mud that can’t even stick to a wall,” the man quietly chastised, suddenly striking a palm out. Zhang Chengling felt a strong force rush through the air like someone was forcefully pushing him, stopping him in his tracks. He then felt like he was a puppet on strings, his arms swiveling upwards, thrown right at Feng Xiaofeng.
He shut his eyes in fright, subconsciously clenching his hand into a fist, which happened to hit Feng Xiaofeng right on the bridge of his nose.
After the hit that made the dwarf scream in a way that shook the world, Zhang Chengling opened his eyes, looking at his own fist with a head full of fog. He was in disbelief.
He heard someone voice-project, his Master’s voice sounding right in his ear. “Moron! What are you being dazed about? Kick him in his shanzhong acupoint!”
Subconsciously obeying, he felt the strength that hadn’t yet dissipated seeming to pour into his limbs, propelling him forward to send Feng Xiaofeng flying with a kick.
“Who are you?” Yu Qiufeng shouted.
The stranger didn’t answer, going to smack Zhang Chengling on the back again. The latter yelped and shot towards Yu Qiufeng, whose pupils contracted — he drew out a sword from who-knew-where to greet him with, watching as Zhang Chengling was about to collide with its tip.
This spooked the youth into near peeing himself. While he ran forth against his will, he shouted wildly, “Master, save me!”
“The tip of his sword is shaking a bit,” the voice spoke into his ear again. “He must have a follow-up maneuver. Spread your steps out to the trail of the Nine Palaces, then get the side of his elbow.”
Feeling that to make a lot of sense, Zhang Chengling automatically took one step ahead diagonally, then twisted his body to bypass the sword’s tip. Yu Qiufeng’s sword immediately shook, winding around like a shadow, but Zhang Chengling’s forward momentum was unchanged, and he took another step forth with his right leg.
While his posture was awkward, bizarre, and extremely cumbersome, he somehow avoided Yu Qiufeng’s move. He followed his Master’s command of ‘getting the side of his elbow’ by shutting his eyes, gritting his teeth, and smashing his head up into it.
The one munching on walnuts was Wen Kexing. As soon as he saw this set-up, he was thrilled — what Zhou Zishu had taught Zhang Chengling was one of the unique skillsets of agility arts, the Nine Palace Steps of Flowing Clouds. It emphasized moving like flowing clouds or floating willow-puffs, which made one look like a real flying immortal, easy and beautiful.
This was the first time Wen Kexing had known someone to perform the Steps in a way that they were the spitting image of a dancing black bear.
Meanwhile, Zhou Zishu’s frown relaxed. He noticed that in spite of the child’s clumsy actions, not one step had been misplaced, which meant that Zhang Chengling was acting in earnest. The boy had learned the mantras, then must have practiced these same steps a hundred-thousand times once at home base, hence why he was so nervous, yet steady in his footwork.
Yu Qiufeng’s morale had take a huge hit that day against Wen Kexing, and now he suffered a blow from Zhang Chengling’s skull that forced him to immediately release the weapon he had just placed in hand. Furious beyond restraint, he called out, “Don’t let them get away!”
At that, everyone immediately formed a circle around.
This was not something Zhang Chengling could contend with. Wen Kexing stuffed the remaining half-bag of walnuts into Zhou Zishu’s hands. “Hold this for me. I, the grandfather, need to go teach my grandchildren a lesson!”
He charged into the crowd, laughing hard.
Zhou Zishu had always known walnuts to be vile, vile-tasting, and too similar-looking to a human brain. Pinching the bag between two fingers, he extended his arm to hold it far away from him in disgust, all the while continuing to ‘voice-project’ instructions to Zhang Chengling as he watched the fun.
Gu Xiang used this time to walk to Cao Weining’s side, sending someone that attempted to block her away with a kick. She then glared viciously at Mo Huaikong, thinking, I don’t care who you are. If you try to stop me, you’ll be just as humiliated as them!
However, before she got close, she saw him suddenly say ‘ouch’, keel over, put on an expression of extreme pain, and pant hard as he pointed at her, who was mystified. “This… this little demoness… is really powerful! I’m no match for her!”
Then, he sat down onto the floor with a plop, shut his eyes tight, and moved no more.
Gu Xiang and Cao Weining looked at each other. Neither of them said anything.
The shut-eyed Mo Huaikong suddenly cracked one open to look over at them. “Why aren’t you running? Are you stupid?” he quietly scolded them.
Gu Xiang immediately brought out a dagger, then cut off the ropes binding Cao Weining. He jumped up, then said in a hushed voice, “Thank you, Uncle.”
“Old man, we won’t forget your great kindness, even when our teeth fall out from age,” Gu Xiang quickly followed up with. “I’ll definitely set up a memorial arch for you when we get back!”
“Fuck off! You’re the one getting an arch! Your whole family is!”
Both pretending to be defeated with his eyes shut, yet also swearing at them on end in his mind, Mo Huaikong found this young woman’s looks to be just an air. She really wasn’t likeable at all when she spoke.
Zhou Zishu noticed that Gu Xiang and Cao Weining had since fled. His figure suddenly flashed over to pick Zhang Chengling up by his collar, and he flung him upwards like a wooden club, the boy’s leg getting manipulated into stomping Huang Daoren in the chest.
Once the man had been stomped ten paces back, Zhou Zishu casually shoved the walnut sack into Zhang Chengling’s hands, then said to Wen Kexing, “Enjoying yourself, are you? We need to go!”
Wen Kexing laughed, his form flying outwards. “The lush mountains never change, the green waters flow forever — everyone, stop keeping me company at once!”
He then left astride Zhou Zishu, who was carrying Zhang Chengling. The two’s agility arts were phenomenal, and no one could keep up with them once they expended the full amount of their strength. In the blink of an eye, they were gone.
The three ran for a good long distance before they stopped. Zhou Zishu set Zhang Chengling down, tore off his human-skin mask, then straightened up his clothes, only to see the kid staring at him with shiny eyes, like a little creature begging for a treat. His hand stopped in its tracks.
His former tradition was that if his junior had done something incorrectly, he would be punished, thus sparing him from only remembering rewards, not suffering. If there was anything good about him, his junior couldn’t boast, either, thus sparing him from getting arrogant. Seeing this child’s expectant look made his heart soften some, though, and he thought some. “Your agility arts were okay,” he said simply.
Zhang Chengling blossomed with happiness.
However, Zhou Zishu immediately made an about-face. “What are you so proud for? Look at how much of a coward you are. Whenever you meet the littlest inconvenience, all you know how to do is cry for your parents. It’s disgraceful,” he scolded.
Zhang Chengling lowered his head dejectedly again.
A warm hand suddenly covered the back of his head, and he looked to see Wen Kexing say to him with a smile, “Don’t listen to him. That little face of his is as thin as paper, and when he takes off his masks, it’s easier for him to get embarrassed—“
Before he could say anything further, Zhou Zishu turned to look at him with a fake smile. “What did you say, Old Wen?” he asked, voice low.
“I said that you pretty much remain calm and unmoved in the face of disasters, have no shame, and don’t have a thin face at all. Even an awl couldn’t pierce it,” Wen Kexing answered, taking his advice to change his tone.
All of a sudden, Zhou Zishu reached out to cup his cheek.
Wen Kexing was taken aback.
The other said nothing, merely leaning in closer, staring deeply at him without blinking.
Zhang Chengling looked at one, then at the other. He had no idea what the two of them were doing.
It was a full stick of incense’s time before Zhou Zishu released him, smiling slightly. He flicked the other’s earlobe. “That’s pretty red,” he said, grinning.
Wen Kexing mutely took one step forward — and his arm swung out to match, in some kind of awkward march.
Zhou Zishu laughed loudly.
Then, his laughter abruptly stopped. Zhang Chengling and Wen Kexing followed his line of sight elsewhere; there was a man in white watching them expressionlessly, standing not too far away.
—
The translator says: haha, get it, he’s munching nuts because he’s… anyways.
The second he saw Ye Baiyi, Wen Kexing’s expression turned ugly. The second he saw Ye Baiyi staring unblinkingly at Zhou Zishu’s face, his expression grew even uglier.
Zhou Zishu was somewhat shocked, though. He bowed to him from a distance. “Senior Ye.”
Ye Baiyi watched him for a long while before he spoke. “It’s you? You look pretty human like this. Why do you always make yourself up into that ghoulishness? The ancients had a saying: ‘In travel, do not hide your given name; in power, to not hide your family name.’ That goes even more for the looks your parents innately gave you. Don’t you know how to be open and honest?”
Zhou Zishu tilted his head back to look at the sky, as if that could suppressed his desire to give Ye Baiyi a beatdown. He lowered his head back down a good time after, showing a modest smile. “I acknowledge your advice, Senior,” he eruditely said.
Ye Baiyi nodded indifferently. “Follow me.”
Feeling this old man to be the utmost of unreasonable, Wen Kexing huffed coldly. “Who are you? Do I know you?”
The other turned around. There was no particularly pleasant or unpleasant look on his face; he just stayed quiet for a short time. “Don’t you want to know what actually happened thirty years ago, in that whole mess with Rong Xuan, his wife Yue Feng’r, and the Whorl Beryl?” he eventually asked.
Wen Kexing, who had already been turning to leave, suddenly paused. His face was pointed towards the ground, allowing no one to see his emotions.
The few of them were deadlocked like so. After a long time, Wen Kexing turned his head to ask a question, using a very strange tone for it. “Why would we… want to know what happened to Rong Xuan and his wife?”
Ye Baiyi sighed. “When you live to be my age, you’ll understand that sometimes, it isn’t as hard to tell what someone wants as you might imagine.”
Wen Kexing promptly regarded that tone of ‘elderliness’ to be an earsore.
Zhou Zishu looked back at him. “Do you know something, Senior?” he asked.
Ye Baiyi smiled — his stiff face always made it hard to make out whether he was genuinely trying to smile, or eerily faking one — and said, “Do I? I’m nothing more than an old fool that lived on Everbright Peak without seeing daylight for many years. What could I know?”
He turned his back to them, walking forth. “But I do know of someone that might have a clear recollection of what happened back then.”
“Follow me,” Zhou Zishu ordered Zhang Chengling, then gave chase.
Wen Kexing was a bit confused, too. “Who could be so powerful?” he casually questioned.
Without turning his head, a few words floated out from Ye Baiyi’s mouth: “Marionette Manor’s Long Que.”
Zhou Zishu’s brows creased. “There’s indeed a ‘Marionette Manor’ in Shuzhong, purportedly,” he had to say, “but it’s hidden deep in the mountains. The Manor’s Lord, Long Xue, is proficient in all sorts of traps and divination techniques. The Manor actually seems to be on the move at all times; I once asked people several times to draw up a map for it, but even though the ones amending the maps would solemnly vow that there was no problem with them, every single time we went to look for it, that evasive Manor would be nowhere…”
“You’re trash,” Ye Baiyi retorted.
…A dog’s mouth would never spit out an elephant’s ivory.
Zhou Zishu closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. Upon silently taking a good look at the back of Ye Baiyi’s skull, he noticed that the more he looked, the more he felt that the other’s head shape was very suitable for getting punched.
Zhang Chengling tugged at his clothes, opening his mouth to ask something, only to get glared at harshly. Zhou Zishu impatiently pulled his hems back. “You’re a big teenager. If you have something to say, say it. Why are you acting as skittish as a young wife?”
That was a clear expression of rage. Zhang Chengling shrank his neck back, too afraid to speak.”
The man looked at him again. “What did you want to say? Say it, now!”
“M-Master, are we going all the way to Shuzhong?”
Zhou Zishu was caught off guard.
Right. That was an extremely long way to go.
Thus, Zhang Chengling could not live beneath the weight of his own sins. Due to having asked that question when he didn’t have to, his evil Master tormented him in a hundred different ways thereafter. At times, he was instructed to circulate his true qi while upside-down or walk the road while doing a handstand. At other times, he would get a hand shoving his shoulder, causing the teen to scurry forward, expending the same amount of energy he would have from carrying a mountain on his back… it was a fate worse than death.
Nearby, Wen Kexing was silent, still munching on the walnuts he had, disgusting Zhou Zishu all the while. He seeming to be thoughtfully mulling something over, too. Upon noticing that Zhou Zishu was ignoring Ye Baiyi, the old donkey, he had a rare time of speaking to the man on his own. “What is… your relationship with Rong xuan? Why do you want to know what happened thirty years ago?”
Ye Baiyi looked at him, then thought for a while. Right when Wen Kexing thought that he would say something, he just heard his crow’s beak squawk out, “Why are you acting like an old biddy that loves to gossip, asking about everything? What business is it of yours?”
Wen Kexing’s fingers clenched hard, crushing the walnut shell he had into several pieces that went spraying over a zhang away. They brought with them a strong wind, like thrown daggers.
Zhang Chengling quickly hid far away, lest he be implicated as a casualty.
The second he thought of opening his mouth to berate Ye Baiyi, there was a sudden bright flash before Wen Kexing’s eyes. He focused his sight, then spotted a single silver thread within the other’s long hair. “Hey, Ye. You have a white hair,” he called.
It could have been an illusion, but in that instant, Ye Baiyi’s dull eyes appeared to have some glint of light speedily flit through them; so quickly, in fact, it was hard for one to differentiate. The man couldn’t resist reaching up, wanting to feel at his own hair, yet upon reaching the halfway mark, his hand retracted. “You’ve never even seen white hairs before? How naive,” he said flatly.
Wen Kexing thought for a second. That was right — this old freak was so old, if it were anyone else, they would be bones that had already gone cold. What were some white hairs to him?
This was followed by him being unable to find more words. Ye Baiyi had a talent for preventing people from provoking him.
From Dongting to Shuzhong, he was like a walking marionette. Only when he was eating with the stance of a tsunami washing away a million troops would one know that he was a living being
Bored, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing were forced to start bickering amongst each other, making a bunch of non-stop noise. At first, Ye Baiyi had listened on blankly and calmly, but after a while, he felt like the both of them were unreasonable. “You two can wrangle when you roll on a bed! What do you keep gabbing about, you giant crickets? Do your lower bits not stand up, or are you women in male disguise? What are you playing coy for? Your sappiness makes me sick! Shut up!”
Zhang Chengling was in the middle of walking in a handstand, as per the method Zhou Zishu had taught him. Counter-circulating his true qi had been difficult to begin with, and once he heard this, he paused. Once the half-grown child vaguely came to understand something, his face went red, his internal qi turned a mess, and then he fell sideways, covering his neck and going ouch a few times.
Had Ye Baiyi not claimed that he would be able to find Marionette Manor, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing would have joined forces to teach the damned old coot a lesson.
They shared a look of implicit understanding. However, for reasons unknown, a glance at the other man’s face —handsome, yet barely restraining anger beneath it — had his gaze then uncontrollably shifting downwards. He seemed to be able to see the skin through those clothes. After his imagination went off of a bit, his throat bobbed up and down, and he suddenly felt that Ye Baiyi had made a lot of sense.
With their final source of entertainment gone, they tacitly joined up in bullying Zhang Chengling.
Zhou Zishu told him: “True qi congregates together, circulating throughout the limbs and bones. Like water flowing into the sea, it removes blockages from your meridians. Whether going with the flow or reversing it, both are free for one to do.”
Wen Kexing secretly told him: “Your internal qi is unstable and your martial power is too shallow. Your internal qi is better scattered than gathered. Progress should be made in sequence, so you feel your true qi and let it take its natural course.”
Both of them sounded very reasonable. Poor Zhang Chengling was unsure of which he should listen to, his head swelling to twice its size.
True qi was gathered with him one minute, then scattered about him another, circulated properly one minute, then counter-circulated another. Every once in while he would have to suffer Zhou Zishu’s specialized training method, too, where no matter how much power he used, the single hand pressing down upon his shoulder seeming to weigh over ten-thousand catties.
A spot of fear arose in Zhang Chengling’s heart as he thought, If I keep getting crushed like this, will I stop being able to grow?
The image of Feng Xiaofeng’s claws outstretched appeared in his head, which made him shudder.
Zhou Zishu had no idea what he was worried about, only think that the boy did work hard, he just wasn’t mentally getting it. Back when he had instructed Liang Jiuxiao, he’d always thought him to be way too stupid, often needing to force down his impatient temper. Who could have known that compared to Zhang Chengling, Liang Jiuxiao would have practically been a peerlessly intelligent egg?
Were it not for the fact that he had worn down his temper in Court long ago, he himself believed that he would have had the idea to slap the unlucky boy to death.
This was truly wronging Zhang Chengling, because Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu’s martial arts were inherently on different roads. If one person was teaching him, there could have been some progress, but neither of these two were capable of teaching disciples. It was he-said, he-said, and they didn’t care whether he understood or not. Sometimes, while they were talking, they would even start quarreling amongst themselves. If their quarrel grew to be too much, they would go away to brawl it out and come back. The fusses they kicked up were vicious, yet ended with both of their faces and ears red.
Plus, Ye Baiyi kept giving background narrations, saying that they ‘were doing something deviant in the name of comparing notes.’ The way he worded it made Zhang Chengling’s imagination (very uncomfortably) go wild, while he still simultaneously understood nothing.
As the days went on, he got the feeling that his martial power was not advancing anymore, but retreating. The hand that his Master would press down upon his shoulder with was getting heavier by the day, pressuring him to the point that he could barely breathe.
Truthfully, Zhang Chengling’s method of learning martial arts was very risky. If he were anyone else, then without the hand Zhou Zishu had been holding him down with, thus imperceptibly harmonizing his internal qi for him, he would have long qi deviated from these other two making such a mess.
They walked extremely quickly. In just a few days, they had left the land of strife that was Dongting, arriving at Shuzhong.
On this day, Zhang Chengling couldn’t walk well. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to go about ten li, but then felt his pulse in his temples, making him pant hard for air. His heart was nearly about to jump out of his chest, every step he took requiring all the strength in his body.
“What, you can’t do it? Keep going!” Zhou Zishu’s voice resounded coldly in his ears.
Wen Kexing gave him a look, raising his brows. Apparently feeling that Zhang Chengling was pitiful, he couldn’t help but interject, “Ah-Xu—“
“Shut up,” Zhou Zishu uttered coldly, eyes unmoving. He had no humanity to him at all. “I told you to keep going, brat.”
Waves of darkness were already starting to spread before Zhang Chengling’s eyes. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t. Once the internal qi leaked out of him, Zhou Zishu’s stick-thin-looking hand would press him into the ground like a radish being planted.
Shuzhong had many mountains, all the landscape going up and down, seemingly without bounds. He suddenly went into despair, feeling as if this road would go on forever.
His legs trembled ever more and more violently. He forced his head up to see his Master’s face; that handsome profile was as ice-cold as ever, not looking at him, much resembling an unfeeling statue.
“In and out, in a continuous link, wandering along the ren and du meridians like a hundred rivers going into the sea, vanishing without a trace…”
“Internal qi has a shape, spiritual power winds like a snake. They never come to an end, coming and going at will…”
Facing the many mountains of Shuzhong in this moment, Zhang Chengling was forced into a realm of desperation. All of a sudden, in the span of a spark’s life, a series of words quickly streaked across his mind — with shape, yet without bounds; scattered, yet never ending!
His chest started to feel full, his line of sight growing even more blurred, and yet he could feel the changes going on within him all the more.
In truth, the internal qi scattered throughout his limbs and bones had always been there; he’d simply had no way to put it into use. The second he figured it out, he felt a strong force surge upwards, which even jolted off the hand Zhou Zishu had pressing down upon his shoulder.
The final thing he saw was Zhou Zishu’s surprised expression, then darkness, as he pitched forward headfirst.
Zhou Zishu furrowed his brow as he looked down upon his jolted-off palm. He also saw Ye Baiyi turn his head and say coldly, “Good job, you pushed him to death at last. Happy?”
Only Wen Kexing had something of a conscience, leaning over to ‘collect’ the boy and place a palm again the center of his pack, a strand of fine true qi making its way into him. A good while later, Wen Kexing let out a soft gasp. “This kid… has meridians that are inherently a lot wider than most’s. Is he actually a prodigy?”
“Sure. Back when Enchanting Melody hurt him, I discovered as much when I helped him regulate his qi,” Zhou Zishu said, then took Zhang Chengling from him.
The teen’s face was pale, his brows tightly knotted in the middle. His pants cut above his ankles, slightly strained, as if he had grown that much taller in this brief one-and-a-half month’s time.
Having been born of the Zhangs and Hero Zhang’s only son, after all these years, Zhang Chengling shoulder not have been this incapable. After helping heal his wounds for him, Zhou Zishu had discovered that the boy’s foundation for internal arts was too sturdy to injure, but he himself couldn’t utilize it.
He was like a child that had been given a sharp weapon, yet didn’t have the strength to wrangle a chicken.
Ye Baiyi also grew interested upon witnessing this, reaching out one hand to pinch and pull Zhang Chengling all over. “For there to be someone like this in the world, whose brain is wondrously dull but structure is innately high-tier, are the Heavens trying to make him great, or less-than-great?”
Saying so, he looked towards Zhou Zishu. “His meridians are wide and clear, making him excellent material, but his comprehension is way too poor. It’s even harder for him to feel his way through his path than others… hm. If you pressure him a little more, he might actually be able to live a little longer.
It was extremely fortunate that Zhang Chengling was passed out.
Because of him, the other three decided to find a place to stay for the day and wait for the brat’s nap, after which they would enter the mountain.
Zhou Zishu was woken up by the Nails acting up at midnight, right on schedule. He curled into a ball, fingers pressing against his chest — he didn’t use his internal force to suppress it, merely laying back in bed with his eyes open, looking at the moonbeams shooting through the window. Watching in a stupor, he conscientiously felt the Nails on him.
In contract with before times, whenever the Nails flared up now, it was no longer just pain. The former sensation of someone turning a tiny knife around in his chest seemed to have diminished some — or maybe he had just grown numb to it — and a feeling like something was pressing down upon his chest had gradually come about. His breaths no longer came out smoothly, which seemed to be getting more and more prominent in recent days.
Je knew that this was an omen. He had already spent the lesser half of his three-year timespan.
A long time ago, he had believed that the extra three years would be a boon of sorts. Now, he recognized that it had been a torture of sorts all along.
Death was not frightening. It had not been easy for him to survive over the past twenty years; all of the methods he used to pressure Zhang Chengling were ones he had endured in his childhood, but even harsher, and despite him not having the kid’s innate talent for withstanding that harshness completely unharmed.
He had experienced enough to fear no one and nothing in the world. If he lived in no fear, what was so scary about death?
However, what was making him uncomfortable was that he had to count the days down until his death.
Having endured so much, his heart’s will was stalwart, and never had he had a will for death. Wasn’t it ironic that in his most free, most unworried, and most cheerful days would be the ones where he was waiting to die?
This was most likely yet another stupid thing that was his own doing.
Right then, a gentle knock came from outside his door, catching him off guard. Wen Kexing and Ye Baiyi, the two trashbags, would never have knocked.
He rose up from the bed, a wave of dull pain in his chest nearly causing him to lay back down. While clenching one hand tight into the bedsheet, he took two deep breaths, and barely managed to move his true qi into repressing that suffocating sensation, after which he finally opened the door with a glum expression.
Zhang Chengling was standing outside, his hand raised hesitantly like he was going to knock again. When the door opened and he saw Zhou Zishu’s poor expression, he quickly looked like he had done something tremendously wrong, bowing his head in guilt and pain. “Master,” he buzzed out, much like a mosquito.
Zhou Zishu frowned. “What are you doing?”
The corner of the kid’s mouth tugged downwards. He looked like he might just cry. “Master, I just woke up… and I can’t fall asleep.”
Zhou Zishu crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, and sneered. “So… you’re saying that you want me to sing you a lullaby to sleep?”
Zhang Chengling bowed even lower, causing Zhou Zishu to worry that his neck might snap.
It was already late winter. Even in Shuzhong, it was relatively cold at midnight, and Zhou Zishu’s internal injury flare-up made him somewhat intolerant of the chill. Feeling a slight breeze blowing upon him that made him a little cold, he took a big swig from his flask while looking at Zhang Chengling impatiently. “Can’t you be frank? Are you going to let out a fart if you speak or something?”
“Master, I dreamed about my dad and the others again,” the other whispered. “It’s been so long. Can you tell me why I haven’t forgotten them yet? Am I just especially incompetent?”
Zhou Zishu was slightly struck mute.
A while later, Zhang Chengling believed that he wasn’t paying him attention anymore, so he secretly lifted his head to look at him, thoroughly regretting his haste in running over here. However, he just discovered that Zhou Zishu had turned his body to the side and taken a step to the side, nodding faintly at him in a signal for him to enter.
Like he had been bestowed with a great amnesty, Zhang Chengling plodded inside.
Zhou Zishu lit the lantern. There were no drinks in the rom, so he picked up a cup, took his flask, then poured out a half-cup of wine, which he gave to Zhang Chengling.
Not aware of the alcohol’s strength, the latter downed it in one go. Upon feeling a tiny fire burning its way all the way down to his throat to his stomach, his face promptly went red, and he choked, unable to speak.
Seeing his stupid look, Zhou Zishu’s stern face automatically loosened a little, and he tilted his head to start chuckling.
This was the first time Zhang Chengling had seen his ‘strict teacher’ use his own face to smile at him with. He dared not make even too big of a sound, staring foolishly at him.
When they had met in Jiangnan, he’d had no one to rely on but this one man, whose mouth spouted out a torrent of words to anyone but him, who he only had scant words for. It was like he was drowning, and had grabbed onto a life-saving piece of reed — he knew his Master was nice and couldn’t help but want to get close to him, yet he also feared annoying him. And his Master did look to be constantly annoyed by him, but that caution had slowly turned into reverence, where every time he spoke to him, he was trembling in fear.
Despite that, every time he felt sad, he came to find him. In Zhang Chengling’s mind, his Master and his father differed in looks from head to toe, but for some reason, he felt like they were the same person.
So tall, strong, and… nice to him.
“Master, we’re following Senior Ye to find Marionette Manor, ask about the Whorl Beryl, and find out what really happened many years ago, but would they know why those people would want to kill my father?” he asked.
Zhou Zishu raised his brows. “Who would?” was his answer, which avoided the question.
Creasing his brow, Zhang Chengling mused hard for a minute. “Master, do you think someone would kill another for no real reason? I’ve thought a lot about that. Did they kill my father because he did something bad in the past?”
Zhou Zishu thought. That question was too broad, giving him pause. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what to say.
Upon bowing his head to look at the brat that had his brows knit hard in infinite worries, he picked him up by the collar and towed him out of the room. “Since you slept a lot during the day, you’re being a pain in my ass that won’t shut your eyes. The clumsy bird that flies first might as well practice fully. As I see it, I must not have put enough pressure on you, if you still have the energy to keep overthinking.”
While he spoke, he snatched a handful of pebbles off the ground, crooked his finger, then shot one out apropos of nothing. Having no time to dodge, Zhang Chengling was hit in the forehead, letting out an ouch.
Another pebble came. He was forced to frantically avoid it, all while listening to his demonic Master scoff, “Of the martial arts I taught you, this ‘Dog Eating Shit’ move wasn’t in there.”
Having no time to think of anything else at the moment, Zhang Chengling could only expend full effort in dealing with the pebbles that enveloped him like an inescapable net. Once Zhou Zishu ran out of stones to throw, he inhaled in relief, only for the other to say before letting him fully breathe out, “That’s your Nine Palace Steps of Flowing Clouds? Spiders climb walls neater than you do! The first few paces kind of look right, but what are those last couple of moves? Go right there, then walk it through from start to finish! If you make a mistake I’m breaking your mutt legs!”
Terrified, Zhang Chengling became similar to a baby learning to walk. Every time he lifted his leg, he had to carefully deliberate, going along even more cautiously than a lame-legged old grandma, fearing that he would end up stomping on an ant. He would have to sneak a peek at Zhou Zishu from time to time, always worried that he would suddenly maul him, breaking his mutt legs for real.
Zhou Zishu sat down, thinking of how inept this little jerk really was. His chest was still stuffed up. Unable to take it for much longer, he turned his head to cough; a trail of ominous blood came to be upon his pale profile, looking terrifying beneath the moonlight.
Then, he felt a warmth behind him. Turning around, he saw that Wen Kexing had come to stand behind him at some unknown point in time, then wrapped a big cloak around him, coming to sit quietly at his side. After a minute, the other asked out of nowhere, “Does that hurt?”
“Would you try this out, otherwise?” Zhou Zishu mocked.
Wen Kexing suddenly reached out a tentative hand, gently lifting his lapels away. Having no idea why he didn’t, Zhou Zishu didn’t move away, just sitting there with his half-full flask dangling in his hand.
Sighting his thin stomach that was the same width as his finger, then the uppermost Nail in his chest, Wen Kexing’s eyes flashed. He took a deep breath, closing his lapels up once more.
The two sat side-by-side, yet in this moment, they had nothing to say to each other.
After a long time, Wen Kexing stated, “I’m going to say this. It took me many years to finally find a kindred spirit that I’ve taken such a fancy to, so can you not die?”
“Is that something I have the final say on?” Zhou Zishu countered.
The other said nothing else, sighing and shifting his gaze away, like he didn’t want to see him anymore. He just watched Zhang Chengling with his step-learning toddles in the courtyard.
He, too, picked up a heap of pebbles, then flicked one out so that it hit Zhang Chengling right on the butt. “What people call the ‘martial arts of agility’ ultimately connect to the work ‘quick’, brat,” he called out. “You keep on dawdling in your embroidery — are you even practicing any agility arts? Footwork of any sort is just empty, only maybe still having a use in shamanic dances. Your steps are correct, but are they useful when they’re so slow?”
Zhang Chengling looked at the two of them, aggrieved, upon the realization that they not only diverged in explanations of how to practice with qi, but even diverged in their explanations of how to practice agility arts. A life like this was simply unbearable.
Wen Kexing kept chanting ‘be quicker’, chasing him with those pebbles all the while. Even though Zhou Zishu didn’t make a peep, his eyes were trained to Zhang Chengling’s feet, watching like a tiger in wait for him to slip-up, which would give him an excuse to break his leg…
This night was terrifying to the extreme.
Sighing on the inside, Zhang Chengling remembered that his former wish had never been to be an unmatched martial expert. Had it not been for the precipitous massacre of the Zhangs, he would have wanted to open up a pastry shop in the future, feed his family, be filial to his parents, and entertain guests in a happy bubble every day.
Never had he dared to speak this wish. Now, he was near-timid even thinking about it.
Early the next day, after Ye Baiyi ate down eight steamed buns in succession and drank down two giant bowls of congee, when Zhou Zishu and the other two were finally preparing to switch to another table, he proclaimed that he would bring them into the mountains today.
He had already figured out how to break the array outside of Marionette Manor.
They wandered around the mountains while following Ye Baiyi, wandering and wandering until they wandered into a forest. The instant Zhou Zishu entered it, for some reason, his entire body automatically tensed up — he had no idea what mysteries the woods held, yet had an instinctual sense of danger.
Looking over at the very chatty Wen Kexing, that guy shut up, too. Even Ye Baiyi came to look grave, stopping and starting, extremely cautious.
Only Zhang Chengling couldn’t sense a thing, being inwardly delighted that he could apparently have a break today. His Master kept pulling him along by the arm; those fingers were slender and strong, the heat from his palm piercing through his thick clothes enough for him to feel it, giving a special sense of security. Zhang Chengling obediently allowed himself to be dragged away, elated on the inside.
Ye Baiyi kept reciting a string of words, stopping to scribble something on the ground with a twig every once in a while. Wen Kexing was very interested in this, at first, standing beside him to observe for a minute, but once the minute was up, his mind was mush, head spinning. He thus quietly stepped back to one side, coming to stand alongside Zhou Zishu. “Aren’t you going to go check out what he’s doing?” he whispered.
“I could, and still understand nothing,” the other replied, in a very self-aware manner.
However, he faintly furrowed his brows, then, and hushed his voice. “Speaking of which… the people I once sent here were trap masters and experts in Wonders and Doors divination, so why didn’t even a one of them find Marionette Manor?”
“Didn’t you say someone drew up a map?”
“Yeah. When he brought his own map and a group of people out to go look for it again, none of them returned.”
Wen Kexing swept a somber look at Ye Baiyi’s back while the man was crouched on the ground. “If even even… the two of us suffer defeat here, do you think this old pig will be any use?” he asked, though his voice was even quieter.
Right when Zhou Zishu thought to open his mouth and speak, Ye Baiyi stood up before he could make a peep, turning his head and saying to them coldly, “It’ll be dangerous the rest of the way. If you don’t want to die, walk in my footprints.”
Zhou Zishu rubbed his nose, then saw Ye Baiyi look at him with a sneer. “Experts in divination? How good could your subordinates be, when their boss is so useless?” the man said, then turned and walked away.
The other three all had very weird expressions on. Anyone that had ever personally witnessed Senior Ye’s appetite would, after hearing him call someone else ‘bad’.
Regardless of the oddity, the adults here (Zhang Chengling not included) knew what was at stake, so they quickly followed after.
Zhang Chengling’s eyes wandered. More and more carcasses of various animals were piling up along their path, giving this place a chilling feeling. After walking for a spell, he terrifyingly came to see several human bones, even, the corpses all separated away from each other.
“Master, why does the man we’re looking for live in a place like this?” he asked, shivering.
Zhou Zishu inclined his head to look at him. “How should I know? All sorts of birds live in forests this big.”
Carefully stepping over a chunk of human femur, Zhang Chengling had to ask, “He lives in such a remote area, with all these traps making every step a scare. What if he gets lost himself when he comes out? Isn’t that the same as putting a mousetrap under his own bed?”
“Mousetrap under his bed?” Zhou Zishu wondered.
“When I was little, a mouse once got into my room and I couldn’t catch it, so I put two traps under my bed beforeI slept. I ended up forgetting about them the next morning, and as soon as I put my foot stop, the mousetrap snapped onto my foot and broke it.”
Wen Kexing huffed out an amused laugh.
Zhou Zishu sighed. Seeing that he was nearly messing up his footing from being too focused on talking, he picked him up and shouted, “Shut up! Look at where you’re stepping. Do you want to die?”
Zhang Chengling stuck his tongue out in embarrassment, whereupon Zhou Zishu said flippantly, “There’s no need to measure anyone else against you, either. How many people as dumb as you are there in the world?”
Taking the topic over, Wen Kexing said gently to Zhang Chengling, “There’s really only a few reasons as to why anyone would go into hiding. Maybe this man believes that enemies are hunting him, so he has to creep back into a place where no one can find him—“
“Like Wraith Vale?” Zhou Zishu interjected.
Wen Kexing gave him a look. “If that’s the way you want to put it… then yes.”
Zhou Zishu seized the opportunity. “In that case, what diabolical thing did the Wraith Lord do back in the day, to need to hide in the Vale?”
The other didn’t mind his doubts that made him stick needles into every seam he could find, merely saying boldly, “Me? I’m quite special, of course. I did nothing beforehand, I just went in on accident. To this day, I don’t understand how a good person like me managed to live with a bunch of Vile Wraiths for so many years. Truly, I’ve grown out of mud unsullied, and been cleansed of sin in clean ripples.”
Zhou Zishu smiles without words, thinking only that he was saying nonsense.
Wen Kexing then sighed. “Ah-Xu, you hurt my heart so badly, truly… do you think I’m a good person, brat?”
Zhang Chengling admired him to the point of prostration, since he was an even-tempered Senior that knew martial arts and could tell stories. Upon being asked this, he quickly nodded like his head was smashing garlic, without a second word about it.
Beyond touched, Wen Kexing pet his head. “What a good child! He has a conscience, knows right from wrong, and remembers when others are nice to him, unlike some people… alas!”
Zhou Zishu said nothing.
Such was the way of a leader; one was either similar to Gao Chong’s sort, leading a group of self-proclaimed righteous folk, or his own sort, leading a gang of assassins and spies. Both differed from the Lord of Wraith Vale. Gao Chong only needed to say the words ‘a virtuous cause for the realm’ to get all of those people to confine themselves within an imaginary circle, while the Panes would have basically sold their lives off to him and the Emperor already. Backing the organization was a strict and generous imperial authority, taking form into something that no one had ever dared to challenge, aside from him.
But the Vale wasn’t the same, because it held a bunch of exiles that were akin to a squadron of nasty, poisonous insects trapped within a cramped jar, their lone path of survival being to slaughter each other. It was an extremely underworldly place without morality or justice, where people had to die for others to live, and where only the strong were respected.
In the end, only the one strong and cruel enough to devour everyone else would become the Gu King, thus able to see the light of day again.
Wen Kexing’s disguise was so great, there were many times that even Zhou Zishu would mistake him for an average man that was just shooting his mouth off.
Regardless, Wen Kexing continued to speak to Zhang Chengling. “Aside from fearing being hunted down, there is another reason one might want to hide from others, and it’s heartbreaking. In his mind, he knows that the one he most wants to see will never appear again, so he’s simply buried himself here. After being here for a long time, he can comfort himself with saying that he never sought anything, simply because he never left to go seek it.”
Then, he softly sighed. “If your Master is no longer here someday, I might have to find a place like this to hide away in, else I might run off, see the beauties that line the street, then never see the one most in-tune with my mind. Wouldn’t that be sad?”
“I thought you were going to say that you plan on dying with me,” Zhou Zishu mocked.
Wen Kexing grinned. “If I did, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Is this like… like Yu Boya smashing his qin?” Zhang Chengling butt in.
The two mens’ faces went blank immediately. Zhang Chengling looked this way and that, unsure of what he had said wrong. A long while later, he heard Wen Kexing say mildly, “No one in this world comprehends the tall mountains and flowing waters anymore. That’s right… yet also not right.”
He looked at Zhou Zishu, but the man’s line of sight was elsewhere, so he stopped talking, just following closely behind Ye Baiyi.
All of a sudden, Ye Beiyi quit walking, came to a halt, and listened hard, raising his hand to get them to stop in their tracks. “Quiet.”
Zhou Zishu’s grip on Zhang Chengling’s hand tightened. They all looked down at the same time, because they felt the ground beneath their feet vibrate, a humming sound coming out for reasons unknown.
Wen Kexing gave Zhou Zishu a sorrowful look of ‘I told you that this pig is unreliable, but you didn’t believe me.’
The latter ignored him, because the very next moment, a strong current suddenly rushed up from under the ground, as if it was about to split open. They all jumped away at the same time, as soon as the earth started shaking.
Zhou Zishu grabbed Zhang Chengling, then stepped upon a large branch — however, like a counterfeit, the branch snapped the second he touched down on it, sending them straight downwards. Alarmed, he twisted around in the air to hook his toes against the trunk, only for the entire tree to collapse all the same in the blink of an eye.
Zhang Chengling buried his face into his arms, suddenly recalling a phrase his childhood studies teacher had taught him: Lean on a mountain, and the mountain collapses; Lean on a tree, and the tree falters.
It was true… not listening to the words of one’s elders was something one would never stop paying for, indeed.
The entire ground sank in, splitting apart into an ominous maw that wanted to gobble everyone up. Zhou Zishu finally used the falling momentum of the tree to dart five zhang away. Only now did he get to stand steady, but before he had time to exhale, his brows furrowed tight — in an instant, Wen Kexing and Ye Baiyi had vanished!
Following this, air was suddenly under his fee, and he fell entirely down.
All at once, Zhou Zishu understood why they were gone. All he had a spark’s time to do was protect Zhang Chengling in his arms, and then darkness came up all around them.
The area that he had stepped on air seemed to come alive, quietly closing itself up again.
The depths of this cave were unknown, causing Zhou Zishu to wonder, Are we going to fall to our deaths?
Abruptly rousing his qi, he slapped the diagonally-slanting wall — it was unclear how much strength he used, but he actually ended up denting the stone wall, rocks and soil sent flying in every direction. Their descending speed decreased by a lot, whereupon he took the opportunity to extend his legs and lightly kick off the wall, unleashing his Infinity Indefinite-like unique set of agility arts.
His shape appeared to pause like it was plastered to the wall. Still, he had ultimately overestimated himself, having forgotten that his current martial power was not what it once was, and also that he was currently carrying Zhang Chengling, the giant kid. This therefore caused his internal flow to stagnate horribly.
On the inside, while he was crying out that this was far from good, he saw the wall he had put a crater into vibrated yet again. Not waiting for him to react, a sharp sword emerged from the crack, nearly skewering them into taghulu.
Both jumping in fright, Zhou Zishu was forced to dissipate the hold he was keeping with his feet. They proceeded to fall downwards.
Fortunately, the bottom was soon reached. Zhou Zishu landed on both feet, setting Zhang Chengling down.
The little nightlight pearl he had illuminated that one cave system with was luckily still on him. It provided only a tiny bit of light, but it was enough for him to see stuff with.
He was not too clear on why he had such a fateful connection to underground ditches. Was this the work of a murderous mole?
Right then, Zhang Chengling suddenly whispered, “Master…”
Zhou Zishu hushed him. “Don’t make a sound,” he said quietly.
The boy was so scared, his voice changed in pitch. “No… Master, look…”
He didn’t need to point it out, really, because Zhou Zishu saw it for himself.
Within this cramped stone room, not too far away from where they were, was a pair of shining eyes watching them from the dark.
Zhou Zishu raised the pearl up, thus getting the creature’s full features — it was a huge python as thick around as a human’s waist, its tongue flicking out as it stared predatorily at them.
Blessings never came in twos, misfortunes never came alone. He licked his lips, now becoming deeply aware of what it meant for nothing to ever go smoothly.
Inexplicably, Zhang Chengling’s fear reaching its apex meant that his words paradoxically grew in number, and he chattered off in his ears. “M… Master, I… I heard that these big snakes move especially fast, where mortals can never dodge them. It… it probably has bad teeth, because it always crushes people flat before eating them, and… and once it coils around you, you’ll be strangled to death, all of the bones in your body will be crushed to pieces, your organs will get smushed into a ball. You’ll turn into a flattened sack of skin, and then it’ll think you to be easy to digest, swallowing you down in one gulp…”
Zhou Zishu felt for the flexible Baiyi sword at his waist, saying through gritted teeth, “Shut! Up!”
After this, the python raised its head while Zhang Chengling howled for his parents, then struck at flying speed.
The python shot up higher than Zhou Zishu was tall, opening its jaw to bite straight for his throat.
He threw Zhang Chengling into a corner, ducked, then flipped his hand around to draw out his Baiyi sword and hack down upon the back of the beast’s neck.
Baiyi’s edge colliding with the snake’s skin actually produced a spark, not even a scratch left upon the scales.
Its long tail whipped out to swipe Zhou Zishu — had he not flitted away so quickly, his neck would be broken right about now. With a bang, its tail smashed into the ground, sending debris flying.
Zhou Zishu took three steps back, shocked at heart. He knew that if he didn’t have Baiyi, but an ordinary sword, it would have snapped in half already.
Something was off. He felt that right away.
A thought suddenly streaked across his mind: when the snake had opened its jaw to strike at him, there had been no stink at all! If this beast ate meat and drank blood all year long, why would its breath not stink?
Zhang Chengling, his body shrunken back and his neck stuck out, observed carefully for a minute. “Master, I think that snake is a fake!” he suddenly called out.
His utterance didn’t matter, as the python immediately jolted, raised its head while hissing, and turned towards him. The boy didn’t appeared to be that scared, though, jumping up from the ground like an idiot, though he didn’t neglect to wipe off the butt of his pants. Pointing at the big snake watching him menacingly, prepared to bite, he said, “Look, Master. It looks like the real thing—“
Before he could finish, the snake was striking at him.
Even though Zhang Chengling had nearly been scared into wetting himself, the second he’d noticed the counterfeit, he had lost his worry, seeming to think that fake snakes couldn’t eat people and there was no danger to be had.
Zhou Zishu simply had no idea what to say to him. Was there any real difference between being constricted into a skin pancake, or constricted into a skin pancake, then eaten?
Still, since the other was about to lose his young life, he couldn’t just ignore this. He jumped straight over, pounced at the side of the snake’s head like a big bird spreading its wings, and delivered a solid kick that sent its head bending in another direction.
It wasn’t clear what material the snake was made of, but it was extremely hard. When he landed, he felt a dull pain in his calf.
Zhang Chengling dared not say a thing.
The moment Zhou Zishu touched down, he sighed a dark passageway behind the snake, giving him an idea.
“I’ll lure it away for a minute,” he whispered to Zhang Chengling. “Run into the cave system, but don’t go through them, jus wait for me at the entrance. You hear me?”
The other nodded obediently.
Head shaking, the snake seeming to have snapped out of it. Zhou Zishu roughly shoved Zhang Chengling. “Go!”
Zhang Chengling shut his eyes and charged out like a headless fly, nearly running face-first into the snake, practically a bona fide performance of a mouse covering his head as he scurried away.
Apprehensive, Zhou Zishu quickly jabbed outwards, hitting the snake right on the eye of-unknown material and gouging it out. The snake immediately stopped caring about Zhang Chengling, throwing itself at Zhou Zishu in a will to fight to the death with him.
It had never been alive to begin with, of course, so dying would be difficult for it to do.
Zhou Zishu easily scaled the stone wall, quickly sucked in a breath, then jumped three zhang upwards. The snake chased him immediately, nipping closely at him.
Upon glimpsing that Zhang Chengling had made it to the cave mouth, anxious-looking as he watched them, Zhou Zishu felt at ease. Abruptly kicking off from the stone wall, he flipped in mid-air as if he was folding in half, falling downwards through the narrow space.
Being a puppet, no matter how exquisitely the fake snake had been created, the space was much too narrow for it when it bent itself to follow him. Its spine that could break swords was not as flexible as his.
A crack was heard to go through the air. Immediately after landing, Zhou Zishu rolled away, but he turned out to have overthought this.
The fake snake had twisted wrong and snapped in half. One half was still connected, stuck straight inside the narrow hole, its massive tail waving in the air with a surprisingly somewhat joyful air.
Zhang Chengling immediately rushed forth. “Are you hurt, Master?”
Zhou Zishu watched him wordlessly.
Extremely nervous, the boy blinked back. Were it not for the fact that his Master was typically tremendous in strength, he would have practically thrown himself at him to feel for if he had any broken bones.
Zhou Zishu sighed, then smacked him on the back of his head. “They’re internal injuries — and they make you leak qi. Keep close.”
Bobbing his head, Zhang Chengling cautiously followed him into the cave the big snake had been guarding.
This was a narrow stretch of corridor, very cramped. A door was up ahead; Zhou Zishu stood still by it, reaching out to stop Zhang Chengling stopped him. “Stand against the wall and hide there,” he quietly commanded.
In a space as confined as this, if a trap sprung when the door was opened, there would be nowhere to dodge.
He hesitated a bit. For caution’s sake, he added on, “Hold your breath.”
Then, he pushed the small door open very vigilantly. Its hinges squeaked, dust fell down, and he was tense all over, but nothing happened.
He raised the nightlight pearl up to look. It was just a small stone room coated in dust; two people were standing in the corner, but they were still.
Snatching the front of Zhang Chengling’s shirt, he carefully approached the two, only to discover once he was inside that they weren’t people at all, just human puppets.
They were true-to-life, made in the identical shapes of one man and one woman. As if alive, their eyes were trained towards the doorway, appearing to stare at the two intruders.
Zhou Zishu frowned. No wonder this was called Marionette Manor; there seemed to be no humans anywhere, just these weirdly-shaped marionettes.
With the lesson the fake snake had taught him still in his face, he wasn’t about to be cocky. Observing the puppets’ joints, they seemed to be more nimble than the snake, so he likely wouldn’t be able to repeat that same maneuver.
“Walk in front. Go slow,” he told Zhang Chengling.
The latter obeyed, slowly walking in front. Zhou Zishu walked backwards with his back to his, gaze never leaving the puppets for one second.
At the other end of the stone room, Zhang Chengling whispered, “Master, there’s another door up ahead.”
Lifting his sword up at those words, Zhou Zishu told Zhang Chengling to move to the side, turned sideways, and pushed the ancient little door open. Yet another fathomless corridor was before them.
“Go on,” he said.
They entered the passageway, one after the other. On departure, Zhou Zishu hesitated briefly.
Two two puppets were the same as any other puppet in the world; lifeless and unable to move. For some reason, though, he felt the hair on his back stand on end, so he subconsciously shut the door behind him, fastening the latch.
This was why, in the split second the door shut, he didn’t see the two puppets turn around at the same exact time, as if carefully tracking him.
This tiny passage seemed to have an echo, their footsteps reverberating. It was particularly lonesome and desolate here, as well as particularly foreboding. Zhang Chengling inexplicably got goosebumps. “Master, I… I’m scared.”
He immediately regretted saying that, thinking that Zhou Zishu would scold him. However, the man just gently raised his hand — quite thin, yet quite warm — to place his palm on his shoulder.
Zhang Chengling turned his head to the side. Through the pearl’s faint light, he could see Zhou Zishu’s profile; it felt like he had taken a pill to calm the nerves.
The length of the stone passageway was unknown, its end only being reached at about the same time Zhou Zishu was running out of patience. He wondered where Ye Baiyi and Wen Kexing had gone off to just now, but he wasn’t particularly worried — if anyone could survive the sky crashing down, it was those two assholes.
In contrast, he, the one escorting a little bastard that was acting up at such an inopportune time, was relatively worse off.
At the extreme of this corridor was another door, and a big one this time. Eyes seeming to suddenly clear up, Zhou Zishu tugged Zhang Chengling behind him before he pushed the door open.
The interior appear to be a large hall, vacuous as anything. Zhou Zishu’s gaze went from top to bottom, whereupon he discovered that the ground was a blackish-gray color.
Zhang Chengling poked his head out from behind him, staring as his Master skeptically. He had no idea why he wasn’t advancing from here.
Zhou Zishu was accustomed to being cautious, so he took a piece of silver out of his lapels and tossed it outwards. The object landed on the blackish-gray surface then rolled a few times, but nothing happened, causing him to let out a slight sigh of relief.
However, at exactly that moment, a water droplet fell down from the ceiling. Right beneath their watching eyes, it landed precisely upon the silver he’d thrown out, which melted into the ground!
This was followed by something even more terrifying — drop after drop of toxic liquid landed upon different areas, getting increasingly denser until it finally seemed like it was raining.
Zhou Zishu now understood why the ground had been so ominously dark. After being doused once in this lethal rain, one’s bones might even turn to ash.
He felt his heart go cold. He could tread upon snow without leaving a trace, but there were no agility arts in the world that would let one float through rain without getting a drop on them.
He took a step back. “This path’s no good. We’re going back.”
Right as they turned their heads around, they heard another burst of footsteps coming from the long stone corridor.
Thump… thump… thump…
Zhang Chengling was about to shrink fully behind Zhou Zishu, stammering out, “M-M-M-M… Master, is… is this place haunted?”
Zhou Zishu held up a finger, signaling for him to shut up as he turned towards him. “Go shut that door. It’ll save us a moment of confusion. Be quick, then hide beside the door and don’t make a sound.”
Zhang Chengling quickly adhered to that.
The footsteps were getting faster and faster, more and more congregated, then changed from a walk to a mad scramble.
All of a sudden, the sound stopped.
The pearl’s light could only illuminate a small area in front. Zhou Zishu was forced to focus his hearing, yet in this constrained passageway, he could not hear the breathing of anyone other than Zhang Chengling.
Then, a flash of light erupted from the darkness. He subconsciously raised Baiyi up horizontally to clash against his opponent’s heavy sword bearing down upon his head, the shock making the web on his hand a little numb.
In the sparks, he got a good look at who the other was, and immediately broke out into a cold sweat.
The one wielding the weighty sword was the male puppet, back from the small stone room they had just been in.
Thoughts whirling, Zhou Zishu immediately thought of how malevolent in mentality this area’s architect was. Had he bumped some trap in that small stone room just now, he likely would have promptly drawn back with Zhang Chengling. Puppets definitely didn’t have agility arts, and that area had been spacious; despite the difficulty, for a martial master that could contend with a big, fake snake, it would not be a dire situation.
The architect seemed to have planned for that, instead plotting to lead them into a dangerous area where not a single step forward could be taken. It was difficult for one to unleash their full power in this narrow hallway, its purpose being to block everyone’s escape routes.
Zhou Zishu grumbled bitterly on the inside, gathering power as he flipped his hand around and slashed upwards. Baiyi’s edge collided with the puppet’s arm, unable to cut it through — whether it was made of the same material as the giant snake or not, it was definitely just as hard regardless.
Not waiting for him to react, the puppet mechanically brandished its blade to hack down again.
Zhou Zishu grabbed this chance. He huffed as he exerted some effort to manipulate Baiyi around deftly, creating a flurry of sword images.
When sharp edge pressed against sharp edge, he suddenly exerted strength, continuously-flowing internal power compounding upon the soldier of divine iron, and he split the puppet’s large sword clean in half.
A technique like this was something Zhang Chengling had never seen before. He watched, too afraid to take too loud of a breath.
However, the puppet didn’t care at all. It rigidly opened its hand to drop the sword, after which it revolved its whole arm in its socket to strike at him.
It fear no pain nor death. Its entire body could be utilized as a weapon.
Zhou Zishu felt his head grow in twice its size, grabbing that swinging arm at once.
Were the puppet a regular human, it likely would have gotten its arm bent wrong by him, but it was abnormally unyielding, shoving him backwards until his back was plastered against the large door of the stone room behind him.
Drawing his hand back at once, a boom sounded out — the doorway acted as a giant chasm that he punted the puppet into. It was beyond fortunate that he had just taken the proper precaution in getting Zhang Chengling to shut this door.
His fortune was out, though, because behind the male puppet, he glanced a female one; the thing appeared to be unable to turn, only able to go forward.
She kept going, slinking straight for Zahng Chengling, who had just shrunk away to the other side in order to avoid Zhou Zishu and the male puppet.
Chill crept across Zhou Zishu’s scalp. He ducked to dodge the clothesline sweep of the male puppet, then threw himself at Zhang Chengling.
The female puppet’s movements appeared to be even quicker. He only had enough time to physically protect Zhang Chengling, before the xiao she held came sweeping over like a club.
This space was far too small, giving him no room to dodge, forcing him to take the blow on his back.
A mouthful of blood came out of him at once.
Both of his arms braced against the wall. Fresh blood dripped onto Zhang Chengling’s shoulder, and his body lurched forward beyond his control, nearly crushing the young boy.
Zhang Chengling no longer cared to be afraid in that moment, quickly reaching out to keep him upright. Zhou Zishu tried hard to push him to the side, the female puppet’s second blow swiping past his scalp.
He almost let go of Baiyi. The seven Nails in his torso jolted violently, putting darkness before his eyes.
“You dare hurt my Master?! I’ll end you!” Zhang Chengling raged.
Without a single concern, he pounced at the puppet.
That kid was always timid when he ought to be brave, and brave when he ought to be timid.
Zhou Zishu was a step too slow to stop him, watching him bare teeth and claws to attack the ice-cold female puppet. Completely weaponless, he looked like he was going to bite her with his fangs.
“Brat…”
Zhou Zishu wanted to keep going, but he choked on his own blood, coughing non-stop.
At exactly that time, the stone hallway next to the female puppet suddenly collapsed. It gave her no time to dodge, crushing her beneath it, her iron xiao still waving in the air.
A sorry-looking man barged in, spluttering as he swiped dust off of his clothes. “What damned place is this… Ah-Xu!”
Zhou Zishu let out a sigh of relief, then almost couldn’t hold himself up. It was the first time in his life that he had been so happy to run into Wen Kexing.
The female puppet was still wriggling on the ground. Wen Kexing, having not been paying any attention, nearly stepped on her, getting swept away by the pinned xiao — he leapt away only after this.
The male puppet behind him was already sticking its arm out from the cavernous doorway, in the middle of turning in his direction. Wen Kexing picked Zhang Chengling up, waved to toss him into the hole in the wall, then stooped to lift Zhou Zishu up in his arms, leaping in after him quickly following.
The male puppet chased them. Wen Kexing turned to vigilantly watch the puppet, only for it to apparently only be able to go into two particular directions: forwards or backwards. It functioned without regard for direction, unable to located anyone, so it wandered back and forth.
The long xiao in the female puppet’s hand was swung into its legs, in a true example of attacking someone’s shield with their own spear.
With a loud sound, the two puppets were now both splayed out on the ground. Having suffered an attack, the male puppet used its arm to go twist the female one’s head, and then the two of them started brutally fighting amongst themselves.
Only now did Wen Kexing sigh in relief. He whispered to Zhou Zishu, “Don’t say anything,” then sealed several of his major acupoints.
Once he set him down, he looked at the blood on his chest with a tight brow. “Brat,” he called out to Zhang Chengling, “go over there and look into that cave. If there’s a sort of…”
He paused, unsure of how he should describe it. “It’s something about a chi tall, and as smooth as your brain is. If it comes over, run back and tell me.”
“Oh,” said Zhang Chengling. “Senior, my Master—“
“It’s fine, he won’t die,” Wen Kexing cut him off with, seemingly impatient.
“Senior, the thing you want me to watch out for… what is it?”
“I’m not sure, either,” Wen Kexing said with a sigh, pointing to the wall that had exploded open. “That was the result of it blowing up.”
Turning towards where he pointed, Zhang Chengling immediately felt distressed, knowing that the powerful-looking Senior had also been chased by something. Without daring to say another word, he ran off to the other end to nervously keep watch.
Wen Kexing reached out to open up Zhou Zishu’s clothes, only for the latter to hold back his wrist with a hoarse laugh. “What are you doing? Trying to take advantage of me?”
Upon shaking his hand free, Wen Kexing gently jabbed him on the chest. “Be quiet. You’re a candle at the end of its wick, yet you’re still a smart mouth,” he said back, tone mild.
Zhou Zishu felt that his life was complete. He just been called a wastrel by an old glutton, and then a smart mouth by a guy that talked big shit.
Wen Kexing carefully opened up his lapels, his eyes unconsciously glinting when they bumped into the several Nails in Zhou Zishu’s chest.
The other man wasn’t paying much attention, as it felt like his chest and back were on fire with every breath. Well aware that the injury wasn’t light, he feared that bones had been broken or organs had been shredded, and thus tried hard not to cough, even keeping his breathing to a minimum, lest the wound’s severity worsen.
Wen Kexing turned him over. As soon as he saw the state of the wound, he automatically sucked in a breath. “If it had been a cun over this way, that thing could have broken your spine,” he said coldly. “Do you believe that much?”
“Cut the crap,” Zhou Zishu said, quiet as silk. “If my spine could be broken by a fake person, I would have no dignity at all.”
Huffing, Wen Kexing placed his hand against his back, meticulously checking the wound over. After a good while, he sighed. “Are you dumb? Don’t you know what pain is?”
His fingers pressed against a spot that made Zhou Zishu immediately grunt, too pained to speak for a time. “How…” he eventually started, gritting his teeth, “…about you let me hit you with a club, so you can learn that for yourself…”
Wen Kexing went silent, which was something rare. After helping Zhou Zishu straighten up, he pressed his hand against the middle of his back, then transferred true qi over to him. He dared not use too much power too quickly, out of fear of stirring up the Nails in his chest like Ye Baiyi once had.
All his life, he had practiced the arts so that he could kill and maim others; this was the first time he had ever tried to save someone so cautiously. Like a butcher wielding an embroidery needle, he trembled in trepidation, and it didn’t take long for sweat to bead on his forehead.
Once the lesser half of a shichen had passed, he curbed the flow, released Zhou Zishu, and then had him lean against the wall on his shoulder.
Aware that his own energy was limited right now, Zhou Zishu didn’t squander much of it, merely shutting his eyes in rest. The blood at the corners of his mouth had not yet been wiped away, the contrast making his somewhat ashen face even more alarmingly pale.
Wen Kexing watched him for a while. All of a sudden, he leaned down to lightly suck at the corner of Zhou Zishu’s mouth, licking away the traces of blood flowing from it. Then, he seemed to sigh, reaching up to thread his fingers through the hair beside Zhou Zishu’s face.
The breaths from their noses intermingled.
Zhou Zishu had opened his eyes at some unknown point, but didn’t waste energy moving away from him, simply saying in a hush, “A good villain takes advantages of others’ hardships.”
Wen Kexing didn’t even look up. “Like you’re a gentleman, yourself,” he answered just as quietly, his light chuckle of an exhale seeming to have been whispered.
At long last, Zhou Zishu’s composure cracked, and he turned his face away a little uncomfortably. However, Wen Kexing gripped his chin and asked, “Do you not have a conscience? I healed your wound for you, yet I can’t have this tiny bit?”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for time. “I have no plans to sell myself for right now.”
Wen Kexing grinned. “Do you know what happens when your strength is inferior to another’s?”
Zhou Zishu raised a brow, the impressed look he gave saying, ‘You’re still this shameless?’
Then, Wen Kexing leaned in near his ear and whispered, “Transactions can be strong-armed.”
Zhou Zishu smiled bitterly. “Your spirits are way too high.”
After staring at him ambiguously for a while, Wen Kexing let him go, pillowed his hands behind his head, then stretched his long legs so that they were propped against the opposite side wall so that he could lay down. “You can just owe me for now,” he said smugly.
Since he was low on energy, Zhou Zishu stopped engaging with him, and shut his eyes to enter a groggy sleep.
Wen Kexing knew of his own capabilities. Out of their group — Ye Baiyi aside — no one understood these unintelligible, mysterious techniques of mysticality, and if they rain randomly all over the place like a headless fly, they might encounter something else. Currently, Zhang Chengling was a beardless brat and Zhou Zishu was seriously injured, so it would be better to adapt by resting in place, taking it a little easy, then figure things out.
Zhou Zishu’s breathing was faint, yet even, as if he were asleep. Wen Kexing turned to look at him, and suddenly remembered what the Great Shaman of Nanjiang had said: “If you erase all of your martial power, I might have a twenty-percent certainty that I can save your life.”
He couldn’t help but sit up straight, focus power into the center of his hand, then slowly lifted it up, because maybe…
His palm hesitated to press downwards. All of a sudden, a hand came out of thin air, its icy fingers holding him back by the wrist.
Zhou Zishu had opened his eyes at some point. Both of their gazes collided in this cramped space.
The former’s eyes were calm, and not a single ripple was heard in his tone as he asked, “What are you trying to do?”
Wen Kexing didn’t make a sound.
Abruptly sighing, Zhou Zishu moved his line of sight away, then said something seemingly out of nowhere. “Others might not understand, but do you not, too?”
Wen Kexing slowly lowered his gaze. Eventually, he lowered his hand away to one side.
“I do understand,” he said.
His arm suddenly swiped downwards, leaving a half-cun-deep palmprint in the ground.
“I understand,” he repeated, as if doing all he could to convince himself.
Zhang Chengling didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, nor for how long, but he was startled awake by a sudden noise from not far away.
His whole skeleton rattled into jumping up. He twisted his neck to look all around alertly, whereupon a hand landed upon his shoulder, startling him.
When he quickly turned, however, he discovered that it was Master, who hadn’t been able to even stand the day before.
Zhou Zishu coughed quietly a few times as he held Zhang Chengling in place. “Don’t move around. Just follow me,” he ordered.
As soon as Zhang Chengling turned his head, he saw that Wen Kexing was also following him out. The boy looked at this and that, asking, “Master, is your wound healed?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t turn his head to answer him. “Am I not human?”
Zhang Chengling thought about it. Right, that wound had been pretty bad.
Ignoring Zhou Zishu’s poor tone, he eagerly followed up the question. “Then, can you… walk by yourself, Master?”
Zhou Zishu inhaled deeply. Not only was his body hurting, but he felt like his brain was aching, too. “What do you think I’m doing?”
Wen Kexing turned his head away to laugh. Zhang Chengling scratched his head. “Master, I meant that… your injuries are so heavy…”
The man glanced at him expressionlessly. “You think I should be that whiny in a hellscape like this? Are you going to carry me on your back?”
At exactly the same time that Zhang Chengling wanted to show his filialness, Wen Kexing beat him to it. “I’ll carry you on my back. Carrying you in my arms is also fine.”
Zhou Zishu turned his head to cough dryly, hunching his shoulders as he pressed against his chest wound. “Stop with the nonsense,” he said curtly.
The three of them followed along the underground pathway, cautiously approached the area the loud noise had come from. Cautious in his watch, Zhou Zishu covered the nightlight pearl in the center of his palm, sending everything into darkness.
Wen Kexing stepped forth to grab Zhou Zishu and pull him to his side, after which he took his Baiyi sword from him. His fingers slid along the edge while his face showed an expression of marvel, and then he flicked his wrist so that the sword’s tip trembled lightly, its long blade thrust out.
Someone in that very corner grunted from being caught off guard, and used one finger to deflect the sword’s tip.
Wen Kexing immediately changed tactics. In Zhou Zishu’s hands, the flexible sword was extremely orderly and candid, but in Wen Kexing’s hands, it was as extremely grotesque as a maggot boring into bone.
The two of them quickly exchanged a dozen moves in the dark. However, it was Zhou Zishu who suddenly spoke after listening for a short time. “Senior Ye?”
The other party snorted. Zhou Zishu raised the pearl up again.
Upon seeing Ye Baiyi’s abnormally unpleasant face in the light, Wen Kexing put the sword away, then happily clasped his fist towards him. “This was purely a misunderstanding, then.”
He was very clearly lying. Zhou Zishu had been able to guess their counterpart’s arriving direction by the sound, and the fact that Wen Kexing had gone into melee himself didn’t need to be said — under the false guise of darkness, he had wanted to beat this guy up in truth. That clearly showed that he still had a slightly deep bias against this old Senior of unclear history.
Ye Baiyi looked over at Zhou Zishu, then frowned. “What did you do to look neither alive nor dead…”
Zhou Zishu needed to conserve as much strength as possible, so he just leaned against the stone wall, and gave a polite answer without waiting to hear the rest of his critique. “This Junior was being useless. I’m practically a wastrel.”
Ye Baiyi gave him a surprised glance, nodding. “At least you’re self-aware.”
He surveyed their surrounding, then gestured to the three of them. “This way.”
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing knew that this old fart was no pushover, so they allowed him to take the lead quite happily, taking the rear while Zhang Chengling was in the middle.
While they were walking, Wen Kexing suddenly came in close, hooked one arm around Zhou Zishu’s middle, and silently put the other’s arm over his own shoulders.
Zhou Zishu looked at him, brow creased. “Am I crippled?”
“That old thing is here now, so what are you still putting on a brave front for?” Wen Kexing sighed. “Come along.”
Speaking of which, this was odd. The two of them had each repeatedly fallen into trouble and felt this place to be a hellhole from all angles, yet things were going strangely smooth when they followed Ye Baiyi around.
The four of them went down a few full turns, then arrived perfectly fine at a place that resembled a great hall. When they entered, things were calm, but not even a short moment later, countless smooth spheres about a chi tall came rolling out of every direction.
Wen Kexing subconsciously booted Zhang Chengling behind him, then quickly picked Zhou Zishu up into his arms and darted about four zhang away. These things had caused him no small amount of headache before.
It wasn’t clear what they were made out of, but once they bumped into anything, they exploded. He had been chased by one in the underground tunnel for half the day, which had made him feel like a rather big mouse.
Ye Baiyi, contrarily, didn’t lose his head. Once he saw the spheres rushing forth like a wave, he let out a loud shout, and from high up in the sky, his palm shoved outwards.
Whatever the technique he used was, Zhang Chengling’s sharp eyes picked up that all of the stone slabs beneath his feet shattered in an instant.
The first sphere to roll over was the first to explode. This practically set off a chain reaction behind it, a serious of booms sounding out.
Ye Baiyi had both hands pushing back. It was like an invisible wall had been erected where he was, block all the disasters outside of it.
Wen Kexing sobered up, watching Ye Baiyi’s back pensively.
After this, Ye Baiyi shouted, “Come out!”
He reached out and made a grabbing motion. A large stone slab fell off from the great hall’s wall, where a figure darted out from behind it.
Zhou Zishu and the rest followed Ye Baiyi’s line of sight, then became stunned all at once.
–
The translator says: HIGH! WAY! TO! THE! DANGER ZONE
The man looked to be in only his thirties. He was disabled, all four of his limbs having shrunken to sizes similar to a child’s, both of his exposed arms wrinkly. Only his head of a larger size, and his neck listed to one side, as if it couldn’t straighten out. It was terrifying how not completely human he looked.
He was seated in a wooden wheelchair, its wheels revolving slowly as it slid out from the hole.
Ye Baiyi’s brows gradually came to crease. He stared at the man. “You’re not Long Que.”
Long Que and his Marionette Manor had been jianghu legends for decades; the real one could never have been so young.
The one in the wheelchair let out a shrill laugh. “Of course I’m not.”
His eyes were quite big. This man Wen Kexing furtively say into Zhou Zishu’s ear, “Do you think his eyes are about to pop out?”
Zhou Zishu felt like this guy’s senselessness had reached the apex; it seemed like, no matter what the occasion was, he would stick his nonsense into every crevice he could find, as only then would he dredge back the money he had spent gambling or something. He ignored him.
“Who are all of you?” the one in the wheelchair asked. “You dare break into Marionette Manor?”
Ye Baiyi sized him up, feeling him to be weird inside and out. He definitely wasn’t anything good. Forcing his temper down, he said, like a proper human, “I have something to see Long Que for.”
In his view, he had spoken well and good, but in the ears of others, he was still had the repulsive traits of being arrogant in personality and stiff in intonation. It made the wheelchair guy turn his head, use his huge eyes to look him up and down, then huff coldly a while later. “The bones of that old bastard are dust. What are you seeking him for?”
The crease between Ye Baiyi’s brow became a deeper and deeper gulch as he glared at him. “Long Que is dead? How did he die?”
“I did him in, of course,” the man said, smug.
That was far too beyond belief. Three martial masters of the modern world had broken into the Manor and were now in an utterly sorry state, having almost been lost within. How could someone that couldn’t even walk enter in unscathed, and murder Marionette Manor’s Lord?
Ye Baiyi obviously wasn’t a beast that knew what being reticent was, so after he peered at him again, he said, “Quit talking. If you could kill Long Que, ants could shake trees. Unless you’re Long Que’s son, you couldn’t have told him to lie down and let you hack him up.”
When Wen Kexing heard this, he knew things would turn for the worse. “Get out of here!” he quickly said to Zhang Chengling. “Run, now!”
As expected, before he finished speaking, the weirdo in the wheelchair was heard to roar, “You want to die?!”
Then, he raised one hand to slap it outwards, whereupon a dense throng of humanoid forms emerged from every wall of the hall. Dozens of bald-headed, bald-faced, fiendish puppets poured in from every direction, just like so.
Zhang Chengling was running away, but there was not enough time for him to avoid them, and he collided full-on into a puppet’s chest. The thing was really quite impolite, raising its arm to bust his head open.
Zhou Zishu quickly crooked his finger, then flicked something out of it, hitting Zhang Chengling on the inside of his knee so that he knelt on the ground with a plop. Only then did the boy barely manage to dodge the blow.
Zhang Chengling scrabbled back over, looking all about with his mouth agape. “Master, are we in the underworld?” he asked shakily.
Zhou Zishu sighed, knowing himself to have a fate with, yet no connection to, the word ‘soft’. He patted Wen Kexing’s arm, placed Zhang Chengling between the two of them, then stood back to back with the former. “One of these puppets is tough and the other won’t die when beaten up, but we have some advantages.”
“What are those?” Wen Kexing wondered.
“One can’t jump, and one’s clumsy.”
While was speaking, two puppets came attacking from either side. Wen Kexing lifted Zhang Chengling up; he and Zhou Zishu seemed to be of one mind, jumping away in two different directions at the same time.
Having lost their target, the two puppets slammed hard into each other, then fell to the floor in a tangle.
Wen Kexing gave them a look, then covered Zhang Chengling’s eyes with a vulgar smile. “Up and down go the hands…. this really looks like a spring palace book come to life.”
The second Zhou Zishu landed, a puppet swung a huge club straight down towards him. He turned to avoid it, only to feel a fire-like pain coming from his chest and throat. Afraid that the slightest cough could send a mouthful of blood out of him, he stubbornly clenched his jaw to hold it in.
The puppet’s club didn’t land, so it doggedly continued to chase him, sweeping out again at chest-level. Zhou Zishu leaned backwards, bending at the middle to dodge it.
Upon witnessing this, Wen Kexing couldn’t help but sigh. “That’s a really flexible waist.”
Then, before the puppet could swing his club a third time, he tossed Zhang Chengling high in the air. Watching the boy flail around out of his wits, the spitting image of a toad being skinned alive, he reminded him, “Are you not going to use your move that I taught you?”
With a gasp of remembrance, Zhang Chengling pounced with all limbs splayed onto the puppet encroaching upon Zhou Zishu, descending down from high. He managed to knock the puppet off-balance, the puppet and person collapsing at the same time.
Flustered, he jumped up, rubbing his sore butt. “Senior, what… what move should I use?” he asked, panicked.
Zhou Zisu, who was using this opportunity to take a breather, grabbed him by the collar and tossed him over to Wen Kexing once again. “Don’t make things worse,” he said.
The three of them had purely been dragged into this by association, so their situation wasn’t too bad. Ye Baiyi, the one who had directly offended the big guy here, was having a miserable time of it.
A crowd of puppets were surrounding him so tightly, not even water could leak through them. The old jerk had gotten more stubborn as he’d grown older, though, and insisted upon clashing with all of them — all that was heard from that end was a bunch of crackling sounds, as noisy as New Year’s day.
Zhou Zishu pressed a fist against his chest, stuffing a mouthful of fishy-sweet blood back down. “This can’t go on,” he said to the approaching Wen Kexing. “We probably can’t hold on for long. Who knows how many marionettes are in this hellhole?”
“This place is called Marionette Manor,” the other said. “There’s only one living creature here, where the rest are all these things.”
Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes. “Then it makes sense that he’s the only one here that can be killed.”
They exchanged a look. Neither of them were any sort of soft jujube, so they understood what to do implicitly.
Wen Kexing once again flung Zhang Chengling like Gaoshannu’s meteor hammer, then watched him howl like the dead as he crushed another one.
Zhou Zishu immediately dashed out and picked the brat up before the fallen puppet could swing its arm out and pummel him to death. Then, once his toes hit the ground, he flew like a sparrow towards the wheelchair weirdo.
“Yet another one looking to die,” he man said coldly. He leaned back, causing a dozen or so iron chains to shoot out from beneath the wooden chair. Each chain was tipped with a spear, and all of them were aimed towards Zhou Zishu from every direction.
Taking a deep breath, the latter fell from the air and landed like a deadweight. With a swing of the feet, he kicked a puppet that was behind him forwards, causing the spears pursuing him to collide with it. Their tips bent backwards, while the iron bonds wrapped the puppet up like a zongzi.
He flung his long sleeves out, saying, “You think I wouldn’t use hidden weapons, too?”
The weirdo jumped, smacking his chair’s armrest hard. An iron umbrella suddenly unfurled before him.
However, after a long time of waiting, nothing happened.
This was a cheap scare tactic that both Zhou Zishu and Gu Xiang had learned. There was no need to care about how a martial expert using an underhanded trick wasn’t pretty, which was why he had used it.
Realizing that he had been played, the weirdo became beyond enraged, swinging the iron umbrella down. However, Zhou Zishu’s figure was nowhere before him.
He didn’t care about Ye Baiyi anymore, looking in every direction. All of a sudden, he heard someone laugh from the roof. “Tell me, idiot. Why are you pretending to be a club, when you’re nothing but a needle?”
The weirdo looked up above.
Wen Kexing descended upon him from the sky, wielding a giant club that some unknown puppet had dropped — unexpectedly, when he came swinging down, a smooth explodey ball suddenly popped out of nowhere on the wheelchair.
Having seen the bane of his existence, Wen Kexing cursed lowly, then forcefully swung the club to send the sphere flying. He didn’t pay attention to where exactly he smacked the thing to.
From the other side, he heard Ye Baiyi say furiously, “Are you starting shit, you Wen punk?!”
Wen Kexing turned around in mid-air, then landed, turning his head to look. Upon spotting Ye Baiyi’s disheveled appearance, he grew happy at once.
“Quick,” he said the wheelchair weirdo, “get me another sphere!”
This made the man mad enough to spout steam from all of his orifices. Before the weirdo could react, though, he heard a sharp whistle near his head.
As soon as he tilted his head, he saw a bright swordlight, a murderous aura overflowing as it pointed straight at his throat. Knowing of its power, he dared not be too bold, opening the iron umbrella in front of himself once again. He had every intention of escaping the large hall.
The very next moment, he stopped moving. His eyes, which were twice as large as the average person’s, grew even wider. He looked down in disbelief.
He had never expected that what his opponent was holding was a flexible sword, nor that its blade could be controlled at will.
This was the last thought that passed through his mind — Zhou Zishu’s Baiyi had pierced his throat.
Despite his single strike hitting true, Zhou Zishu didn’t rest. Once he heard a puppet pursue him from behind, he jumped high into the air without looking back, vaulting over the wheelchair.
When it bumped into an obstacle, the puppet immediately swung its club to hit it, and with a crack, the incomparably mystical wooden wheelchair was smashed into bits.
Pieces of some mechanism all scattered onto the floor, after which all the puppets in the hall stopped at the same time, seemingly caught in some snare.
Zhou Zishu staggered when he hit the ground. Wen Kexing, who had been waiting all this time, immediately reached out to hold him up, and turned to plant a kiss on his face. “That’s a great sword!” he praised.
Zhou Zishu wiped his face off like he was getting rid of saliva a dog had licked onto him, then shoved him away. “Sleazeball,” he blankly chastised.
With an overcast expression, Ye Baiyi picked up Zhang Chengling, who had tripped and fallen over a puppet, and strode on over. He didn’t say a word when a sent a palm strike at Wen Kexing.
The latter dodged him with a cheeky grin, saying, “Oi, Senior. Why care about the minutiae that a Junior does?”
Zhou Zishu sighed. After a quiet cough, he sat himself powerlessly upon a collapsed puppet. “Could you two stop? Tell me, not-a-wastrel Senior Ye; can you take a quick, all-seeing look at these contraptions, and think of a way to get us out of here?”
Ye Baiyi shot a glance at the busted-up wheelchair. “You smashed all the contraptions up. There’s nothing to fiddle with.”
He turned and swaggered towards the hole the wheelchair weirdo had come out of.
Zhang Chengling hurried over. “Master, are you okay?” he asked in a whisper.
This kid had just been tossed around by two people like a rock, yet he held no grudges, wholeheartedly thinking of his Master’s injuries.
Seeing how purely good and concerned the look he was giving him was, Zhou Zishu promptly felt himself to be a whole ass, so he used a rarely-heard gentle tone with him. “I’m fine.”
Zhang Chengling crouched down, his back to him. “I’ll carry you, Master.”
Zhou Zishu wasn’t sure how to react to this. He patted him on the shoulder, then stood up on his own. “Alright, I’m not going to count on you.”
After he had taken only a few steps, Wen Kexing came over without prompting and held him straight across the waist.
This guy hasn’t gotten away with enough yet? Zhou Zishu thought, going to elbow him again.
“Conserve your energy,” Wen Kexing said quickly. “If this old glutton can’t fiddle our way out with all these mechanisms, we’re counting on you to keep fighting.”
After a thought, Zhou Zishu felt that to be correct, so he leaned on him to borrow his strength. The second he relaxed, he felt like his body was already coming undone; he almost couldn’t take a breath.
At exactly that moment, Ye Baiyi called, “All of you, come here.”
The three followed him into a cavern, which opened up into a whole different world. All of the walls were carved with intricate lines, creating a full map of Marionette Manor.
Wen Kexing looked all about, dumbstruck. “Um… even if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to wrap my head around this.”
Zhou Zishu laughed lowly. “That’s great. Neither would I.”
Ye Baiyi gave them both a look, speechless at last, this time around. Then, he pointed at Zhang Chengling. “Follow me.”
Zhang Chengling did so without delay. He saw Ye Baiyi start groping around on the walls and was unsure of what he was messing with, but the wall suddenly opened up, revealing various mechanisms within. It was simply awe-inducing.
Tilting his head back to look, Zhou Zishu sighed. “The one that built this Manor was truly a genius.”
Zhang Chengling loaned Ye Baiyi his hands. One young and one old, they searched about for a full half-day until a boom was heard — the roof and a wall beside it opened up, revealing a flight of stairs.
All four of them cautiously ascended. It was unclear how far they walked up for, but they ended up returning to the surface.
There was wind, there was sunlight, there were plants… it was a just a decent little courtyard.
“This here is the real Marionette Manor,” Ye Baiyi said.
His gazed scanned everything, and then he walked up to a small building with a huge iron fence for a doorway. Beneath a giant tree, the home was eerie, its windows and doors sealed up tight, as if it was a prison.
Circulating his power into his palm, Ye Baiyi smacked the iron door off its hinges, then pushed it open with all the boldness of a martial artist.
The other three followed after him, coming to stand together with him.
This was a tiny holding cell with a bed. On that bed was a man, who was bound with thick iron chains.
He was old, with white facial hair. His eyes were dulled, gone blind from being in the dark for so long. As if hearing the noise, he turned his head towards them, his shriveled-up body automatically shrinking back.
After a very long time, Ye Baiyi asked, “Are you… Long Que?”
—
The translator says: “nope. looks like you’ll have to find a different old man in a cell”
The old man inclined his ear towards them, twitching from an unhinged mental state. The chains on his body rattled in the wake of his movements. Zhang Chengling secretly grabbed onto Zhou Zishu, whispering, “Master… are those chains piercing through his collarbones?”
Zhou Zishu hushed him, wrinkling his brow as he looked over. The chains on the old man did indeed not wrap around him, but passed through him, from his collarbones to his kneecaps; the wounds had rotted to the point that only bones were left.
He knew that living like this was not anything easy.
The interior of the room stunk to the Heavens, fecal matter all over it. The original colors of the clothes the old man wore were no longer discernible, nor could the fabric cover his body, making him look practically inhuman. He opened his mouth, his words slow and unclear and voice hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken for a long time now. “Who… are you all? Long… Xiao?”
“Is Long Xiao that cripple in the wheelchair?” Ye Baiyi asked. “He’s dead. Who are you?”
Hearing this, the old man was taken aback, mouth wide. A laughing expression appeared to show up on his face, but not a sound came out of him. The corners of his eyes slowly oozed a few teardrops from them, which slid down and vanished in an instant.
Ye Baiyi ignored him, only crouching down to study the heap of chains on him while allowing him to wildly vacillate between laughing and crying. A long while later, the former reached his hand out to Zhou Zishu. “Hand your sword over to me.”
Zhou Zishu knew that he wanted to use the Baiyi sword to hack through the iron bonds, so he removed it from his waist and passed it over. Ye Baiyi took it and swung to chop the chains apart. A high-pitched ring sounded out, yet not a scratch was left on the metal, nor did it even budge. On the contrary, Baiyi trembled non-stop.
This really pained Zhou Zishu to see.
“It’s no use… don’t waste the effort,” the old man suddenly said.
“What heinous thing did you do to that cripple for him to hate you so much?” Ye Baiyi asked.
The other went silent for a time. “The only… thing that I let him down about, was raising him to be such a… son.”
They all looked at each other, now aware of why Long Xiao had immediately flown into a rage after Ye Baiyi had said “unless you’re Long Que’s son” — the old glutton was quite amazing, to have verbally predicted such an outlandish thing.
“You said his name is Long… uh, that wouldn’t be the Xiao from filial piety, would it?” Wen Kexing suddenly asked.
Thinking that this guy really shouldn’t mention the unopened pot, Zhou Zishu elbowed him. Wen Kexing didn’t dodge it, absorbing the blow, then looking at him pitifully as he rubbed his ribs.
The old man laughed hoarsely. “I committed grave sins in my previous life, so I was punished in this one.”
He leaned against a bedpost, reaching out one orange peel-like hand to rub it a few times. After talking for a bit, his tongue seemed to work a little better, as he said, “This used to be Yu Chai and I’s bedroom. That little monster was born here. Thinking of it now, both of us have died by his hand… heh. Isn’t that fate?”
“Yu Zhui is your wife?” Zhou Zishu asked gently.
The old man’s face was truly too wretched to look at, the emotions on it no longer able to be seen clearly, but at the mention of this ‘Yu Zhui’, his ravine-rife skin seemed to loosen up a lot. One tear was still stuck in the deep wrinkle at the corner of his mouth, trembling, yet not falling. “Because we had no children, after Yu Zhui left me, I built Marionette Manor and dismissed all of my servants…”
Zhang Chengling glanced at Wen Kexing in amazement, thinking all the more that Senior Wen was of great capabilities, to have gotten even that much correct.
“I promised Yu Zhui that I would raise the monster well,” the old man continued, “but he ended up not being able to stand. I then emptied all that I had learned in my life to instruct him, hoping that even if he didn’t have any other skills, he would be able to settle down… alas.”
“If that’s true, what was he doing, locking you up?” Ye Baiyi asked.
The elder’s body started trembling. After a beat of silence, he whispered, “It was for the Yin-Yang Tome.”
Zhang Chengling excluded, the other three’s eyes narrowed, staring unblinkingly at the half-dead elder. “That would be… Madam Rong’s Yin-Yang Tome?” Zhou Zishu had to ask.
The old man nodded. “Returning life to bones, reverse yin and yang…” he said slowly.
The legendary sacred artifact of Healer Valley, encompassing all of the world’s difficult to treat ailments. The Green Monster longed for it so that she could fix her face, so who could have thirsted more for it than someone born paralyzed?
Zhou Zishu thought whirled quickly. “Is the Yin-Yang Tome not sealed within the Whorl Beryl, along with the Fengshan Sword and Mental Arts of Six Harmonies? Did he think the Beryl was here with you?”
“Whorl Beryl?” The elder laughed mockingly, shaking his head. “Ah, all of you are wrong. I was the one that made the Whorl Beryl back in the day, but all it is is a lock. If you want to get what’s sealed within, getting all five pieces of the Beryl won’t do anything. Neither will getting six, seven, eight pieces. It still needs the Key.”
Ye Baiyi raised his brows. “Do you have that?”
“I don’t,” the man said blankly.
“If you don’t, who could?”
The man smiled in self-mockery. “Right. You don’t believe me, and he didn’t, either.”
Zhou Zishu evaluated him for a good while, then suddenly asked, “Senior Long, do you know who has it?”
The man turned to face him like he could see him, nodding. “Yes, I do.. but I once took an oath that no can say nor tell of the Key’s whereabouts. Long Xiao… Long Xiao went mad.”
Ye Baiyi narrowed his eyes. “So you’re saying that you know something? About what exactly happened to Rong Xuan and them thirty years ago?” he asked, aggressive.
The old man nodded quietly, but before Ye Baiyi could ask further, he said, “I cannot say it. Rong Xuan and his wife saved my life, and I promised Madam Rong that I wouldn’t say anything.”
“That’s not your call,” Ye Baiyi said coldly.
The man grinned. He tried hard to shift one of his legs, groping for the iron chain piercing through his kneecap, then he held it up for him to see. “What else could you possibly do to me?” he asked, light-hearted. “Long Xiao, that little monster… he’s already locked me up for three years. What more could you do?”
Zhou Zishu looked at him as he was on the bed; barely breathing, barely smiling, and looking like he couldn’t care less. All of a sudden, he recalled the words Great General Fan Kuai had once said: “I do not shy from even death, so how would a goblet of wine be enough to fend me off?”
He couldn’t help but wonder, Who is Long Que, really?
With his marvelous talents, for one person’s sake, he had shunned the mortal miasma, then single-handedly built the unfathomable Marionette Manor. For the sake of one promise and defending one secret, after three years in a hell on earth, not even his own son could get him to spill it...
Zhou Zishu suddenly felt that, in all of jianghu, no one could be called a great hero, and that was all because of the nearly-dead man before him.
Wen Kexing’s arm around him suddenly tightened, like he was trying to squish his entire being into him. Zhou Zishu frowned slightly, turning to look at him, but all he saw was the other staring woodenly at Long Que, not even a hint of amusement on his face. For a second, he even though that he could see light glinting off of ripples in his extremely dark eyes, but it was gone the next.
“Hey, you old freak,” he heard him say to Ye Baiyi. “He refuses to speak, so don’t be so annoying.”
Ye Baiyi paid him no attention, grabbing Long Que’s arm. “I don’t want to know whatever the Whorl Beryl and the Key are. I only want to ask you this: How did Rong Xuan and his wife die?”
His grip was too tight, the veins on the back of his hand bulging out. Long Que looked pained, but still said, “I can’t…”
Wen Kexing scowled, let Zhou Zishu go by passing him to Zhang Chengling to support, and grew angry for reasons unknown. “Are you done yet, old freak?”
After that, without a single warning, he suddenly struck towards the center of Ye Baiyi’s back.
While holding Zhou Zishu up, Zhang Chengling gaped his mouth like an idiot as he watched Wen Kexing and Ye Baiyi exchange moves in a baffling pattern. He couldn’t understand why people that had just been allied were now turning hostile.
The two’s commotion was sizable enough to make Long Que’s prison nearly shake like an earthquake, both wrangling with each other like they were going to tear the house down. Wen Kexing’s every move was ruthless, no mercy left behind.
“What are you going nuts for, brat?” Ye Baiyi raged.
Wen Kexing huffed coolly. “I don’t like you and want to beat you up, so why not?”
Zhang Chengling would ask after what he couldn’t comprehend, so he asked Zhou Zishu, “Master…?”
The other ignored him, his brows tightly scrunched together. An approximate silhouette appeared in his mind that pushed him to enlightenment, whereupon he shoved Zhang Chengling away, walked to Long Que’s side, and sat down.
Long Que kept an ear out. “Are you wounded?” he asked.
“Your son did it,” Zhou Zishu answered.
Long Que laughed hoarsely. “Well… take a look at me. You got off easy.”
Zhou Zishu said nothing, carefully observing the chains upon him. He had scant knowledge pertaining to mechanisms and trap, but when it came to tools of torture, no one was more familiar with the field that the former leader of Heaven’s Pane. Even so, no matter how many times he looked the iron chains over, he couldn’t determine what the chains were made out of.
After giving up, he said to him, “I can’t do anything for you. Now that your son is dead, what are you going to do?”
Long Que thought for a bit. “I should die as well, then,” he replied calmly. “I should have died long ago, but he wouldn’t let me, and no one else cares about me now. The thing I regret most in my life is not having raised Yu Zhui’s son well. I know that he’s my son, too, but I always feel like since he took Yu Zhui’s life, if… I, as a father, could have given him one decent place to be in, it would be good for him.”
Feeling that that made sense, Zhou Zishu didn’t know how to comfort him. In the end, he bluntly conceded, “That was nice.”
At this time, Ye Baiyi and Wen Kexing had blown the roof off, literally. They jumped out to keep fighting, while the dark prison became brightly lit. Long Que seemed to feel the sunlight, reaching out a trembling hand to capture it, sighing in immense satisfaction.
Zhou Zishu went to speak again, only to heard Ye Baiyi’s beyond-angry voice outside. “Why are you making such a fuss, boy? You there, Long! I have to know what happened to Rong Xuan! That’s my disciple!”
The second that came roaring out, even Long Que paused. Wen Kexing’s leg that was sweeping straight across froze in midair, leaving him maintaining a ridiculous posture as he sized Ye Baiyi up strangely.
Rong Xuan and Long Que were from the same generation. Ye Baiyi was Rong Xuan’s Master… was this Ye guy a thousand-year-old tortoise?
Ye Baiyi glared at him coldly, turned, and went back into the building, where he stood menacingly in front of Long Que. “Rong Xuan stole half of the Mental Arts from me, left the mountain with them, and never came back,” he said stiffly. “Now, because of what he’s left behind, the martial circle of the Central Plains has gathered the Land Writ together. Don’t I deserve to know what happened back then?”
Long Que stuttered, “You are Ye… Ye…”
“I’m Ye Baiyi.”
Long Que sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head with a sigh. “I cannot believe that you’re still living, Senior…”
An old man with all-white hair was calling a youthful-faced man a Senior — a very odd scene to witness.
Zhou Zishu thought for a bit, then interjected with, “I accidentally ran into a trap of Marionette Manor, where I ran into two puppets, one male, one female. The Manor has a lot of puppets, but they’re all featureless and stiff. None of them were like the couple at all, who didn’t look anything different from real people. Senior Long, was that pair carved to look like you and your wife, or Rong Xuan and his?”
Long Que shut his eyes, resting for a long time before he spoke. “Rong Xuan and his wife.”
“They ended up smashing each other’s heads in later,” Zhou Zishu said lightly.
Long Que’s hand trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Did Rong Xuan qi deviate?” Ye Baiyi questioned immediately.
Quiet, Long Que nodded. “Yes. Before Madam Rong’s death, he qi deviated, and she died by his hands.”
“Back then, Rong Xuan and I, as well as several others, were still young, believing ourselves to be great, sharing the same stench. We had something of a friendship, and frequently went drinking and chatting together. Rong Xuan was the one with the highest martial arts and best comprehension skills among us. One day, after we drank, he suddenly sighed ruefully, and said, ‘If a man born into this world didn’t establish himself, living his life in obscurity, wouldn’t that be regrettable?’”
Long Que’s words were still extremely slow; after a minute of speaking, a minute of pause was needed. It might have been because of his lack of strength, or because these events had happened far too long ago, and needed to be remembered with effort. Nothing was seen upon Ye Baiyi’s expression, but Wen Kexing had calmed, listening with a rare attentiveness.
“He said that the path of learning martial arts is expansive and deep. Jianghu’s major sects learn their own unique arts, each having their shortcomings and strengths. Every couple of decades or centuries, prodigies of the martial world crop up in high number, forming a generation of masters that then form their own branches — Mount Hua, Mount Kun, and Mount Cang are all so. However, their successors will often be powerless, nothing more than cheap imitations of those that came before, each generation being inferior to the last, until their inevitable decline and demise. All the major sects treasure their heirlooms alone, that smidgen of martial arts pressed down to the bottom of the trunk, not allowed to be seen by any. These things always happen, resulting in an unknown amount of unique arts lost to time. Rong Xuan felt that sects were stupid…”
At that point, Ye Baiyi had to huff coldly. “That’s all stuff I once said to him. That boy was just reciting them from a script. Everyone that claims coming from whatever sect will think themselves to be incredible, but one doesn’t even need to look at them to know that they’re definitely a good-for-nothing. What someone else teaches you is what you can learn, and what you’ve learned is what you can do. How is that any different that being a monkey trained by a street performer? As for those ‘unique arts’, aren’t those just written by mortals? They bust their heads open fighting for technique books someone else wrote, then parrot what that someone else said, taking it as the golden standard. Is that not thinking that someone else grew two brains, while you yourself grew none?”
Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
Ye Baiyi unexpectedly glared at him. “What are you laughing at? You were taught poorly by Qin Huaizhang, that useless idiot.”
Hearing that, Long Que went quiet for a little bit. “Senior, you are indeed a genius beyond the mortal world.
“For this reason, Rong Xuan thought up a plan that a few of us agreed to in private, where we would steal martial techniques from our own sects, put them all together to establish a martial Repository, then integrate those studies to create a line of unique arts that combined the ideas of many families. The Repository’s mechanism was constructed by me, which is the completely Whorl Beryl of legend. After it opens, it still requires the Key. We separately guarded the Whorl, while the Key was guarded by Madam Rong…”
“Combine the ideas of many families?” Ye Baiyi interrupted again. “Shortcomings and strengths are intertwined. There’s no such thing as having only strengths, no shortcomings. He was just bullshitting — can the Vajra Strike be combined with emeici? Can a rough and tumble man be stuffed into the skirts of a little girl? Even this kid understands the logic. If you really can comprehend the true essence of martial art, Flying Petals, Fallen Leaves and Tide In, Tide Out are also in your grasp. If you can’t, stealing all the tomes of the world is nothing more than a plagiarism of books.”
Long Que said nothing, merely letting out a long sigh.
Out of all of them, Zhou Zishu understood something, though others might not have any idea. Whether it was stealing someone else’s martial guides or divulging their sect’s arts to outsiders, both were greatly taboo in jianghu. The second he heard all this, he realized why Hero Zhao King had been expelled from his sect in his youth. “Those few you mentioned were the young talents of the five major families, such as Zhao Jing, Gao Chong, Shen Zhen, and their peers?” he had to ask.
No wonder Hero Gao had been so tight-lipped about the Whorl Beryl, vaguely dismissing it to the end.
Long Que nodded, putting on a miserable smile. “Yes. It’s silly, that we thought ourselves to be the first to part the river, breaking the borders between all sects… and what Rong Xuan stole was half of the Mental Arts of Six Harmonies.”
Everyone gazes automatically assembled onto Ye Baiyi.
“Senior, what are the Mental Arts?” Zhou Zishu asked.
Ye Baiyi frowned, and uttered a rare set of words that weren’t derogatory. “The legend of the Mental Arts is a thing of old. The real Arts were lost a long time ago. A… friend of mine happened upon its leftover fragments, and it took him twenty years to re-supplement a copy himself, which was divided into two volumes. The second volume was stolen by Rong Xuan, while the first volume was left on Everbright Peak. He… we destroyed it.”
Zhou Zishu immediately absorbed two pieces of information from that. One was that there was another peer of Ye Baiyi’s on Everbright Peak, and that he dared to fill in for an old tome, making him a martial expert. Thinking back to Ye Baiyi’s phrase of, ‘When did I ever say that I was the Ancient Monk?’, he raised his brows a bit. Was this unknown person the actual Ancient Monk of Everbright?
So, Ye Baiyi heading down the mountain by himself in the Ancient Monk’s name was because the real Monk couldn’t move, or… had perhaps already passed?
These thoughts streaked across his mind in a split second, while he listened to Long Que continue on. “We all read that half of the ancient tomes. What was within them was far too esoteric, as none of us could comprehend them. In those days, we forewent food and sleep to eagerly pore through ancient records as vast as the sea, hoping to find some trace of a clue or annotation about the Mental Arts… its appeal was far too strong. Rong Xuan said that if we could fully grasp the tome, then we would be able to full grasp the Eight Deteriorations and Six Harmonies, truly uniting Heaven and humanity.”
This was a realm that had been in legends since antiquity. Everyone pursued this realm, as they would then reach the pinnacle of existence. Nobody could resist that sort of temptation.
There had never any alleged ‘shortcut’ to achieve this, though. Divine materials and ores, for example, always popped up in the most dangerous areas. The most powerful something could make a person, the harsher the tests of their mind were, and the more advanced martial arts were liable to make one qi deviate.
Ye Baiyi was also quiet now.
“Out of all of us, Rong Xuan had walked the furthest along, and was the most deeply obsessed. He was nearly captivated by the Mental Arts, but none of us noticed, because we were all captivated at the same time as him… until one day, he said that he finally got it. Supposedly, the original meaning of the Arts was to break before one stood, and if one never broke, they would never stand.”
Ye Baiyi jolted. “What…?” he mumbled.
Long Que’s hands shook slightly, while his entire body trembled. “The Arts said, ‘Walk to where it all ends, then peer into Heaven’s gate.’ What does ‘walk to where it all ends’ mean? Maybe to abolish one’s own martial arts, maybe to cut off one’s own bloodline, or maybe even to end one’s life…”
The look on Ye Baiyi’s face was extremely weird. “You all thought that?”
Right after Long Que nodded, Ye Baiyi suddenly burst into laughter.
His face was stiff as he did so, the corners of his eyes incapable of curving out some laugh lines, instead twitching uncontrollably, carrying some faint sorrow with it. “Abolishing one’s own martial arts, cutting off one’s own bloodline, ending one’s own life… haha, how good for you all to think that up.”
“We had all gone mad,” Long Que said blankly. “Everyone became more and more rash, Rong Xuan especially so. He said that if one wanted to be first rank, they would need first rank courage to go down a path no one had ever thought of before… Yu Zhui was already with child, back then. Even though I was influenced by that demonic book, I still wasn’t to the point where I would abandon my wife and child. I was therefore the first to back out. Since it was a dangerous thing, they asked me to watch over them.”
He took a deep breath. “They chose the time, and all sat in a circle, determined to either succeed, or die trying. However, no one expected that when the time came, everyone would back out at the last minute… except for Rong Xuan.”
“Others practice martial arts for nothing more than status, ambition, and legacy, not for the sake of the arts themselves. They aren’t worth taking such a huge risk,” Ye Baiyi said coldly. “Only that brat, Rong Xuan, ended up being the real martial madman. What’s so unexpected about that?”
Long Que nodded. “He cut off his own heart meridian. There was still a smile on his face, but he was already running out of breath. We waited around with bated breath for who knew how long, after which we realized he had been wrong… a dream then shattered, and we all, whether sitting or standing, were dumbstruck. Madam Rong knew no martial arts, but as someone that had come from Healer Valley and saved countless, she naturally refused to let her husband die like that. She calmed down, took out eighteen silver needles, and inserted them all over his torso. For three full shichen, she kept some warmth and a weak breath within him. We all thought he was alive, yet he wouldn’t wake, clearly just the living dead.
“Madam Rong washed her face with tears for three days straight, after which she decided to go back to Healer Valley and steal the Yin-Yang Tome. She didn’t know any martial arts, and the trip would be dangerous, so I went along with her, and ultimately brought that thing to the mortal world.”
Wen Kexing suddenly looked at Zhou Zishu, frowning, and interrupted Long Que for the first time ever. “Then… can that Tome really save someone whose heart meridians have been severed?”
This stunned Zhou Zishu to hear. He lifted his head, then happened to meet his gaze. A suddenly warmth bloomed in his chest.
Even the Great Shaman of Nanjiang had shaken his head at his terminal injuries, yet this man was keeping it on the mind for him. Why the need for this?
He thought, at a loss, about how people that seemed to meet by chance were nothing but wanderers from other lands. Was… this man actually being sincere?
He couldn’t resist moving his gaze away, but he still felt Wen Kexing’s line of sight upon him, seemingly weighted and warm.
“A book of medicine is a true sacred relic. What sort of place is Healer valley, to wear the lavel of benefitting the world at large while hiding it away?” Long Que said, sneering. “The Yin-Yang Tome is just a transferral technique. If one’s heart meridian is to be repaired, it must be exchanged for the live heart of someone who had just been alive… what sort of sect has a sacred relic like that?”
“Madam Rong actually…?” Zhou Zishu asked.
Long Que went quiet for a time, then sighed. “Being closer to some and farther to others is human nature. She was no saint, just a woman that betrayed her sect for her husband’s sake. What was right and wrong in that situation is not something that we, as outsiders, can judge upon.”
“Rong Xuan survived,” Ye Baiyi commented.
“Yes. Not only did he survive, he… I don’t know if it was a coincidence or whether the Mental Arts are indeed that grotesque, but after he woke up, his internal true qi shot upwards. After experiencing life and death, he genuinely came to comprehend the second tome. He didn’t even give Madam Rong a chance to lean on his shoulder and cry due to having gotten him back, going straight into seclusion to fill in the first half of the Arts.”
“Little bastard.”
“What happened after that, I’m not clear on. When my wife gave birth, I became preoccupied with staying by her side. The birth had been extremely dangerous for her. The doctor barely managed to pull both mother and child back from the Underworld Gateway, but following that, her body was hollowed out. I stayed with her for a full half-year. Eventually, even physicians were powerless to defy Heaven, and she finally…”
Tears fell from his eyes as he spoke, and he slowly shook his head. “I was devastated. A friend went with me to go back and find everyone, as I wanted to say farewell… back at the Repository, by some coincidence, we happened to run into Madam Rong, who was injured and on death’s door. Rong Xuan’s sword was lodged in her chest, and both of his hands were covered in blood. I wasn’t sure whether he had gone stupid, or was snapped out of his madness, as he only stared at her blankly. In a moment of impulsiveness, my friend drew his sword and slashed at him — I thought to stop him, but it was too late. Thankfully, Rong Xuan’s will faltered, leaving him no desire to fight, and he ran. The Whorl Beryl had already vanished by then. Madam Rong, before she died, handed over the Repository Key to my friend. We took a mortal oath that we would not divulge a word of this all our lives, and that the Repository must never be opened by anyone.”
Once he finished, they were all quiet for a long while.
“Is it true that afterwards, Rong Xuan went mad, was hunted down until he fled into Wraith Vale, then died when surrounded?” Zhou Zishu asked.
Long Que sighed. “I had already returned to Marionette Manor by that time, and didn’t inquire into the world at large again. That seems about right, though.”
“Good riddance,” said Ye Baiyi. He shut his eyes, tightly grasped Baiyi’s hild until the veins on the back of his hand bulged out, then crushed the hilt into dust. Its blade slashed his palm, then clanged as it landed on the ground, but he seemed to not feel a thing, simply repeating the same set of words. “Good… riddance.”
With that, he left without another word, his figure vanishing after a few bounds.
Zheng Chengling had only understood about half of all this. Seeing that the other two were silent, he boldly opened his mouth to ask, “Uncle, what are you going to do now?”
Long Que thought for a long time, feeling around until he bumped into the hem of Zhou Zishu’s clothes. “Here’s a good deed you can do, young man,” he whispered. “Take your sword and make it quick. Long Xiao, that menace, would not let me die. Now that he’s gone off to see King Yan, I can go down there, too, and settle the score with him.”
Before Zhou Zishu could say anything, Wen Kexing walked over, hunched down, and carefully propped Long Que’s body up. He placed his palm against his chest. “I can shatter your meridians in an instant,” he said, his voice respectful, which was rare. “It’ll be quick, Senior. Think abou tit.”
Long Que laughed. “Good, good! You’re accumulating virtue, here. Go ahead…”
The second he said ‘ahead’, Wen Kexing suddenly exerted force in his hand that had been gently placed upon him. Long Que’s laughter cut off, his entire body spasmed, and that smile would stay upon his face forever.
Zhang Chengling was practically in disbelief. “Uncle…” he uttered, dazed.
Wen Kexing went and closed Long Que’s eyes, laid him back down, and pet Zhang Chengling’s head. “Don’t disgrace him further. He’s a hero, and should die as one.”
He paused, then said to Zhou Zishu, “I want to stay for a bit, to send him off.”
Using a bedpost, Zhou Zishu stood up. “Got it.”
Right when he went to leave, Wen Kexing called out to stop him. “Ah-Xu, how about you stay with me? I’ll treat your wounds.”
Zhou Zishu smiled. “What exactly are you treating? Since I can’t heal, it would be more time-effective to hurry and eat, drink, and make merry…”
Wen Kexing bowed his head and scowled. “Then, how about… you just keep me company for a few days?” he said quietly.
Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks. He went quiet for a good minute, then said, “Alright.”
Wen Kexing ended up being unable to free Long Que’s body from the bed with a big iron pillar jabbed through it, so he was forced to set them on fire together, carrying this good deed that overflowed with evil to its conclusion.
Zhang Chengling stood not too far away, watching the billowing smoke. His nose ached all of a sudden from some inexplicable sorrow.
Right then, a hand was placed upon his shoulder, and he raised his head to see Zhou Zishu through his hazy eyesight, the fire’s light reflecting in the man’s eyes. It was unclear whether he was sad or glad, nor whether he was talking to him or himself, as he said, “What are you crying for? Don’t people die all the time?”
This was just how jianghu was. Some people laughed, drank like mad, and ran rampant all over the world, coming and going imperceptibly. Some people quietly came to the end of their roads in remote spaces such as this, where only a few strangers with their own motives would quietly see them off on the freezing and desolate Yellow Spring Road. Every day, there were young folk over the moon at becoming one step closer to their dreams. Every day, somebody would die.
The three of them stayed in Marionette Manor. Wen Kexing found a huge stone, then stood it up before the prison room with its blackened walls. First, he started with carving the date of, ‘The Dragon of Fire’s year, the eighth day of the twelfth month’, saying that he was going to write the rest so slowly, it would take him until next spring to finish.
Zhou Zishu laughed in derision, but made no comment. Zhang Chengling felt faintly happy at hearing this, though; just the day before, he’d felt this place to be weird all over and inlaid heavily with traps, but now, he thought it to be something of a paradise. There was no struggling desperately with anyone, nor any fleeing for his life as someone hunted him.
Every day, he would just be able to practice, get confused, and scolded by his Master in sequence… scolding was just scolding, and his Master would never actually cut off his head to use as a chamberpot.
Debts aplenty were not to be worried about, lessons aplenty made skin thick — this was a primary truth from ancient times until now.
Several buildings neighbored the prison. Some were guests room and some looked to be for servants, but nobody had lived in them for a long time, leading to them all being rundown. To express his filial heart, Zhang Chengling quickly went to and fro to clean up. It still ended up being unsightly, but since they were all used to sleeping out in the open, this was just fine.
That very night, right when Zhou Zishu had laid down and was about to doze off, the door to his room creaked open. A trace of cold breeze poured in, whereupon the other person quickly shut the door.
Zhou Zishu woke right up in that moment, not sleepy in the slightest, but he didn’t open his eyes at all for some reason, as if he didn’t care at all.
Wen Kexing grabbed the blanket, smiling easily and lewdly as he stood near the bed. “I can’t stay in my room. There’s a puppet in the corner that’s covered in cobwebs, making it look like a ghost. Whenever I open my eyes in bed, I enter a staring contest with it—“
“Then go turn it around,” Zhou Zishu interrupted, eyes shut.
Wen Kexing set the blanket down. “I’m not interested in puppet butt, either. Scooch in a bit, make room for me.”
Zhou Zishu said nothing, playing dead.
“Ah-Xu, you need to have some sympathy for others. You keep harping on about wanting to accumulate virtues, and we’ve gone through so many life-and-death situations together, yet you refuse to even share half your bed. How is that okay?” Wen Kexing chided.
Shooting him a look, Zhou Zishu said, “I thought it wasn’t okay just now, and now I think it’s real okay—“
He was abruptly cut off, because Wen Kexing had decided to move quicker than a heartbeat, his hand going under the other’s hunched shoulder to lift him bodily up, shift him three chi inside, then giddily plant his butt down and lie back, like a dove invading the magpie’s nest.
He punctuated this with letting out a sigh of satisfaction.
The bed wasn’t small, but with him squished onto it, it immediately felt like it would be difficult to even turn over. Zhou Zishu froze up imperceptibly, only barely managing to flip like nothing had happened, turning his back to him and stuffing himself into the covers, like he couldn’t wait to fall asleep. However, the second he turned around, he opened his eyes, and couldn’t shut them again.
Wen Kexing seemed to think that his bed was abnormally comfortable, turning one second and shifting the next, the exact likeness of a big monkey scratching his ears and butt. Since this space was only so big, the slightest fart he gave off would cause the headboard to jolt a little.
Zhou Zishu could feel every single one of his movements, and a burst of antsiness emerged within him as he itched to kick this guy out.
A minute later, Wen Kexing finally stopped, and Zhou Zishu forced himself to shut his eyes in an attempt to ignore the one behind him. However, Wen Kexing suddenly said, “Ah-Xu…”
He ignored him. Then, he heard the sound of hair rubbing against a pillow, which was probably the other man turning his head to look at his back.
That thought made Zhou Zishu suddenly feel uncomfortable, like a bug was crawling on his back.
Wen Kexing paused. Seeing as Zhou Zishu had no intent to respond to him, he stretched out his lecherous paw and placed it lightly upon Zhou Zishu’s middle. “Ah-Xu…”
The latter’s hairs immediately stood on end, and he turned around in anger. “Are you going to sleep, or what? If you’re not, go back to your own room and go bother the puppet!”
Wen Kexing was pillowed by a crooked arm, his face tilted to look at him. “I’m here, yet you want to sleep without a single word said. Don’t you realize that I have ill intent towards you?” he said confidently.
This guy had reached the point where his shamelessness had never before been seen, and never would be surpassed. Zhou Zishu really couldn’t think of anything to say to him.
The dog paw on his waist looked to be obediently motionless, but its claws rubbed in place a little, making him subconsciously want to bat it away. With one glance at Wen Kexing, who looked like a dead pig that didn’t fear boiling water, he changed his mind, turned back around, and settled down with the intent to fall asleep.
“As you wish,” he flung out, then became extremely set upon sleeping like the dead.
Wen Kexing kept messing about for a bit. Upon noticing that he was worthy of being a rarely-seen martial master, his determination unshakeable, he laughed silently behind him, gently shutting his eyes.
When midnight came, Wen Kexing suddenly felt the one beside him twitch very minutely, and he immediately woke up, knowing what time it was.
Perhaps due to the cold and the lack of warmth the blanket gave, but the two had ended up huddled together while sleeping. Zhou Zishu’s back was slightly hunched, looking like he was shrinking into his arms.
Zhou Zishu had long gotten used to not sleeping past midnight, and it was only after opening his eyes and hearing another’s breathing that he recalled who was next to him. Feeling slightly awkward, he thought to move away without being noticed, but the two heavy internal injuries he had prevented him from mustering his strength. He was forced to grit his teeth hard and bear it.
Wen Kexing’s brows furrowed, and he tightened his hold around him to lift him up slightly, freeing one hand to place it upon Zhou Zishu’s back. He dared not act rashly, though, merely whispering, “What is it? Does it hurt?”
Zhou Zishu didn’t talk at all, unconsciously hunching over even further, gripping the blanket tightly in his fingers. It was worst the moment things switched to midnight every day; after getting through it, he would be able to regulate his qi and feel a little better.
He shut his eyes. In the bitter winter of the twelfth month, fine sweat came from his temples. He tried all he could to keep his breathing level and slow, but even so, Wen Kexing could make out the unsteady tremble between breaths.
He quietly held Zhou Zishu around the shoulders with one arm, the other looping around his waist, and he had him rest his head against his chest. As if hugging a child that had awoken from a nightmare, he gently rubbed his back.
Zhou Zishu allowed this, which was rare.
They were both wide awake right now, but neither said a thing. The long night that was not yet ended passed by their window. Time and pain seemed to stretch on endlessly… to the point that it etched into one’s bones.
Zhou Zishu’s mind was a little numb as he thought of how they would undermine and prank each other in the daytime, but they seemed to rely upon each other at night like so.
Wasn’t that just capricious?
Wen Kexing did what he’d claimed he would. After setting up the large rock, he slowly and ‘respectfully’ carved out an epitaph for Old Man Long — and he truly was slow, like he was embroidering it on. After engraving ten or so characters, it would take him a day looking it up, down, left, and right, making sure the the rhymes were proper and the font was superb. Once done, he would take a few steps back, marvel at his own work, then put his hands behind his back and bob his head, considering himself to be like Li Bai and Du Fu.
Upon looking at the contents of the words, the thousand jotted words were ten thousand li away from the topic, quite cumbersome to read, and had arbitrarily shown off boldness. Even Zhang Chengling felt that Senior Wen was so focused on writing the epitaph, he had completely forgotten about Senior Long.
Having wandered jianghu in his younger years, Zhou Zishu had always been thick-skinned and durable. Following a few days of sickness, he went jumping all around again, tormenting Zhang Chengling with leaping onto the roof of this villa’s small courtyard. While this hardship defied words, the youth never dared to utter a half-word of complaint, out of fear that his Master would say that he wants to leave after his injury healed up.
Likely due to this winter’s high cold, even Shuzhong froze over, leaving humans and animals a little lethargic. Zhou Zishu ended up legitimately forgetting about leaving.
The Laba Festival passed, and the Lantern Festival passed. Even though only three people lived within this massive manor, they still engaged in a lively fracas every day.
On that other day, Zhou Zishu had been huddled into Wen Kexing’s arms for a long time, to the point that on the day after, Wen Kexing had been somewhat apprehensive. He had known before that when this man got injured, it would be a serious hit, but he hadn’t know just how badly this suffering would be. Fully distressed, he treated Zhou Zishu like he was made of porcelain, too afraid to bother him for no reason again.
Alas, after a few days of apprehensive observation, he discovered that Zhou ‘Porcelain’ Zishu had reached a certain level of heartlessness. As someone that remembered eating but not getting beaten, once day broke and the pain was gone, he seemed to forget everything with the swipe of a claw. He made fun of and cussed out, washing all the haggardness off of his face, and at breakfast, he continued to send his chopsticks flying at high speeds without a hint of politeness. He appeared to be perfectly normal.
Wen Kexing then knew at heart that some people did not have fates that hung by a thread. One might as well coddle a pig as opposed to him. What a true waste of emotion.
When Long Xiao had been around, villagers from the bottom of the mountain would send supplies up every month. He’d been super cautious, so he had only ever controlled a marionette to do the purchasing for him, with no one seeing him in person.
In any case, the New Year was coming. After Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing mulled for over half a day — tongue-lashing each other countless times all the while, each possessing about five nicknames of varying features that were similar in theme to ‘trash’ — they discovered that the marionette didn’t listen to just anyone’s words. For this reason, the Lord Wen of the Vale had to degrade himself with picking up a map, then going to grope for New Year’s goods himself.
The simple villagers had only ever dealt with a puppet. Upon seeing a flesh-and-blood person suddenly descend from the sky before them, they believed that an immortal had come down to the mortal world, and successively worshipped his figure once it flitted by, his unsurpassed agility arts making him disappear in a wink.
The three happily put everything in order to wait for New Year’s.
What was New Year’s? The common folk worked hard the full year, barely managing to eat and be clothed, hoping that the Heavenly Lord would grant them meals, hoping that the year would be peaceful, and hoping that the their entire family would get to reunite at the end of it…
Survival wasn’t easy, and all that hoping was not without grievances, but this was how things had been for thousands of years. Those grievances had settled into the bones, not longer showing so prominently.
Only on New Year’s day would this suddenly be let go. A couple of firecrackers would be set off, making a huge commotion, and things that would normally be hard to come by would be taken out so that one could treat themself.
Even if it was the beginning of spring and their belt was tightening, they would look forward to such an indulgence all through the year. Even if they were poor as dirt, as long as family could be had, the eve of the new year would shine past them.
Lord Wen had never expected that there would come a day in his life where he would need to fix up New Year’s dinner himself. Zhang Chengling was once a Young Lord, so even though he tried his best to express his filial piety, he was far too clumsy to be effective at anything.
As for Zhou Zishu… that guy used to be a Great Lord, and he was still a Great Lord now.
Wen Kexing felt like this holiday was of massive commemorative significance, so he took a lot of care, busy to the point that he was running around in circles. He first instructed Zhang Chengling, “Brat, go kill that chicken.”
Zhang Chengling was taken aback. He looked at the clucking hen, then pointed at himself. “Senior, I’m… killing… it?”
“Is it going to kill you back?” Wen Kexing asked, amused. “Get on with it. The chicken needs to start stewing early, as it’ll take a long time to absorb flavor.”
Zhang Chengling picked up a knife, trembling, and tiptoed over. Drumming up his courage, he raised the blade up in both hands, grit his teeth, shut his eyes, and went to stab downwards. However, the chicken flapped its wings and dodged to one side, crowing as it crooked its neck. It looked like it was going to fight him until the end.
He carefully took a step forward, reaching out to grab it with great courage. It noticed that he was tough on the outside and wimpy on the inside, so it leapt up viciously to go and peck at his hand. This scared him so much, he took his hand back.
The chicken kept getting closer and closer to him after being giving a single in. Between the one human and one animal, it wasn’t clear who was going to kill who, a commotion of clucking and crying out for parents starting up in the courtyard.
A piece of reed in his mouth, Zhou Zishu was crouched in the kitchen doorway, spectating with great amusement. Upon noticing that he wasn’t doing anything, Wen Kexing bumped him with his toes. “Hey, butcher’s knife. Go kill that chicken.”
Zhou Zishu raised his brows and looked at him, only to heard Zhang Chengling holler, “Master, save me!”
Thus, Great Lord Zhou ended up saying nothing as he obediently went to kill the chicken. He murdered people efficiently, and slaughtered animals just as efficiently — the strong chicken fighter finally withered in his hands, not having time enough to leave last rites, breathing its last. His skills at disemboweling it were even more tremendous. In not too much time at all, he had cleaned the bird off, washed his hands, then turned back around, returning to doing nothing.
Wen Kexing looked over his finished product. Mentally praising how virtuous the man was, he gave another order while he chopped vegetables. “Stoke the fire in the stove for me.”
A puppet was stationed near the stove, its head lowered and unmoving. Clearly, such tasks were not typically done by the humans in this place.
Zhou Zishu picked the puppet up and moved it, while Wen Kexing took time out of his busy tasks to mock, “That unfilial son of Long’s really didn’t know how to live it up. In order to eat, one must eat food made by their own hand. It has energy and flavor put into it, and maybe even some feeling…”
He flung Zhou Zishu a flirty look. “When you taste it at night, you’ll be eating plenty.”
The other ignored him, crouched on the ground while he studied the stove like he was staring down a great foe. After clumsily picking up the fire tongs, his grip felt awkward no matter what, so he kept adjusting his grip and flipping them over as he observed it a few times.
Wen Kexing waited for a long time without blinking. Seeing this, he cocked his head. “Okay, what are you staring at it all doe-eyed for? Get the fire going.”
Zhou Zishu had never done anything like this before. He carried in a huge bundle of firewood, stuffed it all inside the stove, and tilted his head to look. Since it wasn’t quite full, he thought of how it would be trouble to add to the fire later, so he sagely thought to get everything done in one fell swoop by picking up yet another bundle, stuffing the stove full, and lighting it up.
Incredibly, not even a few sparks of a fire were seen before black smoke started puffing out. He quickly moved away, taking a huge step back with his fire tongs held aloft, and stared uncomprehendingly at the stove.
Wen Kexing came to the rescue, taking out roughly half of the firewood, turning his head to cough a few times afterwards. “By my ancestors, are you trying to burn this place down?”
Zhou Zishu was mute for a moment. Then, he made a fully-convinced decision, despite not actually knowing anything: “This wood is no good. All this smoke means it’s probably too damp.”
He was asked to leave — with no room for argument — by one Wen Kexing, whose face streaked with tears, and sat staring at Zhang Chengling as they both waited for food.
When the sky grew dark, Wen Kexing prepped the large table for a majestic New Year’s dinner. It was getting colder outside, the northwestern wind blowing against the window lattices so that they made non-stop rattling sounds. Inside the room were several small heaters, all hot and steaming, and wine was warming up, gradually giving off its aroma.
Zhang Chengling happily brought dishes to the table, one after the other, and felt entranced by the heat once he sat down.
He had thought that he would never have a home again, destined to be wandering destitute for the rest of his life. Who could have known that he would be able to spend a decent New Year’s like so, feeling like most of the grievances within him were gone? He eagerly looked at Zhou Zishu, then at Wen Kexing, thinking of how the Heavens had looked upon him.
Zhou Zishu lived for good wine, and his cravings were immediately roused at the smell. Before anything else, he poured himself a cup, looked down, then put his nose to it to smell for a time. Once he took a sip, he judged it as being wine brewed in secret by a peasant family — it was not a world-renowned good, yet it held an unspeakably mellow flavor that melted on the tip of the tongue, warming the insides all the way down.
He recalled that at this time in years previous, the capital had been at its liveliest. There’d been night markets, Miss Moon had sung on Fullmoon River, and curfew hadn’t been in effect… it had been the pinnacle in prosperity, yet the decades-old, top-notch wine seemed to have been tainted by the cosmetics in the air. When drunken in, his mind had always been thinking of other things, too, so he had never tasted much of it, nor had it had such a flavor.
All of a sudden, a pair of chopsticks reached into a bowl, then picked out some food for him. He raised his head in astonishment to see Wen Kexing, the man who was never happy if he wasn’t picking a fight, looking at him with a warm smile. “Eat something, you drunkard,” the man said.
He felt like one of his heartstrings had been gently plucked.
Wen Kexing suddenly sighed, stating emotionally, “This really has been the best year of my life.”
Zhang Chengling knew nothing about his mysterious background, so his head was full of confused fog as he listened in.
“The years prior to this were filled with nothing other than dealing with a bunch of people that either tried to curry favor with me, or had some errant intentions,” Wen Kexing continued. “Then came Gu Xiang, but with how she is, I have nothing to say to her after a few cups of wine. I passed yet another year in a haze.”
He shook his head. “Without a home, what kind of New Years celebrations can one have? They would incur no meaning.”
In Zhang Chengling’s eyes, Senior Wen immediately transformed into a pitiful figure with a tragic background, and sympathy grew in his heart.
Zhou Zishu, however, looked at Wen Kexing with a false smile. “What about those pretty—… handsome confidants of yours?”[24]
“One I paid to buy alcohol from, one sold himself with an ingratiating smile. What are you talking about? Let’s have a good New Year’s, Ah-Xu. Don’t be jealous over nothing.”
Zhou Zishu really wanted to splash wine on him, but ultimately couldn’t bear to do it. After some hesitation, he dumped it all into his mouth.
After their piping-hot New Year’s meal, Zhang Chengling pulled a firecracker out of nowhere and set it off in the courtyard. Red flames blazed, the fireworks expelled the last year, and he started laughing like a teen that had no worries.
Zhou Zishu sat on the front steps, downing cups without cease. Wen Kexing sat down as well, but suddenly snatched the wine cup out of his hands, threw him a laughing look, and deliberately looked for the spot where the other’s lips had just touched.
He drank down the remainder of the cup, ending it with a wish-fulfilling lick to the rim.
Zhou Zishu turned away so that he couldn’t look at him, feeling the tips of his ears heat a little.
Beaming, Wen Kexing went to hold his hand, then pull him into his arms to keep him warm.
He felt like this year had truly been the happiest time in his life.
Night came.
Winter had passed. It was now the season of both warmth and cold. A chill faintly permeated though the clean air from plants, which was especially overpowering and obvious near bodies of water.
Freshly-melted river water quietly passed by. On the riverbank stood a man in red clothes, a blood-red birthmark the size of a palm on his cheek — it was Sun Ding, the Merry Death Wraith.
He tilted his head, paying close attention to the noises in his surroundings. One of his hands was splayed, its fingers slightly crooked as it hung by his side, and beneath the moonlight, it shined with a gloss that skin shouldn’t have.
All of a sudden, several dark figures darted forward. He jumped upwards, quickly getting into a fight with a group wearing night-walking clothes.
Amongst the top ten most vile of Wraiths, the Merry Death Wraith, Hanging Wraith, and Impermanent Wraith took the lead. That didn’t mean that the other evil-doers weren’t as powerful as them, it just mean that they had the deepest roots in Wraith Vale, able to rope in and suppress others to the point that they were already forces on their own.
Sun Ding’s dual Rakshasa Strikes could not be said to be one-of-a-kind technique for all of time, but it was at least unique in the current martial circle. Anyone mid-grade would be instantly killed within three steps by it, a blood-red palmprint left behind on their corpse, piercing through from the front of their chest to the back — it was beyond violent.
Even when being abruptly ambushed in the middle of the night, he wasn’t panicky, apparently not at all afraid. His two vicious palms flew out in every direction, all-encompassing. In not too much time at all, this group of insects that didn’t know their own weight had fled, having been unable to withstand a single blow.
He didn’t give chase, instead stooping over to move aside a corpse’s clothes. A cold laugh came from him upon seeing the ghost-face tattoo on the other’s middle.
After about the lesser half of a shichen, a man appeared from somewhere behind him. He walked forward, frowning, and leaned over to observe the tattoo on the corpse. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Sun Ding took his hands back into his sleeves, giving the other an indifferent glance. “You’re late, Old Meng.”
This was the same Old Meng that had helped Gu Xiang with excavation, back when Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing had been trapped deep in enemy territory. He was still dressed in ordinary hemp clothes. His walking speed was quick, and it could be seen that his left leg had a slight limp, though it wasn’t obvious; only careful observation could detect it. His facial features were average, and were it not for his grave expression, he would have looked somewhat benevolent. He further wore on hist front a large apron that was typically seen draped over butchers — exactly how Wen Kexing had said, he was dressed like one.
Old Meng took the mask off of the corpse’s face, then thought for a minute while crouched on the ground. He stood with a sigh, shaking his head. “He’s one of Xue Fang’s.”
As soon as he looked up, he noticed Sun Ding staring at his apron with great interest. “I changed on the Vale Lord’s orders,” he explained. “Do you have any comments on that, Brother Sun?”
Sun Ding laughed coldly. “The Vale Lord? That immature jerk who’s not even going to leave behind heirs is worth you running around and fawning on him like some pekingese?”
Old Meng’s expression didn’t change. “You are free to say those very same words to his face.”
Seeming to recall something, Sun Ding’s eye twitched, and he huffed. He wisened up and stopped bothering about this topic, instead pointing at the corpse on the ground, “In that case, why don’t you report this to the Lord, so that he’ll know that Xue Fang so brazenly broke the rule of never leaving the Vale in secret, and also that he’s in such a humiliated rage right now, he’s even trying to kill me.”
Old Meng frowned. “I haven’t been able to contact the Lord recently…”
“What about that Violet Fiend girl?” Sun Ding asked impatiently.
The other shook his head again. “As you see it, is Xue Fang also going for the Whorl Beryl?”
Sun Ding’s eyes quickly glinted at the Whorl’s mention, immediately followed by him looking someplace else. “Xue Fang’s ambitions are huge. I advise you… and that Lord of yours that more caution is best. Otherwise… hmph.”
Old Meng went silent for a minute. “Did you kill Shen Zhen?”
Hearing this, Sun Ding paused, raised his brows, then drew out his voice asking, “Why? Are you sussing me out?”
Old Meng smiled with unclear implications, reaching out and jabbing him in the chest with one finger. “Brother Sun, we are honest people that don’t speak in riddles,” he said, suppressing his voice. “Who doesn’t want the Whorl? The Hanging Wraith aside, even the minor Wraiths beneath us are eager to get on the move. Even that trash, the Long-Tongued Wraith, dared to set up a trap in an underground cavern, risking it all to plot against the Vale Lord… whoever gets the Whorl Beryl will be whoever gets to be the next Lord of Wind Cliffs. If you don’t want it yourself, then why do you keep glaring at that little Zhang brat?”
Sun Ding choked on air. A long while later, he managed to say, “I want that Zhang brat to identify Xue Fang himself!”
Old Meng merely watched him with a smile, not appraising that at all. Sun Ding had always hated this smile of his, feeling that it made him look unusually secretive, just like his nutjob Lord. It made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. “What is the meaning of this, Impermanent Wraith?”
Old Meng shook his head with a smile. “That’s not something you need to worry about, Brother Sun. The Zhang child is currently with the Lord. Given that he can remember so, he could identify him at any time. As for Shen Zhen’s death, the two Whorl pieces that were in Gao Manor have taken flight without wings. I believe that we should capture Xue Fang before we come to a decision. What do you say?”
Sun Ding narrowed his eyes, ferociously scrutinized his amiable face for a spell, then huffed coldly, turning to leave.
At this same exact moment inside Marionette Manor, which was encompassed by thousands of Shuzhong mountains, the Vale Lord they were talking about was currently fighting over a blanket with Zhou Zishu.
Spring was already here, meaning that Shuzhong had warmed up rapidly. The logic of ‘a blanket too old is like iron, too cold’ was clearly nonsense. Zhou Zishu had specifically instructed Zhang Chengling to go clean up a room for this skin plaster surnamed Wen, yet that still didn’t stop his tendency to get under the covers with him.
And, this guy was walking all over him. From the very beginning, he had been bringing his own belongings over, which had turned into him running over with increasingly shameless empty-handedness, whereupon he would freeload his bed like he was within his right to do so.
A worn blanket was getting pulled to and fro by them. All eighteen styles of grappling, clothes-grabbing, and throwing had been used in these close quarters, and by the fight’s end, they were nearly in full-body sweats, no longer needing the warmth of the blanket.
Zhou Zishu was ultimately not in his prime, so after a hundred rounds, he failed a move. Wen Kexing proudly gathered up the majority of the blanket into one arm, his other hand pressing Zhou Zishu’s wrist down into the pillow. With a shrug of his shoulder, he showed him a full row of white fangs whilst beckoning to him. “Come here, Ah-Xu. I’ll hold you while you sleep. I can guarantee that you won’t be cold.”
Zhou Zishu really wanted to kick him off, so he looked him up and down three full times before he sneered. “For one, you don’t smell good. For two, you’re not soft, and your chest is nothing but a rack of fucking bony ribs. I might as well hold a bed plank over you.”
Wen Kexing promptly glared at him, snatching his hand to place it on his chest. “Bull! I’m not a rack of ribs! If you don’t believe me, cop a feel!”
Zhou Zishu kicked the crook of his leg and took his hand back, shaking it off in the air like he had just touched something filthy.
Wen Kexing hugged the blanket bundle, peering at him while clucking his tongue. “Odd things happen every year. The one being taken advantage of has no care, yet you, the one taking advantage, are so needlessly reserved. Usually, in situations like this—“
Not prepared to listen to him keep babbling on, Zhou Zishu draped a robe over himself, determined to flee if he could not fight. He would just sleep in a different room. Worst came to worst, he could even cram in with Zhang Chengling; the brat could be told to sleep on the floor.
However, Wen Kexing’s hand that held the blanket suddenly turn in a weird arc, searching for his shoulder. Zhou Zishu immediately hunched his shoulders and bent his elbows, trying to pop his arm out of its socket, only to immediately feel half of his body go numb. Before he had time to stand up, he fell, landing right in Wen Kexing’s open, waiting embrace.
A single melon seed shell fell upon the blanket… that was what had hit him.
Wen Kexing happily kept talking in his ear. “Usually, in situations like this, it’s purely lust that leads to a guilty conscience. Look at you… did you just throw yourself into my arms?”
Zhou Zishu said nothing. What he really couldn’t figure out was why someone would go to sleep at night with seed shells on their person, just so they could bring it out and attack someone with them at any time.
Wen Kexing laughed wily, as if he could tell what he was thinking. “I have walnuts here, too. Do you want any?” he supplied.
At the word ‘walnut’, Zhou Zishu gained goosebumps all over himself. He forced out a smile to put on a brave front. “What? You’re not letting me go. Don’t you still want to sleep?”
Wen Kexing rolled him fully into the blanket while also rolling his eyes. His two hands that were pushing down his shoulders then felt along the edges of his inner clothes, not neglecting to happily say, “That’s something that I seek, yet will not find.”
His strike hadn’t been heavy, leading to Zhou Zishu’s acupoints coming shortly unblocked. It was just in time for Wen Kexing’s hand’s increasing outrageousness.
Ever since he had left the capital to enter jianghu, he had first sustained injuries, then suffered quick successions of incidents, which he didn’t much care for. He had never really been this close with anyone before, and Wen Kexing’s gentle teasing seemed to light a fire within him. Upon noticing that this situation was getting out of hand, Zhou Zishu grabbed his wrist and said, teeth gritted, “Your immense kindness, Vale Lord, is something… I. Must. Politely. Decline.”
Wen Kexing smiled. “What’s with the formality? This is your mistake, yet you still behave disrespectfully.”
Zhou Zishu forcefully eked out a smile. “I really am too ashamed to accept this gift.”
While the two were in the midst of their deadlock, they suddenly heard a cry of alarm come from Zhang Chengling’s room.
Zhou Zishu creased his brow, shoved Wen Kexing away, then put on his robes faster than thunder could roll and left. Wen Kexing shook his head with a sigh. He placed his fingers near his nose, inhaled deeply with his eyes shut in intoxication, then slowly followed him out.
Zhang Chengling was simply having a nightmare. When Zhou Zishu pushed the door open and went in, he discovered that the boy’s eyes were tightly shut, he was muttering something unknown, and his limbs were punching, kicking, and waving about wildly, all while his head was drenched in sweat.
After pushing him similarly to the door, Zhou Zishu also discovered that he couldn’t push him awake. He grabbed one wrist and pushed a thin current of true qi into it. Only then did Zhang Chengling give a full body shudder, shouting, “Don’t kill him!”
He sat up abruptly afterwards. The fear in his eyes slowly drifted away, and he gained a confused look. Spotting Zhou Zishu, he called out in a daze, “Master…”
The other patted his head, then pushed him back down without another word, pulling the blanket up for him. “Sleep.”
He then sat himself on the edge of the bed, leaned against a bedpost, crossed his arms in front of him, and shut his eyes in recuperation, as if he was going to keep him company.
Zhang Chengling went quite for a while. He eventually tugged at Zhou Zishu’s clothes. “Master, what I just dreamt of was… someone wrapped up tightly. He held a knife to my mother’s neck, interrogated my father about where something was, and whether or not it was…”
Zhou Zishu opened his eyes.
At that moment, the door was pushed open from outside, and Wen Kexing also came in. Hearing all this, his expression turned serious. “What did that someone look like? What characteristics did he have?” he asked, as if in thought.
Zhang Chengling thought for a long while, then shook his head in shame. “I couldn’t see that clearly in my dream…”
Zhou Zishu thought back to the words the Merry Death Wraith had interrogated the youth about, and his heart jumped. “Did you ever see whether that man didn’t have five fingers, but four?”
The boy shook his head again, looking at him with wide eyes.
Sighing, Zhou Zishu pet his head. “Go to sleep.”
One adult sat and one adult stood in total silence. It was not until Zhang Chengling’s breathing evened out in apparent sleep that Zhou Zishu pulled the blanket up for him, stood, and followed Wen Kexing out.
The latter suddenly sighed, reached one arm behind his back, and hugged him around the shoulders, placing his face against his shoulder. After a time, he asked lowly, “These days have been like a good dream… why do I have to wake up from it so soon?”
Horses walk along the ramp; the Luoyang River is there. The orchid garden is not yet bare, while its passers-by slowly age. Rumors say that beautiful women are abound; upon golden steps, they harmonize with sheng. Wind rises from Luoyang’s east, an aroma passing by Luoyang’s west.
The cuckoos’ songs pause. Someone brings along wine, forever drunk.
The eastern capital was passed, its prosperity long gone. A few lean horses walked this official road, going at a leisurely pace.
These two men had svelte statures, though just one of them had a vaguely sickly look. A flask hung from his middle that he was in no rush to drink down; he would merely hold it in hand, swirl it around a bit, take a small sip, then slowly gulp it down. It was unclear what he was thinking about. A healthy-looking teen followed after him.
This was Zhou Zishu’s bunch, who had just come from Shuzhong.
Wen Kexing was watching nearby. He noticed the man take one sip after the other, and it didn’t take too much time at all for the sizable flask to reach its near-end. When he put his lips to it again, he couldn’t help but reach out to hold his forearm down. “Aren’t you about done, you drunkard?”
Zhou Zishu gave him a side-eye, switching the flask to his other hand. “You’re nosy. What are you, my wife?”
Wen Kexing reached out to grab the flask, face grave. “We’re close enough for skin contact. Are you trying to dump me now that you’ve had your way with me?”
“You’d probably watch the door for me like a widower,” Zhou Zishu smirked, full of counterattacks.
Disregarding Zhang Chengling’s nearby presence, Wen Kexing continued to say without shame, “That’s fine. Considering that I can see and touch, yet not have, my eyes are wide open and watching every night.”
Zhou Zishu’s hand faltered, and his flask was confiscated.
Strung between them, Zhang Chengling stooped his head, practically wishing to bury himself headfirst in some ravine.
Wen Kexing brought his flask over, took a big swig of it, then shot a smile at Zhou Zishu. “It’s not fine wine, but the taste is… pretty good, pretty good.”
Zhou Zishu stared at him mutely for a minute. All of a sudden, he urged his horse closer, then placed himself right next to Wen Kexing’s ear. “Madam, are you finding it hard to sleep alone? Are your desires not met? This husband has truly treated you poorly. When night comes, wash up and wait for me. I’ll definitely call for you…”
While Wen Kexing was sunk firmly into his imagination, his hand was suddenly emptied — the flask had been snatched back from him.
In an imitation of Wen Kexing’s own look, Zhou Zishu shot him a furtive glance. His eyes were long and narrow, but when his gaze floated on over, it didn’t have a trace of flirtiness about it. Instead, it had some mischief and wit that defied description. He smugly raised the flask and waggled it at Wen Kexing a few times, then took a big swig with full satisfaction.
However, he suddenly felt a small, hard object slip into his mouth. Startled, he spat it out into his hand, after which he nearly jumped right off the horse’s back — that had actually been a walnut kernel!
His appetite plummeted, as if what had been spat out of his mouth wasn’t a walnut, but a human brain. He glared at Wen Kexing. “You bastard!”
The other quickly cupped his hands to humble himself. “You conceding this win to me is very flattering.”
Zhou Zishu’s complexion paled as he pointed at him. “You…”
He felt his stomach turning. No matter what he thought, he was still nauseated, and honestly couldn’t keep from getting more nauseated with every thought he had.
Wen Kexing languidly came over, grabbed his hand, and stuck out his tongue, curling it across his palm to sweep up the walnut kernel. After happily chewing a couple of times, he grinned. “You’re a grown adult, so why are you such a picky eater, husband? How very outrageous.”
Zhou Zishu quietly turned his face away so that he wasn’t looking at him. After a long time, he said faintly, “I want a divorce…”
Wen Kexing laughed aloud.
Zhang Chengling was watching these two old men that weren’t acting their age, his face flashing red and green. A long while later, he drummed up his courage to approach them slowly and stammer out a question. “M-Master, wh-why are we going to L-Luoyang?”
Zhou Zishu’s nausea had still not been suppressed. He gave Zhang Chengling a look, his face slightly pale, and said impatiently, “We’re going to see who wants you dead.”
Zhang Chengling looked at him naively, mouth agape. “Huh?”
Wen Kexing had one hand loosely gripping his reins, and the other one raised up to rub his chin. “There were two groups that had separately hired two batches of Venoms to take this brat’s life—”
“That red-clothed Merry Death Wraith probably didn’t want him dead,” Zhou Zishu interrupted. “He would have acted long ago, instead of wasting so much time with me.”
Wen Kexing turned around to look at him, seemingly in thought. “So, you want to look for whoever was behind the suicide Venoms? Or maybe… you came to find the Venom group itself? Is their den in Luoyang?”
Zhang Chengling looked over at Wen Kexing in admiration, thinking that his Senior was super intelligent, since he had heard one thing and inferred several other things from it.
“You talk so much trash. Are you trying to show that you’re better than this brat?” Zhou Zishu said, huffing.
The thick-skinned Wen Kexing ignored that completely. “Do you actually know where the Venoms’ den is?”
Zhou Zishu subconsciously wanted to take another sip of wine, but upon recalling what this Wen asshole had put into his flask, he had to bring it back down when he brought it to his lips. What he hated most in his life was other people defiling good booze. He thus glared viciously at him, saying coldly, “You not knowing doesn’t mean that I don’t know, either.”
“Yes, yes. Sir Zhou, you are truly wise, far-seeing, and godly in martial arts. How could a simpleton such as I even hope to match you?” Wen Kexing quickly fawned.
All Zhou Zishu thought was that he had a silver tongue, and he spouted enough nonsense to load a cart with. It really made him want to beat him up. After thinking it through, though, he felt that he might not be able to defeat him, so he decided to pick his battles wisely, turn around, and ignore him.
The three went all the way to Luoyang City. Once they ate, drank, and rested enough in a restaurant, Zhou Zishu called Zhang Chengling into a room.
The boy didn’t know why he had, at first, bounding in. Against his expectations, Zhou Zishu shot a palm at his shoulder without another word.
Zhang Chengling immediately realized that this was one of his Master’s spontaneously-timed, spontaneously-placed exams. Before he even reacted, he ducked and dodged, going under his arm in an ugly-looking fashion.
Zhou Zishu furrowed his brow. This brat had a real talent; no matter how breezy and elegant a move was, he would turn it into an embarrassment that looked like a donkey rolling over. He couldn’t be said to be wrong, though, because he hadn’t actually done the move incorrectly.
He sat unmoving on the ground for a bit, immediately after which he let out a flurry of palms that encased Zhang Chengling within.
The latter let out an ouch, then splayed out on his back flat with a thump, his spine rubbing against the floor. He flopped like a loach for a bit, but scrabbled into a jump, treading upon the side table with a loud bang. Upon dodging Zhou Zishu’s third attack, he leapt upwards with his limbs spread like a huge toad’s, and when he landed on all fours, his posture destabilized, thus caused him to fall back on his butt.
He moved his legs to scoot a few steps backwards, avoiding Zhou Zishu’s unbroken series of kicks in a move that could be described as flowing as cleanly as clouds.
Zhou Zishu’s nose was about to scrunch in rage. “How much of a debt do you have to the innkeeper, for them to get you to sweep their floors with all your might?” he scolded, pointing.
Zhang Chengling stood up awkwardly, rubbing his nose with his sleeve as he looked at Zhou Zishu, shoulders hunched. “S-Senior Wen said… that as long as a move can save your life, it’s a good one. Whenever I can’t follow the move’s style or forget it, then I need adapt under duress…”
“Wen Kexing, get the hell in here,” Zhou Zishu shouted, enraged. “You’re a cracked gourd yourself, yet you also teach kids wrong? Are you trying to make other people as much of a gourd as you?”
Wen Kexing was leaning against the doorframe at this moment, watching the excitement. In his hand was a bag of walnuts that he had gotten from somewhere. Kernels stuffed his mouth up full, causing his words to be muffled. Once he heard this, he raised his sleeve to half-cover his face, looking at Zhou Zishu with a bitterly resentful expression. “Husband, do you… do you look down upon this wife of yours?” he ask, voice trembling.
Zhang Chengling gazed sympathetically at him, thinking that even though he wouldn’t do well hosting the main hall, he would be useful in the kitchen, in any case. Even though he was a little off-key, he was a hard-to-come-by, thick-skinned talent that could fight well, yet his Master still looked down upon him… it was quite pitiful.
Zhou Zishu had no desire to talk crap with either of them, so he said to Zhang Chengling, “Stay at this restaurant for a few more days and wait for me. I’ll go scope out the Venoms’ territory.”
“Master, I’ll go with you!” the boy said.
“You’ll go with me to weigh down my leg?”
Zhang Chengling pursed his lips, his expression tearful, like he was reluctant to part with him. “Master…”
Zhou Zishu kicked him in the thigh. “Are you still breastfeeding? Get lost, and just wait for me to get back. If you keep practicing your martial arts like a bear would, I’ll break your legs.”
In sorrow, Zhang Chengling was driven away. He counted on his fingers, but couldn’t properly count out how many times his legs would get broken a day. It made him want to transform into a centipede.
Upon seeing him walk out, Wen Kexing immediately threw himself forward. “I’ll go with—“
Zhou Zishu immediately darted backwards, then pushed him away with one finger on his chest. He was looking at his bag of walnuts with disgusted eyes, regarding him and his walnuts the same as the five toxins and four pests.
Wen Kexing smiled like a sycophant, efficiently balled up and shoved the bag of walnuts into his pocket, then vigorously wiped his hands off, tottering after him.
He followed him all the way to Luoyang City’s outskirts, where they turned into a small alley, passed through a dense undergrowth of vegetation, then connected to a street. As soon as Wen Kexing raised his head, he felt this area to be beyond familiar.
The lanterns’ lighting was dim, and the scent of flowers and wine was in the air. This was clearly a prostitution district.
His face twisted up strangely as he pointed as a songgirl who was playing a qin and singing just inside. “The Venoms’ den… i-is a place like this?”
Zhou Zishu shot him a look, smiling in mockery. “It’s fine, Vale Lord. Don’t be such a prude, like you’re an unsullied lotus yourself.”
He went to walk forward, only for Wen Kexing to grab him and whisper, “They can’t all be… members of the group, right, husband?”
Zhou Zishu went and gripped his chin. Wen Kexing looked at him all dewy-eyed, which made the former shiver. “Lady Wen, you’re really nauseating,” he commented, then released him to go weave between all the pleasure-seekers.
“Alright, then,” Wen Kexing mumbled to himself. “You dare be unfaithful to my face and treat me like I’m dead, hm? I’ll show you how a Hedong lion roars.”
He took a deep breath, fermented some deep feelings within himself, and then went to shout, only to end up losing his windfall. Shaking his head, he had to follow the steps along with him, comforting himself with, “The three obediences and four virtues must be adhered to, alas!”
Zhou Zishu was bold in his arts, performing a flying leap in front of everyone’s watching eyes. A fat guy, whose sight was nothing more than a drunken blur, felt like a small burst of wind had blown upon him, which sobered him up a little, though he couldn’t even see a shadow once he raised his head and looked.
Wen Kexing was close on his trail. The two of them lightly touched against the roof tiles of these performance buildings, continuing to dart past with unceasing steps.
After that, Zhou Zishu whirled in a beautiful arc while he streaked through the air, then landed inside a tiny courtyard. Wen Kexing looked all around; the sound of those well-dressed folk clinking cups together was still in his ears. If the Venoms’ den is a place like this, they must always be sexually frustrated, he thought with great interest.
Zhou Zishu walked along the base of the wall, focusing his hearing to carefully distinguish the contents of each room. Wen Kexing was amazed watching him — for him to have a straight face while doing this made him truly a force to be reckoned with.
Soon after, Zhou Zishu stopped at the back of some room, made a ‘it’s in here’ gesture to Wen Kexing, then paused there, unmoving.
Wen Kexing also focused his hearing, and immediately understood the mystery behind what he’d been doing. The other had not been listening to the sounds the people were making, but the creaking sounds of the bed boards within.
He headed over, deliberately pressed tightly against them, and listened in with him to the world-shaking moans of the girl inside.
—
The translator says: we kick off this arc with being a bunch of filthy voyeurs
Zhang Chengling returned to his room, then tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep. The shadows of freshly-budding trees hit the window pane. When the wind started blowing, an unending whoosh came about.
In times past, he would have felt this resembled the phrase, ‘Moon above the willow’s branches, trees’ shadows whirling in a dance.’ On this night, though, they more resembled the phrase, ‘Gaping maws, dancing claws; demons, ghouls, and monsters.’
He first managed to sit up with difficulty, bobbing his head and reciting mantras. It was a habit those other two had dissed an untold amount of times.
Senior Wen had said, If you keep memorizing those by stammering them out word for word, how would you ever master it by study? His Master, on the other hand, was more direct, simply stating that things would come naturally to him after comprehending and practicing, and that he had never seen anyone in his life before that had worn out his mouth reciting mantras with more effort than one would memorize the Four Books and Five Classics. Clearly, Zhang Chengling was slow, yet his slowness had practically led to inventiveness.
After this, the boy recalled that his Master and Senior Wen had both gone out. It was like he was the only one in this massive inn. This made him nervous with the constant feeling that something was about to happen, so he skittishly pulled his bed curtain down and pulled his blanket over his head, as if doing so would make him completely safe. It really wasn’t too clear what he was thinking.
He waited and waited, perking up his ears to listen carefully for any noise in his Master’s neighboring room — of course, he completely overlooked the fact that even if Zhou Zishu did return, he would not be able to hear so at his skill level. Resembling an antsy bunny, he waiting through half the night without hearing a single sound, yet ultimately could not withstand the lovesickness his lower and upper eyelids had for each other, groggily falling asleep.
It wasn’t until daybreak came that he was roused awake by the commotion of other guests rising. He rolled his body up out of bed and rushed to his Master’s room, only to disappointedly find the pillow and sheets to be cold. The other two hadn’t returned in the night.
A restaurant worker came up to greet him. Left with no choice, he went downstairs by himself to have breakfast.
Listless, he couldn’t raise his spirits up, feeling himself to be a bit trash. As a young lad of fifteen-ish, his pants were getting shorter on him every day, yet his skills always seemed to be at a standstill. Uncle Li had saved his life, then he had run into his Master, then his Master had seen him off at Lake Tai, then he had followed Uncle Zhao to Dongting, then he had found his Master again…
It seemed as though no matter where he went or what he did, he was never free or independent, merely following others with an empty head.
He nibbled on his steamed bun absent-mindedly. For the first time, he mulled over the issue of what path he ought to take.
At that exact moment, a small burst of commotion came from the doorway. Bun held in his mouth, he turned to look, and was promptly taken aback, alongside everyone else in the room.
About a dozen women entered the restaurant. Each and every one of them was dressed in black, making them resemble a murder of crows flying in at the same exact time. Their ages and appearances could not be determined, because they all wore masks, the crudely-crafted smiling doll-sort sold to children on the streets during festivals. However, these ‘dolls’ were also pallid, had blood coming from the corners of their smiles, and were bug-eyed, making the masks look more like ghouls.
The one in the lead glanced at a dumbstruck worker, then coldly ordered, “One bowl of plain noodles per each of us. If you take one more look at us, you’re getting your eyes gouged out!”
Her voice was rough, hoarse, and carried indescribable malice. She sounded like an old woman. When she swept her gaze around, everyone that had been secretly sizing her up immediately lowered their heads.
These ladies didn’t appear to be nice people. Having walked jianghu for a long time, no one wanted to cause trouble for themselves.
The leading elder in black then sat down with a domineering air, waving her hand. “Look after that little bitch. When we’re done eating, we’re setting off immediately.”
The other women said no superfluous words; they sat at once, well-trained. Only now did Zhang Chengling get a good look as a sorry-looking young woman with disheveled hair that was behind the group, having been detained and shoved over by them. He took a closer look, then jumped in fright, thinking, Isn’t that Hero Gao’s daughter? Why was she captured by these people that are darker than winter?
The disheveled woman was Gao Xiaolian. She didn’t notice him at all. Her lips were busted up, and she struggled due to the burning pain. Immediately after that, she felt a sharp pain at her middle, and she immediately went half-numb.
A woman was pressing down upon her shoulder, and she retracted the long needle she had just punctured her middle with. “What do you think? Should I prick you to make you a cripple that can’t stand? Or should I slice some lines across that smooth little face of yours?” she whispered coldly.
Gao Xiaolian didn’t dare to move. Her eyes were rimmed with red, both frightened and furious.
The woman viciously kicked the inside of her knee, nearly knocking her to the ground. “Then sit still!” she barked.
Zhang Chengling quickly bowed his head, acting like he hadn’t seen anything, in order to avoid the woman in black’s gaze. Once he saw her sit, he cautiously raised his head to carefully look over Gao Xiaolian.
He had always had a good impression towards her, thinking she was a soft-spoken, gentle, and pretty big sister. Since she had bruises on her face, she had obviously been beaten up — he determined at heart that these women in black were nothing good.
He thus looked towards the doorway, thinking anxiously, Why are those two not back yet?
The women were in a hurry, apparently, Unlike Zhang Chengling, who was chewing and swallowing very slowly, filling his stomach with little care. They immediately placed down food fare and went to leave, yet there was no sign of either Zhou Zishu or Wen Kexing returning.
Zhang Chengling could no longer sit still.
It was a weird thing, but Zhang Chengling only looked to be a special piece of trash in front of Zhou Zishu. For one, the word ‘trash’ was always hanging off of the world of his Master, who took the world’s first place in impatience. For two, having a Master to rely on at all was like a child having a mother, to him; for anything trivial, he would call out for his Master to help him, whereupon said powerful Master would come help, cursing at him all the while.
Zhou Zishu wasn’t around this time, yet Zhang Chengling was calm and daring. After secretly calling for the worker and giving multiple directions, he carefully chased after them.
On another end in the past, Zhou Zishu — who would not be returning that night — was also having an adventure.
Wen Kexing was listening to the sounds of both the bed and the people inside the room getting more and more wild, and couldn’t help but be somewhat puzzled. For something so ‘great’ to be in the boudoir of a lady that accepts guests… was she deaf, blind, or dumb? Did she not notice that the base of her bed was empty, and that there was a huge nest of scorpions under it?
He took Zhou Zishu’s hand, then wrote onto his palm: Whose room is this?
The other paused for a time, then scrawled back: The Boss Scorpion’s.
Wen Kexing was even more lost. Is the Venom chief actually letting hookers receive guests in his own bedroom? he thought, horrified. Is the Boss Scorpion so poor, he can’t support himself with murder and arson? Does he need to deal in the business of flesh, too?
He then etched onto Zhou Zishu’s palm: The Bawd Scorpion?
Zhou Zishu shook his head, puzzling Wen Kexing further.
He listened carefully for a minute. To his discovery, there were actually three people in the room, but the battle between the man and the woman was so intense, the third person’s voice was nearly covered up. Their breathing was extremely light, yet he could hear a slight quickness to it.
Wen Kexing grew increasingly horrified, thinking, The Boss Scorpion’s kink is… really weird.
Thus, he scrawled: Can he not perform?
Zhou Zishu paused for a slightly long while, then cautiously nodded.
The moonlight was just now coming to shine upon his profile. His expression was serious, as if Sir Zhou was handling some national affair, and not eavesdropping at the bottom of a wall.
Wen Kexing gazed at him, feeling that if this man took second place in looking dignified, no one could place first.
Some time passed, and the noises in the room slowly died down. Zhou Zishu was under the impression that they were about done, so he waited patiently for them to leave. Unexpectedly, after not too long, the bed boards started creaking again, and with even more fervor this time.
He creased his brow. Were those two not done yet? How thick-skinned and dim-witted did they have to be to thrown so much energy into this when someone was ogling them?!
Wen Kexing was nearly tickled by his twisted-up expression. In his ears was the sounds of the room, plus the intermittent singing in the foreyard, as he looked at the one before him. His eyes specially lingered on Zhou Zishu’s waist and legs.
The two inside were having a great lot of fun, so he had nothing else to do other than stare at those two improper spots, his mind going haywire.
After a full minute of going haywire, he raised his hand and place it on Zhou Zishu’s waist. The latter’s brows knotted tighter, and he tilted his head to glance at him.
Wen Kexing raised a finger to his lips with a smile, looking quite innocent.
Zhou Zishu felt like he was was being harassed a bit too sensually. However, upon thinking of how he was a big ol’ man, touches were just touches — who would be getting one up on who was not for certain.
Therefore, he magnanimously ignored him.
Having successfully taken his much, Wen Kexing continued to be feign obedience, slowly moving his hand down his waist. It gave him increasing gratification when his felt path went along smoothly. He was just a little on the lean side, but being lean had lean advantages. Were those clothes to come off, that tiny waist could be pinched, and feel it all the worse.
Refusing to be upstaged, Zhou Zishu reached back and pinched him on his royal rump. In tandem with the shriek of the woman in the room, he tweaked it, too, and lightly let out a puff of air. With a side-eye given to Wen Kexing, he chuckled.
The look in Wen Kexing’s eyes immediately sank. He went and held him tightly in his embrace, then kissed him before that smile of his faded away.
Neither of them dared to make a commotion, leaving them with a very finite margin to compete within.
The first time, Zhou Zishu hadn’t reacted. The second time, he had been injured and unwell. This time, it could be considered the first instance of him actually going against his opponent.
Of the two of them, one had lingered amongst bouquets, made acquaintances with countless courtesans, and had the life mission of beauing all across the land, while the other had escaped from the capital on Fullmoon River’s banks thirty li away, was accustomed to clinking cups together and putting on a show, both things of which had always involved romance. Lips and tongues intertwined — were the eastern wind to not overwhelm the western wind, then the western wind would overwhelm the eastern wind.
An unknown amount of time passed. The breaths held in their chests had nearly run out by the time the two very enthusiastic voices quieted down inside. Wen Kexing then let go of Zhou Zishu — who was similarly a bit breathless, yet trying to suppress it — then grabbed one of his hands, coming in very close.
All of a sudden, he stopped smiling, and looked at Zhou Zishu tranquilly. There seemed to be a million words he wanted to say in that moment, yet they all ended up returning to silence. The people inside the room had ceased fire, allowing the singing from the foreyard to become clearer, a delicate female gently calling out, “Reminded of Xizhou by plum blossoms, she snaps a branch off to send to Jiangbei…”
Wen Kexing wrote into Zhou Zishu’s palm, stroke by strike: I just hope that my gent’s heart is like my own, and won’t turn his back upon our twin feelings.
Zhou Zishu gazed at him for a long time in silence. He slowly closed his hand, thus gently squeezing Wen Kexing’s fingers into his palm, but it was only a brief touch before he quickly let go. He looked down, avoiding Wen Kexing’s gaze once more, and sighed imperceptibly.
Inside the room right then, a male voice whispered in full contentment, “Okay. You all can go.”
This was followed by the sound of a door opening. Zhou Zishu took this chance to leap upwards like a swallow, land noiselessly upon the roof, and gently lifted a roof tile away to create gap and look inside.
Wen Kexing looked at his fingers, as if the other man’s warmth was still lingering upon them. Alas, the night’s wind was too cold, and with a single puff, it was gone.
He couldn’t describe the feeling that came into his heart. All he could do was laugh bitterly, as if mocking himself.
Zhou Zishu had thought that his actions were pretty quiet, yet the person in the room seemed to have detected him long before this. He raised his head very languidly, happening to meet with his gaze.
This caught Zhou Zishu off guard. Seeing the man smile at him, he felt embarrassed at his own lack of taste, so he got off the roof and lightly knocked on the window. “An uninvited guest has turned up without being asked to come. Please forgive me, Sir,” he called out crisply.
The window was pushed open from the inside. A man in plain clothes was standing within, a cup of tea held in his hands. His gaze lingered upon Zhou Zishu, then swept over to Wen Kexing, and he smiled. “If the two of you wanted to watch together, all you had to do was knock on the door and come in. Why the need to be so sneaky?”
His voice seemed almost non-existent and particularly soft, as if afraid that he would startle something if he was too loud. He himself appeared refined, bearing monolids and a straight nose, yet also pretty pretentious. Just by looking at his face, one could tell that he was the Boss Scorpion, who was definitely lacking in eight lifetimes’ worth of virtues.
Zhou Zishu was thick-skinned by nature. This didn’t make him uncomfortable to hear at all, and he said with total naturalness, “Many thanks for your abundant consideration, but that won’t be necessary. To be completely honest, we came to request something.”
The Scorpion looked at him. “Most of those that come looking for me only want one of two things; they either make my babies go murder and set fires, or they come to ask who made my babies go murder and set fires. Judging by both of your skill levels, it’s the second type, isn’t it?”
“Correct,” Zhou Zishu answered calmly.
Placing his gaiwan to the side, the Scorpion crossed his arms over his chest and looked him over ponderously. “What can you do for me, then?”
“Don’t hesitate to say what you want,” Zhou Zishu said, and quite boldly.
Seeing that he was pretty outspoken, the look on his face saying that he was affluent and fearless with that foundation, the Scorpion sneered. In general, people like this were either overly self-important, believing that there was nothing they couldn’t do or nothing they couldn’t own with their sky-scraping mountain of riches, or… would set their minds upon reneging their set bets.
No matter what sky-high price you demand, I will never sit on the floor and pay it back, nor give you any coin.
“If I asked you to accompany me for a night, would you agree to it?” the Scorpion asked leisurely.
Zhou Zishu fastidiously scrutinized his face, then moved his gaze to look about the other’s waist, legs, and rear-end. It was only after this that he reluctantly agreed. “Fine.”
Wen Kexing, who had been listening nearby with great relish, immediately put up a protest. “It’s not fine! We’ve shared the same bed for so long, yet I’ve never seen you consent so readily!”
Zhou Zishu looked up at him, then countered with, “Do you know the answer to what I’m about to ask?”
Wen Kexing choked.
The Scorpion started laughing, however. While licking his lips, his gaze moved dangerously between the two of them, after which he brought out a small jar, shook it twice, and dumped two dice out from it into his hand. “This is better,” he said softly. “Both of you will make a bet with me. Win a round, and I’ll tell you one thing. Lose a round, and…”
“I’ve realized at last why he’s so pressed to make money,” Wen Kexing whispered to Zhou Zishu. “With this interest of his, no matter how big his familial capital is, it wouldn’t be enough for him to gamble away. Have you not heard of the phrase, ‘One mind set on winning money, two eyes suffused with red, three meals of no flavor, four limbs of no strength, five faculties laid to waste, six close relatives unheeded, seven orifices giving off smoke, eight directions borrowed from—‘“
Zhou Zishu stomped on his foot.
The Scorpion chuckled. “There’s sense in what you’re saying, but isn’t one’s entire life just one big gamble? A great many people want me dead, and if I die, they win. If I don’t die, they will feel on-edge at all times, having no idea when I’ll come seeking their life. Tell me — if life was smooth-sailing, would it not be much too boring?”
“What happens if we lose a round to you, again?” Zhou Zishu asked, thus interrupting this deep discussion about life between two young’uns.
The Scorpion side-eyed him. “No need to be alarmed, I don’t want your money or your lives. If you lose a round, you both will put on a show for me to see, and will stop once I feel invigorated enough from the sight... It’s just that two gents weighing things up and then losing too much won’t have too pleasant an end.”
Without another thought, Zhou Zishu said with absolute decisiveness, “Farewell.”
At the same exact time, Wen Kexing contrarily blurted out what he had been vainly hoping for all along, “I think these are fantastic stakes!”
Pretending that he didn’t know who he was, Zhou Zishu uncaringly walked out.
“And that’s what I feared,” the Scorpion said behind him. “You did tell me to make whatever offer I wanted just now, you know.”
Zhou Zishu kept on going. “I’m a man of age. Indirect manipulation tactics are what I do,” was what casually came out of him.
Wen Kexing smiled apologetically from nearby. “Um… forgive him, Brother Scorpion. Everything else about this spouse of mine is great, but he’s juvenile and far too thin-skinned...”
Before he could finish that sentence, he saw Zhou Zishu expressionlessly turn back around and ask the Scorpion, “How are we gambling?”
There were times where the efficacy of indirect manipulation tactics didn’t matter, but the one who was using them did.
The Scorpion raised a little goblet containing the dice, causing Zhou Zishu to laugh coldly. “That’s something that takes no skill. We might find ourselves with no clear victor even if we play through the night.”
Furrowing his brows, the Scorpion thought a bit, then turned and walked into the room. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu also jumped inside via the window. Upon witnessing the Scorpion pull out a bundle of small needles as thin as cow hairs, Zhou Zishu’s brows also furrowed; he had experienced this trick before.
The Scorpion picked up one needle and lightly licked it with the tip of his tongue. “This one had yet to be daubed in poison. Why don’t we bet on who can eat the most of these?”
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing looked at each other. In that moment, they were of one mind, thinking at the exact same time: Why is Ye Baiyi not here?
The Scorpion narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth, and took a bite, snapping the needle into chunks like it was a dry noodle, which was followed by him swallowing it down just like so. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing exchanged another look, having no expected the Boss Scorpion to have teeth made of metal.
“Are you two gents going to play, or undress?” the Scorpion asked with a smile.
Wen Kexing seemed to really want to pick the latter option, only for Zhou Zishu to suddenly pick up a wine cup from the table. He opened his own flask, poured himself a full cup, then reached out and took two needles between his fingertips — they both turned into a fine powder and dissolved into the wine instantly.
He looked up at the Scorpion. The man was still rather relaxed, gesturing for him to go right ahead. With a scowl, Zhou Zishu drank down all the wine until light shone on the cup’s bottom.
Wen Kexing watched his face, figuring that the wine’s flavor was probably not any better than the one that’d had walnuts in it.
The Scorpion grinned. “Don’t hate me for not reminding you in time that drinking wine like that takes up more space in your stomach than mine, my good fellow. Were the two of you going to play against me together?”
Wen Kexing quickly waved him off. “No, no, no. This humble one does not possess such elegance.. nor appetite. The two of you may do as you please.”
Zhou Zishu suddenly laughed. “I’ve consumed two, and you’ve consumed one. As I see it, that’s enough to win over you.”
Right as he finished speaking, he made a cheap move of slapping the table, forcing those thin needles to fly out in every direction, cold light gleaming everywhere.
The Scorpion felt a current of force come crashing towards him. Subconsciously grunting, ducked and darted away, only to turn his head back and see that all of the needles had brushed past him to stick into the walls. They went a few cun deep into them, unable to be extracted even if one wanted to.
Wen Kexing couldn’t help but call out his compliments. Ah-Xu’s action was extremely shameless, he thought to himself, and a lot like my own variety. He truly practices what he preaches.
The Scorpion frowned, then immediately relaxed. “What is your esteemed family name, good brother?” he asked, neither cowed nor furious.
“My humble family name is Zhou.”
The other nodded. “Your skills and schemes are good, Brother Zhou. However…”
He opened up his hand. One needle laid on his palm, which he raised up to his mouth, grinning. “I’m afraid this round is a tie.”
Zhou Zishu reached out without hesitation. It was now clear that he had also hidden a needle in his own palm at some unknown point. It wasn’t for him to eat, but to bring before the Scorpion’s face for a comparison.
The Scorpion’s expression twisted up, as only now did he notice that the piece he held had actually been cut short. This man had snapped it in half by his palm’s strength, unbeknownst to him.
Zhou Zishu smiled, grinding the fine needle he held into dust. “Two needles versus one-and-a-half needles. How do you plead?”
The Scorpion stared at him angrily. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu both believed that he was going to explode, yet his temper didn’t run like that, and his gambling temper was pretty good, too. He indifferently turned his eyes away a short moment later. “Fine. Those that accept bets must also accept losing them. What do you two wish to ask?”
“Sun Ding aside, who paid for you to kill Zhang Chengling?” Zhou Zishu asked.
The Scorpion paused to look them over. He seemed to comprehend something. “Zhang Chengling? Oh, I know who you two are… my people simply lost your trail in Dongting. I didn’t expect to find you here. How very amazing. Follow me.”
While he spoke, he lifted the bed’s base and dove in. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing followed close after him.
They went with him all the way through this secret passageway. The place was all cosmetics on the outside, exceptionally gloomy and strange on the inside. The Scorpion led them through twists and turns and an unknown amount of steps downwards until they reached its end.
The duo looked around, then realized that this place was a dungeon. Oppressive roaring that sounded human yet not sounded off all around them, putting the two of them on guard.
The Scorpion took a torch off the wall, then went to stand in front of a cell. “Come and take a look at this thing, gentlemen,” he said, his cheeriness faked. “It ought to be an old acquaintance of yours.”
During his speech, a ghastly-pale figure suddenly charged at him, apparently irritated by the light. It was hindered by the cell door, so it bared its teeth and swiped its claws, its visage horrifying.
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing got a good look at it. What was locked in there was actually a monster — the exact same type as those somewhat-human monsters they had encountered back in that mysterious cavern system!
They also saw the Scorpion looking at the creature with gentle eyes, as if it was a world-famous beauty. “These are our subjects,” he said, voice quiet. “Before their first birthday, they were human, but after that first birthday, they’ve been constantly fed drugs. This is what they’ve become today. They grew strong skin and bones, and a will to kill that overflows. They really are good children… but they aren’t too obedient. Perhaps the drugs used injured their brains. I’ll improve upon it later.”
The lax smile on Wen Kexing’s face vanished. “Those caverns were your arrangement, and your client was the Long-Tongued Wraith?” he asked darkly.
“Correct.”
“Bullshit,” Wen Kexing interjected. “I already ended the Long-Tongued Wraith’s life. Who was the one hunting down Zhang Chengling after that?”
The Scorpion gave a sly grin. “I only said that my client was the Long-Tongued Wraith. I didn’t say that no one else was giving him the command.”
“Ah. That’s a different question,” Zhou Zishu said. “You’re implying that if we want to know the answer to that, we’ll have to make a bet with you again?”
The other gave a slight half-rise. “Forgive me, Brother Zhou.”
Zhou Zishu impatiently flung his sleeve away. “How do you want to gamble?”
“My finesse in gambling on those little trinkets is inferior to yours,” the Scorpion said with a smile. “My ability to plot isn’t as sharp as yours, either. I fear that I’ll lose yet again. How about we leave things up to fate? We’ll go back out of here, head onto the streets, and then one of you two will be blindfolded. From there, once your hand touches the stone lion at the street’s entrance, you will begin counting, and then guess whether the twentieth person you see is male or female. How about it?”
“That’s a really pointless game. I fail to see how it’s of any benefit to you,” Wen Kexing had to say.
“The game doesn’t matter. As I see it, the most important factor is the word ‘gamble’ itself,” the Scorpion answered calmly. “For example, others will eat when hungry or drink when thirsty — if I cannot gamble, I won’t be able to go on living… what do the two of you say to that?”
Wen Kexing sighed, thinking of how strange things happened every year, and this year had many. He pointed at Zhou Zishu. “Blindfold him, so that he doesn’t think my intentions are wrong.”
Zhou Zishu looked at the Scorpion, having no objections.
Wen Kexing groped about in his pockets for a long time, brought out a sweat rag, then covered Zhou Zishu’s eyes with it, grabbing his arm after. “After you,” he said to the Scorpion.
The three of them hit the ground like so, going to the prostitution alley’s entrance like they were playing hide-and-seek.
“You’ll be able to touch the lion once you raise your hand, Brother Zhou,” the Scorpion said. “May my guests lay down their bets.”
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing spoke in unison: “A man.”
Even though wandering birds shuttled through here, the flow of pleasure-seeking customers was greater. Since the Boss Scorpion had been rather generous, it would be impolite for the duo to decline this; a tinge of indescribable excitement flashed across the Scorpion’s face, his eyes lit up, and he licked his lips eagerly. “Alright.”
The second Zhou Zishu raised his hand, the Scorpion began to count people out. Eighteen, nineteen… Even Wen Kexing was made somewhat nervous by his display.
Zhou Zishu had previously taken off his blindfold and was watching unblinkingly. The twentieth person passed by — it was a man in a changpao, with his hair up in a pin-crown!
A smile slowly grew on Zhou Zishu’s face. Right before he went to speak, though, his grin froze on his face when the man slowly got closer.
The Scorpion grinned at the duo triumphantly. He abruptly stepped forth to stop the passerby, startling them, and was heard to say in a gentle voice, “This is where prostitution goes on. It would be very inappropriate for a young lady to enter, as the reputation of a noble girl is very important. Please go home.”
‘His’ delicate and fair face turned some vibrant colors. The Scorpion said “Pardon me”, then quickly ripped the silk scarf around ‘his’ neck off, making ‘him’ give a short cry of alarm. ‘His’ throat was completely smooth, not a bump in it to be seen.
The Scorpion turned around, all smiles, and tucked his hands into his sleeves. “What do you say to this, Brother Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu really felt like throwing up, thinking of how this world’s ways had changed and peoples’ minds were no longer how the ancients’ were. A young madam from a rich family had actually run off in the middle of the night to play around in a world of flowers.
He raised his head to look up at the night sky. “Huh…”
The Scorpion huffed coldly. “Those that are intellectuals focus on ‘words begetting actions, actions begetting results.’ Children of jianghu said, ‘A noble’s word is like a whip for a quick horse.’ Even those little hooligans at the roadside know that every drop of spittle is like a nail. Are you going to grow fat from eating your own words, Brother Zhou?”
Wen Kexing, ever fearing a peaceful world, jabbed Zhou Zishu on the waist. “That’s right. Cheating and using tricks is fine, but not keeping to one’s word is too shameful. Even I wouldn’t be able to steel myself and keep you company anymore.”
Zhou Zishu smacked his pervy hands away, thinking: If you’re so compassionate, don’t keep me company at all.
He looked at the Scorpion, then turned and walked back in without a word.
The other’s face loosened up, a grin subsequently showing up on it. While his looks weren’t too bad, he wasn’t at all nice to look at when he smiled, his mouth somewhat crooked and looking especially ill-intented — paired with that lewd look in his eyes, he was even a little vulgar.
Wen Kexing suddenly had a slight sense of alarm. He looked at Zhou Zishu’s back, then at the one beside him, feeling that doing this in that guy’s presence was… something he needed to reconcile his mentality with.
He quickly found that he had been overthinking things, though.
The Scorpion stood, arms crossed, at the room’s entrance that emitted a gentle fragrance. Someone had apparently already come in and tidied up the bed, its curtains hanging loosely. He asked, “Do you two need a bath and change of clothes, or a little something to… add to the fun?”
Zhou Zishu rolled up his sleeves. “No need for all that trouble,” he answered, much like how a thug would. “Ink and a brush will serve well.”
The Scorpion was caught off guard. He clapped a short moment later, and a man dressed like a servant jogged over, bowing as he stood in front of him. When the Scorpion whispered something to him, Zhou Zishu quickly added, “I want a hundred sheets of xuan paper.”
The servant left, while the Scorpion looked at him. “You’re not trying to play another trick, are you, Brother Zhou?” he wondered.
Zhou Zishu put one leg over the other when he languidly sat on the edge of the bed, smiling. “Aren’t you sick of watching some meat piles rolling around all day long? Wait just a moment, and I’ll have you witnessing something fresh.”
Wen Kexing kept quiet, going with the flow. On the inside, he mulled over how if Ah-Xu had the means to cuck the Scorpion, that’d be great, as it would prevent the man from taking advantage. And if he truly thought about it… well, one had to obey who they married. He would inevitably have to take on the difficult job of risking his life to accompany his husband this time around.
In short order, a brush, inkstone, some papers, and ink were all prepped. Zhou Zishu stood up, then made a gesture of invitation towards the Scorpion. “Please wait a little while.”
The Scorpion was in no rush, of course. He closed the door behind himself, went and picked up the tea pot, and poured himself a drink… only to see Zhou Zishu pick up the brush without hesitation. Seeing the pose he was taking, he had quite the aura of being from an influential family of painters, and his brush seemed to fly — in not even a few strokes, he was done with one sheet, hanging it up to dry before reaching his evil claws out for another.
At first, Wen Kexing had had no idea what he was doing, standing nearby and craning his neck to look. The more he watched, the weirder his expression grew, and the higher his eyebrows rose, until they were practically flying off of his face. As if this was the first time he was getting to know Zhou Zishu as a person, he felt true astonishment that he wasn’t sure how to express. All he could do was stand by him, his hands tied in a very dignified manner.
After a incense stick’s worth of time, Zhou Zishu had efficiently used up about a dozen sheets of paper. His massive undertaking completed, he tossed his brush to the side, picked up the final sheet, and gently blew on it to dry it. This was ended with him picking up the very first sheet, then slapping it against the wall forcefully, causing the delicate xuan paper to stick to it. His movements were unceasing — in not much time at all, he had set up his dozen-ish papers in sequence and smacked the total sum of them onto the wall, too.
The Scorpion’s complexion had already turned green.
On those dozen-ish sheets was very simple linework, the picture they painted being… erotica.
It was very simple erotica. There were only two players; a circle represented a head, and extending outwards was a scant few strokes outlines the body and all four limbs… ahem, five limbs. Despite the simplicity of the drawing, the figures’ actions were yet realistic. The entire sequence had been drawn precisely, from how they undressed to the very end, and it even gave the illusion that the painted people were moving when one looked across the papers.
Wen Kexing held himself back for a very, very long moment, then tried to make as appropriate of an evaluation as possible. “Ah-Xu, I didn’t know you had such talent.”
“My talents are lacking and an embarassment,” Zhou Zishu said, quickly and politely.
Seeing as this guy’s skin was getting thicker and thicker, Wen Kexing didn’t know what to say.
The Scorpion forcefully thunked the gaiwan he held onto the table and stood up with a bang. He was so terribly angry, it had turned into amusement. “Are you messing with me, Brother Zhou?”
Zhou Zishu hid his hands in his sleeves, answering calmly, “What makes you say that? I asked who wanted Zhang Chengling dead, and your admirable self only told us who your client was, not telling of who was giving orders behind him. Was that not loophole abuse? As such, you only said that the two of us needed to put on a show for you to witness…”
He reached out and knocked on the wall paintings. “So we put on a show. If the painting has some areas that don’t quite look right, please give all the comments you have, sire.”
Wen Kexing appeared to fear that the Scorpion wouldn’t understand, explaining passionately, “I’m truly sorry for my spouse’s poor craftsmanship. Come, now. If you don’t grasp something, I can tell you what it is. This figure on top here is me—“
“Explanations are just a way to gloss things over. Why bother?” Zhou Zishu coolly interrupted, giving him the side-eye.
The Scorpion’s fists clenched tight as he squeeze a few words out between his teeth, “Your tricks have gone too far!”
Right before he finished speaking, and even though he wasn’t seen to make any sort of motion, around eight Venoms in pure black clothes appeared out of nowhere from all four directions. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu didn’t look to be too shocked, however, with the former smiling and saying, “This humble one is truly embarrassed that our spot of romance was witnessed by so many of you gents.”
The Venoms had no intention of chatting. Without even a hello, they charged forth, their trained coordination making it seem like they were collectively only two separate bodies. Zhou Zishu overturned the small table before them with a slap of the hand, then took that chance to quickly step backwards. It was nearing midnight right about now; a muted pain was beginning to vaguely grow within his chest, so he wasn’t going to try showing off.
“I’ll leave it to you,” he said to Wen Kexing, ever the wise man that wouldn’t suffer an obvious loss, then followed it up by feinting a move to dodge a Venom, vault out of the window, and flee.
Wen Kexing laughed bitterly on repeat. This was the first time in his life that he was going to clean up someone else’s mess.
Seeing as Zhou Zishu had already run off and vanished, Wen Kexing no longer held mercy within his actions, striking out with a palm. The Venom before him looked like the hit had sucked him dry of all blood and essence, n the exposed portion of skin on his face swiftly withering while his eyes bulged out — it was like he had turned into a mummy, dead in mere seconds.
Wen Kexing looked at his own palm, lightly sighing. “It was just a little joke, Brother Scorpion. Why get so angry?”
The Scorpion collected himself. He raised his hand to stop his Venoms, then apprehensively sized Wen Kexing up. “Who are you?” he asked.
Wen Kexing looked back up at him. “If you still don’t know who I am at this point, sire, wouldn’t your Venoms be beyond useless?”
The Scorpion seemed to remember something. His eyes twitched.
Like he wasn’t planning on having anyone hear him, Wen Kexing lowered his voice and said with a grin, “We are both vile creatures on crooked paths. Why should we get in each other’s ways?”
With that, he turned to leave.
Although the man was always smiling and had no visible malice whatsoever in his expression, in that instant, he was mystifyingly emitting an intense, bloody aura that was hard to ignore. The many Venoms present were compelled by that aura, not a one of them daring to bar his way.
“Don’t you want to know who bought the suicide warriors…?” the Scorpion suddenly called after him.
Wen Kexing turned his head to look at him. “Thank you, but I have a general gist of it.”
He, too, jumped out the window in pursuit of Zhou Zishu, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Only the words that came out of his mouth seemed to remain where he’d once been: “If I was too stupid to figure it out, how could I be about to go flay those ghouls that keep watching me like predators?”
In the Wind Cliffs and Bamboo Ridge, there were many Vile Wraiths.
Zhou Zishu wasn’t walking too quickly. He had been thinking all this while about the ‘subjects’ he had seen in the Scorpion’s dungeons, and the legendary Long-Tongued Wraith, who had obviously recognized Wen Kexing, yet had still tried to kill him. There was surely a long story, there. The Long-Tongued Wraith didn’t seem that capable… and who was the one backing him?
Was it the red-clothed Sun Ding creating a distraction, or the six-fingered Hanging Wraith Xue Fang causing mischief?
Right then, he heard the sudden sound of hurried footsteps coming close to him.
It was already far into the night, watchmen having long taken to the streets. He subconsciously ducked into an alley nearby, forcing his qi to circulate in order to make the Nails’ flare-up not so intense, and listened carefully.
The person in question seemed to be getting closer and closer. Their footsteps were chaotic, but he could tell that they were using agility arts. It was just that for some reason, their breathing was extremely rough, like they were… injured?
Before he got to see who it was, he heard someone approach him from behind. Spine going stiff, he turned his head quickly, crooking his fingers into claws to grab the other’s throat — but he was stopped partway through.
Wen Kexing patted his chest while looking at him like he had been wronged, mouthing the words, ‘Trying to murder your husband?’
Zhou Zishu retracted his hand only then, proceeding to watch the direction of the noise.
The one who scurried over was actually familiar; she was Liu Qianqiao, the Green Monster that had once sought him out due to the Whorl Beryl. She hadn’t face-changed this time around, her true, horrifying visage on display. The state of her was even more bedraggled, with her hair scattered everywhere and blood leaking out of the corner of her mouth.
Zhou Zishu’s brow began to slightly furrow.
An arm suddenly caught him off guard by reaching out and looping him tight around the waist, and a hand was placed against his chest.
“Don’t suppress it, or you’ll be in even more pain tomorrow,” he heard Wen Kexing whisper into his ear. “We’ll just wait out here for a minute.”
Zhou Zishu continued to frown. “But…”
Wen Kexing shushed him. He simply held him gently, a fine trace of internal power going through his pam and rushing into Zhou Zishu to straighten out his meridians. Even so, he dared not used even a little bit of force, afraid that the action would jolt the Nails too greatly.
Zhou Zishu paused, yet did not push him away, merely shutting his eyes in rest.
Regardless of who ran past them, they would first endure this night.
While they were spending their night away, Zhang Chengling pursued the group of black-clothed women by himself. He didn’t get too close out of fear of being discovered, and also grabbed mud from the roadside, smeared it all over his face, then mussed his hair up to look like a beggar child, out of fear of being recognized.
He pursued them for a full day. The women were like ascetic monks, their pace quick and without breaks for rest. It was only when darkness came down again that they stopped at a small inn. As Zhang Chengling watched, he felt like Gao Xiaolian’s suffering was beyond words, getting dragged along by the women all this way. He figured that if she went a few more days like this, she would likely be left half-dead.
From his own initiative had come one bold decision, and with that, he couldn’t stop himself from a second bold one. Thus was why he plotted out how to use the nighttime to rescue Miss Gao.
Upon seeing the black-clothed women enter the inn, he smeared more mud on himself and followed them in under the guise of begging for alms. After staggering around, he pleaded out about five copper coins, committed the room Gao Xiaolian had been shoved into to memory, then went to crouch outside the inn. Like a true beggar, he sat on the steps with his head lowered and knees hugged — no one paid him any mind. Despite the prosperity of the world, beggars that looked like him were all over the place/
It wasn’t until midnight that he got up, moving his numbed limbs around, and prepared to sneak in.
He silently recited the mantras of the Nine Palace Steps as if doing so would make him a bit stronger, shuttling between the rooms without a sound.
All of a sudden, a dark shadow dropped from above without warning. It was one of the black-clothed women; without making a sound, she lifted her hand as she moved closer to him.
Zhang Chengling didn’t have much self-confidence, but he had been trained by two experts for half a year, after all; coupled with all his hard work, he was no longer how he used to be. Like a swimming fish, he slipped out of the way, not meeting his counterpart’s force with force.
They soon began to exchange moves in a brawl.
However, after not too long, the woman appeared to realize something, gasping lightly. She immediately made a feint and vanished from Zhang Chengling’s view.
Even though his martial arts had improved, he was still inexperienced. He jumped in fright and went looking all around him, only for the woman to suddenly leap out behind him.
He felt a numbness coming from the major acupoint at his neck and shoulder, after which his mouth was covered by a hand as the woman carried him off.
There was only one phrase going through Zhang Chengling’s mind: I’m done for!
He had always followed Zhou Zishu before this; what was right, wrong, long, short, round, or flat had all been thought through by his innately over-thinking and hard-working Master. As a dumb kid, Zhang Chengling could never keep up with the two’s thought processes, so he was perfectly content with being lazy and having an empty head with no thoughts all day long. At this point in time, he had nothing to personally rely on, but the mind was unusually adaptable.
He wondered why that group of women hated Gao Xiaolian to the extent that they wanted to bring her away, not reluctant to be hindered by her on their journey and even taking care to feed her? She clearly had some sort of use to them, else she would have been dead long ago. In jianghu, vicious people that glared and murdered were the least in short supply, so… did they capture him to put him on trial?
He firmly decided that even if they did interrogate him, he would never provide them his true identity, else the trouble would be massive and he would invite even more problems onto himself… what if Gao Xiaolian recognized him, though?
His mind rumbled with a wave of chaotic thoughts as the woman in black hauled him out of the inn like a sack. When they reached a small corner beside the stables, she suddenly set him down, though.
He looked her up in down in utter shock, but she just undid his acupoint with a wave of her hand, pulled the mask off of her face, and opened her mouth to ask, “Are you that little good-for-nothing, Zhang Chengling?”
Zhang Chengling’s eyes widened, which was immediately followed by him wanting to cry tears of joy and nearly throwing himself forwards. He barely managing to suppress his trembling voice to call out, “Sister Gu Xiang!”
He opened his arms like he wanted to give her a hug, but she held him back with one hand and shoved him to the side. “Men and women aren’t to be close. I’m married. Don’t go waving your limbs all over the place,” she said, deadpan.
Zhang Chengling blinked. He looked at her stupidly for a long time, then had a sudden epiphany. “Huh? You and Brother Cao are married? I get it. You and him are of… one blanket, right?”
Her face turned red. She scowled at him fiercely. “What are you blabbering about? What bastard taught you that filthy stuff?”
The difference between young and old women was that no matter how fearless a young woman was, that only applied to when she was speaking of the affairs of others. When things landed upon her own head, she would always be tender-faced.
Truthfully, Zhang Chengling’s thoughts had been innocent. No one — either in the Zhang home or on his journey of exile — had ever really informed him of how ‘certain things’ worked. He had merely heard bits and pieces from the mutual back-and-forth flirting of his two Masters who had not gained decency with age, then combined that with his own thoughts, resulting in him drawing the conclusion of: ‘Those that sleep under the same blanket are married.’
As such, in his youthful and innocent head, blankets had become something mystical, like the ceremony of exchanging nuptial wine. He didn’t think there was anything impure about it, which was why he had asked as much.
Gu Xiang thus bristled, reaching over to teach the tactless little rascal a lesson. He quickly ducked away while reciting mantras — this has practically become his signature, where if he didn’t recite anything, he wouldn’t be able to use his agility arts.
Gu Xiang gasped again. When she had just set to attacking, she had felt that the brat had some skills’ if it wasn’t for some of his moves looking fairly familiar, she almost wouldn’t have recognized him in this pitch darkness.
She sized him up, then said, “I haven’t seen you for some time, yet you’ve gotten more promising? Where’s my Lord and your Master?”
Zhang Chengling recounted the full tale of how he had been callously tossed aside by that pair of mutt men. After listening to the end, Gu Xiang let out a pah, then slapped him upside the head. “Are your wings grown in? Do you even know who those people are? Even me and… and Brother Cao are careful not to act rashly. What kind of ‘brave hero’ are you trying to be?” she scolded.
While she spoke, yet another person dressed in black clothes and a mask jumped down from the top of the wall. They, too, were wearing a woman’s long skirts. “Why are you taking so long, Ah-Xiang? I thought—“
That was a man’s voice, actually. Upon seeing Zhang Chengling, he suddenly stopped speaking and took off his mask — he turned out to be Cao Weining.
He stared at Zhang Chengling for a good time, then raised his finger to point at him. “Ah… you’re… that little guy, Zhang Chengling? Why are you pretending to be an ugly clown? Where’s your Master and the rest?”
Zhang Chengling obediently went to tell the story once again, only for Gu Xiang to cut him off. “No stupid reminiscing right now! Let’s get that Gao girl quickly. You can talk later.”
She took out a piece of paper from her lapels, upon which were crookedly-drawn lines and a few scribblings that lacked some strokes, indecipherable to all. “I drew bunch of the inn’s rooms,” she said. “This circled area is where Gao Xiaolian is being locked up. Damn… I was thinking that they were taking turns watching her, but those women seem to be pretty vigilant, not even trusting their own people. One that old biddy and a few of her close confidantes can meet with Gao Xiaolian.”
Cao Weining came in close, tapping his chin. “What do we do?”
Zhang Chengling was eager to get going. As if addicted to taking risks after his first one, he proposed a very bad idea. “Why don’t we make a commotion? I’ll lead them away, you two can go rescue her, and then we can reconvene.”
“Good idea!” said Cao Weining.
“If even one of the three of us was of the same caliber as your Master or my Lord, we wouldn’t even need to strategize, as we could just barge in, grab her, and get out,” Gu Xiang said coldly. “You’ve been learning agility arts for only a few days, and now you’re thinking of ‘leading people away’, you brat?”
“Yes, you’re right, Ah-Xiang,” said Cao Weining, immediately going turncoat.
Zhang Chengling quietly shot a look at him. Even if Gu Xiang said ‘Cao Weining is a scoundrel-ass bastard,’ this guy would still nod his head, bow, and say ‘You’re right, Ah-Xiang,’ without the slightest bit of moral integrity.
“These women are not ordinary people,” Gu Xiang said, beginning to devise a strategy. “Their leader is known as the ‘Madame of the Black Gu’, and she’s rumored to be from Nanjiang, capable of sorcery and plaguemancy and such—”
As soon as Zhang Chengling heard the name ‘Nanjiang’, he had to butt in. “How so? The Great Shaman in a good person…”
Gu Xiang rolled her eyes. “What’s this about the Great Shaman? He oversees Nanjiang’s infinite mountains, so how can he also manage every single bug and blade of grass within them? Besides, I said it was just a rumor.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Cao Weining immediately picked up. “We of the Central Plains have always been secretive towards matters of the South, but we truthfully aren’t too clear on its workings, ourselves.”
Zhang Chengling had to give him a wordless look.
“How powerful this Madame is, I can’t say for sure…” Gu Xiang continued, “…but no matter what, I can’t beat her. Brother Cao, if this was going to be an average fight, I might have some confidence in us, but after following them on their journey and keeping watch on them, I feel like the Madame definitely has some special tricks. That makes her hard to deal with. There’s a lot of them, too.”
“How about… we waft disorienting incense over them?” Cao Weining suggested.
“Do you think the Madame of the Black Gu will fall for a trap either you or I set? What we Central Plainspeople can do is inferior to what Nanjiang people can do, you…”
She seemed to want to reprimand him, but with one look at him, she swallowed her words back down. This was her man, in the end — she couldn’t bear it.
“That makes sense, and that’s how it should be,” Cao Weining quickly said, readily accepting the criticism. “I am truly too stupid, so I’ll just listen to what you say.”
The three stupid simpletons thus decided to blindly follow Gu Xiang’s lead, and she began to direct them in a decent enough fashion.
Zhou Zishu endured until three-quarters past midnight, when he felt that the Nails’ pain was already not so potent any longer, and it was only then that he realized that their positions weren’t quite right. Issuing a dry cough, he wrested free of Wen Kexing’s arms.
He saw Wen Kexing watching him calmly. “The erotica you drew was pretty true to life, Ah-Xu. Being able to finish them in one stroke means that you must have a lot of past experience, hm?” he asked, his smile fake.
“You flatter me. It was nothing more than some casual doodles,” Zhou Zishu answered, his smile similarly fake.
“Oh? Can ‘casual doodles’ really be that expressive?”
Zhou Zishu turned away, walked out of the alley, then crouched to carefully investigate the bloodstains on the ground. “Looks like she ran over to that side,” he stated in regards to the previous issue, “but why is she even here?”
Wen Kexing followed him like a shadow. He sighed upon hearing what he said. “Oh, Ah-Xu. Why are you being so formal with me? If you have an idea, you can always speak your mind. We can discuss the position issue, too.”
“There’s no need to discuss that,” Zhou Zishu said, collected.
Wen Kexing gave a vulgar smile. “Even better.”
“Quit dreaming,” said the other, interrupting his beautiful thoughts.
With that, he tracked the blood trail. Wen Kexing followed behind, clearly out of it; he currently had hormones on the brain, and didn’t care at all as to whether Liu Qianqiao was dead or alive.
In the middle of their pursuit, Zhou Zishu suddenly asked, “The Long-Tongued Wraith wants you dead, and the one behind him wants you dead, too… why?”
The man that had just been jabbering up a storm abruptly went mute. Right when Zhou Zishu thought that he wasn’t ready to answer, he heard him say, “Why do you think I came to be the Lord of Wraith Vale?”
Zhou Zishu looked over at him. “Your tremendous power,” he said flatly.
Wen Kexing smiled faintly. It was a slightly taut thing that faintly contained something crazed within it. “I’m the Lord because they can’t do anything to me. Whoever enters Wraith Vale will have all the sins they accumulated outside of it written away… but if it was a utopia, wouldn’t it be overcrowded?”
Even Zhou Zishu’s toes could understand that logic. He remained silent in that moment, however… as if he wanted to hear the man say it for himself.
“Beneath the Wind Cliffs, there is no morality,” Wen Kexing continued. “It’s either eat, or be eaten. No one can do anything about me and I can kill whoever I want to kill, so I’m the Lord. They can’t kill me for right now, so they can only obey me. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t want me dead. If they have the chance, they’ll kick up a fuss… for example, some people believe that if they get the tome Rong Xuan once had, they’d be able to do in a devil like me.”
Zhou Zishu watched him. “So, in order to get rid of you, the Vile Wraiths have braved the risk of getting ‘burnt’ by the sun by violating the rules and leaving the Vale to wreak havoc?”
Wen Kexing started to laugh soundlessly. “That’s because the Wraiths really don’t have much patience. Previous Lords haven’t been able to stay alive in the positions for more than three years. This is my eighth year already, yet I so distastefully refuse to keel over. Tell me; how could they not be getting antsy?”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for a while, then said, “If I could live a little bit longer, I could think of a way for you to never need to go back, and take care of you like you’re a boytoy.”
Wen Kexing paused, then turned to look at him, as if trying to confirm whether or not he was joking. After a while, he asked, “You said… that you’d take care of me?”
Zhou Zishu grinned. “It doesn’t matter what seat one takes — if they’re trapped in just one, they’ll be uncomfortable. That feeling…”
He stopped there, the rest of his words dying within a shallow smile.
That feeling was one no one understood better than he did.
Dawn was about to shine. Liu Qianqiao’s trail soon cut off. The two of them searched the original area for a time, yet found not a thing.
Right when they were about to leave, though, a woman’s scream was suddenly heard.
Zhou Zishu’s brow creased. He launched himself in the direction it came from.
The two of them concealed their breathing, lightened their footsteps, and hide to watch from the sidelines, only to see Liu Qianqiao with an arrow in her shoulder, still in the midst of a hard struggle with someone whose face was also a familiar one — it was Huang Daoren of the Mount Cang Sect.
Zhou Zishu couldn’t comprehend how the two had come to be here, then gotten to wrangling. Wen Kexing just idly watched the spectacle.
Liu Qianqiao was already injured, and Huang Daoren was pressuring her backwards, step-by-step. Seeing that she kept staggering from side to side and was being forced back the whole time, Huang Daoren leapt upwards, then hacked downwards with a loud roar, some malice flashing past that old face of his. It was vicious, containing not a smidgen of the valiance he’d had when Zhou Zishu had kicked him flying.
Sure enough, he was someone that knew to act weak when encountering the strong, and act strong when encountering the weak.
Liu Qianqiao quickly raised her shortsword above her head.
Her sword was several cun longer than Gu Xiang’s dagger, but every cun it lacked was another cun of risk. She didn’t have as many sly tricks as Gu Xiang, either.
In this risky block, Huang Daoren’s blade practically sliced across her finger. She felt a chilling, murderous aura, which was followed by her sword breaking off at the hilt. She fell to the ground in a sorry state, rolling away from that very spot.
One hunted without rest and one scrambled for her life in what was almost a sadomasochistic tryst. Upon seeing Huang Daoren chase a lady further away like some kind of beast, Wen Kexing poked Zhou Zishu. “That chick’s in trouble. Aren’t you going to rescue her?” he said, words pointed.
Lamenting how very dull this guy was, Zhou Zishu answered without looking at him, “This husband fears you’ll be jealous.”
Wen Kexing went quiet for a very, very long time.
“Be a bit more serious, Ah-Xu,” he said sternly. “Stop getting one over me all the time.”
Zhou Zishu couldn’t help but cock his head to look at him, thinking in shock, This Wen guy actually knows what the word ‘serious’ is?
He watched as Wen Kexing’s brows slightly furrowed, and how — with an extremely upright posture and straight face — he said, “I am someone liable to hold grudges. I’ll remember how you’ve teased me all the time from now on, and if you can’t keep up when Duke Zhou’s ceremony[25] comes, you’ll be the one that suffers.”
Zhou Zishu went quiet for a bit. “You think too much.”
He went back to following Liu Qianqiao’s trail, not turning his head, thinking all the while of how something must have happened in jianghu while the three of them had hid out in Shuzhong for almost half a year. Back in Dongting, there had already been a faint whiff that a mountain storm was about to come down and blow down buildings, while they had left to go to Marionette Manor.
Zhou Zishu glanced at the languidly-following Wen Kexing out of his peripheral, thinking to himself, He’s the Lord of Wraith Vale; wouldn’t it be impossible for him to not have seen what was going on at the time? He just let his subordinates wreak havoc while he followed Ye Baiyi like this? Isn’t he afraid that someone will actually get the Whorl Beryl and Key, obtain Rong Xuan’s martial arts, then make things terrible for him?
According to Zhou Zishu’s observations, the story of Liu Qianqiao and Mount Hua Sect’s Yu Qiufeng, the middle-aged prettyman that had a penchant for waving fans around, was kind of something not to be spoken of. And wasn’t Huang Daoren Yu Qiufeng’s sidekick? Why did he let him hunt down Liu Qianqiao like this? What benefit would her death bring him?… Or were Yu Qiufeng and Huang Daoren fighting amongst themselves?
Zhou Zishu’s eyes glinted when he thought back to the two Beryl pieces that had been stolen from Gao Manor. Back when Shen Zhen had died, the Dongting area had been surrounded by many martial experts, making it difficult for Wrath Vale’s people to wade in. It was very probable that some internal traitor had used the Vale’s name to steal the Whorl Beryl. Then, he recalled Yu Tianjie, the only son of Yu Qiufeng that had died outside of Zhao Manor — the Long-Tongued Wraith that had killed him had a Beryl piece on him…
When it comes to being a thief… like father, like son? he pondered.
The more he thought, the further away his thoughts become, until a sudden scream pulled them back. He raised his head to see that Liu Qianqiao’s arm had been severed off by Huang Daoren, blood spraying in a far arc. The woman reeled back five steps, then couldn’t hold up anymore, collapsing to the ground with a thud.
Huang Daoren giddily raised his blade’s edge upwards as he approached her slowly. “Why, are you still refusing to hand it over?” he said.
‘It’? What was ‘it’?
Zhou Zishu frowned. Was it possible that Liu Qianqiao and Yu Qiufeng’s secret relationship was actually known? Did Huang Daoren think that the Beryl piece that had been stolen by the adulterer was in the possession of the adulteress?
He watched Huang Daoren while hiding in the darkness. This guy’s head looked just like a potato, and it turned out his brain was more or less like one, too. Even if Yu Qiufeng couldn’t actually keep eyes off of what happened in his east-facing window, why would he give anything that important to this woman?
If all his proceeding inferences were tenable, then it was clear that as soon as the slick Yu Qiufeng had noticed things were off, he pushed this foolish woman out to carry the blame. Liu Qianqiao was still devoted to him, though, so she just grit her teeth and didn’t make a sound.
Wen Kexing poked Zhou Zishu once more, interrupting his trail of thought and making him shoot him an impatient look. “Why’d you do that again?” he asked, nearly inaudible.
The other cheerfully pointed towards the spot where a bloody and violent play was unfolding. “Since you want to find out so badly, why not go rescue her so that you can question her all you want?” he whispered back.
Sensing that he had ill intent, Zhou Zishu instinctively countered, “And why don’t you rescue her?”
“I cannot. Someone as outstanding, handsome, and gallant as me can never raise my hand to aid a women, else she’ll take a fancy to me afterwards. I don’t like women, so why would I want to betray her hopes? Doing such a thing would damage my hidden virtues, and absolutely must not be done…”
This man was nuts no matter what situation he was in, Zhou Zishu felt. His smug mug wasn’t too nice to look at, either.
He thus grabbed a button off of his collar, held it in his palm, and went to shoot it at him, but before he could move, his eyes flashed coldly, and he grabbed Wen Kexing to hide nearby.
People were coming!
Right when the two darted away, a cold huff was heard coming from the forest. Zhou Zishu’s ears unconsciously perked up.
Wen Kexing, who was watching with interest, couldn’t help but reach out to flick those ears, earning him a wrist grab paired with a warning glare.
Following that, two figures that would be eye-catching even in pitch blackness darted out — it was those two old Peach-Pink and Willow-Green farts. The one who had huffed was the Madame, and she now glared at Huang Daoren with an unkind look. “Are you planning to hog it all for yourself, Huang?” she asked furiously.
Maybe he had been associating for Wen Kexing for too long, because those words suddenly gave Zhou Zishu a bad mental association. He subconsciously glanced at the man in question, only to see him observing the other four with a very weird expression, his lips faintly moving with much lament. “A moonless night of high winds, with tastes distinct, like so…” he said, projecting his voice. “This many people in a romantic and poetic affair really humbles one in their own shallow experiences….”
Zhou Zishu pinched his wrist, forcing Wen Kexing to awkwardly shut up.
The two focused on listening to the other side. Huang Daoren was seen to grin fakely at the elders. “How could I dare to trouble you two?” he answered, abruptly increasing the volume of his voice. “This young one can arrest a thieving woman like this by myself.”
The Willow-Green Gent gave him a frost look. “Quit messing around.”
Huang Daoren said nothing. He took a half-step to the side like he was avoiding taboo, but the sabre he held was not returned to its sheathe, instead hanging down with a vigilance. It seemed to purposefully portray the concept of being united in appearance, yet divided in spirit.
The Peach-Pink Madame watched him warily, then scrutinized Liu Qianqiao like she was looking at a venomous snake. “Little girl, this old lady is going to ask you some questions. It would be best that you answer them, to save both me the trouble and you the pain.”
Spring’s chill still bit, yet Liu Qianqiao looked like she had been dredged out of the water, as she had broken into a cold sweat all over. Her severed arm had not yet stopped bleeding, leaving her complexion extremely pale, and her entire body shook like a leaf in a storm due to the pain. Even so, she glared at the other three stubbornly, gritting her teeth as she tried to control the shake of her voice. “If… if you’re going to kill me, then kill me! Why waste time talking?!”
Someone like her saying something like that most likely meant that she didn’t know anything. What material object could be more important to her than her own life?
Unfortunately, these three dipshits didn’t understand that. The Madame was seen to sneer. “You’ll drink to defeat, then!”
Her hand suddenly raised up, and in a spark’s life, Liu Qianqiao let out a short scream — the Madame had sliced her other arm off.
Having nothing left to hold her up with, Liu Qianqiao was forced to fall to the ground, convulsing all over. Unable to straighten up, she took great gulps of air and squirmed like a dying fish as she attempted to roll over and sit up.
Her eyes were slack, though she still managed to mumble out, “Just… kill me…”
Huang Daoren laughed. “Peach-Pink Sister, it wouldn’t be too good if she died just like this. She got one palm strike on me, which already put her at the end of her rope. Using a blade would save you some of the effort of having to use your hands… besides, aren’t there a lot of ways one can get a woman to talk?”
He had a seedy look about him to begin with, and when he smile, he just looked even more seedy.
Wen Kexing suddenly sighed in a world-weary way. “Waves push out the waves that came before them. I feel like he’s even more a demon of jianghu than I.”
Zhou Zishu shot the button out of his hand at last. He didn’t skimp on the strength of it; it caught Huang Daoren unawares when it shoot into his wrist that held the sabre, piercing a hole through it and making him squeal like a pig getting slaughtered.
Zhou Zishu wasn’t fond of meddling in others’ affairs, and Liu Qianqiao wasn’t exactly a good person; he had let her slip by him last time only in regards to the possibility that he face-changing technique had something to do with his senior in the Four Seasons Manor. Now, though, he had a sudden belief that a woman who had foolishly waited until death for a scumbag ought to die cleanly. There was no need for her to be disgraced by trash like Huang Daoren.
The other three had never seen Zhou Zishu’s true appearance before. The second he showed up, they were all taken aback.
The Gent glowered at him. “Who are you?”
The corner of Zhou Zishu’s mouth ticked upwards in a smile. He didn’t respond, using his agility arts to flit past them all like a violent tempest, then picking up Liu Qianqiao’s short sword.
Huang Daoren only saw him turn into a blur, then rush before him like a ghoul. He subconsciously dodged back a step, yet his guarded neck felt cold, causing him to look down in disbelief — a ‘ten’ character had been slashed into his neck!
My throat’s been cut was his final thought before blood spurted several chi out of his neck. Following a full-body spasm, he collapsed, turning into Huang Deadman.[26]
Zhou Zishu touched down lightly on his toes, then did a half-spin to turn. The sword he held was still dripping with blood. His long hair had been tied up hastily with but a single cloth strip, a few loose strands now hanging down from it to sway near his cheeks. A very pale, very dashing face was illuminated by dawn’s first rays, and it was looking at the two elders with a slight bit of a smile.
The Madame and Gent automatically took a step backwards.
He walked slowly, seemingly effortlessly towards them. Blood trailed from the tip of his sword onto his hand, then flowed through the crevices of his fingers, drop by drop.
The oppressive power this young man gave off nearly pressed on the elders until they couldn’t breathe.
Peach-Pink Madame gave a furious roar, raised her cane upwards, and smashed it towards Zhou Zishu. His figure appeared to vanish from its spot, however, giving her a sense of danger. She barely managed to rouse her qi and roll forwards when she felt a chill at her back, whereupon a strong force attacked her.
There was blackness before her eyes, and she coughed out a huge mouthful of blood, feeling as though her organs were about to split apart.
The Gent’s eyes widened. He looked at the Madame, who had been blown away and might be dead, then at the young man who had turned to face him.
He cast aside his old wife to flee, not hesitating for a second.
Zhou Zishu didn’t pursue him, merely looking downwards, setting the sword on the ground, and kneeling by Liu Qianqiao’s side. He reached out, wanting to seal the acupoint near her wounds that were bleeding non-stop, but she raised her head to look at him, then shook it very minutely. She was going to die, and knew as much in her heart.
Wen Kexing, too, came out of his hiding spot, coming to quietly stand behind Zhou Zishu.
“The Beryl is actually with Yu Qiufeng. He told you to lead the others away and ran, didn’t he?” Zhou Zishu asked quietly.
Liu Qianqiao just gave him a look, silent.
He sighed. “I’m not interested in the Beryl. You’re still going to die, so what’s so difficult about nodding your head?”
Wen Kexing laughed in mockery behind him. “Miss Liu, I did warn you before that Yu Qiufeng isn’t good news.”
She opened her mouth. Her voice was very faint, forcing Zhou Zishu to turn his ear slightly towards her, only to hear her reciting, “The… the tranquil river… reflects willows green, the flowers and moon stand watch by… the bay. Year after year after year after year, we… we meet…”
After this, the glint in her eyes faded, her head lolled to one side, and she breathed no more. There was a smile at the corner of her mouth that softened the ghastlier half of her face.
It was because of that flawed visage that she had hidden away her true appearance for a lifetime, but everyone was born naked, and would die naked, too.
It was just that, in the end, she hadn’t been able to fully recite this half-formed tonal rhyme.*
Zhou Zishu sighed, reached out, and gently closed her eyes.
The two of them heard an explosion of old, hoarse laughter behind them.
The Peach-Pink Madame was swiftly escape. She had been severely injured by the wind from Zhou Zishu’s palm strike, yet was not quite dead. While she spat out blood, she pointed at Liu Qianqiao and guffawed. “Spouses or… originate as birds of the same forest, but once catastrophe strikes, they each fly in separate directions… That’s say… saying nothing about how she and that Yu fool don’t even have that distinction… Since time immemorial, women have been obsesses, and men have been fickle! She… couldn’t even understand that! Her death was clearly not an injustice! Not at all!”
Zhou Zishu looked back at her, then paid her no more mind, simply getting up and striding back to where he had come from.
After following him for an unknown distance, Wen Kexing suddenly asked him, “You martial power seems to be a lot higher than when I first met you… what’s happening?”
Zhou Zishu stopped in his tracks, then turned.
Wen Kexing actually had a rare seriousness to it, causing Zhou Zishu to laugh. He pointed at his own chest. “When I first met you, these had sealed half of my internal power.”
“And what about now?”
“Now, it’s at four-fifths of what it was in my prime.”
That appeared to not make Wen Kexing very happy to hear, as he just stared at him quietly.
Zhou Zishu turned around and proceeded forth. He continued on, very nonchalantly, “The power I had in my prime will come back at the time of my death.”
—
* This footnote got a little long, so it’s going here.
Shengchazi (生查子) is poetry based on the intonation of characters for verses meant to be sung aloud — this is seen in its genre name itself, as ‘shengchazi’ honestly means nothing, but does have three different tones in the characters. A rough equivalent in English would be the rhyme scheme. Here’s the full version of what I found on the internet:
平江柳色青，花月遥相守。 Píngjiāng liǔsè qīng, huā yuè yáo xiāng shǒu.
岁岁复年年，逢此冰消后。 Suì suì fù nián nián, féng cǐ bīng xiāo hòu.
几回沧海平，山雪别云岫。 Jǐ huí cānghǎi píng, shānxuě bié yún xiù.
一眼万年轻，唯此心如旧。 Yīyǎn wàn niánqīng, wéi cǐ xīn rú jiù.
The tranquil river reflects willows green, the flowers and moon stand watch by the bay.
Year after year after year after year, we meet again once the ice melts away.
The sea calms in several passes clean, the mountains' snow gone into clouds I view.
I scorn my years when I look back to glean, as only this heart of mine remains true.
Why didn’t I make a separate post for this? To be blunt, I can’t find a name or title anywhere, and if you go on Google to look for the poem prior to this novel’s existence (pre-2010), you won’t find it. I can only conclude that it either came from priest herself, or was some later internet creation of unknown origin.
Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling each held a dung bucket in their hands, the stench of them all-encompassing. Ah-Xiang really is resourceful, Cao Weining thought, having joy within his suffering. She’s a Zhuge Liang amongst women.
Zhang Chengling wasn’t in his realm of existence, so he was only thinking that Gu Xiang was lacking about eight lifetimes of virtues.
The two of them were doing the grueling work of putting lids on those buckets, then placing a lot of things to cover them up on top of them. Under Gu Xiang’s commands, they were all laid upon rooftops and on the ground, thus forming the most nauseating dung-bucket array of all time.
Commander Gu herself had covered her nose and run far, far away. Only after the set-up was complete did she call the other two over — still covering her nose — and whisper to Zhang Chengling, “Do you remember the route I told you?”
He nodded. “Don’t worry, Sister. I won’t misstep on the Nine Palace Steps, else my Master will break my legs.”
She poked his skull with a finger. “If you do misstep, you’ll turn into Zhang Stinkling.”[27]
She looked at Cao Weining, then waved broadly. “Move out!” she commanded.
Three figures scattered into the night. Gu Xiang resembled a bad when she laid stomach-down on the eaves, her entire body unmoving. The maiden’s eyes were oddly bright in the darkness, as if she actually was a small creature waiting for her prey.
Those eyes soon glinted when she spotted the fire starting up in her peripheral — she knew that Cao Weining was already over there. All she needed to do was wait for the flames to get a little higher…”
However, she heard Cao Weining tear a harsh call out of his throat. “It’s terrible! The building is about to collapse!”
A mouthful of true qi nearly sparked off of her.
Cao Weining had been thinking of how she was on the roof when he blurted that out. As soon as he said it, he realized that he had misspoken, quickly changing the subject. “No, no, I meant— get water! Water! Run! The building’s burning!”
A short time later, an uproar came out from within the inn. Several women, their black clothes in disarray, charged out to investigate the outside noise. The other inn guests started to make a ruckus as well, causing there to be a lot of noise in the silent night.
Gu Xiang rolled off, pulled on her mask, and mixed into the chaos like nothing was wrong. Shortly after, she quietly tossed out a few flares from her wide sleeves, which shot straight out and exploded within the noisy crowd.
Small sparks jumped around, screams arising from all directions. It wasn’t clear who, but someone shouted, “The fire’s gotten inside the inn!”, and then everyone scrambled off in different directions, even managing to break up the women in black.
Gu Xiang inwardly furrowed her brow. This was a getting a bit more chaotic than she had expected, and what came next needed to be done very carefully.
Surprisingly, the Heavens seemed to be aiding her. While she was looking stupid in the corridor, a woman in black that had been crowded out suddenly shoved her. “Go check on that Gao girl!” she shouted. “Someone probably did this on purpose!”
Gu Xiang itched to laugh aloud while she was obediently dragged away. They walked to the room where Gao Xiaolian was being locked up, her heartbeat speeding up in what was basically overexcitement.
Sadly, supreme joy often turned to sorrow, as the woman pulling her along was extremely vigilant. Right when she was about to push the door open, she abruptly looked back at Gu Xiang in surprise. “Why are you shaking?”
Gu Xiang’s heart sank. She quickly pretended to be shivering in fear, her voice meek. “I… I’m… scared…”
Who knew who this woman thought she was — a lot of young women’s statures were more or less the same at this age. She gave Gu Xiang a contemptuous look, huffing through her nose while she pushed the door open. “Look at how much of a disgraceful good-for-nothing you are. Keep watch at the doorway for me, don’t let—“
Before she got to finish, she suddenly felt a chill at her waist. Looking up towards Gu Xiang in disbelief, her entire body went numb, a coldness that defied description spreading downwards from her middle. She could no longer move.
She fell stiffly forwards. Gu Xiang quickly caught her, saying quietly, “Mind the threshold.”
In one smooth move, she shut the door from the inside. It was here that she saw Gao Xiaolian tied to a table, with yet another woman in black in the room. Upon hearing the commotion, the latter lit a lantern and looked over.
Once she saw Gu Xiang supporting the unfortunate soul that had pitched forward, looking helpless, she came over and crouched down. “What happened to her?” she asked anxiously.
“I… I don’t know. She just suddenly collapsed like this,” Gu Xiang whispered. “It’s not a seizure, right?”
The woman was in the middle of checking on her comrade when she heard that impromptu stage line, and immediately looked up, on alert. “You…”
Gu Xiang had been long waiting for her, though. When she raised her sleeve, a puff of white vapor powered towards the woman.
How could the other not know that this was something to worry about? She immediately held her breath, only to feel a chill at her neck.
A dagger had shot out from Gu Xiang’s grip. Taking advantage of when she had been distracted by the smoke and rushing to hold her breath, she had slashed her neck wide open.
Gu Xiang had always been vicious in her attacks. Since the woman’s vocal cords had been instantly severed, she fell to the ground without making a peep.
Gao Xiaolian was staring dumbly.
Gu Xiang took her mask off, tossed it to one side, then said to her, “Stupid broad, scared of even these whitefaces.”
Even though those were her words, her hands didn’t stop at all. She cut the ropes off of Gao Xiaolian in a few strokes.
Both surprised and happy, Gao Xiaolian went to stand. Before she had time to express her gratitude, the door was kicked in from the outside and Cao Weining scrabbled in. “Come on, Ah-Xiang! I can’t stop them anymore!”
Zhang Chengling climbed in the window at that very second, waving vigorously at them. Gu Xiang shoved Gao Xiaolian towards him. “Carry her!” she ordered.
The three had discussed this ahead of time. Cao Weining quickly re-donned his mask and hastily fixed up his black dress, while Zhang Chengling haphazardly picked up Gao Xiaolian and ran outside at flying speed. Gu Xiang and Cao Weining pretended to chase after him, with her shouting convincingly, “Where are you going, you little thief?!”
They feigned injuries while feigning pursuit; she pretended to limp, and he clutched his chest like he might topple over at any second. Partway through their journey, they felt a strong wind rush at them from behind, as well as heard the Madame of the Black Gu’s old and hoarse voice. “Get out of my way, you two!”
She then overtook them like a storm.
A group of black-clothed women followed closely in the Madame’s footsteps, passing by these two good sisters that had ‘been seriously injured by a sinister plot’, yet still hadn’t forgotten to chase their foe.
Gu Xiang and Cao Weining exchanged a look. The limping one no longer limped, and the one with a hand over his chest no longer held it. They both ran along the agreed-upon route.
Things on Zhang Chengling and Gao Xiaolian’s end were much more perilous. The latter wasn’t sure why he had to carry her on his back, mumbling to herself all the while and feeling that she was dragging him down. As she had recognized Cao Weining and Zhang Chengling just now, she felt grateful at heart. “You can put me down, little brother. I still have martial power and can run with you.”
He, in the midst of his intermittent recitals of mantras, gave an answer within his busy schedule. “No, we still need to go a little further.”
Thinking of the ‘dung-bucket array’ ahead of them stress him out. He fully concentrated on recitations, afraid to be distracted.
Gao Xiaolian had an idea, more or less. Seeing how serious he had been, she understood that they might have made some sort of arrangement, so she closed her mouth and bothered him no longer. Then, she noticed how he moved like a phantom with some unknown technique, and was inwardly rather alarmed. It had been less than one year — what kind of adventures had this young man been on to grow so powerful?
Once he got a whiff of a being-permeating stench, Zhang Chengling knew they were here. His heartstrings were taut. He listened to his surroundings, knowing in his heart that the Madame of the Black Gu was about to get them.
Were these normal times, he would definitely be too scared to know what to do, but since we was aware in that moment that he was carrying someone whose rescue depended on him, there was none of that at all. If Sister Gao was kidnapped by those villainesses, she definitely wouldn’t meet a good end, and that made him feel taller, like his entire body was full of power.
With a loud shout, he picked up his speed yet again.
On this night, he defeated his yes-man self without even realizing it, upgrading his mental state by a good margin — and were he to strike out again, his skills would likely go up another step, too.
He eliminated all miscellaneous thoughts. Only Gu Xiang’s words were in his mind; he could not misstep.
He recited mantras faster and faster as he went, adhering to the route that passed through their previously-arranged dung-bucket array, his entire body a blur.
When the Madame was about to catch up with them, the little thief suddenly sped up for no reason. She rush to chase him wherever he was planning on going with all her might.
All of a sudden, she felt some thread in the air catch on her sleeve, as well as the force of something getting pulled. Her first reaction was that a trap had been triggered — without finer thoughts, she flew back to dodge.
This was quickly followed-up by a dung bucket that had been hiding in the darkness suddenly pouring onto the spot she had been standing, its contents splattering around.
Regardless of anything else, the Madame was still a woman, and she had at least some hatred of filth. How could she ever stand for this? Out of fear of anything splattering on her, she quickly took a couple of steps back. However, she then felt her feet bump into something, and her heart leapt.
She listened to the sound to determine the object’s location and escaped disaster, but before she had even landed, a third bucket was knocked over by the second, and poured out with exact precision onto her head and face.
The old woman was so incensed, she itched to roar out, “I’m going to tear you into a million pieces, little thief!” She couldn’t open her mouth, though, afraid that tragedy would happen if she did.
The teen carrying Gao Xiaolian had long vanished without a trace. As much as she wanted to dismember him, she no longer had a target.
Her disciples’ luck was no better that hers. Each and every one of them was utterly defeated by the dung-bucket array, the group of big-talking, black-clothed women that normally couldn’t even be stopped from slaughtering the gods had fallen headfirst into the ‘unspeakable’.
Only when he arrived at the meeting place did Zhang Chengling set Gao Xiaolian down, practically gulping for air. Gu Xiang and Cao Weining were already waiting there; as soon as they spotted them, they came to greet them.
“Th-they… won’t keep ch-chasing us, right?” Zhang Chengling asked.
Gu Xiang patted her chest. “No way. As long as they’re still ladies, they would never dare to run around at night with a face full of dung juice!”
“Your array was incredible, Ah-Xiang!” Cao Weining said excitedly.
She looked a little embarrassed from his praise, quickly waving him off. “What one learns is what they can peddle. I learned this from that Lord Seventh… oh, right! Lord Seventh said that if I see Zhou Xu and them, I need to write to him!”
Gao Xiaolian thanked them profusely, and how busy Gu Xiang was with sending a letter to Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman didn’t need to be described. After their night of fussing, the four changed their outfits, then returned to the inn where Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing were by Zhang Chengling’s instructions, planning to meet up with the two men.
Gao Xiaolian was very quiet their entire journey. The other three had some suspicions at heart, but Zhang Chengling wouldn’t ask, Cao Weining believed that she was in a bad mood from her body language and thus didn’t have the nerve to ask, and Gu Xiang just didn’t care at all. Instead, she happily rushed to the door of the inn, then — with Zhang Chengling’s directions — shouted at Wen Kexing’s door, “My Lord! You thought I couldn’t—“
She didn’t get to finish, as she saw the door of the neighboring room open, and well as Wen Kexing glaring at her ferociously. “What are you making so much noise for? Ah-Xu just fell asleep,” he whispered.
Gu Xiang maintained an agape pose as she stood there, coming to point at him. “My Lord, y-y-you…”
Despite sleeping like a dead man, Zhou Zishu was awoken by her racket, so he powerlessly got up and walked out with a robe draped over him. He first nodded towards Gu Xiang and Cao Weining, glared angrily at Zhang Chengling, then was quite a bit surprised to suddenly see Gao Xiaolian. He walked right past the others to stand in front of her. “Why are you here, Lady Gao?”
She had seen Wen Kexing before and heard him called Ah-Xu, so she immediately realized who this strange man might be. “Yes… Zhou…?” she intoned.
“Correct. That’s this humble one,” Zhou Zishu said with a nod. Noticing that she looked rough, he asked that a worker prepare a room and food for her.
Gu Xiang was still staring, wide-eyed. “My Lord, did you finally g… g-g-give him the beast?”
Wen Kexing looked at her, then looked at Cao Weining, who was wearing a stupid, simpering smile like he was meeting his father-in-law. “Don’t think that you can be impudent just because you’re married,” he critiqued.
He thereafter ignored the young couple, walked to Zhou Zishu, then carefully fixed up his robes.
Once everyone was cleaned up, they sat down. Zhou Zishu listened to Gu Xiang prattle on about the process of the rescue, first, then warmly asked Gao Xiaolian, “How did you come to be alone here, Lady Gao? And how did you come to be caught by the Madame of the Black Gu? Where’s Hero Gao?”
She was quiet for a time. Out of nowhere, she let out a wailing sob, then choked out, “My father… my father is dead!”
—
The translator says: i’m pretty sure ’not wanting to be covered in dung/dirt/gross things’ is a non-gender-specific trait, actually
The second she said that, everyone else was shocked on the spot.
Zhou Zishu sat up a bit straighter, but didn’t chase the question, instead waiting for her to vent her emotions. He creased his brow, as if pondering something.
Wen Kexing aimed a look at him, then very naturally put a dumpling in the bowl before him.
Gu Xiang caught the action out of the corner of her eye, quickly lowering her head to feign innocence of any wrongdoing. After a very long pause, she sneakily raised her head again, gaze shifting between the two. When she really thought about it, she felt unbalanced, so she put a dumpling on Cao Weining’s plate, too. (He was immediately flattered by the boon bestowed upon him.)
It was Zhang Chengling alone that felt that he and Gao Xiaolian were sufferers of the same ailment. He couldn’t bear to watch her cry, yet was also clumsy-tongued and unsure of what he ought to say, able to only prudently accompany her in her sorrow. It was a long time before he choked out one sentence, “L… Lady Gao, don’t be sad. My father is dead, too…”
He bit his lip, mentally scolding himself. It really didn’t make a lick of sense for him to have said that. His own dad was dead, so everyone else’s dads should also be dead?
He kind of had his hands tied, but Gao Xiaolian didn’t mind too much, knowing that he had good intentions. She squeezed out a grateful smile to him.
“I heard that a while back, Hero Gao personally helped escort Hero Shen’s corpse back to Shuzhong, and then… what happened after that?” Cao Weining spoke up nearby.
Gao Xiaolian wiped away her tears, lowered her eyes, and schooled her expression. When they had first met this girl, she had ultimately been a pampered eldest daughter, despite her sensibility; whenever she went out, she would have had her sect-brother escorting her, giving her some immaturity of having never endured the hardships of life. In just a few short months, however, she had gone through far too much, and it was like she had shortly turned into another person. Her voice still shook slightly, but her emotions had since come under her control.
“My father had said that he was going to see Uncle Shen off with a group of heroes. He had said at the start that he would bring Brother Deng and I out, too, but right before the day he was going to leave, he suddenly changed his mind and left me behind. I… I even fought with him over going back on his word, but he was set on not taking me along. He also… also said a lot of things I didn’t want to hear, like the situation having been tense, a lot of incidents might happen on the road, Wraiths were still loitering outside, I would put them behind schedule, and so on…”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Your good father must have anticipated something that wouldn’t have been convenient for him to say aloud,” Zhou Zishu said warmly. “The only way he could keep you safe was by leaving you behind.”
She nodded. “But I…”
“You’re safe. If you leave his bloodline going in the world, you will not have let down your father’s hard work.”
Gao Xiaolian bit her lip. A while later, she continued to speak. “I got a different idea. I thought that I would wait for them to leave, then follow them in secret, but my father… he sent people to keep an eye on me, so he ended up bringing my sect-brothers. I was upset for over half a month. But after that, my sect-brothers let me out, saying that my father arranged for it and that I was to go to a place to reconvene with them. At the time… I felt like something was a little fishy.”
The others didn’t care about eating, ears perked. Wen Kexing alone had a placid expression and didn’t interject, simply continuing to eat with slow, rare elegance. Every once in a while, he would give another piece to Zhou Zishu, too.
“I took advantage of their distraction to run away in secret. I wanted to go to Shuzhong and look for my father, but…. but halfway through my journey, I ran into Brother Deng. He was heavily injured, and people were hunting him.”
“Wraiths…?” Cao Weining asked.
“Did you recognize who was hunting him?” Zhou Zishu cut off. “Was it anyone from Dongting’s conference of heroes?”
Cao Weining look at him, dumbstruck. Gulping hard, he said awkwardly, “Br… Brother Zhou, you mustn’t speak so wantonly, yes?”
Zhou Zishu leaned back into his chair. “From what Lady Gao’s saying, Hero Gao headed out with people from the various major sects. If it really was the Wraiths, why would they hunt down Deng Kuan when they had strength in numbers? Whose life would that make harder?”
Gao Xiaolian shook all over. “Yes… you’re right. It was people from the righteous faction. They said my father was a murderer that killed Uncle Shen, as well as the mastermind behind the deaths of the Zhang family and Mount Tai’s Sect Leader, because he was colluding with the Wraiths to… to get the Whorl Beryl. They also claimed that he was also involved in Rong Xuan’s mess and the theft of every sect’s martial arts tomes back in the day. For the sake of his own reputation, he covered up that portion of history, silenced everyone, and went to hog it all for himself…”
Zhang Chengling’s eyes widened. He abruptly stood. “What? He…”
Zhou Zishu looked up at him. “Sit down, brat,” he coldly ordered.
The boy looked back at him. “Master, she said… she said…”
“None of it was true!” Gao Xiaolian said sharply, her volume rising. “They were lying! They wrong my father! He wasn’t that kind of man!”
“Right. Hero Gao really wasn’t like that,” Zhou Zishu just said mildly. “Continue, Lady Gao.”
His voice was low, deep, and seemed to have a particularly soothing quality to it. With a glance towards him, Gao Xiaolian felt herself to have over-reacted, flushing with some shame and hanging her head in embarrassment. “Brother Deng told me to run… I was scared, so I could only take a random road in my panic. And I was afraid that other people would catch up to me, so I avoided crowds along the way. My sect-brother was heavily injured at the time, I don’t know if he… if he’s still…”
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing exchanged a look. From that, Deng Kuan had likely met misfortune, too.
“After that, since you were taking random roads, you ran into the Madame of the Black Gu’s gang,” Cao Weining said. “After you exposed your identity by accident, they got an evil idea and captured you, right?”
Gao Xiaolian nodded. “It wasn’t that I was accidentally exposed, but that someone caught up with me, and the Madame’s gang stepped in during it to bring me away… They were convinced that the Whorl Beryl pieces were in my father’s hand, so now that he’s dead, I had to have the damned things…”
She was just another Zhang Chengling.
“Oh, that’s right,” Gu Xiang butt in. “After we split up in Dongting, Brother Cao and I met up with Lord Seventh. He said that he was going to think of a way to save Zhou Xu, so he followed us for a while to look for you. I didn’t expect that you two would run off someplace even birds won’t shit on to elope…”
Cao Weining let out a dry cough to interrupt her, feeling that she was getting more off-kilter the more she spoke.
Wen Kexing paused. “Lord Seventh said he has a way?” he asked, ignoring her other nonsense.
“The Great Shaman said that he thought of a little something, and to have us contact them after we found Zhou Xu. Those chicks in black were supposedly some dregs of Nanjiang’s Black Shamans; a long time ago, the Great Shaman slaughtered them into a disorganized mess, but somehow, they later swindled a bunch of stupid girls into becoming their followers. They’ve been lingering like a stink for some years. Because of the muddied waters this time around, the Great Shaman said that this was exactly the right time to catch them all in one net. Brother Cao and I had nothing better to do, so we tailed them to accumulate some virtues. We didn’t expect to run into Miss Gao! The virtues we’ve accumulated this time are massive!”
Wen Kexing looked at her in some shock, furrowing his brow slightly, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned his head to ask Zhou Zishu, “How do you see this?”
Following a long stretch of silence, Zhou Zishu sighed. “Almost everyone who knew something is dead, leaving just one. The winner and losers are already clear. Why the need to ask me a question like that?”
Meanwhile, the discussed Lord Seventh and Great Shaman were actually in the same inn. The former was having a grand old time playing with a single chopstick, rather childishly doing all he could to balance it on one end on the table’s surface.
Sadly, the chopstick’s tip was slightly curved, not flat. He tried for a long time to no avail, yet continued to fiddle with it with indomitable concentration, even forgetting to eat his food.
The Great Shaman watched him for a while, then finally sighed. “Stop playing around and eat up, Beiyuan,” he said softly, as if cajoling a child.
Lord Seventh grunted, though his gaze didn’t stray from the chopstick. The Great Shaman was obliged to feed bite after bite to him.
Although the Great Shaman of Nanjiang appeared to be ice-cold and taciturn, he seemed to have inexhaustible patience when it came to Lord Seventh. The latter was used to it, taking every bite.
“What are you doing?” the Shaman had to ask.
“I want to stand this chopstick on its end.”
The Great Shaman furrowed his brow, not getting what he was putting down. He plucked the unfortunate chopstick out of his hand, then gently poked it into the table — the wooden surface was like tofu, a hole being created within it just because he prodded it. The chopstick stood firmly up within the cavity.
Lord Seventh glared at him. “That’s brute force. You can’t do it like that.”
The Great Shaman smiled indulgently. Saying nothing, he just quietly watched him mess around, still feeding him things.
“If a chopstick can’t stand on its own, one needs to find another one to do it,” Lord Seventh said to himself, picking up the other chopstick. A long time later, the two chopsticks were precariously standing on end, each supporting the other. He carefully pulled his hands away from them, opening his mouth extremely slightly — it was like he feared that if he breathed too hard, the chopsticks that he had taken such great pains to stand up would fall over.
“Balance. It isn’t easy to achieve,” he said.
The Great Shaman was slightly confused. “What did you say?”
Lord Seventh beamed. “If one wants a result with long-term stability in a game, they will need balance. Joining up is a balance, dividing is another type of balance. The path to balance is—“
“Beiyuan, don’t monologue,” the Great Shaman interrupted, pinching the bridge of his own nose.
The other didn’t get mad, seemingly accustomed to getting interrupted, and continued on. “If one desires balance, many conditions that are difficult to achieve are needed. First of all, both sides must be equal in terms of power; neither can be weaker or stronger, else the stronger side will devour the weaker side. Even if their power is even, that’s not enough, as even-matches might fight each other to the death. There must be some sort of natural or artificial barrier that they cannot cross. Both sides will be too afraid to shoot at rats for fear of hitting vases, both sides will have apprehensions and refuse to open that avenue… Generally speaking, such a perfect and beautiful balance coming about is due to all sorts of happenstances and coincidences coming together. In other words, it has to be Heaven’s plan. If humanity tries to make it, they need to carefully plot each and every step to carefully set up the gameboard. If one wrong step is taken, the whole game is lost, but… losing a game like this is particularly easy.”
While he spoke, he pulled away one of the chopsticks, and the other fell down in response. It happened to fall right onto a plate of crackly-crusted snacks, creating some fine cracks.
“Only this is needed,” Lord Seventh said with a smile. “Take out one game piece, and the balance will immediately be ruined. It’s just that… why would this piece be removed?”
“What have you been able to make out this time?” the Great Shaman wondered.
Lord Seventh raised up his gaiwan, lowered his head to sip it, then shook his head with a smile. “I can’t say, really.”
A clap of thunder split open this summer’s eve night. The moon and stars had vanished without a trace.
Freezing cold rain poured down, washing away the mortal world’s fragrances of spring.
This old inn room’s roof was leaking. Only a bean-sized speck of light was within it. A man clothed in red wore a dignified, harsh expression as his fingers manipulated the flame.
This was Sun Ding.
All of a sudden, a faint breeze blew in from the window, causing the light to flicker a bit. Sun Ding glared as he raised his head to look at the black-wearing Venom that had just entered, silently awaiting the information the other had brought.
The Venom drew a piece of paper from his lapels and passed it over. Sun Ding took it, skimmed it over once, then placed it over the candle and lit it up, a bloodthirsty grin appearing on his face that made the ghoulish half of his face even more alarmingly vibrant. With a raise of his hands and pull-back of his sleeves, his palms had since turned purple, and they made a grabbing motion high up in the sky, as if they had snatched something and subsequently crushed it to bits. This was followed by his fingers twirling minorly.
Like he had just received an order, the Venom turned and jumped out of the window.
They seemed to have put on a silent puppet show.
Sun Ding raised his head slightly, satisfaction on his face. “Xue Fang, you finally… showed your face,” he said to himself.
He wrapped his cloak tightly around himself like a bat would, wearing a crazed grin as he headed out.
Xue Fang and he had been at war for eight years. How many more ‘eight years’ did he have left in his life? The Lord of the Wind Cliffs needed to be switched out, Xue Fang eliminated, Whorl Beryl obtained… Sun Ding fully believed that no one in this world would be able to stop him anymore.
No one could restrict him from leaving that haunted place. He would sweep that sham righteousness and those sects clean away.
What was ‘righteousness’ and ‘evil’ in this world?
Nothing more than the victor setting the rules.
Xue Fang had already revealed himself, so he needed to wait to catch him in his net.
Meanwhile, in some discreet area deep within Luoyang’s flower alleys, the Boss Scorpion was dressed in all black. He was playing with a bunch of black-or-white qi pieces in his hand, dividing them one minute and mixing them together another. A grin of some deep implication slowly arose on his face.
Zhou Zishu and company stayed at the inn in wait for Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman. While they had putzed about in Shuzhong’s Marionette Manor, not knowing what day it was in either wake or sleep, the state of the Central Plains’ martial circle had finally gone from a tense threat of breaking out at any moment to a situation that could not be controlled, undergoing a million changes in an instant.
The five great families had long since fallen to ruin, their former splendor sunken beneath three chi of loess. Only Gao Chong and Zhao Jing had remained of the former greats.
When Gao Chong colluding with the Hanging Wraith to remove his final obstacle, Zhao Jing, finally came to light, all of the martial world went into an uproar.
All of a sudden, every single thing had a clear explanation. Able to pinpoint the location of each Beryl piece, know everyone’s weaknesses, easily pilfer the piece from Zhao Manor, play the land’s heroes for fools while they clapped for him, con Shen Zhen’s piece out into the open and then steal it… who could have possibly achieved that aside from Hero Gao, owner of the Land Writ?
All those that had been duped reached an epiphany at last. All sorts of feelings momentarily bubbled up in their hearts, and they were at a loss for what amount of crying about it would make them feel better.
Gao Chong had a huge grin on his corpse, looking like a maniac. The Hanging Wraith had been injured, then vanished. Zhao Jing was also gravely injured. The Whorl Beryl was nowhere to be found.
Following this came rumors that Yu Qiufeng, before going to the Shen home, had conspired with Gao Chong late at night… Yu Qiufeng’s son, Yu Tianjie, had fled from Zhao Manor in the middle of the night the very day the Manor lost its Beryl piece. At first, everyone had believed that he’d been murdered by the Hanging Wraith, but the corpse that had been found had no head. Thinking back on it now, who could have been certain that the deceased was actually Yu Tianjie himself?
Did all the twists and turns in this really need to be spoken aloud?
Deng Kuan was dead, Gao Xiaolian was gone — Gao Manor seemed to have plotted this long ago, and now its birds had scattered. Yu Qiufeng’s whereabouts were unclear.
The very worst scenario was at hand, where all five pieces of the Whorl Beryl have fallen into the Wraiths’ clutches. The Repository from thirty years ago was on the verge of opening, and that mad demon’s Mental Arts of Six Harmonies would soon see daylight again.
In the martial world of the Central Plains, the darkest hour had arrived.
In his seventh night of waiting at the inn and a little past midnight, Zhou Zishu let out a slow breath. Unable to sleep at all, he had brought a jar of wine and worn-out bowl up to sit on the roof with, drinking sip after sip.
Gu Xiang was seated within the small courtyard, looking up at the sky, slightly at a loss. Her back was to Zhou Zishu; with her skill level, she wouldn’t be able to sense anyone on a rooftop behind her.
In a rare moment of her not being noisy, she sat there quietly with her chin resting in one hand, her slender legs stretched out, and a piece of grass in hand, which she swayed back and forth occasionally. Looking like this, she really gave a sense of the phrase, ‘It appears that these stars persist from that very night of long ago, but for whom do I stand in this wind and this dew, on this evening?’
Wen Kexing pushed open a door and stepped out of it. Upon seeing the back of her head, he suddenly sighed, seemingly having some kind of melancholia over his little girl being all grown up. He slowly exited the building, raising his head to shoot Zhou Zishu a look, then sat down quietly beside Gu Xiang.
She glanced at him. “My Lord,” she said, listless.
He smiled. His smile lacked that crooked scumbag aura this time time around — it was faint, almost somewhat gentle. “What? Did you fight with Grand Scholar Cao? Is he mad at you?”
“If he ever dared, I would castrate him,” she answered, still listless.
Wen Kexing then reflected upon his own action. A perfectly good young lady grew to put on airs and have no filter, too, so why should he make himself cultivate that virtue?
He yawned, patting Gu Xiang’s head. “What is it, then? What sort of seasonal depression are you having in the courtyard instead of sleeping?”
She gave him a miserable look. Going to rest her head in both hands, she said nothing.
Wen Kexing lightly sighed, patting her head again. “I say, why did you start following that fool in rescuing people all over the place? You’re even accumulating virtues… why, are you afraid that the old codgers in Purewind won’t let Cao Weining have you?”
She looked down. It was like she was still a little girl; her cheeks swelled as she bit her lips, wordlessly using her index finger to dig the grout between bricks.
She wasn’t afraid of being compared in skills nor looks, but what she did fear was bringing up her origins.
Even if her martial arts were without equal, even if she was a beauty that could topple nations, she could never defeat the clause of missing origins. If she claimed that she was a proper lady, who would believe her?
Would a proper lady be at the Wind Cliffs’ foot, where no people even lurk? Back when she had been a baby, she had been picked up by the insane Wraith Lord and raised at his side. No father, no mother. Ever since she had opened her eyes to see the world, she had needed to kill or be killed. Would she ever become a proper lady?
Even she was lost. Anything she had ever wanted, she would get, occasionally without scruples, occasionally sweet-and-sour-and-unruly.* Even though her temper was poor at times…. this was the first time she was aware that she was actually a contemptible woman.
An ugly daughter-in-law could still meet her in-laws, but she, as the Violet Fiend, was too ashamed to.
After thinking for a long time, she forced out a smile at last. “Your other half has it good,” she said to him. “Just one person eats, and the whole family’s full. There’s no mess of aunts at home either— ow!”
She didn’t get to finish before something hit her on the head. Looking up, she saw Zhou Zishu looking down upon her from the roof, his smile fake and the bowl he was holding gone.
She covered her head — that hit really hurt. “Can’t you control him?!” she asked Wen Kexing.
Zhou Zishu flew down from the roof, then clapped Wen Kexing on the shoulder. “Go. Warm the bed for this Lord.”
Wen Kexing agreed very eagerly and left without a single word.
Gu Xiang’s eyes went wide. She took a deep breath, feeling like either the ways of the world had inverted, or she was having a nightmare.
Zhou Zishu sat down upon the ground with a sigh. “What are you worrying about for no reason, when I’m still not worried? I thought I’d have a year and a half to keep living, but looking at how things are now, I don’t even have that long. From what the Great Shaman said, my meridians can’t withstand my inner power… this martial prowess of my has, in turn, become a burden. Maybe there’ll come a time where I’ll see my own candle get blown out, and I’ll meet King Yan.”
Gu Xiang stared at him with big eyes, unsure of what to say. A long time later, she whispered, “You’ve really landed in some shit.”
Zhou Zishu hadn’t been expecting her foul mouth to say anything pleasant to begin with, but he still couldn’t resist bursting out into laughter and shaking his head at this. “Shit… If you weren’t a little girl, I would definitely beat you up at least eight times a day, Gu Xiang.”
She cautiously scooted her butt to the side, looking at him with wariness. After seeing that he was only drinking wine and not seriously intending to do anything to her, she then sighed in relief. After some thought, she compassionately reassured him, “Lord Seventh said that the Shaman might have thought up a way to save your life, right?”
Zhou Zishu took a swig of wine and swished it around for a while, as if reluctant to swallow it down.
A good while passed before he said, “It’ll be difficult.”
She blinked, furrowing her brow, as if she didn’t really understand. After a time, she gently kicked him with her toes. “Do you not want to live?”
He gave her a look. “You don’t want to live.”
“Then why did you immediately…?”
He just started to laugh.
Seeing how this man looked as he slowly, silently laughed, Gu Xiang felt her heart beat a little faster, for some reason. She quickly averted her gaze, thinking, Everyone says that beautiful women are a calamity, but it turns out that good-looking men are a calamity, too.
“As I see it, life only has two paths — you either live well, or you die well,” she heard him say. “For that one, I can hold on for a little more, and no one can even think to stop me.”
He was an expert at calculations and sometimes soft-hearted, but when there came a time that his heart shouldn’t be soft, it would instead be as hard as a rock. While he could be vicious to other people, he could also be vicious to himself, ever wanton and never waiting patiently for what he wanted. Even if he ended up paying a price that anyone else wouldn’t think was worth it, he would never look back and have regrets about it.
Head back, I laugh as I head out the door; how could I be a man of the wildlands?
Zhou Zishu looked at Gu Xiang. “Why do you look like that, girl?” he said softly. “You have the final say. No one else. You’re pretty quick-witted, so why do you not understand that?”
She was nearly struck dumb from those words.
Zhou Zishu finished off the wine jar he held, tossed it to one side, then turned and went back into the building.
He had just opened the door when a hand reached out from the darkness, pulled him into a tight hug, then threw the door shut.
Zhou Zishu didn’t resist, allowing himself to be tossed onto the bed. He slowly raised his head to meet Wen Kexing’s eyes.
After a long stretch of silence, Wen Kexing suddenly leaned down to plant a bite-like kiss on his lips. His breathing was a little erratic, carrying an aura that was unspeakably dangerous.
A short while later, Zhou Zishu shoved him away, elbowed him in the ribs, and turned them over to instead press him down, his hands braced on either side of him. His mussed hair hung down from either side of his face, pooling on Wen Kexing’s chest.
Only those eyes were in the darkness, their shine startling.
“If I die, will that be any sort of loss to you?” he asked.
Wen Kexing didn’t say anything. He turned his head and bit Zhou Zishu hard on the arm, practically about to drink his blood and devour his flesh. Despite creasing his brow in pain, Zhou Zishu didn’t move away, simply allowed him to continue biting without a word. Blood slowly flowed out of him, dripping down from the corner of the other man’s mouth and onto the sheets, soaking a large area through in an instant.
Following some unclear amount of time, Zhou Zishu’s braced arm began to tremble slightly, and only then did Wen Kexing slowly close his eyes, release his jaw, and lap at the would he had made. He then sat up and tugged him into his arms, sealing his acupoints to stop the bleeding. “Of course. I’ll have never suffered a loss like that in my life.”
Zhou Zishu laughed quietly. “Madman.”
Said madman tore a cloth strip off of his inner robes, bandaged his wrist, then lifted the blanket and wrapped the both of them in it. Like so, they steeped in the stench of blood, holding each other while they slept.
Three days later, Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman finally arrived.
—
* Tsundere would be a great word for this, if this wasn’t ancient China and I did wanted to ruin the ambience.
These two looked like they had just run a full lap through the Central Plains, both of them carrying a travel-dust air.
Not much superfluous talk was spoken when they met up. The Great Shaman first went to check up on Zhou Zishu’s health. The latter subconsciously raised his left wrist up halfway, then remembered that his wrist was a little unfit to be seen right now, so he quietly took it back and switched it out for the other one.
The Shaman shot a glance at it. “Is your wrist injured?” he asked casually.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Zhou Zishu answered calmly. “A dog bit me.”
The pulse area was one of the most important areas martial artists protected. As an honest man, the Shaman was astonished, wondering while reaching for Zhou Zishu’s wrist, “What kind of dog was powerful enough to be able to bite you?”
Zhou Zishu said nothing.
Wen Kexing, who had been quietly listening nearby, suddenly put his arm near Zhou Zishu’s mouth with a sigh. “I know that you’re holding a petty grudge. You haven’t let me into your room for three days over this, even. Go ahead, bite me back.”
Lord Seventh, who had sat down and just started drinking tea, choked.
Gu Xiang covered her face and turned away, expressing that she was not seeing or hearing a thing.
Zhou Zishu’s eyes slightly twitched. He pulled Wen Kexing’s arm away from him expressionlessly. “When before a crowd, you have to have some shame.”
Wen Kexing laughed, though the smile was cursory. He seemed to have already run out of energy to harass Zhou Zishu further. All of his attention turned to focus completely on the Great Shaman; he stared at him unblinkingly, like a lot of flowers were blooming on his face all of a sudden.
The Shaman only released Zhou Zishu’s wrist after a long very long time. “How is it?” Wen Kexing immediately asked.
The other hesitated for a moment. “It’s more serious than I thought it would be,” he said truthfully. “Were you injured again over these past days, Manor Lord Zhu?”
Zhou Zishu took his wrist back and fixed his sleeve, looking downwards with a nonchalant smile. “How can one floating through jianghu not suffer some stabs?”
Being someone from Nanjiang, the Shaman’s features differed slightly from Central Plainsmens’; his eyes were set in deeper, and his irises appeared to be blacker than others’. He stared dead at Zhou Zishu for a moment, then seemed to understand something. “Lord Zhou, if I didn’t have the slightest bit of confidence, I wouldn’t come find you to pour salt on the wound. You can be a bit more at ease.”
Zhou Zishu looked back up at him, forcing out a smile. “If I have to give up my martial skills or anything like that…”
A bit of brittle fragility crossed the man’s face in that moment, though it vanished soon after, as if it had been nothing more than the onlooker’s imagination. The Shaman, having gotten a good look at it, nodded. “I won’t bring that up again. I have a way to preserve both your skills and your life.”
Wen Kexing straightened up, about to say something, but Zhou Zishu cut him off. “I can preserve both my life and my skills… what’s the price I’ll need to pay, then?”
Nothing could be gleaned off of his expression, no joy at all to be seen. The look in his eyes was dark and extremely prudent. It was like he wasn’t discussing the state of his injuries with a doctor or friend, but negotiating with someone — thoroughly cautious, absolutely evaluating, fully vigilant…
How could there ever be something so good and effortless? One could never have both the fish and the bear’s paw.
Even though this life of his had not been too long, Zhou Zishu felt that it had been long enough to understand that much.
There was no reason for any divine meat pie to fall from the sky. Despite barely being able to call the two before him friends, despite knowing the Great Shaman’s methods well, he still couldn’t believe him too easily.
Because… that thing called ‘hope’ could really hurt.
Lord Seventh gently set his tea bowl down to the side. “We went searching in a lot of places this past half a year — you already know of Shaman Valley’s power, since you helped build it up single-handedly back in the day. As long as the medical supplies required can possibly be found in this world, it would be easy for us to get, but these materials in particular were rare. We’re still looking for all of them even now.”
While he spoke, the Shaman fittingly took out a small bottle from his lapels. Zhou Zishu accepted it and opened it up; it was filled with tiny pills, a slightly bitter scent of medicine wafting out of it.
“Bring these pills with you and take them at midnight,” the Shaman said. “They can suppress the Nails’ flare-up, and also slowly dissolve the poison on them.”
“Although that poison is a bother, it’s still nothing major,” Lord Seventh continued. “The crux of this is that your meridians have nails in them. If pulled out rashly, your meridians won’t be able to withstand your internal power. If you don’t want to ruin your martial arts, the treatment will definitely take a lot of effort and will likely be difficult to bear. But…”
He laughed, looking at Zhou Zishu. “Anyone else might not be able to withstand it, but I think you can give it a shot.”
“We need someone of high skills that can break your all of you meridians in an instant,” the Shaman picked up. “That much, you can do yourself.”
Gu Xiang, Cao Weining, and Zhang Chengling were shocked stupid at hearing that. “If you break… all the meridians in your body, won’t you die?” Gu Xiang mumbled.
The Great Shaman looked up at her, not readily denying it. “There’s a chance, but Lord Zhou’s skills are so profound, he won’t be immediately snuffed out. During that time period, someone must protect his heart meridians…”
“You mean to say, reshape the meridians completely?” Wen Kexing asked.
The other nodded.
Wen Kexing’s eyes brightened. “Can you do that?”
The Shaman hesitated; he was one to speak very carefully, never saying unnecessary words. “If I do it alone, there’s a thirty-percent chance, but this interim will still rely on… whether or not the Manor Lord can withstand it.”
“Thirty-percent…” Wen Kexing’s brows furrowed. “It is really only thirty-percent?”
A nod. “Forgive my lacking talent and knowledge.”
However, Zhou Zishu laughed brightly, the final piece of fog upon him clearing up. “Good. I’m willing to gamble on ten-percent, let alone thirty. I have nothing to lose, anyway.”
He put the pill bottle away, then clasped his fist solemnly towards the Great Shaman and Lord Seventh. “Thank you very much.”
The Great Shaman said nothing, simply nodding indifferently, as if he hadn’t just given someone a bottle of life-saving pills, but two mantou. Lord Seventh just laughed. “What are you thanking us for? If this fool boy, Wu Xi, was never able to repay the favor you owed him from back in the day, I fear that he would never have peace of mind all his life.”
The man in question glanced at him, yet did not refute. “Reshaping the meridians isn’t that easy. I need an area of extreme cold, and as such, you’re likely to suffer from some cold sensitivity in the future. However, if you regain your core power and slowly adapt it, there won’t be any problems.”
Wen Kexing thought for a minute. “What do you think of Everbright Peak’s summit?”
According to legend, Everbright’s summit was an unearthly realm of immortals and ancient monks, where fog hung around the mountain’s waist while the frost at the summit never melted at any point in the year. After considering it, the Great Shaman nodded. “That could work.”
“How fortunate,” Wen Kexing replied. “I’m not even sure how much meal money that old glutton owes me, so let’s go to his den and let him handle this one.—Ah-Xiang.”
“Yes?”
“Go run an errand for me. Bring Ye Baiyi here to me, and later on, I’ll prepare a two-street-long dowry procession for you. How about it?”
“Three streets,” she haggled.
He slapped her on the head. “Two-and-a-half streets, got it? Don’t try to act cute and scram.”
Rubbing her head, Gu Xiang dragged Cao Weining to go pack their stuff, but Wen Kexing stopped him. “Don’t listen to her, she doesn’t need a big ol’ man to do something like packing her stuff up. You mustn’t get used to her lack of decorum. Come with me. Brat, quit being dumb and talentless. You’ve been slacking in your practices these days. Are you waiting for your Master to scold you? Hurry and leave.—Ah-Xu, you all are free to chat.”
With that, he dragged Cao Weining away, leaving no room for protest. Zhang Chengling, ever sensible, glanced at his Master, felt like the gaze the other was looking at him with was starting to turn evil, then immediately slipped away with his tail tucked between his legs.
In no more than a minute, the room was cleaned out, leaving Zhou Zishu, Lord Seventh, and the Great Shaman behind.
Watching Wen Kexing go, Lord Seventh suddenly said, “That… jianghu pal of yours has a complicated background, right? Have you been at his side all this way?”
Zhou Zishu was taken aback. Without denying it, he raised his head to look at him, unsure of the implications of the other’s sudden words.
Lord Seventh just laughed. “Still, he’s pretty decent to you. Plus… I’ve never seen you have your heart so set on someone before, which is really good, too.”
Zhang Chengling was reciting mantras in the small courtyard, looking like he was practicing his martial arts to the book. Truthfully, so many people showing up and so many things happening all at once had made the teen’s mind a little floaty. He, too, wanted to go with Gu Xiang and Cao Weining to find Ye Baiyi.
His reaction time was a little slower than other childrens’, but he wasn’t stupid.
After hearing what happened with the Madame of the Black Gu and understand his specific reasoning, Zhou Zishu said nothing, other than punishing him with an extra shichen of training every day. Zhang Chengling had acted on impulse during that event, but this had also allowed Zhou Zishu to see the boy’s potential; even after experiencing so many cruel things, he still safeguarded the purest part of his heart. He never concealed his own timidity, but when he needed to be brave, he never disappointed.
Zhou Zishu had always believed that a boy who didn’t have enough scars on him and grew up without conflict would be a layabout raised beneath another’s wing, never to take flight himself.
Zhang Chengling reflected upon himself, as well. He couldn’t rely on his Master for all of time. The man taught him a lot of things, stuffing him like a duck, but even though he was decided upon memorizing all of them, he didn’t understand a good portion of them. And then, even if his Master took them apart explaining them, he still wouldn’t get it. He needed hands-on experience.
His Master’s injuries were currently at a critical time. Zhang Chengling felt that he shouldn’t just blindly follow him around. He needed to go out and do something on his behalf.
With all of his chaotic thoughts, his practice of his forms were also chaotic.
Wen Kexing saw him from a distance, but didn’t say anything. His mind was also in chaos.
Only a thirty-percent chance… He had toed the line between life and death countless times himself, and a thirty-percent chance surviving those incidents would have been pretty good, but… this was Ah-Xu.
It wasn’t until Cao Weining called for him that he snapped out of it.
The former looked at him cautiously, waiting for him to speak. After Gu Xiang had said that this man had raised her, Cao Weining suddenly gained a fear and respect towards him, revering him as an ‘old, venerable man’-type. “Brother Wen called me out here because…?” he asked, having an accompanying smile.
Wen Kexing looked at him. All of a sudden, he seemed like he kind of didn’t know where to start, and it spoke only after a minute of thought. “I… At ten years old, when I myself was a half-grown child, I picked up Ah-Xiang. I knew her parents, too. When they died, she was much too young, still in her swaddling cloth. She had been hidden by her mother so that their enemies didn’t find her, which is the only reason she’s alive.”
Cao Weining dared not take in too big of a breath. He looked almost a bit awed as he listened.
“She’s not actually my maid…” Wen Kexing continued. “Even though we’ve mutually been a lord and his servant by name, I’ve never treated that girl as an outsider, but like my own little sister.”
He laughed, pausing before he nodded, “If we pretend I’m an elder, I did watch her grow up, so she’s a bit like my daughter. The area we lived in as children was not very hospitable. I was a child, too, and screwed up a lot when bringing her along. The first time I fed her congee, it burned her mouth badly. Now that she’s gotten so big, it’s not easy for me, and, really… she’s not easy at all, either.”
Cao Weining had a vague idea of what he was going to say. “Rest assured, Brother Wen,” he said, serious. “For all my life, from now until death, I will count every day and every moment. There will never be a single second that I let Ah-Xiang down.”
Wen Kexing looked at him, his smile shallow. “Don’t be so wordy.”
Raising a hand, Cao Weining pointed at the sky to swear an oath. “To the Emperor of Heaven and the Empress of the Earth, this truth of mine is as clear as a mirror.”
This Great Scholar yet feared that Wen Kexing wouldn’t believe him, so he blurted out the one sentence he would ever say in his life that, despite being incorrect, would not make anyone laugh. “Although the long-lived Heavens and Earth will eventually come to their end, these feelings will linger, never coming to a close.”[28]
Wen Kexing looked at him strangely. “Even if she might not be what you think she is? Even if… you find out that you don’t actually know who she is?”
“Your mind can be at ease,” Cao Weining answered. “Of course I know who she is.”
Wen Kexing began to laugh. He picked up a small rock and threw it at Zhang Chengling, shouting, “What are you daydreaming about, brat? Focus!”
Your mind can be at ease, of course I know who she is… you were thinking too much, Ah-Xiang.
Two people were entangled atop warm and perfumed sheets. A debauched air filled the room. The Scorpion sat nearby, watching them without moving, looking like a ghostly apparition.
The pair on the bed seemed to get more and more into it, their cries growing louder — if one looked closely, they would see that the people he had selected this time around were both teenagers.
A while later, the two youths came down from their afterglow. Exchanging a look, they hastily got dressed, stepped up before the Scorpion while half-covered, and got on one knee towards him.
He set down his cup of wine in a persnickety fashion, his gaze raking over the bodies and still-flushed faces of the youths.
Right then, the room’s door was pushed open from the outside, and a burst of wind bustled in. One of kneeling youths shrank into himself.
A tall man in a mask stood in the doorway.
The Scorpion didn’t raise his head to look up, as if he hadn’t noticed anyone come in at all. He reached out and grabbed one youth’s head, forcing him to raise it so that he could take a careful look over his face. This one had looks like carven jade while also dusted with makeup, and when he blinked, a watery light suffused his eyes. His chin was sharp and his face was tender, giving him an effeminate appearance.
The Scorpion shook his head, sighing in disappointment. “How awful, that a feminine twist must be aided by the stink of cosmetics.”
The masked man waltzed in, not perturbed at all, apparently. Once that was said, he shot a look at the two shivering youths. “There’s just two boytoys. Neither have the bearing that women do. Why is that so strange?”
The Scorpion waved his hand. The two youths bowed like they had just received a great amnesty, then practically scrambled out of his room. He then slowly poured himself another cup of wine, saying, “What isn’t strange is no fun. If these men look like women, why should I play with men at all? What a shame… that I let those two run away last time.”
The masked man took a seat. “Oh, these little things you keep are able to run away from you?” he casually asked.
The Scorpion looked at him, grinning. “They weren’t mine, though. They were two guests with poor intentions,” he continued, downplaying it. “Speaking of which, you probably know one of them personally. His looks resembled the head honcho of your little area.”
The masked man froze for a moment. “Was it… him?”
“Who knows?”
The other was quiet for a minute, then stood like he couldn’t handle sitting anymore. He walked a few steps off, hands behind his back, while muttering to himself. “He suddenly vanished a while ago. So, he came here… He said that he was going to go catch that Xue Fang, hunt down the Key, and gain the least amount of attention from those great sects, but he himself pops in and out of existence. What is that man’s ultimate intent?”
“Who knows…” the Scorpion repeated, completely unconcerned.
The masked man stopped in his tracks, raising his hand to stop the Scorpion from speaking further. “Nevermind that. Have you taken care of Sun Ding?”
The Scorpion affirmed, reaching out a leg to kick a box out from under the table, which slid to a stop before the masked man. The latter opened the lid with his toes to reveal one already somewhat rotten human head inside, the blood-red birthmark on his cheek visible regardless. He let out a breath of relief. “This one being dealt with is good. The others are easy to handle. Haha, the Merry Death Wraith… Zhao Jing let out word of the fake Xue Fang. Anyone else wouldn’t matter, but this fool took the bait, just in time for me to catch them all in one net.”
Upon hearing the phrase ‘The others are easy to handle,’ a glint of light imperceptibly flashed through the Scorpion’s gaze. “Right,” he said, his smile full of a deeper meaning. “Don’t fret about the rest. They will be dealt with, one by one.”
He abruptly set his cup down on the table, looking serious. “Less talk of other things. Where exactly are the real Xue Fang and your alleged ‘Key’? Do you have any clues right now?”
The masked man shook his head. “You don’t have any, either?” he countered.
The Scorpion furrowed his brow. “It’s very, very odd… The man seems to have evaporated off the face of the earth. Where could he have gone to?”
The masked man mumbled to himself for a minute. “Don’t be preoccupied with looking for him. First, get all of the Beryl pieces, and then we’ll speak of it. Zhao Jing’s imagination is getting wilder, as he seemed to be positive that I’m the one that hit the Key away — I predict that his next step will be to plant the Whorl Beryl’s whereabouts upon Wraith Vale’s head, then he’ll cause a distraction while doing something else, consolidating his own power by the way. The Central Plains’ martial world is currently a mess, no one knows what’s going on, and it’ll be difficult for them not to follow his lead once he beats his drum after all that wild running around. He’s going to single out Wraith Vale like so.”
He huffed. “Cooperating with Zhao Jing… I long knew that such a day would come, and it’s really not a big deal, but…”
The Scorpion looked up at him. “What? Have you devised a plan regarding your Vale Lord?”
The other smiled. “He’s nothing more than a madman. At the very most, he’s thick-skinned and has skill enough to fight and kill. When his time to be useful finally comes, I’ll have him fight to the death with Zhao Jing. Since he’s already in Luoyang and has shown his face to you, I’ll have to trouble with with the hard task of ‘inviting’ the good man over to toil.”
The Scorpion nodded. “Easy.”
Meanwhile, the group being plotted against was still taking it easy.
On this day, Zhang Chengling wanted to follow Gu Xiang and the others off to their destination, so he found Zhou Zishu to say as much. The latter rolled his eyes and gave a one-word reply: “Bullshit.”
Zhang Chengling opened his mouth, and, in a decision to imitate Senior Wen, tirelessly wound around and chased down Zhou Zishu like a butt beetle the whole day. This went until he chased him back to his room at night; when Zhou Zishu was about to slam the door shut, he wedged a foot between it and the doorframe, looking up at his Master stubbornly. “Master, you have to let me go,” he begged. “I can’t just do nothing, I...“
Zhou Zishu’s eyes harshened. He had never had much patience to begin with, and it had only been because his mood was decent that he had allowed this brat to hang on him all the time. This was just annoying, now.
He kicked at the boy’s chest. Zhang Chengling believed that he was testing his skills, so he happily turned away and moved backwards. After dodging it, however, right when he opened his mouth to speak, Zhou Zishu noisily slammed the door shut.
Wen Kexing had shown up behind Zhang Chengling somehow, gazing off into the distance and sighing. “Fine. The door’s a no-go this time.”
Zhang Chengling’s head drooped as he stood aside, wilted like a frostbitten eggplant.
From Wen Kexing’s tone, it seemed that he was too tired to go in. He sighed yet again, saying despondently, “Generally, when men stay alone in their room, their desires are unlikely to be fulfilled. When those are unfulfilled, they are likely to do some unreasonable things. When lacking in reason, they—“
Despite Zhang Chengling’s reaction time being a little slow, he wasn’t an idiot. Suddenly getting the visual that murder was emanating off the top of Wen Kexing’s head like a bun gave off steam, he suffered a fright, jumping up and practically shitting himself as he vanished from his line of sight.
Wen Kexing watched him go, looking somewhat confused and fairly uncomprehending. He raised his hand to knock on the door, simultaneously placing his hand against the window in preparation to bust through it at any time. He was about to get a kick out of being a ‘ravisher’.
Alas, the door opened from the inside, stunning Wen Kexing while he was trying to do something evil. When Zhou Zishu stepped aside to let him in, he was still in a rare state of looking stupefied. “You’re… letting me in?”
The other shot him a look, raising his brow. “If you’re not coming in, then don’t.”
He reached out to shut the door. Wen Kexing quickly shoved his hand away, pushed his way inside, and smiled brightly.
Zhou Zishu just lit the lantern, having no intent to get to bet. He stooped to pour two cups of tea, then sat down at a table. He lowered his gaze. There was no hint of a joke about him at all, as if he had something serious to talk about.
Wen Kexing watched him with a wide grin for a while. It, too, slowly faded.
He picked up one of the cups, but merely held it in his hand, not drinking it. Leaning back into his chair, he stretched out his legs, then folded them together and inclined his head towards Zhou Zishu. “What? Do you have something to say to me? Have you decided that we’re going to devote ourselves to each other, or—”
Zhou Zishu cut him off with a mocking laugh, lifting his gaze up to look at him. “Don’t you have something to say to me, Vale Lord Wen?”
Wen Kexing’s voice caught in his throat. He opened his mouth, but it took a while for him to shake his head and smile. “Nanjiang’s Great Shaman is a formidable man. You going with him puts me at ease.”
Zhou Zishu dipped his finger into his tea to draw randomly on the table. “That’s it?”
Wen Kexing raised his head to look at him. His eyes pierced through the man’s handsome features, their edges softened under the lanternlight, and remembered many things. It felt like the two of them had known each other for a very, very long time.
When he’d seen the bones of his back, his heart had pumped with excitement. Later on, he became fond of his identity, thinking that… this was how the leader of Heaven’s Pane really was. It was after this that he felt the other to be like another one of him set upon this world, a lone wolf caught in a trap that was desperately trying to break free of it, to the point where he would even viciously chew his own leg off.
He hadn’t been able to help following him all this way. Looking at him, he’d had a sudden epiphany, and for the first time, he knew: Since this man could live like this, could he pass his days like this, too?
All this reminiscing ensnared him, to the point that he couldn’t get out.
Unwittingly, he reached out to stroke Zhou Zishu’s face, his fingers slightly crooked while he just gently rubbed. The man’s skin was not delicate, and his palm, covered in calluses and scars, was slightly cool. “You’re not going to die,” he said, apropos of nothing. “If you do, wouldn’t it be lonesome for me, to have to keep living all by myself?”
Zhou Zishu grabbed his wrist, yet didn’t fling his hand away. “As long as there’s a thread of possibility that I can continue to live, I won’t be dying,” he answered, smiling. “My fate is my own, as are my martial skills. The Heavens have given me a way out, and taking something of mine away from me isn’t so easy to do.”
Wen Kexing could feel his puffs of breath on his fingers. He narrowed his eyes slightly, speaking in somewhat of a daze. “That one year, an owl overturned the bowl of red water a villager was carrying…”
The other watched him. Without a change in expression, he softly asked a question he had asked once before, “Why was the villager carrying a bowl of red water?”
Wen Kexing slowly began to smile. “Water has no color, but if human blood lands in it, doesn’t it turn red?”
Zhou Zishu said no more. Wen Kexing seemed to suddenly snap out it, his far-off gaze clearing up and focusing. His mouth curved into a smile as he looked back at him. “How about you sleep with me this time around, Ah-Xu? Both of our hearts will be bound like so. You won’t die so easily, and I won’t die so easily, either. Is that amenable to you?”
It seemed like he was joking, but Zhou Zishu didn’t rise to it. He simply had a strange look in his eyes towards him. A while later, he asked, “Are you being genuine?”
Laughing, Wen Kexing fully leaned towards him, nearly brushing against his lips. “Aren’t you able to tell whether I am or not?”
Zhou Zishu startled slightly. “I… really can’t,” he said quietly. “I haven’t seen anyone be genuine more than a few times in my life, so I can’t tell the difference. Are you?”
Wen Kexing’s fingers climbed up his shoulder, then pulled his hair out of its bun, the black threads all falling loose. This made the tough man before him instantly seem a little more fragile.
His grin was put away. While his voice was soft, what he said landed heavily: “Yes.”
Then, he shut his eyes, pressed his lips against his, and willed his ever-uneasy heart to sink to the bottom, having no more second thoughts.
Zhou Zishu slowly raised his hand. It hung in the air for a very long time, then fell upon the other’s shoulder, his fingers digging into the fabric there.
All of a sudden, a shriek exploded through the night. Zhou Zishu’s slightly hazy eyes immediately sharpened, Wen Kexing stopped moving, and the two of them tumbled to the ground together in a moment of distraction, maintaining that same ambiguous pose.
Wen Kexing blankly looked down, fixed up the mussed lapels of both himself and Zhou Zishu, and said quietly, “At a time like this… tell me, should I broil whoever they are, or braise them?”
The Scorpion stood in a place the moonlight did not shine upon, covered head-to-toe in a large, hooded robe. With the slight breeze’s swell, he looked like a ghost hiding in the corner.
He was keeping a beautiful youth on a leash, who happened to be one of the two that had just gotten off of his bed. The youth was wearing tight-fitting clothes for night travel with a chain around his neck, the other end of which was held in the Scorpion’s grasp, like he was a dolled-up dog.
He reached out to comb his fingers gently through the boy’s hair, sighing. “If we didn’t come to give the Vale Lord — powerful figure that he is — a reminder, I fear that everyone here will grow old in their tender feelings, not even white clouds stirring envy for an immortal’s land. That won’t work. If all the world’s heroes are that uninspired, who will unmask the true face of that ‘Great Hero’?”
The pretty youth narrowed his eyes in apparent enjoyment, unconsciously rubbing against the Scorpion’s fingers in want of more caresses.
A few shadows darted into the tiny inn. Those unfortunate enough to be implication were startled out of their dreams, screams springing up all around. Suddenly, one room’s door opened, and harried, disheveled, half-grown boy ran out of it, a Venom in pursuit.
The Scorpion watched on idly. He saw that, in spite of his bedraggled and ridiculous appearance, the boy’s footwork was not the slightest bit messy — what he was using was wonderful agility arts.
He didn’t appear to be full awake yet, nor did he have the intention to fight back, simply bouncing all over the place to take cover while complaints spilled out of his mouth. “Shit! Why all these people in black again?! If I’m sleeping, they’re here, and if I’m not asleep, they’re still here! I didn’t dig your ancestors’ gra-aaaaaves!”
That final syllable broke and turned into a scream, as the Venom chasing him had sent out a needle as thin as an ox’s hair. Zhang Chengling faceplanted onto the ground like a dog eating mud.
Resembling a giant meat worm, he stuck his butt up, wriggled a few times, then nimbly rolled off to one side, where he leapt upwards and freeran a few steps up the nearest wooden pillar. Twisting to turn back around, he flung what he clenched in his hand at the Venom behind him, shouting, “Take a look at my needle!”
The Venom bent backwards almost subconsciously.
Zhang Chengling had been duped by others since the day of his birth. At long last — by the influence of cheap tricks he had learned from a series of unscrupulous, unabashed people of Gu Xiang and his Master’s like — he had successfully duped someone else this once.
He was so ecstatic, he hugged the wooden pillar and climbed it like a bear would, explaining in triumph, “Haha! You’re so dumb! That’s how my Master taught me to dupe people!”
“What horseshit,” he heard a slightly indignant voice say. “When did I ever teach you such a cruddy trick?”
The poor Venom, who had just realized this and went to catch up, suddenly felt a wind attack him from behind, and he didn’t even have time to turn his head before it rolled off of his neck and onto the ground.
Zhang Chengling’s laughter got stuck in his throat. He stared blankly, unsure of where Wen Kexing had come from — with his visual acuity, he had only been able to see an afterimage slicing through the air, which had been followed by the Venom’s head being separated from his body.
Wen Kexing stood coldly to one side, his head lowered. Not a drop stained his clothes, and only four of the fingers on his left hand dripped blood.
He held no sword or knife or other sharp weapon in hand, yet he had used some unknown method to ‘chop’ the Venom’s head off with his bare hands. Could he actually condense the wind coming off of his fingers into sword qi?
The man resembled a malicious ghost that had crawled out of the underworld. Despite the look on his face not being particularly heavy, it still made one want to draw three chi back from him.
Zhang Chengling opened his mouth, still hugging the pillar, but nothing came out.
At this moment, Gu Xiang, Cao Weining, and Gao Xiaolian also came out and joined the circle of battle. Zhou Zishu appeared in the doorway at his own pace; he opened the pill bottle that had been given to him by the Great Shaman, swallowed one pill dry, and crossed his arms in from of his chest. His belt was tied on loosely, the Baiyi Sword still not drawn from it, and his gaze bounced of Wen Kexing and the rest to go straight for where the stood Scorpion in the shadows.
The Great Shaman’s room window had long been pushed open. He didn’t move to get involved, merely leaning against the frame to watch. When his gaze landed upon Wen Kexing, his brows furrowed.
Lord Seventh, draping an outer robe over him, asked from behind him, “What do you think of his skill?”
The other mulled that over for a moment. “If we’re talking about true skills in martial arts, Manor Lord Zhou might have been able to contend with him in his prime. If it’s only in regards to hand-to-hand, he definitely wouldn’t win against him.”
Lord Seventh was taken aback. “What about you, then?”
The Great Shaman shook his head. “Unless I had no other choice, I would never fight him.”
His dark gaze looked towards where Wen Kexing was standing in the courtyard.
The latter seemed to chuckle. Upon raising his hand, he gently licked the blood dripping off of his fingers, leaving a smear of dark-red blood on his lips.
Both the Great Shaman and Zhou Zishu might be rarely-seen experts in jianghu, but martial arts were taught by a Master. They had followed the teachings of another, then slowly fumbled about and practiced hard on their own.
Althought self-cultivation was a personal thing, one would always have a Master’s lead to open the door for them. Their motivation for learning martial arts was none other than developing talents and bringing their own dreams into reality. They always carried a cliched air that was impossible to get rid of, very real and very present, even if others couldn’t see it.
But not this man.
This man’s arts had been tempered over decades of weathering a bloody storm. He had no mantras nor tricks, just the repeated choice of either living or dying.
His were likely the most terrifying arts in the world.
The Scorpion slightly opened his mouth, voice slightly trembling — it wasn’t clear if that was out of fear, or excitement. He clenched his fingers, scratching up the pretty youth he had, and the latter’s facial features slightly scrunched up in a painful expression. He still didn’t dare to move.
“If someone told me that he isn’t the Vale Lord, I wouldn’t believe them even if they beat me to death,” the Scorpion muttered. He suddenly released the leashed youth, patting him on the head. “Go greet that abnormally lucky boy and play with him. We grown-ups are going to have a chat.”
The other agreed, then darted off. His own martial arts were not weak.
At the very same time, the Scorpion snapped his fingers and gave a command. All of the still-living Venoms jumped away from the siege to neatly line up next to him.
He walked out from the darkness to stand before Wen Kexing, saluting. “Gentlemen. We meet yet again.”
Wen Kexing released his grip, and the corpse of a Venom fell to the ground. Sweeping a look at the Scorpion, ferocity and exceptional impatience rolled off of him. “Did you come looking to die?”
The one youth had already thrown himself at Zhang Chengling. The Scorpion coldly didn’t spare him another glance, but Zhou Zishu — who hadn’t moved this whole time — raised his head to look at where the two teens had started brawling. He seemed to move slightly, but hesitated, then ended up not intervening at all.
While the youth’s moves were vicious, from the very beginning, he was only forcing Zhang Chengling to jump all about and cover his head as he fled. Simply put, Zhou Zishu could tell that if the two’s skills were said to be at different levels, they weren’t different by much; he already knew that Zhang Chengling was the type that would actually barge through any dangerous strait he was forced into.
Furthermore, with this many people around, there was no worry of something happening to the brat. He just let them do what they would.
The Scorpion smiled. “No, no. This humble one still cherishes my life. Since our target has already received your protection, Vale Lord, then in spite of all our gall, we dare not provoke someone so mighty.”
Wen Kexing watched him, irritated. It seemed like that he would twist his head off if he meandered in his words.
“I arrived here for the sake of a favor entrusted to me,” the Scorpion continued. “I must pass Young Lord Zhang a message.”
Wen Kexing looked briefly towards the two teens, who were already on the roof and fighting with lifted roof tiles. He didn’t feel like paying more attention to his counterpart, walking towards Zhou Zishu with a very sour look. With slightly hooded eyes, he curbed his malicious expression, after which he asked quietly, “Did you take your medicine?”
Zhou Zishu casually confirmed it, then asked the Scorpion, “What’s the message?”
The latter stood with his hands behind his back. His head was tilted back to look at Zhang Chengling, who had just been dodging left and right, yet still able to get a few moves off despite his sorry state. He couldn’t help but gasp when he noticed that the boy had pulled out a beat-up sword at some point, which seemed to have been picked up for sword practice at first glance. Within those seemingly completely structureless moves hid two extremely bright types of techniques: one was moderate and fair, having the aura of a unique gentry nobleman, and the other was dextrous and free, liable to be as beautiful as flowing waters if implemented fully.
The two styles had been haphazardly combined into one awkward and slipshod one by this boy. Even though it was strange no matter how one looked at it, there was a bizarre harmony to it.
The Scorpion could tell as much. In no more than ten moves, the fierce-looking offensive of the child he had raised was on track to be broken. “Do famed teachers produce expert disciples?” he pondered, rueful.
Then, he suddenly raised his voice. “Young Lord Zhang, do you want to know who it is that actually killed your family?”
Zhang Chengling jolted at that. Using that distraction, his opponent flung the chain around his neck, and it tangled around his sword — it had not been a powerful weapon to begin with, so that twisted it into two pieces immediately. The youth quickly pursued his victory, raising his dark-colored longsword and slicing it towards his middle.
After anxiously rolling to the side, Zhang Chengling had no choice but to aim a kick at the other’s groin.
The youth, alarmed and furious, had to instead turn away.
Everyone gained a strange look on their face.
Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing looked at each other. In similar tones of unconcern, they asked at the exact same time, “What kind of disciple have you taught?”
Wen Kexing glared. “He’s clearly your disciple.”
“Bullshit. How could I have taught a disciple that does nothing but shameless and debased things? He’s clearly the same cut of cloth as you.”
Zhang Chengling leapt up, set his Nine Palace Steps into full motion, and forced the other youth to chase after him, flying over eaves and walls. After the astonishment passed, the Scorpion continued, grinning. “What an eclectic boy… I will tell you the truth. The one who killed your father, the one who murdered Mount Tai’s Sect Leader, the one who secretly did in the patriarch of the Shen family, and the one who framed Hero Gao are all the same person.”
“Who?” Zhang Chengling questioned loudly.
“Who do you think?” the Scorpion questioned. “Who else can currently hold the Beryl as a distraction while also self-righteously summoning the land’s heroes to besiege Wraith Vale, exterminating everyone that knows something to the last, then getting the Vale’s Key and the Beryl in once place?”
Zhou Zishu let out an ah, looking at Wen Kexing with some deeper meaning. “The Vale’s Key. No wonder, then,,, that when what Long Que said was unheard of to us, only the Vale Lord was calm, and not a tiny bit surprised.”
“You don’t seem surprised,” Wen Kexing answered.
Zhou Zishu smiled. “I’m not. The Vale had been quiet for so many years, so why would a rebel show up all of a sudden, his aim pointed directly at the Whorl Beryl? With how big of a risk that is, if he came out here for all gain, no pain, that would be weird.”
The other hesitated for a while, then began to quietly explain. “You’re right. The Vale’s ten major Wraiths have always fought amongst either other, headed by Sun Ding and Xue Fang. Before this, the Merry Death Wraith used some unknown means to get the majority of the Wraiths on his side, thus winning by numbers. In the Vale, the weaker side will die, so Xue Fang chanced the risk… or he had plotted a day to steal the Key long ago.”
Zhou Zishu nodded. “Ah,” he said, dragging out his words, “he used some unknown means…”
There was currently only one person left from the five major families. No matter how slow Zhang Chengling might be, even he could tell who the Scorpion was hinting at. His heart skipped a beat, then, and he roared angrily, “You’re lying! That’s impossible!”
Zhou Zishu looked up at him. “If you want to reach the Great Dao, you need to have a firm resolution, brat,” he said, voice dark. “You don’t need to deceive yourself to deceive others over things you know well. If you think that he’s lying, his words can just go in one of your ears and out the other.”
While he spoke, his figure flickered without any visible movement. He came to be next to Cao Weining, snatched his sword from him, then flung it upwards. “Catch. Don’t you want to go with Gu Xiang’s group? If you can kill that pretty-faced not-girl, I promise I’ll let you go.”
Zhang Chengling flew up to catch Cao Weining’s sword, unsheathed it with a shing, and, giving a loud shout, he slashed towards the pretty youth without hesitation.
He practically wielded the sword like it was a ringed sabre. In that instant, he had a subjugating, uninhibited stance — one that no one had taught him.
The youth startled, panicked, stumbled, and made a mistake; one of his legs had a slight limp that couldn’t normally be seen, and in this moment of anxiety, it showed up.
An inscrutable grin suddenly appeared on the Scorpion’s face.
Zhang Chengling saw the limp as well, of course. His pupils suddenly shrunk, a ferocious hatred came over his expression, and he hacked straight down.
He sliced the youth from face to chest in one straight line.
Blood splattered all over his head, his face.
He turned around to look straight at the Scorpion. “You’re saying that it’s Uncle Zhao.”
Zhao Jing had brought him all the way to Dongting, after which those murdering Venoms had slowly started showing up… and why had Zhao Jing allowed Zhou Zishu, who origins were unknown, take him away so easily?
The reason was that once he was far enough away from him, he could kill him for real.
Everyone who had known the full story of long ago was now dead. Now, only one Zhao Jing was left. He had been injured for the sake of the martial world and the righteous path, presently someone of high prestige, his glowing halo unparalleled…
And that was the truth.
The pretty youth didn’t die. Zhang Chengling had never injured someone before, after all; in spite of his ruthlessness, he had hesitated for a moment, leaving only a long, deep gash in his opponent that spurted blood.
The Scorpion looked at Zhang Chengling, laughing oddly. “So there are people that have this good of luck,” he mumbled. “Your future prospects are beyond measure, my good boy.”
Saying so, he leaned in close to observe the youth that had collapsed to the ground. The latter’s body spasmed, and he looked at the Scorpion with a desire to struggle. The Scorpion gently grabbed his chin, shaking his head. “What a shame. Your face is ruined.”
Then, his hand gripped harder, forcing the youth’s neck into an unnatural curve, strangling him to death.
The Scorpion didn’t give a single glance to the corpse. He nodded at his few counterparts, then turned and left with the Venoms he’d brought.
Holding the bloodied sword in hand, Zhang Chengling stood alone in the courtyard, seeming to be trembling all over.
Cao Weining cautiously walked over, took his sword of the other’s hand, and cleaned it of blood. After glancing at the corpse of the young man with some lingering fear, he patted Zhang Chengling on the shoulder. “Um… we’re all very surprised by this, too. As I see it, that man didn’t seem like a nice one, so what he said might not be true.”
He looked up and around, as if searching for someone to back him up, only to see Gao Xiaolian dumbstruck, Gu Xiang ponderous, and the other two… clearly looking like they had known this long ago.
He thought back to the day that Gao Xiaolian had told them what had happened, and what Zhou Zishu had answered to Wen Kexing with: Almost everyone who knew something is dead, leaving just one. The winner and losers are already clear.
The winner and losers… were already clear?
Cao Weining couldn’t resist shuddering on the inside. That meant that they had already figured it out, then. That meant…
Zhang Chengling suddenly raised his hand. “Master,” he said to Zhou Zishu, “I remember who the one that was wrapped all black and interrogated my father looked like. I just… just…”
He turned around. His gaze fell upon the youth’s corpse.
His throat bobbed, only to tremble even more violently. Raising his hand even higher, he put himself slightly on tiptoe. “He was… this tall. Broad-shouldered. One leg… it wasn’t too easy to tell, but when I was being chased and running in a panic, one leg was slightly lame, just like his… And it was him who hurt Uncle Li badly, he… he…”
Gu Xiang gave a quiet gasp of alarm, covering her mouth with one hand. Her already-huge eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. It seemed like she had heard the most horrifying thing in the entire world.
Wen Kexing glanced at her. Not making a sound, he used his hand that wasn’t stained with blood to pet Zhang Chengling on the head, nodding. “I know,” he said, sounding calm.
He looked up, gaze seeming to penetrate the night to look somewhere far away. He had a strange, faint smile, like that of a weary wanderer who had just walked the entire land and was finally able to peek at the true form of fate; it had a very indistinct sardonicism to it, yet even more indescribable relief and tranquility.
Gu Xiang slowly took her hand off. “My Lord…” he whispered.
Wen Kexing held a hand up to stop her. “You’re a married woman, water that’s been spilled. From this point on, none of this has any relation to you anymore. You ought to go find Ye Baiyi tomorrow. I won’t neglect your dowry, of course, so don’t ever go back there.”
Zhang Chengling wanted every bit of strength he could. He had just resolved to puff out his chest like a real man, protect those that needed protecting, and eliminate what needed eliminating. No matter what he encountered, he would not shy away nor be afraid, and yet… his tears seemed like they wouldn’t stop, falling in constant streams. He felt like a useless good-for-nothing, felt like he had transformed back into that weak child that couldn’t do a single thing.
A villain had murdered his family. He had wanted to learn martial arts and become stronger so that he could defend future friends and relatives from being hurt, and take revenge for the dead by killing the murderer.
But the murderer was Uncle Zhao…
It was he that his father had gripped Uncle Li’s hand over, asking for his assurance that he would escort Zhang Chengling to Zhao Manor before he closed his eyes forever. It was he that Uncle Li had forcibly dragged his Master into all this over, on that frigid night in that ruined wildlands temple, entrusting him with Zhang Chengling’s protection.
It was he who had stayed by his side all the time in his darkest days. It was he who had gone red in the eyes in front of all the land’s heroes, saying over and over again that he was going to get justice for him. He was…
The ways of the world were too complex, and human ambition, too abstruse. If even those closest and most reliable to you could not be trusted, then who could you give all of your trust to?
Wen Kexing gave an ambiguous sigh. Looking at them no more, he turned and went back into his room.
Meanwhile, Zhou Zishu paused for a moment, then gestured Zhang Chengling over. “Come with me, brat.”
Zhang Chengling forcefully wiped his eyes off, but his vision quickly blurred again. He knew that Zhou Zishu was most impatient with his tears. “M-Master, I-I don’t really want to cry,” he wibbled out. “I just… I just… need a minute…”
Zhou Zishu sighed. Not saying anything for once, he reached out and took him into a hug.
All he had was an outer robe crudely draped over his inner robes. The material was very thin, allowing his body heat to easily pass through it.
Zhang Chengling buried his entire face in his embrace. In that moment, it was like he was leaning against a mountain that would never topple.
Friends of the same generation did nothing but plot against each other. Strangers that met by chance, however, could depend upon each other for life.
Cao Weining pulled Gu Xiang away, and they left quietly. Gao Xiaolian drew in a deep breath, then also returned to her room with a heavy heart. Only the master and disciple pair were left in the courtyard.
The Great Shaman looked at them through the window. “Is that… Lord Zhou?” he had to say. “When was he ever like that…?”
Lord Seventh chuckled. It wasn’t clear whether his next words were an answer, or just him monologuing. “Hasn’t he always been like that? He was the same with Liang Jiuxiao, too. Even though he always looks like a genuinely disappointed big brother or dad, he’s actually had everything nicely planned out for him in secret. It’s unfortunate that others don’t get his kind regards.”
The Great Shaman turned towards him. There were no light on in the room; Lord Seventh’s form was mostly shrouded in darkness, and moonrays fell only upon some of his face, making him look unlike a mortal man.
“If you say that he’s a great man of benevolence and wisdom, he will likely never admit to that,” the other continued. If you say that he’s nothing good… out of every damnable thing he’s done, not a one had been down out of selfish desire, nor for himself.”
He suddenly turned to grab something, push open the door, and leave, sighing inaudibly.
Lord Seventh strode into the courtyard, then threw what he was holding to Zhang Chengling — a sword of dark iron. The boy quickly scrambled to catch it, staring blankly; it was only after Zhou Zishu nodded that he slowly pulled away.
The sword was very wide, being twice the width of Cao Weining’s sword. It didn’t glint much, instead having an ancient elegance and simplicity to it, its halo dim and edge containing a stark murderous aura. It was exceptionally weighty in the hand, about two or three times the weight of regular swords.
A name was inscribed upon the sword: Dahuang, ‘the Great Devastation’.
“This was given to my by my subordinates to mess around with. It’s decent-looking, but I’m not much of a learner,” Lord Seventh said. “It’s useless for me to have it, and it’s not easy to handle. Too heavy. I’ll give it to you.”
“Ah,” uttered Zhang Chengling, eyes still rimmed with red. He was slightly at a loss.
“Prized swords ought to be given to heroes, even if they’re only a future hero,” the other continued. “I have no future prospects; at most, I will be a rich idler all my life. Take it, and don’t put it to shame from now on.”
“Thank you, Lord Seventh,” said Zhou Zishu, solemn.
Lord Seventh chuckled, giving him the side-eye. “I’ve been friends with you for some years. We’ve fought and toyed with fate together, yet you’re only playful with others. Why are you so deadpan and boring across from me?” he asked, full of deeper meaning.
Zhou Zishu was taken aback.
The man waved him off, turning to go back, speaking while he did. “Ah, Zishu. I’m not Prince Nan’ning, and you’re not Sir Zhou. Even with how bright you are, you still haven’t figured that out?”
After going quiet for a moment, a look of relief suddenly showed up on Zhou Zishu’s face. “It isn’t that I’m too afraid to joke with you, but that you’re so very pretty, I’m afraid that my personal vinegar jar will tip over,” he joked, voice bright.
Lord Seventh paused mid-step, but didn’t get mad. He simply turned his head to look at him, unsure of how to react, then helplessly shook his head, heading inside.
Zhou Zishu got no sleep the entire night, having taught Zhang Chengling a sword moveset in the courtyard. While the puffy-eyed boy was taking it seriously, he was still slow on the uptake. For any one move that others would get from seeing just once, he would need to see it a few times over, then ask questions about it up, down, and backwards before he could get it.
At the very end, he took out a brush and sheet of paper, then drew every single move Zhou Zishu had taught him, a bunch of mantras and scribbled notes in the margins. He practically itched to write down every single thing Zhou Zishu said.
“What are you drawing those?” Zhou Zishu asked. “Why not just go and practice them?”
Zhang Chengling blushed. “Master, I still haven’t gotten fully familiar with what you taught me last time,” he answered awkwardly. “I… I know I’m stupid, so I set a rule for myself that I need to practice each move ten-thousand times before I start practicing the next one. Then, I’ll review them from time to time, and every day I get up early to me… morize…”
Remembering that Zhou Zishu didn’t like it when he memorized the mantras forwards and backwards, his words got stuck in his throat. He cautiously looked up at Zhou Zishu, tongue out.
The gaze Zhou Zishu looked at him with was complicated.
Great wisdom might look like idiocy, great skill might look like incompetence. No anxiety, no impulsiveness, his feet firmly on the ground… The Scorpion had said that Zhang Chengling was lucky, yet he suddenly felt himself to be rather fortunate, to be able to teach a high talent of the world.
He patted the boy’s shoulder. “You can go with tomorrow. Act only according to your abilities. Don’t… shame the sword Lord Seventh gave you.”
The very next day, Gu Xiang, Cao Weining, Gao Xiaolian, and Zhang Chengling set off on their journey. One part of it was going to find Ye Baiyi, and the other part was Cao Weining worrying over the Purewind Sword Sect; Gao Xiaolian and Zhang Chengling wanted to see the fact for themselves, too, so they decided to secretly search for Zhao Jing’s tracks.They thought that since Gao Chong was one of the Land Writ’s holders, with something having happened to him, Ye Baiyi wouldn’t stand by and watch; they might come across him, then.
Only after seeing off these four noisy things did Zhou Zishu plan to go back to his room and rest. The second he pushed the door open, he saw Wen Kexing waiting for him inside. The man was sitting on the windowsill, one leg outside and one leg curled up, his hands laced over his knee.
Upon seeing him come in, he looked up, smiled, and said, “I’m going to head out too, Ah-Xu.”
Zhou Zishu paused. “Back to the Wind Cliffs?”
Wen Kexing nodded. “I’ve been out and mucking about for long enough. I’ve practically seen all the people and scenery I never had before, and it’s about time that I go back and tie up loose ends. Ah-Xu…”
He seemed to want to say something, yet wasn’t sure where to start, scratching his head. At long last, he said, “You… need to take care of your wounds well, but don’t go and eat the apricot that hangs over the wall. When I go look for you on Everbright later, if—“
“I get it,” Zhou Zishu interrupted. He took out his wine jar, swirled it in his hand, and poured himself a cup, looking at him no more. “Get out of here. And don’t die.”
Wen Kexing laughed quietly, threw out a “Take care,” and then, the very next instant, his figure was no longer there, leaving only the vacant window frame was to get blown on by the breeze. It was like no one had ever been there to begin with.
Zhou Zishu downed the wine in one shot.
After walking for a stretch of time, Cao Weining realized that Gu Xiang was being quiet. She had been, ever since that scene of turmoil from the start of the night.
Gao Xiaolian, a reserved young woman, was not especially familiar with them, and was just fine with not speaking on her own initiative, merely following behind them distantly while she carefully helped Zhang Chengling with leading the reins; the little guy was holding his new Great Famine sword in his arms while dozing off on the horse’s back. His drool was flowing onto its neck, dampening its hair and causing the little horse to shake its head the whole time.
Cao Weining gathered in close to Gu Xiang, leaned down, then tilted his head to take a careful measure of her expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did you not sleep well, either?”
She looked at him listlessly, then lowered her head, the spitting image of a young wife. That only frightened him, though. Believing that she had eaten something spoiled, he quickly reached out to feel her forehead, thinking to himself, This woman that always jumps around and all about is being very docile… she couldn’t have fallen ill, right?
She leaned backwards, flung his hand away, then turned to look back at the pair that was a good bit away from them. “It’s a… you’ve always thought that honesty was a bit foolish, and normally, three kicks wouldn’t get one fart out of you. What anyone else said would just be whatever,” she said, sullen. “How did someone that’s apparently never grown a brain end up turning into a major devil that plots behind everyone’s backs?”
He chewed on her words a couple of times, then made a weird face. “Ah-Xiang, have you… misunderstood something about Xiao Zhang?”
Gu Xiang went mute for a short moment. “You who is surnamed Cao,” she started, sinister, “can go ahead and die.”
She then raised her hand and went to hit him.
Cao Weining smiled mischievously as he dodged her. “Ah, don’t. Won’t you be a widow if I die? To be widowed at a young age would be very pitiful.”
After thinking about that, she felt it to be true; she still didn’t yet hold the two-and-half streets of dowry her Master had promised, so doing this would be a loss. Glaring at Cao Weining, she took her raised hand back, deciding to fight with language, not fists.
She knew herself to not be any sort of highly capable. Many times, she couldn’t understand what her Master was saying, simply following beside him in ignorance, occasionally flapping her trap to entertain him in addition to her everyday life of attending to him. She, and he… and they… were not people going the same path. She couldn’t be considered a flower of considerate words, nor a close confidante of rosy cheeks.
Like a child, she had only a smidgen of deviousness and cunning, where she could approach benefits whilst shunning disadvantages. Even though all the people she had seen below Fengya Mountain had been nothing good, her Master had been there, and none of them had ever gotten the idea to dare strike her. Thus, extraordinarily uncommonly, she was able to preserve her naïveté; she wasn’t that great at fathoming peoples’ intentions, and in spite of knowing what evil was, she had no idea what genuine evil looked like.
Lao Meng, the Ghost of Impermanence, had been wearing old-farmer-esque clothes at Lake Tai when she had temporarily nabbed him. He had dug a hole in the ground to drag those two sorry-looking men out of it, and then, because of one word from their Master, specifically sought out the clothes of a butcher to wear, smiling happily at everyone. She had even heard people talking behind his back, saying that he was a dog raised by their Master.
Even dogs would have a bit of a dog’s temper, but he didn’t even have one of those.
Did he steal the key? Did he betray Ghost Valley? Where was the Hanging Wraith, Xue Fang?
There had been a fake Xue Fang, back when the Zhang family had been silenced. Was Lao Meng the impersonator? Starting from that point on, had Lao Meng been colluding with that Zhao guy?
Noticing that her brows were still furrowed, Cao Weining attempted to ease her worries. “Truthfully… I understood a bit of what Brother Zhou and the rest had said yesterday.”
Blinking her big, apricot pit-like eyes, she looked up at him. Once glanced at like that by her, he practically emanated a heroic aura, like he could do anything, and suddenly felt himself to truly be a purely manly man.
A purely manly man who, for the sake of cajoling his lady when she was upset, would suffer her blows whenever she was angry, and stand up to give her a thorough analysis whenever she didn’t understand something.
“I heard them say ‘Lapis Armor’ and ‘key’,” he said. “They evidently want to get what’s in the Armor. Finding the five pieces of it alone isn’t enough, as it still requires a key, which is in the hands of that limping villain Xiao Zhang had spoken of. At the start, this villain and Zhao Jing were in the same group, so they set out together to do evil and steal the other pieces. Zhao Jing murdered Patriarch Shen, framed Hero Gao for it, then obtained all of them; now, one has the Armor, while one has the key, thus dividing the loot unequally, and making them start to fight.”
Gu Xiang pondered this, then nodded. “That seems to be so… who the one wanting to kill Zhang Chengling, then?”
“Think about it. Xiao Zhang saw the crook that’s been hiding all this time. Even if he had forgotten it for a time, that crook still feared that he would remember, then unveil his identity, so he hired people to hunt him down… ah, yes, Zhao Jing must have known about this, else he wouldn’t have allowed Brother Zhou and them to bring Xiao Zhang away amidst such a mess. Once he was brought away, he then wouldn’t be able to set about killing him so easily — but why is that Ghost Valley crook afraid of having his identity exposed? It took me half a night of thinking before I understood; he’s likely scared of the Valley’s internals discovering that he’s a traitor, then killing him.”
She looked at him in adoration, thinking to herself that his theory was like a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse.
Upon seeing her expression, he felt even more like he was walking on air, waving his hand in false humility. “I’m just randomly guessing, that’s all. Ahem. Let’s not worry over stuff like fools; we’ll go expose Zhao Jing’s plot, look for Hero Ye, then go back to live a good life, just you and me.”
“Your shifu disdains that I have no father or mother, and am a wild girl,” she pointed out. “What if he doesn’t allow it?”
Cao Weining made another big hand wave. “Then you’ll abduct me, and we’ll elope.”
“Pah! Am I that ravenous?” she fumed.
He thought some more. “Then I’ll pretend to switch roles to a flower-stealer, abduct you, and we’ll elope.”
Upon deliberation, she believed that that was a terrible idea, but also just good enough. She thus nodded, satisfied, and reached out her tiny hand to hook around Cao Weining’s. They rode side-by-side, which was simply sickeningly sweet.
In full contentment, he thought, So, this is what it is to have a wife… having one is really nice. She’s soft, smells good, and when she leans against me, even my heart melts after her. She smiles at me, and I immediately get dizzy. She’s someone who will know when I’m feeling hot or cold, or will make up the bed… in the future, we’ll build a little house with a little courtyard, have a couple chubby little kids, and I’ll hear her voice sharply calling for me to come home for dinner…
The more he thought, the more beautiful those thoughts became, until his desire to spout poetry was overwhelming. “Golden wind and jadeite dew meet once, superior to the countless meetings of the mortal realm,” he crisply recited. “In the Heavens, I wish for us to be birds of the same feather. On Earth, I wish for us to be conjoined trees…”[29]
Those people scheming this and scheming that the day long, struggling to make others die while living themselves; what was the point of it? Practicing exceptional, divine arts, being number one in the realm through a thousand autumns and innumerable generations; what was the point of that?
They would still be old bachelors all their lives, never getting wives.
Cao Weining vaguely felt them to all be a bit pitiful.
When Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman returned carrying a bunch of medical supplies, they caught sight of Zhou Zishu sitting in the courtyard, whittling a flute. His craftsmanship was nothing great, and he was using materials from his surroundings, even having ruined a few prior, all sounds they made muted when played and producing a field’s worth of wood dust. As Lord Seventh drew near, he discovered that his latest flute had since taken shape.
The Great Shaman nodded at Zhou Zishu, then turned and went in the house, not having anything to say to him.
Lord Seventh conversely sat down at the side. “What are you doing?”
“Cultivating myself physically and spiritually,” Zhou Zishu answered lazily. He put his carved flute up to his mouth, then blew, finally getting it to make sound… when others played the flute, it was a heavenly sound that entered the clouds, but when he played it, it was a demonic noise that pierced the ears, sometimes shrill, sometimes hoarse, and not a single note in-tune regardless, crowing and twittering. This was clearly not self-cultivation — it was a cultivation of any listeners’ endurance.
Covering his ears, Lord Seventh took the carving knife and wood piece out of his hands. His fingers were extraordinarily nimble; in just a few motions, the flute was fully shaped. It didn’t look any different from Zhou Zishu’s craft at a surface glance, but after the latter took it back, brought it to his lips, and then tested it out, the change was audible. He played out a folk ditty from the wildlands, which was actually quite nice.
At the end of it, he put the flute down with a smile. “You’re worthy of having been the number one capital dandy that could pick up and put down anything, from poetry, to songs, to dining, drinking, hustling, and gambling. All that playing around gained you a couple of tricks.”
Lord Seventh grinned. “He left?”
The other nodded.
“You didn’t go with?”
“I wanted to, of course, but there’s too much of a mess on their end. One praying mantis is hunting a cicada while having a hundred siskins behind it. I’ll wait a little, then go take an assessment. I’ll go fish him up when the time is right.”
“You’ll only fish him up? Nothing else?” Lord Seventh gave him a look. “If he was Jiuxiao, you wouldn’t be so unworried.”
Zhou Zishu smiled, shaking his head. “How could he be compared to Jiuxiao? He was just a kid, while he… knows what he needs to do. I can’t meddle in his affairs, either. He has to solve them by himself.”
As he talked, he stood up to stretch out his muscles. Sticking the short flute Lord Seventh had carved and his hip flask both into his belt, he turned away. “Thanks a bunch for the flute — if I haven’t guessed wrong, that Scorpion is the first siskin. I’ll go out, grab a flower-engraved pot, and get ready to take flight with him.”
Lord Seventh lifted his head to look at him. Zhou Zishu’s back was against the light; the look on his face was unclear, yet his cheeks appeared to be bordered with gold. “Go quick and come back quick,” he thus said with a smile. “Don’t neglect your healing time.”
Zhou Zishu waved, then strode out.
The other lowered his head, whittled out another little flute, blew the sawdust away, then put it up to his lips, as if to send him off.
That clear, rich sound echoed like the rousing tone of the wind, its trailing notes gently roiling. Despite this being no more than a crude flute made of weeds, it allowed him to play like the natural grace of a seeming flourishing age, as well as its splendrous noise, was coming.
What a shame that before the song’s end, the flute petered out, and Zhou Zishu’s figure had long since vanished.
Lord Seventh lowered his eyes, chuckled, and tossed the flute to the side. Standing and gathering up his sleeves, he then turned to head inside.
Long ago, when Zhou Zishu and he had still been in the capital, when he was still that Prince Nan’ning who would get a hundred answers for his every call, and when Zhou Zishu was still the head of Tian Chuang that warped and weaved in the dark, he had believed that the two of them were the same type of person.
Yet, coming to this day, he realized that they weren’t the same at all. He had never had the man’s same kind of jianghu spirit, where one rolled with the punches. He had never been this open-minded before. Seeing Zhou Zishu live so honestly… actually made him faintly jealous.
Zhou Zishu stayed on a flower lane roof for two days, completely downing about ten jars of wine, after which he finally managed to wait until the Scorpion brought out his entire flock of Poisonous Scorpions.
Sure enough, bitches had no hearts. That lame-legged evil Ghost, who had tried to kill Zhang Chengling, had likely called for him to go gang up on Wen Kexing, then come back to deal with Zhao Jing. He had also deliberately made a lame-legged youth provoke Zhang Chengling, as if he was afraid that the boy wouldn’t remember, or that Wen Kexing didn’t know who was behind the Long-Tongued Ghost.
Both sides were collecting money and selling out, and after that, they still intended to take advantage of the devastation after their fierce battle to cook these people all together in one pot. It was really quite shrewd.
Zhou Zishu was not in a rush. Extracting a human-skin mask from his lapels, his handsome visage was gone without a trace via one swipe of his hand. He mixed into the crowd, tailing after them from a moderate distance.
Following three-ish days of following, he noticed that they weren’t going straight for Fengya Mountain, seeming to have actively taken a detour in the middle, as if they were specifically going to handle some kind of nuisance. Very quickly, he came to learn that this ‘nuisance’ was actually Yu Qiufeng.
The man had previously exploited the Green Vixen in order to flee calamity, but he had no such good luck this time around. He was face with a team of Poisonous Scorpions that was chasing him like cats hunting a mouse, and all he could do was desperately scramble away, currently even more overwrought than Zhang Chengling. Now, he had no one protecting him — there used to be a woman who might have done so, but she was dead.
He wore only rags, looking way more like a beggar than Zhou Zishu had when first entering jianghu. Where was even an iota of Sect Leader Yu, who had grasped a lightly-dancing fan?
The Huashan Sect had since re-established its Leader, and no longer acknowledged him. He had become akin to a stray dog.
Eventually, Yu Qiufeng’s route of escape reached its end, and he was captured alive before the Scorpion.
The Scorpion used his toes to lift his chin, beginning to laugh. “Ooo, it’s Sect Leader Yu.”
Yu Qiufeng shook all over. His eyes were dull, as if somewhat delirious. Struggling hard to raise his head, he looked at the Scorpion. “I… I’m not… not in my pl… not in my…” he uttered, stopping and starting.
The other shook his head, leaned in close, and spoke right into his ear. “That night, outside of Lake Tai’s Zhao Manor, there were actually three total people that had died. One was Mu Yunge, Duanjian Manor’s owner. One was Yu Tianjie, your precious son. There’s one more… that none of you knew, as he died in a cave. He was the Long-Tongued Ghost of Ghost Valley. Do you want to hear about what happened with that, Sect Leader Yu?”
Once he brought up the name ‘Yu Tianjie’, Yu Qiufeng resembled a quickly-dying fish placed out of the water, twitching all over. The whites of his eyes were about to bulge out as he stared dead at the Scorpion.
“You had all long known about the Lapis Armor’s existence before you went to Dongting, so you had your dear son wait at Lake Tai to intently watch the Zhang brat, and also take the chance to lie in wait for the Armor. Unexpectedly… Mu Yunge, that nervous wreck, coincidentally discovered that the Zhao’s had a piece, and used the night to steal it. Yu Tianjie had believed himself to have been the only one watching him, but in reality… there were two others doing so that night, as well.”
Yu Qiufeng seemed to understand something, but also understand nothing. He felt that this was all getting absurd. It seemed like there was an unseen hand holding a plan in the dark, and each and every of them was just an endlessly struggling pawn on an immense qi board.
“One was the Merry Death Wraith. The reason why he hadn’t the time to take the Armor was because he sensed the presence of someone else, someone he couldn’t provoke at the time — the Ghost of Impermanence that represented the Ghost Valley’s Master, Meng Hui. Unluckily… he’s also another client of mine. Your son, believing himself to be clever, stupidly took the Armor off of Mu Yunge, and then, right as he excitedly thought to leave, Lao Meng had someone kill him. That someone had once been subordinated to Xue Fang, a general that later changed sides in Ghost Valley’s internal strife — the Long-Tongued Ghost.”
The Scorpion paused. Tears evenly flowed down Yu Qiufeng’s windworn face, as did various unknown fluids, making him look both revolting and pitiful.
“What’s even more unlucky is that the remarkable Ghost Master was meeting with his little paramour when the moon was above the branches of willows, so Lao Meng was too afraid to show his face. The traitorous Long-Tongued Ghost used his old Master’s stunt to kill Yu Tianjie, then shift the blame for it, wanting to deliberately mislead the Ghost Master. Who’d have thought that the gentleman’s pace would be too fast; so fast, the Long-Tongued Ghost couldn’t dodge in time, and thus… he boldly made use of his murderous aura, resulting in…”
The Scorpion gently laughed coldly, shoved Yu Qiufeng away, leaned askew against the back of a rattan chair that a Poisonous Scorpion had gotten from wherever, and sighed with quite a bit of lament. “What type of person is the most tragic? Those who don’t know their own weights, rashly entertaining high aspirations… Sect Leader Yu, do you know what’s different between the heart grown in your chest, and the heart grown in mine?”
He lightly patted his own chest, looking at the man with a set-up-on-high pity, and shook his head. “The one I grew is a heart of ambition. The one you grew… is a heart of wish-ful thin-king.”
Yu Qiufeng’s expression cleared up a bit, and he suddenly spoke up with a mosquito-like voice. “I… Daoist Huang, Feng Xiaofeng… every one of us, the vague information we received before… had actually been all you… all you…”
An aloof smile appeared on the others’ face. “That’s right. How difficult it is… Lao Meng is my client, wanting to utilize me to silently kill. Zhao Jing is my client, wanting to utilize me to impede his partner, Lao Meng. Sun Ding is my client, too, wanting to utilize me to fabricate a bunch of falsehoods, frame Xue Fang — whose whereabouts are still unknown — for the things he had done, and thus eliminate his nemesis via the Valley’s rules and the Ghost Master’s hands… as for me, I was originally a businessman that relied on killing people and selling things to grow my enterprise. If one can’t fish up some money in troubled waters, how could they be worthy of the title of ‘Poisonous Scorpion’? …Wouldn’t you agree, Sect Leader Yu?”
He shook his head, then stood. An underling immediately stepped forth and draped a large cloak over the Scorpion, who no longer looked at Yu Qiufeng. “Four Seasons Manor has lied low for over ten years. I heard that it was playing lackey for the Dynasty. Heh… what are they, even? This martial forest is now in the palm of my hand… you’re really lucky, Sect Leader Yu, to be able to come across me when things have gotten to this extent. What a shame that I can’t give any mercy, as Lao Meng and Zhao Jing have both told me to get rid of you. I really can’t bear it, ah… but what’s to be done? All I can do is try my best to make you an understanding ghost. No need to feel grateful.”
Once he was finished speaking, he had since walked quite far away, the Poisonous Scorpions immediately following after him. Abruptly, Yu Qiufeng’s whole body jolted, and he lowered his head — a Scorpion’s hook had penetrated his back, pierced through his body, came through to the front of his chest, and jabbed apart his raggedy shirt, exposing a blue-tinged tip.
Acute pain enshrouding him, he hissed and shrieked. The Scorpion restraining him expressionlessly drew the hook out, a large amount of flesh and blood flying out with it, and then, without looking at him, turned to follow his companions.
Yu Qiufeng spasmed all over. He knew that he was going to die. Never before in his life had he been so hopeless. The sensation of sharp pain slowly dulled, numbing at first, then spreading cold throughout him. He fought to keep his eyes wide, but his vision continued to fade, as if there was an irresistible force pulling him downwards.
His hand unconsciously gripped the grass growing on the ground, pulling it up by the roots in his convulsion-like grip. All of a sudden, he saw a pair of shoes stop before his eyes. He tried hard to raise his head, but couldn’t clearly see who it was. Several piecemeal sounds came from his mouth: “Help… help… help…”
That someone seemed to crouch down next to him. “Level waters green the color of the willows,” the other said. “The moon and the flowers keep distant mutual watch. Year upon year upon age upon age, every time… every time, what?”
Those few, understated verses were like thunder, instantly exploding in his ears. At a loss, he looked up, but still couldn’t see their appearance clearly. As if hallucinating, he couldn’t even say whether they were male or female, only vaguely recalling… that there had been a giggling maiden, who loved to wear green.
Liu Qianqiao. Such a hard-to-look-at woman. Why had she gotten high hopes with him? She’d been a fool. One fan, and one verse, had been enough to make her dead-set.
“Every time… the ice vanishes later.” Those phrases, long forgotten and once recited casually, were suddenly awakened from his memory in this instant of intersection between life and death. “Several times, the blue sea is calm. Mountain snow… is separated from cloudy peaks. One glance… one glance sees infinite youth. Only this… this heart… is so… old…”
One glance sees infinite youth; only this heart is so old.
He had blurted that out. She had kept it in mind unto death. All his life, he calculated against others, and others calculated against him. Only one such woman had treated him sincerely — missed, then gone.
Yu Qiufeng’s slightly-parting lips finally stopped moving. Hand clutching the muddied grass, his eyes looked blankly to one side, pupils unfocused — they bore his pledge of eternal love of questionable validity, and reflected a road that was infinitely dark, sinister, and cold.
Dust returned to dust. Earth returned to earth.
Zhou Zishu crouched beside him for a time, looking down as if in deep thought, then sighed, reaching out to close his eyes. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said, not very sincerely.
He stood, and followed the Scorpions’ trail.
Zhao Jing amassed heroes of all sorts in the Central Plains, about to strike Fengya Mountain in the name of rectifying the righteous path, taking revenge, and eliminating grudges. The oath of ‘no one comes in, no one comes out’ from thirty years prior was already broken. In this world, where evildoers were to all be thrown out, a thorough purge would begin.
Simultaneously, a figure that had not been in anyone’s view for a very long time arrived at Fengya Mountain.
The mountain was as tall as a thousand blades. Surrounded on all sides, Green Bamboo Ridge was in its middle.
It was the midst of early summer, where plants were just starting to flourish, and birds were going on riots. A small path wound straight into the valley. Were it not for the gigantic sign saying ‘Those with Souls, Do Not Pass’, it would resemble a paradise of gorgeous scenery.
This was Ghost Valley.
A tall figure appeared beside the giant stone signboard. Tilting his head back to view it for a minute, the faint trace of a smile suffused his face.
This was Wen Kexing. He himself wasn’t even sure what route he had taken, to have reached the Valley a step ahead of everyone else. He was leading a straight-black horse along; the beast seemed to have intelligence, pacing fretfully near the sign like it was unwilling to enter.
He smiled, reaching out to pet its face. He took off both its bridle and saddle, then pat it on its body. “Go on.”
In a human-like way, the horse blinked its big eyes as it watched him for a time. After trotting a few steps away, it looked back at the man, as if somewhat reluctant to part from him. Upon witnessing him wave at it, it sped off in large strides.
Wen Kexing stood in place for a second. “Those with souls, do not pass…” he sneered. With a raise of his hand, there seemed to be a strong gust wrapped inside his sleeve as he harshly swiped the stone sign, thus erasing three-fourths of its words with a bang. Detritus fell down in succession. That enormous sound barged into the Valley as it was carried along with the wind, reverberating non-stop.
Shortly after, a gray silhouette appeared out of thin air. The shouts coming from his mouth were extremely sharp, like pieces of iron slashing against each other, and hearing them could give one goosebumps. “Who dares to trespass…”
His subsequent words got stuck in his throat, that gray shadow halting three zhang away from Wen Kexing. After getting a good look at who had come, an indescribable, utterly fearful expression appeared on him in an instant, gurgling sounds coming out of his larynx. He almost couldn’t form any sounds. “V-V-V…Valley Master.”
Quickly reacting, he knelt onto the ground with a plop, then buried his head down low, as if he was soon about to be buried, period. “Respectful greetings to you, Valley Master,” he trembled out.
Wen Kexing didn’t even glance at him. “Have Lao Meng and Sun Ding come back yet?” he asked, indifferent. “Tell them to come and see me.”
Not waiting for the minor Ghost to answer him, he passed right by him. The gray-clothed man nevertheless seemed to have just endured a life-and-death catastrophe; it wasn’t until the other had gone far away that he shakily looked up, his entire back already soaked with cold sweat.
Slowly, he betrayed a hateful expression, stood up, and soundlessly slipped into the woods. Ghost Valley’s Master — that was a genuine lunatic, a real evil demon. His moods fluctuated, where one moment, he would be chatting with someone, all smiles, and the next, he might have snatched the other’s head.
Apart from Purple Danger, who he had raised since childhood, no one else dared to make too loud of a noise before him, since he was a lunatic. He loved nothing, and appeared to have no desires. His entire being was akin to a machine that could only massacre.
No one could bribe him. No one knew what he was thinking. No one knew what he wanted. No one knew when he would create disasters. No one knew how to avoid his blows.
Outsiders knew not a thing, but this place was the land of evil Ghosts.
No morality, no humanity. The weak were only meat for the strong to feast upon — and he was strong, so he could do whatever he wanted. Even if he was just standing around to survey the land, jabbering about household matters, he would still make people act like they were facing a huge enemy.
That was because, in general, wolves would not have the patience to jabber with rabbits.
Yet, even if this madman didn’t look like a human, he still was one. The gray-clothed Ghost’s eyes flashed — the madman had just walked himself into a dead end, but he didn’t even know it.
After less than three quarter-hours of time, Lao Meng hurried to Yama Hall. There was nobody else idly waiting within it, sans the lone Wen Kexing, as well as the unfamiliar maid standing beside him. The man had already changed out of his travel-dirtied clothes, now wrapped in dark, long robes, and was seated languidly atop a spacious chair.
His hair was loose, as if it had just been washed. The maid was cautiously combing it.
Less than half of his face was concealed beneath his crow-black hair, but the corners of his mouth still held a smile, crimson, and those robes had been hastily tied with a dark red belt. His whole body gave off a bit of a ghastly aura.
Lao Meng worked him out in his head. He knew himself to have the upper hand, but upon seeing how he was, a chill seeped through his bones, for some reason. Barely able to settle his emotions, he knelt deferentially, then lowered his eyes to dodge Wen Kexing’s gaze. “Respectful greetings to you, Valley Master.”
Wen Kexing’s gaze landed upon him. Slightly tilting his head, he sized Lao Meng up like an inquisitive child, as if he was seeing him for the first time. Lao Meng braced himself as he knelt there. After not too long of a time, he was already getting suspicious, unable to suppress his own shivering.
No… it wasn’t time yet. There was absolutely no way that he could prevail alone over this man. He needed help…
“Hm. Where’s Sun Ding?” Wen Kexing suddenly asked.
Lao Meng had known from the get-go that he would ask this question, so he didn’t panic, bringing up the answer he had pre-prepared: from the infighting between Gao Chong and Zhao Jing, to Xue Fang’s appearance, as well as Sun Ding’s impetuous advancement and presently-unknown status.
The other gave an ah. “In light of what you’ve said, Sun Ding has likely been lost within it?” he asked, mild.
Lao Meng lowered his head to admit his error. “It was this subordinate that had handled it poorly.”
Wen Kexing went quiet. There was extreme silence all around. Lao Meng couldn’t help but want to look up to see his reaction, yet rigidly controlled himself — for eight years, this man had been an existence to make one shudder, and when he was quiet, he could make their skin crawl all the more.
Yet, unexpectedly, after waiting a long time, he only heard Wen Kexing drop one airy phrase from his mouth. “Since guests are arriving, go make preparations. They are renowned jianghu names that cannot be slighted.”
Lao Meng could finally no longer control himself, raising his head to see him. He had been holding the notion that he would be losing a layer of skin, not expecting that the other would be so tolerant as to let him go.
“Is there anything else?” Wen Kexing asked, expressionless.
Lao Meng hurriedly shook his head. “No. This subordinate will withdraw.”
Bent over with his head lowered, he faced the man as he drew back to the entryway, after which he respectfully bowed again, then turned to leave. However, Wen Kexing seemed to have suddenly remembered something, calling out to him. “Hold on a second.”
Lao Meng’s cheek twitched a little. He didn’t dare to look up, pausing in his steps in accordance with his words.
“Ah-Xiang has freshly found a husband,” he heard the other say, slightly cheerfully. “I promised that I would give her an accompanying two-and-a-half streets of dowry. Go get that ready for me, and don’t be too stingy.”
“Understood,” Lao Meng answered, stooping over.
Upon withdrawal, he came to be under the sun, and gently wiped the cold sweat off his face, stoic as he walked away. An ominous premonition abruptly caged his heart, as he had the general feeling that the man appeared to have gleaned something… he had about eighty-percent certainty of the outcome right now, but there were still some variables, such as the missing Hanging Wraith, Xue Fang.
Lao Meng’s scheme was very simple; he knew that Xue Fang, that trash, would never be able to find any intermediaries from famed, upright sects. By happenstance, he had previously had contact with Zhao Jing, and used that opportunity to straight-up earn some power, make Zhao Jing mistakenly believe him to have the key, then initiate an alliance. Now, their enemies were all gone, and the Lapis Armor was complete, so that alliance had naturally fallen apart. Zhao Jing and he would stake their lives fighting, and whoever was the one that ultimately opened the arsenal… well, it was either live, or die.
He was shoving Wen Kexing out right now to have them fight without rest; could Xue Fang, hiding his head and showing his tail with the key, really be able to keep away the whole time? He had taken the thing in order to open the arsenal himself, and now that the Armor was complete, Lao Meng didn’t have faith that would be able to help himself.
Indeed, another aim of this war was to draw Xue Fang out. At that time, he would reap the profits of others’ fights, and still have the manpower of the Poisonous Scorpions available for use.
Following Lao Meng’s exit, Wen Kexing looked like he was playing with a tiny creature as he toyed with the leaves of a flower growing in a pot. The maid was carefully combing his hair, until she suddenly wasn’t careful and pulled a strand of his hair. The man slightly creased his brow, and she promptly thudded into a kneel; her entire body shook like a thin leaf in a huge storm, voice like spider silk. “Valley Master… I…”
He gently reached out to lift up her chin, only to see the maiden’s face turn white with fright. He thus sighed. “Why, was someone offended? Did another force you to attend to me as a scapegoat?”
A smile was put upon her face, uglier than crying, as she forced herself to talk. “Serving you, Valley Master, is… is this slave’s good fortune, is…”
Eyes cooling down, he let her go. “If you’re unhappy, say so. If I were you, I certainly wouldn’t be willing to come throw my life away in the presence of a great devil. And yet, you actually…”
He glanced at the girl who shook like a sieve, about to be scared to death, and suddenly stopped talking, losing interest in speaking with her. Standing up, he leaned over to pick up the comb that had fallen to the floor, then waved her off. “You can go.”
The maiden was startled at first, becoming overjoyed soon after. Looking up at him as if she had practically escaped catastrophe, she subsequently tamped down her expression with speed, too afraid to be too obvious in her actions. “Okay,” she whispered, then fled at flying speed, lest he change his mind.
Inside the massive Yama Hall, he was left by himself with a flowerpot. It really resembled the underworld, not one bit of a human air to it at all.
He felt like his mind had been thoroughly corrupted by these people. Once, he had been incomparably familiar with, incomparably accustomed to such environs, and when no one was around, he would feel secure, his heart at ease. After going out for a trip and then coming back, though, he found that this place he had lived in for a full eight years had gotten suffocating.
None of you have to worry, actually, he silently thought. Once I find a real road to the human world, I’ll turn back into a human, turn into the same as I had been ‘outside’ — laid-back and even-tempered, no longer temperamental, no longer insane, no longer living a life of casually killing people. There will… be someone beside me, too… he isn’t afraid of me, and I’m good to him. He’s someone I can be with for a lifetime…
He hooded his eyes, as if recalling something. A smile, neither sinister nor indifferent, appeared on his face, and he gently released the plant he was furling.
Living life… what a pretty phrase that was.
Zhou Zishu looked a bit tragic at the moment. Anybody that had followed a bunch of Scorpions for over half a month wouldn’t be too nice to look at, either, but in his opinion, this wasn’t anything too strenuous.
The Great Shaman’s medicine had been of great effect, nearly eliminating his ailment. It had been described as being able to suppress the Seven Acupunctures poison, and then it did. The pain that once inevitably broke out every midnight, reducing him to a half-alive state, was suddenly gone, which he was somewhat unaccustomed to. In any case, he wasn’t a finicky person; the assignments he had been required to go out and do himself in Tian Chuang had generally been a lot more difficult than this.
After this over-half-month, the Poisonous Scorpions stopped in a small town about thirty li away from Fengya Mountain. The Scorpion gave an order, and all the others, well-trained, switched into a black mass of clothes, dressing up as commoners of all trades. Like drops of water, they soon ‘vanished’ into the town’s populace.
Whilst Zhou Zishu was following by example, beneath the calm appearance of this unremarkable town, a dark undercurrent bubbled.
As if waiting for somebody, the Scorpion stopped here, and refused to budge.
In just a few days, word on the wind came in — Zhao Jing was leading the heroes of the realm, spreading out notices for heroism far and wide to crusade against the flock of evil Ghosts. What was most thought-provoking was that he only disseminated notices, not at all invoking the ‘Writ of the Land’.
Reverend Cimu truly was an old monk as cunning as a thousand-year tortoise. As soon as Gao Chong had died, he sniffed something off on the breeze, then immediately fell ‘horribly ill’. As if the Buddha had finally remember this faithful believer of his, he swiftly went to beckon him to Sukhavati.
Another holder of the Writ, the ‘descendant’ of the Ancient Monk, Ye Baiyi, was also somewhere unknown.
Meanwhile, Gu Xiang’s quartet bore a different mission. Undergoing a simple disguise dress-up, they then caught up with the murderous-looking people that had scrambled for the Mountain.
Cao Weining quickly noticed that this time around, not only had his shishu, Mo Huaikong, come in person from Qingfeng Sword Sect, but even his Sect Leader shifu, Mo Huaiyang, had as well.
He was a bit unclear on the situation. He and his shifu had initially been sent down the mountain because his shifu had been in seclusion — had he come out of it, now? The two primary figures of the Sect were mingling here with Zhao Jing — did his shifu know the true face of that Zhao hypocrite, or no?
Mo Huaikong had always been a prick, but Mo Huaiyang seemed a bit like an immortal. He was quite a bit skilled in talking with people, was pleasant to all, wasn’t arrogant or ill-tempered, and could win over peoples’ hearts. It wasn’t strange at all that back when he and Mo Huaikong were of equal excellence, the position of Sect Leader had landed upon him.
The quartet rented a carriage, pretending to be the younger generations of average peasants. Smeared on their faces was some alleged ‘face-changing’ stuff that Gu Xiang had made up; in reality, it was just some yellow that made them hard to notice, totally not on the same level as Zhou Zishu’s massive overhaul.
Knowing that Cao Weining’s shifu was present, Gu Xiang got slightly more nervous. The exact circumstances were currently fuzzy, Zhao Jing was dominating the situation at large, Cao Weining was wavering, and Zhang Chengling plus Gao Xiaolian were all of a sudden seeing their father-murdering enemy, eyes nearly red, only barely consolable.
Of the four of them, Gu Xiang alone was still capable of thinking things over with a cool head, so no one else had any ideas. Now, it was the female Zhuge, Ah-Xiang, that had the prerogative.
“This is an extremely pressing matter,” she said. “Think about it, Brother Cao. If you rashly go up to your shifu and tell him, will he believe you, or that ‘Hero’ Zhao?”
Cao Weining pondered this for a minute, then didn’t have much of a retort, feeling that she had made sense. “Alright. I’ll listen to you,” he said with a nod, like a husband at his wife’s beck and call.
Seeing that he was this okay with talking it over, she sighed in relief. In truth, she had brought another type of scenario to mind: Mo Huaikong would be easy to deal with, but Mo Huaiyang, who was downmountain all of a sudden, was with Zhao Jing like this. Had he really been hoodwinked by him, or did he have some other plan? There had been several days where she had braved the danger, nearly getting discovered several times, in order to observe him, and she believed that the old man was not so simple a character.
“How should we do this, then, Miss Gu?” Gao Xiaolian asked.
“We wait,” she stated without hesitation. “We haven’t yet found Ye Baiyi. With so few of us, we can’t do any big, sky-overturning tricks, let alone with this many people. Even Zhao Jing by himself would be enough for us to eat dirt. Since they’ve all rushed to Ghost Valley, which isn’t an easy-to-pick persimmon, there’s going to be a huge fight…”
She paused, brows creasing as she suddenly thought: Why did her Master tell her to go find Ye Baiyi right now? Weren’t Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman similarly idle? Their methods were far-reaching, so wouldn’t having them go be half the work with twice the effect? She remembered Wen Kexing’s words, where he said that a woman marrying off was like spilled water, and that she would have no connection to the Valley from then on out. Did he think… that the Valley had no chance of victory in this war?
What was he… actually planning?
“Ah-Xiang?”
Cao Weining patted her on the shoulder, and only then did she snap out of it. “We can’t do anything for right now,” she continued. “Just follow after them, quietly watch for changes, and take note of Ye Baiyi’s movements.”
On the surface, she was nonchalant, but her mind was being cautious. Even having Wen Kexing’s protection, living in the Valley for so many years had been enough for her to have more survival skills than typical girls. In this instant, she became the linchpin amongst the four; with her statement issued, no one refuted it.
They then went on like so without mishap, until a few days later, when an incident occurred.
Ye Baiyi… had shown up.
Zhao Jing and his crew had already come to stand below Fengya Mountain at this pivotal moment. Gu Xiang’s group stole into another road like thieves, hiding behind a big rock. She, having grown up on the Mountain, was infinitely familiar with this route; she had picked out an excellent spot where they wouldn’t easily be found, yet could easily see everyone else’s positions.
Zhang Chengling and the rest had never been in a place like this before. They had no idea that, under Gu Xiang’s leadership, they had detoured around the sign that said ‘those with souls, do not pass’, and were already treading upon the territory of Ghost Valley, one foot inside this awfully wicked, ominous land.
Thankfully, Gu Xiang had hid them well, and those major figures plus minor Ghosts didn’t have the spare time to notice them.
Right then, Ye Baiyi arrived. He traveled by himself on a lone horse, still in his eye-grabbing, strangely thick white clothes. There was a tiny jar held in his arms, and a sword borne on his back.
Zhang Chengling exclaimed, quickly getting his mouth covered by Gu Xiang. It was little wonder that he was shocked — it had only been less than half a year since he had seen him, yet Ye Baiyi’s head of dark hair had since turned half white. Looking at him from a distance, he had the same visage carved from stone that was immune to time, but with the gray hair crowning him, a scant, dead aura faintly permeated him.
It was like… the time that had stagnated upon him had suddenly gone into motion. There was nothing seen on his face, only a slight indication visible from his hair, preparing one for when this stone statue was eroded by the wind, and blown away in dust.
Cao Weining stretched out his neck to see, but his line of sight landed upon the sword on Ye Baiyi’s back. It was unclear where the man had gotten it from; if it was not carefully examined, one would almost think that he was carrying a giant anti-cavalry sabre, as it was extremely wide and long. From his broad shoulders, a slanted head and a tail were revealed, as a life-like dragon had been engraved into the hilt and scabbard, its back arching like it was about to fly off into the rolling cloud cover at any moment. Merely by looking at it, one could feel its ferocious air of wanting to move, which seemed to stretch over all the way from the end of the sky.
“That’s… that’s the Ancient Edge of the Dragon’s Back… it…” he mumbled to himself.
Gu Xiang narrowed her eyes, looking over. “What is it?” she asked, not too proud to ask a subordinate for knowledge.
Cao Weining was shaking a little. He gently tugged on her sleeve, barely managing to suppress his voice, but unable to suppress his excitement. “Legends say that there’s three legendary swords. The Spiritual Sword of No Name, despite having no sword inscription, is a celebrity amongst swords, extraordinarily bright and unmatched in the world. The Heavy Sword of Great Famine is a general amongst swords, solid and unsullied, unequaled in bravery and ferocity. Neither of them can compare to the Ancient Blade of the Dragon’s Back, though. It’s a soldier of great viciousness, said to be cast from divine iron, where not even divinities can withstand it… it’s hard to imagine that it’d actually be in the hands of the Ancient Monk’s descendant. All three of these famous weapons have been missing, so I didn’t expect to be able to witness the return of the king of all swords today.”
Hearing his muttering, Zhang Chengling untied Great Famine, which hung from his waist. He knew that what Lord Seventh had given him had not been a falsehood. Recalling his elders’ saying of ‘wealth is not to be revealed’, he had smartly wrapped a layer of tattered, inconspicuous cloth around the outside of the scabbard. “G-Great Famine… is here with me,” he said to Cao Weining.
The latter’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. He accepted the sword with both hands, trembling, reverently using the tip of his finger to push aside Zhang Chengling’s masterpi… old rag, thus revealing the treasured sword, its jewels coated in dust. Eyes practically brimming with tears of emotion, he shakily pointed at Zhang Chengling and babbled incoherently. “This is Great Famine! The General, Great Famine! You abuser of heavenly artifacts! You… peony-chewing cow! You qin-burner! Crane-cooker! You… y-you’ve… practically done the reprehensible sin of burning books and burying scholars alive!”
Gu Xiang quickly shushed him. The four looked over to see that the crowd on the other side appeared to be pressured by Ye Baiyi’s momentum, automatically making way for him so that he had a path straight to the front of Zhao Jing. There was no expression at all on Ye Baiyi’s face, and he appeared ever arrogant, never dismounting, being up at a high vantage point the whole time he pierced through the crowd.
Zhao Jing was astonished by his graying hair at the onset, immediately after which he could no longer keep his expression on… speaking of which, his skills of restrained self-conduct were far inferior to Gao Chong’s, but one had been protecting secrets, while the other had held the desire for murder. That was how the gap in superiority had been established.
He forced himself to clasp his fist, smiling. “It’s you, Young Hero Ye. You’ve really come just in time! Join us in our crusade—“
“The Lapis Armor. Do you have it, or not?” Ye Baiyi harshly cut him off, still not getting off his horse as he looked at him indifferently.
The crowd went into an uproar. Zhao Jing’s face went stiff.
Zhang Chengling and the others listened, hearts jumping in fear. Gu Xiang’s brows furrowed. “What’s going on?” she asked those around her. “Is he not with them?”
“No, Miss Gu,” Gao Xiaolian whispered in reply. “Hero Ye is one of the owners of the ‘Writ of the World’. The Writ’s three pieces, when collected together, can summon the heroes of the realm. Only one of those pieces was in the hands of the Ancient Monk, and he’s ignored worldly affairs for a long time. For Dongting, my dad had personally gone to the foot of Changming Mountain to ask for him, but he just sent a disciple of his down the mountain. Hero Ye only defends the Writ; he doesn’t associate with others at all, acting by himself always.”
After thinking for a bit, she added something on. “Truthfully, dad was surprised to get Hero Ye. Af… after all, there’s rumors saying that the Monk has already passed on.”
Those of jianghu only knew that the Monk existed, and nothing of his name, surname, age, or background. However, calculating the age of the Writ, at least a hundred years had elapsed. That the ‘Ancient Monk’ had long passed during such a long interim was not a very surprising rumor.
Zhao Jing looked annoyed, and needing to raise his head to see Ye Baiyi made him even more unhappy. “What do you mean, Hero Ye?” he asked with a cold smile.
Ye Baiyi squandered not much of an expression, paying him no mind. He merely swept his gaze over his surroundings, then slightly raised the volume of his voice. “It does not matter whether you all fight, or cause a ruckus. Anyone that wants to crusade can do so. However, there is one clause: as long as I am alive, no one should even think of opening the arsenal.”
This man still cared about no one, his tone like he wouldn’t care about the Heavenly Emperor, either. Even Zhou Zishu, one who had self-restraint skills, had repeatedly ground his teeth and wanted to beat him up, to say nothing of these folks that didn’t know of him in detail. Someone huffed coldly on the spot. “Hah, the successor of the Ancient Monk really does follow his name. He’s got a big mouth and a big ego!”
Ye Baiyi’s eyes swept on over. He nearly didn’t see who it was that had spoken — it turned out to be Feng Xiaofeng, who had never sat upon Gao Shannu’s shoulders ever since the latter went blind, instead acting as his eyes and constantly looking out for him. He still had the look of a thorntip that could explode with one bump, and gave no one any face. If ranking with the top in terms of mean words, he could be called a tyrant of jianghu, but he still held some affection for his Gao Shannu.
“I’m not joking around,” Ye Baiyi answered.
“He’s the one that stirred up this situation, right?” Gu Xiang asked Cao Weining, voice hushed.
Zhang Chengling had followed the others to the Marionette Manor in Shuzhong. He knew something of the sequence of events, and whispered to them. “That… Senior Ye… is not a ‘Young’ Hero. He’s really old, and said to be the master of Rong Xuan that had died thirty years ago.”
After that, he explained to them what he knew.
The other three stared back at him for a long time, after which Gu Xiang sighed. “By my own grandma… how long has he been alive? He’s like a tortoise!”
Witnessing her no longer speaking human language, Cao Weining quickly cut her off. “So, that’s to say that the most crucial object in the arsenal is actually… Elder Ye? He came down the mountain, heard about the Lapis Armor, and then went to inquire after the old truth?”
Gu Xiang tugged at him, pointing at the people below. “Hey, look. They’re starting to fight.”
The four moved their heads out from behind the boulder at the same time, carefully observing.
This squad of righteous martial artists all individually harbored their own ulterior motives to begin with; so, of course, there was also a subset incorporated within them that was particularly stupid. They had legitimately been duped by Zhao Jing, resolving to behead evil Ghosts for the sake of the common folk. Ye Baiyi’s words had been a rock smashing down, sending off a thousand waves.
Some people whispered in suspicion, while even more were instigated by those who wanted them to be. Ye Baiyi’s search for a beating roused the mob into rebuking him in a rage. “From how I see it, that guy’s a problem,” one said. “He had been sought out by Gao Chong, and was always following him in Dongting. He has to be his crony!”
Ye Baiyi had always been a gentleman that acted, not spoke. Hearing this, he pulled out a horse whip, and the one in question got a clear view of it coming towards his face, yet still wasn’t able to dodge. He got roughly whipped flying, which left a blood-red mark on his face —a symmetrical one.
Zhao Jing issued a signal with his eyes. Several people pounced at Ye Baiyi at once, and the crowd could barely see how he was moving; the several flew out to encircle him, but in the blink of an eye, each of them were sent rolling back out with missing arms or shortened legs. Meanwhile, the horse-riding Ye Baiyi seemed to have not moved a bit, still steadily holding the tiny jar in one hand and the horse whip in the other.
The man’s martial arts were horrifically high-tier. Zhao Jing’s eye twitched. “Let’s all calm down, first,” someone else was heard to say. “The Ancient Monk has been someone of virtue for a long time, so his descendant certainly can’t be worse. Regardless of whatever happened with Gao Chong, the Writ is infallible.”
Cao Weining’s eyes widened when he heard that voice — the speaker was his shifu, Mo Huaiyang. He couldn’t help but get nervous, one hand clenching into a fist as he sweat. He simply listened to the man use an amiable tone towards Ye Baiyi.
“Hero Ye, what you say must have foundation. You cannot blurt words out at random. We’d be happy to believe you, so I ask that you be blunt and let everyone to know: is the Armor actually in someone’s hands, and are we being used?”
Gu Xiang surveyed with a cool eye, noticing that at this moment, the group had already vaguely split into two factions. Mo Huaiyang had kept silent the whole journey, very subdued, yet had been able get power equal to Zhao Jing’s at some unknown point in time.
This bunch of heroes had gathered up, turned into a rowdy mob, and, before they had even reached the Mountain, began to fight amongst themselves.
She snuck a peek at Cao Weining, even more certain in her heart… that the shifu of this dumb bloke had high ambitions for this trip.
Zhao Jing hadn’t expected that Mo Huaiyang would turn traitor, pretty much itching to tear the man’s skin off. Still, he couldn’t stop Ye Baiyi from talking. Wouldn’t that be a guilty conscience?
Ye Baiyi wasn’t buying Mo Huaiyang’s stuff, though, only speaking coldly. “Opening the arsenal requires two items: the Armor and the key. I’ve investigated for a long time, and can guess that the key is probably in the hands of someone from Ghost Valley. If they also have the Armor, would they have bode their time in wait to fight with you all now? If they vainly attempt to open the arsenal… hah. I’ll have to take on the role of an exorcist, then.”
“The Armor had been in Gao Chong’s hands,” Zhao Jing defended. “Prior to his death, he wanted to join forces with the Hanging Wraith to kill me, failed to achieve that, then died himself. Xue Fang’s whereabouts are unknown, so the Armor is presumably with him…”
Ye Baiyi sneered. “I’ve actually heard that Ghost Valley has constantly been sending people to hunt down Xue Fang, but the Merry Death Wraith, one of his hunters, died a few days ago. If Xue Fang has that kind of remarkable skill, why hasn’t he opened the arsenal yet, instead of hiding away?”
“What the Merry Death Wraith did was the evil of murdering someone for their property. Why would I know anything about these evil Ghosts? More likely than not, the spoils were split unevenly, and both sides are suffering for it. In any case, Gao Chong was sly, and had lots of henchmen; how would I know who he gave the Armor to?”
“Oh. The Armor that the five major families once watched over together has been lost, yet you’re not investigating that like everybody else, instead bringing people to attack Fengya Mountain. Where’s the logic in that, Hero Zhao?” Ye Baiyi countered.
His speech was getting increasingly menacing. Zhao Jing was dumbstruck for a moment, then bit back. “In light of your implication, those nefarious, evil demons that everyone needs to catch and behead… shouldn’t be killed?”
Mo Huaiyang frowned, then meandered behind Ye Baiyi, immediately after which almost half of the crowd followed him away from Zhao Jing’s side.
“Sect Leader Mo, what is the meaning of this?” the latter questioned.
“Don’t speak of other things, Hero Zhao. Let’s just get a clear explanation, then judge things from that.”
Zhao Jing had long been aware that Mo Huaiyang was disloyal. This old devil that’s taking advantage of a fire to loot will be a liability from now on, if I don’t get rid of him here and establish my might, he thought, a fire in his heart.
While he thought, he made a small gesture with his fingers. The people on-scene were in disorder, so none of them noticed, but Gu Xiang’s group caught the abnormality via their vantage point, after which they saw a very plain person behind Zhao Jing slip out of the crowd after seeing his gesture. They kept staring the entire time, then witnessed the person retreat to the outside of the group, and make another gesture in one direction. Inside the dense forest, a black shadow flitted past, holding a tiny crossbow in their hand.
Poisonous Scorpions!
At once, Cao Weining no longer had time to think. He jumped out from behind the rock, his moves of transport reaching their pinnacle. “Shifu!” he shouted, “Look out!”
Gu Xiang wasn’t able to hold him back, feeling a chill in her heart.
Cao Weining flew over, then brushed aside the weapon the Scorpion had shot at Mo Huaiyang. Watching him step forward, Zhang Chengling subconsciously motioned to get up, only to be pushed back down by Gu Xiang.
She sucked in a deep breath, though it felt like it couldn’t sink down into her chest, getting stuck there alongside the scent of the forest vegetation. Her fingers trembled slightly, their tips unconsciously squeezing the clothes on Zhang Chengling’s shoulder. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “None of you move.”
Cao Weining’s sudden appearance had everyone startled in his wake, except for Zhao Jing, who reacted immediately. “Where’s the rat that’s hiding its head and sneak attacking?!”
Someone beside him quickly understood, flashing his weapon as if facing a massive foe. “Careful, everyone!” he shouted. “Watch out for ambush from the evil Ghosts!”
The recent hostile, arguing atmosphere in the crowd changed once again. The Scorpion hiding in the darkness had swiftly evacuated after their strike, not caring whether they had succeeded or not, to the point that the mob couldn’t even catch the assassin.
Gu Xiang watched clearly, the inside of her head a mess. Cao Weining going out right now had been a huge mistake. With the situation like so, there was someone like Zhao Jing, who would most likely use the issue to advance his own goals, and like Mo Huaiyang, who had deep schemes and unfathomable secrets, and like Ye Baiyi, who had rushed over to conceitedly look for trouble…
Mo Huaikong, who had just been thinking to snatch power using Ye Baiyi’s appearance, promptly realized that now was not a good time, since they were all currently still standing on the border of Ghost Valley and everything had turned into trouble. Upon seeing Cao Weining right now, he didn’t think much more on it, merely frowning.
He knew what was going on with Cao Weining, Gu Xiang, and the rest, so he hurriedly called out, “Why did you only now catch up, you brat? Were you using your feet to embroider this whole time? Get over here!”
This made it seem like he had simply been sent by his shishu to go do something.
Even though Cao Weining really wasn’t the brightest, he wasn’t stupid. He verbally agreed, then quietly walked behind Mo Huaikong.
However, if things were so simple, Gu Xiang wouldn’t have instantly been out of ideas; others didn’t care, but Feng Xiaofeng was still around. He remembered that she had blinded Gao Shannu with poison, and considered Cao Weining to be a jackal of the same pack. Seeing him was akin to seeing his father-killing nemesis. “You still have the face to show up in front of everyone, Cao Weining?!” he shrieked. “You’ve taught up a really good disciple, Mo! He’s buddied up with a demon, been seduced by beauty, and aids evil-doers!”
Cao Weining stopped in his tracks, thinking, It’s all over.
Hearing that, Mo Huaiyang’s gaze fell upon Cao Weining, face slightly dark. “What’s going on? Where have you gone to?”
“Shifu, I ran into a few friends from Nanjiang, and helped them to handle some dregs of the Black Shamans,” the other answered respectfully. “I had accidentally cut off contact with shishu. I didn’t know that everyone was here, nor did I expect to have the fortune to meet with you, since I came to find Yo… H… Hero Ye.”
None of that was false, actually. He hadn’t told the total truth, but his body language wasn’t flustered, and his road of thought was clear and reasonable. After this, he clasped his fist towards Ye Baiyi. “Hero Ye, this humble one was entrusted by another to request something of you.”
Ye Baiyi gave him a rather surprised look. “Who did? What is it?”
“There’s a friend that’s been heavily injured, and needs to heal somewhere extremely cold. They’re wondering if Changming Mountain’s sacred site could be borrowed for it…”
The man had no reaction at first, dazed for a short moment, then gave a perfunctory answer. “Tell that friend to do as they will. At the foot of the mountain is Changming Village, and past it is a road that leads all the way to the waist. The area I live in is near the summit, though. Whether you can get there depends on your skills.”
Cao Weining knew that Gu Xiang could hear him, and this could thus be seen as completing one task. “Many thanks.”
Ye Baiyi nodded. As if suddenly getting bored, he turned his horse’s head around without a sound, about to leave this place of right and wrong. Mo Huaiyang shot a glance at Zhao Jing’s group still looking like this matter wasn’t finished, mind racing, then blocked Ye Baiyi. “Hero Ye. Your words have been unclear. Can you really just leave like so?”
The other looked at him. “What else do you want? I’ve already given a clear explanation,” he answered, indifferent. “Zhao isn’t anything good. As for you…”
His stiff mouth revealed a stiff smile, and he spoke coldly, like a corpse come to life. “I don’t think you’re anything at all.”
The corner of Mo Huaiyang’s eye twitched. Zhao Jing had just nearly been forced into dire straits, only able to sigh in relief due to Cao Weining’s interruption. “This Zhao is a rough man,” he said upon seeing this scene, “and I don’t conduct myself with the caution and order that those of you who read do, always acting upon whatever I think up… Gao Chong used to be my brother. What a shit-fated friendship. I don’t know what he was plotting. At this point, I hate him, but I hate Fengya Mountain’s sons of bitches even more!”
His tigeresque eyes opened wide, bulging in a desire to split open, and his hackles instantly raised. “This thing with the Lapis Armor was caused by Ghost Valley thirty years ago,” he shouted. “Thirty years later, this disaster’s arisen because of them yet again! Our power hadn’t been enough before, so we couldn’t wipe out these demons, leading to us being troubled by them instead. There’s so many calamities happening in the martial forest now — is that still not enough?”
The rowdy crowd went quiet once more. Zhao Jing appeared to calm a bit, looking at Ye Baiyi. “Hero Ye, you’ve been in seclusion on Changming Mountain the year round, so you wouldn’t know,” he said, cordial. “There are some things in this world that are not what they appear to be on the surface. I don’t know who’s deceived you, for you to have such a misunderstanding towards me…”
His voice subtly paused there, and he swept a look at Mo Huaiyang.
That implication did not need to be stated. Why had Ye Baiyi suddenly shown up as a lone rider, and Mo Huaiyang taken the lead of others right now? Was that not pre-planned?
After that, his gaze fell upon Cao Weining. “Hero Cao, I’ve always seen you as a young talent with a boundless future, and an honest person that comprehends what courtesy, justice, honor, and shame are, as well as understands what loyalty and filial piety are—”
Feng Xiaofeng stepped forth. Zhao Jing reached out to stop him. “I heard you say that you have conflict with them because of a lady, Brother Feng. There was even a huge fight with many unknown people mixed within, and they abducted Zhang Chengling…“
Cao Weining’s back went stiff.
The name ‘Zheng Chengling’ was eternally linked to the Lapis Armor, a very sensitive subject at the moment. As soon as that came out, even Mo Huaiyang’s expression was off, and he grit his teeth. “What’s going on, you little bastard?”
Mo Huaikong knew the situation; once the elder noticed that things were getting bad, he quickly spoke up. “Cough, that was just a little wild girl that came from who-knows-where. She didn’t know how to speak, and wasn’t civilized at all…”
Feng Xiaofeng laughed coldly, pulling Gao Shannu out of the crowd. “A little wild girl? Is that right?” he asked, shrill. “What you’re implying, Hero Mo, is that our master-servant pair is really useless, where even a random wild girl could go ape on our heads and blind Ah-Shan, hm? Moreover… on that day, did you not meet a little demoness on the road, then deliberately let them go? Is it because you thought she was attractive that you did that?”
Mo Huaikong’s face swelled up like an eggplant. He restrained himself for a long time, but eventually said, “You fucking bullshitter!”
Feng Xiaofeng went mad, tugging at Gao Shannu as he howled. “You old bastard! Don’t even think about shielding that younger bastard, you’re all in the same pack! If you don’t give Ah-Shan an explanation today, your eyes will be compensating for his!”
Thus, all the heroes that had barely been able to stop for a minute got riled up again.
Mo Huaiyang grit his teeth, asking his question word by word. “Tell me, you little bastard… who is that woman?”
Cao Weining lowered his head, taking a step back. At the very same time, the not-far-away Zhang Chengling had to let out a hiss — Gu Xiang’s nails were pinching his skin.
“I heard that there were two men with the woman,” Zhao Jing sneered, “with weird appearances and bizarre martial arts. They took Zhang Chengling away, too. This Zhao is an ignorant one, and I’m not sure where those two came from.”
Experts unknown to the martial world of the Central Plains… was that not directly referring to Ghost Valley?
Mo Huaiyang slapped a hand onto the center of Cao Weining’s chest, striking him over ten steps back so that he could no longer stand, and making him sit on the ground and cough up a mouthful of blood. He covered his chest with a pale face, yet firmly grit his teeth, not saying a word.
Mo Huaiyang stepped up, looking down on him. “Are you still not going to talk?” he continued to pressure.
He lifted his palm and pressed it down upon Cao Weining’s crown, as if he was going to beat him to death. Mo Huaikong opened his mouth, mumbling, “Shixiong…”
“Shut it,” Mo Huaiyang said coldly. “Cao Weining, are you talking?”
Cao Weining closed his eyes.
Gu Xiang sighed. “No matter what happens, you two absolutely must not come out,” she said to Zhang Chengling and Gao Xiaolian, voice hushed. “Keep this in mind: if you two come out as well, all four of us will die here. You hear me?”
“Sister Gu Xiang…” Zhang Chengling started.
Gao Xiaolian suddenly grabbed him. “Don’t worry,” she told Gu Xiang, looking determined.
The other looked at her, nodded, and then her body suddenly soared, appearing before everyone. “Bah, you all suck! What do you want with me?”
Below Fengya Mountain, the weather was suddenly shifting, but it wasn’t too tranquil on Green Bamboo Ridge, either. A scouting Ghost in gray clothes walked up behind Lao Meng, then said something quietly into his ear. The latter paused, an expression that was quite a bit grotesque upon his face. “What did you say? They’re… fighting down the mountain?”
The Ghost nodded.
Lao Meng’s brow was furrowed in shock for a long while. Then, he suddenly began to laugh, the sound getting louder and louder until he was practically rocking back and forth with mirth. “You said… you said that Zhao Jing and them have started fighting down there… hahahaha! Zhao Jing, ah, Zhao Jing! I took him to be an alpha wolf, like a great enemy, but he’s actually just a sheep, getting betrayed by… by a bunch of ‘righteous sects’! That’s just too funny!”
He laughed abruptly, then stopped just as abruptly. In an instant, no image of a smile was on him, and he was now no longer that kind, sincere old servant. The muscles on his cheeks still slightly trembling, a malevolent tinge slowly showed upon them. “Good. Since that’s the case, we won’t worry about them. Let’s start to settle this debt from the inside. Xiao Ke, go get all of our people in the defenses, and move them to… the agreed place.”
The Ghost was taken aback. Immediately understanding what he was wanting to do, his voice was somewhat unconsciously shaky. “Yes!”
Lao Meng tidied up his clothes, forcefully shut his eyes, then concealed his ferocity. Looking like the same good old man as always, he strode for Yama Hall.
Wen Kexing was carefreely idle, in the middle of painting a picture. When someone was sent by Lao Meng to announce him, he only gave an indifferent answer without lifting his head, hunched over like his entire self was stuck onto the paper.
Lao Meng came in, saw that the other was in a good mood with a smile on his lips, and believed that the Heavens really were aiding him. “Valley Master, the dowry that you ordered me to prepare is ready. May I invite you to take a look at it?”
Wen Kexing affirmed absent-mindedly, not looking up. He made a couple strokes on the paper with the tip of his brush for a long while, then said, “Mn. Wait a second.”
Lao Meng obediently bowed his head, lowered his eyes, and waited nearby. The incense stick on the table shortened cun by cun. It was unknown how long had passed before Wen Kexing straightened out his back and contentedly finished up his painting, bobbing his head as he admired it. Lao Meng gave it a brief glance, then saw that the paper scene was extremely simple; it was one tree, several boulders, and a man standing there with no profile, only a view of him from behind.
The man was a bit thin, hints of the bones on his back showing through his loose robes. Lao Meng marveled to himself, Don’t tell me that because this lunatic went out on a trip, he’s actually started to believe himself to be a human, learning how to be hurt by lovesickness?
Wen Kexing set down the painting, carefully weighted it with paperweights, set it aside to dry, then turned to Lao Meng. Upon seeing him, the tender, warm smile he had immediately turned frigid. “Lead the way,” he ordered, terse.
Lao Meng lowered his head, agreed, then turned to go, concealing the fleeting, irrepressible smile at the corner of his mouth.
As soon as he saw Gu Xiang, Feng Xiaofeng went nuts, screeching and throwing himself forward. “Rotten girl! I’ll slaughter you!”
Gu Xiang went ouch, patting her chest with a fake smile. “You’ll scare me to death, Feng. No one’s teamed up with you today. To bully me, a lady — you have absolutely no lenience!”
“Brother Feng, calm down a bit!” Zhao Jing quickly shouted at Feng Xiaofeng. “So many of us are watching. If she really is a bad person, would she still be able to escape?”
Hearing their scrupulousness, Cao Weining knew that they were going to put on a show about her. With a strength he wasn’t sure where came from, he falteringly got up, then put out an arm to block Gu Xiang’s front, ignoring his dull chest pain and coughing. “Everyone, Ah-Xiang has always been naive, never able to hide the words of her mind, but she is still a junior. Even if she has misspoken in any way, I request that you seniors acknowledge that she’s still young and ignorant, and not stoop to her level.”
He turned to Feng Xiaofeng once more, enunciating his words. “As for you, Hero Feng, this Cao has something to say. That day, Hero Shen met with misfortune, the Lapis Armor was stolen, and the hearts of those in Dongting were panicked. Zhang Chengling had indeed been with us, but the one that brought him away was Brother Zhou, and he did so in Hero Zhao’s presence, who didn’t obstruct it at all. We had to take care of it for him. This Feng fellow cannot distinguish between right and wrong, as he had joined forces with a group of Poisonous Scorpions to hunt us down. Were we wrong to defend ourselves?”
Gu Xiang nimbly stuck out her head from behind him, pointing at Feng Xiaofeng. “It’s true! See how he conducts himself? He looks exactly like everyone else owes him eight hundred strings of coins, wanting to fight when nothing’s even been said! Who knows if he’s with that bunch of black-clothed villains?”
Feng Xiaofeng was extraordinarily furious, but when it came to loquaciousness, he couldn’t contend with her; right as the word ‘you’ had bounced out of his mouth, a pile of words had bounced out of hers like jumping beans. The girl put both hands on her hips, her face full of slyness, and then pointed at him. “What about me? My Master gave me that brat to look after, and bringing him along was way too much trouble! He was thinking that everyone else is just like you lot, with your shamelessness being something the whole world knows about! You and that… surname ‘Yu’ for fish or ‘Gui’ for turtle or whatever, who knows what temple you two came out of? People don’t have signs on their faces for whether they’re good or bad, but looking at you, you don’t seem like anything good! What are you trying to find Zhang Chengling so badly for? You’re the same kind of trash as Yu! Hmph!”
She rolled her eyes, the spitting image of a child throwing a temper. In just a few words, she had also dragged Yu Qiufeng into this; the man had currently turned into an old rat crossing the street that everyone was shouting and kicking at, so, regardless of whether something was true or false or a frame or a set up, there would be no issue with pushing it onto his head.
Feng Xiaofeng was taken aback, anger dizzying his head. He hadn’t expected this to go here.
As expected, as soon as she said that, many people started giving him poor looks. Ye Baiyi huffed coldly. “Your type is born not being the stuff for physical arts. You couldn’t even grasp six-harmony spiritual cultivation, so what fight could you put up?”
How could anything nice to hear ever come out of Ye Baiyi’s mouth? Someone laughed at this scene. Gao Shannu roared, then smashed a rock onto the ground, but he was blind — what use would a bit of brute strength have? Looking at the master-servant pair, Cao Weining thought them to be pitiful.
Perhaps due to his injury, he felt especially fatigued, looking at each individual before him not like they were people, but base-growing plants listening to the rain on the wind, praising those above and stomping on those below… because, no matter what, their own heads weren’t getting stomped, so they were happy to watch the excitement.
He tugged at Gu Xiang. “Ah-Xiang, let’s go. I’ll take over.”
She didn’t say much, obediently getting towed away by him. He turned to Mo Huaiyang. “Shifu, this disciple is unfilial, and cannot obey you. In my lifetime, I have no sort of great prospects. Working myself hard won’t get me fame. so I’m simply taking advantage of my youth to change course. Maybe I’ll be an old farmer, relying on some hard swings of tools to grow a lot of little somethings, more than others could. When the time comes, I’ll be sure to have you taste that freshness firsthand every year.”
Mo Huaiyang looked somewhat less stormy, but he still frowned as he looked at Gu Xiang, feeling that despite the girl’s looks being good, there was constantly an unspeakable evil about her. She didn’t look like a woman from a decent family. Yet, when he went to talk, Mo Huaikong started making loud noises out of his windpipe. “Hahaha, I knew you were a hopeless brat! When you have a fat son with your little wife, I’ll be his grand-shishu! You’ll have to treat me to wine on his one-month!”
Cao Weining laughed dryly a few times, thinking, Shishu, your imagination is really getting too far ahead. Gu Xiang’s face was a bit heated, but she let out a sigh of relief, knowing that this blockade of theirs was over with.
Right as they made to leave, someone out of the crowd began to speak — it was the man that had always been at Zhao Jing’s side, who had flashed his weapon when the Poisonous Scorpion struck. There was a blade scar on his face that slanted down diagonally, dragging down dangerously to his neck.
“Please stay a minute, young lady,” he said. “This humble one has a question.”
Gu Xiang turned her head, listening to him slowly continue on. “Didn’t you all notice that the spot she just came out of is somewhere on Fengya Mountain? She trespassed on Ghost Valley, so why haven’t the Ghosts done anything yet?”
The blood left her face in an instant. “I’m thinking that there’s two possibilities,” he kept going. “One is that she has… an interesting status. Two is that when she went in, no one discovered her, but why would a lone girl going in such a place not be found?”
His words could not be any clearer. Even Cao Weining understood them. He looked over in astonishment, staring at her in a daze and unable to speak.
She released his hand, then took a step back. And another.
Zhao Jing narrowed his eyes, purposefully clapping the scarred man on the shoulder. “Hey, what are you saying?” he said, loud. “She’s only so old. What kind of person could she possibly be?”
The man smiled. “Knowing a form and face isn’t knowing the heart.”
Zhao Jing pat his head, thinking. “Well, isn’t this convenient? People of the Valley have a prominent mark on their lower backs. Were there nothing but us menfolk around, nothing could be done, but heroines of Emei happen to be present. You women won’t need to observe propriety, so you can go to a place where no one else is to check. We’ll be able to trust the heroines’ statement.”
Hearing this, the nearby Sect Leader of Emei nodded, giving no refute.
Cao Weining heard nothing, only staring at her. Once he saw her expression, he understood everything. In his impression, she had forever been a careless, happy-go-lucky young lady that knew no schemes; never before had he seen such a wan, dismal, dark look on her face.
Her smile was gone. Her big, limpid eyes looked to be missing the vigor within them, having only a cold maliciousness. She looked not at him, but at the scarred man, genuinely resembling a ghost.
He recalled what Wen Kexing had once said to him that night: Even if she might not be like what you’re imagining, even if… you will find out that you don’t actually recognize her?
How had he answered? In that instant, he was a bit distracted. He had… vowed to Wen Kexing, “Don’t worry. I know her, of course.”
Then, she moved. Her figure was extremely agile, and with but a wink, she overcame Cao Weining to come before the crowd, the scarred man bearing the brunt of it. No one had thought that she would have the guts to attack right in front of everyone.
The man saw that the arrival had no good intentions, subconsciously drawing back. She laughed coldly, abruptly raising her hand — two iron chains shot straight out of her sleeves, going for his face. He bent backwards to dodge, but the chains seemed to have souls, directly winding around his neck. “Hell has no entrance for you to charge into,” she called, sinister. “If you want to blame me, go ahead…”
Following that, she yanked the chains backwards with force, attempting to take off his head at once.
Zhao Jing bellowed angrily, unsheathing his sword to stab her. She couldn’t dodge, posturing like her life depended on it, waiting for the wide-open opportunity of his thrust to throw out a hidden weapon.
“Ah-Xiang!” Cao Weining shouted.
Caring for nothing, he flew out in front, obstructing Zhao Jing’s sword with a clang. He grabbed her hand that was tugging the chains. “Let go! Let’s go back home! Ah-Xiang, let go of him, now!”
She startled, involuntarily loosening her hand. The chains fell to the ground. Unawares, she was bodily hauled several paces away by him, after which she mumbled, “Back home?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Back home.”
Zhao Jing sneered. “Very good! Since you’re a little Valley demoness, there’s no need to quibble! We’re not letting you come and go as you please!”
Before he was quite finished, a strong gale attacked him from behind. He dodged, flustered, and turned to look. It was Ye Baiyi — he was holding Dragon’s Back, which wasn’t unsheathed, yet had still forced him back from that swing.
The man didn’t look at him, only speaking to Cao Weining. “The friend you just talked about is a brat with the surname Zhou, right? Take me to find him, and I’ll send you both elsewhere.”
Everyone was shocked by his act, watching blanking as he was about to bring Gu Xiang and Cao Weining away without ever getting off his horse.
“You dare to leave, Cao Weining?” Mo Huaiyang finally spoke up.
Cao Weining’s back stiffened. He stood, turned, and opened his mouth. “Shifu…”
“You go with them,” the other said coldly, “and from now on, you will not be a part of my Qingfeng Sword Sect. Fall into the way of evil, and in the future… I will send myself down the same path of principle that all martial artists do, and we will be irreconcilable!”
Cao Weining’s form seemed to way, and Gu Xiang quickly reached out to support him.
“Think this over well,” Mo Huaiyang said. “Don’t allow one mistake to lead to infinite sorrow.”
Cao Weining stood there, blank, for a very, very long time. Gu Xiang felt him grasp her hand for a split second, release it, then hold it even tighter. “Shifu, I pledged to a friend that for my entire life, from that moment until my death, counting every single second, there would never be any time when I would let Ah-Xiang down… you’ve taught me since childhood to do what I say I will, and do it to completion. I can’t eat my words in regards to her family.”
Mo Huaiyang looked ashen. He clenched his jaw for a long while, then coldly laughed, giving off three successive ‘good’s. He abruptly turned, as if he didn’t want to look at him anymore.
Cao Weining knelt; Gu Xiang frowned, hesitating a bit, then knelt alongside him. The former kowtowed three times in Mo Huaiyang’s direction, and there was an audible sound every time his forehead landed on the ground, blood promptly showing up on it. “This disciple is unfilial!” he cried out, eyes shot red.
After that, he turned to Mo Huaikong and kowtowed thrice again, gritting his teeth, yet unable to say a word. Mo Huaikong peered at him, antsy and wanting to say something, but also feeling like everything he could say would be wrong. All he could do was curse furiously. “Shit! What is this?!”
Gu Xiang then helped him up, Ye Baiyi in wait at the side. Mo Huaiyang turned back around, eyes flashing. “Weining,” he called, voice softened, seeming somewhat fragile.
Cao Weining’s heart skipped a beat. “Shifu…”
The other took a deep breath. He hesitated for a while, then beckoned for him. “Come over here. I have a few things to say to you.”
Ye Baiyi creased his brow, disdaining this bothersome master-disciple pair. He watched as Cao Weining was already going over, then turned his head away; this eternal parting had nothing to do with him, really.
Cao Weining took a few steps forwards, then knelt, using his knees to crawl up before him. Mo Huaiyang looked at him with complicated emotions, shut his eyes, then put his hand on his head with a sigh, as if he was still a little child. “In your generation… I’ve cherished you the most.”
The other choked up. “Shifu, I…”
He couldn’t speak further, as this scene of tender emotions suddenly changed its tune. No one had expected that after Mo Huaiyang finished saying that sentence, his hand that was caressing the top of Cao Weining’s head would suddenly exert its strength without warning, pressing down upon his crown with the force of ten thousand catties.
Cao Weining immediately spurted blood from all seven orifices. Gu Xiang screamed, and blood splashed onto Mo Huaikong. The latter couldn’t react, staring wide-eyed at the one that was still kneeling… and after Mo Huaiyang let go, Cao Weining collapsed to the side without a sound.
Mo Huaiyang hooded his eyes. “My Qingfeng Sword Sect, ever since its initiation by its founding master, has always assumed the duty of rectifying righteousness, and upholding the four virtues. Never before has a traitorous disciple come out of it. This Mo is ashamed that my instruction had not been to standard, to have produced such an unorthodox, unfilial one. I had no choice but to… tidy up the sect. In order to apologize to the world, I ask you all…”
Mo Huaikong looked at him incredulously. “I’ll fuck you up!” he roared in rage.
The other paused for a short moment, then finished the rest of his words, no change in expression. “…to mock me.”
Gu Xiang abruptly threw herself at him, looking to have gone insane. In that moment, her mind was a blank expanse, and she had only one thought left — kill.
“I’ll kill you all!” she shrieked. “I’ll kill every single one of you!”
Quick to react, Ye Baiyi darted over, then hand-chopped her gently on the back of her neck. Her body fell limply, and he caught her. Coldly sweeping his eyes across everyone in front of him, he ultimately settled onto Mo Huaiyang. “You all heard what she said.”
No one responded to him.
He nodded on his own, holding her atop the horse. “This humble one has gained insight,” he threw out, then left, kicking up no dust.
Gu Xiang was unconscious, but a tear still fell from the corner of her eye.
As it was… with the way this world worked, the righteous and the demonic could not coexist, nor have a nice chat. He was righteous, while she was demonic — they were destined to never be together. Those were the rules. Rules were set by majorities of the world’s people, and those who complied, yet wanted to rebel, had to have patience, throw caution to the wind, and bravely go against that overwhelming majority.
Succeed, and one could jump out. Fail, and…
Lao Meng had no idea that the things he had gotten ready were no longer needed. Surprisingly, he genuinely had prepped the ‘dowry’ Wen Kexing had asked for, filling up the ground of a courtyard with it in a way that had something of a ‘ten li worth of red adornments’ feel. Precious braziers for posterity, twin bowl sets for posterity, mahogany trunks, wardrobes, plus all sorts of makeup cases and jewelry boxes, implements of gold and silver in full gamut, and even a few sets of phoenix crowns and red dresses were all there.
Wen Kexing had gotten to his age without ever witnessing any sort of wedding, nor ever drinking a drop of wedding wine. He was learning for the first time that new brides were really so painstakingly cared for, browsing over it all with a lot of enthusiasm. He also purposefully held the ‘dowry art’[30] aloft, standing there and carefully studying it for a time, after which he came to a conclusion. “This artist is good, but not as good as the unique style of a friend of mine.”
Lao Meng was following ingratiatingly behind him. “Do you mean to have it switched out, Valley Master?” he quickly questioned.
Wen Kexing inclined his head to look at him, smiling falsely as he put the ‘art’ back, then randomly sat down upon a mahogany trunk nearby. “Do you know what phrase I just remembered?”
The other’s heart jumped, feeling that it wasn’t going to be a good one.
However, he heard Wen Kexing say: “Taking off your pants to let out a fart is doing too much.”
Lao Meng raised his head, gaze crossing with Wen Kexing’s. A short moment later, he lowered it again. “This subordinate… does not understand what you mean, Valley Master.”
Wen Kexing watched him silently, gaze like an awl, as if he was about to pierce into his core. Lao Meng suddenly felt a little panicked, automatically going over all his own mental calculations from start to finish.
Rebellion. He hadn’t started planning for that only just recently, but for a long time beforehand. Back when Sun Ding and Xue Fang began to overtly and covertly fight, he had already started to scheme and prep. The Hanging Wraith pilfering the key, betraying the Valley, and leaving had practically been an opportunity given to him by the Heavens.
He still remembered how the man before him had gotten the position of Valley Master eight years back. He had merely been a young, unknown man that Lao Meng had never taken notice of, only thinking that the delicate-featured fellow being able to bring his little girl to live in a place like this was something rather amazing.
The former Valley Master of the time was dissimilar to the present one, and had honed in on flashiness. Yama Hall hadn’t even been as desolate as it now was, frequently full of song and dance.
The old Master seemed to have appreciated him. In what way had he appreciated him, though? Lao Meng wasn’t certain, as back in those years, no one had dared to say anything. Regardless, he had been transferred over to be a close attendant of Yama Hall, occasionally giving him pointers in martial arts when in a good mood. Wen Kexing would show up behind the Master from time to time, standing in a set spot, never speaking too much, and always following the rules, like a wooden man that didn’t talk or move.
Yet, it was this wooden man that had, one night, set the insides of Yama Hall into a sky-soaring blaze, those organ-tearing, miserable screeches seeming to linger around its roofbeams for three days afterwards.
Silently bearing with it for three years, one half of the former Master’s attendants went with him. Anybody that opposed would get rended apart, thrown into a fire, and roasted well the day of. Like so, killing a few would make the rest have no rebuke, no matter how stupid they were.
Xue Fang ate a maiden’s heart every month, and Sun Ding liked to drink wine paired with human blood, but even they both thought that that night had been a nightmare. The blood within the Hall had looked to be smeared all over. The former Valley Master had howled for over two shichens. Some said that Wen Kexing had sliced him into pieces, staunching the bleeding all while he cut, then forced him to eat those pieces. Others said that he had skinned him, peeling him whole while he still lived.
When this man came out from inside, he had been wearing a bright red robe. At that moment, no one could tell whether it had been red to begin with, or had been dyed with fresh blood. His face, forever wooden and placid, had shown a smile for the first time before all.
“He’s dead. I got rid of him,” they had heard him say. “Anyone unconvinced can come fight me, but otherwise, be good and obey from here on out.”
After that came a war, a royale, a massacre… and then the dust finally settled.
There was no sort of conspiracy. This was exactly how to survive in the Valley — the strong were respected, and that was it. Wen Kexing trusted no one, except for the girl he had raised, so on his second day of being the Valley Master, he had immediately ordered for the extra people of Yama Hall to be cleared away. In the Valley, no living thing apart from Gu Xiang was allowed to come within three chi of him without permission.
He was temperamental, unreadable, and of ever-mysterious whereabouts.
Over those eight years, secrets got all the deeper. At times, Lao Meng would even get the illusion that the man, from the strands of his hair down to his fingernails, did not have a single area about him that wasn’t permeated with the horrific stench of blood; he was a through and through madman, born to slaughter. For that reason, Xue Fang and the rest preferred to fight amongst themselves before anything else, refusing to enrage the lunatic when their wings were not yet developed, and they still could not kill him in one blow.
Coming to this day… Lao Meng believed that he had since made proper preparations.
Everything was ready, except for one little thing.
Inside the Valley’s unrest, while the Ghost Master had wandered outside without return, Lao Meng had not remained idle. Now, he grasped control over seventy-percent of the Valley’s personnel. Even if this man truly did have three heads and six arms, even if he truly did have divine, peerless arts…
Zhao Jing was nothing to be worried about, as once he caught Xue Fang and got the key in his hand, he would have his goal. Thus, Lao Meng settled himself, then raised his head to meet Wen Kexing’s gaze. “Please give enlightenment, Valley Master,” he said, unworried.
The news of Zhao Jing’s group fighting beneath Fengya Mountain had not only reached Green Bamboo ridge, but had quickly been delivered to the Scorpion’s ears in that small town. In the middle of listening to a sixteen-year-old girl singing in a teahouse, he frowned upon hearing this, feeling that this was an unexpectedly thorny issue.
The praying mantis hunted the cricket, only for a siskin to be behind it. But if the mantis shrank back at the approach of battle, quitting and putting down its claws, that would be a bother, too.
He pondered for a short moment, then spoke into the arrival’s ear for a spell, who withdrew with their order.
Grabbing a handful of melon seeds, he ate them quite merrily while he kicked a nearby Poisonous Scorpion with his toes. “She sang well, so reward her… hm, the old guy playing the qin wasn’t bad, either. Reward them both.”
The girl thanked him for the money, helped up her grandpa that was shakily holding a huqin, and slowly left.
They went all the way to the outside of the door, after which the elder took out the majority of the money he had just been given and passed it to her. Once he opened his mouth, the voice that came out was extremely slow, hoarse, and aged. “Good child, take this and buy some snacks. Rest your throat well.”
She refused it. “That won’t do, mister. You’ve constantly been giving money to me these days, but what are you going to do, yourself?”
As it turned out, these two were not an actual grandparent-grandchild pair. “Cough, just take it, take it,” the old man said, waving his hand. “I am an old one that has a today, but no tomorrow. Why should I demand payment? I can just scrape by with what I need. Your father is still sick, and can only come out to perform with you if he’s cured quickly, yes? Furthermore, if it wasn’t for your good singing, who would watch a decrepit elder like me play?”
Her face went red, as she really was pressed for cash. She stood there at a loss, not sure what she ought to do.
The elder didn’t give her an opportunity to refuse it, turning to slowly leave with his huqin. As soon as he was somewhere that no one else was, the old man that looked to have a foot in the grave suddenly became invigorated. His muddied, slack gaze focused, brightening unusually, and his back straightened out — where was even a bit of that hobbling look at?
He was the Scorpion-tailing Zhou Zishu. When the Scorpion had lowered his voice to speak, bystanders couldn’t have heard, but Zhou Zishu’s strong hearing had caught it clearly. He was a tiny bit surprised; he hadn’t expected that Zhao Jing’s group would fight amongst themselves before even getting on the Mountain, which made the situation even more complicated. It signified that the minds of those inside that formation weren’t uniform, and that there might be many that each harbored their own motives, getting ready to do something rotten.
For the sake of compelling them to be on the same page, the Scorpion was sending his Scorpions to sneak-attack while pretending to be Ghost Valley’s people. Zhou Zishu lightly furrowed his brow. He thought about Wen Kexing’s circumstances in the Ridge right now, as recently, there had seemed to be an atypical calm in the Valley. That Wen trash hadn’t… had anything happen to him, right?
He suddenly wanted to throw the Scorpion away and head straight for Fengya Mountain, but he was still Zhou Zishu, after all. That notion merely flashed past his brain, then was suppressed — the present gameboard was in chaos, and all the factions were already on it, aside from the Scorpion. Hastily mixing in with it would instead make him liable to be unclear on its shape, so it would be better to just follow said Scorpion.
That guy… since he had been the Ghost Valley Master for so many years yet still had all his limbs, he should generally have some capability.
Zhou Zishu unconsciously streaked his fingers across the strings of his huqin, making a faint sound, and then his figure disappeared into the alley.
The Scorpion had come prepared, getting more than thirty Scorpions to ambush Zhao Jing’s group. Clearly, he had long been planning to fish in besieged waters, having no sort of good intentions… because those thirty had ghost-face tattoos patterned on them, the ink for which had been separately obtained from Lao Meng and Sun Ding. That was some real forward-thinking.
Zhao Jing’s group had just endured many misfortunes. Mo Huaikong had nearly come to blows with Mo Huaiyang, only barely able to be held back. Everyone was unsettled, and then, all of a sudden, a group of uninvited guests arrived, catching them badly off-guard. The people in black, who had come out of who-knew-where, were extremely cunning, both battling and retreating, not getting rashly tangled up. If someone couldn’t be beaten, they ran, but it wouldn’t take them long to take advantage of someone’s inattention to pop out again.
The scarred man took the clothes off one’s corpse, exposing the ghost face that the Scorpion had deliberately made up beneath the crowd’s staring eyes. Zhao Jing frowned, then looked at Mo Huaiyang. “Sect Leader Mo, the time is now. The problems between us should be discussed a bit later. We’re all very sad over you losing your beloved disciple, but this is a period of life and death for the martial world. I hope that you’ll weigh the situation at large!”
Mo Huaiyang thought about it. Feeling that he could not put on a rival stageplay to ‘life and death of the martial world’ for right now, he silently acquiesced to Zhao Jing’s collaboration. The group of heroes that had dawdled for so long at the mountain’s base finally remembered what they were supposed to be doing, and with an order from Zhao Jing, they fought their way up the mountain.
In order to handle Wen Kexing, Lao Meng happened to have transferred the majority of his manpower to the vicinity of Yama Hall, practically allowing those warriors to enter a no-man’s-land. The war, given a push by the Scorpion, had finally begun.
Behind Yama Hall, Wen Kexing was heavily surrounded. He grinned, thinking that Lao Meng really had a high evaluation of him, to confront his foe like so. Those beside him, once cowed by the Valley Master’s might, had noticed the strife and changed sides — that was how Wen Kexing himself had killed the former Master.
In Ghost Valley, if there was no even match-up, and one side looked to be slightly weaker when viewing the scene, there would be a huge quantity of people immediately going turncoat. That was because ‘loyalty’ had never existed here, only the weak having no choice but to attach themselves to the strong, and once an even stronger person emerged, the one from before would no longer have use.
Wen Kexing swept a look at the bow and arrow in the hands of the person nearest, raising a brow at Lao Meng. “Xue Fang hasn’t yet been found, and Zhao Jing is still at the mountain’s base. With such troubles inside and out, you’re still itching to take care of me first?”
He remained having no look of surprise or panic at all. Lao Meng’s heart was getting increasingly bottomless, and he suddenly felt that the downmountain Zhao Jing and missing Xue Fang were both nothing compared to the man in front of him.
Right at that moment, a gray-clothed Ghost hurriedly barged in. “Zhao has brought people in for an attack!”
Lao Meng hadn’t anticipated that Zhao Jing would settle his dilemma so quickly, instinctively sensing that something was off, yet having no time to think deeply on it. It was instead Wen Kexing who dragged out his voice, rueful, and with a lot of schadenfreude. “Oh, how awful. Is this not a fire burning the brows?”
Lao Meng scowled viciously, took in a deep breath, and waved his hand. The archers of the innermost surrounding layer looked at each other, then slowly lowered their arrows that had been aimed for Wen Kexing. Lao Meng cupped his hands at him, using the same deferential tone as ever. “Valley Master, now that the Valley has reached this plight, I believe that we should both take a step back and resolve the newcomers. We’ll discuss this later, yes?”
Deal with the outsiders first, continue wrangling later; Lao Meng was worthy of being a bad egg, as once he had torn off his face, he would do away with sham politeness and just be forthcoming.
Wen Kexing crossed his arms over his chest, looking as gentle as a spring breeze. “I’m a general that’s fallen in rank to a prisoner of war. What else can I possibly say?”
The corner of the other’s eye twitched. With a motion of his hand, he made a path. “If you please, Valley Master.”
Ye Baiyi hadn’t senselessly gone to get mixed up with them, as he wasn’t interested. All he did was place Gu Xiang on his horse’s back, steering the horse, bearing Dragon’s Back, and holding the small jar while he slowly went in the opposite direction. After a non-great amount of time, she woke up. Without shifting, she got up on her own, dazed for a minute, then turned to lay her back on the horse. Gazing at the sky, the horse’s bumpy steps seemed to make the Heavens jolt as well.
She stared and stared. Tears dampened the hair at her temples, but she seemed to not feel them.
He looked back at her, reining his horse as he found it hard to keep quiet. “Dry your tears.”
She bit her lip. “I’m not crying,” she whispered.
Even though she had said that, her tears seemed to be deliberately acting against her. They fell, track after track. She raised her hand and wiped them off, then wiped them once more, but no matter what, she couldn’t wipe them clean away, only able to unconsciously rub at them again and again.
Ye Baiyi hadn’t anything to say to such a young girl to begin with, so he had no idea what to do upon seeing her like this. After a half day of thought, he said stiffly, “How about we go back and fetch your lover’s corpse.”
He had been trying to console her, but her tears only fell all the harder.
Since that didn’t work, he frowned. “Don’t cry. Everyone dies, or… what are you thinking of doing?”
Gu Xiang abruptly sat up, jumped off the horse, then buried her face in her sleeves, as if she was about to suffocate herself to death on them. A while later, she looked back up. “Zhou Xu and them are at an inn in the outskirts of Luoyang. Go find him.”
With that, she turned and left.
He got off to stop her. “Where are you going? You can’t defeat that guy. I’d advise you to—“
Not looking back, she stubbornly straightened out her back, then bounded for Fengya Mountain, vanishing without a trace.
Ye Baiyi subconsciously lifted his hand, placing it upon the tiny Writ pendant on his chest. Being speechless for a short time, his horse simultaneously got a bit impatient and rubbed against his graying hair, which seemed to only then bring him back to his senses. He sighed, lowered his head to look at the jar, then mounted the horse again. “Ah, Changqing. I’ll find that unfilial son of yours for you,” he said to himself. “Don’t worry. I’ll have someone bring him home for you, too.”
Zhao Jing’s horse was in the lead as he brought them up Fengya Mountain. “No need to worry, everyone,” he shouted. “The evil Ghosts are no better than…”
His voice suddenly trailed off, and he appeared apprehensive as he raised his head to look in Yama Hall’s direction. He saw a group of Ghosts in gray file out; they made no noise when they walked, as if their feet never hit the ground, partitioned by air. Both sides stood solemnly. A ghost-faced banner silently rose, billowing viciously in the wind, the hazy, setting sun dying it a blood-like color.
A tall, jade-like man donning long, dark red robes stood on the other side. Hands encased inside his spacious sleeves, his head was down, and he had some inattentiveness, as though he was in a daze whilst he viewed something unknown.
With a raise of his hand, everyone stopped in their tracks along with Zhao Jing, hemming in on observing the man. Looking at the environs, Lao Meng was standing a little further in, nearly overlooked by others while the man in red drew in all gazes. Like he had been disturbed, the latter slowly turned around, allowing them to get a vivid view.
“It’s you?!” Zhao Jing cried out.
Wen Kexing raised his brow. “Ah, Hero Zhao. It’s been a while,” he answered softly.
He had seen Wen Kexing not just once before this, but on this meeting, he felt like the soul inside the other’s shell had been switched out. No matter how he viewed him, he looked grotesque, making him slightly aghast. Wen Kexing slowly descended the stone stairs, and it seemed like every step forward he took had a compelling pressure. Zhao Jing involuntarily took a step back, thereafter forcing himself to bear with it. “You… you’re the…”
Wen Kexing gave a mn. “My trifling, untalented self is indeed that evil-filled boss of the Ghosts that everyone’s been talking about,” he explained, very understanding of the other’s emotions. “I hope everybody can forgive me for all that disrespect from before.”
Zhao Jing had witnessed his moves a few times and knew that his martial arts were decent, yet still wasn’t taking such a young man seriously in any way, merely feeling that something was off about this situation. Before he could think deeply on that, however, someone leapt into the air behind him. “You’re a bastard just pretending to be powerful!” he shouted.
With no time to stop him, Zhao Jing only caught sight of that elder being one of Qingfeng Sword Sect’s ‘Huai’ generation, Mo Huaifeng. Zhao Jing’s thoughts turned around; he knew that because of what had happened with Cao Weining, Mo Huaikong had turned back before the fight. This was Mo Huaiyang scouting for dignity by putting a half-hand out, then quietly shrinking back with the intention to observe from a safe spot.
Mo Huaifeng didn’t care that he was possibly being taken advantage of for being lower in rank. Not being polite with anybody, he drew out his longsword, then went for Wen Kexing like a storm. In front of everyone’s eyes, the red-clothed man went down the steps as casually as ever, not dodging, looking as if even the width between each of his steps was invariable. Then, all of a sudden, Mo Huaifeng let out a heart-splitting scream, and his entire body collapsed to one side.
Wen Kexing’s hands were still hung parallel to him, the smile he had completely unchanged. Zhao Jing hadn’t even seen how he had moved.
Mo Huaifeng fell to the ground, twitching all over non-stop. A couple of gray Ghosts standing nearby shifted to encircle him, eager excitement showing on their faces, yet they dared not to move, only peering at Wen Kexing impatiently.
The latter inclined his head towards them. “It’s already gotten to this hour,” he said, softly. “Why are you still being polite?”
Zhao Jing and the rest didn’t understand his implication, at first. In the wake of his command, the Ghosts surrounding Mo Huaifeng suddenly shrieked inhumanly, then pounced on the man that was unable to resist like a bunch of children massing together to play with a bug. In no more than a blink of the eye, Mo Huaifeng was torn apart, his entire body cut into pieces — he could not possibly be more dead.
Blood sprayed out beautifully, one zhang high. Zhao Jing’s pupils shrank.
These were actual evil Ghosts!
At that moment, Wen Kexing was already standing three stone steps away from him. Zhao Jing could finally no longer put on a brave front, recoiling one huge step back as he held his weapon horizontal to his chest. “You… you actually dared to…”
“I don’t think you understand yet, Hero Zhao,” the other began, sounding like a soft breeze and fine rain. “Exit Green Bamboo Ridge, and it’s the human world. Upon coming to said world, you must properly act like a human. For instance, if a child suffers bullying by others, you save them. If a beauty is unhappy, you console them. If someone gives food, you give them coin. If you see someone in trouble, you lend a hand. What is all that? …It’s being human. But, when we’re all here, there are no humans. And the act of conducting oneself like one…”
He stopped, then turned to glance back at the Ghosts that had just been stained with blood, yet were still eager to move. Laughing, he stretched out a finger, then wagged it twice before Zhao Jing’s eyes. “Contend with us, and you’re bound to die, because we don’t have elders, children, men, or women. Here, there are only malevolent ghosts that want lives.”
He coolly raised his hand, lightly stirring his sleeve, and looked at their group condescendingly. “Oh, would you look at that. There hasn’t been any visitors to the Valley in many years, so I got excited and talked a lot. In what way are you hallowed, Hero Zhao? That one hadn’t conducted himself like a human would at all; do you need me to bring up the reason for that? Tell me: yes, or no?”
Mo Huaiyang stepped forth, standing abreast of Zhao Jing with an unsightly expression. “Alone, we won’t be the opponents of this monster,” he whispered into his ear. “We’ll act together.”
Zhao Jing was having trouble getting off the tiger he was riding. His gaze jumped over Wen Kexing to see Lao Meng standing a bit behind the main gate of Yama Hall, along with the cryptic look he had, and inwardly understood the other’s likely plan; this was killing two eagles with one arrow. Right now, he no longer had any means of retreat, so he had no choice but to toughen up, let out a roar of fury, and lunge.
That was akin to a signal, which the two parties standing opposite received simultaneously. The brawl began.
Meanwhile, the Scorpion had already detoured around to the other end of Fengya. He looked up to gaze at the rolling, verdant mountains. “Beautiful,” he mumbled, “really beautiful. Fengya Mountain is one of the most stunning views in the human world. What a pity… that this is a prickly beauty that can only be observed from a distance, not played around with. Do you think it looks good?”
The one he asked was a masked Poisonous Scorpion beside him, who followed his line of sight, then looked like he had just received some kind of assignment. “Yes!”
The smile on the Scorpion’s face curbed by half. “You’re really no fun.”
“Yes!” the other said again.
It was like the guy could only say one word. The Scorpion’s interest in sightseeing vanished, face cooling down. “They should have already set to task. We’ll go up now, and be right in time to reap the benefits — my client, Lao Meng, spent a lot of money, so he’s waiting to coordinate with me from the inside.”
“Yes!” the other said yet again.
The Scorpion ignored him, beginning to walk forward on his own. The well-trained Scorpions immediately followed after; whether they were a group of real people, or a big bunch of puppets, was practically unknowable.
After a period of walking, a gray blur flashed over in front of them. The black-clothed Scorpions revealed their hooks, only to be stopped by the Scorpion. The Ghost craftily swept his eyes around in a circle at the dark crowd, and, likely not having swept to any conclusion, turned to the Scorpion. “Mister Impermanence asked me to receive you, Scorpion Master. If you please.”
The Scorpion smiled with a half-bow. “Thanks for your trouble.”
…To be blunt, this was what it was to let a wolf into your own house.
The sky gradually darkened. Before Yama Hall, reality resembled the unending netherworld; corpses were piling up, shouts and screams rose and fell, and, regardless of whether they were a ghost or a human, no one could wield their personal sense of integrity. As soon as the fracas had started, none were able to keep a hold on the situation, and even the hiding Lao Meng had quickly gotten dragged into it.
Wen Kexing’s dark red robes had now changed to the utmost of bright, his face that could be described as handsome splattered entirely with bloodstains. It wasn’t clear whether those were from himself or someone else, but he didn’t appear to know what exhaustion and pain were, not looking the tiniest bit tense. Using his fingers, he gently wiped off his browbone, uncovering a pair of eyes whose blacks and whites were in stark contrast. As if he was in some sort of majestic ceremony, he faintly held a crazed, yet at-ease smile.
It was unknown how long this battle had been fought. Zhao Jing could feel his heart hammering like thunder, wave after wave of blackness coming before his eyes, but he firmly grit his teeth and bore with it. Then, he caught sight of Wen Kexing’s smiling visage, and got a chill, sensing that the man wasn’t wanting to kill him immediately. Like a vicious beast catching its tiny prey, he wanted to have fun playing with him before he’d be willing to take a vicious bite.
Zhao Jing hollered and threw himself over once again, sabre hacking towards Wen Kexing’s chest — a wide open, and a wide close, such as how a river would flow into the sea. This was one of his signature moves. The veins in his hands swelled with true qi, looking like they were about to burst.
A life-saving gambit, and also a life-toying gambit.
It was a strike as exacting as lightning, made with all-out strength and an immense momentum that could cleave mountains and oceans. Wen Kexing gave a small gasp, seemingly a bit surprised; even with his skill, he couldn’t dodge it entirely. Frowning slightly, he could only turn his body to the side to keep his vitals away, then brace himself as he doggedly resisted the blade with the flesh of his shoulder. Its edge cut horizontally into it, and Zhao Jing spat out a mouthful of blood, both in extreme pain and wild joy.
However, he could not take a step further to follow it up. Wen Kexing grasped his sabre’s blade with both hands, after which a massive force shook Zhao Jing off of it. He stumbled a step back, retreating desperately, but with no real support, he collapsed onto the ground.
Before his eyes was darkness. The mountains turned upside down, and there was an incessant rumbling in his ears — a single hand then gripped his throat, and his entire body was lifted upwards. He fought to open his eyes wide, meeting with the other’s gaze.
“Take a good look at me,” he heard Wen Kexing say. “Everyone always says that I look just like my father. Has my appearance gone awry over these years? Or is your conscience so burdened with guilt, you’re too afraid to acknowledge it?”
Zhao Jing stared at him vacantly for a long time. All of a sudden, he violently began to struggle.
Wen Kexing slowly sucked in a breath, then sighed. “You went so long without recognizing me, that I was under the impression that I might have thought wrong, haha… Hero Zhao, thirty years ago, Long Que and one other bore their sins and fled after witnessing Rong Xuan kill his own wife. Madam Rong had passed the key off to that someone. There were only three people on scene, then; Madam Rong died, and Long Que never said who the other one was all the way until his death. Yet, the location of the key was leaked, and it got to the point that a married couple withdrew from jianghu to live incognito in a small mountain village, terrified, for over ten years, hiding away from the world, yet unable to hide from the evil Ghosts. What went on with that?”
Zhao Jing only felt bursts of acute pain in his insides. With his throat blocked, it couldn’t take in a single breath, and he vainly tried to use his hands to break away Wen Kexing’s iron-like fingers, eyes starting to roll up into the back of his head.
“After he came back from the dead, Rong Xuan’s personality had greatly changed,” Wen Kexing soliloquized. “But could that have gotten to the extent that he wouldn’t be able to distinguish friend from foe, and ruthlessly kill his own wife — and so easily? Even a rabid dog would still recognize its owner… so who did all that, then? Who was it that had interrogated Madam Rong about the arsenal key, then killed her when he had no need of her? Who had escaped in a panic because someone else was coming, and who hid away somewhere secret, knowing everything that had happened? Who was so talentless, that he sold out the whereabouts of Wen Ruyu and his wife…?”
The other was no longer moving. Wen Kexing’s eyes were blank. Seemingly unaware of what night it was, he released his hand, allowed the man’s body to fall noisily to the ground, then stood there absently for a time.
Right then, Mo Huaiyang decisively snatched this opportunity to launch a sneak-attack from behind. Hearing the sound of wind, Wen Kexing startled, forcing himself to set his qi into motion — but Zhao Jing’s sabre was still stuck in his shoulder, and he couldn’t dredge any up!
At the same time, a light swish was heard, and a high-flying knife swept over, its strike slanting Mo Huaiyang’s sword away. A monstrous-looking maiden coldly stood before him. “I told you before,” she said, dragging her words out, “that I’m going to kill you.”
Wen Kexing was stunned for a good while. “Ah-Xiang?”
Due to that nickname, her ice-cold expression could no longer be maintained, tears falling down it. She slowly turned to him, squeezing out a smile. “You can keep the dowry, Master,” she whispered. “Brother… Brother Cao, he…”
After that, her voice choked off, and she flung her head away in order to not look at him, like if she couldn’t see him, she wouldn’t seem weak, or aggrieved.
A scream thereafter sounded through the air. Lao Meng shut his eyes, giving off a relaxed smile — that was the Scorpion arriving. He knew that his victory was secure. Upon opening his eyes once more, the chilling light in them sharply rose, because right now, Wen Kexing had his back to him.
With a light raise of his hand, a cluster of cold glints shot out of his sleeve.
Gu Xiang noticed that her eyes were getting stung by something before her tears were yet dry. She suddenly leapt forth and tackled Wen Kexing, the two of them getting thrown down to the ground together.
Wen Kexing’s eyes went wide. This moment might have been only a single second’s time, but to him, it felt as long as a passing eternity.
He lifted the hand that he had subconsciously placed on her back when they fell. It was dripping with fresh blood — the girl’s entire back looked like something had exploded it open. He nearly believed that he had just been touching bone and viscera.
“Ah… Xiang?”
Her head was on his chest. Forcefully lifting it up, she gave him a smile, breath like gossamer. “Master, I said I was going to kill him, but that was a bluff. I don’t… have the skill… kill him for me, I’m begging you… kill him… for me.”
He nodded woodenly. Gu Xiang looked pained, and she felt aching, cold all over. It was like all of her warmth was pouring out of her back. She had to hold tightly onto his lapels, like a little girl. “It’s f-fine if I die… Brother Cao definitely would have wanted me to live well… but I… I’m not going to… be able to… Master…”
Wen Kexing covered her head with his bloodied hand. “Don’t call me Master,” he said, gentle. “Call me gege.”
She attempted to force a smile, but failed. No longer obeying her, her limbs began to spasm, and her eyes gradually unfocused. “Gege, you have to… kill him… for me…”
Lao Meng, still fearful of Wen Kexing, had immediately retreated when his attack had missed.
Wen Kexing slowly got up, laying Gu Xiang’s body out flat, then reached up and firmly pulled Zhao Jing’s sabre out of his shoulder. Half of his body was numb, no strength able to be put into it, but the malevolent qi about him grew even heavier.
“Alright. I’ll kill him for you,” he said, as if talking to himself.
Mo Huaiyang had noticed that things were inauspicious, and, more slippery than a loach, had since fled. Wen Kexing’s gaze swept across the crowd. With his still-usable hand, he snatched a Ghost in gray. “You saw the man with the sword that had just been standing next to Zhao, yes?”
A gurgling noise came from the Ghost’s throat as he shakily pointed at a direction.
Wen Kexing smiled. “Thanks much.”
His fingers then pressed in hard, and the Ghost’s head instantly broke apart into a pile of messy flesh.
Lord Seventh was in a restaurant, cup of tea in hand as he messed with a heap of sticks on the table. He looked serious, as if his divinings were actually reliable.
Smiling slightly, the Great Shaman sat quietly across from him, feeling extraordinarily calm and delighted as he watched him amuse himself.
However, he heard the other gasp a bit. “This divining… looks a bit interesting.”
“Why?”
Lord Seventh side-eyed him. “Don’t you think me to be inaccurate?”
The other smiled. “When did I ever say that?”
“I gave you a palm reading in the capital ten years ago, but you, as a little brat, said that I was full of nonsense and didn’t even come close,” Lord Seventh answered, counting on his fingers.
The Great Shaman’s eyes curved, showing a bit of a nostalgic expression. “Right, I remember. You said that my bond-signifying heaven-line is long and deep, I’m an infatuated person, and my journey of love will be anything-goes, with great luck and benefits,” he continued, gentle. “You also said that the one I admired was a staunchly loyal woman. I didn’t believe you then, but looking back on it, you actually got it pretty much right. Except for the ‘woman’ part.”
Lord Seventh was taken aback, eyebrows twitching, then seemed to somewhat bashfully lower his head to drink his tea and vainly avoid the other’s gaze. “You remember that pretty clearly, punk,” he mumbled.
Wu Xi laughed. “You divined for Manor Lord Zhou and the rest? What did it say?”
The other paused, his lowered eyes gliding over the sticks again. “One placed within a land of death will fight for their survival. The shape of the divination says…”
He appeared to want to go on and on about this, but upon getting up to there, he unexpectedly trailed off, smile falling. He tilted his head to see down the stairs. The Great Shaman followed his line of sight, only to see a man come in through the door.
He furrowed his brow, as well. The man… had something indescribable about him. He had a head of white hair, a heavy sword on his back, and a small jar in his hand. The instant he entered, the scarce amount of people inside the restaurant all seemed to pause, gazes drawn to him.
As if sensing something, the man looked up to cross gazes with the Great Shaman.
The latter’s eyes focused in, and he let out a small exclamation. “That’s the Ancient Blade of the Dragon’s Back,” he muttered. “This man…”
The arrival was Ye Baiyi. After a stop in his tracks, he suddenly went straight for the two. “Is a guy named Zhou Xu staying here?” he asked.
Lord Seventh sized him up, thoughts turning around and around. “You are… Ye Baiyi?”
Ye Baiyi nodded, sitting next to them without any bit of politeness. “I’m looking for him.”
“He’s tailing the Poisonous Scorpions to Fengya Mountain. You can wait here for him, or I can relay anything you have to say to him.”
The other looked him up and down, thinking about it. “Are you the one the Cao kid said could treat that brat, Zhou Xu?”
Lord Seventh pointed at the Great Shaman. “That’d be him.”
Ye Baiyi’s eyes landed on the latter, slightly inquiring. The Great Shaman was only looking at his white hair. “This is the result of the real ‘six harmonies mental cultivation’, right?”
Turning his head, he saw Lord Seventh looking intrigued, and patiently explained it to him. “One that practices the six harmonies has only two paths; they either qi deviate, or reach the pinnacle, having the alleged arts of being one with the Heavens, unable to construct without destruction.”
Ye Baiyi sneered. “There are no ‘arts of being one with the Heavens’ in this world. If humanity and the Heavens weren’t separate from each other, living would be of no interest.”
The Great Shaman gave him a look. “This cultivation method has reached the top tier, and can be stated to be divine arts that are unparalleled in the world, to the extent that one won’t age or die. However, it has a flaw in that one can never eat warm things from that point on, needing to drink snow water and cold food when passing their days.”
As he said that, Lord Seventh’s eyes went to Ye Baiyi. The latter was in the middle of very casually rinsing out a cup and then pouring himself some hot tea, which he delivered to his mouth. “With your strength, you shouldn’t have a head full of white hair, nor an aura of death,” the Great Shaman said, also watching him. “That’s been caused by you leaving the extreme cold of Changming Mountain and eating the food of ordinary humans, isn’t it?”
Ye Baiyi stiffly pulled up the corners of his mouth into a smile. “You’ll understand once you live to my age, kid — dying after a year of being a living human is much better than continuing to be the living dead for centuries in that place.”
The Great Shaman shook his head. “I’m perfectly alive. I also don’t practice martial arts for turning into the living dead.”
Ye Baiyi paid no mind to his lack of courtesy, merely gazing at the liquid in the cup like he was viewing someplace far away through it, eyes twinkling. It was a long time before he spoke. “Many years ago, a friend of mine had a setback in his martial practice. I wanted to save him, but didn’t have the skills you do, so there was only one road to take. Afterwards, he felt sorry, and brought his wife with him to accompany me in seclusion on Changming. There’s a ruined temple there that people off the mountain have no clue about, and believe that an immortalized monk lives inside.”
As he spoke, it seemed like he had been hiding these words for too long, unable to keep himself from grabbing everything and pouring it out before two strangers he had met by coincidence. He thought about how if he didn’t say more now, there would likely be no other chance for him to say it in his lifetime.
“That friend was a hard-hearted one, but actually had no sense. Their family of three frolicked in front of me all day long, and I hated those eyesores… I taught his kid martial arts, but at some point, the brat started having thoughts about the six harmonies. His mother wasn’t a stupid woman, but… she was a mother, after all.”
Saying as much, he shook his head despondently. “I wasn’t thinking, either. If something was good, why couldn’t I give it to him? I treated him like my own…”
He couldn’t continue, only sighing.
“The Writ of the World once appeared thirty years ago,” the Great Shaman took over. “You are Rong Xuan’s shifu?”
“That’s me.” Ye Baiyi nodded. “Not long after I had come down the mountain, I sought out Qin Huaizhang, the former Lord of Four Seasons Manor, to follow the kid’s trail. Back then, though, the Manor’s wings weren’t filled out yet, so its power was limited; all he found was Rong Xuan’s corpse, and the thing about the five families’ descendants and the Lapis Armor was vaguely touched upon. The investigation later got cut short, owing to my friend, Changqing… he felt that he had let me down, and was suddenly suffering the pain of mourning his own son. Sicknesses of the heart are difficult to treat… he was near death.”
The Great Shaman nodded. “So, that was Senior Rong Changqing.” He thereafter turned his head to fill Lord Seventh in. “Senior Rong used to be called ‘Ghost Hand’, and was a famed craftsman of his generation. Great Famine, which you gave to the child, and the flexible sword, which you gave to Manor Lord Zhou, were both made by him.”
Ye Baiyi’s face was as stiff as ever, but his mouth raised into a smile. He grazed the rim of his teacup with his fingers. “That’s him. That flexible sword is actually the ‘Sword of No Name’. Since it had no name, it changed to ‘Baiyi’ after it got to my hands, but that Zhou guy didn’t recognize the goods the had. He likely still hasn’t learned, either.”
“In the years since… Elder Rong’s death, have you had to face Madam Rong day and night?” Lord Seventh suddenly asked.
The other’s smile suddenly turned somewhat bitter. “Yeah. Changqing is dead, so I don’t know why she still keeps me company in immortality, in that place that’s a coffin for the living. I don’t have anything to say to her, either. Typically, I just practice my arts while she lives her own life. At the start, she could nod or exchange empty pleasantries with me, but later on… later on, we came to be mutually silent. Thinking about it, I haven’t said a word to her in over a decade.”
Lord Seventh took a divination stick and lightly struck it against his teacup, not saying a word.
Ye Baiyi drank down the rest of his tea in one gulp, stood up, and placed the small jar he held onto the tabletop. “I’m not going back. Since you lot are going to go to Changming with that Zhou guy, help me out by bringing Rong Xuan and his wife with. Their family of four can go on by themselves.”
Now done speaking, he turned to leave. Lord Seventh suddenly called out to stop him. “Have you still not let him go after all these years, Brother Ye?”
The man turned back to look at him. “I never held him to begin with. How could I let him go?”
With that, he departed in strides, sword on his back.
I’ve finally returned your son to you, Changqing. Your family can reunite, and Dragon’s Back will accompany me. In our next lives… we won’t be seeing each other in the world.
If not home, where shall I go today?[31]
Meanwhile, on Fengya Mountain, a group suddenly showed up right when everybody was equally exhausted. It was as if they had dropped down from the sky. Their leader was a young man dressed in silks, and behind him was a trailing black mass of Poisonous Scorpions.
Right then, the scarred man that had been by Zhao Jing’s side suddenly came out and knelt down on one knee. “Master,” he called out to the Scorpion.
What a shame that Zhao Jing was already dead, else he would have no idea what to do in this situation. The Scorpion nodded, gaze sweeping across the area; with full satisfaction, he discovered that out of his three customers — Zhao Jing, Sun Ding, and Lao Meng — two-and-a-half out of three were now dead. All that remained was Lao Meng’s bloodied half-self, who was looking at him ecstatically with a face of relief.
The Scorpion laughed coldly. “I trust every hero here has been well since our last meeting,” he stated in a peculiar tone.
The smile on Lao Meng’s face stagnated. He looked on as the Scorpion waved his hand, and then as the black-clothed Scorpions filed up to encircle the entire scene. “What is the meaning of this, Scorpion Master?” he raged.
The other grinned. “I’m collecting my interest.”
Following that, he laughed crisply and loudly, feeling that on this earth, no one was superior to he. Regardless of whether one was of the righteous or demonic faction, they would die while he would live, and none of them could get out of the scope of his manipulations.
He was so overly self-confident, that he didn’t realize that one of the Scorpions he had brought with him wasn’t conforming.
The day before the Scorpions had moved out, Zhou Zishu had snatched an opportunity to become one by substituting for another. He was taking a risk, but luckily, the Scorpion’s desire for control was so strong, his people normally said nothing other than ‘yes’. He had been intending to be close to the Scorpion so that he could easily deal with him when the time came, yet, upon coming to the scene and surveying it, he didn’t see Wen Kexing’s figure at all!
Noiselessly, like an invisible man, he had mixed in with the Scorpions without batting an eye, gaze searching about all over the place. All of a sudden, his eyes widened as he caught sight of a familiar figure behind a huge boulder. It was… Gu Xiang?
His heart jumped rapidly. In the span of a second, all sorts of scenarios streaked across his mind; why was Gu Xiang here? She got injured? Where was Wen Kexing?
He took a deep breath, forcefully controlled himself, and carefully withdrew from the crowd. After slipping behind the boulder, he slowly leaned over, stood there rigidly for a minute, then stooped over to gently search for breath beneath the girl’s nose using his hand. He knew that there was no logic behind such an action — her body was already cold, that ever-smiling face no longer having any life to it.
A long while later, he straightened back up, then let out a breath that had been stuffed up tight in his chest. Savagely tearing both the mask and disguise off of his face, he thought to himself, Damn it all, where did Wen Kexing go?
At this same exact time, the Scorpion had finished gloating, and then couldn’t help but be startled. He had also realized that the Ghost Valley Master wasn’t present.
The Hanging Wraith still hadn’t shown up at this point, and the Ghost Master was nowhere to be seen. A dark cloud seemed to be covering the Scorpion’s head.
The more he thought, the more disquieted he was. Increasingly feeling that the remainder of those left here were nothing to be worried about, he thus called a Scorpion over, ordered such and such from him, and then went to search Fengya Mountain himself with the rest.
If he did not watch the one he was fearful of die in front of him, it would forever be hard for him to be at ease.
Mo Huaiyang believed himself to have escaped. He had fled more than half a shichen away from Fengya before he sighed in relief, yet, all of a sudden, a burst of rustling noises came to his ears. He quickly lifted his head up, then immediately took a huge step backwards in fright.
Wen Kexing was like the King of Hell come to life. His pace was slow as he exited the other end of the forest. In one of his hands was a sword he had picked up from some unknown dead person, and its tip dragged as he walked over, step by step.
“Sect Leader Mo,” he said. “This humble one was entrusted with seeing you off on your journey, if you please.”
With every step he took, his tattered sleeves trailed on the ground, leaving thin traces of blood behind them. His walking posture was a bit off, as if he was stubbornly hauling along half of his immobile body. While he was speaking, a minute wound on his face had split open to seep once more, and he lightly lapped up the blood that fell from it, still approaching.
Mo Huaiyang gritted his teeth. He knew that Wen Kexing was an arrow nearing the end of its trajectory — was the Ghost Valley Master a god? The other had been besieged by several experts, solo, for several shichens, then had been stabbed by Zhao Jing prior to his death. Anyone else would have fainted long ago, so he didn’t believe that the man was capable of doing much.
Even with those thoughts, though, his calves still slightly shook.
Wen Kexing tilted his head to the side, chuckling. Mo Huaiyang suddenly roared madly, and the Qingfeng Sword once held by Sect Leaders past was unsheathed. Exerting everything he had learned in his entire life, he made a maneuver that was air-tight.
The other also made a move. One of his hands was useless, which made the action very sluggish, and his worn-out sword was turned into several pieces by Qingfeng. Mo Huaiyang was delighted, turning his hand around to pare off the arm with the ruined sword, but there was only an afterimage left of the one in front of him, and then, he was gone.
Mo Huaiyang mentally exclaimed that this wasn’t good, and in the next second, there was a chill on his neck. His entire body froze.
Wen Kexing’s broken chunk of sword was stuck in his throat, ice-cold fingers seeming to bump up against his skin. The man sighed. “I’m out of strength,” he whispered.
Immediately after that, he pushed his hand forward, and blood spurted far out of Mo Huaiyang’s neck. The latter convulsed all over as he collapsed, making gurgling noises from his throat. Soon, his blood all drained away, and he stopped moving.
Wen Kexing appeared to be unable to keep on standing. He stumbled, then miserably fell into a sit on the ground. I’m sorry, Ah-Xiang, he vacantly thought, for allowing him to die so quickly.
Ah-Xiang. What an aggravating little girl… for more than ten years, he had lived in darkness, no daylight. The sole living thing that had accompanied him was now gone.
Footsteps sounded out from not too far away, and then a familiar voice was heard to speak. “No wonder I hadn’t seen you, Valley Master. Turns out you’re just here, cooling off in the shade.”
Wen Kexing felt that he ought to stand up, kill this man, and then keep on living, but he didn’t have one bit of power to muster up. All he could sense was weariness. Mutely turning his head, he looked at the Scorpion and his ill-intentioned grin.
After twenty years of bearing with humiliation for the sake of his goals, and everything he had been wanting to do now being accomplished… was he going to die here?
In spite of Wen Kexing’s tragic, powerless appearance, the Scorpion still stood two zhang apart from him, beaming and clucking his tongue. “How unexpected, how unexpected.”
Wen Kexing was still able to force out a smile. “What’s unexpected?” he asked lightly.
The Scorpion shook his head. “Ghost Master, no matter how impressive and capable one is, when they fall into such a plight… who can say how the ways of the world go for certain?”
The other sucked in a breath that only seemed to reach his chest, making his answer very feeble. “How wrong you are, Brother Scorpion. I’ve been the Ghost Master for eight years, yet have never had one day of peaceful sleep. What’s so ‘impressive’ there?”
The Scorpion pondered this, then nodded. “You’re right. People like us don’t get the happy, worry-free lives that commonfolk do.”
Looking at this extraordinary, uncommon man, Wen Kexing smiled. “I dare not compare myself to your world-encompassing ability, Brother Scorpion. Me being unable to sleep well was only because I was afraid that someone else would kill me. Now… there’s finally no need for me to be scared anymore.”
“That’s true,” the Scorpion said with a nod. “You’re about to die, so there’s naturally no need for you to fear death.”
“Lao Meng… you killed him?” Wen Kexing suddenly asked.
The man laughed mockingly. “If I didn’t kill him, wouldn’t I just be waiting around for him to kill me first, then? That was your devoted old servant, Ghost Master, but he still wholeheartedly wanted you to die. Why trouble yourself with keeping him on your mind?”
Wen Kexing nodded at that. “How many… are left alive in the Valley?”
The Scorpion felt that this guy had way too many hang-ups, but replied anyways. “Do you need to ask? Zhao got rid of half, and the remaining half of the injured ranks inevitably fell into my hands. How unthinkable of you to be so magnanimous. You have no time to look after yourself, yet are still worried over the lives and deaths of the Valley’s people. Out of successive generations of Ghost Masters… you really are the most affectionate and loyal one.”
Wen Kexing silently laughed. His expression was somewhat bizarre, but he still sounded calm. “Evil Ghosts on the verge of death are still Ghosts. They likely weren’t easy to deal with.”
“There are those amongst my men that are suicide warriors,” the Scorpion answered, not concerned in the least. “A couple hundred of them dying isn’t much. Nor do I care.”
“Okay,” Wen Kexing said, shutting his eyes. “You’re very driven and bold in style, Brother Scorpion. You deserve to be the formidable figure of a generation… ah, Lao Meng. The most tragic thing about him is none other than the fact that despite clearly being on the board, he still believed himself to be the one holding the pawns. Laughable, isn’t it?”
His lips could barely be seen to move on those last few words, which were almost difficult to hear. Seeing this, the Scorpion looked to be reassured, and he stepped forward a bit. “Of course. You’re someone that’s open-minded, Ghost Master… hand me your hook.”
As soon as he put his hand out, someone placed a weapon onto it. He restrained his grin as he looked at Wen Kexing, who was leaning against a tree and already finding it challenging to move. “Someone like you should be done in by my own hands. Using another for this would be rather rude.”
While he spoke, he raised the hook horizontally across his chest, then slowly came forwards. “Please go on ahead to Yellow Spring Road, Ghost Master.”
He then raised the hook up high. Wen Kexing opened his pitch-black eyes, gazing at him calmly; there looked to be pools of stagnant water inside them. It was like the one that was going to die was not him.
All of sudden, the Scorpion felt a strong gale attacking him from the side. Its intent to kill was much too prominent, and all of his hairs were made to stand on end from that murderous aura. With a loud shout, he hefted the hook even higher to obstruct it. The new arrival was a black-clothed man dressed as a Poisonous Scorpion, yet with no mask, and the flexible sword he held dodged past the hook to unshakably wind around the Scorpion’s arm — the man screamed as said arm was swept up, after which it fell clean away from him.
The few Poisonous Scorpions behind him promptly and obediently came forth in reaction. All that was heard was a spell of clanging noises, and seen was an eye-dazzling display. In a wink’s time, the dust settled; one stood alone while several laid, and every one of the latter was missing their weapon-wielding arm, whether they were even alive or not.
Wen Kexing got a clear view of the newcomer, only to sigh. “Idiot,” he whispered. “Why did you come here?”
Zhou Zishu shot him a glance out of the corner of his eye, smiling coldly. “I came to collect your corpse, you loon.”
The Great Shaman’s medicine had suppressed the Seven Acupunctures nails, and Zhou Zishu’s skill was now reinstated to about ninety-percent of its peak period. Even if he fought alone and out in the open, there was no way the Scorpion would be his match, to say nothing of what he had just done being classified as a sneak attack.
Zhou Zishu turned to him, the tip of his Baiyi sword slightly hanging, voice slightly harsh. “You dare act against who’s mine?”
Wen Kexing stared blankly at the back that was blocking his sight. His fingers that were dangling down to the ground faintly began to tremble.
The Scorpion’s complexion was paling from the pain, but he squeezed out a smile anyways. “Ah… it’s you, Brother Zhou,” he managed. “I didn’t know that you would be gracing us with your presence. My mistake.”
He looked eerily at the two, then waved his hand. “An expert has arrived, so we won’t be inviting ridicule for ourselves. For us, the lush mountains never change, the green waters flow forever — retreat!”
The few still-living Scorpions scrambled up and swiftly followed after him as he drew back. Zhou Zishu didn’t give chase, merely turning around to look at Wen Kexing.
The latter’s eyes flashed, but he smiled. “You should still be careful about…”
Before he could finish, Zhou Zishu’s pupils shrank. His body whirled around, and Baiyi turned into a pretty pattern of afterimages. It struck something with a ding, following which a muffled grunt came from the forest in back; he shook his head with a sigh. “Using the same trick twice on the same person… do these Scorpions do anything other than the same old stuff? From that alone, how are they on par with Four Seasons Manor at all?”
Wen Kexing stared at him for a minute, entranced, then began to smile, reaching a hand up high to grab the air.
Zhou Zishu frowned. “What are you doing?”
“There’s… light around you,” Wen Kexing whispered. “I’m catching it so I can see.”
Zhou Zishu raised a brow slightly. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he leaned against the trunk of a big tree. “Actually… Xue Fang isn’t even around, is he?”
Wen Kexing kept grinning. He looked at his own fingers obsessively, then loosened them a little, as if something might leak out of his completely empty palm. His voice was still extremely quiet, and his breaths were like fine silk, as if they could be cut off at any time. “You could tell.”
“What about the real key?”
“Lost, since I threw it off the top of the mountain,” Wen Kexing answered slowly, narrowing his eyes.
Zhou Zishu nodded, suddenly not knowing how to react. With no key, there was no point in having the Lapis Armor, and everyone that had fought to the death on Fengya, ultimately fighting themselves into corpses, had not known unto death that what they were fighting over was actually just a pile of junk.
“It took me three years to secretly foster Sun Ding,” Wen Kexing softly went on. “How else could such a braindead moron be a rival to the Hanging Wraith and Ghost of Impermanence?”
“After that, you lured the Hanging Wraith into stealing the key when their fight was getting white-hot.”
Wen Kexing laughed. “I didn’t have it, yet they all wanted it… thirty years ago, evil Ghosts of all sizes began to long for the arsenal. The Lapis Armor belonged to the five major clans while the Ghosts weren’t yet established, so they didn’t dare to act too rashly, only able to get things going with the key,” he explained in a whisper.
Then, he turned his head away and coughed twice, which brought some traces of blood out with them. He gently wiped them off of his face before continuing. “Back in the day, Madam Rong gave the key to my dad. They all thought that only three had been present, then. Madam Rong died, and Long Que safeguarded the secret to his grave… if things actually had been like that, the world would have been very peaceful, wouldn’t it?”
“There was a fourth?” Zhou Zishu creased his brow, following which he had a quick realization. “Was it Zhao Jing? He… didn’t have any real power back then, so since he was unable to talk about this with people from righteous sects, he secretly joined up with Ghost Valley?”
“Eh, probably… they’re all dead now, in any case.” Wen Kexing let out a cold laugh, remaining silent for a long time before he took a deep breath. “It’s ridiculous that Madam Rong and the rest never ended up telling my dad what exactly the key they gave him was, all for the sake of keeping their secret. He only saw it as something important that could never be thrown out, which was why he took my mom to hide out in a small mountain village for a full ten years… alas, on the year that I was nine, something unfortunate happened in that village. An owl—“
“Enough,” Zhou Zishu interrupted. After a minute of quiet, he softened his tone. “That’s enough. It’s already been so many years, you don’t need to…”
“My parents believed that they were implicating the villagers,” the other went on regardless. “They wanted to fight until the bitter end, and simply sent me away the night of. I wasn’t worried and didn’t know my own weight, so I snuck back. I saw…”
He sighed, slowly raising his head to gaze at the vague, dim sky. “I saw… my dad’s body, cut into two pieces. My mom was collapsed to the side. Her hair was in disarray, her clothes weren’t their original color anymore, her face had been mutilated, her nose had been cut off, the outline of her features was unseeable, and a staff had pierced her through her chest and out her back, passing right under her shoulder blades. Do you know how I recognized her?”
Zhou Zishu watched him without a word.
“I liked pretty people when I was young, and thought that my mom was the most beautiful person in the world. I liked to cling to her and tell her to carry me, so I got used to seeing her shoulder blades. Even when I die, I won’t forget that.”
“That’s how the key landed in Ghost Valley’s hands, but… how did you…?”
“Me?” Wen Kexing raised his brows, then suddenly started to laugh. The more he laughed, the louder he got, until a whimper-like noise finally came out of his throat. It was unclear whether he was actually laughing, or sobbing. “Me? I stumbled several times on my journey there, and came to look like a filthy mud monkey long before that. The second those evil Ghosts noticed me, I believed that I was going to die, and stood there stupefied. One came over and grabbed me, but then I subconsciously bit him, making him yell and say, ‘It’s a little lunatic.’ The people surrounding me laughed. One woman said that she wanted to peel my skin off to turn it into a human-leather coat when she got back. I was horribly scared… so I thought up a solution.”
Zhou Zishu’s throat bobbed slightly, brow slightly creased, yet he still said nothing.
It had already gotten late in the day. There was utter silence all around. Wen Kexing coughed a few more times, then continued. “I… right under all their watching eyes, I walked over, laid on my stomach, and bit mouthful after mouthful off of my dad’s corpse. He wasn’t easy to chew through, and it took a long time to tear pieces off, then swallow his flesh down into my stomach… and I put a little thought into my head; was I not made of his blood to begin with? As they watched, they slowly quit laughing. Ultimately, the man I had bitten was in charge, and he said that I had been born a Ghost, so I shouldn’t remain in the human world. After that, he brought me back with him to Ghost Valley.”
Zhou Zishu leaned down, then placed a hand on the side of Wen Kexing’s face. Perhaps due to blood loss, the man’s eyes were slightly unfocused, and his skin was freezing; upon feeling warmth, he unconsciously tilted his head to nuzzle into his palm. “I’ve been here for a full twenty years,” he said, breathless. “For the first twelve, I desperately survived, desperately climbed upwards, desperately… for the next eight, I had finally climbed to the top, and prepared for my main event.”
“You secretly aided Sun Ding, forced the Hanging Wraith into dire straits, baited him into stealing the key, tailed him, killed him, and then disposed of both his corpse and the key,” Zhou Zishu picked up. “This created the veneer that he had fled, thus making Ghost Valley come out in full force to hunt him down. You watched Sun Ding and Lao Meng each harbor their own motives, watched them—“
“In this world,” Wen Kexing cut him off, “there is only one thing that can destroy evil spirits… and it’s the human heart.”
He abruptly turned his head to the side and coughed like his lungs were splitting open, inner breath turbid, the sensation of suffocation accordingly inundating him. Suddenly, a hand was pressed against the center of his back, and a soft current of internal force spread throughout his meridians and channels instantaneously, faintly clearing up his consciousness.
Seeing him slowly pass this breath, Zhou Zishu instantly curbed his efforts. “You’re out of strength, but your wound is more serious in comparison. It needs to be wrapped up to staunch the bleeding, else I’ll be too afraid to help you set your internal force into motion.”
Then, he looked into Wen Kexing’s eyes. “I’ll ask you this; do you want to live?”
The other watched him in silence for a very, very long time. “Will you… leave me?”
Smiling lightly, Zhou Zishu shook his head.
Like his life depended on it, Wen Kexing clenched his jaw, grabbed his hand, and forcibly propped himself up. “Live… why wouldn’t I want to live? Why couldn’t I live?! All those shameless, vile people of the world get to live, so why… why can’t I…? I have to…”
He could no longer easily get his breath back, body swaying as he panted nonstop. Zhou Zishu sighed, sealed up his main acupoints, then picked him up in his arms, going off the mountain.
He brought the blood-covered man to that small town. It took no less than two days for Wen Kexing to awaken, where he could barely manage take in some food and drink. After a few more days, Zhou Zishu hired a carriage to bring them to Luoyang, but, right before they set out, they happened to run into Gao Xiaolian and Zhang Chengling.
The latter was still in shock. As soon as he saw him, he immediately threw himself at him and cried painfully, sobbing and hiccuping. “Shifu… Brother Cao, he…”
Gao Xiaolian’s eyes were red, as well. Zhou Zishu sighed. “I know,” he gently said, and placed his palm on top of the other’s head to soothe him.
Immediately after that, Zhang Chengling bust out another sentence: “Shifu… I-I killed someone, too… I killed someone…”
Zhou Zishu’s hand froze. Wen Kexing, who was reclined inside the carriage, also shifted his gaze over, looking at the little devil in astonishment.
Gao Xiaolian clenched her fists. “I had my part in that, too. Don’t cry — that guy was a villain! He deserved to be killed! We got lost on Fengya Mountain, then came across a man dressed in gaudy clothes. After following him for a bit, we learned that he was actually the boss of the Poisonous Scorpions. For some reason, though, his arm had been cut off, and he looked to have been hit with poisoned needles…”
Zhou Zishu looked pleased, while Wen Kexing couldn’t resist letting out hushed laughter. “After that, the guy seemed like he couldn’t keep his Scorpions under control,” Zhang Chengling supplemented, “and they f-fought each other…”
“You two used the confusion to eliminate the Scorpion?” Wen Kexing quietly asked.
Zhang Chengling made a stalling noise, feeling that even if the other party had been a bad guy, his own act of using another’s crisis was also very despicable.
The man laughed out loud — this was what it was to have a guardian deity watching over you.
Afterwards, Gao Xiaolian dried her tears and said farewell to them, heading back for Gao Manor. After enduring all sorts of trials, the girl had grown up over the span of a night. Zhang Chengling went with Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing to Luoyang, and after joining up with Lord Seventh and the Great Shaman, the ashes of Rong Xuan and Madam Rong were brought up Changming.
Following a month of recuperation, the Great Shaman began to remove the nails from Zhou Zishu, re-connecting his meridians.
Heavy snow fell from the Heavens on Changming that day. Wen Kexing stood outside the room, seeming to be mentally calm even as he heard cries coming from inside. Lord Seventh pat him on the shoulder all of a sudden. “Don’t worry, okay? If it was anyone else, there would be only a thirty-percent certainty, but it’s Zishu. Nothing will go wrong.”
Wen Kexing turned his head to look at him.
Lord Seventh smiled. “Since he was able to bear with putting the nails in himself way back when, why would he be scared when they’re pulled out? He’s…”
His succeeding words disintegrated, but a small smile was on his face, as if he was reminiscing about something.
Lord Seventh appeared to have an odd charisma that made one stand by his side, then calm down in his wake. Even so, Wen Kexing’s calm lasted only a short moment, after which he turned away and left. This prettyboy really does look like a huli jing, he thought to himself. I need to be on guard.
This action completely mystified Lord Seventh himself.
After being in a total coma for three months, Zhou Zishu woke up at last. He felt like an entire set of heavy shackles had been unburdened from him, his entire body becoming lighter, sans his right hand — that was being gripped tightly by someone who was apparently exhausted, as he was leaning to the side for a doze.
Zhou Zishu was momentarily distracted, thinking of the events that had led to this point just as if they were from a lifetime ago.
In the end, however, he simply stared at their entwined hands for a while, smiling gently. Yesterday, he had died when he had gone to bed, then awoken as someone new the next. The years that had passed were for nothing other than awaiting someone like this, who could stay with him both morning and night, holding his hand.
Changming Mountain was coated in snow the year round. Upon looking all around, everything would be a vast white, like misty clouds beneath the feet. In the environs was a couple of tiny thatched huts and one small courtyard, resembling a place that an immortal would live apart from the world.
Lord Seventh was currently warming up wine.
A rich aroma faintly wafted out, then far away via the window, the spitting image of ‘unfiltered wine with green foam, and a little red clay stove.’[32] The man seemed to be able to live life in elegance and comfort, even if he had been reduced to living in a forest deep in the mountains.
With a book in his hands, the Great Shaman sat beside him, and would occasionally be puzzled, then raise his head to ask some questions. Lord Seventh’s lowered eyes were staring at the tiny stove; he didn’t even need to think about any of what was being asked, as the answers came naturally to him. Had he not been born into the Prince Estate, he would have been full of enough literature to exam his way to fame.
Whilst the Great Shaman idly chatted with him, he went to clasp his hand. “Are you cold?” he whispered.
Lord Seventh shook his head at that, drawing the stove closer. Gazing out the window, he suddenly smiled. “Take a look at this place. It could be described as having a thousand mountains with no flying birds, and ten thousand paths with no human tracks.[33] It’s only been a few days, yet I can’t even tell what night it is.”
The Great Shaman’s heart jumped. “You like it here?”
Lord Seventh side-eyed him with a grin. “If I said that I did, would you be able to accompany me in living here?”
The other considered this for a while, looking serious. “Lu Ta is still young… but if you really do like it here, I’ll go back and instruct him properly, then after a few years pass, I’ll hand Nanjiang over to him so that I can come live with you. How does that sound?”
Taken aback for a second, Lord Seventh then pfft out a laugh and lightly smacked him on the forehead. “You really are a dull club that takes everything seriously,” he mumbled. “Who’d want to live in this hellscape? The air’s cold and the ground’s frozen. Nanjiang’s still fun, at least.” Then lowering his head, he smiled. “It’s ready to drink.”
He brought out wine cups, carefully poured two of them, handed one to the Great Shaman, and took one for himself. Putting it under his nose, he inhaled deeply, then narrowed his eyes. “As it goes, one boon covers for a hundred uglinesses. Only those that still smell of alcohol after being boiled belong to the top grade. There is a saying; ‘three cups, and I enter the great Dao, one dou, and I’m one with nature.’[34] There are a hundred kinds of anxieties in the human world, and only this can solve them, as—“
His speech was suddenly interrupted by a bunch of crashing and crunching noises. He sighed, his refined mood of drinking as he recited poetry immediately getting swept away, and took a sullen sip. “Those two fleas never give it a rest all day long,” he rebuked in a whisper. “I can tell that Zhou Zishu’s just fine, so let’s say our goodbyes in two days’ time. My ears need to be at peace.”
Zhang Chengling’s exercise didn’t normally make so much noise, so, generally speaking, this overabundant, building-demolishing ruckus had to be from his two shifus exchanging blows.
The Great Shaman had said that as long as Zhou Zishu was able to wake up, the most dangerous phase would have since passed. It was obvious how the man had endured a lot of toughening up; he had awoken feebly for a few days, but after no more than a third to half a month, he was already able to get up. A few more days after that, he became a little more energetic, running and jumping, starting without stopping.
It was mystery as to who was provoking who in the pair, but, in Lord Seventh’s words, ‘You can’t clap with just one hand.’ They squabbled from morning ’til evening, then sat down nicely for dinner, which could also result in a quarrel that began with arguing, then went to pinching each other with chopsticks. Lord Seventh had found it interesting to watch at the beginning, but later got annoyed, refusing to eat with those two mandrills lest he got caught in the crossfire.
Rather bewildered, Lord Seventh had to lament. “Zishu used to be a very collected person. Why is… sheesh. Getting close to cinnabar really does make you red, and getting close to ink really does make you black.”
The Great Shaman smiled a little. “This is good, actually. The process of reconstructing one’s meridians is acutely painful, and straightening them back out afterwards is also very difficult. It’s extremely cold here, too. It wouldn’t be easy for an ordinary person to return to free motion, but Manor Lord Zhou is not only active, he’s forcing his meridians to come apart. He will be a bit pained during this period, but it’ll be good for him in the future.”
Wen Kexing changed the direction of Zhou Zishu’s shoulder with a palm, as if wanting to encircle his entire body in his arms. The other used that momentum to flip over one of his arms, and before he landed, he used a foot to lift up Wen Kexing’s chin, forcing him to draw a step back. After that, he flicked his fingers out like a gale, sneak-attacking him. Wen Kexing inadvertently got hit, and his knees went soft, nearly putting him into a one-knee kneel — however, the second he was falling, he rolled to the side and grabbed Zhou Zishu’s calf, making them both tumble into a ball.
Apart from ice, there was snow, and Lord Seventh, the Great Shaman, and Zhang Chengling were all staying far away from them, so the ground was clear, and not that filthy. After rolling a few full turns, Wen Kexing pinned Zhou Zishu underneath him with a wily grin, his hands placed on either side of the other’s head. “Give up yet?”
Zhou Zishu was in preliminary recovery from his serious injury, so he wasn’t as strong as he had been before, panting slightly. “…That was a cheap trick.”
Wen Kexing cozied up to him, lowering his voice with a smile. “You were clearly the one to be underhanded first.”
“Hey, Ol’ Wen.”
Wen Kexing hummed as he licked his neck. “What?”
“I’m saying…”
Zhou Zishu said a few words with seeming carelessness, but Wen Kexing didn’t quite catch them, somewhat puzzled. “Hm?”
In that split second of thought, he got elbowed in the chest, letting out a grunt, and was instantly lifted off. The sky whirled around as both his arms got pinned behind his back, following which he was pressed onto the ground. Zhou Zishu imitated the hoodlum look the other had just had, blowing into his ear with a chuckle. “How about this? Do you give up yet?”
It took Wen Kexing a good deal of effort to turn his head and see him. “Are you trying to tie me up, Ah-Xu?”
Zhou Zishu raised his brows. “That’s a good idea.”
He went and tapped on the other’s acupoints. Seeing that he was motionless for the time being, he relaxed slightly, sat to the side, then wiped off his face. “My little wife, your husband got a head full of sweat just from restraining you,” he said ruefully.
A hand suddenly reached out and pressed against his forehead; all he saw was the should-have-been-frozen Wen Kexing slowly getting up. “Oh? Let me see… you really are sweating? Don’t catch a cold.”
“You actually altered your acupoints!”
Under his shock, Zhou Zishu had already escaped over a zhang away from him, on-guard as he watched him. Wen Kexing threw him a flirty look. “I can do even more than that.”
Afterwards, the two pounced yet again, continuing their earth-shaking brawl.
As such, the Great Shaman had actually misinterpreted them a little. The reason why they fought all day was for that meridian stuff, but another cause stemmed from an issue that needed to be settled urgently — the outcome was not yet determined, the top and the bottom not for certain, and both of them had fires in their hearts that could only be vented as they quibbled.
At first, Zhang Chengling had been earnest in running over to spectate them, thinking about what he could learn. Later on, he had discovered that their fights were too bitter, and he could only learn moves such as ‘Black Tiger Digs Out the Heart’, ‘Monkey Steals the Peach’, and ‘Universe Goes Topsy-Turvy’, which really had no reference value. Lamenting the fact that both of these experts had returned to their primal states, he henceforth practiced his own martial arts, style by move.
The youth was confused, though; his shifu forever thought that his style was hard to look at, but wasn’t his own rolling about the ground with Senior Wen absolutely graceless?
Two masters had been thoroughly reduced to two ruffians, and, beyond their intentions, accidentally ended up impeding their student’s progress with their conduct.
Only after Zhou Zishu took his daily dose of medicine each evening would they call a truce. The Great Shaman bestowed medicine based on the person; for someone that was frail-bodied and wouldn’t be able to take it, his prescription would be light and easy, but for Zhou Zishu, who would be fine no matter what torment came at him, he gave nothing but powerful medicine. After taking it, the latter would feel terrible all over for a short while, clenching his teeth as he withstood it, and then after the effect had passed, he would always be soaked in sweat.
Following a wash, then a rest, he would recuperate enough energy to continue hopping all over the place the very next day.
Once Zhou Zishu had taken this medicine for the final time, the Great Shaman and Lord Seventh said farewell and left the day after. Even though Nanjiang had always been honest in folk, and the Shamanet Lu Ta was overseeing it, they had been abroad for too long. Seeing them off, it was then the first day that Zhou Zishu didn’t have to bear with drinking that medicine that was akin to death by a thousand cuts, causing that night to be bizarrely peaceful.
Wen Kexing carried a jug of wine into the room, then shook it in front of Zhou Zishu’s face. The other took it with no formality in the least. He meandered over to stick himself to Zhou Zishu’s side, eyes shining brightly as he stared at his profile.
Getting stared at so blatantly, Zhou Zishu drank down a mouthful of wine. “What are you looking at?”
Wen Kexing grinned. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ve drugged that?”
“With what kind of drug?”
“What kind do you think?”
Zhou Zishu shot him a look, sneering in mockery. “You wouldn’t dare to slip me an aphrodisiac. Aren’t you afraid that my wild nature would break out and put a handle on you?”
Wen Kexing frowned, feigning upset. “Right. That really is a bit of a worry.” Propping up his chin, he looked Zhou Zishu up and down, then sighed and shook his head. “You should just let me make the move. Otherwise, I’m thinking that if it keeps going down like this, we’ll both be practicing monks.”
The other glanced at him. “Why wouldn’t it be you letting me make the move?”
Wen Kexing’s perverted hand slowly reached out and touched the side of his waist, ambiguously rubbing up and down. “I’d let you try out all sorts of moves, but…”
His wrist got snatched by Zhou Zishu. They contained their strength so as not to tear the roof off the room, then began wrangling again.
Zhang Chengling passed them as he was returning from his practice, finding this surprising sight unsurprising, since he knew that they were duking it out again. He thought to himself, Why can’t they just spend time together properly? Every single day, they bicker like children. Seeing how very off-beat they were, he thus sighed at the vicissitudes of his own life, then silently turned to go back to his own room.
Following three hundred rounds, neither of the two’s strength could keep holding up, so they took a break. Wen Kexing snatched the wine pot, took a couple big swigs of it, then exhaled. After sprawling out on his back atop the bed, he waved his hand. “No more. I don’t have the energy today.”
Zhou Zishu sighed in relief, like he had been waiting for those words to come out of this Great One. He then sat on the edge of the bed and gave him a little push inwards. “Scoot over.”
Wen Kexing shifted in, facing the bedcurtains above, as if suddenly distracted. “Ah-Xu, after this bout, you’ll be fully recovered,” he said, after a long time of staring blankly. “Will you go with me for a trip down the mountain?”
Zhou Zishu shut his eyes in rest, giving an mn at that. “I’m pretty much done with it right now, I can go. What are you going to do?”
Wen Kexing was silent. The other waited for a long while. Feeling this a bit strange, he opened his eyes and tilted his head — gazing straight at him, the man still looked like his mind was wandering somewhere beyond the sky. “What is it?”
Wen Kexing’s eyelids trembled, and he managed out a smile. “It’s nothing. Back then, my parent’s corpses were aired out in the wilderness, and they didn’t even get a monument. I’ve been unfilial. For over twenty years, I’ve never gone back to take a look. I should probably…”
Zhou Zishu sighed, then slowly reached his arms out to loop around his waist. Wen Kexing obediently turned on his side, putting one hand on the other’s back. His fingers were placed on Zhou Zishu’s shoulder blades, and he unconsciously traced over their outlines, burying his face into his shoulder. “Ah-Xiang, too…” he said, muffled.
“While you were recovering in town, I went back, found her and Xiao Cao… and put them to rest in the ground together.”
“Thank you,” Wen Kexing answered hazily, his next words nearly inaudible as his arms that gathered Zhou Zishu close seemed to tighten. “For half my life, I’ve been a solitary person. I had thought that I’d have Ah-Xiang… but she’s gone. That time you were in a coma, I wasn’t as confident as the Great Shaman. I thought that… if you… I…”
Zhou Zishu suddenly realized that his shoulder was apparently wet. He couldn’t resist bowing his head, but Wen Kexing waved his hand to extinguish the lights, choking up slightly. “Don’t look at me.”
Having never been one to comfort another, Zhou Zishu could only allow him to hold him tight.
Slowly, Wen Kexing’s hands began to wander on him. He was slightly uneasy, but the man didn’t have even a tiny bit of a joking overtone; all he did was constantly call his name, as if highly uncertain, bringing with it a slight terror and desperation. Zhou Zishu sighed on the inside, thinking, Screw it, he’s so pitiful. I’ll let him, just this once.
He used enormous self-restraint to relax. For the first time in his entire life, he was handing himself over to someone else without any defenses. Hair tangling, when their heads were rubbing together, the man only muttered to him with a bit of entreaty, “Ah-Xu, don’t ever leave me…”
Even in this utterly frigid land, there were threads of warmth. They set themselves free from beneath the bedcurtains, then slowly spread outwards, as if they could let a flower bloom.
At daybreak the next morning, Zhou Zishu was in a rare, late sleep. Upon opening his eyes to see the one in his arms, Wen Kexing had a faint, perfectly content smile.
As soon as he moved, Zhou Zishu came to. He felt like every single thing on his body was off, and that he was being firmly embraced by a certain someone.
He opened his mouth in want to swear at him, but Wen Kexing had long been guarded against this action of his. In that split second the other had opened his eyes, he stifled his self-satisfied grin, then gazed deeply into his eyes with a complicated expression, looking like a million emotions were within him.
When Zhou Zishu, the nagger that hadn’t yet spoken, caught sight of his red-rimmed eyes, he harshly swallowed everything back down, not knowing what he ought to say. He had no choice but to stiffly turn his back to him. “If you’re getting up, do it by yourself. Don’t bug me,” he mumbled.
Wen Kexing immediately hugged him from behind, laid down again, and put his fake pitiable expression away when the other couldn’t see. Elated, he thought of how a soft heart was way more enticing than a soft waist.
However, once his short moment of happiness was done, his worries started up again. Furtively opening his eyes to peek at the one beside him, he thought, But… every time I want to do this from now on… will I have to put on a crying act?
That seems… like a bit too much of a tragedy.
People in jianghu were making a terrible fuss, but who had actually seen the Lapis Armor’s key before?
Wen Kexing had.
He recalled that the ‘key’ that had initiated countless bloody tempests had actually been only a cun long, thin as a cicada’s wing, and weighed practically nothing in the hand, like some kind of oddly-shaped, beaded flower that a young lady would wear in her hair.
What a terrible flower.
Atop Fengya Mountain, fierce wind blew at Wen Kexing’s long robes. His palm was bruising. The Hanging Wraith had just died by his hand; his corpse had already fallen beneath the cliffs, gone, and from that point on, there would be even more people hiding bodies there.
Mortal humans cannot enter this land of evil spirits at will?
Very well! I, in a shell of mortality, will nudge this spirit world over for you to take a look.
He opened his hand and flung. The lightweight key had turned into bits of dust in his palm, falling into the infinite depths of the cliffs below.
“Ah-Xiang, let’s go.”
He situated himself into orientation of a watching bystander, then brought his little girl with him to hike through jianghu for over three months, waiting for various people to make their appearances. Within those months, he went from lands of luxuriant forests and growing bamboo, to passing through seas of yellow sand and desert, to drinking a sip of a sunny day’s snow, then to the fair hands of this brothel beauty, filling his lungs with the cosmetic fragrance of pear flowers.
Afterwards, in Jiangnan, he came across a vagrant that was sunbathing as he leaned against the corner of a wall.
Vagrants were nothing strange. What was strange was that he noticed a faint light hung in the eyes and condensed on the lashes of the man, then felt like something had stuck into his heart, as if he had witnessed the rise of peace and crush of defeat therein. Love and hatred acquired over generations, gratitude and vengeance gained since time immemorial — all that had been pressing heavily down upon his chest was lightened a tad, beyond his control.
“All my life of being down and out, I return to the inside of the goblet…” he suddenly recited.
“What?”
Ah-Xiang was a dumb girl that didn’t understand dogcrap. She couldn’t even comprehend the words of humans clearly, to say nothing of any sorrowful past happenings or plaintive anxieties of the present year. He had no choice but to gloss over it with a smile.
Against expectations, Ah-Xiang leaned full out the window, looked down, and then crisply called out on the next beat: “Young Master, look at that guy. If you say he’s a beggar, he doesn’t have any worn bowl next to him for that. If you say he’s not, he’s been sitting there stupidly all morning without doing anything other than grin like an idiot. Is he an idiot?”
In that moment, Wen Kexing was a teeny bit angered, as if a corner of his thoughts had been pried into, as if this stupid girl had thrown a rock into nice, mirror-like waters, causing ripples to go off in all directions.
He settled himself, however, and gave a collected reply. “He’s sunbathing.”
He noticed that the beggar had listened in on them, actually raising his head to glance at him. They were on a balcony, the street was wide, and the sounds of humans were akin to a boiling pot. With that sort of hearing strength…
Wen Kexing stroked the tips of his chopsticks, his recent languidness vanquished. Those martial arts were not weak. Below the surface of Jiangnan, an undercurrent was fiercely swelling, and it was already a season of turmoil. Those that came and went from every major sect, hailed as famous, were not few — which road had this one come from?
That night, Wen Kexing brought Ah-Xiang with him to think up of every possible method for tailing the vagrant, but unexpectedly, he got to see a good show in a worn-out hall that was leaking air from all four of its sides.
In today’s martial circle, people with that insight, that skill, and that presence could be counted on both hands — which one was he? In truth, Wen Kexing himself couldn’t say for certain whether he had followed him out of caution, or simply pure curiosity.
Some people, who flaunted themselves as being lonely at the top for long, upon abruptly meeting someone who caught their eye, would typically be unable to resist chasing them down to thoroughly scrutinize them.
Yet, he had never thought that this chase would inextricably entangle him for more than half his lifespan.
From that rundown hall in the middle of nowhere, a kid that only knew how to cry was escorted all the way to Lake Tai. Zhao Jing, the Qiushan swordsman of the lake, was his number one, lifetime enemy.
Emotions running all over the place inside this illustration, he opposed the one who had been bought off for two silver coins all day long. At times, Wen Kexing would ponder: had he not stirred up this reservoir of disastrous water, would Zhang Chengling have been able to remain in obscurity, relying on his father’s protection to live his life?
Even though jianghu folk would inevitably sigh at the mention of this tiger of a father having a dog of a son, that tiger father would at least still be around. With both parents, his family would have been thriving financially. What would it matter, if he lived through life behind closed doors?
Wen Kexing’s chest held demons, shame, and a heart that was infinitely frozen. Hence, he was obliged to not betray any of his complex emotions, pestering the vagabond Ah-Xu regardless of consequences.
As for the man’s origin, Wen Kexing already had a guess, but he still couldn’t understand him in any way. Why did someone whose authority had reached such a high extent lower himself to advancing and retreating as suitable? The endless carnage he had experienced was like one big dream, where he floated through life like so; how could he still harbor the cultivated heart of a child?
At the time they were both together in the Yellow Springs, Wen Kexing couldn’t resist feeling out for a Lapis Armor piece on the imp’s body, but ended up bumping against a flexible nail.
For writers, the precious was treasured. For warriors, might — what ties did he have with that foreign, discordant object?
He knew that this sickly devil, completely sallow in complexion and nothing much to look at, had instantly and firmly been branded onto the soft flesh of his heart.
Following that, even the Poisonous Scorpions got mixed in with this. Heroes and cowards of all walks of life had come to put on their own performances, occupying the small stage to its brim. Ah-Xu and he escorted Zhang Chengling back to those upright factions that had mouths full of ‘traditional virtues’, and partway through, he watched the man give that dumb kid pointers on martial arts; for a moment, he couldn’t resist wanting to show off his skill, also striking out a move or two.
He didn’t expect that Ah-Xu, from one sword move that had been morphed beyond recognition, would be able to readily expose the history of the ‘Qiuming Sword’.
The Heavens and the Earth were manifest, and jianghu was so vast; who would remember its wanderers that were as fleeting as shooting stars?
Only he could.
For such a short period of time, the world was their hut. Wen Kexing found a tiny space that was three-chi-wide, where he could peacefully sit down with another like so, and reminisce together about an old married couple, who, as far as the majority of folks in this world were concerned, had no significance.
He listened to the man’s mild voice, amidst the wind and insects’ chirps. “If someone has only themself their whole life, on-guard against everyone aside from themself at all times and all places, never being close to anyone, never feeling anything for anyone, only loving themself… wouldn’t that be miserable? Being a bad guy… is too painful.”
Wen Kexing had a sort of impulse at that time, wanting to pour out all of the suffering he’d had in his life, dump out the grievances that filled his chest for his unstated confidante to see. However, he never had a way to do so, only able to divulge a couple phrases by means of a disharmonious, roving, Qin Hui-like tale.
Too painful! he thought. Being a bad guy is too painful.
Why couldn’t you and I have met each other ten years earlier, Ah-Xu? Why is it that when I did meet you, I was already something both human and ghost, yet not either, and you were already near death from injury? Why, in this world, do homes and happiness always get destroyed, and friends and confidantes always meet up late?
Heroes will get to the ends of their roads, beauties will lose their charms as they age… if someone wants to live according to their own hearts, how difficult should that be?
It might have started from there, where an inner demon-like obsession suddenly birthed in his heart. He thought, Why can I not follow my own desires this one time? Why can I not keep him with me?
Inside Marionette Manor, when availing himself of the man’s heavy injury, he was momentarily lost in madness, wanting to press a hand into his qihai acupoint, thinking, I just need a bit. Even if it hurts some, I just need a bit. Then I can keep Ah-Xu in the palm of my hand for a long, long time.
That path of accumulated callousness was nevertheless defeated by the strike of that slightly distressed phrase: “Other people don’t understand, but do you not understand, either?”
How can I not understand?
Of all the living things he had seen in his life, Ah-Xu alone weighed heavily on the innermost part of his heart. He conceded to the damned drifter, conceding until that gouged out his heart and eroded his bones, until he couldn’t bear to disobey him the slightest bit.
This was exactly what it felt like to be human.
This was…
The world’s villains, unparalleled in contemptibility, were like carps crossing the river. There were also uncommon folks similar in greatness to Long Que. That year at Marionette Manor had almost been the most calm and happy one he’d had in his thirty years of life.
He, Ah-Xu, and the brat Zhang Chengling would kill fowl, stew meat, boil mutton, and slaughter cows, divvying up a bowl of raw, rural wine.
He took Ah-Xu’s hand, which would easily get cold after his injury, into his arms to warm it, then felt like his own heart was melting, too. He believed himself to be a little intoxicated, somehow.
Ah-Xu’s mouth was unkind, but his heart was unbearably soft.
Ah-Xu was a grown man, yet he was still too afraid to eat walnuts.
Ah-Xu was a quaffer that drank both good and inferior wine down.
Ah-Xu was…
A confidante he had the luck to come across in his life, a close friend… a beloved.
Yet, he ended up having to awaken from this dream. There were still many disturbances happening in jianghu. The grisly storm he had set into motion himself had never once stopped for a break, and Green Bamboo Ridge was in dangerous turmoil. Many parties had since arrived, while a counterweight had yet to return to its position.
As he was the smooth-talking outsider, Old Wen, he was also the Ghost Master, whose red clothes had been dyed with blood. Those two people, who should have been completely irrelevant to each other, had been forcefully pinned into the same body due to deep enmity. How bizarre was that?
He finally got to cut down his foes, one by one, in this last battle, but he also lost his little girl in purple.
Ah-Xiang…
Ah-Xiang, gege’s taking revenge for you. If you have a next life, you have to be reborn into a good family, with parents to protect and support you, and siblings to love and cherish you. When the time comes for your ten li of dowry, you can pick your affinity with your fool of a boy, Cao Weining, back up, where you’ll be a perfect match. Don’t have anything to do with the plagues of the righteous and the demonic ever again.
When he faced the Scorpions by his lonesome, he was covered in blood and sweat. Looking towards the empty sky, he reminisced on the recompense of his own immense hatred, an indescribable exhaustion within him.
He thought, My grudge is appeased. Death would be becoming. I may as well just… give up, right?
But somebody wasn’t going to let death end his troubles.
When Ah-Xu came with Baiyi’s swordlight, like an elegant nobleman of scholardom, the emotions in Wen Kexing’s heart could not be clearly explained to outsiders.
What decades-long grudge? What silent suffering? What Lapis Armor? All of that was quickly cast to the back of his mind. Aside from the vagrant in front of him, he could no longer see anything else.
Captivated in such an instant, he thought, As long as he’s willing to give me the tiniest bit of affection, from this point on, every day he lives, I will live with him. If he passes on, I will hold a bundle of dry grass, douse myself in kerosene, and burn up together with him, turning to ash, becoming one with the earth in the same spot.
As long as you’re willing, as long as you want me…
Can I make an extravagant request for a minute, to be with you until we grow the white hairs of age?
Some who had died would look back on their own lives and feel no worries. Their three hun and seven po souls would then vanish by over half, and they would follow Soulhook Envoys in a fog down Yellow Spring Road, forgetting as they walked it, not knowing what night it even was by the time they arrived at the Bridge of Helplessness. After that, they would pick up that bowl of forgetting brew, and their previous lives would be completely gone.
Those who had done good would have their virtuous merits discussed. Those who had done evil would go to the underworld. If they deserved rebirth or transmigration, they would re-enter the reincarnation cycle. After death, everything was settled, and the consciousness would be as clean as white snow, starting over anew.
Therefore, whenever someone shut their eyes, the people that still lived would always do all they could to satisfy whatever desires they left unfinished, to save them the extra hardship as they traveled Yellow Spring Road.
Some would still have unresolved obsessions from prior to death, and their souls would follow them in their walk, unwilling, all for the sake of material gains from the mortal plane. They would then be made to bathe in the Yellow Springs, and after getting over themselves, a ferryman would pull up to see them off to rebirth.
The living’s events were not for the dead to worry about.
Yellow Spring Road was very long — the length it would take one to forget was exactly how long it would be.
The only thing that couldn’t be forgotten was love. After walking four-thousand, four-hundred and forty-four zhang, they could still look back and line up in a row beneath the Bridge of Helplessness. Those waiting for someone else would sometimes wait a day or two, sometimes a decade or two, or sometimes an entire mortal lifespan.
Some would wait for another to come, but that someone would be so out of it, they couldn’t remember them any longer. Occasionally, there would be some that could, but they would be one aged person with one young one, and even though they shouldn’t recognize each other, they would end up clasping each other’s hands with tears in their eyes, all while a Ghost Messenger would prompt them from nearby: “You two, the time has come. Get going…”
In love of the mortal world, there was always a fondness for saying some oaths of eternal love, but those were only terms that would last no more than a few decades, no more than one life-and-death cycle of rebirth, and then it would be, ‘You are you, and I am me.’ How was that not laughable?
These words were what Cao Weining was hearing the Ghost Messenger say to Meng Po as he crouched beside the Bridge of Helplessness.
The Messenger had stated that his name in life had been the surname Hu, given Jia, and he was a passionate person. Cao Weining listened to him bother Meng Po with his non-stop chatter while she ignored him, ladling soup at her own pace. The Bridge never stopped metamorphosing; legend stated that how much forgetting brew was drunk down corresponded to how wide the Bridge would be. One cup forgot an age, dust returning to dust, earth to earth.
Messenger Hu Jia babbled for half the day but never saw Meng Po raise her head, so he got in close to converse with Cao Weining. “Kid, why aren’t you drinking the soup? Waiting for someone?”
Mortals were insipid in love and luck, and all of them were middling. It was rare to have one that was so clear-headed, where even an immortal ghost of the netherworld would be willing to talk more to him.
“Ah…” This was the first time Cao Weining was speaking with the Messenger, and he was more or less startled from the favor. “Haha, yes. You are—“
Hu Jia had absolutely no intention of having an exchange with him; he was probably just getting bored from having nothing to do, and wanted to find someone to dump words onto. “There was another that waited here before,” he straight-up cut him off, “and once he started, he was waiting for three hundred years.”
Cao Weining was taken aback. “Th-three hundred years… who has lived for so many years?” he trembled out. “The one he was waiting for… didn’t have the surname Ye, right?”
“Oi, why do you care about what his surname is? A surname’s just what you’re called. If someone’s surname is Huang or Di for ‘Emperor’ in one life, after jumping into that spring of rebirth, their next life might have the surname Zhu or Gou for ‘pig’ and ‘dog’. Who even knows.” Hu Jia waved his hand, then pointed at the Three-Life Rock. “He sat there, waiting for three hundred years. Then he went back to the place he started, where he first got to meet his someone. But, well, you know how that went?”
“How?” the other asked, egging him on.
“He chose another, better match.” Hu Jia sighed.
Right then, Meng Po finally lifted her head to glance at him. “Messenger Hu, mind your words,” she said expressionlessly.
Hu Jia gave a yeah. “Fine. This guy was somewhere in the ranks of Emperors, Princes, Generals, and Ministers. I have to obey the law of karma, and can’t talk about it… who are you waiting for, young fellow?”
“I’m waiting for my wife.”
Hu Jia didn’t feel that to be strange at all. “How old was she when you died?”
“Seventeen,” Cao Weining answered honestly.
“Seventeen… back when I died, I too had a seventeen-year-old wife at home. What a shame…” Hu Jia shook his head. That time was too long ago, and he could no longer clearly remember how that wife had looked. “I advise you not to wait. She’ll keep growing up through her life, and by the time she comes down, she’ll be an old lady in her seventies. She’ll have long forgotten a man from her teens. I’ve seen a lot of people before that come waiting and leave waiting, only for a scene of expectation and then heartbreak. You should quit dwelling on things as soon as possible and pour yourself a vat of Meng Po’s soup. You’ll clean forget any sort of wives or concubines you had.”
Meng Po raised her head again, still expressionless. “Messenger Hu, mind your words.”
Hu Jia shut up, dejected, but saw Cao Weining start to smile. “That’d be just fine, and I look forward to it. It would be best if she can’t remember a bit of what I look like anymore. Once she passes before me — bright-eyed, worry-free, and happy — and I see her move on, I’ll have no worries, myself.”
“You don’t feel unhappy?” Hu Jia wondered.
Cao Weining looked at him strangely. “What would I be unhappy about?” he countered. “That’s my wife, not my enemy. How would seeing her be okay make me unhappy?”
The other was mute for a short moment, smiling. “You’re taking this well.”
“Am I?” Cao Weining said with quite some embarrassment, scratching his head. “I’ve had no other advantages in my life than being able to take nothing to heart… well, there is just one thing. I was beaten to death by my own shifu. I’m afraid that she’s taken it hard, and is never going to let him go.”
“What sort of scandalous thing did you do, for him to beat you to death?”
“Cough… it’s probably because of that little thing about the righteous and the demonic being unable to coexist. He said that my wife was a villain of Ghost Valley, and I insisted on being by her. In a fit of anger that his dignity was put on the spot, he killed me.”
His tone was relaxed to the point that it was like he was talking about someone else, and it was hard to tell just from listening that he was reminiscing about his own manner of death. Hu Jia became intrigued, then crouched next to him. “You don’t hold any hatred?”
Cao Weining pointed at a Soulhook Envoy that was floating over with a ghost. “On the road, I heard that gentlemen recite ‘dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth.’ I then felt that no matter how big my grievances are, there’s nothing to hate. I’m already at rest in the ground, so what power would hatred have? Wouldn’t I just be making things difficult for myself?”
Hu Jia looked up to see Hei Wuchang floating past with his black, blank face, and whispered out a complaint. “Hey, don’t listen to them. Our underworldly Soulhook Envoys only ever say one sentence, and they’ve said it for who knows how many years, never once changing it…”
Meng Po’s gaze was a fixed glare once more. “Messenger Hu, mind your words,” she said blankly for the third time.”
Hu Jia sighed, pointing at her as he spoke quietly to Cao Weining. “See? That also goes for our Meng Po. I’ve gone back and forth the Bridge of Helplessness for centuries, and each time I do, she says that phrase, ‘Messenger Hu, mind your words.’ This netherworld is a real lonesome place.”
Cao Weining smiled. As he listened to the lonely Mister Messenger babble in his ear, he gazed out at the traveled road, thinking, If Ah-Xiang became an old woman, what would she look like? She’d definitely be one with plenty of energy, lively and bold. She…
All of a sudden, he stood up, eyes in wide-open circles. He saw that in an area not far away, a familiar girl was currently following a Soulhook Envoy over with a skip in her step. While she walked, she ceaselessly surrounded the Envoy with questions, who was concentrating with their head down as they walked, completely ignoring her. Getting pressed so urgently, they could only say, “Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth.”
Cao Weining opened his mouth to call out: “Ah-Xiang…”
Gu Xiang stopped in her tracks, then inclined her head to look over. For a moment, she was stunned. At first, it seemed like she wanted to cry, but she ended up stifling it all, transforming it into a face that was smiling wide. She dove at him like a little bird. “Brother Cao! I knew you would be waiting for me!”
As if he hadn’t seen her for a lifetime already, he held her tight, but then got to thinking again: With how she looks, she didn’t become an old lady… doesn’t that mean she died early? After that, he became worried and upset, hundreds of feelings criss-crossing inside him. His tears started to come down, falling into the water of the Yellow Springs, making circle after circle of ripples, startling even the ferrymen.
Hu Jia shut his mouth, watching the mutually-embracing couple with a distant smile.
Only this meeting at the head of the Bridge appeared to stretch on forever, until the Heavens were withered and the Earth was aged.
Another Ghost Messenger on the Bridge called out: “You two, the time has come. Get going…”
Like a pendulum utterly devoted to its duty, that same sentence alone had come out of their mouth year after year.
Gu Xiang lifted her head out of Cao Weining’s embrace, glaring viciously at the Messenger. “What are you so impatient for? You fuckin’ soul-calling over there?!”[35]
The one on the Bridge froze, thinking to themself, Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing?
Hu Jia just started laughing. “What a bold little lady,” he commented. “That’s a dauntless wife you have, young fellow.”
Cao Weining sounded happy and polite, despite his tears. “Forgive my shamelessness.”
Standing up, Hu Jia pointed at the Bridge. “Alright, be on your way. Don’t miss the time of your rebirth. If you’re even a tiny moment off, it’ll be hard to say whether your vast riches will turn into you being roadside beggars. If your karmic links aren’t used up, you can continue as you are in the next life.”
With that, he led them up the Bridge. Standing before Meng Po and her soup, Gu Xiang hesitated. “If we drink this, we’ll forget everything. Can we just not, grandma?”
Meng Po looked at her with a pretty, blank face, silently shaking her head.
“Little miss, if you don’t drink the soup, you’ll be a cow or a horse in your next life,” Hu Jia said. “Drink up.”
Gu Xiang’s eyes quickly went red again. Lowering her head, she was unwilling to move regardless of any persuasion. Hu Jia couldn’t take this, going to speak to Meng Po. “Look at that. It’d be fine to make things a little smoother, yeah? This isn’t easy. In this place, thousands and thousands of years pass, yet it’s not likely that we’ll ever see a pair of lovers that can find love no matter what. It really is—“
“Messenger Hu…”
“Yes, yes, I’ll mind my words,” he hurriedly picked up.
She hesitated for a moment, then suddenly took out two lengths of red string from her sleeves, spread them out in her hand, and presented them to Gu Xiang. The latter was caught off guard. “Take them quick, young miss,” Hu Jia hurriedly piped up from the side. “Elder Meng Po is showing you mercy. This is a fateful opportunity that even several lifetimes wouldn’t be able to cultivate. Take them and tie them on your wrists, it’ll save you from wondering if you’ll even meet up in your next life.”
Gu Xiang quickly took the red strings, then clumsily tied them to Cao Weining’s and her own wrists. Following that, they held hands, drank down the forgetting brew together, then re-entered the cycle of reincarnation.
Behind them, the faraway voice of that Soulhook Envoy was heard. “Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth…”
There was also Hu Jia’s musing. “Ask the world what exactly love is…[36] even Meng Po’s broadened her horizons.”
“Messenger Hu, mind your words.”
Fifteen years later, in Luoyang city, the Young Lady of Landlord Li’s home conducted her coming-of-age ceremony. Landlord Li’s long-sworn brother, Hero Song, visited with his only son; one reason was to give birthday congratulations, and the other was to propose a marriage.
Back when this pair of children were in swaddling clothes, they had been brought up together, and upon playing with them, the adults had discovered that of the two little tykes, one had a red mark on their left hand, and one had a red mark on their right hand. How could that not be a karmic tie, produced in the womb? A betrothal had consequently been drawn up.
It was now the season of green plums. A lad rode on a bamboo horse…[37]
—
The translator says: "messenger hu, shut the fuck up"
Well... I hope that softens the blow a little.
Rumor had it that when celestials reached the end of their calculated lifespans, they would undergo Five Decays. Once accustomed to staying within the boundaries of bliss, they would be reluctant to part with it, taking in the poison of aversion. According to the ‘six harmonies mental cultivation’, once a ‘celestial’ ate and drank of the human world’s smoke and fire, they would present a waning appearance, their hairs turning white, qi gradually weakening, and body gradually declining. No longer would they prosper, nearing their own coffin.
Ye Baiyi was feeling as much right about now. His hair was getting whiter by the day, as if someone had a brush and was painting it somewhere unseen, bit by bit. When casually gathered up, it would come out in large chunks, too. Sometimes, he would suffer delirium, and forget where he had just been and where he was going. His energy was lacking; sometimes, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night, and sometimes he would sleep, then find it hard to open his eyes when the sun was already high in the sky the next day.
Even so, he felt delighted, free, and without a smidgen of ‘aversion’. What the six harmonies had claimed was absolute nonsense.
The root cause of this was probably the fact that he had never taken himself as a celestial, but felt himself to be the living dead.
In his view, once he was off Changming, he was the living dead that had now opened his eyes to come alive, even if it was only for a few brief years, even if he would once again walk the path of mortality where one was born, grew old, got sick, and died.
He ate a lot of food on the daily. At times, he would traverse very long distances just to try out a purportedly-delectable snack from some area. The ancients told that wanting food and sex was human nature; he was too old to be in the mood for sex, so he threw his entire being into food. He was not a picky eater, eating everything and enjoying everything, where even a bowl of tofu, randomly grabbed by the proprietress of a roadside pub, could be finely savored by him for a good long while.
To someone who had eaten cold food and snow water for a century, the sourness, sweetness, bitterness, and spiciness of the world were all precious things.
He had paid visits to people that knew of what had happened thirty years ago. After going down every possible route, he had finally found the unremarkable graves of Rong Xuan and Yue Feng’r, took back the dust-covered Ancient Blade of the Dragon’s Back, then put their bones together, cremated them, placed them in a jar, and entrusted another with delivering them to Changming.
He had been wanting to obstruct those that were fighting over opening up the arsenal, but after seeing a farce first-hand, he felt fatigued again… what did their lives and deaths have to do with him?
Thinking himself to be just an old man on the brink of death, he had nothing to be concerned about while he lived, and nothing to do the day long. Thus, he assumed his duty to be traveling all North and South of of the great river and eating all the food of the realm. Perhaps he would go until the day he could no longer move, and where he ended up would simply be the place he would die.
By the by, he missed Rong Changqing every once in a while.
Rong Changqing, his sole friend of this world, had already been dead for thirty years.
In spite of that, Ye Baiyi could still recall, without a single detail lost, how the other used to look, how he looked when young and proud, how he looked when teenaged and whimsical, and even how he looked when a babbling toddler.
Proud and wild during his life, Ye Baiyi refused to remember people of insignificance. The lone vivid recollection he’d had since his birth pertained to that man.
Rong Changing had grown up with him since they were young. Unlike Ye Baiyi, who went looking for fights the moment he was born, he had been a very charming man whose calls to others had been akin to cleanses in a cool breeze. He had liked fine wine, famed swords, pretty people, and even literature. Anyone in the world could have been his friend, given that they gave him a cup of alcohol, but unfortunately, he’d had only one genuine friend — Ye Baiyi, who, when not practicing, would only taunt others.
‘Ghost Hand’ Rong Changqing’s fame-starting work had been the Great Famine sword. At the time, he had been merely a young nobody. Without a single care, he had casually handed the blade that others would later call ‘the General amongst swords’ off to an old, wandering beggar, who had given him a pot of monkey wine and a book of secret techniques.
The wine, he had brought back to share with Ye Baiyi, while the book had contained the surviving sections of what following generations would call the six harmonies.
Later on, Ye Baiyi would hear that by great coincidence, Great Famine, which had wandered across jianghu, had fallen into the hands of the Zhang orphan. He suddenly thought this a little absurd, as if their people and these events were vaguely connected into one circle. Death begot death, age begot age; this became a segment of misery not explained to completion, with no one left behind to do so fully.
Rong Changqing had been a young one; of those who practiced martial arts, which one could ever resist the magic of being one with the Heavens? His aptitude hadn’t been enough, though. At times, when Ye Baiyi thought back on it, he felt that the thing was actually a demonic book with all sorts of snares inside it, luring humans into walking step by step down it until they were damned without reprieve. Maybe only one person out of millions would be chosen by it, then become its new successor, making them the spitting image of something that was neither human nor ghost.
Rong Changqing, a heavensent genius, had relied on his own strength to futilely complete the six harmonies, resulting in qi deviation.
Back then, Ye Baiyi had been out touring, in the midst of looking at Changming Mountain, thinking that it was unfrequented and very suited for his occasional solitary seclusion. The villagers below the mountain had just spread worsening hearsay about an ‘Ancient Monk’.
Madam Rong had still been a not-yet-married girl, yet she had discarded her status to carry Rong Changqing up the mountain on her back, pleading with Ye Baiyi to save him.
The two had exhausted their minds for methods, with absolutely no results. In the end, out of a lack of option, Ye Baiyi had resolved to swap their fates by transferring Rong Changqing’s power to himself. Surprisingly, when it came to him, he had actually come to fully grasp the wondrous six harmonies method by some karmic fluke.
So many people had successively asked for such a thing, yet hadn’t received it. This heavenly ‘pie’, stinking of dogshit, had instead landed upon the head of someone who embraced the will to die.
Rong Changqing had been a sentimental one. He had decided to repay his two benefactors by marrying Madam Rong, and keeping Ye Baiyi company all his life on Changming.
He had been a fool. He’d had no idea that Madam Rong didn’t want to keep another ice-cold man in such an ice-cold ghostland company her whole life, nor did he have any idea that Ye Baiyi… didn’t want him to marry her.
He had been a fool. Exchanging a famed sword for a demonic book had been one foolish thing, and being engrossed in that book had been a second foolish thing, but in truth, those two previous things put together were not as foolish as his third foolish thing.
Had there ever been anything more ridiculous than that in the world?
Yes. Something even more ridiculous had been Rong Changqing’s son, Rong Xuan. He had been a child as foolish as his old man, and a martial moron just as determined as his shifu, Ye Baiyi. He had been a combination of everybody’s shortcomings, thus making his life destined for tragedy.
He hadn’t understood that the thing martial artists searched for all their lives had been in the hands of his shifu and papa. Why had the both of them been so secretive? He had heard them say it was an extremely dangerous object, but young people did not view danger the same as their elders.
In anyone’s youthful era, they would inevitably believe themselves to be different from others. What someone else couldn’t do, they could, and what killed someone else wouldn’t kill them.
Rong Xuan had run away bearing Dragon’s Back, which Ye Baiyi had passed on to him himself. Rong Changqing and Madam Rong then had a big row. The girl that had formerly been talented, gorgeous, aspirant, steadfast, and faithful had turned into an aged and despairing woman from decades inside the frosted loneliness. She had differed from them; she had been a flower that needed excitement, needed sunlight and human presence.
Carnage of thirty years. The first step had been to run away, like it was predestiny… perhaps it had started from Rong Xuan, perhaps from Rong Changqing. Perhaps it had started even earlier, from that wandering old beggar and that ‘General Great Famine’, so quietly created.
Perhaps it had simply been a circle, duplicated over and over again in people’s minds, continued down generations.
Thirty years later, Wen Kexing had come to grab onto a tiny hint, set to task, and then turn everything onto its head.
But, that was all in the past… in the afternoon of some random day, Ye Baiyi, who had just finished the last mouthful of his broth in a tiny tavern, suddenly had an apathetic thought; those alive, and those dead, were all in the past.
Those situated inside the playing field each had their respective griefs, like him, like Madam Rong, like Wen Kexing, like Zhou Zishu, like Zhao Jing, and even like Gu Xiang and Cao Weining. They all had attempted to ‘jump out’.
Ye Baiyi had wanted to jump out of that curse of being one with the Heavens. Madam Rong had wanted to jump out of the iceland that was Changming. Wen Kexing had wanted to jump out of being an evil spirit and return to the human world. Zhou Zishu had wanted to jump out of Tian Chuang and be free. Zhao Jing had wanted to jump out of the rules of all of jianghu, look down upon everyone from up on high, and grasp the universe in his hand. Gu Xiang and Cao Weining had wanted to jump out of the world’s deep-seated prejudices to be together, standing alone as they cast everything away.
They conflicted, contested, schemed to exhaustion, and risked their lives.
Just like an abyss, some jumped over and got out, while some didn’t make it, falling to their deaths.
And, that abyss had a name. It was… jianghu.
[1] 七窍三秋钉 (seven holes, three autumns nails); Eye is a synonym for ‘hole’ in certain contexts. I think it makes them just a little more malicious-sounding.
[2] The Three Mountains are the mythical Penglai, Yingzhou, and Fangzhang, as described in the Mount Penglai link. The Five Peaks are the very real Mount Tai, Mount Heng, Mount Hua, Mount Song, and Mount Heng (different Heng).
[3] Located on the lower sternum.
[4] Smoke spontaneously coming out of one’s ancestor’s grave is a sarcastic metaphor for resounding luck. Its origins likely reside in natural gasses coincidentally coming out of burial grounds.
[5] Where TCM practitioners take one’s pulse. Located 5cm down from the base of the thumb on the right hand.
[6] Located on the very top of the skull. Ouch.
[7] A common jianghu phrase coined by Jin Yong, famed wuxia writer. (Anyone telling you MXTX, Bai Juyi, or some poem originated the phrase is a liar.)
[8] Unsure if this was on purpose (probably) or not, but pestilence (瘟 wēn) is pronounced the exact same as the Wen of you-know-who.
[9] 槐 is the character for the scholar tree, which is 鬼 (ghost) + 木 (tree).
[10] 千斤坠, a martial arts move meant to fight against immense weight.
[11] I would have loved to leave qimendunjia in pinyin, but the text just had to refer to its individual parts… bear with me. Whorl refers to 甲/jia, the first heavenly stem, which gets skipped over, hence the Hidden Whorl part. The Three Wonders refer to the heavenly stems of yi, bing, and ding. The Eight Doors can be read about here. The Six Whorls refer to the six possible months where the jia stem prefixes the sexagenary months of jiayin, jiachen, jiawu, jiashen, jiaxu, and jiazi. (I don’t understand this junk, please do not ask.)
[12] 琉璃甲 is the word. 琉璃 (most likely, anyways) refers to the legendary vaidurya, commonly equated with beryl today. 甲 is an odd one, commonly used for shells or armor, yet Word of Honor visually depicted it as neither, instead going for some blue Beyblade-y thing. It was pointed out to me that 甲 might actually refer to the way a shell spirals, AKA whorls. Why did I flip the words, then? Well… Beryl Whorl a) is awkward phonetically, and b) sounds far too much like ‘barrel roll’, which I couldn’t get out of my head. :(
[13] The Xu in Zhou Xu (絮) = (willow) down.
[14] He quoted lines from two different poems and put them into one. Du Fu wrote neither of them.
[15] It’s two peaches, actually.
[16] Confucius said this, actually.
[17] It’s referencing time, not literal people that have passed, actually.
[18] It’s ‘petals fall in fathomless swarm’, actually.
[19] It’s plum blossoms, actually.
[20] It’s Yishui, actually.
[21] She combined two different verses from two different poems done by two different poets, while also getting both verses wrong. The audacity.
[22] This is from Li Sao/Departing (or Encountering, depending on who you ask) Sorrow/离骚. It's a poem by Qu Yuan that is too long for me to translate willingly. I refuse. I demand a mountain range of birdseed as tribute to even attempt this behemoth monster.
[23] It’s plum blossoms, actually.
[24] Somewhat untranslatable wordplay. ‘Confidantes of red countenance’ are close female friends, ‘confidantes of blue countenance’ are close male friends.
[25] Duke Zhou was many things, including a prude of the “no sex before marriage” variety. His ceremony is the wedding night, basically.
[26] Original joke: His name is 黄道人, literally ‘Yellow Daoist’. The text calls him 死道人 here, lit. Dead Daoist. Not directly translatable, unfortunately, so I made do.
[27] Original joke: ‘Chengling’ shares starting and ending sounds with stinkbug, 臭虫/chouchong.
[28] Taken from The Song of Everlasting Regret, by Bai Juyi. As one can imagine, ‘these feelings’ is actually supposed to be ‘this regret’. (This one is too long for me to translate myself on a whim and will take Serious Dedication™, so here’s a translation someone else did 14 years ago.)
[29] First half is from Immortal at the Magpie Bridge by Qin Guan, second half is from Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin.
[30] It’s… erotica. You use it on the wedding night because virgins don’t know things… god fucking dammit priest, why did you make me talk about porn on this chapter??
[31] From ‘Courtyard Full of Fragrance’, by Su Shi. (Full version.)
[32] From Bai Juyi‘s Inviting Liu Shijiu. (Read it here.)
[33] From River Snow, by Liu Zongyuan. It’s readable on his wiki page.
[34] From Drinking Alone Under the Moonlight, by Li Bai. (Full version here.)
[35] A bit lost in context: traditionally, when a person got gravely ill, it was sometimes believed that their soul was leaving them, so people would loudly call their name to get their soul to come back. Hence, ‘soul-calling’.
[36] From Yuan Haowen’s poem, Catching Fish. (Here’s a full version.)
[37] Based on verses from Li Bai’s Changgan Ballad. (Full version here.)