Chapter 203 — The Trustworthy Old Man

The Imperial Preceptor pondered a moment. "My skill with the brush is passable. I can paint to sell, and trade painting for money."

Old Fu asked, "Will you sign your name, Master?"

The Imperial Preceptor shook his head. "If I signed my name, whoever bought a painting would be bribing me. I won't sign."

Old Fu shook his head. "Then your paintings won't sell, Master."

The Imperial Preceptor was choked with indignation. "How do you know they won't sell? I've owned the Tiantu crown prince's painting and copied it more times than I can count. I won't presume to rival the Painting Sage, but my work should still be passable, shouldn't it?"

"Master, what sort of place is the capital? Famous scholars there are as numerous as minnows in a stream, but how many of them make money from calligraphy and painting? Most of them are starving to skin and bone. How does your art compare to theirs?"

Old Fu said, "Instead, Master, your disciples might be able to lend you money."

"Borrow from my own disciples? I can't swallow my pride and do that."

The Imperial Preceptor suddenly thought of Shen Mu and smiled. "I know who has money — I can borrow from him. He spends lavishly, and when he buys medicine for me, it's usually he who pays the bill; otherwise my meager salary would have run out long ago. He holds no office at court, so borrowing from him is no disgrace. I'll go borrow the money. Wait here for me."

Shen Mu returned to the Scholars' Residence of the Imperial Academy. The moment he stepped inside, he smelled the fragrance of spirit medicine, seeming to drift from his own courtyard, and he felt a flicker of suspicion.

The Scholars' Residence was tended by appointed servants. Though called servants, each of them also went to the lecture halls to attend lessons, so their cultivation was quite formidable.

Some servants were even stronger than the scholars themselves. In the history of the Imperial Academy, not a few servants had cultivated extraordinary arts, leaping from the ranks of menials to become scholars, rising through office and title to become generals whose names resounded through their regions.

With such servants guarding the Scholars' Residence, no outsider could slip in.

Shen Mu entered his own courtyard with the dragon qilin and Snow Fox. He found bundles and bags of medicinal herbs piled about the yard, along with medicine furnaces and cauldrons.

Both the cauldrons and the furnaces were no ordinary instruments. The patterns stamped into them were of the most exceptional quality — clearly treasures of great weight, not a whit inferior to the loot Shen Mu had carried out of the Golden Palace of Loulan!

Inside one cauldron lay a leg. Inside another furnace lay an arm.

Seeing the leg and the arm, Shen Mu paused for a moment, then said to Snow Fox and the dragon qilin, "Wait outside the courtyard. Don't let anyone into my house."

Snow Fox and the dragon qilin rose and went out of the courtyard. Shen Mu turned to see the dragon qilin squeezing through the doorway, the frame creaking and groaning on both sides, and he shook his head, thinking, "This fellow has grown fat these past few days. Before long he'll burst my doorframe, and I'll have to put in a new one."

He pushed open the door of the central room and found two men sitting inside, neither exactly old but no longer young. The Lame Elder was washed and neatly turned out, his hair sleek and gleaming, his chin beard tied with a glittering golden cord, and his gown was most fastidious.

Master Huo sat across from him in a blue cloth robe, far less showy than the Lame Elder's, with one sleeve hanging limp and empty. He looked dusty and travel-worn, as if he had just arrived; his sideburns were greying and his hair somewhat disheveled.

When the two saw Shen Mu come in, the Lame Elder broke into an artless smile, and even Master Huo's icy face took on a faint smile.

"Master Huo, Grandpa Lame..." Shen Mu was moved, the rims of his eyes reddening. "Have you come to see me?"

"No," said Master Huo.

Shen Mu's heart ached a little. The Lame Elder laughed. "You're living much more comfortably than we are. Why would we come to see you? You're someone we picked up by the roadside. Would we travel ten thousand li just to see you? Don't flatter yourself."

"Then you definitely came to see me!" Shen Mu snapped.

The Lame Elder shook his head. "I've only come to have you put my leg back on. Take a look and tell me — is that leg of mine still alive?"

"I won't."

The Lame Elder was furious. "You little wretch, have your wings grown hard? We are NOT here to see you!"

Master Huo coughed and said unhurriedly, "If you're not here to see him, then why didn't you take your leg to an alchemist instead? No need to tease him — look, he's about to cry."

"I am not about to cry!" Shen Mu said, stiffening his neck.

"All right, all right, don't get red-eyed. I did come to see you. I've just come back from the Imperial Preceptor's mansion. I stayed there for a while and helped myself to a few things on my way out. Did you see the leg in the furnace?"

The old man was bursting with pride. "My leg! I took it back from the Imperial Preceptor's mansion, and there wasn't a thing the Imperial Preceptor could do about it. He could only stand and watch me take away my own leg!"

Shen Mu was silent for a moment, then showed an artless smile of his own. "Grandpa Lame, the Imperial Preceptor and I have just come back from away. The Imperial Preceptor inside his mansion — which Imperial Preceptor is that?"

The Lame Elder stared at him with wide eyes, and Shen Mu, not giving an inch, stared back with wide eyes of his own. The smiles on their faces were almost equally artless, giving a man the sense that they were trustworthy — that even if they thrust a knife into him, he would still find them perfectly, wholly trustworthy.