Du Yehu was a butcher's son, and his family had never wanted for grease, so he had grown plump and brawny from a tender age, one boy against seven or eight of his peers and always the one left standing — the self-styled little tyrant of Du Family Town. Old Du would take him over his knee every other day, and with each beating he only grew harder.
In Zhuang Kingdom the Dao was the state religion, so a Buddhist's lot was never easy; an aged monk kept the single crumbling temple within a hundred li, eating when he could and going hungry when not. Set pig entrails before him and he would go at them like a cat over fish, eyes flashing with the very gleam of an enlightened Buddha. Du Yehu's name had been bought by old Du with two full catties of that offal, traded to this monk.
Du Yehu, a glutton even then, clutched those two catties of offal as if for dear life; the butcher's leftovers were never enough for him. He wept and wailed that he wanted no grand name — call him Pillar, or even "Pig-Offal," and he would be content. Old Du's face burned with shame, and he thrashed the boy until he himself was spent — still young Du kept his hold. The monk declared he would split it half and half with the lad, and remarked that a boy with a will of iron and a spirit impossible to tame could only be called Wild Tiger.
So Du Yehu came by a proper name, yet went on loafing. The only art he ever learned from the old monk — who turned his hand to fortune-telling, rain-praying, and exorcising alike — was drinking. Old Du, fretting his son might take the cloth, would come out to the temple with his butcher's knife just to have a look. In good time the monk departed without a word of farewell, and the temple was later torn down and turned into a shrine to the local earth god.
Not long after, misfortune befell old Du. The cause was but a trifle: a town constable felt the meat he had bought was short-weight, and cursed old Du for a cheat. By rights, making up two ounces should have settled the affair, but old Du was stubborn to the bone — he seized his knife and drove it into the chopping block, swearing he would have the meat weighed at any shop in town. The constable took the insult and, in a fit of temper, thrust his blade into old Du — killing him on the spot.
Madam Du ran to the yamen to lodge a complaint. The case was simple, with witnesses and evidence in hand — but the constable's brother-in-law happened to be the very magistrate of that little yamen. A little wrangling, and the case was turned on its head: it was the butcher, old Du, who had attacked, and the constable who, forced to defend himself, had struck him down by mischance. In the end the constable was fined half a year's pay.
Poor old Du had butchered pigs all his days; had he the stomach for murdering a man? Madam Du could not swallow that poison, and dashed herself against the pillar of the yamen.
Du Yehu had that day led a gang of children to fish the neighboring town's river, and came home to find it gone. He took up his father's slaughtering knife, and in broad daylight stormed the yamen, cutting down both the constable and his brother-in-law on the very floor of the hall. He was thirteen that year. Word of the deed reached the City Lord's Mansion, and after an inquiry the old city lord gave him a special pardon, even taking him into the Dao Academy without the usual tests.
That was Du Yehu's story — a boy stiff-necked from the cradle, who once resolved upon anything could not be turned aside. Both his father and his mother had been cut from that same stubborn cloth.
...
"The cultivation art... it should already be yours, shouldn't it?" Jiang Wang thought a moment, then asked.
Du Yehu drew a small booklet from his bosom and flung it carelessly onto the table. "Here — a White Tiger Body-Tempering Art, and a fragmentary copy at that. They say it's the common issue of the military."
Such a technique could not be passed around freely, but Du Yehu never for an instant doubted that Jiang Wang would harm him. Jiang Wang picked it up and flipped through it casually, saying nothing, then rose. "I have a small errand. Wait for me a while."
Leaving Zhao Rucheng and Du Yehu to their talk, Jiang Wang slipped into a spare room, bolted the door, roused the Void Key, and stepped into the Great Void Illusion.
He summoned the Dao-Platform and laid the fragmentary manual upon it to begin the derivation. The Merit shown on the sundial drained ceaselessly until it stopped at one hundred ninety. This technique had consumed fully three thousand four hundred points of Merit — nearly twice what the Purple Qi from the East Sword Art demanded, and at the very limit of the Dao-Platform's present capacity. This was, of course, because though the manual was a fragment, it was still a proper cultivation method of the War School, with far more solid foundations than the Purple Qi from the East Sword Art and a far higher ceiling to match.
When the derivation was complete, the technique had not merely filled in the missing portions of the White Tiger Body-Tempering Art, but expanded and advanced it besides. Now it stood divided into four sections — Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise — and when the Four Spirits were merged into one, its might could not be spoken of in the same breath as before.
Jiang Wang withdrew from the Great Void Illusion, took up the technique, and left. He had no sooner pushed the door open than he found a fair figure in red standing at the threshold — brows drawn like distant ink-kissed peaks, eyes a limpid autumn of longing, a single hurried glance cast his way carrying inexpressible grace. Her red lips parted, as if she might speak.
"Excuse me." Jiang Wang walked past her.
It was not that he had no eye for beauty, but that he had just come out of the Great Void Illusion, still trembling with the panic of having nearly had his secret laid bare. Drinking truly muddled the judgment, he warned himself — to enter the illusion here, in a pleasure house where all sorts of rabble mingled, was the height of recklessness.
He hurried back to Zhao Rucheng's private room, waited a while, and only when he was certain no one had followed did he settle back into his seat. He returned the White Tiger Body-Tempering Art to Du Yehu; the newly derived Four Spirit Body-Tempering Art existed only within the Great Void Illusion and would need to be copied out separately.
"When do you leave?" Jiang Wang asked.
"At first light tomorrow." said Du Yehu.
"Tomorrow we'll see you off..."
"Knock, knock, knock." A knock came at the most inopportune time.
"Come in." said Zhao Rucheng offhandedly.
It was the madam of the Pavilion — a gaudy woman, thick-painted, in bright silks. "Oh my, our Master Zhao grows handsomer by the day." She reached out as if to stroke his cheek with practiced familiarity.
Zhao Rucheng leaned back, letting his gaze skim over the sliver of snow-white breast she left half-exposed. "Don't stand so close. Pretty girls give me vertigo."
The madam let out an affected tinkle of a laugh. "Oh, you — you never suffered that ailment before."
"Before, your Pavilion never held itself so aloof either." She frowned. "Has our humble house failed to wait on you? Was it those base-bodied serving girls slighting an honored guest?"
Zhao Rucheng watched her with interest. "What do you think? After all the silver I've poured out today, you still won't let Miaoyu come out and see me? The Pavilion has a fame that fills the world — is dangling your patrons by the nose really all it has to offer?"
The Pavilion of Three Parts Fragrance was a pleasure house renowned across the earth, with branch houses in every kingdom. Its lady master, though she showed her dragon's head but never its tail, had a beauty sung through the ears of every hero under heaven — commanding generals, lords of noble bloodlines, and even, so rumor claimed, the sovereign of some kingdom and the master of a school all longed to kneel as supplicants beneath her skirts.
The foundations of the Pavilion were formidable, and its name alone sufficed to make this small branch the most elegant pleasure house in Fenglin City. It was precisely that backing which emboldened the madam — and yet that same backing meant she could never risk tarnishing the Pavilion's good name. Her face soured at once.
"Might it be..." At that moment a voice soft enough to melt one's bones took up the thread, as a woman in a great crimson gown stepped in with graceful steps. Red is an unkind color, easy to slip into shallow gaudiness — but she wore it perfectly, or rather, she herself was the finest expression of the word "gorgeous." She let those autumn-pool eyes sweep over everyone before they came to rest, half-shy and half-smiling, upon Zhao Rucheng. "Could it be that it's not Mother holding me back from seeing you — but that it's me who doesn't want to see you?"
She was, of course, Miaoyu.