# Chapter 99: The Second Matter
In the days that followed, Jiang Wang went to the city garrison nearly every day to spar with Zhao Lang, and sometimes served as a training partner for the other cultivators stationed there.
Through this high-intensity, high-frequency tempering in battle, his command of the Dao arts grew ever more polished, and he slowly adapted to the intricate, ever-shifting battle system Zhao Lang wielded.
Until, once again, White Lotus came looking for him.
The hour was still night, and White Lotus again did not enter his bedchamber directly.
Perhaps aware of how much Jiang An'an meant to Jiang Wang, she left herself—the danger she carried—standing in the courtyard.
"The second matter?" Having written a note for An'an, Jiang Wang came out and asked directly.
White Lotus said nothing, and drifted away.
Ever since his return from Jade Scales Peak, Jiang Wang had been mulling over the distance between himself and White Lotus, weighing the attitude he ought to adopt toward her.
One thing was beyond question: White Lotus—or the organization behind her—was not friendly to the Zhuang court.
By toppling Jade Scales Peak in the way he had, choosing the people of Sanshan City, Jiang Wang had effectively set himself against the Zhuang court. But his feelings toward the Zhuang court were deeply tangled.
He had grown up in this land, and under the education of his youth he had come to trust the Zhuang court fully, cherishing a childlike reverence for its sovereign.
So for a time he had been caught in deep contradiction. Later, though the letter from Ye Qingyu had eased his mind and confirmed that his choice had not been wrong, he still did not feel that he ought to run counter to the Zhuang court.
What he especially could not understand was that White Lotus could easily have toppled Jade Scales Peak on her own. Why, then, had she insisted on bringing him along and making him choose?
He sensed that some secret lay hidden within, a secret he was not meant to know, and it filled him with caution and wariness.
Toward White Lotus, he had resolved to hold her at arm's length.
But he had not expected that he would not need to keep his distance—White Lotus had simply gone cold, without a single extra word.
A bellyful of well-prepared words for keeping the distance were clogged in his throat. But he had bound himself to the pact of three matters, and so he could only follow along for now.
The two left by the west gate, heading in the direction of the Green Willow River.
When they reached the Green Willow River, White Lotus did not board a boat. Instead, she walked along the bank.
By the time the crashing roar of the vast Clear River could be heard, White Lotus finally spoke.
"The reason that business in Little Grove Town happened at all is, in large part, because the Clear River Water Estate pinned down the city garrison. Wei Yan and Zhao Lang could only go rally men from the City Dao Academy, wasting precious time."
White Lotus turned her head and studied Jiang Wang's expression. "So—do you think the Clear River Water Estate is hateful?"
"Hateful," said Jiang Wang.
This was hardly something that needed any hesitation. Of everyone who had taken part in the Little Grove Town action, which of them did not nurse a grudge against the Clear River Water Estate? Just as they all loathed the Swallow-Heart Human Demon. It was only that they had not yet reached the level where they could speak with the Water Estate at all.
Coldness seeped from White Lotus's eyes. "Go kill a few water-clan to vent your anger, then."
"Pinning down the city garrison was the lord of the Water Estate's doing. What has that to do with ordinary water-clan?" Jiang Wang shook his head. "I will not take out my wrath on the innocent."
Zuo Guanglie, towering pride of the Great Chu, had refused, even before his death at Huánzhēn Temple, to raise a hand against a band of enemy beggars.
Jiang Wang, whose strength was far beneath his, was nonetheless likewise unwilling to be a man of cruelty.
"What's done by those above is copied by those below—there are no innocent ones here. Are ordinary water-clan not hateful too?"
"The water-clan and the human-clan have extended an agreement across ten thousand years: we are equals, and we help each other. Just as every one of us wants to kill the Swallow-Heart Human Demon, no one would dream of killing the people of Xiong Wen's homeland."
"How do you know they wouldn't?" White Lotus taunted. "Xiong Wen's hometown—an entire town of people—was slaughtered to the last. You think what you see is the truth of the world?"
Jiang Wang was silent a moment. "The one who slaughtered every soul in Xiong Wen's hometown is nothing more than another Xiong Wen."
"You think this world has more Jiang Wangs? Perhaps there are more Xiong Wens, who can say?"
Moonlight spilled across the water, and the two walked on. At last this tributary of the Clear River, the Green Willow River, merged into the Clear River itself.
"Speaking of water-clan and human-clan equals and mutual help." White Lotus laughed, seeming to find it utterly absurd. "Does anyone still believe in the old covenant now?"
"Why wouldn't they? Since ancient times, the human-clan have dwelt on land, the water-clan in the waters, forever at peace."
"Since ancient times? What history do you know?"
Every sentence out of White Lotus tonight seemed barbed, demeaning or mocking by turns.
Jiang Wang was nettled. "If you know some history that I do not, then please say it plainly."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. If you don't want to kill water-clan, then don't. Why get so angry?"
"I'm not angry."
White Lotus took a step closer to him, and Jiang Wang quietly shifted away.
White Lotus smiled. "To kill or not to kill—it's your own decision. I haven't forced you, so what are you afraid of?"
"Is it that you're afraid..."
Like a specter she closed the gap in one step, pressing up against him, and lightly tapped a finger at his heart, saying in a soft voice: "Of the self deep inside you?"
Jiang Wang frowned. "Stop going in circles. I owe you three matters. If you want me to do something, say it plainly."
"And if I tell you to do something, will you do it?"
Jiang Wang was stung into silence, then had to say, "I won't go killing the innocent—whether human-clan or water-clan."
"So there." White Lotus turned and walked on. "There's no need to name the task now. Observe first, and then decide. In any case, I won't force you, will I?"
Even draped in a black robe, in the depths of night, her graceful form could not be wholly hidden. In her occasional twists and sways, she offered a sight that touched the heart.
"It's right here." White Lotus grabbed Jiang Wang's hand and pulled him into the bushes along the bank, crouching down halfway.
She set down a formation plate, drove it with her Dao essence, and only then laughed. "This time, I've truly laid down a concealment formation."
Jiang Wang knew she was poking fun at what had happened on Jade Scales Peak last time, yet he said nothing, only fixing his gaze on the surface of the Clear River.
He was full of curiosity as to what he was about to see, and yet carried a confusion he himself could not name.
What would he see?
...
Time crept by, and the peace that seemed as if it would last forever was at last broken.
Here the bank of the Clear River Water Estate's waters opened wide, wave chasing wave into the distance, silver light scattering in drifts.
A figure split the water and walked toward the shore. He wore black robes, with a black cloth masking his face. Across one shoulder lay a great black sack, nearly one with the darkness of the night.
The sack faintly outlined a human shape. But given the place and the hour, Jiang Wang judged that what the sack held should be a water-clan.
Water-clan and human-clan were alike in appearance as well. This was, across ten thousand years, the reason the two races had come to acknowledge one another.
The difference was small: the distinctive features native to the water-clan—fish scales, fish whiskers, tortoise-shell, and such. Every water-clan bore more or less of these traits, the visible mark of their gifts, which never faded.
The figure drew nearer, so near Jiang Wang could see him with perfect clarity. He could be certain this was a member of the human-clan.
A human-clan, in the dead of night, furtively hauling a water-clan out of the Clear River in a sack. What was he doing? What did it mean?
"Why is he doing this?" Jiang Wang realized his own voice was trembling slightly. He did not know where the unease had come from.
"The water-clan, too, have their Dao meridians manifesting from birth. And they are far nobler and purer than the demon beasts." White Lotus said at his ear.
Her voice was pleasant to hear, but what she said was nothing short of cruel. "In other words, a Meridian-Opening Pill refined from a water-clan's Dao meridian would be a better, more perfect Meridian-Opening Pill."
The hand Jiang Wang laid on his sword tightened until it was fierce.
That the human-clan and the water-clan existed side by side as equals was a common truth rooted deep in the breast. It was also the consensus of this land across countless unnumbered years.
The Zhuang Kingdom had been founded, back then, upon the desperate battle of the Clear River Water Estate.
The everlasting covenant sworn by the founding emperor of Zhuang, Zhuang Chengqian, was still recited from memory by children in the classrooms to this day! Humans who fell into the water were often saved by the water-clan, and every festival, the human-clan would scatter fruit and gifts along rivers and streams.
Human-clan and water-clan were this close, this intimate. And one dwelt on land, the other in water, with no competition for a place to live.
In Jiang Wang's eyes, to extract a water-clan's Dao meridian was no different from extracting a human-clan's.
And could a human-clan's Dao meridian be refined into a Meridian-Opening Pill?
Whether it could or not—to even think of it was to think of something unforgivable!