Footsteps sounded at the mouth of Song Jixin's courtyard, and Liu Xianyang, poised to drop from the wall, was greeted before he could move by a warm laugh: "Young man — aren't you old Yao's apprentice at the Baoxi kiln? The lad surnamed Liu?" It was the kiln-bureau superintendent in his white robes and jade belt, stepping over the threshold and looking up the wall with a smile. Liu Xianyang went stiff, found he could not muster the strength to leap down, and forced a hollow laugh: "To answer your lordship — it's me. When your lordship came to open the dragon kiln, my master had me demonstrate a few of my crafts before you."
The man nodded, took in the tall youth with one glance, and came straight to the point: "Young man, would you like to see the world outside? Join the army and go to the killing-fields. Last out ten years and you'll hold high office — then I'll come to the capital in person and raise a feast on your account. How does that strike you?" Behind him, Song Jixin's face darkened like a shadowed stream, and his hand tightened on the Old Dragon rain-curtain jade Fu Nanhua had given him. He had, by now, come to know the true station of the man at his side, and the weight of his words: "come in person" were a charm of protection unmatched in all of Da Li, a ladder to the clouds.
Liu Xianyang scrabbled for some courtly phrase and stammered: "I thank your lordship for his great kindness — honored beyond all measure — only, the humble one has already pledged himself apprentice at Master Ruan's forge, and would be loath to go back on it. I beg your lordship not… not…" His words died in his throat, and his face burned red. Song Jixin, in a show of help, prompted: "It's 'bear with the lesser man's fault, for rank's sake,' your lordship." The white-robed man waved it off: "No matter. If you ever leave this town, go to the nearest pass at Danyang and find a martial man called Liu Linxi. Tell him Song Changjing of the capital sent you to join the ranks. If he doubts you, tell him that same Song Changjing said Liu Linxi still owes him thirty thousand heads of the Great Sui border cavalry."
Liu Xianyang nodded in a daze. The man smiled and took his leave; Song Jixin saw him to the gate and meant to stop there, but the man, as though he had counted the boy's heart to the last beat, said without turning: "Come with me to the superintendent's yamen. There is a person for you to meet." Song Jixin's feet rooted in the ground like nails. "I won't go!" That office, whose threshold stood so high for the common folk, was to a boy who had grown on whispers a tiger's den — a ditch in the road he could not cross. The man, who out in the world moved like thunder, showed no temper, only slowed his steps: "By the yamen's spy-ledgers you have already met that prince of the Sui, surnamed Gao. Do you know the Gao house of Sui and our Song house of Li are sworn foes rooted in a thousand years of undying hate? He is but a prince — yet he dares set foot in a town deep in the belly of the enemy realm. And you, Song Jixin — prince as well — dare not enter a paltry yamen on the very map of your own house's realm?"
Song Jixin's first move was not to weigh these words but to wheel and look at Liu Xianyang — and there sat the tall youth on the wall, kneading his hands and tapping his knees, as though he had heard nothing at all. The white-robed prince of Great Li felt the corners of his lips curl: a credit to the old Song line. Yet the thought that the boy was also that woman's son made the martial grandmaster of all Da Li feel his head ache.
Song Jixin ground his teeth, turned to Zhigui at the house door, and said: "I'll be back soon. Don't hold lunch for me." No sooner past the gate than he turned again, smiling: "Take the parcel of silver from under my pillow and buy the dragon-phoenix incense pendants from the Du family shop. We've no need to hoard money after this." Zhigui nodded and made a small cautioning sign. Song Jixin laughed and went off at his ease. When he was gone, Liu Xianyang called from the wall: "Zhigui — what is Song Jixin to that superintendent, anyway?" Zhigui only looked at him with pity. "What's with you? So he knows a pot-bureau official — that make him somebody?" She twitched her mouth, went in, and came back to feed the old hen and its fuzz of chicks, saying nothing. For no reason Liu Xianyang's heart sank. "Chen — we're off to the forge! I'm done swallowing this misery!" A girl's voice came from the neighboring yard: "Buddha fights for a stick of incense, and a man for a breath of spirit — only a milksop's belly holds nothing but milksop misery." Liu's blood rushed to his ears; he stalked to the wall and drove his fist into its top: "Wang Zhu! Say that again, if you dare!" She dropped her corn and greens, dusted her hands, and smiled: "And who do you think you are, that I should answer on your say-so?" Liu looked at the girl, ripening day by day, and found his heart hollow as a shattered bowl. Chen Ping'an, who had stood unseen at the threshold, walked over and said softly: "Come on, let's go."
The two boys walked the lane, and Liu asked of a sudden: "Chen Ping'an — am I a very no-account fellow?" Chen thought and answered in earnest: "The neighbors say my mother was good and my father the town's silent drum. So I think liking a person has little to do with being a no-account." Liu pulled a woebegone face: "Then I'm worse off — even if I build a dragon kiln or learn all of Master Ruan's craft, won't she still set against me?" Chen held his tongue, lest he feed the fire. Walking the familiar lane, Chen recalled a young stag drinking at a stream in the deep hills, standing long beside its own reflection while a single fish circled the water. Miss Ning had warned him that, bearing a locust leaf of ancestral shade, he would do well to leave town early — she could not say whether Liu Xianyang's business might not drag him down. But Chen was bound to see Liu taken in by Master Ruan before he could leave in peace; for had there been no Liu Xianyang, he would have starved to death long ago.
"Your grandfather's armor," Chen asked, "you truly would never sell it to an outsider?" "Rubbish — I'd sooner die than sell it! I'm not some money-grubber like you." Liu drove a fist into Chen's shoulder. "Some things you can earn with money; some things, once gone, are gone for life." Chen murmured: "Understood." They were near the lane's mouth when Liu blew out a coarse oath, and Chen raised his head to find his heart heavy. It was Lu Zhengchun, eldest young master of the Lu clan of Fulu Street — the very man who had once cornered Liu in this lane with a pack of cronies and nearly beaten him to death, so that without Chen's running to shout for help, orphaned Liu would have been flung into the pauper's ditch. Lu Zhengchun blocked their path with a forced smile: "Easy — I'm not here to settle old scores, rather—" Liu cut him off: "A good dog doesn't block the way — shift yourself!" Lu's face went awkward: "This time I truly have business. Hear my terms — you and I are mates who made friends by fighting, no need to make it ugly. Those guests of mine act in earnest." Liu mocked: "Playing lackey to outsiders has grown a habit, has it? You, grandson of the richest house in town?" Lu went iron-gray but kept his smile, his voice edging toward entreaty: "Name your price — a hundred and fifty strings? Two hundred? Two hundred strings could buy you half a house on Fulu Street!" Liu curled his lip: "Two hundred strings — you fob off a beggar! Don't muddle me with smoke and mirrors. I've proper business to be about — roll out of my way!"
At the turn beyond the lane, a fair little girl sat on the shoulders of a hulking old man whose arms hung almost to his knees, while a boy in a great-red robe, his face already bearing an unchildlike sinister cast, said in his home dialect: "Is this Lu fellow plain stupid? What use is such a one…" The woman shook her head with a soft smile: "Show a man kindness and you must learn that a peck of rice earns favor but a bushel earns enmity. And when you mean to profit from a bargain, test first the floor of the other's notion of a fair price — as this Lu Zhengchun does." The child asked: "Does trading with these base folk truly need such trouble?" "Human nature is intricate; it is not measured by cultivation or rank. The folk of small places are not all fools." He sighed that the squirming was a weariness to the spirit; she crouched, cupped his face, and said gravely: "Mark this — the tending of the heart is itself a cultivation. On easy ground temper the body; on hard ground temper the mind." He tossed his head free. By the lane, the girl asked troubled: "White Ape Grandfather, what if he flatly refuses to sell?" The old man laughed: "Then let him go and die. This servant came for the worst of cases — else that money goes down like a coin cast into water without a splash. Though then the miss's safety grows troublesome, and we'd have to entrust her to the Song house or the Li." He would never stoop to killing unless pushed — for however Zhengyang Mountain treasured that sword-script, it was far lesser than the young miss's path to immortality. Of the town's four surnames and ten clans the Lu stood foremost, yet beyond the walls the truth ran contrariwise: the Lu stood lowermost, their dynasty brought down by Great Li's two border armies.
Yonder, as Lu Zhengchun spoke of high office, riches, and beauties like clouds, Liu stepped up and pointed square at his nose: "That armor is the Liu house's ancestral heirloom — it has no truck with money! Move me into your home and call me 'grandfather' night and day, and I'd still not give you the time of day!" Left alone at the lane's mouth, Lu stared at the reckless lout who plainly feared nothing — a "barefoot that fears not the shod." He had failed as go-between at the gallery bridge; his grandfather had drawn him into the secret chamber and, pointing at a corpse under white cloth, said only: "Zhengchun, I ask but one thing — don't let your younger brother die with his eyes unclosed. By the seventh day after his death, be out of this town; count it looking at the scenery beyond for his sake." Lu's eyes went wet; his voice cracked through a sob: "Liu Xianyang — I beg you — I'll kneel! I'll own my fault!" With a thump he dropped to his knees in the mud and began to knock his head, bang, bang, upon the earth. The little girl tapped the old man's chest with her feet; the boy asked gleefully: "Mother, has this Lu lost his wits? Are we to take a madman away with us?" But the woman, after a long pause, shook her head: "No."
Liu stood at a loss, unable to believe the wealthiest household's heir knelt at his feet. Chen, who had been watching both, tugged his sleeve and gave a small shake of his head. Liu relented: "This is too much by half." Chen's gaze was unyielding. His instinct told him: had Liu agreed before the kneeling, he might suffer hardships but keep his life; now he had stumbled into the very pit Chen himself had once faced — the fate of slaying Fu Nanhua and being slain in turn, by Cloud Mist Mountain or Old Dragon City, from which only Master Qi's hand had saved him. And by the rule Miss Ning had taught: as Lu Zhengchun was a man of the town, if he or the Lu meant to kill Liu, Master Qi would be powerless to stay them. So Chen dropped his voice: "If there's no way out, pretend to agree — first see Master Ruan and be taken as his disciple. Then we speak." Liu nodded and said: "Brother, up off the ground — a man doing this, what sort of business is it?" Lu did not rise, his brow red and mud-crusted. Liu went on: "Go back and haggle out a fair price. And don't fob me off with two hundred strings — wouldn't your high guests find it beneath their dignity?" Lu rose at last, smiling: "That's the sense of it! So long as you'll loosen your jaw — from this day I, Lu Zhengchun, am your brother, whether you own me or not, for I'll own you!" Liu slung an arm around his shoulder as they walked toward the lane's mouth: "Old Lu, from now on bring your brother in on the good fortune — when this is done, I'll stand you a drink." "A drink — that I'll pay for myself! Else your elder brother takes offense." Chen fell in behind them, edging toward the wall, and kept his eyes fixed on the lane's mouth.
The white-robed man, leading Song Jixin, was met by a hoary steward in the yamen's rear hall. The steward said a visiting Senior Lecturer Li had waited half an hour, then gone to the school to call on an elder of the Confucian school. Song Changjing made no reply, only asked: "That assassin who died in the lane — whose piece was he?" The steward hesitated. "Mm?" The old man bowed in fright: "The Song house of Fulu Street, your highness." Song Changjing laughed coldly. Song Jixin said nothing, but his eyes burned.
In the schoolhouse, Qi Jingchun set down his book. At the door stood a handsome young man in a tall cap and Confucian robes, smiling and silent; Qi Jingchun's face was serene and grave. In the town, a bald-headed man in strange garb walked barefoot, hollow-eyed, came to the Iron Lock Well, pressed his hands palm to palm, and murmured: "In a single bowl of water the Buddha beholds ten myriad and eighty thousand living things." Beyond the town, on the stout bough of an ancient tree atop a peak, a man watched the town — a tiger-tally at his waist, a long sword on his back. Beyond this very heaven and earth, along a road that tilted toward the sky, a young yellow-coroneted Daoist nun rode a white deer, and beside her a Daoist priest with a face like polished jade, red and blue long-scaled fish circling about him. The three teachings, and with them the military school — all were about to gather over this town. At the iron-smith's forge on the southern bank, father and daughter beat the iron and sparks flew like a rain of fire. The man, holding a blade-blank, told the ponytailed girl: "For these days, do not go into the town." Her strength drained away at once; the man laughed in half-anger: "Fine spirit you have!" She turned grief to force and drove the hammer down upon the white-hot blade, standing in the blaze like a god of fire come down to earth.