Chen Ping'an wore a look of disbelief. Ning Yao glared at him, pointing at the string of characters. "It truly reads 'scram'! This form was conceived from Great Li's rain-viewing. The strike's momentum is a rolling, tumbling one; its fist-aura like ink-washed downpour, which, falling to the mortal world, goes rolling down the palace's dragon-wall and pours off it in a cataract!"
Chen Ping'an stared hard at those pictures — a full series of fist-stances drawn in one unbroken breath, crammed onto a single page, so each little figure throwing its punch was small, and the charcoal work none too fine. It was lucky he had good eyes; in the dim lamplight he caught every detail without a slip, and murmured: "This stance sounds fearfully mighty." Ning Yao leaned in a little, studying the pages, and nodded: "There's a boxing move passed down through the jianghu for several thousand years and never lost — it bears a resemblance to this stance." "How so?" "In the jianghu there's a style for old and young alike, called the turtle punch — a bout of blind wild swings guaranteed to let an amateur beat down an old master." The youth was at a loss: "That's a terrible way to put it."
Yet the moment conjured in Chen's mind precisely Gu Can's signature skill — and with it a memory. Years ago, when Gu Can could barely walk, the women of Apricot Blossom Lane had fretted that their own men, passing the widow Gu's gate, would slow their steps of their own accord, drawn by a line of her clothing hung out to dry. Granny Ma mustered five or six women to gang up and block the Gu gate. In that bout the widow took no small hurt, but her attackers did not come off much better; and as it went on, alone and giving way, she could not match her many-handed foes, till even her thin garments were torn and she was half-bared — which sent the self-loathing women clean out of their wits, scratching and biting, while the men around swallowed hard.
Luckily Chen Ping'an had returned to town from the dragon kiln that very day. He had been looked after by the widow Gu all these years, so he went up and shielded her from many a treacherous move — yet from start to finish he never once struck back. Not for fear of trouble, but because he was afraid one punch of his would outright kill a person. In those days, under old Yao's shouting and cursing, the twelve- or thirteen-year-old had already walked more mountains and streams than many elders walked in a lifetime. He and the woman sat at the courtyard gate, Gu Can shut up the whole while inside the door — she would not have the child see her so sorry. The youth pointed at the corner of his own mouth; the widow pursed her lips and wiped hard at the blood at hers. In the courtyard the child bawled "Mother!" again and again, and the woman smiled at the straw-sandaled youth first, then her tears spilled out. The next day there was one more reluctant little tag-along at his side.
Ning Yao's question broke his drifting thoughts: "What are you brooding over?" "When Gu Can and his mother left, following the River-Cutting Perfected Lord to his Letter Lake — do you think they can truly live better there?" "You think they fared ill in Mud Vase Lane?" "Little Gu Can has no conscience, and he's young — he surely never felt the days hard. But his mother… she never would have found this town a good place, especially not its women. She always seemed to think herself hard done by. As old Yao would put it: her heart was not settled. A man whose heart is unsettled harbors his aims in the distance; a woman whose heart is unsettled is said ready to bloom over the wall. That saying never seemed quite right to me…" Ning Yao slapped the table: "What's all this prattle? Are we learning the manual or not?!"
"To speak to you of cultivation is meaningless, for you are doomed never to cultivate. So I speak instead of martial arts, of the martial way." And she went on: "The martial arts of the world are divided into the Nine Realms — though some say above them lies a Tenth, just as the great dynasties keep a flock of chess-at-court attendants." Then, brightening, she asked roguishly: "Chen Ping'an, do you know what a chess-at-court attendant is?" He shook his head with all diligence. "In the art of go a Nine-Dan player is the highest grade, the equal of a First-Rank minister. But certain geniuses of a century are hailed as 'Ten-Dan National Champions,' and given all manner of flashy honorifics. Your Great Li's attendants are an embarrassment — they say your Nine-Dan equals only Great Sui's Seven. Throughout all of Great Li there is but one fellow, nicknamed the 'Embroidered Tiger,' whom the Sui go-world truly regards as a rival. Oh — do you even know what go is?" "I know the rules some, only I can't play. Song Jixin and Zhigui have a board and stones at home." The girl was crestfallen.
Growing aware she was rather unreliable, she coughed and said gravely: "My mother said the Nine Realms of the martial way are one step, one stair — but even at the very top of the Ninth Realm, the final view is like standing on one mountain and gazing at another, seeing only its halfway hillside." Chen Ping'an nodded: "I see." For he had witnessed that very scene with his own eyes. The girl did not care whether he truly understood: "The Nine Realms divide into Body Tempering, Qi Refining, and Spirit Refining, three layers each, climbing step by step — each step unavoidable, each step unerring. Walk solidly, and it matters little how fast or slow. This is quite unlike cultivation."
"The three realms of Body Tempering: the first is the Mud-Embryo Realm. As the name suggests, it is rough and crude, like the Mud Vase Lane where your little house sits. Yet perfected, one stands a clay Bodhisattva — molded of mud, still bearing stately bearing, breath settled in the elixir-field, unmoving as a mountain. This counts as true entry into the martial way. Its marrow lies in a 'loosening' and a 'settling'; a master can read an artist's talent and comprehension at a glance." "The second is the Wood-Billet Realm — your physique turns from coarse to fine; at great completion the grain of your skin becomes ordered, as though carved all over with talismans, like this snake-gall stone drawn from the stream, already different inside from the common river-pebble. Its deep import is to 'split open the mountain': widen the channels, turn a path like a sheep's intestine into a broad highway that a carriage may travel. Bone and sinew are judged here." As she spoke she lifted high the stone the youth had given her. "The last realm of Body Tempering is the Mercury Mirror Realm — blood thick as mercury yet lighter, vital aura gathered into one. To pass its threshold you must cross a tribulation, called 'a clay Bodhisattva crossing the river.' Then leap like a carp over the Dragon Gate — it comes down to luck."
Chen Ping'an listened entranced, his spirit swaying with the lamp's flame. Ning Yao yawned, flopped onto the table: "That's about all. The three realms of Body Tempering already turn back eight-tenths of ranked martial artists. Mark the truth of 'poor study letters, rich study martial arts' — save in my homeland, it holds throughout the world. By your family means and comprehension, I'd say reaching the second realm in this life would already warrant a tall incense of thanks." "And how does one practice this boxing manual?" "Tomorrow. I'm sleepy." "Then I'll take my basket to gather stones, and come find you tomorrow." "If you trust me, leave the manual — I'll go over it for slips, or for traps." Chen smiled: "Very well. Only mind yourself; this Hàn Shān Manual I must still give back to Gu Can, just as it was." "How many times must you say it?!" He laughed, shouldered his basket, and reminded her as he left: "Do bolt the courtyard gate." "Fine, fine — you talk more than my own father."
The youth vanished light as a swallow. Once sure he had truly left the lane, Ning Yao sat up and stared at the manual with the eyes of a sworn foe — then collapsed onto the table, face a mask of worry: "However do I teach this thing? I was born with the finest sword-immortal body in the world — why should I walk the mountain's foot-paths? I can't even remember all three hundred and sixty-five acupoints; and the breath's spontaneous flow I've known since the womb…" She clawed her head in despair. A timid voice came from beyond the door: "Miss Ning?" She turned slowly, rigid, and met an infuriatingly punchable dark-skinned face. She set her features and would not speak. The youth swallowed: "I was afraid you'd forget the lock — and if Miss Ning grows hungry tonight, I could make you midnight snacks at Liu Xianyang's before going to the stream." She made a grand, dismissing gesture, and he fled.
All the way, packed in his skull, was the manual's first form: the fist moves and the body moves; the feet never leave the earth, as though wading through mud, momentum like a fall of snow knee-deep, advancing with slow, measured steps. The youth did not even notice that, working through the form by the charts, he had of his own accord begun to change the length and pace of every breath. And he even took the fancy: would it not be better to practice the boxing in the stream itself?
Before Qi Jingchun lay two seals carved from the finest snake-gall stones — both small, neither yet inscribed. That day the young scholar of a warm, jadelike manner had called at the schoolhouse, and afterward asked in private: "Master, would you carry on the departed one's unfulfilled wish, and bring lasting peace to ten thousand ages?" Qi Jingchun had answered: "Let me give it some thought" — not a satisfactory reply, yet the gentleman, famed across half a continent, did not press, but spoke with him of the town's customs and the storms beyond, then took his leave. From start to end he never asked how that jade token was to be dealt with. But Qi Jingchun knew: the academy gentleman could hold his patience; the Daoist golden boy and jade girl, the Buddhist scripture-guards and that wandering ascetic famed across the seas, and the military school's representatives — none would spare the Cliff Academy's face, nor heed Qi Jingchun's will; they would retrieve their sects' instruments of suppression. All within expectation.
Qi Jingchun sat straight, a graving knife in hand, and for a rare thing found himself at a loss. "To kill oneself to perfect virtue, to yield one's life for righteousness — for this child that seems too great, ill-fitting, unpropitious. To be at peace in serenity, to stand in uprightness — too empty, too airy. And hasty seals knocked out carelessly — would that not lack all sincerity?" He turned to the night sky, stars scattered like pearls upon a black curtain, and lost himself a long while. At last, taking up a seal, he carved four archaic characters — a still heart gains its aim: "jingxin deyi," of which the leading "still" was fullest of spirit, embracing all ten thousand things. He set the seal down, base upward, and breathed as though a weight had lifted.
The Confucian scholar, temples touched with frost, stirred a thought and flung his sleeve. In a trice the tabletop ran with "wind and water" — mountains rose and valleys fell, unfolding in order. At last he fixed his gaze and saw, in the humble ancestral house in a mean alley, the youth and the girl seated shoulder to shoulder, conversing of the Nine Realms of the martial way. Above the Nine Realms there is a Tenth — and of that Qi Jingchun, who had read ten thousand volumes and knew temple-hall and jianghu, was naturally well aware. On his near-rigid face crept the shadow of a smile; and so this Confucian sage who held court over a whole world played a jest of no great harm. On the second seal he carved three characters: Chen Shiyi — Chen the Eleventh.