In the night, when Chen Ping'an had fled toward the deep mountains and sprinted at full tilt, he soon entered a bamboo grove where the earth was exceptionally soft. The straw-sandaled boy began deliberately heavying his steps.
After roughly the time it took a stick of incense to burn, just before reaching the grove's edge, he suddenly clambered up a bamboo stalk to his left, swung to another nearby, and moved through the canopy more like an ape than the Zhengyang Mountain mountain-moving ape itself. After several such repetitions he landed lightly, crouched to wipe away his footprints, and glanced back — the first stalk was now five or six yards distant. Only then did he resume running.
Before another incense stick's time had passed, the faint sound of a stream could already be heard. The sprinting youth did not slow; instead he launched himself high into the air and plunged into the water. He quickly stood — he had landed on a boulder. Familiar with every stone and current of this land, he strained his eyes wide and, relying on his exceptional vision and memory, leapt from rock to rock downstream. If he kept this up, he would reach Qingniu Bei on the town's southern side, then the gallery bridge, and finally Master Ruan's smithy.
But the boy did not approach too closely to Qingniu Bei. Instead, at the point where the stream emerged from the mountains and narrowed to a waist-thin channel, he clambered out on the right bank.
A girl's voice called softly: "Chen Ping'an, over here."
Chen Ping'an dropped into a crouch, panting, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
The girl in black asked in a low voice: "Can you really lead the old ape into the mountains?"
The boy replied bitterly: "I did my best."
It was Ning Yao, who had taken a roundabout route from Fulu Street to meet him. She asked: "Are you hurt?"
The straw-sandaled boy shook his head. "A small wound."
The girl's emotions were complex. She said indignantly: "Daring to play it like that — if the old ape hadn't killed you, it was nothing but dog-shit luck!"
Chen Ping'an grinned: "The old beast broke the rules once already. But if you had been a little later, I think I would have been finished."
The girl paused, then burst into genuine laughter: "It actually worked? Not bad, Chen Ping'an!"
Chen Ping'an chuckled.
Ning Yao rolled her eyes and asked: "What now?"
The straw-sandaled boy considered. "Our general plan stays the same, but some details need adjusting. The old ape is too powerful."
Ning Yao slapped him on the top of his head, laughing in exasperation: "Now you realize that?"
Chen Ping'an suddenly said: "Miss Ning, turn around. I need to apply some medicine to my back. Also, keep an eye on the stream for me."
The girl turned around without hesitation, facing upstream.
Chen Ping'an removed the outer garment that belonged to Liu Xianyang, took off the wooden-porcelain armor, and drew a porcelain vial from a cloth pouch at his waist. He poured some thick ointment into his right palm, lifted his shirt with his left hand, and smeared it across his back.
Even the pain-tolerant boy could not keep cold sweat from streaming down.
Though she did not turn, the girl asked: "Does it hurt?"
The boy laughed: "What's this much?"
The girl curled her lip. Showing off for what?
---
At the westernmost house in the town, a woman sat on the ground wailing, beating her chest with both fists, swaying back and forth. Her thin clothes seemed on the verge of bursting apart. Her two dirty young children stood by their mother at a loss. A simple-looking man crouched outside, sighing with a face full of helplessness. A hole had appeared in their roof for no reason, the spring chill had not yet lifted, and while he could endure it, how would his wife and children manage?
Nearby neighbors gathered in clusters, pointing and commenting. Some said they had heard noises on their own roofs too, and at first had thought it was stray cats causing trouble and paid it no mind. Others said the western part of the town had been unsettled today — children had reportedly seen an old immortal in white robes floating about, taking steps that covered a dozen ordinary paces, flying over eaves and scaling walls. They could not tell whether the Earth God had wandered from his shrine or the Mountain God had left his peak.
A young swordsman from the Wind-Thunder Garden squatted alone nearby, his expression grave.
Liu Baqiao had been chatting with Scholar Cui at the superintendent's compound when word came of the disturbance at the Li family mansion. He had scented blood and come running, but for all his arrogance, the young prodigy of the Wind-Thunder Garden did not dare provoke a mountain-moving ape head-on. He had thought to watch from the sidelines and perhaps slip in a clandestine strike at the old ape, which would have been deeply satisfying. So he had crept to the upturned eaves of a mansion's library tower, looking down over the town to track the ape's movements. He quickly spotted the unusual activity near Mud Vase Lane to the west and, being a bold soul, began tailing the ape in secret.
The instant the Zhengyang Mountain guardian ape unleashed his qi without restraint, Liu Baqiao — who had been nurturing his life-bound flying sword in the mingtang acupoint after being injured — felt the blade stir restlessly, nearly sheathing itself outward. In this strange realm, the degree of heavenly suppression was directly proportional to one's level of cultivation. By Liu Baqiao's estimation, the guardian ape was not having an easy time. Even if he could force his qi to circulate and afterward use his formidable physical body or supreme powers to suppress the qi-sea boiling triggered by the heavenly dao, such "cheating" could not be performed many times — otherwise the risk of a dam bursting would be enormous, and a millennium of cultivation could be destroyed in an instant. To say nothing of the fact that each time he acted as an "immortal" from beyond this realm, it constituted a loss, equivalent in mortal terms to shortening one's lifespan.
But when Liu Baqiao saw where the ape had landed after crashing through the roof — the two deep craters where his feet had touched down — the Wind-Thunder Garden sword prodigy congratulated himself on not having acted rashly. Otherwise he would have drawn the fire upon himself. With the thickness of that fresh qi the ape had wielded, had he not been distracted by the disturbance at the Li mansion on Fulu Street and forced to verify the young miss's safety, chasing the cunning fox of a straw-sandaled boy might not have been a guaranteed kill — but chasing Liu Baqiao himself would certainly have been a one-blow execution.
Of course, the old ape was neither blind nor stupid. At the moment his life-bound flying sword had been on the verge of unsheathing, the guardian ape had surely detected his presence.
Still, having walked once around the gates of hell, Liu Baqiao felt a chill of afterthought but bore the ape no particular fear. The Wind-Thunder Garden against Zhengyang Mountain — regardless of the disparity in their strength, once either side chose to strike, it became a war of annihilation. And the weaker party would never kneel and beg for mercy. This was a truth the two great sword sanctuaries of the Baoping Continent had proven with countless lives over five hundred years.
Moreover, Liu Baqiao was not without his own contingencies in this town.
He rose slowly and, instead of returning directly to the compound, walked toward the most wretched little house at the western edge. Standing outside its low mud wall, he called out a loud "Hey!" When the man and his wife both turned to look, he tossed over a gold copper coin to the weeping woman and grinned: "Sister, please stop howling — I could hear you from way over there and it gave me chills!"
The woman caught the golden coin, glanced at its shape — similar to a copper coin, only different in color — and looked dazed. She asked quietly: "Gold?"
Liu Baqiao laughed: "No. But worth far more than gold..."
The woman was stunned for a moment, then flew into a rage. She hurled the golden coin back at the young outsider, sprang to her feet, hands on her hips, and cursed: "Get lost! If you'd said it was gold I might have half believed you, but worth more than gold? You think I've never seen the world? I've handled silver with my own hands, you hairless little bastard! Look at the tiny loach in your pants before you come around here acting like some big lord — my husband isn't dead yet!"
This only inflamed her further. She strode over with a waist no slimmer than a barrel, yet she managed to swing it with a certain coarse grace, and kicked her husband where he crouched in silence. The kick sent him tumbling sideways. The man did not dare fight back, did not even dare talk back — he scrambled away hunched over, squatted down at a distance, and looked on with wounded eyes.
The woman pointed at her husband and cursed: "Good-for-nothing coward, no different from a dead man! When something happens you play dead. All day long you wander around catching fish and catching snakes — no better than a child in split-crotch pants, worse than your own son! At least little Huai knows to steal — pick things up and bring them home! You, a grown father — why won't you take the job at the Yang family shop? Are you dripping with gold or what, that you have to fight silver? All year round you never do a single proper day's work..."
At this point, the woman — whose chest might be described as "grand" in the truest sense — suddenly smiled: "If you weren't reasonably good in bed at night, would I bother living with you?!"
The watching neighbors roared with laughter, and young men whistled and made crude remarks.
The woman finally turned her attention back to the true culprit and bellowed: "Still here? Haven't been weaned yet, have you?!"
Liu Baqiao had never encountered such rustic ferocity. Far from finding it crude, he found it thoroughly entertaining. He watched the spectacle with relish, and though the woman had verbally thrashed him soundly, he was not angered but amused. Every quarrel back at the Wind-Thunder Garden left him with a sense of loneliness — he had superior martial arts but no opponent of equal caliber. Unexpectedly he had found his match today, and he grew excited, wearing a roguish grin: "What if I haven't been weaned? Want to help out, sister?"
The woman raised an eyebrow and sneered: "I'm afraid I might accidentally suffocate you. Go find Granny Ma in Apricot Blossom Lane — she'll fill you right up!"
The laughter shook the sky.
Liu Baqiao did not know who Granny Ma was, but from the reaction of the audience around him, he could tell he had suffered a crushing defeat.
The young swordsman gave a thumbs-up, his smile bright as ever: "Sister, I concede."
Then he pinched the gold copper coin between two fingers and waggled it: "Really don't want it?"
The woman hesitated, visibly torn.
At that moment someone called from a distance, resigned: "Baqiao, Scholar Cui wants you back immediately."
Liu Baqiao turned at the voice. It was Chen Songfeng of the Chen clan from Dragon Tail Commandery, standing beside a tall, cold-faced woman. She carried no weapons. Her features were not striking, but her figure was beyond reproach — long legs that particularly suited Liu Baqiao's taste. She was Chen Songfeng's distant relative, though the precise nature of the kinship Chen Songfeng had not volunteered, and the woman addressed him by his given name throughout. In their time together, Liu Baqiao had not found her particularly arrogant — merely born with a cold temperament.
Since it was Cui Minghuang who had spoken, Liu Baqiao dared not linger. He followed the pair toward Fulu Street, but as he departed he could not help glancing once more at the glum-faced middle-aged man.
A disheveled man lingering in the crowd hesitated for a moment, then after the neighbors had dispersed one by one, walked alone into the courtyard.
The woman was about to take her children to her parents' home, and she was none too happy about it. Her family were all snobs who looked down on the man she had chosen, and over the years — apart from the occasional festival visit — contact had become rare. But this calamity from the blue left her no choice. She would have liked to take pride and lead her son and daughter to a hotel or inn for a few days, to play the wife of a wealthy man for once, but her purse was as empty as it could be — too poor to jingle. She had no choice but to swallow her pride and return to her parents' home to endure their contemptuous looks. The more she thought about it, the angrier she grew, and before leaving she twisted her husband's waist flesh viciously until his entire face had gone crooked. The children were accustomed to the scene and showed no worry about their parents fighting — they even stifled giggles of amusement.
The woman's sharp eyes spotted the shifty disheveled man lurking by the gate and she immediately shouted: "You, surnamed Zheng, come here to steal my clothes again? Are you a dog? Even a rabbit doesn't eat the grass at its own burrow's edge! No matter how unwilling I am to admit it, I had eight lifetimes of bad luck to end up your sister-in-law. How could you bring yourself to steal from me?"
The disheveled man was close to tears, wanting to die: "Sister-in-law, heaven and earth bear witness — I only forgot to buy candy for little Huai, and he made that up out of spite! Sister-in-law, how could you actually believe him?"
The little boy wore a face of pure innocence.
The woman trusted her own child, of course, and raised her hand to slap the man.
He shrank back and scurried aside, shouting toward the man squatting on the ground: "Senior Brother, won't you talk some sense into sister-in-law!"
The man replied in a gruff monotone: "Don't dare."
The disheveled man sighed endlessly: "There's no place in this world for an honest man."
The woman took a child by each hand and walked toward the gate. She suddenly turned her head and tossed a flirtatious glance, saying with a sly smile: "Surnamed Zheng, next time bring more money. I'll sell to you — fifty cash per piece, how about it?"
The disheveled man's eyes lit up: "Slightly expensive, isn't it? The new clothes at the shop in Apricot Blossom Lane, the finest fabric, are only that price..."
The woman's face flipped faster than a page: "So you really do have that filthy thought in mind? Go to hell! You deserve to be a bachelor for life! Rotten fate — one day you'll die outside the east gate and nobody will even collect your body..."
After the woman and children left, the disheveled man gave a light hop and sat on the courtyard wall, grumbling: "Senior Brother, I'm not afraid to say it — you must have been addled by lard to choose such a shrewish woman for a wife."
It turned out this disheveled fellow was the town gatekeeper, surnamed Zheng, a lifelong bachelor.
Still squatting on the ground in the courtyard, the simple man uttered a single phrase: "My choice."
The town gatekeeper, who collected fees from outsiders, was silent for a moment, then said: "Master says you should keep your head down for a while. Don't get into fights."
The gatekeeper glanced up at the pitiful roof and suddenly laughed: "Master also says, if you really can't stand it, go take it out on your wife in bed. Sister-in-law doesn't mind being roughed up — she enjoys that sort of thing."
The man who could not squeeze out ten words with a beating raised his head and looked at the disheveled man on the wall. The latter hurriedly corrected himself: "Fine, fine — I, Zheng Dafeng, said that. Master never said any such thing."
The simple man stood. He was short and stocky, his skin the color of bronze, his arms so thickly muscled that his sleeves strained.
He was somewhat hunched. He addressed the gatekeeper without warmth: "If Master is willing to say more than ten words to you, I'll take your surname."
The gatekeeper silently counted Master's words on his fingers and discovered — sure enough — not more than ten! The disheveled man cursed under his breath, then deflated with genuine melancholy, a rare unguarded moment that made him look especially pitiable.
The hunched man asked: "Anything else?"
The gatekeeper nodded: "Master says you're to deal with that person."
The hunched man frowned and habitually squatted back down, facing the ruined house, and muttered: "Why me?"
The gatekeeper, Zheng Dafeng, rolled his eyes: "It's an order from Master. Take it or leave it."
The hunched man considered. "Go. Next time I catch you stealing from my wife's things, I'll break three of your legs."
The disheveled man, Zheng Dafeng, flew into a rage: "Li Er! You'd better explain yourself! Who's been stealing your wife's clothes? You'd believe that kind of rubbish? Has your brain gone soft?"
The man turned his head and looked at his furious junior martial brother in silence, his face dark.
Zheng Dafeng, like a wronged little maiden, wailed in righteous indignation: "I'll never do it again. Happy now?!"
The gatekeeper rose, tapped his toe, and drifted into the street like a falling locust leaf. Once at a safe distance, he dared shout back: "Li Er, I'm going right now to buy your wife's underthings!"
The disheveled man fled even faster than a dog even as he hurled his threats.
The simple man did not even rise. He uttered a single word: "Coward."
---
The three returned to the compound. The Confucian gentleman of the Guan Lake Academy, Cui Minghuang, had been waiting long in the main hall. Upon seeing the unfamiliar woman, he rose and nodded. She nodded in return, her expression still frigid — in Liu Baqiao's private phrase, wearing the face of someone "owed a fortune by the whole world."
After all three were seated, Cui Minghuang addressed Liu Baqiao with a smile: "Good thing you held back and didn't strike, or you would have caused a truly terrible mess. You did not see it, but just now our superintendent Lord Song and that Zhengyang Mountain guardian ape exchanged three blows head-on at Fulu Street. Quite the commotion. I must tell you — no matter how once-in-a-lifetime the opportunity may appear in the future, I advise you not to act. Do not think there is an opening to exploit."
Liu Baqiao asked curiously: "Don't tell me that old beast knocked Song Changjing down in three blows? Song Changjing is that much of a porcelain doll? I heard he had touched the threshold of the tenth realm, only half a step from crossing over."
Cui Minghuang sighed: "We are, after all, staying under Lord Song's roof. Can you please mind your words?"
Chen Songfeng spoke with admiration: "It was Lord Song who held the advantage."
Even one who had no connection whatsoever to the Great Li vassal king — any cultivator hearing of such a feat could not help but feel a thrill of admiration.
A pure martial man, facing a mountain-moving ape with nothing but his own physical body!
And the key was that he had held the upper hand!
The woman sat to the side with her eyes closed, resting, her hands resting naturally on her knees.
At the news, her fingers stirred.
She had been found in haste by Chen Songfeng. She had originally intended to wander the town indefinitely. The reason she had not insisted on staying put and had instead followed Chen Songfeng to find Liu Baqiao and return to the compound was merely that she was going along with local custom.
As for whether Chen Songfeng could obtain any benefit from the old locust tree — whether he could secure a few of the ancestor-blessed locust leaves — the woman surnamed Chen did not much care.
But when Chen Songfeng had found her, she could still clearly sense the young man's barely suppressed excitement. He had likely reaped a rich harvest; the number of leaves he had obtained exceeded the expectations of the Chen clan's ancestor from Dragon Tail Commandery.
Liu Baqiao suddenly doubled over with laughter: "That old beast got his comeuppance this time — absolutely delicious! Led around like a dog by an ordinary boy, made a fool of across half the town! This joke is big enough to keep the Wind-Thunder Garden laughing for ten years! And knowing those yokels from Zhengyang Mountain, they'll rush to call it slander and demand proof! I'll show you proof — if only this town didn't forbid the use of arts, and the cost of breaking the rules wasn't so steep, I would have 'imprinted' the whole scene in a voice-and-face mirror!"
Cui Minghuang's expression suddenly changed. He called to Liu Baqiao in a low voice: "Baqiao!"
The woman opened her eyes almost simultaneously.
Liu Baqiao was about to ask what was wrong when he abruptly shut his mouth.
Soon a man in white robes approached at an unhurried pace. Stepping over the threshold, he asked Liu Baqiao with a pleasant smile: "What is so amusing? Better shared than kept to oneself — let this king have a laugh too?"
Cui Minghuang had already risen, intending to offer the main seat to the Great Li vassal king.
Song Changjing shook his head at the Guan Lake Academy scholar with a smile, indicating such formalities were unnecessary. He casually pulled a chair over and sat beside Liu Baqiao, facing Chen Songfeng and the woman on opposite sides.
Though Liu Baqiao gave the impression of a careless rogue, at such close range, facing a martial man who very likely had entered the legendary ninth realm — and one whose reputation was fearsome. The piling up of heads into mounds was one thing, but his known fondness for slaying geniuses was truly chilling. So despite calling Song Changjing by name when the vassal king was absent, Liu Baqiao now felt his courage flag.
Fortunately, regarding matters of face, the young swordsman had never been particular. He offered an ingratiating smile: "Grandmaster Song, I was just describing your battle with the old beast from Zhengyang Mountain — truly earth-shaking and ghost-crying! Your lordship's fist flew like a dragon. Had you shown less restraint, that guardian ape would have been scattered across Fulu Street without a intact corpse. Lord Song's martial attainment and martial virtue are beyond my poor ability to match!"
Song Changjing smiled but said nothing.
Liu Baqiao's forehead beaded with cold sweat, his back drenched. He finally could not produce another word and fell into a sullen silence.
Song Changjing suddenly turned to look at the woman across from him, his eyes playful and interested. He asked: "Are you also of the Chen clan from Dragon Tail Commandery?"
The woman shook her head. "No."
Song Changjing murmured thoughtfully.
The atmosphere turned awkward.
Until Song Jixin appeared in the doorway. Seeing no chair available in the room, the boy casually sat on the threshold, looking in at the assembled company.
Song Changjing showed no displeasure. He said to Liu Baqiao: "In truth, the boy's survival is owed in part to you."
Had the mountain-moving ape not initially assumed the boy's provocation had been instigated by someone — and in this town, anyone who dared lay a trap for Zhengyang Mountain was no fool but a person skilled in planning before acting — the ape would not have appeared so harried in the vicinity of Mud Vase Lane. It was only at the westernmost house, after confirming no assassin lay hidden nearby, that the ape had finally loosened his restraint and struck the straw-sandaled boy's back.
Liu Baqiao replied with a dry laugh: "That may be true, but it is a kind of benefactor I would rather not be."
Song Changjing smiled and let it pass.
The woman turned her head to glance at the handsome youth sitting on the threshold.
The boy offered her a slight smile.
The woman turned back, her face expressionless.
The boy shrugged and proceeded to openly admire her long legs. She was perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six, her looks passable but, the boy felt, possessed of a certain appeal.
The woman turned back, her gaze frigid, her hoarse voice saying: "Do you want to die?"
Song Jixin pointed at himself with an expression of exaggerated innocence — the very face of someone begging to be punched: "Me?"
Then the boy pointed at the Great Li vassal king: "You'd have to ask him first."
The woman was about to rise.
Song Changjing's eyes narrowed in an instant.
Inside the hall, a crushing wave of pressure descended like a storm battering every head, with nowhere to hide. Everyone's skin prickled with actual, physical pain, as though pierced by countless needles.
Only Song Jixin at the threshold seemed entirely unaffected.
Chen Songfeng managed to speak, though his tone did not waver: "Your lordship, this lady is not from our Baoping Continent. I urge you to act with caution!"
The woman smiled and stood: "You dare kill me? Are you not afraid your Great Li will be destroyed?"
Cui Minghuang moved to intervene.
The next instant, the woman was sent hurtling backward. The chair behind her disintegrated into dust in midair, and her tall figure was embedded into the wall as though she had been pressed into it like a piece of furniture.
Song Changjing stood below the wall as though he had never moved, one hand behind his back, head tilted slightly upward, looking at the woman bleeding from seven orifices. He smiled: "Little girl, is it because you think your father or your ancestor is so powerful that you believe you have the right to run your mouth before this king? What is that word again?"
The vassal king turned to his nephew with a smile. The boy answered with a grin: "Blather. Run your mouth."
Song Changjing chuckled, turning back to the woman. Though her face was twisted in pain, her gaze remained resolute, without a trace of pleading or weakness. Song Changjing said: "In your next life, try not to run into this king again."
Chen Songfeng's liver and gall felt as though they would burst. His eyes were threaded with blood, his emotions a tangled storm of fury and terror, and he was about to speak.
Cui Minghuang had already stepped forward, bowing with cupped hands: "Your lordship, might you grant this one the favor of your restraint? Please do not lower yourself to her level."
The corner of Song Changjing's mouth twitched with pure derision.
The woman, meeting the vassal king's gaze, suddenly closed her eyes as though accepting her fate.
At that moment, the boy at the threshold laughed aloud: "Uncle! Let it go. Bullying a woman would damage your reputation if word got out."
Song Changjing's body paused — so briefly that even Cui Minghuang and Liu Baqiao felt the killer had not moved at all.
Song Changjing tilted his head, extended two fingers, and flicked them casually, as though brushing dust from his shoulder.
Liu Baqiao, the first of the Wind-Thunder Garden's young generation, stood frozen as a wooden chicken.
Cui Minghuang felt as though a great weight had been lifted.
Chen Songfeng felt as though he had fallen into a cloud of fog.
Song Changjing said to Liu Baqiao: "Not bad, boy. This king has high hopes for you."
The woman opened her eyes, pulled herself free from the wall, and landed on her feet. Her body swayed. She addressed the retreating back: "Today's lesson is etched in my memory."
Song Changjing ignored her. He said to Liu Baqiao: "After you leave this town, come to the Great Li capital and find this king. There is something I wish to give you — provided you are strong enough to carry it and move it."
Liu Baqiao blurted: "The Talisman Sword!"
Every cultivator knew that the talisman sword was one of the principal artifacts of the Daoist tradition. But if a sword could bear that title outright and be known to all, it was self-evident — one could only imagine how extraordinary it must be.
Song Changjing and Song Jixin walked out of the compound together. The man asked with a smile: "Has that bitter frustration in your chest been vented?"
Song Jixin nodded: "More or less."
Regarding the matter of Chen Ping'an, the man had not spared even his own nephew, and Song Jixin had naturally seethed with resentment.
Song Jixin frowned and asked: "That woman clearly has a powerful background. Uncle, are you not afraid that hitting the young one will bring the old one, and striking the old one will bring the undying ones? If the county gazetteer is to be believed, I know the power of those ancient tortoises. Will Great Li really be all right?"
The man settled the matter with a single sentence.
"You underestimate the name Song Changjing far too much."
---
In the main hall, Cui Minghuang returned to his seat, his expression betraying nothing.
Liu Baqiao slumped back in his chair, still shaken: "Good heavens — is the gap between the seventh and eighth realms and the ninth really that vast?"
The Wind-Thunder Garden had one martial man at the seventh realm and one at the eighth, and both were on good terms with Liu Baqiao.
Cui Minghuang shook his head: "In Go, two players of the ninth-dan rank may differ greatly in strength. Moreover, Song Changjing is the strongest among the ninth realm to begin with."
He then looked at the woman named Chen Dui and asked with concern: "Miss Chen, are you all right?"
The woman was tough. Though her face was pale, she smiled candidly: "It is nothing."
Chen Songfeng seemed more shaken than the woman herself, the person most directly involved.
Cui Minghuang sighed inwardly. The Chen clan of Dragon Tail Commandery would find it very difficult to stand out in the great struggle to come.
Liu Baqiao clicked his tongue: "One flick of the fingers, and my flying sword was sent back into its acupoint — without harming my spirit in the slightest. Truly beyond belief."
Cui Minghuang teased: "Now you see that beyond the mountain there is a higher mountain, and above every man there is another?"
Liu Baqiao could not resist a crude joke: "Above every man there is another? Scholar Cui, you are not so gentlemanly after all!"
Cui Minghuang laughed despite himself and could not be bothered to engage the fool further.
Liu Baqiao considered, then spoke up to console the woman with the odd name, lest she impulsively try to shatter an egg against a rock and seek trouble from Song Changjing, in which case everyone in the room would suffer: "Sister Chen, I know this is a bit of boosting the enemy's morale at our own expense, but when you run into Song Changjing, bowing your head and taking a step back is no disgrace."
Chen Songfeng wanted to say something but held back.
The woman gave a soft "Mm" and said evenly: "Song Changjing does indeed have that qualification. I do not resent him. I am simply unwilling, that is all."
Liu Baqiao replied without a care: "There is no need even to be unwilling. Look at me — I am thrilled! When I return to the Wind-Thunder Garden, I have another ten years of boasting material: I actually crossed blows with Song Changjing of Great Li! Even if it was only one move, I, Liu Baqiao, walked away unharmed! And if I truly receive that Talisman Sword from the Great Li capital, I could brag about it for a hundred years!"
The woman's thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Without knowing why, she recalled the boy who had been sitting on the threshold — the boy who could stop Song Changjing from killing with a single sentence.
---
The old shopkeeper of the Yang family shop, having returned to the town, hurried straight to the courtyard behind his store. It was modest, just large enough to house the shop's three workers.
The shopkeeper pushed open the main room of the rear courtyard and found an old man sitting in a chair, fiddling with his aged tobacco pipe. After closing the door, the shopkeeper called out: "Old Yang." The old man quickly set down the bamboo pipe, poured a bowl of tea, and asked with a smile: "Shopkeeper, is someone in urgent need of medicine? Do you need me to climb the mountain in the dark?"
The elderly shopkeeper, who looked roughly the same age as the old fellow, shook his head. He took the tea bowl, sighed, and said: "Today I treated a patient for Master Ruan — a boy surnamed Liu, half-dead from a blow by an outsider. I felt unsettled, so I came here to sit and ease my mind."
Old Yang, his face a map of wrinkles like the bark of an ancient locust tree, smiled: "Shopkeeper, just sit and stay a while. We are not strangers."
The shopkeeper suddenly remembered something: "Right — Old Yang, that child you helped many years ago, from Mud Vase Lane, the poor little thing who was buying medicine for his mother at such a young age — was his name Chen Ping'an?"
Old Yang looked surprised and nodded: "Yes. His mother passed in the end. If I recall, she did not survive that winter. After that, I saw the boy a few times, though not often. I simply could not bear it and gave him a worthless folk remedy. Why? Has the boy been hurt?"
The shopkeeper sipped his tea and said with a bitter smile: "Didn't I just say — the boy I treated today is surnamed Liu. Old Yang, what a memory you have!"
Old Yang laughed heartily, unconcerned.
The old shopkeeper ventured cautiously: "Old Yang, should our shop be doing something about this?"
Old Yang picked up his small nan-zhu bamboo pipe and shook it: "Shopkeeper, there is nothing we need to do."
The shopkeeper seemed to have swallowed a calming pill and nodded: "That is good, that is good. Old Yang, I will leave you to your rest."
Old Yang was about to rise to see him out, but the shopkeeper hurriedly waved him off: "No need to see me out, no need."
After descending the steps, the shopkeeper turned back. Old Yang was just closing the door; their eyes met and the old man gave a gap-toothed grin. The shopkeeper quickly turned and walked away.
When the old shopkeeper had taken over the shop in middle age, his dying father — on his deathbed — had left behind these parting words, strange and cryptic: "When the shop faces a great crisis, find Old Yang. Do as he says. This instruction, it seems, has been passed down since your grandfather's grandfather's time. When you hand the shop to the next generation, you must tell them this. You must never forget!"
The old shopkeeper had nodded earnestly, and only then did his father exhale his last breath and close his eyes in peace.
Night deepened.
Old Yang lit an oil lamp.
Puffing on his pipe, the old man thought of distant memories — trivial things that no one would ever care about.
---
An ancestral home, passed down through generations, kept in meticulous order — nothing like the homes found in Mud Vase Lane.
A simple, honest man crouched at the courtyard gate, smiling at a delicate, fine-featured child: "Son, now that the new year has passed, are you a grown-up?"
The child raised one hand with youthful energy: "Father, I am five now — I am a grown-up!"
The man smiled, with a touch of bitterness: "Then when your father is away in the future, your mother will be in your care. Can you manage that?"
The child immediately drew himself up straight: "I can!"
The man smiled and extended one calloused hand: "Pinky swear."
The child quickly extended his small, pale hand, beaming: "Pinky swear, a hundred years unbroken!"
Father and son locked little fingers, thumbs pressing together.
After releasing his grip, the man rose slowly and turned to look at the graceful figure bustling about in the main room. Then he strode away with sudden purpose.
The child called after him: "Father, candied haws are delicious."
The man's lips trembled. He turned back and forced a smile: "I know!"
The child, ever perceptive, blinked and added: "The small ones taste better."
The man turned away quickly, not daring to look at his son. He continued walking and murmured: "Son, your father is going."
---
At the Yang family shop, a child who came to buy medicine every few days was shoved out of the store by an impatient young clerk. The clerk cursed: "How many times have I told you — that handful of silver dust isn't even enough for medicine dregs! Where do you find such a nuisance, blocking the doorway for half a day? This is a pharmacy, not a temple — we don't have bodhisattvas for you to pray to! If it weren't for your age, I'd really give you a beating. Get lost, get lost!"
The child clutched the shriveled money pouch with white-knuckled hands, wanting to cry but refusing to make a sound, repeating the same words he had said countless times before: "My mother is still waiting for me to brew the medicine. It has been so long. We truly have no money, but my mother is truly very sick..."
The young clerk grabbed a broom and raised it threateningly.
The child, standing outside the threshold, crouched in fear, covering his head with both hands. His left hand never loosened its grip on the money pouch.
After a long while, the child looked up and found a stern-faced old man standing there, looking down at him.
The young clerk had already put the broom away with a sullen look and gone back to his own work.
The old man extended one hand: "Goods exchanged for money, merchants earning their keep — this is the natural order. Whether the profit is large or small depends on conscience, but there is no such thing as losing money on a sale. So give me the money pouch. I will accept those few pieces of silver. The medicine your mother needs today, I will put on credit. But you must pay it back — not a single coin can be owed to the shop. Little one, do you understand?"
The child blinked, confused but trusting, and held out the money pouch.
Finally, the old man had to lean some effort over the counter to see the child, whose head barely reached it: "Do you know how to brew the medicine?"
The child nodded eagerly, like a chick pecking rice: "I do!"
The old man frowned: "Truly?"
The child dared only nod very slightly this time.
The young clerk called from a distance with a laugh: "Master Liu once went to Mud Vase Lane, examined his mother, and taught the child once. Later, worried, he went personally to watch the child brew it. Strangely enough, this tiny child got it exactly right. Master Liu said so himself — it must be true."
The old man waved the child off: "Go."
The child, overjoyed, clutched a large bundle of herbs wrapped in oiled paper and ran back to Mud Vase Lane.
His mother lay on a plank bed. When the child tiptoed in, he found her still sleeping. He touched her forehead — it was not feverish — and sighed with relief. He then quietly moved her hand back under the quilt.
The child went to the kitchen outside and set to brewing medicine in an earthen pot, seizing the gaps between stirs to prepare a meal.
He needed to stand on a small stool to reach.
He stirred the pot with all his might, choking on the hot steam, all the while murmuring: "It must taste good — it must! Otherwise Mother will have no appetite again..."
---
A child of only five summers, carrying a basket on his back nearly larger than himself, making his way up the mountain outside the town.
This was the child's second trip into the mountains. The first time, Old Yang from the Yang family shop had led him, taking the boy's frail legs into account and walking very slowly. The old man had only taught him which herbs to gather, and he had carried the basket himself, so the journey had been manageable. Today was different. The child walked under the blazing sun, the basket digging into his back, waves of burning pain radiating through his skin.
He walked while crying, biting his teeth and pressing forward.
That trip, the child did not return to the Yang family shop until dark, with only a thin layer of herbs in his basket.
Old Yang flew into a rage.
Through tears, the child explained that his mother was alone at home and he was afraid she would be hungry — otherwise he would have gathered more. He could rise earlier tomorrow and go back into the mountains.
The old man said nothing, turned, and walked away, saying only that he would give him one more chance.
Within two months, the child's hands and feet were covered in calluses.
---
One day, a sudden rainstorm stranded the child, who had gone to gather herbs and lost track of time, on the far side of the stream.
Watching the surging flood, the boy wept in the downpour.
When he could bear it no longer and was about to leap into the rushing water —
Old Yang appeared on the opposite bank, stepped across the stream in a single stride, and in another step carried the child back.
Raindrops the size of soybeans pounded their bodies, but on the way down the mountain, the child was laughing with pure joy.
Once out of the mountains, the old man said: "Little Ping'an, make me a pipe, and I will teach you a small technique for climbing mountains without getting tired."
The child rubbed the rain from his face with a wild swipe and grinned: "All right!"
---
The child bounced his way back to Mud Vase Lane. Today he had gathered a rare and precious herb, and the Yang family shop had given him extra medicine for his mother.
Having not eaten all day, the boy walked on until suddenly a cramping pain seized his stomach.
In that moment, he knew he had eaten something wrong on the mountain.
The pain started in his belly, spread to his limbs, and finally reached his head.
The child first crouched carefully, set down his basket, then breathed deeply, trying to suppress the pain.
But one moment he burned with heat; the next he shivered with cold. Finally, he could only writhe in agony in the alley.
From start to finish, he did not dare cry out.
No matter how his head knocked against the alley walls, he never made a sound.
He was too close to home.
He feared his mother, lying in bed, would worry.
In that haze of pain, the only thing he felt was his own heartbeat — like a drum thundering right beside his ear.
---
In Apricot Blossom Lane, a child once again crouched not far from the candied-haw stall. Each time he stayed only a short while, but long enough for the stall owner to remember that sun-darkened little face.
At last, one day, the man selling candied haws plucked off a stick and held it out with a smile: "For you. No charge."
The child quickly stood, shook his head, smiled shyly, and ran away.
After that, the child was never seen again.
---
That winter.
The woman on the sickbed had wasted to skin and bones, her features naturally withered and gaunt.
The child, having just returned from praying before a crumbling temple statue, fetched water from the Iron Lock Well in Apricot Blossom Lane. He came to the bedside and sat on a small stool. Finding his mother awake, he asked softly: "Mother, are you feeling better?"
The woman smiled with difficulty: "Much better. It doesn't hurt at all."
The child was overjoyed: "Mother, praying to the bodhisattvas works!"
The woman nodded, and with tremendous effort extended a hand. The child quickly took it.
With agonizing effort the woman turned onto her side and gazed at her child's face. Racked by illness, she was suddenly suffused with a radiance of happiness, and she whispered: "How can there be such a wonderful child in this world? And how is it that he happens to be my son?"
---
That winter, the woman did not survive the year's end. She did not live to see her son affix the spring couplets and door-gods.
Before she closed her eyes, snow began to fall in the town. She asked her son to go outside and watch.
Listening to his footsteps leave the room, she closed her eyes and murmured with quiet devotion: "Broken pieces, peace and safety, broken pieces, peace and safety. My little Ping'an — year after year, peace and safety. Year after year, peace and peace, safe and safe..."
From that day on, Chen Ping'an was an orphan.
He had merely changed from a child to a youth.