Chen Ping'an led Ning Yao to a five-colored painted statue that stood roughly a head taller than a grown man. It had once possessed three pairs of arms; now only the uppermost — a fist held high — and the lowest — hands clasped together — remained. The reason the lone surviving pair could still clasp was that the fingers were interlaced, so even though the other arm had been severed at the shoulder, the palms and wrists stayed locked.
The five-colored clay figure was an armored deity with a full beard, its breastplate gleaming, scales layered in endless succession along the armor's edge, adorned with two lines of linked pearls, each bead plump and round. Compared to the ugly ancestral mole-scale armor of the Liu clan — this was the difference between Zhigui and Granny Ma in sheer appearance.
The statue stood upon a square black stone plinth. Though its arms were broken and its painted surface was peeling, the figure still radiated an indomitable spirit. Most importantly, at the deity's waist the two remaining hands were intertwined in an exceedingly peculiar posture.
Ning Yao saw through it at once, understanding why Chen Ping'an had rushed her here. She nodded. "It does resemble the standing-stance of the Han Shan Manual — though it differs slightly from the sword furnace as depicted in the manual."
She thought for a moment. "Can you find the broken-off arms nearby?"
Chen Ping'an crouched to the ground and shook his head regretfully. "I already looked. Found nothing. The children who come here to play must have trampled them to bits long ago. Over the years, these clay gods and bodhisattvas have suffered every indignity. Look at this one — the wrist of that raised fist is missing a huge chunk, and there are cracks all around, clearly from slingshots and stones. The town's children are all like that — the more adults tell them to stay away, the more they sneak in to catch crickets and dig for wild herbs. Every winter when it snows, dozens of them come here for snowball fights, and once they are in a frenzy, nothing is sacred. Back then they would even compete to see who could climb highest, and some would climb onto the heads of the statues to urinate, seeing who could aim the farthest. So you can imagine — after year upon year of this, there is not a single intact clay figure left. I remember there were a few wooden carved statues when I was small, but I heard that a lazy man thought chopping firewood on the mountain was too much trouble and had his eye on them. Right at the start of winter, he sneaked them home and chopped them up to burn."
The boy's voice had grown quieter, tinged with melancholy. "I had been sent up the mountain to tend the charcoal kilns because Old Yao thought I had no talent for the potter's wheel. If I had been in town when that happened, I would have tried to talk him out of it. If that did not work, I would have offered to chop wood for him instead. Clay and wood may never show their divine power, but they are still gods and bodhisattvas — to hack them into firewood? How could anyone do such a thing..."
Ning Yao and Chen Ping'an were focused on entirely different matters.
Ning Yao rested one hand on her chin and the other on her elbow, her eyes shimmering with thought as she spoke slowly: "If I am not mistaken, the sword furnace in your fist manual originated from this — but not from these hands. It was the middle pair on this Daoist protector statue, the ones now missing, that formed the sword furnace gesture. I do not know why the manual's author chose only one variant, nor why this particular gesture was not selected. But of one thing I am certain — the sword furnace, or the Daoist protector's sword-sealing mudra, may well come in large and small versions."
Chen Ping'an listened in a fog but could not resist a reminder: "The fist manual belongs to Gu Can. I am only keeping it for safekeeping."
Ning Yao did not quibble with him. She pointed at the statue's remaining hand formation and explained: "See? In the manual, the right hand's little finger extends alone. But here, nine fingers are interlaced, wound, and clasped, with only the left index finger protruding — a single shoot standing alone. The purpose is to form the sword-sealing mudra, ultimately to nurture the index finger."
She continued speaking to herself: "I have traveled across your world for many years and seen no shortage of temple Guardian Kings and Daoist protectors. This clay figure..."
Chen Ping'an waited, but after a long pause no answer came. "Is there something unusual about it?"
Ning Yao nodded gravely: "It is the shortest one."
The boy crouching on the ground said nothing at all. He simply extended a thumb toward her.
Ning Yao turned and asked: "Have you ever seen a Daoist protector statue taller than your Cloud-Robe Mountain?"
"Of course not." Chen Ping'an paused, then asked in puzzlement: "Cloud-Robe Mountain is ours?"
Ning Yao realized her slip. "It is the tallest mountain near you. Long, long ago, it is said that a great cultivator buried a Celestial-Master Seal beneath Cloud-Robe Mountain to suppress the dragon qi of this land."
Chen Ping'an's eyes lit up. "Do you know roughly where? Can we dig it up?"
Ning Yao smiled. "What — you want to dig it up and sell it?"
Caught out, the boy flushed slightly. "Not necessarily to sell. If it is something valuable, keeping it at home as an ancestral heirloom would not be bad."
She pointed an accusing finger at the money-obsessed boy and said with exasperation: "If you ever establish a sect, with a penny-pinching founder like you running things, your disciples and guest-retainers would never want for food or clothing — they could just lie around and enjoy life."
Chen Ping'an had never thought that far ahead. Establishing a sect was a concept beyond his comprehension.
He stood and asked: "Regardless of size — is this also a kind of sword furnace?"
Ning Yao nodded. "The large and small sword furnaces correspond to the left and right hands. The objects they truly nurture are not the index finger or the pinky — the energy travels upstream, all the way to..."
She closed her eyes in concentration. Without even forming the mudra or assuming the stance, she could feel it. Opening her eyes, she curled her fingers and pointed to two places at the back of her own head — the Jade Pillow and the Heavenly Pillar acupoints, both well-suited for nurturing a life-bound flying sword. "The left sword furnace corresponds to here," she smiled. "The right points here."
Chen Ping'an looked confused. "Miss Ning — I have been meaning to ask. The sword furnace is called a standing-stance of the fist manual, but twisting your fingers around like this — what does it have to do with martial arts? Does it make you stronger?"
Ning Yao was momentarily stunned.
If one asked her to explain the finer points of martial cultivation in precise detail, it would be a great deal of trouble. Far less could she describe the myriad pitfalls along the way and how to navigate them — for to her, these self-evident truths hardly needed stating. Were they not simply obvious?
So she drew herself up and lectured the boy: "Your realm has not yet reached the level where such talk would make sense! Why ask so many questions? Just train with all your might! What — you cannot endure the hardship?"
Chen Ping'an said uncertainly: "Miss Ning — is that really how it is?"
Ning Yao crossed her arms over her chest, her face a mask of absolute righteousness. "What else would it be?!"
Chen Ping'an let the matter drop and looked up at the painted statue Ning Yao had called a Daoist protector. "So this is the kind of god that Cultivator Lu and his people worship."
Ning Yao sighed. "What do you mean 'Cultivator Lu's people's god'? First — the Dao, the Dao: although the word contains the character for 'family,' it is absolutely not the kind of family you townspeople mean. The Dao is vast beyond your imagination. Even I do not know how many branches and sects the Daoist tradition truly encompasses. My father once told me that the ancestral court now divides into upper, lower, north, and south — four seats. Never mind, trying to explain this to you is like piping a tune to a deaf ox. Second — gods and immortals: although you are accustomed to saying the two words together, and all the common folk in the world do the same, in the end gods and immortals walk very different paths. Let me give you an example — the saying 'men fight for a breath of air, gods fight for a stick of incense.' You have heard it?"
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Granny Ma in Apricot Blossom Lane was always quarreling with Gu Can's mother. I heard it often."
Ning Yao now spoke with the air of one surveying an empire: "Gods fight for a stick of incense — why do they fight? Because gods truly need incense offerings. Without them, a god gradually weakens and eventually loses all boundless divine power. The logic is simple: the same way a man who eats nothing for several days will have no strength. Why does the mortal court order local officials to shut down illicit shrines? Because they fear that mixed incense offerings from the human world will allow beings who should never have become gods to sit upon divine thrones. Even if, after seizing godhood uninvited, they were good-natured and willing to shelter the local people year after year without ever transgressing heaven's rules — to an emperor who claims the mandate of 'true dragon,' these un sanctioned shrines are blights upon the local fengshui, no different from regional warlords carving out their own domains. They drain the dynasty's fortune, erode its years — how can the emperor tolerate a rival snoring at his bedside?"
"As for immortals — that is simple. The outsiders you see, nine out of ten qualify. Even the old ape from Zhengyang Mountain counts as half an immortal. They all walk the great dao under their own power, climbing toward the summit of immortality, step by step. Those who cultivate are also called qi refiners, and the practice itself is called immortal cultivation or true cultivation."
Chen Ping'an asked: "Then is this Daoist protector a god or an immortal? By your logic, he should be an immortal of the Daoist tradition?"
Ning Yao's expression turned solemn. She shook her head faintly, offering no further revelation.
Then she frowned suddenly.
A stone flew from somewhere and smashed into the statue's raised fist above its head, sending chips of clay raining down.
Ning Yao waved the debris from her hair.
Chen Ping'an rose and followed her gaze. He turned — and saw an unexpected figure.
A dark, wiry, undersized boy crouched upon a toppled statue in the distance, tossing a stone from hand to hand.
Chen Ping'an turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ning Yao and said quietly: "That is Ma Kuxuan. Granny Ma's grandson from Apricot Blossom Lane — a strange one. He never spoke much as a child. Last time I ran into him at the stream, he actually struck up a conversation with me. He clearly knew long ago that snake-gall stones were valuable."
The boy called Ma Kuxuan rose, still idly hefting his stone, and flashed a brilliant smile at Ning Yao and Chen Ping'an. He came straight to the point: "If I went to the Li mansion on Fulu Street and told the old ape from Zhengyang Mountain that I had found you two, I could certainly walk away with a bag of money. But if you give me two bags, I will pretend I saw nothing. Let me be clear — this is only business. Do not even think about silencing me by force. Look at all these gods and bodhisattvas on the ground watching us. Be careful of retribution."
Ning Yao, flushed with anger, was about to retort when Chen Ping'an seized her arm. He stepped forward and spoke in a low voice to Ma Kuxuan: "If I agree to pay — will you really keep silent?"
Ma Kuxuan blinked, apparently startled. It seemed he had never expected this pair of young people to be so accommodating as to actually negotiate.
But he had no more patience for pretense. He produced an ornate, costly-looking purse of coins and tossed it casually to the ground. "I have already been paid by the Li family. But I did not do it for money. Chen Ping'an of Mud Vase Lane — Song Jixin's next-door neighbor, is that right? If you want to blame someone, blame the one beside you. She is far too annoying. She ruined many people's plans yesterday."
He tugged the corner of his mouth and pointed at himself. "Me included."
Chen Ping'an surveyed the surroundings.
Ma Kuxuan looked at Ning Yao and smiled. "Relax — the old ape has something else to deal with for now. I am taking this opportunity to ask you for something. You know what it is, do you not?"
Ning Yao's voice was cold as iron: "Be careful — you may have the life to take it, but not the life to use it."
Ma Kuxuan laughed. "You are not my wife. Why worry about that?"
Chen Ping'an could not fathom how anyone could think this boy — so suffused with an eerie, spectral air — was a simpleton.
Ning Yao's expression darkened. She tapped Chen Ping'an's shoulder and whispered: "For some reason, the flying sword cannot get close to this area."
Ma Kuxuan shifted his gaze slightly and grinned at Chen Ping'an. "That rooftop battle yesterday was impressive. I happened to watch the whole thing. Oh — you can take the sandbags off your calves now, or you will never catch me."
Chen Ping'an crouched and slowly rolled up his trouser legs, keeping his eyes fixed on Ma Kuxuan the entire time.
Only then did Ning Yao notice, with a start, that the boy had been carrying sandbags of moderate thickness strapped around his calves beneath his trousers.
Chen Ping'an explained to her: "When I was very young, Grandpa Yang from the Yang family shop told me never to take them off, even on pain of death. I had originally meant to save them for the old ape's fourth breath — but now seems about right. I have a feeling this Ma Kuxuan is every bit as dangerous as the old ape."
Ma Kuxuan hopped lightly down from the statue, glanced at the spirited girl in her dark green robe, and murmured to himself: "I thought I would have to leave town before meeting my first great foe on the great dao. Did not expect it to happen so soon. Ha — luck comes and it just will not be stopped."
Ning Yao asked suddenly: "Chen Ping'an — was this one also swatted by a cow's tail when he was little?"
Chen Ping'an stood and stamped each foot several times, thinking seriously about her question. "Granny Ma was quite wealthy, as I recall. Their yellow ox was enormous. Its tail, when it swung — truly frightening."
As Chen Ping'an straightened, Ma Kuxuan crouched once more, gathering a handful of stones into his left palm.
At last, the boy from Mud Vase Lane and the boy from Apricot Blossom Lane — two of the same age — faced each other from afar.