As Chen Ping'an neared the stone arch bridge, he swallowed hard. He did not dare cross. After a fierce internal battle, he followed the stream upstream until he reached its narrowest point, where the water was cinched tight like a belt. He sprinted, leaped across, and only then made his way toward Green Ox's Back.
He did not know that this detour had caused him to miss Ruan Xiu entirely. The green-clad girl flew across the bridge clutching a pot of Peach Blossom Spring, heading toward the town to buy wine. As she passed the Spring Festival shop, she kept her head down and hurried past, afraid the dazzling array of pastries would steal her resolve. She had begun saving money of her own.
Chen Ping'an first visited Liu Xianyang's house. He lit an oil lamp and walked through every room, inside and out, confirming that nothing large or small was missing. Only then did he extinguish the lamp, lock the door, and return to Mud Vase Lane. As he passed the old house with its collapsed wall and gaping hole, he let out a breath. The burden on his shoulders was still there — but lighter now than before. He allowed himself a private grin. Having money in his pocket felt good.
In his entire life, Chen Ping'an had only ever seen fragments of silver. He had never laid eyes on a solid ingot, much less gold, which was as rare as immortals.
Chen Ping'an returned to his ancestral home, opened the door, then went back to verify the courtyard gate was properly latched. Inside, he carefully lit an oil lamp. The dim, amber glow illuminated the cold yellow-mud walls. From a clay jar at the base of the wall, he withdrew three pouches of money — spring-welcome coins, offering coins, and lucky coins — containing twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-eight gold copper coins respectively.
Seventy-nine coins in total.
Ning Yao had once given him a rough explanation of these unusual coins. They were an extension of mortal-world decorative coinage, valuable because of their scarcity. The primary reason, of course, was that outsiders needed them as tokens to enter the small town. The origins of this unwritten rule were ancient, and Ning Yao, not being from the Baoping Continent, could not provide the specifics.
Chen Ping'an took one coin of each type and placed them on the table. The spring-welcome coin bore the auspicious characters for "Great Fortune in the New Year" — openwork carving depicting auspicious clouds in flowing patterns, with an armored deity beating a war drum.
The lucky coin's face displayed the five venoms — snake, scorpion, centipede, gecko, and toad — while the reverse bore the characters "Expelling Evil at Midday" alongside a design of a tortoise and snake entwined around a sword.
The offering coin's face read "Sincerity Bringsefficacious," and the reverse read "The Immortals Above" — simple and unadorned, the plainest of the three.
Chen Ping'an picked up a spring-welcome coin and turned it over in his hands. It was hard to believe such a small coin could purchase an entire mountain. He knew the so-called "small hill" that Master Ruan had mentioned — old Yao had taken him to Pearl Mountain's summit once, searching for soil. Soil could be classified by weight, fertility, and many other qualities. More complex still was determining which of the five elements a particular earth was naturally aligned with. There were many subtleties, and Chen Ping'an had learned perhaps seventy or eighty percent of old Yao's knowledge of "eating earth."
On that unremarkable peak, old Yao had stamped his foot, looked down at Chen Ping'an who was digging in the dirt, and said: "This place has the richest soil of any kind — but it is too small. Like a man crammed into a corner, you bump your head if you stretch out, and bruise your toes if you extend your legs. The old saying calls such a place a snail's shell."
Chen Ping'an set down the spring-welcome coin gently and picked up the lucky coin, only to set it down almost immediately. His expression dimmed.
The fifth day of the fifth month. The day the five venoms emerge. It happened to be his birthday. Song Jixin, the neighbor, had once said that in many places beyond the town, children born on this day were considered inauspicious — some custom even called for drowning newborns in the river.
Chen Ping'an shook his head and picked up the last coin — the offering coin. Eight characters total, four on each side, plain and simple.
A thought suddenly struck him: when he had first met the young lady Ning, Fu Nanhua, and Cai Jinjian, he remembered that each of them had been required to hand a bag of coins to the gatekeeper upon entering the town. Where had those coins ended up? In the private coffers of the Great Li emperor?
He sighed and dismissed a question he could not hope to answer no matter how hard he tried. Instead, he began calculating in his head. Master Ruan had said that Pearl Mountain, the smallest peak, required only one spring-welcome coin. Medium peaks like Black Plum Mountain and Lantern Lotus Peak cost roughly ten to fifteen coins. The largest — Withered Spring Mountain Range, Fragrant Fire Mountain, and the like — demanded twenty-five to thirty.
After a moment's reflection, Chen Ping'an understood the unspoken meaning behind Master Ruan's words.
First, Great Li treated Master Ruan with genuine respect, offering him three mountains for free. Second, since Master Ruan intended to establish his sect, the three mountains ideally needed to be contiguous — scattered peaks would look absurd. This was likely where the court had been clever: knowing Master Ruan could not select the three most valuable peaks, they feigned generosity. And third, Chen Ping'an himself needed to choose mountains adjacent to Master Ruan's. Of course, he was not averse to selecting one or two modest peaks elsewhere — places like Pearl Mountain. A hill no one else wanted was precisely what Chen Ping'an valued. Small as it was, it was still an entire mountain, and at a single coin, he felt he must claim it. A prize locked away was a prize secured.
Regarding the most expensive peaks — Withered Spring Mountain Range, Divine Beauty Mountain, and Fragrant Fire Mountain — Chen Ping'an was not uninterested, but he aimed to purchase one large peak slightly inferior to those at a cost of at most one bag of coins, then buy several small peaks like Pearl Mountain for around ten coins. The rest would follow Master Ruan's lead: wherever the man chose his three great mountains, Chen Ping'an would buy nearby — again and again, as many as he could.
As for the unnamed great mountain that held the Dragon-Slaying Terrace, Chen Ping'an had completely resigned himself to letting it go. He admonished himself absolutely not to touch it, even though no one else knew of its existence and the opportunity was tantalizing. The town now attracted visitors from every direction — no longer the sealed Lizhu small chiliocosm. A few hundred li of mountain trails that even Chen Ping'an could traverse would not stop anyone's feet in the future, let alone those immortals who flew back and forth on their swords.
Before spending his money, however, Chen Ping'an intended to enter the mountains one more time.
Spending such a sum without knowing what he was buying — even if he knew it was a surefire investment that would multiply his wealth — would leave him deeply uneasy. This was simply the habit of hardship.
Chen Ping'an currently possessed eight snake-gall stones that had not faded at all. The others, stored at his home and Liu Xianyang's, had lost their luster to varying degrees — perhaps because they had escaped the stream early. Though they no longer looked as brilliant as when first pulled from the water, they still carried a trace of spiritual energy — a feeling he could not articulate. It was like the first time he saw Gu Can in Mud Vase Lane, or Li Baoping on Fulu Street: he had known at a glance they were bright, clever children.
He returned the three pouches to the clay jar. The thought of asking Master Ruan for leave to enter the mountains again gave him a headache.
Old Yao had been the same way, and so was Master Ruan. Chen Ping'an wondered whether he simply lacked the favor of elders — particularly the favor of masters.
He squatted beside a woven basket in the corner, staring at the shard of Dragon-Slaying Terrace inside. He reached out to touch the fine grain of the black stone — cool to the touch. He wondered how such an unremarkable stone could be connected to immortals like Miss Ning who walked upon swords, and what level of sharpness the terrace could grind a blade to.
Chen Ping'an suddenly recalled something and pulled out the five scholar-tree leaves. When the girl in the red cotton jacket had gathered eight leaves from the old scholar tree, he had given her three as payment. He examined them carefully — they appeared paper-thin but were actually quite tough. Regrettably, the emerald-green glow that once flowed along the veins had vanished, though tiny traces of green still lingered at certain nodes. He guessed this was what was meant by ancestral blessing.
Chen Ping'an carefully tucked the five leaves into the Han Shan Manual.
After completing all this, he stepped into the courtyard and began walking the stance.
The neighbors on both sides had already moved away.
Chen Ping'an quickly sank into the rhythm of his fist-forms, losing himself entirely.
His martial intent flowed like a stream.
Ning Yao had once said that practicing a million punches was only the beginning of the martial path.
How could Chen Ping'an afford to be lazy?
His mind drifted to the red ink marks on the wooden figure — the legendary acupoints and qi-palaces through which breath and energy flowed.
His entire body felt comfortable and warm. Something like a fire dragon surged through him, racing from head downward, bumping and jolting — not smooth at all. Those acupoints were like dilapidated mountain passes; the paths between them were certainly no broad highway. Some were wide but rugged, others narrow and steep. The fire dragon wavered as it passed, like a traveler crossing a rope bridge over a chasm.
Finally, the fire dragon circled among several qi-palaces near the lower dantian, seemingly searching for the most suitable lair to occupy as its dragon palace.
Ning Yao had spoken of the three realms of body-tempering in the martial way. The first realm, the Mud-Embryo Realm, was reached when one's body generated a wisp of qi — like a clay bodhisattva seated high in its shrine, qi sinking to the dantian, unmoved as a mountain. The body then gained a new vitality, beginning to nourish blood, flesh, sinew, and bone, as though a withered tree met spring. Impurities and blockages would be expelled bit by bit.
Chen Ping'an was walking that path.
Without a master's guidance, and not exactly by chance either.
He relied on diligence compensating for lack of talent — eight full years of climbing mountains and crossing waters, and though crude, a breathing technique he had grasped the essentials of.
Eight years, and he had not yet broken through the first realm of martial cultivation.
In the mortal kingdoms and the world of martial artists, apart from Ning Yao's homeland, the prevailing wisdom held that the poor studied literature and the wealthy studied the martial way. Fortunately, in the martial path, there was no vulgar custom of racing to advance in realm. The more accomplished the master, the more they valued solid footing at every step — the thoroughness of each tier's foundation. Chen Ping'an's slowness was not exactly shameful, since countless youths from powerful families failed to pass even the first threshold, never finding that wisp of qi in their entire lives. But by all indications, Chen Ping'an would never be mistaken for a martial prodigy.
Chen Ping'an snapped back to awareness and exhaled a long, turbid breath.
He walked slowly through the courtyard, gradually relaxing his limbs.
His eyes fell on the scholar-tree branch leaning against the wall, and a sudden whimsy seized him: he wanted to carve himself a wooden sword.
After his parents died, whenever he watched the other children playing near the Immortal's Grave from a distance, the girls were flying paper kites while the boys sparred with wooden or bamboo swords their fathers had made — clacking and laughing. He had always wanted one. But once he became an apprentice at the dragon kiln, the exhausting labor of every year had extinguished that desire.
Chen Ping'an crouched before the branch. He felt he could certainly carve one wooden sword. Two would be stretching it.
He carried the branch outside, retrieved the hatchet he used for clearing paths in the mountains, and prepared to begin.
But as he sat on the threshold with the hatchet in hand, he hesitated. After some thought, he set the blade back down. The old scholar tree was not merely an old tree — Qi Jingchun had once held a conversation with it. That made this branch feel somehow awkward.
He returned the branch to the base of the wall, and finding himself with no trace of sleep, left the courtyard, locked the door, and walked out of Mud Vase Lane.
Some inexplicable force drew him to the stone arch bridge. He decided he could not keep leaping across the stream every time. Gritting his teeth, he stepped onto the bridge and sat once more on the central stone slab, legs dangling above the water. His heart raced. He looked down at the dark, still surface and murmured, "Whether you are an immortal or a demon, we should have no enmity between us. If you truly have something to say to me, please — stop sending dreams. I am here now. Speak to me directly."
One incense stick's time. A quarter of an hour. A full hour.
Aside from a chill, Chen Ping'an sensed nothing unusual.
He braced his hands against the stone slab and swung his legs, gazing into the distance. When he was very young, he had often wondered where the stream ended.
Chen Ping'an stared blankly into space.
Liu Xianyang, Gu Can, Miss Ning, Qi Jingchun, old Yao — all gone.
He had never been so wealthy.
But he had also never been so alone.
---
On the far side of the stone bridge that the straw-sandaled boy sat facing away from, a tall figure in brilliant, snow-white robes — more like an immortal than a ghost — was also braced against the stone slab, legs dangling, head tilted back toward the sky.
This scene was invisible not only to Chen Ping'an, who had begun talking to himself, but even to Old Yang and Ruan Qiong.