Han Li's heart was a tangle of silk gone mad—partaking of fear, of regret, and still more of blank bewilderment. He had stalled until now, yet could hit upon no means of extricating himself, and felt a touch of panic seeping over him.
For after all, he was very young, and could not vie with such a gray old hawk of the world as Doctor Mo. His device of steeling his face to an unchanging mask was seen through by the other's sharp eyes, and the fine beads of sweat that broke out upon his brow betrayed him for the paper tiger he was.
Doctor Mo let not the least alteration of Han Li's countenance escape him, and was mightily satisfied with the pressure he had brought to bear, holding it his fixed belief that a man must have his mind recoil before he could be made to speak the truth.
"You hold that I was deliberately slacking in my labor, and playing at delaying my cultivation?" Han Li was stunned by this unexpected blow.
"Of a surety. Two full years, and you have not yet attained the fourth level. Do you truly think I could not see through your paltry game? The first three levels you completed in but three years. Grant that the fourth be far harder, yet lacking the aid of drugs, it is not to be credited that in two whole years you have not advanced so much as a hair's breadth." Doctor Mo spake grimly, both brows on end and full of a murderous glare, as though he had long been wroth with Han Li and had only now given vent to it.
"It seems clear that no matter how I explain myself, Elder Mo would refuse to believe me." Han Li smiled bitterly within, never dreaming that his carefully concealed progress was the very thing that had bred this coil. Verily had he lifted the stone only to dash it on his own foot, and he knew not whether it were for good or ill to have brought on this outburst so early, and stripped bare all the mystery.
"Say no more. Nor do I care to know whether aught you did ere now were true or false. Hark now carefully; I ask you but a single question. If I grant you a year more, can you bring the Art of Eternal Youth to its fourth level?" Doctor Mo laughed coldly, and slowly let fall the words of greatest weight this day. Then, without so much as a blink, he fixed his gaze hard on Han Li, awaiting his answer with all wariness.
Han Li, clear-headed, knew full well that his answer bore not only upon the other's life a twelvemonth hence, but was the very crux of whether he himself should live out this present hour.
"You know well enough in your own breast that I cannot give you any other answer. Come now, first unseal my acupoints." Han Li of a sudden let his whole body relax, and his tone grew light and airy.
Hearing this, Doctor Mo's look softened, and a glimmer of approval showed in his eyes; yet he did not step forward to free Han Li's acupoints. Instead, with great wariness he drew from within his bosom a four-cornered sandalwood box, carved with the finest art.
"Your bare word is no warrant to me. Should you take it into your head to hang up a sheep's head and sell dog's flesh—to withhold your diligence in cultivation—then how is this a whit better than before? For the safeguarding of both our lives, I must lay on an added layer of insurance." So he spake, with a sinister smile.
He opened the box-lid with care, and there, lying silent in the center, lay a single white pill.
Doctor Mo reached out and poked Han Li, freeing his acupoints, and before the lad could so much as stir, thrust the box before him.
"You are a man of sense, so I need not waste my breath in idle words. You know well what you must do." Doctor Mo narrowed his eyes, and there was no good intent in that glance.
Han Li gave his numb hands and feet a slight stretch, then, without a word, took the sandalwood box, and with two fingers gently lifted the pill out. Then, full in the other's face, he looked at it never a whit, but carried it straight to his mouth and swallowed it down.
"Pa, pa! Excellent. The man who knows the times is a hero. So long as you help me regain my former selves, you will not want for heavy reward. Nor will I bandy empty words. Since between you and me a rift has opened, it were plain to take you for a true disciple; yet to secure you a lifetime of wealth and honor, of that I am well able." Doctor Mo clapped his palms a couple of times, and very sincerely made this great promise.
"Now tell me the office of this pill, lest I unwittingly offend against some taboo and lose my life without knowing why." Han Li kept his face a blank, unmoved in the least.
"Heh, heh! This drug is called the Corpse Worm Pill. It is not truly a drug, but the egg of some grub steeped after a secret method. When you have swallowed it, it will lie dormant within you for a twelvemonth. Rest easy, within that year it is wholly harmless, and in no wise hinder you in aught else. At the year's end, let you but swallow the specially compounded antidote, and it will melt away of itself, leaving no trace. But if, after a year, no antidote be forthcoming, heh! The egg will have drawn its fill of nourishment, burst its shell, and fall to devouring, all alive, the very entrails and bowels of your body, great and small, until a man, in extremest agony, shall howl three whole days and nights before he dies at last." So spoke Doctor Mo, as matter-of-factly as though describing some trifle, while in secret he warned Han Li.
Han Li, hearing the fell deadliness of the pill, trembled slightly, and his face turned wondrously ashen, scarcely able to hold in the wrath that surged within him. Yet Doctor Mo's final stroke was yet to come.
"Ah, and by the bye, I hear you have no few parents and kin at home. Is the silver you send them monthly enough? Should it fall short, do not scruple to ask it of me, for I am greatly mindful of your dear ones." Doctor Mo let fall these words slow and weighty. Only now did he truly bare his fangs, sinking them deep into Han Li's direst vital spot.
Han Li's face had turned livid as iron, and he could no more hold to that state, spoken of in the books, of a frozen mind and a heart still as still water.
With all the last of his will, he set his teeth upon his lip, fearing lest an out-pouring of curses or a piteous plea should slip from his mouth. He knew right well that, say what he might in entreaty or in threat, the other would never let fall his greatest hold upon him.
"Rest assured. Within a year, I shall of a certainty attain the fourth level." Han Li set his jaw firm, and groaned out these words one by one, no longer concealing the dead hatred he bore toward Doctor Mo.
Under such a bare-faced threat, he could only yield for the present, for he could not bring himself to that pass where a man casts off kin and kind and scorns his parents' very lives.
And now, caught as he was by the throat, even the thought of fighting tooth and nail to drag his enemy down with him must be cast aside. In this, his first brush of battle with Doctor Mo, he had failed utterly.
When Doctor Mo heard the words of his submission, he drew a long breath of relief, for his own tension had been no whit less than Han Li's, only veiled beneath a face of strange and shifting masks.
"This Art of Eternal Youth is a perverse thing indeed! A brat scarce out of his teens, and yet so hard a nut to crack!" So Doctor Mo cursed savagely in his heart, nor knowing whether it were envy or jealousy that gnawed at him.
For though this Art possessed some virtue of marrow-washing and wisdom-opening to him who cultivated it, yet its full effect rested upon the man who practiced it. Han Li, born more precocious and sharp-witted than most of his years, had, since he took up the art, come to outstrip by far any common youth in the subtlety of his schemes and the reaches of his mind.