Playing mazes with Zhao Lang was no good choice — least of all a maze that reshaped itself, in real time, under its master's hand.
Jiang Chen simply lifted into the air and landed atop the stone wall.
What awaited him was a Flame Pellet screaming down.
He tumbled in mid-flight, a foot barely touching the wall, and drove straight on with his sword. The vines that had come to cling to the wall, none knew when, suddenly lashed up, coiling about his ankle. Sword-light circled, severing them — yet Jiang Chen could only shift aside, widening the distance between himself and Zhao Lang.
Wind blades, long held in store, came one after another, splitting the air with a whetted rasp.
Their exchange rolled back and forth, dazzling and brilliant, and the soldiers beyond the field watched with open wonder. In part they dropped their contempt for the Academy disciple; in larger part they came to respect Zhao Lang all the more.
By now Jiang Chen had given up his own Dao arts. In understanding and employment both, he trailed Zhao Lang too far to find much room to maneuver, and his attempts were repeatedly broken off at the root. So he turned wholly to forging his swordsmanship.
No longer bounded by the five killing strokes, he took the Violet Dawn Sword Art apart and let it melt, little by little, into every stroke he made. In time each stroke could become a killing stroke, and every killing stroke could twist and turn as it liked.
Each stroke was a Violet Dawn sword.
The course was arduous and long, yet Zhao Lang was kind enough to see it through. For all his cunning arts, he never pressed a finishing hand, but only drove Jiang Chen onward, forcing him to grow. And each time Jiang Chen's swordsmanship rounded out a shade, the man raised the power of his arts a shade to match. Beside the battle power Zhao Lang presently showed, that control was the more terrifying thing by far.
At last Jiang Chen turned, vaulting clear of the field, and made Zhao Lang a deep bow.
"Thank you, Brother Zhao, for seeing me through!"
Sword in hand, the blade had grown whole. He could strike at any moment, and every stroke was a killing stroke.
"Don't thank me." Zhao Lang smiled. "Who knows, one day we may be comrades in arms."
He was, no mistake, a capable hand at helping Wei Feng run a camp — a single bout, and he had both done a favor and schooled his men, and still found room to try and pull Jiang Chen into his ranks.
Of victory or defeat, there was no more need to speak.
The coarse soldiers behind the field crowed in delight: "Right! Brother, with skill like that, don't go for the county academy — come to our camp! We're all fine, wholesome fellows!"
A fine speech. Fine and wholesome fellows might be grand and brave, but what pull was there in it? Though the city academy had no famous senior sisters to speak of, they said the county academy fairly overflowed with fair cultivators.
Already refusing them in his heart without a moment's hesitation, Jiang Chen yet answered warmly on his face, fobbing them off: "The county academy is far off yet — I'll decide when the time comes."
The visit to the city guard's camp had been a fine harvest all round. Arranging to come back and seek Zhao Lang's guidance whenever the man had leisure, Jiang Chen took Tang Dun and left.
The soldiers scattered to their duties, and Zhao Lang lingered a while before he saw Wei Feng come walking over, one hand on his blade.
"Fancy nonsense." Wei Feng scoffed.
Zhao Lang smiled bitterly. "If I could break through so easily as you, I wouldn't have spent my time on all this. I put so much labor into the small Zhou Heavenly cycle, and still built it less than whole. When at last I completed the great Zhou Heavenly cycle, it advanced so slowly that I could not see the Gate of Heaven and Earth for the longest time. And an army is a place that desperately needs battle power. If I don't scheme over the Dao arts a little more, what am I to do?"
He said it simply, and his face was quite flat. Yet to reach a mastery of nearly every common low-rank Dao art — how much sweat and toil did that take?
Now he could sit easy as deputy general of Maple City's city guard, stand shoulder to shoulder with Wei Feng, and accept his men's reverence with a light, untroubled bearing. The gap he had crossed was more than that between an ordinary man and a prodigy. The toil he had spent was beyond what ordinary folk could imagine.
The whole city guard of Maple City counted one chief general, two lieutenant generals, and five deputy generals. These eight formed the camp's high command, and both Wei Feng and Zhao Lang stood among them.
"You think too much of others, and too little of yourself."
"Never mind me." Zhao Lang turned the subject. "You — you've opened the Gate of Heaven and Earth. When will you go to Nine River?"
Wei Feng's face darkened. "My transfer order was not approved."
Zhao Lang knew the reasons well, and so did not press the matter, but clapped him on the shoulder. "You have no need to prove yourself in such a place. If you go to the White Feather Army, the road to advancement is broader, and it lies right at the capital besides. You are the equal of Zhu Weiwo — who knows, one day Great General Huangfu may take note of you."
"Ha. As long as I cannot spread wings and show my full plumage, as long as I cannot escape the grip that holds me, I will never surpass Zhu Weiwo."
Zhao Lang noticed that the finger-bones of Wei Feng's hand on the blade had gone white — the mark of too great a grip.
"He forever thinks he is right, and never spares a thought for another's feelings. If not for my mother..." Wei Feng stopped there.
Zhao Lang held a long quiet, letting the man settle his own temper, then said: "Perhaps he does care for you, only he does not know how to show it."
"Ha." Wei Feng laughed coldly. "You do not know him at all. Nor do you know me."
Zhao Lang was silent.
"You think he is atoning? You think he feels guilt? You are too naive!" Wei Feng went off, hand on blade.
Zhao Lang watched his departing back, and did not follow.
When the cloud crane came fluttering down, it held a round white jade stone in its beak.
Jiang An'an snatched it up; the cloud crane turned into a sheet of letter paper, and the jade stone lay in her palm.
"Here!" Half-hiding her eyes behind the little hand that gripped the jade, Jiang An'an held out the letter paper with her other hand. "An'an didn't peek, you know."
Jiang Chen reached out and tapped her nose. "Little imp."
He unfolded the letter.
Friend Jiang of the Dao:
Who among us is free of doubt? The title of teacher-by-a-single-line I dare not claim. The Dao road is long, and Green Rain walks it amid her own perplexities.
Give your little sister my greetings, I pray. The cloud crane bears a recording stone, in keeping with my wish to capture her childish voice.
Also — I know not where 'beneath the maple' lies.
— Cloud-drift Green Rain.
"This jade is for talking to the sister who wrote the letter." Jiang Chen read it through, took up the white recording stone, fed a strand of Dao essence into it, and gave it back to An'an. "Now if you speak to it, your face and voice will be kept, and the cloud crane's mistress will see them."
"Truly?" Jiang An'an's eyes went wide.
Suddenly a white screen of light sprang from the recording stone — and on it a pretty little girl, eyes gone wide: "Truly?"
It had perfectly copied Jiang An'an.
"How amazing!"
A moment passed — "How amazing!"
"Recording's begun, An'an — speak properly." Jiang Chen reminded her from the side.
"Recording's begun, An'an — speak properly." The recording stone gave back the same voice, word for word, and An'an burst into giggles.
When her laughter died, she lifted her chin, thought it over with care, and said to the stone: "Sister, can you talk to me with this stone? An'an wants to see what you look like!"
When she had done, she handed the stone back to Jiang Chen. Only after he had shut it off, and the white screen faded away, did she whisper: "I~ said~ my~ piece~"
Jiang Chen's smile vanished all at once. "Then since you've said your piece, go do your homework. Don't think I don't see you snatching a chance to loaf!"
Shooting her off, he thought a moment, then took up the brush and wrote his reply on a cloud letter:
Friend Ye:
Maple City is the land of my birth, and the maples beyond its walls are lovely beyond telling.
Each autumn they burn redder than fire — words fall short, and let no intent go unsaid.
You dwell in the land above the clouds; I live in this city beneath the maple.
That is what 'beneath the maple' means.
I return the recording stone with this letter. My little sister is young and foolish; do not mind her.
— Little Jiang Beneath the Maple.