In the days that followed, Jiang Chen went nearly every day to the city guard garrison to trade blows with Zhao Lang, and sometimes stood in as a sparring partner for the other cultivators stationed there. Under such relentless tempering in combat, his command of the Dao arts grew ever more fluid, and by slow degrees he grew accustomed to the shifting, layered complexity of Zhao Lang's style.
Until, once again, White Lotus came calling.
It was night once more, and, as before, she made no move to enter the bedchamber. Perhaps because she knew well what Jiang An'an meant to him, she kept her dangerous self waiting out in the courtyard.
"The second matter?" Jiang Chen had left a note for An'an before stepping out, and now he asked directly.
White Lotus said not a word, but drifted away, and he had no choice but to follow.
Ever since his return from Jade Balance Peak, Jiang Chen had been weighing the proper distance between them. Of one thing there could be no doubt: whatever White Lotus was, whatever organization stood behind her, she held no kindness for Zhuang Ting. By choosing the side of Three Mountain City's folk in toppling the Peak, he had, in essence, set himself against the royal court. And yet his feelings toward it ran deep. He had grown up in this state, schooled since childhood to trust it fully, to feel toward its sovereign a child's devotion. He had been sorely torn for a time; later, through Ye Qingyu's letter, he settled the matter and saw his choice had not been wrong — but neither did he wish to turn his back on Zhuang Ting outright. What puzzled him most was why White Lotus, who could easily have toppled the Peak alone, had dragged him along to force the choice upon him. He sensed some hidden purpose at work, something he could not yet grasp, and it filled him with wariness and dread.
He had resolved to keep his distance. But as it happened, there was no need: White Lotus kept her own, growing frosty and silent, without a single wasted word. All the careful phrases of retreat he had prepared stuck dry in his throat. Bound by his three-promise pact, he could only follow.
The two walked out through the West Gate and struck off in the direction of Green Willow River.
When they reached the river, White Lotus did not board a boat. Instead she followed the bank on foot. It was not until the booming tides of the great Clear River came within earshot that she finally spoke.
"A large part of why that disaster struck Little Grove Town was that the Clear River Water Palace had the city guard pinned down. Wei Feng and Zhao Lang were left with no choice but to call in people from the city Dao Academy, squandering precious time for nothing."
She turned her head and studied his expression. "So. Do you find the Water Palace hateful?"
"Hateful," Jiang Chen said.
This was not a question requiring any hesitation. Who among those who had taken part in the Little Grove Town operation could hold any fondness for the Water Palace? In that they loathed it as they loathed the Heart-Devouring Demon. It was only that the two sides had never yet reached a level of direct confrontation.
A cold glint slid through White Lotus's eyes. "Then go kill a few water folk and vent your anger."
"Pinning down the city guard was the Water Palace Lord's doing. What does that have to do with the common water folk?" Jiang Chen shook his head. "I won't vent my anger on the innocent."
Zhuo Lie, the pride of Great Chu, had refused, even at the moment of his death before Huanzhen Temple, to raise his hand against a band of foreign beggars. Jiang Chen might be far weaker than that man, but he too would not be a man of casual cruelty.
"The fish swims as the head turns. Where is the innocence? Are the common water folk not hateful too?"
"The water folk and the human race swore a covenant a thousand and ten thousand years ago, to share this world in equality and mutual aid. We all want the Heart-Devouring Demon dead, but none of us dreams of slaughtering the folk of Xiong Wen's hometown."
"How do you know?" White Lotus laughed in mockery. "Xiong Wen's home village — the whole town — was slaughtered to the last person. You think what you see is the true face of the world?"
Jiang Chen was silent a moment. "Whoever butchered that whole town was nothing more than another Xiong Wen."
"You think this world holds more Jiang Chens? Perhaps there are more Xiong Wens after all."
Moonlight scattered across the water as the two walked on, until at last Green Willow River, this tributary of the Clear River, gave itself up to the great current.
"And this talk of water folk and humans in equal covenant." White Lotus laughed, as though at something too absurd for words. "Does anyone still believe in the old pact these days?"
"Why shouldn't I believe it? From ancient times the human race has dwelt on land and the water folk in the water, and the two have never been at odds."
"From ancient times? What history do you know?" Every sentence of White Lotus tonight seemed to carry a barb.
Piqued, Jiang Chen said: "If you know some history I don't, then say it plainly."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. If you don't want to kill water folk, then don't. Why so angry?"
"I'm not angry."
White Lotus stepped toward him, and Jiang Chen quietly sidled away. She laughed. "To kill or not to kill is your own decision. I never forced you. So what are you afraid of?"
"Perhaps what you fear..." She drifted up like a specter until she stood at his breast, and with a fingertip lightly pressed his heart, murmuring: "...is the self hidden deep within you?"
Jiang Chen frowned. "Enough circumlocutions. I owe you three matters. Whatever you want me to do, say it outright."
"If I told you to do something, would you do it?"
Jiang Chen was struck dumb for an instant, then had to answer: "I won't slay the innocent — be they human or water folk."
"So you see." White Lotus turned and walked on. "For now there's no need to say anything. Watch first, and decide afterward. I'm not going to force you, am I?"
Even cloaked in black, pale and indistinct amid the night, she could not wholly hide the graceful lines of her figure, and in her occasional twists and turns she offered sights that touched the heart.
"Right here." White Lotus caught Jiang Chen by the hand and drew him down into the grasses along the bank, half-crouching. She set down an array plate, urged forth her Dao essence, and only then laughed. "This time I truly have laid a concealment array."
Jiang Chen knew she was mocking that business on Jade Balance Peak, but he held his peace and fixed his gaze on the surface of the Clear River. He was very curious to see what would happen next, and yet a vague disquiet troubled him that he could not name.
What would he see?
...
Time crept on, and then the long hush that had seemed as though it would hold forever shattered.
The banks of the Clear River lay broad and open, waves chasing waves into the distance, silver light scattering wide. A figure parted the water and stepped toward the shore. Clad all in black, face wrapped in black cloth, a great black sack slung over his shoulder, he was well-nigh indistinguishable from the night.
The sack bulged faintly in the shape of a person; judging by the place and the hour, Jiang Chen believed it held a water creature.
Water folk and human folk look much alike in outward form, and this is the very reason the two races have acknowledged one another across the millennia. The little that separates them lies in marks peculiar to each creature — scales, whiskers, the shells of turtles — tokens of inborn gifts that never fade.
The figure drew near enough now that Jiang Chen could see him clearly, and could be certain: this was a human. A human, in the dead of night, slipping out of the Clear River with a water creature stuffed into a sack. What was he up to? What did this portend?
"Why would he do this?" Jiang Chen heard his own voice tremble, and could not say whence the dread had come.
"The water folk are born with their Dao meridians on display," White Lotus murmured at his ear. "And far finer, far purer than any beast's."
Her voice was lovely, but the meaning it carried was nothing short of cruel. "In other words, a Meridian-Opening Pill made by drawing out a water creature's Dao meridian is a far better, more perfect pill."
Jiang Chen's hand upon his sword tightened until the knuckles ran white.
That water folk and humans dwell in equal peace was a truth rooted in the very marrow of his heart, a consensus this land had upheld through countless years. The State of Zhuang had been founded upon the desperate battles of the Clear River Water Palace. Zhuang Ancestor Emperor Zhuang Chengqian had sworn the eternal covenant, and those very words schoolchildren still recite aloud in class to this day! Drowned wayfarers are often pulled from the water by the water folk, and at every festival the humans scatter melons and gifts along the riverbanks.
Human and water folk so alike, so close. One upon the land, one within the waters, with no blood to shed over living space. In his eyes, to drain a water creature's Dao meridian was in no way different from draining a human's. And could a Meridian-Opening Pill be refined from a human's Dao meridian?
Setting aside whether it could even be done — the mere thought was unforgivable.