# Chapter 82: A Single Sword Bars the Gate
"So you mean to say — the hard-won intelligence I obtained, at no small cost, saw me placing Shen Nanqi at your side so that you might join Ye Qingyu's operation alongside her. And yet, from start to finish, you never exchanged a single word with her?"
Fang Zehou leaned back in his chair, his face unreadable.
Fang Heling stood perfectly straight: "Ye Qingyu was born of noble blood, and in her eyes no one else counts. From beginning to end she held herself entirely apart from everyone else. Your son thought it better to keep silent than to go out of my way and earn her contempt. In this way I leave her no impression — but at least we preserve the bond of having fought shoulder to shoulder."
"Do you have any idea that a single word from Ye Qingyu could expand our business in the Yun Kingdom a hundredfold?" Fang Zehou asked.
"And likewise, a single word from her could sever, once and for all, the trade routes you worked so hard to open in the Yun Kingdom, Father."
Fang Zehou made no comment, either way. "Steward Li has made his preparations. Go and train with him."
Fang Heling turned and left.
Only once his son's clearly much-thinner figure had receded into the distance did a smile appear on Fang Zehou's face.
"My son... has grown up!"
...
Pavilion of Three Parts Fragrance.
Zhu Weiwo had reserved an entire floor for himself and drank there alone.
He sat in a pleasure house, yet there was not a single courtesan in his arms.
Girls draped in sheer gauze danced and sang upon the raised platform, while the spear whose fame rippled across the entire Zhuang Kingdom — the Ember-Spending Spear — rested propped against the table at his side.
His gaze was heavy with wine, lost in some unknowable thought.
He poured and drank alone, content in his solitude.
It was at precisely such a moment that Jiang Wang climbed the stairs, and plainly started for a beat.
He had assumed that a man as flamboyantly unrestrained as Zhu Weiwo would come to the Pavilion of Three Parts Fragrance and hold a woman in each arm, letting himself go entirely. He never imagined the man would limit himself to plain drinking and the watching of dances.
At the sight of Jiang Wang arriving without invitation, Zhu Weiwo arched one of his sword-like brows. He did not speak, but his presence already bore down on the newcomer.
"Senior Disciple Zhu." Jiang Wang came straight to the point: "I intrude upon you unannounced, and I truly have a favor to ask."
Zhu Weiwo drank down a cup of wine, his expression one of amusement: "And what makes you think I would help you?"
He asked neither what the matter was, nor why Jiang Wang had sought him out. Because he genuinely did not care.
There were few things in this Qinghe Commandery worth his attention.
Jiang Wang said: "Because you are the Eldest Senior Brother of the Fenglin City Dao Academy, while I — am Jiang Wang of the Fenglin City Dao Academy."
Jiang Wang made no mention of the bond forged in the battle where they slew Xiong Wen, for the both of them understood it well. In that affair it was Jiang Wang who had reaped the easy benefit; Zhu Weiwo owed him nothing.
Zhu Weiwo smiled: "You mean to say you are worth betting on? You think I need to stake my coin on an Inner Courtyard disciple who's only newly enrolled?"
Jiang Wang felt not the slightest sting of humiliation, because the Zhu Weiwo of today genuinely possessed such authority.
He only said: "My second reason is this — Lin Zhengren conducts himself in a most loathsome manner. Senior Disciple Zhu, a busy man like yourself, hardly deigns to deal with him. But to let your junior go and sour his day — that could hardly do any harm."
Zhu Weiwo made no comment. He reached out and patted the longspear: "Do you recognize this spear?"
"The glory of the Ember-Spending Spear, this junior could never forget in this lifetime."
"For its first thirty years, it was nothing but an obscure, rotting stick of wood, lying toppled among the mountain forests. A woodcutter carried it home as kindling, and yet though it burned for thirty years, it would not burn through. Later, a master smith heard of this, bought it for ten thousand in gold, and forged it into a longspear with metal fallen from beyond the heavens. That is the origin of the Ember-Spending Spear." Zhu Weiwo asked: "Hearing that story, what thoughts come to you?"
"I was thinking of that woodcutter who gained ten thousand in gold — his fate cannot but have been an unhappy one." Jiang Wang sighed: "He was suddenly in possession of immense wealth, yet he did not possess the strength to guard it."
Zhu Weiwo smiled: "Come, drink with me."
...
The third day of the Winter Month.
A light skiff drifted down the Green Willow River, sailed into the Clear River, and entered Wangjiang City through the water gate.
Ever since Zhu Weiwo had pressed the city with a single spear, the city garrison had been especially wary of any vessel coming from the direction of Fenglin City.
Aboard this light skiff were three men. Jiang Wang, Ling He, and Zhao Rucheng.
Jiang Wang had come out this time to truly fight, and so his two sworn brothers in life and death naturally had to follow. Were it not that Du Yehu was far away in Jiujiang City, beyond all news, he too could not have missed this.
An'an had been entrusted to the care of Huang Azhan, so there was nothing left to worry about.
Among the three of them, Jiang Wang had already established his foundation, and with the aid of the Celestial Star-Dou Spiral he was now constructing his second Dao Spiral at a terrifying pace. To be sure, "terrifying" here referred only to the comparison with the time it had taken to build his first.
Now, without harming his body, Jiang Wang could complete at most four impulse-channel charges each day, while the Celestial Star-Dou Spiral automatically generated nine pellets of Dao essence every day. At such a pace, constructing his second Dao Spiral would take him no more than a month.
Then, besides Zhao Rucheng, who was still at the meridian-opening stage, Ling He too had successfully established his foundation.
He had opened his meridians on the nineteenth day of the ninth month, and established his foundation on the second day of the Winter Month — exactly one day before departure. Cultivators of ordinary-grade Dao Meridian True Spirits, establishing their foundation with the Return-to-Origin Formation Diagram, reached their limit at forty-one days.
And Ling He was precisely that sort of cultivator — the cusp of ordinary talent's foundational limit.
This meant that his cultivation had not slackened for a single day, and that his Dao essence transfers had not failed even once!
This foundation, so solid as to be terrifying, reflected itself in battle power: though he had only just established his foundation, he already lost nothing to an ordinary foundation-stage cultivator.
The three brothers entered the city and went straight for the small residence where Lin Zhenglun and Song Ruyi had lived.
The location of this place was not difficult to find, though — exactly as Jiang Wang had expected — the courtyard stood empty, with not a soul within.
The death of Song Ruyi had been classified by the Wangjiang City authorities as a suicide. But as for the matter of the dowry she had brought with her, and the cause of her suicide — none of that had been recorded.
All of this information, Jiang Wang, as a Dao Academy disciple, could consult freely.
Ling He and Jiang Wang each asked the neighbors on either side what sort of relationship Song Ruyi and Lin Zhenglun had ordinarily shared, but these people all sealed their lips — which itself spoke volumes.
Momentous as the affair was, the Lin family was the foremost clan of Wangjiang City. If no one pursued it, then it would end here, and nothing more.
But no wall in all the world is so thick as to let no word pass through.
Zhao Rucheng went out for a turn about the city, and came back with every fact he needed.
How Lin Zhenglun had risen to manage the Lin family's medicinal herb business, and how he had fallen to pennilessness and been moved into this two-courtyard residence. How, on the very day of Song Ruyi's suicide, the two of them had broken into a ferocious quarrel...
The matter was now plain: Lin Zhenglun could hardly be absolved of all responsibility for Song Ruyi's death.
Lin Zhenglun was not at home — naturally, then, he was within the Lin clan lands.
...
To the east of Wangjiang City, a vast stretch of territory had all been ceded to the Lin family.
A towering memorial archway guarded the entrance, standing like a city within a city.
At this moment, Jiang Wang and his two companions stood at the threshold of this city within a city.
"Hold!" Two Lin family guards stood watch before the archway, glowering.
"I am looking for Lin Zhenglun," Jiang Wang said.
"He's not here!"
"Is that so? Then I'll go in and look for myself."
The guards flew into a rage: "The Lin clan lands — are they a place you may enter whenever you please?"
Zhao Rucheng sneered: "The legs grow on this old man's body — are they not a thing you may block whenever you please?"
The two sides stood at daggers drawn, on the very verge of eruption.
"Jiang Wang, you had best think this through!" A familiar figure strolled out from within the clan lands, a smug, unafraid sneer hanging on his face: "To trespass upon the Lin clan lands is to be treated as declaring war upon the Lin family — a fight to the death, no quarter given! Not even the Dao Academy will protect you!"
Who else could it be but Lin Zhengli?
"So, one must not trespass upon the Lin clan lands, is that it? In that case..." Jiang Wang let out a baffled couple of laughs.
"Then the rest of you..."
He arched his brows and drew his sword!
A blinding sword-light blasted outward and swept before him, gouging a thin, impossibly deep crack into the earth.
"...none of you shall so much as leave!"
The Lin family, the greatest clan in Wangjiang City.
Barred at its gate by a single sword.