# Chapter 85: Rendezvous Amid the River of Stars
For a very long while after, the Lin clansmen near the memorial archway all held their breath as the cicadas, none speaking and none stirring.
The atmosphere had sunk to something dreadful.
"Are we truly just going to let him leave like this?" Lin Zhengli spoke up. "Are we going to let a mere ninth-grade Wandering-Meridian-Realm fellow throw his weight around on Lin territory?"
"Everyone." Lin Zhengren turned back, his tone flat. "Dispersed."
The crowd dispersed one and all, and not even Lin Duanxing, Lin Zhengren's own father, lingered — a testament to the authority Lin Zhengren commanded within the clan.
Old Master Lin glanced at Lin Zhengli. "Zhengli, come. Help your grandfather back to his rooms."
Lin Zhengli forced a smile. "Grandfather, have a servant walk you back. I still have a little something to discuss with my brother."
Old Master Lin seemed to want to speak, but held back. At last he shook his head, and left with the servant's support.
Soon, the crowd near the archway had thinned to nothing, leaving only a few winter drying-leaves still spinning in the wind.
"Brother!" Lin Zhengli fumed, his grievance unabated. "Are we truly to let this rest?"
Lin Zhengren cast him a glance. "And if not? Will you chase after him and kill him?"
"Come now — our Lin family is not without masters of the Zhou Heavenly Circulation Realm!"
"That is the Lin family's, and not yet yours."
"It's not for my own sake! Am I not weighing the reputation of our Lin family?"
"For our Lin family?" Lin Zhengren looked at him with extraordinary coldness. "Do you think I do not know what you have done?"
"You snatched up Lin Zhenglun's stall, but mismanaged it. Grandfather had you go and invite him back, yet you humiliated him, and even tried to take advantage of him at the business, to covet his woman! Are you so starved for women, so unable to mind your own trousers?"
"I only wanted him to know his place, to understand just what sort of thing he is!" Lin Zhengli retorted in haste. "Of what use is it to coddle a man like that? Look at today — Grandfather spoke soft words to him, and what was his attitude? Did he not bite the hand that fed him at the first opening? Can a man like that ever be tamed? Even if the Lin business rots, it must not be entrusted to him!"
Lin Zhengren pointed at Lin Zhengli, and for a time said nothing.
"Brother, listen to me — send men to cut them down halfway!" Lin Zhengli went on. "If Jiang Wang lives, where is the face of our Lin family to be placed?"
Slap!
Lin Zhengren backhanded him, sending Lin Zhengli toppling to the ground.
"The face of the Lin family matters not. It is my face — Lin Zhengren's — that matters!"
Lin Zhengren pointed at Lin Zhengli, who glared at him from the ground. "But because of you, I have lost face."
Lin Zhengli lay on the ground, first in disbelief, then in fury. He fairly sprang to his feet: "You cannot defeat Zhu Weiwo — do you blame me for that? Fine, then! Bind me and take me to Fenglin City, apologize to Zhu Weiwo on my behalf, and let that Jiang kill me! I will not drag down your face!"
He charged up before Lin Zhengren, his neck craned stiff as he roared: "Send me, then!"
"I warn you!" Lin Zhengren seized him by the throat and lifted him up. "I warn you only this once, my dear little brother."
He looked at Lin Zhengli's face, gradually flushing red from the strain of breathing, and spoke slowly: "There is no need for you to act so shallow, so shortsighted, so irascible. There is no need to perform your naivety and uselessness before me.
"The Lin clan, since I have yielded it to you, I will not take back. The enterprises that look so vast to your eyes are, to my eyes, nothing at all. Nor do you need to go to the labor of feigning mediocrity, afraid that I might be wary of you!"
He raised his hand higher, and only when Lin Zhengli began to roll his eyes white did he ask: "Do you hear me?"
And with that, without waiting for a reply, he simply let go, turned, and left.
Leaving only Lin Zhengli crumpled to the ground, kneeling half-upright, coughing without end.
——
By the time they returned to Fenglin City, it was already deep in the night.
Huang Azhan was waiting for them at the city gate, cradling a sleeping An'an in his arms.
"You're back at last!" Huang Azhan said, lowering his voice. "The little terror cried the whole day long — I wore my tongue thin trying to coax her, but nothing would calm her! Nothing for it but to keep waiting for you, until past midnight when she was simply too tired to cry, and only then fell asleep."
Jiang Wang took An'an from him with great care. "You all go on back. We shall discuss whatever remains tomorrow."
Once the others dispersed, Jiang Wang carried little An'an home to the house on Flying Horse Lane.
He did not go straight indoors, but vaulted up onto the rooftop, swung his feet over the eaves, and sat himself down there.
The night chill was like water. Wrapped in her small padded coat, An'an slept heavily in his arms, her eyes puffy and swollen, her tiny mouth pursed with sorrow even in her dreams.
A child of five is not wholly without understanding. Though their world is relatively simple, their sadness can at times be all the purer for it.
This night, Jiang Wang, for once, did not cultivate. He stared in the direction of Fengxi Town, lost in thought.
And unbidden, so many pictures rose in his mind.
This was not the first time he had felt loneliness. But in this moment he truly realized it: of all the world, only he and Jiang An'an were left to lean upon each other.
Neither of them had a father anymore. Neither of them had a mother anymore.
"Brother..." An'an had woken at some point, and opened her still-puffy eyes to gaze at his chin. "Did you go to find my mother?"
Jiang Wang was silent for a while, then said: "Do you remember the stars I told you about? Father is there. Aunt Song has gone there too."
An'an let out a small sigh, as if afraid of crushing something fragile: "So far away."
Jiang Wang felt a sudden urge to weep. "Yes. So far away."
"Brother, will you be able to pluck down a star someday?" Jiang An'an's eyes seemed to brim with light. "Mother said you might become an immortal someday."
An immortal...
Looking at Jiang An'an's small face, Jiang Wang could not bear to tell her. The distance between him and immortality was farther even than the distance between them and the stars.
She perhaps thought that on the day he could pluck down a star, she would be able to see her parents again. She did not yet know that some farewells were truly forever.
That "forever" in which, no matter how high one flew, no matter how strong one grew, one could never meet again.
"In the age of antiquity," Jiang Wang said at last, "when human beings first lifted their heads and saw the stars, they began to draw close to them. Crossing the deepest river, climbing the highest mountain, and when the road ran out entirely, they built ladders of their own... That is cultivation."
"Even your brother knows not what lies at the end of the road of cultivation. But I think — that plucking stars and seizing the moon must not be the end."
"Then I..." Jiang An'an bit her lip, asking timidly. "Can I cultivate too?"
"Of course!" Jiang Wang rubbed her little head.
"I can fly too, then?"
"Of course!"
"I can pluck stars too, then?"
"Mhm, mhm!"
"I can go to fetch Father and Mother, then?"
"...Mhm!"
It was a beautiful lie. Even Jiang Wang himself wished to be deceived by it.
"Then, from tomorrow, besides reading and writing your characters, you must also begin memorizing the Dao scripture..."
"No problem!" An'an brimmed with enthusiasm.
"You'll also need to set aside half an hour each day to train in the martial arts and lay your foundations. It will be tiring, you know..."
"An'an isn't afraid of the strain!"
"Very well, then let us make a pact — on the day you can pluck stars and seize the moon, we shall go together to chase after the stars."
Jiang An'an clenched a small fist: "Chasing the stars!"