Li Mubai suddenly waved his hand, and his coachman was lifted by a breath of clear wind and set down gently by the roadside. The Grand Confucian Master seized the reins and drove the carriage himself. "This is a fine courser that can run a thousand li in a day."
Then an astonishing thing happened. The horse drawing the carriage had been an ordinary brown nag, but now it gave a strident neigh. Beneath its brown hide tendon upon tendon swelled, its body expanding until, in the blink of an eye, it stood nearly twice as tall as an ordinary horse.
Li Mubai's carriage swept away in a cloud of dust.
Zhang Shen snorted coldly. "You too, get down." He set his own coachman by the roadside, took his place, seized the reins, and said in a deep voice: "This horse is big and stout. Not only is it a courser of a thousand li, but it also has six legs."
The same change came over the black horse — its body swelling, its muscles knotting. But where its fellow had only grown, its belly split open, flesh parting, bones growing, nerves weaving together... until two brand-new legs had grown from its flank.
The black horse's six hooves flew like the wind, trailing a cloud of dust, and though it started late, it caught Li Mubai's carriage with ease.
"Old scoundrel, too shameless! What horse has six legs?" Li Mubai roared.
"I say it has, so it has."
"Very well, my horse has eight."
"Humph! Shameless old rogue determined to steal my disciple? My carriage is light as a sheet of paper — it rides upon the wind!"
A gust of wind swept through, and Zhang Shen's carriage, light as paper, drifted off into the distance.
Li Mubai refused to be outdone: "My carriage can ride upon the clouds."
A tuft of white cloud rose from the ground, clung to the wheels, and lifted the carriage up into the sky.
Xu Pingzhi stared, dumbstruck, until both carriages vanished into the horizon. He swallowed hard.
"Scholars sure can spin a big one."
Xu Xinnian gazed at the sky, a look of longing in his eyes. "This is no lie. This is the fifth-rank Confucian realm: Virtue!"
It had another name, coined by the Chief Astronomer in a drunken jest: "Confucians use letters to undermine the law."
...
The Ministry of Justice prison.
Xu Qi'an wore wooden shackles, sitting cross-legged on a ragged straw mat, his back against the cold stone wall. Breathing in the damp, rotting air, he felt as though thrown back into the prison of the prefectural yamen.
By the records he had once paged through in the archives, cases in which the capital's lesser officials tyrannized the common folk were legion — wretched affairs that never reached the old emperor's ears. Was it not for this that "reaching the ears of Heaven" could weigh heavy as Mount Tai?
But this was the season of the Capital Evaluation — did they not fear their political rivals? Xu Qi'an huffed cynically: "Do away with me quickly, then threaten my family to make my second uncle swallow his pride. Wouldn't that settle everything?"
"I was wrong. The middle rank lives in comfort, but offend one of the great figures a single time, and you are ruined."
"If I want to live like a man, I need power and strength."
Clang... The iron door at the end of the corridor swung open. Footsteps drew near, and before long a jailer led two armored escorts, blades in hand, to stand before the barred cell.
"Time for your last meal before execution." The jailer sneered. He unlocked the door but stepped back rather than entering, and barked: "Crawl on out."
The two armored escorts rested their hands on their sword hilts. Though he wore the special shackles and leg-irons, he was still a martial artist at the peak of Essence Refining; if he fought like a caged beast, they would be in danger.
"You'd best behave and cooperate. You don't want us to shoot through your tendons and drag you out, do you?"
Xu Qi'an was silent a moment. Then he rose.
...
Minister Sun of the Ministry of Justice sat hunched over his duties, dossiers piled up like a mountain. Suddenly he looked up toward the window.
Before long, two dark shapes flew over at speed — two carriages, one borne upon the clear wind, one riding upon the clouds. The two raced abreast, vying to outdo each other, until they both descended into the Ministry courtyard.
The moment their mighty horses touched down, they finally gave out, tumbling over as if drained of all vitality, twitching as they died.
Soldiers on duty at the Ministry quickly crowded around.
Minister Sun, robed in crimson, came out to meet them with a frown. He had a square, upright face, and in his knit-browed thought an air of sternness.
"Brother Chunjing, Brother Jinyan, what business do the two of you have in my Ministry?"
Minister Sun kept proper courtesy. The feud between the Imperial Academy and the White Deer Academy was long-standing, yet the joint arrival of two Grand Confucian Masters warranted a dignified manner.
Zhang Shen clasped his hands and said gravely: "The Ministry arrested one of my disciples today, a man named Xu Qi'an. I ask Minister Sun to release him."
They had arrested a student of the White Deer Academy?
These old relics of the White Deer Academy were notorious for sheltering their own... Minister Sun said: "The Ministry holds the power over criminal justice; we do not arrest men without cause. Pray explain yourselves."
He did not agree right away. True, on the field of officialdom the Imperial Academy had beaten the White Deer Academy until the latter could not hold up its head — but only because the Imperial Academy was an official court academy. Yet this did not make the White Deer Academy a soft fruit to squeeze at will. It held mastery of the Confucian cultivation system and was sacred ground in the hearts of every scholar; its masters' reputation for sheltering their own was famous. So long as a man had not truly committed a crime, the Ministry's officials would not provoke him.
Before the two Grand Confucian Masters could speak, a few clerks rushed over in a panic, shouting: "Your Excellency! Outside, a band of white-robed men from the Directorate of Celestials has come! They are forcing their way into the compound, and we cannot stop them!"
Minister Sun and the other officials followed the sound. A group of white-robed disciples of the Directorate came barging and flooding into the Ministry compound.
At their head strode a man with a cauldron embroidered over his heart — thick eyebrows, a high nose, and dark circles under his eyes that never seemed to fade. It was Song Qing, fourth disciple of the Chief Astronomer of the Directorate.
The ferocious bearing set Minister Sun frowning. He barked: "Force-entering the Ministry of Justice is a breach of the law. Withdraw at once!"
Song Qing halted, made a bow, and said calmly: "Your Excellency, we have come to claim one man."
Minister Sun's heart gave a leap. He had a guess. "Who?"
"Xu Qi'an, taken by the Ministry today without cause."
Xu Qi'an again. Who in the name of heaven was this man, that he should draw both the Grand Confucian Masters of the White Deer Academy and the white-robed men of the Directorate of Celestials?
In Da Feng, no one wished to offend the Chief Astronomer. Even the White Deer Academy, styled the orthodox heir of Confucianism, had swallowed its pride when the wine-loving Chief Astronomer mocked it with "Confucians use letters to undermine the law," never attempting to prevail upon him by reason.
"What is this? Who is Xu Qi'an? Why have I never heard of him?"
"Living under a rock? You know the tax silver case — the one who broke it was Xu Qi'an."
"But the man is only a martial artist. How is he tangled with the Confucians and the Directorate?"
"Strange. Why would the Ministry arrest him, then?"
The officials who had gathered to gawk whispered among themselves. Minister Sun beckoned over one of his officers: "Did the Ministry take a prisoner named Xu Qi'an today?"
The officer answered in a low voice, then scurried off, returning with a stack of dossiers.
"Your Excellency, there is no man by the name of Xu Qi'an in the arrest records."
None? Minister Sun's face darkened. "Who went to arrest him, then?"
The official glanced toward a figure in a green robe among the crowd. "It was Director Huang."
Swish... Every gaze swung over to rest on him.
Returning to the Ministry with barely time for a sip of tea, not yet gone to report his triumph to the son of Minister Zhou — the Director Huang in the green robe — felt a chill run down his spine.