The straw-sandaled youth had been making deliveries of family letters along Fulu Street and Peach-Leaf Lane these past days. Nearly every gatekeeper in the street had come to recognize the messenger, so his presence drew no suspicion. Moreover, the boy's expression was natural, his pace a light jog along the flagstone road as always — even if a passerby glimpsed him, there was nothing to remark upon. As he drew near a particular residence, its gate flanked by a stone guardian figure of the martial-general type, half a man's height, carved to ward off evil — Chen Ping'an knew this was the Li family estate. On this prosperous and auspicious Fulu Street, almost every household employed a different method of repelling malevolent spirits, and even the door-gods pasted on the gates varied between civil and martial types, making each home easy to tell apart.
He glanced quickly about him and continued on. Just ahead lay the Song family compound; beyond that, the kiln-bureau superintendent's own residence. On the outer wall where the grand estates of the Li and Song families met, an old locust tree grew — its trunk gnarled, its branches luxuriant. Though it could not rival the ancient grandeur of the great locust tree at the town's heart, it was by no means ordinary to the eye.
In the mouths of the old folk, this tree and the towering ancient at the town center were said to share a single root: the elder was called the Ancestor Locust, and the one before the youth's eyes was known as the Descendant Locust.
The reason Chen Ping'an had come to the Li estate, rather than to the home of Lu Zhengchun's Lu clan at the head of the town, lay in something the aged steward had let slip on the way out of the compound. The old man had chatted idly of this and that — how the Zhao family's promising scholar, Zhao Yao, had already left the town and was destined to become a top scholar and a great official; how the neighboring Song family had a daughter of marriageable age who could not manage a needle and thread to save her life, caring only for swords and spears — hardly befitting a young lady of good family, and was that not amusing? Mixed in among this heap of trivial gossip was one inconspicuous scrap of news: the Li estate had just received a guest of exalted status, a little girl as delicately pretty as a piece of imperial porcelain. As long time did not turn her into an ugly duckling, she was certain to grow into a beauty. Which lucky family, one wondered, would one day welcome her as a daughter-in-law.
On that walk from the rear hall of the compound, the youth had listened at first without speaking, deliberately moving at a slow pace and taking careful note of the architectural layout. Only near the end did he let fall a casual question or two, as though a pauper curious about the lavish ways of the great clans. The aged steward, nothing loath, had held forth at length, using the Song and Li families as examples to describe the courtyards and the manifold rules of the wealthy.
The steward's true intent, the youth understood perfectly well.
Only — from start to finish, Chen Ping'an had never intended to do as they wished.
Now, jogging lightly along the edge of the street, he saw no one about and suddenly burst into speed. He ran straight for the old locust tree, launched himself upward, and in four bounding steps kicked off the trunk — only then did gravity begin to pull him down. But by then his agile body had already reached high enough to seize a branch. In the blink of an eye, as nimble as a mountain ape, the boy was crouching on a limb that jutted outward, just above the two-zhang-high courtyard wall. His figure was hidden behind the dense screen of locust leaves. He held his breath and narrowed his eyes, peering down. There was no rush to slip inside.
On the walk back from the gallery bridge with Ning Yao, Chen Ping'an had asked many questions.
For instance: how fast could that old ape from Zhengyang Mountain truly move within the bounds of the town, under ordinary conditions? How high could he leap? How tough was his body — what did this "copper skin and iron frame" actually mean? If a punch from me would amount to nothing more than scratching an itch, then what about the slingshot or the wooden bow — at distances of twenty paces and forty paces respectively, how much damage could each one inflict? Did a being of such supposed immortal standing have any fatal flaw — the eyes, perhaps? The groin? The throat? And if the foe, ignoring his own injuries, fought with full intent to kill, would I have any chance at all of surviving?
At the time, Ning Yao had nearly wished herself deaf and mute for the sake of the barrage of questions.
According to the girl in black, whether a qi cultivator or a pure martial artist, the more advanced the stage of cultivation, the greater the pressure imposed upon them in this place — like iron cavalry besieging a gate, defending to the last with nothing but an unbroken stream of breath. Once that breath was released, the damage would be as devastating as the sea flooding through a breach. Imagine facing a rushing torrent and deliberately pricking a hole in the dam.
Yet Ning Yao's final verdict had remained unchanged: if Chen Ping'an faced the old ape of Zhengyang Mountain in single combat, he did not have a shred of a chance.
In the dappled shade of the locust tree, the youth's eyes were resolute, his expression cold. He whispered to himself, over and over: "Don't let the ape come within ten paces. Ten paces — that is the very least distance."
Ning Yao had said that as long as the old ape did not become a cornered beast, there was still a chance of survival.
But Chen Ping'an had replied that the whole point was to force the ape to strike with killing intent — otherwise it was meaningless.
He had to drive the old ape into a rage, compelling him to expend the true qi within his body, and thus truly whittle down the cultivation painstakingly accumulated over a thousand years. Perhaps the ape thought lives like his and Liu Xianyang's were worth nothing. But Chen Ping'an was curious to know: when the ape watched those hard-won reserves of cultivation evaporate before his very eyes, would it still feel the price was worth paying?
Of course, all of this hinged on not being killed with a single blow at first contact.
The youth gazed down at the bustling figures moving through corridors and across courtyards in the estate below, murmuring: "Even if I cannot escape, I must at least draw a few more blows."
Chen Ping'an harbored no illusion of killing the ape. He did not even expect to survive.
---
In the Li estate, the little girl from Zhengyang Mountain — the great-granddaughter of the Tao family ancestor — was treated with the reverence due a bodhisattva by the entire household. In the side courtyard where she stayed, the Li family had assigned a number of first- and second-rank maidservants. These girls, born into the household, had clean, quick hands; more importantly, their backgrounds were known and their histories above suspicion — some had been loyal to the Li family since the days of their grandfathers.
The side courtyard occupied a central position, set back from the street of Fulu Street.
The girl's name was Tao Zi, nicknamed Peach. She was the darling of the sword-immortal elders of Zhengyang Mountain — not because of any winsome sweetness of manner, but because the heights she might reach on the path of the sword were such that Zhengyang Mountain would spare no cost to pour limitless resources into her.
In five hundred years, the girl's foundation of bone and sinew, her talent, her temperament, and her fortune of circumstance — all four ranked among the very best of any generation across Zhengyang Mountain's many peaks. In plain terms: the little girl Tao Zi would be a singular being, possessed of every great strength and not a single weakness.
This was the genuine once-in-a-century prodigy, not the empty flattery that passed for praise.
Without the mountain-moving ape at her side, the little girl found herself alone in a completely alien place. She was not exactly frightened or shy, merely somewhat bored, and perhaps a little disappointed. From the way Grandfather Ape had spoken, it seemed he would not be able to carry away a mountain peak this time. That had discouraged her greatly. At Zhengyang Mountain, Sister Su had been gifted an entire peak upon reaching the Middle Five Realms, making it her private domain — and it was Grandfather Ape who had carried it all the way back on his own shoulders, settling it in the northeast corner of the mountain. It was not a large peak, but the little girl had always envied her for it.
Finding the study somewhat stifling, she walked to the main hall, clasped her hands behind her back, and stared up at the plaque overhead with an air of precocious solemnity.
Two elegant maidservants trailed the girl wherever she went. One of them had been identified in childhood as having exceptional natural gifts, and had been trained as a martial artist to modest success. For the direct line of the Li family, this was no different from keeping caged birds or ornamental fish — the intention was not that the girl might one day become a grand master of the martial way. Within the high walls of a great household, a servant grown too capable could turn on the master. And a cup of rice given in kindness, once it became a measure of resentment, taught the same lesson. A servant whose eyes were set too high and whose potential ran too deep might prove an ill omen for the family's next generation.
The little girl ambled toward the gate and skipped about the courtyard in circles. She did not venture outside without leave, which would have put the servants in a difficult position. Grandfather Ape had warned her: the people of the Wind-Thunder Garden had also come to the town, and until he had settled the matter, she was not to leave these grounds. The girl was young, but she had grown up steeped in the perilous intrigue of cultivation above the clouds, and her upbringing was strict. She was not the sort of willful child who kept the elders fretting.
With nothing better to do at last, the little girl flopped onto a stone table. On the table sat a birdcage containing what was said to be a snake-catching eagle — its head drooping, listless, its feathers a dull, drab grey. It was not at all pretty. No matter how the little girl had tried to coax it before, the bird had ignored her, and she had found it tedious. Now, simply for want of anything else to do, she whistled at the wretched creature.
Inside the cage sat two porcelain bird-feed jars, crafted in secret by the Li family's dragon kiln — delicate and fine. One, plain and elegant, held water; the other, bright and colorful, held food.
But ever since it had been captured, the snake-catching eagle had refused a single drop of water or a single grain of rice. Nearly two days had passed.
In the town, snake-catching eagles were rarely caught. On the few occasions they were — whether a fledgling chick or a full-grown adult — every last one of them starved itself to death.
They could never be kept alive, let alone trained into a hunting falcon under a man's command.
The whistling little girl saw that the snake-catching eagle still showed no response, and at last lost all patience. She stood up and turned to go.
A thunderous crack.
One of the porcelain bird-feed jars in the cage shattered violently.
The girl froze for an instant, then instinctively seized the tallest maidservant and yanked her in front of herself as a shield.
The tall, full-figured maid felt her wrist seized as though clamped in an iron band — the pain so sharp she nearly screamed.
The shorter maid, however, had sharper eyes. She stepped in front of the little girl of her own accord, swiftly scanning in all directions.
The second bird-feed jar inside the cage exploded in turn, its report cracking across the table like a firecracker.
"There's an assassin — on the roof of Qingxin Courtyard!" The maid trained in the martial arts had at last caught sight of the figure — on the ridge of the neighboring roof, a person crouched low.
The maid broke into a sprint. The courtyard wall was not high; she kicked off it, seized the top with both hands, and hauled herself up with her considerable strength.
For a moment she was at a loss. The distance between this side courtyard and the Qingxin Courtyard opposite was not great, but the assassin stood upon the main roof of Qingxin Courtyard, which bordered Fulu Street — the intruder could vault over the wall and vanish in an instant. So, in the flash of an instant, she made her decision: rather than dropping into the courtyard and running toward Qingxin Courtyard, she crouched and sprinted along the wall-top, then sprang to her own side courtyard's roof ridge. Throughout, she kept her eyes locked on the assassin for any surprise attack.
Strangely, the assassin did nothing to impede her movement, nor did he immediately withdraw.
The distance between the eaves of the two courtyards was roughly three zhang.
The maid kept her gaze on the assassin's figure, retreating silently along the rooftop. At last she drew a deep, quick breath and prepared to sprint.
Her heart jolted. The assassin facing her from across the gap was — a shabby, gaunt youth?!
The boy had two small bundles strapped at his waist. In his hands, no weapon was visible — presumably already tucked away. The maid judged the slingshot to be the most likely instrument.
She was also baffled. Had he aimed at her skull, she would not say death was certain, but a grave injury would have been unavoidable. With the boy's near-terrifying accuracy — twice shattering the bird-feed jars with deliberate intent — was he truly unable to hit her or the little girl from Zhengyang Mountain?
In the courtyard, the little girl shouted furiously: "Fool! Watch for the diversionary tactic! Get back here at once!"
Catching the assassin and extracting answers under interrogation was important, but against the unforeseen, preserving one's life came first.
After releasing the tall maid's arm, the little girl raised her palm and delivered a stinging slap that snapped the terrified girl out of her stupor. "And you — go sound the alarm at once! Do you understand? If I die, every last person in this estate will die with me!"
On the rooftop, the maid did not leap down into the courtyard immediately. Instead she called out in a loud voice: "Assassin!"
Then she broke into a furious run, launched herself from the eave's edge, and flew through the air toward the roof ridge of Qingxin Courtyard opposite.
Having gauged her arm strength, leg strength, and endurance from her acrobatic run across the rooftop, the assassin youth crouched, snatched up two roof tiles, and hurled them with his right hand — one striking the maid squarely on the forehead. Still airborne, the maid instinctively crossed her arms before her head in a guard. The two impacts came with a dull thud each, the force far exceeding anything she had imagined. The shock left her arms aching to the bone, and the forward momentum of her leap was drastically arrested. Even as she regretted her bravado —
The maid barely managed to land on the far eaves, but a fist caught her in the midsection and sent her reeling backward.
It was only because the assassin, for some inexplicable reason, grabbed one ankle and held her for a split second before releasing that she did not tumble to the ground.
The maid's mind was a maelstrom.
From the corner of his eye, the youth had been surveying the surroundings. Seeing black figures beginning to appear, he turned and ran.
His speed, his stride, his rhythm — all were superb, and what was more, they were perfectly matched to his breathing, the slow and steady cadence of one who had trained in the martial arts for years. Had the maid been able to watch, she would have realized that the boy was no layman at all, but one steeped in martial practice just as she was.
The youth's figure vanished from the roof ridge in an instant — like a light, quick bird, or a snake-catching eagle released from its cage.
---
Roughly one stick of incense's time later, the burly old man rushed back into the Li estate, his killing intent palpable.
From Li Hong, the head of the household, to the maids of the side courtyard, no one dared draw a deep breath. The maid trained in martial arts knelt on the ground, both cheeks flushed and swollen from the slap, her mouth sealed. She did not dare show the faintest trace of resentment.
The little girl, her temper now settled and calm, looked at the old man and sighed, shaking her head as she lectured him: "Grandfather Ape, the people of the Li family seem to be nothing but useless trash. How could you entrust me to them?"
The mountain-moving ape dropped to one knee. Even so, he still towered over the little girl. The white-haired old man said with guilt: "Miss, this old servant was at fault."
The old man turned his head and spoke in a deep voice: "Li Hong!"
The head of the Li clan, who had a smattering of the Baoping Continent's formal speech — which happened to be the tongue of the Zhengyang Mountain cultivators — smiled ruefully and offered his apologies: "This time, the fault lies squarely with my Li family, and I will not attempt to deflect it. From what we have gathered so far, the intruder was a youth — almost certainly not a practitioner. The compound has not yet provided any useful intelligence, only that it will dispatch able hands to guard the estate day and night."
Tao Zi considered and said: "That assassin did not seem to be coming to kill me."
She added: "At the very least, not today."
The heart that the head of the Li family had just let sink back down instantly leapt to his throat again.
The white ape frowned and asked: "The youth — was he thin and dark-skinned, about so tall? And wearing straw sandals?"
The maid kneeling on the ground nodded vigorously.
The white ape grinned, his eyes cold and sinister. "Well, well! So he came as a show of defiance!"
He waved a hand: "You need not concern yourselves with this matter any further. I know the assassin's background — he is a common boy from Mud Vase Lane."
The little girl said softly: "Grandfather Ape, don't let your guard down."
The mountain-moving ape hesitated for a moment, then stood and issued orders to the head of the Li family: "Have the compound produce a household-register file on the Li estate — and turn over every detail on the boy's eighteen generations of ancestors. And as for the guards posted at this courtyard, choose the able and keep the number small, rather than a crowd of mediocrity!"
The old man quietly raised the intensity of his tone and sneered: "Li Hong, I advise you to summon the pillar of your clan stationed here as well. Don't take this lightly. If anything were to happen to my young miss here, even I — this old beast in your eyes — could not bear the consequences. Can your branch of the Li family bear them?"
The head of the Li family bowed hastily, his face stricken: "Elder Ancestor, you are far too kind — you would humble the Li family to dust."
The old guardian ape of Zhengyang Mountain fell into thought, murmuring: "Is this the boy from the Wind-Thunder Garden, using this as an excuse to pick a fight? Or is it a scheme of Song Changjing from the compound?"
The old man shook his head at last, finding the thought absurd: "No matter who goaded him into throwing his life away, at least find a slightly better pawn. A scrawny little grasshopper with barely any meat on his bones — hardly enough to fill the gap between my teeth. Very well. I was just looking for an excuse to kill. This one will serve nicely. First I'll dispatch the mud-caked wretch from Mud Vase Lane, then I'll finish off that little bastard from the Wind-Thunder Garden in one clean stroke."
The old man said to the little girl with a smile: "Miss, this time your old servant will certainly clean up the mess properly. There will be no more accidents."
The little girl beamed, pumping a small fist to rally the old ape's fighting spirit.
Before departing, the old man looked at the head of the Li family, who said with a bitter smile: "I will go at once and invite our ancestor out of seclusion to serve as personal bodyguard to Miss Tao."
The old man nodded and strode away.
The old ape swallowed the bait whole, and made straight for Mud Vase Lane along the line of the fishing line.
*I have taken the hook. Come and kill me if you can.*
Outside the town, this mountain-moving ape of Zhengyang Mountain would never have been so brazenly contemptuous. But within this domain, where all spells, techniques, and magical implements were forbidden, he held an overwhelming advantage — and this was precisely why Zhengyang Mountain had not sent a single sword-immortal elder.
The old ape walked on, and only as he neared Mud Vase Lane did a thought strike him: "Could it be that the youth in the lane acted purely to avenge his friend?"
Until now, the old ape had been thinking in terms of deep conspiracies — threads of intrigue stretching a thousand miles. But the sudden possibility of something so simple struck him as almost laughable.
The old ape smiled, understanding at once: "If so, that would make sense. And indeed — one who is not a practitioner would fear death less. After all, what is one's life but a cheap thing?"
Still, out of caution, the old ape did not swagger into Mud Vase Lane from the nearest end.
Regardless, the trip would not be wasted. The brat favored by the Wind-Thunder Garden would merely live a little longer than the mud-splattered wretch from Mud Vase Lane — and not by much.
He circled around at length and entered Mud Vase Lane from the narrow alley near Gu Can's home.
In truth, the old ape doubted the assassin youth had the nerve to remain at his ancestral home and await death. If the boy were clever and cowardly, he might at least die after the young man from the Wind-Thunder Garden.
The old ape grinned.
Then the grin froze on his face.
In the fading light of dusk, Mud Vase Lane had already grown dim and indistinct.
The burly old man jerked his head up.
A lean youth stood high above the lane ahead, somehow planted in freshly gouged footholds on either wall — just enough to brace himself.
The youth bore a quiver on his back and held a wooden bow drawn to its fullest, the arrowhead aimed straight at one of the old ape's eyes.
The boy was utterly silent. The bow bent like a full moon, and even the faintest whisper of breath seemed to have vanished from his body.
It was only the old guardian ancestor's keen animal instinct for danger that allowed him to detect the youth's presence overhead.
No chance was given for further reaction.
The arrow shot forth, shrieking through the air, heavy and forceful.
After releasing the first arrow, the youth did not pause to assess. He tucked his neck, slung the wooden bow diagonally across his shoulder, and sprang — the toes of one foot then the other finding purchase alternately on both walls, ascending to the rooftop in a blur.
The old ape retracted the hand that had risen to shield his forehead. The arrow was embedded in his palm — not deep; a split wound was faintly visible.
But the old ape felt a chill of fear.
Had this happened outside the town — had he been struck in the eye by an arrow at such close range — it would have been a calamity beyond help or remedy.
He plucked the arrow from his palm with a casual flick, snapped it in two, and let the pieces fall into the dust of Mud Vase Lane.
The old man clenched both fists and looked up at the lane's patch of sky. His face was iron-grey, his throat worked, and a low, suppressed sound rumbled from within him — like a primeval beast seething with rage.
He scaled to the rooftop in an instant, but the moment his head appeared above the ridge, a second arrow arrived as though it had been waiting.
This time prepared, the old man simply raised an arm and let the arrow bury itself in the flesh of his forearm. Grinning savagely, he strode forward.
The youth, having tucked away his wooden bow once more, turned and fled.
Along the line of rooftops on one side of Mud Vase Lane, a long cascade of cracking sounds erupted.
The old ape's stride was vastly longer than the youth's, and the distance closed rapidly. Barring any mishap, he would soon overtake even this remarkably agile, gaunt figure.
The old man surged forward with a burst of speed, launching himself into the air, one great hand — broad as a fan — reaching for the youth's head.
The boy seemed to have eyes at the back of his neck. At the very last instant, he twisted at the waist, crouched low, and sprang across the lane to the opposite rooftop.
He landed softly and continued his sprint without pause.
The old ape's reflexes were equally fierce; he too wrenched himself sideways toward the opposite roof.
The youth skidded to a sudden halt.
By the time the old ape sensed something wrong, it was too late.
The rooftop was unoccupied. Years of disrepair had left it crumbling — it could never bear the old ape's two-hundred-and-some-odd jin.
With a tremendous crash, man and tiles crashed down together into the room below.
The old ape landed hard, one hand bracing the ground, then jerked his head aside — barely avoiding a particularly cunning and vicious arrow.
The arrow struck the floor directly.
It was not that the youth lacked strength. It was simply that the old ape's hide was impossibly thick.
The youth stood at the edge of the great hole in the roof, deftly tucked away his wooden bow, and thrust up his middle finger at the ape below. "Old beast! Fuck your mother!"
Then his expression turned peculiar. He slapped his own face and muttered: "That just hurts me, doesn't it."
The old ape surged to his feet. The youth was already gone.