Walking through the desolate hills and ancient burial mounds where foxes and hares roamed, the swordsman paused before a tombstone. He walked to an unremarkable small earthen mound, crouched beside its weathered stone marker, and reached out to peel away the vines entangling the stele, revealing its original face. The characters were blurred, only half-legible at best. The man sighed: "The divine way has collapsed, yet rites and music flourish. The contention of the hundred schools is about to begin."
After rising, the man saw his disciple—one who had not yet formally entered Zhenwu Mountain to receive instruction and pay respects to the ancestors—standing facing the direction they had come from. Blood trickled from the youth's mouth, ears, and nose, giving his dark face a grotesque, almost ghoulish appearance. The boy raised an arm to wipe the mess carelessly, then continued staring in that direction.
The man spoke: "Ma Kuxuan, according to the reasons you gave before, you discovered that the outsider girl used her flying sword in an alley—along with the Great Sui prince and the eunuch—to kill your first master in life. Your heart-knot could not be untied, and you had to settle this blood debt before leaving the town. I found that reasoning sound, so I did not stop you, leaving you to live or die by your own fate. After all, for a cultivator to encounter such a great dao-enemy is both crisis and opportunity."
But the man deepened his tone, refusing to show favoritism simply because his disciple was extraordinarily gifted. He said gravely: "But why did you set your sights on a peer from Mud Vase Lane? I have already told you—soldier-cultivators of Zhenwu Mountain, especially those who walk the sword-path, must never slaughter the innocent without cause!"
The boy answered a different question: "Soldier-cultivators—are we not the ones who care least about karmic retribution, qi-fortune, and destiny?"
The man nodded: "Surveying a thousand years of history, those who single-handedly turned the tide of catastrophe—most were saints of our military school. I say this not because I myself am a soldier-cultivator, but because the record speaks for itself."
The man fixed the boy with a hard stare, unwilling to let the matter slide.
If Ma Kuxuan were bloodthirsty and bullied others from a position of power, what purpose would there in the man taking such a disciple for Zhenwu Mountain?
Soldier-cultivators in secular kingdoms earned their breakthroughs through battlefield slaughter, placing them perpetually on the knife-edge between life and death. Once the heart's center wavered, theyvery easily fall into demonic paths. Consider: a cultivator who held military authority, capable of slaughtering cities and annihilating kingdoms—how easy would that be?
The military school and the Confucian school were the two great pillars sustaining the peace of the world beneath the mountains. Once a venerated soldier-cultivator stood crooked in his own person, the higher his cultivation rose and the greater his court standing became, the greater the shock to the entire secular realm. History provided ample precedent. How hard it was to win the hearts of the people, and how easy to lose them! Though this saying came from a Confucian sage, soldier-cultivators—who included no shortage of Confucian generals well-versed in the classics—agreed wholeheartedly.
Perhaps sensing the weight of the atmosphere, the boy did not rush to argue. He reached up and pressed his palm lightly over his ear, the movement pulling at his wound. He winced, sucking in a sharp breath, then slowly lowered his hand and regarded the pool of blood in his palm. He said: "That fellow is called Chen Ping'an. His father died when he was very young. That man was a kiln-worker in the town—skilled at his craft, and honest. Then one day he dropped dead suddenly, and his body was never found. Although my grandmother never wanted to admit it, I remember clearly: it was a night of thunder and lightning, a violent rainstorm. The thunder woke me, and I realized my grandmother was not beside me. I pushed open a crack in the door and saw my father creeping back, looking both thrilled and frightened—a strange mix. My mother was pounding my father's back, laughing so hard she could barely close her mouth, absolutely beside herself with joy."
The boy frowned unconsciously, straining to recall those wretched childhood images. "Only my grandmother said nothing. She didn't seem happy at all—instead she flew into a rage at my father. 'You think that just because the boy's father is dead, you'll have a chance to marry her? Take a piss and look at your own face in the puddle! That branch of the Chen family in Mud Vase Lane—generation after generation, they've had only a single heir. Aren't you afraid of killing one person and leaving the whole family of three with no way to live? When that branch of the Chen family line ends with you, won't you fear the retribution of their ancestral spirits? And putting that aside—do you really know that woman's character? Would she agree to marry you?' My father just grinned sheepishly, probably figuring that since the deed was done and the reward was coming, he didn't need to put on a show of remorse in front of his own family. In the end, my grandmother pointed at my mother's nose and cursed her roundly. My mother was no mild-tempered woman either—mother-in-law and daughter-in-law nearly came to blows in the main hall. My father was the type who favored the new and discarded the old. All his neighbors in the town disliked him, and naturally he took his wife's side over his old mother. In the end my grandmother sat on the ground, pounding her chest, weeping and pouring out her grief to the ancestral tablet above—saying the Ma family had invited this ill-fated woman through their door, and the ancestors must be turning in their graves."
The man followed the boy's train of thought and asked: "You want to shoulder all the illusory retribution for good and evil, all the sins of the previous generation, onto your own shoulders—hoping that your grandmother and your parents will meet a good end?"
Ma Kuxuan bared his teeth in a grin. "I don't really have feelings for my parents. It's only my grandmother I can't stop worrying about. But she refuses to come with me to Zhenwu Mountain. She says she must be buried beside my grandfather's grave in this life. If she went to Zhenwu Mountain—tens of thousands of miles away, she says—first she'd have to trouble this grandson to carry her ashes back home, and second, she's heard that after death, the road through the underworld before burial is terribly arduous. She says she's suffered enough while alive and won't bear to suffer again in death."
The man said: "A forgivable reason, but not a justifiable one. This once only. It must not happen again."
Ma Kuxuan curled his lip, his expression coldly indifferent. He did not shake his head or argue, but neither did he nod or agree.
The man smiled and twisted the knife: "How did it feel to be beaten to the ground by someone your own age?"
Ma Kuxuan blazed with anger: "If that woman hadn't secretly slipped him a knife, would I have lost to Chen Ping'an?! I used only seven-tenths of my strength from start to finish! If I hadn't been playing at cat-and-mouse—"
The man gave a soft, mocking laugh: "Playing cat-and-mouse? Come now—you were trying to kill Chen Ping'an with seven-tenths of your strength while simultaneously making the girl lower her guard. A fine pair of targets in one stroke. Your imagination was running rather ahead of reality."
The boy flushed slightly, his neck stiffening with indignation: "Whose side are you on, anyway—his teacher or mine?!"
The man laughed aloud.
The two resumed walking toward the town. The boy asked: "Compared to Zhengyang Mountain, is Zhenwu Mountain higher or lower?"
The man asked with a smile: "Do you want the truth or a lie?"
The boy rolled his eyes: "What's the lie?"
The man replied: "They're about the same height."
The boy sighed mournfully, feeling he had truly been ill-fated in his teachers. He had acknowledged two masters—one who had died inexplicably in the town on Qilong Lane, and one who possessed modest ability but imposed an absurd number of rules.
The man smiled: "Zhengyang Mountain may appear on the surface to be the fundamental seat of the sword-path, but in the hearts of cultivators across the Baoping Continent, its standing is far beneath its mortal enemy, the Wind-Thunder Garden. So Zhengyang Mountain is not considered a first-rate sect power. Of course, this is merely the surface illusion. In truth, Zhengyang Mountain's foundations runexceptionally deep—it is only that after that old grudge, someone in the Wind-Thunder Garden attained a level of sword-craft far surpassing his peers, so dazzlingly brilliant that Zhengyang Mountain was forced to endure centuries of humiliation in silence..."
Ma Kuxuan said irritably: "No matter how much you hype up Zhengyang Mountain, you can't change the fact that Zhenwu Mountain is inferior to it."
The man laughed: "Ma Kuxuan, you've got it backwards. The gap between Zhengyang Mountain and our Zhenwu Mountain is roughly—another Zhengyang Mountain in between."
The boy blinked, then caught the implication and broke into a grin: "Now that's more like it!"
The man reminded him: "The sect is the sect, and you are yourself."
The small youth grinned: "You've got it backwards too! I mean—if Zhenwu Mountain is so lofty, then once I master the martial arts and want to find sparring partners, I won't have to waste time surrounded by a bunch of silk-stuffed pillows and wine-soaked bags!"
The man let the boast pass with a smile: "How much more convincing would those words sound coming from the Mud Vase Lane boy?"
The boy snapped: "Is this any way to act as a master? Be careful—when someone beats you to death someday, I won't avenge you!"
The man reached behind his back and patted his scabbard, smiling gently: "Except for this sword, I own nothing. When I die, the dao dies with me. What use would your revenge be?"
The boy asked, puzzled: "But there's still Zhenwu Mountain—our shared sect?"
The man played his card close: "Zhenwu Mountain is different from the other sects on the Baoping Continent. You'll understand once you go up the mountain."
The tiger-tally at the man's waist gave a faint jump. He pressed his hand to it for a moment, then said in a low, urgent voice: "We return to town—quickly! Soldier-cultivators sense fortune and calamity, anticipate the future; it is nearly instinct."
The boy rolled his eyes: "Even if the sky falls over that town and the outsiders and the townsfolk slaughter each other into a river of blood—what's that to me? We agreed: I can promise not to take lives carelessly, but I'm absolutely not playing the wandering hero, rescuing the distressed and aiding the desperate."
The man's expression turned grave. He seized the boy's shoulder and ordered: "Silence! Hold your breath!"
Their bodies flickered and vanished, reappearing a dozen zhang away in the next instant—over and over, like the chain of skips Ma Kuxuan had sent across the stream with his pebbles.
---
Aside from the wound on his back where Ma Kuxuan's stone had grazed him, Chen Ping'an had not suffered many surface injuries. But this was not to say he was comfortable—far from it. The worst of it was his left palm, which had been slowed in healing by wading in the stream to feel for stones and catch fish. This exchange of blows with Ma Kuxuan, fist against fist, had been adding frost to snow. When he tore away the old cotton wrappings, even Chen Ping'an had to open a small pouch at his waist, draw out a porcelain vial, and drink the thick medicinal broth inside—the prescription from the Yang family shop of old. Nothing else would do; it merely dulled the pain.
Ning Yao took back the ancient-looking dress-cutting knife, cut a generous strip from the sleeve of her inner shirt, tore it into bandages, and wrapped Chen Ping'an's left hand while the boy sat there drenched in cold sweat. She asked: "That folk remedy from the Yang family shop—does it actually work?"
Chen Ping'an gave his left hand a tentative wave, managing a thin smile: "It works very well. Just now it truly hurt. I've only felt this kind of pain twice before."
Ning Yao scolded: "You can see the white bone through the meat of your palm—of course it hurts! Do you really think you've achieved the golden body of an arhat, or the immaculate frame of a Daoist lord? That's what you get for showing off! Going toe-to-toe with that Ma Kuxuan—he said one-on-one, and fine, one-on-one against both of us, what's wrong with that? Even I, the great Ning Yao, don't consider it shameful. You just had to play the hero. Tell you what—why don't you single-combat the mountain-moving ape of Zhengyang Mountain next, and I'll cheer from the sidelines?"
Chen Ping'an was about to explain his reasoning.
The girl glared suddenly. The boy immediately nodded: "Miss Ning is right."
Ning Yao shot him a sidelong look of exasperation: "Mouth agrees, mind doesn't—did you think I couldn't tell?"
Chen Ping'an let out a sheepish laugh, his eyes darting to the dress-cutting knife in her hand. At first glance it looked quaint and charming; a closer look revealed a cold, razor-sharp edge.
The boy felt the knife and its owner were almost exact opposites.
Ning Yao told Chen Ping'an to raise his right arm and gently slid the knife back into the sheath strapped to his forearm, warning: "Don't push your luck. And don't you dare have designs on this knife!"
Chen Ping'an protested helplessly: "Miss Ning, you think too much."
Ning Yao suddenly pointed at the earliest broken-armed spirit-official statue: "That pitch-black stone base—do you know what kind of stone it's made of?"
Chen Ping'an nodded: "I do. Miss Ning, you've asked the right person. If you follow the stream deep into the mountains—a long walk, at least most of a day—you'll come to a cliff face of black stone, all of this same material. Incredibly hard—a hammer won't chip off even a flake, let alone an axe. There are also several long grooves carved into the cliff, slightly sloped and uneven. Old Yao used to have me take out my axe and sharpen it on those grooves every time we passed. And honestly—after the sharpening, the axe came out gleaming, nothing like before."
Ning Yao rubbed her forehead, caught between laughter and tears: "Using it to sharpen a wood-chopping axe..."
Chen Ping'an's eyes lit up: "Is it valuable?"
Ning Yao said with exasperation: "Even if it were, could you get even a sliver from the entire connected cliff face? Let me tell you—even ordinary immortals couldn't manage it. Only a great sword-immortal of tremendous killing power, willing to sacrifice a divine weapon, could carve out perhaps two three-foot strips—which sword cultivators call 'Dragon-Slaying Pedestals.' Each one is priceless beyond measure."
Chen Ping'an fell into deep thought.
Ning Yao's eyes suddenly lit up: "Right beneath that spirit-official statue—there's an intact whetstone! Big enough to be split into two Dragon-Slaying Pedestals."
Chen Ping'an leapt to his feet as though scalded: "Miss Ning, we can't tear it apart and take it home! That spirit-official lord has already been humbled enough—if we steal even his footing—"
Ning Yao rose abruptly, giving a cold snort: "Steal? Do you look like that kind of person to you?"
Then Chen Ping'an followed the girl to the Daoist spirit-official statue. Standing before the painted clay figure, Ning Yao stepped forward, one hand on her scabbard and the other on her scabbard, her bearing radiant and heroic. She called upward: "I am Ning Yao! Today, if you will gift me these three feet of ground beneath your feet, then when I, Ning Yao, attain the rank of sword-immortal, I will repay you a hundredfold—a thousandfold!"
Chen Ping'an gaped, thinking: Can this even work?
As expected, the clay statue remained utterly still.
The girl did not give up easily and continued: "You won't give it, is that it? Then consider it a loan from me, Ning Yao—ordinary borrowing, to be returned in full."
Ning Yao did not forget to glance at Chen Ping'an and wink: "I'm borrowing, not stealing—understand?"
Chen Ping'an shook his head vigorously and answered honestly: "I don't understand!"
Ning Yao was about to explain to this blockhead Chen Ping'an the stark difference between "stealing" and "borrowing" when he suddenly shouted: "Watch out!"
Even as he spoke, Chen Ping'an's body was already moving, pulling Ning Yao behind him with one swift motion.
The spirit-official statue, having endured centuries of wind and sun, had finally reached its breaking point. It collapsed forward in a thunderous crash, shattering completely—not into a leg here and an arm there, but utterly, including the once-lifelike bearded head.
From the earth it came; to the earth it returned.
As though its journey through the mortal realm was finally complete.
And the strange, wondrous thing about this commotion was the statue's height versus the small gap between the young pair and the stone base—they should have been well within the fall zone. Yet in the end, the clay figure disintegrated into dust, and not a speck reached farther than their feet.
Ning Yao, well-traveled as she was, swallowed hard, looking slightly sheepish. She stared at the swirling dust and muttered: "You couldn't have been more petty—refusing to lend, and then trying to take me down in a mutual destruction?"
Chen Ping'an suddenly shook his head: "This is called the Bodhisattva's Nod. It means yes."
Ning Yao stood shoulder to shoulder with the boy, gazing at the dust, then at the bare black stone pedestal beyond, and finally at Chen Ping'an. She asked tentatively: "Are you sure?"
Chen Ping'an smiled: "I'm sure."
Ning Yao believed him, without a shadow of doubt.
She did not know why herself.
Finally, under Chen Ping'an's guidance, Ning Yao helped gather the clay fragments and debris, moving them into a nearby pit that had already been dug, and covering them with earth.
Chen Ping'an bowed his head and murmured: "Whether human or god—once in the earth, at peace."
Ning Yao bowed her head too, whispering: "At peace."
When it was done, she asked curiously: "Chen Ping'an, is this a local custom of your town? A rule handed down by your ancestors?"
Chen Ping'an shook his head: "No—it's just how I feel."
Ning Yao raised an eyebrow.
Chen Ping'an asked with a smile: "Miss Ning, doesn't it feel good to have done this?"
Ning Yao shook her head too: "I don't feel anything."
Chen Ping'an scratched his head and gazed at the black stone base: "It's called a Dragon-Slaying Pedestal?"
Ning Yao hummed in confirmation: "Those on the martial path might call it a whetstone or a sword-sharpening stone. Only mountain sword cultivators use the term Dragon-Slaying Pedestal."
Ning Yao turned to look toward the southwest, her gaze distant, and said softly: "Back home it's also called a sword-sharpening stone. Everyone has one—different sizes, usually about the size of a fist. Some sword cultivators from declining families with low cultivation have only a thumb-sized shard, and they still treasure it more than their own lives. It's not unheard of. My family has one too—a large one..."
Chen Ping'an asked quietly: "How large?"
The girl murmured: "Probably bigger than your house in Mud Vase Lane."
The boy's face went blank with shock, then filled with pure envy: "Miss Ning, your family really is rich! And such a huge sword-sharpening stone—no need to worry about it being stolen either. How wonderful. Unlike me, who can barely save a handful of coins and can never sleep soundly no matter where I hide them."
The homesick girl, who had been looking a little sad, brightened at once. She smiled: "This sword-sharpening stone—half for each of us!"
The boy waved his hands: "What would I do with it? I have an axe at home, but what use do I have for such a precious whetstone? Every time I sharpened it, my heart would ache. What's the point? You take the whole thing, Miss Ning. Besides—didn't you want to ask Master Ruan to help you forge a sword? You could offer the other half as payment..."
Ning Yao sighed helplessly: "Chen Ping'an, are you genuinely foolish, or just missing a heart?"
Chen Ping'an thought about it and smiled: "Miss Ning, just think of me as a hopeless do-gooder."
Ning Yao suddenly pointed at the boy, her face breaking into a look of sudden realization. She squinted and smiled: "Chen Ping'an, confess—aren't you secretly plotting to turn 'Miss Ning' into your wife someday? Then everything would be yours! That little abacus of yours—click-click-click—impressive!"
The boy felt tears of frustration forming, the corners of his mouth twitching. What was it Song Jixin had once said? Give a dog a bad name and hang him?
Ning Yao laughed heartily: "Look at you—scared out of your wits. I was joking."
Chen Ping'an sighed, feeling his heart was rather tired.
Ning Yao suddenly straightened up, her expression serious: "Watch out! My flying sword is on its way back!"
Chen Ping'an braced himself as though facing a mortal enemy.