At the Ma family ancestral home in Apricot Blossom Lane, the golden-armored deity returned to the courtyard after wandering the entire town. Strangely, despite being such a towering divine presence walking freely across the land, no mortal soul had noticed a thing.
The youth Ma Kuxuan crouched on the front steps. Upon seeing the golden-armored god, his face lit with desperate hope. The Zhenwu Mountain soldier-cultivator asked: "How did it go?"
The deity stood clad in resplendent golden armor, his bearing solemn and majestic. His lips moved slightly, but Ma Kuxuan heard nothing. The youth turned anxiously toward the swordsman inside the house, who sighed and said: "He says your grandmother committed too many sins in her lifetime. Before she died, her three souls and seven spirits had already withered alongside her body—like a candle guttering in the wind. So after her death, the vital soul decayed at the same time. Furthermore, this town differs from other places; it naturally repels ghosts and specters. That is why he could not locate any remnant of your grandmother's soul."
Ma Kuxuan's face twisted into a savage mask. He threw his head back and roared at the armored god: "I don't care what methods you use—go find my grandmother's soul and bring it back!"
The Zhenwu Mountain swordsman's expression changed drastically, terrified that Ma Kuxuan might offend this deity surnamed Yin. He was about to intervene when the golden-armored god, for reasons unknown, suddenly spoke in the official tongue of the Eastern Baoping Continent: "It is not that I am unwilling—truly, it cannot be done."
After speaking, the majestic general shrouded in golden light turned his gaze upon the Zhenwu Mountain swordsman inside the house. The latter drew a deep breath, cupped his hands as though holding incense, and bowed three times toward the divine figure in the courtyard. With each bow, a thin thread of pale golden qi drifted from the swordsman's mud-pillar acupoint and was gently drawn into the god's nostrils.
After the third offering, the deity rose into the sky and vanished in a brilliant pillar of light.
The swordsman's face had gone deathly pale. He pulled up a chair and sat down, exhaling a turbid breath.
This, then, was the true meaning behind the old saying: "Easy to invite the gods, hard to send them away."
Ma Kuxuan withdrew his gaze with cold indifference, turned, and walked inside. He sat beside the lifeless corpse, seized the old woman's withered hand, and stared fixedly at her face. The boy said nothing for a long time.
The sword-bearing man unfastened the tiger-tally from his waist. Its hue had dimmed somewhat from before. He tucked it slowly into his sleeve. After resting a moment, he rose and walked not to the boy's side but to the threshold, sitting with his back to Ma Kuxuan. He spoke in measured tones: "Your grandmother was struck by a slap at the doorway. The force was tremendous—she was flung into the house and killed on impact. What follows may be hard to hear, but you deserve to know the truth. The one who struck her was most likely a cultivator who did not know his own strength. Your grandmother's body was frail, and so she died. Since it was a cultivator's hand, the cause is probably connected to Chen Ping'an of Mud Vase Lane and that outsider girl—or, more likely, the young woman whose water-observing state of mind you deliberately disrupted at the covered bridge, who struck back in retaliation. The former is unlikely. The latter is almost certain. You went to the mass grave to kill Chen Ping'an out of filial devotion to your grandmother, settling karmic debts. But you never imagined that the moment you stepped out, someone would come knocking at your door with violence in mind."
Ma Kuxuan's trembling hand reached out, the back of his fingers brushing gently against his grandmother's cheek—swollen and darkening to a bruised blue-black.
The boy whispered: "So I'm the one who killed my grandmother, aren't I?"
The sword-bearing man replied: "By mortal reckoning, yes and no. But if you consider—"
Ma Kuxuan would not hear more. He stood, his face twisting into a savage grin. "I can't massacre cities or topple kingdoms. I can't slaughter the innocent. I can't do this, I can't do that! So tell me—can I kill for revenge or can I not?!"
Without waiting for an answer, he pressed on: "If even that is forbidden, then what is the use of being a soldier-cultivator? Why didn't I just become a great demon lord who does whatever pleases him? Why didn't I agree to those Daoist monks and go to whatever sect they mentioned?!"
The man hesitated briefly, then said: "As long as you can bear all the consequences yourself, that is enough."
"Like today."
"There is more—perhaps I never made it fully clear before. When it comes to killing, every person has their own line. How many you can kill and how many I can kill are entirely different matters. It is not merely a difference in strength and realm. A person's temperament matters greatly as well. I might kill a hundred people, and every last one deserved it. You might kill only two or three, and some among them should not have died."
Ma Kuxuan let out a derisive snort. "Whether I kill and how I kill—why would I ask you? As if I need your help! I almost forgot—I'm not even an official disciple of Zhenwu Mountain yet!"
The boy lowered his gaze to the old woman's face, then turned and shouted toward the eight-immortals table in the main hall: "Get going—lead the way!"
A black cat darted out from beneath the table, and Ma Kuxuan gave chase, both vanishing through the door.
The man showed no alarm. He had come from a nation that, a hundred and fifty years ago, had plunged into civil war. Mountains shattered, rivers ran red—a century of warfare that ranked as the most devastating in the entire Eastern Baoping Continent. Ten million households at the war's start; when the new dynasty finally ended the catastrophe, fewer than eight hundred thousand remained. So many young children grew up believing that when people died, there was simply no need for burial rites.
The man had been one of those children.
He rose slowly. Rather than warn Ma Kuxuan that the culprit had already been driven from the town, he found himself wanting to pose a question to Master Ruan instead.
Why had Buddhism, which had been in decline across the Eastern Baoping Continent for a thousand years—honored only as a state religion in minor kingdoms—seemed to wield such visible karmic consequences in this small town, despite being the weakest force here?
The soldier-cultivator followed the boy at a distance. Even now that Ma Kuxuan was a disciple of Zhenwu Mountain, he would not interfere too much in the youth's personal vendettas. On the battlefield, they lived and died together. On the path of cultivation, one bore the weight of life and death alone.
Of course, nothing was absolute. When Ma Kuxuan had nearly died at Chen Ping'an's hand, the man had intervened. Two reasons lay behind it. First, deep down he refused to let a talent like Ma Kuxuan perish so soon—he wanted the boy tempered by Zhenwu Mountain, his gifts and temperament both refined, so that he might become one of the great figures of the military school and shine brilliantly in the coming era of upheaval. Second, Mr. Qi himself had spoken up, saying that the contest between Ma Kuxuan and Chen Ping'an should end with victory and defeat, not with death.
At the time, the man had assumed Mr. Qi feared for the Mud Vase Lane boy's life. Only later did he realize that was not the case at all.
He followed at a distance and noticed that after the initial surge of hot-blooded fury, Ma Kuxuan's stride grew progressively slower and more natural, until at last the boy looked like any ordinary youth out for a stroll. But when the black cat leapt from a rooftop to the boy's shoulder and then to the ground, spun around, and bolted away—apparently signaling that the target had been found—the youth broke into a jog, and his bearing shifted once more.
The spring rain fell lightly, enough to quicken the steps of passersby but nowhere near enough to drive them under the eaves.
A young couple in fine clothing walked from Qilong Lane toward the main street, both beaming with the flush of good fortune, each having obtained some small providence. But a youth behind them—fifty paces back—had already begun to run. At twenty paces, he shouted: "Hey!"
The moment the young man turned around, Ma Kuxuan's fist was already descending with every ounce of strength behind it.
A single blow to the head.
The young man flew backward, crashing onto the street. His body twitched faintly, with no sign of any effort to rise.
After the punch, Ma Kuxuan's feet touched the ground exactly alongside the young woman.
Ma Kuxuan pivoted. His left hand lashed out like lightning toward her neck. The woman—a cultivator who stood half a head taller than him—crumpled to the muddy ground with a sickening thud. Her skull struck the sodden earth with a heavy crack.
Ma Kuxuan planted one foot on her forehead, gazed down at her dazed face, and bent low, speaking in the refined official tongue: "I know the real culprit is no longer in the town. But that's all right—I can find them myself."
The young woman's beauty was striking, but her eyes were now webbed with burst capillaries, blood seeping from her nose and ears. She stared up at the dark-skinned youth towering above her, her face a mask of terror.
The boy's expression was savage. "I, Ma Kuxuan, ruined your cultivation state of mind. If you strike back afterward and hack me to bits with a thousand cuts, I'll accept my fate—I won't hold it against you. Even if your revenge fails, if I'm in a good mood, I might even let you off and give you another go. In my view, the world should be exactly this clean and simple."
The woman was clearly a prodigy of her sect, unaccustomed to such scenes. She trembled in tears, probably too frightened to remember a single word the demoniac youth had uttered. She could only beg: "Please let me go, I'm begging you. Your grandmother—I didn't kill her, I had nothing to do with it..."
The boy pressed his foot down harder, slowly driving the side of her head into the mud. "Do you know what I hate most about your kind? That after causing such harm, you can act as though it means nothing! Not a shred of guilt—not a single shred..."
His voice cracked with a sob, his eyes burning with bone-deep hatred.
The woman strained to reach up and clutch Ma Kuxuan's ankle, her gaze full of desperate pleading. "Let me go. My grandfather is the commander of the Tide Iron Cavalry. I am his most beloved granddaughter. I can compensate you—whatever you want, I'll agree..."
The boy's lips peeled back in a mirthless smile. "Oh? What a coincidence—I am the grandson of my grandmother Ma Lanhua!"
He lifted his foot slightly, then dragged the sole of his shoe across her delicate cheek. "The Tide Iron Cavalry, is it? Just wait—I'll play with you all in good time."
Ma Kuxuan withdrew his foot and turned his head to survey both directions. To his left, the Zhenwu Mountain man stood at a distance, sword across his back. To his right, an elegant young gentleman holding an oil-paper umbrella stood over the fallen wretch, gazing toward Ma Kuxuan.
Ma Kuxuan's instincts told him the man with the umbrella had been waiting for him to kill the woman at his feet.
Ma Kuxuan suddenly crouched down. The woman tried to scramble away, but the drenched youth seized her by the throat. Once she froze, he released his grip and slapped her cheek once, twice, with his open palm. He grinned: "Remember my name. It's Ma Kuxuan. I will come for you someday. And that person who's already left town—you should thank him properly. Otherwise, the two of us wouldn't be so close."
Ma Kuxuan spat on her face at last.
The youth rose and walked toward the Zhenwu Mountain swordsman, asking in a low voice: "Who was that man?"
The swordsman answered calmly: "He is the future mountain master of the Guan Lake Academy—one of the seventy-two Confucian academies. His name is Cui Minghuang. His background is illustrious. He came here to retrieve an object of suppression as well. A man of deep scheming—you should be cautious. If nothing has changed, you have already caught his eye."
Ma Kuxuan frowned. "This man—he feels nothing like Mr. Qi from the schoolhouse."
The swordsman gave a wry laugh. "Did you really think many scholars could hold fast to their original hearts, the way Mr. Qi does?"
He paused briefly, then continued: "The outside world says Mr. Qi's realm fell and his state of mind shattered after his own master's disgrace. That is why he agreed to be banished to this small world, enduring the perpetual erosion of heaven's mandate while doing as he pleases. I'm not so sure about that."
Ma Kuxuan had no interest in such matters. He turned to look and saw the umbrellaed gentleman crouching beside the woman, apparently offering gentle consolation.
Ma Kuxuan turned back and walked shoulder to shoulder with the sword-bearing man, his steps heavy, returning toward Apricot Blossom Lane.
The man spoke: "You've taken a serious beating. Don't let any hidden ailments linger, or they'll hinder your cultivation later."
Ma Kuxuan wiped the rain from his face and asked suddenly: "What is this town of ours, to those outsiders?"
The swordsman replied: "Like the creek outside town, I suppose. All manner of fish and dragons mix together—shallows where the water barely reaches the knee, and depths with no bottom to be found."
Ma Kuxuan asked: "Have outsiders ever drowned here before, when they came seeking treasure and trials?"
The swordsman smiled and shook his head. "Hardly ever. It was usually a matter of mutual benefit—everyone walks away happy. This time is an exception."
---
At the Yang family shop, a spirited young woman carried a boy on her back and strode over the threshold, asking a middle-aged shop assistant: "Is Old Man Yang in?"
The man, sensing the young woman's commanding bearing, did not dare be remiss. He nodded: "He's in the back courtyard—just finished sorting herbs. Do you need something?"
The young woman nodded, her voice grave: "We know Old Man Yang well. We've come to ask him for a remedy."
The assistant hesitated briefly but did not press further. He led them to the main room of the back courtyard, where an old man sat tapping his long-stemmed pipe gently against the tabletop. In the corner, at a distance, stood a disheveled man—the gatekeeper of the town's eastern side, the bachelor Zheng Dafeng. Perhaps one creature tames another, for when Zheng Dafeng encountered Old Man Yang, he could scarcely draw a bold breath, all his usual slippery cunning and shamelessness gone without a trace.
Old Man Yang waved his pipe, and Zheng Dafeng scurried out of the room, taking the shop assistant with him.
Old Man Yang looked past the young woman to the familiar boy on her back—Chen Ping'an.
Chen Ping'an's lips were white, his entire body trembling, both arms wrapped around the girl's neck as though clinging to life itself.
Old Man Yang rose unhurriedly, one hand behind his back, the other holding his pipe. He approached the young woman and met the boy's eyes. His voice was hoarse: "How many times have I told you—the lower your birth and the thinner your fortune, the more you must value your life and your blessings. And yet the moment you meet the slightest setback, you're ready to die. If that's the case, why didn't you just go with your mother when she passed? Wouldn't that have been simpler? Your Master Yao was right—he used to say, 'See a child at three, and you know the man.' You were never meant to live long. Even if he taught you fine skills and true techniques, it would be a waste. You'd still end up buried in the dirt before your time."
Ning Yao was stunned. In her mind, Old Man Yang should have been a kindly, warm-faced elder with a perpetual smile.
Who could have imagined such a caustic, sharp-tongued old man?
The elder remarked with a mocking edge: "Hurts, does it?"
Chen Ping'an nodded slightly, long since past the ability to speak.
When he had woken on the girl's back, the medicine's effects had likely begun to fade. The pain had actually started then, but Chen Ping'an had thought he could hold on a while longer. By the time Ning Yao carried him near the covered bridge, he knew he could endure no more. Ning Yao had not even stopped to retrieve the blade by the streamside before rushing him to the Yang family shop.
The old man chuckled. "Hurts? Then endure it properly."
He glanced at Ning Yao and snapped: "Let him sit on the bench himself!"
He muttered under his breath: "Carried about by a little girl—no sense of shame."
Ning Yao swallowed her fury and carefully set Chen Ping'an down on the bench. The moment she let go, the boy swayed and nearly toppled.
She reached out to steady him, but though he could not speak, his eyes told her plainly: no help needed.
The old man drew on his homemade pipe, studying the boy's body and aura. He clicked his tongue: "A proper ruin, that's what you are. Well—clear conscience, at least. That's something."
The old man was utterly unmoved by the boy's searing pain. "Liu Xianyang has the fate of a blessed man. And yours—do you not know your own wretched fortune by now? He dies once, and that's nearly enough to match ten of your deaths. Understand?"
Ning Yao could no longer bear the elder's veiled barbs. She said firmly: "Old Master Yang, can you please relieve Chen Ping'an's pain first?"
The hunched old man turned his head and regarded the girl with a sidelong glance, asking in an offhand manner: "Your man?"
Ning Yao glared at him.
The old man paid her no further attention. He turned back to the boy and sank into his own thoughts.
At last, he pursed his lips, sighed, and tapped Chen Ping'an once on the shoulder with his pipe stem, then twice on each arm and leg.
In that instant—
The boy reclined on his side upon the bench, propping his head with one elbow.
The old man commanded softly: "Slumber!"
Chen Ping'an's eyes closed at once. He fell into sleep immediately, and soon his snoring filled the room like rolling thunder.