Apricot Blossom Lane had a well. It was called Iron Chain Well. An iron chain, thick as a strong man's forearm, had hung down into the well's mouth year after year, through ages untold. When this well had first been dug, who had placed this chain there, and what idle or peculiar mind had conceived of it — none could say. Even the oldest elder in town could offer no clear account.
Rumor had it that a troublemaker once sought to test just how long the chain truly was. Ignoring every warning from the elders — ignoring that unwritten rule passed mouth to mouth, that "for every foot of chain pulled from the well, one year is shorn from your allotted span" — the man simply paid no heed to such superstition. He heaved and hauled for an incense stick's time, dragging out a huge pile of chain, and still there was no sign of its end. Exhausted, he let the pulled chain coil beside the well's windlass and declared he would return the next day, refusing to be defeated by such nonsense. That very night, upon returning home, blood streamed from every orifice of his face, and he died violently in his bed. More chilling still — his eyes would not close. No matter how his family struggled, the corpse's eyes remained stubbornly open. At last, an old man who had lived by that well for generations had the family carry the body to the well's side. Before the corpse's very eyes, the old man lowered the chain back into the well. Only when the entire length of chain once more hung straight and vanished into the dark water did the dead man's eyes finally shut.
An old man and a child walked slowly toward that Iron Chain Well. The child — a little fellow still trailing two rivulets of snot — told this story with a clarity and coherence that belied his age. He could not have been studying at the village school for more than half a year. Looking up at the old man who carried a great white bowl in one hand, the child sniffed sharply, pulling back his two snot-snakes, and demanded, "I finished telling the story. Now you show me what is in that bowl, all right?"
The old man chuckled. "No rush, no rush. Wait until we are sitting beside the well. Then I will let you see to your heart's content."
The child "kindly" warned him, "No going back on your word, or may you die a wretched death. The moment you reach Iron Chain Well you will tumble headfirst straight in. And I will not be fishing out the body for you. Or else a sudden thunderclap will strike you into a slab of charred coal, and I will take a rock and slowly chip away..."
Listening to the child rattle off this endless string of venomous curses without once repeating himself, the old man felt a genuine headache coming on. He quickly cut in, "I will definitely show you. By the way — where did you learn to talk like that?"
The child answered with absolute finality, "From my mother, of course!"
The old man sighed with deep feeling. "How outstanding is the human spirit bred of this land. Such profound virtue gathered by these hills and waters."
The child halted abruptly, frowning. "Are you cursing at me? I know some people like to say nice words backwards. Song Jixin is like that!"
The old man hastily denied it, then changed the subject. "Do strange things often happen in this town?"
The child nodded.
"Tell me about them."
The child pointed a finger at the old man and said with utter seriousness, "For instance — you, carrying that big white bowl, yet refusing to let anyone drop copper coins into it. Before you even finished telling your stories, my mother said you did not tell them badly — all cloudy and misty, which meant you were clearly a seasoned swindler. So she told me to send you a few coppers. But you stubbornly refused them. What exactly is in that bowl?"
The old man did not know whether to laugh or cry.
So it was the storyteller who had spoken beneath the old locust tree. He had gotten this child to lead him to Apricot Blossom Lane to see that well. At first the child had been unwilling, until the old man claimed that his great white bowl held a profound secret — some rare and wondrous treasure. The child, born wild and restless, described by his parents as one who had forgotten to grow a backside when reincarnating, had loved following Liu Xianyang and his gang of idlers around since he was tiny. Yet this same little brat, for the sake of hooking a single eel or loach, could squat motionless under the scorching sun for half an hour with a patience that defied belief.
Thus, when the old man spoke of what lay within that white bowl, the child bit the hook at once.
Even when the old man first made a peculiar request — that he try lifting the child to see just how heavy he was, whether he had yet reached the weight of forty jin — the child agreed without hesitation. Being lifted a few times would not cost him a piece of flesh, after all.
But something happened that made the child roll his eyes again and again. The old man, cradling his bowl in his left palm, strained every ounce of his strength with his right hand to lift the child. He tried five or six times, and not once did he succeed. The child finally cut his eyes at the old man's spindly arms and legs, shook his head, and thought to himself: Both of them skinny as poles, yet that pauper Chen Ping'an's strength was far greater than this old coot's. But remembering he had not yet laid eyes on what was inside the white bowl, the child — who seemed to have been born with an early-awakened mind — held back from saying the kind of words that would leave the old man in an awkward spot.
One had to understand: in Clay Bottle Alley and Apricot Blossom Lane, when it came to quarreling and cursing — especially the art of speaking with barbed, insinuating words — this child ranked third. Second was the scholar Song Jixin. First was this child's own mother.
The old man arrived at the well but did not sit upon its rim.
The ancient well was built of blue bricks.
Without visible cause, the old man's breathing grew heavy.
The child walked to the well, turned his back to its mouth, and hopped backward, landing his rear squarely on the rim.
The sight sent cold sweat streaming down the old man's back. One moment of carelessness and that little brat would tumble straight in. Given the history and depth of this ancient well, even recovering his body would be a trial.
The old man slowly advanced a few steps, narrowing his eyes as he bent to study that iron chain, one end of which was knotted firmly to the base of the windlass.
"A blessed site of feng shui — preeminent across an entire continent."
The old man swept his gaze around him, overcome by a hundred tangled emotions, and thought to himself: Who knows into whose hands this mighty artifact will fall in the end?
He stretched out his free left hand and stared at his palm.
The lines of his palm were mottled and complex, crisscrossing like the veins of a withered leaf.
But among them, a single new crease was slowly extending — like a crack spreading across the surface of fine porcelain.
When a divine being reads a palm, it is like reading mountains and rivers.
Only, this old man was merely examining his own fate.
He frowned and let out a soft, wondering sigh. "In barely half a day, things have already reached such a miserable state. Then those few, surely..."
The child had already climbed onto the well's rim and was standing there, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at the old man. "Are you going to show me that white bowl or not?!"
The old man said helplessly, "Hurry, get down. Hurry down. I will show you the bowl."
The child regarded him with half-belief, but at last hopped down from the well's rim.
The old man hesitated a moment, then his expression grew solemn. "Little one — you and I have a bond of fate. There is no harm in letting you see the mystery of this bowl. But after you have seen it, you must not speak of it to anyone else. Not even to that mother of yours. If you can do this, I will let you witness it. If you cannot, even if you curse me behind my back, I will not let you see a single glance."
The child blinked. "Begin."
The old man made his way formally to the well's edge, then glanced down — and discovered the little whelp had now seated himself with legs spread wide upon the rim. The old man deeply regretted ever provoking this lawless brat.
He reined in his wandering thoughts and faced the well's mouth. His five fingers gripped the bottom of the great white bowl. Slowly, so slowly the movement was barely perceptible, his palm began to tilt.
The child felt he had waited a good long while and still saw no sign of movement from the bowl above him. The old man remained frozen in that exact pose.
Just as the child's twin snot-snakes were about to reach the corners of his mouth, just as his patience was on the verge of snapping —
A stream of water, no thicker than a man's finger, spilled from the white bowl and plunged into the depths of the well without the faintest sound.
The child bared his teeth, ready to burst into curses.
Then he suddenly shut his mouth, his face registering surprise. Moments later, that surprise had shifted to bewilderment. And moments after that, the child was seized by pure terror. He snapped to his senses, scrambled down from the well's rim in a single bound, and fled toward his own home.
Because — the amount of water the old man had poured from that white bowl into the well had long since exceeded what even the largest water vat could hold.
And still the water kept pouring.
The child knew with bone-deep certainty that he had seen a ghost in broad daylight.
---
Liu Xianyang casually snapped off a branch just beginning to bud by the roadside and began practicing swordsmanship. His whole body spun like a rolling cartwheel, whirling as if possessed, utterly uncaring that the dust from his new boots rose in clouds from the path.
Once past the covered bridge Magistrate Song had funded, and another three or four li southward, he would reach the forge run by Master Ruan and his daughter. Liu Xianyang had always been arrogant at heart, but a single sentence from Master Ruan had left him bowing in wholehearted admiration. "We came here," the man had said, "for the sole purpose of setting up a furnace and forging swords."
Forging swords — that was good! The mere thought of holding a real sword one day sent excitement surging through Liu Xianyang. He flung away the branch and broke into a run, bellowing and howling like a ghost, as if possessed.
Recalling those boxing stances Master Ruan had taught him in private, he began practicing them as he ran — and to his own eyes, his form was passable and his movements fierce.
The covered bridge drew nearer.
On the northern steps sat four figures. A voluptuous, ripely alluring woman held a boy in a great red robe in her lap. The child's chin was tilted high, like a general fresh from a grand victory. At the far end of the steps sat a towering old man, his hair white as frost, murmuring words of comfort to a girl who was fuming with fury. She was exquisitely delicate, as if carved from the finest porcelain, her tender skin translucent under the sunlight — so translucent one could faintly trace the blue veins beneath.
The two children had just finished quarreling. The girl was on the verge of tears; the boy, all the more triumphant.
The old man was barrel-chested and immense, like a small mountain. Beside him, the woman cast an apologetic glance that the stern patriarch ignored as if unseen.
Standing at the foot of the steps was a young man surnamed Lu — Lu Zhengchun, the eldest grandson of the Lu family head and the direct-line heir. Perhaps it was true that the land itself could nurture its people, for those born and raised in this town invariably had finer features and more handsome faces than men and women from elsewhere. But Lu Zhengchun had long since hollowed himself out with wine and women, and in the eyes of the four seated on the steps, his appearance was all the more unsightly. The Lu family's dragon kilns, both in number and scale, were the finest in town. Among all the local clans, the Lus had sent the most sons beyond the town's borders to establish new branches elsewhere. Yet here was Lu Zhengchun, who had once swaggered so imperiously through the town — his expression now tightly constrained, his face drained of all color, every nerve strung taut as if the least slip would bring his entire household down and his nine generations to execution.
The boy spoke words that no townsman could understand. "Mother — that little worm surnamed Liu, his ancestor was truly that..."
Just as he was about to utter a name, the woman clapped her hand over his mouth. "Before you left the house, how many times did your father warn you? Here, do not lightly speak anyone's name or title."
The boy pried away her hand, his eyes blazing, and lowered his voice. "His family truly passed down that treasure armor and sword scripture, generation after generation?"
The woman fondly stroked her young son's head and said softly, "The Lu family staked half their ancestral records to guarantee it. Both items are still hidden in that youth's home."
The boy suddenly wheedled, "Mother, Mother — could we trade treasures with that little white family? That treasure armor we have been scheming for is simply too ugly! Think about it — if we got that sword scripture instead, we could slay our enemies with flying swords in our dreams, striking from the darkness without a trace of our presence! Would that not be a thousand times better than some turtle shell?"
Before the woman could explain the deeper history behind the matter, the girl beside them was already shouting in fury. "You — presuming to covet our long-lost mountain-guardian treasure?! We came here to rightfully reclaim what is ours — back to the hands of its true owners! Not like some shameless creatures who have come to rob, to steal, to beg!"
The boy turned and made a face, then sneered. "Stinking girl — you yourself just said 'mountain-guardian' treasure. What does mountain sect seniority matter? So what!"
His expression abruptly shifted from mockery to solemnity. He rose from his mother's lap and looked down at the girl with pity, like a schoolmaster lecturing an ignorant child. "The Great Dao of long life — we walk against heaven's decree. All hinges on a single word: contend. If you cannot even grasp this principle, how will you inherit your family's legacy in the future? How will you uphold your ancestors' command? You descendants of Righteous Sun Mountain — every thirty years, each generation must raise Righteous Sun Mountain by at least one hundred zhang. Stinking girl — do you think your grandfather to your father have done this lightly or easily?"
The girl's spirit seemed to wilt. She hung her head dejectedly, unable to meet the boy's eyes.
The towering old man with hair like frost spoke in a deep, rumbling voice. "Madam. Whatever the innocence of a child's tongue, should this cause our young mistress's Dao-heart to be clouded, you yourself may weigh the consequences."
The woman gave a bewitching smile and drew her dark-faced son back into her embrace. With a needle wrapped in silk, she replied, "Children squabbling is only children squabbling. Why must Senior Yuan take it so seriously? Let us not damage the thousand-year friendship between our two houses."
But the old man's temper was as unyielding as forged steel. He shot back directly, "Righteous Sun Mountain — founded two thousand six hundred years ago! We repay kindness with kindness, though a thousand years have passed, we still remember. And we repay grievance with grievance — no grudge of ours ever survives the night!"
The woman smiled but did not pursue the argument.
This journey to the small town — everyone bore a heavy mission on their shoulders. She, especially, had staked her own life and safety, her son's future, and the foundation of her maternal house — all three, hazarded on a single desperate gamble.
This woman, though plainly dressed, bore herself with a grace that was nothing short of regal. Only — the common folk of the town had never seen enough of the world to recognize the deeper signs.
From beginning to end, Lu Zhengchun kept his back turned to the steps of the covered bridge.
The first time he had met these honored guests at the Lu family mansion — his own younger brother, merely young and full of reckless spirit, had lacked the discipline to resist a single stolen glance at the beautiful woman's bosom. Their grandfather, trembling with fury, had the boy dragged away and beaten to death right there in the courtyard. Cotton had been stuffed into his mouth during the execution, so Lu Zhengchun, continuing to discuss affairs in the great hall with his grandfather, had heard neither his brother's wretched screams nor glimpsed the bloodied ruin. When the discussions at last concluded and they all set out together to find that young man surnamed Liu — Lu Zhengchun, stepping from the hall, saw that the courtyard had already been scrubbed clean of all traces of blood.
The four honored guests from afar — even the two children, golden boy and jade girl as they were — had shown not the slightest sign of disquiet. To them, it was as natural as heaven and earth.
In that moment, Lu Zhengchun was lost in a daze.
A man had died. How was it less than a dog dying?
And that man — he was a Lu. Just the night before last, sharing wine with his older brother to steel their courage, he had brimmed with elation. He spoke of soaring to greatness and bringing glory to their house. The two brothers would no longer be frogs at the bottom of a well; together they would carve out a world beyond.
Even after leaving the Lu mansion, Lu Zhengchun's mind had remained a blank.
From that point on, fear began to take root in Lu Zhengchun's heart. When the strangers asked him questions, his voice shook. When he led the way, his steps drifted. He knew very well that he was making a laughingstock of himself, disappointing his grandfather and disgracing his clan. But the young man simply could not control his terror. It felt as if cold seeped from his very bones.
The year before, at year's end, his grandfather had led the two brothers down to a hidden chamber and revealed a secret. The Lu family would soon serve certain exalted figures — a blessing beyond measure. They must handle the matter with extreme care. If they succeeded, the Lu family would turn the reward into a stepping stone for the brothers' advancement. With just a nod from these honored ones, a broad road paved with sunshine would open before them. They would rise straight to the clouds, ultimately obtaining riches and glory beyond imagination.
It was only then that Lu Zhengchun understood why he and his brother had been made to learn so many strange regional dialects since childhood.
Now, watching Liu Xianyang draw closer and closer to the covered bridge, Lu Zhengchun was suddenly seething with hatred for this man — the man he and his friends had once cornered and beaten like a dead dog in that narrow lane. And they would have done more, too — all had been arranged, they were about to pull down their pants and bestow a golden shower upon that insolent boy on the ground — if only that little bastard hadn't run to the mouth of the alley shrieking that someone was dead.
Even now, Lu Zhengchun could not fathom why these lofty figures held Liu Xianyang in such high regard. He could make neither head nor tail of what they called treasure armor and sword scripture, Righteous Sun Mountain, the Great Dao of Long Life, or that talk of contending for fate-chances and seizing fortune.
But one thing Lu Zhengchun was certain of: he wanted Liu Xianyang to die right here.
As for the true reason — Lu Zhengchun dared not admit it, and could not bear to examine it.
Deep in his heart, Lu Zhengchun could never bear the thought of that dog Liu Xianyang — lowly and base — seeing him, the eldest young master of the Lu family, silk-robed and well-fed, reduced to the very same sorry state as Liu himself.
There could be no greater humiliation.
The beautiful woman gazed ahead and murmured, "He has come."
The tall youth had come all this way practicing his boxing. By now his punches were fierce and fast, faster and faster, to the point where his own body was dragged along by the momentum of his fists, stumbling as he moved.
In the eyes of a connoisseur, within that embryonic fist-intent which was only just beginning to take shape, one could already detect a hint of the grand style — the fusion of firmness and yielding, mastery in its infancy.
In the martial path of boxing, there is a verse of foundational wisdom: "Without grasping the true meaning of the fist, a hundred years and still a man outside the gate. Once grasping the true meaning of the fist, ten years and even gods and ghosts are struck down."
The beautiful woman breathed a sigh of relief. As expected, this youth surnamed Liu was the one they sought. His talent was indeed extraordinary. Even among the immortal mansions of their own realms, such natural endowments were not to be dismissed lightly.
Of course, in the sweeping world that she and the white-haired old man inhabited — the most common of sights were precisely people like him.
The beautiful woman rose to her feet and addressed Lu Zhengchun below. "Go and tell that youth — ask him what he wants in exchange for those two family heirlooms, the armor and the tome."
Turning around, Lu Zhengchun simultaneously ducked his head and bowed. In that same foreign tongue which the townsfolk could never hope to understand, he answered, "Yes, madam."
The woman added carelessly, "Remember — when you speak with that youth, be gentle in demeanor. Observe the proper measure."
The boy thrust out a finger, looking down from his high perch, his voice carrying a cold, sharp edge. "If you ruin this great endeavor, I shall have you flayed and your tendons drawn. Then I shall refine your very soul into a lampwick! And before that lamp gutters out, you shall beg for death every moment of every hour!"
Lu Zhengchun jolted as if struck by lightning. Bending even lower, he said in helpless terror, "This humble one will never botch the task!"
The girl, feeling she had at last won back a point, let out a laugh of contempt. "Before these common mortals — how mighty and noble! Yet I wonder — who was it, on our journey here, who was publicly called a bastard by a fellow cultivator, and dared not even strike back?"
The towering old man, who had detested that mother-son pair of opportunists from the very start, added another stroke. "Young mistress, you have misstated. It was not that he dared not strike back — it was that he dared not even answer back."
The boy in his vivid scarlet robe ground his teeth, glaring death at the girl. His face was dark and ghastly. But he uttered no harsh words. Instead, after a long pause, his face cracked into a brilliant smile — more brilliant than ever.
The woman's gaze, however, never wavered from the road ahead. Her expression was as calm as drifting clouds. As for whether she nursed any grudge in her heart — heaven alone knew.
The girl let out a cold snort, ran down the steps, and crouched by the creek, peering down into the water to watch the fish.
Now and then, schools of carp drifted through her sight — red ones, blue ones, in numbers now more, now fewer.
Some of the old-timers in town, when idling beneath the old locust tree, would say that in thunderstorm weather, when they passed this covered bridge, they had glimpsed a golden-scaled carp swimming beneath it.
But one elder said the golden-scaled fish was no larger than a palm. Another insisted the strange carp was enormous — at least the length of half a man, all but a creature on the verge of becoming a spirit.
So many different tales, the old folk quarreling endlessly — and in the end, not a single listening child was willing to believe any of it.
Right now, the girl was staring fixedly at that crystal-clear creek, both hands cupping her chin, her gaze unblinking.
The white-haired old man crouched beside her and said gently, "Young mistress, if the Lu family did not lie, this great fated opportunity has already fallen into another's pocket."
The girl turned her head and bared her teeth in a grin. "Grandpa Yuan — there might be two of them!"
As she grinned, she revealed the comical sight of a missing front tooth.
Catching herself instantly, she clapped a hand over her mouth.
The old man suppressed a laugh and explained, "Dragon-kin who have yet to run the rivers — they are most territorial. They will not tolerate another of their kind nearby. And so..."
"Oh," the girl murmured, turning back to the creek. Propping her chin on both hands, she gazed out in a daze. "But what if there is?"
The old man, who had always been so tender and gentle with the girl, for the first time assumed the stern bearing of a senior elder. He reached out and pressed a hand lightly to the girl's head. His voice was heavy as stone. "Young mistress — you must engrave this in your heart. That phrase 'just in case' — it is our mortal enemy. You must never let yourself fall into wishful thinking. Though you are of a body as precious as gold branches and jade leaves..."
The girl flailed one hand wildly, letting out a petulant complaint. "I know, I know! Grandpa Yuan, my ears are going to grow calluses!"
The old man rose. "Young mistress, I will go and keep an eye on things over there. Those people may be our allies on the surface at Righteous Sun Mountain, but that family's nature and character — hah, better not even speak of them, lest they soil your ears."
The girl only waved him off.
Helpless, he turned and left.
This towering old man, who in status was little more than a family servant — when he walked, both hands hung nearly to his knees, and his back was bent as if bowed beneath an immense burden.
At the creek's edge, the girl suddenly rubbed her eyes hard.
The water level of the stream was visibly rising — right before her very eyes!
If this were anywhere outside the town — in Righteous Sun Mountain, or anywhere in her homeland — even if the entire stream had dried up in an instant, she would not feel the faintest surprise.
The girl murmured in bewilderment, "Did they not say this place is naturally sealed against all arcane arts, divine abilities, and Daoist powers? And the greater one's cultivation, the fiercer the backlash? Grandpa Yuan himself said that even that legendary figure — after staying here long enough, his situation is now as precarious as a clay bodhisattva crossing a river. He can hardly stop anyone from acting..."
In the end, she shook her head and gave up puzzling over the riddle.
She turned and looked at Grandpa Yuan's towering silhouette from behind.
Happily she thought: Once this place is wholly unsealed, I shall ask Grandpa Yuan to move that mountain, the one called Cloud-Mantling Peak.
Bring it back home, and use it as my little flower garden.