Han Li turned and made for the doorway. Upon reaching the threshold he suddenly wheeled round and put one more question: "That comrade who stood ever behind Elder Mo's back, all this while he has uttered not a single word. What manner of man is he?"
At this astonishing and unlooked-for query, Doctor Mo smiled a little and, with a roguish craft, answered by not answering at all. "See how shrewd thou art—guess, then, and I dare swear thou hast it easily."
Han Li shook his head and strode cleanly out of Doctor Mo's chamber, whether because he could not guess, or because he had no mind to guess at all, no man could tell.
No sooner had Han Li set foot out of doors than his countenance darkened to a heavy gloom. In this quarrel with Doctor Mo he had offered not the least resistance before being pinned fast, which only proved how green he yet remained—he, who had fancied that by dint of sly wit alone he might spar a round or two with his opponent. In the end, the vessel of five-poison water that he had concocted with such labor had never once served its purpose, being seized ere ever it could. He must go back and ponder deeply how he might fortify his own strength. With such thoughts beating within him, he set off with great strides toward his own lodging, by no means resigned to be so reined in by Doctor Mo.
Within the chamber, Doctor Mo stood gaping at the plank floor, where a black hole thick as a rice bowl had been burned right through. For only moments before he had, with an idle hand, loosed a trial shot from the iron cylinder, and the venom that spat forth from it had eaten through the very floor-boards with careless ease. At such uncanny toxicity, Doctor Mo could no longer master the fright that mounted within him; he sprang up and shouted curses to the skies: "Thou turtle-born whelp! When ever didst thou learn to brew such a poison? Never did I teach thee aught of the sort. I took the thing for no more than common knockout powder that fells man and god alike. So savage and ruthless is this rogue that he would turn his face against his own master without a flicker of mercy."
Han Li, who knew nothing of the fright he had dealt Doctor Mo, returned to his own room, threw himself upon his pallet, and fell into a deep and heavy sleep; for so great a turn of fortune had so drained his body and mind that he had need of rest to make good his strength.
Han Li was a long while in recovering his full spirits, and when at last he woke from his slumber he sat up and studied the sky. In the east a pale glimmer of dawn was breaking; so he saw it was the morning of the following day, and a long sleep it had been. Yet he did not rise from the bed, but rested his chin upon both hands, his arms propped upon his knees, and fell to pondering how he might slip free from Doctor Mo's grasp.
Clearly, within the compass of the eye he was in no danger; his master, for the sake of his own life, would not only spare him but strive with all his might to preserve him. Yet whether he would remain safe when a year had passed was another question altogether.
Of the Nameless Formula Han Li had no cause for anxiety, for only a few days earlier he had already trained it up to the fourth layer, and a year hence the fifth would surely come into his hand with no great labor. The matter of the Corpse Worm Pill, too, was easily solvable. In time, he had only to show his master the progress of his cultivation and, ere the other expected treatment, hold the antidote over his head as a bargaining counter—surely the old man would not risk offending him over such a thing for the sake of his own skin.
Then, of a sudden, Han Li remembered something. From his person he drew out a medicine bottle and tipped from it a single pill of a jade-emerald hue, which he swallowed with his head thrown back. When the drug's power had begun to work, he sat quietly and turned his gaze inward upon his own body.
"Aha!" he muttered in vexation, half-laughing. "In this matter of the Corpse Worm Pill the old fox Mo has not deceived me after all. Even this Clear Spirit Powder, that can undo a hundred poisons of the world, avails nothing against the thing. Truly must I wait out the year before I can wring the antidote from him." Thereupon he tucked the bottle back into his bosom, rose from the bed, and came down to the floor.
He began to pace round the single table that furnished the room, his hands clasped behind his back, turning over in his mind the many questions that beset him as he walked. In truth, Han Li did not wholly believe all that Doctor Mo had told him, knowing full well that much of it must be false; yet even knowing this, he could not resist, for the old man held his family hostage.
Han Li doubted sorely whether Doctor Mo would truly keep his word after the year was out. If the matter were as simple as the other had made it sound, it would be easy enough to deal with, and he would have no need to fight at all; but he dreaded lest the man conceal in his scheme some part that was to his hurt, and turn upon him with a cruel hand when the season came. If he made no preparation at all, would he not be left without the least room to defend himself?
Over and over Han Li ran the matter through his head, and could find no good way to be rid of it. As things stood, neither he nor Doctor Mo could be easy. The one dreaded lest his master's neglect of his cultivation cost the old man his very life; the other feared that once his master had put away every concern, he would fall upon him without mercy. In truth he might still have used this as a whip to threaten his master and make him fear to move, but since his opponent had seized upon the vital nerve of his family, he could do no more than draw in his horns and yield to necessity.
"Am I then to stake my very life upon the palm of another's hand, and trust that he will show me mercy when the time comes?" Han Li was near to losing heart. But at once he overthrew the foolish thought. "No, never will I do so. My own fate must never hang upon a single caprice of another. To leave all that is mine in another's keeping is the stupidest notion a man can entertain."
Yet after wracking his brains till they ached, Han Li hit at last upon a plan that was a plan, though an unheroic one. He resolved to strengthen his own person from many sides, and to hoard all such counters as he could devise, so as to overawe his master; and should the man truly mean to strike, he would yet have some room to save himself. It was a clumsy expedient, this, that could but stand on the guarded foot and let the first blow fall upon the enemy; but at present no other course was open to him, and this one was, upon the whole, the soundest and most prudent.
His resolve being taken, Han Li decided to step out for a walk. He thrust open the door and went onto the open ground before his lodging, stretched himself lazily and yawned hugely. Gracing the sharp morning wind, he stared at the red sun that hung half risen above the horizon, and a heroic resolve swelled within his breast: "My own fate can only be held in my own hand, and never shall another man command it."