The greatest luxury of a wealthy, comfortable life wasn’t having everything and lacking nothing—it was that ugly, unpleasant things rarely showed themselves before you. If you had the ability to become rich and powerful, the world’s petty evils wouldn’t dare approach; only genuine goodness and beauty remained.
Over the years, aside from mischievous children causing trouble and the elderly weakening as was the way of the world, Qiqian’er never felt burdened by hardship. Everyone wanted to show their good side in front of her—even the sisters-in-law living in the same lane were courteous, tolerant, and deferential.
Of all the tangled troubles a woman might face in life—household matters, marital relations, mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law—plus the added ease of ample money, she truly had nothing to worry about.
Besides, what kind of place was Back Fountain Street? Never mind that Front Fountain Street was right across the way—the petty incidents that happened over there simply never occurred on Back Fountain Street. When neighborly relations touched on one’s official reputation, whoever dared cause trouble was a fool.
So when two groups of Daoist nuns brawled inside the Guang’an Inn in Guangshun County, Qiqian’er was startled. After the surprise passed, she thought—ah, right, wherever there were people in this world, there would be conflicts and disputes.
She’d barely stepped one leg out of the inn when countless shrill screams erupted behind her. Teapots and teacups, tables and chairs began shattering and crashing. This fight was on a whole different level—move after move, back and forth, if they couldn’t get up to the roof they’d climb onto a table instead. Legs kicking impossibly high, a horsetail whisk flicking out like it was launching hidden weapons?
Hidden weapons? Heh! This was a proper martial arts brawl, done in style. And when someone actually swung a teapot at another’s head, blood was truly drawn.
It wasn’t as if she’d never seen women fight before—her own household had Xu Ximei, who arranged troop formations every day just to beat up her husband, and that dimwitted Xiaohuar lost every single time. But whatever method Xu Ximei used, well, that was different—theirs was born of unwavering affection. Not the same thing at all.
Qiqian’er sidestepped to dodge, reached out and caught something—it turned out to be the shopkeeper’s abacus beads. Right, this bunch of Daoist nuns had even smashed up the shop’s main hall. Fierce indeed.
Bai Ying, still on horseback, glanced into the shop, then looked at her mistress’s bewildered expression and suppressed a laugh: “Seventh Uncle, it’s chaos in there—let’s wait it out at the restaurant across the way.”
Qiqian’er flicked off a few abacus beads stuck to her, drew a breath, and almost raised her hand for Bai Ying to help her up before remembering she was dressed as a man. She coughed awkwardly, nodded, and walked across the street with her hands clasped behind her back.
Two bowls of lamb soup, two hot griddle cakes, and four liang of lamb tendon meat made up their meal out.
Qiqian’er watched the waiter bustling about, nearly dipping his finger straight into the soup bowl—those black fingernails, those greasy sleeves. Bai Ying saw it too, but she ate with relish all the same.
Once the waiter left, Qiqian’er stared at the soup, inwardly cursing herself for having abandoned the great skill of stealing offerings she’d honed back in her youth. Gritting her teeth, she finally lowered her head and dug in ravenously.
She really was hungry.
She took one bite—crash, from across the way. She drank another mouthful of soup—clatter, from across the way again… She glanced up briefly; the neighbors seemed entirely unfazed, as if this were nothing unusual. She found herself wondering—were the people of this county seriously so unbothered that they never got involved in anyone else’s business?
Half a bowl of soup later, sweat beading on her forehead, she heard another crash, and then two iron chain whips landed right on the tabletop. Qiqian’er quickly lifted her bowl out of the way and looked up to see a burly, fierce-looking man with a fat face, a round belly, and a half-grown beard.
“Ai-ya, not a moment’s peace around here!” the big man said rapid-fire, and after finishing his complaint, nodded at Qiqian’er: “Sorry about that.” Then he barked at the waiter: “Hurry up, I’m starving, scrape the whole pot bottom, and slice up some more bone-clinging meat…”
He laid out a row of copper coins on the table, and just as he lifted his hand, a teapot came flying from across the street and shattered on the pavement.
The big man burst out laughing. He was evidently on familiar terms with the restaurant owner, and pointed across the way: “Old Skinflint’s really lost his shirt this time!”
The restaurant owner, ladling meat from a basin-sized pot, glanced over mockingly at that, then sighed: “What can you do, bad feng shui, it’s always like this over there—what a mess!” Then he bent back to his work, seemingly too weary to even look up anymore.
Now this—this was interesting.
Without the owner’s hint, Qiqian’er wouldn’t have noticed anything odd, but now she realized something was off. Though it was evening, this street near the county yamen still had plenty of foot traffic, yet strangely no one had gathered to watch the spectacle. Why was that?
As a bowl of hot meat soup arrived, the big man lifted it and took a satisfied gulp, then began loudly showing off his learning: “Ha~ the instigator laughs behind the scenes, watching the little chicks tear each other apart, and whatever’s left, plucking feathers and boiling soup has its own flavor too, ha… this soup is delicious.”
Having shouted that out, he winked at Qiqian’er: “Don’t mind it, letting a visitor from afar see such a mess—no matter, once they’ve tired themselves out fighting, they’ll leave.”
Qiqian’er blinked in astonishment. Just then two figures came tumbling out, scrambled up disheveled, and dashed back inside. She asked, puzzled: “This—why is this happening?”
The big man, breaking up flatbread to soak in his soup, answered with open disdain when the outsider asked: “What else could it be—it’s just that we around here got unlucky. There’s an Elm Matron shrine in the city, and another one up in the back hills. That shopkeeper across the way wanted to hold a memorial ritual marking three years since his mother’s passing, and the nuns from these two shrines came fighting over the business. Happens every time. We’re used to it by now.”
Bai Ying coughed so hard it seemed her chest might tear apart.
However steady Qiqian’er’s nerves usually were, the world now felt utterly surreal to her: “This—I’ve never heard of this. This Elm Matron has another shrine? Even if there’s a shrine, she never even opened a place of worship back in Yandu—how did one appear out here? And the local temples and Daoist monasteries here, do they have no objections?”
The man sneered: “Who’d dare object? From Qingfeng all the way to Little South Mountain, this whole stretch belongs to Elm Matron. By rights, we traveling folk ought to make yearly offerings out of respect—but the Matron doesn’t want that, and opened a shrine instead. We don’t even know what she means by it. How much incense money can this bring in, anyway?”
Qiqian’er drew a breath. She’d been wronged, and she didn’t even know it.
The big man went on: “If it’s incense offerings we’re talking about, back in the day the monks and Daoist priests never once stood up for us wanderers of the martial world either, so we don’t recognize their shrines. Why should it be different for the Matron? None of this concerns ordinary folk anyway. Tch, these disciples and grand-disciples of hers really are a difficult lot…”
The mockery in his tone was unmistakable—implying she was being greedy, biting the hand that fed.
Hearing this, Qiqian’er’s face burned hot, and a real anger slowly kindled inside her.
Having scraped the pot clean with nothing left to sell, the owner set the pot down, doused the fire, and came over grinning to join the conversation: “Old customer, feel free to watch the show. As for who we here at home would want to dedicate our worship to, it’s still the Matron we’d choose—except now we can’t even afford to serve her properly. The Matron’s a noble lady with a big household it seems, and somehow ended up with two shrines by accident—now none of us can keep up…”
A whole table came flying out and smashed to pieces.
The restaurant owner waved it off: “No matter, once they’re done fighting, their own people will sort something out amongst themselves. Say, Constable Huang, where are you coming back from?”
So this big man was an escort guard.
Constable Huang ate quickly, wiped down his empty bowl, and sighed, wiping his mouth: “Ai-ya, I thought I’d landed a good job. Would you believe it, we got all the way to the riverside and the ship that was supposed to meet us never showed. The waterway was blocked, so we had no choice but to turn back.”
A copper basin came flying out and struck a passing woman’s foot. Luckily it wasn’t thrown with much force, and the woman limped away in tears.
Bai Ying asked curiously: “Nobody stops them?”
Constable Huang clicked his tongue: “Stop them? Who’d dare provoke this bunch of old biddies? I’ve traveled far and wide, and the women within Baiquan Mountain’s territory are the toughest around—they’ve got backing, and the moment they feel the slightest bit wronged, off they go wailing to the Elm Matron shrine. And then, hah! The next day a whole gang of nuns descends to besiege you. Can’t fight them, can’t sue them either—a good man doesn’t quarrel with women, but quarrel or not, life still has to go on. Never mind these nuns—even my own wife’s become a regular at the Elm Matron shrine now. She won’t even spend money on rouge and powder anymore, but if there’s a single coin in her sleeve, she’ll buy a stick of incense to offer the Matron. Heh! Who knows what nonsense she’s been fed there, but she comes home looking at me like I’m dirt, ordering me around left and right—tch, ai-ya, what a miserable fate…”
With that, the man slung his iron whips over his shoulder and swaggered off.
Once he’d walked off, Qiqian’er finally asked the owner, curious: “The women around here are all this formidable?”
The owner, gathering up bowls and chopsticks while wiping down the table, chuckled: “That they are, formidable indeed, quite something. They’ve got someone backing them up, and now even the run-of-the-mill households can’t rein them in—they’d bring down heaven itself if they wanted to, and wouldn’t hesitate to take the roof off a common man’s kitchen to feed their stove.”
Once he’d left, Qiqian’er sat there mulling things over, then said to Bai Ying: “What do you think—should I get involved or not?”
There was no denying these women had grown formidable—but wasn’t she herself hardly to blame? Goodness, even in a small county like this, if women everywhere were coming to make offerings, how much money would that add up to in a year?
But Bai Ying said: “Well, uncle—ah, as for the matter of the shrine, I really wouldn’t know. But today’s incident reminds me—there’ve been a few sayings going around the martial world these past years. I wonder if you’ve heard them?”
Qiqian’er shook her head, bewildered: “I’ve been cooped up at home like a fool—how would I have heard anything like that? What sayings?”
Bai Ying laughed at that and said: “Bell-ringing in the north, fish-drum in the south, the wives of Baiquan, the little concubines of Jindian…”
She grew more amused as she spoke, and seeing Qiqian’er’s confusion, explained: “It’s a long-winded folk saying. ‘Bell-ringing in the north, fish-drum in the south’ refers to the northern and southern Huguo temples, each minding their own affairs. As for our Baiquan Mountain wives, it seems they’re all rather fond of you, and following your example, they’ve grown quite the fierce, sharp-tongued temperament.
As for the little concubines of Jindian, times are hard over there, so brokers buy up large numbers of girls and train them in all sorts of pleasing arts, then sell them off at high prices once they’re polished up. The little concubines from Jindian turn out gentle and sweet-tempered, and they’re highly sought after.
Uncle, nothing happens overnight—don’t be upset. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sharp-tongued myself. You ask me whether you should step in, but I really don’t know what to say…”
If she stepped in, wouldn’t that cut off the women of Baiquan Mountain’s pride and standing? Qiqian’er fell silent, tapping her chopsticks against the table…
Just then, a tremendous crash of a basin being smashed rang out, and someone inside the inn across the way roared: “This business is done for! I don’t want to live anymore! Everyone get out! I’m not holding the ritual! Get out…!”
Before long, the two groups of Daoist nuns emerged, their factions clearly divided, though now united in facing the outside world. One nun with a particularly sharp, cruel face snarled viciously at the furious owner: “Old Master, think carefully—your mother is suffering down below right now. Think of all the living creatures this man consumed in his life, all the sins he accumulated. If we don’t perform the rites to deliver her from her transgressions, tomorrow your old mother will be facing hellfire and blades—and that would be your unfilial doing!”
The inn owner’s chest heaved, and though he was well into his years, he swayed with fury, gripping the doorframe as he protested: “My whole livelihood’s been smashed to pieces by you ladies, and you still expect me to hold the ritual? Tomorrow I won’t even have a pot to cook with! Please, please, I’m begging you all—we’re just a small, humble household, we don’t have fifty guan for the incense offering…”
The old nun sneered coldly: “Then your mother will just have to stay in hell a while longer!”
The words were vicious enough that Qiqian’er and the neighbors all gasped in unison.
After the old nun finished speaking, the younger nuns crowded around, all chiming in—one speaking of retribution, another of dire consequences—until the onlookers’ faces filled with disgust.
Qiqian’er had been hesitating until then, but hearing the old nun continue: “If you don’t want to hold it, that’s no longer up to you. Once we walk out that shrine door without receiving our due offering, Master, tell me—will you sleep well tonight?”
So they were extorting him in the Matron’s very name?
The angrier Qiqian’er grew, the more resolved she became. She grabbed the wooden bench beside her, walked a few steps to the inn’s entrance, and slammed the bench down in the middle of the street with a piercing crack.
The surroundings instantly fell silent.
Qiqian’er flipped over and sat down, lifted her hem, crossed her legs, and began picking at her ear. The old nun blinked, seeing an unfamiliar face, and asked cautiously: “Benefactor, where do you hail from?”
Qiqian’er looked up and smiled: “Not far. Outside Yandu, at the foot of Baiquan Mountain. Familiar with the place?”
The old nun’s face flushed red, then paled, before she composed herself and sneered: “And what line of work does the honored guest do?”
Qiqian’er smiled back: “Nothing in particular. Just wander about all day, roaming here and there, and every so often when I come across an injustice…” She clenched her fist toward the twenty or thirty nuns and slashed it through the air. “I clear it away.”
With that, she pulled out a token and tossed it to Bai Ying.
Bai Ying quickly finished off her bowl of soup, caught the token, and turned to leave.
Watching her go, the old nun grew tense and asked: “This young sir? Where’s she off to?”
Qiqian’er smiled, flicking a fingernail: “You meddle so much in others’ business—why not go ask your own Matron instead?”
Around here, no one dared speak of Elm Matron this way. Though the capital was only a hundred-some li away, this group of nuns had never actually traveled that far—though of course, they knew where the real shrine to Elm Matron stood, and being guilty of fraud themselves, they wouldn’t dare so much as loiter before the genuine article.
This one was here to expose their scheme.
The nun glanced at her counterpart—the one who’d managed to swindle her way into establishing an entire shrine was no small talent either—and shot her a look.
A flick of the hand, and a dagger flashed out from beneath a sleeve.
The corner of Qiqian’er’s mouth curved into a smile. She was truly angry now.
The old nun clasped her hands together and laughed: “Ai-ya, honored guest, why speak such outsider talk—we’re all one family here. Since you’ve come from such a blessed place, you must be a man of great fortune! Your home can’t be far from our Matron’s either. Guest, do you know of our Matron’s true powers? A proper master of heaven-spanning, earth-reaching abilities, so formidable that even the imperial household today dares not slight her, and the civil and military officials alike treat her with the utmost respect—summoning our Matron on the first and fifteenth of every month to lecture on the scriptures and impart her teachings.”
The old nun edged closer and closer as she spoke, and finally reached out with familiar intimacy and patted Qiqian’er’s shoulder. With that pat, a small ingot of silver dropped onto her. Disgusted, Qiqian’er shifted her shoulder away, crossing her other leg instead, and the silver fell to the ground.
The old nun’s expression darkened instantly. Having spent years being fawned over and escorted about, this loss of face on the ground made her drop all pretense: “Heh! Boy, if you want to play the dragon crossing the river, you’d better have the skill to back it up. I see you’re young but awfully hot-tempered—not afraid to die, are you? Shameless to the very end!”
With that, the old nun stepped back and pointed at Qiqian’er, cursing loudly: “Vile wretch! So it’s an enemy come seeking revenge! Today you shall not leave here alive!”
As she spoke, an iron ruyi scepter dropped from someone’s sleeve and shot straight toward Qiqian’er’s temple.
The force behind it was fierce—a killing blow.
Just as Qiqian’er reached out to counter it, an Emei thorn blade blocked the strike in front of her. Bai Ying deflected the old nun’s attack and said angrily to Qiqian’er: “Young uncle, the yamen’s already closed for the day—the gatekeeper told me that if there’s grievance to report, write a petition and beat the drum tomorrow!”
“Hahaha…” the nuns burst out laughing together, and the old nun put her hands on her hips: “And here I thought you had some real skill—turns out you’re just going to report to the authorities. Truly, an ignorant fool from out of town, so full of yourself! You don’t even know—even if you take this all the way to the emperor’s court, not even His Majesty would concern himself with our Matron’s affairs. A mere seventh-rank county magistrate daring to poke his head into this…”
That last remark struck a nerve. Qiqian’er’s heart gave a jolt, and she rose to her feet, delivering two slaps across the old nun’s face.
She’d put some real force behind it—the nun spat out several teeth, and the crowd instantly fell silent.
Qiqian’er looked at her own palm, feeling that familiar suffocating frustration—across two lifetimes, she’d never encountered such an outrage.
She could hardly believe it herself. Not even the emperor dared intervene in the Matron’s business?
At that thought, she didn’t even wait for the old nun to draw her ruyi scepter again—as if that woman was even worthy of wielding one. She rolled up her sleeves and, one by one, knocked out these third-rate fighters without wasting much effort at all.
Whatever skills, whatever techniques she possessed, it was over in the blink of an eye—the ground littered with bodies.
The inn owner, frightened out of his wits, slammed his door shut, and the onlooking neighbors scattered in a hurry.
Once she’d finished off the last one, Qiqian’er dusted off her hands and glanced around—tsk, the whole street had gone dead silent.
Just how deep did this fear run?
Bai Ying, who carried plenty of odds and ends on her, found some rope, cut it up, and bound them all with their arms behind their backs.
Once done, she asked Qiqian’er cautiously: “Um, uncle?”
Qiqian’er, lost in thought, blinked and looked at her: “Hm?”
Bai Ying pointed at the ground: “This—what should we do with them?”
Qiqian’er sat down, sighing quietly: “What should we do? Not even the emperor dares manage me—once I’ve cleaned up the Nine Provinces, it’ll be my turn next.”
Bai Ying, a girl who’d grown up roaming the martial world, had no idea what lay behind these words, and said in disbelief: “How could that be? This is such a trivial matter, not worth all this fuss.”
Not worth it? Qiqian’er was confident there were few rivals to match her under heaven—but when it came to sheer cunning and scheming, her father-in-law alone could outmaneuver twenty of her, leaving her stifled with grievances she had nowhere to voice, believe it or not.
There wasn’t time to explain all this to Bai Ying right now, so she simply instructed her quietly: “Use your connections, find some Beggars’ Sect brothers nearby—I need some manpower.”
Bai Ying nodded and went off.
It was early summer, neither too hot nor too cold. With the ground covered in bodies, Qiqian’er sat on the wooden bench, thinking things through. When she reached a point of confusion, she walked back into the restaurant and knocked on the corner table: “Come out.”
The square table shifted, and the restaurant owner crawled out sheepishly, lips trembling, about to kneel before Qiqian’er.
How terrifying it must have been—an entire street’s worth of bodies lying there, no telling dead or alive, and this fool had crawled under a table without even realizing he wasn’t inside his own shop, only to be poked out.
Qiqian’er waved a hand: “Don’t be afraid, this has nothing to do with you. Each person answers for their own deeds. I’m troubling you, shopkeeper—I have a few questions for you.”
The restaurant owner clasped his hands: “Yes, yes, esteemed guest, hero, please, ask away.”
Qiqian’er sat down, gesturing at the nuns on the ground with her chin: “These characters—when did they start building this shrine?”
That’s what she was asking about?
The owner thought it over and said: “It, it hasn’t been long, just the past year or two—no, not even two years yet.”
Qiqian’er tapped the table and asked again: “So it hasn’t been long?”
Seeing her gentle tone, the owner gathered his courage and spoke louder: “Not long at all! Truly just the past year or two. Before, there used to be a Buddhist temple down at the foot of the mountain here, originally under the authority of a Master from Huguo Temple. Back then that Master’s fees for rituals were fair—pay what you could, or nothing at all if you had none. Unlike the previous dynasty, when Huguo Temple would even have pilgrims help farm the temple’s land, that’s not how it is now. If there was trouble with the crops, people just went to the temple to find the Master, and he’d never complain about the bother, always willing to walk out to the fields with them to see what was wrong. But then these nuns arrived and took over the Huguo Temple master’s shrine, turning it into their own place of worship.”
So her shrine had even displaced Huguo Temple?
Qiqian’er gave a bitter laugh, about to continue questioning, when she heard a groan from the ground—the old nun had woken up, and finding herself bound, sat up and glared at Qiqian’er with a threat: “Vile little thief, do you know what disaster you’ve brought upon yourself!”
Qiqian’er was astonished—even now, this old nun still wasn’t afraid?
She asked with a smile: “Now I’m terrified. Go on, tell me, what kind of disaster am I facing?”
The old nun’s brows knit in a menacing scowl: “Just you wait. Our shrine master—the number one chief protector-disciple under the Matron herself, Mu Sangyu—good dog that you are, you’ll be crying before long…”
She went on cursing, but Qiqian’er found something oddly familiar about that name. She murmured it to herself a couple of times, then burst out laughing.
Mu Sangyu, Mu Sangyu—were the people around here all blind and deaf? “Mujing sangyu” meant the sun’s dying light on mulberry and elm trees at dusk—it literally meant “twilight years, a fading path.” This was clearly a curse aimed at oneself—and living right at the foot of Baiquan Mountain, no one had noticed?
Puzzled, she glanced back to find the restaurant owner also straining to listen, and she asked, amused despite herself: “So, the owner knows this shrine master too?”
The restaurant owner shook his head so hard it looked like a rattle drum: “No, no! This is the first I’m hearing of it! So—the shrine master of the Elm Matron temple is a man? That’s rather…”
Seeing the old nun glaring at him, the owner shrank his neck and turned to hide again, only to hear this menacing figure behind him say: “I’m troubling you, shopkeeper, to fetch me a set of brush and ink.”
The owner’s heart had turned bitter as gall by now. His household naturally had no brush or ink, so he shuffled on unsteady legs to the shop across the way to borrow some, knocking for a good long while before someone finally opened the door a crack and handed out a set.
Qiqian’er dipped the brush, saturating it with ink, thought for a moment, and began to write: Elm Matron, age sixty-two, native of Baiquan Mountain, hereby accuses the fraudulent shrine master of Baiquan Mountain…
Bai Ying returned with a group of masked men. Qiqian’er kept writing as she spoke: “In a moment I’ll write you a letter—have Old Xin go beat the Grievance Drum for me. This injustice I’ve suffered is no small matter…”
But before she could finish speaking, a silver spear trailing red tassels came sweeping down from the roof across the way like a bolt of lightning, straight toward her.