Jin Ruo had been in a daze for a full incense stick’s worth of time.

Since Lin Sui’an had laid bare the matter of “the other Pure Gate” and “Pojun” in its entirety, he had worn this exact expression — perfectly round eyes, a perfectly round open mouth — making his already narrow oval face look somehow perfectly round as well.

Lin Sui’an gazed up at the moon, took a sip of Hundred-Flower Tea, felt the light evening breeze brush over her, and breathed in the scent of the tea. She was quietly convinced that Jin Ruo genuinely did need to lose some weight.

After another half-incense-stick’s time had passed, Jin Ruo finally came back to himself. His eyes had gone red at the rims. “Master, is everything you said true?”

Lin Sui’an gave a nod. “If we are to stand as equals against that other Pure Gate, we must unify the scattered branches of the Pure Gate across the land as quickly as possible and build it into something formidable. I have placed my highest hopes in you.”

“That’s not what I’m asking about!” Jin Ruo slammed the table and shot to his feet. “I mean Pojun — your body — are you — are you all right?”

Lin Sui’an smiled. “I’m perfectly fine. Eating well, appetite is great.”

“But — but if one day, what if you — what if you too became like that—”

“If one day I too become like that,” Lin Sui’an said, looking at Jin Ruo with perfect calm, “you must kill me.”

Jin Ruo’s body shook violently. The red in his eyes blazed almost to bursting. “Lin Sui’an, what nonsense are you saying?!”

Apparently she had truly angered him — he had gone so far as to address her by her full name. Lin Sui’an found this deeply gratifying. This disciple had been well worth taking.

“Rather than become a Pojun, used and manipulated by others, I would far rather die by your blade,” Lin Sui’an said quietly. “Good disciple, do not let your master become a mindless killing machine slaughtering the innocent, dying without peace.”

Jin Ruo’s throat gave a choked sound, and he turned his head sharply away.

Lin Sui’an patted Jin Ruo’s shoulder and said with heartfelt sincerity, “What I’m actually more worried about is that with your current level of skill, you wouldn’t be able to kill me — and I’d end up killing you instead. That would be rather unfortunate.”

Jin Ruo: “Lin Sui’an!!”

Lin Sui’an blinked, her expression carrying a hint of regret. “That was honestly my original plan. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Fang’s examination, my body is in excellent health with no trace of any toxin remaining inside me — I will most likely never become a Pojun in my entire lifetime.”

Jin Ruo stood stunned for a moment, then ground his teeth. “Lin Sui’an! You tricked me again!”

Lin Sui’an smiled sweetly. “Your master is merely preparing for all eventualities.”

“What—”

“Starting tomorrow, your training intensity doubles.”

“Keep a controlled diet — lose weight immediately.”

“No more white sugar cakes.”

Jin Ruo stormed off, grumbling curses under his breath. Lin Sui’an took a contented sip of her tea, feeling that having a dopey, loveable disciple to tease was truly a wonderful thing.

The moonlight was crystalline. The night was like still water. On the wind there drifted faintly a soft, warm fragrance of fruit wood. Lin Sui’an let out a quiet sigh. “Hua Yitang — eavesdropping is not a good habit.”

Hua Yitang stepped out from the shadow of the trees. His eyes were deep, his pure white robes perfectly still, like frost flowers frozen solid on a winter’s day.

“Did you mean what you said?” Hua Yitang phrased it as a question, but his tone carried the weight of a statement.

Lin Sui’an laughed. “I was just teasing my disciple.”

“Jin Ruo will never have that chance — and neither will you!” Hua Yitang lunged forward and seized the hand holding Lin Sui’an’s tea cup. Lin Sui’an’s hand jerked; water splashed onto her wrist. It was warm — though nowhere near as warm as Hua Yitang’s palm.

“Never say the same thing again!”

Lin Sui’an’s little finger and her heartbeat trembled at the same instant. She couldn’t help curling her fingers inward. “I only thought that if the worst were to come, it would be sensible to have a contingency plan — hss!“

Hua Yitang suddenly tightened his grip with great force. Even his own fingers were trembling from the effort.

“Don’t say it!”

Lin Sui’an bared her teeth in pain. “All right, all right — I won’t say it, I won’t say it.”

Hua Yitang held Lin Sui’an’s gaze fixedly. Lin Sui’an felt thoroughly embarrassed, her eyes drifting to the side. After a long moment, Hua Yitang let out a sigh and released her hand, sweeping his robes aside and sitting down across from her.

Lin Sui’an exhaled in relief.

When this wastrel’s stubborn, juvenile streak came over him, she genuinely found it difficult to handle.

Hua Yitang pulled out the book of “Pure” characters and turned through the pages one by one, slowly. “Do you still remember that scroll belonging to the Ministry of Works Vice-Minister Lu Yingjie, the one about the origin of Qian Jing?”

Lin Sui’an had a vague recollection. “The one that said Qian Jing needed to drink wine?”

“There was a line in that scroll that has always troubled me,” Hua Yitang said. “Ghost blade opens; the King of the Underworld descends; ten thousand demons and spirits — all shall be purified.”

Wasn’t that just a rhetorical flourish describing Qian Jing’s tremendous destructive power?

“What is the problem?” Lin Sui’an asked.

Hua Yitang pointed to the final passage of the “Pure” character book: “The Pure Fruit cleanses the body; the Heavenly Radiance draws in stellar energy; the Ten Cruelties seal the heart and soul; Pojun gives rise to new life — this corresponds neatly to the two phrases ‘Ghost blade opens; the King of the Underworld descends.'”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Please forgive her shallow learning — she genuinely could not see what connection these two passages, eight poles apart, could possibly have.

“The Pure Fruit is the Dragon God’s fruit; the Heavenly Radiance is Qian Jing; the Ten Cruelties may be related to the Ten Cruel Punishments; Pojun refers obliquely to Qian Jing’s master; and ‘Ghost blade opens; the King of the Underworld descends’ should describe the key condition for the birth of Qian Jing’s master.”

Lin Sui’an felt her mind running close to burnout. “Hua Yitang — can you speak plainly?”

Hua Yitang drew in a long breath. “Aside from you, Bingsi and the others are the people closest to the state of Pojun. Do you still remember how they recovered their consciousness?”

Lin Sui’an was suddenly struck with clarity. “A brush with death!”

“And immediately before that brush with death?”

“They were… burned by fire?”

Hua Yitang sighed. “They were beaten by you and Qian Jing.”

“My hypothesis is that to truly become Pojun, in addition to the Dragon God’s fruit, there are two necessary conditions. First: ‘Ghost blade opens’ — meaning contact with Qian Jing. Second: ‘The King of the Underworld descends’ — meaning—” Hua Yitang’s throat worked; he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Die once first… break apart before rebuilding…” Lin Sui’an murmured.

Put that way, everything did thread together. She had always felt the logic didn’t hold — if this body possessed such tremendous combat power and recovery ability, why would it have been gravely injured by a mere handful of mountain bandits, and then die so inexplicably afterward? Thinking about it now, the original host’s body must have already been at the edge of collapse. She’d had the terrible misfortune of also encountering Su Chengxian, that despicable man — the emotional wound had been the final blow, causing body and consciousness to shatter simultaneously, death by sudden heart failure.

At the very moment of death, this particular Lin Sui’an had had the ill fortune to transmigrate across, take over this body, and in doing so — a reboot after death. Pojun was born.

But the Pojun she’d become wasn’t the original model. So her body and her will had always been slightly misaligned — prone to losing control, especially in the early days. She’d even been knocked unconscious once by Meng Man, who had no martial arts at all. This was presumably a compatibility bug caused by the hardware and software being mismatched.

And then there was the golden finger — what was that about? A side effect of Pojun? The destiny of rebirth? Unlucky mysticism?

Was any of this even logical?

The moment this thought arose, Lin Sui’an couldn’t help but laugh at herself.

She’d already experienced something as illogical as transmigration — and here she was, still absurdly hoping to explain her golden finger with the principles of science. What a waste of energy.

In the blink of an eye, Lin Sui’an’s mind had galloped off ten thousand miles. It was only after some time that she felt something was off. She looked up — and her whole body went rigid.

Hua Yitang was staring directly at her, jaw tense, lips pressed together, tears circling in his reddened eyes, on the verge of falling.

Every hair on Lin Sui’an’s head stood on end. “Why are you crying?!”

“In Yangdu, you said that to save money, you never ate breakfast. In Heyue, you couldn’t distinguish one style of women’s hairpin from another. You never wear silk skirts, and you never do women’s makeup… I had thought you’d had a hard life before. I never imagined…” Hua Yitang sniffled once. “That it had been this hard — that you had come so close to losing your life—”

Lin Sui’an: “…”

Wait — what exactly had he been filling in from his imagination?!

Lin Sui’an wanted to explain, but looking at Hua Yitang’s resolute expression, she could tell it would only make things worse. She scratched her head and offered a dry, hollow word of comfort: “What’s done is done. Rather than clinging to useless ghosts from the past, or fretting over a misty and unknowable future, better to focus on the present moment — on the people right in front of us—”

Lin Sui’an couldn’t continue. Hua Yitang’s gaze had shifted — suddenly blazing, scorching hot, his throat working rapidly, his entire face flushed the deepest pink with unmistakable, brimming anticipation.

“Ahem — it’s getting late. I’m going to sleep.” Lin Sui’an fled.

Hua Yitang sat in the moonlight for a long time, motionless. The damp night wind gradually cooled the flush on his face. His long, pale fingers rolled the scroll up slowly, one turn at a time, and bound it tight.

“As long as I am here, there will be no ‘worst.'”

Five days later, the Dragon God case of Cheng County was officially closed.

The Senior Adjudicator of the Court of Justice Ling Zhiyan, carrying the case files and records, departed under escort by soldiers from Guangdu, with the principal suspects in custody. When the time came to see them off, everyone gathered, all with some reluctance to part. Hua Yitang, in his awkward and roundabout way, stuffed a pouch of gold leaves into Ling Zhiyan’s hands (Lin Sui’an thought: The friendship of the wealthy truly is this simple and unpretentious!). Ling Zhiyan responded with a formal, solemn bow — and once again tried to poach Lin Sui’an away to the Court of Justice as Chief Constable.

Hua Yitang stamped his foot in fury. Ling Zhiyan rode off laughing, and was quickly swallowed by the distance.

After Ling Zhiyan’s departure, Hua Yitang remained dejected for all of two hours — and then sprang back to life.

The reason was simple: Yun Zhong Yue had also left.

Of course, the world’s greatest thief would never leave empty-handed. He departed having casually absconded with one hundred strings of cash confiscated from Qiu Hong’s household, leaving behind two letters. One was addressed to Hua Yitang, claiming the hundred strings were his rightful fee for services rendered. The other was addressed to Lin Sui’an, with a special clarification that the material he used to make masks was not pig hide but sheep hide — which left Lin Sui’an not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Hua Yitang was livid, pacing his room barefoot and fanning himself furiously, cursing without pause for a full hour. Lin Sui’an felt that had he not been burdened by the official title of Cheng County Deputy Constable, he would long since have climbed to the top of the city wall and cursed from there.

Cursing was not enough to vent his rage. He carried his belly full of fury until the Bai Family road construction team from Qingzhou arrived in Cheng County — and finally found an outlet.

The team leader sent by the Bai Family of Qingzhou was Bai Xiang, who happened to walk straight into the firing line. After being put through his paces by Hua Yitang for more than two months, by the time the road was done and he finally escaped, even his round little belly had completely disappeared — a weight-loss efficiency that Jin Ruo regarded with the deepest envy.

Under the guidance of Hua Yitang’s comprehensive business plan, the Hundred-Flower Tea industry in Cheng County began to operate at full pace. It was the first time Lin Sui’an, experiencing it firsthand, truly felt just how staggering the efficiency could be when the enormous, formidable commercial machine of the Yangdu Hua Family set itself into motion.

In just three months, Hundred-Flower Tea had cleared all the critical hurdles. The first batch of finished product, under the dual auspices of Mu Zhong — head of the Mu Family’s sixth merchant caravan — and Jin Ruo, made its debut in Guangdu, the tea’s first showcase market. Half a month later, the feedback was astonishing. The first pot of gold from Hundred-Flower Tea had been struck, and it was overflowing.

Zhu Dachang followed Hua Yitang’s footsteps, tracking and learning every stage of the product chain in full. Magistrate Qiu abolished the night curfew in Cheng County to allow tea shops and tea gardens to operate through the night. Zhu Dachang’s mother abandoned her embroidery workshop without hesitation; the embroidery women reinvented themselves as tea-pickers, learning the tea-picking craft under Little Fish’s instruction. The head of the tea processing workshop was the newly installed Qiu Family patriarch Qiu Bo, with Ita specially engaged as technical advisor. The entire population of the town united as one, pulling together with a single will, driving the whole of Cheng County forward toward better days.

During the days when Jin Ruo had gone to Guangdu to develop the market, Lin Sui’an was terribly bored, and spent her days watching the goings-on at Simian Estate to pass the time.

At the third quarter of the chen hour, Cheng County’s Chief Secretary Zhu Dachang would depart from Simian Estate for the county office to start the workday. From the chen hour onward, the main road on the southern side of Simian Estate would fill with young women who had come from near and far, drawn by the name — ever since Zhu Dachang had become a hero who saved Cheng County, Aunt Zhu no longer had to worry about finding her son a match. In a single stroke, Zhu Dachang had soared to become one of the most sought-after candidates for marriage among eligible young women.

Opposite Simian Estate stood a row of old scholar trees with lush, dense canopies, their branches reaching straight into the sky. It had been recommended by Yun Zhong Yue as the number-one hiding spot, and had since been promoted to the finest vantage point for entertainment and spectacle.

Lin Sui’an sat cross-legged on a tree branch, pulling out the dried lamb pieces that Mu Xia had prepared. Fresh lamb from a young goat, cut into half-inch cubes, smoked over fruit wood until done, seasoned with cumin and pepper salt, wrapped in oilpaper and packed into small cloth pouches — a perfectly portable little snack.

The number of young women at Simian Estate reached a new record high. A quick glance suggested at least ten or so. Lin Sui’an spotted the familiar face of Qiu Sixteenth Young Miss — today dressed in the same outfit she’d worn to a previous match-viewing occasion, her eyes dewy and bright, all trace of her former haughtiness gone. Compared to her, the other young ladies were dressed in what could only be described as modest. Each woman had a cloth satchel slung across her shoulder, with several rolled paper scrolls tucked inside.

At the third quarter of the chen hour, the front gate of Simian Estate opened, and Zhu Dachang stepped over the threshold in his pale blue official robes. The young women let out a chorus of shrieks. They yanked out their paper scrolls with swift, decisive motions — the practiced efficiency of seasoned veterans drawing blades before battle — and jostled and clamored to be first:

“Chief Secretary Zhu, this is the love poem I wrote for you today! Day by day I pine for you, red tears falling — does my dear gentleman know or not?“

“This one is mine! A kindred spirit is hard to find, yet here you are — a lovesick girl gazes, longing, into the drainage ditch!“

“So many feelings, all for Chief Secretary Zhu — fallen blossoms await the return of their master.“

“A red peach blossom stretches beyond the wall — and the magpies, in their hundreds, come calling.“

“Wind, flower, snow, and moon have intentions — across all of heaven and earth, I cherish only you.“

Qiu Sixteenth Young Miss had composed the most structurally sound verse: “Longing tears, strung like red beans — spring willows and spring blossoms fill the fragrant tower! Young Master Zhu, this is my sixteenth love poem—“

It had to be said — the women of Tang were truly bold and ardent. A barrage of passionate love poems rained down on Zhu Dachang all at once, leaving him flushed scarlet with embarrassment. He turned and tried to retreat back inside — but the door had already been slammed shut by his mother, leaving her son to the mercy of the pack of young women. Zhu Dachang covered his head with his arms and bolted, with the young women in full pursuit behind him, shouting the love poems they had poured their hearts into composing, sending wave after wave of laughter rippling through the spectators who had gathered along the way.

Lin Sui’an sat in the tree laughing so hard she bent forward and back, nearly choking on a piece of dried lamb in her hilarity. She quickly grabbed her water pouch and took two long gulps, catching her breath and letting out a long, satisfied exhale.

The rain that had plagued Cheng County had followed the fake Dragon God to the back of beyond. Today was another fine day. The sky was high, the clouds were light. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and fell upon her, weightless and bright, like gems sliced into thin, translucent slivers.

The leaves overhead trembled softly. On the breeze came a familiar fragrance of fruit wood. Lin Sui’an heard the sound of Hua Yitang’s fan going tap-tap-tap. She glanced to the side — sure enough, there stood the great Deputy Hua Constable at the base of the tree, black-faced, his little fan snapping back and forth so fast it was practically smoking.

Lin Sui’an flipped over and dropped down lightly from the tree. Light and shadow from the canopy swept past her flying robes as she landed in front of Hua Yitang. “Something the matter?”

Hua Yitang glared in the direction Zhu Dachang had fled, muttering under his breath, “She comes to watch him every other day — what’s so great about that big flat face of his, it’s not half as good-looking as mine…”

Lin Sui’an laughed. “Yes, yes — Fourth Young Master Hua is the most handsome of all.”

“Naturally. I, the number-one wastrel of Yangdu, am graceful, refined, dashing, and debonair—”

“Not at all! Lin Niangzi is the most beautiful! Lin Niangzi — I am fond of you — this is the poem I wrote for you!”

A soft, round little voice piped up. Lin Sui’an looked down in surprise. Beside her feet, appearing from nowhere, was a small child with a round doughy little hand clutching at her hem and another hand holding up a crumpled piece of rough paper covered in lines that made no apparent sense.

Lin Sui’an: What??

The small child spread out the paper, stood up very straight, and in a clear, bright voice, recited: “The clouds have scattered! The rain has stopped! The sky is bright! Lin Niangzi’s blade is just like the big tree by the road — green and shiny, so beautiful.“

Hua Yitang’s face turned the color of the big tree by the road. It, too, went green.

Skit:

Hua Yitang: Rivals for affection must be nipped in the bud!