Li Diudiu looked toward his master and said: “After we eat, go sleep for a bit. They won’t come in the daytime — they don’t have the guts, not even here where no one comes. Master, go rest for a while.”

Changmei shook his head: “How could I possibly sleep. Diuer… it’s been a long time since we had a good talk. Let’s take this chance to chat a bit.”

Li Diudiu gave an affirmative sound: “What do you want to talk about, Master?”

Changmei organized his thoughts and said: “Actually I’m not sure exactly what I want to say. I feel there’s so much I’m worried about, but when the words reach my mouth I don’t know where to start.”

Li Diudiu held up his hand: “One, two, three — list them out.”

Changmei smiled: “How did you become so insufferable.”

Li Diudiu said: “Because I really am insufferable now.”

Changmei shook his head with a smile, organized his thoughts again, and said: “Alright then, let me list one, two, three… First — are you truly going to go to the northern frontier to join the border army and meet up with Xiahou Zuo?”

Li Diudiu shook his head: “Not certain yet. There are still several years until the academy graduates — it’s truly hard to say.”

Changmei gave an affirmative sound. This was what he worried about most, so he’d asked first.

“Second — what exactly is going on between you and the granddaughter of Director Gao? Is it that… is it that you’ve taken a liking to her, or she to you? Diuer, we are not people of the same world as they are. You are not worthy of her.”

Li Diudiu looked at his master. For the first time he found his master’s words somewhat harsh. The three words “not worthy of her,” coming from his master’s mouth — his master’s humility and his own humility became so painfully apparent when those three words were spoken.

Li Diudiu shook his head: “Master, you’re overthinking. I’m not even thirteen yet.”

Changmei sighed. He knew Diuer wasn’t telling the truth.

“Third — will you get entangled with Yanshan Camp in the future?”

He asked the third thing.

Li Diudiu shook his head: “Master, these things you’re asking — none of them are things I can answer right now.”

Changmei fell silent, then asked: “What if… what if your master were to forbid you from doing all three of these things?”

Li Diudiu looked at his master. When he talked with his master he’d never been properly serious, but now that he needed to be serious, he didn’t know how to answer — because the three things his master was forbidding him from doing were things he couldn’t give a clear answer about.

This world was full of unknowns.

“We’re living quite well right now. Why stir up trouble?”

Changmei Daoren said, head lowered: “For instance — what happened today didn’t need to happen. It was because you saved Yu Chaozong. On Yanshan Mountain you had no reason to save him. After saving him, you invited trouble. Even if today you kill every single one of the people trying to kill you, later there will be more people coming to kill you. Those in Yanshan Camp who want to oppose Yu Chaozong will keep wanting to kill you. Can you kill every last one of Yanshan Camp?”

“Before we came to Jizhou, I told you — the silver I’d saved for ten years was so you could change your fate. Now your fate has already been changed… Diuer, let’s live a peaceful life. All right?”

Li Diudiu fell quiet.

Changmei Daoren hadn’t intended to force Li Diudiu to give him an answer in that very moment. He only hoped Li Diudiu would be an ordinary person — an ordinary person who had no worries about food or hardship over livelihood.

“Master.”

Li Diudiu suddenly looked at his master and asked: “What if I don’t want to be an ordinary person? I don’t want to be one of those sentient beings who drifts along suffering, accomplishing nothing.”

Changmei froze. This was the thing he feared most.

Li Diudiu took a deep breath, then looked directly into his master’s eyes and said earnestly: “If you hadn’t asked me today, Master, perhaps I wouldn’t have asked myself. But you asked, and I thought it over carefully — so…”

Li Diudiu paused, then continued: “So now I know what I want to do, I know what I’m going to do in the future. Master… do you truly think I saved Yu Chaozong on a momentary impulse?”

Li Diudiu looked out through the doorway. His hand rested on his pack — where his blade was — and his fingers gently traced back and forth along the scabbard.

“Master once said: half villain, half hero makes an overlord. Only an overlord can achieve great deeds and great enterprises. Only an overlord can dominate a region…”

Li Diudiu looked directly into his master’s eyes again and said, word by word: “I don’t believe that. I want to try.”

Changmei Daoren opened his mouth, but for a moment could not find words. This was the first time he truly understood — his disciple was no longer that child who had depended on him in everything. No longer that small-time river-and-lake swindler.

Diuer was saying: Master, did you really think saving Yu Chaozong was just a momentary impulse?

Changmei Daoren wished so much that it had really been just a momentary impulse. Now he would rather believe it was a momentary impulse — not that Diuer already had ambitions taking shape in his heart.

“Master — when you were speaking with that mountain bandit chieftain, many of your words resonated with me too. You said he had the fate of a prince — it sounds like a joke. But Master, can you be certain that if that mountain bandit chieftain doesn’t die, he will absolutely never become a prince in the future?”

Changmei opened his mouth again, yet still could not speak.

“I don’t want to be a prince — but I want to be a great general.”

Li Diudiu said: “A great general like Xu Qulu — by himself, turning the tide when all seems lost. I don’t want to be a king and I’d never presume to seek to be an emperor. But Master — I want to be a hero. A peerless hero.”

These last four words were like war drums beginning to sound.

Li Diudiu slowly exhaled, then looked at his master and said: “Don’t think too much. I’ll stay steady and wait until the academy graduates. With my results, perhaps things will go just as you’ve imagined — with the academy’s recommendation, plus my examination scores, when I enter officialdom I can be someone who goes along with the current…”

He smiled: “Actually Director Gao is quite a good person. If I continue to be first in the academy for the next few years, then entering officialdom afterward won’t be difficult, right.”

He smiled, still bright and warm as sunlight.

Changmei sat there as if struck dumb, unable to speak for a very long time. Diuer’s words — “a peerless hero” — made him wonder whether he had done something wrong, or said something wrong.

“It’s your fault, Master.”

Li Diudiu bumped his head gently against his master’s shoulder, and said smiling: “You taught me so much. The very first story about a great hero you ever told me was about Xu Qulu…”

Changmei swayed gently with each soft bump of Li Diudiu’s head against his shoulder, his body rocking slightly back and forth in small motions. When Li Diudiu finished saying “it’s your fault,” Changmei suddenly smiled.

“Yes — it’s the master’s fault.”

Changmei raised his hand and ruffled Li Diudiu’s head.

“Then let’s make a pact, the two of us.”

His master said smiling: “If after the academy graduates, there is Director Gao’s recommendation, and you can smoothly enter officialdom — then follow that path. If in the future the world truly becomes so turbulent that you can no longer walk that path, then no matter what path you choose, your master supports you.”

“Good!”

Li Diudiu nodded vigorously: “That’s settled.”

—

The two ate lunch — steamed buns stuffed with chives and egg, just as good cold as hot. Each bun was bigger than a fist. Li Diudiu ate nine, but was only sixty or seventy percent full — because Li Diudiu had learned from last time: before a fight, you can’t eat too much.

His master said after eating that he’d go lie down for a bit in the back where there was dry straw. He hadn’t slept in this kind of environment for a long time, and somehow found it oddly familiar.

Once his master had fallen asleep, Li Diudiu took the things from his pack out one by one. Then he stood up, walked to the temple entrance and looked out. No one was visible within his line of sight — but they were certainly watching in the shadows.

Li Diudiu came out and stretched both arms wide, simply to let those people see: I’m still here.

He went back into the temple, saw a section of wall that had collapsed on one side, and went over to pick up the heavy stone blocks one by one, placing them beside where his master was sleeping — building his master a small defensive wall.

Midwinter nights always come early. It seemed his master had barely just fallen asleep when the sky outside was already darkening. Li Diudiu added some firewood to the fire beside his master, watching the sight of his master sleeping with his back to him. Actually, Li Diudiu knew — his master had certainly not fallen asleep at all.

“Master.”

“Hmm?”

Li Diudiu turned to look out the doorway, fell silent for a moment, then said: “In a little while — don’t look.”

Changmei Daoren didn’t turn back, didn’t speak, still lying with his back to Li Diudiu. After a moment he nodded.

Night fell.

Li Diudiu took the yaksha mask from his pack and slowly put it on.

Outside came the sound of the night watchman making his rounds — the curfew had come.

Not long after the night watchman’s voice faded into the distance, the sound of footsteps came from outside. Li Diudiu watched through the doorway. The sky had just turned dark, the moon not yet bright. Shadowy figures moved — like a tide of ghosts pressing in.

Li Diudiu stood, picked up the repeating crossbow with his left hand, gripped the blade with his right.

He had always been afraid of the dark.

Until someone told him: to stop fearing darkness, become the darkness.

The first person outside rushed in through the door — no words, no wasted motion, one slash aimed straight at Li Diudiu’s throat.

Li Diudiu’s right hand swept his blade in a horizontal cut, opening that bandit’s throat. With his left hand he raised the repeating crossbow and rapid-fired — several bolts shot out, piercing the throats of two people behind.

In the next instant, Li Diudiu kicked the body in front of him outward, knocking down the men rushing in behind it. One more slash — a head rolled away.

Four people had burst in. In moments they had become four corpses.

The men trying to rush in behind them began to panic. Not one of them had expected what should have been an effortless task to suddenly become so dangerous. Those four companions had died with such ease — so easily that they had seen it, yet couldn’t believe it.

“Attack!”

At that moment, the small bandit leader Wei Ye, Tian Zhanyuan’s aide, steeled himself and shouted, urging the six or seven men beside him to charge inside. Yet he himself retreated to the very back of the group.

Those six or seven bandits gritted their teeth and charged in. Li Diudiu took great strides forward, then moved through the group of men like a dance.

Left hand repeating crossbow, right hand blade — threading through those six or seven men, it seemed as though he had merely turned a single circle. Yet on the ground there were six or seven more bodies.

Li Diudiu looked toward Wei Ye. That man was already so frightened he was stepping backward unceasingly.

“Tell your chief — stay inside the inn, don’t come out. Dying inside the inn… at least it’s warm.”

Wei Ye turned and fled.

After he had escaped, Li Diudiu looked back toward his master, who was still lying there yet clearly trembling slightly, and said two words.

“Going home.”

Then he lowered his head and charged out into the night. The one charging into the night was no longer that small boy who feared the dark — but a dragon returning to the vast sea.

From the day Li Diudiu had made himself a night-black outfit, he was to transform himself into the darkness.

—