The years take many things with them — even what people flatter themselves to call their minds: memory and reason both, worn and made incomplete by the long passage of time. In old age, recollection and thought are never quite whole.

But some things cut bone-deep. No matter how desperately a person tries to forget, they never quite manage it.

Gangcai moved to Yaobusheng’s side with something of a tremor in his step and crouched down to examine the face with careful attention. Then he turned to look at Chen Youwei, whose own expression was equally one of stunned disbelief. “Is it… is it him?”

Chen Youwei replied, with some uncertainty: “It’s him, I think.”

Gang Gang and Chen Dawei both felt that something was wrong. The two of them exchanged a glance, and then asked almost simultaneously:

“Who is he?”

As the current leader of the Thousand Sect, Chen Youwei had told his apprentice Chen Dawei how their sect had fallen. Neither Chen Dawei nor Gang Gang felt their masters had done anything wrong.

Some evils and humiliations cannot be tolerated.

Yet right and wrong have always been relative — and not relative in only one direction, but in many. In terms of conscience and of the harm done to the victims, the choice Gangcai and Chen Youwei had made back then was right. In terms of what it meant for their respective sects, it was wrong.

There are always people who say: is it really that hard to tell right from wrong? Right and wrong are the most obvious thing in the world.

Anyone who has lived long enough will never say such a thing — because they know that right and wrong are never so simple.

“He is the child from back then…”

Chen Youwei said softly.

His apprentice Chen Dawei didn’t follow. “Which child?”

“The one from the well.”

Chen Youwei’s voice had grown somewhat heavy. “The well that was meant to drown a family of three.”

“It has been more than sixteen years since I last saw him.”

Gangcai crouched there, his voice laced with complicated feeling. “I thought he would go back and live out his life with his mother — that after surviving such suffering, after defying such evil, he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t become a…”

The words didn’t come out, because he didn’t want to say them.

“What did we save?”

Chen Youwei looked at Gangcai, and his eyes held deep disappointment — even despair.

“What did we save?”

Gangcai murmured the same words to himself.

Just then, Yaobusheng gave a shudder. His eyes slowly opened — and the instant light returned to them, he suddenly moved, both hands flailing wildly, as if trying to drive back something that was pressing in on him.

“Young Master Yao.”

Chen Youwei called out his name. Yaobusheng stopped his frantic thrashing. He looked around in confusion. He had stopped simply because it had been many years since anyone had called him that.

“Who is it?!”

Yaobusheng was rubbing his eyes as he shouted. “Who’s there!”

“It’s me.”

Chen Youwei looked at Yaobusheng’s wretched and bewildered state and exhaled slowly. “Me. Us.”

Gangcai stepped forward to stand beside Chen Youwei.

Yaobusheng’s vision gradually cleared. He blinked, looked again — and his expression changed drastically.

“You… why are you here? And where is this?”

Yaobusheng asked instinctively, then dropped abruptly to his knees. “My two benefactors.”

The scene left Gang Gang and Chen Dawei both stunned, and it took them a moment to piece together who this person must be.

Thirty years ago, the Sparrow Sect and the Thousand Sect of Jizhou City had joined forces to swindle a wealthy household into ruin. The male head of the family, overcome with shame and rage, threw himself down a well to his death. His wife and child followed him in. But shortly after the mistress of the house jumped in with her only son, Gangcai and Chen Youwei had secretly pulled both of them out.

Mother and son left Jizhou the following day. That was sixteen years ago. Sixteen years later, the boy — now grown — had come back for vengeance.

“It’s actually… him.”

Gang Gang’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Could the world really be this small?

Chen Dawei could barely credit it either. What were the odds of stumbling across the very same child from all those years ago? Hadn’t he long since left, made a new life for himself elsewhere? How had he come back to Jizhou — and ended up with people like Gonghu Yingying?

“Get up.”

Chen Youwei stepped forward and helped Yaobusheng to his feet, looking him up and down. “Yao Sheng. Young Master Yao. We haven’t seen each other in years. I thought the two of us would likely never meet again in this life — and yet here you are in Jizhou.”

“I… I don’t go by Yao Sheng anymore. I added a character — a ‘not.’ My name now is Yaobusheng.”

Yaobusheng looked at Chen Youwei with something approaching guilt. “Benefactor — I haven’t been in Jizhou all this time. I only came back recently. Someone paid a high price to bring me here for a task, and the task fell through.”

He seemed to catch himself, and looked sharply at Chen Youwei. “Was it those people who hired me — did they then hire you two to come and silence us? No…”

His expression shifted, and he said with sudden alertness: “People like that — how could they ever act with any sense of loyalty? They brought the two of you here to kill us, didn’t they.”

He stepped back, his hand instinctively going to his waist for his weapon — which of course was no longer there. It was back at the carriage depot.

“You can go.”

Gangcai shook his head and said: “Treat this as if we never met — and treat what happened sixteen years ago as if it never happened either. Go. When you left Jizhou back then you told us you were going home to be with your mother — to keep her company through her remaining years. You said you wanted to be an ordinary person, that you never wanted to kill again. I never imagined that sixteen years later, it would be like this that we’d meet. This sort of reunion is not comfortable for either of us.”

“Forget it.”

Yaobusheng waved a hand and said: “Pretty words — *be an ordinary person*? My mother and I found a small county town to settle in quietly. I went out to do manual labor to earn money. I came home one day to find the house ransacked and my mother stabbed to death — whoever did it took every last handful of rice we had. Tell me: I wanted to be ordinary — did the world give me that chance?”

He pointed to himself, voice rasping: “Why do you think I put that ‘not’ in my name? My father gave me that name — he said he hoped I would live up to it, that I would become a man revered by all, a sage. I spit on that.”

Yaobusheng’s fury broke through: “If he hadn’t gone gambling, our family would never have come to ruin. I hate the men who ruined us, and I hate my own father too — if not for him, my mother and I would never have spent all those years wandering. We finally found a place to settle, and then a gang of petty thieves killed her and took everything.”

He raised a hand and pointed at Gangcai. “I have no interest in being some sanctimonious sage, and don’t you stand there acting saintly in front of me. The debt of my life I have not forgotten — nor have I forgotten the great kindness you showed in helping me take revenge. But don’t press me. Everyone wants to live.”

Gangcai said, “I told you — you can go. Treat it as though we never met. As though we never knew each other.”

Yaobusheng nodded. “I hope you mean that… I expect we won’t meet again. Benefactors — farewell.”

He did not dare turn his back and walk out. Instead, he retreated toward the door, facing them. He could not afford to lower his guard — at this moment he did not want to trust anyone.

But at that moment, Shi Su — former third-in-command of the Wind-Thunder Sect — rose to his feet. He had actually been awake for some time, having decided to keep still and feign unconsciousness until he understood the situation. A man of his nature was never without calculation. He had caught the gist of the exchanges between Yaobusheng and the others — although he didn’t know exactly what it all meant, he could see that those people had some past history with Yaobusheng.

Now Yaobusheng was trying to leave, and he couldn’t stay behind either — but he figured that since these people had been sent by Xu Yuanqing to silence them, and unlike Yaobusheng he had no prior connection with any of them, his only option was to strike first.

Everyone’s eyes were on the departing Yaobusheng — everyone except Yaobusheng himself, who saw Shi Su slowly rise to his feet behind Chen Youwei.

Yaobusheng’s expression shifted.

Chen Youwei caught it instantly and spun around — but too late.

Shi Su seized Chen Youwei by the throat. In the same motion, he yanked the dagger hanging at Chen Youwei’s waist free, snapped the scabbard loose with a flick, and pressed the blade against Chen Youwei’s heart.

“Quite the little drama you’ve all been putting on.”

Shi Su smiled. “Not bad, as shows go. The relationships here are quite entangled, aren’t they… But you and I don’t know each other. All I want is to leave. Everyone step back. Don’t do anything that makes me think you’re coming for me — or I won’t mind taking someone with me. Kill one and I break even. Kill more than one and I come out ahead.”

He shoved Chen Youwei forward.

“Walk. See me out of here, and then we’ll talk.”

Chen Youwei had no choice but to step forward. The blade had already pierced through his clothing and broken the skin. Blood was beginning to seep out, gradually soaking a small patch of the fabric through.

The weather had turned warm. Chen Youwei’s clothing was not heavy — and so the blood as it stained the cloth red was quickly visible to Chen Dawei and the others.

“Master!”

Chen Dawei cried out in alarm.

Chen Youwei gave him a slight shake of the head, signaling him not to move rashly.

Yaobusheng said, “Shi Su — let him go. He’s an old friend of mine. I promise they won’t make trouble for you.”

Shi Su let out a cold snort. “Yaobusheng — it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I can’t trust anyone right now. The employer wants to silence me — I just heard what you all said. My life is mine to control. No one else gets a say anymore.”

He shoved Chen Youwei again.

“Move. I don’t want to make trouble for you either. Once I’m out of this courtyard, we each go our own way — the rivers and lakes are wide, and after this, there’ll be no occasion to meet again.”

Yaobusheng said sharply, “I’ve already told you — they won’t make trouble for you. Let him go!”

Shi Su said, “Yaobusheng — are you trying to silence me too?”

Yaobusheng said, “I’ll say it one more time: let him go. They will let you walk.”

Gangcai watched his old companion’s heart bleeding through the cloth, and his eyes took on a very slight redness. He looked at Shi Su and said, “You walk — we won’t stop you. We don’t know the employer who hired you. We have nothing to do with them.”

“Rubbish!”

Shi Su raged. “I heard everything you just said.”

He pushed Chen Youwei to the doorway, then turned to face the room, backing away one step at a time, speaking as he went: “Stay calm — all of you. I’m not looking to make enemies. Understand?”

He had already retreated through the door. He glanced at Yaobusheng. “You’re not coming?”

Yaobusheng was quiet a moment, then nodded. “I’m coming.”

*Thup.*

A sword came thrusting in from outside the doorway, driving through Shi Su’s body and also through Chen Youwei’s — through the heart of each man. The sword tip emerged into view before the assembled onlookers.

One drop of blood.

Dripping from the tip of the blade.

A moment later, the sword was withdrawn. Both men stood there rigid, their faces draining instantly to white.

Outside the door, Gonghu Yingying looked at the sword in her hand, her voice taking on a note of disappointment. “How could you all be so careless? You should have been watching the outside as well. You’re far too easy to kill. It rather fails to live up to your reputations.”