Qingyuan.

To some in Liaovang City’s jianghu, this place was a forbidden ground. To others, it was a sacred ground.

The jianghu had never been the province of any single generation. The old would gradually make their exit; the new would gradually arrive.

Some young people felt that the older generation ought to know to step aside of their own accord and make way — otherwise they were simply failing to read the times.

To this attitude among young people, Ma Ziwu had only one thing to say: “My first thirty years I traded my life for money; the twenty years after that I bowed and scraped and paid my respects to everyone I met — only then did I arrive at a place where others sell their lives for me, where so many people bow their heads to me and pay their respects when they see me.”

“What right do you have to ask me to give way to you?”

Those who regarded Qingyuan as a forbidden ground, and those who regarded it as a sacred ground, probably differed greatly in age.

The former had usually already endured the jianghu’s brutal lessons and knew they were not the protagonists of this world.

The latter were probably quite young — dreaming of becoming the master of that sacred ground someday.

Qingyuan was vast. That in a place like Liaovang City, several hundred acres could be used to build a garden spoke for itself about Ma Ziwu’s power.

The older generation in the city still knew how Ma Ziwu had risen, and so gave him an even wider berth.

A man born in Liaovang City — his father dead at seven, his mother dead at eleven. He had then survived by petty theft.

At sixteen he had begun collecting debts for others. The first time he went to collect, he had a finger cut off, was beaten black and blue, and was thrown into the street.

That same night, he crept into that household and killed all seven people inside. He cut off the fingers of the man who had beaten him — all ten of them — and before killing him, forced the man to swallow them one by one himself.

That household had a boy of fourteen or fifteen who had often played with Ma Ziwu. When the boy wept and begged Ma Ziwu to spare him, Ma Ziwu said: “I dare not let you grow up. I dare not let you grow bigger and stronger than me. I dare not imagine the day you cut off all my fingers and force me to swallow them.”

Before the age of thirty, Ma Ziwu had established himself in Liaovang City through fighting and ferocity — but he was still only a small-time ruffian, rooted at the bottom.

For reasons unknown, he had a sudden change of heart. He took all his savings and went to pay his respects to a man of some seniority in the underground world, intending to recognize him as an adoptive father.

The man told him: “A nobody like you — what makes you think you have the qualifications to become my adopted son?”

And so Ma Ziwu immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed before that man’s adopted son, recognizing that adopted son as his own adoptive father — which was in effect to recognize the senior man as an adoptive grandfather. This move made the rather senior figure burst out laughing.

Five years later, Ma Ziwu saw this elder off to the next world. Before severing that elder’s throat, he said: “You have lived in my heart for five years — you ought to feel honored. Because in the future, men stronger than you, more powerful than you, of higher seniority than you, will not be able to live in my heart for even five years.”

By the time Ma Ziwu was fifty, he had become a local power in Liaovang City.

On the day of his fiftieth birthday, half of Liaovang City’s underground forces came to offer their congratulations. During the feast and drinking, a man of about thirty wandered back and forth through the banquet, endlessly introducing himself to the underground bigwigs, humble as a child meeting his teachers for the first time.

That evening, the man was once again invited to Ma Ziwu’s home — thinking that heaven had finally smiled upon him, that his fortune had turned, that Ma Ziwu wished to see him, and that henceforth his path would be brilliant.

In Ma Ziwu’s sitting room, several people held him down and used a rope to pull tight around his neck.

Ma Ziwu walked to him and said, word by word: “I have been building connections in the jianghu since I was ten years old. Everyone who came today to congratulate me is a connection I built through blood and sweat over the past forty years. What right do you have to try to exploit my connections at my own birthday banquet to seek your own opportunities? Did you ask my permission?”

And so that man was strangled to death, his body thrown into an unmarked burial ground somewhere outside Liaovang City.

This was Ma Ziwu. He knew how to climb ever higher — and more terrifyingly, he knew how to prevent others from climbing higher than him.

Ma Ziwu had built a flower house in Qingyuan, and every day he spent half his time or more in that flower house. Perhaps it was the effect of age — he had grown more and more fond of tending flowers and plants.

“Old Patriarch.”

A young man hurried to the flower house entrance and bowed: “I have heard that someone overturned the eight dishes at Jingtan Teahouse today.”

Ma Ziwu’s hand, which had been pruning a bonsai, paused.

He looked back at the young man: “Little Wu — did you see the person?”

The young man called Little Wu kept his head lowered and answered, “Old Patriarch, I did not see what the person looked like. I heard it was a young man, apparently about twenty years old, who was welcomed into the back courtyard by Li Chunfeng.”

“Overturning the eight dishes…”

Ma Ziwu exhaled a long breath.

He had seen it before.

He had assumed he would only ever see it that once in his life. He had not expected that at eighty, he would live to see it again.

“Old Patriarch — does overturning the eight dishes mean a great calamity is about to come?” Little Wu asked.

Ma Ziwu set down the iron shears in his hand, gestured toward a reclining chair not far away. Little Wu hurried over to bring it closer and brewed tea for him.

Ma Ziwu settled into the reclining chair, swaying gently, and said, “The last time someone overturned the eight dishes was actually more than forty years ago. At that time, in this Liaovang City, I was still only a small figure…”

Jingtan Teahouse’s four dried and four fresh had always carried significance.

If you ate the four fresh, it meant the matter you wished to handle would not involve lives — a small matter, in Jingtan’s eyes, one that even a young waiter could handle.

If you ate the four dried, it meant the matter was one of death — killing someone — and the front hall’s proprietor had to personally receive you.

Overturning the eight dishes meant: except for Jingtan’s owner himself, no one in all of Liaovang City might be capable of taking on a matter this large.

“It was a scholar,” Ma Ziwu said, narrowing his eyes as though carefully searching his memory.

“It was also by chance — that day I was in Jingtan Teahouse drinking tea. Someone had put a price on one of my legs, so I’d gone to Jingtan to do business — I wanted to ask Jingtan’s people to find out who it was.”

Ma Ziwu slowly exhaled.

“That person looked to be about thirty years old. He wore a robe the color of moonlight, held a folding fan, and carried himself with great poise.”

A man of Ma Ziwu’s seniority, at his current station — how terrifying must someone be to remain unforgotten and still make him feel a lingering dread?

Little Wu crouched beside him listening, one hand raised to knead Ma Ziwu’s leg.

Ma Ziwu was fond of Little Wu above all his close attendants — the most quick-witted, and the most diligent.

“That day, he walked into Jingtan with his fan waving, and not long after sitting down, he overturned the eight dishes. Everyone present at the time got quite a shock.”

Ma Ziwu said, “The front hall proprietor hurried over and asked the man his name and origins. The man said: surnamed Li — no particular background — just a wanderer of the jianghu.”

He looked at Little Wu: “The Jingtan proprietor invited him to the back courtyard. He said: you are not qualified enough; your owner must personally come to receive me, or something terrible may happen.”

“The people in Jingtan — every one of them thought themselves above others. But overturning the eight dishes had to be taken seriously — that was Jingtan’s rule. And so the Jingtan owner of that time, Yang Entai, came out personally to receive him.”

“One day later…”

Ma Ziwu slowly exhaled again: “Those of my teacher’s generation, those of my teacher’s teacher’s generation — the underground forces of Liaovang City were cut through from one end to the other. One hundred and ninety-nine people died in a single night. Not a single small figure among them.”

Little Wu was startled. He instinctively blurted out: “Jingtan acted?”

Ma Ziwu shook his head: “No one knew — no one knew whether it was Jingtan who had acted, or whether it was that scholar who had acted himself. But to speak of it now — thankfully my seniority and standing were not high enough at the time. Otherwise, I too might have died that night. Thankfully, so many of those above me in seniority had died that I was able to rise faster.”

He looked at Little Wu: “But with such a person in the world, no matter how high I climbed, I could not feel at ease. So I tried to find out who that scholar was. After all these years of searching, I have only managed to learn this much: the Jingtan owner of that time, Yang Entai, was rendered crippled — his martial arts completely destroyed. He did not last long and died not long after. As for what else Jingtan lost, that is unknown — but very quickly, Jingtan’s people were all replaced.”

Little Wu felt a tightening in his chest. What kind of ability had that scholar possessed?

At that same moment, Jingtan Teahouse. Back courtyard.

Li Chunfeng brought tea for Cao Lie and was about to withdraw when Cao Lie asked him, “Why, when I tipped all those things out, did you come personally to speak with me? And I overheard the others saying something about overturning the eight dishes — what does that mean?”

Li Chunfeng explained in detail what overturning the eight dishes signified, and Cao Lie finally understood why the guests in the teahouse had reacted so strongly.

He had known absolutely nothing of this rule of overturning the eight dishes. Had he known… he wouldn’t have cared.

Hearing Li Chunfeng mention that in nearly fifty years only two instances of overturning the eight dishes had occurred, Cao Lie grew curious: “Who was the previous one?”

Li Chunfeng was silent for a long while, then shook his head: “I don’t fully know either. The owner likely knows more.”

Cao Lie nodded: “Then I’ll ask him.”

Two quarters of an hour later, in Li Sanzhou’s study. Hearing Cao Lie ask about the incident from decades ago when someone had overturned the eight dishes, Li Sanzhou could not help sighing.

“That person came to make trouble — no, not just to make trouble for Jingtan. He came to make trouble for all of Liaovang City.”

Cao Lie was taken aback. He asked, “What kind of person would have such audacity — to pick a fight at Jingtan during the very height of its power? That must also have been Liaovang City’s most flourishing period.”

Li Sanzhou answered, “In the records, only this much is written down: the person’s surname was Li, and he called himself a wandering man of the jianghu. He overturned the eight dishes, and the Jingtan owner of that time, Yang Entai, personally received him, and asked what he wanted Jingtan to do.”

“That man surnamed Li said: I would like you to draw up a list of the two hundred most wicked men in Liaovang City — one might also say the two hundred who have killed the most. Once the list is drawn up, have Jingtan’s people go and kill them in order of the list.”

Cao Lie was stunned: “What nerve. What price could he possibly pay?”

Li Sanzhou said: “Yang Entai asked him the very same thing. Drawing up the list was nothing — the real question was what price he could pay. That man surnamed Li answered: go and kill these two hundred men, and I will refrain from killing you. That is the trade.”

Cao Lie asked: “And then?”

Li Sanzhou sighed: “Then Yang Entai’s martial arts were destroyed.”

Cao Lie’s expression shifted. After a moment he asked: “How was Yang Entai’s martial arts?”

Li Sanzhou answered: “Superior-Superior Excellence.”

Because the Cao family controlled the Shanhe Seal, the Cao family could naturally call upon Shanhe Seal personnel to manage Cao family enterprises, and Cao family personnel to manage Shanhe Seal enterprises.

Within the Shanhe Seal’s talent assessment system, there were several grades. Scholarly talent was divided into three tiers of nine levels; martial talent was also divided into three tiers of nine levels.

The three tiers were Superior, Middling, and Inferior — and each tier was further subdivided into Superior, Middling, and Inferior again. For instance, a Superior-tier talent would be further distinguished as Inferior-Superior Excellence, Middling-Superior Excellence, or Superior-Superior Excellence.

To be assessed as Superior-Superior Excellence — one could imagine how difficult that was.

In the Shanhe Seal as it currently stood, there were only about twenty-some people at the Superior-Superior Excellence level. Among the Sixteen — the Four Haves, the Four Nones, the Four Lacks, and the Four Completes — not all were at Superior-Superior Excellence. Only seven of the sixteen had achieved that rating.

A few years back, Cao Lie, bored, had himself assessed — refusing to allow anyone to relax the standards for him. His final rating was also Superior-Superior Excellence.

Cao Lie asked, “Was Yang Entai’s martial arts destroyed by that man surnamed Li?”

Li Sanzhou nodded.

Cao Lie asked again, “Why did that man surnamed Li suddenly strike at Yang Entai?”

Li Sanzhou was silent for a moment, then spoke with a somewhat complicated tone: “It was not a sudden strike. It was because Yang Entai asked him a single question: what makes you think you can threaten me?”

—