The breeze off the Yunshui River was light and drawn-out, coming close for a moment, then drifting away, carrying Jin Ruo’s voice, the voices of Jingmen, and the sounds of the whole world into the distance. Lin Sui’an stared blankly at Hua Yitang’s face. She watched him lean gently toward her, brow furrowed in a soft knot, eyes like still water catching the light, the shadow of his lashes trembling faintly on his lower lids.
That parched, dry sensation returned to her throat. Lin Sui’an swallowed. “…What…?”
Hua Yitang raised his eyes and shot her a glare. “Don’t move.”
He raised his hand; his wide sleeve slid back to his elbow, revealing a pale, slender forearm. The pads of his index, middle, and ring fingers rested gently against Lin Sui’an’s cheek, his little finger lightly lifting her chin. The warmth of his fingertips and palm was like a soft gust of air, kindling a flush across one side of Lin Sui’an’s face, while the other side remained cool — because Hua Yitang was pressing the salve-dabbed kerchief gently against the wound at her temple.
Oh, he was just helping her put on medicine. Lin Sui’an let out a quiet breath. He made it all so ambiguous — she almost thought he was—
Hua Yitang’s fingers suddenly paused. His throat bobbed with a swallowing sound, his ears flushing a faint red, his voice dropping to a slightly husky murmur: “Don’t move.”
“I didn’t move—”
“Don’t speak!”
Lin Sui’an blinked. She realized that the way they were positioned had brought the two of them very close together — close enough that she could feel each one of his breaths. And by that same logic, Hua Yitang could also— Lin Sui’an quietly drew in a breath, then slowly, slowly let it out toward him—Hua Yitang’s fingers gave a violent tremble. He jerked back as though scalded, two wide eyes glaring at her with fierce intensity, his entire face brilliantly flushed.
Lin Sui’an burst out laughing — only for laughing-too-hard to be punished: it pulled the cut on her cheekbone, and blood came seeping out again.
A fresh layer of black settled over Hua Yitang’s already crimson face. He swapped the kerchief, re-dabbed the salve, and resumed tending to Lin Sui’an’s wound — though with an entirely strange posture: arm stretched as far out as it would go, body curving as far back as possible, face turned as far away as he could manage. The effect was roughly that of someone defusing a time bomb.
Lin Sui’an found it even harder not to laugh. “Are you afraid I’ll eat you?”
Hua Yitang gave a dismissive hum, the words leaving his mouth in sharp, sharp contrast to his extremely cautious movements, every syllable like a dry, spiky branch: “Lin Niangzi is willing to risk life and limb for a disciple who has not even formally entered the sect — so fearlessly heroic and invincible. Of course Hua is frightened.”
Lin Sui’an had a strange, wavering sense that she could smell the faint scent of something sour — like vinegar steeped into tea.
“Hua Yitang, you’re not possibly—”
“I am your partner who will stand beside you through life and death. Far closer than any master-disciple bond. What reason would I have to be jealous of him?” Hua Yitang produced two fresh kerchiefs, poured out some wound-sealing powder, and when he caught sight of the cuts on Lin Sui’an’s arms, he hissed in sharp, repeated intakes of breath. The posture of keeping his distance was entirely forgotten — his two brows, with that tightly furrowed crease as their center, had contorted into all manner of crooked shapes, his expression ten times more pained than that of the actually-injured party.
Lin Sui’an’s leg wound was the worst — skin peeled back, flesh white, blood having soaked through her stockings and into her shoe, a ghastly sight. Lin Sui’an watched Hua Yitang’s expression sidelong, and sure enough, the timid wastrel was frightened enough to turn red-rimmed eyes, so she quickly diverted his attention: “It seems Jin Ruo’s side is rather lively over there — shall we go take a look?”
Hua Yitang said nothing, and bandaged her wounds with clean, swift efficiency. It had to be admitted: his technique was genuinely skilled — the bandaging was both firm and neat. The wound-sealing medicine was also of the finest quality; its effect on stopping blood flow and relieving pain was exceptional. Lin Sui’an was most satisfied with the result and jumped straight to her feet. “Thanks— what are you doing?”
Hua Yitang pulled back the hand he had been about to extend to help her up, waving his small fan with a wooden formality. “Come on. Let’s take a look.”
In the brief time Lin Sui’an had spent having her wounds dressed, the situation on the Eastern Capital Jingmen’s side had shifted in the blink of an eye. The Jingmen members stood to one side in helpless confusion, watching the bound-up elders with their hair in disarray argue at full volume, all their dignified appearances entirely abandoned.
Jin Ruo sat astride the lid of one of the gold-filled chests, brow furrowed to its tightest. Shen Xun sat on the floor with a rag stuffed in his mouth, producing muffled, incoherent howls. Mu Xia and Proprietor Old Ma stood a little farther off, watching the spectacle with great interest while standing guard.
Fourth Elder: “Shen Xun has monopolized power these past few years, acting on his own whims, and ruined every good tradition Jingmen ever had! If we keep following him, we’ll all starve to death sooner or later! Now that the Young Gate Master has appeared, as if sent from heaven — this is a lifeline for our Eastern Capital Jingmen!”
Sixth Elder: “Utter nonsense! What reputation does our Jingmen have in the martial world? The lower nine rungs of the Green Forest! The improvement in our standing these past few years has been precisely because we stopped walking the old road of the Yangdu Jingmen — we abandoned those low-rung trades that involved serving people hand and foot, reselected our membership, and reformed our reputation. If we keep at it, before long we will be a dominant force in the martial world!”
Second Elder: “Precisely! Our Jingmen may be struggling somewhat at present, but as long as we endure, once we have won our great name, what comfort and luxury won’t be within reach?!”
Third Elder: “Oh, give it a rest! Shen Xun paints beautiful dreams for us every day, and we’ve been enduring for three years and then three more years. The longer we endure, the poorer we get — by the time that day comes, Jingmen will have already fallen apart first!”
Seventh Elder: “What I entered the martial world for was excitement and a good time. Regardless of anything, I am never going back to brewing soup, steaming noodles, starting fires, and cooking to wait on people.”
Fifth Elder: “But relying solely on selling information simply cannot cover Jingmen’s expenses! Though the food and drink trades were hard work in the past, at least there was food to eat. That has to be better than having our brothers wandering the streets every day with nothing to do.”
Eighth Elder: “And have any of you noticed — these past few years, the intelligence our Eastern Capital Jingmen is able to gather has grown less and less.”
Ninth Elder: “All that stuff is nothing but trivial neighborhood gossip no one wants to buy — useless, the lot of it. Elder Shen is right: if Jingmen wants to grow and flourish, it must be like the renowned martial factions — govern by force, establish authority, and command the respect of the entire martial world!”
Well, well. As expected of a faction that stakes its place in the world on verbal sparring — when it comes to argument, every single one of them is at full energy, as though transformed from the people who had been knocked flat with a single strike just moments before.
Lin Sui’an watched in amused disbelief, swept her gaze around the room, and noticed that someone appeared to be missing. After a prolonged search, she finally located Tenth Elder Ding Kun behind one of the gold-filled chests — lying face-down on the floor, still playing dead. She was filled with admiration.
This man must have been born under the sign of the snail.
Hua Yitang tapped Ling Zhiyan on the shoulder with his fan and asked in a low voice: “How did it end up like this?”
Ling Zhiyan pressed a hand to his temple, feeling as though his head had swollen to twice its size. “Jin Ruo said that by Jingmen’s rules, a Jingmen member has the freedom to choose whether to stay or leave. He said he wanted to give them the chance to make their own choice, and then…they just started arguing.”
Hua Yitang drew a long “oh” of understanding and said with a cold laugh: “These melon-seed-sized brains could argue until next year and it would be no use — nothing but incoherent rubbish.”
Lin Sui’an was struck by a thought: who knew Jingmen followed such democratic principles? Though come to think of it, the debate’s subject didn’t seem to be a question of staying or leaving — it seemed to be a dispute about Jingmen’s guiding principles and policies. Could it be they had drifted off-topic, or was this some deeper intention on Jin Ruo’s part?
Jin Ruo’s state was rather strange. His attention was not on the squabbling elders at all — it was fixed far in the distance, gazing out over the river, watching a flock of white water-birds flutter away into the horizon, where they drifted like spinning flower petals. The shimmer of the river’s surface skimmed across his brow and settled into the creases of his furrowed brow.
Lin Sui’an had a sudden feeling: Jin Ruo seemed a little sorrowful.
She still remembered young Jin Ruo as seen through the obsessive memory in Wang Hao — swearing an oath to the night sky:
[I will rebuild Jingmen. I want Jingmen’s disciples to eat well, drink well, sleep under a big roof, be happy every day, and live good lives!]
The elders’ bickering grew louder. Jin Ruo’s gaze finally fell upon them, watching in silence, pressing his lips together in a tight line — Lin Sui’an was growing impatient. Jin Ruo was her informally designated disciple — how could she allow him to endure this kind of grievance?
Lin Sui’an walked up behind Jin Ruo in two strides, and the scabbard of Ten Purity struck the chest lid with a sharp crack while the blade, still sheathed, rang in a continuous resonant hum.
The entire observation pavilion went utterly silent in an instant. Every elder stopped mid-sentence, wishing they could swallow back the words they had already spat out.
Lin Sui’an swept the group with a cold stare: “Jin Ruo is my disciple. Anyone who bullies him — are you looking to die?!”
Jin Ruo snapped his gaze to Lin Sui’an, eyes stretched wide as could be. The Eastern Capital Jingmen members’ faces twitched convulsively, every single expression reading: Wait, wait, wait — who’s been bullying whom here exactly?!
“Jin Ruo, go ahead and do what needs to be done.” Hua Yitang kicked Shen Xun out of the way, stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lin Sui’an, and fanned himself with a rather smug air. “As a— ahem, Hua will stand behind you.”
Jin Ruo stared at the two of them in a daze for a long moment, then dropped his gaze, gave a derisive click of his tongue, stood up, and stepped past the elders to stand before the Jingmen members. Raising his voice, he called out: “In the days since I arrived in the Eastern Capital, I walked every inch of the South Market, West Market, and North Market, and six out of ten districts across all one hundred and three wards. I found a total of seventeen thousand, six hundred and sixty-four food stalls. Of these, six thousand seven hundred and forty-five overlap in location with Eastern Capital Jingmen halls. Of those, only one hundred and thirty-three are actually operated by Jingmen members. In other words, the Eastern Capital Jingmen has surrendered almost every single small food stall that used to serve as a hall location.”
“That’s only been a few days — and Jin Ruo has already eaten at that many places,” Ling Zhiyan said, materializing beside them and murmuring quietly.
Hua Yitang: “Eating all to himself. He’ll get fat and deserve it.”
Lin Sui’an: “……”
Are you two paying attention to the right thing?
“Jingmen has only two foundations upon which to stand in the martial world. First: a wide network of intelligence. Second: self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency means we are free from anyone else’s control — always free to act on our own terms. And it is only from that position that the intelligence we provide can be trusted. The intelligence itself is neither useful nor useless in any absolute sense — a piece of information that is worthless to one person may be worth ten thousand gold pieces to another. What Jingmen does is to sell information to those who truly need it. The key to this is that we must have the most accurate, most reliable, and most comprehensive source of intelligence available. And that source does not lie in great noble families or clans, nor in official circles or the imperial court, nor in the Green Forest martial world — it lies in the markets and alleyways, in the fields and paddies, in the warmth and bustle of the neighborhoods, in the everyday speech of ordinary people.”
Jin Ruo turned around, fixed the Jingmen elders with a steady gaze, his voice suddenly sharp: “What you discarded was not some lowly service-trade and demeaning work. It was the very foundation of Jingmen’s existence!”
So Jingmen’s path was all along one of “coming from the people, going back to the people” — a true grass-roots approach to intelligence work. What a sweeping vision that was! Lin Sui’an thought.
The gathered elders’ faces darkened. They fell into silence. The rag-gagged Shen Xun let out a chorus of muffled howling, and Hua Yitang gave him another kick.
“What has been said to me is nothing I haven’t heard before. Someone once said exactly the same thing — that our Jingmen scrambles for crumbs, like rats skulking in a gutter; that he would not stoop to associate with the likes of us; that he was going to accomplish something magnificent, something that would shake heaven and earth, root out the strong and protect the weak.” Jin Ruo’s voice dropped slightly. “I believe you all know who that person was — and you know how he ended.”
“I will not presume to pass judgment on his merits and faults. I only wish to remind everyone that all things in this world come at a price. If you want to be a dominant lord of the martial world, you will face a sea of blood and a mountain of blades, and uncountable bleached bones. I have no wish to lead Jingmen down that road. All I hope is that Jingmen’s disciples need not worry about food and warmth, that they may live in peace and safety, that they need not spend every day in terror and anxiety gambling their lives for illusory status and reputation — let alone losing their lives in the attempt.”
Jingmen members and elders alike exchanged uncertain glances. A good number were already showing signs of wavering. Then Shen Xun, in a sudden roll, managed to dislodge the rag from his mouth and let out a shrill cry: “Don’t let his honeyed words deceive you! If things go as he describes, from now on our Jingmen will be the soft target of the entire martial world — anyone can come and pinch us! We’ll never be able to hold our heads up again!”
Jin Ruo’s eyes turned sharp. He had barely moved when Lin Sui’an had already stepped on Shen Xun’s face, pressing it flat to the floor. Hua Yitang laughed coldly and added another kick for good measure: “A beaten cur — I’m not wasting my time on your barking!” Then he looked over at Jin Ruo and gave an exasperated sigh. “Jin Ruo — this won’t do. You haven’t even learned a tenth of what Hua has to teach.”
Jin Ruo’s temple jumped with a visible pulse: “You, Hua—”
“Who says there’s no future in running Jingmen’s intelligence trade honestly and squarely? Who says Jingmen will only ever be pushed around? Who says you can only rule the martial world by fighting your way to the top?” Hua Yitang raised an eyebrow. “I say — follow Jin Ruo’s strategy, and Jingmen will become the number one faction in all the world!”
At these words, every single person in the room — except for Lin Sui’an — was left slack-jawed, including Jin Ruo and Ling Zhiyan. Lin Sui’an looked at everyone’s astonished expressions and was genuinely puzzled. After all, in her own understanding, Jingmen had always been modeled on a guild of street-food vendors — a textbook example of the number-one faction in the world.
“Think about it, everyone — why is Jingmen looked down upon and oppressed as it is today? Precisely because Jingmen’s branch halls across the land are fragmented and scattered, unable to share intelligence with one another. If all the branch halls could be united under the main hall, and Jingmen’s information-sharing channels rebuilt — at that point, Jingmen would be unified as one body. Intelligence from anywhere under heaven would be known in an instant. Anyone who made an enemy of Jingmen would be within Jingmen’s field of vision at every moment — every word they spoke, every action they took, everything they ate and drank, every vulnerability they had, nowhere to hide—” Hua Yitang’s eyes blazed with brilliant light, his smile blooming as vividly as a flower: “The art of warfare teaches: it is supreme to conquer the enemy’s mind; to conquer cities and walls is the lowest form of victory. This kind of invisible, silent, oppressive intimidation — that is the truly terrifying kind!”
The Jingmen members looked at each other in stunned silence. Clearly they had never once thought of things in this way.
Lin Sui’an to herself: Hua Yitang, this idea of yours is a little dangerous — you sound like a villain from a certain kind of era.
Ling Zhiyan cleared his throat loudly.
Hua Yitang gave his fan a lazy wave: “Taking ten thousand steps back — if there truly comes a day when force is needed to suppress others, which do you all think is more effective: Elder Shen’s Seven Stars Formation, or Lin Sui’an and Ten Purity?”
This time, no one dared make a sound. If Hua Yitang’s vision of the future was still somewhat abstract, then Lin Sui’an and Ten Purity’s terror was something every person present had experienced firsthand with their own flesh and bones. Who was the stronger party was obvious at a glance — in terms of sheer power, the master of Ten Purity won without contest.
“Ah, and one more thing,” Hua Yitang continued to sweeten the deal: “This five-thousand-gold greeting gift from the Hua Family is for the Eastern Capital Jingmen under Jin Ruo’s command — and only that Jingmen!”
The Eastern Capital Jingmen members all: “……”
Good heavens, that condition is simply shameless.
“On one side: the legitimate Jingmen with Ten Purity’s master at its back — join up, and you’ll have a comfortable life and full belly, not to mention the glorious future of dominating the martial world. On the other side: nothing but empty talk, beaten to the ground by Ten Purity’s master, hungry and cold, fighting with your life for some worthless future with no prospects whatsoever.” Hua Yitang snapped his fan open with a flourish and raised his arm wide: “Come, heroes of Jingmen — make your correct choice!”
Jin Ruo’s jaw dropped. Ling Zhiyan pressed his hand to his face. Lin Sui’an could not bring herself to look.
Too cringe. So embarrassing.
The Eastern Capital Jingmen members glanced between one another, expressions making it obvious many were tempted — yet no one dared be the first to step forward. Then, at precisely that moment, the “dead” Ding Kun suddenly scrambled upright off the floor, moving with the speed of a thunderclap, and dropped to one knee before Jin Ruo in a single fluid motion: “Eastern Capital Jingmen branch hall’s Ding Kun — I pay my respects to the Young Gate Master!”
This bow of Ding Kun’s was a stroke of pure, inspired genius. The several elders who had long been dissatisfied with Shen Xun promptly defected; their Jingmen disciples, deferring to their seniors’ lead, followed suit immediately. Under the pressure of herd instinct, those with wavering resolve naturally chose Jin Ruo. The elders who had originally supported Shen Xun, seeing how the tide had turned, quickly and cleanly switched sides as well. In the end, only the Seven Stars remained with Shen Xun: all of them had been personally trained and shaped by Shen Xun’s hand. Raised through years of his care and tutelage, they felt loyalty and gratitude toward him — and though their hearts were troubled and uncertain, they still chose to stand by their master.
Lin Sui’an felt a twinge of regret. Though these seven were a step below Jin Ruo in talent, they were already among Jingmen’s finest — not being able to bring them over was a genuine pity.
Jin Ruo let out a sigh and raised his voice: “By Jingmen’s rules, a member’s choice of staying or leaving is free. Since these brothers are unwilling to remain, let them be formally removed from Jingmen’s rolls from this moment—”
“Ah — to think that the Young Gate Master of what is to be the world’s foremost faction is so soft-hearted after all! By releasing them today, you are planting a thorn in Jingmen’s side for tomorrow!”
From overhead, a clear, bright voice, warm with laughter, fell like a shard of sunlit glass floating down from the air.
Lin Sui’an was startled. Her head shot up — and she saw a figure seated on the tip of the observation pavilion’s southern eave, left knee drawn up, elbow resting on it, chin propped in palm, wearing an expression of supreme, contented ease.
He wore the same garments as Jin Ruo. His features, his hair bun, his every expression — identical to Jin Ruo in every way.
Side Story:
Hua Yitang: Leave dream-painting to the professionals!
Goodness, it’s too hot.
Updates tomorrow will be in the evening as well.