The beauty of the ancient city was that it maintained a pleasant coolness throughout the year, without ever becoming bone-chillingly cold.

During this season, while most of northern China might still be experiencing the bitter cold of early spring with lingering rain and snow, here the farmlands were vibrant and the willow branches had returned to their verdant state. Further north, the great grasslands of Shangri-La unfurled like an enormous canvas, soaking up different rich and vivid colors with each passing day.

Mu Dai would bring Cao Yanhua to Luo Ren’s residence almost daily for “training.” In her words: it was spacious, quiet, and there was no fear of anyone stealing their techniques.

The sound of sweeping filled the early morning air. Cao Yanhua was vigorously wielding a broom in the small courtyard, sweeping with great effort. Each time he started sweeping, he would silently curse Luo Ren vehemently: Is being rich so impressive? The average living space for Chinese people is just twenty or thirty square meters, so why do you get to live in a grand residence with three chambers, a decorative screen wall, and a courtyard?

It’s worth noting that his little master Mu Dai had instructed him: “Sweep, sweep, sweep. Every room, large and small, every nook and corner—not a single spot can be missed.”

Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, causing a stinging sensation, but Cao Yanhua merely blinked a couple of times without bothering to wipe it away.

After all, the lead weights tied to both his arms added up to about twenty jin! Combined with those on his calves, his total body burden exceeded fifty jin. He would be exhausted even if he were just lying down, let alone sweeping.

But look at how leisurely his little master was…

Cao Yanhua cast an envious glance at Mu Dai. She had laid out a cushion on the steps where she sat, leaning against a corridor pillar while reading a book. Beside her was a bowl of washed blueberries. Occasionally, she would reach for one, and although she could have eaten them normally, it seemed she was deliberately trying to irritate him. With a flick of her finger, she would send a blueberry soaring about a meter high. No matter which direction it fell, her gaze never left her book, as if she had eyes on top of her head. She would shift slightly and open her mouth to catch it, chewing with evident delight.

Cao Yanhua felt a pang of both bitterness and envy. How many lifetimes of sweeping would it take before he could become like the Sweeping Monk of Shaolin?

After persevering a while longer, he truly couldn’t continue. His legs were trembling, and his arms were shaking like leaves in the wind. “Little Master, I can’t hold on anymore…”

Mu Dai’s deliberately mature voice responded: “Persevere. Your master has your best interests at heart.”

Even in international martial arts competitions, fighters are matched by weight class. Even if it truly was “for his good,” couldn’t she consider the fat boy’s endurance capacity a little more?

After about five more minutes, Cao Yanhua’s head was buzzing, his vision darkening. After mustering all his strength for one final sweep with the broom, he collapsed with a thud…

Mu Dai moved with nimble grace, skimming over like a swallow skimming water. She grabbed his collar before he hit the ground, successfully turning his fall into a seated position. Her other hand produced a small spray bottle—the kind girls use for toner—as if by magic, and gave Cao Yanhua’s face a quick spritz…

The refreshing, calming effect must have been quite good, because Cao Yanhua’s small eyes suddenly widened, staring blankly ahead.

“Fatty Cao, continue. Since you’re just beginning your training, I’ll let you use my toner. Next time, I’ll switch to mustard juice.”

“Little Master, I really can’t go on. I need to rest…” Cao Yanhua’s gaze remained fixed, still staring blankly ahead. “I just saw… I’m even having hallucinations…”

Mu Dai bent down, trying to look from Cao Yanhua’s eye level: “What kind of hallucinations?”

There, in the morning sunlight, dust was slowly settling—dust that had been stirred up by his final sweep before collapsing.

Cao Yanhua described it in an almost breathless voice: “Really… when the dust was at its thickest, it suddenly seemed to form a line of little people. The one in front was riding something, and then they vanished in the blink of an eye…”

Mu Dai smiled sweetly, her voice extremely gentle: “Is that so?”

The next second, her expression changed: “Keep making things up! Later, you’ll take a feather duster and clean all the dust from the arches and decorative carvings on the corridor pillars!”

They say that a teacher for a day is a father for life, so why were there so many cases of disciples betraying their masters in ancient times? Cao Yanhua couldn’t understand it before, but now he had some inkling.

Upon returning to the bar, as soon as he stepped through the door, he heard Uncle Zhang talking about Yi Wansan.

“How is it that you go out for a while and come back so dispirited, as if you’ve lost your soul? You don’t even have any work enthusiasm.”

“Uncle, with such meager wages, you expect me to have work enthusiasm? You must be joking…”

Halfway through his sentence, he spotted Mu Dai and Cao Yanhua returning, and immediately his words took on a different tone: “Besides, you can ask the little boss lady. This time going out with her, I experienced a great shock, a severe overturning of my worldview. I need time to recover.”

“Severely overturned worldview,” indeed. Mu Dai scoffed inwardly. The seven deadly simple phoenix-phoenix lock—even Cao Yanhua had calmly accepted it, yet Yi Wansan, who had swindled people across the length and breadth of the country, was now playing the role of a fragile soul unable to cope.

Just as she was considering what barbed remark to throw at him, her phone rang. Mu Dai glanced at the caller ID and quickly answered: “Hello?”

Yi Wansan snorted disdainfully, shrugging his shoulders as if in contempt. While continuing to wipe glasses with a white cloth, he mouthed to Cao Yanhua: “Luo Ren calling.”

Cao Yanhua returned a knowing look, and both men strained their ears to listen to Mu Dai’s conversation.

Mu Dai had anticipated this and turned sideways, speaking in hushed tones. All they could hear were “Mm,” “Okay,” “No problem.” Just as Cao Yanhua and Yi Wansan were about to give up, her voice suddenly rose by several octaves.

“Really? When?”

Oh, something interesting? Cao Yanhua and Yi Wansan perked up again.

Mu Dai’s expression became extremely dejected. Her hanging hand clenched into a fist, and she stomped her feet repeatedly as if in frustration. After hanging up, she continued to sigh heavily.

Presumably, Luo Ren wasn’t coming back. Serves her right! Yi Wansan felt refreshed and asked: “What’s wrong?”

Mu Dai slumped into a chair, resting her chin on the table and letting out a moan-like sigh: “Luo Ren said he’s meeting Shen Gun tonight.”

Yi Wansan’s hand trembled, causing the stemware to clatter onto the bar. He quickly picked it up, looking around nervously.

Only Uncle Zhang, passing by the entrance, gave him an annoyed glare.

“I should have known!” Mu Dai thrust her fingers into her hair, as if wanting to tear out a handful. “Someone like Shen Gun, so interested in supernatural matters, would want to see the deadly simple with his own eyes. The item is with Luo Ren, so of course, he would go find Luo Ren. I should have realized this.”

Cao Yanhua sympathized with her: “Yes, Sister Xianglin, my condolences.”

It’s just Shen Gun, probably shaped like a stick. He couldn’t understand why Mu Dai was jealous of Luo Ren’s meeting with him. She must have limited experience.

Yi Wansan’s tone was somewhat strange: “What’s there to see? Is it worth traveling all that way? Couldn’t Luo Ren just take a photo and send it?”

Mu Dai gave him a sideways glance: “Of course it’s worth seeing. If it weren’t, why would Shen Gun, as busy as he is, rush over there?”

“Luo Ren said he borrowed that camera you mentioned earlier. After meeting with Shen Gun tonight, he’ll take high-speed continuous shots and then stack them on a computer. This way, they’ll get very detailed images.”

At the end, she couldn’t resist taking a jab at Yi Wansan: “Much better than your dog-chewed drawings. They might even find more clues from it.”

Yi Wansan remained silent, busy wiping glasses. Only he knew that his hands were slightly trembling, almost spasmodically wiping the same spot over and over.

It’s okay, he reassured himself. Even if Luo Ren discovers another image, they will never know what it means.

So, it’s okay.

His thoughts drifted away, and he seemed to hear the familiar sound of ocean waves. Sunlight shone on the blue-gray eaves that the old patriarch had described as “like a bird’s skin, like a pheasant in flight,” so bright it hurt the eyes.

Mu Dai tried to make a call several times but feared disturbing Luo Ren and Shen Gun’s important business. She was restless all evening, and even after going to bed, she tossed and turned.

Near midnight, Luo Ren’s call finally came.

Mu Dai answered and immediately bombarded him with questions: “Did you meet him? What does he look like? Is he handsome? Is he particularly elegant? Did you take pictures for me?”

How could Luo Ren answer this?

Recalling Shen Gun’s appearance as he opened the car door with a red, white, and blue plastic bag in one hand and a KFC family bucket in the other, grinning…

He responded ambiguously: “He’s quite… unique.”

Mu Dai let out a wistful sigh, the kind of regret one feels at missing a chance encounter.

Suddenly, she remembered something else: “What about the stacked computer images? Do you have them?”

“I was just about to tell you about that.”

His tone seemed off, and Mu Dai instinctively sat up in bed: “What’s wrong?”

“Neither I, nor Shen Gun, nor the specially borrowed high-speed camera… none of us saw the water shadow.”

The camera didn’t record any light arcs or water lines. At first, they thought the shutter speed was too fast, resulting in insufficient light. They then tried extending the exposure time, similar to photographing star trails, but it still didn’t work.

Shen Gun said it might be that the light was too dim, only visible to the naked eye.

Even as he said it, he didn’t believe it himself. Lenses are called humanity’s third eye—macro lenses, super-telephoto lenses have captured countless secrets invisible to the human eye.

They turned off the lights and waited for a long time, but the basin of water remained as still as death, without the slightest arc of light.

Mu Dai didn’t understand: “That night, each of us saw it. Although we didn’t know it was a drawing, every ten seconds or so, there would be a longer or shorter arc of light appearing.”

Luo Ren sighed: “That’s what I told Shen Gun, too. I even suggested that maybe Yi Wansan’s position was special that time. Shen Gun moved around the water basin, trying countless positions, nearly breaking his neck, but still saw nothing.”

Mu Dai racked her brains for possibilities: “Is it possible that the deadly simple died? You stabbed it with a knife that day. Maybe it seemed fine then, but later succumbed to its wounds?”

Luo Ren didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He casually picked up the knife on the table: “Mu Dai, don’t forget, Shen Gun said that day that the water shadow’s clue came from the phoenix-phoenix lock. If the water shadow suddenly disappeared, it shouldn’t be because the deadly simple died, but because someone strangled the phoenix-phoenix lock…”

As he said this, his heart suddenly skipped a beat, and his gaze slowly turned to the straight steel blade.

Mu Dai seemed to sense something: “Luo Ren?”

Luo Ren didn’t answer. He held his breath and looked at the blade. The blade had a matte finish from polishing, but it could still vaguely reflect surrounding images.

Had he seen wrong? Just now, for an instant, he thought he saw a line of small figures walking on the blade’s surface.