The heavy snow fell all night, and by dawn it had turned to fine snow, making the view clear again. Qiqian’er stood on the rooftop looking at Qingfeng, and felt that it wasn’t as big as she’d imagined, but was unexpectedly sprawling.

It turned out that this human world was divided into what happened beneath the eaves and what happened on the rooftops. Beneath the eaves, the common masses sought to survive; atop the roofs, blades and swords cut off the threads of life.

Her original intention had simply been to follow her heart, to do one good deed she could be proud of. Who could have imagined it would bring a steel blade down on her?

Being hacked at with a knife—this was something she’d never dared imagine before, something she couldn’t have conceived of.

She’d spent a lifetime scheming against Qiao Shi, but that was all a battle of wits—forget steel blades, not even a kitchen knife would have been drawn.

After a moment of cold sweat, Qiqian’er grew extraordinarily angry.

Why on earth was this happening?

The two men—one tall, one short—were now standing just three rooftops away, staring at her fixedly.

When she turned back, the shorter one came at her again, swinging his blade straight down at her head—a move well-worn in the martial world called “Cutting Through Thorns.”

The technique was crude, but most opening attacks were like that—whatever came easiest to hand.

In an instant, the blade’s momentum swept up with the cold wind, snow scattering as the short fellow bounced forward like a nimble grasshopper.

Qiqian’er had never seen anything like this. Startled, she jumped without knowing how to dodge, and when she saw the blade coming, instinctively arched backward into a bridge.

Except where others did a bridge with both legs supporting the body, she balanced on one leg alone—and the other leg, as if it had a mind of its own, kicked out at the man swinging the blade the moment she’d dodged the strike aimed at her head.

Qiqian’er had never been in a fight before, so naturally she hadn’t used full force. After the kick, she was still stunned, thinking: did I just hit someone’s son? Did I just fight a man? Which of the thirty-six forms was that? Oh—”Watching the Hare, Minding the Hound,” a bit slow to execute but it got the job done… no, no, no! I hit someone? I kicked someone? But why? Why would I kick him?

Two lifetimes as an inner-household wife, and here she was actually coming to blows with someone—on a rooftop, no less.

The short one felt as though his chest had been struck by a thousand-pound hammer. He let out a muffled grunt, the blade instantly flying from his grip as his body was sent flying—he had no idea how he’d been kicked.

Just then the tall one screamed, heartbroken: “Spare him, senior! Liuhao! Dodge, quickly!!”

Too late. The man flew straight into the wall of a nearby vacant mansion, punching a human-sized hole through it.

Over here, Qiqian’er, having finished her kick, was stunned herself. She stood there blankly, and hearing the whistle of wind, reached out and found her hand closing around a falling blade.

A blade? A blade!!!!

The tall one thought of the short one’s five older brothers and immediately felt his future had been utterly ruined, all hope lost.

He rushed over, and with great effort scaled the wall to pull the man out. Seeing him clutching his chest and gasping for breath, his legs went weak and he nearly collapsed.

Alive? He’s alive!

Guanyin Bodhisattva, all the gods in heaven be praised, his rice bowl was saved!

The short one clutched his chest, aching dully for a good while before he could stand straight. Still shaken to his very soul, he was peppered with questions from his chief: Are you all right? Nothing wrong?

He was startled himself, and patted himself down from head to toe. Finally he pulled a dented heart-guard mirror from inside his robe and said: “I’m… I’m not… not hurt. My Fifth Brother Hao’s heart mirror? No, no, something is wrong—it’s ruined. My brother will skin me alive…”

But before he could finish speaking, he saw the female demon across from them bounce over again, still holding the very blade from before.

The two of them immediately shut their eyes, thinking: this is the end of me!

Qiqian’er’s heart was in a panic; without thinking too much, she bounded over to the two men and carefully placed the blade into the short one’s hands. Seeing him trembling too much to hold it, she kindly used his own sleeve to bind his hand to the hilt.

Then she grabbed his arm and shook it once, and once satisfied it was secure, she let out a breath of relief and flew backward, quite high, before landing and standing silently, once again meeting their eyes.

She kept thinking: these two are so wicked! Look—the blade is still in their hands, and looking closely, it’s actually a double-edged weapon! Why go this far? All for fifty catties of elm bark flour? A snow-marked long blade shone brighter, yet its tip had been aimed at herself.

Thinking about it now, this fight had happened for no reason at all. Could it be that she had caused some other kind of trouble without realizing it?

Thinking of the broken tiles on Master Cheng’s roof, she instinctively shifted her feet, glancing down—only a shallow pair of footprints in the snow.

But seeing those footprints, an inexplicable feeling suddenly rose in Qiqian’er’s heart, the kind that belonged to an inner-household woman. In both her lifetimes combined, that lout Choutou had never once really looked closely at her feet.

Not that they were unsightly—in fact they were fair and small now, with pink little toenails, rather pretty… but if a man across the way had seen them, then, then… perhaps she ought to just silence him for good?

She strained to recall carefully whether the two men had seen her feet just now. Her skirt today was fairly long, so—probably they hadn’t seen?

Qiqian’er sniffed, and beneath the cover of her skirt hem, swept her feet side to side once. Having settled that, she looked back the way she’d come, and seeing only expanse of silvery white, let out a breath of relief.

After all, having something so private as her feet seen by others—she would still feel shy about that.

She was thinking only of her own feet; the embarrassment of exposed feet had entirely displaced the threat of the blade.

She even unconsciously cast aside, out to the far edges of her mind, the fact that she’d just traded blows and repelled an attacker with a single strike, pretending it hadn’t happened at all, continuing to play the part of the innocent in her own heart.

Such was the peculiar way an inner-household woman’s mind worked.

But the two constables across from her did not think this way at all.

They were themselves junior members of the martial world; though they’d only placed mid-upper in their hall’s sparring rankings, even the very top fighters couldn’t have matched the unfathomable depth this woman across from them displayed. She had struck them with a single move—and that was even with her holding back.

A strapping young man well over a hundred catties had been sent flying seven or eight zhang through the air and lodged directly into a brick wall by a mere kick—yet her strength had been so precisely, strangely calibrated that when they pulled him out, there wasn’t a scratch on him.

Had the two of them gone mad? One tried to rob and intimidate her, the other drew a blade and struck.

Suffering through to the end, the short one sneezed against the wind, and Qiqian’er’s body immediately retreated a full zhang higher.

The two men across from her raised their blades warily in front of their chests and backed away a dozen more steps.

This couldn’t go on forever… there was so much to do at home, Choutou’s shoe-liners still hadn’t been cut, and the livestock hadn’t been fed today either. Qiqian’er thought to herself: it really was her own carelessness—why walk on rooftops at all? Rooftops?

Wait, that didn’t seem right—what was wrong with walking on rooftops?

She finally spoke up: “You two? I heard you say just now that early this morning I was recklessly walking on the roof of your… your yamen? I’m not sure—where exactly is your yamen located?”

The tall one swallowed hard, one hand gripping his blade, the other waving vaguely behind him: “There—over there!”

Such a tall, strapping man, yet so muddled in his speech?

Qiqian’er was a serious person, so she asked again: “Which way? Please point clearly!”

The short one, all hope lost, pointed weakly behind him: “That way. The alley behind the residence.”

His answer made Qiqian’er furious—did they take her for an outsider?

She raised her voice: “The alley behind the residence is a whole ward and two streets away from here! You think I’m not from around here, bullying a stranger? I’m a local! You’re trying to scare me! What do you mean your yamen’s rooftop—that’s utter nonsense! This whole area belongs to the former dynasty’s academy grounds—there are no students in session now, no one lives here, what yamen of yours?”

The tall one struggled to maintain his dignity: “Even if it’s not our yamen’s territory, then, then, then you’re still a person of the martial world, and that falls under our Jiu Si Tang’s jurisdiction, we manage…”

This made even less sense. Qiqian’er, confident in her knowledge of both classical texts and the law, began to lecture him earnestly.

“You two—what nonsense are you spouting? What kind of muddle is this! Since ancient times, whether in statute or ritual, moral teaching has always come before punishment. Even the ancient ‘Canon of Shun’ says punishment must be applied with compassion. The sages always said the state uses law only as a last resort, and from ancient times punishment always follows caution. I don’t know if the new laws of Daliang have added a statute forbidding walking on rooftops!

Even if I’d committed some crime, it would at most be a minor public-order offense—why go this far? Moreover, looking across all the dynastic records, there has never once been a law punishing someone for crossing a rooftop at dawn! And furthermore, it’s already past the fifth watch, well outside curfew hours—so with no magistrate having rendered any lawful judgment, why would you attack me with a blade without even asking my reason…”

The woman across from them rattled on and on, leaving the two junior officers of Jiu Si Tang utterly dumbfounded.

The short one called out to his chief, voice trembling: “Chief?”

The tall one paused, then said: “Liuhao, this is bad. My elders used to say that before a witch from the southern borderlands casts a curse, she first recites an incantation…”

“Is—is that so? Then what she’s chanting…”

“Listen carefully—it sounds like… yes! It’s a corpse-worm curse for sure!”

“Then, then what do we do? Call, call for help?”

“Call who? The commander? Oh! Your brother just arrived in the capital yesterday, you—you forgot…”

“I didn’t forget. But we still have to do something.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve—already taken care of it!”

The tall one slowly backed away two steps. The short one glanced down and saw his chief had drawn a bug in the snow with his foot.

This was leaving a clue. The short one’s heart sank, and he said miserably: “Brother, you should run first. Your sister-in-law—the child in her belly hasn’t even met its father yet…”

“Good brother, I didn’t know you had such loyalty in you. If today the ancestors show mercy and I escape with my life, we’ll go home and burn paper money, slaughter a rooster, offer sacrifices… She’s—she’s coming…”

The woman across from them had suddenly floated right in front of them.

The short one cried out and turned to run, but his chief grabbed him by the collar, and, both resentful and wronged, hissed through his teeth: “Weren’t you supposed to let me run first?!”

“Chief, chief, that’s what I was thinking, but my legs—they ran on their own!”

Qiqian’er, as always, favored the tactic of arguing forcefully no matter the merit of her case, and having lectured them at such length while the men across from her kept retreating, she took that as proof they were in the wrong.

Relieved, she thought to herself: before my son An’er is born, I absolutely cannot become a criminal woman guilty of breaking the law. My An’er must become the treasured young master of an official family, my An’er must attend the best government-run academy in Qingfeng, and there mustn’t be the slightest stain on our household. Whoever threatens my An’er’s future, I’ll finish them off in a single blow!

Hmph! These two constables clearly relied on their authority to bully people—no different from those corrupt officials who used to squeeze harsh taxes from the countryside. Though she was still just a small woman, she was nonetheless a proper sixth-rank Lady of Merit.

All the more reason to reason with them properly, to set right the bright and clear order of this peaceful age! She leapt forward, and her eye caught the tall one drawing a bug on the ground.

Without thinking, she blurted: “What’s that supposed to be?”

The tall one’s legs went weak; gripping the short one’s shoulder, he stammered: “I—I don’t know. Just, just doodling something!”

Qiqian’er sighed helplessly, her tone grave: “Fine officers of the law! Neglecting your duties! Failing your proper business! Attacking someone on a rooftop at dawn without cause, and afterward, instead of reflecting on your own conduct, you’re scribbling pictures on the ground! Is this how your superiors trained you? Speak—what are your names, where do you live, what rank is your yamen, who is your commanding officer? Speak!”

The two of them, without further thought, confessed everything honestly.

It turned out the tall one was named Zhou Wujiu, and the short one was Xie Liuhao. Both hailed from the Southern School of martial arts, and currently served as eighth-rank junior officers in the Qingfeng City branch of Jiu Si Tang.

Jiu Si Tang was a newly established law-enforcement agency of Daliang. This yamen only assisted in matters of criminal law in a supporting role; its true jurisdiction was over the martial world and its people.

Moreover, Jiu Si Tang’s ranking system differed from the court’s—it had one Chief Commander, four Executive Commanders, eight Assistant Commanders, and, following the administrative divisions of prefectures and counties, regional branch commanders who each managed junior officers beneath them, and beneath the junior officers were the lowest-ranked functionaries…

Having listened to their rambling explanation, Qiqian’er let out a breath of relief. Oh, so what! They only managed martial-world people—that didn’t include her.

So she snorted and said: “What are you talking about! I’m not a martial-world person, why did you draw a blade on me?”

What nonsense! Leaping that high, kicking that hard, denting a thick plate of dark iron—and you’re not a martial-world person?

That troublemaker Xie Liuhao looked to his chief, but his chief’s heart was already broken, standing there in despair, staring blankly at the falling snow without a word. He had no choice but to handle it himself.

“In—in reply to the senior’s words, I—I didn’t think it through.”

Qiqian’er sighed deeply: “Didn’t think it through? You lot, drawing seven or eight strings of cash a month from the court—all of it the blood and sweat of the common people—and there’s the Qiu family, whose stores of grain have run out entirely, so many orphans, elderly, and beggars freezing and starving to death in the city while you do nothing about it, yet early this morning you take up a rusty blade to hack at me for delivering grain to the poor? You—you’re truly inhuman!”

Absolutely infuriating. Qiqian’er paced back and forth twice on the roof, terrifying the two junior officers, who, thinking of the consequences awaiting each of them, grew ever more despairing.

But they never expected that after finishing her scolding, she would simply stamp her foot and walk away…

Just—leave?

Xie Liuhao wiped away cold sweat and, as though he’d narrowly escaped death, gave Zhou Wujiu a shove.

Zhou Wujiu wiped the sweat from his brow, and after a long while turned to curse at Xie Liuhao: “Why in the world did you slash at her! Are you a fool?”

Xie Liuhao said sheepishly: “Chief, but just now—didn’t she not jump that high yet?”

“So you slashed at her for that? Couldn’t you have asked first?”

“Asked what?” Xie Liuhao muttered: “You had the guts, you ask. Didn’t you already ask her nicely—oh! Which sect, which school? What’s your name, whose martial lineage are you from? She didn’t say a word, but the two of us laid our whole background bare. When we get back to the hall, we won’t be able to hold our heads up…”

No one spoke for a good while, then Xie Liuhao took a punch to the back and heard: “What do you know about it! Who saw us? Who knows? That senior lady across the way isn’t saying anything, I’m not saying anything, you’re not saying anything—who could possibly know?”

Xie Liuhao’s eyes lit up, and he turned to Zhou Wujiu eagerly: “Chief, if we don’t report it when we get back, will we be fine?”

Zhou Wujiu snorted, and, legs still weak, leaned on his one and only underling: “What do you know! Let me ask you—is our Commander formidable?”

“Of course he’s formidable! In the martial world—well, the old martial world—few didn’t submit to our Commander’s name. The two heroes, Southern Meng and Northern Gu, that reputation wasn’t fabricated.”

“Then let me ask you this—the Northern Faction is weak right now, and the Huguo Temple has taken in so many of their remnants—why hasn’t our Commander gone to hunt them down?”

Xie Liuhao paused, then finally said: “He—the Commander—he’d probably lose if he went…”

Zhou Wujiu patted his foolish underling’s shoulder, shouldered his blade, and hopped down off the roof.

Xie Liuhao followed close behind, asking: “Chief, where are we going?”

Zhou Wujiu said as he walked: “I just remembered—I’m not a martial-world man anymore! That senior lady said it herself—we live off the people’s blood and sweat, so, let’s go do something decent for once. That kind Qiu family is out helping the orphaned and elderly and the beggars right now, I’ll go take a look…”

Qiqian’er had no idea she’d unwittingly done another good deed. From that day on, the junior officers of Jiu Si Tang took turns keeping order near Master Qiu’s home, and the shiftless troublemakers who, in her previous life, used to go there often to extort money never again found the chance to cause trouble.

In this way, she indirectly saved countless lives.

As for that sixth-rank noblewoman who’d just scolded a pair of officers—after running quite far, she finally let out a breath of relief, standing beside Mount Baiquan to wipe away her sweat in secret.

To be honest, she was scared too. If things had blown up, well, officials always had ways of finding excuses to make trouble for people.

A woman running wild alone in the early morning didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Looking back and seeing no one pursuing her, Qiqian’er finally relaxed and turned to climb Mount Baiquan.

After another stretch of leaping and bounding, she found the hollow in the mountain, a good two or three li across, and looking down she saw the area was indeed thick with sturdy old elm trees.

What a pity—her wastefulness this year, in saving Master Qiu’s household from the winter, meant these trees likely wouldn’t survive to spring.

So Qiqian’er stood at the edge of the grove and kowtowed in prayer to the mountain god, vowing that for every elm tree she killed today, she would plant two more the following year.

Once her vow was made, she slowly approached the elm grove, chose a sturdy tree, and reached out to tear off a large strip of bark with her bare hand.

She hadn’t noticed when, exactly, her hand had become something like a claw.

In the bitter cold, stripping elm bark wasn’t easy work at all. Qiqian’er struggled for a good while, her fingernails aching, yet not much bark had come off.

Frozen solid?

This wouldn’t do. She thought of how cleanly Eunuch Liao had struck that time, how precisely Brother Meng cut firewood—surely everything in this world had some weak point that could be struck cleanly. So where was the weak point of elm bark?

And so this woman, who understood nothing of such things, circled the elm tree several times, once again trying to apply her domestic-household logic to unravel the mysteries of the world.

She thought for a long while, and recalled that every spring, when the weather warmed and the branches sprouted, that was the easiest time to make tree-bark flutes.

At that time, when the trees put out new shoots, you could simply pick a branch and give it a gentle twist by hand, and the whole bark would twist right off the wood.

Twist? If that was the trick, perhaps it was worth trying. The connection between trunk and bark—that must be its weak point.

Whatever thought crossed Qiqian’er’s mind, she dared to act on it. She slowly reached out, placing her palms flat against the trunk on either side, and, to make the effort easier, planted her feet into a proper wide horse stance, standard in the martial world.

Thus, without any training, the stance formed itself naturally.

She pressed her palms against the bark and slowly twisted, first left, then right, alternating… At first the elm remained utterly unmoved, but as this little woman, relying on the subtle, grinding force of her twisting motion, drew energy up from the ground, sent it into her palms, and pushed it from her palms into the seam between bark and trunk, working steadily upward, bit by bit… at last… the bark tore free entirely from the main branch.

It had come loose, yes, but it still clung to the trunk, tangled by branches and twigs.

At this point Qiqian’er wasn’t afraid anymore. She reached out, curling her hand into that claw-like grip she’d seen Eunuch Liao use, and struck at a certain point on the bark.

There came a sharp crack, and the entire sheet of elm bark peeled away from the tree like a garment being shed.

Chen Dasheng, living in Yandu, naturally had no idea that his wife was already galloping, alone and unmatched, down a monstrous path that no one else in this world knew existed, could achieve, or could even imagine.

At that moment, he was earnestly following his wife’s instructions, determined to find a good teacher and get himself reading.

These past days, he’d asked around among the idle men near his home, and it seemed the best place in Yandu for teaching was somewhere in Scholar’s Alley.

Early this morning, Chen Dasheng and his brothers loaded up sacks of scarce grain, dried meat, live chickens and ducks—whatever good things they had at home—and set off toward Scholar’s Alley with hearts full of sincerity.

Scholar’s Alley was located behind the former dynasty’s Imperial Academy, and the entrance to the alley behind the Academy was marked by a row of some twenty towering stone memorial arches.

As Chen Dasheng and the others walked beneath the arches carrying their sacks, Guan Si’er, who’d never seen such a thing, asked: “Chief, what are all these? This whole long row!”

His most respected leader answered without hesitation: “Chastity arches!”

An elderly man leaning on a dragon-headed cane happened to be passing by, and upon hearing this, keeled straight over and lay on the ground for a long while, unable to get up…

The seven simple young men, seeing the old gentleman fall, naturally rushed over to help him up.

The old man struggled a few times, then, steadying himself on Chen Dasheng’s arm, stood up. Just as he was about to offer thanks, he noticed the clothing Chen Dasheng and the others wore—silver-crowned hats, arm guards, imperially bestowed bullfighting robes with snow-lined boots of high-soled cowhide. Most importantly, they all had broadswords at their waists!

He raised a trembling finger and said bitterly: “You—you people… why has it taken you so long?”

Chen Dasheng, not understanding, assumed the old gentleman felt they’d been too slow in helping him up, and apologized with great sincerity: “Our apologies, old sir. We’ll be quicker next time.”

This old gentleman had an elaborate inner monologue running. Standing there, he wanted to hold his head high with dignity, but his poor legs made him stumble. Chen Dasheng quickly handed him his cane, which he accepted with a disdainful sniff. Gazing into the cold wind, he felt himself possessed of extraordinary bone structure, radiating the unyielding air of a true national hero! He had memorized so much—he felt he’d been preparing for this very day ever since he began reciting the “Song of Righteousness” at age three.

After finishing his silent recitation of poetry in his head, he gently pushed Chen Dasheng’s hand away, first bending to brush the dust from his robes, then straightening an imaginary official’s cap, and finally, hands clasped behind his back, snorted: “Hmph, so you’ve finally come. This old fool knew this day would come, hmph!”

Without his cane he began to wobble again, and with a sigh of resignation, had no choice but to lean on it and walk.

Chen Dasheng and his brothers exchanged baffled glances. They weren’t fools—they understood this old man must have misunderstood something.

They could only laugh helplessly—one couldn’t argue with someone of such advanced age—and, gathering up their things, followed him toward the back alley.

They hadn’t gone far when the old man commanded again: “Can’t you see this old fool walks slowly? All of you, stay behind me! What manner of conduct is this—aren’t you afraid I might run off?”

Then why don’t you just run, then? Ah, what strange people lived on this street!

Given the man’s age, Chen Dasheng really couldn’t argue, so he simply followed along.

They’d only gone a few more steps when they saw a large gate ahead thrown open violently, and a middle-aged man in scholar’s robes was shoved out and fell to the ground.

Rather than get up, the man immediately knelt where he’d fallen, drew a ruler-like disciplinary rod from his sleeve, held it above his head with both hands, and cried out loudly: “Teacher! Master!”

Gift boxes and pastries of every kind came flying out through the gate, filling the air. Before long, a white-haired old man emerged carrying a vermilion-lacquered carrying pole and hurled it at the kneeling man, cursing: “You disgrace who’ll stink for ten thousand years, you dare show your face at my door?”

The middle-aged man clutched the welt raised by the carrying pole and protested bitterly: “Master, why go this far? That benighted, incompetent Emperor You couldn’t tell loyalty from treachery, dug the Fish Canal and harmed countless commoners of the two river regions—everyone under heaven was free to curse him, yet I, having had a few too many drinks and idly composed a few poems, was expelled from your school…”

The old teacher, furious beyond measure, didn’t let him finish: “If you found him so distasteful, then you shouldn’t have served as his official! Having served as his official, you owed him the duty between lord and subject. If you knew he was wrong, did you ever once warn him against the ‘Poem of the Wise Consort Who Ruined the Nation’? You did not! Did you ever urge him to govern with care and listen broadly? You did not! Did you ever petition against the digging of the Fish Canal, warning the sovereign not to exhaust the people below through his own indulgence? You did not! Yet once the nation fell, you—who had never once shown remorse at court for your silence—suddenly started writing satirical poems to mock him? A vile wretch like you dares call himself a disciple of Zhang Guanneng’s school? Get out of here, old fool that I am…”

The scholar could bear it no longer, and covering his face, fled.

Chen Dasheng and his companions had witnessed quite a scene—the two men had exchanged a long string of words, and not a single one of them had understood a single word of it.

Well! Of course they wouldn’t understand—these were clearly men of great learning.

Before they could even present their gifts and prepare to formally request discipleship—

They heard the old man with the dragon-headed cane cough and say: “Brother Zhang, we’ll continue this quarrel tomorrow—today this old fool must bid you farewell!”

Zhang Guanneng, hearing this, froze for a moment, then noticed a group of people standing at the corner near the memorial arches—well, a pack of hawks and hounds, and his old friend among them.

Could it be—could this day have finally arrived? But wait, that wasn’t right! If anyone were to be arrested, shouldn’t it be himself? He, at least, still attended court. This old Yuxi-gong was already past seventy—what could the new Emperor possibly want with him?

Regardless, the matter was right in front of him, and however much envy stirred in his heart, Zhang Guanneng still descended his own front steps and hurried over to clasp both of the old man’s hands. For a good while, just as Zhang Guanneng was about to say something, Old Yuxi-gong spoke first: “Brother Zhang, do you remember back then, when we placed together on the same list, paraded through the streets with flowers in our caps—this old fool was that year’s top scholar, and you were the third-place finisher…”

Bringing that up again? Would it ever end?

Zhang Guanneng quickly interjected: “Of course I remember. To recall that time—we were so full of spirit, the whole hall gathered with such refined air!”

Old Yuxi-gong’s eyes lit up, his expression wistful: “Ah, that year the stars converged in heaven, the Five Stars aligned and the Purple Star emerged—this old fool was the first name called from the platform, while Brother Zhang was the third called…”

Bringing that up again? Zhang Guanneng didn’t want to hear it, and steadied Old Yuxi-gong: “Ha, ha, such is our fate in this lifetime! Come, come, let me accompany Old Yuxi-gong to bid farewell to our other old friends…”

And so the two old men began their round of door-knocking, gradually drawing out more and more old men… This crowd of elders sang and raged, and none of what they said sounded like ordinary speech.

Chen Dasheng followed along the whole way. Whenever they lagged behind, the old man with the dragon-headed cane grew displeased, urging them to keep up.

Chen Dasheng grew even more reluctant. His original intention had been to find a teacher of around forty or fifty years old. This old man was far too old—what if he passed away before he’d taught them for even a few days? That would be a real problem.