Manager Ping Yan was quite an amusing character—once you got to know him well, you’d realize he and Old Stinky might as well have been long-lost blood brothers from the same vine.
Equally well-traveled and worldly, equally fond of bragging, equally fond of arguing for argument’s sake, equally unwilling to concede to the other.
And so, every morning at the tea plantation, two voices would rouse everyone awake:
“What do you know, you fart-brain…!”
“Oh, and you know better than me…?”
After breakfast, She Wanlin changed into short, knee-length clothing and pushed open the courtyard gate to stand beside these two old codgers, who were squabbling like fighting roosters, ready to collect his daily allowance as usual.
Since a legitimate young master of the sixth branch had come to Jin Dian for a visit, naturally all his food, lodging, and travel expenses fell to the tea plantation to cover—so, two guan a day.
“Fifteen thousand is fifteen thousand—I witnessed it with my own eyes! That year the yamen didn’t even have an official presiding yet, and it was our various trading houses who pooled the silver together for relief. Fifteen thousand!”
As Ping Yan argued back, he pulled out a chit from his sleeve, checked it over repeatedly, and finally produced a two-guan note, stamping it with his personal seal and the plantation’s disbursement seal.
Old Stinky sneered with utter disdain: “Nonsense. In the third year of Yong’an, the great flood along the Three Rivers—refugees seeking food in Jin Dian numbered twenty-two thousand. That’s the correct figure.”
“Seeking food” referred to when, after a disaster or calamity struck one’s home region, people fled elsewhere in search of a way to survive and never returned home—also called “seeking grain,” “chasing the harvest,” “following ripeness,” or “begging to live.”
What they were arguing over was the actual number of refugees who’d entered Jin Dian during the Yong’an era, since this bore on the scale of the Ping family’s internal business dealings across the prefecture.
The trouble was, Ping Yan was talking about trade-route matters, while Old Stinky was talking about the relief figures Jin Dian requested from the court each year.
She Wanlin pulled out his own “Ping Yi” name seal and stamped the withdrawal chit, cutting in with a laugh: “You two are really something. One’s citing relief ledgers, the other’s repeating Yandu gossip—both grown managers, and neither of you talking sense. Fifteen thousand, twenty thousand—do you think I’ve never walked the streets, never seen a market day? Ai City’s foot traffic alone must number over a hundred thousand people.”
Having been here four or five days now, She Wanlin went out walking the streets every single day. What he was actually observing was Ai City’s population, and the distribution of garrison troops nearby.
Gauging troop distribution wasn’t easy, but estimating population was simple enough—the local acreage under cultivation, the number of local grain shops, the area of local fishing grounds, combined with daily food consumption per adult, halved, gave a rough population estimate.
To be even more precise, since residents of Ai City ate roughly four liang of grain a day, and storage capacity was a fixed number, one could estimate fairly closely.
In fact, this estimate was far more reliable than the so-called original land tax figures, actual land tax figures, and per-capita silver assessments that Tan Shouyi reported to the Ministry of Revenue each year.
Ai City was the largest settlement in Jin Dian, yet it had fewer than thirty grain shops—which was rather pitiful, indicating its population could only sustain around thirty grain shops at most. Beyond that number, one had better prepare to operate at a loss.
As for why Old Stinky and Manager Ping kept arguing—children’s squabbles are usually nonsensical and unreasonable. No need to figure out what exactly they were debating; whoever shouted the other one hoarse simply won.
These two really had quite the knack for it.
Chit in hand, She Wanlin went to the counter in the main courtyard to collect his money. It happened to be Ping Jin’s turn at the counter today, so he shoved the chit right in his face.
Ping Jin glanced down at the amount and immediately started grinning: “Ah, isn’t this Young Master Yi? Today too? Two guan again?”
Whenever this fellow talked about money, his eyes practically sparkled, and his thick eyebrows would wriggle like little worms—it was quite entertaining to watch.
It wasn’t that he didn’t earn money—it was that his elders in the clan, feeling he was too young to hold onto savings, had taken his yearly share and invested it in property back at the Ping family’s ancestral home instead.
Ping Jin currently just drew a monthly stipend, roughly eight hundred coins a month, which would be enough if he didn’t go gallivanting around the nearby tribal settlements.
Trouble was, gallivant he did.
Used to their teasing banter, She Wanlin puffed out his chest and laughed: “Yep, two guan! Never seen this much money before, have you?”
Ping Jin nodded gravely: “Nope, never heard of such a sum, never seen the like. This… you’re really just spending it freely?”
The young master added another touch of pride: “Yep, freely.”
With that, Ping Jin ducked inside, and before long emerged dressed in the same short outfit as She Wanlin, a shoulder bag slung across him. He walked over, fawning shamelessly: “Oh Lord of Wealth, let’s go, off to the streets—I’ll carry your money for you.”
To the children of the opera troupe, ten coins was a fortune. To Ping Jin and Ping Duo, it took two full guan to count as real money.
She Wanlin glanced at the empty counter and asked, “You dare just leave it unattended?”
Ping Jin grinned. “Off-season—the tea plantation’s so idle you could grow maggots waiting around. Let’s go, let’s go!”
So the two of them, carrying their fortune, headed together to the plantation gate to catch a ride.
Ping Yan, ever attentive, noticed Young Master Yi heading out and hurried to the gate to call after him: “Ah Jin~ take good care of Young Master Yi!”
Locals here addressed each other as elder sister, elder brother, uncle, and so on—and for She Wanlin, they could call him “Ah Yi.”
Ping Jin turned and agreed, then heard the manager fussing about bringing two more people along—that idea, however, was dropped. Two guan split between two people could be spent freely and satisfyingly; bringing more people along wouldn’t accomplish much and would only dilute his own share—that simply wouldn’t do.
She Wanlin thought the same, so he agreed to everything while committing to nothing.
Young men run fast—in the blink of an eye they’d vanished from sight, leaving only a trail of jingling harness bells behind.
They hadn’t been gone long before plump Ping Duo came wailing out, threatening to sever ties with Ping Jin, saying he’d gladly eat less this time—so why hadn’t he been brought along?
Old Stinky, overhearing this, leaned against the doorframe and roared with laughter.
Life at the tea plantation was like this—unlike the hardships of the opera boat, everything here was pleasant and delightful.
Today, as usual, Ping Jin drove the cart. She Wanlin wanted to take in the sights of Ai City, so they circled the old city walls four or five times before finally entering.
If you asked about this place called Jin Dian—the mountains were beautiful, the waters were beautiful, the people were beautiful, yet heaven simply refused to grant them a decent governor. Throughout successive dynasties, the common people of Jin Dian had always gotten the short end of the stick, which led to frequent unrest, and even fewer people willing to come here at all.
Now that it fell under Tan family jurisdiction—having governed it for only about a decade—they’d already shrunk Ai City’s three old trading streets down to just one.
Of course, this was purely a matter among the Liang people themselves, having nothing to do with the tribal peoples, who had their own territories and didn’t consider themselves connected to Great Liang in any way.
And so, both sides simply went about their own business according to their own logic, maintaining a kind of peace.
For the Tan family, as long as the tribes paid their annual tribute, they wouldn’t be troubled.
For the tribal peoples, as long as those greedy beggars were kept fed, there was no grudge between them.
At the end of the day, Ai City was really just a place where Liang people preyed on other Liang people.
She Wanlin and Ping Jin entered the city and toured about quite properly—steering clear of anywhere they shouldn’t go, not daring to venture there either—sticking to the main street, popping into shops along the way.
They didn’t actually buy much of anything—it was Ping Jin, the fool, announcing to the whole street that he, Ping Jin, was rich now—two whole guan! Once word of his wealth got around, within a few days he’d be able to go strolling around the pretty tribal girls’ homes.
By the time they’d strolled about, it was nearly noon. The two had already picked out a spot, heading into the back courtyard of an old restaurant on Ai City’s main street, spending three hundred wen to order a whole table of dishes. They hadn’t waited long before a middle-aged man dressed like a yamen attendant arrived from outside the restaurant.
This middle-aged man, with a pointed mouth and sunken cheeks, didn’t look like an upstanding sort. Entering the room and spotting Ping Jin, he didn’t bother with pleasantries—just grinned and sat himself down uninvited, skipping any greeting to grab chopsticks first, picking up a chicken head, biting into the comb and chewing lazily as he drawled, “Tsk, tsk, what a rare treat today—the young manager didn’t go stirring up trouble in the tribal settlements on this fine sunny day, and instead thought of me?”
He clearly wasn’t a decent sort, and Ping Jin ran with similarly disreputable company. Ping Jin picked up the wine flask and poured him a cup, saying: “Ah, can’t compare to you, Brother Chou—what am I compared to you? You’ve had your fill of foul water elsewhere, worn your old spear-head bald and useless, and only now come drink my cheap wine…”
Having grown up around the counter, Ping Jin had seen all sorts, and this man surnamed Chou had no wish to argue with him either, spitting out the chicken head and grunting, “Enough, why’d you call me here? You’re the type who’d inject water into an egg shell and seal it up to sell to a hen for hatching—how would I dare drink your wine?”
Hadn’t he eaten plenty already, though? Half a chicken gone by now.
She Wanlin felt his stomach turn listening to this, and kicked Ping Jin under the table.
Ping Jin chuckled, reached over to pour the man more wine, then tossed the shoulder bag from under his feet onto the table—the sound of coins always had a way of seizing one’s soul.
The moment it hit the table, the man’s hand shot out and clamped down on it, glaring at Ping Jin with a grin: “Snakes have their paths, rats have their tunnels—I can’t manage anything big, and I’m no good for medium favors either, but I won’t send you off empty-handed. You know the rules, don’t you?”
Ping Jin smacked his hand away: “What the hell can you actually manage? My cousin here’s a bookworm—he just wants to take a look at last year’s newly compiled prefectural gazetteer, can you do that or not?”
The man withdrew his hand and finally looked She Wanlin over properly, and after taking him in, asked, “Your cousin, eh?”
Ping Jin nodded. “Yeah? Look how much we resemble each other, can’t you tell?”
The man shook his head, then fixed his gaze on She Wanlin and asked, “Ordinary folk don’t bother with things like this—what do you want it for?”
She Wanlin smiled, picked up his chopsticks, and set a big chicken drumstick on the man’s plate: “I’d be much obliged, elder brother. I just wanted to see what fine writings have come out of Jin Dian these past couple of years—having traveled so far, I thought I’d copy out some good pieces to show my fellow students back home. But once I got to Ai City, I learned our local academy hasn’t had a single student in three years—so where else could I go to find something to copy from?
Frontier customs and local flavor here are entirely different from elsewhere, after all. I’d be much obliged if you’d take the trouble—things like records, admonitions, eulogies, rhapsodies, poetry and prose—I can only find these in the prefectural gazetteer. What do you say—can it be done or not? If not, never mind…”
He pushed the money a bit further forward. The man surnamed Chou raised an eyebrow, then finally laughed: “Well, aren’t you a proper bookworm. Here I thought it’d be something serious. Wait here!”
With that, he waved his hand, grabbed the shoulder bag, slung it over his shoulder, and left—not even bothering to finish his meal.
Once he’d vanished from sight, She Wanlin asked Ping Jin, “Can this fellow be trusted?”
Ping Jin laughed, tossing beans into his mouth as he ate: “Local tyrant born and bred right here—three generations of petty clerks in his family. He’s got six sons to feed, and he depends on his reputation to make a living, so he wouldn’t dare cheat us. We’re Ping family, after all—not what we used to be, sure, but still not to be trifled with. Rest easy, Young Master Yi.”
And so the two of them sat waiting in the room for a good hour or more before that clerk surnamed Chou came skulking back, his clothes bulging suspiciously.
Gazetteers weren’t easy to come by, apparently—he bolted the door behind him upon entering, pressed his ear against it to listen for a moment to make sure it was safe, and only then pulled two volumes from his sleeves, another from inside his robe, and finally one more from down his trouser leg… By now, he’d lost all his earlier bravado, saying with a lingering trace of fear:
“Goodness, that stuff’s usually just sitting forgotten on some shelf in the archive—today I went in and nearly scared myself to death! They’ve posted guards now, two of them!”
She Wanlin frowned at the last, dog-eared volume and asked, “Is this the newly compiled edition from last year?”
The clerk surnamed Chou sneered: “Wishful thinking. You think we’ve got nothing better to do? We’re worked to death every single day—who has time to compile something like that? Besides, there’s nothing worth recording anyway, what would there even be to compile?
This one’s from the year before last. As for last year and this year, the higher-ups haven’t even thought about it yet. Hurry up and look—I’ve got to return these once you’re done.”
Hearing this, Ping Jin grew displeased: “Now listen here, Old Chou, that’s not very loyal of you. Oh, you pocket two whole guan of good silver, plus wrap up my fine Yandu-made shoulder bag too, and all we get is one glance? Let us take them back with us—don’t worry, we’ll return them tomorrow.”
The man surnamed Chou paled: “Absolutely not—one glance is already pushing it. You don’t understand, things aren’t like they used to be. If my luck turns bad and they catch me on anything, they’ll say—that business over at Tangna Mountain…”
Realizing he’d said too much, the clerk smacked his own mouth. Feeling guilty for having taken the money, he put on an ingratiating smile and pulled an ink stick, a writing brush, and a few sheets of coarse scrap paper from his sleeve, handing them to She Wanlin: “Young manager—ah, no, young scholar, hurry and copy it down. Once you’ve got your poems and prose copied out, I can return these ancestors of mine before anything goes wrong and I end up dragging my whole family down with me.”
She Wanlin smiled and bent his head, quickly flipping through the gazetteer.
He’d been sharp since childhood—he wouldn’t claim perfect photographic memory, but memorizing a few pages of important content posed no difficulty for him.
The clerk surnamed Chou had been somewhat wary at first, but seeing how quickly the boy flipped through the pages, he didn’t seem like someone with ill intentions, so he relaxed and dug into the food like a starving ghost.
The clerk ate fast, and She Wanlin read fast.
Once he’d finished reading, he picked up the brush and copied out three poems from the gazetteer.
Once the clerk had finished eating, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and teased with a laugh: “Ha, you scholarly types are all a bit strange.” He’d meant to ask whether such trifles were really worth two guan, but then he thought—this money had fallen right into his lap, and besides, the Ping family had mountains of silver to spare, so what did it matter to him? He chuckled instead: “Young scholar, how are the poems written by our Jin Dian scholars, anyway?”
She Wanlin set down his brush and shook his head with complete honesty: “Not great.”
At this, the clerk burst out laughing, and once he’d finished, said, “Not great is about right! Anyone with enough means to actually study properly doesn’t stay in Ai City—they’ve long since gone off to other prefectures. Our Jin Dian’s poor mountains and harsh waters only produce troublemakers, heh, and you’re…?”
She Wanlin smoothed out the gazetteer’s corners, closed it properly, and pushed it forward, looking up with a polite smile: “Much obliged, Brother Chou. I’ve finished writing—here, take the gazetteer back.”
Was that really it? This money was awfully easy to earn, wasn’t it?
The clerk tucked the gazetteers away tentatively, saying with a grin, “So, so I’ll really take these now? Or would the young scholar like a bit more time? I, I think I could hold out a little longer, take your time, go on.”
Ping Jin shooed him off: “Hurry up and take your ancestors and go. Making such a fuss earlier, and now putting on this pathetic act—get lost, get lost, I don’t want to look at you anymore!”
And so the clerk left, beaming with delight, not even bothering to take back the writing brush and ink set left on the table.
Once he’d gone, She Wanlin sat quietly for a moment, then picked up the brush again, turned past that page of poetry, and began carefully copying something else onto the paper in earnest.
As he wrote each line, Ping Jin murmured softly beside him, reading along: “Imperial composition? Record of investiture? Proclamation? Memorial? Records of the upright and honest, the Confucian scholars, filial sons, righteous men, martyred wives, chaste widows? Sojourners, recluses, immortals and monks, metropolitan graduates? Tribute students? Local worthies…”
The more She Wanlin wrote, the more astonished Ping Jin grew—astonished at the young master’s memory, and at his fine handwriting, yet utterly baffled as to what the point of writing all this down could possibly be.
Only after She Wanlin had filled three whole pages did he finally venture to ask, “Young Master Yi? Did the elders at home have you look into this?”
She Wanlin raised an eyebrow with a smile: “Mm, something like that.”
Ping Jin asked again, “Does this… mean something in particular?”
Having been asked this, She Wanlin looked over the three pages and slowly spoke: “Let me teach you something useful. From now on, whenever you go somewhere to do business, look for this sort of thing first—it’s enormously useful.”
Ping Jin raised an eyebrow too: “This is what you look at?”
She Wanlin nodded. “Yes. This is Jin Dian—rich soil should nurture great talent, yet Jin Dian… even if you sent ten more capable officials here, it probably wouldn’t help. This place has rotted through completely.”
Hearing this, Ping Jin picked up the pages again to look them over, and not understanding, asked earnestly for guidance: “Please enlighten me, Young Master Yi—my experience falls short, I simply can’t make sense of it.”
She Wanlin pursed his lips—young and full of spirited pride as he was, and since this was something his grandfather had privately taught him, he found what he could share and offered some guidance: “Let’s start with imperial compositions—these are pieces His Majesty personally wrote concerning Jin Dian, whether about people, scenery, or events. These aren’t easy to come by, yet Jin Dian receives them every single year. Do you know what that means?”
Ping Jin, knowing nothing of the sort, honestly shook his head.
She Wanlin smiled. “It means His Majesty’s particular favor. Look here—these imperial compositions are all written by the Emperor commemorating the Tan family army’s military achievements…”
What he’d actually copied down wasn’t the work of local literary figures at all—anyone else wouldn’t have known, but She Wanlin recognized at a glance that these were the kind of clumsy imperial verses about towering peaks and sheer cliffs, the Emperor coming and going freely, even flying about, that sort of thing.
He had no wish to pass judgment on it, so he paused and said instead: “So, if you’re going to do business, you might as well do it with the Tan family—at least they have solid backing.”
Hearing this, Ping Jin burst out laughing: “Now that’s a funny thing to say. What kind of people are they, and what kind of people are we? Do business with the Provincial Administrator himself? Forget it. So what comes next? There must be something to note further down too, right?”
“Further down, eh…” She Wanlin sighed faintly, feeling a pang of sympathy for this place called Jin Dian, and said with a helpless laugh: “For any city, the first thing to look at is population, and once population is thriving, then you look at these records—how many Confucian scholars, how many filial sons, how many loyal and righteous men, how many virtuous and chaste widows? Judging by these numbers, Great Liang’s Jin Dian has drawn quite the short straw—hmph, it produces no good people at all, and precious few scholars either.”
Ping Jin disagreed with this, being a local himself, and explained: “That’s not fair to say—how many Liang people are even here to begin with? Isn’t this place overrun with tribal folk? They don’t study for the exams, do they?”
She Wanlin smiled. “True, you’re right about that. Wasn’t it your head manager who told my uncle just this morning that Jin Dian had a hundred fifty thousand refugees seeking food? Where are they?”
Ping Jin pouted: “And your uncle said twenty-two thousand. Where are they, then?”
She Wanlin smiled, tapping his finger against the line of figures in the memorial: “Who knows? Either way, the money keeps getting demanded—this fellow sends reports to Yandu every few days with some pretext or another, and nobody’s ever raised the issue. Well, there’s not much more I can teach you…
What all this tells us is that Jin Dian has long since abandoned education and civil governance, and so it can’t follow the court’s usual approach of bringing the tribal peoples to submit and become compliant subjects. Judging from this material, over the next decade, natural disaster will be the lesser concern for Jin Dian—man-made calamity will be the far greater danger, and things will inevitably circle around civil unrest. If Jin Dian doesn’t get new leadership within the next ten years, the Ping family’s old establishment would do best to maintain the status quo and not throw another coin into this place.”
Having said this, he looked at the dumbfounded Ping Jin and asked, “Understand now?”
Ping Jin shook his head like a rattle-drum. “Young master, what you legitimate-branch folks learn seems entirely different from what we learn.”
She Wanlin, seeing the ink on the pages had dried, carefully folded them and tucked them into his sleeve, then pulled out a gold leaf from his sleeve with a smile: “Whether it’s different or not, we can discuss later—didn’t we come out today to spend money? Come on, let’s find a shop. I want to exchange this for proper coin—I hear the silverwork here is exquisite, help me pick some out, I want to bring some home.”
“Truly a legitimate-born young master—you’ve even got this on you?”
The moment Ping Jin saw the gold leaf, he forgot everything else. He immediately sprang up, shoveled down a few mouthfuls of his now-cold rice, and while still chewing, dragged She Wanlin outside.
He wasn’t really after any personal gain—he just wanted to show off to every girl in the city that he, Ping Jin, was rich now, so everyone should come admire him.
Gold leaf wasn’t heavy—one leaf could be exchanged for twelve taels of silver, and in Yandu, one tael of silver could be exchanged for one thousand two hundred coins. But in Jin Dian, one tael of silver was worth at most nine hundred good coins, while debased coin could fetch one guan eight hundred.
This showed just how chaotic the local market was—prices here bore no relation to the court’s official rates at all.
Once he’d exchanged the gold for good coin and borrowed a shoulder bag, Ping Jin didn’t mind the weight at all, carrying it all around the streets without a hint of fear of thieves—mainly because every rascal and ne’er-do-well on the street treated him like a brother.
She Wanlin understood this well enough—merchants smiled at everyone they met and got along with all sorts. The Ping family’s roots in Jin Dian, in Ai City, ran far deeper than the old Tan family’s ever had.
And so the two of them ate, drank, and strolled through Ai City’s shabby old streets until dusk fell… By rights, with the hour growing late, they should have headed home. But then, at the corner of a street, She Wanlin spotted—Zhang Yongbao?
In the span of a single blink, in the time it takes to snuff out a candle, She Wanlin caught sight of the opera troupe’s little Bao?
He was wrapped in a filthy, dark cloth sheet, and after only a few days apart, his young face had already grown gaunt and hollow. He wasn’t wearing shoes, and one foot looked injured. He darted between two narrow old alleyways, weaving swiftly through the ancient streets—clearly dodging someone, afraid of being seen!
If not for She Wanlin’s sharp eyes, an ordinary person wouldn’t have been able to make out who it was at all. Had something happened to this child?
He’d barely run off when a group of soldiers in gleaming armor passed through the street. She Wanlin heard Ping Jin mutter beside him, “That’s odd…”
“Odd?” She Wanlin turned to look at Ping Jin. “What’s odd?”
Ping Jin watched the soldiers pass and said, “Those aren’t garrison troops, and they’re not from the Ai City yamen either.”
“You’re sure?”
Ping Jin said indignantly, “How could I be wrong? I know everyone worth knowing in Ai City, from eighty-year-olds down to eight-year-olds—those men aren’t local to Ai City at all…”
Before he could finish, another squad of soldiers ran past.
Once they’d disappeared into the distance, She Wanlin stared in the direction Zhang Yongbao had fled, stunned for a moment—then finally grabbed Ping Jin’s arm and pulled him along in that same direction.
In a dead-end alley, a young man gripped a broken blade in his hand, looking up at the rather tall courtyard wall, about to scale it bare-handed, when he heard someone complain behind him: “Listen, young master, there’s no way through here! Really, there isn’t, trust me! What are you even doing here? You’ve taken a wrong turn…”
A flicker of something strange crossed the young man’s cold, solemn face. He raised his hand, gripping the half-broken blade, and waited in silence.
He thought: I won’t kill. Right, I won’t! I’m not a beast, I won’t kill anyone… I’ve already gotten out, so I mustn’t kill anymore. So I’ll just… just scare them off. As long as they don’t call for help, I won’t kill them…
In the space of an instant, the two men drew close. He spun around swiftly, and the broken blade sliced through the air like a mountain splitting apart…
On any other day, this single strike would have cleaved even the fiercest mountain bear in two. Today, though meant only to intimidate, the force of the blade’s wind was no less real—had an ordinary person been caught in its path, they’d have lost at least a layer of skin off their face.
But in this vast world, the only ones capable of breaking through this blade all came from Qinwei Alley.
And their young master was the single greatest menace Qinwei Alley had ever produced.
And so, this strike cut through empty air.
The young man watched, wide-eyed, as a round-faced youth approached with a smile, the corner of his mouth curling upward—first facing the blade’s tip head-on, then in the blink of an eye closing the distance, tilting his head aside so his cheek brushed past the flat of the blade as he dodged, and swiftly struck out with his hand!
You couldn’t even tell how he’d moved—like a sudden gust of wind, and once the wind passed, there was simply nothing there. By the time the young man registered what had happened, his throat was already gripped in someone’s hand, and he was sent flying backward several paces, slammed against the old gray stone wall behind him.
In all his life, Ping Jin had seen plenty—but he’d never seen a person fly before.
Yes—his own family’s legitimate Third Branch young master had just flown, and he’d watched with his own eyes as his young master avoided taking a single cut? No, wait, that wasn’t right either. Somehow, they’d arrived just as someone turned to attack, and his young master had let go of him and flown off and grabbed someone by the throat and slammed them while flying…
Yes, that’s exactly what happened… Ping Jin rolled his eyes and fainted, but right before passing out, he thought: Lord of Wealth, did you see that? My young master can fly?
The young man hung pinned against the wall of the dead-end alley. Having fled for his life for two days and two nights, having killed countless men, his body covered in wounds, he’d already been barely holding on—this impact took away what little strength remained.
His consciousness blurred instantly, and he heard the person gripping his throat ask in a strange tone: “Little Bao~ who are you?”
The young man thought hazily—who’s Little Bao?
After a long moment, he heard the person say again: “No wait, you’re… Yangdan?”
That single name, “Yangdan,” was enough to undo the young man completely. In an instant, a lifetime’s worth of grievance welled up in his heart, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes as he mumbled hazily: “Brother~ you’ve come to get me?”
“Yes, I’ve come to get you…”