“His Majesty won’t allow it!” Qiqian’er lied to the old madam with utter conviction, and the whole family played along with her performance, nodding in unison at the old madam.
Yu Qingguan chimed in, “That’s right, does he just get to fight whenever he wants? Your Dasheng is an official after all!”
The old madam, who had been lying in despair on the kang, sat bolt upright at once. Tearing the cloth from her forehead, all her ailments vanished instantly, and with a face full of joy, she stepped onto the floor in her socks and asked Chen Dasheng, “Good grandson, is it true?”
Chen Dasheng, naturally composed, nodded easily as though it were nothing. “Your grandson did want to go — it’s a chance to make a name for himself! But His Majesty said that’s civilian business, and I currently have official duties…”
Before he could finish, the old madam clapped her hands together and turned to bow repeatedly toward one corner of the room, saying, “Didn’t I say so! Didn’t I say so? Such boundless imperial grace…”
Qiqian’er’s cheek twitched. “Nai, you’re bowing the wrong way!”
The old madam startled, turning to look at the room full of people. “Wrong way?”
Everyone nodded in unison, pointing in the opposite direction, and the old madam smoothly turned to bow that way instead. “Boundless imperial grace! Boundless imperial grace! I knew His Majesty couldn’t possibly be a fool — with so many others to choose from, why would he pick my grandson?”
Having finished bowing, the old madam felt lighter all over and yawned. “It’s so late, what a day it’s been. Everyone go to sleep, sleep, sleep…”
After all, years of hardship had taught the old madam to shift her emotions quickly, and combined with the sleep-inducing effects of the physician’s medicine, the old woman simply couldn’t hold out any longer.
Everyone filed out of the room as though granted a pardon. Qiqian’er, having settled everyone, watched the old madam close her eyes, tucked the blanket around her, and was just about to leave when she felt her wrist grabbed tightly.
Looking down, she saw the old madam’s eyes were clear and alert, gripping her wrist as she asked, “Qian’er, swear to Nai. Tell me the truth — you’re not lying to me?”
Qiqian’er blinked, then quickly laughed softly, her voice gentle. “I’m only sixteen. Do you think I want to become a widow?”
But the old madam still didn’t believe her, gripping her hand and insisting, “Swear it to me!”
Qiqian’er sighed helplessly. “Fine — I swear it, I swear on my own life, your eldest grandson will definitely be fine. If I’m lying to you, may the Old Lord take five…”
In any case, she simply wouldn’t let that Pang Tu enter the capital.
Seeing that she truly meant to swear the oath, the old madam suddenly couldn’t bear it and stopped her. “No, no, don’t! Why are you talking nonsense? I believe you. Nai believes you… who else would I trust if not you… trust you…”
Muttering “I believe you, I believe you,” the old madam drifted off to sleep, at ease at last this time.
Watching the old woman sleep, Qiqian’er noticed the worry lines still etched deep across her brow. She reached out to smooth them gently a few times, but the creases had already set — there was nothing to be done now.
She stood, blew out the candle, and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Turning around, she saw Chen Dasheng standing with his hands behind his back on the veranda, watching the spring rain.
Along the corridor of the Guard Bureau hung seven or eight paper lanterns. Tonight’s spring rain, mingled with spring wind coming and going, made Chen Dasheng’s shadow flicker and waver — one moment he seemed frozen like a monument of cold stone, the next moment he seemed to grow taller and sturdier, a man standing firm between heaven and earth.
Qiqian’er walked over and asked him, “Why aren’t you resting?”
Chen Dasheng turned and smiled at her, holding out a brocade pouch. “I’ll take you to the guest room. And this — I forgot to give it to A’Nai.”
Qiqian’er took it and asked, “What is it? Oh, this.”
Chen Dasheng said nothing, quietly watching his wife. Yes — this was his, his alone. A woman who belonged only to him.
These past days, standing on the southern city wall, he had often found himself quietly watching the palace, watching Yandu, watching all manner of husbands and wives throughout this world, and in the end he had come to a conclusion: he seemed to have a woman entirely unlike anyone else’s.
They said she was his, yet sometimes he felt it was rather himself who belonged to her.
It was an awkward thought, and yet it was precisely so.
She wasn’t the delicate reed his teacher liked to recite about; if anything, she was more like solid rock — standing alone between heaven and earth, steadfastly guarding something, though that something didn’t seem to be him.
…Let the husband be as solid rock, let the wife be as pliant reed; the reed, though woven fine as silk, the rock never shifts nor moves…
Qiqian’er, unaware of the look in Chen Dasheng’s eyes, took the pouch and immediately recognized what it was — reward tokens!
She casually pulled one out to examine it: cast from fine bronze, the front reading “Emperor Wu’s Reward for Merit,” the back left plain… quite thick and substantial, a heavy weight to represent a single life.
Qiqian’er pursed her lips, tucked it back into the pouch, and sighed softly. “A’Nai wants to use these for her own burial, but I’m afraid Fourth Uncle and the cousins won’t agree to it.”
Chen Dasheng was momentarily stunned at this, finally remembering that this had only ever been the old madam’s own wishful thinking — aside from his own father’s and his eldest uncle’s three tokens, he really had no authority over the rest.
His heart grew somewhat heavy, but almost immediately he heard his young wife say, in a light yet resolute tone, “Then we just won’t tell them!”
With that, she deftly tied up the brocade pouch and handed it back to him, saying, “Once we’re back, I’ll find Brother Meng to buy a plot of land at the government office, order coffins, pick an auspicious day, and bury them quickly. After that — I’d like to see anyone dare dig up the grave!”
Chen Dasheng was stunned into silence. After a long moment, he suddenly let out a short laugh, took the pouch back, and nodded. “There’s no need to go that far. Everything the old madam does is for her children’s sake — if there’s benefit in not burying them with her, once it’s properly explained, she won’t be angry.”
Qiqian’er immediately grasped his meaning and nodded. “Right, that’s exactly it — the old madam has spent her whole life for the sake of her children… what?”
She looked at him in confusion as he extended a closed fist toward her.
A light drizzle swept across their hair. Slowly, Chen Dasheng turned his hand over and opened his fist — in his palm lay a single gleaming gold reward token.
“This one’s mine. I’ll give it to you.”
But Qiqian’er didn’t take it. She simply stared fixedly at the token, unmoving, while Chen Dasheng’s hand hung frozen in the air for a long while…
The gleaming gold token dropped with a dull thud, rolling some distance down the slightly sloping corridor before striking the wall and flipping over to its plain side.
Qiqian’er seized Chen Dasheng’s collar, yanking his upper body down close to her face, her expression carrying a fierceness and gravity never seen before, and threatened him word by word, “Chen Choutou! I said you’re not going to die! Do you believe me?”
Chen Dasheng blinked, about to say he did, but before he could speak, he heard his wife continue threatening, “You’d better believe me whether you want to or not! Your life, for the rest of this life — it’s mine, it belongs to me, Huo Qiqian! From the hair on the top of your head to the old skin on the bottom of your feet — it’s all mine! Even if the Emperor himself came for it, I wouldn’t give it up! No one can take it, no matter who comes, I’m telling you…”
The flickering lantern light merged their two shadows into one.
Bound tight, wrapped, cinched, pierced through by his heat, pressed so close together that she could hear his racing heartbeat without any barrier of flesh between them, Chen Dasheng’s entire body trembled with emotion, his breath coming deep and heavy, each breath weightier than the last.
She felt as though she’d finally heard the truly living Chen Choutou — not that cold, lifeless memorial tablet she’d once angrily lifted and thrown to the ground, screaming herself hoarse at. The living him said, “I won’t die! No one can make me! Not even the Emperor…”
Qiqian’er bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood, and mumbled through it, “Swear it to me…”
Swear to me you won’t die.
A stronger spring wind blew, and beyond the wall, the mountain peach blossoms burst fully into bloom.
The next afternoon, the old madam struggled to extricate herself from the various goods piled in the carriage, her face pained as she shouted at Qiqian’er, “Hurry up and let’s go! You little lightning-bait, you don’t feel the least bit sorry spending your husband’s money, do you? Ancestors of every generation, I’m never bringing you along again, never again!”
With that, she turned to scold Chen Dasheng, who stood at the city gate, with utter exasperation, “You’ve never seen a real woman before, you spoil her rotten, go on spoiling her! Let’s go, I’m never coming back here again…”
There was only one effective way to quietly get the old madam out of Yandu — make her watch, right in front of her own eyes, as her grandson’s money was spent without restraint.
That whole morning, Qiqian’er had thrown money around without limit. First she went to Yandu’s largest coffin shop and bought eight coffins, each made of eighty-tael wood planks. Then she took the old madam to a newly opened gold and silver shop, where she bought three full sets of hair ornaments for herself alone, plus over a dozen custom pieces inlaid with gems. As for ordinary fabric, Qiqian’er wouldn’t even glance at it — she insisted on the latest spring patterns, buying ten bolts at a time, ten for herself and ten for the old madam.
At a newly opened furniture shop on the east street, she ignored the small stuff — tables, chairs, cabinets, stools, washbasins, clothes racks, chests large and small, jewelry boxes wrapped in silk, small hexagonal mirrors weighing barely a pound. She went straight for a massive twelve-pound Kunlun full-length mirror, bookshelves and cupboards, and wouldn’t spare expense even on ordinary hardwood pieces — she wanted only the finest rosewood, carved with flowers and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, even the small stools costing five hundred coins apiece… incense, lamps, lacquerware, vases, urns! Hair oil, rouge and powder, hibiscus cream…
Whatever she said she wanted to buy, Chen Dasheng dutifully paid from behind. Eventually, when he ran out of money on hand, he sent someone into the palace to borrow from his teacher… The old madam, unable to bear it any longer, grabbed everyone and insisted on leaving, unwilling to stay even a quarter hour longer.
With the old madam’s grumbling ringing in her ears, Qiqian’er and Chen Dasheng exchanged a blank stare, until someone behind them poked at her with her newly purchased cane, prompting Qiqian’er to step forward out of reach and hand Chen Dasheng a heavy cloth bundle instead, whispering in his ear, “Take this back to return to your teacher. Our family isn’t so poor we need to borrow money.”
With that, she turned and boarded the carriage, then lifted the curtain and called out, “After the third of the third month, I’ll come visit.”
Chen Dasheng smiled and agreed.
Hearing this, the old madam roared furiously, “Come again! Never again!”
She yanked the curtain shut, still unsatisfied, and thrust out her new cane, leaning half her body out of the carriage to try to strike Chen Dasheng — unable to reach him, Chen Dasheng obligingly stepped forward to let her hit him, though it was all bluster and no real force, and grumbling all the while, they finally departed.
Once they were out of sight, Liu Daya, who had been helping move goods, wiped his brow and came over, standing beside Chen Dasheng and giving him a thumbs up. “Say what you will about other things, brother, but when it comes to spending money in all of Yandu, your wife takes the cake — no one can compare.”
Chen Dasheng rummaged in his sleeve, then broke into a sweet, quiet smile before saying, “How many times has she even come here?”
Liu Daya was thoroughly impressed, patting his shoulder helplessly. “But how much do you even earn? Brother, take some brotherly advice — you really can’t keep spoiling her like this! Three cartloads coming into Yandu, ten cartloads going back home — your wife’s practically famous now, the biggest spendthrift in all of Yandu!”
He held up his still-trembling hand and said, “You’re a fifth-rank official at least! What was today, exactly? Did the Chen household hire servants just to move furniture?”
He’d meant it mostly in jest to cheer Chen Dasheng up, and seeing Chen Dasheng laugh, he grew even more theatrical. “Hey, you two are quite the pair — putting on this whole show to force the old madam back home, and what a performance it was! I guarantee you, for the rest of this year, your old madam won’t dare think about anything else — she’ll be too busy fretting over all this money!”
Chen Dasheng burst out laughing again.
Liu Daya sighed. “Tsk — and just like that, you’ve sent the old madam off to the temple? You’re really willing to part with her?”
Chen Dasheng nodded. “Too many eyes and mouths out there. Better not to have too much gossip going around.”
With that, he turned to leave. Liu Daya complained after him, “Hey, I’m telling you, you’re heartless — used up and tossed aside, is that it? Where are you off to now?”
Without turning back, Chen Dasheng said, “Palace.”
Inside the palace, Grand Attendant She was planting vegetable seeds in the empty plot behind his small courtyard.
Looking up, he saw his student enter and stood, setting down the hem of his robe. “She’s gone?”
Chen Dasheng nodded, took the water bucket from his teacher’s hand, and passed him a cloth bundle. “Returning your money.”
The moment Grand Attendant She felt the weight, he knew it was gold. Opening it casually, he found ten crudely shaped gold ingots inside — strange things, as though someone had simply squeezed them roughly by hand, lopsided and without proper form. Yet weighing them in his palm, they were more than enough to repay the thousand taels of silver his student had borrowed from him that very day.
He laughed, holding up one of the ingots. “Well now, this looks familiar, doesn’t it!”
Chen Dasheng, not understanding, looked at his teacher in confusion.
Grand Attendant She tossed the gold ingot up and down in his hand and said, “This stuff is purer than the batch His Majesty rewarded you with! Top-grade purple-refined gold. In the old dynasty’s booming market, one tael could fetch eighteen strings of cash. Your Emperor, worried that overvaluing gold would hurt official currency, has forcibly capped the exchange rate at twelve strings per tael now. Pity — your Emperor keeps dreaming of ideal outcomes! These days, gold is nowhere to be seen through official channels, but flows freely through the black market. Stuff like this could easily fetch twenty-one strings of new currency per tael on the private market — you’ve been shortchanged.”
Seeing his student’s face full of shock, Grand Attendant She chuckled, teasing him. “Tsk, regretting it now? Look, this stuff has no mint marks, no stamps — it must be something your little wife dug up from her maiden family. You’re a lucky one, boy, at least you found yourself a wife with real family wealth behind her.”
Chen Dasheng set down the bucket and took the gold ingot his teacher handed him to examine, and indeed, it wasn’t one of the ten he’d originally given his wife.
His face full of shock, he asked, “Hers? Hers?”
Where had it come from?
Seeing his student’s blank expression, Grand Attendant She knocked him on the forehead and said through gritted teeth, “Where do you think it came from? Her family’s ancestors embezzled it from the previous dynasty, that’s where! Fool! What were you even thinking? Do you know how many years the Huo family managed the imperial salt wells for the royal family under the previous dynasty? They were one of the top manor-owning families in all of Yandu. I’m telling you, at minimum three hundred years’ worth. This is probably what couldn’t be carried off when they fled — all of it dug up by your wife. Your wife, tsk… how are you this dense? However did she come to fall for you?”
Chen Dasheng’s face was full of grievance, and he unconsciously touched his own lower lip, bitten open the night before, thinking to himself — even now, she hasn’t fallen for me at all. She’s fallen for my A’Nai, more like it.
Without Qiqian’er ever knowing, her family’s hidden fortune had already been thoroughly investigated, turned upside down and inside out, by Grand Attendant She and His Majesty themselves — after all, this was the largest salt well in the entire Yandu region, tied to far too many competing interests to simply take her word for it without verification.
It was only unfortunate that when powerful men analyzed matters, they always arrived at a confident, definite conclusion — the general approach followed the same logic, but with the wrong underlying facts, it had all veered off in an entirely mistaken direction.
Chen Dasheng, feeling somewhat less fear toward His Majesty and the court now, grew worried instead about his wife’s safety, and asked Grand Attendant She, “Then — if her family comes looking for her and can’t find her…”
How would he deal with his wife’s temper if that happened? His wife was the kind of person who’d overturned an ancestral hall, upended a salt well, and dug up her own family’s graves.
Grand Attendant She chuckled softly, went inside for a moment, and returned with a sealed document, handing it to his student. “Come looking for her? Her entire family line is gone. Meeting you was her good fortune — otherwise, by now, not even her bones would be whole.”
Chen Dasheng took the sealed document and pulled out a formal-looking official letter, pretending to puzzle out the characters he recognized for a while before pursing his lips and handing it back to his teacher — he recognized most of the words individually, but had no idea what they meant together.
Grand Attendant She, holding back laughter, took it back and said, “Ahem — well! This is an excerpt from a bandit’s confession. Turns out it was a whole family of fools, loading a cart with gold and silver, covering it with a thin layer of firewood, and setting off just like that. Anyone with sharp eyes could spot the telltale signs immediately — before they’d even reached Xiaonan Mountain, bandits swept in and took the lot. Not a single survivor.
The one who led the bandit suppression was Xiaohua’s second elder brother, by the way — you should thank him too, since he ended up avenging your wife’s maiden family, whether he meant to or not. Never mind, though — your wife wouldn’t care either way, otherwise she wouldn’t have led people to plunder her own maiden family’s remains in the first place.”
Chen Dasheng frowned deeply at this — what kind of commentary was that?
“…The items were returned by Chang Er. Two reports were filed in total — one is with me, the other with His Majesty. Not much of her family fortune was actually recovered, though among it was this kind of privately cast purple-refined gold, along with loose gold dust and flakes… Your wife is quite the thorough scavenger — she likely swept up everything remaining from her maiden family’s fortune. At minimum, it should amount to about this much…”
Grand Attendant She held up three slender fingers, helping his student estimate his wife’s family wealth — at minimum, three thousand taels of gold, which private money-changers in the capital could exchange for at least sixty thousand strings of new-dynasty currency. That was roughly equivalent to the dowry a legitimate daughter of a second- or third-rank official’s family in the capital would bring nowadays.
Chen Dasheng stood stunned for a moment before asking, “So — should I go back and have her return it to His Majesty?”
Grand Attendant She rolled his eyes, picked up the envelope, and rapped him on the head with it, scolding, “Have you lost your mind? Tomorrow, go home and have your wife stew you some sheep brain to eat. Since when has our Emperor become some righteous magistrate crusading for justice on behalf of the fallen dynasty’s royal family? It’s not as if she’s embezzling anything belonging to our Emperor.”
Chen Dasheng suddenly understood, scratching his head. “Right, my wife isn’t taking anything that belongs to His Majesty.” Then, glancing at Grand Attendant She, he asked cautiously, “Truly, there’s no issue?”
Grand Attendant She raised his eyebrows. “What issue could there possibly be! Before last year, during the period when His Majesty couldn’t even pay military wages, wasn’t he letting things slide for two whole years? How many fat maggots swallowed up more than three thousand taels of gold in that time? The Tan family in the southern four prefectures alone embezzled at least two entire prefectures’ worth. This little sesame seed of yours isn’t even on His Majesty’s radar — go on and spend it as you please.”
Grand Attendant She reached out and tossed the remaining gold ingots back to Chen Dasheng.
Chen Dasheng, feeling somewhat aggrieved, stubbornly pushed them back. “Didn’t I just take a thousand taels from you?”
This nearly drove Grand Attendant She to fury — he had no children of his own, and this little pile of gold would end up belonging to this troublesome fellow sooner or later anyway, but as he kept pushing it away, he suddenly remembered the third of the third month, and his heart ached too much to refuse any further.
Sweeping the pile aside irritably, he asked his student, “So, I hear you’ve sent your family’s old madam to Qingque Nunnery for a memorial ritual?”
Chen Dasheng nodded. “Yes. We’ve already found a carpenter — the memorial rites are being held there, and coffins are being built just outside the nunnery at the same time. Once the burial is done, the old madam will return to Quanhou Manor — that’ll be after the third of the third month.”
Grand Attendant She took a sip of tea offered by a young eunuch and nodded. “That works. I’ll look over the land registry there tomorrow, and have someone reliable from the Imperial Astronomical Bureau go survey the site, to pick out a plot of auspicious burial ground that’ll bring prosperity to your descendants…”
At this, Grand Attendant She suddenly recalled something else and said with a smile, “Did you know your wife also owns quite a few good street-facing two-story shopfronts?”
Hearing this, Chen Dasheng nearly went mad. He opened his mouth numbly, and after a long moment finally asked his teacher, “Teacher, when do you think I’ll ever earn two thousand shi a year?”
Grand Attendant She sprayed out a mouthful of tea at this, and after a long pause, tilted his head and answered honestly, “Perhaps… by the time you die of old age?”
Down at Qingque Nunnery, the old madam clutched Qiqian’er’s hand with tears in her eyes and asked, “You little troublemaker, just leaving me here at the temple like this?”
Qiqian’er, pretending nothing was wrong, comforted her, “What are you thinking! With all these things we bought, don’t I have to come check on them every day? And there’s still this thing over there too — don’t you worry?”
Qiqian’er held up four fingers toward the old madam.
The old madam thought to herself, ah, right — not to mention all that pile of stuff Qiqian’er had bought, but her own room back home had no shortage of treasures either.
Thinking of this, and recalling all the money wasted that morning, the old madam’s anger flared up again and she scolded, “You spendthrift wretch! What did you buy all that for, eh? A pile of broken wood, cracked bottles and jars! What do you need such a huge mirror for, to scare off ghosts? You’re spending my grandson’s money and don’t feel the least bit sorry?”
Qiqian’er said righteously, “I don’t feel sorry at all — with such a large estate, we don’t even have decent furnishings in the house! Besides, once my shop opens up next year, each one won’t bring in less than ten-odd strings a month — I’ll pay this back myself! Your grandson won’t need to.”
The old madam, of course, already knew Qiqian’er had shops — this whole way, wasn’t that exactly the scheme she’d been counting on?
Hearing this, she laughed, and briskly let Yiyue and the others help her up the mountain. After a few steps, she turned back to ask, “We agreed, right?”
Qiqian’er nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes! I’ll come see you every two days.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“Not lying!”
“You’ll pay it back?”
“I will!”
“Swear it to me before the bodhisattva?”
Truly unable to bear any more, Qiqian’er waved her hands at the old nun, who was struggling to suppress her laughter. “Just take her away, quickly, quickly!”
Even after they’d walked a good distance, the old madam’s grumbling could still be heard: “I’m not even old yet, and already she can’t stand me, see that? Just itching to dump me here so she can be free of me — ha! So she can run the household herself now!”
They slowly made their way up the mountain, followed by an entire line of craftsmen carrying coffin planks.
When the old madam reached the top of the steps, she turned slowly to look back down the mountain, and saw that little lightning-bait still standing there, motionless.
After all this time, the two of them had never once been apart before.
The old madam, feeling her age at last, wiped away a tear, and not daring to curse before the bodhisattva, muttered instead, “Go on then, everyone go… once everyone’s gone I can finally have some peace… treating me like a fool, humoring me like this… Bodhisattva, do you see this… they’re all just placating me… you’d better watch over them, or this old woman will have no one left to depend on…”
The next morning.
At the eastern gate of Qingfeng City, old beggar Xin Bo, dozing fitfully against the crumbling city wall, heard the familiar clatter of his broken bowl in front of him.
He opened his eyes and mumbled thanks out of habit, then looked down to find it was his own donated half-plank of ox bone.
Startled, he looked up to see a handsome young lad with clear, delicate features, dressed in plain blue cloth, standing with his back to the light, smiling at him.
Xin Bo, no fool when it came to reading people, immediately recognized the figure by build and scrambled up to bow. “Oh my, who is this? Little Immortal Maiden… what an honor, what brings you down the mountain today? Never thought we’d meet again! My respects to you — is your whole family well?”
Qiqian’er, dressed plainly as a young lad, smiled at him and helped him up slightly. “Old sir, I’ve actually come specifically to ask for your guidance on something.”
Hearing this, Xin Bo nodded eagerly. “Ah, yes, yes, go ahead and ask — not to brag, old man that I am, but within five hundred li of Yandu, there’s little I don’t know!”
Qiqian’er glanced around, then asked him quietly, “I’d like to ask about something in the martial world.”
Xin Bo’s eyes flickered. He bent down, tucked his tattered bedroll under his arm, picked up his broken bowl, and said, “Now that’s a broad question. Why don’t we find somewhere quiet, the two of us, and talk it through properly?”
About half an incense stick’s time later, on a bare stony hillock outside Qingfeng City near Baiquan Mountain, Qiqian’er gripped a hard rock in each hand and, with a forceful squeeze on either side toward Xin Bo, crushed both stones into powder that scattered to the ground…
Xin Bo staggered back two steps, staring at the little immortal maiden in blank astonishment, utterly bewildered.
The little immortal maiden picked up two more stones, then leapt several zhang into the air in front of him, and upon landing, kicked out hard at a large boulder behind her.
That single kick split the massive stone with a crack, half of it caving in with a great crash.
Poor old beggar Xin Bo was so startled by this display that his heart nearly shattered, thinking over and over, what — what have I done? Have I offended the little immortal maiden? Is she trying to scare me?
Once Qiqian’er finished, she turned back with a completely serious expression and asked Xin Bo, “Would you trouble yourself, old sir, to estimate for me — with these few tricks of mine, could I crush that Pang Tu from Yuegong Mountain to pieces?!”
Poor Xin Bo, thoroughly startled, clutched his chest and muttered over and over, “You scared the life out of this old man, scared the life out of me!”
Once he’d finished comforting himself, he tremblingly looked up and asked, “Little Immortal Maiden, your skill runs deep — might I ask which school’s lineage you inherited, and what grievance you hold against Yuegong Mountain? Could it be over the duel matter in Yandu? Ah! Are — are you with the court?”
Qiqian’er pursed her lips. “I’m with no one! In any case, I simply cannot allow that man from Yuegong Mountain, that Pang Tu, to enter the capital for the duel…”
The old beggar’s eyes gradually brightened. Finally, he straightened his back, dropping his usual weary demeanor entirely, and cupped his hands in a proper martial-world salute — his voice, too, no longer hoarse or aged, said, “Little Immortal Maiden, your righteousness is truly admirable! Just when the realm had finally found peace, just when this old beggar could finally scrounge a few coins by the city gate to fill his stomach, now we hear that scoundrel from Yuegong Mountain has come out to torment everyone again. The north and south have only just settled down, and the moment they emerge, the world threatens chaos once more. Your righteousness does you great honor!”
Qiqian’er tilted her head back slightly, her lips twitching.
Xin Bo looked up and sighed in admiration. “Never would I have guessed it would be you. These past two days, this old beggar has thought to himself — if I were twenty or thirty years younger, I would have thrown this broken-down body of mine into stopping that Pang Tu from entering the capital, whatever the cost. But alas, the realm fell into chaos, and our Beggars’ Guild lost its backbone — there was simply no one left to call upon! Now I’m old and feeble, no longer what I once was. Only… never did I imagine that among all the grandmasters and hermits in these parts, the one who would step forward to act with true righteousness would turn out to be a woman. Truly, truly, it puts us martial-world folk to shame!”
Qiqian’er blinked in confusion, thinking to herself, what is he even saying? Why can’t I understand a word of this? Still, not understanding was no reason to show weakness.
So she nodded and asked, “Mm — so then, does that mean you all don’t want Pang Tu coming to the capital either?”
“Of course we don’t want it!” Xin Bo said bitterly. “Big thugs, small-time hustlers — none of us in the martial world can claim to be entirely clean! But that lot from Yuegong Mountain isn’t afraid to stir up trouble — they’ve got deep roots, broad connections, generations of tradition behind them! But what can the likes of us, scraping by at street level, possibly do about it? They cause trouble and slip away scot-free, and whenever the court cracks down, it’s always us at the bottom who get dug up first. As for my own family, Immortal Maiden, you’ve seen it yourself — just a few children left. Ah!”
Qiqian’er nodded. “I see, so that Yuegong Mountain lot must be the bad guys then.”
Hearing this, Xin Bo laughed. “Little Immortal Maiden, that’s rather childish thinking. What makes a good person, what makes a bad one? This old beggar here, leaning against the city gate — to the folks who toss me a few coins, I’m some kind of merciful bodhisattva, a good person! But to those who watch my own children go hungry, I’m a heartless dog who deserves hell for being rich and unkind. That’s how shallow people’s judgments are. Not everyone on Yuegong Mountain is like Pang Tu — they’re all just driven by their own interests, that’s all.”
Qiqian’er nodded slowly, feeling this was quite a genuine, worldly-wise remark.
So she thanked him and said, “Thank you for your guidance. From what you’re saying, this Pang Tu is being manipulated by someone else?”
The old beggar nodded with a smile. “Heh, exactly that. Those thugs who go up the mountain, they don’t produce anything, they’re not like this old beggar here, carrying on the tradition of a broken bowl at the city gate. Those three hundred disciples under the first-rank spear don’t farm a single field — what do they eat, what do they spend? This old man reckons Pang Tu himself probably doesn’t even want to come to the capital, but he’s taken someone else’s silver, and when you’re beholden to someone, there always comes a day you have to pay the debt with your life, hmph! If it’s not the fallen dynasty stirring things up again, then it must be internal court struggles! Either way, it’s a nasty business! But, Little Immortal Maiden, Pang Tu absolutely cannot be allowed to enter the capital, or the lesser folk of the martial world will face yet another great calamity…”
Qiqian’er looked at Xin Bo, then picked up another stone, crushed it to powder, and said earnestly, “In that case, let’s just crush him to death. What do you think, can it be done?”
Xin Bo thought for a moment, then smiled. “I won’t hide it from you — I’ve observed your movements before, and I suspect your family elders never passed down their full teachings to you. Tsk, what a pity, that held you back. Still, you jump quite high — this old beggar has never seen anyone else jump as high as you.
As for those stones of yours — you crush them plenty fine, but purely through brute strength with no technique at all. That won’t work against Pang Tu. He’s over sixty, after all, and he’s been out in the world since he was a teenager — his experience alone would be enough to overpower you.”
Qiqian’er felt a wave of disappointment and pursed her lips. “So there’s no way, then?”
Xin Bo shook his head with a smile. “Not quite. A first-rank spear technique — whatever the style, whatever the lineage, when you trace it back to its roots, it’s really just a handful of core moves: thrust, parry, hook, burst, roll, smash, shake, entangle, block, deflect, and ward. Practice sparring against these enough times, and you’ll get the feel for them.”
Qiqian’er’s eyes lit up, and she reached behind her back, pulling out the ox bone plank and waving it at the old beggar. “Hey!”
Xin Bo immediately understood and waved his hands hastily. “Hey now! That would truly be overkill! You needn’t use that to coerce me. If Little Immortal Maiden trusts this old man, come up the mountain tonight, and I’ll find a few people to spar with you.”
Qiqian’er nodded eagerly, holding back a laugh. “Deal! I won’t let you work for nothing — starting tomorrow, I’ll provide you with fine wine three meals a day, and bring you ten fat sheep, so you can fatten up those little ones of yours at home!”
Xin Bo froze for a moment, then let out a long howl toward the sky, snatched up his bedroll and broken bowl, and bounded off down the mountain, leaping half a zhang with each step.
Qiqian’er watched, dumbstruck, as the old beggar called back from a distance, “Little Immortal Maiden! This old beggar, I can jump pretty well myself, hahahaha…”
Qiqian’er, utterly ignorant of the martial world, likely had no idea that the old man hadn’t been exaggerating at all — had he been ten years younger, he truly would have personally tried to intercept Pang Tu himself. Anyone capable of carrying a thousand-year-old beggars’ lineage on his shoulders was, in truth, a renowned elder hermit of the martial world in his own right.
That night, near the Qingfeng dueling arena, inside Jiu Si Tang’s branch office, Zhou Wujiu and Xie Liuhao were deep in a sweet dream.
They dreamed they could fly, drifting on the clouds, floating and floating, until they suddenly felt a chill and woke up.
The moment they opened their eyes, they found themselves wrapped in their own blankets, hoisted up into the fork of a great tree on Baiquan Mountain. A cold mountain wind swept past, and Xie Liuhao, trembling, cried out, “Ah — help… help me…”
Before he could finish shouting, an old voice called up from beneath the tree, “Shut your mouth! If it weren’t for me losing a bet years ago and swearing never to set foot within three hundred paces of Baiquan Mountain, would I have needed to fetch you two useless articles? Damn it… where the hell did that person go? Worn this old man out all night, going in circles — nearly blew my own cover doing it…”