“…Ah, this old fool, I’m originally from Huzhou. My family had a tradition of scholarship going back generations. When the Fair Party’s troubles broke out these past two years, that area used to belong to the Heavenly King Gao’s territory. By last winter, that damned Fair King, unable to leave well enough alone, started fighting, and Huzhou fell into chaos. My whole family packed up and headed south. Along the way, my son and daughter-in-law… they didn’t make it…”
“Ah, old Hu, who hasn’t been through that… that Fair King is a bastard through and through, I tell you, I heard that back in his day he…”
“May he be hacked to pieces! I was a fool too, an old fool! Of all the things to bring with us, I brought a pile of books like this. My son and daughter-in-law died in vain trying to protect these books…”
“Well, if you put it that way, my elder brother and sister-in-law were righteous souls. Old Hu, I’ve never much cared for books myself, but I know books are precious things…”
“Precious, ha—nobody wants them, nobody wants them at all. Now that we’re here, I still have to sell them off, and no one wants them… Oh, by the way, you two young masters, this old fool is surnamed Xu…”
“What do you mean nobody wants them—someone wants them, old Hu, someone does! Here, I’ll trade you this dagger for one of your books, and anything else on my stall that catches your eye, just say the word, we’ll trade fair and square. Carrying nothing but books really isn’t practical, and they’re far too heavy besides, old Hu…”
As the sun set in the west, at the small camp behind Xianxia Pass, Ning Ji and Qu Longjun hadn’t managed to sell much from their stall. With time on their hands, they turned to chat with the white-haired middle-aged man selling books nearby, and before long, the conversation had grown warm on both sides.
They picked out a few decent, easily portable curios, along with half a dried rabbit, and traded them for several old books.
This self-described “old fool,” white-haired and middle-aged, was clearly a lover of books. But in times like these, with his family all dead, the books had become nothing but a burden. As he spoke of the hardships of the journey, he also picked out several volumes in fine condition for the evidently knowledgeable Qu Longjun, entrusting them to her care. These books had cost him nearly his life to bring this far, yet here at the checkpoint, hardly anyone wanted them. His emotions were, by and large, in disarray—unable to sell them was a torment, yet were he to truly part with them, that too might be hard to bear.
“…There aren’t many people at this Xianxia Pass checkpoint who truly know their books… there are bargain-hunters, sure, but even if you do find a bargain here, whether you can actually make it to Jian’ou with it is another matter entirely. You two young masters ought to be careful as well.”
He’d been at this camp for several days already, first struggling to accept the deaths of his family, then struggling to accept the reality that he himself was still alive, and now struggling to face the prospect of having to sell off his books. The man was utterly broken, and had likely gone some time without any real conversation. Now, encountering these two young people with their friendly manner, he finally looked around and spoke quietly of what he’d observed over these past several days. Qu Longjun, dressed in her neat scholarly attire, brightened with interest. “What is it you’re referring to, Master Xu?”
“…Fujian is seven parts mountain, two parts water, and one part farmland. This road heading south is all mountain paths from here on… those who’ve fled here with their families in tow do have some good, genuine goods to sell, but they all want a high price for them, and there really aren’t many people here actually buying at fair prices… Around this place, plenty of folk are just waiting for someone to flash their wealth, and if they can’t buy it off you outright, they’ll find some other way to take it off your hands—striking along the road is common enough… You two young masters, when you passed through the checkpoint earlier, you must have already heard—the roads aren’t safe. With as much as you’re carrying, you’ll need to be careful too.”
The white-haired man offered this warning earnestly, and Qu Longjun clasped her hands in thanks. “Much obliged, Master Xu.” Beside her, Ning Ji reached out and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Haha, old Hu’s a righteous sort, understood, understood. Take a look at us two brothers here—Jiangnan’s fallen into such chaos, and we’ve fought our way through it all the way here, so a few small-time dogs in Fuzhou? Nothing to fear!” He then generously tossed in the other half of the dried rabbit as a token of thanks, with an air of great magnanimity.
Giving away food was truly a grand gesture. The middle-aged man, having gained an extra half a rabbit, found himself at a loss for words in the face of such easygoing generosity. Qu Longjun, meanwhile, having gathered even more information, drew Ning Ji aside to discuss it. “Just like what that gentleman at the checkpoint said—even the territory under the legitimate court is this chaotic. Did you already know that, Little Long?”
“I could tell as soon as we walked in,” Ning Ji said, sitting there with a low chuckle. “Take a look at that big fellow by the street corner over there, the several who came after him lying on the straw mats playing with mud, and those two at the very back of the tea stall over there… all of them have someone backing them. It’s fine to look—just look openly. If they glare at you, glare right back. We’re both carrying our weapons openly, so we need to carry ourselves like real masters, or else they really might try to bully us… All of these people are watching for marks. Anyone actually carrying anything valuable, as long as it hasn’t already gone into one of those two pawnshops, will get followed once they set out. Until they reach Fuzhou, there’ll be no telling for sure whose treasure it really is—heh heh…”
Qu Longjun swept her gaze calmly and coolly across the various points around the street, and lowering her head, finally sighed. “I suppose so… actually, back when the Jurchen drove everyone to Lin’an, there was plenty of this sort of thing too, though I was still quite young at the time…”
“That’s what they mean by ‘reading ten thousand books is no match for traveling ten thousand li.'”
The two of them currently maintained the pretense that Qu Longjun was the learned and aloof one, while Ning Ji was the carefree, uneducated companion—but in truth, in their private dealings, it was always Ning Ji, the cool and aloof young medic, who took the lead. Having just offered up a simple yet philosophical remark, and receiving an admiring nod from Qu Longjun, Ning Ji sprang up energetically from the ground, waving his arms about like noodles in the evening light. “Treasures for sale—!” he bellowed.
“Fine treasures collected all the way from Jiangnan! Fellow villagers! Uncles, aunties, sisters, and grannies, come take a look, come see! Cash accepted, barter also welcome, don’t pass up this chance—finding a bargain is like striking gold!”
Such loud calling drew more than a few sidelong glances from around the camp—no one was quite sure where this fool of a boy had come from, so lively and carefree in his manner, though a glance at the twin blades on his back suggested he might not be someone to trifle with. The onlookers kept their curiosity and scrutiny buried deep beneath the surface. After a moment, Qu Longjun had no choice but to join in the calling as well: “Selling goods! Come buy, come buy…” —
That day, most of what they sold was little more than needles, thread, and scraps of cloth. By the time the sun had set, torches began lighting up across the camp, and at several gathering points along the streets, great bonfires were kindled.
Ning Ji and Qu Longjun found a nearby patch of open ground, set up their small tent, and made a fire to cook. After finishing their meal and washing the pots and bowls, Qu Longjun sat on the ground and went over the day’s earnings with Ning Ji, then sketched out a rough map of the southward route, hesitantly planning how best to reach Jian’ou or Fuzhou. According to what Qu Longjun had once studied, the ancient Xianxia Road stretched several hundred li through unending mountain ranges, with many places along the way well worth seeing. But if this region too proved unsafe, their entire travel plan would need to be adjusted.
Ning Ji, for his part, wasn’t in any particular hurry, saying they’d scout things out over the next couple of days and decide from there.
As it turned out, the chance to “scout things out” didn’t take long to arrive.
Late that same night, someone crept toward their tent.
Ning Ji’s showy display during the day had drawn no small amount of attention, and the first to sneak up on them at the hour of midnight was a tall, big-framed man who had earlier been watching the street. He lifted the flap of the tent and saw two sleeping figures inside, then bent down to rummage through the large bundle set beside them. He was only halfway bent over when a hand suddenly shot out from behind, clamping down over his mouth and nose, yanking his entire upper body backward through the air. He was pinned firmly and silently to the ground, and a moment later, a small knife was thrust into his side.
The tall man tried to struggle, but the hand clamped over his mouth and nose was hard as steel, seemingly ready to crush his skull outright. The young man’s cold gaze bore down on him. “Don’t move. You’re fine for now. Try that again, and I’ll give this blade a turn.”
The small knife lodged in his side hadn’t hit any organs yet, but a single turn would put him well on his way to dead.
The tall man was sturdily built, and had once been a fairly formidable figure in the underworld himself. But even he, sensing he’d run into a truly dangerous opponent, gave up struggling. Only then did the hand pressing over his face slowly relax. Beside the tent, the refined young scholar—who had seemed even more coolly aloof during the day—now emerged with sword in hand, every bit the picture of a hidden master.
“This… this camp doesn’t allow killing…” the tall man ventured to say.
The young man pinning him to the ground gave him a sharp slap across the face with the back of his hand.
“That depends on who’s doing it. My brother’s handiwork could chop you into eighteen pieces and guarantee no one ever traces it back to us.” He spread his hand open. “All right, let’s talk. Tell me everything about the situation along this Xianxia Road, in detail…”
The man gave a detailed account.
A good while later, clutching the wound in his side, he made his difficult way off into the darkness.
The day’s showy display hadn’t gone to waste—that same night, two more visitors came voluntarily to offer up information. After a rough round of questioning, Ning Ji and Qu Longjun had gained a fairly clear picture of the situation along the ancient Xianxia Road, and even a general understanding of conditions across the whole of Fujian.
Since ancient times, mountain roads had always been dangerous, and even in the peaceful era before the Jurchen invasion, this ancient Xianxia Road had never been entirely safe—bandit strongholds were scattered throughout the area, occasionally coming out to prey on travelers, and occasionally suppressed by the authorities. On top of that, Fujian had many places where large clans lived clustered together; some village communities and clans nestled in the mountains had, even in peaceful times, set up checkpoints to enrich themselves, and occasionally moonlighted as bandits themselves for a big score—none of this was new.
Now that Jiangnan had fallen and refugees were pushing further south into Fujian, various factions had caught the scent of profit and sent people to watch for marks—a script that had, in fact, already played out in Jiangnan itself a decade or so earlier. Only, Fujian’s terrain was unusual: there were just two roads leading in from the north. Along the Xianxia Road, in order to keep the trade route and the flow of refugees open, the young emperor had dispatched Han Shizhong’s Zhenhai Army to secure both the Fuzhou-Ou road and the Xianxia road. By rights, with both Yue and Han commanding well-armed, formidable forces specifically tasked with guarding these mountain roads, clearing out the bandits should have been child’s play. Yet for some reason, after questioning the three visitors that night and mulling it over afterward, Ning Ji couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something rather murky about the whole situation.
Of the two traveling companions, Qu Longjun, well-read and having seen a fair share of the world herself, still lacked the kind of specialized military and political training needed to pick up on certain things. Ning Ji, though he had little formal education, had been exposed to the thinking of the Huaxia Army’s upper ranks and had long since undergone all manner of training in interrogation and attention to detail. That night, before dawn had broken, as the two of them sat in their tent discussing what they’d learned, he found himself frowning seriously.
“…By rights… going by what we learned back in the southwest, the paths that have proven most promising for any faction wanting to build real military strength these days all involve mobilizing the common people. What the little court in the southeast is doing with this whole ‘honor the ruler, expel the barbarians’ business is a bit strange, but in practice, it really amounts to the same thing—propping up new blood to strike down the old, backing young, rising powers against the entrenched, decaying ones. Based on what we heard back in Jiangning, and again earlier this year, the young emperor had already moved against several of the great clans, wealthy households, and major maritime merchants in an effort to reclaim power, and by all accounts, it went reasonably well—he should have taken back a fair amount of authority. But coming through here now, why is the resistance on this Xianxia Road even fiercer than before? These bandits keep calling government men ‘yellow dogs’—they’re one step short of calling themselves righteous heroes outright. What’s going on? The masses haven’t been mobilized, the bandits haven’t been wiped out, and they’re all swaggering around out in the open like this—is Han Shizhong all show and no substance?”
The earlier questioning of the three men had mainly focused on how the bandit strongholds and highwaymen along the Xianxia Road divided up their territory. Qu Longjun hadn’t expected “Brother Little Long” to piece together something this significant from those roundabout details, and felt a swell of admiration, before furrowing her brow in thought as well.
“I’ve always heard that clan power in Fujian is extensive and deeply entrenched—plenty of places here cling stubbornly to old ways and keep to themselves. Even if the emperor wanted to mobilize the common people, doing so in places like this probably wouldn’t be simple at all. As for His Majesty here trying to reclaim power from below—the great households out in the open might not be able to withstand his troops, but if they’re determined to work against him in secret, there could well be no shortage of them. Could it be that General Han hasn’t been fighting them at all, but genuinely can’t manage to wipe them out?”
“Huh.”
In the darkness, Ning Ji thought this over, sitting there blinking.
“Now that’s interesting…” —
Speculating and imagining the situation in Fujian could only really count as idle musing to pass the time. As far as the two of them were concerned, the most pressing matter was still working out the route south to Fuzhou. They stayed at the camp for two more days, and it wasn’t until the fifteenth of the third month that they finally set out from Xianxia Pass, joining a large group escorted by a small detachment of the Zhenhai Army, heading south along the mountain road. But after traveling together for only half a day, they broke off from the main group and headed into the surrounding mountains to explore on their own.
Their whole purpose in heading south had, after all, been to travel and see the world. Beyond Xianxia Ridge, the mountains of Fujian stretched out, vast and stunningly beautiful, with many famous scenic spots recorded in books. Ning Ji, already well trained in wilderness survival, led their red-flower horse along barely visible hidden trails winding through the mountains.
It was now late spring, the mountain forests lush and green, wildflowers blooming everywhere, clouds gathering and scattering unpredictably across the sky. Occasional spring rains fell, and the two of them would walk hand in hand through it. Sometimes they took shelter beneath rocky overhangs, pitching their tent and building a fire, with Ning Ji hunting some game to roast over the flames, filling the air with its fragrant aroma. At other times they had to strip off their damp clothes to dry them by the fire, Qu Longjun in her close-fitting undergarments with just an outer robe draped over her, looking delicate and lovely. On occasion, where their path crossed a small mountain stream, Qu Longjun would sit by the water’s edge and soak her pale bare feet in the current, the two of them talking and laughing together, with Qu Longjun sometimes softly singing a tune. The journey was difficult, but both their hearts were full of warmth and ease.
And so it went, until by the latter part of the third month, the two of them, once more in the mountains beside the ancient Xianxia Road, encountered yet another group of figures from the world of the martial underworld.