The sky hung heavy and overcast, as though rain might fall again. Near the gates of Jiangning, the guards stationed there inspected everyone entering and leaving with unusual thoroughness. Vegetable sellers coming into the city were checked with particular rigor, and those trying to leave found it even harder. It had already been over ten days since Song Xian’s assassination, and the area around Jiangning’s gates remained tense and forbidding.
As a unit of soldiers approached from a distance, she slipped her body into a nearby alley.
“…It’s been nearly half a month now, and these past few days have actually been better — a few days back they were practically flipping over every cockroach trying to leave the city to inspect it… Three notorious bandits got caught in the process, so I suppose in a roundabout way that’s ridding the people of a menace. This should probably die down before too long — Jiangning is a major city, after all, and if this keeps up, people will start complaining. Business at the shops has already taken a hit these past few days. A court official… what’s it got to do with the common folk? That Song Xian never had much of a reputation to begin with anyway… but regardless, I still think it’s far too risky for you to be running around out here like this… How’s your injury?”
Inside the room, Ning Yi rambled on while running his experiment. Lu Hongti stood a short distance from the experiment table, watching him mix various solutions and light an alcohol lamp, offering no answer regarding her injury.
“What exactly are you doing here?”
Only when Ning Yi poured the solution into a cup and dropped in a rusted iron rod, sending up a hiss of smoke, did she finally speak up.
“Some chemical reaction — not entirely sure what it’s doing myself, honestly…”
“Chemical reaction?”
“Let’s say the world is made up of countless tiny atoms — atoms are, well… take this table, for instance. If we magnify it, magnify it, magnify it over and over, eventually we might see the smallest particles, tiny bits clustered together — those are atoms… There are various kinds of these basic particles, and they make up everything in heaven and earth. Different atoms sometimes attract each other, sometimes repel each other, producing… chemical reactions.”
“…”
“Hm?”
Ning Yi shrugged, looking at Lu Hongti’s rather odd expression. She laughed after a moment. “I don’t believe you. How do you magnify something like that?”
“Oh, there are certain principles involved — let me show you a basic example.” Ning Yi took a small box down from a nearby shelf, pulled out an irregularly shaped piece of glass, and slid a book over.
“This is a fragment from a glass lantern sold in the market — hard to find an ideal double-convex piece, but it’ll do for viewing. Look, doesn’t the writing appear magnified?”
Glass was already sold in the marketplace at this time, called liuli — somewhat different from Western soda-lime glass, but already fairly transparent. Ning Yi had no plans to pursue this line of research further for now, or he might have had to figure out how to make a telescope. Showing this off a bit, he watched as the woman narrowed her eyes. “A water droplet can magnify things too, but I’ve never seen anything magnify more than that.”
“Once you understand the underlying principle, you can magnify it further — investigative learning is precisely about investigating the principles behind all things, ha ha…”
“Then why is it that you scholars have spent all these years on this ‘investigative learning’ of yours, and still haven’t managed anything that magnifies more than a water droplet or an icicle?”
“Uh…”
Ning Yi found himself momentarily at a loss for words. She laughed. “Actually, by that logic, this ‘chemical reaction’ business of yours — are you perhaps after some technique for turning stone into gold?”
“Once you truly understand something, you can do anything with it. Some chemical reactions are unstable — if disturbed, they release intense heat and expand rapidly, and then, boom… Take that packet of gunpowder on the shelf beside you, for instance. If its power could be increased five or tenfold, what do you think that could be used for? Oh, right…” As he spoke, Ning Yi pulled the rusted iron rod out of the liquid with tongs and rinsed it briefly with water. “Look, the rust is gone.”
“You boiled it, then rinsed it off with water,” the woman said flatly. Ning Yi rolled his eyes, and she laughed.
“This is all crooked trickery of yours. I don’t understand it, but I don’t believe you either.”
“If you really understood it, I wouldn’t need to explain…” Ning Yi shook his head with a sigh. “Oh, right — all you martial arts masters out there have such flashy nicknames. What’s yours?”
“Lu Hongti.”
“No nickname at all? That’s far too plain — you need something flashier, or people will laugh at you for not having one. Look at that Fang La out there stirring up rebellion, calling himself ‘Sage Duke’ — bold and imposing, which is exactly why so many people flocked to him once he rose up. I think this needs some thought. Let’s brainstorm — how about ‘Iron Fist Invincible Lu Hongti’… no, that doesn’t quite fit. You’re quite fast on your feet, so maybe ‘Forest-Piercing Northern Legs’? Though everyone’s all about serving country and people these days, so how about ‘Iron Sword of Rivers and Mountains, Lu Hongti’? Is that a bit too grandiose… or would you rather something more low-key? Hey, come out here and talk this over…”
“Boring.”
Lu Hongti turned coldly and went back into the inner room, shutting the door behind her, planting her long sword against the floor with both hands and unable to stop herself from laughing. After holding back her smile for a moment, she finally asked, “Why is it that, when I told you the other day that you couldn’t learn martial arts, you didn’t seem the least bit disappointed?”
“You never said I couldn’t learn martial arts.” Ning Yi was apparently mixing reagents again. “You said I couldn’t learn your internal energy technique.”
“Hm? You’re that confident there’s some internal art out there for you to learn?”
“I’ve asked around a bit on the subject — just guessing, mind you… Since internal power is fundamentally about generating force through coordinated breathing, even if the most extreme methods require training from childhood, there should logically be more people out there studying methods suited to adults as well. Even if the results can’t match yours, there should be some effect at least — this… shouldn’t be too far off the mark.”
A long silence from the other side. “So you really do want to learn? You think I’ll teach you?”
“I don’t know — how about this: you teach me martial arts, then name some wish of yours, and as long as it’s reasonable, I’ll find a way to make it happen for you?”
“A merchant’s bargain?”
“No, I’ve never thought of taking advantage of you. Think of it as an equal exchange instead?”
“The skills passed down through my sect, however unremarkable, aren’t something to be traded away carelessly. You saved my life, and I ought to repay you for that — you can ask something of me in return. But I won’t teach you martial arts. I can’t see why a scholar like you would even want to learn it. You’re not going to war, you’re not planning to fight anyone to the death with it, you just… find it curious, want to learn it for fun.” Her words came a bit faster now. “You scholars, always talking about matching ten thousand men, about governing the realm and saving the people — but with so many of you scholars out there today, I don’t see how any of you are actually saving anyone… You’re a man of real talent, yet you’re wasting it on these crooked little pursuits. Why not go save the world instead? Establish the people’s destiny, bring peace to all future generations… If that’s what you want to trade for, then if you could bring peace to all future generations, I’d trade you anything you want. How about it?”
Confucian learning had flourished across this world for a thousand years, and the Wu dynasty in particular was steeped in a strong literary tradition — this woman might not have read much herself, but she’d certainly heard plenty of such ideas and understood them well enough at heart. These words might not have been aimed specifically at Ning Yi at all. He simply laughed. “Bringing peace to all future generations — that’s far too vast and vague a goal. This wish of yours isn’t exactly reasonable.”
“Ha, fine then — peace for just one generation.”
“That still leaves the question of whether you mean peace for the Wu dynasty, for the whole realm, or just for the common people…”
“What if it were peace for the common people?”
“Not worth it. That would take so much time, so much effort, an entire lifetime poured into it, and I still wouldn’t manage to become a top-tier master. And with that much to do, I wouldn’t have time to train — I’d struggle to even reach second-rate…”
“Ha, what big talk. You scholars… always talking so big.” Lu Hongti laughed from the other room, apparently assuming Ning Yi was joking. “Scholarship and martial arts follow different paths. I know plenty of you scholars have real ability too, just of a different kind. There’s no need for you to learn this. You’re not going to war, not fighting anyone to the death, you lack the true ruthlessness for it — you’d probably hesitate even to kill a chicken with a blade in hand. Learning it would serve no purpose, only distract you, and get in the way of what you’re actually good at. I don’t see the need to teach you.”
“Tch, at least think it over…” Ning Yi shrugged. “And for what it’s worth, I actually can kill a chicken just fine.”
There was still time, so Ning Yi wasn’t in any hurry. He steered the conversation elsewhere, and in the overcast room, went on with the continuing story of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Lu Hongti, for her part, felt a bit put out — if she heard the story ahead of time today, she’d have to sit through it again tomorrow when the little maid came to listen, already knowing what was coming. Still, she found she couldn’t quite resist listening in now.
The next day, hearing footsteps at the door, along with the clucking of a hen, she heard the fellow knock. “Come out, come out, got something to show you.” Lu Hongti stepped outside to find him holding a small bundle in one hand and a hen clutched in the other, gesturing toward the stove nearby. “Help me get some hot water going, thanks.” Clearly he meant to demonstrate his supposed ruthlessness by killing the hen in front of her, leaving Lu Hongti caught somewhere between laughter and exasperation — there was something about this young man’s manner that made even his oddest, most unorthodox behavior somehow seem perfectly natural.
She went over and got the stove going, boiling water. As the wind chime under the eaves tinkled softly, Ning Yi skillfully dispatched the hen, then plucked, cleaned, and gutted it, before opening his small bundle to prepare an assortment of seasonings, brushing the bird down first before preparing to skewer it on an iron spit.
“Got word from a reliable source — in another two days, the checkpoints at the city gates will be pulled back. The prefecture office can’t keep this up much longer. But once the visible patrols are withdrawn, the hidden watch will probably tighten up instead. I don’t know how your injuries are doing, and I haven’t been able to bring anything decent to eat these past few days, so let me treat you properly today — once you’re back out there in the martial world, no one can say I, the Bloody-Handed Butcher of Men Ning Liheng, ever shortchanged you… Uh, better if you don’t mention I ever treated you to anything, actually…”
“You gave yourself that title?”
“What do you think? Reeks of bloodlust, doesn’t it?”
“Terrible name…”
“This chicken here can testify — the nickname fits perfectly.”
Ning Yi didn’t bother arguing the point with her, preparing an assortment of spice powders, cumin included, and adjusting the stove slightly. Lu Hongti said, “My injuries have healed about fifty percent now. Going out at this point would still be risky, but once I’ve fully recovered, I won’t need to bother with the city gates at all — it won’t be much trouble for me.”
Ning Yi paused. “So… does that mean I still have a bit of time left to try and pry those martial arts manuals out of you?”
“You really are… an insufferable man.”
“Heh heh.” Ning Yi laughed, deciding not to provoke her further, and began roasting the skewered hen over the coals — this particular seasoning blend courtesy of Zhuji’s chef’s latest recipe. Before long, a rich aroma filled the air, thunder rumbling outside, rain clearly on its way again.
Ning Yi turned his head. “Oh, right — I’ve been meaning to ask, why did you kill Song Xian?”
At that, Lu Hongti’s eyes narrowed slightly, like a cat with its hackles raised, and she turned to look straight at Ning Yi…