“…I’ve already bandaged up the wound on your hand, don’t move around carelessly, there are some foods you need to avoid, like… keep the wound clean, change the gold-wound medicine every three days, and if you want to bathe, don’t let dirty water touch it — if it does, it’ll be a lot of trouble, you could die… I said, don’t touch the wound…”

The afternoon sun still seemed somewhat dazzling. Inside the auxiliary halls of the not-yet-completed Grand Martial Arts Arena on the northern side of Chengdu, several hundred people were gathered to watch the first round of qualifiers for the “Number One Martial Arts Tournament Under Heaven.”

Throughout history, the economic base determines the superstructure, and it also determines the face of society. Although it’s often said that Chinese civilization runs deep and long, with no shortage of grand and glorious events people love to discuss, the truth is that from thousands of years ago all the way to the Wu Dynasty, the essential nature of the elite system never changed. When people talked about what a society was like and what it had achieved, they were mainly discussing the less-than-five-percent at the top; the lower classes beneath them had, in effect, never mattered at all.

The Wu Dynasty had long favored scholarship over martial arts. Although the various trades, sects, and wandering swordsmen of the greenwood had always existed, the credit for actually giving their existence a concrete shape in people’s minds mostly belonged to the Bamboo Record storytellers of recent years — though they could never realistically cover the entire realm, the stories they told became so classic that other storytellers scrambled to imitate them.

After more than a decade of this process, the concepts of the “jianghu” and the “greenwood” finally took relatively concrete shape in the minds of a portion of the population. Even many who had originally practiced martial arts purely as self-defense “forms,” only came to roughly understand, after hearing the storytellers’ tales, that the world had something called the “greenwood,” something called the “jianghu.”

Such labels gave them a sense of identity.

Twenty years ago, Zhou Tong of the so-called Imperial Archery Hall was, in the eyes of ordinary people, nothing more than a boxing master who happened to be skilled at his forms. Many rural martial artists had never even heard his name. Only once one had trained to a certain level would one gradually hear of things like the “Sage Duke” or the “Nine Manifestations of the Cloud Dragon,” and only then would one slowly enter the circle of the greenwood — a circle that was, in truth, rather small and its concept none too clear.

It was the Bamboo Record that made Zhou Tong a household name, and it was Ning Yi who, through the Bamboo Record, unified the various bandits who had come to assassinate him into a single category called the “greenwood.” In the past, greenwood duels were witnessed by at most a dozen or several dozen people; people fought, killed, and exchanged skills within a small circle, and more often than not such gatherings existed only so people could kill and rob to “do business.” Such duels never made their way into a storyteller’s mouth to be spread far and wide.

For those who practiced martial arts, the greatest officially sanctioned event of the past had been the military examinations, held once every several years — something the common people, in truth, cared little about. In the historical records that survived to later ages, the names of the top scorers of the military examinations were almost never recorded. Compared to the adulation heaped on the top scorers of the civil examinations, the military examination champions had basically no fame or status at all.

Chengdu’s “Number One Martial Arts Tournament Under Heaven” now counted as an unprecedented gathering of the “greenwood.” Building on the foundation the Bamboo Record’s storytelling had already laid, quite a few people found all sorts of associations to make with it — in the past the Huaxia Army had held such gatherings internally, but those had strictly been military competitions; this was the first time the event was truly opened to the entire realm. During this period, some of the Bamboo Record’s promotional staff had also, with great professionalism, compiled the stories and nicknames of a number of the realm’s famous martial artists, stirring up the atmosphere within Chengdu into something resembling a clash of dragons and tigers, so that ordinary folk with time on their hands could not resist coming by to take a look.

The Huaxia Army had crushed the Western Route Army at the end of April. Given the great distances separating the realm’s various factions, and the time it would take for news to spread and for people to make their way here, the early promotion had been mostly thunder with little rain. Preliminary qualifiers began in June, allowing the martial artists who had arrived early and registered first to accumulate results in the first round while the judges got a sense of their caliber, and giving the Bamboo Record’s storytellers more material to embellish. By July, once enough people had arrived, registration would close and the tournament would move to the next round.

By that time, people from across the realm would have converged on Chengdu. The cultural elite could go argue in the newspapers; the more vulgar-minded could go watch the fistfights, or shout themselves hoarse with excitement at the athletic meets, or go on a procession to view the captured Jurchen prisoners of war and marvel at the Huaxia Army’s might. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, the various factions would be finalizing their first round of business deals, everyone getting rich together, everyone happy; and amid this atmosphere, the People’s Congress would be established, the Huaxia People’s Government would be formally founded, and everyone would bear witness together, lawful, valid, a shared celebration for all — this was the basic logic underlying the whole arrangement.

Of course, since not that many people had arrived yet, this opening round of eliminations, after the initial few days of excitement, hadn’t drawn especially large crowds. Still, the various portraits posted in the long sheds outside the arena — each labeled with a name, nickname, and record of wins — drew large crowds of onlookers every day, and in the restaurants and teahouses nearby, people would often recount, with great flourish, the rumors surrounding this or that master:

“You know how so-and-so got his nickname?”

“Three years ago, so-and-so and so-and-so had a duel at such-and-such place, and only so-and-so was there to witness it…”

Or else:

“Do you know Lu Tuo?”

“This ranking — the Huaxia Army did it on purpose. As for who’s the number one under heaven right now, there are probably about five people who could contend for it. And of those, the fiercest might be that Master Ning — you know where his nickname ‘Bloody-Handed Butcher’ came from…”

“And that Lin Zongwu — even the Huaxia Army here calls him ‘Forest-Piercing Northern Leg.’ Why, you ask? The man’s tall and lean, and his leg work is something else…”

All sorts of news and discussion mixed together into a lively atmosphere, enriching people’s leisure lives. And inside the arena itself, a fourteen-year-old boy physician spent every day, as a matter of routine, stopping bleeding, treating wounds, and reminding a bunch of self-proclaimed greenwood heroes to mind their hygiene.

Honestly, if it came to the actual fighting, there really wasn’t much to see. In the first few days, he’d watched, fully absorbed and full of interest; by now, his face had settled into the flat, weary expression of someone just going through the motions.

The true masters of the martial world each had their own strengths, while the mediocre ones were, for the most part, utterly hopeless. For Ning Ji, who had seen the likes of Hongti, Xigua, and Du Sha in action and had spent a year or two being tempered on the battlefield, watching this level of ring fighting had become genuinely uncomfortable.

Since he couldn’t properly get his hands moving, he could only fall back on reviewing standard medical knowledge to offset the discomfort. Seeing a burly, sweat-soaked man reach to touch his freshly bandaged wound, he reached out and slapped the man’s hand away.

“…I said, don’t touch the wound. You’re sweating too much as it is — try not to exercise for the next few days if you can help it.”

“Hey!” The burly man wasn’t pleased. “You little kid talk too much. Us martial folk, of course we sweat, of course we take this or that injury! What’s a little knife wound? Look at this scar, and this one here… just wrapped it up a bit and it healed on its own. Look at you, little doctor, all soft skin and tender flesh, never known hardship! Let me tell you, a real man exercises more, eats more, takes a wound now and then — what of it? None of this making a big deal about it… us martial folk, don’t worry, we’re tough!”

Ning Ji looked at his scar with an expressionless face. “This scar looks like that because it wasn’t treated properly in the first place… you were just lucky before, nothing went wrong. All around us, at all times, there are all sorts of tiny bacteria you can’t see. The dirtier a place is, the more of them there are. They get into your wound and you can get sick, and the wound turns bad. These bandages were all boiled in hot water first… don’t unwrap this one I gave you — only open it when it’s time to change the dressing!”

“Bac… bacteria, what’s that?”

“Bacteria.” Ning Ji, bored anyway, watched the ring being cleared up above and figured he might as well keep talking with the burly man. “Tiny living creatures, but very, very small — we can’t even see them. Once they get into a wound they start eating your flesh and blood, that’s what’s called an outside pathogen invading. You just now blocked a blade with your hand, and that blade wasn’t especially clean either. If something happens down the road, you might get a fever, and you might just keep running a fever until you die.”

“If they’re so small, how do you see them? You just said you can’t see them… forget it, I’m not going to argue with a little kid like you… you wrapped this pretty well, though… speaking of blocking that blade, do you understand the brilliance of that move I made just now, little kid?” The burly man changed the subject, his eyes starting to light up. “Ah, forget it, you definitely wouldn’t be able to tell. Let me explain — when he came at me with that strike, sure, I could’ve dodged it, but I traded wound for wound instead, and he got scared right then and there. My cut for his cut, that’s why I won — that’s what they call ‘when path narrows, the brave wins.’ And another thing, little kid, in ring fighting, when he swings and I swing back, it all happens in an instant, there’s no time to think. In that instant, I decided to trade wounds with him — that kind of response takes tremendous courage. Today, I told myself, I’m going to win, no matter what…”

“…tremendous courage indeed… congratulations.”

Ning Ji repeated the phrase in a flat tone, picked up his medicine box, and walked to the other side of the ring, where he found a spot and sat down. He watched as the bandaged burly man patted his own arm and got up. The man looked around as though searching for someone, wandered aimlessly around the grounds for a while out of boredom, and eventually made his way back over to Ning Ji.

“Hey, I say, little kid, you’re awfully young to be a doctor already, aren’t you?”

Ning Ji stared straight ahead. “The older ones go to the battlefield to fight the enemy, the younger ones become doctors — isn’t that how it should be?”

“Fair enough. You’re with the Black Banner, too. The Black Banner Army — those are true heroes. That was rash of me to say.” The burly man had a rough, coarse look about him, but every so often some rather refined phrase would slip out of his mouth. He cupped his hands in salute to Ning Ji and sat back down beside him. “The soldiers of the Black Banner Army are true heroes, but, well, you people up top — there are problems, sooner or later something’s going to happen…”

Ning Ji’s gaze slid sideways, gave the man a glance, and returned to its original position. The burly man himself seemed to sense he shouldn’t have said that, sat there bored for a while, then looked at Ning Ji’s plain, ordinary physician’s clothing. “Looking at you, young as you are and already out here working — probably not from much of a family. But I do respect you Black Banner men, you’re real men, so I’ll just say this — my master is a man of great learning, and whatever he says usually hits the mark, he doesn’t talk nonsense. He said, privately, that he’s worried for you Black Banner people — that all this prosperity might end up being for nothing…”

“Who is your master?”

“Don’t get angry, kid, everything I’m saying comes from the heart… my master means well by you all too, he didn’t say anything bad about you. I think he’s got a point, actually — if what you’ve got could really last and last, wouldn’t all those officials of the Wu Dynasty, all those men who came down like literary stars from heaven, be doing the same as you? He says your way can only last thirty or fifty years before there’s chaos again. The Wu Dynasty uses Confucianism, all that talk of the mean, the mean, the mean…”

“…the Doctrine of the Mean?”

“Right, so you’ve read some books after all, little kid — the Doctrine of the Mean, that’s what let it last two or three hundred years… you see, that makes sense too, doesn’t it? The Jin state was strong for thirty, fifty years, and the Black Banner beat them. You lot might last thirty, fifty years too, and who’s to say you won’t get beaten in turn… whether you’ll even get thirty or fifty years is hard to say, mostly I’m just saying it to say it — whether there’s truth in it, you just keep it in mind, that’s fine. I think there’s something to it. Hey, little kid, among your Black Banner Army, the truly formidable ones — have you ever seen any of them? What heroes are there, tell me about them — I heard they’re not showing up until next month… it’s not that I’m asking for myself, mind you, my chief, his martial skill is far above mine, and he’s aiming for a good ranking this time. He says if he can’t take first, he’ll settle for a spot in the top few… I wonder how he’d fare against one of your Black Banner heroes, though it’s not always true that battlefield methods translate to one-on-one duels… hey, have you ever been on a battlefield yourself, little kid — probably not, though…”

The two of them sat there looking at the ring. Ning Ji’s shoulders had already slumped under the barrage of chatter. He’d said a few words out of boredom, never expecting this man to be even more bored than himself. Lately the Huaxia Army had thrown its doors wide open to welcome outsiders, and the newspapers were even permitted to carry debates, so internally there had also been repeated directives issued that no military personnel were to strike anyone over mere words spoken against them.

For the moment, Ning Ji could only pick up his medicine box and move to a different spot. The burly man, sensing the boy had gotten annoyed, stayed put without chasing after him. Not long after, someone appeared from outside the grounds and waved at the burly man, who then left with his companion. Ning Ji glanced over — the man who’d come for him walked with a steady gait, evidently possessing some internal martial skill, though he’d lost half his hair, a sign of accumulated hidden injury to his meridians — not top-tier. He couldn’t tell if this was the “chief” who was supposedly aiming for a ranking.

Match after match on the platform decided their foolish outcomes, and cheers occasionally rang out from the spectator seats. Once in a while a minor injury would occur and Ning Ji would run over to treat it; the rest of the time he just sat there slack, daydreaming about which move he’d use to take someone down. As dusk approached that day and the ring matches wrapped up, his elder brother sat waiting for him outside in a rather shabby-looking carriage, apparently with something to discuss.

“Found a roast duck place, the pancakes are excellent, the sauce is good too. I’ll take you there today, get you something good to eat.”

Whenever Ning Xi came looking for Ning Ji lately, eight times out of ten it was to go find something good to eat — anyone who didn’t know better might think he spent all day roaming Chengdu in search of fine food. In truth, Ning Ji knew just how busy his elder brother was; though he’d only just turned eighteen, he already had a great many responsibilities resting on his shoulders. He simply liked to ask around about good food, keep it in mind, and then go try it together whenever the family got together — if it turned out to be genuinely good, he’d praise it endlessly; if not, he’d quietly finish his meal anyway.

The two of them chatted idly in the carriage. Ning Xi asked Ning Ji about what he’d seen and heard at the tournament grounds, whether any famous masters had shown up and what level they were, and whether he’d been tired lately at the venue. Ning Ji was somewhat livelier in front of his brother, and with a drooping face he complained the whole way about everything that had been getting on his nerves these past few days.

They arrived at the roast duck place and the two brothers took a private room upstairs overlooking the street, from which they could see the road, the pedestrians, the sunlight, the trees, and, further off, the river and lake shimmering in the golden light of the setting sun. Before the duck arrived, Ning Xi took out a stack of documents from the bag he carried, along with ink and a writing brush.

“Ten copies here in total. Sign and press your seal at the back.”

“What are these?”

“Never mind what they are, just sign and seal them.”

“Let me look…”

Ning Xi pursed his lips. Ning Ji glanced through a few pages — the documents were all roughly the same, accounts given by Zheng Qiming and a group of others describing Ning Ji’s conduct on the battlefield, each already signed and sealed by its author. “What’s this for…”

“Of course it’s useful, it’s related to something I’m dealing with right now. Never mind what it is, sign it, that’s all that matters… honestly I didn’t even want to bring you into this, but there has to be a proper procedure. Sign first, the duck’s about to arrive.”

“What’s going on?” Ning Ji frowned.

“Can I even tell you that? Military secret.”

“Is this about my third-class merit citation?”

Ning Ji looked at Ning Xi, who pressed a hand to his forehead. “…”

“…Brother, I heard Father won’t approve that third-class citation for me. He’s probably trying to protect me. It’s fine, forget it, I never wanted it anyway.”

“…Just sign first. What they wrote isn’t false, is it? If it’s not false, then the citation should be granted — you earned it with your life.” As Ning Xi said this, seeing Ning Ji still hesitating, he added, “Besides, it was Father himself who told me to help you file the appeal — which means he’s willing to grant it. I know you treat fame and rank like dirt, but this concerns my face, both our faces. I have to see this appeal through… it’s worn me out these past few days, and it’s not something these statements alone can settle. But never mind that part, I’ll handle the rest.”

Ning Ji sighed and pressed his seal onto the documents one by one. “I really don’t want this third-class citation. Besides, if we file the appeal, won’t it just end up back on Father’s desk, and he’ll just reject it, and you’ll have wasted all this effort for nothing? I think it’s not worth the time…”

“You don’t understand. Once it’s gone through the proper process, Father will actually approve it. He puts a lot of weight on procedure.” Ning Xi said. “You’ve been working as a doctor lately, but you know what the main business in Chengdu is right now, don’t you?”

“Establishing the Congress, proclaiming it to the realm?”

Ning Ji answered this way, and Ning Xi was about to reply when the waiter brought in the roast duck, so the conversation paused for a moment. Ning Ji finished sealing the documents on his side and handed them back to his brother.

Ning Xi put the documents away, and only after the door had closed did he speak again. “Holding the Congress is one goal. On top of that, there’s also the reorganization of the Bamboo Record and the Su clan’s businesses — folding everything into the single banner of the Huaxia People’s Government. Really, the higher-ups on every side already know about this — how things will be reorganized, how things will be merged, how personnel will be reassigned, all of that planning is already underway. But the idea is that once the Congress convenes, it will be the Congress that raises the proposal for reorganization, and it’ll be through that proposal that everything gets merged into the government — so that it looks as though the idea came from the Congress itself, and that everyone acted under the Congress’s direction.”

The roast duck had already been sliced by the time it arrived at the table. Ning Xi set about wrapping a portion for his younger brother. “The Congress raises proposals, the experts work out the solutions, the People’s Government carries out the execution — that’s what Father has always emphasized. He hopes that going forward, the vast majority of matters will follow this procedure, so that it can become established practice over time. So the matter of your appeal works the same way — filing it is a hassle, but as long as the proper procedure is followed, Father will be willing to let it pass… mm, this is good… never mind, you don’t need to worry about it… this sauce really is excellent…”

Ning Xi went on talking about the food, eating with great relish, while the evening breeze drifted in through the window, carrying with it the mingled aromas of food from the street below.

After a while, Ning Xi asked, “Little Ji, are you really not going to join the tournament this time?”

Ning Ji said, “There’s nothing impressive about it. And if I entered the junior division, there’d really be no one worth fighting.”

Ning Xi didn’t press further. In truth, the family had had their doubts all along about Ning Ji’s decision not to join the tournament. Many worried that ever since visiting the widows of his fallen comrades with their mother, Ning Ji’s mood had never quite recovered, and that this was why he had no interest in competing. But in truth, on this front, Ning Ji already had far more expansive plans of his own.

He had long since made up his mind: once the time was right, once he’d grown a bit older and stronger, once he was able to leave Chengdu and roam the realm, he wanted to see for himself the great martial artists of the whole world. And so, before that time came, he had no wish to expose his identity at an event as public as the Chengdu tournament.

Later on, wherever else he went, this identity of his would inevitably bring him more danger than it would an ordinary person. Though he was still young, he had witnessed enough life and death on the battlefield that he was in no danger of blind arrogance. Compared to being known as a martial artist, or some finely dressed young master, a traveling physician could go farther and more safely — after all, no one would casually kill a doctor — and this was also part of why he had lately been so diligently practicing medicine, treating wounds and illness for others.

Of course, none of these thoughts of his would he share with his brother for the time being — nor with anyone else in the family, or else there would be no chance of leaving in the future.

Thinking of this, he changed the subject. “Brother, has anyone strange been coming around you lately?”

“What?” Ning Xi thought about it. “What kind of person counts as strange?”

“You know, like… some pretty girl or something. You’re the eldest of our family, sometimes you have to show your face in public, and there might be all sorts of girls trying to seduce you — I heard Grandpa Chen and the others talk about it, the beauty trap… don’t you go letting Sister Chuyi down.”

For a fourteen-year-old boy to bring up something like the beauty trap made him sound as though he were forcing himself to seem more grown-up than he was. By the time he finished, Ning Xi swung a hand at his forehead; Ning Ji ducked his head and the slap passed over him. “Ah, you’ve messed up my hair.”

He straightened his hair while Ning Xi looked at him, torn between laughter and exasperation. “What beauty trap…” Then, growing wary, “Tell me honestly, have you seen or heard something recently?”

“Nothing much, I was just wondering if there was anything. Also, last time Father and Aunt Gua went over to my place, at dinner they brought up that it’s about time you and Sister Chuyi got married, so you could start having children, and so you wouldn’t have to worry about some bad woman getting close to you. Father and Aunt Gua also said they were worried you and Sister Chuyi might end up with a child before you’re even married…”

Ning Ji had said this offhandedly at first, quite naturally, but the moment it left his mouth he suddenly seemed to realize something and paused slightly. Across from him, a flush of red crossed Ning Xi’s face, and another slap came flying at him — this one landed squarely on his forehead. Ning Ji clutched his head, eyes rolling slowly, then looked up at Ning Xi. “Brother, you and Sister Chuyi haven’t really already…”

Ning Xi kicked out at him. Ning Ji sprang his legs and slid, chair and all, a full two meters back until he hit the corner of the room, his face flushing red. “Brother, it’s not like I’m going to go telling anyone…”

“You, you, you — what do you even know, talking nonsense. Me and your Sister Chuyi… come here, forget it, I’m not going to hit you… we’ve done nothing improper, I’m telling you…”

“I study medicine, I already know whatever there is to know.” Ning Ji craned his neck, his flushed face held high, putting on an air of worldly experience about adult matters, wanting to ask more but in the end not quite daring to. He pulled his chair back over. “Forget it, I won’t say anything more. I’m eating, don’t hit me anymore.”

“Eat your duck.” Ning Xi, with good grace, changed the subject as well.

The two brothers went on chatting about trivial matters, finishing off an entire roast duck along with all the side dishes — both of them had practiced internal martial arts since childhood, so their appetites ran large. Every so often Ning Ji glanced at his brother, his curiosity stirred by a certain forbidden subject, and he decided that the next time he saw Sister Chuyi, he’d secretly take her pulse. Unfortunately, in his past work he had only ever tagged along on rural visits as a bag-carrying assistant, and later, in the army, he’d dealt strictly with external wounds — he had never actually taken a pulse to check for pregnancy, and he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to tell. If he could tell, he really ought to warn them to hurry up and get married…

But how would he even bring it up? If he said it in front of Sister Chuyi, he’d surely get another beating for it — especially if she really was expecting, since then he wouldn’t even be able to fight back.

The two brothers, each harboring their own private thoughts, parted ways cleanly once the meal was over. Ning Ji carried his medicine box back to the courtyard where he still lived alone.

By now the setting sun had sunk behind the western city wall, and the lights of Chengdu were coming on in their many colors. Ning Ji changed clothes in his room, took out a small waterproof bundle, and slipped back out, climbing over the side wall of the courtyard, stretching his body in the darkness as he made his way toward a nearby stream.

Chengdu had many rivers running through it, and he had never bothered to ask the name of the one near where he lived. It was still summer, and not long ago he’d often come here to swim; today he had a different purpose. He reached a secluded stretch of riverbank, changed into waterproof gear, bound up his hair, turned himself entirely black, and walked straight into the water.

In the distance, lantern-lit pleasure boats drifted on the water. Ning Ji swam a smooth dog-paddle through the current, then after a while switched to floating on his back, and before long climbed ashore at a relatively secluded stretch of riverbed.

He stripped off his waterproof gear, let down his hair, shook the water from his body, and, dressed now in thin black clothing with his face covered, made his way toward a nearby estate.

He scaled the wall with practiced ease and slipped inside, moving through the shadows of the rear courtyard. Before long, he climbed along the wall and up onto a rooftop, surveying the surroundings. This was a wealthy household with three courtyards in sequence; it did not appear that many people currently lived here. The rearmost courtyard held an embroidery tower, where maids and servants were busy hauling hot water up to a room on the second floor, grunting with the effort. Ning Ji watched from the rooftop for a while.

“Bathing this early…”

He muttered to himself, then, recalling the talk of having children that he’d had with his brother earlier that day, climbed down from the roof, found a foothold on the second-floor outer wall, and leaned in to peer through the window.

It was an excellent vantage point — not only could he see into the room, he could also see much of what was happening in the courtyard out front.

The hot water for the bath in the room had already been prepared — Ning Ji always found it strange that women would want hot water for bathing even in summer, but considering that the young woman in this embroidery tower always wore such a melancholy expression, her constitution must simply be poor, which was, medically speaking, an explanation that held up.

Before long, a young woman with skin like snow and eyebrows like distant mist entered the room. She looked to be about two years older than Ning Ji, and though she was beautiful, there was a persistent air of melancholy knotted in her eyes that never seemed to dissipate. It was hardly surprising — bad men who came to Chengdu tended, without exception, to end up dead, and she likely knew that she herself would probably not escape that fate here, which was why she spent her days in constant fear.

Having long since regarded this woman as good as dead already, Ning Ji’s curiosity got the better of him, and he lingered outside the window watching for a while…

Then, in the courtyard ahead, several people appeared, laughing and talking as they walked in together.