“…Skill, that’s just craft, a specialty… there wasn’t even a term like ‘martial world’ in the old days. Every run-down little village, mountains high and forests far, plenty of bandits about — if someone in the east end of the village knew a few moves, that already counted as a ‘specialty’… Go take a look, and sure enough, they’d know a little something, like some technique passed down from who-knows-where, meant just for training the hands, or just the legs — spend twenty years on one technique, and you could kick a tree clean in half, though aside from that one kick, you’d know nothing else at all…”
“…I ran into a fellow like that in my younger days, this was over south of Xiangyang somewhere — a man surnamed Hu, claimed he could kill a tiger with a single kick, a family technique, his right leg trained to enormous strength. Our shins, most of us, are the weakest part of the leg, but his had grown half again as thick as an ordinary man’s from all that training — an ordinary man couldn’t take a hit from it. But dodge that one kick, and a single shove would knock him right over — that’s what a ‘specialty’ really amounts to… The ones who genuinely mastered real martial skill were mainly the ones who traveled and fought — those who actually accomplished something were, for the most part, exactly this type…”
In the hall of the inn’s side courtyard, the veteran of the martial world named Lu Liutong sat with a cup of tea before him, holding forth at length to Xigua, Du Sha, Luo Bingren, and Ning Yi about tales from the martial world.
“…Look here, I still remember Liu Dabiao back in those days — I remember him well. Full beard, looked like he’d already seen some years, but really still just a young buck, carrying a blade on his back, fighting his way across the whole realm. By the time he got to Jiayu, he already showed real signs of having entered the higher ranks of skill. He and I crossed blows — on the sixteenth exchange, he swung his blade in a diagonal slash — ah, cutting down and across like this — at the time, old me, my footwork was ‘Wild Ox Plowing the Earth,’ my hands doing ‘White Ape Presenting Fruit,’ I stepped straight into the blade’s edge and caught his wrist…”
“…That diagonal slash of your Hegemon Blade back then, the hand position was quite simple — after that encounter, the move gained two additional variations. That’s the benefit of fighting and traveling widely — only by finding your weak points do you learn how to grow stronger. Your Hegemon Blade still carries that same slash today, doesn’t it…”
The old man wore a satisfied smile, his hand miming the motion of drawing a blade as he asked the group. Xigua, Du Sha, and the others exchanged glances and nodded with a smile: “It’s there. Still there, indeed.”
Lu Liutong smiled with satisfaction. “Martial arts families have their own inherited, complete sets of specialties — they benefit from that accumulated legacy. The Liu family’s blade style around the Miao frontier region is just like my own Lu family here in Jiayu — there’s always some foundation to draw on. But having a foundation doesn’t guarantee you’ll actually produce real talent. As for Dabiao’s skill back in those days, honestly, it was really that one journey of travel that settled it — only after that did the name ‘Hegemon Blade’ come to be. And then there’s the Fang family of Qingxi — they’ve passed things down for generations too, once held some minor influence, though never much renown. By the time of Fang La’s generation, the family had fallen on hard times — and that, ironically, is exactly what worked in his favor…”
“…Qingxi was prosperous back then, but the court’s levies for birthday tribute goods weighed heavily too. That generation of the Fang family produced quite a few remarkable figures. Fang La, Fang Baihua, Fang Qifo — how did they turn out this way? Too many mouths in the family, forced into it out of necessity. Fang La joined the Manichaean Sect, thinking he’d found a way forward — but what kind of outfit was the Manichaean Sect, really? Top to bottom, it was nothing but everyone preying on everyone else. If you didn’t want to be preyed upon, you had to fight, had to risk everything, advance with no retreat. The Fang family had others back then too — Fang Xun, Fang Zheng, both men of real renown — and they simply died in the internal power struggles.”
“Fang La fought his way up and became the Sage Duke. Fang Baihua, woman though she was, reportedly cheated death several times over as well. As for why Fang Qifo earned the name ‘Nine Manifestations of the Cloud Dragon’ — he was skilled with strategy, always planning carefully before making any move, and he was well-versed in all eighteen forms of weaponry, always striking precisely at others’ weaknesses. People called him deep and inscrutable in his schemes — but really, it was because his own martial skill started out the weakest of them all, and that’s exactly how he ended up earning that grand nickname of Nine Manifestations. …Ah, in the end he actually achieved the most of any of them — if he hadn’t been held back on the battlefield, he could easily have escaped when the time came…”
“…The Fang family originally just wanted to carve out a place for themselves around Qingxi, and somehow, fighting their way up, they ended up at the rank of sect leader before they knew it. The Manichaean sect leader of that era, He Yunsheng, was said to have connections with several major court officials, and was himself a formidable grandmaster in his own right — I met him myself, twice, though I never had the chance to cross hands with him, unfortunately… Below He Yunsheng, the Sacred Maiden Sikong Nan was renowned for her lightness skill and claw techniques, and both his left and right guardians were first-rate masters as well. Who would have guessed that on that Dragon Boat Festival, Fang La and a whole group of others, your own father included, gathered at the Manichaean Sect’s headquarters and challenged He Yunsheng directly…”
“…No one could have predicted he’d actually win — but once that fight was over, he became the Sage Duke.”
The old man, drawing on his seniority, spoke of these events with real fluency, occasionally punctuating his stories with lines like “I met so-and-so twice” or “I crossed a few moves with so-and-so,” carrying himself like the last surviving witness of a bygone golden age, alone now amid a world of fallen heroes. Xigua, Du Sha, and the others knew, to varying degrees, that certain details differed from what the old man described, but on an ordinary day they might not have had much patience to sit through all this — yet since Ning Yi himself had come along for the fun, they simply sat back with smiles and let the old man carry on.
“…Back at the Manichaean Sect, the reason the Sage Duke managed to fight He Yunsheng all the way to the end was largely because your father Dabiao was there backing him up. With him, along with Fang Baihua and Fang Qifo, they managed to hold Sikong Nan and her people at bay head-on — after all, Hegemon Blade Liu Dabiao’s swordsmanship was said to be almost divine, and he was famously never one to hold back in a direct confrontation… A pity, though — it was precisely because of that contest that Fang La seized He Yunsheng’s position, while the rest scattered or fled. Fang La then refused to submit to the direction of the great northern clans, and that’s what eventually led to the Yongle Incident afterward… And it was precisely because your father’s reputation had grown so great by then, with everyone knowing the Hegemon Blade estate had allied itself with the Sage Duke, that the court came to target him as their first priority…”
That this Lu Liutong had managed to hold his own around Jiayu for so long, still able to command the presence of a genuine martial world elder even now in his seventies, clearly meant he had some real substance of his own. Piecing together the general outline of the Yongle uprising through nothing but scattered rumors of the martial world was, in its own way, a genuinely impressive feat of insight.
Though the Manichaean Sect took a grassroots, populist line, its ties to the great clans of every region ran deep and tangled — no telling how many hands were secretly involved. The generation under Sikong Nan and Lin Echan had grown accustomed to being figureheads, and while the sect had grown considerable in scale, in terms of actual strength it had always remained a loose scattering of sand.
After killing He Yunsheng and driving out Sikong Nan and the others, Fang La reorganized the entire Manichaean territory across the south of the Yangtze, finally welding the whole sect into a single unified force — and it was on the strength of that reorganized Manichaean influence that figures like Li Tianrun, Shi Bao, Deng Yuanjue, and Zu Shiyuan gradually joined the cause one after another. Looked at this way, the Manichaean Sect under He Yunsheng and Sikong Nan’s era had really been nothing more than a ragtag gang-like outfit; the sect Fang La reorganized afterward could have easily crushed a hundred of its former self head-on.
But naturally, this state of affairs ran directly against the interests of the great regional clans, who began genuinely working from every angle to suppress the Manichaean Sect. As the conflict between the two sides escalated further and further, it eventually culminated in the Yongle Incident. Of course, after the Yongle Incident concluded, Lin Echan and Sikong Nan re-emerged and reclaimed control of the sect, which soon reverted to the same scattered, disorganized state as before — the sect’s teachings spread everywhere, but discipline nowhere to be found. Though Lin Echan himself had once entertained certain political ambitions, after being repeatedly crushed by the Jurchens and even by a “mere weak woman” like Lou Shuwan, he now seemed, by all appearances, to have accepted reality and lost the will to stir up any further trouble.
Ning Yi, of course, already had a clear picture of all this through the Bamboo Record’s intelligence network and the extensive information gathered from greenwood contacts — but he still found it genuinely interesting that an old storyteller like this could piece together so accurate an outline purely from secondhand rumor. If he weren’t playing the part of a silent attendant, he’d have loved to ask the man about the whereabouts of Cui Xiaolü right then and there — Du Sha and the others had never actually met her, so perhaps it was simply a gap in their own knowledge.
Having finished his commentary on Fang La and Liu Dabiao, Lu Liutong moved on to Zhou Tong: “…Back in his day, Zhou Tong held court at the Imperial Archery Hall for over a decade. Everyone calls him unrivaled under heaven now, but honestly, whether he truly deserved that title even back then is worth debating. Still, he was formidable in his own right — and why? Because besides teaching students, he was always out traveling, always out righting wrongs wherever he found them… ah, and that’s exactly what I said before — those who fight well are, above all, the ones who get out and move around…”
“…In earlier years — back when the Jinghan era still stood — the last man to truly make a name for himself traveling far and wide was that Lin Zongwu. Back then he was a guardian of the Manichaean Sect; no one imagined he’d go on to reach the level he eventually did. Friend or foe aside, back in Jiayu, the old man here crossed a few moves with him myself — his internal energy runs deep, precious few in this world could match him. He later raised troops in the Jin region to resist the Jurchens, and honestly, that counts as real service to the nation. Seems to me, if you’re planning something big now, you ought to show the breadth of spirit to swallow the whole realm whole — this Number One Martial Arts Tournament Under Heaven, you could well invite him to take part. Of course, that’s your own internal affair — the old man’s only offering the suggestion.”
“If he wants to come, we’d certainly welcome him.” Xigua said with a smile.
“Such generosity of spirit — that has something of your father Dabiao’s bearing about it, back in his day.” Lu Liutong offered his approval with evident satisfaction.
The old man took a sip of tea, and after a moment, continued: “…In truth, to truly refine one’s martial skill, you really do need to keep moving. These past decade-plus of great upheaval in the Central Plains — with people fleeing south, suffering beyond measure — has, in its own way, also been a decade of forced exchange, pushing northern boxing traditions south and mixing them together. These years, whether you’ve been in the northwest or the southwest, you haven’t had much involvement with the greenwood of the south of the Yangtze — but from what the old man has observed, there are indeed a few figures who’ve made names for themselves amid all this chaos…”
“…Take, for instance, a man named Nie Jincheng, back in Lin’an — high in skill, deep connections too, known by the nickname ‘Python Hero.’ I crossed a few moves with him myself once, spent a whole afternoon in conversation with him. A pity that when Lin’an fell, he must have died fighting in the resistance — never made it out. Ah, that man was a rare hero indeed… He had a subordinate named Chen Guizhi — sounds like a woman’s name, but the man himself was remarkably tall, with tremendous physical strength. I hear he’s come to Chengdu this time…”
“…And then there’s a man in the Xiang-Chu region known by the nickname Honest Monk, an intermediary of sorts — well-informed, with connections reaching everywhere, friendly with every faction. He doesn’t fight much himself, but the old man happens to know, he’s a ruthless one underneath it all…”
Ning Yi reached up and rubbed his nose…
Though this old man had spent his days in obscurity around Jiayu, he clearly kept himself remarkably well informed. Warming to his subject, drink in hand, he went on at length introducing a number of heroic figures who’d emerged in recent years, before finally, gradually, working his way toward the actual point of his visit.
He had come to Chengdu this time bringing along his second son, Lu Xiaolun, along with several disciples under his command. This son of his was already past fifty; supposedly he had spent the past thirty years traveling the martial world, half of every year on the road, seeking out great masters everywhere to make connections and spar with them. The old man had brought him along this time because he felt his son had finally completed his training and was ready to go it alone — hoping, ideally, to secure the young man a position within the Huaxia Army, preferably something like an instructor’s post in the imperial guard, as a starting point.
In the old days, back in Bianliang and elsewhere, a martial artist landing a post as one of the eight hundred thousand imperial guard instructors would have counted as a fine start to one’s career. But for a member of the Lu family who’d already come to know people like Xigua and Du Sha, a mere instructor’s post within the army could only ever count as a starting point, nothing more.
“…The Huaxia Army has been drilling troops continuously in the western mountains, and its battlefield discipline is genuinely admirable. If it came down to a contest of military formations, naturally there would be nothing to compare on the Wu Dynasty’s side to the east — but over these ten-plus years, with martial traditions from north and south mixing and merging, there really have emerged a good number of specialties worth learning from. Xiaolun here has spent these years traveling the south of the Yangtze, making the acquaintance of masters from every school, gaining broad experience — in the old man’s judgment, he’s more than qualified to serve as an instructor within your ranks. That’s why I’ve brought him here to see for himself. The old man, too, mindful of an old friend’s descendants, thought to make this trip while my health still allows it, to walk around and take a look at things for myself… Xiaolun has a few specialties of his own as well — he could demonstrate them right now, if you like, hahaha…”
This Lu Xiaolun, in his fifties, still looked fairly robust in build. He hadn’t interrupted while his father spoke, but now rose and offered his greetings to the assembled company. Several of his fellow disciples then brought out various performance props — large chunks of buffalo bone, bricks, wooden training dummies, and the like.
The buffalo bones were large and hard, carried in cloth sacks; several disciples brought them out and set one before each person present. Ning Yi, well-traveled by now, recognized this as a prop for demonstrating “Yellow Mud Palm” — a rather unorthodox greenwood technique in which the practitioner trains by gradually gripping and lifting sticky yellow clay, starting with a small lump and working up to a ball the size of a leather sack, gripped with all five fingers. In truth, the training builds the strength and precision of the five fingers — hence the name Yellow Mud Palm.
Besides the clay-gripping exercises, practitioners of this art also spend their days twisting various bones bare-handed; by the time they finally face an opponent in real combat, whether the enemy throws a punch or a kick, a single clasp of both hands can shatter the opponent’s limb bones outright. These buffalo bones, far harder than any ordinary bone, served as the perfect prop to showcase the strength of the performer’s grip.
Ning Yi stood behind Xigua and Du Sha, watching the bone set in front of Du Sha, and felt the corners of his mouth slowly curling upward — something about the sight had struck him as funny, and he fought to keep a straight face, his expression twisting more and more, his stomach shaking with the effort of holding back laughter.
The two men in front of him were both grandmaster-level fighters; even with their backs to him, how could they fail to notice his reaction? Xigua frowned and shot him a sidelong glance, then looked over at Du Sha in confusion. Du Sha sighed, reached forward, and gave the bone in front of him a light tap — he had only one hand, after all — and at that, Xigua understood, pressing a hand to his mouth, unable to hold back his own laughter.
Luo Bingren, too, couldn’t help but start laughing right after.
Over on the other side, Lu Xiaolun rubbed his hands together, gripped one of the bones, and with a sharp crack, snapped it clean in two.
Xigua grasped a bone with both hands and twisted — nothing. Luo Bingren tried the same with both hands — also nothing. Both men then looked toward Du Sha.
Du Sha let out a sigh…
More rounds of demonstration followed outside. Lu Xiaolun struck the wooden training dummy with a series of punches, then went on to demonstrate several more specialties — eagle claw technique, bone-and-tendon manipulation, and the like. Xigua and the others, all masters in their own right, could see plainly enough that the man’s skill was genuinely solid — competent enough, at the very least, to hold his own on appearance alone. But given how the Huaxia Army now consisted entirely of veteran soldiers, every one of them blooded in real combat, unless this Lu Xiaolun had himself killed a great many people in his time roaming the south of the Yangtze, joining the army would be little more than a sparrow wandering into an eagle’s nest. The scent of blood carried on a battlefield was a kind of edge that no amount of polished form could ever make up for.
Back after the Battle of Xia Village, Tong Guan and others had sent a martial examination champion in to take charge of military affairs within the Wu Rui Camp. Eager to establish his authority within the ranks, this champion had challenged a veteran soldier to a sparring match in the ring — but when it came to settling matters of life and death, all it took was a single blade stroke. The champion, a man named Luo Shengzhou, was carried out gravely wounded, and likely never stepped into a ring with anyone again.
For those veteran soldiers who’d fought on real battlefields, technique and proper form often couldn’t win against a true martial master — but they always carried, at the very least, one final stroke of a blade willing to trade life for life. If even the veterans of Xia Village were like that, how much more so the soldiers of the Huaxia Army, who had spent a full decade cutting their way across the realm? A decade earlier, soldiers like Mao Yishan had cowered trembling at the back of the battle line; a decade later, that same man could grab hold of a battle-hardened Jurchen general in a direct clash and smash him bodily against the rocks. When that kind of ferocity was unleashed, very few could stand against it head-on.
Xigua, Du Sha, and the others exchanged glances, then began laying out the Huaxia Army’s regulations. Having only just won their first major, all-out war, the Huaxia Army enforced its discipline strictly, and on many matters there simply was no room for flexibility, no shortcuts to be had. The Lu family’s young master was certainly a man of exceptional skill, and the Huaxia Army would naturally be more than glad to welcome him into their ranks — but there would, all the same, be certain procedures and steps that had to be followed, and so on.
These words weren’t merely a polite fiction. The Huaxia Army had opened its doors to welcome heroes from across the realm, and had no intention of turning anyone away outright. The Lu family, though hoping for a shortcut, genuinely did have real ability to offer, and it was only natural that the Huaxia Army would want him to join. But if he couldn’t accept going through the proper process, then no matter how skilled he was, the Huaxia Army simply couldn’t absorb him properly — to say nothing of the danger of promoting him straight to an instructor’s post out of turn, which would amount to sending him to his death. Of course, none of this could be said quite so directly.
Hearing Xigua, Du Sha, and the others lay this out, the old man nodded along cheerfully, offering praise for the strictness of the Huaxia Army’s military discipline. He then added that, since the Huaxia Army already had plans in place for recruiting new talent, his son and his disciples would naturally follow the proper procedures, and that the several of them also intended to take part in the upcoming tournament here in the southwest — everything else, he said, could well be discussed further when that time came.
More pleasantries followed, both sides exchanging courteous words back and forth.
After chatting a while longer about old times, and having smoothed over the earlier awkwardness to some degree, Xigua and the others finally took their leave.
Once they had gone, back in the courtyard, Lu Xiaolun’s expression darkened at once. “Father, they’re looking down on us.”
“You’ve never defeated a Jurchen yourself — of course they look down on you, and there’s nothing to be said about that.” Lu Liutong returned to the table, took a sip of tea, doing his best to suppress his own darkening expression, projecting instead an air of calm indifference. “The Huaxia Army has accomplished real things, and this kind of arrogance is only natural given that. Xiaolun, if you want to obtain something, what matters most, in the end, is what you yourself are actually capable of…”
Lu Xiaolun considered this. “I’ll work hard, and earn myself a good ranking at the tournament.”
“Your vision is too narrow.” Lu Liutong said slowly, teacup in hand, his gaze drifting off into the distance. He fell silent for a long while like this. “…Prepare the invitation cards. Over these next few days, I’ll take you all around to meet with our fellow practitioners of the martial world who’ve gathered here in Chengdu, and we’ll sit and discuss the way of the martial arts together.”
The old man’s gaze turned to the others in the room; his lips parted, and after a moment, he spoke, each word deliberate and measured. “Back in his day, Liu Dabiao had two moves of the Hegemon Blade refined under my own hand — those two moves remain part of the Hegemon Blade to this very day, and no one understands their weaknesses better than I do. Liu Dabiao’s most brilliant decision, back then, was to pass the Hegemon Blade down to the entire estate, to everyone within it. Given how the Huaxia Army has grown to its current scale over these years, the Hegemon Blade must surely have played some part in that… Xiaolun, a man ought to look toward the bigger picture. Earning yourself a good ranking has some use, certainly, but in the end, isn’t that just you lending your presence to boost the Huaxia Army’s own occasion?… To be truly valued, a man must be able to both lend support and pull the rug out from under someone. You go and lend your support at the tournament — meanwhile, the old man here will sit down with the heroes of the realm and discuss… a certain weakness or two in the Hegemon Blade.”
Lu Xiaolun and his fellow disciples exchanged glances, then all spoke as one: “Father is wise.”
“Master is wise.”
“Master’s schemes leave nothing to chance…”
“The Black Banner will surely come to regret this day’s events…”
“Hahahaha…” Amid the chorus of flattery, the old man stroked his beard and let out a long, rolling laugh.
At the same time, the large procession of guests was leaving the street.
Ning Yi shared a carriage with Xigua, heading toward a quieter part of the city.
“Well, that’s that — we’ve made an enemy…”
“A venerable elder of the martial world, advanced in years and virtue — better watch out he doesn’t go calling in Sect Leader Lin to come smash up your stage…”