Chapter 4#
A Bountiful Harvest#
On Gushan’s main peak, Míngguāng Peak — mist soft and tranquil, clouds still and quiet — the sect’s guardian divine sword stood towering here, its presence stern and formidable.
Beyond the divine sword, outside the main hall, beneath an ancient tree so vast it would take several people with linked hands to encircle its trunk, Yan Wushu tapped the stone table with one finger and said: “‘Some stars will deviate from their original paths’ — those were Mist Island’s exact words.”
Across from him sat a woman, the person he was addressing. She wore a deep crimson Daoist robe, her posture not especially ladylike — one knee bent and raised, a wine jug dangling from the hand resting on it. Her features were striking without losing their edge of valor, and her every movement carried an ease and freedom all its own. This was Shěn Yìrú, the current sect leader of Gushan.
On hearing Yan Wushu’s words, Shen Yiru swept her sleeve and laughed coldly. “Just that one sentence by way of explanation?”
“Correct,” Yan Wushu said.
“The star disc showed signs of disorder — which naturally means certain stars have strayed from their fixed paths and appeared where they shouldn’t be, otherwise how would it qualify as disorder? Mist Island remains as gifted as ever at saying nothing.” Shen Yiru stood, tipped a mouthful of wine down her throat, walked around to Yan Wushu’s side, and brought her hand down solidly on his shoulder. “Has my esteemed nephew calculated anything?”
Yan Wushu stilled the tapping of his index finger against the table, and turned it slowly two or three times. “That is asking rather a lot of me, Honored Aunt.”
Shen Yiru returned to her seat, set the wine jug on the table, and crossed her arms. “You are the most calculating person in the world. Naturally this falls to you.”
“It will take time,” Yan Wushu said.
“How long?” Shen Yiru raised an eyebrow.
Yan Wushu said he didn’t know.
Shen Yiru gave a snorting laugh. “Then stay here and calculate at your leisure. Leave when you’re done.”
Beyond Mingguang Peak, the morning light spread gradually from the east, the dawn drawing open its curtains. The morning breeze swept across Yan Wushu’s sleeves. He looked up at the sky, rose, and said to Shen Yiru: “I’m afraid I must decline, Honored Aunt.”
“Oh?”
“Too many people on Mingguang Peak. Too noisy.” Yan Wushu’s tone was one of practised helplessness.
“Tch — fine, you can get lost then.” Shen Yiru’s lips twitched, she rolled her eyes, and waved him away.
Yan Wushu, as expected, turned on his heel and left.
Shen Yiru took a sip of wine and called after his retreating figure: “Oh, right — about that thing of yours…”
She let the sentence trail.
Yan Wushu turned his folding fan in his fingers, paused, and looked back at her with a questioning expression.
Seeing his face, Shen Yiru suddenly decided not to continue. She changed course: “Stars shifting is a common enough occurrence. If Gushan is truly headed for trouble, there will be signs first. Once the signs appear, it won’t be too late to think of countermeasures. Our Gushan has ten thousand years of foundation — it doesn’t fall into disorder so easily.”
“Well said, Honored Aunt.” Yan Wushu folded his hands toward her in a bow.
The journey from Mingguang Peak back to Snow-Intent Peak took only a blink. When Yan Wushu returned, the birds were calling throughout the forest, and the few disciples on the peak had already begun their daily practice.
He settled into the reclining chair on the covered walkway, tossing his folding fan up and catching it, turning the matter of the stars over in his mind.
After some indeterminate stretch of time, the sun climbed higher, and footsteps sounded along the corridor.
Rong Yuan came with a miserable expression, bowed to Yan Wushu, and said: “Peak Master.”
Yan Wushu lifted his head from his calculations, glanced at Rong Yuan’s face, and asked: “His Highness has taken a turn for the worse?”
“His Highness has left,” Rong Yuan said quietly.
Unexpected.
Yan Wushu was silent for a moment. “When?”
“…Rong Yuan does not know.”
“…”
Yan Wushu looked in the direction of White Blossom Peak. He set aside the calculations that refused to yield answers, rose, crossed the courtyard, and went to the storeroom at the back. He found several medicinal herbs, handed them to the small attendant at his side, and said: “Simmer these for two hours, then bring them to White Blossom Peak for His Highness. Stay and make sure he drinks every drop.”
“Yes. — Wait, White Blossom Peak? Isn’t that where the lower-ranked disciples train? Why would His Highness be there? Wouldn’t Snow-Intent Peak be better for cultivation?” Rong Yuan nodded quickly, then caught up with what Yan Wushu had said, and his voice went high with astonishment.
Yan Wushu did not answer. He took out another vial of medicinal pills and told Rong Yuan to bring those along as well.
The sun was climbing toward its zenith; the shadows below had shrunk to their smallest. In the Zhaoyu Pavilion on White Blossom Peak, the instructor who had been teaching First Steps in the Way of Seals finished going through each disciple’s work one by one, rang the small bell on the desk, and declared the class concluded.
The instructor left first; everyone else gathered their books and seal papers and headed for the door. Qu Hanxing grabbed Xiao Man’s arm and, leveraging their position at the back, darted out ahead of the crowd. “Mǎn-gē — I genuinely mean it when I call you gē. You’re incredible! Writing seals in midair without paper or brush, just by feel — I’m going to admire you for the rest of my life!”
“Xiao Man really is something,” Mo Juntian said at Xiao Man’s other side, nodding earnestly.
Being praised so enthusiastically by the two of them made Xiao Man somewhat uncomfortable. He lowered his voice. “That wasn’t a seal.”
“Gē, you don’t need to comfort us.” Qu Hanxing looked entirely unconvinced.
“Truly. I simply traced the pattern of a basic fire seal through the air by hand,” Xiao Man said, his expression a touch resigned.
Mo Juntian and Qu Hanxing exchanged a glance, puzzled. “But then how did it…”
Xiao Man hesitated a moment, then extended his hand from his sleeve and snapped his fingers.
The sound had barely died before a small flame rose from his pale fingertip. In the bright summer sun it was easy to overlook, but as it swayed gently with the breeze, it was undeniably charming.
Qu Hanxing: “…”
He stared at the flame for a solid three breaths.
After those three breaths, he reached out a finger to test it, and recoiled burning: “Thank goodness you didn’t use that on me last night!”
“Wait, what, what?!” Mo Juntian had heard Qu Hanxing’s account of the previous night, and his expression traveled from stunned to thunderstruck to deeply moved: “You mean the person who came out on top of last night’s trial was Xiao Man? No wonder the Peak Master allowed you to come to White Blossom Peak at this time!”
Xiao Man pressed his lips together in a brief smile, extinguished the flame at his fingertip, and let the subject drop. He looked ahead at the path before them and asked: “Where are we going now?”
Qu Hanxing pointed at the sky above. “The sun’s straight up — obviously we go to the Wugou Tower to eat.”
It was only then that Xiao Man recalled that ordinary disciples in the Baoyu Realm had not yet achieved the ability to sustain themselves without eating, as he had.
So he followed Qu Hanxing and Mo Juntian to the Wugou Tower, where they found an empty table and sat down.
The dishes were already laid out — meat and vegetables both, a generous variety, colors bright and aromas rich, all thoroughly appetizing.
“I’ll go get the rice.” Mo Juntian said with a smile, and went.
Meanwhile Qu Hanxing introduced Xiao Man to the spread before them: “The vegetables are all spirit-cultivated plants; the meat is partly made directly from spirit-beast meat, and partly from poultry and fish raised on spirit-grain — like this shredded ginger duck and this spicy diced chicken.”
He pulled out a pair of chopsticks and handed them to Xiao Man.
Xiao Man tried a few things and nodded in appreciation. “The duck is remarkably tender. The chicken has absorbed the seasoning beautifully.”
“And it’s remarkably expensive,” said Qu Hanxing.
The words brought a sudden wash of memory — those years at the Grand Zhaohua Temple.
The Grand Zhaohua Temple was a storied Buddhist institution, ancient and renowned, always busy with the faithful — but the three daily meals there were nothing like what Gushan provided. Disciples who hadn’t yet mastered sustaining themselves without food ate ordinary, plain mortal fare; only at major festivals did they get to eat rice and vegetables made from spirit-cultivated ingredients.
Gushan truly was Gushan. Xiao Man was quietly moved.
Mo Juntian returned carrying a pot of rice. The three each filled a bowl, raised their bamboo chopsticks, and began to eat.
The Wugou Tower was not quiet — most people were murmuring to their neighbors, and the sound from every table wove together into something that felt like the noise of a marketplace.
Xiao Man ate at a decent pace, but with considerable grace — his slender fingers holding the plain bamboo chopsticks with a kind of understated elegance. The phrase a sight beautiful enough to eat might have been coined for him.
The cultivation world had never lacked for beautiful people, but his particular quality was rare. Combined with Instructor Yang’s high praise in the Zhaoyu Pavilion not long before, quite a few people were glancing in his direction.
Xiao Man’s expression didn’t shift. He was halfway through his meal when the White Blossom Peak Master walked in. The Daoist moved with unhurried composure, made his way to the front, stepped up onto the raised platform, stroked his beard, and said to the room: “If everyone would please be quiet — I am here to announce the results of yesterday’s free-for-all.”
In an instant the whole hall went silent.
Everyone set down their chopsticks and looked toward the Peak Master — everyone, that is, except for Qu Hanxing, who had been the last one standing before Xiao Man finished him off, and Mo Juntian, who had heard Qu Hanxing’s rough account of events. As for Xiao Man — he was drinking soup, and had no chopsticks in hand.
“In every previous year, the victory in White Blossom Peak’s free-for-all trial has gone to the single person who fought to the very end and stood to the very last.” The White Blossom Peak Master’s voice rang out clearly.
The Wugou Tower grew quieter still, everyone anticipating the answer. The Peak Master’s gaze moved across the room and came to rest on Xiao Man’s face.
Xiao Man set down his soup bowl. He heard the Peak Master say: “I won’t keep anyone in suspense — the winner of this round goes by the name Xiao Man.”
For a moment —
“Seriously?”
“Who is Xiao Man?”
“Where did he come from?”
The result had caught the vast majority of the room off guard. The Wugou Tower erupted back into noise, questions rising one after another.
Some people followed the Peak Master’s gaze to find Xiao Man, looked him over, and — having confirmed the identification — said with displeasure: “This person only showed up at the Zhaoyu Pavilion today. No one has seen him before — he wasn’t even present at the start of the free-for-all — which means he didn’t begin the competition when the rest of us did. That isn’t fair!”
“White Blossom Peak’s trial has never imposed a rule about who may enter at which point. He defeated his opponents and won the competition under the witness of myself and the senior instructors. It was entirely fair.” The White Blossom Peak Master smiled, waved a hand, and sent two brocade boxes gliding to the table in front of Xiao Man. “These are the winner’s prizes.”
The White Blossom Peak Master floated serenely away. The voices of protest instantly boiled over, filling the Wugou Tower with a clamor. Xiao Man had anticipated exactly this; he kept his expression unchanged, lowered his eyes, and went back to his soup.
“Congratulations, congratulations.” Qu Hanxing leaned in, nodding at the brocade boxes. “Aren’t you going to open them and look?”
“Thank goodness this place has strict rules against fighting… thank goodness the glares of low-ranked disciples can’t actually kill anyone… stop looking around, let’s just finish eating and get out of here!” Mo Juntian swept his eyes around the room, scooped up a large mouthful of food, raised his bowl, and started shoveling rice at speed.
“You’re right!” Qu Hanxing saw the light.
At that moment, one of the three Upper Baoyu cultivators Xiao Man had shot down the night before suddenly rose from his seat and walked toward their table.
He was striking in appearance — wearing a pale grey-blue Daoist robe, a sword at his waist, the sword’s tassel swaying with each step.
Qu Hanxing caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and his voice went tense: “That’s one of the two most likely to have taken first place — surname Wei, from Luochuan. He’s fought and won against opponents above his own realm. Exceptional gifts. He’s not coming to challenge someone, is he?”
Xiao Man pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry — I’ve involved you both. It would be easier if I just left.”
“How could we let you do that? I already call you Mǎn-gē.” Qu Hanxing put down his chopsticks. “Mǎn-gē, have you finished eating? — By the look of it you have — let’s go!”
On the last word, Mo Juntian stood as well. The two of them took one of Xiao Man’s arms each and were just about to activate the body-lightening talismans on their feet and bolt — when the approaching Upper Baoyu cultivator stopped several tables away, looked at Xiao Man, and bowed with folded hands: “I am Wèi Chūyún of Luochuan. I bear no ill will toward Young Master Xiao.”
He continued: “Young Master Xiao’s archery is masterful. I lost, and I lost without grievance. I came over hoping to make Young Master Xiao’s acquaintance.”
His words were measured and courteous, and the openness in his gaze did not look feigned. Xiao Man met his eyes and replied in a mild tone: “Thank you for the kind thought.” Then he turned to Qu Hanxing and Mo Juntian: “Are we still going?”
Qu Hanxing and Mo Juntian, in unison: “Yes, we’ve finished eating.”
Xiao Man: “Then let’s go.”
No one else moved to stop them. The three left the Wugou Tower. Xiao Man walked at the front, his white hem caught by the wind, lit up by the sunlight’s fine golden scatter.
Qu Hanxing watched his retreating back and let out a long breath. “Mǎn-gē is as impressive as ever — turning down overtures from the Wei family of Luochuan without a second thought.”
The Wei family of Luochuan? That rang a distant bell. Xiao Man raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, and at that moment caught sight of Yan Wushu’s young sword-attendant under the shade of a tree not far off.
The boy seemed to be looking for someone. He turned in a circle where he stood, and when his eyes met Xiao Man’s, his face broke into a wide smile and he came sprinting over.
“Someone looking for you?” Qu Hanxing asked.
“Yes.” Xiao Man nodded. “Let me go over.”