A Timely Help

About half an hour after Wang Meng left with his men, the wind and snow outside the servants' quarters grew even fiercer.

A light knock sounded against the window lattice, so soft it seemed afraid of disturbing the storm—or perhaps it was some kind of signal.

Chen Ping rolled out of bed and pushed open a narrow crack in the window.

A freezing gust, mixed with flecks of snow, poured in and made the candle flame sway.

A shivering figure stood outside, draped in a thin old cloak, a light layer of snow already gathered on her shoulders.

It was Yun Niang.

By the faint moonlight, Chen Ping saw her face, pale with cold. Her eyes were red and swollen; she had clearly been crying.

She clutched a small porcelain bottle tightly in her hand—Jinchuang Medicine, treasured by the servants as if it were gold.

"Brother Ping..."

Yun Niang's voice trembled as she looked Chen Ping over from head to toe. Only when she saw that his clothes were intact and unstained by blood did she let out a long breath of relief. Yet her tears kept falling.

"I heard Lai San say Wang Meng brought people to search your room. I thought... I thought you'd come to harm."

She had thought Chen Ping had been beaten and had prepared to spend every last thing she owned to treat his wounds.

Warmth filled Chen Ping's heart. In this world, human lives were as cheap as grass. To have someone sincerely worry for him like this was more precious than any miraculous pill.

"Sister Yun, I'm fine."

Chen Ping reached out through the window lattice and took Yun Niang's little hands, frozen like blocks of ice, in his.

They were icy to the touch, and her rough palms were covered in calluses from labor.

Yun Niang instinctively tried to pull her hands back, afraid of chilling Chen Ping, but he gripped them tightly.

With a thought, the Crane and Pine Inner Qi he had just cultivated within his Dantian flowed through his Meridians to his palms.

A warm, mellow current slowly passed from Chen Ping's hand into hers.

Yun Niang trembled and raised her head in surprise.

The warmth was not scorching like charcoal fire. It was more like a living spring, driving the cold from her body and warming the anxious heart she had kept hanging in her chest.

"Brother Ping, why are your hands so warm?"

"Maybe I'm young and full of fire."

Chen Ping brushed it off softly, his thumb gently stroking the back of her hand.

"Hurry back. It's cold outside. We got through tonight's trial, but from now on... I'll be careful."

Feeling that strange warm current and looking at the youth before her—usually quiet and reserved, yet now carrying an air of steady composure—the rootless feeling of drifting through life in Yun Niang's heart miraculously faded a little.

She looked deeply at Chen Ping, nodded, and stuffed the Jinchuang Medicine into his hand before turning and disappearing into the wind and snow.

Chen Ping held the bottle, still carrying her body heat, his gaze deep.

The next morning, the heavy snow finally cleared.

The entire Lin Manor lay buried beneath thick snow, and heaven and earth were a vast expanse of white.

The snow before the Library Building was knee-deep. Normally, merely clearing a path would have exhausted Chen Ping half to death.

Chen Ping pushed open the door. Instead of putting on his heavy padded coat, he wore only a thin shirt and trousers, carrying a large bamboo broom into the snow.

His feet crunched across the snow with crisp crunch, crunch sounds.

Strangely, though the cold wind blew straight into his face, he felt no chill at all.

The blood and qi within him were like a blazing furnace, keeping all the surrounding cold at bay.

This was the wonder brought by the first level of the Longevity of Pine and Crane, First Glimpse—impervious to heat and cold.

"Up."

Chen Ping grabbed the massive broom, soaked through with snowmelt and weighing dozens of pounds, with one hand and gave his wrist a slight flick.

The broom, once impossibly heavy, felt as light as a feather in his hand.

Whoosh—

The broom swept past, and the snow parted like rolling waves, exposing the bluish-black flagstones beneath.

Wind seemed to rise beneath Chen Ping's feet, while the broom in his hands whirled so densely it left no gaps.

He did not rely on brute force. He merely followed the flow of strength, and every sweep landed exactly where it should.

In the past, sweeping this courtyard would have taken at least an hour, leaving him panting and drenched in sweat.

Today, it took only half an hour.

Chen Ping drew his stance back and stood still. Looking at the spotless courtyard, he felt refreshed from head to toe, without even drawing a heavy breath.

"So this is the joy of a grind king?"

Chen Ping clenched his fist, feeling the strength contained within his muscles.

Though he had never learned any killing techniques, this body nourished by Inner Qi was enough to keep two or three ordinary strong men from getting close.

That afternoon, Chen Ping was wiping the bookshelves on the second floor of the Library Building.

This was a dead corner, a place few people visited in ordinary times.

As he wiped, a hushed conversation drifted up from a secluded spot downstairs.

Chen Ping's hearing had become sharp, and though the voices were faint, every word entered his ears clearly.

"...That bastard Wang Meng has been spending big lately. He gave the Head Steward a Jade Guanyin."

"Isn't that so? Liu Mazi, the assistant steward of the outer courtyard, suddenly died two days ago, leaving the position vacant. Wang Meng wants to move up."

"If he becomes assistant steward, then the lives and deaths of the outer courtyard servants will all be in his hands..."

The speakers were a servant boy attending the Lin Family's Head Steward and a maid serving one of the concubines. The two had come to this quiet place for a secret tryst and happened to gossip about the manor.

The rag in Chen Ping's hand paused slightly.

Wang Meng was getting promoted?

If he became assistant steward, his authority would grow even greater. By then, killing a book boy like Chen Ping, bound by a death contract, would be easier than crushing an ant.

More importantly, there was Yun Niang.

Once Wang Meng rose to power, Yun Niang would surely be unable to escape his clutches.

A powerful sense of urgency surged through him.

He could not wait.

Before Wang Meng rose to power, he had to pull out this hidden danger by the roots.

At around four in the afternoon, Chen Ping used clearing dead branches in the rear garden as an excuse to leave.

There was no one around. Only a few winter crows cawed noisily from the branches.

He walked over to a Rockery made of Taihu stones.

The Taihu stones were hard and jagged, shaped by years of washing beneath the lake, their texture exceptionally tough.

Chen Ping sank his qi into his Dantian.

There was no flashy technique. He merely drew upon the strength in his waist and abdomen and gathered it into his right fist.

"Hah!"

He threw a punch.

Bang!

A dull thud rang out, and stone chips flew everywhere.

A fist mark over an inch deep had appeared on the hard Taihu stone, surrounded by spiderweb-like cracks.

Chen Ping withdrew his hand. His knuckles were slightly red, but the skin had not broken.

He stared at the fist mark, his eyes gradually turning cold.

That punch carried the strength of twenty years of training for an ordinary man.

That punch could shatter stone, and naturally, it could shatter bone as well.

By evening, the sky was beginning to darken.

Behind the kitchen, the slop buckets gave off a sour, rotten stench.

After dumping the slop, Chen Ping was about to return when he heard an argument from deep within the alley.

He slipped behind a pile of clutter.

There, he saw Wang Meng reeking of alcohol as he cornered Yun Niang against the wall.

"You stinking bitch, don't reject kindness when it's offered!"

Wang Meng braced one hand against the wall. The flesh on his face quivered, and a lewd gleam shone in his eyes.

"I'm about to become assistant steward. When that happens, killing that little bastard surnamed Chen will be as easy as killing a dog!"

Yun Niang's face turned deathly pale. She clutched her collar tightly and desperately shrank backward. "Instructor Wang, you're drunk..."

"I'm not drunk!"

Wang Meng grabbed Yun Niang by the hair, forcing her head up as he snarled viciously.

"I'm giving you one final warning. At midnight tonight, wash yourself clean and come to my room. Otherwise, tomorrow I'll find an excuse to have Chen Ping beaten to death with random clubs, then sell you off to a Pleasure House to receive customers!"

"No... let go of me!"

Yun Niang struggled with all her might and opened her mouth to bite hard into Wang Meng's wrist.

"Ah!"

Wang Meng released her in pain. Yun Niang took the chance to shove him away and stumbled out of the alley.

"Damn it, you cheap slut! If you don't come tonight, tomorrow I'll make you two dog men and women regret it!"

Wang Meng clutched his wrist, spat at Yun Niang's retreating back, and cursed as he walked away.

In the shadows.

Chen Ping stepped out from the darkness.

Expressionless, he watched Wang Meng leave. The broken brick in his hand shattered with a crack beneath his grip.

Red brick dust sifted through his fingers.

Late at night.

The wind and snow howled, burying every sound in the world.

Thunderous snores filled the servants' quarters.

Chen Ping did not sleep, nor did he practice.

He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled out a short dagger he usually used to trim broomsticks from beneath the bed.

The dagger was rusted, its edge dull and rough.

He took out a whetstone and, by the snowy light shining through the window, began sharpening it stroke by stroke.

Scrape.

Scrape.

The monotonous yet rhythmic sound of sharpening was perfectly concealed by the storm outside.

After a while, Chen Ping stopped. He blew the rust from the blade, lightly tested its edge with his fingertip, and murmured:

"Killing someone... should count as a kind of craft too, right?"