The Blind Man

Before Chen Wu could ask, Old Jin continued explaining. "Your Concentrated Spirit Realm isn't your own. You borrowed it. Borrowed things come at a price. Losing your memory again is only the smallest price."

"Again? No, how do you know I lost my memory?" Chen Wu exclaimed.

"If you hadn't lost your memory, how could you not recognize me?" Old Jin smiled. "I taught you all your martial arts."

"I'm the building's transmission elder. I personally taught every disciple their martial arts. That day, you didn't recognize me until I gave you the secret signal. That's when I knew you'd lost your memory again."

Oh, so he'd given himself away from the very start. Chen Wu was at a loss for words.

"Have I lost my memory before?"

"Two months ago, when I came looking for you, you suddenly didn't recognize me," Old Jin said. "You told me something had gone wrong while you were practicing, then gave me a manual."

"I went back and examined it carefully. The thing was pure fantasy. Whoever wrote it must've been crazy. It'd be a miracle if practicing it didn't cause problems..."

A huge wave surged through the Yellow River, jolting the raft and cutting Old Jin off.

"What was that manual about?" Chen Wu asked once the raft steadied.

"Seems this bout of amnesia is worse. You've even forgotten the manual." Old Jin shook his head, then sighed. "I never thought you, Gawa, would really manage to borrow a Concentrated Spirit. Damn it, that crazy manual actually works!"

Recalling the scene he'd seen while unconscious from his injuries, Chen Wu suddenly had an idea. "Was the manual about eating weapons?"

"Haha, so you haven't forgotten everything." Old Jin laughed. "The manual's core method is to find a personal weapon nurtured by a Concentrated Spirit master, then swallow it whole and digest the Concentrated Spirit nurtured within, borrowing it for yourself."

Damn, that sounded outrageous! But considering this world already had all kinds of outrageous martial arts, it wasn't impossible to accept.

"Leaving aside how rare a Concentrated Spirit master's weapon is, and how you could eat one without damaging your body, a Concentrated Spirit is the culmination of a master's life force, and it contains a powerful will. Without a Concentrated Spirit, your will wouldn't be strong enough to withstand the backlash. But if your will were strong enough, you could achieve a Concentrated Spirit yourself. Why risk borrowing someone else's?"

So that was it. The image of himself eating the Emei daggers in his dream had been part of practicing this manual. The Concentrated Spirit within him had also been borrowed from those daggers.

Unfortunately, after borrowing the Concentrated Spirit, the original owner must have been blasted into a vegetative state on the spot by its force. That was how Chen Wu had gotten lucky.

"What should I do now?"

"You managed to master a manual that was complete nonsense. That shows your talent far exceeds what I expected. You might even reach the realm Emperor Taizong did back then. All I can do is offer advice for you to consider."

"Thank you," Chen Wu said sincerely.

"I remember you were in the Micro-Perception Realm before. Now that you've borrowed a Concentrated Spirit, have you reached the Zhoutian Realm?" Old Jin asked.

Chen Wu looked embarrassed. "I can't even make my true qi leave my body now."

"Looks like that's another price. Before martial artists reach the Zhoutian Realm, their martial arts foundation isn't stable. A major upheaval can make them regress." Old Jin raised his eyebrows, which popped out from behind his sunglasses. "Fortunately, you've already borrowed a Concentrated Spirit. With it to guide you, you might be able to break down and build yourself back up."

"For example, to cultivate a Jade Bone, most people rely on external martial arts, body-hardening exercises, medicinal baths, and nourishing food to slowly temper their bones. Only with exceptional talent can they form a Jade Bone before their tendons and bones close up."

"With a Concentrated Spirit, you can go a step further and use it to nurture your bones. It's far more effective than body-hardening exercises and medicinal baths." Old Jin explained it patiently.

"Then couldn't you ask a Concentrated Spirit master to nurture other people's bones and mass-produce Jade Bones?" Chen Wu had come from another world, and his thoughts wandered. He immediately spotted the key point.

"You've got a quick mind! That does happen," Old Jin said. "Some powerful factions have elders use their Concentrated Spirits to nurture the tendons and bones of the younger generation."

"But a Concentrated Spirit is made from will. Once it enters another person's body, it's like a foreign presence, and that person's own will resists it. The nurturing effect is greatly reduced—only a little better than ordinary medicinal baths and body-hardening exercises," Old Jin explained. "Only when you use a Concentrated Spirit on yourself is there no resistance. But masters who reach the Concentrated Spirit Realm are already past the right age. They can't grow Jade Bones by nurturing themselves."

Hearing these hidden details about martial arts, Chen Wu's inner test-taker came out in full force, and he listened, fascinated, nodding again and again. He also took the chance to have Old Jin examine his bones and answer a few questions about martial arts training. Old Jin answered them all.

Suddenly, the sheepskin raft jolted, interrupting the lesson.

They had reached the opposite bank. In barely a quarter of an hour, the raft had drifted downstream from Jincheng Prefecture, far from where they'd first entered the water.

Old Jin stood up on the raft and gazed around, seeming to take in the Yellow River's churning banks and the mountain ranges rising one after another.

But Chen Wu knew Old Jin was blind. His Concentrated Spirit could only sense a limited distance; he couldn't see any farther than that.

"We've reached the bank. Old Jin, we've made it!"

Unlike his earlier weak tone, Old Jin's voice was now loud and full of vigor. Chen Wu's eyes grew wet. He knew this was Old Jin's final burst of energy.

"Chen Gawa, your cultivation method is special. After I die, take my sword and the manuals in my house." Old Jin knew it too. He turned toward Chen Wu and began making his final arrangements.

Chen Wu couldn't say a word. He could only nod in silence.

"Don't pull such a funeral face. Give me a smile, and I'll play you a tune." Old Jin spoke with boldness. "I've woven sound into my martial arts. Even without my three-stringed lute, I can still play for you."

With that, Old Jin sat cross-legged on the sheepskin raft again. He laid his cone-shaped sword across his legs, arranged his hands as if holding an invisible three-stringed lute, and began to pluck.

The twanging notes rang out at once, even louder than those of a real three-stringed lute.

"High on the mountain, a clear spring flows, running on and on for thousands of years.

"Everyone drinks from its waters; some are foolish, some are wise."

Old Jin sang at the top of his lungs. The music grew fiercer, and his singing shifted from its gentle beginning to a rising, impassioned cry, as if he were pouring all his strength into his accusation.

"Clouds crowd the sky, yet the skies won't clear. Carts crowd the streets, and traffic can't move.

"Fish crowd the river, yet the water won't run clear. People crowd the world, yet hearts are unjust."

"Ah—my people, every other word true, every other word a lie—"

As he sang and played, Old Jin seemed to return to the afternoon he'd first gone out to perform with his master. That had been a full sixty years ago.

"Hold your three-stringed lute properly!"

His master had been blind too. Hearing his disciple play absent-mindedly, he called out to remind him.

"I've got it!" the disciple replied.

Hearing the perfunctory answer, the old blind man's temper flared. "Your playing's nowhere near good enough! Do you know that only if you seriously snap a thousand strings..."

"Then you can get the secret prescription your grandmaster left inside the three-stringed lute and take the medicine to see again." The disciple finished for him, without a trace of feeling.

"You don't believe it?"

"Why do I have to snap a thousand strings?"

"That's the medicine's primer. If you don't snap a thousand, the medicine won't work."

"Heh." The disciple laughed, and the scene changed once more.

"Boy, remember this. You have to snap twelve hundred strings. Your master got the number wrong. The medicine won't work otherwise." Unable to see his master, the disciple could only feel the old man's eye sockets as he listened to his final words.

But in the end, the disciple didn't listen. He didn't play the lute. Instead, he became an assassin and began practicing martial arts.

Unexpectedly, he took to it like a fish to water. After all, who would be on guard against a blind man?

The disciple's martial arts grew ever stronger, and more and more powerful figures died at his hands.

There were wealthy gentry, crooked merchants, corrupt officials, even Westerners and imperial kinsmen.

Then one day, the disciple cultivated a Concentrated Spirit.

At last, he could see, though only within a limited range, and not with his eyes.

The first thing he did was find the three-stringed lute his master had left behind and take out the prescription his grandmaster had left inside.

A blank sheet of paper.

Just as he'd expected.

Still, the disciple wept bitterly. By middle age, he'd long since understood his master's intentions.

Everyone needed something to hope for in life, even if that hope was false.

He picked up the three-stringed lute his master had left behind and sang the first song his master had taught him.

"High on the mountain, a clear spring flows, running on and on for thousands of years.

"Everyone drinks from its waters; some are foolish, some are wise."

Every time he played those lines, he wondered: Why was the world like this? Why were some foolish and some wise, some whole and some broken, some plagued by misfortune while others lived in ease? Why couldn't things be a little fairer?

In his anger, the disciple added a few lines. They had no tune; he simply roared them out.

"Heaven is unjust, granting no gentle breeze or soft rain.

"Earth is unjust, withholding the harvest of the five grains.

"The Imperial House is unjust, bringing blades, war, floods, and fire.

"Officials are unjust, tormenting the common folk."

Like Old Jin's voice, the three-stringed lute grew lower and lower, until the words "tormenting the common folk" faded away. Old Jin's hands fell limp at his sides.

A smile that was almost a smile appeared on Old Jin's face. Bathed in the light of the westering sun, he seemed lost in memories of the past.

The Yellow River's waves still rolled, and the mountain peaks on either bank stood as they always had.

But Chen Wu knew that Old Jin's spirit had finally departed.

"Quick, go! Word came from the Constabulary Office. The constables are on their way. If we don't leave now, it'll be too late!" The blind man outside rushed in, grabbed Old Ma, and urged him to hurry.

Old Ma knew something was wrong. Had his hideout been exposed?

"If you want money, just say so. Let go!" Old Ma put on an impatient look, shook off the blind man, and tossed him a copper coin.

The blind man left with the coin. Old Ma's expression changed at once. He gave his men a few quick instructions, then hurried away.

Before long, a group of constables burst in and sealed off the entire West Wind Inn.

They searched every corner, turning the place upside down, but couldn't find Old Ma.

The lead constable's expression darkened. He waved for his subordinates to question everyone.

When he heard that Old Ma had left only moments ago, the constable looked so regretful he beat his chest and stamped his feet.

Old Ma, oh, Old Ma! What a fine achievement! If you'd left just a little later, I'd have kowtowed to you right there!

At the foot of White Pagoda Mountain's back slope, just as expected, there was a thatched hut beside a lone tree.

Chen Wu laid Old Jin's body down and opened the door.