Search

The search began at dawn the next day.

Li Jinshui was still asleep when a violent kick at the door jolted him awake.

"Bang!"

The barracks door was kicked open, the panel slamming hard against the wall as dust sifted down.

Four or five soldiers clad in iron armor barged in. At their head was a burly man in his thirties, his face wearing the kind of arrogant, self-important expression that made people loathe him.

Li Jinshui sat up and looked at them without saying a word.

Monkey was startled awake by the commotion next door. He hurried over and stood in the doorway, his face pale.

The burly man swept his gaze around Li Jinshui's quarters, then fixed his eyes on the battered wooden chest in the corner. It held all of Li Jinshui's belongings: a few changes of clothes, several manuals, and that bag of fifty taels of silver.

"Is that yours?"

Li Jinshui nodded.

The burly man waved a hand. "Search!"

Two soldiers rushed over and kicked the chest over. Clothes spilled across the floor. They crouched down and rummaged through them roughly, tossing them everywhere.

The manuals were thrown on the floor and trampled, leaving several muddy footprints across them.

They found the bag of silver. The burly man picked it up and weighed it in his hand, his eyes lighting up. "Fifty taels? You're just a soldier. Where'd you get all this silver?"

Li Jinshui looked at him, his tone calm. "Rewards for military service, and a gift from the governor."

The burly man stared at him for a couple of seconds, then tossed the silver back onto the floor. Coins rolled out of the bag and scattered everywhere.

"Keep searching!"

The two soldiers flipped over the bed and tossed the bedding on the floor, trampling it a few times. Then they opened the battered cabinet in the corner. It was empty, but they rummaged through it anyway before ripping off the door and throwing it down.

Li Jinshui stood to one side, watching it all unfold without a trace of expression on his face.

His fists tightened slightly, then relaxed.

Tightened, then relaxed.

Monkey stood in the doorway, trembling with rage, but he didn't dare say a word. Er Gou had come too, squeezing into the doorway, his eyes rimmed red.

The burly man circled the quarters and spotted the military saber hanging on the wall. Li Jinshui had brought it back from the battlefield. Its edge was full of notches, and he hadn't had a chance to replace it yet.

He walked over, yanked the saber down, drew it to take a look, then tossed it onto the floor in disgust.

"Worthless scrap metal."

The saber hit the ground with a clatter.

Li Jinshui looked at it, his eyes shifting ever so slightly.

That saber had fought by his side as he killed over a hundred enemies, from Body Forging to Inner Strength, from the city walls to the night raids.

Now someone had tossed it on the ground like a piece of worthless scrap metal.

"All right." The burly man clapped his hands, ready to leave.

Li Jinshui finally spoke.

"Sir."

The burly man turned around and looked at him, a provocative glint in his eyes. "What? Got a problem?"

Li Jinshui shook his head, his tone just as calm as before. "No. I was just wondering, couldn't you conduct a search without being so rough?"

The burly man froze for a moment, then laughed.

His laughter was full of mockery and disdain.

"Rough?" He came back and stood in front of Li Jinshui, looking him up and down. "You're a dirt-legged nobody from North-Rejecting City. You think you get to lecture me about roughness?"

He leaned close to Li Jinshui and lowered his voice. His breath stank as he spoke.

"Boy, I'm from the Capital. I serve under Lady Yun. You know who Lady Yun is? The Seventh Prince's foremost guest advisor, at the peak of the Pulse-Opening Realm, born into a powerful family in Yun Province. A dirt-legged nobody like you couldn't reach so much as one of her fingers in your whole life."

He stepped back and patted Li Jinshui on the cheek. It wasn't a hard slap, but the humiliation in it was unmistakable.

"Rough search? Who knows where you've hidden evidence of colluding with the enemy? How are we supposed to find it without turning this place upside down?"

The soldiers standing nearby burst into laughter.

Li Jinshui stood there, motionless.

His face showed no expression at all.

The burly man stared at him for a while, as if hoping to see anger, humiliation, or fear on his face.

But there was nothing.

His face was as still as a pool of dead water.

For some reason, the burly man felt a chill crawl over him. But the feeling was quickly replaced by mortified fury. He snorted and waved a hand. "Let's go!"

The soldiers followed him out of the quarters, swaggering.

At the doorway, the burly man glanced back and spat on the ground.

"Bad luck!"

Their footsteps faded into the distance.

The quarters were a complete mess.

Clothes lay scattered across the floor, the bedding was dirty from being trampled, muddy footprints marked the manuals, silver coins were scattered everywhere, and the saber lay alone in the corner.

Monkey rushed in and crouched down to pick up the coins, his eyes red.

Er Gou came in too, gathering the clothes one by one and dusting them off.

Li Jinshui remained where he was, motionless.

After a long while, he bent down and picked up the saber.

The notches were still along the blade's edge, marks left by the enemies he had slain. A dark-red stain clung to the hilt. It was an enemy's blood, soaked into the wood so deeply that no amount of wiping could remove it.

He gently wiped the blade with his sleeve, then hung it back on the wall.

Monkey looked up at him, his voice trembling. "Jinshui... you... why aren't you angry?"

Li Jinshui didn't answer.

He simply went to the bed, picked up the bedding, and made it again.

Then he sat down and brought up the panel.

He stared at that number for a long time.

Outside, noise rose from the other barracks: cursing, crying, things being smashed.

The soldiers from the Capital were searching the quarters of every man in the Personal Guard Battalion. They were just as rough and just as arrogant.

Some men protested and got beaten.

Some fought back and were pinned to the ground.

Most, like him, stayed silent.

Li Jinshui dismissed the panel, picked up his copy of the Evergreen Art, its cover marked with muddy footprints, and began reading it, page by page.

Monkey and Er Gou stood beside him, not knowing what to say.

The barracks were quiet, save for the soft rustle of turning pages.

The next few days were strange and oppressive.

The soldiers from the Capital took over the city defenses. The original garrison of North-Rejecting City was ordered to stay in camp and forbidden to leave. Apart from eating and sleeping, they had nothing to do.

There was no movement from the Di People either.

After the siege that day, the Di Army had withdrawn to its camp and hadn't come out again. Scouts watched from a distance and saw only stillness inside the camp. There were occasional figures moving about, but no sign of any attack.

Some said that Huyan Lie, the Di commander, had been gravely wounded by the Seventh Prince and that his life hung in the balance.

Others said the Di People were waiting too, waiting for their experts to recover and for a better opportunity.

Whatever the truth, the battlefield had fallen into a strange calm.

On the fourth day, news arrived: the Seventh Prince had woken up.

It was said that it had taken seventeen exceptionally precious spirit medicines to save him. One came from the imperial family's secret treasury, another had been given by a certain sect, and a third was a family heirloom Yun Ruoxi had brought from Yun Province.

They said those medicines were worth enough to buy half of North-Rejecting City.

The first thing the Seventh Prince did after waking was summon Yun Ruoxi.

No one knew what they discussed. They only knew that Yun Ruoxi looked even more grim when she came out.

The atmosphere in camp grew even more oppressive.

The soldiers from the Capital looked at the garrison of North-Rejecting City as if they were a pack of suspects.

As for Li Jinshui, every day he sat in his quarters, practicing, reading, and sleeping.

Occasionally, he stood up and went to the window to look at the sky outside.

At first, Monkey and Er Gou were worried about him. But when they saw that he seemed fine, they slowly let their concern go.

Only Li Jinshui knew what he had been thinking about during those days.

He thought about the saber that had been thrown on the ground.

He thought about the burly man's arrogant face as he patted his cheek.

He thought about Yun Ruoxi's cold eyes and her words: "I'll remember this."

He thought about—

When would he be able to stand before those people and make them taste what it was like to be trampled underfoot?

At dusk on the seventh day, he stood by the window, watching the sun sink in the west.

Monkey's voice came from behind him. "Jinshui, dinner's ready."

He didn't turn around.

"How long do you think this calm will last?"

Monkey froze for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know... Maybe a few days, maybe a couple of weeks..."

Li Jinshui nodded.

That would do.

With a couple of weeks, he could use up all those points and raise those manuals by another level.

When the next great battle came—

He turned around, went to the table, picked up the chipped bowl, and began to eat.

Outside the window, the setting sun stained North-Rejecting City a deep crimson.

In the distance, smoke curled up from the Di camp, which looked no different from any ordinary military camp.

But everyone knew that something lurked beneath that calm.

Just as something lurked beneath Li Jinshui's calm face.