Dragon Tiger

"Teacher, come look at this."

Hong Yuan crooked a finger and pointed at the page for the "Blood Pact Talisman."

Yang Erhu had already craned his head over. His gaze swept across it casually, and he let out a startled sound. Narrowing his eyes, he read it carefully. After a few breaths, realization appeared on his face. "This is an unorthodox talisman art. So Master Qin's talisman-making technique came from this book. If this book was passed down through his family, then Master Qin's ancestors couldn't have had simple identities."

Yang Erhu's voice was filled with surprise, but then he thought of Master Qin's current lifeless, one-foot-in-the-coffin appearance, and could not help sighing.

After a brief silence, Yang Erhu put away his sentimentality. "Flip farther back. Let's see what the remaining pages are."

Hong Yuan nodded and turned another page. What entered his eyes were the two words "Enter Dream," only aside from the opening two lines explaining the meaning of "Enter Dream," which were relatively clear, a large swath after that had been smeared out.

At the bottom of the page, there was still a line of hastily scrawled annotation: The method of Enter Dream injures the spirit and harms life. To others and oneself alike, it brings great calamity... Keeping it is useless. Better to destroy it.

Damn it! Hong Yuan cursed inwardly.

He had not the slightest interest in that "Blood Pact Talisman," but this "Enter Dream method" interested him greatly! And it had actually been destroyed just like that. What kind of behavior was this? Recklessly destroying tangible cultural heritage—one ought to apologize to all under heaven for that.

When Yang Erhu saw this, even his face showed a hint of regret. "What a pity!"

Hong Yuan continued turning to the next page. It was a technique called the "Stone Skin Curse." Yang Erhu glanced at it and immediately shook his head, saying with a derisive laugh, "This 'Stone Skin Curse'—when I was young and wandering the rivers and lakes, I also encountered some crooked-path side-door fellows using it. Calling it 'chicken ribs' would already be praise."

"How so?" Hong Yuan asked.

"This art is mostly cultivated by low-class riffraff, or by those mystical, babbling sect people, specifically to fool those foolish men and ignorant women."

"This old man once saw a crooked-path practitioner use this art to swindle people under the banner of 'a divine being possessing the body, impervious to blades and spears,' cheating women out of their valuables."

"In truth, where is there any such thing as impervious to blades and spears?"

A mocking smile appeared on Yang Erhu's face. "After this art is cultivated, the skin of the body looks almost like stone, and it can indeed block three or five chops. If that were all, it could still count as a practical art. But unfortunately, when cultivating this art, the body becomes increasingly stiff, until movement becomes inconvenient. If three or five chops don't work, can't someone simply chop a few more times? In any case, he can't dodge!"

"And once this technique is broken, the practitioner's five viscera and six bowels rupture on the spot, and he dies in agony. It truly made this old man laugh!"

Yang Erhu seemed to recall some ridiculous old incident. He stroked his beard and chuckled softly, looking extremely disdainful.

With a snort of laughter, Yang Erhu asked, "Is there more after this?"

"One more page." Hong Yuan immediately flipped to the final page, and the three words "Grass on Wings" entered his sight.

"Hm? This is lightness skill!" Yang Erhu said in surprise.

"This 'Grass on Wings' is lightness skill?" Hong Yuan turned his head to look at him.

"No! What I said wasn't quite accurate. Lightness skill is lightness skill, and an art is an art!"

Yang Erhu shook his head again and said, "So-called lightness skill is nothing more than a technique for lifting and leaping. It is no different from fists and feet; all require long-term training. After enough time, some people can become as nimble as apes, as light as swallows, climb walls and enter houses, fly over eaves and walk across walls!"

"There are even some experts who can shoot up from flat ground like pulling onions from dry earth, leaping more than a zhang high."

"And certain arts can also accomplish such things. For example, this 'Grass on Wings' art. Because of that, through rumors twisting as they pass among the common folk, it has been spread as some kind of lightness skill."

Yang Erhu said, "But what lightness skill can do, arts can also do; what arts can do, lightness skill may not necessarily be able to. The reason an art is an art is because it surpasses common sense."

"What men cannot do is called art. Yet art is not the Dao. The practitioner of arts steals..." Hong Yuan picked up the line.

"How would you know that?" Seeing Yang Erhu's astonished gaze turn toward him, Hong Yuan chuckled and tapped the annotation left at the bottom of the page.

The handwriting was still extremely scrawled, and no name had been left behind.

Yang Erhu was somewhat speechless. Master and disciple both placed their gazes on the "Grass on Wings" art and read carefully.

"The one called Grass on Wings is a strange serpent!"

"To cultivate this art, one must take a female snake less than three days old, worship the snake as mother, and serve her as one's mother."

"Hm?" When Hong Yuan read up to this point, he felt this was yet another crooked gate and wicked path, and immediately lost interest. Yang Erhu, however, had a solemn expression, his eyes fixed straight on it.

Hong Yuan endured it and continued reading downward.

"Serve the snake mother for seven days, and quietly await the sound of thunder. Once booming thunder arrives, feed the snake mother seven drops of fingertip blood, while at the same time reciting the 'Concentric Curse.' Continue for seven sevens, forty-nine days, without a single day's interruption, or all previous effort will be wasted."

Beside this passage of text, another densely packed section of tiny characters like mosquitoes had been added. It was precisely that "Concentric Curse."

"Gather snakeberries, bone-piercing grass, rootless vine... prepare them into a medicinal bath, and soak in it daily. After thirty days, the work is complete."

When Hong Yuan reached the end, the precautions after this art was successfully cultivated were: first, every year, one had to feed fingertip blood and recite the Concentric Curse once; second, the snake mother could not die. Once the snake mother died, the art would be ruined.

And once the "Grass on Wings" art was complete, one's movement technique would become ghostly and drifting, agile and cunning as a snake. One could even step on tender grass and fly close to the ground, landing only after several consecutive passes.

However, Hong Yuan still felt that worshiping a snake as mother was far too bizarre, and could not help grumbling, "What the hell are all these things?"

Yang Erhu spoke almost at the same time. "This is a precious art!"

Is it me who's off, or you?

Hong Yuan looked at him with a bewildered gaze.

Yang Erhu's expression was very serious, his eyes still not moving away from the page as he said, "Among the arts of this world, the vast majority all have all sorts of backlashes. Like that Stone Skin Curse—once cultivated, it's not much different from stepping one foot through the gates of hell. And those very few arts with low backlash, which the practitioner can fully accept, are naturally first-rate good arts."

"This 'Grass on Wings' art is not difficult to cultivate. Even if the snake mother dies, it won't harm the practitioner's body; at most, the art is broken, that's all. Of course it's a precious art."

Yang Erhu's expression was certain, and there was a faint excitement in his eyes.

"Teacher, you're not thinking of cultivating this technique, are you?"

When Yang Erhu heard that, he sank into a brief silence, then slowly said, "Grass on Wings refers to a snake. A snake is a little dragon, which just happens to pair with our school's Subduing Tiger Force to form the 'little Dragon Tiger formation.' And with this fusion of technique and martial arts, it's even harder to guard against... This truly makes it hard to choose!"

As dusk drew near, the clamor and shouts in the Yang Family Martial Arts Hall died down. The apprentices and nominal disciples stopped training, each one soaked through and drenched in sweat.

The martial arts hall naturally had a bathhouse, but after such heavy physical training, it was not suitable to bathe immediately, so everyone merely wiped themselves down.

Afterward, the apprentices and nominal disciples split into two lines, each going to receive injury medicine, then to eat.

After all, the tuition fees were different, and the treatment they received was as far apart as heaven and earth.

One could also stay overnight in the martial arts hall, but of the fifteen disciples today, only three stayed behind. The rest left one after another after eating.

After nodding farewell to a familiar disciple, Meng Yue walked alone onto the long bluestone-paved street.

The bruising on his face had not yet faded. The cool wind blew across it, and there was actually a faint, stinging throb. He reached up and touched it; perhaps he brushed the wound, for he could not help but pull the corner of his mouth into a grimace.

"Heh!" Meng Yue suddenly let out a cold laugh without warning. His head lowered, and his gaze turned extremely venomous and brooding.

He quickened his steps, turned past two streets, and entered a dim alley, where he knocked on the door of a civilian house.

After several knock, knock sounds, a man of about thirty or forty, prosperous in appearance and dressed in a scholar's long robe, opened the door.

"Mr. Cui!" Meng Yue's manner was respectful as he bent in salute.

The scholar-like Mr. Cui paid him no mind. He merely glanced at his face, then turned and walked inside, saying indifferently, "Come in. Close the door!"

When they reached the inner room, a spacious hall had already been lit with lamps. Mr. Cui sat languidly, blowing on hot tea and taking an unhurried sip. He watched Meng Yue enter, but did not invite him to sit.

And Meng Yue simply stood bowed, showing not the slightest trace of resentment.

After a while, Mr. Cui narrowed his eyes slightly, savoring the tea as it rolled down his throat. "What happened to your face? Who beat you?"

At this question, Meng Yue thought of the beating he had taken that morning and gritted his teeth. "I was injured by a newcomer at the Yang Family Martial Arts Hall."

"A newcomer? A mere newcomer could injure you? Meng Yue, you truly know how to make one proud!"

After being needled by Mr. Cui, Meng Yue grew even more resentful, though not toward Mr. Cui, but toward Hong Yuan.

"How am I supposed to speak of you, Meng Yue? Divine Firmament Young Master sent you here, arranged for you to enter the Yang Family Martial Arts Hall, and placed great hopes in you. But you? Two years. For two years, you've made not the slightest progress."

When Mr. Cui first spoke, he was still smiling, his manner calm and gentle, but by the end, his voice had become extremely cold. The bone-deep chill seeping from it made Meng Yue's body stiffen.

"It isn't that there's been no progress. I was almost about to succeed. In the martial arts hall, originally no one could compare with me. Yang Erhu had already started looking at me differently. In a few months at most—no! In one or two months at most, I would have truly been able to take him as my master. But who would have thought that after that man surnamed Yang went out once, he would bring back a kid called 'Hong Yuan'?"

Meng Yue hurriedly explained.

"Hong Yuan? He's the one who injured you?" Mr. Cui tapped the tea lid with his finger, producing a clear, crisp sound.

"Yes!" Meng Yue nodded and said hatefully, "I stayed in the Yang Family Martial Arts Hall for two years, always treating that man surnamed Yang with great respect and deliberately currying favor with him. I never expected that he'd just find some kid at random and directly take him as a disciple."

"You're saying Yang Erhu accepted that Hong Yuan as his disciple?"

"Yes!"

"How old is Hong Yuan?"

"He looks twenty at most." Meng Yue did not dare lie.

Mr. Cui chuckled softly, but his eyes were icy, without the slightest hint of laughter. He said mildly, "Not even twenty, yet able to injure you. That aptitude can be called top-grade. It seems Yang Erhu wasn't without preparations after all. Perhaps this Hong Yuan is a disciple he chose long ago, merely raised outside all this time."

Meng Yue said in a low voice, "If we speak only of skill, I indeed don't have the confidence to defeat that man surnamed Hong. But if it's a fight to the death, I have a seventy percent chance of winning."

"Seventy percent?" The corner of Mr. Cui's mouth tugged into a mocking smile. "If it isn't complete certainty, what difference is there between fifty, seventy, and ten percent?"

Meng Yue fell silent, not daring to argue.

Mr. Cui blew away the rising heat and took another sip of tea. Suddenly, a trace of killing intent surged across his face. "That Hong Yuan must die. Kill him."

Meng Yue was startled and looked across at Mr. Cui's prosperous face, wreathed in the steam of the tea. At this moment, it was filled with an icy, sinister color.

"If you don't kill that boy, how will you take Yang Erhu as your master? Only by killing him will there be a few chances! And once Yang Erhu loses the beloved disciple he painstakingly nurtured, his spirit will likely suffer a great blow. At that time, you show concern, slip in while there's an opening, and if you still can't get it done, then don't come back."

Mr. Cui spoke indifferently.

"All right, I'll go kill him." Meng Yue gritted his teeth.

Whoosh!

The teacup in Mr. Cui's hand suddenly smashed toward Meng Yue's head. Meng Yue naturally sensed it, but he forced his body steady and did not dare dodge.

With a crack, the teacup shattered into pieces on Meng Yue's head. Scalding tea splashed all over his face, making the skin of his face throb again despite himself.

"Idiot!" Mr. Cui could no longer be bothered to maintain his bearing and shouted, "A true idiot. No wonder you couldn't get anything done in two years. Do you have any certainty if you act yourself? Take my token and go find Old Third Yan. Have him send men to do it."

Meng Yue knew that the "Old Third Yan" Mr. Cui spoke of was named Yan Tieshan. He was a gang leader entrenched at the docks of Yangquan County, with over a hundred tough fighters under him. He could be considered a local tyrant in the county, and neither the county authorities nor several large households would easily provoke him.

In fact, if there were occasionally things they found inconvenient to do themselves, they would even seek out Yan Tieshan to handle them. Because of this, Yan Tieshan's power had grown increasingly stable.

"When a fierce tiger pounces on a rabbit, it still uses all its strength! Have Old Third Yan send more men. They must kill that boy surnamed Hong. I do not want to hear of any accidents."

Mr. Cui toyed with the jade thumb ring on his right thumb and said lightly, "Once Hong Yuan dies, you perform diligently in front of Yang Erhu. The Qionghua Gathering is approaching, and there isn't much time left for Yang Erhu. He doesn't have many choices. Your chances of becoming his disciple are very high. Obtain the Tiger Roar Breathing Method!"

With his hands clasped behind his back, Mr. Cui rose and paced. "In the past, the Dragon Tiger Ancestral Master opened two branches himself. Our branch is 'Dragon,' while Yang Erhu inherited True Person Li's 'Tiger' branch. Only when the methods of the two branches become one can the 'formation become Dragon Tiger.' Under Divine Firmament Young Master's leadership, only then can we truly accomplish our great cause."

Mr. Cui looked at Meng Yue, his gaze burning. "If you obtain the Tiger Roar Breathing Method, you will be a great meritorious contributor to our sect. There will be no shortage of generous rewards and rich stipends for you."

"I will certainly not fail Divine Firmament Young Master's and Mr. Cui's great expectations." Meng Yue trembled all over and hurriedly expressed his loyalty.

"All right. Go handle it." Mr. Cui tossed something from his sleeve, turned his back, and his tone cooled.

Meng Yue left the alley, feeling cold sweat seep into his palm. He opened his hand. Inside lay an utterly ordinary little wooden token.

Clutching the wooden token, Meng Yue first returned home and changed into an inconspicuous set of black-gray cloth clothes. He put on a bamboo hat, pressed the brim low, and only then hurried toward the Yangquan County docks.

Night had already fallen, yet many lights still burned throughout the county town. Clamor drifted from taverns and teahouses everywhere, and when Meng Yue passed one restaurant, sounds of quarrelling and fighting even came from within.

Great Yin had ruled the land for eight hundred years. Its policies changed constantly, always shifting, always new. Some years there was a curfew; some years it was abolished again. By the last hundred years, the central court of Great Yin had lost its hold over the provinces and prefectures under heaven, and could no longer control how things were done locally.

Meng Yue paid none of it any mind and sped along, keeping to the shadows of the street.