The Dragon Gate Sect (Seeking Follow-ups)

Dragon Gate Sect (Please Read On)

No matter how high one's martial arts, one still feared a kitchen knife.

All the more so a foreign gun!

After listening to Master Ma's account, Xu Xing could not help recalling that saying.

My lord, the times had changed!

Qin Province's governor, Fang Yun, was no harmless man.

Or rather, most officials of the Qing court were not the wine-sack, rice-bag fools portrayed in film and television. On the contrary, those who had fought their way out through the imperial examinations were all damned shrewd.

They merely seemed somewhat foolish when swept along by the tide of the times.

Even before joining Taste Classics Academy, he had anticipated that Fang Yun would surely be guarded by a foreign-gun unit. Thus, even with an expert like Master Ma at his side, he had hurried to seek a way to evade this calamity of an untimely death...

"Master Ma probably knew Fang Yun had a foreign-gun unit under his command as well..."

"It was just that... it had been too good an opportunity not to go."

Xu Xing immediately felt a measure of respect for Master Ma.

Knowing it could not be done, yet doing it anyway.

Filial Righteousness Hall, which had opposed the Qin Province authorities for so many years, could not possibly have been unaware of the true strength of Governor Fang Yun's guards.

"Twenty-three brothers went."

"Only fourteen came back."

Master Ma let out a long sigh. "Not only did we fail to kill that dog Tartar this time, we lost nine brothers instead. I, the one leading them, am to blame. Fortunately, you did not go. Your martial arts are only middling; if you had tried to assassinate Fang Yun, death would have been your only end."

"By the way, you came today... for something?"

"Does the academy need tuition? Or are you short of money...?"

Master Ma turned to Xu Xing's actual business.

As he spoke, he pulled another ten taels of patterned silver from a cloth pouch on the kang and handed it to Xu Xing. "If you are short of money in the future, go withdraw it from Four Seas Bank. Shopkeeper Wu of the bank is the incense master of Peach Garden Township. Just give the name of Filial Righteousness Hall, and you can draw silver from there. But you must not spend too freely either. Every single coin was earned by the brothers... their blood and sweat... Spend sparingly."

The four pillars of the Elder Brothers Society were mountain, water, incense, and hall.

(The four pillars meant four branch halls.)

Peach Garden's incense pledge matched the character "incense."

Filial Righteousness Hall matched the character "hall."

The main hall was Qin Phoenix Mountain, also called the Mountain Hall.

Xu Xing nodded and accepted the silver Master Ma handed him.

This silver was not something he could accept carelessly.

By accepting Filial Righteousness Hall's support, he became one of Filial Righteousness Hall's people. If he refused this support, it would mean he harbored other intentions and would be suspected of betraying Filial Righteousness Hall.

"Master Ma..."

"I came today for two reasons. First, I saw in the Guangtong Gazette that your assassination attempt on the Tartars had failed. I was worried about our brothers' safety, so I came to take a look. Second..."

"Recently, I happened to find a martial arts manual in the academy library. The manual was hidden within the Immortals section of Taiping Guangji. I found it to contain several profound principles, so I brought it for you to look over, Master Ma..."

Without a shred of shame, Xu Xing made up an outlandish story for the origin of the Rock Heart Method.

A trope commonplace in later generations was, in the late Qing, an utter rarity.

After speaking, he handed the copied Rock Heart Method to Master Ma.

Master Ma frowned at first upon hearing this, then relaxed. "Perhaps when Taste Classics Academy established its mountain campus and purchased rare ancient books, someone accidentally sold off an ancestral possession, allowing you to pick up a bargain."

"But this technique..."

He carefully read every single character in the manual.

"This technique is quite profound and intricate. Though it does not match my Noon-Midnight Art, it can complement it."

"This technique..."

Hesitation appeared on his face as he closed the silk cloth bearing the technique.

The Rock Heart Method was a martial cultivation technique. By cultivating it, one could refine essence and nourish one's origin.

His Noon-Midnight Art, however, strictly speaking, was not a martial cultivation technique, but a Daoist internal art.

It gathered the spiritual vitality of heaven and earth, cultivated at the hours of noon and midnight.

The former refined the vital essence within food, while the latter absorbed the spiritual vitality existing between heaven and earth.

"Master Ma, is there something wrong with this technique?"

Seeing that Master Ma remained silent for so long, Xu Xing deliberately asked.

"No."

Master Ma shook his head. "There is nothing wrong with this mental method. It is simply too precious. I have read it, yet find it difficult to give you an equivalent return."

"We were all sworn brothers."

"Master Ma, you said it yourself—we're all brothers..."

"I only came by this martial art by chance. If I gain it, I'm fortunate; if I lose it, it's fate."

Xu Xing waved a hand, looking utterly unconcerned.

In any case, his Rock Heart Method had come for free and was not a family-inherited art. Having one more Master Ma cultivate it meant no loss to him at all—a favor that cost him nothing.

On the contrary, once an expert like Master Ma practiced the Rock Heart Method, Xu Xing could take the opportunity to seek his guidance.

A mutually beneficial arrangement!

"Fine!"

"Since that is so, I'll take it as having accepted your favor."

Master Ma said in a deep voice.

He had originally intended to take Xu Xing as his disciple.

But by now, Xu Xing's status was no longer what it had been.

He was a scholar.

While in the bedroom just now, Master Ma had also heard Xu Xing's conversation with the sworn brothers outside. He knew that Xu Xing had performed well at Taste Classics Academy and stood a very good chance of earning a degree.

Whether in court and society or within the brotherhood lodges, scholars with degrees held no lowly status.

As a mere man of the martial world, it would not be quite appropriate for him to take Xu Xing as a disciple.

"If you can pass the xiucai examination..."

"With your background, you may perhaps obtain a certain opportunity."

Master Ma glanced at Xu Xing and spoke in an unfathomably profound tone.

"Please elaborate, Master Ma."

"Xu Xing would be endlessly grateful..."

Seeing that Master Ma was about to stop speaking of this "opportunity," Xu Xing was no fool who would simply wait around. He hurriedly gave Master Ma a respectful bow, his expression earnest.

To put it bluntly, Xu Xing was not optimistic about how much longer Master Ma could live. Though Master Ma's martial skills were formidable and he had nearly escaped unscathed from this assassination of Provincial Governor Fang Yun, the saying "those skilled at swimming drown in water, those skilled in battle perish by the blade" was hardly empty talk.

"This..."

Master Ma was caught off guard.

Ordinarily, upon hearing those words, shouldn't a person first go and pass the xiucai examination...?

Who would be like Xu Xing and directly ask what the opportunity was?

"This opportunity is nothing much."

"My family's inherited art is the Noon-Midnight Purification Art. The ancients said that when noon-midnight accords with kan-li, it is the finest time for cultivation and quiet nourishment. This Noon-Midnight Art was passed down from my ancestors."

"My ancestor was one of the Seven Masters of Complete Reality Taoism—Danyang True Person..."

"The headmaster of Taste Classics Academy is Liu Guyu, a leader of the Guan School. Complete Reality Taoism unites Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and has long maintained ties with the Guan School lineage. If you can pass the xiucai examination, you may openly state that you come from the Guan School lineage. Then, if I petition the Dragon Gate Sect's leader, perhaps you may be taught a true art..."

Master Ma gave Xu Xing a long, deep look before speaking slowly.

The reason he would not pass the Noon-Midnight Art to Xu Xing was that it was a family-inherited art. Without the permission of Complete Reality Taoism, it could not privately be taught to outsiders—not even to disciples.

But just because his own path was blocked did not mean Xu Xing had no way to obtain the Dragon Gate Sect's true transmission.

"One of the Seven Masters of Complete Reality Taoism?"

"The Guan School lineage? The Dragon Gate Sect's true transmission?"

Xu Xing's mind immediately churned with countless thoughts.

He had never imagined that Master Ma, who appeared to be nothing more than a rough man of the martial world, had such deep ties to Complete Reality Taoism. And that Complete Reality Taoism, in turn, had such ties to the Guan School and Taste Classics Academy...

Then again, though Guanzhong seemed vast, it was also small.

Complete Reality Taoism was right there on Mount Zhongnan.

Patriarch Chongyang, Wang Chongyang, had been a native of Xianyang.

Before Wang Chongyang entered the Dao, he had been a jinshi of Qin Province. For him to have such ties with the Guan School seemed... only natural.