Dusk closed in. In a secluded back courtyard of Listening Waves Mountain Manor, Wang Lang sat on a stone bench in a snug dark-blue short jacket.
He had just emerged from three months of idle cultivation at the bottom of the Dadu River, and the dampness around him had yet to fully fade.
Three months of seclusion beneath the river had improved his cultivation considerably, but the experience had been little different from sitting in a water prison.
Even with his single-minded pursuit of strength, he found it unbearably dull. Right now, he desperately needed a little of the mortal world's warmth to temper it.
A pot of clear wine and several small dishes sat on the stone table.
He lightly sipped from a wine cup in one hand while holding a somewhat aged thread-bound book in the other—the Confucian classic The Great Learning.
"Therefore, only after a gentleman possesses something himself does he seek it in others; only when he lacks it himself does he reproach it in others."
Wang Lang's voice was calm and unhurried, as though he were reviewing the text, yet also explaining it.
Across from him, the little fox Su Yao was curled into a ball. Her furry head bobbed in time with his recitation, and she was clearly about to fall completely asleep.
To her, the subtle words and grand principles within The Great Learning were as effective as the strongest sleep-inducing spell.
Wang Lang glanced at her and continued, "What is meant by cultivating oneself lies in rectifying one's heart. When one is filled with anger, one's heart cannot be rectified..."
The steady sound of the lecture finally made it impossible for Su Yao to sleep peacefully.
She raised a little paw to rub her eyes and complained drowsily:
"Langzi, why are you reciting this headache-inducing stuff again instead of cultivating?"
"You risk your life cultivating, yet you still refuse to let yourself rest when it's time to rest?"
Wang Lang put down the book, picked up the wine pot, and poured a little clear wine into the small dish before her. "When people are bored, they always find something to do."
Su Yao leaned over and rapidly lapped up several mouthfuls of wine with her pink tongue, then said:
"If you had anywhere to throw dice or listen to songs, you'd have tossed that book eight yards away long ago."
One man and one fox chatted idly amid the twilight and fragrance of wine.
Meanwhile, outside Liu Manor in Qinglin City.
Liu Da Niu was a household servant and guard of Liu Manor.
His surname had not originally been Liu. He had once been a villager from Creek Water Village, next to Creek Stone Village outside the city.
Fate had treated him with exceptional cruelty. His mother died when he was young, and when he was a teenager, his father fell off a cliff while gathering herbs in the mountains. Not even a complete corpse was recovered.
Before he could emerge from his grief, his elder sister—already married and occasionally returning to her family home to help him—
was spotted by a noble young master passing through and stopping to rest on one of her trips home, and forcibly violated.
His elder sister had a fierce temperament and could not endure the humiliation. That very night, she threw herself into a well.
The string of blows made Liu Da Niu feel that Heaven itself was blind.
He had hated and resented, especially that young master who had ruined his sister and destroyed his last shred of hope.
But he had secretly inquired about the man. That young master possessed an incomparably noble status; let alone a commoner like him,
even Liu Manor, his current master's household, was no more than an ant in the other's eyes.
Revenge? What could he use for revenge? It would only be an egg smashing against a rock, seeking his own destruction.
He still remembered his father often saying that he should earn more money, marry a wife early, and have a big, plump son.
But when Liu Da Niu looked at the thatched hut with nothing but bare walls, he found it incomparably ironic.
Leave behind descendants? Let his child keep rolling about in this quagmire, repeating a fate where others could trample him at will?
He could not even make sense of his own life. What did he have to carry on the family line?
With his heart turned to ashes, he simply sold himself into servitude to Liu Yuanwai, a wealthy man of Qinglin City.
In exchange for ten taels of snowflake silver, he took his master's surname as well, changing from Shi Niu to Liu Da Niu.
When the villagers back then learned of it, they did not spare him from being poked in the spine behind his back.
They said that instead of living as a proper man, he insisted on becoming someone else's dog.
Hearing such words, Liu Da Niu merely sneered.
A dog? If not for his broad frame and imposing strength, he would not even have been qualified to serve as Liu Manor's watchdog!
He touched his indigo guard's uniform. This fine cotton cloth was something he had never even dared dream of back in Creek Water Village.
Now, as a dog, he wore it.
Not only did he wear it, but because he had been loyal and obedient for three years and willing to work himself to the bone,
he had even risen into a minor leadership position among the guards, earning two mace of silver every month.
Whenever his purse was a little fuller, he would sneak off to Yi Hong Courtyard in the west of the city and find his old flame, Miss Cui Hong, for some pleasure, easing the bitterness and emptiness in his heart.
At the thought of Cui Hong, a lewd yet satisfied smile could not help appearing on Liu Da Niu's face, long numbed by life's hardships.
That woman had skin as white as a freshly peeled egg, and especially those skills of hers—every time, this rough man could only cry that he could not take it anymore.
Unfortunately, Cui Hong was good in every way except that her price was too high.
He had to save three months' wages before he could go play the grand master once.
Liu Da Niu sighed. This was not Cui Hong's fault; it was only because he had no money.
He subconsciously glanced at the two subordinates following behind him, Liu Er Niu and Liu San Niu.
The two were blood brothers. Like him, they had sold themselves into the household, and because they had been bestowed the names Er Niu and San Niu, they happened to fall under Da Niu's command.
The moonlight was fairly bright that night. As Liu Da Niu let his thoughts wander, he led his two subordinates on their routine patrol along Liu Manor's tall walls.
The Liu family was one of Qinglin City's prominent wealthy households. A tall tree caught the wind, and petty thieves were always eyeing it greedily.
These guards might not truly possess much skill. More often, they were simply there to gather numbers and bolster the household's prestige.
When they reached the foot of a ginkgo tree by a corner of the wall, Liu Da Niu suddenly caught sight of a shadow at the roots that looked unnatural from the corner of his eye.
He immediately became alert, gripping the wood-sheathed iron saber at his waist and shouting boldly:
"Who's there? Get the hell out here!"
He was a large man, and this roar carried considerable force through the silent night.
The shadow beneath the tree froze at the sound, as though what he had seen just now had only been an illusion.
Liu Da Niu's scalp prickled, but duty forbade him from retreating.
He forced himself onward, took the lantern from Liu Er Niu, held it in one hand and pressed the other against his saber, then carefully advanced toward the tree.
"If you don't come out now, don't blame me for showing no mercy under my blade!"
Liu Er Niu and Liu San Niu also nervously tightened their grips on their clubs and followed close behind him.
Just then, a somewhat panicked voice came from within the shadow:
"Three masters, don't attack! A misunderstanding, a misunderstanding! This lowly one was merely passing by, had to answer nature's call, and relieved himself here..."
Before the voice had finished, a fat man with a round head and large ears, dressed in a short jacket, shuffled out of the tree's shadow with an ingratiating smile.
At first, relief washed over Liu Da Niu's heart. Then rage surged up. "Relieving yourself? Do you think the entrance to Liu Manor is your family's outhouse?"
The fat man was not angry. He merely chuckled merrily, but beneath the dim lantern light, his smile seemed somewhat eerie.
The sight made Liu Da Niu's scalp prickle. Just as he was about to berate him again,
he saw the fat man's face begin to twist and deform right before his eyes!
His mouth thrust forward, while his nose collapsed into two black holes.
His ears grew larger and sharper, and coarse, stiff black bristles rapidly burst from his skin...
In no more than one or two breaths, what stood before them was no longer some fat man.
It was clearly a pig-headed humanoid, tusks exposed and snorting heavily!
"D-demon!" Liu Da Niu and the other two were frightened out of their wits, their calves cramping as they turned to flee.
But the Pig Demon moved faster. It split its huge mouth in a snorting, wheezing laugh,
then somehow produced two large, grease-slick kitchen cleavers in its fat hands!
A flash of blade-light swept past. Liu Da Niu only felt a chill at his neck, and his vision immediately spun heaven and earth.
The last thing he saw was his own headless body slowly collapsing, and the blood-spraying necks of Liu Er Niu and Liu San Niu beside him.
The Pig Demon flicked the droplets of blood from its cleavers and snorted:
"I meant to sneak in and have a little snack, but since I've been discovered, this Pig Lord won't keep pretending!"
It spread its thick, sturdy legs and no longer concealed its tracks, swaggering toward Liu Manor's imposing gates.
Soon, a strange demonic aura carrying a sweetly fishy stench silently enveloped all of Liu Manor like an invisible dome.
From deep within the estate came scattered shrieks from women and the panicked sound of servants running.
Yet every bit of that commotion was tightly sealed away by the gray mist-like demonic aura, not a trace reaching the outside.
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