Opening Their Hearts

On the snow-blanketed mountain path, the two set off again. Of course, they could not run for their lives as they had before. For one thing, there was no need for that just now; for another, A Gou's legs were already sore and weak today, so he needed to pace himself more sensibly.

This time, they ran straight through until the sun began sinking in the west. After traveling in almost the same direction for so long, even A Gou felt less anxious.

With the threat to his life lifted, Yi Shuyuan sat on A Gou's back, gradually feeling lost. Where exactly had he come to? What sort of world was this? Clearly, he could no longer be in his original time and space.

Troubled by these thoughts, Yi Shuyuan could only look for something else that interested him to distract himself. It would also help him understand his present circumstances and get to know A Gou better, so he struck up a conversation.

"A Gou, your lightness skills are pretty good, aren't they?"

As he traveled, A Gou had actually been thinking all along about what to say to the man on his back, but none of the topics he came up with seemed quite appropriate.

Now that Yi Shuyuan had spoken first, A Gou immediately perked up. Being praised for his lightness skills by a senior like this made him rather happy, and he answered.

"Senior, my lightness skills are about the only thing I can show off. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dared think about saving anyone last night. Uh..."

Yi Shuyuan could not hold back his laughter. A Gou was nervous about having said the wrong thing, little realizing that to Yi Shuyuan, who had weathered the complexities of the twenty-first century, he was already doing quite well.

"The fact that you had that thought and saved me already puts you above countless others. Believe me, holding fast to your original intentions despite the fear in your heart is all the more precious. If you weren't kindhearted yourself, you wouldn't have made it out of these treacherous mountains!"

A Gou did not answer immediately. Praise was nice to hear, of course, but he could not feel happy.

Yi Shuyuan was still wondering why when he heard A Gou speak quietly.

"What original intentions do I have left? My father was right. I'm good for nothing."

Those words made Yi Shuyuan frown. This was also a good chance to find out whether A Gou was truly worth trusting, so he asked another question.

"A Gou, why were you mixed up with those people?"

At that, A Gou's steps faltered, which rarely happened. He was both afraid Yi Shuyuan would misunderstand and deeply distressed, but he still instinctively wanted to explain. For the moment, he even forgot that the man on his back was dangerous too.

"Senior, it's not what you think. I may not be anyone remarkable, but I've dreamed of roaming the world as a righteous hero too..."

Once A Gou started talking, he could not stop. Perhaps he had bottled it up for too long, or perhaps he had long wanted someone to confide in. Regardless of how afraid he had been of Yi Shuyuan earlier, he now told him everything about himself and what had happened afterward.

The mountain path kept slipping past them. Yi Shuyuan did not mind that A Gou had slowed down. He listened quietly from A Gou's back, hearing the emotion in his words and the occasional quaver he struggled to suppress when he grew agitated. Yi Shuyuan knew that at a time like this, all he needed to do was listen.

He's still just a child! Yi Shuyuan sighed inwardly.

Here was someone who had once yearned to be a righteous hero, only to leave home after his conflict with his family escalated and stray down the wrong path upon entering Rivers and Lakes. Though he had never actively committed evil, he had repeatedly stood by while others died. In his heart, he already considered himself an accomplice, yet he could not escape those people at all. He suffered inwardly and hated himself for his cowardice and desperate attachment to life, until he gradually grew numb.

But at least his conscience had not died!

From A Gou's account, Yi Shuyuan also came to understand just how ruthless those people were, and he could not help feeling a chill of belated fear.

"Do you know what they call themselves?"

Having poured out everything weighing on his heart, A Gou felt much better. His tone was considerably calmer now.

"They're known in Rivers and Lakes as the Eight Demons of Black Mountain. I only found that out after some time with them. They're all good fighters. Their leader is called the Blue-Faced Demon, but he isn't the strongest. The one that was snatched up in a single bite inside the house last night had the best martial arts."

Yi Shuyuan nodded slightly, even finding the leisure to make a quip.

"Then the one that got snatched up must have been called the Unlucky Demon, right?"

A Gou could not help laughing at that.

After his joke, Yi Shuyuan let out a long breath, then drew another deep one and spoke calmly.

"A Gou, you're not bad at heart. Otherwise, you wouldn't have suffered so much all this time. Rivers and Lakes are complicated. They're not simply divided into righteous heroes and bandits, nor can you always repay kindness and settle grudges as freely as you please. Unless your differences with your family truly can't be reconciled, you should go home first after this."

Yi Shuyuan knew nothing of this world's martial arts, much less its martial circles, but he was speaking of Rivers and Lakes, the wider world people moved through. Even in the twenty-first century, before he came here, such a world had existed.

A Gou fell silent, and Yi Shuyuan's thoughts drifted far away as well. A Gou still had a home to return to, but what about him?

At that moment, the emotions he had been suppressing since yesterday erupted in Yi Shuyuan's heart. Even with his naturally optimistic disposition, he could not help being overcome by sorrow.

Given the choice, Yi Shuyuan would not have wanted to come here at all. This was a world that offered him no sense of security. Never mind its legal system or medical care-it even had monsters, beings whose danger was impossible to measure.

Toward evening, A Gou, who could barely keep going, suggested taking a rest. Yi Shuyuan felt a little embarrassed as he agreed; after all, the young man had carried him the whole way.

The two rested for a while beside a fallen dead tree.

Watching A Gou close his eyes and move his hands up and down through a series of motions, Yi Shuyuan guessed that he was regulating his breathing through internal cultivation.

For a young man with so little worldly experience or guile, such an unguarded posture already revealed how he felt about Yi Shuyuan, and it put Yi Shuyuan much more at ease.

But after only a short while, A Gou finished regulating his breathing and looked at Yi Shuyuan, scratching his head.

Yi Shuyuan smiled and took the opportunity to ask a question.

"What's your name?"

Yi Shuyuan did not believe his actual name was A Gou. Sure enough, as soon as he asked, A Gou broke into a smile and answered happily.

"Senior, my name is Mai Lingfei. A Gou is a nickname they gave me after I left home and started wandering Rivers and Lakes. I don't like it at all. People close to me call me A Fei. You can call me that too, Senior!"

Then why didn't you say so sooner? Yi Shuyuan grumbled helplessly inwardly, but what he said aloud was quite different.

"All right, I'll call you A Fei from now on. Cast aside the name A Gou along with that part of your past. Don't use it ever again!"

A Fei's eyes widened slightly, and he met Yi Shuyuan's bright gaze without looking away.

"Yes!"

Yi Shuyuan felt a small swell of pride and satisfaction. Perhaps he had saved a soul himself. His tone grew more relaxed, though he still chose to ask about what interested him.

"If I may ask one more question, how long did it take you to reach your current level in martial arts?"

Something stirred faintly in A Fei's heart at those words. He wanted to stand up to answer, but after thinking it over and over, he could not come up with any dazzling turn of phrase that might impress his listener. The hand he had planted on the ground relaxed again, and he spoke with a hint of dejection.

"My aptitude is ordinary, and I used to care too much about playing around. I wasn't diligent enough with my training. I started when I was nine, and now I'm nearly twenty, yet this is all I can do. Apart from being a little better at lightness skills, I'm good for nothing."

Yi Shuyuan thought that still made him far stronger than an ordinary person. Yet even though he had prepared himself, hearing that it had taken ten years left him feeling rather helpless. It was not that he thought A Fei had trained poorly, but that he imagined learning martial arts himself would probably be even harder.

Choosing his words, Yi Shuyuan walked a few paces, then turned sideways to look at A Fei and spoke again, somewhat awkwardly.

"Your... uh, please don't misunderstand. If I wished to take a look at your martial arts and internal cultivation methods, I wonder what would be required..."

Before Yi Shuyuan could finish, A Fei could no longer contain his delight. Could Senior be planning to give me some guidance? He sprang to his feet.

"Senior, I'll demonstrate them for you!"

There was no way A Fei would carry his family's secret manual around with him, but after so many years of practice, he had memorized it all. The illustrations in it depicted the moves he performed, so he only needed to demonstrate the sequence.

"Flying Body, Treading the Swallow, Chasing the Moon, Tracing Footsteps, Sweeping Snow..."

A Fei called out the moves as he performed them. Before Yi Shuyuan, his body twisted and swung, his fists shot out, his movements sometimes raised a sharp whistle, and sometimes swept away lingering snow and dust from the ground. He moved swiftly, every motion bristling with power.

Thump!

A Fei punched a pine tree as thick as a thigh. In an instant, cracks spread across its bark for a full meter. The entire tree shook, sending lingering snow, pine needles, and dead twigs raining down.

In the next instant, A Fei unleashed a low Sweeping Snow kick. His leg lashed like a whip, stirring an invisible gust of force that struck the "rain" and scattered it, while sweeping a patch of ground clean.

That sense of force, that sheer impact, kept Yi Shuyuan's gaze riveted on A Fei, his eyes widening ever further.

Amazing! So powerful! This is far more astonishing than I ever expected!

It was utterly beyond comparison with the flashy performance routines ordinary people saw in his previous life.

Only then did Yi Shuyuan realize that his earlier conception of martial arts had been completely wrong. He even felt a sense of awe rising within him. He had spoken far too casually just now.

Yi Shuyuan felt that if the villain he had tricked to death had made even a halfhearted desperate attempt, the grass on his grave would have been towering by this time next year!