The Vicious Fang Yu

On his way back after the meeting, Yi Yang passed the Martial Arts Yard, his keen hearing picking up a few conversations.

Several Patrol Guards squatted at the foot of a wall, wiping their blades, their lips working harder than their hands. "That old man didn't sign up again. What a waste of a Patrol Captain's post."

"Number Thirty-Four? He's just a gatekeeper anyway."

"True. If I were sixty, I wouldn't want to go off to my death either."

Yi Yang kept walking, his expression unchanged, the cuffs of his old blue robe stirring in the wind.

Their words were no different from mosquitoes buzzing. These people had no idea how strong he was anyway.

A couple of buzzes, neither an itch nor a sting.

When he reached the Archive Hall, Huang Yushu was organizing the case-file shelves. Seeing him enter, he froze with a booklet in midair. His lips moved twice, closed, then moved twice again.

Yi Yang glanced at him. "If you have something to say, say it."

Huang Yushu returned the booklet to the shelf and turned around, his fists clenched until his knuckles turned white.

"Sir, I want to sign up."

Yi Yang stopped.

Huang Yushu's voice was a little hoarse, but his words came quickly. "I've been pursuing the case of the thirty-two people the Nine Evil Sect slaughtered in Clear River Village for two years. Two years, and I've been blocked from investigating the whole time. I've worn out three sets of case files and sorted through over a hundred leads, all left molding in a cabinet."

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"This major operation might turn up new leads."

Yi Yang looked at him.

The young man usually buried himself in copying case files and said little, but the stubborn fire in his eyes had never gone out. Thirty-two lives had weighed on his shoulders for two years. The fact that he had not gone mad already spoke to his strength of character.

"What Qi-Blood level are you?"

"Peak first level."

Yi Yang nodded.

"Go, then. Don't charge out in front. Come back alive and keep helping me look after the files."

Huang Yushu's eyes reddened. He clasped his fists and bowed deeply, staying bent for a long time before straightening.

Yi Yang said nothing more and went upstairs.

The day the operation set out arrived.

Early that morning, banners fluttered over the Heaven Patrol Office's Drill Ground as more than thirty volunteers stood in formation, fully equipped. Blades gleamed painfully bright in the sunlight, horses pawed the ground, and bundles of dry rations filled half a cart.

Yi Yang stood at a second-floor window of the Archive Hall, watching from afar.

Tang Hao stood at the front of the formation, a broad saber across his back, brimming with energy. His face practically shouted, "I'm damn well going to earn some merit." Zhao Gang stood in the middle, the saber at his waist polished to a shine, quietly giving instructions to a Patrol Guard beside him.

Huang Yushu stood near the rear with an old bundle on his back, his face taut. He clearly felt both anticipation and fear toward the battle ahead.

There were also a few unfamiliar faces in the ranks. Martial school disciples from town, dressed in assorted clothes and still looking uneasy, had clearly been lured by the generous rewards. Standing there, they looked like a flock of cranes that had wandered into a chicken coop.

After the expedition departed, the Heaven Patrol Office branch was suddenly more than half empty.

No one spoke in the corridors, and not a single figure remained in the Martial Arts Yard. Patrol shifts had been cut to the bare minimum. It was as though the soul had been sucked out of the entire branch.

Inside the Archive Hall, Sun Hao sprawled over a desk and yawned, his mouth wide enough to swallow an entire case file.

"Sir, everyone's gone. Can we finish our shift early today?"

Yi Yang kept leafing through a case file without looking up. "Watch the door properly. No slacking. Trouble is most likely when we're short-handed."

Li Tong leaned against the doorframe, rubbing his cuff between his fingers for a long while before speaking. "Sir, you don't seem worried at all."

Yi Yang closed the file.

"Worried about what?"

Li Tong could not say. He scratched his head, muttered, "True enough," and returned to his post.

Yi Yang opened the file again. The sound of turning pages echoed through the empty hall, much like the tapping of a wooden fish.

Worried?

Worry was the most useless thing there was. Better to practice the stance a couple more times.

After his shift ended that evening, Yi Yang returned to his little courtyard.

Jiang Yuexin had already made dinner: flatbread, a plate of pickled vegetables, and a bowl of stewed meat. The lean meat had been bought two days earlier. She had added wild mushrooms from the mountains, making the broth rich and milky white, its aroma so enticing that even a stray cat passing outside the courtyard wall had settled down and refused to leave.

Yang Hui came over with a bowl of bun filling, and the three sat beneath the Old Locust Tree.

Yang Hui chattered without pause. "Lots of martial artists left town today. Old Liu, the meat seller, said someone bought half a pig from him in one go. Said it was to prepare rations for the expedition."

She took a bite of vegetables, then spoke again as she chewed. "People are also saying they're going to wipe out the Nine Evil Sect's mountain lair this time. There's going to be a real battle."

As Jiang Yuexin listened, her chopsticks slowed, and she looked at Yi Yang.

"Grandpa, you don't have to go, do you?"

Yi Yang placed a piece of meat in her bowl. "No. Grandpa's a gatekeeper. Fighting battles isn't my job."

Jiang Yuexin breathed a sigh of relief and bit into her flatbread, her eyes curving into crescents.

Watching her smiling face, Yi Yang's own lips softened.

The locust leaves rustled in the evening breeze. Steam rose from the stewed meat, carrying the savory fragrance of wild mushrooms. Yang Hui began cursing the rat demon at the eastern end of town that had stolen her cabbages, and Jiang Yuexin rocked back and forth with laughter.

Days like these were worth their weight in gold.

Night fell.

After Jiang Yuexin and Yang Hui had gone to sleep, Yi Yang shut the door and slid the bolt into place.

He took the Sinew-Strengthening Powder he had received from Zhao Gang that day out of the pouch he kept close to his body, crushed it, and poured it into a wooden tub of hot water prepared in the kitchen. The pungent herbal smell rushed into his nose as murky yellow-brown foam churned across the medicinal bath.

He undressed and stepped into the tub.

The instant the scalding liquid soaked into his flesh and bones, Yi Yang clenched his back teeth hard enough to make them creak.

Pain.

Not pain in his skin or flesh. The medicine burrowed through the gaps in his bone-tempering-realm frame into its deepest recesses, as though someone were embroidering his marrow with fine needles.

But he did not stop.

He began circulating the Wood-Nurturing Longevity Art, accelerating his qi and blood to grind the medicinal potency bit by bit into his sinews and bones. His heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys heated up simultaneously. The Five-Organ Internal Refining Force worked in concert on its own, filtering out the impurities and retaining the essence.

A quarter of an hour later, Yi Yang rose from the medicinal bath.

His skin held a faint jade sheen. Steam billowed from him, and droplets slid down the contours of his body. His sixty-year-old frame now looked more like that of a vigorous man in his early forties.

He put on his old clothes, walked into the courtyard, and assumed the Yi Wood Longevity Stance.

Beneath the moonlight, the locust leaves stirred gently.

That barely perceptible layer of wood-nurturing pure qi was clearer than it had been ten days earlier. He was no longer looking at a mountain through gauze. Most of the mist had dispersed, and the sharp contours of its ridgeline were already visible.

The door to the qi-blood fifth level stood just ahead.

Opening it was only a matter of time.

He first went through his mandatory daily stance practice. He still had something to do in the latter half of the night; if he did not practice now, he would run out of time.

That same night.

In a secluded lane in southern Cloud Pattern Town stood Widow Li's little courtyard.

Inside, the oil lamp cast a dim yellow glow over disheveled bedding. Fang Yu leaned against the head of the bed, his shirt half open to reveal his lean chest and several old scars at his waist. He was fastening his belt, his face slack with sated pleasure.

Widow Li was in her early thirties. Her hair loose and disordered, she huddled against the bedding and reached out to tug Fang Yu's sleeve.

"You're leaving again? That Butcher Zhao from the next lane keeps hanging around my door, his eyes fixed on me like a dog staring at a bone. Can't you stay just one night?"

Fang Yu impatiently brushed her hand away, straightening his collar as he said coldly, "Butcher Zhao? A pig slaughterer who's never even trained his qi? What are you afraid of? If he dares lay a finger on you, I'll tear his arm off when I get back."

Widow Li wanted to keep pestering him, but Fang Yu had already stood up.

The Martial Law Hall bronze badge at his waist clinked against his scabbard.

"Brother Tang's taken the men out to wipe out the evil sect. The Heaven Patrol Office is more than half empty. There's plenty to keep me busy."

He went to the window, lifted a corner of its paper covering with a finger, and peered outside. A smile surfaced at the corner of his mouth, chilling in its malice.

"Like dealing with an old bastard who refuses to die."

Widow Li asked curiously, "What old bastard?"

Fang Yu turned and leaned against the window frame, his tone casual. "That old man surnamed Yi in the Archive Hall. Number Thirty-Four, the lowest-ranked Patrol Captain. Last time, Brother Tang brought Curator Mu to test him, but they found no opening. Before leaving, Brother Tang gave me orders-once everyone was gone, I was to watch him and find a chance over the next few days to really make him suffer."

He paused, a dark gleam of greed surfacing in his eyes.

"I hear the old man has a granddaughter. Fourteen or fifteen."

Fang Yu licked his lips, the corners of his mouth lifting. His smile was suggestive and obscene, as though he had spotted something delightful.

"A fresh, lovely little thing. Plenty of people in town have seen her. A flower bud that hasn't bloomed yet."

"I wonder what that flower looks like where it's hidden. Must be tender."

Widow Li's face darkened.

She reached out and pinched Fang Yu's waist, snapping, "Having me isn't enough? Where exactly have I failed to satisfy you?"

Fang Yu hissed at the pinch and caught her wrist, his grip neither light nor crushing.

"Stop it. This is Brother Tang's business."

He released her hand, draped on his outer robe, and pushed the door open, stepping into the night.

His footsteps gradually faded.

Widow Li sat on the bed, the petulant anger slowly draining from her face. What remained was hard to name-unease or jealous resentment, gloomy as the moonless sky outside her window.

In a little courtyard half a town away, Yi Yang had just finished his final round of stance practice.

He put on black night clothes, took a long saber bought at the Black Market, and quietly shut the courtyard gate behind him before leaving.