Sun Mazi Dies!

Grass grew thick along the mountain path outside the village.

Sun Mazi had huddled in a haystack outside the Yi Family's courtyard wall for an entire night.

Summer wasn't cold, but the mosquitoes were murder.

Seven or eight bites covered his neck, and his arms were even worse; every scratch left a red streak.

The haystack also stank of mold mixed with chicken droppings, making his head swim.

"Damn it, this job Yang Er gave me isn't fit for a human being."

Sun Mazi hugged his knees, his eyelids fighting to stay open, and cursed under his breath.

Curse as he might, he didn't dare leave.

Yang Er's fat face from yesterday still floated through his mind.

"Keep your eyes on Old Yi. Screw this up, and I'll have my brother toss you into the county jail to clear your head."

What sort of place was the county jail?

Go in once, and you came out with half your life gone.

Sun Mazi usually swaggered without restraint when bullying the old, weak, women, and children, but before someone like Yang Er, who could truly torment a man to death, his spine was softer than overcooked noodles.

As the horizon turned grayish white, something finally stirred at the Yi Family's courtyard gate.

The bolt slid free.

Creak.

Sun Mazi's drowsiness vanished on the spot.

He poked half his pockmarked face through a gap in the haystack, both eyes gleaming with sly excitement.

The courtyard gate opened.

Yi Yang walked slowly toward the outskirts of the village, a firewood basket on his back and that old chopping knife in his hand, wearing a short jacket washed pale.

The old man's back was still slightly bent, and his straw sandals trod the dirt road without haste, just as they always did when he went up the mountain to gather firewood.

But watching him, Sun Mazi felt joy blossom in his heart.

Heading up the mountain at the crack of dawn?

Right after Yang Er questioned him about Purplewood yesterday, too?

Was there even any need to guess?

A thief with a guilty conscience!

"Old bastard, still putting on an act."

Sun Mazi curled his lips and said, "If you haven't hidden anything, why sneak into the mountains before daylight? Who the hell are you trying to fool?"

In his mind, that piece of Purplewood had already been inflated into a priceless treasure.

Wood that wealthy households in the inner city used to make incense tables.

Something even the masters at the martial arts hall coveted.

If he could find its hiding place, even if he didn't take all of it, secretly cutting off a chunk and selling it would keep him living it up for a long time.

He had coveted those girls in the pleasure quarter for so long that he could barely sleep.

Especially the girl called Xing’er.

That waist, that face, that soft, sweet way she called out to a man-it was enough to kill him.

As Sun Mazi thought about it, a low, strange chuckle rose in his throat.

"Yang Er gets the meat. Surely I deserve a sip of the broth?"

He crawled out of the haystack, brushed the bits of straw off himself, and followed in a crouch.

The mountain path was rough going.

The morning mist had yet to clear, leaving the woods a murky gray; damp air crept into his nostrils, carrying the earthy stink of mud and rotting leaves.

Yi Yang walked ahead at a slow pace, occasionally stopping to inspect a tree or chop a couple of dead branches and toss them into his basket, his behavior utterly beyond reproach.

Sun Mazi trailed him at a distance.

Sometimes he hid behind a tree; sometimes he lay flat in the grass.

He thought he was quite professional.

At least he was better than those village fools who knew nothing but stealing chickens.

"Old bones are old bones."

Sun Mazi stared at the stooped figure ahead, his eyes full of contempt.

An old wreck like Old Yi, already half buried in the grave, would have been devoured by Yang Er down to the bones and scraps long ago if he hadn't had a younger brother in town whose name offered some protection.

The farther Sun Mazi followed, the sleepier he grew.

He hadn't slept well last night, and his eyelids sagged as though smeared with paste.

Ahead, Yi Yang stopped beside a stretch of mountain path and bent over, lowering his head as though tying his straw sandals.

Sun Mazi hurried behind an old tree and held his breath.

After only a few breaths, his mouth stretched open in a long, deep yawn.

By the end of it, tears had squeezed out of his eyes.

He raised a hand to rub them.

Then he peeked out again.

The man was gone. Only morning mist drifted along the blades of grass on the mountain path; that stooped figure carrying a firewood basket had vanished.

Seeing nothing but thick trees before him, Sun Mazi felt his head buzz and go numb.

Where was he?

He'd been right there a moment ago!

Where could an old man disappear to in just a few breaths?

He rubbed his eyes and looked left and right, but there was no sign of Yi Yang.

The stretch of mountain path ahead wound upward, utterly empty, without so much as a shadow.

"Shit."

Sweat broke out on Sun Mazi's back.

If he lost the man right under his nose, Yang Er would string him up and whip him.

The more warmly that fat pig smiled, the crueler his blows.

No longer caring about hiding, Sun Mazi bent low and darted out of the grass, rushing in great strides to where Yi Yang had stopped.

"You old bastard!"

He cursed in a hushed voice.

"How did your legs suddenly get so quick? In a hurry to be reincarnated?"

Nothing around him answered.

Only startled birds fluttered up and flew away.

Sun Mazi wandered frantically through the woods, pushing aside branches and parting the grass, his soles sinking into wet mud and coming free with sticky squelches.

The longer he searched, the more he panicked.

The more he panicked, the more desperate he became.

Sweat streamed down his forehead, filling every pit in his pockmarked face and making him look uglier still.

"Come out, you old bastard."

"Don't let Master Mazi find you, or you'll be in for it."

His words were vicious, but his legs were growing weak.

After searching for another half a tea's worth of time, Sun Mazi stopped at the edge of a muddy hollow.

There were straw-sandal prints on the ground.

Sun Mazi let out a long breath, his heart settling halfway back into place.

"I knew it."

He wiped his face and sneered.

"An old man is still an old man. However fast he runs, he has to leave his paw prints on the ground."

The sandal prints led deeper into the mountains.

That direction was so remote that even woodcutters rarely went there.

Sun Mazi's eyes gleamed brighter.

Purplewood!

It had to be over there!

The old bastard was afraid someone would track him and wanted to move his hidden stash, but he was still a little too green.

"Once Master Mazi finds the spot first, heh heh..."

He hunched over and pushed deeper in, his eyes fixed on the footprints.

The mountain path grew narrower and narrower.

The grass grew thicker and thicker.

Trees on both sides blocked the daylight, and the shaded slope remained damp all year round; dead leaves lay in thick layers, soft, rotten, and slippery beneath his feet.

Sweat beaded on the tip of Sun Mazi's nose as he walked, and thorny branches slashed several tears in his trouser legs.

But he couldn't bear to stop.

He could almost see the silver already, gleaming white and piled on a table for him to grab.

When he reached a shaded slope, the sandal prints stopped.

They stopped abruptly.

Ahead stood a dense grove, its ground thick with dead leaves, yet the line of footprints vanished just before the trees.

"Where is he?"

Sun Mazi turned halfway around, staring until his eyes ached.

"Old bastard, quit playing ghostly tricks."

No one answered.

Mist curled around the tree trunks, and dampness crept into his collar, crawling over the back of his neck.

Sun Mazi suddenly felt that this place was horribly sinister.

A shaded slope.

Few people ever came here.

If something really happened here, a corpse might rot down to bones without anyone ever finding it.

The moment that thought surfaced, Sun Mazi shuddered.

No.

What was there to fear?

He was only an old man.

If Old Yi truly had any ability, he would have gone to town to enjoy a comfortable life long ago. Why would he still be chopping wood in Three Trees Village?

"Damn it, you've hidden it deep."

He gritted his teeth and kept cursing.

"Once I find Purplewood, I'll get my first taste of that little granddaughter of yours. Let's see if you still dare pretend you've got a spine."

The words had barely left his mouth when the faintest rustle of fabric came from the tree above.

The skin at the back of Sun Mazi's neck tightened instantly.

He was just about to look up.

A gaunt figure dropped from a branch.

Yi Yang's face was terrifyingly calm as he descended from the tree, a thick hemp rope pulled taut between his hands.

The rope had been soaked in tung oil beforehand, giving it a dark sheen; it was slick and sturdy.

The instant he landed, the loop slipped over Sun Mazi's head and caught squarely around his neck.

Sun Mazi never even managed to shout.

The rope cinched around his neck, crushing his windpipe flat.

Both his eyes bulged, dense red veins spreading across their whites.

His mouth stretched as wide as it could, half his tongue protruding, and his sallow face quickly turned purplish blue.

"Hhk... hhk..."

Sounds like air leaking from broken bellows squeezed out of his throat.

Sun Mazi clawed wildly upward with both hands, hooking all ten fingers around the hemp rope and trying to pull it loose.

But the rope was soaked in tung oil and terribly slippery.

More terrifying still were the old hands behind him. Gaunt and rough, they possessed astonishing strength, nothing like what a sixty-year-old man should have had.

Yi Yang wrenched both arms backward, planted his feet firmly in the mud, and drove through his waist and back.

The warm strength nurtured by the Wood-Nurturing Longevity Art over the past few days flowed from his lower abdomen into his shoulders and arms.

Even without reaching the first qi-blood skin-refining realm, he had more than enough strength to deal with a thug hollowed out by drink and lust.

Sun Mazi went wild.

His legs kicked madly against the mud, his shoes flew into the grass, and his heels gouged two deep pits in the ground.

Mud splashed onto his trouser cuffs and beside Yi Yang's straw sandals.

His nails tore his own neck open, bloody furrows mixing with sweat and mud into a filthy mess.

But the more he struggled, the tighter the rope grew.

The tighter it grew, the less air he had.

The pleasure quarter, the silver, Purplewood—all those earlier thoughts fled his mind.

Only one thought remained.

Stay alive.

He wanted to stay alive.

Sun Mazi desperately twisted his head, trying to look at Yi Yang.

The malice in his eyes faded, leaving nothing but pleading.

Snot and tears smeared his pockmarked face as he squeezed out a garbled plea for mercy.

"Spare... spare..."

Yi Yang said nothing.

In sixty years, he had seen far too many rotten people.

Before people like this fell to their knees, their mouths were full of threats.

Once on their knees, their mouths were full of remorse.

Once they caught their breath, they turned right back into dogs that bit.

A dog could never stop eating shit.

A vicious dog could never stop biting.

At his age, Yi Yang was long past listening to wicked men repent. Besides, how could he so easily take back something he had set his mind on?

He pulled his arms back, pinning Sun Mazi's back with his knee.

Crack.

A sharp snap came from his neck, enough to set one's teeth on edge.

Sun Mazi's flailing legs stopped.

His hands still clutched the rope, but their strength was gone, and they slowly fell.

His body slumped limply into the mud, his face pressed against dead leaves, his mouth still open and his eyes bulging. That last trace of pleading remained on his face, hideous and utterly laughable.

Silence settled over the woods again.

Yi Yang released the hemp rope and stood where he was, his chest heaving a few times.

This was the first time he had killed someone with his own hands in the sixty years since he had come to this world.

There was no vomiting, no faltering.

Nor did his mind plunge into the turmoil described in storybooks.

He only felt his shoulders ache and his palms burn where the hemp rope had dug into them. His nose was full of the earthy reek of mud, sweat, and urine.

Sun Mazi had wet himself in terror.

Yi Yang looked down at the corpse and let out a long breath of stale air from his chest.

"I told you already."

The old man's voice was low, as though he were speaking to a chunk of wood.

"If you don't strike, so be it."

"But once you do, leave no one alive."

The sense of security martial arts had given him sank into his bones at that moment.

So strength really could settle things this cleanly.

A vicious dog could ordinarily frighten an orphan girl into staying indoors, force village women to grit their teeth and swallow their anger, and make honest folk bolt their doors tight at night.

Yet once the rope went around his neck, it took no more than a few dozen breaths.

Yi Yang bent down and grabbed Sun Mazi by the ankles.

The corpse left a long trail through the dead leaves.

The old man dragged him deeper into the woods, his steps unhurried but steady.

There was a hollow there that he had picked out beforehand, with soft, decaying soil beside it. It lay in the shade, seldom visited by people or wild beasts.

He dug a pit.

Buried the corpse.

Scattered dead leaves.

Erased the drag marks.

Once everything was done, Yi Yang looked at the few copper coins in his hand with contempt. This Sun Mazi really had been a pauper.

Half an hour later, only freshly turned damp soil remained on the shaded slope.

Yi Yang put away the hemp rope, wiped the mud off his hands with dead leaves, then picked up his woodcutting knife and stuffed a few dry branches into his firewood basket.

An old woodcutter who went up the mountain to gather firewood could hardly return empty-handed.