The Coiling Dragon Bracelet

Lin Ke walked out of Li Chungang's tofu shop and patted his round, bulging belly in satisfaction.

He glanced at the midday sun, gave a contented smile, then headed toward the Immortal Realm Painting Studio next door.

A full belly really does put you in a good mood!

But remembering that he had only three months, Lin Ke unconsciously quickened his pace.

As pleasant as that meal had been, he had no time to keep enjoying the afternoon sunshine.

"Bang!"

As he entered the painting studio, he saw the door to the little dark room he had visited last time slam shut with a bang.

A customer?

Lin Ke looked up at the dust-covered paintings around him and shook his head. Then he found a strip of cloth in a corner of the shop and began wiping the dust off the paintings.

"Creak... bang!"

Before long, someone came out, his heavy footsteps accompanied by loud laughter.

"Ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha..."

Lin Ke turned to look.

It's him!

Who?

The man who had been the first to praise Lin Ke's dancing last night: Butcher Zhang.

He had not gotten a clear look last night, but now Lin Ke could see that Butcher Zhang was a coarse-looking, casually dressed middle-aged man.

He wore a cloth jacket, his hair was a tangled mess, and bits of something-blood or scraps of meat-clung to his stubbly face.

His clothes clearly did not fit around his belly, leaving strands of black belly hair poking out. As he walked, he occasionally hitched up his trousers.

Butcher Zhang paused when he saw Lin Ke, but soon smiled and nodded at him with that particular knowing grin men shared.

Then the two passed each other.

After the customer left, Wang Lin finished clearing away the wastepaper and came out. "Why didn't you say something when you got here?"

Lin Ke answered helplessly, "The moment I entered, I saw the door inside close. Master, teaching me to paint already takes up your afternoons. If I interfere with your morning business too, and then fail to learn properly, well..."

"Heh." As Wang Lin listened, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. She cut him off. "All right, I wasn't blaming you. Stop wiping those down. Nobody looks at those paintings anyway. Come with me!"

She first turned to shut the shop door, then headed straight into the rear courtyard.

Lin Ke put the cloth on a table in the corner and hurried after her.

Wang Lin's courtyard was different from Li Chungang's.

Li Chungang's courtyard next door reeked of blood, and the blood tofu looked like coagulated blood. It was no place for a normal person.

Several times while reading there that morning, Lin Ke had had his thoughts interrupted by that faint, lingering smell of blood.

An osmanthus tree grew beside the rooms on each side of Wang Lin's courtyard, east and west. Beneath the eastern tree stood an easel and a stool, with a half-finished painting on the easel.

The courtyard was clean and tidy, without a single weed. A path had been laid with black and white stones, which pressed painfully against Lin Ke's feet even through his shoes.

Lin Ke looked around as he walked. By the time he reached Wang Lin's doorway, she had already come out carrying two things.

She held an easel in one hand and a brush in the other.

Both were clearly new; wood shavings were still falling from the easel in Wang Lin's hand.

Wang Lin set them beneath the western osmanthus tree. "You'll sit here and paint."

Lin Ke went over and arranged everything.

"Heh heh." Wang Lin approached with a wicked smile that instantly set Lin Ke on edge.

She went back inside, then placed two more things in front of him before dusting off her hands. "Put this on your wrist."

Puzzled, Lin Ke looked at Wang Lin.

"Just do as you're told. Why all the questions?"

After scolding him, Wang Lin turned, picked up the easel, and placed it on the chair.

Still puzzled, Lin Ke looked at the box and opened it. Inside lay a yellow bracelet that looked as though it were made of iron.

Lin Ke slipped the bracelet onto his wrist. It felt cool, but nothing else changed.

He had expected it to be heavy, thinking Wang Lin wanted to train his endurance. Now that did not seem to be the case.

"Good!" Wang Lin looked at the bracelet on his wrist and nodded.

She produced a sheet of paper from somewhere and placed it on the easel. Lin Ke saw that it was densely covered in intersecting lines forming a grid.

"See these intersections? Dot them! One dot per stroke. Do a thousand before you call me. Until you finish, your arm must not drop below chest level. If it drops, there's the door. Understand?"

As she spoke, Wang Lin raised a hand and pointed at the doorway.

So it is training after all... Lin Ke nodded and took the brush in his right hand. He could feel it now: the bracelet was a little heavy.

Once Wang Lin saw him begin, she turned and went back to the shop.

Lin Ke started slowly, but after a while, he began dotting faster and faster...

Two hours passed, and Lin Ke stopped.

There was no other reason: his hand was shaking too badly to make another dot.

This was different from chopping wood. With chopping, he could make use of momentum. If he did that here, he would be drawing vertical strokes instead of round dots.

"Eight hundred and ninety-nine. Just hold on a little longer."

Lin Ke had reached his limit, but he still kept his trembling arm under control and aimed the brush tip at an intersection near the center of the paper.

What he did not know was that Wang Lin, sitting in her chair inside the shop, had narrowed her eyes slightly.

Lin Ke made his nine-hundredth dot.

But he did not stop.

"Nine hundred and one, nine hundred and two... nine twenty-seven... nine sixty-five..."

Sweat streamed down Lin Ke's face, and his dripping sweat had already soaked a large patch of ground.

"Nine hundred and eighty-nine."

Lin Ke relaxed a little inwardly, and his arm began to droop of its own accord.

An instant later, however, he forced his arm steady again.

A thousand means a thousand!

On a hundred-mile journey, ninety miles is only halfway.

Missing one is the same as missing five hundred, and missing five hundred is the same as doing nothing. Round it off, and nine hundred and eighty-nine dots are no different from none at all!

Lin Ke slowly raised his arm.

Even at this tortoise's pace, he dared not relax in body or mind. He concentrated utterly, his entire body taut.

Whether from clenching his teeth or sheer exhaustion, Lin Ke's face had gone completely pale.

Simply raising his arm took nearly five minutes!

His right hand slowly approached the paper. Aligning it alone took more than ten seconds.

"Nine ninety, nine ninety-one, nine ninety-two... nine hundred and ninety-eight, nine hundred and ninety... nine!"

His left fist was clenched so tightly that his fingernails had dug into his flesh.

"One thousand! Whew..."

As he let out a breath, his body toppled backward.

Lin Ke's vision dimmed, but then he realized he had not fallen onto the ground. Instead, he had landed in a warm embrace.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, then nuzzled his head backward, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.

Smells so good!

And then?

The warm embrace behind him vanished. With a dull thud, he made intimate contact with the ground, just as one might expect.

Lin Ke did not even have the strength to cry out in pain.

After holding the same position and dotting circles for so long, the right half of his body had gone numb. He slowly closed his eyes.

An unknown amount of time later, Lin Ke opened his eyes and found himself still in the same spot.

He was just about to grumble when he heard Wang Lin's voice.

"You little brat, you sure can sleep! Up to no good last night, were you? Just look at how badly your arm was shaking!"

He let out a small breath of relief. At least he was not in his own courtyard.

Lin Ke looked irritably toward Wang Lin and found her standing far away, beneath the western tree. The sunlight was falling directly upon her.

Her sleeves fluttered in the breeze, making her look as though she were about to ascend to immortality.

"What you're wearing on your wrist was forged from starfall tear crystal, sunlight iron, and all the precious metals in the world. Its name is..."

"The Coiling Dragon Bracelet!"