Sleeping in snow, resting among clouds; seeking a wandering soul on the mountain's shaded slope

As Xing Yan stood in the clan chief's room, lost in thought before the horsetail whisk hanging on the wall, old Su Li, who had treated him with such courtesy earlier, suddenly revealed a savage expression behind his back. Though his voice remained calm, out of Xing Yan's sight he quietly gripped the pickaxe gleaming with cold light, raised it gently over his head, then swung it down with a whoosh at the seemingly oblivious youth-

Clang!

With scarcely a hair's breadth to spare, a crisp clash of iron suddenly rang out in the gloomy earthen room.

"Ah! I never knew you were so hardworking, Chief-"

The youth, who had seemed utterly unaware a moment before, had turned and blocked the powerful blow with his sword. Looking at the astonished old chief, he asked with an innocent, bewildered expression:

"It's all very well for you to work hard, Chief, but I'm not a field. Why are you swinging your hoe at me?"

"..."

At these words, the old chief, whose face had turned ghastly as a ghost's, suddenly recovered his kindly expression. He whipped the pickaxe back and said shamelessly:

"Ah! What fine skills you have, Young Master Zhang! I wasn't tilling a field-just testing your abilities!"

He now looked the very picture of honesty, as though he had not heard the mockery in Xing Yan's words at all. Anyone else seeing this venerable, virtuous appearance might have begun doubting their own eyes, even after narrowly escaping his ambush, wondering whether they had mistaken his intentions. But this time, the crafty "old chief" had miscalculated. He did not know that the youth standing before him, though pure and upright in appearance, could be far more slippery than any rogue he encountered!

"I'll pour you some water, Benefactor Zhang."

Seeing the