A Martial Man Held the Stirrups, the Neighborhood Looked On; Yesterday's Mud-Leg, Today's Man in the Carriage!

Late autumn had arrived, and the cold was biting.

It was noon.

Through the dilapidated Old Street Alley, where filthy water ran everywhere, pedestrians moved like walking corpses, their eyes dull and vacant.

And yet—

Clop, clop, clop!

At that moment, a carriage suddenly drove into the alley. The scar-faced coachman at its head looked fiercely intimidating, with a simple saber resting at his side. One look told everyone he was not to be trifled with.

Though the alley was narrow and run-down,

at the sight of hooves flying and wheels rumbling as they turned, pedestrians far ahead hurriedly pressed themselves against the walls, afraid they might accidentally brush against it.

The little flag bearing the words "Lu Manor" fluttered from the carriage hood, conspicuous and glaring.

Those passing by could not help but look on in envy.

Only after the carriage had gone far away did they dare whisper among themselves:

"Traveling with carriage and horses—that's a Saber-Wearing Retainer from Lu Manor!"

"Those people really cut an imposing figure."

"Even ordinary stewards who collect rent and hold a turf are already impressive enough. They command three or five men under them, barking orders left and right."

"But I heard that when they go to Lu Manor to pay rent on behalf of the shopkeepers behind them, if they run into figures like these, they tuck their tails between their legs, plaster on smiles, and beg them for directions!"

"Ah."

"I wonder what the person sitting inside looks like. If only one day I could too..."

A bald-headed leper crouched beside the gutter, rubbing his hands as he muttered. His companion beside him gave a dark chuckle of mockery.

"You?"

"Even if pies fell from the sky, they wouldn't land on our heads. Stop dreaming!"

"Martial artists have ranks too."

"Mud-legs like us, even if we spend the silver our families saved over half a lifetime to beg for one or two forms of boxing, can at most become a Fire Kiln steward."

"Even ordinary retainers of Lu Manor are handpicked, and there are only so many of them. How could ordinary martial artists ever be chosen?"

"Not to mention Saber-Wearing Retainers. I heard there are only around thirty of them, every one a top-notch hand."

"A man has to believe in fate."

"In this miserable patch of land, after all these years, only that Ji family boy who became a coachman ever rose up. But even that was no more than this. Without struggling for years, perhaps even a decade or more, he probably won't be able to break free of this cage."

Before he could finish,

the man beside him looked toward the back street. When the carriage, now no more than a tiny dot, stopped before a fenced yard, he suddenly cried out in shock:

"Wait, wait, wait."

"Look."

"That place..."

"Isn't that the thatched mud house of the Ji siblings?"

Following his pointing finger,

all the nearby spectators froze.

"It really seems to be."

Not long afterward,

when the carriage came to a stop,

the shabby, impoverished streets outside this Fire Kiln

completely erupted.

The crowd surged together, heads bobbing everywhere.

From far away, they watched as someone finally lifted the curtain of the Lu Manor carriage, revealing himself.

Hong Jiang, acting as coachman, hurriedly sprang up. Gritting his teeth, he bent down to the ground, actually turning himself into Human Flesh Steps so that the person in the carriage could descend smoothly!

The moment Ji Xiu appeared, dressed in the fitted black uniform issued to Lu Manor's Saber-Wearing Retainers, with an alligator-hide belt and a tempered-iron saber at his waist,

cries of astonishment rang out one after another:

"Th-that's the Ji family boy!?"

"What a handsome, spirited young man! Back when he was starving until he was skin and bones, no one could have seen that he possessed such looks."

A distant uproar rose from the crowd.

Ji Xiu took half a step out of the carriage, utterly indifferent to it all. But when he saw Hong Jiang bracing himself against the ground, he frowned and stopped.

"Brother Hong, you already hold the whip and stirrups for me. That alone leaves me ashamed to accept it. I told you before, there was no need for this."

"And now you want me to imitate those Official Aristocracy, stepping on Human Flesh Steps as if walking on level ground."

"I, Ji Xiu, have spent half my life scraping out a living in places where foul water flows everywhere. I have no destiny for wealth and honor, nor can I learn such things."

"Get up quickly."

He leaped down, pulled Hong Jiang to his feet, and treated the praise and envious voices ringing in his ears as though he had never heard them.

When poor, no one asks after you in a bustling market; when rich, even in the mountains, distant relatives come calling.

Now that he had won the applause of the whole crowd,

though he felt somewhat elated,

once that feeling passed, a single glance was enough to see through its true nature.

This is the change that fists and power have brought me.

Ji Xiu murmured softly.

When he and Ji Wei had huddled in that drafty, crumbling house before, they had been like air. No one who saw them would spare them a second look.

If he had not become a retainer of Lu Manor, how could he have today?

Even a Saber-Wearing Retainer commanded such treatment.

If he rose still higher—becoming one of Lu Manor's public faces who had reached Bone Tempering, the master of a martial hall, or even succeeding in Skin Refinement and becoming the master of a business of his own—

those people would probably bow down in devout worship, as if Heaven itself had descended before them.

Having already tasted the sweetness,

then

how could he possibly stop here?

Upon hearing Ji Xiu's words, Hong Jiang rose from his crouch and laughed heartily on the surface, saying it was nothing.

But inwardly, it was a different scene entirely, bitter as if he had swallowed coptis.

Holding the whip and stirrups, serving as a human cushion—

forget martial artists; even an ordinary man with a straight back would not wish to do such servile, fawning work.

But he had no choice!

Before so many retainers of Lu Manor, with countless eyes watching, a spit word was a nailed word.

If he failed to do what he had said, he would lose face.

And this Ji Xiu—

at sixteen, he had comprehended Ten Steps, One Kill and entered the gates of saber mastery. His future was bright, certainly better than Hong Jiang's own.

If that were all, it would have been fine.

But—

the way the old manor lord had looked at him that day, those standing close had all seen it clearly!

Others might not know.

But Hong Jiang had watched with his own eyes as Lu Chengfeng sent away his legitimate son Lu Yu and even Luo Xiao, his closed-door disciple, yet specifically had the young miss show this boy around the manor.

Any clear-eyed person knew what he was plotting!

A saber prodigy with a bright future, frankly speaking, was only that much.

But

if, before that title, one added the label of his superior's "dragon-riding son-in-law"—

Hong Jiang felt that

if he did not bow and scrape, if he did not invest heavily,

then when this young master soared into the heavens someday, the one to be settled with after autumn and swept out the door would probably be himself.

His own "money path" was at stake. How could he not perform properly?

"Whoever leads this horse is still leading it. Why can't it be me?"

"Back when I was knocking about the mountain roads outside Anning County, whenever the old boss mounted or dismounted, I served as a human cushion more times than I could count. If you admit a mistake, you need the attitude to match."

"Before, it was I, Hong Jiang, whose mouth ran too freely and said the wrong thing."

"But a real man's word is a nailed word. Since I said I would be your coachman, then until you leave Lu Manor, I'll be your coachman for life!"

Hong Jiang clasped his fists, picked up his saber, and set off to patrol around the carriage with a stern expression, fierce as a demon, watching to see which blind-eyed pickpocket would dare creep over.

The huge commotion

also drew a little girl from the shabby cottage. Sneaking quietly, she poked out half her head to look.

Wrapped in a purple padded jacket, Ji Wei was smudged with soot from tending the stove. She had just gotten the fire going and was preparing to make a hearty meal, waiting for her brother to come home and eat.

Hearing the commotion, she glanced outside.

And there she saw

Ji Xiu, dressed all in black, saber at his waist, standing tall with his hair blowing in the wind, stepping onto the yellow earth and pushing open the fence.

Seeing her brother, almost entirely transformed and dressed in such respectable clothes as he had never worn before,

Ji Wei was left staring blankly.

"Little sister."

"I've come to take you to our new home."

The black-clad youth smiled faintly, his voice gentle.

Step by step, he personally took Ji Wei's little hand and led her into the carriage.

The brazier inside the carriage glowed with warmth.

Ji Wei nervously pinched the hem of her clothes, pressing her little legs tightly together, somewhat uneasy.

She had not even

come back to her senses.

She watched her brother bustle about, placing bedding, padded clothes, and other belongings into the carriage.

At last, after carefully looking over the yellow-earth house where they had lived for more than ten years,

he nodded, took up the hanging whip,

and shortly afterward,

firecrackers exploded, sending off the old and welcoming the new.

When crimson firecracker scraps covered the yellow earth,

the carriage slowly departed, leaving behind only drifting dust.

Like a scene from a dream.