Since the proposal to tear down the Four Heroes Temple had come from Zhou Qingyang, the only one of its honored figures still alive, it was reasonable enough.
Though Baozhu and Thirteenth Son regretted it, neither could find a reason to object. Wei Xun climbed onto a beam and lifted roof tiles to inspect the frame's load-bearing points. Baozhu drew her ironwood staff from her luggage, but before getting to work, she glanced at Zhou Qingyang again.
"We're really tearing it down?"
The Daoist Priestess, whose white hair outshone snow, took one last look at her former fellow disciples and murmured, "Where lies the land of bliss? A grand dream while the yellow millet cooks; upon waking, the elixir furnace stands empty. Pine-clad peaks still remember youthful footprints; green mountains bury the heroes of every age." With that, she swept her sleeve and walked out.
Baozhu began smashing the three surviving statues. Their painted clay had long since dried out, its colors peeling, and years of neglect had left them crumbling at the slightest force. When she struck the woman in red, a clang rang out from within the clay, and a small, rust-covered copper fish fell to the ground.
Baozhu picked it up and discovered that the copper fish was actually half a Fish Tally. Besides the matching character-shaped joints on its inner face, it bore the inscription "Guerrilla General." Two lines of tiny, faint characters were carved into the scales on the outside: "Those skilled in war have no glorious victories; those skilled in medicine have no dazzling fame."
Wei Xun jumped down from the beam and leaned over to look. "What does that mean?"
Unable to recall the source of the saying just then, Baozhu shook her head. "Once someone privately carves extra words onto a Fish