Great Wei, Cloud Peace City.
Early summer showers were like a little flower thief slipping into a maiden's secluded chamber at night: they arrived in a rush of wind and rain and departed in haste, leaving only muddy water in the furrows and a tree of pear blossoms wet with rain.
The wind died and the rain stopped. Capital City's streets gradually came alive as residents emerged from their homes and peddlers hawked their wares:
"Steamed buns-"
"Coal for sale..."
Amid the clamor, a convoy slowly approached from the street entrance by Skywater Bridge.
The carriages followed behind thirteen mounted escorts, all wearing straw rain capes and bamboo hats, with sabers slung horizontally behind their waists and the dust of travel upon them.
In the heart of the capital, a party with such a strong air of the martial world was rare indeed. Many passersby turned to look and saw that a young man led the convoy.
Beneath his rain cape, the man wore black robes, and a large white bird stood on his shoulder. He was tall, with fair skin and bright, dark eyes. His sword-like brows lent his handsome face an extra measure of sharpness.
"Wow-Mom, look! That young man is so handsome!"
"Shh, don't shout. Have you no shame?"
"That bird's so fat!"
"Chirp?"
"Oh? It understands us!"
The young man in black seemed not to hear the praise from the women and girls along the street. Looking straight ahead, he led his party to the Far-Reaching Escort Agency at the end of the street.
Every shop around Skywater Bridge displayed the Pei family crest, and the Far-Reaching Escort Agency was no exception.
A family that could buy an entire street in Capital City, where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, was clearly no small household. Its establishment had grandeur to match, with two escorts regularly stationed outside the agency's imposing yellow-timbered, blue-tiled entrance to keep up appearances.
Seeing an unfamiliar mounted party arrive, one escort stepped forward and cupped his hands in a martial greeting.
"May I ask who you are?"
"Ye Jingtang."
The escort looked puzzled and glanced over the imposing martial men.
"I haven't heard your illustrious name before. Have you come to commission an escort, or..."
"Challenge your agency."
"..."
At those words, the street fell silent.
The passersby who had been strolling around all gathered closer. Even the wonton seller by the roadside put down his ladle, wiped his hands on his apron, and rose onto his toes to look.
"What's going on?"
"Someone's issuing a challenge. You don't see that often in Capital City..."
Both escorts outside the agency darkened when they realized the young man in black had come looking for trouble.
Had he been an ordinary reckless youngster, they would have shouted him away. But all thirteen riders outside carried sabers, looking ready to wipe out an entire household. They were not people to provoke lightly, so the escort remained fairly courteous and cupped his hands.
"This is the capital. Private fighting is strictly forbidden. Our employer is an honest businessman who obeys the law, so we can't accept a challenge. If you have a dispute with him, you may strike the grievance drum, and we can settle the matter at the government office..."
The crowd immediately began jeering.
"Boo..."
"You call yourselves martial artists? Someone's come right to your door, and you tell him to report it to the authorities?"
"Exactly..."
The young man in black unfastened the saber behind his waist and tossed it to someone behind him, leaving his hands empty.
"Have your chief escort come out. One fight, and I'll leave."
With the whole neighborhood gathering around, the escort looked displeased. The man beside him ran toward the street, apparently intending to alert the authorities.
Unfortunately, he had barely taken a few steps before a saber-wielding man behind the young man in black blocked his path.
"Hey! You..."
At this, seven or eight men rushed out through the agency's gates, carrying sabers and spears, their faces furious.
A powerful voice also rang out from within the agency.
"Boy, there's nothing wrong with youthful fire, but you'd better keep your eyes open..."
Everyone turned to see a man emerge from the main building across the courtyard. He was burly and dressed in brocade, rolling two iron walnuts in his heavily callused right hand.
Click, click...
The escort outside hurriedly called to him.
"Master Chen, this boy's making trouble."
The watching neighbors grew excited and began talking over one another.
"Even Chen Biao's come out."
"Will that handsome young fellow get beaten to death?"
"Who would dare kill someone in Capital City? He'll cough up blood at most."
"With a face that handsome, even seeing him cough up blood would break my heart..."
Whoosh-
Before the crowd could say much more, a soft rush of displaced air came from the street.
The escorts and passersby saw only a blur. Somehow, the young man in black launched himself skyward from his horse, vaulted over the agency's gate, more than ten feet high, and crashed into the courtyard.
Chen Biao, who had just stepped out of the building, shuddered in alarm. He instinctively hurled his two iron walnuts, but the young man swept them aside with a sleeve, then descended like a hawk upon a rabbit and clamped a claw-like hand around his neck.
Bang-
In the blink of an eye, the towering Chen Biao was pinned against the doorpost behind him, knocking several black tiles loose from the eaves.
Clatter-
The tiles shattered on the ground, making the dozen or so escorts in the courtyard flinch, horror in their eyes.
Chen Biao went white with terror. Without even thinking of resisting, he cried urgently:
"Young hero, wait! I'm only the chief escort! If you have a grudge, take it up with the owner, not me..."
Since he could still speak, the young man clearly was not trying to kill him.
Holding Chen Biao by the neck with one hand, the young man in black tilted his head toward an older saber wielder outside.
"His name is Yang Chao. From now on, he's the chief escort, and you're second in command. Understood?"
Chen Biao was bewildered, but with his neck in the other man's grip, he did not dare argue. He merely spread his hands.
"Young hero, we're a legitimate business that pays its taxes on time, not some martial gang's turf. Without the owner's approval, I couldn't authorize that even if you beat me to death..."
"My father was Pei Yuanfeng, your employer's younger brother. He instructed me to bring you the family assets. From now on, these men belong to the Far-Reaching Escort Agency. If they're mistreated, I'll hold you responsible."
Chen Biao froze. He looked the young man in black over several times, then asked in startled doubt:
"You're the Second Master's son?! Why is your surname Ye?"
Ye Jingtang did not answer. Having said his piece, he took out a stack of official banknotes, each worth a hundred taels, slapped them against Chen Biao's chest, and turned to leave.
Outside, the neighbors stared in astonishment, whispering among themselves.
"What impressive moves..."
"Is he a young master of the Pei family?"
"Sounds like it... There used to be a second son in the Pei Family, but that was twenty or thirty years ago..."
The twelve mounted escorts who had accompanied him all wore complicated expressions. Escort Chief Yang, who stood at their head, handed Ye Jingtang his saber as he emerged and urged him:
"Young master, why do this? The old master liked to talk when he drank. You didn't have to take it seriously. Leaving without a penny-where can you go?"
"The martial world."
Ye Jingtang took his saber and returned it to his waist, let his pet bird settle on his shoulder, and looked toward the morning sun on the horizon, drawing a soft breath.
He seemed carefree, yet a trace of bewilderment flickered in his clear eyes, as though the world was vast but offered nowhere he could call home.
Eighteen years had passed since he came to this dynasty called Great Wei.
When his memories gradually awakened at the age of two or three, Ye Jingtang was living in an escort agency in a Border Town of Great Wei. Its owner, Pei Yuanfeng, had found him abandoned while transporting a shipment. Because his cries were so loud and ringing, he had named him Ye Jingtang and adopted him as his son.
Pei Yuanfeng had been injured in a fight when he was young. He never married and had no children of his own, so he showed great "concern" for his adopted son's development-three beatings a day, doubled on holidays. Through sheer force, he beat Ye Jingtang, who had dreamed of making his name by "copying poems, brewing liquor, and making soap," into the agency's star fighter.
Just last month, Pei Yuanfeng's habitual heavy drinking had caught up with him. After one great binge, he died at the drinking table.
While settling his father's affairs, Ye Jingtang found a letter among Pei Yuanfeng's belongings.
It had been written beforehand in case disaster struck and mentioned only three things:
First: Pei Yuanfeng was no ordinary man, but had once been a renowned master of the martial world. He had intended to wait until his son came of age and he could judge his character before teaching him his "peerless saber technique." But if his son was reading the letter, he no longer had that good fortune. For the sake of their bond as father and son, he would have to find his own way to train with the saber and take revenge on the person who had injured Pei Yuanfeng.
With Pei Yuanfeng already dead, whether he had truly been a master no longer mattered. A son avenging his father was only natural, and Ye Jingtang had no objection.
Perhaps worried that his son would have nowhere to learn advanced martial arts, Pei Yuanfeng had also revealed a secret, the second matter: when the previous dynasty fell, Pei Yuanfeng's master had slipped into the palace amid the chaos and stolen a fragment of the Dragon-Mingling Diagram.
Legend held that the Dragon-Mingling Diagram was a supreme manual containing nine extraordinary secret arts. Mastering even one allowed a person to overpower ordinary people; mastering all nine granted eternal youth and the ability to ascend as an immortal.
But the fighting had been so brutal that his master could not take it out of the palace. Instead, he buried it beneath a ginkgo tree in the inner palace. Pei Yuanfeng instructed his son to enter the palace and retrieve it if he ever had the chance.
When Ye Jingtang read this part, he was utterly speechless.
Judging by the description, the Dragon-Mingling Diagram was probably the "cheat, the golden finger" he had spent eighteen years hoping for.
Naturally, he wanted such a unique treasure. But it was buried in the imperial palace's women's quarters. How was a grown man supposed to retrieve it? Castrate himself and sneak in as a eunuch?
To practice this art, must you first castrate yourself?
That instruction might as well have been left unsaid. What affected Ye Jingtang most was the final matter:
Pei Yuanfeng had left home young and never returned before his death. Feeling he had failed his parents, he instructed his son to sell the escort agency's assets and deliver the proceeds to the Pei Family far away in Capital City. He said nothing about leaving him a single coin.
Without that letter, Ye Jingtang would never even have known that his lonely, solitary adoptive father had a brother's family.
They had been father and son, after all. Even if he had not yet fulfilled his filial duties, he had worked in the household for so many years. Telling him to leave penniless and hand the family business to relatives hardly seemed like treating him as a son.
An ordinary person would certainly have ignored the letter. No outsider knew about it anyway.
But Ye Jingtang was different. His previous life was already in the past, and in this world, he had only one relative. They shared no blood, yet his father had taken him in and raised him to adulthood. That kindness was already more than anyone could ask, and he had not even had time to repay it through filial devotion.
In the end, Ye Jingtang honored the will. He sold the escort agency in the frontier town for a thousand taels of silver, then traveled the long road to Great Wei's Capital City with twelve escorts willing to come and their families.
Ye Jingtang was a full-grown man. He could not live under someone else's roof.
Now that he had settled his adoptive father's longtime men and handed the family assets to the Pei family, Ye Jingtang had severed his ties with the past, becoming a rootless wanderer of the martial world, taking life as it came.
He knew neither the road ahead nor where he might eventually return. All he had left was one man, one bird, and one saber. He had said he would go to "the martial world," but standing at the street corner and looking around in bewilderment, where was this "martial world"?
Leading his black horse, Ye Jingtang passed through the bustling crowd and walked along the street, aimless and a little dazed.
But he had barely taken a few steps when two sharp clacks sounded beside him.
"Clack, clack-"
A rod propping open a window fell from the second floor and rolled to his feet.
He raised his eyes toward the upstairs window, and a graceful, alluring figure came into view...
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