In the little courtyard, the crow flapped its wings and examined Dark Cloud from side to side.
Dark Cloud, having eaten and drunk her fill, tried to pounce on it, but the crow easily dodged her every time, its caws full of mischief.
For some reason, Chen Ji suddenly felt that the crow and the cat, the youth and the old man, seemed especially harmonious and peaceful in this courtyard.
And tonight was one of the few peaceful nights he had known since coming to this world.
No one was framing anyone, and no one was fighting to the death.
The world's mysterious veil was finally being lifted slowly before his eyes.
"Master," Chen Ji asked the question that puzzled him most, "do all acting officials have to kill like we do..."
Old Yao was puzzled. "Kill what? Kill patients?"
"Huh?" Chen Ji was even more confused. "Master, how do you cultivate?"
Old Yao said casually, "When I cure a patient, I can use his illness Qi."
Chen Ji was stunned. Even with the same path of cultivation, could their methods of cultivating be different?
But no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the crow perched on the apricot tree pointed a wing at Chen Ji like a finger and burst into cackles, laughing so hard it nearly fell off the branch.
Chen Ji said, "...Master, there's no fun in lying to me!"
Old Yao sneered. "You haven't seen much of the world after all. You have brains, but not many. Remember this: the jianghu and the world are harsher than you imagine. Aside from yourself and that cat, you can't trust anyone."
"Not even you?"
"That's right, not even me." Old Yao tipped the pastry crumbs Dark Cloud had left into his mouth, wasting none of them. "Our path of cultivation is the one that must be kept hidden above all others under heaven. If anyone finds out, the Secret Intelligence Directorate will want you dead, the Bureau of Punishments will want you dead, Prince Jing will want you dead, the emperor will want you dead, and every official under heaven will want you dead. You can't cultivate this path without brains."
"Master, are there other acting officials cultivating our path?" Chen Ji asked curiously.
Old Yao thought back. "I've killed a few, but I don't know whether I got them all."
Chen Ji said, "..."
He finished chewing his flatbread, but it left him feeling a little choked, so he went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of water. Only after drinking it did he continue, "Master, what is our path of cultivation called?"
Old Yao stroked his beard. "I've answered enough. I don't want to answer any more..."
Before he could finish, Dark Cloud had already burrowed into his arms and begun rubbing against him.
Old Yao thought for a moment and answered, "Some call it 'Mountain Lord.'"
Chen Ji pondered this. "Mountain Lord?"
"Others call it 'Dragon Swallowing.'"
Chen Ji grew solemn. The meaning of Mountain Lord was obscure, while Dragon Swallowing seemed to get more directly to the point!
He asked curiously, "Master, if you killed me, could you improve your cultivation?"
"No." Old Yao glanced at him. "But if you killed me, you could cultivate a little faster. Want to try?"
Chen Ji said, "...Master, you don't have to be so courteous."
Old Yao continued, "If you were the only person in the world cultivating 'Mountain Lord,' your cultivation speed would be at ten parts out of ten. If two people cultivated it, your speed would be five parts out of ten. Well? Does putting it that way tempt you a little more?"
Chen Ji frowned and said honestly, "I think many people would be tempted."
"That's why no acting official under heaven takes a disciple unless there's no other choice."
"What counts as having no other choice?"
"Either they're gravely wounded and dying, growing old and frail, or they know they have no hope left of seeking the Great Dao." Old Yao sighed. "I've seen a master teach a disciple, only for the disciple to want to kill him. I've seen a father pass it on to his son, only for the son to want to do him in."
Chen Ji noticed the desolation in the old man's voice. "Master, apart from She Dengke and Liu Quxing, do I have any other fellow disciples?"
Old Yao sneered. "You did. He's dead. I killed him."
Chen Ji hesitated for a moment. "Do you have any children?"
Old Yao was silent for a long time. "I already answered that. When you've lived long enough, you'll understand something: don't form bonds with people lightly. Those bonds are all destined to end in parting and disappointment."
At that moment, Chen Ji finally understood why Old Yao was so cold. Behind that indifference lay a story that could never be told in a sentence or two.
Old Yao must have taught his son in earnest. Otherwise, he could have waited until he was dying to pass on his path of cultivation. But Old Yao's son seemed to have harbored malicious intentions.
No wonder acting officials were so few and far between. Everyone who possessed a path of cultivation would never pass it on lightly, and they undermined one another too. Not every son under heaven wanted to harm his father, but there was no shortage of sons who did.
Chen Ji was puzzled. "Why did you choose to take disciples again, and three at once?"
Old Yao glanced at him, then looked at the crow, which was still teasing Dark Cloud. "I feel no bond of master and disciple with you. I simply don't want this path of cultivation to end with me. So don't expect too much from me. You pay your tuition, and I teach you skills. That's all."
Chen Ji felt that Old Yao's reason was not entirely convincing, but he did not dwell on it. He said sincerely, "You might not believe me, but I'll never harm you..."
"Don't say that so soon," Old Yao scoffed. "I've told you everything I should. I told you because I didn't want you to die without knowing why. As for what I can't tell you yet, perhaps I'll tell you some of it when I'm in a good mood."
Chen Ji said, "...When are you in a good mood?"
"Give me back my ginseng, and my mood might improve a little."
Chen Ji hurriedly said, "I'll go to the herb merchant as soon as I wake up tomorrow..."
Hunched over, Old Yao stopped at the door of the main room. The crow fluttered down onto his shoulder. "Don't think too much about it. Since you're already working for the Secret Intelligence Directorate, you've set one foot in the jianghu. From now on, life and death are up to fate. Just don't regret it."
Chen Ji asked, "Master, what is the jianghu?"
Old Yao said evenly, "The jianghu? It's a place where nothing is new, day after day."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because human nature is the same: nothing new, day after day."
Chen Ji suddenly asked, "Master, what kind of person is the inner chancellor who controls the Secret Intelligence Directorate?"
"The most vicious person under heaven. Why else would everyone call him the Venomous Chancellor in private?" Old Yao pushed the door open and went inside. "In the days ahead, you'll miss these good times when you didn't know him yet."
Watching the old man and the crow on his shoulder, Chen Ji suddenly felt as though he were seeing Dark Cloud and himself on Luo City's long street that night.
Then, from inside, Old Yao suddenly began humming a song with a strange rhythm: "The law-abiding fret from dawn to dawn, while bullies sing all night till morn. Those who hurt others for gain ride horses and mules, while honest and fair folk starve like fools. Those who mend bridges and roads go blind, while killers and arsonists leave children behind. I went to the Western Heaven and asked my Buddha why; he said, 'There's nothing I can do, not even I...'"
Chen Ji returned to his room and lay flat on the shared sleeping platform with his arm under his head. The song his master had just hummed echoed in his mind, while Dark Cloud lay on his chest.
"Dark Cloud, don't lie on my chest. I can't sleep like this."
Dark Cloud looked up at him. "If not for me, would your master have told you so much? After doing you such a great service, I'd be perfectly justified sleeping on your head, all right?"
Chen Ji was silent for a moment. "You have a point!"
Early in the morning, before the rooster had crowed, Dark Cloud was already nowhere to be seen.
Chen Ji carried water on a shoulder pole until the water vat was full, then swept the courtyard clean.
Seeing the crow perched on a branch of the apricot tree, watching him, he smiled and greeted it. The crow merely gave him a sidelong glance and continued sleeping on its branch.
Once everything was in order, Chen Ji put the Buddhist Sect Circulating Treasure around his wrist, tucked away all his silver ingots, and went out.
The herb merchants were in the East Market. Traders from north and south stopped there, scholars traveling to take the examinations stayed there, and officials on their way to new posts socialized there. It was a hub for all under heaven.
Yet they were all merely passing through Luo City, and once the bustle was over, they would leave.
Setting out from the Taiping Medical Hall, Chen Ji walked for about an hour before he finally heard the clamor of the East Market. The brothels had already closed, but the fishermen were only just returning from the rivers, carrying basket after basket of fish ashore, while boat haulers shouldered their ropes and headed for the canal.
Chen Ji looked up, searching the signboards one by one until his gaze settled on the "Hundred Deer Pavilion." It was the largest herb merchant in Luo City; sixty percent of the city's medicinal herbs depended on it to purchase them wholesale from herb markets in the north and south and transport them here.
This was also where the Taiping Medical Hall ordinarily purchased its medicinal herbs. All three fellow disciples had been here before.
Chen Ji stepped through the doorway, and a portly shopkeeper came up to him, smiling. "Oh, what brings you here today, young Doctor Chen? Didn't my assistant just deliver a shipment to the Taiping Medical Hall yesterday?"
Chen Ji smiled back. "Master sent me to find a few old ginseng roots. They're needed at the prince's residence. Does the Hundred Deer Pavilion happen to have any in stock?"
The shopkeeper looked troubled. "I should tell you, young Doctor Chen, aged ginseng is very expensive, so we buy only the amount ordered in advance. Your master requested one root a month, and we don't have any extra for the Taiping Medical Hall."
Chen Ji turned to leave. "Then I'll ask elsewhere."
But the shopkeeper hurriedly caught hold of him, all smiles. "You're in such a hurry, young Doctor Chen. Why not let me finish? As it happens, the few ginseng roots the Fangping Pharmacy ordered yesterday haven't been delivered yet. We're old friends of Imperial Physician Yao, so if the prince's residence needs them, we can let you have them first."
Chen Ji gave no indication either way. "Then bring them out and let me see."
"This way, please. All our valuable medicinal herbs are kept in the back courtyard."
The shopkeeper led Chen Ji toward the back courtyard of the Hundred Deer Pavilion and pushed open a storeroom's wooden door. "Please."
After going in, Chen Ji looked around at the dozen or so chests of medicinal herbs. Then he heard the door close behind him.
Strange. I'm only looking at some ginseng. Why close the door!?
Something's wrong!
Chen Ji ducked and rolled forward. When he got to his feet again, he saw the shopkeeper thrusting a dagger straight at him, his face unusually vicious.
But Chen Ji struck first despite moving later, planting a kick in the shopkeeper's massive belly.
The shopkeeper had not expected Chen Ji to be faster than him, dodging the ambush and counterattacking in an instant. The kick sent him stumbling backward, and he cried in a low voice, "Help me!"
Chen Ji was about to seize the chance to pursue and kill the shopkeeper, but he failed to guard against the rush of air behind him. Someone darted out from behind a wooden chest of herbs and pressed a dagger to his neck from behind.
This time, the person was so fast that Chen Ji had only ever seen the like in Lin Chaoqing, Cloud Goat, and Bright Rabbit. He had no time to react.
Feeling the dagger's chill, the hairs on his neck stood on end, but he could only ask calmly, "What is the meaning of this?"
The person behind him said calmly, "You abandoned your own surname and your own identity, turned traitor, and sold out Zhou Chengyi. Don't you deserve to die?"
Chen Ji was at a loss for words... What I feared most has come to pass!