Chapter 60: There's a Ghost
Under the archway of the government office.
Chen Dui had been chatting about many strange people and interesting anecdotes from all over the world. The little girl from Zhengyang Mountain listened with great interest, clicking her tongue in admiration and saying, "Elder Sister, you really know a lot."
Chen Dui smiled and said, "When you grow up, you'll also know many things."
Song Jixin said half-jokingly, half-seriously, "When we interact normally, I feel like you're a pretty normal person too."
The woman raised her long eyebrows slightly and asked, "So what you're saying is that in front of your Great Li vassal king Song Changjing, I should lower my eyebrows and bow humbly?"
Song Jixin laughed heartily, pointing at Chen Dui as he said, "Miss, if your way of speaking were heard by Mr. Qi from our town's school, he would definitely frown. Do you know why? This is what he calls 'either this or that'—it's very unreasonable. At first listen, it sounds quite logical, but actually it can't withstand scrutiny. What I truly meant is, of course, you don't need to flatter Song Changjing, nor should you. But he, Song Changjing, is after all the biggest big shot in Great Li and also a top-notch martial grandmaster, isn't he? As an outsider, you should adapt to local customs. Shouldn't you be a little more polite to the owner of a house? Why must you put on a sour face and act like a big shot? And even if you do act like that, after being beaten half to death by Song Changjing, you still dare to say harsh words in front of him. I really don't know what to say about you."
Finally, Song Jixin pointed at himself and said self-deprecatingly, "Even someone like me, with a sharp tongue and a bad heart, knows how to read the situation and act accordingly."
Chen Dui hesitated for a moment, then said, "I suppose it's like repelling one's own kind. I'm also a martial artist, and to be honest, I've never really thought highly of you martial artists from the Eastern Treasured Vial Continent. Of course, in the end, I was proven wrong—completely wrong."
Song Jixin exclaimed in surprise, "You're quite honest."
Chen Dui said calmly, "For a martial artist, if you don't acknowledge the fist, what else can you acknowledge?"
Song Jixin suddenly asked a sharp question, "You outsiders who come to town seeking treasures and opportunities seem to have a different way of thinking than we do. Is it because your fists are harder?"
Chen Dui shook his head and laughed, "I don't need to explain anything. Once you leave this town, you'll soon become someone like us. When you step onto the path of cultivation yourself one day, you'll naturally understand. Otherwise, even if I talk until my mouth is sore, you won't get it."
Song Jixin sighed and said, "Becoming someone like you—how boring would that be?"
The little girl interjected playfully, "Then come to our Zhengyang Mountain to play! It's a lot of fun."
Song Jixin patted her little head and said casually, "Sure."
Chen Dui turned her head to look, a certain instinctive tension rising within her.
She saw the Great Li vassal king in his white robe and jade belt standing by the archway, saying to Song Jixin, "Go back to Mud Vase Alley and pack up. Prepare to leave this place."
Song Jixin smiled and said, "Alright, so it's time to leave my homeland."
The little girl asked reluctantly, "Leaving one's homeland—does that mean carrying a well on your back and leaving home?"
Song Jixin laughed heartily, stood up, and said, "Come on, let's take you back to the Li family residence first. That's called seeing things through to the end."
Song Jixin took the little girl's hand and walked toward the main gate of the government office. He turned his head and asked, "There won't be any assassins waiting outside on Fortune Street, will there?"
Song Changjing laughed and said, "You'll have to ask your neighbor and friend about that."
Song Jixin curled his lip. He turned around and looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were gathering, and it looked like rain.
His mood immediately turned sour.
After sending the Zhengyang Mountain girl Tao Zi back, Song Jixin was surprised to find Song Changjing standing right under that Descendant Scholar Tree. He walked over quickly and asked curiously, "Leaving in such a hurry?"
Song Changjing nodded and said, "I just received some news. There's something going on outside that requires my personal attention. So we'll take the carriage directly to Mud Vase Alley, pack up, and leave."
Song Jixin looked up. Sure enough, three carriages were parked outside the government office. This would be the first time in his life that the boy would ride in a carriage.
Song Jixin bent down and climbed into the first carriage. Song Changjing followed closely and sat cross-legged.
Song Jixin looked around. The carriage was empty, with only a straw-woven cushion under his bottom. It was completely lacking the luxurious splendor he had imagined, and there was no sense of hidden wonder or surprise. This disappointed Song Jixin somewhat. He had originally been looking forward to seeing Zhigui's expression of surprise when she boarded the carriage.
Hooves clattered crisply on the bluestone street. The three carriages drove out of Fortune Street one after another.
Song Changjing lifted the curtain and looked out the window at the town's scenery. From now on, the Great Li dynasty would completely lose its nominal control over this minor paradise.
But if you looked at it from another angle, ever since Great Li was founded, it was through the enormous profits brought by this minor paradise that it had stepped by step from a small, isolated separatist faction into the largest secular dynasty in the northern part of the Treasured Vial Continent—without exception.
A thousand miles of mountains and rivers in a minor paradise.
From now on, it would probably only be found in the secret histories of the Great Li imperial palace.
Song Changjing put aside his thoughts and asked casually, "Not going to say goodbye to Chen Ping'an?"
After leaving Fortune Street, the road became uneven, and Song Jixin's body began to sway gently with the carriage. He shook his head and said, "It's hard to say whether that guy will survive. What if he's just a dead body by then? How disgusting would that be? If he, Chen Ping'an, has no parents and now even his best friend is dead, then wouldn't it be up to me, his neighbor, to take care of his funeral arrangements?"
Song Changjing hummed in acknowledgment.
Song Jixin asked, "That little girl from Zhengyang Mountain mentioned a person named Ma Kuxuan from Apricot Flower Lane. He's about the same age as me, and I heard he sold the hiding place of Chen Ping'an and that girl to Zhengyang Mountain for a bag of offering money. Do you know what his background really is? I only used to hear that he was a fool. I never thought he was hiding so deep."
Song Changjing thought for a moment and said, "The assassin who was previously hiding in the Song residence and attempted to assassinate the Sui emperor's son near Dragon Rider Lane—we had already found some clues about him. That matter involved this boy named Ma Kuxuan. Over the years, that assassin, who was originally a convict, had secretly made contact with Ma Kuxuan multiple times. It's possible they were master and disciple. Now that the True Martial Mountain has butted in, we have to put it aside for now. After all, there are many True Martial disciples in the Great Li army, and their ranks are not low."
Song Jixin smiled and said, "Uncle, even you have to say 'have to' sometimes?"
Song Changjing said nonchalantly, "What can I do? I happen to have a troublesome identity—the so-called Great Li vassal king."
When the carriage was nearing Mud Vase Alley, Song Jixin deliberately said offhandedly, "Is Chen Ping'an really just Chen Ping'an?"
Song Changjing chuckled and said, "Before I moved you to Mud Vase Alley, the government office had already thoroughly investigated him. Chen Ping'an's family lineage for eighteen generations is very clear, with no problems. There's no connection to wealth or power. What, did Chen Dui scare you? Don't worry. I've roughly guessed her identity. That branch of the Chen family she's from has no relationship with the branch of Chen Ping'an's ancestors that stayed in this town. So rest easy. Chen Ping'an is just Chen Ping'an. If you want to stretch some distant family connection, it would be with the Chen family of Dragon Tail Commandery where Chen Songfeng is from. But think about it—relatives who haven't contacted each other in hundreds of years, are they still relatives? Besides, this branch of the Chen family in town has fallen so low that there's only one person left who isn't a servant or maidservant. 'The poor have no relatives in bustling markets; the rich have distant kin in deep mountains.' You've read some books. Don't you understand this principle?"
Song Jixin still wouldn't give up. "What about eighteen generations before those eighteen? Was there no one with astonishing talent? No one at all?"
Song Changjing laughed and said, "So you want Chen Ping'an's background to be a little special?"
Song Jixin didn't hide his thoughts and nodded. "If he's different from ordinary people, I'll feel a bit better."
Song Changjing was even more curious and teased, "What exactly did that guy do to you that makes you so fixated on this? But from my understanding of that boy, he doesn't seem like..."
Song Jixin coldly interrupted the vassal king's words. "People from small places might have limited horizons and shallow eyes, but you definitely can't think they're stupid. The good ones are innocent and kind. The bad ones are rotten to the core, with sores on their heads and pus on their feet. And there are some who are truly stupid beyond redemption, or both stupid and bad."
Song Changjing was even more puzzled. "So which kind is Chen Ping'an?"
Song Jixin sighed, frustrated. "He's none of them. He's truly a fool. That's why I find it so irritating."
--
Ning Yao crouched in front of the long bench and carefully examined Chen Ping'an's sleeping face, her heart filled with shock.
Such magic was utterly indescribable.
Chen Ping'an's strange sleeping posture made the boy exude an air of returning to simplicity from head to toe.
Although Ning Yao couldn't put it into words, she had an extremely keen intuition about the quality of a magical technique.
Ning Yao turned her head and asked curiously, "Are you the one who led Chen Ping'an into cultivation?"
The old man smacked his pipe, clicked his tongue, and blew out smoke. He was sitting cross-legged on a stool, looking out at the gloomy rain outside, and said with a smile, "Cultivation? You call this cultivation? What, has someone in the outside world recently qualified to establish a sect and call himself a patriarch? Has that led to such a decline in morals that the path of cultivation gets worse every year? That shouldn't happen. Those few aren't pushovers. Since they've already become gluttons, they can only continue down this path of no return. They will never allow outsiders to take a bite."
Ning Yao was confused. "Old Senior Yang, what are you talking about?"
The old man was taken aback. "Didn't your elders tell you about those old stories of the ancients?"
Ning Yao shook her head. "My grandfather's generation passed away early. My parents don't like to talk about the stories of other worlds, for fear that I might run away from home."
Old Man Yang turned his head and carefully examined the girl. Finally, he blurted out a question. "How many characters are carved on that wall now?"
Ning Yao answered honestly, "During my grandfather's generation, many heroes emerged. So within a short hundred years, two new characters were carved. Now there are eighteen in total."
The old man said with a sigh, "Already eighteen characters, huh. After 'Dao Fa,' 'Hao Ran,' and 'Xi Tian,' six characters, which ones were added?"
Ning Yao said solemnly, "The four characters 'Thunder Pond Forbidden Ground,' then another four characters 'Sword Qi Eternal.' Then 'Qi,' 'Chen,' and 'Dong.'"
Old Man Yang frowned and asked, "Little girl, did you eat the remaining character?"
Ning Yao said crossly, "I forgot!"
The old man didn't press further. He changed the subject. "Still the same rule? Only after killing a flying-ascension-level demon can one carve a character on the Great Wall?"
Ning Yao frowned. "Why are you so familiar with the situation back in my homeland?"
The old man smiled. "A long time ago, there was a wandering sword cultivator who had a habit of writing travelogues. He wrote down all the customs and people he encountered along the way. In the end, he died near our town. So I took that thick travelogue back and flip through it when I have nothing to do."
Ning Yao doubted the truth of this statement.
The old man seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. "Believe it or not."
Ning Yao observed Chen Ping'an's state, which seemed similar to Daoist sitting in forgetfulness or Buddhist meditative absorption. She asked, "What's wrong with him?"
Old Man Yang said slowly, "Little death."
Sleeping is called "little death."
Ning Yao was a bit exasperated. This old man at the Yang family shop either spoke harshly or said things that were strange and bizarre.
The old man muttered to himself, "Little girl, let me ask you. When a person is silently reciting in their mind, what they call their inner voice—whose voice is that?"
Ning Yao was startled and fell into deep thought.
Soon, she naturally closed her eyes and became drowsy. Finally, with a sudden nod, she fell fast asleep.
Old Man Yang stood up, walked around the girl, and came in front of the boy. He pointed his pipe at Ning Yao and said to the boy, "Look at her. With just a little guidance, a few words, and she breaks through to a new realm in one go. And then look at you. You have no ability at all, yet you like to be stubborn. Who are you being stubborn with? God has been dozing off for so many years. Do you think He would bother with someone like you?"
The old man returned to his seat and looked out at the gradually intensifying rain. The urgent raindrops pounded against the ground in the courtyard, making a crackling sound. The old man's expression was a bit sorrowful. "After so many years, picking and choosing, finding so many people, I didn't expect that the one I had the least hope for would have the toughest fate."
--
A thin, scrawny boy carried a large backpack of wild vegetables and held seven or eight small fish strung on a stalk of dog's-tail grass. He was walking through the alley. When he opened the gate of his own courtyard and entered, from the neighbor's side, a little young master in silk clothes immediately stepped onto a stool, nimbly climbed onto the low courtyard wall, and crouched there, completely unconcerned about dirtying his expensive clothes. He said, "Hey, Mr. Chen, you've been up the mountain and down the water foraging again, huh? You really have a knack for living off the land. Can you take me along to fool around sometime? I'll tip you copper coins!"
The thin boy smiled and said, "No need for money."
The little young master, reeking of wealth, curled his lip and said, "Fine, be that way. I don't want to go anyway."
The boy took down the small fish one by one from the dog's-tail grass. Some were as long as a palm, some only the size of a thumb. The boy stood on tiptoe and laid them on the windowsill to dry in the sun. Once dried, he could eat them without salt. He didn't need to gut them or remove the internal organs—it wasn't because the boy was lazy. If he did that, there would be hardly any meat left. Anyway, eating them would be crispy and fragrant.
After the little young master on the wall finished speaking, he actually regretted it a little. In truth, he had always envied his neighbor of the same age. Every time the neighbor came home, he never came empty-handed—wild rabbits and loaches, stream fish and wild fruits. It made him very intrigued. It wasn't about being greedy for food, just envious. But his pride prevented him from changing his words. Plus, seeing the neighbor's nimble movements and carefree appearance made him a bit sulky.
Chen Ping'an, you're so poor every day you can't even keep your pot covered. You sleep in a broken house with drafts coming from all sides. You can't even afford a single candied hawthorn skewer the whole year. What are you so happy about?
Song Jixin, the little young master on the wall, simply couldn't understand it.
--
One day, the boy who had no worries about food or clothing but could only live in Mud Vase Alley came home with a bruised and swollen face, covered in mud.
The girl who had just become his personal maidservant asked him what was wrong. Song Jixin absolutely refused to say anything. When he returned to his room, he closed the door and lay on the bed.
Today, he had quarreled with someone, and even gotten into a fight. Some vicious words still echoed in his ears, cutting deep into the heart of this highly self-respecting boy. His expression alternated between sadness and ferocity.
"What are you so proud of with your stinking money? You're not even as good as Chen Ping'an. At least he knows who his parents were, even if they're dead. Do you know who your parents are?"
The boy named Song tossed and turned on the bed, unable to fall asleep.
The next day, this boy didn't squat on the wall and chat with his neighbor as usual. Instead, for the first time, he visited the neighbor at his doorstep and walked into Chen Ping'an's room.
After he said a sentence to Chen Ping'an, before long, Chen Ping'an left the town, breaking the promise he had made when his mother passed away. At such a young age, he went to the Dragon Kiln as an apprentice.
--
A figure sneaked cautiously to the back door of the shop's main hall. Old Man Yang caught a glimpse of him but didn't say anything. He just turned around, disgusted by the sight.
The figure felt especially hurt by the old man's reaction.
What hurt him even more was a woman—whom he should have called sister-in-law—holding an oil-paper umbrella in one hand and shoving his head aside with the other. She strode boldly toward the main room at the back of the courtyard. When she saw the old man, she immediately started to shout at the top of her lungs.
Old Man Yang sighed. He quickly got up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. He stood on the steps and looked at the woman who had clearly come to pick a fight. The old man had even lost his interest in smoking his pipe.
The woman stopped in her tracks, put one hand on her hip, and cursed, "What the hell are you doing? Are you guarding against thieves?! Old Man Yang, you're supposed to be my man's master. Why do you keep doing such rotten things? Li Er had a perfectly good job as a shop assistant. What gave you the right to kick him out? Did you open the Yang family shop? Huh? Did Li Er sleep with his master's wife? Or did he sleep with his master's daughter?!"
The man who had been blocked in the street and followed back was shrinking his neck and hiding near the back door, wishing he could dig a hole and bury himself.
He knew his master's temper all too well, and he also knew his wife's character perfectly. So he felt that this time, he would either die or at least lose a layer of skin.
Old Man Yang's expression was impassive. "Are you done? If you're done, go home and call in heat. I heard the cat's calls at the westernmost end of town never stop all year round. They cry during the day and cry at night. So many people were disturbed by the noise that they moved away..."
The woman seemed to have hit a sore spot. Her voice rose even higher. "You old bastard! You've got the nerve to talk about going home! Your apprentice lost his livelihood. All he does every day is wander around. A couple of days ago, our house roof collapsed. We couldn't even scrape together the money to patch it up. I had to take our gold and silver babies and go back to my parents' house, where I was bullied and mistreated! If you hadn't kicked Li Er out of the shop, would our family of four be in such misery? Old Man Yang, hand over your coffin money right now and fix our house. Otherwise, I'm not done with you today!"
The old man's gaze coldly fixed on the man who was trying to hide—Zheng Dafeng.
Zheng Dafeng said with a mournful face, "Master, Li Er followed your orders and went to handle that matter. He definitely won't be back for a while."
The old man's expression turned gloomy.
Zheng Dafeng felt like he might as well kneel and kowtow.
The woman threw away her oil-paper umbrella, sat down on the rain-soaked ground, and wailed at the top of her lungs. "You old bastard! You like to mess with your own! You' re not even sparing your apprentice's wife!"
The old man fetched a small stool from under the eaves, sat down slowly, took out shreds of tobacco from his waist pouch, rolled them into a ball, stuffed them into his pipe bowl, and started smoking. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky, completely ignoring the woman.
Zheng Dafeng watched the woman rolling and thrashing in the courtyard. The rain was so heavy, and the woman had a voluptuous figure well-suited for childbearing. Her clothes were thin. As a result, many of the Yang family shop's workers came over to watch the show, secretly enjoying the spectacle and feasting their eyes.
The woman was crying at the top of her lungs, but suddenly she stopped, as if someone had grabbed her by the throat. After rubbing her eyes, she quickly stood up, grabbed her oil-paper umbrella, and ran away.
As she ran, she shouted, "There's a ghost!"
The old man twitched the corner of his mouth and said, "A mouse turd on the incense altar—loathed by gods and hated by ghosts."