Chapter 89: Two Heads
A short but voluptuous woman with an alluring figure took out a string of exquisitely crafted new keys, unlocked the courtyard gate, and pushed it open as she entered, laughing, “Finally, a chance to be useful.”
The woman glanced at the chicken coop at the base of the wall, where a series of rustling sounds came from the flapping wings of poultry. She paused, “Still not starved to death?”
“I suppose I should thank myself for finding you such a good neighbor. When neighbors are harmonious, the whole world enjoys spring, right?” She quickly figured out the reason and turned to look at the neighboring house. Finding herself too short to see over, she walked to the rammed earth wall, stood on tiptoe, and saw only an empty courtyard next door. Deeming it boring, she withdrew her gaze and headed for the main house. Taking out another key to unlock the door, she stepped over the threshold and wiped a finger across the table. It was spotless. The woman grew somewhat displeased, as if an outsider had taken the liberty of applying rouge to her daughter’s face—pretty to look at, but a parent certainly wouldn’t be happy about it.
The three attendants who had followed the woman to Mud Bottle Alley included a burly man who remained outside in the alley, closing his eyes in meditation.
A pale, beardless old man with squinting eyes walked into the courtyard.
Only the sword-bearing young woman followed the woman into the main house.
The woman entered Song Jixin’s residence alone, looking around. There was a bed and a desk, and on the desk were some expensive scholar’s curios and ornaments, presumably left behind by the owner who didn’t want to carry them. Walking over to the desk, she found three books stacked neatly in the center. She flipped through them casually—nothing extraordinary, just basic primers for children in school: “Elementary Learning,” “Rites and Music,” and “Guan Zhi.” These were the standard classics for all classes in the Dali Dynasty, from noble clans to commoners. The woman noticed that although the books were old, they had no smudges or stains. A certain person’s image suddenly came to mind. She shook her head and asked offhandedly, “Yang Hua, what’s the market price for ‘Elementary Learning’ in the Dali capital?”
The sword-bearing woman, her back to the door, had a naturally cool voice and replied respectfully, “In answer to Your Highness, at most sixty coppers, at least forty.”
The woman gave a soft “oh,” then clicked her tongue, “It seems the greater the Confucian sages’ principles, the less they’re worth.”
She restacked the three primers in their original positions, gently patted the topmost “Guan Zhi,” and sneered, “If it weren’t for certain families pushing things along, tirelessly traveling through great cities and bustling market streets for thousands of years, praising it and willingly playing the lowly storytellers and unofficial historians, the Confucian school wouldn’t be sitting securely in this world. Definitely not securely.”
The old man in the courtyard coughed lightly and said in a low voice, “Your Highness should be cautious. This place is not suitable for speaking freely.”
The woman laughed, “Don’t worry. After Qi Jingchun died and reached an agreement with the higher-ups, no one will be watching here anymore. Do you think that without Qi Jingchun, this stagnant Bead Grotto Heaven, a place that hasn’t had major trouble for thousands of years, deserves the attention of those big shots?”
The old man insisted, “Your Highness should still be careful.”
The woman smiled charmingly and said softly, “Alright, alright, I won’t complain anymore. Xu Hunran, you really need to learn from Liang Song in this regard. He’s better at reading people than you are. So in my opinion, when people in the Dali court and countryside say Liang Song, though your disciple, surpasses the master, they’re not wrong. As for my uncle deliberately provoking you with words like ‘The disciple need not be inferior to the master,’ Xu Hunran, you don’t need to take it to heart. He’s just that kind of person—hears a few scholar’s phrases and likes to show off his book knowledge randomly.”
The old man named Xu Hunran was speechless and could only sigh, thinking that His Highness really didn’t know how to comfort people.
But when he recalled passing by that prince on the way south, the old man’s mood suddenly turned heavy. At that time, Song Changjing looked tired, as if he hadn’t fully recovered from a life-or-death battle. Yet since he dared to lift the carriage curtain in front of him, it meant Song Changjing had likely taken a step further on the martial path. Though the possibility of reaching the Tenth Realm was extremely small, having reached the peak of the Ninth Realm, every step forward, even half a step, was like a full realm difference for Seventh and Eighth Realm martial grandmasters.
This pale, beardless old man was renowned throughout the Dali court and countryside as the number one swordsman of Dali. The suffix “master” carried great weight, like the “grandmaster” title after a surname among the Hundred Schools. Liang Song, the genius sword cultivator who died at Song Changjing’s hands, was Xu Hunran’s most prized disciple. The old man regarded him as his own son; this enmity was no small matter.
Xu Hunran was fond of nurturing a sword within his sleeve, named White Sparrow. Barely over an inch long, yet immensely lethal. Legend had it that it could fly back and forth over a hundred li in an instant—by the time the sword returned to its sleeve, the victim hadn’t even died yet. The technique was fierce and unfathomable.
The woman sat down on the bed and patted the bed board, “Not exactly a life of luxury, but it’s quite comfortable.”
The young woman holding the long sword said softly, “Your Highness has worked hard on His Highness’s behalf—hardships that tax the mind and weary the body.”
The woman stood up and laughed, “That’s hypocritical. The child who truly suffers is the orphan next door. My Mu’er can hardly be said to have endured hardships.”
She walked to the wall, thought for a moment, and murmured, “The Lu family from Fortune Street gave us a few pages of ancient texts. The spells and divine powers recorded on them are from ancient times and can no longer be verified. They differ greatly from the current talisman schools of Daoism. I remember one page recorded an interesting minor spell. What was the incantation? Oh, I remember now. Let me try it.”
With her back to the young woman at the door, she laughed, “Go directly to the neighboring courtyard and wait for me to open the gate.”
“Heaven and earth connect, mountains and walls join, soft as apricot blossoms, thin as paper pages. My finger points like a sword, quickly open the gate. By the decree of Lord Three Mountains and Nine Marquises!”
Without the crucial talisman paper, she merely recited the incantation, pointed her finger forward, and then walked leisurely through the wall, leaving behind a slight ripple.
Entering a dilapidated room with bare walls, she sighed, “Some people are lucky—no matter how they mess around, they’re blessed. Some are unlucky—born to suffer. If you’re born into the wrong womb, who can you reason with? Even if you find the right party, do you dare speak up? Little one, when you learn the truth later, before you come to take revenge on me, you’ll have to deal with at least three parties: Yunxia Mountain, Zhengyang Mountain, and Shujian Lake. By the time you find me, it’ll be ages from now—and that’s only if you can even live to walk out of Dali territory.”
She turned to look at the wall, “Lord Three Mountains and Nine Marquises—what kind of identity is that? There’s no such figure on East Bottle Gourd Continent. Could it be an ancient deity who lost its incense and golden body? If so, why is this minor spell still effective?”
Unable to figure it out for now, she decided to look into it when she returned to the Dali capital, or perhaps ask Cui Chan, since he was nearby—why not ask for free? She walked to the door, pulled back the bolt, but couldn’t open it. Remembering it must be locked from the outside, she had to exert some force, breaking the copper lock. After pulling the door open, she saw the courtyard gate wide open. Looking at the sword-bearing maidservant and the swordsman Xu Hunran, she asked, “You just broke in like that? Have you no sense of propriety? Later, find someone to fix it yourself. Don’t forget.”
She walked toward the courtyard gate and added, “And replace the lock on the house door with the exact same kind.”
The old swordsman and the sword-bearing woman were clearly used to this.
The burly man standing in Mud Bottle Alley frowned.
After the woman left the courtyard, she suddenly stopped, “Yang Hua, take steps the size of my Mu’er at age seven and walk sixty-three steps to the right.”
The sword-bearing woman obeyed, stopping after sixty-three steps.
The woman behind her turned sideways to face the high wall, “It should be right here.”
Looking at the unremarkable earthen wall, she gritted her teeth, “Song Yuzhang deserves to die!”
She quickly regained her usual calm and elegant demeanor and asked with a smile, “This secret matter—you heard me talk about it back then. What do you think is the crux of the issue? What can I do for Mu’er?”
The young woman shook her head, “This servant does not know, nor would I dare to speculate rashly.”
The woman sighed, somewhat sorrowful, “My Mu’er has two knots in his heart. The first is, of course, that during that heavy rain, he was chased from outside the alley all the way here by a lowly mud-leg, choked by the neck and pinned against the wall, unable to move. With his temperament, he must be furious. He was young then, and besides losing face, he was certainly terrified by that murderous peer.”
The woman’s gaze suddenly sharpened. She extended her hand and gently pressed her palm against the rough, uneven earthen wall, “The second knot is very interesting—so interesting that afterward, my Mu’er might have tasted guilt for the first time in his life. That’s why, after meeting Fu Nanhua from Old Dragon City, he couldn’t make up his mind about the extra condition in their deal, switching the person to be killed from Liu Xianyang to that young man.”
The young woman finally showed some curiosity, but serving this lady was like being with a tiger; she wouldn’t be foolish enough to ask.
The woman withdrew her hand, wiped it on the sleeve of the sword-bearing woman’s arm, and began walking toward the alley mouth. Suddenly adopting a slightly playful, petulant demeanor—though a wife and mother, it carried a unique charm—she huffed, “Mu’er merely said that Chen Ping’an was born on the fifth day of the fifth month, that he had caused his parents’ death, and that living in the ancestral home prevented them from reincarnating, so it would be best to move out immediately.”
The woman grew angrier as she spoke, “What harm is there in a few jokes? You, Chen Ping’an, took it seriously. Because of your own stupidity, you broke a worthless oath not to fire the dragon kiln—how can you blame that on my Mu’er? Besides, what is the oath of a little bastard like you worth? My Mu’er is so precious. ‘A flaw in white jade’—that’s a saying for commoners in a vulgar world. If cultivators believe such things, they’re practically seeking death. Even fifth-realm Qi refiners who can live as long as a nation desperately seek true immortal bodies and flawless forms. You, a street boy—how can you compensate? Can you afford to?!”
The woman gnashed her teeth, “Little bastard, what a curse!”
The sword-bearing young woman, with a strand of golden sword tassel resting gently on her chest, remained calm.
The swordsman Xu Hunran was utterly indifferent, paying no attention.
Only the burly man walking at the rear frowned once more.
Just as the woman was about to leave Mud Bottle Alley, she suddenly spun around.
Simultaneously, the young woman and the old swordsman stepped aside to the left and right, clearing her line of sight.
The woman was now all smiles—both seductive and innocent, with a contradictory allure. She asked softly, “What’s the matter, Wang Yifu? Do you find something wrong?”
The man said gravely, “I don’t know the full details, but I do think this isn’t right.”
The woman showed no surprise; instead, she laughed loudly, “As expected of the number one general of the Lu Dynasty, Wang Yifu!”
The old swordsman, who habitually squinted at things, had almost closed his eyes completely. A surge of sword qi filled the narrow alley.
Bits of mud wall debris fell to the ground.
The sword-bearing woman quietly took a step back, as if to make more battlefield space for the sword grandmaster Xu Hunran.
She looked at the burly man not far away, a hint of mockery curling at the corner of her mouth.
A mangy dog with a broken spine, daring to bark?
This man named Wang Yifu had been one of the great generals of the Lu Dynasty, born into a top-tier military family of generals for generations. Before his surrender, his status was equivalent to Dali’s Pillar of State. The Dali martial god Song Changjing had long ago named Wang Yifu as someone he wanted to fight heartily. Wang’s military command was not exceptional, but his personal martial prowess was extremely high. Though a Qi refiner, he possessed the robust physique of an Eighth Realm martial artist. He was proficient in saber techniques and could control a powerful yin spirit of a famous jade to fight alongside him—truly one of the few genuine masters of the Lu Dynasty.
The woman extended a small hand as delicate as mutton-fat jade, waving it, “Xu Hunran, no need to be tense. General Wang is a reasonable man, just a bit too upright. Now that we’re on the same side, don’t resort to violence over a disagreement. I really don’t like that.”
Xu Hunran silently withdrew the vast sword qi in one of his sleeves.
But in the next moment, the woman added, “What if I take the person Wang Yifu has sacrificed his life and dignity to protect, and instead of sending him to the agreed place, send him to the imperial palace or the Bureau of Music?”
Wang Yifu, staring at her, clenched his fists until the veins bulged and his eyes turned bloodshot.
The woman said calmly, “Earlier, I only said to spare his life. So Wang Yifu, don’t take my kindness for granted.”
Wang Yifu suddenly laughed, “Your Highness is right. This subordinate was wrong.”
The woman smiled, “Good, admitting your mistake. Then after you leave this alley, don’t follow us. Go and take off the head of the former supervisor official, put it in a wooden box. I might need it later.”
Wang Yifu was stunned, “Song Yuzhang is an official sent here by the emperor’s decree. Your Highness also said before that this man has backers in both the Ministry of Rites and the Imperial Observatory. Why kill him?”
The woman laughed in reply, “Does killing need a reason? Then what’s the point of me being Her Highness?”
Wang Yifu sighed, clasped his fists, and bowed his head, “This subordinate accepts the order.”
The four of them left Mud Bottle Alley one after another. Wang Yifu parted ways with the other three.
After the burly man—who had surrendered to Dali and pledged loyalty to Her Highness—had completely disappeared from view, Xu Hunran couldn’t help but sneer, “What a man of iron backbone, Wang Yifu! Hah, now he’s lost both bones and spine.”
The woman didn’t head toward the crowded main street but chose a secluded alley instead. She said self-deprecatingly, “Do you really think I can’t tell right from wrong?”
The old swordsman didn’t know how to reply, so he simply shut his mouth.
Looking up at the blue sky, the woman sighed for no reason, “Only by being in the situation myself do I realize that Qi Jingchun, that scholar, was truly formidable.”
“Our Dali let him down.”
“Such an extraordinary man, it’s a pity he couldn’t be used by Dali. No wonder His Majesty has been gloomy and sighing these days.”
“But no matter how formidable Qi Jingchun was, he still died in the end.”
The woman lamented all the way, every word from the heart.
When the woman fell silent for a long time, Xu Hunran remembered something. First, he flicked his sleeve, spreading sword qi all around, then asked in a low voice, “Your Highness, to kill just a suddenly wealthy alley boy—aren’t we overdoing it?”
The woman seemed too lazy to answer such a question and said offhandedly, “Yang Hua, you tell him.”
The sword-bearing woman said coldly, “A lion uses its full strength against a rabbit—a single fatal strike.”
The old swordsman was speechless.
The woman tugged at the corner of her mouth, “Although my uncle is a martial artist, he once said something brilliant: Never, ever hand an enemy a head on a silver platter.”
----
Unlike his colleagues from the Ministry of Rites who lodged at Peach Leaf Alley, Song Yuzhang lived alone on Riding Dragon Alley, in a residence whose owner had just moved out.
Song Yuzhang sat by the table with the door open. There was a wine jug, a plate of salted peanuts, and a large bowl of rice wine. This former supervisor official had been rooted in this town for fifteen full years. Everything he ate and drank was familiar to his tongue.
When he saw a burly man appear out of thin air in the courtyard, Song Yuzhang, who had just lifted his wine bowl, smiled. “Finally, you’ve come.”
He raised the white bowl high and asked, “Can you wait until I finish this bowl of wine?”
The uninvited guest hesitated briefly, then nodded.
Seeming afraid that the guest might get impatient, Song Yuzhang downed half a bowl of strong liquor in one gulp. His face flushed, and he asked, “Can you take a message to that boy called Song Jixin? Well, from now on, he’ll probably be called Song Mu.”
A hint of pleading appeared in this middle-aged man’s eyes. “Can you tell him that this fellow named Song Yuzhang, all these years, has always wanted to ask him for a pair of Spring Festival couplets?”
This time, the burly man resolutely shook his head, “No!”
Song Yuzhang took a deep breath. Slowly closing his eyes, his face showed complete relief. He murmured softly, “When I was young, I loved reading travelogues. I read about Old Dragon City at the southernmost tip of East Bottle Gourd Continent, where great tides crash against the shore all year round—a grand spectacle of the world. So let this bowl of Dali wine be the waters of the South Sea tide.”
Wang Yifu strode forward and snapped the neck of this Dali Ministry of Rites official with one hand.
After killing the man, Wang Yifu felt no joy. Gently, he placed the body face-down on the table, as if dead drunk.
As a man from a fallen nation and a defeated general, Wang Yifu poured himself a bowl of wine, drank silently, and finally said to the dead man across the table, “So it turns out that scholars, too, can have fine heads.”