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Volume 2 | After One Stepped Down, Another Would Step Up

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Zhou Zishu frowned at his hand that had been flung off. Ye Baiyi looked back and coolly said, “Not bad. You’ve finally pushed him over the edge to his death, are you satisfied?”

Wen Kexing was the only one with some conscience: he bent to ‘retrieve’ Zhang Chengling, placed a palm on his back, and channelled a thin thread of true qi into his body. A while later, he made a soft sound of surprise, and said, “This kid…unbelievably, his meridians are wider across than those of any ordinary person by nature. Could it be that he’s actually a wondrous talent?”

Zhou Zishu replied, “Indeed. I discovered it when I was helping him regulate his qi after he was injured by Enchanted Song’s shockwaves that time.”

He took Zhang Chengling from Wen Kexing’s hands. The youth’s face was pale and his brow was tightly knit. The hems of his trouser legs dangled above his ankles, just on this side of too short. In the short jiffy of a month and a half, he seemed to have grown a little taller again. Zhang Chengling was born to the Zhang family, and was, furthermore, Hero Zhang’s only son; after so many years, he should not have been this lacklustre. That day, when Zhou Zishu had helped to heal his injury, he had discovered that this child’s neigong foundations had in fact been sturdily built; it was only that he could not use it.

To draw a comparison, he was like a young child who had been armed with a sharp weapon, but had not the strength to wield it.

Witnessing this, Ye Baiyi also found it interesting, and reached a hand over to pinch Zhang Chengling on various parts of his body. He remarked curiously, “Unbelievably, such a person exists on this earth: one with a phenomenally stupid brain, but born with great physique. Is Heaven intending for him to lead a blessed life, or a difficult one?”

Thereafter, he glanced at Zhou Zishu and said, “His meridians are clear and wide. He is excellent material to work with in the first place, but his ability to grasp concepts is too poor, and conversely he has more difficulty than any other to figure out the path…yes, you can push him a little further; anyway, he won’t be dying anytime soon.”

Most thankfully, Zhang Chengling had merely fainted.

Because of Zhang Chengling, that day, the other three decided to find a place to stay and wait a night for this little tyke to recover before entering the mountains. As usual, Zhou Zishu was punctually tortured into wakefulness at midnight by the nails in him. He curled up into a ball, fingers pressing on his chest, but he did not use his internal energy to suppress it. He only laid on the bed with his eyes open, staring at the moonlight shining in through the window, looking as if he was in a daze–he was intimately experiencing the sensation of those nails in his body.

Compared to before, the Three Autumn Nails of the Seven Acupunctures did not only hurt when they acted up now. The original sensation that felt like someone was using a small knife to rummage around in his chest appeared to have lessened, or it might have been that he had already grown numb to it. Conversely, there was a new, gradual sensation of something weighing down on his chest that caused his breath to stutter between exhalations, and it seemed to have grown more and more distinct over the past few days.

Zhou Zishu knew that this was some kind of omen–of the three years, slightly less than half of it had already passed.

A long time ago, he had always thought that these three additional years were a sort of kindness. But he only knew now that it was, in fact, another form of cruel torture.

Death did not scare him–for the past twenty-odd years, it had not been easy for him to survive till today. All the techniques he had used to force Zhang Chengling to pick up gongfu were ones that he had suffered through when he was younger; he had suffered even more merciless ones, and he did not even have that child’s natural gift to stand that harshness without the slightest bit of damage. He had lived through so much, experienced so many events that he was unafraid of anyone or anything on this earth. If he was fearless in life, what was so terrifying about death?

However, what agonised him were these three years, in which he had to count down the days as he awaited his death.

He had weathered through so much with his unshakeable will, and never once held a death wish. Yet, in these days–where he had the most freedom, had the least attachments to miss, and was most merry and wild–he had to wait for death to come. Wasn’t it very ironic?

Zhou Zishu discovered that this was probably another stupid thing that he had done.

At this moment, there was a light knock on his door from the outside. Zhou Zishu paused, taken aback–Wen Kexing and Ye Baiyi never knocked. He climbed off the bed. The surge of dull pain in his chest nearly made him lie back down again. His hand unconsciously tightened around the blanket; drawing in two deep breaths, he engaged his true qi with strenuous effort to suppress that suffocating feeling, before finally putting on a sullen expression to answer the door.

Zhang Chengling was standing outside, one hand still hesitantly raised like he had wanted to knock again. Once the door opened and he saw Zhou Zishu’s poor complexion, he instantly lowered his head guiltily and in distress like he had committed some abominable sin, and mumbled in a voice as soft as a mosquito’s buzz, “Shifu.”

Zhou Zishu frowned. “What are you doing?”

The corner of Zhang Chengling’s mouth tugged downwards. He looked as though he wanted to cry, but was holding it back. “Shifu, I just woke up…and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

Zhou Zishu crossed his arms and leant against the door jamb, scoffing, “So…you’re saying that you want me to sing you a lullaby and lull you to sleep?”

Zhang Chengling buried his head even lower; Zhou Zishu worried that his neck was going to snap. It was currently deep in winter, and even in Shuzhong, it was rather chilly at midnight. With his internal injury acting up, Zhou Zishu could not withstand the cold too well. Still feeling a little cold from the slight breeze blowing at him, he picked up his wine flask and took a huge swig, looking at Zhang Chengling with annoyance as he asked, “Can you be more straightforward? If you have something to say, quickly say it, if you have a fart to let loose, quickly let it loose.”

Zhang Chengling said in a quiet voice, “Shifu, I dreamt of my father and them again. It’s been so long, why haven’t I forgotten them? Am I especially useless?”

Zhou Zishu paused. After a long while, Zhang Chengling assumed that Zhou Zishu did not want to bother with him any longer, and furtively lifted his head to look at him. He was very much regretting coming over here without a second thought, but discovered that Zhou Zishu had turned slightly to take a step aside, and faintly nodded at him, signalling for him to enter.

Like he had been greatly relieved of a burden, Zhang Chengling waddled in obediently after him.

Zhou Zishu lit the candle. There was no water in the room, so he took a cup, unfastened the flask to pour half a cup of wine, and handed it to Zhang Chengling. Zhang Chengling did not know that his wine was strong and drank a mouthful, only to feel a small fire burn a line from his throat to his stomach. His face turned red instantly and he choked, unable to form any words.

Zhou Zishu looked at his silly demeanour, and his tense face relaxed slightly of its own accord. He turned his head aside, chuckling lightly.

This was Zhang Chengling’s first time seeing his “strict master” laugh in his direction with his own face, and he did not dare to even exhale too loudly, staring dumbly at him.

When they had met in Jiangnan that year, he had no one to rely on. Around him, there was only this man who talked loquaciously to others but had few words for him, and he clung to him like a drowning man grasping at a lifeline. He knew that his shifu was good, and could not help but want to be close to him, but was also afraid that he sparked his irritation–although his shifu did look like he was perpetually irritated by him. Slowly, this cautious treading turned into fearful respect; every time he wanted to talk to him, he had to undergo a bout of trembling from his nerves.

But even so, every time he felt sad, he still could not help but come look for him–in Zhang Chengling’s heart, his father and shifu looked completely different from head to toe, but for some unknown reason, he just felt that they were the same sort of person.

That sort of person who was tall and broad, courageous and strong, and who…treated him well.

Zhang Chengling said, “Shifu, we followed Senior Ye here to look for that Puppet Manor and to ask about the Lapis Armour. After we clarify the things that happened so many years ago, will we then know why they wanted to kill my father?”

Zhou Zishu cocked an eyebrow, and avoided the topic to give a brisk answer, “Who knows.”

Zhang Chengling frowned, and wracked his brains over it for a moment before saying, “Shifu, do you think that there are people who will kill others without any reason? I’ve thought a lot about it, is the reason why they want to kill my father because my father has done something evil?”

Zhou Zishu thought about it for a while. This question was too immense, and had stumped him. Not knowing how to explain it for the moment, he lowered his head to look at that little tyke who was still furrowing his brow like he was troubled to the bones, picked him up by the collar, and dragged him out of the room, saying, “Since you’ve slept so much in the day that it’s left you with fuck-all to do now and unable to sleep, as the stupid and slow bird has to set off first to avoid falling behind, you might as well practice properly. It seems like I haven’t pushed you hard enough, that you still have the energy to continue imagining nonsensical things.”

As he spoke, he grabbed a handful of small pebbles from the ground, bent his fingers and, out of the blue, flicked them at Zhang Chengling. Zhang Chengling was unable to dodge in time; the pebble hit him right in the head, and just as he exclaimed “aiyo”, another pebble had arrived. Left with no choice, he could only scramble away on his hands and knees, while his evil demon of a shifu derided, “In the gongfu I taught you, there isn’t a move called ‘Dog Eats Shit’.”

At this moment, Zhang Chengling did not have time to think, and could only put in his whole effort to counter those small pebbles cascading onto him like a tightly-woven net with no way out. He only let out a sigh of relief when Zhou Zishu had depleted his pebbles, but even before he had finished exhaling that breath, he heard Zhou Zishu say, “Was that thing you performed the Drifting Clouds Nine Palaces Formation? Even a spider’s crawl is more pleasant to look at! The first few steps were still adequately performed, but what were those steps at the end? You stay here, and do it once through from beginning to end. If you make a mistake again, I’ll break your damn legs!”

Frightened into extreme wariness, in a manner reminiscent of a baby learning how to walk, Zhang Chengling deeply contemplated each step before he lifted his leg. He was treading more carefully than the crippled old granny, as if he was terrified of stepping on and killing even one ant on the ground. From time to time, he still had to sneak a peek at Zhou Zishu, constantly worried that Zhou Zishu would give him trouble all of a sudden and really break his damn legs.

Zhou Zishu sat down, brooding that this little thing was certainly useless. His chest still felt tight; momentarily unable to hold it back, he turned his head aside and started coughing. An ominous trace of a flush surfaced on his pale side profile. Under the moonlight, it looked rather frightening in its severity.

At this moment, he felt a warmth on his back. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Wen Kexing, who had appeared sometime ago without him noticing, standing behind him and settling an overcoat on him. Silently, he sat beside Zhou Zishu, and after a while, asked out of the blue, “Does it hurt?”

Zhou Zishu scoffed. “How about you give it a try too?”

Abruptly, Wen Kexing stretched his hand out to test the waters, gently brushing open the front of his robes. For some unknown reason, Zhou Zishu did not duck away, but sat there, the flask with half the wine remaining in it still dangling from his hand. Wen Kexing took in the sight of his chest, which was as skeletal as his fingers were, and the topmost nail hammered into it. The light in his eyes flickered. Then, he drew in a sudden, deep breath of air, and refastened Zhou Zishu’s robes.

The two of them sat shoulder to shoulder, but had no words for each other at this moment.

A while later, Wen Kexing finally asked, “I say, after spending so much effort all these years, I’ve finally found this one person that I have affinity with and is to my liking. Can you not die on me?”

Zhou Zishu asked in reply, “Is that something I have a say in?”

Wen Kexing did not say anything else. Suddenly sighing, he moved his gaze away from Zhou Zishu as though he did not wish to see him any longer, and fixed his eyes on Zhang Chengling, who was wobbling in the courtyard like an infant learning how to walk. Casually picking up a few pebbles from the ground, he flicked one out, hitting Zhang Chengling right on his bottom, and said, “Little tyke, what they call martial lightness of the body all comes down to one word: speed. You’re over there taking your own time like you’re embroidering flowers, is that practicing qinggong? The steps and all that are superficial–even a spirit possession dancer might still have steps to follow. Even if you do not make a single misstep, is there any use in doing it so slowly?”

Zhang Chengling looked at the two of them, feeling very wronged. He discovered that not only did these two differ in their opinions on practicing qi, they also had differed in the ways they taught qinggong; there was simply no way for him to keep living.

To one side, Wen Kexing kept nagging “You have to be quick”, while casting the pebbles at him in pursuit. Although Zhou Zishu did not speak, his gaze did not leave Zhang Chengling’s feet a single inch, as he predatorily waited for him to slip up so that he could have an excuse to break his legs–

This one night could not have been more nerve-wracking.

Zhang Chengling sighed quietly in his heart, and suddenly recalled that his dream all along had not been to become some peerless master. If it had not been for the sudden tragedy of the Zhang family, he, in truth, had only wanted to open a dessert shop in the future, earn enough to feed his family, perform his filial duties, and busy himself with harmoniously welcoming and sending people off each day.

He had never dared to speak of this dream. Now, he was terrified of even thinking of it alone.

At dawn of the second day, after Ye Baiyi had eaten eight steamers of buns and downed two enormous bowls of congee without pause, and just as Zhou Zishu and the other two were preparing to move to another table, he finally announced that he was bringing them into the mountains today–he had thought of a way to break the formation surrounding the Puppet Manor.

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