A checkpoint had been set up south of Yicheng. By the time Fu Xi Yan and the others arrived, the line already stretched so far that its beginning could no longer be seen. After a while, the queue behind them also grew longer and longer, while their progress forward remained painfully slow.
They had set out early in the morning. By noon, they had advanced only one zhang. Complaints gradually rose around them. Someone tried to console the others, saying that being allowed out at all was already fortunate, since many places had completely sealed their passes. The conversation then naturally shifted to the current situation between the northern and southern dynasties.
Elio’s Notes: A zhang (丈) is a traditional Chinese unit of length, roughly 3.3 meters in the modern standardized measure.
No matter how harsh Emperor Jianhong was toward aristocratic clans and court officials, his reputation among the common people was still fairly good. Someone therefore congratulated himself on being from Northern Zhou and, from the safety of the opposite shore, sympathetically lamented the misery of Southern Yu’s people. A Southern Yu native immediately shot back by asking why he was leaving the pass, then. The man explained that he owned considerable property in Southern Yu and intended to sell everything off before the flames of war spread there.
Fu Xi Yan found the whole situation rather strange.
Speed was the essence of war. If they truly intended to fight, should they not simply launch the attack in secret? Why stir up public opinion before the armies had even moved? How were they supposed to fight after that? Surely they could not march troops up to a city wall only to have someone standing on top shout, You finally made it! I’ve been waiting so long the food’s gone cold!
Still, no matter how many television dramas Fu Xi Yan had watched, all he possessed was armchair knowledge. When it came to something like war, he ultimately understood very little. Besides, plenty of examples from his previous life had proved that real wars were not always as brilliant as people imagined. Generals were not all divine strategists capable of planning everything from their tents and winning battles a thousand li away. Bizarre, ridiculous, incomprehensible things happened all the time.
They waited another six hours. By then the sky had already darkened, with only a strip of fading light remaining in the west, but at last they reached the checkpoint. Fu Xi Yan saw the wealthy merchant climb down from his carriage again.
The escort chief had deliberately mentioned Mr. You earlier, which had made Fu Xi Yan curious. He quietly used the Spirit-Sight Art to take a look and discovered that the color of the man’s soul was dim and its glow extremely weak, as though he did not have much longer to live.
After passing through the checkpoint, they rested by the roadside for the night. The next day, they went to the ferry landing to look for a boat.
Cabin space on the north-south river routes was currently in extremely high demand. The escort chief negotiated for quite a while before finally getting everyone settled. Unfortunately, the berths assigned to Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin were atrocious. Not only was it a communal sleeping room, there was not even a window. The instant they stepped inside, they were hit by an odor that might have been foot stink, sweat, bad breath, or some horrifying blend of all three.
Before Pei Yuan Jin could even lose his temper, Fu Xi Yan’s face had already gone dark. The escort who had come with them was equally displeased. He casually chose a bunk, then immediately went back outside for air.
Fu Xi Yan reacted quickly and claimed a corner spot, but the wall, the bed, and the quilt were all grimy, and there was a strong smell of mildew. The moment he finished choosing, he regretted it.
Before he could hesitate, Pei Yuan Jin had already taken his hand and pulled him back outside.
Fu Xi Yan carried the egg and their luggage without putting up the slightest resistance. The two of them were just about to go up on deck for some fresh air when a worker blocked them at the passageway and impatiently shooed them back. “People from below aren’t allowed upstairs!”
Fu Xi Yan was not angry. He merely asked curiously, “Then what do we do for meals?”
“They’ll bring food down when it’s time!”
“What if we need the toilet?”
“Isn’t there one down there?”
“What if we want to look at the scenery?”
The worker finally lost his temper. “Why do you have so many demands? If you want to see the scenery, pay up. Ten copper coins and I’ll let you go up for one look!”
Fu Xi Yan handed him a small piece of silver.
The worker froze for a moment, accepted the silver, then waved them through. He was probably wondering why someone willing to waste money like this had not simply paid for better accommodations in the first place.
Once Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin reached the deck, they rented an upper-class cabin at five times the normal price. The difference between the upper cabin and the communal room below was like heaven and earth. Light filtered through the paper windows, the room was bright and airy, the bed was comfortable, the pillows were soft, and a pleasant fragrance filled the entire space.
Fu Xi Yan threw himself face-first onto the bed and lay there happily for a while. Then he abruptly sat up. “I think we might be idiots!”
Pei Yuan Jin leisurely prepared tea. They had been exhausted by constant travel lately, and it had been a long time since he had been able to sit down properly and brew tea for himself. Faced with his “roommate’s” lament, he merely raised an eyebrow and offered no opinion.
Fu Xi Yan said, “We’ve been tossing ourselves back and forth this whole time. The Spirit Sect hasn’t even done anything to us yet, and we’ve already tormented ourselves half to death.”
Pei Yuan Jin began heating the water.
Holding the Red Peng egg, Fu Xi Yan said mournfully, “Son, son, ever since we started traveling with you, your dad has aged into a faded beauty. Once beauty fades, love grows cold. Your little dad barely pays attention to me anymore. Looks like from now on, it’ll just be the two of us relying on each other.”
“Little dad?” Pei Yuan Jin instantly seized upon the least important point.
Fu Xi Yan sniffed. “Listen to that. Your little dad doesn’t even want to acknowledge you anymore… Holy shit!” He suddenly raised both hands and stared at the egg on his legs as though he had seen a ghost. “Did you see that just now? The egg… moved by itself.”
Pei Yuan Jin looked toward the Red Peng egg. The round egg lay calmly on Fu Xi Yan’s thigh as though nothing whatsoever had happened, yet for some inexplicable reason, the sight irritated him.
Fu Xi Yan gently stroked the egg and let his imagination run wild. “Do you think what happened just now counts as fetal movement?”
Pei Yuan Jin: “…” What he had seen just now must have been an illusion.
Fu Xi Yan lay on the bed with the egg in his arms and soon fell into a deep sleep. He had not slept at all the previous night. Physically, he was not particularly tired, but psychologically he kept feeling as though he owed himself a full night’s sleep and needed to repay the debt.
Pei Yuan Jin sat by the window, where he could see the person on the bed simply by lifting his eyes.
He had already finished the tea. Now he was silently studying Fu Xi Yan’s notes on the cultivation method within the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror.
The mistaken path of the Martial God Stage had enormous consequences. At the very least, the direction of his previous cultivation needed to be adjusted, and none of the insights Pei Xiong Ji had left behind could be used anymore.
By all logic, remaining on Fujun Mountain, staying in the Immortal Treasury Palace, and waiting beside Pei Xiong Ji and the elders for them to blaze a new path would have been the safest choice. Following in the footsteps of those who had gone before was always the most reliable route. Unfortunately, that kind of safety did not suit Pei Yuan Jin’s martial path.
Another interpretation of advancing without retreat was to cut through thorns and brambles. Every obstacle blocking the way ahead had to be split apart by his own sword before his state of mind could reach completion. Fu Xi Yan’s martial path resembled his in some ways, but was even more perilous. To fall into hopelessness and then seek hope was a path of survival wrested from a dead end, a path that contended with Heaven, Earth, and man alike. Pei Yuan Jin had never fully understood why Fu Xi Yan would choose such a difficult road, but after hearing his descriptions of cultivation, he understood a little better.
To seize the fortune of Heaven and Earth was, by its very nature, to transcend Heaven and Earth. That was the destiny of a cultivator and the boldness a cultivator required. To travel farther, one first had to see higher.
The thought had barely arisen when he suddenly felt something loosen in his heart. His true essence began spinning rapidly. A moment later, it unexpectedly took on a scorched-yellow hue…
Fu Xi Yan’s eyes snapped open.
Pei Yuan Jin leaned against the back of the chair with his eyes closed, his face calm, while spiritual energy poured madly into his body. The temperature inside the room rose in a straight line. Within only a few blinks, it had already become as hot as the height of summer.
Fu Xi Yan activated the Spirit-Sight Art. He had barely taken one look when pain stabbed through both eyes. The scorching brilliance forced tears from them, and if the Heaven-and-Earth Mirror had not reacted in time, his eyes might have been ruined.
Was he about to advance to Golden Core?
Fu Xi Yan’s scalp went numb. If he remembered correctly, advancing to Golden Core meant getting struck by lightning, and they were currently on a boat.
He was just about to open the door and rush outside to evacuate everyone when the temperature in the room strangely began to fall again. The speed at which Pei Yuan Jin absorbed spiritual energy also gradually slowed.
Fu Xi Yan’s heart was both panicked and anxious. He was already thinking that if Pei Yuan Jin ended up seriously injured, he would force the Heaven Mirror out and use it as an emergency medical kit.
Fortunately, after a while, Pei Yuan Jin opened his eyes. Then he said something that made Fu Xi Yan’s expression change drastically. “My true essence has been sealed.”
Fu Xi Yan stared at him blankly. “When will it unseal?”
“I don’t know.” Pei Yuan Jin was helpless too.
This sudden enlightenment had come without warning, and he had made no preparations whatsoever. After all, he had only recently entered the Martial King Stage. His realm had not yet stabilized, and he had not prepared an auxiliary medicine such as the Golden Origin Pill. As a result, he had only broken through a tiny amount before losing the strength to continue. He could do nothing but watch as his true essence condensed into a small round sphere and sealed all his meridians without actually reaching the level of a Golden Core. If martial strength alone were the standard, his current condition was even worse than Elders Tan and Yu.
Yet he was not worried. That tiny breakthrough was like a narrow crack opening in the door to the Golden Core Stage. He had only glimpsed a single spot through a bamboo tube, but that glimpse was enough to give him absolute confidence that the path he was taking this time was correct.
Fu Xi Yan, however, was thinking about their present circumstances and the place they were about to go, not to mention what they intended to do once they got there. His scalp went numb all over again.
He opened the window. Cold wind rushed inside and struck his forehead, clearing his thoughts. The distant riverbank was still a thick belt rather than an unreachable line on the horizon. He said solemnly, “Let’s swim back.” Going after Ban Qing Yu and Wu Xuan Yin in their current condition was practically the same as volunteering to die.
Pei Yuan Jin remained silent.
For someone whose path was to advance without retreat, there was no road backward. At the Southern Yu imperial palace, he had yielded once, and that had opened a crack in his state of mind. If he turned back again now, perhaps the scenery he had glimpsed through that narrow opening today would forever remain beyond his reach.
Fu Xi Yan stood in the wind for another moment, then turned around. “We need to move back downstairs.”
Pei Yuan Jin looked at him. By now he seemed used to Fu Xi Yan’s jumping train of thought. In any case, Fu Xi Yan always arrived at a conclusion eventually. Sure enough, Fu Xi Yan continued, “We still need to keep using our identities as secret agents.”
To tell the truth, after leaving the communal room, Fu Xi Yan had already prepared himself for their cover to be blown. The professional threshold for being a secret agent was simply too high. The sheer endurance and patience required were qualities he and Pei Yuan Jin were probably incapable of maintaining for long. He had not even thought about how he would explain their sudden disappearance to the other escorts. If the escort chief noticed, Fu Xi Yan had been ready to simply lay his cards on the table. But now the situation had changed again.
With Pei Yuan Jin temporarily out of combat, Fu Xi Yan had no choice but to consider whether the hand they were holding should remain hidden a little longer.
Apart from the Spirit Sect’s two great experts, Ban Qing Yu and Wu Xuan Yin, the young Southern Yu emperor also had the Taoshan brothers beside him, both at the late Martial King Stage. Any one of them could be a fatal threat.
But Fu Xi Yan also understood that asking Pei Yuan Jin to retreat now was impossible. After entering the Dao, Fu Xi Yan had come to understand the importance of a martial artist’s state of mind. Besides, his own martial path was survival from a dead end, and what lay before them was precisely such a dead end. It was a challenge, but it was also an opportunity. What he needed to consider now was how to survive it.
Remain hidden and endure at least until they were inside Southern Yu. That was the first thought that came to him.
If their identities were exposed here, then with the Spirit Sect’s and the young Southern Yu emperor’s eyes and ears, their movements would no longer remain hidden. They therefore had to enter Southern Yu quietly, then find a way, under their limited circumstances, to help Pei Yuan Jin truly reach Golden Core.
Only then would they have any hope of reversing the situation.
And the prerequisite for keeping that hope alive was to keep the escort chief steady.
Fu Xi Yan sighed and looked at Pei Yuan Jin. Pei Yuan Jin did not look particularly pleased, but he still nodded.
Fu Xi Yan quickly restored everything in the cabin to its original state, then secretly stole back the boat fare they had paid that day and erased their traces. Even if someone later noticed something strange, there would be no clear explanation and no evidence, so the matter would naturally end there. Who would waste time investigating something so trivial?
Before returning to the communal room, however, Fu Xi Yan secretly went to take a look at the escort chief.
Ever since spying on Liu Huan’s enormous secret, he had become somewhat addicted to the feeling. It was like buying a lottery ticket or opening a blind box. Who knew whether a single glance might reveal some astonishing secret?
Unfortunately, his luck was not always so good.
Perhaps the boat fare was expensive enough to make even the wealthy merchant feel the pinch. This time, the escort chief was sleeping on the floor inside the merchant’s cabin rather than in a separate room. The two barely spoke, but whether the escort chief was simply acting so well that he had immersed himself completely in the role, or whether this wealthy merchant had some other background, the chief’s manner toward him was clearly very respectful.
Fu Xi Yan watched for a while. When the two still did not speak, he gave up and returned to the communal room with Pei Yuan Jin.
Their long absence had clearly attracted the attention of many of the escorts. Their corner had already been taken, and the two of them had been moved to the middle instead, where two shabby quilts had been thrown down for them.
The escorts looked at them rather nervously when they returned.
Fu Xi Yan raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He simply took clothes from their bundle, padded the pillow with them, and lay down beside Pei Yuan Jin.
Pei Yuan Jin was obviously not used to having his meridians blocked. In particular, his body, which had always run hot, had suddenly cooled, making him somewhat sensitive to the cold. He said nothing aloud, but Fu Xi Yan was holding his hand. How could he not notice? After lying down, Fu Xi Yan covered him with an additional padded jacket.
“Pfft.” Someone sneered in the darkness.
Fu Xi Yan turned his head. The man was lying on his side and staring in their direction because he had a lump on the back of his head. It was the same escort who had called them disgusting at dawn for holding hands.
He said, “What exactly is the relationship between you two? Always holding hands. Don’t tell me you’re a pair of rabbit boys?”
Elio’s Notes: 兔爷 (tùyé), literally “Lord Rabbit,” could be used historically as a mocking or derogatory term for a male homosexual or male prostitute. Here the escort uses it as an insult.
Fu Xi Yan sighed. “Actually, it’s because I’m sick.”
“What illness?”
Quite a few people in the communal room were eager for entertainment. All of them pricked up their ears.
Fu Xi Yan said, “When my illness acts up, it can get pretty serious. He holds my hand to keep me under control.”
The escort scoffed again, clearly not believing him.
Fu Xi Yan said, “Then let’s try letting go and see.”
A moment later, in the darkness, atop the bunks, from the escort’s mouth came—
“Ah!”
After swiftly punching him in the face, Fu Xi Yan turned to Pei Yuan Jin and cried hypocritically, “Quick, quick, hold me down! I still want to hit him. I can’t control myself!”
“You think I’m an idiot?!” The dizzy escort jumped up to retaliate, only for Fu Xi Yan to bump him seemingly by accident, sending him crashing into a whole row of people.
The others finally recovered and rushed forward in a flurry to restrain him. Someone also tried to hold Fu Xi Yan back, only to discover that Fu Xi Yan was sitting cross-legged obediently on his bunk with one hand clasped around Pei Yuan Jin’s, looking perfectly emotionally stable.
“Forget it, forget it.”
Everyone tried to mediate.
“Forget my ass!” The escort with the lump stretched out a foot and tried to charge forward again.
Fu Xi Yan muttered aggrievedly, “I told you I was sick.”
The escort sprayed spittle as he shouted, “If you’re sick, then I’m fucking sick with stupidity!”
Fu Xi Yan exclaimed in astonishment, “That sounds hard to cure!”
While restraining the escort, the others whispered, “Tell the chief tomorrow. Stop making trouble tonight!”
Far too many people wanted the matter settled. The escort with the lump was forcibly moved to the farthest corner bunk. One pair of fists could not defeat so many hands. After several failed attempts to break free, he could only give up resentfully, although once everything became quiet, they could still hear him cursing alone in the corner.
Another sleepless passenger finally could not stand it and yelled, “For fuck’s sake, are you ever going to stop?”
“I wasn’t cursing your mother! Why the hell are you butting in?!”
“Fuck your mother!”
The quarrel flared up again.
The others therefore had no choice but to get back up with them.
In the darkness came another round of frantic “Forget it, forget it” and “Save it for tomorrow.”
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin slept soundly hand in hand, their contribution to the chaos buried deep and their names left unsung.
Life in the communal room was indeed unbearably dull. Apart from the two candles delivered during the day, most of the time they remained in darkness. The oppressive environment made people irritable and restless. After the first day, arguments never stopped. In short, by the time the boat docked, the escort with the lump had not only failed to recover, he somehow looked even worse.
Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin, meanwhile, spent the first two days nearly dying from the smell, but afterward they actually began to grow accustomed to it. Sometimes, under Pei Yuan Jin’s cover, Fu Xi Yan would even secretly cultivate.
When a worker finally told them they could disembark, Fu Xi Yan almost felt as though time had flown past.
Watching the others rush outside with desperate eagerness, Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin leisurely stayed at the back.
The instant Fu Xi Yan stepped out of the cabin, even the overcast sky seemed dazzlingly bright. The cold air carried by the wind felt almost like a spring breeze. Fu Xi Yan even felt his state of mind, which had not changed for a long time, suddenly open up. It was as though a layer of shackles had fallen away and some new understanding had become clear.
…
Did survival from a dead end actually include improvement of one’s living environment?
If he poked a hornet’s nest, then jumped into the water before getting stung and escaped disaster, would that count too?
His imagination ran wild. Then he turned toward Pei Yuan Jin just as Pei Yuan Jin looked back at him.
Although Pei Yuan Jin’s meridians and true qi were sealed, his martial realm remained. Naturally, he could see the sudden difference in Fu Xi Yan’s state before and after that instant, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Fu Xi Yan looked into his eyes and could not help smiling too.
At last he understood what it meant for beauty to lie in the eyes of one’s lover. The face before him was plainly ordinary and had absolutely nothing to do with handsomeness, yet what Fu Xi Yan saw was still that incomparably handsome Young Master Pei.
As soon as they disembarked, they saw the escort with the lump surrounded by several other escorts as he chattered furiously at the chief. He was obviously lodging a complaint.
The escort chief looked over with a cold gaze. Fu Xi Yan met it with a perfectly open expression.
The chief said a few words to placate the man, then told Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin, “You two, come with me.”
Fu Xi Yan obediently walked over, already wondering what excuse he should use to muddle through. Instead, the chief said, “From here on, you’ll have to rely on yourselves. Remember, the best plan is no plan at all. Act according to circumstances.”
Fu Xi Yan was actually extremely curious about Mr. You’s identity, but he was afraid the more he said, the more mistakes he would make. He therefore merely nodded as though instructed. The escort chief then put on a show of scolding them before sending them ahead to scout the road.
Seeing the two of them leave looking “crestfallen,” the escort with the lump wore a smug expression.
Fu Xi Yan glared fiercely at him. Once he turned away, however, he asked Pei Yuan Jin, “Do you think he’s genuinely stupid, or is he pretending?”
Pei Yuan Jin said calmly, “At least two of the people who broke up the fight are close to him.”
Fu Xi Yan thought about it and realized there was quite a bit hidden in that remark.
Usually, when friends broke up a fight, they restrained the other side so their own friend could sneak in a few extra blows. Yet that night, those people had all restrained the escort with the lump. Of course, part of the reason was that Fu Xi Yan had not needed restraining, but they could just as easily have chosen not to restrain anyone at all.
Were they acting too?
He shook his head. Unable to figure it out, he stopped thinking. As expected of a bodyguard journey introduced by his idol. It really was interesting.
Northern Zhou’s checkpoints were heavily guarded, and Southern Yu’s were much the same. Yet no one knew what the escort chief showed the officials on duty. In less than a moment, the whole group was simply waved through.
As Fu Xi Yan passed the checkpoint, he could still see the resentful looks of the people waiting in the queue behind them. So few people were being allowed through quickly that a large empty stretch had formed ahead. Groups of soldiers crisscrossed the open ground on patrol. As the two sides approached each other, Fu Xi Yan suddenly grabbed Pei Yuan Jin’s hand.
The Wind Chime trembling inside his clothes told him the newcomers meant harm.
Sure enough, at the instant they passed each other, the seemingly careless soldiers suddenly drew their blades, cut through the carriage reins, then turned their weapons toward the group.
The scouts in front naturally took the brunt of the attack.
Without revealing what he was doing, Fu Xi Yan stepped in front of Pei Yuan Jin. If a dignified Martial King were injured by a few soldiers who had not even reached the True Essence Stage, it would become a black joke remembered for a thousand years. Pei Yuan Jin looked helpless.
Even without being able to use true qi, he was hardly so weak. Still, he enjoyed his lover’s concern, so he obediently remained behind Fu Xi Yan and watched him wield an ordinary saber issued by the escort agency. His movements looked disorganized, yet every strike landed in precisely the right place to block the attacks.
The escort chief had already leaped from the carriage with the wealthy merchant on his back the instant the reins were cut. Several soldiers were now attacking him at once. He swiftly yanked one escort in front of himself as a shield. Caught completely off guard, the escort took several blade wounds. Before he could even speak, the chief sent him flying forward with a palm strike.
Using the opening, the escort chief broke out of the encirclement. Several escorts immediately followed behind him, and the soldiers gave chase.
With that battlefield shifting away, the pressure on Fu Xi Yan and Pei Yuan Jin eased.
Fu Xi Yan whispered to Pei Yuan Jin, “When he said to act according to circumstances, do you think he meant we should quit while we’re ahead and run for it?”
Pei Yuan Jin had no objection either way. Whenever Fu Xi Yan was around, his brain generally took the day off.
Fu Xi Yan remembered that foul-smelling communal room and decided it was indeed time to bid farewell to his career as a secret agent. They had already reached Southern Yu. The fish had entered the sea, their identities had not been exposed, and everything had worked out perfectly.