SS CH2

On the desolate mountain path, weeds grew wild and thick. Layers of leaden clouds pressed down toward the earth, stifling the air until it was hard to breathe.

A small merchant caravan was hurrying along their journey. Unfortunately, this road had been abandoned for far too long and was rarely traveled. The crushed stones and rubble nearly jolted the carriage wheels right off their axles. If an ordinary person sat in this carriage, it was guaranteed that in less than an hour or two, they would be vomiting until their head spun, faring even worse than a woman six months pregnant.

As a result, everyone had piled their supplies onto the carts and relied on their two legs to slowly trudge along. Only on a flatbed cart piled high with hemp sacks at the very back of the procession was a person curled up like a mother hen brooding over her nest.

Ye Fusheng wore a coarse cloth long-robe, his hair tied into a loose, messy ponytail with a straw rope. His head rested on the corner of a hemp sack, and his hands were placed over his stomach. If one ignored the crossed leg that was casually shaking up and down, it could actually be considered a rather standard, peaceful resting posture.

The other people in the caravan were walking until they sweat like rain. He was the only one lying on a cart, seemingly oblivious to the jolting bumps, lackadaisically humming a self-composed little tune: “Time is an arrow, the sun and moon a shuttle; how many rounds of spring and autumn have passed? Love, resentment, and hatred; rights, wrongs, and troubles; birth, aging, sickness, and death—all impossible to grasp. A youth fights for spirit and pride, traveling a thousand li with a blade laid bare; stirring up a pool of calm water, suffering a bout of heaven’s lightning and thunder…”

The more he sang, the more out of tune he got, and the lyrics were absurd and nonsensical. For a moment, everyone around burst into laughter. Only the steward was worried sick: “What are you laughing at!? Hurry up and move! In another hour, the city gates will close. Do you all want to stay out in this desolate wilderness tonight and feed the wolves!?”

This scolding made the crowd shrink their necks, but Ye Fusheng still wore a cheeky, hippie-like smile. “Steward, there isn’t even a wild dog around here. Relax.”

It would have been better if he hadn’t spoken, but the moment he opened his mouth, the steward’s fury skyrocketed to three zhang (thirty feet) high: “Shut up, you blind man! You’re the one constantly cracking jokes and messing around! If you cause any more trouble, I’ll break your other leg too!”

Hearing this, Ye Fusheng clutched his left leg with a look of deep sorrow and said faintly, “Then please, strike with a lighter hand.”

The steward was so angry he nearly fell over backward.

The world had not been peaceful these past few years. Those traveling south and north were as numerous as carp crossing the river, but when it came down to it, they were all just pitiable people forced to leave their homes. Because of rebellious vassal princes internally and fierce barbarian tribes glaring like tigers externally in recent years, passenger travel and the movement of goods had been strictly restricted. However, for people living in this world, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea were absolutely essential. Thus, the government slightly relaxed its suppression of civilian merchant caravans. As a result, large and small merchant firms and peddlers from all over sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

This group of people had come from the northern lands, which had just concluded a battle lasting over a month. The border markets were temporarily closed, so those who had lost their homes in the fires of war pooled their money together. They gathered some furs, spices, and other goods, planning to take them to the southern towns to sell and save up some capital—it was, at the very least, a way to survive.

This completely shameless rascal—like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water—had been picked up by the steward in the north. That night, they had finished inventorying their goods and set up camp to rest in an empty clearing outside the city. Who could have expected that in the dead of the night, the night watchers would hear several wolf howls coming from not far away. From the sound of the commotion, it seemed someone had been surrounded by a wolf pack. The steward had some martial arts skills, so he ordered the group to light fires and stand guard while he grabbed his weapon and rushed over. This trip took more than half a shichen (an hour). When the steward returned, there was a bloody person on his back.

The steward didn’t say much, so the crowd didn’t ask. They merely tried every possible method to pour medicinal soups down his throat every day. It took three to five days before this person finally woke up. He claimed his name was Ye Fusheng. He had neat, handsome features and a straightforward, refreshing temperament. Unfortunately, his eyes didn’t work well, and his right leg had been left with a chronic ailment from an old injury. At a glance, it didn’t seem like much, but if he walked a few extra steps, it would ache with a piercing, bone-deep pain.

Ye Fusheng was twenty-nine years old this year, right at the prime age of physical strength and vigor. If this had happened to anyone else, even crying and howling at the top of their lungs would hardly ease the bitterness in their hearts. Yet this man’s heart was broader than heaven and earth. Not only did he act like nothing was wrong, but he also constantly stirred up the caravan until chickens flew and dogs jumped, angering the steward to the point of nearly exploding time and time again.

After being scolded by the steward, the words went in Ye Fusheng’s left ear and right out his right. Squinting his eyes, he carefully studied the sky for a moment and bossily commanded, “Go a bit faster. It’s going to rain.”

His eyes were rather strange. The fiercer the sun and the brighter the light, the more chaotic and dark his vision became; sometimes he couldn’t even make out basic outlines. On the contrary, during cloudy, rainy days or after nightfall, his vision was much more normal, and even young children couldn’t compare to his sharp eyes and keen ears.

The dark clouds in the sky gathered thicker and heavier. Unable to care about much else, the steward ordered everyone to get onto the carts and carriages, hoping to reach the city as quickly as possible. After giving the orders, with a face as black as thunder, he hoisted Ye Fusheng down and tossed him, along with a roll of bedding, into his own horse carriage, spitting, “You plague-stricken brat! Wrap your leg up tight! Don’t catch a cold and start howling at me later.”

The steward had always had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. Ye Fusheng waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, then pulled up the quilt and rolled himself into a spring roll. The carriage was driven incredibly fast. He was jolted until his head spun and his eyes blurred, but he didn’t feel like vomiting. He simply closed his eyes and began to catch up on his sleep.

When he woke up again, the caravan had already reached the city gates, but the massive doors were shut tight. The heavy rain pattered down incessantly. Unable to bother with an umbrella, the steward was currently bowing and scraping, saying something to the government officials. Ye Fusheng rubbed his throbbing temples. His vision finally cleared up a bit, and the two characters “Gu Yang” carved onto the city tower entered his sight.

“Guyang City…” he muttered in a low voice. Grabbing an oil-paper umbrella, he stepped out of the carriage despite the protests of the others.

The rain was quite heavy, battering the oil-paper umbrella with a loud hua-hua sound. A blast of cold wind blew past, and the calves of his legs trembled. Ye Fusheng didn’t even frown. He shifted the umbrella over the steward’s head and spoke up in fluent, familiar official Mandarin: “Official Lord, the You hour (5:00 PM – 7:00 PM) has not yet arrived. Why can we not enter the city?”

The leader of the officials kept his nostrils pointed at the sky, too arrogant to speak. Ye Fusheng skillfully slipped a money pouch from the steward’s body and stuffed it over. The official weighed it in his hand before answering grumpily, “The city hasn’t been peaceful lately. No entry is permitted after the third quarter of the Shen hour (4:45 PM).”

The steward put on a bitter face and pleaded, “Official Lord, look at us. We’ve traveled from afar, dragging our families along, and the weather is uncooperative. Could you possibly offer us some convenience?”

The official snapped impatiently, “If everyone gets ‘some convenience’, wouldn’t these city gates be practically useless? Go, go, go! Come back early tomorrow morning. Don’t block the road here.”

Just as they were speaking, the sound of horse hooves echoed from the distance. A young girl wearing a black cloak was galloping madly toward them on a date-red foal. The whip in her hand danced, slicing through the wind with a sharp lie-lie sound. Before the person even arrived, her voice arrived first: “Open the gates!”

She rode her horse wildly without restraint. The people of the caravan hurriedly cleared a path for her, and the official also raised his hand to signal the guards to open the gates. Ye Fusheng narrowed his eyes. As he turned around, he silently kicked a pebble into the air. Hidden by the curtain of rain, it struck heavily against the front hoof of the horse.

The date-red foal instantly neighed in pain, rearing up toward the sky. Caught completely off guard, the young girl was thrown into the air. Fortunately, her reflexes weren’t bad. She pressed one hand against the ground and executed a backward flip, barely managing to land steadily on her feet.

The leader of the officials, who had been aggressively arrogant just moments ago, turned ashen with fear. He hurriedly rushed forward with an obsequious smile: “Aiya-ya, this, this… is Miss Xue unharmed?”

“Scram!” The girl surnamed Xue fiercely wiped the rainwater from her face. Luckily, she wore no makeup and faced the sky with a bare face; otherwise, it would have been impossible to see even half a trace of beauty on her right now. She raised her whip and lashed the foal twice. Frightened and in pain, the horse stomped wildly in place, refusing to be tamed.

In a fit of anger, she violently threw her whip to the ground. Glancing at the caravan, she walked toward Ye Fusheng and the steward, lifting her chin as she demanded: “I need a horse. How much silver will you sell one for?”

The steward frowned, but Ye Fusheng took over the conversation: “There is no need for silver. Since we are also heading into the city anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to take the Miss along for the ride.”

As he spoke, he shifted the umbrella over the girl’s head, barely blocking a bit of the wind and rain. At this moment, the light in the sky was dim. The light filtering through the water-green paper umbrella was obscure yet gentle. Most of Ye Fusheng’s face was sunken in the umbrella’s shadow; only his pair of peach-blossom eyes remained, hollow and misty. The corners of his mouth curved into delicate crescent moons. Even though his coarse cloth and linen clothes couldn’t be considered luxurious brocade or fine crowns, his beastly, rogue-like elegance still plucked at the heartstrings.

The girl appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. She tilted her head, blinked, and her tone softened slightly: “You guys also want to enter the city? Where are you going?”

The steward inwardly spat out the words ‘pretty-faced gigolo’, but his face remained completely humble and subservient: “To answer this Miss, we are all merchants from out of town. We just need to find an inn in the city to settle down first.”

The girl nodded, completely ignoring the difficult expression on the official leader’s face, and ordered: “Fine. Give me a horse, and I’ll bring you all inside.”

Saying this, she turned around to pick a horse, but didn’t expect to be stopped by Ye Fusheng. Turning back, she bumped right into the reflection of a somewhat disheveled face inside a bright mirror.

Holding a small round mirror, Ye Fusheng smiled gently: “The wind is fierce and the rain is heavy. I imagine the Miss must be exhausted from rushing all this way. Why not rest in the carriage for a moment? Although it isn’t very comfortable, it can at least be considered neat and clean.”

The girl froze, staring at him for a moment before reaching out to snatch the round mirror. She turned her anger onto the leader of the officials: “Why haven’t you opened the gates yet!? If you delay this Miss’s business, I’ll make you pay!”

The leader of the officials nodded and bowed subserviently. Seeing the girl step onto the carriage shaft, she turned back and pointed at Ye Fusheng: “You. Drive the carriage for me.”

Standing beneath the umbrella, Ye Fusheng tapped the corner of his eye with one hand and gave a faint smile: “It is this lowly one’s honor.”

The girl turned her head and squeezed into the carriage. Ye Fusheng shoved the umbrella into the steward’s hands, untied the wine gourd from his waist, and tossed it to the leader of the officials. The two men were both left standing there, equally dumbstruck, making for quite an amusing, contrasting pair.

The steward’s face was full of complex emotions: “I say, you… have you ever calculated exactly how many romantic debts you owe?”

The leader of the officials was thoroughly amazed: “What incredible methods. I am utterly convinced.”

“When drifting through the Jianghu, who can resist stirring up some flirtations?” Ye Fusheng gave a modest smile, fully displaying the aura of an elegant scumbag. “This Official Lord, can we go in now?”

The leader of the officials still hadn’t fully recovered his senses: “This Miss Xue is famous for being unruly and unreasonable in our Guyang City. Who knows how many men trying to court her have been whipped by her. Did she encounter a ghost today?”

Ye Fusheng continued to smile: “Because from the back, my posture is more heroic than theirs; from the front, my features are more handsome than theirs; and even if you skinned me alive, my inner substance is deeper than theirs.”

“…I won’t say another word. Please, enter!”

The leader of the officials slapped his thigh, turning around to order his subordinates. Ye Fusheng called out to stop him: “Official Lord, earlier you mentioned that the city hasn’t been peaceful lately. May I ask what exactly happened?”

The leader of the officials no longer kept him in suspense, saying: “Little brother, do you know of Duanshui Manor?”

Ye Fusheng’s expression filled with profound respect: “Could it be that Duanshui Manor, which holds the beautiful reputation of the ‘Number One Saber in the World’?”

The leader of the officials lowered his voice: “That reputation is from years ago.”

Ye Fusheng narrowed his eyes into slits: “Oh? What do you mean?”

“The Manor Lord of Duanshui Manor, Xie Wuyi, hasn’t fought a martial duel in three years. Normally, he doesn’t step out his main gate, nor does he cross his second gate. People all say… he is crippled.”