Chapter Ninety-Two: All Bearing Grievance

A Fei was gone.

He left behind a clay jar filled with what he called a mighty restorative, and a huge purple gourd. With a single step, he vanished into the distance, and there was no further news of him.

He Chang'an felt a little disappointed, and suddenly wondered whether A Fei might have been telling the truth after all. That fellow perhaps really was a sword cultivator.

Mountains are high, waters long; the road through the martial world is endless.

Beneath Longmen Waterfall, He Chang'an lingered for several more days, consolidating his recent breakthrough before packing his things and heading toward the ferry crossing.

...

After crossing the great river, he entered the so-called lands north of the river, a realm stretching for hundreds of thousands of li, where the customs and scenery were utterly unlike those around Chang'an City.

Unlike the Great Tang of his former imagination, this Great Tang had only three military towns in the northern lands, and no prefectures, commanderies, or counties at all.

All three military towns stood along the frontier.

Great San Pass, Jade Gate Pass, and Mountain-Sea Pass—three mighty fortresses, each a military town in its own right.

The three towns formed a triangular pattern, embedded in the northern lands, governing an area of several million li. There were deserts, snow mountains, grasslands, and wastelands. The farther north one traveled, the more desolate and vast it became.

This Great Tang was immense in territory.

Yet sparsely populated.

After crossing the river ferry, eating and sleeping outdoors through wind and rain, and walking for seven or eight days, He Chang'an finally understood one thing.

This northern land had in fact long ago been designated as a strategic buffer zone. If the three military towns were ever lost, the Great Tang would have no choice but to rely on the natural barrier of the great river to resist the ghost tribes and the armies of the demon clans.

In other words, the national power of the Great Tang had already declined, and the people in Chang'an City had long since prepared themselves to abandon these millions of square li of territory...

Three months earlier, He Chang'an might well have found this perfectly reasonable. If you could not defeat your enemy, then retreat a step; if necessary, retreat seven or eight steps. So long as Chang'an City itself did not fall, the human race would not be driven to extinction.

Chang'an City possessed a mysterious grand formation that could annihilate every demon, monster, and ghoul. Even a terrestrial immortal would be reduced to dust and gone without trace.

That formation had been activated three times, saving the human race from three catastrophic disasters...

This was recorded clearly and plainly in the archives of the Demon Subduing Office, and should not have been idle rumor.

But now, He Chang'an was unwilling.

It was very simple: he just was not willing.

Even though he was still only a ninth-rank martial practitioner, a small fry at the bottom of the ladder, a sword hung at his waist, fist intent and sword intent flowed through him, and in his chest burned a single, indignant breath.

In more than three months of tempering and training, A Fei seldom offered guidance in He Chang'an's cultivation. He was more a supervisor than anything else, watching coldly from the sidelines, his remarks full of scorn and mockery.

Yet He Chang'an knew that for him, this was the very best sort of teacher.

A Fei, who called himself a sword cultivator, spoke little of the sword. His words on the subject were few, but every one of them was carved into He Chang'an's heart.

What benefited him most was the phrase: a sword carries the spirit of grievance.

And there was another line: people have the warmth of daily smoke and fire.

Those words had once been spoken by the old scholar in Chang'an City. At the time, He Chang'an had not sensed anything profound in them. He had heard them and let them pass, never taking them to heart.

But when A Fei said them, they tasted different, carrying a trace of chilling sword intent and an endless desolation.

He Chang'an etched them into his memory at once, and deeply agreed with them.

It was much like a dish of meat: when Master Lu made it, it was steamed, plain and proper, calm and refined; when A Fei got hold of it, it was seared with pepper, full of killing intent, and utterly without hesitation.

Each had its own flavor. He Chang'an simply preferred the pepper-fried kind. It was not to say that one man was above the other.

It seemed the old scholar had been right: he, He Chang'an, was destined never to be a good scholar...

A sword carries the spirit of grievance; people have the warmth of daily smoke and fire.

Mulling over those two lines, He Chang'an walked farther and farther away, his figure lonely and slender. Though he had already passed eighteen, he was still only a少年 at heart.

A bundle on his back, he walked alone.

Behind him, two faint lines of footprints remained...

...

The northern lands were vast and sparsely inhabited, yet the scenery was magnificent: deep mountains and dense forests, deserts and wastelands, snow peaks and glaciers, human villages and towns, hidden demons and ghosts.

Of course, there was also the martial world.

Wherever there were people, there was the martial world.

On Blue Wolf Mountain, a banquet was in full swing. Wine was drunk from big bowls, meat eaten in great chunks. More than a hundred heroes had just pulled off a grand coup and were now celebrating before the hall of sworn brotherhood.

Among them sat a youth in a blue robe, a pack on his back and a bamboo sword at his waist, squeezed among a crowd of sturdy men in tight-fitting clothes, drinking silently.

That youth was He Chang'an.

His arrival at Blue Wolf Mountain had been pure accident.

Two days earlier, while passing alone through a mountain valley, he had suddenly heard several thunderous booms from seven or eight li ahead. The earth trembled slightly, and within only a few breaths the clear sky had become overcast, with black qi swirling in hazy masses.

A thing of demons and ghouls!

He Chang'an had been startled at once and had intended to detour far around it, because after a brief sense of it, he knew the thing ahead was formidable indeed, at the peak of the seventh rank among martial practitioners.

Though his strength had greatly increased, he was still only a ninth-rank martial practitioner...

Though a sword should carry the spirit of grievance, a person must still have the warmth of daily smoke and fire...

He Chang'an shook his head with a bitter smile, thinking it best to take the long way around, and was just about to turn and head up the mountain.

Suddenly, a dozen or so men burst out of the forest, weapons in hand, and rushed toward the place where the black qi roiled.

One of them, a hulking man with a bushy beard, glanced at He Chang'an and sneered with some contempt. "Look at that boy. A sword at his waist, so he must have some skill, but turns out he's all show and no substance."

"Can't you see he's wearing a scholar's robe? Heh. A scholar..." Another dark-faced man laughed, then ignored He Chang'an and leaped forward with a burst of force, clearing seven or eight zhang in a single bound.

Eleven of them were eighth-rank martial practitioners, and two were seventh-rank.

He Chang'an did not care in the least about being mocked, but the cultivation of these men surprised him a little.

The Great Tang took martial strength as its foundation, and there were many who cultivated the martial path, but that did not mean ranked martial practitioners were common as dirt.

On the contrary, those who could step into the tenth or ninth rank were already not numerous; those who had advanced to the eighth or seventh rank were considered experts.

Poor scholars, rich martial artists: scholars suffered most, though even they were a kind of shortcut.

Without wealth enough to fill a hundred granaries, without vast fields and thousands of acres, an ordinary family could smash pots and sell iron for scrap and still fail to fill the bottomless pit of martial cultivation.

Thus, once a martial practitioner by chance attained rank, even if only tenth or ninth rank, the court would recruit him, either into civil service or into the frontier army as a low-ranking officer.

Out in this wilderness, the sudden appearance of more than a dozen eighth-rank experts was inherently abnormal.

He Chang'an could not help being curious. After a moment's hesitation, he followed after them.

He did not conceal his tracks, lest he arouse suspicion. So when one of the men in tight clothing turned and looked back, he said nothing.

After a dozen breaths, the group arrived at the place where black qi surged and saw a stout man locked in battle with a black-striped serpent with golden eyes.

The man wielded a red-tasseled spear in a manner both uncanny and ghostly. In the space of a few moments, he had already punched seven or eight holes through the serpent's body, spraying foul, bloody filth everywhere.

The serpent was fiercely ferocious and paid no heed to its wounds. It pressed the attack without pause, and whenever its tail lashed out, it shattered great swaths of trees and stone. Its momentum was truly terrifying.

The thirteen men had not yet reached close range when they cried out and each produced his own magical implement, hurling them from afar at the serpent.

With a crackling barrage of explosive sounds, more than ten magical implements were swept away by the serpent's enormous tail and scattered to the ground.

At the same time, the serpent took the combined blow from the men and its movement clearly slowed. It should have suffered some internal injury.

"All together, now!"

And so, hidden not far away, He Chang'an watched a heart-stopping battle to subdue monsters and exorcise demons...

Half an hour later, the black-striped, golden-eyed serpent had been battered into a sorry state by the assault of a band of crude martial men. Its whole body was a ruin of blood and torn flesh, and it looked to be near death.

Unexpectedly, the beast suddenly swept sideways and hurled all the martial practitioners flying. Then it raised its head and let out a howl toward the sky, whereupon the center of its brow burst open and revealed a hideous ghostly face.

"Not good, this beast has mutated!"

The hulking man with the red-tasseled spear roared, rolled aside on the ground, and avoided the cloud of black qi spat forth by the ghost face. Then he shouted, "Scatter! Don't let the ghost qi infect you!"

In the blink of an eye, the black-striped, golden-eyed serpent transformed into a monstrosity a hundred zhang long, its face ghastly and its black qi churning. Its originally pale-gold eyes now shot out eerie crimson light.

That crimson light flickered once, then struck one of the men.

The man gave a low roar, dropped to one knee, his whole body trembling. Slowly he raised his head, closed his eyes tightly, and tilted his face toward the sky as two streaks of black blood flowed from his eyes.

Then, suddenly, he opened his eyes. From them shot two uncanny red beams, identical to those of the monstrous serpent.

"Kill him quickly!"

Someone shouted.

But it was already too late.

The man infected by that strange light flipped his blade over and in a single stroke severed the head of a nearby comrade. With a face full of savagery, he then pounced upon another.

What had been a clear advantage in the encirclement turned in an instant, and even He Chang'an, watching from the side, was stunned.

Those dozen men were indeed fierce. Even in the face of disaster, they still cooperated closely and showed no sign of panic.

So He Chang'an made his move.

He drew a breath, stamped violently on the ground, and crushed a rock seven chi across, then shot toward the mutated black-striped, golden-eyed serpent and threw out a light, effortless punch.

The fist came like the wind; the fist intent, like a dragon.

With a single blow, he shattered the serpent's massive head. Blood rained down in all directions, foul and reeking.

The little black rod, long eager to try its hand, flashed in an instant, transforming into a streak of sword intent that plunged into a great mass of black qi, so happy it seemed it might groan aloud...

...

On a mountain peak eight hundred li away, someone stamped his feet and cursed loudly. "Damn He Chang'an! With a sword at his waist, he calls himself a sword cultivator, yet all he ever does is punch!"

An old scholar gently tried to dissuade him. "My teacher once said that a gentleman must be grave, or he cannot inspire awe. In my opinion, fist arts are not bad either. Fist intent and sword intent alike are both forms of unruly spirit."

Afei, who called himself a sword cultivator, was slightly stunned. Then he suddenly burst into laughter and extended a hand, intending to pat the old scholar on the shoulder.

The scholar smiled with restraint and, glancing at that large hand, lifted his own thin shoulder a little higher.

He blinked furiously, silently signaling: come on, pat me, I've already posed for it...

Afei's palm abruptly changed direction and slapped a huge boulder beside him instead, reducing it to powder. Then he said irritably, "Old bastard, thinking of another excuse to beat me again? I'm not falling for that!"