Chapter 2: Night Visitation to Xi Mo River Part 1

"Dressed in night travelling clothes, Xie Yun lowered his head and faced the surging Xi Mo River. He then fished out a copper coin from his arms.

'I'll divine a divination,' he thought, 'Front is everything will be great, back is there'll be fright but no danger.'"

Zhou Fei kicked the door open with a tremendous sound, causing dust to fly up into the air. Immediately, both the door and its hinges were done for.

Li Sheng was practicing his swordsmanship in the courtyard and turned his head once he heard the sound. Seeing the incoming "debt", he wasn't surprised and slowly returned his sword to its sheath, knowing yet still asking: "A-Fei, what are you doing?"

Zhou Fei had never seen a hypocrite before, but with her limited imagination, the image that popped up in her head was an entire circle of people like Li Sheng. Just by seeing his face, Zhou Fei's chest would be filled with immense anger. Though she would be considered as having the gift of the gab, she never talked when she fought. Straightening up the zhai-bei dao in her palm, she didn't even greet him before lunging towards Li Sheng and taking a swipe at his head.

Li Sheng had already been prepared for her attack, immediately turning his sword horizontally and shouldering her blow. Feeling his wrists shake under the pressure, he didn't dare to be careless, putting 120% of his concentration into the fight. Though neither of them had unsheathed their swords, they had already made seven or eight moves within the blink of an eye. Suddenly, Zhou Fei made one step forward, directing the zhai-bei dao at his waist. Li Sheng's eyes widened—she was really using her chang dao as a spear, also making the move "Zhuang Nan Shan" (Knocking Down South Mountain). [1]

This "Thousand Bells echo, ten-thousand mountains roar" move was supposed to be in the manner of a great master, except the young disciples of the Qian Zhong (Thousand Bells) Men who had not yet served out their apprenticeship did not have enough skill, causing the move to always seem a little cumbersome. As a result, Li Sheng was able to brush it off easily during the martial arts contest. However, for some reason, be it that Zhou Fei privately adjusted the move or that the sharp blade had an advantage since she was using a sharp blade as a spear, in her hands this "Zhuang Nan Shan" gained out of nowhere a dense, furious air of evil and foreboding.

As the sheathed chang dao got closer, bringing with it a gust of wind, Li Sheng unimaginably felt an instant of fear, not daring to reuse his move from before. Just as he summoned up the courage to face the move head on, a scream came from the doorway: "Stop it!"

As soon as the words were spoken, an object flew through the air.

The zhai-bei dao suddenly stopped mid-air. With a light flick, Zhou Fei hooked the object on the tip of her sword—only to see that the object was the pouch of a little girl with a few charmingly naive kingfishers sewn on the brocade material. The pouch was thrown so harshly, a few osmanthus candies fell out.

Li Sheng snapped back to reality, although the fear from earlier still lingered. His heart beat rapidly, his indescribable embarrassment already spreading to his face. He reached out and removed the pouch from the tip of Zhou Fei's dao and threw it back into the arms of the approaching person, saying with irritation: "What trouble are you here to make?"

A little girl wearing a peach colored dress ran between them, opening her arms and shouting: "Don't fight!"

This little girl was Li Yan, Li Sheng's biological younger sister, younger than him by two years. She had a small, oval face with large, charming eyes. Yet unfortunately, she was pretty on the outside but useless on the inside—a young, dumb little child. Li Yan's 11-year-old mind probably only grew to the size of a bean, with only two views—anything A-Fei says is right, what A-Fei likes I like…with the exception of martial arts.

Neither Zhou Fei nor Li Sheng had anything nice to say to her and couldn't be bothered to play with her. But Li Er Xiaojie [2] was extremely affectionate, admiring her cousin on the left and worrying about her dear brother on the right, oftentimes sinking into her thoughts and conflicting over which side she should lean towards. Unable to decide, she would waste more than half of the day in her thoughts.

Unhappily, Zhou Fei said to Li Yan: "Go off to the side."

Li Yan blocked Zhou Fei's way with a sad and tearful expression, softly asking: "A-Fei, on my behalf, could you please not fight with my brother?"

Angered, Zhou Fei replied: "And how valuable is your behalf? [3] Move!"

Li Sheng's eyes dimmed, saying one word at a time: "Li Yan, there's no business for you here."

Unwilling to move, Li Yan tugged at Zhou Fei's sleeves: "Don't…"

Zhou Fei found this type of clinginess the most annoying, immediately shouting: "Let go!"

She swung her arm, subconsciously putting force into it. Even though she wasn't much older than Li Yan, Zhou Fei was much taller than Li Yan as she was at the age when girls had their growth spurts.

Incredulously, Li Yan sat on the ground for a moment before bursting into tears with a loud sob.

That sob successfully disrupted the atmosphere of intense battle between the two. Li Sheng slowly retracted the sword in his hand and wrinkled his brow, while Zhou Fei stood on the side, not knowing what to do. Their gazes met before simultaneously looking away in an unfriendly manner.

Zhou Fei then sighed, bending down and reaching out her hand to Li Yan.

"I didn't mean to push you on purpose." Zhou Fei paused before saying with resignation, "Uh…um, Sister was wrong, okay? Come, get up."

Li Yan wiped her tears, causing her snot and tears to stick to her palm. She then grabbed Zhou Fei's palm, sticking to it firmly. The veins on Zhou Fei's temples pulsed and she nearly flung Li Yan away again when she heard Li Yan say while sniffling: "I was afraid that Eldest Aunt [4] would beat you so I specifically went to find Uncle…and you still push me! You don't realize the actions of a kind person!"

Zhou Fei, who was attacked by Li Yan with her "secret weapon", had her murderous thoughts towards Li Yan drowned in Li Yan's tears. She ended up squatting on the side, boredly listening to Li Yan complain about her. At the same time, half of her mind began to wander, thinking that Li Yan also had a desirable trait of her own—even when that female tiger Li Jinrong was faced against Li Yan, she turned as peaceful as a living Buddha. You didn't need a lot of people like Li Yan, only around eighty to a hundred; if there was a fight somewhere and you sprinkled the "younger [sister] cousin group" in front of both armies, then it was probable that world peace wasn't too far in the future.

A tiny, tiny thought arose and Zhou Fei thought: "Couldn't I copy her a little?"

Yet when she stared blankly at Li Yan for a while and imagined herself sobbing on the ground with a pouch in her arms, she shuddered and felt that Li Jinrong would probably find a mace to fix her brain.

Li Sheng, standing off to the side, lightly rolled his slightly numb wrists as Li Yan cried, his expression obscured. Last winter, he hit a bottleneck when he was practicing his swordsmanship and decided to take a walk around. When he reached the courtyard, he saw from far away the sick Zhou Yitang and Li Jinrong who was accompanying him on a stroll. Li Sheng wanted to go and greet them, but then he overheard a few sentences that were carried through the wind.

Li Jinrong worriedly told Zhou Yitang: "That kid's talent [5] wouldn't be considered as amazing, but that's nothing major as we can go slowly, I'm just afraid that he'll be ruined if he's too scheming with too many distracting thoughts, but I don't know how to tell him that…" [6]

Li Sheng didn't listen to Zhou Yitang's reply. Aunt's words were like a steel nail, jabbing relentlessly into his heart.

Even though Li Jinrong did not state the first and last name of the person, Li Sheng knew that she was definitely talking about him. This was because there were only three people who grew up by her side. If Zhou Fei dared to not concentrate when practicing, she would have long been beaten and Eldest Aunt wouldn't be worrying about how to tell her. On the other hand, Li Yan was a young and naive idiot and couldn't even be associated with the word "scheming". Yet what affected Li Sheng the most were the words "[his] talent wouldn't be considered as amazing". From a young age, he bragged that he was favored by the Heavens and was competitive about everything. He wanted everyone to praise him, unable to find a single mistake—how could he accept the rating of "not amazing"?

Li Sheng couldn't remember how he left that day; looking back, he was lucky that it was extremely windy that day and the patrols weren't there, hiding his presence from Li Jinrong.

From then on, the words "[his] talent wouldn't be considered as amazing" became Li Sheng's nightmare, popping into his head every once in a while and mocking him. This caused his already extremely intense competitiveness to almost explode.

Li Sheng thought, if his talent wasn't good, then was Zhou Fei's good?

An unprecedented feeling of resentment rose from his heart and he just had to beat Zhou Fei in something. However, regardless of his taunts or bullying, Zhou Fei never paid attention to him, always avoiding conflict. When they were practicing, she would always stop at a certain point; if he purposefully pushed her further, she would just retract and stand off by the side, completely looking down on him. Over time, Zhou Fei's avoidance turned his small amount of competitiveness into an obsession.

The current matter was purposefully planned by Li Sheng to anger Zhou Fei.

He pulled Li Yan up and carelessly brushed the dirt off her clothes, returning back to the face of a hypocrite. With a half smile, he said to Zhou Fei: "So your anger today was because I didn't help you get Uncle? A-Fei, isn't not that Brother won't plead for your case, but that your mischief went overboard. The Xiansheng's lessons are for your own good; what's more, did the old man say anything wrong? Girls should be well behaved, not going around shouting and fighting. As someone from the 48 Strongholds, even if you marry in the future, as long as I'm here, who dares to bully you?"

Zhou Fei stood up, slowly raising one eyebrow. Her brow shape was very precise and though natural, seemed like she had trimmed them; they were angled directly towards her temples. She snickered: "Why don't you tell those words to Da Dang Jia? Get her to also sew quietly indoors—I very much approve."

Li Sheng replied leisurely: "The 48 Strongholds have us, the Li Family zhai, as its head; Eldest Aunt's surname is Li after all, that year there was no one in the village and so she had to accept the order at that critical moment…but these things wouldn't trouble 'Zhou' guniang (young lady), would they?"

Immediately, Zhou Fei said: "Thanks for your consideration, it also wouldn't trouble good-for-nothings."

She spoke unintentionally but perfectly hit Li Sheng's sore spot. His expression suddenly sunk: "Zhou Fei, who are you talking about?"

Zhou Fei realized that they could no longer fight today and hung her zhai-bei dao on her back, settling for a battle of words: "Whether I'm talking about pigs, dogs or rats, whoever acknowledges it is it—what, eldest [brother] cousin wants to bring justice for the animals?"

Li Sheng tightened his grip on his sword before relaxing it. After a long time, he forcibly squeezed out a smile: "Since you think your abilities are so high, do you dare to compete with me once?"

Zhou Fei looked at him in ridicule: "I don't dare to anymore, if your sister goes and tells on me, Da Dang Jia will definitely peel off my skin."

"She won't," Li Sheng said right before Li Yan was about to speak in protest, "I'm going to cross Xi Mo River (Wash Ink River), do you dare to go?"

"Crossing the Xi Mo River" was a common saying among the younger generation of disciples in the 48 Strongholds, similar to "I'll kill you" and "I'll treat you to a meal another day". It was just a casual saying, not having any actual meaning.

Now the origins of this saying is a long story—ever since the year the three Stronghold leaders revolted and Li Er Ye [7] died, the 48 Strongholds lost a lot of strength. In recent years, the North and the South were at a stand-off with many other powers complicating the fight. The 48 Strongholds hid who knew how many imperial court criminals and had to tighten its security. The Shu Mountain contained many mountains; throughout the mountain paths, there were countless connected secret tunnels and sentry posts. If one place had unusual activity, news could immediately spread through all of the 48 strongholds. Even insiders had to log their activity: who left, for what, how long, etc. Every detail was recorded, ready to be searched anytime. Each person had their own lingpai [8] that had their first and last name, and you couldn't steal and use someone else's token. Young disciples who had not yet finished their apprenticeships could not freely leave the mountain. Regarding when they would serve out their apprenticeship, it depended on their shifu [9]; if shifu didn't approve, even if you could travel freely through the sky and the ground, it didn't matter—there was only one exception, and they were those who could cross the Xi Mo River on their own.

—

洗墨江 Xi Mo Jiang/Xi Mo River – Wash Ink River

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[1] Refers back to the fight in Chapter 1 Part 1

[2] 小姐 is a way of addressing young girls, particularly those of a wealthy or powerful family. Add Li Yan's last name and her order among her siblings (二 er, two) and she is Li Er Xiaojie.

[3] In Chinese, 面子 mian zi, literally translated as 'face', means reputation. Here, it means 'behalf' but since the original is 面子, Zhou Fei is literally saying "how valuable is your face?"

[4] 大姑姑 da gugu 'Eldest Aunt': 大 da which usually means big, is used to indicate age (the eldest) when used to talk about relatives. In this case, Li Jinrong is their eldest aunt. In Chinese, we also have different words for maternal and paternal relatives. While English uses the inclusive 'Aunt' and 'Uncle', the word 姑姑 gugu indicates that this relative is one of your father's sisters (if you have a large family, this could also refer to another female relative on your father's side).

[5] 资质 zi zhi means natural endowment or talent. It means like the abilities/intelligence you're born with.

[6] In Chinese, he/she/it are all pronounced the same way: ta. The difference is clear when the characters are written down as he is 他, she is 她 and it is 它. However, just by hearing a spoken 'ta', it may not be clear as to who exactly that person is. This also contributes to the mystery of who Li Jinrong was talking about.

[7] 二爷 er ye: As mentioned earlier, 二 er means two, or second (in line). While 爷 ye is commonly as 爷爷 yeye for 'grandpa', in a title 爷 refers to the adult/middle-aged men in a family who hold speaking power. Think "fathers" in the order of "grandfathers, fathers, sons". Li Er Ye was the second son and older brother of Li Jinrong.

[8] The 令牌 ling pai "token" would look something like this.

[9] Going back to the 江湖 jiang hu footnote from last chapter, a 师父 shifu is your master, the one who you study under. 师 shi comes from 老师 lao shi, meaning teacher, and 父 fu comes from 父亲 fu qin, meaning father. Even if your shifu was female, she would still be your shifu. The only change is how you would refer to your shifu's spouse, but that's a whole different story.