Blood and Tears

That night, Fan Xian stared blankly at the radishes on the chopping board, gripping the vegetable knife. After having spent time digging up and dismembering corpses, he was to embark on his second course of study - extremely useful, but extremely tragic.

Sometimes he found his life truly meaningful. Out of the blue, two bizarre teachers had come into his life who didn't seem to mind his thoroughly precocious nature. The skills that Fei Jie and Wu Zhu had taught him - methods for poison and murder - were rather abnormal.

...

...

Late in the night, a slight tapping could be heard from the back of the store.

"Business is slow today," said Wu Zhu, leaning forward and speaking coldly.

Fan Xian wiped the sweat from his brow. Looking at the mountainous pile of radishes that he had cut up, he smiled, moving his right wrist. He had discovered that, after years of chopping radishes, he had developed a quickness on par with Wu Zhu, and when it came to the fineness of the shredded radish, he was starting to catch up.

But his right wrist still swelled and ached. The sound of chopping still echoed through the store, and he knew that the difference between Wu Zhu's control of the knife and his own was enormous.

Although he didn't understand what chopping radishes was supposed to do for his practice of martial arts, he was still aware that Wu Zhu was capable of going toe-to-toe with the Four Grandmasters. So he began to immerse himself in the act of radish chopping, beating out a rhythm on the chopping board.

Of course, this was not the only training he undertook with Wu Zhu. He spent many hours training in conventional techniques such as the horse stance and mountain climbing. Wu Zhu's demands on him were great. He spent so long in the horse stance that he found it near-impossible to squat upon a chamber-pot. He chopped vegetables until his wrists ached, and he ran so far that he found it difficult to get up in the morning.

But the hardest part was that every three days, Wu Zhu would take him to a remote place outside Danzhou to 'train' - although it was more accurate to say he simply beat the young boy senseless with all of his unparalleled strength.

...

...

His was a bittersweet childhood, filled with blood and tears. This was how Her Ladyship had trained her servants back in the day, explained Wu Zhu.

Fan Xian felt somewhat apprehensive about his training. It had to be hard, strict, and practical, and involve a great amount of physical practice. In Fan Xian's previous life, this had been the principle that had gained China a great many gold medals.

But Fan Xian did not complain. Instead, he simply smiled at the tasks that were assigned to him. On the surface, it seemed like he was only following orders. But his adult's intellect told him that this truly was all for his own good.

The powerful zhenqi within him had grown all the more violent over the years. He could hold it within the dantian and xueshan points in his pubic region and his spine, but in the rest of his still-developing body, he couldn't prevent it from overflowing and cutting off various meridians. He often found it appearing to overflow outward, and when that happened, the nearby furniture in the house usually ended up being damaged as a result.

If this carried on, one day, the speed of his zhenqi flow would surpass the growth of his meridians, and he would explode and die.

He still didn't know if Wu Zhu even knew of any methods to control such a powerful zhenqi flow. All he could do was train his body, and so his physical capabilities improved greatly. As he chopped radishes, he trained his powers of concentration, and as the years passed he could feel his control over his zhenqi becoming more stable.

When it came to death, no one in the world had had the experiences that Fan Xian had; no one feared death or cherished life quite as much he did. So he suffered all of Wu Zhu's training in silence, knowing that it would help him to overcome the side effects of the power that raged within him.

Thinking about it later on, he understood the deeper meaning behind Wu Zhu's actions. If zhenqi were fire, and the body were a stove, then training one's muscles was equivalent to forging a stronger stove, while training the mind and spirit was like making a larger hole in the stove in order to control the fire more effectively.

As he suffered Wu Zhu's blows in training, he reminded himself: a strong sword cannot be forged without striking the steel.

But it still hurt like hell.

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Morning came. Fan Xian awoke and rubbed the dust from his eyes. He rose from his bed and slipped under the servant girl's blanket. Sniffing her bodily aroma under the covers, he was satisfied.

The servant girl, Sisi, was combing her hair when he noticed that he was already awake. Smiling, she walked to the edge of the bed and pulled the covers off the boy, who had wrapped himself up like a cocoon. She stopped combing, gathered up her hair, and went to prepare hot water for a bath.

Fan Xian climbed off the bed and sat on the cotton pillow he had given Sisi. He lifted up his pants and peered in, and recited the words from a drinking game he used to play in his previous life, making rock-paper-scissor gestures. "Who's horny? I'm horny! Who's horny? You're horny!"

He raised his eyebrows and lifted his pants again, looking down. "I'm horny," he said to himself. "You still don't know how."

He'd spent many years in this world, and had gotten used to being waited on hand and foot. He yawned and waited for the servant girl to return. After waiting for what seemed like ages, he fell back to sleep, and found himself being awoken by a hot towel being rubbed in his face.

The distant sound of angry shouting came from the courtyard. Fan Xian dressed himself and, led by his curiosity, he made his way out the door. He soon came across a rather awful scene.

In the garden, Zhou the Housekeeper was severely scolding the servant girl Sisi. It seemed that he was angry because she was rushing to prepare the hot water and had not combed her hair or dressed properly. The other servant girls surrounded them, clearly frightened.

Zhou the Housekeeper had come from the capital a few years ago. Fan Xian knew that he had been sent by the Count's mistress to spy on the household, but he had seemed like an earnest enough man throughout that one year, and Fan Xian had never caught Zhou doing anything suspicious as he watched him in secret, so he let him do as he pleased.

But this scolding of the servant girls displeased Fan Xian. He was a very protective person. Squinting his eyes, he went forth and interceded, but for whatever reason, Zhou was not in a mood to be trifled with. Sisi was to be punished.

Fan Xian knitted his brow and looked up at the housekeeper with his adorable face. "They're my servants," he said, smiling, "and I'll deal with them myself." They were ordinary words, even a little weak.

But the servant girls knew what they meant, and it filled them with fear. They did not know whether the danger of a clash between the two branches of Count Sinan's estate - one in the capital, one in Danzhou - could be kept back much longer.