"Incense Master, the painting is here."
Hearing the man's inquiry, the concubine in white hurriedly retrieved a cylindrical scroll case from beneath the bed and presented it respectfully with both hands.
The man took it, opened it with care, and drew out a scroll.
As he slowly unrolled it, an ancient landscape painting was revealed before them.
Endless mountain ranges stretched across the horizon like a winding dragon, majestic and vast, with swirling clouds and mists faintly veiling layered peaks.
Even an ordinary person could see that this was no ordinary work.
Shopkeeper Wu could not help but praise it. "Magnificent brushwork! Incense Master, what is so peculiar about this piece?"
The concubine in white looked somewhat puzzled as well. "Your subordinate interrogated Eunuch Lu, but he did not know the reason either, only that Princess Fu'an treasured this painting above all else."
The man examined the scroll closely before speaking. "The brushwork is indeed extraordinary, but the painter was not widely known. His name was Jiao Fayuan."
Shopkeeper Wu was taken aback. "A man of the magical lineages?"
The man nodded. "Mm. During the Daxing era, he was a sorcerer of the Three Mountains Sect in Ganzhou, skilled in the ways of geomancy and feng shui, and served as an enshrined master under a prince of that time.
"Back then, Daxing stood locked in confrontation with the Golden Tent Wolf Nation. Later, the Great Xuan Dynasty seized power and rose as Daxing faced ruin. Jiao Fayuan was ordered by that prince to conceal a portion of the imperial treasury's silver, coin, and weapons within the Qinling Mountains to prepare for a future restoration of the realm.
"Later, the painting passed through many hands before falling into the possession of Prince Pingyang, who concealed it for himself. When he became entangled in the struggle for the imperial succession, he was convicted of treason. Princess Fu'an then fled with the painting, wandering from place to place until she reached Guanzhong.
"Unfortunately, she failed to decipher its secrets over all these years. Worse yet, word leaked out, drawing the gaze of the capital. I learned of this by chance and made secret arrangements to intercept it."
"So that is how it was."
A glimmer of excitement flashed in Shopkeeper Wu's eyes. "Incense Master, with these goods, will our Sacred Cult be able to rise in arms once more?"
"Hardly!"
The Incense Master sighed. Taking the guduo mace from Fire Ghost's hand, he unscrewed the rear cap and poured out some black, granular powder. "The reason I lingered in Chang'an for some days was to infiltrate the yamen and steal the formula for this substance."
"Gunpowder?" the concubine asked in confusion.
The Incense Master shook his head. "Its might far exceeds ordinary gunpowder. An alchemist stumbled upon it by accident. The Li family acquired it, but dared not keep it for themselves and offered it to the imperial court, which earned them their post as grand frontier ministers.
"Regrettably, I only managed to procure a single canister of the finished product, not the formula.
"The Great Xuan Dynasty is currently at the height of its power. Acquiring this weapon is like adding wings to a tiger. Before long, the entire jianghu will likely be suppressed. Rallying commoners and the faithful to rise in revolt now would only be throwing lives away in vain."
Hearing this, Shopkeeper Wu's gaze dimmed slightly. "Then what should we do?"
The Incense Master replied calmly, "The Great Dao has its own balance. If this world were decided purely by whose fist was biggest, where would the turnover of dynasties come from?
"In the Great Xuan Dynasty today, the common folk revere the law and dare not step an inch out of line, while petty men use the law as a weapon to pursue their selfish interests. Over time, calamity is bound to arise!
"A dozen years ago, the Cult Master was too eager to rise in arms, causing our Sacred Cult to splinter. Now our talent has withered, members harbor selfish motives, and our strength is far from what it once was. All we must do is build our strength and bide our time.
"I observed the celestial signs by night. Two years from now, a great disaster will surely strike the Central Plains. Once we retrieve the treasury from the Qinling Mountains, we shall go underground in the Central Plains. When the time comes, we can seize the opportunity to expand our Sacred Cult."
"The Incense Master is wise!"
* * *
*Bang!*
A resounding crash jolted Sha Lifei from his slumber.
"What happened? Did the earth dragon turn over?!"
Startled half to death, he scrambled out the door in a panic, only to see Li Yan in the courtyard practicing the Ten Great Foundation Forms, the stone trough having been cast aside.
Sha Lifei glanced up at the sky and immediately began to grumble. "What kind of madness has gotten into you so early in the morning, disturbing an honest man's sweet dreams? Training, training... you're even crazier than your old man was..."
Li Yan rolled his eyes. "We make our living on the edge of a blade. If we don't train our bodies, are we supposed to just train our lips like you?"
Sha Lifei was thick-skinned and couldn't care less about the mockery. He gave his head a cocky sway. "Hey, don't look down on lips! Used right, words can rival an army of a million!"
Li Yan slowly drew his stance to a close, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "Uncle Sha, the reason you haven't broken through all these years is partly because you neglect your practice, and partly because Grandmaster passed away early, leaving no one to cross hands with you and help guide your force. Now that I've stepped into hidden jin, if I cross hands with you, you might just find a breakthrough."
"Th-there's a chance?" Sha Lifei was clearly tempted.
Li Yan said earnestly, "It might just be a sheet of window paper—one poke and it breaks through."
"Fine, let's cross hands!"
Crossing hands was a matter of slowing down the pace to exchange and dismantle techniques, allowing each person to carefully feel the subtle shifts of hidden jin where fists and feet met.
*Thump! Thump!*
Before long, Sha Lifei lost his balance repeatedly and tumbled to the ground.
"I'm done! I'm not playing anymore!"
Sha Lifei rubbed his backside, wailing and complaining. Just then, Wang Daoxuan pushed open his door and stepped out, stretching lazily. His complexion looked hardly different from that of an ordinary healthy man.
"Daoist Master, how are you feeling?" Sha Lifei asked at once.
Wang Daoxuan looked a little embarrassed. "I could go for a bowl of water-basin mutton."
Li Yan chuckled. "With your stomach qi flourishing like that, it looks like you've completely recovered, Daoist Master."
Sha Lifei immediately tugged at the two of them. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go, let's go, let's go..."
* * *
They returned to Old Wu's on Old Wei Street.
The mutton here was exquisite, yet the place was by no means an upscale establishment. The long benches were packed with people squatting side by side, drawing patrons from all walks of life—there were people of every stripe.
The three ate while listening to the idle chatter of those nearby.
"Did you hear? Another brawl broke out last night."
"That was Black Third and his lot, wasn't it? Hmph, they never did an honest day's work. Now that the Zhou family has fallen, people are naturally coming to settle old scores!"
"What really happened with the Zhou family anyway?"
"Who knows, but it was definitely big. Didn't you see people from the Commandant Bureau show up? I heard everyone present was strictly forbidden from leaking a single word."
"Old Master Zhang is taking over as head of the Divine Fist Association, right?"
"Of course. I heard they originally planned a grand affair with officials coming from Chang'an to offer congratulations, but the old master kept it low-key, saying a simple ceremony would do."
"Look at him, Zhou Pan couldn't hold a candle to that kind of character. No wonder Zhou Pan ended up like that..."
"That's not even the worst of it. I heard that after Zhou Pan died, the Zhou family fell into complete chaos, coming to blows over the family property. Zhou Peide was thrown into prison to be beheaded, and with no one to back them, Zhou Bai and his shrewish mother were tossed right out the front gate."
"Tsk, tsk. Just last month, I saw him swaggering around like he owned the place..."
Listening to the patrons' conversation, Li Yan and his companions felt no surprise and simply kept their heads down, eating and drinking.
Many things in the world were just like this: when the source shifted, ripples naturally followed.
A political tremor in the official circles of Chang'an rippled to Xianyang, settling the score between the Zhou and Zhang families, and in doing so, changed the fates of all the little people who relied on them to earn a living.
*Clatter, clatter...*
Just then, a large crowd of beggars came running down the street, every one of them in sheer panic. Some stumbled and fell, their broken begging bowls shattering on the ground.
"Don't run! Halt, every last one of you!"
A few ferocious yamen bailiffs charged right after them, brandishing water-and-fire staves and beating the beggars until they wailed for their mothers and fathers.
Someone in the crowd couldn't stomach the sight and called out, "Officers, what happened to make you so angry? Why make things hard for these poor souls?"
"You thieving dog, where the hell did you crawl out from?!"
A bailiff with a face full of rough flesh whipped around to curse, but seeing many people looking indignant, he refrained from hurling more abuse. Instead, he stiffened his neck and barked, "You think these bastards are decent folk?
"This morning we raided their dens in the city and found a whole bunch of abducted women and children, utterly ruined by their abuse! People are over there cursing them to high heaven right now—why don't you hurry over and see if your own kin are among them?
"The Vice Prefect was furious! Knight Commandant Fan has already been ordered to march on the mass graves, and today they'll wipe out that beggar den once and for all!"
The words were delivered with righteous indignation, but the onlookers clearly did not buy it.
What kind of virtue did the Westbound Beggars' Gang have? How could these people who roamed the jianghu not know?
And these bailiffs—they took plenty of kickbacks from the Beggars' Gang on normal days, turning a blind eye to all sorts of wickedness, and some were even the backers behind human traffickers.
Yet now they came putting on an act of righteousness before the crowd.
Moreover, most of these beggars being beaten were truly wretched souls controlled by the Westbound Beggars' Gang, forced to hand over everything they begged for each day, never even getting enough to eat.
Even so, no one stepped in to poke their nose into it further.
They all knew that the yamen's sudden raid had to have some other hidden motive.
After the bailiffs drove the beggars away, Sha Lifei shook his head with a tsk. "The Westbound Beggars' Gang is done for. Looks like the Taixuan Orthodox Sect made a move, clearing the obstacles before their grand ritual."
Wang Daoxuan nodded. "Consecrating a mountain god is a momentous affair. If those wretches were left to run wild around the mass graves, they would have birthed some foul monster sooner or later. Once a mountain god stands guard, that area will be far more peaceful in the days to come."
With that, he rose to his feet. "Let us be on our way. We should go pay our respects to Brother Wu. He gave his life to save this poor Daoist. Whenever I think of it, I cannot sit at ease..."
Chapter 83