Lianshan Xin had his reasons for daring to promise Chairman Qu that his son would pass into Bailudong Academy this year. He had been to Bailudong Academy. He had been to see the master who set the questions. He already had this year's examination questions in hand.
Who could blame him? He had a cheat.
Only a madman would leave a cheat unused.
He had not staked all his hopes of entering Bailudong Academy on Kong Ningyuan.
But if he could get in by direct admission, he would certainly not sit the exam.
Because everyone knew that only the directly admitted were truly formidable. What use was merely being good at exams?
Even a relatively pure academy would always care about backing.
Kong Ningyuan was his backing now, and the message he had conveyed to Chairman Qu was plain enough: he was willing to be the Qu family's backing.
Chairman Qu was of course happy to accept such an arrangement.
If Lianshan Xin really was boasting, Chairman Qu had a hundred ways to take revenge. But as long as Lianshan Xin was telling the truth, he had a hundred ways to grovel.
All he had to do was wait.
Lianshan Xin had tamed Chairman Qu completely, and He Miaojun and Lianshan Jingcheng saw it all. Both of them had to revise their understanding of their own son.
Lianshan Jingcheng reflected, "Our son doesn't take after me. He really isn't just blindly confident."
He Miaojun gave Lianshan Jingcheng a meaningful look and said deliberately, "There's a saying: dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and a rat's son knows how to dig holes. Our son is this capable—husband, don't you have some secret of your own? Are you as deep as our son, hiding your true worth?"
Lianshan Jingcheng burst out laughing. "You flatter me, wife. If I were really that capable, I wouldn't have had to rely on you to open this clinic back then. If anything, it's you, my dear—you come from a great family, after all. I'd say Little Xin takes entirely after you."
He Miaojun shook her head. "My family has fallen. We couldn't even hold on to our ancestral property. Little Xin mustn't take after me; if he takes after me, he's finished. Looking at him now, our son is stronger than either of us."
"Indeed. Benevolence and severity in equal measure—the methods of a man in authority. Little Xin really is a natural for officialdom." Lianshan Jingcheng was rather moved.
He Miaojun retorted, "You talk as if you've been in officialdom yourself. However resourceful Little Xin is, he's still young, and he has no idea how deep the waters of the imperial court run. Ah, a grown son won't listen to his mother. I'll go get Little Xin's clothes ready."
Students of Bailudong Academy generally chose to live on campus: it saved time, let them study harder, and trained them to survive independently, away from their families.
The academy was a small imperial court, a small jianghu. People entered the academy to seek a future. A mama's boy would naturally be despised.
He Miaojun did not want her son to leave her, but she would always put Lianshan Xin first.
Lianshan Jingcheng was the same.
A mother's love was like water, a father's love like a mountain. Different in expression, but the same in the end.
Behind He Miaojun's back, Lianshan Jingcheng secretly pressed a packet of gold leaves into Lianshan Xin's hand.
"Gold? Not silver?"
Lianshan Xin's respect for his father surged at once. "Dad, I thought you hadn't stashed any secret savings. I was wrong. You're really bold, hiding this much. If Mom finds out, she'll have you silenced."
A packet of broken silver would have been one thing, but a packet of gold leaves—that was a bit too much secret savings.
So Lianshan Jingcheng felt rather guilty. "Son, these are your father's entire savings from the past twenty years. Whatever you do, don't let your mother find out. The students at Bailudong Academy are all either rich or of high birth. If you look too shabby there, they'll despise you. The younger they are, the more they compare themselves with others. Don't stint on spending. If you run short, your dad will go ask Chairman Qu for money."
Lianshan Xin gave his father a thumbs-up. "Asking Chairman Qu for money—now that's a fine idea. Dad, don't worry. If Mom finds out, I'll say I got it from Chairman Qu."
"Good son. All my doting on you wasn't wasted."
Lianshan Jingcheng was reassured.
"Son, you've been mature since childhood—reading faces, handling people. I won't lecture you on that. I'll remind you of just one thing. Kong Ningyuan is only one of the Seven Worthies of Bailudong. At the academy and in Jiangzhou City he counts for something, but he is by no means at the top. Don't rest all your confidence on him. The Qu family is nothing. Don't start underestimating the heroes of the world just because you've got Chairman Qu in your grip."
Lianshan Xin nodded. "Don't worry, Father. I know what I'm doing. I'll do my best to be on good terms with people."
"Good. I don't understand the inner workings of Bailudong Academy myself, so you'll have to be attentive. Mostly, study hard. All the great principles of this world are in the sages' books."
Parents, it seemed, always wanted their children to study hard.
Lianshan Xin naturally did not argue, but inwardly he was unimpressed. The sages' books were for show. For getting things done, they were utterly useless.
What he needed was not the sages' books but Bailudong Academy's endorsement. In his previous life, anyone who had graduated from Qingbei was automatically looked up to. It was the same in Great Yu: students who came out of the Four Great Academies were likewise looked up to as a matter of course.
But Lianshan Xin soon realized that earning his first pot of gold, even with a cheat, was harder than he had imagined.
……
Three days later.
This was supposed to be the day Bailudong Academy formally took in its new students.
Kong Ningyuan came to Huichun Hall again, in person, to escort Lianshan Xin to Bailudong Academy.
"Brother, where is your honored father? Let me pay my respects to your parents first, and then I'll take you to the academy."
Kong Ningyuan meant to keep Lianshan Xin's friendship for the long run, so he treated Lianshan Xin's parents with great respect.
Lianshan Xin shook his head helplessly. "My mother looked up how many Bailudong students have been injured or crippled over the years, and it frightened her sick. She doesn't want me going there. My father doesn't want me taking the risk either, and he has to look after my mother. Neither of them is planning to see me off today."
She had not known until she looked, and what she found had given her a shock: in recent years nearly one in ten Bailudong students had been injured or crippled—and that was inside the academy alone. Injuries after leaving were not counted.
Even Lianshan Xin had not expected that figure. He truly had not yet felt the cruelty and strife of the martial arts for himself.
He Miaojun could not accept it at all. After she and Lianshan Jingcheng tried once more to talk Lianshan Xin out of it and failed, fear and anger together put her straight to bed.
Fortunately it was nothing serious; otherwise Lianshan Xin would have been consumed with guilt.
Hearing this, Kong Ningyuan said he understood.
"When I was recommended into the academy, my mother was terrified too. The academy may be a ladder to the clouds, but you really do climb it with your life. Without enough aptitude, joining the academy brings disaster, not fortune. Brother, do you want to reconsider?"
Something in Kong Ningyuan's question made Lianshan Xin look at him in puzzlement.
"Brother Kong, you're not the sort to take things as they come. Has something happened?"
The fact that he could accept Lianshan Xin's "yielding the pear" idea showed that Kong Ningyuan was not content with an ordinary life. He and Lianshan Xin were the same kind of people. He should not be trying to talk Lianshan Xin out of it.
Unless something had gone wrong.
Sure enough.
Kong Ningyuan smiled bitterly. "Keen as ever, brother. You're right—something has gone wrong. Two days ago, a great matter came to light at the academy. The Nine Heavens uncovered that the Vice Headmaster was a Demon Cult elder, and that he had ties to overseas nations. Heavenly Sword personally led the team to arrest him, but the Vice Headmaster escaped. Before he fled, he joined forces with someone and broke Heavenly Sword's divine sword. The Nine Heavens are furious; the imperial court is furious. Right now the academy is going through a wholesale purge. The headmaster has resigned and taken the blame, and Heavenly Sword is temporarily acting as headmaster."
There was too much information for Lianshan Xin to take in all at once.
"The Nine Heavens have made their move?" That was the first thing Lianshan Xin seized on.
Kong Ningyuan nodded. "And Heavenly Sword acted in person, and failed... The news has been suppressed for now. Once it spreads, the whole world will shake."
The Nine Heavens was both the collective name for nine Heavenly Rankings experts and one of the imperial court's supreme forces for keeping the world in order.
In a world where martial masters could fly through the air and move through the earth, maintaining a dynasty required more than poetry, books, rites and teachings. It required a great deal of physical suppression.
The greatest reason the imperial court could hold down the jianghu was that the court's armed strength could hold down the jianghu.
The Nine Heavens were part of the court's supreme armed strength.
Heavenly Rankings experts were the world's highest fighting power, apart from the legendary land immortals. Heavenly Rankings grandmasters roamed the world and were generally not to be commanded by anyone. They either made themselves overlords of a region or lived free and easy as clouds and wild cranes.
Yet the imperial court had gathered nine Heavenly Rankings grandmasters, entrusted them with heavy responsibilities, and founded the organization called the Nine Heavens—to watch over the officials at court and to suppress the jianghu beyond it.
Most frightening of all, Heavenly Rankings grandmasters in the jianghu changed constantly, while the Nine Heavens, like the Great Yu court itself, had been handed down for a thousand years without a single break in its line. That meant the court had mastered the ability to keep producing Heavenly Rankings grandmasters.
"When the Nine Heavens lead an operation in person, they have never failed. They had become a legend. So however wild and unruly the martial masters of the jianghu were, they all obediently kept to the law—at least openly," Kong Ningyuan said quietly. "And now the legend is broken, and Heavenly Sword's sword is broken. Brother, do you understand what that means?"
"It means the court's prestige has been shaken, and the world will be full of trouble from now on." Lianshan Xin's face was grim.
The number one in the world cannot lose.
Lose once, and the hearts of those below begin to waver.
"Yes. The court is suppressing the news, but it cannot be suppressed for long. A Demon Cult elder was hiding at Bailudong Academy, and he escaped from under Heavenly Sword's hand. There must be enormous stakes behind all this. The worst of it is, the Vice Headmaster was my teacher at Bailudong Academy. He was the one who gave the nod to my recommending you to the academy."
At this point Kong Ningyuan smiled bitterly and could not go on.
Lianshan Xin's expression changed too.
"Brother, I've dragged you into this. Heavenly Sword has halted all recommendations, and the academy is conducting an internal investigation. For some time to come, the academy will be a gathering of storms and tangled in trouble. If you join now, the danger will multiply. Brother, my Kong clan has connections at the other three academies as well. My advice is to wait a year. I promise I'll get you recommendation letters for the other three academies."
Of all Kong Ningyuan's good intentions, Lianshan Xin heard only one sentence: the academy is conducting an internal investigation.
His eyes lit up.
His innate ability, applied to martial arts or even to cultivating immortality, might never amount to much.
But applied to this, it was exactly his specialty.
The Nine Heavens was a very good place for him to put that ability to use.
Under normal circumstances, of course, he had no chance at all to come into contact with the Nine Heavens.
Now the chance had come.
"Brother Kong, I still want to enter Bailudong Academy. Please, brother, recommend me."
Kong Ningyuan frowned at him. "Brother, do you mean to seek wealth and honor in danger?"
"Yes. With my kind of background, wealth and honor that can be had without risk will never come my way." Lianshan Xin admitted his thinking frankly. "A person does not get many chances in life to change his fate. Miss it, and it may never come again."
He did not doubt that Kong Ningyuan's promise was sincere; Kong Ningyuan probably really was prepared to work on recommendation letters for the other three great academies.
But who could say what things would be like a year from then?
How many couples who swore eternal love a year ago are now parted and gone their separate ways—let alone a promise between two men?
Kong Ningyuan was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly. "Brother, I am under investigation myself now. Heavenly Sword personally halted all the recommendations. I do not have the influence to make him change his mind—unless you go through the normal examination route."
Lianshan Xin did not actually mind joining the academy by the normal route, but he would much rather be hand-picked by Heavenly Sword.
So Lianshan Xin cupped his hands and said, "Brother Kong, I want a chance to meet Heavenly Sword."
"Are you confident you can win his favor at a first meeting?"
"There is never a chance if you don't try. Brother Kong, help me this once, and we will be square."
Having put it that strongly, Lianshan Xin left Kong Ningyuan no way to refuse—unless he wanted to break with Lianshan Xin, which he did not.
"Very well, I will make the introduction. But never speak of being square, brother; you have helped me a great deal, and my help to you falls far short. I still owe you an enormous debt. Brother, remember—whatever you do, do not anger Heavenly Sword. He may kill at any moment now, and anyone he kills is also recorded as a Demon Cult member."
"I understand."
I am going to help him hunt down Demon Cult members.
The Vice Headmaster was a Demon Cult elder, and he had escaped from Heavenly Sword's grasp. If there were no other demon brats inside Bailudong Academy working with him, that would be a wonder.
All of it would be his pledge of allegiance.
Lianshan Xin was ready to reap his first pot of gold.
But the first pot of gold came sooner than he had expected.
Walking out of Huichun Hall side by side with Kong Ningyuan, they passed the gate of the Qu household, where Chairman Qu stood with his eyes fixed on Lianshan Xin and Kong Ningyuan, watching them intently. His gaze was full of awe and flattery.
That was only natural.
But after meeting Chairman Qu's eyes, Lianshan Xin suddenly stopped.
"Brother, what is it?" Kong Ningyuan looked at him in surprise.
Lianshan Xin's expression did not change; inwardly, the waves were surging.
That man Qu can really put on a performance.
The Demon Cult villain is my neighbor.
Chapter 4