The summer sun blazed, and the white clouds hung sparse in the sky.
Ding Songyan stood in a narrow alley, one that could barely admit two people walking side by side, feigning enjoyment of the draft that swept through it.
Just now he had in fact been tempted to bait Chief Banner Chen Yuliang—who might be watching or "listening in" nearby—by calling straight out, "Chief Banner Chen, please come out and meet me!"
But after weighing it over and over, he abandoned the idea.
If Chen Yuliang really was close by, this would amount to provoking him into the open, exposing him. From there the situation would grow complicated, and one could not rule out an urge to gamble everything on a desperate strike. The watchtower's oversight deterred men who wanted to keep a way out for themselves; it could not frighten the kind who had resolved to risk their lives. If it truly came to that, then for some time Ding Songyan would have nothing to lean on but Mr. Yu's protection—and guarding a single man who enjoyed no key protection was far harder than for a man bent on dying to kill one.
With the whole affair roughly clarified and a way out of the crisis now in sight, Ding Songyan was reluctant to stake his own person on the gamble.
So he simply asked, in the tone of idle chat, where Chief Banner Chen was at this moment.
It was a reminder to the hidden Mr. Yu that Chen Yuliang might be lurking nearby.
He had no way of knowing whether Mr. Yu would think of that; since he could not know, he would assume he would not.
The red-nosed man was utterly baffled by the question.
"Of course he's back at our Xiaochuan Gang."
Ding Songyan changed tack. "What martial arts is Chief Banner Chen good at?"
This, too, was asked to "help" Mr. Yu. As a member of a rival gang, Mr. Yu almost certainly knew the relevant facts already, but Ding Songyan wanted to be safe: if a question ought to be asked, then asked it would be.
"Everybody knows that—why are you asking? The Mysterious Turtle Divine Art!" The red-nosed man still could not fathom what Ding Songyan was after.
Ding Songyan pressed one step further. "And is Chief Banner Chen skilled at gazing afar, or at keen listening?"
He did not know what concise word this world used for a martial art that sharpened the hearing, so out of instinct he had picked a term from the Buddhist sutras.
The red-nosed man froze.
"Chief Banner Chen can make out the faintest sounds from twenty zhang off..."
And with that, he seemed to wake up to it as well:
Chief Banner Chen might be right nearby!
At almost the same instant, Ding Songyan heard a slight stir at the alley mouth behind him, as though something had flashed past.
Immediately after, Mr. Yu—small black cap, dark short jacket—came sprinting out from who knew where, his figure flickering past like a ghost and vanishing.
So fast... The sigh had scarcely formed in Ding Songyan's heart when the red-nosed man snapped out of it as if waking from a dream. Without even pausing to square his body around, he bolted for the alley mouth at the other end.
You rat, Ding Erlang—you even laid an ambush!
Ding Songyan still had questions of his own, but seeing that the man did not appear to have any martial arts about him as he ran, he quickly tossed away his candied-hawthorn skewer and gave chase.
A pursuit like this, involving no martial force used to defy the law, should not concern the watchtower, he reckoned—unless it stirred up a disturbance or drew in more people.
Thump, thump, thump. The red-nosed man reached the alley mouth and was about to round a great tree standing there, dense with leaves and broad of crown, to turn off in another direction.
Suddenly a pair of huge, bronze-dark hands reached out from behind the tree, caught the red-nosed man's shoulders without a wasted motion, and with a swish dragged him into the dead corner walled off by the alley wall and the thick tree.
Even Ding Songyan, right there in the alley, had had no idea anyone was hiding behind that tree!
In the space of a blink—too late to stop, already at the spot—Ding Songyan heard a muffled pounding, and the crunch of bones breaking.
He pulled up short and immediately turned about, trying to get away from that tree.
A wise man does not stand beneath a falling wall!
"Erlang! Erlang, it's me!" From the dead corner behind the tree came a voice Ding Songyan knew well.
Big Brother? Ding Songyan looked over, startled, just in time to see Ding Daniu stick out a small half of his face, throw him a quick nod, and duck back out of sight.
Those bell-round eyes were threaded with red, and his beard and cheeks were flecked with specks of blood.
Ding Songyan frowned and thought briefly, then put on the look of a man pressed by nature's call, moved a few steps around to the side of the tree where he could see into the dead corner, and stood facing the alley wall, hands at his waistband, glancing over with the corner of his eye. The red-nosed man lay there, his face as if beaten in by a heavy hammer, caved wholly inward; the blood struck out of him had splashed over his own face and Ding Daniu's alike, and he had stopped breathing.
Ding Daniu wiped his fist, smeared with bone chips and flesh, on the red-nosed man's clothes, tilted his head, scratched it, and said to Ding Songyan apologetically:
"Erlang, I lied to you this morning. Mom said Mr. Yu is only one man and might not keep you safe, so she had me skip the docks today and follow you quietly."
Ding Songyan nodded blankly and pointed at the red-nosed man. "He's dead?"
"One punch and he was dead." Ding Daniu nodded earnestly. Not a trace of fear or panic showed in those bell-round eyes; he was as calm as if he had said he would take his little brother to the docks to find something to eat.
Ding Songyan's first instinct was to call the police—no, report it to the magistrate—but his whole mind had gone a little blank.
My own big brother just killed a man?
All I wanted was to catch him and ask about the details of the old deal over The Esoteric Classic of Mountains and Seas...
Granted, it left one fewer hostile person in the know, and the dead man had been a gang member—but I have always been a good, law-abiding citizen!
As he studied Ding Daniu's untroubled face, a thought stirred in Ding Songyan.
"Big Brother, this isn't your first time killing someone, is it?"
Ding Daniu cast his mind back earnestly for a few breaths. "On the way to Dingjiang Prefecture, I killed a few."
Ding Songyan's back went tight—and yet, inexplicably, it felt "only to be expected."
Earlier, when he had told Xu Chang'an that the girl in the white skirt could journey all the way to Dingjiang Prefecture, had no taste for hiding, and wore the face of someone guileless and green to the world—so that she must be either of superb family or superb in the martial arts—he had, in fact, thought of his own household:
Qingyan's looks were no poorer than that girl's, and Mother was finely featured too. To be sure, whenever they traveled they wore veiled hats that screened them completely, and coming to Dingjiang Prefecture they would certainly have paid a sum to travel with a large merchant caravan or fleet for safety's sake. But no long road is without mishaps, and a family of five enjoyed no one's key protection; the chance that trouble might find them, that some lurking villain might mark them, was entirely real.
At first Ding Songyan had credited good fortune, or the luck of falling in with an unusually dependable caravan. Now it looked otherwise: his family, too, had an "expert" guarding them, and every villain who slipped the net had been finished off by Big Brother.
"Big Brother, what martial art did you train in?" Ding Songyan asked, pressing on out of habit.
Ding Daniu turned his gaze back to the corpse with the caved-in face and said in a low rumble:
"Inborn godlike strength."
As he spoke, he reached out his left hand, wiped the beads of blood from his face and beard, brought them to his mouth, and began, unhurriedly, to lick them off.
"..." Ding Songyan stared, eyes glazed, mouth slightly open.
Ding Daniu stroked the red-nosed man's sunken cheek, split into a grin, and confided to his little brother:
"Erlang, I really like killing people."
Every hair on Ding Songyan's body stood on end, and a chill seeped through him.
Ding Daniu smacked his lips and added, rather wistfully:
"But Mom won't allow it."
Before Ding Songyan could react, he—who was crouching before the corpse—cocked his head, all eagerness to please:
"Erlang, today it was to protect you. Mom shouldn't scold me or punish me for it, right?"
The corner of Ding Songyan's mouth twitched. For the sake of his own safety, he humored him:
"Probably not..."
Last night, once he knew Big Brother's story and saw Mother Liu Yuzao's manner toward him, Ding Songyan had somehow thought of him as a big dog that got discriminated against.
Now all he wanted was to slap himself across the face.
This was plainly a fierce tiger bound by the chains of family!
……
Outside Duokang Temple.
Mr. Yu chased Chen Yuliang ahead of him with a monkey's agility; every step he took came with a sweep of wind that carried him to a new position as if by teleportation.
At some point, a subtle needle-prick feeling had risen in his body. He understood: the men on the watchtower had taken aim at him.
Since it had not yet risen to the level of using martial force to defy the law, Mr. Yu did not slow his pace, and the gap between him and Chen Yuliang kept closing.
If this were not an exceptionally crowded market, he—whose martial art took "wind" for its name—would have caught up long ago.
Past Duokang Temple, Chen Yuliang ahead suddenly darted into a martial arts school, slipped inside the covered corridor, skirted the skywell and the practice yard, and with practiced ease arrived at a small, unoccupied building at the rear.
There Chen Yuliang stopped and turned to face the doorway.
He was past thirty, swarthy, with a slightly protruding mouth, dressed in something like a diver's suit.
Watching Mr. Yu slow his pace and close in step by step, Chen Yuliang rolled his neck and said with a smile:
"So The Esoteric Classic of Mountains and Seas was a trap set against our Xiaochuan Gang.
"Mr. Yu, is it? Ten years thrown in with Old Master Zhen, and you've never once struck with your full strength—even the Register of Orchids Under Heaven hasn't listed you. I've long wanted to test what level you've reached. Kanxuan, same as me? Or stronger?"
Mr. Yu's expression was dark and cold. He said nothing.
He took a single step, a hiss of wind rose, and the distance between him and Chen Yuliang was already down to within a zhang—then a palm chopped out across the empty air.
Chen Yuliang had barely raised a hand to parry when Mr. Yu stamped a heel and twisted, wrenching his headlong charge into a new line by sheer force, ghosting around behind his opponent, his left palm slashing in at a slant.
"Hmph!" Unhurried, Chen Yuliang turned his body sideways and took the palm squarely on his shoulder.
Phut—Mr. Yu's hand landed as though striking rotted leather.
To his somewhat lifeless eyes, the enemy's bare skin seemed to thicken in an instant, gaining line after line like the cracks of a tortoise shell.
Phut, phut, phut! Inside the small building Mr. Yu was barely hampered at all; his lower body swayed and spun like duckweed in the wind, forever shifting position, driving his upper body to send palms and fists from every direction, all seeking out whatever spot might be Chen Yuliang's fatal gate.
Chen Yuliang could not match Mr. Yu's speed and could only stand his ground, holding fast.
In the blur of blows, fast as strings of firecrackers, Mr. Yu drifted to a new position, and his left palm—before Chen Yuliang could bring his guard back around—chopped onto the man's neck with a crack.
Chen Yuliang's neck suddenly caved in, as though layers of leather had split open and swallowed Mr. Yu's left palm; the hand could not be pulled free for the moment, and Mr. Yu's form stalled with it.
A savage grin appeared at the corner of Chen Yuliang's mouth. Grasping the chance, he clenched his right fist, twisted his body halfway, and smashed it toward Mr. Yu's face.
Mr. Yu's expression did not so much as ripple. His right hand shot forward in a grab.
With that grab, the wind ahead abruptly condensed into something solid, stream after stream, like extensions of Mr. Yu's fingers, raking across the face Chen Yuliang had just twisted around, raking across those eyes.
Blood sprayed in an instant, and Chen Yuliang could not help opening his mouth in a horrible scream—a scream the howling gale rushing in poured right back down his throat.
With total darkness before his eyes, a name abruptly leaped into his mind:
"The Seven Methods of Catching Wind!"
Chapter 10