The sun blazed overhead. Qin Zheng lay in the shade of a tree eating a sweet melon, all the while supervising Duan Yu as he trained in the lightness skill from the Sunflower Manual.
Not far away, Duan Yu, dressed in training clothes, darted without pause among the wooden stakes. His movements were strange and impossible to predict. Just when it seemed he would crash into a stake the next instant, his body passed straight through the middle of it, as if he had learned the art of walking through walls.
Watching Duan Yu train, Mu Wanqing could not help but cry out in wonder. "This lightness skill is truly marvelous. No matter how many times I watch, I still find it unbelievable!"
More than ten days had passed since Ye Erniang left.
In those days, aside from eating free meals in Wanjie Valley, Qin Zheng did nothing but teach Duan Yu the lightness skill. He was living quite comfortably.
After the life-and-death ordeals he had been through earlier, Duan Yu had come to understand how important martial arts were. He did not slack off in the least, and had actually succeeded in mastering the lightness skill from the Sunflower Manual, so that even Qin Zheng looked at him with new eyes.
Qin Zheng had derived this lightness skill from the Tianxie Sect's Great Art of Body Seizure, working it out according to the shifting of the Zhou Tian constellations. Duan Yu had studied the classics thoroughly since childhood and had also dabbled in the patterns of the stars, so he found the entrance to the art with ease.
Zhong Ling and Mu Wanqing, who studied alongside him, could not grasp the core principles at all. They could not even understand Qin Zheng's explanations, and could only give up in regret.
What Duan Yu did not know was that once this lightness skill was mastered, internal energy would arise of itself within his body. Qin Zheng had also left a hidden back door in that internal energy. By the silk-thread ox-leading method, using the internal energy as the silk thread, he could control Duan Yu's body the way one controls a puppet...
Utterly unaware, Duan Yu finished the day's practice. Panting hard, he came beneath the tree, snatched up the teapot, poured a great mouthful of tea down his throat, and only then said, "Hero Qin, have I mastered the lightness skill?"
Qin Zheng said with a look of satisfaction, "You have. Your comprehension is high, and your aptitude is sound as well. If you had practiced martial arts from childhood, you would likely have become a top master of the jianghu long ago. Even if the real Murong Fu came, he might not be able to beat you."
Duan Yu shook his head. "I practice martial arts only to protect myself, not to contend for superiority. So long as they cannot hit me, that is enough."
As he spoke, he glanced at Qin Zheng, wanting to speak and yet holding back. In the end he could not help asking, "Hero Qin, there has always been a question in my heart.
Your martial arts are so formidable. Why do you not go about righting wrongs like the heroes of the jianghu, instead of stirring up... things that leave people baffled?"
Qin Zheng said with some feeling, "I imagine these past few days you have seen clearly enough. Most people in the jianghu kill without blinking an eye, and act entirely according to their own likes and dislikes. If I were to right wrongs by my own moral standards, more than nine out of ten people in the jianghu would deserve to die.
If anyone else tried to persuade me, I would take it for nothing but a fart. But you and I, Brother Duan, felt like old friends at first sight, so of course I must give you face. I have decided that starting tomorrow I will go about righting wrongs in the jianghu. Hmm—I'll begin the killing with this Kingdom of Dali!"
"There is absolutely no need for that!"
Duan Yu broke into a cold sweat and hurriedly waved his hands. "Hero Qin, you need not give me any face at all! And righting wrongs does not necessarily mean one must kill, does it?"
Seeing how anxious and flustered he was, Qin Zheng could not help laughing. "You're right. Sometimes slaughter cannot solve every problem.
The orthodox people of the martial world have slandered me as the Bandit King and regard me as a crooked heretic, but those bandits whose hands were stained with blood were in fact cleared out by me long ago. Most of those who remain are displaced people who were swept along.
I have kept eight hundred li of Qinchuan free of bandits for five years, and made it so that in all the martial world of Guanzhong, not a single person of the jianghu dares slaughter the innocent at will. Compared with those so-called orthodox paths of the martial world, do the things I have done count as righting wrongs?"
Shame showed on Duan Yu's face. He felt that everything he had believed before had been overturned.
Illustrious orthodox sects of the jianghu, such as Dali's Wuliang Sword Sect and the Shennong Gang, were all unreasonable people who killed as they pleased. Qin Zheng, ruthless and unrestrained on the surface, had instead saved countless common people.
And here he was, still unable to tell right from wrong, reproaching him. He truly was a worthless wretch!
After cursing himself a couple of times in his heart, Duan Yu grew solemn and bowed to Qin Zheng with cupped hands. "Hero Qin's righteousness is lofty, and you are worthy of the title Great Hero of Guanzhong. My view was shallow."
Seeing the sincerity of his apology, Qin Zheng gave a slight nod and went on.
"I don't mean to blame you. After all, anyone can see at a glance that you are a young master from a wealthy house who has never been out in the world. You do not know the hardships of ordinary people, and your impression of the jianghu is only something you dreamed up in your head. I can understand your being a little naive.
The true jianghu is extremely complicated. Only when you have seen it with your own eyes can you know what it is like.
Some people in the jianghu are indeed as you imagine, settling gratitude and grudges as they please, free and unrestrained. But there are also many who are caught in the jianghu and are not their own masters.
For example, there is a man who falls in love with every pretty girl he meets, only to discover that all those girls are his sisters. There is a man whose heart is set wholly on the Buddha, yet by a twist of fate he can only go against his first intent and break his vows one after another. And there is someone who spent half a lifetime defending home and country, only to discover in the end that he was actually a subject of the enemy state.
Tell me, whom is one supposed to take that up with?
Perhaps this is what the Buddha meant by the suffering of all living beings. The jianghu today is filled with too much suffering and too many grudges, and what I mean to do is bring a little joy to this disaster-ridden jianghu.
So join me. Come with me and help Wuyazi arrange the bride-seeking martial contest!"
Duan Yu looked at Qin Zheng, whose burning eyes were fixed on him in invitation, and the shame that had just risen in his heart vanished without a trace.
Whether this could bring the jianghu any joy was hard to say. From what he could see, though, Qin Zheng was genuinely quite happy whenever he stirred up trouble...
Qin Zheng was about to go on persuading him when a pigeon suddenly flew in from the distance and landed on his arm.
Qin Zheng glanced at the pigeon, took the message tube from its foot, drew out the two letters inside, and burst out laughing the moment he read them. "Duan Yanqing heard that Murong Fu and I killed Yue Lao San and Yun Zhonghe in Wanjie Valley. He was too frightened to come, and has run off to Gusu to make trouble for the Murong family."
At these words, cold sweat broke out on Duan Yu's forehead at once.
This Young Master Murong had done nothing at all, and disaster had dropped on him from the sky. Now this truly was a matter with nowhere to seek justice...
It seemed that from now on, when he walked the jianghu, he must never again pass himself off under someone else's name. Implicating the innocent the way this had would not do!
At that thought he gave a helpless, bitter smile and said to Qin Zheng, "Hero Qin, let us hurry to Gusu, find Duan Yanqing, and explain things clearly. We must not implicate that innocent Young Master Murong."
Qin Zheng said thoughtfully, "I thought Duan Yanqing would come first to sound out what I was made of. I didn't expect him to be so cautious that he doesn't even dare meet me.
There's no need to go to Gusu. Murong Fu isn't home anyway. Even if Duan Yanqing really does run into him, someone will strike from the shadows to help Murong Fu."
"Compared with Duan Yanqing, there is a more pressing matter at hand. I have just had word from my informants. Jiumozhi, State Preceptor of Tubo, has already set foot in Dali, and tomorrow he will go to Tianlong Temple.
Jiumozhi's journey to the Central Plains this time bodes no good. First, he means to seize martial manuals such as the Six Meridians Divine Sword and the Seventy-Two Supreme Arts of Shaolin. Second, he wants to throw the martial world of the Central Plains into chaos, so that Tubo may profit from it.
How could such a thing be allowed?"
Duan Yu listened in complete astonishment, then immediately nodded hard. "Hero Qin is right. A monk who does not devote himself to the Buddha's teachings, but instead harbors vicious intentions and vainly seeks to stir up strife in the martial world—we must go and stop him!"
Qin Zheng said, filled with righteous indignation, "Exactly. A monk ought to act like a monk. Recite the scriptures properly, and don't meddle in other people's business!
Stirring up strife in the martial world is the sort of thing that ought to be left to a professional like me. If he does all of it, what am I supposed to do? Isn't that bullying an honest man?"
"Ah??" Duan Yu stood there dumbstruck.
Was he an honest man? No—that wasn't it. Did stirring up martial strife even come in professional and unprofessional kinds? There were far too many things worth mocking. He could not possibly get through them all!
Chapter 7