Conspiracy

Did Shen Youran really have some conspiracy in mind? Sun Yixie wasn't certain, actually. It was simply that he couldn't bring himself to believe that a man of his own meager skills and modest reputation could be worth the master of Luoyang's Justice Sect showing up at his door in person to issue an invitation and explain the whole matter. By Brother Sun's logic, honed over years of scraping a living in the fish market, this fellow named Shen had to be scheming after something—whether it concerned him, Sun Yixie, or the Sun family. Otherwise he wouldn't have done it. But today Shen Youran had asked for no money, asked for no beautiful woman, and begged no favors. He had simply delivered his letter and left... and that was deeply strange. "Se, what do you figure he's after?" Having shared his thoughts with Huang Donglai, Sun Yixie asked for his opinion. "What you're saying... has some sense to it," Huang Donglai said thoughtfully. "But what could Shen Youran possibly want from you? If it's money—his Justice Sect in Luoyang may not be as rich as your Sun family, but you can tell from the carriage he travels in and the clothes he wears that he isn't short of cash. If it's people..." He looked Sun Yixie up and down. "Even if he did have a taste for men, he wouldn't go for someone like you, would he?" "Get lost! There aren't that many men who go for men!" Sun Yixie retorted. "Exactly, so..." Huang Donglai said. "What else does the Sun family have that he could be after?" "Maybe..." Sun Yixie said as he thought, "he's trying to sell me a favor? A debt of gratitude is the hardest kind to repay, after all." "Mmm..." Huang Donglai said. "That's hard to say." For a while neither of them could come up with a solid answer, and so the matter was set aside. That night the two drank and talked happily, trading stories of all they had been through over the years and reminiscing about things from that other world. They drank until midnight, and when the servants heard no more sound from the room and came in to look, the pair had both "self-destructed"—drunk themselves unconscious. The servants had no choice but to hoist the two of them up, one to the guest room and the other back to his own. ... Meanwhile, at that same midnight hour, in the inn where Shen Youran was staying. "Young Master, it's all been confirmed." Shen Youran's driver was reporting to his master what he had learned from the afternoon until just now. "As you expected, they really were Canal Gang men. After we left yesterday, the bodies left behind on the road were quietly collected by their people too; the authorities show no sign at all of having been alerted." "Mmm..." Shen Youran nodded at that, then gave a contemptuous smile. "Heh... this Di Bujue truly never knows when to stop. He tires himself out coming after me." "Young Master..." The driver now looked a little puzzled. "There is something about yesterday's business that this subordinate still doesn't understand. Might I ask you to enlighten me?" "Come now, Lao Wu—there are only the two of us here. No need for such formality. Speak plainly," Shen Youran said. This driver, Lao Wu, was one of Shen Youran's trusted men; otherwise Shen Youran would not have traveled with only him. "Yes." But Lao Wu still set great store by the master-servant distinction, and answered with full respect, "Of the eight men who ambushed us yesterday, only the one who fought me was any good. His inner-force cultivation was no lower than mine, and that palm technique of his, yielding overcoming hardness, broke most of my Thirteen Paths of Mountain-Rending, River-Severing Saber—cut it apart, near enough... And yet the other seven were all nobodies; even by Canal Gang standards their martial arts would rank among the dregs. This subordinate doesn't understand: knowing full well who you are, why would they send eight men like that to ambush us?" "Oh, that." Shen Youran laughed. "Simple. Because that Gang Leader Di never intended to kill me in the first place." He leisurely picked up the tea on the table, took a sip, and went on, "If he truly wanted me dead, he wouldn't have chosen a spot so close to the city to strike, he wouldn't have sent so few men, and he certainly wouldn't have used ordinary arrows for the ambush... at the very least he'd have used poisoned ones." "Then... what was the point of the ambush?" "Next year the Four Sects and Three Gangs will choose a supreme leader, and that fellow Di is testing my martial arts." Shen Youran continued unhurriedly, "Think back on it and you'll see. "When arrows come flying from a distance, you can 'see' them directly. But I was inside the carriage, so I had to 'listen.' If I couldn't hear them, or heard too late, there'd be no time to react. So that was a test of my hearing. "The instant a storm of arrows pierces the carriage, their course is suddenly deflected by the impact, and inside the cabin there's so little room that you can hardly shift your body—you can only catch the arrows with your hands. So that was a test of my eyesight and my skill at catching hidden weapons. "And sending the only real expert to draw you away while seven throwaway pawns surrounded me—that was to see my footwork as it stands now, and how I kill. "Once he'd tested all of that, the man in charge of observing would naturally withdraw." Hearing this, Lao Wu suddenly understood. "No wonder... I thought that fellow I fought moved strangely, as if his mind wasn't entirely on me." "That man was probably even stronger than you imagine," Shen Youran said. "If I'm not mistaken, he must be the Canal Gang's third seat, 'Rhino-Headed Flood Dragon' Feng Shunshui... He fought you holding back his techniques for fear of being recognized; otherwise you likely wouldn't have lasted ten moves against him." "So that's it." Lao Wu nodded with a frown. "Young Master sees it clearly!" "Hmph. Still, those Canal Gang fellows have it hard." Shen Youran spoke mildly. "Usually I stay in Luoyang, on my own ground, and naturally they don't dare make a move there. If I travel far and bring many men, they don't dare act recklessly either. This time Di Bujue finally got hold of such an opportunity, but he only dared send his sworn brother to test my skills, not to strike a killing blow—for fear that if something really happened, the jianghu would come knocking to settle accounts." Lao Wu agreed, "Di Bujue is a petty scoundrel; he truly cannot be mentioned in the same breath as the Young Master's breadth of character." "Heh... let's not speak of him. Now that I've confirmed it was the Canal Gang playing tricks, I can rest easy." Shen Youran said, "By the way, Lao Wu, what did you make of that young Master Huang we met on the road?" Lao Wu thought about it. "Young Master Huang's martial arts are certainly not bad among his generation. Of course, compared with your own cultivation at that age, Young Master... it's the difference between cloud and mud." "Mmm..." Shen Youran murmured. "I actually think this Huang Donglai has something rather exceptional about him, but I also find him a little peculiar... And then, today I finally met that Sun Yixie. He and his father, Master Sun, are descendants of the Sun Sect, and yet neither of them knows any martial arts at all... It seems their family really has stayed out of the martial world for a long time. So after this 'grand plan' of ours succeeds, I'll still have to send men to the Sun residence and get 'the Sun family's thing' by 'more direct means.'" "Young Master..." At this, a savage look flashed across Lao Wu's face. "We're already here—why not take the chance tonight and..." "Hey!" Shen Youran waved him off quickly. "How could we? Hangzhou has plenty of eyes besides the Canal Gang's—many other gangs keep watch here too. Heaven knows how many pairs of eyes were on me when I visited the Sun residence today... If the whole family were slaughtered the very next day, could I possibly escape suspicion? No matter what, we must wait until after the Youth Heroes Assembly, until I have the martial factions of the jianghu by the throat, and only then make our move. At that point no one will have anything to say." "Yes, yes! The Young Master is far-sighted; this subordinate is dull." Lao Wu was indeed not especially clever, but he was loyal—and it was exactly such men who made the most suitable confidants. ... The next day, Shen Youran and Lao Wu left Hangzhou early in the morning. When they departed, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were still snoring in their beds. Of course, they were the young masters of a great house—an occasional lie-in, or even sleeping till the sun was three poles high every day, was no great matter. It was the hour of Si before Sun Yixie finally got up. Once he had washed and dressed, a servant told him the master wished to see him. Sun Yixie assumed his father meant to scold him for drinking a few cups too many the day before. To his surprise, when he arrived, Master Sun said nothing at all; instead, with a grave face, he told his son to come with him to the ancestral hall. Great families kept their own ancestral halls at home; only poor folk placed their tablets in the village hall. And apart from offering sacrifices to the ancestors on festivals and holidays, a great family's ancestral hall served other functions as well, the most typical of which was... "Don't tell me—a few extra drinks now and then and I'm to be hauled up under the family rules? Or has he finally decided to disown me?" All the way to the ancestral hall behind Old Master Sun, Sun Yixie's mind ran wild. Master Sun said not a word, his face set with a certain resolve; judging by the look of things, something serious really was afoot. Once the two of them stepped into the hall, Master Sun at once ordered the servants out and shut the door. Sun Yixie's heart sank even further. He thought to himself that he hadn't done anything wicked lately, had he? Could it be that his old tricks—bricks thrown from the shadows, sacks over people's heads—had come to light? "Yixie." After a brief silence, Master Sun spoke. "You're seventeen this year, aren't you?" "Yes." Sun Yixie was a little cowed, so his manner was excellent. "Your son turned seventeen this spring." "Mmm..." Master Sun nodded. "This time, have you made up your mind to go with young Huang to Luoyang for that Youth Heroes Assembly?" "Uh..." Sun Yixie hesitated, then answered tentatively, "Well... that's the plan at present." The subtext of this was—if you have any objection, I could actually not go. "Good." Unexpectedly, Master Sun nodded again at once and sighed. "So this is heaven's will..." He paused. "In that case, it's time." As he spoke, he stepped forward a few paces and went around behind the altar table where the ancestral tablets were set. Who knew what Master Sun shifted there in the dark; a breath later, with the sound of gears and wedges turning, a hidden door opened in the ancestral hall. "Come, son, follow me." Master Sun calmly beckoned to Sun Yixie, then led him through that hidden door.