Bixia Sect was on Mount Tai, and Mount Tai was in Dongping Commandery. One could travel straight through Ji Province to get there, but Shen Qiao was afraid that Hehuan Sect would guess where they were going, so he took Shiwu southward into Liang Province. It was a long detour that almost doubled the length of their journey.
Shiwu became quiet and reserved, no longer his former shy yet friendly self. He rarely spoke when they encountered other people. Shen Qiao knew what the trouble was, but he also knew his advice couldn’t solve it. All he could do was wait for Shiwu to resolve it himself.
The abbot had hidden some copper coins in the cellar. Though it wasn’t much, with some frugality it would be enough to last their entire journey to Dongping Commandery.
They hurried along during the day and stayed inside the cities at night. If there wasn’t a city nearby, they did their best to search for one of the livelier towns. As the saying went, “a true hermit secludes themselves within the markets”—the more people they were among, the less likely they were to be found.
Evening fell as they strode into western Yan Province. Shen Qiao found them an inn to stay at inside the city. There was just one bed, which he gave to Shiwu while he himself meditated, cultivating.
After he’d rebuilt his foundations with the Zhuyang Strategy, Shen Qiao seemed to enter an entirely brand-new, completely unknown world.
A world that possessed scant inches of space, but where every detail shone clear. With his heart tranquil and at peace, the beautiful mysteries of nature made themselves apparent.
True qi flowed through his damaged meridians, sending pain twinging through him. But with it came regeneration—even the many traumatic injuries he’d suffered in the past seemed to slowly heal.
This was what was truly profound about the Zhuyang Strategy.
Where his inner awareness reached, the light of dawn dappled the trees as the bright moon sank behind rooftops. The plum flowers concealed divine secrets as they furtively ripened into bloom.
Juque, Zhongting, Huagai, Xuanji—one by one, his blocked acupoints and damaged meridians were made clear again. The stuffiness and muffled pain that had long choked his chest slowly faded too, bit by bit.
Shen Qiao’s eyes were tightly shut. He was completely aware that another pair of eyes had been secretly glancing his way.
Wrapped in his blanket, Shiwu—who’d supposedly dozed off some time ago—lay motionless. He was pretending to sleep, but his eyes were open just a crack.
So he saw Shen Qiao, who’d been fine only a moment before, suddenly hack up a mouthful of blood. Everything else flew from his mind as he threw aside his blanket and rolled off the bed, dashing to Shen Qiao’s side.
“What’s wrong?” he cried. “Are you all right?”
Shen Qiao opened his eyes and shook his head with a smile. “This is stagnant blood. It’s best to cough it up.”
Shiwu’s eyes glistened with tears. “You don’t need to comfort me! I know you didn’t buy any medicine during our journey, all to save money… Your injuries were so terrible when I saved you, you were almost on the verge of death!”
“It’s true that I avoided buying medicine to save money, but I’m already slowly recovering by using my internal cultivation. I’ll be fine, regardless of whether I take medicine.”
“Really?”
Shen Qiao stroked his head. “Really. I promised your shifu to take good care of you. So I won’t leave you alone.”
Shiwu threw his arms around Shen Qiao and started bawling. “I…I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose… I was only…only just too sad!”
Shen Qiao’s eyes prickled with moisture. “I know.” He patted Shiwu’s back gently. “I’m sorry.”
Shiwu shook his head. “Please don’t say you’re sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”
Shen Qiao smiled bitterly. “How was it not my fault? They came to kill me, and all of you were dragged into it.”
“They were so savage, it’d turn out the same if you weren’t there. As long as they thought Shifu was hiding you, they’d kill him just the same. Shifu chose to save you, just like I chose to save you. None of us blame you for it, so you shouldn’t blame yourself either. All right? The ones who should be punished are the evil people, not the good people.”
Shen Qiao’s heart was pained and grieved. Zhu-xiong, oh Zhu-xiong, he thought to himself. Your spirit in heaven can surely rest seeing Shiwu so mature and thoughtful.
“Would you like to learn martial arts?” he asked Shiwu.
Shiwu nodded. “I want to study martial arts properly. That way, I can get revenge for Shifu and Chuyi.”
“I can teach you Xuandu Mountain’s martial arts on the way to Bixia Sect. How about it?”
Shiwu’s eyes shone. “Xuandu Mountain? The number one Daoist sect in the world? That Xuandu Mountain?”
Shen Qiao nodded.
“Were you a disciple of Xuandu Mountain, Shen-langjun?”
“Yes,” said Shen Qiao, smiling. “I am Shen Qiao, a personal disciple of the sixth generation’s sect leader of Xuandu Mountain, Qi Fengge.”
Shiwu gasped. “I…I think I heard Shifu mention your name before! You used to be the sect leader, right?”
Shen Qiao stroked the boy’s head some more. “Yes. It’s a long and complicated tale, so I won’t tell it to you just now. But I came to Yecheng to look for some Xuandu Mountain disciples who were heading north. But who could have expected…”
He paused, then continued, “Who could have expected that I’d meet Sang Jingxing. What happened after, you already know.”
Shiwu said awkwardly, “But Shifu once told us…every sect’s martial arts are close-kept secrets, never to be revealed. You can’t learn their martial arts unless you join their sect. And I’ve already promised Shifu that I’d go to Bixia Sect, so…”
Smiling, Shen Qiao said, “Whether it’s Xuandu Mountain or Bixia Sect, martial arts exist for people to learn them. If both the teacher and the student care little for the differences between sect, why cling to such rules? I’m only teaching you martial arts. You don’t have to take me as your master.”
He then took out Shanhe Tongbei, unraveling the tightly wound black cloth that disguised it as a bamboo cane. He peeled off each strip of cloth, layer by layer.
“Shanhe…Tongbei?” Curious, Shiwu read the characters carved upon it.
“When the common people suffer, the mountains and rivers grieve in pain. The grass and trees hold souls, all within heaven and earth’s eternal reign.”22
Shen Qiao spoke slowly, running his fingers over the sheath. Suddenly, he clutched the hilt and swiftly drew the sword. His wrist barely twitched, but the room was brimming with a brilliant radiance in an instant. The sword’s glare seemed to stretch to every corner, its murderous intent dominating every space. Like cranes calling and soaring high above or wild geese cutting through the snowy passes down below.
But then another second passed, and the brilliance vanished, returning to nothing.
The room was still the same room, the sword was still the same sword. It was as if the vision had only been Shiwu’s hallucination.
Shiwu was frozen there for a while, gaping. He looked completely dumbfounded.
Shen Qiao smiled at him. “Go touch that robe.”
He was referring to his own outer robe. As it’d been soaked by the rain on their way here, he’d removed and hung it upon a wooden rack in their room.
The moment Shiwu’s fingers touched the robe, a sound of surprise escaped him.
The robe disintegrated into tiny flakes which drifted to the floor.
Save for the robe, everything else in the room was completely unaffected.
Shiwu’s expression went from dumbfounded to utterly stupefied.
“What do you think?”
“A…amazing…”
A laugh sputtered from Shen Qiao. “I was asking if you wanted me to teach you martial arts!”
Shiwu nodded convulsively. “Praise be to Shen-shi,23 please accept Shiwu’s respects!”