Sharing Honor and Disgrace, Part Two
At the bottom of the canyon, two girls wearing straw hats and raincoats walked briskly, water droplets dripping from the brims of their hats and the hems of their clothes. Even though the raincoats covered most of their bodies, it was still easy to see the graceful figures of the girls.
"Senior sister, it's going to rain." Kim Yoo-jung opened her palm, and the raindrops looked particularly clear on her fair skin.
The weather today was indeed quite different from when Kim Ji-won last visited. Although it was daytime, the sky overhead was darker than night. Kim Ji-won gazed at the sky as if staring into an abyss. She had a feeling that the dark river in the "abyss" would pour down all at once in the next moment.
That's probably true. The dark clouds were heavy with moisture, as if they were about to fall.
"Oh, eh—" Kim Yoo-jung called out, drawing out the sound.
Kim Ji-won looked completely bewildered, gently slapped her eccentric junior sister, and said, "What are you doing?"
"Why is there no response here?" Kim Yoo-jung laughed and said, "If only it were like home, we could talk to him here and ask him to hand over the 'Black Wind Sword.' Just like when you and I used to talk when we were kids."
"Then maybe he's also locked up and can't get out?" Kim Ji-won joked.
"Oh dear!" Kim Yoo-jung said coquettishly, "That wasn't confinement, that was meditation."
Kim Yoo-jung raised her arm and said, "Besides, if I wanted to get out, could that dilapidated house hold me? I'm only doing this for the old man's sake."
Kim Ji-won wiped the water droplets from Kim Yoo-jung's hands and quickened her pace, taking her hand. The sound of dripping water could already be heard from the conical hat.
"What's the origin of this malevolent sword?" Kim Yoo-jung asked obediently, following behind Kim Ji-won. "Why does the old man insist on having it?"
"Didn't Master say that?" Kim Ji-won said, both amused and exasperated, "You, how much of what Master taught you have you actually learned?"
Shaking Kim Ji-won's hand that was holding hers, Kim Yoo-jung said coquettishly, "Senior sister is my best teacher."
Kim Ji-won pondered for a moment and asked, "How many types of true qi are there in a person? Not a structural classification, but a functional classification."
Kim Yoo-jung stammered for a long time before finally looking cautiously at Kim Ji-won and saying hesitantly, "One yin, one yang."
"Um?"
Kim Ji-won glanced at her sideways, and Kim Yoo-jung immediately changed her tune, saying firmly, "Of course, it's 'form aura' and 'dispersed aura.' The aura that can directly connect with the sword heart and is constantly being renewed and grown is called 'form aura.' The aura that cannot connect with the sword heart during this process is called 'dispersed aura.'"
After saying all that in one breath, Kim Yoo-jung's chest heaved as she nervously watched Kim Ji-won's expression.
"Hmm." Kim Ji-won pinched her nose and said, "You pass."
Kim Yoo-jung was finally relieved.
“These ‘malicious swords’ are all swords with ‘form and spirit’.”
“Impossible,” Kim Yoo-jung retorted, “Without the sword heart, the ‘form’ naturally disappears.”
Kim Yoo-jung looked at Kim Ji-won and asked, "Senior sister, are you serious?"
A bolt of lightning struck deep into the canyon. The bright, thick lightning bolt curved and descended extremely rapidly, leaving many fine cracks on both sides of the flash.
Kim Ji-won nodded in the sudden light.
"You mean these swords?" Kim Yoo-jung still seemed unconvinced, saying, "These swords all have sword hearts?"
“I suspect that Jia Dongye has hit a bottleneck and can’t break through it,” Kim Ji-won said. “He wants to use the sword spirit of ‘Black Wind’ to try to overcome the insurmountable obstacle.”
"Two sword hearts overlapping?"
"It can lead to qi deviation and demonic possession."
Although a little late, the thunder still came. Whether it was an illusion or not, even the sparse raindrops in the air seemed to momentarily deviate from their falling trajectory. The two stood at the bottom of the valley, furthest from the sky, feeling a bit dizzy and ringing in their ears.
Looking up at the sky again, the clouds seemed to have parted a bit.
The dark clouds overhead finally reached their limit, and raindrops began to fall with a pattering sound.
~
Qu You felt the entire inn shaking, likely because they were staying in a room on the top floor. While the top-floor room offered a great view, in this weather, they should have chosen a room in the middle. The lower-floor rooms were damp, and the top-floor rooms were inevitably at risk of leaks.
Dark clouds appeared in the sky without warning. Inns were already scarce in the Burial Sword Valley area, and Qu You finally found one that looked quite old; only the top floor rooms were left. Looking at the heavy, almost bottomless clouds, she could only pray that the room would withstand the impending downpour.
Although the inn is old, it is reliable and there have been no leaks. At least not so far.
Qu You listened to the sounds outside the window, as if someone had poured a whole bag of soybeans onto a porcelain plate. Each of those crashing sounds was clearly identifiable, and they were continuous, almost a non-stop barrage of collisions.
Looking at the shaking roof and listening intently to the sounds of knocking on the window and shaking the ground, Qu You kept shaking her leg; she felt inexplicably restless. Finally, she couldn't sit still any longer and decided to open the window and look outside.
"The rain is really heavy." Lying in bed, Qu Pengyan opened her eyes and looked at the tightly closed window.
"Just a small crack shouldn't cause any problems," Qu You thought to herself.
Qu You got up and walked to the window furthest from the bed. She braced herself against the wooden frame and gently pushed it open a crack. A damp, cold wind immediately rushed in; the outside world of the inn was already shrouded in a gray haze. The heavy rain had stirred up dust and sand from the ground, the air thick with a mixture of dust and moisture, making it difficult to distinguish anything. Everything was a hazy gray, and nothing could be seen clearly.
Only half of the road closest to the inn was faintly visible; the other half was completely obscured by gray. The woods opposite the inn were even more lost in the vast gray expanse, as if they had never existed. Occasionally, a strong gust of wind would blow away the mist, revealing the shadowy tree silhouettes behind them, like enormous beasts lurking in the shadows, staring at the inn—quite unsettling.
The raindrops suddenly changed direction, hitting the back of Qu You's hand as she held the window open, and rushed into the house. Ignoring the "monster" lurking behind the mist, Qu You quickly closed the window. Some rainwater had already accumulated on the ground beneath the window.
"I'm afraid we can't leave today," Qu You said. "But I checked the road this morning. Someone has walked on it, and the weeds have all been cut. Maybe it's the road you're looking for, Grandma."
Qu Peng did not respond to her. Qu You looked at the bed; the old lady was already asleep.
Ever since leaving Wuling, Qu Peng had become lethargic and somewhat confused. "Now it seems that my mother-in-law's eagerness to have me take her out of the city was perhaps a premonition of this situation," Qu You thought.
The day after Ping'an Courtyard collapsed, the old lady insisted that Qu You take her to Burial Sword Valley. "Is she going to abandon her willow-leaf scalpel there?" Qu You wondered, but she still swiftly cleaned up the clinic and prepared two weeks' worth of medicine for the neighbors who came to see her.
To this day, it has actually been well over two weeks since they left Wuling City. The old lady suddenly became lethargic and confused without any warning. Traveling has become extremely difficult for the grandmother and grandson; the old lady spends most of her time sleeping each day, leaving very little time on the road.
Once they were truly close to the Burial Sword Gorge, the old woman kept leading Qu You on detours. She didn't want to take the main roads built by the government and always led Qu You into the woods. Several times, when they reached the depths of the forest, the old woman told Qu You that they had gone the wrong way.
But that day, they finally found a path that had been trodden by others. The weeds had been cleared, and they could walk quite deep into the woods. Her intuition told her that this was the path the old woman was looking for. But to continue, they needed to prepare enough food, so she led the old woman back through the woods.
Fortunately, they turned back; otherwise, with an old woman in tow, who knows what dangers might have arisen in the jungle during such heavy rain. Qu You secretly rejoiced.
To be honest, Qu You had a premonition that the old lady was going to leave Wuling City. Looking at the old woman sleeping soundly on the bed, she couldn't help but fall into more distant memories.
That happened around the end of the year. She received an invitation to make house calls at Buwangge, which could also be described as coercion, or more accurately, coercion of her friend.
When she entered, a person wearing a blue mask and an ill-fitting, oversized robe was writing couplets.
Qu You was administering acupuncture to a white-haired man with a youthful face in the inner room. Despite her resentment, she treated all patients equally and with utmost care. This patient was strange; Qu You couldn't determine his age from either his physical condition or his pulse. However, he looked very young, so she would tentatively call him a teenager.
It took about half a day. The boy lay face down on the bed, his back covered in silver needles, and he intermittently vomited a pool of black blood. At this point, Qu You had finished what she could do.
Qu You asked angrily, "Can I take my friend's mother's ashes back now?"
“Of course,” Pei Jiangxi said without hesitation. “The value you offer far exceeds what’s needed for the redemption. I can also give you two extra questions. Whatever you ask, I will answer them.”
Qu You disliked this pretty girl very much, and she deliberately made things difficult for her, saying, "Then tell me why my mother-in-law is unwilling to leave Wuling City."
"It's probably just some old 'returning to one's roots' or 'it's hard to leave one's homeland' stuff again. A bunch of pretentious charlatans," Qu You thought disdainfully.
"Because there are things in Ping An Courtyard that need her protection," Pei Jiangxi said solemnly.
Qu You sat on the edge of the bed, looked up at her, and asked, "Are you serious?"
Pei Jiangxi nodded and said, "If you want to know what it is, I can tell you. But that would be the second question."
Qu You put all the silver needles back into the box, slung the box over her shoulder, and said bluntly, "I don't like you. What value do ashes have to you?"
“We’re just taking away what she cherishes; it’s a form of punishment,” Pei Jiangxi said. “We warned her before asking the questions.”
"Why not leave some room for maneuver?" Qu You stopped in her tracks.
“This place will not become a place for people to relax.” Pei Jiangxi shook her head.
"I have one more question?" Qu You looked into Pei Jiangxi's eyes. "Anything is fine?"
Pei Jiangxi nodded.
Qu You glanced around, then strode over to A Yu, who was writing the couplets. She picked up the brush and neatly wrote nine large characters on the red paper. Looking up at Pei Jiangxi, she said, "You're still accepting commissions, aren't you? I won't ask any more questions. Hang this up and carry it out; that's my commission."
Qu You hadn't expected these people to keep their word. But Xiang Wu had indeed managed to escape last time, which changed Qu You's opinion of Pei Jiangxi considerably.
"Your appearance reflects your heart. A truly wicked person shouldn't be born looking like this," Qu You thought to herself. In truth, she couldn't remember Pei Jiangxi's appearance at all.
A clap of thunder sounded in the sky, and the windows shook violently. Qu You trembled with fright and turned to look at the old woman on the bed.
Qu Peng was fast asleep.
~
Not far from the peach grove, Kim Ji-won and Kim Yoo-jung took shelter from the rain beneath a protruding rock face. Just moments after the thunderclap, they had watched helplessly as a peach tree was charred.
"It's a good thing we didn't fight today," Kim Yoo-jung sighed, looking at the charred peach tree. "Otherwise, with this heavy rain and thunder, the old man would have taken advantage of us so much."
Kim Ji-won covered Kim Yoo-jung's ears and said, "Thunder is coming."
Kim Yoo-jung clenched her fists, waiting anxiously. She said, "Once we get there, the weather will be clear, and we can give him a good beating."
Another deafening clap of thunder followed by a series of crashing sounds. Huge boulders were tumbling down from the top of the canyon.
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