Unsheathed

Chapter 377: It’s Time to Eat Stinky Tofu!

Chen Ping’an and the others surprisingly found an abandoned bamboo house next to a lake in the mountains. This bamboo house had been abandoned for many years, but they could still vaguely make out its original appearance. One could imagine just how exquisite this bamboo house had been in the past. It had definitely been built by a wealthy person living a secluded life, and this person definitely liked to go fishing.

They stopped here to rest, and each person was given a task. Chen Ping’an left to cut two stalks of mature bamboo, one long and one short. When he returned, Zhu Lian had already started a campfire. Chen Ping’an walked over and squatted down, using the flames to slowly cure the bamboo. This would increase the strength of the fishing rod and prevent it from being snapped by larger creatures in the lake. Chen Ping’an handed the shorter stalk of bamboo to Pei Qian and instructed her to copy his actions.

Inside the bamboo house, Zhu Lian and Xu Yuanxia were exchanging knowledge with each other. They were sitting quite far away from everyone else, and it appeared that Zhu Lian was showing off the so-called immortal book that Old Man Xun had given him. Of course, it was a book about men and women “fighting” in bed.

Zhang Shanfeng and Lu Baixiang were sitting on the ground and playing Go, and Wei Xian was squatting beside them and waiting to see who would emerge victorious, as he always did.

The yellow earth bull was keeping a lookout in the mountain forest near the bamboo house.

This place had beautiful mountains and limpid water, and no one else was around at this moment. Thus, Sui Youbian seized this opportunity to leave the bamboo house, taking her boots off on the foundation of the house that looked much like a bamboo raft. Sui Youbian then sat down and placed her jade-like feet into the water, resting Deep Infatuation across her knees. She placed her hands on the mouth and tip of the scabbard as she gazed into the distance. The air in the mountains was cool and refreshing.

After curing the two bamboo fishing rods of different lengths, Chen Ping’an swung his rod a few times to see how far it could bend. Pei Qian stood beside him and did the same thing.

The master and disciple walked outside the bamboo house, where Chen Ping’an started to tie a fishing line to his rod. Just like before, Pei Qian stood there and copied his actions. However, she didn’t do as well with some of the details, so Chen Ping’an helped her redo some of the knots and fishing hook attachments.

He then brought her over to the lakeside in the distance, and they started to flip over some rocks to search for small crustaceans to use for bait. These crustaceans looked like mole crickets.

In the end, Chen Ping’an didn’t fish, and he instead had Pei Qian cast a line by herself. He placed his fishing rod inside the jade pendant minimization treasure that Zheng Dafeng had given him, the one which still held the tattered straw sandals that he hadn’t thrown out yet. Apart from this, there were also other unremarkable items such as fishing lines and hooks from the marketplace, as well as slightly valuable wine such as well-water immortal wine.

There was also the yellowing parasol leaf, the one that held two mountain-protection formations derived from Peace and Tranquility Mountain and the Planchette Writing Sect. It also held a large amount of grain rain coins that the Parasol Leaf Sect had given him as compensation.

Pei Qian was an innately impatient person, and it was only because she was accompanied by Chen Ping’an and had been forced to read and practice handwriting for so long that she was slightly more patient than before. She quietly stared at the surface of the lake, wishing that she could forcefully reel in a large azure fish of more than fifty kilograms in the next moment.

Chen Ping’an was mulling over the fourth meditation stance of the Mountain Shaking Guide, the Heaven and Earth Stance. This was a very boastful name for a fist stance. The manual thoroughly explained how one should channel their True Qi. It combined both movement and stillness, yet the movements required were truly very strange.

People practicing this fist stance were required to do so upside down, and there were three levels corresponding to this. They needed to perform handstands using their palms, fists, and a single finger on each hand, respectively. They then needed to “walk” in this manner.

With regards to the Heaven and Earth Stance, there was an extremely bold description in the Mountain Shaking Guide, saying that those who practiced this fist stance were like pillars standing between heaven and earth. Heaven and earth would be forced to churn and rotate following the movement of their fists.

It was no wonder that the barefoot old man in the bamboo building in Downtrodden Mountain had called the Mountain Shaking Guide useless apart from its boastful and ambitious nature after casually flipping through it.

Chen Ping’an gently slapped the ground with one hand before gracefully flipping around and performing a handstand with a single palm on the bamboo ground.

Pei Qian turned around, and she really wanted to laugh when she saw this scene.

With his body upside down, Chen Ping’an used his free hand to point at the lake, gesturing for Pei Qian to focus on fishing.

Pei Qian obediently turned around, and Chen Ping’an changed his palm into a fist, using just a single fist and a single finger to stand upside down. He stretched his body straight, and he channeled his True Qi using the Heaven and Earth Stance of the Mountain Shaking Guide. None of this proved difficult for him.

Chen Ping’an closed his eyes. Apart from using a single finger on one hand to support himself, he held the index finger and middle finger of his other hand together in front of him. He was on the verge of overcoming the barrier between the twelfth and thirteenth stops of the Eighteen Stops Technique that A’Liang had taught him.

Chen Ping’an originally had no need to rush, but now, things were different.

He had taught Pei Qian the Eighteen Stops Technique in the Dust Medicinal Shop in Old Dragon City, and Pei Qian had been quite happy about earning two or three copper coins after leaving Wasp Tail Ferry Station. Afterward, she had told Chen Ping’an that she could freely channel twelve stops already, and she had said that in a tone that clearly showed disappointment in how slowly it was going.

Chen Ping’an had felt slightly helpless after hearing this, and he had no option but to warn Pei Qian against becoming too conceited and hasty. She needed to take things one step at a time.

It was inevitable that Chen Ping’an felt slightly anxious. More precisely, he was worried about how things would develop.

If Pei Qian continued to climb the ranks of Martial Dao at such an astonishing speed, there would eventually come a day when this mischievous opening disciple of Chen Ping’an’s reached the same height as her master. She would pull further and further ahead afterward, and she would climb higher by herself and ultimately peer down at the world.

Disciples didn’t have to be inferior to their masters, and in fact it was best if they could surpass their masters at some point. This was what Chen Ping’an had personally told Zheng Dafeng. Furthermore, the notion of indigo being extracted from bluegrass but being darker than bluegrass was a classical argument mentioned in the Scholarly Sage’s Exhortation to Learning.[1]

Chen Ping’an wasn’t worried about Pei Qian’s Martial Dao progressing higher and further than his, but he needed to worry about his role as her Dao mentor and Dao guardian. What if Pei Qian’s Great Dao veered off the correct path one day? What should he do then? Would he act like he had back in the Flood Dragon Trench where he had tossed a handful of snake gall pebbles to the young flood dragon and apathetically said, “If this transforms into negative karma, then I’ll draw my sword and eliminate it with a single slash.”?

Could Chen Ping’an bring himself to do this? And even if he were such a cold-hearted person, it was entirely possible that Pei Qian’s martial arts cultivation base would be far too lofty for him to reach at that time. That being the case, how could he eliminate the negative karma with a single slash?

In the Lotus Flower Blessed Land, the old Daoist priest from the East Sea had led him through countless mountains and rivers. He had once witnessed the friendship between a group of noble people in the imperial court as a spectator, and he had seen how they had gone from helping the common people and building the nation to losing their way and acting in debauchery in a period of merely eighty years. They had all regarded themselves as noble people, so how could they possibly be flawed in any way?

If any one of them was criticized in the imperial court, the others would all step forward to defend him and angrily criticize their political opponents in a righteous tone, whether they were right or wrong. They would all console their so-called noble friend, farewelling him under the willows, drinking wine to alleviate the stresses of life, and lamenting that the human heart was becoming increasingly fallible and sinister, with wolves and beasts gaining control of the imperial court. The literati in the cultivation world had disciples specially responsible for manipulating discourse and launching baseless accusations against political opponents or even rewriting history based on unfounded speculations.

Since Chen Ping’an was having thoughts about founding his own force, he would naturally have to prevent such depravity from taking place.

If he couldn’t even educate his opening disciple properly, then how could he dare to claim that his force wouldn’t become the next Parasol Leaf Sect in a few hundred years or one thousand years? How could he dare to claim that he himself wouldn’t become the next Du Mao?

Reading and studying to learn etiquette, and practicing martial arts to temper the body.

This was Chen Ping’an’s original plan for Pei Qian.

In normal circumstances, this would be analogous to learning how to crawl, walk, and run on your own two feet. Everything would be stable and fine. However, the problem was that Pei Qian’s martial arts talent was far too immense, and her fortune was far too profound.

If there came a day when she felt like the reasonings and principles in the book were nothing more than a hassle that Chen Ping’an was forcing upon her, and if she felt like speaking reason with others was far too annoying and uninteresting, then what would happen then? She would feel like she had learned fist techniques and had a saber and sword hanging by her waist, so she could act according to her wishes and abandon the principles of moral vigilance, self-restraint, and adhering to etiquette.

Not long ago, Chen Ping’an had spent fifty lesser heat coins without so much as a frown, and this was simply in the hopes that the world would gain a kind-hearted Golden Core Tier great demon in the future. However, if he raised a ninth or even tenth-tier martial artist who only cared about selfish gains and cared nothing about right or wrong, then to say nothing of fifty lesser heat coins, perhaps even fifty thousand grain rain coins wouldn’t be enough to rectify the situation.

Still performing a handstand, Chen Ping’an pondered on these issues again and again with his eyes closed. However, he couldn’t come up with a perfect solution no matter what.

Did he truly have to sever Pei Qian’s martial arts path with his own hands for the sake of that slim possibility in the future?

When facing those vagrant cultivators who had harbored ill intentions yet hadn’t caused a tragic disaster yet back in the mountain pass, Chen Ping’an had said that they could still speak reason with each other because the worst-case scenario hadn’t come to pass yet. Otherwise, did Chen Ping’an need to deal with the situation in such a roundabout manner? He could have relied on his fists and blades to resolve the situation.

Chen Ping’an had made the remark of “ask your own conscience” during the conflict in the border inn back then. After the battle in Old Dragon City, and after learning of the unexpected events that had occurred later in the Parasol Leaf Sect through Daoist Nun Huang Ting, Chen Ping’an had made some changes to his way of thinking.

Chen Ping’an felt like he should take a small step backward in certain situations. This small step would differ in size depending on the people and the location, and it was regarding this small step that he was contemplating many things. Otherwise, many problems would remain unsolved if he simply told people to act with a clear conscience all the time.

Pei Qian was slightly angry about the fish not giving her face and taking her bait. However, she suddenly felt a slight pain on her cheek, and she realized that Sui Youbian was gesturing to her with her eyes. Following Sui Youbian’s gaze, Pei Qian saw that Chen Ping’an’s brow was furrowed into a deep frown as he remained standing on his hands. This was quite unusual for him.

Sui Youbian retracted the finger that she had used to flick a bead of water onto Pei Qian’s cheek. She continued to gaze into the distance.

Pei Qian gently placed her fishing rod on the ground and quietly snuck over to Chen Ping’an’s side. She squatted down and looked at her master’s furrowed brow.

Perhaps her master was a bit slow in coming to his senses, so he was only just starting to feel heartache for wasting those fifty lesser heat coins?

Chen Ping’an opened his eyes and looked at the tanned face of the skinny little girl who was often exposed to the sun and wind and had yet to become any paler. He smiled and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Pei Qian thought for a moment before replying, “Is there something on your mind, Master? Why don’t you tell me about it.”

Chen Ping’an pushed lightly with his hand, flipping back around and returning to a normal standing position. He then sat down cross-legged, slightly hesitant about whether he should reveal his thoughts to Pei Qian.

These matters were too far away, and the principles involved were also too profound.

Was Pei Qian still too young for these things? Would his words and emotions be like a hefty rock weighing down on her shoulders?

Chen Ping’an grabbed his Sword Nurturing Gourd and drank a small sip of medicinal wine. A breeze that carried the scent of both mountains and water gently swept past Chen Ping’an’s body, causing his mind to feel slightly more at ease.

A lifespan of one hundred years is very rare, yet being weighed down by worries enough for one thousand years is very common.

Chen Ping’an squinted his eyes after enjoying a sip of wine. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of self-ridicule. Was he finally starting to become a little bit like a scholar now?

He turned around and asked with a smile, “This matter is related to you, so do you want to hear about it?”

Pei Qian gulped and immediately started to reflect on all her bad behavior during the journey. She was most likely aware that this wasn’t a trivial matter that could be resolved with one or two flicks to the forehead. Thus, she grimaced and asked, “Can I not listen? Can you tell me about these things when I grow older and become more mature?”

Chen Ping’an patted her head and replied, “This doesn’t pertain to anything good or bad. It’s just some of my thoughts, and you don’t need to worry about being flicked in the forehead or having your ears twisted.”

Pei Qian immediately sat up straight after receiving this reassurance from her master. She faced Chen Ping’an who was sitting side-on, and there was a smile on her face as she adjusted the bamboo sword and bamboo saber that were tied to the same hip. She feigned seriousness and said, “Please go ahead, Master! Your disciple will listen with utmost respect!”

Chen Ping’an smiled and turned around slightly so that they were directly facing each other. He then asked, “If your saber skills, sword skills, and fist techniques become more powerful than your master one day, and if you come across a matter that your master says is correct but you feel like is incorrect, what will you do then?”

“I’ll listen to you, Master. What else can I do?” Pei Qian replied without hesitation.

Chen Ping’an smiled faintly and said, “Give it some more thought.”

Pei Qian started to scratch her head, and she eventually replied with a frown, “But this is genuinely how I feel. If you say something is correct, then it definitely must be correct. If you say something is wrong, then it definitely must be wrong.”

Chen Ping’an offered no response to this.

Pei Qian had no option but to aimlessly mull over this question again. Her mind wandered everywhere as if it were embarking on a long journey to distant places. In any case, it didn’t look like her Master was in a hurry to get an answer from her.

Pei Qian suddenly smiled and asked, “Master, if I become stronger than you one day, just how strong will I become?”

“Let’s take the Parasol Leaf Sect’s Du Mao, for example. Or as Huang Ting calls him, Old Criminal Du. In other words, a cultivation base at the Ascension Tier,” Chen Ping’an replied.

He then smiled and added, “Let’s focus on cultivation base only and disregard any notions of good and bad.”

Pei Qian gasped in astonishment and exclaimed, “Good heavens! I’ll definitely have mountains of gold and silver at home if I’m that strong, won’t I? Will I be able to count all of it? It will be far too tiring to count though… However, I’ll be afraid of other people stealing a few coins if I don’t count everything properly. Ah… such is the worry of a wealthy person. When will I be able to worry like that…?”

Chen Ping’an couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked at the skinny little girl who was becoming increasingly worried about this problem. He leaned forward and gently patted her head, saying, “There’s a Militarian sage in my hometown called Master Ruan. He’s extremely skilled at blacksmithing and forging swords, and when I think back, there was something else that he genuinely did very well as well.

“When it came to taking new disciples, Master Ruan looked at more than just aptitude and talent. He also considered whether his disciples were like-minded people and whether they could walk alongside each other on the path of the Great Dao. He didn’t look for disciples who were extremely talented yet had poor character, nor did he look for disciples who would mindlessly stand up for their master and fight other people no matter the situation.”

Pei Qian wanted to speak, yet she couldn’t help but hesitate. In the end, she eventually decided against saying anything.

“Returning to my question from before, how should you respond if you enter an argument with your master?” Chen Ping’an continued. “You shouldn’t feel like your master is always correct. Your master isn’t a sage, and he also makes mistakes. We should do what we’re doing right now—we’ll sit opposite each other and list out the reasons why we think we’re correct or incorrect, and we’ll discuss these points and listen to the more reasonable person.

“I, Chen Ping’an, won’t shut you down simply because I’m your master. If you, Pei Qian, become very powerful in the future, so powerful that you can kill me with a casual punch, you’re not allowed to do as you please and ignore my reasoning either.”

Pei Qian’s eyes brimmed with tears.

She didn’t understand this fully, but she couldn’t help but feel like this was a very upsetting matter.

This was especially the case when she heard Chen Ping’an say that she would become powerful enough to kill him with a casual punch. Pei Qian was almost about to die from sadness.

She turned around in grief and secretly shed tears, not looking at her master, who was suddenly speaking nonsense.

Chen Ping’an returned to his original spot and sat facing the lake that was rippling under the spring breeze. He extended a hand and raised it higher and higher, saying, “In reality, reasons and principles are also separated into different levels of importance. This is similar to how I was drawing circles of different sizes atop the mountain before. I once encountered a young fox spirit in a rundown temple located in a place called the Colorful Garment Nation, and this young fox spirit was very fond of novels about talented scholars and beautiful ladies.

“The fox spirit was mischievous and liked to frighten people, yet it never truly harmed anyone. Rather, it helped them receive shelter from the wind and rain. This time, we came across the yellow earth bull that would rather die than turn its body and affect innocent people.

“However, does this then imply that we can gloss over the courageous sacrifices of those sword cultivators who have pointed their swords toward the south for tens of thousands of years when considering the demon tribe’s assault on the Sword Qi Great Wall? Should we pity the demon tribe and interrogate the sword cultivators as to why they’re so ruthless? After all, are there no righteous and kind-hearted individuals in the demon tribe?”

With her back still facing Chen Ping’an, Pei Qian sniffed and replied through sobs, “This I understand. These people aren’t considering the sequential order of right and wrong, nor are they considering the different levels of importance of reasons and principles.”

Chen Ping’an quickly drew the largest circle before raising his hand high above his head and continuing, “However, I feel like the Scholarly Sage and Master Bai—the one rumored to have forged a large ding for the human tribe and illustrated the Mountain Scouring Album—are the only people who have the right to talk about unalterable reasons and principles.[2] We’re extremely far away from reaching this level.

“So why then has the Scholarly Sage chosen to imprison himself in the Forest of Virtue, and why has Master Bai been imprisoned in the Mighty Suppressing Pagoda? Should we abandon reason and feel like it’s useless because of this? Is it truly the case that good deeds don’t beget good karma and bad deeds don’t beget bad karma in the world?”

Pei Qian turned around and shuffled over to sit beside Chen Ping’an. She lowered her head and commented, “But some bad people do indeed live better lives than good people.”

Chen Ping’an smiled and replied, “And that’s why the old monk in the Heart Manifestation Temple in the capital of the Southern Garden Nation said that this world has always been indebted to good people.”

“Then what should we do?” Pei Qian asked in a soft voice.

Chen Ping’an didn’t drink the medicinal wine in his Sword Nurturing Gourd; instead, he retrieved a pot of osmanthus wine from his minimization treasure. He cracked open the pot and took a small sip, after which he smiled faintly and replied, “The answer is most likely waiting for us in the books.”

Lying on the ground in the distant mountain forest, the yellow earth bull mulled over these words.

Even though Sui Youbian’s expression was indifferent, she had also been listening to the conversation between Chen Ping’an and Pei Qian the entire time.

Pei Qian wiped her tears and chuckled, “Master, when you were cooking rice not long after we left Wasp Tail Ferry Station, how did that tune from your hometown that you were humming go again? Why did it have no lyrics? Can you hum it again? I really want to learn it.”

Chen Ping’an smiled and replied, “My best friend taught me this tune, and the lyrics of this tune can be changed however people want. Back in my hometown, people used this tune to tease or scold people, they used it to relax themselves when working, and they also used it to… accompany wine.”

Chen Ping’an drank a sip of osmanthus wine and started to quietly hum the tune. He then pointed at Pei Qian and sang, “Waiter over there, I’ve read some books and learned some characters, I’ve accumulated a belly-full of knowledge that can’t sell for many coins of copper.”

Oh?

He was singing about Pei Qian!

Pei Qian was overjoyed, and she couldn’t help but instinctively sing, “Stinky tofu is delicious, but I can’t afford any!”

Chen Ping’an smiled knowingly and continued, “There are spirits in the mountains, there are ghosts in the rivers, I turn around in fright, only to discover that I’ve left home for many years.”

“It’s time to eat stinky tofu!” Pei Qian chimed.

Chen Ping’an drank another sip of wine and randomly pointed elsewhere. Unfortunately for him, it was coincidentally where Sui Youbian was sitting. However, he had no time to worry about this as he sang, “Young lady where are you from? You smell like fragrant orchids, so why is your face filled with tears? Oh, isn’t this pitiful?”

Pei Qian nodded earnestly and sang, “She’s unable to eat stinky tofu, so this is truly very pitiful!”

Chen Ping’an squinted his eyes and pointed up, softly humming, “May I ask, scholar, what shall we do? A small paper kite is hanging on the branches, the sun is scorching it too.”

Pei Qian clutched her belly and laughed loudly, singing, “It’s time to eat stinky tofu! The stinky tofu is so fragrant!”

Inside the bamboo house, Zhang Shanfeng and Xu Yuanxia looked at each other and smiled.

Zhu Lian also closed his eyes and smiled, with his head bobbing back and forth.

Lu Baixiang gently patted his knees to the tune.

In an extremely rare display, Sui Youbian didn’t get angry at Chen Ping’an’s actions. Instead, she covered her mouth with a hand and smiled widely for once, squinting in the sun.

Wei Xian rested his cheek in his hand and cocked his head. He had wandered over to the entrance of the bamboo house and squatted down at some unknown time. He looked at the skinny figure of the tanned little girl.

With the beautiful mountains and limpid lake as their backdrop, the master and disciple performed a lively duet with each other.

1. Exhortation to Learning was written by Xunzi and talks about the importance of studying, one’s attitude when studying, the contents and methods of studying, and so on. Xunzi was a Chinese philosopher of Confucianism during the late Warring States period. After his predecessors, Confucius and Mencius, Xunzi is often ranked as the third great Confucian philosopher of antiquity. ☜

2. Ding are prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons standing upon legs with a lid and two fancy facing handles. They are one of the most important shapes used in Chinese ritual bronzes. ☜