Radiant Blade of the Wilderness

Chapter 259: Coming Clean

In a corner of the courtyard, Ding Songyan, one in shadow and form with the plants, used the Chaos Realm to track Ge Heng’s every move.

If Ge Heng meant to flee and not go to the Treasure Market, he would have to think of something else.

Still, one couldn’t force someone to stay. If Ge Heng was set on running, Ding Songyan wouldn’t stop him by force. Doing that would make him no better than heretics.

Anyway, he already had the intelligence he wanted. The Dimmed Heaven and Earth Chapter was good, but with the Treatise on Sharing the Shadows of the World and the Five Elements Escape Art, he could just about get by, and the latter was even better in some respects.

And now that he knew Black Third Master held the ”ledger,” he had no immediate thought of going after the Ghost Yu Way in the Flame Capital, to avoid complications.

It was a pure assassin organization and unlikely to get involved in the consort selection. At best, it would be hired to kill key figures in related events.

All Ding Songyan would lose was a useful helper, and he couldn’t help Young Master Jiang find out about further assassination attempts.

He still owed Jiang Lanting for the Tiger-Leopard Dragon-Concealing Pill.

Suddenly, a person appeared in the shadows beside Ding Songyan.

Twelfth Madam Luo, back in her shopkeeper look, crouched beside Ding Songyan, gazed toward Ge Heng’s room, and said in a low voice, ”I thought you’d just walk away and show off a hidden master’s style.”

”Ling Donglai is a mysterious master and has indeed left with grace. But I, Ding Songyan, am just a mere Great Proliferation Realm martial artist who values caution above all. How could I not keep watch from the dark?” Ding Songyan said with a low laugh. ”’Name’ can’t harm ’reality.’ Besides, keeping up one’s reputation in front of others and doing real work behind their backs can go together, so long as the other side doesn’t find out.”

Twelfth Madam Luo said nothing.

”Why aren’t you mocking me, Twelfth Madam?” Ding Songyan, one in shadow with the plants, glanced sideways.

Twelfth Madam Luo sighed softly.

”I thought it over. If I met someone I knew, I certainly wouldn’t meet them looking like this. I’d restore my old appearance and dress up properly.

”I say I’ve let go of fame and gain, but I still care a little about the eyes of people I know. The name before others and the reality behind their backs often contradict each other.”

”I get it. We people of the jianghu care about face,” Ding Songyan said with a smile. ”Everyone has a side they don’t want others to know. A friend you can meet with name and reality perfectly matched might not turn up in a whole lifetime.”

Twelfth Madam Luo smiled along.

”Sometimes I think of going to see people I know looking as careless as I please, letting them see the real me. But then I feel the me who minds her image is me too, and the two can’t be separated.

”What I’ve realized most often in these years is that one’s resolve is always contradictory, and life is always impermanent.”

”Is accepting such a contradiction the result of your heart-tempering in the mortal world so far?” Ding Songyan suddenly thought of many things.

There is no absolute yin or absolute yang; they are always interconnected and interdependent. Only when yin and yang unite are the myriad things born. The contradiction and transformation of yin and yang exist in everything...

In the development of everything there is contradiction, and contradiction runs through from beginning to end1...

A Grandmaster’s ”Resolute” state means persistence, not being deluded, which isn’t the same as being right or wrong. Once in the Heaven-Man Realm, one has to recognize that the self, all things and matters are developing and constantly giving rise to contradictions, and in the end reach ”Unfettered”?

Twelfth Madam Luo tersely acknowledged.

The two watched Ge Heng pack his things, redo his disguise, and head toward the Treasure Market in the south of the city before ending the tracking and returning to the Cheap Wine Shop.

Restored to his original looks, Ding Songyan hid the scholar’s cyan robe and ordinary steel longsword meant only for his disguise in the east wing of the back courtyard.

He had just turned back to the main building when he saw Twelfth Madam leisurely brewing tea. He sat across the tea table and shamelessly asked for a cup.

Twelfth Madam Luo glanced up at him and asked, somewhat curious, ”How did you draw sword manuals on Ge Heng’s clothes without anyone noticing?”

She had been too far away then and hadn’t caught the details.

After Twelfth Madam had roughly guessed his foundation art from the fact that Demoness Ji had eaten Chaos remains, Ding Songyan no longer hid much of his Chaos legacy from her. Whether erasing traces with Bringing All Things Into Unity or borrowing others’ martial arts with Manifesting the Way and its Virtue, she had seen both more than once. So now he naturally didn’t hold back and said frankly,

”I have a sword move called the Nightmare Sword. I used it to plunge Ge Heng into a nightmare he couldn’t shake off for a short while.

”Then I seized the chance to draw a few sword moves with a charcoal pencil in my left hand, right at the openings in his stance.”

Twelfth Madam Luo listened quietly, at a loss for how to comment.

Martial-arts-wise, it was reasonable and clever, but in actual practice, it was somehow funny.

She thought for a moment.

”I’ve seen a few schools of nightmare arts, but none could use a move like the Nightmare Sword while drawing with a charcoal pencil. They all use nightmares to subdue the spirit and drive their weapons straight in.

”Do you have the ability to split your attention?”

Ding Songyan was silent for a few breaths, then said in a low voice, ”There’s a Celestial Heart imprint in my sea of consciousness.”

Twelfth Madam Luo’s eyes narrowed slightly.

”Ji Hanyi’s?”

”No.” Ding Songyan shook his head and sighed. ”The Sage-Severing Way’s former leader, Yan Yong.”

He had thought before that he had to find a chance to tell Twelfth Madam everything honestly. First, if things dragged on like this, there was a good chance she’d find out the truth herself. Second, there was no guarantee that Ji Hanyi wouldn’t stir up trouble someday by deliberately feeding such information to Twelfth Madam to sow discord.

Confessing it himself and having others stumble upon it were completely different things.

”Yan Yong? Didn’t he disappear many years ago?” Twelfth Madam Luo frowned slightly, not hiding her surprise, her eyes full of scrutiny, puzzlement, and worry.

Sure enough, honesty is the best policy. If Twelfth Madam had found out herself, the best attitude right now would still be cold as ice... Ding Songyan smiled bitterly.

”Twelfth Madam, would you like to hear another story?”

Twelfth Madam Luo closed her eyes for a moment.

”It concerns the line between orthodox and heretical. Go on.”

”One day, I suddenly woke up in a ruined temple and saw a girl crouching before me, saying she was my little sister...” Ding Songyan told the whole Dingjiang Prefecture affair from start to finish in careful detail, leaving out only his transmigration, and not even hiding that he had once had Soul Departure Sickness.

Twelfth Madam Luo was fairly solemn at first, but as she listened she became absorbed, several times opening her mouth to speak but not wanting to interrupt.

Her own past experiences were already among the most thrilling in the world, but Second Bull Ding’s story was rare in all the world.

Killing a Heaven-Man as a mere mortal was unheard of even in the past thousand years!

When Ding Songyan finished, the shopkeeper sighed with genuine feeling.

”Yan Yong was famous throughout the world for his numerology, yet he died from overreaching his own schemes. I wonder whether it was fate or the world’s impermanence.”

Master Yan, look, so many people remember you. I told such an exciting story, and Twelfth Madam’s first reaction was to slap your face... Ding Songyan grumbled inwardly.

Twelfth Madam Luo looked at Ding Songyan, her eyes carrying a hint of ”it can’t have been easy for you to survive.”

She sighed again.

”Now I understand why you scheme so much.”

Without so much scheming, he’d have died long ago in the Sage-Severing Way’s plots.

She could in fact tell Ding Songyan was still hiding something, for example, how someone with Soul Departure Sickness could seem to have innate wisdom, but everyone had secrets, and insisting on knowing everything would be rude.

Ding Songyan laughed self-deprecatingly.

”That feeling you have is actually my scheming too. I deliberately told every detail in great depth just now, so you would know that after all those experiences, scheming has become my instinct. Under my senior sister’s teaching it’s gotten much better, but a leopard can’t change its spots, and it still shows up now and then. If you notice, just point it out, and I’ll keep working on it.

”This can’t be done in a day or two, and I may even relapse, but I’ll keep trying.”

”Isn’t that speech of yours just another kind of scheming?” Twelfth Madam Luo smiled charmingly, not offended. ”Anyone who wants something schemes, only in different ways. No one is exempt. You’re like that, and so am I. I’ll repeat my old refrain: hold steadfastly to the middle way.

”Things in the world are full of cycles. What the Buddhists call samsara and the cycle of formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness isn’t only about rebirth and the creation and destruction of heaven and earth. It manifests in countless matters: confusion, learning, understanding, practice, then once again, confusion, learning, understanding, and practice—an endless cycle.”

While Ding Songyan pondered, Twelfth Madam Luo laughed, somewhat relaxed.

”So that’s how it is between you and Demoness Ji. It’s not quite what I imagined. That’s good.”

”What did you imagine?” Ding Songyan asked casually.

Twelfth Madam Luo’s eyes turned, and she mouthed four words without making a sound.

”I can’t read lips,” Ding Songyan said.

”Never mind then.” Twelfth Madam Luo smiled and changed the subject. ”She still calls herself your little sister and addresses you as Second Brother?”

”Yes.” Ding Songyan nodded heavily.

”Not a romantic debt, and better than one,” Twelfth Madam Luo teased with a click of her tongue.

After teasing, she warned him seriously,

”I’ve had no other dealings with Demoness Ji. What she’s really like, I also know mostly from jianghu rumors and official reports. All I can say is she’s not easy. You may not win if you try to out-scheme her. Don’t think too highly of yourself about this.”

”I know,” Ding Songyan said, nodding solemnly.

Twelfth Madam Luo thought for two breaths and pursed her lips.

”One more thing.

”You mentioned you use the Celestial Heart Art to cultivate martial arts quickly, trading future lifespan for present progress. Mm, you should do that sparingly, and preferably no more than three arts within twelve months.

”Lifespan is quite complicated. I mentioned before that my mother exhausted herself to death working to complete an immortal melody. She was a perfected Dharma Realm Grandmaster, and my father is a Heaven-Man Supreme Master. Life-extending items are hard to come by, but do you think my mother lacked them? Maybe nothing can add a hundred years, but ones that add ten or twenty, there are always ways to get a few.

”Perhaps doing this today costs ten years of lifespan, and doing it tomorrow costs ten years again, but the day after, doing the same thing will suddenly cost a hundred or two hundred years. Medicine will be useless and there’s no turning back, unless you can find the legendary elixir of immortality.”

This made Ding Songyan unconsciously straighten his back.

A cautionary tale...