Nightfall

The governor of Chuzhou was a virtuous man. But he could be easily mistaken as an ordinary farmer because of his swarthy cheeks and rough hands. It was usually hard to distinguish the virtuous from the ignorant by appearance.

He had just come back from the dam and was worried about the coming autumn flood. But what worried him more was the invading troops. Chuzhou was a beautiful place, but it was located by the border.

Just like his virtues, his emotions were never shown on his face. He finished the government affairs calmly, stepped out of his office accompanied by a servant, and walked with a crutch toward the east mountain to seek for some peace.

There was a newly built pavilion on the east mountain. He supervised the expensive construction and was reproached. But he never cared.

The jar was opened and the scent of liquor pervaded. The governor was drinking at the pavilion under the bright moon and was about to compose a poem for the beautiful rivers and mountains in front of him.

Right then, a refreshing breeze came from thousands of miles away in the south. It crossed the mountains and wilderness and made three circuits around the pavilion. It entered, lingered for a while, and then left.

The governor was dead. It was quiet. He could not chant his poem or leave imperishable travel stories. He could not write anything, or say anything to the Chuzhou people. He died quietly.

…

…

It was quiet in front of the relics of the imperial city in Linkang. The Eldest Brother looked to the direction of Chuzhou and pondered for a long while. He turned pale and asked, “To make me and the Tang people suffer, what good will that do to you?”

“Because… I am afraid of death. The longer I live, the more fearful I become.” The Drunkard looked into his eyes and said, “Previously when I knew that danger was coming, I was really scared. Throughout these years I had never been that close to death. It was really horrifying. I’ve lived too long to be familiar with that kind of feeling. But I experienced it again tonight. It was still horrifying and even more overwhelming. I could barely stand it. Therefore I am very angry.”

He showed no expressions and his face seemed like a hardened field after countless years of exploiting. Yet he still smelled like fine liquor. His anger was not shown on him but distinctively conveyed in the human world. Because in the far away Chuzhou, the governor who used to be fond of drinking was dead now.

“I don’t want to go through that feeling or become the target of the Academy again. Therefore I have to make you suffer, to make the Tang people suffer, and to make the Academy suffer. I want you to suffer and fear, so that you won’t be able to do anything.” The Drunkard continued to stare at the Eldest Brother with no expressions. He seemed indifferent and invincible. “I can kill. I can kill many Tang people. As long as I initiate the intent, you could never be fast enough to stop me. And I’m going to kill the ordinary because they are less troublesome. Ning Que won’t be able to stop me either because he can’t see me. You could only stay and watch me kill and torture until you collapse in pain.”

The Eldest Brother shivered slightly. His clenched his hands extremely tight and could almost feel the pain.

The Drunkard continued, “More than dozens, more than hundreds, I will kill tens of thousands of people. Therefore unless you are absolutely sure, you should not try to kill me ever again, not even to come up with an attempt, even an attempt slimmer than the willow or lighter than the flying catkins.”

The Eldest Brother lowered his head and kept quiet for a long while. The willows along the moat kept quiet with him. They wiped the water and pushed the scatter cloths away. The catkins would not fly again until next spring. He could not wait that long or could the Academy or the Tang Empire. Then what should he do?

Suddenly he looked above to the bright moon in the night sky and said, “I could also kill.” Then he turned to the Drunkard and said firmly, “When I am determined to kill, no one could stop me either, not even you. So stop pushing me.”

The Drunkard showed no expression and said, “Please go ahead.”

The Eldest Brother lifted his eyebrows.

The Drunkard repeated, “Please kill as you wish.”

The Eldest Brother frowned.

The Drunkard said again, “Please kill.”

The Eldest Brother smoothed his eyebrows. He started pondering and hesitating. Or perhaps the next moment he would leave to kill.

“There are countless Taoist priests in the Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen Kingdoms. You can kill them all. There are hundreds of millions of followers that you can kill. There are many savages in the Grassland that you can kill. You can kill whomever you want.” The Drunkard looked at his smoothed eyebrows and asked, “If you can come to the Peach Mountain, you can probably kill more people as you wish. But who are you going to kill and who should be killed?”

To kill or not to kill, that was a question.The other question was whom to kill. Throughout the human world and across the peach blossomed mountains, who was the most evil one? And who should be killed? Who was to make the decision and who was qualified to make such a decision?

It was difficult to answer. Some people such as Lian Sheng thought it was not worthy of answering because everyone in the human world should die. Some others, like the Drunkard, did not care to think because he saw himself as a demi-god in the human world. But for the Eldest Brother, it was a question that must be answered.

He stood by the willows along the moat and the blood-stained sedan. He pondered for a long while. Liu Yiqing’s eyes were closed silently as if he was deeply asleep. The rest of the cultivators and generals by the moat were all in comas. Only the Drunkard, Long Qing, and Hengmu were waiting for his decision.

Watching his cotton-padded gown swinging in the night breeze and the dust on it falling onto the ground, Long Qing felt nervous. Yet he was also looking forward.

If the gown were to move and Mr. First were to leave to kill, then the world would become a whole new world that no one had ever witnessed.

In that world, no rule would apply because the fundamental rule of life and death would be broken. If two great cultivators at the state of Distanceless would be slaughtering across the world, then no one knew who would die next.

It just took one of them to overtake the rules of this world. If there would be the two of them, then they could definitely destroy the world.

Hengmu looked at the Drunkard and the Eldest Brother, and finally realized why Distanceless was the most unique above the Five States. It could almost mean a different world.

The darkness thickened. The water calmed down until it was deadly still. The human world seemed to be waiting for its doom. No one knew for how long they had waited until dawn finally came.

The Eldest Brother had been standing by the sedan and never left.

People woke up and fled from the moat. The bright moon left and a warm red morning sun appeared in the sky. It lightened up the burned ruins as well as the newly built courtyards in Linkang.

“Indeed no one could stop you, except for yourself.”

The Drunkard looked at him and said, “You don’t have the guts to kill after all.”

“It is not a matter of lacking guts, but a matter of having compassion.”

The Eldest Brother had made his decision. “Every human being has compassion. You think you are a god, not a human being. Therefore you can kill. But I cannot because I am still a human.”