Nightfall

“Even the strongest one in the world should behave with discipline…” Ning Que had his eyes wide open and, rubbing his hands, he asked excitedly, “Eldest Brother, who is stronger, you or the Sage of Sword, Liu Bai?”

The Eldest Brother looked at him in confusion and said, “The Sage of Sword, Liu Bai, the known strongest one in the world, is surely superior to me.”

Ning Que became dumbfounded and replied, “What answer is that? Fighting is not the same as quarreling.”

The Eldest Brother became lost in thought over what the meaning of quarreling was. After a long while, he mistakenly believed that he had gotten Ning Que’s point, and explained seriously, “I’m not good at fighting. Fighting is the specialty of your Second Brother.”

Ning Que was speechless by his words once again.

The Eldest Brother looked at him and asked curiously, “Youngest Brother?”

Waving his hands, Ning Que replied, “It’s nothing, Senior Brother. I’m just not used to the way that you talk.”

The Eldest Brother had a sudden epiphany and said, “So, that’s how it is.”

Ning Que asked, “If the chief monk of the Xuankong Temple and the abbey dean of the Zhishou Abbey are like eagles flying in the sky, then what are you?”

The Eldest Brother replied with a smile, “I am just an ordinary scholar at the service of my teacher.”

Ning Que heaved a sigh and said, “It’s hypocritical for you to speak like this.”

Shaking his head, the Eldest Brother sighed, saying, “Not to mention the abbey dean, the chief monk, and others from the Zhishou Abbey and the Xuankong Temple who are in a shocking state, there are outstanding ones among the marketplace. Those ordinary looking drinkers and butchers might be Unworldly Sublime Beings who have already broken the five realms.”

Of course, the Eldest Brother was not being hypocritical. The reason why he kept telling Ning Que that he was not the strongest in the world was that he firmly believed that he was not. And he was very unwilling to see Ning Que take a wrong path and expatriate himself from the correct path of self-seeking because he appeared to be big-headed due to the power background of the Academy.

It was a pity that Ning Que did not realize the Eldest Brother’s good intention. By his straightforward logic, the abbey dean of the Zhishou Abbey was at the strongest level among the known cultivation world. However, his disciple Ye Su was just a weak chicken in front of the Eldest Brother. So it was quite reasonable to say that the Zhishou Abbey was far inferior to the Academy, therefore, he naturally felt proud and excited.

So due to this feeling, he was not quite willing to accept the result of their conversations today in the Winter Courtyard.

The Eldest Brother realized what was on his mind, and said, “Xia Hou is so strong that even Jun Mo does not have the full confidence of defeating him, not to mention killing him. Besides, he is the brother of the empress, who would dare to kill him without any charge? Very few people know about this secret except for the Headmaster of the Academy and His Majesty, so you should keep it safe.”

“Senior Brother, I don’t quite understand why you let me hear the secret earlier.”

The Eldest Brother stared at him quietly— it seemed that his clear eyes were about to look right through Ning Que’s disguise.

Ning Que looked back at the Eldest Brother and did not try to hide anything from his Senior Brother.

After a long silence, the Eldest Brother looked at him sympathetically and said, “Because I want you to know.”

Ning Que lowered his head after a moment of silence and said, “Yes, I do need to know this.”

The Eldest Brother burst into a smile and told him, “If you study hard in the Academy, you can certainly kill him within five years.”

Raising his head, Ning Que looked in the eyes of the Eldest Brother and became startled for a second, feeling that his Senior Brother seemed to know everything, including his hidden secret.

It doesn’t matter that he knows. I struggled with life and death during those destitute and homeless years, so I always remain indifferent to others even though I seem to be undisciplined and naughty in appearance. But now that I have entered the Academy, become the core disciple of the Headmaster of the Academy, and have so many Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters, there is no reason for me to be scared anymore.

Ning Que looked at the Eldest Brother and said seriously, “I heard that the Headmaster of the Academy once praised you as ‘having heard the Way in the morning and having acted by the Way in the evening’. That is the state that I have been longing for. Five years is too long for me, I want to achieve the goal as fast as I can.”

The Eldest Brother replied with an earnest voice, “The Headmaster of the Academy forbids the Academy to interfere with the affairs of the state. I have already acted rashly to let Xia Hou retire from office. If he does actually back off from the government, even the Academy could do nothing but let him go. At that time, there would be only one way left for you to kill him. And that is to challenge him face to face. Do you have the confidence to beat him?”

…

…

Pondering the conversation that he had with the Eldest Brother in the room, Ning Que walked toward the General’s Mansion. At the side door, he met with Mo Shanshan, who had just fed the Big Black Horse, so he invited her to wander about in Tuyang City.

The cold breeze was like a knife cutting one’s face during the winter in Tuyang City. The crowds that had watched the hustle and bustle had already gone back home, so there was hardly anyone on the street except for the patrolling Tang cavalrymen. Sauntering on the street was not fun at all. But for young men and young women, what mattered was who they were with, so both Ning Que and Mo Shanshan were in a good mood.

Passing through the provision store, which was half-closed, Ning Que pointed at the rampart and told Shanshan that something had gone wrong during the repair of the arrow tower, so it looked weird but was very convenient to use. Afterward, he took her to an inconspicuous shop in an out-of-the-way lane to eat boiled meat, telling her that it was the only delicacy in Tuyang City.

Mo Shanshan did not talk too much during the entire journey of viewing winter scenery, eating fresh meat, and drinking hard liquor. Instead, she just listened to him, followed his footsteps, and looked at him seriously with careless yet warm eyes, full of tender feelings.

“Have you ever come here to Tuyang City before?”

“I passed by once.”

“Then, why are you so familiar with Tuyang City?”

“Because… I have a friend who once lived here for a long time.”

Ning Que bought a baked sweet potato at a sheltered place on the street corner, wrapped it with two pieces of rag paper, and gave it to Mo Shanshan, then asked her to go back to the General’s Mansion first. He walked down a lane and stared at the cornice of the General’s Mansion in silence for a long time.

The general in the General’s Mansion was about to live out his life in retirement, having once made outstanding meritorious deeds for the empire. And now, he was well-behaved in requesting to leave the office, and would definitely gain respect from the imperial court and a happy ending for himself.

While another General’s Mansion in Chang’an was once dripping with blood, the village in the Yan territory was burned, leaving numerous bodies with no heads, and his friend Darkie died in the rain on the gray wall opposite the Old Brush Pen Shop.

He was eager to kill the general, but he knew he could not. Even though he was not a soldier in the City of Wei anymore and had become a disciple of the Second floor of the Academy, he was still no match for him.

Even when the Eldest Brother interfered personally, Ning Que could only watch his enemy’s retirement from the office as he cast aside all of his past grudges and left with no trace of bygones and the blood that was spilled. Therefore, he watched the cornice of the General’s Mansion in silence for a long time.

On the small lane that was quiet and secluded, a middle-aged man wearing deep-colored cotton clothes came silently nearby. After confirming that there was no one around, he handed a note to Ning Que.

This middle-aged man was the Array Tactical Masters of the Imperial Center Administration who had made contact with Ning Que at the Blue Water Battalion. With his status as the Array Tactical Masters in the frontier fortress, it was not difficult for him to find Ning Que in Tuyang City.

With his eyes falling on the note, Ning Que was suddenly taken back, as his fingers holding the note were shivering in the cold breeze. After a short silence, he asked in a hoarse voice, “Why are you telling me now?”

The middle-aged man looked at him with sympathy, and then told him in a low voice, “I couldn’t find you in the Wilderness, so I stayed in Tuyang City and waited until you came back.”

Ning Que gazed at the note, and then closed his eyes and shook his head.

Then, the middle-aged man walked out of the lane silently.

After a long while, Ning Que opened his eyes, destroyed the note in his hand, and then raised up his head to look at the winter sky and mumbled, “How could you die like this?”

The note was sad news brought by the Imperial Center Administration of Tang from Chang’an about the death of the Divine Talisman Master, Yan Se, of the South School of Haotian. Yan Se died along with the Great Divine Priest of Light, who betrayed and escaped from Peach Mountain within a mountain to the north of Chang’an a few days ago.

The seemingly simple message had greatly shocked Ning Que. There was not enough time for him to recall his first meeting with Master Yan Se at the meadow outside of the Academy; their questioning and answering about the Fu character in the Departure Pavilion the first time; and their traces that they left at numerous Taoist temples, Buddhist temples, as well as old and new pavilions. He was lost in sorrow.

The note was short, yet it contained a lot of messages. Ning Que, to some extent, knew that the reason for the Great Divine Priest of Light’s years of imprisonment on Peach Mountain was related to the bloody case of General’s Mansion. According to the analysis, he came up with a strong intuition that the Great Divine Priest of Light had gone to Chang’an to look for him!

He had no idea where this intuition came from. After he received those fragments from the spiritual world of Master Lotus at the Front Gate of the Devil’s Doctrine, he would always come up with some enigmatic intuitions, which he firmly believed in.

“Master, did you die because of me?”

Feeling depressed and awful, Ning Que looked at the dark sky and wondered if he would have suppressed his sorrow with the psyche to get revenge on the man who killed his master if that man was still alive. However, the Great Divine Priest of Light was also killed by the master, so what could he do for his master now?

Ning Que withdrew his eyesight from the sky and looked at the General’s Mansion and said with a sigh, “It seems that the bloody case of General’s Mansion is related to the West-Hill Divine Palace. Was it the Great Divine Priest of Light who asked you to take the move?” “Why would you do that? Someone such as my master died while you are able to live a peaceful life. Why is that?”

After a short silence, he said, “After the general’s retirement from office, he will be rewarded with thousands of hectares of land and several large mansions. He can play with cats, dogs, and even maidservants in his leisure time, or sit on a chair under the shade and have fun with his grandsons and granddaughters. Those will be great days.”

If Sangsang were by his side, she would know the true meaning of Ning Que’s words: “Now that the days are great, then don’t dream like that”.

Standing in the secluded lane in Tuyang City and thinking about his friend who had died a long time ago and his master who had just passed away, Ning Que felt an endless sorrow coming from his chest, and the sorrow was turning into boiling ashes.

The boiling ashes accelerated the circulation of aura inside his body, which brought about unspeakable subtle variations of his Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow. The aura of heaven and earth from the surrounding lanes and trees seemed to respond to these variations and cover him slowly and quietly, penetrating into his body through his thick jacket and his skin under, forming an inspiring and unstoppable force.

…