(3) A Hero's Resolve Falters

"Great Master, in your compassion, at such an advanced age, you have still traveled a thousand li to lay to rest an old feud on Young Master Yue's behalf. This disciple, Mingxi, accepts your kindness with the deepest gratitude. As Manor Lord, Young Master Yue's father is as my own father to me. Ah Heng is only stubborn in speech—please do not hold it against him, Great Master. This disciple bows on Ah Heng's behalf in thanks for your great kindness."

The moment Xi'er finished speaking, she dropped to her knees before Great Master Yuanyi and bowed her head to the ground three times, properly and formally. Only then did he register what was happening, and by the time he wanted to stop her, it was already too late.

But should he have stopped her at all?

Wasn't what Xi'er had just said to Great Master Yuanyi exactly the knot that had sat, unresolved, in his own heart for all these years?

His father had been born into an official's household, yet since childhood had admired Shaolin—its Buddhist teachings capable of saving the world, its martial arts capable of upholding chivalry and defending hearth and homeland. Through his grandfather's mediation, his father had finally been able to fulfill his wish and become a disciple under Great Master Yuanyi. But as the saying goes, the world's affairs are impossible to predict—who could have foreseen that he would, in the end, be expelled from Shaolin? Had that not happened, how could he have ended up with nowhere to call home, kicked while he was already down by everyone around him?

To forgive Shaolin, to forgive Great Master Yuanyi, so lightly, as though none of it had ever happened—how was the resentment in his heart supposed to simply dissolve?

But Xi'er was invariably right about these things—her intelligence, her ability, her way of handling people left him, and likely even Cheng Siyuan himself, trailing far behind. He had once refused to believe it, always thinking that Chu Mingxi was, after all, just a woman—how much insight and capability could she really possess? But after years of witnessing it firsthand, he had finally come to appreciate just how sharp Cheng Siyuan's eye had been in recognizing her worth all those years ago. If Chu Mingxi was a thousand-li steed, Cheng Siyuan had been the master horseman who spotted her. All three of them had come to know one another around the same time, but it wasn't until he himself had come to spend his days and nights alongside Xi'er, fulfilling the duty Cheng Siyuan had entrusted to him, that he had slowly come to see just how extraordinary she truly was. Not only was there no woman in this world who could compare to her—there might not even be a man who could match her. Aside from being physically frail, unable to so much as truss a chicken, he could hardly find a single weakness in her. She spoke in a soft, gentle voice, and yet accomplished the most formidable of tasks, made the wisest of decisions. After losing Cheng Siyuan, she had sunk into grief for no more than three months before wiping away her tears and rising again, determined to fulfill her husband's unfinished wish—and so she had built Yueyue Manor, bringing its benefits to the world, all the way down to this very day. A woman so extraordinary rarely made the wrong call, and so he knew he had to hold his temper and wait quietly to see how Xi'er would handle this.

Great Master Yuanyi hurried to help Xi'er to her feet, saying kindly, "Good child, please rise. Knowing you look after Benefactor Yue so well, Nanying, wherever his spirit rests, must surely find great comfort in it."

"As long as Mingxi draws breath, I will never let Ah Heng walk that old road again." Xi'er pressed her palms together once more in a respectful bow.

"Good... good..." Tears welled in Great Master Yuanyi's eyes as he called out into the air. "Chongdao, do you hear this? Manor Lord Chu is well, and your son is well—there is nothing left for you to worry over. You were never at fault, not in the slightest, back then. Every fault was mine as your master. I had meant only to send you home to wait quietly for a time, away from the disputes of the martial world, never imagining that you would be too afraid to go home at all, and would wander lost in exile ever after. Your master has come today, specially, to bring you back to Shaolin. Shaolin is your home, and you will never again be without one. Though it comes far too late for all of this, I hope you can forgive your master..." By the time Great Master Yuanyi finished, tears streamed freely down his aged face, his voice choked with emotion.

"Amitabha. It is surely time, too, to lay down the debts and grudges of this mortal world..."

Great Master Yuanyi pressed his palms together in farewell to everyone present, then turned and walked away. That last line of his—whether it had been meant for Yue Nanying, for Yue Heng himself, or for the assembled sect leaders, no one could quite say. The sect leaders exchanged stunned glances, faces full of shock. And it wasn't only they who looked stricken—Yue Heng's own expression was no better. Xi'er had never asked his consent—how could she simply take it upon herself to forgive Great Master Yuanyi so readily, on his behalf? He seethed silently, casting a cold glance at Xi'er, who acted as though she hadn't noticed at all.

These so-called righteous sects of the martial world had always outwardly held Shaolin in the highest esteem, and upon hearing that Shaolin would be sending someone to join this campaign against Yue Heng, every one of them had been overjoyed. They had assumed that with such a mighty backer, Shaolin's support would guarantee swift success, and that the Manor Lord of Yueyue, being nothing more than a woman, was hardly anyone to fear. Never had they imagined that Great Master Yuanyi would switch sides right there on the spot—and though his words had been spoken purely out of concern for his own disciple and disciple's son, taking every fault upon himself, each word had struck straight at their guilty consciences, leaving them drenched in cold sweat. If Yue Nanying had truly been without fault back then, then the fault lay with them instead—wasn't everything they had done to the Yue family, then, entirely without justification? What was more, they had once taken advantage of Great Master Yuanyi's serious illness, when he had no attention to spare for other matters, to press Yue Nanying and his wife to hand over the secret martial arts manuals of every sect—ultimately driving the couple, in order to protect their son from implication, to take their own lives together by the sword. Though Yue Nanying had long since been stripped of his status as a Shaolin disciple, his bond with Great Master Yuanyi as master and student, built over many years, had never been an ordinary one. After the Great Master recovered from his illness, he had gone immediately into seclusion for over a decade, and so they had quietly congratulated themselves that Shaolin would never look into the matter—assuming the bond between master and student had truly been severed, and that Yue Nanying would be left alone for good. Who could have guessed he would settle the whole account during this very campaign of condemnation?

"We humbly see the Great Master off..." Xi'er bowed once more, then called out clearly toward the doors. "Let the hidden guards of Yueyue Manor clear a path—together, see off Great Master Yuanyi, Elder Yue, and the Shaolin monks on their return to Shaolin..."

In the front courtyard, where until then only a handful of martial monks who had accompanied Great Master Yuanyi had been standing, some thirty guards clad in black suddenly appeared from every direction. With swift, agile movements they fell back to either side, facing one another, clearing a path down the middle, then bowed low with swords held level, their voices rumbling like distant thunder. "We humbly see off the Great Master—see off Elder Yue—see off the Shaolin masters..."

As Great Master Yuanyi's party faded into the distance, Xi'er turned and walked back, still paying no mind at all to the displeasure written across his face—yet he could see the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes. Damn this Xi'er—Yue Nanying was his own father, and even he himself hadn't cried, so why on earth was she crying? The sight instantly drained away most of his anger, and he found he no longer had the heart to scold her at all.

"All you fine heroes have been here quite a long while now, and Great Master Yuanyi has already departed, and everything that needed saying has been said. If you're still unwilling to bury the hatchet, well, that's fine too. Yueyue Manor isn't afraid of trouble—never mind that we have hidden guards stationed everywhere; even without them, Ah Heng alone would be more than enough to handle the lot of you. Why not all come at once? Taking you on one by one would simply be too much trouble."

"Ah Heng!" Xi'er shook her head, dropped herself down into her Manor Lord's seat, and, watching the sect leaders' faces all turn to flustered panic, torn between advance and retreat, called out his name.

Damn this Xi'er—didn't she know he was still in the middle of being furious? Calling out to him at a moment like this—should he answer, or not?

Even as he was still fretting over it internally, his mouth answered before he could stop himself.

"I'm here," he said.

He genuinely wanted to slap himself right then. He couldn't say exactly when this response had become a habit, but it was as though he'd been cursed—call, and the answer came automatically. Even though seeing Xi'er cry had inexplicably drained away half his anger, the other half was still very much there! Surely he ought to at least hold on to some of it toward her, express a bit of displeasure?

While he was still wrestling with himself over it, Xi'er spoke again.

"Why don't you find out who cut your own tendons all those years ago, and give them exactly the same treatment. Do whatever you like with the rest of them—as long as you leave them breathing, our Divine Physician Zhou can patch anyone back together. Consider it letting off some steam today. If the scene gets too bloody, I can step outside for a moment..." Xi'er said this loudly enough for all to hear—on the surface directed at him, but in truth aimed squarely at that pack of fools who didn't know how close to death they stood. Xi'er had always known exactly how to handle people, and even he himself was thoroughly wrapped around her finger—how could that crowd, righteous in appearance but selfish, black-hearted, and witless underneath, ever hope to be a match for her?

"Fine." His face betrayed nothing, but inwardly he admitted defeat and raised a white flag to Xi'er. By the time she finished speaking, he found that even the remaining half of his anger had vanished without a trace. Not only that—he actually felt something close to an urge to laugh.

Just as Xi'er made a show of starting to step away, a sudden commotion broke out. The dozen or so sect leaders' faces broke into broad smiles, every one of them suddenly all "let's talk this over reasonably," spouting phrases one after another like "one fewer enemy is one more friend," "feuds are best resolved, not deepened," "goodwill toward all," "all under heaven is one family"—as if they'd conveniently forgotten their own faces from just moments before. Without Shaolin as their backing, what nerve did they have left to provoke Yue Heng? And having originally dismissed Xi'er entirely, they had now gotten a taste of what she was capable of, frightened half out of their wits—likely never to breathe another word of revenge in front of the two of them for the rest of their lives.

A feud spanning two generations and decades of bitterness had been resolved in an instant. Xi'er had a knack not only for curing him of his own particular ailment—the bullheadedness of a rough northern brute—but also for curing the hypocrisy of little rats like these, who bullied the weak, feared the strong, and harbored bellies full of malice. Xi'er had once told him he was an out-and-out brute: unhappy, he'd give people nothing but a cold glare, and if someone didn't take the hint from his expression, he'd beat them without another word—those he didn't kill outright, he beat into submission, and from then on people trembled just hearing his name. Then, right to his face, she would lecture him: those who submit by force do not submit in their hearts—they yield only because their own strength falls short; but those who submit through virtue are moved and persuaded from within, sincerely and wholeheartedly, the way the seventy disciples once submitted to Confucius. His own father had personally taught him to read as a boy, but had passed away too soon, before he'd had the chance to properly study the classics, and so the reasoning behind Xi'er's words left him thoroughly stumped—it was rather like playing music for an ox. Undeterred, and not too proud to ask, he had once privately pulled Tian Xu aside to ask what exactly his mother had meant by it. He knew Xi'er's reasoning was sound, but how many people in this world possessed her intelligence and her deft touch, capable of winning without spilling a drop of blood, turning the impossible into the simple? He suspected that from the very moment she'd learned Great Master Yuanyi would be coming along, Xi'er had already known exactly how this would end.

Without Xi'er, he, Yue Heng, would still be nothing more than a brute, capable only of dominating others by force. Her words to Great Master Yuanyi that day—"As long as Mingxi draws breath, I will never let Ah Heng walk that old road again"—still rang in his ears. And yet now, she had broken that promise after all.