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Li Lianhua sauntered into Lotus Tower one sunny winter afternoon to find Fang Duobing poring over books at the table with furrowed brows. Fang Duobing did not acknowledge his presence even when he dropped the packages in his hand not-quite-gently on the table.
Li Lianhua reached out and pressed his index finger against Fang Duobing’s yintang point. Fang Duobing’s head moved back with the pressure but his eyes steadfastly remained on the text.
“Careful you don’t end up permanently cross-eyed,” Li Lianhua warned as he turned to pick up one of the packages.
Fang Duobing did not take the bait. “There’s something amiss about this.”
“Oh?” Li Lianhua asked.
“It’s the latest copy of the 万人册 wanren ce. These names here, here, here, and here-“ Fang Duobing marked four successive names with red ink, “-they rose through the ranks very quickly.”
Fang Duobing handed the book to Li Lianhua. While Li Lianhua looked at the list of the top 20 names, Fang Duobing flipped the pages of a second book. “Look. Three months before that, they were ranked in the hundreds.” He held up a third book. “Before that, they were ranked in the five thousands.”
As Li Lianhua considered the possibilities and calculated the probabilities in his head, Fang Duobing continued to pull up book after book. “They don’t seem to have existed before that.”
Li Lianhua nodded and made a mild ‘en’ sound of agreement. “Do you memorise all ten thousand names every time the list is updated?”
“That’s not important! What are the chances of four geniuses suddenly appearing in the jianghu?”
“Improbable, but not impossible. Why are you memorising the names?” Li Lianhua threw Fang Duobing a side-eye glance.
Fang Duobing bristled. “I just remember things! I have a really good memory, alright? How improbable?”
“Well, a-Fei and I appeared in the jianghu around the same time. What are you doing even, reading this list of names?”
“A-Fei had it lying around so I was curious! Are we going to investigate it or not?”
Li Lianhua hummed. “What is suspicious is that the names are in successive order each time. It’s worth investigating. At the very least, a-Fei would have some entertainment as his birthday present. I’m going to tell him you’ve been using his 万人册 wanren ce as your 厕简 ce jian.”
“I have not!”
“A-Fei!” Li Lianhua called out.
—-
The trio saw a bustling tea stall by the road, and slowed their horses down from afar before dismounting. They left their horses to graze some steps away from the tea stall. Four of the six tables were occupied. They chose a table near another group of men, identifiable as members of the jianghu, judging by the swords and sabres at their sides.
The stall owner greeted them with a welcoming smile. “What can I get for you?”
“Three bowls of hot soup, and some mantou,” Di Feisheng answered as he put some copper coins on the table. He was in no mood to entertain Fang Duobing’s delicate gastronomy sensibilities.
The owner swiped the coins off the table cheerfully. “Right away, sir.”
Fang Duobing pursed his lips.
“Don’t,” Di Feisheng warned.
Fang Duobing threw him a wide-eyed innocent look but did not speak.
The stall owner delivered the soup and mantou to their table before quickly returning to man the stove. The voices of the men at the next table drifted over.
“They said those who were blessed enough to be chosen by the goddess to train in that realm found that their mastery improved by leaps and bounds, as if they had trained for years instead of months!”
“Impossible. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world.”
“It’s true! People have witnessed their improvements!” The first man retorted.
“I’m sure it’s just a story blown out of proportion.”
A new voice piped up, a lone man sitting on the other side of their table. “It’s true. Two of them were casted out from my sect for dishonouring the sect’s values. After they returned from the realm, they challenged and defeated my sect’s senior members.”
One of the men in the group asked, “兄弟 are you also looking for the secret realm?”
A nerve jumped in the lone man's jaw as he gripped his sword tightly. The unsightly scar carving up the edge of his face, from his temple to his jaw, whitened as he said grimly, “I’m going to find out for myself if this realm is true. And if it is true, I am going to train and avenge my seniors.”
While sipping from his bowl of soup, Li Lianhua lifted his gaze for a moment to meet Fang Duobing’s eyes. His eyes made the barest of flicks in the direction of the men.
Fang Duobing plastered a charming smile on his face before bouncing over to the table. “各位兄弟 please tell me more about this secret realm.”
—-
Somehow, they found themselves separated from the group of men they had been travelling with.
Sunlight stabbed through the shroud cast by the trees measuring tens of chi. Bright shards of light danced on the forest floor. The forest hummed with energy, life running through it. There were no suspicious sounds or absence of sounds; there was chirping, rustling, hushing.
Fang Duobing’s fingers twitched on the hilt of his sword. He itched to sit down and meditate. He felt that if he did, he could achieve the necessary revelation for the next stage of Yangzhouman.
They arrived at a small clearing, with rocks arranged in a circle in the centre. Fang Duobing started to set his sword down, but Di Feisheng used the sheathed broadside of his sabre to swat Fang Duobing’s buttocks before he could sit down on a rock.
“Move along.”
“Can’t you feel it?” Fang Duobing asked eagerly.
“We can, and that’s why you shouldn’t sit down,” Li Lianhua answered.
Fang Duobing glanced around curiously. “Why?”
Di Feisheng walked around the edges of the clearing. “We are not in a fantasy novel.”
“Realms with magical spiritual veins do not exist. This is unnatural,” Li Lianhua explained as he tapped the rocks with his sheathed sword.
Fang Duobing frowned at this. His mind had been fogged up by the thrumming energy he felt, but at their words, it was as if the veil of fog lifted. He frowned harder as he stared at the rock formation, his mind beginning to race.
“三生万物 sansheng wanwu,” Fang Duobing murmured.
—-
They kept walking through the forest. They did not come across any other humans or animals, but they found two additional clearings similar to the first. Both clearings also had rock formations in the centre. While the rocks in each clearing were approximately the same size, the rocks in subsequent clearings were bigger than the last.
“Three, nine, eighty-one,” Fang Duobing said aloud as they came to the third clearing.
Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua swivelled to look at him.
“Three clearings, nine rocks in each, eighty-one rocks in total. This is a formation set up using the 三生万物 sansheng wanwu concept,” Fang Duobing explained.
Li Lianhua pondered this. “We need to find the centre of the formation to break it. Logically, the clearings should have circled the centre to be effective, but we seemed to have walked in a straight line. There could be more clearings, creating an insanely large circle, or we have walked into an illusion.”
Di Feisheng’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the rocks. “Or we need to walk into the illusion.”
Li Lianhua smiled at Di Feisheng, “That’s a good idea.”
“Eh?” Fang Duobing looked at the both of them, confused.
—-
It was a simple matter of sitting down in the clearing and meditating. Within minutes of tapping into the energy he felt earlier, Fang Duobing sensed his body being absorbed into a kind of flow. He allowed the current to push him along, his eyes remaining closed.
As his feet touched the ground, he opened his eyes and found himself by a river, facing a waterwheel. His entire body and mind felt alert and refreshed, as if he had rested for days and as if he could fight for weeks.
Fang Duobing looked around and found himself alone. “A-Fei! Li Lianhua!” He called out.
Receiving no response, he walked downstream, following the increased rush of water to presumably where it would be used by humans. After trekking awhile, Fang Duobing saw there were indeed fields, but no crops or farmers. Moments later, he heard the familiar whisking sounds of sharp metal striking sharp metal.
Hurrying towards the sound, Fang Duobing saw Di Feisheng swinging his sabre upwards, aiming for his opponent who was in the air. Li Lianhua was watching the fight nearby, with one hand languidly shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare.
Li Lianhua heard his approach and looked over. “Ah, you’ve finally arrived.”
“Who is that?”
Li Lianhua shrugged as he resumed watching the fight. “Don’t know, but a-Fei is barely warming up.”
They watched as Di Feisheng feinted with a swing of his sabre, and when his opponent left himself open to evade the swing, Di Feisheng followed up with a vicious kick to his solar plexus. The opponent folded like paper before losing consciousness.
“Don’t pick a fight if you’re weak,” Di Feisheng said curtly.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Fang Duobing pointed out.
Di Feisheng smirked at him. “Don’t pick a fight if you’re weak.”
Before Fang Duobing could bristle, Li Lianhua stepped up between the two and said, “We have more important things to attend to. Let’s move on. We can’t stay too long here.”
—-
They found the village nearby, not far from the crop fields. The closer they were to the village, the more energetic Fang Duobing felt. He glanced at Li Lianhua, and saw that Li Lianhua’s usually pale face had gained a healthy glow.
The village lacked high walls, but was surrounded by a moat formed by several rivers trickling into it. The village was devoid of people, and the multi-storey houses were oddly neatly spaced. They wandered around the village looking for possible clues.
“There are 36 houses,” Fang Duobing announced.
Di Feisheng paused in his steps. With his next step, he launched himself high into the air, and surveyed the village from above. He landed gracefully before informing them, “It’s a bagua. We entered the village through the kun.”
The three of them started in the direction of where the centre of the formation would be. There was nothing to indicate that it was the centre. It was merely empty space. Li Lianhua walked towards the centre, shuffling around in circles seemingly without purpose. He landed on a spot and stopped.
Li Lianhua looked up “Fang Xiaobao, when you arrived, did you face a waterwheel too?”
Fang Duobing made an ‘en’ sound of assent.
“The rocks are the humans trapped in the illusion. The size of the rocks represent the amount of neili each have. The rivers represent our neili. The waterwheels are the illusion formations forcing us to exert more power. The rivers direct into the moat around this village, and I bet it feeds into the water wells in the village through underground channels starting at the kun, feeding the village with power. The two spots here-,” Li Lianhua leaped to another spot. “-and here is where the power can then be absorbed. That’s why we’ve been feeling reenergised the closer we got to the village. I feel almost whole.”
Di Feisheng’s eyes narrowed. “Someone has been feeding off the neili of others like a parasite.”
“Four someones,” Fang Duobing corrected him.
Li Lianhua used his foot to deepen the mark where both spots were leaking neili. “En. There’s two ways to do this. One, we wait for them to show up. Two, we destroy this now and wait for them to show up.”
“I vote for the second. Our lost travel companions may still be trapped somewhere in this illusion,” Fang Duobing said.
“Right, then. A-Fei,” Li Lianhua called, unsheathing his sword. “Happy birthday.”
Di Feisheng gave a wide grin before bellowing in happiness.
Fang Duobing sighed and moved aside as he watched the both of them destroy the village while sparring.
End.