Chapter 287: Half a Day

Liu Cheng had no idea what Brother Ding’s situation really was, but he suddenly found himself a little envious of him.

If only he could have half of Brother Ding’s carefree ease.

If he weren’t with the Sea-Treading Gang now, with his strength he could live quite well without joining any side, just collecting bounties on wanted notices. But if he hadn’t fought tooth and nail to squeeze into the Sea-Treading Gang back then, he might not have even reached the Great Proliferation Realm, let alone the Dharma Realm.

The seeds sown in the past bear fruit today... Liu Cheng sighed inwardly, pulled his thoughts back, and considered his own situation.

Every one of the businesses he wanted to shed was extremely lucrative. Otherwise, so many martial artists wouldn’t be risking their heads and fighting over them one after another. He had only hinted a little at giving them up recently, and most of the gang members had immediately objected.

I need to find some other reason to kill a few of the ringleaders...

Being watched by so many eyes right now might not be a bad thing. At least those who profit from some of these businesses don’t dare come out for the time being...

I’ll use the excuse that Godfather had wanted to get rid of certain traitors while he was alive...

A dead Godfather is more useful than a living one...

The dead deserve respect...

...

By Golden Pool.

Ding Songyan looked at the sparkling water and said to Zheng Zhuxi with a smile, "Senior Sister, the last few times I enjoyed the view here, can you guess what I most wanted to do?"

Back in Dingjiang Prefecture, Zheng Zhuxi might have teased her junior brother, saying, "Don’t tell me you wanted to go drink with courtesans on a pleasure boat." But now she neither wanted to nor felt comfortable teasing him like that, and her eyes turned as she said, "Go for a swim?"

"Not quite that wild." Ding Songyan had indeed done something similar in his previous life.

From around the age of ten, he had often gone skinny-dipping in rivers, ponds, and reservoirs. Surviving to adulthood unscathed was no small feat.

Ding Songyan bent down, picked a flat stone up from the shore, and flicked his wrist to send it flying.

The stone hit the lake surface and kept bouncing, spinning fast as it raced into the distance. A long while later it finally sank, leaving ripples that nearly linked one into the next and sending up lots of fine droplets.

"Over a hundred skips," Ding Songyan said to his senior sister, pleased with himself.

He hadn’t used any true qi and hadn’t tried very hard. He had thrown it with nothing more than his body’s current feel for strength, and he’d gotten so many skips he couldn’t be bothered to count.

Zheng Zhuxi’s interest was piqued.

"Let me try."

She casually picked up a stone and, copying what Ding Songyan had just done, started skipping it across the water.

The stone skimmed along, now landing, now rising, and after about eighty-some skips it lost its momentum and plopped into the water.

"Not even a hundred..." Zheng Zhuxi murmured, a little dissatisfied.

She’d barely reached even half of her junior brother’s count!

Her competitive spirit rose, and she went off to look for another stone to try again.

"You need to pick a stone like this..." Ding Songyan took the opportunity to coach his senior sister, correcting her posture and how she put force into it, just like when they trained in martial arts.

Stone after stone was thrown, and the two of them had a wonderful time.

A few martial artists passed by. They had initially been drawn in by Zheng Zhuxi’s looks, unable to look away from her expression, occasionally intensely focused, and at other times, radiant and bright. But after watching for a while, they all independently went looking for stones, wanting to see how many skips they could get and whether they could beat that couple.

After a long while, Zheng Zhuxi, now fully in command of the technique, finally won one round with a throw of a little over two hundred skips that nearly hit the hull of a pleasure boat.

"How was that?" she asked Ding Songyan, lifting her chin slightly, dimples deep.

"Amazing, Senior Sister!" Ding Songyan praised first, then muttered, "But I’m not convinced."

He picked up a stone and was about to throw it at the lake again.

Zheng Zhuxi suddenly sensed something and flung the stone in her left hand as well.

Ding Songyan’s stone moved as fast as a hidden weapon, but after just two bounces, Zheng Zhuxi’s stone hit it squarely from the side. Both lost their momentum and dropped into the lake together.

"You used true qi!" Zheng Zhuxi glared at her junior brother.

Ding Songyan grinned.

"This is called entering the second phase.

"How did you notice, Senior Sister?"

"As if I don’t know you!" Zheng Zhuxi scoffed.

The two of them laughed and played around for a while, and stones kept bouncing across the lake, sometimes as many as twelve or thirteen at once.

Ding Songyan looked up at the sky.

"Let’s go. It’s time for lunch."

Zheng Zhuxi had enjoyed herself thoroughly. She didn’t ask where, just carried Autumnwater and walked beside her junior brother toward the north shore of Golden Pool.

"I never saw you play this at the sect," Zheng Zhuxi asked, her cheeks still faintly flushed with excitement.

The Brightnight Sect had a calm lake with even more beautiful scenery, after all.

Ding Songyan looked at his senior sister and openly admired the young woman’s loveliness. After thinking, he said, "I was probably focused on martial arts back then?"

And after growing close to his senior sister and often going out together, he still hadn’t settled his own thoughts or let go of that knot in his heart. He’d kept himself in check and never actively flirted with her, only occasionally losing his restraint. Like that time at the New Year festival, when he stood alone outside the cold, quiet courtyard, turned around and saw his senior sister, and then, while playing with firecrackers, deliberately threw them near her.

"Liar..." Zheng Zhuxi replied softly.

At Alpine Lake Mountain, her junior brother had been focused on martial arts, but not so focused that he gave up playing entirely.

Before Ding Songyan could respond, the young woman looked to her right at Golden Pool and said with considerable emotion, "Actually, I’ve noticed these past two days that you’ve become a little livelier. You’re still mature when you need to be, but not all the time."

"Really?" Ding Songyan hadn’t noticed it himself.

He examined himself seriously and found that it was true. His mindset seemed to have gotten much younger.

He didn’t know whether this was his body influencing his soul in return, or whether the people he’d been close to before were all young men and women, while after coming to the Flame Capital, the people he spent the most time with were Twelfth Madam Luo and Ji Hanyi, whose mental ages were about the same as his. Maybe both reasons applied.

Though spending time with the younger generation was gradually influencing Ding Songyan and making him more spirited, the difference between them made him see the maturity in his own mindset more clearly, and it showed unconsciously.

But with people of his "own generation," he often forgot about being mature since everyone was about the same.

Zheng Zhuxi took her eyes off the scenery and said with a bright smile, "That’s how it feels to me. Mm, it’s nice."

Her junior brother overthought things and was too clever for his own good. Being livelier was a good thing.

Ding Songyan didn’t shy away from the change. Taking the chance to tease his senior sister, he brought her, under the rare, brilliant sunlight of winter, to the outside of a temple with yellow walls and black tiles.

"Shilin Temple..." Zheng Zhuxi was a little stunned.

My junior brother dares to wander around Shilin Temple?

Ding Songyan smiled.

"Shilin Temple’s vegetarian meals are the best in the Flame Capital. When you talked about Shilin Temple before, Senior Sister, it seemed you’d never eaten here."

"Junior Brother, you’re really bold," Zheng Zhuxi said softly.

Ding Songyan chuckled softly.

"The most dangerous place is the safest. Besides, what do Cai Youde and Chi Yu have to do with Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi?"

"..." Zheng Zhuxi was momentarily speechless.

Inside the Shilin Temple dining hall, Ding Songyan ordered the braised tofu and other dishes he had liked last time, then added a few more he hadn’t ordered before but was curious about.

"It really is good." After eating for a while, Zheng Zhuxi praised it with a clear, bright smile.

Just as Ding Songyan was about to boast about his skill at ordering, he suddenly heard a commotion from outside, as if there was something exciting to see.

As a young novice monk passed by, Ding Songyan pointed outside the dining hall:

"What happened?"

The novice monk chanted a Buddhist proclamation and said with some pride, "Divine Monk Dazhi is giving a Dharma talk today."

"When did Divine Monk Dazhi arrive in the capital?" Ding Songyan pressed.

"Last night, Benefactor," the novice monk answered honestly.

After he left the dining hall, Ding Songyan turned to Zheng Zhuxi and lowered his voice.

"Another Heaven-Man has come to the capital. The Flame Capital is gathering storm clouds."

This divine monk mainly cultivated the Nine Realms True Words, and was said to have trained his sect’s signature martial art to the seventh level, the Form Realm, even before becoming a Heaven-Man.

Zheng Zhuxi tersely acknowledged and pursed her lips.

"You have to be extremely careful. If there’s nothing you can do, preserve yourself first.

"As long as you stay alive, there’s always hope."

"Do I look like the kind of person who’d lay down his life for the Jianwu Emperor?" Ding Songyan said with a self-mocking tone, trying to put his senior sister at ease.

It was already late by the time they finished the vegetarian meal. The two didn’t stay to hear Divine Monk Dazhi expound on the Dharma. Side by side, they headed toward the east city, arriving at the meeting point agreed on with the Hongxin Trading Company before 2 pm.

The caravan’s steward and guards were all Brightnight Sect disciples. They had more or less all heard the rumors about Zheng Zhuxi and Ding Songyan, and even those who hadn’t had found out after Ding Songyan came specially last night to change the meeting time. They weren’t surprised at all that Junior Brother Ding was seeing Junior Sister Zheng all the way out the city gate.

Pulling Zheng Zhuxi aside, Ding Songyan took out three books.

"Senior Sister, these are the Dharma Realm Chapters of the Lesser Limitless Art, the Candlelit Nocturne Sutra, and the Celestial Stars Scripture. You’ve formed your own Candle Heart and been through tempering, so entering the Dharma Realm shouldn’t be too hard. Read through the later techniques first and get a rough idea of where the void apertures that are easiest to sense are. It should help your breakthrough."

Zheng Zhuxi looked at the latter two, whose ink looked fresh, and froze for a moment.

"You wrote them out from memory last night?"

"That’s not hard. I can write out any martial art I’ve mastered." Ding Songyan deliberately avoided mentioning that he had stayed up half the night.

Zheng Zhuxi didn’t press him. Holding the three manuals, her starry eyes like autumn water, she looked at Ding Songyan and said,

"After the New Year, my father may come to the capital himself, and I’ll follow him.

"Once the Flame Capital business is settled, I’ll keep him company for half a year, try to enter the Dharma Realm, and then travel the jianghu with you."

"Okay." Ding Songyan understood Zheng Zhuxi’s father’s obsession.

After the two of them talked on and on for a while, Ding Songyan said with a smile, "We shouldn’t keep the caravan waiting. Senior Sister, if the Flame Capital matter ends early, I’ll come find you in Changhua."

Zheng Zhuxi tersely acknowledged, turned, and walked gracefully toward the caravan like a willow swaying in the breeze, while Ding Songyan headed toward the city gate.

After a few steps, he couldn’t help looking back, just as Zheng Zhuxi turned her head to look at him.

They smiled at each other, and each paused for two breaths before continuing on.

Not long after entering the city, a thought suddenly struck Ding Songyan.

Sir only told Senior Sister to head back today. He didn’t say anything about what I should do...

I could see her off for a whole day...

If the Flame Capital didn’t have so much going on, and if I weren’t waiting on news from the Returning Abyss Order, I could take leave and escort her all the way to Changhua Prefecture.

Forget it, I won’t send her off. These are troubled times. Don’t cause trouble for Senior Sister and let her practice martial arts in peace...

He acted on the thought at once, but before Ding Songyan could even turn around, he saw a familiar figure.

The person stood at the side of the street, wearing a black gauze hat. She was just lifting the veil, revealing a delicate, cool-featured, serene face of about thirty.

Liu Yuzao, no, Qi Xiaoxiang—Ding Songyan’s undeserved mother.

Ding Songyan’s heart clenched.

There was no time to think. He turned around and used the Waxing Moon Phantom Form at full power to chase after Zheng Zhuxi’s caravan, leaving behind an illusory scene that kept shimmering.

Ji Hanyi had come...