Chapter 3: Heroes Are Like Beauties

 Only the younger generation remained in place.

Song Yuzhi raised his long brows a fraction. "Three years ago, when Heroine Cai passed away, my father brought my elder brother to pay respects." The implication was plain enough: why pretend you'd never seen Song's father before?

Cai Zhao answered without hesitation. "When my aunt died, I had a recurring high fever and was confined to bed for over half a month. I missed her funeral procession entirely and saw none of the mourners who came."

That was, Song Yuzhi found himself thinking, surprisingly direct. He considered this before saying, "Heroine Cai turned the tide and saved the martial world from disaster. It is a genuine loss that she passed so young."

Cai Zhao said nothing. She turned her face away.

Song Maozhi had run out of patience. "My father is the Sect Leader of Vast Heaven Gate! How can you speak so carelessly in front of him? Who raised you with such manners?"

"My aunt did," said Cai Zhao. "She raised me from birth. She said there are far too many rules in this world already, and that having a conscience matters more than having manners. So long as you have conscience, whether you observe every rule is a secondary concern."

"Are you saying I lack conscience?!"

Cai Zhao looked genuinely startled. "No, no—nothing of the sort. I merely think Second Young Master Song lacks manners."

The assembled disciples found various reasons to look elsewhere.

"What did you just say?!"

Cai Zhao pointed to a small stone tablet half-submerged in the grass nearby. "The inscription says quite clearly: all guests must dismount and leave vehicles here. Sect Leader Song descended from his sedan chair in good time. Second Young Master, however, remains mounted."

Song Maozhi sputtered. "My father and Sect Leader Qi are as close as brothers—such formalities don't apply to—"

"My aunt and Sect Leader Qi were sworn siblings," Cai Zhao cut in evenly, "and yet even my parents never presumed upon that relationship."

Song Maozhi's mouth worked. The tablet's rule had not been strictly enforced in decades—the Azure Tower Sect leaders had always been relaxed about such things—but admitting this openly was not an available option.

"Sect Leader Qi is broad-minded! He wouldn't make an issue of something so minor!"

"That's not quite how it works." Cai Zhao's tone was patient, the way one is patient with someone who has made an understandable but correctable error. "If you enter a shop and the proprietor says your presence honors my humble establishment, would you take that literally and refuse to pay? My future master is extending courtesy. When a host is courteous, a guest should not exploit it as license to overstep. One cannot take advantage of a gentleman's virtue."

Nearby, Song Yuzhi did not intervene. He simply watched Cai Zhao through slightly narrowed eyes.

The fifteen-year-old girl had ink-black hair and skin like fresh snow, her looks striking enough to draw a second glance anywhere. And yet she had arranged her face into an expression of such solemn, righteous gravity that the overall effect was inadvertently—and considerably—comic.

"What business is any of this of yours?!" Song Maozhi had moved past argument and into the terrain of pure volume.

Cai Zhao concluded that Second Young Master Song lacked both decency and basic reasoning. "You seem confused, Second Young Master. I'll be formally entering the sect within two or three days. This is my future sect, these are my future sect rules, and that is my future master. Of course it concerns me."

"You're not a disciple of this sect yet!"

"Now you're talking nonsense. If you saw your betrothed visiting brothels, would you think we're not married yet—it's not my business?"

"The engagement is settled—only the ceremony remains—that's entirely different!"

"My apprenticeship is equally settled. The elders have corresponded for years and every arrangement is in place. Only the formal ceremony remains. What exactly is the difference?"

"You—you—" Song Maozhi trembled atop his saddle with a fury that seemed at genuine risk of unseating him.

Cai Han, who had been following the exchange with the attentive interest of a student presented with an unexpectedly instructive lesson, raised his hand. "Elder Sister—can women drink flower wine? Scarface Uncle from the back mountain told me only men go to such places."

Cai Zhao patted his head with affection. "Scarface Uncle is an honest man. When he roamed the martial world he mostly concerned himself with killing and robbing—and the occasional wholesale slaughter—but at heart he is a straightforward and genuine soul. There are many things in this world he simply doesn't know. Drinking flower wine has nothing to do with whether you're a man, a woman, neither, or somewhere in the middle."

Cai Han said oh with the expression of someone who has learned something genuinely useful.

Straightforward.

Genuine.

Simple.

Genuine.

A cold wind swept through. A few leaves drifted past. The assembled disciples stood in collective paralysis.

Song Maozhi's eyes had reached approximately the limit of how far eyes can travel from their sockets. "Your Cai family harbors filth—shelters those who commit atrocities and slaughter the innocent—"

"Second Brother." Song Yuzhi's voice was quiet and came exactly fast enough to cut off whatever was about to follow. He turned to address the surrounding disciples with unhurried composure. "What Junior Sister Cai was referring to is Sun Dingzhou, known as 'One Palm Decides the Universe'—the Purple-Scarred Guest. When he robbed, he only took wealth that had been ill-gotten. When he killed, his targets were invariably the most irredeemable of villains."

Cai Zhao continued addressing her brother in calm instructional tones, her hand still resting on his head. "Remember this, Xiao Han—if you don't know the whole story, don't be so quick to blaze up. You'll only make yourself a spectacle."

Cai Han nodded obediently, which caused Song Maozhi's complexion to travel through several further shades.

Song Yuzhi pressed on before his brother could respond. "The family Junior Sister Cai mentioned—the one that was slaughtered—that would be the Qiu Clan of Stone Creek. The incident was known throughout the martial world. The five Qiu brothers and their followers had spent years terrorizing the region—pillaging, abducting, leaving nothing behind them. To keep their fortress impregnable, they never spared women or children inside its walls. Any woman they abducted for their own uses did not survive two days."

The disciples around him listened without a sound.

"At that time, the former Demonic Cult leader was locked in a standoff with our Northern Star Lineage—neither side could afford a reckless move. If not for Hero Sun risking his life to storm that fortress alone, the local people would have suffered considerably longer." He turned slightly. "Second Brother. You should dismount."

Song Maozhi, still absorbing the story, slid from his saddle without appearing to consciously decide to do so.

Song Yuzhi's gaze settled on Cai Zhao. "The Purple-Scarred Guest disappeared from the martial world nearly a decade ago. No one knew where he had gone. So he was in Luoying Valley."

Cai Zhao exhaled. "Scarface Uncle killed a great many wicked men—which means he made a great many enemies. When Father brought him back to Luoying Valley, he was covered in wounds and barely alive. I was five or six years old and followed him around constantly, pestering him with questions."

Song Xiuzhi, who had been silent throughout, said quietly, "I've heard Hero Sun spoken of many times. I never imagined he had already withdrawn from the world while those who knew him were still wondering after him."

Cai Zhao's tone was matter-of-fact. "Once, when Scarface Uncle was drunk, he told me he had no wife, no children, no parents left. As for enemies—he no longer had any of those either. And friends, he said, having them or not made no real difference."

What vast loneliness those words contained. Nobody spoke for a moment.

Even Song Maozhi did not argue. He handed his jewel-encrusted riding whip to an attendant in silence and stood to one side, stiff and still. Song Xiuzhi's eyes held something like grief, though he kept it to himself.

"If Hero Sun wished to retire and remain hidden in Luoying Valley," Song Yuzhi said, stepping closer, his eyes calm and clear as sky after rain, "was it right for you to speak of this?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Cai Zhao said simply. "Two years ago, Scarface Uncle's old wounds returned. He passed away."

This is the martial world. Whether you come to a good end has very little to do with whether you spent your life doing good or ill. That, more than anything, was why Cai Zhao had no interest in it whatsoever.

Song Yuzhi listened without expression, though he continued watching her with quiet attention.

A jade hairpin. A side ornament. A crescent-shaped silver comb. Half-sleeves, a ruqun dress, translucent silk shawls with long trailing sleeves. And at the hem of her gauzy skirt, weighing down the fabric—a pale pink jade pendant carved in the shape of what appeared to be a plump little cat, apparently asleep.

Splendid. So this was the junior disciple his master had been anticipating with barely concealed excitement, the one described in correspondence as diligent and obedient. Elders, it turned out, were reliable narrators approximately half the time.

From the cliffside, Zeng Dalou's voice carried across the plateau. "Friends of the Song and Cai families—please prepare to cross."

More iron chains had been strung across the chasm while they were occupied elsewhere. Cai Zhao watched as nimble sect disciples leapt across them in a flowing sequence, each carrying rectangular iron plates and securing them with practiced efficiency—hidden clasps on the sides locking to adjacent plates, the undersides gripping the chains below so nothing could shift. The clicking sounds traveled down the line, and within minutes a flat suspension bridge stretched across the void where there had been nothing.

Cai Zhao had always wondered how carriages managed. Now she knew.

"When it was just us, four chains appeared," she observed to her parents, with the measured tone of someone identifying a genuine injustice. "Now that Sect Leader Song has arrived, four more appear and a full bridge is laid for carriages. Father, Mother—does the Qingque Sect look down on Luoying Valley? Shall we simply go home?"

Cai Pingchun and Ning Xiaofeng did not dignify this with a response.

The carriage rolled forward slowly across the chasm. Below lay the remnants of the Great War against Demons—traps, mechanisms, and poisonous mists accumulated over two centuries, into which nothing that fell had ever returned. The wheels pressed against the cold iron plates and produced a sound like a blade drawn along steel: a long, shivering screech that raised the hair on both siblings' arms and kept raising it.

Ning Xiaofeng muttered, "We could have crossed on the chains in a few steps. But the Song family simply had to make an occasion of it."

Cai Han looked at her with surprise. "Mother—your lightness skill is that good?"

Ning Xiaofeng went slightly pink. "Well. Your father would carry me." She had always had mediocre martial arts and had made her peace with this long ago.

"My lightness skill is poor as well," Cai Han sighed with unusual philosophical weight. "Father will have to carry me too."

Cai Zhao turned to look at him. "You don't have lightness skill? What martial arts do you actually have?"

The bean sprout sighed again, with greater depth. "I know Elder Sister is upset, so I won't argue the point. But Father—does Elder Sister really have to stay here three full years? Who will frighten off Ah Hei and Ah Gou when they bully me?"

This landed properly. Cai Zhao felt genuine melancholy take hold and sighed in turn.

"Your father is the master of Luoying Valley," Ning Xiaofeng said sharply, "and yet you let children chase you around! Have you no pride at all?"

Cai Zhao pulled her brother close. "This shows how unpretentious Xiao Han is—he never acts like the valley master's son, so the other children treat him as one of their own. Auntie said Father was exactly the same as a child, and look how steady and reliable he turned out."

Ning Xiaofeng glanced at her husband. "If Xiao Han has even half your father's qualities, I'll burn incense in gratitude."

Cai Pingchun received this praise without visible reaction.

Cai Han pressed himself against his sister's side. Cai Zhao tucked him in and stared out through the carriage curtain at the fog moving past. "Father—do I truly have to become Sect Leader Qi's disciple? I have no interest in being a heroine."

Ning Xiaofeng cut in before her husband could speak: "Who has ever asked you to be a heroine? We are preventing you from becoming a demon."

Cai Zhao furrowed her brows. "Father. Mother. You saw the town at the foot of the mountain yesterday. The shopkeepers there have more ceremony than the Martial World Alliance Leader. That perfume shop—if you didn't know what it was, you'd take it for a funeral parlor." She paused, reconsidering. "Actually—even the coffin sellers in our town greet customers like they're celebrating a wedding."

Ning Xiaofeng laughed despite herself.

"And if the town is like that," Cai Zhao continued with gathering momentum, "life on the mountain must be more austere still. It's nothing like home. From the blind fortune-teller's stall at the western end of our street all the way across: pan-fried buns, thin-skinned wontons, crispy sugar rolls, steamed meat buns, plum-vegetable pancakes, crystal shrimp dumpling soup, lamb potstickers, soy-braised pork zongzi, sweet rice soup—a different breakfast every morning for a full month without repeating. And supper available at midnight if you want it. Whereas here—" A pause for effect. "Here, even if I summon the courage to sneak down the mountain by iron chain in the dead of night, the best I can find is that pockmarked tall man's noodle soup. Which he serves without scallions."

Cai Han made a sound of deep personal offense.

"Wontons served without scallions," Cai Zhao concluded, with the tone of someone filing an official complaint with the universe. "In what world is that acceptable."

Ning Xiaofeng laughed hard enough to look away from the carriage window.

Cai Pingchun sighed with the patience of a man long accustomed to this genre of conversation. "Zhao-Zhao. Think of Scarface Uncle—he came to us from the martial world. The town here is similar in its own way. That perfume seller, the noodle stall owner, even the quiet innkeeper where we stayed last night—all of them were once formidable figures. When the road ran out, the Qingque Sect gave them shelter. Now they've settled in town, and they guard the mountain in their own fashion."

Cai Zhao was quiet for a moment. "If they're guarding, why do business? Each trade has its proper path—there's no honor in pushing out honest merchants who've done nothing wrong." The words were still pointed, but the edge in them was softer. "I know the martial world is difficult. Auntie always said that many great heroes shine brilliantly in their youth, but when old age comes, or injury, or the world simply turns away—their final years are often wretched."

She fell quiet again, looking at the fog beyond the curtain.

Then, more softly:

"Since ancient times, heroes are like beauties. Neither are permitted white hair."

Ning Xiaofeng shook with laughter again, though this time there was something else woven through it.

Outside, a disciple's voice called out: "We've arrived."

The Cai family filed out of the carriage. The iron plates had given way to stone paving beneath the wheels. Cai Zhao smoothed her skirt, adjusted her hairpins, and composed herself into the bearing of a proper young lady preparing to make a correct first impression.

Then she looked up.

She stood there with her mouth open for quite some time. Her parents and brother had already walked a considerable distance ahead before they noticed she hadn't moved.