Others might think that a missing pinky finger had nothing to do with being called a "complete person," but Zhou Man herself did not seem to think so.
Jin Buhuan couldn't help but fall into a brief daze. Then he snapped back: "Wait, did you just agree to this?"
Zhou Man smiled and lowered her hand. She walked over at a leisurely pace and righted the screen that had toppled to the floor. Then she asked: "If I agree, everything depends on how we cooperate. I know my cultivation isn't high right now, but you're coming to me with a job. What exactly is it?"
Jin Buhuan didn't glance at her, as if weighing his words, but in the end he kept it short: "Some dirty work."
Then he added: "You killed someone at the Chen Temple without flinching. This won't scare you, will it?"
Zhou Man ignored the weight he put behind those words and just asked: "How dirty?"
Jin Buhuan's expression shifted. A slow, slightly dark smile spread across his face. "For example," he said, "eating the Song family's food."
The moment the word "Song" left his mouth, Zhou Man's eyelid twitched. She nearly looked straight up at him.
Jin Buhuan seemed to have expected exactly this reaction. He calmly brushed the tea that had splattered onto his Jinchuan fan. On the surface he looked no different than before, but every small movement carried an edge, a restless malice without a clear source.
His eyes settled on the ink-bamboo pattern dusted with gold powder across the fan. His voice came out light: "I've been playing the dog for a long time. I've learned to bark on command. Now I want to be a person again. Can't I lose my mind a little?"
He looked at her with an easy smile. "Zhou Man, believe it or not, you and I are tied to the same rope right now. Would you really not dare?"
Zhou Man stared at him. What surfaced in her mind, unbidden, were the words the long-dead Sikong Yun had hurled at him on Nipan Street.
Born a beggar. Raised on scraps from strangers' tables. And yet he became a disciple of Du Caotang, walked through the gates of Jianmen Academy, and bowed before a household of great name.
To crawl up from that kind of mud and arrive here, could a man like that ever truly belong to the "lackey beneath the door" crowd?
Jin Buhuan's ambition ran deep.
Zhou Man finally smiled, slow and easy: "Whether I dare depends on what you're willing to pay me."
When money came into it, Jin Buhuan let out that particular breath he always held. He walked to the table and poured himself a cup of tea, not turning around: "How much do you want?"
Zhou Man said without hesitation: "Ten thousand spirit stones."
"Pfft."
The tea shot straight out of his mouth.
Jin Buhuan stared at her as though his ears had failed him: "How much did you just say?"
Zhou Man smiled pleasantly: "Ten thousand."
Jin Buhuan's mind buzzed. He raised his hand and gestured for a long moment, trying to find the right words to explain the concept of ten thousand spirit stones to her: "Do you understand what ten thousand spirit stones actually means?"
Zhou Man was calm: "I do."
Jin Buhuan drew a slow breath. "Three years in Jianmen Academy pays out ten thousand at most, and that's if nothing goes wrong. Most people never even reach that number. Zhou Man, can I ask, what do you need that much money for?"
Zhou Man raised the bow in her hand.
Jin Buhuan studied it: "You want to have a new bow made?"
Zhou Man shook her head. "No. I need a Sumeru residence inside the school palace. Somewhere I can practice archery."
Jin Buhuan: "..."
So what cost more than repairing a bow was practicing archery inside Jianmen Academy.
He understood her situation clearly enough. Whether it was the battle at Jiajingu or the fight at Yizhuang, her archery had far outstripped her swordsmanship. It was her real foundation, her greatest weapon. But Jianmen Academy was full of eyes. Practice openly and the Song family would grow suspicious within the week. Without a Sumeru residence to train in privately, she had nowhere to go.
And a thing like that genuinely couldn't be had for less than ten thousand.
He thought it through and said: "Zhou Man, ten thousand is really too much."
Zhou Man let out a long, disappointed sigh.
Jin Buhuan watched her for a moment, then suddenly raised his hand and threw something across the room: "But this, I can give you."
Zhou Man caught it on instinct. Lying in her palm was a heavy copper coin, round on the outside, square through the middle, worn to an ancient color, with the character for "gold" cast across its face.
She turned it over, puzzled: "This is...?"
Jin Buhuan said: "Shed blood and acknowledge the lord."
Zhou Man's brow pulled together. She seemed to understand, and yet she couldn't quite believe he was being this generous. She hesitated for a long moment before pressing her fingertip until a drop of blood welled up, then touched it to the surface of the coin.
The moment the blood sank into the copper, her consciousness was pulled down with it.
Her eyes fell half-closed. In an instant, a thatched cottage rose before her mind.
Thousands of green bamboo stalks stretched in every direction, their blue-green leaves swaying in the wind like rolling waves. Following the path inward, a pond appeared, rimmed with thick grass, the faint call of frogs hanging in the air. A small thatched cottage sat beside the water. The eaves were layered with three rows of thatch, and beneath them hung a horizontal plaque with four characters carved into the wood: Guangsha Qianwan.
When Zhou Man saw those four characters, something lurched in her chest.
In her past life, she had owned a wrench ring. Only one. It had been forged by the craftsmen under the throne at Emperor Wu's own command, cast from black iron, made specifically for the Juantian Bow.
In this life, before the Juantian Bow had even come to her, someone had already sent the ring ahead.
Zhou Man opened her eyes and looked across at Jin Buhuan: "This isn't from Du Caotang... are you serious?"
Jin Buhuan said, unbothered: "I have no talent for a single discipline. That cottage is more useful to you than it ever was to me. If you're too proud to take it outright, think of it as a loan. When you're richer and more powerful later, pay me back then."
Zhou Man was amused. She only looked at him with a strange expression, then slid the wrench ring onto her right thumb as promised.
A faint wash of white light flickered across her hand.
Her right hand was missing part of its pinky finger. The white light covered it completely. For that one moment, the hand looked whole, like anyone else's.
Then the light faded, and the pinky finger returned to what it was.
Zhou Man felt something complex move through her. She pinched the copper coin, her thoughts turning over briefly, then settling.
Before she could put the coin away, Jin Buhuan threw something else at her.
"I noticed that when Chen Si draws a bow, he usually wears a trigger ring," he said. "I was told it's for pulling the string. I had someone make one for me yesterday. Try it, see if it fits."
Zhou Man lifted her eyes to him. Something shifted in her expression, quiet and hard to read.
Jin Buhuan added: "I don't mean any offense. But that missing finger is too obvious. This ring gives a little cover. Even if someone sees you holding a bow, it might be enough to throw them off."
Zhou Man said: "Jin Langjun thinks of everything."
The trigger ring had been carved from deer bone. No decoration. Completely white.
Jin Buhuan smiled: "You're on my thief ship now. Best to be careful."
Zhou Man raised an eyebrow at him. The look in her eyes turned quietly pointed.
Got on his thief ship?
Who exactly had gotten onto whose thief ship was another question entirely.
Jin Buhuan then said: "No formal contract between us. A verbal agreement is enough. I have to go deal with the Song siblings soon, so I can't stay." He stood and made to leave, then stopped and said:
"Ten thousand spirit stones, I can't give you that. Business doesn't work like that. But the thatched cottage, I'm giving you that as something personal, outside of business."
Zhou Man had no objection: "If you lend me 'Guangsha Qianwan' and won't give me ten percent on top of that, I'll hold the same line on this job."
Jin Buhuan changed his tone: "Fair enough, business is business. The last thing you want in a split is for one side to feel cheated. I'll treat you right."
He laid it out: "In half a month, the Song family will move a small shipment through Shu, spiritual herbs and elixirs meant for pill refining. A tribute from a minor sect, worth around seventy thousand spirit stones in total. It's not a large haul, but very few people know about it, the escort is light, and the strength isn't top-tier. I provide the intelligence and the manpower, and I handle moving the goods once they're in hand. You provide the skill and the judgment. We divide the money only after it's done. I take seventy percent, you take thirty."
After all, asking someone to take a risk while keeping them in the dark about it was wrong by any measure.
Zhou Man considered it: "Seventy-thirty, and you lending me 'Guangsha Qianwan,' with no share of ten percent. I have to hold the same terms on this."
Jin Buhuan's expression shifted again, then he smiled: "Alright. Business is business. The last thing either of us needs is bad blood over the split. I'll serve you well."
He moved toward the door and was just about to say his goodbyes to Zhou Man when he looked up and stopped.
A figure in plain, light-colored clothing was standing just outside the door, one hand raised, on the verge of knocking. She looked up at the same moment he did, and both of them stilled.
Jin Buhuan, though he had known Zhou Man maintained some kind of close association with Zhao Nishang, had not expected to walk straight into her today.
Zhao Nishang recovered first. She gave Jin Buhuan a composed, courteous greeting, then stepped past him and into the house.
Jin Buhuan glanced briefly at her and at Zhou Man, then pulled his gaze away and walked out. The door swung shut behind him.
Yu Xiuying had been sitting on the steps a short distance away eating a piece of melon. She looked up and saw Jin Buhuan. She started to call out a greeting, then stopped. She had caught sight of a red mark on his neck, his clothes slightly disordered, tea splattered across the fabric.
She didn't move until he was already gone. The piece of melon slipped from her hand and hit the ground.
Inside the house, Zhao Nishang glanced at Zhou Man once, her expression neutral. From the beginning, she had never particularly warmed to this dress-making girl from Qiluo Hall.
Then Zhou Man's voice came through the door, easy and unhurried: "Nishang? Good timing. Come in."
Zhao Nishang stepped inside without another look back.
Zhou Man set down the copper coin and the trigger ring. She stood for a moment, then smiled to herself.
"Jin Langjun thought of everything," she had said.
She meant it, and she didn't mean it.
Zhou Man looked toward the door one last time: "Jin Langjun, don't let me see you out. Take care going."
Jin Buhuan didn't answer. He was already standing under the corridor outside, thinking.
Then he turned and walked away.