The sun still stood high when Huijin and Yin Yue returned to Ban Gouyu’s farmstead. The swordmaster they needed not look for, for Lu Yuxin paced to and fro like caged beast in their shared chamber. When he heard them at the door, he turned and greeted the servant with a tight, conflicted face.

  “Shifu,” said Yin Yue with all the shamed humility he could muster. Then, as if he had remembered that he was also a disciple, he bowed. “We must speak. Where have you been all day? Huijin and I have learned a lot about the spirit.”

  Lu Yuxin’s face tensed. He looked to the ashen one again, found no guidance there, and tried his own graceless mimicry of the servant’s charades st night.

  “Have you?” he answered, “I shall hear you, Yin Yue. But you have not eaten in a while, have you? You should head down and fetch — tea?”

  Huijin looked up then, his eyes wild. Tea? Should Ming-zongzhu be sent to fetch tea for them as if he was some kitchen boy?

  But Yin Yue waved his hand. “Tea? No time for tea! I have so much to tell you.”

  Spectacur, thought the wearied swordmaster. As he well knew, he had neither the head nor heart for artifice, so he returned the boy a shallow bow to apologize for his attempt. Still wary of Yin Yue’s loose tongue, he warned, “so be it. Be succinct, Yin Yue. That shall be excellent practice for you.”

  Insufferable, insufferable, chanted the ashen one as he stood and listened to this. Unbearable man. Too self-willed to be Ming-zongzhu’s loyal sword and shield, too rash and imprudent to be a true master to a disciple. How could the boy both command him and defer to him at once?

  But Yin Yue spoke with forceful intent. The truth he presented, he painted as a maid paints a harem concubine. He told his shifu that they had waited him to return until they could endure the wait no longer. Then did they seek the pastures and found Qian Xuegang there. Through clever words and assurances, he id the triumph of the day at Huijin’s feet with no cim to it of his own. When he tried to retell the ndowner’s tale about the unfortunate Shang Hansheng, the boy was not succinct, for he did not remember it well, and so could not make order of it. Lu Yuxin had to endure the same particurs repeated twice or thrice before the boy found he had done justice to Qian Xuegang’s tragic farce. Then followed more praise of the ashen one, for though Yin Yue cimed that he had never trusted the white-haired ndowner, he asserted that it had been Huijin who led him to the truth as a wise elder leads the ignorant disciple. And the truth was this; the creature which now haunted the vilge had died of starvation, and hunger now fed its resentment and violence.

  “And that is why,” he heaved, “why we thought we would examine Shang Hansheng’s cottage, shifu, if — if you deem it wise, of course.”

  Lu Yuxin’s heard this report with stone-faced calm. He shared in servant’s sigh at the boy’s praise, for it did not become a zongzhu to elevate his men above himself. This way, he bred vainglory! This way would Ming-zongzhu surround himself with men and women who toiled not for the good of their deeds, but for renown and recognition.

  But fortunate was it, thought Lu Yuxin, that the gray one was not such a man. Many faults had he, but the praise from his betters seemed to stoke no greed in him; his face was as pcid and untouched as ever, his eyes downcast. Lu Yuxin dared to offer him a look of silent approval.

  And while he listened and thought, his pupil watched him. Yin Yue’s inner battle had quieted; the army of fear had been defeated by the forces of excitement. He stood with his breath bated and his expectations high.

  “Good. Good,” praised Lu Yuxin at long st. “You have uncovered a significant clue, I think. I share your suspicions, Yin Yue. This Qian Xuegang is no man of virtue. As for Shang Hensheng’s hermitage, I must consider it. We must be careful. I fear what shall happen if night falls upon us in the mountains. The spirit might ambush us, or it might savage the vilge in your absence. And what of this ndowner? He might follow us to cause mischief.”

  Huijin’s quiet voice imposed then, dry as deadwood, “and what owes your judgment of Qian Xuegang’s character, Lu-gongzi?”

  What do you know of virtue, was his silent question. Have you done what we had agreed on st night? Or did you waste your day in the woods and upon the pastures in some wild chase for the spirit beast?

  “I visited him this morning,” answered the swordmaster, unaffected, “to offer him some recommendations on how to protect his property.”

  “The talismans,” chimed Yin Yue.

  “Quite. That was a charade to examine his cultivation. You spoke of the wound on his arm also, Huijin. He did not mend himself. His cultivation is wretched. He is no more a cultivator than I am a courtesan.”

  “Ah,” breathed Huijin.

  “I knew it!” cried Yin Yue.

  “I had to craft the first talismans for him. Then I gave him some of my own stock. But what he cks in cultivation, he redeems in cunning.”

  To that, Huijin could offer no contempt and no rebuke, and so averted his face. The swordmaster had done what had been asked of him and unearthed some truth of his own. This too galled him, for his own efforts had not been as graceful or profound. He had blundered, had erred when he insinuated the crane might have belonged to Shang Hansheng. He had, at first, believed Qian Xuegang’s tragic tale.

  And so did the tiger’s tail whip, and the envy ran in his veins like a serpent’s venom.

  “He is cunning,” he agreed, his voice quiet. “If the man is a liar, his tales have no fws or oversights.”

  Lu Yuxin scoffed and flicked his sleeve in disdain. His was a sharp smile, a predator’s smile.

  “It is as Huijin says. No fault can be found in his lies. He knows where to be obscure and where to be precise. I suspect his tales have just enough truth in them that any inconsistencies are likely to be considered mere mistakes; a remembrance made wrong by the tooth of time.”

  “That is a dangerous man,” murmured the ashen one. Against his will, the swordmaster’s judgment lent him faith in his own earlier doubts.

  “You were right, Yin Yue,” he said.

  Yin Yue cast him a small, soft look at this praise and exhaled a shaken breath.

  “Yes, he is a dangerous man,” mused the swordmaster. “His silver tongue is sharper than his sword. He told me of his dear friend and brother, this Shang Hansheng. So I went to the woods to see where this man might have died. And there did I find more cause for suspicion; much blood stained the underbrush, but it could not have come from a man consumed by the beast I have fought.”

  While master and pupil spoke, the servant deigned to stare at the distant meadows again. The philosophers said that if a decision was deemed wise by the drunk and the sober preceptor both, then it had passed the trial of merit. And so it must be with men like him and Lu Yuxin. He might think too much. The swordmaster thought too little; his head as hollow as an empty jug of wine. If they could agree on a verdict, they lent it credence.

  “I am certain the blood had been poured there on purpose,” said Lu Yuxin, “so I went to Ban Gouyu and asked about Coadi vilge and these two men. What was it he had told you, Huijin? That he sent the st supplies a moon past, and then found his friend turned?”

  “That’s so,” answered Huijin. “He sent them on the Emperor’s tax day.”

  “Quite. And here was his second blunder. Elder Ban has kept a close tally on all taxation from the vilge. He told me Qian Xuegang always sent two carts, one for the Emperor and one for Shang Hansheng, I suspect. But two months ago, there was but one cart sent from the Qian farmstead. The elder expected some taxation benefit; perhaps a friend at court put in a good word for him so he could amass his wealth in the pursuit of a wife. It is not unheard of. But I think this was not so.”

  Yin Yue’s sleeve flew up to his mouth, his eyes round.

  “Qian Xuegang left his friend to starve?”

  “It seems so, Yin Yue,” said his shifu. “But he did not expect that his friend would rise as a resentful ghost to haunt his pastures. This man’s cultivation is too poor, or maybe his heart was too callous to send Shang Hansheng’s spirit. And now he reaps the bitter gourds he sowed.”

  And once again had the Red Tiger proved himself more capable and tidier in his deductions, thought Huijin with a bitter heart. While they? They had discovered no clues of consequence. At worst might they have exposed themselves to Qian Xuegang.

  This too was an old and well-worn pain. But how it burrowed in his breast; how it soured his blood, cwed his throat apart with resentment towards the swordmaster and bitter disdain of his own unworthy self. He loathed the man who shone brighter than him, and he loathed his own fate. His skin burned where it touched the garret’s old walls, his qi a frigid, diseased wind in his meridians.

  What were Yin Yue’s small tantrums to the tempests which raged within his gray servant? To the storms he had carried under his quiet and gray manner since he had been a young boy? And of what make must a man be to shackle them all these years? For a while, he allowed this chill to numb his hands, to burn through his veins, to bze like the fell fires of the Netherworld.

  Then, with his breath bated, he told his own spirit to unclench from the envy it had tied itself around.

  Lesser, he was lesser. Gray Huijin had ever been lesser. This was how he had been born; a son of some deranged highwayman. The orphan taken under a charitable roof. The stray who had no merits to his name, no formal eduction, no wealth and no pce but that which Yin Zhaoyang of Ming had offered him.

  This was what he needed to remember be able to tame himself. With the taste of salt and bitter bile upon his tongue, he turned to the swordmaster and sought his gaze.

  “Lu-gongzi,” he said, “your discoveries are of consequence, and your methods preferable. Your ways have surpassed ours.”

  He threw these words as a man night throw a wet towel at a drunkard’s face, but there was no artifice in them. Not a shred of wiles could be found in the servant’s dark, hard eyes and dispassionate voice.

  Earnest confusion graced Lu Yuxin’s face. He did not answer. A suit of armor was less closed to his sword than this gray man’s mind was to his own, and for a brief while, his thoughts strayed from the garret, from Caodi; adrift on the currents of time. He remembered a man near the servant’s age, his bck hair and garbs covered in the dry dust of the road. An unkempt brigand did Lu Yuxin remember; a dangerous man with a vicious eye and a broken mind. Bent upon the sword had his thoughts been, until the rust of shame and dishonor had been cast upon him and tainted him with bck dreams of vengeance.

  He remembered how he, wild and vengeful, had met with the te Ming-zongzhu upon the road; how the gentle man’s words could not reach his ears, how they had fought that day — and how, in a moment too quick to remember, Lu Yuxin had his bde beaten from his own hand for the very first time. That day, he had had knelt before this luminous man Yin Yue called gege and offered a simir decration of his defeat.

  Yin-gongzi of Ming, had he said that day, your martial arts surpass mine. I have been bested.

  But that was then, and this was now. Lu Yuxin’s bewilderment mounted, for no duel had he fought with the gray one.

  As they faced each other, Yin Yue watched them. His face was ashen, mouth white. Indeed was he a soft child, unfit for the jianghu and the world of cultivation and nighthunts, if he could not even endure sheep innards and the thought of a lone man’s unjust demise. His gaze was riveted to his servant.

  When the boy crept closer, the swordmaster found his words. “No method can surpass all, Huijin,” he reminded. “My discoveries would have been unshaped iron without the knowledge of the spirit’s starvation.”

  Huijin bowed his head. No admiration or deference hid in his gray, unfathomable eyes. For what he had done, he had not done for Lu Yuxin, but for himself. What better way to tame himself and embrace his own fate than to prostrate himself before a hated man?

  But hated was Lu Yuxin all the same. And it was not a hatred born of envy, though it drank of that pungent poison. It was not a hatred born of petty chagrin and years of small disagreements, but of bound hands and a silenced voice. Lu Yuxin’s want of care and caution could have cost Yin Yue his life.

  There was no pardon to be had for that.

  He felt a touch upon his sleeve then.

  “Yin Yue?” His voice was a hollow husk’s. What do you want?

  Dry was the boy’s mouth, too dry for words. Horror greeted the servant’s eye; a mute and feeble dread.

  Huijin stood in stunned silence. Then, his patience frayed, and his rebuke was as harsh as the swordmaster’s own on an ill-tempered day. “Find your words! What do you stare at me for?”

  “Yin Yue, center yourself,” agreed Lu Yuxin, distracted. “The likes of Qian Xuegang are not rare in this world. As Ming-zongzhu, you must learn to face such depravity with strength.”

  But what could Yin Yue say? How could he paint words on his distress, his grief, the terror which now hollowed him from within?

  “It — it is dangerous,” he blurted all of sudden.

  “What is?” demanded his servant.

  Yin Yue touched his brow, shook his head and slithered back like a leech would crawl into the dim waters of a stale pond.

  “No,” he said with a feeble smile. “Do not mind me. I apologize. I just meant—,”

  No more patience was there to find in Huijin, the ashen one. He mellowed his voice, but spoke like a wooden puppet.

  “We will speak of this ter. Head downstairs and ask for food. And learn how long this Qian Xuehang has lived in Caodi.”

  The boy parted his mouth, still white-faced. As his words still eluded him, and as his heart still cramped within his chest, he could just bow his head and answer as his servant would.

  “As you wish.”

  With stuttered breaths, he fled the chamber. He did not at once seek sustenance; below, he shunned the farmhands and hid his face from them until he escaped onto the porch. There, he sat down, embraced his knees, and hid his eyes and his soul from the world.