The Azure Mountain

Chapter 73: Fire and Medicine

Night. The hour of the Boar.

Everyone in the clinic had fallen into deep sleep. Only the main hall still had a flicker of light.

The tallow lamp's flame danced on the counter, casting a small circle of illumination.

Chen Ji stood behind the red-lacquered wooden counter with his sleeves rolled up, his hair gathered atop his head with a simple wooden hairpin, grinding sticks of charcoal to fine powder with total concentration. He mixed the powder with the high-proof distilled liquor he had purchased earlier and spread the mixture across the counter.

He pushed the tallow lamp farther away and waited in silence for the alcohol, hydrides, and oxides to fully evaporate.

As he waited, he gently fanned the mixture with one hand and looked up at the ceiling beam.

Up on the beam, a tiny spider was slowly spinning its web. A moth had blundered into the web and was struggling frantically. The spider crept toward the moth — but failed to notice a gecko waiting at the very edge of its web.

Behind him, a voice spoke: "Why does this room reek of alcohol? Were you drinking?"

Chen Ji stood up and turned around. Looking at Old Yao, who had appeared without a sound, he smiled: "Master, you're still awake?"

Old Yao's face was expressionless: "My apprentice is about to run off to some faraway land. How could I possibly sleep?""Did your divination tell you?"

Old Yao scoffed: "You cook a big meal for everyone, then mope around like a sentimental fool — I don't need divination to figure it out. And I'm not only good at divination — I'm also good at using my brain."

"Oh..."

Old Yao stood across the counter from him, idly examining the charcoal powder: "So tell me — where are you planning to go?"

Chen Ji shook his head: "I'm not leaving. You guessed wrong this time."

Old Yao blinked. He pulled six copper coins from his sleeve, cast them onto the counter, and interpreted the hexagram as he spoke: "Huh, you really aren't leaving... Why not?"

Chen Ji smiled: "Heaven creates the primordial chaos; movement arises amid peril; one marches toward death to find life. Wasn't that the hexagram you read for me? I'm not the type to run away."

"The type to walk into death, then? The Ning Dynasty's Secret Spy Division and their Twelve Zodiacs are watching you from the south, and the Jing Dynasty's Military Intelligence Division Si Cao wants to kill you from the north. If you're not leaving, what are you staying here for?"

Chen Ji didn't respond. He simply looked up at the ceiling beam again, checking whether the gecko had eaten the spider.

Old Yao followed his gaze: "So this time — are you the spider, or the gecko? Or are you the moth already trapped in the web?"

Chen Ji said nothing. He gathered the now-dried charcoal powder into a pile and weighed it on the copper scale.

He took out the sulfur and potassium nitrate he had previously purified and prepared, along with sugar, mixed them all together evenly, and poured the mixture into bamboo tubes. Then he added a small quantity of iron shards.

Just then, Wu Yun slipped in through a crack in the window. Finding herself in the middle of this tense atmosphere, she looked first at Old Yao, then at Chen Ji, and meowed: "Just as you suspected — Jin Zhu has already found clues at the Imperial Workshop."

Chen Ji didn't look up. He carefully sealed the bamboo tubes, leaving a single fuse — a thin strip of paper twisted together with gunpowder.

Only then did he set the bamboo tube on the counter, lift his head, and answer with a smile: "Master, I'm not the moth, and I'm not the spider, and I'm certainly not the gecko."

He looked at the tallow lamp at the edge of the counter: "I'm the fire."

A fire that didn't belong to this era.

Chen Ji took a piece of cloth, wrapped three bamboo tubes inside, and strapped the bundle to his back.

He beckoned to Wu Yun, then turned to head out.

Old Yao watched him for a long time: "How much ice flow do you still have inside you? How many ginseng roots can you absorb?"

Chen Ji thought for a moment: "Six."

Old Yao walked to the medicine cabinet and pulled open a drawer: "Convert all the ice flow first, then go."

Chen Ji's eyes brightened. So the ten ginseng roots Master had ordered that morning were meant for him: "Thank you, Master."

"Each root costs thirty taels of silver, or three melon seed gold nuggets."

Chen Ji's expression froze: "I thought you were giving them to me."

Old Yao sneered: "Give them to you? And what would I live on?"

"Fine, I'll only take five then." Chen Ji counted out twelve melon seed gold nuggets from his sleeve and placed them on the counter, then fetched thirty taels of silver from the apprentices' dormitory...

After this, his hard-saved fortune was down to a mere sixty-three taels of silver.

"I'm off, Master." Chen Ji took the five ginseng roots and converted them into translucent crystal beads, feeding them to Wu Yun one by one.

He walked into the rear courtyard with his bundle on his back, climbed onto the roof, and melted into the night.

Beside the apricot tree, Old Yao watched the direction he'd gone, then casually tossed his six copper coins: "Great misfortune."

The crow cawed.

Old Yao said irritably: "He chose his own path — let him walk it... If you want to go, go keep an eye on him. I won't stop you."

......

......

On Zhenghe Street that night, a charcoal cart pulled by two oxen was trundling slowly toward the Eastern Market.

Winter was coming, and charcoal had become a necessity. In the capital alone, the annual charcoal allotment distributed to court officials numbered over seven hundred twenty thousand sticks.

Inside the imperial palace, they burned fine red-basket charcoal. The nobility favored West Mountain silver-thread charcoal. Wealthy households used tung-wood charcoal. Ordinary families made do with black charcoal. Without charcoal, winter was endlessly miserable.

This was the merchants' peak season. Charcoal was kiln-fired in the mountain forests, shipped by canal to the Eastern Market of Luo City, then sold from the market to individual households — carts rolling back and forth in an endless stream.

Unlike a regular ox cart, a charcoal cart was enclosed on all four sides but open at the top.

The charcoal peddler drove his oxen along, humming a little tune the whole way, completely unaware that in the shadows by the road, someone with a cat on his shoulder was waiting for him to pass.

As the cart passed the shadow, Chen Ji took two quick steps and vaulted silently into the cart bed without making a sound.

The peddler felt the cart shift slightly and looked back at the cobblestones, thinking he'd run over a pebble.

Seeing nothing wrong with the wheels, he went back to his tune: "Standing at the stair-head, past the first watch, fate brings lovers together. 'There's a guest!' she calls, lighting the lamp, leading him upstairs. The night is deep and the host should be obliging..."

Chen Ji recognized it as one of those bawdy little ditties from Red Clothe Lane...

These peddlers spent their days earning coins and their nights at the pleasure houses — gambling or playing, they never saved a cent.

He smiled, pulled Wu Yun close, and nestled into the grimy charcoal cart with his eyes closed, letting it carry him to Red Clothe Lane in the Eastern Market.

The closer they drew to the Eastern Market, the calmer Chen Ji became. He reached into his sleeve one more time to touch the short blade, then slowly closed his eyes.

He returned to the battlefield in the dream.

"Brother Feng Huai, what was that move just now — the one where the blade follows the body's rotation?"

"Marching Camp."

"Brother Feng Huai, what about the one where you ran your blade edge up against mine in reverse, forcing me to drop my weapon?"

"Starfire."

"Brother Feng Huai, what was that technique where you struck the back of my blade? That one made my wrist ache terribly, but it didn't seem to accomplish much."

Feng Huai smiled bashfully: "That's called Gold-Breaking. It was supposed to snap your blade in half. The only reason it didn't work is that your blade is too fine — it wouldn't break."

Every trajectory of Feng Huai's broadsword, every advancing and retreating step, was as precise and beautiful as a work of art — utterly beyond reproach.

The man was like a heavy hammer, pounding relentlessly on Chen Ji's raw steel billet, forging it into shape. Chen Ji paid for every new technique with death after death.

Chen Ji had never fought a real opponent with a blade, so he had no way of knowing whether his skills were adequate. All he could do was practice relentlessly, inching closer to Feng Huai's level — and then surpassing it.

At first, Chen Ji died twenty or thirty times per hour. Now, he died only three or four times.

At first, he was full of openings. Now, when the two of them traded blows, neither could find the other's weak point within a hundred exchanges.

Those blade techniques felt as though they had been carved into his bones ten thousand years ago — etched into intricate, exquisite totems now slowly awakening.

Chen Ji straightened up: "Once more."

Atop the great boulder, Xuanyuan sat cross-legged in his black king's robe, but the constellation pattern embroidered in golden thread had changed — only the Purple Forbidden Enclosure remained.

Xuanyuan spoke: "You seem to be in quite a rush."

Chen Ji said: "I am."

Xuanyuan wondered: "Someone out there trying to kill you?"

Chen Ji replied calmly: "No — I have someone I want to kill."

Xuanyuan threw back his head in booming laughter: "No wonder your progress today is faster than yesterday! This is the state of mind suited for the blade! The blade is the courage of all weapons — without the will to kill, you'll never master it! But I'd suggest you pause here. Rest a moment before continuing. Exhaustion only breeds impatience, which helps nothing."

Chen Ji considered this, then sat down decisively: "Brother Feng Huai, take a seat and rest too."

Feng Huai sheathed his blade and sat, his posture as straight as an apprentice's.

Three people sat on the ground at the summit of the Green Mountain. Clouds swirled and flowed around them like a celestial realm — as though an immortal had placed a hand upon their heads and granted them eternity.

Chen Ji sighed: "Brother Feng Huai, your bladework is truly magnificent."

Feng Huai wore light armor and looked to be around twenty — handsome, with a hint of youthful shyness. From appearances alone, no one would guess he was a master of the blade.

Hearing Chen Ji's compliment, his smile grew even more bashful: "It's all thanks to your excellent teaching back in the day. When we trained under you, we suffered plenty too."

Chen Ji was stunned: "...I taught you? Then why do you seem so enthusiastic about cutting me down?"

Feng Huai hesitated for a beat: "Honestly, who wouldn't be?"

Chen Ji said flatly: "...Fair point. Be a bit more polite to me when we're not sparring."

Feng Huai hastily agreed: "Understood!"

Chen Ji suddenly asked: "Xuanyuan, if I die tonight, could you use my body to return to the mortal world?"

Xuanyuan stared at Chen Ji: "I could."

"Then if you really did return, could you kill someone for me?"

Xuanyuan sneered: "Kill them yourself."

"Fine." Chen Ji turned and looked up at Xuanyuan, who was gazing down at him from the great boulder: "There is one thing... can I borrow 'Whale' tonight?"

"No," Xuanyuan shook his head.

"But I need to kill someone tonight. Without Whale, no other blade feels quite right."

Xuanyuan sneered: "Will your enemies negotiate with you? Can every situation in your life be negotiated? I told you — cleverness is a fine thing, but there will always be mountains you can't simply walk around. If you want Whale, defeat Feng Huai first."

"Understood."

Just then, Chen Ji heard Wu Yun's soft meow by his ear. He braced himself on the blade and stood, looking at Xuanyuan: "There's a lot left to do tonight. If all goes well — see you tomorrow."

Xuanyuan was silent for a moment: "See you tomorrow."

Chen Ji opened his eyes inside the cart. The charcoal wagon had come to a gradual stop just outside Red Clothe Lane, and the driver was humming his bawdy tune as he happily strolled into the entertainment district.

Chen Ji and Wu Yun cautiously poked their heads above the cart's edge — and froze at the sight of a familiar carriage pulling up alongside.

The next moment, the Prince Heir's voice rang out: "It was so much easier going through the clinic — Chen Ji even had the ladder set up for us... Now look — I climbed out through the back garden and ripped my robe!"

Commandery Princess Baili's voice followed immediately: "Is it so wrong that I don't want to go through the clinic?!"

"Fine, fine, fine..."

Chen Ji watched the two of them hop off the carriage and walk into Red Clothe Lane. He wanted to stop them and warn them that tonight was dangerous here — but how would he explain what he himself was doing?

Watching the Prince Heir and Commandery Princess Baili disappear into Red Clothe Lane, Chen Ji hesitated for only a moment before reaching into the cart and smearing charcoal dust across his face.

"Let's go, Wu Yun. Up to the rooftops."