act15side

You know who that someone is.

Maybe I do.

But nobody foresaw Shang Zhong would come soaring through the sky, out for a life.

Things turned for the worse, and off everyone tumbled to Qujiang Peak and the Field of Forgotten Water. Not very smart work from you, no, not smart at all...

But for you, for Liang Xun, maybe it was a little too smart at the same time.

Which is why I entrusted you with it.

Someone who could both tell what I was thinking, and would never betray his friends.

Should I thank you for still considering me a friend?

When all's said and done, though, I wasn't out to find who that goblet's owner was.

What were you looking for?

You.

You're still that same old you, filled with ambition as ever, aren't you.

Me?

You've gotten smarter, Liang Xun.

But that's just fine. Carry on, you.

I have a rough idea as to Huai Tianpei's whereabouts.

You've had a rough idea for ages. You just didn't want me distracted.

Are you upset at me for not telling you?

I was more worried I'd need to keep assisting you.

There's been a rumor going about the world of Yanese kung fu lately.

Ah, the martial world's rumors.

When there's kung fu involved, he could hardly be left out of things.

Hmm. Shangshu's a fine place.

The plum blossoms bloomed late this year, and I wondered why; so your private visit to this city it was. A rare, rare guest.

When did you master this place?

If wished you did to look into it deeply, I could be considered half of these mountains' master true.

The point in question isn't in the persons. It's in you, and your collective.

When the day comes, what sides you stand on, what ways you see things, which ways your hearts feel, will all determine what is lost in the battle there and then.

Yan is a hard foe to defeat.

You do have the right to speak on behalf of Yan's army.

You and that learned master held the north for a hundred years apiece, it must be recognized. If not for that, the court would hardly remember you so fondly.

The Sui Regulator's deeds may be sensed to encroach, but no matter what, you are fondly cherished.

The years and months tower tall, joys parted with so reluctantly.

To this day, in my deepest drunken depths, still my ears prick at horns sounding battalions forth.

...Nian.

Uh-huh.

The court wants to make a deal with you.

Well how about that. I thought I'd be getting my execution date.

The Chamber of Heaven's Designs hasn't ceased once in a whole millennium. Countless troops and tianshi lie buried in action in the north, yet evil rises as virtue does. The slaughter of wicked spirits is endless, and we've not been able to close the book on it.

The finest of soldiers, the grandest of marshals, the wisest of tianshi, all rush to man the frigid north, year upon year upon year.

The court wants you to erect twelve pagodas and five cities outside the Chamber of Heaven's Designs. Three thousand mechanisms, millions of terracottas.

You needn't do it immediately. Nor will you be on your own. Yan has begun sorting it out, drafting blueprints, and assigning every great tianshi to the case.

I hope you will lend a hand. It'll allow someone to make a return from that tower, at least.

Who?

One who would never fall, but absolutely must never fall.

You're kidding. I heard some of the rumors from Leizi. Her founder was a super-annoying guy... even if she never met him.

Hmph... a special case of a long life warped by dependence on Originium. Such humankind really doesn't agree with me...

Isn't this just because she gave you all that hassle?

Tch.

Ah... I remember her.

Is she still well?

She is.

She's been stationed at the north for over three hundred and seventy years now. If she can return home, the court would be willing to let her rest at ease, allow her a peaceful retirement...

But the man always says he'd hate to be idle.

Sounds like some major engineering work. What do I get out of it, then?

The court will help you with what you want to do.

The wild bestial of bloodshot eyes can't be caged forever.

Hah. It all sounds like a win-win for you. We Yan people sure love to haggle...

That's all on that. Think about it.

I have a matter I'd like to ask of you in turn.

Please, go on.

As of now, is he...

His actions surpassed all feranmutologists' predictions. Turning his own flesh into one hundred and eighty-one black stones... scattering them in the human realm... hmm.

He wants to set up a game across the entire land.

Why?

In his endgame days, he'll surely appear again. You'd best ask him yourself then.

It's a game we must win.

We cannot lose.

Did you hear that, you two?

Would he lose to this Grand Tutor, playing on nineteen by nineteen?

Of course he wouldn't.

Then how did the Grand Tutor beat him?

The Grand Tutor did not play go with him.

Why?

Black and white in their millions upon nineteen by nineteen—it has its intrigue, true, but the Grand Tutor speaks that absorbed within a board of pieces, he cannot see man.

Man?

Thus the Grand Tutor played a different game with him. With Yan's domain as the board, with the land's every commoner as the pieces.

Who won?

The Grand Tutor, at that time. Thus he was willingly bound in captivity by Yan, and with every loss, he would stay prisoner sixty years.

Heh. If Yan always had a genius to beat him, he'd never get a foot out of the capital his whole life, huh?

Who can profess to know? He's very poor at the chesses, truth be told.

Very slow to learn them, too. Centuries ago, in one cycle of sixty years, he lost hundreds upon thousands of games. The following cycle, he lost some less, and after one more, no more than a hundred games, give or take.

And so forth, until a point when no one was left who could beat him.

Thus on that cycle, he left the capital... and so that incident transpired.

That's when our third sis...

Mm.

We could all sense that this was no pleasant matter.

So the Grand Tutor had to kick his ass before he dragged his own tail back to the capital, ready to be punished?

Perhaps it was a good, long while since last he lost in one fell swoop.

Or it may be... that his sights were not set on Yan alone anymore.

So you're Ning Ciqiu.

And you, the bounty hunter of enough bravery to plunder a Tianshi Bureau procession.

I-I didn't know they were good guys yet...

Where's that old man anyway? The Bai guy?

I will take you to meet him.

I think, in this turn of events, thanks are due for you.

It's alright.

But I still don't get the full picture. Wasn't it just a goblet? If you knew where it was, couldn't you go sneak it off yourself and be done with it?

He would not want to hand it to me, so I could hardly take it.

So you got me to help? Why?