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"Sect Leader, there's a message from Golden Mountain monastery," Jiang Lei said, out of breath from sprinting out to the training fields. All the juniors decided this meant a break from their sword exercises until Jiang Cheng glared them back to work.
The young man seemed a little nervous, which made Jiang Cheng immediately suspicious. He held his hand out.
"I'll read it. Are they looking for money, is that it?"
Jiang Lei shifted from foot to foot, a habit Jiang Cheng despised. There was a fresh bruise on his cheek.
"Sect Leader, the monk said he'd put the message in your hands directly."
"I don't have time to talk to holy men," Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. "I'm trying to drill young fools" – he looked meaningfully at Jiang Lei – "into some semblance of competence."
"I told him! He said he'd give me what for if I didn't fetch you."
"It looks like he already did," Jiang Cheng snapped. "Fine. Where's this monk?"
"In your audience chamber, Sect Leader!"
He should freshen up. He should put on something more appropriate for a gentleman to receive a petitioner. On the other hand, the monk was undoubtedly louse-ridden and dressed in holy rags. He could put up with a sweaty swordsman whose hair was falling around his face.
"Take over supervising the juniors," Jiang Cheng said. "And join in the exercises, you need the practice."
He strode back, at the last moment futilely trying to at least neaten his hair a little. There was a tall man dressed in a monastic robe standing right in the centre of the audience chamber, the plain fabric draped over his shoulder to leave a muscular right arm free. His head had been so freshly shaved that the marks of the razor were still obvious. The staff he carried was extremely obviously a weapon. He regarded Jiang Cheng with a look that suggested that beings such as leaders of the great sects were far beneath his interest.
"You have a message for me?"
"Yes," the monk said. He nodded towards the great chair at the head of the chamber. "Sit if you wish."
"Thank you for the invitation in my own house," Jiang Cheng said dryly. He held out his hand. "The message."
"There are two parts," the monk said, looking at him in what now appeared to be anger. "First, I am here on behalf of the abbot of Golden Mountain Monastery. He bids you know that our monastery was attacked last week by foul creatures: demonic bears and ogres."
"Why didn't you call for help?" Jiang Cheng said, interrupting him. "Did you think that prayers –"
"We fought them off," the monk said. "There were deaths, but we are not beholden to anyone. Then something else, fouler yet, broke into the saint's quarters. He was murdered, and one of the relics he guarded was stolen."
"What saint?" Jiang Cheng said. He was unsure how these holy men arranged themselves, but perhaps he should think about it, if they lived in his clan's territory.
"The Clear Light of the Golden Mountain," the monk said, as if that made sense to Jiang Cheng. "Your father accounted him as a friend."
Jiang Cheng frowned, trying to remember. Mother had never approved of Buddhist priests and if one had visited had insisted that he was tucked away in his room. She said they were all the same when it came to young boys.
"I'm sorry to hear of this attack," he said. "I'll organise night hunts to make sure the mountain is clear of monsters."
The monk glared at him. What wrong did the man think he'd done?
"The saint left all his power and belongings to his disciple, an orphan he raised from birth," the monk said.
Here it came, the request that Lotus Pier would generously donate for the upkeep of this orphan.
"The abbot has asked that you honour the wishes expressed in a note found in the room."
"What wishes?" Jiang Cheng said. Not an outright plea for money? His suspicions started to rise again.
"His disciple and heir would be expected to be a man of great power and probity," the monk said. "And he is. There are, however, those who feel him too young, too inexperienced to take up a position of power, who were glad to find this note."
"What is this note?" Jiang Cheng said, against his better judgement. "You sound as if you don't approve of it."
"I would follow him to the world's end. I say this note is worldly speculation on the saint's part and that he allowed sentiment to overcome what he knew of his own disciple. The note expressed a hope that Kouryuu would have the chance to come to know his family and clan, and that if anything happened to his master while Kouryuu was still a boy, his clan would take him and train him. This is what the abbot asks of you."
"My clan doesn't have anyone who became a monk," Jian Cheng said. "Certainly not with an odd name like that."
"You haven't seen how the saint wrote the name," the monk said and pulled a piece of paper from his robe.
Jiang Cheng scanned it. The writing was fluid, if not elegant, noting that all relics and items of a spiritual nature had begun to recognise the worth of "the boy" but that he deserved a chance to understand his heritage. It finished with a wish that dear - Jiang Cheng read the name again. And again. He looked at the monk, who glared at him in sheer fury.
Jiang Liu.
He stared at the paper and the word play of the orphan boy's name became obvious - river's flow. What parentage was he claiming?
"Who is this person's father? Which of my clan are you claiming?"
"I claim nothing," the monk said in an even surlier manner than before. "I am my abbot's messenger. He says: Sect Leader, reclaim your kin and raise him. Let him choose his own path when he is of age."
Jiang Cheng pressed his lips together in annoyance. To be spoken to in such a manner, in his own hall. Holy men were no respecters of the social niceties it was true, but this man went beyond most. Did the abbot want his request turned down?
"Tell your abbot he can come down off the mountain and ask me himself," Jiang Cheng snapped. "If he doesn't, he can keep this 'Jiang Liu' and be damned. And tell him, then next time he asks a gentleman for a favour, perhaps he should send a messenger of better status and manners."
The monk nodded and turned away without even awaiting permission. Jiang Cheng strongly considered following him to boot his unmannerly holy arse into the river, then simply marched, fuming, back to the training grounds to see what the juniors had got up to in his absence.
* * *
Ten days later, he was hearing a group of merchants describing what might be water demons attacking barges but was more likely to be – if he was any judge of the matter – an inept cover-up for embezzlement. How convenient that the money they had been transporting to pay off a loan had been on a barge that sank so quickly and was carrying nothing else of particular value. With no loss of life, as if everyone had been ordered off before someone had stoved in the hull. The merchants wept and wrung their hands and looked to heaven as they bemoaned the loss of fifty tael of gold, now lying at the bottom of the river.
"Wasn't it silver when this story started?" Jiang Cheng said. "Tell me again about how these water demons rose from the river breathing fire –"
He was interrupted by the approaching sound of the jingling of metal on metal and the heavy tramp of feet. A junior disciple rushed into the hall, panic on his face.
"Sect Leader! They wouldn't stop! They said you invited them!"
Disciples poured into the hall to form a line between him and whatever was coming, swords drawn, as Jiang Cheng shot to his feet, Zidian crackling to life at his hand. Marching at a steady pace a troop of fifty monks, armed and armoured, came into the hall and faced off against the Jiang disciples. The monks aimed their long ji as if expecting the disciples to charge onto the blades. Behind them older unarmoured monks, carrying staffs topped with metal rings that made a loud ringing sound as they walked came to a halt, watching the proceedings impassively.
"What is the meaning of this?" Jiang Cheng roared.
The surly monk from his previous encounter stepped forwards, his scalp shorn even of the faint growth that ten days would have given it. "The abbot of Golden Mountain Monastery has come as you asked, Jiang Cheng. Now you will accede to his request."
"How dare you speak to the Sect Leader in such a manner!" Jiang Lei shouted and ran at the monk.
With a bored expression the man flicked a paper talisman at Jiang Lei, who froze in place, motionless. He turned and nodded to the armed monks, who drew apart to allow a small, elderly man come forward. Jiang Cheng thought he would have to revise his opinion of the surly monk's position. He was clearly not the low status person he had at first assumed.
"Lord Jiang," the elderly man said, politely enough. "You asked me to come to you."
"Abbot," Jiang Cheng said. "Dismiss your men. There's no need for this show."
"The world is all show," the abbot said and gave him a cool smile. "We deal in truth. Rikudo, stand them down."
The surly monk gestured and the armed monks lowered their weapons, stepping to the side. As an apparent afterthought he gestured and Jiang Lei overbalanced, falling on his face with an exclamation of surprise.
"The monastery's talisman master has explained the situation," the abbot said. "Will you take your kinsman in? He is too young to be a monk, and his foster-father is no longer able to ask us to ignore the regulations."
"I don't know any such kinsman," Jiang Cheng said. "If you dare to suggest that he's my close blood kin –"
The abbot signalled and the knot of monks behind him opened. A small figure came up beside him. Or perhaps was pushed, Jiang Cheng thought. The barefoot boy was short and as thin as anyone who presumably lived by begging might be, his skinny arms and legs uncovered. His scalp was as fresh-shaven as the monk Rikudo's, and the eyes in the thin, pointed face looked huge and shadowed.
"Well, boy?" Jiang Cheng barked. "Are you my kin?"
The boy raised his head and looked at him like he was a target, and his glance was an arrow.
"I have no idea and I care even less."
None of the monks reacted to such insolence, though Jiang Cheng saw amusement in some of their eyes.
"This is how your monastery teaches its novices to speak to their elders?" he said. "Why should I even consider taking on such a brat?"
"He's a member of your clan," the abbot said. "The saint, Koumyou, never wavered in his conviction of that; his papers make that quite clear. He wanted the boy to know his clan, to be trained by his clan –"
"He didn't," the supposed Jiang Liu said. "He said I was his heir! He said I was to follow him! You, Lord Jiang, or whoever you are, don't listen to them –"
"When he reaches manhood, he can surely make a decision that is rational," the abbot said, "knowing both sides of his life – that given by his foster-father and what his real father would have surely wanted."
"My real father? My real father was murdered and you're trying to foist me off on a stranger! I demand full ordination! Today!"
"How old are you?" Jiang Cheng said. That desperate demanding tone was familiar to him, although in Jin Ling's case it tended to be for things he knew quite well he'd never get outside of Lanling.
"Thirteen," the boy said.
Thirteen? He looked like he was ten. Begging in the mountain villages clearly hadn't got the boy much food, for all he was a saint's foster child.
"It's too young," the abbot said. "No one is ordained that young."
"My master gave me a monastic name! I shouldn't even need further ordination! Lord Jiang! Recognise me as a full monk!"
Jiang Cheng looked from the boy to the abbot to Rikudo, who had professed loyalty to the boy. The man was staring at the boy avidly, as if he had seen a vision. Some of the other monks were regarding the boy with irritation, looking to their abbot for guidance. A young armoured monk surreptitiously reached a hand to touch the edge of the boy's novice's robe, looking as if he were touching a sacred relic. This was the beginning of factionalism, and all of these men's tempers were running high. The saintly monk they'd lost had been important to them, that much was clear. The boy was stirring things up, whether he knew it or not, and trouble was brewing. These were not peaceful holy men, sitting on their mountain praying. They were fighting monks, and sooner or later, they'd fight. And in the chaos the focus of the trouble, this skinny, stupid little boy, was likely to get removed permanently.
"Let me take a look at that boy," he said. He could always find the lad a safe place in the town with a respectable family who wanted a son. He'd forget he wanted to be a monk, soon enough. He lifted the boy's face and looked into the eyes that met his unswervingly. Jiang Cheng frowned, and put a hand across the boy's forehead, blocking out the oddness of the young hairless head. He looked closer, noting the dark shadows under the eyes, as if the boy hadn’t slept in days, the dryness of the skin as if he had been fasting too hard. More than that, he could no longer deny what his eyes told him. He saw similar features around him from morning to night.
He was looking into the face of a Jiang.
* * *
It was a battle, from early morning to late at night. Putting Jiang Liu with another family was impossible; the boy would, it turned out, have been a burden for anyone. He was bright, he was observant, and he had a sharp tongue that he didn't hesitate to turn against anyone in the slightest position of authority. Jiang Cheng would have been embarrassed to subject anyone else to him. Servants weren't treated to the flaying sarcasm, but were left in no doubt that the diminutive twig in front of them considered himself on a par with Jiang Cheng. Older disciples, the weapons-trainers and Jiang Cheng himself were subjected to mockery, a probing of weaknesses and simple outright rudeness.
It was, in a word, insufferable.
The first battle was over bathing like a gentleman. The servant assigned to watch him reported that master Jiang Liu had somewhat monkish habits and considered that standing in a loincloth and dumping a bucket of water over one's head was more than enough.
"He told me it was Jiang business if people here scented themselves like courtesans, my lord," the servant said. "But that it wasn't his custom. I regret that he used a lower word than courtesans."
"Did he insult you personally?"
"No, my lord."
"Bring this unwashed ruffian to me," Jiang Cheng said. The boy still looked as wary and as thin as ever when he turned up. Had no one fed him since he arrived? The faintest fuzz showed on his scalp, and he was still in his novice's robe. He might as well combine the fight with the second battle, Jiang Cheng decided.
"You will be properly washed in this house, and you will wear a gentleman's proper clothing."
"I've done both."
"I've taken you in, you could show a little gratitude!"
"You've stolen me from my home! You think I'm a child, but I'm a high priest."
"You'd be a dead and nameless novice if you were back there," Jiang Cheng snapped. "The abbot was doing you a favour by getting you out of a coming maelstrom. Was this saint of yours really so important?"
"Yes," Jiang Liu said, looking like he couldn't believe he was faced with such a fool. "Dead? Bullshit. You don't know what I can do."
Jiang Cheng gaped at him. If Jin Ling had said anything like that it would have been nothing but Jin bravado, and Jin Ling would never have sworn in his presence. In Jiang Liu's filthy little mouth it sounded like a straightforward threat. He acted without thinking, grabbing the boy up over his shoulder and marching outside, ignoring the kicks that thudded against his ribs with almost a man's strength and the obscenities being yelled from over his shoulder. The servant followed him at a safe distance and whimpered a little as they reached the shore. Jiang Cheng dumped Jiang Liu into the river and waited until he was sure the boy had surfaced and was able to swim.
"I won't have my house smelling of unwashed mountain boys," he said. "Learn to bathe." To the servant looking at them both in some worry he added, "When he gets into something dry, have that rag burned."
The next battle was more serious. Jiang Liu, wearing a proper hanfu and even – wonder of wonder - shoes, refused to answer to his name. He also refused to answer to the outlandish pun of a childhood name that his foster father had foisted on him.
"My name is Genjo," he said, and ignored everyone who called him anything else.
Jiang Cheng was hauled away from his own business finally to deal with him, yet again.
"What's wrong with Jiang Liu?" he said "Before you answer, remember that you are sheltered in a Jiang house and eat Jiang food." If the boy was eating. The shadows under the hollow eyes were darker, and his wrists were still stick-thin.
"It's not my name."
"According to your foster father's papers it is your name."
Jiang Liu looked up at him, fierce anger burning so bright in the young face that it was for a moment like facing the sun. "He called me 'Kouryuu'. Perhaps he made up this 'Jiang Liu' nonsense based on that. Perhaps he just didn't know how to write the name he made up. Perhaps, Jiang Cheng, he just thought it'd be funny and was stirring the shit. He really liked to do that, and I was the only person who ever noticed."
"Don't say 'shit'," Jiang Cheng said, wondering if he could justifiably follow the boy's line of reasoning and apprentice him to someone very far away. Possibly in another country.
"Why? Isn't it gentlemanly? Do you just burn all the waste up in your precious golden cores?"
"Back in the river," Jiang Cheng said and swept the boy up again. He was lighter than before, and the kicks weren't as hard. The obscenities were still as repulsive. He got as far as the door before the fact that the boy really was lighter registered, and he deposited him on the floor.
"When was the last time you ate?"
" – motherfucking goddam corpse-desecrating shit licking bunch of sect bastards!" Jiang Liu finished. He stared at Jiang Cheng, as if belatedly taking in the fact that he hadn't been thrown into cold water. "What?"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Jiang Cheng said in disgust.
"You're not going to break me," Jiang Liu said.
"What? I took you in, I gave you a place, I've given you a clan, it's saved your life – one spark of gratitude. Just one, that would be good to see. Just the smallest acknowledgement that maybe not every by-blow in the country gets the chance to claim his father's name and be fostered with a sect leader and have a chance at some sort of future."
"Gratitude?" Jiang Liu yelled. "I had a future! I still have one! I had a home! You think I care who engendered me? I had a father and I know what he wanted for me! You will not break my spirit!" There was a wobble in the voice, however, as he repeated more quietly, "I had a father. Do you think I'll let you take the last thing he gave me?" The fight seemed to drain out of him, and Jiang Cheng saw that he was forcing himself not to weep. He'd done that himself enough times in the past to know the signs. The boy didn't look too good on his feet all of a sudden. He put a hand out to steady him.
"Young man," Jiang Cheng said, as a peace offering. "Were you ever given an opportunity to carry out any mourning rituals for your foster-father?"
"No," the boy said, his face pale. "They were keen to get rid of me quickly. I tried to have myself ordained to stop it –"
Jiang Cheng thought of the freshly shaved scalp and wondered if the monk Rikudo had helped. He probably had, and none too gently. Jiang Liu's scalp had been covered with nicks and scrapes as if shaved in haste.
"You're still fasting," he said, "No one has told me that."
"They bring my food, I throw it to the dogs," Jiang Liu said. "I drink the tea."
"No more fasting," Jiang Cheng said. "It's making you ill. Do you really think your foster father would want you to drop dead and follow him so soon? If I make sure you can carry out a decent mourning, will you eat?"
Jiang Liu nodded warily.
"And your foster father, the saint. He wrote your name down, and called you his dear Jiang Liu. You need a name to use outside the monastery, so why not use the name that he wrote down himself?"
The boy was looking at him like he suspected a trap, but had come to the end of his capability of working it out.
"No one would show it to me – because I know his style of writing! Did you see this note?"
"Yes. Look, I was surprised. Your existence was – embarrassing to me. I don't like to think of one of my clan being irresponsible. I'm suggesting the name against both our wishes."
The faintest ghost of a smile came into the tired young face. It was, perhaps the right tack to make.
"Maybe I'm not a Jiang at all. You could send me back to the monastery as a fraud."
Jiang Cheng snorted at the cheek, even now. "You look too much like one of the clan for that, now that you're properly dressed."
"My childhood name was just a silly thing my master thought up," Jiang Liu said, "because he waded in to pull me out of the river and hadn't any experience of naming babies."
"What river?" Jiang Cheng tried to picture a river on the Golden Mountain. It wasn’t that high a mountain. Surely they'd be mere streams – not something a baby would easily be cast into.
"That one," Jiang Liu said, pointing out the door. "The one you wanted to throw me into."
Jiang Cheng stared at him. He had just assumed the boy was the result of a dalliance between some irresponsible disciple and a mountain village girl. That someone in the surroundings of Lotus Pier had thrown their baby into the river had never occurred to him. Why hadn't the woman come to him and named the child's father?
"I know," Jiang Liu said, misinterpreting his expression. "It's a terrible name. He had a very childish sense of humour most of the time."
"Well, you can't expect a monk to be good at such worldly things," Jiang Cheng said, to cover his surprise. "Now that you're a lay-person, you'll need a courtesy name too."
"Genjo," the boy said at once.
Jiang Cheng sighed. "That's a religious name. It's not –"
"Genjo."
Jiang Cheng pursed his lips. Maybe he had been trying to break this boy. Maybe he'd seen a foundling dependent on Lotus Pier's generosity and hadn't extended the welcome and care his father had, but had tried to harm and browbeat someone who was no more than a child. Who had been acted upon rather than acting themselves. He hadn't even the excuse of other children's interest to protect. His mother would have been pleased to see him trying to punish his father and his brother by forcing this boy into obedience.
"You'll stop fasting," he said. "You'll go into mourning and pray for your foster-father as a lay-person –" The boy's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. " – and you will accept the name Jiang Liu. If you do all that, the world can know your courtesy name as Jiang Genjo. When you're stronger, you start training with the other boys."
The boy breathed out and looked at once frailer, like a sad, ill child rather than a creature held up by sheer force of will and fury.
"All right," he said.
Jiang Cheng summoned servants and had them lead the boy away, with strict instructions to watch him eat, and then to let him rest. When he reappeared he was quieter and dressed all in mourning white.
"My condolences," Jiang Cheng said, quite seriously. "It's a hard thing to lose a parent."
The boy nodded, respectfully enough. Much of the bad behaviour had been caused by the franticness of his grief being ignored, it seemed.
"The mourning period for a father is three years," Jiang Cheng said and the boy nodded again, his face solemn. He no doubt felt that no space of time could wear away the loss; Jiang Cheng knew the feeling well. "It is absolutely inappropriate to take part in official and public activities during that time," Jiang Cheng went on. "Marriage for example – " The boy rolled his eyes. " - attending banquets or hunting events organised for entertainment –" He made sure his face was very serious as he added, " – or ordination."
Ah, the sharp expression said, there it is. The previously suspected trap.
"Three years," Jiang Liu said. "And what do I do during these three years?"
"Study is permitted. Training. You'll be trained in cultivation techniques. I must warn you, you're coming late to attempting to form a golden core, but I will do my best by you."
"You don't know," Jiang Liu said, looking Jiang Cheng in the eye like they were social equals, "what I can do."
"You said that before," Jiang Cheng said. "You'll have a chance to prove you're not an idle boaster. For now, pray for your father."
Jiang Liu made a passable bow and walked off. There might be hope for the brat yet, Jiang Cheng thought, and got on with more important business.
* * *
It didn't take long for the next battle line to be drawn. Jiang Liu was small for his age and hadn't ever trained with a proper clan, so he was handed over to the outer disciples in charge of training children and put up against ten-year-olds. They were of a size with him, more or less. Jiang Cheng came along to watch and provide stern encouragement to all concerned.
"I'm not sparring with them," Jiang Liu said. "They're little kids."
"You're a beginner," the instructor said. "They've been learning for several years! Don't worry, they'll go easy on you, won't you boys?"
"Don't worry, big brother!" one of the boys said in an honest, cheerful voice.
Jiang Liu shrugged, picked up the practice sword and swung it a few times, testing the weight. He smiled a humourless smile.
"Come on then, you sons of bitches," he said.
Jiang Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked up in alarm at the first boy's shriek. Jiang Liu's sword was on the ground and the boy sent to spar with him was lying on the ground as well, beyond him. What on earth –
"Jiang Liu! How dare you!" the instructor yelled. "Pick up your sword!"
Another boy was running in. His sword went spinning end-over-end, though Jiang Cheng wasn't sure what Jiang Liu had done, and then the boy somersaulted through the air to land in relatively soft mud.
"Give me opponents, not babies," Jiang Liu said, sounding bored.
The instructor marched over to box his ears. Jiang Liu stepped in to meet him, twisted in a way that didn't look like he'd moved much at all and the man went flying, landing on much harder ground than the young boys had. Jiang Cheng glared at the coldly triumphant young figure before him.
"You don't," Jiang Liu said, "know what I can do."
He was set against boys his own age, then older boys. It was humiliating for the young disciples to lose their swords and be beaten bare-handed. It was wrong for Jiang Liu to wish to humiliate his clan members. Jiang Cheng showed up at the end of one such lesson, watching a red-faced sixteen-year-old collect his sword and limp away.
"Liu!" he snapped peremptorily. "Pick up that damn sword!"
Jiang Liu sighed and picked it up, swinging it back and forth to emphasise how little he cared for the training. Jiang Cheng nodded at the weapons master, who flung him a wooden training sword. Jiang Liu's eyes widened slightly.
"Defend yourself," Jiang Cheng said, and rushed him.
He'd picked some things up by watching people actually train, or perhaps had had some sword training in the monastery. He managed to parry the first blow, which had been deliberately slow, although heavy. He even managed to move his sword quickly and parry the flurry of fast blows that followed – and then he was almost exhausted. Whatever training he'd had on the Golden Mountain, the sword had not been his primary weapon. Jiang Cheng saw the moment the boy decided that if he was going to have a chance he had to move right then, and – he dropped the sword and tried to throw him. There was more than physical effort at work, Jiang Cheng could tell, but he had vast reserves of his own spiritual strength to draw on and rooted himself as firmly as he could. This was his land, his training ground, his clan. He was helping this prideful, annoying boy. He shoved the astonished Jiang Liu back and used the flat of the blade to sweep his feet from under him. As he landed in the dust the tip of the practice sword was at his throat.
"It's never a good idea to throw your sword away in a fight," Jiang Cheng said cheerfully. "No, no don't try to jump up – if this was a real sword you'd just impale yourself on my blade."
Jiang Liu lay there, squinting up at him with a considering expression. Then he began to snigger, laid his head down in the dust and laughed until tears rolled down his face.
"I'm glad I amused you," Jiang Cheng said, feeling non-plussed. "I hope you can see that maybe there are things you still have to learn."
"Maybe there are," Jiang Liu said, hiccoughing with laughter. "Thank you for the lesson," he added, looking upwards to heaven.
"Who did they have you fighting, up on the mountain?"
Jiang Liu dragged his attention back to Jiang Cheng's face. "The oldest of the trainees. Men in their twenties, mostly. Unarmed, staff, pole weapons. I always won."
"No one with some twenty years' experience past their training? Or many swordsmen?" He hauled the boy off the ground.
"No."
"That's the next part of the lesson. There's always someone, somewhere, who's better than you."
"Then I'll just have to become the best."
Jiang Cheng gave him a little push towards the other boys, who welcomed him cheerfully and gasped about the luck some people had, getting a private lesson from the Sect Leader. Boys, Jiang Cheng thought. He was sure he'd had more sense. Obviously Wei Wuxian had been a total fool, but he'd had enough gentlemanly poise for both of them.
This time he was not so foolish as to think he had seen the last battle.
* * *
Things had gone perfectly well for a whole two more months. Jiang Liu was training properly, with boys his own age and a little older. His sword skills were nowhere near where they should be and he had – reluctantly – agreed with the wisdom of mastering such a worldly skill properly, like a lay-person. His fast-improving abilities in all areas showed that – whatever monastic training actually entailed – his previous training had in fact enabled him to develop a golden core. Jiang Cheng felt a little aggrieved by that, the thought of the monks sitting on their mountain cultivating their own skills so that they could renounce the world and, ideally, their own skills. However, there had been no tantrums, there had been less bad language, there had been the consumption of food and there was actual hair on the boy's head.
Now an entirely different matter and a different boy was taking up his thoughts. Jin Ling would soon arrive. It was completely improper to want to skip about the halls at the thought, so Jiang Cheng didn't, and merely nodded absently if anyone mentioned the matter to him, as if he had almost forgotten. Sensible, he had to be sensible. The boy was always standing on his dignity the first week, pumped full of stories of Jin glory by Jin Guangyao. It would be a week of That's not how things are done in Lanling and Soup isn't made that way in the Lanling kitchens, let alone the incessant references to My father this and My grandfather that. After which the boy would calm down, go for a swim and finally learn something as opposed to being told how special he was.
Jiang Cheng yearned to tell him how special he was, how much he wanted to keep him in Lotus Pier all the year round. That was entirely inappropriate. Jin Ling was not a lost little boy.
Perhaps he could give him Jiang Liu as an attendant. Not as a servant, of course. But both boys might learn from each other, perhaps might spur each other on. It would be good for Jin Ling to have a companion of his own age, and for Jiang Liu to have one of higher status to benefit from associating with. No matter what he had been on the mountain, the boy's status in Lotus Pier was – ambiguous. It would not harm him to have connections. And Jin Ling had no pets that would need to be removed before he was given his companion, there would be no sadness there.
Jiang Cheng shook the thought away. It was improper to even consider criticising his father's actions. It was no one's fault at Lotus Pier that Wei Wuxian had done what he did. If he had acted correctly he would still be a valued clan member. No, he decided. He'd make sure that Jin Ling and Jiang Liu had no such complication, and no matter what, in the future either Jin Ling would have a personal friend at Lotus Pier, or he'd have one in Golden Mountain Monastery. And Jiang Liu would have a friend in Lanling.
He ate a light meal with all the disciples in training. The juniors' table manners weren't bad. Specifically Jiang Liu's. It was the first time the boy had eaten in the same room with him and he was surprised to see the meagre amount that was consumed. Afterwards he singled the boy out.
"You said you'd eat."
"I do," Jiang Liu said in what looked like honest surprise.
"Not much. Don't restrict yourself to that extent, you're still growing. You avoided all the meat?"
Jiang Liu looked aside as if he'd been found out.
"Follow a monastic diet after you can choose ordination," Jiang Cheng said. "For now – eat what you're given." The boy sighed, but it seemed like the usual sort of weary sigh any boy might make when faced with an adult asking too much to bear and requiring them to do something for their own good.
"My nephew will arrive soon," Jiang Cheng said. "Jin Ling – Jin Rulan – is heir to Jin sect. You and he are the same age, more or less. You should keep him company while he's here, spar with him – properly, none of your tricks - be his partner at archery. Just remember that he's a gentleman of quality."
"Unlike me?" Jiang Liu said, and he sounded like he really didn't care one way or another for any of the social expectations of the world.
Jiang Cheng felt a pang of sympathy, which he expressed by straightening his spine and looking impassively down at the boy. "No matter what your foster father intended, the truth is that no one knows your parentage. The chances that you are not a bastard are so small as to be not worth mentioning. You must simply work to be a good member of the clan; perhaps, if your father still lives, he will be moved to claim you."
"I'd repudiate him," the boy said, as calmly as if he hadn't said the most shocking thing Jiang Cheng had heard that day. "The only father I want was murdered on the Golden Mountain."
"That's the sort of thing a boy who had been greatly wronged might say," Jiang Cheng said. "A man comes to see the value in having a father's name behind him."
Jiang Liu made a rude scoffing noise, but didn't actually say anything, so Jiang Cheng decided to let it go. He did, however, make sure that all the junior disciples were drilled in manners for a full half-day.
When Jin Ling arrived he bowed politely to Jiang Cheng and offered his own greetings, Jin Guangyao's greetings and the good wishes of more Jin relatives than Jiang Cheng had ever bothered learning the names of. A package of letters was handed over, many sealed with Jin Guangyao's personal seal. Some no doubt would be clan business, some would be updates on Jin Ling's progress in his schooling. Some probably would be personal letters of the sort Jin Guangyao wrote so well; inquiring after one's health and the welfare of Lotus Pier, with apt literary allusions. When Jin Ling returned the personal letter he bore from Jiang Cheng would be far more direct: I am well, I hope you are well, I hope your family is well. I have heard only praise for your administration of Lanling Jin and the affairs of the clans. He felt that Jin Ling's other uncle was too busy a man to actually read a long flowery personal note – as was he. He still had to read it.
The next morning Jin Ling strode around like he thought he was – Jiang Cheng pulled himself up short. The boy was at home. He wanted him to feel that. He was always prickly during the first week, that was all, when Jin Ling was in his Young Lord Jin mood, and looked down his nose at Yunmeng's food and weather and clothes, and was standoffish to the ordinary people. He'd unwind soon enough and all would be well.
It was unfortunate that fate threw Jiang Liu in his path before the week was out.
"What's wrong with your hair?" Jin Ling said, finding Jiang Liu sitting on a barrel, basking in the sun like a lazy cat. "Why are you in Jiang colours? Why are you carrying a sword? Uncle, is this boy a thief?" They were unnecessarily harshly put questions, as if Jin Ling had decided he wanted a fight almost before he had seen Jiang Liu at all.
"No," Jiang Cheng said as Jiang Liu opened his eyes and regarded Jin Ling with all the friendship of a wolf seeing a lamb. "This is Jiang Liu. He was raised in a monastery, that's why his hair is short."
"Cropped like a thief's," Jin Ling said.
Shut up, just shut up, Jiang Cheng thought, not sure which boy he meant.
"Is this your catamite?" Jiang Liu said. "He's dressed very prettily."
"What? Uncle!"
"Jiang Liu!" Jiang Cheng snapped. "Apologise."
"Sorry," Jiang Liu said. "His clothes aren't pretty, they're showy and a stupid colour."
Jin Ling had his sword half-drawn before Jiang Cheng slammed a hand onto his wrist. "Don't draw your weapon on your –" he paused. "On my clansman," he finished.
"He can call me a bastard if he likes," Jiang Liu said. "He'll hear it soon enough. And when he does," he grinned, all teeth like a wolf, "I can tell him my real father raised me until I was thirteen. I win, orphan."
Jiang Cheng held Jin Ling back. "Jin Ling," he said. "A gentleman does not respond to such deliberate provocation."
"Maybe not in Yunmeng!" Jin Ling yelled. "Men have pride in Lanling!"
Jiang Liu didn't bother saying anything, just kept the infuriating grin on his face. Jiang Cheng forcefully turned Jin Ling around and pointed him back at the house.
"Go and get ready for lunch. I'll join you very soon."
It was good to see that at least the boy could be obedient, even if murder was in every line of his back. Jiang Cheng rounded on Jiang Liu, who stood there calmly.
"The discipline in Golden Mountain Monastery could be harsh," Jiang Liu said casually. "You wouldn't be the first man to take his hand to me."
"I wouldn't dream of emulating your foster-father," Jiang Cheng said and felt a guilty spark of victory at the anger that flared and was tamped down in the boy's eyes. "I'm just going to throw you in the river."
"Master Koumyou never hit me," Jiang Liu snapped. "And you're too old to catch me."
Jiang Cheng took off after him in sheer fury, right out of the compound, down into the town and out onto the long pier, the two of them weaving in and out of the astonished townsfolk who tried to get out of the way, bow to Jiang Cheng and wish blessings upon him all at the same time. Jiang Liu ran out of pier eventually and turned to face him, muttering as he brought his hands together.
"Don't you cast a spell on me, you little shit!" Jiang Cheng yelled.
"Don't say 'shit'," Jiang Liu retorted. "It's not gentlemanly." Then, holding Jiang Cheng's gaze, he very deliberately stepped off the pier to land in the river beneath.
Jiang Cheng stood there feeling foolish as the townsfolk peered first at him and then down at the boy striking out for shore.
"You wouldn't have had so far to swim if you'd just taken your punishment in the first place," he said, keeping pace above the grimly swimming Jiang Liu. It would be intensely irritating if the boy got into difficulty and looked in danger of drowning. Jiang Cheng knew quite well he'd end up jumping in himself in such a case.
The boy trod water and looked up.
"I make my own choices," he said, and swam on.
* * *
Jiang Cheng had a serious, man-to-man talk with Jin ling, the topic of which was future sect leaders don't get into public fights with persons of no parentage and, conversely, the wisdom of future sect leaders who build alliances with holy men of distinguished lineage.
"He can't be both, Uncle," Jin Ling said, reasonably enough. "Is he enough of a gentleman for me to challenge him to a duel?"
"No! For a start, you're both boys! Holy men do lineage differently; his foster father was very important or so it seems."
"He's not a monk right now."
"Not right at the moment, and no, you can't challenge him to a duel. He may very well be a monk in a few years. And it would be entirely improper to challenge a monk."
Jin Ling looked aside. "He'll choose to stay here, who'd be a monk?"
It was neither proper, nor did it make good sense to discuss the rearing of one thirteen-year old with another, so Jiang Cheng said nothing.
"My uncle said he'd heard you'd taken a Buddhist novice in," Jin Ling muttered, now staring at the ground. "He said it was common knowledge the novice was a Jiang bastard."
Thank you, Jin Guangyao, Jiang Cheng thought. For heaven's sake, why tell Jin Ling such a thing? Or maybe it was a topic of public gossip in Lanling – his face reddened in annoyance.
"He said you take such a care with the novice's training and education that it's clear –" Jin Ling went scarlet and stopped speaking.
"What's clear?" Jiang Cheng said, and Jin Ling shrugged and continued his silence. Jiang Cheng took a steadying breath. This was his sister's son. Who was well-brought up and did not ask such questions. Except now he did, it would seem. "I don't know who among the Jiang his father is," he said. "It's not me. His abbot asked me to train him and I agreed. That's all."
"Uncle Jin said he's definitely your bastard, you're going to acknowledge him and make him your heir," Jin Ling said in a rush.
"What?"
Jin Ling quailed. Jiang Cheng calmed himself down as best he could. He was going to send Jiang Liu right back up the Golden Mountain. He was going to send a sternly-worded note to Jin Guangyao about the gentlemanly thing to do being to avoid gossip. He was going to track down the irresponsible fool who had slept with some girl he shouldn't have and caused this annoyance and make him take the boy. He was going to fly right to Lanling and yell at Jin Guangyao this very day.
"Uncle?" Jin Ling said.
"I'm considering various options. It's always wise to look at a range of options."
He took a deep breath.
"A gentleman doesn't listen to gossip, Jin Ling. Especially when it's obviously so baseless. Unless I marry, you are the heir to Yunmeng Jiang as you well know. You don't have to pick fights with some unfortunate I've taken in from charity."
"Like Wei Wuxian," Jin Ling said, still looking unsettled. "Uncle Jin said that you might be copying your father's kind actions, and nursing a snake in your own bosom."
"Why did your uncle say these things to you?" Jiang Cheng said, grinding his teeth.
"He didn't say them to me, exactly," Jin Ling said, going a little pink around the ears. "I'm sure he thought I had left the room by then. It was more that I sort of, maybe –"
"Eavesdropped on your elders?" It was better than Jin Guangyao saying such ridiculous things to the boy directly, Jiang Cheng supposed, but galling that he'd said them at all. The man worried too much – he should concern himself with the affairs of Lanling, not Lotus Pier. This was not a matter for the Chief Cultivator.
"I'd considered making Jiang Liu your attendant while you're here," he said and felt some sympathy for the expression that crossed Jin Ling's face. "You could show him a gentleman's manners. He has some – interesting – techniques the monks taught him that you could observe. Not use yourself, of course. They're not fit for a gentleman."
"He mocked me for being an orphan!"
"Well, he's one as well. And he was getting his blows in first, before you called him a bastard."
Jin Ling paused. "I wouldn't have done that," he said, almost convincingly.
"Someone must have told him you would. Is that the sort of reputation you wish to have here? Someone who insults his mother's clansmen?"
Jin Ling sighed. "I'll talk to him. I'll tell him I don't think he looks like a thief." He brightened up considerably. "If he was raised in a monastery, does he know any Buddhist magic?"
"Tell him if he teaches you any I'll break his legs before I dump him in the river next time."
Jin Ling seemed much happier, hearing the familiar threat. "What if I do start practicing it, Uncle?"
"You're my close kin. I'll just break your legs."
* * *
A prickly sort of peace descended once more, gradually becoming easier as Jin Ling settled in and remembered he was allowed to have some fun that didn't involve dressing up and floating quietly around expensively decorated halls. Every day he gamely joined Jiang Cheng on the training field to learn the Jiang sword style, which was just as much his birth right as the flashier Jin style. After another week Jiang Cheng put Jin Ling and Jiang Liu together to spar – Jiang Liu was stronger for all his slender and small frame, but Jin Ling had been training with the sword for many more years, and in two styles to boot. As long as neither of them lost their temper – a vain hope, he had to admit – it might help things along. After a while he got tired of watching nothing more exciting than idiot boys trying to beat each other into the ground and went to drill the more advanced disciples.
When he came back, the idiot boys were still at it. Some of the younger boys were cheering them both on, equally. Jiang Cheng shook his head and went off for lunch.
When he returned the young idiots were finding it difficult to hold their swords steady, but were still going at it.
"They took a quick breather," Jiang Shui, one of the older disciples said. "Then they got stuck back in."
"They'll never learn proper forms like that," Jiang Cheng said, watching Jin Ling stagger and avoid a blow simply because Jiang Liu's sword arm was shaky from exhaustion. "What do they think they're doing?"
"Making friends, I think," Jiang Shui said. "Don't you remember being a boy, Sect Leader? You do something stupid or dangerous with another boy and then you're friends out of legend."
Jiang Cheng watched his nephew and Jiang Liu both fall over in the dust, panting. His mind was on a long ago desperate search through night time woods, and the sheer relief he'd felt when he knew that Wei Wuxian had been found. Stupid and dangerous, he thought. It had given him a brother – He nodded brusquely to Jiang Shiu.
"Make sure they practice properly for the rest of the afternoon."
He woke two mornings later, far before dawn, unsure of what he'd heard. Stepping lightly from his room he saw that down the hallway the door to Jin Ling's chamber, the same one he had always used since he was a small boy, stood open a little. The stairs creaked, then there was silence, then a very soft step, as if someone had paused to see if anyone would wake at the noise. Jiang Cheng crept to the stairs and looked down to see Jin Ling hurry from the bottom step, fully dressed although his hair was a mess. It was unlikely the boy could get into anything too dangerous; he could be allowed a little latitude. On the other hand – Jiang Cheng thought of stupid and dangerous things that boys could get up to, and further thought that perhaps the monks hadn't dealt with all the creatures on Golden Mountain after all. He was back in his chamber, pulling on hanfu and shoes before the thought had fully formed.
By the time he was outside, Jin Ling had long vanished, but then Jiang Cheng heard a low whistle, and followed the source of the noise carefully, coming to the yard where timber was worked. It wasn't overlooked by any window, and stood apart from the living quarters. Jiang Cheng peered around a corner and saw Jin Ling seat himself on a pile of planks. Jiang Liu was there too, dressed only in zhongyi. It was hardly an outfit for running away to fight monsters.
" – like a baby," Jiang Liu was saying.
"I wanted to make sure everyone was asleep," Jin Ling said, a little defensively. "I wasn't sleeping."
"Fine. Don't tell anyone, remember?"
"Yes. I already said."
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. Idiot boys. Whatever they were up to. Jiang Liu turned and bowed to the moon, which was full and fat.
"What did you do that? Is it for magic?"
"Will you shut up? No. It's personal. Right, pay attention."
Jiang Liu stood in a wide-legged stance, seeming to settle firmly onto the ground, then began to move, very slowly, through a series of forms, fluidly shifting his weight from one to the next. He looked perfectly happy for once.
"That doesn't look so hard."
"Come and try it, then."
Jiang Cheng bit back a sigh. Slow controlled movements like that weren't as easy as Jin Ling thought. Better that what was undoubtedly going to happen should happen without witnesses. Jin Ling hopped off his planks and tried a few of the movements, going faster and not as smoothly as Jiang Liu. When he tried to emulate a one-legged position he simply toppled over. Jiang Liu held the position for an unnecessarily showy amount of time, in Jiang Cheng's opinion, and sniggered at him. Then he pulled Jin Ling back to his feet.
"Try this, it's a lot easier to start with –"
Jiang Cheng watched for a few minutes, annoyed that Jin Ling hadn't managed to extrapolate from Don't learn Buddhist magic to And don't learn how to fight like a commoner or a monk. He should go over there and knock their idiot heads together.
"Why are we doing this so slowly?" Jin Ling said after another minute. "What's the point?"
"You really have no patience, do you? Because once you can do this slowly, you can learn to do it fast –"
Jiang Liu moved from his slow smooth forms into an explosion of movement, spinning, kicking and punching: blows that stopped a hair's breadth from Jin Ling's impressed face. He finished with a yell, coming about and stamping one bare foot down on the wood where Jin Ling had been sitting. Every plank in the stack broke in two. Jiang Cheng wanted to scream. That wood had cost good money.
"Yes!" Jin Ling whooped. "How much spiritual energy did that take?"
"If I'd used my spiritual energy, the ground would have cracked as well," Jiang Liu said.
Irritating and costly though the behaviour was, they both sounded more – boyish. Jin Ling wasn't filtering his silly and enthusiastic words through an uncle's perception, not even that of the more sensible uncle, Jiang Cheng thought. Jiang Liu wasn't sounding like a weirdly young looking old man but like one boy trying to impress another.
"Your foster father taught you to do this?"
"Yeah," Jiang Liu said in an offensively smug tone.
"I heard," Jin Ling offered diffidently, "that he was murdered."
"Yeah," Jiang Liu repeated, slower, more quietly. He looked up at the moon, as if to drive bad memories away with its light. "The abbot said it was just bad luck those creatures came to his rooms, but they were sent to kill him, I know."
There was a pause.
"My father was murdered," Jin Ling said at last. "By a very wicked man. He killed my mother too."
Jiang Cheng stepped back. He didn't want to hear any more. He didn't want to know the official Lanling views on Wei Wuxian; they couldn’t be any worse than his own, but at least his views were private. His last sight of the idiot boys was them sitting on a sawhorse, heads together, no doubt trading stories of perfect dead fathers, a hero and a saint. A mere living uncle and guardian could not measure up.
* * *
It took another two weeks for the idiot boys to prove they really were idiots.
In all that time Jiang Cheng hadn't had to throw anyone into the river, or threaten to break anyone's legs. Jin Ling and Jiang Liu attended sword training, practised the bow and were relatively polite to their elders. In retrospect, it had clearly been designed to lull all of Lotus Pier into a sense of false security. He really was going to break their legs when he found them.
Revered Uncle,
Having heared heard of fell creechures attacking a village some sixty li due south of Lotus Pier, I have taken my attendant Jiang Liu and will return shortly, after we have dispatched this scourge.
Your nephew
Jin Rulan
(Jin Ling)
"I know who you are, idiot," Jiang Cheng said, having puzzled his way at last through the note. Jin Ling's calligraphy was appalling. What was also appalling was his sense of Yunmeng geography; Jiang Cheng unrolled a map, just to be completely sure. Yes. Sixty li south of Lotus Pier would be right in the centre of one of the region's many lakes. When you added in the fact that the only confirmed reports of attacks in months had been the ones at Golden Mountain, sixty li north of Lotus Pier - He closed his eyes. Why? Why had he agreed to the abbot's request? When he hauled the boys back he was going to have a serious talk about good behaviour, the value of not running off to play hero, and learning to disguise your tracks a little less transparently when you did run off.
He stared at the map again. Jiang Liu didn't know how to fly a sword, and Jin Ling couldn't fly sixty li, especially not carrying a passenger. They hadn't been seen since last night – if they'd flown forty li and walked in circles in the dark for a while – he traced out a likely area to search. It would be faster if he brought people with him; he glowered at the thought of it getting out that Jin Ling had run off on an adventure, like, like – He wasn't even going to think of the name. He'd regretted every single one of the adventures he'd been dragged into as a boy, Mother had made sure of that. He wasn't having anyone have the chance to say any of the things she'd said about Jin Ling now. He strode out of the hall alone, stepped up onto his blade and flew off to find the missing fools.
He regretted not bringing help as he went through forest, calling for the boys.
"Jin Ling! Jiang Liu! Jin Ling!"
After an hour he thought he heard an answering shout; then he realised it was the sound of combat and he was hearing Jin Ling yelling defiance at an enemy. He crashed through the undergrowth, his sword bare in his hand and found himself on the lip of a bowl-shaped depression in the ground half a li across. Something had been built here at one time: the jumbled stone blocks at the bottom showed that clearly. Whatever it had been, it was inimical to humans now: pulling themselves from the earth, bodies in differing stages of preservation were advancing on Jin Ling and Jiang Liu, who stood back to back, looking as fierce as children barely out of their swaddling clothes could. They had already fought off a wave of the fierce corpses but there were far too many for two thirteen year olds to handle.
"Do it!" Jin Ling shrieked. He stood between Jiang Liu and the greater part of the advancing horde, and Jiang Liu – Jiang Cheng groaned – threw down his sword. Stupid boy! But he didn't attempt to fight bare-handed, instead pulling out a scroll from his hanfu. Jiang Cheng got ready to leap from the edge of the depression right into the centre of the fight as Jiang Liu unrolled his scroll and began to read it out, each syllable loud and sonorous, a Buddhist chant of some kind. Jiang Cheng landed by him and sliced the fierce corpse that would have strangled him into two equal halves.
"Fight, boy!"
Jiang Liu didn't seem to hear, just kept chanting, his eyes unfocused. A spiritual energy was gathering about him with each syllable of the chant, swirling, spiralling upward -
"Dammit!" Jiang Cheng held out a hand and Jiang Liu's sword flew into his grasp. "Take your sword!" Four of the corpses came for him and he took two of them down with overhead and forehand blows and the other two with backhand blows; training with one's off-hand was useful. He wasn't going to stand there fighting with two swords while Jiang Liu simply stood around and prayed, however. He spun and took the head off a tall corpse attempting to bear Jin Ling to the ground. He dropped Jiang Liu's sword - at his wrist, Zidian sparked purple lightning and arced out to slice into a fresh wave of the corpses.
"Om mani padme hum!" Jiang Liu screamed as Jiang Cheng looked back. He held up the scroll. "Makai tenjo!"
All the air seemed to leave the depression at once and then to rush back in. Jiang Cheng felt as if someone had stuffed wool into his ears. Every single fierce corpse simply collapsed, many of them falling apart in a foul-smelling rush of rotten slurry as they did so. Zidian sat dormant on his wrist, although he could feel that it was unharmed.
"What the hell?" he said.
Jiang Liu was rolling up his scroll, a plain looking thing of white paper on a green background. The writing looked very old fashioned.
"It's one of the relics my father left me," he said, as if saying, Oh, this was my father's sword. "It can destroy resentful energy."
"Does the abbot know you have that?" Jiang Cheng said, after a few moments of opening and closing his mouth.
"He probably thinks it's locked away in the monastery treasury," Jiang Liu said, shrugging. "Master Koumyou gave it to me. He said it'd obey me. It looks like he was right."
"Did you two come up here just to try that thing out?" Jiang Cheng yelled. "You stupid, thoughtless idiots! Suppose I hadn't followed you? Suppose it hadn't worked? I'll break your legs for this!"
They both regarded him patiently. It made him want to throw them to some particularly hungry fierce corpses.
"We came up here, Uncle, to find out who killed Jiang Liu's foster father," Jin Ling said. "I'm sorry I misled you in the note."
"I was only misled by your terrible writing! I thought perhaps I was reading a western barbarian script! I should break your arms as well as your legs, it couldn't make your calligraphy any worse!"
They were still regarding him with the terrible patience of the young humouring the old. He banged their heads together. They both blinked at him in betrayal; maybe they'd have preferred it if he really did start breaking limbs. He wanted to clutch his head; it had been too long since he was a boy.
"I'll have this whole area searched and cleaned out," he said. "I know the monastery doesn't like owing favours, but this is my duty. I will search for any answers I can find to the saint's death. What relic was stolen when he died?"
"Another scroll like this," Jiang Liu said. "If you find it, remember, he left it to me."
"What does it do?" Jiang Cheng said, looking around at the piles of bodies and liquids.
"It can restore life," Jiang Liu said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. He met Jiang Cheng's eyes and gave him a terrible smile. "Any life at all."
"I'm not sure your foster father would approve of that," Jiang Cheng said, deciding that if he found such a thing it would be locked away as soon as possible.
"That's the thing about being dead," Jiang Liu said. "You don't get a say. Me and Jin Ling, we're the ones who get a say."
"Jin Ling, don't you dare try to raise your parents from the dead," Jiang Cheng said.
"I can't, Jiang Liu's inheritance was stolen," Jin Ling said. "We've got to find it, Uncle!"
"I'll have this whole area scoured, as I said," Jiang Cheng said. "For now, we're going back to Lotus Pier. I'll have just enough time to break your legs –" he pointed at Jin Ling, " – and to throw you in the river –" he pointed at Jiang Liu, " – before at least trying to catch up on the day's tasks."
He chivvied them onto his sword and got them all up and away, both boys standing in front of him so that he could grab them if they overbalanced. They were both yawning and looking very much like boys who had been up all night and then had to fight off monsters before breakfast. Neither of them looked like they'd ever given anyone a moment's trouble in their lives.
Jiang Cheng headed for home to wearily await the next battle.