Martial Cultivator

After seeing Third Master Hou, Chen Chao finally waited for a burst of summer rain to stop, then stepped out of the cotton shop, intending to check on his small courtyard.

Third Master Hou reminded him, “After you brat rose to prominence, do you plan to repair your house? The county office discussed it several times and even submitted memorials. In the end, the result was that, since you’re now one of the top military officers of the Great Liang Dynasty, it’s unreasonable for the house to remain in such disrepair. So some money was spent on proper renovations. But whether it’s exactly the way you want it now, I can’t say.”

At the time, the county office even consulted many neighbors in Peach Blossom Alley, but their opinions were inconsistent, and there were a few disputes. In the end, nothing came of it.

Chen Chao narrowed his eyes and said with a smile, “After the renovations, do many visitors from other regions still come here?”

Third Master Hou was momentarily taken aback, muttered a curse under his breath, then said, “Yes. At first, people from nearby counties came out of curiosity. But they heard that they couldn’t enter your house, many of them even cussed you out, boy.”

Chen Chao laughed it off.

He understood this perfectly: in this world, however many people like you, an equal number will dislike you. Sometimes even you can’t understand their reasons, but it doesn’t matter, they’ll always appear.

When you encounter them, don’t overthink it.

Third Master Hou said proudly, “But at that time, the neighbors from Peach Blossom Alley, along with myself, really did speak up for you.”

It wasn’t just a matter of speaking, it was a considerable line-up. The neighbors of Peach Blossom Alley nearly trapped the person scolding Chen Chao in the alley, not letting him leave. Spittle and saliva flew onto his face.

In the end, the county office came to rescue him. But the neighbors who lived around Peach Blossom Alley did not get a single word of scolding.

No one knew whether that young martial artist, who had long since become the most powerful official of the Great Liang Dynasty, was the sort of person who cherished old ties. If what happened later were to spread, and happened to reach that military official’s ears, what the outcome would be was actually hard to say.

Chen Chao laughed and said, “Why waste words? Next time you can just act directly.”

Third Master Hou muttered, “How could that be? We’re already afraid that even arguing with people might damage your reputation. If you were to resort to force, it would give others grounds to talk. How would you still serve as an official in the Divine Capital then?”

That young military official who had walked out of Peach Blossom Alley was not the scion of any single household. Precisely because of that, everyone regarded him as their own junior, fearing that if they did something wrong, he might be implicated because of them.

Chen Chao left the cotton shop and arrived at the mouth of Peach Blossom Alley, glancing inside. Not far away, the street vendors were still doing their best to hawk their wares, but their voices were no longer as full of vigor as they had been back in the day.

Times had changed. The years were like fallen blossoms and flowing water - they seemed slow to the eye, yet in truth never ceased.

Chen Chao walked along the bluestone slabs of Peach Blossom Alley, silent. Back then, when he left Wei Prefecture and later returned to Wei Prefecture, he had not gone back to his old place, feeling that it was not truly his home. Since he no longer had a home, it made no difference where he went.

Yet he had never expected that after spending several years in Peach Blossom Alley, he would genuinely come to regard this place as his home.

Was his hometown the Divine Capital, or was it here? Chen Chao had wrestled with that question for a long time, but in the end he felt it was no longer something to dwell on. Wherever the heart finds peace, there lies one’s hometown.

The principle was simple and needed no further words.

After that, Chen Chao arrived before that residence. As expected, it was locked. Just from looking at it from outside, one could tell that even the walls had been repainted.

Chen Chao felt a bit helpless. He stepped forward, pushed the door open, and the lock fell to the ground.

Entering the courtyard, the repairs inside were simple. A few blue tiles had been replaced. The wooden pillars beneath the eaves had flaking paint, still looking the same as when he had left. Chen Chao smiled, somewhat satisfied.

When he had been bored in the past, he often liked to scrape at the paint there. If the paint on the pillars were now intact, he would instead feel uncomfortable.

He sat under the eaves for a while. Footsteps sounded outside, then stopped. Chen Chao looked toward the gate, yet no one came in.

Several minutes later, Chen Chao rose and went to the doorway. Outside was a narrow alley, packed with people. At the very front were naturally the neighbors of Peach Blossom Alley. Behind them was the local warden, a young man, not very old and not very tall-looking.

Further back was a group of people - all constables from the county office.

Every pair of eyes was burning with anticipation.

This young military official, who had quietly returned to his hometown, said softly, “The courtyard is too small. With so many guests, not everyone can come in.”

......

......

A figure in black robes left Tianqing County, then left Wei Prefecture as well. But instead of returning to the Divine Capital, took a roundabout route to somewhere else.

This was not the first time Chen Chao had traveled the world. Ever since leaving Wei Prefecture for the Divine Capital, he had hardly stayed peacefully in the Divine Capital for long. Over these years of coming and going, stopping and moving on, nearly the entire Great Liang bore traces of him.

Deliberately skirting around the Divine Capital, Chen Chao headed in the direction of Ying Prefecture. When passing through a place called Changban Commandery, he heard a very interesting local story.

It was said that during the previous dynasty, Changban Commandery produced one or two top scholars in the imperial examinations almost every year, without interruption. As time went on, this meant that in the court of the previous dynasty, there were in fact quite a few officials who hailed from Changban Commandery.

At the time, the so-called Changban faction was spread throughout both court and countryside, its momentum vast. Yet it was also because of this that when the previous dynasty fell, the Changban faction was regarded as the chief culprit. After all, despite holding overwhelming power in court and government, they had failed to fulfill their ability to govern the state or their responsibility to remonstrate with the ruler.

Perhaps for this reason, after the establishment of the Great Liang Dynasty, the scholars of Changban Commandery never again achieved high success in the imperial examinations year after year. This was not because Great Liang deliberately targeted them, but rather as if, in the unseen workings of fate, there was some force blocking these scholars from attaining success again.

In truth, if a qi refiner of profound cultivation were to come here, they would probably see clearly that between heaven and earth, the strand of literary fortune belonging to Changban Commandery was so thin as to be almost invisible.

In fact, this phenomenon was easy to explain even for an old farmer. It was like a fertile field that had enjoyed great harvests for many consecutive years, only to produce nothing in some later year. This was entirely within reason.

By their way of speaking, the land needed to be allowed to rest.

Changban Commandery was like such a field. In the past, so many seeds of learning had been sown here, all of them flowering and bearing fruit. But it could not possibly go on like that forever.

As for how long Changban Commandery’s state of barrenness would last, no one could say for sure, whether it would endure for the entirety of the Great Liang Dynasty as a period of recuperation, or whether one day it would suddenly burst back into vitality.

But in any case, over these more than two hundred years, the spirit and resolve of Changban Commandery’s scholars had long since been worn away. Starting more than a hundred years ago, scholarly families with lineages stretching back several centuries gradually began to relocate with their entire households, leaving this place behind.

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