Chapter 3: Heaven's Bestowed Investiture

Just past the small hours, Li Yuan opened his eyes; faint light seeped through the paper-latticed window.

On the eight-person communal bunk, only seven people remained at this moment.

"Niu Gui, up this early?"

Early autumn already carried a chill; Li Yuan was used to sleeping in his clothes. Slipping on his rush sandals, he went straight to the door.

Dawn was near, the four great moons all gone. In the thin light, Niu Gui stood practicing the White Ape Stake, drenched in sweat despite the autumn chill.

"This kid really goes at it!"

Li Yuan rubbed his wrist, feeling every part of him—shoulders, arms, wrists, waist, legs—aching.

That was because yesterday's exertion far exceeded the usual; and Niu Gui, he recalled, had still been practicing when he fell asleep last night.

And now up at the crack of dawn again?

Not afraid of wrecking himself?

Li Yuan clicked his tongue inwardly but said nothing. Once Fatty Sun was up, he let him know, then stepped out of the central courtyard.

……

The Weapon-Forge occupied a sizable stretch of the outer city. Beyond the central courtyard lay several storehouses piled with iron stock and charcoal.

Further ahead was an open ground of packed yellow clay—the usual place where the master smiths and guards hardened their bodies.

Past that open ground stretched a row of connected smithing rooms, their furnaces burning day and night, smoke and fire never clearing.

Li Yuan glanced around a few times, but beyond the clanging, he saw nothing. He was still quite curious about smithing.

Yet even after more than a month as an apprentice, his impression of smithing was still stuck on the "Forging Blade Competition" from his previous life.

The odd-jobs room was right beside it.

Li Yuan waited a short while, then went up to Steward Lin, who ambled over unhurriedly, to draw his monthly pay and a day's leave.

Though the ritual in the half-scroll Daoist scripture was crude, it still required a few things.

"Be back before sunset. A night out counts as two days' leave!"

Steward Lin, with his two thin tufts of mustache, called out behind him.

"…Mm!"

Face dark, he tucked thirty copper coins into his shirt. More than a month after arriving in this world, Li Yuan stepped through the great gate of the Weapon-Forge for the first time.

"Now this is an 'old city.'"

Washbasin-sized bluestone slabs paved the street, stretching in both directions, separating the rows of shops, taverns, and inns on either side.

Gao Liu County had an inner and outer city, eight main streets dividing it into sixteen districts. The Weapon-Forge's district, "Rongsheng District," was the liveliest in the outer city.

Looking left and right, he saw houses in neat rows; amid the cries of various street vendors, pedestrians in all manner of dress seemed to stretch on without end.

A real old city—no endless stream of Young Ladies and Young Masters, just common folk bustling over firewood, rice, oil, and salt.

Clang, clang~

Patrolling government office Runners struck bronze gongs, and crowds parted wherever they passed.

One tall government office Runner with a mole at the corner of his eye held up a portrait and shouted:

"This is the lone bandit Nian Jiu! Anyone who spots his trail earns five taels of silver; anyone who captures him, fifty taels! Those who conceal information, once discovered, will be charged as accomplices!"

"Fifty taels?!"

Many in the crowd sucked in cold breaths, craning their necks to look.

As the government office Runners passed, Li Yuan glanced at the fierce bandit in the portrait, paid it no mind, and lowered his head to mull over his own affairs.

"The 'Investiture Ritual' recorded in the half-scroll Daoist scripture requires the five sacrificial beasts. In my past life I used the meat of the five beasts; now…"

At the butcher's stall, the lad chopping meat with his cleaver called out the price before Li Yuan could ask:

"Pork is twenty-eight copper coins a catty…"

Li Yuan glanced at the wooden sign inside the stall and couldn't stop his eyelid from twitching.

He'd long expected that his household could only afford one catty of pork a month—after all, apprentices at other shops wouldn't even see a single copper coin in three years.

"Brother, do you have pig's blood?"

"Pig's blood? If you want it, eight copper coins for a catty…"

"Pig's blood is that expensive too?"

Li Yuan felt the pinch—after all, he had only thirty copper coins in total.

"How much blood does one pig have? Eight copper coins and you call it expensive? Get lost, get lost—what're you causing trouble for if you've no money?"

"How about a bit cheaper…"

After some haggling, Li Yuan bought half a catty of pork, and half a catty each of pig's blood, sheep's blood, chicken's blood, and dog's blood—leaving him with only four copper coins.

"Meat of the five beasts works; blood of the five beasts should work too, right? After all, in ancient times in my past life, many sacrifices used blood offerings…"

Threading through the crowd, Li Yuan felt a weight in his heart.

He worried both whether the blood would do, and whether the ritual truly worked.

……

"Still missing beef… The imperial court decrees: cattle-slaughterers receive one hundred strokes, a year and a half imprisonment, and exile a thousand li…"

More than a shichen later, having combed the entire Rongsheng Street, Li Yuan couldn't find so much as a single cow hair, and had to give up in resignation.

"I recall that elk, deer, sika deer, wolf, and rabbit also count as the five beasts in another version?"

Not until the sun was high did Li Yuan find a place selling wild hares. He waited more than a shichen, then, when someone slaughtered a rabbit, spent his last four copper coins on barely two taels of blood.

"Now I'm flat broke!"

Carrying a few jars and pots and half a catty of pork out of Rongsheng Street, Li Yuan could barely contain himself.

But he naturally couldn't perform the ritual in the street. Suppressing his excitement, he threaded through alley after alley and street after street, arriving at a more remote district.

Chai Yu Ward was unlike Rongsheng District—named for its many sellers of firewood and fish. From afar, Li Yuan heard someone cry out in alarm.

"That kid from the Liang family caught a spirit fish, a 'Horn Pomfret,' in 'Emerald Water Lake'!"

"Liang Liang Ashui? That kid has that kind of skill? Didn't Liu Laidi seize all his boats?"

"A spirit fish! It's been at least a year or two since anyone heard of someone catching one, right?"

At a startled cry, nearly everyone nearby crowded around the young man in the distance carrying a fish basket.

"A spirit fish?"

Li Yuan paused slightly, and only from the chatter of the people nearby did he learn what it was.

Gao Liu County is nestled against mountains and water—the mountain is Mount Fajiu Mountain, the water is Emerald Water Lake—and the city's Firewood Gang and Fishery Gang were founded because of this.

And the so-called spirit fish, by all accounts, is a great tonic; catching one is enough to feed an ordinary household for two or three years.

"Everyone!"

The young man, sturdy of build, with a slightly dark complexion, fixed the crowd that had pressed in with a sharp, piercing gaze:

"This 'Horn Pomfret' of mine weighs twelve catties. If you can't afford it, don't come crowding over!"

"A twelve-catty Horn Pomfret?!"

The crowd buzzed even louder, but most stopped in their tracks; only a few whose clothing suggested they were no ordinary folk walked over.

"Those seem to be people from the Firewood Gang and the Fishery Gang?"

Li Yuan glanced over a few times. Though curious about the so-called spirit fish, he had no mind to join the spectacle.

Just as he was walking away briskly, he heard someone behind him seemingly bid 'twelve taels of silver'…

"Thirty wen a month, three years as an apprentice for just one tael of silver, a fish that costs twelve taels…"

Li Yuan clicked his tongue, but he didn't stop, walking briskly through several streets until he came to a small alley.

The alley had about ten households; the somewhat well-kept two-story courtyard at the alley's mouth was his home in this life.

Of course, three households lived in the small courtyard; his home—or rather, his second brother's home—was only one of them.

"Third Brother? Y-you're back?"

Before Li Yuan could knock, the courtyard gate opened. A man, not quite seven chi, his face bearing the marks of wind and hardship, came out excitedly yet guiltily, grabbing his hand.

"Second Brother…"

Li Yuan opened his mouth, not knowing what to say, and let the man pull him inside.

The predecessor's memories surged up in his heart.

The once-poor Li family had, in earlier years, been a middling household in the Firewood and Fishery Quarter. Three generations of diligent work had scraped together a modest foundation; the family had fields and boats, and life was not bad.

But a family takes three generations to build and a moment to ruin. His cheap old man had somehow taken to gambling, and in half a year had squandered everything. After angering the old patriarch to death, he himself fell ill and died in bed.

He left behind only three brothers to depend on each other. Not many years later, the eldest, Li Yue, went missing—and it was second brother Li Lin who single-handedly raised him…

"You haven't eaten yet, right? Rest a while. Second Brother will go make you food. Your sister-in-law has gone out to work…"

Li Lin rubbed his eye sockets and hurried out of the room. In the small room, Li Yuan sighed softly.

Joining the Weapon-Forge Shop had been the predecessor's own idea; his second brother, nearly thirty and now married, couldn't very well keep living with his brother.

After that, second brother Li Lin had carried guilt in his heart, always feeling he had let down his brother, and their parents.

But for a poor family, sending him into the Weapon-Forge Shop was already an excellent path out…

"Hah!"

Digesting the surging emotions in his heart, Li Yuan walked out the door, turned a few steps, and ducked into the back yard piled with sundries, firewood, and charcoal.

"The Four Directions and Five Sacrifices…"

Li Yuan muttered to himself. Last night he had performed the 'Investiture Ceremony' countless times in his dream—very familiar, yet still unbearably tense.

It was like a person about to drown, clinging to the last straw.

Centering on himself, Li Yuan sprinkled the blood of the five sacrifices according to the ceremony's positions, until the smell of blood filled his nose and mouth.

Only then did he take a deep breath, bow, and recite aloud and in his heart at the same time:

"Disciple Li Yuan, having read a hundred scriptures and gained wisdom, strictly keeping the precepts to clarify the heart, harboring the thought of saving the people of the world, wishes to transmit the classics for the sages of old…"

"…"

"Disciple Li Yuan, beseeching the heavens to bestow the register!"

(End of this chapter)