Teachers and Students of Dragonbend

When Ma Pingshan set out, the dew on the grass was still there. By the roadside stood a collapsed thatched shack. He glanced at it and kept walking. After three steps, he stopped, turned back, and pulled an iron rod and a length of hemp rope from his bundle. Maybe it reminded him of the way his father used to mend the window in the east room. The crying of those children never stopped, but in his memory the sunlight slanted in, and his father's back looked broad and warm. By the time he had propped the posts back up, an old man was bowing to him in thanks. The moment he heard Ma Pingshan was headed for Dragonbend Academy, he started praising its disciples, saying what good people they were, what good people they were. Ma Pingshan tightened his hold on the bundle at his side and turned away without a word. He was no disciple of Dragonbend. He had brought all this with him for one reason: to kill Crane. First, use the rope to choke him senseless. Then use the iron rod to finish him off. Compared with the debt of a murdered father, that was mercy enough. Now both items had been left behind here, so he would use his fists instead. That might be even better. By the time he was halfway there, the sun was high overhead. Sweat ran from his temples to the corner of his mouth. It tasted salty. It made him think of those children's tears. His father had always said, "Don't go near them. You're not the same as they are. They don't have fathers or mothers. Once I help them find their parents, they won't cry anymore." His father had been good at finding people. It never took him long to track down a child's parents. And every time he sent one child away, Ma Pingshan got a piece of candy. "Reunion tastes like this," his father used to say. Even with crying all around him, he really had once had a sweet childhood. How could Crane dare call a father like that an evil man? It was Crane who had made him just like those children. Crane had taken his father and his childhood from him, and left him only a few things: a few Mohist texts, a martial manual, a pair of foster parents, countless nights jolting awake from dreams... and a heart bent on revenge. Why was the bridge ahead broken? Powder from the snapped mortise joint sifted down. Ma Pingshan opened his bundle and took out the book of mechanical diagrams that man had left behind all those years ago. He flipped to the third page. Bridge repair. Before long, the bridge was fixed. He stepped on it to test it. Solid. But he left the book where it was. That way, no one could say he had accepted a favor from a villain. Mist rose from the mountain ravine. By then it was deep into the night. Ma Pingshan's breathing grew heavy, and not because he was tired. The situation in front of him was urgent. A woodcutter had been pinned under a rock so heavy he could not move, and he was already unconscious. If no one saved him now, he would die. What rotten luck. Ma Pingshan crouched down and spread open his bundle. Only one thing was left inside now: a set of sleeve arrows. Moving the rock would need a lever. Setting the bone would need splints. He had learned both. So he took apart even the arrow case, split it in two, and used the pieces as splints. As he tied them in place, he noticed the calluses on the woodcutter's hands, and suddenly remembered things he had never paid attention to before. His father had had calluses like these too. But his father was a teacher. That was why there had always been so many pitiful children in their home. Then how could a teacher's hands have the calluses of someone who gripped a blade? No... that couldn't be right... All those children who came and went were only there because they had nowhere else to go... His father was not a kidnapper. He was not a child trafficker. The gossip of old neighbors started clamoring in his head again, almost loud enough to drown out the mountain wind. But whether those children ever stopped crying after they were taken away, he truly did not know. By the time the woodcutter began to come to, Ma Pingshan rose to his feet. At that moment, he had nothing left. The mist had started to thin. Looking up, he saw Dragonbend Academy not far ahead. In his heart, he had walked this road of revenge over and over again for ten years. Ma Pingshan gave the road behind him one last look. The mountain path twisted through the thin mist like a scar, one that seemed to be trying to heal even as it pulled itself open again. A line from a book suddenly came back to him: "In this world, black and white are not judged by what the eye sees, but by what the heart knows." He turned back and walked on.

There was once a night when even Dragonbend Academy, usually lit from end to end, fell completely dark. That day, wind and rain lashed at the mountains, and the lanterns under the eaves went out one after another. Winter was close, so night came early. The mountain dark was deep to begin with, and if Dragonbend Academy lost its light as well, anyone passing by would have little company but fear. After talking it over, the disciples decided to keep one lamp burning through the night, taking turns to watch it. It was for their teacher, who had been gone for days and still had not returned. It was also for any passerby who might, or might not, be out there in the storm. As for the order of the watch, well, for a group that argued as often as they did, drawing lots was the only fair way to settle it. The bamboo tube shook with a rattling clatter. In the storm, it almost sounded musical. At first watch, Liu Sinong came. His hand was steady as he poured in more oil, the thin stream falling clean and true, and soon the lamp was glowing again. The rain was coming down in sheets. He watched it for a while, then took a small rough cloth bundle from inside his robe. He did not take that bundle out lightly. He had carried it close to his heart for years. Inside was earth from the graves of his wife and child. And yet tonight, with the wind and rain all around him, he held it firmly in both hands. He had remembered how much Miao used to love the rain. There was no one else around at this hour, so he let himself pretend they were still there with him, the three of them listening to the rain together. At second watch, Luo Chengwu came. The rain had eased a little by then. Before he entered the academy, he would still have been awake at an hour like this, probably somewhere amid raised cups and noisy music. His friends outside had treated him well enough. They always said the things he liked to hear. It was nothing like this place, where everyone had a temper, especially Qin Yuan. The two of them could barely get through a conversation without annoying each other. Funny. Why think of him now? Luo Chengwu topped up the oil and leaned by the window. Listening to the rain pattering down, he somehow began to hear a trace of music in it. Life at the academy, he thought, was not worse than what he had before. At third watch, the storm was at its worst. A pair of rough, scarred hands with prominent knuckles steadied the lamp as the wind shook it hard. Liu Xiaomei had arrived. She liked those hands of hers quite a bit. Back when she was with the horse bandits, she had used them to slap who knew how many people just to stay alive. Of course, she knew when to hold back. For the truly rotten ones, she never did. For decent people, it was enough just to raise her hand and make a show of it. After coming to the academy, those same hands took just as neatly to carving stone steles. People said the third watch was when demons and monsters liked to come out. But with Liu Xiaomei there, what demon would dare show its face? At fourth watch, the rain had grown lighter, but the cold had sunk clear into the bone. Qin Yuan came wrapped in a thin quilt. He added oil with extreme care, as though wasting even one drop would be a sin. The flame filled out again, casting a small pool of warm yellow light. Only then did he take out a book with worn, frayed corners and lower his head to read by it. Cold was nothing. Since his family had fallen on hard times, he had known far worse than this. To have made it into Dragonbend Academy was already the greatest stroke of luck in his life. Qin Yuan hunched his shoulders and edged a little closer to the light. At fifth watch, Tang Wenyao came. The darkest stretch of the night, the hardest one to keep, naturally ought to fall to the senior brother. So when they drew lots, he had quietly tampered with things a little. Harmless enough, surely. He was the senior brother, and yet he always felt he had come here too late. Many times he had thought how good it would have been if he had arrived sooner. Outside, the rain seemed to hear what was in his heart. All at once it softened, turning into something almost like a whisper of comfort. You are not too late. There is still a long road ahead. By the time the east began to whiten, the wind and rain were gone. Someone came walking along the mountain path with a yawn, his fishing rod still wet. He looked up toward the academy not far ahead. There was still one warm light burning there, so small, and so steady. He felt the world around him waking. And in that instant, every sunrise he had ever seen, every grand sight he had ever known out in the jianghu, seemed to pale beside that one small light before him. Beautiful.