Kezhou

At the far eastern reaches of Atlasia lies the land of Huaxu, a region shaped by its own customs and governed by a legal doctrine known as the Nine Chapters of Dafeng. Its judicial order operates with uncompromising precision: violators of the code are pursued by enforcer-beasts known as Bi'an, or by the Magistrates of Yingtian, an elite corps of enforcers. Unarmed civilians stand no chance against them, and even trained martial adepts rarely survive an encounter. As a result, open violence within Huaxu is exceedingly rare.

Even so, a small number of individuals continue to reject the Nine Chapters of Dafeng entirely. Some refuse imprisonment; others are driven by inborn defiance; and a few simply cannot accept a life bound to imposed order. They live without fixed settlement, travelling from region to region with no allegiance but their own. They are known collectively as Drifters, a dwindling presence in a system that shows little tolerance for those who exist beyond its design.

Kezhou is one of them.

Kezhou is adept with all manner of weapons, yet the one he treasures most is a light wooden sword. Its blade is wrapped in silver foil, so to anyone unaware of the truth it looks like a cold, gleaming iron sword, every inch the real thing. In truth, it is only a practice blade, the kind given to beginners.

Kezhou had a father. That was unusual.

By "unusual", it wasn't that Kezhou had popped out of a rock like some monkey in the legend, nor that he was a demon lord slipping free of an ancient seal. It simply meant that, in the memories he carried, his father actually existed.

And that in itself was a rarity among Drifters, whose stories usually start with dead parents, a fall from a cliff, and years of secluded training in some peerless martial art they somehow "accidentally mastered".

In Kezhou's earliest memories, his father was much like any gentle, bookish fellow, patiently teaching him to read and write, day after day. Their household differed little from those of ordinary families across Huaxu. With a bit of luck, such a man might even have become a minor officer someday.

That impression was shattered after one particular lesson.

"That bright one in the sky is the sun. Its character is written like this: Ri. At night, the dimmer one comes out, that's the moon."

"I'm not stupid, Dad. You've told me that loads of times. Of course I know what the sun and moon are. And I know the sun's a giant ball of fire, and there's a moon rabbit grinding up herbs up there!"

"All right, all right, my boy really is sharp. You know the sun and the moon are the most important things in the world. But there's one more thing, you can't see it, you can't touch it, and it's almost as important as the sun and moon. If you can tell me what it is, I'll give you a piece of osmanthus cake before bed."

"I want the cake first! I'll answer afterwards!"

"It's wrong to expect something for nothing. Answer it correctly, and you'll have your cake."

"Fine, I'll answer. It's the wind, Dafeng. You can't see it or touch it, but we all have to live by the Nine Chapters of Dafeng."

"That's right. Now, if you want a second piece of osmanthus cake, let's recite the Nine Chapters a few more times today and try to remember at least half, shall we?"

"No way. Dad, I don't think you're raising a son, you're training a mill donkey. Wave a carrot in front of its nose and it'll walk in circles for you. Sure, I like osmanthus cake now, so I'll play along. But what about when I get sick of cake, start yelling that I don't want to read anymore and want to learn martial arts instead? I'd like to see how you handle that."

"Ha! Don't you worry, my boy. Your old man has more tricks up his sleeve than you know."

With that, Kezhou watched his father head out to the woodshed and pull a sword from behind the stack of firewood, gripping it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Before Kezhou could even ask why such an item existed in their house, a flash of silver swept before his eyes. His father burst into motion, brandishing the sword with movements as smooth as flowing water, each sweep stirring up a faint breeze. The display was so unexpectedly graceful that Kezhou could only stare, slack-jawed, before finally blurting out:

"I'm eight already. Eight years! How did you never tell me you could do that?"

"There's a great deal you don't know about me." His father beamed, clearly delighted by his son's astonishment. "Once you've learnt the Nine Chapters of Dafeng by heart, I'll teach you a move or two."

But that plan collapsed the very next day. Kezhou returned to being the same unruly boy as always, nodding off over his books and bursting with energy the moment it was time to play. The promise of learning swordplay from his father had already slipped far into the back of his mind.

It was not until many years later, after Kezhou had mastered all manner of swordplay himself and tried to trace his father's style to some school, that he realised the truth: those wild, flailing poses had been riddled with flaws and belonged to no school at all, most likely nothing more than a trick to coax his son into studying.

But something didn't add up. If his old man had truly known nothing of swordplay and had only been flapping about, how had he swung that sword so easily?

So Kezhou returned to Jiaolan Village for the first time in a long while. After losing his father, and then his mother years later, this was the first time he had returned to the place he once called home. He went straight to the woodshed, which now felt low and cramped to someone who had grown so much taller. After searching for a while, he finally found the sword.

It was far lighter than he remembered, giving off a faint rattle in his hand. The bright, metallic blade he recalled had been nothing more than a layer of silver foil, now dulled and peeling with age. Beneath the split foil lay a blade made of peach wood.

Kezhou could only let out a silent laugh. For a time, he had genuinely suspected that his father might be some hidden swordmaster living under an assumed name, and had even regretted not begging for instruction while the man still lived. It had never occurred to him that the entire display had been an act.

Perhaps, in secret, his father had envied the Drifters and their unbound lives, and had made this wooden sword for himself to swing when no one was watching. Or perhaps it had simply been the toy he once played with as a child.

Whatever the truth, Kezhou would never know. What he did understand was that his father had been completely ordinary, not a fighter or a hero, just a man who nagged his son to study and still found the courage to step in when others needed help.

Kezhou stepped out of the woodshed. The moonlight outside was clear and bright, washing the courtyard in a pale, familiar glow. As he looked up at that distant disc, memories of his childhood rose unbidden again. He could no longer recall whether the moon back then had been waxing or waning, only that it had been a half-moon, and that his father's face in its light had been hazy, soft around the edges, growing ever fainter in his memory as the years slipped by.

For the most part, Drifters have no fixed residence. So long as the Nine Chapters of Dafeng stand, they must live with the Bi'an forever at their backs. Yet there is one hidden refuge they can call their own, the Outer Peaks. Whenever they grow weary, or simply tired of killing, they can slip away there and vanish for a time.

Kezhou spends even more time on the road than most Drifters. Some even joke that he is a Magistrate of Yingtian among the Drifters, forever rushing about with barely a moment's rest.

The people of Huaxu he meets on his travels respond to him in wildly different ways. Their attitude toward him resembles their views on certain pungent foods: those who like him absolutely love him; those who don't can't even stand the sight of him. There is never a middle ground.

Those who treat Kezhou with warmth are usually people who have once benefited from a Drifter's help, rescued from danger, whether intentionally or by pure accident. Such people understand that Drifters are not villains at all.

More often, though, as the only one travelling with a weapon in hand, Kezhou is met with cold, wary stares. He only smiles and takes no offence. He knows that people who wear their feelings so bluntly often take kindness to heart once they have been helped.

People are always like this, they measure the world by what they already know and what they have grown used to. Kezhou dislikes this fact, but there is little he can change. So he decides that, if the day ever comes when those old prejudices and neat little boxes can finally be smashed, he will be the first to swing.

When the forebears of Huaxu first devised the Nine Chapters of Dafeng, they believed them flawless: complete, immaculate, and capable of lasting unchanged for all ages.

Yet nothing in this world is truly without flaw. The rise of the Drifters, for instance, had clearly never been part of their plan.

According to the original design, anyone who took up violence without permission was to be shunned and despised. In practice, however, the opposite occurred: the Drifters carved out a long-standing presence in Huaxu's history.

Some people began quoting an old line from the classics..."The righteous draw their blades, even if it means bending a few rules." And soon enough, all these hotheaded lawbreakers were lumped together as "the free-roving outlaws".

At first, folk avoided these outlaws who lived beyond the reach of the Nine Chapters of Dafeng, bold enough to stand against the Bi'an and the Magistrates of Yingtian. People feared that one wrong word might earn them a sword to the midriff. Yet among the Drifters were those who couldn't stomach the bullying of the innocent, and they turned their blades on the vicious thugs who preyed on the weak.

Thus, even beneath the watchful order of the Nine Chapters, undercurrents and feuds began to stir. And as blades crossed time and again, it was those quick to act for the common good and fierce in their hatred of injustice who began to outnumber the common ruffians.

Beyond the sight of the Nine Chapters, these righteous wanderers cut down those who twisted the law for personal gain, who trampled others' rights for their own benefit. Cold steel was their answer to such scoundrels.

Today, while most folk still frown at the mention of Drifters or "free-roving outlaws", these free-spirited wanderers have long grown used to drifting through the martial world, drawing their blades wherever they find injustice. To them, it is a life as carefree as one could hope for.

Yan Shanting was drunk again. Ever since he had passed fifty, that had become his usual state.

"Youngsters these days, their talent just isn't what it used to be. Each lot is worse than the last!" He thought darkly, punctuating the thought with a burp reeking of fiery liquor. He knew full well it had been this way for a long time.

To most people in Huaxu, Drifters were little more than a noisy rabble of hotheaded youths and stubborn old men too ossified to straighten out, hardly a path anyone would call respectable. Youngsters with any real gift for martial arts were rare indeed. As a result, Drifters these days were no longer constantly on the brink of trading blows with each other. Far more often, they were busy flattering one another, keeping things amiable within their own ranks. Because of that, Yan Shanting often had no choice but to attend one master's celebratory feast or another, held in honour of whatever new disciple they had just taken in. There he would smile, drink, and make a fine show of courtesy, so that the bright-eyed novices would feel honoured, convinced they had chosen the right shifu and that the life of a Drifter was a respectable road after all. As for the disciple's aptitude... securing one at all was fortune enough, few had the luxury of being choosy.

So although Yan Shanting's own disciple kept urging him to drink less for the sake of his health, there was no persuading him. Ever since he had made a name for himself among the Drifters and earned the nickname "Master of Thousand Peaks", his old friends and rivals alike seemed to reach a silent agreement: they all became unfailingly courteous. Sparring matches turned into polite exchanges, and with compliments ringing in his ears, he would sit through yet another feast and stagger away thoroughly drunk.

"Flowers bloom and fall, year after year. Young blades set out into the world and grow old on its roads. When I grow truly old, what face this martial world will be wearing by then?"

Maybe it was the greasy roast goose from today's feast, or the sliced fish that hadn't been cooked quite long enough to lose its smell. Either way, Yan Shanting had barely finished his wistful remark when his stomach lurched, a hot, sour tide rising in his throat, and he promptly emptied the whole feast onto a heap of dead leaves along the mountain path.

For all his famed agility and effortless elegance in the martial world, Yan Shanting was no different from a farmhand when it came to throwing up, hardly a refined sight, and certainly not a pleasant smell. Before he had even finished retching, a figure burst out of the heap of leaves, flipped once in mid-air, shook the filth from their clothes, and brought a sword flashing down.

Yan Shanting jolted in shock, but with his stomach still heaving he had no strength to fight and could only stumble aside. Even so, the sword's edge grazed his sleeve and sliced a strip from his robe.

His black-clad disciple gasped and leapt between them, spear in hand, setting the shaft crosswise before his shifu.

"Who are you? Why were you hiding in there to ambush my shifu?" he snapped.

The figure from the leaves sounded utterly unconcerned. "I'm not fighting you, you didn't do anything to me. That old fellow threw up on me. I'm fighting him."

The disciple frowned, taking a closer look. The intruder was a boy of twelve or thirteen, about the same age as himself, hair a tangled mess, clothes filthy, clearly used to living rough and with no manners to speak of. So he snapped again, "Don't you disrespect my shifu!"

By now Yan Shanting had finally caught his breath. He held his disciple back and said to the boy, "I dirtied your clothes. That was my fault. I apologise."

The boy showed no hesitation at all. "So you do know your manners. Good. Now then, for your apology, what are you going to give me to make up for it?"

Smiling, Yan Shanting replied, "You've got some skill yourself. How about I teach you a few sword moves?"

The boy remained unimpressed. "Your skills aren't that great. I cut your clothes to shreds without even trying. I don't want to learn from you."

Yan Shanting was left speechless. His disciple, however, had heard enough. Spinning his spear in a sharp flourish, he drove off the ground and shot forward like a streak of black-violet lightning.

The boy laughed and stepped back without the slightest hurry. The spear tip came close enough to punch a hole clean through him, only to miss by a hair as he knocked it aside with his sword, leaving the disciple's middle completely open. Even so, the disciple didn't panic. He flowed with the momentum, sweeping the spear's shaft up to guard himself. The boy's blade crashed against it in a spray of sparks, and the strike slid harmlessly aside.

He hadn't expected it to be a feint. As he gave ground, the boy had already backed against a rock wall. In one smooth motion he ran up the stone and vaulted clean over the black-clad disciple, sword driving straight for Yan Shanting.

Admiration flickered in Yan Shanting's eyes, but he dared not be careless. He drew his own sword and sprang forward to meet the thrust head-on, the only correct way to counter that technique. Step left, right, or back, and the follow-up would skewer him. That was why the move was called the Chain of Three Perils.

Seeing Yan Shanting counter so cleanly, the boy gave a small sound of surprise, pulled his blade back in mid-air, and dropped to the ground in a steady landing.

Yan Shanting asked, "Not bad at all, boy. Who's your shifu?"

The boy sounded impatient. "I just copied the monkeys in the hills. If you really must know, then the monkey king with the reddest bottom up there is my shifu."

Yan Shanting was speechless once more, while his disciple Yuming looked ready to give this impudent brat another lesson.

Yan Shanting, however, took no offence. He simply put his easy smile back on. "You're a sharp one, lad. How about becoming my disciple?"

"No. I told you, your skills just aren't that good." With that, Kezhou scooped up his sword and turned to leave.

Yan Shanting remained perfectly calm. "We just fought to a draw, didn't we? How about a wager? A few more rounds, as many as you like. If you can land a hit on me, I'll even let you be my shifu."

At that, Kezhou finally turned back, eyeing the grinning old man with open suspicion, then agreed to the wager.

Later, looking back, Kezhou would feel he had been thoroughly tricked by Yan Shanting that day. But at the time, he had no inkling of what the future held.

Most Drifters rather enjoy being called outlaws. It was never quite meant as praise, but the word carries a certain swagger. Before long, people had broken it down into all manner of types: by weapon, there were sword-outlaws, spear-outlaws, blade-outlaws; by appearance, boy outlaws, lady outlaws, one-armed outlaws; and by temperament, drunken outlaws, scholar outlaws, and countless others besides.

In short, folk love sorting Drifters by their quirks or schools and pinning some sort of "this-or-that outlaw" label on them.

For a time, Kezhou too was known as a sword-outlaw or a boy outlaw, but those names faded soon enough.

He may excel with the sword, yet he handles almost any weapon with the same sure hand.

He's long past the age where anyone could call him a boy, though his nature remains bold, forthright, and big-hearted, plenty of straightforwardness with just enough simple-minded naivety mixed in.

And so, over time, people settled on the simplest and most fitting title: Master Kezhou.

It is said that in his youth, Yan Shanting, the "Master of Thousand Peaks" and three other masters together made up the group known as the Four Drifters. Over the years, Yan Shanting took on three disciples: his first, Yuming; his second, Kezhou; and a third, a girl who, for reasons no one quite knows, died young.

Some have asked Kezhou about the details of that tale, but he is never keen to speak of it. Instead, he'll say that before he formally became his shifu's disciple, he spent an entire year half fighting and half bickering with the old man, a small reminder of how little Drifters care for propriety or rules. As for what truly befell that third, ill-fated disciple, those who come asking usually end up forgetting they ever asked.

Kezhou once longed dearly for the title of "drunken outlaw". There was a misty sort of flair to it that suited his age and temper perfectly. Faced with all manner of twists and turns, he would insist he didn't care, that he lived only for freedom and ease, yet in truth he could never quite make peace with old bonds and grudges. It was hardly a terrible flaw, few people live free of such burdens, but it did mean he wasn't entirely honest with himself.

Kezhou soon left that self-deception behind, and gave up practising the fist stances and sword forms he had invented for his imagined "drunken outlaw" self. Not because he had suddenly risen above it all in some moment of enlightenment, but because he gradually discovered he simply couldn't hold his drink. A few cups of rice wine would leave his shifu merely light-headed, his steps a touch unsteady. For Kezhou, however, they turned his wits to mush, whatever fight or fire he had in him melted away, and all he wanted was to curl up and sleep till dawn. Hardly the state for any "drunken outlaw" technique.

Poor tolerance for drink is no great misfortune for most people. But for Kezhou, who dreamed of becoming a drunken outlaw, it was nothing short of a heavy blow.

So for a while he kept drinking, hoping to find that perfect balance between drunkenness and clarity, only for every attempt to end in a long, dreamless sleep. His shifu even began to suspect that his prized disciple must have fallen helplessly in love.

In the end, after Kezhou had tasted every wine Huaxu had to offer, he finally gave in to the truth. His capacity for drink had not improved in the slightest, though many other worries had faded along the way. As his dream of becoming a drunken outlaw ebbed, his nature grew more easy-going and free-spirited. And as for the slights and troubles life threw at him, one good drink was enough to send them drifting away.

Kezhou has an extraordinary gift for martial arts: every kind of weapon answers his hand as naturally as if it were part of his own arm. Because of this, rumour has it that even a blade of grass or a twig turns lethal in his hand. Kezhou himself did try some rather unusual training methods, such as catching flying insects with his chopsticks at mealtimes to sharpen his fingers and his aim. He made a certain amount of progress, but his shifu and fellow disciples soon put a stop to it.

His shifu argued that chopsticks were only good for throwing as hidden weapons and were nowhere near as practical as a sword. His shixiong Yuming maintained that doing anything unrelated while eating was bad manners, and that mealtimes were for meals and nothing else. And his shimei Buxia absolutely forbade him from using chopsticks that had just caught a fly to touch the dishes again.

A pity, had he succeeded, the martial world might have gained a legendary new figure: the Chopstick Outlaw.

Though Kezhou has long since made his name in the martial world, he has never taken a disciple of his own. As he puts it, he's always roaming across Huaxu and has no wish to be tied down.

Yet he is never stingy with his guidance for any youngster who's keen on martial arts. Even if it's some nameless nobody asking for pointers, Kezhou will still walk them through every move with patience.

Once, after a few glasses of wine, a nosy fellow asked him why he wouldn't take disciples and yet was so willing to share what he knew.

He replied that he did not take disciples because he had seen what a truly remarkable, dedicated shifu could be, and knew he could never live up to that example.

Then he added that he shared what he knew because he had also met a downright wretched shifu who took great delight in teasing him, and he couldn't bear to see others taking needless detours in their training.

The nosy fellow was baffled. "How did you end up with both an excellent and a terrible shifu? Why not just follow the good one and stay away from the bad?"

Kezhou only smiled and said nothing more.

Kezhou didn't get on with his shifu at first, for reasons that hardly need saying. Young blood is like leaping flame or fresh bamboo shoots, always straining upwards, itching to break past the treetops and stab a hole in the sky. When that kind of momentum crashed headlong into Yan Shanting, Kezhou bristled in every way imaginable.

After striking that wager with Yan Shanting that whoever lost would have to call the other shifu, Kezhou followed him into the mountains. There, he announced, to no one but himself, that this scrawny old man was his fated enemy, the one he simply had to beat in this lifetime. He even swore that one day he'd lop off the old man's beard and tie it to his sword-hilt as a tassel.

Kezhou launched into his great scheme before Yuming, trying his best to drag him into a joint attack on Yan Shanting. Yuming merely smiled. Kezhou took that smile as praise for his grand plan. Yuming, for his part, only thought him noisy and ridiculous, like one of the hill monkeys.

From that spring onward, the sparrows outside Yan Shanting's thatched cottage were no longer the only ones making noise, there was the constant clang of metal as well. Those who didn't know better assumed the "Master of Thousand Peaks" must be hammering out swords and running a little forge on the side. A few even fancied that if his swordsmanship was that extraordinary, any blade he forged must be a treasure in its own right. Yet when they pushed through the bamboo grove and reached the cottage, all they ever saw were two figures: a young man, twin blades flashing as he circled a gaunt old figure who scarcely moved. On such a bright spring day, that little "duel" might have suggested a butterfly dancing around a flower... but the young man's strikes were far too fierce and deadly, enough to make one think of wasps instead. As for the gaunt figure in the centre, he was no flower either, but more like a weathered, gnarled old tree.

It goes without saying that the two figures, one all motion, the other barely stirring, were Kezhou and Yan Shanting. At times, Kezhou would close in, his twin blades whirling like a sudden gale, sharp enough that even drifting petals were cut clean into three. At other times he'd spring back, then hurl himself forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, as if trying to drive all the strength in his body into one decisive blow. Yan Shanting, however, never strayed beyond a patch of ground barely three feet across, merely turning and shifting his weight. When Kezhou's blades came in a flurry, he knew at a glance they carried more speed than power, and simply brushed them aside with his sword. And when Kezhou gathered himself for a full-force strike, Yan Shanting would read the path of the blow, and the one after it, and step neatly out of harm's way. Each day, there were always four or five moments when Kezhou felt he was no more than a hair's breadth from bringing Yan Shanting down. Yet that decisive strike was always just out of reach, close enough to glimpse, but never close enough to land. At dusk, Kezhou would stretch out on a smooth stone slab outside the cottage fence and sleep under the open sky, only to rise the next morning and begin the challenge anew.

As for why Kezhou set aside his sword and took up twin blades instead, the reason was simple. He might look a little simple-minded at times, but he was no fool. After crossing swords with Yan Shanting only a handful of times, he realised the old man was a master who kept his true edge well hidden. In pure swordsmanship, he was no match at all. His only chance was to switch to another weapon and try to gain the upper hand. His only worry was that if he struck too hard and actually felled the old man, that cold-faced disciple of his would come after him looking for payback.

In truth, he needn't have worried about that at all. By the time summer came, he was still no closer to laying a blade on Yan Shanting, even though he had grown far more skilled with the twin blades. Somehow, he was always just that little bit short.

Lying on the stone slab, he would replay every move of the day's bouts in his mind, only to have his thoughts scattered again and again by mosquitoes whining in his ears. In the end, he simply got up and set his blades moving, cutting the insects down one by one. The more mosquitoes he cut down, the more he sighed. If he was quick enough to slice a mosquito out of the air, then why couldn't he so much as graze that old man? The night was thick and inky, and in that darkness Kezhou seemed half mad, as if he bore some great grudge against the summer night itself.

At last, when his arms were sore and his strength spent, he let himself fall back onto the ground and stared up at the stars. The chirping of insects in the grass carried him back to a night from his childhood, a night when he and his father had sat together looking at the moon.

"Dad, which is farther away, that Hyperborea we read about, or the moon?"

"The moon, of course. We've heard of people coming from Hyperborea, but never from the moon."

Kezhou tilted his head and protested, "But when I look up I can see the moon, and I can't see Hyperborea at all. So it has to be farther away than the moon, right?"

His father burst out laughing, and told him that the moon really was farther. It was just so far away that, wherever you went, it always looked the same distance from you.

Kezhou had been utterly taken with his father's words, staring up at the moon without blinking and wondering whether, one day, he might meet someone from up there and ask what those strange patterns on its surface really meant. As he stared and stared, the patterns on the moon seemed to shift, slowly turning into Yan Shanting's old face...

"Blimey! That nearly scared me to death..." Kezhou gasped as he jolted awake, only then realising it had all been a dream. The sun was already up. Smoke curled from the thatched cottage in the distance, and the old man whose face had just appeared in his dream was standing there, watching him from afar with that same subtle smile. The sight made him itch to grab his twin blades and give the old man a couple more hacks.

But he knew perfectly well that even if he struck now, his blades would get no closer than that same inch from Yan Shanting's nose. That distance had nothing to do with him; it was entirely in the hands of that sly old fox. Just as, no matter how many mountains and rivers he crossed, the distance between him and the moon would never shrink by even a fraction.

The thought startled him for a moment, and then he burst out laughing. Until then, he had believed he could already glimpse the end of the path, that anyone whose swordplay surpassed his was simply faster, or just stronger in brute force. Now he realised that the peak he'd been aiming for was only one hill among many, and that there were always higher peaks beyond it.

At last, he made up his mind. He walked up to Yan Shanting and, in as respectful a tone as he could manage, said, "Shifu, please accept your disciple's bow."

Yan Shanting was taken aback for a moment, then broke into a smile.

Regrettably, it was not the warm, kindly smile of an old master welcoming a disciple he approved of, but the wicked grin of an incorrigible old rogue.

"Too late. I don't feel like taking you as a disciple now, not unless you master every weapon under heaven first."

With that, Yan Shanting picked up the seven-foot spear Yuming usually wielded and tossed it to Kezhou.

Kezhou froze for a heartbeat, then his temper flared. He caught the spear in one smooth motion and roared, "Take this, you old fox!" Then he leapt forward, thrusting straight at Yan Shanting's face.

Yan Shanting's smile didn't even waver. A mere inch from his face, he caught the oncoming spearhead between two fingers.

To any outsider, the thatched cottage was as lively and noisy that day as ever.

Tales of the Drifters often sound legendary, but more often than not, they're only tales. In truth, a Drifter's life in Huaxu is seldom as carefree as the stories make it seem. By choosing to stand against the Nine Chapters of Dafeng, they condemn themselves to a lifetime of being hunted by the Bi'an and the Magistrates of Yingtian.

It was only five years ago that the few remaining Drifters established a hidden stronghold known as the Outer Peaks, a place said to be tucked away beyond anyone's reach. No one but the Drifters themselves knows where it lies. Some say it stands on an isle far out at sea, where immortals are said to dwell. Others claim it lies in a cavern lost in shadow. The boldest rumours insist it isn't in Huaxu at all, but in Aethyrie.

Kezhou, however, still spends most of his days roaming the roads. To him, the Outer Peaks feel too cramped, not open enough, and nowhere near lively enough. And more importantly, he still has unfinished business out in the world.

Inwardly, Kezhou was more than a little envious of his shixiong Yuming, of the way he could throw himself into anything without a single stray thought, as steady and precise as the spearwork he excelled at, never wasting words and never letting any useless emotion get in the way.

Kezhou, on the other hand, was nothing like that. He was forever trying out all manner of martial arts, you could say he was good at most things he picked up, but in spearplay alone he could never surpass Yuming.

So he went to his shifu and asked how he might learn to wield the spear with the same undivided focus as Yuming.

Yan Shanting's answer was deceptively simple: "You are who you are; he is who he is. The two of you were born with opposite temperaments. Between you, one is like a high mountain, meticulous, but not quick to improvise. The other is like flowing water, quick-witted and flexible, but not quite steady. So long as you both stay true to your own nature, each of you completes what the other lacks."

Kezhou shot back at once, "What if the two of us don't get along?"

Yan Shanting replied with a question of his own, a knowing smile on his face. "Have you ever seen Yuming smile?"

Kezhou shook his head. He had not.

Yan Shanting told him that the last time Yuming had truly smiled was on that winter's day when Kezhou bowed to become Yan Shanting's disciple.

"So no, I'm not the least bit worried about the two of you turning on each other," he said. "I know my boys, I never misjudge them."

Many years later, Kezhou had forgotten most of his shifu's teachings. But those words he never forgot.

Spring had long since passed, yet the contest between Kezhou and Yan Shanting still had no clear victor, neither in skill nor in sheer stubbornness. At first, when Yan Shanting offered to take him as a disciple, Kezhou refused outright. Later, after their bouts left him in genuine awe of Yan Shanting's skill and he finally wanted to train under the old man, Yan Shanting, half out of mischief and half out of sheer obstinacy, turned him down right to his face.

And so the two of them kept trading blows and sharp words. By the time winter arrived and the snow lay thick on the ground, Kezhou had mastered an entire armoury of weapons. And when he struck now, the edge of his blade came no closer than half an inch from Yan Shanting, instead of a full inch as before.

He reckoned that in another half-year or so, he would finally be able to land a proper blow on Yan Shanting. With that thought in mind, he made his way back to the space outside the thatched cottage.

After the burning heat of summer had faded, the old stone slab he used as a bed at night had grown steadily colder. So, in late autumn when the wild geese were flying south, Kezhou spread a layer of reed down over the stone, then traded for some oilcloth and propped up a makeshift shelter with bamboo poles. It could not keep out the wind, but it kept off the rain well enough. By now, it was deep winter. Snow had piled on the oilcloth, bending the bamboo almost double. Seeing this, Kezhou hastened to brush the snow off. But he pushed a little too hard, and the whole shelter collapsed, white drifts tumbling down over oilcloth and bamboo in a messy heap.

Wind and snow swept past him, carrying the slow, distant tolling of a bell. All at once, Kezhou realised that it was New Year's Eve.

He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly found himself craving mutton soup, the good kind, with tiny beads of fat floating on top like scattered snow, dotted here and there with chopped spring onion. Kezhou shook his head, dismissing the thought. He had been away from home for years and had never paid such things much mind before. It was probably just the strange, biting cold that made him nostalgic.

He let out a sigh, his breath misting in the air. He bent to prop the shelter back up, only to feel a hand come to rest on his shoulder. When he turned, he found Yan Shanting's disciple, Yuming, standing there.

His tone was as cool as ever, but the words themselves were an invitation: "Shifu's cooked a pot of yuanxiao. He told me to call you in to eat with us."

Kezhou froze for a moment, then turned him down just as coolly. "I appreciate the invitation, but I'll pass. I'm only an outsider, after all."

Yuming's expression did not shift in the slightest. It was as if he had expected exactly that answer. He said nothing more and went straight back to the cottage.

Kezhou, for his part, acted as though nothing had happened and went back to fixing his humble shelter. But as soon as he bent down, he caught the faintest whiff of wine.

He turned and found a white porcelain wine pot, a thread of steam still curling from its spout, and beside it a parcel of food wrapped in a lotus leaf, giving off a wisp of warmth.

"Scraps out of pity, is it?" he thought, indignant, turning back to fix his little shelter.

Even fixed up, the shelter was still crude. When Kezhou finally had it standing again, he went inside and sat down, with the wine and food Yuming had brought laid out before him. He scooped up a handful of snow and held it in his mouth, thinking to stave off his hunger, but it only left him feeling colder.

He sighed again, his breath so cold it didn't even mist in the air. At last he couldn't hold back any longer, he reached for the lotus-leaf parcel and tore it open. Inside was a whole braised chicken, simmered until the meat fell from the bone at the lightest touch. Kezhou stripped it clean, not leaving so much as a scrap.

As for the wine, though it had cooled a fair bit, it sent a small, steady warmth through Kezhou's chest.

The next day, the snow ceased and the sky cleared. Kezhou once again asked Yan Shanting to take him as a disciple, and this time, Yan Shanting accepted with a smile.