Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 145: An Inexplicable Chess Piece

Yin Qing naturally didn’t care what the three Du family sons who were sitting around the stone table were thinking. Either way, this was an excellent opportunity to pick jujubes.

The jujube tree was lush and verdant, and the bright red jujubes were hidden among the green leaves, mostly higher up in the branches.

These jujubes were larger than ordinary jujubes. They could be estimated to be around three times the size of a normal fruit, though of course there were no normal fruits for comparison right at this moment.

After bounding up a couple times to reach a higher perch, Yin Qing stretched out his hand to the nearest fruit with excitement. It seemed difficult for him to grasp the jujube with one hand. At this moment, the three members of the Du family down below noticed that the young man’s movements suddenly became gentle.

Then, they heard the young man start to speak. They couldn’t tell whether he was talking to himself, or, ridiculously, speaking to the jujube tree.

“Jujube tree, Warrior Du down below is an old acquaintance of Mr. Ji’s. He has known Mr. Ji for a long time, and has come by for the first time in three year. It’s not too much to ask for him to eat some jujubes, right?”

Yin Qing looked at the three curious members of the Du family down below. After speaking, he tugged carefully on the jujube.

With a “snap,” the big red jujube was pulled off the stem.

“Hahahaha… great! You let me pick some, you really let me pick some!”

If it weren’t for the fact that he was perched on the tree, Yin Qing would have danced with joy. Even now, he couldn’t help but clap his hands and twist his body a few times to express his excitement.

The scene scared Du Heng somewhat. What would happen if this young man fell?

“Let’s go watch under the tree so we can catch him if he falls!”

“Okay!”

​​”Alright.”

Following Du Heng’s instructions, the three of them stood up from their seats at the stone table and hurriedly walked closer, fearing that Yin Qing would fall from the jujube tree if he moved around too much.

Yin Qing didn’t care. He sniffed the fragrance of the jujube, swallowed his drool, and then threw it to Du Heng.

“Master Du, catch! Don’t let it fall to the ground!”

When Du Heng saw a flash of fire-red thrown at him, he stretched out his hand and gently grabbed it from the air. He subconsciously looked at the jujube in his hand; it was round, plump, and deep red, very appetizing at first glance.

After picking one, Yin Qing grew bolder, and reached out to grab another one.

“I can’t only give Warrior Du a jujube, right?”

As he spoke, he tugged on it again, and another jujube was plucked with a small snap.

“Hehe! You can’t taste the flavors with only one bite. There are three of them down there, and it’s very hard for me to go pick jujubes…”

Yin Qing kept chattering as he reached out to pick the red jujubes. He picked one, two, three, four… seven in total. As he grabbed the eighth one, he felt the branch twist slightly.

Oops, the jujube tree was no longer letting him continue!

“One more, just one more, just one!”

Yin Qing kept begging, but he just kept pulling fruitlessly as the resistance did not decrease.

“Rustle…Rustle…”

The jujube tree’s branches swayed as if a breeze was blowing through them. No matter how hard Yin Qing tried, the red jujube in his hand would not fall. Then a branch swept across Yin Qing’s neck.

“Hey-aaaaaahhhhh…!”

Yin Qing felt an itch on his neck and lost his balance, falling from the tree. One of the Du family members quickly reached out to catch him, and held the boy into his arms.

However, Yin Qing wasn’t annoyed at all when he fell. He just sighed and muttered as he looked at the jujube on the tree that he could not pick.

“Hey, only seven. How stingy! So stingy!”

Du Heng and his companions looked at each other in bewilderment. This young man was too reckless in climbing the tree to pick fruit. He was muttering to himself and couldn’t even hold on firmly. If they hadn’t been there, he would have definitely fallen and hurt himself.

“Brother Yin, a tree like this is too unstable for you to climb. We were here for you today, but don’t be so rash next time!”

One of the Du family members tried to persuade the child, but Yin Qing obviously didn’t care at all.

“It’s okay. I only fell because you were there to catch me. Otherwise, I would definitely not fall.”

This all sounded very strange to the son of the Du family. Could it be that they were to blame?

“Okay, okay, let’s stop talking about it. Hehe, look at this fire-red jujube! You couldn’t even see these in the past, let alone think of eating them!”

Yin Qing opened his pickets, revealing six large jujubes inside. Together with the one in Du Heng’s hand, that made seven bright red jujubes in total, each as big as a child’s fist.

The group of people sat back down on the stone table, and the seven jujubes were arranged in a row. Yin Qing immediately grabbed one.

“This is my reward!”

After briefly explaining, he looked at the other two members of the Du family, and said to Du Heng.

“There are six left. You take four. Both of them are lucky, each of them can get one!”

Yin Qing acted like an adult as he spoke.

“Why do we only get one?”

One of the Du family members argued blankly.

“You are very lucky to get one. Don’t you see that I only have one? If you hadn’t come here with Warrior Du, none of us would have even gotten any!”​

Yin Qing retorted with a couple short sentences.

“You only have one? You can just pick another one anytime you want to eat it!”

The sons of the Du family were only three or four years older than Yin Qing. They knew it was pointless to argue with this teenager, but they still couldn’t help but say something.

Yin Qing angrily looked at the jujube tree.

“You try picking one for me to see. If you really can pick it, then you must be incredible!”

“I’ll go pick one if that’s what you really want!”

The two of them were arguing nonstop. Du Heng couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Hey, Du Yue, this is someone else’s home. Why are you blabbing so rudely?”

After teaching them a lesson, Du Heng also thanked Yin Qing. It appeared that these jujubes were no ordinary fruits. It was quite polite of him to use these jujubes to treat them.

“Hey, Warrior Du is sensible. Stop sitting there and eat them quickly. Even the emperor would be greedy for these jujubes!”

Yin Qing joked, and hurriedly began to nibble on his own jujube. The crisp crunching and the fragrant scent made the three Du family members who smelled it drool.

Without hesitation, they picked up the jujubes and began eating.

“Crunch…”

As soon as they took a bite, the three Du family members’ eyes widened. The fresh fragrance exploded from the tips of their tongues, and they couldn’t help but chew and gnaw on the fruits nonstop.

Swallowing the juice and pulp of the jujubes was like drinking strong wine. Their stomachs were warm, and there was even a current of warm energy flowing through their bodies.

‘Is this jujube some kind of natural spiritual treasure? ’

Du Heng was startled. By the time came back to his senses, he had already eaten the jujube in his hand.

The other two Du family members swallowed and looked at the three remaining jujube son the table.

Even though Du Heng was extremely reluctant, he still pushed out two more jujubes to share with his cousins. However, before he could speak, Yin Qing reached out and grabbed the two jujubes back.

“No, you are the only one who gets these dates! Hero Yang Guo got a strange snake gall,¹ and Warrior Du gets the fire jujubes. They shouldn’t be passed around anymore!”

Another Du family member still wanted to speak, but Yin Qing seemed to see through him, and simply pointed to the branches of the jujube tree far above his head.

“Want to eat more? Pick it yourself. I will allow you to pick some. Go ahead!”

“Then I’ll pick one!”

After eating the jujube, how could he resist? One son of the Du family leaped onto the jujube tree and grabbed the nearest big red jujube.

He pulled gently, but the jujube seemed to be stuck to the branch, and wouldn’t come off. He exerted more force, and the whole branch bent, but the fruit remained motionless.

“Come on! Argh…”

The Du family member applied his strength and Qi and as a result, the branch of the jujube tree bent further and further. Suddenly, the force pulling on his hand increased sharply, and his whole person was flung into the air as if ejected by a slingshot.²

“Aaaaaahhh…!”

The member of the Du family was actually catapulted into the air by a jujube branch! With no leverage, he waved his arms around wildly in the air, then came to the crest of his flight and fell down to the ground.

Fortunately, he was a martial artist. As he fell, he grabbed a branch to slow his fall. However, the branch was even more slippery than a loach,³ and after a brief moment, it slipped right out of his hand…

Then, with a bang, the Du family member fell to the ground.

“Ouch…hiss…I clearly eased my fall…but that branch shifted my center of gravity again…”

The Du family member grinned and stood up. He should have been able to easily stand upright after landing thanks to the branch he had tried grabbing.

“Rustle…Rustle…”

The branches and leaves of the entire jujube tree swayed by themselves, though there was no wind in range. The three Du family members subconsciously looked up.

The trembling of the branches grew even more violent, and they even began to get the feeling of shadows connecting with one another and blocking out the sunlight. It was all very unnatural. The three individuals felt numb shivers run down their spines, as if the jujube tree were laughing at them.

This scene lasted for the span of several breaths, though there was obviously no wind.

“Humph. So how did it go? Did you pick it?”

Yin Qing snorted, breaking the faint sense of fear in the hearts of the three companions. As they looked at the tree again, it gradually calmed, but no one considered what had just happened to be an illusion.

Du Heng suddenly remembered the tiger spirit on Niu Kui Mountain, and the word ‘demon’ appeared in his mind. However, after thinking about it, he felt that this classification was wrong. Looking at the jujubes on the table, he felt that it was more appropriate to say that he was facing an immortal fruit tree.

. . .

The Chinese New Year was arriving soon, and a festive atmosphere had already risen in Ning’an County. Yin Qing not only had to help “dust” the house,⁴ but he also had to take care of Ju’an Pavilion.

The three members of the Du family helped Yin Qing clean the small pavilion together, then they left. They didn’t want to trouble the Yin family’s mother to cook and entertain them, and they had no plans of staying in Ning’an County for too long.

Yin Qing was still quite young, after all, and Ji Yuan did not completely tell the story of the Condor Hero at the time — at most, it was an overview, with the beginning and middle only briefly mentioned, and the ending described in much greater detail.

Without the supplement of Yin Qing’s own imagination, the the Du family was shocked that this man had gone through so many hardships and yet made so many achievements, but they didn’t have much empathy for him.

But after the jujube tree incident, Du Heng, at least, had many fewer doubts about the historical existence of the Condor Hero.

Compared to his two cousins, he had a stronger connection to this character, especially the pain of a missing arm. Half a year after he returned home, his arm had eventually grown infected, and had to be amputated. The despair and sorrow of this experience woke Du Heng many times during the night.

However, his conversation with Wei Wuwei at the Wei family’s full-month banquet, and what he had seen and heard in Ju’an Pavilion, ignited a flame in Du Heng’s lonely heart.

The three men rode on their horses, wearing cloaks. They felt warm even in the same cold wind as before thanks to the fire jujubes. Du Heng, who ate three of them directly, felt heat flow through his body, as if he had an endless well of energy. With every exhale, his true Qi circulated through all the major acupoints of his body.

‘The first one was extremely powerful, and you are the second one! ’

Yin Qing’s clear voice still reverberated in Du Heng’s mind. Combined with the power of the fire jujubes, his heart was burning. In that short yet complete story, Yang Guo didn’t even have anyone to help him at first; but he, Du Heng, at least still had the Du family!

“So what if I don’t have left-handed swordsmanship? My Du family’s Wild Sword Style for the right hand didn’t just fall from the sky!”

Du Heng suddenly whispered. An unexpressed feeling was brewing in his chest. In the very next moment, he suddenly slapped his left hand on the horse’s rear and drew his sword. He leaped from the saddle and spun in the air, swinging his arm with the sword gripped in it fiercely in front of him.

Swish…

The blade ripped apart the cold wind, creating a half-moon shape around Du Heng.

Then, Du Heng landed back on the saddle once more, jumped into the air, and slashed in the other direction with his sword.

His body rose and fell, using the twelve styles of the Wild Sword that he had practiced countless times, but this time with his left hand. His force grew stronger and stronger, his momentum growing ever fiercer. Every time he exerted his strength, a current of heat rose and filled his meridians.

As he flipped from the air and fell light as a feather back down to the saddle at last, Du Heng opened his mouth and roared wildly.

“The calamity will be shattered from now on!!!”

Swish- The sharp edge of the blade swept forward and tore through the north wind, making a brief moment where the air stilled in its tracks up ahead.

He took a deep breath, gently landing back down, then put away his sword and sat back on the horse, breathing heavily. Du Heng felt excited. This was the first time in over three years that he had completed all twelve moves. His movements were even smoother than back when his right arm was still intact, and he had additionally done them on horseback.

This martial arts performance gave Du Heng a great boost of confidence and encouragement. Even his internal strength, which had been declining, rose like fire.

“Hiss… haah… hiss… haah…”

The cold wind entered his abdomen with his deep breaths, turning into a current of heat in his core. Just now, in his imagination, Du Heng had already chopped his previous decadent self into pieces, strike by strike.

His two cousins stood behind him, their mouths slightly open, and their moods indescribable. From his initial hesitation in the beginning, to his newfound confidence as he sheathed his sword at the end, their cousin seemed to have become a completely different person.

“Don’t dawdle. Let’s hurry back to Desheng Prefecture and give the remaining jujube to Patriarch Wei, then we’ll go home. We may not make it by New Year’s Eve, but we still have to go home to celebrate this year!”

As his mood changed, Du Heng’s voice also changed, sharpening and growing more concise.

. . .

In a chess hall somewhere in the Capital Prefecture, Ji Yuan, who had been watching two old men playing chess, was suddenly stunned. He lowered his head to look at the chess piece that had appeared in his hand, and vaguely saw the image of Du Heng swinging his sword with his one arm, slicing through wind and snow.

It was just that… this chess piece really appeared out of nowhere.

1. Snake gall, or snake gallbladder, is often used in TCM to treat arthritis and detoxification. In the story, the condor brings Yang Guo a snake gall, which replenishes his Qi and aids his cultivation.
2. T/n: LOL all I can think of is Team Rocket “We’re blasting off agaiiiiiin…”
3. Loaches are cute fishies. Some produce a layer of slime to keep them slippery
4. In the Chinese New Year, cleaning the house symbolizes driving away the previous year’s bad luck to allow for the new year’s luck. The word “dust” in Chinese is a homophone for “old,” hence the associations with cleaning. A similar Western tradition might be a mix of New Year’s Resolutions and Spring Cleaning.