Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 252: Ten Years of Misty Rain

The jujube tree in the courtyard swayed in the wind, with a rhythmic sound to the rustling between the branches and leaves. This rhythm seemed to match the cadence of Ji Yuan’s writing, and there was a difference in line weight in the ebbs and flows.

In the previous exchange with the old beggar, Ji Yuan did take the opportunity to chat with him about a lot of trivial worldly matters. The remarks the old beggar made were different from those others would say.

The old beggar traveled over thousands of mountains and rivers, looking for certain patterns from everything he encountered, from monsters and immortals to natural and man-made disasters. Ji Yuan judged the differences in Qi between each party, using the old beggar’s impressions to discuss chaos and disorder, peace and restlessness, which was quite beneficial for Ji Yuan. It helped him understand the current state of the world.

There were very few immortal sects like Yuhuai Mountain, and they didn’t like to travel out in the world. Monsters like the Old Dragon were even less likely to do so. Only the old beggar, who liked to play in this world as he practiced, possessed a rich experience.

So it was no wonder that after he left Ning’an County, the old beggar complained about Ji Yuan’s rambling and that he was deliberately deceiving him. In truth, it wasn’t that Ji Yuan was deliberately deceiving him: a large part of why they kept talking about various subjects was that Ji Yuan wanted to hear about these things in the first place.

Writing was not the only process by which Ji Yuan could comprehend his own path of Taoism, but also a meditative process. As he wrote in a detached manner, he thought about the past, particularly those initial points about Monk Huitong and the Eastern Cloud Continent.

Monk Huitong had been fine all this time. It might be that Tingliang Country and Tianbao Country were fine. It might also be pure luck. The possibility that the demons that were eliminated during the Water and Land Assembly startled something greater could not be ruled out.

In the worst case, the Old Dragon’s rage and massacre all the way in the beginning, and the subsequent Water and Land Assembly, might have alarmed the snake in the grass, so to speak. From another point of view, those actions could also be seen as a deliberate show of strength.¹

In this situation where the Eastern Cloud Continent suddenly might be changing and the future was unclear, of course, it would be more appropriate to give a deliberate show of strength.

And although he couldn’t explain it to others, Ji Yuan was inclined to believe that something was going to happen to the Eastern Cloud Continent sooner or later. In terms of time, this naturally might not constitute a so-called heaven and earth calamity, but it would definitely have a major impact that would influence the next hundreds or thousands of years.

With all this chaos, it would be best to formulate a basic plan to have the opportunity to stabilize things first. Even if it was just the Eastern Cloud Continent, Ji Yuan had only opened up the situation in Dazhen; he was still in the dark about everywhere else.

He did not have that many mature chess pieces. Although his chessboard was large, there weren’t many suitable positions for his pieces to be placed.

This was different from placing pieces on a normal chessboard. It wasn’t that empty spaces couldn’t be filled, but rather that this also depended on chance. In other words, the immortal sects, the monster clans, the demons, the ghosts, and every place where he could affect the balance of events was a potential place for a piece on the board. The pieces in Ji Yuan’s hand had to fall into key positions, whether by the impact of a single move or by the sheer number of pieces placed — one of those two must hold true.

‘I feel that I am not strong enough, so I can only take one step at a time! ’

Ji Yuan sighed, the wolf-hair brush in his hand stopped writing. Unconsciously, as he pondered, he had written over a thousand dense, tiny characters on a piece of rice paper.

When Ji Yuan saw them, he was stunned for a while, then felt confused about what he had just written.

Putting the brush back on the brush stand, Ji Yuan picked up the rice paper, blew on the ink, and put it in front of his eyes for a closer look. Since the words that he had written were sincere, of course, no matter how small the characters were, he would have no difficulty in reading them clearly.

And, because it was, after all, deductions he had made in his own wandering mind, as he read on, some wonderful divine intent also manifested in his mind, creating some key lynchpins in the dimensional storage techniques that he had found difficult to elaborate on.

The more he read, the more he smiled, and his expression showed a look of surprise.

“A stroke of genius,² hahahahaha… It’s really a stroke of genius!”

After reading the page of tiny characters, Ji Yuan’s slightly gloomy mood was swept away, and he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

As the saying went, true writing is born of the heavens; a master merely gains it by chance.³ This also applied to Ji Yuan’s deduction of spiritual techniques at this moment.

Perhaps during his previous subconscious musings, he couldn’t help but ponder the relationship of power, or perhaps it had been extended to the miraculous use of the claw-in-the-sleeve technique from before, when the Old Dragon had caught the monk. In short, these thousands of characters containing true meanings were an important breakthrough for Ji Yuan in the art of dimensional storage.

This made Ji Yuan even happier than when he had turned the True Fire of Samadhi from illusory to real, because this was truly a supernatural method that he had deduced himself, without taking any shortcuts or relying on external forces. Although this breakthrough was only the beginning, he would definitely find more clues later.

At this time, the residents of Tian Niu Lane nearby, who were busy at home, could hear Ji Yuan’s happy laughter.

“Who is laughing so joyfully?”

A village woman asked in confusion. The old man weaving a basket next to her made a guess after listening carefully.

“It seems to be Mr. Ji’s voice.”

“Oh, how rare, I haven’t heard Mr. Ji speak so loudly.”

“Maybe he finally found a wife!”

“Ah!? No way…”

The old man glanced at his unmarried daughter.

“Could it be that you still have improper thoughts about Mr. Ji?”

The village woman just smiled awkwardly and defended herself in a whisper.

“I don’t even dare to look at Mr. Ji…”

“It’s good that you know, don’t be a lazy toad wanting to eat swan meat!”⁴

“…”

. . .

Yin Zhaoxian was incredibly busy with Wan Province, as he had to rebuild everything. He even called back Yin Qing, who had just finished taking the Ji Province imperial examination, to Wan Province to help deal with various matters.

Compared to the Yin family mother who still regarded Yin Qing as a child, in Yin Zhaoxian’s eyes, his eldest son, who had already gone through his coming of age ceremony, was already a talented individual who could stand on his own. He was further impressed by the help he had provided in the last cleansing of Wan Province’s officialdom.

The Yin family was often too busy to care for anything else, so they naturally could not visit Ji Yuan. The Old Dragon was often napping, and his sleep schedule was only more intense than Ji Yuan’s. For the cultivators of Yuhuai Mountain, time passed very quickly, and few other people would dare come and disturb Ji Yuan.

In addition, no bad news arrived during this period of time. Under such circumstances, i Yuan practiced and pondered quietly at home until the spring of the year of Dinghai.⁵ Before he knew it, nearly a year had passed.

At the beginning of the fourth lunar month, the tranquility of Ju’an Pavilion was finally broken again.

Early that morning, Ji Yuan woke up from his sleep. He had been reading a jade slip in the courtyard, when suddenly he heard footsteps approaching Ju’an Pavilion in the alley from Tian Niu Lane outside.

“Are you sure Mr. Ji is here?”

A man with a rather worn complexion asked an old man from the market again, and the latter replied with a smile.

“Although Mr. Ji rarely goes out, he is definitely there. If he weren’t there, the gates of the pavilion would most likely be locked. Look, the courtyard gate isn’t locked.”

The man with a worn complexion looked joyful, and bowed to the old man to express his gratitude.

“Thank you for leading the way, old man. This is to thank you…”

“Hey, young man, we are all from Mr. Ji’s hometown. You said he is an old friend, so it was my duty to bring you here. I’m just here to lead the way. How would I be able to greet Mr. Ji honorably in the future after taking your money? “

The old man muttered, then turned and left.

The man looked at the direction the old man went, then back at Ju’an Pavilion, only a couple zhang away. He could see the lush jujube tree in the courtyard. He had been here before, but it had been so long that he had forgotten the way.

When the man walked to the gate of the pavilion, Ji Yuan in the courtyard had already put down the jade slip, and tapped it to perform a concealment technique, turning it into an ordinary bamboo slip.

“Warrior Lu, please push the door and come on in. The door is not locked.”

A peaceful and clear voice came from inside, and the man who was about to knock on the door paused.

Feeling a little excited, his heart beat a little faster. After a moment of hesitation, the man pushed open the courtyard door.

As soon as he entered Ju’an Pavilion, he immediately saw Ji Yuan at the stone table under the jujube tree. He wore a green robe and a jade hairpin, and was running a finger over the bamboo slip, looking at him with half-opened eyes.

Mr. Ji seemed a little different from the Mr. Ji he remembered, but this scene felt right.

The man was stunned for a moment, then quickly put down the things in his hands and bowed.

“Mr. Ji, Chengfeng is here to visit…”

He raised his head again to look at Ji Yuan, and spoke with obvious excitement.

“Mr. Ji, you haven’t changed at all these past few years!”

Ji Yuan looked at the visitor. Compared to the handsome young man he had met in the beginning, Lu Chengfeng looked much more weary and worn. Who knew what kinds of hardships the man had experienced in these past few years?

He carried no weapons on his body, and a pair of calloused hands lifted the things he had brought from the ground, which was just a jar of wine with a label that read, “Tusu.”⁶

Ji Yuan opened his eyes and looked at the current state of Lu Chengfeng’s aura. He was not as energetic as he used to be. He was obviously only in his thirties, but he was already showing signs of old age. He couldn’t help but sigh and speak.

“Ten years of wandering through misty rains of the martial arts world, half a lifetime of youth spent on Tusu wine.⁷ Warrior Lu, we haven’t seen each other for over ten years, right? Please come take a seat.”

Lu Chengfeng listened in a trance. After a moment, he turned around, closed the courtyard door, and walked into the courtyard carrying the wine.

“I heard that you like wine, Sir… so I brought this jar of wine here. It’s not some kind of special nectar, it’s just something my father brewed when he was alive.”

Lu Chengfeng said as he put the wine on the table. There were a dozen or so breaths of silence. Ji Yuan didn’t speak, nor did he stand up. He sat beside him and carefully touched the bamboo slips.

“Mr. Ji, do you still remember the nine of us from back then?”

Lu Chengfeng suddenly asked. Ji Yuan, still running a finger over the bamboo slip, called out the names one by one.

“Yan Fei, Lu Chengfeng, Luo Ningshuang, Du Heng, Wang Ke, Zhao Long, Lan Ningke, Bao Dong, Dong Bicheng. I still remember your voices.”

Lu Chengfeng was a little stunned again, as if he had just remembered that Mr. Ji was blind.

“Mr. Ji has a good memory, but I don’t remember everything…”

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T/n: The world is going mad. The sun is hot. I ate 3 crêpes in one day. Lots of things are happening. Hope everyone is staying safe. Lots of hugs to all of you.

1. Lit. “strike the mountain to shake out the tiger”
2. Lit. “the brush of the gods.” It’s a pun because it’s all brushstrokes with divine intent, and also means “stroke of genius”
3. T/n: Personally, I disagree. I believe that talent determines your starting point, but it is effort, dedication, and practice that determines how far you will go.
4. Something along the lines of “don’t have ambitions above your ability/station if you aren’t putting in the effort”
5. 24th year of the 60 year cycle. Year of the Pig and Yin Fire element.
6. 屠 (tú): to slaughter, 苏 (sū): wild red basil/prefix for place/to revive. This wine is either called something dramatic like “Slaughter Revival” or “Wild Red Basil Slaughter,” or something like “Tu’s Place.” Personally I’m suspecting the latter but the former would be hilarious
7. I suspect this is a 7/7 couplet, but it’s not that clear, so the matching number of characters might be a coincidence. It certainly sounds like a poem though