Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 97: Clues to the Past

The underworld patrols were usually comprised of a pair of ghost officials. Depending on the strength of the city god’s underworld, and the depth of cultivation and power of the city god himself, the simplest structure was divided into the Left and Right officers.¹ In more complex cases, such as in Juntian Prefecture’s capital city, the day and night patrols were divided into Left and Right officers, with each having a chief, deputy, and assistants, making a total of eight officials.

At this moment, the ones patrolling past the shopkeeper’s house were the Left and Right deputy officers. They saw that, although this house seemed different, it was splendid and had a righteous aura, definitely not an evil one.

“Whose residence is this? There must have been some kind of fortuitous encounter here!”

“It was most likely not something evil. Let’s go in together and and take a look!”

The two underworld officials rode a wind of yin power through the gate set in the wall and entered this fairly nice house, coming to the outside of the owner’s study.

Due to the hot weather, the doors and windows of the study were not closed, so the two patrol officers could see a middle-aged man in casual clothes inside. It was Pang Su, the owner of the stationery store, who was sitting at the desk, writing.

Upon arriving, they didn’t find anything unusual. Even the traces of light were gone.

The two yin officers looked at each other and wanted to cross the threshold to enter. However, the moment they stepped into the room, the Yin Qi on their underworld uniforms blurred for a moment, as if passing through an invisible ripple, and then they were through to the study.

Although the feeling just now was extremely faint, as patrol officers, they were very alert, and could definitely tell that something was going on.

Approaching the man writing calligraphy, they saw a hidden and heavy aura emanating from the calligraphy spread out on the desk. The four characters on it, “Good Prevails Over Evil,” presented a sense of righteousness and justice, making it difficult for the ghost to look at it for too long.

It was said that seeing a person’s handwriting was like seeing the person’s self. The depth of the writer’s character was hard to fathom, but one could get a glimpse of his artistic conception² and his temperament.

The two Yin officials felt a chill in their hearts and took two steps back. After looking at each other again, they actually cupped their hands and bowed slightly towards the calligraphy, before leaving the study.

It wasn’t until the two ghost officials left that the shopkeeper, who was still copying the characters, finally realized that something was happening and looked out the door.

“Hey, wasn’t it a little cooler just now? This gust of wind didn’t last very long…”

Because the calligraphy was next to him, the stationery storekeeper did not feel a chill like ordinary people would have when a spirit approached. Instead, he felt the coolness that he longed for in the summertime.

. . .

On the west side of the Juntian Prefecture’s capital city, Ji Yuan was still wandering alone down the street. At this time, the sky looked as if the sun had just set. Although it was dark, a trace of the sunset glow could still be seen on the western horizon, and the sky above was already full of stars.

The days were long at this time of year, and it was actually getting quite late. In the short time since Ji Yuan had seen the cake vendor from afar outside the gambling house, the number of hurried passers-by on the road had been reduced by more than half of their earlier number.

Even though it was currently a peaceful era, and it had been a long time since Juntian Prefecture had implemented a curfew, few people still wandered the streets at night.

Ji Yuan rummaged in his bag and reached in to take out a wine bottle. It was the same bottle that he had used to buy Qianrichun in Chunhui Prefecture. However, it was now filled with simple green fruit wine bought from an ordinary wine shop in Juntian Prefecture, which only cost twenty coins per catty.

Ji Yuan pulled out the cork tied with the red cloth,³ took a sip of wine, and walked towards an inn in the distance. His plan was to rest for a night, then look carefully around tomorrow, and try to ask the government office in the city. If he still couldn’t find any clues, in the end, he might have to shamelessly seek some supernatural help.

In the captial city of Juntian Prefecture, the stores that closed the latest at night included brothels, gambling houses, and a small number of inns.

There were still people drinking and eating in the first floor lobby inside the Hong’an Inn. The light from the lamps in the hall was definitely enough to see, and the innkeeper was fiddling with an abacus behind the counter.

When Ji Yuan entered, the innkeeper had just finished calculating a bill. He looked up and smiled at the guest, before flicking the abacus beads back into place.

“Innkeeper, are there any vacant rooms in this inn?”

“Yes, of course. We have both Tian-numbered rooms and Xuan-numbered rooms available.⁴ The room fee for a Tian-numbered room is 120 coins, and the Xuan-numbered room is 80 coins.”

The innkeeper had already opened his record book and picked up a brush, ready to enter the information.

“Okay, please give me a Xuan-numbered room. I don’t know how many days I will stay. Please place this silver ingot in my account for now.”

“Okay, please wait a moment, sir. By the way, sir, is there anything you wish to avoid during your stay?”⁵

“Nothing in particular.”

The innkeeper nodded, weighed the silver in front of Ji Yuan, and then wrote on the his record book: Xuan Room 2, one male, no special instructions…

The shopkeeper looked down at the book and shouted.

“Youfu, take this guest to Xuan Room 2!”

A response came from the back of the kitchen.

“Coming!”

Ji Yuan took this opportunity to chat with the innkeeper.

“Innkeeper, has your inn been around for a long time?”

“Oh, we are a time-honored brand. This place has been renovated once and completely rebuilt another time. It has been passed down to me from my grandfather.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is. So the innkeeper should be very familiar with this western area of the city?”

After he finished writing his record, the innkeeper smiled at Ji Yuan.

“Of course, sir, where would you like to go? If you don’t know the way, feel free to ask me. If you don’t know where to go, I can give you some suggestions.”

“Hahaha… That’s exactly what I needed. To be honest, I am also partially a martial artist. I heard that Sword Immortal Zuo was born in Juntian Prefecture several decades ago. I want to pay my respects to him, but I couldn’t find the Zuo family. It’s not that big of a deal, just that it’s rare for me to pass through Juntian Prefecture, so I felt a little regret.”

It truly wasn’t easy to travel so far. This sentiment was very easy to relate to in this era.

“Sword Immoral Zuo?”

The innkeeper took a closer look at Ji Yuan once more, then focused on the object wrapped in cloth slung across his back. He guessed that it was some kind of weapon.

“Not many people ask about the Zuo family nowadays. To be honest, when I was young, the Zuo family was still a well-known and prestigious family. Unfortunately, it gradually died out… I am not part of the martial arts world, so I don’t know that much about it. I only know that during their most difficult time, the Zuo family held funerals nearly every month for several years… Ah…!”

Ji Yuan frowned. After asking around for an entire day, he finally found someone who knew something about the Zuo family, only to receive terrible news. The innkeeper put it lightly, but when Ji Yuan put himself into the Zuo family’s shoes, he could almost feel the heavy weight and depression of those years.

“Does the Zuo family have any descendants?”

“Perhaps they’re all dead, or perhaps there are still some around. After all, the Zuo family was so big back then, it wouldn’t be surprising for them to have a few illegitimate children.”

After thinking for a while, the innkeeper continued to speak to Ji Yuan.

“It’s impossible for you to visit the Zuo family’s mansion. It has changed hands long ago. However, there is still a blacksmith shop outside the city. Although it has only produced some kitchen and household items and is not well-known in recent years, it is said that all the weapons the Zuo family used in the past were made there, including the weapons of Sword Immortal Zuo!”

Ji Yuan’s eyes lit up, and he bowed to the innkeeper to express his gratitude.

“Thank you, innkeeper, for the information!”

“Not a problem, not a problem at all!”

The innkeeper bowed in return.

At this moment, a young servant wearing a turban finally ran out from the kitchen and warmly greeted Ji Yuan.

“Sir, follow me. Let’s go upstairs, please head on upstairs!”

“It took you so long to arrive. Were you going to the bathroom?”

The innkeeper cursed with a stern face.

……

The room upstairs was quite ordinary. After a tip of one five-wen coin, the servant happily and skillfully fetched water and filled a bucket for Ji Yuan, who was preparin gto take a bath. As he poured the water, Ji Yuan continued chatting with the servant. However, the latter had never heard anything about the Zuo family.

The next day at dawn, Ji Yuan left the inn and found a shop to buy some meat buns. He was ready to leave the city. Of course, he would not be leaving Juntian Prefecture, but rather going to the sword-smithy by Yuanzi River outside of the city. Although, it was now an ordinary blacksmithing shop that mainly forged farm tools and kitchen implements.

Since the original form of Zuo Li’s sword, the Green Vine Sword currently in Ji Yuan’s possession, might have been forged there, this was naturally the most pressing place to investigate.

Right as he was walking towards the city gate, Ji Yuan ran into the man selling flatbread cakes once again. However, when the man saw Ji Yuan, he unhesitatingly grabbed the carrying pole on his shoulders and fled.

Ji Yuan simply glanced at the figure with the carrying pole from a distance as he passed by, and continued walking out of the city.

Even real gods had distinct personalities and temperaments, not to mention someone like Ji Yuan. In the case of this vendor, all he could say was that fortune and misfortune would arise from their own selves. There were so many things in this world, Ji Yuan could not manage them all.

1. The significance of Left and Right is debated. Some say that they represent senior (left) and junior (right) hierarchical positions, while others see it as a kind of yin-yang complementary position where each have different roles. ↩︎
2. 意境 (yìjìng): artistic mood/artistic conception/creative concept, refers to a blend of meaning, mood, and imagery that evokes an emotional response, and is a major element in Chinese art & literature. This word has come up a lot in this novel, usually to do with cultivation, where I’ve usually referred to it in terms of mental image and inner world. ↩︎
3. Take a look at this image ↩︎
4. 天 (tiān): day/sky/heaven, presumably a higher-class room. 玄 (xuán): black/mysterious, presumably a middle-class room. (My guess as the translator is that it has to do with a higher/lower floor, but don’t take my word for it) ↩︎
5. i.e. maybe someone wants housekeeping not to enter their room, or maybe they need extra supplies of something ↩︎