SF 17

The man turned at the sound of his voice. For an instant, Ling Xun felt his heart lurch into his throat. Even before he could see the man’s face clearly, he had already scoured his memory for a faint image, hoping to match the features of that boy from long ago with the one standing before him now. But once the man faced him directly, Ling Xun’s heart sank. He was wearing a mask.

Why would he refuse to show his face?

The spark of joy Ling Xun had clawed out from the ashes had not yet flared into a flame before it was doused in cold water, extinguished without a trace.

The man in gray stared at him in silence for a long moment before finally speaking. “It has been many years. Young Master Ling, have you been well?” Perhaps because of the mask, his voice was muffled, with a faint echo. It did not sound like his true voice.

“You… are you really the one who saved me?”

No longer willing to play along with such guarded ambiguity, Ling Xun had abandoned that impulsive cry of “benefactor” and instead resumed the posture of wary suspicion.

But the man in gray did not answer. He simply stepped closer.

Ling Xun instinctively drew back, hand already gripping the treasured dagger he had swindled from Minister Liu. His face plainly declared that strangers should keep their distance.

Sensing the resistance, the man in gray stopped advancing. He lowered his head slightly, gaze settling on Ling Xun’s injured knee. After a moment, he asked softly, “Does the wound still hurt?”

It was a light, even-toned question, neither intimate nor distant, yet it carried a subtle warmth that slipped past Ling Xun’s defenses and quietly thawed the frost he had forced himself to wear.

His eyes suddenly burned with heat, as if he could hear, once again, the voice of that boy fourteen years ago. Back then, he had crouched in a corner, crying in helpless grief after losing his family. And the youth had said to him.

“Why are you crying? Who made you sad?”

Ever since his leg was crushed by those eunuchs, Ling Xun had never once let the injury slow him down. He had eaten, drunk, and caroused as usual, as if those mangled, blood-soaked bones weren’t even part of his own body.

In prison, Zhongli Shan and the others gave him a thumbs-up for his backbone. At the Yuan residence, Yuan Xi scolded him for recklessly throwing his life away. At the Minister’s estate, those old foxes all spouted lofty rhetoric about loyalty and righteousness just to coax him into dying for them. Even Fang Jue, who had grown up by his side, only ever expressed concern about how bad his leg injury was.

But not a single person had ever asked him a simple question like this, whether it still hurt.

In Ling Xun’s memory, that kind of care had only ever come from his mother. And she had died when he was four. After losing her, there had been no one left to ask if he was in pain, if he felt cold, if he was hungry, if he was sad. It was as if he had been born to be this pitiful scrap of broken copper and rusted iron, shameless and heartless, immune to beatings and dulled by hardship.

While he was dazed by the moment, the man in grey had already crouched down beside him and lifted his trouser leg to examine the wound on his knee.

“How are you still walking around on this, pretending nothing’s wrong?” His tone remained calm and gentle.

Ling Xun said nothing. He simply stared at the man in grey, dazed, like he was possessed.

The man sighed. “Sit. Let me take a look.”

He gave a light wave of his hand, and Ling Xun was gently but irresistibly pressed down to the ground.

The man loosened his outer robe and rolled his pants up past the thigh.

The dagger Ling Xun had been holding was taken from his hand, yet he showed no intention of resisting. He allowed the man to use it to cut open the bandages around his wound.

As the medicinal wrappings from the Minister’s estate were gently peeled away, what was revealed between the smooth, pale skin of his thigh and calf was a vicious gash nearly two palms wide. It was still coated with a thick salve to stop bleeding and reduce bruising, but the paste had mixed with congealed flesh and cloudy discharge into a sticky mess that gave off a sharp, acrid stench, almost enough to make one gag.

“Why didn’t you use a formation to activate blood flow and dispel the bruising?” the man asked. There was a faint note of reproach in his voice.

Ling Xun finally seemed to return to himself. He regained the ability to speak, and even let his usual nonchalant smile return to his lips. With narrowed eyes, he drawled, “No one taught me. I don’t know how.”

The man’s hands paused for a moment. “I’ll treat it first, then show you how.”

Ling Xun leaned back on his arms like a spoiled young master, lounging there as if waiting to be served. He kept his peach blossom eyes fixed on the man in grey. Then, he suddenly reached for the mask on the man’s face.

For a split second, Ling Xun thought he might actually succeed. But just as his fingertips were about to touch the mask, they met an invisible barrier. A burning pain flared across his index finger, and he yelped, jerking his hand back and shoving the scorched fingertip into his mouth to cool it.

“You sneak around with your face covered and even add a protective array to your mask. Shameless coward. No gentleman would do that.” Ling Xun clutched his nearly scorched fingers and growled in frustration.

The man in gray simply let out a quiet laugh. “This array is not meant to guard against gentlemen.”

“You—hiss!” Ling Xun had been about to argue when a sudden stab of pain shot through his knee, cutting him off mid-sentence.

The man in gray had just sliced away a strip of gauze that had fused with damaged flesh. He then retrieved a small vial from his sleeve and sprinkled medicine over the wound. The pain nearly made Ling Xun howl like a pig being slaughtered. When he finally caught his breath, he glared through tear-filled eyes and snapped, “You’re even more ruthless than those eunuchs!”

Normally, comparing a man to a eunuch would be enough to spark a fight. But the man in gray showed no reaction. After finishing the treatment, he began to explain the key to the formation technique.

“Do you remember what I once told you? That all things under heaven can be divided into yin and yang, and that nothing lies beyond the five elements?”

Of course Ling Xun remembered. Every word this man had ever said to him, he remembered with perfect clarity.

“The human body has twelve primary meridians, and each one contains five transporting points: jing, ying, shu, jing, and he. These correspond to the five elements in yin meridians as wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and in yang meridians as metal, water, wood, fire, and earth. What you need now is to apply the generative cycle of the five elements to connect the major acupoints in your leg and restore the flow of qi and blood. Right now it is the third quarter of the hour of the ox, associated with yin earth, which makes it an ideal time to activate the yang metal points. Your foundation in formation technique is still shallow, so I will help guide you.”

As he spoke, the man brought his index and middle fingers together and tapped lightly around Ling Xun’s knee.

A gentle heat spread through the area, as if warm coals were roasting the joint from within, radiating comfort deep into the bone.

“Calm your mind. Guide your breath. Align your meridians according to the Eight Trigrams. Determine where the life gate lies, and where the death gate lies. During the day, draw qi through the life gate and abandon the death gate. At night, do the reverse. This continuous cycle will gradually open your meridians.”

Following his instructions, Ling Xun closed his eyes. The acupuncture chart gifted to him by the Mu family appeared in his mind. He mentally connected it with the man’s explanation of the five elements, and the technique he had been puzzling over for days suddenly became clear. The stiffness and numbness in his leg began to ease.

He remained in quiet circulation for several hours. As dawn broke and pale light filled the sky, Ling Xun suddenly heard a faint rustling beside him. Alarmed, he opened his eyes and grabbed the hem of the man’s robe just as he was about to leave.

“Are you leaving again, benefactor?”

Perhaps because he had received such unexpected kindness, the title slipped out again without resistance. Still seated on the floor, Ling Xun looked up at the man in gray with reluctant eyes. There was a soft dependency in his gaze, almost like a fledgling bird looking at the one who raised it.

Last time had been just the same. The man had disguised him as a girl to avoid detection by the guards, hidden him in a weaver’s attic, taught him to embed formation techniques into embroidery, and then disappeared without a trace.

“You’ve already grasped the method of guiding formation into the acupoints. When you return, focus on using formation to clear the wood-aligned points along the water meridian. This corresponds to the image of ‘a withered tree meeting spring.’ Within three days, your leg should recover completely. Here is a jar of scar-removal ointment. Once the wound has healed, apply it morning and night. Even as a man, your body and skin are a gift from your parents, and you ought to cherish them.” As he spoke, the man in grey handed Ling Xun a small white porcelain jar, no larger than a palm.

But Ling Xun did not take it. He continued to stubbornly grip the sleeve of the man’s robe. The man shook his head and lifted his hand. With just a gentle motion, the sleeve slipped free from Ling Xun’s grasp, and he turned as if to leave.

“Benefactor!”

Ling Xun called out loudly and staggered to his feet. He caught up to the man and knelt before him, his expression solemn. “You once saved my life, passed on formation technique to me, and now again you have rescued me from danger and healed my injuries. Such kindness is no different from giving me new life. I have nothing to repay it with but my own body and loyalty. I wish only to follow you from this day forward. But you still refuse to show your true face. How am I supposed to accept that?”

The man in grey reached out and supported him by the arm, helping him up. “You carry the blood of Princess Wuyang, a true descendant of imperial lineage. How can you kneel so lightly before another? Stand.”

Ling Xun let out a cold laugh. “So what if I am of imperial blood? Wasn’t it the imperial family that slaughtered my entire household?”

The man neither agreed nor denied it. He simply said, “What I have done is to repay a debt of gratitude. You need not carry it in your heart. As for why I hide my face, it is because our fates have reached their end. There will be no future encounters between us. Why burden you with the memory of a face that no longer matters? Take care, Young Master Ling.”

As he finished speaking, he pressed lightly on a certain spot on Ling Xun’s arm.

A jolt of numbness surged through Ling Xun’s entire body. His limbs turned to jelly, and he collapsed where he stood. It lasted only a moment, but by the time he could move again, the ruined temple was empty. He was alone.

The one person in this world who knew his full name, who knew the weight of the past he carried, had just left him behind, vanishing without even a trace.