The next morning, Liao Lan and her disciple were called to their master's room. Liao Lan's worst fear came to pass.

  "I have a task for you." The Golden Witch declared with a small smile. "I need you to go to Chang'an."

  Liao Lan abruptly fell to her knees, tears in her eyes. "Master, please don't send your disciple away! Where have I erred? What mistake have I made to deserve this?!"

  The Golden Witch was momentarily taken aback. Her little smile took up notes of guilt.

  "What's all this...?" She asked.

  "I know I haven't done anything of merit lately, but I can change!" Liao Lan crawled over to her feet. In her desperation she began to bump her head against the wooden floor as she continued to prattle out her pleas. "And if it's a burden for you to keep teaching me, then that can wait! I have never intended to get in the way of your ambitions! I'd rather die than let that happen! Please, just give me another chance!"

  "Liao Lan, I'm not angry with you..." The Golden Witch crouched down, trying to gently raise the woman up. And though she couldn't pry her off the floor, she had at least made the knocking stop. "I just need something done."

  Liao Lan finally lifted her head, her moist eyes hesitant and wary.

  Her master continued, "About a month from now, I am to meet my disciple in Chang'an. Go there in advance, and make sure he arrives safely. Arrange it so that it's easy for us to meet, then await my arrival. And if he's not there, see if you can't set us on his trail. You should begin with those investigators. If he's late, perhaps it's because he's been captured by them."

  The shaken Liao Lan could only stare, the tears about to spill.

  The Golden Witch figured that she had only half-believed her words. She tried to placate her further.

  "I'll really miss you." She whispered, her hands holding her disciple's shoulders. Liao Lan suddenly became unable to meet her golden eyes. "Traveling with you has been so much fun. I'm not looking forward to being alone with that Tao Geming for any amount of time. Now I won't even have anything to distract myself from his presence. But I really need this done."

  "Master..." Liao Lan finally allowed herself to be raised from the floor. Behind her, the Golden Witch briefly caught sight of Shao Luli glaring at a nearby chair, the fury in her gaze running so red-hot it felt as though it could set the furniture alight.

  "I shall do as you bid, master." Liao Lan finally mustered, drawing back her attention. "Consider it done!"

  "Good. I knew I could count on you." The Golden Witch said. "We'll meet again soon."

  Shao Luli instantly regained her composure and stepped forward to bid her grandmaster farewell alongside her master.

  Though in the end she had accepted the task in earnest, Liao Lan's shoulders still slumped as she prepared for the journey. On the other hand, Shao Luli was struggling to contain her glee. Liao Lan knew exactly how the girl felt about the matter, and found her joy more than a little grating.

  And Shao Luli was, in turn, well aware of just how irritating her behavior was to her master, and how hopeless it was to try and conceal those feelings from someone who knew her so well. After they set out, she endured her master's cold shoulder for a time, and then brought forward a suggestion.

  "Master, I know that boy." Shao Luli said. "He's profoundly arrogant, and his status as our senior martial brother is sure to get to his big head. But he doesn't know about it yet. Let's take this chance to teach him some respect for us first."

  Liao Lan suppressed the unexpected chuckle that escaped her lips, abruptly turning it into a displeased sigh. She admonished her disciple, saying, "Little Lu, we can't mistreat him! Master wouldn't like it. Your mind always dwells on mischief, just where do you get that from?"

  But as she mulled the idea over, her eyes glinted devilishly and, against her will, half a smile bloomed on her lips. Liao Lan felt her disciple's gaze on her, staring with rapt attention as she watched the internal battle unfold. Though Liao Lan wasn't privy to the particulars of the young girl's grudge against the Witch's disciple, she also felt no warmth towards the one competing for her master's attention.

  "Well..." Liao Lan slowly began, unable to contain herself any longer. "If this boy is as proud as you say, he wouldn't come crying to master over a little prank. I suppose there's no harm if we have a little fun with him first."

  They snickered to each other as they began to build their ploy in hushed whispers.

  ...

  Meanwhile, once the two women had gone, the Golden Witch sighed in relief.

  "That Liao Lan..." She mumbled. "She saw right through me..."

  But she knew that, as poor of a liar as she was, she would not have been able to persuade her second disciple had she not mixed in at least some truths.

  And when the Golden Witch had stepped outside and found that man standing there with that perpetual scowl on his face, she couldn't help but sigh again, realizing just how little falsehood her words contained.

  Without exchanging so much as a greeting, the two of them took off. The air roared as if a thunderclap erupted from within the clouds of dust lifted by their mad dash. Their departure was accompanied by the panicked screams of the local townspeople who mistook their movement for a tectonic shift.

  Tao Geming traveled in wide strides, each elongated step crossing vast swathes of terrain. The Golden Witch resembled a ghost as she moved, her white robe billowing in the deafening wind. No beast alive could hope to keep pace with them; in just a few moments the town was nothing more than a tiny speck behind them.

  Trees flew them by. They circled around lakes and scurried across rivers. No obstruction, neither natural nor manmade, could slow them down.

  In this manner they traversed the plains in silence, hours going by until the sun began to touch the distant horizon. Tao Geming brought them to a town to conclude the day.

  Just as he was about to leave her for the night, the Golden Witch asked, "Where are you taking me next?"

  "We're in the Ming kingdom." Tao Geming explained. "You're fighting the king and his queen next. They fight as a pair. They like to roam around the country, but there's someone in this town who will tell us where they are now. But that's for tomorrow... Or maybe even the day after that."

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  "The experts you've been bringing me to so far haven't been bad at all, but I can't help but wonder, why aren't we going to the world's most famous sects?"

  "Well, up until this point, because of our time constraints, I've been prioritizing those closest to us." Tao Geming explained. "But now that we can move around freely, I suppose we can go wherever you want. Which sect did you have in mind?"

  "How about the Shaolin Monastery?" She suggested.

  "The Shaolin Monastery...? Sure, we can pay them a visit. On our way through the underworld!" Tao Geming suddenly exploded. "You thought that was funny? Spare me your daft jokes! I've got better things to do than listen to this crap."

  The Golden Witch was bewildered by his reaction. "...What's this outburst now?"

  "It doesn't exist! Everyone knows that! No, I doubt that's even true nowadays; most people today probably haven't even heard of the Shaolin. But those who have heard know that they were eradicated over a century ago, well before even my time! That's the first thing anyone would mention!"

  "It doesn't exist...?" She repeated, after which she was quick to regain her composure. She rolled her eyes and turned away. "You know what? Nevermind. Forget it."

  Tao Geming found himself astonished by how genuine her annoyance had seemed. As she tried to walk away, he spoke up to stop her.

  "You mean to tell me that you really didn't know?" Tao Geming asked, immediately following up with more grumbling. "You know, your eccentricities are really getting on my nerves. Just what hole did you crawl out of? How could you know of the Shaolin and not of the fact that they were destroyed? And let me cut you off before you ask any other stupid questions - the Wudang, the Emei, almost every famous sect from that era was destroyed almost immediately following the rebellion. So we're not going to them either!"

  Though his constant griping continued to grind away at her patience, the Golden Witch forced herself to stop and ask, "How did that happen? From the stories I've been told, those sects were all exceptional, the pioneers of martial arts as we know them."

  Tao Geming crossed his arms and squinted at her incredulously, still half-suspecting that he was on the receiving end of an elaborate joke.

  "The other sects ganged up on them and destroyed them." He began to answer, it seemed, almost against his own will. "It was as simple and as pathetic as that. This was during the infancy of martial arts, back when numbers still could not be ignored by all but the most exceptional martial artists of the age, like the members of the old imperial family and those Qi dynasty rebels. And it was their rebellion that made the entire world understand the true potential of the field, and it was the fear born from that understanding that spurred those other sects to preemptively strike against their betters."

  "So their reputation was nothing but hot air?" The Golden Witch seemed completely deflated by this revelation.

  Tao Geming's confirmation came in the form of a derisive snort. But then he turned away his gaze, and after a pause, reluctantly spoke, "Well, maybe not entirely. It is the amalgamation of all their pilfered secrets that makes up the martial arts of the current age. Some people even go as far as to argue that compromising on their esoteric methods in pursuit of immediate practicality has set the discipline back. Nothing but weeds can sprout from a tainted root, they say."

  "It makes sense in principle, doesn't it?" The Golden Witch asked. "True mastery can only be achieved in commitment to the way. And if the way is distorted, then naturally, true mastery cannot be achieved. Do you disagree?"

  "Don't seek to distinguish between right and wrong here. It's irrelevant." Tao Geming shook his head. "The arts are what they are. Those old techniques can no longer be found in their pure form, and no one can turn back time and prove us modern martial artists wrong. We have to work with what we have. But the way I see it, it's a load of crap. Those sects held on to their secrets for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. And what did their commitment amount to? Our modern, impure iterations left them in the dust in little more than a century. What wowed the martial artists of yesterday is now a matter of course for those of us here today."

  The tall woman's expression soured. Though displeased by his words, she struggled to levy a proper argument. And the more she dwelled on it, the more tense her golden eyes became, and soon enough it seemed as though she had forgotten of Tao Geming's existence entirely.

  When her silence persisted, Tao Geming walked away, waving his hand. "Satisfied? Then I'm outta here."

  His remark briefly knocked her out of her contemplative, frustrated stupor.

  "But then, martial arts..." The Golden Witch mustered, prompting the man to stop. "If the jianghu's martial arts are as flawed as you say, then aren't I just wasting my time chasing after those scraps? Are you saying that my journey is doomed to fail?"

  "I don't care. That's your problem." He barked. But after a pause, he added dryly, "But I'm surprised. I thought a twisted wench like you would be jumping for joy after hearing this. After all, if you don't find what you're looking for on this journey, then you'll just have to reinvent it all from scratch. And doesn't the prospect of wasting your entire life on this crap get you excited? You freak."

  Tao Geming didn't turn his head. He had no desire to see the current look on her face. And she, in turn, had no desire to let him see.

  Her entire body shivered. A crooked little smirk twisted her lips. Excitement lit up her eyes like fireworks. It turned out that not only had there been nothing to fear, even the prospect of failure suddenly turned into something inciting.

  When Tao Geming began to move again, the Golden Witch jolted back as if startled, afraid that he was trying to take a peek. She leaped away, disappearing from the street in an instant.