The Golden Witch was restless that night, tossing and turning in a bed that was too small for her, hardly catching two winks of sleep before the sun rose again. She sat up and attempted to cultivate, but her head wasn't in it, and she achieved nothing. Instead her mind lingered on her extraordinary sense. She extended it as far as it would go, trying to pick out Tao Geming's qi out of the sea of people residing in the city.

  And yet his vast energy was nowhere to be felt; he simply wasn't within her reach. If he was still in the city at all, then he was somewhere on the distant outskirts.

  The Golden Witch, tormented by her boredom, paced around her rented room, ordered food and wine that she would end up hardly even touching, and idly gazed out her window at the day's gray sky.

  She had endured the slow passage of time until noon before her patience finally ran out. She leaped out of the window with a frown, hopping across rooftops to make her way around. It hadn't taken long before she found her mark.

  The Golden Witch stepped inside a drab restaurant and silently strode past the middle-aged patrons and employees. The men were flabbergasted into dumb silence by the appearance of such a peculiar woman. She soon reached a room in the back of the seedy establishment.

  As she reached for the door, one of the men finally came to his senses, calling out, "Lady, you're not allowed in there!"

  But his words fell on deaf ears. Inside, she found Tao Geming and several others sat around a table, playing dice. The air was heavy, humid, reeked of sweat. The men's bloodshot gazes turned towards her, gawking like startled beasts. Tao Geming glanced at her for just a moment, his intense focus briefly giving way to irritation. But he quickly turned back to the game.

  "What are you doing?" The Golden Witch demanded.

  "I'm working." Tao Geming grunted in reply. "Go away."

  "Working?" She recoiled. "You told me you'd take me to the king, but you're just sitting here playing games!"

  One of the other gamblers couldn't help but ask, "Who's your friend, brother Geming?"

  "Ignore her. Make a bet!" Tao Geming impatiently tapped the table. "Get out, Fox!"

  "I was bored out of my mind waiting for you, and it turns out this is what you've been doing?" She covered her nose with her long white sleeve. "This whole place reeks. How long have you been cooped up in here? Since we parted? And you still haven't had enough?"

  When her words had been met with stubborn silence, she loomed over their table. "Don't forget what you promised me! You can play your stupid games after we're done!"

  Tao Geming rubbed his forehead in irritation. "I guess that old pig Liao Lan had a use after all. Babysitting this brat."

  "That was your idea. You just reap what you sow! Get up, now!"

  Tao Geming said nothing, only gesturing once more to the other gambler. The man finally tossed a few coins on the table. They rolled their dice.

  In that moment, the Witch's white sleeve flickered. Tao Geming reacted almost instantly and lunged, but he was just a split second too late. The woman snatched his dice away while his fingers knocked against the empty table.

  "You impatient little shit!" Tao Geming roared. He sprang to his feet, his chair rattling behind him as it fell to the floor. It took the other men several moments to realize what set him off - they hadn't perceived their brief contest at all, only discovering that his dice were gone long after the fact.

  The two stared each other down. Fire blazed in their eyes.

  Suddenly, another middle-aged man barged in.

  "Brother Geming, good thing you're still here!" The man exclaimed. "Some vagabond just came into town and is demanding to see you. And he was fast, ran in faster than a horse - no doubt a martial artist!"

  "Who is it?" Tao Geming asked.

  But the man could only shrug. "Nobody knows. But he's filthy, looks like a beggar. He won't say his name."

  "The hell? How do you even know it's me he's calling out? You telling me you guys knew my moniker and still agreed to gamble with me?"

  "He's calling you out by name. What's your moniker, brother Geming?"

  "By name?" Tao Geming couldn't help but echo the man's words.

  "Like a beggar, you said?" The Golden Witch curled an eyebrow, suddenly struck by a vague memory.

  Tao Geming's compatriots were unwilling to bring him to the man in question, and even made a token attempt to persuade him to avoid this obvious peril. But in the end, they still divulged the name of the street on which the beggar was making his stand.

  As they wandered through the city in search of the man in question, they found their surroundings plunged into an eerie stillness. Nary a soul walked the roads alongside them, and yet still they could feel eyes gazing at them from all over, hiding behind locked doors and shuttered windows. Evidently, the entire town had been made aware of what was about to unfold.

  When their destination drew near, the Golden Witch suddenly shook. In the next moment she was gone. There wasn't any time for Tao Geming to call her out; he was begrudgingly forced to break out into a dash of his own.

  With Tao Geming lagging behind by just a second, the two of them arrived at a tidy little park. Not even the dreary gray skies could fully dull the vibrant bloom of the plum trees planted along its territory, the pink flowers swaying in the wind. The paths, sparsely paved with stones, led towards a small pavilion, under the shade of which rested a beggar.

  "It really is you." The Golden Witch said, a small smile on her face. "I thought we'd never meet again."

  Tao Geming saw that familiar obsession blooming in the woman's yellow eyes, and he crossed his arms, his interest in the situation instantly waning. The matter was already out of his hands; he would simply watch the battle unfold.

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  When the beggar heard her voice, he set his sole possession - a clay alms bowl - down on the tiles and reluctantly stepped out.

  The beggar called out, "Your villainy has always been well known, but aren't you taking it way too far this time, eh, Tao Geming?"

  "Who the hell are you?" Tao Geming asked. Nothing in his body language suggested even a vague recollection of the man before them.

  Ma Yi shook his head. "I mistook you for a mere vulture, a maggot - a harmless little creature feeding on the remains of something that perished long ago. But it's evident now that you're something far lower than that."

  Tao Geming's brow twitched. His grip on his arms tightened, his composure quickly melting under the heat his rage.

  The beggar continued, "Because your previous rampage all those years ago had ended so abruptly, I thought you had a change of heart and realized the folly of your ambition. The life you ended up living wasn't much to talk about, but it was something that, in this dark age, could at least be tolerated. But it turns out the ambition never left you. You just didn't have the heart to go all the way. And you turned out to be even worse than that - you were just waiting for someone else to come by to do your dirty work for you. And a woman no less..."

  A silence arose over the park. The wind howled.

  Tao Geming stepped past the Golden Witch, his face taut. "...I'll handle this one, Fox."

  "Not a chance." She flatly rejected. "This is not what we agreed to. Don't let him provoke you so easily."

  "I said stay out of it!" Tao Geming bellowed. "Get in my way and you'll be finding your own way around the jianghu!"

  The annoyance that sprung to her face betrayed her immediate desire to argue back. But in the end she remained silent; his ultimatum gave her pause.

  "Fine." The Golden Witch eventually resigned. "But just this once. And if you end the fight before he uses his techniques, the two of us are done."

  As soon as she spoke the last word of her condition, Tao Geming hurtled towards the beggar as though he had been blasted out of a cannon. Ma Yi's eyes widened. A heavy fist flew at his head. The beggar ducked and the punch cleaved right through the pavilion's pillar. Ma Yi moved himself to the side with bizarre footwork.

  Ma Yi contorted his body and several more strikes passed him by. He had avoided them in a fashion which seemed borderline incidental. No matter how strange of a shape his legs and torso had twisted into, no matter how close his body had inched towards the ground, Ma Yi never slowed, never seemed off-balance.

  Even though the spectacle he put up bordered on the amusing, it was still evident by his gritted teeth that the beggar was straining with every fiber of his being to keep himself alive. It was not speed that kept him out of harm's way, but the sheer unpredictability of his style.

  But already Tao Geming began to grow accustomed to his tricks. His hands were flying ever closer, and soon, Ma Yi had been maneuvered into such a position that he had no choice but to meet one of the blows head-on. The beggar lunged forward to interrupt an incoming strike with one of his own. Their forearms smashed into each other. As though they had crossed swords, the two of them found themselves at a brief standstill.

  "Do you remember me now?" Ma Yi asked, his limb shaking ever so slightly, buckling under the weight of Tao Geming's steady, unrelenting power. "Are you ready to continue our conversation where we last left off?"

  "Sure, I remember now." Tao Geming spat. "You're that preachy bum from Jiuqin. But I still have no idea who you are. Your martial arts aren't only good enough to get Fox's attention - they're good enough to take a strike from me. You must be completely out of your mind to be playing beggar with skills like these."

  "Well, isn't this quite something!" Ma Yi chuckled. "I was about to use almost the exact same words."

  Tao Geming saw no humor in it. "This is your last chance to name yourself, you deranged prick!"

  Ma Yi scoffed. "You were quite content to lop my head off just a moment ago, name or no name. But all of a sudden something's changed! Because I showed a bit of strength, you think I deserve to be treated with a bit of chivalry, right? Well, let me tell you something, Geming! It's only chivalry when applied equally to all matters! You can't just pick and choose when to dredge up that tired old word! What you're doing here is not chivalry, but vanity, giving yourself a little pat on the back, playing at being a real man when it matters least! Or maybe you're just seeking to supplement your fame by using mine...?"

  "I asked you for two or three characters, not an entire book's worth!" Tao Geming seethed, pressing harder into the beggar. "Give me something that might fit on your tombstone!"

  "Leave it bare!" Ma Yi replied, straining under the pressure. "I don't care for recognition. I don't care for fame. If I die here, remaining obscure would just save me a bit of embarrassment. One less blemish to my filthy life. And if I win, well, why would I want to have my name attached to this deed? It'd be like a stablehand bragging about shoveling manure! Sure, it needed to be done, but why would anyone want to hear about it?!"

  "Forget it!" Tao Geming waved his arm, sending the beggar sliding back across the grass. But he was in no rush to close the sudden distance between them.

  Ma Yi used this brief lull to rest his arms. Their brief struggle had drained more out of him than he anticipated. After allowing him the moment of reprieve, Tao Geming lunged back into the melee where the two of them continued to trade stances.