Father and Son Reclaiming Lost Years
Thirty days were not enough to make up for ten lost years.
But in a death cell, thirty days already felt like time stolen from heaven.
When Fang Tieshan passed on the formulas for the fist and saber arts, Fang Yingjie memorized them. When his recitation wearied him, he spoke instead of the world outside.
He spoke of Mount Hua.
He spoke of his own sickly childhood, of how he had often sat beneath the eaves, watching his senior and junior martial brothers practice swordplay on the stone terrace. The mountain wind would move through the pines; one flicker of swordlight, and it was like the first cold gleam of morning.
He spoke of Zhen E. Whenever she came up the mountain to see him, she never let herself cry in front of him. She would only knit her brows, lay a hand against his forehead, and scold him for wearing too little, for not taking his medicine properly enough.
Whenever he reached that point, Fang Tieshan would always fall silent for a long while.
Once, in a low voice, he asked,
"Over these years... did she smile often?"
Fang Yingjie could not answer.
Because in his memory, Zhen E was always enduring.
Enduring the running about.
Enduring her worry.
Enduring the fear that his illness might worsen. And enduring, too, the resolve never to speak of his father in front of him.
After a long silence, Fang Yingjie said only,
"When Mother looked at me, there was softness in her eyes."
Fang Tieshan did not speak for a long time.
That night, he passed on no more formulas.
He only leaned against the stone wall, his breathing so low and heavy it was barely there at all.
Fang Yingjie did not try to persuade him.
He merely nudged the bowl of water toward him.
Fang Tieshan did not drink.
Only when the lamp was nearly spent did that gaunt hand slowly reach out and hook itself over the rim.
When Fang Yingjie carved the first stroke of the third tally mark into the wall, he came at last to the matter of leaving the mountain.
He spoke of Qin Gang's birthday banquet, of Lake Taihu, of that duel between Xuanyuan Xi and Bai Yuchuan.
He spoke slowly.
Even now, there were parts he could not truly explain. He had been only eleven then, and he had known no martial arts. How could he have understood the real subtleties hidden in their palm and sword?
But the feeling that duel had left on him was something he would remember for the rest of his life.
"I still remember that fight even now," he said.
"I couldn't understand it then. I only felt that the moment the young marquis of the Bai family made his move, even the spring wind by the lake seemed to turn colder. He was dressed all in white, and even his sword was white. Standing there, he looked as if snow from Changbai had drifted down to the shore of Lake Taihu."
"But Brother Xi did not give way. He was steady when he raised his palm, and steady when he drew his sword. The moment that black blade came out, he seemed like the very bones of Mount Hua thrusting through the clouds."
At the words the young marquis of the Bai family, Fang Tieshan turned his face slightly.
"The Bai family of Flying Snow Manor?"
Fang Yingjie nodded.
"Yes."
He paused, then said in a lower voice,
"All I know is that when one stood in white and the other in blue beside Lake Taihu, everyone there fell silent."
"Afterward, they all said it ended in a draw."
In a low voice, Fang Tieshan said,
"The Bai family of Changbai was never merely a clan of the martial world."
Fang Yingjie started.
But Fang Tieshan did not elaborate. He only said,
"If you meet the Bai family again one day, be three parts more wary."
Fang Yingjie remembered that.
Then he spoke of that escort north with Tongshun Escort Agency.
He told how Zheng Chong had not dared make a public matter of it, and so had entrusted Cheng Dingshan and the men of Tongshun Escort Agency to take him and Xi Qian out of Taihu under the guise of a small merchant caravan; how they were supposed to travel north all the way and hand them over near Wuxi Ferry to the men Fang Stronghold had sent to receive them.
Then he spoke of that false Fang Zhongyi on the official road at dusk: how the man had arrived carrying a Fang family token, half a wooden tally, the birthmark on his brow, and even the speech and bearing of one of the Fang family's old hands. Even the outer frame of the saber forms and palm forms had been copied with terrifying likeness. In the end, he had deceived the whole party from Tongshun Escort Agency and stolen Fang Yingjie and Xi Qian clean off the road back to Mount Hua.
After that came Eaglebeak Ridge.
The pursuers.
The fall from the cliff.
He spoke of how Old Daoist Xuan had dragged him back from the very brink of death, and how the first thing he had taught him was not how to strike, not how to win, but how not to die.
When he came to Wang A'fu and his family, Fang Yingjie's voice dropped much lower.
He spoke of that little house by the lake, of hot meals, fish soup, sweet fermented rice, and the light that would kindle in Wang Yan's eyes whenever she spoke of the little shop she wanted one day.
He said they had been nothing more than ordinary people, yet had been drawn into everything because of him.
He said Wang Yan could row, could remember every waterway, and in the worst confusion could still shout at him, "Hold it steady!"
He said that night the rain over the lake had come down in sheets; the little boat had overturned; and before he sank beneath the water, the last thing he heard was still Wang Yan's voice.
Fang Tieshan listened in silence.
After a long while, he said,
"You think it was you who harmed them?"
Fang Yingjie did not answer at once.
At last, he said quietly,
"If not for me, they would never have been drawn into it."
Fang Tieshan said,
"In the martial world, it is often not enough simply to wish not to implicate others."
Fang Yingjie lifted his eyes.
Fang Tieshan said,
"But if you remember them, then you cannot remember only your guilt."
"Guilt is useless."
"If you can leave this place one day, then win justice for them."
Fang Yingjie's fingers tightened, little by little.
"I will."
It was only the next day that Fang Yingjie truly came to speak of that ruined hall of the Four Sacred Gates.
He spoke of the ancient stone hall at the bottom of the ravine, of the broken carvings of Dragon, Phoenix, Unicorn, and Black Tortoise, of that old convocation of the Heavenly Gate that had seemed almost like a dream.
Then he spoke of how Old Daoist Xuan had later mentioned the Four Sacred Gates, of how long ago the four branches had all sprung from the Holy Order of the Heavenly Gate, and of how, only after that order split apart, there came to be the Heavenly Dragon Gate, the Phoenix Gate, the Unicorn Gate, and the Black Tortoise Gate.
Later still, he mentioned that Old Daoist Xuan had once said in passing that these days the line of the Heavenly Dragon Gate was more often called Azure Dragon Isle.
Fang Tieshan had been leaning against the stone wall, but when he heard the names Heavenly Dragon Gate and Azure Dragon Isle, his breathing stopped for the slightest instant.
Only for that instant.
It was so brief it was like the wick of a dying lamp giving one small leap in the damp before being forced still again.
Fang Yingjie did not notice at once. He only went on speaking.
He spoke of how Old Daoist Xuan had regulated his breathing at the bottom of the ravine, how he had taught him first to guard his inner breath, then his spirit, and how, again and again, he had told him that it did not matter if he did not yet know how to fight—first he had to learn not to die.
Only when he had finished did Fang Tieshan slowly speak.
"So what he taught you was the method that kept you alive through these ten years?"
Fang Yingjie nodded.
"He said I shouldn't think first of striking others. I should first learn not to die."
Fang Tieshan repeated it in a low voice.
"First learn not to die."
He seemed to be turning those four words over in his mouth.
After a long time, he said,
"Anyone who can speak such words may not be a simple man."
Fang Yingjie said,
"He looked slovenly enough, and he liked talking nonsense."
Fang Tieshan said,
"That only makes him less simple, not more."
Fang Yingjie still wanted to say more, but Fang Tieshan did not continue asking about the Four Sacred Gates, nor did he press him further about Azure Dragon Isle.
He only leaned against the stone wall and slowly steadied his breath.
"Remember the words he taught you," he said softly.
"First learn not to die."
"If you do not die, only then can there be what comes after."
Fang Yingjie nodded.
"I remember."
Fang Tieshan said no more.
Some words had risen to his lips, only to be pressed back down again.
This was not yet the time to speak.
The true Dragoncloud Palm had not yet begun.
Dragoncloud Palm, Handed Down
By the time the third tally mark was only half carved into the wall, Fang Tieshan finally began to pass on Dragoncloud Palm.
That day, the cell was colder than usual.
Drops of water slid down the stone walls in glistening strings. The straw mat was so damp it seemed it could be wrung dry by hand. Fang Tieshan had coughed blood in the night, and his face looked grayer than it had the day before. Fang Yingjie had meant to let him rest for a day.
But Fang Tieshan only said,
"Sit properly."
Fang Yingjie did not dare argue again. He could only do as he was told and sit down.
Fang Tieshan asked, "Do you know why Dragoncloud Palm is called Dragoncloud?"
Fang Yingjie answered, "People in the martial world all say that when your palm strikes, it is like a dragon in motion, and when its power rises, it rises like clouds. That is why it is called Dragoncloud Palm."
Fang Tieshan gave a low laugh.
"People in the martial world do love a pretty phrase."
He paused to catch his breath, and when he spoke again, his voice had grown slower.
'A dragon in the strike, clouds in the rising force'—that is not wrong."
"But it only speaks of the surface."
Fang Yingjie started slightly.
Fang Tieshan said, "What truly matters in those two words, dragon and cloud, is not that they sound grand."
"It is where they come from."
He stopped there for a moment.
"The Dragoncloud Palm handed down through the Fang family is, naturally, already the Fang family's palm."
"But the earliest root of it did not lie wholly with the Fang family."
Fang Yingjie held his breath and listened with all his attention.
In a low voice, Fang Tieshan said, "What has been passed down in the Fang family says only that, in his early years, one of our ancestors once received guidance from a great master of Azure Dragon Isle and obtained a fragment of the original intent behind that palm art."
Fang Yingjie remembered the old tale of the Heavenly Gate he himself had spoken of days before.
"Azure Dragon Isle..."
He hesitated, then asked, "Do you mean the branch I spoke of before—the one among the Four Sacred Gates?"
Fang Tieshan was silent for a while, then slowly nodded.
"It should be."
He spoke those words very slowly.
As though even for him, only at this moment, many fragments of old talk—things he had long known only in part—had at last come together into a single thread.
"In the past, I thought it no more than a chance encounter one of the Fang ancestors had while roaming the martial world in his youth."
"Only after hearing you speak of the old history of the Four Sacred Gates did I understand that the master from Azure Dragon Isle was tied, behind it all, to the older lineage of the Heavenly Dragon Gate."
He paused, and his voice dropped lower.
"But that was already several hundred years ago."
"The Fang family established its Stronghold in Shandong and handed down its martial arts for centuries. Yet which generation of ancestor it was, and where exactly he met that master—even the Fang family itself can no longer say with certainty."
"Too many years have passed. When words are passed from one generation to the next, something is always lost."
"Some things are perhaps not unknown."
"It is only that, as they are handed down and handed down again, no one dares claim he still remembers them clearly."
Fang Yingjie said nothing.
Fang Tieshan drew a labored breath, his voice sinking still lower.
"But remember this."
"No one in the martial world knows that origin."
"Even within Fang Stronghold, not everyone knows it."
"Fang Family Fist, the Fang family saber, the arts taught to the guards, the instructors, the younger clansmen—those may all be learned."
"But Dragoncloud Palm is different."
"Its source is passed by word of mouth from each generation of Stronghold Lord to the next."
"Until the hour comes for someone truly to inherit the family line, it must not be spoken of lightly."
Fang Yingjie felt his heart jolt.
Fang Tieshan said, "What the Fang ancestor obtained in those years was not the complete supreme art of Azure Dragon Isle—only part of the original intent of that palm art. Later, through generations of the Fang family, it was worked into Fang Family Fist, into our palm methods, our footwork, our practical way of fighting in formation, until little by little it was tempered into the Dragoncloud Palm of today."
He paused, then said,
"So Dragoncloud Palm is not an ordinary branch of the Fang family's boxing and palm arts."
"It borrows the spirit of the dragon and turns it into the movement of clouds."
"The dragon is the old lineage."
"The clouds are the Fang family."
In a low voice, Fang Yingjie asked, "Even Instructor Fang does not know this?"
Fang Tieshan was silent for a moment.
"He knows Dragoncloud Palm is of no shallow origin."
"He also knows that a few of the Fang family's palm forms are unlike the usual northern boxing and palm arts."
"But he does not know the true source."
"It is not that I distrust him."
"It is the rule handed down by our ancestors."
He lifted that withered hand of his and closed it over Fang Yingjie's wrist.
"I tell you this today not because you happened to speak of the Four Sacred Gates."
"I tell you because you are the son of Fang Tieshan."
"And because you are the one in this generation of the Fang family who should inherit this palm."
He paused, then went on.
"Listen carefully. Dragoncloud Palm has four original forms and twelve Fang-derived forms."
At once, Fang Yingjie focused himself completely.
Word by word, Fang Tieshan said,
"Four original forms. Remember them."
Hidden Dragon Emerges from the Deep.
Azure Dragon Swings Its Tail.
A Host of Dragons Contends on Land.
Dragon Battles Across the Wilds.
Fang Yingjie repeated them silently under his breath.
Fang Tieshan continued,
"Twelve Fang-derived forms."
Clouds Rising Through a Cleft in Stone.
Parting Clouds to Sound the Sea.
Breaking Mist, Piercing the Forest.
Crossing Clouds, Breaking Waves.
Turning Clouds, Sweeping the Ridge.
Coiling Clouds, Rending the Shore.
Layered Clouds Pressing the City.
Twin Clouds Seizing the Pass.
Clouds Closing the Four Approaches.
Shattering Clouds, Splitting Stone.
Hanging Clouds of a Thousandfold Weight.
Dragoncloud Holding the Mountain.
Fang Yingjie closed his eyes and engraved those names into his mind again and again.
Fang Tieshan said, "The names are easy enough to remember. The meaning in the palm is hard."
"For now, memorize them."
"When you know them by heart, then listen while I break them apart for you."
From that day on, the cell truly became a place where the palm was passed down.
Fang Tieshan could not rise to demonstrate it, so he explained the principles aloud, traced the placements of the steps on the wet stone with his fingertip, and, between broken breaths, told Fang Yingjie where to conceal, where to release, and where to draw back.
He began with Hidden Dragon Emerges from the Deep.
It was one of the four original forms, and the root from which Dragoncloud Palm began.
"Hidden dragon does not mean unmoving," Fang Tieshan said.
"It means moving without showing movement."
"Before the enemy sees your hand move, the force of your strike must already have taken shape within you."
"If you wait until the instant your palm actually leaves your body to gather power, it is already too late."
He paused, then in a lower voice recited several lines of the palm formula:
"Let the qi sink to the bottom of the abyss, let the force lie hidden along the spine.
Do not spread the shoulder too soon; do not reveal the elbow too soon.
Before the step advances, the root must first be set. Before the palm is loosed, the force must already be formed.
In the instant it leaves the abyss, do not seek loudness of sound—seek only solidity of strength."
Fang Yingjie repeated the lines softly after him.
When he reached Do not spread the shoulder too soon, Fang Tieshan suddenly said,
"Again."
Fang Yingjie froze for a beat, then immediately repeated,
"Do not spread the shoulder too soon; do not reveal the elbow too soon."
Fang Tieshan said, "Remember that."
"The instant the shoulder opens, the force floats."
"The instant the elbow shows, the gate opens."
Fang Yingjie's heart tightened.
"I will remember."
Sitting against the wall, he followed his father's instruction and sank his breath downward.
He could not move broadly. He could only make the smallest adjustments—settling the shoulders, closing the waist, rooting the stance. What he had thought would be palm practice did not begin with extending a hand to strike. It began with slowly hiding that first thread of force inside the body.
Fang Tieshan listened to the faint rustle of his clothing, his breathing, the tiny sounds in his joints, and from time to time coldly pointed out his faults.
"Shoulder too high."
"The waist is not closing."
"You're empty under the feet."
"I did not tell you to hold your breath."
"A dragon hidden in the abyss does not mean a dragon dead in the abyss."
Fang Yingjie was rebuked until sweat stood on his brow, but he did not dare let his mind wander.
Fang Tieshan did not explain all that followed in one breath.
After Hidden Dragon Emerges from the Deep, there was still the matter of testing the enemy's emptiness and fullness, of raising the force from the lower body, of drawing power back into the palm even while being driven into retreat, of sending the palm's strength from the soles of the feet through waist and hips, along the spine, all the way into the center of the hand. Where one must hide, where one might release; where the breath must not be filled to the brim, where the palm must not be exhausted completely—there were formulas for all of it.
Fang Tieshan broke it down one passage at a time.
Fang Yingjie memorized it one passage at a time.
If he missed a single word, he started over.
If he recited let the qi lie hidden along the spine instead of let the force lie hidden along the spine, he started over.
If he omitted the word force from Before the palm is loosed, the force must already be formed, he started over as well.
By the end, those few lines of palm formula had sunk into his heart like stones.
Only then did he understand that the so-called dragon in Dragoncloud Palm did not mean baring fangs and claws the moment one struck.
A real dragon had first to know how to remain concealed.
The next day, Fang Tieshan taught Clouds Rising Through a Cleft in Stone.
Though it was one of the Fang-derived forms, it had come out of Hidden Dragon Emerges from the Deep, and its whole meaning lay in finding the rise of force where no path seemed left, in drawing life from a narrow place.
"This form," Fang Tieshan said, "you must remember well."
"It is the opening born in desperate straits."
"When you are weak, do not pretend to be strong."
"If you are trapped in a cleft of stone, then borrow that cleft and let clouds be born from it."
In a low voice, he recited:
"If the body is narrow, let the force be narrow; if the heart is narrow, the palm is dead.
Do not fight the cleft for breadth; do not fight the cloud-breath to be first.
Rise by way of the seam; let it grow along the bone.
Let the palm emerge where there seems no road, let the strength continue where it seems ready to break."
Fang Yingjie repeated after him.
When he came to Let the palm emerge where there seems no road, let the strength continue where it seems ready to break, his voice faltered ever so slightly.
Fang Tieshan seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.
"Have you not lived these ten years by clawing your way out through a crack in the stone?"
Heat rose in Fang Yingjie's chest.
Fang Tieshan said, "That is why this form may be easier for you to understand than for me."
He said it very softly.
Yet when it fell into Fang Yingjie's heart, it carried a terrible weight.
Following the principle of the form, he tried it once.
The movement was tiny.
It was no more than a slight settling of the body, the intent of the palm lifting from within and outward in the gentlest of motions.
Fang Tieshan had been leaning against the wall, his breathing low and faint. But the instant Fang Yingjie's palm-intent stirred, his ear twitched slightly, and his face turned toward him.
"Again."
Fang Yingjie tried once more.
Fang Tieshan was silent for a long time.
He did not praise him.
He did not scold him either.
He only said in a low voice,
"There's something there."
Those four words were enough for Fang Yingjie to remember for a very long time.
Over the next several days, Fang Tieshan went on to break down Parting Clouds to Sound the Sea, Breaking Mist, Piercing the Forest, Crossing Clouds, Breaking Waves, and the rest.
Some forms were chiefly in the path of the palm.
Some depended on the exact placement of the steps.
Some had to be explained together with breath, shoulder and back, waist and hips, as one whole.
Parting Clouds to Sound the Sea did not hurry to release the palm; its weight lay in testing depth and shallowness, in tugging at the enemy's balance.
Breaking Mist, Piercing the Forest used a short palm path and demanded penetrating force, meant expressly to break nimble evasion.
Crossing Clouds, Breaking Waves was about cutting off the enemy's force at the root.
By the time the fifth tally mark had reached its third stroke, Fang Tieshan was teaching Crossing Clouds, Breaking Waves.
"If the enemy's force comes like a wave, you need not meet it head-on," Fang Tieshan said.
"To block it head-on is the poorest choice."
"See the place where the wave has not yet joined itself together. Enter across it with one palm, and break the root of its momentum."
In a low voice, he recited the formula:
"When the wave comes, do not meet its crest.
When the force is full, do not struggle for supremacy.
Enter across the cloud before it joins, and break the wave by breaking its root.
Let the palm travel on a slanting line, while the strength guards the central gate."
Fang Yingjie tried several times and still failed to grasp its true meaning.
Either he was too hurried, or else too straight.
Fang Tieshan cursed him.
"You think breaking a wave means smashing your skull into it?"
"The palm cuts across. It does not go to die."
Fang Yingjie's face burned under the scolding. He could only begin again.
On the sixth attempt, he finally understood a little.
The palm-force did not drive directly forward. It cut in obliquely, intercepting that one line of force before the enemy's momentum had fully formed.
Fang Tieshan gave a low grunt.
"Remember that taste."
"You may not have it yet."
"But the flavor is right."
Later came Hanging Clouds of a Thousandfold Weight.
Of all the forms, this was the one Fang Tieshan explained for the longest time.
"Clouds seem light," he said.
"But when clouds hang low, even mountains darken."
"This form is not chiefly about striking."
"It is about pressing down."
"Not on a man's head."
"On his force."
Then he recited several more lines of formula:
"Clouds hang low without haste; a thousandfold weight makes no sound.
Before the palm descends, the force must already sink.
If the enemy rises against me, I do not contend for height.
If the enemy withdraws from me, I do not chase his shadow.
I only lay the weight of my whole body's sinking force across the space between his advance and retreat."
Fang Yingjie listened, transfixed.
Fang Tieshan said, "If all you want is to win, you will never master this form."
Fang Yingjie asked, "Why?"
Fang Tieshan answered, "Because before you can press down, you must first know how to bear."
"If you can bear it, then you can press it down."
"If you cannot bear it, you will collapse first yourself."
At once, Fang Yingjie thought of those ten years in prison.
He thought of the cold damp, the iron chains, the dying lamp, the coarse crusts of bread. He thought of being beaten apart again and again, and of gathering his breath back each time.
In a low voice he said, "Like first learning how not to die?"
Fang Tieshan was silent for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"But harder than that."
"Because it is not enough that you yourself do not die."
"You must also bear one more breath for the people behind you."
Fang Yingjie lowered his head.
"I will remember."
The remaining forms, Fang Tieshan also broke down one by one.
How Azure Dragon Swings Its Tail swept sideways to break an encirclement.
How Turning Clouds, Sweeping the Ridge borrowed the turn of the body to sweep back at a pursuing foe.
How Coiling Clouds, Rending the Shore first drew inward and then burst outward, shocking the enemy's sinews and bones at close range.
How Layered Clouds Pressing the City advanced in weight upon weight, forcing a man backward.
How Twin Clouds Seizing the Pass used both palms to contend for the center and seize the enemy's gate.
How Clouds Closing the Four Approaches sealed off every space in which the enemy might shift or evade.
How Shattering Clouds, Splitting Stone used the Fang family's hard, fierce strength to break straight through a frontal defense.
How Dragon Battles Across the Wilds was a direct, overpowering assault that left no thought of retreat.
Each of these palm formulas had its own stepping, its own concealed force, its own release of force, its own recovery of force, and its own changes to meet an enemy in combat. Fang Tieshan explained them slowly. Fang Yingjie memorized them even more slowly. If one only heard the names, it might seem no more than sixteen forms of palm work. But once each was broken apart, one discovered that inside every form lay things the Fang family had packed down, ground down, and hammered true over hundreds of years.
Only at the very end did Fang Tieshan speak of Dragoncloud Holding the Mountain.
When he taught this form, his breathing had already grown very weak.
Several times Fang Yingjie wanted him to stop.
Fang Tieshan refused every time.
"This form," he said, "is where the Fang family's palm art returns to its root."
"Holding does not mean crushing something to death."
"It means guarding it."
"A mountain stands where it stands not in order to show strength."
"It stands so that wind and rain may know that there are some things in this world they are not permitted to cross."
At these words, his chest suddenly rose and fell in a harsh, uneven rhythm.
Fang Yingjie hurriedly reached out to steady him.
Fang Tieshan fought for breath for a long while before he could continue.
"Yingjie, Dragoncloud Palm is not better for being fiercer."
"Fierceness—anyone can see."
"The true skill is in being able to bear what must be borne."
"To hold back what must be held back."
"To hold fast to what must be held."
"And when the time truly comes to strike—only then do you let that dragon out."
Fang Yingjie's eyes burned hot.
"Father, I will remember."
Fang Tieshan closed his eyes for a moment.
"Remembering is not enough."
"You must train it until it becomes yours."
The Black Tortoise Bearing the Dragon
By the time the fifth tally mark had been carved into the wall, night had filled the dungeon completely, and for once the place was quiet.
The guard had come to bring them food and gone again. His footsteps faded down the passage, and for a long time did not return.
Without warning, Fang Tieshan said, "Try a palm."
Fang Yingjie stared.
"Now?"
"Now."
"Use the method Old Daoist Xuan taught you."
Fang Yingjie felt his heart give a small jump.
These past days, he had done everything Fang Tieshan asked of him—memorized the principles of the palm, learned the lines of force, fixed the steps and angles in his mind—but he had not yet dared to truly drive the art with his inner force.
First, because he feared alerting the guards.
Second, because Fang Tieshan's body was in too wretched a state, and he did not dare cause the slightest disturbance.
Third, because he himself did not know whether the inner force he had nurtured over ten years simply to stay alive could truly set Dragoncloud Palm in motion.
Fang Tieshan said, "Gently."
"Do not strike."
"Only let the palm intent move."
Fang Yingjie nodded and slowly rose to his feet.
He found a patch of stone in the cell that was a little less damp than the rest.
Then he closed his eyes.
First, he regulated his breathing.
One breath sank into his energy center.
It was nothing like the broad, surging openness of Mount Hua's Greater Yang Art, nor the dense, yielding softness of the Greater Yin line. What stirred within him had been born in ten years of bitter cold and iron confinement. It was neither fierce nor bright, but thick and abiding, gathered deep and unwilling to scatter. Like charcoal buried beneath ash—dark to the eye, yet still holding one ember that refused to die.
Following the palm intent of Cloud Rising Through Stone Crevices, Fang Yingjie slowly let his shoulders sink, gathered his waist, and turned lightly on his feet.
His palm did not move.
The force rose first.
Not surging.
Supporting.
He himself had not yet sensed anything extraordinary, but Fang Tieshan abruptly lifted his face.
Those dim, sightless eyes opened into emptiness.
Yet in that instant, his expression changed.
"Stop."
Fang Yingjie stopped at once.
"Again," said Fang Tieshan.
His voice had grown lower, heavier.
Fang Yingjie obeyed and tried once more.
This time, he moved even more slowly than before.
The inner force lifted faintly from deep within his energy center, traveled up through waist and spine, yet did not hurry to rush into shoulder and arm. The palm intent formed first within the body, as if a thread of cloud-vapor were slowly, very slowly, welling up through a crack in stone—not fighting, not seizing, but filling the empty places little by little.
Fang Tieshan heard it.
Not with his ears.
But with the instincts of a man who had spent a lifetime training Dragoncloud Palm, who could hear a path in the finest shifts of breath, the smallest movements of bone and sleeve.
Suddenly he said, "Hidden Dragon Emerging from the Abyss."
Fang Yingjie changed forms.
This time, the force remained deep, remained steady.
The dragon did not hurry to rise.
First, it hid.
It hid in the energy center, in the spine, in the rooted point beneath his feet.
Fang Tieshan's fingers trembled once.
"Cloud Hanging with a Thousandfold Weight."
Fang Yingjie changed again.
And the moment he did, he felt the difficulty.
That force could support—but not necessarily press down. The instant the palm intent tried to descend, the furnace-fire within him seemed unable to bear such crushing weight. His qi stirred upward ever so slightly, and the structure of the palm scattered with it.
He hurriedly drew back.
But Fang Tieshan did not rebuke him.
He only said, in a low voice, "Enough."
Silence settled over the cell again.
Sweat beaded at Fang Yingjie's brow. His breathing had fallen slightly out of rhythm.
Fang Tieshan, however, remained silent for a long while.
So long that Fang Yingjie could not help saying, "Father?"
At last Fang Tieshan said slowly, "No wonder."
Fang Yingjie froze.
Fang Tieshan said, "No wonder when I drove my training to its furthest point, I always felt there was one layer of Dragoncloud Palm I had never truly passed through."
Leaning against the stone wall, he spoke very softly, yet each word seemed dragged up from somewhere terribly deep.
"When I used Greater Yang Art to drive Dragoncloud Palm, I was borrowing Mount Hua's fire to heat the Fang family furnace."
"Strong, yes."
"Fierce, yes."
"But borrowed fire is still borrowed fire."
Fang Yingjie held his breath and listened.
Fang Tieshan went on.
"The root of Dragoncloud Palm lies in the Heavenly Dragon Gate supreme arts of Azure Dragon Isle."
"The dragon is a thing that rises."
"But before a dragon can rise, something must first be able to bear it upward."
His voice trembled faintly.
"If the life-preserving method you learned truly has something to do with the lineage of the True Martial Sect and the Black Tortoise Gate, then it too belongs to the old root of the Holy Order of the Heavenly Gate."
"The Black Tortoise is the principle of stilling."
"Weight. Stability. Endurance."
"One governs ascent."
"One governs stillness."
"No wonder."
He let out a sudden laugh.
It was a very soft laugh, bleak as old ashes—and yet beneath it lay a note of quiet, irrepressible relief.
"No wonder the breath you forged over these ten years, just to stay alive, fits Dragoncloud Palm better than mine ever did."
Fang Yingjie stood motionless.
"Better than yours, Father?"
Fang Tieshan gave a cold snort.
"The path fits better."
"That does not mean you have mastered it."
Fang Yingjie bowed his head at once.
"Yes."
Fang Tieshan said, "You have only just touched the mouth of the furnace. To truly shape the palm, you are still far from it."
He paused to steady his breath again.
"But the road is right."
A small light kindled in Fang Yingjie's eyes.
Fang Tieshan said, "From now on, your Dragoncloud Palm need not be as fierce as mine."
"You must first learn how to support."
"Support yourself."
"Support those behind you."
"Support the things that must be guarded."
"Only then strike."
Fang Yingjie slowly knelt back down and said in a low voice, "Father, I will remember."
Fang Tieshan closed his eyes, weary to the bone.
"Recite the general formula of Dragoncloud Palm."
Fang Yingjie started, then quickly calmed himself and recited the entire general formula of Dragoncloud Palm without missing a word.
When he finished, Fang Tieshan gave the faintest nod.
"Now the general formula of Fang Family Fist."
Fang Yingjie continued.
After the fist came the saber.
That night, he recited until his voice grew hoarse. Fang Tieshan's breathing fell lower and lower as he listened, yet from beginning to end he never told him to stop.
Because both of them knew thirty days was too short.
Too short for much tenderness.
Too short for anything but wrenching every moment by force from the jaws of fate.
In the days that followed, it was no longer only recitation.
Fang Family Fist and the Fang family saber still had to be taught chiefly by memory. Fang Tieshan made him repeat the general formula again and again, fix the patterns and routes in his mind, learn the steps and angles by heart. Now and then he would draw positions of advance and retreat on the stone floor with his fingertip and demand that Fang Yingjie, even with his eyes closed, tell him which step was feint and which was solid, where the shoulder must sink, where the elbow must never drift.
But Dragoncloud Palm was different.
Whenever the guard had brought food and gone, whenever the footsteps in the passage had receded into silence, Fang Yingjie would rise and begin to test the palm.
He did not dare make the slightest commotion.
The palm wind could not sound. His footsteps could not strike heavily. Even his breathing could not grow too obviously disordered. If he made the least strange noise and drew the guards in, then at best all their labor would be wasted; at worst, everything Fang Tieshan had been forcing himself to pass on these past days might be noticed by the Crimson Flame Palace.
So he could only make his steps lighter, gather in shoulders and back, close waist and hips, and in the smallest possible movements attempt Hidden Dragon Emerging from the Abyss, and in those soundless risings and sinkings test Cloud Rising Through Stone Crevices. He did not seek distance. He did not seek force or noise. He asked only whether the qi could rise from the soles of his feet, pass through waist and hips, cling to the spine, and at last be delivered into the center of the palm.
At first, it was exceedingly difficult.
The inner force he had nurtured through ten years of hardship had been the force of survival—best at gathering, best at guarding, best at supporting. But once Dragoncloud Palm truly entered form, it no longer asked merely that the force remain within the body. It had to move with the palm itself—to hide without scattering, to release without floating, to withdraw without falling into disorder.
Hidden Dragon Emerging from the Abyss was manageable enough.
That stance emphasized concealed momentum, and so accorded with the root he had built over ten years of guarding his breath in the dungeon. But when he reached Clouds Cleaving the Waves, where the palm was meant to cut diagonally into the place where the enemy's force had not yet joined, he was either too straight or too hurried. And when he came to Cloud Hanging with a Thousandfold Weight, he felt as though a heavy breath were jammed beneath his chest—not pain, but the sense that his qi could not yet bear that sinking weight, and with the slightest disturbance the whole movement unraveled.
Fang Tieshan could not see.
But he could hear.
He could hear when Fang Yingjie's sleeve had begun to catch the wind, when the soles of his feet had gone light and empty, when a single breath had been tugged upward by the structure of the palm. And each time Fang Yingjie strayed from the path, Fang Tieshan would point it out coldly:
"Your shoulder is high again."
"I did not tell you to throw yourself forward."
"Cleaving the waves does not mean crashing into them."
"Before the palm falls, the force must already be sinking. If your palm is already hurrying downward, then where is the force?"
Fang Yingjie would gather himself again and start over.
If once was not enough, then twice.
Whenever the guard's footsteps drew near, he would stop at once, sit back down by the wall, lower his head, and gnaw at his coarse bun as though nothing at all had happened. When the footsteps passed and the guttering lamp returned to stillness, he would rise again and continue testing the palm.
By the end, he had not yet produced any true power from the art, and his palm technique was still nowhere near mastery. But the names, the formulas, the steps and angles, and the hidden pivots in the movement of inner force were no longer things he merely carried on his tongue. Little by little, they had begun to sink into bone and sinew.
Fang Tieshan knew it was still far from enough.
But within thirty days, to reach even this point was already a spark wrested by force from fate itself.
When the Sixth Tally Was Complete
By the time the second stroke had been carved into the sixth tally mark, Fang Tieshan coughed up blood again.
This time it was worse than before.
Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, so dark a red it was almost black.
Fang Yingjie was so frightened that his hands began to shake.
But Fang Tieshan caught him by the wrist and said in a rasping voice, "No panic."
Clenching his teeth, Fang Yingjie dissolved the Heart-Guard Powder and fed it to him.
Fang Tieshan took a long time to steady that breath in his chest.
And the first thing he said after waking was, "Recite the master formula of the Dragoncloud Palm."
Fang Yingjie's eyes were red. "Father, rest first."
"Recite."
So he recited.
By the third time through, his voice had finally stopped trembling.
As Fang Tieshan listened, the faintest trace of a smile touched his lips.
"That is more like a son of the Fang family."
By the time the third stroke was cut into the sixth tally, Fang Yingjie had already committed the Fang Family Fist, the Fang Family Saber, and the Dragoncloud Palm to memory so thoroughly that he could recite them without the smallest stumble.
The master formula, the sequence of forms, the stepping patterns and angles, the crucial points of issuing force, the three methods of concealment, release, and withdrawal—he knew every word without omission.
If Fang Tieshan casually tested him on one passage, he could pick it up at once. If asked for the first half of a line, he could continue with the second. If asked how a given move began, how it gathered back its strength, how it changed in the face of an enemy, he could answer point by point.
But memorizing was only memorizing.
Fang Tieshan knew perfectly well that most of it was still only carved into the boy's mind. It had not yet truly entered his hands and feet, his sinews and bones. The Fang Family Fist and the Fang Family Saber would still need ground to stand on, a blade to grip, and enemies to face before they could slowly be brought to life.
Only the Dragoncloud Palm had already begun, these past days, to strike some root in him.
When the fourth stroke was carved, Fang Tieshan once again explained the four mother forms of the Dragoncloud Palm and the transformations that gave rise to its twelve forms.
The four mother forms, he said, were like bone. The twelve transformations were like flesh.
Without bone, the palm scattered.
Without flesh, the palm died.
Fang Yingjie remembered every word.
On the night before the fifth stroke, Fang Tieshan taught him no martial art at all.
He only spoke of Fang Stronghold.
Of the old locust tree.
Of grain spread out beneath the autumn sun.
Of the voices of children reading in the clan school.
Of the first time Zhen E had gone to Fang Stronghold, when the women of the manor had crowded around to look at her and said that this sky-roaming heroine was nothing like the cold legend they had heard of—when she smiled, she was beautiful.
He spoke too of the day Fang Yingjie was born. At the time he himself was on Mount Hua. It was only when he received Zhen E's letter bearing the good news that he learned rain had fallen in Shandong. After the rain stopped, the clouds outside the stronghold had hung very low. Fang Tieshan said that when he read those few lines in the letter, he had found himself thinking: a child of the Fang family, born beneath low clouds after rain—perhaps one day he would indeed be destined for the words dragon and cloud.
There he stopped.
Sitting beside him, Fang Yingjie wept without a sound.
At last he knew that he had not, from the very beginning, been a child left behind by the years.
He too had once been awaited.
His father had thought of him.
His mother had held him.
And a stronghold he could barely remember had, for a brief while, welcomed him into the world.
He did not carve the final stroke of the sixth tally for a very long time.
That day the guard brought their food earlier than usual.
So he waited.
He waited until the man who came to refill the water had also been and gone, until the lamp oil had been changed, until the patrol's footsteps had sounded for the third time in the distant passage. Only then did he finally make sure the hour was right.
He took out that shard of black iron and pressed it to the wall.
The first five tallies, and the unfinished sixth, had all been carved very lightly.
He had been afraid the guards would notice.
But every stroke felt as though it had been carved into his own heart.
Leaning back in the darkness, Fang Tieshan said quietly, "Do it."
Fang Yingjie drew a slow breath.
The black iron fell.
The last vertical stroke slid slowly downward through the damp stone wall.
Powdered grit drifted soundlessly down.
The sixth tally was complete.
Thirty days.
The time had come.
Fang Yingjie stared at those six tallies, yet the breath in his chest did not ease.
It tightened instead.
Because the nearer this moment came, the less he dared believe in it.
Would Feng Feiyun really come?
Had Feng Wuying already learned the truth?
Might they have been intercepted on the road?
Had Li Ying already laid a trap?
If nothing happened tonight, how much longer were they supposed to wait?
Suddenly Fang Tieshan said, "From tonight on, do not sleep too deeply."
Fang Yingjie nodded. "I know."
"If they come, do not move too soon."
"Listen to me first."
Fang Yingjie nodded again.
Fang Tieshan paused, and when he spoke once more, his voice was lower than before.
"If they do not come…"
Fang Yingjie jerked up his head. "They'll come."
Fang Tieshan did not argue.
Only after a long while did he say, "If they do not, you must still remember the Dragoncloud Palm."
Fang Yingjie's eyes reddened again. "Father."
"I am not speaking out of despair."
"This is the martial world."
"One must have hope."
"One must also have a road to fall back on."
Fang Yingjie lowered his head.
After a long silence, he said softly, "I will remember it all."
Fang Tieshan gave a faint grunt of assent.
The cell fell quiet again.
The dying lamp shone on the iron door.
Drops of water fell, one after another.
Seated beside his father, Fang Yingjie neither regulated his breathing nor slept. He only listened—to the wind beyond the iron door, to the footsteps of the guards, to whether any sound might come from deep in the passage unlike the sounds of ordinary nights.
Time seemed to stretch without end.
So long that the wick in the dying lamp seemed to burn out, then brighten again.
Who knew how much time had passed.
Then, from deep in the corridor, there came a sound so light it was almost nothing.
Like bamboo.
Every muscle in Fang Yingjie's body tightened.
Fang Tieshan slowly turned his face as well.
The sound flickered and vanished.
A moment later came a second one.
This time it was lighter still.
And yet clearer.
The first sound had come ahead.
The second followed after.
Not one bamboo shadow.
Two currents of wind.
Fang Tieshan said softly, "They've come."
Fang Yingjie slowly clenched his fist.
Outside the cell, the dying lamp gave a faint tremor.
Like an ember buried beneath ten years of ash, waiting at last for its first breath of wind.
Poetic Coda
Bamboo shadows stole to tap the iron door;
old friends met, and tears were warm once more.
Six hidden tallies marked out thirty days;
one dying lamp cast light on two houses' souls.
First fist and saber carved the Fang line's bones;
then Dragoncloud Palm reopened the old root of the vein.
Black Tortoise bore the clouds, and wind returned again;
deep in the frozen cell, the fire still lived.
(End of Chapter Thirty-Four)