Chapter 6: Finishing their Apprenticeships Part 1

"Those of my generation are uninhibited and unrestrained, free from formalities and free from laws. We do not seek to leave a good name to future generations and it does not matter if we go down in history with a foul reputation. We seek only to be worthy to the heavens, worthy to the earth and worthy to ourselves!"

It is said: "There are no calendars in the mountains; even when the cold has passed, the year is unknown". [1]

In a flash, three years passed by.

Li Yan carried a large basket in one hand and dragged at a bamboo pole with the other. With her eyes closed, she had someone hold the bamboo pole and lead her, walking with difficulty towards the bank of Xi Mo River. As they walked, she rattled on, asking: "How much further? I can hear the sound of water, have we arrived at the riverbank?"

The one who led her bamboo pole was a disciple from one of the sects in the Stronghold, a young boy around Li Yan's age. His face would redden each time he spoke to her and his voice sounded like the buzz of a mosquito. Before he even opened his mouth, Li Yan felt someone pull and drag at the bamboo pole in her hand. She yelped and when she opened her eyes, she saw Li Sheng standing in front of her with an impatient look on his face.

Li Yan complained: "What are you doing? You scared me to death!"

Li Sheng didn't look at her and instead, nodded to the young boy who was at a loss, saying gently: "She has too many ill habits, don't spoil her and let her take a mile from that inch, she's always bullying you guys."

The disciple's face reddened even more. He stammered for several moments but couldn't really say anything. He speedily greeted Li Sheng and ran off with wind under his feet. Li Yan really wanted to run away as well, but she didn't dare to while standing on the cliff by the river—she was afraid of heights and glancing down from the top, she could think of seven-eight positions she would land in upon falling to her death.

Just as her calves were beginning to slightly cramp, Li Sheng grabbed the back of her collar and lifted her in the air.

Li Yan was instantly scared senseless: "Brother! Eldest Brother! [My] biological brother! Spare me! I'm being murdered!"

Li Sheng turned a deaf ear to her pleas and directly carried her to the edge of the cliff. In broad daylight, the fog in the Xi Mo River had cleared up and the waters were unusually ferocious. The cliffs on both sides of the river hung dangerously down and the buzz of the Qian Ji mixed together with the noisy waters formed a massive roar that pounced towards the two riverbanks.

Li Yan: "…"

Li Sheng let go of her and threw her off to the side, saying unhappily: "What are you yelling for? What is there to be afraid of? It's not like I was going to throw you down there."

Before he even finished speaking, he saw his great honor of a little sister go weak at the knees and squat down. Li Yan carelessly placed her large basket off to the side and dragged at the grass stalks growing out of the ground with one hand while clinging onto Li Sheng's thigh with the other. Shakily, she took two deep breaths and after preparing her emotions, burst into tears.

Li Sheng felt that the womb he was once in was deeply insulted and hated that he couldn't just kick her down the cliff.

Right at this time, a slight tremor came from the ground. The Qian Ji in the Xi Mo River had unusual movement and Li Yan jumped in fear, desperately clinging onto Li Sheng's thigh. With one eye closed and one eye open, she glanced down with extreme caution while trembling with fright, only to see a white-haired old man sitting cross-legged in the small pavilion at the heart of the river. He carried a willow branch in his hand as he shouted: "Zhou yatou [2], the Qian Ji is completely open today, be careful!"

A young girl stood in the direction that his branch pointed to. The water was too dark and from above, you couldn't see the stone pillars and Qian Ji under the water clearly. That young girl seemed like she was simply standing on the surface of the water.

Zhou Fei also carried a willow branch in her hand and without moving at all, she stood upright with her eyes closed.

Li Yan asked curiously: "What is A-Fei doing?"

Before she finished speaking, a buzz could be heard. Zhou Fei immediately leapt into the air, but even faster was the Qian Ji web that emerged out of the water; the stone pillar that she had been standing on likely already sunk. At the same time, a dense and reflective large web began to lift up from the bottom*. Li Yan gasped in surprise while Zhou Fei flicked her wrist. The weak willow branch was instantly forced straight by her nei li and like a steel wire, it wrapped around a strand of Qian Ji. Shockingly, it didn't get severed by the Qian Ji wire!

*like a cloth, the edges are lifting up while the middle droops down.

Zhou Fei used that force to turn her body and with precision, she climbed through a crack in the Qian Ji web. The deadly Qian Ji wire caused the reflections of the sun and the water to form a ray and it shone briefly across her face. However, she didn't even bother to look, as if it was a common sight.

Immediately afterwards, the willow branch bounced back with flexibility—on it, a newly grown baby leaf was sliced in half—and Zhou Fei lightly landed on another rock. That rock had already lost its foundation and depended solely on the pull of two Qian Ji wires. In the river, it bobbed up and down and Zhou Fei moved with it. The large Qian Ji web that emerged from the water hung above her head, completely surrounding her in all four directions. A droplet of water slowly formed its shape and suddenly landed on Zhou Fei's eyelashes. She quickly blinked to shake it off and at the same time, she lowered her head and drew the chang dao at her waist. Just as a clank was heard, the large rock beneath her feet suddenly began to sink. In the river, a splash that was taller than a person was made and the entire Qian Ji web began to shrink without any warning, ready to trap Zhou Fei in the center of it.

Li Yan shouted in fright and almost pulled her brother's pants down. Surprisingly, Li Sheng didn't have the time to beat her up either.

However, as the undulating buzzing coming from the center of the river suddenly turned into a shrill, all of a sudden, Zhou Fei swung out her dao. Li Sheng subconsciously stepped back to dodge, as if he could feel the unparalleled disdain of that blow even with a wide river separating them. The edge of her blade formed an extremely small angle with a Qian Ji wire and swiped across the wire like lightning, breaking through at the cross section of two Qian Ji wires. The move was almost silent; the rashness and forcefulness of the "Zhuang Nan Shan" (Knocking Down South Mountain)* from a few years ago was long gone.

*This move first appeared in Ch1Pt1, Zhou Fei used it against Li Sheng in Ch2Pt1 and against Qian Ji in Ch4Pt1

As if cutting a piece of tofu, the unparalleled thin blade easily broke through the two Qian Ji wires. Then, Zhou Fei suddenly moved her wrist and swung her dao like a full moon (as in a full circle). A slight cut in this one part affected the entire Qian Ji web. With just this one cut, she forcibly slit open a hole that could fit one person.

Off to the side, Li Sheng gripped his fingers into a fist. Even though Zhou Fei only made one move, her eyesight must have been extremely sharp in order to find the wire that she could strike among the hundreds or thousands of Qian Ji wires. Her cut must have been extremely precise in order to split the interlocked Qian Ji wires apart; so precise that if she swung her blade towards the left wing of a fly, the right wing would be completely untouched. Afterwards, to push away the tentacles of the huge monster in the river with great strength, her nei xi (internal breathing) [3] could not have stopped. Three years ago, she closed her eyes and got lucky. The Qian Ji that shook only after she clutched her dao with both hands, put in all of her strength and used "Zhuang Nan Shan" several times in a row—now, she could already effortlessly conquer it. [4]

Zhou Fei parted the Qian Ji wires and immediately jumped out. As soon as she left the trap, the dense Qian Ji wires shrunk into a ball and shredded the rock she had just stepped on as a landing site. Zhou Fei did a clean "Long Bai Wei" (Dragon Whips Tail) [5] in the air and the willow branch in her hand wrapped around the Qian Ji wires. Like a willow branch whip, it swung Zhou Fei around one zhang (=3.33 meters) into the air. She then decisively released her hold and without strength to support it, the willow branch instantly broke into three sections.

Zhou Fei grabbed onto a rope hanging off the side of a cliff and swung herself to the rooftop of the small pavilion at the heart of the river. Flipping off the rooftop, she sheathed her chang dao and without even a greeting, she reached toward a fruit bowl in front of Yu Lao and chose a hawthorn that was out of place. She held it in the palm of her hand, wiped it a few times and took a bite. After spinning in a circle, she said to Yu Lao: "Mm…so sour. Tai-shishu [6], what do you think, there wasn't a single opening."

"Y-y-you…" Yu Lao stared at the hawthorn bowl that was missing a piece and was really upset [7]. He hated that he couldn't pull off Zhou Fei's head to replace the missing piece and immediately cursed, "Scoundrel!"

Zhou Fei didn't understand: "How am I a scoundrel?"

Yu Lao burst into anger: "Who told you to take it?"

"Tch, is it so rare, it's not even sweet." Zhou Fei glanced distastefully at the small hawthorn she took a bite out of, "Then I'll just put it back for you."

Just as she finished speaking, before Yu Lao could even react, she threw the bitten fruit back into the bowl. Having been touched by Zhou Fei, the hawthorn was already lacking in appearance. However, it wasn't willing to stay in the center; it rolled a few times, got messed up and even had a tooth mark on it.

Yu Lao: "…"

The next moment, Zhou Fei leapt out of the pavilion like a swallow and just barely avoided her tai-shishu's palm of fury. After rising and falling twice, she grabbed onto the rope hanging off the cliff once again and after a few swings, climbed up to the top. She even spoke nonsense to Yu Lao, who was stamping his feet in rage at the bottom: "Old man, you're so stingy, I'm not playing with you anymore!"

Yu Lao's bellow echoed throughout the entire Xi Mo River: "Little brat, I'm telling your mother to beat you to death!"

Once he saw Zhou Fei come up, Li Sheng immediately forcibly pulled his leg out of Li Yan's hands and turned around to leave. Li Yan accidentally glanced into the Xi Mo River again and tried to stand up for the third time but failed. She could only crawl on the ground and move forward like a worm: "Brother, how come you're leaving as soon as A-Fei came up? It's fine if you're leaving, but at least pull me up!"

Li Sheng didn't even turn around and used qinggong to leave speedily—that year, after his narrow escape from Xi Mo River, Li Sheng had over three months of nightmares and each time he heard the words "Xi Mo River" he would shiver. When he first heard Li Yan say that Zhou Fei would go to Xi Mo River each day when she had nothing to do, he thought that Zhou Fei definitely went crazy.

Three years ago, when Zhou Fei came to tell Yu Lao that she wanted to pass the Qian Ji, Yu Lao pulled out an iron mask from who-knows-where and threw it at her. He said right to her face: "Your talent is bad, your gongfu (martial arts skills/kungfu) is trash, your heart is thicker than your waist (as in she's careless) and other than having a few achievements in seeking death, the only thing you have left is a barely passable face. You absolutely cannot lose your sole good point, so you need to protect it carefully and must not become disfigured".

Zhou Fei's temper was so bad that you couldn't fix it even if you tried and Li Sheng thought that she would definitely flip right at the scene. Unexpectedly, she didn't say a word as she accepted the mask and put it on. And just like that, from then on, three years were treated as one day [8] and she never stopped, even on holidays.

In the beginning, under Yu Lao's observation, only a small part of the Qian Ji would be opened. But even so, each day Zhou Fei would leave covered in soul-stirring bloodstains. Once she got slightly accustomed, Yu Lao would add more Qian Ji wires. Before, Li Sheng could never accept defeat; if Zhou Fei could do it, then why couldn't he do it? He even followed her down there twice…and discovered he really couldn't do it. When the Qian Ji wires came out of the entire river, it was as if the nightmare that he finally forgot appeared again. The first time he entered the river, he instantly became flustered and almost got his head cut off. In the end, it was Zhou Fei who threw him out after she couldn't stand to watch him. The second time, he called up all of his courage and swore that he wouldn't just stand in place, dumbstruck. In the end, as a result of his panic, he straight up fell into the water. If it weren't for Yu Lao withdrawing the Qian Ji in time, he probably would've already been chopped into a pile of minced meat.

Li Sheng would never forget the feeling of the Qian Ji when it swam past him with a murderous air in the icy cold river waters. From then on, he never went down to the Xi Mo River ever again.

—

[1] 山中无甲子,寒尽不知年 shan zhong wu jia zi, han jin bu zhi nian: this line is from, once again, "西游记"or "Journey to the West". It says, "There are no calendars in the mountains; even when the cold has passed, the year is unknown" or literally, "mountain in no jia zi (basically calendar, but see below), cold end don't know year". Without calendars in the deep mountains, after the Xiaohan (Slight Cold) and Dahan (Great Cold) have passed, people still don't know that spring has arrived. And…it's backstory time!

The 甲子 jia zi refers to 历法 li fa, which is the way you determine year, month, day, time and 节气 jie qi by looking at celestial movements/phenomena (it's usually called the traditional Chinese calendar). It's split into three types: 阳历 yang li (the Solar Calendar), 阴历 yin li (the Lunar Calendar) and 阴阳历 yin yang li (the Lunisolar Calendar). (Yes, it's THAT yin yang) SO THEN, 节气 jie qi is a point marking one of 24 solar divisions of the solar year in the traditional Chinese calendar, called "solar term" in English. Of these 24 solar terms, the 小寒 xiao han (Slight Cold, also called Lesser Cold) is the 23rd term and the 大寒 da han (Great Cold, also called Greater Cold) is the 24th. Once these two colds pass, it goes back to the 1st term and spring begins (the 1st term is 立春 li chun, or Spring Begins/Spring Commences/I'm sure you realize there are tons of similar names for these).

TL;DR Basically, if you didn't care for the historical/cultural meaning, this line means: due to being separated from reality for so long, one is completely clueless about the happenings in society, particularly fads and such.

(Please read, I spent so much time researching ;-;)

See the 24 Solar Terms in 2020 and Solar terms Wikipedia page

[2] 丫头 ya tou: a common term for young girls, particularly children. Basically 姑娘 guniang, but for very young girls. You can add someone's surname in front (like Yu Lao did with Zhou yatou), add 小 xiao, "little" in front to make xiao yatou or just say yatou (but this form's kinda rude since yatou also refers to 丫环/丫鬟 ya huan who were servant girls…that's a whole different topic though)

[3] 内息 nei xi: literally means "internal breathing". It refers to one's control of breathing and nei li, very important in Chinese martial arts.

[4] The original says she "melts" it, but it uses a "melt" as a reference to an Chinese idiom. A closer translation would be "resolve", but "resolve" would be an awkward fit but it's also not as harsh as "destroy" or "decimate" so I went with "conquer", but it's not quite there either…suggestions are welcome though!

[5] 龙摆尾 long bai wei "Dragon Whips [Its] Tail": it's obviously a move, but I couldn't actually find what it was. It might just be an original move created by the author. There's this YouTube tutorial on how to do a move of pretty much the same name (it's from a Bruce Lee movie I think? The move he performed was called 大龙摆尾 which literally only adds the word "big" to it). The only thing is, the move in the video requires you to stay on the ground but Zhou Fei performed this move in the air…? So I don't even know. Maybe the tv adaptation will enlighten us? (If it doesn't change a lot of the plot ahahahahaha knock on wood, don't jinx it- but the rumors I cry) Still, it's a cool 4min video, worth a watch. It reminded me of my own days of learning martial arts when I was young…I went to class one day dressed as Mulan lol, I still want to learn martial arts someday.

[6] 太师叔 tai shi shu: If you recall, Li Jinrong called Yu Lao 师叔 shishu. I don't remember if I explained last time, but 叔 means uncle (general term for older men, kinda like "Mr.") or maternal uncle (for family). In this case, shishu is a brother (xiongdi, anyone remember last time's footnote?) of your shifu, so he's your uncle. 太 tai is like the "great-" you would apply to great-grandpa, so since Zhou Fei is Li Jinrong's daughter, she would call Yu Lao tai-shishu (great-masteruncle? I don't even know).

[7] 抓心挠肝 zhua xin nao gan: this literally says "claw at heart, scratch at liver". It's to convey the sense of discomfort when you're really angry or frustrated. In the context, as Yu Lao looked at his fruit bowl, he was really 抓心挠肝. "Upset" can't really capture it, but…

[8] 三年如一日 san nian ru yi ri: I'm pretty sure the original phrase is 十年如一日 which is 十 ten years and not 三 three but the author changed the year to fit with the time skip (tbh, kinda funny). Anyway, though the translation would be "three years like one day", what it actually means is doing one activity/job for a very long time (hence the "every day" part). In other words, Zhou Fei was extremely dedicated in going against the Qian Ji and worked hard every day. The meaning is kinda abstract, but language itself is weird so…

Btw, here's a photo of the hawthorn, the original called it 红果 hong guo or "red fruit". It's also called 山楂 shan zha, mountain hawthorn, Chinese haw, Chinese hawthorn or Chinese hawberry.

—

There are so many different ways to say "suddenly" in Chinese, English is too lacking ಥ_ಥ…but it feels so good to not have to write 20 footnotes this time :,)

((I really hope people aren't skipping the footnotes though I know they're kinda boring and long but there's some really good contextual info and some things I really have to research so I hope my efforts aren't in vain |-` )…))

Anyway, Zhou Fei's dedication and strength make me admire her so much, esp the last few paragraphs. I also wish I was as good at martial arts as she is, she's so cool and I definitely laughed at her exchange with Yu Lao. Her father's words and departure really affected her though ;-; Life is tough in the Jiang Hu…