After sending off wave after wave of guests, the lakeside cottage finally quieted down to a solitude that felt somewhat lonely.
Yang Ge shut himself inside the house, sitting silently by the hearth all night long.
This night was especially short.
It was as if he thought about a great many things, yet also as if he thought about nothing at all.
The next morning, inches of the morning sun slanted into the wooden house from the terrace, dispelling the darkness.
Like suddenly waking up, he got up, fetched a bucket, and drew a bucket of crisp lake water from the lakeside into the house, dousing the remaining embers in the hearth.
And then, like any ordinary person about to embark on a long journey, he wandered aimlessly inside the house, now and then wiping the table, straightening the chairs, occasionally tidying up the bowls and plates, and gathering up rice and flour...
It wasn’t until the sun was three poles high that he shouldered his Cold Moon Blade, carrying a small bundle, and came out from inside the house.
Standing at the door, he turned to look one more time at the orderly furnishings inside, then lowered his gaze to the small bundle in his hand; suddenly, he felt that both his hands and his heart were empty...
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He chuckled to himself, shook his head, carefully closed and locked the door, as though he would return again someday.
Then he turned around and stepped into the bright sunshine.
He let out a whistle, and Erhei from the stable picked up his bridle in his mouth and trotted out of the stable with little steps, buzzing with excitement.
Yang Ge, with his bundle in hand, mounted the horse, took the reins, and after one last look at the lakeside cottage, said softly, "Goodbye," then squeezed the horse’s flanks, and Erhei started off in a trot along the lake embankment, speeding up into a crazy gallop in the sunlight.
The warm autumn wind skimmed forward from behind the man and his horse, making their figures appear all the more sprightly.
"Such a fine day for a journey!"
...
Two days later, Yang Ge arrived at Anji County, with Hangzhou lying ahead.
He figured once he reached Hangzhou, he would not enter the city but instead, resupply some dry food in Anji County and set out again for Zhoushan.
But soon after leaving Anji County, he was stopped halfway on his route.
To be precise, he was stopped by a theatrical performance in the middle of the road.
The show had plenty of actors and the script was cliché: a gang of bandits robbing a swordswoman on the road.
The choreography of the fight was actually quite good, agile and impactful, and both sides even drew blood.
The swordswoman’s response was very realistic too, waving her sword and desperately looking for a chance to break through the encircling bandits.
Even the makeup of the bandits was done very professionally; those dirty rags looked like they had come straight off of real bandits, and not just any bandits, but the bottom-of-the-barrel kind that can’t get a stable job.
As for why they were all so professional, and yet Yang Ge could instantly see through their act...
Forget about what kind of bandits would be desperate enough to rob a sword-carrying woman of the jianghu.
To say that bandits had fallen into a den where pigs contest the beauty of Diaochan and still fight while maintaining gender propriety, that was way too gentlemanly! The government should award your hideout a commemorative archway!
Seeing Yang Ge approach, a bandit who appeared to be a leader, brandishing a nine-ringed saber, shouted at Yang Ge with great vigor, "Halt for Tiger Head Mountain! Small fry, stay back!"
"Yes, yes, I’ll stay back, please continue, don’t mind me..."
Yang Ge replied with a smile, feigning politeness, and then deftly pulled out a piece of hard bread, as tough as a brick, from his dry food bag, uncorked his water gourd, took a gulp, and enjoyed the spectacle while munching on the bread.
The actors, seeing this reaction from the audience, hesitated in their fluid combat, unsure if he truly saw through their act or was feigning ignorance, and had no choice but to continue performing.
It wasn’t until the swordswoman, according to the script, misstepped and had her sword knocked away by the bandit leader, and the bandits swarmed her, pinning her to the ground, while Yang Ge still munched on his dry food with great interest, showing no intention to intervene, that they finally realized their performance had fallen apart.
The flustered swordswoman, unable to continue the act, slapped away the bandits holding her down, clattered in her deerskin boots through the crowd, and with hands on hips, angrily approached Yang Ge, exclaiming, "Aren’t you even a man..."
The word "man" didn’t even get out when a flash of bright saber light streaked by; the swordswoman, who just a second before had been standing in the middle of the road with hands on hips, was suddenly sent flying, blood spewing, tumbling through a group of male actors.
Yang Ge continued to gnaw on his hard bread, the Cold Moon Blade silent in its scabbard, while the smile had vanished from his face.
"Jokes have to have a line," he said.
After stuffing the last piece of hard bread into his mouth, his face expressionless, he chewed slowly and said in a low voice, "If you don’t get out now, I will start a war with the White Lotus Sect right away!"
No sooner had his words fallen than the resigned voice of Liu Dongjun sounded from the nearby woods, "Sect Hierarch, I told you before, this trick won’t work on this guy; he’s inhumane, he would even hit me, yet you wouldn’t believe it..."
Amid his words, Liu Dongjun, clad with a white sash and red cloak, a face of grievances, dropped from the sky, all the while glaring towards the other side of the road where the woods lay.
Yang Ge watched him expressionlessly, his right hand slowly reaching for the handle of the Cold Moon Blade.
As the chilling aura of death arose, Liu Dongjun immediately retreated three paces backward, like a cat with its fur standing on end, and shouted in anger, "I already told you it wasn’t my idea, and yet you still want to kill me?"