The five Zhao Clan guards didn’t wait for an order.
Two of them grabbed Zhao Bao beneath his armpits. They hauled him backward out of the slush with wild, slipping boots. Zhao Bao’s knees dragged through the mud, his scarred face drained of blood, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps as betel spit dribbled from his chin onto his torn wolf-pelt vest.
They shoved their way through the outer courtyard gate, their iron-headed clubs clattering against the timber posts. Then they fled down the snowy lane toward South Canal Street.
The heavy gate creaked in the wind, then swung shut with a hollow boom.
In the courtyard, forty members of the Pei Clan stood locked still.
The only sound was the steady drip of melting snow from the Ancestral Hall roof edges and the rhythmic, rasping breath of First Branch heir Pei Feng, who remained frozen on the top step. His fingers grabbed his father’s silk sleeve like a drowning child.
Pei Jing stood over the shattered pieces of the twenty-six-pound ash heavy club.
He reached up, drawing the torn edges of his linen tunic together over his chest. Beneath the frayed hemp, the dull bronze skin had already cooled, the temporary tiny blood vessel dilation receding to leave the impermeable outer skin layer locked in place.
Patriarch Pei Canghai walked down the stone steps.
His rosewood cane struck the flat stone slabs with unsteady, hollow thuds. His wrinkled throat twitched above his fox-fur collar as he stared at the two-foot splintered stump of iron-banded wood lying in the snow.
“Iron Cloth,” Canghai whispered. His voice shook with a mixture of disbelief and sudden, grasping avarice. “To take an overhead blow from twenty-four pounds of ash... And snap the shaft with a barehanded palm. This is at least Tier Two mastery.”
Beside him, First Branch Elder Pei Rong hurried down the steps, his narrow eyes darting across Pei Jing’s chest.
“Nephew Jing,” Pei Rong began, his tone shifting suddenly from shrugging contempt to oily, office severity. “Where did you get this external art? Such military-grade conditioning manuals are strictly controlled by the Royal Ministry of War. As a junior of the second branch, you’re obligated under clan law to surrender all martial texts, healing formulas, and training notes to the Ancestral Hall for the common benefit of the clan.”
Behind Pei Rong, young Pei Feng stepped forward, his color returning as his father spoke.
“Yes!” Pei Feng chimed in, pointing a trembling finger. “If the clan had this Iron Cloth art, my earth root training could integrate with the bronze skin! A talent like mine could enter the country academy! Jing is a barren vessel—giving him high-tier conditioning is like throwing pearls into a pig trough!”
Pei Jing didn’t even turn his head.
He looked at Pei Feng the way a senior clerk looked at an uneducated intern attempting to explain tax fraud.
Before Pei Jing could speak, a shadow fell across the snow.
Pei Hongcheng stepped between his son and the First Branch elders.
The Third Elder didn’t shout. He didn’t draw a weapon. He held his blackened bamboo tobacco pipe in his right hand. The cold brass bowl was resting against his palm.
CLACK.
Hongcheng struck the brass bowl of the pipe against the iron heel of his work boot.
The sound was sharp, metal, carrying the sound weight of an iron anvil falling on stone. A shower of cold grey ash scattered across Pei Rong’s stitched silk shoes.
Pei Rong flinched, stepping back half a pace.
“Third Brother,” Pei Rong stammered, his face tightening. “What’s the meaning of this? We’re discussing clan property!”
Hongcheng raised his head. His eyes, sunken and bloodshot from twenty years of night shifts beside the smelting kilns, locked onto Pei Rong with the cold, unmoving thickness of an iron ore metal bar.
“Property?” Hongcheng spoke. His voice was a low, grinding rumble, like heavy river stones churning in a spring flood. “When Zhao Bao brought his heavy club to the gate and demanded fifty silver coins, where was your clan property?”
He turned his gaze slowly toward the shivering Pei Feng.
“When Zhao Bao pointed his staff at your genius son, where was the clan’s old family dignity? You pushed my sixteen-year-old boy forward to take three blows from a twenty-six-pound club to save your own skins.”
Hongcheng took a single step forward. The raw, heavy presence of a veteran who had fought mountain bandits along the ore roads for thirty years pressed down upon the courtyard like a falling timber beam.
“The boy bought his manual with his own copper cash,” Hongcheng said. His voice dropped into a lethal, quiet register. “His bones took the strikes. His skin saved the South Iron Vein from seizure. If anyone in the First Branch wishes to demand his manual...”
Hongcheng pointed the stem of his bamboo pipe toward the broken ash staff in the mud.
“...let Pei Feng step down onto this flat stone slab and take three strikes from my pipe. If he stands, you may have the text.”
Pei Feng went white as chalk, stumbling backward until his spine hit the carved pillar of the hall.
Elder Pei Rong’s mouth opened and closed twice, but no sound emerged. He looked at Patriarch Canghai for support. But the old patriarch had already turned his eyes away, his cane resting quietly on the stones.
In frontier wuxia society, moral arguments were negotiable.
Physical force, showed before thirty witnesses, was total law.
“Go back to your quarters,” Patriarch Canghai said wearily. He waved his sleeve toward the First Branch elders. “The matter of the South Gate toll is settled. The second branch has fulfilled its duty.”
The patriarch turned and walked back into the Ancestral Hall, his hunched shoulders swallowed by the gloom of the incense smoke. Pei Rong and his son followed like whipped dogs, their silk robes rustling in the cold wind.
The leftover clan laborers and wagon drivers scattered in hushed, awe-struck silence. They cast covert, respectful glances at Pei Jing as they exited the yard.
Hongcheng turned to his son.
“Come,” he said.
They walked together along the western path, past the dead plum trees, into the silent courtyard of the West Pavilion.
Inside the timber quarters, Hongcheng shut the door.
He walked over to the wooden bench. He laid his pipe upon the pine boards, and reached inside his coarse wool coat. From an inner pocket, he drew out a heavy, stitched pouch of blue silk bound with oiled hemp string.
He untied the cord and poured the contents onto the table.
Five heavy box-shaped metal bars of white silver tumbled onto the wood with dull, solid thumps.
Each bore the royal seal: Azure Province Treasury, One Tael Fine.
Five silver coins.
Pei Jing looked at the silver, then raised his eyes to his father.
“The second branch’s smelting reserve,” Hongcheng said. His voice was steady, free of pause. “We cleared three carts of refined bloomery iron to the guard post forge shop last night. This was meant for the spring ore lease.”
He pushed the five silver metal bars toward Pei Jing.
“Iron Cloth needs meat. It needs bone broth, tiger bark, and dense animal fat. Without fuel, your internal organs will turn to dry grass under the impact.”
Hongcheng picked up his bamboo pipe, his callused thumb stroking the cold brass rim.
“From this day forward, five silver coins will be delivered to this table on the first of every month from the foundry account. No steward will enter this courtyard. No elder will audit your rations. The West Pavilion is your sovereign ground.”
Pei Jing looked at the five metal bars.
He reached out, touching the cold metal. The silver was cast in standard ninety-four percent purity, cold and dense, bearing the small slanted test gouges from the country mint assayers. Five silver coins represented five thousand copper cash. Added to his existing reserves—one silver coin and four hundred copper—his total liquid cash reached six silver coins and four hundred copper cash.
More importantly, he had secured working autonomy. In corporate auditing, rule-book interference and unannounced office audits were the greatest destroyers of compounding driving force. By neutralizing the First Branch and securing his father’s total backing, he had removed systemic drag.
His floating sight screen flickered with golden-tinted slate characters:
Pei Jing reached out and stacked the five silver metal bars into a neat pillar beside his Black Mountain Whetstone.
“Thank you, Father,” Pei Jing said, his voice quiet, steady, and solemn. “The investment will yield a full return.”
Hongcheng looked at his son for a long, silent moment. A faint, weathered smile touched the corners of his smoke-creased eyes. The first smile Pei Jing had seen on the man’s face since transmigrating into this world.
“A knife must have an edge, Jing’er,” Hongcheng murmured, turning toward the door. “Hone it well.”
When Hongcheng left, Pei Jing sat at the table and drafted his waste plan. Two silver coins allocated for fifty pounds of salted pork belly and beef marrow bones from the town butcher. One silver coin for high-grade recovery herbs from Su Mei’er. Three silver coins kept in liquid reserve for unexpected legal or tactical emergencies.
He retrieved the Black Mountain Whetstone, poured three drops of well water onto the dark rock. Then he began the evening sharpening of his antler-handled skinning knife. He listened to the clean, rhythmic song of steel against stone as the winter dusk settled over the mountain crags.