The Heart-Pivot's Perspective

Zhuge Yuan handed Li Huowang ten pills as he gnawed on some dry rations. “Here. Kun the Virtuous refined these.”

Li Huowang took them. “What are they?”

“Brother Li, you can do alchemy—how do you not recognize a Fasting Pill? They replace meals and reduce your frequency in the privy. Perfect for the road.”

Li Huowang picked one up and examined it against the sunlight. It was a dark brown pill, the size of a small fingernail, with a thick herbal smell.

“Brother Zhuge,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “let’s not move against that minor Zuowandao just yet. We cast a long line, catch a bigger fish.”

He was still piecing together the situation, but that didn’t change his objective: deal with North Wind.

Zhuge Yuan gave a slight nod. “Rest assured, I understand.”

Li Huowang let the pill slip from his fingers. It rolled beside the cart wheel. Mantou the dog shot over in a blur, sniffed the pill, licked its surface, then sat down and tilted its head, still eyeing the rations in Li Huowang’s hand.

Li Huowang tucked the remaining pills into his robes and turned to Zhuge Yuan with a serious expression. “Brother Zhuge, do you have a moment? There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time.”

Zhuge Yuan’s face showed no surprise. He had seen the question coming; he’d simply been waiting for a moment when no outsiders were within earshot.

“I imagine you’re wondering: is it the Great Liang now, or the Great Qi?”

Li Huowang gave a slight nod. When he had checked Zhuge Yuan’s information at the Supervisory Heavenly Office, no explanation had been offered, and the discrepancy had caught him completely off guard.

Zhuge Yuan snapped open his white folding fan and let out a tone of reminiscence. “These matters involve things above. For your own safety, I dare not tell you too much. But what I will say is this: the Great Qi has always been there. The Great Liang is the false one.”

“The Great Liang is false? Everything I went through in the Great Liang was a lie?”

Li Huowang almost laughed. What then was all the suffering he had endured across this vast land? Another hallucination like the one in the hospital? His slaughter of Bai Lingmiao’s entire family—was that also a deception? If only it was all fake.

He forced himself to speak slowly. “Brother Zhuge, you’ve been everywhere. You must have met people from the Great Liang. Even that Heart-Turbid corpse of yours was stolen from the Liang Supervisory Office. How can you say the Liang is false?”

Zhuge Yuan sighed. “Ah, Brother Li, this ‘false’ is not that ‘false.’ Consider the old noodle-seller we just saw. In your eyes, he is a man of the Great Liang. In mine, he is a man of the Great Qi. If neither of us were looking—what nation would he belong to?”

“But he’s clearly from the Great Liang! Nothing from the Great Qi!”

“How do you know?”

“Because he was born in the Liang, grew up in the Liang, and will grow old and die in the Liang. That’s what makes him a man of Liang.”

“Not so. In my eyes, he was born in the Qi, grew up in the Qi, and will grow old and die in the Qi. That’s what makes him a man of Qi.”

“Brother Zhuge, are you saying you see only the Great Qi wherever you look? But why only you? Everyone else sees the Great Liang. You must have thought about that, haven’t you?”

“No. In my eyes, everyone else also sees the Great Qi. I know what you see—but what you see is wrong. And it must be corrected.”

“How can I make you understand? It’s clearly—” Li Huowang met Zhuge Yuan’s eyes and let the words die in his throat. Suddenly the argument felt pointless.

“Fine. The old noodle-seller is a man of the Great Qi. You win.”

Zhuge Yuan looked disappointed. “You still don’t trust me, do you. Very well. I won’t argue with you—that would only lead to a quarrel. For now, just watch. The more you see, the more you will understand whether the Great Qi I speak of is real or false.”

He walked away, his spirits noticeably lower.

Li Huowang’s brows were tightly knit as he turned the possibilities over in his mind.

Heart-Element. Heart-Pivot. Heart-Turbid. None of them were easy to deal with. Whatever the Heart-Pivot had gained from that so-called Above the Three Bodies, this bizarre shift had to be caused by Zhuge Yuan.

How? He still couldn’t understand.

“Did Zhuge Yuan bring us across a thousand years—from the ancient Qi to the thousand-years-later Liang? But that doesn’t fit either. If a thousand years separated them, how could the same noodle-couple be selling noodles in both eras?”

The old noodle-seller had changed his face three times before Li Huowang’s eyes, as if two entirely different noodle stalls were occupying the same space. And yet Li Huowang had stood right next to the man. He was certain the seller had not changed.

It was as if the whole world were putting on a play with two different scripts: one for normal people like him, and a second one for Zhuge Yuan.

As he chewed on these thoughts, Li Huowang recalled what the Chief Recorder had said to him back at the Buddha-Skull Temple.

“Is this what he meant by ‘strange but logical’? That these things happen around a Heart-Pivot all the time?”

“That nun’s Siming governs decay. Bashe governs pain. So what the hell does this ‘Above the Three Bodies’ govern? What makes it cause Zhuge Yuan’s strange shifts?”

Li Huowang knew he shouldn’t dwell on such things—it would only invite disaster—but he couldn’t help it when the evidence was right in front of him.

“Fine, fine.” He shook his throbbing head. If Zhuge Yuan said it, he would just believe it. It had nothing to do with him anyway.

He had only one goal: catch North Wind.

Zhuge Yuan had killed Facai. The Zuowandao couldn’t let that slide. If he stayed close to Zhuge Yuan, he had a good shot at finding North Wind.

The sound of quick footsteps approached. Li Huowang looked up to see a young man in a flowing white robe. A faint scent of blood clung to him.

“This humble one is Xia Risheng. I pay my respects to Lord Li.”

Li Huowang asked, “Something?”

“Lord Li,” the young man said excitedly, pulling open his robes to reveal a body covered with hooked barbs, “this humble one is also a follower of the Ao-Jing Sect, just like you!”

“If there’s nothing else, head back. We still have a long road ahead.” Li Huowang was no true Ao-Jing devotee, and he didn’t dare talk too much and give himself away.

“Lord Zhuge told me you have performed the Dung-Beetle Ascension three times. Is that true?” The young man’s eyes were full of adoration as he looked at Li Huowang.