Chapter 91: Jade Hairpin

Rain lashed against their bamboo hats, a relentless drumming.

Chen Pingan said in a low voice, "This hairpin is ordinary. Just ordinary jade."

A Liang stared at the earnest young man, as if he'd heard the biggest joke in the world. He bared his teeth, barely managing to suppress a burst of laughter. "Your word doesn't count."

Sweat beaded on Chen Pingan's forehead, quickly washed away by the rain. He looked at the man and asked, "What do you want?"

A Liang grinned. "Do you think you're about to die?"

In that moment, Chen Pingan felt a surge of despair.

Because Master Ruan had come...and left.

And this man was still standing before him.

A Liang was still the same smiling A Liang, his green bamboo sword slung across his back.

The man looked at the boy, his slight build, thin clothes, sturdy straw sandals, and of course, the finishing touch, the jade hairpin.

If he remembered correctly, the hairpin was engraved with eight beautiful, tiny characters.

Chen Pingan's lips were blue. He asked, his voice trembling, "Can you let them go?"

A Liang didn't answer.

The night before their departure, Chen Pingan had stayed up late, imagining every possible hardship. He knew that their journey to the Cliff Academy would be fraught with trials, big and small. He had enemies—the Cloud Garret Sect, Old Dragon City, and the Righteous Sun Sect—all immortal cultivators, all with grudges against him. Chen Pingan worried that he would endanger the little girl in the red coat’s path to education.

When he spoke to Li Bao Ping about the hardships he faced when he went to the mountains as a child, it wasn't that he wanted to complain. He wasn't trying to put on the airs of a junior uncle. Chen Pingan wanted to tell the girl that their journey to the academy, which had been moved to the Great Sui Dynasty, would definitely be longer than his journey into the mountains to gather herbs. If he wasn't there someday, unable to stay by her side, and if Li Bao Ping still wanted to study there, but lacked the confidence to do so, Chen Pingan wanted her to be like when she first entered the mountains. If she took a few more steps, she might just reach her goal.

But as those words came to his lips, Chen Pingan felt that it was too unlucky and inauspicious to say such things when they were just starting their journey. So he swallowed the other half of his sentence and instead said that he hoped she could become the first little instructor, a female teacher. It was both for good luck and because Chen Pingan had hopes for the girl.

A Liang laughed. "Stepping back ten thousand steps, that hairpin is just a common ornament and doesn't belong to you. Stepping back a hundred steps, I don't believe that the hairpin, which Qi Jingchun treasured for so many years, doesn't have some hidden mystery. For example, it could be a hidden small blessed land, or a Feng Shui treasure trove with the qualifications to become a blessed land. Taking just one step back, it's even more amazing. It could be a relic passed down to inherit the literary spirit, like the Taoist sect leader relics, a peach talisman, a feather robe, and a Taoist crown. If that’s true, Chen Pingan, do you think it's appropriate for you to wear the hairpin, which is actually Qi Jingchun's teacher's relic?"

Chen Pingan answered irrelevantly, "A Liang, can you let Li Bao Ping and Li Huai go?"

A Liang laughed. "How can you be sure that I won't go back on my word after I agree?"

Chen Pingan's toes twitched slightly.

A Liang crossed his arms and laughed. "Don't be impulsive, young hero. We're just talking things out. It's not too late to fight when we can't reason anymore."

Chen Pingan was silent, his face pale.

A Liang looked the boy up and down. "You really do look a bit like him."

A Liang dropped his playful demeanor and held out his hand. "Give me the hairpin, and I won't kill them."

Chen Pingan's fingers trembled.

A Liang said slowly, "This is Qi Jingchun's teacher's relic. This is also Qi Jingchun's relic."

Chen Pingan raised his arm, reaching for his head.

A Liang laughed. "Break the hairpin yourself, and I won't kill you. I never lie."

Chen Pingan suddenly stopped, took a deep breath, and took a step back, adopting a fighting stance.

A Liang asked, "Do you think that I'll let Li Bao Ping and them go anyway once you're dead, so you'll try your best to protect the hairpin even if it means death?"

Chen Pingan didn't say a word, took two heavy steps, and charged towards A Liang, throwing a punch.

The next moment, Chen Pingan suddenly realized that A Liang was gone.

Chen Pingan turned around stiffly. As expected, the man in the hat was standing there, except he was holding a hairpin.

A Liang sighed, seemingly uninterested in the hairpin. He held it out to the boy. "Take it back."

Chen Pingan carefully walked a few steps forward, taking the jade hairpin from him. In that instant, the boy felt a weight on his head. The man in the hat gently rested his hand on his head. The two stood shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions. The man, who had always shown a flippant attitude, sighed. "Chen Pingan, don't do anything stupid again. Is there anything in this world that's more important than a person's life? You must live, even if you can't live well. There's no greater truth in this world."

The man in the hat patted Chen Pingan's head, looked up at the dark sky, and laughed. "You must know that no matter how valuable or meaningful this hairpin is, Qi Jingchun must have believed in you when he gave it to you. So, whenever you need to make a life-or-death choice, you must choose to live, not die. It’s impressive to die heroically, to die righteously, to die elegantly, but death is still death."

The man in the hat took his hand back. "Qi Jingchun was disappointed with this world. That's his business. You are Chen Pingan, don't copy him, you haven't seen the good and bad of this world. 'Life is less than a hundred years, and always worried about a thousand.' That's what they call scholars, I'm not a scholar, and you are not one, so..."

The man did not say what came after "so," but said softly, "Chen Pingan, trust my vision, you will walk a long way in the future, even further than Qi Jingchun."

The boy asked softly, "Why?"

The man lightly caressed the bamboo sword hilt and laughed. "Because I am A Liang."

The two were finally silent as they walked down the mountain.

Chen Pingan asked, "The two people on that hillside?"

A Liang thought for a moment. "Dead people?"

Chen Pingan hesitated. After thinking about it, he decided not to delve into this question and changed the subject. "Why didn't you take the hairpin?"

A Liang's mouth twitched, and he lamented, "I only realized after getting the hairpin that it was worse than the worst case I had imagined by ten thousand steps. It's simply a setback of tens of thousands of steps. It's just a broken hairpin, what do I want it for?"

The boy was speechless.

A Liang shook his head. "Real scholars are poor. You'll understand that in the future. I should have thought about it. According to the temper of the old man of the Morality Forest and the personality of Qi Jingchun, it's normal to pass down such an ordinary hairpin."

A Liang suddenly turned his head with a smile. "Do you know that you took something from me that I thought I had in my pocket? Do you know how many detours I took for this?"

The rain poured off the hat, and the boy was confused.

A Liang said angrily, "I even carved a word in a certain place, but in the end, I came running over, and this is the dismal scene? So you should be grateful that I didn't kill you."

A Liang said to himself, "If you don't have the ability to carve two or three words there in the future, I'll cut you."

Chen Pingan said helplessly, "A Liang, can you say something I can understand?"

"Sure."

A Liang laughed and said, "I'm called A Liang, the 'liang' in 'kind'."

Chen Pingan helped him finish the next sentence. "I am a swordsman."

At that moment, A Liang's mouth perked up, and he slapped the boy on the shoulder. "Then it's settled!"

Chen Pingan was even more puzzled. "Huh?"

A Liang had already changed the subject. "I have to say goodbye even after walking a thousand miles with you. I will send you to the border of the Great Li Dynasty and then leave. I believe that by that time, you children will be able to travel cleanly to study. Temporarily, there will be no more murky things. So after that, you have to rely on your own good fortune. Whether you can take them to the Cliff Academy of the Great Sui Dynasty, and whether you can return to the Dragon Spring County of the Great Li Dynasty alive, all depends on your own ability."

Chen Pingan suddenly said, "Thank you."

From the first encounter until now, the boy had finally begun to completely trust the man who called himself A Liang.

A Liang shook his head. "It's okay, I'm just making up for my debt, it has nothing to do with you."

Many years ago, there was a young scholar named Qi who, after being tired of reading, said that he wanted to roam the world with him. That swordsman named A Liang didn't agree.

The man felt that if he had been a little more patient at that time, that young man would not have come to this point.

A Liang finally said, "Chen Pingan, do you know?"

The boy said, "What?"

A Liang said earnestly, "In the future, you must sincerely respect a peerless expert like me."

The boy asked curiously, "Can you beat Zhu He?"

A Liang had a headache.

He felt that this guy was more annoying than Qi Jingchun back then.