Folklore and Strange Tales: At the Start, You Retrieve the Sea-Suppressing Black Iron

Cheng Xiaojin threw his bicycle down in front of Master Ma's courtyard house with a clatter, and the thrush in its cage flapped its wings twice.

Inside the main room, Master Ma sat in his usual spot by the window, an enamel teacup resting on the corner of the octagonal table, steam rising from it.

"You're back?"

"He's back, his legs are still intact, and his head wasn't taken away. That's enough to report back to the organization."

Cheng Xiaojin stepped over the threshold, pulled up a stool, and sat down. The chill in his bones was still seeping out. The main room was as stuffy as a steamer in the middle of summer. Sweat dripped down his spine from the back of his neck, while the hairs on his arms stood up.

With his right hand resting on his knee, the pale bluish-brown ring around his fingertips appeared slightly darker than yesterday in the sunlight streaming in through the window.

"Have you seen the person?"

"I've met him. This person is even more particular than the invitation; he truly has an art of speaking."

Master Ma rested his right hand on the lid of the teacup, waiting for him to continue.

Cheng Xiaojin started from the beginning.

The envelope was made of bamboo paper, written in regular script with blue-black ink. It was written under the third locust tree at Baiyun Temple. The recipient was about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. On a hot day, he wore a linen shirt with the collar ironed as if he were attending a state banquet, and his flat leather shoes were spotless.

"He was dressed more presentably than the manager of Rongbaozhai, while I looked like I had just received relief grain under a bridge."

"Did he introduce himself?"

"Yes, I've registered. My surname is Liu, and my given name is Bai."

Upon hearing the name uttered by Cheng Xiaojin, Master Ma's finger suddenly stopped on the edge of the teacup lid.

His spine was straight and motionless.

Outside the window, cicadas were howling loudly, but inside the main room, there was no sound at all. Even the thrushes tilted their heads and stopped singing, tucking their necks into the feathers on their chests.

The teacup lid finally moved, scraping against the rim of the enamel cup.

Snap...

Two or three seconds passed.

Snap...

Three or four seconds later.

chap!

Then it stopped, the teacup lid hanging in mid-air.

Cheng Xiaojin had watched Master Ma scrape the lid of the teacup hundreds of times, but this was the first time he had ever seen him scrape it three times without touching the rim of the cup.

The steam in the enamel mug visibly subsided with those three hissing sounds, and when the lid was finally put back on, the area above the rim of the cup was completely dry, without a trace of steam.

"Liu Bai, the 'Liu' in willow tree, the 'Bai' in white."

Master Ma put the lid of the teacup back on the rim of the cup with a muffled sound.

"Did he reveal his name first, or his goods first?"

"Showing their name first and then their goods is a perfectly legitimate approach, but I always feel that the more legitimate they are, the less likely they are to be good people."

Cheng Xiaojin read through the entire conversation at Baiyun Temple from beginning to end, without missing a single word.

The two volumes are divided into two parts, each containing half of the content. The ritual for returning to the starting point is on pages 46 to 51 of the first volume, and the method for restoring the feel of the metal element is on page 31. The condition is that you can borrow the second volume to take a look and copy only a few pages.

When he got to page thirty-one, he unconsciously clenched his right hand, the pads of his fingers brushing against the fabric of his pants, the sensation returning vaguely.

After listening, Master Ma picked up his teacup and took a sip. "Your grandfather mentioned the Liu family to me before he passed away."

Cheng Xiaojin leaned forward two inches.

"The relationship between the Liu family and the Cheng family can be traced back three generations. Your grandfather's master and the old man of the Liu family had a life-or-death bond. The two of them almost lost their lives at the bottom of an ancient cellar in Shandong. After they climbed out alive, the two families made a strict rule."

"If rules were effective, he should bring the first volume to me today and kowtow to me."

"The two volumes of the Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) are to be kept in separate parts. They shall not be passed on to outsiders, sold, or destroyed. They shall be kept for as long as possible. If either party wants to see the other's volume, they must be present in person. No copying or taking it away is allowed."

Cheng Xiaojin rubbed the tip of his nose with his thumb.

"So this Brother Liu Bai just said he wanted to borrow the second volume to take a look and copy a few pages. It seems he's using the old rules as a stepping stone."

"The fact that he dared to say that means that the rules of the Liu family have been changed in his hands."

"When did Old Master Liu pass away?"

"In the 1960s, during the period of destroying the Four Olds."

Master Ma spoke a beat slower than usual.

"When the person died, everyone in the circle thought that the first volume was burned along with it. Your grandfather thought the connection was broken until his death."

"Where did this Liu Bai come from? Did it spring out of a crack in the rock and even smell of sandalwood?"

Master Ma didn't respond to that joke; he didn't seem to be in the mood for it.

Cheng Xiaojin mentally recalled the last page of the tattered scroll: "The first volume of this scroll is from the Liu family collection." He read those words over and over again no less than twenty times.

"He can produce half a page of paper; the content matches the surname. Mr. Ma, please give me a straight answer: can this person sit at the same table?"

Master Ma rubbed his right thumb against the side of the teacup twice.

"I acknowledge the existence of the Upper Volume, and I also acknowledge the Liu family lineage, but you have to treat him like a dog outside the door. No matter how nicely he wags his tail, his teeth are still in his mouth."

Why?

"The Liu family has been stealing treasures for generations."

The air in the main room seemed to sink a little, and the paper of the Nine Pieces Diagram on the Eight Immortals Table arched at one corner, as there was no wind.

"The Cheng family guards the gate, and the Liu family handles the bolt. The Cheng family protects the Liu family and takes from them; they've never been on good terms since their ancestors."

"Take? You're being too polite with that word. To me, it's called digging up a grave."

"The half-page he showed you was what he wanted you to see; the parts he didn't show you were his knife."

Cheng Xiaojin swallowed hard and brought up the next question.

"Master Ma, there's something else, even more awkward than him revealing the first volume."

"explain."

"From beginning to end, this man surnamed Liu didn't mention you at all."

Master Ma's finger stopped on the side of the teacup.

"He doesn't ask where the genuine article is hidden in the courtyard or where the second volume is kept. He knows everyone on the whole line, even Tieguai Li's prosthetic leg, but there's a gap in your book."

Are you afraid he doesn't know me, or are you afraid he'll pretend he doesn't know me?

"I'm afraid he knows but insists I don't. That's the most annoying thing when playing chess. He clearly has the cannon in his hand but tells you he can only advance the pawn."

Master Ma picked up the lid of the teacup and put it down again, making a clattering sound.

"This person is more difficult to deal with than I thought. He's not mentioning me because he's waiting for you to bring me up yourself."

Cheng Xiaojin waited for him to continue.

"An exchange is possible, but it has to be here. I will personally oversee things in my courtyard house. When he comes to read the second volume, I will watch which pages he turns to and which lines he copies. Every single stroke must be under my watchful eye."

"He might not be willing to come. Why would someone from the Liu family, who steals treasures, sneak into someone else's yard?"

"He wants the second volume to meet this threshold. If he won't even give us that much face, then there's no point in discussing this deal."

Master Ma picked up the teacup and then put it down again.

"There's one more thing. Before he shows you the first volume, you should check the paper first. Even though your skills are dulled, you can still distinguish the fiber direction of bamboo paper between Jingxian and Sichuan. Only after the paper is correct and the year is right should we talk about the rest."

Cheng Xiaojin moved his right hand on his knee. This morning, when he touched Liu Bai's letter at Baiyun Temple, the signal from his fingertips was only enough to spell out two words: "Good paper."

He didn't say what he meant aloud, but nodded and stood up.

Master Ma suddenly spoke again, his voice very low.

"Your grandfather once told me something before he passed away: 'As long as there are any members of the Liu family still alive, this game of chess is not over.'"

Cheng Xiaojin's foot was nailed to the floor tile.

"What kind of chess?"

Master Ma did not answer.

The sun slanted in through the window and shone on the nine-point map spread out on the table. Master Ma's shadow, as he sat, completely covered the marked position of the seventh point.

The edge of the shadow cut a clean dividing line on the kraft paper. The handwriting was clear to the east of the seven stakes, but to the west of the seven stakes it was all in shadow, and even the four pencil characters written by Grandpa could not be seen.

This stake has been moved...

He turned and left the main room, his right foot stepping onto the brick ground of the courtyard. A slight, faint vibration came from the sole of his shoe.

A foxtail grass squeezed into a crack in the brick, its tip trembling.

There is no wind.