Ding Qingyan did not continue along the busy street. She grabbed Ding Songyan’s sleeve and turned him into a side alley.

Coming the other way was a group of men and women in fitted black, silver starlight on their left cuffs, orange candleflames on their right. They swept past and were gone, leaving the air swaying gently in their wake like the surface of disturbed water.

Seeing Ding Songyan gaze after the squad’s disappearing backs, Ding Qingyan pursed her lips.

“Brightnight Sect. They’re probably heading to wherever that martial arts violation just happened.”

“Sects handle that kind of thing too?” Ding Songyan asked, thoughtful.

Ding Qingyan laughed softly.

“Yes. It’s been that way since the Youqiong Dynasty. The founding emperor of this dynasty made a Jade Scroll Covenant with all the major sects, under which the great orthodox sects and noble clans may ‘reduce grain taxes, oversee the prisons, and assist with city patrols.’ Dingjiang Prefecture and the three counties to the north fall under the Brightnight Sect’s jurisdiction. Second Brother, you’re the one who told me all of this, after your storytelling lessons…”

As she spoke, Ding Qingyan seemed to remember her brother’s current condition. Her voice trailed off into silence.

“Storytelling? You learn things like that from storytelling lessons?” Ding Songyan had not expected his current profession to be that of a storyteller.

Man. I don’t remember a single professional skill. I can’t exactly give a PowerPoint presentation to the audience, right?

Ding Qingyan gave a small nod and kept walking.

“There are four schools of storytelling. Historical accounts: that’s the ancient history one. Then there’s tales of the jianghu, legends and sagas, and criminal court cases. Before you came to Dingjiang, you were training in historical accounts.”

“I see…” Ding Songyan turned this over in his mind.

Ding Qingyan glanced at him sideways.

“Second Brother, we couldn’t afford to provoke any of those martial artists back there. That said, they aren’t the truly fearsome kind. The truly fearsome ones, you can spot at a glance.”

“Spot at a glance? Do they have ‘I am a master’ written on their faces?” Ding Songyan kept his tone light, coaxing the information out of her.

Ding Qingyan curled her lip.

“Not at all. Go listen to storytellers outside Dangkang Temple sometime and find out for yourself.

“Well, most martial arts trace back to the divine beings and strange creatures from before Emperor Zhuanxu severed the connection between heaven and earth. Cultivate them far enough, and the body starts to change. Some people’s ears become like a tiger’s. Some grow a few golden feathers. Some turn completely blue-skinned. Some sprout two pairs of ox horns. Some grow a fox’s tail. Second Brother, if you see anyone like that, they’re either a different race or a master!”

Emperor Zhuanxu… This world has Emperor Zhuanxu too? Ding Songyan set that question aside for the moment.

“What abnormal changes come from cultivating the Brightnight Sect’s arts to a profound level?”

If the opportunity arose, it was always wise to recognise the local powers before you stumbled into them.

Ding Qingyan thought carefully.

“I don’t think there are any particularly striking abnormalities… They say their arts descend from two goddesses, Brightnight and Candlelight, daughters of Emperor Shun. So they look no different from ordinary people. Ah, double pupils! Father mentioned once that he had met a Brightnight Sect master with double pupils. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

Emperor Shun? Ding Songyan fell quiet again.

Before long, the siblings turned into a lane where wisps of cooking smoke rose into the air.

“Ding Songyan, you’re back?”

“Where on earth have you been? Your father and mother have been looking everywhere.”

“Did you elope with some girl?”

…

The neighbors gathered by the well at the lane’s entrance called out to them, some with genuine concern, others with good-natured teasing.

Ding Qingyan answered vaguely, dragged Ding Songyan along, and quickly threaded through the crowd to a household at the end of the alley.

She took a bronze-colored key from her waist, undid the padlock, and pushed the two wooden doors inward.

Once her brother was inside, she pulled the doors mostly shut behind her, patted her chest, and let out a breath.

Ding Songyan took the opportunity to look around.

It was a modest courtyard. On the left stood an elm, with several ropes strung between it and a wooden post by the water vat, laundry hanging to dry. On the right, a crude wooden shed sheltered a pile of coal and firewood behind mottled stone steps.

Straight ahead was the main building, with a side room on each flank. The main room held various household clutter. On the square table sat four dishes and a wooden bucket of rice, covered with a coarse green-checked gauze food cover.

Ding Songyan stepped to the doorway of the main room and let his gaze settle on a bronze mirror perched on a storage box, polished to a shine.

He finally saw himself.

A moon-white scholar’s robe. No formal cap, no headscarf, only a strip of blue cloth tying his hair back. No striking handsomeness, no particularly elegant bearing, but a clean-cut, fair-faced scholar all the same.

I knew it. With a sister like Ding Qingyan, I suppose this body was never going to be ugly… Ding Songyan quietly exhaled.

Well, if you’re going to transmigrate, you’d want a decent face at least, right?

Ding Qingyan had removed her veil hat and wandered over to sit on a round stool by the square table, chin propped in one hand, her dark eyes fixed on Ding Songyan with quiet attention.

Feeling the weight of that gaze, Ding Songyan shifted slightly and cast about for something to say.

“Father’s name is Ding Shengyi.” Ding Qingyan spoke first. “Mother’s is Liu Yuzao. Eldest Brother is Bull Ding. Don’t forget them. They would be upset.”

Bull Ding? That naming style doesn’t quite match the other four… Ding Songyan asked, puzzled, “Little Sister, what do you mean?”

Ding Qingyan let out a slow breath.

“I mean, even though you’ve forgotten everything, you still remember their names. It would be some comfort to them.”

Ding Songyan went quiet.

Would the people back in my old world grieve for me?

In the silence, the half-shut courtyard door was pushed open. A woman and a man walked in one after the other.

The woman was dressed as a married lady of the house, her features refined, her bearing carrying a quiet coolness beneath its composure. She looked no more than thirty-four or thirty-five. She wore a green round-collar cross-front jacket with a subtle pattern, a gray-blue pleated skirt below, and carried a black gauze veil hat in her hand.

The man was in his forties, wearing a four-cornered settled cap and a gray straight-cut robe, his features regular, his manner somewhat soft and reserved.

“Mother, Father, Second Brother has forgotten everything!” Ding Qingyan shot to her feet and ran into the courtyard.

Little Sister, what were you saying just now? I’d like to hear that part about “comfort” again. Ding Songyan could not help thinking.

“But he still remembers your names!” Ding Qingyan added.

Liu Yuzao’s expression froze. She crossed to Ding Songyan in a few steps and checked the dark birthmark mole behind his right ear.

Only then did she reach up and touch his head.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” Ding Songyan answered honestly.

From the body’s approximate age and the fact of an elder brother, he reasoned that Liu Yuzao should already be in her early forties. Yet, she had been gifted with good looks, and appeared four or five years younger than she was.

Liu Yuzao frowned slightly.

“Then how can he have forgotten everything?”

“Could it be Soul Departure Sickness?” Ding Shengyi had begun his own examination.

Ding Songyan ruminated carefully.

“Father, Mother, what happened to me before this?”

Ding Shengyi walked a slow circle around Ding Songyan, observing as he spoke.

“More than half a year ago, we came to Dingjiang Prefecture to stay with your maternal aunt’s family, and your cousin Nuansheng used the Zhen family’s connections to help me secure a clerk’s post at the county office. She also put in a word with the head of the local storytellers’ guild so that you could set up and tell stories outside Dangkang Temple.

“Today, at the middle of the afternoon, you should have been home. We waited a long time and you never came. When we went to Dangkang Temple, we were told you had left on your own long before. No one knew where.”

When Ding Shengyi had finished, Liu Yuzao turned to Ding Qingyan.

“Where did you find him?”

“In the ruined temple on the road to the burial grounds…” Ding Qingyan recounted everything in detail.

Left on his own… That doesn’t read like a suicide attempt. If he’d wanted to die, the riverbank was far closer and more convenient… And when I woke there was no rope hanging from the rafters, no medicine bottle nearby… So he wandered out of the city to that ruined temple for what reason? Wait— did he go straight there from the storytelling spot? Then why was there not a single coin on him? He couldn’t have earned nothing for an entire day. Did he stop somewhere along the way, or did someone take the money after? The more Ding Songyan turned it over, the stranger it seemed.

He chose his words carefully.

“Father, Mother, is it possible that someone meant to harm me?”

He suspected that Ding Songyan had become caught up in something, that the journey to the ruined temple outside the city was part of it, and that whoever was involved had finished him off and taken his money in the process.

“We’ve barely arrived in Dingjiang. How could we have made any enemies…” Ding Shengyi, with the look of a middle-aged scholar, frowned in thought.

Liu Yuzao’s composed expression shifted suddenly.

“Songyan, we are going to the Zhen household to find your cousin, Nuansheng.

“If someone truly meant to harm you and sees that you survived, they are unlikely to let it rest!”

She’s right. There could still be considerable danger lurking… This was a matter of life and death, and Ding Songyan did not dare take it lightly. He agreed at once.

“One moment.” Ding Shengyi walked quickly into the main room and turned toward the east side room.

A short while later he came back out carrying a worn embroidered coin pouch. He handed it to Liu Yuzao and tapped the side of his own head, his expression serious.

“The Zhen household keeps not only martial arts masters on retainer, but also a renowned physician. If Songyan’s Soul Departure Sickness can be treated, do not be sparing with the money.”

“Father, I’ve saved up some too!” Ding Qingyan turned and prepared to dash back to her room.

“Wait and hear what the physician says first.” Liu Yuzao stopped her.

Bang. The courtyard door was shoved open. A voice followed like rolling thunder.

“Mother, is Songyan all right?”

The figure who came crashing into the courtyard stood well over nine feet, dressed in a gray rough-cloth short jacket, his hair wrapped in dark-blue cloth like Ding Songyan’s, eyes wide as bronze bells, his face covered in stubble, his jaw thrust forward. He looked ugly and fierce.

Mother? This mighty warrior is my eldest brother? Ding Songyan’s gaze moved back and forth between Bull, Liu Yuzao, Ding Shengyi, and Ding Qingyan.

He could see himself as a blend of his father’s and mother’s features, even and mixed. Ding Qingyan had clearly drawn only the best from both, with heaven throwing in some extra favor. But there was still some family resemblance in all four cases. Bull, by contrast, bore no visible connection to this family at all, like a black bull that had strayed into a flock of sheep, alien at a glance.

Combined with the name that had never fit the others, Ding Songyan could not help wondering if he’d been fished out of the river as a baby.

Liu Yuzao glanced at Bull and said coldly, “You came back so late that even if something had happened to Songyan, you would not have been there to help.”

Bull snapped upright and let his arms fall to his sides, shrinking into himself.

“My stride is long, so I searched far out…”

Liu Yuzao looked away, her face still cold.

“Take something to defend yourself with and escort Songyan and me to the Zhen household.”

“Yes, Mother!” Bull brightened at once. He rummaged through the pile of firewood and produced an iron rod as thick as a man’s arm.

Its surface was rough and uneven, pitted and knobbed, as though cast from scrap metal, and it looked extraordinarily heavy. In Bull’s hand it might as well have been a child’s toy.

Born with divine strength? Ding Songyan felt considerably more at ease. He followed Liu Yuzao out through the courtyard door.