Chapter 11: Lu Jiuyuan
742 Words
Lu Jiuyuan was about twenty-five or twenty-six, wearing a grey cotton robe. He stood in the shop, browsing books.
When Shen Moyan entered, he looked up and glanced at him.
That glance, Shen Moyan remembered.
It wasn't the look of an ordinary person—it was a look that could see through you. Like a knife, lightly grazing your skin. It didn't hurt, but you knew how sharp it was.
"Shen Moyan?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Lu Jiuyuan." He closed the book. "From Maoshan."
Shen Moyan nodded slightly, saying nothing.
Lu Jiuyuan looked at him, a strange glint in his eyes. "You have someone else's aura on you."
Shen Moyan's heart tightened.
"It's normal for cultivators to have spiritual energy," Lu Jiuyuan said. "But you have more than one kind. Ming Dynasty, Song Dynasty, and... demonic aura?"
Shen Moyan said nothing.
Lu Jiuyuan looked at him for a moment, then averted his gaze. "Never mind, none of my business. This set of books, can you finish in three months?"
Shen Moyan looked down at the 'Genealogy of the Maoshan Sect.' Twelve volumes, severe worm damage, some missing pages. Three months would be tight.
"I'll do my best."
"Good." Lu Jiuyuan pulled a card from his pocket and placed it on the table. "Deposit, fifty thousand. Another fifty thousand upon completion."
Shen Moyan looked at the card, not moving.
"Why did you choose me for this repair?" he asked.
Lu Jiuyuan glanced at him, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly, as if smiling or not:
"Because I heard you've seen that book, 'The Purple Tenuity Divine Weapon.'"
Shen Moyan's heartbeat skipped.
"You know that Taoist scripture?" he asked.
"I know it." Lu Jiuyuan said. "That's a lost text of my Maoshan sect. Stolen three hundred years ago, never recovered."
He looked at Shen Moyan, his gaze very calm:
"The person who delivered it to you—who is it?"
Shen Moyan was silent for a moment.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"She said she'd pick it up on the fifteenth. Then she never came."
Lu Jiuyuan stared at him, as if judging whether he was lying.
"That book," he said slowly, "where is it now?"
"She took it."
Lu Jiuyuan was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright. If she comes again, let me know."
He turned to leave. At the door, he stopped and looked back at Shen Moyan:
"Those things inside you, you'd better clear them out sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the Taoist community will come looking for trouble."
He pushed the door open and disappeared into the crowd.
Shen Moyan stood rooted to the spot, his palms slick with sweat.
"This man," Zhu Quan said, "is ten times stronger than you. He's at least at the Master level now, close to Great Master."
"What does he want?"
"Don't know." Zhu Quan was silent for a moment. "But he's right. Having us inside you makes you an anomaly to the Taoist community. They don't tolerate anomalies."
Shen Moyan looked down at the 'Genealogy of the Maoshan Sect,' Lu Jiuyuan's last words flashing through his mind:
"Those things inside you, you'd better clear them out sooner rather than later."
Clear them out?
How?
He remembered Zhang Shouyi's words: "When you've learned, you can start repaying. Repay one, one leaves."
Repaying debts.
Not clearing out, but repaying until they're cleared.
Shen Moyan put away the 'Genealogy of the Maoshan Sect' and stored it in the safe.
Outside the window, the sky was darkening.
He walked to the window, looking out at the gradually dimming street, at the shadows slowly materializing in the twilight, at the old locust tree on Chenghuang Temple Back Street swaying in the wind.
A month ago, he was an ordinary book repairman, worried only about the rent.
Now, two ancients lived in his head, he had fifty thousand in deposit money, a mysterious book deliverer had stood at his door, and a Maoshan prodigy had just visited.
And at the bottom of the well in the backyard of Chenghuang Temple, someone had been waiting for four hundred years, waiting for him to repay a debt.
He looked down at his hands. The black on his fingertips had spread to the first knuckle.
One stroke, one obstacle.
The first was him. What was the second?
He didn't know.
But he knew, whatever it was, he had to face it.
Because he was Shen Moyan.
Born to repay debts.
- Writer
