So he concluded that the guy before him was likely using “Chen Zui” as an alias, thinking it sounded imposing enough to give him some clout in the martial world.
As for using a fake name, Li Wu didn't mind at all.
Wandering the martial world, your identity was whatever you made it out to be.
Besides, who didn't have a few aliases?
A name was just a label.
What mattered was whether brothers hit it off.
And this fake Chen Zui was a match made in heaven for him.
Thinking up to here, Li Wu couldn't help but steal another glance at Chen Zui beside him, pulling his neck into his collar as he trudged forward.
Real name or fake name, as long as they had wine to drink together and trouble to face together, that was enough.
This was Li Wu's standard for acknowledging someone as a brother.
As for whether this guy was truly that world-shaking Chen Zui?
Haha, only a fool would believe that.
Still, the best part about befriending this brother was saving money on alcohol.
Li Wu had no idea where the guy got his money.
He clearly looked even poorer than Li Wu, wearing clothes covered in patch upon patch, and wielding a sword that didn't even have a tassel.
Yet whenever his alcohol craving hit, this brother could always pull a few copper coins from somewhere on his person.
Sometimes, it was even bits of broken silver.
Li Wu had once sneaked a look through his bundle while he was sleeping.
A few spare clothes, a broken sword, a battered wine gourd, half a piece of dry ration—dirt poor.
Where he hid that money was something Li Wu had never managed to figure out.
But none of that mattered.
Li Wu tightened the grip on the broken sword at his waist and made a silent vow.
When he, Li Wu, made a name for himself in the future and became a great hero famous throughout the martial world, the very first thing he would do was treat this brother to the best wine in the world.
Bamboo Green, Daughter Red, Top Scholar Red—he'd order every single one.
He'd let this liquor-loving brother satisfy his craving to his heart's content!
Li Wu didn't dare boast about other skills, but when he said he would do something, he meant it—that was his lifelong creed.
The two walked for another half day.
The northern wind over the plains blew ceaselessly, cutting against their faces like blades.
The sun at the edge of the sky remained pale, making it impossible to tell morning from afternoon.
Li Wu's lips were purple with cold as he pulled his neck in and trudged forward, muttering curses at the wretched weather.
Fortunately, heaven never seals off every path. Just when he felt he was about to freeze into an icicle, the corner of a grey roof tile faintly appeared at the end of the dead grass in the distance.
“Brother Chen! Look! A temple!”
Li Wu's eyes lit up, and he grabbed Chen Zui's sleeve, running in that direction.
Pulled along, Chen Zui stumbled two steps before following his gaze, where the outline of a temple indeed came into view.
Buddhism flourished in Grand Shuo, and the Golden Tent Royal Court treated monks with great deference. Every tribe had a tradition of supporting temples, so abandoned, ruined temples were extremely rare on the desolate plains.
The one before them was an exception.
Half the courtyard wall had collapsed, and the temple door hung crookedly from its frame, creaking whenever the wind blew. It clearly had been abandoned for a long time.
Familiar with the routine, the two pushed open the crooked door and found a wind-sheltered corner.
Without a word, Li Wu went to gather dry wood and broken beams scattered around the main hall, while Chen Zui crouched on the ground to set up a campfire.
Within moments, the crackling campfire burned brightly.
Sitting around the fire, they retrieved dry rations from their bundles, warming them over the flame to share.
Gnawing on the rock-hard ration, Li Wu idly examined the remaining murals in the temple.
The murals depicted Buddhist legends, their colors mostly peeled away, leaving only the faint outlines of several Bodhisattvas.
Losing interest after a couple of glances, he took a gulp of wine and opened his mouth again.
“Brother Chen, you know, things over in Grand Zhao are pretty interesting,” he said with a grin, turning his dry ration over the fire.
“The ruling emperor now is a woman, and the current Grand Chancellor is a woman too. Women running the house... I wonder if that Dragon Throne in the Imperial Hall feels too hard for them to sit on. You catch my drift, Brother Chen?”
As he spoke, he gestured animatedly, shifting from the Female Emperor's dragon robes to the female chancellor's scholar robes. His chatter grew wilder and increasingly crude, getting more energetic by the second.
Sitting to the side, Chen Zui neither joined in nor stopped him. He simply chewed his dry ration, taking an occasional sip from his wine gourd, seemingly long accustomed to Li Wu's filterless mouth.
Just as Li Wu was getting into the swing of things, two horse neighs suddenly echoed outside the temple.
Li Wu shut his mouth immediately and pricked up his ears.
The sound of horse hooves approached from afar and stopped outside the ruined temple.
Immediately after, the temple door was pushed open, and a man and a woman walked in, carrying the freezing cold with them.
The man wore a sable fur coat with a curved saber hanging at his waist. The scabbard was inlaid with several pieces of turquoise that gleamed with an eerie light in the glow of the campfire.
The woman wore a brocade robe with a collar lined with snow-white fox fur. She had handsome features, but a haughty air hung between her brows.
The two stood at the doorway, sweeping their gazes across the interior of the temple.
The man walked straight to the campfire, shoved aside Li Wu's dry rations warming by the fire to clear a spot, pulled out dried meat and curd cakes from his own pack, and placed them over the fire to heat up.
The woman bypassed the campfire and walked to the most wind-sheltered corner of the temple.
Spread out there was a pile of dry straw that Chen Zui had gathered from the side hall, originally intended for the two of them to sleep on at night.
Unslinging a thick felt blanket from her horse's saddle, she spread it over the straw and sat down cross-legged, never offering Li Wu or Chen Zui a single glance from start to finish.
“You two,” the man said plainly without looking up, flipping the dried meat over the fire. “We're taking this fire. Go somewhere else.”
Li Wu's face flushed bright red, his fingers instinctively tightening around the hilt of the rusty sword at his waist.
Taking a deep breath, he slowly let it out.
He leaned over, whispering in Chen Zui's ear in a low voice, “Brother Chen, these two have much stronger presences than me—they're probably in the Mountain and Sea Realm! A wise man doesn't fight against impossible odds. We're better off avoiding trouble.”
Li Wu was already a Candlelight Realm expert and considered himself quite formidable.
But if the man and woman before them were truly Mountain and Sea Realm experts, forget about fighting—they could pin the two of them to the ground with a single finger.
Though he loved to boast on normal days, when it came to staying alive, his head was clearer than anyone's.
Having said that, he pulled Chen Zui's sleeve, retreating toward the corner.
Chen Zui said nothing either. He simply stooped down, picked up his half-eaten dry ration from the ground, and followed Li Wu to the spot closest to the door.
That was where the wind was strongest. The threshold blocked off all heat from the campfire, and cold drafts poured through the door gaps, sending chills down one's back.
Chen Zui didn't mind much. Sitting against the wall, he rested the wine gourd on his knees and continued gnawing on his dry ration.
Having taken over the campfire and the straw bedding, the man and woman ate and drank their fill before settling against the wall to rest.
The man rested the curved saber across his knees, closing his eyes to doze.
The woman wrapped herself in the felt blanket and lay on her side, her breathing gradually turning even.
From beginning to end, neither of them spared another glance at them.
That night.
The northern wind outside the ruined temple howled all night long.
Curled up by the door, Li Wu was woken several times by the cold draft seeping through the door crack.
Every time he opened his eyes, he saw Chen Zui sitting against the base of the wall with his broken sword across his knees, breathing steadily as if sound asleep.
Thankfully, the night passed without incident.
The man and woman left before dawn.
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