It turned out to be the storyteller who had finished telling stories under the old locust tree earlier, asking this child to lead him to Xinghua Alley to see that well. The child was initially unwilling, so the old man said that his big white bowl was something special, containing rare and marvelous things. The child was naturally lively and restless—his parents said he must have forgotten to grow a butt when he was reincarnated. From a young age, he liked to wander around with Brian Clark and that gang of loafers, but if it meant catching an eel or a loach, this little rascal could also sit motionless under the blazing sun for half an hour, his patience astonishing.

So when the old man mentioned what was inside the white bowl, the child immediately took the bait.

Even when the old man made a strange request at first—saying he wanted to try lifting him up to see how heavy he was, to check if he weighed forty jin—the child nodded and agreed without hesitation. After all, being lifted a few times wouldn’t cost him a piece of flesh.

But then something kept making the child roll his eyes: the old man, holding the bowl in his left palm, tried with all his might to lift him with his right hand five or six times, but not once did he succeed. In the end, the child glanced sideways at the old man’s skinny arms and legs, shook his head, and thought, “For someone so scrawny, Ethan Brooks that penniless guy is much stronger than this old man.” Still, since he hadn’t yet seen what was inside the white bowl, the child—seemingly born with a precocious mind—held back from saying anything that would embarrass the old man. After all, in the area around Mud Bottle Alley and Xinghua Alley, when it came to quarreling and trading barbs, especially with a sharp tongue, this child ranked third, second was the scholar Jason Smith, and first was the child’s own mother.

The old man came to the well, but didn’t sit on the well’s edge.

The ancient well was built of blue bricks.

Unconsciously, the old man’s breathing grew heavy.

The child walked to the well, turned his back to the opening, and hopped backward, landing his butt right on the well’s edge.

This scene made the old man break out in a cold sweat. If the little rascal slipped, he’d fall straight in, and with the history of this ancient well, even recovering the body would be difficult.

The old man slowly took a few steps forward, squinted, and bent over to examine the iron chain, one end of which was tied in a dead knot at the bottom of the well’s windlass.

“A land of great feng shui, the best in the whole region.”

The old man looked around, filled with mixed emotions, thinking, “Who knows who this heavy treasure will end up with in the end?”

The old man stretched out his free left hand and stared at his palm.

The lines in his palm were mottled and complex.

But now, a brand-new line had appeared, slowly extending, like a crack spreading across porcelain.

A sage reads palms as if reading mountains and rivers.

But this old man, at this moment, was only reading his own.

The old man frowned and exclaimed, “In just half a day, things have already become so bleak. What about those others?”

The child was already standing on the well’s edge, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at the old man, loudly urging, “Are you going to show me the white bowl or not?!”

The old man said helplessly, “Come down, come down, I’ll show you the big white bowl right now.”

The child, half-believing, finally jumped down from the well’s edge.

The old man hesitated for a moment, his expression solemn. “Little one, you and I are fated to meet. It’s not impossible to show you the mystery of this bowl, but after you’ve seen it, you mustn’t tell anyone—not even your mother. If you can do that, I’ll let you see; if not, even if you poke holes in my back, I won’t let you have so much as a peek.”

The child blinked. “Let’s start.”

The old man, with great ceremony, walked to the well’s edge. When he lowered his head, he saw that the little rascal had now straddled the well’s edge with both legs. The old man somewhat regretted provoking this lawless brat.

The old man calmed his mind, faced the well, gripped the bottom of the big white bowl with five fingers, and began to tilt his palm ever so slightly—almost imperceptibly.

The child felt he’d been waiting a long time, but saw no movement from the white bowl above his head, and the old man kept holding the same posture.

Just as the child’s two snot trails were about to reach his mouth and his patience was about to run out—

A stream of water, as thick as a finger, poured out from the white bowl, cascading into the depths of the well, silent and soundless.

The child bared his teeth, about to curse out loud.

He suddenly shut his mouth, looking surprised. After a moment, his expression shifted from shock to confusion, and then to fear. Suddenly coming to his senses, he jumped down from the well’s edge and ran home.

It turned out that the amount of water the old man had poured into the well with that white bowl was already more than a huge water vat.

But water kept pouring out of the white bowl.

The child thought he must have seen a ghost in broad daylight.

————

Brian Clark casually broke off a budding branch from the roadside and began to practice swordplay, spinning like a rolling wheel, wild and frenzied, not caring at all about his new boots, kicking up clouds of dust along the path.

The tall youth left the small town, heading south from the north. As long as he crossed the covered bridge built with money from Mr. Smith, and walked another three or four li, he’d reach the blacksmith shop run by the Ruan father and daughter. Brian Clark had always been proud and ambitious, but Master Ruan had won his complete admiration with just one sentence: “We came here for one thing only—to forge swords.”

Forging swords—how wonderful! Whenever Brian Clark thought about how he’d have a real sword of his own one day, he couldn’t help but get excited. He tossed away the branch and started running and shouting, howling like a ghost.