Chapter 2: The Temple's Old Shadows

Dusk fell like spilled ink, completely swallowing the skyline of Kyoto.

Sage stood under the rain eaves, watching the cobblestones below get washed clean by the downpour. His finger lightly traced the jade pendant, still warm from his pocket.

“No record of this person,” he repeated Sawa Ono’s words in a low voice, a faint, bitter smile curling at the corner of his mouth. “The Yagyu Family’s rules really do predate yours.”

He turned and pushed open the heavy wooden door behind him.

The hinges groaned in a way that made his teeth ache, blasting him with the smell of damp mildew mixed with sandalwood.

This was the Saen-ji Temple’s scriptorium, an island forgotten by time.

No lamps burned inside. Only the faint moonlight leaking through the window lattice cast mottled shadows on the dusty floor.

Xue’s figure flickered in and out of the shadows. She crouched next to a pile of cobweb-covered wooden crates, holding a yellowed bamboo slip in her hands. Her expression was so focused it looked like she was performing a devout ritual.

“You’re right on time, Sage,” Xue said without looking up. Her voice was cold and calm. “Sawa Ono’s men have pulled back. But before they left, they smashed the bowl of clean water I placed at the entrance. That was a warning. And a probe.”

Sage didn’t reply. He simply walked over to her, crouched down, and fixed his gaze on the bamboo slip in her hand.

The slip was in tatters, its edges long since shattered, but the ink markings on it were unnervingly clear under the moonlight.

“This is Appendix Volume 3 of the Chronicle of the Mountain Gate,” Xue’s voice trembled, just barely detectable. “I found it while clearing out the old things in the basement. I thought it was just scrap paper recording the temple’s repair dates, until I read the last line…”

“What does the last line say?” Sage asked. His tone was steady, but there was an urgency in it that brooked no argument.

Xue looked up. Her sharp eyes gleamed terrifyingly in the dim light.

“The Yagyu clan, borrowing guards to keep the fire safe. The fire entered the Tang Sect. The gate was lost, leaving the Yagyus alone.”

“Fire?” Sage’s pupils constricted. “Firearms?”

“Yeah. Firearms.” Xue slowly unrolled the bamboo slip, laying it on the wooden floor between them. “A century ago, the Yagyu Family wasn’t just a Escort Agency. Our ancestors had a secret deal with a branch of the Tang Sect from the Central Plains. They weren’t transporting gold, silver, or tea. They were transporting ‘fire.’ A kind of fire that could ignite the entire martial world.”

Sage stared at the blurry characters, mentally racing through the evolution of the Yagyu Family’s insignia across the generations.

The early Yagyu insignia did feature a cluster of flames locked in iron chains.

It was a sealed shame. A covered-up secret.

“The Tang Sect branch?” Sage narrowed his eyes. “Who were they?”

“Unknown.” Xue shook her head. “But the Chronicle of the Mountain Gate mentions a code name—‘Crow.’ In classical writing, ‘Crow’ usually refers to someone who delivers bad news or carries out assassinations. And the year that deal happened, a bizarre fire broke out in Kyoto. Thirty-seven martial residences turned to ash overnight.”

Sage’s fingers tapped his knee unconsciously, the rhythm slow and heavy.

“Thirty-seven residences. Does that include the Yagyu Family’s branch headquarters?”

“It does.” Xue’s voice was as cold as ice. “The Yagyu elder who was in charge at the time disappeared on the night of the fire. The official story was that he jumped into the river to end his life, but his body was never found.”

“Suicide?” Sage let out a bitter laugh. “If it was suicide, why is his sword still hanging on the main altar beam at Saen-ji Temple, in a spot too high for ordinary people to reach?”

Xue didn’t answer. She just silently pulled another fragment of paper from her sleeve.

She had previously picked it out of a crack in the wall. The back of the paper was rough, bearing only a few sparse characters.

“I’ve looked at it. It’s a remnant of the account ledger from that deal,” Xue pointed to the few lines of sloppy small script. “It says, ‘Three Arrows in Unison, the cost was heavy.’”

“Three Arrows?” Sage leaned in, using the moonlight to decipher the ancient text.

“It’s a metaphor,” Xue explained. “In the jargon of Canal Transport back then, ‘arrow’ referred to a shipment batch. ‘Unison’ meant simultaneous dispatch. And ‘cost’ usually meant people.”

Sage fell silent for a moment, his gaze deepening.

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the pitch-black, rainy night.

“If all three batches of firearms were successfully delivered, the Yagyu Family wouldn’t just be an Escort Agency. They would be an armed force holding military power. In that turbulent era, that was more dangerous than gold.”

“But the problem is,” Xue’s voice came from behind him, carrying a hint of suppressed anger, “one of those three batches was intercepted by the ‘Crow’ halfway. And the one who intercepted it was Muso Ono’s ancestor.”

Sage turned around, his brow furrowed.

“Muso Ono?” He said the name with a complex hatred. “The madman who’s still scavenging for Yagyu Family relics in Kyoto’s underground black market?”

“Exactly. Rumor has it he’s collected a lot of weapon fragments from that time, but he never displays them. He keeps them in a secret chamber, stroking them over and over.” Xue’s eyes were sharp as a blade. “He believes that if he finds the manifest for that third batch, he can find the treasure left behind by the missing Yagyu elder.”

“Treasure?” Sage scoffed. “He’s looking for evidence of guilt. If that batch of firearms was used by the Tang Sect for smuggling, the Yagyu Family, as the transporters, would be implicated. But the Yagyus chose silence. They even helped cover it up.”

“Cover up what?” Xue countered. “Cover up the artisans who were silenced? Or cover up where that batch of firearms ultimately ended up?”

Sage said nothing.

Because he thought of his father’s dying words.

*“Sage, don’t look for that Iron Casket. Inside isn’t treasure, but a blood debt.”*

He had always assumed his father was warning him to stay away from danger. But now it looked like his father was warning him not to lift the fig leaf.

“Xue,” Sage walked to the table and picked up the ledger fragment. “Under the phrase ‘the cost was heavy,’ there’s another line of very small text. Can you see it?”

Xue leaned in, her nose almost touching the paper.

Her brow furrowed, her breathing becoming rapid.

“I can’t tell. The characters are too faint, as if written in tea, and then soaked in rain.”

“Let me try.” Sage took a white cloth from his robe and gently draped it over the fragment. Then he dipped a brush from the nearby ink dish with a tiny amount of very dilute ink and lightly dabbed the cloth with even pressure.

It was an ancient developing technique, using the ink’s permeability to print out the pigment traces remaining in the paper fibers.

As he worked, the blurry characters began to emerge, bit by bit.

“This is…” Xue gasped.

“‘Arrow broken at Edo, man perished in the temple.’”

“Man perished in the temple?” Sage’s voice was low, rumbling in his chest. “You mean the guards who participated in the transport back then?”

“No,” Xue shook her head sharply. “‘In the temple’ in classical writing specifically refers to our Saen-ji Temple. Back then, to seal away evidence of this deal, a purge happened within the Yagyu Family. All those who knew the secret were ‘invited’ into the temple and never came out.”

Sage felt a chill run up from his feet to the top of his head.

This seemingly peaceful ancient temple was actually a tomb.

Not for the dead, but for living secrets.

“So the Iron Casket that Muso Ono has been looking for,” Sage said slowly, “doesn’t contain gold. It contains the list of those who were silenced back then, and their final confessions.”

“Yes.” Xue looked at him. “And those confessions are enough to prove that the Yagyu Family deliberately cooperated with the Tang Sect to smuggle firearms in exchange for their own survival. It was a betrayal. An original sin.”

Sage closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

His father’s stern face appeared in his mind, along with the jade pendant his father had tightly gripped in his hand.

So that was it.

His father hadn’t disappeared. He had chosen to stay, spending his life guarding this shameful secret.

“Sage?” Xue gently nudged him.

Sage opened his eyes, a new resolve in his gaze.

“Xue, pack away that Chronicle of the Mountain Gate. From today, Saen-ji Temple is no longer safe.”

“Why?”

“Because Muso Ono has somehow found out where ‘Three Arrows in Unison’ ended up. The pressure he just applied to you wasn’t because he couldn’t find the path. It’s because he’s found a clue.”

Xue’s face instantly turned pale.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. He left a dried cherry blossom on the second floor of the pavilion.” Sage pointed to the inconspicuous fallen flower on the windowsill. “Cherry blossoms bloom in April. It’s winter now. This means he’s not just searching. He’s counting down.”

Xue froze, then complex emotions flashed in her eyes.

“What’s he going to do after the countdown?”

“He’s going to open that Iron Casket, and then turn everyone who knows the secret into the next batch on the silenced list.” Sage stood up, walked to the door, and pushed it open.

The rain outside was heavier, thunder rolling in, foreshadowing the storm to come.

He looked back at Xue.

“Xue, you have two choices. One, leave here. Go stay at your relatives’ in Osaka for a while, and hand that Chronicle of the Mountain Gate to Muneyoshi Fujiwara. Let him research it.”

“And the other?”

“Stay. Come with me. We find the whereabouts of that third arrow. We find the evidence that can clear the Yagyu Family’s name before Muso Ono makes his move, or…” Sage paused, his eyes ice-cold. “We destroy it completely.”

Xue was silent for a moment.

Rainwater dripped from the ends of her hair, pooling into drops.

“Muneyoshi Fujiwara won’t help us.” She finally spoke, her voice carrying a weary resolve. “He’s a man of the system. He protects sites for their academic value, not for martial world grudges. If we hand the Chronicle of the Mountain Gate to him, he’ll definitely report it to the authorities. Then all the remaining property and land of the Yagyu Family will be seized.”

“Then which do you choose?”

“I choose to stay.” Xue wiped the rain from her hands, carefully rolled up the bamboo slip, and hid it against her body. “Because I’m a Yagyu. This debt, I’ll pay.”

Sage looked at her, and finally, a genuine arc curled at the corner of his mouth.

“Good. Then the game enters its next round.”

He turned and headed down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor.

“Xue, follow me. We’re going to the underground tomb chamber. If I’m not mistaken, not all of the Yagyu Family’s ancestors are buried in the main tomb. Some ‘unclean’ ones are sealed in a deeper place.”

“What will be there?”

“Maybe the final map for that batch of firearms.”

The two disappeared into the shadows of the staircase.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Kyoto.

Muso Ono sat in a pitch-black room, toying with a rusted iron nail in his hand.

He had pulled it off an ancient sword from his collection.

“Three Arrows in Unison…” he mumbled to himself, his voice hoarse and fanatical. “How far has the Yagyu kid gotten?”

He stood up and walked to the wall, where a massive map hung.

On the map, the streets of Kyoto were marked with dense red lines.

One of the red lines extended toward the direction of Saen-ji Temple.

“As long as he dares to get near that Iron Casket,” Muso Ono’s eyes flickered with a pathological light. “I’ll make his blood stain that line red.”

Outside the window, lightning split the night sky.

Thunder exploded.

The gears of fate began to turn.