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Mount Tai soon had three new porters walking its steep trails.\nThe old man's name was Shan Da. Since they shared the same family name, Shan Fu simply called him "Master," and his brothers quickly followed suit.\nThe old man was a man of few words, and he taught them even less. On their very first day, he tossed each of them a wooden carrying pole and grunted a single instruction: "Carry."\nSo, they carried rocks. Up from the base of the mountain to the halfway mark, up to the peak, and all the way back down. The Master dusted their boulders with red powder, warning them that their technique wouldn't be passable until they could make three full round trips without rubbing off a single speck.\nShan Fu didn't see the point, but he kept his head down and worked. Even when his arms burned too much to lift and his knees swelled up like melons, he pushed through. When his middle brother asked if it hurt, Shan Fu lied and said no. When the youngest whined about the agony, Shan Fu just told him to grit his teeth and bear it.\nMeanwhile, the Master went right on hauling tourists up from the base. He watched the brothers trudge up and down the steps, as silent and unmoving as a stone himself.\nShan Fu only pried once. "Master, did you use to roam the jianghu, too?"\nWhen the old man offered no answer, Shan Fu let it drop forever.\nIt took a full year before the Master finally let them carry actual people.\nShan Fu's first passenger was a frail old scholar heading up to the Inkbound Order. The man was nothing but skin and bones, yet when Shan Fu hoisted the pole onto his shoulders, the scholar somehow felt heavier than the boulders ever had.\nPeople were different. People were alive. They shifted, they breathed, and they got scared. If a rock bumped into something and lost its powder, it didn't feel a thing. If a person scraped against a cliff face, they bled.\n"Don't worry, I've got steady hands!" Shan Fu called out, trying to reassure him.\nMimicking the Master, he let out a sharp grunt, drove power through his legs, and hauled the scholar all the way to the halfway point, where his brother was waiting to take the passenger the rest of the way.\nMonth after month, year after year, Mount Tai saw an endless stream of visitors: scholars bound for the Inkbound Order, pilgrims climbing to Seedling Temple, refugees fleeing to family, and tired officials retiring to their hometowns.\nEvery single person who paid for a ride was putting their life in his hands. And a human life weighed a hell of a lot more than a stone.\nShan Fu's footing only grew steadier with time. In his rare moments of rest, he would listen to the mountain climbers' stories. One woman wept for a husband dragged off by Khitan raiders, never to be seen again. An old man mourned a son who died on the banks of the Yellow River, his bones lost to the mud.\nThey all came to Mount Tai for a reason. At the summit sat the Lady Bixia, who might just answer their prayers. And beyond the mountain lay the safe, prosperous lands of Qingzhou.\nLately, Shan Fu found his mind drifting back to that pitch-black night years ago. The ruined temple, the two men, the sudden flash of steel. How easily a life could be snuffed out, as casual as chopping vegetables.\nThat was the first time he'd ever looked death in the face, and it was the last. Walking up and down these ancient steps, he never saw another bounty token, never saw a blade drawn in anger, and never watched a man die on a whim.\n"Brother," the youngest asked him one day, wiping sweat from his brow. "Does this count as being in the jianghu?"\nBack when he was eighteen, bowing to a faceless god in a ruined shrine, Shan Fu had fully believed the jianghu was a legend carved out by killing, a life lived strictly on the edge of a blade. But now, he understood that the jianghu could just as easily be carried on a man's shoulders.\nHe looked at his brother. "It does."\nHe paused, looking out over the endless mountain steps. "It's just not what we thought it was. This is the jianghu."