Rewind to the night before.
Lin Jin stood on the mountain path holding that can of iced cola.
He watched Chu Qingxue's white figure round the rock face and disappear into the dark.
He stayed where he was, not moving, for a long while.
The mountain wind blew and blew.
His one remaining flip-flop slapped against the stone.
His legs were shaking.
He was still in a strange state of elation.
Like finishing a three-thousand-meter run and having the campus beauty he was crushing on hand him a bottle of water.
"Senior Sister Qingxue."
He said it once under his breath.
Then said it again.
The name rolled around on his tongue, and no matter how he said it, it sounded good.
Then he shook his head hard and gave himself a smack on the back of it.
"Wake up, Lin Jin."
"Get a grip."
He looked down at the cola can in his hand.
Intact.
After crossing into a cultivation world, being pinned in a pool and kicked by a crowd of immortal maidens, and nearly having his eyes gouged out, this can of cola was somehow still alive.
"You're a cola that's seen some things now."
Lin Jin patted its side and tucked it carefully into his shirt.
Then he bent down and picked up the bottle of healing medicine that had come from Yue Qingshuang.
He held it up to his nose and sniffed.
A faint scent of violets.
He tucked the bottle into his shirt as well, next to the cola can.
"Right."
"Let's move."
Lin Jin threw out his chest and started down the mountain path.
"Chu Yang, are you seeing this? No, wait — you can't."
"But listen, Chu Yang. Your father is going to cultivate immortality!"
"Six years!"
"Six whole years!"
He shouted it at the empty air.
His voice echoed down the deserted path and startled a few unidentifiable birds out of the roadside trees.
After the shout he fell quiet for a moment.
The excitement was still on his face, but something else had come into his eyes.
"Shame that Chu Yang kid didn't get this lucky."
"He's a bit of a wet blanket, but he was still my only roommate."
"I really wish I could have brought him along. I'd look out for him, have him run errands for me, that sort of thing."
He pictured Chu Yang standing in a cultivation world.
That bookworm would probably push up his glasses and ask, in all seriousness, what the underlying principles of this world's cultivation system were.
And he himself would already be a master who could ride a sword.
He'd clap him on the shoulder and say, relax, your big brother will teach you.
Lin Jin let out a snickering laugh and walked on.
As he walked, his heartbeat began picking up again.
His head was full of Senior Sister Qingxue's smile.
An immortal lady who had been aloof the entire way, robes whiter than snow, face like frost.
And then she had looked back at him, and the corner of her mouth had lifted.
Just the once.
Less than two seconds.
But in those two seconds every bit of ice and snow on her face had melted.
"They do say even a hero can't get past a beautiful woman."
"For a hero like me, being conquered by an immortal lady that gorgeous is only natural."
"Mm."
"Perfectly natural."
"Nothing to be ashamed of."
He lifted his head again and walked on with purpose.
"And I'll be cultivating soon enough."
"And then I'll be able to stand beside an immortal lady."
"Hahaha."
The laughter echoed down the empty path and sounded more than a little stupid.
He did not care.
There was nobody around anyway.
After about half an hour's walk, a cluster of buildings appeared at the foot of the mountain ahead.
Grey tiles and white walls, built against the slope.
Two lanterns hung at the courtyard gate, with the words Guest Lodge written on them.
A young man of about eighteen or nineteen stood at the gate in the pale grey robes of an outer sect disciple.
A standard-issue iron sword hung at his waist, and he was leaning against the door frame picking at his fingers out of pure boredom.
His name was Zhou Cheng, an old hand among the outer sect disciples, three years on duty at the lodge.
He had seen every kind of odd person there was.
But a mortal turning up in the middle of the night asking for a room was a first.
Lin Jin quickened his pace and walked over.
In his head he was already rehearsing the scene to come.
A courteous greeting first, then produce the token, then be shown respectfully to the best room in the place.
He had even worked out what to say if the gatekeeper asked.
He would say Senior Sister Qingxue had taken him in personally, and the token was his proof.
At which point the gatekeeper's legs would go weak, and he would bow and nod him inside.
Mm. Perfect.
Before he could get his mouth open, Zhou Cheng looked up.
Their eyes met.
Zhou Cheng's first reaction was: what is that.
That was the first phrase to surface in his mind.
Anyone turning up at the lodge at this hour, even if not a cultivator, ought at least to be a presentable mortal.
Neatly dressed, a bundle in hand, some proper business to attend to.
What was this in front of him?
Hair like a chicken's nest, face swollen up like a pig's head, bruised black and blue.
The broken skin on his forehead was still seeping blood, and there was a scabbed-over split at the corner of his mouth.
He wore a black short-sleeved shirt.
No — had that shirt started out white?
Zhou Cheng narrowed his eyes and looked closer.
There was a bizarre design printed on the sleeve.
Beside it were a few crooked characters.
He could not read them.
Whatever they said, the shirt was too filthy to tell what color it had begun as.
Shoe prints all over it.
Then his gaze travelled further down.
Big dark blue shorts, the hems frayed.
Further down still, one shoe.
That is right. One.
A flip-flop on the left foot, the right one bare.
Zhou Cheng's brows furrowed into three deep lines.
A few keywords flashed through his mind. Beggar.
Vagrant.
Lunatic.
Robbed by mountain bandits?
Or beaten up and thrown out by some senior brother with a temper?
Whatever the answer, this person had nothing whatsoever to do with the words "lodge guest".
Before he could tell the man to clear off, the beggar in front of him spoke first.
"Hello!"
Loud, and full-throated.
The bruises on his face stood out sharply in the moonlight, but his eyes were startlingly bright, and there was even a smile at the corner of his mouth.
Zhou Cheng went blank for a second.
Beaten to that state and still smiling?
"So, um, I'm here for a room."
Lin Jin threw out his chest as he added it, working hard to look like a respectable person.
Big shorts and one flip-flop notwithstanding, he felt his presence had carried.
Zhou Cheng could not help himself.
"Where did this mortal crawl in from?"
Zhou Cheng waved a hand at him.
"Off, off, off. This lodge does not take beggars."
Lin Jin stood where he was, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Here it comes.
Classic. So classic.
He had read this bit in countless novels.
The protagonist, identity concealed, gets hassled by some minor flunky, then produces a token and slaps him down with it.
He had read the exact same scene in a cultivation novel only yesterday.
The protagonist flips the token out and scares the flunky witless.
Thinking about the look that would come over this snobbish gatekeeper's face when the token came out, Lin Jin could not hold it in.
"Hahahahaha!"
He threw his head back and laughed, and the sound carried loudly through the night.
Zhou Cheng froze.
This mortal not only would not leave, he was standing there laughing like an idiot?
Had he taken a blow to the head and broken something?
Or was he simply insane to start with?
On Ethereal Sword Sect ground, a mad beggar had come to the lodge gate in the middle of the night and was howling with laughter in the face of the outer sect disciple on watch.
If this got out, Zhou Cheng thought, by tomorrow the whole outer sect would be passing around the joke about Zhou Cheng of the guest lodge being laughed at by a madman.
No. Not acceptable.
"Still laughing?"
Not a lunatic.
An idiot.
Zhou Cheng reached his conclusion.
An idiot who had been beaten up somewhere or other and then wandered up here after losing his way.
He had seen the type.
Every year one or two mortals strayed inside the mountain gate's bounds and were thrown back down the slope by the patrol.
"An idiot, then."
Zhou Cheng muttered it half to himself.
Then he raised a hand and brought it down.
SLAP.
The blow was not heavy. It was not light either.
But it was enough to make a mortal see stars.
What Zhou Cheng was thinking was: after that, surely he will run.
Clear off quickly, before the steward senior brother came past and told him off again for letting idlers make a scene at the gate on his watch.
Lin Jin's laughter cut off.
He spun half a turn where he stood, his eardrums ringing, his face burning.
Stars everywhere in his vision.
His one flip-flop scuffed at the ground before he got his balance back.
Hold on.
Wait.
This script is wrong.
The face-slap scene in the novels does not go like this.
The protagonist gets mocked, then the protagonist reveals his identity, then the villain drops to his knees and begs.
Since when is there a part where they simply hit you?
This gatekeeper is not playing by the script!