67 pages • 2 hours read
R. F. KuangA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Winter settles on Sinegard and Jiang still never shows up for class, although “[s]tudents occasionally [spot] him around campus doing inexcusably rude things” (105). Rin alone continues to go to the garden to practice ancient combat. One day, Jiang enters the garden while she is practicing a balancing posture on a tree branch. He recognizes her combat book and asks her to demonstrate a form. He seems amused by Rin’s thievery and by how much she annoys Jun. He offers to help her.
When she tells a group of older students about her lessons, Rin is flooded with colorful stories about Jiang, most notably that he used to belong to the Cike: a dishonorable militia division that carries out Daji’s assassinations. Raban says that nobody pledges as Jiang’s apprentice because “Lore is a bloody joke” (112). Only Altan tried to pledge Lore, but Raban says Jiang refused him.
Rin meets Jiang the next day. He takes Rin to Widow Maung, who brings her a piglet. To build up muscle, Jiang says, Rin must carry the pig up and down a nearby mountain every day. For the next four months, Rin carries the growing pig up the mountain in the morning, attends class, then meets Jiang in the garden.
By R. F. Kuang
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