Ti slipped by like water through fingers. In the blink of an eye another full year had passed; the third scorching sumr since they arrived at Black River.
Black River Market had shed its old na. Now the gates of Black River Square never closed; custors ca dawn to dusk, and revenue flowed like a steady spring. Zhao Liangde’s loan was repaid long before the first pig-fish harvest. With the extra coin, they scattered Black-Heart Lotus seeds across half the swamp.
Everyone in Chu-Qin had found their place. Mortal servants moved with practiced ease. Daily chores ran themselves. The cultivators finally tasted leisure.
Most days Qi Xiu kept his doors shut and cultivated from dawn to dusk, erging only to paint a few Fate-Cloaking Talismans when his wrists grew stiff. At New Year he made the polite rounds with gift boxes; otherwise Zhan Yuan ran the square, Yu Denuo and Zhang Shishi handled teaching and discipline. Aside from one back-breaking day each sumr planting pig-fish fry, Qi Xiu had beco the most hands-off sect leader in mory. It suited him perfectly.
“The flowers down the mountain grow better every year,” Kan Lin remarked after finishing his lecture, strolling with Qi Xiu along the terrace. “Used to be a wild riot. Now I can almost see the pattern. You have a master gardener hidden among the mortals.”
Qi Xiu laughed. “Old Qin sent us a retired expert from Qi-Yun City. Shall I lend him to tidy your cave as well?”
He Yu, seventeen now and shooting up like spring bamboo, cut in proudly. “I’ll tell him to go tomorrow!”
Handso didn’t begin to cover it; cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper, eyes bright with the arrogance of a dragon who already slled the sea. The whole region whispered his na. He stood one breath away from the second great barrier of Qi Condensation; the undisputed treasure of Chu-Qin.
Kan Lin’s smile was fond. “My little hole-in-the-wall doesn’t deserve such talent. Keep him for your grand mountain.”
Laughter rippled through the group; Qi Xiu, Gu Ji, Zhang Shishi, Yu Denuo; all gathered loosely around the visiting Foundation Establishnt senior.
Then the wind ca.
It started as a distant howl, quickly swelling into a furnace roar. Heat rolled ahead of it like the breath of an angry god.
Kan Lin’s expression changed. “From the west; outside!”
Before anyone could move, the world exploded.
BOOM!
The stone roof of Contemplating-Chu Hall blasted apart as though a teor had struck. A column of white-hot wind punched downward, flinging tiles like shrapnel. Scorching air flooded in; skin blistered instantly.
A cold, feminine snort detonated in the center of the hall; thunder inside the skull. Qi Xiu’s knees buckled. Blood roared in his ears; his soul itself seed to stagger.
When vision cleared, a woman in palace robes the color of fresh blood stood in the middle of the floor. Heat shimr made her face impossible to fix; look too long and agony speared behind the eyes, as though the soul were being roasted on open coals. Where her feet touched stone, the rock glowed dull red.
Qi Xiu’s mind blanked. We’re dead. Everything I built; gone.
The woman flicked a wrist. A cyan-covered book shot like a crossbow bolt, smashing into Kan Lin’s chest. The Foundation Establishnt cultivator rolled a dozen tis and slamd into the wall, blood spraying from mouth and nose, unconscious or worse.
“Where did you get this book?” Her voice ca from everywhere and nowhere, each syllable a hamr against the eardrum.
He Yu scread sothing incoherent and clawed across the floor toward his fallen master.
The woman ignored him. Her gaze swept the hall and settled on Qi Xiu.
An invisible hand seized him by the spine and yanked.
He flew through the air, slamd to a stop inches from her. A slender palm settled atop his skull.
Soul-rending suction tore at his sea of consciousness.
Soul search!
Terror flashed; then, impossibly, resistance. His spirit refused to leave its shell.
“Eh?” A soft, surprised exhale from the woman.
She changed tactics. A needle of spiritual force stabbed between his brows.
“Vermilion-Bottod Horse Monkey… so that’s your natal spirit?” she murmured, almost to herself.
The pressure vanished. Qi Xiu dropped like a sack of rice.
The cyan book floated down in front of him.
“Since your fate beast resists soul-searching, I’ll spare you. Speak. Who in Black River wrote this?”
Qi Xiu’s trembling fingers opened the cover.
Hundred-Knowing Scholar’s Northern Gazetteer
Ordinary travel notes; geography, customs, the three great sects. Then he reached the page titled “The Legend of Chu Hongshang.”
The story claid that when South Chu’s Nascent Soul ancestress was still a Golden Core, she had fallen madly in love with a beautiful youth at Qi Yun Peak. Elders tore them apart. Heartbroken and furious, she broke from the sect after forming her Nascent Soul and carved out the southern borderlands with blood and fire.
The bedroom scenes were described in lurid, pornographic detail.
At the very back, in fresh ink: Purchased at Black River, such-and-such day.
Qi Xiu’s mind went white with horror.
So White Mountain idiot had slandered a Nascent Soul ancestress and left evidence pointing straight at Black River Square!
The red-robed woman had to be none other than Chu Hongshang herself.
Qi Xiu threw himself forward, kowtowing until his forehead bled.
“Ancestor, rcy! This book has nothing to do with Chu-Qin!”
“I don’t care about your sect!” she snapped. “I asked who wrote it!”
Qi Xiu’s brain raced. “The title says Northern Gazetteer; must be a White Mountain author. We have one senior from White Mountain; Yu Denuo. Please release his restraint and let him speak!”
A flick of her sleeve. Yu Denuo gasped, scrambled forward on his knees, and took the book with shaking hands.
“Reporting to Ancestress; this is the work of a White Mountain rogue known only as Hundred-Knowing Scholar. Real na unknown even to juniors.”
“Proof?”
“White Mountain is crowded with sects and taboos. Travelogues sell well but offend easily, so authors hide behind titles. Years ago ‘All-Knowing Elder’ was most respected. Lately this Hundred-Knowing Scholar has risen; less accurate, but he spices his pages with scandal and romance. Books like these are sold everywhere; soone must have bought it in our square and scribbled that note.”
The temperature dropped a fraction.
“So I blad the wrong people.” Her voice turned thoughtful, then arctic. “Very well. Hundred-Knowing Scholar of White Mountain; I will dig you out even if I have to turn the entire range upside down.”
WHOOSH.
Crimson clouds boiled across the sky. A tide of scarlet fire rolled southward, devouring the horizon as it thundered toward White Mountain.
In the ruined hall, only the sll of scorched stone and the groans of the injured remained.
Qi Xiu knelt in the wreckage, staring at the empty, burning sky.
Another sumr, another disaster out of nowhere.
At least this ti they were still alive to clean up the ss.
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