Night lay over the mountain like still water, and as usual the scent of wine drifted through the little courtyard on the back slope.
Cup in hand, Gu Chengming went on deepening his relationship with the Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula in the customary way: an evening of drinking and talk.
Once this technique got a few rounds in, it loved to hold forth on the affairs of the world, and Gu Chengming was perfectly happy to play the straight man.
By day he reined his mind in and worked through his sword forms step by step, shoring up his foundation.
Two more days passed, and the Great Perfection of the eighth layer of the Third Realm arrived as naturally as water finding its channel. The spiritual power in his dantian brimmed to the critical point, and the dragon-shaped qi seed coiled at the center of his sea of qi swelled another ring, giving off faint signs of a breakthrough. He crushed the impulse without hesitation. The barrier of the Fourth Realm was no trivial thing, and he still needed to keep that Blood-Burning Realm-Breaking Pearl in reserve as a trump card. Not yet.
In his idle hours, Gu Chengming took out the spirit artifact named "End Lotus" and decided to test out this cultivation world's SKIP button.
He set a pot of cold water on the little red-clay stove and drove the End Lotus.
The water in the pot boiled over in the space of a blink, steam rushing upward. In the instant the artifact took effect, the End Lotus's translucent petals opened briefly, and Gu Chengming's senses caught it: a fine thread of red-gold wound around the stamen.
That color was identical to the causal power that twisted the ages on the Red Dust Immortal.
The Red Dust Immortal's power of causality, sealed into an artifact, converted into fuel for skipping ahead.
In principle it made sense. Causality was itself the bridge linking cause to effect. Cutting away the process in the middle to arrive straight at the endpoint amounted to burning causal power to iron out the wrinkles in time.
So the price of skipping the process was the pull of causality.
Toward evening, just as his cultivation session ended, Yu Wenqiu came into the courtyard walking on the sunset glow.
She carried a food box. She said she'd grabbed some pastries in passing from the dining hall, but the ribbon tied around the box was knotted with considerable elegance. Clearly she'd practiced it a good long while.
The two of them sat at the stone table beneath the osmanthus tree.
Yu Wenqiu nibbled at the pastries while leafing through the storybooks she'd recently picked up, reading the interesting bits aloud to Gu Chengming whenever she found one.
She seemed unusually talkative today. She read out three comic scenes and delivered verdicts on two fight scenes she thought were badly written.
"What even is this? A Second Realm cultivator punches a Fourth Realm evil cultivator into paste. Does the author have no concept at all? The power scaling is a wreck."
Gu Chengming didn't cut in, only watched her with a smile.
He noticed she was turning pages considerably faster than usual, and that every passage she read aloud was light and funny, as though she were steering carefully around something.
As it happened, the storybook came to a scene where the male lead was about to leave on a long journey and the female lead stayed behind, waiting.
Halfway through the line, Yu Wenqiu's voice stopped dead. She flipped the book face-down on the table.
Gu Chengming glanced sideways. She said nothing, only quietly shifted her stone stool closer, leaned in, and rested her head lightly on his shoulder.
The courtyard went quiet for a little while.
"Little Gu."
"Mm?"
"How long will you be at the Yunyue Sect, roughly?"
"Hard to say. Half a month if it goes fast, a month or two if it doesn't."
Another stretch of silence.
"Then before you go..." Yu Wenqiu's voice came out muffled, spoken entirely into his shoulder. "Could you stay with me a little longer?"
Gu Chengming didn't answer. He only tilted his head a fraction and shifted how he sat, so she could lean more comfortably.
A breeze passed through, and osmanthus blossoms came rustling down.
One settled on the crown of Yu Wenqiu's hair. Another came to rest on Gu Chengming's knee.
He reached over, plucked the blossom from her hair, and set it on the stone table.
Apparently she really couldn't bring herself to leave, because Elder Little Yu loitered in the courtyard another full hour. She didn't even take the storybook with her, only said at the end that she'd come get it tomorrow, and hurried off.
Gu Chengming looked at the book lying face-down on the stone table and found himself smiling.
The next morning, Gu Chengming went formally to the main peak and reported his plan to visit the Yunyue Sect and the Hunyuan Sect to Sect Head Shen Qianqiu and his master Ren Wencai.
Shen Qianqiu gave his blessing at once, and with one sweep of his brush specially authorized a sect mission.
In truth, given his record and his cultivation, Gu Chengming was more than qualified to serve as an elder of the Wenjian Sect. His only shortfall was seniority. Counting generously, he'd been in the inner sect less than three years.
Shen Qianqiu didn't say it outright, but his meaning was plain enough.
There had to be some formal transition.
Visiting the Yunyue Sect as a diplomatic envoy and as the representative outstanding disciple made an excellent springboard.
As Gu Chengming accepted the mission, he suddenly thought back to when he was still an outer disciple, and how that Li Mozi of the Yunyue Sect had come calling for a friendly little spar.
Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of it. Though strictly speaking it had only been a bit over two.
Oh, wait. Brother Xiao got his face slapped only three years after saying that line.
[Hundred Bones Resonance heard about it and rubbed its hands in excitement at once: Excellent! Heavenly Emperor Gu, This Emperor has waited a long time for this day! Back then that Li Mozi dared to set up a challenge ring on our own turf. This time it's our turn to stomp on their faces!]
Gu Chengming was privately amused. Old Hundred really did hold a grudge.
Then again, for a cultivation-novel protagonist, holding grudges counted as basic professional training.
Ren Wencai stood to one side stroking his beard, and once Gu Chengming had accepted the mission he added, "I've already written the letter of introduction for the Hunyuan Sect. That old wine-sot Hua Daiyi is unreliable, but with him there you'll have no trouble getting through the gate."
He paused, then went on, "As for the Yunyue Sect... get to the Hunyuan Sect first and feel out the situation. Don't go charging in."
It sounded like ordinary advice, but Gu Chengming caught it: as his master said "don't go charging in," his gaze slid a little toward Shen Qianqiu.
And at that precise moment Shen Qianqiu happened to lift his teacup.
Some piece of information had passed between the two elders, but Gu Chengming didn't ask.
That afternoon, a message talisman arrived from the Night-Watch Bureau.
The sender was none other than the Chief Commander of the Night-Watch Bureau, Zhou Qingmu.
"Has Commander Gu been well of late?"
"Everything in the Capital proceeds as usual. Only the Bureau is short one usable person, which is rather inconvenient."
"When do you return to the Capital?"
Concern shone plainly between every line, along with roundabout probing into his recent movements and a nudge to come back soon.
After the pleasantries Zhou Qingmu changed tack, revealing that she already knew of his upcoming journey to the Yunyue Sect, and then issued him an assignment directly in her capacity as Chief Commander.
"The Imperial Astronomical Bureau has detected anomalies in the direction of the Emerald Screen Range, and the Night-Watch Bureau is assessing whether to intervene. Since you happen to be passing through that area, I am signing an investigation warrant in the Commander's name. Sound out the situation for the Bureau while you're there. This ought to have gone to someone else, but as it lies on your route it's yours. Merit will be recorded and settled together when you return to the Capital."
Gu Chengming put away the message talisman, understanding perfectly.
An assignment landing at such a convenient moment meant somebody had tipped her off in advance.
Ji Yixi? Nine chances out of ten.
Then again, with a formal Night-Watch Bureau investigation warrant in hand, this trip gave him an official identity on top of everything else.
Once he reached the Emerald Screen Range, whether he was questioning people or poking around, it would all be far more legitimate.
Director Zhou was dependable in her work, even if all that roundabout small talk read like idle chatter over the fence.
Less than an hour after Gu Chengming's transmission with Zhou Qingmu ended,
another message talisman quietly linked two people.
None other than Ren Wencai and Zhou Qingmu.
"On the road... I'll trouble the Commander to spare a little extra attention."
"That falls within my duties to begin with," Zhou Qingmu answered crisply.
The transmission cut off.
A handful of words, and no more than needed.
A whole game centered on Gu Chengming seemed to be quietly unrolling through the tacit understanding of two heavyweights.
What exactly the two of them were setting up, even the man at the center of it was still in the dark about.
At the break of dawn, Gu Chengming rode his sword out of the sect.
He didn't look back, but in the instant the sword light swept over the Wenjian Sect's mountain gate, the edge of his vision caught a figure in the pavilion halfway up the slope.
A pair of peach-blossom eyes, freshly picked osmanthus tucked at her temple, and a crumpled paper packet of pastries in her hands. Clearly she'd gotten up so early she hadn't had time for breakfast.
Yu Wenqiu leaned on the railing and watched that sword light fly farther and farther, until it dissolved completely into the skyline.
She stood there a long time.
Only when the morning sun had leapt clear of the sea of clouds and the pastries in her hand had gone stone cold did she turn to go back.
Two steps on, she stopped again and turned to glare at the empty sky.
"...Idiot. What's the hurry, flying that fast."
She muttered it under her breath, lowered her head, and bit into the cooling pastry.
The East Sea, deep within the Dragon Transformation Pool.
At this moment, inside the dragon cavern at the deepest point of that Secret Realm, Fubai Dragon Lord lay coiled on a black reef.
His form was immense, a serpent body sheathed in scales, dragon head held high. But at his left flank ran a wound that made the eye flinch, and along its edges lingered a wisp of pale golden spirit light. The work of a human cultivator.
Fubai Dragon Lord's serpent pupils narrowed.
The pact between the jiao clan and Great Qian dated back to antiquity. In those days Great Qian was torn by internal war, the myriad races fought among themselves, and deep in the East Sea a sea-eye opened onto the realms beyond, spilling alien beasts through it again and again.
The jiao clan offered to guard the sea-eye and hold back the deep-sea beasts, and in exchange won recognition from the Great Qian imperial house.
Put bluntly, it was a transaction. Great Qian didn't want to burn so much military strength on its sea frontier, and the jiao clan needed legitimate standing to secure their rights to mine the spirit veins of the East Sea.
Each side had its needs, and each side got what it wanted.
But the deal rested on one great premise: that the Great Qian imperial house was strong enough that the jiao clan wouldn't dare break faith.
And now...
Fubai Dragon Lord laughed coldly to himself.
His Majesty on that dragon throne hadn't shown his face in a very long time.
The world outside knew only that the emperor was in seclusion, but through his own channels Fubai Dragon Lord knew this so-called seclusion was likely not so simple a matter.
That was precisely the nerve behind his earlier moves in the shadows.
Nerve was one thing. Progress was another, and progress had not gone smoothly.
The Dragon Transformation Pool opened once a century, with only a single slot each time. Four dragon lords had fought over it until heads split, and he had won by half a move.
And then failed to advance into the Sixth Realm.
Between a peak Fifth Realm jiao and a Sixth Realm true dragon lay a gulf deeper than any heavenly chasm.
He had cultivated in the pool for a full year, burning through essence the jiao clan had hoarded for thousands of years, and in the end still fell half a hair short.
After the failure he sealed himself in the dragon cavern to heal his injuries, and then he was ambushed.
Whoever came moved in secret, clean and decisive, plainly well prepared. Their cultivation wasn't much above his own, but preparation carried them, every strike landing on the weak points where his old wounds hadn't closed.
Fubai Dragon Lord drove them off, but added fresh wounds to his own body.
To this day he hadn't identified the ambusher. But during the exchange he had caught, in the other's aura, a lingering trace of imperial dragon-qi.
Someone from the Great Qian imperial house, ambushing a dragon lord of the jiao clan?
That fact made him realize something.
His situation was worse than he'd believed.
A failed advancement, old wounds unhealed, and new ones on top.
Right now, Fubai Dragon Lord stood at the most wretched point he'd reached in nearly a thousand years.
And then he heard the news about Gu Chengming.
He had let that young man off back then, not out of mercy, but because the timing had been wrong.
He'd been contesting the slot for the Dragon Transformation Pool at the time and had no attention to spare.
But looking back now, if he had moved then, a paltry Second Realm cultivator would have been crushed like an ant.
And now?
At the rate this young man was growing, in a few more years, no, in another year or two, even his own peak self might not be able to count on a clean win.
From killing you to avenge my offspring, to killing you to cut off future trouble.
This man had to die before he reached the Fourth Realm.
Just then a transmission came through at the mouth of the dragon cavern.
From the Eternal Life Sect.
Fubai Dragon Lord wasn't surprised.
The Eternal Life Sect never sent charcoal in the snow. They surfaced only when someone else's interests lined up with their own.
Fubai Dragon Lord smiled coldly.
He knew perfectly well the Eternal Life Sect had its own calculations, but on the matter of removing Gu Chengming, both sides' interests happened to coincide.
On the matter of removing Gu Chengming, they came to terms at once.
Bound by the pact, he couldn't move openly in the heartland of Great Qian.
He also needed Gu Chengming out from under the protection of the Wenjian Sect or the Capital, and he needed the man's exact route.
He had seen more than enough of the infighting inside human sects.
With a blade as brilliantly bared as Gu Chengming's, there was no counting the number who hated him in secret.
Sure enough, the hidden line he'd laid soon brought back word.
Someone inside the Wenjian Sect delivered intelligence.
The exchange was priced openly. Fubai Dragon Lord offered cultivation resources and promises, and the other side handed over the news that Gu Chengming would be traveling alone to the Hunyuan Sect and the Yunyue Sect, including his departure time and general route.
Fubai Dragon Lord stared at the jade slip before him, killing intent congealing in his serpent pupils.
He rose slowly and brought out, from the deepest recess of the dragon cavern, two long-sealed treasures he had kept at the bottom of his chest.
This time, he would not permit another slip.
On the third day of sword flight, the sky was clear and the air bright.
Gu Chengming rode the wind above the cloud layer, ten thousand li of Great Qian's central heartland unrolling beneath his feet, an unblemished blue vault overhead.
No urgent assignments driving him, no sect affairs tangling him up, and even the message talisman sat quiet and silent at his waist.
This was probably the most leisurely stretch of travel he'd had since crossing over.
A rare bit of solitude, if you didn't count that crowd of never-idle techniques in his Sea of Consciousness.
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula, unusually, spoke up of its own accord while sober: "Young friend, do you know why this stretch of Great Qian's central plains is called the Land of Jiuchuan?"]
Gu Chengming considered it. "Because there are nine great rivers?"
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula shook its head. "That's how it looks on the surface. But in fact the name 'Jiuchuan' has nothing to do with rivers. In ancient times nine sages who opened up Dao paths lived on this land, and each left behind a Dao River. Later generations named the land after those Dao Rivers, and so it became Jiuchuan, the Nine Rivers. This account only appears in a few extremely obscure old texts, though. The official histories don't mention it."]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method: "This claim has no basis in the historical record."]
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula answered indifferently: "There's plenty the official histories don't mention."]
These two sniping at each other had become a standing feature of the dialogue boxes, and Gu Chengming had learned not to get involved.
[Hundred Bones Resonance listened for a while, then piped up: "Nine Dao Rivers! Then if Heavenly Emperor Gu opens one too, that makes ten! Ten out of ten, perfection!"]
[The Qingxin Formula turned it over, then nodded and laughed: "Not out of the question. Land of Ten Rivers. That does sound better than Jiuchuan."]
Gu Chengming was quietly entertained.
But joking aside, the Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula was now willing to start a conversation while sober, which meant the steady climb in favorability really was doing something.
At this rate, by the time he reached the Hunyuan Sect and met Hua Daiyi in the flesh, he might even trigger some special plotline.
Gu Chengming filed the thought away and flew on.
In the afternoon he passed a small town and set down to restock on dry rations and spirit wine. The latter was rations for the Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula, and also served to keep up their daily habit of wine and talk.
Seeing him dressed as a sword cultivator, the shopkeeper enthusiastically pushed a jug of the local osmanthus brew, said to be the signature of a hundred-year-old establishment.
Gu Chengming tried a mouthful. Decent enough.
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula smacked its lips: "Still some distance below Elder Yu's dowry wine."]
[Then, as if joking, it added: "Young friend, in future you'll have to enter the bridal chamber a few more times, so I can sample other people's dowry wine as well."]
What was this thing even talking about?
[The Yin-Yang Creation Strategy raised a hand: I concur!]
Gu Chengming pressed a hand to his forehead in resignation.
Purchases made, he stuffed the spirit wine and rations into his storage pouch and rose into the air on his sword.
Past the town, the land began to change. The flat open plains of the central heartland gave way to rolling hills, and the mountains in the distance rose noticeably higher than before. The outlying ridges of the Emerald Screen Range were already faintly visible.
At this pace, two more days would bring him into Hunyuan Sect territory.
The sun slid west, and the bright azure of the sky stained slowly toward dusk.
Time to find somewhere to spend the night.
Sword travel didn't drain much stamina, but after dark the flow of spiritual qi in the wilds turned turbulent and easily interfered with cultivation. Find a spot rich in spiritual qi, and he could also sit through a round of cultivation at night. Two birds, one stone.
Gu Chengming's gaze swept the terrain below.
On the left, several low hills cradled a valley, a stream winding through it, spiritual qi reasonably abundant. A decent place to rest.
He was just about to bring the sword light down when a dialogue box popped up in his Sea of Consciousness.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula: ...Fellow Daoist Gu, one moment.]
Gu Chengming's motion checked, and he frowned inwardly.
"What is it?"
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula was silent for two breaths, as if verifying something over and over: The flow of spiritual qi on the ground is wrong.]
Gu Chengming steadied himself as instructed and looked out. Clear hills, bright water, an evening breeze combing the woods, a few birds crossing the dusk. An entirely ordinary twilight scene, without the slightest thing out of place.
"Wrong how?"
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula weighed its words a moment: The spiritual qi of heaven and earth should disperse naturally from high ground to low. But within several dozen li of this place... it is far too even.]
Nature made things uneven. Spiritual qi was always ragged in its distribution: thick in the valleys, thin along the ridges, every stretch of land with something particular to it.
This region was uniform to the point of being unnatural, as though someone had taken a pair of clippers and shaved every rise and dip of the world's qi flat.
He held off on descending, slowed his flight, and spread his spiritual sense out in a thin sheet, probing ten li in every direction.
What came back matched exactly what his eyes reported. And that was precisely the flaw.
He had flown over a hundred peaks along the way, spiritual qi rising and falling with every one of them. Why should it turn as orderly as a ruled line the moment he arrived here?
Whoever had set this up was a master of his craft, wiping the traces away without a smear. But it was exactly because they'd scrubbed so clean that the blank slate advertised itself.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula added: I have measured the boundary of this flattened zone. Roughly a circle forty li in radius, centered on Fellow Daoist Gu's current position.]
Gu Chengming's eyes cooled.
The trap wasn't anchored to mountains or rivers but to his own line of flight, which meant it was adjusting in real time.
They had his route down cold. They'd even predicted where he'd stop at dusk today.
Without any change of expression, he rested a hand on his storage pouch.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula said quietly: In the mountain hollow two li to the southeast, there is faint residual spiritual power beneath the soil. The pattern structure resembles a formation base.]
Gu Chengming ran through his list of enemies at speed. Those who'd dare spread a net this size inside Great Qian to take his life could be counted on one hand.
The Eternal Life Sect? Or that Fubai Dragon Lord?
The blood debt from slaying the jiao clan's offspring had never been settled. Ji Yixi had sent word some time ago that the old jiao was in seclusion nursing his injuries, but what if he'd come out?
He checked the position of the End Lotus inside his robe. The spiritual resonance ran clear. He could activate it at any moment.
But he neither turned around nor took a detour.
If a Fifth Realm great demon had come in person, its perception would reach well beyond a few dozen li.
Since this forty-li "blank slate" had already framed him inside it, he'd long since become the fish in the net. It was too late to run now.
And since he couldn't fly out of it even with wings, he might as well go see what tricks the net was hiding.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, in the very next instant, the sky broke open.
A gale swept in from every direction, and it was no natural wind. It was a storm of spiritual qi wrapped around an enormous weight of demonic power.
In the span of a few breaths the clouds gathered and churned, white turning gray, gray thickening into an ink-black curtain that blotted out the sky. Dull thunder rolled deep inside the cloud layer, and strangest of all, not a flicker of lightning showed.
This wasn't heavenly thunder. This was dragon might.
Gu Chengming's pupils contracted, his mind already running a tactical assessment.
Density of demonic power, area of coverage, precision of the suppression. No ordinary great demon could produce this. Peak Fifth Realm foundation at the very least.
The ground for miles around split into dense webs of cracks under the crushing dragon might, and every bird and beast within dozens of li had long since scattered in terror.
Then, ahead, behind, and on both flanks, four sets of formation patterns flared to life in unison.
A Dragon-Trapping Formation.
This was no interception thrown together on a whim. This was a hunt long in the planning. The other side hadn't merely learned his route. They'd worked out the specific hours he'd be passing and where he'd stop, down to the detail. The formation must have been laid at least three days in advance, the spirit materials of high grade, and the formation bases pinned precisely to the terrain node along his path best suited for an ambush.
They knew his itinerary inside and out.
[The Red Dust Phantom Body Formula went taut in an instant: Above Fifth Realm. Demon race. Jiao lineage. A premeditated ambush.]
[Hundred Bones Resonance, on the contrary, got excited: Well timed! Heavenly Emperor Gu, someone has delivered himself to our door for sparring practice!]
At the moment the Dragon-Trapping Formation sealed shut, a figure descended slowly out of the ink-black clouds.
Dragon might congealed into visible vortices of air around that figure. The air warped, and the spiritual qi boiled.
Fubai Dragon Lord.
He hadn't revealed his serpent body, keeping instead the human form of a middle-aged man. Deep jade-green vertical pupils held a chill that raised the hair, and he wore a long robe of deep-sea-colored scale armor, his demonic power settled and heavy as an abyss.
In one hand, held point-down, was a black spear giving off a light cold enough to reach the bone. That was the jiao clan's royal weapon, Abyss Swallow, a peak Fifth Realm treasure in every sense. And around his left wrist coiled a slender silver chain hung with three archaic tokens. Those were the jiao clan's Spirit-Binding Tokens, made expressly to seal off the circulation of a prey's spiritual power.
Three tokens meant three layers of lock.
The Dragon-Trapping Formation locked space. The Spirit-Binding Tokens locked spiritual power. The Fifth Realm dragon might locked the will to fight.
Layer upon layer. Drop an ordinary peak Fourth Realm cultivator into this array and escape would be all but impossible. This dragon lord had truly made up his mind to finish him here.
Feeling honored by the attention was, of course, out of the question.
Gu Chengming steadied his mind and let his gaze run quickly over the structure of the formation, hunting for weak points.
Fubai Dragon Lord's aura was strong, but somewhere underneath it there was a tremor of instability.
Old wounds unhealed. The aftereffects of a failed advancement compounded by that earlier ambush clearly hadn't faded. Formidable as he was right now, this was nowhere near his prime.
At the same time, Fubai Dragon Lord was sizing up Gu Chengming.
He could feel it plainly, the depth in this Third Realm cultivator: spiritual power density, meridian load capacity, even the sheer toughness of the body, all of it thick to a degree that defied reason, far beyond anyone at his stage.
If one had to put a name to it, it was Half-Step Fifth Realm combat strength.
Fubai Dragon Lord's serpent pupils drew narrow, killing intent thickening.
This one could absolutely not be left alive.
"Gu Chengming." Fubai Dragon Lord spoke, his voice low, carrying the rasping resonance particular to the jiao clan. "No doubt you're wondering how word of your movements got out."
Gu Chengming didn't answer, only watched him quietly.
Fubai Dragon Lord laughed coldly. "When you human cultivators turn on each other, you show even less mercy than my kind. You think that while you charge triumphantly up through your sect, everyone is glad for you? Inside that Wenjian Sect of yours, there is no shortage of people who'd love to see you die out here."
When that landed, something did shift, subtly, in Gu Chengming's thoughts.
The people inside the Wenjian Sect who knew the exact timing and route of this journey numbered, counting generously, no more than two.
One was Sect Head Shen Qianqiu. One was his master, Ren Wencai. As for the rest...
Before the thought could fully unfold, a sonic crack tore across heaven and earth.
A sword light exploded out of the northeastern skyline.
The speed of it defied belief. From appearing on the horizon to arriving at the battlefield took less than two breaths.
Riding atop that sword light was a figure with graying temples, a hard, resolute face, and long robes snapping in the wind.
Ren Wencai.
He wasted nothing on his entrance. He didn't even spare a shout of reproach.
The sword rose. The sword fell.
Clean, decisive, not a wasted motion.
Fubai Dragon Lord's pupils snapped tight.
That one stroke told him outright: the newcomer had mapped the structure of the formation long ago, down to the location of every base.
This wasn't a rescue that had rushed over in the moment. This was someone who'd been camped nearby, waiting.
Fubai Dragon Lord's expression darkened.
Something was beginning to dawn on him, but before he could finish the thought the second wave arrived.
Not sword light. Blade Intent.
The sky changed again as a blade came down out of the heavens, its light stretching across the whole span of the firmament.
Heaven and earth changed color. Under that single stroke the entire sky was cut clean through.
Fubai Dragon Lord's face changed completely, because he recognized this blade.
Chief Commander of the Night-Watch Bureau, Zhou Qingmu.
Night-Severing.
"Insolent demon."
Zhou Qingmu's voice came down from above the heavens.
She fell with the blade, her long black hair streaming in the wind of its edge. "You dare hunt down a prodigy within Great Qian's borders? Are you tired of living?"
Her choice of words was carefully made.
She hadn't said "Fubai Dragon Lord." She had said "demon."
Because Fubai Dragon Lord was showing himself in human form, wearing no jiao clan insignia, with the spiritual signature of his treasure concealed.
All she had to do was insist this was some Fifth Realm demon of unknown origin who had dared to ambush a prodigy disciple of the Wenjian Sect inside Great Qian.
With that label hung on him, Fubai Dragon Lord was instantly boxed into a dead end.
Reveal his identity? That amounted to admitting the jiao clan had broken the pact and moved against a human cultivator inside Great Qian on their own initiative.
Keep it hidden? Wonderful. Then he could stand there and be beaten to death by two Fifth Realm cultivators.
Whichever he chose, Fubai Dragon Lord lost.
So Director Zhou, who was "passing through," and Master Ren, who "happened" to be in the area. Had the two of them agreed to go for a walk together?
Meanwhile, right on cue, the dialogue boxes popped up.
[Hundred Bones Resonance froze for a beat the instant it saw Ren Wencai appear, then broke into delight: "Reinforcements! Heavenly Emperor Gu's reinforcements have arrived!"]
Then it saw Zhou Qingmu's Night-Sever come down.
[Hundred Bones Resonance cheered even louder: "What a mighty stroke! Worthy of serving under Heavenly Emperor Gu!"]
In the Hundred Emperor's understanding of the world, everyone who came to help Gu Chengming was, without exception, one of Heavenly Emperor Gu's subordinates.
The two-on-one didn't last long.
Ren Wencai's sword pressure was fierce and unyielding, but the old man plainly had no intention of taking the kill himself. His job was to pin the target down.
The real damage came from the blade in Zhou Qingmu's hand.
Fubai Dragon Lord clenched his teeth and threw everything he had into two or three exchanges. Then a blade came down, and scalding demon blood welled up through the seams of his scale armor.
Pull one hair and the whole body follows. His movements slowed by half a beat, whether he wanted them to or not.
That half beat was exactly what Ren Wencai had been waiting for.
A sword light cut in from the flank at a vicious angle, slipping around the gap in his right arm's guard, sword qi sinking through the scales and detonating at the shoulder blade.
Fubai Dragon Lord let out a muffled grunt. His right arm dropped hard, and Abyss Swallow's momentum shed a third of its force in an instant.
Zhou Qingmu was not about to let an opening like that pass.
The Night-Severing horizontal saber went up over her head, the qi wreathing the blade surging to its peak in a heartbeat, and the stroke came down.
Fubai Dragon Lord ground his teeth to fragments and jammed the spear across to block, but the sheer weight of the blade pressure bent both his knees and forced him down until he was kneeling.
New wounds stacked on old, all of them flaring at once under the brutal collision of blade qi, and the circulation of demonic power inside him fell into total disorder.
Keep grinding like this and he was dead.
Fubai Dragon Lord hardened his heart, let go of Abyss Swallow with his left hand, and pulled a secret treasure from deep among his jiao scales.
This was the jiao clan's ultimate life-saving charm. Only three remained in the entire clan, and he had brought one along on this outing precisely in case things went wrong.
But in the instant before he crushed the Retreat talisman, Zhou Qingmu's second stroke came after him like his own shadow.
Fubai Dragon Lord had no time to guard. The overbearing blade qi tore through the scale armor of his left flank the way rot tears, plowed a full circuit through his organs with complete disregard, and only then dispersed. Demon blood spilled in gouts from the corner of his mouth, and his jade-green serpent pupils shrank to threads.
A dazzling burst of spirit light broke open, and where he had stood only an afterimage remained, so convincing it could pass for the real thing.
Fubai Dragon Lord's true body had already become a streak of ink-colored light, plunging into the depths of the earth veins without a backward glance, scrambling and tumbling as it fled at frantic speed toward the East Sea.
The two great powers had crippled him in the exchange, and knowing he was certain to have lost his vitality, that even with his life clawed back he wouldn't be stirring up trouble any time soon, they simply didn't give chase.
With the eastern and northern formation bases destroyed, the Dragon-Trapping Formation went entirely dead, and that heavy dragon-might suppression drained away like an outgoing tide.
Gu Chengming's expression turned rather peculiar. He seemed to have already worked out what had happened, and he walked forward to meet them.
"Master." He bowed to Ren Wencai first.
"Director Zhou." Then he cupped his hands to Zhou Qingmu, feeling distinctly odd about all of it.
As if she'd sensed what he was thinking, Zhou Qingmu unhurriedly slid the blade back into its sheath, brushed at dust that didn't exist on her robe, and said lightly, "Official business, all of it. We were just passing through."
Ren Wencai, meanwhile, looked Gu Chengming over inch by inch, confirmed that the boy was whole from top to bottom without a piece missing, and only then let out a long breath and said, in the tone of a man disappointed that iron hasn't become steel,
"Foolish boy. You'd already noticed the ambush. How could you charge straight into it anyway?"
Gu Chengming felt slightly awkward. I was thinking about whether I could take him solo.
Who could have guessed the trap was your setup, Master?
He turned to look at Zhou Qingmu, thinking that the older generation certainly fought carefully. They'd laid an ambush of their own and still called in a heavy hitter who could force the kill.
"Master is right to reprimand me. This disciple will guard his words and actions from now on."
He bowed his head and admitted fault like a model student, his talent for climbing whatever pole was offered long since honed to perfection. "If Master and Director Zhou hadn't happened to pass by today, this disciple would truly have suffered badly."
Ren Wencai snorted. He'd meant to hold up the dignity of a master and hammer in a couple more lines, but faced with Gu Chengming's meek, obliging contrition, he swallowed the harsh words already at his lips and in the end only waved a hand in vague irritation.
"Enough. Stop performing for this old man."
The old man puffed at his beard. "The waters at the Yunyue Sect and the Hunyuan Sect run deep. Keep your wits about you, and don't go believing that knowing a few sword forms makes you invincible under heaven. If you run into someone genuinely tough, run. There's no shame in it."
Zhou Qingmu hung the Night-Severing horizontal saber back at her side, threw Gu Chengming a glance that hovered between a smile and none at all, said nothing further, and turned into a streak of light. Just like that, cleanly, she "passed through" and was gone.
Gu Chengming watched the direction she'd vanished in, then looked at his master, who had already called his flying sword back out to head home to the sect, and let out one long breath.
Well. The hidden side quest of soloing the old jiao had been forcibly power-leveled for him by his elders.
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