by Tao Wong
***
There wasn’t. The other rooms were annex branches of the main mausoleum, containing ancestral tablets and tables for prayer. Not knowing the names involved, they could not ascertain what the relationships had been, but it was fun to speculate, to make up stories about reasons for the fall and relegation to the wings of each branch family. In truth, at least for Wu Ying, it was all to distract themselves from the worm of worry that grew as more and more time passed.
“Familial relations with pigs,” Bao Cong said.
“Ewww. Also, what is with you men and pigs?” Li Yao tried to punch Bao Cong in the arm.
The blacksmith easily evaded the strike while chuckling. “Your turn,” Bao Cong called to Wu Ying.
“Leaving the sluice gate open,” Wu Ying replied, looking at the main entrance again. The fifth time in just as many minutes.
“I don’t think he’s getting how this game works,” Bao Cong said to Li Yao.
Rather than answer, she shot a worried look at Wu Ying.
Realizing he was making the group concerned, he turned to them and offered them a half–hearted smile. “Sorry. Just…”
“I know. But worrying won’t change anything,” said Li Yao as she placed her hand on his arm.
“Maybe I should go down and check?” Wu Ying said.
“For the tenth time?” Bao Cong said. “It will take as long as it takes.”
Wu Ying could only shrug, shooting another worried glance at the main door that had stayed close all this time. He had no idea what the groundskeepers were doing, what they were thinking. How long did it take to introduce one’s new wife to the ancestors? He’d never done it, and his father obviously had never needed to while Wu Ying had been alive. He could only worry.
As he opened his mouth to speak again, to his surprise, a rustle of wind rose from the chamber below. The group hurried over to the main chamber, excited over the change. Even as they did so, a low chime rang out, one that grew louder and louder as they moved.
“You think they can—” Wu Ying said.
“Hear that? Definitely,” Bao Cong said.
“Both of you, watch the doors,” Wu Ying ordered, hesitation gone.
It seemed their ability to hide what they were doing had ended. It was time to get serious. Wu Ying hurried down the stairs only to see that the formation that once blocked the way had powered down. Not all the way, for he felt how the chi shifted in front of him. But enough that Yin Xue could continue moving, could continue on his way to touch the tablet.
“Yin Xue! What is going on?” Wu Ying shouted.
“Just getting the technique. One moment,” Yin Xue said. His hands shifted over the tablet and pulled on it. Surprisingly, his hand did not rip the tablet out of the wall but instead extracted a smaller version of the tablet into his hand. He repeated the action twice more, acquiring the remaining parts of the cultivation manual before he plucked a small jade token from the corner of the shelf. He frowned at the token for a second before he slipped it away and hurried out of the formation.
Yin Xue handed the tablets to Wu Ying, allowing the other cultivator to put them in his storage ring. That action surprised Wu Ying, considering the manual was something Yin Xue had earned. And more so, it was his family technique.
“You’re not keeping it?” Wu Ying said.
“No need. I’ll get a copy later,” Yin Xue replied. “This is just to make sure you have it and that I’ve done my part in this.”
Wu Ying regarded the nobleman and offered a tentative smile. “Thank you. For this. For everything.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I’m ending my karmic debt.” Yin Xue hurried up the staircase, calling down to Wu Ying as he did so. “Are you coming?”
Wu Ying hesitated then shook his head. Karma was weird, and no one—no one not a Buddha themselves—could say what it had in place for them in the future. But if this meant Yin Xue was happy, Wu Ying would not gainsay him.
Upstairs, Wu Ying scrambled through the slowly closing floor, feeling the edge of his shoes nearly get caught. He grunted, shaking his head. For the supposed leader of this group, he seemed to be constantly stuck hurrying up after all his people.
Maybe that said something about him. And his leadership skills.
And maybe it just said something about his companions. Probably the latter.
Chapter 22
“We have a plan?” Bao Cong called as they eyed the still-closed entrance door.
“How do we plan for what we don’t know to expect?” Li Yao retorted. “We just have to deal with it when the doors open.”
Yin Xue grimaced, opening his mouth to object, but Wu Ying cut them all off. “We know that they are likely waiting for us. To ask questions, at the very least. Yin Xue, try to bluff them. If that fails, or if they try to attack or detain us, we fight. We make a run for the walls. If we have to, we jump.”
The group nodded at the quick, curt orders. For their differences, they’d spent a long enough time together that these orders made sense. Except for…
“Tou He?” Li Yao asked.
Wu Ying hesitated, thinking of the ex–monk’s predicament, the way he had waved them on. “Probably safer than us right now. He’ll meet up with us if he can. We just have to trust in him.”
Saying that hurt, but in his own way, Tou He was probably the most suitable individual to travel alone. For one thing, his disguise was not really a disguise. So long as no one stuck any BBQ demon beast sticks before him, he should be fine.
As if he was tired of listening to them talk, Yin Xue strode forward and slapped his hands on the doors. Unlike before, when Wu Ying and the others had tentatively tested it and the door had refused to budge, the doors swung open as if they weighed nothing at all. Another security feature.
What greeted them was what Wu Ying had feared. Seven groundskeepers, all of them holding their weapons, stared at the team. But worse of all, there were four cultivators, two of them dressed in the robes of the Six Jade Gates sect, the other two in colorful, nobleman’s silks. They all stood before groundskeeper Han, glaring at Yin Xue as he walked out.
“Which branch member are you? How dare you defy the family’s hierarchy? Stealing the cultivation manual when you do not deserve it! We’ll kill you, your parents, and all your uncles and brothers for this affront. We will take your sisters and your female relatives and make them our slaves,” the leading cultivator, dressed in the robes of the Six Jade Gates sect, shouted at Yin Xue. “Now bow down and kowtow[69] for forgiveness. Or else we will make sure to torture them all before we kill them.”
Yin Xue took another step forward, eyebrows creasing as he eyed the group. When he didn’t drop to his knees, the cultivators drew their weapons. The subtle signal Yin Xue sent made sure that the team knew not to take action just yet. He wanted them to wait.
Even so, Wu Ying could see that Bao Cong had drawn his bow, even though it was held low to the ground and hidden behind his body.
“My family?” Yin Xue ducked his head then suddenly drew his weapon, sending a shot of sword intent at the cultivators. It was not a powerful attack, spread out in a wide arc as it was, and it caught none of the main cultivators from the Wen family by surprise. But to Wu Ying’s surprise, two of the groundskeepers were injured by the surprise attack. “It’s the third branch.”
Unlike the showboating Yin Xue, the others did not stop to speak. Not when they attacked. Wu Ying drew and struck out, pulling energy from the Brilliant Woo Petal Bracer into his sword strike. Except he kept his attack much tighter, focused on the Wen family member on the far left. Li Yao conjured her spear, sending her chi into the weapon as she thrust forward. The suddenly elongated weapon of conjured ice—formed from around its tip and body—caught her opponent by surprise, shattering against his chi aura and leaving him bloody as he fell back. Bao Cong, rather than targeting the cultivators from the Wen family, shot his arrows at the groundskeepers.
“Don’t stop,” Wu Ying growled, using quick steps
to cover the ground between him and his opponents.
The Wind Steps that he used let him cross the ground at almost a full run, while his sword sent weak attacks of sword intent as he expended his stored chi. It was nowhere as strong as an Energy Stage cultivator’s attacks, especially since he was moving so fast, but that wasn’t the point. It was meant to keep their opponents on the back foot.
The rush of attacks put the Wen family cultivators on the defensive for a moment, but they weathered the onslaught with ease, falling back but keeping their formation, allowing Wu Ying’s team to emerge from the mausoleum. Wu Ying and Yin Xue managed to stay at the forefront of the attack, protected and aided by Li Yao’s longer weapon.
As Wu Ying was about to take a step farther, Yin Xue called out a warning. “Stop. Illusionary formation.”
When the entire group hesitated, Yin Xue twisted his left hand and thrust forward, talismans appearing and shooting through the space before them, entering the formation itself. The yellow paper talismans seemed to bend as they flew, twisted by the formation, before exploding into pink flames. The flames warped and twisted in space, contained within the formation and marking the outlines of the trap that had been set.
Not to be outdone, Li Yao bounded off, swinging her weapon at one of the unhurt groundskeepers. She cut through his defense, breaking his sword and leaving his torso torn open, ice forming around the edges of his wound and fast expanding across his body.
“This way,” she exclaimed, pointing with her spear.
The group rushed after her, taking the momentary lull in battle and the distraction of the failed formation to escape. As they ran, Bao Cong retreated backward, firing his arrows. Each arrow shimmered and replicated itself, making it difficult for the cultivators who had escaped the flames to chase them.
“I said bluff!!” Wu Ying grumbled as they ran.
As they ducked among the graves, alarm bells rang, alerting not just the family members of the Wen household, but the entire city.
Yin Xue muttered as they ran, “Already forgetting who dug the well[70].”
***
Ducking around a carved tombstone, Wu Ying slapped a talisman on the back of the stone. It was the last defensive talisman in the set, and as he glanced around, he saw nods from the remainder of the team. He’d distributed the talismans as they’d run, then the group had split, throwing attacks to slow down their pursuers. Placement confirmed, Wu Ying whispered the activation word and sent a surge of chi into his talisman to activate the formation. It was the same one he had bought to bring the village home safely, but storing seed for spring did no good if you starved in the winter.
As he turned to run, Wu Ying caught the flicker of power that wrapped around the tombstones and the talismans. A wall of power enclosed the area, blocking off the direct route to the group even as they ran. It was not a big diversion, barely fifty feet in length, but it would force the cultivators to choose to destroy the formation or run around it. And destroying the formation would do the one thing they had avoided thus far—destroy the gravestones that anchored the formation.
It was one reason the group had managed to make it so far. The other reason was that the cultivators left behind were of the lowest cultivation level. Most of them were, at best, low Energy Storage stage, with the vast majority in the middle Body Refinement stage.
Wu Ying hopped over the next tombstone, continuing his headlong sprint down the hill as his friends regrouped around him. He kept casting glances backward, mentally reviewing the map he had created of the city. He shouted as he ran, husbanding his breath as best he could.
“We’ve got three blocks of residential houses before we reach the walls,” Wu Ying said. “We should make sure to stay close and don’t split up. If you do get lost, we meet at the horses. Get over the walls as far as you can.”
Wu Ying felt the lurch in the thread that connected him and the talismans, informing him that their pursuers had managed to break through. He grimaced, casting a glance back, and noticed that they’d managed to add another hundred yards to their lead. Rather than just smash through as he’d expected, their pursuers had somehow managed to disrupt the formation without destroying the tombstones. It was quite possible they had an actual formation master among them, able to discern the issues with the hastily constructed talisman wall. In either case, Wu Ying’s group had gained enough distance to put them at the edge of the graveyard. Except…
The ward that had triggered when Yin Xue had first walked onto the graveyard came to life once more. It glowed a deep red, a shimmering wall that enclosed the entire hilltop and surroundings. If they could fly, they’d probably be able to reach the top of the forty-foot formation wall, but even if they’d had good qinggong skills, this was no rough wall to run up. This was pure energy, meaning they’d have to jump directly up to reach the top. Only someone at the Core Cultivation level or maybe the late Energy Storage stage would be able to do that.
“Hun dan!” Li Yao swore as she spotted the impediment. She held her spear down at her side, infusing the spearhead with her chi as she got ready to pierce the formation.
“Bao Cong, keep them busy,” Wu Ying ordered, falling in line beside Li Yao. He held his sword down near his hip, sword pointed at the formation as he readied himself. “Yin Xue and I will hit the formation before Li Yao. We’ll weaken the formation first. On my mark.”
Yin Xue grunted, raising his sword to his forehead and placing a pair of fingers on the edge of the sword. In silence, the pair focused, drawing their power into their weapons before, at Wu Ying’s signal, letting out a shout in unison. The bolts of chi and sword intent flew forward as Wu Ying’s count bottomed out, striking the rippling wall of the formation and creating a burst of rainbow light. The explosion of energy rippled, making the wall vibrate, but it did not give way.
Li Yao was right behind them. Even as they struck, she planted her feet into the ground as she formed a single line with her weapon, putting all her intent, all her energy into a single focused point. The blade flew between the rapidly moving forms of the pair, so close that Wu Ying felt a deep chill along his back and side as the ice-coated weapon flew by him. The spearhead struck the formation, and for second, it seemed as if the wall would hold. But with a screaming screech, the tip pierced through.
It was enough.
Most formations could fail when too much energy was sent into them. The larger the formation, the weaker they were, as they had to spread their energy across the entire area. Overburdened, the formation was unable to keep its integrity, and lines of energy, freed from their constrained locations by the formation, rippled outward. Like the crumpling of the thinnest metal, the formation released a screeching wail that set hairs on end and teeth on edge. With a burst of light and energy, the formation shattered. Smaller displays of rainbow light and noise erupted from concentrated locations around the graveyard, the anchor points for the formation.
“I think we broke something,” Wu Ying said with a slight grin.
With a wave, he directed everyone to run again, calling out to Bao Cong as well. As Wu Ying looked back, he noticed that the area behind them was filled with arrows, their assailants hiding behind tombstones. All but one, his body skewered with a trio of arrows.
For all that, cowering or not, their assailants kept creeping forward, cutting down the distance between them. Once he knew Bao Cong was ready to leave, Wu Ying took off as well. Spotting Yin Xue ducking into an alley, he headed in that direction, only to have his attention drawn to the clatter of footsteps as a group of guards ran out from another street corner. They hesitated for moments, pointing their spears at the cultivators before charging.
“Gan[71]! More of them.”
***
Yin Xue cut his way through his opponent, his sword catching the man high in the throat and carrying body and head backward as Yin Xue rushed down the narrow alleyway that their opponents blocked. Another guard, hidden behind his shield, was blown back by Li Yao’s strike with the b
utt of her spear, crashing into his friends and knocking them all to the ground. Wu Ying followed her rushing figure, swinging his sword as he ran past the group of fallen enemies, cutting wrists, necks, and ankle tendons to cripple and kill them. Bao Cong, in the back, lurched over their fallen opponents, ducking to snatch up a crossbow that had fallen. He spun, triggered his chi, and released the bolt. The metal within the crossbow head replicated and filled the air behind them with sharp needles of energy.
Their pursuers ducked and covered behind shields. Some of them were too slow to hide, falling to the attack. The attack cost Bao Cong though, as the blacksmith staggered, his face pale as he drew upon his already overdrawn dantian. Wu Ying grabbed the back of Bao Cong’s robes, dragging him away from the recovering soldiers, not allowing him to fall.
As Bao Cong let the crossbow drop from his hands, Wu Ying snapped, “Rest. We will need you at the walls.”
“But the pursuers…”
“I’ll deal with them. Just run!” Wu Ying commanded.
As they ran across the busy street they’d exited into, Wu Ying grabbed at a nearby empty stall, pulling the wooden contraption to the ground behind them. It would offer little impediment to strong cultivators, but they were mostly being chased by the militia and a few soldiers from the army. One advantage of the large number of people chasing them and the narrow alleys they kept ducking into—their pursuers were getting in each other’s way.
The three blocks they had to cross turned into seven as they ducked in and out of alleys, backtracking at times rather than take on full platoons. Wu Ying swore more than once, but being at the back of the group, he could only trust that Yin Xue and Li Yao knew what they were doing.
As Wu Ying ran, he heard a shout, one that reached all the way across the blocks to his ears. At the voiceless shout, a chill of premonition ran through him. He turned, never stopping as he pulled Bao Cong along. On one end of the street, strolling forward, his giant sword over his arm, the armored form of the cultivator who had held the wall approached. Wu Ying’s eyes grew wide as the man lowered his hand and sword, pointing it straight at Wu Ying.
