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5.36 - Agreements and Ambushes
🕑 Added 2025-02-15 23:00:02 +0000 UTCWang Xiaobo had been waiting with Xin Lu for several hours already when Tan Qingsheng returned. Announcing his arrival by throwing open the door to the hall, then throwing himself into the closest chair, Tan Qingsheng’s arrival sent a wave of irritation through Wang Xiaobo. When the older man leaned back and sighed with a broad grin spreading across his features rather than address his guests, Wang Xiaobo finally lost his patience.
“So?” he asked, the word clipped and sharp. “I take it you’ve put your little dynastic struggle to an end? We can begin talking about how you can convince your brother, then.”
Tan Qingsheng waved him off. “They live still.” He didn’t even bother sitting up or addressing Wang Xiaobo directly, instead speaking mostly to the ceiling.
“Pardon?” Wang Xiaobo couldn’t manage to say anything else for a moment, so great was his disbelief. “How do they live? I take it they didn’t defeat you. Since you’ve returned.”
“I won, of course. The others fled shortly after you two did. He Yu stayed behind. By the time I’d finished with him, the rest were gone. I left him alive so he could send a message to my niece.”
“You what?” Wang Xiaobo surged to his feet, despite the sharp look from Xin Lu.
Finally, Tan Qingsheng deigned to give Wang Xiaobo his attention. He lifted his head to look at him, then quirked an eyebrow. “Can you not hear? I said I left him alive. To send a message.”
“We had a deal.”
“And you two ran like cowards.”
For a moment, Wang Xiaobo’s already raw temper got the best of him. His spirit flared out. Before he could catch himself, Tan Qingsheng was on him, a burly hand around his throat, and the weight of his Soul Refining spirit pressing down on him.
Tan Qingsheng spoke quietly, dangerously. “Don’t test me, whelp. Perhaps if the two of you hadn’t turned tail the moment things got rough, you’d have prevented them from running. He Yu is half your age, yet he put up twice the fight I’d expect from either of you. It seemed only right to acknowledge his warrior’s spirit. Something the both of you could take a lesson from.”
“We had a deal,” Wang Xiaobo repeated. “We help you deal with Tan Xiaoling, you help us track down He Yu and Li Heng. When it’s all said and done, you put in a word with your brother, so he comes around and starts sending tribute to Empress Jin once more. Everyone gets what they want.”
With a casual toss, Tan Qingsheng sent Wang Xiaobo tumbling into the nearest wall. “Our deal didn’t involve you running. Don’t like how I handled things? You’re more than welcome to go after them yourselves. Not that I think you can. As far as your empress is concerned, she can come and speak to my brother herself. Or send someone worthy of his time.”
“So you’re just going to let them escape? Surely you aren’t allowing a threat to your claim remain,” Xin Lu said, finally entering the conversation. Typical of him, to remain silent for as long as he had, but Wang Xiaobo wished he’d have jumped in sooner.
“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Tan Qingsheng said, returning to his seat and picking up a nearby jar of wine. “I told He Yu to deliver the following. Tan Xiaoling may leave and renounce her claim. In exchange, I let them all live.”
“I fail to see how that’s not allowing them to escape,” Xin Lu said.
“You don’t know Xiaoling, then. She’ll take this as an insult. All it will do is mean she’ll come to me. When she finally shows her face, I’ll crush her then.”
For several moments, the sheer arrogance of Tan Qingsheng rendered Wang Xiaobo speechless. Had he listened to nothing either of them had told him? Did he truly believe he could simply sit here and lounge about in the palace and wait? And that Tan Xiaoling would come and offer herself up to him like a sacrifice?
And he dared to still defy Empress Jin’s demands of tribute? He must know she wouldn’t be tied down forever. Must know that if he took too long, she would send someone who could enforce her will against an Eighth Realm expert such as Tan Zihao. Perhaps she would send Long Tingguang. Should this defiance continue long enough, Jin Xifeng would simply come herself. Nobody wanted that.
“You don’t know He Yu,” Wang Xiaobo said once he’d finally regained his composure. “If there is one great regret I have, it’s that I didn’t kill him when I had the chance. He took his beating, then he came back and humiliated Xin Lu and I in front of our peers. Those others he has with him? They’re the same. If you give them the chance, they’ll only grow stronger.”
“Sounds like you just weren’t good enough, then.” Tan Qingsheng said. “If they advance, that’s fine with me. They were too weak to put up a proper fight. Let them grow stronger. Let them come. The strongest will prevail.”
Wang Xiaobo opened his mouth to object, but Xin Lu shot him a look. As much as he hated to admit it, Lu was correct. There was no point in arguing. Tan Qingsheng was clearly convinced of his own superiority, and confident in his inevitable victory. That such a man could reach so far as the Soul Refining stage at least lent some credence to his confidence.
Bristling as they took their leave, Wang Xiaobo was sorely tempted to go after He Yu now. But Tan Qingsheng was right—by the time they found him, he’d have rejoined his companions. While Wang Xiaobo might take him in single combat—but even then he wasn’t certain anymore—he remembered what He Yu had said after their last fight. If Wang Xiaobo moved against him again, he’d bring everything he could to bear. Which meant they’d have to deal with all five of them.
He and Xin Lu may be late Nascent Soul, but they’d been a stage above He Yu and Li Heng and they’d lost then, too. And now Tan Qingsheng had given all five of them the chance to train, to advance. He was half tempted to return to the empire. The only thing stopping him now was the fear of what Empress Jin would do once she learned he’d failed to kill the bearer of Elder Cai’s arts.
*
When the core user entered the ravine, Zhang Lifen and the others attacked. The Heart Piercing Black Rain carried the power of a raging flood concentrated to a single point. The core user didn’t even have a chance to fully release his spirit before several hundred arrows forged of water qi slammed into him. Ren Huang and Yi Xiurong burst into the ravine a moment later, one a blazing ravenous wolf, the other a colorless, radiant star.
Ren Huang’s wolf-tooth club swept before him. A wave of flame radiated out, engulfing the ravine. The wolf pounced. Its eyes blazed a furious red, and sparks flew from its maw. The core user’s spirit, a twisted black thing seeping wrongness and avarice in equal parts, surged out. This one was at the edge of his control, the core close to winning the struggle with its bearer. They were doing this one a mercy, it seemed.
Yi Xiurong’s spirit lit the whole of the valley, shining brighter than even the midday sun. She slammed into the core user, the nine golden discs crashing like gongs. Each punch, each kick redoubled the reverberating tone, and each doubling brought another barrage of radiant beams laying waste to the ravine.
The fight was a short one. Although the core user was at in the same realm as them all, a three to one disadvantage was too much for him, even with the aid of his core. In under an hour, the ravine walls had been reduced to rubble, the surrounding land scoured of vegetation, and the core user lay in the center of a smoking crater. Zhang Lifen shattered his dantian with a single swift strike and a pulse of qi.
When the raging, out of control flailing of the core user’s spirit finally died, Yi Xiurong ordered him to turn out his storage treasure. As expected, he carried a wealth of treasures, elixirs, and rare cultivation ingredients. The one thing most of note, however, was a small bamboo scroll that tumbled out after all the rest. Zhang Lifen wouldn’t have noticed it, had the core user not attempted to conceal it.
“I’ll take that,” she said, plucking the scroll from under the stone the core user had tried to conceal it with. Unfurling the scroll, she looked over the characters. What she found wasn’t something she’d wanted to see. Motioning to the others, she said, “You should come read this.”
Once they’d finished, Ren Huang turned to the core user. “What do you know about this message?” he demanded.
The core user spit on him. Ren Huang kicked him in the face.
“That was uncalled for,” Yi Xiurong said. “Regardless, the news isn’t good. It seems the bounty we’ve commanded is no longer sufficient.”
Zhang Lifen tapped her lips with one finger. “This Long Tingguang. I’ve heard the name before. Spoken only in whispers, really. Supposedly, he’s Jin Xifeng’s right hand. She calls him her ‘true dragon.’ Can’t imagine what sort of person he is, but he’s certainly not someone I’d like to meet.”
“Well, supposedly he’s been charged with making sure we stop crippling core users,” Ren Huang rumbled.
“I doubt he’ll come after us himself,” Zhang Lifen said. “From what I’ve heard, he’s at the Divine Soul Apotheosis stage. He’ll send a lackey.” Then she added with a laugh, “At least I hope he does.”
“He’ll send his martial daughter,” the core user said, his voice a touch more controlled now that the core itself was just as powerless as he was.
“He has a disciple? How quaint,” Zhang Lifen said airily. Given that it had been less than two decades, she doubted that Jin Xifeng had managed to set up a proper sect structure and raise up any noteworthy experts beyond those who’d already served her. Unless this daughter was from before the Dawn Palace’s fall, it likely wasn’t anyone they needed to worry about.
Either way, her dismissal worked. The core user laughed, then said, “Lady Sha is on the cusp of reaching the Sixth Realm. She grows her cultivation even now, and her mastery over her core is rivaled only by Long Tingguang himself. She will come, she will find you, and she will destroy you.”
Zhang Lifen raised an eyebrow as she exchanged looks with Yi Xiurong. “Lady Sha. What is her full name?” asked the former First Disciple.
“Sha Xiang, the Baroness of Molten Earth. The greatest recipient of Empress Jin’s gifts other than his lordship, Master Long himself.”
“Well, it seems she didn’t die in the wilderness after all,” Zhang Lifen said, giving Yi Xiurong a sharp look.
Ren Huang hauled the core user to his feet so he could glare directly into the core user’s eyes. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“In the capital. Good luck.” The core user spit on Ren Huang once again, only to get tossed to the ground for his troubles.
“We need to return east,” Yi Xiurong said, stepping onto her peacock feather.
“Are you insane?” Zhang Lifen asked, even as she activated a movement technique to follow.
“We can draw her out. It is my shame that she yet lives. It is therefore my responsibility to put it to rights.”
“Ah, yes, of course. We’ll just walk into the capital and snatch her from beneath a pair of Eighth Realm experts.”
“Lifen is right,” Ren Huang said as he caught up with them. “This is suicide.”
“We should wait. Bide our time. Let’s not forget, we’ve sworn to bring down Jin Xifeng. If Sha Xiang still lives and has mastered a core, killing her will only make our true aim more difficult.”
“Then we cripple her cultivation like we do the others.”
“I like that idea,” Zhang Lifen said. “Although, if my disciple finds out we finished her off, he’ll never forgive us.”
“You think he’s coming back?” Ren Huang asked.
She did. The rumors had said after the rogue cultivators abducted Li Bao’s son, they fled to the west, into the White Desert. There was only one person who would have been able to convince Li Heng to flee Iron Gate City. That they went west meant there was only one place they could be headed. The Jade Kingdom.
Zhang Lifen had no doubts that Tan Xiaoling would have left for home the moment she escaped the sect. If the vague descriptions were anything to go by, He Yu was gathering up his friends. There was no way he’d be strong enough to challenge Jin Xifeng already, but he’d only see that as something to keep pushing him forward.
It seemed she’d chosen well all those years ago.
