“Take ten people, put yourself at the front, and watch the dense forest below.”
Hong Lei said it and let the smile close up. He kept walking.
His expression didn’t visibly change — but his throat moved slightly.
Almost at once, something reached Shen Yi’s ear directly — a thread of transmitted sound, barely there.
“Watch her for me. Carefully. Anything unusual, report back immediately.”
The technique — something like transmitting voice in secret — gave Shen Yi a moment’s pause.
Right. Still plenty to learn.
As for the person Hong Lei meant — not the two Threshold Realm Commanders. Shen Yi turned his gaze slightly.
The woman beside him wore the ink-black uniform, but there was a ripeness to her manner that age and station had shaped. Her face, fine-featured and full, was working hard to look composed — and not entirely succeeding. Something unfocused lingered in her eyes.
Hong Lei’s inexplicable warmth toward the young man had not gone unnoticed by the group. Most of them were now glancing sideways at Shen Yi, wondering the same thing: why was a two-band Commander being put in charge of a three-band Commander? And wasn’t pairing two Jade Liquid practitioners in one squad an almost absurd allocation of resources?
Among those looks was Zhao Kanglin, not far off, reclining beside the campfire and turning a stick in the embers.
Pig-brained — he’d heard that more clearly than anyone.
He ran his tongue over his lip.
He’d have plenty of ways to make the man with the surname Hong regret it once they were back in Qingzhou.
After Shen Yi, the other Commanders’ cultivation levels settled into something more typical. Of the thirty-eight remaining, only one — an older veteran — had barely crossed into Jade Liquid after years of accumulated credits, clearly here hoping to advance further. The extra century of lifespan showed in how much younger he seemed.
One thing did puzzle Shen Yi: every person who’d been pulled from the Outer Division carried cloud-band embroidery. The medicine-bath cohort — the ones who generally tended older and slower — hadn’t produced a single name.
“…”
Shortly, Hong Lei had sorted the forty people into the formation Outer Division operations used most readily.
Shen Yi and the old veteran each led ten people. The remaining group stayed under Hong Lei’s direct command, each covering one of three sides.
“Make camp.”
The order came down and people moved in an orderly spread.
At that moment, a voice cut through the movement.
Zhao Kanglin reclined by the fire, tossed away his stick, and looked up lazily at the passing figure.
“Hey — young friend. I’m injured and need to rest a few days. Why don’t you take over managing these twenty-odd useless people for me?”
“What do you say?”
The whole line looked sideways.
Hong Lei, several paces ahead now, slowed almost imperceptibly.
He hadn’t actually anticipated that after committing a serious error, this particular fool would have the nerve to continue.
The only person who didn’t react was the young man in black.
He appeared not to have heard anything. His step continued at the same pace. He crossed Zhao Kanglin’s outstretched arm — just stepped over it, light as breathing — and walked down the slope.
Zhao Kanglin sat frozen on the ground as the thin figure moved away from him. After a moment he straightened slowly.
He hadn’t expected the man to actually agree. The remark had been aimed at putting Hong Lei in a slightly awkward position and releasing some of the pressure building in his chest.
But now—
The irritation flared brighter, and he let out a short laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “Ha. Quite the attitude on that one. Reminds me of myself at that age. We’ll have a proper chance to get acquainted back in Qingzhou.”
The threat beneath the pleasantry was audible to everyone.
The Outer Division Commanders gripped their own hands and said nothing. Inner Division members had backgrounds that outweighed theirs to begin with, and this particular one was known to be among the worst of the entitled.
“What family?” Hong Lei glanced over, a cold sound in his throat. “The one that could make your grandfather get on his knees and beg. Give it a rest — don’t make things hard on yourself.”
He didn’t actually know the extent of the connection between Fang Heng and this young man. But when trading barbs, you didn’t let the other side set the terms.
If he didn’t press this idiot’s arrogance down now, who knew what kind of trouble would be waiting in Qingzhou.
“…”
Zhao Kanglin choked on that for a moment, face twitching twice.
He clearly didn’t believe it.
A background that staggering, someone that young, at that low a position — there weren’t ten people like that in all of Qingzhou, and none of them would be wearing a basic Commander’s cuff.
But he said nothing more, turned, and went back into his tent.
The others exchanged glances, quietly calculating how much of what Hong Lei had said was likely to be true.
The silent golden-eagle Commanders guarding the tents looked occasionally at the bodies not far away with the hollow expression of people considering their own situation.
Down the slope.
Ten people fell in close behind Shen Yi.
Except for Dai Bing’s unsettled expression, the rest kept their heads down. Anyone willing to give the Inner Division Deputy Commander a cold reception on arrival was probably someone they couldn’t afford to antagonize — they didn’t know if Zhao Kanglin could be crossed, but they definitely couldn’t.
“Sir, rest. We’ll have camp set up quickly.”
Wang Meng clasped his hands as they entered the forest and wiped off a flat stretch of wet rock for him with obvious thoughtfulness.
“No need.” Shen Yi shook his head. “Let’s do it together. Faster that way.”
“Sir, it’s fine, we’re used to it, won’t take long at all.” Wang Meng assumed he was being politely modest.
Shen Yi turned, took the wooden stakes the person behind him was carrying, gave a small nod, and said calmly: “I don’t have much experience tracking demons in the field. I’ll need you to show me the ropes.”
“That’s—”
Wang Meng blinked. Then he smiled. “Nothing worth teaching — just hard labor, really.”
He kept working as he talked. “The general principle in rough terrain: follow the valley ridgelines, stay elevated above where you’d expect life to gather, in the wilderness — water nearby, sheltered from wind — and this is not how you put those stakes in, sir, watch what I do.”
Shen Yi watched and copied with some awkwardness, but genuinely tried.
Dai Bing, who had been on the verge of sitting down, hesitated, then walked over to join the group.
As they worked, Wang Meng grew less careful about the gap in status, lowering his voice. “Sir, you really didn’t need to give that bastard the cold shoulder earlier. He’s petty and vindictive — all you’d get from it is trouble.”
Shen Yi raised an eyebrow mildly.
He hadn’t been trying to establish dominance.
He’d simply had no interest in becoming someone’s convenient material for claiming credit, dying for it, and then being called useless anyway.
He was just a Commander right now. If he’d stopped to exchange a few words and gotten absorbed into Zhao’s unit — that would have been humiliation beyond description.
What he needed was to accumulate credits and reach Deputy Commander rank as soon as possible. That at least meant some breathing room.
He couldn’t decide whether his luck had been good or terrible.
Not a month in the Division, and two serious situations back to back — a river deity defecting and a sect refusing to comply. Most Commanders went decades without encountering either once.
Dangerous, yes. But the advancement speed was something else entirely.
If he came through this intact, three cloud-bands were waiting.
A month to cover what takes others a lifetime.
He looked up at the half-assembled tent taking shape in the trees.
His gaze drifted sideways.
“…”
Dai Bing had helped put together the campfire and sat down on the ground.
She drew her sword and ran her fingers slowly along the blade.
On the inner face of the guard, worn smooth from years of contact, two small, precise characters had been almost entirely rubbed away.
Qingfeng.
(End of Chapter)