Linjiang Prefecture. Qingfeng Mountain.
Sword-Viewing Gorge.
Dozens of powerful demon-horses had run without stopping, hooves churning up continuous clouds of dust.
With a long exhale, the black-cloaked Deputy Commander swung down from his horse and looked at the orderly row of tents ahead.
Early morning. The campfire had caught the night’s rain, charcoal spitting and popping, thin white smoke rising in threads.
Roughly a dozen bodies in golden-eagle uniforms had been collected in one place. Every one of them was covered in sword wounds — flesh split open, bone visible.
Hong Lei held his horse’s reins, eyelid flickering.
If Outer Division Commanders were something like jianghu wanderers — skilled at small teams investigating cases — Inner Division Commanders were soldiers. A hundred or more arranged in a Demon Suppression Formation could push straight through a demon den without stopping. The appearance of casualties of this scale indicated a situation nearly beyond control.
Perhaps drawn by the hoofbeats, a young man also wearing a Deputy Commander’s cloak — though embroidered with the golden eagle rather than the golden wolf — emerged from one of the tents.
He looked at least ten years younger than Hong Lei.
His right arm was bandaged. His face was pale, his qi unsteady.
He frowned with mild dissatisfaction. “You took long enough.”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, Deputy Commander Zhao.” Hong Lei’s voice carried an edge, his free hand settling on the scabbard. “I gave you forty people just to hold Sword-Viewing Gorge — stop Qingfeng Mountain’s disciples from leaving on their own. That’s all. And this is what you managed?”
He looked at the row of bodies as he said it.
Sword-Viewing Gorge was a high cliff, treacherous terrain, naturally defensible. Anyone from Qingfeng Mountain trying to come down would be in plain sight the whole way. At the first sign of movement, there would have been ample time to report up the chain and request reinforcement.
“I don’t have a habit of sitting around doing nothing.”
Zhao Kanglin raised his chin with contempt. “If that old Fury Sword hadn’t shown up out of nowhere, I’d have cut straight through them already and been standing in front of General Chen with a major credit to my name.”
Hong Lei gripped the rising urge to slap the man across the face and aimed his gaze up at the cliff instead.
On the edge of the precipice, a grey-robed figure sat cross-legged. Sparse silver hair wound into a topknot with a wooden pin. Eyes half-closed, features gaunt, both palms resting open on the knees, an unremarkable iron sword lying flat across them.
The Elder of Fury Sword, from Qingfeng Mountain. A swordsman of Jade Liquid Perfection for many years — with a considerable name in Qingzhou. If not for his advanced age, his three hundred years running low, and a reluctance to waste his precious sword-pool condensation opportunity on a battle he might not win, there was a real chance he could have broken through to the Condensate Realm.
“I came out wounded. He took a hit too. He won’t recover for ten days at least.”
Zhao Kanglin’s eyes carried satisfaction.
From an established family, having deployed a secret inherited technique to exchange wound for wound with a widely-known senior of the jianghu — at Jade Liquid mid-stage, no less — and made it back alive. That was a story worth telling to anyone.
Watching him glow with self-regard—
Both the golden-eagle Commanders by the tents and the Outer Division Commanders still on their horses looked slightly unwell.
“…”
Shen Yi held his reins without changing expression.
So this was why they’d all been forcibly reassigned.
“A credit.” Hong Lei smiled broadly and looked the young man over. “You might want to hold off on that. Focus on not getting flogged when you go back.”
“You—” Zhao Kanglin’s jaw tightened. If not for the bad luck that had left him stranded here, badly needing reinforcements—
An Outer Division Deputy Commander speaking to him like this. No manners whatsoever.
Hong Lei stopped paying attention to him and turned.
“Outer Division — dismount!”
Forty-some people came down in unison.
He walked along the line in front of them.
“We moved fast getting here — no time for introductions. Most of you aren’t normally under my command. I’m Hong Lei. Sixty years as a Deputy Commander in the Division. Jade Liquid mid-stage. I work for General Chen — yes, the Chen Qiankun currently at the top of Qingfeng Mountain.”
“I know you’re angry. You’ve been pulled in to clean up after fools who spent too long in Qingzhou getting comfortable.”
“Don’t worry. Make no mistakes, and when we go back, every one of you gets one Condensate Realm credit logged.”
Expressions shifted across the line. Something closer to interest had appeared on several faces.
One cloud-band to two required participating in five Jade Liquid-level demon incidents. Two to three required more than twenty. A single Condensate Realm operation counted for at least twenty Jade Liquid incidents in the credit formula.
And in practice, this wasn’t actually requiring them to engage a Condensate Realm demon. Just holding the mountain perimeter while General Chen handled things.
“Three bottles of rare medicine. Your choice of upper-grade Threshold Realm technique with no limit. One lower-grade Jade Liquid Realm technique.”
Hong Lei extended his open palm.
“Three years’ extra salary. Two months’ rest.”
Even Shen Yi’s gaze shifted slightly.
The Division was forceful, certainly. But it paid generously.
These were things he wouldn’t have dared imagine in Baiyun County. Here, they were distributed to everyone without exception.
“What you need to do is help me hold this cliff.”
Hong Lei moved along the line, lowering his hand, stopping in front of the first person. “Name. Cultivation level.”
“Liu Daqian. Late Threshold Realm. Blade.”
“Wang Meng. Late Threshold Realm. Striking arts.”
“Dai Bing. Early Jade Liquid. I—” a slight pause, “—use a sword.”
Hong Lei’s step slowed. His gaze rested briefly on the woman’s cuff — three cloud-bands, unmistakable.
Jade Liquid at that age meant no anonymity whatsoever.
He reached casually toward the sword at her hip. Dai Bing’s expression grew complicated. She stepped back half a pace and placed her hand over the hilt.
Hong Lei pressed his lips together thoughtfully, and moved on.
The next figure stood straight-backed and tall, dark blade hanging at an angle from the hip, the ink-black uniform fitting as if made for him. Sharp, clean features — the only thing one might find slightly unusual was the pallor of the skin.
Hong Lei looked at the two cloud-bands at his cuff.
“Early Threshold Realm?”
Shen Yi shook his head mildly. “Jade Liquid.”
Murmuring ran through the line.
They were all experienced Qingzhou practitioners, but the general standard was: breaking into Jade Liquid Realm in your seventies or eighties made you a foundation of a household. Jade Liquid in your early thirties required the depth of a first-tier sect combined with exceptional talent. Even allowing for appearance preservation techniques — even if the man was actually forty — it was extraordinary.
What made it harder to process was that two such people had appeared within the first few names called.
“…”
Hong Lei paused briefly, and the face came back to him.
In that small courtyard — one of the General’s disciples standing on one side, the Li family daughter on the other, and a large, thick-bellied man whose qi signature was too suppressed to read easily but who clearly belonged there. And this figure, standing beside them.
Someone capable of standing in that company, having this kind of ability — not so surprising after all.
And the man had clearly had the ability to refuse. He’d come anyway.
Youth and valor, exactly as it should be.
The thought softened Hong Lei’s expression.
“Don’t worry — this is just cliff-watching. Old Chen hasn’t truly decided to turn the blade on Qingfeng Mountain yet. As long as they hand over the one they’re hiding, we’ll sound the retreat and go home.”
He paused.
“The condition being: don’t model yourself on that boy who was spoiled by his family. Four decades old and thinking like a pig.”
(End of Chapter)