Su Yan followed the snake yao toward Mount Wuwang. Qinyan Cave lay at the mountain's foot, still far.
They passed Mudbridge Village. At the entrance stood a woman over ten feet tall, four arms, each holding a sword. She scanned the roads.
The village god of Mudbridge.
"Guard every crossing. Don't slack!" she ordered the villagers. "The one called Su Yan will pass this way. Don't let him escape!"
Su Yan and the snake stopped. Every road had watchers. Even the rice paddies held eyes.
"The City God issued a kill order," Su Yan's heart hammered. Dizziness flickered.
Lingling had too many gods. Eight hundred mountains, five hundred waterways, plus villages — over two thousand deities.
Su Yan couldn't possibly reach Mount Wuwang. Every path was death.
"Watch me!" The snake grinned and shot forward like a released arrow, straight at the villagers.
Villagers screamed and scattered. "Snake yao! The snake yao eats people!"
The cries sounded almost like the snake's own voice.
Su Yan sprinted through the chaos. Soon after, the snake caught up, two sword wounds on his scales.
"Nothing serious. The Mudbridge god is a woman. She cut me twice. I won't hold it against a lady." The snake waved it off generously.
Su Yan bowed seriously. "Thank you, Snake Brother. I haven't asked your name."
The snake straightened. "My ancestor practiced the Titan-Ox Demon Fist, so our family took the surname Niu. When I was born, my father said our kind of viper was called 'yuan' in the old texts, and I was the seventh hatchling. So he named me Yuan Qi."
Su Yan hesitated. "Brother Niu, the 'ox' in Titan-Ox Demon Fist doesn't mean you turn into an ox-demon. It means your spirit becomes fearless as a demon-ox when you practice. The art has nothing to do with cattle."
Yuan Qi blinked, stunned. "You're saying my ancestor misunderstood the fist? My name's fine, but my surname is wrong?"
Su Yan tested, "Maybe... change your surname?"
Yuan Qi laughed. "My ancestor was Niu. My father was Niu. How could I forget my roots? A real man doesn't change his name or his surname. I'm Yuan Qi!"
And he promptly forgot about the surname entirely.
On the road, they dodged more rural gods. Yuan Qi charged ahead, drawing their attention, while Su Yan slipped past.
These gods stood ten feet tall, strange in form — four arms, two faces, third eyes in foreheads, eyes in palms.
They were usually dead souls attached to idols, fed by living worship, gradually gaining power to move through their wooden bodies.
Su Yan stuck to wild trails, avoiding villages and shrines. But even the wilderness held mountain god temples and earth god shrines. Rivers held water gods. One careless step could rouse them.
These wild gods were often yao who had received divine titles.
They were powerful yao who had reached the peak of Qi-Gathering and the seventh level of martial cultivation, able to take human form. Accept the City God's amnesty, and they became mountain gods and river gods.
More dangerous than village gods, and harder to tame.
By Yuan Qi's reckoning, Su Yan was only a strong yao now — far below a demon-king level god.
Man and snake avoided villages and shrines, moving slowly. By noon they had covered barely twenty li.
Yuan Qi sniffed. "Water ahead. Heavy moisture. Must be a spring!"
Su Yan's fruit was gone, and his throat burned. He followed. Soon they heard a stream. But Yuan Qi froze.
Before them lay a pool. A carriage stood at its edge, master and servant drawing water. A post road ran nearby.
"Relax. It's Magistrate Liu!" Su Yan's heart stirred. He stepped out.
Liu Zhongyuan's carriage held heavy chests — he was traveling far. Su Yan approached and bowed. "Magistrate Liu, are you leaving Yongzhou?"
Liu Zhongyuan saw him and the snake, startled, then smiled. "Little Brother Su Yan. Yes, the emperor summons me to the capital."
Su Yan felt genuine happiness. "Magistrate Liu, this trip will surely bring you the emperor's favor. I haven't read much, but I know you've seen Yongzhou's suffering. When you're powerful, don't forget the people. Make sure they have food."
Liu Zhongyuan's face grew solemn. "Rest assured, young brother. I go to cut away old corruptions, reduce taxes, push reforms, and restore the golden age. I won't fail the people's trust!"
Su Yan was deeply moved. He bowed. "A countryman awaits your good news."
Liu Zhongyuan returned the bow. "I dare not deserve such faith."
The servant finished loading water. "Sir, we must hurry!"
Liu Zhongyuan climbed aboard. Su Yan waved farewell, watching the carriage vanish.
"Magistrate Liu cares for the world. Life will get better!" Su Yan told Yuan Qi.
He could not know the future.
Liu Zhongyuan would reach the capital, find no favor, suffer repeated exile, and die in despair at forty-eight in Liuzhou.
Yuan Qi asked, "Su Yan, if you know this official, why not ask him to clear your name?"
Su Yan smiled. "Brother Niu, you just said a real man doesn't change his name. I have a saying too."
He declared, "A real man answers for his own deeds. Why beg others? I killed the god. I bear the consequences!"
"Well said!"
A voice rang from beyond the waterfall. Birds burst from the trees.
Su Yan's heart jumped. Across the pool stood a young clerk in green, perhaps twenty, scholarly and refined — clearly better-born than a village boy.
Su Yan's heart hammered twice.
A government clerk.
The people he feared most.
He had seen too many clerks storm villages, demand rent, drag away livestock, deaf to screams. And some clerks were nuo masters, wielding mysterious arts.
"Please, not a nuo master..." His heart pounded.
"Truly well said!" The green-clad clerk applauded. "Su Yan, since you answer for your own deeds, then for killing a god and a landlord, you should surrender."
"Surrender your grandmother!"
Su Yan laughed. "I can kill gods. You think I won't kill you?"
The clerk smiled. He pinched a tender leaf from a vine, and it sprouted in his hand, growing, climbing the willow by the pool.
Su Yan's heart sank. A nuo master.
Nuo masters opened the body's secret vaults. They wielded powers beyond imagination — commanding gods, subduing demons, the strongest force in the world.
Crack.
The willow collapsed. The vine, grown huge by nuo arts, had crushed the tree like a python.
Su Yan's eye twitched.
"I'm Ding Quan, judicial clerk of Lingling. Su Yan, you cultivate yao arts, don't you?"
Ding Quan stepped onto the water. The surface trembled. Beneath it, lotus leaves and stems shot upward.
A lotus leaf cradled his foot.
He walked on, step by step, lotus blooming with each stride, petals withering to ash behind him.
"Su Yan, yao arts give you power. You killed a village god, and now you're swollen with pride. But village gods are nicknamed 'grass-head gods' — the weakest kind."
He strolled across the pool, serene. "We humans have true cultivation. Why practice yao arts? Yao arts peak at Qi-Gathering. The Six Secrets of the human body — open even one vault, even the first level, and you surpass grass-head gods and demon kings alike!"
Su Yan clenched his fists. "What are the Six Secrets? Which vault have you opened, and to what level?"
He froze. Yuan Qi had vanished.
Su Yan felt a flicker of loss, then relief. This was his fight alone. He wouldn't drag the snake into it.
Ding Quan stopped two yards away, standing on water, Su Yan on the bank.
"The Six Secrets: Crimson Palace, Yellow Court, Jade Capital, Bubbling Spring, Jade Pool, Mud Pill. You can only open one. Finding them is hard. You need a powerful nuo master to locate your vault, then open it. Common folk never get the chance. Only great clans with their own nuo masters can produce practitioners."
He sighed, "Becoming a nuo master is terribly difficult. Not everyone can manage it."
Su Yan smiled. "I've only heard that Magistrate Zhou's family is a great clan. Never heard of a great clan named Ding. So there's another path — become a great clan's dog."
Ding Quan's face darkened. "You court death!"
Su Yan had struck a nerve.
Beneath Su Yan's feet, earth exploded. Thick green vines burst from the ground, wrapping his legs, his torso, binding him like rope.
Vines surged, coiled, lifted him into the air — ten yards high, above the trees.
Ding Quan's hand fell. The vines whipped Su Yan down.
Boom. Su Yan smashed into the rocks by the pool. Stone shattered.
Sharp vines shot from all directions, stabbing into the crater where Su Yan fell.
Ding Quan's right hand clenched. The vines tightened, compressing, crushing — a green sphere nine feet across.
"Don't blame me." Ding Quan's fist slowly opened. "You hit where it hurts. You die for that."
As his hand opened, the vines inside the sphere shattered into dust.
The power of the secret vault had been too great. The vines couldn't contain it.
This was the might of a human secret vault.