It was the instant Jiang Wang laid eyes on those tiny bones that a shrill whistle tore the air.
*Whoosh!*
Something sharp came faster than thought. Jiang Wang twisted his wrist in an impossible motion and set sword and scabbard upright behind him; the thing struck them square, ringing metal on metal. He flowed into a turn and freed the blade, catching sight of a ghastly, bone-white finger bone. There was no time to think; his body answered before his mind, wheeling back of its own accord.
And the small white skeleton on the bed had already risen. Its skull split open a gnashing mouth and lunged at Jiang Wang's throat!
Without the slightest hesitation he drove a kick straight into it, slamming the little frame of bones back where it had lain. Then his long sword whirled through a dozen turns in that single heartbeat, like a violet bolt of lightning loosed in a dark room. Joint by joint, the tiny corpse was severed — then it settled, whole and undisturbed, upon the bed once more, as if it had never stirred at all.
"Jie jie jie jie… little Daoist," came a voice, thin and grating, drifting from nowhere and everywhere. "I killed this little girl, and you seem quite furious. Yet it was your own hand that destroyed what remained of her in the end."
Such a concealing illusion was no small feat — which told Jiang Wang the enemy lurking in the dark had prepared well in advance.
Jiang Wang had not yet completed his foundation, had not yet opened his five senses, and could not break such an illusion. But he did not panic. From the Dao Academy he drew two conclusions. First, the enemy's level could not be very high — were this truly a mighty cultivator, there would have been no need for illusions at all, and he could have killed Jiang Wang the very first instant.
And from that, the second followed: limited by the opponent's own strength, the illusion's grade could not be high either. The moment the enemy attacked, or was attacked, or so much as moved, it would shatter of itself. The clearest clue was that the first strike had only manipulated the corpse, never involving the enemy's own person.
"You are the one who killed her, and you are the one who shattered her remains. Such left-handed trickery cannot shake my heart!"
Jiang Wang moved with his sword, and in a few heartbeats he had roamed every corner of that tiny room; the light of his blade nearly lit the whole chamber.
The Purple Qi from the East Sword Art — the first of its killing forms!
In the moment the room blazed with light, all that sword-light drew together. Jiang Wang seized the gathered radiance in his fist and brought the sword down in a single, straight cut. The door, which had somehow shut without his noticing, burst open with a thunderous crash.
Zhang Linchuan stood beyond the threshold, a thread of lightning coiled faintly about his hand.
"I destroyed the two corpses in the yard just now — they had been animated to fake a rising, and I blasted them to nothing. What is your situation here?" he asked.
"I was attacked as well. I could not break his illusion. But my sword still wounded him!" Jiang Wang shook the long sword, and a single drop of bright red blood fell from its tip.
Zhang Linchuan caught the droplet in his palm, where it hung suspended. "With this, tracing the heretic's trail will be no trouble at all."
A flicker of approval crossed his face. "Junior Brother Jiang, you have rendered great service on this outing."
Jiang Wang's eyes searched the room, but found no other trace of blood. "Senior Brother Zhang, the heretic may not have fled yet."
Zhang Linchuan drew the droplet back into himself, closed his eyes to sense for a moment, then shook his head. "No trace remains."
Scarcely had his words fallen than the corpse qi that had filled the courtyard dissipated in that same instant.
"Let us go," Zhang Linchuan said, putting the blood away. "There is nothing useful left here. Hand this drop to the vice-dean; he is master of the Six Yao, and he will surely drag that heretic into the light."
The blow this journey dealt to Jiang Wang's spirit was unlike anything before. The mountain bandits and highway robbers, for all their evil, were as nothing beside these heretics who butchered whole households without a thought and, even after death, defiled and manipulated the very corpses of their victims. He had caught his first true glimpse of the cold cruelty on the other side of cultivation. Transcendent power could bring, too, a transcendent cruelty.
Jiang Wang wanted to look back once at the little girl's bones, yet dared not.
Then Zhang Linchuan spoke again. "The men of the Office of Inquiry already came through once, and turned up nothing. Yet the moment we arrive, we are set upon. There is something very strange in that."
"Does Senior Brother mean…?"
"Hm. Hm." Zhang Linchuan gave a cold, quiet laugh.
When Jiang Wang entered the Inner Court, he had asked only to cultivate, and wanted no part in the struggle between Dong A and Wei Quji. Yet Zhang Linchuan pointed straight at that possibility, and he still had no right to refuse.
"Junior Brother Jiang's swordsmanship is extraordinary — nothing like the crude tricks the Academy collections teach," Zhang Linchuan remarked, as if carelessly.
Jiang Wang answered, "For us of the Daoist sect, the sword is after all but a minor path. Senior Brother's thunder art is the truly astonishing thing."
By now the two skeletons from the hall and the yard were gone, leaving only scorched ash where they had fallen. Jiang Wang could almost picture the scene: those two corpses, barely animated before they could move, already blasted to nothing by the thunder art.
"Junior Brother is too modest. In truth our Daoist law-sword yields to no one — a pity that our Fenglin City Dao Academy holds no method for it. Across the whole of Zhuang Kingdom, perhaps only the National Dao Academy does." Zhang Linchuan sighed. The Daoist sect too had its way of pouring the Dao into the sword — fierce and peerless. But it was not the mainstream, and Fenglin City's Dao Academy had no master skilled enough to guide such practice.
Jiang Wang at that moment had no appetite for conversation whatsoever, yet could not ignore Zhang Linchuan. So he offered, by rote, "With Senior Brother's gifts, entering the National Dao Academy is only a matter of time."
"Yes… a matter of time." Zhang Linchuan suddenly let out a breath and stood in the courtyard, gazing toward the Qichang Mountain Range. "Yet early and late are, after all, different things. There are times I feel a knife pressed to my back, and every fleeting moment is urgent."
For all his strength and talent, this fastidious young scion of a noble house spoke with an anxiety and sorrow that were utterly, verifiably real.
Jiang Wang fell silent. Had he not himself longed to grow stronger, faster — to reach, sooner, the place he should have gone long ago? Every fleeting moment was urgent.
"Cross that range, and you come to the Yong Kingdom," Zhang Linchuan said. "If the heretic flees into Yong's borders, we will never lay hands on him."
Jiang Wang, of course, understood why he said it.
The Zhuang Kingdom had stood over three hundred years. Its founding emperor, Zhuang Chengqian, was once a great general of Yong; he seized a thousand li of land and, exploiting Yong's war of succession among three princes, broke away to found his own state. He made the Daoist sect the state religion and clung to Jing Kingdom, a great Dao-meridian power, thus gaining his footing.
Yet because of that history, Zhuang and Yong had never been on good terms.
What was Zhuang's enemy might well be welcomed with open arms in Yong.
Jiang Wang said nothing of this, only followed Zhang Linchuan out of the courtyard in silence.
Tang Dun, keeping watch at the gate, hurried up at once, eyes bright with hope. "Well? Was the heretic destroyed?"
He had heard the commotion from outside the yard and knew a battle had been fought within.
"We have a lead," Jiang Wang said, and turned to Zhang Linchuan. "Senior Brother, might I borrow some coin?"
Zhang Linchuan asked no reason, and simply tossed over a money pouch.
Jiang Wang weighed it, then drew out the smallest bit of broken silver — he had meant to take some knife-money, but the pouch held only gold and silver. He passed the silver to the little town constable, Tang Dun. "There is a little girl's skeleton inside. Trouble you to buy a coffin with this silver and bury her. In the yard are two piles of ash — her parents. Bury them all in one place."
Tang Dun's rough face darkened with grief, yet he firmly pushed Jiang Wang's hand away. "I'll see to their rites myself. I can't take your money."
"Take it," Jiang Wang pressed the silver into his hand. "Consider it bought for my own peace of mind."
Tang Dun's constable's uniform was stitched with mends; that he had been set to receive them, an unwelcome party, showed he was a marginal figure even within the yamen. Unable to shake free, he could only clutch Jiang Wang's hand tight. "On Niu'er's behalf — I thank you!"
So her name had been Niu'er.
The painted canvas on the wall seemed to appear before his eyes once more. She had, in her childish way, wanted to hold onto a spring. Yet her own life never bloomed again.
Niu'er. Niu'er.
Jiang Wang silently repeated the name several times in his heart, as if he had tied some manner of responsibility to his Dao heart.