The Big Dipper has seven stars, and Jade Scales (Yuheng) holds the fifth.
It was said the Jade Scales Peak here in Sanshan City corresponded to the Jade Scales star of the Big Dipper. When the moment of Heaven's Mechanism came, an inconceivable change would occur. But it was only legend; none had confirmed it.
What Sanshan's cultivators could be certain of was that this peak had for decades been a source of the beast calamity. Almost without end, ferocious beasts poured down its slopes, wrecking roads and grain fields, devouring men and livestock.
Now, at last, the time had come to end it all.
Before Sun Heng, none had dared such a thought. After Standing Brush Peak was purged, Jade Scales Peak became the second target. For this day, Sanshan had gathered strength for two years — fallen cultivators replaced, new ones grown, artifacts and wound medicine restored. Two years was the limit. Had the Swallow-Heart Human Demon not raised such havoc, preparations would have been more complete; but the city could hoard no longer. With beasts raging, its territories had fallen into a vicious cycle, and new beasts wandered down from Standing Brush Peak again. Time was not on Sanshan City's side.
So, though the Zhuang court stalled its approval and allocated nothing, the City Lady, Dou Yuemei, drained the treasury and launched the second great purge.
Many outside helpers came — cultivators from neighboring cities, even experts from beyond the borders. There was, for instance, a woman veiled in white gauze, said to be an expert from a mysterious sect of the Yun Kingdom. She held a line alone; none dared near her for a full li.
Jade Scales Peak's greatest barrier was not its steepness, but the Killer Rock Bees at its foot. Small and numberless, impossible to exterminate, vicious besides, they moved as a mass, dwelling in the rock caves scattered at the foot.
Sanshan had tried wide-area Dao art suppression, but these bees were innately sensitive to Dao essence fluctuations — often they flew away before an art took shape, and destroying a few only drove them into frenzy. Millions gathered, blotting out sky and earth, unstoppable. This was precisely why Sun Heng had not made Jade Scales Peak his breakthrough two years ago.
And Dou Yuemei, who now chose it over Flying-In Peak, had naturally made preparations.
The cultivator ranks parted to open a gap, and Sun Xiaoyan, his face screwed up as though about to cry, was pushed out.
"Mother!" he wailed. "Are you truly sending your son to his death?"
Dou Yuemei held Sun Xiaoman's hand and smiled at her son. "I've grabbed your sister for you. When you come back victorious, I'll make her apologize properly! Don't be afraid. You won't die. Your father shields you!"
*My father died long ago.*
His terror only grew; his tears nearly burst their banks, smearing that chubby face. Yet under his mother's gaze, he dared not refuse. Since Sun Heng died in battle, Dou Yuemei's doting on this son was known to all — she granted nearly every wish. But Sun Xiaoyan knew that once his mother was truly set on something, nothing he did could change it. Like the time he'd attended the Three-City Dao Debate in Fenglin City, knowing he'd catch a beating along the way — Dou Yuemei had silently consented, so he'd had no choice but to set out crying beside his sister.
Under the crowd's curious, amused gazes, Sun Xiaoyan crept forward almost inch by inch.
It was thus that Jiang Wang and the others arrived at Jade Scales Peak, meeting many acquaintances, for Fenglin's territories were closest and Li Jianqiu's team was hardly alone. Jiang Wang even spotted Fang Heling — terribly gaunt since they'd last met, but carrying a new ruthless edge. Somehow he'd slipped into the team of Shen Nanqi, fifth on Fenglin's Dao Merit Roll.
Zhao Rucheng spotted him and whispered with a grin, "The Fang family is hunting for evidence everywhere, saying they'll accuse you in the City Lord's court of deliberately guiding Xiong Wen into the Fang clan lands to be slaughtered."
A jest, of course. Whatever Jiang Wang's entanglement, Xiong Wen's slipping into Fenglin had really been Zhu Weiwo's pursuit — his doing. If anyone were to answer for the slaughter Xiong Wen had wrought, only Zhu Weiwo was qualified. Would the Fang family dare trouble him? The answer was plain; small troubles, though, were unavoidable.
Jiang Wang had by then obtained the artifact longsword the Sanshan side had promised. The blade was stamped with a Golden Light Arrow — not the ideal setup for him — but the sword's very sturdiness made him loath to put it down. He toyed with it idly and, at the remark, merely shrugged. "Otherwise, why would I have come out to lie low? Didn't think I still couldn't dodge it." Zhao Rucheng howled with laughter.
To Jiang Wang's surprise, this time Fang Heling showed him no reaction at all — his gaze swept past in one glance, as though he no longer knew him.
...
Dou Yuemei, watching her son still shuffling forward, at last lost patience.
This woman must have been radiant in her youth, and still kept her beauty. But when her willow brows knit, a fierce edge showed. "Little Fatty, stop dawdling."
Sun Xiaoyan's brows drooped as he finally accepted the matter could not be changed. He steeled himself, squeezed his eyes shut, and charged toward the largest rock cave, raising a Stone-Covered Fist to smash into the ground!
Buzz-buzz-buzz...
A great swarm of Killer Rock Bees burst forth, countless tail stingers shooting at the invader.
Sun Xiaoman felt her mother's hand clench, nearly crushing her finger bones, then release in the next startled instant. But she had no time to cry out, for she too watched her brother.
Killer Rock Bees did not sting dead things, nor would they shoot their stingers at creatures offering no threat — so a bait had to be a cultivator. And who but Sun Xiaoyan, wrapped in the Kun Skin Drum, could weather a full volley? That was the very skin flayed piece by piece from Inner Prefecture realm master Sun Heng's body, etched with formation patterns — a defense surpassing even Sun Heng in life.
Dense stingers rained down, and with them great sheets of Killer Rock Bees. In that moment the stingers fell like rain, and Sun Xiaoyan's plump figure stood against the downpour. The Kun Skin Drum held!
But he wailed, "It hurts! It hurts so much! I can't take it anymore!" and turned to flee back to safety.
A shout from Dou Yuemei stayed him: "Sun Xiaoyan, don't you move!"
Sun Xiaoyan was already streaming tears, yet out of pure instinct he stopped. "Mother!" he sobbed. "It really hurts! I truly can't bear it, it'll kill me, let me go back!"
"You don't move!"
The prepared Sanshan cultivators used Dao arts of all kinds — shaking the earth, whipping up the wind — to drag the fallen bees close and slaughter them. This was Sanshan's plan: use the City Lord's son as bait to draw the bees' attack. After shooting their stingers, the bees fell into a weak period, which was why they tumbled to the ground; their kin usually protected them then. But their target wailed right before them. So came another volley.
Sun Xiaoyan wept from pain without cease, his flesh jiggling, yet he was an obedient child of his mother, his feet planted firm. Dou Yuemei, fighting back glistening tears, issued cool commands one by one.
Sun Xiaoman, though always bullying her brother, could not bear his suffering. Her body moved to charge out, but Dou Yuemei snatched her back. "Mother, how much must Little Fatty be hurting!" she cried.
"Why else do you think your father didn't give the Kun Skin Drum to you? Because he doted on you so!" Dou Yuemei's runaway emotion reined in at once. "This was your dead father's plan. Before he died, he'd already worked out how to deal with the Killer Rock Bees."
Sun Xiaoman froze. Bean-sized tears could no longer be held, tumbling down.
She had not been without resentment — resentment at a father who played favorites, who declared he loved her best yet on his deathbed chose to drape his son in a defense fixed forever. She had thought: he cut the very skin from his body to give it to her brother, how he must love the boy. She had never imagined that she — that she was the child he favored. That was his final tenderness: he could not bear his daughter to suffer.
She remembered now: no one from Sanshan City had been willing to come, so he had come alone. His subjects were called mountain savages, so Sun Heng took to calling himself a barbarian. Such a man, naming his daughter Little Barbarian (Xiaoman) — what hope was he placing upon her?