"Hah! Hah—hah!" Two coughs were all it took; the pain lancing through her body jolted Youqin Xuanya out of her dead sleep. Where... was this? She sat up warily, a faint red light gleaming in her pitch-black eyes, turning the dim cave bright as day. As a Return-to-Void fourth-rank cultivator, seeing in the dark came naturally—no special art was needed.
The first thing she saw was the great round stone blocking the cave mouth, cut from this very place, fitting so perfectly that only thin seams of faint light leaked around its edges. Beyond it, it must be night. She cast out her spiritual sense: for miles around, only a few venomous beasts stirred; apart from herself, no trace of any person.
She... had been saved?
Images surfaced: herself besieged by bandits, captured after a desperate struggle, and in the lull while they prepared their gu worms, ripping open the life-preserving talisman her master gave her and shifting a thousand leagues. Such a shift never fixed its landing point—a reckless gamble. Fortunately she dropped where rain poured in sheets, and through the water glimpsed that senior brother of her sect who had recently come to know...
'He saved me?'
She spotted two stacks of talismans and several porcelain bottles by her hand, and gave a faint start. Then she looked down at herself, and a blush spilled over that usually pale face, sudden and fierce. What a pity this rare demure blush was beyond any watcher's eyes.
—Li Changshou had slipped away long since.
The reason for her shyness: a dozen-plus wounds on her body, all neatly bandaged with the blood-staunching qi-nourishing band every Du Xian Sect disciple could claim—clean linen soaked in healing decoctions, its inner side slathered with a spirit ointment that healed and expelled poison. Most had mostly recovered; only the pain lingered. But the wounds in her shoulder and under her left ribs ran deep, and the bandaging passed across her chest—so to inspect she would have to slip her gown from both shoulders. Her legs, her waist... those more private places had all been, been...
She suddenly raised her right hand and dealt herself a slap. "Senior Brother Changshou saved my life, then tended me with such care—how could I doubt his character?" Her gaze returned to its usual clarity; her qi was steady, her injuries nearly healed. Plainly someone had even regulated her breath for her.
Tilting her head, she found at her pillow the folded sheepskin that had cushioned her, bearing writing and a simple map.
'Help within the sect need not be dwelt on. You are two thousand li from the Chaotic Miasma Treasure Forest. A map is attached—take the detour to leave this place. Above all, weigh your life first. At your side are miasma-ward charms, concealment talismans, antidote pills, and qi-strengthening pills. One line for my junior sister: People's hearts are separated by their bellies—trust no one lightly. The road ahead is perilous; I wish you well. —A handsome fellow who prefers to remain anonymous.'
She blinked at the final line, unable to parse its odd phrasing. The writing swiftly faded, vanishing within a few breaths. Fortunately the map had not been so treated; its terrain and scale were detailed, even marking her position—and its detour ran opposite to Li Changshou's own direction.
"This Senior Brother Changshou... is truly a careful, kindhearted man." She knit her brows, then with a solemn face murmured: "A great kindness need not be thanked aloud. If Xuanya survives this, I will give everything I have to repay my senior brother." She bowed to the sheepskin and tucked it away.
A miasma-ward charm and a concealment talisman were pasted on her shoulder, still with ample spirit energy. Gathering the pills and talismans, she sat to regulate her qi to its peak. Her great sword lay in the corner, its spirit light beginning to revive.
Gradually, two figures took shape in her heart...
The one on the left was her so-called childhood companion who entered the sect with her and would hurry after her the moment she appeared: Yuan Qing. She had long suspected this too-close disciple was a man of two faces and kept her distance. But she never imagined that once he tore off that mask of propriety, he could prove so vicious, so utterly contemptible! What happened these past days? Yuan Qing spared no means to trap her, even scheming to plant gu worms in her, to force her to yield, to make her his plaything—the 'name' for his future rebellion! Had her master's treasured talisman not saved her, she would already be under the worms' sway; even death might have been beyond her!
People's hearts are separated by their bellies. His words rang utterly true.
She gave a bleak, bitter smile, feeling the world's cold indifference, loss and fury in equal measure. But the second figure... had been faint and blotted, and now sharpened; though only a turned profile and the back lodged in her memory. Before this trial assembly, Xuanya had never met this Senior Brother Changshou; learning he was of transformation-stage ninth rank and had come to the Northern Jambu Continent for herbs had only stirred faint surprise. What struck her most was his affliction—'contact with women sent him into endless twitching'...
Wait! Stricken with that affliction, he endured convulsing, foaming at the mouth, in agony, to bind up a dozen-odd of her wounds? What selfless devotion!
In her mind she wove a picture: in a dim, cramped cave, that senior brother trembled all over, breath ragged, face a mask of agony—yet eyes blazing with resolve, he slipped the fiery gown off the unconscious woman on the ground...
Slap! She slapped herself again. 'He endured such agony to save me, and I questioned his character. When did you too become so petty...' She bit her lip and bowed once more to the map. "If a day comes to repay him, I will not stint a grain nor hesitate a breath."
On that ringing vow, her gaze hardened. She gathered her things, grasped the great sword's hilt, dropped into a half-kneel, blood-stained hem spreading around her, left hand a sword-finger gesture, her whole being trembling with gathering qi.
Live. Go expose Yuan Qing's face, repay a man of true benevolence like Senior Brother Changshou, write to her royal father to beware these traitorous scoundrels! The hand on the sword began to gleam with fiery red light. "Nine Elements Enshrined, thousand lotuses steadying the heart!" she intoned low. The sword burst with trails of fire; clear patterns surfaced along it, its cracks gone in an instant. Fire lotuses floated up around her, playing over skin as tender as could be, lighting her star-bright eyes.
"Inmortals to the north, men to the south, flames licking the sky and swallowing clouds—brilliance that dazzles the four seas! Fire Qilin Sword Case! Open!"
Three ringing clashes; a sword-note pealed for ten li! The round stone blasted apart, and a figure in red shot out, a dozen flying swords wheeling around her! After a few dozen zhang she veiled her firelight and vanished into the miasma-thick black forest—heading southwest... northeast, and off she galloped!
'By instinct this way should be southwest, no mistake. If I follow Senior Brother Changshou's detour, I'll shake off those villains. I must get back alive!'
...
Meanwhile, six hundred li north of that cave.
Li Changshou crouched over a cliff, combing one miasma-seeping crack after another. Half a day more of toil, then a head-shake and he drifted away. The region the ancient texts recorded as bearing the Immortal-Resolution Grass was settled—no gain here. He found a clearing, sat cross-legged, traced with a dagger every region searched, and thought a while. Northward two or three days more, then. Having come this far without the grass, he could not quite let it go; he had prepared so long for this 'Northern Exploration Plan'...
"Keep at it!" He slapped his knees, rose, and made for the north, leaving a trail of afterimages in the night.
Perhaps from yesterday's heavy rain, the miasma cloud had opened, and a strand of moonlight fell upon his road. A little of the poet stirred in him; he took cover and stood gazing. Ah, the moon was truly long... Ahem, its shape truly pale... Mm, and this crescent round and plump at once... Then the poisonous fog rolled in, and the hard-won moon was snuffed out.
"Has your big brother reached that age at last?" One eyebrow raised, a rueful laugh, and he pitched into the night. A Dao companion was a creature more terrifying than a junior sister—an unstable karma bomb just waiting to blow... Not to be provoked. Better not even think of it. And more than a fellow cultivator like Youqin Xuanya, whose looks stood above all but whose identity was too tangled, Li Changshou found himself feeling that an immortal woman already as strong as Immortal Jiu Jiu was a far safer presence.