Midway through the journey, a red flare burst into the sky, burning three times in succession. It was one of the Dao Academy's distress signals.
Wei Feng seized Shen Nanqi at once and quickened his pace. He did not want to miss the best moment for rescue, nor could he leave the utterly spent Shen Nanqi here. And so Shen Nanqi's resistance he chose simply not to see.
Outside Xiaolin Town.
Wei Feng, racing hard, landed in a single long stride—coming to a stop directly before the three brothers Jiang Chen and his men, who were searching the area.
The investigation of the Bing-Wu Numbered Mission had, for the time being, been shelved. Because Dean Dong had demanded secrecy, and to keep from startling the cult, Fang Lin was now a free man. The investigation could only be set aside—officially, of course, the case was closed.
The twelfth lunar month was the last month of the year, and Jiang Chen's three brothers had been completing tasks with relentless zeal, hoarding merit like beasts laying up for the winter. Through all this effort they had finished polishing their combat coordination at the transcendent level, and their strength had grown considerably.
Ling Chuan had completed his minor Zhou Heavenly circulation on the thirtieth day of the winter month, still treading that critical line of speed for ordinary talent to complete his breakthrough. Zhao Yan was not far behind—he had even broken through a few days before Ling Chuan, overtaking him.
It was Jiang Chen who had kept polishing his Dao arts and consolidating his foundation, spending a great deal of Dao essence, so that his pace of breakthrough had slowed. On the fifteenth of the twelfth lunar month, the day of the Blessed Land challenge, his ranking on the Blessed Land list had fallen to twenty-seventh, Donggongshan. Its monthly yield was only 1,450 points of merit now. Together with what he had left over before, he held a total of just 4,120 points.
This only sharpened Jiang Chen's sense of urgency, but he did not rush his breakthrough. That crossing from the Cycle realm to the Heaven-Piercing realm was the advance from the minor Zhou heavenly to the great Zhou heavenly, and it determined when one opened the Gate of Heaven and Earth, and the very height and thickness of that gate. It had to be steady, steadier than steady. This was what Dean Dong had urged again and again.
Yet in the world of the tangible, this small team of three Cycle realm cultivators had surged up the merit ranking list of the City Dao Academy, toppling not a few senior brothers of years past. For next year's Three-City Trial, Jiang Chen had already sealed the top seat of the third-year students. And by year's end, sitting directly for the County Academy was not out of the question.
There was also Du Hu in the Nine River Black Armor. All of the brothers faced futures of limitless brilliance. The shadow cast by the Bone Path had faded under Dean Dong's bearing of it, and Jiang Chen now held nothing but fine imaginings of days to come.
Today their small team happened to be executing a new task nearby, and upon seeing the distress signal they had rushed over at once. Yet after searching long, they had found nothing at all.
...
"Did you meet the Dao Academy students who sent the signal?" asked Wei Feng.
Ling Chuan answered: "We were nearby. The moment we saw the signal, we came over at once. But there was not a trace of anyone—not even the marks of a battle."
All present understood what this meant. That squad of Academy students must have met an opponent they could not resist, one so overwhelming that they could not even leave the traces of a fight. Then why... how had they still found a chance to send their distress signal?
The thought sent a chill through everyone's bones.
"We need to get back to the city at once and report this," said Zhao Yan.
The abandoned Xiaolin Town lay not far off, its broken walls and ruined tiles seeming to speak of the past. Of what they had suffered here, and what they had left behind. What they had suffered were the most bitter memories, of course; what they had left behind was only shame.
The grove of moon cypress outside the town, however, had grown very well—for no one any longer dared to come and steal timber here.
"Let's go," said Wei Feng, turning.
"Should we not look a little longer?" Ling Chuan could not quite bear it.
It had been Zhao Yan who advised returning to the city earlier, and only at Ling Chuan's repeated request had the three brothers searched the vicinity a while—which was also how they had come upon Wei Feng and the others. Zhao Yan tugged at him: "Let's be off. This is a case of certain ill fortune! Report it to the Justice Enforcement Bureau when we get back. Tracking traces should be left to the professionals."
Ling Chuan had no choice but to concede.
Because Shen Nanqi had lost the power to fight, the party took turns carrying him along, and their pace was not quick.
They walked out onto the official road. A little farther on, Maple Forest City would come into view. Wei Feng stopped abruptly in his tracks: "Go on ahead. Take Shen Nanqi back with you."
"And you, General Wei?" asked Ling Chuan.
Zhao Yan flung an arm around him: "Hurry on, Eldest Brother. Stop fussing over other people's business!"
Jiang Chen had not spoken all this while, because the moment they left Xiaolin Town his mind had sunk into a sudden, inexplicable unease. He could not say where the unease came from, and so he simply shielded Shen Nanqi and kept walking.
Shen Nanqi at this moment was a walking corpse, caring not who he followed or where they went.
But Jiang Chen's keen senses felt something here—a breath, razor-sharp, slowly spreading within Shen Nanqi's body. The brothers looked at one another and understood at once: after the blow of today, Shen Nanqi was about to force open the Gate of Heaven and Earth!
...
It was only when Jiang Chen and his party had gone far that Wei Feng spun around abruptly and charged toward Xiaolin Town.
The Fast Snow Blade held aloft, the metal-element qi of heaven rushed toward him in a frenzy. His form was sharp beyond compare, as though he had split the wind and advanced through the gaps between the gusts. The distance that had taken so long to cover was now crossed in a howling instant.
But the place was quiet still, as though nothing were there.
It was a waste of ruins where not even souls existed, because the souls of this place had all become the offering to the phantom image of the Ghost Gate.
Wei Feng walked among the broken walls, clutching the Fast Snow Blade. Tea sheds, taverns, one-wheeled carts...
His strides now quick, now slow, he circled nearly the whole of Xiaolin Town and found no trace of anything. Nor did any attack come.
At last he stopped, standing at the center of Xiaolin Town, on that bare flat stretch of ground—the very place where the phantom image of the Ghost Gate had once gathered.
"Come out! You will wait for nothing here!" Wei Feng suddenly shouted.
As though a breeze had passed, a figure appeared before him in black brocade. Beneath hair bound tight, Wei Lin's face, grave and weighty, looked out at him.
"So it was you following all along!" Wei Feng sneered. "Making a bait of me? That is just the sort of thing you would do. A pity your scheme was seen through!"
"That only proves you are a failure—not worth their risk!"
Wei Lin seemed to hold him in contempt, and after tossing out this single hard sentence, wrapped himself in a whirlwind and was gone. He seemed never to expect an answer, only to make known his will.
"And are you not a failure too?" Wei Feng ground his teeth, gripping the Fast Snow Blade. "My... father?"
...
Back in Maple Forest City, Shen Nanqi was delivered to his lodging. The three brothers went to the Merit Hall to check off their task, divided their merit, and prepared to go their separate ways.
"Third Brother, are you all right?" asked Zhao Yan.
"I am fine." Jiang Chen forced the words out. "Perhaps it is only that I have learned many senior and junior fellow students died today, and it leaves me uneasy."
"Rest well when you get back." Ling Chuan patted his shoulder. There was little else by way of comfort to offer him. On the path of cultivation they would endure much more.
Emerging from the gate of the Merit Hall, Ling Chuan would stay in the Academy dormitories, Zhao Yan left through the Academy's front gate for home, and Jiang Chen returned to Flying Horse Lane by way of the back gate. The three brothers parted there.
Jiang Chen walked on alone, and when he reached the back gate his steps suddenly faltered.
For a moment his mind had wandered. The ruins of Xiaolin Town seemed to rise before his eyes. And he saw, at the center of that town, a vast, pitch-black vortex!
He came to himself with a start, and before him was a fellow Academy student looking at him in concern.
"Nothing, nothing." Jiang Chen said it again and again.
He put one foot before the other and walked on—yet each step felt weighted as with a thousand jun.
Was it... a hallucination?