Across those seven hundred days and nights, what kind of effort could turn a man who had once fled without a fight into the strong one who now swept every beast to ruin?
No outsider could ever know.
Jiang Chen and the others merely followed his footsteps, almost without thinking, climbing up, and up.
At last they stood on the summit of the Upright Brush Peak.
The mountain top was empty and bare. Only a lone grave stood there.
The grave was small, and shabby. Before it rose a single tombstone.
Jiang Chen walked over to look closely, and saw the words carved upon it:
*Sun Heng suppressed the Upright Brush Peak here.*
The writing was delicate and graceful, yet cut remarkably deep into the stone. It took real skill to carve so.
"Sun Heng was the lord of Three Mountain City two years ago. The one who raised this stone was his wife."
Li Yun said, "The rampage of the beasts is a problem Three Mountain City has had to face ever since it was founded.
"After Sun Heng took office as lord, he worked diligently and nurtured talents with real effort. Finally, two years ago, he raised a force and launched a campaign to wipe out the beasts.
"The first target he chose was the Upright Brush Peak.
"Even having overestimated it as much as possible, no one could have imagined, before the campaign truly began, that a single mountain could hold so many beasts — tens of thousands, at the very least!
"Where did their food come from? These beasts alone could have devoured the entire domain of Three Mountain City without leaving a scrap.
"When they went wild all together, no defensive line could hold against them.
"I ran back then. But I heard that only Sun Heng stood at the front line, not retreating a single step. And not only did he not retreat — he advanced."
Li Yun went on: "He went alone, killing his way from the foot of the mountain to its peak. Right here, on the very ground beneath our feet, he personally slew the leader of that wave — the Yin-Yang Twin-Headed Eagle. When the eagle's shriek that had lasted a full month fell silent at last, everyone knew what had happened, and everyone launched a frantic counterattack.
"The Upright Brush Peak was wiped clean, but Sun Heng also died of exhaustion. It is said that, dying, though he was a strong cultivator of the Inner Palace realm, all five palaces drained dry, his entire Celestial Palace collapsed from within."
How magnificent! Even never having seen the man, only hearing his name, one could not help but feel a surge rising in the chest.
Jiang Chen could not help but think that only a man like this could have given life to a daughter like Sun Xiaoman.
The party stood on the peak, gazing all around, and everywhere lay empty vastness.
The peace of this moment had been poured out in countless drops of blood.
To cultivate, to cultivate — was what one cultivated truly only oneself?
Was there no duty to one's homeland? No burden to bear for the weak?
Sun Heng, the late lord of Three Mountain City, had written an answer in his own name.
The few of them bowed several times before the lone grave, then turned and made their way down the mountain.
On the way down, a thought came to Jiang Chen, and he asked: "Senior Brother Li, back at the Three-City Trial, was it because of Lord Sun that you went easy on Sun Xiaoyan?"
Li Yun asked in return: "Do you know of the Kun Drum?"
"I know only a name, and only from the words of an elder."
"The Kun Drum is a permanently fixed defensive art. Its principle is that the caster, while fully conscious, peels off his own skin, inscribes Dao runes upon it, and then covers the subject with it. It is precisely because the conditions of its use are so harsh that the Kun Drum's defense is so astonishing."
Huang Azhan was shocked speechless: "So what's on that little fatty—?"
"It was the skin of the late Lord Sun." Li Yun sighed. "As lord or as father, he gave everything."
"To defeat Sun Xiaoyan, one must either do it in the arena setting, knocking him out of the ring as Wang Yichui once did, or pour in every ounce of strength to break the Kun Drum. I did not dare try."
Jiang Chen knew well that what Li Yun meant by "did not dare" was no fear of defeat, but rather the fear that, should the Kun Drum truly be broken, he, going all out, would have no way to hold back. That was the outcome he dared not face.
"Senior Brother is a man of high honor."
Li Yun shook his head. "Come to think of it, this life of mine was saved by Lord Sun himself. Now that the hero is gone, how could I have the face to wound his son."
When the party reached halfway down the mountain, Jiang Chen suddenly stopped, walked to that great boulder, and condensed a blade of flame. In bold sweeping strokes, he wrote a line after the words Li Yun had carved there.
Huang Azhan and Zhao Yan did the same after him.
And so, on the stone, beneath the line that read "Li Yun, the dog who lost," a fresh row was started, reading:
*The junior scholar Jiang Chen comes to pay respects to a senior's mighty bearing.*
*The junior scholar Huang Azhan comes to pay respects to a senior's mighty bearing.*
*Zhao Yan, same as above.*
Surely the Wu Shan who so loved to display himself before crowds, had he seen this, would have laughed without restraint?
After all, trapped in such desperate straits, the last thing Wu Shan had thought of was to carve words boasting of himself. A way of thinking unlike any ordinary man.
Down at the foot of the mountain, as if holding it in as long as he could, Li Yun turned a strange gaze on Zhao Yan: "Junior Brother Zhao, have you ever been beaten for being lazy?"
Jiang Chen laughed loudly, hooked an arm around Zhao Yan's shoulder, and said to Li Yun: "That question you should ask my Brother Hu. He'd have plenty to talk with you about!"
"Get off, get off!" Zhao Yan shoved Jiang Chen away.
"What do we do now?" Huang Azhan asked. "The task we set before we left is done, and Senior Brother Li's wish has been fulfilled. Should we claim the bounty and return straight to Maple City?"
Li Yun pressed a hand to the sword at his waist and said gravely: "I won't hide it from you, brothers. I mean to go to Jade Balance Peak. The fighting there is fierce, in any case. You can head back first."
Jiang Chen answered without hesitation: "I speak only for myself. Since I came with Senior Brother, I'll go with Senior Brother too."
Zhao Yan rolled his eyes: "You're all heading to the battlefield — how could I slip away?"
"Ahh." Huang Azhan shook his head with sighs upon sighs: "I knew we couldn't stick with you youngsters. Far too impulsive! If I don't go, I'll never have the face to drink with Du the Tiger again."
Zhao Yan cast him an unusually long glance, inwardly a little surprised.
Young Master Zhao, for all he usually seemed muddled and aimless, actually had a very high opinion of himself; ordinary folk could not earn his regard. As for Huang Azhan, he had never really thought much of him, and only toyed with him for amusement. At most, out of regard for Du Hu, he let him take a few petty advantages.
Today, at last, he understood why Du Hu was willing to make a drinking companion of this fellow.
At this very moment, on Jade Balance Peak, a second large-scale campaign of extermination was underway.
Sun Heng's grave still stood there, and Wu Shan's carving had not been forgotten. Everyone knew how dangerous Jade Balance Peak was. A complete wipeout was not beyond possibility.
That Li Yun, whether to atone for his guilt or to prove something, chose Jade Balance Peak came as no surprise. As for that fellow Jiang Chen, he took it for a fit of white-hot impulse. Only, since Jiang Chen was going, unwilling as he was, he had no way not to go.
Only Huang Azhan's choice was what he had not expected. Nor did it fit at all with his usual cringing flattery and sly shirking of work.
"Good!" Li Yun was deeply pleased. After two years of solitary wandering, he seemed to have found again the joy of calling friends to his side.
A toast to a friend — ride ten thousand li to settle old scores of grace and grudge.
"Let's go to Jade Balance Peak!"