The Big Dipper holds seven stars, and Jade Balance ranks fifth among them. It is said that this Jade Balance Peak of Three Mountain City corresponds to the Jade Balance star among the Dipper's seven, and that when the heavenly sign arrives, an unthinkable change may take place — though this was only a legend, never confirmed.
What the city's cultivators could confirm was that this peak had long been a source of the beast plague — endless streams of beasts pouring down its slopes, ruining roads and grain fields, devouring men and cattle. And now, at last, the time had come to settle everything.
Before Sun Heng, no one had dared think such a thing. But once the Upright Brush Peak was swept clean, Jade Balance Peak naturally became the second target. For this day, Three Mountain City had been gathering strength for two years — replacing the fallen, nurturing the young, stockpiling weapons and salves. Two years was the limit; but for the trouble stirred by the Heart-Devouring Demon the preparations would have been more complete. Yet neither could the city go on hoarding, trapped in a vicious cycle. Time was not on its side.
So even though Zhuang Ting would grant no approval and allocate no resources, the current lord, Dou Yuemei, still emptied the city treasury and launched the second campaign. Many outside reinforcements rallied to her side — cultivators of the neighboring domains, even experts from beyond the borders, among them a woman veiled in thin white gauze, said to be a master of some mysterious sect from the State of Yun, who alone held an entire line of defense.
The greatest natural barrier of Jade Balance Peak was not its perilous cliffs, but the swarm of Killer Rock Bees dwelling at its foot. Small of form, numberless of count, they could never be wiped out to the last, and their attacks penetrated almost any defense. Three Mountain City had tried large-scale arts, but the wasps were so sensitive to any ripple of Dao essence that they would have flown away before an art took form — and destroying a few only ignited their frenzy. It was precisely for this reason that Sun Heng had not chosen Jade Balance Peak two years ago. And when Dou Yuemei chose it over Flying Over Peak, she could hardly have been unprepared.
The city's cultivator forces opened a gap in their ranks, and Sun Xiaoyan was pushed out, his face a mask of misery.
"Mother!" he wailed. "Do you really mean to send your son to his death?"Dou Yuemei, holding Sun Xiaoman's hand, smiled at him: "I'm holding your sister here for you. When you come back triumphant, I'll make her apologize to you properly! Be good, don't be afraid. You won't die — your father is protecting you!"
My father's been dead a long time.
At the thought, Sun Xiaoyan grew more terrified still, his tears nearly bursting their banks over his round face. Yet beneath his mother's gaze, he dared not refuse to move. Ever since Sun Heng died in battle, everyone knew how doting Dou Yuemei had grown on this son, indulging almost every whim. But Sun Xiaoyan knew well: whatever she had truly set her mind to, he could not change. Just as that last time, when he went to Maple City for the Three-City Trial knowing he would be beaten on the road — since she had tacitly allowed it, he could only set out with his sister, swallowing his tears.
Beneath the curious or amused gaze of the crowd, he shuffled forward half a step at a time, his meatball of a body inching along. It was in exactly these circumstances that Jiang Chen and the others arrived before Jade Balance Peak. They encountered quite a few familiar faces, for Maple City's domain being nearest, Li Yun's was not the only group to come.
Jiang Chen even caught sight of Fang Lin. They had not met in some time, and somehow the man had grown much thinner, yet carried a new, grim ruthlessness — by one channel or another he had joined the team of Shen Nanqi, fifth on the Maple City Dao Merit List.
Zhao Yan, seeing him, said quietly with a smile: "The Fang family is everywhere gathering evidence these days, bent on accusing you of deliberately steering Xiong Wen onto the Fang clan's land and causing deaths beyond counting."
Of course this was all jest. Xiong Wen had slipped into Maple City through Zhu Weiwo's pursuit; if any man had to answer for the slaughter, only Zhu Weiwo was qualified. Did the Fang family dare trouble him? The answer was obvious, though small troubles were unavoidable.
Jiang Chen had by now received the artifact sword Three Mountain City had promised. A Golden Light Arrow was carved into the blade — not the most ideal configuration, but the sheer firmness of the sword made him adore it and loath to set it down. Turning it over in his hands, he only shrugged: "Otherwise, why do you think I came out here to lie low? I just didn't expect I couldn't dodge it even this way."
...
But as for Sun Xiaoyan, shuffling half a step at a time, he finally exhausted Dou Yuemei's patience. "Little Fatty, don't dawdle."
Sun Xiaoyan sagged his brows, understanding at last that the matter could not be changed. He steeled his heart, shut his eyes, and charged headlong toward the largest cave, raising a Stone-Clad Fist and smashing it into the ground!
Buzz, buzz, buzz...
Killer Rock Bees did not sting dead things and never carelessly loosed their stingers at creatures that posed no threat — so the bait could only be a cultivator. Yet aside from Sun Xiaoyan, wrapped in the Kun Drum, who could withstand a single volley? That was the skin flayed alive from Sun Heng's own body, a strong cultivator of the Inner Palace realm, inscribed with formation patterns; through the Kun Drum art, its defense surpassed even Sun Heng's own.
Densely packed stingers rained to the ground, and with them swathes upon swathes of Killer Rock Bees. In that moment the stingers fell like rain, and Sun Xiaoyan's fat frame stood before the downpour. The Kun Drum held!But he wailed aloud: "It hurts! It hurts! I can't take it anymore!" He turned and ran back, fleeing toward safety — only to be barked to a stop by Dou Yuemei: "Sun Xiaoyan, you don't move!"
Drenched in tears, he still stopped out of instinct, sobbing: "Mother! It really hurts! I can't bear it, let me go back!"
"You don't move!"
The well-prepared cultivators of Three Mountain City used one art or another — shaking the earth, whipping up the wind — to drag the fallen wasps close and kill them together. This was the plan: use the lord's own son as bait to draw the wasps' attack. After loosing their stingers, the wasps entered a spell of weakness, which was why they kept tumbling down. Their target stood right before them, wailing and making noise — how could they abide that? So came another volley.
Sun Xiaoyan wept without end, his fat trembling in ripple after ripple, yet his feet stayed planted firm — he was, in truth, a child who minded his mother. Dou Yuemei, forcing back the glint of tears, issued command after command in a calm voice.
Sun Xiaoman usually loved to bully her little brother, but she could not bear to see him suffer. She stirred to charge out, only to be yanked back by Dou Yuemei.
"Mother! How much must Little Fatty hurt?" she cried.
"You think that's why your father didn't give you the Kun Drum — because he loved you more?" Dou Yuemei reined in her churning emotions in an instant. "This was your dead-beat father's plan. Before he died, he had already worked out how to deal with the Killer Rock Bees."
Sun Xiaoman abruptly froze. Bean-sized tears could hold back no longer, and came pattering down.
It was not that she had never resented her father's bias. He had said again and again that he loved her most, yet before dying he had chosen to wrap her little brother in a permanently fixed defense. She had thought: for her father to tear the very skin off his own body for that brother — how partial he must have been. But she had never imagined that she was the child her father was truly partial to. This was his last tenderness toward her — he could not bear to see his daughter suffer.
No one in Three Mountain City was willing to come here, so he came alone. The folk under his rule were derisively called mountain brutes, so Sun Heng had gone by the name of Sun the Brute ever since. For a man like this to name his daughter Xiaoman — "Little Wild" — what hope was he entrusting to her?