Mu Jiaofan stepped down from the sky, and the shamans and tribesmen below dropped at once to their knees, calling out in reverence:
"Great Marshal."
Mu Jiaofan paid the men about him no heed, and looked at her tilted to one side for a long while. He looked until Li Jingtian lowered her eyes a shade; only then did he notice that his left eyelid was twitching.
He had trod the Qi Refining realm for a dozen years. His skin and bones were utterly settled, turning with ease through all things; he had never made a motion he did not will, let alone fallen into such a state of being unable to look away, breath drawing uneasy.
"She..."
Mu Jiaofan forced a single word out, rough and halting, and the shamans and tribesmen around him nodded one after another, smiling with fawning flattery, saying over and over:
"We understand, we understand, Great Marshal!"
Mu Jiaofan had mixed among the tribe long enough to know well what these men meant. He looked at Li Jingtian, who had raised her head in indignation, and hurried to explain himself; the words reached his lips and, by some strange compulsion, went back down his throat.
The tribesmen below carried Li Jingtian off at once, and Mu Jiaofan turned his head with a cold, cruel face, and rose into the air before the eyes of all.
Stepping light through the air as he withdrew, Mu Jiaofan was seized by a wild urge to dance. He mastered himself this time, and kept his feet moving until he came to his tent.
Naturally Li Jingtian was led into the stockade. Her bonds were loosened, the mud washed from her face, and they took the fruit-leaf pigments the Mountain Yue commonly used to paint all manner of colored patterns on her neck and face.
She was then dressed in a suit of Mountain Yue apparel, hung with all manner of birds' feathers, beasts' fangs, and here and there brought out bits of jade. The whole ensemble was wild to the last degree, and when matched with her spirited, fair-featured face, it gained an unexpected air of majesty; the few old attendants who dressed her were struck still, and handled her with far lighter touch than before.
By the time the fussy steps were done, the sky had darkened. Li Jingtian was led into a war tent where a dim yellow lamp burned, and no sooner had she neared the curtain than she heard a rough man's voice:
"The Great King gave his orders and rode off west, saying he must guard against some disturbance on the shoals, and bid the Great Marshal put the rear in order, and drive these living slaves on ahead toward the Da Jue Court; and he bade your servant take a thousand troops to chase after that war-host of living men..."
"And how did it turn out?"
The voice was heavy and hoarse, and Li Jingtian knew it for the long-braided Great Marshal of the Mountain Yue from the daylight.
"...Your servant gave chase, but the man took his troops and plunged straight into the depths of Greater Li Mountain without a backward glance. Fearing to disturb the great demon-beasts of the mountain, your servant drew back with the army..."
Mu Jiaofan frowned, squeezing the bone cup in his hand, and spoke in puzzlement:
"You led men after him in person, and still let the man slip away? I thought the man had but Embryonic Breathing cultivation."
The Mountain Yue tribesman kneeling on the ground hurriedly raised his head, and was just about to speak when Li Jingtian, standing outside the tent, was pushed in through the opening. The beast bone and jade upon her clashed and gave out a pleasant tinkling.
The man looked round, wary, and in the same instant both he and Mu Jiaofan at the head of the tent were struck dumb, gaping.
The Mountain Yue dwelt always in the mountains, and the Mountain Yue women they saw were fierce as wolves and leopards, all hair and mud, heads of wild tangled locks. Where had they ever seen a woman of bright eyes and white teeth, with clear pools for eyes? Both men stood slack-jawed, thinking blankly:
"Damnation — no wonder the old folk have told down the generations that the women of the living people are beautiful!"
Li Jingtian, for her part, looked quietly back at the two until their gazes both shied away. The dagger hidden on her had been confiscated during her washing, and outside the tent she had caught word of her father in fragments; her heart was wringing with worry when she was pushed in here. Two more men, then, making no difference.
"Gulp."
The tribesman on the ground swallowed, and the sound woke Mu Jiaofan out of his daze. He glared at the man in annoyance, coughed hard, and would have ordered Li Jingtian to withdraw, but the words that reached his lips came out as:
"You may stand aside."
Seeing Li Jingtian turn and leave the tent, the tribesman at last answered with tongue-tied amazement:
"I... I, dam—, I—"
Calming himself and sorting out his tongue, the tribesman forced himself to speak out, under Mu Jiaofan's furious gaze:
"That man seemed blessed by the gods themselves. Every trap our men laid he slipped past, one and all, and moreover lured out a demon-beast, and that beast paid the few hundred of us no heed, and set on our men alone..."
"Enough! Get out!"
Mu Jiaofan had no mind to hear his excuses, and waved a hand to chase him off. Seeing the man linger at the tent's mouth as he went, unwilling to leave, he gave a cold huff, and the full pressure of his fourth layer of Qi Refining flooded out, sending the man fleeing in terror.
Watching Li Jingtian being pushed in by the shamans outside, Mu Jiaofan scrambled to his feet, then sat down again, dazed, his heart fluttering with the same dread he had known at seven years old when they tested whether he had a shaman's vein. Looking up at Li Jingtian, he spoke hesitantly:
"You..."
Li Jingtian, far from afraid, turned a calm gaze flat on the great bulk of Mu Jiaofan above, and said through her teeth:
"If you lay so much as a finger on me, I will dash my head against the wall of this tent."
Having said it, her heart lightened a little. She thought to herself:
"Once I am dead, Xuanling need think no more of me; he will escape alone all the easier..."
Mu Jiaofan hurriedly waved his hands, and spoke in a voice full of good will:
"What is your name?"
Li Jingtian grew wary at once, her fair brows knitting together, and she answered softly:
"Ye Tian."
Her true name she could not give, naturally; she had to make up one on the spot to put in its place. Li Jingtian looked at the seemingly expressionless Mu Jiaofan before her, curious in her heart:
"Why is this Mountain Yue chief breathing so hard..."
Mu Jiaofan, for his part, looked at Li Jingtian's knitting brows, and in the mind that had served Ganixo with unswerving loyalty for thirty-six years, a complex and mad scheme stirred — one that filled him with fright and dread, and would not let him be still.
"She must not, absolutely must not, let Ganixo set eyes on this woman."
---
"Young Patriarch! The Mountain Yue have withdrawn, every one of them!"
Li Xuanxuan had been staring anxiously at Lijing Mountain when the clan soldier below called out loudly. He was overjoyed, raised his head to look at the men around him, who were watching him with entreating eyes, and jolted back to himself in a shock.
"Second Uncle has already gone west to seek Uncle's trail. The whole house can look only to me now. This is a moment of crisis. Li Xuanxuan — you must not be careless!"
He clenched his fist, and found the situation worse than he had judged. Li Qiuyang and Chen Donghe had both gone with the army into Mountain Yue territory at Li Xiangping's side, and of those left in the house, apart from a few children who had only set foot on the path of cultivation in these past years, there were only his aunt, Liu Rouxuan, at the fourth layer of Embryonic Breathing, and Li Xuanfeng.
"Send men out at once to Lichuan Gap and Lijing Town to soothe the people, and tally up the dead, the wounded, and the losses."
Liu Rouxuan was past thirty now, but having cultivated the immortal way she still looked to be in her twenties. She had been watching anxiously toward the west, and at these words she nodded:
"Lichuan Gap I will take."
"Tianchou."
Wan Tianchou heard his name and stepped forward at once, listening as Li Xuanxuan gave the order:
"You have garrisoned Lichuan Gap for years and know its ways. You will accompany my aunt on this errand."
Watching Wan Tianchou nod and withdraw, Li Xuanxuan let out a breath and said in a heavy voice:
"As for Lijing Town — I will go myself."