Qin Ming stood silent and unmoving, yet within him time-worn fragments began to surface. Shrouded at first in dust and black mist, they split the darkness in an instant, casting before him one bleeding image after another.
A fathomless night, flames leaping high. A feathered-robed youth, graceful as an immortal, his feet upon corpses and blood.
Qin Ming pressed a hand to his head, trembling. Those "feathered robes" had carved themselves deep into his subconscious; now they seared him, waking buried memories. He closed his eyes, reined in his emotions, then slowly opened them again. This was no place to seem out of the ordinary; by "Blending With Dust" he dimmed his aura and melted into the crowd. He stood straight as if nothing had happened, yet inside him shattered scenes rose one after another.
He wrenched free of that cage of emotion and examined the past coolly, like a bystander watching the scenes of blood once visited upon him.
Night fell; great flames swept the sky as the whole mountain forest burned. At the mountain's foot the village burned too — houses collapsing, bodies in the streets, blood pooling in the alleys. In the searing heat, amid the ruin, a youth stood with hair flying, feathered robe fluttering like an immortal, every line of his eyes and brow seeming to glow. A faint light flowed over him; white shoes and socks unsullied.
Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming lay sprawled on the ground, nose and mouth full of choking soot. Screams rang in his ears; everywhere was nothing but merciless fire. He saw many familiar faces dead. The whole village had sunk into a sea of flame.
The feathered youth held a bamboo staff glimmering purple. Stepping across the rubble, he came before Qin Ming. His bearing was extraordinary, starlight seeming to swim in his eyes — but his movements were utterly cold. He swung the staff, and one blow fell on Qin Ming's head. Blood flowed at once; the world spun, and even the night sky seemed ablaze. Qin Ming's clothes were already torn, and he had been wounded before; another blow left him choking on the smoke, unable to rise. Then the youth's slender hand swung the staff again and again, all blows landing with the crack of shattering bone.
"I thought I'd only taken a grave wound to the head," Qin Ming murmured to himself. "I never expected my forgotten memories held scenes like these." Yet still he watched, keeping his composure, as though witnessing another man's past. Figures moved through the village, finishing off the wounded; only the feathered youth stood still, working his purple staff against Qin Ming alone.
"Plainly he could have shattered my skull with one blow, yet he didn't. What hatred does he bear me, to force me to keep tasting that agony?" He fixed the youth's face in memory — handsome, fair as jade, yet plainly cruel in the firelight.
"His blows broke my arm; he cracked my ribs with that staff. How long was I unconscious?" The youth struck Qin Ming twice more on the head. Qin Ming distinctly heard bones crack; blood flew, some spattering his neck, some sliding down his cheeks.
Two boys, the same age — one fair and jade-bright, the other burned, ragged, his face awash in blood, prostrate in the dust. The contrast could not have been starker.
At last, Qin Ming's mind began to scatter. Through dim vision he saw two figures burst from the ruins, drive back the feathered youth, snatch him up, and race into the darkness. Along the way he glimpsed a colossal city spanning the earth, radiant beyond compare.
"Falling Moon City City — best to steer clear of it." They made a long detour and hurried away. In a blur he heard a sigh: "Three cracks in his skull, the scalp beaten to pulp. Severe — he may not survive. The arm and chest..." Then he sank into darkness.
Now he savored that boundless darkness, not moving at all. "Someone bore me away to this remote fringe. The head was struck in three places, nearly shattered. No wonder I forgot so much." He realized he must have lain unconscious for more than three months, for by the time he awakened, the fractures in his arm and chest had healed. Had he not seen another in feathered robes today, he would never have recalled any of this.
He felt a tightness in his chest, but no anger. What was done, was done; what good would grief or fury do him? He needed to find that feathered youth one day, and deal with him.
"Feathered robes, soaring like an immortal — no ordinary origin. That sea of flame had plenty of experts moving through it. This likely involves some very powerful organization." Qin Ming sighed, then was calm again. He even reflected: one clean blow with the hammer, and a doomed opponent is done — no need for torture.
"Falling Moon City City!" He silently turned the name over in his mind.
Old Liu was stirred: "So strong. Who is this feathered-robed woman, that she stands unafraid of the Moon Bug?" She stood on the great azure bird's back, suspended in brilliant haze, profoundly mysterious.
An elder said: "They probably won't fight. Experts are usually kept as a deterrent." The moment he finished, the Moon Bug suddenly flared blinding light — a salvo of radiant arrows like thunderbolts streaking toward the feathered-robed woman. Many faces paled. Only the four beings seated in the snow stayed completely still.
The woman on the azure bird lifted a bare hand, drew down the wind and snow, and turned it into a dense rain; a curtain of rain hung across the night, blocking the Moon Bug's arrows. Amid ringing clashes, the arrows were repelled, revealing their true form — silvery-white insects, as if forged from gold-wrought metal, hard as iron, struggling to tear the curtain apart.
But the curtain turned crystal. Every raindrop stretched into a glowing filament that cut across the dark — and with a soft spattering, the dense swarm was sliced apart or run through. At last the silver flyers burst of their own accord, like dreams and bubbles, dissolving into nothing. Only two insects of pure light survived. They fell toward the mountain — then, boom, a snowslide thundered down, and all turned blank white. The watchers were shaken, none daring to judge aloud.
The Moon Bug hung high, like a bright moon over the forest. It made no further move. Nor did the woman on the azure bird; she drew back a short distance.
This had been a probe between the great powers. If one side proved too weak, the final negotiation would have become pointless.
Qin Ming looked toward the feathered-robed woman, doubting the coincidence. But he could not help asking Mu Qing: "Do those who wear feathered robes come from noble origins?" Mu Qing, shrouded in a black cloak, glanced at him: "Those beyond the mortal world are generally detached from the ordinary. As for her specific origins, I don't know either." Qin Ming nodded.
The atmosphere among the four seated in the snow eased — they even wore smiles. The probing clash had helped the negotiation along.
Ling Xu spoke: "We drive off the migrated aberrants. If any goods spring up at those special nodes, give us a share, nothing more. And the aberrants that pushed outward must retreat." The snow-white old weasel sat cross-legged, rolling beads: "Why should we share? Wouldn't it make more sense to ally with the newly migrated high-grade beings against you?"
"No need to probe each other. We want no more than the special goods those nodes might yield. But those migrated beings want that as well — and they are eyeing your home base. They say they merely pass through, lodging a few months as guests. Do you believe them?"
"Very well. We agree." "Mm. How refreshing!" Both sides rose. The deal was settled.
"That's it — done?" People watched the high-ranking rise, astonished. "Go back and wait. Be ready to enter the mountain at any moment," the mackerel cat, bearing the crimson longsword, told the crowd. Those from Redcloud City were elated.
Qin Ming noticed a crow had flown in nearby — conspicuous somehow. It settled on a slab of bluestone jutting from the snow. There, too, stood a woman draped in a wolf-fur cloak, dark hair streaming, glancing his way twice.
The crow spoke: "That boy's aura is even weaker than last time. He must be practicing an art to conceal his vitality. I said he wasn't simple. Won't you take another look at this one?" "The one I chose is like a blazing sun about to break out of the black clouds. But it's unwise to reveal him too soon, lest heaven grow envious. I already sent him away." She cast another glance in Qin Ming's direction. "Later I'll have someone test him, see if he can become one of the alternates."