He Chuan’s voice, though low, cut through the sudden silence of the outer valley. “I accept.”
Zhao Feng’s cruel smile stretched, revealing a flash of white teeth beneath his pale, unmarred face. “Wise choice, scullion. The Obsidian Pits are no place for a pampered pet. Consider yourself lucky.” He turned, his opulent silk robes shimmering as he ascended back towards the inner peaks, his retinue of disciples scrambling to follow. The air lightened fractionally with his departure, but the invisible chains around He Chuan’s throat remained.
“Are you entirely mad?” Guci’s raspy voice erupted from the jade pendant, a faint flare of red spitting from its surface. “A death match? With that preening peacock? Have you utterly lost your mind, boy? Your conduits are a sieve, held together by spit and a prayer, and you think you can stand against an inner-court heir?”
He Chuan knelt, scooping up Baozi, who chirped a soft, worried sound, nuzzling his chin into He Chuan’s neck. The critter’s fur pressed soft against his cheek, a sharp contrast to the acid churning in his gut. “What choice did I have, old man? Let him take Baozi? Let him throw him into those wretched pits?”
“Better the beast than your worthless hide, you idiot!” Guci retorted, though the rasp lost its edge. “At least the little scamp has some sense of self-preservation. You, however, possess the strategic acumen of a particularly dense stone slug.”
“Then enlighten me, relic,” He Chuan said, lifting his chin with cold poise. “You boasted of myriad forgotten arts. Do any of them include a path to mend broken channels and put an arrogant pup in the dirt without me becoming red paste?”
Guci scoffed. “A cure? Boy, even if I still possessed my full might, restoring those wretched conduits of yours would be a monumental task. But… to patch them enough for a fight? To give you a sliver of a chance against that strutting rooster? It requires something rare. Something exceedingly rare, and entirely out of reach for a pauper like yourself.”
“Name it,” He Chuan commanded, his gaze sweeping over the desolate outer valley, then towards the imposing, mist-shrouded peaks of the inner sect. “I will get it.”
“Stubborn fool,” Guci muttered, raspy as grinding stone. “We need what this backwater era calls ‘Meridian-Stitching Stalks.’ Not just any weeds, mind you. The genuine stalks take root only where raw natural currents pool, deep inside the forbidden sub-peaks. Specifically, the Whispering Veins beneath the Azurewood Summit.”
Trespassing beneath the Azurewood Summit carried the penalty of having one's limbs broken before expulsion. He Chuan ran a thumb over Baozi’s rounded ear. “How do we get in?”
Baozi gave a sharp, inquisitive chirp. Wiggling free from He Chuan’s grip, he scurried toward a tangle of Briar-Root brambles at the cliff base. With a furious blur of stubby claws, he dug beneath the roots and vanished, showering dirt behind him.
Guci hummed from the jade. “Well, I’ll be. A burrower of surprising utility. Perhaps not entirely useless after all. Hurry, boy. These old fractures can collapse without warning.”
He Chuan followed, pushing aside the thorny vines to reveal a dark, narrow opening in the rock face, barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. He dropped to his hands and knees, Baozi’s excited chitters echoing ahead of him, leading the way. The air grew damp, thick with the scent of damp earth and unknown minerals. It was a tight, winding passage sloping downward, faintly lit by patches of pale fungus clinging to the rock. He Chuan tore skin from his shoulder on a jagged spur, biting back a curse.
The rock gave way, spilling them into a towering hollow. Stalactites hung like rows of fangs above a turquoise pool. The air tasted of ozone and cedar, thick with ambient spirit power He Chuan had not tasted since his channels tore apart. Gnarled timber roots, broad as ox carts, snaked over the floor between seams of jade ore.
“The Whispering Veins,” Guci muttered, tone hushed. “Remarkable. The stalks should nestle among the bark. Look for pale, serpent-curled fronds.”
He Chuan stepped across the stone floor until muffled voices drifted from behind a curtain of hanging moss. He dropped low, pulling Baozi beneath his arm against a slick granite slab.
“…the arrangement stands, Elder Shen,” came Zhao Feng’s crisp cadence, distinct behind the moss. “The matches must be fixed. Lin Feng and those outer dogs gather too much backing. Blazefire Peak cannot cede the spirit water from the Serpent’s Heart Geyser while our Grand Elder’s core weakens.”
A raspy, oil-slick voice answered. “Quiet yourself, junior. My oversight guarantees the preliminary brackets serve our hall. Any ‘accidents’ among the troublesome contenders will be handled cleanly. The geyser’s output belongs to Blazefire, not the gutter trash.”
He Chuan pressed his nails into his palms. The biannual matches were bought; the spirit spring, meant for any cultivator capable of seizing victory, was being funnelled straight to the peak elite. His lips pulled back over his teeth in silent contempt.
The ground shuddered. A gravelly rumble rolled through the granite underfoot. Twin amber orbs, round as iron shields, flared in the recesses of the chamber. A snout rimmed with serrated quartz slid past a wall of ore. A mountain serpent—thick as an ancestral pillar, clad in jet-black scales—uncoiled into the cavern light, fixing its slit pupils on the intruders.
Zhao Feng and his elder companion stumbled back through the moss drape, retreating toward an upper ledge with bared steel. The serpent hissed, air rattling every loose pebble in the chamber.
He Chuan flattened himself into the dirt. His solitary ember of the Ashen Spark would scarcely singe a single scale. Guci hissed from the pendant, “Retreat, idiot! That monstrosity stands at the seventh echelon!”
But Baozi, instead of fleeing, launched himself forward with a high-pitched squeak. In his tiny paws, he clutched a perfectly steamed, fluffy white bun, retrieved from He Chuan’s stolen rations. He trotted directly toward the monster's flared nostrils, thrusting the bun upward in both paws.
The serpent checked its lunge. Its vast snout tilted downward, yellow slits narrowing at the tiny bundle of fur. The venomous hiss ceased. It sniffed once, blowing Baozi's whiskers flat, then delicately pinched the bun between its fangs. A low vibration rumbled through its scaly throat as its coils relaxed against the dirt, lids sliding shut.
He Chuan stared, dumbfounded. Zhao Feng and Elder Shenyu were equally bewildered, frozen in their retreat. Baozi, pleased with his success, scampered back to He Chuan, chittering proudly.
“Absurd,” Guci choked, the jade flickering erratically. “A seventh-rank guardian pacified by cold flour? That ball of grease makes a mockery of all creation!”
Leaving Zhao Feng and the elder paralyzed on their ledge, He Chuan crawled among the timber, Baozi snuffling beside him. “Where is it, old man?”
“There!” Guci barked, the stone brightening. “Under the timber elbow. Look at the silver ribbing—the curled tips!”
He Chuan pried three pale stems from the bark. As his skin touched them, the pendant against his chest pulsed with heat, rattling against his collarbone. Guci’s spirit voice turned sharp: “The seal… it resonates. That insolent girl… your mother stood here. Not long ago.”
He Chuan parted a drape of silver lichen from the adjacent wall. Chiseled straight into the rock face were two vertical lines, strokes slashed with a heavy blade—his mother’s unmistakable, aggressive calligraphy. He Chuan read the carving beneath his breath: “The heavens are blind. I go to steal the lightning.”