The day after his investiture as Holy Son, Gu Chengming began taking part in the Hunyuan Sect's internal affairs.
The Dao Plague waited for no one.
It took a full two days. Working from the charts, he directed the assembled elders in patching three temporary wards deep in the spirit veins.
The scene had a certain tension to it. A Third Realm youth, newly made Holy Son, stood steady at the heart of the great formation, tapping his diagrams and calling out positions, while a crowd of Fourth and Fifth Realm luminaries of the sect squatted in the mud, grunting and puffing as they carved formation lines.
Fortunately, nobody complained.
Elders Feng and Zhao behaved like birds startled by a bowstring, desperate to prove themselves useful. Elder Qian had thought highly of him from the start and gave no less than his best.
The remaining elders took one look at the pair of them hunched and cowering like quails, mentally filled in "the tragic fate of anyone who offends the Holy Son," and set to work without a murmur of resentment.
With the three lines of defense complete, the Dao Plague's seepage was finally pressed back inside the safety margin. But this was no better than skimming a boiling pot to cool it. The Mutual-Reference Formation Array connected through to the Yunyue Sect; patching from the Hunyuan side alone treated the symptom and left the disease.
A trip to the Yunyue Sect was inevitable. Before he could set out, though, Gu Chengming ran into trouble that no walkthrough had prepared him for.
He crouched among the ruins for a long while, probing, and at last teased out a wisp of ash-black qi from beneath the rubble. It lay dormant deep in the spirit veins, and it was no offshoot of the Dao Plague — it was genuine, unadulterated cultivator's baleful qi.
At first Gu Chengming took it for coincidence. Then the behavior of the several inner-sect disciples hauling stone beside him made him realize the matter ran deeper.
"Last month, sparring with those sour scholars from Sword-Inquiry Valley — I had him dead to rights, and Senior Brother called it off!" The disciple grousing had a back like a tiger's and a waist like a bear's.
"Called it off, my ass. Break the guy and be done with it. Skinny arms, skinny legs, and sword cultivators still have the nerve to come whining," his companion snorted, face knotted with slabs of muscle.
A third chimed in, "Don't they all laugh at us body cultivators for being crude brutes out there? Fine. Let's give them an eyeful of crude."
The three of them talked themselves hotter and hotter, blood and qi churning around them — and that trace of ash-black baleful qi bled straight out of their bodies, crawled along the spirit veins to the edge of the freshly patched formation lines, and forced open two cracks.
Gu Chengming studied the cracks, brows drawing together. A suspicion took shape.
So the Dao Plague fed on baleful qi as well. Repairing the seal was nothing but whitewash over a rotting wall. Root out the baleful qi, and only then would he be pulling the firewood out from under the cauldron.
The conclusion wasn't hard to reach. But "suppress the baleful qi" was three easy words to say and a hundred times harder to do than mending seals.
The Hunyuan Sect had been founded on body refinement, and its disciples were fierce in everything they did.
Unfortunately, the cultivation world ran on a ladder of contempt. Sword cultivators were aloof, talisman cultivators refined, alchemists genteel — and body cultivators alone were saddled with the label of "crude thugs." Sword cultivators who lost called them meatheads. Alchemists found them an eyesore at Dao discourses. Even at the great gatherings, when seating was arranged by rank, the body cultivators' places were shoved down among the dregs.
Year after year the Hunyuan Sect swallowed the slight and the resentment festered, baleful qi breeding on it, until a warped logic hardened into custom: if you're going to call me crude, then I'll be as crude as you please.
In sparring they stopped pulling their blows. Snapping a sword cultivator's wrist was giving him a lesson he'd remember. Breaking a man's natal flying sword in half was his own fault for being outclassed. Shredding the treasured talisman-papers a talisman cultivator had labored to craft was punishment for standing too close.
And when they were called to account afterward, they all fell back on the same line: "That's just how we body cultivators are. If you can't take the pain, don't step up."
The worse the reputation, the harder the outside world shunned them; the harder they were shunned, the more vicious the disciples became. A perfect knot with no end to pull.
Sect Head Song Heng had torn out untold amounts of hair over it. Confinement, docked stipends, copying the sect rules by hand — all wasted effort. The heavier the punishment, the more the disciples felt that "even our own people bully us," and they closed ranks and covered for one another, until the baleful qi burned hotter than before.
Song Heng had wrestled with the problem for years without cracking it. Then Gu Chengming took it over.
"Face-to-face interviews," Gu Chengming said. He sat behind his desk in the Holy Son's residence, addressing Hua Daiyi, who had come to report on the seal repairs.
Hua Daiyi's hand, raised with the wine jug, stopped in midair. "Interviews? With who?"
Gu Chengming pushed a thick register across the desk. It listed, line upon crowded line, every bloody incident arising from inner-sect disciples sparring with outsiders over the past three years.
Hua Daiyi leaned in for a look and drew a sharp breath. Sixty-seven names in all — and several of them were personal disciples of elders.
"Chengming, you're serious about this?"
He lowered his voice, his face troubled. "That bunch of little bastards stick together. Haul the ringleader in for a dressing-down and the ones under him will never accept it. Next thing you know there'll be a mob camped outside the Holy Son's residence demanding an explanation, and nobody comes out of that looking good."
Gu Chengming laughed at that. "There's no need to worry, Martial Uncle. I have my methods."
Hua Daiyi found he had nothing to say. Into his mind rose, unbidden, the ashen face Elder Feng had worn the other day, and Elder Zhao shut away for days afterward like a wilted eggplant. The aged wine in his hand abruptly lost its flavor.
"This interview of yours — what exactly does it involve?"
Gu Chengming only smiled and said nothing, and Hua Daiyi felt a chill run down his spine.
The first contestant was Zhou Dazhuang, ranked seventh in the inner sect.
He was exactly what his name promised — thick-shouldered, thick-waisted, mid Third Realm. At last year's joint martial exhibition, he had blasted Sword-Inquiry Valley's head disciple clean off the platform with one punch, broke three of the man's ribs, snapped his natal flying sword in two for good measure, and then ground his head into the ground for the humiliation of it.
Facing Sword-Inquiry Valley's fury afterward, Zhou Dazhuang had stood on the platform with his arms folded and chuckled, "You sword cultivators are just too weak. How is that my fault?"
The remark spread far and wide through the cultivation world and successfully dragged the Hunyuan Sect's reputation down another long notch.
This notorious troublemaker was the first name on Gu Chengming's list.
Now the man himself came striding into the main hall, chin up, chest out, his whole face saying: let's see what the new Holy Son thinks he can do to me.
"Zhou Dazhuang." Gu Chengming tapped the register at his elbow.
"Here!" Zhou Dazhuang answered in a deep, booming voice, standing ramrod straight. "What does the Holy Son want with me?"
"Sit."
Once Zhou Dazhuang had sprawled into the chair, Gu Chengming came straight to the point. "At last year's exhibition — what was the name of that head disciple from Sword-Inquiry Valley?"
"Lin something, I think? What was it again? Can't recall." His tone was entirely unashamed. "A win's a win. Why bother memorizing his name? Besides, he was the one whose skills weren't up to—"
The last syllable never landed.
[CG / Weaving a Thousand Warm Hats With You] activated.
In an instant the world in front of Zhou Dazhuang changed.
A dim chamber. A long wooden bench. Behind it sat two women. On the left, a girl in a blue robe, upright and composed, bamboo slips at her waist. On the right, a woman swinging a wine jug — and holding, additionally, a brass-buckled belt.
On the floor before the bench, stacked in neat order, sat a pile of brand-new tall hats.
"Zhou Dazhuang." The girl in blue unrolled her bamboo slips, her voice like a morning bell. "Autumn of last year: injured an opponent at the martial exhibition, destroyed his natal flying sword, maliciously trod upon his head and wounded his Dao Heart, and showed no remorse whatsoever afterward."
She picked up a hat and turned its face toward the accused. "Preying upon the weak. Conduct devoid of virtue."
Across the front of the hat blazed three enormous characters — Great Bully.
"Wait! That was a fair spar—"
Plop. The hat settled squarely onto his head.
The woman on the right flipped open a little booklet from goodness knew where, took a pull from her jug, and sneered. "Spring of the same year: while traveling to temper himself, gravely wounded a rogue cultivator over a squabble and stripped him of every spirit stone he owned."
She scooped up a second hat.
"Bullying the helpless. Robbery of property."
Golden light flickered — Black Hand.
"He hit me first!"
Plop. That was two.
"Winter, the year before." The girl in blue turned to the next page, her pace even, leaving no gap for argument. "Seized the cave-dwelling of a First Realm junior brother for over two months, obstructing his cultivation—"
"He gave it up willingly!"
The woman on the right threw back her head and laughed. "A Third Realm senior brother 'borrows' a cave-dwelling from a First Realm junior. And you call that willing?" She swept her brush across the page and hooked up a third hat.
"Tyrant at home."
"Who's a tyrant at home?!"
Plop. The hats stacked into a pagoda. Tug and haul as he might, Zhou Dazhuang could not budge them a hair.
"Just who the hell are you people—"
Both Gu Guards rose to their feet, each producing a brass-buckled belt that gave off a faint, ghostly sheen.
Zhou Dazhuang's pupils shrank. The brass buckles came whistling down.
Back in the waking world.
Zhou Dazhuang blinked, dazed.
Before him sat Gu Chengming, still smiling. His head was a fog. What had he just been saying? Skills weren't up to it?
For some reason the phrase rolled around his mouth now and scalded his tongue. His back was hot as a furnace, as though he had taken several dozen thoroughly solid lashes. There was no pain — but the crystal-clear memory of being punished, riding a tidal wave of shame, drowned him completely.
The pale face of the man whose sword he had snapped. The little junior brother who bowed his head and took the long way around to avoid him. All of it, everything he had done and never once thought amiss — now he could hardly sit still, could hardly draw breath.
"Zhou Dazhuang?" Gu Chengming's voice pulled him back.
"Here." His spine had visibly sagged by half. He sat with painful correctness, and his voice had dropped several notches. "Yes."
"That head disciple of Sword-Inquiry Valley is named Lin Yuanbai." Gu Chengming turned a page of the register, unhurried. "You may write him a letter of apology. I will see it delivered."
Half an hour ago, Zhou Dazhuang would have called apologizing the single most shameful act under heaven. Now he was silent only a moment before nodding gravely. "…All right."
He stood, walked to the door, and stopped short to look back.
"Holy Son."
"Mm?"
"My junior brother's cave-dwelling… I'll clear out and return it to him tomorrow."
Gu Chengming lifted his teacup. "Go on, then."
Zhou Dazhuang strode over the threshold. Contestant number two, waiting outside, sidled up to sound him out. "Brother Dazhuang, what's it like in there? What'd the Holy Son say?"
Zhou Dazhuang was quiet a long moment. "Go back and return every spirit stone you took."
"Huh?"
Watching Zhou Dazhuang's retreating back, the junior brother stood there utterly at a loss.
The second. The third. The fourth.
One by one, the names on the list were crossed off.
Gu Chengming's interviews ran with astonishing efficiency — a cup of tea's time at the shortest, half an incense stick at the longest. And the reactions coming out were uncannily identical: eyes glazed, one hand unconsciously rubbing the small of the back, mouths sealed shut.
Their conduct afterward was just as uniform. Seized resources returned. Apologies delivered in person. Several even went to Hua Daiyi to request permission to travel to other sects with reparations.
By the following afternoon, a legend was circulating through the Hunyuan Sect's inner ranks.
"You hear? Everyone the Holy Son calls in for an interview comes out a changed man!"
"Changed how?" "Can't say exactly. Just feel scoured clean through, suddenly enlightened. Old Zhao was still hollering about who's afraid of who before he went in. Came out and handed three bottles of healing pills to that rogue-cultivator junior brother without a word."
"That's downright eerie."
"What's eerier is Old Zhao says he's forgotten every single thing the Holy Son talked about! He just feels like everything he used to do was pathetic."
"If you get summoned, whatever you do, don't dig your heels in. They say the harder you resist, the stronger the beaten feeling is when you come out!"
The rumors were unverifiable and thoroughly terrifying. Disciples who hadn't made the register lived in dread of landing on Gu Chengming's list, and tucked their tails in of their own accord.
By the evening of the third day, the spirit of the entire sect had been remade from the bones out.
Where sparring on the rear-mountain training grounds had once ended with both parties bellowing "come back if you don't like it," they now exchanged bows when the match was done. Where outer-sect disciples had once hugged the walls and detoured around inner-sect seniors, those same seniors not only left them alone but — unheard of — greeted them first.
Onlookers were staggered. Was this really the same crowd of jocks they'd known?
When Gu Chengming descended to the seal again to inspect it, most of the ash-black baleful qi clinging to the edges of the formation lines had dispersed. The three newly patched wards no longer strained and split; their spirit-light circulated smoothly. Treating the symptom and treating the root had finally met in the middle.
The Star-Gazing Terrace, on the main peak.
Sect Head Song Heng looked down over the sect and was silent for a long time.
Hua Daiyi came up with his wine jug. "Sect Head. Something on your mind?"
Song Heng spoke slowly. "Old Hua. Don't you think the disciples' eyes have gotten a great deal clearer?"
Hua Daiyi took a pull of wine, turned it over carefully, and nodded with feeling. "Now that you mention it — they really have."
"Mm." Song Heng stood with his hands behind his back, his tone complicated. "The Holy Son's methods are formidable indeed."
Through his mind flashed the identical expressions Elders Feng and Zhao had worn after their own questioning.
Gu Chengming clearly held some means of reshaping a man's heart. As for what exactly was said in those interviews… he did not intend to ask. He didn't dare.
Word got out soon enough.
"The Hunyuan Sect's new Holy Son has a deep grasp of the body cultivator's bearing — bold and expansive in action, yet careful within the coarseness, and remarkably skilled at guiding men's hearts. A vessel of great promise."
Gu Chengming's standing within the sect shot straight up.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance throws out its chest in the Sea of Consciousness: Hmph! What do those mediocrities outside understand? They see only the surface merit of moral instruction. How could they possibly perceive the imperial mind-arts by which Heavenly Emperor Gu commands the field from within his tent! When the realm is unified and ten thousand sects come to pay homage, today's events will be written in the boldest ink of the histories!]
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula cuts in lazily: If you ask me, compared to lecturing people with nothing but your lips, instruction by brass-buckled belt is clearly the more lasting. Consider it: who among those who've taken a hiding ever dares bounce back?]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method agrees profoundly: In the practice of rites, harmony is prized. Yet in the enforcement of rites, punishment is the handmaid. The words of the ancient sages have not deceived me.]
Gu Chengming set down his teacup, a smile in his eyes.
With the Dao Plague's seal provisionally stable and the sect's temper newly settled, Gu Chengming turned his attention to the true objective of this journey.
Shen Yuanbai's records had already confirmed it: full repair of the Mutual-Reference Formation Array required both sects to work the rites in unison.
However precise the temporary wards laid down on the Hunyuan side might be, in the end it amounted to slapping mortar onto a dam that was already breaching. Symptom, not root.
The key to the root was not at this end of the Emerald Screen Range, but in the hands of the Yunyue Sect at the far side of the mountains.
What was more, the charge laid on him by the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign ten thousand years ago still weighed on him. The baleful qi deliberately planted within the Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art, the hidden hand that had secretly altered the method — every thread pointed to the Yunyue Sect.
Gu Chengming's original plan had been thorough enough: enter the sect quietly under the official credentials of a Night-Watch Bureau investigation writ, first establish a footing as a diplomatic envoy, then quietly take soundings and comb through the place, and close the net at his leisure once he understood the internal situation.
Unfortunately, the enthusiastic public of the Hunyuan Sect did not agree.
Once word spread that the Holy Son would be traveling to the Yunyue Sect on business, the sect's response could only be called fanatical.
Sect Head Song Heng personally saw to the travel arrangements and offered to dispatch a delegation as escort. Several senior elders volunteered to write ahead so that Gu Chengming would meet no obstruction upon arrival. Even Elder Zhao, freshly interviewed, came around thumping his chest to declare that so long as the Holy Son gave the word, Bedrock Peak would answer at any hour.
Gu Chengming was genuinely touched by the goodwill, but declined the more elaborate arrangements. He asked only that they write to the Yunyue Sect and say that the Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect wished to visit in the capacity of a diplomatic envoy to discuss cooperation on the maintenance of the seal — politely phrased, leaving both sides a dignified step to stand on.
Hua Daiyi slapped his chest and took the whole thing on. "Relax, leave it to this old man! I'm no scholar, but the sect's got brushes to spare. It'll be handled beautifully, guaranteed."
Gu Chengming stopped worrying.
He really should not have stopped worrying.
The morning of departure.
Gu Chengming was making his final preparations in the detached courtyard when Hua Daiyi came through the gate beaming, five bright-eyed Hunyuan Sect disciples at his heels.
All five wore brand-new fighting garb, marched in step, and had eyes like torches — radiating that particular clarity and resolve unique to men who have been physically baptized by a brass-buckled belt.
"Little Gu, the delegation's ready." Hua Daiyi's face was pure satisfaction. "Hand-picked from the whole sect, the finest seedlings we've got. Every one of them personally instructed by you — their character's rock solid."
Gu Chengming inclined his head slightly.
The personnel were fine, at least. Their bearing was transformed; compared to the qi-spewing brutes of half a month ago, they might have been different men entirely.
"And the letter?"
"Sent long ago!" Hua Daiyi waved a hand, expansive. "Dispatched by fast courier to the Yunyue Sect yesterday evening. Reckoning the distance, it should have arrived this morning."
Gu Chengming was about to thank him when something struck him as wrong.
"I only gave Martial Uncle the wording requirements yesterday evening. When did Martial Uncle write it?"
Hua Daiyi blinked, then swept a hand grandly. "Hah, as if this old man wrote it. Passed it to the boys below. Very efficient, that lot — had it done in half an hour."
Gu Chengming's brows began, slowly, to knit.
"Passed it to whom, exactly?"
Hua Daiyi scratched the back of his head and thought for a breath or two. "Few disciples from Bedrock Peak. That batch you interviewed. I told them the Holy Son's going somewhere on business, write a letter and say hello. They took it on without a word of complaint."
Gu Chengming's brows knit tighter.
That batch he had interviewed had, after their baptism in the Hat Tribunal, genuinely been made over from the bones out. The hot-tempered had turned steady; the domineering had turned restrained.
But there was one side effect even he had not foreseen. Having been combed through inside and out by the two Gu Guards, that group's reverence for the Holy Son had climbed to an utterly absurd altitude.
In their eyes, Gu Chengming was an iron-fisted tyrant who broke finesse with raw power and cut tangled knots with a swift blade.
Look how he took the Holy Son's seat and overhauled the entire sect in three days. Look how he handled the Dao Plague — leading from the front, storming the old pavilion himself. Look how he crushed the opposition among the elders: one glance and the man went mute.
Add to that the many prior rumors of Gu Chengming's fondness for "breaking finesse with raw power," and a certain misunderstanding of his character had taken firm root.
— Isn't this precisely the ideal our Hunyuan Sect worships?
Holy Son Gu was the ultimate jock, no question about it!
So when Hua Daiyi dropped the task of writing a letter for the Holy Son into their hands, that crew didn't think twice. They slipped straight into what they understood to be the Holy Son Gu style: direct, and let the fists do the talking.
Half an hour later, Gu Chengming stood in the detached courtyard holding a copy of the draft, retrieved from the Bedrock Peak disciples.
He unfolded the sheet. The whole thing had been composed in the most formal challenge-writ format used among body cultivator sects.
He read it silently, his expression sliding from calm to something subtler.
The opening was reasonable enough: "Gu Chengming, Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect, respectfully addresses the fellow Daoists of the Yunyue Sect."
By the second line the fame of the ultimate jock was already on full display.
"…In years past your sect's esteemed disciple Li Mozi visited the Wenjian Sect for an exchange of pointers. At that time this one's cultivation was shallow, and the matter ended unsatisfyingly. Now, by the mandate of Heaven, this one has been invested as Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect, and his martial path has advanced. He therefore writes to express his wish to renew that former bond with the disciples of your sect, to measure himself against them upon the arena — to meet as friends by the sword, and to debate the Dao with fists…"
Gu Chengming's mouth twitched. He read on.
"…The whole of the Hunyuan Sect awaits your sect's reply. Should your sect consent, the Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect will personally lead a delegation to call upon you. Should your sect decline, no matter — the Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect will call upon you another day regardless."
Gu Chengming folded the letter. "Martial Uncle Hua…"
"Mm?" Hua Daiyi was drinking off to the side without a care in the world, plainly unaware of the gravity of the situation.
"See for yourself, Martial Uncle."
The wine bowl in Hua Daiyi's hand wobbled as a bad feeling surfaced. He took the draft and scanned it fast, and his face grew steadily more mortified.
Seeing that expression, Gu Chengming could only sigh inwardly.
Spilled water doesn't go back in the bowl.
But turning it over more carefully, the challenge writ — however far outside his expectations — might not be a bad thing at all.
The original plan had been to slip quietly into the Yunyue Sect and investigate from the shadows. But the hidden hand behind the alteration of the sword art had been operating there for years, with deep roots.
You creep in quietly; he watches you quietly. You investigate him while he guards against you. Shadow against shadow — and he holds the home ground while you play away. A natural disadvantage.
But what if he flipped it? Arrive with drums and banners, call them out at their own gate, muddy the water, and let the entire Yunyue Sect know Gu Chengming had come.
Then every eye would fix on him. The bouts on the arena, the maneuvering between sects, the weight of the Holy Son's title — all that surface commotion would hang like an enormous curtain across what he actually meant to do.
And the hidden hand lurking in the dark?
A Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect descending on the Yunyue Sect with great fanfare, challenge writ in hand — if that man truly had a part in tampering with the Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art, there was no chance he would sit still.
If subtlety was off the table, then he would be as unsubtle as it was possible to be.
[The Myriad Mysteries Convergence Method, which had listened in silence through the entire process, finally spoke: I have already begun laying the groundwork!]
[Its tone was excited, with a faint edge of it's-finally-my-turn smugness: The Yunyue Sect's internal information network must be built from nothing. Heavenly Emperor Gu draws fire in the open while I weave the net in the dark — we are certain to reap something!]
South of the Emerald Screen Range: the Yunyue Sect.
In every way the opposite of the Hunyuan Sect's rough grandeur, the Yunyue Sect's gate was exactly what its name suggested — cold, clear and remote, moonlight for its bones, drifting cloud for its robes.
The main peak was called Moon-Tracing Peak, wrapped year-round in thin mist; seen from a distance it resembled a long sword hung upside down, stabbing at the sky. Below the midslope grew broad stands of silver-leafed parasol trees, and after autumn came the whole mountain turned silver-white, fallen leaves whirling on the wind to the accompaniment of the clear sword-song that never ceased among the peaks. Truly the very picture of an immortal domain.
Inside the council hall of Moon-Tracing Peak, the atmosphere was heavy.
Qin Ruoxu, Sect Head of the Yunyue Sect, sat at the head of the room. On the long red sandalwood table before him lay a single sheet of letter paper.
A dozen or so elders sat along both sides. Some frowned in silence, some laughed coldly again and again, and some kept their faces as still as deep water.
"You have all read it." Qin Ruoxu's voice was unhurried. "Let me hear your views."
The first to break the silence was a middle-aged sword cultivator in a moon-white robe: Lu Heshu, First Seat of the Yunyue Sect's Sword Hall.
"Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect. Gu Chengming." There was considerable displeasure in the way he said the name. "The outer-sect disciple of the Wenjian Sect who crippled Li Mozi three years ago has now, with a shake of his shoulders, become the Hunyuan Sect's Holy Son."
"First place in the Grand Tournament. A name on the Prodigy Rankings. Commander of the Night-Watch Bureau…"
He went on with a cold laugh. "Add the fresh title of Hunyuan Sect Holy Son, and he means to borrow our Yunyue Sect to complete the set with a fifth calling card."
It was plain enough what he took Gu Chengming's purpose to be: to come and tread on the Yunyue Sect's head, and make his name off their backs.
The hall was quiet for a moment.
A young elder in the last seat could not hold his tongue. "Back then Li Mozi went to the Wenjian Sect for an exchange and was so badly crippled by this man that he still hasn't recovered. We let it lie, we made no trouble of it. And now, far from restraining himself, the man comes knocking at our door with a challenge writ. That is nothing less than contempt for the Yunyue Sect."
"In my view we must accept it, and win it back cleanly and openly on our own ground. Blunt his edge for him."
At that, a good number of heads in the hall nodded slightly. The sentiment clearly ran deep.
But others knotted their brows.
"This one is no longer the outer-sect disciple he was three years ago."
The speaker was a white-haired old man: Liu Yezhou, Deputy Sect Head of the Yunyue Sect. His voice was low and hoarse, but his words carried weight.
"You have all heard of his savage record in the Grand Tournament, and what he did there has been retold until it sounds like sorcery. He comes now bearing the title of Hunyuan Sect Holy Son. If some accident should occur in an arena bout — if he is truly injured—"
Liu Yezhou paused, his gaze sweeping the room. "That pack of barbarians at the Hunyuan Sect will absolutely not let it end there."
"Refuse to fight, and the sect's face is dragged in the dirt. Fight and let it go wrong, and we lose the substance along with it."
The young elder was still unconvinced. "Is the Deputy Sect Head saying we should simply hold our noses and swallow it? Let him swagger about outside the Yunyue Sect's gates as he pleases?"
Liu Yezhou didn't answer. He merely lifted his teacup, unhurried, and nudged the floating leaves aside.
The argument in the council hall gradually rose in temperature.
The hawks and the moderates each held their ground, and the tug of war circled the same handful of questions: fight or not, who fights, what if we lose, and how do we clean up if we win.
Qin Ruoxu said nothing at all.
His eyes rested on the challenge writ on the table — but not on the bold, sweeping words of provocation. Instead he chewed over and over on those five words: Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect.
The Hunyuan Sect had abruptly installed a Holy Son.
The Chengyuan Trial had gone unbroken since the sect's founding, and now a Third Realm sword cultivator transferred in from another sect had cleared it…
And the Hunyuan Sect's Chengyuan Trial was not entirely unconnected to the Yunyue Sect.
That vast Mutual-Reference Formation Array at the base of the Emerald Screen Range had one end joined to the Hunyuan Sect's old pavilion, and the other end running toward the Yunyue Sect's—
He reined in his thoughts and did not follow them further.
"Everyone." Qin Ruoxu spoke at last. One or two words, and the argument in the hall folded away as one.
"We accept the writ." He set the tone. "Publicly, we open the arena under the name of 'an exchange between disciples, a sharing of what each has.' The rules must be kept simple — strike and stop. The scope of the bouts is strictly limited to below the Fourth Realm, and the use of any secret trump of the sect is forbidden."
He raised his eyelids, his gaze sweeping calmly over the assembly. "Give both sides their dignity in full. And leave the Yunyue Sect ample Retreat as well."
Lu Heshu inclined his head. The young elder thought the rules bound their hands too tightly, but with the Sect Head's word settled, it was not his place to argue further.
Liu Yezhou set down his teacup. He neither seconded nor objected, only added in a flat tone, "Then as to which disciples take up the challenge — I would ask the Sect Head to weigh the choices carefully."
"Naturally," Qin Ruoxu answered without hesitation.
Several days later, at the Hunyuan Sect, the delegation's flying ship had already risen into the sky.
Gu Chengming stood at the very prow with his hands behind his back, facing the bitter high-altitude gale, gazing at the Emerald Screen Range flickering in and out of sight at the edge of vision.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance was in the Sea of Consciousness playing some unidentifiable and badly off-key battle anthem on frantic repeat, apparently unable to wait for Heavenly Emperor Gu to unleash his divine might and punch out Moon-Tracing Peak.]
[The Flowing Cloud, Moon-Following Sword Art abruptly dumped cold water on it: Those sword cultivators of the Yunyue Sect repay every glare they're given. Make this much noise and take care you don't capsize in a gutter.]
Gu Chengming's mouth curved. He answered with a stir of thought.
Whether the boat capsizes depends on the hand at the tiller. And if the water isn't thoroughly muddied, how will the old turtle at the bottom of the pool ever float to the surface?
"Holy Son!" came a full-throated shout from behind him, a Bedrock Peak disciple's voice loud enough to crack the surrounding cloud layer. "We'll be crossing the Emerald Screen Range soon! Should us brothers run our blood and qi up and give a few good roars, let those sword-twirlers at the Yunyue Sect hear what the Hunyuan Sect's might sounds like!"
Gu Chengming sighed and raised his right hand at once, heading off the collective fervor that could seize this pack of jocks at any moment.
"Quiet. Hold formation. Mind your bearing."
He straightened the front of his black robe, his gaze piercing the rolling sea of cloud toward that southern peak in the shape of an upended sword.
"Let's go. Time to pay our hosts a visit."
The stage was built. The war drums had already begun.
So he would step onto it openly and squarely, and sing this opera properly.
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