“Lu Qi!”
Zhuoyu was horrified. He hurriedly half-carried him back into the chair and reached again to probe with spiritual power.
Qingshan Qi’s slender knuckles went bloodless-violet as his hand clamped down hard on the back of Zhuoyu’s hand; between wrenching coughs he forced out, “I’m f-fine…”
Zhuoyu laughed from sheer exasperation. “Yes, yes, of course, perfectly fine—everyone coughs up three liters of blood, after all. Young Master Lu has only coughed up a few mouthfuls. Nothing at all. How silly of me to make a fuss.”
Qingshan Qi considered, then—even mid-gush of blood—played along: “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Zhuoyu: “…”
Since Qingshan Qi refused by any means to let him probe his spirit meridians, and Zhuoyu feared hurting him by forcing spiritual power in, he could only help him onto the daybed and hurry off to find Cang Zhou.
Cang Zhou hadn’t gone far at all, and was soon hauled back.
Seeing Qingshan Qi sprawled there at his last gasp, blood at the corner of his lips, Cang Zhou felt a surge of secret glee. Coughing blood this fast? Hahaha—won’t even need the month. That fox is a dead fox walking.
After taking the pulse, the corner of Cang Zhou’s mouth gave a twitch.
In Qingshan Qi’s battered inner palace, another force of spiritual power, powerful and distinct, was plainly what was wringing the blood out of him.
This pity play of his… how mercilessly he cuts himself.
Off to the side, Zhuoyu clumsily wiped the blood from Qingshan Qi’s lips—nearly knocking his front teeth out in the process—and seeing Cang Zhou’s odd expression, pressed anxiously, “Why exactly is he hurt so badly? Divine Physician? Divine Physician, say something! Divine Physician Cang Zhou!”
Cang Zhou, holding the Young Master’s instructions fast in mind, hesitated on the edge of speech. “Nothing serious. Some medicine and he’ll mend.”
The half-conscious Qingshan Qi shivered, turned his head aside, and brought up another mouthful of blood.
Zhuoyu was frantic, hastily wiping at him—and only belatedly registered that whatever those two had been discussing just now was most likely about this very injury. He steadied himself quickly. “All right. Then I’ll trouble the Divine Physician to prescribe some medicine.”
Cang Zhou nodded, fed Qingshan Qi a few Spirit Pills steeped in Coptis soup, and carried his little medicine chest out of the inner chamber.
Zhuoyu tucked the blanket around Qingshan Qi, and only once the man had finally stopped coughing blood and sunk into quiet sleep did he slip silently out.
Cang Zhou was dawdling toward the outer courtyard when Zhuoyu’s voice stopped him before he’d made it out.
“Divine Physician, a moment.”
Cang Zhou halted and looked back.
Zhuoyu had always known how to talk pleasingly. He didn’t come to the point at all, instead meandering: “It’s late—forgive the imposition, Divine Physician. It’s only, this younger brother of mine keeps his own counsel; whatever weighs on his heart, he never tells me…”
Cang Zhou was taken aback, not following where this was going.
Zhuoyu went on. “His story is a tragic one. His parents died horribly; his whole clan was slaughtered by the Fox Clan.”
Cang Zhou silently sucked in a cold breath. So the Young Master went and wished himself such a lovely sob story?
Truly heroic.
“…Now he’s alone in this world, with no one to depend on but me.” Zhuoyu spoke those words with utter sincerity—and though only moonlight filled the courtyard, it cast around him a halo of radiance no one else had. “He’s young and doesn’t know better; when something goes wrong, he likes to hide it away. Perhaps I shouldn’t pry so much, but this coughing blood—it frightens me badly. I beg you, tell me what befell him. Wuyou would be endlessly, endlessly grateful.”
By the end of it, Cang Zhou’s own eyes were rimmed red, and he nearly blurted out “Don’t trust that fox!”—stopping himself at the very brink.
His little life mattered more.
Cang Zhou put on a protracted show of anguished conflict, sighed at last, and said, “It’s… not an ordinary case of coughing blood, you see. It’s because the core in his dantian is gone.”
Zhuoyu stilled, a guess forming darkly in his mind. “Why would it suddenly be gone?”
Cang Zhou looked at him and heaved a heavy sigh.
A hollow buzz filled Zhuoyu’s ears.
The strangeness within his core since he’d woken, and Lu Qi’s frail, bloodless face—every question now had its answer.
Cang Zhou said, “When the Little Immortal Lord was carried in, his Origin Core was all but shattered, riddled with wounds; only a single Gold Talisman stood guard over his lifeline. Meridians are simple to mend—but wounds to the inner palace are fatal. Even I could do nothing.”
Zhuoyu stood rooted to the spot, at a loss for how to react.
He had known Lu Qi mere days; even in rescuing him, Zhuoyu had never once expected anything in return.
The Origin Core within his body radiated a faint heat—as if it now carried a true heart without a single speck of impurity—and the weight of it made his chest sink with unease.
Cang Zhou paused, visibly steeling himself, face twisted, and said, “He was heartbroken beyond words. Knelt on the ground weeping, begging me to save you, saying he would pay any price—and so he traded you his own Origin Core.”
Zhuoyu was shaken to his core, lips bloodless. “How could he—”
Cang Zhou couldn’t bear the sight, and hurried to console him. “Ai, it’s nothing much, truly. Just use it.”
Zhuoyu: “?”
Cang Zhou belatedly realized that this sat poorly with a Divine Physician’s manner, cleared his throat, and changed tack. “…Without his core, he has no spiritual power sustaining his body. In roughly a month, his meridians will wither dry.”
Zhuoyu’s face went whiter still.
When a cultivator’s meridians withered, he did not become a mortal—he died outright, life force severed.
“Then what if the core were returned to him?”
“You must not!” Cang Zhou stopped him at once.
Zhuoyu: “Why not?”
Cang Zhou pressed him earnestly. “The Little Immortal Lord’s Golden Core was nearly shattered. To keep your life force from scattering, Lu Qi’s Origin Core had no choice but to wrap yours within it; it will take a month for the core to heal whole before the two can be separated. If the core were extracted now, both would come out together—and for you, that road leads only to death.”
Zhuoyu’s brow knotted tight, his very breathing trembling faintly.
Seeing Zhuoyu like this, Cang Zhou ached to slap himself—this dead rabbit, accomplice to the tiger—but he was simply too much of a coward. Head hanging, tears brimming, he could only curse himself in silence.
Zhuoyu was not one for self-pity. He gathered himself with speed and inclined his head. “Forgive the imposition, Divine Physician. Tomorrow I must make a trip to Lingshu Mountain. I ask you to look after my younger brother with care. When I return, I’ll take him back to Floating Jade Mountain with me.”
Cang Zhou startled.
Qingshan Qi was going to Floating Jade Mountain too?
With the great God of Slaughter presiding there… perhaps the fox could be done in for good after all.
“Of course! I will care for him excellently!”
Let the God of Slaughter kill, kill, kill!
Zhuoyu did not sleep that night.
His parents and elder brother shared his blood; Shizun and his Senior Brothers shared his sect’s roots. To accept their care, Zhuoyu’s conscience rested easy.
But Lu Qi was different. A junior besides, hardly more than a stranger—yet he had laid down his life for Zhuoyu without a moment’s hesitation.
He remembered, at the critical juncture on Lingshu Mountain, how Lu Qi had even tried to press the life-saving teleportation artifact into his hands. Zhuoyu could not accept such devotion with a clear conscience, and tossed restlessly the whole night through.
Turning it over and over, he could only pin his hopes on Shishu Qingxiao, praying those miraculous hands could work a spring-returning cure and pull Lu Qi back from the brink.
Since coughing blood the day before, Qingshan Qi had lain in a dead faint of sleep.
Before dawn even broke, Zhuoyu set out for Lingshu Mountain, mind heavy with care. Several streets past Cang Manor, he belatedly noticed someone following.
He turned—and there stood Yan Su a short distance off, a lamp in hand, watching him.
Zhuoyu was puzzled. “When did you get here?”
Yan Su didn’t answer. Only after a sidelong glance confirmed there was no other eyesore at Zhuoyu’s side did he say, “Shall we go?”
Zhuoyu nodded, summoned a sword, and rose into the wind.
A sidelong glance from Yan Su, and his brow knotted hard. “Where is your sword?”
Beneath Zhuoyu’s feet was an ordinary spirit sword, its blade bearing no inscription at all. “The Great Demon snapped it.”
Something in Yan Su’s chest pulled tight.
From the smallest details of that shattered blade, he could almost glimpse just how perilously Zhuoyu had won that battle at Lingshu Mountain.
Yan Su said softly, “When we’re back at the sect, I’ll give you a new one.”
“No need.” Zhuoyu rocked on the sword beneath his feet. “This one Senior Brother He gave me for my coming-of-age ceremony. Flashy as anything, but it sits well in the hand—saves the trouble of swapping swords about.”
The hand hanging at Yan Su’s side curled once, imperceptibly.
Zhuoyu, noticing nothing amiss, jerked his chin at him. “Come on, follow me.”
One azure figure, one white, rode the first light of dawn toward Lingshu Mountain.
The Lingshu ranges sprawled vast beyond measure; flying on swords until full daybreak, the two had only barely reached the edge of its depths.
Zhuoyu, every inch the little dragon king, made Qingru rain as he flew—yet, worn to the bone, he hadn’t turned up the slightest wisp of demonic qi, and began to wonder aloud. “Don’t tell me it burrowed a hole and lives underground now?”
Otherwise, with all this fanfare, Qingru’s fire should have smoked it out ages ago.
Yan Su stayed close behind him the whole way, the Seven Golden Talismans wrapped around Zhuoyu without a moment’s parting.
“Years ago, Perfected Zhou divined only the general direction of the demon race’s lair, and Shizun cut his way there—it still took half a month to find. You can imagine how formidable that demon fox’s concealment is. Frightened as it is now, it will spare no effort reinforcing its barriers.”
For that single divination, Daoist Lord Tongxu had expended his Heart’s Blood, and Perfected Zhou of Xiangdao Pavilion, defying Heaven itself to calculate the location, had suffered a backlash so savage she still had not fully recovered—these days she made her living telling fortunes.
The fox would certainly not be flushed into its true form by one burning from Qingru.
Zhuoyu made a full circuit, chin propped in hand, musing, “Someone among the demon race must be skilled in the arts. This complicates things.”
Killing one fox demon hardly counted as settling the score.
Yan Su knew that if he didn’t make this trip, Zhuoyu would never lay the matter to rest. “Shall we search further?”
Zhuoyu shook his head. “No. Let’s go back, or Shizun will come killing his way over.”
The corner of Yan Su’s mouth lifted, hidden. “Then let’s take a Wooden Kite home.”
“Sure.” Half a day on swords had worn Zhuoyu out too. “There’s a Flying Kite Workshop right in Guping City. We’ll pick up Lu Qi and all go home together.”
Yan Su’s brow knotted hard. “Pick up Lu Qi?”
“Yes.” Afraid of worrying them further, Zhuoyu said nothing of Lu Qi cutting out his core for him, only fretted, “Lu Qi’s health is poor. Floating Jade Mountain is just the place—Shishu Qingxiao can have a look at him.”
Yan Su said coldly, “Shizun never allows outsiders into the sect.”
“Oh, right.” Zhuoyu shot Yan Su a see, Senior Brother always thinks of everything look. “I’d forgotten all about that. Lend me your Disciple Seal again in a bit, then—I’ll give Shizun advance notice.”
Yan Su’s face turned iron-gray. Seeing that Zhuoyu truly meant to bring a strange man back to the sect, he said coldly, “The Disciple Seal was lost last night.”
“How could that happen?” Zhuoyu was astonished—but at that expression on Yan Su’s face, his eyes narrowed. His sword drifted over until they were face to face, and he studied him, unblinking. “You’re lying, Senior Brother. You’ve always been careful—you’ve never lost anything in your life. Honestly, is it just that you don’t like Lu Qi? It was one robe. It wasn’t even anything fine. There’s no need to hold a grudge over it.”
They were close enough that Yan Su could catch the faint scent of medicine on Zhuoyu—and that wisteria fragrance that did not belong to him. Whether picked up from the person himself, or left by wisteria blossoms drifting from the corridor onto his clothes, it was impossible to say.
It was insufferable.
Yan Su’s voice was indifferent. “Lu Qi’s origins are murky. His whole family slaughtered while he alone survived—too neat by half. There’s reason to suspect he’s only getting close to you to enter Floating Jade Mountain. There’s no need to ask. Shizun will never permit it.”
Zhuoyu’s lips pursed, muttering under his breath, “Fine, don’t lend it—but why badmouth the poor man?”
With that, he caught the wind and made off.
Yan Su: “Where are you going?”
Zhuoyu waved without so much as a backward glance and was gone in a flourish of dust and swagger, only his voice drifting back.
“Whether Shizun permits it or not—we’ll settle that once we’re back at Floating Jade Mountain. I’m going to fetch Lu Qi. Senior Brother—Flying Kite Workshop, half an hour.”
Yan Su: “………”
