AN: We see a glimpse of those left behind...
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Three months and two days after leaving the capital, Wei Shentong was thoroughly done with the journey.
He had not departed in a good mood to begin with. This trip to the Thousand Shattered Islands had only happened because of a lost bet, and because of that bastard, Mo Jian-
Wei Shentong cut the thought off before it could sour his temper further, though whether that was even possible remained an open question. He already felt as furious and miserable as any man could. These salt-stained, inhospitable rocks would do that to anyone.
The only tolerable part of the islands was the company. He might even have admitted she was pleasant, were it not for the unfortunate fact that she was Mo Jian's friend. After all, the very first thing she had asked upon his arrival had been: "Were you sent by Mo Jian, Senior?"
As though he were some common mule delivering parcels. The fact that he had indeed arrived carrying messages, and had dutifully handed them over, was something he deliberately scoured from his memory. Still, he had been unable to deny it, and so here he was.
Jadeflame Island, the so-called heart of the Thousand Shattered Islands due to housing its strongest organization, was a pitiable sight. It reminded him of a child dressing in their parent’s robes, attempting to imitate the grandeur of the mainland and failing miserably. Compared to the vast pavilions and towering pagodas Wei Shentong was accustomed to, Jadeflame Island felt painfully provincial. Even the central auction house, the largest structure on the island, stood only five stories tall, scarcely superior to certain mortal constructions. The damp salt air clung to everything. The stone paths were uneven. The locals stared.
The Island Master, a Core Formation cultivator named Liu Hong, had offered him residence within his estate. Wei Shentong had declined immediately. He had no patience for idle socializing with the local cultivators, nor was there a single peer present whom he considered worthy of attention.
The Thousand Shattered Islands did possess two Nascent Soul cultivators. One, however, remained occupied within the so-called “Cloud City of the Nine Heavens” -a needlessly grandiose name for a city in such an impoverished corner of the world. The other was apparently a recluse, and might not even exist according to some, and was thus irrelevant.
Instead, Wei Shentong had manifested a floating jade mountain above the clouds overlooking Jadeflame Island and hollowed out a cave residence within it. The qi in this region was thin and briny, tasting faintly of ocean foam whenever he cycled it, but even that was preferable to enduring the endless conversations of the islanders.
Two days had passed since his arrival, and Wei Shentong had made his intentions abundantly clear: he would remain for no longer than three days total, and not a single breath beyond that. Whoever needed passage back to the capital had best be prepared before then, because he would not wait. His proclamation had been met with calm assurances that matters would proceed according to his wishes.
At the very least, that had eased a small portion of his anger.
An anger that now began to return as his seclusion was disturbed once more.
Wei Shentong had made it explicitly clear that he was not to be contacted unless preparations for departure had been completed, or unless some genuine emergency had arisen. This was clearly neither. Only a single figure ascended through the sky to the jade mountain, landing lightly upon the narrow ledge before the cave entrance carved into the mountainside.
Some of his irritation faded the moment he sensed who it was: Fan Mei.
She had been the first person he had sought out upon arriving. She was beautiful, certainly, but more importantly, she was well-mannered, composed, and properly deferential; qualities that had left a favorable impression. The fact that she stood at the peak of Core Formation and headed the alliance that ruled these islands was merely an added embellishment.
Wei Shentong was not some lovestruck fool to lose himself over a pretty face, nor did he place much importance on feminine company. Yet neither was he carved from ice. A beautiful woman could expect more patience from him than the average idiot.
Unfortunately, that favorable impression had soured almost immediately. During their first conversation, he had casually mentioned that Mo Jian had advanced into the Nascent Soul realm. The smile that had spread across Fan Mei's face had been dazzlingly sincere, her qi practically glowing with undisguised joy.
Wei Shentong's own mood had darkened on the spot.
It was not as though that bastard Mo Jian lacked female company already. Officially, the woman constantly following him around was merely his disciple: bold, loudmouthed, and every bit as reckless as he was. But Wei Shentong had lived long enough to know how such things tended to develop. Despite all the moralizing disapproval and cultural taboo surrounding such relationships, he personally knew more than a few so-called "masters" and "disciples" who had ended up sharing far more than cultivation guidance.
So why was a woman half an empire away smiling so brightly at the mere mention of him?
Still, all that aside, Wei Shentong found Fan Mei tolerable. He might even have called her pleasant, were it not for all the baggage (namely Mo Jian) that came attached to her.
She entered the cave without hesitation, following the narrow stone path inward until she reached the hollow chamber where he sat meditating. A pale jade luminescence clung to the walls, giving the air a faint greenish cast. The moment she arrived, she stopped and dipped into a respectful bow, graceful and entirely sincere.
"Senior, my apologies for disturbing your cultivation."
Wei Shentong grunted in response, satisfied that she at least possessed the courtesy and respect appropriate for someone of her station. The irritation in that grunt was obvious enough, but interpreting the rest correctly was hardly his responsibility.
Fan Mei seemed to understand regardless. Her smile widened ever so slightly before she bowed her head again.
"Several of Brother Mo's and Junior Bai Ning's friends and family have recently arrived on Jadeflame Island," she said carefully. "Would Senior perhaps be willing to grant them an audience? The entire island would be deeply grateful to hear news of how things fare in the capital."
Wei Shentong could scarcely imagine anything he wished to do less. Sit around speaking to a crowd of juniors about those two fools? Share stories and updates like some traveling storyteller? Had that not been the entire purpose of the messages he had already delivered? Besides, he was Wei Shentong, not some dancing entertainer summoned to amuse the locals. If they wanted news so badly, they could exchange letters themselves.
He let out another grunt, this one carrying all the displeasure and refusal he could pack into a single sound.
Fan Mei understood immediately. Her smile dimmed slightly.
Yet this – this precisely – was why Wei Shentong found her tolerable, perhaps even pleasant. She did not argue. She did not pout, protest, or attempt to wheedle him into agreement. Any proper Core Formation cultivator should have known better, of course, but after encountering those two insolent monsters, Wei Shentong no longer took basic decorum for granted.
Instead, Fan Mei bowed once more and spoke with calm deference.
“Then, Senior, I beg a smaller favor. Please allow us to entrust our messages to you, so that you may carry them back to Brother Mo and Bai Ning. Would that be acceptable?”
No, it most certainly would not. Unfortunately, Wei Shentong was trapped. Mo Jian had handed him messages to deliver, which he already had, and returning without replies might very well offend the bastard. At present, Wei Shentong’s fortunes were tied uncomfortably tightly to Mo Jian’s continued goodwill, distasteful as that reality was.
So he grunted again, this time with open unhappiness. Ordinarily, even before juniors, he would never have behaved in such an uncouth manner. But here, in this remote backwater, he simply could not bring himself to care.
Besides, Fan Mei understood him perfectly well. Her smile returned at once, softening her elegant features as she bowed again, silk rustling gently in the quiet cave chamber.
“Thank you for your generosity, Senior,” Fan Mei said softly.
Generosity. Wei Shentong nearly snorted aloud at the word.
Still bent in a respectful bow, Fan Mei withdrew a jade slip from her sleeve and raised it with both hands above her head. “The messages have already been prepared. We would not dare trouble Senior repeatedly.”
At least they possessed some measure of sense.
Wei Shentong lifted a hand lazily. The jade slip flew into his grasp, and his spiritual sense brushed across it briefly before he tossed it into his storage pouch without another glance. Unsurprisingly, it contained little more than mundane greetings, inquiries after health, and assurances that life in the islands remained peaceful.
The sort of things mortals concerned themselves with.
Fan Mei remained standing respectfully before him for a moment longer, hands folded neatly at her waist. Then she bowed once more, graceful and unhurried, before turning to leave.
Wei Shentong watched her retreating figure disappear down the winding stone path. Only once her presence faded beyond the cave entrance did he release a slow breath.
One more day. Just one more day, and he would finally be rid of these miserable islands. After that, the Palace. The thought stirred something inside him that he could neither suppress nor fully name. Anticipation, certainly. Apprehension as well. Perhaps even disbelief. For centuries he had struggled upward, clawing his way through rivals, schemes, bottlenecks, and humiliations, all for the chance to stand among the true powers of the empire. To enter the Palace had been the ambition around which he had built his entire life.
This was not how he had imagined it. Neither a triumphant ascension earned through overwhelming glory, nor an invitation born from undeniable prestige. Instead, the opportunity had come through circumstance, favors, and, most infuriatingly of all, through Mo Jian. But an entrance was an entrance. In the end, that was what mattered. Wei Shentong closed his eyes once more, forcing down the restless churn of emotion as the thin island qi drifted quietly through the cave.
One more day here. Then three months across the empire.
And after that, the Palace.
……………………………………………………….
When Fan Mei descended into the main hall of the grand guest residence, she was immediately pounced upon.
Perhaps that was an uncharitable way to describe it, but the manner in which Bai Zing lunged toward her, questions already spilling from her lips, was not so different from a starving beast leaping at prey.
Still, such things were permissible between friends. And Bai Zing was a friend. Quite apart from Fan Mei’s position as an elder of the Greater Dharma Sect, she genuinely enjoyed the company of Bai Zing and her husband. They shared several interests, most notably a mutual appreciation for music that Fan Mei had been delighted to discover. Shared danger and common acquaintances had first brought them together, but genuine fondness had formed quickly afterward.
Besides, the thought of Bai Ning’s expression upon learning that her mother had somehow become friends with Fan Mei was simply too entertaining to resist. The image alone was enough to keep Fan Mei in unusually good spirits whenever it crossed her mind.
“How did it go? Did he agree to speak with us? What did he say about Ning’er? And what ab-”
“Breathe,” Bai Zhou said dryly from the side, catching his wife by the sleeve and gently pulling her back before she could seize Fan Mei by the shoulders and start shaking answers out of her.
He offered Fan Mei an apologetic look as he did so, but she merely waved it away with an amused smile. She hardly minded. If anything, Bai Zing’s barely restrained excitement was rather endearing.
“I’m afraid Senior Wei refused to grant an extended audience,” Fan Mei said, “but he has agreed to carry our messages back to the capital. Pressing him further would be… unwise.”
Especially with Lord Qing absent from the island. Fan Mei strongly suspected, though she would likely never receive confirmation, that his absence was entirely deliberate. The arrival of a Nascent Soul cultivator, even a temporary visitor, should ordinarily have warranted some acknowledgment. Yet Ancestor Qing had stubbornly remained in the Cloud City of the Nine Heavens, showing no intention of returning.
She could not fully guess at his reasons, but perhaps he simply did not wish to meet another Nascent Soul cultivator and be reminded, through that encounter, of the ties Mo Jian had bound him within.
Bai Zing scoffed loudly. “I can only assume all the competent help was occupied elsewhere, otherwise Senior Mo Jian would have sent someone more tractable than this Wei Shentong.” She crossed her arms with open displeasure. “The messages are barely enough. The last letter I received was less than ten lines long, and over half of it was about some jade mine. Hardly anything about how they’re doing or when they plan to return.”
Speaking so casually about a Nascent Soul cultivator was practically inviting calamity, but Fan Mei refrained from chastising her friend. In truth, she herself had found Wei Shentong unpleasant company. The subtle disdain he wore as openly as a ceremonial robe tested even her patience. Still, while their identities, and their association with Mo Jian and Bai Ning, offered a certain degree of protection, caution remained wise. The island’s formations were powerful enough to prevent even a Nascent Soul cultivator from casually spying upon them, but Fan Mei preferred not to tempt fate unnecessarily.
Fortunately, Bai Zhou appeared to share the same thought, because he spoke before she could redirect the conversation herself.
“At least you received a response,” he said with exaggerated grievance. “When I asked about the flag, Ning’er ignored me entirely. And Senior Mo Jian did not even understand what I was talking about.”
Fan Mei’s eyes met Bai Zing’s across the room, though the emotions reflected there could not have been more different. Fan Mei struggled to suppress her amusement at the memory of the utterly ridiculous flag Bai Zhou had insisted his daughter carry to the capital and “raise proudly for the Sect and the islands.” Bai Zing, meanwhile, rolled her eyes so hard it seemed a wonder they did not leave her skull entirely.
“You are still thinking about that absurd thing?” Bai Zing demanded.
“It is not absurd,” Bai Zhou replied with immediate dignity. “It is a symbol.”
“A symbol of your inability to behave like a proper cultivator for more than five breaths at a time.”
“A banner carries the spirit of a people,” he declared, entirely undeterred. “What kind of father would I be if I did not ensure my daughter carried the pride of her homeland into the capital?”
“The kind who possesses shame.”
Fan Mei finally failed to suppress her smile.
Bai Zhou noticed at once and pointed accusingly at her. “You see? Elder Fan understands.”
“I understand,” Fan Mei said carefully, “that Bai Ning was probably mortified.”
Bai Zing barked out a laugh while Zhou looked personally betrayed.
“She lacked proper appreciation,” he muttered.
“She inherited her mother’s sense,” Bai Zing shot back.
“That explains why she keeps following Senior Mo Jian around despite all evidence suggesting otherwise?”
“Following him?” Bai Zing scoffed. “Please. That girl has been impossible since she was six. If anything, I pity him.”
Fan Mei listened to their bickering with growing amusement, the warmth of the scene settling comfortably around her. It was… pleasant. Strangely domestic in a way cultivation circles rarely allowed. Most powerful cultivators drifted apart from mortal attachments as the years passed, becoming distant even from blood relatives.
Yet this family remained close despite everything.
Perhaps Bai Ning’s personality explained part of it. She had always struck Fan Mei as unusually grounded for someone with such monstrous talent. Reckless and troublesome, certainly, but never aloof.
Mo Jian was much the same.
That thought dimmed some of Fan Mei’s smile.
He had left nearly a year ago now, and with every passing month, she found herself feeling more distant from him. Yet traces of his presence lingered everywhere: in her thoughts, in the conversations people shared, in the stories younger disciples repeated with awe, even in the ambitions of children who now dreamed of leaving the Islands themselves.
Two people had walked out from these remote islands and entered the wider world. And somehow, impossibly, they had continued climbing.
While she still remained here.
Fan Mei did not begrudge them that. It had been her choice, and one she still believed in. These islands were her home, and the power and position she held here were not things she could simply cast aside. Even so, now and then, a faint twinge of something surfaced when she thought of those two. Not regret, exactly. More like the feeling of watching a ship sail past the harbor window, knowing it was not your ship to board, and being at peace with that, and yet watching it all the same.
It was nothing more than idle speculation.
Besides, she had preparations to make. Three days were barely enough time, and she had sent messages out the moment Wei Shentong’s identity and purpose became clear. By tomorrow, everyone who mattered should have arrived. Well, not everyone. Jin Rong and the group near Blackrock Island would never make it in time, but the three newly advanced Core Formation cultivators would.
They were the important ones.
After all, they would soon be leaving for the capital as well.
Fan Mei, and the entire Noble Alliance, had invested enormous amounts of time and resources into elevating those three. Part of it was practical: having more Core Formation cultivators, especially ones they could trust without reservation, strengthened the Alliance considerably. But there had been another reason too. Months ago, Mo Jian had sent word asking for people willing to travel to the capital and assist him and Bai Ning.
All three of Bai Ning's friends had leapt at the opportunity. Everyone else had either been too tied down by their own responsibilities or lacked the cultivation and talent necessary for such a journey, leaving those three as the only viable candidates. Advancing to Core Formation was still, in many ways, a matter of resources, and far more so than in higher realms. With the Alliance's backing, obtaining the pills, treasures, and guidance needed to push them through that bottleneck had been difficult, but far from impossible.
There were others who might have benefited as well – Bai Zing and Bai Zhou among them – but they were older and lacked the same overwhelming talent. The investment simply would not have yielded the same results.
But that was not something to dwell on now. She had work to do, and other people to meet. Liu Hong needed to be informed, and there was also Liu Rushi to consider. If she truly insisted on accompanying her student…
Fan Mei exhaled and set to work.
Just one day left. She could not afford to falter.
…………………………………………………..
Wei Shentong had been forced to create a louchuan for the return journey. It was, in essence, a tower ship carved from his jade, with three decks, each hollowed smooth and faintly luminescent, like the inside of a lantern. He granted the lower and middle decks to the four people accompanying him, while reserving the topmost for himself. Bringing others along would naturally slow him down, though not by much; at most, he expected half a week added to the three months required to reach the capital.
The jade ship streaked across the heavens like a trail of green light as it departed the Thousand Shattered Islands. Clouds parted around its prow. The ocean below shrank and blurred until it became a flat grey mirror threaded with foam. Wei Shentong stood alone at the top deck's railing for a moment, watching the islands recede into the distance, and felt nothing but relief.
He had made his intentions clear to the passengers from the outset: he was not to be approached, engaged in conversation, or otherwise disturbed. The oppressive weight of his aura, spread throughout the flying ship like a slow tide, ensured that they even refrained from speaking among themselves for the first hours of the journey. Good. Peace and quiet, exactly as he wanted.
The journey should have been smooth and uninterrupted. Yet they had barely begun to leave the islands behind; the last grey smudge of land just fading at the horizon, when they were intercepted.
Hovering directly in the path of the louchuan was a man.
Wei Shentong’s spiritual sense crashed into him like a mountain, only to be firmly repelled. His eyes narrowed. An early Nascent Soul cultivator, just like himself.
The stranger's appearance was peculiar. His skin was dark, like weathered driftwood left too long in the sun, and his long black hair had been braided into countless rows that hung nearly to his feet, swaying faintly in the high-altitude wind. A wild, frizzy beard covered half his face and stretched all the way to his stomach. His clothes looked as though they had once been finely made, but that must have been centuries ago. Now they were faded with age, riddled with holes, and trailing loose threads that fluttered like forgotten banners. Altogether, the man resembled a hermit who had not set foot outside for a hundred years.
That might very well have been true. There were cultivators – though none Wei Shentong associated with – who cared for nothing beyond cultivation. They secluded themselves in closed-door cultivation for decades, sometimes even centuries at a time, and emerged looking exactly like this: detached from the world and utterly ignorant of proper appearances.
However, this was no random encounter. The man was very clearly waiting for them.
That alone was enough to set Wei Shentong's instincts humming. He had done his due diligence before entering the islands, and as far as he knew, there had only been one figure of significance here: Yang Qing. He had never met the man himself. During Wei Shentong's stay, Yang Qing had remained on the far side of the islands, pointedly ignoring him, a courtesy Wei had been more than happy to return.
Which made this stranger an anomaly.
His qi stirred. A massive jade bow materialized atop the louchuan, an equally enormous arrow slowly taking shape upon the string, its tip crackling with compressed force. He did not know who this man was, but neither did he fear a fight. Still, it was better to see whether words could resolve the matter before qi and blood began to flow.
"Greetings, Fellow Daoist. I am Wei Shentong, a magistrate of the Imperial Capital. Who are you, and for what reason are you blocking my path?"
The stranger ignored him completely, not even sparing him a glance.
A spike of fury shot through Wei Shentong’s skull. Before he could “ask” again, meaning loose the arrow he had already begun charging and blast this fool from the sky, he was interrupted.
Liu Rushi burst from the ship.
Red-haired, voluptuous, and dressed more for attention than practicality, she rushed onto the deck with barely concealed urgency. Wei Shentong had found himself disapproving of her from the moment they met. The capital was hardly lacking in women who sought to ensnare powerful men through beauty and charm, and Liu Rushi fit neatly into that mold. The contrast with Fan Mei had only deepened his disdain.
Still, it was none of his business, and so he had never cared enough to comment on it.
“Senior,” she gasped, her gaze darting between him and the stranger. “Please, allow me to speak with him. He is an… acquaintance. He means no harm. This is merely a misunderstanding.”
Wei Shentong did not lower his guard. The other man might not have made a move yet, but he was not foolish enough to let a moment of carelessness cost him everything. Like last time, a snide voice whispered in the back of his mind. He ignored it. Instead, he directed half his attention toward Liu Rushi. “Who is he?”
She hesitated. That hesitation told him more than any immediate answer could have. Still, after a heartbeat, she spoke, though the words clearly came reluctantly. “He is the Lord of the Lonely Roads. That is not his true name, but it is what people call him. Senior, he truly means no harm. I apologize on his behalf for any offense. Please, allow me to speak with him and I will sort this matter out.”
Wei Shentong considered her words, thoughts racing beneath his calm exterior. He knew that title. When investigating the Thousand Shattered Islands, the name had surfaced more than once in scattered rumors: a Nascent Soul cultivator so isolated that few had ever truly seen him. A hermit who wandered the islands alone, detached from worldly affairs to the point that some doubted he even existed.
Wei Shentong had dismissed those stories as little more than hearsay. Apparently, that had been a mistake.
His gaze lingered on the ragged hermit suspended in the sky. The Lord of the Lonely Roads did not move. He simply hovered there in utter stillness, and yet, beneath that stillness was a pressure that could not be ignored. It was not overwhelming in the way some cultivators flaunted their strength, but dense and ancient, like roots buried deep beneath a mountain. A troublesome opponent.
Wei Shentong could fight him if necessary. He was confident in that much. But confidence was not certainty, and battles between Nascent Soul cultivators were rarely clean affairs. Even victory could come at a cost. And he had no desire to begin a pointless war in the middle of nowhere.
His fingers tapped once against the jade railing of the louchuan before he spoke. “Very well. You have ten breaths.”
Relief flashed across Liu Rushi’s face. “Thank you, Senior.”
Without waiting for another word, she flew from the ship and stopped several paces away from the hermit. Up close, her expression became strangely complicated; anxious, guilty, and almost fearful.
The Lord of the Lonely Roads finally looked at her. A bubble of qi spread outward from him, enveloping the two of them and sealing away all sound while repelling external spiritual senses.
Immediately, Wei Shentong activated the Unbroken Jade Coronet. Hidden beneath the folds of his sleeve, a tiny jade mouse with oversized ears formed silently in his palm. He kept his qi compressed and perfectly still. The moment the mouse took shape, his hearing sharpened dramatically.
The whispering winds suddenly sounded as though they were brushing directly against his ears. He could hear the rustle of his own robes, the faint breathing of the three cultivators below deck – Li Kang, Chen Zhuhe, and Yue Shuangyi – whose names were the only things he knew about them.
And, most importantly, he could hear the conversation beyond the barrier.
Below him, he could make out the three juniors moving. A faint creak at the edge of his hearing – one of them had pressed a small talisman against the hull, its surface etched with a listening spell of some kind. Wei Shentong did not turn his head. He filed the observation away for later and kept his attention on the bubble of qi ahead.
“You are leaving,” the hermit said. His voice was rough, as though it had gone unused for years.
Liu Rushi swallowed. “I have my own path to walk, Father.”
Wei Shentong did not allow even the slightest flicker of surprise to show on his face, though the revelation caught him off guard. Father. That complicated matters considerably. Below deck, he heard something different from the muffled breathing that he had been hearing till now: a sharp, almost imperceptible intake of breath, quickly suppressed.
So the talisman had worked after all. He kept his face entirely blank.
“I cannot stay here forever,” Liu Rushi continued softly. “You know that.”
The Lord of the Lonely Roads stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking again. “You know my reasons. The capital is a dangerous place, especially for you. Should anyone learn about your mother-”
“They won’t,” Liu Rushi interrupted firmly. “Isn’t that why you made sure I look like this instead of how I would have appeared at birth? And…” For the first time, hesitation entered her voice. “I’ve had enough of hiding and dreaming. I want to see the capital with my own eyes.”
The hermit’s expression darkened.
“You speak as though the world beyond these islands is some grand wonder,” he said quietly. “It is not. Men kill for profit, cultivators kill for pride, and the strong devour the weak while calling it the natural order.”
Liu Rushi lowered her eyes. “I know.”
“No, you do not.”
The words came sharper this time. “You have seen fragments, and heard some stories from me. That is not the same thing.” His gaze hardened. “The capital least of all. That place is a nest of monsters wearing human skin.”
Wei Shentong’s brows twitched faintly at the insult, though he remained silent.
Liu Rushi took a slow breath. “Even so, I still wish to go.”
The Lord of the Lonely Roads fell quiet once more. The winds drifted silently around the two figures suspended in the sky. Far below them, the ocean rolled endlessly beneath scattered clouds, grey and indifferent and vast.
Finally, the hermit spoke again, his voice lower than before. “You resemble her more and more each passing year.”
Liu Rushi stiffened. Wei Shentong noticed the way her hands tightened within her sleeves.
“When she wished for something,” the hermit continued, “nothing could stop her either.” For the first time since appearing, the pressure around him weakened slightly. “You hate this place that much?” he asked.
Liu Rushi shook her head immediately. “No. I could never hate it.” Her voice softened. “But this isn’t living, Father. You hide from the world as though the heavens themselves are hunting you.”
“They might be.” The answer came so quickly and so seriously that even she froze.
A faint crease appeared between Wei Shentong’s brows. Interesting.
The hermit exhaled slowly, as though realizing he had said too much. “At the very least,” he said, “you should wait until you reach Nascent Soul.”
“That could take a century.”
“Then a century.”
Liu Rushi laughed weakly, though there was no humor in it. “You truly intended to keep me trapped here forever.”
His silence was answer enough.
For several breaths, neither of them spoke. Then Liu Rushi stepped forward and bowed deeply. “Father,” she said softly, “please.”
The single word carried more weight than all the arguments before it. The Lord of the Lonely Roads closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze moved past Liu Rushi and settled on the jade louchuan, and more specifically, on Wei Shentong himself. Something in that look told Wei Shentong, with absolute certainty, that the hermit knew he had overheard every word. And that he had allowed it.
Immediately, Wei Shentong’s expression hardened. Irritation surged through him; at the man, at his audacity, at the entire situation. He was Wei Shentong, a magistrate of the Imperial Capital, not some dog to be tugged around by the leash.
The hermit's gaze then dropped slightly, through the jade hull, to the deck below. A second, briefer look appeared on his face, almost amused. He had noticed the talisman too.
Wei Shentong set his jaw. Yet the hermit showed no intention of fighting. Instead, he raised a hand. Something shot forth from his sleeve, crossing the distance in a flash of light before sinking into Liu Rushi’s body. Even with Wei Shentong’s eyesight, he failed to make out exactly what it was.
Then, without another word, the Lord of the Lonely Roads summoned a brush into his hand – a black handle tipped with white bristles – and swept it casually through the air. The space before him rippled. In the next instant, he vanished. His qi rapidly faded into the distance, disappearing beyond the horizon.
Wei Shentong remained alert, the Unbroken Jade Coronet glowing faintly green atop his head as his spiritual sense swept across the surrounding skies. Only when Liu Rushi slowly turned and made her way back to the ship, looking shaken and lost and deeply worried, did he finally withdraw his senses and dismiss the jade bow.
Then he extended his spiritual sense to the decks below, finding the three juniors standing in a cluster near the hull, the listening talisman already crumpled and dispelled in Chen Zhuhe's fist. The three of them wore expressions that ranged from stunned disbelief to barely functioning thought. Li Kang, a lean middle aged man with a cultivator's habitual stillness, had gone entirely rigid. Yue Shuangyi had pressed both hands over her mouth. Chen Zhuhe was staring at absolutely nothing, blinking very slowly, as though his mind had simply stopped accepting new information and was waiting patiently for everything to restart.
The three of them stiffened as they felt his spiritual sense in the air, and the weight of his aura on their backs. Wei Shentong let it remain for a long moment. Then, with enormous deliberateness, he pulled back his spiritual sense, and the three of them breathed out in relief.
“We are leaving,” he declared from above. After some consideration, he had concluded that nothing he had overheard truly concerned him. Whatever secret existed between father and daughter was their own affair, and he had no interest in entangling himself further in it.
On the upper deck, Liu Rushi immediately bowed at his words. This time she even forgot the coquettish grace she usually affected, too distracted by her own thoughts to maintain appearances. Then, without another word, she descended back below.
The jade louchuan surged forward once more. Within moments, it became nothing more than a streak of green light racing across the horizon, barreling toward the Imperial Capital.
..............................................................................
AN: This chapter was originally going to be much longer, but I ended up reining myself in. At the end of the day, there was no real reason for Wei Shentong to spend much time dealing with the cultivators here. More importantly, lingering on this section would only make the pacing drag and complicate things unnecessarily.
Better to keep it as a brief interlude before moving on to the more important developments.