Chương 57: B2 Chapter 17

There was a shape to banquets, Li Xun mused. Or rather there was a shape to banquet halls, which the events themselves naturally followed. In the Empire of Xiao, this shape was an elongated horseshoe. Some clans with oddly designed compounds had other arrangements. A grid of tables before a central platform like a lecture hall, or small circular sections arranged like spokes around a central hub.

But even in such a young empire, one that had yet to see the close of its first millennium, tradition had begun to ossify. There was a way in which things were done, and many ways in which they were not. The great held their banquets in the shape of an oxbow bend or court session. And the lesser clans greedily aped every tradition of the great ones that they could afford, lapping hungrily at any scrap of legitimacy within their reach.

In a traditional Xiao banquet, the host sat at the apex of the shoe's curve, where a horse's analogue to a toe would rest, opposite the entrance of the hall at the heel. The guests of honor sat closest to the host along the inner curve of the oxbow in descending order of importance, with the left side favored above the right. Retainers and lesser notables populated the outer rows, usually arranged not by their own prestige, but by general proximity to the table of their lords or seniors.

There was some flexibility afforded to those lower seats. A man could be subtly snubbed by placing him relatively highly, then banishing his retainers, or even his family, to the fourth or fifth rows, surrounding him with strangers. Truth be told, it was mostly beyond Li Xun. He understood the concept well enough, but he'd never had the need or interest to master the myriad specifics that could be derived from it.

Never before had he cared where he'd been placed, beyond whether or not his neighbors were intelligent enough to be worth speaking to. Now, he could not help but take every detail in. He had been placed in the second row, near the apex of the bow, on the right side. It was a place of high honor for a mere daoist, only four tables away from where Sect Master Ren would sit. Only five tables away from the guest of honor, the Seventh Prince.

Close enough that it would not be inappropriate for him to join the main conversation of the banquet if he were mentioned by name. Yet, his seat was almost almost directly behind Elder Lu. Li Xun had a clear view of the back of the old monster's head, all liver-spots and sparse but healthy white hair. There was little else to look at until the host and guests of honor stepped into view. Turning or raising his head would be a mistake.

Every guest would maintain their silent bows until the sect master and prince were seated. Daoist Scouring Medicine was not far from Elder Xun or Elder Wordwake either. They sat at Elder Lu's right and left respectively, but he had not served Elder Xun directly for decades. He had even less connection to Elder Wordwake. He had only met the reclusive man a few times, and only ever interacted with him in his capacity as the steward of the Hall of Dawn. The unexpected honor was a pit in his stomach.

He'd expected the third row, nearer the entrance, perhaps in the vicinity of Elder Weeping Lotus. He was too important to ignore after Li Hou defeated Yang Wei, but Elder Lu would have been well within his rights to place him at the very back of the fifth row if he wished. That he'd been placed here was intentional. There was nothing that grasping man hated more than an element he could not control. Once he decided someone was his piece to move, he would see them bent to his will, or broken by it.

Sect Master Ren Yuhan's steps resounded through the silent hall. Every footfall rung with the impact of stone on stone, the unmistakable sound only dampened slightly by the thin leather of his slippers. His robe's collar hung far looser than was appropriate, showing a great deal of his chest. None would seek to offer subtle correction. The translucent azure crystal that spread through his well-defined muscles like quartz intruding into granite did not invite commentary.

Daoist Scouring Medicine idly noted that the sect master's chest did not seem to rise and fall with his breath. That had interesting implications for how his inhuman physique might function, but it was all academic to him. A man who could carve a new valley into a mountainside with one swing of his saber was so far beyond him that there was little point in cataloguing his weaknesses. Daoist Scouring Medicine wondered how many perfect clones of him it would take to bring the sect master down.

Three or four dozen perhaps, if they were willing to give their lives freely and fought in perfect coordination? Maybe twice that if they were not. Gall rose in his stomach. Ren Yuhan had been an inner disciple when Li Xun joined the Azure Mountain Sect. The sect master was a mere thirty years his senior, almost a member of the same generation as cultivators judged such things. Li Xun was not weak. But the gulf in their personal strength was beyond merely insurmountable.

The sect master's saber could shape the sort of battlefields that Daoist Scouring Medicine was barely qualified to stand upon. Trailing in the sect master's wake was the only Qi Condensation cultivator in attendance who was not serving food or pouring drinks. The Seventh Prince, Xiao Yongzheng. The Seventh Prince did not look like a child among his elders. In many ways, his appearance was unremarkable, but the impression he made was all the more striking for it.

His face was finely shaped in an average sort of way that while not especially handsome, lent him something of the ageless appearance of many senior cultivators. His build was unremarkable, but he wore his ornate robes with understated grace. He carried no weapon at his side, but the roundel that adorned his chest, a five-clawed dragon clutching at a mountain, made it clear he did not need one. Only the imperial family could bear that symbol. For any other to do so carried the penalty of death.

And a prince in lower esteem might not even dare to exercise that privilege, lest they brave the Qianlong Emperor's displeasure. The Seventh Prince's cultivation was not remarkable in the absolute. He was barely into the third stage of Qi Condensation. He was almost certainly relying on a defensive treasure to bear the combined pressure of the hall's experts. But he was also only sixteen years of age. And that mattered. Li Xun might not be an expert in contemporary politics, but he was an avid student of history.

In the Empire of Xiao, it was customary for youths to begin their cultivation between the ages of fifteen and twenty. It was a practice that hailed from the patriarch's generation, and the short reign of the Kaiyuan, the founding emperor. A lesson drawn from the era of bloodstained chaos that the Kaiyuan and his companions had quelled to build their empire. No formal rule had ever been set to paper, nor justifications for the practice provided.

But when the nascent great sects refused to teach even the most prodigious of children until they approached their majority, most clans had followed suit rather than risk whispers of side gates and left-handed paths. There was a great deal more nuance to the practice in the modern era. The clans enforced conformity far more ruthlessly than the sects. But the four great sects received the occasional correction from their reclusive patriarchs, keeping them more closely to the original spirit of the rule.

All the same, it was a custom that had been in decline for the last three hundred years. Without a tie to the legal age of majority, or at least a publicly given reason for the prohibition, every generation of clan scions had been handed their first spirit stones and manuals just a few months earlier than their parents. However, the Seventh Prince was far from the Qianlong Emperor's first child.

And it was well known that the Qianlong had refused to provide any of his prior descendants with cultivation resources before they reached the age of twenty. He was said to be a staunch traditionalist in many ways, revering the father of his dynasty. He did not go so far as to wear the weathered rags of a hidden master as the Kaiyuan had.

The Jianheng, no doubt to the great gratitude of his successors, had immediately put an end to the practice of emperors wearing rags upon ascending the throne, killing it before it had any chance of becoming a tradition. Not even the Qianlong was enough of a reactionary to revive it, but he kept to the very letter of many slowly dying traditions.

For the Seventh Prince to have both enough favor to bear the Dragon's Claw and possess a cultivation base meant that either the Qianlong had suspended the rules he had enforced upon every other descendent, or the Seventh Prince had reached that cultivation at the age of sixteen with a method of his own invention, without consuming any pills or spirit stones. Either possibility meant that Xiao Yongzheng mattered. Everyone with eyes knew that he was a rising contender for the position of Crown Prince.

And the Azure Mountain Sect clearly wished to teach him. As the two most important men in the room reached their seats, every guest lowered their heads and raised the voices.

"The Azure Mountain Sect greets the Eighth Sect Master!" The assembled daoists thundered, drowning out the raging skies above the hall. During the beat of silence between the first greeting and the second, Li Xun wondered what exactly was going on with that. The skies had been almost clear when he'd entered the reception four hours ago. He'd not have put money on them sending down pounding rain tonight.

"The Azure Mountain Sect greets the Seventh Prince of the Xiao!" Another beat of silence, broken only by the quiet rustling of the Seventh Prince taking his seat. He manipulated the three layers of his robes like he'd been born fully dressed.

"The Azure Mountain Sect greets the Marshal of the West!" Yang Shui was already seated when his greeting rang out. The Marshal was probably supposed to have walked in alongside the Sect Master. But who would have dared shoo him out of the reception partially in his honor? Li Xun did not know whether to feel exasperated, or envious, that the terrifying man could so casually flout protocol. He found himself wondering what Li Hou would say about the matter.

So much of what passed here would go clear over the monkey's head. For a moment, he was tempted to do as his disciple would. To treat everyone as an equal, taking offense at condescending affects and meeting even the most envenomed of kindnesses with optimistic sincerity. It would probably get him killed. But perhaps being able to live like that was a thing to aspire to. The final guest of honor followed the Seventh Prince like a shadow, only parting from his side when the prince took his seat.

He looked almost a touch awkward, the last man standing in the Hall of Rarefied Heights. There was of course, only so out of place a Nascent Soul cultivator could ever look.

"The Azure Mountain Sect greets Xiao Wenchuan!" A few voices lagged just a moment behind here, a couple of red-faced daoists needing the prompting of their fellows to recognize the last dignitary. The main branch of the Xiao Clan boasted a full four Nascent Soul cultivators. Enough that they could afford to assign one to serve as the Seventh Prince's dao protector as a gesture of goodwill toward their imperial cousins. Also apparently enough that some daoists struggled to remember all of their names and faces.

The main branch of the Xiao tended to make such gestures of goodwill frequently, lest the emperor begin to suspect that they coveted his seat. The Xiao Patriarch had entered the Long Road centuries ago. No sitting emperor since the Kaiyuan could truly boast of being his equal in cultivation. But so long as the imperial family retained the favor of the founders of the four great sects, the Capital Xiao needed to step lightly around their imperial cousins.

Xiao Wenchuan stepped past his charge, taking a seat in the second row almost opposite Li Xun, between his charge and Sect Master Ren. An intentional signal his role as dao protector took precedence over his personal standing and familial affiliations. Li Xun wracked his head, but he honestly couldn't say if that was a positive or negative signal about the relationship between the Xiao Clan and the Azure Mountain Sect.

It could truly just as easily be a favor as a snubbing, especially with Xiao Zheng sitting in the first row nearer the entrance. Perhaps his disciple had a point. Politics truly was a stupid endeavor. At long last, disciples poured into the hall bearing steaming plates as the banquet began in earnest. It was... Painfully tedious. Not the food. The food was excellent. Li Xun had heard some distant lands treated feasts as an opportunity to display their artistic talents at the expense of their guest's stomachs.

They served dishes that were not even intended to be eaten, using plates as canvases for obscure literary references or displays of wealth. Some even dyed food with semi-poisonous materials to get exactly the right shade of color to express some nuance of insult or loyalty. The Empire of Xiao did not hold with such practices. Every dish was an artistic marvel to be sure.

His own table already bore with pickled vegetables carved into flowers, and artfully arranged slices of spirit bear that had been gently boiled in honey. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a lobster the size of small child being deposited in front of Yang Shui. And every table, even the lowliest, was perfumed by the gentle fragrance of spiritual rice. Despite his apprehensions, Li Xun found himself tucking in with vigor. He could hardly imagine the expense of this affair.

It was probably in excess of ten thousand spirit stones, perhaps close to twenty. Precious few men were ever afforded the opportunity to so indulge, and he refused to let what could be taint his appetite. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. The conversation though, left something to be desired. It began with Sect Master Ren thanking the imperial family for its prudent and just leadership of the empire.

The Seventh Prince humbly received his words on behalf of the Qianlong Emperor and praised the Azure Mountain Sect for its valiant defense of the empire's southern borders. Elder Xun accepted that praise on the sect master's behalf, and declared a toast in Yang Shui's honor, for his glorious victories in the west. Yang Shui returned the compliment to the sect, and Elder Lu toasted the Seventh Prince himself and the sprawling clan he hailed from. And so it went, around and around.

Everyone wanted to be mentioned, and had a party they sought to curry favor with in turn. Men and women of terrible power tossed around empty compliments like a pack of children playing with a ball. At some point, Yang Shui left the hall for a few minutes. When he returned, the steady drumbeat of falling rain quickly faded away. Li Xun shivered at the thought of what he must have done to change the weather, and sought to drown his fear in shark fin soup. The oddly gelatinous delicacy coating his tongue like paint.

The thin shreds of shark were tasteless. He didn't know if that was because of the nervous energy that turned his stomach, or if it his palette was not refined enough to appreciate whatever virtue there was supposed to be in the goopy mess. Then it happened.

"I heard that two of my cousins are competing this year." The Seventh Prince said.

"I look forward to seeing what they have achieved under the Azure Mountain's tutelage."

"I assure you that you will not be disappointed, Your Highness." Elder Lu answered.

"Disciple Xiao Long has made great strides in mastering the Xiao's elemental arts. He has also achieved a remarkable mastery of both the spear and saber. And Disciple Xiao Shulan has eschewed the spotlight, but I have it on good authority that her diligent efforts may have even surpassed her cousin's achievements. Her mastery of lightning is a credit to the Xiao Clan."

"That pleases me to hear. It is untoward for one such as I to be partial among family, but I must express a degree of sympathy for Cousin Shulan's ambitions, unfilial as some say they are. The duties of the gentry can be heavy, and I do not begrudge those of us who find their temperament less suited for this life than I."

"Of course Your Highness." Elder Lu said.

"Your understanding nature is a credit to your family." The Seventh Prince turned toward Yang Shui.

"I'd heard your own nephew was competing this year Marshal Yang. Should the court brace for another rising star among the banners? Clan Head Yang was just telling me about how easily you agreed to teach his son. The emperor is pleased to see such harmony among two of his most valued retainers."

"Oh? Have you not heard your highness?" Xiao Wenchuan cut in, raising his voice a hair to be clearly audible from his more distant seat.

"Disciple Yang Wei did not make the main stage of the sect's tournament. He had the misfortune of being laid low by one of the Azure Mountain's common born disciples. If one can call the product of such strange circumstances something so mundane as being of common birth."

"I must confess that you have piqued my curiosity, Uncle Wenchuan. What talent do you speak of? They must be truly remarkable to have defeated Disciple Yang Wei." Yang Shui frowned. Elder Lu's shoulders shifted a hair. The sect master's spoon clinked slightly louder than necessary. Daoist Scouring Medicine swallowed. Technically, it was improper for him to speak at all here. Not unless he was directly addressed.

But the Seventh Prince was a wildcard Elder Lu could not hope to control, and a few casual words out of his mouth might allow him an entrance into the conversation.

"I am surprised you haven't heard your highness." Xiao Wenchuan continued. His tone was casually intimate, as if he were speaking to the Seventh Prince alone, the rest of the hall beneath his attention.

"The Azure Mountain Sect has never been an organization that feared to blaze new trails. Yet this year it is an older practice that they have revived. I believe this is the first time since the Bai Clan suffered the censure of the Weizheng Emperor that a great sect has seen one of their daoists name a monkey as their disciple."

"A monkey?" Xiao Zheng repeated. His face was already flushed from too much spiritual wine, and it reddened further when he realized that he'd spoken grievously out of turn. That he'd all but spoken over the Seventh Prince no less. But with his comment, the ice shattered. Decorum temporarily broke as a dozen daoists spoke to their neighbors just a little too loud in an effort to get their own feelings out.

"Old news!"

"Daoist Scouring Medicine has always been a troublemaker."

"One of many. One of ours."

"But that fight! Yang Wei is the spitting image of a young Ren Yuhan."

"A young Yang Shui more like!"

"What does fur matter, if it has talent, the sect should teach it."

"Talent? Is that what we call having a fortune stuffed down your throat?"

"The sins of the Bai should remain buried."

"The sin was of the Bai was rebellion, not seeking to bring civilization to wild places."

"The only sin here is that the battle between Yang Wei and Li Hou was witnessed by so few."

"Surely you exaggerate their prowess?" Li Xun's tongue remained motionless. From fear, or prudence, he did not know. Other daoists could speak, be heard, and be ignored. If he spoke now, Elder Lu would be sure to draw attention to him speaking out of turn. Yang Shui cleared his throat loudly. The hall fell silent. The marshal opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Instead he reached down for his wine cup. He lifted it to his lips, drinking slowly.

Veins pulsed in several daoists necks as they waited impatiently for him to pronounce his verdict on the matter.

"The monkey isn't bad." He finally said.

"It is a worthy stepping stone for my nephew. I look forward to their inevitable third clash."

"Your nephew is not worthy of a human rival?" Xiao Wenchuan asked.

"I heard rumors of their duel. Of the crude and unconventional way that Disciple Yang Wei utilized his spear qi. Surely your nephew would have triumphed, if he had been taught to properly harness his talents." Yang Shui sighed.

"Xiao Wenchuan. I am not sure the junior generation truly understands the heights that they covet. Perhaps before the disciples take the main stage, we old men should enlighten them." Xiao Wenchuan swallowed.

"I would hate to impose upon the grand elders of the Azure Mountain to contain such a battle."

"Do not worry, Senior Xiao. I am well used to fighting among my juniors. I will not break anything I do not intend to. The honor of the Yang Clan upon it."

"I am afraid I must decline. I can hardly ensure the safety of the Seventh Prince while engaged with a foe as mighty as the Storm that Walks." Li Xun felt like a leaf blown about by the wind. All that he had learned meant so very little before the whims of his seniors. And even the whims of his juniors, in the case of the Seventh Prince.

"I am sure the Azure Mountain has already arranged an exhibition match for us." The Seventh Prince said, settling the matter.

"I must however confess a degree of curiosity about this simian disciple that provokes such spirited discourse." Li Xun flinched. That seemed as close to an invitation as he was going to get. He took a breath, and opened his mouth. An outer disciple passed by his table, dropping off yet another plate. A first he thought it was an egg pudding, before he saw the thin lines of crimson running through what he'd taken for pale custard. The bright color drew his eyes for a second glance.

And then he saw the striations, the deep folds that were unmistakably something other than tofu or pudding. In his century of life, Li Xun had only seen it served once before, at the emperor's commendation banquet. Monkey brains. He did not immediately recognize them on a plate, instead of served within the skull of the animal. Rage flooded his veins. He'd never imagined that so blunt a threat could be delivered in the form of food. His eyes flickered across the banquet hall.

He was not the only guest to have received a dish of brains. There was one at Elder Lu's side, and one on Ren Yuhan's table. The guests of honor had been delivered something else, masses of iridescent lingzhi in five colors arranged atop bear paws. The unusual dish emanated a Foundation Establishment level aura, making it clear why only the Seventh Prince and Yang Shui had received it. That likely was not even safe for the Seventh Prince to consume, he would almost certainly pass it on to his dao protector.

While he was distracted, Elder Lu spoke first.

"As Xiao Wenchuan says, our Azure Mountain Sect often steps beyond the commonly accepted bounds of orthodoxy. Our patriarch is among the most unrestrained of men. It was his wish that those who followed in his steps should do so with that same fearlessness. It was not merely in teaching a monkey that our own Daoist Scouring Medicine followed in the patriarchs footsteps." Li Xun's fingers whitened, nearly snapping his chopsticks. He could not cut in now. Not even as Li Hou's master.

Elder Lu would say his full piece. He could only respond after. Could he knock the dish off his table? A doddering mortal might plead frailty, but nobody would believe a cultivator had unsteady hands. He almost did it anyway. He longed to stuff the insult down Elder Lu's throat. Let him choke on his pointless luxuries.

"Daoist Scouring Medicine is among those who places that virtue at the core of their practice, one of the empire's foremost experts in the dangerous art of alchemical bodily refinement. Yet, the tree that stands tallest than the rest suffers most harshly the raging winds. Two years ago, his first disciple suffered a tragic fate attempting to follow in the daoist's footsteps." There were whispers, then. The name Zhang spilled from a dozen lips. Lamentations of their family's absence.

Accusations of negligence beneath Elder Lu's dignity to voice here. Eyes fell upon Li Xun, many of them sharp and unkind. Sometimes, laying silently in the darkness of the deepest hours of the night, Li Xun wondered if Disciple Zhang's fate really was his fault. No formulae was perfect. With so violent a transformation of the self, risks could only ever be mitigated, not eliminated. But Disciple Zhang's treatment had been split into a dozen phases for precisely that reason. The first three had proceeded flawlessly.

If he'd made a mistake, the failure should not have been that violent. It was the prudent way to proceed, what Li Xun had done for two out of the three bodily refinements he'd performed on himself. He'd only attempted to do otherwise for Li Hou because of that earthen treasure the monkey found on one of his mysterious adventures, and because he did not have the resources for a more costly gradual treatment. He did not know what had happened to Li Hou.

The bath should not have been that dangerous, nor that successful. That centipede wine, or some deeply buried bloodline, had influenced the process. Li Xun could admit when he did not know something. But every scrap of lore he'd accumulated told him the same thing. Disciple Zhang's situation was not Li Hou's. He had seen positive effects from the first treatments, and remained in the bath far too long out of avarice, seeking to squeeze further power out of the process.

It was the only explanation consistent with the observed outcome.

"In the wake of Disciple Zhang's tragic misfortune, I suggested Daoist Scouring Medicine pursue a new direction." Elder Lu lied shamelessly.

"If his novel techniques were not yet ready for men, why not seek other subjects to test his treatments upon?" Daoists nodded, following the obvious implication. If the process was too dangerous for men, why not test it upon a monkey? Li Xun felt a vein pulsing in his neck. How dare the snake imply that Li Hou had been his suggestion. That barring him from teaching human disciples had been a correction, not a punishment. That treating Disciple Zhang had not been his command.

Li Xun had spent years ducking Elder Lu's attention at every turn, only the threat of being forced into another tour on the southern front had seen him finally agree to treat the arrogant brat. And the very idea that Elder Lu would think to seek animal test subjects? He knew Lu Xiaosheng, and that monster would have happily granted him a dozen condemned prisoners to experiment upon if he but bowed his head in submission. Human life meant nothing to him, save for what he could purchase with it.

He could see where Elder Lu was leading now, but he could do nothing to head him off.

"And so, Daoist Scouring Medicine succeeded in refining the body and mind of a monkey. The process was dangerous. The monkey lingered between life and death for months. But thanks to the expertise of Elder Weeping Lotus, his constitution was stabilized. He has taken the name Li Hou, and is accounted a full outer disciple of the Azure Mountain Sect, the same as any other. When the Jianheng Emperor established the four great sects, he charged us with the duty of teaching all who possessed the talent to cultivate.

As the Bai Patriarch once said, before his descendants fell from grace, all does not mean merely all men. In teaching Li Hou, the Azure Mountain honors the Jianheng Emperor's wisdom and foresight." Li Xun's tongue felt as heavy as the lead he'd used to cripple Daoist Snowclad Heart. Everything Elder Lu said was true, or close enough that it did not matter. If Li Xun contradicted him, would Elder Weeping Lotus support him? He doubted it.

He would be casting doubt on her competency if he claimed the truth, that Li Hou had recovered on his own. To pretend she knew more than she did would cost her nothing. From her perspective, he should be grateful the sect bent this far, acknowledging his talents and unorthodox disciple. Their unorthodox disciple. And publicly disagreeing with Elder Lu would cost the sect face, whether he triumphed in the resulting dispute or not. The message was obvious. Elder Lu could not see his disciple ignored any longer.

To minimize his talents would be to insult Yang Shui by denigrating his nephew. So he would claim Li Hou's achievements for his own. And Li Xun and Li Hou would toe the line of decorum, and respect the blatant lie, or his disciple's brains would be the next to grace the elder's table. It'd been done so easily. He'd lied so shamelessly, but every fact he'd twisted was one that could never be verified. Conversations that had no other witnesses.

Medical facts that not even Elder Weeping Lotus could authoritatively verify. Unless some Nascent Soul alchemist descended and used their divine sense to determine the truth of the matter, the truth would become whatever Elder Lu said it was. He could not even leverage Li Hou's success to sell his knowledge to others when he could not truthfully contradict Elder Lu's claim that his disciple had lingered at the edge of death for months.

He might know more about the subject than Elder Weeping Lotus, but who would believe that? It would take little effort to redirect interested parties, to force him to move through her if he wished to profit off his baths.

"What a remarkable tale." The Seventh Prince said mildly, his interest in the matter clearly spent.

"I look forward to witnessing his skills for myself. Perhaps one day, I will call a monkey my senior brother." He joked. Elder Xun said something about the brackets. Spoke proudly of some water-wielding initiate that had joined External Affairs. The conversation moved on. The dishes kept flowing. Yang Shui did not revisit the matter of his nephew's loss, and so Li Xun sat there, as pointless as any of the courtly ornaments he decried.

His disciple was not mentioned, and there was nothing he could say that Elder Lu could not hear, so there was little point to plotting. Politics had never been his preferred battlefield, but he'd thought he could do better than this. He'd been outmaneuvered effortlessly. Li Xun's fingers twitched. A mad part of him longed to fight Elder Lu. It was a stupid, self-destructive, desire. Even with the true gu that he had refined, his odds of victory were poor.

It was a terrifying weapon, destructive beyond his wildest expectations. He could only wield it for minutes before it began to destroy his own body. But what he knew of Elder Lu's techniques suggested he was far more resistant to poison than most. He might manage a victory if Daoist Enduring Oath fought alongside him, but his brother was not a tenth so disillusioned as to seriously consider killing an elder. There were no other allies he could call upon that would be sufficient.

Relying on Li Hou was not even worth thinking about, Elder Lu would slay him in a single blow. It would be dangerous, keeping to his original plan. Elder Lu could not know exactly what he'd intended, but he clearly saw the general thrust of it. And Li Xun did not doubt that he would leap to murder if the monkey's mischief truly threatened the reputation of the sect. But he had open the rear path of throwing himself on the Monkey King's mercy.

And Li Hou had a way of confounding even the most flexible of his expectations. It was not time to cut his losses and flee quite yet. Elder Lu wanted to claim responsibility for his disciple's deeds? Let him choke on them.