Chương 44: In the Tall Grass

Ling'er is already moving, and I follow. She's fast. Faster than me. Fifty paces ahead within seconds, and the gap is widening even as I run with all my might. My lungs burn. My legs push. This body can move; I rarely get a chance to test its limits, to really push against the foundation I've built, but it's not enough. She's a blur ahead of me, gold-brown hair catching the afternoon light, and I can't catch up. I don't stop. The path up the mountain is familiar.

Every rock, every root, every turn where the trees thin and the sect comes into view. I've walked this road a thousand times. Never like this. Never with my heart pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with exertion. The hope that, for once, Ling'er might be mistaken drains away entirely when I see Wei Chen. He's stumbling down the path toward us, one hand pressed to his head, blood seeping between his fingers. His robes are torn. His face is pale. He sees us and nearly collapses.

"Sect Leader—" His voice is ragged.

"Bandits. They came at dawn. A group of them—maybe fifteen, maybe more. The leader was strong. Foundation Establishment at least. We tried to fight but—" He gestures vaguely at his head.

"Mei Lin and Lian. They took them." I catch him before his knees give out.

"Slow down. Breathe. Where are the others?"

"Jun has them at the sect. Everyone else is alive. No one else was taken. But they ransacked everything. Storage rooms, the freezer, the disciples' quarters. But they took whatever looked valuable and what they could carry." My mind races. Where could it have gone wrong? Feng? No—Feng was bitter, but he wasn't a bandit. Jun? No—Jun has been watching, calculating, but he's not a traitor. I've been watching him too. The variables collapse, one by one, until only one conclusion remains. Myself.

I've been spending visibly in Greenstone Town. Spirit stones changing hands. Goods flowing into a sect that had nothing. I thought the cover story was solid; a new mine vein, careful savings, nothing worth noting. But someone noted. Someone followed the trail of wealth back to the source and decided to take it for themselves. I treat Wei Chen's wound while I think. The gash is shallow—bleeding heavily but not dangerous. I press a cloth against it, hold it firm.

"Anybody else hurt? Killed?"

"No. Jun got everyone else evacuated. The younger disciples, the servants. Old Chen hit one of them with a ladle." A ghost of a laugh escapes him.

"He's fine. Everyone's fine. Just... scared." Relief floods through me, cold and sharp. Not dead. Not dead. I can work with not dead.

"How many bandits? Which direction? How long ago?"

"Ten. Maybe twelve. They headed east, toward the old trade road. Two hours ago, maybe three." Wei Chen's eyes find Ling'er, who has been standing perfectly still since we arrived.

"Me, Mei Lin, and Jun were holding off their leader until they caught Lian because she was in the garden. Mei Lin… surrendered. Bought us time to try and get you." Ling'er's response to learning Mei Lin was taken is not what I expect. She nods once, her eyes distant, unfocused, seeing something that isn't there. The threads, I realize. The Sacred Cosmic Bone is working, pulling information from connections I can't perceive.

"They're alive," she says as a statement.

"I can feel them. The threads are strained, but they're not cut. I can find them." I meet her eyes.

"Lead the way." I order Wei Chen back to the sect, pressing what little medical supplies I carry into his hands.

"Treat the others. Keep everyone inside the perimeter. Don't let anyone leave until we return." He nods, already turning, already stumbling back up the path. Then I let Ling'er lead. She's faster, more capable, more attuned to the threads she's tracking. If anyone can find Mei Lin and Lian before it's too late, it's her. But… her power has been a secret to keep, a weapon to conceal, a potential threat to manage. This is the first time something she loves has been threatened, and she can actually respond to it.

'I'm not going to take that from her.' She moves ahead of me with the familiarity that comes from knowing exactly where you're going. I follow, keeping her in sight, using the Gaze to sweep the terrain ahead. Bandit Trail - Active Type: Tracking Observation Verdict: Fresh. Approximately 15 individuals. Carrying loot. Moving east at moderate pace. The Gaze isn't omniscient, but Ling'er's threads fill the gaps. She veers east, then north, then east again, her head tilted, her steps certain.

She's following something I can't see. We run. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The base is a cave. Well-hidden, well-used. Signs of occupation; fire pits, bedrolls, stolen goods stacked in crude piles. They've been here for weeks, maybe. Close enough to watch the sect, just far enough to avoid detection. I use the Gaze to map the entrances, the sentries, the blind spots. Two guards at the front. One at the back.

Three inside, near the captives. The leader is deeper in, his Foundation Establishment aura flickering like a coal. Ling'er doesn't wait for a plan. She hits the front guards like a natural disaster: no mercy or hesitation. One moment they're standing; the next they're on the ground, and she's already inside. I follow through the chaos, Frostbite in my hand, the blade cold against my palm.

"ARRRGH!" The bandits scream. They shout warnings that come too late. They reach for weapons they never get to use. It's a reckoning. These men thought they were robbing a minor sect. A backwater with no defenses, no protectors, no one who would come for them. They picked a fight with something they have no category for, and they're learning that lesson in blood. Ling'er moves through them like water through cracks. Her flames consume. Her ice shatters.

Every technique she's been holding back, every limitation she's been pretending to have, every careful restraint she's maintained for months… she releases it all. I feel something rise in my chest as I watch. These men almost undid everything. The months of work. The careful planning. The sect I've been building, the disciples I've been training, the future I've been sacrificing for. They almost took it all, not because they were strong, not because they were clever, but because I made a mistake.

I spent too visibly. I assumed the cover story was enough. I thought I could manage the risk, that no one would notice a minor sect's sudden prosperity, that the world was too busy with its own affairs to care about mine. I was wrong. Even armed with modern knowledge. Even with a cheat skill. Even with the foreknowledge of a hundred xianxia novels, I cannot predict humans perfectly. I cannot account for every variable.

I cannot see the bandit who decides to take a chance because the rumors are too consistent to ignore. The rage that rises in me isn't hot. It's cold. The same cold I've been learning to channel through the Frost Manual, and I stop holding back. Frostbite sings in my hand. The blade responds to me in a way it never has before, channeling my rage, my fear, my desperate need to protect. Bandits freeze solid at my touch, their faces locked in expressions of surprise. I don't stop to check if they're dead. I don't care.

The leader is deeper in the cave. He's holding Mei Lin and Lian as shields. His knife is at Mei Lin's throat. His eyes are wild—he knows something has gone wrong, knows his men are dead, knows he's facing something he doesn't understand. He looks different from the others. Cleaner. His robes are simple but well-maintained, not the patched rags of the bandits I cut down outside. There's a discipline to his posture that speaks of training rather than desperation. A sect castoff, maybe.

Someone who stole a manual and taught himself enough to bully the weak. I activate the Gaze. Wang Hu - Foundation Establishment (First Stage) Name: Wang Hu Age: 56 Spirit Root: Mixed Three Elements (Fire/Earth/Water — E-grade) Cultivation: Foundation Establishment (First Stage) — Unstable, recently broken through Verdict: Mediocre. Unremarkable. Minor sect dropout who learned from stolen technique fragments. No formal training beyond Qi Condensation. This man— this nothing —almost destroyed everything I've built.

Almost undid months of work because of my carelessness. Now the sect is paying for what I've done. Mei Lin's face is pale, but her eyes are steady. Lian is trembling. She's pressed against Mei Lin's side, her eyes wide, her breath coming in short gasps. She's trying to be brave, trying not to cry, trying to be the disciple I've been training her to be. I feel the cold rise again.

"Let them go," I say. My voice is steady and calm. The voice of someone who has already decided how this ends. The leader's knife presses against Mei Lin's throat.

"You think I won't—""Wang Hu." His name stops him cold. His eyes dart to me, confused and frightened. A nothing name for a nothing man.

"You don't know who you're dealing with," I say.

"You never did." He steps back, dragging Mei Lin with him, the blade digging deeper. A thin line of red appears on her throat.

"Stay back! I'll kill her! I'll—" Ling'er moves. I don't see it. Neither does Wang Hu. One moment he's holding Mei Lin, the next his wrists are being crushed in a grip that could bend iron. The bones grind audibly. His knife clatters to the ground. He screams.

"Ling'er. Stop." She stops. Her hands are still on his wrists, but the pressure eases. Her eyes are gold. Her face is calm. She looks at me, waiting. Wang Hu is on his knees. His wrists hang at odd angles. He's pale, sweating, hyperventilating. He looks at Ling'er, then at me, then at the frozen bodies of his men visible through the cave entrance.

"Senior—I didn't know—" The words tumble out.

"I didn't know you were so strong. We were told it was a minor sect. Just—just a new mine vein and a sect leader who got lucky. I didn't know about her. I didn't know —""Who hired you?" He hesitates. Ling'er's hands tighten slightly. He gasps.

"An intermediary! I don't know who—someone in Greenstone. A merchant. He heard the rumors, tracked the spending, figured there was hidden wealth. He paid us to scout. To take what we could. To see if anyone would come after us."

"The name."

"I don't have a name. He wore a mask. He paid in spirit stones, untraceable. We never saw his face." Wang Hu is crying now. Tears cut tracks through the grime on his cheeks.

"Please, Senior. Spare me. I'll leave. I'll never come back. I'll tell everyone the Coiling Dragon Sect is protected. I'll—" I look at him. A man who found power he didn't earn and used it to hurt people who couldn't fight back. Who almost took everything from me.

"Ling'er. Take Mei Lin and Lian outside." She nods. She releases Wang Hu's wrists and guides the girls out of the cave. Mei Lin doesn't look back. Lian does, once, her eyes wide, and then she's gone. Wang Hu watches them go. He knows what's coming. I kneel in front of him.

"You said you didn't know about her. That's true. You couldn't have known. But you knew about the sect. You knew there were disciples. You knew there were servants. You knew there were children."

"I'm sorry!" He bows his head, pressing it so deep that blood pools as I stand over him.

"You chose to attack anyway. You chose to take hostages. You chose to put a knife to a twelve-year-old girl's throat." I pull his hair to meet his eyes.

"I made mistakes. You made choices too. And now you have to live with them."

"Ugh…no! Senior, plea–!" He doesn't live with them.