Chương 59: 58. Junior, Your Destructo-Disc Is Too Noticeable!

"Ling'er," I call out, "we're going on a mission." She looks up from her meditation, cracking open one eye. The heat around her is less intense now, she's learned to contain her method from leaking into the room.

"What kind of mission?"

"Hunting. I've been selling the meat from our journey here. Now I have someone to sell it for me, but I'll need more." She stands. Stretches. Rolls her shoulders the way she does before training. A small, eager smile graces her face, and she bows to me, ready as can be. We slip out of the city as the moon rises. The outskirts of Celestial Jade City are not like the wilderness near Coiling Dragon Mountain. The forest stretches hundreds of li like a living sea of jade, foliage growing denser with every step we take.

Roots thicker than my torso twisted across the earth like the exposed veins of a slumbering dragon, making travel impossible unless one was a cultivator. Even here, so far from the walls, I can feel the city's presence. We traverse the forest until the city's glow fades behind us, until the only light comes from the moon and the stars. Ling'er sweeps the area constantly.

"Three bands of cultivators to the north," she reports.

"Qi Condensation, with one Foundation Establishment leading them. They're hunting too. We should avoid them."

"We will."

"East is clear, I don't sense anybody there." I heed her advice and lead the way. We climb for a better vantage point, leaping from branch to branch as the forest blurs around us. After some time, the forest opens into a clearing. A stream cuts through the center, moonlight reflecting off the water. Grazing near the bank is a deer; its antlers branching like a small tree. I point.

"That one." Before I can discuss any further strategy, Ling'er raises her hand and aims it at the deer. She flicks her wrist. The saw that leaves her hand is not the high-pressure blue spinning disk I've seen before. It's a shimmer of blue that distorts the line where air meets the technique. It crosses the clearing in silence. Passes through the deer's neck. Continues into the trees beyond. The deer's head slides off and its body crumples. Behind it, a line of trees— five, six, seven of them —begin to fall.

Their trunks are cut at the same height, the angle identical, the surface where the saw passed through gleaming faintly in the moonlight. I stare as the trees crash down. The sound echoes through the clearing. Birds scatter. I turn to Ling'er. She is looking at her hand, flexing her fingers, her expression thoughtful.

"... Have you been practicing?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"No, Master. That was from using my beyond liquid qi to power the technique. The only one I can use with it right now is water saw. That's the effect." I look at the deer's still body. It didn't even get the chance to realize it was hit. The wound was cauterized.

"That's..." I start. I try to find the words to say without admonishing her.

"That's good. But next time, please let me know before you do something like that." She tilts her head.

"Do you want me to hold back?"

"Please." I try to keep my voice steady.

"A little more. So we don't cause so much noise. And collateral damage." She nods and closes her eyes in a brief moment of focus.

"I'll try. Sorry Master. If it helps, nobody was close enough to hear us." We retrieve the deer. As I pass one of the fallen trees, I run my hand along the cut. The wood is smooth. The surface reflects moonlight like a mirror. I shudder at the thought of what her other techniques would manifest as once she figures it out. We hunt for the rest of the night. Ling'er learns control with every attempt.

By the fourth animal, she is launching ones no larger than a dinner plate, just enough to kill cleanly without taking down a dozen trees in the process, angled downward to embed itself into the ground once the attack passes through. Something tugs at the back of my mind. This reminds me of something. A show I watched late at night. Of a bald man in an orange robe, fighting monsters and aliens and androids. A disk that cut anything.

I am watching that technique right now being revived in the hands of a twelve-year old. I keep my mouth shut. I watch Ling'er flex her fingers, examine her hand, already calculating how to make the next saw more efficient. I walk past her to retrieve the carcass and do not say a word. We harvest only the valuable materials. The meat, the cores, the pelts. Everything else is left for the forest. The deer gives us seventy pounds of venison, perfect for nourishing soups.

Two boars, drawn by the scent of blood, provide another three hundred pounds. A pack of frost rabbits, unfortunate enough to cross our path, adds ten pounds of delicate, tender meat. And a pair of earth-horn goats, grazing in another clearing, yields eighty pounds of rich, fatty stew meat. By the time the moon is high and the forest has gone quiet, we have more meat than I can easily store. Ling'er stands among the carcasses, her hands clean, her robes unstained, her face pleased.

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"Enough?" she asks.

"More than enough. Thank you, Ling'er."

"Thank you, Master. I think I've gotten good control of the water saw using my qi with this practice." I silently thank all the animals who were used as Ling'er's target practice. Their sacrifice won't go to waste.

"Are you still able to utilize… normal qi?" She nods, taking a moment to close her eyes.

"Yes. I still have to convert my qi to that beyond liquid state. I can still use my techniques as before, Master."

"Good. I'd rather not discover Wei Chen split in half after he asks you for a spar." Ling'er pouts.

"I'm good at holding back, Master. I'm not stupid." I fill my storage ring and we walk back toward the city. The lights of Celestial Jade City glow on the horizon. The moon is high, the night is quiet, and my ring is heavy with meat. We stop at a stream on the way back. Lotus leaves grow along the bank, broad and green, their undersides veined like palm lines. I gather a stack of them. Ling'er watches, curious.

"For wrapping," I say.

"The meat needs to look presentable when we sell them." She nods and helps me carry them, holding a stack over her head with ease. The inn room is small, but we make do. I clear the desk, push the bed against the wall, spread a clean cloth over the floor. Ling'er lights a lantern. I take out the meat. Autumn Leaf. My old sword; it's sharp, and it's mine, and it's good for cutting meat. The previous Sect Leader would likely shed tears seeing me use it as a kitchen knife. Regardless, I unsheathe it and begin cutting.

When I finish a portion of meat, I teach her how to wrap.

"Lotus leaf first. Smooth side against the meat. Fold the edges over— like this —then tuck." I demonstrate slowly.

"Then the twine. Not too tight. The meat needs room to breathe, but the package needs to hold." She picks up a leaf and repeats the motion. Perfect on the first try. Of course.

"The ice goes on the outside," I continue.

"Thin layer. Just enough to preserve without making the package wet. The leaf insulates the meat from the cold."

"Why not put the ice inside?"

"Because the ice melts and ruins the wrapping. This way, we can keep 'refreshing' the outside layer before it melts." Ling'er forms a thin layer of ice around her package. It's so even, so precise, that I can't see where the ice ends and the leaf begins.

"That's good," I say.

"Maybe too good. Try to make it a little more... ordinary." She tilts her head.

"Ordinary?"

"Imperfect. We don't want anyone wondering why a highly skilled ice cultivator is selling pork." She understands. Her next package has a slightly thicker layer of ice on one side, a slightly thinner on the other. Still impressive, but not suspicious. We work in silence for a while. The packages pile up. Fifty of them, then sixty. Most are twenty pounds, some are ten. The deer, the boar, the rabbits, the goats, separated by type, wrapped in lotus leaf, sealed with a thin layer of preservation ice, tied with twine.

"How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Good. This is nice."

"Nice?"

"I've never done anything like this before, Master. Cutting meat, wrapping packages. It's... I don't know the word. Peaceful." I look at her; relaxed in a way it never is during training or combat or cultivation.

"Arts and crafts," I say.

"What's that, Master?"

"It's a similar concept of what we're doing right now. Perhaps we should do more of it." She smiles and continues wrapping. I find myself smiling too. The lantern flickers. The packages stack. This is not what I expected to be doing in Celestial Jade City. Not what I expected to feel.

'It is nice.' By the time we call it a night, the packages fill half the room. Dawn is coming, the sky outside the window lightening from black to gray. I take out the basic supplies I've bought over the week like rope, rice, and horseshoes—and set them in the corner. The packages go into the ring. Most of them, at least. A few dozen are stacked by the door, waiting for delivery.

"Get some rest," I tell Ling'er.

"When you wake up, make sure to re-freeze the ice so it doesn't melt." She nods. She is already curled on the bed, eyes half-closed. I leave and walk through the markets, asking questions I don't expect answers to. Iron Heart Valley Sect. I ask a merchant selling formation flags. He shrugs. I ask a tea house owner. She shakes her head. I ask a beggar who claims to have once been a servant for the sect. He is old, ragged, his eyes sharp in a way that makes me pause. I use the Gaze.

Beggar - Mortal Name: Zhao Age: 67 Spirit Root: None Cultivation: Mortal Verdict: He was never a servant. He heard the name from another beggar and thought it might earn him coins. Tell him to scram. Or get scammed. I tell him to scram and he does. The sun climbs. I keep searching. Shopkeepers direct me to other shopkeepers. A restaurant owner recalls a customer who wore their emblem on a pendant. No one knows where they went or if they still exist.

Then, near the edge of the merchant district, I find a man who deals in old records. He is small, bald, and likely twice my age.

"Iron Heart Valley Sect," he says, repeating the name like he's tasting it.

"Disbanded. Absorbed."

"By who?"

"The Crimson Dragon Alliance. About eight years ago. They bought the sect's assets, took its remaining disciples, folded its territory into their own." I keep my face still.

"Are there any former disciples still in the city?" He thinks. Writes a few names on a scrap of paper.

"These were junior disciples at the time. I worked with them a few times. They might remember something. Might not." I take the paper and commit the names to memory.

"Thank you." He nods. I leave. The afternoon is fading, and the deadline to meet Shen Qiao is approaching. I walk toward the eastern wall, thinking.

'Wei Zheng's son. Iron Heart Valley. The Crimson Dragon Alliance.' A sect that absorbed another sect. A boy who joined, then died. A father who stopped making weapons. I don't know how these pieces fit together yet. But I'll find out eventually. For now, Shen Qiao is waiting.