The path back to Qingque Sect ran along the face of Thousand Rivers and Thousand Mountains Cliff, and the gate crew was pulling the last iron rope taut across the dark drop before sealing the road for the night. No one crossed that cliff after dark without a hand to guide them. Cai Zhao walked ahead with her hands clasped behind her back, light on her feet. Chang Ning watched her and asked, "What did you and your father talk about in that room? I was specifically invited to wait in the lobby and got half a bowl of cold well water for my trouble." She glanced back with a smile. "Dad said he'll come up the mountain tomorrow morning to see Master." Chang Ning raised an eyebrow. "That's all it took? Half a bowl of cold water for one sentence?" Cai Zhao looked up at the dark sky. "He also said that with things as they are, the martial world is probably heading into another storm. He told me to watch for the moment things go wrong and slip back...
In the days that followed, Cai Zhao kept herself quietly busy. She haunted Qingjingzhai from morning to dusk, watching the pigeon cage the way a farmer watches the sky before rain. Master Juexing's gift of carrier pigeons had seemed like a strange kindness at the time. Now she was grateful for every one of them. The night after news broke of the faction attacks, she sat down and wrote. Chang Ning crouched beside her, grinding ink and trimming paper, stealing glances at each letter as she sealed it. What he read left him briefly speechless. The first letter went to Peqiong Villa. She asked after Zhou Zhizhen and Zhou Zhixian by name, hoped their wounds were nothing bone-deep, and told them to raid Luoying Valley's medicine stores without guilt — she'd attached two tubes of gold sore ointment to the pigeon's leg already. She would have sent the entire medicine chest Ning Xiaofeng left her if she didn't fear the bird would drop out of the sky from the weight. ...