Chapter 33: Refining Formation

 "Stop running!"

They made it into the passage ahead. Behind them, the avalanche thundered down in a curtain of white, sealing the entrance. When they finally stopped moving, Hua Xiangwan pushed him off her and caught her breath. "You go first. I'll—"

"Awan!"

Wen Shaoqing caught her by the shoulders, and the intensity in his face was the kind that doesn't know where to put itself. "You chose me. You chose me."

"Yes." She said it quickly, practically. "You're the most important person. Calm down. I have to go find him."

"Awan. Listen to me first."

Something in his manner shifted — the wild emotion settling into something more deliberate, more contained. He glanced back toward the cave entrance, confirming they were alone. "I have a plan. I need your help. And I need to tell you while he's not here."

Hua Xiangwan looked at him. "A plan."

"Yes." His eyes searched her face. "I'm still the most important person to you. Aren't I."

"Of course." She smiled, a small, pained thing. "It's only that I'm already married—"

"Don't." He raised his hand and placed two fingers against her lips, gently, and his voice went soft. "Awan. I know you were forced into this. By Qin Yunyi and my mother. None of it was your choice. And haven't we gotten here precisely because we were both too weak?"

She waited, watching him.

"I was wrong before. We have nothing right now, and I can't ask you to leave him. So I've been thinking." He looked at her directly. "I want to become the Demon Lord."

Hua Xiangwan said nothing.

"When I become the Demon Lord, I'll marry you. You'll be Queen. Hehuan and Qingle will unite — we'll govern the Western Region together."

"Shaoqing." She pulled his hand down carefully. "Don't push yourself this way. Living matters more. Qin Yunyi is in the Tribulation Transcending stage—"

"So is Xie Changji."

Something in how he said it made her still. She looked at him. "You mean—"

"Awan, I shook off Wu Li and Ming Huo deliberately." His voice came faster now, everything he'd been holding back spilling into the space. "Wu Li is Qin Yunyi's man. Ming Huo leads the Yin Yang Sect, but he pledged allegiance to Qin Yunyi long ago over some old debt — my mother knew and tolerated it. Both of them were sent to monitor me and make sure I didn't take the Blood Token for myself. I found a way to get it as soon as I entered the mountain, but I couldn't let them know." He paused, making sure she was following. "Yesterday, there was a mermaid in the cave. We fought her, she fled. I sent Ming Huo to chase her and then picked a fight with Wu Li and ran. Ming Huo should still be somewhere in this mountain."

"And the cave?"

Wen Shaoqing's expression shifted into something that was almost pleasure. "Did you know that Goddess Mountain has always been guarded by a Goddess?"

"Yes."

"She's here — but imprisoned. By the Merfolk, I think. The Blood Token is probably with her. But what matters more is the formation in this mountain." He spoke carefully, watching her face. "An ancient formation, built to protect the snow peaks. But it's been altered — turned into a refining array. Its center absorbs all cultivation within its range. That's why the people in the village below turned white overnight. The formation has been consuming them."

Hua Xiangwan was listening with full attention now.

Wen Shaoqing reached into his robes and produced a small pill, holding it out to her. "Give Xie Changji this medicine. Then lead him to the location I'll mark for you. Once he's in position, I'll activate the formation's core from inside. It will strip his cultivation entirely. With the Blood Token and his cultivation both in hand — would we have anything left to fear from Qin Yunyi?"

She looked at the pill in his palm.

"The Heavenly Sword Sect lit a soul lamp for him," she said. "The images before his death will be transmitted to them. They won't let it go."

"Then we give them a murderer." He had clearly already thought through this part. "Below this snow mountain is the Drowning Water — it corrodes everything, flesh and bone both. After stripping his cultivation, I'll disguise myself as Ming Huo and let him see me. Give him a chance to escape but cripple his limbs in the process. He'll make his way to you — he would. We set a trap on the road, and he falls into the Drowning Water himself. No corpse. The soul lamp transmits only what he sees before the end, which will be Ming Huo's face. With your testimony, Ming Huo is finished, and so is the trail."

Hua Xiangwan listened to all of it.

She almost wanted to applaud him.

He's really something, she thought. The audacity of this.

She suppressed the urge. "Xie Changji would have no clear motive to kill Ming Huo."

"You provide it," Wen Shaoqing said, with the ease of someone who has already solved for this variable. "Isn't that enough?" He stepped closer, and his voice dropped. "Awan. Do you have any idea how—"

She turned her head slightly, as if shy.

She could not stand one more second of this conversation.

"I need to go to Xie Changji first," she said. "Build his trust. We can't move without that."

"Of course." Wen Shaoqing nodded, visibly settling into patience now that she hadn't refused. "Go ahead. I'll wait."

"Don't follow me," she said. "Don't provoke him."

"I know."

"Good." She turned and walked out.

She kept her pace measured until she rounded the corner and Wen Shaoqing could no longer see her.

Then she ran.

---

The avalanche had packed the cave entrance with snow several feet deep. She had no spiritual power to clear it. She dug with her hands.

By the time she crawled out into the open air, her palms were bleeding and her fingers had gone past cold into a dull, distant ache. She didn't stop to look at them.

"Xie Changji? Xie Changji!"

A sword cultivator at the Tribulation Transcending stage, buried in an avalanche — logically, it shouldn't be critical. She knew this. She called out anyway.

No answer.

She extended her divine sense, searched the slope of white, and found him.

She dug.

---

He heard it as a distant thing at first: the muffled compression of snow settling in layers above him, and then silence.

Then someone's footsteps on the surface.

Then digging.

He had been lying still, waiting for his spiritual energy to work through the damage and letting himself simply feel what was in him. He was not accustomed to this — love, grief, surprise had always moved slowly in him, arriving late and staying long. He had wondered for two hundred years why she had faked her death, why she hadn't come back. Lying in the snow, in the genuine dark of being buried, he had finally felt the edge of what she must have felt when she fell into that other world.

He had told himself, then, that he had reasons. That she would have understood. He had believed this.

Even now, even knowing she might have her own purposes in reaching for Wen Shaoqing's hand, knowing that saving him over a sword cultivator of his stage was the practical choice — he still felt it. The moment of it. The sharpness.

His eyelashes moved.

The snow broke open, and light poured down.

She was there — kneeling in the hole she'd dug, breathing hard, snow in her eyelashes and her hair, her hands dark with cold and blood.

She saw him looking at her and exhaled. "What are you doing lying there? Get up. It's over."

He didn't move.

"Are you hurt?"

He looked at her hands.

"Xie Changji?"

She opened one of them, waved it at him.

He reached up and took hold of it, the bleeding one, and pulled her down.

The snow around them melted where it touched his warmth. She ended up leaning against him, close enough that she might have heard his heartbeat if she'd listened for it. She didn't say anything. He closed his eyes.

"Hua Xiangwan."

"What?"

"You're here," he said.

He didn't add anything to it.

After a moment she straightened and pulled him to his feet, businesslike again. His spiritual energy moved into her hands as she rose; the wounds closed. She looked back toward the cave entrance, got her bearings, and turned to lead him in.

After a few steps she stopped and turned around.

"I don't have time to explain everything," she said quietly. "But you have to trust me."

He looked at her.

She was very serious. "As long as you don't mean to harm me, I won't harm you."

"I know," he said.

She took his hand and led him in.

---

Wen Shaoqing was waiting exactly where she'd left him. His eyes went immediately to their joined hands, and his expression did something brief and ugly before he rearranged it into something almost pleasant. "Is Daoist Xie all right?"

Xie Changji nodded.

"Then — shall we go?"

The underground passages were a labyrinth: ice-walled, branching, interconnected, the kind of place that disoriented entirely without a guide. Wen Shaoqing moved through it quickly, clearly familiar with it, calculating direction with the focused efficiency of someone running on a deadline.

They had not been walking long when a voice came from the shadows ahead: "Young Master."

A young man stepped out — heavily built, trailing an aura of something bloodstained and cold. Xie Changji moved, almost without appearing to do so, half a step forward.

"Ming Huo." Wen Shaoqing's face broke into relief, slightly too large. "You're here."

Ming Huo stepped into the light. "Young Master. Where have you been?"

"Wu Li rebelled. Without you there—" Wen Shaoqing glanced back. "Fortunately I met Young Master Hua and Daojun Xie, or I wouldn't be standing here."

Ming Huo said nothing for a moment. Something moved across his face that might have been amusement, gone before Hua Xiangwan could be certain.

"The merman?"

"Couldn't find him," Ming Huo said.

Wen Shaoqing gave him a look of specific disappointment and let it go. "Then we find the Goddess."

"Why is Young Master Hua here?"

Ming Huo's gaze was on Wen Shaoqing, flat and direct. Hua Xiangwan opened her mouth — "Perhaps I should—" — and Wen Shaoqing cut across her.

"She saved my life. I'm bringing her along before we part ways. Is that a problem?"

"You are engaged to Young Master Qin," Ming Huo said. "It would be appropriate to avoid—"

"I'm engaged to her," Wen Shaoqing said, heat rising in his voice, "not to her household staff. Does the Yin Yang Sect answer to my mother or to Qin Yunyi?"

"The Palace Master's intention," Ming Huo said evenly, "is to defer to Young Master Qin."

The standoff held. Hua Xiangwan watched it with the interest of someone observing a small contained fire. Ming Huo's eyes moved briefly to Xie Changji, and something in his calculation shifted. He stepped back. "As long as the young master knows his own limits."

"Awan," Wen Shaoqing said, turning. "Let's go."

---

By the time the Dragon-Seeking Compass had been consulted again, it was pointing directly into solid stone.

Hua Xiangwan looked at the wall for a moment. "What if we just cut through it?"

Wen Shaoqing stared at her. "Cut through it."

"Along the direction the compass is pointing." She turned to Xie Changji. "What do you think?"

"Fine," he said, and drew his sword.

Wen Shaoqing started: "Without spiritual power, a slash like that won't—"

The wall cracked. Then another wall beyond it. Then a dozen walls in sequence, one after another, the fractures running ahead like a path that had been waiting to be opened, until at the far end of the newly carved channel stood a massive stone door.

Wen Shaoqing stared.

"Sword cultivators," Xie Changji said, sheathing his blade, "don't necessarily require spiritual power."

Sword intent was the foundation. True sword intent was rare. Wen Shaoqing knew this. He had simply not, until this moment, felt the gap so precisely.

Xie Changji touched the stone door, held his hand against it, then looked at Hua Xiangwan. "It's safe." He pushed it open.

---

Inside: a chamber of ice and snow, high-ceilinged, cold and clean. A pillar of light in the center, and within it, a woman in green — wrists in iron shackles, body scored with wounds, a sealing array beneath her feet. She was very pale, the pale of something that had been here a long time. When the door opened she looked up, and the moment she saw them — four unfamiliar people breaking through a wall she'd been staring at for who knew how long — her face transformed.

"Who are you? Are you here to get me out?!"

"Please be calm," Wen Shaoqing said, with his easiest smile. "May I ask — are you the Goddess Jiang Rong of Goddess Mountain?"

She looked at them for a moment, calculating. Then: "Yes. And you?"

"We came searching for the Demon Lord's Blood Token. We heard of your situation and came to see what we could do."

Jiang Rong considered this with narrowed eyes. "The Blood Token. A thing like that — you think you can just walk in and take it?"

"What would the Goddess require?"

She stared at him. Then she burst out: "Did you not see that I'm chained here?! I'm shackled to a sealing array, and you're asking me what I require? Are you blind?!"

Wen Shaoqing's smile stiffened. Hua Xiangwan pressed her lips together very firmly.

He recovered: "How do we break the array?"

Jiang Rong ignored him and looked at Hua Xiangwan. "Miss. Come here."

Hua Xiangwan stepped forward, Xie Changji with her. Jiang Rong pointed down at the array beneath her feet. "This is a sub-array. If no one maintains it, it collapses immediately and takes everyone in this room with it. Someone has to sit in my place while I go deal with the main array — which is somewhere only I know. If whoever sits here makes any error, the sub-array explodes anyway. So." She looked between Xie Changji and Wen Shaoqing. "You choose one of them. One sits here, one comes with me."

"Can I choose him?" Hua Xiangwan looked toward Ming Huo.

"Too much yin energy. The array won't register him as a valid anchor." Jiang Rong was matter-of-fact about it.

The implication was clear to everyone: she was being asked to choose which of the two men to put in potential danger.

Jiang Rong seemed to find this interesting. She appeared to be about to offer an opinion.

"Myself," Hua Xiangwan said. "I'll sit here."

Jiang Rong blinked. "You're not afraid?"

"I'm very afraid," Hua Xiangwan said pleasantly. "But I'm resilient. And everyone dies someday — I won't be today."

She turned to Xie Changji. "Go with her."

He looked at her for a moment. Then he nodded.

Jiang Rong had her chains struck off — one stroke from Xie Changji's sword — rubbed her wrists, and stepped out of the array to point Hua Xiangwan into position. "Sit here. Wait."

She went to the pool at the room's edge and looked back at Xie Changji. "You. Come."

She jumped in. He followed.

The room held three people: Hua Xiangwan sitting in the array, Wen Shaoqing standing, Ming Huo watching both of them from some distance.

After a moment of quiet, Hua Xiangwan looked at Wen Shaoqing with a slightly worried expression. "Shaoqing — what if I can't manage Xie Changji on my own? He's large." She turned the worry toward Ming Huo. "Could he help me move him if I need—"

"Move who?" Ming Huo said.

Wen Shaoqing cut in: "We'll discuss it later."

Hua Xiangwan made a small, slightly aggrieved sound. "He's your subordinate, after all."

Wen Shaoqing had nothing to say to this. Ming Huo watched the two of them with cold, careful eyes.

They waited. After a time, the array beneath Hua Xiangwan's feet clicked softly into motion — Xie Changji had reached the main array. It began to turn, slowly, like gears disengaging.

Hua Xiangwan looked up at Wen Shaoqing. Something helpless and worried moved into her face. "Shaoqing."

"Don't be afraid."

He forgot Ming Huo entirely. He stepped forward and took her hand, squeezing it. "I'm here. Nothing will happen."

The array continued to turn.

Then — a shriek, sharp enough to form a shockwave. Hua Xiangwan's hands flew to her ears. Something large and fast erupted from the water, claws first, aimed at her.

She couldn't leave the array.

As the claws reached her she grabbed the wrist. A mermaid, masked, her scales raking across Hua Xiangwan's palm as she twisted — the poison moving in immediately, a cold numbness spreading up toward her elbow.

Wen Shaoqing swung his zither at the creature's head. She was faster: she knocked it aside and was back in the water before either man could move.

"Ming Huo!" Wen Shaoqing had Hua Xiangwan's hand now, examining the poison. "Go after her!"

"I've been trying to catch her for two days," Ming Huo said, with the calm of someone who has made his peace with a limitation. "She's faster in water."

Wen Shaoqing turned. The poison was spreading visibly, dark lines moving up the back of Hua Xiangwan's hand. The sub-array had finished its cycle and gone quiet — its purpose done. He pulled medicine from his robes and got it into her.

A splash.

Xie Changji came out of the pool.

He saw her.

He crossed the room in a few steps, moved Wen Shaoqing aside with one arm, and pulled Hua Xiangwan against him. She looked up at him, her eyes half-fogged. "The mermaid's poison won't kill me. Don't panic. There's a green bead in my left pocket — give it to me."

He found it immediately. Placed it in her mouth without a word. The coolness spread from the bead outward through her whole body, and she felt the numbness begin to recede.

She closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder.

Behind them, Wen Shaoqing stepped forward. "Is she—"

Xie Changji looked at him.

One word: "Useless."

Said with no particular heat. Simply an assessment.

He picked Hua Xiangwan up and turned to Jiang Rong, who had emerged from the pool and was standing very still. "She needs to rest."

Jiang Rong shook herself back into motion. "Yes. The manor — follow me."

She led. Ming Huo followed. Xie Changji carried Hua Xiangwan.

Wen Shaoqing stood where he was.

Useless.

He had heard that word his whole life. In his mother's voice, in Qin Yunyi's voice, in the voices of every person who had looked at him and found him insufficient. The fat, lazy child hiding in corners to cry. The least talented of the three young masters. The one everyone privately said wasn't good enough.

Useless.

He looked at the doorway through which they had gone.

His fists closed.

Fine.

Let them think so.

He would be the Demon Lord. He would have Hua Xiangwan and all of Qin Yunyi's power and the Western Region at his feet. He would have everything.

And then Xie Changji — and all the others who had ever said that word — would kneel before him.

He would show them who the real trash was.