Qi Yunke stepped between them, his voice steady. "Sima An's crimes speak for themselves. Brother Qiu acted with justice. The matter is settled. Let us enter the hall."
Song Shijun said nothing. He filed the insult away and walked forward.
Qiu Yuanfeng wasn't finished. He wore the smile of a man who knows exactly how deep a blade will go. "Since Master Qi has spoken, Taichu Temple has no further objections. I do suggest, however, that Master Song conduct a thorough housecleaning upon his return."
Song Shijun's expression frosted over. "Meaning what, exactly?"
"Those in the know will say Guangtian Gate was simply too occupied to hear Leigong Stronghold's cries for help." Qiu Yuanfeng's tone was almost pleasant. "Those who don't know might assume Sima An greased a few palms, and certain elders found it convenient to look the other way."
Song Shijun had never been spoken to like this in his life. Before he could find words, his eldest son Song Maozhi erupted. "What garbage are you spewing?" The Guangtian Gate disciples surged forward in a roar of voices.
Taichu Temple's disciples answered them in kind.
The courtyard in front of Muwei Palace dissolved into something that would have embarrassed a fish market. The language was vicious, the volume impressive. Fortunately, today's ceremony had barred the use of martial arts. Without that rule, the ground would already be soaked.
Master Jingyuan kept her head bowed, lips moving in quiet sutra. This was a quarrel among the Six Northern Sects, and she was a guest. Venerable Fakong, however, had limits. He turned to Cangqiong Zi. "Ordinarily I wouldn't speak to another sect's affairs, but watching brothers tear at each other pains me. As the elder of all the sect leaders present, a word from you could end this."
Cangqiong Zi shrugged. "Nephew Yuanfeng acted with honor. What would you have me say? Besides, I am a spent man. Whatever authority I once had, I've left behind."
Venerable Fakong shook his head and said nothing more.
Qi Yunke and Zhou Zhizhen stood watching, their brows tight. Yang Heying had quietly drifted to the back of the group. Cai Pingchun watched everything and revealed nothing.
Some distance away, Ning Xiaofeng had grown bored. She had her attendant fetch a few oranges from the baskets outside and ate while the shouting continued. The soil and water of Wanshui Qianshan Cliff were something exceptional, she decided. These oranges were genuinely delicious. She sent some over to her daughter.
The attendant arrived at Cai Zhao's side with an armful of oranges just as Chang Ning caught Chang Ning's attention. He overheard Chang Ning listening to the distant commotion with a trace of amusement. "Truly a model of unity, these Six Sects." He turned his head and found Cai Zhao wrestling clumsily with the peel.
He reached over and took it from her. With a quick press at the base, he split the peel cleanly from both ends and placed the whole, intact orange in her palms. "Here. That's how you do it."
It was genuinely sweet. Cai Zhao smiled.
Chang Ning watched her eat and felt something strange settle in his chest, something warm and slightly baffling. He reached for another orange and began peeling it without quite realizing he'd done so.
Fan Xingjia observed this quietly. I'm not very good at peeling oranges either, Senior Brother.
The pleasant interlude ended when Yin Sulian pushed through the crowd, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade. "Today marks the second anniversary of our ancestor's passing! If you wish to air grievances, find another day! This racket, in front of allied sects, without dignity or shame, is this not a deliberate insult to Qingque Sect?!"
It was a shrewd move. As the former sect leader's daughter and the current one's wife, she commanded Qingque Sect's disciples without question, and they fell silent at once. Her position also created a trap for Qiu Yuanfeng: respond harshly to a woman of her standing and he would look like a bully. Say nothing and he would look like he'd yielded.
Qiu Yuanfeng's eyes moved across her face with the ease of someone who has located the exact place to press. "Ah, Sister Yin. Has your brother Qiu returned for the occasion? I haven't seen Brother Renjie in quite some years."
Yin Sulian's face went scarlet.
Most of those present were young. The name meant nothing to them.
"Who is Qiu Renjie?" Cai Zhao asked.
Fan Xingjia had heard things. He didn't answer.
Chang Ning was happy to. "Old Sect Leader Yin Dai had seven disciples. Qiu Renjie was the most gifted of them and was fully expected to inherit the sect leader position. He and Lady Sulian were betrothed."
"What happened?"
"Sect Leader Qi broke through the 'Heavenly Fire Dragon' meridian bottleneck. His skills advanced beyond anyone's expectation. In Qingque Sect's grand internal competition, he placed first in a way no one could argue with." Chang Ning left the rest unsaid.
Cai Zhao went quiet. She looked briefly at Qi Lingbo, then Song Yuzhi, then Dai Fengchi. The thought arrived before she could stop it. She thought of her mother.
Everyone in the Six Sects knew there was bad blood between Ning Xiaofeng and Yin Sulian. Her mother had known all of this for years. And in all of Ning Xiaofeng's sharp, biting mockery of Yin Sulian, she had never once mentioned Qiu Renjie's name in front of anyone.
Cai Zhao felt a quiet surge of pride. She looked at Qiu Yuanfeng with something close to contempt. This was the great leader of Taichu Temple, and he had less restraint than her mother.
Qi Yunke's patience finally broke. He gathered his qi. When he spoke, each word landed like a struck bell, resonating in the chest, filling the courtyard with pressure that stopped every voice cold: "This matter ends here."
He held Qiu Yuanfeng's gaze and spoke precisely. "The Leigong Stronghold affair is for Guangtian Gate and Taichu Temple to resolve. Qingque Sect has no interest in it. Upholding justice is righteous. I ask Master Qiu not to use righteousness as a blade for scheming and influence-building." A pause. "I said this matter ends here. Whatever other grievances exist, another day. Does Master Qiu understand?"
A long moment passed. Qiu Yuanfeng stepped back from whatever he had been about to say. "As the Sect Leader wishes."
Song Shijun was already moving forward, looking for one more opening, when Cai Pingchun caught his arm. Song Shijun rounded on him. "Xiaochun, you're joining in too?"
"Guangtian Gate was genuinely at fault for leaving Leigong Stronghold without recourse," Cai Pingchun said, calm and unhurried. "Elder Brother Shijun should address that on his return, before others find reason to exploit it again."
Qiu Yuanfeng had begun to smile at the first half of that. The smile disappeared at the second. "Valley Master Cai, are you suggesting that Taichu Temple exploited this for gain?"
"Not at all." Cai Pingchun's voice didn't change. "Guangtian Gate's wealth is the talk of the martial world. No one would seriously believe that Master Song would allow a man like Sima An to betray his masters over some trifling sum. But chivalry is always worth commending. Next time Master Qiu feels moved to uphold justice, Luoying Valley welcomes the effort. Our sect is small and offers little, but we can manage steamed buns with soy sauce."
Song Shijun laughed. "Xiaochun, you were such an earnest child. When did your tongue get sharp enough to match Ning Xiaofeng's?"
"I only say what I observe. If Taichu Temple is willing, Luoying Valley can prepare a full list of regional injustices for our Taoist brothers to work through."
Song Shijun couldn't stop laughing. Qiu Yuanfeng's face had gone dark. He walked away.
The dispute died. Venerable Fakong's chant rose and fell, and the chief disciples of each sect filed into Chaoyang Main Hall, moving to their designated positions. Incense smoke climbed from the altar in slow curls. Qi Yunke unrolled a yellow silk scroll and read the eulogy in a clear, composed voice:
"In this year of great peace, with the world at ease, we disciples remember our ancestors. Today we lay out three animals, three sacrifices, fresh flowers, and fruits in honor of the North Chen True Lord. In the age when demons ran unchecked and bones whitened the earth for a thousand li, heaven sent our ancestor to shoulder what no one else would, to take the safety of all living beings as his duty, to serve all under heaven..."
Cai Zhao frowned quietly. "Where did Elder Brother find this ghostwriter? Our local town playwright could have done better."
Fan Xingjia opened his mouth, then closed it. He very much wanted to ask how she was certain this wasn't written by their master himself, but decided against it.
Chang Ning supplied the answer. "Because she understood every sentence."
Cai Zhao: ╰_╯
The incense offering followed. Each sect leader stepped forward in turn. When it came to Taichu Temple, Qiu Yuanfeng produced another performance, this one more theatrical. He insisted Cangqiong Zi was the one who should step forward.
Cangqiong Zi protested with practiced reluctance. "Only the sect leader may offer incense. Nephew Yuanfeng, what are you suggesting?"
Qiu Yuanfeng, playing to an audience he had already written the script for, pressed on with tears forming. "Uncle, you were broken by the evil cult for the sake of Taichu Temple. Could we truly be so ungrateful? Were it not for that misfortune, you would have inherited the temple mastership after my father. In my heart, you are the true pillar of Taichu Temple."
The uncle refused. The nephew insisted. They wept together until Cangqiong Zi allowed himself to be persuaded.
The rest of the hall watched without expression.
The offerings followed: a snow-white tiger pelt, a coral tree dragged from the deep sea, a jade tablet large enough to serve as a wall, a gold-inlaid couch requiring two men to carry, century-old ginseng fruit, water drawn from some life-extending fairy spring, a scripture written in blood that looked exactly as unsettling as it sounds.
Cai Zhao stared. "With all of this, does it all become Qingque Sect's property?"
Fan Xingjia shook his head quickly. "No. After the ceremony, each sect takes theirs back."
Chang Ning made a quiet sound of dismissal. "Don't let Fifth Senior Brother soften it for you. When the other five sects are facing a powerful Qingque Sect leader, they are very eager to earn favor. If the sect leader shows any interest in a particular offering, it stays behind."
Cai Zhao sounded genuinely regretful. "Then Uncle Qi probably won't be keeping anything."
Fan Xingjia kept his thoughts to himself. Please don't underestimate our master like that.
Their exchange was cut short by Ning Xiaofeng's voice snapping across the hall like a crack of ice: "Who are you?!"
She had her hand around Cai Han's arm and the other arm extended straight, pointing at a single Taichu Temple disciple.
The disciple had his head down, a golden bamboo basket, roughly two feet tall, strapped to his back. He was walking slowly and steadily toward the altar, or more precisely, toward the two sect leaders positioned on either side of it.
Qiu Yuanfeng's expression sharpened with irritation. "Lady Ning, stop manufacturing drama. This is a disciple of mine, not some..."
Ning Xiaofeng had already stopped listening. "Close in around him! Now!"
She spoke again directly to the figure, her voice carrying the particular edge of someone who has lived most of their life in the company of very capable liars. "Stop the act. I was learning disguise techniques before you were old enough to walk. You think you can fool me? Say it plainly. Are you with the evil cult? Were you sent here to strike?"
The hall shifted. This person was not who he appeared to be.
Qi Yunke had seen Ning Xiaofeng work before. He didn't hesitate. "Surround him!"
Before the words finished, Song Yuzhi moved. He rose above the crowd in a single leap, three-foot sword catching the light, and came down in a sequence of strikes that were almost beautiful to watch. Dai Fengchi and Ding Zhuo were a step behind him, blades raised, while Qingque Sect's disciples spread into a sword formation and closed the ring.
Song Yuzhi struck again, driving low. The disguised man was faster than expected. He twisted sideways, and there was a sharp tearing sound as Song Yuzhi's blade found the ribbon holding the basket to his shoulder. The golden bamboo basket hit the floor.
Every sect contracted inward, pulling their own together. The assumption was immediate: the evil cult was here.
Song Shijun watched his son fight with mingled fear and paternal pride that curdled, within seconds, into a resentful glare aimed at Qi Yunke.
He was working up to something cutting when Zhou Zhizhen shoved him so hard he nearly went down. As Song Shijun turned with a curse ready, Zhou Zhizhen was already shouting with full force: "Torrential Thunderstorm! Everyone down!"
Song Shijun's face went white.
When the basket had fallen and Song Yuzhi's blades had driven the disguised man back step by step, the man had panicked. He looked to someone in the Taichu Temple group and called out, "Plans have changed! Move!"
Two disciples broke free from the group, swinging at Song Yuzhi and the others to give the imposter space. With his hands clear, the man pulled two black spheres from his bag, each the size of a small child's head, and hurled them into the crowd on both sides.
Zhou Zhizhen recognized them the moment he saw them. His pupils contracted. His father, the old manor lord, had been caught by one of these in battle years ago. He had never fully recovered and had died of that wound in the end.
Chang Ning said nothing. He pulled Cai Zhao behind one of the hall's great pillars in a single motion and pressed her against it. Fan Xingjia ducked in close behind them. The pillars of Chaoyang Main Hall were ancient and vast, the kind that took three people with linked arms to encircle. There was room enough.
Two explosions, one after the other. Ceiling debris rained down. Needle-thin poisoned darts scattered in every direction. The screams started. The smell of black powder filled the hall, heavy and sharp, and seemed to take the air with it.
Cai Zhao pressed against Chang Ning's sleeve, trying to get her bearings. "I thought the Torrential Thunderstorm technique died with Elder Tianxuan. Where are the darts coming from?"
Fan Xingjia stood close beside them, watching the darts float past in one direction and looking back at Chang Ning's face and finding nothing there to read.
In the main hall, Qiu Yuanfeng had moved first to cover Cangqiong Zi. Zhou Zhizhen worked his palms upward in rapid strikes, using his qi to redirect the darts toward the ceiling. Song Shijun used the opening to drag his son back beneath the altar. Qi Yunke caught Dai Fengchi and Ding Zhuo by an arm each and pulled them to him. Cai Pingchun had already reached his wife and child.
The spheres had been aimed at Taichu Temple. Most of the other sects, if they moved quickly enough, escaped the worst of it.
As the last of the darts came to rest, a raw, wrenching cry broke from the Siqimen cluster. Madam Sha: "My son! Someone help my son Tianci!"
Young Yang Tianci had grown bored partway through the long ceremony. Madam Sha, worried he would embarrass Siqimen with a scene, had let his nanny and maid take him to move along the wall in a side hall. Hidden behind the crowd, no one had paid them any attention. But in the panic after the explosion, people had scattered, and in the crush the boy had been separated from both women.
Yang Tianci, delighted by the noise, had mistaken the explosions for the ceremonial cannons from the morning. He had been grinning, hands over his ears, stumbling forward into the main hall for a better look. The disguised man, still dragging the golden bamboo basket toward him, spotted the richly dressed child approaching and grabbed him.
Yang Heying stepped out from behind the sacrificial curtain to find his son crying and fighting in the imposter's hold. He had a handful of hidden weapons ready and no safe angle to use them. Every expert in the hall had the same problem.
Cai Zhao looked out from behind Chang Ning's arm and saw it in a single glance. There was no time for thinking. She pushed Chang Ning aside and ran.
The crowd watched a young girl come out from behind a pillar at speed. She struck the golden bamboo basket with one palm and then the disguised man with a second. The imposter moved to protect the basket, and Cai Zhao drove two more strikes into him, slow and heavy as a mountain wind, the eighth form of the Dragon-Capturing Technique, "Gentle Breeze," and it forced him sideways and off-balance.
In that same moment, Song Yuzhi had finally broken clear of his father's grip. He read the situation instantly, tore a bead from his collar, and channeled his energy through it in a sharp, precise strike at the imposter's wrist.
Caught between protecting the basket and absorbing Cai Zhao's force, already stepping sideways, the man registered the pain in his wrist a half-second after the child in his grip simply wasn't there anymore.
Song Yuzhi said, "Excellent."
Cai Zhao had used Song Yuzhi's strike on the wrist as the precise moment to apply the fifth form, "Unique Joint Force," and had drawn Yang Tianci toward her as though pulling a kite on a string.
Qi Lingbo watched her betrothed applaud another girl's technique and made her displeasure visible. "What's so remarkable? Must she demonstrate her martial arts at every opportunity?"
Zhou Zhixian, who had been shielding Qi Lingbo, heard this and said nothing. She thought to herself that Qi Yunke and Yin Sulian had done a poor job with this one.
The imposter, empty-handed now, swung a heavy palm at Cai Zhao. She caught Yang Tianci with one arm and raised the other to block. The internal force that hit her was enormous. Her blood surged. She absorbed it without showing it.
Madam Sha pushed through first, wailing, and snatched her son from Cai Zhao's arms. She ran without a backward glance. No word of thanks.
Chang Ning saw it. His jaw tightened. He pulled Cai Zhao back and turned on her, his voice barely controlled. "You see that? You need to think before you throw yourself into something like that. What happens when the person you save turns out to be worthless?"
Cai Zhao tried to look reassuring. "I acted on instinct. It's fine."
"Your face is the color of paper. That is not fine." Chang Ning looked like he wanted to break something.
"I just need a moment to breathe," she said, pressing a hand against her chest. "Please stop shouting. And my mother is coming. Please, I cannot survive another lecture right now."
Chang Ning helped her sit, then walked off with the rigid fury of someone who needs to be angry at something other than himself.
Cai Zhao watched him go. "Why is Brother Chang so upset?"
Fan Xingjia thought through it carefully and arrived at an answer he kept to himself. He probably thought that what you did for him was something reserved for him. Then he watched you do it for a stranger. That tends to sting.
Ning Xiaofeng arrived quickly, already opening a porcelain bottle. She pressed two Medicine King's Heart-Nourishing Pills into her daughter's palm. Unlike Chang Ning, she didn't scold her for saving anyone. She criticized her technique, told her the execution was embarrassing, and suggested she refrain from acting publicly if she intended to perform that poorly.
The pills needed hot water. As Ning Xiaofeng was turning to find some, Chang Ning reappeared with a cup.
Ning Xiaofeng accepted it without breaking her train of thought and praised him by contrast. "Now, Ning'er is thoughtful. Unlike you. With all the capable people standing around, did you need to be the one who ran in?"
"Yang Tianci could have been hurt if we waited even a moment!" Cai Zhao said.
"Not necessarily," Chang Ning said, his voice flat. "That man never intended to hurt the Yang boy."
"How do you know?"
"The darts were flying in every direction when the boy came running in, but not one of them touched him. The imposter must have deflected them before grabbing the child." Chang Ning shrugged slightly. "He needed a hostage, not a casualty."
Ning Xiaofeng looked at him with something warm in her expression. "You were standing behind a pillar without a clear view, and you reasoned it out correctly regardless. You have good instincts, Ning'er." She paused, and her voice shifted slightly. "Sister Xue was like that as well. She always understood things quickly."
Chang Ning wasn't certain whether to thank her or not.
Cai Zhao winced. "Mother, your sense of timing is remarkable." The man's birth mother had lost her mind. Then she had died young. A compliment that arrived through that door was not really a compliment.
It was at that moment that Venerable Fakong's voice rang through the hall, round and clear and carrying to every corner: "Everyone, still yourselves. Allow this old monk one moment."
It worked. All motion stopped.
Venerable Fakong stepped forward into the silence. "I don't know who you are. But what you did just now was not the act of a person without reason. You came to Wanshui Qianshan Cliff by considerable effort, which means you came for a purpose. Why not simply say what it is?"
Qiu Yuanfeng, surveying the wounded among his disciples, was not in a generous mood. "Show your face first! I want to know which evil cult sent you here!"
The disguised figure was still for a moment. Then he gave a small nod to the two behind him.
All three reached up and began tearing away their facial disguises. The sound of it was oddly quiet in the hushed hall. When it was done, the leader was a woman, middle-aged, with the kind of cold, composed beauty that didn't invite questions. The two men behind her were broad and roughened, somewhere in their thirties.
Ning Xiaofeng had never seen any of them.
The Taichu Temple contingent had.
Yin Sulian's voice came out broken: "Sister Yuanrong. You're... you're still alive?"
Wang Yuanjing's hand went out toward her. "Fourth Junior Sister. Why are you here?"