Chapter 367: New Day |
~~~
The sun slowly rises over the horizon, heralding the beginning of a new day.
All over the country, people hesitantly peek outside their homes. They remember the trembling and shaking from mere hours ago. It makes the shining sun and chirping birds feel almost like a lie. However, as they work up the courage to step outside and breathe in the cold morning air, they realize that this day is not going to be any different from any other.
At least, that is the case for the civilians. The army has been hard at work since last night. The fighting might have ended hours ago, but there is a lot of clean-up that needs to be done. Thousands of puppets need to be collected and analyzed, and the damage caused by General Nie Dan’s battle is still being estimated. Once it is, the border will probably need to be reorganized.
Bei Hong has been sitting still for hours.
Neither the glare of the sun nor the various attempts to call his attention have managed to move him from his spot. The disciple of the Eternal Flame Clan glares at the horizon as though its existence were a personal affront. He thinks. He contemplates. He ponders.
“I read somewhere that it’s bad for your eyes if you do that.”
Bei Hong breathes out slowly and turns his head to the side.
“You read?”
“I have never seen you with a sword, but I have seen your handwriting,” Bei Hong notes. “It has no grace.”
“Brutality is a kind of grace,” Huang Shing replies.
A smile breaks through Bei Hong's face. A chuckle follows, and Huang Shing is all too glad to join in.
“That’s better,” Huang Shing says, sitting down next to Bei Hong. “Brooding is for people like Brother Jin. Guys like us are meant to enjoy life. I’d have thought you’d be happier after the battle.”
Bei Hong takes a moment to reply.
“It was a good fight,” Bei Hong says. “Though cowardly, the strength of the other side cannot be denied. It’s such a waste. It shouldn’t take so much effort to get people so strong to go all out. It’s like they are ashamed of their power.”
“Right?” Huang Shing asks, having noticed the same thing. “They are so weird. But we won, so that’s something to be happy about.”
“Is it?” Bei Hong asks.
“Yes?” Huang Shing replies, confused. “Even Sister Fan was smiling that she could keep those old, dusty ruins of her safe.”
“We didn’t keep anything safe. General Nie Dan did,” Bei Hong replies. “You felt it too, didn’t you? You must have. As soon as that battle began, everything stopped mattering.”
Bei Hong has never been the type to respect those who deem themselves his betters. People stronger than him are simply those who have been in this world a little longer or have had a little more luck. That is all. Nothing about that merits any respect whatsoever.
And yet, when that battle began, Bei Hong had been in awe. All his annoyance towards Serene End for interfering with his battle had faded away. His need for combat had been forgotten. For that one minute, Bei Hong completely forgot about himself. All that was left in him was a deep sense of gratitude for being able to witness such a momentous occasion. Every exchange has been imprinted into his consciousness. Every clash of Qi has been committed to memory.
“We stopped mattering. I stopped mattering,” Bei Hong says, looking at his fist. “That’s not going to stop. If we aren’t Emperors, there is no place for us here.”
Huang Shing scratches his cheek. “That’s a little too harsh.”
“It’s harsh enough, and you know it,” Bei Hong says. “Emperors have become the only commodity that matters on the battlefield. That bastard is forcing them to use theirs, but in doing so, he’s also made the rest of us irrelevant. We’ll keep being fielded out, but the moment their Emperors appear, it will just be a repeat of tonight. This is the greatest battle this continent has had in millennia, and we have been judged unworthy of it.”
Huang Shing looks at him in silence for a moment.
“Brother Bei, that’s way too grim to be coming for you,” he says.
“You disagree?”
“I do,” Huang Shing says, nodding. “My life has been different, so I think differently. I was some brat from a no-name city that just happened to find some scrolls under his house one day. I thought that made me better than the Eternal Flame Clan’s Young Master, and I was right. I just didn’t really believe it back then. When I joined the Eternal Flame Clan, I let myself be intimidated. By you. By Brother Jin. By Feng Zhi. I was so in awe of everyone that I forgot the most important thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Brother Hong, I am an exceedingly amazing person,” Huang Shing tells him with complete seriousness. “It’s just a few years, yet I am already superior to the Eternal Flame Clan’s Young Master.”
“Feng Zhi won that fight.”
“Eh, he got lucky,” Huang Shing says, dismissing the matter with a wave of his hand. “My point is, I'm amazing, and you're amazing too, Brother Hong. You're just letting yourself be intimidated by the people around you. That's beneath you. You shouldn’t be saying we don’t matter. You should be saying we don’t matter yet.”
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Bei Hong stares at him.
“To become an Emperor is the result of centuries of work.”
“That’s what untalented people tell themselves to feel better about their failures,” Huang Shing counters. “There’s a war going on right now where Emperors are fighting. Are you going to miss it? Really?”
No.
The answer comes fast and raw. It is the roar of his very soul. Fear and desperation trigger something in him and bring it to the surface. His Qi swells. His meridians expand. He is on his feet before he knows it.
Earth Realm, Level Seven.
“Not bad,” Huang Shing says. “You’re almost in the Heaven Realm. Only two more realms to go after that.”
“You…When did you get so wise?”
Huang Shing grins.
“I’ve always been wise like that, Brother Hong.”
~~~
“This feels macabre,” Lu Mei tells him. “I hope you realize that.”
Liu Jin does not answer. Just like Lu Mei, his attention is focused on the two halves of the corpse chained to the ceiling. It is the body of the Emperor of the Temple of the Thousand Shadows. Mere hours ago, the country trembled under his might. Now, he is just two lumps of burned flesh.
His Uncle managed to recover the body before Serene End or the remaining members of the Temple of the Thousand Shadows could get their hands on it. While Feng Zhuo brought General Nie Dan and the Duke to him as quickly as possible, his Uncle had this brought to him in secret. Liu Jin is fairly certain he should praise him for it.
...He should praise him for it, right?
Liu Jin takes a deep breath. His steps echo softly in the dark room deep beneath the Storm Dragon Palace. Why transport a corpse in secret? Why place it in a room that most people do not even know exists? The answer to both questions is the same.
Because the assumption is that they are going to be doing something wrong with it.
“Jin,” Lu Mei calls out warningly as she sees him put his hand on the dead body.
“It’s okay,” he says “I am not…There is no danger. Some of his energy lingers, but he is dead now. There is no will behind it. No guiding intelligence. Without it, the body is just…”
Clay.
It is hard to describe how easy it is for Liu Jin’s Qi to seep into the corpse. Hours ago, Shadow of Dawn was a cultivator at the physical and spiritual peak of humanity. It must have taken him centuries of training. Now, his dead flesh is almost eager to heed Liu Jin’s orders, eager to gain back some semblance of life.
The burnt flesh falls off like scales, and what is left behind bubbles and mends. Liu Jin closes his eyes and feels every broken bone and ruptured organ. Every cell tells a story, and Liu Jin is eager to learn.
“It is not what the corpse of an Emperor may do to you that I am worried about,” Lu Mei says. “The opposite, I’d say.”
Liu Jin’s hand sinks into the corpse’s chest. He is almost gentle in his movements as he finds what he is looking for and coaxes it out.
“This,” Liu Jin says, pulling his hand out and holding up his prize. “This is what you fear, right?”
Lu Mei swallows nervously.
“Is that… Is it really…?”
Shimmering between Liu Jin’s fingers is a substance that alternates between solid and liquid. Its golden glow shines a dim light in the dark room. It is the fruit of all of Shadow of Dawn's efforts. It is what lies in the center of every cultivator's lower dantian.
“This is what we create as we cultivate,” Liu Jin says, looking at the gold substance. “Every step we take harnesses and refines it. It is the product of centuries of internal alchemy. A golden pellet. The elixir of immortality."
“It is taboo to use it,” Lu Mei says. Her voice sounds weak. “The highest taboo. To dig into his corpse and drink the fruit of his labors is just about the worst thing one can do. Even holding it like you’re doing it crosses several lines.”
Liu Jin lowers his hand.
“I know,” he says. A flask appears in his hand. The golden elixir is poured into and sealed.
“You seem remarkably used to handling it,” Lu Mei notes.
“It is not the first time I have had to,” Liu Jin says. “When my master died, the poison in his body was too strong to simply bury him. It had infected him all the way to his dantian, so it needed to be extracted first.”
“You had to cut open your master’s body,” Lu Mei says with gradual realization.
“I was the only doctor he trusted to handle the procedure,” Liu Jin says.
Lu Mei stares at him.
“How old were you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Liu Jin says. “Hasn’t for a long time. I still carry his poisoned elixir with me. That thing is too tainted to be used as anything other than poison, but this…this is not.”
Clear and completely pure. A single sip will advance his cultivation by leaps and bounds. It is the highest of all taboos, but there is a reason why there are tales of people doing it. Liu Jin could meditate for years, drink as many cultivation pills as possible, and have one or two fortunate encounters, and it still would not compare to the boon this one drink would give him.
“I am not going to use it,” Liu Jin says, answering the unspoken question in the air. The flask disappears from his hands. “It would be too obvious, and if word got out, no one would ever trust me. I’d lose every single alliance I have worked so hard to build.”
“Then why do all of this?” Lu Mei asks him, waving an arm at the corpse. “Why bring me here? I realize your sensibilities are warped, but this is no one’s idea of a romantic rendezvous.”
“You are here because things are not dire enough yet, but one day they might be,” Liu Jin says. “I want you to be the one to decide."
“What?”
“Xiao Shuang will never once agree to something like this,” Liu Jin says, tapping the corpse with the back of his fist. “Su Daji might or might not, but making her choose would be too cruel. You are different.”
“Why? Why is it okay to put this on me but not the others?” Anger flashes in Lu Mei’s eyes. “Because I am the most morally dubious of the women you keep around? Is that it?"
“No! It’s not like that,” Liu Jin says, holding up his hands. “It is just… You know this is something I could do. You understand this side of me better than the others, maybe even better than myself. If you tell me it has come down to this, then I will know it really is necessary. Even if I cannot trust myself, I can trust you.”
Lu Mei’s eyes glow.
“You are being very unfair right now.”
Liu Jin says nothing. Lu Mei sighs.
“Does my brother know about this?”
“He might suspect something was done with the body, but I doubt he will look into it,” Liu Jin says. “He’s the type to ignore the defects of others for the sake of getting along with them.”
“That sounds like him, unfortunately.” Lu Mei shakes her head. “Lady Meng Yue arrives soon. Do you think she will notice?”
Liu Jin thinks of everything he knows about that woman.
“Somehow, I think the dead emperor in the catacombs will be the least of our concerns when she gets here.”
~~~
