The woods were quiet, but the silence felt loud.

  It had been three days since the fight, three days of walking in a tense, uncomfortable bubble. They were nearing a larger town now, one Li Xuan had deemed a necessary risk. Large enough that there was a fair chance any sect cultivators in the area would pass through at some point, but by the same token large enough that they should be able to blend in.

  Sticking to isolated villages might be more discreet, but people tended to remember travellers a lot more as well – not to mention towns generally had more up-to-date information.

  The town rose out of the winter haze – the temperature of which Jiang didn’t even notice any more – smoke seeping from the chimneys like breath in the cold air. Even from their current distance, Jiang could hear the noise: cart wheels grinding, drivers swearing, the dull clatter of work. It wasn’t a city, not like Qinghe had been, but it was large enough that the road thickened with traffic the nearer they drew.

  Li Xuan slowed them on the verge and watched the road in silence. Mistress Bai adjusted the fall of her cloak and made a face at the mud. Zhang kept his gaze fixed ahead, jaw clenched tight enough to ache. He hadn’t said much in two days that wasn’t necessary.

  “Right then,” Li Xuan said finally. “Same as last time – stock up on supplies, check for gossip or rumours regarding our targets, and hopefully leave before anything can go wrong. Take care not to stand out. This town is large enough that we shouldn’t stand out too much, but it’s far enough from the centre of the province that they don’t get many travellers either.”

  His eyes flicked to Zhang, then back to the road. “Also, the patrol you two discouraged will be missed in a week. Two at most. If Thousand Petal Grove broadens their search, they’ll come through every village within five days’ march. I would rather be elsewhere by then.”

  “‘Discouraged’,” Jiang muttered. “That’s one word for it.”

  Mistress Bai’s gaze slid to Zhang. “How’s your sleep, Disciple Zhang?”

  Zhang blinked once. “Fine,” he said. It was not convincing, considering the shadows under his eyes, but neither Li Xuan nor Mistress Bai pressed.

  As before, they split up – Zhang and Jiang restocked on perishable food, while Mistress Bai and Li Xuan headed to the local tavern to gather information. The main difference was the mood; Zhang clearly had no interest in conversation, and to be honest, Jiang couldn’t blame him in the least.

  They met back at the gates an hour later. Li Xuan’s expression was set, his gaze distant.

  “The rumours are stronger here,” he said, his voice low as they moved away from the town, melting back into the woods. “The bandit settlement is roughly two days north, apparently. They’re calling it ‘Greywood’.”

  Jiang felt a familiar knot tighten in his gut. “Good news, then,” he said. “Two days and we can finally be done with this.”

  “Not quite,” Li Xuan said. “We’re close, certainly, but we won’t be rushing.”

  Jiang stopped. “We’re not rushing? It’s right there.”

  “And it will still be there in a few days,” Mistress Bai interjected, her gaze cool and assessing as it swept over both him and Zhang. “But you are not ready. Either of you.” She glanced at Zhang’s pale, drawn face. “You are both distracted. Your minds are not clear. Walking into a den of hundreds of bandits in that state is suicide. We will take the next two days to train. Properly. We make camp early tonight.”

  True to his word, Li Xuan called a halt well before dusk. They set their usual camp in a defensible hollow. Jiang automatically moved toward Mistress Bai for his lesson on technique, while Zhang somewhat stiffly stepped

  toward Li Xuan for his sword drills.

  “No,” Li Xuan said, stopping them both.

  Jiang and Zhang exchanged a confused look.

  Li Xuan looked at Zhang. “Junior Brother Zhang, your forms are improving. Go practice your Qi cycling and meditate on what you’ve learned. Mistress Bai, if you would be so kind as to oversee his technique refinement?”

  Mistress Bai raised an eyebrow at the clear dismissal but shrugged and nodded, moving to the other side of the clearing with Zhang.

  Jiang sighed, looking at Li Xuan and drawing his sword. “Alright, then, let’s get this over with,” he said, already feeling the oncoming bruises.

  To his surprise, however, Li Xuan gestured for him to sheathe his weapon. “This is not going to be a lesson on swordplay,” he said, pulling a chair from his spatial ring and settling into it. Notably, he didn’t pull out a second chair for Jiang.

  “Please don’t tell me it’s going to be on etiquette or something instead. I think I’d rather take the sword.”

  The corner of Li Xuan’s mouth twitched downwards, but he didn’t otherwise react to the obvious bait. “Your mind is elsewhere,” he stated simply.

  Jiang sighed. Clearly, this wasn’t a conversation he was going to be able to avoid. And he’d been so hopeful, too.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Obviously,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t get any points for guessing why. And honestly, it looks like Zhang’s taking the whole thing harder than I am. Why not have this discussion with him?”

  “Right now, I imagine that I’m most of the problem for him,” Li Xuan said simply. “Zhang is talented, and was no doubt trained in preparation to become a cultivator for most of his life. That’s a significant advantage, in some ways – he’s advanced quicker than the majority of outer disciples could dream of, and has access to resources they would happily kill for. In other ways, however, he is less prepared than even you.”

  “What, you think I’m more prepared to kill people?” Jiang bit out.

  “Not exactly, no,” Li Xuan said, unfazed by the aggression in Jiang’s tone. “More that you don’t have a rose-tinted view of the world – or, more specifically, of the sects. Whether it’s pessimism or just that you simply don’t care about the sects in general, you were not surprised at how the situation was handled a few days ago. Disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised.”

  Well, Jiang certainly couldn’t deny that. “You’re saying Zhang is different, then? That he, what, had higher expectations than I did?”

  “Exactly.” Li Xuan sighed. “For better or worse, cultivators present themselves as noble and righteous. We’ve already touched on this topic a little earlier, when we spoke about why cultivators don’t involve themselves in mortal affairs. Now, we need to discuss how cultivators conduct themselves when it comes to our own affairs.”

  “This conversation isn’t going to help my pessimism, is it?”

  “Probably not, no,” Li Xuan admitted. “The truth is, c

  ultivation is a narrow and bloody road, no matter what pretty words the sects wrap it in. They speak of enlightenment, of rising above worldly desire, of walking a path toward immortality. It sounds noble because it needs to. If cultivators were honest about what it costs, very few would take the first step.”

  Jiang folded his arms. “And what does it really cost?”

  “Almost everything,” Li Xuan said simply. “Family, safety, time, the ability to look at the world without measuring its worth in Qi and potential. Cultivation is a contest of endurance disguised as a philosophy. Our lifespans extend the further along the path of cultivation we travel – even as you are now, you could probably live to over a hundred and fifty years of age – and we are immune to most mortal ailments. Despite that, do you know how most cultivators die? I’ll tell you now, vanishingly few see old age. They are killed by spirit beasts, by their own mismanaged Qi during a breakthrough, or, most often, they are killed by other cultivators over a patch of dirt, a rare herb, or a perceived insult.”

  Li Xuan’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes all but blazed with conviction. “The path of cultivation is defiance. It is clawing one step further up a wall that the universe keeps trying to knock you from, while everyone else climbing the wall is trying to drag you down so they can struggle on for another few moments.”

  Jiang looked away, scowling at the ground. “Sounds like a wonderful life.”

  “It isn’t meant to be wonderful,” Li Xuan said. “It’s meant to be powerful. And that’s why so many mistake it for purpose. Some cultivators realise that before it’s too late. They leave the path, if they can. They marry, they build a business, they bury their techniques under new names. But for you…” He paused. “For you, that isn’t possible. You’re a Pact-bearer. Even if you wanted to walk away, to go back to your old life, they won’t let you. The Sects will hunt you for what you are, for the advantage you represent, until the end of your days.”

  He gave a small, rueful shrug. “And, I will admit, my Sect and I are now part of that problem.”

  The honesty of it surprised Jiang.

  “So you have a choice,” Li Xuan continued, his voice quiet. “You are on this path, and you cannot leave it. You can let it twist you, let it consume you until you become a monster like Gao Leng, or you can find a reason to walk it. You need to find your own purpose.”

  “I have one,” Jiang said stubbornly. “My family.”

  “That’s a fine goal,” Li Xuan agreed. “It’s a strong anchor. It’s gotten you this far. But what happens after? What happens when you find them? When they are safe? Your power won’t just vanish. Your enemies won’t just forget you. The Sects won’t stop seeing you as a prize. And so, you need to figure out what you want from this. What part of cultivation, beyond a simple tool for revenge, actually appeals to you? The power? The freedom? The challenge?”

  Jiang gave a slow exhale. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It isn’t,” Li Xuan said. “But it is necessary.”

  They sat in silence for a while. “Why aren’t you telling all this to Zhang instead of me?” Jiang asked eventually.

  Li Xuan’s eyes drifted across the camp toward the other side, where Zhang sat stiffly under Mistress Bai’s watchful gaze.

  “Because he wouldn’t hear it from me right now. He’s a good disciple, more talented than most, but he was raised to believe the stories – about righteous cultivators, noble sects, the eternal struggle between good and evil. He’s not naive, exactly, but he’s been sheltered. He’s never had to face how ugly those ideals look when they’re applied to real people.”

  “So he’s angry with you,” Jiang said.

  Li Xuan nodded once. “He wouldn’t admit it, but yes. In his eyes, I should have taken that burden on myself. As his senior brother, that would have fit his expectations. And in most circumstances, I would have.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Jiang asked quietly.

  “Because I can’t afford to let him stay untested,” Li Xuan said. His tone didn’t harden, but there was weight in it. “The next fight won’t be clean. That bandit settlement is going to be filled with desperate people – some of them forced into it, some of them guilty of nothing worse than being too weak to leave. There will be victims mixed with monsters, and we won’t have the luxury of separating them. Zhang needed to face that before it kills him – or someone else.”

  Jiang frowned. “And if he can’t handle it?”

  Li Xuan’s gaze was steady. “Then we leave him behind. It’s harsh, but a cultivator who freezes when it matters isn’t just useless – he’ll be a liability that gets one of us killed when we need to save him.”

  Jiang looked away, chewing that over. “That’s cold,” he said finally.

  “It’s the truth,” Li Xuan said. “And Mistress Bai is telling him much the same thing right now, though in her own way. She has a broader view than I do – less bound by sect doctrine, less… invested. He’ll talk to her more freely. He needs to.”

  They sat in silence some more, but to Jiang’s surprise, it felt… comfortable, almost. Finally, he said, “You know, you’re better at this teaching thing than you give yourself credit for.”

  Li Xuan’s brows lifted a fraction. “Teaching philosophy?”

  “Teaching anything,” Jiang said dryly. “If only you could teach sword fighting like this.”

  That earned him a quiet snort, which was probably the closest thing to a laugh Li Xuan was capable of. “If you’d listen during sword practice instead of trying to improvise, perhaps I could.”

  The disciple rose a moment later, dismissing the chair back into his ring. “You should meditate. You’re close to a breakthrough, but you won’t reach it while doubting every step you take.”

  Jiang watched him go for a moment, then muttered, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Li Xuan paused long enough to glance back. “Do so. Because right now, Zhang isn’t the only person at risk of being left behind.”