I surprised Blacksmith Bu when I appeared inside his smithy completely naked and holding a cabbage. To be fair, I think that would surprise anyone. Fortunately, my flesh was entirely freshly grown from my blood pool, so it was clean, and the stealth technique filled the space with the smell of flowers.
I mean to say, at least I wasn’t gross.
Small blessings.
He stared at me with wide eyes as I grabbed a heavy apron from the rack and wrapped it around my body.
“That’s better,” I said.
Blacksmith Bu scowled.
“Better that you’re rubbing your junk all over my apprentice’s apron?”
“Oh… sorry…”
“Forget it, I fucking hate that guy.”
We both listened as the horns sounded again, like hunters commanding great stone dogs.
“Is that because of you?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow, and I kept my expression as neutral as possible, but as the horns rang out and the footsteps of the guards plodded down the street, I broke.
“About that commission?”
He snorted, as though to say ‘I knew it’, but led me to the back wall where completed pieces were kept for pick up.
“There it is,” he said, pointing. “I would grab it for you, but we used deep mountain ore, and it’s so fucking heavy that it needed my apprentice and that hairy potter’s boy across the road just to lift it onto that shelf.”
The club lay exactly as I’d envisioned. Five feet of solid iron, with studs protruding from the wider end, and a leather-wrapped handle for grip. When I looked at it, I thought of ‘weight’ before I thought of ‘weapon’, but it seemed a perfect gift for Chen Ai.
Blood pumped through my muscles as I lifted it from the shelf, but even then, I dropped it onto my foot.
It was far heavier than I’d expected.
My foot lay flattened into a smear of blood and broken bone under the weight of the thing, and the force of the drop cracked the wellswept flagstones.
Blacksmith Bu snorted from the other side of the smithy, where he stood packing a bag.
“Go ahead and smash the whole place, why don’t you?” he said as he tested the bag’s weight on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry!”
“I don’t care.”
Damn, he really didn’t like me!
Since he couldn’t see, I quickly pulled my foot back together. Growing out my legs had been good practice for healing my bones. The process was still slower than healing flesh, and consumed almost three times as much blood, but at least I could now do it in a reliable enough manner.
Once I healed my foot, I pumped blood into my muscles. They swelled, glowing red, and, with a heave, I finally lifted the club onto my shoulders.
“I owe you a favor,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m leaving the city tonight. Right now, actually.”
“I figured.”
“So, what favor can I do that can be completed right now and preferably without drawing any attention?”
He snorted dismissively, but turned and looked at me with a brightness in his eyes.
“I want you to kill me.”
“Huh?”
“Ooooh, that’s interesting,” Cabbagy said. “You should do it, kid.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Why do you want to die?”
“I need to start a new life, but if I just run away, there will be rumors, and I know my wife
will hire some bounty hunting cultivator to track me down. That’s why I need you to fake my death.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.”
“What did you think I meant?” he asked with a frown.
I gestured to the iron weapon on my shoulder.
“I thought you wanted me to bash your brains in with this lovely club.”
“No, I want you to convince my wife that she doesn’t need to look for me.”
“Not to pry, but are you sure?”
He spat on the ground.
“I caught my wife with my brother.”
“Oh, I’m sorry —”
“And the grocer, and the fishmonger, and the baker, and the candlestick maker, and that fucking hairy potter boy as well.”
Cabbagy whistled.
“Damn, women, am I right?”
“Tell me about it,” Blacksmith Bu said morosely. “I thought she loved me.”
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“Who can tell what goes on in their heads?”
“Alright,” I said hastily. “We’re getting off topic.”
“If you want to talk about ‘getting off’, you should talk to my wife.”
“Hah! You should have met my wife!”
“Enough!” I said before they could spiral. “How are we going to fake your death?”
They both looked at me.
“I don’t know,” said Blacksmith Bu. “That’s why I wanted it to be a favor.”
“Hmm, fair enough, fair enough…”
I looked around at the racks of ingots and tools.
“We’ll need some blood,” I murmured. “And some brains wouldn’t go amiss, but first… do you have any spare clothes?”
He did have spare clothes, well, his apprentice did, but neither of us was nitpicking at that point. I’d already spent too long doing this, and I wanted to get on my way.
The horns weren’t getting any quieter.
Despite my desire to hurry, Blacksmith Bu was pale-faced.
“Look,” he said. “I know this was my idea, but I don’t really feel comfortable doing this.”
“Come on, don’t be a baby,” Cabbagy teased. “You use a hammer all the time.”
“On metal! Not people!”
“Well, Cabbagy can’t do it, and neither can I, so I don’t know what you expect us to do?”
I stood, naked and bent over, with my cheek on an anvil while Blacksmith Bu stood beside me with a sledgehammer raised above his head. Despite the strength in his arms, the hammer trembled.
“It’s fine,” I said as I made eye contact from where I lay. “Just bash my brains out so that it looks like someone viciously killed you, and then we’ll sneak you out of the city.”
“Won’t you die?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine.”
His eyes conveyed his staggering disbelief.
“Trust me! This is a secret cultivator technique, so you’re lucky you’re even seeing it.”
Blacksmith Bu was a mortal with no real understanding of cultivators, so I felt comfortable lying to him about this. Besides, who would suspect a demonic cultivator of acting like this?
“If you’re sure?”
“Just imagine it’s your wife lying there,” Cabbagy suggested.
Blacksmith Bu’s face darkened with anger, but then a tear rolled down his cheek. He stepped forward and stumbled; the hammer fell to the ground with a thud before he started awkwardly sobbing.
“I don’t… I… I… I love her so much!”
He fell to his knees and wailed. The anvil grew warm against my cheek as I made eye contact with Cabbagy. I raised an eyebrow, but Cabbagy just shrugged in that odd cabbage way he had.
“What should I do?” I mouthed.
“Bash your own brains?” he mouthed back.
I groaned. This was taking too long. I stood and knelt beside the crying blacksmith. For the second time that night, I hugged a stranger.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” I said.
He squeezed me.
“I feel sick.”
For a terrible second, I thought he was going to explode, but there was no heat, and no rising qi, and so I patted his head.
“Blacksmith Bu, this is a safe space. Cabbagy and I are your friends, but we’re also in a hurry. If you want to fake your death, we’ll help, and if you want to try and fix your marriage, that’s fine with us. We support you!”
“Yeah,” Cabbagy said with a choked-up voice. “You don’t know how lucky you are that your wife didn’t run away after she slept with everyone you know.”
“Not helping,” I hissed
Cabbagy sniffed.
“I think I am.”
I rubbed Blacksmith Bu’s back.
“Are we doing this, or not?”
He looked up at me, red-eyed as though working a smoky forge, and wiped snot from his nose onto his sleeve.
“I think… I think I’m going to stay.”
“Are you sure?”
He sighed, and a weight lifted from his shoulders as he reaffirmed his decision.
“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s not like I’ve been faithful or easy to be around. We’re kind of a perfect, fucked up pair if you think about it?”
“I really wouldn’t know,” I said. “But if you’re fine, we’re going to leave.”
He nodded.
“Thanks.”
“No thanks needed,” I said as I quickly dressed myself in his apprentice’s clothes. “I didn’t repay the favor.”
“You did.”
“Huh?”
“What is he talking about, kid? I don’t see any brains on the floor.”
Blacksmith Bu stood and wiped away his tears. When he looked at me, he was once again that stern, reserved blacksmith I’d first met, but now there was gentle determination, rather than rage, in his eyes.
“Sometimes it’s better to face the consequences of my actions, rather than take the easy way out.”
I frowned.
“You think staying here will be easy?”
“By the heavens, no!” he said with a laugh. “But bashing in your brains was too disgusting, even for someone with my tainted moral fiber. So, thank you for pointing out the errors of my ways.”
My frown deepened.
“You’re… welcome?”
“Just take the win, kid,” Cabbagy whispered.
Blacksmith Bu extended his hand, and I shook it. His callouses were rough against my freshly regenerated skin, and he pulled me into a hug.
“By the way, I know your secret,” he whispered into my ear.
I stiffened for a fraction of a second and prepared myself to kill and eat this man.
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” he said as he pulled away with a twinkle in his eye. “There’s no cultivator trick. You were just testing to see if I really had the nerve to kill someone.”
I nodded slowly.
“Well done,” I said. “You passed.”
He shook his head at himself.
“All that time I fantasised about faking my death, but that would be a true death to the people who know me. I can’t believe I was ever so selfish.”
I nodded along to what he was saying as I tucked Cabbagy into my robe and heaved the iron club onto my shoulder.
“I’m glad we met, Blacksmith Bu.”
“Me too… I never got your name?”
I winked and vanished into shadow. He looked around in bewilderment as I snuck out of the smithy and back onto the streets.
###
We neared the Stone Forest Pavilion, draped in shadow. Though the ever-present lights glowed from the organic stone building, this area, too, was locked down and under patrol.
“What a chickenshit,” Cabbagy said as we wove between guards. “He should have just bashed your brains and escaped his marriage.”
“You were also crying, Cabbagy.”
“There was smoke! It’s a forge!”
“Sure.”
“I don’t like this new attitude you have, kid. Maybe that ritual was a bad idea?”
“Hard to say it was a good idea. But it’s done now, and that’s what’s important.”
We stood a few feet away from the Stone Forest Pavilion entrance. The two guards on either side of the open door stared straight ahead, but they would do so even if I were visible. It was only on crossing the threshold that they would act, and I was certain there were hidden formations to detect intruders.
Was my stolen qi strong enough to sneak past?
“Speaking of important,” Cabbagy said slowly. “I think this is a terrible idea.”
“I thought you would encourage this.”
“Look, kid, this is your master speaking. I’m all for chasing women, but you have other priorities.”
“I just need to ask her a question.”
“That’s how it always starts…”
I ignored him.
Because he was right.
I had other priorities, and the Stone Forest Pavilion was out of the way of the rendezvous.
My blood pool was slowly draining as I kept my muscles expanded to lift the iron club. It was difficult as well with the training weights secreted inside my body, but even mentioning that to Cabbagy was enough to get a scolding.
The more concerning matter was my qi.
Though I’d devoured several assassins, my pool of stolen qi was not limitless. The reservoir was the same size as my blood pool, and I estimated that I had a couple of hours left of constant stealth remaining. Since I wasn’t trained in the technique, there were gaps in my knowledge, such as what exactly could and could not pierce the stealth.
So, it was with some relief that the Stone Forest Pavilion guards ignored me completely as I walked between them. The entrance hall was empty, as were the shops, and so I slowly made my way to the secret room between rooms.
Since no stairs led to the Matriarch’s rooftop quarters, this was the only way to gain access. I could have attempted climbing up the outside, but even if I crossed the entranceway threshold, I knew there were far more dangerous traps lying in wait for someone who dared scale the walls.
But when I tried to figure out the buttons and pulleys, nothing worked. I sighed with frustration, but cut the sound off as the doors slid open.
Xui Yaoni, the Matriarch’s personal attendant, stepped into the small, mirror-lined room.
I hurriedly backed into the corner. It was difficult to maneuver the club so that it didn’t smash any of the glass, but I managed to cradle it in front of me as blood burned through my shoulders.
Was this a stroke of luck? Or was I about to be caught?
“I’m being made to look like a fool…” she whispered to herself, before she straightened and spoke louder. “My lady wishes to speak with you, whoever you are, so I shall take you to her.”
She struck the buttons and levers in a quick pattern, and the room between rooms lurched and rose.
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