Chapter 158: Everything is Not Fine (Patreon)

Qiao breathed out slowly, her body suspended in total stillness, both of her hands feeling the comfortable grip of her sword. Qi flowed into her body from all around her, coalescing in her core, which it slowly expanded. Qiao breathed in again, a deep and calm breath.

Then, in a sudden motion, her dance began anew. She whirled around, her sword cutting through the air in the intricate pattern of an advanced sword technique. Every part of her body followed the rhythm of the blade in motions that only countless hours of practice made possible. One dozen motions. Two dozen. Three. Then, the final strike. None of it presented a challenge to her anymore.

The applause of her sword instructor interrupted the comfortable silence.

“Marvelous, Young Lady Qiao! You have mastered yet another technique!”

Qiao suppressed the urge to sigh, instead quietly sheathing her sword.

“I suppose so.”

She disliked many aspects of the training her family was putting her through, but she hated nothing more than the sword training. All those fancy techniques she was forced to memorize would not be of any use without being properly integrated into her repertoire in a real fight, yet all she ever got to do was repeat them against the open air. Her useless instructors had even stopped sparring with her altogether ever since she had begun to beat them whenever they limited their strength to her level.

But above all else, Qiao was feeling lonely. She barely got to see her friends anymore; instead, she was surrounded by older members of her family who had instructions from above to train her. She lacked nothing here, but she felt herself constantly yearning the freedom she had experienced back during the hunting expedition.

“I will prepare the manual for the next technique right away! Please take some time to rest in the meantime.”

Qiao nodded and strode to the edge of the training yard and sat down in one of the chairs that had stood there. She was just about to close her eyes to focus on her meditation when she saw her head maid Lifen approach from the corner of her eye. Her face lit up in gleeful surprise when she saw who the old woman had in tow: Chonglin!

Her glee quickly turned to confusion, then worry, however, as she took in the state of her friend. Qiao had fought Chonglin when his qualification to the tournament, a once in a lifetime chance, had been at stake. She had witnessed him fight with the whole of the Northern Sect Alliance’s elites as audience. She had fought beasts alongside him in situations in which their lives had been genuinely at stake. And yet she had never seen him look anywhere near as distraught as he did in this moment. The expression on his face was enough to make her blood freeze.

She jumped up from her chair and sprinted over to meet the two.

“Chonglin! What happened?”

“Qiao…”

He wheezed, trying to catch his breath. He had to have run up the mountain all the way here.

“You need to come right now. Zixin… he…”

Qiao felt the color drain from her cheeks.

“What happened?”

“Don’t… know… He’s hurt. Badly hurt. Found him in the forest…”

He stopped, lacking for words to continue.

“Your friend here made quite the commotion at the front gate trying to get to you.”, Lifen took up the word. “I think you should-”

“And what exactly is this supposed to be now?”, the penetrant voice of Qiao’s instructor interrupted her.

“I thought I’d made it abundantly clear that we are not to be disturbed. We are in the middle of a training session here and the young lady needs to focus. And anyhow, who is that boy supposed to be, maid? Someone from the crowd of admirers? Why would you bring some random disciple into the estate? Move him out of our sight right now, or I will-”

“Shut up.”

“…Excuse me, Young Lady?”

“You will shut up.”

“Young Lady Qiao, this is a most unseemly-”

“Have I not phrased it clearly enough? Shut up.”

Qiao glared at the man, who looked at her in a mix of shock and disbelief.

He was a senior sect member and a cultivator in the early stages of the Dao Attunement Realm – a man many times her strength and far above her in the sect hierarchy –, so she was technically acting way out of line here. But there was also a reason he was having to spend his time as her instructor. Future prospects and family favor beat current strength and seniority.

“…I apologize, Young Lady Qiao. I did not mean to bother you.”

The man bowed and retreated to where he had been working on the manual. Qiao eyed Lifen, unsure of how much of a blunder this sort of behavior would turn out to be, but her head maid had preserved her calm, friendly smile throughout the whole interaction.

“Go ahead. I will take care of your instructor.”

Qiao nodded and turned to Chonglin, once again eternally grateful for the old woman’s patient care for her.

“Where to?”

“The foot of the mountain.”

“Can you still run?”

Chonglin nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The two raced of the training court. Qiao led her friend through the garden and to a side entrance of the estate. Once they were in the forest, Chonglin took over, leading them down and around the mountain, skipping between paths and occasionally breaking straight through the thicket.

As they ran, Chonglin breathlessly tried to relay the situation to her.

“He didn’t show up… yesterday… evening… We searched… found him… an hour ago, maybe two… unconscious…”

Chonglin fell silent once again. It was early noon, so he would have been gone the whole night. Chonglin had told her he had been wounded… Qiao forced herself to focus on the path through the woods instead of letting her thoughts spiral.

After half an hour of racing down the mountains, Qiao spotted a small group of people up ahead.

“There we… are…”, Chonglin wheezed, slowing down in exhaustion. Qiao nodded before speeding up and leaving him behind. When she burst onto the clearing, some of the people turned their heads, but most didn’t take notice.

In their middle, laying on a makeshift bed of cloth on the forest floor, was Zixin.

When Qiao saw the state he was in, she felt like the floor was being pulled away from beneath her feet. She staggered forward almost subconsciously, eyes fixated on Zixin’s battered body.

He was covered, over and over, in scraped, bruises and cuts. Two men were leaned over him, busy removing stones and wooden splinters from his ulcerating wounds.

Qiao felt the dizziness creep up on her and all of a sudden, she lost her footing. Two hands caught her by the shoulder to steady her just before she could fall.

“You’re Qiao, right?”, a woman’s voice asked her, as the hands withdrew again. She turned around to see a young woman who she recognized as Elder Wei’s disciple, Qingge.

“Ah… yes.”

She could recall that they had briefly met back during the voyage to the tournament, when they had tagged along when Elder Wei had trained Chonglin. But for her to still recognize her and remember her name, she had to have quite the impressive memory. Qiao, for her part, only knew hers because she had to spend several hours a week memorizing all the important people in the sect.

“You should sit down.”

“Yes… thank you.”

Qiao lowered herself on the forest floor and turned back to Zixin, forcing herself to look at him despite how hard it was. She didn’t notice that Chonglin had made it to the clearing before he dropped next to her.

“You two are his friends, no?”, Qingge, who was still standing behind her, asked.

“…Yes. Yes, we are.”

“I’m sorry.”

Qiao turned around again, if only to avert her gaze from Zixin’s state.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Qingge nodded.

“He was supposed to run an errand yesterday afternoon. Fetch a sword from the Manufacturing Hall that one of our senior hall members had commissioned. You may know that two there were already two disappearances of disciples recently, so when he hadn’t turned up until late evening, we began searching.

“We found him here, unconscious. We have no idea how it happened, but his wounds indicate that he fell down the cliff.”

She pointed at the mountain, which was much steeper on this side than anywhere else.

“And… how is he?”

“Besides the superficial wounds, he has several bad fractures, including one in the head. He’s also lost a lot of blood. If we hadn’t found him, he wouldn’t have made it for much longer. We’re not sure how he will recover, but at least his life isn’t in danger anymore right now.”

Qiao nodded along slowly, at least somewhat relieved. This sect had some of the best healers and alchemists one could dream off, they would surely be able to fix him up… right?

A small commotion on the other side of the group drew her attention. Before long, people made space for yet another arrival – a very grim looking Elder Shi – to make her way into their midst.