Chương 50: B2 Chapter 10

"Another drink, Marshal Yang?"

"Of course, Elder Xun." Yang Shui said, holding out his cup. Elder Xun poured almost absentmindedly, his eyes never leaving the duels taking place beneath them. Despite his distraction, he did not spill a drop, cutting off his pour just as Yang Shui's cup threatened to overflow. The inner disciple who'd been assigned to attend them, a sword cultivator of some skill, stood awkwardly in the corner of the room. The far corner, opposite Elder Xun's Iron-Blooded Wolf.

The Core Formation spirit beast was curled up in front of the viewing window like an old hound before a hearth, basking in the violence below. Elder Xun had dispatched the disciple to fetch half a dozen dishes when the pair of them had first arrived. Every hour or so he would send the man off to refresh the hot plates, changing out roasted duck for fried pork, or add a new sort of pickle to the tables set out before the two of them. Elder Xun ignored the disciple otherwise, and Yang Shui followed his lead.

He was unused to being waited on, he ate as his men did on campaign, when he bothered to eat at all. And as a youth, he'd usually been the man who did the pouring, not one of those being served. Though his position in the Yang Clan had not been lofty back then, he still had fond memories of those carefree days. Yang Shui took a pickle, enjoying the refreshing crunch of the thickly cut radish. Elder Xun continued to tear through strips of saucy fried pork.

"Foolish." Elder Xun muttered, watching an outer disciple flinch back from a flash of lightning, pulling his strike before it connected.

"Someone will need to train that out of him. He's already seen he can withstand those. He could have ended it there, instead of giving his opponent a chance to recover." In another life, Yang Shui thought he could have been friends with Elder Xun of the Azure Mountain Sect. True friends, not the excessively familiar acquaintances he had so many of. He'd met the man a few times before in passing, at banquets and tournaments.

Powerful cultivators were not the most social of people, often spending years or decades at a time in seclusion. However when one had a lifespan measured in centuries and only a few hundred true peers in the entire empire, you did tend to eventually meet all of but the most aggressively antisocial of them. Elder Xun was hardly a social butterfly by the standards of anyone objective. Too blunt and surly by half.

But he didn't scheme to steal anything not nailed down, practice demonic arts, or seek to redress even the smallest of slights against his person with overwhelming violence. So by the standards of Core Formation cultivators, he was a downright reasonable man. Yang Shui was an old soldier who had risen higher than he'd ever dreamed. Despite his best efforts, he was hardly a paragon of courtly etiquette himself. Over a century of informal habit was difficult to overcome. For him, Elder Xun was comfortable company.

"He's a rising member of External Affairs then?" The marshal asked.

"Grudgingly. He lacks the instincts of a warrior. He's diligent. Modestly talented. But those are some of the worst to see cut down before their time."

"You think he's a afraid then, not simply trying for a clean victory? It is only a duel."

"I know it. His sword instructor is also one of mine. Most of the martial teachers are. It has been a pattern in his behavior. He gives ground before even the most obvious of feints."

"Ah." Yang Shui took another drink, thinking.

"I've taught a few of those. Cowards want something to fear. Sometimes, it is easier to teach them to fear something productive than it is to break them of the habit. Shame is an easy one. Perhaps some group exercises, give him brothers he might let down by failing to take advantage of an opening." Elder Xun chewed thoughtfully as he watched the swordsman dance around without landing a telling blow.

"Perhaps." He finally said.

"I'd rather break the habit. But you're right. I must train the disciple I have, not the one I want. Another drink?" Yang Shui held out his cup.

"You know, Elder Xun. I once lost a battle to a coward. Until we captured him, I thought he was one of the bravest men I'd ever seen. He led from the front, never gave a single chi of territory without a plan to win it back with the next maneuver. His men fought like tigers under his leadership."

"Oh? And where then was his cowardice?"

"He broke the moment I captured him. Threats were unnecessary, let alone harsher measures. He claimed he fought like a demon because he feared anything less would see his men turn on him, or his superiors order that he be executed for treasonous cowardice."

"Were his fears justified?"

"For all that I could see, no. The western plains were not half that terrifying a place, even under the rule of the Three Shadows. None of his peers had half his resolve, or a tenth of his certainty that death was ever a heartbeat away."

"What happened to him?" Elder Xun asked.

"He flipped sides almost immediately after capture. He's served me loyally for years, though I still exercise care in where I deploy him."

"How so? Do you exercise care to place him around more trustworthy seniors, where a second defection would be easily handled? Or have him take the van to make best use of his fear-driven strength?" Yang Shui smiled.

"I give him the easiest of assignments. The fronts I know with the most certainty will hold. He's just as terrified of losing to a junior as he is a senior, so he takes not a single opponent lightly. And invariably he throws himself deep into the enemy's ranks, no matter how secure the position I initially deployed him. He fears losing the safety my favor grants him so much he constantly risks his life to ensure he keeps it." Elder Xun coughed out a chuckle.

"That's... Interesting. I suppose everyone has their own ways of living." Elder Xun's wolf poked its head up, eyeing the table. The elder grabbed a bowl of Dongpo Pork, and carelessly flung its contents in the wolf's general direction. The beast blurred, rolling on its back and jerking around with the full speed of its Core Formation cultivation base, catching every fatty nugget before they could hit the ground.

The inner disciple winced at the awful screeching noise the wolf made as its steely fur tore narrow gouges into the floor of the viewing box.

"Gluttonous beast." Elder Xun muttered, a small smile on his face. Yang Shui smiled with him, grabbing a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. He flicked it out in the wolf's direction. The animal was on its feet in a moment, open maw perfectly positioned to catch the morsel. Then the wind caught the little piece of fried chicken, and it made a sharp turn to the left. The wolf again exerted the full force of its cultivation base to blur across the box, snapping the piece of chicken up before it could fly off.

The inner disciple did not flinch, but his seniors could easily hear his heart speeding up. The poor man would not be too injured from a mere collision, but he certainly would not remain standing if he didn't draw his blade. Then the wolf turned its eyes on Yang Shui, staring balefully at the marshal like he'd just taken away a litter of its pups.

"She doesn't do difficult catches." Elder Xun said.

"Lazy as well as gluttonous." Yang Shui flicked over another piece of chicken in apology. The wolf laid back down, letting the second morsel bounce off her head. It landed no more than an arm's span away, but the wolf simply stared disdainfully at it, before curling back up to watch the disciples below.

"Hmm. I wonder where she could possibly have learned that from."

"Gluttonous I'll grant you. I don't understand how so many of our peers forget the joys of good food. But lazy! Bah! Have I ever told you about the time I ran a thousand li without resting?"

"You have not."

"I was still at the Great Circle of Qi Condensation at the time." Elder Xun said in an energetic voice.

"We were out on patrol, down in the northern reaches of what is now the Kingdom of Wu. This was well over a century ago, back before they unified and started poking at our borders. Our inner disciple went down in an instant after he took a poisoned dagger to the throat. The stupid silk pants kept his life-saving treasures in a bag instead of on his person. Didn't want to risk them being stolen. The four of us scattered to the wind..."

Yang Shui relaxed into his seat as Elder Xun recounted the tale of his desperate flight to seek reinforcements against the ambushing demons. When the elder finished, Yang Shui began another story of his own. It was a pity that they would never be true friends. Their lords were aligned in purpose. But when steel came out, Yang Shui would fight for his men first, his clan second, and his emperor third. Not that he'd ever say that aloud of course.

The Qianlong Emperor and the Patriarch of the Azure Mountain were on good terms, at least according to his imperial majesty. But Elder Xun was too distant a man to be a true ally, and too close of one to extend the blind trust of fellowship. As powerful and independent as they both were, neither of them truly stood apart from their lords. No friendship between them could ever survive a falling out between their masters. That was one of the downsides of growing older, reaching such rarefied heights.

It became harder and harder to make that leap of true trust. As the saying went, one can't make new old friends. But one could tell new acquaintances old war stories. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The atmosphere became charged with power as the two of them laughed and drank, the desolate aura of a windswept battlefield filling the viewing box.

One could almost hear the unending clash of steel on steel, the screams of the dying borne away on indifferent winds. The inner disciple in the corner began to exert his own qi, fighting as hard as any initiate on the field below just to avoid passing out. Yang Shui found it pleasant to simply exist in company without the need to restrain his nature. Once the other notables arrived, allowing their cultivation to leak out this much would become the height of rudeness.

Two auras could harmonize, several dozen would only render every cultivator above Core Formation irritable and every cultivator beneath it unconscious. They both watched the fights below with half their attention, but few were worthy of comment. As Elder Xun said earlier, one did not watch Qi Condensation duels for the thrill of it. His nephew would take the field soon. Yang Shui was curious who exactly this Li Hou was, for the prospect of fighting him once more to so excite the normally stoic young man.

He would have asked Elder Xun, had he not already promised his nephew he would watch the match without prior knowledge. Yang Shui found his mind drifting back to that fateful day he'd returned home. The first time he'd been back in over a hundred years afield. He'd left the Yangs of the Three Rivers a nobody, and returned home a triumphant stranger. The elder generation he'd known were all dead.

And the few of his peers and juniors he remembered were now wizened and white-haired, prone to bowing low when they greeted him. There had never been any question that he would accept when Yang Nianzu offered to adopt him as a brother. He loved his clan, and to do otherwise would have been the height of insult. In much the same way, there had never been any question that Yang Nianzu would make the offer, only the specific form of honor he would tender. But it could have been an empty thing.

Mere acknowledgement of the fact that Yang Shui was now the closest thing the Yang Clan had to a proper living ancestor since the Second Patriarch had died. Yang Nianzu had been a toddler when Yang Shui left home, but he had proved himself a man who did not make empty gestures.

"You nephew's match is next." Elder Xun noted, watching a disciple with a broken arm hobble his way off the stage. Yang Shui rose to his feet, stepping forward to get a better view he did not need. He could not see through the wind as he could hear through it. But since he'd reached Nascent Soul, his spiritual sense had advanced by leaps and bounds. Mortals had no adequate words for the way he could now perceive the world, if he exerted himself.

"I would ask if you cared to make a wager Elder Xun, but we both know my nephew is not going to lose."

"I have never been a gambling man." Elder Xun said, rising to his own feet. He moved forward to stand next to Yang Shui.

"I have found life already prone to offering more than enough opportunities for gain and loss to sate my appetite for risk. But this one, I think, will be worth watching."

"Oh?" Yang Shui cast his spiritual senses outward, expanding them beyond the bounds of the eight arenas and their inhabitants. He quickly found his nephew, and the figure ascending to stage opposite him. The very hairy figure, stuffed into ill-fitting robes.

"He would." Yang Shui said with a small laugh.

"Little Wei has always been a strange child. His father and I are as different in temperament as heaven and earth. Yet the boy's moods are oft a mystery to both of us. He told me the rival he'd found was unconventional, but I cannot say I expected a monkey." Yang Shui smiled wide and wild, and the inner disciple in the corner felt his chest begin to tighten. The strength of his lungs felt insufficient to so much as budge the air of the box.

Yang Shui opened his mouth as if to say something more, but then he changed his mind. Instead he simply laughed. Deeply, without care or restraint. And the whole of Godsgrave Peak trembled in time with his chuckles.

"You didn't."

"The odds were good."

"The odds were ten to one!"

"Exactly. Quite good."

"Ma Bojing." Pan Ai said slowly.

"Ten to one means the monkey loses, and everyone with eyes can see that."

"No, it means everyone with eyes thinks the monkey loses ten times in eleven. And that's wrong. He only loses three times in four."

"You just threw your money away." Ma Bojing took a deep breath, and sighed performatively.

"Brother Pan, you just don't understand the dao of gambling. Better to lose money on a dark horse with excessively long odds than make money taking the overpriced wager on the sure thing. All those disciples who think they're taking a free win are stooping to pick up sesame seeds while carrying watermelons."

"Except, even if you're right. Three times in four, you still lose money."

"Oh Brother Pan, surely you don't think I came up with that number on a whim? Look over there." Ma Bojing gestured with a nod toward the monkey's master, and the muscular daoist sitting beside him.

"Look at Daoist Scouring Medicine. Does that look like the face of a man who's resigned himself to the inevitable?" Pan Ai took in the way the daoist sat, the tension in his shoulders. The way he leaned forward as if in anticipation. It was well known that the Yang scion was not given to excessive cruelty. But if his disciple was safe, and the outcome certain, what would his master be so anxious for?

"You're still crazy, Brother Ma. But I wouldn't bet against you."

Wu Yingjie had grown taller while orange-crest was entombed within stone. He'd added muscle to his frame, and callouses to his hands. Orange-crest himself had changed more than a little. If not for his titular crest, many of his pack would be hard pressed to recognize him. Especially while he was wearing the robes of a disciple of the Azure Mountain Sect. Yang Wei however, had not outwardly changed at all. He'd grown neither taller nor wider, not in gut or muscle.

His face was the same it had always been, at once placid and stern. He wore the same white robe and azure belt, a combination orange-crest now understood to be a clever way to showing both the colors of his clan and his sect. Of all the disciples orange-crest had met, Yang Wei alone already seemed as timeless as a daoist. Only one thing about Yang Wei's appearance had changed since they met almost a year ago. For the very first time, he was bearing a real weapon.

A leaf-bladed spear, trailing a pennant the same brilliant blue as his belt. It did not feel like a magical treasure, like Wu Yingjie's screaming polearm. It was simply well-crafted steel, the cutting edge the only difference between it and the staves and blunted spears he'd borne before. But that edge changed everything. The difference between nearly and nothing is the width of a sword's edge. Brother Han Jian had told him that, many months ago.

Only now was he beginning to understand what his senior brother meant. How great a difference such a small thing could make. How narrow the divide between victory and defeat could be. Yang Wei oozed lethality, every casual step across the empty arena set orange-crest's instincts on edge. They screamed at him that the man was a threat, that if he took his eyes off him for a moment, Yang Wei would run him through. Logically, he knew he was safe. Yang Wei would not strike before the appointed moment.

Rationally, he knew the inner disciple next to him was more powerful than Yang Wei. But Yang Wei moved like a man who did not care to be fettered by the small logic humans so venerated.

"Li Hou." He said, coming to a stop a hair further than a spear's reach away from orange-crest.

"Yang Wei." Orange-crest answered, tasting fear on his tongue. Their words said little. Their eyes said much. Their qi clashed gently, monkey ever giving way before man. Yang Wei's qi would lash out in violent bursts, claiming dominion over the space between them. But orange-crest's qi was as evasive as quick-fingers, as tireless as red-eyes. The moment Yang Wei's influence struck elsewhere, it slipped back, reclaiming lost ground. Two small realms was a tremendous gulf.

Orange-crest doubted he could bind Yang Wei even for a moment as they were now. Orange-crest could see Yang Wei appraising him in turn. There was no fear in him. But there was something similar. An anticipation, a caution, that was as good as a cousin to fear. Jiang Yan and Wu Yingjie had not taken him seriously. Yang Wei would not make the same mistake.

"Orange-crest."

"What?"

"It is my name. My first name. Not the human name Master Li Xun gave me."

"I see." Yang Wei twirled his spear, and the air hissed in pain. He set his feet, and orange-crest could feel the stone rising up to meet him. The monkey wondered how exactly that technique worked. If knocking Yang Wei off his feet would break the power that had let him shrug off orange-crest's blows before. It was one of many possibilities he'd discussed with the two daoists.

"I would tell you again, orange-crest, that I hope you do not disappoint me." Yang Wei said, taking up a stance.

"But I see that you will not." Orange-crest swallowed, his mouth as dry as the riverbeds during the summer when the sun had hung low over Mount Yuelu. He longed to reach down to the gourd at his side, to quench that thirst. But the time was not yet right. His fear fell away. It might not be time to drink. But it was well past time for fear. The inner disciple was speaking. Nobody was listening to him. They already knew his words.

"I am going to enjoy this." Yang Wei said, when their senior finished the speech he'd given dozens of times already.

"I am going to win." Orange-crest shot back, meaning it. The sky laughed, trembling as if it was ready to fall. The earth shook in time with it, threatening to send disciples stumbling to the ground. Despite himself, orange-crest flinched, looking around for the cause. He felt a terrible power descend around him, a silent storm dulling the roar of the crowd.

"Ignore him."

"What?"

"It's just my uncle. He won't interfere. He won't let anyone else do so either."

"Oh. Okay." Orange-crest looked up at the horizon. Stared off in the direction he now knew Mount Yuelu to lay.

"I hope you're watching." He said in the true tongue. He didn't think it likely. The Monkey King had many subjects. But he hoped all the same, that his king would look upon him with pride. He did not need to look back at the stands, to know that his master did. Yang Wei did not ask what he'd said. Orange-crest hefted his staff. All his brother's teaching and scheming hung on this moment. If he could win, the mightiest tongues in the empire would speak his name.

Success would redeem his brother's arts in the eyes of the sect, grant Li Xun the means to exalt the Azure Mountain Sect before the nobles of the empire, or to tarnish it. Orange-crest wanted to do right by his master. Free him from the bonds that chafed him raw. But he did not fight for his master. He did not fight for his king, nor to prove monkeys were every bit the equals of men. If his master had pressed him, he would have struggled to put his reason to words.

But as he met Yang Wei's eyes, and felt an unbearable tension arise between them, he knew why he fought. It was because in this moment, there was nothing he wanted more. His dantian pulsed, somehow feeling both overfull, and so very empty, all at the same time.

"Begin!" The inner disciple commanded. Neither man nor monkey moved. Their match had long since begun.