Chương 177: The Floating Reed Village

The rest of our journey passed without any incident, which I guess might sound boring, but in a cultivation world boring meant you get to keep all your limbs, so I wasn't complaining about that one bit. Of course Azure had other ideas about how we should be spending our so called "peaceful" travel time together.

"You're still telegraphing the energy buildup," he critiqued me as I practiced the new Dreamshade Miasma technique inside my inner world.

"The point of this is subtlety. If a stage five beast can sense it coming from a mile away, then it defeats its purpose."

"I'm trying," I thought back at him, adjusting the qi flow patterns again for what felt like the hundredth time in a row by that point.

"But it's like trying to whisper and shout at the same time, the pollen needs enough power in it to affect a lot of beasts without being so obvious that it gets detected right away."

"Perhaps it would help if I gave you something to compare it to. Think of it like..."

"If you compare it to cooking again, I'm going to start ignoring you."

"I was going to say it was like spreading gossip around a village. The information needs to reach enough people without alerting whoever happens to be in power at the time." I had to admit that was a good way of putting it. I adjusted my approach after that, trying to think of the qi infused pollen as rumors spreading through a crowd of people instead of as some attack I was launching.

The technique wasn't perfect by any means, but it was progress, and considering how the Three Leaf Clover cultivators had spent years developing their version of it, getting even a workable variant of my own in a few hours wasn't bad. The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time we reached the outskirts of Floating Reed Village. The familiar sight of it brought back memories that weren't mine, and while before they had always felt vague and distant, now they hit me with this crystal clarity that hit me deep.

There was the old willow tree where the children used to gather and play their games of "Immortal and Devil," using sticks as makeshift spirit swords because none of them had real ones. The creek was right where I remembered it too, the place where the women would gather to wash clothes and trade all the latest gossip about which young man was courting which young woman that week.

And the worn-out stone bridge, the one the original Ke Yin had helped repair one summer a long time ago, learning more about hard work and patience from that experience than from any cultivation manual most would read in life.

"Master, your heart rate has increased," Azure noted.

"I'm fine," I replied automatically, though we both knew that wasn't true. How could I be fine when everything I saw kept bringing memories with it that felt real but weren't mine to begin with? When I could remember the taste of Mother's cooking but had never eaten it myself? When I knew how Father would furrow his brow while he concentrated on some piece of tailoring work, but had never seen him do it with my own eyes?

"Liu Chang is approaching," Azure's warning snapped me out of my thoughts. Sure enough our team leader had dropped back to walk beside me.

"We should scout the perimeter before we go ahead and enter the village," he said.

"Get a feel for the terrain out here and figure out the best locations for putting up defensive formations." I nodded, grateful for the distraction it gave me.

"The river to the east would make a good anchor point for barrier formations," I said.

"But we'll need to account for the seasonal changes in the water level."

"Agreed. Su Yue, you take the riverside. Check for any spots where the current might be too strong for your steam barriers to hold. Chu Feng, go survey the higher ground since we're going to need good vantage points for early warning systems out there." They moved off toward their assigned tasks while Liu Chang turned back to face me directly.

"You know this area best out of all of us. What should we be watching out for?" I closed my eyes and sorted through the original Ke Yin's memories while Azure fed me more details about our surroundings in the background.

"There's an old quarry about half a mile north of the village. It's been abandoned for years now, but the pit itself is deep enough that it could turn into a problem if any burrowing beasts decide they want to use it for cover."

"Show me where it is." We spent the hour going through and checking every potential weakness in the village's natural defenses one by one. The quarry was where I remembered it being, though the vegetation around its edges had grown in thicker than before. Several large spirit beasts could hide down in its depths without much trouble, and the surrounding stone would make it difficult for detection methods to spot them. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"We'll need specialized formations set up right here," I said, crouching down to examine the ground closer.

"Something that can detect movement through stone, maybe we modify a tremor sensing array and add in some earth attribute components to it..." Liu Chang nodded approvingly at that.

"Good thinking on that one. What about the western approach into the village?"

"Mostly farmland out there," I replied, pulling from more of the borrowed memories I had access to.

"Good visibility across it, but minimal natural barriers to work with. We'll have to create our own defensive lines in that area."

"The farms are going to need to be evacuated then," he noted.

"Any crops left in the fields are going to attract more beasts to the area." I winced a little, thinking about the families who depended on those crops for their living, but he was right that it was better to lose a harvest than to lose lives. Su Yue rejoined us right as we were finishing up our survey of the western fields.

"River looks good," she reported back.

"Current's strong but it's steady at least. I can work with that. Found a few spots though where the bank is unstable, so we'll need to shore those up before I can start any of my major techniques out there."

"I can help out with that," I offered.

"The Symphony Shield formation can be modified to reinforce existing structures if needed. It won't be as strong as its barrier form is, but it should stop the banks from collapsing under any pressure put on them." She gave me a look like she was sizing me up.

"You know, when Chu Feng was complaining about having an outer disciple stuck on the team, I thought he might have had a point, but you seem to know what you're doing out here."

"Thanks, I think?"

"Speaking of Chu Feng," Liu Chang looked around with a slight frown on his face.

"Where is he right now?" As if he'd been summoned by the question, a gust of wind announced our teammate's return to the group, and he landed lightly down beside us, looking serious.

"Did you find anything?" Liu Chang asked.

"Maybe." Chu Feng's nervous energy was missing from him.

"There's an old shrine out in the hills to the northeast. Looks abandoned from the outside, but..."

"But what?"

"The qi patterns suggest something has been disrupting the natural energy flows." That wasn't good, not good at all. Beast waves didn't just happen out of nowhere, something had to drive solitary creatures into moving together in such large numbers like that. And qi disruption patterns were a sign of whatever was causing that movement in the place. It was likely the thing that had attracted the Dreamwalker to the village to begin with.

"We need to go check it out, now," Chu Feng insisted, his voice tight.

"If something's up there that's affecting the beast wave..."

"We'll investigate it after we meet with the village elder," Liu Chang replied.

"Protocol requires that we check in before we do anything else."

"You're talking about protocol?" Chu Feng's laugh had an edge to it that I didn't like the sound of.

"Whatever's up there could be the reason these beasts are gathering together!" I watched this exchange play out with a growing suspicion. Chu Feng's behavior was off, from what I had seen of him before. The nervousness he usually had was gone now, replaced by this intensity that felt concerning. Plus his knowledge of qi disruption patterns seemed sophisticated for someone who had been playing the role of a simple wind cultivator this time, that was something I'd expect more from a formation practitioner.

"He does have a point," Su Yue said thoughtfully after a moment.

"If there is something up there affecting the beasts..."

"All the more reason we should coordinate with the other teams," Liu Chang countered.

"If we're dealing with something that can disrupt qi patterns across an area this large, we're going to want backup before we go in."

"We don't need backup, we need to move fast!" Chu Feng's fist clenched at his side as he said it.

"Every minute we waste on formalities here is another minute that whatever's up there gets to grow stronger!" That wasn't how qi disruptions typically worked. They didn't grow stronger on their own like that. Either Chu Feng knew something he wasn't telling us about, or he was trying to manipulate us into rushing in without preparation. Either way I didn't trust him one bit.

"Master," Azure sounded concerned, "his qi patterns are fluctuating more than simple agitation would explain." Before I could reply, we were interrupted by the sound of the village's announcement bell ringing out.

"They know we're here, so we check in first," Liu Chang's tone left no room for any more argument on the matter.

"After that we coordinate with the other teams, then we investigate the shrine with backup once we have it." Chu Feng looked like he wanted to argue the point further, but something in Liu Chang's expression made him back down. Still, I caught him glancing back toward the hills with a desperate look.

"Whatever's up there has waited this long, it can wait a bit longer," Liu Chang patted his shoulder. I wasn't so sure about that myself, but I was even less sure about Chu Feng's sudden urgent interest in that shrine of all things. My cultivation novel trained instincts were screaming that this was the type of situation that turned simple sounding missions into tragic cultivation stories people told later. We made our way back down out of the hills, approaching the village's main gate from the path.

It wasn't much of a gate, just two wooden posts with a crossbeam between them, more symbolic than defensive, but seeing it brought back another flood of memories. How many times had the original Ke Yin passed through this gate? How many times had he come back from gathering herbs out in the forest, or from trading trips to the nearby village? How many times had he stood right here, watching travelers coming and going, dreaming about the wider world that existed beyond?

The village itself hadn't changed much in the months since the original Ke Yin had left it behind. The same rows of houses were still there, with the same worn paths running between them like always. There was a small crowd that had gathered near the gate, led by Village Elder Wu standing at the front of them. The old man was as I remembered him, or rather as the original Ke Yin remembered him from before, he had white hair and looked frail, but I knew that his sharp eyes that didn't miss a thing.

There was also the subtle qi fluctuations of someone who had reached the early stages of cultivation before he chose to focus on administrative duties instead of fighting.

"Welcome, honored cultivators," he greeted us all with a bow.

"You are the fifth team to arrive."

"I am Liu Chang," Liu Chang introduced himself, returning the bow.

"Leader of—" he broke off mid-sentence as Elder Wu's eyes fixed on me.

"Young Ke Yin?" the elder's voice came out soft with surprise.

"Is that, is that you standing there?