Chương 32: Capter 30 Interlude 7 (R)

Ling Tian advances with determination as the Nei Wei lead him to the center of the courtyard while his fingers play with the ring that Zhāohuán Wen has given him. Finally he stops playing with it and stores it away with the intention of examining it later. At last, they arrive at the center and one of the Nei Wei, with the same calm with which they had brought him there, breaks the silence as she asks him "Have you already opened the Yin Gate?"

Ling Tian remains calm and his gaze meets that of the woman as he replies "No, not yet." The Nei Wei exchange glances and without saying more one of them takes out a simple cloth blindfold and approaches where Ling Tian is.

"We will have to cover your eyes", says the same Nei Wei while they fasten the blindfold firmly, completely blocking any glimmer of light. Ling Tian breathes deeply as he loses all visibility and notices a stab of pain when the Nei Wei tightens the blindfold strongly to prevent any opening of it.

Immediately after, Ling Tian feels hands that grip him firmly and make him turn in circles, first slowly, but then faster until he completely loses his sense of orientation and no longer knows which part of the courtyard he is facing. Right after, one of the Nei Wei grabs Ling Tian from the front, guiding his disoriented body while another pushes him from behind.

Soon, the sound of a door opening tells him that they are entering a building, but without any visual reference it is impossible for him to deduce in which of all the ones that make up the palace they are. They walk down a corridor that sounds wide where the walls absorb the echo of their footsteps until the Nei Wei stop him again. The Nei Wei spin Ling Tian once more until he is disoriented again.

Once again he feels the familiar grip that guides him until the voice of the only Nei Wei who has spoken with him interrupts the silence and tells him "Be careful. Now there are steps." Ling Tian descends with caution, feeling each step with the tip of his foot to avoid tripping and falling. Upon reaching the bottom they continue walking slowly. After a few moments, the Nei Wei who seems to be in charge of speaking with Ling Tian breaks the silence and asks him "Do you know the city well?"

The question takes Ling Tian by surprise, but after a brief hesitation he replies "Yes, I have lived here all my life." The silence that follows his reply is brief, but the same one as before breaks it again and now asks him "Do you know of any place where handmaidens can be safely hired?" Ling Tian remains thoughtful at the disconcerting question until he realizes something peculiar, apart from the personal handmaidens of Zhāohuán Wen and her mother, he has not seen servants anywhere else in the palace.

Where are the rest of the servants? Something strange is going on, but he decides to be sincere.

"No", he replies.

"Any place where you could hire people would probably be controlled by the four families or the governor, who would use it to fill the palace with their spies." He hears the Nei Wei sigh. They say nothing but they continue walking in silence when an idea crosses Ling Tian's mind "Perhaps there is a way." The Nei Wei immediately stop Ling Tian and ask him "What idea do you have?"

Ling Tian breathes deeply before explaining his idea "In the lower zone of the city where the wandering cultivators gather, they have several establishments where they meet. The people who need objects or ingredients from the Forest of Lurking Shadows leave their requests there, with the payment they are willing to give."

"My idea is that you could do the same with a job offer", Ling Tian continues.

"The cultivators themselves may not be interested, but many of them have sisters, cousins, wives, or even daughters who may be looking for work. It won't be completely safe, but in this way not all the ones you find will be spies." The Nei Wei remain in silence for a moment as they consider Ling Tian's idea and finally the Nei Wei who always speaks tells him "It is not a bad idea. You have our thanks for it." A few moments later they stop again and they tell Ling Tian "You will have to climb a ladder."

Ling Tian feels how they guide him toward the structure until his fingers find the wood of the ladder and he begins to climb. Each rung creaks slightly under his weight but it doesn't take him long to reach the top. Before he can orient himself, Ling Tian feels that they lift him by the arms and deposit him on what seems to be a firm stone floor. They wait a moment until once again they make him spin in circles, confusing him once more.

When resuming the march, they spin him twice more to make sure he has no idea of where they are taking him. Finally, the same Nei Wei as always tells him "Count to ten and then you may remove the blindfold." Ling Tian does as they ask and upon reaching ten he unties the blindfold from his eyes to look around him. He is on a street he does not recognize but it seems to be the middle zone of the city, right in the center of an intersection of four streets. And there is no trace of the Nei Wei.

Knowing that he is now alone and in danger, Ling Tian begins to walk quickly with his mind already focused on what he must do, and a feeling of remorse assails him when he realizes that everything will be much easier without having to carry his little sister. Ling Tian advances rapidly through the deserted streets of the lower zone of the city.

Despite the tension, his experience allows him to move with skill, dodging the few guards who patrol and avoiding crossing paths with the scarce passersby who, at this hour of the day, still wander about. Most are too focused on their own affairs to pay him attention, but he doesn't risk trusting that.

Finally and after a time that seems eternal to him he arrives at his destination, a small house of deteriorated appearance, with splintered wood and partially broken windows, located in a discreet corner of the city, which had been his initial destination before Shi Tong captured him. Ling Tian enters without hesitation while making sure no one follows him.

He closes the door with a slight creak and remains motionless for a moment, sharpening his senses to try to detect any movement in the house, and after a few seconds of uncertainty, he quickly checks the house to sigh in relief upon confirming that it is empty. There are no signs of life and only the dust that covers the furniture seems to inhabit the dilapidated house. He advances toward one of the rooms and moves aside an old cupboard worn away by time.

After moving the cupboard and with a determined gesture, he lifts one of the floorboards revealing a small hidden hole. Inside, he finds a small chest that he carefully takes out. Upon opening it, his eyes settle on the contents and he sees a leather pouch that he knows is full of coins, in addition to a dozen small crystals. Ling Tian takes one of the crystals and heads to the central corridor of the house, where he crouches down to remove another floorboard.

This time what appears is a set of runes carefully engraved on the floor and arranged around a small circular hollow. With a dexterity born of practice, Ling Tian inserts the crystal into the hollow and presses on one of the runes. The inscriptions shine for a brief instant, radiating a faint light that spreads across the floor. An instant later everything returns to darkness, but Ling Tian lets out another sigh of relief.

The protection formation is active, and now and at least for the moment, he can consider himself safe. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. With the security of being protected, the tension that had accompanied Ling Tian all day begins to fade and exhaustion strikes him suddenly. Without further preamble, he heads to a room where there is a rickety bed, and without caring about the state it is in, he lies down on the bed where sleep claims him quickly.

Without knowing how much time has passed, Ling Tian wakes up abruptly. Upon opening his eyes, he finds himself standing in the middle of a vast green plain that seems to extend as far as the eye can see. The sun shines high in the sky and a soft breeze stirs the grass, creating a calming sound. For a moment, he remains stunned at the serenity of the landscape, until an authoritative voice surprises him suddenly.

"There is no need for you to be so surprised by a simple mental landscape", says a voice in his mind, with a tone of disdain that cuts through the stillness of the scene. Ling Tian turns abruptly and is surprised to see a man dressed in a strange luxurious-looking outfit who has a strange-looking sword at his waist, but what truly catches his attention is his hair of a golden color and his strange eyes the blue of sapphires.

While Ling Tian is looking at the strange man, the air around him seems to freeze as an indescribable pressure descends upon him, as if the sky itself had fallen to crush him under its weight. Every fiber of his being trembles, his bones crack with the tension, and despite all his attempts to resist, in the end he feels how his body yields to the pressure and he kneels before the man.

"Not bad, you have managed to resist my divine sense for a second", he hears the man tell him as he places the words somehow in his head.

"And although you are not as talented as that little one, at least you are not cursed by the heavens as she is." Ling Tian notices how the pressure reduces in intensity but doesn't entirely disappear, so he decides to remain kneeling before this strange man who seems capable of killing him with only his thought. He hesitates for a moment but in the end he decides to take the risk and asks a question of the strange man while praying to the heavens that the question doesn't offend him.

"Cursed by the heavens?" Ling Tian asks the man.

"Do you mean Zhāohuán Wen?"

"Evidently, who else would I be referring to?" the man replies to Ling Tian with his strange method of placing the words in his head.

"The heavens are sometimes truly cruel. To give someone that talent for cultivation and then curse her so that she can never move her legs."

"Here I was thinking at first that I had found a diamond and in the end it turned out to be a simple crystal", the man continues telling Ling Tian as he shakes his head.

"A true waste of talent." Ling Tian remains in silence at the strange man's revelation and convinced that he has brought him here for some reason that has nothing to do with Zhāohuán Wen, he decides to remain in silence now while waiting for the man to decide to tell him the real reason.

Ling Tian doesn't have to wait long when after a brief moment of silence he hears the man's words in his mind again "Fortunately, I was able to influence her and make her give you the ring that contains this fragment of my consciousness."

"But let us leave the trivialities for now and go to the real reason for your presence here", the strange man continues telling Ling Tian.

"Although only this fragment of my consciousness remains, my name is Maximilian König and in my time I was known and feared by countless powers under the name of Emperor of the Sword."

"Although I had countless disciples, I was never satisfied with any of them", the Emperor of the Sword continues telling Ling Tian.

"For that reason I decided to place a fragment of my consciousness in this ring and send it through the realms trusting that destiny would lead me to a worthy successor." The Emperor of the Sword continues telling his story to Ling Tian, who has wisely decided to remain in silence while he thinks that if he resembles in any way the ancient elders of his clan, interrupting his talk with questions would only anger him.

"But things do not last forever and after thousands of years this fragment of my consciousness is beginning to dissipate", the Emperor of the Sword says after a sigh.

"For that reason I have decided to take the risk and, although I would have preferred the child, her situation did not make her fit to be my disciple and to follow my path." The Emperor of the Sword looks fixedly at Ling Tian and tells him "That leaves you as the only option, although that does not mean you have no talent. Despite my comparisons with that girl, she is a true monster of a kind I have rarely known.

You, on the other hand, have enough talent that I would have taken you in as my disciple even without being in this situation."

"Now, allow me to ask you a question", the Emperor of the Sword concludes, addressing Ling Tian.

"I will teach you the Path of the Unbreakable Sword, a way that thousands of people begged to learn, although I always denied them that honor. Are you willing to become my last disciple?" Ling Tian hesitates for an instant, but soon he understands that someone with the power the Emperor of the Sword has demonstrated is, without a doubt, the best master he could find. Someone who offered him the strength necessary to avenge the murderers of his family and, perhaps, one day find his mother.

With this certainty, his doubt vanishes and, still kneeling, he bows deeply until his forehead touches the ground, after which with a firm voice he declares "This disciple greets his Master." In the most luxurious restaurant of Xi'An, The Celestial Dragon, the patriarchs of the four most powerful families of the city are gathered in one of the private rooms while they patiently await the arrival of Guifei Xiang.

"Why do you think Guifei Xiang has summoned us with such short notice?" asks Patriarch Feng as he looks at his companions and plays with the cup of wine in his hands.

"It's obvious, isn't it? It's clear that it has to do with Ling Tian", replies Patriarch Zhao without taking his gaze off the door.

"Remember that the Emperor's daughter took him to the Palace of the Celestial Lotus. Surely what she wishes to tell us is related to that."

"But for what?" Patriarch Han intervenes, with a furrowed brow.

"I imagine that by this point Ling Tian has already told her the entire story, but without knowing her, I don't know what attitude she will take on the matter." Patriarch Shi, the oldest of the four, strokes his beard thoughtfully "Even so, it is strange that she calls all of us at the same time. If it were only to clarify the matter, she could have spoken with us individually. There is a deeper intention behind this invitation." Before they can continue debating, the door of the room opens with a soft creak.

Fei Yi Lingxi, the personal handmaiden of Guifei Xiang, enters with a firm and elegant bearing as she announces with a clear voice "Guifei Xiang, consort of the Emperor, has arrived." The four patriarchs rise immediately as they slightly bow their heads in sign of respect. Guifei Xiang enters with a firm step radiating the dignity that her position grants her. Her face is serene, but her eyes shine with a sharp intelligence that none of those present can ignore.

Behind her, Fei Yi Lingxi takes her place right at her lady's back.

"I thank you for having accepted my invitation despite the short notice", says Guifei Xiang with a soft voice but laden with authority as she sits in the place of honor. Patriarch Han, always the most courteous, is the first to respond and tells her as he bows his head "For us it is always an honor to attend to the call of the imperial family, Your Majesty."

Guifei Xiang nods showing a slight smile of gratitude and tells them "I have asked that they bring us the food shortly, but I have the habit of dealing with important matters before eating. That way we can enjoy the meal in peace. Does it seem well to you if we speak of the reason for this meeting before beginning with the banquet?" The four patriarchs look at each other and exchange gestures of assent. Finally, Patriarch Shi takes the floor "Your Majesty's preferences are always welcome."

"I thank you for your understanding", Guifei Xiang replies.

"The reason I have gathered you here is simple. Ling Tian is no longer in the Palace of the Celestial Lotus. In fact, I asked him to leave the same night my daughter brought him to the palace." The faces of the four patriarchs clearly reflect their surprise. Patriarch Zhao is the first to break the silence as he asks with an incredulous tone that reflects what all are thinking "Is that true, Your Majesty? Ling Tian is no longer in the palace?" Guifei Xiang nods slowly "It is true.

I made it clear to him that my stay in this city is temporary and that I have no interest in becoming involved in local politics. My only wish is to spend the time I am here with tranquility alongside my daughter and to cause as little stir as possible." The patriarchs again look at each other and their expressions turn more reflective. Patriarch Han, taking the leadership of the conversation once more, intervenes "However, Your Majesty, no one has seen Ling Tian leave the palace.

In fact, it seems there are no signs that he has gone out." Guifei Xiang maintains her serenity, although she perceives the subtext in Patriarch Han's words that the palace is being watched, but without becoming agitated she replies calmly "The Nei Wei informed me that Ling Tian decided not to leave through the main gate. Instead, he preferred to jump the wall, which was no problem for them since it required no additional effort." The four men exchange glances again, this time with more caution.

It is clear they want to say something more, but the waitresses enter the room laden with trays full of delicate delicacies. Guifei Xiang claps her hands softly and speaks again before they can formulate any other question "That is all I have to say on the matter of Ling Tian. Now, let us enjoy the food. In addition, I have a personal request, I would like you to recommend to me places to visit in the city and activities I might enjoy during my stay here."

The light conversation that follows flows with greater ease as the dishes are served and the formalities are set aside, but in the minds of the patriarchs the words about Ling Tian and his disappearance continue to resonate, like a mystery they have not yet managed to fully decipher.