Chương 87: Chapter 86: White Cloud City

The path down from his cave residence wound along the outer sect peak, and Yang walked it slowly. He was in no hurry. After almost seventeen years, he had earned the right to take his time. The morning air was sharp and clean against his face. He breathed it in and let it settle. Above him the sky was pale and clear, and across it the floating mountains of White Cloud Sect rose in their familiar arrangements, their bases wrapped in slow-moving cloud, their peaks catching the sunlight. Overhead, disciples moved.

A pair of outer sect members flew past on their swords at a modest height, heading toward the main hall. Further up, an inner sect disciple moved at speed on something that was not a sword, a lacquered vessel of some kind shaped like a gourd, cutting through the air with an ease that spoke of its high grade. And further still, almost at the limit of what he could clearly see, something large and dark moved between two of the floating peaks, a mount of some kind, too distant to identify.

Yang watched all of it with an eagerness he had not known he still had. White Cloud Sect had carved itself into him in the few months he had spent here before being taken away. That was the truth of it. Almost seventeen years in the Cardwright World and he had never stopped thinking of this place as home. Markech had been where he lived. This was where he belonged.

He had not been able to love the Cardwright World even after two decades spent inside it, and he had tried, for he knew it was going to be his life for the foreseeable future, because the alternative was too miserable to sustain. The trying had occasionally produced something close to satisfaction. It had never produced belonging or happiness. He let his thoughts wander to his inner instincts.

It has been quiet for as long as he stayed in the Cardwright world, quiet in a way they had not been before the soul journey, before the Inner Eye opening, before any of it. Whether it was the effect of world travel or soul cultivation or simply something that had shifted during the long years away, he could not say. He filed it away and let it be for now. There were too many things he did not understand about what had happened to him to start pulling at each thread now.

He passed fellow outer sect disciples on the path, exchanged bows and brief greetings, watched their faces with the slightly dazed pleasure of someone who has been alone for a long time and has forgotten how satisfying ordinary human contact can be. Some he recognised from his early months at the sect. Most he did not, the sect had thousands of disciples, and it was impossible to recognise all of them. They all wore the same white robes and carried the same expression of people going about their morning.

The food hall came into sight around a final curve in the path, its wide entrance open, the delicious smell of the morning meal drifting out.

"Brother Yang!" He turned. Ye Xuan was standing a short distance behind him with a group of outer sect disciples, some of whom Yang recognised from passing encounters and some he had never seen. Ye Xuan was waving with great enthusiasm, completely disregarding the fact that others were staring at him, his expression genuinely pleased. Yang felt something loosen in his chest.

It was the first face connected to his life here that he had seen since waking up, and looking at it produced a warmth entirely disproportionate to the closeness of their friendship. He controlled his expression carefully. To Ye Xuan, they had last seen each other yesterday. Yang did not have a good explanation for weeping at the sight of a casual friend. He turned fully, "Brother Ye Xuan." To the others, he also greeted, and they returned the greeting in kind.

"Brother Yang, you were going to eat?" Ye Xuan fell into step beside him without waiting for an answer.

"Come with us instead. We are going down the mountain to White Cloud City." Yang raised an eyebrow.

"How are you all getting there?"

"Senior Brother Zhang Linghe has a flying boat." Ye Xuan gestured at a young man near the front of the group who looked a few years older than most of them, with a stern face and a small mole on the bridge of his nose.

"He is taking us down to eat with an inner sect friend of his." Senior Brother Zhang Linghe turned at the mention of his name and offered a bow. Yang returned it. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Junior Brother, you are welcome to join us," Zhang Linghe said.

"Any friend of Ye Xuan's is welcome. My cousin is treating the group to a meal at a restaurant in the city to celebrate reaching the Golden Core stage. The more the better, as far as he is concerned." Yang hesitated.

"Is it appropriate to attend the celebration of someone I have not met?" Zhang Linghe's stern expression shifted into a smirk.

"Neither have most of these junior brothers and sisters. Do not worry about it. My cousin can afford it, and he enjoys getting to know new people." Yang after almost seventeen years of isolation needed very little additional persuasion. He agreed, and they fell into step together along the path. Ye Xuan moved to walk beside him as the group spread out along the route.

"Are you excited to see the city, Brother Yang? It must be your first time, given that you prefer to spend your time brooding alone in your cave."

"It is called cultivation," Yang retorted.

"You would recognise it if you spent time on it." Ye Xuan made an expression of exaggerated injury and pressed one hand to his chest as though struck. Yang found himself smiling without effort, which was a slightly strange sensation after so long.

"And you?" Yang asked.

"Looking forward to the city?" Ye Xuan gave him an incredulous look.

"Brother Yang, it is only you living under a rock. I have been to the city quite a few times." Yang looked at him. He had always understood Ye Xuan to be a social butterfly, the kind of person who accumulated acquaintances naturally and maintained them without apparent effort. But the outer sect disciples were not capable of using flying swords, and independent flying vessels, and beasts were expensive to buy and maintain.

"How?" Ye Xuan waved a hand.

"You find inner sect disciples or elders heading down the mountain and ask to ride along. They almost always say yes."

"You ask the elders?"

"What is wrong with asking? Going to the city is not against any rule, and neither is requesting assistance." Ye Xuan's tone carried the mild offense of someone whose perfectly sensible behavior is being questioned unnecessarily.

"We are children of the sect. Why would an elder or senior brother or sister object to helping a junior disciple?" Yang thought of the webnovels he had read in his previous life, the stories full of proud senior cultivators who would sooner let a junior drown than acknowledge their existence. Apparently, White Cloud Sect disciples had not read those particular stories.

"How do you come back?" he asked.

"You find a sect disciple in the city who is heading up the mountain." A pause. Ye Xuan's expression shifted, acquiring a haunted quality that had not been there before.

"That is how I met Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao."

"Who?"

"Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao. The one who is treating us today. Direct disciple of a peak master. The sect master's own junior brother, as I understand it. Direct lineage from the previous sect master." Ye Xuan looked at him steadily.

"I would advise you not to ask him for help."

"Why?" Ye Xuan glanced ahead to make sure Zhang Linghe was not within easy earshot, then lowered his voice to a normal conversational volume, which Yang took to mean the story required some care.

"I went to the city with Brother Hao." He indicated with his chin toward a disciple walking ahead of them, around their age, with the slightly stiff posture of someone still carrying a specific memory in their body.

"We found a senior sister willing to take us down on her sword and had a good time. By evening we needed to come back. We had been watching for an inner sect disciple heading up when we found Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao."

"And you asked him."

"We asked him. He was very kind." The word kind came out with a particular flatness.

"He said he was on his way away from the sect rather than toward it, but he offered to send us up on his sword before he left." Yang waited.

"He said his flying sword was special and could make the journey without him. He would send us up while he finished his business in the city." Ye Xuan paused.

"He had us stand on the sword. Then he stuck a talisman on each of us and said it was for security. He smiled the whole time." Another pause.

"The sword left like a crossbow bolt. We were back on the mountain in seconds." Ye Xuan's expression had gone somewhere between aggrieved and haunted.

"When it arrived it threw us on the ground and flew off. Me and Brother Hao spent several minutes on our hands and knees." Yang looked at him for a moment.

"Serves you right."

"It absolutely does not," Ye Xuan said, with great dignity.

"And you are still going to his banquet."

"He invited me personally. He also told me and brother Hao to come with Senior Brother Zhang Linghe since we refused to accept another ride on his sword." Ye Xuan straightened slightly.

"He seems to find the whole thing amusing. I think he likes us." Yang was about to ask more about this Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao when the path brought them to a wider area of the outer sect peak where several more disciples were waiting. Senior Brother Zhang Linghe raised one hand and they gathered around him. He looked at the assembled group, apparently satisfied, and then swept his other hand in a short arc. A pale wooden boat appeared from nowhere and settled a foot above the ground.

It was not large but it had enough seats for all of them with a few remaining empty, the wood smooth and faintly luminous in the morning light, carved with simple patterns along the hull. There was a general movement toward it, the less restrained members of the group climbing aboard with visible enthusiasm. Yang found a seat near the side and settled into it. Senior Brother Zhang Linghe stepped aboard last, looked around at the assembled disciples, and said, "Everyone ready." It was not a question.

Before anyone could answer he activated the boat. The outer sect peak fell away below them as the boat rose into the clean morning air. Yang looked out over the edge at the floating mountains and the valleys of cloud between them. He was glad to be back home.