Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret (2)
With the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering brought to a safe close, the participants returned to their respective sects.
Cheonhwa, too, set out on the road home to the Zhongnan Sect with his third-generation sect brothers and sisters.
Gakhyeon and the second-generation disciples who had escorted them turned, as planned, toward the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace. That left Cheonhwa, as senior disciple, to take charge of the party and lead them himself.
Fortunately, the third-generation disciples followed his word without complaint. It was not merely his rank that earned their obedience. Whether measured by skill or by character, they had no reason not to follow him.
The journey back to the Zhongnan Sect was uneventful. They did not even encounter the usual bandits or river pirates—which, in a way, was only to be expected. A whole company of disciples from a renowned righteous sect was traveling together; no one in their right mind would dare lay a hand on them. To the unorthodox and black-path gangs, the procession was no different from an earthquake or a storm—a natural disaster best avoided. Keeping their distance was the wisest course.
The real trouble lay elsewhere.
On the road back into Shaanxi, they often fell in with traveling merchants, or stopped in villages to rest. Each time, Cheonhwa felt the weight of staring eyes. At first it was nothing more than curiosity at a crowd of outsiders. But the moment people got a clear look at Cheonhwa, they began whispering among themselves.
"Say, isn't that him?"
"Let me see. Barely past twenty, white robe embroidered with cloud patterns, a jade-colored wooden sword on his back. Looks right to me."
"Thought so! That's definitely Daoist Cheonhwa—Flash Sword Dragon, the one who took first place at this year's Dragon and Phoenix Gathering!"
Even granting that rumors travel a thousand li without legs, word of Cheonhwa had spread with startling speed. Quite a few people recognized him on sight. If they had only watched from a distance and talked among themselves, it would have been no great burden. But some sought him out, hoping for a word, and local notables occasionally appeared with invitations to their homes.
Cheonhwa would have preferred to decline with polite firmness. Jeokhwa stopped him by sound transmission.
"The influence of local gentry and notables is limited to a narrow region, but within it, it rivals that of the authorities. Think back to the Dan Family Manor in Tianyang County, out on the western edge of Shaanxi."
Cheonhwa recalled the family he had visited by chance while investigating demonic arts. A quarrel over Okgyeong at the Hyeonhwang Blacksmith had led them to gift him a robe woven with thousand-year silkworm thread—the beginning of that bond. On the scale of the Central Plains, the Dan Family might have been a minor martial house, yet in Tianyang County their prestige had been second to none. Building a certain familiarity with people of that sort would only serve the Zhongnan Sect well.
In the end, Cheonhwa accepted the invitations with poor grace. He knew little of the etiquette such occasions required, and so, with Jeokhwa's guidance—she was well versed in such matters—he prepared as best he could, however clumsily.
"I'm exhausted…"
Back from one of the banquets, Cheonhwa collapsed into a chair the moment he entered the guest room and went limp. His body was fine; the mental fatigue was crushing. Myeonghwa, who shared the room, snickered.
"So the great Flash Sword Dragon, who doesn't flinch before Peak Experts or spirit beasts, finds banquets harder than all of them?"
"I'd rather spar with a master. It would tire me less than this."
Cheonhwa let out a long sigh and worked the stiffness from his limbs, shifting this way and that.
"The Dragon and Phoenix Gathering hasn't been over that long. Isn't word spreading a little too fast?"
"About that. Looks like the Beggars' Guild and the Hao Clan are deliberately putting the information out."
"The Beggars' Guild is one of the Nine Great Sects, so I understand them. The Hao Clan joining in is unexpected."
The Beggars' Guild was a full member of the Nine Great Sects and One Union. Spreading word quickly for the stability of the righteous martial world made sense. The Hao Clan, which stood between the righteous and the unorthodox, had no such obvious reason. The best he could think of was that Cheonhwa still held one of their tokens of gratitude.
"The Hao Clan is a sect of common folk," Myeonghwa explained. "They know that when the righteous path wavers, ordinary people's lives get hard. That's why they're moving."
Cheonhwa nodded in understanding. In an earlier talk with Gakhyeon, he had heard how a shaken righteous path made it easier for the unorthodox and the black path to stir. There was a limit to how far the unorthodox could run wild; the moment that line was crossed, it was the powerless who suffered most. The Hao Clan would want, above all, to avoid that worst of outcomes. In that light, Cheonhwa was a convenient figure with whom to bury ugly rumors.
"Rumors are best smothered with other rumors. They're packaging the disaster at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering as the birth of a new hero."
At the same time, by drawing as many eyes as possible to the Gathering, they meant to screen the Martial Alliance's advance toward the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace. For the righteous path, it was a double gain: a declaration of their continued strength, and a partial veil over the Alliance's movements.
"So suffer for a while longer, Junior Brother Cheonhwa."
"Haa… If that's how it is, there's nothing for it."
Cheonhwa nodded with a bitter look. As senior disciple, he would be facing gatherings of this sort often enough in the years ahead. If he treated them as practice for the future, he could endure.
It isn't far to the main mountain. Just a little longer.
The journey back to Zhongnan Mountain took longer than the road to the Sichuan Dang Family had. With Cheonhwa and only five others traveling light, they had moved freely; now a considerable company was with them. Even so, they were martial artists capable of lightness arts, and that shortened the time considerably.
When they reached the mountain gate of the main complex, the first to greet them was the Sect Leader himself—Okwon Jinin.
"We pay our respects to the Sect Leader."
Beginning with Cheonhwa, the Zhongnan disciples who had been abroad offered their formal bows. Okwon Jinin looked the party over once, then spoke in an unhurried voice.
"Welcome home. You will be weary from a long journey. Go in and rest at once. Hearing your report can wait until after."
The Sect Leader, mindful of disciples just returned from the rivers and lakes, ordered them to rest. The party followed him into the Zhongnan Sect. Once home, exhaustion from the road pulled them under almost at once; they did not wake until the following morning.
While the others recounted what had happened at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering to those who had remained at the mountain, Cheonhwa was summoned for a private audience with Okwon Jinin and gave a detailed account of everything that had transpired.
After listening, Okwon Jinin sipped his tea in silence for a time, ordering his thoughts.
"I had already read of it in the letters, but hearing it from the man himself is far more shocking."
A single mysterious force sowing demonic arts in secret was headache enough. That they had also drawn in the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace—one of Yunnan's two great powers alongside the Diancang Sect—complicated matters in every direction.
"What of those who went to the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, Sect Leader?"
"The units that were in pursuit report that the enemy is still fleeing. Judging by their line of march, they seem to be withdrawing toward the Beast Palace itself."
"If the raiding force makes it back to the Beast Palace, catching them again will be nearly impossible. Shouldn't we cut them off?"
"It is not as simple as it sounds. The Palace's beasts can use martial arts."
A first-class martial artist trained in lightness skill could overtake an ordinary animal without much difficulty. The beasts of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace were no ordinary animals. Through the Palace's secret methods, they could employ lightness arts of their own.
"Worse still, they are not moving as a body. They have scattered completely. Capturing them all will not be easy."
At this rate, open war between the Martial Alliance and the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace was no longer unthinkable. If it came to that, only the common people living near Yunnan would suffer. And if matters went badly enough, the Imperial Court itself might intervene.
"Is the Court's involvement truly so dangerous?"
"Of course. When the Imperial Court steps into the martial world, it moves the army—and that is no different from declaring that it means to reduce the region to ash."
The army held the nation's military might, and its purpose was war. Naturally, the martial learning taught in the military schools was martial arts for war. War, in turn, always marshaled vast numbers of men; the heart of military martial arts was the formation arts those great hosts employed.
"There is a reason the Imperial Court is named first when one asks which power is strongest in all the Central Plains."
Military martial arts had their weakness as well. Deploying such numbers consumed resources in equal measure. That was why the state moved its armies only with the greatest caution. The moment the army marched, the grain the common people needed vanished almost overnight. One of the army's nicknames was "locust swarm"—for after it passed, nothing remained.
"For that reason, we can only watch how the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace affair unfolds."
"If the situation worsens, will we be called on as well?"
At present, the Zhongnan Sect had dispatched a number of its masters. Aside from those left to guard the main mountain, the bulk of those remaining were third-generation disciples. If more hands were needed, Cheonhwa and the rest of the Hwa generation might well be sent out.
Okwon Jinin shook his head.
"If it can be avoided, I mean to keep the third-generation disciples out of it. You are the future of the Zhongnan Sect—and the pillars of the righteous path."
In other words: war was still too soon for the third generation.
"But the world's affairs never go as one expects. The day may come, and not far off, when your strength is needed. So train hard. You already have insights waiting to be settled, do you not?"
"…"
For a moment Cheonhwa found no words. In Okwon Jinin's tone he had sensed a faint, living qi of foresight—not empty speech, but something close to a Peerless Expert's premonition. It was a warning that a trial capable of shaking the entire martial world would soon arrive, and counsel to refine his insights and throw himself into cultivation against that day.
Cheonhwa looked carefully at Okwon Jinin, half hoping the Sect Leader might name the threat to come. Okwon Jinin said no more, only drank his tea in silence—a quiet sign that he could tell him nothing further.
For now, I'll do as the Sect Leader says and focus on training.
Cheonhwa breathed a quiet sigh and considered what lay ahead. As Okwon Jinin had said, he needed time to settle the insights he had gained at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering. Once he had fully made the mid-section mastery of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven his own, only one task would remain.
I challenge the wall of Peak Expert.
While forging the mid-section mastery formulas, Cheonhwa had not attempted the wall of Peak. Part of it had been lack of leisure—but more than that, the backlash had grown so severe that he could no longer charge at it headlong as he once had. A failed attempt would now take more than a fortnight simply to recover from. Put another way, the moment he would finally cross that wall was not far off.
Crossing the wall isn't the end. Through it, I have to form a Spiritual Nature.
The hour was approaching when he would have to forge a crystallized vessel of the purest intent.