Shi Ji sat in front of a large piece of paper placed on the floor, a red ink stained brush hovering over it, his eyebrows tense with concentration. With a careful, steady hand he began to draw across the paper, starting with a perfect circle. Slowly he added many mysterious looking characters and strange symbols to his circle.

After over 5 years of trial and error, he was confident he’d discovered an array formula that allowed the yang power of Blue Flower Mountains to be transferred over great distances without having to be maintained by anyone in the family. When it came to transferring the mountain’s power, it was easy if the array’s “canvas” was a descendant of the Old Man—Shi Ji’s various array tattoos as example. But outside of the Old Man’s sons own bodies, a reliable transfer method was elusive.

He could store small amounts of the mountain’s power or send it out in short bursts, but keeping a stable connection from one point to another was extremely difficult. His Old Man’s power was simply too strong. If the materials used in creating the arrays didn’t get destroyed under the strain, the formulas themselves were lacking somewhere and caused explosions of various intensities. 

There were so many explosions that Lotus Valley Sect—where he usually did such experiments—had politely kicked him out. He randomly found deserted places in the mountains to continue his research while using his Blue Flower Palace courtyard as his base. This method was safer than doing everything in Lotus Valley Sect as he’d been doing prior, though not as convenient. 

After waking up from an unexpected long sleep, he’d learned that those fiendish demons from Jianghu had walked right into his family’s territories and caused all kinds of trouble. Not only were many lives lost because of them, but the decades it took to stabilize the east had been destroyed! 

His Mother, along with the Lanhua government she’d helped create, had put a lot of work into rebuilding the eastern territories. The army had always had a presence in the east after the war, but his Mother cared about more than just personal security. She wanted the eastern peoples, who were beset by corrupt nobility and constant wars, to experience a life of freedom and prosperity. His Old Man and brothers only wanted them to stop causing trouble, she wanted to give them dignity. Though Shi Ji wasn’t that invested in his Mother’s vision, he recognized the effort she put into the east.   

All of that good work was gone because those demons were able to get into the east without anyone knowing!

He thought to himself: If they were caught at the ports, would they have been able to cause so much trouble?

Obviously not!

But it was difficult to catch a demon. They were extremely good at disguising themselves and blending in. They also got their jollies out of fooling people and getting others to do their dirty work. Basically, they rarely worked in the open and when they did, it was when victory was assured.

Demons could freely sneak around the east, but they didn’t dare step foot into Lanhua. The essence of the mountain seemed to repel their dark powers, weakening them. On top of that, his Old Man and eldest brother Shan Hui could sense their disgusting auras with pin-point accuracy if they stepped onto the mountains. Even the weaker sons could feel them, though not as precisely. Not only would they be weaker by trying to enter the mountain, they would be easily spotted and destroyed. The demons didn’t dare to risk it, only meddling in the shadows and dark places that his family couldn’t easily see. 

Shi Ji wished there was some way to extend his family’s ability to the eastern coastline. 

For the last few years, he’d been trying to make his wish a reality. He’d called it the “Eastern Border Array”. The first function would be an early alert system, allowing those in Lanhua to know when a demon tried to enter the east. From there, he hoped to add other features, a demon tracking system or better yet, a physical barrier that would repulse anyone who had a certain level of evil in them— thus preventing even demon minions from entering.

But before the Eastern Border Array could be built, he needed to figure out how to get his Old Man’s power to the coastlines. Preferably without anything or anyone getting blown up….

Speaking of his Old Man, he’d been upset about what happened in his absence. Usually his Old Man would only be angry at the demons for using the east as a proxy to harass his wife for so many years, but to Shi Ji’s surprise his father was also genuinely troubled at the destruction the demon’s caused.

The Old Man was left with an intolerable feeling of helplessness because he couldn’t directly leave the mountains to throttle the culprits. He had to depend on his sons to do the throttling for him, which wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as doing it himself. 

What Shi Ji was attempting was as close as his Old Man could get to directly being involved with dealing with demons. He got some praise from his father for this, which secretly pleased him and inspired him to double down on his research.

If his Mother complained loudly that he was turning into a hermit, he pretended he didn’t hear. Sacrifices sometimes had to be made for the greater good. 

Like skipping meals, bathing  and not attending family events….

Today was the final step in confirming his power-transfer array system would work. He was confident the materials he’d gotten could endure the stress of the mountain’s power and now it was just a matter of the formula itself being tested. It was quite complex, even for him, and required uninterrupted concentration. 

After two hours, he was almost finished drawing out the array. His heart hummed happily in anticipation. If this worked, he could really get to work on the Eastern Border Array!

CRASH!

The door to his room burst open, causing his brush to go sideways.

Shi Ji looked at the long red line that now marred his once perfect formula and almost spit out blood. He jumped up, fists raised and ready to beat to death the person who’d dared barge in on him.

The intruder was a familiar young man with two moles under his left eye.

“E-Elder Brother—!” Shi Ji almost choked in surprise and frustration. 

Of all the people to interrupt him, why did it have to be this person?

Shan Hui raised his eyebrow at Shi Ji’s aggressive posturing. 

Shi Ji saw where his older brother was looking and hastily lowered his hands, putting them behind his back, forcing his body to relax. He was annoyed, but he didn’t dare pick a fight with Shan Hui. Though his older brother’s prickly personality had softened, that didn’t mean his temper had suddenly vanished. He would wallop any brother who dared pick a fight with him. If it was a choice between being frustrated to death or beaten to death by Shan Hui, Shi Ji always chose to be frustrated.

Shan Hui glanced at the large paper, which had an obvious mistake on it, and blinked innocently.

“Ah, did I interrupt you?” He paused and then seemed to realize something, “Sorry about that.”

The apology was clearly done as an afterthought, but it was better than nothing at all. 

Shan Hui disapproved of Shi Ji’s study of arrays. However, since Shi Ji continued to maintain his fighting capabilities, Shan Hui never made any real effort to stop him. 

But if he accidently trampled all over one of Shi Ji’s arrays, would he care? No, he wouldn’t care at all! 

Therefore, any apology at all was a marked improvement to the past. 

That didn’t make his behavior less annoying!

“Heh— it’s nothing, it’s nothing. I can just make a new one.” Shi Ji let out a strained chuckle before asking with a tinge of irritation, “Since you forced your way through all my arrays, you must have needed to speak to me urgently. What can I do for you?”

Shi Ji had told everyone to leave him alone. Naturally he didn’t expect any of his younger siblings to keep out of his courtyard simply because he told them to. One or two would try to enter simply because he said to stay out. He’d put down several array mazes to confuse those annoying brats out of his sanctuary.

These arrays obviously did nothing to stop Shan Hui from entering.

Shan Hui pulled out a jade communication tablet and frowned, looking annoyed.

“This thing isn’t working.”

“Not working? In what way?”

“I have been trying to contact Uncle Fu but it won’t send the message.”

Shi Ji’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Show me.”

Shan Hui took the attached stylus and wrote a quick message and then pressed his thumb on the tablet’s surface. This was the standard procedure for sending a message. Without pressing the thumb, the message wouldn’t be sent. Shi Ji had added this function as a basic security measure.

The message vanished for a half second before reappearing again, flickered, and then disappeared. 

“This is what it does every time.” Shan Hui complained. “At first I thought it had been sent because the message disappeared, but Uncle Fu hasn’t responded. You know how he is, he religiously checks his communication tablet every morning, in or out of Lanhua. I originally contacted him 3 days ago, if he had gotten the message, he should have responded by now—”

“Does it do the same thing for other people?” Shi Ji cut into his brother’s complaining, uneasiness forming at the pit of his stomach.

Shan Hui shook his head. “No, I sent a message to Yan Li and he received it fine and responded like normal.”

“Give it to me.” 

Upon receiving the tablet, Shi Ji walked to a different room, his older brother trailing behind him.

In this room, one wall had an array drawn on it. In the center of the array was a large tablet and on the circle of the array were many small tablets with characters written on them, all interconnected by various lines. The strange lettering that was a hallmark of Shi Ji’s arrays was packed around every line within the array. The only thing most people could actually read were the characters on the small tablets, which were obviously family member’s names. Next to these small tablets was an empty circle.

Shan Hui stood there for a moment, a little confused, before asking, “What is all this?”

Shi Ji internally smirked, feeling superior in his array of knowledge.

“All the tablets are connected to this large one in the center,” Shi Ji explained graciously as he hung Shan Hui’s tablet in the circle next to the small tablet with his name on it. “The large tablet connects all the smaller tablets, which connect to the portable ones, and makes sure messages get to the right person.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to have them directly… er... talk to each other?”

Shi Ji shook his head, his lip curled up slightly despite himself, and stood in front of the big tablet. He began scribbling something on it.

“Only if there’s two tablets. Once you include more people, a search array is needed for the tablet to know where to send the message. The more people have a tablet, the longer the list, the more complicated the array. This increases the tablet’s size and weight. Rather than make the portable communication tablets bigger, I created one large tablet to do all the work for the portable ones. Plus,” Shi Ji had finished writing and pressed his thumb over the words he’d just created, “with this I can troubleshoot problems easier.”

The large tablet flashed once and the two lines connecting it to Shan Hui’s smaller tablet glowed. Then the circle surrounding Shan Hui’s portable tablet glowed. The lines glowed and dimmed several times before moving to another set of lines lit up. This time they went to a small tablet with the name Shu Fu Jing written on them. However, the lines only lit up twice before going dark.

Before the large center tablet had a report to give him, Shi Ji already had a good idea what was wrong. When the report appeared, Shi Ji read it with a grimace. 

Shan Hui was watching all this with a clueless expression on his face. He tried to read the report too but quickly stopped when he realized it was all in array code— which were no better than scribbles to him.

“What is it saying?” 

“Your tablet is fine, it’s Uncle Fu’s tablet that has a problem.”

“Problem? What kind of problem?”

Shi Ji hesitated for a moment.

“The messages aren’t being sent because they can’t be sent.”

Shan Hui frowned.

“What do you mean ‘can’t’?”

“Well… it’s possible Uncle Fu is someplace that is cutting off the tablet’s ability to communicate with the main one or…” Shi Ji didn’t want to finish his sentence, going silent.

Shan Hui poked him, a little harder than necessary. 

“Or what?”

“It’s only a possibility, mind you, but… the tablet might have been… er… destroyed.”

Shan Hui’s expression stiffened.

“How hard is it to destroy these tablets?” 

“Er, I had Yan Li try to break them and he wasn’t able to do it.”

The other reason the bigger tablet had been needed was because of the amount of strengthening arrays written all over the portable tablets. If Shi Ji didn’t make them almost indestructible, with how his siblings galvanted across the continent, he’d spend all his time having to make new ones or repair broken ones. After stuffing that many arrays onto the portable tablets, there was almost no room left for anything else.

Shan Hui immediately let out a series of expressive and scandalous curses. 

Before Shi Ji could say anything else, Shan Hui grabbed his tablet from the wall and ran out of the room. His speed was so great the walls shuddered and the tablets hanging swayed dangerously, the largest one almost falling off it’s wall peg. Shi Ji just barely caught it before it fell.

He sighed in relief before glancing at the door, a sense of gloom filling the bottom of his heart.

Uncle Fu had only gotten stronger since coming to Lanhua, and he was already ridiculously strong to begin with. Apparently in Jianghu he was stronger than Shan Hui. If a person that powerful suddenly lost contact with them…

…

It definitely wasn’t a good sign.