“Where did he go?” Yuelong quickly scanned the forest, searching for any signs of movement.

Broken twigs, wet soil, crunched leaves—all possible leads to where the evil Daoist went.

Yuelong knew, from the first time they met, that Deng Lu wasn’t anyone good. The dark aura, the sickly yellow skin—his inner evil exposed itself through his outer flesh, leaving it dull and dark. It was a clear sign of spirit possession.

Yuelong sighed. Deng Lu had vanished without leaving any trace. Yuelong didn’t want to use his third eye because he had already used it too much in this one day. If too much energy is focused into the third eye, the energy pathways surrounding it can erode. It’s just like if boats were to scrape the underside of a bridge: too much of that could cause nontrivial damage to the bridge. It is the same with the third eye.

Yuelong looked around the forest clearing one last time. Broken twigs, wet soil, crunched leaves… What’s this? A strand of white hair dangled from the bark of a tree. Its thin and delicate form waved in the air. Yuelong plucked it from the tree and frowned at it.

Where did I see this before? Is it Deng Lu’s hair? No, he had it tied up nicely in a bun. Is it from his clothes? No, the evil Daoist wasn’t wearing white. Then where?… Wait, that’s it! A Daoist! A fu chen! That’s where it was from!

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Upon hearing the sudden noise, his legs reacted. His thighs tightened and pushed off from the ground. He kicked his left leg and flipped a whole circle in the air before landing a few paces away.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Three knives now pinned the ground where Yuelong had been standing a moment ago. A dark colour slowly spread from the covert weapons and into the soil, corroding the dirt into a black and mushy substance. A familiar rotten smell rose from the blackened soil. Yuelong immediately covered his nose.

Poisoned knives… So he is here.

Yuelong looked up only to see strands of white heading straight for his head.

“Cangming!”

Hearing its owner summon it, the blue sword flew out of Yuelong’s sleeves and shot itself at the white strands.

The white threads acted like vipers, swaying side to side and striking at Cangming whenever they could.

Cangming lashed and cut at the incoming threads, slicing through them like tofu.

Yuelong brushed the fallen pieces of white thread off of his shoulders. Assured that Cangming could take care of this, he used the surrounding branches like stairs and hopped easily up to the canopies. Steadying himself on a branch, he surveyed the fight below.

Hidden among the branches elsewhere was Deng Lu. He waved and twirled the fu chen in his hands like a sword, making its white strands tangle with Cangming below. But like fast shears to a spider’s web, Cangming blitzed through the strands and headed straight for the weaver.

Surprised by the sudden counterattack, Deng Lu lost his footing in the trees and fell backwards.

“Return!”

The blue sword looped through the air and flew back into its master’s sleeve. Yuelong kicked off from the tree trunk and launched himself into the air.

Landing with a soft crunch on the dirt, Yuelong scanned the area for Deng Lu.

Nothing!?

Yuelong’s eyes widened in surprise. He ran to where Deng Lu should have landed from the fall and found a small dent in the ground instead.

This is Tudun! A typical Daoist trick! Yuelong realized. So that’s where he went…

Tudun was an escape or transportation ability of the Earth element. Whoever casted it would be able to traverse the Earth as a way of escape. In this case, Deng Lu had escaped somewhere underground, concealing his whereabouts from those above.

“Hmph! Don’t you know that Wood subdues Earth?” Yuelong called out.

No response.

Yuelong hadn’t been expecting one anyway. He calmly walked up to a tree and touched the bark. The tree’s rough skin scratched and pressed against Yuelong’s heated hands.

Although the Qianyang Sect didn’t specialize in the ways of the Five Elements, Yuelong had nonetheless been taught the basics by his father.

Pouring his energy into the tree and down into its roots, Yuelong stood in silence, listening for any sudden sounds. He could feel the world around him through every root of the tree, as if they were his own fingers. The roots stretched and reached, searching for the escapee.

Silence.

No signs of upheaved dirt, no signs of movement, no signs of cracked soil. Just the small hissing of the wind.

BOOM!

Ten meters away from Yuelong, the ground exploded, and from the hole that appeared, a man with disheveled hair flew out.

“You young‘un! I haven’t harmed you in any way! Why must you chase me down!?” Deng Lu demanded, his eyes red with fury. Wrapped around his waist were the thin roots of Yuelong’s tree.

“Why should I tell you something that you already know?” Yuelong said in a cold, monotonous voice.

“Hmph!”

The winds grew stronger and stronger; its hissing became louder and louder. Yuelong suddenly felt as if the world was spinning in front of him.

What is this? He quickly suppressed the chaotic flow of qi within his body and relaxed his temples. He looked up at the evil Daoist only to see fear upon his face.

The whites of the man’s eyes dominated over his pupils. A sickly colour was washed over his face; his hair, dishevelled like the pelt of a beast. His lips trembled as they mouthed deafened words.

“… Ye-yes.”

The winds slowed, and the hissing died down. Deng Lu was still suspended in the air—surrounding the Daoist were torrents of strong winds that whipped and spun, keeping him afloat in the air.  Yuelong covered his face with his sleeve. But even then, he could smell the pungent scent of the evil spirit in the winds.

Yuelong leapt high into the air. He pointed his sleeve at Deng Lu, and Cangming instantly shot out.

Ping!

The blade lodged itself in the sphere of air and started trying to drill past that shield. With his index and middle fingers pointed at it, Yuelong supported his blade with a steady flow of his energy.

Cangming inched deeper into the shield.

Deng Lu resisted back with all his might.

But the evil Daoist was no match for the young Yixiao Zhenjun. Although Deng Lu was much older, his cultivation abilities weren’t as deeply rooted as Yuelong’s. Yuelong had been training and practicing his cultivation since birth; his every single breath was grounded in the way of the Qianyang method.

At last, the shield shattered like glass, and Cangming headed straight for the Daoist’s throat.

But suddenly, a black shape formed behind Deng Lu. The black mass, extending outwards, writhing and slithering, snaked around Cangming, stopping the sword in its path once again. The sword, sensing that creature of Yin, twisted and turned in the air, but to no avail—the snake had it in a deathlock.

“So you’ve finally come out, snake spirit,” said Yuelong.

“How dare you come after my host,” the snake “said.” Its mouth never moved, and the voice whispered from all sides, but whoever was there to listen would know that those were the words of the serpent.

“An animal by itself is indeed not powerful,” Yuelong acknowledged. “Only through a vessel of a human can your powers be enhanced.”

“Aren’t you clever! And so young… Such a pity.”

With a twist of its diamond-shaped head, the snake enlarged to twice its size. Cangming shifted under its weight.

“You will make a wonderful pill for my cultivation…”

The snake launched a strike.

Quickly, Yuelong closed his eyes and clasped his hands together. He felt his body starting to burn from the inside. He channeled the heat all the way up from the bottom of his abdomen to his heart and into his hands.

“Sanmei Pure Fire!”

Flames erupted from Yuelong’s palms. In flight, the blue flames quickly shifted into white and then orange, before they engulfed the black snake in one go.

“AHHHHHHH!”

The snake twisted and flailed in the flames, hissing and shouting.

“You will pay for this! You damn meddler!”

Flakes of scale and flesh peeled off from the snake. Yuelong watched as the black shadow disintegrated in the heat of the fire.

He released the flow of his qi, stopping the fire. He reached out to touch Cangming’s now-warm hilt. He sliced the air in a test stroke and then settled himself back down on the forest floor.

He looked around for Deng Lu.

Gone, again.

The sun had already sunken past the tops of the trees, its light peeking through the curtain of autumn leaves. Like the Sanmei Pure Fire, the sky was dyed a gradient of colours, from the darkest of blues to the shores of soft peach and to the burning orange of the setting sun.

Yuelong sighed.

The snake had escaped again, taking its host along with it.

“What should we do?” said Yuelong to his sword. Being a sword forged in the pure flames of Sanmei and a weapon that had absorbed the essence of Heaven and Earth, Cangming was an entity that had already developed its own senses and consciousness.

Cangming gently vibrated in response: It went back to Xiao-Ling!

 

 

Under the cover of the night, the hooded man walked up to a town gate.

“Xian Nu Village…”

He walked past the stone gateway and into the empty streets.

Clack…clack…clack…

The man finally stopped in front of an inn. He knocked on the door and leaned on his staff as he waited for someone to answer.

“Who is it?”

“Just a traveler looking for a place to stay.”

The door opened, and a waiter invited him in.

“You’re just in luck, my dear guest. Half an hour later and we would’ve been closed for the day.”

The man smiled. He pulled back his hood. The waiter stared in terror.

“Yo-you’re no-not a ghost, right?”

The man was deathly pale against pink lips. A beauty mark next to his left eye pulled the waiter’s gaze straight to his. Although they seemed lifeless and tired, his eyes still cut with the colour of deep gold.

“No, I’m not,” the man assured, smiling and showing his white teeth.

“Oh, thank Lady Jiutian!” the waiter exclaimed. “I thought you were a dead person, or some evil spirit!”

The man grinned.

“How should I address gong-zi?” asked the waiter.

“My surname is…” He looked at the floor in deep thought. “My surname is Bei. You can call me Bei Gong-zi.”