Interlude: The Silkworm II (Patreon)

The first principle of a shaman is responsibility. Their duty is sacred, and their roles are many, from serving as the spiritual guides of the tribes and bringing prosperity to expelling poisonous insects from homes. A shaman is responsible for all that and more. The act of rearing and controlling Gu demanded no less.

Xie Jin kept reminding himself of this principle as he trawled through the jungle with Ren and Bao Si. He knew why his grandfather had assigned him to this task with these people, but that didn’t mean he was pleased with it.

Chen Haoran had been left back at the village. While Xie Jin would have enjoyed his company, his presence would have just created more traces they’d have to erase. Xie Jin wasn’t quite comfortable with leaving Chen Haoran alone while those Peach River bastards were still there, but there was no helping it. Grandfather wouldn’t let anything happen anyway.

Xie Jin abruptly shook his head. Why did he have to worry about Brother Chen? He was a Liquid Meridian Realm now, while Xie Jin was still only on the Eighth-Layer of the Qi Realm. He knew Brother Chen had been near the peak of the Ninth-Layer before, but he’d only been in Zumulu for barely two months. What had he missed while he was gone? While Brother Chen had explained it, he wasn’t a very good storyteller, and Xie Jin mourned the lack of details.

“Jin,” Bao Si’s melodic, poisonous voice drifted to his ears. “Why did you have to pull me away so quickly? I didn’t even have the time to greet Chen Haoran.”

“Grandfathers orders,” Xie Jin tersely replied.

“Oh well. I’ll meet him when we return. I have to repay him for the Moon Moth Silk after all.”

“Don’t play any tricks,” Xie Jin warned.

Bao Si’s infuriating giggle was the only answer he received.

Ren, who had been silently trailing behind them, suddenly spoke. “Cousin, what is the background of your friend?”

Xie Jin very nearly stumbled over a tree root. His relationship with Ren was, in some ways, an even more complicated issue than Bao Si’s. Even so, he knew his taciturn cousin well enough to recognize how out of character such a question was for him. Ren didn’t take interest in people. Period.

“He’s from the Chen Family. He was living on his own when I first met him, though.”

“Like the pirates?” Ren asked.

“I don’t think so. I met him in Clearsprings, after all.” Xie Jin narrowed his eyes. “You don’t still think he’s suspicious, do you?” A note of warning came into his tone. He’d vouched for Brother Chen. To doubt him was to doubt Xie Jin.

Ren shook his head. “When I sensed him, there was something staring back.”

What? Xie Jin quickly recalled their meeting. Brother Chen’s qi was vast and filled with vitality to his sense like he’d taken a piece of the Machu River and replaced his qi with it. His Gu felt it even more finely. Its instincts warning Xie Jin of the threatening aura lurking within the depths of his qi. He couldn’t recall any sort of feeling of being watched, however. He didn’t discount Ren’s words; however, whatever his opinions, his cousin was a responsible and dutiful warrior. Perhaps it was something only a Liquid Meridian Realm could observe. While a Gu was finely tuned for tracking even the barest of traces, it did not mean their sensory abilities were superior overall to a cultivator’s.

“How interesting,” Bao Si cut in, her voice dripping with curiosity. “Your trip to Clearsprings seems to have been worth it since you came back with such a friend, Jin. We’d all dearly like to know how your trip around Zumulu turned into an adventure abroad. Tell us the story sometime.”

Xie Jin grimaced. “Pick up the pace. We need to get this down before more scouts are sent.”

His Beetle Gu and Bao Si’s Centipede Gu quickly picked up on the path Brother Chen and the Peach River Bastards took. From there, it was simple to retrace their steps and erase all the tracks they left as they traveled. Not that there were that many left For better or for worse, Xie Jin had to admit those Peach River bastards were pretty good at erasing their tracks. Just because there weren’t many, however, didn’t mean there were none.  While the jungle did its part in obscuring the remainder, that only meant their Gu had to spend a moment to find traces rather than an instant.

Scent was the obvious one. Among all the beings between Heaven and Earth, it would be easier to list ones that didn’t have some kind of smell. In this, a cultivator and a non-cultivator had no differences. One didn’t even need a Gu to track something by smell. While Gu were the best at it, there were other spirit beasts and even cultivators who could do the same. This ubiquity also meant there were just as many ways to obscure those scents. In the spirit of thoroughness, they used both miasma and specially prepared herb satchels to erase and scatter any scent markers left behind.

Less obvious than scent and more damning to any cultivator who trying to flee from a shaman were the imprints of qi left in the wake of a cultivators passing. It wasn’t an intentional thing a cultivator did, qi was just such an omnipresent part of a cultivator’s life that it was inevitable they’d release minuscule amounts of it as they went about their business. This qi would be absorbed back into the environment eventually, but until then, it would retain the unique identity of the cultivator. The means to track by way of qi imprints was rare, a skill belonging to special organisms and powerful techniques. Methods to avoid leaving those imprints were even rarer, belonging to the most advanced levels of stealth techniques. Gu possessed both.

The qi imprints left behind by Brother Chen and his group were already in the process of being absorbed into the environment. That bastard Wan Xiao’s was already so faint that it was covered by Brother Chen’s and Jiang Lei’s imprints. As Liquid Meridians, they were greater in every way compared to a Qi Realm. This included the traces they left behind. For these traces, no amount of herb satchels would obscure them. Instead, as their Gu identified their locations, they would flash purple and devour the remnant qi on the spot.

In this way, they destroyed all the evidence of the direction Brother Chen escaped in until they finally reached the site where Brother Chen was ambushed by the Empire. Xie Jin frowned as his Gu flew around and fed back what it observed. Fighting had a way of leaving echoes that existed for long after the battle itself was over, and that fact was in full force here. An atmosphere of peaches, dragons, and death pervaded. Fallen trees were cleanly cut and covered with a fine layer of saw dust. Gouges in the earth, no doubt left by Chen Haoran, were already sprouting with green plants. Xie Jin frowned as his Gu hovered over a spot dense with qi. He stood atop the yellow-bright spot that was clearly Brother Chen’s. Around it was a peach-pink one that was clearly Jiang Lei. Around even that was death.

Xie Jin closed his eyes and sorted the information his Gu sent him. Thirteen Qi Realms, one Liquid Meridian, and one shaman. There was the spot Jiang Lei fought the shaman and Liquid Meridian. Over to the right, Wang Xiao’s qi was heavily mixed with the enemies. Over to the left was Brother Chen’s. Almost everywhere was a sharp white energy, Brother Chen’s Harmonization. Comparing the intensity of qi made clear that Xie Jin was standing on the spot where Brother Chen became a Liquid Meridian Realm. Advancement in battle. Even children’s stories were careful about making up such a thing. It was insane by any standard, and yet he called the living proof of it, brother.

And I wasn’t there to see it happen.

“I can’t find any corpses, not even blood spatter,” Bao Si said, wrinkling her nose. “Corpse Dissolving Solution.”

Xie Jin frowned. Corpse Dissolving Solution wasn’t easy to make, or acquire. Merchants tended not to advertise that sort of thing. Using it effectively enough to obstruct a Gu also required experience. It wasn’t something a person did first try.

“Those bastards get more and more suspicious,” Xie Jin said.

“A Peach River Swordsmen using a murderer’s methods.” Bao Si smiled. “How ironic.”

Xie Jin sneered. “I told you they weren’t real swordsmen.”

“Grandpa thinks they are,” Bao Si said.

Xie Jin shook his head. Whatever they were, Jiang Lei and Wang Xiao were far from the Peach River Swordsmen of the stories. They weren’t the noble swords that brought criminals to justice and defended the people from monsters and evil spirits. He couldn’t find in their tricks the stalwart guardians that rallied to Princess Cicada’s cause as she sang the song of revolution. Whatever remnant legacy of the Peach River Sword School that managed to escape the Empire’s purge failed to preserve the spirit of their honored predecessors.

“It makes you think, though,” Bao Si continued. “Even if they are a remnant. How could they cultivate? The Empire wouldn’t allow their revival. I wonder who’s supporting them.”

A surge of wariness rose in Xie Jin’s chest and gripped his heart. He pulled out a low-grade spirit stone from his bag. “When I first met them, they gave me a spirit stone.”

Ren was by his side in a flash, and Xie Jin handed the stone to him. He turned it over in his hands and closely observed it. He handed it back to Xie Jin with a frown.

“This isn’t cut to Imperial standards.”

Bao Si’s nonchalance faded away. “If they didn’t get it through Imperial channels then…”

She didn’t finish. It wasn’t necessary. The first thing the Empire had done after conquering Zumulu was appropriate every spirit stone mine in the region. Their monopoly over spirit stones was ironclad; violating it was one of the few things that would truly rouse the ire of the Emperor.

A solemn air shrouded them, and Xie Jin bit his lip. Illegal spirit stones. Peach River Swordsmen reappearing from the dust of history and seeking audience with his grandfather. It spelled trouble, and yet none of them could muster the courage to speak their thoughts aloud.

It was Ren who broke the silence. “Whatever happens, Elder Xie will be there to calm the waters. Let us finish our work here.”

With that said Ren placed his hand on the ground, and the earth turned liquid. The gouges and overt damages quickly smoothed out and became natural. Bao Si directed her Centipede Gu to begin absorbing the qi imprints around them. Xie Jin sighed, cast aside his useless thoughts, and ordered his Gu to follow suit. The work proceeded without disruption until his Gu tried to devour the white metal qi of Chen Haoran’s Harmonization.

Xie Jin frowned as he watched his Gu spit out the energy and transmit a feeling of rejection. Before he could do anything, the white qi folded over, cut itself in half and disappeared. As if by some cue, the rest of the white qi did the same and vanished entirely to his Gu’s senses.

“Brother Chen, what the fuck.”

Xie Jin was finally struck with the realization that he knew far less about Chen Haoran than he would have perhaps liked. Just as soon as the thought came, he squashed it. Some things a Qi Realm couldn’t ask, even if they were friends.

First Ren, then Bao Si, now Brother Chen. Xie Jin balled his hands into fists.

He was being left behind.

Thankfully an outlet to vent his frustration revealed itself. A Dragonfly Gu awkwardly flew into view. Or rather, two halves of it did. Seeing such a sight wasn’t strange to Xie Jin. A Gu’s unique physiology let them survive such extreme damage. The strange thing was why it hadn’t healed.

His Gu passed on a feeling of familiar sharp qi.

“I’ve never seen such lingering wounds on a Gu before,” Ren noted.

“It must have lingered in the area after it realized it couldn’t heal,” Bao Si said. “How interesting. I really must lay down and speak with Chen Haoran.”

“Get in line,” Xie Jin said.

Bao Si smiled sweetly. “Go suck a snake’s fangs, Jin.”

Xie Jin snorted. “I’ll take the left half, you take the right.”

“What a gentleman.”

As one, their Gu shot out. The Dragonfly Gu burst out with green miasma, but even if it were whole, it paled compared to true hunters. The Centipede Gu unnaturally extended and pierced through the miasma and clench its mandibles through the right half’s thorax and rip it away. The left half stumbled at the sudden separation and was brought to the ground by the Beetle Gu. A thick purple miasma quickly overwhelmed the Dragonfly Gu, and it released an unnatural scream as it was consumed.

The purple miasma collapsed and was absorbed by his Beetle Gu. A purple aurora flashed across its black carapace, and Xie Jin could feel thrumming satisfaction through their bond. His Gu slowly flew back over and spat a dense cloud of miasma over him. Xie Jin closed his eyes and breathed in. The miasma seeped through his skin and entered his meridians, where it was seamlessly absorbed by more gaseous purple qi. A storm was set off within his meridians as his qi expanded and touched an invisible ceiling.

Xie Jin breathed out.

The ceiling broke, and his qi spiked as it spilled over its prior limits.

Qi Realm Ninth-Layer.

Quiet clapping accompanied his rise. He opened his eyes and saw Bao Si had roped Ren into joining her clapping. Her Centipede Gu was draped over her shoulders, flashing purple.

Xie Jin rolled his eyes and raised his middle finger. “Back to work, you bastards.”