Borrowing a Blade

At daybreak, Li Tui had already been waiting outside the main house for half an hour.

The wound on his left shoulder tingled. New flesh was growing. The warmth of the tumor seeped through the cloth, spurring it to heal. But deep inside him, the hollow, enervated feeling still weighed heavily.

A cup smashed inside the house. Zhao Yuanchong was in a foul mood this morning.

Li Tui lowered his eyes as he entered, then crouched to pick up the shards. His fingers were steady, but his mind was elsewhere.

The old monster at the bottom of the well had left a threat lodged in his throat like a thorn. Letting him return meant using his body to nourish that tumor. Once it grew fat enough, it would be time to harvest it.

He couldn't just wait to die.

He needed a wild card, someone who could disrupt the deadlock he was trapped in.

Zhao Yuanchong? Li Tui shook his head to himself. The young master was weak, mercurial, and easy to draw into the scheme—but just as likely to turn on him.

Then...

A grim, hard face flashed through Li Tui's mind: Zhao Hao.

Born to a collateral branch, he was patient and ruthless. More importantly, he possessed Star Fate. He could stand against Zhao Yuanchong's Greedy Wolf destiny; Zhao Hao must have hidden strengths of his own.

He needed to draw him into the game.

But he couldn't approach him directly. That would be too stupid.

He had to let Zhao Hao "discover" things for himself.

The opportunity came on the afternoon of the third day.

Li Tui had been ordered to retrieve the wrist guard Zhao Yuanchong had left behind at the Martial Arts Arena. When he arrived, Zhao Hao was alone in a corner on the east side, practicing his punches against an ironwood post.

Li Tui didn't go over at once. He stood in the shadows at the edge of the arena and watched for a while.

Zhao Hao's punches were fierce. Each blow landed against the post with a dull thud. But Li Tui could see clearly: a heavy gloom clung to his strength, the frustration of something with nowhere to go. When Zhao Hao finished a move, his brows unconsciously drew together for the briefest moment. He soon smoothed them out, but that instant of hesitation was like something jammed at a bottleneck.

Had his cultivation hit a wall?

Li Tui looked away and walked toward the east side. Without glancing at Zhao Hao, he bent to pick up the wrist guard lying beside the post.

As he bent over, his left index finger slipped behind his body, pressing his true qi against the spot where the tumor clung close.

A rush of scorching heat immediately surged up from beneath his skin.

The heat seared deep into his left shoulder wound. It gave a few sharp, brief twinges, loosening the edge of the coarse bandage by a fraction.

The heat raced up his meridians. Li Tui's breath faltered, and the trace of true qi in his dantian stirred. It rushed halfway around the path, unusually clear and open from being flushed through.

By the time he straightened, he had barely steadied his breath. His face had gone faintly pale, and sweat had beaded on his forehead.

It wasn't exhaustion. It was the sudden, surging rush of true qi that had grown far too "lively" inside him, leaving him weak.

He closed his eyes briefly. Only then did his breathing settle again.

Zhao Hao's fist stopped in midair.

He had seen it clearly: the instant Li Tui's breath turned irregular, and the force revealed in the flow of his true qi when he forced it back under control... That wasn't something a disciple who was still recovering from an injury and had only recently begun drawing qi into his body should possess.

It was more like the aura of someone who had been at the Tongmai stage for a long time.

He finished his stance, turned, and fixed his gaze on Li Tui's back.

Li Tui seemed not to notice. He dusted the sweat towel in his hand, turned, and started to leave.

"Stop."

The voice came from behind him. It wasn't loud, but it struck the silence like a stone dropped into water.

Li Tui halted and looked back, his face wearing just the right degree of bewilderment. "Young Master Hao?"

Zhao Hao said nothing. He walked over and stopped three feet in front of Li Tui. His gaze was like a knife scraping bone, sweeping from Li Tui's face to his left shoulder, then back to his face.

"Your injury," he said, his voice dry. "Has it healed?"

"Thanks to the mansion's fine medicine, it's no longer a serious concern," Li Tui replied, lowering his eyes.

"No longer a serious concern?" Zhao Hao didn't move. His gaze pinned the loose edge of the bandage on Li Tui's left shoulder. "You healed quickly."

He paused, his voice dropping lower. "Didn't it hurt just now?"

The question was pointed.

Li Tui was silent for a moment, then answered quietly, "It still tingles a little."

"Tingles." Zhao Hao repeated the word, the corner of his mouth twitching. "It's a good thing when new flesh grows quickly. It's just that..."

He took half a step closer, narrowing the distance between them, and lowered his voice until only the two of them could hear. "I've never seen anyone who was just injured by a monster and poisoned with yin toxin open so many acupoints in just a few days."

He stared into Li Tui's eyes. "What exactly happened on your assignment to the West Suburbs? Don't try to fob me off with the same story you told everyone else."

At last, he'd asked.

Li Tui raised his eyes and met Zhao Hao's gaze. This time, the habitual deference in his eyes had faded, revealing the stillness of a deep pool beneath.

"That night, I... did run into something strange," Li Tui said slowly.

"There's an abandoned well in the southeastern corner of the West Suburbs. There's... something wrong at the bottom."

"What do you mean, wrong?"

"Someone," Li Tui said after a pause. "An old man at the Qi Refining stage was raising something with monster corpses at the bottom of the well. I was careless and fell victim to his ambush."

Qi Refining. Monster corpses. Raising something.

The three words struck Zhao Hao's heart like three stones.

His breathing quickened almost imperceptibly for a moment, but his expression remained hard. "What does that have to do with your cultivation improving?"

"I don't know either." Li Tui shook his head, his confusion just convincing enough. "After I was poisoned, I used my energy to fight it. At first, the pain was unbearable, but after I endured it, my meridians... felt much more open. As if something had flushed through them."

Flushed through his meridians.

The fingers of Zhao Hao's hand, clasped behind his back, curled slightly.

"That thing at the bottom of the well," he said, his voice even lower. "Did you get a good look at it?"

"Only a glimpse," Li Tui replied. "Something dark red covered the monster corpses. It pulsed faintly, like a living thing. The old man guarded it closely, and strange patterns were carved into the well walls."

Taken together, these details were enough to bring all sorts of possibilities to Zhao Hao's mind: a spiritual treasure, a secret treasure, or some rare wonder that could help someone break through.

"What else do you know?" Zhao Hao pressed.

"The old man seems to check the bottom of the well around midnight every night," Li Tui replied carefully. "Weeds grow thick around the well, but there's an old locust tree thirty paces to the southeast."

By now, the meaning was clear.

Zhao Hao stared at Li Tui for a long moment, then suddenly gave a crooked smile. "You want to use me to investigate that well."

It wasn't a question. It was a conclusion.

Li Tui lowered his eyes. "I wouldn't dare. But that old man is lurking on Zhao Family land, and he must have some ulterior purpose. If you think this matter is worth investigating, Young Master Hao... I'm willing to tell you everything I know."

"Everything you know?" Zhao Hao sneered. "You just happened to let me see you slip up in front of me today, leading me to ask about the well in the West Suburbs... Wang Yuan, you went to all this trouble. What do you want?"

The question cut to the heart of things.

Li Tui lifted his head. There was no panic in his face, only calm acceptance. "All I want is to stay alive."

He paused, his voice growing softer. "Since the old man let me return, he can find me again whenever he wants. My cultivation is too weak to fight him. I can only... look for a way to survive."

A way to survive. And right now, that way seemed to depend on Zhao Hao.

Zhao Hao said nothing. With his hands behind his back, he paced half a step across the spot, his profile half in shadow, half in the light.

After a long while, he spoke. His voice was even colder than before. "You've told me all this in such detail. How do I know it isn't a trap?"

Li Tui's heart tightened.

Zhao Hao fixed him with a gaze sharp as a blade. "Three days from now, at midnight. You're coming with me to that well."

Li Tui's pupils contracted.

Go with him?

Zhao Hao didn't trust him. He was dragging this "guide" into the mess with him, both to test him and to keep him in check. If there was real danger at the bottom of the well, Li Tui would face it too; if this was a trap, Li Tui would be the first one thrown in as a shield.

He really isn't a fool. No matter...

Li Tui lowered his eyes, hiding his thoughts. "I... understand."

"It's not a matter of understanding." Zhao Hao stepped forward, his presence suddenly more oppressive. "You have to go. Midnight, three days from now. The west side gate. If you don't show up, or if even a whisper of this gets out..."

He didn't finish, but his meaning was clear.

Li Tui nodded silently.

Seeing this, Zhao Hao said nothing more and turned to leave.

Li Tui stood where he was, watching Zhao Hao's back disappear at the far end of the Martial Arts Arena.

The tumor in his chest pulsed slowly, its warmth seeping through his skin. Now, though, it carried a searing heat.

Li Tui slowly let out a breath.

Now that he'd come this far, there was no turning back.