The Death of Her Master

On Sunward Slope, a lone grave stood desolate.

Su Yueli sat before Shen Qing'an's new grave for a long time. Only when the sun was sinking in the west, its lingering rays stretching the grave mound's shadow long and longer still, did she slowly rise.

She brushed the fallen leaves from her hem, gave one last look at the yellow earth with no tombstone, then turned toward the official road beyond Fengling City.

Su Yueli did not walk quickly along this road.

Halfway there, she ran into a merchant caravan hauling goods.

Several escort guards had sabers tucked at their waists. A gust of night wind swept past, carrying a rich fragrance of wine.

Su Yueli's steps paused slightly. Following the scent, she saw dozens of large wine jars sealed with mud loaded onto a carriage in the middle of the caravan.

"Who goes there?!" The escorts immediately gripped their sword hilts at the sight of her and shouted harshly.

"I'm buying wine."

Su Yueli pressed her lips together, pulled several bits of silver from her robes, and tossed them over. "Give me a gourd of your strongest stuff."

The steward's eyes lit up at the sight of money, and he immediately had a servant fill a gourd to the brim and hand it over.

He had not expected business to come knocking before they even reached the city.

Su Yueli took the wine gourd, pulled out the wooden stopper, and tipped her head back for a small sip.

"Cough..."

The wine was far too strong. It burned all the way down to her stomach, yet it was also remarkably pure.

Perhaps it was because she did not know how to drink...

Wiping the corner of her mouth, a faint smile rose on Su Yueli's lips.

Her master ordinarily drank only spring water, saying wine would scatter a martial artist's qi and blood. But now that he had reached the end of his oil and his lamp had run dry, his qi and blood had long since scattered almost entirely. It was time he tasted what the fierce wine of this mortal world was like.

Carrying the wine gourd, Su Yueli continued on her way back.

Two days later.

The rolling Blackwind Ridge appeared at the edge of her vision. Su Yueli followed the mountain trail upward, and as she passed the mountainside, she could vaguely make out the little village below where she had lived for three years.

But the mist was especially heavy today, and she could not see clearly. She did not stop to go down.

The old village chief was dead. Shen Qing'an was dead. The village was now filled with unfamiliar faces that feared and rejected her. The so-called ties she had once had there were long gone.

"Thankfully, I still have Master."

Looking at the plants and trees upon the ridge, Su Yueli's heart finally stirred faintly.

After twenty years of day and night together, Lu Chen had long become her only family in this world.

When she returned, she would let him taste this gourd of wine, then try to break through Bone Forging and enter the third realm of Blood Exchange.

A quarter-hour later, Su Yueli stepped onto Cliff Plateau.

"Master, I'm back."

Carrying the wine gourd, Su Yueli called into the dark cavern, "I bought some strong wine in Fengling City. Tonight, we'll cut up a few pounds of wild boar meat, and you can make an exception and have a taste too."

The cave was dead silent, without the slightest reply.

Only the ashes left from the burned-out campfire gave off a faint scorched scent.

Su Yueli frowned slightly and walked into the cave.

It was empty inside. Lu Chen was nowhere to be seen, but on the stone table beside her lay a letter weighed down by a rock.

"A letter?"

Su Yueli raised an eyebrow, an inexplicable unease rising within her.

Master was on the mountain. What could he have to say that he could not say face-to-face, instead leaving behind a letter?

She hurried forward, moved the rock aside, and picked up the parchment.

The handwriting was wild and unrestrained:

"Disciple, seeing these words is like seeing me.

This old man spent his life rolling through heaps of corpses. I never married, never had descendants. To take you in amid these barren hills and poor waters, and watch you train the fist art I created until it seeped into your very bones, has been the greatest joy of my life!

The strange illness in your body is Heaven handing you food. So long as you do not die, one day you will cross the end of martial arts' ten realms.

But your master will not reach that day.

Over these twenty years, my qi and blood have withered day by day, yet the killing nature buried in my bones has grown ever heavier.

This old man has succumbed to qi deviation.

Today, I went down the mountain and could not hold myself back. I slaughtered the village below.

Do not blame your master for being cruel. The lives of ordinary people are like grass and mustard; before I die, I only wanted one more glorious slaughter.

I, Lu Chen, possessed a body full of proud bones, yet now I have become a bloodthirsty monster who kills without restraint. I have no face left to see you. I have already ended my own life in the village.

And do not collect this old man's corpse for me!

In Azure Province City, there is a man named Tie Tu. He was my friend through life and death in those years. Go find him; he can guide you on the path beyond the third realm.

Take your immortality and see the end of martial arts. Go farther away, and do not let yourself be tainted by your master's bad luck."

"..."

The fingers clutching the parchment instantly turned deathly pale.

Qi deviation? A slaughtered village?!

"Impossible..."

Su Yueli's heart began pounding, and her breathing grew heavy.

Though her master's fist art was vicious, he had a martial artist's bottom line deep in his bones.

He had once said that a martial artist threw fists only to kill enemies, never to slaughter innocent people who were unarmed and defenseless.

Not to mention that village had once saved his life!

How could he have slaughtered the entire village simply because he supposedly could not hold himself back?

Su Yueli stuffed the parchment into her robes, spun around, and rushed out of the cave. The qi and blood of the second realm, Bone Forging, burst forth with a roar.

Bang!

The rock beneath her feet shattered under her stomp, and she became an afterimage racing madly toward the village below the mountain.

The wind howled past her ears. The closer she got to the foot of the mountain, the thicker the piercing stench of blood became.

Even near the village, she heard no dogs barking or roosters crowing. Even the shouts of the men who usually worked in the fields had vanished completely.

A powerful unease surged into her heart.

Su Yueli rushed into the village entrance, then halted.

The sight before her was as if it had dragged the human world straight into hell.

The dirt road had been thoroughly soaked in blood, turned into a dark-red swamp. Beneath collapsed earthen walls, beside the well, and next to stacks of firewood lay mutilated corpses everywhere.

There were sturdy men whose chests had been crushed by a single punch, and farmwomen whose spines had been broken by kicks.

Su Yueli walked forward numbly. The wine gourd swayed faintly in her hand, making a dull sloshing sound.

Soon, she saw Second Pebble.

That honest, simple man who had blushed by the roadside just days ago and dared not look into her eyes now had half his body buried beneath the ruins. His neck twisted at a bizarre angle, his eyes staring fixedly at the sky.

And in the pool of blood at the very center of the village lay a familiar figure.

"Master...?"

His whole body was stained red with blood. His graying beard and hair were stuck together by clotted blood, and the crown of his head had been completely caved in and shattered.

Su Yueli walked before Lu Chen's corpse, and her knees gave way as she dropped into the pool of blood.

Her knees slammed into the viscous blood, splashing dark-red droplets.

Lu Chen's clouded eyes, still unwilling to close in death, continued to gaze in the direction of Fengling City.

Su Yueli reached out, trembling as she touched toward Lu Chen's body.

Plop.

The wine gourd fell from her hand into the bloody water, and its wooden stopper came loose.

The pungent strong wine mingled with the stinging blood, slowly spreading around Lu Chen's corpse.

"Why?"

Su Yueli murmured softly, her voice hoarse.

"What exactly... happened here...?"

She slowly lowered her head and pressed her forehead against the back of Lu Chen's cold hand.

Twenty years.

Shen Qing'an had died, freezing to death in a ruined temple with the worthless stone he had bought.

Her master had died too, his death utterly unclear.

This world had crushed every scrap of warmth she could cling to into rotten mud beneath her feet.