"A Beauty Like Jade, a Sword Like a Rainbow" - Ask the Waters, Listen to the Mountains: All Say Better to Return Home

As though by prior agreement, night quietly descended just as the campaign against the bandits in Nanhai Commandery came to an end.

The Commandery Soldiers had now pitched five or six tents on a level stretch of wilderness, where the army physicians could treat the wounded.

When this force set out for Firecloud Mountain to suppress the bandits, they had never expected to spend the night there. They had brought only a few tents, so most of the surviving soldiers had to bed down in the wild grass. Several bright bonfires burned around the open-air camp to deter the beasts that prowled out at night in search of food.

But all this bustle among the Commandery Soldiers no longer had anything to do with Xing Yan. Ever since he had frightened off those two killing gods from the savage borderlands, he had withdrawn entirely from the battlefield before him. Utterly exhausted, Hall Master Zhang could only sit motionless on the ground, legs crossed, focusing his spirit and refining his qi.

Seeing him like this, Bao Chuxiong and the others dared not disturb him. Only Qiong Rong, finally tired of playing, leaned against her brother and fell quietly asleep.

The thick darkness at last stilled all the clamor. Only the mist drifting through the wilderness silently dampened their ragged battle dress with dew.

The next morning, it was not until the dawn light from the eastern sky shone directly onto their faces that these exhausted campaigners managed to open their bleary eyes. The fierce summer sun, occasionally showing half its face between the peaks of Firecloud Mountain, now seemed incomparably warm and welcoming to Bao Chuxiong and the others. Even the gloom that had clung to the mountain wilderness the night before seemed to have been swept clean away by that