Chapter 12: Vulture in Bamboo
Tang Yurou's laughter wove through a bamboo grove, cauldron strapped to her back like a tortoise shell. Black Vulture glided above the leaves—rogue cultivator, beak-nosed, with a hooked blade that craved spines.
He dropped, talons out. Tang ducked. The hook tore a clump of hair and left a line of blood across scalp. She flung a pot of simmering paste in his face. He screamed, more insulted than hurt.
Qin Mo came through the grove like a low wind. He did not shout. He cut distance, squinting at angles, and slid under a blind slash. The hook bit bamboo; the stalk shivered, then toppled, kissing three friends in a chain. Qin used it like a bridge, footwork precise, stepping on falling green.
Vulture's blade found his sleeve and took it; his arm moved like water and didn't bleed. Qin's hand flicked—Rain Needles, five, then seven, then a spray. Vulture batted the first with contempt. The second bit tendon. The third drank from the throat's soft edge. The fourth was a lie. The fifth was a truth.
Vulture staggered back, injected with the tiniest dose of Meridian Softener hidden in the needle coating. His stance turned treacherous. His ankles forgot their oaths. He fell, graceless.
"Bind him," Tang snapped, bloody and furious.
Qin wrapped him in strips torn from bamboo, each tied with the willow's manner. Vulture snarled and thrashed, found no purchase, spat on the earth. "You don't know who wants your head," he hissed.
"Then tell me," Qin said.
Vulture grinned red. "A man with no scent. A hand without a hand. He wears a crescent when the moon is dark."
"Poetry," Tang muttered. "Kill him or gag him."
Qin gagged him. "Later," he said. "We will count his truths and lies."