The bamboo grove was a nightmare.
"How can a forest like this exist?" grumbled the shorter one, violently pushing aside a stalk that crossed his path. The foliage swayed, returning a dry clatter that echoed among the stems. "We've been walking north for dozens of leagues. Dozens! And we're still in this cursed bamboo grove. The old man's map said the forest stretched for a few leagues. A few!"
The taller one did not answer immediately. His eyes roamed the landscape with the hunger of someone searching for something they had long pursued. The stalks around them were taller, darker, so dense that the sky was barely visible. The air was damp, heavy, and the Qi—the little there was—seemed to seep into the ground like water.
"The old man never came this far," he said at last. His voice was deep, patient, the voice of someone accustomed to waiting. "No one did. That's why what we seek is still here."
"If it's still here," Jun grumbled, craning his neck to try to see beyond the stalks. "We've already passed the point, brother. The old man said the treasures were south of the forest. South! We've been heading north for days. Soon we'll stumble into some mortal kingdom and be chased out like beggars."
The taller one smiled. It was a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"You always complain, Jun. It's true, we passed the point. The treasures we seek are to the south. We should have turned back days ago."
"Then why do we keep going?" Jun frowned. "Should we go back?"
The taller one stopped, his eyes scanning the bamboo grove with a hunger that was not for leaving, but for arriving.
"Because this place… there's something here. It's not what the old man showed us on the map, but I feel it. Something the mortals living around here have no idea about."
Jun fell silent. It was not fear that silenced him—it was faith. His elder brother—not by blood, but by oath—had always known how to find what he sought. In one year, he had felt Qi for the first time. By fourteen, using herbs gathered from ancient tombs and forgotten caves, he had tempered every part of his body. He was closer to the Refined Body than any other disciple of his generation. If anyone could break through the barrier and find the treasure that would elevate them, it was him.
"I just need one more," said the taller one, as if reading his companion's thoughts. "One treasure. With it, my body will be complete. Meridians, tendons, bones, organs. All tempered. Then we can truly go home."
"And if there's nothing here?"
The taller one stopped walking. He turned to Jun, and for the first time in days, something human crossed his weathered features—those features the women of the Single Path Sect called "imposing," the men called "dangerous."
"Then we return empty-handed. And we find another way."
Jun was about to answer, but the words died on his lips. The bamboo grove ahead was changing. The stalks, once so dense the sky was barely visible, were beginning to spread apart. The sunlight, sliced into thin golden blades, began to penetrate between the stems. And at the end of that tunnel of shadow and gleam…
"A hut," Jun said, his voice rough with surprise.
It was small, made of bamboo, with a thatched roof that sloped gently over a veranda. A stream ran past the back, its flowing water singing in a constant rhythm. There was a peace there that the two men had not felt in months. Perhaps had never felt.
But it was not the hut that made Jun stop breathing.
It was the figure on the veranda.
She was turned away, bent over a washing stone, her hands immersed in a wooden bucket. Her hair—black, straight, so long it touched her waist—was loose, and when she moved, the ends brushed the water like silk brushes. She wore a simple cotton tunic, a faded blue, that fit her form without effort.
"Brother…" Jun whispered, his voice failing.
The taller one had already seen her. His body, which had faced spirit beasts and enemy disciples without hesitation, stood frozen. His eyes, which had seen elder women of transcendent beauty and sect sisters whose features were praised in poems, could not look away.
She turned.
It was not a sudden movement, nor a startled one. It was slow, as if the world were adjusting itself to receive her. Her eyes met theirs, and Jun felt something he had never felt before any woman.
It was not desire. Not admiration.
It was a sensation that he was looking at something that should not exist in that place. In that world.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent, as if an inner light illuminated her from within. Her features were symmetrical, perfect, drawn by a hand that made no mistakes. Her lips, thin and pink, formed a line that was neither smile nor disdain. Only… coolness.
But the eyes. It was the eyes that undid him. Black as the purest ink, deep as a bottomless well, and in them there was no warmth, no curiosity, no fear. There was only a distance so vast that Jun felt, for the first time in years, like an insect before a flame.
Sisters of the sect, he thought, dazed. Cultivators who spend decades perfecting beauty. All of them pale beside her. They are mud. She is heaven.
The taller one recovered his composure first. His shoulders straightened, his face—that face the women called imposing—took on an expression of rehearsed cordiality.
"Madam," he said, his voice calm, polite. "Forgive our intrusion. We've been traveling for days. We were only looking for water."
The woman did not answer immediately. Her eyes traced over the two men, and Jun felt that he was being weighed, measured, catalogued. It was as if she could see through his skin, his bones, his intentions.
"The stream is there," she said at last. Her voice was low, but every syllable was a well-honed blade. "Drink and move on."
The taller one did not move. His eyes were still fixed on her, and Jun noticed that something in his expression had changed. It was no longer merely admiration. It was hunger.
"We are travelers," the taller one continued, taking a step forward. "We came from the south. The bamboo grove is larger than we imagined. We haven't seen a friendly face in days."
"I am not your friend," she answered. Her voice had not changed in tone, but something in the air thickened. "Drink and move on."
The taller one laughed. It was a soft, practiced laugh, the laugh of someone accustomed to being welcomed.
"You are too harsh, madam. We only wish to rest a little. Perhaps some bread, if you have any. We will gladly pay."
He took another step. Now he was only a few meters from the veranda. Jun, who had not yet moved, felt a chill run down his spine.
The woman did not retreat. Her eyes, once cold, now seemed like ice. Her hand, holding a piece of wet clothing, stilled upon the stone.
"Your husband," said the taller one, and his voice had lost its tone of cordiality. Now it was the voice of one who takes what he wants. "Is he not at home?"
The woman did not answer. But her fingers closed around the cloth with a force that made water squeeze out between them like tears.
"Perhaps we can wait," the taller one continued, and now a smile was forming on his lips. A smile Jun knew well. The smile of someone who had not heard "no" in a long time. "You wouldn't leave us without hospitality, would you, madam?"
He reached out his hand.
It was fast. Faster than Jun could follow. The taller one's hand shot toward the woman's face—not to hurt, not yet. Only to touch. To feel. To take possession of what his eyes had already claimed.
The slap came like lightning.
Yù Qíng's palm struck the man's face with a crack that echoed like a gunshot. He staggered back, hand to his face, eyes wide. The Yin in her—that Yin Zhì Yuǎn had cultivated alongside her, which was now so pure it could pierce any defense—had found the bone and shattered it as if it were dry clay.
Jun did not see the movement. He heard the sound—a sharp crack, like a branch snapping in two—and saw his elder brother stagger back, hand to his face, eyes wide with shock. For an instant, there was silence.
And then Jun laughed.
It was not a mocking laugh, not a sneering laugh. It was a nervous, hysterical laugh, the laugh of someone seeing something so unexpected they did not know how to react. The big man, the pride of the Single Path Sect, the man who had faced spirit beasts without blinking, had been slapped by a peasant woman.
"You…" the taller one began, his voice slurred, confused. His hand still covered his face, but when he pulled it away, Jun saw what the laughter had not perceived.
His brother's jaw was dislocated. Not merely dislocated—broken. The bone veered to the left at an angle that did not belong to human anatomy, and the skin around it was already swelling, darkening.
Jun stopped laughing.
"Little bitch," the taller one spat, his tongue stumbling over the syllables, blood dripping down his chin. His eyes, once imposing, were now merely red. Red with pain. Red with fury. "You broke my bone…"
He lunged. There was no more conversation, no more pretense, no more smiles. The hand that had reached for her face now grabbed her wrist with the strength of one who had crushed stones. His fingers dug into her skin, and the woman retreated a step, but did not make a sound. Her face, even facing that assault, remained a mask of ice.
Jun still had not moved. His body seemed glued to the ground, his eyes fixed on the scene. Something was wrong. Something did not fit. That woman… that slap… no ordinary peasant woman could break the jaw of a cultivator on the threshold of the Refined Body. No one.
"Brother," he called, his voice coming out higher than he would have liked, "brother, we need to go…"
The taller one did not hear. Or did not want to hear. His hand squeezed the woman's wrist with increasing force, his joints cracking, and the red on his face was no longer only blood. It was the fury of one wounded by something he deemed inferior.
"Where is your husband?" he hissed, his voice slurred by the broken jaw, but still terrifying. "I will teach him how to treat a disobedient wife. I will…"
He stopped.
Not because he wanted to. Because something, somewhere deep in his instincts, forced him to stop.
Jun felt it too. It was first a sensation, a chill that climbed his spine and settled at the nape of his neck. Then, a pressure in the air, as if the atmosphere around them had grown heavier. The dry leaves on the ground began to scatter, pushed by something invisible. The nearest bamboos swayed, not with the wind, but as if fleeing from something.
The taller one turned his head.
Jun turned too.
And what they saw turned the blood in their veins to ice.
A man stood at the entrance of the bamboo grove. Not the entrance they had come through from the south, but the one leading into the depths of the forest, to the north, to the darkest, densest place where even sunlight did not penetrate. He had not been there a second ago. Now, he was.
His garments were dark, almost black, and over his shoulders a cloak of black silk gleamed like moonlight on water. His hair, black as night, fell in disarray across his forehead. His body was tall, sculpted, every line defined beneath the fabric. But it was not the height, not the clothing, not the muscles that made Jun want to flee.
It was the eyes.
Black. Absolutely black. And in them there was no fury, no hatred, nothing Jun could name. There was only a certainty so absolute that it annulled any thought, any reaction, any instinct that was not submission.
The man did not run. Did not speak. Did not make any threatening gesture. He merely walked. One step. Then another. And with each step, the air around him distorted, the dry leaves flew, the bamboos bent, as if the world itself were stepping away from his passage.
Jun tried to speak. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His muscles, which had faced opponents in combat, refused to obey. He was trapped. Trapped in the gaze of that man, trapped in the certainty that he was not a man. He was something else. Something that should not exist in this world.
The taller one, the brother who had faced beasts and disciples, who stood at the threshold of the Refined Body, who had never retreated from anything, began to tremble. His hand, which seconds before had gripped the woman's wrist tightly, now shook uncontrollably. His broken jaw hung, forgotten, while his eyes—those eyes that had once been imposing—filled with something Jun had never seen in them before.
Fear.
Not the fear of a warrior before a stronger opponent. It was the fear of an animal before the slaughter. The fear of one who knows, with a certainty that admits no doubt, that there is no escape. That there is no negotiation. That there is no mercy.
The man took another step.
And Jun, the sarcastic one, the one who always had a joke on the tip of his tongue, felt his bladder empty.
The elder brother, the pride of the Single Path Sect, the heir who never was, opened his mouth to say something. To beg for mercy. To explain. To lie. It did not matter. Anything that might save his life.
There was no time.
The man's eyes met his. And in that instant, the elder brother knew.
This would be the last sight of his life.
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End of Chapter 14