"Wha... what is this?" Jiang Chen stared at the veiled woman, his heart sinking.
This Bone Lotus did not look like anything orthodox at all.
"Ai yo, something appeared on your own body, and you ask who?" The veiled woman's eyes were full of laughter.
"There was never anything like this on my body before. I have never seen this lotus in my life... Is it linked to your secret art?"
"All I can say is, the secret art I used to save you seems to have served only as a guide." She leaned close to Jiang Chen's ear, her breath like an orchid, stirring the hair at his temple, then burrowing into his neck. "Think hard. Just what secret is it that you carry in yourself?"
"Me... what secret do I carry?" Jiang Chen searched his memory with all his might, but could think of nothing in the least connected to a Bone Lotus.
The veiled woman retrieved her mirror, rose slowly, and retreated.
"Your big sister saved your life; I do not need you to remember it in your heart of hearts. I only need you to do three things for me. As for what things..." Her voice turned silken and soft: "Sleep properly these next few nights, and wait for your big sister to come find you."
Jiang Chen deliberately set aside the faint, elusive spell of her charm, and said seriously: "So long as it does not violate the principles Jiang Chen walks by, never mind three things — thirty would be my duty."
"Three are enough." The woman laughed softly as she backed away: "You should be going back now."
"You—do you know this lotus? What is it?" Jiang Chen pressed.
"It..." The veiled woman drew the word out, as though thinking, and only then said: "It seems to be a lotus of the Bone Path? The emblem of the Bone Path..."
She turned and walked out of the cave.
Jiang Chen still sat where he was, one hand on his sword, his upper body bare.
He sensed that her presence had vanished.
...
Jiang Chen checked his body and found no other abnormality. He then did the meridian-nourishing cultivation twice, making up for the cultivation he had missed while unconscious, and only then headed out of the cave.
At the mouth of the cave lay a folded set of Dao robes, surely prepared by the black-veiled woman.
Jiang Chen, who had been fretting over his bare upper body, changed into them at once, finding them a perfect, close fit.
This woman was voluptuous and ever-changing, her words half truth and half lie, the whole of her impossible to judge as good or evil. But there was no denying that she had saved his life.
Jiang Chen shook his head and let it go for now. The woman had said she would come to him again; there was nothing to be gained from analyzing it, so he would deal with it when the time came.
He surveyed the shape of the mountains briefly, mapped out a rough sense of where he was, and then turned and headed in the direction of Three Mountain City.
If Zhao Yan and the others were safe and sound, then they ought by now to be waiting for news of him in Three Mountain City. In any case, Zhao Yan would never abandon him, with his life yet undetermined, and return first to Maple City.
"Jiang Chen!"
"Jiang Chen!"
"Jiang Chen!"
From far off, Jiang Chen heard these shouted calls.
The voices echoed back and forth among the ridges, rising and falling.
Jiang Chen knew at once that it must be Zhao Yan and the others searching for him.
After the earlier battle, the fierce beasts on Jade Balance seemed to have grown much more restrained; otherwise, by now they would have come charging down.
Jiang Chen tensed and sprang, and ran toward where the voices came from.
"I'm here!" he shouted.
The shouts broke off, then rose again: "Big brother! Big brother!"
All the way off, a figure came shooting toward him, shouting at the top of his lungs — who else could it be but Zhao Yan?
Jiang Chen went up to meet him.
The two brothers reunited among the ridges near Jade Balance.
To survive the brink of death was like a new lease on life — a world away from before.
But neither of them showed any great agitation.
Zhao Yan looked up at the sky for a while: "Ah, the weather's not bad."
"Yes, it is." Jiang Chen said.
Zhao Yan did not bring his gaze back until after a while, laying it on Jiang Chen.
His expression was exaggerated: "Wow, you don't look the least bit battered. And you even changed into new clothes!"
Jiang Chen smiled cheerfully: "You should know who's the big brother here."
By then, Li Yun and Huang Azhan had found their way over, along with Zhao Tiehe, Yang Xiong, and some unfamiliar faces — all outer disciples of the Three Mountain City Academy.
"Jiang Chen!"
"Junior Brother Jiang!"
"Brother Jiang!"
Jiang Chen returned each salute with cupped fists: "Brother Zhao, Brother Yang, brothers all! And Senior Brother Li, Senior Brother Huang. Jiang Chen's skills are shallow — truly shameful — and I put you all to the trouble of coming to look for me."
"What's this talk of trouble, Brother Jiang! Weren't you acting on behalf of our Three Mountain City?"
"Nothing could be better than Brother Jiang being all right."
"No harm done, no harm done."
It turned out that after Zhao Yan had woken up, accompanied by Li Yun and Huang Azhan, he had gone straight back to Jade Balance, searching the place where he remembered Jiang Chen had fallen off the cliff.
His original intention had been only to find Jiang Chen's body and bring it back. But after searching long beneath the cliff, he found neither Jiang Chen's corpse nor even fragments of clothing or other belongings.
Only then did Zhao Yan realize that Jiang Chen might well still be alive.
But he did not search aimlessly. Instead, he went straight back to Three Mountain City to rally people, dividing the mountain region around Jade Balance into several zones and carrying out the search by zones and by shifts.
Sun Xiaoman could not come in person because she had to stay with Dou Yuemei, but it was she who had organized so many people.
Jiang Chen thought to himself that the veiled woman's sudden departure might well have been because Zhao Yan and the others had come looking for him.
"Big brother, what are you thinking?" Zhao Yan waved to him: "This is Fairy Ye of the State of Yun. She went to a lot of trouble to help in this search for you too."
Jiang Chen turned his gaze and saw the mysterious cultivator veiled in white gauze give him a slight bow: "I have yet to thank Fellow Daoist Jiang for his help in lending a hand."
He did not know what had come over the female cultivators of this age, that they all loved to go out with their faces covered.
"No need to be so courteous. It was merely a casual thing I did." Jiang Chen said.
"Fellow Daoist Jiang has the noble righteousness of doing good without seeking reward, but Qingyu could never be a petty villain who fails to repay kindness." The female cultivator of the State of Yun produced a small, exquisitely formed token and offered it to Jiang Chen: "Should Jiang Dao-ish anything in the future, come bearing this Cloud Command Token to the Lingxiao Pavilion, and nothing shall go unanswered."
Not a single thing unanswered? Was the Lingxiao Pavilion some all-capable place?
Jiang Chen was faintly surprised, but his face did not show it; he only said seriously: "Truly, there's no need. We shared the same battlefield; we were comrades-in-arms. Helping each other is only natural between comrades. This... Fairy Ye, really, there is no need to be so courteous."
Because of the veil, only her eyes were visible, and those eyes were bright and purely clear.
With those very eyes, she looked at Jiang Chen with utter sincerity, offering up the small token in both hands: "Please, Fellow Daoist, you must accept it, so that Qingyu's heart may rest easy."
Zhao Yan gave Jiang Chen a nudge from behind. "Since Fairy Ye says so, big brother, just accept it."
Jiang Chen had no choice but to take it.
The small token was shaped like a drifting cloud, with no carving on it. But only when you looked closely at the body of the token did you notice a mist coiled faintly within — truly beautiful beyond words.
Setting aside whatever meaning it might carry, the Cloud Command Token itself was already a strange artifact.
Her rescuer was safe, and the token sent off — Ye Qingyu felt her heart settle. So she said to Jiang Chen: "In that case, Qingyu will take her leave first. The Dao is as vast as the open sky; may Fellow Daoist soar on the clouds. Farewell."
With that, she summoned a crane-shaped Cloud Beast, stepped onto its back, and rode away on the wind.
The sky was clear and the clouds idle, the cloud crane ethereal and immortal; she had come riding her mood, and left with her heart at peace.
That spotless, limpid Dao-heart of hers deserved admiration, if nothing else.
Having just brushed against life and death, Jiang Chen was in no mood for pleasantries. He turned at once to Zhao Tiehe and the others with a bow: "Brothers of Three Mountain City, I am about to set out back to Maple City. I have a little sister at home; I truly cannot linger abroad long."
Zhao Tiehe and Yang Xiong voiced their understanding, and the other outer disciples of Three Mountain City were people they had brought to help, so naturally they would raise no objection.
The two sides agreed to meet again, and parted there — one group turning back to Three Mountain City, the other heading straight for Maple City.
Walking along, Zhao Yan at last found a free moment to ask Jiang Chen: "I didn't get a chance to ask before — big brother, after you fell off the cliff, what happened?"
"Right," Huang Azhan chimed in: "We found you were gone, searched everywhere and found no one, and feared the worst... In the end we could only carry the unconscious Rucheng back to Three Mountain City. Senior Brother Li kept blaming himself, saying he should never have taken you to Jade Balance."
"This has nothing to do with any of you. It was my own carelessness." Jiang Chen consoled them: "I was lucky. After the fall, I was saved by a mysterious senior, and it took some time to recover, which is why I only came out today."
Zhao Yan stroked his chin and analyzed: "And he even had new clothes so thoughtfully prepared for you — I bet that senior of yours was a beauty too!"
"Right, right, right!" Huang Azhan got inexplicably excited: "I think that Fairy Ye is a stunning beauty!"
But he and Zhao Yan were not even talking about the same person — who knew what chorus he was joining.
"What nonsense." The veiled woman was bound up with the Bone Lotus, and Jiang Chen did not want to say more, so he said: "Fairy Ye's face is veiled after all — how do you know whether she's beautiful?"
"You don't understand." Huang Azhan shook his head and sighed, his face full of intoxication: "A real beauty doesn't need to show her face. She only needs a single look in her eyes, or even a wisp of fragrant breeze, and her beauty makes itself felt. A thin scrap of gauze alone — how could it ever hide a beauty?"
Zhao Yan nodded faintly, primly agreeing.
"I finally understand why Ye Qingyu covers her face whenever she goes out."
"Why?"
"Because there are too many lecherous fellows like the two of you!"