Liu Miaotu had been roaming the mountain for a full day and a night, and not so much as a strand of an immortal treasure had he seen — not a hair of one. Seething with anger, he sat down atop a great blue boulder and railed at the village idlers:
"Bunch of plague-ridden idle curs! Saying there's fine treasure up this mountain — every word of it is fart!"
As he watched the mist begin to gather among the hills, Liu Miaotu shuddered and thought darkly to himself:
"It's only been a few years since the wolves, leopards, bears, and tigers were driven off this mountain, but who knows if a straggler or two slipped through the net! This fog has a wicked feel to it. Best I head back down before it thickens..."
Liu Miaotu stood and walked along the mountain path for nearly an hour, yet all around lay a blanketing, blurred whiteness, and no way out was to be found.
"This truly is bewitched! Why have I not come down yet!"
He looked again at the great blue boulder before him, and a chill crawled up Liu Miaotu's spine as he cried out in alarm:
"Impossible!"
This was unmistakably the same great blue boulder upon which he, Liu Miaotu, had been sitting. He had walked the mountain path for a whole hour — how could he possibly be back at the very same spot!
Frightened out of his wits, Liu Miaotu turned and ran, screaming as he went. He bolted a stretch of road before stopping to gasp for breath — and the great blue boulder had somehow appeared before his eyes once more.
"Damn it all... I can't get out."
Night had already fallen. Liu Miaotu was thinly dressed, and between his churning emotions and the cold wind lashing against him, he fainted dead away.
By the time the sky was faintly lightening, Liu Miaotu came to. His whole body burned with fever, and he dimly heard voices calling. He lifted his head and vaguely made out a figure sitting not far off. He had only just scrambled to his feet when a great shout rang out:
"Who goes there!"
Liu Miaotu was already bleary and befuddled. His knees gave way, his feet slipped, and the whole of him went tumbling head over heels to roll right up before that figure.
Liu Linfeng got a look at the fellow's face and recognized a street loafer of his own Liu family. In an instant he understood everything, and a flood of fury surged straight from his heart up through the crown of his head. His face flushed crimson as he bellowed:
"You damned fool — why are you here?!"
That shout snapped Liu Miaotu fully awake. Huddling and shrinking, he stammered back:
"Up... up the mountain to cut firewood."
"Cut firewood, my arse!"
Liu Linfeng cursed roundly, pointing a finger at Liu Miaotu's nose as he continued to storm:
"Why the devil did you come up this mountain without telling the main house? This is a place you've a right to be?"
No sooner had those two curses been spat than Liu Linfeng himself was jolted awake. A chill crept up from his spine to the back of his skull as he brooded:
"How did my Liu family produce such a piece of trash? We're in luck now. My nephew is fierce and suspicious — how could he ever let the man live? Only let it not drag my Liu family down!"
Looking at Liu Miaotu, grovelling before him and knocking his head on the ground like a pestle pounding rice, Liu Linfeng reached a decision. His expression shifted at once, and he said coldly:
"Come with me. At least I'll manage to save your hide!"
Liu Miaotu hurriedly followed him into the courtyard, where Liu Linfeng drew out a length of coarse hemp rope, bound Liu Miaotu's hands behind his back, and began to truss him up.
"Patriarch... you, y—you..."
Liu Miaotu's heart was in his boots, and he quavered the question.
"I'm taking you to confess your crime. Only so will there be any sincerity."
Liu Linfeng waved a hand, quietly hanging a blade at his waist as he said coldly:
"Walk!"
"Yes, yes, yes — many thanks, Patriarch!"
Before long, the two reached the front of the courtyard. Liu Linfeng pointed at the muddy ground by the roadside and said:
"Kneel there."
With that he went to fetch Li Tongya and Li Xiangping. Once inside the courtyard, he sank to his knees before the two seated at the head and said, bitterly:
"The Liu family has failed to keep order, and begs the main house's pardon!"
That kneeling startles both men so much they leapt to their feet and hurried over to raise him up. Li Tongya said in a low, grave voice:
"You must not do this — how could it have come to such a pass!"
Liu Linfeng smiled bitterly and recounted the nonsense Liu Miaotu had been up to. Li Xiangping, who had listened, said mildly:
"Handle it however you see fit, uncle. There's no call for such a great ceremony."
"Then come with me, if you please."
Liu Linfeng shook his head, led the two to the front of the courtyard, and pointed to Liu Miaotu kneeling in the mire.
No sooner had Liu Miaotu begun to wail his tale before the three men than Liu Linfeng shot forward in a single stride, bent and raised his arm, and laid a blade across Liu Miaotu's throat. Liu Miaotu only squeaked twice as blood gushed from his neck like water. He coughed violently, spat out a dozen flecks of blood-foam, and thudded over dead to the ground.
"Uncle is still the careful one."
Li Xiangping clapped his hands, watching Liu Miaotu topple. Then he turned to Li Tongya with a smile:
"He picked a patch of mud, so as not to dirty our stone steps."
Li Tongya only let out a long sigh, looking at Liu Linfeng and saying:
"Trouble for you, uncle, to deal with it."
"That's only natural."
Liu Linfeng answered at once, dragging the corpse off into the woods.
Only then did the two turn and go back inside the courtyard. Li Tongya kept his brows knit, while Li Xiangping clapped him on the shoulder and said in a low voice:
"He brought it on himself."
Li Tongya smiled bitterly, looked into his brother's eyes, and explained:
"It's not that I pity him. I'm only struck by the thought — it's because the Li family has you to manage things that Father dares to let go of the reins. The rest of us, in the end, are not ruthless enough."
Li Xiangping laughed and shook his head:
"You, Li Tongya, would kill him just the same — only you'd first summon the villagers to bear witness, recite his eight great crimes one by one, and cut off his head in full and open view, so that your own heart might rest a little easier."
"When it's killing all the same, why bother with such trouble!"
---
Li Tongya stood before the little courtyard at the mountain's foot, and the words Li Xiangping had spoken floated through his mind. Deep within him, he sighed:
"If I had not killed him, my Li family would have become the next Wan family — honeycombed through, inside and out, until we were sieves."
He shook his head to cast the small incident out of his thoughts, then pushed open the courtyard gate to find Liu Rouxuan sitting obediently cross-legged in cultivation, drawing in and exhaling spiritual essence.
"This Azure Origin Wheel-Nurturing Art depends entirely on drawing in spiritual essence to condense the Profound Vision Wheel, and the way it refines breath is wretchedly inefficient. No wonder Rouxuan has trained for close to two years and still remains a mortal. And that Li Qiuyang, I hear, has made swift progress on the strength of the Snake-Dragon Fruit and is on the verge of condensing his Profound Vision Wheel."
On ordinary days Liu Rouxuan was forever grinning at him, and it was rare to see her at serious cultivation. Li Tongya could not help but look at her a while longer. Seeing her eyelashes quiver and her nostrils flare, as if she were about to wake from her meditation, he hastily looked away.
"Brother Ya!"
The instant Liu Rouxuan opened her eyes and saw Li Tongya, she called out in delighted surprise.
"Mhm."
Li Tongya lowered his brows and answered softly, feeling a good deal like a thief caught red-handed.
Liu Rouxuan secretly studied his profile, then said with a sudden, wistful note:
"I'm already seventeen. The girls in the village have long since married and borne children, I'd wager, yet I haven't even a companion."
Li Tongya shook his head at this and said softly:
"Once you've set foot on the immortal path, you need not think of such things. You are unlike those girls. Cultivate well, and the condensing of the Profound Vision Wheel should be your first concern."
"I take it very seriously — I train eight whole hours a day!"
Liu Rouxuan pouted and protested in a small voice, then looked up at Li Tongya again:
"Is brother Ya single too, because of cultivation?"
When she saw Li Tongya nod lightly, a blush stole over Liu Rouxuan's cheeks. Her breath a little hurried, she whispered:
"Brother Tongya... would you... still think me worthy?"