Li Chijing stood atop the tall, grey-white city wall, gazing down in silence at the beast horde surging toward him from below. Time had left no trace upon his face; he was still a youth of seventeen or eighteen summers in appearance, though in manner he had grown far more mature.
After five years of warfare in the southern borderlands, Li Chijing's swordplay had grown ever more flawless, every sword art of the sect melding into a single whole within him, and he had won a name for himself besides — all knew that Azure Ear Peak had produced a little Sword Immortal, and that his hand with a sword was mighty indeed.
Wiping the blood from the blade, Li Chijing let out a long breath into the rising sun, a wisp of purest white spiritual qi spilling between his lips and teeth.
"This Yishan City is a sturdy hold indeed." The disciple of the Qingchi Sect behind him spoke with a smile, the bead of his magic artifact bobbing and sinking as it floated — it was none other than Deng Qiuzhi.
Li Chijing nodded, swallowed the spirit medicine in his hand, and steadily adjusted the magic power within his body, seeking to recover his state as soon as possible so that his turn in the next watch might pass the more easily.
"Ah, what a coincidence — the very watch we draw at this Yishan City, and up comes a beast tide, fiercer every time!" Deng Qiuzhi said with a cold laugh, muttering in a mocking tone that made those around them glance over at him.
Seeing that Li Chijing paid him no heed, absorbed in his own cultivation, Deng Qiuzhi sat down upon the ground and murmured: "But to feed the two of us, they will all be buried as our sacrifice."
"There he goes raving again..."
"Aren't all the Deng family like this?"
The men around them murmured among themselves, casting peculiar glances at Deng Qiuzhi. Li Chijing knit his brow at the sight and said in a low, heavy voice: "Enough talk — recover your magic power, or I'll have to save your hide again!"
Deng Qiuzhi started, laughed helplessly, and shook his head — only to hear a great cheer from below.
"They're retreating! They're retreating! The beast tide has finally turned!"
This wave of the beast tide had indeed at last fallen back, and the men were granted another breath of respite; amid their jubilant cries they each descended the city tower, and a smile even crossed Li Chijing's face as he made his way down the ladder along the wall, thinking that he might write a letter home.
Deng Qiuzhi, however, trailed after him with a shameless persistence, and smiling into the blaze of the morning sun said: "Don't you find something amiss?"
"What's amiss?" Li Chijing arched a brow, sheathing his azure blade — that grey-white azure sword — and smiled back at him in a mocking tone: "These days you ramble quite strangely. Could it be that art of yours sinks deeper with each practice, until you've cast your cultivation into mad confusion?"
The two had fought shoulder to shoulder across five years in the southern borderlands; in their deaths-desired bond of life and breath, Deng Qiuzhi and Li Chijing had long since forgotten that old grievance of theirs, and could well be counted true friends.
"Every time you and I are spent to the bone, the beast tide dutifully withdraws. Where in this world is such a considerate turn of affairs?" Deng Qiuzhi spoke with a smile, but his eyes were full of meaning.
"In the jaws of death, who could hold back their strength? It is not only you and I — which disciple of which faction up on these walls is not spent to the bone?" Li Chijing retorted with a laugh, exchanging a greeting with the man at his side.
"Think it through." Deng Qiuzhi clapped him on the shoulder and said in a low voice. "If you were this demon king of the southern border, would you drive tens of thousands of beasts and demons to throw their lives away for nothing? With all that meat before you, would you not rather swallow it yourself and advance your cultivation? Could any of these beasts actually topple Yishan City? Delivering them by the droves into the hands of the Three Sects and Seven Gates — is that not the act of a fool?"
"Besides, if the demon king truly wished to slay these sect disciples, he need only drive the beast tide on and simply wear us down to death. Coming in waves only to sink wave after wave, granting us rests and reprieves now and then — it looks for all the world as if he were delivering us a feast..."
Li Chijing laughed, greeted the man beside him once more, and flatly cut Deng Qiuzhi off — which set the latter's eyes glaring, until he pressed close and whispered into Li Chijing's ear: "Do you know when Yishan City was last breached!"
Li Chijing kept a faint smile and answered low: "Twenty-five years ago. The Three Sects and Seven Gates all lost many men — among them the Foundation Establishment cultivator Yu Yuxie, who practiced the Coiled Qi Jade Truth Art and had swallowed Taiyin lunar essence."
Deng Qiuzhi stopped short at once, shock and awe flooding his eyes, and stammered out: "You... you know..."
"Of course I know." Li Chijing nodded with a smile. The two walked up the mountain in silence and entered Li Chijing's cave abode.
Seeing Deng Qiuzhi follow him in, Li Chijing worked a seal with his hands, cutting off all within from the world without, and only then did he gaze at Deng Qiuzhi in quiet contemplation.
"I have been in this accursed place for five years now. Every record and every secret memorandum inside the city I have read; weighed against all that happened on the Xunlin Plain, how could I fail to see that something is wrong?"
"I only do not know when they will move, or how long they mean to keep feeding me... But you — why you?"
Deng Qiuzhi clenched both fists, grinding his teeth: "The Qingchi Sect cut off the inheritance of the Taiyin lunar essence long ago. My Deng family possesses a peculiar constitution, and so they forced our house to practice that secret art, generation upon generation — refining us into supplements, trading us as commodities to the demon kings of the southern border in exchange for spiritual treasures."
"In the early years the secret art was incomplete, and every member of my Deng family who practiced it went mad. These past centuries it has slowly been improved until it no longer clouds the mind much at all — but still we must play the madman..."
Li Chijing said nothing, but slipped off his feathered robe and sat down at the stone table to brew tea.
Deng Qiuzhi heaved a deep sigh, paused, and said: "I have examined all the various spirit medicines and spirit pills the sect supplies. The pairings of every formula run deep — this... is to refine a human pill."
"A human pill?" Li Chijing filled the teacup before both of them and said with a smile: "I only wonder which demon king of the southern border is about to break through. It is quite the grand gesture."
Seeing Li Chijing all smiles, Deng Qiuzhi relaxed a good deal and said, a touch testy: "And you can still find it in you to laugh."
"What else is there to do?" Li Chijing shook his head and said lowly: "The Qingchi Sect is mighty, and you and I have no road left to retreat upon. If I die here in the southern borderlands for no reason at all, on the surface it would still count as a sacrifice for the sect, and would at least win my family some compensation. Could I instead flee on some pretext, only to bring the whole clan to extinction?"
Deng Qiuzhi took a sip of tea and dropped his head in frustration, crying out: "Even so... you and I have lived an entire life, only to be born into the jaws of beasts and demons!"
The smile faded from Li Chijing's face as well, and his expression turned desolate as he spoke: "Men are the knife and the block; we are the fish and the flesh. And fish and flesh must have the awareness of fish and flesh. Has your Deng family not endured generation after generation? The Qingchi Sect has flourished for five hundred years — can it truly flourish on, age after age? There will come a day when it declines. So long as the family endures, silently gathering its strength, there will come a day to repay the hatred of nine generations."
"Cultivators live long lives, and rarely is today's grievance avenged tomorrow. Each generation has its own mission."
Li Chijing slowly rose to his feet and gazed at the azure blade in his hand, saying: "Our mission is to feed the Qingchi Sect full, so that our families may draw a breath. If not for that, what else could we do? Could we leap through the ranks to the Purple Mansion like the heroes in the storybooks, and force the Qingchi Sect to withdraw its decree?"
"Take it one step at a time." Deng Qiuzhi sat cross-legged, deflated, and said: "We dare not flee either way. If you and I stole out of this Yishan City, our kin would be finished."