The rain started at night. A slow drizzle that tapped treetops with the most pleasant sound, a new and welcome thing that came with the fall. New scents filled the forest as the ground soaked up the moisture. Despite the cold of the night, the fall air brought burgeoning flowers and fruits to the forefront of Hao’s nose as he dashed through the forest.

  It was the third time he ran today. Hao wasn’t in a rush, but the time inside the Secret Realm was limited; it was closer to winter than summer now. With Winter, the Mid-Summer cave would throw the intruders out.

  Good rest had been his friend back in that camp, and the information he got from the girl Fa gave him more mileage than he could have imagined. Just her info alone made his trip to that camp worthwhile.

  Hao touched his neck just above the collar of his robe, frayed strands of blue silk rubbed against the edge of his wrist. He pressed down on the spot. Still slightly sore, the girl had quite the slap for her unassuming stature and shy attitude.

  The slap was fair. Hao didn’t mean to frighten her, but mentioning Mo Bangcai just by name brought an image of Grandma He kneeling in the rain, her back against the library tower with Hao’s head placed against her shoulder. At his side, the brutally beaten body of Grandpa He. The old woman sang for her dead husband—her voice was steady, but her fingers trembled in his hair. Hao learned of grief for the first time.

  The memory made him press his hand on her mouth a little too hard. Now he had a sore spot to remind him to maintain control.

  After she beat up the side of his head, she stood back, not stepping away but just a small lean, her feet steady, and her back slightly tilted. At the same time, the other woman in the tent just peered out.

  Hao would have blushed. In that moment, he could feel the heat behind his face; however, it was impossible unless he wanted to. He had no time for games or flirting. Not in the Secret Realm, not until all he could do until his last day inside was calculated as he wished it were.

  Hao thought back on it as he slowed his steps as he approached the area the girl, called Fa, or something, claimed Mo Bangcai’s camp was. He used the Seven Colored Steps. This time, the movement was more for stealth than speed—another area the technique excelled. It was slower than he wanted it to be, but it gave him more time to think through everything Fa told him.

  After the women in the tent started to point and chuckle at them, Hao had to move with Fa to the outskirts of the camp. All the while, she was shouting at him in a muffled voice. “Can Senior slow down…” There was a little bit of guilt on her face. Hao could imagine why; the sting on the soft skin of his neck told him it left a nice red mark.

  Hao remembered much of what she said in order of importance as he scanned the ground. What Fa didn’t know came first as he organized his thoughts. Luckily, her words were precise once she finished her little rambled series of questions..

  Fa had more questions than answers about Meng Hongyu. She didn’t know the Swordsmen by name. Outside of a few choice words, she had nothing to say about the man. Hao tried to fill her in a little on the topic. Bangcai’s grievances towards Hongyu were something already well known. Hongyu had his overbearing reputation as the hideous ‘Sun-touched Swordsmen’ now.

  The only thing Fa had to say on the situation was, “Well, I know they’re fighting—it’d be best if they killed each other off before the Secret Realm closes.”

  Hao didn’t comment on her idea. It was better to let those kinds of things unfold naturally, even if they require a nudge in the right direction. Hao thought as he leaned forward.

  He lightly placed his shoe in the hollow of a shoe print and imagined his shoe a little larger. It’s almost the same. The thought passed as he followed the trail, piece by piece, he put together what Fa knew about Mo Bangcai’s group. This is the right way. Someone from the Drifting Stream has been on this path recently.

  The information on Bangcai was the only thing of any actual use—it came out of her like she had it written down. Everything else was lacking in turn. Fa had no interest in the Polarity Flower after that day. As for any beast sightings, she had only vague areas to point out with no detail. Besides a few painted images she did on the ground.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Hao didn’t need that information… not really. But it was a quick thing he could ask to get her attention off the gray dust that leaked out of his hair as the rain started. Once the light sprinkle turned to drizzle, Hao got the last of his questions answered and shoved her back to her tent. He kept his head low to hide his appearance, as his heritage was on display.

  The farewell was quick. Still, every farewell felt bittersweet, each one held so much uncertainty. One day, he said farewell to Grandpa He, the next day, the man was beaten to death. Senior Yi helped Hao. The next day, he was no longer in the Drifting Stream Sect. It had been a long time since he had seen the people he wished to see more by the day. Meiqi and Zhengqi, mortal women alone on an Immortal Mountain. And people more recent, friends, maybe friends was a word too far, but acquaintances at least.

  I never did get a chance to say goodbye to my parents. The memory of being shoved forward by his uncle was still fresh. Now fresher as he thought of it.

  “Senior Hao should stay, our group is tight-knit. They’re all trustworthy. At least until we finish up with the mine. You can join us.” Fa said, her words were a plea, not begging in her voice, just a simple request, heartfelt if anything.

  It was an offer full of temptations. A group of people to eat with, and all women from the Drifting Stream to boot, Cultivators tend to lean towards pretty at the very least. Only a fool would turn down such an offer. Not only all of that either, a chance to mine in a group in a proper way, scouts, miners, haulers. Some muscles to chase off potential thieves.

  “You should get all the amethysts you want and then leave. This place is a cradle in a viper’s nest, even the guards that provide a little comfort. It only takes one person to want one more spirit stone than they already have, and things could get ugly…” Hao paused in the woods. He heard the sound of talk and a fire’s dying crackles. He continued to reminisce, “If you don’t want to leave, get a bigger group, unite the people of the camp if you can. Half the people here want to kill the others. And it has nothing to do with your robes.”

  The girl called Fa bowed to him before he ran from the camp, below the notice of the guards and animals. Now he was here. Words of argument and justification filled his ears, some from a voice that made his blood warm. He tried to listen with his guard up; there was still a chance he would run into a Demonic Beast. The White Feline Demonic Beast was here, in the Yang side of the Secret Realm.

  Hao shoved away his reminisce and reached into the Spirit-Holding Bag. He reached for something he had not used in a month, the perfect thing to launch a bit more conflict between Bangcai and Hongyu… Let them kill each other… Hao thought of Fa’s words as he put on the white cloak he had taken back during his first days in the Secret Realm—The cloak of Hongyu’s Sect.

  *

  Nine of them, and some of them are injured from what she has heard… Hao slipped the robe onto his body. He crouched and let the cold rain drip off the front of the hood, which he pulled over his face for just a moment.

  Fa said nine people were in Bangcai’s group. It seemed like the right number in Hao’s head; he killed one person in their group back when he first arrived in the central zone. The man got separated from his allies. If he stayed in the center of the camp back then… No, Hao would have found some way to get him, whether he had to bait him or just drag him into an empty tent.

  As for the injuries they had, Fa had little to say about them. No more than rumors, she warned, but everything seemed accurate as the rest of the information on Bangcai and his group. They were a smaller group compared to the whole of Blue Moons Mountain. It would be a difficult thing to walk away from a conflict with Meng Hongyu with nothing more than a sliver.

  Hao didn’t have to search the ground for footprints anymore. He just let the voices of the petty arrogance and conceit lead him until the flash of a struggling fire caught his eye.

  The rain stopped, and the night grew colder. The fire Hao stalked grew bright and bolder, smoke billowed high like a signal as clear as the fire itself, which steamed the ground and leaves thrown on it. Loud pops echo between trees. Fresh sticks are being snapped and shoved into the renewed, but still struggling, coals.

  Hao was crouched in the grass, a bush far back beyond the sight and earshot of the incompetent or the distracted. He saw a foot slam into the ground. Kick dirt into the struggling flame, which made it sputter. The face above the foot, lit by moonlight cast down below and firelight cast up, was slightly older than Hao’s, with a scowl that added extra age. Stubble coated his youthful face. His black hair and blue eyes carried more anger than exhaustion, unlike those around him.

  The scowl in his tight lips cracked into a gnashing snarl, “I’ll feed that sun-rot’s body to gaggle next time I see him!” His fingers dug into his arm before he stomped from the fire, his hand slapped against the side of one of their tents.

  The others in his group, outside of the tents, sat there. Most of them had their heads hung, except one who was older. Gray speckled his black hair, and a firelight wrapped him as he sat with his back to the fire. His face was unchanging. He looked used to this.

  The scene flooded Hao’s eyes in one breath.

  Mo Bangcai! It was unmistakable. Despite the years he added to his face in under a year’s time, he was the youth Hao saw all over in the Drifting Stream Sect. The one who took the Disciple Trial while Hao took the Bone-Shaking Trail. The face of the man who was paraded by the people who grouped together to kill, an innocent old man, Grandpa He.