46. Dead End

Yanli hated Wen Chao.

It wasn’t just because he was an insufferable bore with a very loose grasp of etiquette. It wasn’t because he was a spoiled brat of a man who grabbed at women like they were steamed buns for the taking.

No, it was because once, at one of the first discussion conferences that Jiang Cheng had been allowed to attend, Wen Chao had seen a feral dog in the street and set it on fire simply because it annoyed him. A Jiang disciple had run up and killed it, but not before the poor animal’s howls of pain traumatized A’Cheng.

It was not his first panic attack, but it had been the worst yet, and resulted in him missing most of the conference by way of being trapped in the Wen healing ward. At least the Wen doctors were renown, Yanli’s father had said, looking very disappointed in A’Cheng before turning and walking out without actually saying anything to him.

Wen Chao had made several unkind remarks about how ‘weak and girlish’ A’Cheng was for the rest of their visit. Yanli, being weak and girlish herself, found his denigration of both A’Cheng and, by extension, Yanli herself, not just insulting but stupid. At the time, they were the children of the leader of an important sect, and politics alone demanded courtesy. She understood that in the greater scheme of things, torturing animals was far worse than a political faux pas, but collectively it spoke to a person who was cruel simply because he enjoyed it and had no fear of consequences.

Yanli hated him.

“Shouldn’t they have shown up by now?” Wen Chao whined, sprawled out on a low chair with his mistress likewise sprawled across him. At least Jiang Fengmian had the grace to looked disgusted by the display.

“They stopped to camp at the edge of Qishan lands, and then stayed through the day to only creep on under cover of darkness,” he said, refusing to look at Wen Chao. “According to my scouts who watched them leave the borders of Qinghe, they are moving slowly out of an abundance of caution. They will probably get to the other side of the mountain in the middle of the night, tonight.”

Yanli would be shocked if Ying’er’s crows did not inform him about the Wen and Jiang forces laying in wait for them. Unfortunately, she had been gagged and her hands bound before she was pushed under a lean-to tarp, and would be out of sight.

Wen Chao frowned, then shoved the girl off his lap so hard she stumbled before righting herself. He stood up and dusted off his robe ostentatiously.

“Father recalled me here from our impending triumph in Gusu in order to deal with this very important matter! I have decided that instead of sitting around here listening to your excuses, we have plenty of time to go retrieve the yin iron and kill the beast ourselves!”

His shadow stepped forward and murmured something. Yanli kept her eyes on Wen Zhuliu, the very idea of him far more unsettling than either Wen Chao or Jiang Fengmian. She did not feel like she was in immediate danger, but in the end, her poor health meant that losing her golden core would be a death sentence, since it pulled so much weight in keeping her alive as it was. That was not even counting the trauma that having her modest core melted would entail in the moment. The man was utterly terrifying.

Wen Chao waved him off with a snarl. “Father only wants the one kid. We’ve got his sister, and we’ll have the other yin iron piece—he won’t have any choice but to submit! Then we can kill the others.”

Wen Zhuliu paused for a moment before nodding. It was clear to Yanli that he did not like the idea, but did not have the authority to countermand the second young master of the Wen.

“You may do as you like, Young Master Wen. The Jiang will wait here, anticipating your glorious victory.” Jiang Fengmian bowed as he spoke, and Yanli resentfully had to give him credit for being sarcastic. Unless he was being serious? No, she doubted that.

“You are coming with us!” Wen Chao snapped.

“No, we are not,” Jiang Fengmian said placidly.

Wen Chao looked like a kettle getting ready to boil over, but instead of any kind of childish outburst, he simply turned to Wen Zhuliu and said “They are coming with us!”

Wen Zhuliu made a hand gesture at his lieutenant and immediately, all the Wens drew their weapons.

Which was apparently the first time Jiang Fengmian realized that his squad of about twenty Yunmeng Jiang disciples were outnumbered three-to-one by an elite squad of over fifty Wen cultivators, with the Core-Melting Hand acting as their general. Yanli could have told him that he became superfluous once he turned her over, but there was a grim sense of satisfaction to be had watching him realize it on his own.

With the Yunmeng Jiang contingent disarmed and humiliated, they were forced to lead the way into the cave where the Xuanwu of Slaughter slept (she hoped it was asleep). Yanli had expected to be left topside with the other half of the Wen squadron, but Wen Chao was under the misapprehension that Jiang Fengmian still held any kind of affection for her, and told his men to bring her along to “insure his good behavior.”

She felt like she was surrounded by idiots, except maybe for one exception—she looked over at Wen Zhuliu, who for a flash of a brief second seemed to commiserate with her before turning away.

It was just too bad that he wasn’t the Wen sect leader, she thought. It made her wonder for the first time—and she was ashamed to admit that the idea had never occurred to her before—who exactly was in the line of succession for the Wen. Wen Ruohan probably expected to live forever, and was already well over 100 years old; his current heirs were his second set of sons, the previous ones ‘disappearing’ two generations ago, along with Wen Ruohan’s entire harem. Any siblings or direct cousins who could claim to be heirs were probably long in their graves, one way or another. They certainly weren’t listed in the official genealogy that the Wen published like clockwork every five years, which showed Wen Ruohan as a direct descendant of Wen Mao in a straight line with no other names listed in between. He was not actually a son or even a grandson of Wen Mao, that much was known, but he had eradicated the names of whomever came before him. The only reason that anyone knew about his former harem or previous sons was that the great sects still had the oldest versions of those genealogies in their archives.

What would Wen Ruohan give to burn those to the ground, to further elevate his own lineage?

She shuddered.

According to the official records, there were no viable heirs other than Wen Xu and Wen Chao, because there didn’t need to be. Everyone else still alive was so far down the chain of relations that they might as well be outer disciples. Wen Ruohan had never claimed to be immortal, but everyone in the jianghu assumed he already was or would be soon.

Despite her earlier thoughts, she dismissed Wen Zhuliu as a candidate because he had been born to another clan and taken the name, which was common enough for disciples but meant no one would back him for the fire throne even if he tried to grab it. Everything she had heard about him told her that he would never turn on Wen Ruohan like that, either. She wracked her brain trying to remember the last version of the Wen histories she had studied before being cast out of Lotus Pier.

She was not Meng Yao, so she did not remember many names, but trying to trace out the family tree was at least a good distraction from the hike down into a cave reeking of death and rot, which she was having to do with her hands bound in front of her and still wearing her gag.

The tunnel narrowed from the entrance and the decline was fairly steep, but she managed to keep her feet under herself until they all came to a stop at the edge of a massive drop off. Torches flung over the edge showed there was ground further below, so ropes were dropped for the Jiang to scuttle down. The Wen let them go first, probably waiting to see if anything would attack them at the bottom. Yanli was hefted over the shoulder of Jiang Wu with a whispered, “Sorry, Young Mistress Jiang” before she closed her eyes so as not to watch the precarious descent.

The Wen followed on their swords, led by Wen Zhuliu and eventually followed by Wen Chao. At least he had left his ridiculous mistress behind, Yanli thought uncharitably.

Jiang Fengmian was, for once, looking genuinely furious as his disciples were ordered around like servants, but a few sharp looks from Wen Zhuliu had him turning away and clamping his mouth shut. She wondered if he understood that Wen Chao was not planning on letting any Jiang (or her, for that matter) leave the cave alive, mythical beast or no.

A hike through a long, winding, cramped tunnel ended at the edge of a rancid pond that held a few leaves and branches and not much else. It appeared to be a complete dead end, but the leaves told Yanli that there was some kind of waterway leading out of the cave. The idea of swimming through the muck turned her stomach, but it was an option for getting out alive, at least.

Wen Chao stomped forward and grumbled, looking around the massive cavern as his soldiers raised up torches and lit talismans. Aside from the foul pond, which had a single massive boulder in the middle, there did not seem to be anything interesting there.

“Are you certain the beast is here?” Jiang Fengmian asked, not bothering to hide his disdain or doubts.

“Maybe it just needs to smell some blood to come out!” Wen Chao snapped, and spun around to look directly at Yanli. Her skin crawled. “Bring her here!”

Jiang Wu actually tried to step in front of her, but was pushed out of the way by several Wen, who grabbed her and dragged her over to Wen Chao. Wen Zhuliu looked on, blank-faced as ever, while Jiang Fengmian merely frowned.

“Put her over there and cut her arm. Let it bleed into the water,” Wen Chao said, flapping a hand at the water. The two Wen holding her did as told, pulling her far enough into the water that it covered her ankles. One of them undid her wrist bindings and held up her arm while the other kept a fierce hold on her, although both of them were glancing nervously at the pond. The one holding up her arm had a dagger in his other hand, but just as he brought it down, he stumbled away and fell backwards.

She turned to see what happened, and everyone was silent for a long moment, looking at the arrow sticking out of his eye socket.

“JieJie! Get down!” A’Cheng shouted from somewhere overhead and Yanli dove for dry land as pandemonium broke out.