Chapter 182: Death & Sunset, II

The banquet was loud and cheerful and the food was good, but compared to the feast that he'd had at the Tang clan, it felt... underwhelming, and he thought he knew why.

They weren't as welcome here. Yes, they were served food, and they were paid every politeness and compliment. There was no outward indication that they were unwelcome, and they probably weren't actually unwelcome, as such.

But there was a marked separation nonetheless. The Ke family sat at the main table with Master Shu and Wu Hao, but mostly they remained among themselves. Ke Jiazhong was talking to Ke Boyi and their mother had moved into the crowd with her husband to talk to the guests, while Ke Jiaming had excused himself to go check on his "wayward nephew."

Who still hadn't returned from his "freshening up". Wu Hao was pretty sure that Ke Shuang was blowing something up or doing something else to blow off some steam. Killing puppies, maybe. That seemed to be about in his character.

The point was, the Ke family keeping mainly to themselves left Master Shu and Wu Hao to tackle a relentless torrent of wellwishers and so on by themselves.

He was bored of it after the third person came up to Wu Hao and congratulated him for his win, saying that the Sovereign must be an excellent teacher indeed. Then they pivoted to Master Shu after a bit to talk to him about what his plans were after the tour. That question was duly deflected, which allowed the next person to make their entrance and talk about more or less the same things.

Wu Hao decided that he didn't dislike compliments, really. It just felt awful and stupid when the compliments made assumptions that just weren't true. He hadn't "trained since a young age with the staff", he hadn't "learned the Absent Sovereign's coveted Heaven-grade art," and he knew enough about arrays to know that he was an amateur in that field at best, not an "unprecedented genius".

Even Master Shu had given the person who had said that a funny look. Not much eloquent conversation had followed for that person, a branch elder of some subordinate sect of the Diancang or another, and he'd returned to his cups quickly.

When Master Shu stood up and made his excuses, Wu Hao was only too glad to follow. He was full, anyway, and while the wine was good there was no one of his age who was willing to share a few cups with him. Ke Jiazhong avoided Wu Hao's eyes and Ke Boyi was almost ten years older. That, and Wu Hao had no time for people who engaged in show duels.

When they were walking through the long paths of the Sect's compound, Wu Hao finally felt like he could exhale. It had felt stuffy inside that room in ways he couldn't have explained.

He said as much to Master Shu, as they were walking past one of the training halls, on their way to their guest house.

"Something is bothering me as well," Master Shu said. "I cannot lay my finger on what it is, however."

"I told you," Wu Hao grumbled. "The Moonlight Sovereign is -"

With the flick of Master Shu's fingers, Wu Hao was suddenly unable to make any sound whatsoever. He felt around his throat and could sense a thin splatter of ink there, which had evaded his clothing neatly to land on his neck.

"Shush," Master Shu said, his tone grave. "Never insult a Sovereign on their own territory, boy. No matter what. I know what you were about to say - perhaps that he is a jerk, or some such childish insult. Please be smarter than to say that out loud."

Wu Hao stared, puzzled. What had gotten into the old man?

Master Shu stared at Wu Hao, then formed a thin current of black qi that pointed to his ear. Things clicked.

The Moonlight Sovereign was listening. Or might have been. Wu Hao looked around, looking at the scattered patches of ice and frost that lay beyond the broad lanterns that surrounded the stone path on which they were walking.

He nodded, and Master Shu quirked an eyebrow.

"Perhaps I'll leave you like this," he said. "At least until we get back to the house, hmm?"

Clenching his hands into fists, Wu Hao glared at Master Shu, who nodded to himself and began to walk again.

Wu Hao prodded at the array as they walked, but it was in a tough spot to remove - somewhere he couldn't actually get a good conceptual grip on, and while he felt around his neck and tried to prod the array, there was a tiny spark that snapped at his fingers whenever he touched it.

They moved past the main building and instead made their way past the house where the Sword Sovereign had once lived. The lights were out and the house was quiet. Arrays had been applied to mute the qi inside, so that he couldn't tell if anyone was actually inside or not. There was no one even standing guard, despite Wu Hao's own path having already crossed with one or two guards patrolling the sect itself. More, he presumed, were lurking out of sight.

Still, the mansion occupied his thoughts. Du Linglong must have gone to bed early, then. A shame that she'd missed the banquet, but perhaps Master Shu had been more right than he'd thought. The demonstration must have taken a lot more out of her than he'd imagined.

He grimaced. Next time, he would approach it a different way. If there was a next time. And what that different way would be, he didn't know either.

The guest house was perfectly fine. He'd seen it before, as part of the tour, but it too bore all the signs that it'd needed a cleaning recently. It wasn't so different from the house the Tang had given them, not in general and not in that regard. It seemed odd to Wu Hao that martial arts sects and families so rarely received guests. He wondered what that was about.

Master Shu made his way over to a room that had been set aside for cultivating, before a desk manifested out of the old man's storage space, as well as his comfortable chair. He was going to spend his night creating more arrays, then. Wu Hao had no clue what the arrays did, although he was fairly sure that he knew why Master Shu had been spending so much time lately on creating more tools. A lamp was pulled out of storage and lit with the flick of a finger.

"Boy," Master Shu said. "I have a task for you."

He leaned forward in the chair, the lamp in their middle casting an odd light across his face.

"I need you to go explore," Master Shu said. He tapped his finger on the table, and a thin strand of qi pulled a piece of rough paper from his storage space. Another tap of his finger infused the paper with qi, which spread over it in elegant swirls of black ink.

Wu Hao's eyes traced the flow of the qi as it swirled over the paper. The house they were currently in was a decent-sized squarish shape, which he recognized because of its odd extension - a wing had been added recently, unremarkable otherwise.

The map took further shape, filling in with stone paths represented by brushstrokes, buildings that were large series of squares to represent multiple floors, and occasional circles that represented training grounds or gardens.

"This is where we are right now," Master Shu stated. "This is where you'll be going."

A thin dot of white appeared at the steps of their house and crawled its way over the map as Wu Hao watched. It made a way that avoided the bulk of the stone paths, instead seeming at times to beeline and at times to turn haphazardly.

When it stopped, it was standing at a thin square of earth that Wu Hao didn't recognize as a building. It was located off to the side where there were no buildings, just a section of dense woods. They hadn't talked about it during the tour at all, not to mention what it was but not to mention that they couldn't go there, either. It hadn't come up at all.

Master Shu stared at Wu Hao, who stared back. A silence fell.

"Well?" Master Shu asked. "You have no questions?"

Wu Hao pointed at the silencing array around his throat, which was still doing its work. He'd given up trying to remove it.

"You still haven't removed that?" Master Shu scoffed. "A genius in arrays, or what was it that elder of the Autumn Palace said? A genius, my foot."

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Rolling his eyes, he tapped the air, and suddenly Wu Hao could feel that he could speak again.

"Fuck you," he said experimentally, and received a swat to the head for his trouble.

"Will you do it or not, boy?" Master Shu asked impatiently. "We don't have all night. Sooner or later the banquet will be over, and then our opportunity will be gone."

"What even is that building?" Wu Hao asked.

"A shack," Master Shu said, folding his arms over each other. "More specifically, it seems to resemble an outhouse or a storage shed, but the location makes little sense for either. I sensed a martial artist there, standing constant guard, both during the tour and during our walk back just now."

"How strong?" Wu Hao asked.

"Second-grade," Master Shu said. He quirked an eyebrow. "Which you've now proven you can handle to a respectable level. So that shouldn't be a problem."

Wu Hao nodded slowly.

"What do you think it is?" he asked.

"I don't know," Master Shu said. "There are arrays inscribed onto the walls that ward off detection in surprisingly sophisticated ways. I wouldn't have noticed anything if I weren't specifically looking for anything Ke Jiaming was trying to hide. But I have a guess."

"Which is?"

"A ritual space for Demonic Arts," Master Shu stated grimly. "Do not go in there, boy. If I'm right there are horrors contained within that room that would leave you with significant mental scars. Perhaps even enough to ruin your connection to the concepts that power your Heaven-grade arts."

"That can happen?"

"It is rare," Master Shu said. What he didn't add, but which was implied, was that it had happened before.

Wu Hao was about to shrug this off, before the realization made him pause. Sure, his body would simply return to where it had been 24 hours beforehand. But his mind wouldn't change. If the connection was ripped away from him, that might stay with him. Fuck.

He'd been planning to ignore the order to not go inside earlier, but now he decided that maybe he'd listen to the old man this once. Which reminded him.

"Why don't you go?" Wu Hao asked. "If it's so dangerous?"

"I cannot go," Master Shu said. "Ke Jiaming is paying attention to me, and to keep track of each other is a constant effort, for the both of us. I cannot go undetected."

Wu Hao nodded.

"Besides," Master Shu stated. "A Sovereign snooping around the grounds of a Sect? It would be unheard of. Our access to the other Sects would be at peril immediately, if the word got out. Not to mention our relationship with the Diancang sect would be ruined. We would be accused of attempting to steal their secrets, their resources, or both. You, especially, would be looked at askance, what with your motley handful of arts. It would not take a bright mind to conclude you've stolen them from lesser sects, perhaps even at my instigation."

He tapped the table again, though there was no qi this time, only an emphasis.

"But you can," Master Shu explained. "You're just a disciple. You're what, fourteen? That means you can go around and snoop, and as long as it's not something too egregious, your age is itself a perfect explanation. I believed you were heading out to train while I focused on other things, you instead went out to go explore and ended up somewhere you weren't meant to be - an annoyance and something worthy of a reprimand, but not a serious offence to any reasonable mind."

"What am I meant to see?"

"See if you can spot anything," Master Shu said. "But be careful, boy. The consequences should not be grave, but there will be consequences if you're caught. All the more so if they think you've actually caught on to whatever their scheme is or the true allegiance of Ke Jiaming. Or that brat Ke Shuang."

Wu Hao nodded. It wasn't much to go on - would Ke Jiaming be stupid enough to just let a clue to being in bed with the Demon Cult lie around in plain sight? He doubted it. You didn't get to the level of a Sovereign while being a moron.

"Here," Master Shu said, handing Wu Hao the map and several other bits of paper. "These allow you to make your body light enough not to leave imprints. I don't need to explain why they're useful."

"You don't."

Master Shu cocked his head. "If you're not back within two hours, I'll come look for you. Light one of the flares in your storage, if you're under attack, and I'll come to your rescue."

"I understand," Wu Hao said.

"Then go," Master Shu said. "Good luck."

Trotting out to the entrance, Wu Hao opened the door quietly, staring out into the blackness of the night. The moon looked full overhead, which to his enhanced senses allowed him to see nearly as well as he would have in broad daylight. He slipped out of the guest house, shutting the door behind him, and checked the map a final time.

Then he touched the array at its corner that would destroy it. There wasn't even the faint flicker of flame or the crinkle of paper before it was gone. Better not to take risks. On that note, he mentally shoved the poisons that he'd gotten from the Tang to the forefront of his mental space, pulled a knife into his sleeve so that it wouldn't give him away if the light caught it, and set off.

He didn't use movement arts. Even at his most skilled, those were meant to maximize speed and explosiveness, at the cost of not being stealthy in the slightest. If he was to send himself soaring above the trees now, then half the Diancang Sect might be shocked away by the bangs that he'd caused.

On foot it was, then. He crouched slightly as he walked to make a smaller profile, but his legs ate up the ground as he followed the path that Master Shu had plotted out on the map perfectly. He saw the distant glint of moonlight reflected off thin pools of ice, white snow falling softly on top of the grass or masking several other shallow frozen puddles. Snowflakes clung to his hair, skin, and clothes.

It was quiet and peaceful, so much so that Wu Hao felt almost dislocated from the world of martial arts entirely. The jewel in his chest shifted and moved until the facet with the cold qi was near, and it spread a cool calmness throughout his body as the rest of his qi gained the same tinge of icy whitish-blue.

He flexed his fingers for warmth, but it was a reflex, nothing else. The cold qi kept any chills from really being felt.

Wu Hao reached the trees easily, took a moment to check around him if he'd been spotted, but there was no one. He saw no one and sensed no one, which he realized didn't have to mean much, but it was better than the alternative.

The treetops overhead were rustling faintly in the night wind. Bald branches swayed, with the occasional pine the only tree to retain its luster. He used those pines to mark his path and count his steps, getting a rough idea of how far he had left to go.

He stopped when he felt a qi signature, tinged with the earthy, nature-like scent that reminded him of one of the side branches. Wu Hao crouched down, hiding behind a tree, and observed the guard.

The man did move, here and there, but it was nothing more than the occasional shifts in posture or attempts to make a long guard shift less uncomfortable. Wu Hao reached out, not towards the signature but around him, and tried to probe if he felt anything else.

No one else around, but there was a weird, off-putting sensation just behind the martial artist. What he felt from that wasn't so much as a sensation as a gentle suggestion, though: the prod to maybe go somewhere else, to pay attention to something more interesting.

Wu Hao shook his head, a few snowflakes twirling to the underbrush below. This was what Master Shu had talked about, then: the sophisticated art that would turn his attention away.

So, he thought, settling himself below a small patch of earth so that the top of his head was just barely peeking out, timing it with the sussuration of cold winter wind sweeping through the branches.

What exactly was so interesting about this shack that it had to be guarded by a second-grade martial artist?