Chapter 163 - The Fifth Elder’s Memories.

  Que swung his arm across his body like he was swatting a fly. “Senior Brother, aren’t you as worried about this too!?”

  Guan, who was about to speak about that boy Hao, stopped his breath short to turn his head to his Junior. “There is more to the situation than we know, Junior Brother. Master has been back and forth from all the Peaks for the past few days since the announcement.” Guan’s voice nearly broke sound itself.

  Que shook his head, rising, “This could lead to a civil war that leaves the Drifting Stream as nothing more than a piece of a broken shell—not just a shell!”

  “Nonsense. Things won’t reach that far.”

  “The world is not as just as you think it is.” Que’s face was red. The boy had a bad habit of speaking out of turn, but not often to his Senior Brother Guan.

  You fools are making me forget my thoughts, Old Fifth said to himself as he walked up the dais. His Spiritual Sense filled the hall—It was also called Divine Dense at this level for a reason—his five senses were extended to all the places his spiritual energy could reach, magnified to an unnecessary degree. His boys finally went silent as he walked between them. He would’ve liked to admire Yan Yan’s carving while they talked, but the foolish boys had made every conversation like sipping tea during an earthquake.

  “Your Junior Brother,” Old Fifth sighed, “might not be completely wrong. But neither are you.” He looked to both of them and beckoned them to follow with the point of his cane.

  “I didn’t waste my time raising the two of you. Yet neither of you stops to think for longer than it takes ash to scatter. You probably already forgot what I asked about…” The old man let silence linger; only the echo of footsteps satisfied his questioning tone. He, too, had already forgotten the barbarian; he would be of no use.

  The Fifth Elder continued, examining every mural and carving they passed, “Everyone who has some understanding of the Sect and recent events, ponders the same thoughts as the two of you. But no one asked this old man what concerns him. Only the Sect Master knows Yinjing better than me—So why now, I keep wondering. Why now? Perhaps he finally has some sort of backing that will save his rotten tail if things go awry…”

  Que caught up to Old Fifth despite Guan’s hand on his shoulder. “But Master, who would stand against the Sect Master? He’s not as famous as some people, but there aren’t many who can hold a candle to his cultivation.”

  “You’ve been on this mountain too long…” Old Fifth kept forward.

  He stopped at a nanmu wood table, his finger dragged dust off the golden wood onto stacks of books below.

  “...the region has gotten weaker since the Northern unifier came and died. Now, his two disciples suck up all the South’s resources for their civil war. A lot of them have grown strong in recent years. That man outside, they call him Silver-Step or something now—he took a blow from Sect Master years ago, yet he is still standing today. The world is vast, Que.” The old man paused his words.

  His disciple’s censer distracted him. The silver inlay was new and didn’t fit the bronze aesthetic of the burner.

  Old Fifth lifted off the top section and looked in. His face scrunched, before he set his cane down on the table and took some bright blue grass from the space ring on his smallest finger. He blew a weak flame into the bronze body, then set the ugly top back in place.

  “I didn’t realize he was strong enough to make the Master worry," Que muttered, walking around the table and leaning forward.

  “Hm?!” Old Fifth lifted his head. He was just enjoying the pleasant citrus scent when his foolish disciple said something he expected from a brainless rock.

  “Worry? Are you trying to insult your master? The pup is strong, but he doesn’t make your master worry! The only things that Ciyue cares about are his training his disciple, pleasing his decrepit master, and growing out that braided beard to distract from his shining head! Worried? Ha!”

  The Fifth Elder tapped his fingers and pulled his cane.

  “He may be part of the Soaring Sect’s plot, but he has as much wit as hair. If someone is backing Guo Yinjing, it's either Ciyue’s Master at the Northern Border. Or someone from beyond it.”

  Que looked a little pale in the face. It was known to everyone on the peak that he derived joy in taunting Ciyue on numerous occasions. Only now he knew the peril he pushed himself into.

  That alone proved the Fifth’s point to himself. He saw Ciyue as one man alone, not the color of the robes he represented or the old monsters at the bald man’s back.

  “Then… that is worse, we have to do something,” Que demanded.

  Guan came over and struck Que in the shoulder.

  “These worries rest with us old people.” The Fifth Elder said, his eyes sank as his two disciples looked at him with expectation. “We simply have to stop his plan before it starts.”

  The two still weren’t following. “Yinjing wins if that Mo boy can win the tournament, take the Bone-Shaking Trial, and pass it. People would chant Young Patriarch. It's a story the disciples of the Lower-Peak will like, one of them rising to great heights.” Old Fifth’s face turned a dark red.

  “Master, calm…” Guan muttered.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “We have to make sure that never happens. His disciple has to lose, Yinjing has to lose face, and we have to destroy his position in the heart of the disciples—We have to!”

  “Make them all look like crazed fools! After all that Yinjing has done… make his disciple look like the biggest waste the Sect has, so even if he approaches the bell, the only sound he would get from ringing it is a fart! We have—”

  Guan walked around the table and placed his hand on his Master's shoulder. He stopped the old man from reaching for his space ring. They all knew he was going for his tobacco pipe. It was a silently acknowledged secret. Only the old man knew how bad those blue petals really were once you had a taste of their smoke. In wine, they were a fragrance; in a pipe, they were a torrid breath of heaven.

  “—Master. Master.” Guan called until Old Fifth looked up at him.

  The mountain-like disciple let him go, with a sigh, “Is there anyone of the Younger Generation that could defeat him?”

  The Fifth Elder nodded. He looked like he had aged ten years as he looked for a chair, “I’ve been looking,” he lied. He came up with the plan as he walked to the dais.

  A few came to mind: The Third Elder’s disciple, a few of the swordsmen from the evacuated Sword Mountain regions. Other than one or two, the rest were wildcards. One disciple learned acupoints that cause pain. Then there was that boy, whom he had already asked about. The one Fang Qing Shui showed some interest in because he gave her that source stone—He did ring the bell, but that doesn’t mean much without backing anymore, He remembered.

  “Isn’t it hopeless? Master, Senior Brother… We are talking about a resource-filled mutt raised by the First and Fourth Elder.” Que raised a fist, “We already know what kind of person that can make…”

  His fist dissolved. Old history lingered behind every blade of grass in the Drifting Stream.

  “This Bangcai can’t be like Tianyi. It’s impossible. A person like that is born only once under heaven,” Guan said. His voice boomed over his Master and echoed off the walls of the hall. His face always neutral, turned pink.

  Tianyi. That name was once the name of a friend. Everyone in the sect treated the First Elder's boy as kindly as anyone else. They didn’t know if he was the son or grandson of the man; there were too many questions back then. Rivalry seemed like small feuds and nothing more.

  All the facade fell apart when the tale spread from a dozen mouths, about a maid brought back to the sect by the girl who would become the Second Elder after her travels around the Southern Tip.

  The maid was one of a kind with red eyes and red tea skin. She lasted long in the Sect, until Fang Qing Shui became the last person of an Era to ring the Bone-Shaking Bell.

  Guo Yinjing was in outrage, as he had taken the Bell trial years before. Not long after the maid had gone missing, the Sect Master disowned Yinjing, his then-disciple. On the same day that the position of disciple was offered to Qing Shui, yet watching the man whom she knew had taken her friend, she spat on the Sect Master’s offer.

  Fifty years later, a little boy took the disciple trial, the splitting image of the First Elder, with soft red eyes. A rising star. Then he entered the First Peak and returned a different man, before he too went missing like many who lingered on the First Peak.

  Now they are here. The Bell had lost its purpose, and the Drifting Stream lost all direction beyond surviving.

  The Fifth Elder leaned back, “The First will teach him the best he can, and probably more. That Bangcai will be treated like a hunting dog… As for talent, he is a fair fighter. His feet are fast, and blades faster, that's all.”

  “This wouldn’t be a problem if Young Miss took a disciple.”

  “The Second Elder? Does she have a plan?” Guan pulled the censer forward and turned the silver button at the top. Smoke flowed more aggressively, surrounding the men.

  It was calming to them all, the rich scent reminding them of the Peak’s usual tranquility.

  “Young Miss doesn’t let a servant up the Second Peak to clean,” Old Fifth said, “She has hardly spoken to me.”

  “The Young Leader’s Palace is massive, isn’t it?” Que said. It was obvious that after he caused the majority of the tension, he was trying to wind it down.

  “She doesn’t use it. Back when we visited her years ago, she was living in a cave in the middle of a bamboo grove on the mountain.” Guan looked at his Junior Brother, the statement was half a question of remembrance, asked in a demanding tone.

  The Eldest Brother of the Fifth Peak crouched, fixed the books under the table that his Master and Junior Brother had kicked around. When he came back up, there was one on the table he had yet to take care of.

  Guan reached out and took it. His face flooded with remembrance as he flipped to the back page.

  “Master,” he started, “Did you ask about Junior Brother Hao?”

  Old Fifth did, but he already forgot him. Que reminded them of Tianyi, which made it seem like a hopeless gamble. He had an idea of his disciples' thoughts on the child, and the old man already had his own.

  “He had my interest for a breath. It would be better to place our hope in someone with a better backing than a Barbarian servant.” Old Fifth flung the idea away like a pesky hair.

  Guan flipped to the back page of the book, “He has a rather good physique, decently trained. He has potential as a body cultivator. That is strength that can be hidden.”

  It was rare to see a face of deception on the ever-righteous Guan, yet the passion in his eyes was real.

  Que tapped his finger on the nanmu wood, “Master… I think Senior Brother might be right. If nothing else, he didn’t lack killing intent—his cultivation was not bad for someone with his abysmal talent.”

  The Fifth grunted, “Fine—I’ll try to talk to the Young Miss about the boy. She seems to think highly of him on occasion.”

  The old man found it a disconcerting thought. Yet if the boy became a sacrifice to buy them some time, that would serve fine.

  Old Fifth turned to walk; it was another decision to haunt him until the Qi in his bones found him unworthy and left him a shriveled mass. What was one more dead, especially if he got the resources of the Fifth Peak for a few days?

  “Master, why did you give him your token if you don’t favor him?” Que asked.

  For how smart the boy was, he was also naive; the world was still black and white in his mind. Stories of Demons and Heroes infected him.

  The Fifth Elder stopped his steps. “A few reasons. Because I had to back up my niece in front of the other Elders, and throw dirt in the eyes of those the boy insulted on the day.”

  He didn’t think giving the boy a token would lead to another child dying at the point of his finger.

  What was one more, he asked himself. The boy is from the islands, not the Southern Tip, he tried to justify.

  “You can bring him here to train for a while.” Old Fifth sighed, “At most a week. Guan, I don’t know what you see in him, but I hope you can bring it out… However, if you think he holds ill will, kill him.” The old man looked back for just a second, his face scrunched as he rolled his space ring and shook his cane.