“I was thinking a demon beast or a spirit beast,” Wu Ying said.
“Oh, that makes much more sense.” Wu Ying eyed the cheerful female cultivator warily, but Li Yao ignored his looks, tapping a fingernail on her lips. “Can you use a bow?”
“Not well,” Wu Ying said.
“Crossbow then?”
“For the best.”
“Okay. So I’ll use a bow, you a crossbow. We’ll get a demon beast from the kitchen or in town. There are always a few lives ones on sale for the kitchens,” Li Yao said.
“Bait, weapons, and horses. And food enough for a week?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Then shall we leave in two days?”
“Two?” Li Yao frowned.
“I want to speak with Senior Goh. He should be able to give me a better idea of what plants to harvest,” Wu Ying said. “I will, of course, share the proceeds with you.”
“Proceeds? Harvest?”
“Spiritual herbs and fruit,” Wu Ying said. “We might not find any, but if we do, it could increase our contribution greatly.”
“Oh, right! Tou He mentioned you got those Dark Flowers.”
“Night Blossoms.”
“Great. You get me flowers, I’ll get the other gear,” Li Yao said.
Wu Ying flushed again but shook his head, pushing aside romantic thoughts. They were about to go out to deal with dangerous, carnivorous animals. This was not the time to be thinking about such things.
Once the pair had cleared out other minor details, they took their leave. Wu Ying watched Li Yao bounce away to her residence. It would be the first time Wu Ying would be out with the cultivator. A female cultivator.
Wu Ying shook his head, pushing aside the thought. Double entendres or not, Li Yao was a friend and fellow cultivator. They were on a sect mission, not a walk along the river.
Days later, the pair left the sect town on horses, a hog-tied demon beast piglet strapped to the back of another horse. The piglet was large enough it had made more sense to rent a third horse than carry it on one of theirs. Wu Ying found Li Yao’s earlier comments were correct—finding the rhythm of riding was not as hard as he had thought it would be. He was, at least, competent enough to ride at a canter on the placid beast Li Yao had picked out for him. He was still getting the hang of the trot, much to the dismay of his buttocks. But even so, Wu Ying felt he would soon find that rhythm too. Hour after hour, the pair rode, eating up the distance and passing the few winter travelers on the road. Conversations started and stopped, languid and without purpose.
“Did you get all our stores?” Wu Ying said, glancing at Li Yao, who looked to be rather sparsely equipped.
“In my ring,” Li Yao said.
“Oh, right,” Wu Ying said, shaking his head.
Of course she had one and probably a much larger one than his own gifted chest-sized storage ring. Larger, more useful rings were worth tens of thousands of contribution points. Even getting on the list to acquire a larger storage ring required a thousand contribution points. And that was not even a deposit. He was once again grateful for the gift he had received, the tiny chest-sized ring that was enough to carry his basic supplies. When Li Yao indicated for the pair to rest the horses, Wu Ying was grateful to slow his horse, the horse naturally moving up next to the other cultivator.
“Heels down.”
“Thank you, Senior,” Wu Ying said, dropping his heels and clenching his thighs around the horse.
It was lucky timing, as the horse suddenly balked, jerking to a stop shortly before Li Yao’s followed suit, the pair of equines whinnying.
“Trouble,” Li Yao said, making her bow appear in her hand. She held the reins loosely in the same hand that held her bow, her other hand dipping to extract an arrow from the saddle quiver.
Wu Ying debated for a second, but as his horse continued to whinny nervously, he slid off the animal while keeping a hand on the reins.
From the side of the road ahead of them, a group of bandits made their appearance. Unlike Wu Ying’s previous encounter with bandits, this group looked more like a series of bedraggled and hungry farmers than hardened criminals. If not for the crudely made wooden spears and a few rusty swords and poles, Wu Ying would have estimated them to be harmless. Wu Ying’s extended senses told him the group mainly consisted of those at Body Cleansing 2 or 3.
“Bandits,” Li Yao said, her voice unnaturally calm. She was already nocking an arrow, causing the group to ready their weapons and, in one case, draw a bow.
“Stop.” Wu Ying was not sure why he spoke, what instinct prompted him, but his words made Li Yao pause.
He guided his horse forward and to the side, where he looped the reins over a nearby branch, then he walked toward the bandit group.
“Why are you here?” Wu Ying said to the group, hands away from his jian so that he did not look like a threat. Not immediately at least. He let his gaze stay unfocused, though the bow wielder stayed in his peripheral vision.
“We’re… robbing you?” one of the bandits spoke, someone from the second row. The moment he did, the others parted and he was shoved forward. Wu Ying eyed the man, saw how thin he was, how ratty and dirty his clothing had become, the way his eyes shifted from side to side as he swayed on his feet from nervousness and exhaustion.
“Was that a question or a demand?” Wu Ying said.
“A… demand?” the swaying bandit said.
“I am Long Wu Ying, inner sect member of the Verdant Green Waters Sect. This Lee Li Yao, my Senior.” Wu Ying said. Their robes should have already informed these desperate peasants. Hunger and desperation must have driven them to try their hand against the cultivators. “Who are we speaking with?”
“I am Tang Bu…” Tang stopped, realizing he was introducing himself to a man he intended to rob. “Why…”
“Well, friend Tang, it seems you have a choice here,” Wu Ying said gently. “You can put your weapons down and come with us to the next village. They’ll hang you there, but we’ll feed you and you can sleep safely. Or you can charge us and die here.”
“There’s more of us than there are you!” Tang said, his voice trembling like his hand.
“Yes. There are,” Wu Ying replied. Still he stood there, hands away from his jian, waiting.
“I don’t want to die…” another of the bandits said.
Beside him, his friend stared at the crude spear in his hand. “You’ll feed us?”
“Yes.”
“Wu Ying…” Li Yao called out tentatively.
Wu Ying turned toward her, offering her a half smile. Perhaps it was the momentary show of weakness. Perhaps they had been waiting for this. But the talkative bandit yelled and jumped forward, swinging his sickle at Wu Ying.
Dragon unsheathes his Claws. A flash of light as Wu Ying stepped past the falling body, blood exploding from the wound across his attacker’s chest. Even as Wu Ying finished his step, an arrow lodged in the bow-wielding bandit’s neck, sending him sprawling and choking on his own blood. Galvanized by the deaths, the group exploded into action.
It was not a fight. How could it be? The pair of inner sect members tore through the starving, barely trained ex-farmers like a scythe through rice stalks. In mere seconds, the massacre was over, leaving Wu Ying standing amidst the corpses. Once the pair had moved the bodies off the main roadway and marked their location, Wu Ying and Li Yao restarted their journey.
Only then did Li Yao broach the question in her mind. “Why?”
“Why what?” Wu Ying said.
“Why did you offer to bring them with us?” Li Yao said.
“I… it was a small mercy. The best I could offer,” Wu Ying said softly.
When Li Yao opened her mouth to inquire further, Wu Ying kicked his horse into a trot, leaving the female cultivator. How could he explain to her when he did not know why himself? How could he explain that he’d seen himself, his friends in them? How easy it was to have a bad year and be kicked off your farm? How it was such a small step from farmer to bandit for so many? And yet, Wu Ying could not let them go. How many travelers had they waylaid already? How many would they kill if left alone? The sentence for banditry was death. The moment they chose to become bandits, they signed their own death warrants.