~~~

“What have you learned tonight?”

Liu Jin asks the question to the four men kneeling before him: Lei Kong, Ten Zichun, Rust, and Nail. Liu Jin did not ask them to kneel, but Lei Kong has been teaching them unnecessary things.

“Unfortunately, I do not have much to share, my lord,” Lei Kong replies. “Flaring my aura like I did was a mistake. The people in the mansion were too scared to talk to me. All I could do was take a walk around the city. It is a cesspool, my lord. The wealth is nearly all concentrated in the areas closest to my cousin’s mansion, and even those places are dens of iniquity.”

“My experience was similar to Brother Lei’s,” Ten Zichun says. “The servants would not approach me, so I went out drinking with some of the soldiers stationed there. They brag a lot, but it is obvious they haven’t seen any combat in a while. However, there was someone at the bar who claimed to have encountered the Brotherhood of Thunder.”

Liu Jin leans forward. “Oh?”

“He was escorting one of the City Lord’s caravans when the Brotherhood attacked. He claims to have fought a hundred men on his own before he was cowardly attacked from behind. According to the others at the bar, it was fifty the last time he told the story. Reading between the lines, they were ambushed, and he is only alive because he ran away.”

“Did he tell you what goods the bandits stole?”

Ten shakes his head. “No, he didn’t mention it. I bought him some drinks to loosen his lips, but even then, he proved evasive.”

“A pity,” Liu Jin says, rubbing his chin. “Still, the Brotherhood of Thunder must have fighters of some merit. Well, relative to the City Lord’s soldiers. I wonder. If they are consistently hitting the City Lord’s caravans, does that mean they have some way of getting information? Or is the City Lord just that incompetent?”

“It could be both, my lord,” Lei Kong says.

“It very well could be,” Liu Jin says before turning to the two people who had yet to speak. “What about you?”

Rust and Nail flinch.

“M-my lord, forgive us, but we have no stories to share,” Nail says, bowing his head even lower. He is trembling like a leaf. “We are just servants who are barely in the Inner Realm. There is no one who would pay attention to us.”

“Naturally,” Liu Jin says. “That is why I asked you to do this.”

Rust and Nail stare blankly at him, trying to reconcile the gentleness of Liu Jin’s voice with the content of his words.

“I did not tell you to talk to soldiers. I did not order you to sneak around the city. I just told you to watch and talk to your fellow servants,” Liu Jin says. “Did you do that?”

“Well, yes-”

“Great,” Liu Jin says, smiling.

As Rust and Nail still stare at him in confusion, Liu Jin resists the urge to sigh. Even if it is his fault for not fully explaining, he really wishes people could more easily understand his intentions.

Communication is hard.

“How did the other servants seem to you?” Liu Jin asks them, making sure to keep his voice as non-threatening as possible. “Did they look well-fed? Were they dressed well? Did they seem happy about their position? Think carefully before answering.”

“They… looked well? I mean…” Nail clears his throat. “They looked well, my lord. No one looked like they were starving or nothing. I didn’t see any holes in their clothes.”

“I didn’t see any holes either, my lord,” Rust adds.

“Right, no holes,” Nail says, nodding his head eagerly. “As for whether they were happy or not…”

“The old man at the stables said it was much better than being stuck in the outskirts,” Rust says, helping out his fellow servant.

Liu Jin raises an eyebrow. “The outskirts?”

“It’s what they call most of the city, my lord,” Rust nervously explains. “Everything that’s not the City Lord’s house or all the bright places around it.”

Liu Jin had assumed as much from the name, but it’s still sad to hear it confirmed. That would mean that, as far as the people are concerned, most of the city is “the outskirts.”

Absolutely miserable.

“There was a girl crying,” Nail says. “I went to the kitchens. I wanted to see if I could get something to eat when she came in. She said the City Lord requested more food and drinks.”

He frowns.

“She was bruised. The people there… they didn’t exactly say it, but from how they talked about it, it doesn’t seem like it was the first time something like that happened. The head cook told her to rest, that the City Lord wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t her who came back.”

“I am not surprised,” Liu Jin says, thinking back to the servant the City Lord had mistreated. Nail must have seen her after the City Lord sent her away. “Still, it is always better to know for sure. Now, do you understand why it was important that you do this?”

Predictably, Rust and Nail do not answer. They fear angering him by giving him the wrong answer.

“Do you think the servants would have talked so freely in front of me? In front of them?” He asks, jerking his head at Lei Kong and Ten. “Of course not. They would have been too busy bowing and wouldn’t have dared to say anything bad about the City Lord in front of us. However, it was different with you. They saw you as peers and spoke freely in front of you. You have done a great job.”

“I… thank you, my lord,” Nail says, a little overwhelmed. Rust follows suit. “I have no words.”

“No words are needed. You are free to go. Rest,” he tells them. “You’ll need it.”

Lei Kong waits until the two are gone before speaking.

“That was kind of you, my lord, but we already knew my cousin was a horrible person.”

“Don’t misunderstand. I was not being kind,” Liu Jin says. “The information they learned was valuable in its own way. The more complete a picture is, the better. I am just missing some pieces. Hopefully, I’ll receive another one before the night is over.”

Ten’s face scrunches into a frown. “Senior Brother Qing, what exactly does that mean?”

Liu Jin’s eyes flash. “Ah, there it is. Sorry. Please, give me a moment to sort this.”

Before he can hear their answers, the rush of memories is already playing out before his eyes.

~~~

Quan takes a deep breath as he jumps down the walls of Rainfall City. A couple of weeks ago, the fall would have winded him. Now, it’s barely a strain. It’s amazing what one level of cultivation can do.

His landing is not as quiet as he’d like, but that doesn’t matter. He’s far away from the camp. He can get away with making some noise. All Quan needs to do now is sneak back into the camp, but that shouldn’t be any trouble. Most people are already asleep, and their commander is too busy ignoring them and talking to his closest advisors in his tent. Bah!

The only good thing that boy has done is make him a Five-Man Commander. Even if someone were to catch him now, Quan could get away with saying he’d been out for a walk. That much should be allowed to him. The men under his command won’t question him if they know what’s good for them.

“Idiots,” he says, chuckling darkly under his breath.

“Really? I only see one.”

Violence is Quan’s first instinct. It has been that way since he was but a small child. He turns around and lashes out with his fist.

There is no one behind him.

“What?” He asks, confused and looking around widely. He turns and turns, but there is no one around.

Then he feels them,

Fangs.

Small, sharp, and pressed against his throat.

“Do not make a scene,” the voice, the snake on his shoulder, tells him. “This will be so much easier for us both if you do not make a scene.”

“C-Commander…?” Quan asks in disbelief as his brain finally recognizes the voice.

“A part of him, at least,” the snake replies. “I would explain more, but I do not believe you’d have the capacity to understand.”

Quan’s nostrils flare with anger. His Qi rises as he prepares to grab that foul creature and squeeze the life out of it.

And at that moment, the snake’s presence completely overshadows his own.

It is as if a pit has been opened under his feet. Vast and endless, it feels as if his very existence could be swallowed and lost forever. Quan’s fighting spirit is snuffed out. His courage is doused, a light that never was.

Quan falls to his knees.

“I apologize,” the snake says. “I did not mean to insult you by implying you are unintelligent. You merely lack the required education to comprehend the concept of soul fragments. It is enough for you to understand that I am here. I have been here for a while.”

“A-a w-while?” Quan stutters. His face is pale as a ghost. “Since when… no.”

His no is a whimper. A faded hope. He realizes now.

“Since you made me a Five-Man Commander,” Quan says with bitter resignation.

“See? You are not unintelligent at all,” the snake says, sounding a little proud of him. “I suspected that at least one of you was placed in the company to spy on me. It’s only natural. My association with Lei Kong, the fact that I’m a foreigner and sent by General Dan, and so many other things. It would be more surprising if you didn’t try to spy on me. I made you Five-Man Commander, not just because you distinguished yourself in battle, but because I suspected giving you more freedom would make you more careless.”

“Then the others…”

“Some were potential suspects as well,” the snake confirms. “They have snakes placed on them too.”

And he hadn’t noticed. No one had noticed. The commander had placed his spies on them, and they hadn’t noticed a damn thing! The words Zei told him the other day at the river flash through Quan’s mind, and only now that it is too late does he see the truth. This is no boy. This is no man.

He’s a monster.

“Now, you met someone today, didn’t you? Not the City Lord, obviously. A contact. A middle-man.”

Quan hears the snake hiss. He feels its fangs against his throat.

“Why don’t we talk about it?

~~~

Liu Jin tells Lei Kong and Ten to leave him alone. It’s just him inside the command tent now. None would dare disturb him.

“You look like you want to kill someone.”

None but Lu Mei.

“Do I?” Liu Jin asks. Lu Mei nods.

“It is a good look on you.”

“I disagree on principle, and I do not want to kill someone.”

“But you are considering it,” Lu Mei says. “Quite strongly.”

Liu Jin sighs.

“City Lord Lei is an inept and cruel man who will continue bringing misery to those around him if left to his own devices,” he says. “And unlike Murong Bang, I can actually do something to stop his evil ways. He’s only in the True Realm. It would be easy.”

And isn’t that scary to think about?

Once upon a time, the prospect of going against a True Realm cultivator would have terrified him. Now, it is a minor inconvenience. He could charge into City Lord Lei’s mansion and be done with it. Eliminating the City Lord would take a few minutes at most, and even that estimate feels a little too kind to the City Lord. The man is simply not his match. His guards would barely register as an obstacle.

Liu Jin takes a deep breath.

It’s dangerous to think like this. City Lord Lei is evil, so he must kill him. Then, he must do the same again and again. Where does that end? Does it end with him becoming like his father used to be? Seeing the world as nothing more than a collection of illnesses that need to be pruned?

Is he thinking like this because of his Dao? If so, why did it not act when he saw City Lord Lei abuse his servant? What is the difference between that and the fight in the arena?

“What happens after I kill him?” Liu Jin asks, deciding to narrow his focus to practical matters instead of dwelling on philosophy.

“The Lei Clan would become involved, I assume,” Lu Mei says, shrugging her shoulders. “One does not take kindly to that sort of insult.”

“The Lei Clan is the one who placed spies on us,” Liu Jin tells her, tapping the side of his head. “One of my soul fragments saw it and relayed the information to me.”

It is a very useful skill now that he is able to establish a proper hierarchy between his soul fragments and himself thanks to Elder Xue’s lessons. He cannot make that many of them yet, and having them hide their Qi is not as easy as he’d like. That is why his soul fragment was not with Quan during the meeting. Had Quan met a strong enough cultivator, his soul fragment could have been noticed. For the same reason, trying to put one of his soul fragments in the City Lord’s house would be unwise.

It’s a good thing Quan was too scared to think of lying to him.

“The Lei Clan is interested in Lei Kong. They really don’t like that he’s alive. Their interest in me is secondary,” he says with a little smile. It’s nice not to be the center of attention sometimes. “Of course, if I killed City Lord Lei, that would change. They’d try to attack us directly.”

“We have Lady Bai Wen,” Lu Mei points out. “Whatever the Lei Clan has, I very much doubt they can match her.”

“And so, in killing the City Lord, we’re forced to deal with his entire clan, but that still leaves one person,” Liu Jin says.

“Murong Bang,” Lu Mei says.

“Technically, City Lord Lei is in the True Realm, so fighting him wouldn’t contradict the rules he set for me. He might decide he doesn’t care at all that I killed one of his City Lords and destroyed one of his allies.”

“Or he could decide that he minds, kill most of us, and then sabotage General Dan’s efforts for the sake of it,” Lu Mei finishes for him.

Liu Jin sighs and leans forward, hands bridged together. Murong Bang is too unpredictable for his liking.

“What if killing the City Lord is what he expects me to do?” He asks. “What do I do next? The city will not magically fix itself. If I kill the City Lord and walk away, I leave the city at the mercy of the next Lei. If I destroy the Lei Clan and walk away, I’m leaving everything they own at the mercy of whoever is strongest. I’d just be replacing one tyrant for the next. Someone reliable would need to be in charge. Laws would need to be enforced. And yet, I cannot waste my time here when everyone readies to fight the Death Fashioning Scripture. I…”

Lu Mei opens her mouth.

“Please, don’t say it,” Liu Jin begs her. “I know what you want to say, but please don’t.”

Lu Mei is not a woman of great mercy. Liu Jin has known that from the start, so it means much when she smiles sadly at him and puts her hand on his back, her head leaning against his shoulder.

Yes, Lu Mei is not a woman of mercy, but even she can see how badly Liu Jin needs it right now.

~~~