People of later ages liked to joke that Taoists were the great intellectuals of their day—medicine, divination, astrology, augury, masters of it all.
The joke had roots.
At the very least, in his years as a Taoist, Yin Zhiping had read a great share of the Quanzhen Sect's books, and learned no little from them.
Add the old saying that medicine and martial arts grow from one root: at first sight of Huang Rong he'd thought her color looked wrong, and since Xiangyang still needed her at the helm, he had said his one sentence. Whether she heeded it was no business of his.
"Thank you. We will see to it—our thanks for the reminder, Taoist Master Yin."
At his words, Huang Rong recalled that she had indeed been feeling unwell of late. She'd taken it for simple overwork and paid it no mind. Now the thought of calling in a physician took hold.
Huang Rong knew some medicine herself—but as the saying went, the physician cannot treat herself.
Besides, Xiangyang needed her; her Brother Jing needed her. She could not afford to fall.
Guo Jing was watching his wife with open concern, one hand moving by pure instinct to steady her arm.
"I'll send for someone."
Huang Rong nodded. Guo Jing helped her inside and into a seat first, then hurried out to fetch the physician.
Yin Zhiping went on to the lodging Huang Rong had arranged for him—a single guest room, unlike the four-to-a-room quarters his junior brothers shared.
He'd learned from Li Zhichang that the City Lord's manor was packed and rooms were scarce as hen's teeth. That Huang Rong had found him a private room was her way of signaling regard—of making him as comfortable as circumstances allowed.
He was an Innate, after all. This was simply the treatment that came with the tier. Yin Zhiping settled in with an entirely clear conscience.
He had barely tidied up when Li Zhichang came calling.
The two sat in the room and talked.
"I haven't yet congratulated you, Senior Brother—advanced to Innate, the third Innate master our Quanzhen Sect has produced."
That Yin Zhiping had reached Innate reflected glory on all of them.
With Wang Chongyang gone and Zhou Botong forever absent, the Quanzhen Sect finally had an Innate of its own again. Only if the sect prospered could they prosper.
And as for Yin Zhiping himself—their respect for him was total, and freely given.
"We're all brothers here; spare me the ceremony. You arrived days ahead of me—how do things stand in Xiangyang?"
Yin Zhiping saw no reason his revealed cultivation should put distance between him and his juniors. As it had been, so it would remain.
"The great battle is at hand. The Mongol host is camped ten li outside the city and could assault at any hour. Our likely opponents are the jianghu fighters traveling with the Mongols."
Every day, Huang Rong had the latest intelligence delivered to each leader among the volunteers, so no one fought blind.
It was a bright, openhanded way of doing things. This was Huang Rong saying: we stand as equals here—this is basic respect.
It also happened to buy hearts, and to make men spend themselves harder on the wall.
Yin Zhiping had to sigh in admiration. Masterfully played—no wonder they called her the beautiful Huang Rong.
"When you go back, tell the others: on the battlefield, keep together—cluster and hold. That is how you survive out there. Warn every one of them: a battlefield is not the jianghu. It is not a game. Set your minds straight before you step out."
Yin Zhiping knew that once the fighting started, he would have no attention to spare for his junior brothers. His own opponent would not be weak—if not an Innate, then a pack of Acquired masters swarming him.
The enemy was hardly going to stand by while he butchered their rank and file.
"I understand, Senior Brother Yin. I'll tell them."
Li Zhichang knew concern when he heard it.
"Go on, then. See to your own preparations. Don't die."
With the battle looming, Yin Zhiping himself was strung tight.
Two lives, and in neither had he ever stood in a war.
The shift in his own heart was unavoidable—it had nothing to do with the height of one's martial arts.
The most he'd ever handled was stamping out mountain bandits: a few hundred at the outside, a few dozen as a rule. Set against tens of thousands, there was no comparison at all.
But none of it could be allowed to show. If he betrayed one flicker of fear, his junior brothers' imaginations would do the rest.
Hesitation kept fewer men alive than a straight charge did.
Over the next two days, the air between the Mongol camp and Xiangyang thickened and thickened.
Anyone with eyes could see it: the clash was coming.
In those two days—with Yin Zhiping's consent—word went out that Xiangyang had gained an Innate powerhouse of the Five Greats' tier, and the news ran through the defenders and the volunteer fighters like a shot of pure heart's-fire.
The name of Yin Zhiping, third-generation disciple of the Quanzhen Sect, rang through every street of Xiangyang.
It took no prophet to see that when this battle ended, it would ring through the whole world.
An Innate could do so much, and everyone knew it. With an ally like that, every man in the city believed a little harder that Xiangyang would hold.
Which was exactly what Huang Rong wanted—the whole point of the exercise.
Yin Zhiping knew perfectly well that he was famous now, and paid it no mind. When nothing needed doing he kept to his room, digesting the experience of all those days trading blows with Ouyang Feng.
Treasure, every scrap of it. Not everyone got a Five Greats-tier master to feed them techniques.
Only someone of equal realm could push someone of that realm a step higher.
Take Qiu Chuji—unfilial as the comparison was. When master and disciple had once compared swordplay, both had forgone true essence and internal energy: technique against pure technique. And to Yin Zhiping's eye, Qiu Chuji's sword-forms had been nothing but openings.
To save his master's face, Yin Zhiping had thrown the bout generously—and still slipped up and won by one stroke.
That was the gulf between Acquired and Innate.
Two days later, the whole of Xiangyang began to turn like one vast machine grinding into motion.
The common folk withdrew into their homes and barred windows and doors.
Fighters of the jianghu and soldiers of the garrison massed at the gates according to plan, waiting for the gates to open and the battlefield to receive them.
Li Zhichang and the others stood among them.
Yin Zhiping climbed the wall with Guo Jing and Huang Rong, and watched the Mongol host advance on Xiangyang in rank upon dense rank.
The storm was coming!
"Two hours ago a scout crawled back. There is one Innate in the Mongol army—strength unknown. The man's wounds were too deep. He gave us that much and died."
Huang Rong said it to Yin Zhiping.
Guo Jing would have known the moment the scout came in.
She had meant to mention it that evening, over the getting-acquainted talk she'd planned with Yin Zhiping. No one had expected the Mongols to choose this hour to move.
"Chief Huang. What do you need me to do?"
Yin Zhiping understood: Huang Rong did not say such things without cause.
The original plan would have set Guo Jing against that Innate. If she was raising it now, she had something else in mind.
"I would ask Taoist Master Yin to pin that Innate down. I don't ask you to defeat him—only keep him too busy to look elsewhere. Brother Jing's Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms matter more on the open field."
Huang Rong laid out her thinking.
Knowing the enemy had exactly one Innate opened up the board considerably.
And if they had a second one hidden after all—Guo Jing's long jianghu experience would let him answer in time.
Yin Zhiping's experience was thin, his exposure to sudden turns thinner. If something unforeseen broke loose, Huang Rong feared her orders might never reach him in time—and the price of that would be paid in lives.