"Teacher's eye is a blazing torch."
Luo Fanchen opened his eyes and stood. Called out by name, he knew playing dumb was worthless — better to own it with both hands open.
Di Weiyang's flawless eyes were clear as washed glass; her scolding came with a laugh in it. "Listening this whole while, weren't you. Quite the nerves on you, boy."
"You mean — Senior Brother was EAVESDROPPING?" Yingyue gasped.
"Heh. This senior brother of yours is a clever one." The Pontiff's lips curved, no anger anywhere in it.
"So half of what you said just now, Teacher... was said FOR him to hear?" Yingyue was quick herself — the shape of it snapped into focus.
Di Weiyang inclined her head. "For him. And for you."
"You are the Holy Maiden. You cannot spend your days in giggles — you must own a judgment of your own, unbent by anyone."
"Hee — your disciple is PLENTY clever." Yingyue smiled sweet as syrup. "No one fools ME."
As she spoke, Di Weiyang turned her gaze:
"Fanchen. Your martial soul is vast and radiant in its bearing — there is no evil in its nature. But used carelessly — left to gorge freely on blood and rings — it could still drag you down into the fiend-path. You WILL restrain it."
"Before your teacher and Yingyue, use it as you please. Before outsiders — never let them discover that it devours the living to evolve."
"Much of what men call justice is only rigid justice — or mouth-justice, worn to dress their own interests."
Every sentence arrived ice-cold. But Luo Fanchen was no child; he could taste the care packed underneath.
He nodded.
"Rest easy, Teacher. Your disciple understands."
"The shortcut is fast, but its ceiling hangs low — it ends where it ends. Honest cultivation is exhausting — but the most exhausting road in this world is usually the one that goes furthest."
Di Weiyang went still at that, turning the words over — and the look she gave Luo Fanchen grew stranger by the second.
That was not a sentence a sixteen-year-old says.
Every time he opened his mouth, something came out that made you sit back. WHERE did a boy from the hills keep unearthing truths like these?
Privately, the Pontiff revised her ledger: this disciple was not to be handled as a child. He was more grown than half the deacons and elders inside her own Temple.
Bai Yingyue's head was elsewhere entirely — her cheeks were heating fast. It had just registered: her whole passionate defense of him... he'd heard EVERY WORD of it.
Rotten Senior Brother! EAVESDROPPING!
Insufferable!
"Junior Sister — thank you for speaking up for me back there," Luo Fanchen said, smiling.
At that easy, devastating smile, her face went from pink to scarlet.
She balled her little fists and forced her face stern:
"Don't you DARE read into it. I pleaded for you strictly because you're my bargain-bin senior brother — NOT because I hold any particular fondness for you."
"Understood, understood. A Holy Maiden of your station — how could she ever fancy a wild mountain boy like me?" he said, straight-faced.
"Hmph! Good that you know it." She hoisted her chin to full tsundere altitude. "The meat's about to burn — this Holy Maiden has NO more time for you!"
When she'd flounced off, Luo Fanchen asked, "Teacher — what exactly IS an evil soul master?"
"Evil soul masters are, to a man, warped things that delight in slaughter. Their souls take ten thousand shapes."
"But all share one trait: their martial souls feed — on blood, on vitality, on the spirit itself — to grow their own strength."
"And as a rule: the more they kill, the further their minds rot."
A pack of psychiatric cases with combat power, Luo Fanchen summarized inwardly.
Which, on reflection, was genuinely terrifying.
Also — if that lot ever discovered HIS soul drank blood too, heaven forbid they claim him as a fellow patient. A brother in the ward.
He knew his own house: this was the CHAOS ANCESTRAL DRAGON.
Evil soul masters? Back of the line. Don't stand near me.
Or we'll find out very quickly which of us drains whom.
Di Weiyang's tone turned grave. "When your training is done and you leave the mountain — be careful. Common evil soul masters are beneath concern. But should you ever cross one from the BLOOD FIEND SECT, treat it as mortal danger."
"The Blood Fiend Sect?" He blinked. A hive of homicidal lunatics — with ORGANIZATION and DISCIPLINE?
She nodded, and her face was not good.
"Which righteous power ranks first on this continent is a matter of dispute. That the Blood Fiend Sect ranks first among the evil ones is disputed by no one."
"Their Three Blood Fiend Seeds match a Holy Son or Holy Maiden in strength and talent."
"Their Seven Sins Knights each stand at the peak of the Eighth Order — level eighty-nine."
"And the Ten Elders of the Round Table, of legend, all stand past ninety — identities unknown, every one of them cloaked in black, faced in blood-red masks."
Holy hell!
THAT strong?
Absurdly strong — possibly fiercer than any single righteous power on the board.
The fright gave way to something like anger. What did the ENTIRE righteous world do all day — eat rice with both hands?
HOW do you let a colony of maniacs develop to THAT scale?
...Unless the righteous side had a damned MOLE.
Wait.
Watching the Pontiff's face — the look of words weighed and withheld — a genuinely horrible hypothesis surfaced in his mind.
The Ten Elders hide their faces on purpose. Surely... surely none of them are SITTING BOSSES of the righteous powers themselves?
His palms went cold.
Too dangerous, this world. Strength — quickly — or there was no floor under anything. Thank heaven the finest thigh on the continent was standing right here to hold onto.
"Food's ready~!" Bai Yingyue called, serving the golden, crisp-skinned game wrapped in washed green leaves.
She brought the first portion to Di Weiyang — then handed Luo Fanchen his.
Her lashes fluttered. "Teacher and I never eat much. YOU'RE finishing all of it, Senior Brother — I absolutely despise wasted food."
"Mm."
He didn't stand on ceremony — bit straight in. Char-crisped outside, tender in; hot juice burst across his tongue and lit every nerve on the way down.
"Delicious."
He raised a thumb. Yingyue smiled, suddenly bashful, and settled into a crouch nearby, eating in small, extremely ladylike bites.
The Pontiff's red lips parted around portions of surgical elegance.
Deep-night jungle, firelight, beauties, roast meat — Luo Fanchen caught himself feeling something close to contentment. And, unbidden, his thoughts went to Su Jiu'er.
How were his little aunt's — no, his little wife's — wounds mending? How long before her tribulation came down?
He wanted to help. He simply wasn't strong enough yet. The old refrain.
When the meal ended he rose to clear up, and Yingyue pushed him straight back down.
"I'VE got it. You use every minute to consolidate — tomorrow we find your ring early."
"Otherwise you'll sit jammed at apprentice level ten forever, with nowhere up to go."
He didn't play at courtesy. The urgency was real now, and he felt it in his teeth.
These few days had taught him the shape of this world: without strength, dignity existed at the pleasure of the strong — and with poor luck, an evil soul master simply ate you.
Charming women?
Without strength, every technique in the diary was waste paper. With only a face, you didn't win women — you got collected by one, as a toy.
Truth extends exactly as far as your strength reaches.
The night deepened.
The jungle sank to black; only the campfire kept its small circle of light.
Luo Fanchen sat cross-legged, deep in his work.
Bai Yingyue's scorching little figure lay stretched — improbably — along a single thin rope strung between trees; Di Weiyang's flawless form reclined against a great trunk, eyes closed.
"BOOM!"
The detonation came out of nowhere. Both women snapped awake in the same instant — and both pairs of eyes locked, one after the other, onto the source of the sound: Luo Fanchen.
"The aura of a BREAKTHROUGH?" Di Weiyang said, startled.
Yingyue cried out, "IMPOSSIBLE! He's apprentice level TEN — ten vortexes is GREAT CONSUMMATION! Without a soul ring there IS no further breakthrough — that's not talent, that's the LAW!"
Luo Fanchen's eyes had just opened — and his heart jumped.
Two peerless faces hung inches from his own, staring at him. Hard...