Of Hunters and Immortals

The wind coming off the harbour had a wet, heavy chill that clung to the bones. Perched atop the roof of a storehouse a few hundred meters from the warehouse containing Liang Shen, Jiang shivered at the memory of the freezing bay water.

The warehouse the Broker had named was a squat, sprawling building of dark, damp timber, its wide doors thrown open to the morning bustle. Men – dockhands, sailors, and others whose purpose was less clear – moved in and out in a steady, unceasing flow, hauling crates and shouting orders that were snatched away by the wind.

Beside him, Lin pulled her thin cloak tighter, her knuckles white where she gripped the fabric.

"This was a mistake," she muttered, for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes. Jiang ignored her. "A massive, silver-plated, cultivator-sized mistake. I should be halfway across the city right now, lifting breakfast from a baker's cart, not freezing my arse off waiting for you to get us both killed."

Jiang didn't answer. He was too focused on the scene below, his eyes scanning every figure that passed through the warehouse doors. The Broker had given him a name and a location, but not an actual description of his target. For all he knew, Liang Shen was the portly man directing the haulers, the wiry one checking a manifest, or any one of the dozen others who moved with an air of authority. It was an impossible task.

"I mean, what's the plan here?" Lin pressed on, her voice a low, agitated hiss. "We sit up here until one of them holds up a sign that says 'Hello, I'm the scumbag slaver you're looking for'? Because I've got things to do. Or, you know, things I'd rather be doing. Like not being here."

Jiang finally turned to her, interrupting her stream of complaints. "You're the one who's supposed to be guiding me here. Don't suppose you know what he looks like?"

It was a long shot, but to be honest, Jiang had mostly just asked to stop the complaints for a minute.

Lin stared at him, her mouth agape with disbelief. "Do I—? No! Of course I don't know what he looks like! Why in the seven hells would I know what a slaver looks like?" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Newsflash, Jiang: street rats and slavers don't exactly run in the same circles. Unless we're the ones being sold. We stay away from people like that. It's rule number one of not ending up in a cage."

Well, he couldn't argue with that logic. He turned back to the warehouse, rather pointlessly keeping track of everyone entering and exiting. It wasn't the first time his impatience had gotten him into an easily avoidable situation, but in fairness, when he'd asked for a name from the Broker, he'd sort of assumed it would come with a description.

Actually… why hadn't it come with a description? Was it that the price they'd agreed on didn't include one, or did the Broker not have a description of the man at all? It was possible – Liang Shen would no doubt have a vested interest in remaining discreet, but surely if the Broker knew his name and where he worked, it would be possible to get a look at the man.

Jiang scowled to himself at the thought of the Broker deliberately withholding critical information purely to incentivise spending more money on the full information packet. He'd been so focused on getting a lead, any lead, that he hadn't thought to specify the terms. He'd let his impatience get the better of him, and the Broker, ever the opportunist, had sold him a half-useless key for the price of a whole one. A more intelligent man would have anticipated this. A more patient man would have asked the right questions.

But Jiang was here now. He'd paid sixty silver for this name. He wasn't about to walk away just because the task was more challenging than he'd thought. Stubbornness, he was learning, was one of his more expensive habits.

"So what now?" Lin's voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and grating. She'd clearly grown tired of waiting for him to come up with a solution. "Got a brilliant plan B, or are we just going to sit up here and enjoy the view until we freeze to death?"

Jiang just grunted, his eyes still fixed on the warehouse entrance. He didn't have a plan B. His entire strategy had been 'find Liang Shen.' He hadn't accounted for the man being inconveniently anonymous, especially after paying such an exorbitant sum for that exact information.

"Oh, I know," Lin said brightly, tone soaked in sarcasm. "Why don't you just go down there and start asking people? 'Excuse me, sir, are you by any chance a slaver?' I'm sure that'll go over great."

Jiang rolled his eyes but didn't respond. Her mockery slid past him – mostly – but the underlying idea snagged something in his mind. Liang Shen didn't operate alone. Jiang might have no idea what he looked like, but presumably, slavers needed runners, enforcers, errand boys, and the like. The trick would be identifying those people – while he could see everyone who entered the warehouse, it was a fair guess that not all of them were working for Liang Shen.

The parchment the Broker had given him had confirmed that the warehouse Liang Shen worked out of was used by many different people - which, now that he thought about it, the information was possibly included to make sure Jiang didn't try burning down the whole building or something. Either way, he needed some way to flush out the people he was looking for, send them scurrying out into the open where he could track them.

Sort of like hunting rabbits, now that he thought about it.

He let the thought sit for a moment, turning it over while his gaze tracked another cluster of workers passing in and out of the warehouse. His Qi stirred restlessly beneath his skin, still strange and new from the breakthrough, like an animal pacing in a too-small cage. Almost without thinking, he began to cycle it through the pattern of his basic stealth technique.

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But something about it felt… off.

Not wrong exactly, just unfamiliar. The technique itself hadn't changed, but now that he was paying attention, it felt stiff. Too rigid. Like putting on a shirt that didn't quite fit anymore. The motions came easily, yes, but they didn't settle the way they used to. His Qi didn't want to move like this anymore.

He stilled, frowning slightly. Then, carefully, he unspooled the technique – let it fall apart – and began again. But this time, he didn't follow the pattern he'd come up with, but simply… let his Qi shift and curl the way it wanted to, let it flow around him in uneven, almost lazy currents. It felt… better, somehow. More right.

More natural.

It was harder to hold this way – more delicate, more slippery – but as it settled, the world seemed to grow a little quieter. The sounds of the dock dulled, and the wind stopped biting quite so sharply at his skin.

Behind him, Lin made a strange sound – half-startled, half-suspicious.

"What… what are you doing?" she asked. Her voice was low, uncertain.

Jiang turned his head slightly, brows raised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean—" She hesitated. "I don't know. That's the problem. You didn't move. But for a second it was like you weren't there. Not really. You just… sort of faded. Like my eyes stopped knowing where to look."

Jiang blinked. That was… new. And significantly more of an effect than his technique had ever had before. While it was a little overcast, it was still the middle of the day, and Lin was sitting not five feet from him. It also begged the question: if his stealth had improved that much, what about his reinforcement?

Curious, he closed his eyes again, ignoring Lin's suspicious stare. He drew on his Qi, pushing a current of it toward his forearm, following the clumsy pattern he'd developed along the journey to Qinghe. Honestly, it mostly amounted to flooding the area with as much energy as he could, loosely following his meridians as best he could.

But this time, the moment the Qi began to move, he felt it again – a deep, instinctual sense of wrongness.

He let his conscious effort fall away, allowing the instinct to guide him. He didn't push the Qi; he nudged it, letting it find its own, more natural channels. The energy shifted, condensing, the flow smoothing out from a chaotic flood into a tight, efficient river. He felt it settle into the muscles of his arm, not as a blunt force, but as a thrumming, coiled strength, woven into the very fibres of his being. It was stronger than before, yet he was using half the Qi.

The deeper he focused, the more the inefficiencies became clear. It felt like someone was standing over his shoulder, pointing out every mistake without a word. Not there. The angle is wrong. You're wasting power.

A slow smile spread across Jiang's face. This was… perfect. With this, he didn't need a teacher. He didn't need scrolls full of metaphors he couldn't understand. He could learn on his own, guided by this new, innate sense of correctness.

He could understand why the Sects were willing to kill for this kind of power. If even he was benefiting this much, how much would someone like Zhang Shuren benefit?

Jiang let his focus slip, opening his eyes once more. If nothing else, it was good to confirm that the rewards of this path were worth the risks. In the long term, it would help him cut through anything standing between him and his family.

In the short term…

"You know," he said aloud, "I think you had the right idea."

"…About what?" Lin asked suspiciously.

"The direct approach," Jiang said, his gaze fixed on the warehouse below. "I'm going to go and start asking people what they know."

— — —

Jiang didn't startle when the hand landed on his shoulder, despite the fact that the grip was tight enough to make a normal boy wince.

Finally. He was beginning to think no one was going to take the bait.

He didn't resist as the owner of the hand shoved him up against the wall either, though he made sure that his expression was suitably afraid.

"You've been causing trouble, brat," the man holding him against the wall snarled without preamble. He was built like a dockside crane, all thick muscle and weathered skin. Two others flanked him, their expressions equally unfriendly, effectively boxing Jiang in against the cold stone wall of a warehouse.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jiang said, letting a tremor of fear enter his voice. He sagged slightly, playing the part of a cornered, terrified youth.

The man's lips twisted into a sneer. "Don't play dumb. You've spent the last hour asking every loafer and fishwife on this pier about Liang Shen. That name is not for a snot-nosed brat like you to be speaking." He tightened his grip, leaning in close. "So you're going to come with us. Someone is very interested in having a word."

Jiang let out a whimper and nodded frantically. "O-okay," he stammered, lowering his gaze.

The man grunted, releasing his shoulder just enough to jerk him forward by the collar. "Good. You're smarter than you look."

Jiang stumbled a step, then made his move.

He dropped low, ducking under the man's arm in a smooth, sudden motion. His Qi surged through his legs – not enough for his movements to be noticeably unnatural, but enough to give him a burst of acceleration. He shot forward, slipping between the other two thugs like water through a crack. One made a grab for him but caught nothing but air.

"Shit! Get him!"

Boots pounded the stones behind him as Jiang darted down the narrow lane, dodging around crates and barrels with impossible ease. His Qi-enhanced footfalls were light, quiet, and fast—too fast for anyone his size to manage without months of training… or something more.

He didn't look back.

A sharp turn. Another. He ducked between two buildings and then vaulted clean over a waist-high cart, using it to propel himself up toward a sloping roof. One foot struck the wall, then the other, and with a twist and a pull, he was up and over the edge in a single smooth movement.

Gods, he already loved his new reinforcement technique. It was so much easier and smoother than before, and it felt so natural that he barely even noticed he was using it.

A few tiles shifted under his landing, but he was already moving again, crouched low as he crept along the roofline. Below, the shouts faded and split in different directions. The thugs were still chasing, but not where they needed to be.

He dropped beside Lin with a soft thump. She was already waiting, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

"You," she said flatly, "are the dumbest genius I've ever met."

Jiang smirked, brushing dust from his hands. "Took them long enough."

"I'm serious," she hissed, voice low. "What if they'd dragged you off? What if you hadn't escaped?"

"Then I'd improvise."

She stared at him like she wanted to slap him. "Whatever. And since when can you climb like that? That jump was—" she made a vague, frustrated gesture with her hands, "—not normal."

"Cultivator, remember?" Jiang said mildly.

Lin made a face. "Yeah, yeah. Rub it in, why don't you?"

They fell into silence, eyes on the alley below. The thugs had regrouped, their expressions a mix of anger and confusion as they stared at the empty alley. After a moment of heated discussion, the leader barked an order. Two of them started checking the nearby doorways while the leader himself turned and strode purposefully back towards Liang Shen's warehouse.

Leading him right to his target.

A grim, humourless smile touched Jiang's lips. "There he is," he said quietly, his voice a low thrum of satisfaction. "Now we just have to follow him."