Unseen Cultivator

Deng Sheng was eating at the Happy Boar Tavern, a low-class place frequented mostly by unmarried men. It was the sort of establishment that served overly fatty and heavily spiced food and cheap, watered-down ale while allowing the patrons to drown the repetition of their daily labors beneath the veil of alcohol. Chen Chao was, even entering middle age, far too pretty to frequent the common room of such a place, but she carried a missive to the chief cook and received a promise that a messenger would be sent to alert her, waiting nearby in a much more suitable enclosed venue, if Deng Sheng left the tavern early. It was an imperfect mechanism at best, and one that brought the risk of drawing the murderer's attention to the maid should things go badly, but it was the best they could arrange quickly and ought to suffice in the moment.

Night fell swiftly amid the shadows of the city's many buildings. Unlike the space above the sect, kept clear to preserve the sight of the stars, clouds gathered above the city, thickened by smoke from the many fires used to cook in thousands of homes. With this barrier in place, darkness swiftly cloaked everything not held close to the light of lamp or lantern.

Carefully, Liao discarded his robe and revealed the black trousers and shirt he'd concealed beneath them. Using a mixture formed from charcoal ash and ground tree bark he was able to swiftly paint his face in a coal-black coating. He further applied the mix to his hands, not trusting to gloves for this task, while waiting in the back of a nearby pig pen. The sows, though normally quite vicious in the presence of strangers, were easily intimidated by a slight release of qi. This allowed him to prepare unmolested in a place no one was inclined to search for a human presence.

Tying the leftover clothes together, he wrapped them about his bow and, using an arrow shoved into a roofing beam, left them stuck to the roof of a neighboring house under the eaves. Thereafter he prioritized speed. Deng Sheng seemed likely to remain a while in the tavern, he had the manner of one who regularly nursed his drinks through long evenings, but Liao was not inclined to waste time.

He scrambled up the sides of an adjacent house, easily surmounting the rough rammed earth wall without needing to use his hands. Remaining in motion during a window of time when only a cat and a pigeon, each paying far more attention to each other than any human activity, observed, he pushed qi through his limbs and vaulted through the air across the gap between buildings using a quick invocation of the Stellar Flash Steps.

Landing on roofing tiles slick with evening condensation was a new experience, one not quite matching any encounter with natural surfaces, and Liao spun, skidded, and ultimately slumped to his knees in order to come to a stop while still on the narrow rooftop. He dropped prone immediately following this, clinging to the dark surface and shifting his head back and forth to check if anyone had seen. It made for a long, tense, wait in the darkness.

There were spikes at the edge of the roof, carved out of stout wood and driven into the corners and across the central beam. A measure intended to block entry by ordinary thieves. Liao had no idea if such protections were common, but such a simple obstacle was no barrier at all even to one of his modest cultivation. He slithered across the tiles and around the obstructions, keeping to his belly and using the darkness to obscure the shadow cast by his body. With careful motion, the eye could be fooled, and the mind would resolve an image it expected rather than the truth. Sayaana had taught him that trick, useful indeed for evading demons at a distance by blending into the trees and throwing off the profile of a resting eagle.

Normally, the little loft would be accessed from below through the floor via a hatch and ladder mechanism. Thankfully, there was also a large paper screen window on the eastern end. Rather than cut through this screen and reveal his passage, Liao used the slender blade of his dagger to pry out the wooden pegs holding the barrier in place and peel it to the side.

A simple task, performed in daylight and with feet clasping a stout ladder. A much more challenging feat in darkness clinging to the eaves like a monkey. Yet it was not hard, not with the strength he now possessed, and reminded him of climbing trees to gather hidden bird eggs or the fruits of shrubs that clung to steep slopes. His current perch, designed to hold up a whole building, was quite a bit more stable than lengthy bamboo poles. As for the darkness, it took only a small quantity of qi to reinforce his eyes and banish the dim back to almost daylight brightness. It cost qi to grant his eyes the same strength under torchlight as the midday sun, but he had more than enough to spare in the moment.

Once done, he slipped inside. No sharp cut that could betray the intrusion left behind.

The little loft had no lights of its own, but the gloom presented no real difficulty to Liao's enhanced vision. Truthfully, there was little enough to see regardless. A couch, blankets, a lap desk with a small lamp attached, a small portable stove to drive back the cold and heat water, and a pair of small storage chests comprised the entirety of the room's limited furnishings. It reminded him of the dormitory space he'd occupied as a recruit.

Few items existed to personalize this chamber, save for a large portrait that hung on the wall opposite the window. It depicted a stunningly beautiful young cultivator woman dressed in dark festival attire rather than the more common everyday whites. The heart-shaped face framed by braided tresses had been well-captured by the artists, preserving the enticing allure of Aning Suying in fine oils.

Though the subject possessed the unearthly beauty of a woman truly blessed with natural allure combined with the refined perfection provided by cultivation, the painting could not properly match the potency of its principal. It was not the proper work of a master, something immediately noticeable from the way everything beyond the face possessed flat layering, incomplete. It was also deeply marred by a tear in the canvas at the upper right. This had been repaired and partly hidden by the frame, but it rendered the picture wholly unsuitable for sale. Further marks, visible around the edges made it clear that it had not been sold, but instead recovered from a pile of discards.

This did much to explain how a servant of the dagger hall who lived alone came to possess such a piece at all. The sect paid the gray-robed servants well, in the reckoning of mortal incomes, but not to the point where they could afford a portrait from the brush of a ranking cultivator. Even damaged and incomplete as it was, the painting was still surely more valuable than all of Deng Sheng's other possessions combined.

Such an extravagant item, with its obviously great sentimental value, seemed a likely means used to hide the stolen weapon. Liao crossed the little room in swift steps and placed his hand next to the image. Extending his qi, he searched along the wall behind the frame, daring to hope that matters would be concluded with such swift simplicity.

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This was not a hope fulfilled, but the painting did hide a secret. Qi revealed a hidden compartment, carved out of the wall behind the portrait. Carefully removing the frame and scraping away the earth with his dagger, Liao discovered eight pieces of jewelry concealed within the small void. Seven were ordinary, but one was obviously of cultivator make, a silver necklace embedded with tiny sapphires that evidenced inhumanly fine spiral structures wound through the metal links. It also, in a moment of fortuitous recognition, happened to be an exactly match for the necklace Aning Suying was wearing in the portrait.

Not evidence of anything criminal on its own, of course. Suying had died in honorable defense of the sect, struck down by the blows of the Fuming Shade. The necklace, though very fine, was not ostentatious by sect standards, nor did it possess any qi properties of its own. It was entirely possible that it had been a bequest, passed to a favored servant following death. Liao had made similar arrangements to grant Chen Chao various boots, belts, and gloves should he meet an unexpected end. That the former servant kept the necklace hidden away rather than selling it to support himself or using it as a wedding gift spoke to the dangerous obsession that made Liao sure Deng Sheng was the killer. It was all the evidence needed, in Liao's determination, to confirm this man had been in love with the beautiful cultivator and failed to properly adjust to life following her death.

The other seven pieces were far simpler. Composed of either gold-shaded bronze alloys or silver, they were set with semi-previous stones as rings, necklaces, and hairpins. Liao could feel the shaped qi of their existence, all had been made by cultivators, but none possessed any real power. They were ordinary things, practice pieces from the shaping pavilion sold within the sect and suited as gifts to mortal women.

Women such as the seven dead servants. It seemed that Deng Sheng enjoyed collecting trophies.

Liao bent down as a wave of hideous disgust washed over him. There was something about that, something he could not name, that left him bereft. It crashed against his dao, striking against the core of who he had made himself to be.

He had killed many animals in his life, but always for resources. Meat, hides, horn, even feathers, all things needed to build lives for others. For survival, for production, never killing for its own sake. That was wrong, a violation of the Celestial Mother's core teachings, and action against the fundamental dao graven upon humanity. Always, when he hunted an animal, he stripped and carved the meat to give away. That he could not consume it himself was no reason to allow it to go to waste.

To kill an animal simply for the sport of it was cruel, uncouth, the act of a barbarous soul. To do such a thing with a person, and to keep mementos as a reminder, was obscene.

Liao wanted to gather up the jewels at once, and then melt them down. Better to cleanse them of stained qi by restoring them to their origin state than retain them like this. Let something new be reborn from the tragedy.

That, he recognized with great regret, would have to wait. He took the jewelry and placed it in a small bag for safety, strapped to his waist. The pieces convinced him that Deng Sheng was the murderer, absolutely. Perhaps they were not sufficient proof to convince the magistrate, but he was, as a member of the Celestial Origin Sect, bound by different laws. "These should convince the grand elders," he murmured, barely audible.

"Probably," Sayaana's voice rumbled through his skull. The remnant soul was clearly holding back her own expression of terribly fury. "But it's still better to find the knife."

This was doubtless true. A quick check revealed the blade was not within either of the chests. Bolted shut but not locked, they were made to hold the clothes and tools they contained, not to secure anything secret. There was quite the collection of short blades within one, but nothing imbued with burning qi.

Knowing that any number of hidden places were possible in the room such as this, Liao sat down in the middle of floor rather than searching further. Tucking his legs beneath him in meditative posture, he closed his eyes, quieted his mind, and extended his senses. The second search relied not upon eyes or ears, but qi alone.

Fire, that the essential factor. Fire adjoined to metal. Everything else could be ignored, systematically filtered out as he expanded his presence in the world of essence flows.

Liao pushed aside the qi of the couple sleeping below, the sparks of life attributable to rats under the floorboards, and the buzzing energy belonging to a nest of wasps lodged beneath a loose ceiling tile. The slowly-releasing qi of earth and wood from the house itself were discarded next, the various shaped emanations of the house and its multitude of everyday items lacking the necessary burst of concentrated power. The qi ambient within the air, the smoke, and the ever-present stellar light, was next. This left him floating in a near void, high above a mass of metallic qi emanating from deep stones far below the thick soil of the plains.

Points of similar energy floated nearby. Knives, candleholders, nails, cooking pots, and other bits and pieces cast in iron or bronze. Most held not the least touch of burning qi, having been beyond the touch of the furnace since their casting. A few were otherwise: a firepit poker, a lantern, even a metal flint striker, but there were known things Liao had encountered many times. They were easily recognized and ignored. The sparks attached to each one were far too weak.

His search moved through earthen walls, wooden beams, and ceramic roofing tiles, but found nothing. There were no hidden gaps in the floor, the couch, or carved out amid the kitchen shelving below. This realization brought up a surge of disappointment that threatened to shatter his meditation, but after a moment of deep breathing Liao mastered it and pushed onward. A murderer did not avoid notice for over a decade by hiding his blade in an obvious place. Whatever concealed it would be cunningly done, surely.

Sensory space expanded, pushed to the limited of his capability. Refined by long hours in the wilderness, where metals were rare, he erased out everything else to focus on the sharp and rusty tang of iron. Memory served to supply that the killing blade had been steel, not bronze or some exotic cultivator-forged alloy. Though boundaries blurred and images swam in his senses, this singular focus on one type of qi allowed his discernment to reach much further. Ambient stellar qi was all but devoid of the mark of iron, making the process possible.

The dagger was not hidden beneath the house floor, nor buried in the courtyard like a dog's hidden bones. Nor did the privy contain it, though someone had left a set of fire-scarred keys beneath the eaves of that particular structure. A mystery doubtless of interest to someone, but not the answer he sought this night. He did not find his target lodged in the rock lining of the compound's well either.

Pushed to the very edge of all he could possible sense, Liao began to fear that Deng Sheng had been smart enough to store the blade far from his residence in some place with no ties to his name. He almost gave up, but the feel of the silver tied to his belt accused him, that lash of loss drove him to conduct one final push.

A man who kept trophies of his kills would not discard his weapon so casually. Surely he would want to know it was nearby at all times. It must be kept close.

Something sparked at the very limit of his perception. Not outward. Down.

A hint of power lodged far below.

Carefully, seeking to follow that feeling, Liao bent backwards until his skull was flush with the floor. The little change, a tiny physical distance but a grand resonance of qi, allowed him to feel it properly. A sharp sensation, burning and smoldering, but surrounded and muffled but the distinctive qi of water.

Rolling over, he moved back to the window and swiftly repaired it to erase his impact on the way out.

Dropping to the ground from the second storey in a single easy motion, Liao pushed a rag across his face and returned to grab his robes. At no point during these simple chores did the contact skittering along his qi sense lapse. He could feel the dagger now, strapped to a pipe in the system of storm drains that ran beneath the city. Seven steps across the nearest street and he stood directly above the blade, though, as it lay two meters below the surface of the earth, he remained briefly unsure as to how to reach it.

Contemplation of that puzzle ceased when a shrill whistle split the night air.