Chapter 28 28

Chapter 28 28


They left the compound at midday.

Shen was secured in his own command room, the documents divided between Mei and Xian Rui's packs, the compound's operatives moving uncertainly in the yard below as they came down the ridge. Without orders, without command, they were just men standing in a cold mountain compound with no direction.

Nobody followed.

The path south felt different going back. Lighter somehow. The mountains still cold, the terrain still hard, but the weight that had been sitting on the journey north was gone. Replaced by something more straightforward.

They moved well together. Three days of traveling had settled them into a rhythm — Mei on point, reading terrain, Nuwa setting pace in the middle, him watching the rear with one working arm and the system quiet for the first time in days.

No alerts. No hostile signatures. Nothing following.

Just mountain path and cold air and the Black Spine range falling behind them.

"How is it?" Nuwa asked without looking back.

"Manageable."

"I didn't ask if it was manageable. I asked how it is."

"It hurts."

"Good. That means you'll be careful with it." She kept walking. "Tell me if it gets worse."

Mei glanced back from the front. Said nothing. Kept moving.

They made good distance the first day, pushing through the canyon where they'd fought the intercept team — the seven operatives gone, moved by someone, the ground scuffed and disturbed — and camping on the far side as the light dropped.

Fire this time. No one following. No reason not to.

Nuwa cooked something from her pack over it that was genuinely hot and tasted like exactly what three people needed after three days in the mountains. He didn't ask what was in it. She didn't offer.

They ate in easy silence.

"Xiao Miyao needs the documents within a week," he said. "Before the sect's outer network realises Shen is down and starts moving assets."

"Four days back to Cloudspire," Mei said. "Then how long to Fangling City?"

"Two more."

"Six total." She looked at him across the fire. "The documents need to move faster than us."

He'd been thinking the same thing. "The Council messenger service. There's a relay post two days south. From there a sealed document reaches Fangling City in three days."

"You know the relay post system?" Nuwa asked.

"Xiao Miyao mentioned it." He paused. "She mentioned a lot of things."

Nuwa looked at him for a moment. Then at the fire. "She sounds thorough."

"She is."

"Good." She poured water from a skin into a small pot and set it to heat. "The people connected to you should be thorough. It's safer."

Mei made a sound that might have been agreement.

He looked at both of them. The fire between them. The mountain dark around the edges of it.

"I need to say something," he said.

Both women looked at him.

"The sect came for you because of me. Both of you." He held Mei's gaze first. Then Nuwa's. "That's not going to change. Shen is down but the outer network is still active. There are bought councillors still sitting on benches. There are operatives across multiple cities who know my face and know yours." He paused. "Anyone connected to me carries a target."

The fire moved between them.

"Is that a warning?" Mei asked.

"It's a fact."

"I know the fact," she said. "I've known it since the bamboo forest." She met his eyes steadily. "What's the question underneath it?"

He looked at her. Then at Nuwa.

"Whether you'd rather I walked away," he said. "Both of you."

The mountain was very quiet around them.

Nuwa poured hot water into a cup and wrapped both hands around it. "I've been a physician for fourteen years," she said. "I've worked in outbreak zones, conflict areas, places where the supply routes were controlled by people exactly like Lord Shen." She looked at the fire. "I've always been a target of one kind or another. The only thing that's changed is now I know who's shooting and why." She looked up at him. "That's actually an improvement."

He looked at Mei.

She tilted her head slightly. "You ran fourteen hours on a wounded shoulder to get to my training ground." A pause. "And then ran from my training ground to Cloudspire the same night." She picked up her tea. "If you walked away I'd follow you and tell you that you're an idiot."

He looked at both of them.

Something moved in his chest that had nothing to do with the shoulder wound.

"Alright," he said.

"Good," Nuwa said. "Now sleep. Your colour is still wrong and you need the rest."

He lay back and looked at the mountain sky. More stars here than anywhere he'd ever seen before. The old world or the new one.

The system opened softly.

\[Update — Shadow Sect outer network: destabilised. Estimated full collapse without central command: three to four weeks. Council contacts being notified via Xiao Miyao's network.\]

\[Xiao Miyao message received: Documents arrived via relay. All bought votes identified. Removal proceedings initiated. She says — and the system notes this is a direct quote — "You could have warned me the documents were coming. I almost used the package as a weapon before I recognised the seal."\]

\[She also says: come back and finish the game.\]

He read it twice and felt something warm settle in despite the cold.

\[Quest update — Main mission: 97 remaining. Current bonds: three. System observation: you are not approaching this the way the God of Depravity intended.\]

\[Second system observation: the God of Depravity has stopped complaining about it.\]

He closed the system and listened to the fire settle into embers and Nuwa's breathing even into sleep and somewhere on the other side of the fire Mei moving through a short quiet sword form she did every night before lying down, the blade barely catching the last of the firelight.

Ninety-seven left.

A long road. More women, more cities, more of the world opening up ahead of him.

But right now there was a mountain sky full of stars and two people who had walked into the hardest part of his story without being asked to and come out the other side still standing.

He closed his eyes.

Slept well.