Chapter 338 — What the Serpent Followed

CHAPTER 338

What the Serpent Followed

Dawn found Shi Feng at the stone shelf with blood to the elbow and a very tired face.

He had washed in the stream and then dirtied himself again on purpose. A handful of cold ash from Old Soot's basket had gone over his left sleeve, and a smear of pool mud over the cloth beneath. A toad that ate iron smelled like nothing a serpent knew. He had checked.

The three camps were stirring. Martial Palace was already half-dressed for the morning's hunt, spears stacked and a fire lit. The Valley girls stood in a loose group around Ling Qingzhu, tying their sashes.

Su Wanning saw him first.

“Shi Feng!” Su Wanning cried. “You're bleeding!”

Everyone turned. Shi Feng stopped in the middle of the shelf and swayed from exhaustion. That part of his appearance needed no pretence.

“The serpent is dead,” Shi Feng said.

“What?” Yuan Kuang said, coming out of his tent with one boot on.

Shi Feng touched the ring on his finger. A heavy, wet shape came out of nowhere and landed on the stone with a boom that shook the camp rope. Sixty feet of jade scale unrolled across the shelf, its cracked hood spread flat, its yellow eyes dull as old coins.

Next to it, in a bundle of lotus leaves, Shi Feng set down the Ninefold Lotus. Nine pale petals, one above another, glowing faintly in the early light.

Nobody spoke.

“That's the guardian,” a Valley girl whispered.

“It's dead.”

“He killed it alone?”

“In the dark? With that ankle?”

“Impossible. It's Golden Core-grade!”

“…”

“Impossible!” Yuan Kuang shouted, finding his voice. “You didn't have a witness! The truce says two witnesses to the killing blow!”

“Zhu Liu has the receipts for every strike I made yesterday,” Shi Feng said. “And you have your own men's count of what yours made. The serpent bled all day. Anyone can read how it died.”

“That’s not a witnessed blow!” Yuan Kuang protested.

“The serpent’s here,” Shi Feng said. “Put your complaint before the hearing if you think your men earned the kill.”

Yuan Kuang spluttered. Ling Qingzhu stepped forward from the Valley group. Her gaze went over Shi Feng's arm, the torn sleeve, the grey face, and her voice was very even.

“Your arm,” Ling Qingzhu said.

“It’s a graze,” Shi Feng replied, keeping the sleeve close to his body.

“What happened in the den?” Ling Qingzhu asked, still looking at the blood.

Shi Feng looked at her, then at the shelf, then at the wall of faces. He had spent half the night deciding how to say the next sentence. In the end he said it plainly, because plain was the only way that people believed.

“Martial Palace got there before me,” Shi Feng said. “Six of them, in crimson, with a sack. They took her eggs.”

“What?” Su Wanning gasped.

“I came in as they were leaving,” Shi Feng continued. “The mother woke up. She went for me, because I was the one standing there.” He looked down at the Sword hanging from his back. “I couldn't stop them. I could only stop her.”

“Liar!” Yuan Kuang roared. “We never left camp! Every one of my men was asleep!”

“Ask your men,” Shi Feng said, letting the accusation stand.

“I will!” Yuan Kuang snapped.

“Do,” Shi Feng said. “Ask whose belt is missing a token.”

Yuan Kuang's hand flew to his belt. The hook was empty. His face went through three colours in one breath, and the Martial Palace disciples at his back began to mutter and stare at each other.

“It's gone,” a disciple whispered. “Brother Yuan's token is gone!”

“Someone stole it!”

“Stole it for the den!”

“What was it doing at the den?”

“Covering his ears to steal the bell,” a Valley girl muttered. “Brother Yuan was asleep, was he?”

“…”

From somewhere far to the north, beyond the ridge, came a sound.

It began as a hum under the ground. The pebbles on the shelf started to dance. Then the hum grew into a bellow, long and low, until the sound shook the shelf, and every bird in the valley rose out of the trees at once.

“What was that?” Su Wanning whispered.

“The male,” Ling Qingzhu said, without turning her head. “It's come home.”

Shi Feng didn't move. He had not planned the hour. He had only hoped for it.

Something huge came over the north ridge. It was longer than the dead female, darker, its jade scales streaked with black, and it kept its broad hood fully spread. It slid down the slope in great loops that crushed the ferns flat. It did not look at the Valley's camp. It did not look at the dead female either, although Shi Feng saw its head flick toward the body once and its eyes go terrible.

Its tongue tested the air, following the cold, sour scent of crimson lacquer and warm qi. Yuan Kuang’s token had left that smell in the empty den. The same scent led toward the Martial Palace camp on the right.

“It's coming this way!” a Martial Palace disciple screamed.

“Brother Yuan, the token, it's tracking the token!”

“Run!”

“Formation!” Yuan Kuang yelled. “Formation, fools! Hold the...”

The male serpent hit the Martial Palace camp like a landslide.

Tents flew. The fist flag snapped in half. Spears cartwheeled through the air, and seven grown cultivators scattered across the shelf like startled hens. A disciple dived into the stream. Another climbed a pine. The serpent plunged its head into Yuan Kuang's tent, tossed the wine jar aside and came up with the red belt in its jaws.

“My belt!” Yuan Kuang cried.

“Run, Brother Yuan!”

He ran. Halfway across the rope, Yuan Kuang turned, still missing one boot.

“Shi Feng! Just you wait!” Yuan Kuang shouted, terrified and furious.

“I'm waiting,” Shi Feng said, from where he stood.

Nobody heard him. The male serpent swung its head round, snapped the belt in two and chased the Martial Palace team down the road to the town in a cloud of dust and swearing.

The shelf was suddenly very quiet. The Valley girls stood motionless, hands over their mouths.

Shi Feng touched his ring, and sixty feet of dead guardian vanished from the stone. He bent, lifted the lotus bundle in his right arm and walked toward the path to the town. Nobody tried to stop him. They were still stunned that he could put the whole guardian back into his ring.

Then something knocked.

It was small and soft, from the inside of his left sleeve. Tap. Tap. Shi Feng did not break stride.

Behind him, he heard Bai Chenxi stop breathing.