Chapter 816 — Qu Ming’s Ambush

CHAPTER 816

Qu Ming’s Ambush

“Drowned?” Shi Feng said. “No. I’ve been eating.”

Qu Ming laughed as if that were the funniest thing he’d heard all week. He stood in the middle of the road with his hands folded in his red-and-gold sleeves, and the sixth Mirror stood on its post a few paces behind his left shoulder. He’d placed himself so the bronze caught all of him. Shi Feng noticed that first.

The other four Azure Sun hunters stood two on each side of him, blocking the road from trunk to trunk. All four were peak Deity Transformation. All four were smiling the same smile as their young lord, a little later than he did.

“Young Master Qu,” Shi Feng said politely. “You’re standing in our road.”

“This young lord is standing in the Emperor’s road,” Qu Ming said. He raised his voice, not to Shi Feng but to the bronze. “And by the Emperor’s own Hunt law, what is hunted belongs to whoever carries it out. You’re carrying a pack. We’d like to carry it out instead.”

“That’s a lot of words for ‘hand it over,’” Shi Feng said.

“Then I’ll use fewer,” Qu Ming said. His smile didn’t move. “Hand it over.”

“You lost to him in the final!” Hou Tieshou shouted, stepping forward. “In front of the whole city! And now you come to rob him?”

“I came to collect,” Qu Ming said lightly. “A contest is a contest. A hunt is a hunt. And the Mirror can see that this young lord is following the law to the letter.”

He turned his head a little, so the bronze had his good side.

“The fox borrows the tiger’s might,” Hou Tieshou growled.

Qu Ming didn’t even look at him.

“Besides,” Qu Ming said, louder, “everyone in Tianjing knows what he is. Look at him. Carrying the pack for his whole banner, like a porter. The princess signed an alchemist. A cook.” He spread his hands for the Mirror, sorrowfully. “And a cook’s place is behind the stove.”

Behind Shi Feng, Yue Shaoan made a small unhappy sound. Jiao Lanyin said nothing. Her bow hand still wouldn’t close all the way, but there was an arrow on the string anyway.

Shi Feng shifted the pack on his shoulder.

He looked at the four hunters across the road. He looked at the dead pines, close-packed on both sides, with dry needles a foot deep between them. He looked at the Mirror. Qu Ming hadn’t chosen this place for the road. He’d chosen it for the stand, and for the fuel.

“I read the law too,” Shi Feng said. He glanced at the dry needles behind his teammates. “You chose the Mirror so everyone could watch you win. You chose these trees to trap us with fire. You’ve given me time to notice both.”

Qu Ming’s smile thinned.

“You know nothing,” Qu Ming said.

He brought his hands out of his sleeves. Both palms were already glowing white-gold.

The Scorching Sun Flame was the Azure Sun Sect’s pride. It drew the heat of the sun itself into a cultivator’s hands and let him throw it, and in Qu Ming’s hands it had won him sixty-fourth on the Tianxing list. He didn’t throw it at Shi Feng.

He threw it to both sides.

Two streams of white fire leapt off his palms and hit the dead pines on the left and right of the road. The old wood didn’t catch. It exploded. Fire ran from trunk to trunk through the dry needles faster than a man could run, round behind the banner, along the road they’d come by, and met itself on the far side with a roar.

In five breaths, the princess’s banner stood in a ring of burning pines sixty paces across.

The only gap was the stretch of road in front of them, and the four Azure Sun hunters stood in it.

“Heaven above!” Hou Tieshou bellowed. A burning needle had landed in his hair. He slapped it out and his eyebrows came with it. “My eyebrows! He burned my eyebrows!”

“The ring’s closing,” Yue Shaoan said in a shaking voice. “Brother Shi, it’s... it’s moving in. It’s not just burning. He’s pushing it.”

He was right. The wall of flame was ten feet high and leaning inward, and the ash under their boots was already too hot to stand on for long. Every breath tasted of smoke.

Qu Ming stood just outside the ring, in the gap, with his hands still glowing. Fire bent away from him like a dog from its master. Not a thread of his robe was singed.

“One last chance, cook,” Qu Ming said, holding the gap open. “Put the pack on the road and walk out through my men. Or keep getting burned until you crush your tokens. The wardens can carry you out without a single core. I don’t need to kill you to win this.”

Outside the Antler Gate, the crowd in front of the sixth Mirror had gone quiet.

“Qu Ming’s ring! He’s actually done it!”

“That’s peak Deity Transformation flame! The alchemist’s only late!”

“Five on four, inside a fire. That’s not a fight, that’s a kitchen.”

“The princess’s banner’s done. They have to drop the pack.”

“…Why’s the cook smiling?”

Shi Feng set the pack down on the road.

“Good,” Qu Ming said, smiling as soon as the pack touched the ground.

“It’s heavy,” Shi Feng said. “And I need both hands.”

He turned his back on Qu Ming and walked to the nearest burning pine. The heat came off it in a solid wall. Hou Tieshou shouted something behind him. Shi Feng didn’t hear what.

He put his bare palm flat against the burning trunk.

“Good,” Shi Feng said quietly. “He’s brought plenty of fuel.”