Chapter 9 — The Second Kind of Bait

CHAPTER 9

The Second Kind of Bait

“I'll count to ten!” Ma Liang shouted. “If you don't come out, we'll smoke you out!”

Shi Feng tightened the strip around his ribs. Four meridians answered his breath. Only four, yet the difference was enough to make his eyes sting with relief.

He didn't have qi. His body was still injured. But his legs no longer trembled when he stood.

At his feet, the Split-Maw Beast was a dry hide stretched over pale bones.

Its vitality didn't restore him all at once. Most of it gathered beneath his sternum, waiting for his body to take it in. Shi Feng could feel the warmth slowly reaching his limbs.

He wanted time to understand it.

The three outside wanted him dead.

He untied the spear's remaining cord and wound it around his torn palm. The makeshift blade had no handle. One careless thrust could slice his own fingers open again.

Then he checked the shallow water beside his boots. There were two loose stones, a patch of mud, and nothing else worth using.

It would have to be enough.

“Brother Ma, are you really counting?” Chai Jin asked.

“Seven!” Ma Liang shouted.

“You missed four,” Zhou Ping said.

“Then go down and count it for him!” Ma Liang snapped.

Shi Feng stopped listening to the numbers. Chai Jin was pulling reeds with both hands, and Zhou Ping kept the crossbow aimed at the opening. The threat was real even if Ma Liang couldn’t count while angry.

“Shut up and gather reeds!” Ma Liang snapped.

Shi Feng crouched beside the entrance. The drain opened beneath a low stone shelf. White flowers grew along its outer edge, close enough to brush his shoulder.

He remembered their teeth.

“My leg's broken,” Shi Feng called. “I can't climb.”

“Then throw your pack out!” Ma Liang replied.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“So we can pull you up!” Ma Liang shouted.

Shi Feng smiled coldly. That lie didn't even deserve another answer.

He tipped loose stones into his pack and pushed it halfway into the daylight. The strap caught on a low root. Then he crawled back into the shadow with the broken spearhead.

“There's blood on it,” Zhou Ping said above.

“He's dying anyway,” Chai Jin replied. “I'll get it.”

A rope dropped past the shelf. Boots followed it.

Chai Jin landed in the shallow water, hooked spear held in one hand. He glanced into the drain and saw the beast's pale skull.

His face changed.

“Brother Ma! The beast—” Chai Jin shouted.

Shi Feng struck the back of Chai Jin's knee with a loose stone. It wasn't enough to break the leg. A Qi Condensation cultivator's body was tougher than an ordinary man's.

But Chai Jin wasn't ready, and the slick floor gave him no footing.

He fell sideways into the white flowers.

The petals closed on his wrist and throat.

“Help!” Chai Jin screamed.

Shi Feng stepped forward and drove the spearhead through his open mouth.

The scream stopped.

It happened in less than two breaths.

Shi Feng pulled the blade free. The flowers moved beneath Chai Jin's body, drawing fresh blood into their pale roots. He pressed his bare palm against Chai Jin's arm and willed the same flow he'd drawn from the beast.

Nothing happened.

The difference was immediate. His chest answered the dead beast without hesitation. Against Chai Jin's body, it stayed quiet.

Shi Feng wasn't disappointed. He wanted to recover his cultivation, not become a man who looked at every passerby as food.

Good, Shi Feng thought. This hunger wasn't asking him to eat people.

He didn't stop to examine the difference. A crossbow creaked above. Shi Feng seized Chai Jin's spear and rolled back into the drain.

The bolt struck the hunter's corpse.

“You bastard!” Zhou Ping shouted.

“You were aiming at me earlier,” Shi Feng replied. “Don't sound so surprised.”

Ma Liang cursed and grabbed the rope.

“Stay up here!” Zhou Ping said. “We can wait!”

“And let him find another way out?” Ma Liang snapped.

Shi Feng heard the rope scrape against stone. He moved to the rear of the drain, where the ceiling sank even lower.

Ma Liang dropped onto the shelf. Qi shone faintly along his knife.

That knife could cut through Shi Feng's thin spear shaft. If they met on open ground, Ma Liang could kill him with one clean strike. Shi Feng wasn't planning to meet him there.

“Young Master Shi,” Ma Liang said, crouching at the entrance, “give me the medicine. I'll let you leave.”

“Come and take it,” Shi Feng replied.

“You think that narrow hole will save you?” Ma Liang asked.

He crawled forward with the knife held beside his face. Shi Feng thrust the hooked spear along the ground.

Ma Liang blocked it easily. The knife cut the shaft, and the spearhead dropped between them.

“Useless!” Ma Liang shouted.

Shi Feng threw the rest of his wound powder into Ma Liang's eyes. The hunter recoiled with a curse. His head struck the low ceiling.

Shi Feng seized the broken hook and pulled it towards him. The curved tip caught Ma Liang's ankle.

He pulled with both hands.

Ma Liang's chin struck the stone floor. His knife clattered into the water. Shi Feng stamped on the wrist reaching for it, then drove his own blade into the back of Ma Liang's neck.

The hunter's qi scattered.

Shi Feng stayed there until the body stopped moving. He couldn't win a fair fight against Ma Liang yet. He won because the drain forced Ma Liang to crawl, and the powder blinded him before he could use his knife.

It was simple enough.

Dead men didn't get to complain about fairness.

“Brother Ma?” Zhou Ping called.

Shi Feng picked up the fallen crossbow bolt.

“He's busy,” Shi Feng replied.

The rope suddenly shook. Zhou Ping was pulling it back up.

Shi Feng pushed Ma Liang's corpse aside and stepped onto the shelf. The remaining hunter stood above with a fresh bolt laid in his crossbow.

Fear showed clearly on Zhou Ping's face.

“Don't move!” Zhou Ping shouted.

Shi Feng threw the bolt at his eyes.

Zhou Ping flinched and fired.

The shot passed above Shi Feng's shoulder. He caught the hanging rope and pulled with all his strength. Zhou Ping was standing on its loose end.

His foot slipped, and he pitched over the broken edge.

Shi Feng stepped aside.

Zhou Ping hit the shelf shoulder-first. Before he could rise, Shi Feng drove the knife Ma Liang dropped into his throat.

Silence returned to the channel.

An hour later, Shi Feng climbed out with two purses, a crossbow and a coil of rope. He took only things he could carry. The hunters' baskets stayed beside the path.

His side throbbed, and his fingers shook from the effort. Winning didn't make the injuries disappear. He sat beneath a willow and breathed slowly until the stored warmth spread through him again.

Four meridians.

Alive.

Shi Feng looked at his bloodstained hands. He didn't regret killing them. They sent him into a beast's mouth and shot at him when he survived.

They made their choice.

He opened the purses. Most of the stones came from Ma Liang. Chai Jin carried only two, along with a small wooden comb and a scrap of dried meat.

Zhou Ping carried spare bolts wrapped in oiled cloth.

Shi Feng checked the crossbow carefully. It could be drawn by hand, so it wasn't a refined artifact. He could use it even without qi.

He took the bolts and left the comb.

“You three didn't even leave a decent spear,” Shi Feng muttered.

His old clan instructors would certainly scold his performance. Bad footing, exposed ribs, and too much force wasted on every movement. Fortunately, none of the instructors were here to charge him for the lesson.

He got to his feet and tested his injured ankle. It hurt, but it held his weight. The hunting hut on Meng Shou's map was less than two li away.

That became his next goal.

Now he needed to find out exactly what his body could do. From the nearby reeds came a sharp squeak. A marsh rat dragged a strip of meat out of Chai Jin's abandoned basket.

Shi Feng picked up the crossbow.

“You came at the right time,” Shi Feng said.