Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 158: Bird Spy

Luding was worried. The twin pillars of fire in the east, behind him, might have originated from his camp—the camp where his greatest allies, the Duskreavers and the Swamplings, stored their food, belongings, slaves, and loot. And it was afire.

He had left his most trusted troops to guard it. He turned with his army and moved towards it.

Without his any signal, the bulk of his demonic creatures turned and followed him. They lacked discipline and moved like a shoal of fish—

* * * * *

Wuyi awoke in the pavilion infirmary, his head resting on a soft pillow, neatly laid out on a white blanket atop fine silk linen sheets. The sun shone through the narrow window above his head, casting a shaft of light on Baijian, who was snoring in the opposite bed. A young boy faced the wall in the next bed, and an older man with his head completely wrapped in linen lay opposite him.

He lay still for a moment, oddly content, then it all rushed back to him. He shook his head, cursed this whole damn world, spoke loudly ," curse the heavens." sat up, and placed his feet on the floor.

His movement caused the duty attendant in the pavilion to look up. He hadn't noticed her before. She smiled. It was Liwei.

She seemed a bit nervous.

"Aren't you afraid to be alone with me?" he teased.

He watched her nervousness fade and her composure return. It was palpable, like armor. "No," she answered, "I am not afraid of you. Should I be?"

She stood up. "Besides, Baijian has only just fallen asleep, and old Hui—who is hurt badly—sleeps very lightly. I trust you will not disturb them."

Wuyi smiled at the word 'trust'. Trusting him was the biggest mistake anyone could make. And trusting anyone was the biggest mistake he could make himself.

He felt a craving—not his own but that of the statue of light: it yearned to devour her, just as his statues of shadow and valor yearned to devour the demonic beings.

He leaned towards her—she smelled of starflower oil and incense, and there was a specific scent that perhaps only he could detect. As vampires smell blood, he smelled her bloodline—and had to fight the urge to touch her.

She misunderstood his gesture, tilting her head slightly. "Don't even think about it!" she said sharply, yet without raising her voice.

He sighed. "But you like me," he said. It seemed to him one of the dumbest things he'd ever said. He collected himself, maintaining his dignity and his role as the Young Master, and a transmigrated man with two lives.

"Why are you trying to fend me off?" he asked, his voice controlled, lighthearted, yet insincere. "I know how you feel about me."

She met his gaze, her expression serious, even severe. "Why did you curse the heavens upon waking?" she asked.

The silence that followed lasted a long time, during which he almost revealed his true thoughts about what he thought of heaven for some reason, but the statue of wisdom guided him wisely.

She took his left hand, then let it go and went to tend to the old man. Baijian opened one eye. Wuyi did not enjoy watching him eye her figure as she moved away.

Baijian winked at Wuyi.

Wuyi did not wink back.

After she had tended to the old man, she returned to Wuyi. "You have a protector, don't you? You're hardly a fighter. So why do you need to jump between warriors and demons?" she asked.

He smiled, she smiled back, their earlier silence forgotten, and he felt somewhat lighthearted—it was indeed pleasant to have a beautiful girl show concern for him. He stood up and moved on. His good mood lasted all the way down the steep, turning stairs, until he saw the twenty-three tightly wrapped white bundles under a canopy in the otherwise empty courtyard.

In the aftermath of the battle, Lady Xueyan had ordered all her people to stay indoors. No one was to sleep in the open air, no matter how enticing the spring weather might be. Services were held in a temple—the broken ancestral hall now served as sleeping quarters.

He passed under the arch to his accommodation and found Jia, who was busy writing alongside Ser Zhai, the group's official bookkeeper. Jia rose stiffly and bowed, while Zhai continued writing.

Wuyi couldn't help but smile at his attendant, who was evidently alive and not merely one of the bundles in the courtyard. His expression alone posed the question.

"Two broken ribs. Worse than when I first tried to ride a horse," Jia said ruefully.

"In a business where we take daring and courage for granted, yours was a brave act," Wuyi said, making Jia glow with pride. "Stupid, and a bit pointless, but brave."

Jia continued to beam with happiness.

Wuyi sighed and approached his table, which was piled high with scrolls and tubes. He needed to arrange payments for his people. Adopting the method of a monthly salary from his last world, payments were due on the first of every month—and tomorrow was the first. While calculating the expenses, he pondered why he had even considered disclosing to Liwei why he cursed the heavens.

People often acted foolishly, and he was not accustomed to being among them.

He sifted through the scrolls. Three units of warriors, all managed by his Qi masters, had a few Qi adepts under them who were injured. His total number of warriors was around hundred, but this was insufficient. If they were to be attacked by the demonics again, he would need more warriors.

There must be local warriors they could train might take him a week or two turn them in Qi initiates—young ones eager for glory, or just a modest payment, or those trying to escape a mundane life.

The sheer volume of paperwork and planning was exhausting. Yet, he need to get it finished, and the demonics would not cease their assaults simply because he was tired, especially since he had ambushed them while they were preoccupied with another fort.

"I need to speak with Baijian once he's well enough, and to the archers from last night. Who was the most senior among them?" he inquired.

Jia took a deep breath, clearly testing the limits of his pain against the bandage—a sensation Wuyi knew all too well from when he himself had suffered broken ribs with Gao.

"Yinhai Hu was the senior man. He's awake—I saw him eating," Jia responded, slowly rising to his feet.

Wuyi held up a hand. "I'll see him along with Baijian, if he can leave the infirmary," he said, his head still throbbing slightly. He retained a scroll. "Please, get them."

Jia paused, and Wuyi swallowed a sigh of irritation. "Yes?"

"What—what happened last night?" Jia asked, his tone naive.

"The men feel we won a great victory, but I don't even know what we achieved, aside from killing two flying serpents," he said, with the casual dismissiveness typical of youth.

Wuyi felt an urge to yell, We killed two flying serpents, you fool! But he understood the boy's perspective, unspoken as it was.

Wuyi sat carefully on a low cushion—it was very comfortable, upholstered in red velvet, and he leaned back. "Why do you want to know? What purpose would it serve?"

Jia raised an eyebrow. "I am your attendant and your disciple too," he said.

Wuyi allowed the young man a small smile. "Good. Tell me what you think we did."

Jia sighed. "Saw that coming. Very well. All day we sent out warriors to gather in farmers. I didn't realize it at the time, but more warriors went out than came back."

Wuyi nodded. "Good, yes. We're being watched, all the time. But the creatures watching us aren't very bright. Have you tried the Visualization technique—the skill book that I acquired for Jin but shared with all of you?"

Jia shrugged. "I studied it, but I can't hold all the images in my mind, all the visions."

"If you capture a beast or a demonic and make it submit, you can look through its eyes—it's a potent vision technique but it is wasteful. Because you must first overcome the mind and will of that creature—a massive effort, there—and then direct that effort. And in this case, you must do so over distance," Wuyi explained.

Jia listened, utterly fascinated. Even Zhai had stopped writing.

Wuyi glanced at him, and the bookkeeper shook his head and started to rise. "Sorry," he mumbled. "No one ever talks about this stuff."

Wuyi relented. "Stay. It is part of our lives and our way of war. We use warriors to scout because our beastmaster can't use the birds to spy. Even if we could, I'd rather use warriors. They can observe and report, can make judgments about numbers, can tell if they see the same three horses every day.

A bird can't make those judgments, and the skill user's perceptions of whatever the bird sees are filtered through—something." Wuyi sagged. "I don't know what, but I imagine it as a pipe that's too small for all the information to get through, as if everything is seen through water or fog."

Jia nodded.