Path of the Sect Leader

Chapter 136: Tragedy, Again

The sharp, metallic tang of blood hit Qi Xiu like a slap, dragging him back—sudden, uninvited—to that nameless valley years ago.

Pan Rong and Ming Jiu lay motionless on the ground, their Chu Qin Daoist robes pulled over them the way they once draped Gu Ji and Huang He. Same stillness. Same finality. Fate didn’t negotiate; it simply repeated the pattern.

Far off, Mount Tianyin loomed. From every building, old men, women, children were dragged into the open—screaming, clawing, pleading—then silenced one after another. Heads rolled across the dirt, eyes still wide with the stubborn refusal to accept this was the end.

High above it all, Wei Xuan stood alone in the sky, watching corpse after corpse of his clansmen carried aboard beast ships. His face was stone. Expressionless. But Qi Xiu knew better. Beneath that calm mask was the same hollow ache chewing at his own chest.

Rain began to fall—fine, cold threads that soon turned the slaughter into a sluggish red river snaking downhill.

Killer and killed alike were drenched. Heaven, in its indifferent way, was washing everyone the same.

Qin Weiyu darted from body to body among the fallen Tianyin Sect cultivators. He crouched, rummaged, pulled out storage pouches, low-grade artifacts, even stripped off usable robes. Each haul he carried back in armfuls, piling them proudly before the sect leader like a child showing off treasures. Not a trace of grief on that bright, shameless face.

He’ll probably live a very happy life, Qi Xiu thought. Some people are built that way.

Wei Minniang sat quietly on the blood-soaked ground, cradling the unconscious Bai Muhan, gently shifting the girl’s head onto her lap so she might rest more comfortably.

Mo Guinong had woken. Despite grievous wounds he forced himself upright, arms wrapped protectively around the still-unconscious Mo Jianxin. He stared at nothing.

Yu Jing and Shen Chang knelt beside Pan Rong’s body, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. More than ten years of friendship—gone in an afternoon. None of them knew whether they would still be breathing on White Mountain the next time something like this came.

Qi Xiu stood motionless. Thoughts tumbled through an empty mind: life and death, sun and storm, clarity and confusion, all jumbled together.

Pan Rong was dead. He felt grief—real grief—but nothing like the raw, tearing pain when Gu Ji and Huang He left him. When Zhan Yuan passed, there had been sorrow too, yet laced with a faint, tired acceptance, the gentle resignation of someone who had already seen too much.

He had changed. Qi Xiu knew it clearly now.

His vision had broadened, but his heart had cooled. His cultivation had climbed, yet his affections had thinned. A sudden question rose inside him, cold and precise: If Wei Minniang had died here on Mount Tianyin today, how would he behave?

He thought about it for a long time.

The answer, when it came, was bleak.

He would grieve—deeply, painfully—but that grief would be… containable. He could lock it away, function through it, survive it. He would not shatter.

【To Know One’s Own Heart】.

The deeper he understood himself, the more skilled he became at forgetting, at suppression.

A fool could wander naked through a winter storm, grinning like an idiot, feeling nothing wrong.

A sober person knew cold existed—so he put on thick clothes and made himself warm.

From that moment on, he drifted further and further from the “truth” of cultivation.

The tragedy of being human lay in this: when the person you loved most was torn away, your clearest thought was not despair, but calculation—This won’t ruin my appetite. I won’t dress more poorly. Life will continue.

The tragedy of being human lay in love itself being ranked, measured, portioned out. Gu Ji’s death had cut one way. Zhan Yuan’s another. Pan Rong’s grief was shallower. Ming Jiu’s… shallower still.

“When did I become such a pitiful creature…”

Qi Xiu tilted his head back and let out a long, tired breath. His eyes slowly closed.

“Minniang…”

A Wei Clan cultivator spotted Wei Minniang from a distance and hurried over, all smiles and familiarity.

Qi Xiu opened his eyes. He recognized the man—one of the ceremonial attendants from their wedding. The same one who had tossed a few mocking remarks his way back then.

The man spoke warmly to Wei Minniang for a moment—old acquaintances, apparently—then turned to Qi Xiu.

“You all performed admirably this time. The Wei family will not treat you unfairly.”

Qi Xiu gave a polite, colorless thanks and watched him leave. When he turned back, his gaze met Wei Minniang’s. Exhaustion and worry mirrored in both pairs of eyes.

“How am I supposed to face Old Man Ming when we get back?” she murmured. “He’s so old… he’ll probably cry himself to death.”

Ming Sanxing had always doted hardest on his youngest son. When Ming Jiu stepped into immortality at Immortal Forest Hollow, the old man had crowed about it to anyone who would listen—even though Ming Jiu was already pushing forty.

No one expected the boy to come home like this: cold, silent, wrapped in a robe.

“That’s just how it is for White Mountain cultivators,” Mo Guinong said quietly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have spent my whole life tending spirit plants. Either hide in some big sect’s city and eke out a safe, small existence… or end up like today—never knowing if you’ll see tomorrow.”

He was content, in his own way. Both he and his grandson had survived. For someone born on White Mountain, that was already a victory.

“No one knows when days like this will end,” Shen Chang suddenly muttered.

No one answered. A heavy silence settled over them all.

The Wei Clan beast ship finally arrived.

They boarded in silence.

Qi Xiu found a quiet corner and settled everyone. By luck or by Wei Clan restraint, this particular ship had been spared the worst of the carnage. The cultivators aboard looked at the wounded and the dead of Chu Qin Sect with something close to sympathy. A few who knew Qi Xiu even came over to offer awkward, formal condolences.

…

The beast ship landed.

Under the Wei Clan’s skilled physicians, Zhang Shishi and the others could at least walk now—though none of them moved far from Qi Xiu.

He stood motionless for a long time.

Finally he sighed.

“There’s no avoiding it.”

He stepped down from the ship.

A group of teenagers came running—Zhao Yao, Li Tan, the rest. Thirteen years old now, already carrying the awkward height and sharp edges of youth.

“Sect Leader Senior Brother!”

“Sect Leader!”

“Wei Yue’er threw herself into her mother’s arms. Wei Minniang clutched her daughter tightly, tears falling freely. The girl stared with wide, confused eyes—then saw the two shrouded bodies being carried down.

Understanding hit.

She turned and patted her mother’s back, trying to comfort her.

When the news reached Ming Sanxing, he fainted on the spot.

Bai Xiaosheng checked his pulse and shook his head.

Qi Xiu watched, heart sinking. The old scholar didn’t have many days left.

“Everyone says immortals live wonderful lives, but who truly knows…”

Bai Xiaosheng began the line, then couldn’t finish. He cradled the infant Zhan Chou and turned to look after Bai Muhan instead.

Yu Deno frowned, leaning against a chair. “The Wei family acted so ruthlessly this time… I wonder how the Artifact & Talisman Alliance will respond.”

Qi Xiu rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaustion dragging at every word.

“They abandoned Tianyin Sect the moment it became inconvenient. They have no face left to come collect debts. But later—when the Wei family’s losses start to bite—they’ll look for compensation somewhere else. That’s certain. And Wei Xuan…” He paused. “The man plays chess with living pieces. That single Jade Crane—he turned it over twice, milked it for every advantage. Who knows what else he’s kept hidden.”

“Then Ming Jiu and Pan Rong’s funerals?” Yu Deno asked. As steward of rites, this fell to him.

“Both go to Black River Peak. Bury them beside Zhan Yuan and the others. Even if White Mountain falls one day, at least there they can rest undisturbed. From now on, every disciple of the sect—every White Mountain native—goes to Black River when they die.”

Yu Deno considered it, then nodded.

He turned and left to make arrangements.

Qi Xiu remained where he was, staring at the distant line of mountains.

The rain had stopped.

But the taste of iron lingered on his tongue.