Path of the Sect Leader

Chapter 50: The Young Lord

Northern wind knifed across the southern highway, flinging stray snowflakes like thrown salt. Nearly two thousand souls trudged in a ragged column: old men bent double, mothers with infants strapped to their backs, children whose eyes had forgotten how to shine. Seven months on the road had ground them down to bone and silence.

Qin Ji stood at the roadside, tall and straight as a spear planted in frozen earth. His indigo cloak snapped around bronze skin and patched brocade. Sixteen winters old, yet the hand resting on his heirloom sword never trembled.

“Young Master!” Old Qin Bo came puffing up. “Lord Wang is waiting ahead. Hurry and pay respects!”

Qin Ji’s brow arched. “A baron waiting for a mere knight? We’ll be living under his roof for years. Shouldn’t I be the one kneeling first?”

“Details later!” The steward tugged his sleeve. “Immortal Zhan said clearly: the Wangs have looked after our sect’s immortals here. We cannot offend them!”

Qin Ji let himself be dragged forward. Between strides he asked in a low voice, “When Immortal Zhan came last, he took only ten households to the mountain as servants and dumped the rest on Wang lands. Are we being sold off, Qin Bo?”

The old man hesitated. “When the old lord was alive, Sect Leader Qi was just a quiet outer disciple. No scandals, and the old lord always said he was ‘honest to a fault.’ He wouldn’t stab us in the back… would he?”

“Let’s hope the heavens still remember honesty,” Qin Ji muttered.

Soon banners appeared ahead. A broad-shouldered man in baron’s crimson sat astride a tall horse, exuding easy authority. Qin Ji dropped to his knees in the snow without hesitation.

The baron dismounted with surprising warmth and raised him up himself.

“Long journey, no time for proper gifts,” Qin Ji said, unbuckling his sword; ancestral steel, nicked but proud; and offered it hilt-first. “My forefather carried this. Today I offer it to Your Lordship in gratitude for sheltering my people.”

Old Qin Bo’s eyes bulged in horror, but the baron accepted with a wide smile, exchanged pleasantries, assigned guides, and rode off.

“You gave away the family sword!” the steward hissed the moment they were alone.

“Steel is steel. Survival is survival,” Qin Ji replied calmly. “Better it buys us breathing room than rusts on my hip while we starve.”

The column turned off the highway onto a narrow forest path. Suddenly wild geese burst from the trees, great gray-winged beasts with women riding bareback. Fur bikinis and fearless laughter. They circled overhead, singing in husky southern accents.

“Snowflakes fall in winter cold~

Fall into this sister’s heart~

Old man, don’t spoil the fun~

Your young lord’s the one we want~”

The lead rider dipped low enough for Qin Ji to smell leather and snow on her skin. Her eyes raked him without shame.

Scarlet to the tips of his ears, Qin Ji yanked his cloak tighter to hide the careful patches and stared at the ground. “Ignore them,” he told the fuming steward. “We’re almost there.”

The geese scattered the instant Zhan Yuan’s figure appeared at the village gate. The immortal waved once and was gone, leaving instructions behind like scattered papers.

“Settle everyone quickly. Year-end approaches. Sect Leader Qi will hold the first post-migration Ascension Assembly right here. Ages three to fifteen; all children must attend. Afterward, select another ten steady households to serve on Black River Peak.”

Ascension Assembly; the day mortal children met immortals and maybe ceased being mortal.

Qin Ji had once stood in such a crowd himself, heart hammering, praying for a spiritual root that never awakened. Now he was the one arranging tables.

The village Wang Juan had grudgingly loaned was cramped; barely room for a thousand, let alone two. Fields were stingy patches of half-frozen dirt. But it had roofs.

Orders flew. Roofs patched, hearths lit, seed grain counted. The Qin clansmen; mostly his direct line, the ones who had refused to bend knee to the Flowing Flower Sect; threw themselves into the work with desperate energy. Seven months of marching had taught them one truth: as long as they still walked, hope was not dead.

Snow kept falling, soft and merciless.

In the distance, faint goose-song lingered on the wind, teasing, already half memory.

Qin Ji tightened his empty scabbard and turned back to the endless tasks.

A new year was coming.

And with it, immortals who would decide which children among them might one day ride the wind instead of trudging through mud.