He flew down the hallway and took a quick right and a left, into an unoccupied room. There, he hefted the spear he’d found—just a late-core treasure—and smashed open the window, which was surprisingly made from core-grade glass. Was it to protect it from kids playing in the yard just outside? Who knew? What he did know was that there was now a clear path to a side entrance to the palace complex, one usually reserved for servants.
He leapt through the window and barreled toward the closed door, not pausing to open it, kicking out with both his feet, flying horizontally as though he was falling. The door burst open, slamming a poor man who’d just knocked on it against the wall. Winded but otherwise unharmed, the man would never know his good fortune as the head of the guard and the two princes whooshed through it, uncaring of the people that stood in their path.
I need to find Gong Xuandi, Feng Ming thought. He was weak, and there was no way he could fight these three off on his own. Not only was his strength insufficient, but his spear was lacking too. It was pink, for heaven’s sake! The brilliant pink weapon, according to the description left beside it, was called Cherry Blossom’s Dancing Light. It was a light spear, an ornamental one at that, made for graceful dancing. Most of its enchantments relied on illumination and illusion.
That gave him an idea. As he rounded one corner, Feng Ming slashed out with it. Millions of flower petals accompanied the spear light he generated. The pink blossoms filled the air and covered the landscape. These illusory petals also contained charming and calming runes, distracting and slowing down his three pursuers. He used the time it bought to crash into the barracks, where a barebacked fighter covered in blue and gold runes was just about to impale a man with a trident.
Feng Ming flew up beside him, fending off a blow that would otherwise have stabbed the man in the back. He would have survived, of course, but every little bit of vitality mattered. The battle instantly improved for the man, whose opponents began to make careless mistakes, began to slip in blood, whose weapons began to fail. Dodging motions Gong Xuandi made for the chance of escaping were the correct decision, and feints his opponents began making lost their meaning, as he was suddenly able to guess their intention.
With Gong Xuandi’s help, Feng Ming’s life became a little easier as well. The strong, burly man had his back, giving him enough time to pop a few pills he’d pillaged from the vault. He threw a few to Gong Xuandi and downed the rest. Normally it wasn’t wise to take so many at once; if you were unlucky, some negative side effects could crop up.
But Feng Ming had luck in spades. He slashed with Cherry Blossom’s Dancing Light, and the air was filled with pink petals that obscured everyone’s five senses and spiritual force. The closer one was to the spear the better, as there were fewer petals blocking off the opponent you were targeting.
The head of the guard and the two princes who had been chasing Feng Ming joined the encirclement, but it was meaningless, as only so many people could fight in tandem, even in three dimensions. The two kept the floor beneath their feet, wisely cutting the area in which they could be attacked in half. The rate at which they killed intensified, but luck could only go so far. Spears and swords still snuck in, wounding them. Though they mostly struck the unlucky Gong Xuandi, the old emperor was still gravely wounded from his earlier battle. Neither of them would last long in this encirclement.
“What we need,” Feng Ming said, gritting his teeth, “is a miracle. A lucky coincidence. A helping hand.”
He ducked an incoming saber and struck upwards with his spear. The pink spear struck true, catching a man in the throat. He yanked it free, pulling it back just in time to deflect a flying sword that was headed toward his head. It clanked off effortlessly, coincidentally bouncing off the ground and back up into the back of a cultivator who’d stumbled in the fighting.
“If it’s a miracle you need,” Gong Xuandi said. “An old enemy seems to have reached out to me.”
“An old enemy?” Feng Ming asked. “You mean Zhou Li?”
“Cha Ming,” Gong Xuandi said. “He’s offering us a way out. He’s wounded, and he can’t fight or reveal himself.”
“Tell him we’ll take anything we can get, you wonderful, wonderful man,” Feng Ming said.
Gong Xuandi winced. “Unfortunately, he said we’d need to get beaten back to make it work. He wants us to take a dive.”
“Take a dive,” Feng Ming said blankly. He ducked a spear thrust, grabbed the spear from a man, and kicked him back into the crowd of assailants. He then threw his out into a flurry of cherry blossoms, catching a soldier in the face by sheer fluke. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
“You’re serious?” Gong Xuandi said. “You’ll take a dive in the middle of a crucial battle and trust this man with your life?”
“With my life,” Feng Ming said, nodding. They hadn’t interacted much since that time in the woods, only touching base briefly in the Song Kingdom’s succession battle, then later near Beihai. “I might be the luckiest man on the plane, but I’m no miracle worker. Cha Ming, on the other hand, is a bit unlucky. Life always throws all sorts of curve balls at him. He keeps falling and picking himself up over and over again, no matter how difficult. But if there’s one man who can create a miracle for us, it’s him.”
“Yes, sir!” Gong Xuandi said, gritting his teeth. Then he did
