“You think you can handle my power?” Cha Ming asked softly. “Drink it in, then. Drink it all.”
He hadn’t wanted to waste time with the blood master, but the memories of the slain were fresh in his mind. He wanted the man to suffer, so he emptied his meridians of normal qi and filled them with something most people weren’t equipped to handle: destruction qi. His body regenerated as it broke apart bit by bit while delivering the qi to where the man’s claws were inserted. The abbot drank it in, and to his horror, the black energy quickly spread throughout his body like a poison. Black lines of destruction traveled into the abbot’s body. He pulled out his claws, but it was already too late. His body smoked and hissed as it fell apart, unable to regenerate from the intense destruction it suffered. The square grew silent as the abbot crumbled to ashes and the other blood masters that hadn’t self-detonated burned in the formation’s flames.
“It’s done,” Cha Ming muttered. His assailants were dead, so he directed the formation to burn all other buildings and melt the stone in the monastery. The ghosts patrolling the area weren’t spared either. By the time he’d finished his work, all that was left of the place was the building containing Mo Ling. She sat down, holding her knees close to her body, crying, trembling, and coughing from all the smoke.
Cha Ming banished the smoke with a wave of his hand and held out his other. “Come. We need to go.”
She hesitated, then took it.
“Is that really you, Pai Xiao?” she asked.
The man might be their town’s hero, but she’d never heard of him being capable of unleashing such destruction. Where was the kindhearted man she knew, the one who liked helping people and building wonders?
“Yes, it’s me,” Cha Ming said. “But don’t tell a soul what you saw today, all right? The consequences would be catastrophic for you, me, and Liaoning.”
Mo Ling nodded.
They walked out of the monastery hand in hand as the flames died down. Then, after setting fire to the last building, Cha Ming picked her up and flew off toward the South with a speed very few in the continent could match. Once he was fifty miles away, he stopped and set up a concealment formation. Then he built them a fire and summoned a shelter using creation qi and creation essence.
“We’ll have to stay here for a few days,” Cha Ming said, warming his hands over the fire. A powerful presence was heading toward the monastery from not far away. “Someone powerful is out there, and we need to lie low to keep safe.”
“Thank you,” Mo Ling said. No smile lit her face, and her gaze didn’t focus anywhere specific. Cha Ming could practically see the troubled thoughts rampaging through her innocent mind.
Cha Ming, unsure of what to say, poked at the fire, sending sparks into the night sky. It was a starless night, with the moon hidden by a dense carpet of clouds. Minutes passed before finally, the young woman who’d survived when a thousand others had been killed and millions of mortals had been slain, began crying. The emotions she’d bottled up over the past two days emptied out in a few short minutes.
When she was finished, the red-eyed girl looked up to Cha Ming, who’d continued stubbornly poking at the fire. “I can’t go back, can I?”
Cha Ming shook his head. “No, you can’t. If you do, they’ll know you were involved. Not only would your family suffer, but your entire city might be slaughtered.” The South was a brutal place, far more brutal than he’d ever imagined until just a couple of days ago. “You’ll have to change your name and your identity. It probably wouldn’t hurt to dye your hair and change how you dress.”
“And what about you?” Mo Ling asked. “Where will you go? You can’t go back either.”
“I was going to leave anyway,” Cha Ming replied. “I’ll go to Ashes, the third-largest city in the Ji Kingdom.”
“And you’ll be safe there?” Mo Ling asked, doing her best to hide her agitation.
“Safe enough,” Cha Ming answered. Hearing Mo Ling’s stomach rumble, he sighed and summoned rations with creation qi like he’d done in the past. He did the same for water. She ate and drank in silence, but he could tell at a glance what thoughts were running through her mind. “I’ll take you with me,” he finally said. “For now.”
The girl nodded. She ate what she could and fell asleep, leaving Cha Ming to keep watch. He cultivated as they waited, doing his best to ignore the sadness in his heart.
Chapter 8: Icy Heart Pavilion
Within an isolated chamber in the Red Dust Pavilion, Hong Xin sat on a lonely stage. She held a black-and-gold flute in her hands, the same flute she’d trained with at the Red Dust Pavilion. No, trained wasn’t the right word; she’d been broken there, and remade. Her passion had been dancing, and they’d taken that away from her, forbidden her from practicing it. Fortunately, all that remained from that painful time was the flute she’d hated with all her heart.
These days, she enjoyed playing the flute. Like any other instrument, it was a tool. It played the music you wanted, but only as well as you could play. And she could play, and well. She wasn’t the best, of course—that would take decades of practice—but her songs could move hearts, break barriers, and soothe nerves. Currently, she was doing just that. Her fingers moved as she blew softly over the central mouthpiece, producing a soft whistle of a
