A thin blade of qi cut through the carriage, cutting the thing in two before they had even seen the blade. A small beam of light came in as the carriage divided itself slowly and Cai looked forward. He saw the carriage split in half and the pink inside of the carriage driver split in two.

The man was a cultivator, one of the second rank, yet he had been cut cleanly in two.

Cai looked towards Peng Li and panic sped up his mind. The girl’s hair had been cut, but she had been sitting at the other corner of the carriage and her body was unharmed. The same could be said for Cai.

Then the carriage split and fell, and the poor girl was pulled under it.

Cai leaped out of the carriage, readying his blade and looking up towards the threat.

His eyes flashed behind him, searching for his guards, only to see two headless men still riding their horses.

What?

They were of the fourth rank, experts. Surely they could-

“Blossom,” a voice spoke.

Then a wave of sword qi came for his flesh. Cai had heard the words but he had not seen the attack. He had not sensed the qi till it was already there, mere inches from his face.

All he could do was raise his blade and even that was useless. Three talismans broke, shattering with an audible rip and his body flew backward as the life-saving treasures gifted to him broke.

Footsteps.

Cai looked up to see a masked man standing in the sky. He carried a simple unmarked blade, one that could be found anywhere within the region and he wore plain grey clothes as well.

But Cai didn’t need to see the crests or clothes to know what he was looking at. This was an elder, a fifth-rank member of the Flowering Sword Sect. The man walked with pride and power and the Dao of the Flowering Sword was strong with him.

He walked leisurely. His hands were low and his sword cut the grass as he approached him.

“Such a troublesome young man,” the masked man said. “First surviving the assassination attempt, then coming back with news of an immortal of all things, and now… now this new abomination of a technique you might make.”

“It is wrong,” the man spoke. Then he swatted with his sword, not swung, swatted as if he were striking a fly from the air.

And Cai held onto his blade with desperation. The cut left the blade and came slicing at him and the blade Cai had been gifted crumbled like dry grass. Most of the cut had been absorbed by the blade but not all of it.

“Wait!” Cai screamed. “Wait! Don’t you want to know how-”

A coughing fit interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. That cut had dug into his stomach and his arm. He looked down at it, his sword arm was mangled. Tendons and bone mixed together in a stringy mess of flesh.

His mind screamed.

Someone grabbed him but Cai could barely see them. It wasn’t his assassin, no, he was being carried-

The Pain.

No. Cai circulated his qi, killing the nerve endings in his right arm. He’d picked it up after the last attempt, just in case.

But here he was using it not even two months later.

His mind blurred back into the moment and he looked over a shoulder. Not his, but his rescuer’s. He expected to see his pursuer right behind but he saw nothing.

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“Young mistress of the Raging River, I would advise you to not engage.”

“Nonsense,” his rescuer spoke. “You seek to kill my half brother, I will not have it.”

Half brother?

Cai turned his neck to look at the face of his rescuer. She was a woman of the fourth rank, and if her body was honest to her age then she was maybe three years his senior.

Then he turned his head to look at the man she was talking to, the assassin.

“To call him your brother is too much Young Mistress, at best he is an unknown relative. No one worth dying for,” the man replied.

“Are you saying you’ll kill me if I don’t hand him over?” The girl asks. “You know who he is so I assume you know his father, and if you know of his father then I assume you know of me?”

“Of course, I know Young Mistress Xaio Wang,” his assistant replied.

“And you would dare to threaten me?”

There was a moment of tense inaction. Cai’s mind ran. Why wasn’t the attacker cutting through them both? They were both lower ranks than him after all. But no, this woman, this person who claimed to be his sister was not protected by might or sheer strength alone, but also by political threats.

He wasn’t too aware of the political positions of other sects, but he had seen Xaio Wang before. She’d won numerous tournaments and had beaten down all the prodigies of the other sects many times. She was talented and already had the strength of a weak elder at the young age of twenty-three. She was everything he wasn’t and she was… his sister?

“No,” the man replied. “I wouldn’t have to kill you to kill him. I would simply prefer making less of a fuss, young mistress.”

Cai set his feet on the ground and slowly let go of the woman’s body. He looked around for a moment, somewhat dazed.

Behind them were the horses of the two fourth-rank guards that had been assigned to him. They galloped towards them, still carrying the bodies of the headless guards.

Hadn’t the horses run away from the fighting? He looked over to Xaio Wang and saw her still staring at the masked assassin.

It was as if he didn’t exist to them.

Then Cai laughed. He laughed and his qi swarmed. The horses turned and swerved to the left of him and for once, the two warriors looked in his direction.

“Aren’t you curious?” Cai asked the masked man. “Don’t you want to know why I changed my route?”

“I didn’t think you had a reason,” the masked man replied.

Yes, of course, the man knew where he was going. All those delegations and announcements wouldn’t be that hard for a clan elder to get their hands on.

“No, I knew,” Cai replied.

He just needed time.

“Do you know how?” Cai asked again.

“No,” the assassin replied. “Humor me.”

“It was too calm,” Cai answered. “All the days went as planned and for a whole month, everything went quiet. I had no enemies and I had no contenders. Even when I had returned from the Great Desert Strip with news of an immortal I still had enemies, but then I was left alone.”

“It made me wonder. It made me think, what if all the things that had happened to me up till now, what if it wasn’t just bad luck? Even before the assassination, why did my mother suddenly allow my cousins to hurt me? Why did my grandfather never care for me? Why did my mother suddenly leave? Bad fortune seemed like the easy answer, and I believed it too until everything went quiet.”

Then Cai smiled. He was terrified on the inside and the smile was more of an act of fear than madness, but he needed time. He hoped and prayed but he needed time.

“In one night all my enemies disappeared. In one day my reputation had changed. Even if I was fortunate and even if I was talented, I should still have people who hate me and honored elders who dislike me. I should still hear disrespectful words. But wherever I went I heard only praise. At first, I thought it was due to the fear, fear of me and my potential. But no, it wasn’t me, was it? A mere second rank, no matter how talented can’t change the situation.”

“I do not hate you boy, but your death would have been a convenient tool for my goals,” the masked man replied.

“Would have?” Cai questioned.

“Yes, would have. Now you’re just a threat, a seed I can not let sprout.”

He was afraid of him. Cai almost laughed at the response. He had tried to kill Cai for some political reason but now he was afraid of Cai growing in power and seeking vengeance.

“I will not name you, honored elder. But I know you. I know who you are.”

There were many elders within the sect, each of at the fifth rank, and many disliked him, even despised him, but one elder had always been indifferent. Indifferent until now. It was a guess, a conjecture really, but very few people had been indifferent towards Cai.

Tai Lui.

The elder had been a firm supporter of his since his return and he had come with the delegation to meet the immortal, even though most elders feared the occasion Tai Lui had been eager to meet the man.

And more than any other, he had been pleasant to Cai. He had suddenly become Cai’s greatest supporter. Malice had always been with Cai his whole life, so he ignored it. But kindness from a man who seemed to not have even known his name burned like a thousand suns.

"Be wary of those that defend you. When it comes to cultivators, if they butter you up they’re probably planning to eat ya."

That was what the immortal had said. Thinking back now, those words seemed prophetic. A shame he didn’t heed their wisdom sooner.

“And why would that be?” The masked man asked. “Why not name me?”

“I am certain that if I did, not only would I die, but this lady here would as well.”

“Speak his name!” Xaio Wang yelled. “He wouldn’t dare to--”

But before she could finish her sentence, there was already a blade at Cai’s throat.