It was raining outside. The white gauzy curtains in the doorway and windows were drenched from the downpour, but Jin Ling was… otherwise occupied. He couldn't be bothered to rise from the bed to close up his room. So he allowed water to pool in the entryway and upon the windowsills, content to clean it later.
Jingyi was lying next to him, humming a pretty song as Jin Ling planted kisses along his neck and the side of his face.
"When are you going to tell me that you love me?" Jingyi asked playfully, tucking Jin Ling's hair behind his ear.
"After you tell me first," Jin Ling replied.
Jingyi simply smiled and pulled him in close. He could feel the entire length of his body against him. He was so warm.
Jingyi pressed his mouth against his, kissing him more fiercely than expected. Jin Ling gasped. Jingyi laughed a little and rolled to prop himself up on top of him.
They stared at each other. For the first time in his life, Jin Ling wasn't hindered by embarrassment. He was able to drink in every detail of him without fear of judgement.
"When are you going to tell your family about me?"
And just like that, the spell was broken.
Jin Ling's breath caught in his throat. That was right. No one knew about them yet. What were they doing?
"I – um – I–" Jin Ling stammered, not knowing how to explain to him that he was too afraid to tell anyone about them.
Something brushed against Jin Ling's shoulder. He turned to find Sizhui also lying in his bed. His dark eyes were fearful, his face pale.
"He already knows," Sizhui whispered.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Jin Ling's heart nearly stopped.
Then it began to beat frantically.
"He's at the door," Jingyi breathed.
"The garden!" Jin Ling said. He shifted Jingyi off of him and leapt to his feet. "You can both hide there!"
"We can't!" Jingyi cried. "Jinlintai is overrun! The other clans have laid waste to the city! Nowhere else is safe!"
Jin Ling ignored him and began to usher them both toward the open door and the storm outside.
"Please don't do this, Jin Ling," Sizhui begged him. "We'll die out there."
"He can't know," Jin Ling muttered, more to himself than to them. "You have to leave."
"Please!" Jingyi sobbed, grasping the front of Jin Ling's robes in desperation. "You can't do this!"
"I have to."
He shoved them both outside and slid the door shut behind them. He rammed a random plank of wood between the frame and the door to keep them from opening it again. Then he ran around to each window, throwing them shut and locking them even as Jingyi and Sizhui screamed at him to let them back in.
As soon as he'd closed the last one, the door to the hallway burst open behind him.
Jin Ling whirled around to find Jin Guangyao standing in the doorway. His skin was gray and rotting. Black blood dripped from the stump of his right arm. His hair and clothing, though, were somehow immaculate.
"Shushu! Are you all right?"
Jin Guangyao strode into the room, a vapid smile on his lips.
"A-Ling," he said dreamily, coming to a halt in front of him. Jin Ling had to do everything in his power not to gag from the stench of putrid flesh. "You cannot strengthen your family in this way. Surely you know this?"
"Yes, Shushu."
"Good," Jin Guangyao said with a grin. "Take this."
He handed his sword, Hensheng, to Jin Ling. It was shiny and polished and just as perfect as his clothing.
"Why, Shushu?"
"To get rid of the vermin in your garden, of course," Jin Guangyao said sweetly. "I care about you, A-Ling. I can't stand to watch you be dragged down like this."
Jin Ling staggered back from him. "Shushu, I can't kill them," he said.
Jin Guangyao stepped toward him, still smiling.
"Sure you can," he said. "Because if you don't, your Uncle Jiang will. You want a quicker, more merciful death for them, don't you?"
Jin Ling glanced down at the sword he was holding. He knew he couldn't do it.
"Please, Shushu," he said. "We could keep it a secret between us. Jiujiu doesn't have to know. I won't do it again."
"Oh, A-Ling," Jin Guangyao said fondly, reaching out to stroke Jin Ling's cheek with decaying fingers. "I care about you, but I can't let you tarnish our family's name like this."
"But-"
"If you don't kill them," Jin Guangyao said. "I'll take my sword back. And the next time I offer it to you, it won't be hilt-first."
Jin Ling's eyes widened.
"What will it be?" Jin Guangyao asked. "Your life or theirs?"
"Shushu, please."
"Time's up."
Faster than he could react, Jin Guangyao had wrenched the sword from Jin Ling's hands. There was a flash of silver as Hensheng turned around toward him. Jin Ling tried to back away, but he wasn't fast enough. The blade sliced through the air. He couldn't avoid it. He was going to die…
Jin Ling sat bolt upright on his bamboo mat. His nightclothes were soaked with sweat. His breaths came in shuddering gasps.
He looked around the darkened tent.
Without the moonlight, Jin Ling couldn't see a thing. But he knew Jingyi and Sizhui were there with him. The three of them had made up a tent next to Luo Qingyang and Yu Qingqi. The two Lans had put themselves on either side of the entrance because, according to Jingyi, it was their duty to protect the sect leader. Ridiculous.
Jin Ling could hear Jingyi snoring somewhere to his right, a good distance away. When he strained his ears to hear over Jingyi's racket, he thought he detected something that sounded like panting.
"Sizhui?"
The breathing stopped.
"Sizhui?" Jin Ling repeated.
"Did I wake you?" came Sizhui's voice through the darkness.
"No, I had a – I was awake already," Jin Ling said. "Are you all right?"
"Just a bad dream."
"Oh… sorry."
"It isn't your fault," Sizhui said. He was silent for a while, then went on to say, "I dreamt that someone found out about me. They knew about my family."
Jin Ling's stomach twisted. That was a legitimate nightmare, not whatever weird thing that Jin Ling had seen. Why was he being such a child about everything lately? Why were his problems never significant compared to anyone else's?
"It was silly really," Sizhui said. "My apologies for disturbing you."
"You didn't. No need to apologize."
Jingyi let out a particularly loud snore then. It was a wonder that he hadn't woken himself up with it.
"Jingyi doesn't seem too bothered either," Jin Ling remarked.
"He's always been a sound sleeper."
"Never would have guessed."
Sizhui laughed quietly. Jin Ling smiled.
"Do you want to-?"
A twig snapped outside. Jin Ling's suggestion died in his throat.
The level of calm that he'd achieved after chatting with Sizhui was gone and immediately replaced by the terror from his nightmare.
"What was that?" Sizhui asked.
"How should I know? I can't see anything!"
Soft, slow footsteps disturbed the grass and the insects outside the tent. When Jingyi wasn't snoring, it was easy to hear the rhythmic footfalls, like something was stalking them.
"I'll go figure out what it is," Sizhui said.
His blankets swished as he started to get up.
"I'm coming with!" Jin Ling said, springing from his own mat and colliding with one of the support beams of the tent. "I'm not scared!"
"I didn't say that you were…"
"…shut up."
Sizhui didn't say another word. Jin Ling heard the squeak of a lantern handle followed by the rustle of Sizhui searching his pack.
A moment later, there was a series of soft clanks before the tent was illuminated by the orange light of Sizhui's lantern. The two of them regarded each other for a moment. Jin Ling was shocked to see how white Sizhui's face was and how he shook slightly as he stood there.
Was he truly so afraid of the noises outside?
Granted, Jin Ling was a little uneasy, but nothing like that. More than likely, the noises were caused by some animal that had crept into the camp to scavenge food. Surely Sizhui would assume the same.
So why did he shiver like that when the air was so hot Jin Ling hadn't stopped perspiring since he'd woken from his nightmare?
They stepped around Jingyi's peaceful form and ducked under the tent flap.
The camp outside was lit only by starlight and the moon above. By Jin Ling's order, no lanterns were to be ignited after dinnertime to reduce the chances of being seen by the enemy.
With the moon at a little under half its full size, the patrols should have been able to see well enough to navigate the camp without tripping over stakes. They were to rely on all of their senses to detect anyone sneaking around within the perimeter.
So, Sizhui and Jin Ling did just that, leaving the lamp just inside the tent rather than bringing it with them.
Jin Ling strained his ears and focused on extending his aura outward, a trick that allowed him to sense things in the dark.
The two of them continued around the outside of their tent, heading toward where they'd last heard the noise. There was, of course, nothing there.
Jin Ling scanned the ground for prints or broken twigs or anything really that could give him a clue as to where the lurker had gone. Sizhui reached down the front of his own robes and pulled out Wei Wuxian's jade talisman.
"I don't want to take it off and it's hard to inspect while I'm wearing it," Sizhui said. He held the talisman out to Jin Ling. "Could you take a careful look at it to make sure it's not broken?"
"You think we might have imagined the same thing?"
"Not imagined," Sizhui corrected as Jin Ling took the talisman in his hands and began to inspect it. "I worry Xue Yang used his core manipulation technique to trick us into coming out of the tent."
Jin Ling laughed. "You and Jingyi overestimate the protective power of a tent. Anyone could just as easily kill us inside of it as outside."
"Not if they didn't know which one to look in. Not if they didn't want to venture into the middle of our encampment."
He couldn't argue with that.
Jin Ling turned the jade in his fingers, its warmth making him very aware that he was touching something that usually rested against Sizhui's bare skin.
From what he could see, it was undamaged. Its surface was shiny and pristine. No cracks or chips were visible.
Jin Ling handed it back to him, noticing as he did so that Sizhui's trembling had ceased.
"Seems fine," he said. "Check mine?"
Sizhui did as he'd asked and confirmed the same. Both talismans were intact.
"So it wasn't Xue Yang," Sizhui said.
"We don't know the talismans work."
"Though that's technically true, I think that the amount of time that's passed without a core-related incident gives us enough evidence to be comfortably certain of protection."
Jin Ling folded his arms but said nothing. He wasn't as confident as Sizhui was but there was no point telling him that. Sizhui's faith in Wei Wuxian was unshakeable.
"I think whatever was out here is go-"
Sizhui cutoff at the look on Jin Ling's face.
Just a moment ago, something white that moved like cloth in the wind had flitted behind Luo Qingyang's tent. Jin Ling was sure of it.
Yet, by the time Sizhui whirled around to look in the same direction, it had gone.
"What did you see?" he asked, his voice as calm as Hanguang-jun's.
"I don't know," Jin Ling answered honestly.
Sizhui leaned forward suddenly, as if he'd caught sight of something in the distance that he couldn't quite see.
Jin Ling squinted in the same direction but there was nothing. The encampment was empty.
Despite this, Sizhui pushed Jin Ling behind him and drew his sword.
"Hey!" he protested, trying to get around Sizhui who blocked him and pushed him back again. "I don't need you to protect me! What did you see?!"
"Shh!"
Unable to move past him without being noisy and not wanting to draw the attention of whatever it was that had Sizhui on edge, Jin Ling resigned himself to pouting at the back of Sizhui's head.
But this only satisfied him for a moment since Sizhui couldn't tell he was mad at him and Jin Ling still couldn't see anything with him standing in his way. He had very little patience for standing around and doing nothing.
"What do you see?" he whispered as quietly as he could.
"Please be quiet."
"Just tell me!"
Sizhui didn't answer. His arms quaked again as he brandished his sword.
He may not have known what it was, but if it could make Sizhui that frightened, then he needed to be ready. Jin Ling's hand drifted to Suihua.
They stood there like that, poised for combat, for what felt like ages.
Then, Sizhui promptly sheathed his weapon and let out a long sigh.
"I guess it was nothing."
Jin Ling was going to explode. "What did you see?!"
Sizhui didn't answer him immediately, but another voice did from right behind them.
"I see two boys who should be resting."
Sizhui jumped a little and whipped around to face whoever had approached.
Jin Ling, on the other hand, let out a high-pitched scream and practically threw himself into Sizhui's arms only to find Luo Qingyang standing behind him, dressed in white and light blue with a sword at her side and a jade phoenix necklace dangling over her chest.
She threw her head back and roared with laughter. Jin Ling's face grew hot. He hastily withdrew his arms from around Sizhui's neck.
"Why are you sneaking around camp?" Jin Ling asked angrily, putting his hands on his hips. "We could have hurt you!"
"That's why I decided to come around," Luo Qingyang said. "I didn't know when one of you was going to decide to fling a sword at me. I figured by coming around, I could get a word in edgewise and then just block."
"We still could have hurt you," Sizhui said quietly.
"Well, I also figured you'd both be a little less afraid since you were together."
She gave Sizhui a knowing look. Sizhui cleared his throat.
"You shouldn't be sneaking up on people!" Jin Ling huffed.
"And you shouldn't be sneaking around the encampment," Luo Qingyang said. "You're going to confuse the guards."
Jin Ling opened his mouth to continue arguing with her, but Sizhui rested a hand on his shoulder. He closed his mouth again and folded his arms.
Luo Qingyang looked like she was about to smile at them, but she caught herself, perhaps remembering her promise to Jin Ling.
Instead, she said, "I wasn't being very loud. Why are you two awake?"
Sizhui and Jin Ling exchanged a look. Sizhui began to answer her before they were interrupted again.
"I'm coming!" yelled Jingyi from inside their tent.
His words were followed by a series of crashes and thuds as if he had tripped on every single object within the pavilion.
"Jin Ling! Sizhui! I'm coming!" Jingyi shouted, erupting from the entrance of the tent, waving his sword around aggressively. "Stay away from-! Oh hello there, Advisor Luo."
Jingyi came to a dead stop in front of Jin Ling's advisor, immediately dropping his sword to his side. His hair was unkempt and, unlike Luo Qingyang, he was still dressed in his night clothes.
"I – um – heard shouting," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "... before... I think."
"And you thought you ought to add to it?" Luo Qingyang asked.
Jin Ling couldn't tell if she was amused or annoyed by him.
Jingyi also seemed unsure of how to take her comment. He chuckled nervously and looked back and forth between Sizhui and Jin Ling, wordlessly asking for their help.
"Sorry, Advisor," he said sheepishly. "Did I wake you?"
Luo Qingyang raised an eyebrow.
"You must hold my agility in high regard," she said. "I don't know how you expect me to get from there-" she pointed in the direction of her own tent, "-to here in such little time."
Jingyi chuckled again. "I guess I'm still sleepy," he said.
"Well you'd best start waking up," Luo Qingyang replied curtly. "We aren't so long for daybreak now and you three will have woken the entire troop with your antics. The least you can do is make use of the time."
Indeed, as she said it, many Jin disciples wearily peeked their heads out of their tents.
"Of course," she went on, bowing her head slightly, "I've gotten ahead of myself. What you choose to do now is not within my power to dictate. But you may consider it my advice, Sect Leader Jin."
Jin Ling blinked a couple times, surprised by her formality and abrupt shift in tone. He supposed she didn't want to be seen trying to command him by the other Jin disciples, even if that wasn't really what she was doing. Luo Qingyang was already struggling with her popularity among the council members. She didn't need to extend such problems to the general disciple population.
"We'll get to work," Jin Ling said.
"Sorry we – uh – threatened you," Sizhui said quietly, bowing to Luo Qingyang.
"No harm done," she assured them. "I'll go wake my wife while you three get ready. Plan to meet back here shortly?"
"Sure," Jin Ling said.
They bowed to her and she to them before they went their separate ways.
Jin Ling moved straight to his things, rifling through them until he found the outfit he was looking for. Behind him, he heard Sizhui set down the lantern as he and Jingyi began to do the same thing.
His Jin uniform stared up at him in his hands, the fabric fine to the touch.
Although he knew the other two were almost certainly paying him no attention, Jin Ling had half a mind to try to change elsewhere as he'd done last night. He was sure Yu Qingqi wouldn't be thrilled to have to vacate her tent before dawn because Jin Ling was too self-conscious to change in front of his friends, something that he'd done a thousand times before without issue.
It wasn't as if he thought Sizhui or Jingyi were up to anything inappropriate. But ever since his… incident with Jingyi and the realization that he had feelings for him, Jin Ling had done his best to treat both of his friends the way he would have treated a girl.
He felt wrong changing with either of them, not because he was worried that they would look at him, but because he felt like he was invading their privacy by being there. Although Jin Ling wouldn't ogle them either, wouldn't Jingyi feel uncomfortable undressing in front of him if he knew how Jin Ling felt about him? Wouldn't Sizhui also feel uncomfortable around him? If they ever found out about his true feelings, would they not think back to moments like these and wonder what he might have been thinking?
It was bad enough that they'd changed together in the past. But, he hadn't known how he felt back then. Now that he did, didn't he owe it to them to limit such interactions?
"Jin Ling?" Sizhui called from behind him.
Jin Ling didn't dare to turn around. He kept his eyes trained on the embroidered peony in his hands.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Just thinking," he answered, trying to sound distant to make his lie more compelling.
"Well stop that," Jingyi snapped. "You're not very good at it. Sizhui and I are already half-dressed. We're not going to wait for you, you know…"
Jin Ling rolled his eyes.
"Where else are we going to go?" he heard Sizhui whisper.
"Nowhere!" Jingyi hissed back. "I'm trying to get him to hurry up!"
"You two head to the meeting spot," Jin Ling told them. "I'll be there soon."
Was he seriously going to pretend to be so lost in thought? He was risking worrying them instead.
As if to prove this fact, Sizhui came over to put a hand on his shoulder. Jin Ling averted his eyes.
"Are you sure you're feeling all right?" he asked.
"Yes!" Jin Ling replied too hastily. "I'm fine! Really! I'm perfectly fine! I just need more time to get ready."
"It's all right to admit that you're-"
"That I'm what?" Jin Ling snapped, eyes locked on one of the outermost tent posts. "I can take care of myself. Can't you just go wait at the rendezvous with the other two?"
Sizhui withdrew his hand.
"He wasn't trying to be mean, Jin Ling," Jingyi chided.
He was right. Jin Ling was overwhelmed, but he knew he didn't need to take it out on Sizhui.
His stomach knotted with guilt, but his pride wouldn't allow him to apologize.
"Just go," he said to both of them.
"You can't-!"
"Very well," Sizhui said calmly, interrupting Jingyi. "We'll wait for you outside."
Jin Ling gave a single firm nod to confirm that he'd heard. Their footfalls out of the tent were uneven and interrupted by hushed voices. He imagined that Sizhui was having to drag Jingyi out to keep him from giving Jin Ling a piece of his mind.
But before long, they were gone and Jin Ling was alone with that stupid fancy uniform and the weight of his own guilt.
Would he ever be able to be their friend properly again? Was this what things were always going to be like?
Not wanting to dwell on the topic any longer, Jin Ling stripped quickly and prepared himself in half the time that the other two had.
When he stepped outside, he was greeted by a tired-looking Yu Qingqi.
"Hello there, Sect Leader," she yawned.
Her hair was drawn up in her perfect fashion and her elegant lavender robes were unwrinkled, almost too pretty to wear in a fight.
Jin Ling wondered how she could have possibly gotten ready so quickly and still looked as incredible as she usually did. But then, he noticed Luo Qingyang discreetly straighten the belt around her waist and readjust one of the pins in her hair, and he knew that she must have helped her.
His mind wandered, imagining Yu Qingqi sleepily pushing away her wife, begging for her to wake her once the sun had risen. Luo Qingyang would only laugh and kiss her tenderly on the forehead before pulling her to her feet and selecting garments from her box while Yu Qingqi stood in place, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
Luo Qingyang snapped her fingers to get his attention. Jin Ling abruptly returned to his senses, a heaviness settling into his chest.
"Are you ready to share the plan with the other disciples?" she asked when she was sure he was actually looking at her.
"I think so."
"Great!" she said, clapping her hands together. "Give me a moment, then."
Luo Qingyang pranced off to collect their disciples. As she did so, Jin Ling made awkward eye contact with Yu Qingqi a few times but couldn't bring himself to look at Sizhui or Jingyi.
From Yu Qingqi's worried expression, she had noticed this too. She kept glancing between him and the other two as if to ask why they weren't speaking. Her apparent level of investment made Jin Ling begin to suspect she knew his secret.
He thought back to the times that Yu Qingqi had teased him during their trip. Often, Luo Qingyang had been right there beside her, giggling at them too. He couldn't remember whether she'd ever initiated any of the teasing, but he supposed that didn't matter. If Yu Qingqi knew enough to tease him and Luo Qingyang laughed along with her, then she was probably in on the joke.
This new suspicion replaced his guilt from earlier with anger. Luo Qingyang had promised him that it was his secret. So what if Yu Qingqi was her wife? It was his business. She had no right to tell her.
By the time Luo Qingyang returned, Jin Ling was fuming. She recoiled a little when he glared at her, but she knew better than to ask what was wrong in front of so many others.
"All right, everyone," she said loudly, speaking above the chattering crowd. "Sect Leader Jin has concocted a plan that he'd like to share with us. Listen up!"
She motioned for him to speak, and just like that, all eyes were on him.
"Uh yes," he mumbled. The people in the back of the crowd leaned forward in an effort to hear him. "Advisor Luo and I – um – made a plan last night and – um – I thought now would be a good time to share it."
He was so sweaty, he couldn't even remember his worries about Yu Qingqi or the Lan disciples anymore. His mind was blank.
He'd spoken publicly before, but he wasn't good at it. In the past, it had been easy enough to make up for some of his shortcomings with thorough preparation. However, he hadn't had any time to practice before delivering this presentation.
"To start – um…"
He wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand as the disciples shared befuddled looks with one another. A few were bold enough to start whispering, though he couldn't see where they were.
This was going to be painful.
Just then, he felt a nudge at his elbow and looked over to see Jingyi. His eyes were narrowed at the crowd, daring them to fight him. He had shifted closer such that his arm pressed against Jin Ling's, as if to remind him that he and Sizhui were right there.
Jin Ling felt badly again for having yelled at them. Jingyi's presence did just the trick.
"Myself, the Lan disciples, and a couple of scouts will come in from above," Jin Ling explained, speaking as loudly and confidently as Luo Qingyang had done before. "Everyone else will be on foot. If a few of our enemies break away to call for help, let them go. It will then be the responsibility of one of the scouts above to follow."
There were a few raised eyebrows among them. Not skeptical looks, though. They were listening to him.
Jin Ling felt himself stand up straighter.
"It will be important for those on foot to remove talismans as they move inward and to be wary of large arrays that they may not be able to see from the ground," he went on. "Those of us in the sky will watch for these things and signal if spotted."
The crowd nodded. It seemed they were, for the most part, on board for the plan.
"What about their core detonation?" asked one disciple somewhere near the back.
Jin Ling craned his neck to try to see who had spoken to no avail. So, after receiving a small nod of encouragement from Luo Qingyang, he directed his answer to everyone in front of him.
"There is no warning for that technique," Jin Ling said seriously. "If you can maintain your distance from those you're fighting, that would be the wisest course of action."
"But the explosion covers a wide radius!" cried a different disciple. "We can't stand back far enough to be safe!"
Jin Ling scowled. "And you could just as easily be felled by a sword," he said. "Core detonation seems to be used as a last resort. So finish your opponent quickly. Don't give them time to consider their options. Does anyone else have any questions?"
The group was quiet. A sense of shame hung over them.
"Good," Jin Ling said shortly. "Let's get moving."
The sun had still not risen, but there was evidence of its approach along the horizon. The faintest hint of pink could be seen between long blades of grass.
Jin Ling, Sizhui, Jingyi, and three scouts mounted their swords while Luo Qingyang instructed the ground forces. A few of their faces were disgruntled. They were likely those who didn't appreciate being made to follow a woman's lead.
He did his best to commit them to memory.
They flew low to the leafy canopy. It was imperative that they not enter the enemy's encampment first. The six of them were easy targets, high up and relatively unprotected. They could hide behind the trees to some extent, but since the scouts needed to be watching for anyone to break away from the fray below, it was important that they maintain a broad line of sight.
Wind caught his hair and clothes, giving a brief moment of weightlessness. Jin Ling realized how much he'd missed flying. They hadn't taken to the sky at all during their journey since they didn't want to risk being seen. The last time he'd ridden Suihua had been on his trip to the Unclean Realm. It had been portals and hiking ever since to avoid notice from Xue Yang.
That carefree moment came and went, though. He needed to be watching for arrays.
Jin Ling scanned the area below. No patterns or energies revealed themselves to him. There was nothing suspicious that he could see, but he was never sure. Jin Ling didn't excel at detecting hidden magic. Jiang Cheng had told him off on many occasions for nearly stumbling into traps that were 'so obvious, a child could have seen it from the next region over'.
Yet, he still missed them almost every time.
The only reason he'd put himself in the sky was because Luo Qingyang had pushed him to do so. She didn't like flying and had also said that the two of them should divide leadership between them, with one group for each. So, if she was in charge of the ground force, Jin Ling would have to take the sky.
He was depending heavily on the five other sets of eyes with him, especially Sizhui's. If he couldn't have Hanguang-jun, Sizhui was almost as good, though he would never accept such a compliment.
Sizhui studied hard and trained harder. His serious behavior had paid off in exceptional skill, no matter how much Jingyi and Jin Ling poked fun at him for being tame.
So, when Sizhui and the others indicated to him that they'd noted no traps either, Jin Ling was almost confident enough to accept their assessments at that. Almost.
He hesitated.
"Better give the order, Sect Leader," Jingyi said. "Luo Qingyang is getting antsy."
Below, Jin Ling saw his advisor throwing her hands up at him in frustration. Her mouth was moving, rapidly firing what he could only imagine to be insults in his direction.
Then again, she wouldn't so openly criticize him in front of the other Jins. So, what she'd said remained a mystery.
"I'm… not sure yet," Jin Ling said.
"Why not?" Jingyi asked. "There's nothing there. We've all said so."
Yes but what if we're wrong?
"You used to charge right into things. What are you doing?"
That was when my only responsibility was to myself. Now I'm responsible for everyone else too.
"Do you see something, Jin Ling?" Sizhui asked him.
Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded like a challenge. If Sizhui had said there was nothing there, then there was nothing Jin Ling could have seen to disprove that. He simply wasn't as good at array detection, though he refused to admit it.
But Sizhui wasn't challenging him because he doubted Jin Ling's skill. He was honestly asking.
"No, not exactly."
"What do you mean 'not exactly'?" Jingyi demanded, throwing his arms up in the mirror image of Luo Qingyang below. "You either did or you didn't. And let's be honest, you didn't see anything that Sizhui didn't see."
Jin Ling glowered at him. Jingyi glared right back.
"You know what you saw," Sizhui said soothingly, casting an admonishing look in Jingyi's direction. "I know what I saw too. We all agreed. All you need to do is give the word. I know Wen Qionglin is meant to watch only for Xue Yang, but he'll help us if we need it. You have the support you need."
What if we're wrong? What if he's not fast enough to do anything?
The lives of Luo Qingyang and the others on the ground were in his hands. It was the Battle of Jinlintai all over again. He could almost smell the blood and smoke.
But when Jingyi began to complain again and the three scouts started to show expressions ranging from boredom to irritation, he knew he couldn't stall any longer – no matter the consequences.
Jin Ling signaled for Luo Qingyang to lead the way inside. She slapped her hands back down at her sides, grateful that he'd finally made a decision. She then hurriedly waved her team toward the forest.
"Come on," Jin Ling said to his own team.
They followed him over the trees, all six of them carefully scanning the ground below for any sign of a trap or the movement of enemies. He caught glimpses of Yu Qingqi's lavender robes and flashes of yellow Jin uniforms but nothing nefarious.
According to the report from yesterday, they had perhaps a kilometer to go before they would find the camp. Jin Ling found himself wishing he had asked his disciples for more details. Though he had a pretty good idea of the layout, he was worried he didn't know it well enough.
What if he might have caught incongruencies in the layout? What if the Jin disciples had been lax in their reconnaissance and had gotten things wrong? There was no way for him to notice these things if he'd never asked about them! Why hadn't he asked about them?
As it so happened, his disciples had been correct.
They traveled a kilometer without incident (save a few minor traps that were easily dismantled) and arrived at a sparser stretch of forest. Dotted among the trees, Jin Ling could barely make out the tents of the gang, camouflaged in green and brown and covered with twigs.
He counted six tents, which matched his scout's report. They were arranged five along the perimeter and one at the center, presumably belonging to the gang leader.
And then he noticed it.
It was in the unnaturally rigid shape of the camp and the pattern of the sticks strewn on the ground. There were too many straight lines and too many perfect curves. They weren't thrown there simply for camouflage.
"There's a warning array," Sizhui said, speaking just loudly enough that their group would be able to hear him.
Jin Ling looked back to try to see if Luo Qingyang was paying attention to him, but he couldn't quite make out where she was.
"How did your people not notice this before?" Jingyi asked hotly, shooting a look at one of the scouts accompanying him.
The scout frowned.
"Apologies, Sect Leader," he said. "We were told to find out what we could without being caught. It was getting dark by the time we found this place. We couldn't – Sect Leader?!"
They didn't have time for this.
Rather than using a controlled descent to tip off Luo Qingyang about the danger, he had allowed his sword to drop out from underneath him. Sizhui reached out to catch him, but his reaction time was far too late.
Jin Ling reached the ground in record time, using a brief incantation to slow his fall at the last moment. He looked around for Luo Qingyang and the others, but it seemed they had not yet delved so far into the woods.
He didn't have long to wait. When Jingyi and Sizhui settled into place beside him, they were greeted by a few choice words.
"I could have killed you!" Luo Qingyang exclaimed, albeit in a hushed voice. "What were you thinking?!"
"Why are you down here?" Yu Qingqi asked, her tone much more appropriate.
"There's a warning array ahead," Jin Ling explained. "I couldn't see you, so I came down to warn you."
"And these two just had to come with?"
Jingyi and Sizhui flushed red when she pointed at them, but there was no secret joke to what she'd said. Luo Qingyang wasn't teasing. She was annoyed.
"We came down here for a reason!" Jingyi insisted, his face much redder than Sizhui's.
Sizhui glanced at him, wordlessly requesting that he dial down his indignation. Then, with a deep bow, he addressed Luo Qingyang himself.
"I doubt any of us have tripped the warning array inside their encampment," he said, "but they must have been alerted to our presence anyhow. A group of at least five men are headed this way."
Panic rose in Jin Ling's throat… and embarrassment. If he wouldn't have been so hasty in getting to his advisor, he might have noticed the approaching enemy himself.
He wasn't off to a good start with this mission.
Luo Qingyang sighed and looked up at the sky before saying, "Five against sixteen isn't so bad. But those three had better stay up there."
Jin Ling nodded and conveyed her words to the scouts above with a brief hand signal. One of them gave a little half-bow to confirm that he'd understood.
He refocused on Luo Qingyang and opened his mouth to say something. Not so much as a single word had left his lips before he was interrupted.
"Look out!" Yu Qingqi screamed, hurling herself at Luo Qingyang.
They toppled to one side as a flash of silver flew over them.
Clang!
The sword buried itself deep in the trunk of a nearby fir tree.
Jin Ling, Sizhui, Jingyi, and the rest of their ground team drew their own weapons. Suihua felt heavier than usual in Jin Ling's hands as he turned to face the oncoming wave.
Each man that ran toward them was at least twice Jin Ling's size and bared his teeth like a wolf about to tear apart his prey. There were clearly more than five of them, all dressed in fake Jin uniforms. Jin Ling counted at least eight before he was engaged by his first opponent.
Suihua locked against the blade of a burly man with eyes that glistened like beetles.
"I don't know if you've noticed," Jin Ling began to say through gritted teeth.
"Don't you dare say it," Jingyi said testily, battling his own opponent.
He couldn't answer right away. Jin Ling was already panting trying to push back the beetle-eyed man who was baring down on him. Suihua grated against the opposing sword, slowly turning back toward Jin Ling. He wasn't strong enough to overpower this man.
Finally accepting this fact, Jin Ling changed his approach. He ducked under the blade that had been holding him in place, causing his opponent to stumble forward. At the same time, he withdrew a paper talisman from his belt and slapped it onto the shoulder of the beetle-eyed man.
"Say what?" Jin Ling asked as his enemy at last dropped to the dirt, pinned by an invisible force. "You've already noticed that your count was wrong?"
Jingyi opened his mouth, no doubt to shoot some sort of insult or quip in his direction, but the only sound that escaped was a yelp as his own opponent's sword sliced into his side.
Immediately, Jin Ling had crossed the distance and used the same type of talisman to incapacitate the man fighting Jingyi.
"Be careful!" Jin Ling scolded, eying the cut on Jingyi's torso. "Are you all right?"
Jingyi scoffed. "I didn't need your help! Stop trying to show off."
Jin Ling sighed. He was fine.
"It's not showing off if I'm just better than you are."
"Oh ho! Should we keep a tally?" Jingyi asked. "You've got two already, but I bet that I can beat you."
His tone was one of a challenge. His smile was anything but that. Jin Ling's heart did a little somersault in his chest. For a moment, he forgot that they were in the middle of a battle.
"Why don't you just pay attention to what you're doing?" Jin Ling retorted.
"Fine but I'm still keeping count," Jingyi said, grinning. "And don't try to tell me that you're not going to as well."
Jin Ling merely rolled his eyes in response.
Three loud, clear notes erupted from the crowd. It was unmistakeably Sizhui's guqin.
"Why did he-?" Jingyi began to ask.
"Corpses!" came Luo Qingyang's voice. "At least thirty of them!"
Jin Ling's heart dropped into his stomach.
They'd known to expect demonic cultivation, but the reality of it was more frightening to him than he'd anticipated. Their forces were nearly matched in number, yet with this, the gang had more than doubled its size.
Surely their fierce corpses wouldn't be as powerful as Wei Wuxian's?
The smell reached him first. A horrible gag-inducing stench filled the air soon followed by inhuman growls and groans.
Jingyi took off toward the action, the hem of his white Lan robes trailing behind him like an inverted shadow.
Jin Ling made to follow but found that his legs were unwilling to move.
A missing right arm, rotten flesh, black blood…these images had filled his head and rendered him momentarily immobile.
The men he'd pinned with talismans before were beginning to rise.
"Damn it!" Jin Ling hissed under his breath.
He'd known the talismans wouldn't hold forever, but he'd hoped for a bit more time than that.
And so he was stuck fighting them again. He ducked under the arm of one and spun away from the other. Block here, dodge there, back up, back up, back up!
They wouldn't allow him to move behind them again.
Wei Wuxian had shown him once how to hold his own against multiple opponents at the same time… in a fist fight. If he'd made a mistake then, he would have wound up trudging home with a black eye and his tail between his legs to listen to Jin Guangyao scold him for fighting and Jiang Cheng scold him for losing.
If he made a mistake now, he'd be tripping on his own intestines.
With Zidian, perhaps he could have maintained a greater distance between himself and the two men. Suihua simply didn't have that amount of reach.
There was nothing for it, then. He couldn't ignore these two and run to help the others. He had to finish them off first and preferably leave them a little less conscious this time.
So, he did his best to draw on what he'd learned from the man he'd once despised. Jin Ling turned the battle into more of a dance. He was careful with the placement of his feet and he made himself as small a target as possible as he twisted and turned.
Suddenly, he wasn't struggling quite so much. Jin Ling even started to laugh at the frustrated looks of the two men who couldn't seem to catch him.
They danced and danced. His opponents started showing more of their teeth as their snarls widened. Jin Ling was holding his own, but he couldn't find an opening. It was becoming a matter of who would tire first.
He used smaller movements to conserve energy, but his heart was racing again. Excitement alone could sap one's strength, Jiang Cheng had once warned him. It was important to be invested in the fight but to not let it consume everything.
He was definitely invested. Everyone else was focusing on the corpses behind him. He couldn't allow them to be ambushed by these two who were only moving because Jin Ling lacked the resolve to kill them.
The beetle-eyed man was slowing down considerably. Jin Ling missed his first opening, but took the second.
Jin Ling's fist connected with the underside of the beetle-eyed man's jaw.
He crumpled to the ground. Jin Ling's knuckles burned.
The other man didn't delay in his reaction time. He swung at Jin Ling so viciously, that he nearly hit his own ally.
Jin Ling scurried backward.
His opponent seemed revitalized now that his friend had been taken out. Jin Ling, however, was tiring.
He dodged the first swing, blocked the second, but the third he knew was going to land before it ever hit him.
Cold steel bit into his side. The gang member sneered in victory as Jin Ling faltered and pressed his free hand into his wound.
It wasn't deep and it didn't hurt yet. He could keep fighting.
But the man across from him had only grown more energetic.
His strikes were as fast as a cobra's. Jin Ling had no choice but to continue to give up ground. He stumbled over foliage to try to back up.
The moment his back hit the tree behind him, he knew he was in trouble.
His opponent's eyes lit up with malice and he sprang forward, jabbing his sword out ahead of him. Jin Ling dove to the side, but he knew he wasn't going to make it. There simply wasn't time to move.
He braced himself for the injury that never came.
A loud, clear guqin note split the air around them. Jin Ling's muscles locked in place. The man across from him was similarly paralyzed, the tip of his sword frozen mere centimeters from Jin Ling's belly.
Sizhui raced over. His Lan robes weren't as dirtied as Jin Ling would have expected. He had a few streaks of dirt on them and his long hair looked perhaps a little disheveled, but he looked almost no worse than he would have had he just woken.
He stopped beside the gang member. Jin Ling could see that Sizhui was plucking the strings of his guqin again, but he couldn't hear any notes.
After a few moments of this strange, silent music, the gang member collapsed to the ground, fast asleep.
"I'm sorry," Sizhui said. "I couldn't avoid hitting you too."
When he strummed the guqin again, Jin Ling could hear it. Before he was ready, the rigidity in his muscles had disappeared. Jin Ling stumbled. Sizhui held out an arm to steady him.
"Why aren't you fighting with everyone else?" Jin Ling asked, pushing away the offered assistance and smoothing the front of his clothes.
Sizhui smiled briefly, then looked back over his shoulder at the battle behind him.
"I had wondered the same of you when Jingyi joined us," he explained. "He couldn't double back for you, so I did."
"Oh."
"Are you all right?" Sizhui asked, gesturing toward the long gash that was clearly visible against the yellow of Jin Ling's uniform.
Jin Ling pressed his hand against the wound again. This time, he felt the sting and winced. Sizhui wrinkled his brow sympathetically.
"It won't kill me," Jin Ling said. "I'm fine."
Sizhui nodded and turned back to the rest of the group.
"Please be careful," Jin Ling heard him say before running off.
The second gang member was sleeping soundly amid the leaves. His fingers were curled loosely around the hilt of his bloodied sword.
Jin Ling bent and retrieved his weapon from him, and then turned and took the sword of the beetle-eyed man as well. He tossed both of them into a nearby bush before kneeling to bind each of their wrists together with a short length of coarse rope that had been meant for his tent.
With those two bound, there was less risk that they would pose a threat to any of Jin Ling's forces. He could return to the others.
It was chaos where everyone else was fighting.
Corpses littered the ground, making footwork exceptionally difficult near the front of the pack. A fetid odor filled the air and no matter how many fierce corpses were felled, more took their place. It was a wonder that Sizhui had been able to disengage to help him when he had.
Jin Ling pushed his way forward where the fighting was the thickest.
"Mind yourself!" someone yelled when he accidentally elbowed them.
"Sorry, I-" Then he saw who it was that had shouted at him. "Luo Qingyang!" Jin Ling cried in surprise.
She was covered from head to toe in gore, hence he hadn't initially been able to tell who she was. She bared her teeth at the enemy with as much ferocity as the two men Jin Ling had just restrained. Her sword sliced through the air, quick as a hummingbird. She was certainly in her element.
"We are making no progress!" she screamed over the cacophony. "I haven't seen a single living person since we've started. We need to get through this to the source or we'll be here all day!"
"I'll take some people with me," Jin Ling said. "We'll push through to the camp! In the meantime, you should call for the Ghost General!"
"All right! But take the quiet Lan boy with you!"
"Seriously?!" Jin Ling exclaimed as he helped to shield her from a corpse pair that lunged forward at that moment. "We're in the middle of a battle and that's what you're thinking about?!"
"No, you idiot!" she yelled back, twirling behind him to defend against a corpse he hadn't seen. "Not everything is about you, you know! I want you to take that boy to help you get through this mess! He's been the only one able to hold more than one of these fierce corpses with that cultivation method of his!"
"Fine then!" Jin Ling shouted, feeling a little embarrassed. "Do you know where he went?"
"Use your ears!"
Jin Ling refrained from rolling his eyes. The advice she'd given was nothing that he hadn't deduced on his own. The trouble was that Sizhui hadn't played a single note since he'd returned to the fray.
As if he'd sensed the opportunity to make Jin Ling look like more of a fool, Sizhui chose that exact moment to strum another chord.
"Still need me to show you the way?!" Luo Qingyang asked, not bothering to mask her irritation.
"I'm fine!" Jin Ling replied, mirroring her attitude. "I'll find you after it's done."
He started to move away, but she called after him.
"You can take the loud one too, if you want!"
Jin Ling frowned, not willing to make the same assumption he'd made when she'd suggested Sizhui.
He elected not to answer her and began to push through the crowd. It was an exceedingly tight space to traverse. Twice he was hit on his injured side – once by an enemy and once by an ally. He narrowly avoided being bitten by one particularly aggressive female corpse that had climbed over her companions in a desperate frenzy.
When at last he saw Sizhui, directing his sword with one hand as it flew through the crowd while he clutched his guqin under his other arm, Jin Ling released a long, relieved sigh.
"Sizhui!" he called to him.
There was no response. Sizhui was still a good distance away from him and the fighting was only getting louder.
Jin Ling pushed on, trying to get closer.
Bang!
Red light filled the sky behind him. Jin Ling whirled around, but as soon as he did, it was gone. He brought his attention back to the fight just in time to block against another corpse.
Bang!
Another flood of red light enveloped the tree tops. This time, though, it was accompanied by a scream like someone falling.
The scouts. They had noticed the scouts above.
Jin Ling scanned the sky, looking for how many of his people remained aloft. But, they had been instructed to stay as low as possible. Just because he couldn't see anyone up there didn't mean that they weren't there.
Praying that the scout who had fallen was all right, Jin Ling decided to simply carry on with his original plan with the added caveat that he would need to also be watching for people who tried to run away now that he couldn't necessarily count on his soldiers above.
"Sizhui!" he called, now within a couple of meters of him.
"Jin Ling!" Sizhui called back to him. He looked exhausted. "I'm sorry! I just can't stop them from coming!"
"I know! Come with me!"
"Where?!"
"To the source! Let's go!"
Sizhui nodded curtly and joined him as requested. As compared to when he'd seen him before, he looked a bit more the worse for wear now. His robes were torn in several places and there was a large bruise by his eye. He wasn't as dirty as Luo Qingyang, but he wasn't unscathed either.
"We'll head to their camp," Jin Ling explained as the two of them began to work their way to the back of the crowd. A nearby Jin disciple laid down a warding talisman to help them pass.
"We may be able to get around if we head this way," Sizhui said, taking the lead.
Jin Ling followed him, keeping his eyes peeled for any living enemies.
It seemed that Sizhui was right. The area the corpses covered was relatively small and they were able to skirt along the outside of the battle, straight into the gang's camp.
Either the gang wasn't powerful enough to summon more corpses to protect them or the Jin disciples were too skilled to be so easily overpowered, or both.
Whatever the reason, they were running out of time. Surely someone in the gang would have tried to go for help already.
"Hide!" Sizhui said urgently, seizing Jin Ling's arm and tugging him behind one of the tents at the perimeter of the camp.
"Argh!" Jin Ling cried out. He'd tugged him along by the arm closest to his injury.
"I'm sorry," Sizhui whispered.
Jin Ling just shook his head as a big man dressed in black with a high ponytail and a thick beard rushed past their hiding place.
"It's not working," the man yelled.
Together, Sizhui and Jin Ling leaned to one side to see who he was talking to.
Three other people dressed in black were kneeling on the ground, huddled together as if they were looking at something. The man came to a halt behind one of the kneeling people, a woman.
"The corpses aren't holding them back," the man said, out of breath. "We need more."
"We need to conserve the power the demonic cultivator gave us," the kneeling woman said to him without lifting her head. "Without it, we can't hope to achieve what we've started."
One of the men kneeling beside her snorted. "I don't think we need his help anymore," he said. "The other clans are practically eating out of our hands. You thought they didn't like Jin Guangyao's policies? Listen to how they talk about Jin Ling!"
"You would have thought it would take more to rile people up," said the other kneeling man, "but that cultivator was right. There's nothing that angers people more than plucking from their wallets!"
Jin Ling's hands curled into fists. They were talking about the false taxation.
He readjusted where he was sitting, and suddenly, Sizhui threw out his arm as if he thought he was going to run head-first into the camp.
"Stop it," Jin Ling said, annoyed. He swatted Sizhui away from him and continued to listen.
"We have to do something," said the big bearded man. "I think Jin Ling is with them. Shouldn't we use more of those things to kill him?"
"How many times do I have to tell you?" the woman said. "A power vacuum does us no good. We want him to remain sect leader. We just need to make it such that we're the ones in control of that power."
They were planning to blackmail him?
Jin Ling supposed he shouldn't have been surprised after they'd attacked Jinlintai before. They were obviously unscrupulous people.
Suddenly, a hand clamped down over his mouth.
"What are you two looking at?" a voice whispered in his ear.
Jin Ling inhaled sharply and wiggled against his captor's hold but to no avail. Even when he seized his arm and tried to pull it away from himself, it wouldn't budge.
Sizhui didn't seem worried, though. He scowled and wordlessly motioned for Jin Ling to be released. As soon as the hold on him loosened, Jin Ling twisted around, ready to punch Jingyi in his smiling face. But, Sizhui caught his fist and shook his head vigorously.
He was right, of course. They couldn't risk making a lot of noise right now.
"Why'd you only cover my mouth?" Jin Ling hissed as Jingyi settled in behind them, grinning from ear to ear.
"You didn't see me coming," he said matter-of-factly. "Plus, you're the screamer."
Jin Ling crossed his arms. "You're one to talk!"
"Both of you, please," Sizhui interjected.
They fell silent, but Jin Ling shot Jingyi a dirty look before turning his attention back to the gang.
"But Jinlintai-" the bearded man began.
"Jinlintai was supposed to go very differently," the woman retorted. "We weren't going there to kill him. We were never even going to enter the tower! But he evacuated the city instead of simply barricading himself in his tower. We need time to rethink our strategy."
Out of the corner of his eye, Jin Ling saw Sizhui's lips curl upward. It seemed weird that he would smile while Jin Ling's enemies discussed their plot to overthrow him.
Maybe it was the mention of the evacuation?
Those two have patterns as reliable as the phases of the moon…
Jin Ling shook his head to clear it of Luo Qingyang's voice.
"Do you think those three are the ones summoning the corpses?" Jingyi asked, his voice a little louder than Jin Ling would have liked.
"It's entirely possible," Sizhui whispered. "One of them is always concentrating on whatever they have on the ground between them."
"But where are the other members?" Jin Ling asked. "There should be around ten more."
Sizhui and Jingyi looked just as puzzled as he felt.
"If we can confirm that those three are summoning the corpses, then taking care of them should free up more of our own people," Sizhui said. "I'm not sure the three of us can take out all fifteen on our own."
"Speak for yourself," Jin Ling and Jingyi said in unison.
Sizhui raised his eyebrows.
"All right, fine," Jin Ling admitted. "How do we be sure?"
Sizhui shrugged. The gang began to speak to one another again.
"Can't you add more resentful energy to the corpses or something?" the bearded man implored.
"Can't you make sure that the others are in position while we tire out our guests?" the woman snapped at him. "It's hard enough to maintain them without you interrupting constantly."
Jingyi snorted quietly. "Just laying out their whole plan, these two."
"That wasn't full confirmation, though," Jin Ling replied apprehensively as the bearded man ran off to a different part of the camp.
"What more do you want?" Jingyi said, laughing. "You want them to say 'oh look at this amazing demonic cultivation we're doing! Isn't it so great to be holding back all those pesky Jins and those two exceptional Lan disciples?'"
Jin Ling glowered at him. Jingyi laughed quietly.
"Jin Ling?" Sizhui said softly.
He looked over at him, trying to block out Jingyi's teasing.
"Jingyi and I are responsible for ourselves," Sizhui said. "If you make a mistake, it will be a mistake the three of us made together."
"I don't-"
"If you refuse to move from here, that's your choice," he went on. "But we know enough to know that those people are responsible for the corpses out there. Jingyi and I are going to fight them regardless of what you do."
Jin Ling understood then. Sizhui was worried that he was going to lock up again, that his indecision would lose them this opportunity.
"That's right!" Jingyi whispered excitedly. He then addressed Sizhui. "Do you think you can hold all three of them there with your guqin?"
Sizhui frowned. "Maybe," he said slowly. "It's more difficult to use on the living. But I can almost definitely hold two of them, depending on their cultivation level."
And just like that, the two of them were discussing the plan without him. Jin Ling grew frustrated.
"If we're wrong-" Jin Ling started to say.
"If we're wrong, then we probably alert the rest of the gang to our presence and possibly get hurt," Jingyi said. "The rest of the Jins keep fighting like they have been. Nothing changes for them."
"Yes, but we may lose our one chance to help them."
"Right and we may be doing that by sitting here anyway."
Jin Ling looked between Sizhui and Jingyi, searching for any amount of uncertainty, but there was none. Their faces were set with resolve.
Again, Jin Ling was the one acting the fool.
"All right," Jin Ling said with a sigh. "What if Jingyi and I fight those three and you block anyone else who tries to attack us?"
Jingyi grinned. Sizhui nodded.
"I like that plan better," Sizhui said.
"Let's go then," Jin Ling said.
The three of them exchanged one final look before steeling themselves and racing out from behind the tent.
Instantly, a golden wall of light shot up from the ground around the three kneeling gang members. It stretched outward toward Jin Ling, Sizhui, and Jingyi.
Jin Ling faltered for a moment, unsure what would happen if he ran into the barrier. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sizhui reach for his guqin. Sizhui hadn't slowed at all.
So, Jin Ling decided not to either.
They charged at the wall, confident that they could bring it down.
Five meters away… three… two…
With one swipe across the strings of his guqin, Sizhui dissolved the warding before they collided with it.
The three gang members were on their feet in the blink of an eye. Two of them utilized sword levitation to send their weapons hurling toward the trio.
Jin Ling knocked one of them aside. Jingyi ducked under the other.
And then, they were fighting again.
Sizhui stood back, stepping in to ward off an opponent every now and again, but it was obvious that most of his attention was focused away from the battle.
"You two boys think you can defeat the three of us?" one of the male gang members snarled.
His fist connected with the side of Jin Ling's head, sending him backward several paces.
"You idiots will have tripped the warning array," the female gang member said smugly. "I hope you're confident enough to fight the rest of us too."
The warning array! Jin Ling had entirely forgotten about it.
Confirming the woman's claim, Sizhui began to play with fervor. The sounds of shouting from the other side of the camp started to reach them.
They were in big trouble.
These three gang members weren't as easy to dispatch either. Jin Ling got very close to landing a good hit on one of the men, but at the last second, he slid away and kicked out at Jin Ling's injured side. Thankfully, he was too riled up to feel much more than the buffeting force of the kick, but it was going to hurt a lot later.
Jingyi wasn't faring better. Already he'd been hit at least three times, though not too seriously yet.
He didn't know how much longer they could keep this up.
Jin Ling stumbled back again after the woman used some sort of weak explosive talisman on him. Smoke filled his lungs. Jin Ling coughed and spluttered, vision blurred by soot as he tried to see where the next strike would come from.
Just when he was sure they were going to be killed, he heard someone call to him in the distance.
"Great job, Sect Leader!" came Yu Qingqi's enthusiastic cry.
"We're coming!" Luo Qingyang shouted. "Hold on just a little longer!"
That was easier said than done. After that woman's talisman had detonated in his face, Jin Ling couldn't make out more than the general shapes of things around him.
Someone pushed him roughly. Jin Ling stumbled for a few steps and fell hard on his knees.
"Just cry or something!" he heard Jingyi yell followed by the clang of steel on steel.
"What?" he said.
"If you can't see, then cry!"
"I'm not going to cry!"
His eyes were already tearing from irritation, but not enough to clear his vision.
Jingyi let out a scream of frustration, the likes of which Jin Ling had not heard from him before.
"I'm serious, Jin Ling!" he yelled. "We can't do this!"
Jin Ling rubbed furiously at his face, but that made it worse. The soot was only pushed deeper in.
Luo Qingyang was close. Surely Jingyi and Sizhui could hold out until then…
…But what if they couldn't?
Jin Ling imagined all sorts of things – the two of them dying because he couldn't pull himself together, Fairy dying, the destruction of Jinlintai - no matter what he tried, he simply couldn't make himself cry.
Then, something smacked him hard in the nose.
He clutched at it, certain it was broken as his eyes began to water in earnest. Tears slid down his cheeks, and with them, the soot.
As soon as his sight returned, Jin Ling leapt up, threw Suihua up into the air, and directed it to guard Jingyi's weaker left side. Jingyi seemed relieved and refocused his energy to the right.
Looking around, however, revealed that Sizhui was a short distance from them and had no hope of fending off the number that approached him. With each strum of his guqin he was, at best, able to hold three people in place, but the effects were short-lived. Most were recovering in moments.
Jin Ling's heart raced. He couldn't help both of them very much. But he would do what he could.
At long last, he drew his bow from his back and aimed at the hip of one of the men running at Sizhui. Simultaneously, he fought to maintain control of Suihua in order to keep shielding Jingyi.
He released his first arrow and missed, but it didn't matter. The man he'd failed to hit was knocked off course and immediately greeted by the brute strength of Wen Ning (and he hadn't put the same effort into being nonlethal as Jin Ling had).
The rest of their group had rejoined them and rushed to aid Sizhui.
Feeling that one of the two was now relatively safe, Jin Ling refocused on Jingyi. For some reason, even with his full concentration, Suihua didn't respond the way it usually did for him. It was almost sluggish in its movements, nearly failing to protect Jingyi from what would have been a grave wound.
Jin Ling hurried forward, throwing his bow back over his shoulder, and holding out his hand to recall his sword. It came to him without issue, and he and Jingyi continued to hold the three gang members in place as they'd been doing.
The enemy was getting nervous.
He watched the woman's eyes flit over in Sizhui's direction multiple times. Her and her companion's movements were growing more erratic, guided more by fear than discipline, thus making it harder to predict what they would do now that they'd changed their style. However, it also meant that they were likely to tire quickly.
Jin Ling redoubled his efforts. Beside him, he noticed Jingyi do the same.
An opening showed itself to Jingyi first. With one swift punch in the throat and a two-armed swing to bring the hilt of his sword down as hard as he could on the head of his coughing opponent, Jingyi took out one of the male gang members.
A moment after, the other man fumbled and Jin Ling just as quickly dispatched him.
"Good one!" Jingyi commended as their enemy crumpled to the ground in a heap.
"You too!"
The woman froze for a split second. She looked between the two of them, loathing evident in the crinkle of her nose and the asymmetrical elevation of her lip.
Then, she ran.
"You're kidding me!" Jingyi cried. "Your bow! Use your bow!"
"No!" Jin Ling said. "We need to see where she goes."
Jingyi let out a childish whine, but when Jin Ling took off after the woman, Jingyi was right there with him.
They maintained their distance, trying to let her think that she'd gotten far enough away from them. But she never slowed down. Her black clothes whipped around behind her as she darted between the trees.
Jin Ling had long legs and was notorious for being able to chase down most people who made fun of him (even if he didn't always succeed in making them eat their words once he'd caught them). Yet this woman was exceedingly difficult to keep up with.
Jingyi was having an even harder time. He was beginning to fall behind.
"Demonic cultivator!" the woman cried out ahead of them, startling Jin Ling and causing him to jump much higher than he'd intended over a rotten log on the ground.
"What the hell?" he heard Jingyi gasp behind him.
"Demonic cultivator! Are you there?!"
"Has this woman… lost her… mind?" Jingyi asked, panting.
Jin Ling had honestly been wondering the same thing.
There was nothing but forest around them, thick, oppressive vegetation no less. It wasn't the kind of place someone would live or even make camp. The terrain was rocky and in some places, there was hardly enough room for a person to pass between the trees. There would be no place to pitch a tent.
"Demonic culti-!"
Snap!
The woman whirled around at the sound of Jin Ling treading on a fallen branch.
Jin Ling drew his bow. The woman sent her sword flying in his direction.
Not daring to miss his chance, Jin Ling didn't move a muscle as the blade hurled toward him. He released the draw string and his arrow whizzed by the sword.
Only one of the two hit their mark.
With a yelp, the woman fell to the ground, nothing but fletching visible on her thigh. Jingyi swung his own sword out in front of Jin Ling, deflecting the opponent's before it could ever hit him.
"You could be a little more defensive than that," Jingyi admonished.
Jin Ling stared down at the sword that nearly killed him. "Yeah," he said, shocked. "Perhaps I should have been."
The woman began to shout obscenities at them, but Jin Ling and Jingyi ignored her. The sound of running footsteps behind them was far more interesting.
Another woman, covered in black blood and bits of flesh, ran out from between the trees, cursing loudly as her clothes caught on bramble.
"Thank the gods!" Luo Qingyang cried once she'd freed herself. "Never do that again!"
"Do what?" Jin Ling asked her, watching Yu Qingqi climb silently over the underbrush toward them.
"Run off like that!" Luo Qingyang said. "I didn't know where you were! Thankfully Qingqing saw where you went!"
Yu Qingqi meekly waved at them. Jingyi waved awkwardly back at her.
"We were chasing that woman," Jin Ling explained, pointing at the gang member he'd shot moments earlier.
"Oh… well…"
Luo Qingyang trailed off, her gaze focusing on Jingyi as if she'd only just noticed he was there.
"I still wish you would have said something," she said crossly.
"You're not my mother," Jin Ling retorted. "You don't need to know where I am at all times."
Luo Qingyang ran her tongue over her teeth and inclined her head. "You're right. We can take her back with us, if you'd like?"
Jin Ling almost told her that he could do it himself until he saw how she was looking at him, the corners of her eyes pinched and her mouth set in a flat line. She was displeased. It was best to let her do what she wanted.
"Sure," he said, watching her take on a more neutral appearance.
The gang member tried to scramble away from them, but Jin Ling had lanced her thigh through and through. It was no doubt incredibly painful for her to move as much as she did when Luo Qingyang and Yu Qingqi came to lift her.
Even so, she ended up struggling so much that Luo Qingyang hit her over the back of the head to make her more receptive to being carried.
"I'll put her with the others we captured," she said when she and Yu Qingqi had dragged the woman back over to them.
"Jingyi and I will catch up with you," Jin Ling said. "We need to search this area first to make sure there's nothing of note since she-" he pointed at the woman hanging between their shoulders, "-led us out here for some reason."
"Good idea," Luo Qingyang said. "I'll have the others spread out and make sure there's nothing else to find around their camp then."
"Good."
"I trust you don't need my help to do what needs to be done."
Though she'd spoken in a very neutral tone, Jin Ling narrowed his eyes at Luo Qingyang's back as she and her wife carried the prisoner back the way they'd come. She really wanted him to clarify things with Jingyi now? Didn't they have enough to worry about?
Jingyi groaned loudly once they were out of earshot. "Did you have to give us more work to do?" he whined.
"You volunteered to be here," Jin Ling replied, moving off toward where the woman had fallen. "Plus, I thought you were dead set on competing with me."
Jin Ling began to examine the area. Jingyi followed him slowly and began to look around as well.
"I think considering the fact that you wouldn't still be standing here were it not for me, I should automatically win," Jingyi said flatly.
"Oh really?!" Jin Ling replied. "Who was it that you begged for help back in the camp?"
"Well who was it that had to kick you in the nose to make you useful after you got some dirt in your eye?!"
Jin Ling shot a glare in his direction only to realize that Jingyi wasn't actually arguing with him. He was leaning against a tree, watching him with a faint smile on his lips.
"That was you?" Jin Ling asked incredulously, deciding not to yell at him. If he was being honest with himself, he was too tired to argue with Jingyi and he did actually owe him his life. "You kicked me?"
Jingyi scrunched his face sheepishly.
"Yeah," he said, "I'm sorry about it, if that counts for anything. I hit you harder than I intended."
Jin Ling rubbed his nose absentmindedly, recalling the excruciating sting. "That really hurt."
"Sorry," Jingyi said again. "It looks fine though. I don't think I broke it."
"At least there's that much," Jin Ling said, perhaps a bit sourly.
The cut on his side throbbed each time he bent down to inspect the ground for hidden symbols or arrays or anything really. His entire body was growing sorer by the second.
"I have to admit, though," Jingyi said, still leaning against his tree and not being particularly helpful, "that was a pretty incredible shot you made. Were you aiming for the leg?"
"Yes."
"And how did you control your sword and shoot your bow at the same time?" he asked. "Who taught you that?"
Jin Ling shrugged, feeling both confused and pleased by the compliments. "No one, I think," he said.
"You should practice that some more," Jingyi went on. "I think you would be a force to be reckoned with if you could perfect it."
Jin Ling laughed even though he was getting annoyed that there seemed to be nothing to find in this stretch of forest.
"Well you held off three of those warriors on your own," Jin Ling said. "And you did stop that sword from hitting me. Thank you for that, by the way."
It felt weird to compliment Jingyi so much… and even weirder to see him blush.
"Any time," Jingyi said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Have you found anything?"
"No."
Jingyi meandered over to him. His eyes swept the forest floor, back and forth, but somehow it didn't seem like he was really looking at it.
Jin Ling straightened to examine a tree with torn bark. He touched the trunk and felt no sinister aura from it. The lacerations looked like the kind of marks that a deer or some other animal might leave. There were no apparent symbols drawn in it.
It seemed there was nothing to find here.
"So how many did you end up counting?" Jingyi asked him, smirking.
"What?"
"Your count… what did you end up with?"
Jin Ling furrowed his brow. "Four, I think?" he said. "What about you?"
The waver in Jingyi's smile told him all he needed to know.
"Well how much are we counting corpses for?"
Jin Ling rolled his eyes. "I'll give you half for them."
Jingyi grinned. "We tied then!"
"Really? You only picked off two corpses? There were so many, though."
"Yeah, but I was only trying to make sure that Sizhui didn't get killed!" Jingyi insisted.
"Likely story," Jin Ling said, even though it was indeed a very likely story.
Temporarily redirecting corpses was often much easier than getting rid of them outright if there were many in one place. It was one strategy to minimize the number that approached someone at one time.
Jingyi pursed his lips, then shrugged. "I'm just excited that we won," he said. "Now I can go back to sleep."
Jin Ling smiled at those words. "We won," he breathed.
Without his uncle or Wei Wuxian or Hanguang-jun (technically Wen Ning had been there, but Jin Ling elected to ignore that), they had won a battle, a real battle. His elation spread through his blood like a salve for his wounds. His pain receded.
"We did," Jingyi said, practically glowing as he said it.
Had he moved closer? Jin Ling wasn't sure.
"At the risk of inflating your ego," Jingyi murmured. "Victory suits you, Sect Leader."
Jin Ling's breath caught in his throat. He really was very close, wasn't he? He could see the bruise on his jaw and the dried blood in his hair.
Against his better judgement, Jin Ling's gaze slid down to his mouth where he spotted a single cut on his lower lip.
Before he knew what was happening, Jingyi had his arms around him, and Jin Ling was tasting that cut – a detail that should have disgusted him, but didn't.
Jin Ling hesitated at first, but when Jingyi started to pull away, he seized the front of his robes and pulled him in again, returning his kiss. Jingyi pressed against him, backing him up against the damaged tree trunk he'd inspected moments before.
A noise somewhere between a whine and a groan escaped his throat. Jingyi kissed him harder. His hands moved from Jin Ling's waist to either side of his neck.
It was nothing like the kiss they'd had when they were drunk. Jin Ling could feel him and taste him the way he was meant to. The way his breathing came in shuddering gasps or how he leaned his body against him as if he intended to meld their forms into one.
He wrapped his arms under Jingyi's and dug his fingers into his shoulder blades, which had the desired effect of pulling him ever closer. It also coaxed a little noise from him that only encouraged Jin Ling to breathe less and kiss him more.
He was so warm… so warm…
A-Ling, you cannot strengthen your family in this way…
With a sharp gasp, Jin Ling pushed Jingyi away. Jingyi stumbled, looking dazed.
He then turned red, smiled, and said, "Please don't tell me you were somehow drunk this whole time."
Jin Ling still couldn't breathe, but now for a completely different reason.
What was he doing? He had no excuse this time. He couldn't explain this away.
He'd wanted it. He'd liked it.
His head was filled with all the times Jiang Cheng had spat the word 'cut sleeve' as if it were the vilest insult he could think of.
"Jin Ling?" Jingyi said quietly, clearly concerned.
"S-stay away from me," Jin Ling whispered.
"What?"
"I said stay away from me!" he screamed.
Jin Ling's hands were shaking. There was a ringing in his ears.
"I don't understand," Jingyi said in a small voice. "You kissed me too. I swear you kissed me too."
"I didn't! I… Just stay away from me!"
This time, when Jin Ling took off running, Jingyi did not follow him.