Wang Ben finished his sword forms in the outer courtyard as sunlight reached the top of the compound wall. Two weeks had passed since his second qi condensation breakthrough. The denser qi moved easily now, and he no longer had to slow himself to keep the movements clean.
He lowered the practice sword. Someone had been watching him throughout the exercise. He had grown used to continuing his work while he felt it, though he still looked toward the roofs when he finished.
The sensation stopped before he turned.
Wang Ben stood still. He had not reached the inner gate.
He waited, listening to the guards nearby. Their conversation continued. The watching did not return.
His mother went to the market with two guards now. She had agreed to that much after he told her about the watching. But if whoever it was had finished watching him, where had they gone?
He hurried through the inner gate.
Breakfast was cooking in the main house, and Wang Chen was making himself heard. His father looked up from the new pill recipe he was studying in the workshop.
"Father. The watching stopped while I was outside."
Wang Tian put the recipe down and came to the doorway.
"Just now?"
"During practice. I'm afraid they're going to do something. Mother shouldn't go out today."
"I'll stay with her and Chen." His father stepped out beside him. "Go to the Grand Elder. Tell him what happened, and ask him to strengthen the guard and double the watch at the gates."
Wang Ben found Wang Feng and repeated the warning. The Grand Elder listened, then searched the grounds with his spiritual sense.
"Still nothing," Wang Feng said. "I'll speak to the guard captain."
He left at once. On his way back to the family rooms, Wang Ben passed guards heading toward the outer gates.
His father would be with Mother and Chen. The elders were here, and the clan's formations protected the house. But Mother would have to go out again eventually. So would his father. Wang Ben wanted whoever had been watching to follow him while his family was still here.
In his room, he put aside the practice sword and fastened Zhao Daniu's sword at his hip. The blade had taken Zhao Daniu six months to make. He had sent it after the war with a note calling it his finest work. It was still ordinary steel, made for Wang Ben when he had been in body refinement. There were no formations in it and no spirit forging to carry his qi. Zhao Daniu had offered to do that work now that Wang Ben could channel qi. Wang Ben had kept putting off the visit.
The jade slip of the Golden Bell Shield Talisman rested in his belt pouch. He checked it through the cloth. He had carried it since the war without once breaking the seal.
His mother had told him not to leave alone. He took the path to the side gate without going back to the main house.
"An errand for Mother," he told the guard. "In the merchant district."
The guard let him through.
...
Xue Feng crouched behind the parapet of a tea house on the eastern edge of the merchant district. The Wang estate lay three streets away. Below him, Wang Ben had stopped at a stall selling inscription brushes.
"He's alone," the largest of the three men behind him said. "How long do you mean to wait?"
Xue Feng watched Wang Ben pick up a brush. His other hand stayed near his sword.
A month ago, the boy had followed the same routes and stopped at the same shops. Lately he had begun turning back without warning, taking another street, looking behind him. Today he had come out alone. Xue Feng would have liked to believe that was carelessness.
Wang Tian had stayed at home. When the alchemist walked through the city now, his foundation establishment pressure reached ahead of him. None of the four wanted to meet him in a fight. His absence made the boy easier to approach, but Xue Feng could not tell who else might be watching.
"He chose to come here," Xue Feng said. "Someone may be waiting for us to show ourselves."
"Then we strike quickly," the largest man said.
Xue Feng looked back at him. All three had restrained their qi. Pale faces and hollow cheeks would earn them few glances in the market; at qi condensation, the corruption could take years to become obvious. They could pass for rogue cultivators who had fallen on hard times.
His master had sent them to help. They were not Xue Feng's followers. If he faltered, they could leave him in the street and return with an account of his failure. His master's interest in Wang Ben had brought them here. Xue Feng's revenge against the Wang Clan mattered little to them.
The youngest glanced at the body inscription showing above Xue Feng's collar, then looked away. He had seen what Xue Feng's master could do. All three had chosen demonic cultivation, but none wanted the months of forced refinement that had drawn those lines beneath Xue Feng's skin.
Xue Feng turned toward the stall again.
"One of you will go."
The largest man shifted forward, but Xue Feng pointed at the youngest.
"You. Walk past him. Close enough to brush his shoulder. Don't speak to him or look straight at him. Keep your weapon put away. I want to see how soon he notices you and what he reaches for. Then come back."
"And if he draws first?" the youngest asked.
"Let him see a man walking past a stall. Give him nothing else."
The man stayed where he was.
Xue Feng let his late-stage qi condensation pressure bear on him. The youngest's breathing caught. His eyes went to the stairs, then back to Xue Feng.
"You can risk him," Xue Feng said, "or I can kill you here."
The youngest stared at him for another breath, then nodded. Xue Feng withdrew the pressure and watched him go down the stairs.
...
Wang Ben was setting the brush down when he felt a faint trace of qi behind him. It drew closer through the passing shoppers. Something in it felt wrong, though he could not have said what.
[ALERT: Approaching cultivator. Estimated cultivation: early-stage qi condensation. Qi partially concealed. Demonic technique markers present. Source: Host spiritual sense.]
He left the brush on the stall and slipped his right hand into his belt pouch. The Golden Bell Shield Talisman was cool against his palm. He drew out the jade slip and closed his fingers around it, keeping his hand near his belt.
Grade seven, high quality. It could reliably stop one late-stage foundation establishment attack, though peak late-stage force might break through. Against core formation, it would not save him. He could use it only once.
His other hand rested on his sword hilt.
The man came closer. Wang Ben kept his eyes on the brushes. He could feel the faint, corrupted qi moving behind his shoulder, close enough now that he had to resist the urge to turn.
Cloth brushed his sleeve. The man's shoulder touched his.
Wang Ben tightened his grip on the hilt but left the blade sheathed. His fingers held the jade steady. The man passed along his right side without a word or a glance at him.
He could have passed farther away. A little crowding at a market stall was hardly cause to draw a sword, though. Wang Ben watched him from the corner of his eye until he disappeared around the next corner. The trace of qi faded among the other cultivators in the street.
He let out his breath. The merchant was still arranging brushes on the far side of the stall.
He eased his hand from the hilt. Drawing would have shown the man more than he had learned himself. He still did not know whether someone else had been waiting for him to do it.
Wang Ben stepped away from the stall. His right hand lowered to his side, the edge of the inscribed jade showing above his closed fingers. He kept hold of it as he walked.
...
Xue Feng leaned forward as Wang Ben left the stall. A strip of inscribed jade showed above the fingers of his right hand.
"A talisman."
The largest of the two men beside him shifted closer to the roof's edge. "Then he knows. We should move tonight, before he warns his family."
"He was ready before our man reached him. You think he waited until now to warn them?"
Below, Wang Ben continued toward the compound. Xue Feng could see too little of the jade to make out what kind of talisman it was. The boy had taken it out quickly enough, though. His other hand had gone to his sword without hesitation.
"He should have drawn," the man said.
Xue Feng had expected him to. A drawn blade, a shout, even a step away would have told them more. Instead, Wang Ben had let their man pass and kept walking with the talisman in his hand. Perhaps he wanted them unsure of how much he knew.
"We aren't attacking tonight," Xue Feng said.
"Then what was the point of sending him?"
"He's quick, and he's expecting us. We'll have to try another way."
He watched until Wang Ben passed out of sight, then turned toward the stairs.
...
Wang Ben felt watched again before he reached the compound. He glanced along the street, then up at the roofs. Nothing caught his eye.
This attention seemed more patient than what he had felt that morning. He could not place its source. Had more than one person been watching him all this time, or had the encounter at the stall left him finding differences that were not there?
He kept walking, the jade still held in his right hand. Through the outer gate and across the courtyard, the sensation stayed with him. It ceased when he passed through the inner gate into the protected grounds.
...
That evening, Wang Ben sat across from his parents in the main house. Wang Chen slept in Li Mei's arms. The Golden Bell Shield Talisman lay in Wang Ben's open palm; he had carried it about the house all afternoon without putting it away.
He told them about the man at the brush stall. His father listened without interrupting, his hands closed on the table.
"Early-stage qi condensation," Wang Ben said. "He was hiding his qi, but I felt it before he reached me. There was corruption in it."
"A demonic cultivator?" Wang Tian asked.
"Yes. I'm certain of that."
Li Mei adjusted Chen against her shoulder. "And you went out alone to meet him."
Wang Ben looked down at the jade. "I wanted them away from you."
"You should have told us," his father said.
He could have. He had known what they would say.
"I think he wanted to see what I'd do," Wang Ben said. "He came close enough to touch me, then walked on. I don't think he was alone."
"Did you see anyone else?" Wang Tian asked.
"No."
His father was silent for a while. "Some of the Xue clansmen escaped when the clan fell. It could be one of them."
Wang Ben had thought of them too. Hatred of his family was reason enough to suspect the survivors, but he had no name to give his father.
He reached across the table with the jade in his palm.
"Mother, take this. Keep it with you when you go out with Chen."
Li Mei looked at the talisman, then at him. "That's yours. You needed it today."
"I didn't use it."
"You were ready to."
Wang Ben set it on the table in front of her. She made no move to take it.
"I've trained every day since the war," Wang Ben said. "I've been out on patrols, fought spirit beasts. I have my sword, and I felt him coming today. I had time to get ready."
"And if the next one is stronger?"
He glanced at Chen's head against her shoulder. "If someone comes for you while you're holding him, what will you do?"
Li Mei's hand moved over Chen's back. Wang Ben waited, leaving the jade where it was.
"I'd feel better knowing you had it," he said.
Li Mei shifted Chen into the crook of one arm and picked up the talisman. She held it a moment, then slipped the jade inside her sleeve.
Wang Tian nodded. "Keep it with you. For both of you."
Wang Ben drew his empty hand back from the table.
His father rose. "I'll speak to the Patriarch tonight. He needs to hear about the man in the market."
He left them together and went out into the courtyard.
...
Wang Ben gave up trying to sleep and sat in lotus on the floor. Zhao Daniu's sword lay sheathed beside him.
His father had stopped at his door after speaking with the Patriarch. The clan knew about the man in the market now. The stronger watch remained at the gates, and the formations protected the inner grounds.
He felt no watching here. When he closed his eyes, though, he remembered the street on his way home and the roofs where he had found no one. He had gone out hoping to draw attention away from his family. He had come back unable to say how many people were watching him.
And there was still Shen Wuyan. Wang Ben did not know how closely the old man followed his movements, or how much he knew about today. What he owed him had seemed enough to worry about before this morning.
His hand went to the pouch at his belt. The cloth gave beneath his fingers. He pressed it once more before taking his hand away.
The talisman was with his mother. He would make the same choice again.
Wang Ben rested his hands on his knees and began circulating qi. The familiar route took effort to follow at first; he kept returning to the man brushing his shoulder. Each time, he brought his attention back to the qi moving through his meridians.
He continued through the night.