"Now, where are our coins?" the guard asked.
He did not dare betray Wuji until he had secured the payment. The Guard Captain had sent him with twenty-four men and demanded a substantial share.
The two of them could have taken most of the money for themselves, but after thinking deeply about it over the past few hours, they no longer believed this was an ordinary old man.
Someone who traveled at night in this dangerous world, teeming with wild beasts and bandits, and who asked for coffins and paid in gold like it was spare change could not be ordinary.
So he had gone to the Guard Captain. With more men around him, he felt safer. Or rather, he forced himself to feel safe.
"You have a grand appetite and little intellect, little guard. Pity. Your mouth is wide, but your teeth are far too weak for what you're trying to swallow."
The two guards flinched at the words. One of them opened his mouth to retort, but before he could utter a sound, the husk parted the cart's curtains and lunged forward, its form a blur.
One moment it was on the cart. The next, it was in the center of the twenty-four men, its slender sword flashing once.
Shing!
Two bodies were split cleanly in two. Before the halves even began to slide apart, the husk took another step.
Another step. Another head fell. Blood sprayed in an arc, dark against the torchlight and moonlight.
Only then did the rest react. Daggers were drawn. One tried to shout. But before an early Foundation Establishment husk, they were nothing more than ants flailing at a falling blade.
The sword moved. Another throat opened. Another body collapsed.
The two guards watched with agape mouths as blood arced through the night air. The wet grunts of dying men, each a Rank Two martial artist, filled the silence between heartbeats.
The slender sword remained almost pristine. Blood slid along its edge, dripping soundlessly to the earth, catching the cold gleam of moonlight as it fell.
The two guards did not move. They could not. Or rather, they forgot how. As the last of the hired men's bodies struck the ground, clarity returned to them like a slap. Their trembling hands reached for the whistles around their necks.
They no longer cared if their earlier collusion was exposed to the city's higher authorities. Survival had already eclipsed greed.
But before the whistles could touch their lips, the husk was already before them. Its hollow eyes fixed on them as though weighing their worth, and finding it lacking.
One clean swing. Their bodies fell. The whistles slipped from nerveless fingers and clattered uselessly against the stone.
Silence returned. The husk stood motionless, sword lowered, awaiting further command.
Wuji stepped forward slowly, surveying the scattered corpses. The metallic scent of blood thickened the night air.
"Not even coming out after all this?" he thought. "Interesting."
He took three measured steps forward, just enough to appear exposed and bait impatience. The positioning was deliberate. Close enough that, if the hidden cultivator lunged, the husk would intercept within a breath.
"Come out," Wuji said calmly. "That pathetic little stealth spell of yours can't save you."
For a moment, nothing moved. Then, as if he had been part of the shadow all along, a figure peeled away from the darkness near the wall.
His jaw was clenched tight, but his eyes, illuminated by the flickering torchlight, betrayed him. Fear flickered there, thin but unmistakable to Wuji, who read micro-expressions as easily as breathing.
Wuji observed the man for a long moment. His gaze first landed on the blue robe, which seemed somehow familiar. He noticed the sword at the man's waist, his right hand resting on it but gripping too tightly.
Then he looked at the faintly stitched sword meteor insignia along the sleeve. The man's face was young, around twenty, and composed, though not very good at hiding it.
Wuji's gaze returned to the insignia. It was familiar. "One of Heaven's Fall Sect, maybe."
"Senior," the young man said, bowing respectfully, though the stiffness in his shoulders betrayed him. "I am a disciple of the Heaven's Fall Sect. I was merely curious about the coffins."
"Curious." Wuji hummed softly. "Heaven's Fall Sect, huh." The confirmation settled the last of his uncertainty—and complicated everything.
"So much for subtlety," he thought as he stroked his beard slowly, appearing thoughtful. "If I let him go, they will come back determined to kill me. With the coffin, the husk, the lingering death aura on my body. To righteous cultivators, that combination means only one thing: demonic cultivator."
"Righteousness is a narrow road. To a disciple of the Heaven's Fall, there is no nuance in a coffin or a husk. There is only 'Heretic' and 'Dead.' If I speak, I give them a target. If I stay silent, I give them a reason. My only mistake was being seen."
He glanced at the husk standing silently beside him. "To them, it would not be a "husk." It would be a corpse puppet—a heretical art. One glance at the slaughtered men, and they will paint me as such. Every sign already condemns me."
The young disciple sensed the weight of Wuji's silence and hurried to reinforce his position.
"Senior," he said carefully. "Would you like to accompany me? I have fellow disciples nearby. Elders as well. They would be pleased to meet a fellow cultivator experiencing mortal life."
Wuji's eyes sharpened almost imperceptibly. "Elders? Disciples? How thoughtful. It's rare to find a young man so eager to share his company—and even rarer to find one who issues an invitation while his heart is hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird."
He paused, his gaze on the young man's hand still resting on the hilt. "And tell me, is it Heaven's Fall etiquette to greet a 'fellow cultivator' with your hand on your sword, or am I simply that intimidating?"
The young man's face flushed. His hand tightened around the hilt. "My hand is where it belongs, Senior. The Heaven's Fall Sect does not seek conflict, but we do not bow to shadows either. My Elders are less than a mile from here. If I do not return by dawn, they will come looking—and they are not known for their patience with 'mysterious' travelers."
A thin, sharp smile formed on Wuji's wrinkled face, illuminated partially by moonlight. "A mile. So close, yet you speak of them as if they are already standing behind you."
He paused, touching his forehead. "It's a pity, really. You've spent so much time leaning on their shadows that you've forgotten how to stand in your own. Or perhaps this is your first time outside."
Then Wuji's voice dropped to a cold whisper. "Do you know the saying? Curiosity killed the cat. You should have tended to your own business."
"Senior, there is nothing wrong with curiosity. A curious heart seeks the Dao. And anyway, my elders are indeed my shadows—and let me warn you, within seconds they would be above you the moment my life jade darkens."
The young man let the words hang between them. Wuji's face shifted to one of fear—he allowed his expression to crumple into a mask of terror, playing the part the boy expected. But behind that mask, his mind was cold, filled with resolve. The mention of "Elders" had sealed the boy's fate.
The young man relaxed slightly, mistaking Wuji's hesitation for fear. Not that he was wrong, Wuji was indeed afraid. But not the kind of fear the young man imagined. And even believing Wuji afraid, he did not fully relax.
In the sect, he had been taught that demonic cultivators were unstable. Their smiles meant nothing; their pauses meant even less. As a mere Qi Circulation stage disciple, he knew that if this old man decided to kill him, he would die.
He simply hoped his words and backing carried enough weight.
Wuji saw the false relief and the guarded tension beneath the young man's posture.
"Guess I have to hurry and leave here," he thought, turning his gaze toward the husk. Then his eyes shifted to the young man, and turned to chips of ice.
"You should have stayed in the darkness. Or run away the moment I found you, little bird. At least that might have guaranteed your survival."
The disciple followed his gaze instantly, the words dripping with killing intent. His hand shot toward his pouch, but it was too slow.
The husk moved. The young man saw only a flash before his right hand was cleanly severed at the wrist. Blood sprayed. He staggered backward, biting back a scream as he unsheathed his sword with his remaining hand.
The husk blurred again. When it reappeared, it was already behind him. For a brief second, he felt nothing. Then he looked down. The slender blade had pierced his sternum, its tip glinting under the torchlight, slick and precise.
His breath hitched. The husk did not withdraw the blade. It held him there, awaiting Wuji's orders.
Wuji's eyes turned cold. "Should I finish him? No. His elders might carry life jades, as he said. If he dies instantly, someone might find out. Better to let him live, for now."
The husk withdrew the sword in one smooth motion. The young man collapsed to his knees, clutching the wound in his chest as blood bubbled from his lips.
Before he could react, the husk seized him by the collar and dragged him across the dirt. His angry, disbelieving gaze locked onto Wuji.
"You—"
The word never finished. The Heaven Burial Coffin's lid opened with a low creak, and the husk thrust him inside. His body passed through the black, viscous surface and vanished from the mortal world.
Inside the interment space, he emerged upright in the gray fog, suspended mid-motion. Blood droplets hung in the air like crimson beads. His severed wrist was frozen in an arc of spray.
His whole body should have gone still. But his pupils moved slowly. He was not fully frozen.
He was stronger than Wuji—who was still mortal. He was a true cultivator, even if the weakest. Yet even then, the temporal suppression struggled to hold him.
The gray mist moved around him, languid and unbothered, as if they existed in different dimensions that might never touch.
Outside, Wuji felt it immediately and his expression darkened at the discovery. "So strength matters even there," he mumbled as he slowly closed the coffin lid and immediately ordered the husk to place the twenty coffins and the twenty-four corpses inside.
Within minutes, the site was clean, except for the blood and faint battle scars left by the young disciple on the ground.
Wuji then ordered the husk to place the bed and boxes of food inside the interment space. Even tightly packed, the aroma reached him, enough to make his stomach rumble.
After a moment's thought, he placed an ordinary coffin beside the Heaven Burial Coffin. Insurance, if something went wrong, if someone inspected the cart, if he needed a decoy. Appearances mattered.
Then he ordered the husk to carry them and fly away while he entered the Heaven Burial Coffin to remove any traces of himself.
The husk floated the horse and cart with its near-endless Qi and took to the air.
This better work. He murmured as he directed it to fly toward the west.
The loose cultivator gathering was a month's journey away by mortal means, remote and deliberately hidden, accessible only through rumors and coded directions.
He had never intended the husk to fly the entire way. He simply did not have the lifespan to sustain it. Even two years' worth of fuel would burn quickly at this speed.
The husk's qi was vast, depending on the lifespan he had given it, but not infinite. The stored lifespan was not as abundant as he liked to pretend.
Wuji lay still inside the coffin, counting.
Every minute consumed days. Every hour consumed years. He could not afford extravagance, he only wanted to use it until he had put enough distance between himself and the city to safely drive the cart.
The forest below turned into a dark ocean. The city's lights shrank to sparks of firelight. Paved roads became thin scars across the land.
Inside the interment space, the captured disciple slowly struggled against suspended time.