Yang Wei and orange-crest tore through the sect, cutting across the least populous section of the mountain. Least populous for humans, at least. But what other populations really mattered, in a place like this?

They were a study in contrasts. Orange-crest moved with no regard for concepts such as 'walking paths', or 'dense undergrowth'. If two trees were close enough together, he scrambled up one, and leapt between them. If a branch could support his weight, he swung or sprung off it. If a patch of briars might tear at his robes, he burst through them anyway, not even slowing down, for he had faith in his fur. Whether high or low, he followed the path of least resistance.

It was how he'd always moved, and becoming more than he'd been just made him faster than he once was.

Yang Wei had not the monkey's background in bushcraft, to treat trees as traversable parts of the environment. He moved like an arrow loosed, seeking the shortest path between two points. Where the game path meandered, he did not. Rather than forcing his way through the briars, he ducked and wove around, diving through small gaps in the undergrowth, trusting in his qi to see him through. It was not spear-qi that he held tight to his body, but at the fifth stage of Qi Condensation, even without direction or art, his power was enough to snap branches aside before they ever pulled a hair on his head out of its proper place.

There was a sort of longing in his motion. A sense that even now, he was impatient to soar high above the forest, walking the wind as a Foundation Establishment cultivator could.

Two hundred feet behind the prodigies, Li Shuwen panted like a dog beneath the summer sun has he did his best not to be left entirely in the dust. He wasn't slow, nor hopeless at navigating the less tamed sections of the Azure Mountain. But the pack upon his back was not light, the path was not straight, and he had to sometimes slow down to assess if he could fit through the holes in the underbrush the other two had left in their wake.

But he kept up. Even though his companions were thoroughly mad. And that was what mattered in the end, wasn't it? So long as he could swim in the wake of sharks, he would not go hungry.

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Dusk had just fallen when the three primates arrived at the appointed place. Three more humans already awaited them.

Wu Yingjie was standing at a politely awkward distance from both orange-crest's master and a young woman the monkey had never met before. He was no longer looking overawed by Daoist Scouring Medicine, but rather seemed all too conscious of every small movement his companions made. Flinching at shadows. Orange-crest found himself wondering what exactly was the large disciple's story. He understood that the Wu family was what the humans called noble, which meant that its children should not have suffered hunger or peer-violence. Yet Wu Yingjie did not fit in with the other nobles. He was fearful in the presence of cultivators above Qi Condensation, treading as carefully as he expected everyone one of them to have the temperament of red-eyes. Even Li Shuwen, whose family boasted no cultivators at all, was not so cautious around his seniors as Wu Yingjie. Yet the ogre was loud, brash, and oft more than a little forceful among the other disciples, even outer disciples like Instructor Chang. He'd sought strife with orange-crest almost the moment he'd met the monkey.

Perhaps that was just how Wu Yingjie was? Angry and cowardly? Orange-crest didn't think it was quite that simple.

The third human was beautiful. Orange-crest could definitely see the familial resemblance with Xiao Long, who had once intruded upon Disciple Chang's staff lessons.

Orange-crest had seen many beautiful things on the Azure Mountain. They were all pleasing in different ways. Formless-gleam, with her fur like snow and eyes like gemstones. His master's five spice beef stir fry with bok choi and long beans. The sun as it dipped below the bowl of Godsgrave Peak, filling the monument to the patriarch's might with bloody light. His master, soaring through the air on wings of flame. Sausages. Not even any particular sausages. Just the very idea of meat, preserved so that you could enjoy it any time you wished.

Xiao Shulan also qualified as beautiful, though not quite as beautiful as the idea of sausages. Mostly, it was her hair. It was like a river of ink, a black even sleeker than silk. Orange-crest would happily have worn ornaments woven from that hair. Maybe a bracelet. He was a tactful monkey now though, and knew that was the sort of thought that caused human women to attack you if one gave voice to it.

"Finally. The three of you certainly did not see fit to hurry." Xiao Shulan's voice was as cold as her expression.

Orange-crest thought about throwing Li Shuwen to the wolves.

"I took the scenic route." He said instead. This might be funnier. "Sunsets are pretty, in the red-leaf season."

Xiao Shulan scrunched up her nose as if he stank, and turned away.

"Grand Uncle Wenchaun will have descended with my imperial cousin hours ago." She said, already moving. "We should not dawdle if we are to follow in his wake."

Li Xun raised an eyebrow in orange-crest's direction. Yang Wei frowned at him, and seemed to only restrain himself from mouthing 'I told you' by a downright heroic exertion of will. Yang Wei apparently knew Xiao Shulan, and found her prideful and arrogant. Orange-crest found this laughably hypocritical.

He found Yang Wei blaming him for this situation even more hypocritical. It wasn't like he invited her. Yang Wei had suggested they find a fourth, how was he to know Wu Yingjie would decide they needed a fifth? And who was he to complain if he did, so long as she did not make overmuch trouble.

"Good plan." The monkey agreed, extending a conversational fruit-branch. "Start early, no need to rush. Best move slowly in the dark. Many things hunt footsteps."

Xiao Shulan kept walking, acting as if he'd not spoken at all. Oh. That was how they were playing this? Orange-crest decided he was going to ignore her right back. Until she acknowledged him, he wasn't going to respond to anything else she said.

Not the most auspicious beginning to his first real cultivator adventure, but orange-crest was too excited to care.

The six primates advanced like an awkward mob, moving in the general direction of the cave whose existence Yang Shui had pried from a very intoxicated Elder Xun. There was little conversation at first as they walked. Xiao Shulan lead from the front, and Wu Yingjie trailed in her wake. The other three disciples moved together in the center, with Master Li Xun bringing up the rear. Yang Wei apparently knew everyone here, but Yang Wei was not a very useful person for making strangers comfortable around each other.

Orange-crest pondered how to shatter the stillness.

"I made pills!" He suddenly proclaimed, pulling them out of a mundane bag. His master had taken his storage treasure back for this trip. The pills weren't much to look at, little pellets with the consistency of hardened mud. But if you held one up between your eye and the sun, you could see the light peaking through it a little. It wasn't the texture of jade, but it was a little bit jade-like. If jade had a sort of hairy pattern running through it. And the occasional fleck of fiery red. And was a brownish-green color. So, not very jade like at all. But they had a potent medicinal scent, floral and musky, and emanated a sizable amount of earthen qi.

"Jade Bone Elixirs." Orange-crest explained, handing them out. "My own special recipe. Better than book. Secret ingredient. They make your bones hard. Like jade."

Wu Yingjie snorted.

"I never would have guessed that, from their name."

He still accepted a pill when orange-crest extended a paw. Li Shuwen was far more polite.

"Thank you, Disciple Li Hou." He said, examining the pill before placing it in a pocket. "I prepared some talismans. Please, take a pair of each. The first sort suppresses qi. Note the character for 'absence' in the center. If you smear a drop of blood upon the character, it will adhere to the next thing it touches. They can also be used to suppress others, but they are not especially effective for the purpose. Not when only one is applied. Anything above the first or second stage of Qi Condensation will break a single talisman easily. You can do the same, if you need to use a technique suddenly. Just cycle your qi vigorously."

"What are the other talismans?" The monkey asked. The second set only had two characters, but Li Hou was struggling to imagine how 'Restrain Flavor' might be a useful spell when exploring the deeps.

"Those suppress one's scent." Li Shuwen explained, sticking one to himself.

"I'm not stinky." Orange-crest protested, already taking a pair of the scent-killing talismans. Free talismans were free talismans.

"We're all pungent, to the beasts of the wild." Li Shuwen explained. "Even fish can smell, despite spending their entire lives underwater."

"Do you try to teach Young Master Yang to better thrust his spear? Am monkey. Know how to not be smelled by tigers. Haven't taken a bath in days."

"Apply the damn talisman, Li Hou." Yang Wei commanded.

"Fine." Orange-crest groused, sticking it to his robe. That thing stunk of flowers. Silly Master Li Xun and his fragrant laundry soaps. Orange-crest would get naked the moment thing got dangerous anyway. Stripping off and leaving behind your clothes as you fled seemed like a great way to mislead predators.

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"This pill has an interesting texture." Yang Wei continued mildly, inspecting his. "Almost like fabric."

Wu Yingjie pulled his pill back out, frowning.

"There's something disgusting in this, isn't there?"

Orange-crest caught his master's eye, unsure what to say. His master's eyes narrowed, a sure sign of him concealing a smile.

"Many pills contain ingredients the discerning daoist would not put into their mouths before refining in a furnace." He explained. "I oversaw Li Hou's work. These are some of the best defensive medicines that any early or mid stage Qi Condensation cultivator could hope to acquire."

"Of course, honored daoist." Wu Yingjie apologized. "I did not mean to question your disciple's skills."

Oh, now he was the honored daoist's disciple, and not the 'furry bastard'. Orange-crest was definitely calling him 'Yingjie the Ogre' if he ever met other members of the Wu Family.

"I have some wine too." Orange-crest said, pulling out his gourd. "Would share, but it might kill you. Made it from giant bugs. It does funny things to you."

"Giant bugs?" Li Shuwen asked.

"Might kill you?" Wu Yingjie repeated.

"Funny things?" Yang Wei said, before his eyes widened in realization.

Even Xiao Shulan had turned her head in interest.

"He's just riling you up." Daoist Scouring Medicine said. "But I wouldn't drink the wine. It is probably safe. But I wouldn't drink it."

With that endorsement hanging in the air, nobody reached for offered the gourd. Yang Wei looked like he was considering it, but he decided against it in the end. Orange-crest returned Han Jian's gift to his waist. Even he wasn't drinking this early. If he got too drunk too soon, he'd have no choice but to sleep it off. The ice between his teammates was almost broken to his satisfaction. He just had one left.

Xiao Shulan was still alone at the front of their party, leading the way. That wouldn't do.

The monkey crept up behind her, timing his footfalls with hers to avoid giving the game away. He ran a thumb across his sharpest tooth, then smeared the thumb across the talismans in his other hand.

Then he slapped Xiao Shulan right across the upper back, sticking the pair of talismans to her robes. Xiao Shulan spun around, icy fury in her eyes. One hand whipped up to her hairpiece, descending with a viciously long needle in tow. Ah, good to know.

"You dare touch me!" She hissed. "I have other treasures to conceal my presence. I do not need your clumsy attempts at assistance."

Xiao Shulan was in the fifth stage of Qi Condensation, but she did not flare her qi to destroy the talisman orange-crest had just applied.

The monkey extended a hand, slowly, making it clear what was in it.

"If I have to wear them, so do you." Li Hou explained. "You look soft. Take a Jade Bone Elixir. Master says very valuable."

The fury in Xiao Shulan's eyes did not subside, but she took the offered pill, snorting coldly as she did. Orange-crest noted she was extremely careful not to touch his paw in the slightest, as she accepted his peace-offering.

"Touch me again, and I will remove the offending hand."

Wow. Touchy. Orange-crest still nodded in acceptance. To threaten someone, one had to at least acknowledge that they existed. Also his master was standing right behind her. She wasn't cutting off anything, no matter how powerful her family was.

Moving under the influence of Li Shuwen's talismans felt a little stifling. They didn't prevent orange-crest from using his qi internally to strengthen his body, but even that felt a little sluggish. Orange-crest felt glad he usually kept most of his qi inside anyway, if he relied upon it more for sensing or spells, fighting under the talisman would be a lot more difficult. As it was, he knew he could not cast any of his spells. Stone form would be iffy. Might work, might break the talisman. No immobilizing. No illusions. Probably no exhaling bursts of flame. Not unless the six of them abandoned stealth.

They reached the cave after another half hour. The dark had fallen fully now. Orange-crest would have needed to spend half the night searching to find the cave in the darkness, but his master had simply pointed to it as they drew close.

The six of them fell silent as they approached the mouth, each lost in their own thoughts. Orange-crest's heart pounded in his ears. He might never like caves. But he would not fear them. That was what he'd decided. Though he was happy this one was at least large, with avenues wide enough for even Wu Yingjie to walk without brushing his head or shoulders against stone.

"We do not choose what we reach for."

Yang Wei's voice shattered the silence.

"We have only been afforded this opportunity because of the Seventh Prince's passage. It is not for us to choose, what is and is not left unguarded by the devastation left in Xiao Wenchuan's wake. If I, or Daoist Scouring Medicine, tell you to retreat, you will do so. If you go haring off after an inheritance, you will not endanger the rest of us in the process."

He spoke to them all, but he stared at orange-crest as he did so. The monkey scrunched up his nose at him. Oh, he thought orange-crest was going to be the problem? Anyone with sense could Yang Wei wouldn't be obeying his own commands.

"I am not your subordinate, Young Master Yang." Xiao Shulan said icily. "Do not presume to to command me."

"What aspect of my orders do you disagree with, Young Mistress Xiao? Would you prefer that the rest of us suborn our interests to your own? We are all equals here."

"Equals." Xiao Shulan tasted the word, and found it bitter. "And yet, here you are, giving orders. I do not need your commandments to know and obey the dictats of good sense. I have a life-saving treasure. If I use it, Grand Uncle Wenchuan will be upon us in minutes. Do not give me cause to bring it forth and bring our venture to a premature end. I will do as I please, and trouble will not follow on account of it."

"You've as much to lose by alerting the senior generation as any of us, don't threaten me with-"

"Are the two of you quite finished?" Daoist Scouring Medicine interrupted. "From the way you are carrying on, one might be forgiven for thinking that the responsibility for this party's safety lay with the two of you."

Orange-crest stuck out his tongue at Yang Wei from behind his master. Oh, but he was loving this. He was not one of the people here who could not be trusted to follow orders. There was a time for levity, and a time for obedience, and he knew the difference between them.

"If I tell you to fight, you will fight." Li Xun continued. "If I tell you to retreat, you will leave me behind and do so. You are all too weak to stand against the true dangers of the deeps. If I suspect for a moment that any of you will endanger the rest of us with rash action, I will knock you out before you can so much as think of accessing a storage ring. You wish to act freely as daoists do? Comport yourself with a daoist's dignity."

Li Xun stared down the two lordlings. After a long moment, both of them averted their gazes. With the law laid down, the six of them slowly marched into the dark.

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Li Shuwen held a talisman that cast a gentle yellow light across the confines of the tunnel. Daoist Scouring Medicine had quickly commanded a light be set, lest the five of them be less than worthless in a crisis.

He did not say, that within his own qi restrained for stealth, even he would not be able to see once they descended more than a hundred chi beneath the earth. At least not until they passed deep enough that the dragon vein began to show itself in earnest, or they neared the sorts of lichen that produced their own light. It would not be relevant. If Li Shuwen's light went out, he would provide one of his own.

Li Xun hesitated to say that there were no eyes that could see in the perfect darkness of deep places. The years had taught him enough humility that he could admit he had not the slightest idea of the capabilities of a Pseudo-Nascent Soul body like Ren Yuhan's. But at the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment, he still required the barest traces of light in order to discern shape and motion.

He led the way now, ears pricked and eyes wide.

There was a purity in this. It'd been what, two decades, since he last risked his life? Too long. All the doubts that had blinkered his sight fell away as the stifling dark pressed down upon the six of them. He missed the presences of his sworn brothers, steady and thunderous. But the way Li Hou stood at his back, pressing as close as he would allow, buoyed his spirits. He'd not been wrong, thinking that his disciple could not rise without risk. It was why he'd still chosen to subject him to the ordeal of the Monkey Refining Bath.

But it felt so much better to risk his own neck alongside the monkey's. A pity he likely would not be able to follow them into the trials.

The path widened in front of them, opening into a cave.

Li Xun saw it first. He kept walking.

"Silent Heavens." Yang Wei cursed, the tip of his spear rising.

Li Xun shushed him, but his heart wasn't in it. He would have sworn too, if he hadn't been trying to act like a respectable daoist. His sound dampening spell would hold so long as voices were not raised.

The white rat was monstrously large. Easily the size of two oxen, with whiskers as thick around as spring bamboo. It was unclear from a distance if it had fur at all. The spirit beast's muscles were defined to the point of grotesquery, bulging like tumors beneath its skin. Its two front teeth were poorly matched ivory daggers, one crooked, the other chipped.

The rat lay on the floor in a pool of its own blood, smoothly split from nose to tail. The aura of a early stage Foundation Establishment cultivation base was slowly dissipating.

"Is it... Alone?" Wu Yingjie asked.

"Nothing that powerful shares a cave this close to the surface." Daoist Scouring Medicine said with certainty.

The six of them gingerly padded forward,

"It wasn't a sword." Yang Wei noted. "Nor a claw. The cut is too clean for the latter. There is no tearing. But the edge of the cut is not even. A saber, perhaps?"

"Not a beast." Li Hou agreed. "No meat is missing."

"A saber or a spell." Daoist Scouring Medicine noted. "The blow continued after passing through the rat. The far wall bears its marks."

A gouged track that extended halfway up the far side of the cavern. It looked deep enough that Li Xun expected he could have stuck his whole hand into it.

"Grand Uncle Wenchuan did this." Xiao Shulan said. "I have seen it before. This is one of his arts. One of his lesser ones. We are on the right path. He must indeed be heading for the grave of Grand Elder Tian."

"Pure force?" Li Xun asked, half expecting to be denied an answer. He'd cowed the girl, but no noble scion who would do something this reckless would lack a spine.

"Water." Xiao Shulan corrected tersely. "Water and shadow are his favored tools."

Daoist Scouring Medicine nodded. That was more than he'd expected her to share. Everyone knew the Xiao Clan favored elemental magics, but that was the very broadest of categories under heaven.

"How long has it been dead?" Wu Yingjie asked, stepping closer to the body. The heavyset disciple craned his neck to get a better view of the fatal bisection.

"No more than a day. The edges of the pool of blood are not cracking yet" Li Xun said absently. "Don't touch it, or the blood. Its core won't be worth the risk of getting blood on us. And I cannot extract it cleanly without using using qi."

"That can't be right." Wu Yingjie said, leaning in further. "There are already mushrooms growing on it."

Li Xun strangled a shout, lowering his voice at the last moment.

"Get back!" He hissed furiously.

It was too late. The rat's paw twitched, as something moved within it. Li Hou leapt backward, circling round the rat at a distance. An idle part of Li Xun's mind thanked the gods that at least his disciple had survival instincts. The same apparently could not be said for Wu Yingjie.

The rat did not quite explode, as the Carrion Cap burst free from its rotting womb. But the resulting eruption still showered Wu Yingjie in gore. The body of an ascetic, a desiccated imitation of the human form. A head composed of several smooth expanses of lingzhi fungus, flat planes stacked one atop the other, glimmering a dingy yellow in the light of Li Shuwen's talisman. One of its arms grabbed Wu Yingjie's polearm, which had been bound in cloth to silence its abominably loud whistling. The second arm grabbed the disciple by the throat, dragging him down toward the rat's dead body.

Wu Yingjie's face began to flush even as Li Xun withdrew a heavy saber from his storage ring. Yang Wei had already thrust out, but a third arm had extended from the Carrion Cap's lower chest to catch the spear just below the head. Without using his qi externally, the Yang Scion was struggling to pull the weapon free.

Li Hou was running, back toward the Carrion Cap this time. The monkey leapt, lifting his staff high.

"Not even an hour." Li Xun muttered under his breath, as for the first time he charged into battle alongside his disciple.

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