That evening, Jing Shui came to visit, bringing with him a stack of appearance changing talismans.
Since Chen Xiande had chosen to learn from him, Qinghe had decided to diligently teach him and help him make connections. So he had brought along his senior martial brother to the meeting.
"Brother Jing, this is my senior martial brother, the head disciple of Heavenly Peak Sect, Chen Xiande. Senior Brother, this is my friend, the head disciple of the Golden Sun Sect, Jing Shui," Qinghe introduced them to each other.
Chen Xiande nodded politely but otherwise looked glum. Jing Shui, on the other hand, looked curiously between Qinghe and his senior brother. He had heard that they did not get along well, but that didn't seem to be the case?
"Brother Jing, may I have the talismans?"
"Ah, yes!" Jing Shui immediately handed over the stack and asked curiously, "Brother Feng, I heard that you usually request these appearance changing talismans for personal reasons. Are you planning on becoming a spy or something?" He wouldn't put it past Qinghe to have such a strange hobby.
"Nothing of that sort. It's just something I find useful now and then," Qinghe deflected.
"If you're done chit-chatting, can we begin?" Chen Xiande asked in ill-humor.
"Begin what?" Jing Shui questioned immediately.
Qinghe sighed. How could he explain this without touching his senior brother's sore spots?
Before he could figure it out, Chen Xiande himself explained, "I have been told to learn from my junior martial brother, so I am awaiting his instructions." His voice was clearly dissatisfied.
Jing Shui widened his eyes and looked at Qinghe almost fearfully, then shot a gaze loaded with pity at Chen Xiande.
Being looked like that, Chen Xiande scowled harder, "What?"
Qinghe laughed airily and said, "I will go put these away. Senior Brother, might I please ask you to entertain our guest in the meantime?"
Chen Xiande gave a short nod.
Reassured, Qinghe left with the stack of talismans.
Jing Shui looked at Chen Xiande and said pityingly, "My sympathies."
"For what?" Chen Xiande didn't understand. Did he mean because he was being taught by someone younger?
"For gaining Brother Feng as your instructor."
He frowned more, "What are you trying to say?"
Jing Shui hesitated, before explaining, "Brother Feng's brand of education can be rather…unconventional." And that was putting it mildly.
"Oh? Have you seen him teach before?" How come he had never heard of him teaching the disciples from their sect?
Coughing and turning his eyes away, Jing Shui spoke, "You must have heard that Brother Feng and I went to the hidden realm recently along with a few junior disciples from each of our sects, yes? That is where I saw him…educating."
Confused, Chen Xiande tried to make sense of what he was trying to imply. "You mean he taught all the junior disciples?"
With a dry laugh, Jing Shui said, "Oh, not just our junior brothers. Brother Feng was kind enough to teach me as well, though none of us knew we were being taught. Especially in such an eccentric way."
Chen Xiande raised his eyebrows. The expression on Jing Shui's face was a strange mixture of bitterness and admiration. Just what in the world was his junior brother's teaching method?
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
"Oh, please don't worry. I do not intend to use the same method as then," said a light voice that seemed to pleasantly float into their ears.
"Eep!" Jing Shui startled as if he had been found by a demon. Speak of the devil and the devil had indeed appeared!
Qinghe was highly amused at Jing Shui's expression, even his senior brother looked somewhat cautious. Was he really that scary?
"Master has asked me to deliver something important, so I will have to bid you both goodbye. Senior Brother, we'll have to postpone the lesson for now. Please wait in my room for my return if it's not too inconvenient. And Brother Jing, please take care on your way back."
Though Chen Xiande bristled a bit at hearing that his master had entrusted yet another important task to his junior brother, he still stiffly nodded in compliance.
Jing Shui asked surprised, "Brother Feng, are you not coming with me to the transportation array?"
All the sects with means had a transportation array, and all these arrays were connected to each other to form a gigantic network so that a cultivator could transfer between any two sects as long as their transportation arrays were part of the same network.
If Qinghe was handed an important task, then it must most likely be business with another sect, and the easiest way to reach another sect was through the transportation array.
"The place I have to deliver the package to is not accessible by an array, so I will have to travel by foot," Qinghe explained.
"Oh, then you take care too," Jing Shui said, somewhat disappointed that he wouldn't be able to spend more time with his friend.
And so the three said their farewells and went their separate ways.
By the time a few hours had rolled by, Qinghe had successfully handed in the package and was making his way back to the sect.
It was then that he was intercepted by a rough looking group that was exuding bloodthirst. Seeing Qinghe's almost delicate frame only made them more aggressive.
"Hey there! Let's have a chat," said one of them while smirking maliciously.
His companions had already surrounded him and Qinghe surmised that their combined level was far greater than his own even if he didn't have to hold himself back. But now with his cultivation core under threat of cracking, he didn't dare circulate too much spiritual power through it.
Well, this was a tricky situation.
Keeping calm, Qinghe asked, "What do you want?"
The hooligans paused. Hearing Qinghe's soothing voice and seeing the elegant way he held himself, added with his unruffled expression, it gave them the impression that this man had extraordinary temperament.
Seeing his subordinates hesitating, their bald leader stepped forward. He was a big brute of a man, slovenly dressed and with a sickle in each hand, his preferred weapons of choice. Beside him was a short, shriveled-looking man with a long chain wrapped around his waist, a thorny-looking spearhead danging from the end of the chain.
In a deep and rumbling voice, the bald leader spoke, "We know your sect has a Behemoth's beast core. There are two ways this can go down, lad. One, sign a soul-binding contract agreeing to steal the core and handing it to us. Two, we ransom your mutilated body to your sect and get the core anyway. You choose. You're not bad looking and I'm sure my men will like playing with some fresh meat."
Some of his subordinated suggestively licked their lips, their leering eyes roving over him. Qinghe forced down a shudder and quickly suppressed his roiling emotions. They would be of no use in this situation.
"Why should I play by your rules?" Qinghe said, having recovered his calm.
Seeing him unaffected only pissed the leader off. "Lad, I'm already being kind enough to give you the first option. Don't make this hard on yourself."
Qinghe smiled unconcernedly. "Neither of your options suits my taste, so allow me to refuse your kindness."
The bald leader was furious. "Do you think that you can take us on just because you are a cultivator? Let me open your eyes, you won't win against us even if you were in the sixth realm, much less in the fourth as you are now. Don't underestimate us, boy."
But the leader hadn't said anything Qinghe didn't already know. There was no way he'd betray his sect or let himself get captured, that meant he could only try to escape or die in a way that his body would be unable to be ransomed.
Escaping would be the more difficult route since he couldn't use his spiritual power freely, and Qinghe was surprisingly not that distressed at the thought of dying, which meant that this group of brutes had no power over him. There was no reason for him to get worked up.
Qinghe's expression remained placid, without even a ripple of emotion. He had seen what paths laid before him and was at peace.
Seeing his unbending attitude, the bald leader waved to his lackeys, "Get him."
With raucous cries, cheers and hoots, the rowdy group charged at Qinghe from all sides. But with a wave of his hand, the ones closest to him started coughing and sputtering, eventually dropping down unconscious before they could even reach him. Qinghe had cut off their air supply, not permitting wind to enter their passageways. This was a technique that not only needed precise control but also couldn't be used on someone on a level above his.
A constant stream of spiritual energy flowed out of him as he again and again choked them, only letting up after they fell. When most of the lackeys were down, he spotted an opportunity and ran in the direction of a nearby cliff.
If he couldn't escape, he could just jump down. Since that cliff overlooked the Valley of the Terrified Dead, a place from where none escaped alive, he doubted this gang could recover his body. But that would only be his last resort.
As he ran, Qinghe didn't forget to send out an occasional wind blade, carefully aimed to cut at the hamstrings of the remaining ones following him to slow down the speed of the group.
A nimble shadow suddenly leapt forward and sent the chain coiled around him shooting towards Qinghe's back. Qinghe barely dodged, the barbs on the arrowhead at the end managing to scratch his forearm.
A quick and burning pain spread from the cuts. Qinghe immediately recognized that he was poisoned. He felt his speed decreasing, every step increasingly difficult as his sight became blurry. His chest ached and breathing became hard. He felt his spiritual power start to stagnate.
Not good!
There was nothing Qinghe could do but stop and turn around. If he kept running in this condition, he'd only fall flat on his face. A few meters behind him was the cliff drop. Ah, so close.
His spiritual energy circulation had completely frozen up, rendering him incapable of using it. He could feel his cultivation core straining, but he had no time to do anything about it. The hooligans had almost caught up to him anyway, so continuing to run wouldn't have helped.
They quickly started attacking him, most with normal weapons, but some had enough basic cultivation to coat their steel with a thin layer of spiritual energy.
Though his speed and sight were affected, Qinghe still wove through them easily by reading the wind currents. He dodged an ax making for his head and turned his body to avoid a barrage of silver needles coated with spiritual energy. Jumping lightly out of the way of a dagger, he clamped down onto his attacker's hand and pulled him forward before kneeing him in the stomach. The man fell with a gasp, clutching his midsection.
Qinghe danced lithely around the brutes, landing a blow whenever he was able to, but focusing mostly on evading attacks. By this point, his body had gathered several injuries both shallow and deep. Some made moving even more difficult for him, but he still managed to take out many of his assailants.
"Tch, what is this? You can't even take down a young pup?" said the bald leader as he leisurely walked up.
It seemed he had let his subordinates chase Qinghe down while he chose to unhurriedly catch up. By his side was the short man who had wielded the chain before. The barbs and the edge of the arrowhead were stained crimson with Qinghe's blood. The remaining hooligans stopped attacking and immediately slunk back to the leader. With his back to the cliff, a crumbling rock face to one side and a barren wasteland to the other, there was nowhere their prey could escape to anyway.
"Kid, you better stop. The poison running through your bloodstream can not only break down your body, it will also eat away at your meridians until you can't cultivate anymore. I'm surprised you can put up a fight for this long. I can only imagine what a cultivation and martial arts genius you must be, but you can't keep this up. You're out of options, so just surrender yourself."
But when Qinghe turned to face them to respond, he was interrupted as the whole group gasped.
During the fight, one of the attacks he had failed to deflect had grazed his chest, not just carving a deep bloody wound but also ripping up the appearance changing talisman fixed to the inside of his clothing.
His true facial features were revealed, stunning all those present. No one had noticed during the hectic brawl, but now faced with such beauty, they could only stare senselessly.
Qinghe had long since dropped all signs of cordiality. His face was expressionless and cold. Beautifully curved eyebrows arched over long-lashed peach blossom eyes that were sharp and clear like a cold spring. His hair had come undone and draped over his shoulders and back, the long tresses framing his stunning face and waving gently in the wind. His facial features were as if from a gorgeously drawn painting, perfectly proportioned.
He stood tall and proud despite his many wounds, not showing even a hint of the pain he must be feeling. His once white robe was stained with his blood and ripped open in several places, enticing the rogues with glimpses of smooth skin that contrasted temptingly with the dark red of blood.
Partially blind by now and utterly oblivious, Qinghe wondered about the sudden silence. What were they planning this time?