"You know I'll always trust your eyes to see what's right," Wu Ling said with a smile. "There's one other assessment I'd like you to make though. I've been thinking about our first target for hunting and something came to mind. You mentioned that one of the Red Mist Wolves you fought off during the eclipse was a Greater Red Mist Wolf, right? And it's been empowered by the eclipse?"
"You want to hunt down the wolf pack?" Su Xiang said, several thoughts racing through her mind like a flock of Wu Ling's deadly birds. Slowly, she took a deep breath before saying anything further and when she finally spoke, she tried to press her deepest concern to the back of her mind to focus first on the practical concerns.
"Ling, those wolves have very good coordination," she added, giving him a concerned look. "I only survived because I'm very, very fast. If we don't have good teamwork, they'll tear us apart," she cautioned.
"That's exactly why I wanted to make them our first target. This time, you have me to face them with you, plus Hou and Yue, and three more Brawlers as well. That should give us enough strength and sufficient manpower to face off against a pack of Red Mist Wolves, even if they've become full-fledged Blood Moon Mist Wolves. We've also got Yu Jinqi to tend to the wounded if anyone is bitten by the wolves."
"Still, if you wanted a teamwork exercise, there are other things we could hunt," Su Xiang offered. "Why go looking for these wolves? We'll have to hike for several days to get near them and I don't know where their proper range is. They only came close to the lake because of the Burning Yang Sun Bear."
"I'll explain the rest to the whole group but it's mostly to benefit Brother Yu and Brother Xiong," Wu Ling explained. "Brother Xiong draws on the power of blood, much like the wolves. If Brother Yu can refine the beast cores of those Blood Moon Mist Wolves, even if we're not able to kill the Greater Blood Moon Mist Wolf, it could be a powerful tool to boost Brother Xiong's cultivation."
"I see. So, it's not because they hurt me?" Su Yao asked, her sapphire eyes beginning to glow as she gazed intently at Wu Ling.
"What? No," Wu Ling said, his silver eyes wide in surprise. "Why… why would you think that?"
"Because of what you did for your Senior Sister Xuan Lu," Su Xiang said, reaching out and gently touching the reddened cheek she'd slapped. "Because I'm afraid that you'll be like your mother. That you'll go looking for power for revenge. When you said you wanted to hunt the Greater Blood Moon Mist Wolf, my first thought was to wonder if it was because of me. I'm glad it isn't," she said softly, leaning in close to rest against Wu Ling.
"Do you have more missions like that from your sect?" she asked softly. "Are there more people you're going to…"
"Not exactly," Wu Ling said gently, reaching out to stroke her hair softly. "There are people who 'slipped the net' and escaped the city before anyone in the sect could eliminate them. Some of those people are rumored to be hiding in the wilderness or the small settlements in the foothills. I have a list in case we run across any of them," he explained. "But I'm not searching for them."
"Then, Nalan Jiang and Fantian Wong, you took that on because it's personal?"
"It's complicated," Wu Ling said with a heavy sigh, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close. "Warden Mu asked me if I was willing to hunt down a few people who had escaped the sect's reach. I told her that it would depend on the targets. When she told me about Nalan Jiang and what he did to Senior Sister Xuan," his voice trailed off for a moment and he drew a deep breath before continuing. "Then I had to. Because it was personal. It was different than I thought it would be," he confessed. "I thought it would be like when we fought Fenglun's gang but it wasn't. Next time, I won't do things the same way."
"But there will be a next time," Su Xiang whispered, pulling back to look into his silvery eyes. When she did, she was a distant hurt in his eyes but more than that, she saw a firm sense of resolve.
"There will be a next time," Wu Ling said, finally feeling like he'd found a path forward that he could walk. "People like Nalan Jiang and Fantian Wong, people who do what they did… something has to stop them. The other people I killed, they weren't good men. I just don't know if they deserved to die," he said honestly. In the end, when he'd really examined how he felt, it wasn't killing Nalan Jiang that bothered him, it was the carnage he'd created to get to Nalan Jiang, to be able to question him without interruption that had truly unsettled him.
"I don't want to involve so many others if I can help it," he continued. "I need to be much stronger to kill just one person and escape safely without harming others, so I'll build my strength and I'll focus on just the people who can't be allowed to keep hurting others," he said firmly.
"Can you, can you accept that from me?" Wu Ling asked hesitantly.
"I can," Su Xiang said, snuggling back up against her sworn brother to await Hou's return. "My sword will protect the bonds of Love, but I know it will claim lives to do so. Your art will also protect people by stopping the ones who prey on them. As long as we don't lose track of why we do it, then it's fine."
For a while, the two just sat together, taking comfort in each other, watching the sky grow brighter as they awaited the return of Hou. Finally, as the first sliver of the sun peeked above the mountains, the Golden Crow returned having found a place they could begin to forge their disparate group into a real team.