256: Catch Up Meeting

Catch Up Meeting

Qi Lian bowed to Bai Ye first, then the village elder. "I apologize for the delay," he said to the latter. "My master was originally planning on looking into this matter, but due to a last-minute incident, he couldn't make it to this trip, and it took us some time to gather a different group."1

Teng Yuan was supposed to be here? I wondered what kind of last-minute incident might have gotten in his way, and I hoped it wasn't related to any bad news. But considering the group standing in front of me was mostly disciples from his hall, I reckoned whatever happened couldn't have been that undesirable. So I smiled at each familiar face, not hiding the pleasant surprise when I found Wen Shiyin at the back of the crowd as well. There was no sign of Xie Lun though.

"Our most sincere thanks to the Gatekeeper for making this matter such a priority," the Elder replied. With a courteous nod, he showed us inside. The group made its way in while Qi Lian trailed at the back of the line, giving me a curious look.

"How did you end up here out of all places, Senior Yun?" he whispered, darting a furtive glance at Bai Ye behind us. "I thought you were on a far-away errand. Has that been taken care of already?"

I smiled a bit sheepishly. Some day, I thought, I'd tell all my friends the truth, though now wasn't the time yet. "We've been everywhere that our discoveries led us," I said instead, "and it amazed me too that all the clues pointed back here. The world is small, isn't it?"

Qi Lian nodded unsuspiciously. "We would have visited if we knew you were nearby. A lot has happened since you left! We could spend hours catching up. Did you know that Senior Xie is on retreat now for his breakthrough?"

"Already?" I exclaimed, almost too loud for the entire group to look back at us. I knew Xie Lun was getting close to his ascension, but it hadn't even been a month since Bai Ye and I left Mount Hua, and I didn't expect such big changes to happen so quickly. "That is fabulous news!" I lowered my voice again. "Please give him my congratulations when he comes out of the retreat! Is that why your master isn't able to make it to this trip? Is he watching over Senior Xie's meditation?"

Qi Lian gave me a strange stare. "No … Master was caught up in a different errand." He darted another glance at Bai Ye. "You probably won't ever understand what it's like when your master has too many disciples, Senior Yun … He doesn't have enough time to give any of us special attention. You're lucky indeed in that regard."

I remembered then that Xie Lun had made the same comment once when he named me the most spoiled disciple at Mount Hua. I chuckled at the remark, resisting the urge to explain that such a relationship, sweet as it was, had been long gone between Bai Ye and me. It did seem that a proper catch-up with Qi Lian would be needed someday.

The group had filed into the house while we spoke. The Elder laid down a map on the table in the middle of the room—the same map that Yang-Yang's father had drawn for Bai Ye and me. "This is the latest information we gathered that I mentioned in my letter yesterday," the Elder said, and he began to recount the sword spirit's appearance in the area.

The crowd gathered around him. I peered at Bai Ye from across the table, wondering what he thought of this unexpected reunion with Mount Hua disciples. Obviously, more hands to help meant a better prospect for East Village, but defeating the sword spirit wasn't our only goal, and these extra hands might just bring too much unknown to our plan. Let alone the fact that if the sword spirit's true identity—or my own identity—becomes widely known, things would get complicated way too quickly.

Bai Ye looked my way as well and gave me a faint smile, but the expression on his face told me nothing of his thoughts. He seemed to be paying close attention to the Elder, even though that speech didn't turn out to contain any new information for us—aside from the fact that the sword spirit had shown up three days ago to abduct the boy and left those artifacts in the woods, the villagers didn't know much more.

"You're saying that Master Bai Ye has already visited these landmarks last night?" someone asked when the story of our venture last night was mentioned. He turned to Bai Ye expectantly. "Were there any findings?"

"We recognized the stacks of stones and antlers to be a type of arrangement used for power amplification," Bai Ye said. "But the purpose of this amplification is less clear."

There was no point hiding the information on those power amplifiers, as most immortals would be able to tell the same. But for the etchings and the symbol that we managed to trace … I glimpsed at Bai Ye again. Was he planning on keeping that discovery from the Mount Hua group as well?

The room grew silent while everyone considered the puzzle. Somewhere behind me, I heard a disciple whispering to his friend, "Would we be able to figure out something that even Master Bai Ye isn't able to?"

"I'm sure he's coming with us," his friend replied. "With his help, no doubt we'll find the answer before we know it."

Bai Ye looked my way once more then. "I was hoping to return to the woods today and spend some more time studying it," he said, "but now that all of you are here, I think it is reasonable to leave the task to your hands, as I do have other errands to attend to. If it helps, Yun Qing-er can join you and share everything we discovered yesterday."

All eyes turned to me. But I was tongue-tied—he was going to leave me with the group? What schemes did he have in his head this time?

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