CHAPTER 242: CURE FOR THE DAMNED

I trotted the last few steps down the slope, shoulder brushing Jian Feng as I eased my way to the front.

At a glance I could feel the tension in the air. Xu Ziqing, who was usually akin to a river of still water, now looked one tug from breaking its banks.

I lifted both hands. “Easy. Let’s talk.”

I planted myself squarely between them and the stranger. My left palm found Ziqing’s chest; light pressure, a reminder to breathe. He stiffened, jaw working, but he didn’t shrug me off.

Only then did I turn to the ragged man.

Up close, Cheng was worse than I’d sensed: skin hanging on bone, qi bleeding out of every pore like smoke from cracked porcelain. Blood stained the collar of his robe. The plague was eating him alive. Yet even with that hollowed frame he carried a certain density.

His gaze fixed on me. “You have it,” he rasped, voice both plea and command. “I know you do. Give me the cure. I can pay—treasures, beast cores, whatever you wish. Anything.”

He bowed his head, coming down on a shaky knee.

“I fled, yes,” he continued, “but I never harmed the Silent Moon. I was— am— hunted. Let me purge this thing and I’ll disappear. You owe me nothing more.”

My fingers brushed the storage ring beneath my robes; engraved metal, containing one Dawnsoul Mist Bloom and several Violet Bloom Antidotes.

It would take so little to save him.

Ziqing caught my wrist. Firmly.

“Think,” he said, just above a breath. The calm edge in his voice didn’t match the iron in his grip.

I turned to him, about to speak; but then I saw it. Not hatred. Not vengeance. Caution. Wound tight like a wire through his posture.

“He holds the Phoenix Tears,” Ziqing added, low. “You can’t give that kind of man his strength back without knowing what he plans to do with it.”

That stopped me cold.

The Phoenix Tears.

A myth of a myth. If he carried it, then he had what the cultists had been chasing after.

When the Silent Moon fell and they fled, it wasn't long before the rain began.

My thoughts branched out, connecting clues, painting an eerie picture of the man before me. Of the tactics the cultists used. How it seemed to be similar, just on a much grander scale.

Driving the fox from its den. Flooding the whole province with a sickness that no one could hide from.

Sooner or later, whoever held the Phoenix Tears would need help.

Sooner or later, they would ask. And reveal themselves.

I looked at Cheng. Looked at the storage ring on his finger which looked near identical to my own.

Everything about him said dying man. But what Xu Ziqing told of me, of these mainland cultivators who rivalled sect leaders in power, it conflicted. My gut itched once more. ȑἁNốΒΕ𝒮

If I handed him a cure and let him vanish into the woods, I wouldn’t just be saving a man.

I might be setting a fire I couldn’t put out.

I weighed the thought like I would a rare herb; examining its edges, its hidden rot.

Maybe he didn’t need to be our enemy. Maybe Xu Ziqing was letting his emotions get in the way of his judgement.

But I had to know.

My voice came quiet, but clear.

“I won’t let anyone die of this plague if I can stop it,” I said. “But... the Phoenix Tears.”

Cheng froze. Not in pain. Not like before.

Like he hadn’t expected to hear those words here.

I stepped forward, just slightly.

“If you want the cure,” I said, “give us the Phoenix Tears.”

His expression didn’t shift.

Not at first.

Then a soft laugh, brittle and dry. “I have no such thing.”

My gaze didn’t leave his. “The Envoy who razed the Silent Moon said otherwise. They came hunting. And the Silent Moon didn’t fall by chance.”

He didn’t respond.

I pressed on. “If the sect had nothing worth taking, they wouldn’t have been targeted. And the only thing they were chasing then—sparing what remained of the Silent Moon—was you

. The ones from the mainland."

Cheng’s brow furrowed, just faintly. “Ridiculous. Do you really believe that?”

“You expect me to believe your words over his?” I said, gesturing to Xu Ziqing. “I'm no fool.”

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Behind me, I could feel Ziqing’s presence shift; silent, coiled, watching. No need to tell me I was on the right track. The others hadn’t spoken, but none of them stopped me either.

Cheng wet his lips. “... I’ve walked half this province rotting from the inside out. If I had something that powerful, do you really think I’d be here begging for scraps from a child?”

I didn’t blink. “You said you’d give anything to be cured.”

A beat.

“Then give me your storage ring.”

That did it.

His face changed—not violently, not even suddenly. The weariness stayed, but something behind it cleared. Like a theater mask being set down.

His voice came out quiet.

"So be it.”

He moved.

And then he wasn’t an old man anymore.

I moved first, tossing an obfuscating powder from my satchel.

Only for a gust to catch it mid-air, scattering it harmlessly to the side.

Qi pressure exploded outward in a radius. Trees bowed. The ground cracked. Verdant Lotus disciples reeled back.

Cheng attacked.

He kicked forward; and vanished.

The next thing I saw was Jian Feng flying past me, armor crumpling with the sound of crushed tin. Han Chen surged to intercept.

But Cheng sidestepped the blow mid-air, talons of qi trailing from his fingertips as he scraped Han’s ribs and sent him staggering.

Xu Ziqing was already moving; calm, precise, blade in hand. As though he expected this outcome.

In that moment, I saw Cheng’s eyes.

Calculating.

Cold.

For a brief moment, I saw an image of the Envoy. This overwhelming power wasn't the same, but I felt the hairs on my neck rise and flared my qi in response, stepping forward, the Heavenly Mantra Flame unfolding beneath my feet. My palm crackled with heat as I unleashed a snapburst of fire, aimed for the gap in his flank.

Cheng twisted. My fist surged past—into a talisman with a mirror-like quality floating in mid-air.

It glowed a split-second before detonating right in front of me.

I dropped low, rolling beneath it. The heat singed my forearm, blowing my sleeves off to reveal the bracers Wang Jun forged.

'He’d prepared the trap before we’d even drawn weapons.'

Ziqing’s blade chased his shadow; Cheng bent around every strike, never wasting motion, his steps spiraling in unnatural angles. Han tried to flank again, and Cheng retreated toward him, only to suddenly turn, knee exploding into Han’s gut.

I grimaced. Despite his gaunt form, Cheng’s raw strength was on par with Wei Long. Likely even more.

Speed, strength, battlefield awareness; he made it one fluid thing. No wasted overlap. Everything layered.

I circled him, keeping pace, feeding qi into my soles as I snapped forward.

He turned just enough to glance my way. His lips curled.

'Trap.'

A flick of his finger and something embedded in the dirt detonated, aiming to pin my legs with stone.

I pushed through, infusing my legs with qi and leaping out of range. My feet caught the rhythm and slid, just out of reach.

I was already in the air, twisting, heat spiraling around me.

My heel lashed downward, flaming crescent aimed for his shoulder.

He caught it.

Frail fingers wrapped around my ankle with terrifying calm, siphoning off the excess heat with a talisman pasted to his wrist. From my peripheral, I saw Xu Ziqing and Han Chen dive in.

He used the recoil to throw me like a child discarding a toy. I crashed into the two, stopping their advance as we tumbled backward.

My breath caught in my throat.

'He’s deconstructing us.'

Cheng flowed away from the Verdant Lotus disciples, baited Han Chen into over-committing, and forced Ziqing to keep reacting. As though he had an in-depth understanding of their styles and how to make it work against us.

And me?

I was fast. Adaptive. But he kept throwing moves I’d never considered. Seemingly reading what move I'd make next. Cutting off strategies, forcing me to revise in real-time.

My mind spun through a dozen possible routes.

I threw a look toward Han Chen, already pressing in with Iron Palm strikes laced in dense qi, his center low, grounding each movement like a fortress. Without needing to speak, I moved to his left. We pivoted into position together.

We were the wall.

If anyone was going to buy time and eat hits, it had to be us.

Ziqing caught my glance. His eyes flicked once, reading the beat we’d chosen. And then he flowed forward. Jian Feng and the Verdant Lotus followed soon after.

They carved pathways.

Pathways Cheng couldn’t ignore.

Every sweep of Ziqing’s moonlit blade herded Cheng—subtly, inexorably—into unfavorable ground. And even though Cheng deflected the worst of it, I saw it. The falter in his breath. The microsecond pause between attacks.

He was burning qi.

And with the Amethyst Plague still eating through him, he couldn’t keep that up forever.

I pushed in again; this time not to strike, but to lay groundwork.

Tinctures that would stick to his body. Oils to make the ground slippery. Itching powder.

From one sleeve, I flicked a bead that burst in the air with a scentless pop. He dodged without thinking.

Every step forward was a test. Every retreat was a probe. I had to be careful to avoid my own allies, but cutting off his moves took priority.

He still felt like a storm in human shape.

Even now, even sick and hunted, he wielded his power like a whirlwind wrapped in thunder. Every motion seemed to cut into something invisible. Not just us, but the idea that we could win.

I could feel Tianyi and Windy.

Distant. Stirring. Urgency pulsed through our bond. I caught a flicker of Windy's coiled muscles tensing in the distance. Tianyi's faint mental cry, half-lucid.

'We’re coming!'

'No.'

I shut my eyes briefly, and poured my intent through the bond.

'Not yet. I need you elsewhere.'

Their instinct was to come. But I couldn’t risk it.

They’d suffered the most. Neither of them had fully stabilized, even with all the medicines I had to accelerate their recovery.

'Evacuate the village.'

I sent the command like a spear of will.

Within seconds, I felt it take hold; Tianyi’s presence veering toward the outskirts. Windy slithering low through the underbrush, a thrum of defiance and anger, but relcutantly obeying. The villagers might not understand what was coming, but my companions did.

They would act.

And we just had to last long enough.

We just had to last long enough.

And for a moment, I thought we might.

Cheng’s movements grew just slightly less fluid. His foot landed half a beat slower than before. When Ziqing swept in from the side and Jian Feng followed with a well-timed thrust, I saw it.

The opening flickered into being like a petal catching the breeze.

'This was it.'

I moved. Ziqing moved.

Our strike patterns wove together—his blade curving low to control movement, my flaming palm lashing from above.

Cheng stumbled, his hand twitching as if in a coughing fit, one knee dipping for the first time. His qi dimmed, flickering like a lantern low on oil.

And just as I adjusted mid-air to deliver a finishing blow, he twisted.

With a shift that defied instinct, Cheng moved with our strike pattern. Making us miss our attacks by a hairsbreadth.

He had known.

He had known what we’d see, what we’d think.

And he’d let us.

The blow came fast. A palm slammed into the earth, talisman that rapidly engraved circles into the dirt. And began to glow.

BOOM!

The ground detonated beneath our feet in a reverse burst, throwing all of us back in different directions. Dust and gravel exploded in a wall of smoke and force.

I hit the ground and rolled, ears ringing, ribs stinging. My instinctive reaction allowed me to raise an imperfect Rooted Banyan Stance, dispersing a portion of the damage and preventing me from being thrown any further back. Xu Ziqing went flying into a nearby home; torso exposed, covered in severe burns.

He wasn't moving.

Jian Feng, Han Chen, and the other disciples were strewn about, having survived the blast as they were further away, but clearly running out of stamina.

We’d been played.

Hard.

He'd predicted we would assume the obvious; attrition. That we’d see his exhaustion as the limit. That our coordinated assault would close the noose.

I pushed myself up, panting. My mouth tasted of grit. My limbs ached. Around me, others were recovering—Han Chen holding his side. Xu Ziqing was alive, but slow to get up.

Verdant Lotus disciples circled him, maintaining formation.

Cheng stood at the center, spine bowed, blood dripping from the edge of his lips, yet more radiant than ever. His qi didn’t feel like it was running out.

Drawing from somewhere vast and unreachable.

I thought he’d drain himself to empty. I gritted my teeth. We’d made two mistakes. Assuming he didn't know about our makeshift plan. And thinking we could wear him down before he wore us down.

Cheng exhaled, long and slow, and lunged straight for me.

"The cure." He muttered, his eyes tinted with madness. Not a demand, but a statement.

I braced, flame surging in my limbs as I pushed back with everything I had; Heavvenly Mantra Flame, the Rooted Banyan Stance, Bamboo Reprisal Counter...

But it didn’t matter.

His strike hit like thunder, tuned to the gaps I hadn’t guarded.

I reeled, stumbling back, ribs screaming as the Sevenfold Essence Chain continued absorbing just enough of the blow to keep me standing.

Han Chen dove in to intercept, palm blooming with steel-hard qi. Ziqing twisted low, blade carving a silver arc toward Cheng’s exposed flank.

But it was like we were fighting a tide. We blocked one wave and two more followed.

Cheng deflected Ziqing’s blade with a talisman, freezing him in place, then twisted and let Han’s strike graze him, taking it on the shoulder; and in the same movement, redirected the force back at me with a shockwave of redirected qi.

My feet left the ground again. I hit a wall. Slid down it.

Blood tasted like copper and ash.

Inch by inch, step by painful step, the entire battlefield was dragging east. Deeper into the village. Toward the—

'Toward the Soaring Swallow Inn.'

My eyes never left Cheng, but my senses stretched wide; threading through the earth, the wind, the faint whispers of the village that still breathed around us.

The air stank of scorched wood and trampled soil, but as the breeze shifted, a different scent slipped through: old pine, cold iron, and something faintly herbal. Beyond the smoke and ash.

'Ren Zhi.'

His presence settled into my perception like a blade sheathed in stillness. Subtle, but there.

But that wasn’t all.

I felt it in the tremors of the ground, in the shifted weight of the floorboards I couldn’t see. A dozen bodies; too many for an empty building.

They hadn’t evacuated in time.

Not everyone could on such short notice. The infirm. The weak. Those still recovering from the plague’s grip or unable to walk without help. I could hear Lan-Yin whispering soft reassurances. Wang Jun grunting, guiding people through the back entrance of the inn.

Cheng didn’t notice.

'He couldn’t have.'

"HAND OVER THE CURE!"

Or he wouldn’t have come this way. He seemed entirely too focused on me to care.

But I did.

Even as I ducked behind a collapsing cart, throwing powder to block his line of sight, I could feel the path being carved.

Cheng walking toward me; unaware of the old ghost sitting just ahead.