Thinking about what happened when he got hit with that cursed tooth didn’t produce much results. Tian was sure it was some kind of yin yang cycle based on his experience in the bird’s belly and everything he had been taught in the Temple. Why it worked was still a mystery, as was what exactly it did. He had discreetly tested himself during the day’s run, and he wasn’t noticeably faster or stronger than he had been before. He didn’t have particularly more qi in him either.

It wasn’t very comfortable, lying on his belly under the hot sands, not moving to eat, drink or go to the bathroom. But then, that’s what fasting pills were for. The water was a problem, but what could you do? He had drunk until he thought his gut would explode before burying himself. And yet, by the time the sun sank below the horizon, he felt rested, refreshed and energized. Wood qui cultivation might be slow, but it had its benefits.

What he kept coming back to was the pain. The poison on that tooth, the demonic qi, was one of the most awful things he had ever felt. A high bar, but he felt fairly confident in his assessment. It was like the acid from the bird’s stomach was injected into his flesh, dissolving him from the inside out. Only, because there was less poison on the tooth than acid in the bird, it took longer and you really got to savor how it worked through your muscles.

Maybe he was being picky, but Tian felt that any cultivation art with a name like The Supreme Virtue Hell Suppressing Body Refining Sutra should make things hurt less, not more. Just his opinion. Of course, he was very happy about the not dying thing. Or losing limbs. That was pretty great. He had felt the poison numbing his extremities as his organs fought for life. Odds were better than good he would have lost them even if he had managed to survive the poison.

He had all his toes now. He had most of his fingers. His organs were working very well. This was good. He liked this. Going back to his broken body- just the thought made his skin crawl. He could feel the vomit rising in his throat as he forced his mind onto other things.

The stars were no longer hidden by the blue sky and painted the night with their glory. The moon hadn’t risen yet. For just this little moment, they had the grandest stage all to themselves. Tian wished he could unbury himself and just lie on his back, staring up at them. Each of them had a meaning and a purpose. Each was a piece of the “Heavenly Dao,” a concept so huge, even his senior brothers could only describe it in the most vague terms. None could really explain it.

No clouds hid them, no city lights tried to outshine them. They simply rose and drifted through the sky, true to their own natures. Tian imagined himself among them, drifting through, cupping the tiny sparks in his hands and watching them fly forward. Gliding like an eagle around the moon, trying to find the rabbit and the lonely goddess and the osmanthus tree that all lived together up there.

Maybe he could eat the golden crow that lived in the sun. According to Brother Wong, there had once been ten of them but a certain hunter had no patience for their property damage, so he shot down nine of them. The birds were also the sun, somehow, so at that time there had been ten suns. Tian didn’t know if that was true or another one of those teaching lies, but he was pretty curious to see for himself what the truth was. A three legged crow made of sunfire! How amazing was that?

He let his imagination carry him through the night. The moon rose. So bright and beautiful, she dimmed the small gems of the stars and planets, then she set again. Coldly ignoring her lessers, though she too was locked in the same patterns they were. The sun too- each heavenly power bound by the rules of its existence, or maybe just being true to their nature. The Heavenly Dao.

Tian cultivated through the night, meditating and gathering his strength for the morning. Before the edge of the horizon started turning turquoise, he heard the sound of hoofbeats and jingling harnesses. He could feel the vibration through the sand and rock. His brothers and sisters silently gathering their strength for the explosive ambush. This too was yin. And from extreme yin-

He heard explosions, talismans bursting into fire and light, hissing arrows and screams of horses and men. Hacking noises- “Ambush! Ambush! With me, Brothers!”

He counted to ten, slowly. That’s what they told him to do. Wait until the ambush has launched and the guards are fixated on the ambushers. Then

emerge, and try to stay inconspicuous.

The caravan had twelve wagons in it, and two dozen guards. They were traveling from a cultivator city through a notoriously deadly wasteland, so the guards were also cultivators. It should have been a hard battle. It was almost over by the time Tian dug out of the sand. Ambushes were nasty like that.

The guard captain and a few surviving guards were struggling to reach something, or stop the brothers from reaching something. Tian moved in closer, keeping low and to the shadows. The guards were dying fast- no martial virtue here, just four-on-one killing. He spotted a pudgy looking mortal in what looked like fancy robes creeping around the back of a wagon, reaching for something. Whatever it was, Tian didn’t want him to have it.

Stolen story; please report.

With Light Body, he was behind the mortal with a quick leap. A flex of his mind wrapped the fat man up with his rope dart. And a careful peek let him see what the man had been reaching for. Some kind of tube, with a string hanging out.

The urge to pull the string was almost overpowering. Almost. His hands might have twitched once or twice, but he controlled them. Anything the enemy wanted was dangerous. Anything a mortal had was probably not very valuable. So it wasn’t worth grabbing. He’d wait right here.

“Anybody see Brother Tian?”

“I’m here. Someone, come take a look at this.”

A brother came over and took a look. “Oh, good job! That would have been a pain.”

“What is it, Senior Brother?”

“A signal rocket. They shoot up and make a big explosion in the sky, very bright. You can see it for tens of miles all around. I don’t know if there is anyone that close, but if he was trying to launch it…”

Tian nodded. No sense in taking chances. There were loud thuds and the screams of mortals. A sister yelled “SHUT UP! EVERYONE OUT. WE WANT YOUR GOODS, NOT YOUR LIVES, SO DON’T BE FUNNY AND DON’T TRY TO BE SMART. BECAUSE IF YOU ARE, WE WILL TAKE YOUR LITTLE LIVES TOO!

“Spare us, Immortal! Spare us, Immortal!”

The brothers and sisters were kicking everyone into place while stripping the guard’s corpses. Tian looked around- a textbook ambush. None of his people were injured. He looked down at the chubby mortal, who was staying very still.

“How come you are fat?” Tian asked.

“What? I mean, pardon, Immortal?”

“How come you are fat? You look like prey.”

There was a sudden smell of urine. Tian shook his head and tried to explain. “You are trading between places filled with predators, traveling through a desert filled with predators, you protect yourself by hiding behind predators, and you make yourself look like food. Why?”

“Sp… spare me!”

Tian cocked his head. He knew what he was saying, and he knew what the merchant was saying, but he just didn’t see how they connected.

“You are mortal. Worst case scenario, in a few years you will be a good man once again. Or a man. I don’t know if you are good now or will be good then. Or if you will be a man. Maybe that will change. Hell is supposed to be bad but necessary, so don’t worry too much. But really, why are you fat? Because you shouldn’t be fat.”

Tian shook his head. This conversation wasn’t going anywhere useful. He could feel something was off about the man, but the fat mortal was too stupid to be of any help. He started to turn, when the hook-tipped spider legs of danger tapped their way down the back of his neck. Tian jumped away, fast.

“No. No! You promised! NO!”

The smell reached him almost before the sound- foul, rotten meat and filthy latrines then a wet, slapping, popping, deflating kind of sound. In the dim pre-dawn light he could sense more than see a miasma spreading.

“Some of the mortals are boobytrapped!” Tian yelled, but it sounded like everyone was finding that out for themselves.

“Gu! They are filled with Gu!” Someone yelled. Tian swore. His rope dart was where the fat man burst, and he didn’t have a good way of fighting Gu regardless. He ran towards his brothers and sisters.

He didn’t make it very far. The wagon in front of him exploded, and a nightmare rushed out to kill him. Flat, black, like a beetle stretched into a sheet and covered with hair-like spikes over its back and barbs along its legs. Longer and wider than Tian was tall. It reeked of curse magic.

Tian wanted to keep running, but it was between him and the brothers. And it sounded like they had their own problems. Tian planted his feet intending to double back and grab his rope dart. He hadn’t even turned his head when his ears picked up the sound of something slithering towards him. He bolted away from the wagons, trying to get more space and keep from being surrounded.

The beetle was joined by a long, flat, worm. It was no wider than the palm of his hand, and as thin as one of his fingers, but it was dreadfully long. Tens of feet long. And it too was surrounded by a cloud of miasma and malice.

The good news was that they weren’t Level Nine in terms of strength. The bad news was that they didn’t feel any weaker than him. He took a deep breath, and focused. He was used to fighting things stronger than him. It was practically all he did fight.

Tian feinted towards the worm, then dashed towards the beetle. It counter-charged, rushing forward with dreadful speed. It looked heavy. Even if the spikes didn’t kill you, you would be crushed. He tried feinting again, but the beetle didn’t budge. It kept charging forward, and straight at him. Whichever Gu master bread this horror had taken pains to ensure a shelf of the armored carapace extended over the beetle’s head. Sneaky headshots would not be permitted,

If sneaky was out, direct violence would have to do. He got way too close to the wide mandibles of the bug, then flung medicinal powder into its face before jumping back. The bug recoiled, screaming. It started spinning in place, the curse magic boiling off of it. Tian looked around for the worm and nearly screamed when he saw it was practically on top of him. The worm moved almost silently, and was fast for something so long.

Tian moved around again, putting the thrashing beetle between himself and the worm. It was probably too much to hope that the two would attack each other, but he would settle for fighting them one at a time. And fast. It sounded like his brothers and sisters needed him.

“Is it time to make our move?” The voice was sibilant. “I think we could wait.”

“Why wait? The sooner we eat the minnows, the sooner the mother fish appears.” This voice was filled with clicks and rasps, as though the throat that made it wasn’t entirely human any more.

Up on top of a wagon, figures hidden within black robes appeared. They seemed shrouded in the same cursed miasma as the insects. Gu Masters. And unless Tian had gone blind, there were a dozen of them.