Chapter 42- Bleeding Fortune

Tian and Hong shared a long look. Were any of the bandit’s revelations true? He didn’t sound like he was lying, but that just meant that he believed it, not that he was right.

“How do those spikes work? The one the kids are on?” Hong asked.

“No idea. An emissary from, heh, our friends down south set them up. Cold bastard. Colder than you. They were part of the deal. Start sacrificing kids by bleeding ‘em out slow into the troughs, and if any of their eyes went gold, stick them on the spikes. The spikes keep them alive, somehow. One of ‘em has been there for almost six months.”

The archer’s voice was fading.

“You never took anyone off of them?” Tian checked the bandit’s pulse. Slowing, weakening.

“Not living. Heh. Heh. Hehaha! Not so special now, are you? Not so smart!”

“How do you get in touch with the emissary?” Hong’s voice was urgent.

“We don’t. He contacts us. Cold bastard. Looks so ordinary it would make you sick.”

“What other cadres do you know about?” Tian asked.

“Cadres? What’s a cadre? I’m just a bandit out in these hills. Did you know my dad ran the store in our town? But the mine owner’s thugs burned it down. Now the only shops in town belong to him. The houses are all his, you have to rent. Want to leave town? Not without his permission. The magistrate was his wife’s cousin, the prefect was on his payroll. Where was our justice? Where was the kingdom for us? How is our rebellion anything but just?”

The light was fading. The archer seemed desperate, looking at Tian, trying to get him to understand.

“You have kids nailed to the floor in the basement.” Tian wasn’t interested in understanding.

“You think there aren’t kids being nailed now? Is it better if they starve? Worked to death in a mine? If they are run over by a rich merchant’s wagon, guts crushed, taking weeks to die, then their parents are whipped and fined for the damages their boy did to Sir’s goods? How noble, how rich you are. You can prefer one slow death to another.”

The lights went out in the bandit’s eyes. Tian checked the pulse again, then shook his head. A three fingered hand reached out to close the one-time-strategist’s eyes, but was stopped. Tian looked down at Hong’s tanned hand, gripping his wrist.

“No. Nothing. Do nothing for him. Strip the ring, search him, burn him, but that’s it.”

He could feel her hand shaking. Tian just nodded, and got to it.

He didn’t search the ring. It didn’t seem the right moment. Hong saw him starting to thread it onto his string with the other rings, and ripped it away with an oath. Tian closed his eyes softly. She stared at the ring intently, pulling out random items, flipping through them, putting them back. Then a different ring.

“Sister…”

“Like hell they just put the kids on spikes and that was it. No way. There would be something. Some key or charm. What if someone wanted to ransom their kids? Eh? Would bandits turn down a fat ransom? No chance. There is something. Something!”

“Sister…”

“WE CAN’T JUST LEAVE THEM TO DIE, ZIHAO!” She spun, knuckles white, her strong face pale, her eyes reddening.

“Even if there wasn’t an array there, the spike is passing through their body. Organs-”

“Don’t tell me why it can’t be done, tell me how we are going to do it. Or shut the fuck up!”

Tian didn’t have to check. He had no medicine that could possibly help. Maybe if he was in a full hospital with a team of skilled doctors and surgeons, they could carefully, over the course of a day, slowly remove the spike. They’d have to be stitching up as they went, but Heavenly Person doctors could perform literal miracles.

They didn’t have a hospital, or doctors, or a Heavenly Person. Tian had heard the expression “I would move heaven and earth for you.” Right now, it felt like saving these kids would take exactly that.

Tian knew he was letting his thoughts run away. Not willing to confront the horrors down below, or the madness of the heretics plan. He let one hand drift down to his dantian. It had been a while since he had checked on his cultivation progress. Level Seven was officially the back stretch of the Earthly Realm, so a few years…

He grunted.

“Hey Sis’? When did you last check your cultivation?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“I mean, are you further through Level Seven than you ought to be?”

She snarled, looking ready to bite his head off. Then paused. She too rested her hand over her lower dantian. “Huh.”

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Hong dropped into lotus, closing her eyes and resting her upturned hands on her knees. After a few cycles of her breath, she said “It is fuller. Significantly fuller. Eighty percent of the way to Level Eight, maybe? It’s hard to say.”

Tian nodded. She opened one eye and looked at him. “You?”

“I’ve had to rebuild a lot over the last week. We both have. My body holds… a lot more vital energy in it than you might think.”

“I know. You think mine doesn’t? Get to the point.”

“I’m trying to say that it took me longer to completely replenish my internal reserves.”

“I know. I also know you aren’t level eight, so why are you dancing around this so much?”

“Because I’m close. Like… a few weeks away. Tops. Faster if I can find a source of cursed energy or something.”