31: Chapter 31 Gray Robe Enters the Mountain

The grey-robed official's boot soles landed on the first stone step; the stench of medicine in the wind grazed the hilt of the saber. Sect Master Di Kun did not relax the fingertips pressing against the hilt, merely turning slightly to clear enough space for half a person.

The mountain gate was in ruins; a corner of the archway had been smashed off by a Yao Beast, and the hemp rope hastily tied on last night was still stained with blood and mud.

The grey-robed official looked up at the broken wood, then down at the cracks on the edge of the steps. His toes landed three inches off-center, precisely avoiding a piece of rubble where a Tower Defense Player had temporarily buried a bone-spike tripwire.

Sect Master Di Kun's eyelids lifted slightly.

This man's pathfinding was too precise.

The grey-robed official seemed not to notice Sect Master Di Kun's gaze. His thumb remained pressed on the copper corner of a narrow booklet, his smile proper and upright: "I am Zhao Heng, a clerk from the External Affairs Office of the Border Wasteland Sect Affairs Bureau. Rest assured, Sect Master Di Kun, today I am only here to record the damages; I will not ask about anything else."

Behind him, two attendants dressed in identical grey robes—one carrying an ink box, the other a seal bag—moved with very light footsteps. When passing through the ruined trap zone of the mountain gate, the one with the seal bag tilted his shoulder slightly, also avoiding a broken tripwire hidden in the shadows.

Sect Master Di Kun gave a small smile: "Recorder Zhao, you walk this path quite familiarly."

Recorder Zhao looked down at his feet and raised his hand to flip the booklet to a blank page: "I visit many Sect gates for the Sect Affairs Bureau; one must cherish one's life. The Border Wasteland Yao Beast tide was quite significant last night; if I were to accidentally trigger any of your Sect's remaining traps, I could not afford to compensate for the damage."

"The Taichu Sect is poor, and its traps are equally poor. Breaking them would actually save us some trouble." Sect Master Di Kun gestured inward: "Please."

He did not lead them to the clean areas.

Beyond the mountain gate lay the wreckage that the Taichu Sect had intentionally left uncleared. The carcasses of Yao Beasts were piled outside the side courtyard, the flayed hides still dripping blood on wooden racks. The hollowed-out shells of Yao cores, the size of a pelvis, had been half-washed by a Life-Skill Player, and the stench mixed with the scent of herbs crawled along the ground. Under the side corridor lay two bandaged wounded men, the white cloth seeping red. The Sect Protection Elder stood nearby, leaning on a wooden staff with visible, unhealed cracks.

A Tower Defense Player crouched on a half-collapsed wall, using a wooden wedge to secure the base of a crossbow. Seeing Recorder Zhao enter, he did not salute, merely turning the crossbow's nozzle half a foot to the side. A Chuunibyou Player leaned behind the door, polishing a short spear. The spear tip was hidden in the shadows, and he polished it very slowly, as if afraid others would not see the blood on his hands.

Recorder Zhao's pen tip landed on the page, scratching out two lines: "Mountain gate damaged, various Yao Beast carcasses, Disciples with light and heavy injuries... Your Sect fought hard yesterday."

Sect Master Di Kun did not acknowledge the "fought hard" comment, merely raising a finger to point at the outer wall: "The formation base on the east side cracked in two places, the west slope collapsed in a section, and the Inner Courtyard was breached. The Yao Beast tide came too quickly, leaving few intact corpses."

Recorder Zhao walked to the east formation base and crouched down to examine the cracks. He rubbed his fingertips through the stone fissure, pinched out a bit of charred black powder, held it under his nose to sniff, and added another note to his booklet.

His movements were natural, as if he were merely assessing damages, but Sect Master Di Kun saw the spot where his fingertips had paused.

That was not a crack caused by a beast's claw.

Last night, an unidentified Cultivator had taken advantage of the chaos to enter the mountain; one person's Saber Qi had swept across the formation base, leaving an extremely thin scorch mark. The Taichu Sect had already covered it with gravel and Yao Beast blood, and an ordinary person passing by would not look twice. Yet, Recorder Zhao had specifically dug out the charred powder from the edge of the Yao Beast blood.

The Sect Protection Elder's face darkened, and the end of his wooden staff struck the bluestone with a thud.

Recorder Zhao looked up: "Old Elder, please do not take offense. This is how I earn my living; whenever I see a crack, I always want to make a few extra notes. What was the approximate scale of the Yao Beast tide?"

The Sect Protection Elder said with a cold face: "If you ask about beasts, look at the beasts. If you ask about other things, is the Sect Affairs Bureau assessing damages, or conducting an interrogation?"

The attendant carrying the ink box pressed his fingers against the box's latch, and the attendant with the seal bag stepped forward half a pace.

Sect Master Di Kun raised his hand to stop the Sect Protection Elder. The patch of old blood on his wrist cuff was exposed in the sunlight, its color already dark: "Yesterday, over a hundred low-level Yao Beasts charged the mountain, along with three or four leaders, and scattered beasts followed. Unidentified Cultivators mixed into the Yao Beast tide, attempting to seize the Sect while we were in crisis. The Taichu Sect was forced to defend itself."

Recorder Zhao's pen tip paused.

The wind in the courtyard poured in through the broken wall, causing the corners of the booklet to flutter gently. Recorder Zhao held the paper down with his thumb and looked up at Sect Master Di Kun: "Unidentified Cultivators?"

"Faces covered, techniques chaotic, they came quickly and died just as quickly." Sect Master Di Kun finished speaking, his gaze falling on the booklet in Recorder Zhao's hand: "If the Sect Affairs Bureau wants to record it, you may record that 'Loose Cultivators intruded amidst the Yao Beast tide'."

Recorder Zhao's smile did not fade, but his pen did not immediately write: "Sect Master Di Kun, you are young, but you speak with great composure. However, the Border Wasteland Sect ranking evaluation is restarting soon. Losses, private feuds, and the killing of fellow Cultivators for every Sect must all be entered into the records. If the records involve such entanglements, the qualification for evaluation will be suspended, and that is not something the External Affairs Office can suppress with a single word."

The veins on the back of the Sect Protection Elder's hand, which was gripping his staff, bulged. The Chuunibyou Player stopped polishing his spear, the Tower Defense Player looked down from the wall, and the crossbow base emitted a slight creaking sound.

Sect Master Di Kun did not look at them. He walked to the side corridor and picked up a coarse pottery plate from the wooden desk where the Life-Skill Player kept his medicine chest. The plate was lined with a piece of damp cloth, and on the cloth were pressed a few pinches of black bone fragments and grey-white medicinal residue. The color was dark, and it smelled of a slightly pungent, sweet bloodiness.

He carried the plate back to Recorder Zhao, the bottom of the plate casting an irregular shadow in the sunlight.

"How the ranking is recorded is up to the rules of the Sect Affairs Bureau." Sect Master Di Kun placed the pottery plate beside the broken formation base: "Please, Recorder Zhao, take a look at this too, according to the rules."

Recorder Zhao's pen dragged a half-inch ink streak across the page. The attendant with the ink box looked down; as soon as his nostrils flared, his expression changed, and his fingers moved closer to the latch of the ink box. The one with the seal bag instinctively scanned the courtyard gate, as if looking for an escape route.

Recorder Zhao did not reach out. He stared at the black bone fragments in the plate, the smile in his eyes receding by half, only to be quickly suppressed back into place. He took a thin bamboo skewer from his sleeve, pushed aside the corner of the damp cloth, and picked up a grain of bone fragment. When the black fragment was hit by the sunlight, extremely fine dark red patterns appeared on its surface, as if something had once been burned inside it.

"Where did this come from?" Recorder Zhao asked.

Sect Master Di Kun pushed the pottery plate forward half an inch: "Dissected from the bodies of the Yao Beast tide leaders. There were also remnants in the bellies of several low-level Yao Beasts. Last night, we didn't have enough manpower on the mountain, so we only managed to collect this one plate."

Recorder Zhao put the bamboo skewer back into his sleeve and wiped his fingertips with a handkerchief: "Since there was an anomaly, why was it not reported?"

"The mountain gate was almost destroyed." Sect Master Di Kun's tone was steady, "The Sect Affairs Bureau has arrived today, so the Taichu Sect is reporting it. If Recorder Zhao wishes to investigate, we will cooperate."

The courtyard was so quiet that only the sound of blood dripping from the wooden rack into the basin remained.

Recorder Zhao closed the booklet and stopped writing. He looked at Sect Master Di Kun, his smile as courteous as it had been when he first arrived on the mountain: "Sect Master Di Kun, don't you want to ask what this is?"

"I only know that Yao Beasts should not be eating this."

"And you don't want to ask who fed it to them?"

Sect Master Di Kun lowered his head to brush a speck of dust off his cuff: "The Taichu Sect has just finished defending the mountain; we have no time to solve cases for the Sect Affairs Bureau."

The copper corner of the narrow booklet in Recorder Zhao's hand made a soft sound as he rubbed it with his thumb. He did not answer immediately, his gaze shifting from the pottery plate to Sect Master Di Kun's face, then sweeping over the wounded in the courtyard, the broken walls, and the Yao Beast carcasses, finally landing on the mountain path outside the gate where the wind was kicking up dust.

"According to regulations, abnormal physical evidence must be taken back to the Sect Affairs Bureau for filing." Recorder Zhao called the attendant with the seal bag to his side, "Sect Master Di Kun, give me a sample."

The Sect Protection Elder's wooden staff pressed against the ground again, squeezing a bit of stone powder out of the cracks.

Sect Master Di Kun raised his hand, and the Life-Skill Player immediately took a small bottle from the bottom layer of the medicine chest. The bottle was only a thumb's length long, containing half a pinch of medicinal residue and two bone fragments, the mouth of the bottle sealed with wax. Sect Master Di Kun took the small bottle but did not hand it over directly; instead, he placed it on the open page of Recorder Zhao's booklet.

The account box was not revealed. The dispatch talisman was not revealed. The private seal rubbing was not revealed either.

Recorder Zhao looked at the small bottle, his fingertips tapping on the bottle's body, but he did not put it away immediately: "Is this all?"

"There was quite a lot left behind last night." Sect Master Di Kun met his gaze, "As for what can be entered into the Sect Affairs Bureau's records, this is all for now."

Recorder Zhao smiled, hooked his thumb, and the small bottle slid into his sleeve. He turned to walk out, stopping again at the entrance to the Inner Courtyard, his gaze sweeping over the saber marks on the ground that had been painted over with Yao Beast blood.

"Sect Master Di Kun, after a Yao Beast tide, the carcasses must be disposed of as soon as possible. If the blood Qi becomes too heavy, it easily attracts things."

"Thank you for the reminder."

Recorder Zhao led his two attendants through the ruined zone of the mountain gate. His footsteps had been precise when he arrived, and he was even faster when he left; the hem of his grey robe grazed the broken rope without touching a single remnant spike.

Sect Master Di Kun followed him to the pavilion on the mountainside.

Half of the railing of the mountainside pavilion had been smashed off, and a broken Yao Beast horn was still embedded in a pillar. Recorder Zhao stopped inside the pavilion and looked back toward the mountain gate. Sunlight slanted down from the broken archway, illuminating the uncleared bloodstains in the Taichu Sect's Inner Courtyard.

He tucked the narrow booklet back under his arm, his smile very faint: "Sect Master Di Kun, this Yao Beast tide at the Taichu Sect is likely not simple."

Sect Master Di Kun stood on the stone steps outside the pavilion, his fingertips moving away from the saber hilt and landing beside the patch of old blood on his cuff: "Which matters in the Border Wasteland are simple?"

Recorder Zhao glanced at him and turned to head down the mountain.

The grey robe walked further and further away into the mist on the mountain path, and Sect Master Di Kun did not turn around immediately. The wind blew the broken horn on the pavilion pillar, causing it to sway gently; the edge of the broken horn scraped against the wood, emitting a series of faint sounds.