Chapter 8 - The Path Forward

Equal parts amazed and afraid, Yang Xiu watched as the cultivator disappeared from view. “Did you see that, Ru’er? Fang Wei is dead. He killed Fang Wei. Our nightmare is over. Finally.”

Her brother tried to hide his dismay from her, but as his twin, she knew him way too well.

“What?” she said. “He’s dead. It’s over.”

“We can’t go back, Xiu’er.”

“Why not? We can live with uncle.”

He clenched his hands. “Uncle Hai fled. When I told him we were leaving, he started packing almost before the words were out of my mouth.”

“We can still go back. We have friends—”

“How do you think the Lord Mayor will react when the two peasants his son chased return without him, when his son never returns?”

Oh.

“It’s all my fault. Our parents. Us having to flee.”

“Not that again, Xiu’er! I can’t. Please. All blame goes to that obsessive idiot, Fang Wei. Why couldn’t he have just taken no for an answer?”

“I should have used a knife to scar my face.”



“No, Xiu’er. Just no.” He paused. “I’m going to check the bodies. See if the cultivator left anything we can use.”

Ru’er sounded defeated, more so than ever, and she could understand that. Their most immediate threat had been miraculously removed and still their situation had not improved in the slightest. They were still lost, on the run, unable to return home, penniless, hungry.

Her stomach growled, and she coughed to try to cover up the noise. She didn’t want to put any more stress on her brother. As soon as she’d noticed their rations running low, she’d tried to slip some of her food from her plate to her larger, stronger brother’s, but he’d always noticed and given it back.

It had been over a day since either of them had had anything to eat.

“Any luck?” she said when he’d finished going to each of the corpses, trying to keep the hope from her voice.

“The cultivator took everything.” He winced.

For the first time, Xiu noticed the red stain at his side. “Ru’er! You’re hurt!”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just a light scratch.”

“Let me look at it. I can—”

“I said I’ll be fine!”

She recoiled back, not even able to recall the last time he’d shouted at her.

“I’m sure something will turn up. Our fortunes must be improving, right? Fang Wei’s men had just caught us when that man appeared out of nowhere.”

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Things had to get better. They couldn’t get any worse.

Ru’er grunted noncommittally, clearly discouraged.

He’d been her rock throughout all that had happened, never blaming her, always trying to keep her spirits up. If he faltered, she didn’t know if she could keep putting one foot in front of the other.

No. She would keep going. For him. If she had to drag him after her, she would. She owed him that much and more.

It would be better for both of them, though, if she could find some way to cheer him up. “You remember what Mom always said. Good fortune comes in threes. We’re owed two more miracles. I bet we’ll round the next bend and find a boar dead, a fresh kill somehow left behind by whatever killed it. It will be just lying there waiting for you to carve up and me to cook.”

“Sure, Xiu’er. Sure.”

“I can see it now. Apples will have fallen from the nearby trees, one landing in its mouth. And rice having slipped from someone’s pockets into the depression of a piece of bark that looks just like a bowl.”

“That would be pretty miraculous.” He was clearly trying to keep his voice monotone, but the ends of his lips were turning upward.

The ridiculous scenario she came up with was working. All she could do was continue effusing. “And did you see that cultivator? How he moved! It was like… Boom!” She moved her hand rapidly to the right. “And then… Boom!” She moved her hand rapidly to the left. “Do you think he was an immortal? He had to be an immortal, right? To be that fast?”

“Sure, Xiu’er. Sure.”

Even running fast away for the site of the fight, Benton couldn’t help but hear the sibling’s conversation. They were clearly hungry, which gave him another opportunity to save them, and didn’t seem to have as bad an opinion of him as he suspected.

Su would have laughed derisively at the girl’s naivete in thinking that he, not even halfway through the very first major realm, was an immortal. Clearly, they were not used to dealing with cultivators.

That inexperience brought both positives and negatives.

Mortals treated cultivators with both respect and fear. They walked the planet like demi-gods, powerful, capricious, walking talking forces of nature. A simple farmer had as much control over a cultivator as he did against a storm or a tornado.



The only laws that held any sway were those laws that had strong enough backers. If a kingdom had no support from a sect, even its king would be forced to bow to the weakest wandering cultivator who passed through.

According to Su’s memories, if he walked up to the mayor of any town who wasn’t under a sect’s protection, Benton could order him to turn over his daughter, and he would have to. The alternative was for him and his entire family to be slaughtered.

The two siblings would be no different. If Benton offered to make them his disciples, they would take it as an order. Join or die.

Even worse than people who had some idea of the cultivation world, they wouldn’t even know what they were signing up for—a sect leader with no sect, no power, barely further along the path of challenging the heavens than they would soon be upon accepting.

Approaching them under such circumstances felt dishonest. They would have no basis to evaluate Benton’s offer and yet would feel obligated to accept.

Of course, if he didn’t make them his disciples, they probably wouldn’t be alive in another week. Between their lack of food and the fact that his senses indicated that the path would soon start entering spirit beast territory, they stood no chance.

Su would not have understood why any of those concerns was an issue. Benton was stronger than them. They were mere mortals. He could do anything he wanted with them. They had no rights. Not to liberty. Not even to life.

Benton had to adapt to his new world. Behaving the way that he had back on Earth would get him killed. Again. There were some things about the cultivation world, even some things he found distasteful, that he would have to embrace.

For instance, killing. He’d killed two people and perhaps condemned five others to the same fate. He should be aghast. Yet he could rationalize his actions.

Benton didn’t think he’d ever come to enjoy killing, but he thought he’d be able to accept the necessity. He didn’t want to compromise on all his morals, though.

On the other hand, the siblings were absolutely the exact recruits he needed to start his sect. Who knew how long it would take him to find any other people at all in the middle of a forest, much less two with such amazing spiritual roots. He’d be a complete idiot to let the opportunity pass him by.

He had a lot of thinking to do.