Chapter 8

The Shadow of the River

The Great South River flowed like a muddy dragon through the marshlands, its wide brown waters heavy with the silt of the southern mountains.

Ming Xian stood near the reeds at the riverbank, his bamboo hat dripping with river mist. Fifty paces downstream, a small wooden fishing skiff was tied to a rotting post, swaying gently against the slow current.

Beside him, Baihua hovered, her white robes completely immaculate despite the thick mud beneath them.

"You're late," Baihua said, her tone cool and aloof as her pale green eyes scanned the opposite shore. "The river ferry left half an hour ago."

"The ferry is monitored by the Imperial River Guard," Ming Xian said, checking the edge of his stolen steel saber. "And they have three spirit-detection mirrors mounted on the main mast. Passing through them with a sealed vault key in my pouch would have drawn half the garrison."

He stepped toward the small fishing skiff, cutting the mooring rope with a swift flick of his knife.

"So we row?" Baihua asked, raising a delicate eyebrow. "How archaic."

"We let the current do the work," Ming Xian replied, hopping into the creaking wooden boat and keeping low beneath the gunwales. "The river leads directly into the lower canal system of Tianzhou. If we stay close to the cargo barges, we can slip through the southern water gates before sunset."

Baihua drifted into the boat, settling near the bow without putting a single ounce of weight on the timber. "And what about your former brothers? The ones who don't need river gates to travel?"

Ming Xian didn't answer immediately. He picked up a wooden oar, using it to push the skiff away from the muddy bank and into the main channel.

He knew what she meant. The Righteous Sword Sect didn't just rely on foot patrols or tollgates. For high-priority renegades like him, they deployed the Shadow-Fang Unit—elite cultivators who mastered the art of shadow-stepping and long-range Qi tracking.

"They're already close," Ming Xian said quietly, keeping his eyes on the misty waters ahead. "I felt a spiritual probe two miles back near the gorge."

"And you didn't mention it?" Baihua tilted her head, a cold, mocking smile touching her lips. "How brave. Or how stupid."

"Mentioning it wouldn't have made the boat move any faster," Ming Xian said flatly. "They know we're heading for the capital. Their goal isn't to kill us on the road—it's to capture the vault key before we reach the underground network."

The skiff glided silently along the river's edge, passing under the shadows of towering willow trees whose branches dipped low into the brown water.

Twenty minutes passed in quiet tension, broken only by the gentle splash of the river against the hull.

Then, the air above the water grew unnaturally still.

The low hum of insects along the riverbank died out instantly. The mist hovering over the water turned a pale, sickly violet, smelling faintly of burnt copper and withered orchids.

'A domain array,' Baihua whispered mentally, her eyes narrowing as green spirit-craft flared beneath her skin. 'Someone just sealed a hundred-pace perimeter around this river bend.'

Ming Xian dropped his oar. In a single fluid motion, his right hand gripped the hilt of his stolen saber while his left drew his notch-bladed knife.

SWOOSH!

From the thick fog above the willow trees, three dark figures descended without making a sound.

They wore skintight charcoal armor, their faces hidden behind iron masks shaped like weeping demons. In their hands, they held long, curved assassin blades that shimmered with dark, venomous Qi—the signature weapon of the Shadow-Fang Unit.

The lead assassin didn't speak. He didn't offer a dramatic speech or demand surrender. The moment his boots touched the river water, he lunged forward, executing a lethal Ghost-Fang Thrust straight toward Ming Xian's throat.

Ming Xian didn't retreat. He stepped forward on the narrow skiff, bringing his saber up in a sharp, upward parry.

CLANG!

Sparks flew across the misty water as the blades collided. The impact sent a wave of force through the wooden skiff, cracking the hull timber, but Ming Xian used the assassin's momentum against him, twisting his wrist to lock the venomous blade.

Before the assassin could draw his side dagger, Ming Xian's left hand moved like a striking viper.

THUD!

His notch-bladed hunting knife drove upward, passing straight through the assassin's leather collar seal and pinning his throat to the wooden mast of the skiff.

The assassin choked, his dark Qi instantly vanishing as his body went limp.

"One," Ming Xian muttered cold-bloodedly.

The remaining two assassins didn't hesitate or show fear. Seeing their leader fall, they split instantly—one leaping toward the bow to attack Ming Xian from behind, while the other raised a bronze hand-crossbow loaded with three black-tipped needles aimed directly at his back.

"Bores," Baihua scoffed.

She flicked her wrist toward the crossbowman.

CRACK-CRACK!

The river water beneath the second assassin erupted into jagged spears of black ice. The frozen spikes shot upward, skewering the crossbowman through his chest and arms before he could pull the trigger, freezing him solid into a grotesque statue of ice sitting atop the water.

The final assassin, hovering above the bow, realized the situation had turned fatal in less than three seconds. He tried to channel his shadow-step talisman to vanish into the fog.

"Too late," Ming Xian said.

He drew his knife from the dead leader's throat and threw it across the boat with terrifying precision.

THWACK!

The notched blade buried itself deep into the assassin's shoulder, disrupting his Qi flow and breaking the shadow-step spell mid-cast.

The assassin fell from the air, crashing hard onto the wet floorboards of the skiff.

Ming Xian walked over, placing his boot firmly on the assassin's chest, pressing his heavy saber against the iron mask.

"Who sent you?" Ming Xian asked, his voice low and unyielding. "Was it Grand Elder Song?"

The assassin coughed up black blood beneath his mask, letting out a rasping, bitter laugh. "The... the Master Array... is already active, traitor... Tianzhou belongs to the Sect now..."

Before Ming Xian could force him to speak further, the assassin's jaw twitched. A dark crimson mist poured from his iron mask as he bit down on a lethal poison capsule hidden in his tooth. His body convulsed once, then went completely still.

Silence returned to the river, save for the crackle of breaking ice as Baihua's frozen spikes melted back into the brown water.

Baihua landed gracefully on the bow of the damaged skiff, looking down at the three dead assassins.

"They're getting bolder," she noted, her green eyes scanning the fog ahead. "And their poison is fresh. The Grand Elder is definitely in the capital."

Ming Xian retrieved his hunting knife, wiping the dark blood onto the dead assassin's leather sleeve before sheathing it. He looked downstream, where the massive, imposing stone walls of Tianzhou were beginning to emerge through the breaking fog.

"Good," Ming Xian said, his cold eyes reflecting the distant city silhouette. "It saves us the trouble of hunting him down in the mountains."