Jin Se

Chapter 16

All Shi Wuduan knew was that the emperor was very important and that all the commoners had to listen to his orders, but he didn't know that emperors were supposed to be respected and revered, so he didn't think that seeing the emperor was a great honor or anything. All he knew was that he had a very large entourage, so he left his hiding place and slipped into Jiulu Mountain.

The sight shocked him to his core - if that guest was so important that all the disciples were seeing him off, plus the huge commotion in the back mountains, then how come he hadn't seen his shifu?

He hadn't seen Kuruo-shishu either. Shi Wuduan's heart sank as he slowly turned his gaze to Bitan and Banya. An ominous guess began to surface in his mind. If his shifu was gone and all the guards on the mountain were dead, what were these two doing, proudly sending off the imperial carriage? What was it all for?

His hands and feet became icy cold the further he followed that train of thought.

Even the Cuibing bird and the rabbit seemed to have sensed his change in mood. Both the dumb creatures laid quietly by his side.

The carriage train following the imperial carriage was very long but very orderly. But no matter how neatly they marched, it still made for ample distraction. When the lengthy carriage train passed in front of him, he used the cover to crawl out of the bushes. He'd learned a few concealment spells, though he couldn't hide himself completely. The most he could manage was make someone's eyes blur over.

He thought for a while, then scooped up a handful of pebbles. He silently incanted the concealment spell and stealthily left a trail of pebbles in his path.

He wasn't just scattering stones for fun. In seconds, Shi Wuduan's forehead was covered in the sheen of sweat - this was a very simple yet very complicated array he'd learned from Jiang Hua called the camouflage array. It could be cast using any random objects, but required that the caster have a deep understanding of divination. The placement of every object had to be calculated extremely precisely.

Shi Wuduan couldn't take out his astrolabe to help him calculate, so he could only do it by heart. And he had to make sure that he remained crouched among the underbrush as well. He only walked a dozen or so steps, but to him it felt like he'd walked half a lifetime. By the time he'd snuck past Xuan Sect's defenses, his ragged clothes were soaked through with sweat.

Still, he didn't dare let his guard down. He was now only three or four meters away from Bitan and Banya. These two shishu were powerful cultivators on his shifu's level. Their skill and cultivation was unimaginably immense. Even though the imperial procession hadn't fully left yet and the situation was still a bit chaotic, he tried his best not to make noise as he took a deep breath and forcefully pressed a stone against his chest. He placed down the stone in his hand and backed away.

He'd tied the bird and rabbit to his waist sash. Many years later when Shi Wuduan would tell others of this story, when the past was already dust on the wind and he himself had forgotten the feeling of fear and terror he'd experienced in his youth, he told the story over tea as an entertaining anecdote, though mindful listeners would always be appalled.

How did a child like him, sheltered by the sect master deep in the mountains, who aside from cultivating only knew how to play and make mischief, who'd never even glimpsed the darkness of the human heart, manage to keep his composure and act so rationally in that kind of situation?

Old people said that kids who were especially clever were all made out of the scraps of humanity, they didn't often make it to adulthood. But if one of them was born with great fortune and managed to survive, they'd go on to make great waves in the human realm.