Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Holding Something in Reserve

The burst of light was so savage it left Zhao Chun reeling. Tu Mian’s punch came anyway—its shockwave slammed into her face, splitting both cheeks—and she barely felt a thing.

“The time has come…”

Tu Mian heard the words, but he had no idea where they’d come from. Flesh and blood misted the air in front of him, yet Zhao Chun’s skull didn’t burst beneath his fist the way he’d expected.

The Heaven-Linked Lightning-Summoning Grand Array had awakened—the last protection Ling Zhen Sect had ever left for the Tu Family.

On the night he’d invited her to serve as a guest elder, Tu Cun Chan had told Zhao Chun about it.

Back when Ling Zhen Sect still resided on Song Mountain, its three arts—pill refining, talismans, and formations—had all been at their peak. The Sect Master governed with mercy, and for the sake of the affiliated clans, he had laid down grand arrays to repel outside enemies.

After the sect relocated, the clans left behind quickly fell into decline. Their formations were seized or sold off, and in the end, it all became little more than old stories passed down by elders.

The Tu Family’s array had once been stolen by an evil cultivator. Tu Cun Chan’s father had secretly wrested it back, but the effort cost him his life. Mortally wounded, he could only hastily pass the position of Family Head to Tu Cun Chan—who at the time was merely at the second layer of the Qi Refining Stage. That had been the spark that set the Zuo Tu uprising alight.

The array’s eye was a token Ling Zhen Sect had left behind. With that token, the clan could relocate to Secluded Valley and put down roots again, returning beneath the sect’s protection.

That was what Tu Cun Chan had sought his entire life: a safe, stable place for the Tu Family.

But the clan had withered, too weak to safeguard the token. They didn’t dare attempt the move, and even as Tu Cun Chan lay dying, they were still trapped on their old lands beneath Song Mountain.

Zhao Chun staggered to her feet.

In front of the Tu Family’s ancestral hall, bodies carpeted the ground. The Zuo Tu rabble lay sprawled across the martial platform, the stone soaked dark with blood. Tu Cun Zhi’s head had been skewered to a pillar by a long sword.

She should have been afraid. She should have retched.

Instead, she watched in silence. Then she tightened her grip on the Crimson Edge Dagger and walked toward the man twitching in the pool of blood.

When cultivators fought, it was always the same bargain—life for life. By the time the last convulsion stilled and Tu Mian finally went quiet, Zhao Chun felt an unexpected calm.

Only killing truly knit her into this world. Survival of the fittest. People no different from beasts. Different roads, same destination—nothing more complicated than that.

Tu Cun Chan had collapsed at the threshold of the ancestral hall. He looked like a dried husk, yet his eyes burned like torches.

Restarting the array had cost him his entire cultivation. Now he had only a single breath left.

“Guest Elder Zhao…” His hand trembled as he lifted a talisman of white jade, clear and glossy—the eye of the grand array. “Please… take the token… back to the main sect… If you can bring the Tu Family over… that would be best… If you can’t… if you can’t…”

The talisman slipped from his fingers and struck the ground with a sharp crack.

A heavy sorrow swelled in Zhao Chun’s chest. Tu Cun Chan could not have been ignorant that Ling Zhen Sect placed little value on the clans left behind at Song Mountain. Those words were for himself as much as for anyone.

The Tu Family’s clansmen remained silent. Today, they had seen off their old Family Head—and they had also slit the throats of blood kin.

From this day on, there would be no more Zuo Tu. And down at the great river bend beneath Song Mountain, the Tu Family would no longer have a place to stand.

Tu Cun Chan died. Tu Cong Wen was gravely wounded. The only one left to handle the aftermath was Tu Xin, eyes red-rimmed.

“For now, we can only pray Cong Wen recovers,” he said, his back bowed as though the night had aged him into dusk. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”

He looked at Zhao Chun. “As for the main sect… I hope Guest Elder Zhao can lend a hand. Even a little assistance would help…”

“I agreed to serve as the Tu Family’s guest elder. I won’t go back on my word,” Zhao Chun said. “Stay here and wait for news. If there’s a result, I’ll send word at once.”

The Tu Family’s oath had been made for practical reasons, but once set, Zhao Chun would not cast it aside simply because it no longer benefited her. She would do what she could, and as for the rest—it depended on how Ling Zhen Sect chose to act.

The Zuo Tu uprising was finished. The real trouble was the Ren Yang Sect behind it.

On Tu Mian’s body, Zhao Chun found a small identity tag made from some unknown material, sinister to the eye. Seven words were carved into it: “Ren Yang Sect Edict: Outside Cultist.” She tucked it away as proof.

She also collected the demon moth’s severed head, along with two types of gu worms—black cicadas and centipedes—to bring back and report to an elder.

Even at the height of its glory, Ling Zhen Sect had once suffered at the hands of Ren Yang Sect. Now, in its weakened state… could it still fend off the enemy’s poisoned hand?