Path of the Sect Leader-Chapter 15: Black River Peak, the New Mountain Gate

The deeper the spirit crane flew, the greener the world grew sickly. Emerald gave way to ash-grey vines thick as pythons, coiling over black water that steamed with thin, foul mist. Not a single living creature stirred. Even the sky refused to linger; birds wheeled overhead and fled.
Soon the ground vanished entirely beneath a rolling sea of black cloud, as if night itself had pooled between the ridges. From its heart stabbed a solitary mountain, broad rather than sharp, its crown and mid-slopes crudely flattened long ago. A single odd structure squatted on the summit like a child’s forgotten toy.
“That’s it.”
Chu Zhuangyuan urged the crane down. Before its talons touched stone, a wave of corpse-rot stench slammed into them. She swept one small hand forward; a clean gale scattered the reek like smoke.
“Welcome to the eastern gate of Southern Chu Gate: Black River. From this day forward, Black River and Black River Peak belong to Chuqin Sect.”
Her smile turned wicked. “Local cultivators prefer a different name: Stinking Ditch. Now you understand why everyone on the shuttle was suddenly so polite?”
The crane settled beside the strange building. Ten stunned refugees slid off its back.
Qi Xiu turned in a slow circle, throat tight.
No roads. No neighbor smoke. Nothing but black cloud boiling below and barren rock above. The only flat ground, perhaps a few mu on the peak and terraces, might grow mortal crops. Spiritual qi? Not a whisper. For a cultivator this place was worse than a mortal farmer’s pigsty.
All that distance… for this?
Regret tasted like iron on his tongue.
Chu Zhuangyuan caught his silence and pouted theatrically. “See? You hate it.”
She made as if to dump their crates onto the ground.
Qi Xiu snapped out of his daze and bowed until his forehead nearly scraped stone. “Senior misunderstands! Southern Chu Gate has given us life itself. We are grateful beyond words.”
She giggled, dumped the crates anyway, and spoke while stacking them neatly with flicks of yellow light.
“Relax. This place has secrets. If it were truly worthless, do you think we’d hand it over? Only because it’s dangerous did it fall to you.”
Qi Xiu swallowed his questions and forced steel into his voice. “Then we will guard Southern Chu Gate’s eastern door with our lives. Let no one say Chuqin Sect forgets its debts.”
Chu Zhuangyuan doubled over laughing, as if he’d told the funniest joke in the world. “Guard the door? You? Hahaha!”
Qi Xiu’s old face burned crimson in front of his disciples. He managed two awkward chuckles.
When she finally straightened, tears of mirth in her eyes, she tossed him a jade slip and a small boat-shaped artifact.
“The slip is for your eyes only. Break that rule and you won’t enjoy the consequences.
This mid first-rank Wind Array Spirit Boat is my personal welcome gift. Out here normal flying treasures drain you dry in half a day. This one drinks spirit stones instead of your qi, practically mandatory in the Southern Border.”
She leaped back onto her crane. “Name’s Chu Zhuangyuan. If anything ever gets too big for you, come find me in Southern Chu City.”
A flick of emerald wings and she was gone, only her voice drifting back on the wind.
Qi Xiu stared at the empty sky.
“Sect Leader… what now?”
Zhang Shishi and Zhan Yuan stepped closer.
Black cloud in every direction, a single ugly stone box on a barren peak, and ten lost souls. The loneliness hit like a physical weight.
Qi Xiu exhaled. “First we settle in. Unpack. Clean. Everything else can wait.”
Home, he had called it.
They turned toward the building.
No graceful pillars, no crimson doors, no swooping eaves. Just crude white stone walls stacked by giant hands, roof tiers barely pretending at elegance. Worst of all: no doors, no windows. One wall had been smashed open long ago, leaving a ragged black hole. Previous visitors had solved the entrance problem the direct way.
Qi Xiu squared his shoulders. “This is our home now. Our foundation. Southern Chu Gate dragged us across half the continent for this peak. We root here, or we die forgotten. Choose.”
He assigned Gu Ji to watch little Qin Weiyu and He Yu, ordered the rest to sort crates outside, then took a glowstone and ducked through the hole with Zhang Shishi.
Inside was… better than expected.
A single vast hall swallowed most of the interior, surprisingly clean, air not stale. Faded murals peeled from the walls, once glorious, now ghosts of color. Near the breach, a patch of floor was scorched black, ashes still heaped beside it, someone had camped here recently.
Zhang Shishi pointed to old sword scars gouging the stone. “Temporary shelter for passing cultivators. Fights too, by the look of it.”
They found more proof: cold campfire rings, spent glowstones tossed in corners. In the only two side chambers, one had been swept spotless. A full water vat, strings of dried beast jerky, even a chest with clean bedding.
“Someone’s living here,” Zhang Shishi muttered.
“Qi Refinement, can’t fast yet, needs meat,” Qi Xiu answered. “Shouldn’t be a problem. This is Southern Chu land. We announce our backing and they’ll leave. No spiritual qi means no one will fight us for it.”
Zhang Shishi’s face fell. “No spiritual qi…”
Qi Xiu heard the despair. Zhang Shishi still dreamed of the Dao. So did He Yu, bright hope of the sect. If this place truly offered nothing for cultivation, he would not chain them here.
He lifted the jade slip Chu Zhuangyuan had left.
“She said answers are inside. Call everyone in. Clean the main hall, set up camp. I’ll read this. You all guard the door while I do.”
Whatever secrets Black River Peak hid, they began with that slip of jade.