Path of the Sect Leader-Chapter 26: Northbound to Soldier’s Rest

With Pan Rong and Shen Chang’s decision settled, the heaviest stone finally rolled off Qi Xiu’s heart.
He handed daily affairs to Zhan Yuan, passed the sect leader’s token and authority to Zhang Shishi, then called the disciples in one by one for private words that stretched long into the evening. By the time he finished, night had fallen. He turned in early—tomorrow would demand every scrap of strength for the long flight north.
Dawn had not yet broken when he rose without a sound. The crimson robe he slipped on was the same one he’d worn from his hermitage to Clear River Market—now faded, cuffs frayed. Ever since the cavern spring was discovered, Cleaning Talismans had become a luxury; water came up the mountain on the backs of those training below. This robe had survived a month of black mist and sweat. It would have to survive one more journey.
He touched the storage pouch at his breast. Inside: daily necessities, a long lacquered box containing the meeting gift for Wang Wan, and the red-jade array disk—everything checked twice. The small wooden box with the Foundation Establishment Pill and his will remained beneath the floor tile. Only Zhang Shishi knew its hiding place.
Wind Array Spirit Boat in hand, one last steadying breath, and he stepped outside.
The main hall was still one big communal bedroll. Soft snores rose and fell. Moonlight spilled across young faces—Gu Ji’s mouth open, Qin Weiyu curled like a shrimp, He Yu’s brow finally smooth in sleep. Something fierce and tender swelled in Qi Xiu’s chest. For them he would fly through fire.
He tucked the blanket higher around Gu Ji’s shoulders, then walked out.
“Sect Leader.”
Huang He on night watch. A quiet salute.
Qi Xiu clapped the boy’s shoulder, murmured encouragement, and stepped into the predawn dark. The spirit boat unfurled beneath his feet with a whisper of wind. He shot north, swallowed by the last of the night.
This was no jaunt to District Nine-Three. A full day over the Black River—no place to land, no respite. Zhan Yuan had spent two of his seven days just traveling. For a Qi Refining second-layer cultivator it was brutal. And the road was never empty; run into the wrong traveler and you became cargo.
The sun breached the horizon behind him, blood-red, painting the clouds in fire. Down below, the Black River drank the light and turned it into something deeper, more sinister. Mist writhed like a living thing, coiling upward, thick with summer rot.
Qi Xiu climbed until the air thinned and the stench dulled. A Fragrant Iris Pill beneath the tongue kept the rest at bay. Only in the dead of winter—perhaps a single month—would mortals be able to walk the riverbed with these pills. If Qin Ji’s refugee caravan arrived on schedule, they might thread that narrow window.
Another worry to pile on the mountain already crushing his shoulders.
He flew on, mind circling the same tired grooves: settlement, food, defense, spirit stones, future, survival. Every unanswered question was a needle under the skin. Thirty years of following orders had left him unprepared to give them—especially when the lives depending on those orders were the only family he had.
A sword light flashed overhead, cold and aloof. The passer-by never even glanced down. Qi Xiu exhaled in relief.
Southern Border cruelty was a different beast from Qi Yun’s polite extermination. Here, three sects had wiped Chu Qin off its mountain without spilling a single drop of blood—unthinkable in the south. In the month they’d squatted on Black River Peak, plenty of cultivators had passed. Some ignored the half-formed arrays and flew on. Some landed, asked questions, left. Even the surliest softened once “South Chu Sect” was mentioned.
Borrowed might and borrowed luck. That was all keeping them alive.
Hours bled away. Spiritual energy guttered low. Just when his vision began to blur, pale lights glimmered ahead—Soldier’s Rest Market, cupped inside its gray stone walls.
No mountain perch like most markets; this one sprawled across flat ground, an old border fort against southern beasts. Four gates, two crossing streets, restriction against flight overhead. Simple, sturdy, honest.
Qi Xiu descended outside the south gate. The walls were low, the wooden doors long gone to rot or fire. He strolled in beneath glowing spirit-lamps. Even at this hour the streets hummed—cultivators in every style of robe, some in none at all. White Mountain goods filled the stalls: frost-jade, beast pelts, live spirit creatures pacing in cages he couldn’t name.
No one stopped him. No guarded glances, no whispered challenges. Backed by Qi Yun’s towering shadow, the master of this place clearly feared no troublemakers.
Qi Xiu wandered slowly, cataloging prices, faces, the feel of the air. Market craft had once been his only pride; he refused to trail behind Zhan Yuan forever. When the time came to bargain for a true mountain-warding array, he needed to speak the language like a native.
But first things first.
He found a shop flying Wang clan colors, presented the lacquered box and his calling card to a courteous Wang disciple, and received a polite nod: the gifts would reach Elder Wang by morning.
Only then did he seek the travelers’ inn, pay for a quiet room, and let exhaustion take him.
Tomorrow he would meet the man who might decide whether Chu Qin Sect lived or vanished into the black mist forever.
Tonight, for a few short hours, he slept without dreams.